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NIGERIA :  The Archbishop Emeritus of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, Anthony Car­dinal Olubunmi Okogie, yesterday, urged President Muhammadu Buhari, to re­tool and lead by example on all fronts or risk plunging Nigeria into a state of despondency. In a statement by the Director of Social Com­munications of the Diocese, Monsig­nor Gabriel Osu, Okogie accused the pres­ident of acting disdainfully towards the judicial authorities while millions of Nigerians are abandoned to face unimaginable social problems. Okogie said, “He (Buhari) must retool, re­focus and aggressively face the so­cial, economic (fiscal and monetary) problems we have head-on, without letting the anti-corruption drive look like a political distraction. “A snail-paced and disordered methodology in governance, his ap­parent disdain for judicial authorities and decisions, a lost today and found tomorrow 2016 Budget debacle, and a rather rudderless and confused Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) with an unclear mone

NIGERIA : Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has requested the International Criminal Court to “investigate allegations of crimes against humanity committed against the Nigerian people by some former and serving military as well public officials and private persons who engaged in the criminal diversion of $8 billion earmarked to procure equipment for the armed forces to fight insurgency.” In a petition dated January 19, 2016 and sent to the Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, Mr. Falana said, “We are a firm of civil rights lawyers based in Lagos, Nigeria. We are the defence counsel for the majority of the members of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Nigeria who were charged with mutiny, cowardly behaviour and sundry offences before the courts-martial instituted by the former military authorities. As we shall demonstrate anon, the only “offence” proved against our clients in the military courts was that they had the temerity to demand for weapons to fight the well equipped t

NIGERIA Eniola Akinkuotu The governments of the United States and the United Kingdom have said they decognise the passports being issued by the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra. The National Director of Information, MASSOB, Sunny Okereafor, had said two weeks ago that the passport was valid worldwide, adding that the travel document costs N5,000 while its renewal costs N2,000 He had said, “I assure you that the Biafran passport is valid. Except Nigeria, other countries of the world accept Biafran passport and allow our citizens to travel with it. In Europe, North and South America, Biafran passport is accepted. Nigeria is the only country that seizes Biafran passport. Go to neighbouring Ghana here, they will stamp the passport for you. Don’t be confused by the propaganda of the Nigerian government that there is nothing like Biafra passport. “MASSOB appeals to Biafran citizens to procure their passport and use it to travel. If you doubt me,

TAIWAN: An unusually cold weather front has been blamed for killing 57 mostly elderly people in Taiwan's greater Taipei area. The cold wave abruptly pushed temperatures to a 16-year record low of 4 degrees Celsius (39.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in the subtropical capital where most homes lack central heating, causing heart trouble and shortness of breath for many of the victims, a city official said. "In our experience, it's not the actual temperature but the sudden drop that's too sudden for people's circulatory systems," said a city spokesman who identified himself only by his surname, Chang. The cold snap was blamed in the deaths of 40 people in the capital, Taipei, while the neighboring New Taipei City attributed an additional 17 deaths to the cold weather. Strokes and hypothermia were among the causes of death in New Taipei City, officials there said. Temperatures in Taipei average 16 degrees C (60 degrees F) in January, according to Taiwan's

NASHVILLE — House Majority Whip Jeremy Durham at 6:17 p.m. CT sent The Tennessean a formal statement that he is resigning from his leadership position in the Tennessee House Republican caucus. The statement comes after a two-hour whirlwind in which GOP leadership released a statement from Durham saying he resigned, only to have Durham waffle on his resignation in several emails to The Tennessean. The updated statement added one paragraph, but was largely the same as the original statement. After the caucus sent a statement to The Tennessean at 4:27 p.m. from Durham purportedly announcing his resignation, Durham told The Tennessean in an email at 4:48 p.m. he hadn’t made up his mind yet. “I'm talking it over with my family but have not made a decision. Nothing should've gone out,” Durham said in an email to The Tennessean. “Watching Broncos game at the moment.” Durham’s denial email came three minutes after House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick said he had accepted

HONG KONG --A cold snap gripped Hong Kong on Sunday, with residents shivering as temperatures plunged to the lowest point in nearly 60 years and frost dusted the mountaintops of a city accustomed to a subtropical climate. Weather officials issued a frost warning saying an "intense cold surge" was in place, coupled with chilling monsoon winds. Morning temperatures dropped to 3.3 degrees Celsius in urban areas of the southern Chinese city, where most buildings lack central heating, and below freezing on the hills. It is the coldest weather in 59 years, senior scientific officer Wong Wai-kin told AFP. "It is the coldest day since 1957. The daily minimum dropped to 3.3 degrees Celsius, the previous record was 2.4 degrees Celsius in February of 1957," he told AFP. While the cold snap is by no means on the scale of the weather now affecting the U.S. and swaths of mainland China, such temperatures are a novelty for many residents. "It is very cold and wi