‘Linda Ikeji is a liar’

Lagos - Controversial journalist, Kemi Olunloyo has claimed that Linda Ikeji's Banana Island mansion is a political gift.
Kemi Olunloyo  alleged that the super blogger Linda Ikeji never bought the Banana Island mansion as earlier believed.
According to what she posted on her blog, she claims the mansion was "a blackmail gift from a high ranking politician".

Also, she added that the money Linda is alleged to have received from Dasuki is not part of the money used in purchasing the house.

Troops clear more Boko Haram lairs

Abuja - Two Boko Haram terrorists have been killed after troops of the 7 Division Garrison conducted some fighting patrols along Leje Axis in Borno State.

The troops cleared the area and about 15 other villages around Leje.

They include Khadadamamari, Ladin Buta, Hilmari, Kashauri, Keshan Ngala, Aiwa, Masu Kura, Mabirni, Grza 1 and 2, Mashuari, Dubenge, Tauba and Majande.

Troops have also blocked all known routes to prevent Boko Haram terrorists from transporting livestock across borders.

All these are with a view to stopping the Boko Haram from fuelling their terror machines through cattle rustling and illegal trading.

“As we continue our push to clear all remaining elements of Boko Haram terrorists we call on law abiding citizens of the country to continue providing security agencies with credible information about all known and suspected terrorists,” Army spokesperson, Kukasheka Usman, said on Tuesday.

 

Homosexuality will always be condemned - Ghanaian bishop

Accra – The Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church in Ghana, Reverend Titus Kofi Awotwi Pratt has said that homosexuality will always be condemned due to inconsistencies with text written in the bible, reports Ghana Web
Speaking during the inauguration of the Goaso Diocese of the Methodist Church, Reverend Pratt said such practices were foreign concepts in Ghanaian and African culture.
Reverend Pratt's remarks came as two moderators of the Presbyterian Church were accused of being affiliated with the pro-homosexual American Presbyterian Church, according to Joy Online
Retired Reverend Professor Emmanuel Martey, chairperson of the Christian Council accused them of being ‘non-Bible believing’ and ‘homosexual’, the report said.
A majority of African countries outlaw homosexuality.

 

Obama expected to move on Taiwan arms sales before year-end

The Obama administration is expected as soon as this week to authorize the sale of two guided missile frigates to Taiwan, U.S. congressional sources said on Monday, in spite of China's opposition to the deal.

"We're expecting an announcement as early as this week," a Republican congressional aide said. Another congressional aide said the notification from the administration was expected "any time now".

The sale would mark the first time in four years that the United States has shipped arms to Taiwan, the longest gap in such arms sales in nearly four decades.

It comes a year after Congress passed the Naval Transfer Act authorizing the sale of up to four Perry-class frigates to Taiwan in December 2014.

Taiwan has said it expects to pay about $176 million for the two vessels and that it would review its needs before making a decision on two more.

President Barack Obama signed the transfer act into law, but his administration still has to tell Congress its plans to move ahead with the sale, part of Washington's commitment under the Taiwan Relations Act to ensure Taipei can maintain a credible defense.

The White House declined comment about the sale, which would come after increasingly intense pressure from Congress, including a unanimous vote last week by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on legislation calling on Obama to provide a timeline on when it would move forward.  

Past U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan have attracted strong condemnation in China, which considers Taiwan a renegade province.

Analysts and congressional sources believe the process has been held up by the administration's desire to maintain stable working relations with China, an increasingly powerful strategic rival but also a vital economic partner as the world's second-largest economy.

Most recently the Obama administration has been working with Beijing to forge a landmark global climate agreement that was sealed on Saturday after two weeks of intense negotiations, setting the course for a historic transformation of the world's fossil fuel-driven economy within decades.

Congressional sources said the White House was pushing to move ahead with the Taiwan deal before the end of 2015 - an important deadline because of Taipei's budget cycle.

"This is positive and helpful toward promoting regional peace and stability," Taiwan defense ministry spokesman Major General David Lo said Tuesday at a regular press briefing in Taipei, adding that the ministry has not received official notice about the authorization.

The frigates will come out of existing U.S. inventory and will not require new ships to be built.

CHINESE OPPOSITION

A spokesman for the Chinese Embassy said on Friday that China "firmly opposes any arms sales from the United States to Taiwan."

"We urge the U.S. government to stop selling arms to Taiwan to avoid hurting China-U.S. relations and disturbing peaceful development of cross-strait relations."

Beijing expressed anger at last year's bill, although arms sales to date to Taiwan have not caused lasting damage to Beijing's relations with either Washington or Taipei.

The new sales would come at a period of heightened tensions between the United States and China over the South China Sea, where Washington has been critical of China's building of man-made islands to assert expansive territorial claims.

China was angered when the United States sent a guided-missile destroyer close to one of the islands in October and B-52 bombers nearby last month.

While Taiwan has been overshadowed recently as a U.S.-China issue by the South China Sea, it has the potential to flare up again, especially with Taiwanese elections coming up next month and a party which traditionally favors independence from China expected to win.

The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee last week unanimously passed the Taiwan Naval Support Act, which asked Obama to submit to Congress a timeframe for sending the ships.

Representative Eliot Engel, the ranking Democrat on the committee, called last week for more regular arms sales to Taiwan, despite China's political sensitivity on the subject.

"Our desire not to upset Beijing shouldn't come at the expense of Taiwan's security," Engel said.

In November, Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations panel, wrote to Obama urging "more robust" U.S. security assistance and sales to Taiwan.

"We are troubled that it has now been over four years – the longest period since the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 – since the administration has notified Congress of a new arms sale package," the senators wrote.

Naira faces further fall this week – Experts

Economic and financial experts on Sunday said the naira could fall further this week if the Central Bank of Nigeria failed to do something about the continued depreciation of the currency.

The naira crashed further against the United States dollar at the parallel market to 262 on Sunday, foreign exchange dealers said.

The greenback had sold for N257 and N260 on Thursday and Friday, respectively.

The experts said the N60 margin between the official and black market rates of the naira was dangerous for the economy, adding that it could give room for round-tripping and other sharp practices in the forex market.

“The margin is too dangerous for the market. There is a need to do something about it,” the Head Investment and Research, Afrinvest West Africa, Mr. Ayodeji Ebo, said.

He added that administrative controls imposed by the CBN might have been the remote cause of the fall, while the central bank’s activities in the Bureau De Change segment were the immediate cause.

“The CBN’s action in the BDC segment is right but it is causing the depreciation,” Ebo said.

Analyst at Investment Today, a financial advisory and research firm, Mr. Okunola Henry, said if the CBN continued with its policy measures in the BDC segment, the naira would fall further this week.

“Apart from the need to devalue the naira, there is a need to take a second look at the BDC segment,” he added.

The local currency has been on a steady fall against the greenback at the black market in the past three weeks after the CBN stopped the sale of forex to over 1,500 BDC operators who failed to render returns on the utilisation of previous forex purchased at the official window.

The central bank had during its weekly forex sale to the BDCs over two Wednesdays ago refused to sell forex to operators that failed supply adequate documentation.

The dollar, which was selling for between N241 and N243 before the CBN’s clampdown on the BDC sub-sector, initially fell to 247 and later 251.

Intending international travellers, who depend on BDCs for Personal Travel Allowance and Business Travel Allowance, were hit by the development, which caused dollar scarcity in the black market.

As of Sunday, intending international travellers were still finding it difficult to access forex. It is still unclear if the CBN will supply enough forex to Deposit Money Banks to enable them commence the sale of the PTA and BTA to intending travellers.

2016 census not realistic – NPC

The National Population Commission has ruled out feasibility of the national population and housing census scheduled for 2016, blaming late preparation and inadequacy of other resources for the project.

Speaking at a recent media forum in Abuja, Chairman of the Commission, Eze Duru-Iheoma (SAN), stated that in order to ensure accurate result, the NPC should have prepared two years before 2016.

“We set out plan for 2016 census because going by the United Nation’s principles and guidelines for census, it should hold between five and ten years. The census ought to hold in 2016 going by the fact that the last census was held in 2006. Reality on ground is that it requires a minimum of two years to plan for a census even if you have all the money,” Duru-Iheoma said.

The NPC chairman who was represented by the Federal Commissioner for Population representing Enugu State, Dr. Festus Uzor, added that the commission required 1.1 million enumerators and over 50, 000 supervisors to give the nation accurate census.

Uzor noted, “If all the money required is given to us today, we will not be ready by 2016 to do a good job and we will rather not do a job than to do a partial job. The chairman had said that the way things are, 2016 is not realistic.”

He urged journalists to give support in terms of sensitisation and publicity towards achieving “incontrovertible and accurate national population and housing census rescheduled for 2017, saying that.

“Your job as media (practitioners) is to help us engage Nigerians, government and all stakeholders including non-governmental organisations to come together and understand that this census we want to do will be a vehicle for change. You can’t plan for people without knowing them,” Uzor said.

Earlier, the commission had declared its intention to adopt the use of bio-metric data technology for the proposed 2017 population and housing census, saying that the lessons learned from the previous exercises called for use of the technology to ensure data auditability and credibility.

It noted that the technology involved capturing of facial impression and fingerprints of respondents, added that the aim is to eliminate all forms of manipulation and also give the nation accurate, reliable and indisputable demographic data that will drive the country to sustainable development.

Twitter looks to make money from ads aimed at logged-out users

Twitter Inc said it was testing a feature to show advertisements to people who read tweets without logging in, as it tries to make good on its long-time ambition to monetize non-active users.

The company said the feature will help it cash in on an additional half a billion people each month, pushing its shares up as much as 7.8 percent to $26.21 on Thursday - their biggest percentage gain in two months.

The promoted tweets and videos will be available on Twitter's desktop website, particularly on people's profile pages and "tweet detail" pages that highlight specific tweets.

The move will be welcomed by advertisers who have shied away from Twitter saying it doesn't have enough users, unlike rival Facebook Inc, which boasts more than 1.55 billion monthly active users (MAUs). Twitter has 320 million MAUs.

Facebook, which had once struggled to monetize its social networking platform, has been consistently launching tools to capture ad dollars.

Twitter had first broached this idea last year when Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto said it would be possible to monetize logged-out users once the company "nailed the consumer experience".

The company has said that ads targeted at logged-out users - or people who view tweets without a Twitter account - would bring in $2.50 in average revenue per user (ARPU). Its logged-in user base brings in more than $4 in ARPU.

Twitter has been experimenting under Jack Dorsey - the company's co-founder who returned as chief executive in October - to make the website more engaging.

"The best thing to happen under Jack Dorsey would be the fact that they are going to rethink all aspects of their business," Monness, Crespi, Hardt, & Co Inc analyst James Cakmak said.

"Before it was a case of doing the same thing and hoping things change."

In the few months under Dorsey, Twitter introduced the 'Moments' feature, added polls to tweets, laid off about 8 percent of its workforce and rolled out a "buy" button.

The company also said earlier this week it was testing a feature where tweets would be sorted by relevance instead of reverse chronological order.

The new ads feature was being tested with some advertisers in the United States, UK, Japan and Australia, Twitter said on Thursday. The company plans to roll it out to more markets around the world.