'Casus Fortuitus' Leaves Ghana's Coaching Contract in a Limbo

Sometime this week, the soccer website Goal.Com reported that the Ministry of Interior of Serbia, the body vested with the right authority over usage of travelling documents in that country has seized the passport of Ghana's Coach Goran Stevanovic for reasons which are still unclear. The coach of Ghana's Black Stars, Goran Stevanovic hails from Serbia. The Serbian affectionately called PLAVI was expected to return to Ghana on Tuesday March 13, 2012 to face an emergency committee of the Ghana Football Association, the body that oversees the running of the game in Ghana, over his future after a short stay in his homeland. The Serbian led Ghana to a fourth-placed finish at last 28th Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in January and February 2012, but local fans are unhappy with that result and have called for his head.The truth is that Plavi himself promised to resign if he did not win the trophy which Ghana last won 30 years earlier. There is speculation that the coach has been sacked by the Football Association (FA) and that Tuesday’s meeting was expected to officially inform him of the FA’s decision. However, it might appear as if the decision is not final because sources hint that 'although majority of the Ghana FA members are opposed to his stay, the FA president, Kwesi Nyantakyi backs him' for whichever reasons.

While details of the circumstances leading to this action by the Serbian Interior Ministry are sketchy, Goal.com offered a possible explanation for this crisis. According to the web report, there are 'strong signals picked   indicating that the seizure of the 45-year-old’s passport was as a result of a brewing diplomatic row between Ghana and Serbia. The two nations are at loggerheads leading to the closure of the diplomatic missions of both countries because of Ghana's decision to recognise Kosovo as a partial independent state, a stance Serbia frowns upon. Although experts in international diplomacy contend the strained relationship between both countries have not gotten to a level to restrict individual travels, others are of the view that the row could be a factor. In fact when Ghana's External Affairs Minister, Mohammed Mumuni announced the strained relationship to Ghanaian Parliamentarians, the Minority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah raised this question. At the time, Mr. Mumuni downplayed the issue as unrelated when he described the contract as between two private parties. This might after all not turn out to hold, the Serbians are very smart, they are hitting Ghana where it hurts most without directly being seen to be interfering in a private contract between two private bodies from the two nations. The policy of dze wo fie asem as espoused by President JEA Mills is unraveling and when two elephants fight, it is in this case, soccer loving fans of Ghana who lose. And this brings us to a very important clause that is inserted in almost all written modern contracts; Force majeure. I have no doubt though writing here as a JHS graduate, that the contract in question has this casus fortuitus (Latin) clause. 

Force Majeure literally means "greater force". These clauses excuse a party from liability if some unforseen event beyond the control of that party prevents it from performing its obligations under the contract. Typically, force majeure clauses cover natural disasters or other "Acts of God", war, or the failure of third parties--such as suppliers and subcontractors--to perform their obligations to the contracting party. It is important to remember that force majeure clauses are intended to excuse a party only if the failure to perform could not be avoided by the exercise of due care by that party.While I am not privy to the details of examples given as constituting force majeure under the contract in question, it is very likely to include war. Assuming this is the case, then clearly, diplomatic row appropriately qualifies or satisfies this condition. If this is the case, then it is clear that Plavi's absence in Ghana presently cannot be interpreted as 'usual absence of leave without permission' intended to excuse his failure to perform. The reason assigned in this instance is not within the coach's control. 

So what options are there for the parties to seek remedies bearing in mind that the Black Stars of Ghana will be expected to play competitive matches soon? Apparently from the ongoing, the Ghana FA must exercise a great deal of caution in managing the situation as its ramifications can be very damaging. The Ghana FA should be careful in dealing with this issue and the coach.The Ghana FA has to remember that it still has a valid running contract with Coach Goran Stevanovic. He requires a valid passport issued by his country to enable him to travel to Ghana to continue with his contract and if his country is refusing to issue or in this case withdraw his passport, then the Ghana FA cannot sack him for not coming to work. And if the Ghana FA is not cautious, he could sue for breach of contract to claim loss of income and penalty. It could be a trap and another gargantuan judgement debt payment might be in the wait. The parties, especially Ghana FA has several options at their disposal. One such choice will be to offer Goran Stevanovic an extended Force Majeure Leave. This arises where crisis affecting an employee make the immediate presence of the employee indispensable owing to an injury or illness (usually of a close family member). In this case, an amicable solution can be reached in due course to the satisfaction of both parties. Alternatively, both parties or either of them can ask FIFA to intervene. Football or soccer as one of the most popular sports in the world is and still must foster peace between nations and persons.

The Number One Mistake Interviewees Make Nowadays

I'm the Managing Editor of Business Insider, which means I'm responsible for all of the editorial hiring here.
So I'm constantly meeting people of all different levels, from interns to senior editors.
Lately, the majority of people I interview have one thing in common.
They're all messing up on something that I think is very important when trying to get a job: the Thank You Email.
Whether we spent thirty minutes meeting in the offices; we Skyped because you're abroad for your Junior spring semester; or we did a quick first-round phone interview, too many people are forgetting to follow up later that day or the next day with a quick email.
It doesn't have to be anything too involved. Truthfully, the shorter the better.

The Thank You Email should say a few simple things:
-Thank you for meeting (or talking) with me.
-I really want this job.
-Quick plug about why I'm perfect for it.

If I DON'T get a Thank You Email, here's what happens:
-I assume you don't want the job
-I think you're disorganized and forgot about following up
-There is a much higher shot I'll forget about you

Credit: Jessica Liebman (original title: "The Number One Mistake People I Interview Are Making These Days")

Ghana’s Cedi Heads for Longest Losing Streak in Three Months

Ghana's cedi headed for its longest losing streak against the dollar in more than three months as manufacturers and telecommunications companies bought dollars on Monday March 5, 2012.

The currency of the world’s second-biggest cocoa producer depreciated 0.1 percent to 1.7088 per dollar as of 1:37 p.m. in Accra, the capital, a fourth day of declines, the worst run since Nov. 29, 2011 according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“Manufacturing and telecommunications companies sought the dollar today to import raw material and equipment,” Kobla Nyaletey, a currency trader at the Ghanaian unit of Barclays Bank Plc, said by phone today. “There were no major sellers on the market today.”

Hijab ban may end Aussie footballer's international dreams

Assmaah Helal has broken barriers to reach football’s elite, but a controversial FIFA ban on Muslim women playing in the hijab means she may never realise her dream of wearing the Australian jersey.
Helal, 25, was introduced to football by her Egyptian-born father when she was just five, and she was determined not to let gender keep her from joining her three brothers on the pitch.
It was no easy task. Members of her Muslim community in western Sydney frowned on the idea of girls playing sport at all, much less a rough and tumble game which was, at that time, still very much a male domain.
“I used to just get told I was a tomboy. In my culture, to play with the guys and to mix with guys was seen as not appropriate,” Helal told AFP.
Helal now plays in the Super League, one step below the nation’s premier W-League for women, and says representing Australia in national side the Matildas would be her ultimate dream.

Elite footballer Assmaah Helal is a fanatic for football, but a controversial FIFA ban on Muslim women playing in the hijab means she may never realise her dream of wearing the Australian jersey. -Story & Photo by AFP

But devout Muslim beliefs which see her don the hijab to play every weekend mean — for now — such a dream is out of reach.
FIFA banned players from wearing the Islamic headscarf in 2007, claiming it is unsafe, but Helal has never once experienced or heard of a hijab-related injury and has joined growing calls for the ban to be overturned.
“I strongly believe that the ban is just outright discrimination,” she said of the headscarf, which she described as “a part of a Muslim woman’s identity which cannot be changed”.
“At an international and an elite level, sports like taekwondo and rugby allow the headscarf to be worn during the competitive matches, and for the world game, for the universal language that is football, to ban the headscarf… it doesn’t make sense.”
The Asian Football Confederation is leading the charge for the sport’s lawmaking body, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), to lift the ban when it meets this Saturday, March 3.
It has become a pressing issue in the region, with Iran’s national women’s team forced to withdraw from the West Asia Olympic qualifiers last year and three players dropping out of the Jordanian side due to the ban.
AFC vice-president Moya Dodd said the safety concerns had been “fully addressed” by new designs with a velcro front-seam to prevent strangulation and it was a baseless reason to exclude “hundreds of millions” of Muslim women.
“Football, it’s the fastest-growing sport in Asia, and it’s important that people can play also knowing that they can compete at the top level,” Dodd said.
“Sport is the field of dreams. If you take away the dream of playing in an Olympics or playing in a World Cup then it will have an effect all the way down the line.”
Melissa Barbieri, captain of the Matildas and one of Australia’s best-known female footballers, said she had seen great Muslim players “and it scares me to think they won’t be able to play for Australia one day because of religion”.
“We already have so many obstacles in the way of getting equal opportunity in the football world, mostly due to stereotypes and lack of knowledge,” she said, urging FIFA to see the footballers behind the hijab.
“If you just see some of these girls’ skills you would feel obliged to overturn the ban. It would send a thorough ‘Football is the World Game’ message,” added Barbieri.
Sydney sisters Hiba and Hala Ayache, 24 and 26, have been campaigning for nine years to win acceptance of their all-female “Lakembaroos” football club in the local Muslim community and they see the ban as a slap in the face.
“You’re taking it all away, all our hard work,” said Hiba, who has played at state representative level and, like Helal, has international dreams.
“We all have the potential, we have the skills to play further. So it’s not only the boundaries of our family and the community, it also becomes international now. It’s a bit of a burden on us.”
Dodd said only that she’s “hopeful” of having a fair hearing over the ban at the meeting of IFAB, which comprises four members from FIFA and four from British associations.
“I’d like to see a way enabling women with particular cultural beliefs to participate, rather than see it as ground for exclusion,” she said.
“The field should be a field of cultural exchange rather than conflict.”

From Shadow Veep, Gargantuan Crimes to Citizen Vigilante: Amidu explodes again

You can force a horse to the stream but you cannot force a horse to drink. The proverb's application in real life situations is immense, complex and gargantuan. The background to this proverb evidently is that horses are so used to drinking from their troughs that they will refuse to drink from a stream or lake and die before trusting the source.That implies reasonable and normal thinking persons will always be able to make the right and meaningful judgement when the situation calls for by relying on both their knowledge and experience. That is, you can lead a horse (or a person) to the water (circumstance) but you may not be able to determine beforehand exactly its reaction or response to the stimuli and that saying has two meanings. One, the primary use, is directed at "stupid people" who won't take common sense advise, and second, if water (situation) is fowled, a horse (a person) would know it and would not drink it (fall into the trap unless the person is already morally corrupt).  The appropriateness of the quoted saying to my issue at stake is the thought that 'you can give person information, but you can't make them THINK'.

President John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills might have succeeded in forcing his Attorney General and Minister of Justice Martin A. K. Amidu out but if he thought he could cowed himself into submission or to fall in line with the widely perceived NDC government's attempt to cover up the Alfred Agbesi Woyome Cash dole-out scandal, he should be revising his notes by now. Yes it is said he forced himself to be pushed out of NDC cabinet and now he is a free a man without portfolio. Indeed if the President thought he was by that singular act he could silence his former running mate, the President needs to rethink his position. In early 2001, he caused a storm on the political scene in Ghana when he issued a letter in which he described himself as the Shadow Vice President of Ghana. Again in January 2012, he issued another statement in which he claimed that a colleague cabinet minister was orchestrating hatred against in an attempt to conceal Gargantuan Crimes against the people of Ghana. This gargantuan crimes claim cost him his position in government as Minister of Justice and Attorney-General as president Mills axed him from his cabinet for what he termed as misconduct. Then on March 1, 2012, he came again with another phrase; Citizen Vigilante in a gargantuan press release as a concerned tax payer and citizen.. By this token, I have the singular honour and privilege to confer on Mr. Martin Amidu as the official repository of Brufuyeduru. 

Below is an unedited full version of the Citizen Vigilante statement from Mr. Martin Amidu:

On 16th January 2012 I led the most senior lawyers of the Civil Division of the Attorney-General’s Office, of which I was then the Attorney-General, to the High Court (Commercial Division) Accra to seek an adjournment to enable me argue an application for leave to amend by substituting an amended Writ and Statement of Claim for the Attorney-General’s amended Statement of Claim. The High Court today granted the pursuant leave to amend the amended Writ and Statement of Claim and fixed 26th March 2012 for continuation. I have, however, been very disappointed by the level of legal representation of the Republic in Court.

In preparing the application for the amendment by substitution which was just granted, I had discussed issues of strategy with the Solicitor-General, two Chief State Attorneys, and the Senior State Attorney who had been handling this case with Mr. Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh, the Chief State Attorney responsible for the case. We were to apply to join two foreign registered companies who were the principals of Alfred Agbesi Woyome who themselves had no subsisting and enforceable contract with the Government of Ghana under the Constitution and laws of Ghana. Time is of the essence now otherwise the Republic would be perceived as unnecessarily delaying the case.

It is very important for the Republic of Ghana that these foreign parties are joined to the action now so that the Constitutional and contractual basis of the whole transaction with Alfred Agbesi Woyome and his alleged principals would be settled once and for all. How could Alfred Agbesi Woyome, for instance, as an agent be paid money pursuant to a transaction with his principals who are foreign companies without Parliamentary approval as required under Article 181(5) of the Constitution? Indeed, the Alfred Agbesi Woyome and Austro Invest are fighting over the share of the GH¢51 million in another High Court. I had directed the Civil Division to join in contesting that action by raising Article 181(5) of the Constitution before I was relieved of my position. I do not know whether this has been done. The Republic could retrieve half of the GH¢51 million for the Republic from success in that suit alone.

What the public does not know is that in November 2011 the Solicitor-General, Mrs. Amma Gaisie, supported two memoranda written by the Senior State Attorney, Cecil Adadevoh, and the Chief State Attorney, Mr. Samuel Nerquaye-Tetteh, to me as Attorney-General to authorize the withdrawal of the pending case by the Republic in the Commercial High Court against Alfred Agbesi Woyome to enable the Republic pay a further over GH¢9 million to Alfred Agbesi Woyome in final settlement of interests in the case. I refused and ordered them to continue with the case in court. The Solicitor-General and the Chief State Attorney, Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh, continued to pursue me by memo to settle the interest as late as December 2011 but I refused.

The Daily Post newspaper and the other NDC newspapers condemned me for refusing to withdraw the case and pay the over GH¢9 million additional interests. See the Daily Post publication of 6th January 2012 calling for my removal from office. In the same publication it published the memorandum of the Senior State Attorney and the Solicitor-General urging me to withdraw the action for settlement of the interest only. Mr. Nerquaye-Tetteh’s memoranda urging me to withdraw the case for settlement was the only ones not leaked to the Daily Post and its allies in the NDC press.

But the Republic of Ghana has an excellent case to have a declaration of nullity against the Writ and processes filed by Alfred Agbesi Woyome against the Republic of Ghana beginning 19th April 2010. The quality and commitment of legal representation for the Republic is very important for the success of the Republic in retrieving this gargantuan money in the face of the continued strong support from a politically immature and ignorant section of interest groups for the Government to overlook the loot. Now is the time for every patriot to stand up and defend probity and accountability by being vigilant. Remember that some of our compatriots died at the firing squad accused of just using their positions to take meager bank loans. GH¢51 million paid without any basis in contract or other legal right should engage the attention of every patriotic citizen to ensure a proper conduct of the case and a refund of the money to the Republic. I believe the Republic of Ghana has an excellent case for a refund! If you share my belief, then, join me as a citizen vigilante in this case.

PS: 
 The Senior State Attorney, Cecil Adadevoh, whom Mr. Martin Amidu mentioned in his latest citizen vigilante statement above is leading the Government legal team prosecuting the case against Alfred Agbesi Woyome. Indeed you can deceive some of the people all of the times, you can deceive all  of the people some of the times but you CANNOT  deceive all of the people all of the time.

JAK reposes confidence in Ghanaian health system and praises personnel's professionalism

Former President of Ghana, John Agyekum Kufuor has underscored his full confidence in the ability of the Ghanaian health system to handle complex procedures to bring relief to the populace. He was full of praise for the professionalism and care exhibited by a team of the doctors, nurses and paramedical staff who coordinated with his personal medical officer, Dr Ama Boohene-Andah, under the guidance of consultants, Dr Albert Akpalu and Dr J.E Mensah to perform a successful spinal surgery at the the nation's premier health centre, Korle Bu.

Expressing his appreciation to the team, former President Kufuor said: “Ghana should be proud to have such a competent store of talent who show concern and dedication comparable to anywhere else in the world. Society should acknowledge and make full use of this great human resource.” 

This was contained in a statement released by the spokesperson of the former President,  Frank Agyekum. It disclosed that Mr Kufuor last week underwent a successful spinal surgery at the Cardiothoracic Unit of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

The two-hour long operation was carried out by a team of doctors led by Dr Oheneba Boachie-Adjei, the internationally acclaimed spinal surgeon and his team from The Foundation of Orthopaedics and Complex Spine Clinic in Accra.

Other core members of the surgical team were Dr Harry Akoto, neurosurgeon, Dr Lawrence Sereboe, director of the Cardiothoracic Unit with their teams of nurses and paramedics from the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

The team of anaesthetists comprised Dr Eugenia Lamptey, Head, Department of Anaesthesia at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr Irene Wulff, Dr Kotei, and Dr Ofosu-Appiah, all of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

Former President Kufuor is currently recuperating at the privately owned FOCOS Clinic in Accra.

Mills’ Critics Have Rotten Teeth - Koku Anyidoho

The Presidential Spokesperson, Koku Anyidoho, yesterday mocked those who were criticising President Atta Mills for finding out the cost of Kenkey at the Nima market.
He said those “who have made the presidential inquisition of kenkey price their chewing stick should go ahead with it because clearly they want to use that to “clean” their discolored and stinking” teeth. Koku Anyidoho made the statement when he commented on the President’s visit to the Nima Maamobi and Mallam Atta markets in Accra on Emak FM, a private radio station in Koforidua yesterday.
When the host of the show, Francis Annoh-Dompreh asked him to clarify what he had said, he sang a song to further buttress his point, saying “chewing sticks are meant to whiten discoloured teeth” therefore the president’s critics could use his visit to the Nima market to clean their “discoloured and bad” teeth. He wondered why the President’s critics could make a mountain out of the visit, adding that the visit confirmed the President’s care for the ordinary Ghanaian. President Mills had been prompted to visit markets following a GNA report that the price of Ga kenkey (local dish) was now one Ghana Cedi (GH₵1.00)  whilst the size had shrunk.
The Regional Youth Organiser of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Frank Annoh-Dompreh, who was a panelist on the show, expressed his disgust at Anyidoho’s comment, saying the comment was a mark of arrogance and disrespect for Ghanaians. “Koku Anyidoho has consistently shown that he does not respect Ghanaians so does the presidency and Ghanaians will show him in December that they cannot be insulted in this manner,” he stated.
On the President’s visit to the Nima Market to inquire about the price of a ball of kenkey, the NPP Regional Youth Organiser said the President should have rather asked for the price of a bag of cement, cost of sending one’s ward to the senior high school, the cost of rented accommodation and cost of travelling from Accra to Kumasi. 

Let us give the Ghanaian some respect and stop insulting their intelligence. Politics should not be reduced to useless propaganda aimed at scoring cheap political points. We are moving forward, backwards never!

Infantile 'Dzi wo fie asem' foreign policy causes bad blood between Ghana-Serbia

When President Mills announced in January 2011 that his personal philosophy known as mind your own business supersedes national interest, many questioned the relevance to Ghana. What he termed 'Dzi wo fie asem' created much furore but his die hard spinning including his Foreign Minister attempted unconvincingly to justify the infantile pronouncement. Since the policy sought to state that Ghana should recoil into her shell instead of taking her leadership role as she has been known since independence, some pundits mistakenly presumed the country was losing out her position on the African continent. 

As they say, coming events cast their shadows. The infantile 'mind your own business' policy was a mere charade for his clandestine support for the beleaguered Laurent Gbagbo failed big time. The cost of that diplomatic blunder is the skirmish Ghana is facing regarding her crude oil rich maritime boundary with Ivory Coast. 

This blunder has already resulted in the redrawing and claiming of portions of Ghana's Jubilee Oil Field is forcing potential exploration works to be held back.

Regrettably, it appears the President has learned no lessons from the uproar that silly decision and pronouncement caused the people of Ghana. Just even before that issue could be sorted out properly, President Mills has again committed another unpardonable diplomatic gaffe by recognising tiny break-away Kosovo for only God knows whatever reason. Sounding weird rather than rational, the Foreign Minister told Parliament in a statement he read that 'the long standing cordial relations between Ghana and Serbia, which dates back to the days of the former Yugoslavia can now be based more on political considerations, rather than on mutually beneficial economic interests.”  Following the decision of the Ghana Government to recognise Kosovo, the Serbian authorities have asked Ghana's Ambassador in Belgrade to return home and consult with the Ghana Government to reverse the recognition,” the Minister said. 

Serbia has booted Samuel Valis-Akyianu, Ghana's Ambassador to Serbia, out of the country after a major diplomatic row.

Dismissed Ambassador Samuel Valis-Akyianu heading for Ghana

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, told Parliament on Wednesday the hitherto “cordial relations” between the two countries suffered serious bruises after Ghana recognised break-away Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia as an independent state.
Following the row, angry Serbian authorities sent Ambassador Valis-Akyianu packing in an attempt to mount pressure on Accra to reverse its decision to recognise neighbouring Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, a decade after a bloody separatist war with Serbian forces that claimed 10,000 lives.
Beyond announcing the order to close Ghana's mission in Belgrade, the Minister did not say if Valis-Akyianu is to be reassigned.

He added: “Moreover, the Serbian Government has requested its Honorary Consulate in Accra to be closed down.”
“The reaction of the Serbian Government to Ghana's recognition of Kosovo leaves us with no better choice than to order the complete closure of our mission in Belgrade,” Alhaji Mumuni said.

The Foreign Affairs Minister further has announced Cabinet has approved the opening of two new missions to enhance diplomatic and economic relations between Ghana, Turkey and China.
Didn't the Foreign Minister just stated that "Ghana's diplomatic relations can now be based more on political considerations, rather than on mutually beneficial economic interests.” Do Alhaji Mumuni and his president think Ghana is a circus for them to try infantile theories? Are they aware of the African Union (AU) injunction on member nations not to recognise Kosovo? Have they read Dr. Vlamdir Antwi-Danso's article adducing valid reasons why Ghana must never recognise Kosovo? If indeed Atta Mills is living up to his so-called personal philosophy of Dzi wo fie Asem, how come European Union interests are superseding both Ghana's and AU's interests? Isn't it paradoxical that an avowed Nkrumaist is throwing away Nkrumah-Tito legacy on the altar of gaining cheap and short-sighted favour with the EU.

'Dead' woman climbs out of coffin

A 95-year-old grandmother terrified her neighbours in China - by climbing out of her coffin six days after she 'died'.
Li Xiufeng was found motionless and not breathing in bed by her neighbour more than a fortnight after tripping and suffering a head injury.
When he failed to wake her up, Chen Qingwang assumed the frail grandmother had passed away in her sleep, in the village of Liulou, in Beiliu, Guangxi Province.
Recounting his daily visit to bring the elderly lady breakfast, Mr Qingwang, 60, said: ""She didn't get up, so I came up to wake her up.
"No matter how hard I pushed her and called her name, she had no reactions. I felt something was wrong, so I tried her breath, and she has gone, but her body is still not cold."
According to tradition, the 'dead' woman was laid in her coffin ahead of the funeral for friends and relatives to pay their respects.
But the day before the funeral, Mr Qingwang arrived at his neighbour's house to find the coffin empty and the corpse gone.
"We were so terrified, and immediately asked the neighbours to come for help," he said.
After searching for the missing body, the villagers were stunned to find Mrs Xiufeng sitting on a stool in her kitchen cooking.
She reportedly told villagers: "I slept for a long time. After waking up, I felt so hungry, and wanted to cook something to eat. I pushed the lid for a long time to climb out."
A county hospital reportedly believes Mrs Xiufeng suffered an artificial death, during which the person has no breath, but the body remains warm. 

Orange.com

The Leap Project

All dates of the year are important but some are special to us for some reasons best known to each person in question. It could be some anniversary of an event, it might be due to the fact that it reminds us of an episode in our lives. Whatever, however, whenever this special date stands, they may be limited to specific geographic region or time. There is only one date that the whole world recognizes and accepts universally as special. February 29th is a date we hold to this level of specialty.

I checked the dictionary for the meaning of special and this is what I found contextually appropriate: "distinguished by some unusual quality; especially : being in some way superior." That implies that February 29 is somehow unusual relative to other dates. So the question is what is so unusual about 29th February? Well, it is special because it the only date on calendar culminates in a whole day on quarterly basis for four different years. That is to say, every year, 6 hours is put aside and added together on the following 4th year as one day. Consequently, there are as many as 89 poems composed to mark this special occurrence. Just take a look at three of them below:

Version 89

30 days hath September
April, June, and November
Excepting February
When comes the time
Every Leap Year gives it twenty-nine

Version 51

30 days hath September,
April, June, and November,
All the rest have 31,
Excepting February which alone,
has 28, and 1 day more,
in which we add in "the year of four"...

Version 17
  Thirty days have September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except February the only one
Which Leap Years change
each fourth time
From twenty-eight to twenty-nine.
Century 100s don’t always leap,
each 400 years that leap we keep.

The question has been asked and asked over, what happens to anniversaries that fall on February 29? You celebrate fewer anniversaries than everyone else and that makes you special and lol allows you to prepare for it in a gargantuan way. By the way, is there a national day of any nation that is February 29? To the best of my knowledge none, you can help me if you know of one and let us share how that country marks its birth. In idealization, this will be good for difficulty and recalcitrant spouses. As for individuals with 29th February birthday, hey they are plenty but they always lose out in group goodies. It is this aspect of the unusual thing that set them apart from all of us. For this, hey 29th February borns, please feel special and always celebrate it in a mega way but never forgive loved ones who skip or forget your special day because it comes just once every four years, what a leap birthday celebration!

February 29 also represents a period of earnest and intense competition. It is the only year in which all of our time expect Bolt to break. Oh my God what am I talking about? Yes we expect Bolt to break, period! In an Olympic year, all eyes are fixed on the top sprinter in the 100 metres dash. This year, 2012, one does not need a crystal ball to predict who that character will be barring all unforeseen eventualities. The Reggae country boy, Usain Bolt. As a period of competition, each of us must endeavour to keep our eyes on the main object lessons of our resolution to ensure that we stay on course and stay in competition. Without competition or better still, inability to survive competition means extinction. The survival of the fittest which is called natural selection. 

A issue we have overlooked is the extra productivity this special date adds to organisation. If you are on salary, it implies extra 8-hours of work every four years free of charge. Since all the resources consumed in the course of production come from and exert pressure on the earth and contribute to global warming, won't it be a good idea to set in motion a new a voluntary mobilisation process to deal with climate change? After all, it is said to whom much is given much is expected. I propose that we impose a US$1.00 each on every business owner on February 29th to fund climate change activities. We need to save our planet in an innovative way.  Let us leap on February 29th to preserve our own. Join the Leap Project.

10 things about the leap year

The "leap day" of 29 February exists for purely astronomical reasons, but has always prompted less scientific curiosities.

Here are 10 things to consider - for one day only. Until 2016, that is.

1. The leap year's extra day is necessary because of the "messiness" of our Solar System. One Earth year (a complete orbit around the Sun) does not take an exact number of whole days (one complete spin of the Earth on its axis). In fact, it takes 365.2422 days, give or take.

2. Until Julius Caesar came to power, people observed a 355-day calendar - with an extra 22-day month every two years. But it was a convoluted solution to the problem and feast days began sliding into different seasons. So Caesar ordered his astronomer, Sosigenes, to simplify things. Sosigenes opted for the 365-day year with an extra day every four years to scoop up the extra hours. This is how the 29 February was born. It was then fine-tuned by Pope Gregory XIII (see below).

3. Every fourth year is a leap year, as a rule of thumb. But that's not the end of the story. A year that is divisible by 100, but not by 400, is not. So 2000 was a leap year, as was 1600. But 1700, 1800 and 1900 are not leap years. "It seems a bit arbitrary," says Ian Stewart, emeritus professor of mathematics at Warwick University. But there's a good reason behind it.

"The year is 365 days and a quarter long - but not exactly. If it was exactly, then you could say it was every four years. But it is very slightly less." The answer arrived at by Pope Gregory XIII and his astronomers when they introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582, was to lose three leap days every 400 years. The maths has hung together ever since. It will need to be rethought in about 10,000 years' time, Stewart warns. But by then mankind might have come up with a new system

4. Why is February 29, not February 31, a leap year day? All the other months have 30 or 31 days, but February suffered from the ego of Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus, says Stewart. Under Julius Caesar, February had 30 days, but when Caesar Augustus was emperor he was peeved that his month - August - had only 29 days, whereas the month named after his predecessor Julius - July - had 31. "He pinched a couple of days for August to make it the same as July. And it was poor old February that lost out," says Prof Stewart.

5. The tradition of a woman proposing on a leap year has been attributed to various historical figures. One, although much disputed, was St Bridget in the 5th Century. She is said to have complained to St Patrick that women had to wait too long for their suitors to propose. St Patrick then supposedly gave women a single day in a leap year to pop the question - the last day of the shortest month. Another popular story is that Queen Margaret of Scotland brought in a law setting fines for men who turned down marriage proposals put by women on a leap year. Sceptics have pointed out that Margaret was five years old at the time and living far away in Norway. The tradition is not thought to have become commonplace until the 19th Century.

It is believed that the right of every woman to propose on this day goes back to the times when the leap year day was not recognised by English law. It was believed that if the day had no legal status, it was acceptable to break with tradition.

6. A prayer has been written by a female cleric for people planning a leap year day marriage proposal. The prayer, for 29 February, asks for blessings on the engaged couple. It reminds them that wedding plans should not overtake preparations for a lifetime together. The prayer has been taken from Pocket Prayers of Blessing by the Venerable Jan McFarlane, Archdeacon of Norwich:

"God of love, please bless N and N as they prepare for the commitment of marriage. May the plans for the wedding not overtake the more important preparation for their lifetime together. Please bless their family and friends as they prepare for this special day and may your blessing be upon them now and always. Amen."

7. The practice of women proposing in a leap year is different around the world. In Denmark, it is not supposed to be 29 but 24 February, which hails back to the time of Julius Caesar. A refusal to marry by Danish men means they must give the woman 12 pairs of gloves. In Finland, it is not gloves but fabric for a skirt and in Greece, marriage in a leap year is considered unlucky, leading many couples to avoid it.

8. The chance of being born on a leap day is often said to be one in 1,461. Four years is 1,460 days and adding one for the leap year you have 1,461. So, odds of 1/1,461.

But Stewart points out that is very slightly out, owing to the loss of the three leap years every 400 years. In any case, babies are more likely to be born at certain times of the year rather than others, due to a range of other factors, he says. Babies born on 29 February are known as "leapers" or "leaplings".

9. Other calendars apart from the Gregorian require leap years. The modern Iranian calendar is a solar calendar with eight leap days inserted into a 33-year cycle. The Indian National Calendar and the Revised Bangla Calendar of Bangladesh arrange their leap years so that the leap day is always close to 29 February in the Gregorian calendar.

10. Explorer Christopher Columbus used the lunar eclipse of 29 February 1504 to his advantage during his final trip to the West Indies. After several months of being stranded with his crew on the island of Jamaica, relations with the indigenous population broke down and they refused to continue helping with food and provisions. Columbus, knowing a lunar eclipse was due, consulted his almanac and then gathered the native chiefs on 29 February. He told that God was to punish them by painting the Moon red. During the eclipse, he said that God would withdraw the punishment if they starting co-operating again. The panicked chiefs agreed and the Moon began emerging from its shadow.

Also of a supernatural nature, on 29 February 1692 the first warrants were issued in the Salem witchcraft trials in Massachusetts.

No Osama bin Laden shrine

If you thought only his life was controversial, you have got to assess your opinion again. Even in death, everything about Osama bin Laden is sensitive. First, on the announcement of his assassination, Uncle Sam also told the world that his body had been buried at an undisclosed location in the sea to prevent his body from becoming the focus of shrine worshipping by his supporters. 'Laden’s body was then disposed at sea to prevent a fixed shrine for his followers', according to the US government statement. The al-Qaeda leader was killed by US Navy Seals in a midnight operation, shot twice in the head.

Onlookers watch as diggers tear down the three storey bin Laden compound (Credit: Yahoo! News).

On Feebruary 27, 2012, the Abbottabad  compound where Osama bin Laden spent the last days of his life was also demolished by Pakistan authorities, nine months after the al-Qaeda leader was killed in a US Navy operation.
The fortified building, said to be the home of bin Laden since 2005, was razed to the ground by heavy machinery. The Pakistani government will hope it brings down a curtain on a hugely damaging episode for the country after bin Laden was found just a mile from the Pakistani Military Academy in May 2011. The high walls of the compound aroused the suspicions of US military intelligence, as did the lack of phone or internet connection.
No official reason for the demolition was given. The destruction of the structure comes a month after a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad- close to the bin Laden compound. 

Maybe with this latest action, the curtain is finally drawn down on the Osama bin Laden episode and people can move on with their lives. The lesson though is never again! Wait a minute, did you not hear of the acts of Boko Haram in Nigeria?

Could Rising Temperatures Mean Smaller Mammals?

Scientists say in the ancient past, higher temperatures meant smaller mammals. They’re studying how a brief, but dramatic climate change event affected body size.
It’s called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM for short. It took place 56 million years ago and lasted about 175,000 years. That’s a long time in human terms, but a blink of an eye in the geological record. “We had known it was a really unique event for a while in the sense that it was a very rapid, large scale global warming event. And it marks one of the most important moments in mammalian evolution in the sense that we see the first occurrence of several modern orders of mammals, including the primates that are clearly traceable as the direct ancestors of the group that we’re a part of, as well as the ancestors of horses, the ancestors of cows and hippos and camels,” he said.
Bloch is associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida. He and colleagues from eight institutions were collecting fossils in the state of Wyoming’s Bighorn Basin.
Tiny horses
“For the past 9 years, we’ve been slowly, slowly collecting teeth, and sometimes more than teeth, fragmentary jaws, of the first horses to come in. And what we started to find was something pretty surprising to us. We had known that the horses that came in initially with that event 56 million years ago were very small, about the size of a small dog. But what we didn’t realize was that in fact when they came in they were a little bit larger than we had expected; and that through the climate event they became about 30 percent smaller and then became larger again,” he said.
Then, Bloch said, fellow researcher Ross Secord, now at the University of Nebraska, took a closer look at what are called oxygen isotopes. These were found in the teeth of the horses. The relationship between oxygen and carbon in these isotopes can provide much information.
“What he showed was that exactly coincident with this body size change that we had documented there were shifts in the oxygen isotope that showed it was getting warmer as the horses were getting smaller. And then as the horses became larger again it became cooler,” he said.
They concluded that temperature change resulted in smaller horses.
Climate itself is changing through this interval by as much as 10 degrees [Celsius] at high latitudes and perhaps as low as 5 degrees in lower latitudes. So that’s a large scale event and it starts to put us in the range of the kind of climate shift that is being predicted by climate models today say for the next 100 years.
Looking to the past, not future
But paleontologists, like Bloch, don’t try to predict future climate change. They look to the past to try to understand the present.
“Because the Earth went through substantial climate change in the past – some of it very rapid and large scale – there’s a record in the rocks for exactly how animals and plants responded. And so we can go back as paleontologists and just reap the benefits of those experiments. We document that by collecting fossils and studying them. And then we can report them to the world with regards to how we should think about the reaction of plants and animals to the potential future climate change. With regards to how much we know about future climate change, that’s really a round for climate scientists and climate modelers,” he said.
Now, although the focus was on tiny horses 56 million years ago, the question still arises as to whether rising temperatures will mean smaller people in the future? Bloch says that’s possible. But there are a lot of factors involved. Right now, humans are getting bigger and that’s generally due to better nutrition. Humans could also adapt to rising temperatures by spending more time in air conditioned spaces.
There’s evidence today that temperatures and mammal size are linked.
“What you’re referring to is an observation that’s been coined Bergmann’s rule. And essentially what this rule says is that mammals of smaller size live in warmer environments and mammals of larger size live in cooler environments. And this has been documented in many different species of mammals,” said Bloch.
So maybe the lesson for future humans is to eat well and stay cool.
In the meantime, Bloch and his colleagues will continue to collect fossils in the Bighorn Basin. He says their future discoveries may be of interest to climate scientists.
Their latest findings can be found in the February 24^th issue of Science magazine http://www.sciencemag.org/content/current#ResearchArticles.

Mango Pits, Coconut Shells Could Generate Electricity: Fruit shells and pits contain lots of energy

More than 1.5 billion people don't have access to electricity, according to the United Nations Development Program. That means, among other things, that school children with homework to do are left in the dark. 

But some poor, rural areas that lack electricity may find they can generate it from something many do have plenty of: coconut shells and fruit pits.
'Very little waste' 

University of Kentucky plant scientist Seth DeBolt and colleagues wanted to find a fuel that people in poor, rural areas could use to generate electricity. While on a study trip in rural Indonesia, he was struck by something he saw everywhere he went: 

“The incredible efficiency at which agricultural products are used in Indonesia," DeBolt says. "There’s very little waste.” 

Little waste means little left over that could be used for fuel. Farmers grew mangoes and jackfruit above coffee bushes and livestock fodder. Everything they grew was used for something. Even the scraps of fruit were fed to chickens. So growing a separate fuel crop would take land away from food crops, something DeBolt definitely wanted to avoid. 

“The people at most risk with respect to energy poverty, typically they’re the same people who have food insecurity issues as it is," he says. "And any change in availability would be most detrimental to that group of people.” 

Lots of energy 

But there is one promising item DeBolt found in abundance that would not create competition between food and fuel.
“It’s the shell of a coconut, or the pit of a mango. And these are generally thrown out.” 

Though you can’t eat it and you can’t feed it to livestock, DeBolt says a coconut shell or mango pit has a lot of energy in it.
“It compares roughly to low- to moderate-grade coal in its heating value," he says, "which is excellent.” 

The same is true for the pit of an olive, peach or cherry, or the shell of an almond or walnut. All that is needed is a way to release the energy.
Turning rice hulls into electricity 

DeBolt says a company in India called Husk Power is using small generators in local villages to turn rice hulls into electricity. They use a process called gasification: heating plant matter in a low-oxygen chamber releases gases that can be burned in an engine that spins a power-generating turbine.
DeBolt says his team saw the possibilities for coconut shells and mango pits.
“Hey, well these crops are growing here and these are the areas where there is potential for energy poverty to be alleviated at least in part by these small-scale production systems.” 

In a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DeBolt and his colleagues used some rough calculations of coconut, mango and other fruit production and the efficiency of the gas generators. And they found in a country like Indonesia, for example, these systems could provide as much as 13 percent of the national energy needs.
Sustained energy supply 

“If that’s concentrated on rural, decentralized facilities - not the big cities, which generally have a sustained energy supply - then it may have a more sustained impact on those communities.” Other tropical countries with significant crops of coconuts, mangoes or other similar fruits could benefit, too.
However, DeBolt cautions that it is not a cure-all. There are technical issues, including how to safely handle the hazardous waste by-products of gasification. And startup funds can be hard to come by in the countries that could most benefit.
Still, he sees potential for coconut power to at least help in alleviating rural poverty.

Using Body Heat to Recharge Cellphone, Laptop

Imagine being able to use your own body heat to recharge your phone or tablet. Scientists in North Carolina have recently  developed a felt-like fabric that generates power by scavenging for so-called  waste heat, such as body heat. Right now, many of the electronic devices we use every day, such as cellphones or laptop computers, get their power from batteries. But, as we  also know, even the best batteries eventually run low on power and need to be recharged.

What the Wake Forest  University scientists have done is develop technology that takes your body heat, along with other waste heat, and convert it to electrical energy.

Developed at the university’s Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials, the material is made up of carbon nanotubes, tiny tube-shaped materials  made of carbon, which are held in flexible plastic fibers and made to feel like fabric.

The researchers say the thermoelectric technology behind Power Felt uses differences in temperature, such as room temperature versus body temperature, to create an electrical charge.

Professor David Carroll, director of the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials, says that thermoelectric technology, until now, has been tied to expensive hard ceramic material which is difficult to produce.

While the Power Felt technology might not be as high performing in producing thermoelectric power as its more expensive counterpart, Carroll points out the cost of producing the Power Felt material is much cheaper. Consequently, the total number of dollars per watt of generated power is significantly less in comparison. 

Carroll says that there are many ways that Power Felt can be used at a consumer level.  Just like with a blanket, you could put the material over a variety of battery-powered devices, or wrap it around things like the handle of a flashlight, to get the extra juice needed to run those devices.

Other practical applications could include lining the seats of an automobile with Power Felt to boost the car’s battery power, insulating pipes or collecting heat from under your roof tiles to generate enough power to lower your gas or electric bills.

“Power Felt is best at supplementing the power that you already have,” says Carroll, adding that the greater the temperature differences, the more power the material generates.

Carroll says that the inspiration for Power Felt came from the concept of organic electronics, which he describes as flexible, printable, throw-away electronic devices.

In developing Power Felt, his team was out to create a textile that could literally be integrated into clothing, and then used to generate enough power, for example, to extend the battery of something critical like a pacemaker.

The whole idea for developing Power Felt technology, says  Carroll, is to try to address the electrical needs of mobile electronics.

“While our team was discussing what could we do to do this, it happened that my wife calls me on my cell phone,” Carroll says, “and if you have one of these smartphones, you could watch the power meter go down. The battery doesn’t last very long. And it became really evident that not just medical devices, but all kinds of devices that we carry with us every day, need supplemental power.”

According to Carroll, one way of providing the extra power needed for these devices is to invent a better, more efficient battery, but the costs of doing that could be very prohibitive.

Another way to do this, he suggests, is to generate power onboard the device by integrating thermoelectrical material, like Power Felt, into the construction of the electronic unit, like the plastic covering on a cellphone.

How much power does this Power Felt technology actually provide?

According to the team, 72 stacked layers in the fabric can yield about 140 nanowatts or 140 billionths of one watt of power. The team is continuing its work on the development of Power Felt and is evaluating several ways to add more nanotube layers and make them even thinner in order to boost output power.

Bui Dam Project Maame Water monster caged?

Though it is too weird for the eye to behold, it has really happened in a part of this country.

A river goddess which looks like a mermaid, known in local parlance as ‘Maame Water’, has been trapped and caught alive at the Bui River, where the Bui Hydro Electric Dam is currently under construction.

The strange mammal, which has a human head and very long whitish hair with two crawling fore limbs like the lizard, has a snake lower body.  It is suspected to be over 100m long and wails continuously like a whale with great echo.

Bui Maame Water Monster

DAILY GUIDE has the video footage of the mermaid which was allegedly taken by some residents of Tain and Chinese officials.

The monster, which is said to be the spirit of the river until its capture, was believed to be behind the mysterious destruction of the bridge being built across the dam. It took a team of Chinese spiritualists employed from China to trap it, the reports claim.

The same monster was said to have appeared in Togo and Nigeria, causing alarm among residents.

The Ghanaian workers at the dam are said to have refused to work alone under the dam without the Chinese ever since the weird news of the mermaid popped up.

DAILY GUIDE gathered that the strange mammal was grabbed last Thursday at the Wa end of the Bui River, which is a tributary of the Black Volta, after it managed to drag the snare which trapped it from the Bui Dam site to that far. They traced it from the Bui River and finally caught up with it around the Wa area and caged it.

The Chinese officials allegedly brought it to Nsawkaw, the capital of the Tain District on Friday, for the members of the public to catch a glimpse of it.

 Reports are that the Chinese sent it to the Nsawkaw Hospital for some special injection to ostensibly tame it, but it could not be done because there was no zoologist at the facility to administer the injection.

The reports even claimed the Chinese had sent the monster to Accra.

The news of the river goddess spread like Harmattan fire as it attracted hundreds of residents to the Nsawkaw hospital to catch a glimpse of it.

It however took brave persons to get closer to it due to its strange looks and wild groan.

The bizarre development, which has become the main talk of the area, has been received with mixed reactions, with some entertaining fears that the capture of the river goddess could have some negative repercussions on the people in the district, while others believe that it could not bring any bad omen to the land.

Daniel K. Boateng and Shaggy, both residents of Nsawkaw who went to the scene, told DAILY GUIDE that the mermaid was earlier kept in the open where some brave residents videoed it.

According to them, some of the workers at the dam informed them that the river goddess killed one expatriate a few months ago when he attempted to trap it.

They said the mermaid had been the cause of some mystery deaths among the workers at the dam site because it was supposedly against the energy project.

Meanwhile, officials of the Bui Power Project have rejected the claims, saying that no such strange mammal had been found at the area and there had not been any cracks caused by the said mermaid to the dam as workers were going about their normal duties at the dam.

The PRO, Gabriel Apatu, described the rumours as a fabrication since nothing of that nature had occurred in the river.

He said he had not seen the video containing the said river goddess at the time DAILY GUIDE contacted him.

He however described the video footage as a fabrication and said it was not coming from Bui.

The Tain District Chief Executive, Jones Samuel Tawiah, has also denied the arrest of the said river goddess.

According to him, nothing of that nature had been brought to his attention.

Meanwhile, construction works on the dam is about 90% complete with the first power production expected in October this year.

Babyjet's 48 hours of 'back on and on' Anguish

One cannot help but to empathise with Ghana's prolific and leading striker Asamoah Gyan over his back on and on quit saga which is unfolding. Last Saturday February 18, 2012 I heard the breaking news on one of the radio networks in Ghana that the Babyjet as the striker is affectionately called has temporarily quit international football for the unforeseeable future. His reasons it was reported had to do with public outcry,  criticisms and unending bashing over his penalty miss in 2012 AFCON semi final match against the Chipopolo of Zambia on February 8, 2012 at the Estadio de Bata in Equatorial Guinea. The tourney that featured top notch African national teams was co-hosted in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. On a wet evening and lively night in Bata, Ghana’s first attempt at goal came through a penalty in the 8th minute after Kwadwo Asamoah was brought down in the box. Asamoah Gyan stepped up to take the kick but Chipolopolo goalkeeper, Kennedy Mweene palmed away for a corner. With 12 minutes of play to go and against the run of play, Mayuka of Zambia shrugged off a challenge in front of the Ghana box to curl the ball to the far corner of Ghana Goalkeeper Kwarasey’s left for the opener. The Black Stars failed to get the much needed equalizer and went out of the tournament. It has been three decades (1982) when Ghana last won the title for the 4th time in Libya. As it happened at the world Cup in South Africa 2010 in a game against Uruguay, Gyan missed a crucial penalty that saw the Black Stars of Ghana bowing out of the contest.

Asamoah Gyan back on and on

One would recall that similar threats to quit the Black Stars were issued and nearly carried through by Asamoah and elder brother Baffour Gyan during CAN 2008 in Ghana. That time, it took the intervention of the then President of Ghana JA Kufuor to talk them out. 

It appears tome that though Gyan is a great player, his human side gets the better of him quite often. And that is understandable. Many of us usually think of stars as though they come from some another planet hence should have thick skins and should be able to stomach all manner of insults and insinuations. I couldn't believe it when I heard that just a day following that fateful lost to the Chipolopolo of Zambia, a song was released ridiculing Gyan. It is important that we all respect the privacy of the celebrities. We need to remember that they are not super humans, they are all just like us. 

On the face of it, this back on and on Azonto ensemble should teach all of us some important lessons on how not to cross certain personal lines in life. For now the good news if we are to believe the breaking news is that Asamoah has rescinded his decision to quit the Black Stars only 48 hours after announcement of his decision. We must praise officials of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) for not relenting on their pledge not to let Gyan carry out his threat. This is very important for two reasons. Firstly, there are unconfirmed rumours of bad blood in the Black Stars camp. According to some journalists who were with the team at AFCON 2012, there appears to be a feud between players of the Black Stars over the captaincy badge. Although some GFA spokespersons have strongly denied the charge, if Gyan had left, it would have deepened the perception and actually given some credence to the allegations. The other reason is the fact that Mr. Gyan's resignation would have come in the heels of that of Kelvin Prince Boateng whose reasons for resigning are still not clear. For now it is back on and on Babyjet, Akwaaba and let us all vow to give mutual respect to each other and specially his privacy and understand that he is fallible and gullible as all of us do.

Still single Monica Lewinsky back in the spotlight

If you ever thought scandal can only paralyse super stars and celebrities, it was about time you rethink your perception. Monica Lewinsky, the former White House intern made famous for her sexual encounters with President Bill Clinton, is again in the spotlight thanks to a four-hour PBS documentary, "Clinton," which will air in a pair of segments on the evenings of February 20th and 21st as part of the network's 'American Experience' program. It might be exercising her legal and natural right to knot nuptial ties or not but it could be the repercussion of the sex scandal of nearly decade and half ago. She is yet to pair up is the real news around town.

Monica Lewinsky and Ex President Bill Clinton back then those days at the White House

 

As news of the television special spread last week, Yahoo! searches on "Monica Lewinsky" spiked. Search terms also included "bill and monica," "monica Lewinsky now," and "Monica Lewinsky photos."

As many readers will remember, when word of the scandal began to surface, Clinton denied his involvement with this line: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Later, of course, he  confessed that he did.

The scandal -- involving a blue dress, a cigar, and some very uncomfortable congressional hearings -- led to the president's impeachment and a major media focus on Lewinsky, who was just 23 and a recent college grad at the time.

Where is she now? Fourteen years later, Lewinsky's hardly in hiding. In fact, she's been quite busy: In 2005, she moved to London and received her master's degree in psychology. Later, she re-located to New York, is frequently spotted out on the town, and has her own handbag business, The Real Monica Inc. Word is, she's still single. mmmmm some publicity can bring mixed bag!

Bobby Brown leaves Whitney Houston's funeral after dispute

Deceased music icon Whitney Houston's ex-husband, Bobby Brown says security disrespected his family at the service. Whitney Houston's funeral packed the inside of Newark's New Hope Baptist Church Saturday. But one notable person who was absent from the crowd was her ex-husband Bobby Brown. Bobby Brown briefly appears at Houston funeral. Whitney Houston's funeral packed the inside of Newark's New Hope Baptist Church Saturday. But one notable person who was absent from the crowd was her ex-husband Bobby Brown. A witness was quoted by one news report (Us Weekly) as saying that Brown "was allowed to go in, pay his respects and then he had to leave. He was red-eyed going up to the casket and then left. He was there for 15 minutes."Brown attributed his brief appearance at the funeral to what he described as security disrespect.

Addressing the speculation that he was thrown out, turned away and rumors that he didn't show at all, Brown, who's schedule to perform at a concert Saturday, has released an official statement, explaining the situation in full.

"My children and I were invited to the funeral of my ex-wife Whitney Houston. We were seated by security and then subsequently asked to move on three separate occasions. I fail to understand why security treated my family this way and continue to ask us and no one else to move. Security then prevented me from attempting to see my daughter Bobbi Kristina. In light of the events, I gave a kiss to the casket of my ex-wife  and departed as I refused to create a scene. My children are completely distraught over the events. This was a day to honor Whitney. I doubt Whitney would have wanted this to occur. I will continue to pay my respects to my ex-wife the best way I know how." 

Bobby Brown (Right) at the funeral

Earlier in mid February 2012 following the demise of Whitney during the preceding week, a source hinted that there is still underlying tension between Houston's relatives and Brown, who married Houston in 1992. Their divorce was finalized in 2007. "There are family members who felt Bobby drove Whitney into drugs," one source explained. "But now Bobby is clean and Whitney has unfortunately passed. So there's resentment."

Houston was found underwater and unconscious by a member of her staff in her Beverly Hills hotel room on the eve of Sunday's Grammy Awards (February 12, 2012 at the age of 48). It was the same day she was scheduled to attend a pre-Grammy gala given by her mentor, record producer Clive Davis. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

An autopsy has been performed, but a cause of death is pending completion of an official investigation and toxicology tests, which could take weeks to complete.

The Los Angeles County Coroner has said there were no visible signs of trauma or foul play. Prescription drugs were found in her room, but officials have not specified the type or amount found in her room.

Beverly Hills Police have said "we are not conducting a homicide investigation."

Dog bites anchor in the face on live TV

It was supposed to be one of those feel-good segments on a local television newscast: A rescued dog. A grateful owner. The hero firefighter who pulled the pulled the dog from the ice. But that's not how it turned out.

The dog, an Argentine mastiff named Gladiator Maximus, attacked Kyle Dyer, anchorwoman at NBC's KUSA Denver affiliate, during a live, in-studio segment on Wednesday that was meant to celebrate the dog's rescue from an icy lake the day before.

Dyer was shown petting the mastiff during the segment, then kneeling on the floor to get closer, when the 85-pound pooch bit her in the face. Paramedics and animal control were called to the studio. Dyer was rushed to a Denver hospital where she had reconstructive surgery overnight. The 3-year-old dog was taken to a Denver animal shelter where it is being "quarantined."

Video of the attack, as you might imagine, has gone viral, but KUSA has been issuing take-down notices, trying to get the clip off the Internet. (The "Today" show won't even show it.)

Patti Dennis, KUSA vice president of news, said Dyer's surgery was successful, and that Dyer is expected back to work in a few weeks. "The surgeon was pleased with the outcome," Dennis said. "Kyle says she wants everyone to know she is OK and is concerned about the viewers who were watching the incident live on TV."

"Several people interacted with the dog [prior to the segment] and everything seemed fine," Dennis said. "Then at the last moment, the dog had behavior that nobody predicted or understood. Clearly we learned something."

Dyer is known for a weekly segment--"Kyle's Kritters"--that showcases animals from the Denver Zoo.

Michael Robinson, Max's owner, has been cited by Denver Animal Control for a "leash-law"" violation ("because the owner did not have control of the dog at all times"), for allowing a dog to bite and for not having the dog properly vaccinated.

Gladiator Maximus that bit NBC's KUSA Denver affiliate anchorwoman,  Kyle Dyer during the circus

But an animal expert told NBC that Dyer was really at fault.

"Basically, she did everything wrong," Ron Berman, a canine behavior specialist, said. "She went up to a dog she didn't know--who didn't know her--and she either tried to kiss him or hug him or put her face too close to his face. He felt threatened and bit her."

Max is expected to be released to Robinson after a 10-day evaluation. Robinson is due in court April 4.

"The dog bite accident that happened today was unfortunate and certainly not expected based on what we knew about the dog and his owner," Dennis said in a separate statement. "Our goal was to unite the owner with the rescuer for a nice segment. We are all thinking of Kyle and her recovery. We love Kyle and what she and her family do for this community. We also love animals and will continue to do all we can to use 9NEWS to improve animal welfare in Colorado."

Dennis said the station is now reviewing its guidelines concerning animals in the studio.

Well, once bitten, twice clever.

Once bitten, twice clever

I wish to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a very happy new Year (as they say it here "boa ano novo"). I wish for you a perfect health and an excellent serenity of mind for restitution and overtaking in 2012.
I am blogging from within the Ana Aeroporto at Porto in the centre of Portugal on my way to Lisbon in an hour's time. Last year by this time, I was air borne and about landing at Casablanca Mohammed IV international Airport. That was after missing my flight on the 28th and having endured 5 days of cold.
As they say, only the fool does not change his mind. This time, I didnot want to suffer the same fate and having learnt my lesson the bitter way, I arrived at the airport by 2pm for a 9:10pm flight. so my reader, you see we need to learn from every misfortune that befalls us. Indeed, once bitten, twice clever. I hope you are smarting out of your bitter experiences and becoming a better and excellent person from each experience. I wish you well and remember that the first fool is not a fool until you repeat same terrible mistake hence I better hurry out of here and get on board for take-off. If I land safely in Lisboa in 50 minutes time, which I definitely hope will be the case, I will thank God and debrief you of my flying experience on TAP Air (this is my first time using this particular airline. I hope I get some good inflight service). I wish for myself Boa viagem e Adeus.