IYKE NMEZI'S BLOG.

Wednesday, 26 June 2013

I'm 16-Year-Old, Not 60 - Teen With Rare Genetic Disorder (PHOTOS)

A British teenager, Zara Hartshorn, 16, with an inherited genetic disorder that has made her look middle-aged practically since she was a child made a facelift operation.

Zara, originally from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, was given a free facelift after a doctor heard of her condition, and she said the results have given her a new lease on life.

She inherited lipodystrophy - which makes her skin looked wrinkled and twisted - from her mother Tracey Gibson who also suffers from the illness.

But after hearing of her condition, a top surgeon in the US offered to perform cosmetic surgery for free. It has proved to be a complete success and Zara has felt able to start a relationship with new boyfriend Ricky Andrews and is even keen to go to college.

By the time she was 12, Zara was already being mistaken for a middle-aged woman - and was even mistaken for 17-year-old sister Chloe's mother.

She said: "Before I had surgery I was picked on for looking different, now I look the same as other girls my age.

"I don't feel like people are staring at me when I walk down the street anymore. I finally feel like a teenager.

"I've carried some hurtful comments with me all my life but now I feel ready to leave the past behind and forgive and forget."

Her newfound self-assurance has helped her start a relationship with apprentice painter and decorator Ricky, 22, three months ago, who she met through friends.

She said: "I've had boyfriends in the the past but I don't think any accepted my condition, really. But with Ricky it's never been an issue."

Source: Dailymail

Photos: Eucharia Anunobi arrives Dakar, Senagal for crusade

The former actress turned evangelist arrived Dakar Senegal yesterday for a mega crusade holding at the Gate Family Church, Dakar, Senegal, between the 24th and 30th of June. Eucharia will be ministering everyday from 5pm. Venue is 2, Voir Camp Penal - Opp. Macky Sall's Office, Dakar.

Sunday, 23 June 2013

Nigerians to start paying £3, 000.00 to enter the UK from November

According to a report by UK Daily Mail, visitors from 'high risk' countries in Africa and Asia will have to put up a £3,000 cash bond to enter Britain.

The money will be kept by the Government if visitors do not return home by the time their visas expire.

A pilot scheme, introduced by Home Secretary Theresa May, will target hundreds of people coming to Britain on six-month visit visas from India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ghana, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

The countries have been picked for their high number of visa applications and what the Government sees as relatively high levels of immigration abuse and fraud, reports the Sunday Times.

The bonds, to be introduced from November, will only apply to non-EU migrants, otherwise they would fall foul of European rights to free movement.

'This is the next step in making sure our immigration system is more selective, bringing down net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands while still welcoming the brightest and the best to Britain,' Mrs May told the Sunday Times.

'In the long run we’re interested in a system of bonds that deters overstaying and recovers costs if a foreign national has used our public services.'

A second scheme will cover countries such as Kenya, the newspaper reports, which are considered to be lower-risk because immigration officials have fewer doubts about migrants' plans to return home.

About 2.2million people are granted visas to enter Britain every year. Last year 296,000 people from India were granted six-month visas, as were 101,000 from Nigeria, 53,000 from Pakistan and 14,000 apiece from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The Home Secretary plans to reduce annual net migration to under 100,000 by 2015.

Saturday, 22 June 2013

Angelina Jolie turns spotlight on Syria

The world pays attention to Angelina Jolie when she's stepping out with partner Brad Pitt, writing opinion pieces and spurring debate about breast cancer or promoting her latest movie.

Now, she's is hoping to turn that spotlight onto Syria's refugee crisis.

This week, Jolie -- a special envoy for the U.N.'s refugee agency -- traveled to the world's second-largest refugee camp, where she spoke to Syrian refugees and documented their stories in a video for CNN.

Nearly 1.7 million Syrians have fled the country's brutal civil war, many living in densely crowded refugee camps in Syria's neighboring countries. Jordan's Za'atri refugee camp, which Jolie visited to mark Thursday's World Refugee Day, was built to house 20,000 refugees but now has more than 120,000.

Their stories of survival and loss are harrowing. Some refugees say they are marrying off their young daughters to protect them from rapists in the camps

2012: Jolie visits Syrian refugees

$Photos: Celebrities\' forays into diplomacy$ Photos: Celebrities' forays into diplomacy

Refugee figures fail to give true picture of Syria crisis

One family at the Za'atri camp told Jolie of a mortar that exploded in their Damascus home. At the time of the blast, the couple's 4-year-old son, who suffers from a birth defect and cannot walk, was playing inside.

The boy's eardrums were shattered.

"I tried to stay," said the mother, Mouna Ahmed. "I wanted to stay, but after the bombing, it was just too difficult."

She fled with her family, even though she was pregnant. Even in Jordan, when her children hear a plane overhead, they get scared, Ahmed said.

Giving a voice to refugees is arguably the most difficult role Jolie accepted when she agreed to become the U.N.'s special envoy for refugees last year. Months after accepting the role, she visited Syrian refugees living in camps in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Which country in the world today is run like Nigeria in all truth, honesty, reality and ramifications? What benefits have ordinary Nigerians received from this nation's oil wealth to date? How can you be proud, dedicated or patriotic to a nation that has no plan for you or her youths that face very high unemployment rates, hopelessness and a bleak future? Which country in the world that has this type of enormous oil wealth but decided to pay a poverty wage of $110 a month as the national minimum wage to her workers and indirectly denied them their basis life necessities?

Which country in the world today will close her human eyes to justice or public accountability by allowing her own leaders to loot the nation dry, then awarded them with her prestigious national awards or state pardon and then allow these heavily corrupt public officials in and outside the government to walk on their major streets freely and to continue to enjoy their loot or the ill-gotten wealth? Which country will officially pardon an international rogue like the former governor of Bayelsa State Mr. Alamieyeseigha that is still wanted in Britain and United States for money laundering? How can you be nationalistic and patriotic to a country that allowed her religious bigots and fanatics to commit genocides, murders, arsons and looting all in the name of their religion and will never allow these cold-blooded killers to face the weight of justice, denied the dead and their families justice or any financial compensations for their huge human and material losses?

Which country will allow a handful of her government officials to steal the pension funds that are meant for her seniors or retirees who had served Nigerian faithfully with their life and time, but are now denied a decent retirement in their sunset years? Which country in the whole world will blame the demons for her inability to provide the citizens who are tax payers with electricity instead of arresting the true culprit which is the official corruption and the mismanagement of the Nigerian state resources by her officials that made the provision of electricity practically impossible in Nigeria today? Which country in the world today will blame demons for her air disasters when her airports are never maintained properly, modernized and her aviation workers are incompetent?

Which nation in the world today will allow her national air carrier (the Nigeria Airways) to become history due to the direct effects of the decades of official corruption and mismanagement of the airline funds by her top officials and then allow those corrupt officials to get away with their corrupt practices? Which country in the world today uses 30% of her federal budget to pay salaries and allowances for her 17,500 public elected and appointed officials (0.01% of all Nigerians) in the name of public service and then allow 80% of the ordinary Nigerians to survive on abject poverty of about $1-$2 a day? Which properly thinking Nigerians will be proud to live in a nation that refuses to provide her citizens with their basic social services, national infrastructures and human rights?

Which nation today will neglect her entire health care system to rot but will use the state funds to fly her selected officials and their family members to the best hospitals in Europe and North America when they are sick? Which country that truly desires to develop will be running a national educational system that is based on the 20th century outdated programs in the 21st century world? Which country will neglect her own citizens in the foreign nations of the world where they live today when emergency evacuations are needed or their Nigerian passports require to be renewed despite the presence of the Nigerian foreign mission in those country? Which country today in the world will spend 21% of her federal budget on her national security, but she still fails to practically and truly protect the life and the properties of her citizens or residents in all reality?

culled from www. saharareporters.com

Tuface Poses With Ex-World Boxing Champion Evander Holyfield

Tuface shared this picture of him chilling with former world boxing champion, Evander Holyfield, in Atlanta.

Just to remind you: Evander Holfield is the guy who fought with Mike Tyson and got his ear bitten off by Mikey during their infamous 1997 fight.

Tuface made the following tweet:

“Me and Evander Holyfield.ATL chilling.I ask am say how your ear”

We think 2Face has to be more careful with such jokes in front of the world heavyweight champion. Despite he's the former one.

Friday, 21 June 2013

89-year-old faces jail for looting millions

Anthony Marshall has exhausted all options for appeal and has begun his prison sentence of one to three years [AFP]

The 89-year-old son of the late philanthropist Brooke Astor has been jailed for plundering millions of dollars from his mother.

Anthony Marshall, who was a Broadway producer, US diplomat and decorated military veteran, was ordered to begin serving his one- to three-year term on Friday after he lost a last-ditch attempt to stay out of prison over allegations that he forged Astor's signature.

He was sentenced in 2009 but had been free on bail during an appeal. He lost a series of requests to get a new trial and to stay out of prison because of his failing health.

Marshall was Astor's only child. Under her will, he stood to inherit tens of millions of dollars. After he was convicted of grand larceny, fraud and other charges, he instead received a settlement of $14.4 million.

Marshall and his co-defendant, former estates lawyer Francis Morrissey, 72, were convicted in 2009 of looting the estate of Astor, whose fortune was estimated to valued at $200 million.

Charity funds targeted

The philanthropist, whose causes included the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, had Alzheimer's disease and died in 2007 at the age of 105.

Her charitable largesse was recognised in 1998 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's top civilian honour. She had inherited the money from her third husband, Vincent Astor, a great-great-grandson of real estate and fur magnate John Jacob Astor, one of the first multimillionaires in the US.

Marshall arrived in the courtroom in a wheelchair with his wife, Charlene, crying and caressing his shoulder. He declined to speak during the brief proceeding, looking downwards but showing little reaction.

“We will always have each other, always,” Charlene Marshall whispered, as she cried on the lap his, according to the New York Daily News.
Prosecutors said Marshall exploited his mother's failing mind to loot her millions after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and bought himself expensive gifts, including a $920,000 yacht, with her money.

He took valuable artwork off her walls; and engineered changes to her will that gave him control of most of her estate, including millions that had previously been earmarked for her favorite charities, the Manhattan district attorney's office said.

Ice Prince Zamani launched his spanking new music video for, “VIP” yesterday, June 20 at Protea Hotel Ikoyi Westwood, Lagos.

Hosted by Tee-A and Osas Ighodaro, the star-studded cocktail event had guests that included Don Jazzy, Audu Maikori, Iyanya, Emma Nyra, Tiwa Savage, Lynxxx, Yemi Alade, Peter Okoye, Noble Igwe, DJ Caise, Dele Momodu, Olisa Adibua, Hakeem Bello-Osagie and many more.