Build your immunity in seven days

HAVE you been coughed and splattered on on the bus this morning? Fight off colds, flus and chronic disease with these immune-boosting tips.

Day One

Get more garlic. It has the powerful compound allicin, vitamins A, C, E and minerals selenium, sulfur and zinc (all vital to immune function). It also protects against infections, colds and flu, and has anti-bacterial, -fungal and -viral properties. Just add crushed cloves to pastas, sauces, salad dressings and dips.

Day Two

Slip in a superfood. Seaweed is not only extremely nutritious, it boosts the immune system and reduces the risk of illness and infection. Seaweed is a good source of zinc and antioxidants that are important for immune health. Add strips of kelp, nori, or akrame to soups, salads and stir-fries.

Day Three

Get some sun. Vitamin D protects us against illness and a range of chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Sunlight is the easiest and healthiest way to get sufficient vitamin D, so aim for 10 to 15 minutes a day (without sunscreen), on the face, arms and hands.

Day Four

Take echinacea regularly. It has phenolic compounds which increase the activity and number of immune cells such as macrophages and T-cells, making them more efficient in attacking bacteria and viruses such as colds and flu. Take echinacea in tablets, as fluid extracts or in tea (three cups a day is ideal).

Day Five
kiwifruit

Eat more citrus, parsley, berries, red capsicum and kiwifruit, pictured, for Vitamin C. Picture: Thinkstock

Vitamin C is one of the best immune-boosting nutrients for treating and preventing all illnesses and chronic diseases. As a powerful antioxidant, it protects cells from free-radical damage, and has antiviral, antibacterial and anti-allergenic activity. Eat more citrus, parsley, berries, red capsicum and kiwifruit.

Day Six

Eat some yoghurt. This highly nutritious fermented food has the ability to improve digestion and boost our immune health. The live bacteria (acidophilus and bifidus) promote the health and growth of friendly bowel bacteria. Look for the "live and active cultures or bacteria" seal on the yoghurt you buy.

Day Seven

Think zinc. It's needed for the production of white blood cells which protect against colds and infections. Zinc has antioxidant activity, helping to fight free- radical damage, and is found in meats, dairy and wholegrains, but it's lost in processing. If supplementing with tablets, take about 45 milligrams a day.

read more @ http://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/



news.com.au

President Obama disses Taylor Swift, Jay-Z during White House speech

TAYLOR Swift has been the butt of many a joke, but now even President Obama has joined in on the action.

While hosting the White House Correspondents Dinner the President made reference to Swift's tumultuous love life during his 30 minute speech.

Referring to a recent round of budget cuts, Obama remarked: "Republicans fell in love with it. Now they can't stop talking about how much they hate it. It's like we're trapped in a Taylor Swift album."

But Swift wasn't the only celebrity to cop a mention in the speech.


Referencing Jay-Z and Beyonce's recent controversial trip to Cuba, Obama said: “Some things are out of my control,” said a smiling Obama. “It’s unbelievable. I got 99 problems and now Jay Z is one,” he said.

“That’s another rap reference,” he added, so his more "traditional" audience members could understand.

The speech was peppered with clever pop culture-inspired references, earning the President praise for his humour.

Other gags included: "$100 million? That's Oprah money!"



news.com.au

Don’t Manipulate Judiciary —Soyinka

Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, Monday, appealed to both the Federal and state governments not to manipulate the judiciary to avoid a complete breakdown of law and order in the country.

Professor Soyinka who spoke with newsmen at Government House, Port Harcourt noted that steps should be taken to overcome what he described as dark areas.

“I think that the judiciary right now while it is trying to reform itself, recognizes the fact that there are still some dark areas and I think it is the effect of the dark areas that seems to be creating a crisis in Rivers State right now. I am just alarmed, I am alarmed that it appears to me that the judiciary is being manipulated. That is the impression which I had and that is an alarm which should be sounded in every corner of the nation”.

Continuing, Prof Soyinka who warned against act of pettiness on the part of government over the grounded aircraft belonging to the Rivers State government said he was in Port Harcourt ahead of preparations for the 2014 Port Harcourt World Book festival.

“Witch-hunting is a very heavy word. Let me just say this generally that I hate evidence of pettiness in governance. I think pettiness at any level is unbecoming of any democratic situation. “That is all I want to say about that. I see that I cannot escape all what is going on. I have also asked some questions myself. I am a citizen of this nation, so I am affected personally by what is happening at the opposite end of the nation.

“Those who feel that any kind of transgression of the collective rights of groups will not have a kind of ripple effect which will affect other parts of the nation must be living in a cloud and so I am concerned, and I will be quite frank with you.

“I am very much concerned about the imbroglio in which the state  (Rivers State) appears to be involved at the moment and my main comment is, for heaven’s sake, whatever happens internally between parties and so on, please don’t debase and don’t manipulate the judiciary. That is my appeal to governance at all levels.

“Please do not manipulate the judiciary because when you do, you have chaos, you have total anarchy, you reduce the nation to a space of complete breakdown of law and order which is what this nation had better avoid.

“I am glad that we are in a position to assist the Rivers State government using the instrumentality of literacy, education, knowledge to counter the negativists, violent negativists as represented in movements like Boko Haram”.

On Boko Haram, Soyinka said the word should be replaced with Book Hara, meaning positive response towards education.

Soyinka who said he was elated with Port Harcourt as the 2014 world book capital called for greater interest in reading.


naij.com

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg sold shares to pay tax bill

FACEBOOK chief executive Mark Zuckerberg reaped a gain of nearly $US2.3 billion ($A2.24 billion) last year when he exercised 60 million stock options just before the online social networking leader's initial public offering.
The windfall detailed in regulatory documents filed on Friday saddled Zuckerberg, 28, with a massive tax bill.
He raised the money to pay it by selling 30.2 million Facebook Inc shares for $US38 apiece, or $US1.1 billion, in the IPO.
Facebook's stock hasn't closed above $US38 since the IPO was completed last May.
The shares gained 71 US cents on Friday to close at $26.85.
The 29 per cent decline from Facebook's IPO price has cost Zuckerberg nearly $US7 billion on paper, based on the 609.5 million shares of company stock that he owned as of March 31, according to the regulatory filing.
His current stake is still worth $US16.4 billion.
Zuckerberg, who started Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room in 2004, has indicated he has no immediate plans to sell more stock.
The exercise of Zuckerberg's stock options and his subsequent sale of shares in the IPO had been previously disclosed.
The proxy statement filed to announce Facebook's June 11 shareholder meeting is the first time that the magnitude of Zuckerberg's stock option gain had been quantified.
The proxy also revealed that Zuckerberg's pay package last year rose 16 per cent because of increased personal usage of jets chartered by the company as part of his security program.
Zuckerberg's compensation last year totalled nearly $US2 million, up from $US1.7 million last year.
Of those amounts, $US1.2 million covered the costs of Zuckerberg's personal air travel last year, up from $US692,679 in 2011.
If not for the spike in travel costs, Zuckerberg's pay would have declined by 17 per cent.
His salary and bonus totalled $US769,306 last year versus $US928,833 in 2011.

 

 

news.com.

Is it ever OK to compliment co-workers on their appearance at work?

WHEN Lisa Parker was new to corporate coaching, a senior-level colleague she respected brought her in as his No. 2 for a series of training seminars.

Time and time again, he introduced her as smart, capable and beautiful.

"I was so uncomfortable,'' she said.

"The first time it happened I remember standing there waiting to take the front of the room and thinking, 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe he just said that.'''

Ms Parker asked him to stop. Embarrassed, he responded: "But you ARE beautiful.'' That was a decade ago and he never did it again. The two have happily worked together many times since.

Sound familiar? Fast forward to April 4, when US President Barack Obama introduced California's Attorney General Kamala Harris at a Democratic fundraiser as brilliant, dedicated, tough and "by far, the best looking attorney general in the country.''

The remark - the two are friends - raised a few eyebrows over whether it amounted to sexism. The president, who has similarly complimented men before, called Ms Harris and apologised. A Harris spokesman assured the world she remains an Obama supporter.

But the question lingers. Male-to-female, female-to-male, peer-to-peer, superior-to-subordinate: Are workplace compliments focused on looks or other personal details like dress ever OK? Is the alternative a more sterile professional life? When do such remarks rise to actionable harassment, or become worthy of a friendly rebuff or a trip to HR?

"If we all end up trending toward the centre we become pure vanilla. It's boring and it's a huge loss,'' said Ms Parker, the New York author of the March book Managing the Moment.

Ms Parker, compliance experts and human resource managers agree that tone, context and a pattern of behaviour are everything when it comes to unwanted remarks.

"Personally I'm not offended by a compliment, but I do take the issue very seriously,'' said labour lawyer Ingrid Fredeen, once in-house counsel for General Mills and now a vice president for ethics and training at Navex Global, a supplier of computer-based training tools.

"Whenever you're in some kind of a male-dominated world, there are always many sides to a compliment. Some of them are just pure. They don't mean anything other than, 'You have a nice jacket on.' End of story,'' she said.

Others are dripping with innuendo.

"They're about power, and so using a compliment is a way to change the power dynamic between two individuals, and there's some tension there. That happens very frequently.''

According to the nonprofit group Catalyst, which works to expand opportunities for women in business, sex discrimination charges amount to about 15 per cent of allegations handled by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2011.

That includes sexual harassment, defined as "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature'' that unreasonably affects employment or a work environment.

Nearly all large employers in the US had harassment grievance policies in 1998 and 70 per cent of US companies provided training related to sexual harassment, according to research published in 2007 in the American Journal of Sociology by Frank Dobbin of Harvard University and Erin L. Kelly of the University of Minnesota.

But where does that leave the casual remark? "If it's made in public, laugh it off in the moment and then privately speak to the person,'' Ms Parker counsels.

Ms Fredeen notes: "When you're thinking about the legal landscape, compliments alone don't typically constitute unlawful sexual harassment.''

Donna Mazzola, who recently retired after 30 years in HR in the banking and insurance industries, said the way codes of conduct are enforced is important. Even then, atmosphere from department to department, floor to floor, is everything.

"In the sales office, the women gave it right back to the guys and you would almost never have a complaint,'' she said of one large insurance company where she worked.

"It's very common to have a sales guy say, 'Gal, were you out drinking, what the hell are you wearing today? Jeez, your dress is awful short.' In corporate you would have never said something like that.''

Much also depends on personal relationships, Ms Mazzola said.

"Is this someone you hang out with in the lunch room? Or is this a more senior person or a colleague who you're not that close with?''

Such remarks are definitely not restricted to men, she said, recalling a female senior executive who once hauled a female vice president into her office to chide her about the way she dressed.

'''You dress way too sexy for this company and for your role,''' Ms Mazzola recalled.

"The VP said, 'Well, have there been complaints?' And this woman said, 'No, but I see the way men look at you in training sessions.'''

The vice president's response? "Well, if there are no complaints, I don't understand.''

Ms Parker said appearance can indeed be a legitimate target of complaints if a person creates a distraction.

But falling short of that, is it OK to compliment an outfit or a coworker's new hairdo? Why risk a compliment or a casual remark if the intent is innocent? Why not stick with ball scores, the weather or the latest movie?

"We're human and we form close bonds with the people we work with and we care about them,'' Ms Fredeen said.

"At the end of the day, for most, nothing bad is going to come of me telling you, 'Gee, you look terrific.'''

news.com.au

AskMen maps out the nine qualities most successful CEOs share

AskMen takes a look at what it takes to be in the top 10 per cent.

This answer, by Robert Scoble, originally appeared on Quora. We think it's worthwhile reading, so we're sharing it here.

I've interviewed thousands of CEOs and [here are] some things that stand out to me:

1. Good At Hiring And Firing
Whenever you find a really great CEO you find someone who has a knack for hiring. That means selling other people on your dream or your business. Especially when it doesn't seem all that important or seems very risky. I used to work for a CEO who was awesome at hiring, but couldn't fire anyone. Doomed the business. Many of the best CEOs get others to follow no matter what.

2. Builds A Culture, Not Just A Company
The best CEOs, like Tony Hsieh at Zappos, build a culture that gives everyone a mission. They stand out in a sea of boring companies.

3. Listens And Acts
Many CEOs want to tell you what they are doing, but the best ones listen to feedback, and, even, do something with that feedback. My favourites even give credit back. Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard, tells audiences that I was responsible for a couple of key features.

4. Is Resilient
Airbnb took 1,000 days for its business to start working. Imagine if they gave up on day 999? The best CEOs find a way to dig in and keep going even when it seems everything is going against them.

5. Has Vision
Let's be honest. There are a lot of nice CEOs but if you don't have the ability to build a product that matters to people, then no one will remember your name. Can you see a way to make billions with wearable computers? I guarantee some can and they are the CEOs who will bring me interesting new products.

6. Stays Focused
A friend who worked for Steve Jobs told me that what really made him different is that Jobs wouldn't let teams move off their tasks until they really finished them.

7. Speaks Clearly
A great CEO is clear, crisp, concise. Quotable. So many people just aren't good at telling a story in a way that's easy to remember. The best are awesome at this. Since it's the CEO's job to tell the company's story, it's extremely important that this person be able to clearly tell a story about the company and the product.

8. Is A Customer Advocate
The best CEOs understand deeply what customers want and when they are making anti-customer choices.

9. Good At Convincing Other People
CEOs have to deal with conflicting interest groups. Customers often want something investors don't. So, a good CEO is really great at convincing other people to get on board, even at changing people's opinions.

Extra credit if you are:

- Nice: Yeah, Steve Jobs wasn't always nice. But he was an exception in many ways. People remember assholes and try to avoid them. That's not something that's easy to work around.

- A builder: Yeah, you can be a CEO if you aren't a builder, but you are swimming up stream. It's one reason I haven't run my own business. The CEOs that seem to work the best are ones who could write some code, or build a new design using a 3D-printer.

- Integrity:  The best CEOs are survivors and it's really hard to survive if you have dirt in your closet or treat people differently behind closed doors than you do in public.


news.com.au

The way you sneeze can reveal a lot about your personality, a new US study suggests

The way you sneeze can reveal a lot about your personality, a new US study suggests. The way we sneeze reflects certain components of our personality, said Dr Alan Hirsch, a neurologist, psychiatrist and founder of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago.

According to Hirsch, he doesn’t know of any studies that have been conducted on various sneezing styles and what they might mean. “Sneezes are like laughter. Some (laughs) are loud, some are soft. And its similar with sneezing. It will often be the same from youth onward in terms of what it sounds like,” said Hirsch.

“It’s more of a psychological thing and represents the underlying personality or character structure,” he said. A person who is demonstrative and outgoing, for instance, would most likely have a loud explosive sneeze, whereas someone who’s shy might try to withhold their sneezes, resulting in more of a Minnie Mouse-type expulsion.

“In general, sneezing is an involuntary phenomenon, part of the body’s mechanism of defence, a way of clearing out bacteria or other agents that would be injurious,” said Dr Gordon Siegel, a Chicago-area otolaryngologist.

“That being said, you can control to a degree the way it comes out,” Siegel said the shape of our nose or the bone structure of our face might contribute a small degree to certain sneezing styles much in the same way the resonance of our voice is affected by our anatomy.



indianexpress.com

Amputated photographer: Hope for Boston survivors

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) -- In the first horrific moments after the Boston bombing, with smoke still billowing around the wounded, I know what is going through the minds of the maimed victims.

They are at once conscious and unconscious. They want to scream, but they cannot scream. They want to wake up from a nightmare, but they are awake.

Overcome with a sense of deja vu, I feel my past converge with the future of those wounded spectators.

I lost my leg in a bomb blast. I know the violent shock of a day that begins well and ends with an amputation, the fog of drugs and surgery, the months of painful rehabilitation.

I know the suffering that lies ahead for these people in Boston. And I know the possibilities, too.

For those who lost a limb or more in the Boston Marathon, Monday, April 15, 2013, was the day their world changed forever.

Mine changed on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009. I had been embedded with the U.S. military for two weeks in southern Afghanistan as a photographer for The Associated Press, and this was to have been my last patrol before going home. It had been a long day in the open desert of Kandahar province and I was whipped, barely awake, in fact, when our eight-wheel armored Stryker vehicle hit a roadside bomb and flipped over, knocking me unconscious.

When I came to, I tried to get up but couldn't; my left foot was hanging by a few tendons. I felt brutal pain, like an electric shock, that began in my leg and swept through the rest of my body. Lying inside the vehicle, I thought of my wife, and willed myself to stay alive.

Eventually, a soldier found me and tied on a tourniquet.

In my years as a photojournalist, I'd taken many pictures of wounded soldiers and victims of suicide bombers. I had covered medical evacuations from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Palestinian territories, and found it odd to suddenly be among those pulled from an inferno and carried on a stretcher - along with two other soldiers and AP Television News videographer Andi Jatmiko.

They loaded me onto a helicopter next to a soldier who had lost both of his legs and we locked hands as the chopper took off for the provincial capital of Kandahar. The solidarity in that moment is the last thing I remember before waking up in a hospital tent to find my left leg had been amputated below the knee. There was no option to save it, doctors told me. Bone and tissue were destroyed by shrapnel. But fortunately my knee was intact, and that would make a substantial difference in my future mobility, they explained.

That offered little comfort as I lay alone and exhausted in a hospital bed in Afghanistan. I had so many questions about life with just one leg but I preferred sleep to thinking about my uncertain future.

The difference between those who lost limbs in Boston and me is that I knew I was taking a risk in a war zone and assumed it willingly, while they had merely gone out to cheer friends and relatives at a family sporting event.

They weren't supposed to be in danger.

I was a photographer documenting soldiers at war and everyday life for civilians under fire. But before violence grabs you, does anyone really believe he will become one of the dead or wounded? No. Nothing had happened to me on dozens of previous patrols with the military through hostile lands. And while I suspected I was playing a kind of Russian roulette, I also told myself that car accidents happen every day and most people don't stop driving because of that.

For months after the explosion I was tortured by so many "what ifs." What if I had stayed back to pack rather than going on patrol that day? What if I had sat a little bit to the right, would the shrapnel have missed my leg? Or if I had sat to the left, would I have lost both legs like the soldier next to me?

I imagine those in Boston whose bodies were torn up by nails or the blasts have similar thoughts: Why didn't I stand at mile 25, go for water, leave earlier, stay home? I would like to tell them that these questions fade as one begins to accept the reality of losing a limb.

The morphine they gave me to dim the pain of my amputation sapped my energy. I wanted off it so I could start my recuperation with all my strength and walk as soon as possible. I am a Spanish citizen, not American, and was lucky that the AP was able to work bureaucratic miracles to get me admitted to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, one of the world's best rehab hospitals.

In Afghanistan, I had visited a rehabilitation center run by the Red Cross in Kabul that was considered one of the best in the country. The hospital was one of the few that provided prostheses to patients, including children, who had been blown up by forgotten mines in rural areas.

It's nonsense to compare Walter Reed with the Red Cross center; it is like comparing day and night. However I never stop thinking about those Afghan patients and how they were facing their rehabilitation process even in that calamitous center.

I appreciated even more my luck in Walter Reed and I realized that fate is marked by where you are born.

I was 40 years old, agile and in good shape from exercise and work as a photographer in rough terrain. I even used to jog in the Afghan capital of Kabul when I lived there. So just a month after the explosion, I threw myself into rehab. Although my wounds were still fresh, I put on my first prosthesis and took my first steps. I was determined.

And I was completely unprepared for the difficulty.

It took tremendous strength to learn to walk again. I needed practice, but practice rubbed my wounds raw. Exercise was essential and exercise produced blisters where the prosthesis was joined to my leg - more hot pain.

I was frustrated and felt useless on the days I couldn't exercise, waiting for the blisters to drain and heal. Then I would put the prosthesis back on and push myself to my limit until the skin broke again.

In those first days, I could only take a few steps. In the first weeks, it took me an hour to walk a mile. I worked out on a bicycle, on a treadmill and with weights. And month by month, I increased my speed so that finally I could walk the 2 1/2 miles from my rented home to the hospital in 25 minutes.

If those maimed in Boston were to ask me what was harder, the physical or psychological recovery, I would say the two go hand-in-hand.

At first I thought it was enough to recover physically, and that learning to walk and work again would naturally produce a psychological recovery.

I was wrong.

The strength of the wounded soldiers at Walter Reed helped me a great deal. Even though many of their injuries were so much worse than mine, I never heard them complain about pain or withdraw in self-pity.

I lost only the lower half of my left leg and came to understand that important distinction alongside soldiers who had lost a leg up to the hip, both legs, or legs and arms. We shared our daily experiences and hardships, often with humor. When a quadriplegic teasingly called me "Paper Cut" for my lesser wounds, I called him "Trunk" and we laughed.

The soldiers, and some of my Spanish friends with amputations, also taught me the difference between losing a leg and missing a leg. The missing leg can be replaced with a prosthetic, but a loss is permanent. If you don't confront the feelings of loss - the fact that your world has changed - you never fully recover from the amputation.

The support of my family and friends was crucial. My relationship with my wife after the accident changed to a deeper love. I could see that the patients who didn't have as many visitors, as much love and reassurance around them, did not respond to physical therapy as quickly.

And then there was my camera.

The very instrument that had gotten me into this mess, if you will, became my inspiration and part of my salvation. I carried it with me all the time to photograph the recovery of my hospital mates and to test my own. It took a lot of practice to be able to look through the lens and maintain my balance while walking, as I had done before the amputation.

With a prosthetic, you have to watch for bumps and dips in your path because you have no feeling in your false foot. If you take a wrong step, it is easy to fall, and I fell many times before learning to compensate. Running is much harder, as the body struggles to adjust to a prosthetic leg. When I was 15, I ran a marathon. Now, I am running three miles once a week and I am exhausted. My goal is to run again and recapture that feeling of strength that I used to have.

The new amputees in Boston will discover, as I did, that there is a whole world of prosthetics to choose from. Who would know if you didn't need one? There are feet made for running, walking, climbing, cycling, even for swimming and golfing. But it turns out there's no such thing as an all-terrain prosthesis, so in the end, I accumulated several.

I normally wear a versatile, durable foot, but I also carry a couple of extras in a backpack, one spare foot and a special one for running. I even have one for roller skating, which, after multiple clashes with trees, parked cars and the pavement, is now one of my favorite sports.

In the same way I have always tended to my cameras, I now must care for my prosthetics, making sure they are always in perfect working condition.

Like the amputees in Boston today, 3 1/2 years ago I joined a community to which no one wishes to belong. I have changed over the years, as they will.

For better or worse, I am more vulnerable now. If I were to offer advice, it would be that it's possible to accept help without feeling dependent. I would tell them what I tell myself, "Emilio, you're missing a foot so don't be too hard on yourself, and when someone offers you a seat on the bus, take it."

I would tell them the greatest truth I have learned is that I am a man who had a leg amputated, not an amputee.

I am still a whole person.

I have returned to work as a photojournalist with the AP. I have tried to become a better person, sharing my small successes with all the people who have helped me in critical times. I appreciate that I live in a nice house in Barcelona with my wife, who is pregnant. I am looking forward to becoming a father for the first time.

I know they cannot imagine this in Boston now, but I want them to know that while certainly I miss my leg, I feel very fortunate.






veryquiet

Where do pilots sleep on the plane?

PILOTS need to sleep too. But where do they do it? And are the beds better than first class?
The photo above shows exactly where they rest on an A380. Look comfy?

Richard Woodward was the first Qantas pilot to fly the A380. He told news.com.au pilots get a maximun of four hours sleep at a time. 

The pilot rest rooms on the A380 are located inside the first cockpit door adjacent to the business class lounge. On one side of the staircase up to the cockpit is a toilet, on the other side there are two sleep pods.

Top secret: Behind the scenes at an airport

They're not flash like first class. But they do have a flat bed, a seat, an in-flight entertainment unit and their own air conditioning control.

"The bed is relatively wide. It’s built for the 95th percentile adult male, some tall pilots do have problems though," Cap Woodward said.

"The mattress is made from foam and is three inches thick. Most pilots sleep with a blanket over and under them and then they strap themselves in with a seatbelt in case of turbulence."

"In the A380 the crew cabins are almost black when you turn the lights out. Each room has an individual air conditioning control so pilots can adjust the temperature. There’s just enough space to stand up and get changed."

“It’s reasonably quiet but I tend to sleep with ear plugs because you can hear the passengers in the business class lounge if they are chatting and laughing. You can hear the cabin crew shutting the cockpit door because it is bullet proof and takes quite a force to shut.

Pilots can also hear tone signals sent up to the aircraft from ground control along the flight path.

“That can be pretty annoying.”

Most pilots develop a little routine for going to bed during the flight. They change out of their uniform into shorts and T-shirt or first class pyjamas.

“You need a routine to force your body to relax. You have to put work you have just done out of your mind.”

It’s kind of like completing a deadline and then going to the cubicle next door and going to sleep. But it's much more noisy than a normal office.

"The noise level at home would be around 45 decibels, a conversation would be 55-65 decibels on the A380 it would be 72-73 decibels."

A 2010 study by Gregory Roach, David Darwent and Drew Dawson published in the journal of Ergonomics found sleeping in the plane bed gave pilots a sleep that was only 70 per cent of the quality of a snooze in a proper on the ground bed.

To increase the restoration provided by in-flight sleep, the study authors recommended airlines "take measures to improve the quality, or increase the amount, of sleep obtained by pilots during flights." 

Captain Woodward was involved with the study. He said pilots never get restorative sleep on flights. The sleep they do get is just enough to fight off fatigue.

"The main thing is because we fly such long distances and stay such a short time we never really get over the jet lag so the sleep in the bunk is definitely appreciated."

.news.com.au

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev speaks after being charged in hospital

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged while recovering in hospital. He will be tried in the US federal court system, not as an enemy combtant

BOSTON bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has uttered his first word after being charged with using a weapon of mass destruction - "No".

The 19-year-old, who could face the death penalty if convicted, was mostly silent and nodded affirmatively throughout the brief bedside hearing, indicating that he understood the charges laid against him,  court transcripts published by The New York Times reveal.

But when asked if he could afford a lawyer, the teen spoke for the first time, saying: "No".

Details of Tsarnaev's bedside hearing came amid reports that the teen reportedly told investigators his older brother and alleged co-conspirator Tamerlan was the driving force behind the bombings.

CNN says Tsarnaev, who has an injury to his throat, has communicated he and his brother acted alone and that Tamerlan, the older of the two, was the ringleader in the bombings.

The teen has reportedly told investigators that no international terrorist groups were behind the act and that his elder brother carried out the bombings as he wanted to defend Islam from attack, CNN says.
Five days in Boston

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Five days in Boston

The hunt for two terror suspects in Boston’s marathon day bombings as seen through the eyes of news makers and law enforcement. Sources CBS...
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The source reportedly told CNN that preliminary interviews indicate the two brothers fit the classification of self-radicalised jihadists. CNN says the pair's radicalisation had an online component as they watched videos on the internet.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's brief bedside proceeding began when Judge Marianne Bowler asked a doctor whether Tsarnaev was alert, according to the summary of proceedings provided by the court.

"You can rouse him,” the judge told the doctor.

A doctor, identified in the transcript as Dr Odom, asked Tsarnaev how he was feeling.

"Are you able to answer some questions?" the doctor asked the teen.

Tsarnaev "nods affirmatively," according to the document, the first of four times during the hearing.
Boston bomb suspect charged

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Boston bomb suspect charged

The Boston bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction.
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The only word Dzhokhar Tsarnaev uttered apparently was "No," after he was asked if he could afford a lawyer.

Judge Bowler said: "Let the record reflect that I believe the defendant has said, 'No.'"

Tsarnaev was charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and also has been charged with one count of malicious destruction of property by means of deadly explosives.

The charges came shortly before Boston held a moment of silence at 2.50pm on Monday (4.50am Tuesday AEST) in honour of the three people killed and 180 wounded in the twin bombing of the city's marathon exactly one week ago. Church bells tolled across the city and state in tribute to the victims.

US President Barack Obama also observed the moment of silence, as did the New York Stock Exchange. It was to be followed by a ceremony to honour first responders and police.

Hundreds gathered outside the security cordon set up near the blast sites at the marathon finish line on Boylston Street to honour the dead and wounded. Some prayed while others silently took video footage of the occasion.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged while recovering in hospital. He will be tried in the US federal court system, not as an enemy combtant.

Some left flowers tied together with purple or white ribbons at a makeshift memorial.

The federal charges against Tsarnaev "authorise a penalty, upon conviction, of death or imprisonment for life or any term of years," the statement said.

"Although our investigation is ongoing, today's charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston, and for our country," said US Attorney General Eric Holder.

"Our thoughts and prayers remain with each of the bombing victims and brave law enforcement professionals who lost their lives or suffered serious injuries as a result of this week's senseless violence."

Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan, 26, who was killed in a shootout with police, are accused of the twin bombing at the Boston Marathon.

The White House said Tsarnaev would not be treated as an "enemy combatant" but would be tried through the US civilian federal court system.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev TamerlanTsarnaev

Bombing suspects Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, left and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Picture: AP

"He will not be treated as an enemy combatant," said White House spokesman Jay Carney, following calls from some Republicans for 19-year-old Tsarnaev to be granted the same status as "War on Terror" detainees.

Tsarnaev, who was born in Russia, is a naturalised US citizen. Under US law, US citizens cannot be tried in military commissions, Mr Carney said. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the federal court system has been used to convict and incarcerate hundreds of terrorists, he said.

In a criminal complaint outlining the evidence, the FBI said Tsarnaev was seen on surveillance cameras putting a knapsack on the ground near the site of the second blast and then manipulating a cellphone and lifting it to his ear.

After the first explosion ripped through the crowd, a calm-looking Tsarnaev quickly walked away, and about 10 seconds later, the second blast occurred where he left the knapsack, the FBI said.

The FBI did not make it clear whether authorities believe he used his cellphone to detonate one or both of the bombs or whether he was talking to someone.

The court papers also said that during the long night of crime Thursday and Friday that led to the older brother's death and the younger one's capture, one of them told a carjacking victim: "Did you hear about the Boston explosion? I did that."
Krystle Campbell funeral

Mourners leave St. Joseph Catholic Church after the funeral service for Krystle Campbell, a victim of the Boston Marathon bombing overnight in Medford, Massachusetts. Picture: Getty

In its criminal complaint, the FBI said it searched Tsarnaev's dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth on Sunday and found BBs as well as a white hat and dark jacket that look like those worn by one of one of the suspected bombers in the surveillance photos the FBI released a few days after the attack.

The first hearing in US federal court in the case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been scheduled for May 30, an official in the US prosecutor's office in the city said. It was not clear if Tsarnaev would be present.

He is also likely to face state charges in the shooting death of MIT police officer Sean Collier.

The charge comes as the man who was carjacked by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev told police the brothers told him they wouldn't kill him because he "wasn’t American."

The man was carjacked and abducted by the brothers before their shootout with police, which left elder brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead. The carjacking victim, who asked to remain anonymous, told NBC News the pair were "brutal and cautious".

In other startling development, authorities are now investigating whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev was involved in the gruesome, unsolved triple homicide of a former roommate and two other people. The murders took place in 2011, around the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Boston Marathon Moment of Silence

Dr. Robin Travers, who finished the marathon before the explosions, wears her official marathon jacket during a moment of silence honouring the Boston Marathon bombing victims in Copley Square in Boston. Picture: Getty

The victims were found with their throats slashed in what one investigator told US ABC News was “the worst bloodbath I have ever seen.”

“We are looking at a possible connection with the suspect in the marathon atrocity and this active and open homicide in Waltham,” Middlesex District Attorney Stephanie Guyotte told US ABC News.

Keen boxer Tsarnaev often trained with one of the victims, Brendan Mess, 25, but did not attend his funeral.

Also overnight, it was revealed that the FBI missed Tamerlan Tsarnaev's five-month trip to Russia in 2011-2012 because his name was misspelled.

Many Boston residents headed back to workplaces and schools for the first time since a dramatic week came to an even more dramatic end. Traffic was heavy on major arteries into the city on Monday morning, and nervous parents dropped their children off at schools, some for the first time since the attacks.

Authorities on Friday had made the unprecedented request that residents stay at home during the manhunt for suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He was discovered that evening hiding in a boat covered by a tarp in suburban Watertown.
Katherine Russell, the American wife of marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Katherine Russell, the American wife of marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, leaves the house where he lived in Cambridge, the day after Tsarnaev, was killed in a shootout with police. Picture: Austral via William Farrington / Polaris

At the Snowden International School on Newbury Street, a high school set just a block from the bombing site, jittery parents dropped off children as teachers - some of whom had run in the race - greeted each other with hugs.

Carlotta Martin, 49, of Boston, said that leaving her kids at school has been the hardest part of getting back to normal.

"We're right in the middle of things," Ms Martin said outside the school as her children, 17-year-old twins and a 15-year-old, walked in, glancing at the police barricades a few yards from the school's front door.

"I'm nervous. Hopefully, this stuff is over," she continued. "I told my daughter to text me so I know everything's OK."

The city is beginning to reopen sections of the six-block site around the bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 180.

Outside City Paint, the paint store a half-block from the brothers' home, Brian Cloutier smoked a cigarette. "We'll get back to normal," he said. "Cambridge and Boston are resilient."
Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev

Members of law enforcement, including many K-9 units, investigate the scene while executing a second sweep of the area in Watertown where Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev was captured. Picture: Getty

A private funeral was scheduled for Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant worker killed in the blasts. A memorial service will be held that night at Boston University for 23-year-old Lu Lingzi, a graduate student from China.

City churches on Sunday paused to mourn the dead as the city's police commissioner said the two suspects had such a large cache of weapons that they were probably planning other attacks.

After the two brothers engaged in a gun battle with police early Friday, authorities found many unexploded homemade bombs at the scene, along with more than 250 rounds of ammunition.

Police Commissioner Ed Davis said the stockpile was "as dangerous as it gets in urban policing".

"We have reason to believe, based upon the evidence that was found at that scene - the explosions, the explosive ordnance that was unexploded and the firepower that they had - that they were going to attack other individuals. That's my belief at this point." Mr Davis told CBS television.

On Fox News Sunday, he said authorities cannot be positive there are not more explosives somewhere that have not been found. But the people of Boston are safe, he insisted.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, the suspects in the twin bombings, are ethnic Chechens from southern Russia. The motive for the bombings remained unclear.
Boston police Sean Collier Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox line up during a tribute to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath, as an image of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier is displayed on the scoreboard. Picture: AP

Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the surviving brother's throat wound raised questions about when he will be able to talk again, if ever.

The wound "doesn't mean he can't communicate, but right now I think he's in a condition where we can't get any information from him at all," Senator Coats told This Week, on US network ABC.

It was not clear whether Tsarnaev was shot by police or inflicted the wound himself.

In the final standoff with police, shots were fired from the boat, but investigators have not determined where the gunfire was aimed, Mr Davis said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the parents of Tamerlan Tsarnaev insisted he came to Dagestan and Chechnya last year to visit relatives and had nothing to do with the militants operating in the volatile part of Russia. His father said he slept much of the time.

A lawyer for Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife said federal authorities have asked to speak with her, and that he is discussing with them how to proceed.
Suspect No.2 in boat

Massachusetts State Police released this aerial image of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hiding in a boat.

Attorney Amato DeLuca said Katherine Russell Tsarnaev did not suspect her husband of anything, and that there was no reason for her to have suspected him. He said she had been working 70 to 80 hours, seven days a week, as a home health care aide. While she was at work, her husband cared for their toddler daughter, he said.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was tracing the suspects' weapons to try to determine how they were obtained.

Neither of the brothers had permission to carry a gun. Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas said it was unclear whether either of them ever applied for a gun permit, and the applications are not considered public records.

But the younger brother would have been denied a permit based on his age alone. Only people 21 or older are allowed gun licenses in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, surgeons at a Cambridge hospital said the Boston transit police officer wounded in a shootout with the suspects had lost nearly all his blood, and his heart had stopped from a single gunshot wound that severed three major blood vessels in his right thigh.

Richard Donohue, 33, was in critical but stable condition. He is sedated and on a breathing machine but opened his eyes, moved his hands and feet and squeezed his wife's hand on Sunday.

news.com.au

The 11 excuses we're all sick of hearing

YOU know the guy who always shows up to work late and blames it on his alarm clock? How about that obnoxious friend who swears his promiscuity is down to 'sex addiction'?

Humans are full of excuses. We're all prone to the occasional white lie or ridiculous rationalisation. Yes, that includes you.

With this in mind, we've drawn up a list of 11 common excuses which have blighted our society for far too long.

Have something to add to our list? Leave a comment in the section below.

"It's not you, it's me."

This tired cliche is trotted out every time someone gets bored of their significant other. It's often accompanied by platitudes like "I don't deserve you" and "you're too good for me", because patronising someone whose heart you just broke is always a spiffing idea. Seriously, who thinks it's plausible to tell a lover that you don't want to date them anymore because they're too awesome?

"I was just kidding!"

You've just said something stupid or offensive and the villagers are brandishing pitchforks at your door. Or writing snide comments on your Facebook page. That's when you use the 'get out of jail free' excuse - it was all a joke! Nothing to see here folks. Everyone knows your comments were serious, but you still pretend the haters are just lacking your refined sense of humour.

"My alarm didn't go off."

Yes it did. You may have slept through the racket, or rolled over and silenced the alarm without waking. Perhaps you hit the snooze button 15 times and then decided to have a long, leisurely breakfast. Whatever happened, I can guarantee that your sophisticated piece of modern technology did not decide to go on strike for five minutes when it was supposed to be chirping.

alarm clock

I'll just hit snooze one more time. That couldn't hurt. Photo: Justin Lloyd

"Everyone else was doing it."

The only thing worse than this sad excuse is the even lamer retort which inevitably follows it. Something about a bridge, I think. Quite simply, whenever "everyone else was doing it", the "everyone" in question was being a complete idiot and really should have been locked up in a place with burly guards for the good of society. Admitting to weakness in the face of peer pressure doesn't make your stupidity look any better.

"I'm full, thanks."

At least this excuse is well-intentioned. Someone has gone to the trouble of preparing a (not so delicious) meal, and you should try to avoid hurting their feelings. On the other hand, if you pretend the taste isn't a problem, the situation might repeat itself every time that person cooks. So whether you're a full-blown vegan or just someone who despises casseroles, it's probably better to be honest. Politely, of course.

"My phone was on silent."

Considering the number of calls that are missed because people's phones are "left in silent mode", it's remarkable how often a quiet train ride is interrupted by someone's shrill Lady Gaga ringtone. Ironically, that ringtone tends to be Gaga's song Telephone, which is all about her impatience at being called all the time. You know what? We get it. Sometimes you just don't want to pick up the phone. We'd really have no problem with that if you didn't lie about it.

lady gaga telephone

If only this phone had a silent mode. Photo: Universal

"I got stuck in traffic."

Every single one of us uses heavy traffic as an excuse for being late. You'd think we would learn to leave home sooner, but apparently those extra 15 minutes of sleep are the difference between life and death. Then there are the people who decide to stop at Macca's for a hash brown and blame congestion for their tardiness. Not to mention the irritating friend who always says he's five minutes away, but takes another hour to show up.

"I was drunk."

It's no secret that people do stupid things when they're drunk. This doesn't mean that buying a beer gives you free license to cast aside all laws of human decency without taking responsibility for your actions. So don't expect that close friend to laugh off the brutally honest text you sent them last night, and certainly don't expect me to forgive your appalling spelling.

"I'm a sex addict."

Tiger Woods made this excuse famous, but he didn't make it any more plausible. The desire to have sex isn't an illness, and you don't need to waste weeks of your life in an expensive rehab program. If you've cheated on your partner with 20 other people, the diagnosis isn't complicated. You are not a sex addict - you're just a horrible person.

tiger woods smiling

As addictions go, this guy got off pretty easy. Ahem.

"I've had no sleep lately."

Everyone fudges the numbers a little when it comes to their sleeping patterns. Teenagers tend to tell their friends that they stay up until insane hours, because that makes them totally hardcore. Or something. Of course, they actually crawled under the covers at 10pm. Meanwhile, many adults would have you believe that they barely sleep at all.

"I forgot."
news.com.au

Achebe: The novelist as class teacher

THE University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Literature 301 (African Fiction) Class was weeks late in starting for the 1980/81 academic year. On the fourth week, the students had gathered as usual even before it was time for the class.
Then five minutes after the time, a large ash-coloured Mercury Monarch car drove in and parked beside the class. A man of middle height in a brown safari suit and with a deeply creased and very serious face but erect body walked into the class.
He greeted the class and went straight to perch at the edge of the table, disdaining the chair – and waited for the hum his entry had elicited to die down. It didn’t. Two minutes later he cleared his throat, went to the black board and began to write even as he spoke: “My name is…” and the class roared: C-H-I-N-U-A   A-C-H-E-B-E!!!.
He shook his head ever so slightly, like somebody who had gotten used to such antics, nay adulation, and reminded the class that other students were also taking lectures in other sections of the Ansah Building which the English Department shared with Economics.  Then he apologised for having not been in the country for almost a month, making the students to lose several lectures. He explained that such international engagements were making more demands on his time and he had decided to do something about his having to struggle to meet up with his lectures. With that he had hinted us that that we would be his last class in Nigeria … but that master of understatement did not make it that clear then.
He asked if we had all bought the long list of recommended text books, and he added another long list; the class asked if we could ever have the time to treat all of them. No, he spoke ever so softly, so softly that you sometimes had to strive to hear him, saying that our studies would neither begin nor end in the class room. “You have to go beyond the official list of books. The world is your stage,” he announced, “reach out and take it. Tackle it, subdue it. I’m just your guide. Soon, you’ll forget me and open your wings wide and fly”. His words were not rushing out; instead, he almost counted his words as he released them slowly as though he deliberately weighed each word before letting it pass through his lips.
Achebe was ever patient; never shouting at any student; not even when they gave the worst of answers. Instead, he would say: “Why not look at it this way”?
There was a particular student, Tony Ejiochi, who loved to antagonise Achebe, telling him often that he rated Cyprian Ekewnsi to be Africa’s best. Achebe thanked him for the stance, especially for his courage but warned him that his style of writing, filling the entire essays with “phantasmagoria” and such high-faluting words just to make an impression, would not help him in making the world to appreciate Ekwensi the more. “I wonder if Ekwensi ever used the word phantasmagoria in any of his books,” concluded Achebe. From that day, “Phantasmagoria” took over the student’s name. If I see him tomorrow, I’ll still call him “Phantasmagoria”.
Then one day, Achebe flared up. He had asked the class to read a certain section of the Senegalese diplomat, Cheikh Hamidou Kane’s  The Ambiguous Adventure as preparation for the next class discussion. The class went on smoothly until somebody asked Achebe the meaning of the word “Occident” (from Kane’s phrase: “The morning of the Occident in Africa was couched in crimson for those who landed on our shores were White and mad”.  Achebe went back to his seat, (the table’s edge really) then asked the student to stand up, and then roared: “What is your dictionary for? This is terrible (his favourite word for describing a bad situation). You are not ready for the task at hand if by now you have not fallen in love with your dictionary.  Ngugi began writing while still a student”.
From there began the class’ great love affair with Ngugi Wa  Thiong’o . Before Achebe would teach any book, he would spend hours on the novelist, his society, the time in which the novelist wrote and lastly, he would say, “when I met him”. It was clear from the time he spent on the East African society that he held great score with the Mau Mau uprising, especially with its organisation. The result was that Ngugi became the class’ favourite author. Every discussion session was filled with Ngugi and East Africa plus Meja Nwangi’s Carcass for Hounds; it was clear Achebe greatly admired “Gen” Dedan Kimathi. Once he admonished the class: You are asking too many questions about Ngugi, I may need to get him for you to answer the questions himself. The class went delirious! But we took it as a joke – until Ngugi arrived!
Understandably, he made us take great interest too in South-African literature. From the 1980/81 session, the question will always resonate whenever our former class mates gather: “Is we not people?” That came from Alex LaGuma’s  A Walk In The Night. To Achebe, that was all that matters: The humanity of the African which has been denied by others; of course to us the rotten English of that unschooled Black ghetto dweller on the run from the apartheid policemen made the question more memorable!  Then talking about when he met South-Africa’s Nadine Gordimer, he chuckled and said she was crying because the “young hot heads” had refused to allow her to attend a conference of African authors in Kenya.  Achebe took her into the hall and convinced the others that the lady had been writing against the apartheid system and she lived in Africa. “We need to swallow up all the Whites in South Africa because from the Cape to Cairo belongs to us by divine right, and know that when South Africa becomes free, some Whites will elect to remain there,” he argued. Her tears dried up immediately. Gordimer  would later win the Nobel Prize!
Achebe opened our eyes to the African world. He loved to quote this passage from the Ambiguous Adventure: “Instead of picking and choosing what to accept from the West and what to reject, Africa is a-quiver with courteousness, metamorphosing in a space of one generation under this new egotism which the West is scattering abroad”.
To him, arts must be in the service of the society and that should continue until we could take for granted what the West now takes for granted (a push-button life of leisure); until then, “Arts for Arts Sake” would remain a “deodorized dog shit” to quote his exact words.
As though Achebe was keeping his house in order before embracing more global engagements, he packed much into the 1980/81 session. Thus he organized the Okochi (dry season in Igbo language) Festival to which he invited story tellers from the villages, in an attempt to make the university recognize the real oral literature. The vernacular recitals took place during the full moon and in the open-air Princess Alexandra Building – its roof was destroyed by bombs during the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War and the university decided to keep it that way was as a war relic.
Achebe later told me in Upstate New York, USA, over a decade later that the final duty he did before leaving Nigeria was to organize the Association of Nigerian Authors in 1981. Emeka Atamah and I, served as the only members of the conference’s secretariat.  Its special guest was, yes, Ngigi. For Ngugi’s address as a Special Guest of Honour, the hall was jam-packed. I remember the last question he answered: “in what way should established writers help aspiring ones”? He said in every way possible; that he was helped too by one Nigerian who helped in getting a manuscript to his publishers. Then Ngugi looked up before announcing that the novelist was Achebe and the manuscript became “Weep Not Child”. As the clapping died down, he concluded: “So I must pay homage to my literary father”. And he went to shake Achebe’s outstretched hands.
So, was Ngigi his favourite African novelist? He shook his head left and right and left again when I asked him that question in the US, where he lived and died after the 1990 car accident that rendered him wheel-chair bound. He said that if there was a book he never got tired of reading, it was Kane’s “Ambiguous Adventure”. Why? He said the book was a philosophical dialogue between Africa and the West. “Look Tony, it is there in the book that many Africans, often the brightest and the best that we send to the West to understand the Western ways and so help us in the fight for the world’s resources are often conquered by the ‘itinerary itself’. It is written there that many of such people never really return to Africa and end up neither whites nor blacks but hybrids filled with shame”.  “Tony”, he continued, “many now in the US, will never return to Africa, neither will their children. Who can quantify that lose to Africa?”.
Achebe himself never returned, he died there … but did he bother about such things? On my second visit to him at Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, Upstate New York, he told me that he was still in a hospital bed in London (after his 1990 car accident) thinking how he would have to remodel his house in Ogidi, South-East Nigeria so that he would be able to function at all there, when a visitor was ushered in. He was the President of an American College. He asked if Achebe would be ready to move in as part of the faculty once he was ready to leave the hospital. Achebe said yes for he did not want the incapacitation to end his productive life. On getting to the US, the purpose built (for him) “Achebe House” was ready, over-looking the Catskill Mountain that reminded one of the Nsukka hills, beside Achebe’s former University of Nigeria, Nsukka.  He told me he could use his wheel chair to navigate all through the house and the entire campus. But would the situation be the same in Nigeria? He answered the question in an Acheberesque way: “Nigeria is a sorry story”. I did not fail to note the understatement once again.
One question many have asked is if Achebe was worried that he never won a Nobel Prize in Literature. I asked him that question and he said, understatedly once again, “I do not lose sleep over that.”
For a while I feared that Achebe could actually reject the prize to poke his nose against the West as he twice rejected national awards from Nigeria –for failure of leadership. But now, such would ever remain part of the great unknowns of history; why he was not thought fit for the prize and if he would have accepted it. Yet it remains a fact that in 1986, African writers were invited for a seminar in Sweden of all places. Achebe not only turned it down, he published an article saying that the place to discuss African literature was in Africa or a foreign place where African literature was taken seriously. Chinweizu, (of the “West and the Rest of Us” book fame) the polyvalent scholar who studied Maths and Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology before taking a PhD in History and branching off into American Economy and writing literary criticism books, etc, then alerted the world that Achebe had by that act written himself  out of the Nobel Prize.  That year, an African, a Nigerian, Wole Soyinka, became a Nobel laureate.
Yes, could he have lived only on his earnings from his novels? He said an emphatic yes to that. Did critics bother him? No, he replied “they almost all say nice things about me – and then you have to realize that there are some lunatics out there. You have to learn to notice the serious, weigh what they have to say for no one is perfect. But some are just lunatics.”
As Achebe’s former student, the question I have faced the most is this: “how did he teach his books?” My unvarying answer has been this: “I wish I knew”. But Achebe never taught his books. Prof. Emmanuel Obiechina taught my class “Things Fall Apart”, “Arrow of God”, etc. But sitting with Achebe years later in the US, he answered my questions easily: “Things Fall Apart” did not render an idealized picture of the Igbo of that era. You could almost say that it was a harsh, even wicked, society. But, and he smiled, as you supplied the rest: we were not just savages and the white man, acting on God’s behalf came to save us – which he had stated before as one of his reasons for writing “Things Fall Apart”. The truth must lie somewhere in between, but until the lion begins to tell its own stories, the story will always be told by the hunter. And Achebe led a gigantic eruption of stories from the African point of view.
Mr. TONY ELUEMUNOR, a commentator on national issues, wrote from Lagos.


vanguard news

Spend D Money: Dangote to Build $8 billion Refinery in 2013

Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, has announced plans to construct an $8 billion refinery in Nigeria later this year, according to a report by Nigeria’s Leadership newspaper.

Dangote made the announcement last week in Lagos during a breakfast meeting with some senior editors of various Nigerian media organizations to commemorate his 57th birthday. While Dangote did not disclose the planned location of the facility or its capacity, he said his Dangote Group, will start work on the refinery as soon as the company secures final approval from the federal government and other related agencies.

naiajagist

20-year-old Nigerian sets record; graduates as youngest commercial licence pilot

A 20-year-old Nigerian, Favour Odozor, has emerged as the youngest with the Commercial Pilot Licence (CPL) in both Nigeria and South Africa.
Mr. Odozor who graduated alongside 15 other trained pilots at the Afrika Union Aviation Academy (AUAA), Mafikeng, South Africa on Saturday was described as the new hope of the African aviation industry.
Capt. Allan Roebuck, Director of AUAA, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Johannesburg that Mr. Odozor completed all the 37 flying procedures in record time.
“The academy is proud of this young Nigerian, with the award of licence and certificate to him. Today, I can say he is the youngest commercial licence pilot in both Nigeria and South Africa.
The AUAA director noted that it requires a lot of hard work, focus, punctuality and discipline to be trained as a commercial pilot.
“It is not enough to be academically sound to be a good pilot. It requires focus, punctuality, and  discipline to get the commercial licence and certificate.
“It has been a long road for the group of qualified pilots to obtain their licences. With the award of certificate, they can fly commercial planes,’’ Mr. Roebuck said.
He said the new pilots underwent two years of rigorous training and 37 flying procedures.
On his part, Mr. Odozor said he had always dreamt of becoming a pilot.
“Flying a plane has been my childhood dream, and I am happy today that I’m a licensed commercial pilot at the age of 20.
“I never expected myself to be the youngest Nigerian to get the commercial pilot licence, not to talk about in an advanced country like South Africa. I was just pursuing my childhood dream of being a pilot.
“But I thank God that I have now made history, as a record licensed commercial pilot in both Nigeria and South Africa,’’ Mr. Odozor said.
He said his immediate plan was to go for his instrument type and rating courses.
“Aviation training is very wide. This is just the beginning. My immediate plan is to enrol for my instrument type rating and Boeing 737 training courses,’’ Mr. Odozor said.
SOURCE; http://tinyurl.com/20-yrs-youngest-pilot-in-naija


naijapals 

FG To Replace Voters Card With National Identity Cards

Plans are on the way for a gradual phasing out of the voters card to be replaced by the National Identity Cards in future elections in the country.
Minister of Information, Labaran Maku

Minister of Information, Labaran Maku who disclosed this after the Federal Executive Council meeting yesterday revealed that the council also approved the sum of N2.1billion for the printing of 33.5 million Permanent Voters Card by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

The minister said the permanent Voter’s card which will have a life span of ten years will contain unique biometric features that will identify the voter.

According to the Minister, “following the successful conduct of the Nationwide Voters registration in 2011, the commission proposed to print 73,500,000 permanent ?oters cards to replace the temporary voters cards issued during the voters registration.

The commission printed 40,000,000 permanent cards in 2011 for the first phase of the project which is in progress. There is the need to print and issue the remaining 35,000,000 permanent Voters card.

“After deliberations, Council approved the contract for the second phase of the printing of Permanent Voters’s Cards at the rate of N65.00 per card in the sum of N2,117,500,000 with a completion period of 6 months” he said.

The minister explained that INEC estimates that the permanent Voters Cards will be used for elections in 2015 and 2019 after which the National Identity Cards would be the instrument for use in elections in the country.

Also yesterday, the Federal Executive approved the institutionalisation of a six level national vocational qualifications framework in Nigeria and the placement of the national vocational qualifications in the scheme of service.

Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Rufa’I who disclosed this emphasised that the scheme is to down play over reliance on paper qualification and integrate skilled professionals into the scheme of service both in the public and Private sector.

According to her, “as Nigeria aspires to become a major player in the world economy, the place of skilled and competent workforce cannot be under played.

“A competent workforce necessary for higher productivity and effective implementation of development projects are building blocks for the economy.

“The phenomenon of vocational skills framework as been embraced by many countries as a vital scheme to enhance development of competent workforce and ensure that qualifications to occupations are flexible, transparent and accountable.

“As Nigeria transforms to one of the world’s major economies, the greatest asset needed is a competent workforce, which the council believes could be best realized under the National Vocational Qualifications Framework (NVQF)” she said.

Also presenting her progress report to the council yesterday, the Minister of Woman Affairs, Zainab Maina said through the activities of the Ministry, women were able to attain 36% of cabinet positions while 26% of federal Permanent secretaries are women.

She said her ministry is working with the national Assembly to strengthen the laws again rape, adding that more stringent measures would be recommended as punishment for those convicted of rape.


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Popular Nigerian Actor’s Secret Sex Fantasy Exposed

Hafiz Oyetoro, also known as Saka due to his hilarious role in popular TV sitcom House Apart has revealed his secret fantasies to fans.
Here is what the slimly built father of three disclosed:

My name is Hafeez Oyetoro. I am from Iseyin, Oyo State. My primary and secondary education was in Iseyin and I had my first degree in Dramatic Arts at the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU). I had my Masters’ degree in University of Ibadan (UI); I am presently running my PHD at the University of Ibadan at the Institute of African Studies.

I lecture at Adeniran Ogunsaya College of Education, teaching Theatre Arts. I am married with kids.

Do you really like sex?
Every man likes sex. A man who does not have sex is not a man; that means something is wrong with him. But I am not obsessed with sex.

I am very faithful to my wife. Since I married her, I have not had any extra marital affair. Of course I have children and you cannot have children without seex, which means that I do have sex.

I just have sex when I feel like. Sometimes once a week; at other times I may not have anything for one month. Sometimes I have it every day but I’m not really addicted to it.




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Jay-Z & Beyonce’s Visit To Cuba ‘Legal’

After Republican politicians criticised the music stars for visiting Cuba, US officials say they did have a right to be there.
U.S. singer Beyonce and her husband rapper Jay-Z walk as they leave their Hotel in Havana

The couple at the start of their trip to the island

A trip to Cuba by pop diva Beyonce and her hip-hop star husband Jay-Z was not illegal, the US Treasury department has insisted.

Beyonce and Jay-Z celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary in the capital Havana last week.

The trip had come under criticism from Republican politicians who questioned whether the couple was breaking an embargo forbidding US citizens from visiting the country.

But senior Treasury official Alastair Fitzpayne said in a letter to the concerned Republicans, that the couple’s controversial trip was part of a cultural exchange and did not violate the economic embargo imposed on the island by the US.

“It is our understanding that the travellers in question travelled to Cuba pursuant to an educational exchange trip organised by a group authorised by OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) to sponsor and organise programmes to promote people-to-people contact in Cuba,” Mr Fitzpayne said in the letter.
CUBA-US-BEYONCE

The couple photographing the crowds who came to see them



Last week, Republican representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida sent a letter to Treasury official Adam Szubin, director of OFAC, requesting information on the type of licence Beyonce and Jay-Z received before travelling to Cuba.

“As you know, US law expressly prohibits the licensing of financial transactions for ‘tourist activities’ in Cuba,” the pair wrote.




Crowds gather outside of the Saratoga Hotel in Havana waiting for U.S. singer Beyonce and her husband rapper Jay-Z

Cuban fans wait to see the couple

Images of Beyonce and her husband walking around Havana surrounded by hundreds of fans stoked controversy in the US.

Under the embargo established against Cuba in 1962, US citizens cannot go to the island and spend money without permission from the government.

Mr Fitzpayne said OFAC “adheres strictly to the requirement in the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 that no licence be issued to travel to Cuba for tourist activities, as defined in the Act”.

US citizens are not allowed to travel to Cuba purely as holidaymakers. However, they can get licences to go there on the grounds of academic, religious, journalistic or cultural exchange trips.

The so-called “people-to-people” licences were reinstated under the Obama administration.


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Charly Boy is a blessing –Lady D

Lady Diana Oputa is an interesting personality . At her exquisite shop filled with interior furnishings at Gwarinmpa in Abuja, she courteously deals with her customers’ requirements and at the same time created time to grant this interview. She bubbled with life in her sleeveless blouse and jersey jumper with her skin adorned with tattoos . This black American wife of Charly boy Oputa in this interview tells you how she is spending the Christmas, her most memorable Christmas, her love life with Charly boy and lots more.Excerpts:

What will your Christmas be like?
My husband springs-up surprises as regards gifts. He can do as he likes. He may surprise me on Christmas day or he may do that on my birthday in January but I always have presents for everybody at Christmas. This year, I didn’t decorate my trees because we will be traveling. We will carry our Christmas gifts to the village and everyone will open theirs on Christmas day. I’m good at doing that and my mother in -law really loves it.

I love doing things for her, like Christmas carols. My church came over early this month and we had Christmas carols. I didn’t tell my mother-in-law. I just told my boys to light the bush paths up, the Christmas lights were on, then I served drinks. I now went inside and brought her in her wheel chair. My father in-law too was there and they sat together. She was so overjoyed .

I prayed to God to spare our lives so that we both can live that long as a couple. It’s such a blessing to see two people that are committed at 90 and 80 years of age respectively. My house in the evening, is lit. I’ve done my Christmas decorations as I always do annually . Now, we have started doing that for other people. During Christmas, we’ll be in Abuja and Oguta. We go to Oguta annually. One of my husband’s cousins is being given the Ogbuagu chieftaincy title and certainly there is no way we can miss that. We are also coming back for the Nigerian Idols contest. My husband has been appointed a judge in the contest which holds during Christmas and in the New Year in Lagos.

Can you recollect your most memorable Christmas?
That was when my parents came to Nigeria for Christmas four years ago. That wasn’t their first time in Nigeria but it was their first Christmas in Nigeria. Someone presented a cow to my husband and we all came outside and my parents were awe-struck and wanted to know what was happening. My father was appalled at the handling of the cow and wondered why it should be treated the way it was? I told him “daddy we are going to eat this cow, this is Christmas meat”.

They were so shocked, because they had never seen a live cow actually brought as a gift to your home and eventually slaughtered and kept in the freezer. I now carried the liver and went to my father who screamed “…this is disgusting”. They’re used to seeing beef in the supermarket and well packaged but they saw it live before it was cooked. It was quite interesting. They saw so many people coming around and I recorded everything on tape. You can hear me in the background and maybe at Easter or when I go to America in July, whoever didn’t come to Nigeria can watch the video. They really enjoyed their Christmas. Later, my sister came. She had never been to Nigeria for the over 30 years I have been here.

Christmas could be quite boring in America. Even my daughter is coming back to Nigeria for Christmas, because she said she will be bored stiff. You attend a lot of weddings, different people having different functions, you can imagine just being in America just sitting in your home, visit one friend, it’s not the same. They do have a closely-knit family . They sit together for dinner for Christmas, but you can’t compare it with the way we celebrate it here in Nigeria.

What was your first Christmas in Nigeria like?
Ohhh… I can’t recollect. It’s been long. I can’t. That would have been in Oguta or maybe Owerri… I can’t remember.

For how long have you been doing interior decoration ?
I have been doing it for some time now, maybe two years or two and a half years. I actually moved from Lagos to Abuja and I got an office about June. It’s a birthday gift from my husband . On my birthday, he gave me a shop. This is the beginning of what I want to do for sometime. It’s easier when you’re in business and actually have a location where your clients can come and see what you do.

It enables you to market your business the way you like as well as your personality in a way. The Taakra Group of Companies is basically into corporate promotions. It comprises of Tarka and Friendship Solutions, Taakra Craft and Academy and Taakra Television Show. I just incorporated these four companies. Right now, I’m developing my circuit. You know I had to start all over again from Lagos. It’s challenging but fun to do what you like to do.

How is it like relocating to Abuja, it’s a different experience entirely, isn’t it ?
When I first came here, I didn’t think I wanted to leave Lagos, because Lagos is the centre of arts and crafts. If there’s a particular item you are looking for, you can go to Balogun, Alaba, the airport…, I know there’s an airport in Abuja, it’s the centre. It’s sort of the point of everything. I first found it difficult, I felt I was not going to leave Lagos, I said I would stay there for a couple of years and get my feet on the ground. I decided that it’s about time I came and joined my family here in Abuja and whatever it is I want to do we have to do it here and that’s what I am beginning to do.

I’m a little more relaxed here in Abuja. Definitely we have our issues with traffic and other things but definitely it’s a smaller place than Lagos. Although, I miss the market, but I go back and forth. If I need certain things that are not available in Abuja I go to Lagos.

Why did you choose interior decoration and not fashion business?
I was looking for something that would be more profitable .I was looking for an opportunity to sell other people’s products as well. We market some artistic work here, but we are very selective about what we distribute because I try and blend the cultures together . I call it “culture in the mix” because you can see western furniture and Afro-centric pieces here. We try and diversify to make it unique because I can never leave-out cultural things . People are actually asking for these things.

We have different things and when you show them how they can blend them together, they appreciate it more. You can see the hand made duvet made with African fabric . We also have exotic beds . We create and design. It doesn’t matter if it’s clothing or interior decoration, at the end of the day, your designing technique comes in and that was why I incorporated Tarka Solutions. It still allows me display my creativity. If you see my house this Christmas, everywhere is lit. I also did Christmas decoration for the whole street.

We have started doing that for other people too. It’s surprising when someone just comes and says “ I have seen your adverts of facebook and some said their friends gave them fliers . Still others go with a piece and if they are not taking anything they like the place and definitely want to come back and pick-up something. Our shop is in Gwarimpa and people ask me why I chose Gwarimpa. I tell them it doesn’t matter where I am, if it’s good, people will definitely come to where you are.

What’s your impression of village life?
Village life is quite interesting. I lived in the village for 5 years. I lived in Owerri for two years and in Oguta for three years. I had my first child, my son there. I will do it again. It was different, coming from America, coming from Boston to a more serene lifestyle and I used to make jewelry . A very local girl I am and I travel to sell merchandise at Aba, Owerri and Onitsha . I used to take a flask to buy my favorite food, Edikang Ikong from Oguta. I also love African salad (Ugba).

…it’s not boring in Oguta ?
We used to have a restaurant … a joint and everybody came to eat pepper soup. It was interesting, something to remember. People would ask if that’s possible to do… to leave city life, Boston and New York City and come to Oguta , Imo state to live. It was fun. I’m in love and anywhere he takes me, I’m ready to go. It was fun. I got to sit down and try to do a few things I like to do. Of course we try to build for the future. See where we have gotten to. You have to start somewhere. It may not always be from the top, you have to work your way up. I think that’s a stronger foundation really, starting together and growing.

As a foreigner you blended so well. How did you do it?
I tell my daughter, who is now ready for marriage and has American friends, you need to look at the situation carefully because you can’t do what I did. It’s a lot easier for a Nigerian man to marry a black American woman and come and live in his country, but it’s more difficult for a Nigerian girl to bring an afro American home so you need to weigh your pros and cons.

What’s your advice on life and living for women?
I need to say you need to think about what you are doing, pray about it and ask God to guide you, because it’s your life at the end of the day. You don’t advise someone wrongly and you don’t want to not advise at all, because you should as a parent. I’m saying this because the picture is not always clear and it’s not always a bed of roses. I would say honestly, you should take your time before you leap. We tend to say “we are getting older, men are not coming to me”, but living happily or happily married is a challenge already. Look at the person’s character, how do they treat their father and mother? How do they treat their sisters? These indicate how they will treat you as a woman. So take your time. What works for me may not work for you.

You really love your husband, don’t you?
It’s my husband that makes me love him, because of the way he treats me. If you come into a family and the family is a family that takes you in, they welcome and love you, it’s inevitable that I love him. My mother-in-law is my friend and my-father-in-law is my dad. If you are fortunate to have that , there is not so much to say, because you are comfortable . You don’t need to spend much to make me happy . It’s the small things we do for each other that’s the magic, but sometimes we forget these small things too. My husband never forgets.

The first day he proposed to you, did he tell you are coming to Africa?
I was already in Nigeria . I stayed for like a year before I went back home.

You met your husband in school?
Yes, he was in Emberson College and I was in Changelin College studying fashion designing. I met his parents in the US. We actually had a function for his father and mother. They are judges. At the end of the day, his parents just invited me to Nigeria to come and visit. I came in between 1979 and 1980. I stayed for a year, and I went home and came back again. One day, I asked him, what was happening , you need to do something, and we need to know where we are going in this relationship. I can’t be coming to and forth to Nigeria and no commitment? He now said okay let us go to the registry. That was the way it happened. Some people don’t do it the romantic way I guess. At the end of the day, we women want more than commitment because our clock is ticking.

What kind of husband is he?
He is very good . A good provider and father. He’s hardworking and he is also understanding. He always allows you to do what you want to do in life. He’s not like “you sit here in this corner”; no he’s not like that. I always say, he is not a typical Nigerian and he’s been a blessing to me. You can’t just come in anyhow, he tells you this is my family, this is what I want, not many men are like that. I admire his gut . He knows what he wants. He’s easy going and allows you to be yourself. That’s how our relationship has been over the years. This shop is my birthday gift. He told me “…my wife here is the key to your shop”, not many men would do that. I don’t know what to expect on my next birthday in January, maybe he will pay the rent for two more years.


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