'OUR HEARTS ARE BROKEN'

A British helicopter pilot was fatally shot by elephant poachers while flying an anti-poaching mission in Tanzania, a member of Parliament and a conservation fund said Saturday.

Roger Gower was working with Tanzanian wildlife authorities when the poachers fired on his helicopter and fatally wounded him Friday, said Dan Friedkin, chairman of the Texas-based non-profit Friedkin Conservation Fund.

"We are profoundly saddened by the loss of our dear friend," he said.

Gower managed to land the chopper but died before he was able to be rescued, said Lazaro Nyalandu, the country's former tourism minister, who said he flew with Gower many times.

Gower was helping rangers find the killers of an elephant when the poachers fired at the helicopter with an AK-47, Nyalandu wrote on Twitter.

Photos of the crash site, provided by Tanzania National Parks, show the helicopter on its side in dense grass, its tail broken off. A bloody bullet hole can be seen in one of the seats.

"Those poachers who killed Capt Roger are coward, evil, and sad people. A fine hearted individual gone too soon, and our hearts are broken," Nyalandu wrote.

The shooting happened at the Maswa Game Reserve, which borders the Serengeti National Park in northern Tanzania, Nyalandu said. Elephant poaching is prevalent on the reserve, according to the Friedkin Conservation Fund.

It was not immediately clear whether Gower was working for the fund when he was killed.

"This tragic event again highlights the appalling risk and cost of protecting Tanzania's wildlife," Friedkin said.

The killers are still at large, Nyalandu said. Tourism Minister Jumanne Maghembe flew to Maswa with senior government officials to lead the search, he said.

"Capt Roger represented the very best in human spirit," Nyalandu wrote. "He loved people and the wildlife. He died serving both."

Nigerians attack Economist for calling Jonathan ‘ineffectual buffoon’

Nigerians have expressed outrage at the Economist for labeling the country’s past president, Goodluck Jonathan, as an ‘ineffectual buffoon.’

In an article titled “Crude Tactics: Cheap oil is causing a currency crisis in Nigeria. Banning imports is no solution”, published in The Economist last Thursday, the magazine, while analysing the economic policies of President Muhammadu Buhari, had written that “In the eight months since Mr. Buhari arrived at Aso Rock, the presidential digs, the homicidal jihadists of Boko Haram have been pushed back into the bush along Nigeria’s borders.

“The government has cracked down on corruption, which had flourished under the previous president, Goodluck Jonathan, an ineffectual buffoon who let politicians and their cronies fill their pockets with impunity.”

In angry reactions on social media, majority of Nigerians expressed their displeasure with the tag on a former president of Africa’s most populous nation.

One Ismail Aniemu on his Facebook page  wrote "every Nigerian should be worried about any derogatory description of our leaders by the western media".

“Describing Jonathan as an ‘Ineffectual Buffoon’ is not a good testimonial for us coming from an influential publication, The Economist. Nigerians should jointly seek ways of avoiding embarrassments of this sort in future. How did we get a GEJ to lead us in the first place?” he wrote.

Another Nigerian, Adedayo Adesoji, also expressed his reservations on his Facebook page.

He wrote, “Despite the fact that I have never for once fancied the kind of President Jonathan’s style of leadership, I take exception to the Economist’s position referring to the Nigerian immediate past President as an ineffectual buffoon! It is the height of disrespect to the personality of our former President! If truly the Economist condescended so low to spew out this insult, then the above globally respected news platform has lowered its professional standard and brought international journalism to a state of disrepute! I am awfully disappointed in the Economist if truly it authored such a publication!”

With The Punch

Breaking News: At least 30 people killed in double blast near Shia shrine of Sayyida Zeinab, south of Damascus

Twin blasts have killed 30 people and wounded at least 40 in Syria's capital Damascus, officials said. 

The blasts, one of which was caused by a car bomb, happened near the Shia Muslim shrine of Sayyida Zeinab on Friday, the interior ministry said. 

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack. 

The shrine has been targeted before, including in February 2015 when two suicide attacks killed four people and wounded 13 at a checkpoint nearby.

In the same month, a blast ripped through a bus carrying Lebanese Shia Muslim pilgrims headed to Sayyida Zeinab, killing at least nine people in an attack claimed by the al-Nusra Front armed group.

'Diversit reigns' as Idris Elba and Viola Davis win SAG awards

The journalism drama Spotlight took home the main prize at the Screen Actors Guild awards, but the success of minority actors drew most attention.

The film, about the Boston Globe's investigation of paedophile Catholic priests, won for best film cast.

But many of the main awards in Los Angeles were won by actors of diverse backgrounds, with industry magazine Variety noting that "diversity reigns".

It comes amid controversy over a lack of diversity among Oscar nominees.

British actor Idris Elba won for his roles in the detective drama Luther, and for his supporting role as an African warlord in Beasts of No Nation.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to diverse TV," he said as he presented an award.

The female prison series Orange is the New Black won the ensemble award for a comedy series, and its star Uzo Aduba for best comedy actress in a television series.

The series has earned praise for its diverse cast and willingness to address race issues. Accepting the cast award, actress Laura Prepon referred to her cast mates, saying: "This is what we talk about when we talk about diversity."

The three main acting awards were given to films with mainly white casts, Spotlight, The Revenant and Room, all of which are among the Oscar favourites.

The absence of any non-whites in the four Oscar acting categories for the second year running has prompted discussion on diversity in Hollywood.

Since then, the organisation behind the awards has promised to double the number of female and minority members, a move welcomed by leading actors.

However, director Spike Lee, actress Jada Pinkett Smith and her husband Will Smith announced they would not be attending next month's awards.


With BBC

Is Nigeria fighting recession before 2016 budget implementation?

Daily newspaper headlines warn of “Hard times ahead”, while many billboards in the commercial hub of Lagos stand stark white, just blank signs, an indication that companies are trimming costs.

Even high fliers are taking a hit. Importers of French wine complain that demand has dried up. Luxury car dealers and real estate agents say business has dwindled.

Africa’s leading economy is projected to have grown by 3.0 percent in 2015, its slowest pace in over a decade, according to an International Monetary Fund report in January.

Unlike Norway, which invested hundreds of billions of dollars of its oil money into stocks, bonds and real estate, Nigeria spent its riches when times were good.

Now that crude prices have slumped more than two-thirds since $100 per barrel in mid-2014, Nigeria is exposed.

Dollar reserves currently stand at a low of $28 billion — $20 billion less than in April 2013. There is only enough for five months of imports for a country heavily dependent on foreign goods.

Onele Vincent and his colleagues are fed up with the rising cost of living. So they decided to do something about it and led a noisy protest at a top Lagos hotel where they work. 

“Things are more expensive, rent is high, food is high,” Vincent told AFP last week in the lobby of the Southern Sun hotel, a favourite of the monied elite, politicians and expatriates.

"Everything has increased and yet the staff salary has remained the same.”

Vincent and the other hotel workers are far from lone voices in Nigeria, where many are feeling the pain as Africa’s biggest oil producer struggles to adapt to the record lows of global oil prices and its naira currency is under devaluation pressure.

While the huge drop in oil prices is a major headache for Nigeria, analysts say it is the government’s response that is the biggest cause for concern.

The central bank governor, Godwin Emefiele, on Tuesday dismissed calls to devalue the naira in his monetary policy committee statement.

Instead he chose to continue propping up the currency at 197-199 naira to the dollar and maintain foreign-exchange restrictions.

As a result, the naira on the black market is hovering around a record low of 305, fuelling complaints from domestic and foreign businesses who can’t access dollars needed for imports.

With little domestic manufacturing and years of under-investment, mismanagement and corruption in the oil sector, Nigeria depends on imports for almost everything, from milk and machinery to petroleum products.

Jittery investors, fearing the inevitable devaluation of the naira, have held off doing business in the country until there is a clearer monetary policy.

The situation right now is causing a lot of anxiety and uncertainty because no one knows how to plan for it,” said Anna Rosenburg, emerging markets analyst at Frontier Strategy Group.

Everyone is complaining about the lack of direction from the government.”

Attempts to shore up the naira are designed to protect the nation’s dollar reserves.

But the tight forex controls have led to accusations growth is being strangled in Africa’s most populous country.

“At this stage, a weaker naira is less important for fostering the resumption of needed international investment flows than the lifting of the foreign exchange restriction,” JF Ruhashyankiko, a Goldman Sachs economist, said in an investor note.

Now Nigeria is in limbo, badly needing foreign investment but unable to get any.

“If you’re not attracting those inflows and you’re not generating a surplus from the export of oil, then it’s going to be more difficult to sustain foreign exchange reserves where they are,” added Razia Khan, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank.

That could impact on its perceived credit worthiness, which isn’t a good thing when Nigeria is thinking of borrowing externally to fund some of its more ambitious infrastructure programmes.”

President Muhammadu Buhari last month announced a record six trillion naira ($30 billion) budget to avoid a recession, planning to pour money into massive road and railway projects.

But the budget is based on an oil price of $38 per barrel, above the current market price of around $33, and relies heavily on borrowed money.

After Buhari remarked in December that he would consider devaluing the naira, some investors took it as a sign the currency situation would be resolved early in the new year.

Yet on Thursday Buhari put those hopes on the back burner, saying on a visit to Kenya he will not have the naira “killed” and is “optimistic” his policies will soon stabilise the economy.