Liam Boyce’s hat-trick sent last season’s semi-finalists Burton into the third round of this season’s EFL Cup courtesy of a comfortable 4-0 victory over League Two side Morecambe.
The Brewers could have been behind inside a minute but Kieran O’Hara did well to deny Shrimps forward Lewis Alessandra at close range before Albion’s attack put some serious pressure on the Morecambe goal.
Mark Halstead made a number of good saves to keep them out until the 34th minute, when he was unable to prevent Boyce from powerfully heading home a Scott Fraser corner.
Both Boyce and Lucas Akins were denied by Morecambe keeper Halstead before Boyce struck again on the stroke of half-time steering Oliver Sarkic’s cross home.
A blistering start to the second half saw the busy Halstead deny Akins once again before Ryan Edwards scored his first goal in a Burton shirt finishing off John Brayford’s low cross.
Kevin Ellison and Alessandra went close to getting Jim Bentley’s side back in the contest before Boyce completed his hat-trick to put the game to bed in the 74th minute
Halstead saved Akins’ header, before the Northern Ireland striker hooked in the rebound from close range to send last season’s semi-finalists into the next round.
…Rape Allegation: Police release COZA Pastor Fatoyinbo on Bail following arrival of Key witness from Port Harcourt. Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo Following the late arrival of the witness of Pastor Biodun Fatoyibo from Port Harcourt on Tuesday night, the Police authorities at Force Criminal Investigations Department have granted him bail and released. It was gathered last night that the expected arrival of the witness, which Fatoyinbo said is very important to the case, was responsible for the delay in releasing the Pastor on bail.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday approved the immediate termination of the appointment of the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission, NCPC, Rev. Tor Ujah.
This was contained in a statement by the Director (Information) at the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Willie Bassey on Tuesday.
The statement which was made available to reporters in Abuja, said the termination was in line with the provision of Section 4, Sub-Section 3 of the Nigerian Christian Pilgrim Commission Act.
It added that, “Ujah has been directed to hand over to Mrs. Esther Kwaghe, Director of Administration in the Commission, who is to oversee the Office, pending the appointment of a Substantive Executive Secretary.”
Nigeria marked three years free of endemic wild polio on Wednesday with health officials saying the nation’s progress in fighting the crippling viral disease could result in the whole of Africa being declared polio-free early next year.
The three-year milestone sets in motion a continent-wide process to ensure that all 47 countries of the World Health Organization’s African region have eradicated the virus, health officials said.
Africa’s last case of wild polio was recorded in Nigeria’s Borno State in August 2016.
“We are confident that soon we will be trumpeting the certification that countries have, once and for all, kicked polio out of Africa,” the WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, told reporters in a telebriefing.
Polio is a viral infection that attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours. Children under five are the most vulnerable, but people can be fully protected with preventative vaccines.
Wild polio remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but case numbers worldwide have been reduced largely because of intense national and regional immunisation for babies and children.
Latest Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) figures show that there have been a total of 65 cases of wild polio worldwide so far in 2019 – 53 in Pakistan and 12 in Afghanistan.
The GPEI, which is backed by the WHO, Rotary International and others, began its push to wipe out polio in 1988, when the disease was endemic in 125 countries and was paralysing almost 1,000 children a day globally. Since then, there has been at least a 99 percent reduction in cases.
At a briefing in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, Clement Peter, the WHO’s country representative, said the next six months would be “most critical” to whether Africa can be declared polio-free.
“Nigeria will submit its final country data for evaluation in March 2020, provided there are no new wild polio cases,” Peter said.
“If the data confirms zero cases, the entire WHO (Africa) region could receive wild polio-free certification as soon as mid-2020.” (Reporting by Kate Kelland in London and Abraham Achirga and Camillus Eboh in Abuja.
Commonwealth of Zion Assembly (COZA) founder, Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo is currently being interrogated by detectives at the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (FCIID) in Abuja over alleged rape of Busola Dakolo.
Mrs. Dakolo in June accused the pastor in a bare-it-all interview of allegedly raping her when she was a teenager inside her family’s sitting room one early morning he came visiting.
She gave horrid details of the encounter and explained how the pastor went on to exploit her vulnerability from that day, adding that a few pastors were aware and tried to assuage her family after her siblings took the war to Fatoyinbo back then.
Although Fatoyinbo denied the allegation claiming it was a calculated attempt to rubbish him, Dakolo’s case saw many other victims of the pastor’s alleged sexual assault speaking out on social media.
Efforts by the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) to wade into the matter was said to have been frustrated following the refusal of the pastor to honour their invitation.
Already, The Nation gathered that the police have located Mrs. Dakolo’s siblings including the sister she alleged was upstairs the day Fatoyinbo allegedly raped her at her family’s residence.
It was gathered that detectives chose to invite the pastor after following other clues to verify certain claims.
The pastor whose team was said to have been sent out of the department, was interrogated for several hours by a team specifically tasked to handle the case by the Inspector General of Police (IG) Mohammed Adamu through the DIG Investigation.
It was gathered that the detectives may detain the pastor unless there were guarantees he would not jump administrative bail by the police.
Confirming the development, Police spokesman Frank Mba, a Deputy Commissioner (DCP) said It was too early to say if Fatoyinbo would be detained, adding that only the investigators can arrive at that decision based on their findings.
He said: “Yes, he is currently at FCIID undergoing interrogation. We have been conducting discreet investigation. We are making efforts to reach one or two other pastors she alleged intervened then.
“It was a deliberate investigative strategy to bring Fatoyinbo much later after we must have gotten other things. Some Nigerians were thinking we did not want to talk to him but that is not so.
“He is with us now and I cannot say if he will be detained nor not. Investigators will have to determine that. They might choose to detain him or grant him bail while investigation continues.
“We have the statement of Busola Dakolo already. She earlier made a statement to the police. Nigerians are assured that we will diligently investigate and conclude this case.”
Juices made from some fruits may do wonders to keep hypertension in check.
Unhealthy eating habits, long working hours, and stress are some of the factors that have led to a number of lifestyle diseases; hypertension being the most common one. Hypertension develops when blood imposes a greater force on the walls of the arteries, which leads to rise in the blood pressure level that crosses the top borderline range of 140/90 mmHg. Blood pressure is basically the pressure that is levied on blood vessels as the result of blood flow and contraction and relaxation of the heart. Hypertension, in its early stage, does not pose any serious threat. However, if it is not treated in time, it can lead to cardiovascular problems like heart attack and heart stroke. That’s why a high blood pressure patient is advised to follow a healthy diet and include foods that are known to curb hypertension.
A balanced diet consisting of a mix of nutrient-rich foods can help a great deal in managing hypertension. Doctors advise consuming more foods with potassium and avoid foods with high sodium content. Apart from healthy meals, salads and fruits, juices made from some fruits may do wonders to keep hypertension in check.
Here are some fruit juices that may help regulate blood pressure levels
Pomegranate Juice
Pomegranate (anar) juice comes packed with essential vitamins and potassium that helps in smooth circulation of blood. Pomegranate juice is also known to fight and eliminate ACE (angiotensin converting enzyme) – an enzyme that stiffens the blood vessels that leads to a rise in blood pressure.
Cranberry Juice
Cranberry is a nutrient-dense fruit but its high content of Vitamin C is what makes it a great food for hypertension. Low-calorie cranberry juice helps in dilating blood vessels and proper circulation of blood.
Orange Juice
This refreshing juice made using Vitamin C-rich fruit – orange – contains potassium, folate and natural citrus bioflavonoids, which help keep blood pressure levels low, improve metabolism and help in maintaining sound heart health.
These fruit juices are not just delicious but also help you deal with high blood pressure. Balance is the key to maintain good health. Never overdo when it comes to diet. One must practice moderation. If your problem is severe, do consult your dietitian or nutritionist before making drastic changes in your diet.
Whether you’re trying to conceive after 35, or not yet there but thinking about the future, here are all the things you need to know about getting pregnant after 35.
If you are hoping to have a child and wondering about your chances as a ‘geriatric mother’ (the medical term for women pregnant at 35 or later). Age is one of the key factors that predict your ability to conceive. Your fertility starts to decline at age 30 and keeps on dropping steadily until you hit menopause.
However, that’s not to say that it’s impossible to deliver a healthy baby after age 35, in fact, it’s quite common.
If we’re looking at your chances of getting pregnant in numbers, biologically, you’re at your peak fertility in your 20s. Healthy women that age who are trying to conceive have about a 1 in 4 chance of getting pregnant during a single menstrual cycle. In other words, 25 out of 100 women will succeed per month. However, by age 40, an average healthy woman has only a 5% chance of getting pregnant per cycle. More-so, a typical 40-year-old has about a 40% chance of losing the pregnancy. That compares to less than 15% for someone in her 20s.
However, if you want to understand why getting pregnant after 35 is more difficult, learn about the various pregnancy risks after 35, and find out what your real odds are for pregnancy success, keep reading this informative piece, we’ve got all you need to know.
Challenges
The most common cause of the age-related decline in fertility is less frequent ovulation. As women age, they begin to have occasional cycles where an egg is never released. Egg quality and quantity also decline in a woman’s 30s and 40s. While the total number of eggs cannot be increased, research has shown that egg quality can be improved. Supplements containing Myo-inositol, folic acid and melatonin have been shown to help improve egg quality and ovarian function.
Other reasons conceiving after 35 may be more difficult include:
Infection or surgery that caused scar tissue around the fallopian tubes or cervix
Endometriosis
Fibroids or uterine disorders
A decrease in cervical fluid
Chronic health problems such as high blood pressure or diabetes
Pregnant women older than 40 years have an increased risk of preeclampsia. Some of the increase in risk may be because older women tend to have more health problems before they get pregnant than younger women.
Having high blood pressure, a condition that becomes more common with age, can increase the risk of preeclampsia. Studies also show that older women who do not have any health conditions still can have complicated pregnancies.
The risks of miscarriage and stillbirth are greater in women who are older than 35 years. Also, multiple pregnancy occurs more often in older women than in younger women. As the ovaries age, they are more likely to release more than one egg each month.
Before pregnancy
Get a preconception checkup. This is a medical checkup to help make sure you’re healthy before you get pregnant.
Get treatment for any health conditions you have, like diabetes, high blood pressure and depression. Make sure your Doctor knows about any medicine you take for these conditions. You may need to change to a medicine that’s safer during pregnancy.
Take a multivitamin with 400 micrograms of folic acid each day. Folic acid is a vitamin that every cell in your body needs for healthy growth and development.
Get to a healthy weight. You’re more likely to have health problems during pregnancy if you’re overweight (weigh too much) or underweight (weigh too little).
Reduce your stress.
During pregnancy
Go to all of your prenatal care checkups, even if you’re feeling fine. Getting regular prenatal care lets your provider check on you and your growing baby.
Keep up with treatment for any health conditions you have. You may need to change to a medicine that’s safer for your baby during pregnancy.
What can you do if you’re not ready to have children now?
Currently, there is no medical technique that can guarantee fertility will be preserved. If you know that you want to have children later in life, one option may be in vitro fertilisation (IVF). With IVF, sperm is combined with a woman’s eggs in a laboratory. If the sperm fertilises the eggs, embryos may grow. Embryos can be frozen and used many years later. When you are ready, an embryo can be transferred to your uterus to try to achieve a pregnancy.
The UEFA Champions League group stage draw will take place in Monaco on Thursday, August 29 at 6pm, Central African time.
The event will be happening at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco and will be streamed live on UEFA.com.
The teams involved in the draw are as follows:
Spain:
Barcelona
Real Madrid
Atlético Madrid
Valencia
England:
Liverpool
Chelsea
Manchester City
Tottenham Hotspur
Italy:
Juventus
Napoli
Internazionale Milano
Atalanta
Germany:
Bayern München
Borussia Dortmund
Bayer Leverkusen
RB Leipzig
France:
PSG
Lyon
LOSC Lille
Russia:
Zen it
Lokomotiv Moskva
Portugal:
Benfica
UKR
Shakhtar Donetsk
Belgium:
Genk
Turkey:
Galatasaray
Austria
Salzburg
Plus the six winning teams from the play-offs.
What are the draw pots?
Only Pot 1 is known in its entirety; the other pots will be confirmed once the final six teams have qualified via the play-offs.
Pot 1
Liverpool (holders)
Chelsea (UEFA Europa League winners)
Barcelona
Manchester City
Juventus
Bayern München
Paris Saint-Germain
Zenit
Clubs’ coefficients are determined either by the sum of all points won in the previous five years or by the association coefficient over the same period – whichever is higher (under a new system introduced for 2018/19 onwards), according to UEFA.com
The 26 teams given direct entry to the group stage under the competition system introduced in 2018/19 are joined by the six winners of the play-off ties.
The teams are split into four seeding pots.
Pot 1 consists of the holders, the UEFA Europa League winners and the champions of the six highest-ranked nations. Pots 2 to 4 are determined by the club coefficient rankings.
No team can play a club from their own association and, based on decisions taken by the UEFA Executive Committee, clubs from Russia and Ukraine must not be drawn in the same group.
In the case of associations with two or more representatives, clubs will be paired in order to split their matches between Tuesday and Wednesday.
If a paired club is drawn, for example, in Groups A, B, C or D, the other paired club – once drawn – will automatically be assigned to one of Groups E, F, G or H.
The draw also establishes the groups for the UEFA Champions League path of the UEFA Youth League.
UEFA awards:
UEFA Men’s Player of the Year: Messi, Ronaldo or Van Dijk?
The following award winners will also be announced during the draw ceremony:
UEFA Men’s Player of the Year
UEFA Women’s Player of the Year
Goalkeeper of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Defender of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Midfielder of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Forward of the 2018/19 UEFA Champions League season
Season calendar
17/18 September: group stage, matchday one
1/2 October: group stage, matchday two
22/23 October: group stage, matchday three
5/6 November: group stage, matchday four
26/27 November: group stage, matchday five
10/11 December: group stage, matchday six
16 December: round of 16 draw
18/19/25/26 February: round of 16, first leg
10/11/17/18 March: round of 16, second leg
20 March: quarter-final & semi-final draw
7/8 April: quarter-finals, first leg
14/15 April: quarter-finals, second leg
28/29 April: semi-finals, first leg
5/6 May: semi-finals, second leg
Saturday 30 May: final – Atatürk Olimpiyat Stadı, Istanbul.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council has alleged that the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is sponsored by politicians within and outside the country, especially a northern presidential candidate.
It also claimed IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu’s popularity soared because of President Muhammadu Buhari’s poor handling of the economy, which exposed the citizenry to acute hardship.
The Igbo youth body said Kanu had seen the lapses in Buhari’s handling of the country’s affairs and decided to capitalise on it.
The development, it claimed, had given the IPOB the leeway to attack, without remorse, the country’s leadership.
According to OYC, if the President had administered the country properly and carried everybody along, irrespective of tribe, nobody would have had the effrontery to castigate his government.
The Deputy President-General of the group, Obinna Achionye, stated these in a statement on Monday
The group noted that IPOB was merely deploying different strategies to draw the attention of the international community to itself.
It claimed that the group lost its popularity before the 2019 general elections.
It said the group’s bid was to have a presidential candidate from the North-East emerge as winner of the 2019 presidential election, the opposite of which had emboldened IPOB’s anger against Igbo governors.
The statement reads in part: “Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide will expose all the commercial activities of the IPOB, as they have done more damage to Ndigbo than they appear to salvage the situation the Igbo currently find themselves since 2015.
“IPOB lost Igbo consciousness before the 2019 elections as they are doing the political bid of politicians outside Igbo land, which they started with a North-East presidential candidate.
“IPOB’s popularity before the 2019 elections waned when it destroyed its members’ Permanent Voter Cards and plotted the fall of Governors Umahi, Ugwuanyi and Ikpeazu.
“We urge the South-East governors to disregard any kangaroo committee set up to interface between them and the IPOB. There’s no reason for a backyard settlement until IPOB openly apologises to Ndigbo.
“When the South-East governors called its bluff over its antics, IPOB connived with enemies of Igbo to stage a failed revolution protest which was unsuccessful in the region.
“Now they have resorted to a violent approach to do the bidding of a presidential hopeful from outside Igboland to bring down all presidential hopefuls in Igboland ahead of 2023.
“We know how a former minister from Anambra State persuaded a northern presidential candidate to use IPOB’s nuisance to hoodwink Igbos into voting for the politician after visiting Nnamdi Kanu in Israel.
“Nevertheless, we urge South-East governors not to negotiate with Nnamdi Kanu. Their blackmail and settlement strategies are dead on arrival.”
From Thursday, Nigerian citizens will be required to pay a visa issuance fee, or reciprocity fee, for all approved applications for nonimmigrant visas in B, F, H1B, I, L, and R visa classifications.
The reciprocity fee will be charged in addition to the nonimmigrant visa application fee of 160 dollars, also known as the MRV fee, which all applicants pay at the time of application.
Nigerian citizens whose applications for a nonimmigrant visa are denied will not be charged the new reciprocity fee. Both reciprocity and MRV fees are non-refundable, and their amounts vary based on visa classification.
Nigerians who are issued tourist visa will now pay 270 dollars.
U.S. law requires U.S. visa fees and validity periods to be based on the treatment afforded to U.S. citizens by foreign governments, insofar as possible. Visa issuance fees are implemented under the principle of reciprocity: when a foreign government imposes additional visa fees on U.S. citizens, the United States will impose reciprocal fees on citizens of that country for similar types of visas. Nationals of a number of countries worldwide are currently required to pay this type of fee after their nonimmigrant visa application is approved.
The total cost for a U.S. citizen to obtain a visa to Nigeria is currently higher than the total cost for a Nigerian to obtain a comparable visa to the United States. The new reciprocity fee for Nigerian citizens is meant to eliminate that cost difference.
Since early 2018, the U.S. government has engaged the Nigerian government to request that the Nigerian government change the fees charged to U.S. citizens for certain visa categories. After eighteen months of review and consultations, the government of Nigeria has not changed its fee structure for U.S. citizen visa applicants, requiring the U.S. Department of State to enact new reciprocity fees in accordance with our visa laws.
The reciprocity fee will be required for all Nigerian citizens worldwide, regardless of where they are applying for a nonimmigrant visa to the United States. The reciprocity fee is required for each visa that is issued, which means both adults and minors whose visa applications are approved will be charged the reciprocity fee. The fee can only be paid at the U.S. Embassy or the U.S. Consulate General. The reciprocity fee cannot be paid at banks or any other location.
The complete reciprocity fee schedule, organized by visa classification, can be found below.
The reciprocity tables displayed on travel.state.gov will be updated to reflect the changes above.
