Friday, 10 March 2017
Saturday, 25 February 2017
Nigerian-Turkish school kidnapp case, another suspect arrested (Read full details)
Another suspect has been arrested in connection with the kidnap of officials and students of the Nigerian-Turkish School, Isheri.The suspect was also linked to last month’s abduction of the Secretary of Isheri Estate.
The latest arrest made it the eight suspects arrested by the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), led by ACP Abba Kyari in connection with the Isheri kidnap.
The new suspect confessed he was part of Turkish and Isheri abduction and he got N2million and N150, 000 respectively, which he used to rent and furnish an apartment in Ughelli town.
Vía Uzomedia http://ift.tt/2mqJl9m
Wednesday, 22 February 2017
Bowie wins as Brit Awards pay tribute to George Michael
David Bowie's son, Duncan Jones collects the award for British album of the year on behalf of his late father for 'Blackstar' during the BRIT Awards 2017 ceremony and live show in London on February 22, 2017.<br />Justin TALLIS / AFP
David Bowie posthumously won two Brit awards on Wednesday in an emotional London ceremony which also saw tributes paid to the late George Michael.
Superstar Bowie won both the categories he was nominated for, picking up awards for British male solo artist and best album for “Blackstar” at the ceremony in London’s O2 Arena.
Becoming the first artist to win posthumously at the Brit Awards, he beat Mercury Prize winner Skepta and Michael Kiwanuka to the two awards among other nominees.
Accepting the best album award on behalf of his late father, film director Duncan Jones dedicated it to “all the kooks” and spoke of Bowie’s support of unusual people.
Scottish artist Emeli Sande, who also performed at the arena, was named British female solo artist.
Nearly five years after shooting to fame with performances at the 2012 London Olympics, she scooped the prize ahead of Anohni, Ellie Goulding, Lianne La Havas, and Nao.
The British group statuette went to The 1975, a quartet from Manchester, northwest England, who swept aside Radiohead, Biffy Clyro, Bastille and Little Mix.
– George Michael remembered –
The ceremony was tinged with sadness as stars paid tribute to Wham! singer Michael, who died on Christmas Day last year aged 53.
His former bandmate Andrew Ridgeley gave a moving tribute, alongside pop duo Pepsi & Shirlie, which was followed by a performance of Michael’s “A Different Corner” by Coldplay frontman Chris Martin.
Leonard Cohen, who died in November aged 82, and Prince whose death at 57 last year shocked the music world, both featured in a video of people in the industry who died during 2016.
Coldplay lost out in the British single category, which went to Little Mix for their catchy “Shout Out To My Ex”. The win was the first Brit award for the four-strong female group, whose performance opened the night.
The British breakthrough act award went to singer-songwriter Rag’n’Bone Man, beating hopefuls Anne-Marie, Blossoms, Skepta and Stormzy.
One Direction won the British artist video of the year for “History”, winning against a lengthy list of nominees including Adele — who was given a global success award during the ceremony.
– Diversity among nominees –
This year’s Brit Awards had sought to give greater recognition to minority artists after a backlash last year, prompting a shake-up of the judging panel and many more black nominees.
Drake won the international male solo artist category, seeing off nominees Bon Iver, Bruno Mars, Leonard Cohen and The Weeknd.
The world’s top-selling artist last year, Drake won two Grammys earlier this month and complained he had been pigeonholed as a rapper because he is black.
Beyonce claimed the title of international female solo artist — up against Christine And The Queens, Rihanna, Sia and Solange — following disappointment at the Grammys where she won just two of nine nominations.
Hip-hop pioneers A Tribe Called Quest were named best international group, beating Drake & Future, Kings Of Leon, Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds and Twenty One Pilots.
But hopes of a breakthrough across the board were dashed by Bowie, who beat four nominees from a non-white background in the male solo artist category.
Ahead of the awards ceremony Skepta praised the greater diversity among the nominees, having criticised the Brits last year.
“But this year it’s all incredible man, it’s all good things,” he told BBC television.
Brit Awards chairman Jason Iley wrote in The Times on Wednesday that “from pop to indie, grime to rock, the nominations represent a fantastic varied roll call of talent and a showcase for what’s happening in music right now”.
The ceremony ended with a performance by Robbie Williams, whose career was recognised with the icon award.
The British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, who died in March, designed the new statuettes that were received by this year’s winners.
The British music industry contributed £4.1 billion ($5.1 billion, 4.8 billion euros) to the UK economy in 2015, and British artists accounted for one of every six albums purchased worldwide.
Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2mnvzDt
‘Anybody could be a refugee’: Ai Weiwei films global crisis
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei poses in his studio in Berlin on February 21, 2017.<br />John MACDOUGALL / AFP
Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has a message for US President Donald Trump, Europe’s populist right and those who would shut their national borders to migrants and refugees.
“A refugee could be anybody. It could be you or me,” he said, pointing at past wars and an increasingly uncertain world order. “The so-called refugee crisis is a human crisis.”
Over the past 12 months, Ai and his film crews have visited migrant and refugee hotspots across 22 countries, from the US-Mexican border badlands to the Turkish-Syrian frontier and crowded holding camps on Greek islands.
Now back in his Berlin studio, Ai talked to AFP about the result of his tour de force, the epic documentary project “Human Flow”, set for global cinema release in the late northern summer of this year.
“The issue really needs to be understood better by the people who are privileged to still have peace,” the 59-year-old said.
“Peace is always temporary. No-one can be guaranteed to always have peace.
“If you look at the world’s condition today, war still can happen at any moment, there is such uncertainty about our politics, and so many unanswered questions.”
– ‘Boat not full’ –
Ai said he viewed US politics now as “quite sad, quite disturbing … in many ways going backwards”, pointing at Trump’s comments that label entire “groups of people as terrorists or drug dealers”.
The subject of migrants and refugees, and how many a society can and should accept, is being discussed across the western world, but Ai is characteristically uncompromising.
To those who say the boat is full, he replies simply that “the boat is never full, only our heart is full”.
Ai said he has looked with dismay at the Trump presidency, the US entry ban on Syrian refugees, the attempt to deny visas to citizens of seven mainly Muslim nations, the pledge to build a wall with Mexico and invoke mass deportations.
In the United States, he said, everyone except the native Americans is either a migrant or a descendant of a migrant.
“I went to the Mexico border twice and I purposely crossed the area where Trump is going to build the wall,” he said.
“I talked to those people on the Mexico side, just trying to understand who are they, why they want to be on the other side.
“Both sides need each other. It’s not just Mexicans who need the United States, the states bordering Mexico equally depend so much on the low-cost labour.”
– ‘Secret detention’ –
Ai has staged several high-profile exhibitions on the mass flight of people from Syria and other trouble spots to Europe, often on dangerous Mediterranean crossings.
Last year he decked out the columns of Berlin’s Konzerthaus with 14,000 orange life jackets from the Greek island of Lesbos. In Florence, he hung 22 red rubber dinghies from the facade of a Renaissance palace.
Ai said his personal history has shaped his interest in human flight and displacement.
“When I was young, my father was exiled,” he said about the poet Ai Qing, who fell out of favour with Mao Zedong’s regime.
“We had to move to a very remote area in China and I grew up in kind of military camps,” recalled Ai.
“So I am very sensitive to people forced by different reasons – it could be political, war, famine, environmental problems — to seek, willingly or unwillingly, new locations and possibilities.”
In a sense, he too feels like a refugee.
Having helped design Beijing’s Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium, he later drew the wrath of the state for his outspoken activism.
Ai was detained for 81 days in 2011 and then had his Chinese passport confiscated for four years. Many of his fellow activists have been jailed.
“I was in China but now I am being almost forced out of China because all those lawyers are still in jail and all those people I know are still in secret detention,” he said.
“I have been put in the same kind of situation and it’s very possible it can happen to me again,” said Ai. “This is the reality.”
Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2lI11PP
