This Blogger Earns Over $1 Million Per Year While Sailing A Luxury Sailboat

Michelle on her luxury sailboat PHOTO CREDIT: MICHELLE SCHROEDER-GARDNER
BY JEFF ROSS

FORBES MAY 10, 2019

When Michelle Schroeder-Gardner started her lifestyle website Making Sense of Cents in 2011, she didn’t know anything about blogging — or that she might one day earn a ton of money writing online.

“I had absolutely no idea what I was doing,” she said. “I started my blog just for myself so that I could learn more about personal finance.”

Since then, Schroeder-Gardner has learned so much, not only about how to write engaging content, but also how to monetize. Through affiliate advertising, sponsorships, and her course — Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing — Michelle regularly earns over $100,000 per month on her blog. She also does exactly what she wants. And that includes living in a boat.

Yes, you read that right. For several years, Schroeder-Gardner and her husband Wes actually traveled the United States in an RV with their dogs, but these days they travel the world in a luxury sailboat with living space, a kitchen, and several bedrooms. They crave the freedom that comes with scenery that changes all the time, and of course not being tied down to one place.

The overwater sunsets aren’t bad, either.
How Schroeder-Gardner Balances Work and Play

Earning more than six figures per month blogging while floating in the sea may sound like a pipe dream, but it’s a reality for Schroeder-Gardner, who can work remotely thanks to her mobile wifi connection. But she may work less than you think for this type of income. According to the blogger, she probably works 20 to 30 hours per week on average, although her work can be somewhat sporadic.

She spends her time writing, researching content, brainstorming new ideas (including new products she could launch), learning more about blogging, running her social media accounts, making graphics, and dealing with email.

And yes, she does it all on her sailboat. Schroeder-Gardner says she and Wes just sailed back to Florida after spending several months in the Bahamas. This summer, the pair plans to sail up the east coast for hurricane season and explore different cities that pique their interest. They may also travel to Europe, or to Colorado to hike and explore the outdoors.

“After hurricane season is over, we will most likely head back to the Bahamas and eventually the Caribbean,” she said.

While the blogger, who is still in her 20’s, has already accomplished more than most people could dream of in a financial sense, she still has goals for the future. Specifically, she plans to continue growing the reach of Making Sense of Cents. She took too much time off growing her blog in 2018 to focus on the transition from RV life to sailboat life, she says.

But she wants 2019 to be different — she wants to find a better balance between the two. That may mean launching new products meant to help bloggers grow their own businesses and earn more money, but it also means writing more useful content readers can lean on for inspiration when chasing their own dreams.
Her Secret to Success

Anyone who has given blogging a try knows that it takes a stroke of luck to land in your niche at a time people are searching for the content you create. But it also takes hard work and having a knack for blogging and somehow getting people to care what you say.

Schroeder-Gardner says she thinks the secret to her initial blogging success is that she always tries to make personal finance enjoyable.

“I do this by writing in a personable tone,” she told me. “Readers often tell me that my writing sounds like I am having a casual conversation with a friend and that it's more enjoyable to read this way. For me, this is just naturally how I write so I'm glad that my readers enjoy it!”

Beyond having the ability to connect with readers, Michelle is also passionate about the subjects she covers whether that day’s post is on budgeting, early retirement, or full-time travel. She cares about the content, so it’s much easier for her to convey her message.

Finally, she says one thing that sets her apart from other bloggers is the fact that she always responds to readers — whether it’s an email, a Facebook message, a comment, or a note through some other medium.

“I am always responding to emails and I spend a good chunk of my time helping readers solve their problems,” she said.
Michelle’s Tips for Success

If you’re eager to build a blog that brings in a big income one day, Schroeder-Gardner does offer some tips anyone could use. For starters, every blogger should try to build more somewhat passive income, she says.

Her favorite way to monetize is through affiliate marketing, which is a type of marketing that helps bloggers earn affiliate commissions when someone signs up for a product or service through a link on their website.

“For me, I regularly earn around $50,000 a month from affiliate marketing and it's almost all income from past blog posts,” she says. “These old blog posts still generate me income even years later.”

Also consider creating your own product, whether it’s a course, a printable product, or a physical product such as books or clothing.

“Creating your own product is a great way to earn more money because you can provide your readers with a solution to a problem they may be having, you can diversify your income, and you are in charge of what it is that you are selling or promoting.”
The Bottom Line

This blogger’s story may sound like a fairy tale, but this is just the regular life of someone who started blogging on the right topic at the right time. There are plenty of ways for you to get a piece of the action with your own blog, and plenty of money to go around, too.

I know, I know...there are so many bloggers these days. It’s easy to think that some bloggers have monopolized the market, but you have to remember that billions of people use the internet — and that affiliate deals will always be there are long as companies want people to promote them.

Michelle proves earning a real income with a blog can be done in a big way — no matter how old you are, and even if you’re floating on a sailboat in the middle of nowhere.

Saudi Supreme Court Upholds Verdict Against Liberal Blogger

Members of the Austrian Greens protest against the punishment for Saudi blogger Raif Badawi in front of the KAICIID in Vienna, Austria. Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court upheld a verdict against a liberal blogger who was flogged in January after being found guilty of insulting Islam and breaking technology laws, state-linked news websites reported Sunday, June 7. (AP)

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (AP) — Saudi Arabia's Supreme Court upheld an internationally condemned verdict against a liberal blogger who was publicly flogged after being found guilty of insulting Islam, state-linked news websites reported Sunday.

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold the sentence of Raif Badawi, a 31-year-old father of three who was lashed in January in a public square, is final and cannot be overturned without a royal pardon.

Badawi, imprisoned since 2012, initially was sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for breaking Saudi Arabia's technology laws and insulting Islamic religious figures through a blog he created.

After an appeal, a criminal court in Jiddah last year stiffened the punishment to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes. He also was banned from traveling abroad for 10 years after his prison term and fined $266,000.

In January, security officials flogged Badawi outside a mosque in Jiddah. Saudi rights activists said it was meant as a warning to others who think to criticize the religious establishment, of which the ruling family derives much of its authority.

Subsequent floggings were halted as the Supreme Court reviewed the case. A person close to the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said that because Badawi's flogging has been halted since January, the Supreme Court ruling may exclude lashings. It was not immediately possible to clarify the details of the judges' ruling.

The lashes had been scheduled to be administered over 20 weekly sessions, with 50 lashes each week, according to the London-based rights group Amnesty International. The rights group has launched a global campaign to call for Badawi's release and said Sunday that he remains at risk of being flogged.

Saudi Arabia's Western allies, including Washington, have called on authorities to rescind the punishment. The kingdom maintains its judiciary is independent and has rejected international pressure as interference in the country's internal affairs.

For Inaugural Poet, A Journey Home To America

Poet Richard Blanco speaks at the U.S. Capitol in Washington during the inauguration for President Barack Obama, left, and Vice President Joe Biden right. Blanco describes writing the inaugural poem in his new book, “For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey.” A Cuban-American who grew up in Miami, Blanco says he was he was forced to re-examine his relationship with his adopted country in the weeks leading up to the inauguration.

MIAMI, FLORIDA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — The Miami neighborhood where inaugural poet Richard Blanco grew up, in many ways, resembles Cuba his family left behind. Down the street, a man sells avocados from a small table. His favorite bakery, a few blocks north, serves guava pastries and cafe con leche.

As a child and even as an adult, this was home. But it wasn't necessarily what he imagined as America. "There's always a little part of you as an immigrant that goes, 'Well, I'm not really American,'" Blanco said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press at his mother's home in Miami. "There's that other little boy on TV or some place I haven't been yet."

That feeling of displacement has been at the crux of his poetry. When it came to writing the poem for the 2013 inauguration of Barack Obama, however, he was forced to re-examine his own relationship with America and what it meant to be American. Blanco was born 45 years ago in Spain to Cuban immigrants who moved to the United States when he was an infant.

The experience of writing the poem, Blanco said, was transformative. "I finally realized that my story, my mother's stories, all those millions of stories of faces that were looking at me at the podium, that is America," said Blanco, the nation's first Latino and openly gay inaugural poet. "I finally realized that I'm not the other."
Blanco describes the writing the inaugural poem and two others — and the journey he has embarked on since — in a book, "For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey," recently published by Beacon Press.

Tasked with writing three poems in three weeks, Blanco said he struggled initially on the direction to take. He doesn't know how or why he was chosen though he knew the White House committee's choice was symbolic. He had published three critically acclaimed poetry books but was only modestly known at the time.

He read the work of other inaugural poets such as Maya Angelou and Robert Frost and of others, like Elizabeth Bishop and Pablo Neruda. But by the third day, anxiety began to set in. During mental breaks, he watched reruns of favorite shows like "Bewitched" and the "Brady Bunch," characters who encapsulated his fascination with yesteryear America.

Then came the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that left 26 people dead, 20 of them children. "The tragedy opened a new emotional and creative pathway for me," writes Blanco, who now lives in Maine. "Writing the inaugural poem wasn't the same assignment anymore. I suddenly understood that as a Cuban-American, I hadn't explored my American side of the hyphen as much as my Cuban side."

He began asking questions, probing his relationship with America: Was this his country? What is the American dream? What was his place in America? The result were three works: "What We Know of Country," which explores the childlike vision he grew up with of America and the more nuanced one he had come to embrace as an adult; "Mother Country," an autobiographical piece describing his mother's loss of country and discovery of a new one; and "One Today," which describes the mosaic of America, united under "one sky, our sky," and chosen by the White House to be read at the inauguration.

Standing at the podium on that frigid January morning, he said, he felt that the questions he'd been asking were finally resolved, surrounded by politicians, his mother, artists like James Taylor and Beyonce, and the faces of so many Americans who would write him afterward.

"It was such a powerful feeling to be embraced my America in a way I hadn't expected," Blanco said. "I think I finally feel, as I like to say, I discovered home was right here all the time. Home was in my backyard so to speak."

The year since has confirmed that conviction. Blanco travels the country, delivering speeches and readings everywhere from Boston after the marathon bombing, to the Fragrance Foundation Awards and the Northeast Association of Transportation Engineers (Blanco himself has worked throughout his adult life as an engineer while also writing poetry and teaching).

As Blanco says, "The weirder the venue, the more I like doing it." "I'm excited to explore America and not so much from a first person anymore, but sort of a 'we' voice, which is what the inaugural poem was doing," he said.

Part of his motivation now, he said, is to rekindle the connection he saw Americans experience with poetry when he read at the inauguration. "A lot of what I've heard back from the inauguration is these faces of surprise," Blanco said. "They're so entrenched still in America (with) this idea that a poem has to be indecipherable and rhyme and be beyond comprehension for it to be a poem. And people are like, is that a poem?"

But if Blanco spoke of Americans united under "one today" in his poem, it's also been one of the most divisive years in memory. Congress remains polarized. The government shut down for the first time in 17 years. And the public has increasingly lost its faith in its elected officials.

"I don't think what we've gone through in the last few years is a great example of being one today," Blanco said. "But sometimes all of that needs to come out of the wash to get there." Coming back to Miami from his travels and home with his partner in Bethel, Maine, he said, is like returning to "the womb." Photographs of Blanco and his brother, some in the faded pastel hues of decades past, line the wall of a hallway in his mother's duplex.

"It isn't where you're born that matters, it's where you choose to die — that's your country," Blanco quotes his mother in one of the three poems he wrote. That, Blanco says, is the conclusion he has reached, too.

Follow Christine Armario on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cearmario .

Videos contradict Medal of Honor winner Meyer’s account of Taliban attack

 Crucial parts of Medal of Honor winner Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer’s memoir were untrue, unsubstantiated or exaggerated, as were the Marine Corps and White House accounts of a 2009 battle in Afghanistan.

By Jonathan S. Landay

 
WASHINGTON (AP)— In his memoir of the 2009 battle in Afghanistan that brought him the Medal of Honor, Marine Sgt. Dakota Meyer describes how he reflexively switched from his machine gun to his rifle and back to his machine gun as he mowed down a swarm of charging Taliban from the vehicle’s turret.

“My mind was completely blank. I fired so many thousands of rounds I didn’t think what I was doing,” Meyer, then a corporal, wrote in his 2012 book, “Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War.”

But videos shot by Army medevac helicopter crewmen show no Taliban in that vicinity or anywhere else on the floor of the Ganjgal Valley at the time and location of the “swarm.” The videos also conflict with the version of the incident in Marine Corps and White House accounts of how Meyer, now 25, of Columbia, Ky., came to be awarded the nation’s highest military decoration for gallantry.

The videos add to the findings of an ongoing McClatchy investigation that determined that crucial parts of Meyer’s memoir were untrue, unsubstantiated or exaggerated, as were the Marine Corps and White House accounts of how he helped extract casualties from the valley under fire. The White House and Marine Corps have defended the accuracy of their accounts of Meyer’s actions. The Marine Corps declined to comment on the videos.

Army National Guard Sgt. Kevin Duerst, the helicopter crew chief whose helmet camera recorded one of the videos, confirmed the absence of insurgents on the valley floor as the aircraft flew in on a first run to retrieve casualties.

“We totally flew over everything. … There was nothing going on down there,” Duerst said in a telephone interview Friday. “There was no serious gunfight going on.”

Former Army Capt. William Swenson, who’s to receive a Medal of Honor from President Obama on Tuesday for gallantry in the same battle, declined in an interview Sunday to directly address questions about the purported swarming of Meyer’s vehicle.

But, he said, the videos showed the reality of what happened in the Ganjgal Valley on Sept. 8, 2009.
“Those videos allowed me to relive the reality of that battlefield: what I saw, what other people saw, where people were, the valley, the terraces, the trees, the friendlies,” meaning Afghan and U.S. forces, said Swenson, 34, of Seattle. “It shows the truth of that battle, a truth I never expected to see again.”
In a telephone interview Friday, Meyer said, “I wrote my book to the best of my recollection of what happened. And if that’s not it, then that’s not it.”

After reviewing the videos, Meyer said his vehicle was charged after the helicopter had departed with Swenson’s wounded sergeant and an injured Afghan soldier. His book, however, puts the “swarm” before the aircraft landed for the pair.

Bing West, who co-authored the book, didn’t address the videos in an email, saying only that a McClatchy reporter who survived the ambush “has annually dredged up baseless innuendoes to attack the Medal of Honor process and to denigrate the valor of Meyer.”

The videos aren’t the only new evidence that’s surfaced that disputes crucial events described in the official accounts and in Meyer’s book.

The Army narrative of how Swenson was nominated for the Medal of Honor and Swenson’s comments in the interview undermine the book’s claim that Meyer killed an insurgent with a rock after he’d joined the then-Army captain in an unarmored pickup to recover casualties.

It was Marine Capt. Ademola Fabayo, not Meyer, who rode in the truck with Swenson, according to Swenson and the account posted Thursday on an Army Web page devoted to Swenson’s Medal of Honor. Fabayo was a lieutenant at the time.

“Fabayo and I fought side by side for the entire battle,” Swenson said. “When Fabayo and I returned into that valley in that unarmored truck, he was shooting out of his passenger side window and I was on the radio, driving.”

It wasn’t until the pickup broke down and Fabayo and he switched to an armored Humvee for a final run that Meyer joined Marine Sgt. Juan Rodriguez-Chavez, an Afghan translator and them, Swenson said.
The Army narrative and Swenson’s account are corroborated by sworn statements included in Meyer’s Medal of Honor file or given to military investigators after the battle by Rodriguez-Chavez, Fabayo and then-Maj. Kevin Williams, the Marine commander who nominated Meyer for his Medal of Honor.

The videos, Swenson’s comments and the Army account of Swenson’s actions add to the controversy that’s embroiled the battle from the minute it erupted. Tipped off in advance, scores of insurgents trapped Afghan forces and their American trainers in the U-shaped valley, firing storms of bullets and shells from a fortresslike village and the surrounding slopes.

A nearby U.S. base failed to provide air support or adequate artillery cover to the Afghan and U.S. forces for 90 minutes. Two Army officers later received career-ending reprimands, while Swenson — in an interview with military investigators — accused senior U.S. commanders of imposing politically driven rules of engagement that were getting U.S. troops killed.

The battle, which lasted six hours, cost the lives of five American servicemen, nine Afghan troops and an Afghan translator, and 17 others — including Swenson and Meyer — were wounded.

Swenson, who was training Afghan Border Police on his second tour of Afghanistan, and Meyer, who was training Afghan troops, were recommended separately for the Medal of Honor for repeatedly returning to the battlefield to retrieve casualties, including the bodies of three Marines and a Navy corpsman. Swenson also was recommended for his role in extracting U.S. troops from the ambush.

In addition to finding that key parts of Meyer’s memoir, as well as the Marine Corps and White House accounts of his actions, were embellished, untrue or unsubstantiated, McClatchy’s investigation raised questions about the military awards process, which some lawmakers, military officers and veterans groups say is subject to improper influence and manipulation.

McClatchy’s findings were based on dozens of military documents — including sworn statements by American participants in the battle — and on interviews last year with nine Afghan troops who survived the clash near the border with Pakistan.

The purported “swarm” of Meyer’s vehicle by charging insurgents is a major facet of the official narratives and his memoir.

In the book, Meyer and West wrote that Meyer, firing from his Humvee’s turret, killed up to five of some 10 insurgents who assaulted the vehicle as he and the driver, Rodriguez-Chavez, pushed into the ambush zone in a rock-strewn wash that leads up the Ganjgal Valley to the village of the same name.

Their telling describes Meyer’s purported thoughts and actions as he mows down Taliban with a .50-caliber machine gun and his rifle. Rodriguez-Chavez ran down an insurgent, they wrote.

Narrating the incident at Meyer’s Sept. 15, 2011, award ceremony, Obama related how the insurgents were “running right up to the Humvee, Dakota fighting them off.”

Meyer and West wrote that the “swarm” occurred just before an Army Black Hawk helicopter landed to retrieve Swenson’s sergeant, Kenneth Westbrook, who died a month later from complications from the treatment of bullet wounds. A map in the book titled “Meyer swarmed during MEDEVAC” pinpoints the location of the swarm at 300 meters — 328 yards — ahead of where the Black Hawk landed.

The videos, however, dispute the accounts of the “swarm” in the book, the Marine Corps accounts and the narrative Obama read.

Cameras mounted in the helmets of the co-pilot of the Black Hawk — Army National Guard Chief Warrant Officer Jason Penrod — and of the crew chief, Duerst, captured the scene as the aircraft flew into the valley to retrieve Westbrook and the wounded Afghan soldier.

All accounts agree that Westbrook was being carried out of the kill zone by other Americans escaping the ambush when Rodriguez-Chavez and Meyer sped around them and headed up the wash in search of the missing Marines and Navy corpsman with whom contact had been lost.

The videos record the Black Hawk helicopter’s west-to-east flight up the wash. The aircraft then turns right onto a western heading, banks around and lands in clouds of dust to pick up Westbrook from a terrace where Swenson had laid out a bright orange panel. Swenson is seen kissing Westbrook on his forehead before the aircraft takes off.

The videos record sweeping shots of the terraced valley, occasional trees and enclosing slopes. Penrod’s video — shot through the cockpit windscreen — briefly shows another U.S. helicopter above the valley, looking to rain rockets and gunfire at any insurgents who showed themselves, and trying to spot the missing Americans.

No Taliban are seen anywhere on the valley floor, including the vicinity of the location of the “swarm” pinpointed by Meyer and West.

What is briefly seen in Penrod’s video, between the helicopter cockpit windshield divider and the right-hand wiper blade, are the blurry figures of the American ambush survivors crossing out of the kill zone with the injured Westbrook. Just ahead of them is a dust cloud thrown up by Meyer’s vehicle.

At that moment, Duerst’s video — shot from the Black Hawk’s right door — records an Afghan soldier walking upright in the open, pointing up toward the village. He’s the first of at least five Afghan soldiers seen in the vicinity of where Meyer and West pinpoint the surge. None are shooting or taking cover from incoming fire or explosions. Nor are they running to help as would be expected if insurgents were attacking Meyer’s vehicle.

Instead, the five walk slowly, fully exposed to any gunfire, moving toward the village. Duerst’s video shows a second Afghan soldier pointing up and forward, trying to direct the helicopter crew’s attention toward the village.

Duerst said the only insurgents seen firing were spotted by the crew member in the left-hand door in an area at the base of a mountain on the northern side of the village, which is about a quarter mile from the kill zone. “That’s why we turned when we did,” he explained.

In the interview, Meyer said the videos didn’t depict the time the swarm took place. He said his vehicle was charged after the aircraft flew away with Westbrook.

“There was no way I was all the way up. I didn’t even push forward … until that bird was out of that,” he said. “The bird was off the deck when the swarm happened.”

But the narrative in the book and a timeline in the appendix say the swarm occurred before the helicopter landed.

The timing of the videos with Meyer’s run into the wash also corresponds with sworn statements given by Rodriguez-Chavez, Fabayo and other U.S. servicemen.

The Army’s account of Swenson’s action and Swenson’s comments undermine Meyer’s claim that he killed an insurgent by bashing his head in with a rock.

In his memoir, Meyer relates how he joined Swenson in the unarmored Ford Ranger pickup belonging to the Afghan Border Police for a run into the kill zone to search for casualties and the missing Marines and Navy corpsman.

After returning to the wash, Meyer got out of the vehicle, while Swenson remained behind the wheel because of injuries, the book says.

Meyer, the book continues, ran across the body of Dodd Ali, an Afghan soldier whom he’d befriended, and as he was getting ready to pick up the corpse, a “tough looking Afghan with a long black beard” tried to take him prisoner at gunpoint.

After firing a grenade at the Afghan that failed to explode, Meyer grappled with the attacker and killed him with the rock, according to the book.

The incident, however, isn’t mentioned in any sworn witness statements — including the handwritten statement that Meyer provided to military investigators days after the battle — nor does it appear in any of the official accounts.

It was Fabayo, a Nigeria-born American citizen, who joined Swenson in the pickup — not Meyer — to retrieve casualties under ferocious enemy fire before the bullet-torn vehicle broke down, according to Swenson, the Army account of his actions and sworn statements, including by Rodriguez-Chavez, who was awarded the Navy Cross for gallantry.

“After the second trip, it became very clear to us the absurdity of the situation,” Swenson told McClatchy. “We are in an unarmored truck. We have helicopters overhead. The enemy is still engaging us and my truck is destroyed. We had to return; we had to get an armored vehicle.”

In a Nov. 12, 2009, statement to military investigators, Fabayo described the shock of finding numerous casualties, picking them up with Swenson and slinging them into the pickup.

“We had so many casualties. … I mean there was blood everywhere, guys shoot everywhere. It was turning into a mass casualty situation,” recalled Fabayo, who also received the Navy Cross for gallantry. “By that time, it didn’t matter. We were not going to leave our guys behind.”

4 Americans Meet Snowden To Give Him An Award

From the left: Jesselyn Radack, Raymond McGovern, Coleen Rowley and Thomas Drake, talk to each other before their interview with The Associated Press in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2013. The four former U.S. government officials who met with former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden said Thursday that he is adjusting to life in Russia and expresses no regrets about leaking highly classified information. They are the first Americans known to have met with Snowden since he was granted asylum in Russia in August.

MOSCOW (AP) — Four former U.S. government officials who met with former National Security Agency systems analyst Edward Snowden said Thursday that he is adjusting to life in Russia and expresses no regrets about leaking highly classified information. Separately, Snowden's father arrived to see his son.

The Americans, who once worked for the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and NSA, have criticized the U.S. government and exposed what they believed was wrongdoing in the security agencies. All supporters of Snowden, they are the first Americans known to have met with him since he was granted asylum in Russia in August.

In interviews with The Associated Press, they described spending the previous evening with Snowden to present him with an award given annually by a group of retired national security officers. "He spoke about going out and about and getting to understand Russia and its culture and the people," said Thomas Drake, who started working for the NSA in 2001 and disclosed an electronic espionage program that he saw as invasive. "This is where he lives now, and so where you live is your home."

Snowden's father, Lon, did not say when or where he would meet his 30-year-old son, but expressed optimism about his situation. "You know, I have heard so many things through the media, and my assumption is certainly, given the circumstances, he's doing as well as could be expected," Lon Snowden told the AP shortly after he arrived in Moscow. "He's safe and he's free, and that's a good thing."

The elder Snowden said he doubts his son will return to the United States, where he is charged with violating the Espionage Act for disclosing the NSA's surveillance of phone and Internet usage around the world.
The four former U.S. officials refused to say where they met with Snowden or where he is living. "For his own safety it's best that no one else knows where he actually lives," Drake said. "But I believe he is making the best of his circumstances and is living as normally as possible."

Like Snowden, Drake was indicted under the Espionage Act, but the felony charges were dropped before trial and he was found guilty in 2011 on a lesser charge and sentenced to one year of probation and community service.

Drake and the other Americans — Raymond McGovern, Jesselyn Radack and Coleen Rowley — said Snowden was in good spirits and still believes he did the right thing in disclosing the NSA surveillance program.

All but McGovern are past recipients of the Sam Adams Award, named for a CIA analyst during the Vietnam War who accused the U.S. military of underestimating the strength of the enemy for political purposes. The award is given annually by the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence.

The winner of the award in 2010 was WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. McGovern, a 74-year-old retired CIA officer who had worked with Adams, said the anti-secrecy group had facilitated its trip to Moscow and that WikiLeaks staffer Sarah Harrison, who had arrived with Snowden from Hong Kong in June, remained by his side.

The Americans said they saw no evidence that Snowden was under the control of Russian security services, as many in the U.S. government believe. "He spoke very openly about a whole range of things, a number of which I won't get into here, but it certainly didn't involve any kind of manipulation by the Russian government or anyone else for that matter," said Radack, a former U.S. Justice Department adviser now with the Government Accountability Project. "He definitely is his own person and makes his own decisions, and says and does what he wants to."

Radack, 42, had accused the FBI of misconduct in its handling of the case against John Walker Lindh, an American who fought with Taliban and was captured in 2001 during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. She later wrote a book about the case called "Traitor: The Whistleblower and the American Taliban." The forward for the book was written by Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who worked with Snowden to publish his disclosures.

Rowley, who worked for the FBI from 1981 until retiring in 2004, testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002 about intelligence failures ahead of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and systemic problems at the FBI. She was one of three whistleblowers chosen as persons of the year by Time magazine.

She called Snowden a "prime example" of the need to achieve security without violating the law. "This is a false trade-off, that you have to sacrifice the law, the Constitution, human rights itself in order to somehow get this false sense of security," Rowley said. "And he's a prime example, so it's very important to obviously compare notes and to talk to him."

Lynn Berry contributed to this story.

Schools Must Do More To Protect Students From Female Genital Mutilation

Many teachers have little knowledge or training about FGM. Louise Tickle looks at what they can do to safeguard students

By The Professional Development From The Teacher Network

Guardian UK

Teachers' ignorance of female genital mutilation could result in schools failing the safeguarding element of an Ofsted inspection. Photograph: Alamy

Lots of teachers aren't even aware that female genital mutilation (FGM) goes on, says Lisa Zimmerman, a teacher at Bristol City Academy. She campaigns against FGM through the charity Integrate Bristol, which she co-founded five years ago. Zimmerman runs high-profile extra-curricular activities including plays and films looking at the issues raised by FGM in order to combat the practice. Despite all this, she says, "the girls in my project had to tell the health and social care teacher what FGM was".

That teacher is not alone in being ignorant of the cultural practice of genitally mutilating young girls, or the physical and mental health disaster – sometimes even death – that can result from it. It's reportedly practised in 48 African countries, as well as in the Middle East and Far East, and it's estimated that 24,000 girls – mostly of primary age – are at risk of FGM in this country. Indications are that it is becoming more widespread in the UK as a result of immigration from countries where the practice is prevalent.

But teachers' ignorance could result in schools failing the safeguarding element of an Ofsted inspection, as the regulatory body has included a section on FGM in their 'Inspecting Safeguarding' briefing, issued in January. Given that a recent NSPCC survey of 1,000 teachers demonstrated a shocking lack of knowledge of FGM, it may well be that when Ofsted inspectors ask about how their school deals with the issues it raises, senior leadership teams struggle to answer.

Questions that Ofsted has suggested its inspectors might wish to ask about FGM include whether designated senior staff in charge of child protection are aware of FGM and have ensured that school staff are aware of the potential risks. But the NSPCC survey showed that the overwhelming majority – 83% – of teachers said they had no child protection training about FGM.

Another suggested question is: "How alert are staff to the possible signs that a child has been subject to female genital mutilation or is at risk of being abused through it?" The NSPCC survey showed that nearly 16% of teachers said they did not consider FGM to be child abuse, and 16% also said that they didn't know that FGM was a crime. (It has been since 1985, as is taking a child out of the UK to have it done overseas.)

It's the opposite of reassuring that the NSPCC survey showed 68% of teachers saying they are not aware of the existence of any government guidance on how they should be dealing with FGM if they suspect it's happening to girls in their school.

Given the physical horror of what happens when a girl is subjected to FGM, it might be seen as surprising that schools have been reluctant to address the issue, particularly when such young children are at risk of serious physical and mental harm.

But it seems that a different risk, that of offending the communities that practice FGM, has very effectively prevented many schools from taking a stand, says Lisa Zimmerman. "Schools would never say 'we're not engaging with it' because that's tantamount to saying you're not doing proper safeguarding," she says. But the main blocks to effective action at school level, she continues, are "lack of courage, political correctness and competition between schools for students. It's felt that if you offend the community then people will remove their children or choose other schools – that's always the threat, that people will take their children away. And here, not one single one did."

Even though it may feel extremely difficult for an individual teacher to raise a matter that might cause serious problems for their school's relationship with often marginalised and disadvantaged communities, the NSPCC says it would urge any staff member with concerns to immediately inform the school's designated officer for child protection.

"It needs to be emphasised that this is a child protection matter, that it is illegal, and that they will not be acting alone," says Chris Cloke, head of child protection at the NSPCC. "We're asking them to report, not investigate."

As well as the standard warning signs of abuse that teachers are trained to be aware of, with FGM, there could be an increase in anxiety levels leading up to holidays (when a child may be taken overseas to be subjected to FGM), changes in school attendance, spending a lot of time in the toilets, sitting cross legged or having repeated urinary tract infections.

If a teacher reports a concern as part of their school's standard child protection procedures, but feels that it has not been acted upon, Cloke emphasises that they should "report directly to police or social services. What teachers need to be aware of is that a child who has experienced this may have younger siblings at risk."

At Bristol City Academy, because of Zimmerman's campaigning, she believes that "hand on heart, I can say that no daughter of the girls I work with will have it done. And I am very sure that younger sisters have been protected." And people should perhaps not be so afraid of community reaction: Zimmerman notes that five years on from when she co-founded Integrate Bristol, there's "a difference in the way the mothers talk to me. It's very subtle; it's in the warmth of the look, the interest in our work, and the kind of questions about FGM they ask."

Awareness of this particularly brutal type of child abuse may have improved at Bristol City Academy, but whether schools across the country will be able to answer the questions Ofsted asks about FGM-related child protection concerns remains to be seen.

What to do: If you are concerned that a child is at risk, call the NSPCC's free 24-hour FGM helpline on 0800 028 3550 or emailfgmhelp@nspcc.org.uk. It can provide advice, information and support as well as make a referral on your behalf to the relevant statutory body, where appropriate. Though callers' details can remain anonymous, any information that could protect a child from abuse will be passed to the police or social services.

A Nigerian Child Bride

Hauwa Jubril, a Muslim girl carries a bowl on her head in Obalende, Lagos, Nigeria. Nigeria’s secular and Islamic laws clashed when a senator notorious for marrying a 14-year-old filibustered a vote to amend the constitution by insisting that a girl child comes of age when she marries, not at 18. Enraged activists are demanding the senate revisit the vote, asking how a known pedophile could get away with subverting the country’s constitution. Image: Sunday Alamba/Associated Press

Cameroon Court Jails 2 For Homosexuality

A court in Cameroon, one of the least gay-tolerant countries in the world, on Tuesday sentenced a man to two years in prison and handed down a suspended one-year jail sentence to an underage youth for homosexuality.

The man, identified as Joseph Ombga, may be released from custody shortly if he pays a fine of 50,000 CFA francs (76 euros) and the same amount in legal expenses, as he has already been detained for almost two years at Yaounde’s central prison, according to the verdict.

A third defendant in the same trial, identified as Seraphon Ntsama, was given “the benefit of the doubt” and acquitted. Ntsama has also been held for almost two years.

Ombga, who had been charged with sex with a minor, was arrested at his home in August 2011 in the company of another man to whom he wanted to sell a porn video, according to his lawyers.

Ntsama and the minor were later detained when they visited him at the police station.

The defendants’ lawyer Alice Nkom, a well-known gay rights activist in Cameroon, told the court the three were being held “arbitrarily”.

“There is no case,” she said.

The condemnations come a few days after Cameroonian rights groups pressed the government to carry out a proper investigation into the gruesome murder of prominent gay rights activist Eric Lembembe, found dead in his home in the capital last week, and friends who found his body said he had been severely tortured.

The government vowed Friday to conduct a full investigation, dismissing fears that the murder would go unpunished.

“There is no conspiracy of state, nor any social plot in Cameroon, which is directed toward homosexuals,” government spokesman and Communication Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said on state television.

“Many homosexuals live and move freely in Cameroon without being beaten or suffering punishment.”

Lembembe’s lawyers had on Thursday accused the police of botching the investigation, charging that they had “done nothing” to collect potential evidence after the discovery of the body.

The rights groups on Saturday asked President Paul Biya to use the constitution to “take strong measures to stop this wave of hatred and to protect a minority of Cameroonian citizens that is persecuted”.

“The religious authorities, the Cameroonian Roman Catholic Church in particular, take a position on homosexuality in order to incite violence,” their statement charged.

According to a March report co-authored by Human Rights Watch, the Cameroon has prosecuted at least 28 people for same-sex conduct since 2010. Cameroon ranks as one of the most homophobic countries in the world where same-sex relations can be punished with up to five years in prison.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for Yaounde to end its programme of arbitrary arrests and detentions, but so far without much effect.

SOURCE: PM NEWS NIGERIA, July 23, 2013

LIFE BAN FOR NIGERIANS IN MATCH-FIXING SCANDAL

Players and officials of four Nigerian amateur clubs involved in two promotion play-off games that produced farcical 79-0 and 67-0 scorelines have been banned for life.

A Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) committee investigating the results also recommended that the match officials in the two matches should be given life bans.

All four clubs, Plateau United Feeders, Akurba FC, Bubayaro FC and Police Machine FC, have been banned from the game for 10 years.

"The NFF have accepted the recommendations and they would be communicated to the clubs, the state FA's, CAF and FIFA," the NFF announced.

"We will publish all the names of players and officials with their photographs and details."

In promotion play-offs from the Nigeria Nationwide League, the lowest tier of Nigeria domestic League, Plateau United Feeders beat Akurba FC 79-0, while Police Machine FC demolished Bubayaro FC 67-0.

The teams were competing for a place in Nigeria Nationwide League Division 3.

-----AFP, July 22, 2013

E. T. Mensah & His Tempos Band

Known as the "King of Highlife" in the 50s and 60s, the swing, bebop and big band leader E. T. Mensah was extraordinarily talented and his music being remastered today tells of a masterpiece. Ethno Music is really doing a marvelous job providing its listeners with vintage African sound.

Mensah, one of the first to introduce salsa flavored rhythms to Africa in the 50s entertained his audience during the colonial era gaining international recognition when he joined the original Tempos Band, taking over as the band leader. His amazing career can be read at Retro Afric in great detail. Brilliant stuff and great compositions in that era.