Messi in Spain tax fraud hearing

Barcelona's Argentine footballer Lionel Messi and his father are questioned in a Spanish court over tax fraud allegations.

Syrian 'proof' of rebel chemical use Syria has

Sergei Ryabkov (L) gave no details of the evidence
Syria has given Russia "material evidence" that rebels carried out a chemical attack on 21 August, Russia's deputy foreign minister has said.

Sergei Ryabkov, on a visit to Syria, said a UN report on the incident was politicised and one-sided.

The UN team found the nerve agent sarin was used in the attack in Damascus.

The US blamed government forces for the attack, which sparked diplomacy that culminated in a deal for Syria to hand over its chemical arsenal by mid-2014.

Damascus has repeatedly accused opposition forces of carrying out the assault in eastern Damascus, in which hundreds were killed.

The UN report, by chief investigator Ake Sellstrom, did not apportion blame for the attack.

Mr Sellstrom told the BBC he believed that the task of finding and destroying Syria's chemical stockpile would be "stressful work", but was "doable".

He said much depended on whether the Syrian government and the opposition were willing to negotiate.

The disarmament deal was brokered by the US and Russia.

The penalty for any possible breaches by Syria are now being thrashed out by the UN Security Council permanent members.

Selective and incomplete

In an interview with Russian media, Mr Ryabkov said the government of President Bashar al-Assad had given him new evidence that rebel forces had used chemical weapons.

"Just now we were given evidence. We need to analyse it," he said, without giving any details.

Mr Ryabkov criticised the UN report, saying it was "distorted" and "one-sided".

"The basis of information upon which it is built is not sufficient, and in any case we would need to learn and know more on what happened beyond and above that incident of 21 August," he said.

"We are disappointed, to put it mildly, about the approach taken by the UN secretariat and the UN inspectors, who prepared the report selectively and incompletely."

In response to Mr Ryabkov's comments, Mr Sellstrom told the BBC he thought Russia was not criticising the report itself but the process, which he described a political matter and therefore not his remit

"What I think - as I interpret it - is that there are other allegations by the Syrian government which have to be looked into," Mr Sellstrom said.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius defended the UN report, saying he was surprised by the Russian reaction.

"Nobody can question the objectivity of the people appointed by the UN," he said.

Human Rights Watch said the UN document revealed details of the attack, including the trajectory of the rockets, that strongly suggest government forces carried it out.

The UN inspectors were originally mandated to go to Syria to investigate three alleged chemical weapons attacks - at Khan al-Assal, Sheikh Maqsoud and Saraqeb.

But they were later ordered to shift their focus to the Damascus incident, which was the most deadly chemical assault.

A further report on evidence from the original three attacks is due to be released in October.

UN divided

On Tuesday the five permanent UN Security Council members met in New York to discuss a draft resolution put forward by the UK, France and the US.

They want a resolution containing the threat of military action against Syria if it fails to comply with the disarmament deal, but Russia opposes this.

A resolution under Chapter VII of the UN charter permits military action if other measures do not succeed. Chapter VI requires a purely negotiated solution.

The BBC's Daniel Sandford in Moscow says Russia has delivered a promise from Syria to give up its chemical weapons, and it seems that at this stage Moscow does not feel like giving the Western allies anything more.

Russia and China have three times blocked Western-backed Security Council resolutions against Mr Assad.

More than 100,000 people have died since the uprising against President Assad began in 2011.

Millions of Syrians have fled the country and millions more have been internally displaced.

QUESTION OF THE DAY!

QUESTION OF THE DAY
-----------------------------
Who is the funniest among these people?
1. HAUSA man who removed his shoes to enter a
taxi.....
2. IGBO man who went to the bank with a spanner
to open a bank account.
3. YORUBA man who went to bed with a ruler just
to know how long he slept....
4. A TIV man who watched the news and waved at
the news reader.
5. AN EFIK nurse who woke up a sleeping patient
simply because she forgot to give him sleeping
pills....
6. AN IGALA man who lowered his TV volume
because he wanted to read a text message..
7. AN EDO man who sprayed himself with mortein
to keep mosquitoes away......
8. AN IKWERE man who polished his shoes to take
a passport photo.
9. AN ISOKO man who climbed a mango tree to
check if the mango was ripe enough then came
down and started stoning it.....
10. A FULANI man who chose to drink Fanta
because he thought sprite was unripe ........
11. A GWARI man who saw something that looked
like shit, touched n tasted n said "Hmmm" na shit
ooo!!! Thank God I no match am....
12. AN IDOMA man who put his radio inside the
refrigerator because he wanted to listen to Nigeria Info FM.
=))º°˚˚˚°ºнaĦaнaº°˚˚˚°º​=))  Awaiting your reply!!!

QUESTION OF THE DAY!

QUESTION OF THE DAY
-----------------------------
Who is the funniest among these people?
1. HAUSA man who removed his shoes to enter a
taxi.....
2. IGBO man who went to the bank with a spanner
to open a bank account.
3. YORUBA man who went to bed with a ruler just
to know how long he slept....
4. A TIV man who watched the news and waved at
the news reader.
5. AN EFIK nurse who woke up a sleeping patient
simply because she forgot to give him sleeping
pills....
6. AN IGALA man who lowered his TV volume
because he wanted to read a text message..
7. AN EDO man who sprayed himself with mortein
to keep mosquitoes away......
8. AN IKWERE man who polished his shoes to take
a passport photo.
9. AN ISOKO man who climbed a mango tree to
check if the mango was ripe enough then came
down and started stoning it.....
10. A FULANI man who chose to drink Fanta
because he thought sprite was unripe ........
11. A GWARI man who saw something that looked
like shit, touched n tasted n said "Hmmm" na shit
ooo!!! Thank God I no match am....
12. AN IDOMA man who put his radio inside the
refrigerator because he wanted to listen to Nigeria Info FM.
=))º°˚˚˚°ºнaĦaнaº°˚˚˚°º​=))  Awaiting your reply!!!

Jailed former Delta State Governor, James Ibori

Jailed former Delta State Governor, James Ibori, told a Swiss private bank in 2004 that he owned 30 per cent of oil firm, Oando Plc, which allegedly paid $1.2m into his account that year, a prosecutor told a British court on Tuesday. The court also heard that PKB Privatbank had in an internal document likened Ibori to a scion of the Kennedy dynasty in the United States, according to a report by Reuters. Ibori was jailed for 13 years in Britain after pleading guilty in February 2012 to 10 counts of fraud and money-laundering worth £50m ($79.5m). Prosecutors said his total wealth was likely to be far greater than that. Details of his assets and how he kept them hidden from the public gaze through a web of shell companies and foreign bank accounts are being disclosed as part of a three-week confiscation hearing, which began in London on Monday. One of the  biggest  embezzlement cases seen in Britain, Ibori’s is also a rare example of a senior politician being held to account for the corruption that has held back Nigeria. Prosecutor Sasha Wass told Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday that in 2004, Ibori had opened an account at Lugano-based PKB in the name of a shell company called Stanhope Investments. Quoting from internal PKB documents, Wass told the court that Ibori had presented himself to the bank as the owner of an insurance company, half of a bank and 30 per cent of Oando. She said that a total of $1.2m flowed into the PKB account from Oando in three payments that year, which had later been channelled to other accounts and were part of funds intended for the purchase of a $20m private jet. Shares in Oando, Nigeria’s biggest home-grown oil company, fell by 10 per cent in Lagos on Tuesday following the first allegation by Wass on Monday that Ibori had hidden assets in the firm. Oando said on Monday that Ibori had only an “insignificant” holding in the firm and also said it had sold $2.7m of its foreign exchange earnings for naira in 2004 to a company that later turned out to be controlled by Ibori, but it did not know that at the time. Wass told the court on Tuesday that despite his assets being restrained in 2008, Ibori had after that date continued to live a lavish lifestyle, travel and pay fees to the English boarding school where his three children were being educated. Combined with Ibori’s track record of hiding his assets, this led to the “irresistible inference” that he had further hidden assets, which investigators had not yet uncovered, she said, adding that one option of where these might be was Oando. Wass also quoted from an internal PKB report from 2004, which said Ibori came from one of a few families that had for decades developed the oil industry in the country. “We could compare these families with the Kennedy dynasty, which also mixed business and politics,” the bank document said. Another excerpt said Ibori was “an extremely rich man as he was doing a lot of business before becoming governor.” PKB, which is fully owned by the Luxembourg-listed Compagnie de l’Occident pour la Finance et l’Industrie, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the early 1990s, Ibori worked as a cashier at Wickes, a home improvement chain store in London. He was convicted of theft in 1991 after being caught taking money from the till. A property he and his wife had bought in a London suburb was repossessed as the couple could not meet mortgage payments. The Head, Corporate Communications, Oando Plc, Mr. Ainojie Irune, who spoke with The PUNCH over the telephone, said the company’s position on the matter remained the same as stated on Monday that Ibori did not own a large part of the compan by @UC Browser

Chelsea vs FC Bayern Munich

What do you think?

Al-Makura’s Son’s wedding in U.S. allegedly gulp N1.5b.

Al-Makura’s Son’s wedding in U.S. allegedly gulp N1.5b.

Kinsmen and other political stakeholders in Nasarawa State have asked Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura to explain why he allegedly spent N1.5 billion on his son’s wedding in the United States (U.S).

Al-Makura returned to the country on Monday but was yet to resume official duties as the state’s chief executive.  It was gathered that while he was away, official activities were halted (imagine) as most government offices were deserted following the absence of his cabinet members, most of who were said to have traveled with him.

In a swift reaction, however, the government denied the allegation and rather shifted blame on opponents.  Secretary to the State Government (SSG) Hajia Sainab Abdulmumin wondered how much the state gets in monthly allocation from the federation that would warrant the spending of such a huge amount of money on wedding.

“It doesn’t even sound right”, she said, adding: “I can categorically tell you that there was nothing like that  and the burden of proof lies on the people making the allegation.” (how?)

She insisted that most of the people, especially those in the cabinet, went on their own, including the Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Emma Yaji, who she said was based in the U.S. before his appointment.

(Please Madam, tell your people how much was spent, and that will solve the problem).

Proverbs 1:10

Proverbs 1:10 My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

Psalms 112:7

He will not be afraid of evil tidings; His heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD. (Psalms 112:7)

I believe I can

"Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning."