See How Beyonce Thanked Her Fans For Birthday Wishes

America's queen of pop, Beyonce was 33 last
week and the mother of one sure had a nice
time hanging out with her husband and
daughter, Blue Ivy.
On Saturday, she and her family took a trip to
Portofino island where they treated themselves
to fun, and that includes thousands of birthday
wishes from friends and family members.
Showing her gratitude, the beauty posted a
photo on Instagram on Sunday where she
revealed her flexible body tucked into a bikini
in an impressive upside-down gymnastic pose...
"Thank y'all so much for my birthday wishes!
33!!!!!," she captioned the cute pic.

UN-funded African troops raped vulnerable Somalis – HRW

Internationally-funded African Union troops in war-
torn and impoverished Somalia have raped women
and girls as young as 12 and traded food aid for
sex, Human Rights Watch said in a damning report
Monday.
“Some of the women who were raped said that the
soldiers gave them food or money afterwards in an
apparent attempt to frame the assault as
transactional sex,” the HRW report said.
There was no immediate reaction from the AU force
AMISOM, whose 22,000 soldiers drawn from six
nations have been fighting alongside government
troops against the Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab
insurgents since 2007.
The vulnerable women largely came from camps in
the capital Mogadishu, having fled rural Somalia
during a devastating famine in 2011.
AMISOM donors include the United Nations,
European Union, Britain and the United States.
The AU soldiers, “relying on Somali intermediaries,
have used a range of tactics, including humanitarian
aid, to coerce vulnerable women and girls into
sexual activity,” the report read, based on
testimonies of 21 women and girls.
“They have also raped or otherwise sexually
assaulted women who were seeking medical
assistance or water at AMISOM bases.”
The youngest interviewed was aged just 12, who
said she was raped by a Ugandan soldier.
Several of the women described how they had gone
to the AU camp seeking medicine for their sick
babies.
“The findings raise serious concerns about abuses
by AMISOM soldiers against Somali women and
girls that suggest a much larger problem,” HRW
added.
- ‘Desperate for food and medicine’ -
Only in two cases had the women who spoke to
HRW filed police complaints, because they “feared
stigma, reprisals from family, police, and the
Islamist insurgent group Al-Shebab.”
The cases investigated by HRW involved troops
from Burundi and Uganda.
AMISOM troops last month launched a major
offensive aimed at seizing key ports and cutting off
an important source of revenue for the Islamist
rebels.
HRW said the force needed to end the abuses
carried by its troops.
“The AU military and political leadership needs to do
more to prevent, identify, and punish sexual abuse
by their troops,” said HRW Africa head Daniel
Bekele.
“As another food crisis looms in Mogadishu’s
displacement camps, women and girls are once
again desperate for food and medicine. They should
not have to sell their bodies for their families to
survive.”
Conditions in Somalia remain dire, with the United
Nations and aid workers warning that large areas
are struggling with extreme hunger and drought,
three years after famine killed more than a quarter
of a million people.
The UN last week said over a million people were
classified in either “crisis” or “emergency”
situations, just one step short of famine on its
hunger scale.
The mother of one girl who was raped told HRW she
was deeply traumatised by the attack.
“People laugh at her whenever she comes out.
They say, ‘An infidel raped her’,” the mother said.
“How can you feel if your daughter asks you…
‘Mother, I better die to hide my shameful face from
the people’?” she added.
Women reported contracted sexually transmitted
infections, mainly gonorrhoea, after the assaults.
“Several women said that the soldiers refused to
wear condoms and that they had caught sexually
transmitted infections as a result,” HRW added.
“Several also described being slapped and beaten
by the soldiers with whom they had sex.”

Our children rape us, Imo Christian mothers cry out

By Chidi Nkwopara
Owerri—Christ mothers from Mgbishii, a sleepy
rural community in Ohaji/Egbema Local
Government Area in Imo State, have cried out to the
Catholic Archbishop of Owerri Ecclesiastical
Province, His Grace, Dr. Anthony Obinna, over
alleged attrocities being committed by their sons
and daughers in the area.
The women visited Archbishop Obinna at the Maria
Assumpta Catholic Cathedral, Owerri, where they
complained that they were being raped by their own
sons on daily basis.
“We are raped and molested by our own children.
You cannot come to Mgbuishii and return home
safely because of the crime,” the women told
Archbishop Obinna.
They further said that they had complained to both
the state government and other law enforcement
agents but regretted that they were yet to find
solutions to the atrocities committed by their
children.
They said: “We are angry because government is
not looking at our direction at all. We have been
completely abandoned for years.
Now, we have no good roads, no electricity, no
market and nothing is going on in our place. To
make things worse, we are now suffering from
insecurity.”
Continuing, the aggrieved women also revealed that
their sons take over the roads leading to their
community on each of their market days and rob
people, adding that this explained why people had
stopped coming to buy farm produce from their
market.
No Police presence
While lamenting that there is no police presence in
the community, the spokes-woman, however,
expressed shock that when they report anything to
the police, they ultimately found themselves in more
trouble as they ended up being molested the more.
“Also, each time we report cases to the police and
they manage to send their men at all, the criminals
beat them (policemen) up because they (criminals)
parade more sophisticated weapons than what the
policemen have. We needed police escort to get
here (Maria Assumpta Cathedral) and we will also
need them to go back home,” the women said.
On lack of social amenities in the area, the
spokeswoman said the community had no roads,
primary or secondary schools as well as health
facilities, adding that they had been completely
abandoned by the various tiers of government, even
as they pointed out to the Archbishop that most of
them were already planning to relocate to safer
communities in Rivers State.
“Even the Reverend Father in our place is
complaining and threatening to go away. About two
weeks ago, some reverend sisters visited our place
and were waylaid on the road and robbed. We have
a lot of problems and that is why the women have
come to complain to the Archbishop, who is our
father in the Lord”, the women added.
Responding, Obinna commi-serated with the women
over their plight and pleaded with them not to take
laws into their hands.
While stressing the need for proper upbringing of
children by parents in the fear of the Lord, the
cleric, however, recalled some bizarre things that
are now happening in the society. He prayed and
blessed the women for being courageous enough to
bring the sordid happenings to limelight.

CONFESSIONS OF THE BOKO HARAM ‘NEGOTIATOR’

Who is Stephen Davis? The government should
address the serious allegations
Australian negotiator, Dr. Stephen Davies, who
alleged that he was engaged by President
Goodluck Jonathan to dialogue with Boko Haram
for the release of the abducted Chibok school girls
recently mentioned some highly placed Nigerians
as sponsors of the Islamic militant sect. In a series
of interviews both in his homeland and with some
international networks in London, Davis has
specifically accused the former governor of Borno
State, Ali Modu Sheriff, and immediate past Chief of
Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Ihejirika (rtd) of funding Boko
Haram. An unnamed former top official of the
Central Bank of Nigeria has also been fingered by
him as providing funds and other logistics for the
sect.
Quite naturally, the allegations by Davis have
excited many Nigerians while the people he
accused of duplicity have been defending
themselves and making counter-allegations. Who
really is Davis? "It was at Shell in the mid 2000s
that he began peace negotiations with rebels in the
Niger Delta. He then served as an advisor to two
Nigerian presidents, developing links with terror
cells as he negotiated on behalf of the
government", the widely-read Australian daily, The
Sydney Morning Herald said of him.
Before we go into the allegations Davis raised,
there are some pertinent questions that beg for
answers. One, the claims by Davis who obviously
knows how to work the media were based largely
on what he said some Boko Haram commanders
told him. The question arising from that is: Why
would Boko Haram leaders tell someone
negotiating with them on behalf of the government
the names of their sponsors? There is also the
issue of motive. Davis has been granting several
interviews that border on an orchestrated
campaign to achieve an objective. Why would the
negotiator for federal government be all over the
place?
We ask those questions because of the timing of
his intervention, the slant of his narratives and the
implications for the ongoing war on terror. It also
should not escape the attention of Nigerians that at
a political season like this, nothing should be taken
at face value. Besides, at a time Boko Haram
insurgents are fighting for the control of some
major towns in Borno and Yobe states, and when
hundreds of thousands of our citizens are being
displaced, the last thing we need is a distraction
that could take the attention of Nigerians from the
real challenge that the insurgency poses to our
national survival.
Notwithstanding our misgivings, Davis has made
some serious allegations that need to be fully
addressed and the situation is not helped by the
fact that officials of the federal government who
are ever quick to jump into the fray on matters like
this have suddenly lost their voices. Of course
both Sheriff and Ihejirika have dismissed his
claims but they are really not the issue, it is the
government that allegedly hired Davis that needs to
come clean on several issues.
For instance, without being categorical, Davis has
hinted that the federal government may have given
up on the idea of rescuing the Chibok girls who
have been in captivity for almost 150 days now.
His account of a bungled effort does not depict any
sign of seriousness on the part of the federal
government and Nigerians would need
reassurance that concerted efforts are indeed
being made to rescue the girls. Again, the
allegations against some prominent Nigerians,
including an official of CBN, need to be probed.
Beyond all these, there is need for clarification on
what exactly Davis role is/was. More than at any
period in our history, Nigerians need to be
reassured that their government is working for
them, and that notwithstanding the cold
calculations for the 2015 general elections,
concerted efforts are still being made to defeat the
Boko Haram insurgency.
Tags: Boko Haram, CONFESSIONS , Editorial,
Featured, NEGOTIATOR

Davis revelations: Nigerians’ll hear from us soon — Boko Haram

By Soni Daniel, Regional Editor, North
More stunning revelations on the relationship
among Boko Haram, the government and the
Australian negotiator, Dr. Stephen Davis, may be
unveiled by the sect’s leadership this week.
The move, according to a source close to the sect,
is to put the record straight and clear the air on
several controversial issues contained in the
interview by the Australian to the media last week.
Vanguard source said last night that the leadership
of Boko Haram was upset by most of the claims
made by the negotiator and was set to make a
categorical position on all the issues raised by
Davis in the media.
“Nigerians will soon hear from the sect leadership
concerning all the issues raised by the negotiator,
who, in any case was not hired by the Federal
Government to dialogue with the group.
“In fact, what the man has said has really infuriated
the sect leadership and they are unhappy with him,”
the Nigerian negotiator said.
“As far as the sect leadership is concerned, Davis
is being used by some politicians to score some
points and they are ready to clear the air on the
issues.