Positive outlook in heart disease tied to fewer deaths

NEW YORK: People with heart disease who are more upbeat and excited tend to live longer than those who don't have such a positive outlook, a new study suggests, possibly because they are often more active.

Researchers surveyed people with ischemic heart disease - when the heart doesn't get enough blood due to narrowed arteries - and found earning a high score on measures of "positive affect" was tied to a greater chance of being a regular exerciser and a lower risk of dying over the next five years.

"It adds to the body of literature suggesting that there may be relationships between positive affect … and all-cause mortality," Richard Sloan, who studies psychological risk factors and heart disease at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, said.

But, "It's going to take more than this to be confident that there's a link in the way we're confident there's a link between depression and (a higher risk of) heart disease," Sloan, who didn't participate in the new research, told Reuters Health.

The new study included 607 heart patients who were seen at one Danish hospital.

Susanne S. Pedersen from Tilburg University in The Netherlands and her colleagues asked the patients about their quality of life, mood and lifestyle habits including physical activity in 2005. Then they used death and hospital records to track participants through 2010.

On a mood scale ranging from 0 to 40, where higher scores indicate feeling more relaxed, self-confident and excited, half of participants scored a 24 or above. (Negative affect was measured separately - so a person could score high or low on measures of both positive attitude and insecurity or helplessness.)

During the follow-up period, 30 of the high positive affect patients died of any cause, compared to 50 people with a lower positive attitude score.

Some of that association appeared to be driven by exercise habits, the researchers found. People with high mood scores were more likely than other participants to say they exercised at least once a week, and exercisers were half as likely to die as non-exercisers.

There was not a clear difference, however, in how often people were hospitalized for heart-related conditions, based on their positivity. During the study period, about half of all participants were hospitalized for a heart attack, heart failure or chest pain, for example, according to findings published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

The researchers said past studies also found a link between having a positive outlook and better heart health, but it was unclear what explained the association.

"There is some evidence to suggest that even among people who are already ill, who already have heart disease or diabetes or related conditions, that those people who are happier also have better outcomes," Julia Boehm from Chapman University in Orange, California, who has studied psychological wellbeing and heart health, said.

Health behaviors such as exercise are one possible explanation for that link, she told Reuters Health. Some researchers have also proposed another mechanism, suggesting optimism may affect physiologic processes in the body that would ultimately influence heart health, such as inflammation levels.

Pedersen and her colleagues noted that they did not have information on participants' type or intensity of exercise. The researcher also said the study can't say how exercise and positive affect may be linked.

"We do not know what comes first (also known as the ‘chicken and egg' problem) and thus cannot make any conclusions about the direction of causality - is it exercise that increases positive affect or positive affect that leads to more exercise with an effect on mortality or both?" Pedersen told Reuters Health in an email.

"Irrespectively, it cements what we already know - namely that exercise is good for the heart."

Boehm, who wasn't involved in the new research, said there isn't enough evidence to tell people with heart disease to be happier or more optimistic in order to improve their outcomes. But she agreed with Pedersen that there are data to support recommending exercise to those people for heart health.

Britain to ban smoking in prisons

LONDON: Britain said Friday it was looking at banning smoking in prisons, despite fears of a backlash from prisoners who claim a cigarette is one of the few joys of life behind bars.

Smoking was banned in communal areas in British jails in 2007 as part of a national ban on smoking in public places.

But prisoners are still allowed to smoke in their cells and 80 percent of inmates indulge in the habit across England and Wales, according to the National Health Service (NHS).

Now ministers are looking at banning smoking altogether amid concerns about the health impact of the smoke on non-smoking staff and inmates.

A pilot scheme is being launched early next year in a number of jails in southwest England, with a full ban likely to be rolled out within 12 months, the Times newspaper reported.

"We are considering banning smoking across the prison estate and as part of this are looking at possible sites as early adopters," a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice confirmed.

Steve Gillan, general secretary of the Prison Officers' Association, welcomed the move, which prison staff have campaigned for. He said it was necessary to avoid compensation claims for passive smoking.

But he admitted that implementing the ban could cause problems, telling the Times: "There is no pretending otherwise.

"It could cause disturbances but they have done it successfully in Canada and in young offender institutions in England and Wales.

"We will work with the ministry to make sure it works effectively."

Prisoners will be offered nicotine patches as a way of dealing with withdrawal symptoms, which it is feared may lead some inmates to violence, the Times said.

ObamaCare May Be a Dud, but Democrats Will Win

I would like to share Daniel Henninger's confidence that ObamaCare is a doomed entitlement that will collapse under its own weight ("Let ObamaCare Collapse," Wonder Land, Sept. 26), but historical precedents for an orderly dismantling of welfare-state benefit programs are very hard to find. Mr. Henninger's forecast of ObamaCare's demise hinges on public abandonment of the entitlement as its catastrophic effects unfold. Public disgust is destined to rise, according to Mr. Henninger, because the technological core of a centrally managed health system will be overloaded by a mind-boggling array of parties involved (i.e., federal agencies, state and local governments, employers, insurers, health-care providers and patients).
Many of us might agree that ObamaCare's overreach will force change but question whether dysfunction was baked into a plan to blame greedy insurers and push for a single-payer solution or if the number of voters who have ObamaCare buyer's remorse will exceed the number who are partially or fully dependent on government benefits.
Many U.S. companies have been rushing to drop bare-bones health plans and to steer employees, particularly part-timers, into insurance exchanges. An employer stampede out of health-care administration means that far more Americans will be dependent on government-sponsored plans in the next year or two. Once dependence and entitlement settle into a nation's psyche, abandonment of social progress is unheard of, absent impending financial collapse.
As a general rule, progressive steps forward into entitlement minefields are usually followed by stubborn and expensive stomps to the finish line, not by retreats or surrender.
John Gardner
Austin, Texas
Allowing ObamaCare to simply collapse won't discredit the Democrats. Instead, it will provide an opening to increase government intrusion into the private economy, enable the Democrats to look bipartisan, and blame conservatives, while ushering in a single-payer system. When ObamaCare collapses Democrats will argue that the plan was based on the Heritage Foundation's ideas from years gone by and the experiment of a Republican governor of Massachusetts. Despite their belief in single payer during 2010, Democrats took the unprecedented step of offering a conservative, market-based solution instead. But alas, they will argue that the market has failed us yet again, and the American people are left with only one option to achieve the goal of caring for all Americans.
The argument continues; we are compelled to offer the solution that we believed appropriate in 2010. Our attempt at bipartisanship was a mistake. Single payer will ensure that all Americans have their fundamental right to health care met. This is the endgame, a new behemoth entitlement, and the biggest expansion of government in our history will be accomplished. What is frightening is that if this argument is packaged correctly, Democrats in their failure will have won their ultimate prize and ensured Democrat voters for generations to come.
Republicans must band together now, and make an unyielding argument that ObamaCare was doomed from the start, placing the blame firmly and squarely at the Democrats feet. We must present a viable, true free-market alternative to ObamaCare, which should be boldly and loudly announced on Oct. 1, and never speak of ObamaCare again.
James R. Oppenhuizen
Grand Rapids, Mich.
ObamaCare was carefully crafted to deliver its goodies upfront, while delaying its more painful mandates and taxes until after the presidential election. Recently, the president unexpectedly, but shrewdly, delayed the employer mandate until after the next election cycle, once he grasped the potential fallout from its negative impact on job creation.
As we now begin to digest the price increases inherent in the health exchanges, I suspect that Mr. Obama will soon be quite willing to agree to delay the individual mandate too (perhaps in return for a debt-ceiling increase), thus appearing reasonable while also postponing the mandate's financial pain until after the midterms. All Republicans accomplish from this is to unwittingly provide political cover that will help the Democrats hold power in the Senate, while another year of "free" goodies further entrenches the law.
Mr. Henninger gets it exactly right. The sooner this stinker is completely unwrapped, the better chance we have of getting rid of it.

Terrorists used new tactic to spare some Muslims

• View GalleryKenya mall attack

The turbaned gunmen who infiltrated Nairobi's Westgate mall arrived with a set of religious trivia questions: As terrified civilians hid in toilet stalls, behind mannequins, in ventilation shafts and underneath food court tables, the assailants began a high-stakes game of 20 Questions to separate Muslims from those they consider infidels.

A 14-year-old boy saved himself by jumping off the mall's roof, after learning from friends inside that they were quizzed on names of the Prophet Muhammad's relatives. A Jewish man scribbled a Quranic scripture on his hand to memorize, after hearing the terrorists were asking captives to recite specific verses. Numerous survivors described how the attackers from al-Shabab, a Somali cell which recently joined al-Qaida, shot people who failed to provide the correct answers.
Their chilling accounts, combined with internal al-Shabab documents discovered earlier this year by The Associated Press, mark the final notch in a transformation within the global terror network, which began to rethink its approach after its setbacks in Iraq. Al-Qaida has since realized that the indiscriminate killing of Muslims is a strategic liability, and hopes instead to create a schism between Muslims and everyone else, whom they consider "kuffar," or apostates.
"What this shows is al-Qaida's acknowledgment that the huge masses of Muslims they have killed is an enormous PR problem within the audience they are trying to reach," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization. "This is a problem they had documented and noticed going back to at least Iraq. And now we see al-Qaida groups are really taking efforts to address it."
The evolution of al-Shabab is reflected in a set of three documents believed to be written by the terrorist group, and found by the AP in northern Mali earlier this year. They include the minutes of a conference of 85 Islamic scholars, held in December 2011 in Somalia, as well as a summary of fatwas they issued last year after acceptance into the al-Qaida fold.
Baptized with the name al-Shabab, meaning The Youth, in 2006, the group began as an extremist militia, fighting the government of Somalia. As early as 2009, it began courting al-Qaida, issuing recordings with titles like, "At Your Service Osama."
Until the Westgate attack, the group made no effort to spare Muslim civilians, hitting packed restaurants, bus stations and a government building where hundreds of students were awaiting test results. And until his death in 2011, Osama bin Laden refused to allow Shabab into the al-Qaida network, according to letters retrieved from his safehouse in Pakistan. The letters show that the terror leader was increasingly troubled by regional jihadi operations killing Muslim civilians.
In a letter to Shabab in 2010, bin Laden politely advised the Somali-based fighters to review their operations "in order to minimize the toll to Muslims." Shabab did not get the green light to join al-Qaida until February 2012, almost a year after bin Laden's death.
In an email exchange this week with The Associated Press, it made its intentions clear: "The Mujahideen carried out a meticulous vetting process at the mall and have taken every possible precaution to separate the Muslims from the Kuffar before carrying out their attack." However, even at Westgate, al-Shabab still killed Muslims, who were among the more than 60 civilians gunned down inside.
Their attack was timed to coincide with the highest traffic at the upscale mall after 12:30 p.m. on Sept. 21, a Saturday. More than 1,000 people, including diplomats, pregnant women with strollers and foreign couples, were inside when the fighters armed with grenades and AK-47s burst in and opened fire. At first the attack had the indiscriminate character of all of Shabab's previous assaults.
Rutvik Patel, 14, was in the aisles at Nakumatt, the mall's supermarket which sells everything from plasma TVs to imported kiwis, when he heard the first explosion. "They started shooting continuously, and whoever died, died," he said. "Then it became calm and they came up to people and began asking them some questions. If you knew the answer, they let you go," he said. "They asked the name of the Prophet's mom. They asked them to sing a religious verse."
Just across from the Nakumatt supermarket, a 31-year-old Jewish businessman was cashing a check inside the local Barclays branch when he, too, heard the shooting. The people there ran to the back and shut themselves in the room with the safe, switching off the lights. They learned, via text messages, that the extremists were asking people to recite an Arabic prayer called the Shahada.
"One of the women who was with us got a text from her husband saying, they're asking people to say the Islamic oath, and if you don't know it, they kill you," said the businessman, who insisted on anonymity out of fear for his safety.
He threw away his passport. Then he downloaded the Arabic prayer and wrote it on his palm.
Al-Shabab's attempts to identify Muslims are clear in the 16-page transcript from the conference of Islamic scholars held in the Somali town of Baidoa, an area known to be under Shabab control in 2011, according to Somalia specialist Kenneth Menkhaus, a political science professor at Davidson College in North Carolina. The scholars issued several fatwas defining exactly who was a Muslim and who was an apostate.
The document states it is halal, or lawful, to kill and rob those who commit crimes against Islam: "The French and the English are to be treated equally: Their blood and their money are halal wherever they may be. No Muslim in any part of the world may cooperate with them in any way. ... It leads to apostasy and expulsion from Islam," it says. Further on it adds: "Accordingly, Ethiopians, Kenyans, Ugandans and Burundians are just like the English and the French because they have invaded the Islamic country of Somalia."
Former FBI supervisory special agent Ali Soufan, who investigated the bombing of the United States embassies in East Africa as well as the attack on the USS Cole, said that the gathering of dozens of religious scholars in an area under Shabab control harkens back to an al-Qaida conference in Afghanistan around 1997. That conference defined America as a target, Soufan said, leading to the bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
"You see something very similar here," said Soufan. "It's the same playbook."
In a second document dated Feb. 29, 2012 — just two weeks after al-Shabab joins al-Qaida — the organization warns Muslims to stay away from buildings occupied by non-Muslims, chillingly predicting and justifying the death of Muslims at Westgate.
"And so all Muslims must stay far away from the enemy and their installations so as not to become human shields for them, and so as not to be hurt by the blows of the mujahedeen directed at the Crusader enemies," it says. "There is no excuse for those who live or mingle with the enemies in their locations."
Yet at the same time it says: "The mujahideen are sincere in wanting to spare the blood of their brother Muslims, and they don't want a Muslim to die from the bullets directed at the enemies of God."
This is a concession for an organization that since its inception had killed people constantly, said Rudolph Atallah, who tracked Shabab as Africa counterterrorism director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2003 to 2007.
"They would just go and mow people down," Atallah said. "They are now sending a clear message that, 'Look, we're different ... We're no longer indiscriminately killing. We're protecting innocent Muslims and we are trying to kill quote-unquote 'infidels,' nonbelievers."
A similar tactic paid off in January after al-Qaida-linked terrorist Moktar Belmoktar attacked a gas installation in Algeria, Atallah said. When his fighters freed hundreds of Muslim employees, a Facebook page dedicated to him exploded with "Likes."
Several hours after the gunshots at Westgate Mall, the people cowering inside the Barclays bank heard a commotion. As the attackers approached, the Jewish businessman spit on his hand to erase the words he had by then committed to memory.

Small jet hits hangar at Santa Monica Airport

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A small jet that took off from Idaho ran off the runway and into a storage hangar at a Southern California airport on Sunday night, causing the hangar to collapse in flames around it, officials said.

Firefighters were still contending hours later with the smoldering ruins of the building and the plane at Santa Monica Municipal Airport, and had yet to determine how many people were inside the jet that can hold eight passengers and two crew members, but it was unlikely anyone was alive inside.

"This was an unsurvivable crash," Santa Monica Fire Department Capt. John Nevandro said at a media briefing at the airport.

The twin-engine Cessna Citation that had taken off from Hailey, Idaho, went off the right side of the runway at about 6:20 p.m. and struck the hangar, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.

The blaze did minor damage to two other buildings and destroyed the hangar.

"It was a total loss," Fire Department spokeswoman Bridgett Lewis said.

News helicopter footage showed all but the tail of the plane trapped under a collapsed section of the small hangar.
Neither aviation nor rescue officials were yet able to say how many people were aboard the plane, nor whether anyone was inside the hangar.
A crane would be required to remove the remains of the hangar, and investigators were unlikely to be able to get to the plane until Monday, Gregor said.
A plume of smoke rising above the airport could be seen in the twilight sky over the populous neighborhoods surrounding the airport in the hours after the crash.
After hearing a loud boom, several neighbors ran toward the airport and saw the fire.
"It was very, very terrifying, it was sad to see just so much smoke, and the building collapse and the loud boom, you just put it all together and it's scary," witness Alyssa Lang told KABC-TV.
Witness Charles Thomson told the TV station the plane appeared to make a "perfectly normal landing" before veering off course.
The jet, a Cessna 525A manufactured in 2003, is registered to a Malibu, Calif. address and its corporate owner, Creative Real Estate Exchange, is based in Birmingham, Ala., and Atlanta, according to FAA public records.
Phone messages left after hours at the real estate company's two offices were not immediately returned.
The National Transportation Safety Board would take over the investigation as is routine in such crashes.

Santa Monica Airport, located in the coastal tourist destination known for its trendy bars, restaurants and wooden-pier carnival, is home to many private jets, many of them used by wealthy Southern Californians from the entertainment industry.

The airport in Hailey serves Idaho's Sun Valley resort area, which is a frequent destination for many celebrities, and the rich and powerful alike.

Flesh-Eating Street Drug from Russia Hits the US

(Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center)

A flesh-eating drug has appeared in the United States after first being discovered in Russia a decade ago.

Krokodil, Russian for “crocodile,” is a street drug used as a cheap substitute for heroin. The drug is referred to as “krokodil” because it causes sores, tissue damage and rough, scale-like appearance on the skin.

Two cases involving the drug that surfaced at the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix are alarming anti-drug advocates and medical personnel who fear use of krokodil might spread.

When the facility warned other poison centers around the country about krokodil, some revealed they also had patients suffering from its apparent use, according to Dr. Frank LoVecchio, co-medical director at Banner Poison, Drug and Information Center.

“This is up there as one of the craziest new trends I’ve seen,” he said. “We’ve known about it in Russia, and we’ve known what it has done there. It’s really decimated whole cities there.”

Krokodil is made up of several ingredients easily accessed at home improvement stores and pharmacies. The base of the drug is usually codeine. Pure codeine is extracted from its pill form and adulterated with chemicals to create a liquid substance that is later injected into the veins.  The types of chemicals used by manufacturers vary.

“Some of the chemicals they’ve used are very dangerous,” LoVecchio said. “They’ve used things like hydrochloric acid. Some have used paint thinners, gasoline and other stuff that includes phosphorous.”

The acidity of the chemicals causes the body’s fat and skin to “burn off and die,” LoVecchio said.

The presence of chemicals also makes the body more prone to infection. Immediate effects include visible scarring on the skin. Long-term effects are much worse.

“Once you start using this drug on a daily basis, you could die within two years,” he said. “Other reports are that death is probably due to overwhelming infection. Your body can’t fight the infection.”

Leslie Bloom, CEO of DrugFreeAZ.org, said that despite the drug’s dire consequences, krokodil use is not an outbreak to be fearful of.

“We don’t want the public to be alarmed,” she said. “What we want them to be is aware that this is a trend. There are other drug trends, too, that we see from time to time, especially with the synthetic drugs. This is a good reminder and a teaching moment.”

According to Tommy Thompson, public information officer for the Phoenix Police Department, there are currently no existing arrests or law enforcement cases involving krokodil. 

Kenyan Hero's Harrowing Tale of Rescues in Mall Massacre

ABIn one of the most memorable images to emerge from inside the Nairobi mall attacked last weekend by Islamic extremists, a 4-year-old girl is seen running toward a man who is reaching out a hand to pull her to safety.
The man was Abdul Haji, a 39-year-old real estate executive who rushed to the mall as the attack got underway. He managed to evacuate scores of people to safety, including that young American girl, Portia Walker, and is being hailed in Kenya as a hero.




As the gunmen began their rampage in Nairobi's upscale Westgate Mall early Saturday afternoon, Haji got a short text from his brother who was at the mall. "I'm stuck at the Westgate. It's probably a terrorist attack. Pray for me." Haji's immediate thought was that militants had gone to assassinate his brother.
Until just a few weeks ago, his brother was an undercover counterterrorism official battling organizations like al Shabab, the al Qaeda-linked group that has claimed responsibility for the four-day siege that left almost 70 people dead. But a local media outlet had recently revealed Haji's brother's identity and the family - including their father, a former defense minister - had started receiving death threats.
Haji says he grew up around guns and lately had been carrying his pistol with him. "I left where I was and I headed straight to the Westgate," Haji told ABC News. "Luckily on that particular day I had actually carried my licensed gun with me so I didn't have to go back home to waste time and pick up a gun, I went straight to the mall."

When he arrived he quickly figured out his brother was not the target. Haji joined up with a group of around 15 men outside, including some security officers, most of them armed and some wearing body armor, and headed into the mall with workers from the Red Cross. "It was like a war zone," he said. "I've never seen such a massacre. I've never come across such a thing. It was shocking. There were young girls, there were ladies, elderly people, some children. We were shocked."
The group had taken a ramp up to the mall's top floor which they started clearing, going store to store and yelling at people to get out, many of whom didn't know which side the men were on. "Most of them were really petrified, they could not move. They were lying down on the ground as if they were dead but they were not dead," said Haji. "We kept shouting that we're police officers, 'get up, get up, open the door, we're police officers.'"
As they arrived on the mall's ground floor, the attackers opened fire on the group, shooting one of the men Haji was with in the stomach. It was then that Haji came face to face with one of the attackers, whom he described as "of dark complexion, he had a black bandanna tied on his head."
"When his eyes and my eyes met, he started taunting me and telling come closer," Haji recalled. "Telling me in Swahili, 'come, come.' As if it was a joke to him. This whole thing was a joke to him."
Nearby, a woman was trapped behind a table. Haji yelled at her to run to them but the woman, 39 year-old Katherine Walker, said she couldn't because she had three young children with her. Haji told her to send the eldest, 4-year-old Portia, who ran across. "[A] very brave girl," said Haji affectionately. "She's running toward a man with a gun and she was very brave."
"I don't know how she knew to do it but she did," Katherine Walker later told The Telegraph newspaper, "she did what she was told and she went."
Walker and another woman followed close behind with the other two children who then re-united outside with the family's two teenage sons who had been shopping elsewhere in the mall. "I was worried about family in America seeing [the photo] because we haven't really shared the whole story with them yet," Walker told the newspaper. "For me, I know the story behind it and that it ends well. I think I owe Mr. Haji a hug or two."
As Haji arrived at a Nairobi hotel for the interview, he was instantly recognized by hotel staff who asked for photos with him. But Haji dismisses all the talk of him being a hero, saying he was just going to the mall to save his brother. "I think anybody in the situation would have probably done the same thing," he said. "[If] he was armed and thinking the worst about his family he would have probably done the same thing."
Haji claims he's coping well in the aftermath of the ordeal. He says he doesn't remember any nightmares but his wife has told him that he has been crying in his sleep. "I never saw anything like that," said Haji. "It'll probably stick with me for a long time. And I just hope I don't have to go through the same thing again."

UN votes to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons

 The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday night to secure and destroy Syria's chemical weapons stockpile, a landmark decision aimed at taking poison gas off the battlefield in the escalating 2 1/2-year conflict.

The vote after two weeks of intense negotiations marked a major breakthrough in the paralysis that has gripped the council since the Syrian uprising began. Russia and China previously vetoed three Western-backed resolutions pressuring President Bashar Assad's regime to end the violence.
"Today's historic resolution is the first hopeful news on Syria in a long time," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council immediately after the vote, but he and others stressed that much more needs to be done to stop the fighting that has left more 100,000 dead.
"A red light for one form of weapons does not mean a green light for others," the U.N. chief said. "This is not a license to kill with conventional weapons."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the "strong, enforceable, precedent-setting" resolution shows that diplomacy can be so powerful "that it can peacefully defuse the worst weapons of war."

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China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi , center left, and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, center r …

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that the resolution does not automatically impose sanctions on Syria. The resolution calls for consequences if Syria fails to comply, but those will depend on the council passing another resolution in the event of non-compliance. That will give Assad ally Russia the means to stop any punishment from being imposed.
As a sign of the broad support for the resolution, all 15 council members signed on as co-sponsors.
For the first time, the council endorsed the roadmap for a political transition in Syria adopted by key nations in June 2012 and called for an international conference to be convened "as soon as possible" to implement it.
Ban said the target date for a new peace conference in Geneva is mid-November.
Whether the council can remain united to press for an end to the conflict remains to be seen.

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks after the Security Council voted on a resolution that will …

"We know despite its clear usefulness, one resolution alone will not save Syria," France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said after the vote.
Syria's U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari accused unnamed nations of already giving the resolution a negative interpretation and trying to "derail it from its lofty purposes."
And Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have been harshly critical of Obama's policy on Syria, dismissed the resolution as "another triumph of hope over reality." It "contains no meaningful or immediate enforcement mechanisms, let alone a threat of the use of force for the Assad regime's non-compliance," they said in a statement that was highly skeptical that Russia would ever approve a threat of force for non-compliance.
The vote came just hours after the world's chemical weapons watchdog adopted a U.S.-Russian plan that lays out benchmarks and timelines for cataloguing, quarantining and ultimately destroying Syria's chemical weapons, their precursors and delivery systems.
The Security Council resolution enshrines the plan approved by Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, making it legally binding.

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Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja'afari, speaks on a phone before a Security Counci …

The agreement allows the start of a mission to rid Syria's regime of its estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal by mid-2014, significantly accelerating a destruction timetable that often takes years to complete.
Kerry said the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile will begin in November and be completed as called for by the middle of next year.
"We expect to have an advance team on the ground (in Syria) next week," OPCW spokesman Michael Luhan told reporters at the organization's headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands immediately after its 41-member executive council approved the plan.
The OPCW plan gives Damascus a week to provide detailed information on its arsenal, including the name and quantity of all chemicals in its stockpile; the type and quantity of munitions that can be used to fire chemical weapons; and the location of weapons, storage facilities and production facilities. All chemical weapons production and mixing equipment should be destroyed no later than Nov. 1.
The Security Council resolution does not assign blame for any chemical attack. Some Western countries had wanted the draft to demand that the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks be referred to the International Criminal Court to be prosecuted for war crimes. Diplomats said this was discussed, but Russia objected.

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Syrian Ambassador to the United Nation Bashar Ja'afari, left, listens to members of the Security Cou …

As a result, the draft says only that the Security Council "expresses its strong conviction that those individuals responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic should be held accountable."
The recent flurry of diplomatic activity followed the Aug. 21 poison gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians in a Damascus suburb, and by President Barack Obama's threat of U.S. strikes in retaliation.
After Kerry said Assad could avert U.S. military action by turning over "every single bit of his chemical weapons" to international control within a week, Russia quickly agreed. Kerry and Lavrov signed an agreement in Geneva on Sept. 13 to put Syria's chemical weapons under international control for later destruction, and Assad's government accepted.
Tough negotiations, primarily between Russia and the United States, followed on how Syria's stockpile would be destroyed.
The U.N. resolution's adoption was assured when the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council — Russia, China, the United States, France and Britain — signed off on the text on Thursday.

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French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, front right, speaks after a vote on a resolution that will r …

Russia and the United States had been at odds over the enforcement issue. Russia opposed any reference to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which allows for military and nonmilitary actions to promote peace and security.
The final resolution states that the Security Council will impose measures under Chapter 7 if Syria fails to comply, but this would require adoption of a second resolution.
It bans Syria from possessing chemical weapons and condemns "in the strongest terms" the use of chemical weapons in the Aug. 21 attack, and any other use. It also would ban any country from obtaining chemical weapons or the technology or equipment to produce them from Syria.
Kerry stressed that the resolution for the first time makes a determination that "use of chemical weapons anywhere constitutes a threat to international peace and security," which sets a new international norm.
The resolution authorizes the U.N. to send an advance team to assist the OPCW's activities in Syria. It asks Secretary-General Ban to submit recommendations to the Security Council within 10 days of the resolution's adoption on the U.N. role in eliminating Syria's chemical weapons program.

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China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi , front left,and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius vote on a r …

"Syria cannot select or reject the inspectors," Kerry said. "Syria must give those inspectors unfettered access to any and all sites and any and all people."
The resolution requires the council to review compliance with the OPCW's plans within 30 days, and every month after that.
In an indication of the enormity of the task ahead, the OPCW appealed for donations to fund the disarmament, saying it will have to hire new weapons inspectors and chemical experts.
To that end, Britain's foreign minister announced after Friday's vote that the UK would donate $3 million to OPCW Syria Trust fund.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Security Council that China was also prepared to help fund the disarmament mission.

View gallery."

Syrian Ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja'afari, center, speaks to Russia's U.N. Ambassador …

Meanwhile, a group of U.N. inspectors already in Syria investigating the alleged use of chemical weapons said Friday they are probing a total of seven suspected attacks, including in the Damascus suburb where hundreds were killed last month. That number was raised from three sites previously.
The OPCW destruction plan calls on Syria to give inspectors unfettered access to any site suspected of chemical weapons involvement, even if Syria's government did not identify the location. That gives the inspectors unusually broad authority.

Tottenham Hotspur manager Andre Villas-Boas says Chelsea counterpart Jose Mourinho is no longer a friend

Andre Villas-Boas on Thursday night claimed that former mentor Jose Mourinho tried to block his progress as a coach and that they have not spoken in four years.

Broken down relationship: Andre Villas-Boas says he and Jose Mourinho have a "mutual respect for one another" but no longer a friendship

The Portuguese rivals meet in the Premier League for the first time on Saturday lunchtime at White Hart Lane when Tottenham take on Chelsea.

And Villas-Boas has raised the temperature before the clash by revealing the full extent of the bitter breakdown in their relationship, which the Spurs manager says is beyond repair.

“We had a great personal and professional relationship before that we don’t have now,” Villas-Boas said at Tottenham’s training ground. “I don’t think we need explanations on personal relationships and friendship. But our relationship broke down.

"I think we have mutual respect for one another and what we went through cannot just disappear. But it’s not like it was before.”

Together with Steve Clarke and Brendan Rodgers, Villas-Boas is one of three present Premier League managers who served their time as Mourinho apprentices.

GREAT PREDICTION

Tottenham v Chelsea               2 - 0

Aston Villa v Man City           1-1

Fulham v Cardiff                    1-1

Hull v West Ham                     0-0

Man Utd v West Brom           2-0

Southampton v Cry  Palace  1-0

Swansea v Arsenal                  3-3

B’Haram linked to group behind Kenya mall attack • US report says Nigerian sect may have anti-aircraft missiles

A report by a committee of  the United States House of Representatives has linked the  fundamentalist Islamist sect, Boko Haram,  to al Shabaab, the terror group that carried out the September 21 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya.

Al-Shabaab is a Somali-based group whose members are said to be highly proficient in suicide bombing.

The  report dated September 13, 2013 and  entitled,  ‘Boko Haram: Growing Threat to the US Homeland’, also acknowledged the growing relationship between the  Nigerian sect  and another terror group, the Al Qaeda in the land of the Islamic Maghreb.

The  39-page report noted that “while there is no evidence that al Qaeda’s core in Afghanistan and Pakistan commands Boko Haram’s operations, it is clear from the words of multiple US  officials and  media reports  that Boko Haram is supportive of, and supported by  Al Qaeda networks such as AQIM.”

It noted that “it is the unity of ideology and mutual hatred for the West between the Al Qaeda networks that exposes the danger Boko Haram poses to the U.S Homeland.”

The committee described Boko Haram as a “hardened and sophisticated terror network” that required  multiple simultenous local and international efforts to enhance the capacity and capability of the the Nigerian Police and the military to curtail its activities.

It said there was an urgent need by the US to designate the sect as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation because it has shown  no signs of ending its aggression  against the government of Nigeria and the Western world.

The commiteee wrote, “The world is coming to know more about Boko Haram; their intentions, what they’re capable of, and who is supporting them.

“The US Intelligence Community is working to erase the gaps in our understanding of Boko Haram, but it is already evident they are a serious threat to US interests and potentially to the US Homeland.

‘‘Acknowledging this threat publicly by designating Boko Haram an FTO will establish a legal mechanism for prosecuting any supporters within US jurisdictions.

“This is an increasingly important tool given their attempts to market themselves to a wider international audience.

“Boko Haram shows no signs of ending its campaign against the government of Nigeria and the Western world. Two years after their August 2011 bombing of a United Nations facility in Abuja, Nigeria, Boko Haram remains a threat to the international community, and continues to be a developing threat to the US  Homeland.”

The report said that Boko Haram had “highly skilled bomb makers who might have received training  from experienced militants elsewhere, potentially indicating a stronger relationship between them and AQIM or Al Shabaab.

 It said that besides building sophisticated weaponry, it was now possible that Boko Haram had acquired or will acquire SA-7  and SA-24  shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles.

   The SA-7  missile is effective up to 1,300 metres, while some newer models reach altitudes of almost four kilometres. Although most aircraft cruise around 9,140 metres,  the SA-7  could be used to target aircraft during  takeoff and landing.

 In the report, the committee warned, “It does not take much imagination to picture the threat these weapons would pose to commercial aviation in Abuja if they fell into Boko Haram hands.”

Out of the 20,000 such weapons in Libya, only 5,000 of them had been secured through a $40m US programme to buy up loose missiles during the fall of the Gadhafi regime. Most are believed to have found their way into  countries that share common boundaries with Nigeria.

  The committee acknowledged that the  Goodluck Jonathan administration had taken some potentially promising steps in its effort to fight Boko Haram.

 It said the appointment of Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd), a northern Nigerian Muslim, to the position of National Security Adviser on June 23, 2012, demonstrated Jonathan’s willingness to give northerners and Muslims a visible role in Nigeria’s struggle with Boko Haram.

“Dasuki has taken the lead in organising government’s fight against Boko Haram, and his background as a Muslim from the North may give him obvious and potent symbolic significance,” the committee said.

In spite of this, the committee observed that concerns regarding the capability of the Jonathan administration to effectively deal with Boko Haram remained prominent.

  The committee said without foreign assistance from countries such as the US and the UK, the Nigerian government would  almost certainly face a prolonged battle in neutralising Boko Haram.

According to the committee, the State Department, which has also engaged Nigeria through its African Coastal and Border Security programme, has focused its assistance on peacekeeping support, training, border and maritime security, and increasing military professionalisation.

But it lamented that in spite of the training, the “JTF  continues to behave unprofessionally, and has been accused of human rights abuses by Human Rights Watch, among other  entities, including the State Department’s most recent annual human rights report.”

It also warned that greater pressure must be applied to the JTF to abandon counter-productive and brutal tactics alienating northerners.

The committee said  failure of the Secretary of State to designate the Boko Haram sect an FTO, was  the ‘most obvious flaw in the US effort to combat it and prevent its expansion.’

It said, “If Boko Haram were to be designated an FTO, it would support US intelligence community efforts to curb the group’s financing, stigmatise and isolate it internationally, heighten public awareness and knowledge, and signal to other governments the US takes the threat from Boko Haram seriously.

“If Boko Haram is not designated an FTO, its potential threat to the US and its capability to attack the homeland would likely increase. It is therefore an urgent next step to take in fighting this growing al Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria.”

The committee further said as the number of attacks perpetrated by Boko Haram had increased in 2013, so had  the attention paid to the group by the US.

UN Security Council passes first resolution on small arms trade

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council passed its first resolution Thursday on restricting the trade in illicit small arms, but Russia refused to back the measure.

Russia was the only member of the 15-nation body not to support the resolution drawn up by Australia, the council's current president.

The measure calls on nations to consider signing a new treaty in conventional arms, as well as for strengthening the implementation of Security Council weapons embargoes and securing arms stockpiles.

Russia, which abstained from the vote, said the resolution should have contained provisions against illegal supplies of arms to non-state groups.

Alexander Pankin, Russia's deputy UN ambassador, told the council the resolution "lacks an important and urgent provision" that his delegation had proposed.

Russia, one of the world's key arms producers and exporters, has shunned the arms treaty. It also often raises the case of "non-state" groups to attack Syrian opposition rebels.

UN leader Ban Ki-moon used the meeting to urge more countries to sign the treaty, which the United States joined on Tuesday.

Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said "the council has taken too long to adopt its first resolution on small arms."

She highlighted how illicit arms and weapons fuel conflict around the world.

"These arms and weapons are linked to terrorism, piracy and transnational organized crime. They are an impediment to peacebuilding efforts everywhere, and pose threats to civilians, peacekeepers, aid workers and civil society organizations."

"The council should consider these issues more systematically, return to this subject with greater frequency and ensure that our commitments today are not forgotten tomorrow," Bishop said.

 

Shebab mocks Kenya, threatens more attacks

NAIROBI: Somalia's Al Qaeda-linked Shebab rebels have threatened more attacks against Kenya, taking to Twitter to mock the country after extremist gunmen attacked a Nairobi shopping mall, killing at least 67
people.

"The mesmeric performance by the Westgate Warriors was undoubtedly
gripping, but despair not folks, that was just the premiere of Act 1," the group said in one of a string of messages posted on Twitter overnight.

The Shebab has said it was responsible for the assault on Westgate, which saw a group of gunmen walk into the part Israeli-owned mall at midday Saturday and gun down shoppers and staff.

Another Shebab message said it had been "a great pleasure to have had you completely enthralled for more than 100 hours. What a wonderful audience you've been!".

It also boasted that the "Kenyan government is still in disarray", saying it "won't be until several months when it fully comprehends exactly what took place at Westgate".

Shebab chief Ahmed Abdi Godane said the Nairobi mall carnage was
retaliation for Kenya's military intervention in Somalia.

Kenya invaded southern Somalia to attack Shebab bases two years ago, and
later joined the 17,700-strong African Union force deployed there.

How dangerous is daydreaming while driving?

You might think you're a good driver. But you, like all other drivers, tend to daydream behind the wheel. Why? It has to do with the way nature wired your brain.

Because millions of sensations bombard us every second, the brain sorts through them to allow only the most important ones to become conscious—for instance, you don't notice what's in your peripheral vision unless something moves there. It's just the way the brain evolved to protect it from self-destructing. If it allowed too many sensations to get through, we would be paralyzed by the massive sensory overload. The downside to this is that your mind has a narrow attention span, so it likes to wander—a lot. That beer you're thinking about having when you get home from work could distract you long enough to expose you to danger while behind the wheel. Daydreaming can't be eliminated, only minimized.

Just how dangerous is daydreaming while driving? When the Erie Insurance Group studied 65,000 fatal crashes over a two-year span (2010–11), its researchers found that one in 10 were attributed to driver distraction, and 62 percent were blamed on daydreaming—five times as many as talking or texting on a mobile phone. The study was based on a nationwide database, kept by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, called the Fatality Analysis Reporting System, or FARS, that tracks all vehicle deaths. "The results were disturbing," says Erie senior vice president Doug Smith.



What's sneaky about daydream driving is that you may feel totally aware of your environment but be out of conscious contact with it. You're not really seeing what you're looking at. For example, most of us know the sensation of suddenly snapping to attention during a long stretch of highway or getting home from a drive and not remembering parts of the trip.

While your conscious mind wanders off, your subconscious takes over the wheel. Yes, an emergency can jar you back to full awareness, but your reaction time and sense of perception will suffer when you're not paying full attention.

If you can't eliminate daydream driving, how can you minimize it?

• Keep your eyes moving. Change your gaze every 2 seconds. Any longer and you tend to stare, which induces mind wandering and narrowing of peripheral vision. Tiring? No. The eyes were designed to keep in motion.

• To keep alert, interact with your environs by imagining "what-if" scenarios. What if that oncoming car crosses over? What if that truck ahead suddenly stops? All those what-ifs you're visualizing feed your subconscious with some valuable data to reprogram your brain for your benefit. They may provide you with a better accident-evasion plan than the one you've imagined should a similar event actually happen.

• Chew something. Really. Crunchy foods will keep you alert. Even chewing gum works. One psychology professor advised drivers to chew peanut brittle, calories notwithstanding. Besides the noise made from crunching, he said that searching for the peanuts was oral therapy.

• Try different driving routes when possible. Driving the same long route is boring, and your mind is more prone to wander when it encounters the same repetitive conditions. It's called habituation. Perry Buffington, a medical columnist, says, "simply put, we get used to things, and when we do, they're no longer important to us." Daydreaming results. And you notice fewer things when you're bored, even if you're not daydreaming.

If you want to become more alert behind the wheel, you must first want to. But even with the best intentions, you still have to be on guard. Daydream driving will hit you when you least expect it.

Judges uphold Charles Taylor's 50-year jail sentence

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor (left) waits on Sept. 26, 2013 in the courtroom of the Special Court for Sierra Leone in The Hague before the start of his appeal judgement.

An international war crimes court on Thursday upheld the conviction and 50-year sentence of former Liberian President Charles Taylor for aiding rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone, saying his financial, material and tactical support made possible horrendous crimes against civilians.
The appeals chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone upheld the 65-year-old Taylor's conviction on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity including terrorism, murder, rape and using child soldiers.
Taylor's conviction in April 2012 was hailed as ushering in a new era of accountability for heads of state. He was the first former head of state convicted by an international war crimes court since World War II.
Taylor, wearing a black suit and gold-colored tie, showed little emotion as he stood while Presiding Judge George Gelaga King read the unanimous verdict of the six-judge panel. He is expected to serve his sentence in a British maximum security prison.
"Taylor's conviction sends a powerful message that those at the top can be held to account on the gravest crimes," said Elise Keppler of Human Rights Watch. "The Taylor trial, and the Sierra Leone Special Court's work overall, have made a major contribution to justice for brutal crimes committed during Sierra Leone's conflict.''
Steven Rapp, ambassador for war crimes issues at the U.S. Department of State -- and former Prosecutor at the Sierra Leone court -- said the ruling "sends a clear message to all the world, that when you commit crimes like this, it may not happen overnight, but there will be a day of reckoning."
The court found Taylor provided crucial aid to rebels in Sierra Leone during its 11-year civil war that left an estimated 50,000 people dead before its conclusion in 2002.
Thousands more were left mutilated in a conflict that became known for the extreme cruelty of rival rebel groups who gained international notoriety for hacking off the limbs of their victims and carving their groups' initials into opponents. The rebels developed gruesome terms for the mutilations that became their chilling trademark: They would offer their victims the choice of "long sleeves" or "short sleeves" -- having their hands hacked off or their arms sliced off above the elbow.
Taylor was convicted not only of aiding and abetting Sierra Leone rebels from his seat of power in neighboring Liberia, but also for actually planning some of the attacks carried out by Sierra Leone rebel groups the Revolutionary United Front and the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council.  In return he was given "blood diamonds" mined by slave laborers in Sierra Leone and gained political influence in the volatile West African region.
Thursday's ruling goes against an appeals decision by the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in which former Serbian Gen. Momcilo Perisic was acquitted of aiding and abetting war crimes.
Judges at the ICTY said that in order to aid and abet a crime, a suspect has to have "specifically directed" aid toward committing crimes.
But judges in the Taylor case openly disagreed with that: they said the key to culpability for aiding and abetting a crime is that a suspect's participation encourages the commission of crimes and has a substantial effect on the crimes actually being committed -- not the particular manner in which a suspect is involved.
Taylor's trial was moved from the Special Court of Sierra Leone's headquarters in the capital, Freetown, to the Netherlands because of fears it could destabilize the West African region if held in Sierra Leone.
The Taylor appeals ruling is the final judgment at the court, which indicted 13 of the main architects of the atrocities in Sierra Leone. Two died before trial and one more remains unaccounted for and possibly dead. Another died before hearing a verdict and all the others were tried and convicted.

Market blasts kill 19 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD: Militants bombed two crowded markets in Baghdad province on Thursday, killing at least 19 people and wounding some 50 others, officials said.

Four bombs in Saba al-Bur north of the capital killed at least 12 people, while another in Dura in south Baghdad killed seven, the officials said.

Militants in Iraq often bomb areas where crowds of people gather, and have targeted markets, football fields, cafes mosques, weddings and funerals this year.

Iraq is witnessing the worst violence since 2008, when the country was just emerging from a brutal sectarian conflict.

There are persistent fears that Iraq will return to the all-out sectarian violence that peaked in 2006-2007 and killed tens of thousands of people.

With the latest violence, almost 700 people have been killed this month and over 4,500 since the beginning of the year, according to AFP figures based on security and medical sources

US churches hold special services for Pak church victims

DALLAS: Local churches in Dallas-Fort Worth held special services for the 81 dead and 147 injured in the suicide attack on a Christian church last Sunday in Peshawar.

Pastor Giyan Deen of All Nation Lutheran Church of Plano and Presbyterian Church pastor George Maseeh and South Asian Presbyterian Church of Garland's pastor Oliver Jamshed held special prayers for the victims of the deadly attack.

Addressing the church gatherings they said that Christian communities around the world are very much concerned on the pain and suffering Pakistani Christians have gone through from the heartless act of violence. They said that a handful of people are trying to achieve their nefarious designs through targeting minority communities in Pakistan.

Local Pakistani Christian leaders Arif Bhatti and Pervez Shahzad also condemned the Peshawar bombing of Christian church and killing of innocent and peaceful members of Christian community. They said that Christians are peaceful community and this kind of cowardly acts will not end stop us in spreading the message of peace and love of Christianity.

They said that we always believed that a good Muslim protects the lives and livelihood of minorities but a small group of bandits are enemies of not only Christianity but also of Islam.

Moreover, Pakistan American Association of Texas (PAAT) in a special emergency joint board and executive committee meeting condemned the dastardly act of violence against the house of worship of Christian community of Pakistan on 21st September.

Loss of 81 innocent lives and injuries to more than 200 Pakistanis of Christian faith is devastating not only to Christians but the whole Pakistani nation.

PAAT President Dr. Amer Suleman expressing the sorrow over the shameful act of few extremists said that "Every drop of Pakistani blood is precious for Pakistan regardless of race, creed, ethnicity and religion. People of Pakistan should unite against the existential threat Pakistan is facing from extremism and fanaticism".

He further said that government of Pakistan should guarantee the safety of all its citizen and especially religious minorities. Pakistani Christian community has great contribution in Pakistan's development and is integral part of Pakistani nationalism. Their contributions are not limited to arts and culture but are part of Pakistani traditions in law, science and in Pakistan's defense forces.

Christian community's contributions in the field of education are a hallmark of Pakistani scholarship. Pakistani society should join hands to protect the state from barbaric and shameful acts of few extremists.

PAAT in a unanimously passed resolution demanded all state institutions to work together above all political considerations in protection of Pakistani citizens irrespective of race, creed, gender and religion. Special arrangements should be made to protect religious institutions of all faiths and sects and places of worships.

SEX IN STRANGE PLACES

These couple below who were caught romping on a city wall were not the only ones to display bare-faced cheek in the pursuit of passion.

A couple who had an intimate encounter in Shrewsbury town centre were left blushing after their steamy session was caught on CCTV.
Kevin Naylor, 25, was given a nine-month conditional discharge for drunk and disorderly behaviour while girlfriend Catherine Hughes, 19, received a caution.
But other lovers have been caught in similarly public acts in even odder places.
Check out some of the most unusual places people have got down and dirty in public…
Clock Tower


The stark unclad pair picked the balcony of the 105-year-old clock tower of the Grace Brothers building in Sydney, Australia, for their tryst. Situated opposite the Broadway Shopping Centre, they romped in full view of passers by below.

At a tram stop

A unclad couple caught having s*x at a tram stop in romantic Croydon were ordered to move on when they were caught live on CCTV.
In a phonebox

One couple took more than the law into their own hands – with a 40 minute phone box romp in full-on view right by Brighton JPs’ court in 2008.
In court
Judge Donald Thompson was jailed after being found guilty of using a man-hood pump while he was presiding over cases.
According to witnesses at his 2006 trial in Oklahoma, he used the s*x aid when cases were either incredibly boring or really sexy – you know how it is with murder trials. He was banged up for four years and disbarred.
In church
A couple in Cesena, Italy, put a whole new spin on worship when they ’took communion’ in the confessional booth during morning mass.
The police were called after members of the congregation heard ‘grunts and moans’. The couple – who were drunk – were cautioned for obscene acts and disturbing a religious function, which ‘religious function’ was disturbed we ask?

I Became A Policeman Because Of Free Transportation – Fake Policeman

A mild drama unfolded at the Ikotun Police Division after a 48-year-old fake policeman rolled on the floor and cried, begging to be released.
The suspect, identified as Felix Braimoh, who was arrested in Ejigbo area of Lagos, said he was forced to impersonate a policeman to feed his children and also enjoy free transportation around Lagos.
Clad in a Mobile Police trousers and a beret, the father of five reportedly boarded a motorcycle from Cele Bus Stop, along Oshodi/Apapa expressway, to Ikotun.
However, on reaching Ejigbo the motorcycle rider, a Police Corporal, engaged Briamoh in a conversation about his division.

His inability to give a proper response aroused the suspicion of the rider, who reportedly stopped the motorbike and confronted Braimoh.
Just then, a Police patrol team from Ikotun Division stopped to question both men and took them to the station.
During interrogation, Braimoh reportedly disclosed that he was not a policeman.
Asked where he got the police uniform from, Braimoh said: “A friend gave them to me.
“The pair of trousers is a mobile Police’s, the boots belong to a Man O’ War official, while I bought the beret from the market.” [Vanguard]

Police Exhume Car Buried With Charred Bodies Inside In Nasarawa

A CAR BEING DUG OUT OF A RIVERSIDE IN OBI LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF NASARAWA STATE LAST WEEKEND. THE DRIVER OF THE CAR AND TWO OCCUPANTS —MANAGING DIRECTOR OF POLICE MICROFINANCE BANK ALHAJI HASSAN GIDADO AND THE MANAGER OF THE BANK’S BRANCH IN ABUJA, MR. TUNDE BANWO — WERE KILLED BY PEOPLE SUSPECTED TO BE MEMBERS OF THE OMBATSE GROUP AND BURIED WITH THEIR CAR. (THE NATION)

Three bodies belonging to two bankers and their driver have been dug up from a riverside in Nasarawa State, centre of violent clashes between Alago and Eggon youths in recent times.

The deceased were allegedly ambushed by suspected Ombatse cultists, who took them to the bush, killed and then set their bodies ablaze with their car before burying them inside the car by the riverside.
The incident reportedly happened at Tudun Adabu in Obi Local Government.
Already, 14 suspects have been arrested by the Nasarawa Police Command in connection with the murder.
The deceased bankers were identified as Alhaji Hassan Gidado, who was the managing director of the Police Microfinance Bank, and Mr. Tunde Banwo.

The state Commissioner of Police, Umar Shehu, who made this known at a news conference on Monday in Lafia, the state capital, said after the bodies were exhumed, they were deposited at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital in Lafia.
The bankers, who lived in Abuja, were in Lafia for the wedding of a child of the police commissioner-in-charge of Cooperatives when they met their untimely death.
Mr. Shehu said the suspected killers would soon be charged to court just as he assured residents that measures had been taken to curb the activities of the outlawed Ombatse group.
It would be recalled that the group was responsible for the massacre of more than 60 security operatives some few months ago and in similar fashion with the recent incident, set the bodies of the security officers ablaze.

Former Defence Minister Danjuma Donates N500m To Youth Training Centre

T.Y. Danjuma

General T.Y. Danjuma, has announced a donation of N500m for the completion of the Abeokuta Youth Centre for Industrial Training, an outreach of the Peter Akinola Foundation.

The generous donation of the former minister of defence doubles the total amount requested by the Founder, Rev. Jasper Peter Akinola, who had earlier indicated in his address that about N250m was required to complete the centre.

Akinola

Lamenting the spate of youth unemployment in the country while speaking at the second graduation ceremony of the centre, Danjuma said the first installment of N200m would be made available on 1 October,2013 to commemorate the Nation’s 53rd independence anniversary, an announcement greeted with a thunderous ovation.
He said N100m each would be paid annually.
“Next to insecurity today in Nigeria, is youth unemployment. We have to do everything possible to reduce the situation. Last year, when I came here, Rev. Akinola brought me from the old centre to this new site, and he told me that the next graduation will hold here. So, when he reminded me of this programme yesterday, I was wondering how
this place will look.

“But, I am very happy about what I have seen here. I should not be surprised anyway, because when Rev. Akinola was the Anglican Primate, the movement of the Anglican Church headquarters was done with passion and commitment. And that is what I have found here,” Danjuma said.
“We have to give him the support. And I am going to make this donation. Listen carefully, I am donating for this Centre N500m. The first installment will be made on October 1st, to celebrate our independence and it is going to be N200m”.
Represented at the event by the Secretary to the State Government, Taiwo Adeoluwa, Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State in his remark said, the government would do everything possible to support the centre, describing the gesture of the former Chief of Defence Staff as a “big challenge”.
He said Akinola’s project “keys into the mission of the present administration to rebuild the state”.
In his keynote address, the Bishop of Anglican church, Asaba, Rev. Justus Emeka Mogekwu said the unemployment situation among the young men and women is poisoning their minds against the society.
Mogekwu said the centre had five aims, which include, “to enable the huge population of out-of-school adolescents and teenagers to acquire effective skill and to spread evangelism among others.