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Former Nigerian Petroleum Minister Shettima Ali Monguno was abducted by gunmen outside a mosque in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, a military official said. Monguno, 87, was petroleum minister when Africa’s biggest oil producer joined OPEC in 1972 and conference president at three meetings in Lagos and Vienna, according to the organization’s website. “We are aware on the incident,” Sagir Musa, a spokesman for the military Joint Task Force in charge of the security in the state, said today by phone from Maiduguri, without giving further details. Boko Haram Islamists active in the city are increasingly relying on kidnapping-for-ransom to fund their violent campaign for Islamic rule, Musa said on April 28. The group group has carried out bomb and gun attacks in which hundreds of people have died in the country’s north and capital, Abuja. Monguno had in the past urged President Goodluck Jonathan to engage Boko Haram in talks and consider giving them amnesty to end the...

Vessel dates back to Achaemenid Empire in 4th or 5th century BC Had been owned by British family since 1950s until they decided to sell it Sale shocked auctioneers who expected bowl to go for £30,000-50,000 A 2,500-year-old glass bowl from the ancient Persian Empire has been sold for nearly £2,500 at auction. The extraordinary antique has survived upheavals including the wars of Alexander the Great, the arrival of Islam and a string of colonial conflicts. Amazingly, it has remained intact and apparently in near-mint condition ever since it was made in the 4th or 5th century BC. Sold: This ancient Persian bowl went up for auction in London this week and fetched nearly £500,000 The 8in-wide green bowl had been a treasured keepsake for a British family which acquired it in the 1950s. When they decided to sell the beautiful object, auctioneers Bonhams expected it to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000. But at the auction of antiquities in London yesterday, the bowl was sold to an unnam...

EME’s star boy Wizkid, is back in full swing with a monster track titled Jaiye Jaiye featuring Africa’s most celebrated icon, Femi Anikolapo Kuti. The multi award winning Grammy nominee, Femi Kuti, gives the track a new school high-life mix as he puts his superb saxophone skills to its full capacity. The track, Jaiye Jaiye produced by Sarz, shows Wizkid talking about his increasingly successful music career. Apart from this historic collaboration, Wizkid has worked with some of the biggest names in the local and international music industry including Akon, The Game, Kardinal Official, Wale, Young Jeezy, M.I, Ice Prince among others. Listen to Wizkid’s Jaiye Jaiye here

THERE was mayhem in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, on Thursday, as a former governor of Oyo State and national leader of the Accord Party, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, narrowly escaped being lynched by thugs suspected to be from the state chapter of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Ladoja, who just returned from London where he met with Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala, also a former governor of the state, was attacked by thugs at Olomi area of the state, close to the state headquarters of the NURTW, where he went to welcome defectors from the ACN and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) into the Accord Party in Oluyole Local Government Area of the state.

" src="http://www.usmagazine.com/uploads/assets/articles/62519-kris-kross-chris-kelly-dead-autopsy-complete-cause-of-death-pending-toxicology-r/1367530458_chris-kelly-467.jpg" width="457"> Chris Kelly died at the age of 34 on May 1, 2013 The case is not yet closed for the late Chris Kelly . On Thursday, May 2 -- one day after the Kris Kross 90s rapper died at age 34 -- an autopsy was completed, but the official cause of death is still pending toxicology results, E! News reports . The Fulton County Medical Examiner's office has determined that there was no indication of foul play in the 34-year-old rapper's untimely death, but officials are still trying to determine whether it was a drug overdose that ultimately killed Kelly.

  Chelsea's Frank Lampard celebrates after winning against FC Basel in their Europa League semi-final second leg soccer match at Stamford Bridge in London May 2, 2013. (Reuters) - Chelsea's rollercoaster of a season could yet end with another night of European glory after they knocked FC Basel out of the semi-finals on Thursday to set up a Europa League final against Benfica. Goals from Fernando Torres, Victor Moses and David Luiz in a nine-minute spell early in the second half gave Chelsea a 3-1 second-leg win over the Swiss champions at Stamford Bridge for a 5-2 aggregate success.

The Governor is currently in Abuja. Police begin search for lady who allegedly posted the death rumour on internet For the second time in five months, the Governor of Enugu State, Sullivan Chime, was rumoured dead on Thursday, causing panic among his relatives, residents of the state and political associates. The rumours reportedly emanated from a “breaking news” story posted on an Internet Website, saying the governor passed away in an Indian Hospital where he was allegedly receiving treatment

  The University of Iowa study of hundreds of people age 50 and older found that those who played a videogame were able to improve a range of cognitive skills, and reverse up to seven years of age-related declines.WASHINGTON, May 2 — Playing videogames can prevent and even reverse deteriorating brain functions such as memory, reasoning and visual processing, according to a study released Wednesday.

Over the past two decades, the mix of diseases and disabilities affecting the health of Ghanaians has transformed. Despite global decreases, infectious diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS continue to kill thousands, while heart disease and stroke are beginning to take a greater toll on the health of citizens. These are some of the findings from the Global Burden of Diseases (GBD), Injuries, and Risk Factors 2010 Study (GBD 2010), a collaborative project led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. Country-specific findings, including for many countries in East Africa, were announced in March, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle, by IHME Director Dr. Christopher Murray and Foundation Co-chair and Trustee Bill Gates.

A new camera is breaking barriers A new digital camera designed by a team of scientists literally sees what bugs see. The camera’s design recreates the structure of insects’ eyes to project a fuller, wider, and more focused view than is possible with even the best conventional digital cameras today. Fire ants and bark beetles were the specific model for this camera, according to a report that the researchers, one of whom is John Rogers, a University of Illinois chemistry and physics professor, published in the May 2 edition of Nature . The report explains that the eye of one of these bugs consists of 200-500 long, cylindrical units called omatidia, each of which includes a cornea connected to a photosensitive organ and surrounded by dark pigment to keep light on one lens from leaking into another lens. All of these omatidia cluster together, with the lens facing outward, to form the bulging multicellular eye shape that we all associate with the insect kingdom. The only key differenc...

Skype for Windows 8 gets a video messaging feature SOFTWARE HOUSE Microsoft has updated its Skype application on Windows 8 with a video messaging feature, for those who can't be bothered to type. Unsurprisingly, this new Skype feature, which is available now in Preview form , lets the handful of Windows 8 owners in the wild record a message to send to a friend. Video messages can be sent even if the recipient is unavailable, so you can give your friends a surprise when they return online.

  Twenty years ago this week the World Wide Web's technology became publicly available. To mark the event, the first-ever website has been recreated and republished. The web began at CERN, a research facility for particle physics in Switzerland. In recent years it has become well known for housing the Large Hadron Collider instrument used to hunt down the Higgs Boson, a previously undetected particle that could help explain how the universe works.

The latest iteration of Microsoft Office for the small enterprise, Microsoft Office 365 for small business, is according to value-added distributor Comztek, fast levelling the playing field in applications as a service and cloud computing. Microsoft Office 365 for small business is fast levelling the playing field in applications as a service and cloud computing (image: Microsoft) According to David Caygill, business unit director at Comztek, the new software is an easy-to-use set of web-enabled tools that let you access your email, important documents, contacts, and calendar from almost anywhere and any device. The real benefit of this new platform is that it is hardware agnostic, and by any device they simply mean you can now access all your documents from your PC, Mac, iPhone, Android phone, or BlackBerry smartphones. “Office 365 is as intuitive as it is easy to deploy. It integrates seamlessly with the programmes you already know, such as Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Micro...

A Karu, Abuja, Upper Area Court has remanded 42-year-old Rufua Alabi in prison custody after he was arraigned for impregnating his 16-year-old daughter. The prosecutor, Cpl Pascal Njoku told the court that Alabi of Kurudu Village, Abuja, committed the offence sometime last year, following which the daughter was carrying a six-months-old pregnancy for him. He said that the girl’s mother, Bose reported the matter at the Jikwoyi Police Station, after she found out that her daughter was pregnant and that Bose took her daughter to the hospital where a doctor confirmed that she was pregnant. He said the victim confessed to her mother and the elder brother that her father was responsible for her pregnancy. “My father on many occasions, had sexual intercourse with me when nobody was at home and warned me never to tell anybody about the affair,” the girl [name withheld] revealed. The offence is contrary to the Penal Code. The presiding judge, Alhaji Umar Kagarko ordered that Alabi’s bail appl...

Mobile number portability (MNP) is a customer's strongest weapon in the telecommunications industry, because it strengthens the customer's ability to choose any network operator without losing his or her telecommunications 'identity'. MNP enables a user to switch from the current network service provider to another network operator without losing his or her telephone number, which to some extent is the customer's identity as it is unique to him or her and is a common means by which the customer is known and can be contacted. Technorati Tags: MTN , communication , NCC Some stakeholders see MNP as a revolutionary measure that leads to better service provision and improved customer satisfaction. Others opine that on its own, MNP does not guarantee a better quality of service, because if the original problem with the first operator was an overloaded network (ie, too many customers for the available network capacity), the same problem could afflict the new network if ...

Satellite images reveal that 2,275 homes were destroyed during a military raid to hunt down militant Islamists in the northern Nigerian town of Baga last month, a rights group has said. Close-up satellite images of Baga. The one on the left taken on 6 April 2013 and the one on the right on 26 April 2013, following the violence. (Source: Astrium) Human Rights Watch said soldiers “engaged more in destruction than in protection” after Boko Haram fighters attacked a military patrol. The army has not commented on the latest allegations. It has said 37 people were killed; others say more than 180 died. Community leaders dispute the army’s version of events. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the Nigerian authorities to impartially investigate and prosecute soldiers responsible for recent violence in Baga. It said satellite images it had analysed undermined the military’s assertion that only 30 houses were destroyed during the fighting in Baga, a remote fishing community on the sh...

A 25-year-old man, David Nnebong was on Monday arrested for sexually abusing a 2-year-old girl, put under his care. Nneobong was said to have been living with the little girl’s grandmother, Iya Wura, who resides at 18 Awoseyin Street, Somolu. The victim’s grandmother was said to have left the victim in Nnebong’s care, but came back around 3pm and met the child crying and kept pointing at her private part; a gesture which ignited Iya’s suspicion. Reports say the victim’s mother currently resides in Calabar, Crosss River state, while the toddler is Nnebong’s cousin. A neighbour, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it was the girl’s cries that created the air of suspicion. He said, “It was the child who actually made Iya Wura know that David had raped her. The grandmother raised the alarm and all the neighbours pounced on David. “Although she was upset with David, Iya Wura and other relatives, who were present, did not want to get him arrested. “They only wanted him to leave th...

Nigeria’s ruling party said the opposition governor begged to join its fold.   The spokesperson of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party , PDP, Olisa Metuh, has claimed that the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole , on several occasions, begged the leadership of the party to let him decamp to the PDP. He said the governor was consistently turned down by the Nigerian ruling party. Mr. Metuh, who spoke via a statement on Wednesday, “urged the Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole to be bold enough to tell Nigerians how many times he begged to join the PDP but was turned down”. ” The same PDP which Adams went on all fours, begging to join on several occasions has suddenly become the ” party of rogues” because of his desperation to justify the massive rigging and democratic aberration that was local government elections in Edo state. ” In 2007, Adams (Oshiomhole) begged to be given an opportunity under the Umbrella but we considered his governorship aspiration an assault...

The family of late Big Brother Africa housemate and Hip hop star, Goldie Harvey on will on Wednesday auction all her belongings. The family said this in a statement on Tuesday. The statement signed by the family representative, Deji Adetayo, stated that although the singer did not leave a will, she had had an agreement with her husband, Leonard Harvey to auction her remaining items. Mr Adetayo said the proceeds from the sales would be donated to charity. He said, “There will be a garage sale at Goldie’s house located at 30B, Ologunkutere Street, Parkview Estate, Ikoyi, Lagos on May 1, 2013. Culled from  ChannelsTV

Local growers of rice and importers of the commodity have cried out for government help against smugglers who they allege have overrun the customs at the boarder entry points. A new group of local growers and importers of the commodity calling themselves the “Patriotic Rice Association of Nigeria, PRAN” said in Abuja on Monday that “massive and incessant smuggling of Nigeria had thrown the rice industry into turmoil with severe consequences for government revenues, the economy and future plans for rice self-sufficiency.” The statement jointly signed by Alhaji Habibu Maishinkafa, Chairman and Mr. Martins Okereke, Secretary said given the free reign enjoyed by rice smugglers, “a bleak future lies ahead of local rice growers and traders legitimately involved in rice trade.” Tracing the origin of this sorry state of affairs in the country, the association said, “the Nigerian rice industry seems to have been thrown into a turmoil since the import tariffs were increased exponentially...