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Nigeria, USAID Launch Yoruba, Igbo Early Grade Book

Precious Obazee
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Nigeria, USAID Launch Yoruba, Igbo Early Grade Book

The Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), have launched the new Igbo and Yoruba early grade reading materials entitled: Ka Anyi go! and Je Ká kawe!.

These resources expand the availability of quality local language teaching and learning materials for reading in Nigeria, targeting all Igbo and Yoruba speaking primary grade 1 to 3 learners in the southern regions.

Developed by the Research and Development Council with support from the USAID Northern Education Initiative (NEI) Plus activity, the new Igbo and Yoruba curricula will be available for any interested state to adopt, print, and distribute with their own resources.

The curriculum is tailored for a 21st century audience of emerging readers, rich with culturally relevant stories, colourful pictures, gender-balanced representation, and a clear sequence of content that gradually builds upon the abilities of each learner as new skills and proficiencies are acquired.

The comprehensive curriculum package includes learner textbooks and workbooks, teachers’ guides, and storybooks for practice in school or at home, all available at no expense for download.

On his part, Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba commended the laudable achievements and reiterated that the Ministry of Education will continue to partner with USAID to provide basic education services that promote self-reliance.

He said the ministry was ready to consolidate and sustain gains made by USAID’s NEI Plus project beyond the two states of Bauchi and Sokoto.

These resources expand the availability of quality local language teaching and learning materials for reading in Nigeria, targeting all Igbo and Yoruba speaking primary grade 1 to 3 learners in the southern regions.

Developed by the Research and Development Council with support from the USAID Northern Education Initiative (NEI) Plus activity, the new Igbo and Yoruba curricula will be available for any interested state to adopt, print, and distribute with their own resources.

The curriculum is tailored for a 21st century audience of emerging readers, rich with culturally relevant stories, colourful pictures, gender-balanced representation, and a clear sequence of content that gradually builds upon the abilities of each learner as new skills and proficiencies are acquired.

The comprehensive curriculum package includes learner textbooks and workbooks, teachers’ guides, and storybooks for practice in school or at home, all available at no expense for download.

On his part, Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba commended the laudable achievements and reiterated that the Ministry of Education will continue to partner with USAID to provide basic education services that promote self-reliance.

He said the ministry was ready to consolidate and sustain gains made by USAID’s NEI Plus project beyond the two states of Bauchi and Sokoto.

Botched Surgery Disaster: ‘My Original Nose Was Gone’- Priyanka Chopra

Koko Lawrence
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Botched Surgery Disaster: ‘My Original Nose Was Gone’- Priyanka Chopra

Priyanka Chopra is opening up about a botched nose surgery that went so wrong at the beginning of her acting career that it led to canceled roles and threatened to derail her future.

The “Quantico” star writes about the procedure in her new memoir, “Unfinished.” Chopra said she underwent a polypectomy after experiencing what felt like continuous head colds.

While the procedure was supposed to be routine, “it wasn’t,” the actor said, explaining that the doctor “accidentally shaved the bridge of my nose and the bridge collapsed” when he was trying to just shave the polyp. The results were disastrous. 

“My original nose was gone. My face looked completely different. I wasn’t me anymore,” the former Miss World wrote, saying she felt “devastated and hopeless.”

“Every time I looked in the mirror, a stranger looked back at me, and I didn’t think my sense of self or my self-esteem would ever recover from the blow,” Chopra said. The feeling of despair extended to those closest to her, as well, and continued as knowledge of the surgery became a “public affair.”

As the actor’s face became the subject of endless speculation and reports, she learned she’d lost two of the roles she was previously cast in and that one role was significantly scaled back due to concern over her appearance on screen.

“My career, a career based so much on physical appearance, seemed to be over before it had even really started,” Chopra wrote.

Eventually, Chopra made it to the big screen and, as we know now, her career took off. She also underwent several surgeries in an attempt to fix her nose.

“I’ve gotten accustomed to this face,” she said. “Now when I look in the mirror, I am no longer surprised. I’ve made peace with this slightly different me.”

In a previously reported excerpt of her book, Chopra wrote about the shocking plastic surgery advice a director gave her as she was just starting out in her career. He asked her to stand up and twirl for him, before giving her an “assessment.”

“He stared at me long and hard, assessing me, and then suggested that I get a boob job, fix my jaw, and add a little more cushioning to my butt,” the Bollywood star said.

“If I wanted to be an actress, he said, I’d need to have my proportions ‘fixed,’ and he knew a great doctor in LA he could send me to,” Chopra continued. “My then-manager voiced his agreement with the assessment.”

But as Chopra has grown older and more assured of herself, she said, she’s learned to drown out the noise and conversations like the one above, which are all too common in her industry.

“As a teenager, I was meeker. Then, as time went by and I started feeling the support of the world, I started coming into my own as a woman,” the actor told Elle U.K. in an interview published last week.

American actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buy Welsh football club

Chris Ottah
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American actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buy Welsh football club

Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have completed their takeover of Wrexham AFC, a Welsh football club currently playing in England’s fifth tier.

McElhenney, the creator of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” and Reynolds, star of “Deadpool,” have taken 100% control from the Wrexham Supporters Trust (WST) and have made an initial £2 million ($2.77M) investment into the club, CNN reports.

“It is a special day for the two of us to become the latest stewards in the long and storied history of Wrexham AFC. Together with the players, the staff, the fans, and the local community, we can now pursue our goal to grow the team and return it to the EFL in front of increased attendances, and in an improved stadium, while making a positive difference to the wider community in Wrexham,” the pair said in a joint statement.

The club says the initial funds will be spent on the “priority” of identifying players for the first-team squad, with £50,000 ($69,200) allocated to improve the women’s football program.

Wrexham had been fan-owned since 2011 and back in November, the Wrexham Supporters Trust (WST) voted 98% in favour of the takeover.

“We urge all supporters to unite behind our new owners, the Club and the team as they look to return Wrexham to the heights we have all dreamed of. Reflecting on the last nine years, the Board is proud of aspects of what the Wrexham Supporters Trust has been able to achieve since taking control of the Club in November 2011,” the WST said in a statement.

Around the same time, the deal had been completed on Tuesday evening, Wrexham beat Altrincham 2-1 to move into the National League play-off places.

To celebrate the takeover both Reynolds and McElhenney added a ‘W’ to the front of their names.

Wrexham, the world’s third-oldest football club, has never played in the top-flight of English football, but the club has previously reached the FA Cup quarterfinals and famously beat Arsenal in the third round in 1992.

Its proud history also extends to European tournaments, with its most famous night coming in 1984 when Wrexham beat Porto in the Cup Winners’ Cup.

Also known as the Robins, Wrexham plays its home games at the historic Racecourse Ground- the world’s oldest stadium, according to Guinness World Records- which has a capacity of approximately 10,000.

FG contractors storm National Assembly, protest unpaid N8bn

Cleopatra Okohai
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FG contractors storm National Assembly, protest unpaid N8bn

A group of people who said they executed various projects amounting to N8bn for the Project Development Institute, Enugu, stormed the National Assembly complex on Wednesday to protest the non-payment of their money by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

The contractors explained that the money settles the N8bn outstanding for constituency projects they completed since December 2020.

The protesters took over the main entrance of the National Assembly complex; chanting solidarity songs for several hours,

Speaking with Journalists, the leader of the group, Joy Uche lamented how hard it had been for them to take care of their families.

He lamented that some of them had died in the process of trying to get their entitlements.

Read Also: Minister Of State For Petroleum Resources Hints At Likely Petrol Price Increase

Another contractor, Favour Emenike told journalists that they have come to the National Assembly to plead with their elected representatives to come to their rescue and prevail over the Minister and Ogonnaya Onu, to pay them their money.

Emenike said the group had submitted a petition to the House of Representatives; asking the National Assembly to look into the matter.

#EndSARS: Youth rep threatens to sue CBN as court unfreezes accounts

Chris Ottah
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#EndSARS: Youth rep threatens to sue CBN as court unfreezes accounts

One of the youth representatives in the Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry and Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses, Rinu Oduala, has threatened legal action against the Central Bank of Nigeria after a Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the apex bank to unfreeze the accounts of 20 #EndSARS promoters.

The apex bank targeted the accounts in 2020 in the wake of the #EndSARS protests, which demanded an end to police brutality and bad governance in the country.

The order was issued on Wednesday by the judge, Ahmed Mohammed, following an agreement by the legal teams of the CBN and the defendants to end the case.

In reaction to the order, Oduala whose account was among those frozen by CBN took to social media where she revealed that she has informed her lawyers and that she will take legal action against the apex bank.

She tweeted, “It’s time to sue CBN for the unlawful freeze of my accounts.

“I was accused of money laundering & terrorism but no investigations were done in the past three months. This was purely an act of intimidation!

“I have informed my lawyers, Falana and Falana Chambers and we will be suing!”

Israeli Election: Netanyahu’s Likud Signs Surplus Vote-Sharing Deal With Far-Right Party

Elizabeth Williams
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Israeli Election: Netanyahu’s Likud Signs Surplus Vote-Sharing Deal With Far-Right Party

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party on Wednesday signed a surplus vote-sharing agreement with the far-right Religious Zionism, which includes the Kahanist Otzma Yehudit and the anti-LGBT Noam factions, ahead of next month’s Knesset elections.

The move further aligns the premier with extremists such as Itamar Ben Gvir, a disciple of the late far-right extremist rabbi Meir Kahane. His Otzma Yehudit party — which recently joined forces with the Religious Zionism party — supports encouraging emigration of non-Jews from Israel and expelling Palestinians and Arab Israelis who refuse to declare loyalty to Israel and accept diminished status in an expanded Jewish state, whose sovereignty would extend throughout the West Bank.

Vote-sharing agreements, which are widely used in Israeli elections, allow parties to ensure that extra votes they win that don’t add up to a Knesset seat do not go to waste. Instead, a party to transfer those votes to another party through a special agreement.

Under the law, the combined leftover votes go to the party closest to winning another seat — and are often sufficient to add that seat to its tally, making the votes potentially decisive in a close race.

Such deals only count if both parties pass the electoral threshold of 3.25 percent of the votes.

Consistent inconsistency, as WHO says coronavirus unlikely leaked from lab in China – Analysis

Henry Williams
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Consistent inconsistency, as WHO says coronavirus unlikely leaked from lab in China – Analysis

An expert mission from the World Health Organization (WHO) investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic in China says it has yet to identify the animal source and it is unlikely to have leaked from a Chinese lab.

A report that many say should not come as a surprise to watchers who have come to see the WHO as a body that is acclaimed to be consistently inconsistent in recent times when it come to news about the coronavirus.

We recall last year when the World Health Organization declared a global public-health emergency last year, it praised China’s “extraordinary” efforts to combat the coronavirus epidemic urging other nations not to restrict travel.

A false advisory which saw an avoidable catastrophe spiral into a pandemic;Former US  President Donald Trump and other critics have accused WHO of assisting China in efforts to suppress information on the coronavirus, which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.

a week after the US announced plans to freeze $400 million in payments to WHO and eventually withdraw financial support because of the body’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak China seized the opportunity to become the coveted bride and provider by pumping in millions of dollars.

It ineptitude is also cited in some statements it has made concerning the spread of the virus that it has had to clarify or correct such as:

Masks do not prevent the spread of the virus; asymptomatic people cannot spread the virus and the virus isn’t airborne.

Global health experts have expressed concern over the WHO becoming increasingly reliant and earmarked contributions its budget just over $5.6 billion in 2019, is less than the budget of a mega hospital in the US.

More than three-quarters of the WHO funds are specified voluntary contributions earmarked for specific programs like polio eradication or TB, leaving the organisation with no flexibility in spending.

Hence, the agency has struggled for funds for adequate response to health challenges like the Ebola outbreak and now the coronavirus.

So it is hard not to see the outcome of the investigation into the source of the virus being inconclusive as a case of the piper dictating the tune.

Japan’s deputy prime minister and finance minister, Taro Aso, also referred to WHO as the “Chinese Health Organization,” referencing its close ties to Beijing.

Liang Wannian, head of the expert Covid-19 panel at China’s National Health Commission, said ongoing research into the origins of the virus must focus on how it circulated in animals before infecting humans.

With the WHO credibility in doubt it would be wise for nations to double up on ensuring that they remain the final gate keepers on health advisories coming from the global body not to fall victim of nations who wield enough power to use it as a tool for manipulation or infiltration.

Queen Elizabeth‘s Granddaughter, Princess Eugenie Welcomes First Child With Husband Jack Brooksbank

Koko Lawrence
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Queen Elizabeth‘s Granddaughter, Princess Eugenie Welcomes First Child With Husband Jack Brooksbank

Princess Eugenie, the granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, has given birth to her first child, a son, she shares with her husband Jack Brooksbank.

Buckingham Palace announced the birth of the baby who was born at London’s Portland Hospital at 8.55am on Tuesday 9 February, the same hospital where the Duchess of Sussex had her baby, Archie.

The 30-year-old royal announced the birth of her son on Instagram, where she shared a black-and-white photo of herself and her husband holding the infant’s hand. The royal baby is the Queen’s ninth great-grandchild.

Buckingham palace, in a statement, said that the Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, The Duke of York, Sarah, Duchess of York, and Mr and Mrs George Brooksbank have all been informed and are “delighted with the news”.

“This is Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank’s first child, The Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York’s first grandchild, and the ninth great-grandchild for The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh. Her Royal Highness and her child are both doing well,” the statement continued.

The baby is 11th in line to the throne, and his birth means the Queen and Philip’s youngest son the Earl of Wessex, who was third in line when he was born in 1964, has moved down to 12th place in the line of succession.

The couple, who married in October 2018 at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, announced they were expecting their first child on 25 September with an Instagram post.

Sharing a photo of the couple’s hands holding a pair of infant-sized slippers, Princess Eugenie wrote: “Jack and I are so excited for early 2021….”

Princess Eugenie is the younger daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, and Sarah, Duchess of York, making them grandparents for the first time. She is ninth in the line of succession to the British throne, after her elder sister, Princess Beatrice of York.

Tanzanians panic after mystery illness that causes victims to vomit blood reportedly kills 15 people

Chris Ottah
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Tanzanians panic after mystery illness that causes victims to vomit blood reportedly kills 15 people

At least 15 people have died and more than 50 others hospitalized in Tanzania from a terrifying mystery illness that causes patients to vomit blood, according to reports.

Some of the patients, mostly male, died within hours of developing symptoms in the southern Mbeya region of the country, the Sun reported.

Felista Kisandu, the local chief medical officer, said a team of experts have been dispatched to assess the patients and investigate the cause of their illness.


“This problem has not been widespread,” Kisandu said. “It has happened in just a single administrative ward of Ifumbo where people vomit blood and die when they get to the hospital late.”

She said the cause of their illness has not yet been identified but that the Tanzanian Health Ministry “has ruled out an outbreak,” according to the outlet.

“Initial clinical examinations revealed the patients, mostly men, suffered from stomach ulcers and liver disease,” Kisandu said. “We have advised them to avoid drinking illicit brew, smoking cigarettes and other hard drinks.”

Authorities were testing water samples and patients’ blood for traces of mercury contamination.

Meanwhile, Tanzania’s Health Minister Dorothy Gwajika ordered Kisandu’s suspension after she made her remarks.

“For creating unnecessary panic among residents, I order Dr. Felista Kisandu’s employer to suspend her in order to pave way for investigations by the Medical Council and submit the report to me within 10 days,” Gwajika said.

Government officials said similar symptoms emerged in the area when people suffered from high fever and nausea and vomited blood in 2018, according to the Sun.

News of the mystery ailment comes about a month after President John Magufuli claimed COVID-19 had been stopped in its tracks — by the power of prayer.

“Corona in our country has been removed by the powers of God,” he said Jan. 9, six weeks after the government stopped publicly updating virus data.

The number of cases has remained at 509 for six weeks, though opposition figures estimate that the actual numbers could be in the tens of thousands.

The population has been urged to consume herbal remedies in a bid to fight the deadly bug by boosting immunity.

Gov. Cuomo Asks Court To Overturn His Own COVID Restrictions On Houses Of Worship

Zoe Maven
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Gov. Cuomo Asks Court To Overturn His Own COVID Restrictions On Houses Of Worship

New York governor Andrew Cuomo has asked a federal court to block the state’s own restrictions on capacity at houses of worship in areas with high rates of coronavirus spread.

Cuomo issued an executive order in October ordering houses of worship to accept no more than ten people in so-called coronavirus “red” zones,” while 25 worshippers could be allowed in “orange” zones.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in November that those restrictions were unconstitutional, in a case brought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel, an umbrella organization of Orthodox Jewish groups.

The Supreme Court’s ruling referred the case back to a lower court. The case was then referred to the U.S. District Court for New York’s Eastern District, which struck down the pandemic restrictions on worship on Monday.

Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto wrote in the Monday injunction that the Defendant [Cuomo] has agreed to an injunction against enforcement of the…capacity limits in red and orange zones

Subsequently, Defendant’s counsel has represented in status conferences that before the end of February 2021,” the executive order’s restrictions “will be amended to remove houses of worship.”

Matsumoto’s ruling came after lawyers for the governor asked to cancel a hearing on the case, in a series of filings first reported by The New York Times.

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