World Cup: Luis Suarez banned for four months

 
 Luis Suarez has been banned for nine international matches and suspended for four months from any football activity by FIFA.

The Liverpool striker is also set to miss a large chunk of the English Premier season and is "banned from any football related activity."

The ban is the most severe ever handed out a World Cup but the striker does have the right to appeal.

Uruguay is set to play its last-16 game against Colombia in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday but will be without Suarez, who will start his suspension immediately.

The decision was announced by FIFA at a news conference Thursday.

"The first match of this suspension is to be served in the upcoming FIFA World Cup fixture between Colombia and Uruguay on 28 June 2014," said a FIFA statement.

"The remaining match suspensions shall be served in Uruguay's next FIFA World Cup match(es), as long as the team qualifies, and/or in the representative team's subsequent official matches."

FIFA also confirmed that Suarez is "prohibited from entering the confines of any stadium" during his ban and must pay a fine of 100,000 Swiss Francs -- $112,000.

"Such behavior cannot be tolerated on any football pitch, and in particular not at a FIFA World Cup when the eyes of millions of people are on the stars on the field," said Claudio Sulser, chairman of the FIFA disciplinary committee in a statement.

He added: "The Disciplinary Committee took into account all the factors of the case and the degree of Mr Suarez's guilt in accordance with the relevant provisions of the code. The decision comes into force as soon it is communicated."

Nigeria Among 7 terrible countries for Christians

The case of a Christian woman in Sudan who was sentenced to die for refusing to renounce her faith has cast new light on the plight of persecuted Christians worldwide.

Sudan ranks as one of the worst countries for people who practice Christianity, but it by no means is alone.

Like people of other faiths, Christians can face discrimination, harassment, arrest, jail time and even death for what they believe.

Here's a look at seven terrible countries for Christians:

For the 12th year in a row, North Korea tops the list of places where Christian persecution is most extreme, according to Open Doors, a group that ranks countries in order of persecution.

The organization estimates as many as 70,000 Christians are imprisoned in labor camps.

"The God-like worship of the leader, Kim Jong-Un, and his predecessors leaves no room for any other religion, and Christians face unimaginable pressure in every sphere of life," the group says on its website.

"Forced to meet only in secret, they dare not share their faith even with their families, for fear of imprisonment in a labor camp. Anyone discovered engaging in secret religious activity may be subject to arrest, disappearance, torture, even public execution."

Among those imprisoned is Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American.

Pyongyang sentenced him last year to 15 years of hard labor, accusing him of planning to bring down the government through religious activities.

He is widely reported to have been conducting Christian missionary work in North Korea.

Kenneth Bae worried about his health in North Korean camp

Sudan

Since 1999, the U.S. State Department has tracked the world's worst abusers of religious rights. Sudan has been on the list since its inception.

The country has arrested and deported Western Christians suspected of spreading their faith, according to a State Department report.

Recently, Sudan also arrested and sentenced a woman to die for refusing to renounce her Christian faith. The 27-year old woman was released after weeks of international controversy over her conviction.

She was later detained with her husband and two children, accused of traveling with falsified documents and giving false information.

Jailed Al Jazeera journalists convicted in Egypt

 
Three Al Jazeera English journalists were convicted Monday of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood in a ruling that immediately outraged journalists and activists around the world.

The journalists, Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, have been imprisoned in Cairo since December on charges that include conspiring with the Brotherhood, spreading false news and endangering national security.

The three men have steadfastly denied the charges, as has Al Jazeera.

In a tense courtroom on Monday, a judge sentenced Greste and Fahmy to seven years in prison while Mohamed was handed down 10 years -- seven for one charge, three for a second.

Several other Al Jazeera journalists who were tried in absentia received 10-year sentences as well.

In an interview on Al Jazeera shortly after the verdicts were read, Amnesty International director Steve Crawshaw deplored what he called an "outrageous ruling" and called it an "absolute affront to justice."

Mostefa Souag, the acting director general of Al Jazeera, called the verdict "shocking" in a televised interview.

"I don't think it has anything to do with justice," he said, calling it another step in Egypt's "campaign of terrorizing people and terrorizing the media."

Al Jazeera English managing director Al Anstey said in a statement that the sentencing "defies logic, sense, and any semblance of justice."

Brother of Ivory Coast stars Yaya and Kolo Toure dies

 

Ivory Coast stars Yaya and Kolo Toure have learned of the death of their younger brother while they are at the World Cup in Brazil.

Ibrahim Toure passed away on Thursday in Manchester, aged only 28.
The Ivorian FA said: "The entire Ivorian delegation want to show their support to the players.
"In such a sad situation, the Ivory Coast team and the entire delegation here in Brazil, show their support to the Toure brothers and their family."
It added: "The president of Football Ivory Coast Federation and the Executive Comitee ask Ivorians for their prayers."
Ibrahim Toure played as a striker throughout his career, most recently with Lebanese team Al-Safa SC.

This Emir of Kano must not be a Sanusi

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The desideratum was unmistakable, the determination was indubitable, and the expectation to have it signed, sealed and delivered by the kingmakers was without an iota of doubt. The immediate past Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, verbalised it publicly that he wanted to be the Emir of Kano and he did. His upstep unto the throne of his forefathers was greeted with much bickering, wrangling and haggling by those who wanted the same sceptre as widespread violence spread from uptown to downtown Kano after his ascension. The new Emir had to take a quick flight from his new palace-home so that the irate mob would not run him over as he took refuge in the Kano State Government House which became an annex of the Emirate. “I may not be the best of the candidates, but I am the one God has chosen to lead”, he had said in a sermon to his faithful.But not many people bought this talking point.

Politicking of course was not unexpected in the city that has a large number of voters. All political parties threw their hats in the ring to gain an upper hand as they also keep their eyes as a flint on 2015. Nigerians know Sanusi, but not this Emir of Kano. Sanusi and the Emir of Kano could be two different people, but his crowning attempts to merge both chores and personalities under one indivisible and inseparable royal authority. What is the difference between Sanusi and the Emir of Kano?

The Sanusi we know is a cerebral economist, an erudite bluestocking, and a man of immense understanding of banking credo, creed and cannon. I love his chatty loquacity, his convincing, sometimes voluble smooth-talk, his passionate delivery of facts and figures, his blunt dare of the adversaries’ daggers, and robust boastful rhetoric. Amidst innuendoes and unproven allegations, he was evicted from office as the CBN governor by a President who may end up being one of the finest political calculators that ever lived. Sanusi never believed President Goodluck Jonathan had the guts to greet him with a sack or suspension letter. But the President did.

Sanusi knew his onions in the banking industry, and he knows people. Two years in a row, he was named in Emerging Markets Magazine as the World’s Central Bank Governor of the year. In 2011, he was Times Magazine’s one of the 100 most influential people in the world. The same year, he was Forbes magazine’s Africa’s Person of the Year. He was probably right about his claim that there is fraud in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and corrupt escapades in Diezani Alison-Madueke’s Petroleum Ministry, probably right about financial waywardness of our leaders. He was an activist who was relentlessly active about unearthing activities of frivolities in government. I watched many of his videos and listened to his talks splitting up the guts of the rot that has swallowed up the Nigerian nation and how the country can stride on forward, and I wondered why this guy wanted to be Emir, not the president of Nigeria. But he insisted he loves Nigeria.

Woman admits to becoming pregnant by her brother after being threatened with a machete

 
A young woman confessed that she was in love with her brother and that she is carrying his baby.

24-year-old Akpan and 25-year-old Ime, who are siblings, went a little too far by having unprotected sex with each other, police in Nigeria said.

The incident occurred in Ajegunle State, where the family lives. During the day, the two were usually home alone as their parents and other siblings went out to work on the farm.

When Ime’s mother suspected that she was pregnant, she asked her daughter to identify the father of the unborn child, but she refused.

Last Friday, at 4:00 a.m., the father woke up his wife and two children, and began talking about Ime’s pregnancy. Suddenly, the father pulled out a machete and threatened to cut his daughter if she did not tell him who the father of the child is.

Fearing for her life, Ime admitted to being in love with her brother, and that they regularly have sex. Police were notified, and the two were arrested and charged with incest.

SOURCE:www.thisdaylive.com

Man Sets Wife Ablaze for Giving Birth to Female Children Only

A middle-aged woman, Mrs. Monica Nwakpuke, barely escaped the cold hands of death when her husband, Paul, allegedly hired assassins to set her ablaze for giving birth to female children only.

The culprit, Paul, a patent medicine dealer, who hails from Onuojgon Ikwo Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, was alleged to have hired assassins to kill his wife because she could not give him a male child.
The assassins were said to have trailed the woman to her father's house where she was taking refuge over the lingering case of the male child issue with the purported aim of eliminating her.

The attackers allegedly doused her with fuel, then set her on fire and left before she was taken to the hospital where she is battling for survival.

The victim's younger brother, Mr. Sunday Nwigbo, said for the past 12 years when Paul impregnated Monica when she was a student of Enyi Community Secondary School in Ikwo, there had been no genuine  love between the husband and wife.

Nwigbo disclosed that Paul became furious with his wife because she only gave birth to female children without a male child.
A close family source added that since Paul impregnated his wife at a tender age before marriage, he had on several occasions sent her back to her parents before he allegedly hired the attackers to kill her.

Should Christians support the death penalty?

The answer to that question is controversial. Many Christians feel that the Bible has spoken to the issue, but others believe that the New Testament ethic of love replaces the Old Testament law.

Old Testament Examples

Throughout the Old Testament we find many cases in which God commands the use of capital punishment. We see this first with the acts of God Himself. God was involved, either directly or indirectly, in the taking of life as a punishment for the nation of Israel or for those who threatened or harmed Israel.

One example is the flood of Noah in Genesis 6-8. God destroyed all human and animal life except that which was on the ark. Another example is Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18-19), where God destroyed the two cities because of the heinous sin of the inhabitants. In the time of Moses, God took the lives of the Egyptians' first-born sons (Exod. 11) and destroyed the Egyptian army in the Red Sea (Exod. 14). There were also punishments such as the punishment at Kadesh-Barnea (Num. 13-14) or the rebellion of Korah (Num. 16) against the Jews wandering in the wilderness.

The Old Testament is replete with references and examples of God taking life. In a sense, God used capital punishment to deal with Israel's sins and the sins of the nations surrounding Israel.

The Old Testament also teaches that God instituted capital punishment in the Jewish law code. In fact, the principle of capital punishment even precedes the Old Testament law code. According to Genesis 9:6, capital punishment is based upon a belief in the sanctity of life. It says, "Whoever sheds man's blood by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God, He made man."

The Mosaic Law set forth numerous offenses that were punishable by death. The first was murder. In Exodus 21, God commanded capital punishment for murderers. Premeditated murder (or what the Old Testament described as "lying in wait") was punishable by death. A second offense punishable by death was involvement in the occult (Exod. 22; Lev. 20; Deut 18-19). This included sorcery, divination, acting as a medium, and sacrificing to false gods. Third, capital punishment was to be used against perpetrators of sexual sins such as rape, incest, or homosexual practice.

Within this Old Testament theocracy, capital punishment was extended beyond murder to cover various offenses. While the death penalty for these offenses was limited to this particular dispensation of revelation, notice that the principle in Genesis 9:6 is not tied to the theocracy. Instead, the principle of Lex Talionis (a life for a life) is tied to the creation order. Capital punishment is warranted due to the sanctity of life. Even before we turn to the New Testament, we find this universally binding principle that precedes the Old Testament law code.
New Testament Principles

Some Christians believe that capital punishment does not apply to the New Testament and church age.

First we must acknowledge that God gave the principle of capital punishment even before the institution of the Old Testament law code. In Genesis 9:6 we read that "Whoever sheds man's blood by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God, He made man." Capital punishment was instituted by God because humans are created in the image of God. The principle is not rooted in the Old Testament theocracy, but rather in the creation order. It is a much broader biblical principle that carries into the New Testament.

Even so, some Christians argue that in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus seems to be arguing against capital punishment. But is He?

Obama to sign order barring federal discrimination against gays

President Barack Obama will sign an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, a White House official said on Monday, handing another victory to gay rights activists.
The White House has been pressing Congress to pass legislation to ban employment discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and has resisted issuing an executive order in favor of pursuing a broader, legislative solution.
But Obama has spent the year taking executive action on other domestic priorities where Congress has failed to make legislative headway, and activists have pressed him to do the same on gay rights.
A White House official who spoke condition of anonymity said Obama had directed his staff to prepare the executive order on gay rights.
Since coming into office, Obama helped end the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibited gays from serving openly in the military, and, after what he described as an evolution in his thinking, gave backing to gay marriage during his 2012 re-election campaign.
Pursuing the executive order is a shift for the White House, which has said since last year that such a move would carry far less weight than broader congressional action. The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) passed the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate but has languished in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Activists lauded the White House move.

486 Boko Haram suspects arrested in Abia

There was heightened fear in parts of the South-East on Monday as news spread that hundreds of persons suspected to be Boko Haram members were arrested in Abia State.

The suspects, including eight women, were said to have been arrested along the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway by soldiers attached to the 144 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, Asa in the Ukwa West Local Government Area on Sunday.

Their arrest occurred some hours after security operatives detonated improvised explosive devices planted on the premises of a branch of the Living Faith World Bible Church (a.k.a. Winners Chapel) in Owerri, Imo State.

Before the Commander of the 144 Battalion, Lt. Col. Rasheed Omolori, announced the suspects’ arrest, the South-East governors vowed after paying a solidarity visit to President Goodluck Jonathan   in Abuja that they would not allow Boko Haram to attack the zone.

Omolori had told journalists at a news conference that his men intercepted a convoy of 33 buses conveying 486 suspected insurgents aged between 16 and 24 around 3am on Sunday.

The suspects, according to him,   claimed to have come from different parts of the North in search of jobs.

He added that two of the 33 buses escaped with their occupants and that the incident had been reported to the Defence Headquarters in Abuja.

The Abia State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Dr. Eze Chikamnayo, who was at the briefing alongside the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Charles Ajunwa, said the large number of vehicles conveying the suspects made the soldiers suspicious.

Wondering how such a long motorcade could not be intercepted by security personnel until it reached Abia State, Chikamnayo said it was also baffling that   none of the suspects was able to identify the location they were heading for.

He however said that the Army and other security agencies in the state were working to uncover the actual mission of the suspects and those behind their movement.

The commissioner advised every state to work hand-in-hand with their security personnel to check insurgency in the country.

“Every security problem is local and if we handle it locally it will be nipped in the bud,” he said.

In Abuja, the South-East governors told State House correspondents   that they were   prepared to avert any plot by Boko Haram to attack the zone.

Governor Willy Obiano of Anambra State, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues said, “They (Boko Haram) can’t get there (South-East). I can assure you of that. We will not allow that to happen.

“I can’t tell you in any material details about bombs found or not found. All I can assure you is that we are on the alert in the South-East and we are watching what is going on.

“I can assure you that Boko Haram cannot come to the South-East.”

Obiano said the governors decided to meet with Jonathan to assure him of their support as he faces the challenges of nation-building.

He claimed that the President was under immense pressure and that some unnamed persons were making his work more tedious.

But the governor did not name such people “adding kerosene to fire” instead of supporting the President to take the nation out of the woods.

He said, “The President is a human being and he is under a lot of pressure and some other people are making his work a lot more difficult.

“But we are here to tell him that we are here supporting him and that he should count on us.”

Other governors who attended the meeting are Theodore Orji of Abia State; Martins Elechi, Ebonyi   and Sullivan Chime, Enugu.

Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha whose domain the Sunday tragedy was averted was however absent from the meeting with Jonathan.

June 12, 21 years after: Reminiscences

How time flies. Exactly today, 21 years ago, Nigerians went to the polls to elect a President who would govern the country after the exit of the military from the political centre stage.
Reminiscing about the past, it seems the events that convulsed Nigeria 21 years ago happened just yesterday. It was an election acclaimed globally to be the freest and fairest in Nigeria, ever. The two-party system foisted on Nigerians by the regime of General Ibrahim Babangida – the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and National Republican Convention (NRC) made things easier. While Bashorun MKO Abiola ran on the platform of the SDP, with Ambassador Babagana Kingibe as his running mate, Alhaji Bashir Tofa ran on the platform of the NRC, with foremost economist and former Governor of the Central Bank of Biafra, Dr. Sylvester Ugo, as the running mate.
It was an election like no other. Though it was organised by the military, Nigerians freely chose who they wanted to be their president. Abiola’s campaign slogan was Hope ’93. Nigerians had hoped that in Abiola’s presidency, their lot would improve dramatically. And it did, even if fleetingly. It is said that when it became evident that Abiola would win, Tofa sent him congratulatory message. That was perhaps the first and last time such a sportsmanly gesture would be displayed by a Nigerian presidential candidate.
But, why not? Abiola defeated Tofa in his home state of Kano and his running mate in Imo. His was a pan-Nigerian victory. Records also have it that as results were being announced, prices of goods and services were dropping. Such was the joy in the land and the hope engendered by the result of the election that some artisans were said to have refused payments for services rendered.
Of course, Abiola was not going to solve all of the country’s problems. No one man ever does and no government can. But hope is an essential ingredient of governance. Without hope, a people become disillusioned. A leader must inspire hope in the people. Unfortunately, that is one thing that is lacking now. Nigerians have become completely hopeless.
By annulling the election, Babangida committed a heinous crime against the country which he was privileged to rule for eight years. It is a crime that will forever haunt him.
On Sunday, I read for the umpteenth time the annulment speech which he delivered on June 26, 1993, two weeks after he annulled the poll. Just like 21 years ago, it still rang hollow. After the initial rambling about the socio-economic and political engineering his regime had undertaken in eight years, he attempted defending the indefensible by explaining why the election was annulled.
“Even before the presidential election, and indeed at the party conventions, we had full knowledge of the bad signals pertaining to the enormous breach of the rules and regulations of democratic elections. But because we were determined to keep faith with the deadline of 27th August 1993 for the return of civil rule, we overlooked the reported breaches. Unfortunately, these breaches continued into the presidential election of June 12, 1993, on an even greater proportion,” he rationalised.
“There were allegations of irregularities and other acts of bad conduct leveled against the presidential candidates but NEC went ahead and cleared them. There were proofs as well as documented evidence of widespread use of money during the party primaries as well as the presidential election. Evidence available to government put the total amount of money spent by the presidential candidates as over two billion, one hundred million naira (N2.1 billion). The use of money was again the major source of undermining the electoral process.
“Both these allegations and evidence were known to the National Defence and Security Council before the holding of the June 12, 1993 election, the National Defence and Security Council overlooked these areas of problems in its determination to fulfill the promise to hand over to an elected president on due date,” Babangida claimed.
“Apart from the tremendous negative use of money during the party primaries and presidential elections, there were moral issues which were also overlooked by the Defence and Security Council. There were cases of documented and confirmed conflict of interest between the government and both presidential aspirants which would compromise their positions and responsibilities were they to become president.”
There were so many other inane and absurd reasons advanced to rationalise the unconscionable act, including an attempt to save the judiciary from itself.
Yet, after acknowledging in one breath that “it is true that the presidential election was generally seen to be free, fair and peaceful,” Babangida went ahead to throw the sucker punch.

Emefiele: The Entry of Another Regulator

 
Central Bankers Read Election Returns, Not Balance Sheets’ - Robert Z. Aliber
With the ascendancy of the former Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Godwin Emefiele as the new governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) another chapter is added to the history of Nigeria’s central banking.

However, it is a sad commentary that terror news hits the headlines in today’s Nigeria. Certainly foreign reserves, exchange rates, inflation, capacity utilization and unemployment figures (and all those naughty macro economic issues, CBN is called to fix!) do not capture the imagination of reporters at the latest violence scene. 

Mr. Godwin Emefiele’s historic assumption of office is certainly hunted by the spectre of security challenge. Apart from the predominance of news associated with insecurity, in what looks like a double jeopardy, the controversial exist of his predecessor Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, casts dark shadow on the emergence of Mr. Godwin Emefiele as the 11th governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Regrettably the attendant litigations in regular and industrial courts on the summary termination of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi may be more news worthy than a new tenure at the apex bank. And that is perhaps the first riddle for Mr. Godwin Emefiele; how to make sure that his process driven and relatively easy entry (appointment and senate confirmation) will not be inversely related to his exit. Interestingly analysts are quick to point to the difference between Sanusi and the new entrant, Emefiele. The latter we are told is level headed while the former was intemperate. May be. While we are unhelpfully inundated with their respective personal profiling, the point cannot be overstated that professionally both Sanusi Lamido and his successor, actually have a lot in common.

Sanusi and Emefiele are both one-time players in the banking sector before they are called upon to become regulators at the CBN.  Sanusi came from the First Bank while Emefiele until recently was the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Zenith Bank Plc. Very few players have passed the acid test of being regulators. Will Emefiele conclusively pass this singular acid test? Mallam Mai Bornu was the first indigenous Governor of the Bank in 1963 that retired from its service in 1967. 

He came from the CBN where he had worked before. The most celebrated CBN Governor was Clement Isong appointed by Yakubu Gowon as Governor of the CBN in August 1967, an office he held until September 1975. He was also a regulator by work experience. He was credited with successful prosecution of the war economy during the Nigerian Civil War (July 1967 – January 1970) and even managed the subsequent oil boom without incurring unnecessary debts and dared to accumulate enough foreign reserves to match! The new historic assignment puts to test Emefiele’s professional experience and commitment to the alluring mission of the CBN, which reads that by 2015 (next year) CBN is expected to “Be THE MODEL CENTRAL BANK delivering PRICE and FINANCIAL SYSTEM STABILITY and promoting SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.”

Maya Angelou story of a life well told

 
Tributes poured in from all sides. International news channels, major newspapers worldwide and of course Twitter and Facebook gushed their homage to Maya Angelou. The iconic author, poet and activist, aged 86, breathed her last on Wednesday at her Winston-Salem, N.C. home.

Though she was known to have been in poor health for some time, nursing a heart problem to boot, nothing was immediately known about the cause of her death, which was confirmed in a statement issued by Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., where she had served as a professor of American Studies since 1982.
Her autobiographical  magnum opus, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, published in 1969, when she was in her early 40s, is a poignant narrative of the first 17 years of her life and was described by The New York Times as “a lyrical, unsparing account of her childhood in the Jim Crow South” and “as among the first autobiographies by a 20th-century black woman to reach a wide general readership”.
Curiously, this memoir also drew criticisms from some quarters. It was described as “manipulative” melodrama by author Francine Prose in her 1999 essay. Then, parents and educators took exceptions to passages in the book alluding to her rape and teenage pregnancy.

“I thought that it was a mild book. There’s no profanity,” Angelou had countered in an interviewer with the Associated Press. “It speaks about surviving, and it really doesn’t make ogres of many people. I was shocked to find there were people who really wanted it banned, and I still believe people who are against the book have never read the book.”
In the book, she had written:  “If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat.”  Her enthralling writing style, which evokes the African-American oral tradition, imbues her work with the inimitable quality that brings the world around her to life.
The book, which took  its title from  a line in “Sympathy,” a work  by the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar,  would later be trailed by five other volumes of her memoir all published by Random House. They were Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas  (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981), All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986) and A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002).