Legitimate Criticism

By ANDREW ROSENTHAL

Stung by the furious response to Mitt Romney’s attack on President Obama over the killings in Libya, some right-wing commentators have defended Mr. Romney’s right to challenge Mr. Obama on foreign policy. Just for instance, Jennifer Rubin wrote in The Washington Post that “Obama has no right to insist he is beyond criticism.” She added: “If [the media] are going to insist that holding a president accountable for his national security is out of bounds, then perhaps journalism is now farce.”

Of course Mr. Obama is not beyond criticism. Of course Mr. Romney has the right to hold the president accountable for his national security. But this story isn’t about that. It’s about the fact that he made something up. He accused the Obama administration of sympathizing with those who waged the attacks, when it did no such thing.

It was the embassy in Cairo, not the White House, that issued a statement condemning “efforts to offend believers of all religions.” And the embassy sent out that statement before the killings in Libya, not after, in a clear attempt to defuse tensions.

If Mr. Romney had criticized the president by drawing a plausible connection between his foreign policies and the riots in Egypt and Libya, that would have been legitimate. But he did not. I think that’s because there is no connection.

Yesterday, Jon Huntsman seemed to have Mr. Romney in mind when he said “This is above all a reminder that politics should end at the water’s edge.”

The “water’s edge” axiom doesn’t mean that foreign policy is out of bounds. It means you shouldn’t swan around the globe damaging a sitting president’s relationships with foreign leaders—as Mr. Romney did when he traveled to Israel, donors in tow, and accused the president, indirectly but unmistakably, of trying to “undermine” Israel.

The Burden of Speech

By TIMOTHY EGAN

A fanatic makes a hate movie, filled with wild claims about the founder of one of the world’s major religions. Fanatics of another sort are inflamed by the crude film, crying blasphemy.
Hatred flares. Mobs attack the embassy in Cairo, shouting there is no God but their God. Another mob attacks the sanctuary in Benghazi, Libya, a military-style assault, using the film as motivational cover. An extraordinary public servant, Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, is killed in the line of duty in a city he had helped to save from a dictator’s last gasp. Three other Americans are killed as well.
Who is to blame? The mobs, the attackers — clearly. Security forces as well, for allowing the fragile wall that separates a diplomat from street thugs to be breached. But what about the filmmaker who launched the first shot?
Beyond that, what to make of Mitt Romney, trying to score cheap political points before the bodies of the murdered American diplomats are even cold and hailing that odious film as an expression of “American values”?

Mohammed Abu Zaid/Associated PressEgyptian protesters, largely ultra-conservative Islamists, climbed the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, brought down the American flag and replaced it with a black flag with Islamic inscription, in protest of a film deemed offensive of Islam.

What’s more, Romney’s craven attack was fundamentally dishonest, riddled with errors, and premised on notions that a kook would harbor. His response was no more accurate than the film.
Free speech — for all its liberating qualities, this founding virtue of ours imposes huge burdens on the speaker and comes with its own set of civil rules. In the Islamic world, people have no idea how much freedom Americans are given to say pretty much anything, true or not. Many don’t understand that a zealot’s YouTube provocation does not represent a government.
But we do know better in the United States. And so, it falls upon our leaders to educate the rest of the world about unfettered speech, its perils and wonders, by example.
In the case of the cartoonish film on the Prophet Muhammad — depicting him as a child molester, a liar and a buffoon — we still don’t know much about who is behind it. Steve Klein, a California insurance man with a long history of making erroneous claims about Islam, says he’s one of the backers. A Florida preacher, Terry Jones, who inspired deadly riots in Afghanistan by threatening to burn copies of the Koran, has come forth as a promoter of the film.
And when asked whether he bore any responsibility for the violence prompted by the incendiary film, Jones said his conscience was clear.No matter its exact provenance, the film is a hate-bullet, and we’ve had plenty of those in our history. Not long after the witch hunts of the 1950s, a good man in my home state of Washington was accused of being a Communist. Years later, his son’s family — Charles Goldmark, his wife and two kids — was slaughtered by a mentally deranged killer who believed the original libel and though he was doing right by a delusional cause. How much blame did that speaker half a century ago, planting a falsehood that took to the winds over the years, have for the death of an entire family during a Christmas dinner in 1985?

Now to Romney. He had promised not to take political potshots on Sept. 11, that most mournful of anniversaries. But he couldn’t help himself. But before the day was done, he fired off a statement bashing the commander in chief and the American Embassy at a moment of extreme peril. He did not have the dignity to wait for the families of those killed to be properly eulogized or the wisdom to wait for the facts.
This episode is the most revealing moment of the campaign. Remember, earlier this year Romney went after American diplomats just as they were trying — successfully, it turned out — to negotiate the freedom of a Chinese dissident.
But this is worse. A man who wants to control America’s nuclear arsenal can’t wait for the fog of a fatal attack to clear before popping off. He implied that the Cairo embassy, in sensibly releasing a statement condemning the hate film before any rioting had begun, equates to President Obama “sympathizing with mobs.”
He said, “It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn the attacks on our diplomatic mission, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
The Cairo embassy was taking emergency steps to save American lives, a pre-emptive move. “We firmly reject those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others” was the statement. They were educating — in a panic, possibly, knowing the anger in the Arab street — about the perils of free speech. No apology.
And since when is a clumsy, propagandish, inaccurate film an expression of “American values”?
Romney can’t see the facts for what they are because he’s persuaded that Obama’s foreign policy is one long apology tour. Nor does he have the good sense to stand down until he knows what he’s talking about, as did most of official Washington, Republican and Democrat.
Romney was left sputtering in the gutter with the dredges of his party. He was there with Sarah Palin, who used the tragedy to make cringe-worthy fun of and crude jokes about the president. Like Romney, she got her facts wrong, a professional trademark in her case. And he was there with Rush Limbaugh, who lauded him as a statesman.
Free speech, when it’s abused, can lead millions of people to believe a lie. Thus, up to a third or more of Republicans still tell pollsters that they think the president of the United States is not an American citizen. This is little different from ignorant Islamists who think the American government could be behind a blunt attack on their religion.
Don’t expect Romney to say he made a mistake; his last book, after all, is titled “No Apology.” But a man who can’t say he’s sorry abused one of the biggest free speech opportunities in the world. His words were revealing, and in that sense he did voters a favor.

Mideast Turmoil Spreads

By MARGARET COKER and ADAM ENTOUS

Associated Press

A Libyan man on Thursday investigates the inside of the burned-out U.S. consulate in Benghazi after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.

BENGHAZI, Libya—The Libyan government arrested four people Thursday in connection with the deadly attack on the American consulate Tuesday night as Libyan and U.S. officials mounted a manhunt for others believed to be involved.
Protests spread across the region, breaking out in Yemen and Iran and once again in Cairo, where Egyptian police in riot gear beat back crowds of young men in a street filled with tear gas outside the U.S. Embassy.

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Mohamed al-Sayaghi/Reuters

Protests continued in San'a, Yemen, where demonstrators scaled the U.S. Embassy fence.

In Yemen's capital, San'a, hundreds of young men breached the outer security rings of the fortified U.S. Embassy. Evidently inflamed by a video mocking the Prophet Muhammad, one young man in Yemen shouted, "Troops will not stand in our way in defending the honor of our Prophet.'' Still, there were indications some demonstrators were using the protests to put pressure on their countries' governments as much as to assail the video.

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Reuters

Dhaka, Bangladesh

In the U.S., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced both the anti-Islam video and the violence in Libya that took the life of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans earlier this week. Emphasizing that the U.S. government had no role in the video, she called it "reprehensible" and said "we absolutely reject its content and message." At the same time, she said, there was "no justification—none at all—for responding to this video with violence."
As U.S. officials struggled to gain a clear picture of who was behind the mob attack in Benghazi late Tuesday, U.S. intelligence agencies were increasingly skeptical it was planned in advance, a shift from an initial assessment by some. U.S. officials also were increasingly doubtful the militants had direct ties to al Qaeda.
The information pointing to the possibility of a more spontaneous assault could deflect criticism of both the U.S. and Libyan governments for missing clues to an impending attack. An impromptu attack without clear ties to a major terrorist organization also could ease pressure on U.S. officials to respond aggressively.
The third and fourth Americans killed in the attack on the U.S. consulate were identified by the State Department late Thursday as security personnel Tyrone S. Woods and Glen A. Doherty, both former Navy SEALs. Previously identified, in addition to Mr. Stevens, was State Department information officer Sean Smith.
The events continued to reverberate in the U.S. presidential campaign, in a more muted form than on Wednesday. Republican Mitt Romney didn't repeat his criticism that the Obama administration was "effectively apologizing for the right of free speech" but said in Fairfax, Va., that the Libyan attack showed that "a strong America is essential to shape events."

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Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters

Cairo

President Barack Obama, campaigning in Colorado, promised that "no act of terror will go unpunished.'' Mr. Obama also has led a U.S. effort to moderate the reaction to the film in Muslim countries and stem protests in advance of Friday prayers, which often lead to new demonstrations in Muslim lands.

Timeline: Past Attacks

Past attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates around the world.

Third Day of Protests

Reuters

Protesters climbed over the main gate of the U.S. Embassy in San'a on Thursday.

A Libyan official in charge of a task force tracking a militant group whose members led the first wave of attacks said his country was throwing all available resources into the hunt. Wanis al-Sharif, a deputy interior minister, said his team was using telephone taps, among other tools, to follow the group, hoping for a better understanding of its strength and structure.
"There is a group now that is under our custody, but there is a group we're following to know who's connected to them, and [we] are monitoring their phone calls," Mr. Sharif said, declining to provide more details.
The U.S. role in the manhunt has remained low key, in part out of concerns that a heavy overt American role would inflame tensions. But the U.S. has ramped up intelligence collection in the region, using unmanned aerial drones and other sophisticated eavesdropping equipment, officials said.
The distinctive humming motors of drones could be heard in the skies above Benghazi Thursday. The U.S. has used drones and other intelligence-collection efforts since the fall of Col. Moammar Gadhafi to track militant camps and weapons caches in areas east of Benghazi known to be Islamist hotbeds.
The focus of the Libyan probe appears up to this point has been an Islamist rebel brigade called Ansar al Sharia, a group of fundamentalist religious men who banded together in a militia last year in the fight to oust Gadhafi. Members of the group were at the consulate attack and cars belonging to members were found abandoned in the area, according to Mr. Sharif. It isn't known whether the four men arrested are members of the group.
A spokesman for Ansar al Sharia, Hani Mansouri, said at a news conference Thursday that his organization didn't organize or participate in the attack.
U.S. officials said preliminary information suggests the militants saw protests sparked by an anti-Islamic video as an opportunity to wreak havoc on a prominent symbol of the U.S. to make an anti-American statement. "There is no intelligence indicating this was premeditated," a U.S. official said. "It looks like it was an opportunistic attack by a group in the region."
There also are no indications at this point that the attackers knew the ambassador was in the building.
Around Benghazi, Libyan forces made no discernible ramp-up of security. A unit of six lightly armed Libyan defense soldiers stood outside the burned-out consulate complex Thursday afternoon.
The siege began late Tuesday night. New descriptions by Libyan security officials detailed hours of terror in which outgunned consulate security forces tried in vain to battle well-armed assailants.

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Kevin Hagen for the Wall Street

Dilan Samo, right, and Jeje Barwary hold photos during a candlelight vigil in honor and memory of slain American Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens outside the permanent mission to Libya in Manhattan on Thursday.

Mohammed Farraj, a soldier who was part of a four-member Libyan military unit permanently stationed at the facility. said he heard commotion on the dirt road outside the compound about 8:30 p.m. and was told by walkie-talkie of a group of armed, bearded protesters gathering.
There also were four private security guards, all Libyans, who weren't armed and worked inside the compound. Interviews with the Libyans indicated there also were four to eight American security guards around the compound when the attack started.
As trouble began, two Libyans posted on the outside moved inside and alerted the Libyan security forces, said Mr. Farraj, but backup didn't arrive immediately. Mr. Sharif said that he advised the armed security unit not to open fire so as to not inflame the situation.

Stream: Libya Attack

Follow real-time coverage of the attack in Libya against the U.S. embassy and the unfolding unrest.

Fighting erupted at about 9:30 p.m., said Abdulaziz Mezhbury, who works for a Libyan-British security firm called Blue Mountain and was responsible for security around the main villa. Mr. Mezhbury faced a storm of grenades and small-arms fire from militants who had breached the 12-foot wall around the compound. He was shot three times in the leg and suffered shrapnel wounds from grenades.
As the compound was being overrun, the Americans started returning fire, said Mr. Farraj. "But we were totally outgunned. I called more of the brigade to come reinforce us." He said a lull developed around 11 p.m. and the Americans and Libyan military appeared to be back in control. At this point, Mr. Farraj said, he believed that the bulk of the American consulate staff were evacuated. But the ambassador was missing and the villa was on fire.
The security guards made a decision to brave the flames to find the missing ambassador but were beaten back by the fire and couldn't find Mr. Stevens.
—Julian E. Barnes, Siobhan Gorman and Hakim Almasmari contributed to this article.

Nigerian Govt Targets December for Constant Power Supply

POWER outages will be a phenomenon of the past for long-suffering Nigerians by December, if assurances given by the government are anything to go by.
In a chat with journalists in Abuja on Monday, the recently-appointed senior special assistant on public relations to President Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said that the government is targeting 5,400 megawatts of electrical power, up from the current level of 4,400 megawatts, to guarantee an uninterrupted regime of power supply.
“When the President assumed office, the energy capacity of the country at that time ranged between 1,900 megawatts to some 2,200 megawatts. The Independent Power Projects, 10 of them were grounded and nearly moribund, but today Nigeria is generating in excess of 4,400 megawatts of electricity,” he said.
The presidential aide said that the additional 1, 000 megawatts will come at the instance of plans made with the National Integrated Power Project, codenamed NIPP.
Okupe pooh-poohed the suggestion from sections of the Nigerian citizenry that the relative stability being witnessed in parts of the country was the result of higher water levels at the iconic Kainji Dam in Niger State, saying such couldn’t be further from facts at his disposal.
“The reason for this additional increase is coming from the NIPP that are now adding between 600 and 800 megawatts to the national grid. That’s what is responsible for this new improvement and between now and December, we are expecting nearly an additional 1,000 megawatts, because of the increase and an arrangement that have been made for purchase and supply of gas to some of these NIPP projects. More areas will enjoy longer hours of electricity supply by December,” he said.
“Some cynics have said this is due to high level of water in the hydro generating plants in Shiroro and Kanji. This isn’t true.
“I can tell you authoritatively that why it is true that every year there is a marginal increase in power supply, because of the increased contribution in the hydro plants, that cannot account for the 15 hours or so that is being currently enjoyed in many parts of the country.”
Dr. Okupe did not miss the opportunity to showcase the current relative stability of power supply, along with the expected milestone in December, as indicative of President Jonathan’s commitment to effect a lasting improvement in the power sector – a promise he made while campaigning for office.

Tinubu Departs US amid Speculation of Possible Investigation over ‘Gold Card’ Invite

FORMER Lagos governor, Mr. Bola Ahmed Tinubu may have left the United States, hurriedly, at the weekend in order to avoid being questioned by the American authorities for allegedly trumping a false “gold card invitation” to attend the Democratic National Committee’s convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, last week.
Tinubu, a two-term governor of Lagos who was also a senator of the failed third republic, allegedly bolted out of the United States and arrived Nigeria on Saturday in order to avoid being questioned, said our sources, for the claims made by an aide who said that Mr. Tinubu was invited in his capacity as the official leader of “opposition in Nigeria,” a claim that has since been rejected by a DNC source.
Tinubu and the said aide, Mr. Sunday Dare, have been challenged by members of the Nigerian immigrant community, both on social media outlets on Facebook where the topic has taken a life of its own, and at the convention ground, to provide invites signed by President Barack Obama to attend the event.
A response has yet to be issued by Mr. Tinubu to the serious allegations.
Instead, obvious attempts are being orchestrated to discredit sharpedgenews.com as the source of the original report published on Saturday, with claims that the report is being sponsored by Dr. Doyin Okupe, the recently appointed special assistant on publicity to President Jonathan.
Mr. Oladimeji Abitogun, the editor-in-chief of sharpedgenews.com, has strongly dispelled such notion as “ruthless, baseless and ill-conceived,” adding that “no one at sharpedgenews.com has any such contacts” with Mr. Okupe.
“While it is not impossible that certain outlets may have been employed to reproduce our initial report on this matter, we are not aware any such request and it would be foolhardy, if not irresponsible, of anyone to attempt to smear us with the charge that Aso Rock dictates story ideas or editorial contents to us,” Mr. Abitogun said.
The conduct of some of Tinubu’s aides originally triggered the irritation of the Nigerian community at the Charlotte convention. The trip was sold to the Nigerian public under the impression that the“gold card invitation” came from President Obama. It was later obvious that key members of the DNC and President Obama did not enjoy any kind of personal relationship with Mr. Tinubu – contrary to the impression given Nigerians.
The Tinubu delegation also did not enjoy the kind of VIP treatment given to the members of the diplomatic community present at the event.
Sharpedgenews.com had reported in the initial edition of this story that anyone who paid over five thousand dollars received the generic invitation to attend the convention. Exactly how much Mr. Tinubu paid or how much was paid on his behalf is not known.
However, sharpedgenews.com learned that Tinubu’s attendance at the event may have been facilitated by his Chicago contacts, contrary to the impression that a personal invitation was issued to Mr. Tinubu by President Obama.
Sharpedgenews.com further learned that it is the norm for American presidents to “minimize interactions with foreign contacts before and immediately after presidential elections,” which is another proof that it was impossible for Mr. Tinubu to have enjoyed the privilege of a personal, high-level invite from Mr. Obama.
According to sharpedgenews.com investigations, the poor handling of what should have been a private self-improving outing for Mr.Tinubu was bungled by his media team, who tried to employ the opportunity to emotionally and politically hoodwink Nigerians in the mold of what is often referred to as a “been to” in Nigeria.
In Charlotte and in London, Nigerians aware of the development could not help expressing disgust at the manner in which Sunday Dare and the publisher of African Abroad, Alex Kabbah, treated Tinubu like a tribal king.
“If the man coughed, Alex Kabbah and Sunday Dare would near of bring down the roof because someone did not make a cup of water available for Asiwaju at the right time,” one of our citizen reporters volunteered, having been assigned to closely watch the role of the Tinubu team. “Sunday Dare wind-surfed as a big suck-up,” said one of the callers who took umbrage on the initial report.
Sharpedgenews.com also observed that Tinubu was as well present at the convention of the US Republican Party which held the previous week in Tampa, Florida.
Accompanying Mr. Tinubu on the trips was Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi, who was a lot more restrained and less flamboyant than the ACN leader. Mr. Dele Alake, who also attended the event with Tinubu, was also of restrained comport.
The designation of Mr. Tinubu as the official leader of opposition in Nigeria was also one of the reasons why sharpedgenews.com investigaged the so-called “gold card invitation” allegedly issued to Mr. Tinubu.
Nigeria does not operate a parliamentary system of government where an official opposition leader is recognized. How exactly Mr. Tinubu got the description as leader of opposition, when he is not an elected official remains open to debate.

Bakassi Indigenes Demand Resettlement

Senator Florence Ita-Giwa

By Zacheaus Somorin

The Bakassi indigenes, led by their political leader, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, Tuesday stormed the Nigerian Television Authority’s regional office in Victoria Island, Lagos pleading with the Federal Government to resettle them at Dayspring 1and 2 and Kwa Island-unceded parts of Bakassi Penninsula.

The indigenes who were seen displaying their voters’ cards, said it was to affirm that the unceded areas within the region have been voting and was still part of the Nigerian state and not Cameroun.

After an exclusive chat with the NTA’s management team led by Mrs. Aina Scot, Ita-Giwa addressed reporters, emphasising that rather than waste resources in appealing the ICJ judgment, government should urgently address issues relating to resettlement of the Bakassi people in their places of choice which are Days Spring 1 and 2 and Kwa Islands, as promised by Federal Government in 2006.

She affirmed the Bakassi people’s affinity with the Efik Kingdom in Cross River State, who are original owners of the Bakassi Peninsula.

“As painful as it may be, we will refrain from condemning the Federal Government’s decision not to revisit or belatedly appeal the 2002 ICJ judgment ceding the bulk of our homeland to Cameroun. If good sense had prevailed 10 years ago, we may not have found ourselves in this quagmire. As a peace-loving people, we have chosen to count our losses and move on as a sacrifice for the peace and stability of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, our fatherland,’’ she stated.

Ita-Giwa added that the people are not in tune with “futile efforts aimed at securing resources that were not used to develop our people in the past nor is it likely that it will be used for that purpose in the future”, arguing that such has been ‘used as a conduit for far too long.’

She added: “We abhor violence and reject any attempt to militarise our agitation. It is our contention that resources could be put to better use for the development of infrastructures in our chosen new abode as well as the development of vital human capacity of our industrious people.

The issue of revisiting the ICJ judgment is belated. We want to settle down for our people to be taken off the streets. We are not interested in secession because we are all Nigerians. We are not interested in any secession or appeal for Nigeria to regain the part of Bakassi that has been ceded to Cameroun.’’

She pointed out that Bakassi people are only interested in being settled in Days Spring and the only unceded area with their identity intact. “We don’t want government to go and put money on unnecessary ventures.

She described the call for the appeal of the ICJ judgment being championed by some people, as unnecessary venture, explaining that ‘some people will use the avenue to siphon money out of this country in the name of appeal, which we may not win,’ saying that the government should rather use the money to resettle the people and provide infrastructure in the areas.

 MTN, Glo, Airtel base stations Bombed

Agency report 

Barely a week after the report that "Nigeria Islamists rule out peace talks,threaten media",
telecoms services were on Wednesday disrupted in Borno, Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe and Kano states following the bombing of telecoms base stations by suspected terrorists.
Our correspondent gathered that base stations belonging to MTN, Globacom, Airtel might have been affected in the multiple attacks that jolted Borno, Bauchi, Yobe and Gombe states.
Experts, who described the attacks as detrimental to telecoms growth in the country, said they were suggestive of wilful damage by unscrupulous elements.
As a result, the quality of service in the affected states has taken a downturn as interconnection of telecoms infrastructure has become severely limited.
The Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria, Mr. Gbenga Adebayo, confirmed the development to our correspondent in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
Quoting security sources, Reuters, however, reported that similar attacks also occurred in Kano and Maiduguri.
Adebayo said, “We have received reports about some telecoms sites being destroyed by some agents in some parts of northern Nigeria. The details are not clear yet, but we have been told that a number of operators’ sites were affected and they appear, from first view, as wilful damage to those infrastructure.
“We were told that some sites were bombed and they belong to different operators, which means that the act cut across many networks.”
Reuters further reported that one of its reporters saw 10 masts burnt to the ground in Maiduguri on Wednesday morning and local residents complained there was no mobile telephone reception.
In Kano, men on motorbikes reportedly destroyed MTN and Airtel mobile phone masts in the early hours of Wednesday, a policeman told Reuters, asking not to be named.
He said the Boko Haram sect was suspected to be behind the attack.
The Islamic sect had reportedly threatened recently to cause immense damage to telecoms operators’ facilities for allegedly providing information that had helped securities agencies tracked its members.
Analysts said the Wednesday attacks might be connected to the threat by the suspected terrorists.
Reuters also reported that sources close to the sect said Boko Haram members had in the past been concerned that they might be traced through mobile phones.
The Corporate Services Executive, MTN, Mr. Akinwale Goodluck, who equally confirmed the attacks, said, “It is true because we received reports today (Wednesday) that telecommunications towers of major telecoms operators were being bombed. However, I cannot tell you, for now, how many of our base stations or other telecoms infrastructure were affected because information available to us is still scanty.”
Goodluck, however, said that security agencies had commenced investigation into the attacks and the extent of damage, adding that the result would be made available for accurate reporting.
Speaking in the same vein, the General Manager, Corporate Communications, MTN, Mrs. Funmilayo Omogbenigun, who earlier confirmed the situation to Reuters, said, “We confirm that like all the other major telcos, some of MTN installations in northern Nigeria have been damaged by unknown persons. All the relevant government security agencies have been informed and we are receiving their full cooperation.”

Nigeria Islamists rule out peace talks, threaten media

By Ibrahim Mshezilla

MAIDUGURI | 

(Reuters) - Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram ruled out on Thursday holding peace talks with the government and threatened to strike media houses it said fight the group "with the pen".
The local press and at least two foreign news organizations have reported that talks are going on between the government and the militants who have been staging an insurgency against it, citing unnamed sources.
Information minister Labaran Maku declined comment on Wednesday on the talks, citing government instructions not to discuss the issue.
Since launching an insurgency against the government in 2009 with the avowed aim of turning all or part of religiously-mixed Nigeria into an Islamic state, Boko Haram has killed hundreds of people in near daily gun and bomb attacks.
"We are telling the government to understand that if it is not ready to embrace sharia (Islamic law) and the Koran as the guiding book from which the laws of the land derive, there shall be no peace," the sect's spokesman Abu Qaqa said in a written statement in the northeast city of Maiduguri, the heart of the rebellion.
Boko Haram has replaced militancy in the creeks of the oil-producing Niger Delta as the biggest security threat to Nigeria, Africa's top energy producer. A flurry of efforts to start talks followed accusations early this year that President Goodluck Jonathan was treating the crisis too narrowly as a security issue.
But attempts at dialogue are complicated by Boko Haram's shadowy nature and the fact there sometimes appears to be more than one faction. The main one, led by Abubakar Shekau, has never shown any overt interest in dialogue.
Qaqa also threatened media houses, recalling the sect's dual bomb attack on local newspaper ThisDay in the capital Abuja and northern city of Kaduna in April that killed five people.
"They should understand that for us there is no difference between those fighting with arms and with the pen," he said.
FAILED TALKS
A group of governors from Nigeria's largely Muslim north set up a committee on Wednesday tasked with trying to reach out to the Islamists. The committee is chaired by Bagangida Aliyu, the governor of Niger state, which has been plagued by insecurity.
It would aim to "get to the root of the security challenges and ... dialogue with any identified groups with a view to negotiating the way out of the menace," it said on Wednesday.
However, the outcome of any such initiative remains uncertain. Though Boko Haram's anger is directed towards the southern Christian-dominated central government, it also rails against the northern elites, whom it regards as corrupt and unIslamic.
The closest the militants have come to talks with the government was in March, when a former ally of Boko Haram's founder Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in police custody in 2009, called Datti Ahmed attempted to establish links.
The talks fell apart within days.
"Ever since that attempt at dialogue was aborted there has not been any move for dialogue that we agreed till date," Abu Qaqa said in Thursday's statement.
The group has been weakened by recent arrests and the deaths of senior figures, analysts say, and has not managed to launch a massively deadly coordinated attack since one that killed 186 people in Kano in January, though it remains a lethal force.
The sect claimed responsibility for violence in Jos, in Nigeria's volatile 'Middle Belt', that killed 63 people last month, although security forces blamed local ethnic rivalries.
Qaqa rejected a report in a U.S. newspaper that government officials had met a Boko Haram commander called Abu Mohammed in Saudi Arabia, denying the man even existed.
"We've heard about those who go about using our names in order to collect huge sums of money from the government. We are warning you," he said.
(Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)

Nigerian strife feeds Islamist agenda

By Xan Rice in Jos

A man with a metal detector frisks customers entering a Mr Biggs fast-food outlet. At the main mosque, where women arrive for Ramadan prayers, a female guard does the same. On the street, vehicle number plates carry the slogan “Plateau: Home of peace and tourism”. But the tourists who once visited Jos for its cool climate and rolling green hills have been replaced by soldiers guarding sandbag checkpoints.
“Peace was shattered,” says Sani Mudi, a spokesman for the Muslim community in Plateau state, “a long time ago”.

Over the past decade, inter-communal violence has claimed more than 4,000 lives in the state, part of Nigeria’s “Middle Belt”, an ethnically and religiously mixed area that divides the mostly Muslim north from the predominantly Christian south. Last month alone, about 115 people were killed in raids on villages outside Jos, the state capital. The dead, mostly Christian farmers, included numerous women and children and a senator. A week after those raids, a rocket was fired at a Muslim school in Jos, killing a 10-year-old boy.
In the past year, the long-running tensions in Plateau state have increasingly attracted the interest of the Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram, which appears to be trying to incite a religious war in Nigeria. Though its main theatre of operations is the north, the group has been blamed for three suicide attacks on churches in Jos this year. These attacks have prompted fears that Boko Haram could exploit the underlying disputes in Plateau state – over land, identity, politics and access to resources – for its own gain.
Reports on Sunday that Nigeria’s government has started informal talks with Boko Haram – a possibility denied by the movement last week – are seen as unlikely to allay these concerns.
“We cannot continue like this,” says Gad Peter, director of the Centre for the Advocacy of Justice and Rights, in Jos. “This crisis is a threat to the country.”
Much of the fighting in Plateau state has pitted the so-called host communities against the “settlers” – the sort of conflicts that “may be growing deadlier and more numerous with time” in Nigeria, according to a report from the United States Institute for Peace last month. Policies that discriminate against those regarded as outsiders in a certain region usually underlie the violence, human rights groups say.
In every local government area in Nigeria, people are grouped into two categories. The first are the “indigenes”, who can trace their roots back to the original inhabitants of the area. In Plateau, this includes the Berom people, who dominate the state government and are Christian. Some other ethnic groups are considered settlers, including the hundreds of thousands of Hausas and Fulanis in the state, whose origins are in northern Nigeria and are Muslim.

We have a leadership that discriminates on ethnicity. It’s very unfair

The indigene-settler distinction was designed to protect the culture and traditions of the more than 250 ethnic groups in Nigeria. But it is only vaguely supported in law, allowing individual states to determine who qualifies as indigenous. Many, including Plateau state, preclude non-indigenes from applying for civil service jobs or university scholarships and charge them higher school fees.
Hausas in Jos say that they have been deliberately marginalised by state governor Jonah Jang, a Berom former air force commodore and theology graduate. “Governance has assumed a completely one-sided dimension,” says Mr Mudi, the Muslim spokesman. “Everything is for the Berom. This is a very polarised society.”
In recent years, the religious divide has grown. Neighbourhoods in Jos that were once fairly mixed are now almost exclusively Christian or Muslim. Schools too. At the same time the economy has withered. Jobs are few.
Solomon Dalung, a lecturer in international law at the University of Jos, and a Christian, says that if the Hausa and Fulani communities had tried harder to integrate into society there would have been less mistrust. But Mr Dalung adds that poor governance is mostly to blame for the failure to end the violence. “We have a leadership that discriminates on ethnicity. It’s very unfair, very unjust and now look where we are: Boko Haram is capitalising to launch its own agenda.”
The state government denies favouring the Berom, or discriminating against Muslims. “Let no one reduce this to a settler-indigene issue, or an ethnic issue. This is a political issue with a very strong religious garment. There are people who want power at all costs,” says Abraham Yiljap, the commissioner for information.
After July’s attack, Governor Jang assured people that there would be no more violence in Plateau state. Few were convinced. “The authorities always say they are on top of the situation,” says Mr Peter, the human rights activist. “They are wrong – the situation is on top of us.”

Impact of climate change on food prices is underestimated, Oxfam warns

Price spikes will be a devastating blow to the world's poorest and will also affect UK consumers

• Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent


Climate change will drive up prices of wheat, maize and many other foods traded internationally, Oxfam warns. Photograph: Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images
Climate change's impact on future food prices is being underestimated, Oxfam warned in a report on Wednesday.
The development charity predicts that massive price spikes will be a devastating blow to the world's poorest people who today spend up to 75% of their income on food, and will also adversely affect UK consumers.
Its report, Extreme Weather, Extreme Price, suggests extreme weather events such as droughts and floods – made more likely by global warming – could drive up future food prices. Previous research has tended to consider gradual impacts of rising global temperatures, such as changing rainfall patterns.
Oxfam's research, comissioned by the charity and undertaken by the Institute of Development Studies, examines the impact of extreme weather scenarios on food prices in 2030. It warns that by that date the world could be even more vulnerable to the kind of drought happening today in the US – the worst in 60 years – with dependence on US exports of wheat and maize predicted to rise and climate change increasing the likelihood of extreme droughts in North America.
Watch Heather Coleman discus findings from the new Oxfam report. Video: Climate Desk The research claimed that:
• Even under a conservative scenario another US drought in 2030 could raise the price of maize by as much as 140% over and above the average price of food in 2030, which is already likely to be double today's prices.
• Drought and flooding in southern Africa could increase the consumer price of maize and other coarse grains by as much as 120%. Price spikes of this magnitude today would mean the cost of a 25kg bag of corn meal – a staple which feeds poor families across Africa for about two weeks – would rocket from around $18 to $40.
• A nationwide drought in India and extensive flooding across south-east Asia could see the world market price of rice increase by 22%. This could lead to domestic spikes of up to 43% on top of longer term price rises in rice importing countries of such as Nigeria, Africa's most populous country.
• Climate shocks in sub-Saharan Africa are likely to have an increasingly dramatic impact in 2030 as 95% of grains such as maize, millet and sorghum that are consumed in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to come from the region itself.
As well as affecting the world's poorest, such rises will also hit those on the lowest incomes in the UK, who already spend up to half their household budget on food, the report notes.
Oxfam's climate change policy adviser, Tim Gore, said: "Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns hold back crop production and cause steady price rises. But extreme weather events – like the current US drought – can wipe out entire harvests and trigger dramatic food price spikes. We will all feel the impact as prices spike but the poorest people will be hit hardest."
He said the world needed to wake up to the drastic consequences facing our food system of climate inaction: "As [greenhouse gas] emissions continue to soar, extreme weather in the US and elsewhere provides a glimpse of our future food system in a warming world. Our planet is heading for average global warming of 2.5–5C this century. It is time to face up to what this means for hunger and malnutrition for millions of people on our planet."
The report comes as UN talks aimed at tackling climate change are due to close in Bangkok on Wednesday with little sign of progress, while tomorrow the Food and Agriculture Organisation is due to publish further information on how the worst US drought in 60 years is impacting on global food prices.

Michelle Obama: ‘Barack knows the American dream because he’s lived it’

By Holly Bailey, Yahoo! News

CHARLOTTE—First Lady Michelle Obama never once mentioned Mitt Romney's name. But in her speech before the Democratic National Convention speech Monday night, she offered a dramatic contrast between her husband, Barack Obama, and his Republican opponent, insisting he understands the struggles of average Americans because he's lived through those tough times, too.

"Barack knows the American Dream because he's lived it, and he wants everyone in this country to have that same opportunity, no matter who we are, or where we're from, or what we look like, or who we love," Michelle Obama said. "He believes that when you've worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. You reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed."

It was a speech meant to bolster her husband's legislative accomplishments — and it did, as the first lady touted the president's push for health care reform, the auto industry bailout and efforts to keep down student loan interest rates.

But not unlike Ann Romney's speech on behalf of her husband at last week's Republican National Convention, Michelle Obama also sought to humanize the president, and to remind voters of the working class background she and her husband came from. With tears in her eyes, she spoke of her father, a pump operator at a Chicago water plant, and how her husband was raised by a single mother and by his grandparents.

"We learned about dignity and decency -- that how hard you work matters more than how much you make, that helping others means more than just getting ahead yourself. We learned about honesty and integrity; that the truth matters; that you don't take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules, and success doesn't count unless you earn it fair and square," she said. "We learned about gratitude and humility; that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean, and we were taught to value everyone's contribution and treat everyone with respect."

Those are the values they are trying to pass on to their own children — and values that inform her husband's job as president, she said.

"After so many struggles and triumphs and moments that have tested my husband in ways I never could have imagined, I have seen firsthand that being president doesn't change who you are -- it reveals who you are," said Michelle Obama. "As president, you can get all kinds of advice from all kinds of people. But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as president, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are."

Her husband, she said, "is thinking about folks like my dad and his grandmother" and is "thinking about the pride that comes from a hard day's work." It was a line meant to push back against Romney's claims that Obama doesn't understand how to create jobs because he's never worked in the private sector. But it also offered a subtle contrast between her husband and Romney, who came from a well-off background.

She spoke of the student loan debts they incurred as a young married couple: "We were so young, so in love, and so in debt," she said.
And she spoke of her husband's skills as a father — which she insisted have been unchanged even despite the pressures of the presidency.
"People ask me whether being in the White House has changed my husband, I can honestly say that when it comes to his character, and his convictions, and his heart, Barack Obama is still the same man I fell in love with all those years ago," she said, her eyes wet with tears.
Pushing back against GOP charges that her husband is driven by politics, Obama insisted there is no "us and them" for the president, that "he doesn't care whether you're a Democrat, a Republican or none of the above."
She told voters her husband never lets himself "get distracted by the chatter and the noise." He just keeps "getting up and moving forward," she said.
"He reminds me that we are playing a long game here, and that change is hard, and change is slow, and it never happens all at once," she said. "Many of us stand here tonight because of their sacrifice, and longing, and steadfast love because time and again, they swallowed their fears and doubts and did what was hard."

That has been the story of the American dream, the first lady said. "That is what has made my story, and Barack's story, and so many other American stories possible."

Don't just blame 'religion' when parents refuse to let desperately ill children die

Hospitals often fail to communicate with parents with fervent beliefs such as African Christians over withdrawing treatment

Some weeks ago I wrote about the problem of children being 'tortured' to death in high-tech hospitals because their religious parents won't agree to let them die. This was brought out by a piece in the Journal of Medical Ethics, co-authored by two doctors at Great Ormond Street and the hospital's Anglican chaplain.
These decisions must quite frequently be made: the paper mentions that 70% of the children who die in Great Ormond Street hospital intensive care unit do so as a result of the withdrawal of medical treatment. Only 25% do so while efforts at resuscitation are under way. The cases in which parents object are obviously a very small minority, and those where the objections are both religious and carried to the point of an argument in court are even smaller: six cases in three years, out of a total of 290 deaths.
One thing that stands out is that there is a pretty complete breakdown of relations with specifically African Christian parents: "In the Christian groups who held fervent or fundamentalist views, the parents did not engage in exploration of their religious beliefs with hospital chaplains and no religious community leaders were available to attend meetings to help discuss or reconcile the differences."
So I talked about this with Yemi Adedeji, from the Evangelical Alliance, a Nigerian pentecostalist now ordained into the Church of England, who wanted to explain the African view of spirituality.
African Christianity, he says, is often built on a foundation of traditional African religion, where everything has a spiritual cause, or dimension.
"The typical African is rooted in one world that doesn't separate the spirit, the body and the soul. So, if the weather is good, it's rooted in their spirituality. If the weather is bad, it's rooted in their spirituality. Nothing happens by chance.
"As a Christian, your first point of contact and the first point of belief is that we believe in God who can heal all infirmities and all diseases, and that's what I preach as a pastor, and that's what I believe. What we do is rooted in our faith, and our faith is rooted in our Bible."
But at the same time, people keep dying, and Africans know this as well as anyone else. In Adedeji's own church, the pastor's wife had died of cancer despite everyone in her social circle praying for her. So the central problem is not a belief in miracles but how to interpret this belief in any given circumstances. These are people who take very seriously the old Onion joke "God answers prayers of paralysed little boy: 'No,' says God." Sometimes, they believe, God does say no.
The central question, then, becomes one of discernment. The question of miracles is reframed to become "What does God want? What is God saying?" Once this is treated as a real question, one consequence is that the whole community can answer it. And it seems to be there that the problem arises with hospitals. "Most of the African pentecostal churches operate from a patriarchal mode, and there it is like, whatever the leader says, whether right or wrong, is what the parents will follow. If the leader says 'I think the child will live' that's what the parents will believe."
The obvious answer, then, is for the hospital to link up with the parents' pastors and discuss the matter that way. But what happens when the pastor does not want to talk?
The law is completely clear, and to that extent the question that the JME paper raises is a red herring. In a commentary published alongside the article, the barrister Charles Foster points out:
"The English law in relation to the administration of treatment to children, and the withdrawal of treatment from them, is straightforward: the only lawful treatment is that which is in the child's best interests … Yes, the views of those holding parental responsibility are sought, but those views do not determine where the child's best interests lie. This is often misunderstood. One hears people talk about a parental veto on proposed treatment or a withdrawal of treatment. There is no such veto … The authors object to having, at the instance of religiously motivated parents, to continue 'to cause pain and suffering by insisting on care that will not improve or cure the child's condition'. But they don't have to. Indeed it's unlawful."
But the clarity of the law won't stop these tragedies. What's clear, though, is that simply blaming "religion" is pointless. In most cases, thinking of these ghastly sufferings as part of the will of God helps parents come to terms with them. The part of Job's comforters is sometimes played by smug believers, but nowadays it's just as often played by unbelievers, smugly confident that a child's death demonstrates the indifference of the universe and the random character of other people's anguish.
By Andrew Browm

Nigeria's hollow dream

The rich brag about their spas and SUVs, but real economic development has to benefit everyone

By Chibundu Onuzo

'How does one spend £30 on a burger, and a very dry burger at that? How could the cheapest tickets to see the musical FELA! be priced at more than £100.' Photograph: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters
On my last trip to Lagos, I drove past a new supermarket in an upper-middle-class part of the city. It was a huge concrete thing with sliding electronic gates, CCTV cameras and the sleek live wires that have replaced barbed wire in all fashionable districts. I remarked to my cousin, who was driving, that the building hadn't been there a year ago.
"You have to see inside then," she said, swinging her car around. Hidden inside this building, which looked like a small military base, was an exact replica of Tesco, she explained to me. There were wide aisles, Dairylea and the greatest joy of all, trolleys. Despite my cousin's best efforts, I could not muster any enthusiasm for what was in essence an incredibly exclusive grocery store, and after I insisted on going home to my dinner, she gave up, saying with disappointment: "And I thought you were interested in development."
For the sake of this thing called development, the UK has created an entire government agency, the UN has employed countless people, and billions of dollars have been pumped into the African continent. But what exactly does development look like when it has happened? Surely not this gated shop with its parking lot filled with buffed SUVs. Yet, increasingly, friends and family in Nigeria will confidently point to such places as proof that the country is advancing.
There is no doubt that the rich have become richer since I left Lagos seven years ago. When I first moved to the UK, I would convert everything mentally into naira – which, at about 200 naira to the pound, made even lip gloss seem prohibitively expensive.
Now, when I go back, I convert everything to pounds, and wonder if everyone has gone mad. How does one spend £30 on a burger, and a very dry burger at that? How could the cheapest tickets to see the musical FELA! be priced at more than £100 and how, for goodness sake, did the show then sell out? This is the new Lagos my family and friends are keen to show me. It is a Lagos of spas and shopping centres and franchises. Everything is foreign-made and imported, right down to the scented candles and the ketchup on the menus.
I often tease my relatives, who are proudly living this Nigerian dream, about the hollowness of their situation. Only in Nigeria do the Mercedes-driving, Gucci-wearing, champagne-drinking inhabitants of a mansion still have to worry about running water. Money, I point out when their bragging becomes unbearable, can do only so much to cushion the effects of living in a third-world country.
One day, the Nigerian upper-middle classes will have to act on the realisation that there are some things you cannot import. Lasting development that will put knowledge into the minds of our youth, and bring roads to my father's village and electricity to our homes, is more than a shipping container away. Economic advancement for a few will never be a substitute for development.
Towards the end of my trip, I found myself in one of the global franchise hotels that are springing up all over the country. The hotel restaurant was French-themed and, to my untrained eye, it looked reasonably authentic. The chefs in their tall hats, the racks of wine, the dark wood furnishings – all continental enough for me but, when I put my spoon to my mouth, the lights flickered and died.
"Nepa," someone said – cursing the National Electric Power Authority, which has never managed to create a steady energy supply.
"Nigeria," another added.
When the lights came on, I swallowed my soup and returned to France.

Patience Jonathan hospitalised in Germany – Report

 by Agency Reporter 

Wife of the President, Dame Patience Jonathan

There were speculation on Sunday night that the wife of President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience, might be undergoing treatment in Germany for food poisoning.

An online news portal, Saharareporters, had reported that Patience had been undergoing treatment in a German hospital for about four days.

The news medium reports that Patience was airlifted to the hospital by an air ambulance last week under emergency medical conditions.

It also quoted Presidency sources who said that the “emergency airlift departed for Wisbanden, Germany” but could not confirm if “her treatment was being undertaken in that city”.

President Jonathan Takes Over Power Ministry

Pending the appointment of a substantive Power Minister, President Goodluck Jonathan has in the mean time taken over the supervision of Ministry of Power directly, THE CITIZEN can authoritatively report.
This development followed the resignation of the Power Minister, Professor Bath Nnaji yesterday due to conflict of interest in the privatisation of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
According to a reliable source at the Presidency, President Jonathan took over the direct supervision of the Power ministry because he does not want to leave any room for excuses not to deliver on his promise to the nation on attaining stable power supply, as power is one of the key programmes in the Transformation Agenda of his administration.
This action, THE CITIZEN was reliably informed, has shocked all manner of people jostling to replace Prof. Nnaji, especially by some serving ministers who were rooting to take over the ministry as was done recently in the Ministry of Sports when the former minister resigned to contest the gubernatorial election in Sokoto State.
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Source: TheCitizen

9-Year-Old Tennis Sensation Gabby Price Is Already Being Compared To Jennifer Capriati

Written by: Jeff Arnold

The first time Gabby Price had a tennis ball lobbed in her direction, she mustered all the strength a 4-year-old possibly could and sent the ball screaming back.

The ball made a beeline right at the head of Gabby's father, Marc, a former Penn State tennis player who hoped the game would be a way to connect with his daughter.
Marc promised himself that he wouldn't pressure her. If she gravitated toward tennis, fine. But if not, if she struggled to move on the court the way she needed to or if she didn't enjoy playing, that would OK, too.
But in that moment, in that one furious, undisciplined stroke of his daughter's tennis racquet, Price got his answer.
This kid was going to be special.
"I'll be honest -- I knew from Day 1, she had it," Marc Price says now, five years later.
Gabby Price is now 9.
She stands 4-foot-5 and weighs 67 pounds.
Barely able to clear the net with her line of vision, Gabby is much more disciplined than she was when she started playing. She has spent the better part of the past five years studying under Rick Macci, whose pupils have included Venus and Serena Williams, Jennifer Capriati and Andy Roddick.
But much like the father, Macci sees the potential for greatness in Gabby.
Even now at 9, even at 4-foot-5 and 67 pounds.
Even now when she can barely see over the net.
There's just something about her first step. About her quickness. About the way that she competes that makes Macci believe Gabby has the X Factor other players her age lack.
In Macci's words, Gabby has weapons.

"There's a lot of same qualities that I saw in Capriati at age 9 except Gabby is a little further down the road athletically," Macci says. "She's the best prospect I've seen in a long, long time in this country.
"At the end of the day, she's unbelievable ... to me, she has all the qualities to be the next great American player. There's no doubt."
But with great potential comes the risk of danger.
At age 9, Gabby Price has been classified as a tennis prodigy.
It's a title her parents don't take lightly and one that Gabby may not truly grasp -- yet.
She's too young to understand the ups and downs Macci has already told Gabby's parents that their daughter likely will experience. She's unaware of the backstory of Capriati, the Hall of Fame player now being cited in comparisons by Macci. She is almost certainly too young to comprehend the pitfalls that Capriati endured after becoming a Sports Illustrated cover girl at age 13.

But to hear her tell it, this is what she is she wants: To be the best.
"You can see she really has that passion and that this is something she really wants," Gabby's mother, Michelle, says in an interview on YouTube's THNKR network. "We don't want it for her -- she wants to for herself."

To many, though, Gabby's story becomes a cautionary tale: A young girl who constantly competes against -- and defeats -- players three or four years older and who has constantly been told by those around her that the sky is the limit for her and her game.
But to Gabby, none of that matters.
To her, tennis is a game she loves and not, at least to her, a lifestyle she's chasing. But even as a 9-year-old who comes off both confident and yet painfully shy in a telephone interview as her parents sit next to her to keep her calm, one thing becomes certain.
She's fearless of what lies ahead.
Ask her what it is like to be 9 to be already being featured on videos showcasing her talents and to be doing media interviews for stories chronicling her 5-year tennis pilgrimage and Gabby uses the word "awesome," saying she doesn't view such attention as pressure to be anyone but herself.
"It's fine -- it's not hard," Gabby says. "It's not hard. I love doing it."
Her journey, though, is just beginning.
*** Take her back to that moment on the court with her father when she was 4 and Gabby beams with pride how on that initial shot, she nearly took her father's head off with a screaming forehand.
Before that day, Gabby had never picked up a racquet and didn't know anything about the game. So there, on vacation, Marc used the occasion to see if his daughter had any inclination toward the sport he loved so much. "I just hit the ball as hard as I could," Gabby says.

But to Marc, there was something more than just the way Gabby had hit the ball. He sensed a level of athleticism he thought was special and an inner drive he knew was required if his daughter was going to have any sort of future in tennis.
Encouraged by what he saw, Price contacted Macci, asking if the long-time tennis instructor would take a look.
During the past 35 years, Macci has had countless parents call him, insisting their child has the makings of something special. He has grown skeptical of such praise, knowing often parents see their children differently than others would upon first inspection.
"Normally, when they say that," Macci says, "they're wrong."
But Macci agreed to see Gabby and almost instantly, he confirmed what Marc Price believed to be true.

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Again, it had taken one ball -- a simple lob from the service line -- for Gabby to make a believer out of Macci.
"She went at the ball like Ray Lewis on a blitz," Macci says.
There was an aggressiveness with the way Gabby went after the ball at age 4 that Macci hadn't seen in a long time. Yes, it was undisciplined and out of control, but still Macci saw promise.
Macci told Marc that if Gabby's passion could be harnessed, that unbridled enthusiasm could be priceless in the young player's development. If Gabby could learn the proper grips, if she got good backswings, if her body became biomechanically sound, there was no stopping her.
"I guarantee (if she does those things)," Macci told Price that day, "you've got a world class player here."
The journey was continuing.
*** Since then, tennis has become a staple for Gabby, who lives in New York with her family but travels to Macci's teaching academy in Florida every couple of months and receives instruction for 4-5 days at a time. Working with Macci has taught Gabby to play with her heart, using it as motivation to play beyond her diminutive size.

The rest of the time, Gabby works out with her father, playing tennis anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours five days a week and spending 3-4 hours a week in off-the-court training, jumping rope, running, in addition to doing push-ups and stretching exercises.
Price said tennis has never been something he has forced on his daughter. If she was going to play, it was because she wanted to. Sometimes, that meant the two spent 20 minutes on the court together. Sometimes it meant there were there for an hour. But the more time she spent on the court, the more she wanted to be there.
Michelle warned her husband not to push too hard. Even though he loves tennis, she feared that he would live vicariously through his young daughter.
Marc, though, didn't worry.
"She was very focused from a young age, even when she was 4," Marc Price says. "I'd be feeding her balls and I'd say, ‘You want to stop?' and she'd say, ‘I want to keep playing.'"
Even then, even before she learned to harness her enthusiasm or even before she learned how to keep score in a match, Gabby was drawn by the sport's ability to push herself. She loved the competitive nature of the game and the way it drew the most out of her.
Tennis also opened up her social circles, introducing her to new friends, all who shared a love of tennis. But deep down, there was one motivation pushing Gabby.
"I love to win," she says. "It's hard to lose, but I know I have to learn from my losses."
Between working with her father and with Macci, Gabby quickly learned what it meant to make the most of every point. When she'd play with Macci, he always asked the same question.
What's inside your chest?
Gabby's inner push had always set her apart from other players she competes against. Macci knew it was an invaluable quality that when used properly could create competitive distance between Gabby and those she played against.
Macci constantly pushed Gabby to draw from within, building on what appeared to be a natural tendency to go after the ball on every shot.
"I wanted to show how hard I can play," Gabby says. "I want to show that I never give up."
***
Gabby's inner push has carried over to the time she spends practicing with her father. Marc Price credits Macci for teaching him how to bring his daughter along and motivating her to do the things she may not want to.
Gabby insists she never wakes up, wishing she could live life as a normal 9-year-old rather than dedicating so much time to tennis.
But in practicing so much, she has learned the hardest part of game is pushing herself hard enough to avoid losing. It's a pressure that sports psychologist Dr. Alan Goldberg believes isn't necessarily healthy at such a young age.
While the desire to play and to succeed may be genuine on Gabby's part, Goldberg says too often the pressure to perform goes deeper than winning on the court.
Especially among young athletes being groomed for greatness.
"The pressure from the adults causes a significant amount of damage to the kids and ultimately fuels the kid's burnout," Goldberg says in a phone interview from his office in Amherst, Mass. "Every kid is hard-wired to make their parents proud and not to disappoint them."
Goldberg says when dealing with young athletes blessed with so much talent, proper parenting becomes critical. Too often, he said, failure in an athletic endeavor leads children feeling like they are letting their parents down, which, in turn, leads to traps of the children feeling that they are not as lovable as they would be if they constantly won.
"You get a kid like that on the court and they get up to serve and there is a hell of a lot at stake besides the match," Goldberg says. "And 9 years old is too damn early for kids to be that focused on being that good, being the best.
"It's just too early."
Already at 9, Gabby has sights set on greatness.
"My goal is the be the No. 1 player in the world," Gabby says matter-of-factly and without hesitation. "But you have to train really hard, you have to have a good attitude and you have to be focused."

Marc Price insists her aspirations are her own and that he and Michelle have done their best to not use success as a motivating factor for the way Gabby enjoys tennis.
Having heard Gabby consistently repeat her goals to be the best over the years, Marc has no doubt that she is serious on seeing her dreams reach fruition. Marc and Michelle have dedicated themselves to getting Gabby to that point.
But still there are challenges.
As much as they have seen tennis quickly become a big part of Gabby's life, Marc and Michelle Price understand her passion has to be balanced with other things.
They make sure she has down time and that she gives proper attention to her schoolwork. But they also see how far Gabby's game has come and the way she competes against girls who are 6 feet tall and 13 years old, and they believe Gabby possesses something they can't explain.
"It shouldn't be physically possible that she's doing that," Marc Price says.
But again, that's when Gabby's competitiveness kicks in.
Gabby arrives at national tournaments and sees who she's pitted against, often playing two age groups up from where she should be.
Before the match even starts, she knows what her competitor is thinking. She has seen opponents glance in her direction and laugh, thinking there is no way they're going to lose to a 9-year-old who can barely see over the net.
That's when she remembers what Macci always asks her.

What's in your chest?
"I know I've got a bigger heart than them," Gabby says.
Marc has been present for tournaments when Gabby beats an older competitor and sees the way they react once the match is over. Marc says Gabby's opponents have nothing to gain -- if they win, they've beaten a 9-year-old, but if they lose, their world comes crashing down.
"I've seen the tears from the girls and I see their father's face and he's just shaking his head," Marc Price says.
"Now a lot of them know who she is and when they play her, they know they're playing against someone who is determined and who has the heart of a lion.
"They know if they play her, it's going to be a challenge.
It's all part of the journey.
*** And yet, Gabby is still 9.
She has been compared to Capriati, who, like Gabby, was deemed a prodigy. After bursting onto the tennis scene, Capriati began to push, reaching the French Open semifinals by age 14.
After she won the Olympics at age 16 by defeating Steffi Graf in the gold-medal match, Capriati's life began to spin out of control. She experienced legal problems dealing with drug abuse, temporarily disappearing from the tennis world for 14 months before mounting a furious comeback.
In 2001, Capriati captured her first Grand Slam event, winning the Australian Open, starting a string of three Grand Slam wins that also included the 2001 French Open and 2002 Australian Open.
Shoulder and wrist injuries forced her to retire in 2004. It was another unexpected detour that didn't allow the world's former No. 1 player to leave the game on her terms.

But earlier this summer, Capriati was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She returned, as Capriati said in her acceptance speech, to center court for the first time after her career ended to finally achieve the goal shei had always aspired to.
Capriati says tennis had transformed and defined her, forcing her to grow up at a faster pace than others her age.
"I dreamed of tennis as a little girl, I dreamed of being the best," Capriati said in her speech. "Even though my life took some twists and turns that I didn't expect, I still managed to overcome adversity, win Grand Slams, pocket a gold medal, become the No. 1 player in the world."
Capriati said while tennis had provided with much joy on and off the court, she also endured pain in both places as well. It was, Capriati says, all part of the journey.
Goldberg says the pain brought on failures -- on and off the court -- is often felt by athletes achieving too much, too quickly. It's a pain often felt most by children who are pegged as prodigies.
Ask Marc Price what he thinks of the term, and greatness again enters the equation.
"It means you're special and it means you're doing something that no one else has done," Price says. "That pulls a lot of weight in my mind."
Like with Capriati, Goldberg wonders if the pressure to be the best will ultimately lead Gabby to success or to experience some of the hardships Capriati went through along the way.
The key, Goldberg insists, is receiving proper life management because without balance and proper perspective, even genuinely pursuing goals can lead down a path of destruction.
"If she starts taking in that she's a prodigy and that everyone is depending on her to fulfill all these expectations, when she gets on the court, at some point, it's going to crush her," Goldberg says. "And if it doesn't, that's miraculous."
Goldberg says in rare occasions, young athletes have the kind of temperament that keeps them from being vulnerable to the kind of traps facing star athletes.
For their part, Marc Price says he and his wife have guarded against the attention their daughter is receiving, carefully managing expectations.
Although they agree Gabby possesses special talents, they won't allow those -- or the predictions of greatness made by Macci -- to get in the way of the young lady they want to see their 9-year-old become in coming years.

"She is taught humility, she's taught to be respectful and she's taught a lot of family values that we make sure she has," Marc Price says. "Even though she's doing interviews and even though she has been on TV, she still has to be grounded."
Even at 9, Gabby has learned to take the attention thrust onto her in stride, understanding even now that nothing in life is guaranteed.
So she'll continue to train hard, pushing herself to win, but always making sure she's playing for the right reasons.
"Sometimes it's hard to be humble ... and it's great to know I am as good as I am," Gabby says. "But I just want to keep playing because I love it."
After all, it's what's in her chest and who's to say where the rest of the journey will take Gabby Price.

Bakassi Controversy: British Created Part 1

Written by: ISONG ISONG EGBONA

Part 1 of this article “Bakassi controversy” titled “Bakassi controversy: British created” will examine the facts associated with the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroon by tracing the history of Bakassi and European activities on Calabar coast that led to the Anglo-German Agreement which is a British betrayal of trust bestowed on them by the Obong and chiefs of old calabar. But firstly, let’s note that the ceding of bakassi to Cameroon was partly an international conspiracy and partly an Obasanjo sell–out as you will see later.
Part 2 of the article titled “The case of 76 oil wells in Bakassi” coming after this publication will examine issues regarding Supreme court ruling of the 76 oil wells to Akwa Ibom State and the implication on National unity and fairness.
The Bakassi peninsula occupied formally by the Bakassi people consist mostly of an Efik speaking people with an area of about 1,000 km of mangrove swamp and half submerged islands protruding to what was formally know as bight of Biafra but now know as bight of Bonny.  A. K. Hart in an official document in 1964 on a “Report of the Enquiry into the dispute over the Obongship of Calabar” stated that the Efik originally lived at Uruan in Ibibioland, while Forde and Jones in 1869 said they fished the Cross River estuary. This point to the fact that the Efik after living in Uruan, migrated and occupied old Calabar (then occupied by only the Qua and Efut) of which Bakassi was a part of. Their major occupation was fishing in Bakassi peninsula of which A. K. Hart said was sold at the up–river markets. Although the exert date of Efik migration is not certain but Barbot in 1732 acknowledge the Efik coastal fishing and salt boiling in his report “A collection of voyages and Travels, vol. v”. But Watts in his description of old Calabar in 1668 points to the existence of slavery before the coming of the European into old Calabar. So the Efik had moved into old Calabar including Bakassi where their livelihood then depended before the 15^th century.
Bakassi dispute resulted from British negligence on the people they were supposed to protect. Rubin in 1938 in his book “Germans in the Cameroons 1884-1914” reported the difficulties associated with Germans accessing the hinter lands of Cameroon because of the river rapids and had to be using Cross River and River Benue to assess Cameroon hinterland, so their agent Flegel decided that all lands within the region North of the latitude of the Cross River rapids as German’s land. They refuse to concern their selves with the people of Bakassi because it wasn’t their business but wanted a free route to their territory (Cameroon) while the British ignore the German activities in Cross River Coast because it did post any tread to their activities in Nigeria. Germany in order to protect those routes on November 15, 1893 met with Britain to define boundaries in Africa. On March 19, 1906 they signed an agreement with boundary running from Yola to Lake Chad. Then at Obokum on April 12, 1913, the Anglo–German Treaty was signed which demarcated from Yola to the Cross River by Hans Detzner representing Germany and W. V. Nugent representing Britain. This was how a Nigerian territory and people were ceded to Cameroon deliberately. Aghemelo and Ibhasebhor quoting a commissioner and consul–General in 1914 in a speech to the Royal European society about how that 1913 boundary was drawn as saying “In those days we took a blue pencil and a rule, and we put it down at old Calabar, and draw that blue line to Yola…… I  recollect thinking when I was sitting having an audience with the Emir (of Yola), surrounded by His tribe, that it was a very good thing that he did not know that I with a blue pencil, had draw a line through his territory “.
Most scholars believed that Britain right to sign away bakassi were empowered in a “Treaty of protection” between the Obong of Calabar and chiefs with the British Authority. Looking critically at the incidents regarding that treaty, it wasn’t related at all to permit the 1913 treaty. The issue at hand then, was a serious dispute between prince Archibong and the Eyambas which was resulting to blood shed and the British feared that the presence of Germans in Calabar territory will make the Eyambas who were weaker to meet them for protection therefore formally giving Germany right over old Calabar. So in July 1884 Consul Hewett arrived to negotiate a preliminary protection treaty and on July 23, King Eyo VII signed while King Duke IX signed the treaty the following day. In September 1884 a more comprehensive treaty was signed by both Kings for British protection to prevent the interference of other foreign powers from activities in old Calabar and to subject the chiefs and Kings under the adjudication of the British Consul. This treaty was breached in 1889 when a German gun boat sailed up to Creek Town and took King Eyo VII prisoner who is supposed to be under British protection for his activities within old Calabar. Journal of commerce, of 30^th May 1891 reported that by 1891 several important Efik traders were almost ruined because of German assumption of sovereignty over old Calabar. These had legally voided the 1884 treaty even if it has given power to Britain to sign the 1913 treaty. It further show that the colonial Masters were not concerned with the people they were exhorting but with the economic wellbeing of their native land hence 1913 treaty should not be use as a future boundary deciding factor.
Dispute over Bakassi peninsular started in 1993 when Cameroon became aware of the huge oil deposit in the peninsula. This resulted in a war between Nigeria and Cameroon on the peninsula, and on March 24, 1994, Cameroon instituted a suit against Nigeria at the international court of Justice at the Hague, seeking an injection restraining Nigeria from claim of sovereignty over the peninsula. On Thursday 10, October 2002 the ICJ, delivered a judgment on the disputed oil-rich Bakassi based on the Anglo-German agreement of 11 march 1913 that drew the boundary from the mouth of the River Akpakorum, dividing the mangrove island near Ikang in a straight line joining Bakassi point and King point denying Cross River access to the sea. This judgment did not consider the people of Bakassi and denied them their right to “Self Determination” under the International and Humanitarian Law. This therefore amount to an international conspiracy to cede a people to another country without respect to their right.
Ironically the people of Bakassi did not participate in the 1961 referendum that saw southern Cameroon leave Nigeria and became part of Cameroon after the 1914 division between the British and the French. This means that the International community acknowledged the fact that Bakassi belonged to Nigeria. Although only Judge Koroma and Judge ad hoc Ajibola appended a dissenting opinion to the ICJ judgment yet the court had accepted Cameroon opinion to “continue to afford protection to Nigerians living in the (Bakassi) peninsula and in the lake Chad area” in recognition that they were aware that the region belonged to Bakassi people who will not want to transfer their identity to Cameroon. So the ruling did not recognized the ambition of a people to remain an integral part of their brothers which can be catastrophic but will as seen in the Green Tree Agreement give away their ancestral land for another State’s selfish ambition creating a future volatile region.
The question now is why did Obasanjo hurriedly gave away Bakassi peninsula when there were other options? International Status of International Court of Justice “Article 59” states that “The decision of the court has no binding force except between the parties and in respect of that particular case”. So that ruling can only be binding based on both countries agreement “Green Tree Agreement”. In essence, Nigeria could have explored other means like an appeal of which “Article 60” states that “The judgment is final and without appeal in the event of dispute as to the meaning or scope of the judgment, the court shall construe it upon the request of any party” while “Article 61” states that “An application for revision of a judgment may be made only when it is based upon the discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, which fact was, when the judgment was given, unknown to the court and also to the party claiming revision, always provided that such ignorance was not due to negligence”. So after the ruling was Made Nigeria should have reviewed their lapses in evidence presentation and go for revision of the judgment instate of outright ceding of Bakassi to Cameroon in a hurry. What was Obasanjo hoping to achieve in his hurry?
On the other hand, Nigeria can out-rightly reject the ICJ judgment and ask for the Right of Self Determination” of the Bakassi people under the International and Humanitarian Law. Today after several years of ICJ ruling of Falklands Islands to Argentina, Britain still control the islands and have asked Argentina to respect the outcome of a referendum coming up soon by the people of Falkland on where they and their land belongs. Israel still has sovereignty over Gaza against ICJ judgment. So Bakassi should have been asked to take a referendum to decide where they and their land will belong to and not out-right ceding of land excluding the people to Cameroon.
In section 12(1) of the 1999 constitution, “No treaty between the Federation and any other Country shall have the force of law except to the extent to which any such treaty has been enacted into law by the National Assembly”. So the “Green Tree” agreement can still be revoked by Nigeria under the constitution of the Federation. This is why the “Maroun Declaration” between Gowon and Ahidjo of Cameroon was not binding because the then Military Council did not rectify the Agreement.
It amount to partiality for a people recognized to belong to a country, to be asked to leave their land for another country since they wont want to belong to that country or be alien in another Country in their own land. The “Green Tree Agreement”, “Article 1” states that “Nigeria recognizes the sovereignty of Cameroon over the Bakassi peninsula in accordance with the judgment of the International court of Justice….” While “Article 3(2)” states that “In particular, Cameroon shall:
(a)     Not force Nigerians Nationals living in the Bakassi peninsula to leave the zone or to change their nationality;
(b)    Respect their culture, language and beliefs;
(c)     Respect their right to continue their agricultural and fishing activities;
(d)    Protect their property and their customary land rights;
(e)     Not levy in any discriminatory manner any taxes and other dues on Nigerian Nationals living in the zone; and
(f)      Take every necessary measure to protect Nigerian Nationals living in the zone from any harassment or harm.”
Which in real sense is not feasible? While “Annex 1(4(d)) under the same agreement states that “…allow innocent passage of civilian ships sailing under the Nigerian flag, consistent with the provisions of this agreement, to the exclusion of Nigerian warships” which is only applicable to the special transition regime (a non-renewable period of five years). In signing this agreement, its amount to betrayal of trust and confidence bestowed on President Obasanjo by the people of Bakassi who were supposed to enjoy absolute protection from the Federation in accordance to the constitution, and this amount to a sell-out of Cross Riverians as a whole.
The implication of ceding Bakassi to Cameroon is enormous; firstly it means the loss of 100 million barrels of oil deposit and four trillion cubic feet of gas deposits in the peninsula, thereby denying Cross Riverians their due allocation from the Federal Government according to the 13% derivation sharing formula. Secondly it will deny the people of Bakassi their comfort, ancestral land, their natural wealth and expose those who choose to remain in the peninsula to Cameroon Brutality. Thirdly, Calabar port is denied access to the sea and the navy based there restricted to only part of river Cross and cant protect the region against external aggression from the sea.
Finally, there is need for Nigeria government to review the whole situation and take a decision that is favourable to the people of which government is supposed to protect. The people of Bakassi had lived in that region for all their life and have depended on the land for their livelihood (you cannot remove a fish from water to live on a dry Land). If the Federal government will allow the ceding of Bakassi to remain then adequate compensation as accrued to the resources ceded must in a matter of good faith be paid to Cross Riverians and the people of Bakassi should be adequately taken care of. In conclusion, it will be better for the Federal Government to rather explore all available measures to take back their land.