Woman gets vesico-vaginal fistula after policemen allegedly punctured her vagina with metal object

Queen Akindeleni


Queen Akindeleni, a property developer is presently struggling for her life three years after being allegedly assaulted by policemen attached to Agbara Division, Ogun State.
According to her account as captured in an affidavit she swore to at the Ogun State High Court, Sango Ota, trouble started for her on October 12, 2009, when she went to the police station to make a report about the threat she had received from the family of one Ayodele Akindeleni who accused her of masterminding the disappearance of their relative.

Unknown to her, the said family had already lodged a complaint about her at the same station before she arrived there.

On getting to the station,Queen said she was arrested and dragged to the police barrack where she was held in a bathroom and stripped naked.

Her two children, Esther Ighovoyiwi 12, and Charles Ighovoyiwi 14; who came to look for her at the station were also allegedly detained at the station.

The girl, Esther, was allegedly slapped by the policemen till her ears began to discharge pus and was released after few hours in detention

Queen said, “The policemen tortured me with cruelty that I must confess that I killed the alleged deceased person (Ayodele). The two policemen who tortured me were, Shadrach and Raphael.”


“Shadrach forced me to the ground, opened my legs and inserted the metal into my vagina. There was an immediate heavy rush of blood from my genitals and I fainted,” Queen said.

Her state notwithstanding, she said she was left unattended to for four days after which a man was brought to examine her and give her drugs.

The victim alleged that three other policemen joined in the beating.

She was later transferred to the Ogun State Police Headquarters in Abeoukuta, from where she was moved to the Ibara Prison, Abeoukuta, on January 1, 2010 pending advice from the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Several months later, she said the DPP advised that she should be discharged and acquitted for lack of evidence.

She was released from prison on September 2, 2010, a year after she was first detained.

But she has now discovered that she has Vesico-Vaginal fistula.

The symptom of this disease is that she now continuously discharges urine because of the “abnormal openings in the internal parts of my vagina caused by the metal the policeman inserted into my vagina”, she said

Although Queen and Ayodele share the same surname, their relationship was not explained.

88 yr-old woman allegedly dies after being injected with soup

Maciel


A woman suffering from a stroke was allegedly injected with soup.

Ilda Vitor Maciel of Rio de Janeiro died Sept. 28 at the age of 88 and her family alleges the death was caused when one of the nursing technicians injected soup into the woman’s vein instead of her feeding tube, according to HispanicallySpeakingNews.com.

The family is now filing a lawsuit against Santa Casa de Barra Mansa, the hospital where Maciel was admitted after she had a stroke in late September. She died 12 hours after the injection.

"When she injected into a vein, my mother began to beat. I got scared and called the nurse," Maciel's daughter, Ana Ruth Maciel dos Santos, told the Brazilian newspaper Globo.

Hospital officials acknowledge that Maciel was injected with soup by mistake but they don't believe that's what caused her death, according to the Brazilian news website GezetaPovo.com.br.

However, the information sheet signed by a doctor at the hospital lists "pulmonary embolism" as the probable cause of death. which, according to SidneyRezende.com, would support the family's claim that the soup injection killed Maciel. A pulmonary embolism occurs when an air bubble gets into the blood stream.

An investigation into the matter has begun and should be completed within 30 days, according to KHQ.com.
Culled from HUFF POST

Planet with four suns discovered by Astronomers

Astronomers have found a planet whose skies are illuminated by four different suns - the first known of its type.

The distant world orbits one pair of stars which have a second stellar pair revolving around them.

The discovery was made by volunteers using the Planethunters.org website along with a team from UK and US institutes; follow-up observations were made with the Keck Observatory.

A report on the Arxiv server has been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal.The planet, located just under 5,000 light-years away, has been named PH1 after the Planet Hunters site.

It is thought to be a "gas giant" slightly larger than Neptune - more than six times the radius of the Earth.

"You don't have to go back too far before you would have got really good odds against one of these systems existing," Dr Chris Lintott, from the University of Oxford, told BBC News.

"All four stars pulling on it creates a very complicated environment. Yet there it sits in an apparently stable orbit.

"That's really confusing, which is one of the things which makes this discovery so fun. It's absolutely not what we would have expected."

Binary stars - systems with pairs of stars - are not uncommon. But only a handful of known exoplanets (planets that circle other stars) have been found to orbit such binaries. And none of these binary systems are known to have another pair of stars circling them.Asked how this planet remained in a stable orbit whilst being pulled on by the gravity of four stars, Dr Lintott said: "There are six other well-established planets around double stars, and they're all pretty close to those stars.

"So I think what this is telling us is planets can form in the inner parts of protoplanetary discs (the torus of dense gas that gives rise to planetary systems).

"The planets are forming close in and are able to cling to a stable orbit there. That probably has implications for how planets form elsewhere."PH1 was discovered by two US volunteers using the Planethunters.org website: Kian Jek of San Francisco and Robert Gagliano from Cottonwood, Arizona.

They spotted faint dips in light caused by the planet passing in front of its parent stars. The team of professional astronomers then confirmed the discovery using the Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.

Founded in 2010, Planethunters.org aims to harness human pattern recognition to identify transits in publicly available data gathered by Nasa's Kepler Space Telescope.

Kepler was launched in March 2009 to search for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.

Visitors to the Planet Hunters website have access to randomly selected data from one of Kepler's target stars.

Volunteers are asked to draw boxes to mark the locations of visible transits - when a planet passes in front of its parent star.

Dr Lintott points out: "Computerised attempts to find things [in the data] missed this system entirely. That tells you there are probably more of these that are slipping through our fingers. We've just stuck a load of new data up on Planethunters.org to help people find the next one."

Searching for such systems, he said, was "a complicated test to hand a computer", adding: "We're using human pattern recognition, which can disentangle that reasonably well to see the important stuff."

Since December 2010, more than 170,000 members of the public have participated in the project.
Culled from BBC

Man arrested for killing grandmum and removing her internal organs

Zachary Cole


A man accused of stabbing his grandmother 111 times told police he slit her heart and belly and removed several of her internal organs, prosecutors said in court documents.

Police went to 84-year-old Joyce Dexter's Salt Lake City home on Oct. 3 after neighbors heard screams and called 911. Officers found Zachary Cole Weston standing over Dexter's body while holding a bloody knife, according to court records released Friday.

Weston had blood on his clothing and hands and later told investigators he had also cut his grandmother's jugular, the records said.

Joyce Dexter



He was arrested in 2010 after he was accused of pushing his mother and striking a police officer. He pleaded guilty to one of two assault charges.

He was also charged with assault for hitting his father during a Sept. 27 argument.

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill declined to comment Friday on a possible motive in the stabbing, but he praised police for responding so quickly.
Culled from HUFF POST

Pakistan sends girl blogger shot by Taliban to UK for care

Malala Yousufzai


Pakistan airlifted a 14-year-old activist who was shot and seriously wounded by the Taliban to the United Kingdom for treatment Monday, a move that will give her access to the specialized medical care she needs to recover and also protect her from follow-up attacks threatened by the militants.

The attack on Malala Yousufzai as she was returning home from school in Pakistan's northwest a week ago has horrified people both across the country and abroad. It has also sparked hope the government would respond by intensifying its fight against the Taliban and their allies.

Over 100 Taliban militants attacked a police station near the main northwest city of Peshawar late Sunday night, sparking a gunbattle that lasted several hours, police said. Six policemen were killed during the clash, including two who were beheaded.

Malala was targeted by the Taliban for promoting girls' education and criticizing the militant group. Two of Malala's classmates were also wounded in the attack and are receiving treatment in Pakistan.

The Taliban said they attacked Malala because she was promoting "Western thinking" and have threatened to target her again until she is killed.

Malala was flown out of Pakistan on Monday morning in a specially equipped air ambulance provided by the United Arab Emirates, said the Pakistani military, which has been treating the young girl at one of its hospitals.
Culled from YAHOO NEWS

Woman bags 99yrs in prison for glueing her daughter's hands to a wall

Elizabeth Escalona


A Dallas woman who beat her 2-year-old daughter and glued the toddler's hands to a wall was sentenced to 99 years in prison on Friday.

Elizabeth Escalona faced from probation to life in prison, and prosecutors had sought 45 years behind bars.

Family members in the courtroom sobbed loudly as the judge announced the 23-year-old mother's punishment. Escalona pleaded guilty in July to felony injury to a child, but her mother and sister had pleaded for leniency on her behalf.

State District Judge Larry Mitchell said she "savagely beat" her child and deserved to be punished.

Escalona's other children told authorities that their mother attacked Jocelyn Cedillo in September 2011 due to potty training problems.

Police say she kicked her daughter in the stomach, beat her with a milk jug, then stuck her hands to an apartment wall with an adhesive commonly known as Super Glue.

Jocelyn suffered bleeding in her brain, a fractured rib, multiple bruises and bite marks, and was in a coma for a couple of days, a doctor testified at the sentencing hearing. Some skin had been torn off her hands, where doctors also found glue residue and white paint chips from the apartment wall.

Prosecutors portrayed Escalona as an unfit mother with a history of violence. They played recordings in which Escalona as a teenager threatened to kill her mother. They said she was a former gang member who started smoking marijuana at age 11.

"Only a monster glues her daughter's hands to the wall," Dallas County prosecutor Eren Price said during the hearing.

Escalona asked for leniency, telling the judge she was no longer the monster who committed the attack. "I will never forgive myself for what I did to my own daughter," she said.

Dallas Police Sr. Cpl. Abel Lopez, who interviewed Escalona after the attack, showed in court a bottle of glue taken out of the family's apartment, as well as a section of a wall with Jocelyn's little handprints.

Jocelyn has since recovered and is now being cared for by her grandmother, Ofelia Escalona, who is taking care of her daughter's four other children, including a baby born this year.

Escalona's family has acknowledged their dismay and anger following the attack, but her sister and her mother asked the judge for leniency.

A counselor, Melanie Davis, testified Wednesday that her sessions with Escalona indicated the young mother loved all five of her children and that she would benefit from more counseling. Davis said Escalona has set herself the short-term goal of finding a job and the long-term aim of getting her children back.
Culled from NDTV

Man bags 3yrs in prison for having sex with a miniature horse

Easley


A man from Wilmer, Alabama in the United States admitted to raping a woman and sexually abusing a miniature horse on Tuesday in a plea deal that will allow his release in less than two years.

Easley was arrested in July 2011 after a woman said he broke into her home, raped her and held her for several hours against her will, according to a previous story by AL.com.

In 2010, deputies in Mobile, Ala. said they found evidence that a miniature horse's tail had been tied to a post and the horse had been sexually abused, according to the Weekly Vice.

Deputies found a wallet with Easley's driver's license and Social Security card at the scene.

AL.com reports that Eric Steven Easley was sentenced to three years in prison, but he's already spent 14 months in jail, meaning with time served, he'll be out in 22 months. He was technically sentenced to 15 years, but the deal stipulated that all but three of those be suspended.

The site notes that neither Easley, the prosecuting attorney nor judge Joseph “Rusty” Johnston seemed fully satisfied with the plea deal, which the prosecution claimed it offered because there were "legal issues" surrounding Easley's rape victim.

Judge Johnston dismissed animal cruelty and domestic violence charges as part of the plea deal, but Easley admitted to the charges of rape and killing or disabling livestock.
Culled from HUFF POST

20-yr-old pregnant mother charged with murder of her 2 sons

Kristi-An Walker


A Southeast Texas woman who is pregnant with her fourth child has been charged in the deaths of her two infant sons.

Kristi-An Walker remained jailed Tuesday on murder and two other charges relating to the deaths that occurred separately. One was in April 2011 and the second was in June.

Angleton police say the 20-year-old mother told investigators she became frustrated with the boys because they wouldn't stop crying.

Court records did not list an attorney for Walker.

Police Sgt. Kirk Coleman says authorities began investigating Walker after her 6-month old son died June 21. Police say the probe led investigators to the 2011 death of her 4-month-old son. Police say both boys died from head trauma.

Walker's 3-year-old son is in foster care.
Culled from HUFF POST

Hulk Hogan confirms Heather Clem as the woman who had sex with him on tape

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World's fattest woman to face trial for murder

One of the fattest women on earth, Marya Rosales, is to face trial for the murder of a 2-yr-old boy.
In 2008, Rosales first claimed she killed her 2-year-old nephew Eliseo Jr. when she accidentally rolled over and crushed him under her 1,100 pound frame, but Valdez knew something else was going on.

In the special, Rosales now says she saw her sister use a brush to hit Eliseo repeatedly on his arms, legs and head, and Valdez said she took the blame so that her sister's other kids would still have a mom.

Valdez said that Rosales' excuse collapsed under her own massive weight, especially after doctors determined the child's cause of death came from being hit, not from being smothered.

side view of Marya Rosales



When Sergio Valdez saw his 1000-pound client, Marya Rosales, in bed for the first time, he almost mistook some of her folds of fat for pillows.

"We've all seen obese, heavyset people. You have not seen obesity at this level," Valdez said in "Half-Ton Killer?" a TLC special airing Oct. 10 about Rosales, a woman bedridden from obesity, who claimed she accidently crushed and killed her two-year-old nephew.

Rosales reportedly weighs nearly 1,100 pounds, enough to qualify her as one of the world's fattest women, but Valdez says even knowing she weighs more than five average men, doesn't prepare anyone for her sheer massiveness.

"When you first walk in, she's got a blanket covering her; there's pillows all around her and so you don't know whether it's pillows or whether it's her," he said. "If you reach back in again, you think this is all pillows. You make a circle and [you realize] that it's Mayra."
Culled from HUFF POST

Teenage blogger survives bullet wounds from Taliban attack

Malala Yousufzai, speaking from her hospital bed shortly after the surgery




Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old school girl sought out and shot by the Taliban for blogging against them, was slowly recuperating Wednesday morning from the brazen attack that almost snatched her young life.

Doctors successfully removed a bullet lodged in her neck after three hours of surgery, and said her condition was no longer critical.

"God willing, she will survive," said Dr. Mumtaz Ali, a neurosurgeon who worked on Malala with three colleagues.

Pakistan is a country numbed by the depressing regularity of extremist attacks. But the Tuesday morning attack stunned even the weariest.

Taliban militants stopped a school van carrying Malala and two other girls on their way home from school in northwest Pakistan's Swat Valley.One of them asked, who is Malala Yousufzai?

When the girls pointed Malala out, the men opened fire. The bullets struck all three girls.

For two of them, the injuries were not life-threatening.

For Malala, it was touch-and-go for a while.



Pakistan's Army Chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani paid a visit to her hospital bed, and delivered a simple message: "We refuse to bow before terror."

The chief minister of Punjab said he would bear the cost of Malala's treatment, calling her "the daughter of Pakistan."
14-year-old activist wounded by Taliban
Taliban gunmen shot teen activist

The head of PIA, the national airline, said he was putting a plane on standby to take Malala "anywhere in the world if needed" for treatment.

And two neurosurgeons, one in the United Stated and one in the United Kingdom, have offered to fly to Pakistan if needed, the interior minister said.

Throughout the country and around the world, Pakistanis, hurt and angry, prayed.

"Malala is what Taliban will never be," said Murtaza Haider, the associate dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto's Ryerson University, in an opinion piece in the Dawn newspaper.

"She is fearless, enlightened, articulate, and a young Muslim woman who is the face of Pakistan and the hope for a faltering nation that can no longer protect its daughters."



Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley was once one of Pakistan's biggest tourist destinations.

The valley, near the Afghanistan border and about 186 miles (300 km) from the capital city of Islamabad, boasted the country's only ski resort. It was a draw for trout-fishing enthusiasts and visitors to the ancient Buddhist ruins in the area.

But that was before, militants -- their faces covered with dark turbans -- unleashed a wave of violence.

They demanded veils for women, beards for men and a ban on music and television.

They allowed boys' schools to operate. But closed those for girls.

It was in this climate that Malala reached out to the outside world through her online blog posts.

She took a stand by writing about her daily battle with extremist militants who used fear and intimidation to force girls to stay at home.

Malala's online writing led to her being awarded Pakistan's first National Peace Prize in November.

"I was scared of being beheaded by the Taliban because of my passion for education," Yousufzai told CNN at the time. "During their rule, the Taliban used to march into our houses to check whether we were studying or watching television."

She said that she wanted to be a political leader, that her country "needs honest and true leaders."

The Taliban controlled Malala's valley for years until 2009, when the military cleared it in an operation that also evacuated thousands of families.

But pockets remain, and violence is never far behind.

"In attacking Malala, the terrorists have failed to grasp that she is not only an individual, but an icon of courage and hope, who vindicates the great sacrifices that the people of Swat and the nation gave, for wresting the valley from the scourge of terrorism," said Kayani, the army chief.

The Taliban has already claimed responsibility for the attack on Malala's life. And on Wednesday, as police took the van driver and the school guard into custody for questioning and said they have identified the culprits, they issued another ominous threat.

Responding to reports that Malala had survived the attack, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban said, ""if she survives this time, she won't next time.

We will certainly kill her."
Culled from CNN

Man slumps dead after winning live cockroach-eating contest

Archbold


A 32-year-old man collapsed and died after winning a snake in a cockroach-eating contest at the weekend.

Edward Archbold was taking part in the "Eat Bugs For Balls" competition held at the Ben Siegel Reptile Store in Deerfield Beach, Florida.

The event promised a female ivory ball python to the winner - which was announced as Archbold, who gamely chomped his way through "dozens" of worms and cockroaches. According to a statement released by Broward Sheriff's Office, Archbold became ill and collapsed in front of the store. He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

It added: "None of the other contestants presented any medical issues after the contest.

"Archbold’s body was transported to the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office for an autopsy. They are awaiting test results in order to determine a cause of death.""Unless the roaches were contaminated with some bacteria or other pathogens, I don't think that cockroaches would be unsafe to eat," Michael Adams, professor of entomology at the University of California at Riverside, told The Telegraph.

Edward Archbold declared winner of the contest



Professor Adams said he had never heard of someone dying after consuming roaches, and added: "Some people do have allergies to roaches, but there are no toxins in roaches or related insects."

34yr-old American woman bags 180 days in prison for aiding kids' truancy

Cuevas


A California mom was sentenced to 180 days in jail after she pleaded guilty to allowing her kids to miss more than 10 percent of the of the school last year , KMPH.com reported.

Lorraine Cuevas, 34, is one of the first parents in the state to be convicted under the state’s chronic truancy law, the report said.
"We take attendance very seriously, and we want our kids to be in school," Tim Bowers, the superintendent for Kings County Schools, said.

Bowers said Cuevas ignored phone calls and letters warning her about the possible consequences. He told the station, on average, the school will make 15 to 20 calls before it takes action.

Cuevas is the second mother in the district to be placed behind bars over truancy. She has a child in the second and third grade, and the two missed a total of 116 days of school last year, the report said.

Parents at the Monroe Elementary School in Hanford, Calif., appeared to have mixed reaction over the sentencing, the report said.
"Put her on the freeway to clean up the mess or something," Melissa Mooney, a parent at the school said. "Who's going to watch her kids? I think 180 days is extreme."

Adriana Castaneda, another parent at the school, said the mother got off with a light sentence.

"I would have given her a year," she said. "Honestly, I think that punishment is not enough because a kids' education is really important.
Culled from FOXNEWS

Aftermath of Floods: Crocodiles, hippos and snakes sack residents in central Nigeria

Dangerous animals, including crocodiles, snakes and hippos, have found their way into homes and communities in central Nigeria after devastating flooding, residents say.

The creatures were carried along flood-swollen rivers, say the authorities.

"There is now a hippopotamus in [my] house," Benue state resident Wuese Jirake told the BBC. "I hope that when it is tired, it may leave my home."

Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by the flooding.

Hundreds also died in the worst flooding in decades.

Vast tracts of farmland have been completely destroyed.
'Hope it will leave'

Mr Jirake told the BBC he had returned to his home to find it occupied by the hippo.

"This morning I visited my house. It is still inundated with the flood waters above my waist. There is now a hippopotamus in the house," he said.
Map

He said he had reported the situation to the authorities.

"I hope that when it is tired, it may leave my home. If there is any other way of dealing with the problem, the authorities need to pursue that because it is beyond my abilities."

Similar situations have been reported in the towns of Makurdi, Agatu, Logo and Adoka, says the BBC's Is'haq Khalid.

Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency says it is working hand in hand with the Benue state government and other relevant agencies to ensure the flood victims return to their homes.

The co-ordinator of the agency in north-central Nigeria, Abdussalam Muhammad, told the BBC that it was not safe for people to go back to their houses because of the presence of the dangerous animals.

"Presently there are crocodiles and snakes as well as other dangerous animals brought in by the floodwaters that are living in those houses, so, if the people return, it will be harmful to them and they will put their lives at risk," he said.

He said people should wait for instructions after the floodwaters have subsided.
Culled from BBC

89yr-old blind woman regains sight after surgeons implant pea-sized telescope into her eye

Dorothy Bane


An 89 year old woman who received a pioneering pea-sized telescope implant has spoken of her joy at being able to read for the first time in seven years.

Surgeons at UC Davis Medical Center successfully implanted a tiny telescope implant in the eye of Dorothy Bane in May.

A close up of 89 year old Dorothy Bane's eye, showing the tiny telescope




She has suffered from end-stage age-related macular degeneration (AMD), one of the leading causes of blindness.


I can see better than ever now,' she said.

'Colors are more vibrant, beautiful and natural, and I can read large print with my glasses.

Bane, who was a watercolour artist, said she hopes the implant will let her pick up a paintbrush again.

'I haven't been able to read for the past seven years, and I look forward to being able to paint again.'

The implant is able to focus images on the undamaged areas of the retina.

The groundbreaking operation could lead to the procedure becoming commonplace.

'Macular degeneration damages the retina and causes a blind spot in a person's central field of vision,' said Mark Mannis, professor and chair of ophthalmology and vision sciences and director of the Eye Center at UC Davis Health System.

'The telescopic implant restores vision by projecting images onto an undamaged portion of the retina, which makes it possible for patients to again see people's faces and the details of objects located directly in front of them.'

The exact cause of dry macular degeneration is unknown, but the condition develops as the eye ages.
Culled from MAILONLINE

Over 20 students shot by gunmen in Mubi

At least 20 students have been shot dead by unknown gunmen in Mubi, Adamawa State in Nigeria.
A witness who did not want his name published said that the attack happened on Monday night, between the hours of 10 and 11 at a student hostel away from the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi campus.

Although there has been no official comment, a lecturer who also did not want his name in print claimed that more than 40 students had been killed.

According to the lecturer, the students were rounded up, made to line up and then asked for their names. Some were killed, others were spared. It is not clear why some were spared, and some of those killed were Muslims.

According to him, most people are now staying indoors, while those leaving town are mostly students.

Only a few days ago, the Joint Task Force had conducted a major operation against insurgents in the town, killing a major Boko Haram figure, and arresting more than a hundred.

Update: Emergency workers said they have mobilised several agencies to the area to carry out search and rescue operations.
Culled from DAILYTIMES

Woman who bit off boyfriend's testicles, back in court

Topp


A mother who was jailed for biting off her partner's testicles has landed back in court after the pair rekindled their romance.

Martin Douglas required emergency surgery and 19 stitches to re-attach his scrotum after the drunken assault by then-girlfriend Maria Topp.

But after reviving their love Topp claims she was “stabbed in the back” by Douglas after he reported her to police for breaching her restraining order.
Topp, 45, admitted unlawfully and maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm as her trial at Newcastle Crown Court was about to start last October.

The mother-of-four was handed a 12-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, plus a restraining order which banned her from contacting Douglas.

However, after a “chance” encounter in Newcastle in March this year, the pair got back together again.

The pair had a “friendly chat” after bumping into each other in Yates’ wine bar in the city centre.

Topp followed up the meeting by texting Douglas asking: “Do you still love me?”

The pair resumed their love affair, but it had fizzled out once more in June, at which point Douglas reported Topp's breach of her restraining order.

Appearing in Newcastle Magistrate's Court Topp pleaded guilty to breaching a restraining order.

Prosecuting, David Thompson said: "This is a breach of a restraining order where the relationship ended against a backdrop of domestic violence for which Ms Topp was convicted in November last year.

"She was made subject of an order that essentially forbade any contact with Mr Douglas.
"In March this year the parties had a chance encounter and following that there was contact on her part with him.

"It prompted them to meet, it was initially platonic but then developed into a resumption of the previous relationship.

"There appears to have been an attempt by Mr Douglas to lift the terms of the restraining order but that was not pursued.

"The relationship ended after a day out on June 28 this year.

"It is fair to say it did not end amicably. He then complained about the breach of the order."

Topp, of Washington, Tyne and Wear, was fined £150 and ordered to pay £15 a week surcharge from her £40.50 a week Jobseeker's Allowance.
Elizabeth Dunbar, defending, said that Topp had initially pleaded not guilty as the terms of the order meant she could not contact her former lover 'without reasonable excuse.
Culled fro HUFF POST

Biafra: Chinua Achebe publishes memoir on Nigeria civil war

Renowned Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has published his long-awaited memoir, There Was a Country, about the brutal three-year Biafran war.

He acted as roving cultural ambassador for Biafra when the south-eastern area tried to split from Nigeria in 1967.

For more than 40 years he has remained silent about his war experiences.

One of Africa's best known authors, Mr Achebe's debut 1958 novel Things Fall Apart has sold more than 10 million copies.

It has been translated into more than 50 languages and focuses on the traditions of Igbo society and the clash between Western and traditional values.The prizing-winning 81-year-old author and academic has written more than 20 works - some fiercely critical of politicians and a failure of leadership in Nigeria.


But he has never addressed the atrocities of the Biafran war, in which he was caught up with his young family - except occasionally in his poetry.

More than one million people died during the conflict in fighting and from famine - photographs of starving children from Biafra became synonymous in the media with the conflict.

BBC Africa analyst Martin Plaut says Achebe's memoir is filled with sadness - sadness at the deaths of so many of his fellow countrymen and sadness too at the fate that has befallen Nigeria.

He portrays the Nigerian government as ruthless in its suppression of the rebellion, our correspondent says.

Mr Achebe's UK publisher Allen Lane says: "There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid observation and considered research and reflection."

"It relates Nigeria's birth pangs in the context of Achebe's own development as a man and a writer, and examines the role of the artist in times of war."

Achebe ends the book with a poem: 'After a war.'

"After a war life catches desperately at passing hints of normality like vines entwining a hollow twig; its famished roots close on rubble and every piece of broken glass."

Mr Achebe has lived in the US since he suffered a car accident in 1990, which left him paralysed and in a wheelchair.

The memoir is published in the UK on Thursday and is due to be released in Nigeria shortly and in the US on 11 October, AFP news agency reports
Culled from BBC

Hong Kong billionaire offers £40m marriage bounty for man who woos his lesbian daughter

Gigi and her father Cecil Chao Sze-tsung


A Hong Kong billionaire has announced a £40m “marriage bounty” to the man who successfully woos his lesbian daughter.

Cecil Chao Sze-tsung offered the sum amid reports 33-year-old Gigi Chau had married her long-time female lover in France.

Gigi, who attended Manchester University, is said to have eloped with her girlfriend of seven years, Sean Eav, in April.A picture apparently taken in the first class section on a plane on Gigi's Facebook page confirms the pair were Paris-bound in April. It shows Sean Ev holding up an iPad and is paired with the caption: "Going to Paris to buy a few businesses".

However her father has apparently rejected the “false reports” and insists his daughter is still single.

He told the South China Morning Post: “I don’t mind whether he is rich or poor. The important thing is that he is generous and kind-hearted.”

He denied he would force Gigi to marry against her will, adding the prize money was “an inducement to attract someone who has the talent but not the capital to start his own business.”

Gigi seems nonplussed by the attention, taking to Facebook to note: “I would like to announce that I suddenly received a whole bunch of followers on my twitter account which I never use.”

Hours later she updated her status to read: “No longer accepting Facebook friend requests… sorry.”

News.com.au points out same sex marriages are not recognised in Hong Kong, where homosexuality was decriminalised in 1991.

It adds Cecil, now 76, attends many public events with his “latest young girlfriend” and once claimed to have slept with 10,000 women.
Culled from HUFF POST

Saudi Arabia deports 510 Nigerian women

SAUDI Arabia, in apparent defiance of Nigeria’s ultimatum, has deported 510 female pilgrims.

The deportees, mainly from Sokoto, Jigawa and Kano states, arrived at the Kano International Airport at about 8.30pm on Wednesday, aboard a Meridian Airline flight.

The female returnees were among the Nigerian women pilgrims for the 2012 hajj detained in Medina and Jeddah for not having male escorts while trying to enter Mecca.

Vice President Namadi Sambo had on Wednesday summoned the Saudi Ambassador to Nigeria, Khaled O.Y. Abdrabuh, to register the Federal Government’s displeasure over the incident. Sambo also gave Saudi Arabia a 24-hour ultimatum to redress the situation.

Spokesman of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, Mallam Uba Mana, said those brought back were a part of 1020 earlier detained by the Saudi officials at the King Fahd Airport.

Mana was however silent on the fate of others who were still detained in Saudi Arabia.

He said the commission hoped that the Federal Government at the Presidency level would soon settle the matter which is already threatening the diplomatic relationship between the two countries.

“We are awaiting a response from the King of Saudi Arabia so that a discussion can be opened between the two parties.

“We strongly believe that there is hope in sight, we hope that shortly the whole thing would be resolved,” Mana said.