Gistlite

It was a surprise concert performance by Alicia Keys in Times Square in New York City over the weekend. She looked stunning even without make-up.
More photos after the cut...

A man named Engr Godwin Apple is leading a campaign to get justice for a girl brutalized by the wife of a lecturer at Federal College of Education, Obudu, Cross River state (FCE Obudu). The woman, Ijeoma Oha, pictured (left) with her husband. Dr Amechi, tortured the girl (right) constantly but finally met her waterloo when a vigilante group intervened. According to Engr Godwin, the girl was heard crying in the night during the torture.

"It attracted the attention of the Vigilante group in the area there in Obudu, and they rushed immediately only to find the little girl in a very weak point, almost out of life.

 As they made an attempt to invite the Police, the lady 'Ijeoma Oha' offered them a N3,000.00 bribe so that they can over-look the situation. God however helped the vigilante group to insist in inviting the police and the girl was taken to the Secret Heart Hospital Obudu. Mrs Ijeoma Oha was taken away by the police from the Nigerian Police Command"

Ambassador Godwin Apple Agim is inviting the operational bodies of UNICEF, UPF, UN and the Nigerian States Security Service SSS "to commence the arrest of one Dr. Amechi Oha. A Chief Lecturer in Igbo department, FCE Obudu. He and his wife Mrs Ijeoma Amechi Oha, adopted, enslaved, concealed and assaulted this little girl they used as a house maid. They should both be charged for crimes against humanity."

The 13-year-old, Mahendra Ahirwar, whose head hung at a 180-degree angle and whose future once looked so bleak, was an outcast in his own village. He was unable to stand straight or walk, and needed help to eat and go to the toilet. Even his desperate parents said they would rather he die than continue to suffer.

But everything changed thanks to the love and kindness of strangers from around the world.
Shortly after his sad story was publicized, Mahendra received life-changing surgery to straighten his neck - for free.





After reading about the boy’s tragic plight, Julie Jones, a mother-of-two from Britain, decided to help. She initiated a fund-raising website, and soon received overwhelming support - within 28 days the page had raised 12,000 British pounds, which made Mahendra’s operation possible.

Then Dr. Rajagopalan Krishnan, a senior consultant and spinal surgeon from Apollo Hospital in Delhi, offered to perform the risky surgery. The medical team opened up the front part of Mahendra’s neck - leaving the front of his cervical spine completely exposed.



Now Mahendra can finally see the world “straight.” The boy’s father, Mukesh, told the Daily Mail: “He looks great. His neck is straight. His life is so very different.”
Dr. Krishnan said he will continue to monitor Mahendra's progress but so far he’s overjoyed with the boy’s recovery.
“It’s remarkable to see him today. He’s now able to hold his head up straight and his instrumented levels are fusing well,” he said. “The X-rays have shown no failures so far.”
“I’ll continue to see him every three months over the next year,” Dr. Krishnan continued. “I expect he will need further surgery one day and I’ll need to see him regularly in anticipation of this problem. But now I expect him to live a normal life span and a lot more comfortably than he has done over the last 12 years.”

(Photos credited to Cover Asia Press and cctvnews)

The two popular Smart phone brands, Samsung and Apple, are going head to head before the highest court in the United States in an argument over design patents and the company’s smart phones.

According to a CCTV America's reporter, Samsung played defense on Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices raised questions about how much the company should be required to pay in a high-stakes lawsuit.

At issue, whether the penalty against Samsung for copying a protected design should be total profits of the copy, or just part of the profits.

Apple alleges Samsung copied the iPhone’s round edges, home button and application interface. A lower court agreed – and awarded Apple $399 million.

“Samsung applied Apple’s iconic designs for one reason and one reason only and that was to sell phones,” Apple attorney Seth Waxman said.

But Samsung argues consumers buy smart phones, not just for what they look like but for how they work. Calculating a component’s contribution to that sale, its attorneys said is a better way to award damages.

“The total profits on a phone do not come altogether from the front face of the phone,” Samsung attorney, Kathleen Sullivan said.

Tech giants Facebook and Google backed Samsung’s argument. Fashion designer, Calvin Klein, sided with Apple.

Apple said design has never been more important and forcing knock-off artists to pay a high price will make counterfeiters think twice. Samsung counters that its phones contain more than 200,000 other patents that Apple does not own. So paying on the profits of the entire phone is unfair.

The justices will release their decision in June of next year.

A British national has reportedly been arrested in Kenya on suspicion of recruiting for the jihadist militant group al-Shabaab.

The suspect was arrested alongside two women of Somali origin at a house in an up-market neighbourhood of the Kenyan capital Nairobi, not far from the UN headquarters in the country.
According to The Star newspaper, police said they found items in the house including training literature.

The three were arrested by detectives from Flying Squad and the Special Crime Prevention Unit in a noon raid on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office told The Independent: “We are seeking information from Kenyan authorities following reports that a British national has been detained in Nairobi.”

Last week, al-Shabaab militants killed six people in an attack in northern Kenya near the border with Somalia.
The incident took place at a residential block housing 33 non-Muslims near the Bulla area of Mandera county, and only the quick response of security forces prevented the death toll being higher, according to the local governor.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility through its Andulus radio station, saying it was “a well-planned attack which targeted Christian members in Mandera”.
Kenya has suffered a wave of attacks from al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabaab since 2011, when it sent troops into neighbouring Somalia to fight the extremist insurgency.

The Electoral Commission of Ghana has disqualified thirteen presidential candidates from contesting this year’s elections, only four are quaified.

Below are the names of the four qualified presidential candidates that are qualified to contest in this year's Ghana presidential election as announced the EC Chairman, Charlotte Osei, on Tuesday in Accra.

1. John Mahama of the governing National Democratic Congress
2. Nana Akufo-Addo of the main opposition New Patriotic Party
3.  Ivor Greenstreet of the Convention People’s Party; and
4. Jacob Osei-Yeboah, an independent candidate.

She said that the nominees have been excluded from the 2016 race as presidential candidates for violating various aspects of the electoral laws of Ghana.
Osei added that the reasons include fraudulent signatures, absence of required number of signatures, and improper filling of nomination forms.
She added that some of the fraudulent information provided by the nominees would be followed up by the police for possible arrest and prosecution.
Ghana goes to the polls on Dec. 7 to elect a president and 275 Members of Parliament.

The EFCC is prosecuting Badeh alongside a firm, Iyalikam Nigeria Limited, on 10 counts of money laundering bordering on alleged fraudulent removal of about N3.97bn from the Nigerian Air Force account.

According to a prosecution witness who is a former Director of Finance and Account of the Nigerian Air Force, Air Commodore Aliyu Yishau (retd.), against Badeh, had informed the court that while Badeh was the Chief of Air Staff, he routinely helped Badeh to divert the sum of N558.2m by converting it to its dollar equivalent.

He said he personally helped Badeh to buy the N1.1bn property which has now been converted to Federal Government’s use.

He had said, “Sometime in January 2013, when I was taking the normal amount to him (Badeh) in dollars, he directed that we should pay for the house. So, he brought out the balance in dollars and made up the equivalent of N1.1bn.”

According to a punchng reporter who approached one of the workers, he said, “The property was given to us by the government to work. I know that the EFCC seized the property some months ago but it was given to us to work.”

The EFCC lawyer, Mr. Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), had told the court that the EFCC searched the property and recovered $1m in cash.

Jacobs said although Badeh had denied ownership of the property, his belongings, including photographs, were found in it during a search by the operatives of the commission.

Our correspondent learnt that the decision to convert Badeh’s property may be connected to the Federal Government’s plan to convert seized properties to government use and save cost.

It will be recalled that the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, had disclosed at the opening of a meeting with the members of the National Steering Committee of the Efficiency Unit on June 10, 2016, that the Muhammadu Buhari-led government was planning to convert some of the seized properties to offices in a bid to save money spent on rent.

Bruno Mars will return to the global concert stage when he performs his fun-loving new song at the MTV European Music Awards, the network announced Tuesday.

The singer, who scored a string of hits before taking a hiatus, will sing his “24K Magic” at the EMAs, which will be broadcast live on November 6 from Rotterdam.

The youth network said that Mars was the first in a series of performers it would announce for the televised spectacle geared toward MTV’s international audience.

“24K Magic,” a party anthem with synthesizers and funk beats reminiscent of early Janet Jackson, came out last week as the first single off Mars’s album of the same name that will come out on November 18.



The 31-year-old multi-instrumentalist from Hawaii became a fixture on Top 40 radio with pop tracks from his last album, 2012’s “Unorthodox Jukebox.”

Mars had been comparatively silent as he prepared his new album but played the Super Bowl halftime show in February and on Saturday will appear on “Saturday Night Live,” both major draws on US television.

Beyonce, who triumphed in MTV’s signature Video Music Awards in New York in August, is tied with Justin Bieber for the most nominations at the European show.

AFP

Veteran Nollywood actress Rita Edochie has been criticized almost every time  by people bothered by the way she does her makeup. She took to her social media accounts to sound off on her critics, advising them to mind their business and move on. In her words:

"One man's meat.....when you see most of them that are almost nude, you don't say anything bcos  they are the kind of pictures you all like. You will keep seeing my makeup (black pencil) and will keep getting scared until you get off or you learn how to mind your business. Chaaaaiiiii i Love myself so so much."

The federal ministry of education has denied some media reports on the cost of building VIP toilets in riverine areas – The ministry says the toilets cost N6million and not N50million.

Six toilets in upland areas also cost N4million and not N40million, the ministry says The federal ministry of education has denied some media reports which wrongly quoted the cost of building VIP toilets in riverine areas.

Nigeria’s minister of education, Adamu Adamu The deputy director, press in the ministry, Ben Bem Goong, said in a statement distributed to journalists, that the N50m and N40m quoted as costs in a recent report was for three projects depending on location which included

“VIP toilets and bathrooms in hostels and classroom areas, provision of modern kitchen and renovation of dining halls and borehole and reticulation of water.

“It is not a repetition of the same project in the 2014 and 2015 budgets, rather the same project is being replicated in different schools,” part of the statement read. 

Goong stated that it was wrong to pick one item and give it the cost of three projects. He also said the project is ongoing across 104 unity schools, adding that government would continue to roll it over until all the schools benefit.

According to him, a VIP toilet means pit toilet with improved ventilation, incorporating features to enhance sanitation and health, and not luxury toilets.
Meanwhile, the federal government of Nigeria is set to realise N20 billion from the sale of two presidential jets.  Sources quoted in the report says the estimate is based on the current market value of the jets – Falcon 7X and Hawker 4000. Aviation experts also corroborated the valuation of the aircraft.