The Common Transformation President Jonathan inaugurates Development Bank of Nigeria on March 23, 2015 /in News 7:38 pm

 

Abuja – President Goodluck Jonathan, on Monday in Abuja inaugurated the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) in furtherance of his administration’s desire to revolutionise small businesses in the country.

Speaking at the event, Jonathan expressed optimism that the bank would eliminate all obstacles hindering the growth of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and their ability to generate the much needed jobs for the country.
According to him, the DBN, which is a private sector driven financial institution, is meant alleviate the financial constraints being experienced by operators of small businesses for rapid and

sustainable national development.

“This launch of a brand new financial institution, the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN), represents a defining milestone in our administration’s efforts to empower more micro, small and medium enterprises across our land‎.
“MSMEs form the backbone of the Nigerian economy; the men and women who own and operate them are true reflections of the strong Nigerian spirit

What a wickid world Hong Kong man who salted and cooked parents jailed for life on March 23, 2015 / in News 1:09 pm

A Hong Kong man who killed, dismembered, salted and cooked his parents was sent to prison for life on Monday after being found guilty of double murder. The conviction of Henry Chau, 31, on Friday concluded a gruesome case that shocked the city in 2013 when the severed heads of Chau’s elderly parents were found stuffed into two refrigerators.

During the 20-day trial at the city’s high court, the jury heard how Chau had dismembered his elderly parents before salting, cooking and packing their body parts into lunchboxes “like barbecued pork”.
“Your sentence on Count 1 and Count 2 is that you go to prison for life,” judge Michael Stuart-Moore told Chau, referring to the double murder charges. Sitting in the defendant’s dock, Chau, who wore a loose-fitting grey suit, looked impassive

Tunisian president says security failures helped museum killers

 Tunisian police stand guard at Carthage international airport in Tunis, after security was stepped up. Photograph:

The Tunisian president, Beji Caid Essebsi, said security “failures” facilitated the deadly attack claimed by Isis on the country’s national museum, which killed 20 foreign tourists.

“There were failures” which meant that “the police and intelligence were not systematic enough to ensure the safety of the museum”, Essebsi told the Paris Match weekly in an interview published on Saturday.
Twenty-one people, all but one of them foreign tourists, were killed when two gunmen stormed the National Bardo Museum in the capital Tunis on Wednesday.

Afghan woman killed by mob in Kabul was innocent, says investigator

Women’s rights activists carry Farkhunda’s coffin. Photograph:

A woman killed by an angry mob in front of police in the Afghan capital last week for allegedly burning a copy of Islam’s holy book was wrongly accused, Afghanistan’s top criminal investigator has said.

Mobile phone footage circulating on social media shows police at the scene did not save the 27-year-old woman, Farkhunda, who was beaten

Buhari certificate saga: Tension in APC camp over court case on March 22, 2015 / in News 10:48 am

There is tension in the opposition All Progressives Congress as a Federal High Court in Abuja, presided over by Justice Abdu Kafarati, has given an order for accelerated hearing in a suit brought by a non-governmental organisation, Global Center for Conscious Living Against Corruption, asking for an order of mandamus to compel the Inspector General of Police to investigate allegations of forgery and perjury against the party’s presidential candidate, Gen Muhammadu Buhari.

In the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/172/2015, filed by Professor Andrew Chukwuemerie, SAN, the plaintiffs are seeking the order of the court to order police investigation into the “alleged acquisition and possession

Wonderful thing Amaechi’s deputy dumps APC on March 22, 2015 / in News 6:44 pm

The deputy to Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, Mr Tele Ikuru, Sunday, dumped his All Progressives Congress, APC, for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, describing the APC “As a party of rebels, insurgents and anarchists, clothed in robes

‘World’s worst team’ Bhutan aim to make history against Sri Lanka

Bhutan have won only four games in 33 years and once lost a match 20–0 – but the tiny Himalayan country now stand on the brink of an unimaginable success against Sri Lanka in the 2018 World Cup qualifers

 
Bhutanese football player Tshering Dorji, far left, celebrates after scoring the winner in the first leg against Sri Lanka. Photograph:

Nick Ames

Monday 16 March 2015 15.16 GMT.
Thimphu is hard to reach and, as the world’s third-highest capital city at 2,648m, even tougher for the unacclimatised to play a potential 120 minutes of football in. But it is safe to say that Sri Lanka’s footballers were not expecting a task of the gravity they will face on Tuesday, when they must overturn a 1-0 deficit in Bhutan against a team that sit bottom – at 209 – of Fifa’s world rankings and are inevitable dubbed the world’s worst as a consequence.
Nobody gave the tiny Himalayan country a chance in their first-ever World Cup qualifier last Thursday but a late winner from Tshering Dorji gave them a hitherto-unthinkable lead that they feel optimistic of retaining in the rarefied air of Changlimithang Stadium.

“Everyone was talking about us being at the bottom but we didn’t feel any pressure because you can only go one way from there and that’s upwards,” the Bhutan captain, Karma Shedrup Tshering, tells the Guardian. “All the expectation was on Sri Lanka and they were talking a lot about beating us, but we kept our calm and let our football talk for us.”
The Fifa rankings are not always the most accurate barometer and teams can be blessed or cursed by playing a smaller number of games than others – with some strange-looking changes resulting. Tuesday’s match will only be Bhutan’s 60th official fixture since 1982, and the remarkable win in Colombo was only their fourth. They have not played a game in Thimphu since April 2003.

Such a record gives little scope for a leap in the other direction and what publicity Bhutan’s team have attracted owes entirely to their lowly position. In 2002 they participated in the ‘Other Final’ against Montserrat, winning 4-0 in a game arranged between the two lowest teams in the rankings (Montserrat were bottom) and marketed to provide an alternative to the World Cup final. Less positively, a then-world record 20-0 defeat in Kuwait received inevitable attention in 2000.
“Our coach, Chokey Nima, played in that game but most of our players were hardly old enough to walk or talk when it happened,” says Tshering. “None