NIGERIA: Monday Papers July 23, 2012

COMPILED BY AMBROSE EHIRIM

BELLA NAIJA: BN At 6 – Our Stories, Our Miracles: From Earning N3,000 a Month in Aba to Building a Hair Empire! Ugo Igbokwe of “Make Me” is Living the Nigerian Dream

THE GUARDIAN NIGERIA: Tension in Bakassi as Cameroun deploys troops, arms

THE GUARDIAN NIGERIA: Nigeria needs new foreign policy road-map, say Reps

THE GUARDIAN NIGERIA: Third Mainland Bridge: 107 more days of pain ahead

THE GUARDIAN NIGERIA: UBA Foundation features Ngugi wa Thiong’o today

THIS DAY LIVE: Union Bank Risks Delisting over Violation of Listing Requirement

VANGUARD NIGERIA: Nigerian media wins 2012 Free Press Africa Award.

VANGUARD NIGERIA: Jonathan’s Budget Implementation: Reps prepare articles of impeachment

VANGUARD NIGERIA: Leave Nigeria if you can’t improve on service delivery, Senate to GSM operators:

VANGUARD NIGERIA: Nnaji to PHCN workers: Ask your union leaders whereabouts of your pension funds

PUNCH: N’Delta group threatens to attack NNPC installations

LEADERSHIP NIGERIA: Ex-AIG Lauds Abubakar Over N50, 000 Minimum Wage For Police.

LEADERSHIP NIGERIA: Guber Race: Ondo Will Not Submit To Outside Forces – Mimiko

LEADERSHIP NIGERIA: Opposition To Dislodge PDP In 2015 – Buhari

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE: Conference: End of AIDS ‘is in sight’

ST. AUGUSTINE RECORD: Coulter: Democrats' ideal voter: illegal alien, single mother, convicted felon

ASIA ONE NEWS: Global popularity of Korean language surges

U.S. Drug War Expands To Africa, A Newer Hub For Cartels

William Brownfield of the State Department, in Honduras in March, aims to improve nations’ ability to deal with trafficking. Photo: Orlando Sierra/Agence France Presse/Getty Images

By Charlie Savage and Thom Shanker, New York Times

WASHINGTON — In a significant expansion of the war on drugs, the United States has begun training an elite unit of counternarcotics police in Ghana and planning similar units in Nigeria and Kenya as part of an effort to combat the Latin American cartels that are increasingly using Africa to smuggle cocaine into Europe.

The growing American involvement in Africa follows an earlier escalation of antidrug efforts in Central America, according to documents, Congressional testimony and interviews with a range of officials at the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Pentagon.

In both regions, American officials are responding to fears that crackdowns in more direct staging points for smuggling — like Mexico and Spain — have prompted traffickers to move into smaller and weakly governed states, further corrupting and destabilizing them.

The aggressive response by the United States is also a sign of how greater attention and resources have turned to efforts to fight drugs as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have wound down.

“We see Africa as the new frontier in terms of counterterrorism and counternarcotics issues,” said Jeffrey P. Breeden, the chief of the D.E.A.’s Europe, Asia and Africa section. “It’s a place that we need to get ahead of — we’re already behind the curve in some ways, and we need to catch up.”

The initiatives come amid a surge in successful interdictions in Honduras since May — but also as American officials have been forced to defend their new tactics after a commando-style team of D.E.A. agents participated in at least three lethal interdiction operations alongside a squad of Honduran police officers. In one of those operations, in May, the Honduran police killed four people near the village of Ahuas, and in two others in the past month American agents have shot and killed smuggling suspects.

To date, officials say, the D.E.A. commando team has not been deployed to work with the newly created elite police squads in Africa, where the effort to counter the drug traffickers is said to be about three years behind the one in Central America.

The officials said that if Western security forces did come to play a more direct operational role in Africa, for historical reasons they might be European and not American.

In May, William R. Brownfield, the assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, a leading architect of the strategy now on display in Honduras, traveled to Ghana and Liberia to put the finishing touches on a West Africa Cooperative Security Initiative, which will try to replicate across 15 nations the steps taken in battling trafficking groups operating in Central America and Mexico.

Mr. Brownfield said the vision for both regions was to improve the ability of nations to deal with drug trafficking, by building up their own institutions and getting them to cooperate with one another, sharing intelligence and running regional law enforcement training centers.

But because drug traffickers have already moved into Africa, he said, there is also a need for the immediate elite police units that have been trained and vetted.

“We have to be doing operational stuff right now because things are actually happening right now,” Mr. Brownfield said.

Some specialists have expressed skepticism about the approach. Bruce Bagley, a professor at the University of Miami who focuses on Latin America and counternarcotics, said that what had happened in West Africa over the past few years was the latest example of the “Whac-A-Mole” problem, in which making trafficking more difficult in one place simply shifts it to another.

“As they put on the pressure, they are going to detour routes, but they are not going to stop the flow, because the institutions are incredibly weak — I don’t care how much vetting they do,” Professor Bagley said. “And there is always blowback to this. You start killing people in foreign countries — whether criminals or not — and there is going to be fallout.”

American government officials acknowledge the challenges, but they are not as pessimistic about the chances of at least pushing the trafficking organizations out of particular countries. And even if the intervention leads to an increase in violence as organizations that had operated with impunity are challenged, the alternative, they said, is worse.

“There is no such thing as a country that is simply a transit country, for the very simple reason that the drug trafficking organization first pays its network in product, not in cash, and is constantly looking to build a greater market,” Mr. Brownfield said. “Regardless of the name of the country, eventually the transit country becomes a major consumer nation, and at that point they have a more serious problem.”

The United Nations says that cocaine smuggling and consumption in West Africa have soared in recent years, contributing to instability in places like Guinea-Bissau. Several years ago, a South American drug gang tried to bribe the son of the Liberian president to allow it to use the country for smuggling. Instead, he cooperated with the D.E.A., and the case resulted in convictions in the United States.

Even more ominous, according to American officials, was a case in which a militant group called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb offered three of its operatives to help ship tons of cocaine through North Africa into Europe — all to raise money to finance terrorist attacks. The case ended this past March with conviction and sentencing in federal court in New York.

American counternarcotics assistance for West Africa has totaled about $50 million for each of the past two years — up from just $7.5 million in 2009, according to the State Department. The D.E.A. also is opening its first country office in Senegal, officials said, and the Pentagon has worked with Cape Verde to establish a regional center to detect drug-smuggling ships.

While the agency has not sponsored units in West Africa before, it has long worked with similar teams — which are given training, equipment and pay while being subjected to rigorous drug and polygraph testing — in countries around the world whose security forces are plagued by corruption, including the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama.

It is routine for D.E.A. agents who are assigned to mentor the specially trained and screened units to accompany them on raids, but it has been unusual for Americans to kill suspects. Several former agents said the recent cases in Honduras suggested that the D.E.A. had been at the vanguard of the operations there rather than merely serving as advisers in the background.

By contrast, the effort in West Africa is still at the beginning stages, officials say. But the problems there are the same — and growing. Officials described one instance in which a methamphetamine lab was discovered in Africa, with documents suggesting that it had been set up by a Mexican trafficking organization. William F. Wechsler, the Pentagon’s top counternarcotics officer, said that observing drug traffickers’ advances into West Africa, and the response from American and local authorities, was like watching a rerun of the drug war in this hemisphere in years past.

“West Africa is now facing a situation analogous to the Caribbean in the 1980s, where small, developing, vulnerable countries along major drug-trafficking routes toward rich consumers are vastly under-resourced to deal with the wave of dirty money coming their way,” he said.

NIGERIA: Sunday Papers July 22, 2012

COMPILED BY AMBROSE EHIRIM

THIS DAY LIVE: The Golden Tulip: Returning to Form

LEADERSHIP NIGERIA: Fans To Interact With Arsenal Players

LEADERSHIP NIGERIA: Capital City Not For The Rich Alone

LEADERSHIP NIGERIA: Security Of Corps Members Should Be Paramount

KANSAS CITY STAR: Day-by-day Olympic TV highlights

THE NEWS INTERNATIONAL: WHO, UNICEF, saddened by killing of polio worker

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The Drug War Shifts to Africa, Hub for Cartels

GULF DAILY NEWS: Cox stripped of Athens athletics relay gold

ENGLISH EAST DAY: China-Africa fraud gangs busted

THE GUARDIAN NIGERIA: Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire Begin Africa Cup Battle In Botswana

THE GUARDIAN NIGERIA: ‘COD United Will Be A Model For Nigerian Clubsides’

SUNDAY TRIBUNE NIGERIA: FG considers employment generation through lottery programmes

SUNDAY TRIBUNE NIGERIA: Fire destroys N50m property at plank market in Lagos

SUNDAY TRIBUNE NIGERIA: Buhari blames corrupt successive govts for damaged petroleum industry

PUNCH: Argentine customs seize Nigeria-bound N4bn cocaine

PUNCH: Jonathan awards N927bn contracts in 10 months •Niger Delta grabs N246bn

SUNDAY VABGUARD NIGERIA: Aguleri, Umuleri blow hot again

SUNDAY VANGUARD NIGERIA: Grass To Grace: I was locked-up at Kirikiri prisons after I helped Nigeria win Olympic medal – Toblow

SUNDAY VANGUARD NIGERIA: SUBSIDY FRAUD INCORPORATED (1): Fresh scandal surrounds FG’s committee

SUNDAY VANGUARD NIGERIA: Anxiety mounts over missing journalist

NIGERIA: Saturday Papers July 21, 2012, Early Edition

SATURDAY TRIBUNE NIGERIA: I’m Against Nigeria Breaking Up, But... —Fani-Kayode

SATURDAY TRIBUNE NIGERIA: Edo Poll: Nigeria Can Truly Get It Right - Babangida

CHANNELS TELEVISION: Gunmen kill six in Borno after emergency rule was lifted

SATURDAY TRIBUNE NIGERIA: 21-Year-Old Nigerian, Chibundu Onuzo Is UK’s Best Black Student Of 2012

EURO SPORT: Merrit shines again in Monaco

DAILY TIMES PAKISTAN: Nigerian sect suspects kill 6 after emergency lifted

WASHINGTON POST: 2 killed in north Nigeria city drive-by shooting amid growing sectarian violence

THIS DAY LIVE: Please, Let’s Leave Keshi to Plot His Journey

SATURDAY TRIBUNE NIGERIA: Federation Cup: Prime Tops In Ibadan, Draws Enyimba In Q-final

BIAFRA: Relative Discourses With Hakan Gottberger, Ed Keazor, Ambrose Ehirim, Ebele Obumselu, Et al

Biafran Food Distribution Map Courtesy Of Ed Keazor/Hakan Gottberger



Hakan Gottberger was a Swedish photographer who volunteered to work for the International Red Cross during the Biafran War helping distribute relief materials as they arrived. In 2007, Gottberger was in an exhibition where he showed his Biafran project photographs in Biafra in 1968-69 during his days of volunteering for the Red Cross in distributing food along the routes designated by the handlers from Item to Uli. Thanks to Ed Keazor, Ebele Obumselu and Hakan Gottberger who made this presentation possible. Presentation was conducted on Keazor's Facebook page between August and September 2011. All images in this article were taken by Gottberger and permission must be sought for any use and reproduction.

Ike Chime: I remember these routes well. At a time during the war, I was a Red Cross volunteer. I served in Hospitals such as Iyienu hosp, Adazi Joint hosp, Achi joint hosp, Gen hosp Owerri etc. I was also at sector rendezvous like Nzam Odekpe axis, and briefly in relief centers . Thanks Ed and Håkan Gottberger.

Ambrose Ehirim: Thanks Ed for this...'preciate it! @Ike: What were your assignments at these hospitals and relief centers?

Ike Chime: My first posting was Iyienu Hospital and my assignment included waiting on hospitalized soldiers and assisting doctors and nurses. Regarding sector rendezvous our duty was to assist military medical personnel in applying first aid and rushing the wounded to hospital. My brief work at the relief center was in Owerri where we doubled as air raid emergency unit and assistants at relief supply centers. I operated at the cenima theatre off Douglas by Ama JK. My coming to Owerri was due to the evacuation of the Adazi joint hospital when Awka was under fire. When I think of it now, I am amazed at the ingenuity of the planners of such a massive operation of moving a large hospital with hundreds of soldiers and civilians with varying degrees of ailment. A group moved to Umuahia, and the other Owerri.

Ambrose Ehirim: How were you recruited in such a critical time of a people? Was it voluntary?

Ike Chime: Ambrose there is more details about my red cross activities during the war in this NVS article http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7886&Itemid=154

Ambrose Ehirim: ‎@Ike: The link doesn't take me directly to the particular article you were referring to. If you would, email me and send me the link. Also, have you considered an eye witness account in book format?

Ike Chime: OK Ambrose, will be looking forward to that.I am putting the pieces together, and hopefully with the encouragement I am getting from people like you, a book to that effect will see the light. I salute you.

Ambrose Ehirim: ‎@Ike: Thank you so much for the attachment. Apparently, NVS does not allow its link related. Once again, thanks, and we should be hooking up soon!

Håkan Gottberger: Sixty's was a turbulent time, a lot happened in the world, but the Biafra war brought an extra strong feelings in Sweden with large collections of money. When the International Red Cross Committee asked Sweden to send aid to Biafra sent the Red Cross, the largest operation since the Second World War. With large ads in newspapers, they sought volunteers to the effort. I signed up because I had little experience in Africa, after having served in the United Nations forces in Congo. Also upset about what happened in Biafra and Czechoslovakia, I did not want to stand next to and just watch.

Ed Keazor: Incredible stuff gentlemen. @Ike: I am still intrigued by your accounts especially your detention after the war and how Nze Mark Odu tutored you, incredible! @Hakan: Did you serve in the army in Congo? Of course you did, as you clearly said so...

Håkan Gottberger: Yes, the Swedish army sent volunteers to serve in United Nations forces. A tradition since Dag Hammarsköld time.

Ambrose Ehirim: ‎@Hakan: As a voluteer serving for the Red Cross, what role did you play during the course of volunteer work in Biafra?

Håkan Gottberger: At first, I was stationed in the village Item to distribute food and other supplies to refugee camps in the surrounding area and to try to Check whether the items came to the needy, children and pregnant women. Everything was done in close collaboration with Biafra Red Cross young enthusiastic volunteers. When it became difficult to get staff to work at Uli, the airport, I started there.

Ambrose Ehirim: ‎@Hakan: At Item and before Uli, did food distribution get to the needy -- women, infants and children -- in the manner it was suppose to? We heard there were incidents of coercion and theft, leaving the desperately starved short of relief materials.

Håkan Gottberger: Sure, it happened that trucks with supplies were robbed, but we got over time, police escorts, as well it happened to older people tried to oust the young people to access goods. But we managed to keep control in our area, I think. I hope my English is not too bad, use Google for translation, it can sometimes be wrong.

Ambrose Ehirim: ‎@Hakan: Your English is perfectly well, sir! On your own personal account, what was it like working at Uli? We heard relief materials came in at night and some couldn't sneak in because of the 'Economic Blockade.' Were you aware of that?

Håkan Gottberger: What was the cargo in the aircraft that was not RC I do not know. It was a stressful work situation in the darkness of night to retain sole responsibility of the load was taken care of and that nothing was stolen, but that happened occasionally. We also took the gasoline from the aircraft to be used for our cars. Sometimes there was gunfire when the police would catch any thief, the routine was at least one bombing raid every night. Of course they were scared when they heard the whistling of the bombs and we counted seconds after it ceased to detonation was heard, then you knew how close it was
.
Ambrose Ehirim: ‎@Hakan: How long were you stationed at Uli and what were your findings with regards to the war?

Håkan Gottberger: About 3 months. I was at the airfield, difficult to answer the second question, the memory fades, but the UN did not have the ability to intervene because of the prevailing balance of power is a sad story. Maybe it's a little better world now.

Ed Keazor: Really enlightening gentlemen and thanks Ambrose for asking the right questions. Its a privilege to have you guys share this with us while you're still here and to Ebele for making it all possible.

Ebele Obumselu: Ed, we could not have done this better. Many thanks for organizing, annotating and presenting the material.

Ruth Bourne: Fascinating stories, gentlemen.

Ed Keazor: For those who are not aware Capt August Okpe was the Chief Pilot of the Biafran Airforce, who flew under the command of Chude Sokei and Count Carl Gustav Von-Rosen and was in the pioneer set of Nigerian Airforce Pilots. His book is the only focused work on the Biafran airwar, I cannot recommend it enough.

Håkan Gottberger: There is a small book written in Swedish for Swedish volunteer effort in the war. In it are a shared feature in English, when I'm home again I will copy the pages and mail them to you Ed.

Ed Keazor: I definitely will and looking forward to it- many thanks Hakan safe journey back.

Obaro Ege: Ed, as we give Captain Okpe due recognition, do you have any information on Wing Commander Ezeilo? I had written earlier on a couple of his missions, using the captured Nigeria Airways DC3. It would be nice to know where he is today and if he recorded his memoirs as Captain Okpe did.

Ed Keazor: I believe Ezeilo is deceased (I stand to be corrected) there is quite a lot about him in "The last Flight". What comes to my mind from reading is that whilst a brave and talented Pilot, he probably found Command challenging. On another note what is intriguing is the camaraderie between all the members of the first set of the NAF who trained in Canada- Aleyideino, Okpe, Ezeilo, Ukeje, Yisa Doko etc. They remained close like brethren, even until the Eastern members returned to the East after the July 66 coup.

NIGERIA: Thursday Papers, July 12, 2012 Early Edition

COMPILED BY AMBROSE EHIRIM

GLOBAL TIMES: Nigeria to set up cassava bread development fund

GLOBAL TIMES: Nigeria to send petroleum bill to national assembly

LEADERSHIP NIGERIA: Sen. Emodi Says Justice Mukhtar's Appointment Is Historic

NIYI TABITI: Multiple Grammy Awards Nominee,Femi Kuti,Wife Now Officially Divorced

KCUR: Despite Grim Headlines, Africa Is Booming

LEADERSHIP NIGERIA: Absence Of Judge Stalls Hearing Of Lagos Doctors' Case

REUTERS: WAfrica Crude-New July Bonny cargoes add further pressure

REUTERS: Nigeria's cabinet approves bill to overhaul oil sector

BUSINESS DAY: Edo Police arrest 4 over Oyerinde's murder

BUSINESS DAY: Gunmen kill 4 persons in Bauchi

CHANNELS TELEVISION: Security agencies deny fresh violence in Plateau and Bauchi states

WALL STREET JOURNAL MARKET WATCH: Air Products Celebrates Manufacturing of 100th LNG Heat Exchanger

INDEPENDENT UK: Catholic Melinda Gates defies the Vatican over birth control funds

THE NATION: Senate confirms Justice Mukhtar as CJN

THE NATION: 27.5% Salary: Teachers to begin indefinite strike July 23

PM NEWS: Military Denies Further Killings in Plateau

PM NEWS: New Igbo Group Vows To Avenge Killings In The North

PM NEWS: KILLING OF ARMY GENERAL: Police Arrest 4

UNESCO: Nigerian city of Port Harcourt named 2014 World Book Capital

Young boy and girl reading books in a street in Qazvin, Iran. Photo: UNESCO/Dominique Roger

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) today (July 11, 2012) announced the selection of the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt as the 2014 World Book Capital.

“I extend my congratulations to the city of Port Harcourt for the quality of its proposed programme, which provides for extensive public participation and aims to develop reading for all,” said UNESCO’s Director-General, Irina Bokova, in a news release. “I wholeheartedly endorse the commitment of Port Harcourt to support literacy through the activities organized for the year.”

According to the agency, its selection committee chose Port Harcourt for the quality of the programme it presented. It focused on youth and the impact it will have on improving Nigeria’s culture of books, reading, writing and publishing to improve literacy rates.

The selection committee, which met last Thursday at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris, brings together associations in the book industry – the International Publishers Association, the International Booksellers Federation and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions – as well as representatives from the culture agency.

Each year, the committee bestows the title of World Book Capital to a city which has committed itself to promoting books and reading, and to highlight the vitality of literary creativity. The nomination does not imply any financial prize, but it is an exclusively symbolic acknowledgement of the best programme dedicated to books and reading, UNESCO said.

Port Harcourt is the 14th city to be designated World Book Capital following Madrid (2001), Alexandria (2002), New Delhi (2003), Antwerp (2004), Montreal (2005), Turin (2006), Bogotá (2007), Amsterdam (2008), Beirut (2009), Ljubljana (2010), Buenos Aires (2011), Yerevan (2012) and Bangkok (2013).

NIGERIA: Tuface, M.I., Others To Tour N-America

By Ngozi Opurum, Daily Times-Nigeria

The United Sounds of Africa (USA) would kick off their first ever North American tour with Tuface, M.I, J.Martins.

Organised by Interglobe Entertainment Group (IEG) and Live Nation, the tour would get together new and existing partners to create music and cultural connections with their individual brands in the context of a global music agenda.

"United Sounds of Africa presents a perfect platform to connect with fans of the beautiful music coming out of Africa and taking the world by storm. I am excited and it is going to be a lot of fun," Tuface said.

IEG is a global leader in media and entertainment, while Live Nation Entertainment is the world's leading live entertainment and eCommerce company, comprised of four market leaders: Ticketmaster.com, Live Nation Concerts, Front Line Management Group and Live Nation Network.

"I am proud to be joining Tuface and everyone on stage as a part of this very first United Sounds of Africa tour. I think American audiences will be blown away by the talent and diversity onstage and by how much the African music scene has to offer. These will be amazing shows," M.I. said.

The tour which kicks off on August 1 in Houston, Texas, has Timi Dakolo, J. Martins, Iyanya, and Brymo as artistes to perform.

IEG created the USA project to bring the best African music vocalists /artistes /composers together for a series of live performances uniting Africa's diverse musical cultures. In addition, the USA tour will connect current African artistes with those of the diaspora, continuing the legacy of such globally successful, African-born artists as Akon, Sade, and K'naan.

"This will be an open platform for any audience that relates to a musical exchange and collaboration from one continent to the other. This tour presents Live Nation with the unique opportunity of introducing some of Africa's top musical talent to crowds across the country," Jay Belin of Live Nation said.

CEO Efe Omorogbe of Now Muzik, said, "We at Now Muzik are very proud to partner with Interglobe Entertainment Group and Live Nation on the U.S.A platform. We look forward to a thrilling experience on this tour and more importantly, we hope that the platform delivers for our artists, Tuface, Timi and J. Martins, along with many other exceptional African talents, the much-needed in-road into the mainstream American circuit."

Senator killed in fresh Plateau attack

CHANNELS TV NEWS
Senator Gyand Dalyyop Datong (Plateau North, PDP) has been shot dead by gunmen while attending a mass burial ceremony for victims of an attack by Fulani herdsmen in Riyom and Barikin Ladi local government areas of Plateau state, North Central Nigeria.

A statement from the Plateau state commissioner of Information, Abraham Yiljap confirmed the shooting.

Senator Datong won his first election into the Senate in 2007 and was re-elected in 2011. He was previously a member of the Federal House of Representatives representing Barkin Ladi/Riyom federal constituency.

Also shot dead is Hon. Gyang James Fulani, the Chief Whip of the Plateau state House of Assembly. Hon. Fulani was representing Barkin Ladi constituency. Barkin Ladi is about 25 kilometres from the state’s capital, Jos.

Another lawmaker representing Barkin Ladi/Riyom federal constituency in the House of Representatives, Simon Mwatdkon is currently hospitalised after recovering from coma.

Over 37 people were killed in Barkin Ladi at the weekend in a new cycle of violence between Fulani herdsmen and Berom tribesmen who live in the two local government areas.

Over 9 villages were attacked by people believed to be Fulani in the raids on Saturday.

The attack reportedly took place at the venue of the burial of some of the victims of Saturday’s attacks.

Clashes in Nigeria's volatile Jos kill 10

(Reuters) - Clashes between Nigerian security forces and armed Fulani herdsman erupted on Saturday, killing at least 10 people in the ethnically mixed and volatile city of Jos, a government official said.

Jos is the capital of Plateau State in the heart of Nigeria's religiously diverse "Middle Belt", where the mostly Muslim north meets the largely Christian south.

Plateau has for more than a decade been a tinderbox of ethnic and religious rivalries over land and power between local people and migrants from other areas. Hundreds have been killed in ethnic clashes in Jos in recent years.

Islamist sect Boko Haram has claimed several suicide bomb attacks on churches in Jos this year, prompting a Christian backlash against Muslims.

A spokesman for the military Special Task Force, Salisu Mustapha, told Reuters his men engaged the Fulani herdsman, a migrant community, after they attacked local indigenous communities.

But a spokesman for the Fulani said the military instigated the violence. "It was the soldiers that first opened fire," Miyetti Allah, chairman of the Plateau cattle association, told Reuters.

"The soldiers were being used by the government because we are in war with the tribes of the governor."

Mustapha denied his troops started the violence.

Plateau State Information Commissioner Abraham Yiljap confirmed the death toll of at least 10.

Security experts believe Boko Haram's attacks on churches in central and northern Nigeria are an attempt to provoke a wider religious conflict inside Africa's biggest oil producer.

The militant group has killed more than a thousand people since an uprising in 2009 and is maintaining a low-level insurgency against President Goodluck Jonathan's government. The sect wants to carve out an Islamic state in northern Nigeria.

However, much of the violence in Jos is not instigated by Boko Haram and is a result of long-running ethnic tensions and local political power struggles.

(Reporting by Buhari Bello; Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by Pravin Char)

Scientists at Children's Hospital Los Angeles Identify Mechanism Critical to Lung Formation and Regeneration

PRESS RELEASE

Eya1 phosphatase acts to maintain barrier integrity in the lung

(LOS ANGELES, Jul 02, 2012 BUSINESS WIRE) -- Scientists have provided the first evidence that an enzyme called Eya1 protein phosphatase is a critical regulator of lung function and that this may have broad implications for sufferers of a variety of pulmonary diseases. "Identification of the role of Eya1 in establishing pulmonary tight junction and barrier integrity could have a significant impact on asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and acute respiratory distress syndrome, all diseases characterized with disruptions in permeability," said Ahmed El-Hashash, PhD, investigator at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles and assistant professor at the Keck School of Medicine.

Proper formation of lung epithelium is essential to life. The normal growth and functioning of the lung depends on the formation of tight junctions between adjacent cells making up the alveolar epithelial sheet, a thin layer of tissue separating neighboring alveoli. Alveoli are the site of gas exchange between the lung and blood vessels. Loss of these tight junctions alters the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Permeability dysfunction has been implicated in both acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome, a life-threatening lung condition that prevents adequate oxygen from getting from the lungs and into the blood.

Until now, very little has been known about the basic regulatory mechanisms underlying permeability barrier formation and integrity of the lung epithelium. David Warburton, MD, director of Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine at The Saban Research Institute, and El-Hashash provided the first evidence that the enzyme Eya1 protein phosphatase controls tight junction and permeability barrier formation in the lung epithelium. They have also provided the first evidence that Eya1 enzyme coordinates a complex network of other cellular proteins and molecules that are essential for epithelial barrier integrity, and are therefore critical to optimal lung function. Both in vivo and in vitro experiments showed that interfering with Eya1 phosphatase function resulted in defective formation of tight junctions and the permeability barrier.

"These findings identify a novel therapeutic option for lung diseases like COPD and ARDS," said Warburton. "Our discovery of Eya1 enzyme control of pulmonary barrier integrity suggests that influencing alveolar epithelial junction formation by manipulating the activity of enzymes has the potential to identify future targets for the treatment of lung injury and may provide solutions to the problems concerning regeneration of lung tissue for restoration of functional alveoli."

Results of the study will be published in the Journal of Cell Science.

About Children's Hospital Los Angeles

Children's Hospital Los Angeles has been named the best children's hospital in California and among the top five in the nation for clinical excellence with its selection to the prestigious US News & World Report Honor Roll. Children's Hospital is home to The Saban Research Institute, one of the largest and most productive pediatric research facilities in the United States, is one of America's premier teaching hospitals and has been affiliated with the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California since 1932.

SOURCE: Children's Hospital of Los Angeles.