RADIOACTIVE WATER LEAKS

Radioactive water has leaked from a storage tank into the ground at Japan's Fukushima plant, its operator says.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said the

PDP CRISIS: We won’t be dragged into ego war with you, Lamido replies Tukur

From ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, Kaduna

The frosty relationship between some Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, governors and their National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, is far from being over.

This is so because the governors leading the “Save Nigeria Democracy” campaign, and who incidentally met with Tukur, last Thursday, in what looked like a “peace meeting,” have put a lie to the account of what transpired at the said meeting, as rendered by Tukur, through his spokesman.
Specifically, Governor Sule Lamido of Jigawa State, who was part of the Thursday meeting, has described as “conjectures” the statement credited to Tukur, which claimed that the three governors who met with him on Thursday night in Abuja, came to apologize to him.
This is even as Lamido said that they (governors)  would not be dragged into an “ego war” with the national chairman.
The governors, otherwise known as G6, had in continuation of their advocacy visits, to past Nigerian leaders, including past and present leaders of the PDP, in their bid to “rescue the party and the polity from drifting,” met with Tukur, at his Abuja residence last Thursday. The members of the group who made the meeting were: Governors Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (Kano) and Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto). Others not at the meeting include Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara), Babangida Aliyu (Niger) and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa).
After the meeting, none of the governors was willing to be quoted on what transpired at the closed-door meeting.
However, reacting to the claim when Saturday  Sun called the Jigawa governor yesterday to confirm from him what really transpired at the meeting, in the light of the claim by Tukur, Lamido said that what was dished out, was  conjectures based either on the impression of Tukur’s aide, since he was not at the meeting, or the narration of the impression of Tukur, about the meeting, as relayed to his aide, by him, insisting that only the four of them, who were at the meeting, knew what transpired.
When pressed further, Lamido simply said: “We were only four at the meeting. The National Chairman, myself, the governor of Kano State and the governor of Sokoto State. Therefore, what was discussed is known to four of us alone. So, what the chairman’s aide said in his press release, is his own conjecture of what he felt transpired or obviously the narration by the chairman of his impression of the meeting. On both grounds, the chairman and the three of us alone, knew what transpired.
“Now, if the press release is the conjecture of the chairman’s aide alone, I have no problem with that since he was not at the meeting. But if indeed, it was a narration of what happened, based on the impression of the National Chairman, that we were at the meeting to apologize, I wish him the best of luck.
“We will not engage in an ego war with him (Tukur), neither will we allow ourselves to be dragged into an ego war with him (Tukur).”

Nigeria unrest: 'Boko Haram' in deadly attack on Damboa

Suspected Islamic militants have attacked a town in north-eastern Nigeria, killing at least 11 people, reports say.

Witnesses said gunmen shot civilians and police in Damboa, about 85km (52 miles) from the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.
The area is a stronghold of the Boko Haram militant group.
The group was blamed for the deaths of 44 people in a mosque in the nearby town of Konduga last Sunday.
Local official Ayamu Lawan Gwasha said security forces repelled gunmen who attacked the police station and a military post in Damboa on Thursday night.
Farmer Mustapha Aji said other militants gunned down civilians and firebombed about 20 homes.
He told the Associated Press that residents had feared an attack following the deaths in Konduga and had asked for more security, but it hadn't yet arrived.
Another witness, student Adamu Isah, blamed the attack on Boko Haram fighters.
Correspondents say details of the attack have been slow to emerge because of a communications blackout imposed by the military.
In May, Nigeria declared an emergency in three north-eastern states in order to battle the militants.
On Wednesday the army said it had killed Boko Haram's second-in-command Momodu Bama, also known by his alias "Abu Saad".
However, there has been no independent confirmation of his death and Boko Haram has not commented on the statement.
Boko Haram is fighting to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north.
Thousands of people have died since it began its insurgency in 2009.

Zimbabwe's MDC drops Robert Mugabe election challenge

Zimbabwe's MDC party has dropped its legal challenge to President Robert Mugabe's re-election, saying it could not get a fair hearing.

It had filed a separate case seeking access to full details of the results from the electoral commission.
But the High Court has delayed judgement in the case.
The MDC says that without information such as the number of people not on the voters' roll who voted, it cannot prove that the elections were fraudulent.
The arguments in the MDC's legal challenge were due to begin on Saturday.
But MDC spokesman Douglas Mwonzora said that, without the extra information, the challenge "was going to be a mockery of justice", reports the AFP news agency.

Continue reading the main story

Opposition's main complaints

• Bribery - Village leaders were reportedly given food and kitchenware to persuade people to vote for Zanu-PF
• Manipulation of voter roll - Voters said to have had most trouble registering in urban areas, where the MDC is strongest. More than a million names allegedly duplicates or dead people
• Voters turned away - The MDC says 900,000 people were turned away from polling stations, mainly in the capital
• Intimidation - There were reports of traditional leaders threatening villagers if they voted for MDC
• Abuse of assisted voting - The MDC claims literate people were told to say they were illiterate so that they could be "assisted by Zanu-PF people"

• A guide to rigging allegations

The withdrawal of its challenge paves the way for Mr Mugabe, 89, to be inaugurated for another five-year term.

He has governed Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.
Mr Mugabe won with 61% of the presidential vote against 34% for MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who called the 31 July election a "huge farce".
The MDC has said that more than a million voters were prevented from casting their ballots - mainly in urban areas considered to be its strongholds.
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which had 7,000 observers around the country, has backed up these allegations.
But the African Union has said that any irregularities were not enough to overturn the margin of victory.
Allies of President Mugabe have dismissed the allegations and accused Mr Tsvangirai of being a bad loser.
Regional heavyweight, South Africa's President Jacob Zuma has urged the MDC leader to accept defeat.

Egypt crisis: Tense stand-off at Cairo mosque

 Egyptian security forces have surrounded a mosque in the capital, Cairo, amid a stand-off with barricaded Muslim Brother

Nigerian activists: Arrest Sudan leader for crimes

President of Nigeria Goodluck Jonathan, left, and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir right,

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Angry that Nigeria is hosting a fugitive accused of genocide and war crimes, human rights lawyers Monday asked the Federal High Court to issue an arrest warrant for Sudan's leader Omar al-Bashir.
Nigerian civil rights activists sent an urgent

China starts work on world's tallest building

(CNN) -- Dubai's 828-meter Burj Khalifa has less than a year left as the world's tallest building.

China's projected 838-meter (2,749 feet) Sky City broke ground in Changsha in central China on July 20.

Astonishingly, the construction company behind it expects to top out in April 2014 -- a build time of just 10 months.

Japan launches largest warship since World War II

(CNN) -- Japan on Tuesday unveiled its largest warship since World War II, an 820-foot-long, 19,500-ton flattop capable of carrying 14 helicopters, according to media reports.

The ship, named the Izumo, is classified as a helicopter destroyer, though its flattop design makes it look like an aircraft carrier.

Students in North East to re-sit WAEC exams

Lagos — Tens of thousands of candidates for the May/June 2013 West African Examinations Council (WAEC) exams from the North East would have to re-sit them, the exams body announced yesterday.

NIGERIA AND I- Abah Joseph Idenyi

Nigeria is the responsibility of every Nigerian, having this in mind, Nigeria at large will be liberated from its current state of corruption and mass poverty, but neglecting this very fact, we will be inevitably drowned in the ocean of mass misery. The problem with the country today is that every one feels less concerned, and the believe that every easy way is the way out, no one wants to carry the cross but every one wants to wear the crown, forgetting the old saying which says that “no cross, no crown” remember that gold must pass through the crucibles of fire before it begins to glitter. No man wants to sow but every man wants to reap; the question still remains “the fruit of whose labour?”

Robbers attack Edo police patrol van, kill 3

Suspected armed robbers,  yesterday opened fire on the patrol vehicle of Edo State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), killing two policemen and a civilian. The policemen were said to be on patrol around Egba Police Division, near the Benin-Auchi by-pass, when the robbers opened fire on them.

MASSOB leader, three others arrested in Delta for chanting war song

The coordinator of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, Anioma/Ndokwa East region of Delta State, Emeka Okafor, has been arrested by officials of the state police command.

Okafor, 52, was arrested along with three other members of MASSOB at a location in Omini-Ugboma community, near the Bridge Head in Asaba, the Delta State capital.