Kenya banned Coca-Cola advert over kissing scene

The "Taste the feeling" campaign was launched in January

Kenya's Film Classification Board (KFCB) has forced Coca-Cola to scrap a kissing scene in a television advert because it "violated family values".

In the three-second scene two strangers have a passionate embrace in a library.

The head of the film board Ezekiel Mutua said Coca-Cola has agreed to release a new version of the commercial without the scene on Wednesday night.

KFCB previously asked YouTube to remove a music video about same-sex relationships on "moral grounds".

Six adverts with the tagline "Taste the Feeling" were released globally in January,reports Ad Week.

The film board warned advertisers to consider if children would be watching at the time the advert is aired, BBC reported.

Last month, the board complained about a sex party which they claimed was being used by an international pornography ring to make films.

In 2014 the film board banned the US film The Wolf of Wall Street because of "extreme scenes of nudity, sex, debauchery, hedonism and cursing".

A North Korea military officer fleas to South

                                                                                                             KCNA/REUTERS

A colonel from North Korea’s military spy agency fled to South Korea last year in an unusual case of a senior-level defection, Seoul officials said Monday.

The announcement came three days after Seoul revealed that 13 North Koreans working at the same restaurant in a foreign country had defected to the South. It was the largest group defection since Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s young leader, took power in late 2011. South Korean media reported that the restaurant is located in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo.

Defections are a bitter source of contention between the rival Koreas, and Seoul doesn’t always make the high-profile cases public. Liberal lawmakers and media outlets have linked the recent defection announcements to what they say is an attempt by the conservative government of South Korean President Park Geun-hye to muster anti-Pyongyang votes ahead of this week’s parliamentary elections. The government denied this.

The colonel who defected worked for the North Korean military’s General Reconnaissance Bureau before fleeing to South Korea, according to Seoul’s Defense and Unification ministries. Both ministries refused to provide further details, including a motive for the defection.

The Unification Ministry said that a North Korean diplomat based in Africa separately defected to South Korea last year. It didn’t elaborate.

The reconnaissance agency was believed to be behind two deadly attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

There have been occasional reports of lower-level North Korean soldiers defecting, but it is unusual for a colonel to flee to South Korea.

Some South Korean media outlets said the colonel was the highest-ranking North Korean military officer to ever defect to the South. The South Korean government could not confirm that.

The highest-level North Korean to take asylum in South Korea is Hwang Jang-yop, a senior ruling Workers' Party official who once tutored Kim's late dictator father, Kim Jong Il. Hwang's 1997 defection was hailed by many South Koreans as an intelligence bonanza and a clear sign that the North's political system was inferior to the South's. Hwang died in 2010.

More than 29,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to South Korean government records. Many defectors have testified that they wanted to avoid the North's harsh political system and poverty. Pyongyang usually accuses Seoul of enticing North Korean citizens to defect.

The announcement on the defections comes as the two Koreas trade threats amid Pyongyang's anger over annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that North Korea calls a rehearsal for an invasion. The North has fired a slew of missiles and artillery shells into the sea in an apparent protest against the drills.

South Korean officials said they disclosed the restaurant workers' group defection because it was an unusual case and happened after tough U.N. sanctions were imposed over Pyongyang's nuclear test and rocket launch this year. The officials said they confirmed the two individual defections in response to news reports on them.

Daily News

Together We Must Defend Our Christian Values – Prime Minster Cameron

British Prime Minister David Cameron led calls for people to “stand together” and defend Christian values in the face of terror. The Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury joined in speaking of faith that light will overcome the darkness.

With Europe still reeling from the Brussels attacks, Cameron said: “The message of Easter is a message of hope for millions of Christians in our country and all around the world.”

This hope can be witnessed every day in the faith-inspired projects that help the homeless, that get people into work, that help keep families together and offer homes to children in need,” he said.”We see that hope in the aid workers and volunteers who so often risk their own lives to save the lives of others in war-torn regions across the world. And at the heart of all these acts of kindness and courage is a set of values and beliefs that have helped to make our country what it is today.”

British values of responsibility, hard work, charity, compassion and pride in working for the common good are Christian values, he continued. “They should give us the confidence to say yes, we are a Christian country and we are proud of it,” he said. “But they are also values that speak to everyone in Britain – to people of every faith and none. And we must all stand together and defend them.”

Cameron said: “When we see Christians today in 2016 being persecuted for their beliefs in other parts of the world – we must speak out and stand with those who bravely practise their faith.”

The nation must never be cowed by terror.

“We must show that in this struggle of our generation we will defeat the pernicious ideology that is the root cause of this terrorism by standing up proudly for our values and our way of life.”

Rescued African lion demands blankets to sleep on

As a household pet, Lambert was used to his creature comforts – especially blankets to sleep on.

It was all very well when Lambert was a small lion cub, but as a fully grown lion it is slightly more problematic.

Lambert was born in captivity and bought by an unnamed man as a pet for his children, aged two and three.

When the family was unable to keep him, Lambert was taken into care by Vicky Keahey, the founder of Texas' In-Sync Exotic Wildlife Rescue and Educational Centre.

But rehousing Lambert, who was too tame to be released into the wild, was challenging.

A conventional lion’s paddock was not to his liking, Ms Keahey said.

'We had heard from the previous owners that he slept in the bed with the grandfather.”

This prompted Ms Keahey to experiment with a blanket – which Lambert seized with alacrity, Mail Online reported.

Since moving to the Texas rescue facility, Lambert has learned to eat raw meat like his wild counterparts, Lambert will not give up his blankets and sleeps with them every night.

Lambert the lion relaxes on one of his many blankets  Photo: IN-SYNC EXOTICS

Lambert the lion relaxes on one of his many blankets  Photo: IN-SYNC EXOTICS

Lambert the lion relaxes on one of his many blankets  Photo: IN-SYNC EXOTICS

(TheTelegraph)

Buhari Easter Message to Nigerian Christians

Fellow Nigerians,

I rejoice with you all, especially our Christian brothers and sisters, as we celebrate Easter.

For Christians all over the world, this celebration is in commemoration of the supreme sacrifice which Jesus Christ made for the salvation of mankind.

The Gospels also tell us that during his earthly ministry, Jesus Christ repeatedly urged his disciples and followers to “love one another as I have loved you”.

As we celebrate Easter this year, I sincerely believe that it will serve our dear nation very well if we all imbibe this essential message of Jesus Christ and truly learn to love our countrymen and women as we love ourselves.

Indeed, we will surely make faster progress towards the achievement of the peaceful, united, strong, progressive and prosperous country we all desire if, as a nation, we eschew all divisive, parochial, ethnic and religious sentiments and rivalries, and begin to live more harmoniously with our compatriots, as Jesus Christ and the founders of the world’s other great religions enjoined mankind.

Our unfortunate notoriety in recent years as a country where the blood of men, women and children are wantonly and callously shed in frequent orgies of criminal, political, ethnic and religious violence has become very embarrassing and utterly unacceptable.

My administration is determined to achieve greater peace and security across our nation by ending the avoidable conflicts and crises that hinder our national progress.

I ask for greater support from all Nigerians in this regard. We must put a stop to politically motivated killings. Our communities must be made safe again for all inhabitants to live together in peace and harmony.

Our armed forces, police and other security agencies are being progressively reformed, repositioned and empowered to win the war against terrorism and make mass killings, abductions and other criminal atrocities things of the past in our beloved country.

Let us all also play our parts as patriotic citizens and do all that we can to ensure that we make Nigeria a safer, more peaceful and happier place for its people and others.

Faith, belief and the fulfilment of expectations are also key themes of the Easter celebration. I urge you all therefore, to continue to have faith in the future greatness of our country and to believe that the CHANGE my administration promised will surely come to fruition.

That CHANGE, which we all yearn for, will certainly occur more rapidly if we all place the love of our country above selfish personal and group interests.

The National Assembly has just passed the 2016 budget. I assure all Nigerians that we will do our utmost best to ensure that the budget, the first since my election as President, is efficiently and successfully implemented towards achieving our objective of faster economic growth and development.

I thank the vast majority of Nigerians for their patience and understanding in the first ten months of this administration.

As we go forward, I assure you all that we are working very hard to overcome the challenges we encountered on assumption of office.

We are moving on with an unshaken resolve and determination to deliver on the mandate you gave us on March 28, last year.

I wish you all very happy Easter celebrations.