BRAZILLIAN FOOTBALL TEAM AIRCRASH- THE SURVIVORS, THE DEAD.

Brazil top division side Chapecoense were aboard the aircraft that crashed in Medellin, Colombia with 81 people on board.
A little-known team outside their own country, Chapecoense made headlines in tragic circumstances but what else do we know about the Serie A outfit?

The Crash Site

Rescue Workers at the crash site

The club's full name is Associação Chapecoense de Futebol, and they were founded in 1973. Chapecoense are based in the town of Chapeco in the State of Santa Catarina in the south of Brazil, approximately 450 km from Porte Alegre.

"If I die today, I'd die happy" - Head Coach Caio Junior had said after qualifying for the final of the Copa Sudamericana

Having toiled in Brazil's lower divisions since 1979, Chapecoense made a return to Serie A in 2014 and have stayed in the league since then.
This is no small achievement for a club of their lowly stature, in a league populated by more illustrious teams such as Corinthians and Santos.

Last known picture of the team and management on board the flight before the crash

"THEY DIDN'T GET TIRED OF GOING UP AND THEY ARRIVED IN HEAVEN

Reports suggest at least five of the 81 people on board have survived the crash.
Though it is not known how many and which footballers were on the flight, local media reports say Marcos Danilo, Alan Ruschel and Jackson Follmann are still alive.

Social media images show Danilo and Ruschel were sat next to each other on the flight.

Danilo and Ruschel seated next to each other in the flight survived

Cleber Santana, 35, is the club's captain and central midfielder.
He moved to La Liga side Atletico Madrid in 2007, spending three years at the club before returning to Sao Paulo in 2010.

Matheus Biteco is also on loan from Hoffenheim having joined the German side from Gremio in 2015. The defensive midfielder is a Brazil U20 international.

Chapecoense players celebrating reaching the Copa Sudamericana final just 5 days ago. Heartbreaking. 😪💔 pic.twitter.com/yAgkyN6EY8

— Football__Tweet (@Football__Tweet) November 29, 2016

THE TEAM CELEBRATING REACHING THE COPA SUDAMERICANA FINAL JUST 5 DAYS AGO!


Chapecoense were travelling to play the biggest game in the club's history; the first leg of the Copa Sudamericana against Colombian side Atletico Nacional.
The Sudamericana is a continental cup competition and is South America's answer to the Europa League, with the Copa Libertadores the equivalent of the Champions League.
Chapecoense had reached the final for the first time in their history.

A few members of the team who did not travel with the rest

Matheus Saroli son of the head coach Caio Junior missed the flight because he forgot his passport

THE WORLD MOURNS

CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE SCANDAL ENGULFS ENGLISH FOOTBALL

Andy Woodward

A child abuse scandal is threatening to engulf professional football clubs in England, with former players alleging the existence of paedophile rings that operated unchecked.

Several former professional players have come forward to reveal they were abused as children while playing for their clubs.
Andy Woodward was the first to go public, saying former coach at England's Crewe Alexandra football club, Barry Bennell, had abused him.
Three other players have also come forward, including 44-year-old Chris Unsworth, who said he was raped between 50 and 100 times.
"I would never have come forward if I hadn't seen Andy on television," Unsworth said.
"I know what he has been through because I have been through exactly the same ... All the lads have been through the same."
Police said a hotline set up to deal with the widening scandal received 50 calls within the first two hours, with allegations being made against more than one person.

Barry Bennell

Manchester City young team player Jason Dunford said the scandal was bigger than the one involving former BBC presenter Jimmy Saville. "I think Saville looks like a choir boy compared to this fella," Dunford said.
"I believe there was a conspiracy, there was a paedophile ring, and there was people at those football clubs who had a duty to look after the welfare of young boys coming through their system.
"This is their potential future stars, and their future stars are being sexually assaulted and sexually abused by a member of their staff."
Former coach Bennell has served three jail sentences for child abuse.
Unsworth said he thought members of the club had turned a blind eye to the abuse.
"I think members of the club, they knew what was going on. [They] just swept it under the carpet end," he said.
England captain Wayne Rooney has urged players who have been sexually abused to call the helpline so they do not suffer in silence.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has also praised the men for their courage in coming forward.

Bennell, who worked for Crewe, Manchester City and Stoke City, sexually abused young boys across three decades from the 1970s onwards.
He was given a four-year sentence for raping a British boy during a football tour of Florida in 1994 and a nine-year sentence for 23 offences against six boys in England in 1998.
He was jailed again in 2015 for abusing a boy at a football camp in Macclesfield, northwest England, in 1980.

TRUMP STILL CLAIMS ELECTION WAS RIGGED IN CLINTON'S FAVOUR DESPITE WINNING

In a series of tweets on Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump has gone back to his pre-election ways of unsubstantiated conspiracy theory claims that the elections were rigged against him in a reaction to ongoing votes recounts.

Trump, who himself suggested that he would not concede the election during the campaign if he had lost, used his Twitter account to declare that "nothing will change." He also reiterated that Clinton had already conceded the election.
Trump, however, also effectively offered his own support for the recount, providing a seemingly baseless allegation that he would have won the popular vote "if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally."

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

Serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California - so why isn't the media reporting on this? Serious bias - big problem!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 28, 2016

It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than the Electoral College in that I would only campaign in 3 or 4--

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

states instead of the 15 states that I visited. I would have won even more easily and convincingly (but smaller states are forgotten)!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

Hillary Clinton conceded the election when she called me just prior to the victory speech and after the results were in. Nothing will change

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2016

A WOMAN RAPED 43,200 TIMES TELLS HER STORY

KARLA JACINTO

A Mexican woman who at the age of 12 was lured into sexual slavery has told how she was raped 43,200 times.

Karla Jacinto, now 23, was forced to have sex with 30 men a day during her four-year ordeal. She was rescued in 2008 – but not before a group of corrupt police had found her, and demanded sexual favours instead of rescuing her.

"I thought they were disgusting," she told CNN.

"They knew we were minors. We were not even developed. We had sad faces. There were girls who were only 10 years old. There were girls who were crying. They told the officers they were minors and nobody paid attention."
Beaten and abused by pimps, she was forced to work from 10am to midnight. She fell pregnant to one of the pimps and gave birth at 15. The man used the infant as leverage, she said.
"I came from a dysfunctional family. I was sexually abused and mistreated from the age of five by a relative," she said.

When she was 12, a 22-year-old man approached her and courted her, convincing her to move in with him in Mexico City.

She says she was waiting for some friends near a subway station in Mexico City, when a little boy selling sweets came up to her, telling her somebody was sending her a piece of candy as a gift.

Five minutes later, Karla says, an older man was talking to her, telling her that he was a used car salesman.

The initial awkwardness disappeared as soon as the man started telling her that he was also abused as a boy. He was also very affectionate and quite a gentleman, she says.

They exchanged phone numbers and when he called a week later, Karla says she got excited. He asked her to go on a trip to nearby Puebla with him and dazzled her by showing up driving a bright red Firebird Trans Am.

"When I saw the car I couldn't believe it. I was very impressed by such a big car. It was exciting for me. He asked me to get in the car to go places," she says.

"I lived with him for three months during which he treated me very well. He loved on me, he bought me clothes, gave me attention, bought me shoes, flowers, chocolates, everything was beautiful," she said.
He soon forced her into prostitution in Guadalajara.

Karla says her boyfriend would leave her by herself for a week in their apartment. His cousins would show up with new girls every week. When she finally mustered the courage to ask what business they were in, he told her the truth. "They're pimps," he said.

"A few days later he started telling me everything I had to do; the positions, how much I need to charge, the things I had to do with the client and for how long, how I was to treat them and how I had to talk to them so that they would give me more money," Karla says.

It was the beginning of four years of hell. The first time she was forced to work as a prostitute she was taken to Guadalajara, one of Mexico's largest cities.

"I started at 10 a.m. and finished at midnight. We were in Guadalajara for a week. Do the math. Twenty per day for a week. Some men would laugh at me because I was crying. I had to close my eyes so that that I wouldn't see what they were doing to me, so that I wouldn't feel anything," Karla says.

Miss Jacinto is now using her story to campaign against sexual slavery, and warn politicians against turning a blind eye. Sex trafficking is believed to account for 80 per cent of the world’s 20 million to 30 million “modern-day slaves”. Two million of those are estimated to be children like Miss Jacinto.

"These minors are being abducted, lured, and yanked away from their families. Don't just listen to me. You need to learn about what happened to me and take the blindfold off your eyes," she said.
In May she spoke in the US Congress, and asked a human rights committee for help in hunting down those responsible for human trafficking.
“I was forced to serve every kind of fetish imaginable to more than 40,000 clients,” she told the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, global health, global human rights and international organisations.

Her story highlights the brutal realities of human trafficking in Mexico and the United States, an underworld that has destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Mexican girls like Karla.

Human trafficking has become a trade so lucrative and prevalent, that it knows no borders and links towns in central Mexico with cities like Atlanta and New York.

U.S. and Mexican officials both point to a town in central Mexico that for years has been a major source of human trafficking rings and a place where victims are taken before being eventually forced into prostitution. The town is called Tenancingo.

BREAKING: FORMER CUBAN LEADER FIDEL CASTRO DIES AT 90

Castro in 2004

Fidel Castro, the Cuban despot who famously proclaimed after his arrest in a failed coup attempt that history would absolve him, has died aged 90.

Castro's brother and the nation's President of several years, Raul, announced his death Friday on Cuban TV.

At the end, an elderly and infirm Castro was a whisper of the Marxist firebrand whose iron will and passionate determination bent the arc of destiny.

"There are few individuals in the 20th century who had a more profound impact on a single country than Fidel Castro had in Cuba," Robert Pastor, a former national security adviser for President Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, told CNN in 2012.

"He reshaped Cuba in his image, for both bad and good," said Pastor, who died in 2014.

Castro was born August 13, 1926, in Oriente province in eastern Cuba. His father, Angel, was a wealthy landowner originally from Spain. His mother, Lina, had been a maid to Angel's first wife.

Educated in private Jesuit schools, Castro went on to earn a law degree from the University of Havana in 1950 and became a practicing attorney, offering free legal services to the poor.

In 1952, at the age of 25, he ran for the Cuban congress. But just before the election, the government was overthrown by Batista, who established the dictatorship that put Castro on the road to revolution.

On July 26, 1953, Castro led a group of about 150 rebels who attacked the Moncada military barracks in Santiago in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Batista. Most of the attackers were killed. Castro and a handful of others were captured.

The attack made him famous throughout Cuba, but it also earned him a 15-year prison sentence.

At his sentencing, Castro told the court, "Condemn me, it doesn't matter. History will absolve me."

He was released in 1955 as part of an amnesty for political prisoners and lived in exile in the United States and Mexico, where he organized a guerrilla group with brother Raul and Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentine doctor-turned-revolutionary. They named themselves the July 26 Movement, after the date of the failed Moncada attack.

In 1956, Castro and a few dozen rebels headed for Cuba aboard an old yacht called the "Granma." Off course and long overdue, they beached the craft off the coast of Oriente province.

Batista's soldiers were waiting for them, and, again, most of Castro's followers were killed.

The Castro brothers, Guevara and a handful of other survivors fled into the Sierra Maestra mountains along the nation's southeastern coast, where they waged their guerrilla campaign against Batista.

Leading the 1959 Cuban Revolution

Castro lived long enough to see a historic thaw in relations between Cuba and the United States. The two nations reestablished diplomatic relations in July 2015 and President Barack Obama visited the island earlier this year.

President Raul Castro -- who took over from his ailing brother more than eight years earlier -- announced that breakthrough to the nation, but observers noted Fidel's silence on the matter.

Castro's stage was a small island nation 90 miles from the underbelly of the United States, but he commanded worldwide attention. 

"He was a historic figure way out of proportion to the national base in which he operated," said noted Cuba scholar Louis A. Perez Jr., author of more than 10 books on the island and its history.

"Cuba hadn't counted for much in the scale of politics and history until Castro," said Wayne Smith, the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba from 1979 to 1982. 

Castro became famous enough that he could be identified by only one name. A mention of "Fidel" left little doubt who was being talked about.

It was a bearded 32-year-old Castro and a small band of rough-looking revolutionaries who overthrew an unpopular dictator in 1959 and rode their jeeps and tanks into Havana, the nation's capital.

 

They were met by thousands upon thousands of Cubans fed up with the brutal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and who believed in Castro's promise of democracy and an end to repression.

That promise would soon be betrayed, though, and Castro held on to power for 47 years, until an intestinal illness that required several surgeries forced him to temporarily relinquish his duties to younger brother Raul in July 2006. Castro resigned as president in February 2008 and Raul took over permanently.

One Castro or another has ruled Cuba over a period that spans seven decades and 11 U.S. presidents. Fidel Castro outlived six of those presidents including Cold War warriors John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

At the height of the Cold War, Castro used a blend of charisma and repression to install the first and only Communist government in the Western Hemisphere, less than 100 miles from the United States.

Cuba and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations on May 8, 1960, further eroding the relationship with the United States. Castro, who had long blamed many of Cuba's ills on American influence and resented the U.S. role in hemispheric politics, quickly intensified cooperation with the Soviet Union, which began sending large subsidies.

"Fidel Castro came to power with a conviction that he was going to have a major revolution in Cuba, that he was going to stay in power indefinitely, that he was going to fight American imperialism and that he needed a 'daddy' and his 'daddy' was the Soviet Union," said Jaime Suchlicki, the director of the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami.

In doing so, Castro defied a hostile U.S. policy that sought to topple him with a punishing trade embargo that started in 1962 and continued for the rest of his life.

"He taunted, antagonized and irritated the United States for more than a half-century," said Dan Erikson, a senior adviser for Western Hemisphere affairs at the U.S. State Department and author of "The Cuba Wars: Fidel Castro, the United States and the Next Revolution."

Castro also survived numerous assassination attempts by the Central Intelligence Agency and anti-Castro exiles in the early 1960s. He took delight in pointing out how none of them succeeded, not even the plot that called for explosives to be placed in the ubiquitous cigars he later would quit smoking for health reasons.

"I have never been afraid of death," Castro said in 2002. "I have never been concerned about death."

Until his last breath, Castro held tightly to his belief in a socialist economic model and one-party Communist rule, even after the Soviet Union disintegrated and most of the rest of the world concluded state socialism was a bankrupt idea whose time had passed.

"The most vulnerable part of his persona as a politician is precisely his continued defense of a totalitarian model that is the main cause of the hardships, the misery and the unhappiness of the Cuban people," said Elizardo Sanchez, a human rights advocate and critic of the Castro regime.

But Castro's defenders in Cuba point to what they see as social progress, including racial integration, universal education and health care. Instead of blaming an inept socialist system, they fault the U.S. embargo for the country's economic woes.

"What Fidel achieved in the social order of this country has not been achieved by any poor nation, and even by many rich countries, despite being submitted to enormous pressures," said Jose Ramon Fernandez, a former Cuban vice president.

In the end, Castro's declaration decades ago that history would issue the final verdict was accurate. Time will tell, but at the end of his long life, it appeared he would not be absolved.

STEVEN GERARD RETIRES

Former Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard has retired, ending a 19-year playing career.

Gerrard, 36, played 710 times for the Reds, winning nine trophies, but joined MLS side LA Galaxy in 2015.

The midfielder is England's fourth most-capped player with 114 appearances and captained the side at three of the six major tournaments he played at.

"I feel lucky to have experienced so many wonderful highlights over the course of my career," said Gerrard.

"I have had an incredible career and am thankful for each and every moment of my time at Liverpool, England and LA Galaxy.

"I fulfilled my childhood dream by pulling on the famous red shirt of Liverpool."

Gerrard had been linked with the manager's job at League One side MK Dons after announcing he would leave LA Galaxy, but said on Wednesday the opportunity came "too soon" for him.

Gerrard, who is working towards his Uefa A coaching licence - the second-highest qualification available, has also been linked with moves to Celtic and Newcastle United, as well as a return to Anfield as a coach.

On Thursday, he said he will take time to consider his options before making an announcement "very soon", adding: "I am excited about the future and feel I still have a lot to offer the game, in whatever capacity that may be."

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp played down talk of Gerrard returning to the Premier League club in a coaching role, and said he should be given "room and space to jump in and learn something new".

"When something is announced then we will talk," said the German, who became Reds boss in October 2015. "It is clear that one day in the future there will be something to announce, that is pretty sure too, but until then there is nothing to say.

"The first thing you should all learn is that, if someone wants to help Steven Gerrard, stop being so excited about each step he is doing next.

"The door is always open for him. From our side, if he wants to make a different career to his former career then we want to help him.

"There is nothing else to say - but maybe that is already too much."

Danny Murphy told BBC Sport his former Liverpool team-mate could consider coaching the Reds' youth players.

"I think it'll be a hugely positive step to learn from Klopp at a club he loves," said the 39-year-old.

"The only difficulty might be the dynamic that creates. To go in as a coach and work around Jurgen and his team, somebody in a job might have to step aside. Maybe to go in as the under-21 or under-18 coach and learn his trade that way might be an option.

"Somewhere down the line, he will be back at Liverpool."

-----BBC

GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE JILL STEIN CALLS FOR VOTES RECOUNT IN THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Jill Stein

Jill Stein, the Green party’s presidential candidate, is preparing to request recounts of the election result in several key battleground states.

Stein launched an online fundraising page seeking donations toward a multimillion-dollar fund she said was needed to request reviews of the results in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The drive has already raised more than $4.5m, which the campaign said would enable it to file for recounts in Wisconsin on Friday and Pennsylvania on Monday.

The fundraising page said it expected to need around $6m-7m to challenge the results in all three states.

Stein said she was acting due to “compelling evidence of voting anomalies” and that data analysis had indicated “significant discrepancies in vote totals” that were released by state authorities. 

“These concerns need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified,” she said in a statement. “We deserve elections we can trust.”

Stein’s move came amid growing calls for recounts or audits of the election results by groups of academics and activists concerned that foreign hackers may have 

interfered with election systems. The concerned groups have been urging Hillary Clinton, the defeated Democratic nominee, to join their cause.

Donald Trump won unexpected and narrow victories against Clinton in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin earlier this month and may yet win Michigan, where a final result has not yet been declared. 

Stein and her campaign made clear they were acting because they wanted to ensure the election results were authentic, rather than because they thought she had actually won any of the contests. Several states allow any candidate who was on the ballot to request a recount.

Friday is the deadline for requesting a recount in Wisconsin, where Trump’s winning margin stands at 0.7%. In Pennsylvania, where his margin is 1.2%, the deadline falls on Monday. In Michigan, where the Trump lead is currently just 0.3%, the deadline is Wednesday 30 November.

The Guardian previously disclosed that a loose coalition of academics and activists concerned about the election’s security is preparing to deliver a report detailing its concerns to congressional committee chairs and federal authorities early next week, according to two people involved.

“I’m interested in verifying the vote,” said Dr Barbara Simons, an adviser to the US election assistance commission and expert on electronic voting. “We need to have post-election ballot audits.” Simons is understood to have contributed analysis to the effort but declined to characterise the precise nature of her involvement.

A second group of analysts, led by the National Voting Rights Institute founder John Bonifaz and Professor Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan’s center for computer security and society, is also taking part in the push for a review.

In a blogpost on Wednesday, Halderman said paper ballots and voting equipment should be examined in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. “Unfortunately, nobody is ever going to examine that evidence unless candidates in those states act now, in the next several days, to petition for recounts,” he said.

Clinton’s defeat to Donald Trump followed the release by US intelligence agencies of public assessments that Russian hackers were behind intrusions into regional electoral computer systems and the theft of emails from Democratic officials before the election.

Curiosity about Wisconsin has centred on apparently disproportionate wins that were racked up by Trump in counties using electronic voting compared with those that used only paper ballots.

Use of the voting machines that are in operation in some Wisconsin counties has been banned in other states, including California, after security analysts repeatedly showed how easily they could be hacked into.

However, Nate Silver, the polling expert and founder of FiveThirtyEight, cast doubt over the theory, stating that the difference disappeared after race and education levels, which most closely tracked voting shifts nationwide, were controlled for.

Silver and several other election analysts have dismissed suggestions that the swing-state vote counts give cause for concern about the integrity of the results.

Still, dozens of professors specialising in cybersecurity, defense and elections have in the past two days signed an open letter to congressional leaders stating that they are “deeply troubled” by previous reports of foreign interference, and requesting swift action by lawmakers.

“Our country needs a thorough, public congressional investigation into the role that foreign powers played in the months leading up to November,” the academics said in their letter, while noting they did not mean to “question the outcome” of the election itself.

Senior legislators including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland have already called for deeper inquiries into the full extent of Russia’s interference with the election campaign.

Wednesday’s announcement by Stein, who had previously been hesitant to get involved, also shields Democratic operatives and people who worked on Clinton’s bid for the White House from needing to overtly challenge the election.

Some senior Democrats are known to be reluctant to suggest there were irregularities in the result because Clinton and her team criticised Trump so sharply during the campaign for claiming that the election would be “rigged” against him.

But others have spoken publicly, including the sister of Huma Abedin, Clinton’s closest aide. “A shift of just 55,000 Trump votes to Hillary in PA, MI & WI is all that is needed to win,” Heba Abedin said on Facebook, urging people to call the US justice department to request an audit.

Alexandra Chalupa, a former Democratic National Committee consultant who during the campaign investigated links between Moscow and Trump’s then campaign manager Paul Manafort, is also participating in the attempt to secure recounts or audits.

“The person who received the most votes free from interference or tampering needs to be in the White House,” said Chalupa. “It may well be Donald Trump, but further due diligence is required to ensure that American democracy is not threatened.”

In a joint statement issued last month, the office of the director of national intelligence and the Department for Homeland Security said they were “confident” that the theft of emails from the DNC and from Clinton’s campaign chair, John Podesta, which were published by WikiLeaks, was directed by the Russian government.

“Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company,” the statement went on. “However, we are not now in a position to attribute this activity to the Russian government.”

------THE GUARDIAN

NIGERIA SECURITY FORCES KILLED 150 PEACEFUL PRO-BIAFRA PROTESTERS

Nigeria's security forces have killed more than 150 peaceful protesters since August 2015, a human rights group has claimed.

Amnesty International said the military used live ammunition and deadly force against pro-Biafra protesters who were campaigning for an independent state in the south-east.
Nigeria's police denies allegations that it used unnecessary force.
The country's army said Amnesty was trying to tarnish its reputation.
Amnesty's report is based on interviews with almost 200 people, alongside more than 100 photographs and 87 videos.
Among the allegations contained in the report are what Amnesty called "extrajudicial executions", when 60 people were shot and killed in south-eastern Onitsha city, in the two days surrounding Biafra Remembrance Day in May 2016.

"This reckless and trigger-happy approach to crowd control has caused at least 150 deaths, and we fear the actual total might be far higher" said Makmid Kamara, Amnesty's interim director for Nigeria.
Other victims detailed in the report include a 26-year-old man who was shot in Nkpor, but hid in a gutter, still alive. He said when soldiers found him, they poured acid over him, and told him he would die slowly.

 
Another woman said she had been speaking to her husband on a mobile phone when he told her he had been shot in the abdomen. He was calling from a military vehicle, she said, and she heard gunshots. She later found his body in a morgue with two more wounds in his chest, leading her to believe he had been executed after the call.

The human rights organisation said pro-Biafra protests had been "largely peaceful" despite occasional incidents of protesters throwing stones and burning tyres - and one occasion when someone shot at police.
"Regardless, these acts of violence and disorder did not justify the level of force used against the whole assembly."
But army spokesman Sani Usman that "the military and other security agencies exercised maximum restraints despite the flurry of provocative and unjustifiable violence".

The two main secessionist groups in the south-east, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, had committed "unimaginable atrocities", he said.
This included burning and killing people from other parts of Nigeria and forcing them to flee, Col Usman added.
In the past year there has been a series of protests to demand the creation of the state of Biafra in the south-east, home to the Igbo people.
Prominent IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu has been detained without trial since October 2015, with the government defying a court order to release him.

The mention of Biafra continues to trigger powerful emotions in Nigeria - and memories of the country's darkest chapter.
In 1967, nationalists attempted to create the independent state of Biafra in the south-east. It was to be a homeland for the Igbo people, one of the country's largest ethnic groups.
But the bid for independence plunged the nation into a three-year civil war that killed at least a million people.
Almost 50 years on and the bitterness of that period still lingers. Many Igbos claim they are still being punished for the conflict.
In the past year that anger has manifested itself in a younger generation who have staged a wave of protests, fuelled, in part, by high unemployment and anger about official corruption - issues that are hardly unique to the Igbos.
But IPOB appears to have gained momentum after the Nigerian authorities detained Mr Kanu, accusing him of treason.
It is this heavy-handed approach, say human rights groups, that is inflaming the tensions.


------BBC NEWS

BARELY 24hours after former President Olusegun Obasanjo lampooned the President Muhammadu Buhari All Progressives Congress, APC led government,Spokesman of the House of Representatives, Abdulrazaq Namdas on Thursday took a swipe at the former president describing him as the grand father of corruption in Nigeria. He also alleged at a press briefing held at the NASS complex that Obasanjo has the intention of bringing down President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/11/breaking-obasanjo-remains-grandfather-corruption-nigeria-says-reps/

BREAKING NEWS: "GALA" NOW SELLS FOR 70 NAIRA AS THE RECESSION BITES HARDER

Gala sausage roll is a popular brand of snacks made by UAC Foods, which many Nigerians rely on for quick meals especially when on the move. For many years the price of this popular brand has been at a stable and affordable 50 naira per piece.

Today the price for 'Gala' as it is fondly called is now 70 naira (likely to still go higher) making it more difficult for millions of Nigerians  to afford it and further underlying the deep economic woes of the country. Inflation is at record high with the government seeming to have no answers in sight.

The cost of most food items and other necessities had already gone up and is still on the rise. And with the Yuletide around the comer, it can only be imagined what the situation will be like in the nearest future.

KANYE WEST- THE CRASH OF YET ANOTHER KARDASHIAN HUSBAND?

Kim and Kanye West

Kanye West, celebrated rapper and husband of one the Kardashian sisters, Kim has been in the news quite a lot recently for some not too positive reasons. He has on more than one occasion interrupted  his shows and gone off on rants that his fans find not so "entertaining".

Last Saturday he arrived at a show late and after performing just about two songs he went off on a long rant that mentioned Clinton, Beyonce and Jay Z. This left many of his fans gaping in utter disbelief .

Now he has been hospitalized for "exhaustion" and the rest of his Saint Pablo tour cancelled.

His erratic behavior lately has gotten many wondering if he is going the way of  other "Kardashian husbands" or "boyfriends" before him who have had one issue or the other in what some media have dubbed "the KARDASHIAN CURSE --

-Scot Disik , Kourtney Kardashian's on and off boyfriend and father of her three children who is battling with anger issues

-Lamar Odom- Khloe Kardashian's ex-husband who is battling with drug dependency

-Kris Humpheries- Kim Kardashian's second husband for only 72days!

- Bruce Jenner- ex- husband of Kris Jenner (the mother of the Kardasians) who is now a transgender. She divorced late Mr. Kardashian after her extra-marital affairs went public and after 13 years of marriage.

The Kardashian extended family has so far recorded 8 divorces and 4 separations.

BREAKING: BUHARI TO RUN FOR SECOND TERM IN 2019 DESPITE PLUNGING NIGERIAN ECONOMY INTO DEEP RECESSION!

President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria has confirmed that he will seek a second term in office during the 2019 presidential election.
Buhari;s confirmation came a day after a former Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) member, Buba Galadima said Buhari would be abandoned by the people if he decides to contest in 2019.
Buhari in a statement on Monday by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, stated that the suggestions that the masses will desert him in 2019 was unfounded and utterly ridiculous.

Shehu's statement read: Ordinary Nigerians are the backbone of his mandate and the only reason he ran for the office is to protect them against the rapacious merchants of corruption, who have held Nigeria back for decades.
"Galadima’s calculation and prediction are utterly confused and misleading.”
"The masses are solidly behind Buhari because he is not stealing their money and their future.
‘’President’s enormous goodwill remains ever strong because the people are convinced the President is acting in their best interest, despite the temporary unintended consequences of reforms.”
“President Muhammadu Buhari is far from isolation. He enjoys a very strategic relationship with ordinary Nigerians. This relationship is as solid as the proverbial rock.
‘’If Buba Galadima thinks that because he has no role and no job in this government that means President is isolated, he is putting himself to ridicule. “Galadima cannot speak for the masses as far as their steadfast loyalty to Buhari is concerned.
"While acknowledging that Galadima was entitled to advance his own political agenda,  Galadima didn’t have the right to decide for ordinary voters.
“Buba Galadima’s disagreement with President Buhari was based on principle.
"President Buhari is committed to level playing field and would not want anyone to link his name to injustice.”
“Galadima’s disagreement with Buhari started in 2011 when a group within the party, orchestrated an organizational mess by which the CPC embarked on the imposition and substitution of candidates for cash payments at the expense of those duly and democratically elected.
“Muhammadu Buhari was embarrassed by the incidents and complaints about the imposition and substitution of candidates, adding that he, as a democrat, would not suppress the will of the people to please selfish interests.
“Consequently he dispensed with the service, such as they are, of Buba Galadima; ran and won the 2015 Elections without them.
" Let Buba Galadima go to his constituency, stand for election and see what will happen to him”, Shehu stressed.

 However, contrary to the spokesman's assertions, investigations have revealed a mass revolt against the mere idea of a Buhari second term even among those who voted for him last year. The reason is not far fetched. The country was plunged into an unprecedented economic crisis as soon as the ex-General took office and there seems to be no end in sight!

Here is one way an internet user reacted to the news:

Other reactions in NAIRALAND a popular internet forum:

- This is just unfair...they no want make we move forward abi?

-Good, let's wait till then... BT bliv me he will fail.

- Hope this is a joke?
Cos we are praying for 2019 to come so that he ll be shown the way out. Imagine this..

- bubu contest again? Then I need to start applying for citizenship of as many countries as possible, imagine Bubu ruling for two term, the damage will be worst than Armageddon.

- God will save us from buhari

- Buhari d dullard pls run to ur daura farms ur cows need u good n right thinking Nigerians don't want u

-Supported. Let him complete his 8 years and bring to an end all his over bloated and empty mystic once and for all. 

With just one year and seven months into the four years term of the administration of President Muhammdu Buhari which will terminate in 2019, the Presidency has given sure indication that the President would seek a second term in office.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/11/breaking-buhari-run-second-term-2019-presidency-confirms/

With just one year and seven months into the four years term of the administration of President Muhammdu Buhari which will terminate in 2019, the Presidency has given sure indication that the President would seek a second term in office.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/11/breaking-buhari-run-second-term-2019-presidency-confirms/

With just one year and seven months into the four years term of the administration of President Muhammdu Buhari which will terminate in 2019, the Presidency has given sure indication that the President would seek a second term in office.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/11/breaking-buhari-run-second-term-2019-presidency-confirms/

With just one year and seven months into the four years term of the administration of President Muhammdu Buhari which will terminate in 2019, the Presidency has given sure indication that the President would seek a second term in office.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/11/breaking-buhari-run-second-term-2019-presidency-confirms/

BREAKING: CATHOLIC PRIESTS CAN NOW FORGIVE PROCURED ABORTION- POPE FRANCIS

Pope Francis has extended the powers of Catholic priests to forgive abortions, making the announcement in an apostolic letter released Monday.

It continues a special dispensation granted last year for the duration of the Year of Mercy, which finished Sunday.

"I wish to restate as firmly as I can that abortion is a grave sin, since it puts an end to an innocent life. In the same way, however, I can and must state that there is no sin that God's mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father," the letter states.

"May every priest, therefore, be a guide, support and comfort to penitents on this journey of special reconciliation," the letter continues.

"I henceforth grant to all priests, in virtue of their ministry, the faculty to absolve those who have committed the sin of procured abortion."

The Catholic Church has long held that abortion is a grave "moral evil," with the Church's strong position on the issue driving many Catholic pro-life groups.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that every human life "from the moment of conception until death is sacred" -- and that any Catholic who procures an abortion incurs automatic excommunication, a penalty that often only a bishop can lift.

But Pope Francis announced a shift last year when he said that priests around the world would be authorized to forgive the "sin of abortion" for the duration of the Church's Year of Mercy, which ran from December 8, 2015 to November 20, 2016.

"The forgiveness of God cannot be denied to one who has repented," he said at the time, expressing sympathy for women who had been through the "agonizing and painful" decision to terminate their pregnancy.

In some regions, such as in the US, many priests already had the power to forgive abortion. Vatican officials described the announcement last year as "a widening of the church's mercy." 

Church officials had indicated at the time that it was possible that Pope Francis would opt to allow the changed policy to continue in perpetuity, as he has now done.

The Year of Mercy is a period during which believers may receive special indulgences for their sins.

Pope Francis has forged a more forgiving, merciful direction for the Church since his papacy began in March 2013, taking a more welcoming position toward groups that had previously found themselves on the margins of the Catholic establishment, such as gays and lesbians, and divorced Catholics.


------CNN

A TEMPLE FOR ALL RELIGIONS AND ATHEISTS

Previously a barren golf course owned by the elite Grange School in Santiago, the 10-hectare site -- which took nine years to find - has been transformed into a space envisioned to be open to all, regardless of background, religion, gender, or social standing.

"This is a place that is welcoming all the religions, or if you have no religion," said Hariri, who is a Bahá'í himself, during the opening of the Temple in October 2016.

"It's an architectural challenge. How do you give something a form that means this?"

In spirit and in structure, the building was to embody the unity of mankind, which is a central belief of the Bahá'í Faith, an independent religion founded in 19th century Iran. 

The Chile Temple is the final Bahá'í continental temple to be built, joining eight others, including the Temple for North America in Wilmette, Illinois, and the Lotus Temple in New Delhi, India.

 

A Bahá'í Temple has only a few criteria: it needs to be "a nine-sided domed structure with nine entrances to symbolically welcome people from all directions of the earth for prayer and meditation."

Faced with this architectural challenge, Hariri and his creative team did not want to take inspiration from other buildings. It could not look like a mosque, a synagogue or a church as this may alienate certain people. 

Equally, drawing on the culture of one or some of the indigenous communities of Chile was not a priority, as it would involve excluding others. "They're not all the same, you can't just lump everything together," Hariri told CNN, "if I went Quechua, the Mapuche would not be represented, and so on. It is very delicate."

Coexisting with innovations in technology and machine-to-machine production is an artisanal quality, created by the use of ancient materials like bronze, cast glass, and stone.

The bronze doorways are molded by hand, and the cast glass on the exterior of the Temple was invented using melted down test tubes and petri dishes in the studio kilns of Jeff Goodman, a Canadian glass artist known for his ornate blown-glass creations.

Over 30,000 square meters of glass were fired in a bespoke factory of six kilns to produce around 1,100 glass panels of various shapes and sizes, which slot into place to form the exterior of the "wings," supported by steel frames coursing through the edifice like the veins of a leaf.

"It is a very deliberate intersection between the ancient and the absolute new. That's not just architectural, it's philosophical," mused Hariri, intimating the Bahá'í belief that all the religions of the past and future are one, "this extension both forward and back is very symbolic."

Looking at the finished structure, Hariri is happy and perhaps relieved: there was no guarantee that the computer modeling would translate into the desired effect of "embodied light," captured in the glass.

"That was one of our biggest worries, would that in fact happen -- it's a theory!" he breathed, "You hope it does, that [the light] does kiss that marble."

The Temple is built to last 400 years: time will tell if the theory of a universally attractive form holds, too. So far, so good.

 

In pursuit of this "feeling", the multidisciplinary team adopted three-dimensional modeling software CATIA, made for industrial design and aerospace engineering and rarely used in architecture, which was a daring move and "breathtakingly hard" 13 years ago at the beginning of the project.

Another technical feat was the installation of a pendulum isolation system to make the building resistant to seismic activity. Three universities -- in Canada, Los Angeles and Chile -- collaborated to create a system that allows for 600 millimeters of movement, so that the whole building rocks and returns to the center in case of an earthquake. 

------CNN

FRANCE RECORDS HER OWN SURPRISE AS EX-PRESIDENT SARKOZY IS KNOCKED OUT OF THE PRIMARIES LEADING TO 2017 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Ex- President Nicolas Sarkozy

Former President Nicolas Sarkozy and his populist, hard-line stand on Muslims and immigration went down in a surprising defeat Sunday in France's conservative primary for president. Two ex-prime ministers will instead meet in a runoff next week for the nomination.
The race was seen as an early measure of how the terror attacks in France over the past two years and the nationalist wave sweeping Europe and the U.S. have shaped the country's political landscape.
With more than 3.8 million votes counted from about 92 percent of polling stations, Francois Fillon had 44.2 percent, Alain Juppe 28.4 percent and Sarkozy 20.7 percent. The final results are not expected until Monday.
The top two vote-getters will compete in the Nov. 27 runoff.

In a speech from his campaign headquarters in Paris, Sarkozy called on his supporters to vote for Fillon — his prime minister from 2007 to 2012 — in the second round.
"I did not succeed in convincing a majority of voters. I do respect and understand the will of those who have chosen for the future other political leaders than me," Sarkozy said. "I have no bitterness, no sadness, and I wish the best for my country."
The winner is expected to have a strong chance of victory in the April-May 2017 presidential election, because traditional rivals on the left have been weakened by Socialist Francois Hollande's troubled presidency.

The conservative candidate's main challenger next year may turn out to be far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who is hoping anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and anti-establishment sentiment can propel her to the presidency. Le Pen, the candidate of her once-pariah National Front party, did not take part in any primary.
Sarkozy, Fillon and Juppe had been expected to lead the balloting Sunday.
Of the three, Sarkozy, 61, took the hardest line on immigration and Islam-related issues, in the hope of pulling votes from people attracted to Le Pen. He called for stricter immigration rules across Europe and vowed to ban Muslim women from wearing headscarves at universities and possibly elsewhere.

Fillon — an outsider a few weeks ago — enjoyed a recent boost in popularity thanks to his image of authority and seriousness compared with Sarkozy's more brazen demeanor.
Observers also said the 62-year-old Fillon proved to be the most convincing candidate in the three televised debates. He pushed for strong conservative values, pledging to hold a referendum on a quota system for immigrants and to ban same-sex couples from adoption.
Juppe, 72, promoted a more peaceful vision of French society, based on respect for religious freedom and ethnic diversity.

On the economic front, all candidates called for lower taxes, especially on businesses, and a reduction in the number of public servants. Fillon and Juppe also agreed on giving managers more flexibility by loosening the 35-hour weekly limit on employees' working time.
Other candidates in the French vote were Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, the only woman on the conservative ballot; former government ministers Bruno Le Maire and Jean-Francois Cope; and Parliament member Jean-Frederic Poisson


-----CNSNEWS

MODEL WITH "VITILIGO" IS ON 'BBC 100 WOMEN OF 2016'

Canadian model Winnie Harlow, born Chantelle Brown-Young, did not have an easy childhood. At the age of four she was diagnosed with vitiligo, an incurable skin pigmentation disease that causes colorless patches to develop on a person's body.

Bullied for the way she looked, her peers at school taunted her with cruel nicknames such as "cow" and "zebra". "The bullying was so bad that I was forced to drop out and be home schooled," Harlow recalls.

Fast-forward to 2016 and Harlow has over one million followers on Instagram, she's the face of Spanish fashion label Desigual and she's been shot by fashion photographer and director of online platform SHOWstudio Nick Knight, whose portfolio includes Kate Moss, Lady Gaga and Kanye West.

From social pariah to global "it" girl, Harlow has ascended to fashion's top table.

She has even made it to BBC 100 WOMEN OF 2016 list. 

Here she is in pictures: