Oscar Pistorius Repeatedly Vomits in the court room

 

Oscar Pistorius, on trial in Pretoria, South Africa for the killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, was today overcome during testimony about Steenkamp's autopsy that he uncontrollably vomited several times.

As the state threw up its latest witness — forensic pathologist Prof. Gert Saayman, to reveal details of the postmortem done on Reeva Steenkamp's body — and thereby the gruesome details of just how she died, Pistorius lurched and retched, forcing the court to stop.

Oscar went pale on hearing the precise details of what the bullets he fired did to his girlfriend on Valentine's
Day, causing the court to be stopped three times in the morning session to allow him to compose himself.
But it didn't help.

Eventually Pistorius' counsel Barry Roux told the court, "We must go on, it won't get better."

Armed with a blue bucket, Oscar sat crouched down, fingers clasped behind his head, spit dribbling downward as the rest of the packed courtroom listened to the gripping testimony unfold.

Aisha Falode's son dies in fatal car crash

 

The only son of popular sports correspondent on AIT and CAF Media Committee member Aisha Falode, Toba Falode has died. Toba, known professionally as Tyler Fray Faloda died over the weekend in a fatal car accident. The late budding musician and rapper was a student of a University in Dubai. May his soul rest in peace. Amen.

Commotion in hospital over newborn’s missing placenta

The father of a newborn baby, Kayode Alatise, caused a stir at the Otunba Tunwase National Paediatric Centre, Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State, on Wednesday over the alleged “disappearance” of his baby’s placenta.

Alatise alleged that the hospital management told him on Monday when his wife, Falilat, delivered their first baby that the placenta was missing.

He caused commotion as he threatened doctors and nurses at the centre located along the Sagamu-Benin Expressway.

The father of the baby insisted that neither him nor his wife was given the baby’s placenta, adding he rejected the placenta the hospital later attempted to return to him because he was not sure it was actually his baby’s own.

He said, “We were referred to this hospital, and when we got here they demanded N230,000 for caesarian section. I was told that if I did not pay N50,000 deposit, they would not commence surgery. I begged them that night, but they said they would not do the operation until I paid. Before I got the money, it was already 8am.

“After the operation, my wife asked me if I had collected the placenta, but I told her no. The nurses and the ward security now came to tell me that they saw me when I went to the surgery room to take the placenta.

“After I  reported the matter to the police, they now called me to say that they had found the placenta. But how am I sure that that is my baby’s placenta.  They told me on Monday that the placenta had got lost.”

The Deputy Medical Director and Consultant Gynaecologist/Obstetrician, Dr. Oladayo Ogunlaja, who took delivery of the baby, denied the allegation that any placenta got missing.

Ogunlaja said the placenta was only mistakenly taken into the hospital’s laundry by the cleaning attendant who cleared out the Operating Room after Alatise’s wife was delivered of the baby.

He added that if Alatise was not sure that the placenta given to him was his baby’s, he could do a scientific test to prove its genuineness.

He said, “The patient was actually a referred patient. She was referred from the State Hospital, Ijebu Ode, on Monday around 3am. She had been in labour, probably at a traditional birth attendant centre, and she was referred to the state hospital from where she was referred here.

“On getting here, she didn’t have money and there was no blood. Because of that, we could not do the surgery. We only admitted and stabilised her.

“By 8am, we eventually had the caesarian section. The mother was fine and the baby was fine. The practice here is that placenta should be handed over to the mother or father, but there was a mix-up. The father did not request for it and the attendant that cleaned the rtoom saw the nylon bag and took it down to the laundry.

“Around 7pm yesterday (Tuesday), that was over 36 hours after, they now requested for the placenta and it became an issue. We started calling the workers that were involved. We had delivered close to a thousand babies here and we have never had such an issue. So, we started searching.

“Fortunately this morning, we went to the laundry and lo and behold we saw the nylon bag with the decomposing placenta still fresh with the blood. As soon as we found it, we called the people involved and we gave it to them.  It was the Chief Nursing Officer that gave the placenta back and I think he should be happy that the placenta has been given to him.

“If he is not sure that that is his baby’s placenta, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital has just built a new diagnostic centre where it can be tested. They can take it there. But I am sure that is the placenta of the baby because all those babies that were delivered before and after that period, their placentas were given to their parents.”

The award-winning author Chimamanda Adichie has come out to lambast the law against homosexuality.

Why can’t he just be like everyone else?’  written by award winning writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

I will call him Sochukwuma. A thin,  smiling boy who liked to play with us girls at the university primary  school in Nsukka. We were young. We knew he was different, we said,  ‘he’s not like the other boys.’ But his was a benign and unquestioned  difference; it was simply what it was. We did not have a name for him.  We did not know the word ‘gay.’ He was Sochukwuma and he was friendly  and he played oga so well that his side always won.

In secondary school, some boys in his  class tried to throw Sochukwuma off a second floor balcony. They were  strapping teenagers who had learned to notice, and fear, difference.  They had a name for him. Homo. They mocked him because his hips swayed  when he walked and his hands fluttered when he spoke. He brushed away  their taunts, silently, sometimes grinning an uncomfortable grin. He  must have wished that he could be what they wanted him to be. I imagine  now how helplessly lonely he must have felt. The boys often asked, “Why  can’t he just be like everyone else?”

Possible answers to that question  include ‘because he is abnormal,’ ‘because he is a sinner, ‘because he  chose the lifestyle.’ But the truest answer is ‘We don’t know.’ There is humility and humanity in accepting that there are things we simply don’t know. At the age of 8, Sochukwuma was obviously different.  It was not about sex, because it could not possibly have been – his hormones were of course not yet fully formed – but it was an awareness of  himself, and other children’s awareness of him, as different. He could  not have ‘chosen the lifestyle’ because he was too young to do so. And why would he – or anybody – choose to be homosexual in a world that  makes life so difficult for homosexuals?

The new law that criminalizes homosexuality is popular among Nigerians. But it shows a failure of our democracy, because the mark of a true democracy is not in the rule of its majority but in the protection of its minority – otherwise mob justice would be considered democratic. The law is also unconstitutional, ambiguous, and a strange priority in a country with so many real problems. Above all else, however, it is unjust. Even if this was not a country of abysmal electricity supply where university graduates are barely literate and people die of easily-treatable causes and Boko Haram commits casual mass murders, this law would still be unjust.  We cannot be a just society unless we are able to accommodate benign difference, accept benign difference, live and let live. We may not understand homosexuality, we may find it personally abhorrent but our response cannot be to criminalize it.

A crime is a crime for a reason. A crime has victims. A crime harms society. On what basis is homosexuality a crime? Adults do no harm to society in how they love and whom they love. This is a law that will not prevent crime, but will, instead, lead to crimes of violence: there are already, in different parts of Nigeria, attacks on people ‘suspected’ of being gay. Ours is a society where men are openly affectionate with one another. Men hold hands. Men hug each other. Shall we now arrest friends who share a hotel room, or who walk side by side? How do we determine the clunky expressions in the law – ‘mutually beneficial,’ ‘directly or indirectly?’

Many Nigerians support the law because they believe the Bible condemns homosexuality. The Bible can be a basis  for how we choose to live our personal lives, but it cannot be a basis  for the laws we pass, not only because the holy books of different  religions do not have equal significance for all Nigerians but also  because the holy books are read differently by different people. The Bible, for example, also condemns fornication and adultery and divorce,  but they are not crimes.

For supporters of the law, there seems to be something about homosexuality that sets it apart. A sense that it is not ‘normal.’ If we are part of a majority group, we tend to think  others in minority groups are abnormal, not because they have done  anything wrong, but because we have defined normal to be what we are and since they are not like us, then they are abnormal. Supporters of the  law want a certain semblance of human homogeneity. But we cannot  legislate into existence a world that does not exist: the truth of our  human condition is that we are a diverse, multi-faceted species. The  measure of our humanity lies, in part, in how we think of those  different from us. We cannot – should not – have empathy only for people who are like us.

Some supporters of the law have asked –  what is next, a marriage between a man and a dog?’ Or ‘have you seen  animals being gay?’ (Actually, studies show that there is homosexual  behavior in many species of animals.) But, quite simply, people are not  dogs, and to accept the premise – that a homosexual is comparable to an  animal – is inhumane. We cannot reduce the humanity of our fellow men  and women because of how and who they love. Some animals eat their own  kind, others desert their young. Shall we follow those examples, too?

Other supporters suggest that gay men  sexually abuse little boys. But pedophilia and homosexuality are two  very different things. There are men who abuse little girls, and women  who abuse little boys, and we do not presume that they do it because  they are heterosexuals. Child molestation is an ugly crime that is  committed by both straight and gay adults (this is why it is a crime:  children, by virtue of being non-adults, require protection and are  unable to give sexual consent).

There has also been some nationalist  posturing among supporters of the law. Homosexuality is ‘unafrican,’  they say, and we will not become like the west. The west is not exactly a homosexual haven; acts of discrimination against homosexuals are not  uncommon in the US and Europe. But it is the idea of ‘unafricanness’  that is truly insidious. Sochukwuma was born of Igbo parents and had  Igbo grandparents and Igbo great-grandparents. He was born a person who  would romantically love other men. Many Nigerians know somebody like  him. The boy who behaved like a girl. The girl who behaved like a boy.  The effeminate man. The unusual woman. These were people we knew, people like us, born and raised on African soil. How then are they  ‘unafrican?’

If anything, it is the passage of the  law itself that is ‘unafrican.’ It goes against the values of tolerance  and ‘live and let live’ that are part of many African cultures. (In  1970s Igboland, Area Scatter was a popular musician, a man who dressed  like a woman, wore makeup, plaited his hair. We don’t know if he was gay  – I think he was – but if he performed today, he could conceivably be  sentenced to fourteen years in prison. For being who he is.) And it is  informed not by a home-grown debate but by a cynically borrowed one: we  turned on CNN and heard western countries debating ‘same sex marriage’  and we decided that we, too, would pass a law banning same sex marriage. Where, in Nigeria, whose constitution defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, has any homosexual asked for same-sex marriage?

This is an unjust law. It should be repealed. Throughout history, many inhumane laws have been passed, and  have subsequently been repealed. Barack Obama, for example, would not be here today had his parents obeyed American laws that criminalized  marriage between blacks and whites.

An acquaintance recently asked me, ‘if  you support gays, how would you have been born?’ Of course, there were gay Nigerians when I was conceived. Gay people have existed as long as humans have existed. They have always been a small percentage of the human population. We don’t know why. What matters is this: Sochukwuma is a Nigerian and his existence is not a crime.

Medical Doctor and pastor Arrested For Armed Robbery

 

the Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested four persons including a pastor and a medical practitioner for their alleged  membership of a deadly armed robbery gang who attacked the Ayobo branch of Access Bank, killing three policemen, last November.

 

The suspects who were paraded at the command’s headquarters, Ikeja, were identified as Jonathan Nsirim, Tajudeen Dosunmu, Isaiah Willie and Tairu Kareem.

AK-47 rifles, two K-2 rifles, one pump action and 17 AK-47 magazines, fully loaded, were recovered at one of the gang’s hideouts in Egbeda area of Lagos.

It was learnt that Sp Abba Kyari, officer in charge of SARS who coordinated the arrests and the subsequent recoveries of the arms acted on an intelligence report he got about a secret house that members of the gang were using which allegedly belongs to one of the robbers identified as Saviour Confidence, who was gunned down during an operation, at 49, Alimosho Road, Egbeda area.
Giving their confessions, the medical doctor, Dosunmu, 65 said he joined the gang because he needed money to renew his operating licence.
“I am the owner of Boluwatife Kola Hospital, located at Igando, behind the police station and in 2012, my operating licence got expired and I had no money to renew it and I closed it down.”
The pastor, Isaiah Willie said it was Confidence who introduced him to the gang and his job was to drive the instruments to the bank and wait by the car. He said he is a Pastor at Happy People Bible Church.
Another member of the gang, Tairu Kareem, a panel beater said, “I joined the gang because I lost my job. I am married with three children and I reside at Wilmer Crescent, Olodi-Apapa.”

Malcolm X History Banned At Queens Elementary School USA

One of the world most famous black civil right activists Malcome X was inexplicably exempted from the Queens Elementary School’s curriculum at this year’s February celebration of USA’s Black History Month. The teachers at the school called the advocate, 'volent' and ‘bad’ for their students. Really!?
Ok, here is the thing, every February in the United States, Black History Month finds schools focusing a chunk of their curriculum towards teaching students about African-Americans who have made positive contributions to the country’s advancement as a society. According to PS 201, an elementary discovery and research institution in Flushing, Queens, Malcolm X was not one of those positive Black figures.
According to NYDailyNews, "Teachers at Public School 201 in Flushing told fourth-graders last week that the controversial activist was violent and bad. They also refused to let the kids write about the assassinated icon for Black History Month. Children were asked to pick from several prominent black leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks but not Malcome X for the project, said a minor. City Department of Education officials said they were looking into the matter and would not defend it.”
A cross section of black parents has found this offensive and is calling on the authorities to dig deeper into the case. How can a teacher force their personal opinion of someone on a body of students?
Regardless of anyone’s opinion of Malcolm X, he is a HUGE part of black history, and it is imperative for young minds to study and know who this man was, and what his journey was all about.
“You see, knowledge is a weapon, why do you think they didn’t allow slaves to learn how to read and write?”, penned a writer?

This Strange Church Worships In The Nude ‘Because Jesus Was Crucified Naked’

In this world, weird things happen every day but you will be shocked with the discovery of this church in Virginia, United States of America, called White Tail Chapel, which worships in the nude ‘because the founder, Pastor Allen Parker says Jesus Christ was crucified naked,’ and its slogan is ‘Bare More Than Your Naked Soul.’
According to Huffingtonpost.com, the church is ‘located on the grounds of the White Tail Resort in Ivor, Virginia, and focuses on casting off material concerns, including clothes.
White Tail Resort describes itself as a Family Nudist Community, where visitors can enjoy all manner of activities, including spiritual worship, completely naked.
Pastor Parker allegedly told ABC 13 that many of ‘Jesus' most important moments happened while he was naked.’
“When he was born he was naked, when he was crucified, he was naked and when he arose, he left his clothes in the tomb and he was naked. If God made us that way, how can that be wrong?”
Pastor Parker says he draws at least some of his opinions on nudity from the book of Genesis, in which Adam and Eve were originally described as ‘both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.’
“It was only after sinfully eating forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that Adam and Eve are said to have seen their nudity as shameful, at which point they sowed fig leaves into loincloths.”
"People are more open as far as hearing the word of God, and speaking the word of God. I consider this a gift and a privilege God has given me,” Parker also told ABC 13.

Brazillian Women Strip Off in Protest Against Ban on unclad Sunbathing

A protest against Brazil’s ban on unclad sunbathing fell flat yesterday, with only a handful of women turning up.
Thousands of women were expected to gather on Rio de Janeiro’s Ipanema beach, taking off their bikinis in defiance of Brazilian law, which describes female uncladness as an “obscene act”.
Hundreds of photographers filled Ipanema beach, eager to catch a glimpse of the first women to strip in defiance of the law – but only a few women joined in.
One of the first to strip off was 73 year-old Rio native Olga Salon.
She told local media “A chest isn’t dangerous! It’s false-Puritanism and indicative of our macho culture that we have a law forbidding that women can go unclad.”
The anti-indecency law, which dates back to the 1940s, is punishable by up to a year in prison, or fines.
Locals admit the law does not frequently lead to prosecutions.
The protest was organised in response to an incident in November when actress Cristina Flores was stopped by police during a half-unclad photoshoot on the beach.
The photoshoot was part of the promotional campaign for Cosmocartas, a play about Brazilian artists Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica.

Akon Sued For Duping An Egyptian Singer

 

Akon has been served with a lawsuit by an Egyptian singer, Tamer Hosny for allegedly failing to appear on the singer’s single he spent so much money producing. According to the new lawsuit filed this week, Rapper Pitbull ditched the song as well thanks to the Konvict star.

The famous Egyptian singer claims, after spending hundreds of thousands to produce the single, Pitbull and Akon, who were supposed to sing along inexplicably, vanished. Hosny says he paid Akon a whopping $300K for both singers to sing on his new hit, Arabian Knight.   

According to TMZ, 'Akon delivered the track but according to the lawsuit, in return for the $300K ... Akon and Pitbull were supposed to appear in the "Arabian Knight" music video ... but Pitbull was a no show."

Tamer claims Akon promised to deliver Pitbull for the shoot, so it's his fault and he's on the hook. He adds that it's double the disaster because he had to pay $100K for cameras and crew the day of the shoot - all for nothing.

We are still investigating why was Pitbull not sued but it’s going to be a thug of war if Akon doesn’t return Hosny’s $300,000.

And as they say, Middle Easterners are just the wrong peeps to mess with!

Identical Twin Sisters Give Birth One Hour Apart.

South Carolina twin sisters Shaakira White and Zaakira Mitchell, gave birth on July 24th just one hour apart. It was reported that Mitchell was accompanying her sister to her doctor’s appointment, and then suddenly they both went into labor.
One gave birth to a set of twins and the other a baby boy. Although, this is not the first time twins gave birth on the same day, it still a special time for all involve. Well wishes to Saakira and Zaakira.
Dr. Ferguson, who delivered the babies of the twins said:
“I’ve never seen twins being pregnant at the same time!” said Dr. James Ferguson.
Dr. Ferguson is still getting over the fact the sisters just shared their pregnancies. He said he couldn’t believe it when they both showed up Tuesday and went into labor.
“I kinda joked with Shaakira that she was trying to steal her sister’s limelight for that day,” said Ferguson. “I just thought this is not really believable.”

40 Muslims Killed By Buddhist Mob In Myanmar

The United Nations says over 40 Muslims were killed when a Buddhist mob stormed a village in an isolated corner of western Myanmar last week, hunting down residents with knives and machetes, officials told AP news agency.
A statement released on Thursday by Valerie Amos, the UN’s undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, was vague, only mentioning “alarming levels of violence, including the killings of many civilians and a policeman.”
But details about a UN investigation of the incident were presented in background briefings with US Embassy staff, humanitarian aid workers and others, the officials said on condition of anonymity because the information had not been officially released.
The officials told the Associated Press news agency that the investigation, including witness testimony and descriptions of the violence, indicated that the estimates of about 40 dead were conservative.
Myanmar’s government has denied reports of a massacre. Presidential spokesman, Ye Htut, said on Thursday that he “strongly objects” to the UN claims, calling them ”totally wrong.”
The incident in Du Char Yar Tan, a village in Northern Rakhine state, appears to be the deadliest in a year, and would bring the total number killed nationwide in sectarian violence to more than 280, most of them Muslims.
An independent Thailand-based rights group, Fortify Rights, also said on Thursday that more than 40 were killed.
Security forces surrounded Du Char Yar Tan on January 14 after Rohingya Muslim residents allegedly abducted and killed a police sergeant, according to residents who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals.
Worried about retaliatory attacks, most of the men fled, and soldiers and police did nothing to stop a Buddhist mob that entered the village with knives and guns, attacking women, children and others left behind, they said.
The Myanmar government has repeatedly denied that any violence took place in the area, apart from the death of the police sergeant and an alleged attack by Rohingya Muslims on police.
There are around 1 million Rohingya in Myanmar. The UN has called them one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

Man, 21, burns self to death in Taraba after disagreement with father

A 21-year-old man, Mansur Tanko, on Friday, burnt himself to death in Jalingo, after a disagreement with his father, Tanko Mijinyawa, over marriage.

The Taraba Police Public Relations Officer, Joseph Kwaji, confirmed the incident and said the Jalingo Division of the police had commenced investigation into the matter.

Tanko, according to a witness, Jibrin Bala, set himself ablaze because his family refused to approve his wedding with a girl, Blessing. The witness told sympathisers that Tanko introduced Blessing to his father as his proposed wife, but the father kicked against the union, describing it as a bad choice.

Bala said efforts by the father to convince his son to look for another girl failed, as he insisted that he could not survive without Blessing. The witness added that Tanko suddenly left his father and went to a corner in the compound, where he poured petrol on his body and set himself ablaze.

"When we suddenly saw fire, everybody ran toward the corner of the compound, only to see Tanko burning.

"The father and other people in the compound tried to rescue Tanko from the fire, but failed as the flame was much and we could not move near," he said.

Meanwhile, he said, Tanko's father is currently receiving treatment at the Federal Medical Centre, Jalingo, for injuries sustained while trying to rescue the son from the fire.

Richard Branson Set to Meet Nigerian Leaders to Discuss Gay Rights

The business mogul, Billionaire and owner of Virgin Airline plans to meet with leaders of African countries including Nigeria to discuss gay rights and encourage compassion after the recent bill passed by Nigeria prohibiting same sex marriage.
He announced this via his official Twitter handle few hours ago.

PhotoCredit: LazyWrita.com

Nigerian man receives 20 lashes for being gay

A Nigerian man has received 20 lashes after an Islamic court in the northern city of Bauchi convicted him of homosexual offences.

Under Islamic law, homosexual acts can be sentenced to death by stoning.

The court said it took into account that the Muslim man, arrested last month, committed the offence seven years ago, and had stopped the practise.

In Nigeria, homosexual acts are illegal under both Islamic and secular law.

Earlier this month, President Goodluck Jonathan signed a parliamentary bill which tightens laws against homosexuals, banning same-sex marriages, gay groups and shows of same-sex public affection.

The new legislation applies across Nigeria, affecting all citizens.

Most states in the predominantly Muslim north of Nigeria have adopted Islamic law, known as Sharia, since the end of military rule in 1999.

The man was among 11 Muslims and a Christian arrested last month for allegedly being homosexuals.

He was also ordered to pay a fine of about $30 (£18).

The trial of two other men was adjourned to 23 January.

The fate of the nine other men arrested on the same charge is unclear.