Education must not fail another generation by Obasanjo

MY life was utterly changed at the age of eight when I was sent to school – a journey that saw me abroad for further and higher education.

This precious education meant I could return to my country and support efforts to improve the lives of future generations and make meaningful contribution to development process all over the continent of Africa.

This was more than five decades ago. Today, as the publication this week of UNESCO’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report shows, we the world continue to fail our children.

The UNESCO report shows that one in five young people in developing countries have never completed primary school. In Nigeria where I grew up, we have more children out of school today than we had at independence.

Education is not merely a problem for the education ministries to solve. In today’s global economy, failing to provide proper education will undermine economic growth and reinforce social inequalities.

Africa has some of the world’s fastest growing economies, as we highlight in our 2012 Africa Progress Report, and this pace looks set to continue for the coming years. But oil and minerals alone will not sustain this economic growth. And development indicators suggest the growth figures are much less impressive than they initially seem.

Places like the Republic of Korea and other East Asian ‘tiger’ economies teach us that a meaningful and sustainable growth surge can only be maintained by emphasizing the development of our youth with skills and education.

At the Africa Progress Panel, we talk about a “twin crisis” in Africa’s education. The numbers of children out of school may have dropped significantly between 2000 and 2009 but Africa is still on track to have 17 million children out of school in 2025, a decade after the world’s 2015 target date for universal primary education.

Meanwhile, many African children are receiving an education of abysmal quality. Far from equipping themselves for a globalized economy, millions of Africans emerge from primary school lacking basic literacy and numeracy skills.

They face the prospect of marginalization, poverty, and insecure unemployment. They easily fall into crime and squalor.

UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Report shows that investment in schoolchildren and students represents a sound financial opportunity.

If 75 per cent more 15-year-olds reached the most basic benchmark in maths, then economic growth could improve by 2.1 per cent, and 104 million people could be lifted out of poverty. An African NGO, Camfed (The Campaign for Female Education), supports poor girls from rural areas with grants and training in business management, for example.

Young women’s businesses

More than nine in ten of the young women’s businesses are now making profit as a result of the work of this NGO. Governments and their partners must make it easier for more children to go to school, no matter how disadvantaged they are – and to ensure they receive a better quality education when they do.

As we make clear in this year’s Africa Progress Report, governments should target those who have been left behind. A child’s education should not depend on whether they are male or female, or on whether their parents are rich or poor, urban or rural. Public spending should target disadvantaged schools and regions. Financial transfers aimed at keeping children in school – and young girls out of child labour or early marriage – all have a role to play.

Second, we need to find more teachers and equip them to teach. Too often, our children are being subjected to rote learning by teachers lacking the skills to deliver effective instruction, and lacking the support to improve their performance. And too often they are sitting in classrooms lacking benches to sit and textbooks. This cannot be an effective way of learning. Children are more discouraged than encouraged to learn within the environment and quality of teachers provided.

Third, we need to see more attention paid to the education crisis in conflict countries, where conflicts that last a decade or more can set back education by a generation. Fourth, donors must spent less time talking about commitments and more time acting on those promises. We need US$16bn a year just to keep the Education for All promise made in 2000 that by 2015 all children are able to complete their primary education. To achieve universal lower secondary school enrollment would cost a further US$8bn.

For those who have seen the school system fail them already, we need ‘second chance’ programmes to ensure young people have the skills they need. There are encouraging signs here. In Malawi, where only half of children manage to complete primary school, as many as 10,000 students have taken part in such a scheme; half of those so far have either completed the course or returned to primary school.

I was given my chance to succeed with the education received more than sixty years ago. And for today’s small girls and boys we have to take action now. By 2030 there will be three and a half times as many young people in sub-Saharan Africa as there were in 1980. We cannot afford to fail another generation.

......OLUSEGUN OBASANJO/VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS NIGERIA OCTOBER 22, 2012

I was raised by monkeys after being kidnapped and abandoned in jungle as a child, says Marina Chapman

FEW housewives could boast of a compelling and exotic life story to rival that of Marina Chapman.

BY HELEN WEATHERS/DAILY MAIL/ADELAIDE NOW

Marina Chapman claims she was raised by a troop of capuchin monkeys in the jungles of Colombia Source: Herald Sun

Born in Colombia, it is said she was kidnapped aged four and abandoned in the jungle, where for five extraordinary years she was raised by a colony of capuchin monkeys.

As their adopted daughter, she claims she learned to scale trees and catch birds and rabbits with her bare hands, her Tarzan-like existence coming to an end only when she was discovered by hunters.

Her story is the subject of a book called The Girl With No Name, due to be published in Britain next year. There are also plans for a TV documentary.

The PR blurb for the book, the rights to which have already been sold in seven countries, says breathlessly of her capuchin "family": "By following them and copying what they ate and drank, their social activities, their language, Marina gradually became part of the family for five extraordinary years.

"They fought, played and shared tender and terrifying experiences. Marina developed extraordinary super-human abilities such as tree-climbing, stealth and animal communication."

Compelling indeed, especially when set against the backdrop of her adopted home of Bradford, where she trained as a cook, worked at the National Media Museum, then switched careers to help troubled young children, after marrying a local bacteriologist in the 1970s.

Yesterday Marina — who believes herself to be in her 50s but cannot be certain of her birthdate — declined to elaborate further when she answered the door at her three-bedroomed semi in the middle-class suburb of Allerton. She politely explained that a publishing deal prevented her from speaking about her past.

An avid church-goer, she is popular with her neighbours, who speak of her caring nature - rather than her unusual childhood. In fact, the neighbours we spoke to had no idea of her time running with monkeys, for in Bradford she is better known for once cooking a quiche for the Duke of Kent, who apparently declared it "the best I’ve ever had".

Her 64-year-old husband John, a former church organist, spoke only to insist, good-humouredly, that they had not raised their children like monkeys. This was in response to their 28-year-old daughter Vanessa’s comment in one report at the weekend that: "When we wanted food, we’d have to make noises for it."

Certainly, Marina is not the only feral child believed to have been reared by animals, and experts say monkeys are known to accept young humans into their fold.

In 1991 a six-year-old Ugandan boy, John Ssebunya, was found hiding in a tree having spent three years in the wild, cared for to some extent by vervet monkeys. Now aged 27, he learned to speak and sing, touring with a choir.

In another famous case, in 1996, two-year-old Bello was found living with chimpanzees in northern Nigeria. He was believed to have been abandoned at six months old and when first discovered he walked like a chimp, dragging his arms on the ground. He died in 2005.

Other feral children have been raised by wolves, goats and dogs - but capuchin monkeys? This is the one aspect of Marina’s story which has left some primate experts well and truly baffled. Especially as the average height of a capuchin is between 30cm and 50cm.

One expert told us: "Chimpanzees, yes, I could imagine that. And possibly orangutans. But capuchins? That would be truly extraordinary.

"Capuchins are very sociable and intelligent animals, but they can also be highly aggressive, territorial and vicious. They have been known to kill each other in territorial disputes.

"An adult male capuchin monkey weighs around 6 or 7kg, about half the size of a three-year-old child. It wouldn’t be able to pick up a baby, let alone a small girl of four.

"They live in colonies of around 30 or 40 and roam the jungle, covering around 12-18km a day, so how a human would be able to follow them and become part of the colony I do not know.

"I could imagine a young child learning certain skills from capuchins, especially from those primates which have grown up in areas populated by humans, but it stretches the imagination to think of a child becoming a part of a capuchin family."

This, one can only suppose, makes Marina’s survival in the jungle all the more remarkable.

Indeed, the book publicity adds: "Surrounded by terrifying noises and trapped by its sheer suffocating deafness, half-drugged and starving, Marina tried to find her way home. She searched for food and water along the way, competing with big cats, poisonous spiders, giant pythons, extraordinary insects and huge bats."

How Marina integrated back into society after five years isolated from human company is not explained.

However, her account does detail how the hunters who found her in the jungle sold her into prostitution in exchange for a parrot, and how she managed to escape before having to see her first client - only to end up on the streets of Cucuta, reputedly one of Colombia’s most lawless cities, picking pockets to survive.

Eventually she led her own gang of thieves made up of orphans and homeless children.

In her mid-teens she found employment with a Colombian family as a maid. She lived with the family, but worked mainly for the neighbours, who were in the textile business.

When they went on a six-month trip to Bradford in the mid-Seventies, they took her along. It was here, in 1977, that Marina Luz - the name she gave herself - married John, whom she had met at a church meeting. They had two daughters, brought up, so this remarkable tale goes, in part as if they were monkeys.

As for who took her into the jungle in the first place, one of Marina’s daughters, composer and model Vanessa James, said her mother’s abduction was by unknown kidnappers, presumably seeking a ransom.

"It’s assumed that the kidnap went wrong," she said in an interview. "All she can remember is being chloroformed with a hand over her mouth. And all she can remember of her life before that is having a black doll as a toddler.

"Obviously she learned to fend for herself and only once got very ill when she ate something poisonous."

Vanessa said of her childhood, which involved creepy-crawlies and mammals being brought into the house: "All my school friends loved Mum because she was so unusual. She was childlike, too, in many ways.

"I got bedtime stories about the jungle, as did my sister. We didn’t think it odd — it was just Mum telling her life."

Mother and daughter returned to Colombia five years ago in a failed attempt to trace Marina’s parents, and decided to write her story - until now unknown outside her close family - to highlight the problems of child abduction and trafficking.

A share of the profits from the book will be donated to charities fighting human trafficking and child slavery in Colombia.

Marina was signed up by literary agent Andrew Lownie, who yesterday explained he too is unable to talk about her book until it is published.

However, a biography of Marina on his website describes her as ‘an exceptionally rare, arguably unique example of an abused, uneducated feral child who has somehow survived and conquered her misfortune.

"Part of the wild child is still very much in her; she has spent much of her time in England embarrassing her children by scaling trees in seconds, catching wild birds and rabbits with her bare hands, as well as milking the odd passing cow."

One thing’s for sure, this Bradford housewife’s story gets more and more curious with every detail.

Igbo Leaders Seek Presidency At Ekwueme's Birthday

By Christopher Isiguzo and Muhammad Bello/THIS DAY/ALL AFRICA, October 21, 2012

Encomiums flowed in torrents Saturday in Enugu as Igbo leaders, including governors of the South-east states and President General of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohaneze Ndigbo, Ambassador Raph Uwechue, celebrated the 80th birthday of the Second Republic Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme in grand style.

The leaders, who thronged the Michael Okpara Square, Enugu, venue of the celebration, used the occasion to reiterate some of the political issues that have bothered the Igbo nation of late. They insisted on the emergence of a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction and the creation of additional states in the South-east to address the current imbalance between the number of states in the zone and those of the other geopolitical zones.

Ekwueme, who was born on October 21, 1932, turns 80 tomorrow.

President Goodluck Jonathan was represented at the ceremony by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim. The president reassured the people of the South-east of his commitment to the cause of the Igbo race, describing Ekwueme as the "living symbol" of the nation whose birthday should be used to mark the beginning new things for the people.

The birthday celebration attracted the crème de la crème of the Igbo society from the political, traditional, religious and other socio-cultural groups.

In Abuja, Jonathan described Ekwueme as "a living personification of the highest ideals of patriotism and selfless service." In a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr Reuben Abati, the president called Ekwueme, "A thorough-bred professional, an accomplished administrator and leader of men, an epitome of the highest ideals of selfless service and unwavering patriotism, your unassailable integrity and consummate diligence have combined to make you one of our most respected national icons today.

"Over the years, you have consistently invested the benefit of your inspiring attributes in dedicated service to our dear country, while continuing to avail our generation of leaders of your enduring wise counsel. It is my prayer that Almighty God continues to keep and prosper you even as He blesses you with robust health and a life of perpetual fulfilment."

Among leaders that attended the Enugu event were Governors Peter Obi (Anambra), Theodore Orji (Abia), and Rochas Okorocha (Imo) and Acting Governors Dave Umahi (Ebonyi) and Sunday Onyebuchi (Enugu), former Senate President Ken Nnamani, Dr Okwesilieze Nwodo, Dr Chukwuemeka Ezeife, and Professor Chinedu Nebo.

Others included Dr Igwe Aja Nwachukwu, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, Igwe Laz Ekwueme, Chief Dubem Onyia, Professor Joe Irukwu, Mrs. Arumma Oteh, Senators Jim Nwobodo and Anyim Ude, and National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Chief Victor Umeh.

Speaking on behalf of the president, Anyim commended the Igbo leaders for the honour done to the former vice president, saying that the event affords them an opportunity to chart a new leadership and followership approach in the South-east.

"I encourage us to rally behind Ekwueme to lead the Igbos to the Promised Land as a national symbol of service and a statesman. I wish to use this opportunity to urge Nigerian politicians to emulate the virtues in Ekwueme because that's the only way to secure the future for Nigeria ," he stated.

Also speaking, Obi, Orji and Okorocha praised Ekwueme as a worthy statesman who had made enormous sacrifice for the unity and progress of the Igbo nation, in particular, and Nigeria, in general. They said the best birthday present for the elder statesman was for the federal government to initiate an executive bill asking the National Assembly to create one more state for the South-east.

Okorocha said that the governors of the five states of the zone had resolved to work in unity and, therefore, urged other Igbo leaders to imbibe the spirit of sacrifice in order for them to realise what God had destined for the race.

"Igbo nation is carefully created by God. We are a great people and nothing is wrong with us in any manner. Unity is never our problem. We are a great nation waiting for the appointed time. Nigeria is waiting for us. We are simply passing through temptations as easterners and at the appointed time, we are going to assume that position God has prepared for us," Okorocha said.

Obi said, "We have come to felicitate with our leader, Ekwueme, and use it as a mark of unity. Once we work together, such issues as Igbo presidency and the creation of additional state can be taken for granted. We are the true Nigerians and time has come for us to insist that as Igbos, we must be allowed to seek for political positions wherever we find ourselves."

Other speakers at the event, which attracted different cultural groups and traditional masquerades from the states of the zone as well as Delta, were Ezeife, who is a former governor of Anambra State, Nwobodo, Ambassador Uwechue, Chairman of the South-east Traditional Rulers Council, Eze Cletus Illomuanya, Senator Joy Emordi, among others.

Dad, 4-year-old killed in Calif. shooting; 3 hurt

Police officers respond to the scene where a man, wearing a mask, set a duplex on fire and then shot five members of a family on Saturday, Oct. 20, 2012 in Inglewood, Calif. A father and his 4-year-old son were killed and a woman and two other young children were wounded by the gunman, authorities said. A 6-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl were in critical condition, Inglewood Police Chief Mark Fronterotta said. The woman, said to be the children's mother, was being treated for gunshot wounds to the knee and pelvis. An 8-year-old boy was uninjured. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Katie Falkenberg)

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Police searched for a gunman who wore a painter's mask when he set fire to a home before going on a shooting spree early Saturday, killing a father and his 4-year-old son and injuring a woman and two other young children near Los Angeles.

A SWAT team set up a perimeter and was using dogs to search for the attacker, who may have lived in a rear house on the property, Inglewood Police Chief Mark Fronterotta said.

Five neighboring houses in Inglewood were evacuated as officers searched residences and the trunks of cars. Other nearby residents were told to remain inside with their doors locked. The suspect was described as armed and dangerous.

Investigators were trying to determine whether he fled or remained in the house as it burned.

The man wore a painter's mask apparently to shield his identity, Fronterotta said.

The gunman had known the family for at least eight years, according to Capt. Tom Richards of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

Television footage showed a home gutted by flames and a plume of smoke rising over the residential neighborhood early Saturday.

Detectives determined the suspect set the house ablaze at about 4 a.m. before opening fire with a weapon, Fronterotta said. Earlier the chief said the blaze was started after the gun attack.

The 28-year-old woman, said to be the children's mother, was being treated for gunshot wounds. She was in critical condition, as was a 6-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the pelvis and a 7-year-old girl with a gunshot wound to the chest, according to a department statement.

After being shot, the mother carried the wounded 4-year-old to a neighbor's yard.

"This extraordinary rescue attempt by the mother occurred in spite of the fact that she had gunshot wounds to both legs," the statement said.

The 30-year-old father was shielding two of his children when he was shot, the chief said. He died in surgery, as did the 4-year-old boy.

An 8-year-old boy was uninjured.

Police have no motive. But a neighbor, Judy Castellanos, told the Los Angeles Times that the suspect lived in one of three units on the property and described him as "really weird" and "dangerous." She said he had not paid his rent for years and that a new property owner had been trying to evict him.

"He had been asked to leave by the end of this month," Castellanos told the newspaper, adding that he was reclusive and would not let anyone look inside his home. Castellanos, who said her daughter is related to the man who was killed, did not give the suspect's name.

Nigeria Update: A Nation of Empire and Anarchy Continues Apace

Twelve bodies have been recovered from a river in Ogun State where a mini bus plunged into the river.

In the troubled city of Potiskum, gunmen killed seven people today, Saturday, October 20, 2012, taking the death toll to at least 35 in a continuous three days of violence.

Another tragedy struck the University of Port Harcourt neighboring community of (R)Umuchakara Village in Choba when last night gunmen murdered in cold blood another student of the school, his girlfriend and an ex-National Youth Service Corps member. The three were on their way back from celebrating their friend's graduation from the Service Corps when the car they were driving ran into a shop in the village. Nobody was hurt at the time of the crash. But when arguments ensued when a group of men in SUV arrived the scene between the celebrant and his friends, the men in the SUV opened fire killing three on the spot. The gunmen remains at large.

The uncertainties surrounding the off-year governorship election in Ondo State, Saturday, October 20, 2012, has not been made clear though there's been reports of widespread scandals of troubling polls.

The saga continues!

Nkem Owoh battles widow over land

Widow seeks justice, claiming that the actor is using his influence to oppress her

Nollywood actor, Nkem Owoh a.k.a Osuofia has threatened the life and destroyed the property of widow, Glory Ayogu in a land dispute.

Ayogu petitioned the case to the Commissioner of Police Enugu State Police Command.

According to the petition, Ayogu alleged that the MTN brand ambassador was trying to force her to part ways with her land adding that the actor sent some thugs to pull down the structure she had already put on the land.

Ayogu said: "I woke up in the morning of Monday October 1, 2012 only to hear that a house I was building at Plot 11 Emeheluaku Layout, Trans-Ekulu, Enugu, has been destroyed by Nkem Owoh and his agents.

"My encounter with Nkem Owoh began shortly after my husband, Ben Ayogu died in December 2004, just months after we purchased this plot of land.

"Being a teacher, I had saved with my husband to buy this particular plot of land and we were already making plans to build on it when the cold hands of death stole him from me, leaving me to look after our very little children.

"After mourning my husband, I discovered that there were some missing documents from our apartment, the most important of which was the documents for this plot of land. I raised the alarm then and when nobody came forth with information on its whereabouts, I quickly ran to the police at Abakpa junction to make a report.

"I also went to the Ministry of Lands, where, armed with the police extract, I was able to obtain the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the property. But not long after, Nkem Owoh appeared, claiming ownership of the land. I tried to inform him that I had neither sold the land nor authorized its sale to anybody but he insisted the plot belonged to him.

"The matter continued to drag between us until it got to a point when he began to ask that we settle. Having not sold the land and having no intention to sell the land, I told him there was nothing to settle. He persuaded me with all manner of offers, including that of paying extra money to motivate me to relinquish the land."

She went further: "When Nkem Owoh felt he was not succeeding in persuading me to part with this land, he began to use threats and on several occasions said he was going to forceful take possession of the land and vowed that since I claimed God will fight for me, that I had better bring down my Creator when the chips are down.

"Each time he comes to meet me, he usually came with a group of dangerous looking thugs but I was never to be cowed into giving him the only property I am leaving for my children.

"Because my salary was barely enough to pay our rent, pay for the school fees of the children and provide for their upkeep, I felt it was proper to construct a house no matter how small on the land so that we can move in and thus begin to save what we were using to pay house rents.

"Thus I began construction four years ago (in 2008). I was slowly building this potential home of ours because my income was not large enough for speedy construction. I had to even take a loan to enable us finish and park in this year.

"I had roofed the house and was about hanging the doors and windows, having also installed the frames when Nkem Owoh and his agents struck, bringing the entire structure, my four years of labour to ordinary rubble.

"When I saw the damage done to this property of mine, I ran to the Trans-Ekulu Police Station where I was rebuffed by an officer who, even without investigating the matter, concluded that Nkem Owoh is not a trouble maker and could never have done such evil. This officer refused my entreaties and sent me away, saying that the Police does not treat land matters."

She appealed to the Commissioner of Police to look into the case and grant her justice.

All efforts to reach Mr. Owoh have so far proved futile.

........NKECHI OPURUM/DAILY TIMES NIGERIA

Rawlings receives Governor of Nigeria's Abia State

Theodore Orji and Rawlings at Rawlings office in Accra

Former President, Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings has lamented the over-reliance on physical security to enforce peace on the African continent and called for investment in identifying the root causes of insecurity.

He said: “Too often we invest in physical security but that creates more enmity and stress. We should invest more time in political security. Physical security subordinates us and brings the worst out of us instead of the best.”

Former President Rawlings made the call when the Governor of Abia State of Nigeria, Chief Theodore Orji, paid a courtesy call on him at his Ridge office in Accra.

Chief Orji is in Ghana to participate as the Guest Speaker at the 8th Security Watch Lecture Series and 9th Annual Africa Security Awards Ceremony organised by Security Watch Africa.

Former President Rawlings commended the organisers for the choice of subject and said lack of security was a problem confronting the continent.

He said during his tenure as leader of Ghana, his government invested more in reaching the sources of problems and empowering the people, dwelling a lot more on education and doing away with social injustices.

Governor Orji, who received an award for instituting exemplary security policies in Abia State, said he called on President Rawlings because of the special relationship Nigeria has with Ghana.

He said the state government had invested a great deal in boosting security in Abia through the empowerment of the people and involvement of every citizen in governance.

Loans, he stated, had been offered to the youth to start their own businesses, the security forces had been equipped not only with weapons but in the area of intelligence gathering and the state legislature has formulated laws that facilitated the policies implemented by government.

President Rawlings expressed his gratitude for the courtesy call and prayed that all efforts will be made to explore the root causes of the situation in Mali so its resolution will serve as an example of how Africa can resolve its own problems.

He commended Chief Orji for his outstanding leadership and said Africa needed a few more of his ilk.

......GHANA WEB

Obama says his rival suffers from 'Romnesia'

In Virginia, President Obama uses a light touch to remind voters, particularly women, of the strongly conservative positions Mitt Romney took on many issues during the GOP primaries.

By Christi Parsons and Seema Mehta, Los Angeles Times

President Obama greets supporters at a rally at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. (Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images / October 19, 2012)

FAIRFAX, Va. — Pressing his case that his Republican challenger is untrustworthy, President Obama diagnosed him with a case of "Romnesia" on Friday but pledged to stop it from spreading by reminding voters of Mitt Romney's past conservative positions.

The jocular argument had a serious intent: convincing voters in this key state — particularly women — that Romney's effort to move from the positions he took in the GOP primaries to those with appeal to the more moderate general election audience represented "backtracking and sidestepping."

"If you come down with a case of 'Romnesia' and you can't seem to remember the policies that are still on your website," Obama said, "here's the good news.... We can fix you up! We've got a cure!"

The Romney campaign fired back quickly that Americans had perfect recall of the last four years and of the economic hardship that Republicans blame on the president.

"Have you been watching the Obama campaign lately? It's absolutely remarkable," Romney said shortly after taking the stage Friday night at a huge rally in Daytona Beach, Fla. "They have no agenda for the future, no agenda for America, no agenda for a second term. It's a good thing they won't have a second term. They've been reduced to petty attacks and silly word games. Just watch it."

Calling Obama's effort the "incredible shrinking campaign," he added: "This is a big country with big opportunities and great challenges, and they keep talking about smaller and smaller things."

The back-and-forth came as the two candidates prepared to retreat over the weekend for two days of preparation for their final debate, scheduled Monday night in Boca Raton, Fla. The subject will be foreign policy, and each candidate will be drawing a contrast in substance and in style.

Since his weak performance in the first debate, Obama has taken to heart the need to contrast himself with Romney. The "Romnesia" riff he debuted Friday was a device for pointing out differences to a crowd of suburban women he was trying to fire up for election day. He ran through a laundry list of conservative positions from which, he said, Romney was trying to escape.

Romney is also drawing contrasts in Virginia, where, as in a host of battleground states, the race is a statistical tie. In a state heavy with veterans and defense contractors, Romney has been hitting hard on the Pentagon cuts scheduled to set in at the end of the year if Republicans and Democrats in Congress cannot agree on a plan to avert them.

His ads tie Obama to the pending reductions, put in place as part of a bipartisan agreement. Obama aides this week were floating the possibility that the president would veto legislation to block the automatic cuts if Republicans refused to raise taxes on the wealthy to help keep deficit spending in check.

Responding to the "Romnesia" joke, Romney supporters pivoted straight back to their economic argument — and to the potential defense cuts.

"What is really frightening is that we know a second term for President Obama will bring devastating defense cuts that will cost Virginia over 130,000 jobs, more burdensome regulations, and the biggest tax increase in history on our small businesses and families," said Virginia state Delegate Barbara Comstock, a senior advisor to Romney.

At this point in the campaign, the two sides are shifting into voter-turnout mode, trying to get volunteers and supporters out to vote early — hopefully with their friends and neighbors in tow. The ground game is already in high gear; Obama's campaign has 60 offices in Virginia, while Romney's campaign has 30.

The point of Obama's visit Friday was to drive up the excitement. At George Mason University, the president reminded listeners that Romney has opposed the Lilly Ledbetter law, which makes it easier to sue for pay inequality, and has promised to rescind Obama's 2010 healthcare law and other administration initiatives.

"Now, anybody who thinks that this election doesn't matter, know this: My opponent has promised to repeal all of the things we just talked about as soon as he takes office — says he'd do it on Day One," Obama said. "We know full well that if he gets the chance, he'll rubber-stamp the agenda of this Republican Congress the second he takes office. Virginia, we can't give him that chance."

Romney has pledged to take away federal funding for Planned Parenthood and supports the overturning of the Roe vs. Wade decision that made abortion legal. He also opposes the Obama healthcare overhaul's requirement that insurance companies provide contraceptive coverage.

Nigeria's Ukwuachu Proves To Be A Quick Study For Boise State Football Team

BOISE, Idaho -- Boise State defensive end Sam Ukwuachu's parents grew up in Nigeria before settling near Houston to raise a family. They have five children - four of them girls.

Football was not in the picture, except on the TV.

"I watched it on TV every day," Ukwuachu said. "I loved how the guys played. I watched the NFL Network. I loved everything about it." He envisioned himself playing in those TV games some day and dedicated himself to making it happen.

The 6-foot-4, 222-pound Ukwuachu (pronounced oo-ka-watch-you), who began playing football in seventh grade despite his dad's injury concerns, is the only freshman starter for the 24th-ranked Broncos (No. 22 in the BCS Standings).

He has pushed himself from level to level with incremental goals like making the varsity squad at Pearland (Texas) High as a sophomore, earning a college scholarship and gaining the weight he needs to succeed at Boise State.

"I've always tried to get better, ever since I first tried to play football," he said. ". It just keeps going until hopefully one day I get to the next step." It helps that Ukwuachu enjoys the work.

Pearland coach Tony Heath remembers Ukwuachu researching various teams on the Internet and talking about high school, college and pro football with him.

"He was career-driven," said Heath, who won the 2010 state title with Ukwuachu at end and wide receiver. "He loved the game of football. He studied the game of football. And he took care of his classes to where he was able to qualify and get to the next level. . He found a hook in athletics that was driving him and steering him and I think it paid off for him." Ukwuachu, a redshirt freshman, has started the past five games. He has 16 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks, a forced fumble and three fumble recoveries. He's tied for the national lead in recoveries.

He plays the stud position, which requires him to drop into pass coverage at times. He ran the 40-yard dash in the 4.5-second range in high school.

Ukwuachu chose Boise State over Illinois, Louisville and Houston, among others. Other schools took a look and passed because of his size - about 200 pounds in high school.

"He was a big, tall athlete who played with pretty good toughness," Boise State coach Chris Petersen said. "I know a lot of guys looked at him and tried to figure out what exactly he is. How we're using him is exactly how he needs to be used. It's a really good fit." Ukwuachu has gotten his weight as high as 230 pounds this year. He hopes to reach 245 by next season.

The key is to put on the weight without losing the speed and agility that make him such a weapon as a pass rusher.

"He's pretty much the same body type as me," redshirt freshman tight end Holden Huff (6-5, 213) said. "We're both shifty and slithery. He's quick. It is definitely a changeup to what you're used to blocking." Ukwuachu has learned to accentuate his quickness. Instead of trying to move a lineman, he'll strike quickly and try to shed the block. Instead of the bull rush, he tries to slip through a crack to the inside or zip around the outside.

His weight primarily is a concern as a run defender - but so far that hasn't been a problem. He does notice a difference, though, with the weight he has put on in the past year.

Miami (Ohio) started a 348-pound tackle.

"I'm not too weak as to where I'm getting driven back off the ball," he said. "I feel like I can hold my own against some of the heavier tackles." Like high school, he has taken a studious approach to the game. He has learned the value of video study from veterans like cornerback Jamar Taylor.

Ukwuachu and sophomore Demarcus Lawrence, the other starting end, study opponents together and collaborate during games. Ukwuachu's fumble-forcing sack against Southern Miss came on a move suggested by Lawrence.

"I'm getting better every week," Ukwuachu said. "I'm learning a lot more than I did in the first couple games about dissecting the offense. I'm getting better at watching film - little things that help me learn how to be a better football player.

"On the field, I've been trying to finish plays, trying to get more sacks. I've been coming close a lot more. I've got to work on finishing plays."

...........CHADD CRIPE/THE KANSAS CITY STAR

A culinary 'Little Belize' in South L.A. area

BY BILL ESPARZA/LOS ANGELES TIMES

Ella's Belizean Restaurant offers takeout boxes of panades, salbutes and garnaches. Here owner Carla Dawson supervises the cooking of sister Connie. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times / October 20, 2012)

The last undiscovered ethnic culinary enclave in L.A. might be a dozen-plus Belizean restaurants in the South Los Angeles area, a "Little Belize" offering the multi-culti flavors of the tiny country formerly known as British Honduras.

Drive south from the 10 Freeway down Western Avenue to the limits of South L.A. and into Gardena you'll encounter a cache of Caribbean culture, where food is ordered in Belizean Kriol, an English-based Creole language that teases but evades comprehension. The Belizean restaurants are inconspicuous among Mexican, soul food and other Central American diners in a neighborhood full of no-tell motels and possibly the largest collection of Latino storefront Pentecostal churches imaginable.

On their tables you'll encounter the food of two distinct Belizean cultures: Maya and Kriol. Most of L.A.'s Belizean restaurants draw from both the Yucatan's Maya heritage and the British and West African mix known as Kriol. You can start with a Maya appetizer such as panades, tuna stuffed in a folded, paprika-stained, fried tortilla. A Kriol main like boil-up is a Saturday indulgence of pig tail, fish, hard-boiled eggs, yams, plantains, boil cakes made from flour, sweet potato, yucca and taro (called cocoa in Belize) covered in a stew of tomatoes, onions and peppers.

The only Central American country that was ruled by the British, Belize's dishes are a mix of multiethnic influences, more so than the cuisines of neighboring countries that fuse along an indigenous-to-Iberian continuum, though there are rice and beans — every day.

The three restaurants that stand out here are Ella's Belizean Restaurant, Joan and Sisters and Mar's Caribbean Gardens. Ella's is a Belizean snack-shack, Joan and Sisters boasts Kriol home cooking and extended hours (most Belizean restaurants seem to close by 7 p.m., or when the food runs out), and Mar's is a fancy island lounge serving solid Kriol cooking to go with cold Belikin beers.

Hidden in a South L.A. strip-mall dominated by a barbershop and a tattoo parlor that's always in party mode, Ella's Belizean Restaurant leaves no Belizean longing for home. Five is a crowd in this smallish space where "to go" boxes of stews and rice and beans are squeezed through an opening too small for two stacked orders to fit through. Panades, garnaches (bean and cheese tostadas) and salbutes (fried tortillas topped with chicken) are packed to go for a mostly Belizean clientele.

Ella's is named after the daughter of owner Carla Dawson. Dawson and her sister Stacy opened the restaurant "a year ago and some change," says Stacy. Cooking is in their DNA — "everyone in our family cooks." Get the piquant lobster cooked in a red recado (annatto seed paste), vegetables and spices on a bed of rice and beans cooked in coconut milk.

At the other end of the spectrum, Mar's Caribbean Gardens is the most ambitious Belizean restaurant in the L.A. area in size and ambience. It even has a full liquor license. Try the smoky, spicy chirmole: pork-stuffed chicken and hard-boiled eggs in a black recado (dark annatto seed paste) soup. Owner Marie Jimenez and manager Fred Dixon have created "a place where Belizeans can bring business clients and feel proud," says Jimenez.

Belizeans deem all soups and beverages to be healthful, aphrodisiacal or energizing: On Tuesdays and Thursdays at Joan and Sisters, it's creamy split pea soup with lardy, porky pig tail. Jump start the weekend with conch soup, served on Fridays.

Joan and Sisters, owned by Elenor and Samuel Bevans, opened 30 years ago to spread the joy of Elenor and her late sister Joan's "scratch-made" Kriol cuisine, featuring specialty savories such as mouth-watering meat pies adopted from British cuisine and Maya-influenced conch fritters.

And the conch fritters are likely the best on the Western Avenue Belizean crawl. They're expertly fried, packed with supple shellfish that's kissed by lime and hot peppers. A vinegary salsa of onions and habanero brings good heat, but "try this," says employee Rochelle Adolphus as she drops off the Belizean national sting of habanero pain known as Marie Sharpe's hot sauce. Fire in the hole.

Saturdays are when Kriols get down to their roots — and tubers. Boil-up is a Belizean Brukdown (multicultural Kriol music and dance), a starchy jam session with pig tail, fish and hard-boiled eggs blended by vinegary tomato sauce. This would get our vote for the national dish of Belize, a plate that melds incongruous ingredients into unifying flavor. This is how Kriols "remember their ancestors," Adolphus says.

Ella's Belizean Restaurant

3957 S. Western Ave, Los Angeles, (323) 737-5050. Open 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday. Cash only. Appetizers, $2 to $3; entrees, $7 to $12. Takeout (two tables available for seating). Street parking.

Joan and Sisters

3709 S. Western Ave., Los Angeles, (323) 735-8952. Open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. Credit cards accepted. Appetizers, $1 to $3.50; entrees, $10.50 to $13. Street parking.

Mar's Caribbean Gardens

14008 Crenshaw Blvd., Gardena, (310) 323-5000, http://www.marscaribbeangardens.com. Open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday to Thursday and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Credit cards accepted. Appetizers, $3.50 to $7; entrees, $13 to $18. Full liquor. Lot parking.

Plant-Based Foods May Offer Reduced Risk for Aggressive Prostate Cancer

Science Daily (Oct. 19, 2012) — President George W. Bush made no secret that he detested broccoli. With all due respect to our former leader, researchers have found one more great reason to add fruits, vegetables, herbs and tea to your diet.

A study by Susan Steck of the Arnold School of Public Health finds that a high intake of flavonoids, a group of compounds found in plants, may lower the risk for highly aggressive prostate cancer.

"Incorporating more plant-based foods and beverages, such as fruits, vegetables, herbs and tea, into the diet may offer some protection against aggressive prostate cancer," said Steck, an associate professor at the Arnold School and an affiliated scholar with the Center for Research in Health Disparities.

"Filling your plate with flavonoid-rich foods is one behavior that can be changed to have a beneficial impact on health," she said.

Steck presented her findings at the International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research. The annual event is sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, whose mission is to prevent and cure cancer through research, education, communication and collaboration.

Prior preclinical studies have shown that flavonoids have beneficial effects against prostate cancer, but few studies have examined the effect of flavonoids on prostate cancer in humans.

Steck and her colleagues used data from 920 African-American men and 977 white men in the North Carolina-Louisiana Prostate Cancer Project who were newly diagnosed with prostate cancer. Participants completed a self-reported dietary history questionnaire to assess flavonoid intake, which was measured using the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2011 Database for the Flavonoid Content of Selected Foods.

Men with the highest total intake of flavonoids had a 25 percent lower risk for aggressive prostate cancer compared with those men with the lowest flavonoid intake.

"We found that higher total flavonoid intake was associated with reduced odds for aggressive prostate cancer in both African-American and European-American men, but no individual subclass of flavonoids appeared to be protective independently, suggesting that it is important to consume a variety of plant-based foods in the diet, rather than to focus on one specific type of flavonoid or flavonoid-rich food," Steck said.

In addition, the risk for aggressive prostate cancer was even lower in those men younger than 65 and in current smokers with the highest levels of flavonoid intake. Dietary questionnaire results revealed that citrus fruits and juices, such as oranges and grapefruits, tea, grapes, strawberries, onions and cooked greens were the top contributors to total flavonoid intake among the participants. "The results support public health recommendations and guidelines from organizations such as the American Institute for Cancer Research to consume a more plant-based diet," Steck said. "In particular, consuming more flavonoid-rich foods may be beneficial for those people who are at increased risk for cancer, such as smokers."