Tag Archives: Awarded

Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

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The 2016 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end his country’s long-running civil war with FARC rebels.

The Nobel committee made the announcement in Oslo on Friday, five days after voters in Colombia narrowly rejected a peace deal that Santos’ government had spent years negotiating.
In its citation, the committee said it had awarded Santos the prize for “his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end, a war that has cost the lives of at least 220,000 Colombians and displaced close to six million people.”
It added: “The award should also be seen as a tribute to the Colombian people who, despite great hardships and abuses, have not given up hope of a just peace, and to all the parties who have contributed to the peace process. This tribute is paid, not least, to the representatives of the countless victims of the civil war.”
Read More: CNN

Obasanjo Awarded Abuja Rail Project Without Design, MOU- Senate Panel

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Former President Olusegun Obasanjo awarded the Abuja Rail Project in 2007 with neither a design nor a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), according to the Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The then Minister of FCT and current governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, was said to have signed the contract based on an uncalculated estimate.

The revelation came as the committee discovered the contract, which stood at 60.67 kilometres, was inflated by $10 million (about N2 billion at N200 per dollar) per kilometre even as the length was later reduced to 45 kilometres without the refund of the cost for the 15.67 kilometres dropped.

To this end, the Senate committee, led by Dino Melaye has demanded the refund of the of $195,878,296.74 ( about N392 billion at N200 per dollar) being the amount for the 15.67 kilometres cut out from the Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC), handling the project.

The Project Manager of the company, Etim Abak, who answered questions from members of the committee when they undertook an oversight assignment to the project site, said the contract was signed by the then FCT minister without design and MOU, saying it was carried out based on what he simply identified as a conceptual design.

“The contract was awarded based on a conceptual design and estimates were not properly done. There was no formal design submitted and rail bridges and crossover bridges were not captured in the contract, “he told the committee.

According to him, the contract sum was $841.645,898 and project completion period was 48 months while the scope of work was 60.67km standard gauge, with double railway tracks and associated permanent way within FCT.

Melaye , who alleged the whole project may be shrouded in fraud, wondered why the project, whose length initially stood at 60.67 kilometres was later reduced to 45.245 without cut in the cost of the project initially paid for.

Credit: Guardian

Scholarship For Virgins: 16 Girls Awarded Scholarships After Passing Virginity Test

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A mayor in South Africa awarded scholarships to 16 girls because they are virgins, according to the Associated Press, which said the young women have voluntarily abstained from sex and have agreed to undergo regular virginity tests to keep their scholarships.

Uthukela Mayor Dudu Mazibuko said the funding will be renewed “as long as the child can produce a certificate” saying she’s still a virgin. “To us, it’s just to say thank you for keeping yourself and you can still keep yourself for the next three years until you get your degree or certificate,” Mazibuko said.

The reason this community — located in the eastern South African province of KwaZulu-Natal — introduced the scholarships is because young women are more vulnerable to exploitation, teenage pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease, according to Mazibuko. Teen pregnancy is a major issue in South African, where 22,286 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 became pregnant in 2013, according to research from a professor at North-West University in South Africa. A survey by Statistics South African found that 5.6 percent of South Africans girls between the ages of 14 to 19 were pregnant in 2013, the Associated Press reported.

At least one group in South African is taking issue with the virgin scholarships. Mfanozelwe Shozi, chairman of the Commission for Gender Equality, said the mayor’s intentions are good but the scholarship is ultimately discriminatory. “There is an issue around discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, virginity and even against boys,” he told the AP. “This is going too far.”

Credit: Cosmopolitan

This Woman Was Awarded $7.25 Million When Her Ex-Husband Posted Nude Photos of Her Online

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A woman was awarded $7.25 million in a revenge porn suit against her ex-husband, who, she says, made her have sex with other people on camera and then posted the videos all over the Internet, according to the Dallas Morning News.

The paper reports that there are more than 2,000 websites with pornographic or provocative photos of Bindu Pariyar, which she says were posted by her ex Tom Randell Sewell, who has refused to take them down. The images range from Pariyar dancing on a pole to having sex. She explains that her ex ordered her to work at a strip club for money and that, after plying her with drugs and alcohol, he forced her into having sex with other men (who she later learned were paying him) and women while he filmed.

Credit: Cosmopolitan