Tuesday, 19 June 2012
Friday, 1 June 2012
FORBES MAGAZINE' S Person Of The Year Award
Central Bank of Nigeria’s governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi Wins FORBES MAGAZINE’S Person Of The Year Award
Central Bank of Nigeria’s governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has won the vote for Forbes Magazine’s African Person of the Year.
He came out tops in a vote that was keenly contested and included Africa’s richest man and compatriot, Aliko Dangote and Nobel Peace Laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Nigerian banking sector has witnessed reforms since his appointment as the banking chief of Nigeria in 2009.
The apex bank rescued nine banks and sacked their executives who were accused of being culpable in the fraudulent practices of the bank’s operations.
Most of the executives were charged to court for misappropriation public finances.
The votes were cast by Forbes magazine’s readers through an online poll.
He beat Mrs Sirleaf, the Liberian president who was awarded this year’s Nobel Peace prize, Mr Dangote, a Nigeria business tycoon who tops Forbes’ list of Africa’s richest people, former Cape Verde President Pedro Verona Pires, who won this year’s $5m (£3.2m) Mo Ibrahim prize for good governance in Africa and Wangari Maathai, the Kenyan Nobel Peace laureate who died in September.
Sanusi was last year named Central Bank Governor of the year by a financial publishing magazine, The Banker.
He has attracted so many critics due to the loss of jobs his reforms has caused in the banking sector.
However, while receiving the award, he stated that the role of the central bank is not to create jobs but to ensure an environment that will ensure businesses thrive, reports Daily Trust.
He urged the government to tighten fiscal discipline and discourage imports.
“You cannot be exporting crude and be importing petrol”
Despite Nigeria’s standing on the oil producing states ranking, poverty has remained endemic in the country.
First Black Police Commander in London
Nigerian appointed first black police commander in London
A United Kingdom-based Nigerian and a Chief Superintendent with the London Metropolitan Police, Mr. Victor Olisa, has been appointed as the first black commander for Bexley local council in London.
“Policing runs in the family and I have always wanted to be a police officer and ethnicity does not affect that” Olisa told the Europe Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in his reaction on the appointment in London.
Olisa, whose grandfather was a police officer in Nigeria, said his focus was on the job rather than on being the “first black’’ adding that his ethnicity never affected the way he carried out his duties.
“I consider myself first and foremost a police officer. If (being black) is an advantage, then brilliant; If it’s a disadvantage, I will have to deal with that, I can’t hide it.”
Olisa said a lot was being done to address racism within the force, adding that it was the responsibility of the force to correct wrongs and not an institution for people with racist views.
“I am impeccably against anyone who uses racist language or behaves in a racist manner. This will not be allowed under my watch.
“I believe that everyone should be treated with dignity wherever they come from,’’ Olisa said.
Olisa, 52, born in Warri, Delta, is one of the three chief superintendents from black minority ethnic background working for the Metropolitan Police.
He started his career in Surrey Police in 1982 before transferring to the City of London Police in 1990 as detective inspector in the Fraud Squad.
After a spell at the Home Office, he transferred to the Metropolitan police in 2006 as a superintendent in Southwark Council before his recent appointment.
Sarah Fallon weds Osaze Odemwingie
Osaze Odemwingie weds Sarah Fallon (Photos)
West Bromich Albion and Super Eagles striker Osaze Odemwingie has married his girlfriend of a few years, Manchester born 22yr old Sarrah Fallon. The couple exchanged vows at Castle Ashby in Northampton.
New Tropical Disease
Chagas, a tropical disease spread
by insects, is causing some fresh concern following an
editorial—published earlier this week in a medical journal—that called
it "the new AIDS of the Americas."
More than 8 million people have
been infected by Chagas, most of them in Latin and Central America. But
more than 300,000 live in the United States.
The editorial, published by the
Public Library of Science's Neglected Tropical Diseases, said the spread
of the disease is reminiscent of the early years of HIV.
"There are a number of striking
similarities between people living with Chagas disease and people living
with HIV/AIDS," the authors wrote, "particularly for those with
HIV/AIDS who contracted the disease in the first two decades of the
HIV/AIDS epidemic."
Both diseases disproportionately
affect people living in poverty, both are chronic conditions requiring
prolonged, expensive treatment, and as with patients in the first two
decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, "most patients with Chagas disease do
not have access to health care facilities."
Unlike HIV, Chagas is not a sexually-transmitted disease: it's "caused by parasites transmitted to humans by blood-sucking insects," as the New York Times put it.
"It likes to bite you on the
face," CNN reported. "It's called the kissing bug. When it ingests your
blood, it excretes the parasite at the same time. When you wake up and
scratch the itch, the parasite moves into the wound and you're
infected."
"Gaaah," Cassie Murdoch wrote on Jezebel.com, summing up the sentiment of everyone who read the journal's report.
[Related: Coming soon--an over-the-counter HIV test]
Chagas, also known as American trypanosomiasis, kills about 20,000 people per year, the journal said.
And while just 20 percent of
those infected with Chagas develop a life-threatening form of the
disease, Chagas is "hard or impossible to cure," the Times reports:
The disease can be transmitted from mother to child or by blood transfusion. About a quarter of its victims eventually will develop enlarged hearts or intestines, which can fail or burst, causing sudden death. Treatment involves harsh drugs taken for up to three months and works only if the disease is caught early.
"The problem is once the heart
symptoms start, which is the most dreaded complication—the Chagas
cardiomyopathy—the medicines no longer work very well," Dr. Peter Hotez,
a researcher at Baylor College of Medicine and one of the editorial's
authors, told CNN. "Problem No. 2: the medicines are extremely toxic."
And 11 percent of pregnant women in Latin America are infected with Chagas, the journal saidThursday, 31 May 2012
Charles Taylor gets 50 years jail term
UN court sends Taylor to 50 years in prison
www.guardiannewsngr.com
FOR
arming rebels in Sierra Leone in return for “blood diamonds”, a United
Nations (UN)-backed war crimes court yesterday sentenced Liberia’s
former President Charles Taylor to 50 years in prison.
According to Agence France Presse (AFP), Taylor, 64, was convicted last month of all 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding and abetting Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front during the country’s brutal 1991-2001 civil war.
In return, he was paid in diamonds mined by slave labour in areas under control of the rebels, who murdered, raped and kept sex slaves, hacked off limbs and forced children aged under 15 to fight, the court found.
“The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous crimes in human history,” said Special Court for Sierra Leone judge, Richard Lussick, reading out the ruling yesterday.
“The trial chamber unanimously sentences you to a single term of imprisonment for 50 years on all counts,” the judge said at the international court based in Leidschendam, just outside The Hague.
“The trial chamber noticed that the effects of these crimes on the families and society as a whole in Sierra Leone were devastating,” he said.
It was the first sentence against a former head of state in an international court since the Nuremberg Nazi trials in 1946.
Taylor, with gold-rimmed glasses and cropped hair, a dark suit and gold tie, listened with his eyes closed as the judge handed down the sentence, which Taylor’s team, and prosecutors, have two weeks to appeal.
Chief prosecutor Brenda Hollis had asked for 80 years imprisonment for Taylor, once one of West Africa’s most powerful men. Speaking after sentencing Taylor, Hollis said her team would study the judgment before deciding whether to appeal.
“The sentence yesterday does not replace amputated limbs, does not bring back those who have been murdered or forced to become sexual slaves” or child soldiers, she said. “But it brings back some measure of justice... for those lucky enough to survive.”
In Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown, hundreds of survivors of the war that claimed 120,000 lives watched the proceedings in silence on a large TV screen.
Among them was Al Hadji Jusu Jarka, former chairman of the association of amputees, who had both his arms cut off by the rebels.
“The curtain has now been drawn on Charles Taylor,” the war survivor said. “I hope he will be haunted by his deeds as he languishes in jail.”
Human rights activist Charles Mambu called the sentence “excellent” and said: “It shows that it’s no longer business as usual.”
Taylor’s lawyer Courtenay Griffiths said the sentence meant that “effectively Charles Taylor will die in prison,” while the legal team indicated it would appeal.
Judge Lussick said 80 years would have been excessive, but that, given Taylor’s position as Liberia’s president from 1997 to 2003, he “held a position of public trust and higher authority which he abused.”
Throughout the trial, Taylor maintained his innocence and insisted he was instrumental in eventually ending Sierra Leone’s civil war.
But the judge said that while Taylor publicly played a substantial role, “ Secretly, he was fueling hostilities between the (rebels) and the democratically-elected government of Sierra Leone”.
Therefore, “Taylor’s role in the peace process is not a mitigating factor,” he found.
The ex-president will now remain in the UN’s detention unit in The Hague until his appeal procedure is finalised.
Taylor’s sentence will be served in a British prison. London’s offer in 2007 to host Taylor in custody if found guilty was part of the deal to put him on trial in The Netherlands-based court.
The nearly four-year trial, which wrapped up in March 2011, saw several high-profile witnesses testify. Among them was supermodel Naomi Campbell, who told of a gift from Taylor of “dirty diamonds” she received in 1997 at a charity ball hosted by South Africa’s then President Nelson Mandela.
Authorities in Nigeria arrested Taylor in March 2006 as he tried to flee from exile after being forced to quit Liberia three years earlier, under international pressure to end that country’s own civil war.
He was transferred to The Hague in mid-2006 amid security fears should he go on trial in Freetown.
Taylor’s sentencing came 66 years after the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg sentenced admiral Karl Donitz to 10 years in jail for his part in Nazi crimes during World War II. Adolf Hitler had appointed Donitz his successor shortly before committing suicide in Berlin in 1945.
According to Agence France Presse (AFP), Taylor, 64, was convicted last month of all 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding and abetting Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front during the country’s brutal 1991-2001 civil war.
In return, he was paid in diamonds mined by slave labour in areas under control of the rebels, who murdered, raped and kept sex slaves, hacked off limbs and forced children aged under 15 to fight, the court found.
“The accused has been found responsible for aiding and abetting some of the most heinous crimes in human history,” said Special Court for Sierra Leone judge, Richard Lussick, reading out the ruling yesterday.
“The trial chamber unanimously sentences you to a single term of imprisonment for 50 years on all counts,” the judge said at the international court based in Leidschendam, just outside The Hague.
“The trial chamber noticed that the effects of these crimes on the families and society as a whole in Sierra Leone were devastating,” he said.
It was the first sentence against a former head of state in an international court since the Nuremberg Nazi trials in 1946.
Taylor, with gold-rimmed glasses and cropped hair, a dark suit and gold tie, listened with his eyes closed as the judge handed down the sentence, which Taylor’s team, and prosecutors, have two weeks to appeal.
Chief prosecutor Brenda Hollis had asked for 80 years imprisonment for Taylor, once one of West Africa’s most powerful men. Speaking after sentencing Taylor, Hollis said her team would study the judgment before deciding whether to appeal.
“The sentence yesterday does not replace amputated limbs, does not bring back those who have been murdered or forced to become sexual slaves” or child soldiers, she said. “But it brings back some measure of justice... for those lucky enough to survive.”
In Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown, hundreds of survivors of the war that claimed 120,000 lives watched the proceedings in silence on a large TV screen.
Among them was Al Hadji Jusu Jarka, former chairman of the association of amputees, who had both his arms cut off by the rebels.
“The curtain has now been drawn on Charles Taylor,” the war survivor said. “I hope he will be haunted by his deeds as he languishes in jail.”
Human rights activist Charles Mambu called the sentence “excellent” and said: “It shows that it’s no longer business as usual.”
Taylor’s lawyer Courtenay Griffiths said the sentence meant that “effectively Charles Taylor will die in prison,” while the legal team indicated it would appeal.
Judge Lussick said 80 years would have been excessive, but that, given Taylor’s position as Liberia’s president from 1997 to 2003, he “held a position of public trust and higher authority which he abused.”
Throughout the trial, Taylor maintained his innocence and insisted he was instrumental in eventually ending Sierra Leone’s civil war.
But the judge said that while Taylor publicly played a substantial role, “ Secretly, he was fueling hostilities between the (rebels) and the democratically-elected government of Sierra Leone”.
Therefore, “Taylor’s role in the peace process is not a mitigating factor,” he found.
The ex-president will now remain in the UN’s detention unit in The Hague until his appeal procedure is finalised.
Taylor’s sentence will be served in a British prison. London’s offer in 2007 to host Taylor in custody if found guilty was part of the deal to put him on trial in The Netherlands-based court.
The nearly four-year trial, which wrapped up in March 2011, saw several high-profile witnesses testify. Among them was supermodel Naomi Campbell, who told of a gift from Taylor of “dirty diamonds” she received in 1997 at a charity ball hosted by South Africa’s then President Nelson Mandela.
Authorities in Nigeria arrested Taylor in March 2006 as he tried to flee from exile after being forced to quit Liberia three years earlier, under international pressure to end that country’s own civil war.
He was transferred to The Hague in mid-2006 amid security fears should he go on trial in Freetown.
Taylor’s sentencing came 66 years after the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg sentenced admiral Karl Donitz to 10 years in jail for his part in Nazi crimes during World War II. Adolf Hitler had appointed Donitz his successor shortly before committing suicide in Berlin in 1945.
Wednesday, 16 May 2012
Charles Taylor set to Address International Court
Sierra Leone Trial: Taylor to Address Court
16 May 2012
Charles Taylor in court
BBC
Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is expected to address the
international court that found him guilty of war crimes in Sierra Leone.
It is his last chance to speak at the tribunal in The Hague before being sentenced later this month, reports the BBC.
The prosecution will press its case for an 80-year prison term, which the defence has dismissed as excessive.
Taylor was convicted of arming rebels in Sierra Leone during its civil war and helping to plan atrocities.
In its landmark ruling last month, the Special Court for Sierra Leone
found the 64-year old guilty on 11 counts, including rape and murder.
The BBC's Mark Doyle, in The Hague, says Taylor may tread carefully in
what he says on Wednesday so as not to risk angering the judges.
However, the defendant believes many Western and African leaders have
conspired against him and our correspondent says those leaders will be
watching his speech with trepidation.
From the outset of the trial, Taylor has insisted he is innocent of all charges.
Earlier this month, prosecutors said a sentence of 80 years would
reflect the severity of the crimes and the central role that Taylor had
in facilitating them.
In a written response, defence lawyers called the prosecution's claim "excessive and not justified".
They said their client should not be made to shoulder the blame alone for what happened in Sierra Leone's war.
During the 1991-2002 Sierra Leone civil war, Taylor - who was president
of neighbouring Liberia - supported Revolutionary United Front rebels
who killed tens of thousands of people.
The war crimes included murder, rape, the use of child soldiers and the amputation of limbs.
In return, he received "blood diamonds".
Sentence is due to be handed down on May 30.
Taylor is widely expected to appeal against any prison sentence and the hearing could continue for several more months.
Under a special arrangement with the international court, any prison term Taylor does receive will be served in Britain.
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