Nigeria's Online Blog

Some 240 women, girls and babies may have been raped after rebels recently seized a town in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations says.

Officials had previously said they had received reports of 150 rapes in and around the town of Luvungi, the British Broadcasting Corporation reports.

The UN mission has been heavily criticised for not doing more to protect the local population as it had peacekeepers based nearby.

But it says it was only told of the rapes after the rebels had left.

The incident prompted an emergency session of the UN Security Council, and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has sent a senior envoy to find out what happened after rebels moved into Luvungi on 30 July, staying for four days.

The council also said peacekeepers in the area should have done more to protect local people from the Congolese Mai Mai and Rwandan FDLR armed groups.

The FDLR has, however, denied that its forces took part in the attack.

The peacekeepers say they were not told about the attacks until 10 days later, even though they have a base 20 miles (30km) away.

They say local people may have been afraid of rebel reprisals or ashamed by the rapes.

The UN mission in DR Congo, known as Monusco - until recently the world‘s largest peacekeeping mission - says it has stepped up patrols in the area ”to reassure the local population”, reports the Agence France Presse.

Some of the women report being abused by several men in front of their husbands and children.

The DR Congo conflict has become notorious for the sexual abuse of women and girls - one UN envoy called it the ”rape capital of the world” earlier this year.

Eastern DR Congo is still plagued by army and militia violence despite the end of the country‘s five-year war in 2003.

UN peacekeeping troops have been backing efforts to defeat the FDLR, whose leaders are linked to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and who are operating in eastern DR Congo.

Dutch authorities have found the body of two babies in the garden of a woman arrested last week for killing another child, the prosecution service said on Thursday.

The corpses of the newborns were found in Geleen, a village at about 200km in the southeast of Amsterdam, Reuters reports.

The prosecution service said the 41-year-old woman was arrested on August 27 following the discovery of the first corpse, adding that two other bodies were found in the garden later.

Meanwhile, Forensics investigators are probing whether the three babies are related as well as how and when they died.

“It is the second case in less than a month of a Dutch mother being suspected of killing multiple babies,” the prosecution service said.

On August 6, police arrested a woman in the village of Nij Beets, about 140km Northeast of Amsterdam, after finding four suitcases in her possession, each with a baby’s body.

Abuja — Peoples Democratic Party presidential aspirant and former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, has foreclosed stepping down for President Goodluck Jonathan, insisting that '2011 belongs to God.'

Babangida, who was at the national secretariat of the party to commiserate with the leadership of the party over the fire incident that razed the conference room of the secretariat, said that he was fully prepared to vie for the parties ticket.

While admitting that he met with President Goodluck Jonathan, the former military president accompanied by members of his campaign committee, explained that, 'of course, we discussed Nigeria'.

His words; "Of course, we discussed Nigeria. But not what you guys have been insinuating. So, whenever you find two heads of state, they talk about this country: how can we improve this country.

"2011 belongs to God and I am fully prepared. The negative comments about me I do appreciate. I will be a fool if I accept that everybody loves me. But there are others who do. That's life."

Asked to comment on his reported meeting with President Jonathan, the presidential aspirant said; " Unknown to most of you, there is a very robust relationship between the family of President Jonathan and the family of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. His wife has been very kind. She asks after my children all the time and I appreciate that.

"I don't run away from my friends and my brothers. The President's wife has taken a lot of interest in my children and I used the opportunity to convey my appreciation to his wife for her concern.

Babangida is scheduled to formally declare for the presidential contest cum flagging off of his campaign on September 15, in Abuja.

Receiving the presidential aspirant, the national chairman of the PDP, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, who led his guests to inspect the fire incident said that the NWC members were elated by the visit, which came on the heels of that of President Jonathan, who was at the secretariat last Sunday.

"We are very happy to receive our very revered leader, former president of Nigeria who is visiting us on a different capacity as one of the front runners in our party for the ticket of the PDP in the forthcoming presidential election and we received him as a member of our party who has come to commiserate with us on the unfortunate fire incident in our secretariat", Nwodo said.

IBB who had arrived the party secretariat at exactly 11.55 AM in a black jeep marked DL 708 ABJ, and dressed in white Agbada had remarked in the Visitors Book thus: 'Courtesy visit to the chairman of PDP to sympathise with him over the fire incident'.

Also, elder statesman and former governor of Plateau State, Chief Solomon Lar led a delegation of politicians from Plateau State to the PDP national headquarters to commiserate with the party leadership.

Lar described the incident as unfortunate and thanked God that no life was lost in the inferno.

Nigeria needs to create about 25 million jobs over the next 10 years if it is to offer work to new entrants and cut halve the current unemployment rate in the country, according to a report presented yesterday.

The Next Generation report, which was put together by the British council, said by 2030 Nigeria will be one of the few countries in the world that has young workers in plentiful supply.

The report also said that Nigeria risks a "demographic disaster" if its teeming youth, which will be the country's most valuable resource in the 21st century, not oil, is the economy is not expanded to create jobs for them.

Presenting the key findings and recommendations of the report, Director General, Nigeria Economic Summit Group, Frank Nweke Jnr, said demographic factors are steadily elevating Nigeria's risk of conflict, adding that if the country fails to respond appropriately over the next 10 years, it could face a demographic disaster.

The report said Nigeria stands ready to collect substantial demographic dividends if it continues with recent positive economic growth and improve health standard.

It said if Nigeria harnesses a growing workforce, the country will be as much three times higher by 2030 and over 30 million people will be lifted out of poverty.

"In the worst case, Nigeria will see growing numbers of restless young people frustrated by lack of opportunity, increased competition for jobs, land, natural resources and political patronage. Cities that are increasingly unable to cope with the pressures placed on them, ethnic and religious conflict and radicalization and political system discredited by its failure to improve lives," the report said.

The report said Nigeria is currently in a poor position to maximize the economic opportunities created by its demographics, adding that shortage of jobs is a serious challenge, with young Nigerians taking many years to become productive contributors to the society.

Nicotine may directly promote the development of breast cancer by binding to a certain cell receptor, says a new study.

Many chemicals in tobacco are believed to be carcinogens but little is known about how nicotine might contribute to cancer cell growth. What is known is that when nicotine binds to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, it promotes smoking addiction.

In this study, Taiwanese researchers analysed 276 breast tumor samples to determine whether subunits of nAChR were overproduced in breast cancer cells compared with surrounding normal cells.

The researchers found that breast cancer cells consistently overproduced the alpha 9 subunit of nAChR and that production of this subunit was higher in advanced-stage breast cancer than in early-stage cancer. They then conducted laboratory tests that showed reducing levels of a9-nAChR inhibited tumor growth, while increasing levels of the subunit or treating more normal breast cells with nicotine led to the development of cancer characteristics.

“These results imply that receptor-mediated carcinogenic signals play a decisive role in biological functions related to human breast cancer development,” concluded Yuan-Soon Ho, of the Taipei Medical University, and colleagues in a news release from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, which published the study online.

It is a long journey from the Niger Delta to the concert halls of the United States, but it is one that Nneka is taking in her stride.

Nneka is a Nigerian singer songwriter who is making her name on the world stage and earlier this year released her debut album and tour in the U.S.

At 28, Nneka is a relative newcomer to music. She has only been singing for around five years, but has wasted no time in winning over both fans and critics.

Last year, she won a prestigious MOBO (Music of Black Origin) Award in the UK for Best African Act.

Her work combines soul, hip hop, reggae and African music, but the lyrics have an unashamedly Nigerian tone, covering -- among her themes -- injustice in the oil-rich Niger Delta

"My music is very versatile, very mixed. I have different influences: afro beats, hip hop, reggae, raga, soul, hip hop, a little bit of rock, and of course the indigenous African or Nigerian influence," she told CNN.

Nneka grew up in the city of Warri in the Niger Delta with a Nigerian father and German mother. She went to university in the German city of Hamburg and it was there that her singing career took off.

She told CNN, "When I went to Germany and being in a place where you have no connection, you are confronted in a totally different culture, tradition, mentality.

"You're here on your own, you need to function and that's where music came in," she continued.

It didn't take long for her voice to make an impression in Germany, and she began touring Europe and releasing albums while still at university.

In an interview with the Sunday Times newspaper last year, Nneka said: "In Nigeria, if you say you're a singer, people say, 'So what? Everyone sings.' In Germany, my voice stood out more."

This year, Nneka is touring the United States for the first time, playing venues such as the Los Angeles Troubadour, a West Hollywood club played by Elton John and James Taylor early in their careers.

She has been chosen by American rapper Nas and Jamaican reggae star Damian Marley to join them on their Distant Relatives tour.

"It's not just a tour about entertainment or music alone but about connecting people around the world and making us understand that we're all part of that one entity, which is love," Nneka told CNN. "And I'm happy that I'm the person they chose to represent Africa, which is a big opportunity."

While Nneka is captivating audiences around the world, it is playing in her native Nigeria which is most rewarding -- but also risky -- for her because of the political content of her lyrics.

She said: "I must say I feel responsible for my people. People who might not have the courage to stand up or the opportunity to stand up and speak about things that are very delicate and that people do not want to hear.

"People can identify," she explained, "But at the same time, there are a lot of people, especially the government, who have problems with my speaking my mind or the mind of many.

"If you speak about the exploitation in the Delta, nobody wants to hear that," she continued. "If you speak about corruption or hypocrisy of religious leaders, people don't want to hear those things."

Nneka gives some hint of the background to her passionate lyrics when she describes her upbringing in Warri.

"You can imagine what kind of condition that may be, growing up around pipelines, growing up around people who are very agitated and fighting for their rights, human and civil rights," she told CNN.

"But you know, despite that chaos and the agitation, people still are able to feel comfort and peace within the madness," she continued. "That is actually what has triggered me into going into music and doing music the way I do it."

She does, however, feel hope for the future in her country.

"I noticed that many people are becoming more conscious of their surroundings and more conscious of investing their money in proper institutions and infrastructure," she said.

"So it's like we're getting there, but it's taking time. It will take generations to make the people of Nigeria also understand that it is not just the leaders alone that have to take responsibility, but we ourselves."