Armed Nigeria militia marches through largest city

Unidentified members of Oodua People's Congress militia ride on buses carrying guns and machetes during a protest against Boko Haram in Lagos, Nigeria,Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011. The militia group from Nigeria's southwest walked through the streets of the commercial capital firing rifles as police and security forces fled. The group said they were protesting the rise of Boko Haram, a violent Muslim sect in the country's northeast which they claim are responsible for bombings and assassinations




LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — The armed militia marched unstopped through Nigeria's largest city, firing shotguns and rifles in the air in what they called a protest against a radical Muslim sect responsible for killings across the oil-rich country.

The demonstration Thursday by members of the Oodua People's Congress highlighted the growing sense of insecurity and widening distrust among Nigeria's more than 160 million people and its major ethnic groups. Men armed with shotguns, rifles and machetes freely roamed the streets of Lagos without a sign of police, while passers-by shouted that their region of Nigeria should be protected — rather than the country as a whole.

"We don't want them to fight here in our Lagos because Lagos is for everybody, not for Yoruba alone, but for everybody," said Chief Orebiyi Ebenezer, a militia leader. "We need peace here in Lagos."

The Oodua People's Congress is a militia made up of Nigeria's Yoruba ethnic group, which dominates the country's southwest. The party takes its name from Oduduwa, the ancestor of the Yoruba race, and formed after military ruler Ibrahim Babangida annulled a presidential election in 1993 that many believe a wealthy Yoruba businessman won.

The group evolved into a quasi-political organization and likely receives the implicit support of major politicians in the region, though its members have been implicated in political violence and thuggery. Rumors abound in Nigeria's southwest that the group maintains a stockpile of firearms in a country where those weapons are strictly regulated by law, if not practice.

Those rumors appeared true as about 100 armed members riding in minibuses and marching by foot came into Lagos on Thursday, home to 15 million people. They fired long rifles and locally made shotguns into the air, unstopped by police as they ended up at Teslim Balogun Stadium, which hosted FIFA's Under-17 World Cup in 2009.

Leke Akintayo, a militia leader, said their protest was a show of force against Boko Haram, a Muslim sect in Nigeria's northeast that has killed at least 388 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The group also claimed responsibility for the Aug. 26 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria's capital Abuja as part of its campaign for the implementation of strict Shariah law across the nation.

"We OPC, we still exist," Akintayo said. "They should not fall (under) our hand. ... This is our father's land."

He added: "We are going to retaliate if there is any bomb blast hitting any place. We are ready for them. Anytime, any moment."

How the group would retaliate remains unclear, but Lagos remains a melting pot city for Nigeria's more than 250 ethnic groups. At risk would be those belonging to the Hausa Fulani ethnic group, Muslims who dominate the country's north.

Such ethnic-based violence remains all too common in Nigeria. Since the nation became a democracy in 1999, tens of thousands have died in communal violence that cuts across religious and ethnic lines, but often takes root in political or economic issues.

Different groups in Nigeria's south have claimed they would fight Boko Haram if the government fails to stop the group, including militants in the country's oil-rich and restive Niger Delta. However, Thursday's march represented the first time a militia took the street armed to display and threaten using force to end the violence.

That threat mixed with theater at one point as one man holding a pump-action shotgun walked by journalists and said in Yoruba: "Should we shoot it for you?" He racked a shell into the shotgun and fired as he walked down the busy street filled with uniformed school children trying to get home.

Iran releases video of downed U.S. spy drone–looking intact

Iran's Press TV on Thursday broadcast an extended video tour of the U.S. spy drone that went down in the country--and it indeed appeared to look mostly intact.

American officials have acknowledged that an unmanned U.S. reconnaissance plane was lost on a mission late last week, but have insisted that there is no evidence the drone was downed by hostile acts by Iran. Rather, they said, the drone likely went down because of a malfunction, and they implied the advanced stealth reconnaissance plane would likely have fallen from such a high altitude--the RQ-170 Sentinel can fly as high as 50,000 feet--that it wouldn't be in good shape.

But Iranian military officials have claimed since Sunday that they brought down an American spy drone that was little damaged. And now they have provided the first visual images of what looks to be a drone that at least outwardly appears to be in decent condition, in what is surely another humiliating poke in the eye for U.S. national security agencies.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the released images Thursday, a Defense Department spokesman told Yahoo News. But military analysts said it appeared to them to be the American drone in question.

"I have been doing this for thirty years, and it sure looks like" a stealthy U.S. drone to me," Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute and consultant to the RQ-170's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, told Yahoo News in a telephone interview Thursday. "I think we are going to face the high likelihood that Iran has an intact version of one of our most important intelligence gathering tools."

Still, Thompson went on, the intelligence "windfall" to Iran from obtaining the advanced U.S. stealthy drone may be mitigated.

"I don't think the Iranians get as much out of it as they might hope," he said. "It probably came into their hands as a result of a technical malfunction. What that means is they still don't have a real defense against the U.S. flying other vehicles that have similar capabilities, without much fear of interception."

Analysts also noted that the video of the drone released by Iran did not show the drone's underside. "Pretty intact," the Center for Strategic and International Studies' James Lewis said by email. "Interesting that they covered the underside."

The New York Times reported Thursday that--unsurprisingly--the RQ-170 was lost while making the latest foray over Iran during an extended CIA surveillance effort of Iran's nuclear and ballistic weapons program.

"The overflights by the bat-winged RQ-170 Sentinel, built by Lockheed Martin and first glimpsed on an airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2009, are part of an increasingly aggressive intelligence collection program aimed at Iran, current and former officials say," the Times' Scott Shane and David Sanger wrote. "The urgency of the effort has been underscored by a recent public debate in Israel about whether time is running out for a military strike to slow Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon."

Iran in turn has complained that the drone overflights represent an act of aggression and violation of its sovereignty, and summoned the Swiss envoy--who represents U.S. interests in Iran--on Thursday to lodge a protest.

However, while the images of the U.S. drone surely allowed Iran to score another public relations blow against Washington, Iran may find it tough to generate much in the way of international sympathy for being the target of U.S. surveillance.

Last week, Iranian hardliners ransacked the British embassy in Tehran, prompting the United Kingdom to recall its diplomatic staff from Tehran and order Iran's embassy in London closed. Last month, the UN atomic watchdog agency issued a report raising concerns about research Iran is suspected by some nations to have conducted before 2003 on military aspects of its nuclear program. Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes. In October, the United States accused elements of Iran's Qods force of plotting to assassinate the Saudi envoy to the United States. The United Nations General Assembly voted last month in favor of a resolution condemning the Iranian plot.

Amid its growing international isolation, Iran, unsurprisingly, seemed intent to play up the drone incident for all it could.

"China, Russia want to inspect downed U.S. drone," proclaimed a headline from Iran's Mehr news agency Thursday.

The RQ-170 Sentinel, however, reportedly did not use the latest U.S. surveillance technology on board, in part because as a single-engine aircraft, it was thought more likely to occasionally go down.

"The basic principles of stealthy aircraft are fairly well known," Thompson said. "In terms of [the drone's] on-board electronics and information systems, it is fairly routine in combat to require authentication codes to make them hard to unlock."

France reduces Tehran embassy staff amid backlash

France is to pull out part of its diplomatic staff from Tehran following the ransacking of Britain's embassy this week by a pro-regime mob, adding to the backlash on Saturday against an increasingly defensive Iran.

The decision -- a temporary precaution according to one French diplomat -- underlined the seriousness of the crisis developing between Iran and the West amid the ratcheting up of sanctions over Tehran's controversial nuclear efforts.

Britain has already evacuated all staff from its Tehran embassy following Tuesday's rampage, and ordered Iran's in London closed.

The expelled Iranian diplomats arrived back in Tehran early on Saturday, passing through airport service corridors to avoid media -- and a pro-regime welcoming crowd of 150 yelling "Death to Britain."

The European Union on Thursday slapped extra sanctions on Iran and warned more could be on the way because of the embassy assault, while the US Congress is poised to pass a law hitting Iran's central bank.

Political tensions are rising in tandem with speculation that Israel is mulling air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, with or without US backing.

France's decision to downsize its diplomatic representation came after the French, German, Dutch and Italian ambassadors were recalled for consultations on the British embassy assault.

More than half of France's personnel, numbering around 30, could be pulled out along with the families and dependants of all its diplomatic staff, according to information gathered by AFP.

Diplomats did not give any precise figures, however.

The 700-strong French community in Tehran -- mostly Iranian-French dual citizens -- has not received any instructions.

The move came despite a warning by Iran to other EU nations not to join Britain's diplomatic retaliation.

"Now the British government is trying to involve other European countries in our bilateral issue. But we have told the Europeans not to trouble relations with Iran because of Britain," foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said.

Iranian officials have been defiant over the degrading British ties, saying a parliamentary decision before the ransacking of the British embassy to expel Britain's ambassador over strengthened Western sanctions was justified.

But on Saturday, one senior figure sought to disavow any connection between Iran's regime and the hundreds of pro-regime militia members who trashed the embassy and another British diplomatic compound.

"There is no doubt that Britain is one of the oldest enemies of Iran... but young revolutionaries should not go beyond the law," IRNA news agency quoted Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi as saying in a statement.

"I advise them not to act without the permission of the supreme leader and officials."

Shirazi implicitly rejected British assertions the embassy was assaulted with the backing and connivance of the authorities, while warning Iran could be hurt by the backlash.

"It is important to note that sometimes certain actions overstep the law... And we could pay a high price for it," he was quoted as saying.

Britain's evacuated ambassador, Dominick Chilcott, had said the attack could not have happened without "the acquiescence and support of the state."

Shirazi's defensive comments seemed for the first time to hint at an effort to halt a rising anti-British campaign in Iran.

But it was unclear whether that stance was shared by other factions in power.

The foreign ministry expressed its "regret" in the wake of the attack.

But parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani justified the rampage as an understandable and legitimate response to "the domineering policy" of Britain.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior government officials have not yet commented on the embassy attack.

Foreign media in Tehran on Thursday were told that covering all anti-British, pro-regime demonstrations was now forbidden -- an unprecedented restriction that adds to many other existing reporting curbs.

As the political and diplomatic situation tautened, so did concerns over Israeli air strikes against Iran along with warnings that such action would be risky with dim prospects of success.

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta warned on Friday there was no guarantee that air strikes would hit intended targets, saying Iran's sites are "difficult to get at."

In comments at an event organised by a Washington think-tank, he said: "The indication is that at best it (military action) might postpone it (Iran's nuclear programme) maybe by one or possibly two years."

Iran has repeatedly insisted its nuclear programme is purely for civilian purposes, to the scepticism of the West.

Congo opposition rejects early presidential vote

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Opposition parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo rejected partial results on Saturday that showed a lead for President Joseph Kabila in a November 28 election, and called on African leaders to act to prevent violence.

The vast Central African nation held its second post-war election on Monday and the camps of both Kabila and veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi have said they are sure of victory, setting the stage for further trouble.

In a joint statement signed by major parties, including Tshisekedi's, the opposition cited irregularities in the way results were being released and said the electoral commission was "psychologically preparing the population for fraud".

"As a consequence, we reject these partial results and consider them null and void," said the statement, read by Vital Kamerhe, a former minister who is widely expected to come third in the poll and has committed himself to the opposition camp.

Partial results released by the electoral commission showed Kabila leading with 3,275,125 votes, while Tshisekedi trailed with 2,233,447 votes, based on 33.3 percent of polling stations counted.

The commission said it was forced to released the partial results after hackers managed to publish fake numbers on its official website that appeared to give Tshisekedi a strong lead.

Commission spokesman Mathieu Mptia rejected accusations of fraud and said the body was working transparently.

The tally included virtually no results from the capital Kinshasa, where Tshisekedi is confident of strong support. The percentage of votes counted varied widely by province.

Provisional results are due by December 6.

Congo's government has beefed up security across the country in anticipation of the announcement of the results. Armed police patrolled the capital Kinshasa on Saturday.

Mobile phone text message services have been barred since Friday night. Security Minister Adolphe Lumanu told UN backed Radio Okapi on Saturday the government had blocked the services until further notice because of a spate of inflammatory texts.

Kikaya Bin Karubi, a senior member of Kabila's camp and Congo's ambassador to Britain, accused the opposition of readying the population to challenge the results in the street.

"We have someone who doesn't know democracy," he said.

Citing the examples of Kenya, Zimbabwe and Ivory Coast, where post-election wrangles led to violence, the opposition coalition called on the international community to act now, rather than wait until it was too late.

"We are calling on everyone to has an influence on the machine to resolve the problem now rather to wait and send in presidents ... while there is shooting in the street," Kamerhe said. "Let us do it now. We know the loser. We know the winner."

"We call on African elders or heavyweight presidents, because we want this to be a completely African mediation, to come and tell their counterpart here that stepping down is not the end of the world. We cannot burn Congo for one person."

NO UNTIY GOVT

New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Friday that 18 people had been killed in the run-up to the poll, with many shot dead by the presidential guard.

A U.N. Security Council statement also on Friday condemned violence in some parts of the country and "noted with concern the level of logistical and technical difficulties encountered ... during the voting process".

Jacquemain Shabani Lukoo, Secretary General of Tshisekedi's UDPS party, said there was "no question" of a government of national unity, and hinted at unrest if the authorities continue to perpetrate what the opposition believes is fraud.

"If they carry on like this there will be trouble, that's for sure, we will not let this lie," he told Reuters.

The election commission defied all odds to hold the election on November 28, though it was marred by chaos, accusations of fraud and the lack of material that meant pockets of the country did not vote until days later.

The African Union and Southern Africa's SADC grouping have broadly given their approval to the vote. Other observer missions praised the Congolese for turning out in large numbers but said it was too early to say if the poll was free and fair.

Alex Ngwete, a respected Congolese blogger, reflected broad fears of trouble, especially in Kinshasa, if Kabila is announced winner of Congo's vote on Tuesday.

"Kinshasa will explode like a powder keg hit by an RPG, and that's not just a figure of speech," he wrote on his blog.

U.N. urges action in Syria, Russia and China object

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations' human rights chief urged world powers on Friday to take action to protect civilians in Syria from "ruthless repression," but her call was swiftly criticized by envoys from China and Russia.

More than 4,000 people have been killed during a military crackdown on street protesters that started in March and more than 14,000 people are believed to be in detention, said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay.

"In light of the manifest failure of the Syrian authorities to protect their citizens, the international community needs to take urgent and effective measures to protect the Syrian people," Pillay told an emergency session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

She did not spell out what measures world powers should take - Western leaders have in the past shied away from suggestions of military action, along the lines of the NATO campaign that helped rebels unseat Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in August.

The European Union called for "pro-active action" by the international community, while Kuwait's envoy said that there may be a need for "intervention" to safeguard civilians.

The United States, the EU, members of the Arab League and neighboring Turkey have already imposed sanctions on Syria over Assad's failure to implement commitments to withdraw tanks and troops from restive cities and start talks with his opponents.

After Pillay spoke, envoys from Russia and China, which both have oil projects in Syria, took the floor to warn against foreign interference in Syria in the name of human rights.

Both countries blocked international efforts to condemn the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution in October.

The Russian-Chinese stance, in turn, drew fierce criticism.

"In the face of brutal repression occurring in Syria, it is outrageous that some governments continue to obstruct efforts here and elsewhere in the United Nations to bring an end to these crimes against humanity," Peter Splinter of Amnesty International told the talks, singling out "permanent members of the Security Council," an allusion to Russia and China.

"It is now time for the U.N., including the Security Council, to deliver an effective international response to Syria's human rights crisis," he said.

CHINA, RUSSIA WARNING

"We would like to warn against illegal interference by outside forces even under the pretext of protecting human rights," said Russia's envoy Valery Loshchinin. "This will have serious and unforeseen consequences."

Loshchinin called on all sides in Syria to halt violence. "We hear that the conflict in Syria continues to be fueled by outside forces, armed and terrorist groups being organized and supplied with weapons and money from abroad."

Russia, a longstanding arms supplier to Assad, has now delivered anti-ship cruise missiles to Syria, the Interfax news agency cited an unnamed military source as saying on Thursday.

This was shortly after a U.N. commission of inquiry called for an arms embargo against Damascus.

China's envoy He Yafei said that although China was deeply concerned, views on how to resolve the situation differed widely. "Member states of the United Nations should follow the principles and purposes of the U.N. and refrain from resolving differences through force or threat of force," he said.

"CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY"

Pillay said 307 children had died in the conflict, up from an estimate of 256 that was released earlier this week.

"The Syrian authorities' continual ruthless repression, if not stopped now, can drive the country into a full-fledged civil war ... All acts of murder, torture and other forms of violence must be immediately stopped," she added.

A U.N. commission of inquiry said this week it had found solid evidence of crimes against humanity by security forces, including executions, torture and rapes.

U.S. human rights ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe told reporters there was "evidence of the complicity in these atrocities" by Syrian authorities and said there was no doubt the violence was intentional.

Syria, which bars access to most foreign journalists, says it is fighting an insurgency by armed groups supported from abroad, who have attacked its troops trying to defend the peace.

At the U.N. Human Rights Council meeting, Syrian Ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui gave an angry speech that won support from Russia, China and Cuba.

"The Syrian problem is one that can be resolved only by Syrians...Only a domestic, national solution ... is possible," Syrian Ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui told the rights council meeting, referring to reforms Assad has promised for 2012.

"The solution cannot come from the corridors of the international community," he said. "(This) is only resolutions trying to put more oil on the fire."

Thousands protest against Putin in Moscow

MOSCOW (AP) — Several thousand people protested Monday night against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his party, which won the largest share of a parliamentary election that observers said was rigged.

It was perhaps the largest opposition rally in years and ended with police detaining some of the activists. A group of several hundred marched toward the Central Elections Commission near the Kremlin, but were stopped by riot police and taken away in buses. The total number of those detained was not immediately available.

Estimates of the number of protesters at the rally ranged from 5,000 to 10,000. They chanted "Russia without Putin" and accused his United Russia party of stealing votes.

United Russia took about 50 percent of Sunday's vote, a result that opposition politicians and election monitors said was inflated because of ballot stuffing and other vote fraud. It was a significant drop from the last election, when the party took 64 percent.

Pragmatically, the loss of seats in parliament appears to mean little; two of the three other parties winning seats have been reliable supporters of government legislation. But, it is a substantial symbolic blow to a party that had become virtually indistinguishable from the state itself.

It has also energized the opposition and poses a humbling challenge to the country's dominant figure in his drive to return to the presidency. Putin, who became prime minister in 2008 because of presidential term limits, will run for a third term in March and some opposition leaders saw the parliamentary election as a game-changer for what had been presumed to be Putin's easy stroll back to the Kremlin.

Also Monday, more than 400 Communist supporters gathered to express their indignation over the election, which some called the dirtiest in modern Russian history. The Communist Party finished second with about 20 percent of the vote.

"Even compared to the 2007 elections, violations by the authorities and the government bodies that actually control the work of all election organizations at all levels, from local to central, were so obvious and so brazen," said Yevgeny Dorovin, a member of the party's central committee.

Putin appeared subdued and glum even as he insisted at a Cabinet meeting Monday that the result "gives United Russia the possibility to work calmly and smoothly."

Although the sharp decline for United Russia could lead Putin and the party to try to portray the election as genuinely democratic, the wide reports of violations have undermined that attempt at spin.

Boris Nemtsov, a prominent figure among Russia's beleaguered liberal opposition, declared that the vote spelled the end of Putin's "honeymoon" with the nation and predicted that his rule will soon "collapse like a house of cards."

"He needs to hold an honest presidential election and allow opposition candidates to register for the race, if he doesn't want to be booed from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad," Nemtsov said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Many Russians came to despise United Russia, seeing it as the engine of endemic corruption. The election showed voters that they have power despite what election monitors called a dishonest count.

"Yesterday, it was proven by these voters that not everything was fixed, that the result really matters," said Tiny Kox of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, part of an international election observer mission.

Other analysts suggested the vote was a wake-up call to Putin that he had lost touch with the country. In the early period of his presidency, Putin's appeal came largely from his man-of-the-people image: candid, decisive and without ostentatious tastes.

But, he seemed to lose some of the common touch, appearing in well-staged but increasingly preposterous heroic photo opportunities — hunting a whale with a crossbow, fishing while bare-chested, and purportedly discovering ancient Greek artifacts while scuba-diving. And Russians grew angry at his apparent disregard — and even encouragement — of the country's corruption and massive income gap.

"People want Putin to go back to what he was in his first term — decisive, dynamic, tough on oligarchs and sensitive to the agenda formed by society," said Sergei Markov, a prominent United Russia Duma member.

The vote "was a normal reaction of the population to the worsening social situation," once Kremlin-connected political analyst Gleb Pavlovsky was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

Only seven parties were allowed to field candidates for parliament this year, while the most vocal opposition groups were barred from the race. International monitors said the election administration lacked independence, most media were biased and state authorities interfered unduly at different levels.

"To me, this election was like a game in which only some players are allowed to compete," Heidi Tagliavini, the head of the observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said.

Tagliavini said that of the 150 polling stations where the counting was observed, "34 were assessed to be very bad."

Other than the Communist Party, the socialist Just Russia and the Liberal Democratic Party led by mercurial nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky are also expected to increase their representation in the Duma; both have generally voted with United Russia, and the Communists pose only token opposition.

Two liberal parties were in the running, but neither got the 7 percent of the national vote needed to win seats. Nemtsov's People's Freedom Party, one of the most prominent liberal parties, was denied participation for alleged violations in the required 45,000 signatures the party had submitted with its registration application.

About 60 percent of Russia's 110 million registered voters cast ballots, down from 64 percent four years ago.

Social media were flooded with messages reporting violations. Many people reported seeing buses deliver groups of people to polling stations, with some of the buses carrying young men who looked like football fans, who often are associated with violent nationalism.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. has "serious concerns" about the elections.

Russia's only independent election monitoring group, Golos, which is funded by U.S. and European grants, has come under heavy official pressure in the past week. Golos' website was incapacitated by hackers on Sunday, and its director Lilya Shibanova and her deputy had their cell phone numbers, email and social media accounts hacked.

City evacuates 45,000 to defuse massive WWII bomb

BERLIN (AP) — Officials in Germany's western city of Koblenz say some 45,000 residents have to be evacuated as officials try to defuse a World War II era bomb discovered in the Rhine river.

City officials said Saturday the massive British 1.8 ton bomb will be defused early Sunday, requiring all residents within a radius of about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the bomb site to leave their homes for the day.

Officials say seven nursing homes, two hospitals and a prison are also being evacuated. Train and road traffic in the area, some 130 kilometers northwest of Frankfurt, will come to a halt.

The British bomb was found last week alongside a 275 pound bomb dropped there by U.S. forces during WWII, after Rhine's water level fell due to lack of rain.

Nigeria: FG Extradites 25 Illegal Chinese

Abuja — Federal Government has deported 25 Chinese from the country as it emerged that 300,000 foreigners living in Nigeria were registered by the Nigerian Immigration Service

Comptroller General of Nigeria Immigration Service, Mrs. Rose Uzoma, who said this during an oversight visit by the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Affairs, however, lamented that Nigeria had become less attractive for foreign investors.

She told the Senator Dahiru Kuta-led committee that less foreign investment was coming into the country, compared to Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Kenya.

She said: “You have heard so much about Chinese staying illegally in Nigeria, we do remove Chinese regularly. If we discover them, we remove them. Last week, we removed 25 Chinese, we deport those who commit crimes.

“I am not saying that you cannot find one or two foreigners who are not living here on irregular immigration status. But again, there is no country in the world where you cannot find such people,” she added.

“Seeing foreigners on the streets of Nigeria does not mean that they are of irregular status. Most of them are legal residents. Distinguished Senators, there are not many foreigners in Nigeria. We have well over just 300,000 legally resident in Nigeria, in a population of over 160 million people.

“Those of us who travel, when you are coming back to Nigeria, I am sure you can count the number of foreigners in the aircraft. Nigeria is not yet a destination of choice. You see foreigners in Senegal, there are more in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya and other places, you see a lot of tourists there.”

The comptroller-general, who also responded to the senators on the rising incidences of human trafficking in Nigeria, said the NIS was encumbered by inadequate staff and finance to tackle the menace.

She said with only about 23,000 staff, the NIS could not properly man the nation’s land borders, but added that the international airports have been properly upgraded to combat any attempt at trafficking.

“We have secured our international airports; it is very difficult for those people to go through the airport. But our land borders still remain porous. The strength of any security outfit depends on the strength men and logistics. If you secure the international airports, they will go through the land borders,” she said.

A member of the committee, Senator Uche Chukwumerije, in his closing remarks, commended the NIS but added that the committee would ensure that the service adhered strictly to federal character principles.

This, he said, will create a sense of belonging amongst all Nigerian, adding that it was not the intention of the committee that merits and standard should be traded for federal character principle.

His words: “Because of the crucial nature of your assignment, we do not want efficiency to be sacrifice for efficacy of federal character, if we are not efficient in our borders, will be in trouble.”

Kentucky church bans interracial marriage

A small Kentucky church has chosen to ban marriages and even some worship services for interracial couples. The Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church, located in Pike County, made the vote in response to a longtime member who is engaged to a man whose birthplace is in Zimbabwe.

Other pastoral leaders in the area were quick to denounce the church's vote. "It's not the spirit of the community in any way, shape or form," Randy Johnson, president of the Pike County Ministerial Association, told the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The small congregation, which usually hosts about 40 members each Sunday, held the vote after longtime member Stella Harville, brought her fiancé Ticha Chikuni to church with her in June. The couple performed a song together at the church in which Chikuni sang "I Surrender All," while Harville played the piano.

Chikuni, 29, who works at Georgetown College, is black--and Harville, who was baptized at the church but is not an active member, is white. Dean Harville, Stella's father, said he was told by the church's former pastor Melvin Thompson that his daughter and her fiancé were not allowed to sing at the church again. However, Thompson recently stepped down and the church's new pastor, Stacy Stepp, said the couple was once again welcome to sing.

Stepp's decision prompted Thompson to put forth a recommendation saying that while all members are welcome at the church, it does not "condone" interracial marriage, and that any interracial couples would not be received as members or allowed to participate in worship services. The only exception? Funerals.

The Harville family has formally requested the congregation to reconsider the interracial ban, and Thompson has also said he would like to resolve the issue, the area CBS affiliate WYMT has reported.


A copy of the recommendation, obtained by WYMT, reads in part:

That the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church does not condone interracial marriage. Parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they be used in worship services and other church functions, with the exception being funerals. All are welcome to our public worship services. This recommendation is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve.

Members of the church held a vote on Thompson's proposed language, with nine voting in favor and six voting against. The other members in attendance chose not to vote.

Gawker notes that Pike County is 98 percent white and home to the infamous Hatfield-McCoy feud.

The Harville family doesn't see Gulnare's new policy promoting anything like unity or civil peace. "They're the people who are supposed to comfort me in times like these," Stella Harville said.

And Stella's father was much more forceful in his denunciation of the interracial ban. "It sure ain't Christian," Dean Harville said. "It ain't nothing but the old devil working."

Russia to build Ghana’s first nuclear power plant

Russian technocrats will build Ghana’s first nuclear power plant as preparatory works are underway, officials at the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) have said.

A Daily Graphic publication sighted on the Energy Ministry’s website December 1, 2011 said, the nuclear plant, undertaken by the Ghana government in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is expected to be completed by 2020 with a medium-size reactor also expected to be completed by 2018.

Speaking at a one-day seminar on IAEA Project Planning for Sustainable Development Programme in Accra, the publication cited Prof Benjamin Nyarko, Deputy Director-General of GAEC, saying a team led by the Minister of Energy, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, visited Russia recently and met with some experts in the field of nuclear energy to discuss details of the plant.

The project is aimed at developing a long-term comprehensive energy supply plan for Gha

US Jobless Rate Dips to Lowest Level in More Than 2 Years

Somehow the American economy appears to be getting better, even as the rest of the world is looking worse.
In the midst of the European debt crisis, lingering instability in the oil-rich Middle East and concerns about a Chinese economic slowdown, the American unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped last month to 8.6 percent, its lowest level in two and a half years.

The Labor Department also said that the nation’s employers added 120,000 jobs in November and that job growth for the previous two months was better than initially reported. That looks like good news for President Obama as he heads into the 2012 presidential election — especially since just a few months ago the picture looked bleak.

“If you go back to August, all sorts of people were telling us that the economy was headed straight into recession,” said Paul Ashworth, senior United States economist at Capital Economics. “Since that point, we’ve become more and more worried about the euro zone and other areas of the global economy, but somehow, at least for the moment, the U.S. economy seems to be shrugging all that off.”

Even so, part of the reason the jobless rate fell so low was that 315,000 unemployed workers simply stopped applying for jobs. And resilient as the economy seems to have been since this summer, the fate of the fragile recovery is still tied to external — and especially European — events.

So far Europe’s problems have been relatively contained to the Continent. Many economists worry that a disorderly default of Greece or Italy, which still looks alarmingly possible, could plunge Europe into a depression.

If recent history is any guide, even a modest shock wave from across the ocean could throw the American economy off course; earlier this year, a series of shocks from higher oil prices, the Japanese earthquake and the stalemate over the United States debt ceiling managed to drain the energy from the recovery.

November’s drop in unemployment was a welcome relief, given that the jobless rate had been stuck at 9 percent for most of 2011. It is at the lowest level since March 2009; the rate has been above 8 percent for 33 months.

The share of workers who were unemployed fell in November partly because some people found jobs and partly because some discouraged workers dropped out of the labor force altogether. That left the share of Americans participating in the work force at a historically depressed 64 percent, down from 64.2 percent in October.

A separate survey of employers, which economists pay more attention to than the unemployment rate, found that companies added 120,000 jobs last month after adding 100,000 in October.

These numbers were not particularly impressive by historical standards — payroll growth was just about enough to keep up with population growth — but there were other signs of resilience.

Companies have been taking on more and more temporary workers, suggesting that more permanent hiring may be in the cards. What is more, help-wanted advertising, retail sales and auto sales have risen; jobless claims have fallen; and businesses seem to be getting loans more easily. Perhaps most encouraging was a recent survey of small businesses that found hiring intentions to be at their highest level since September 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed.

“Small businesses were cheering up at the end of last year but then got clobbered by the jump in oil prices, the Japanese earthquake and then the debt ceiling fiasco,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics. “Small businesses employ half the work force, and we need them on board.”

Still, serious concerns remain about the economy’s ability to weather the financial and economic turmoil from abroad. The public sector continues to lay off workers at the federal, state and local level. And excluding the hundreds of thousands who have left the labor force, the country still has a backlog of more than 13 million unemployed workers, whose average period of unemployment is at a record high of 40.9 weeks. The median period, the point between the top and bottom halves, is 21.6 weeks.

“They say businesses are refusing to look at résumés from the unemployed,” said Esther Perry, 59, of Bedford, Mass., who participated in a recent report on unemployed workers put together by USAction, a liberal coalition. “What do you think my chances are? Once unemployment runs out, I don’t know what I will do.”

Even those with jobs are in weak positions. Average hourly earnings fell 0.1 percent in November, and a Labor Department report released Wednesday found that the share of national income going to labor was at a record low last quarter.

These softer spots in Friday’s numbers underscored just how much President Obama could use additional stimulus, a tidy and fast resolution to the European debt crisis or some other economic breakthrough to reinvigorate the job market before the 2012 presidential election.

“As president, my most pressing challenge is doing everything I can every single day to get this economy growing faster and create more jobs,” President Obama said Friday in Washington.

On the issue of government action to stimulate the economy, there has been some movement in Washington toward extending the payroll tax cut, which is scheduled to expire at the end of this month. Economists have said that allowing the tax cut — which lets more than 160 million mostly middle-class Americans keep two percentage points more of their paychecks — to expire could be a severe drag on both job creation and output growth.

“If it isn’t extended, it will have an impact on consumer spending in the first half of next year because it’ll put a big dent in consumer income,” said Conrad DeQuadros, senior economist at RDQ Economics. “To the extent that reduces spending, there will be second-round effects on hiring.”

According to some estimates, an extension would probably lead to 600,000 to one million more jobs. The other major stimulus program scheduled to expire by 2012 is the extension of unemployment insurance benefits, allowing some jobless workers to continue collecting for as long as 99 weeks. Already, millions of people have exhausted their benefits. Failing to renew the federal benefit extensions will cause five million additional people to lose benefits next year, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in an interview.

Unemployment benefits are believed to have one of the most stimulative effects on the economy, because recipients are likely to spend all of the money they receive quickly and pump more spending through the economy.

Russian Court Fines Election Monitor $1,000

MOSCOW — A Moscow court on Friday ruled that the country’s sole independent election watchdog had broken Russian law by publishing citizens’ complaints of campaign abuses during the run-up to parliamentary elections this weekend.
Early Saturday morning, Golos’s director, Lidiya Shibanova, was detained for questioning after she flew into Sheremetyevo airport, said her deputy, Grigory A. Melkonyants. State-controlled television on Friday aired a documentary suggesting that Golos was being used by Western governments to spark Arab-spring-style civil unrest after the Russian elections.

Friday’s court ruling related to Golos’s “Map of Violations,” which has attracted more than 4,500 reports alleging illegal campaign tactics, including stories of employers threatening workers with pay cuts and local officials ordering business leaders to pressure subordinates. Most of the reports concern the ruling party, United Russia, which, with its popularity sagging, is struggling to preserve its control of Parliament in Sunday’s vote.

The Obama administration criticized the court decision and “what appears to be a pattern of harassment directed against this organization,” said a spokesman for the National Security Council, The Associated Press reported.

Judge Svetlana K. Kalantyr ruled that Golos had violated a law that prohibits news outlets from publishing polling data during the five days before an election, and levied a fine of 30,000 rubles, or about $1,000. The major complaint voiced in recent days, however, is that Golos, which was established in 2000 and whose name means “vote” in Russian, receives funding from the United States and other Western governments.

Pressure from authorities has mounted to the point that Golos’s 3,000 election monitors may not be able to observe voting on Sunday, Mr. Melkonyants said. Police on Friday searched a Golos field office in Siberia, and several election observers were warned not to take part, according to the group.

“They are trying to discredit our work in the eyes of the public,” Mr. Melkonyants said. “I think there will be more cases against us. This is only the first one.”

The Kremlin is scrambling to shore up United Russia, which is almost certain to lose the two-thirds majority it has enjoyed since 2007, and to dissuade those inclined to cast a protest vote. During an appearance in St. Petersburg on Friday, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin appealed to the public to support a consolidated government, lest “the entire mechanism stops operating.”

If “ you and I sitting at TV screens see lawmakers pulling each other’s hairs, beating and spitting at each other, as it happened here once and happens in some of our neighboring countries, we will not have concerted, effective work,” Mr. Putin said. “If someone wants to see a show, they should go to the circus, or the movies, or the theater.”

A documentary that aired Friday on the NTV channel, which is owned by the national energy giant Gazprom, juxtaposed footage of the group’s training sessions with images of street protests and fistfuls of hundred-dollar bills.

The legal charges were triggered by a letter from Vladimir Y. Churov, the head of the Central Election Commission, to the Russian prosecutor, which describes the organization’s work as “an attempt to appropriate the powers of state authorities.”

Mr. Churov’s letter, which was read aloud in the courtroom on Friday, argued that most of the complaints on the “Map of Violations” were against United Russia. He went on to say that “the activities of the association actually inhibit the election of registered candidates from one (particular) political party, and the party’s achievement of a certain result in the election.”

Aleksandr V. Kynev, chief of analysis at Golos, said Mr. Churov’s letter made it clear that the case had political goals.

“We can see the underlying political motivation is now flying right into the middle of this legal proceeding,” Mr. Kynev said, describing the hearing as “theater of the absurd.”

Russian law allows organizations to accept funding from foreign governments, but bans such organizations from campaigning for candidates.

The documentary broadcast on Friday said that during a search of a Golos office in the Russian Far East, the police found fliers that encouraged voters to check every box on Sunday’s ballots, rendering them invalid, a tactic being promoted as an act of protest. A local representative explained that a visitor had left the pamphlets behind, but the announcer apparently was not persuaded.

“The question arises,” he intoned, in an ominous voiceover, “what are supposedly ‘independent election observers’ doing with fliers from the radical opposition?”

US Defense Chief Says Israel Must Mend Arab Ties

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta spoke sternly on Friday to America’s closest ally in the Middle East, telling Israel that it is partly responsible for its increasing isolation and that it now must take “bold action” — diplomatic, not military — to mend ties with its Arab neighbors and settle previously intractable territorial disputes with the Palestinians.
“I believe security is dependent on a strong military, but it is also dependent on strong diplomacy,” Mr. Panetta said. “And unfortunately, over the past year, we have seen Israel’s isolation from its traditional security partners in the region grow, and the pursuit of a comprehensive Middle East peace has effectively been put on hold.”

He balanced his criticism by noting that “Israel is not solely responsible for this isolation,” and described what he termed “an international campaign under way to isolate Israel.”

Mr. Panetta reaffirmed that the United States would sustain an “unshakable commitment to Israel’s security,” proved by “unprecedented levels of defense cooperation,” including more than $200 million in additional assistance for Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile-defense system.

But the defense secretary made clear that Israel now must prove its commitment to restoring partnerships across the region and resolving historic disputes with the Palestinians.

“Ultimately, the dream of a secure, prosperous Jewish and democratic Israel can only be achieved through two states living side by side in peace and security,” Mr. Panetta said. “With full confidence that the United States is willing and capable of ensuring that Israel can safeguard its security as it takes the risks needed to pursue peace, now is the time for Israel to take bold action and to move towards a negotiated two-state solution.”

Asked specifically what Israel should do first, Mr. Panetta replied, “Get to the damn table” — that is, return to negotiations.

Mr. Panetta also called on Israel to “reach out and mend fences with those who share an interest in regional stability,” specifically Turkey, Egypt and Jordan. If those gestures are rejected in Ankara, Cairo and Amman, he said, “the world will see those rebukes for what they are.”

Mr. Panetta spoke to the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, a policy center here. During the evening address, he identified Iran as the most significant national security threat facing the United States, allies and partners in the region.

Notable was the phrasing of a warning to Iran: that any action to block free transit of regional oil shipments and other commerce would be a “redline,” a term describing an unacceptable action that would be countered with an American response.

“No greater threat exists to the security and prosperity of the Middle East than a nuclear-armed Iran,” Mr. Panetta said, noting that a “pillar of our approach to the region is our determination to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.”

He pledged the United States was committed to deterring Iran’s “destabilizing activities, particularly those that could threaten the free flow of commerce throughout this vital region. That is a ‘redline’ for the United States.”

American policy to shape Iranian action would use both inducements and penalties, diplomacy and economic sanctions, he said. But the Pentagon would always have military options ready for the president’s consideration, Mr. Panetta said.

“That’s a responsibility I take very seriously, because when it comes to the threat posed by Iran, the president has made it very clear that we have not taken any options off the table,” Mr. Panetta said.

Looking broadly across the region, Mr. Panetta also described how the United States was seeking to sustain a military presence and enhance military-to-military cooperation in the Persian Gulf after the withdrawal from Iraq at the end of this month.