Monkey inherits fortune

Shabista feeds Chunmun a diet of milk, fruit and home-cooked meals

An Indian couple who were ostracised after their families disapproved of their wedding have decided to leave all their property to their pet monkey.

Brajesh Srivastava and wife Shabista told BBC Hindi they were "lonely for many years" before they bought Chunmun the monkey in 2005 for 500 rupees ($8).
The couple, who have no children, say they have raised him like a son.
Mr Srivastava is Hindu and his wife is Muslim, and inter-faith marriages are still controversial in parts of India.
Mrs Srivastava says both their families shunned them after their marriage and that they were lonely until they bought Chunmun.
"He was a baby then, less than a month old, and his mother had died after being electrocuted," she says.
She feeds Chunmun a diet of milk, fruit and home-cooked meals. His room has an air-conditioner to keep it cool in the summer and a heater to warm it in the winters.

The couple say they were "lonely for many years" until "Chunmun came into our lives"

In 2010, the couple arranged a lavish wedding for Chunmun to a female monkey named Bitti Yadav.
The two monkeys live together at the couple's home, and have a party for their wedding anniversary every year.
Mr Srivastava said his business has improved and the family has seen prosperity ever since they adopted Chunmun.
The house in Raebareli town in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where the Srivastavas live is named Chunmun and the couple talk about the simian with the indulgence of fond parents.
"For breakfast he has pomegranate and a glass of milk. At 10am, he has a home-cooked meal of lentils, bread, vegetables and chutney," Mrs Srivastava says.
She says Chunmun went through a phase where he would bite people.
"A doctor we consulted said it was illegal to keep a wild animal as pet," she says.
"When we heard that we started crying and told him that Chunmun was like our son. He felt sorry for us and spoke to some officials on our behalf. He also levelled Chunmun's teeth so that he won't be able to bite people," she says.
Although some street performers train the simians to entertain people and earn a living through them, correspondents say not many Indians are known to keep monkeys as pets.

In a rare case, a woman in the north-eastern state of Tripura was known to have adopted a monkey whom she used to breastfeed.

Fighting the crocodile that 'ate my wife'

Four months ago, Demeteriya Nabire was killed by a crocodile when she went to the lake near her home to fetch water. The animal later came back to the area but found Nabire's husband waiting, ready to take revenge.

Demeteriya Nabire was at the water's edge with a group of women from her village - they were gathering water from Uganda's Lake Kyoga when the crocodile grabbed her. It dragged her away and she was never seen again.
Her husband, Mubarak Batambuze, was devastated - Nabire was pregnant when she died, and he had lost not only his wife but an unborn child as well. He felt powerless. But then last month he heard the crocodile had returned.
"Somebody called me and said, 'Mubarak, I have news for you - the crocodile that took your wife is here - we are looking at it now.'"
The 50-year-old fisherman made his way to the lake with some friends. "He was a very big monster, and we tried fighting him with stones and sticks. But there was nothing we could do," he says.
So Batambuze went to visit the local blacksmith.

"I explained to him that I was fighting a beast that had snatched and killed my wife and unborn baby. I really wanted my revenge, and asked the blacksmith to make me a spear that could kill the crocodile dead.

Illiterate President

How would it feel to have a president whose academic credential is so low or does not exist at all? I want to imagine him in a room, on the spotlight with Obama or Merkel or Putin or Brown.

Will this have anything to do with his carrying capacity of his vision for Nigeria,his oratory or speech IQ? His eloquence or in-eloquence,his speech charisma,frail and pale looks,what will they mean for the brand 'NIGERIA'?

Buhari's inability to speak in visionary numbers and figures of how he will turn Nigeria great doesnt make him a prefered choice,just like his greatest rival in the race for presidency.They both do not have thought provoking manifestos.

However,time has our answers ready and we shall wait.

Albinos fetch plenty cash for witch doctors

These graphic images show how albinos living in Tanzania are being attacked and often hacked to death for their limbs in widespread witchcraft practices.
Referred to as 'White Ghosts' in their communities, many believe their body parts bring good luck and wealth.
And the rich are willing to pay for such superstitions, with some forking out up to £2,600 for a limb, and as much as £50,000 for a whole body.
The sick trade has seen families turn on their own loved ones with witch doctors using body parts in their rituals and turning them into charms and potions.
Many of those attacked are children, who are 'hunted down like animals', with suspicion often turning on family members.

There have also been cases of husbands turning on wives due to the lure of making money. Many are so badly mutilated they die from their injuries.

Officially, 72 people with albinism have been brutally murdered in Tanzania over the past five years and many others left mutilated. But charities fear most murders go unreported and it is impossible to know how many babies are killed at birth.

According to the charity Standing Voice, which is working to stop human rights violations against marginalised groups, the stigma that surrounds albinism has been ingrained in society for generations.
Those involved in witchcraft also operate under a 'code of silence', which has made it even more difficult for authorities to investigate.
A spokesman said: "Seen as a curse from God, albinos are believed to bring bad luck to the households they are born in to.

"Many are killed at birth or rejected by their families. Judged by their skin colour alone they are continually dehumanised and ostracised within their communities.
"This stigmatisation has reached an unimaginable new level.

Harry Freeland / www.standingvoice.org

Hereditary: Albinism affects one Tanzanian in 1,400

"This practice has been fuelled by witchcraft. Witch doctors say the magic charms are more powerful if they contain body parts from people with albinism, which has led to a lucrative criminal trade in these body parts.
"In a society where poverty is rife, this horrific practice is becoming more widespread. To date only five people have been convicted in Tanzania for these crimes despite 100 confirmed attacks."
Albinism is a hereditary genetic condition which causes a total absence of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes.
According to experts it affects one Tanzanian in 1,400, often due to inbreeding in remote areas. There are approximately 17,000 people with albinism in Tanzania.
The shocking treatment of albinos in Tanzania led Harry Freefold to create a documentary.
In the Shadow of the Sun tells the story of two albino men as they attempt to follow their dreams in the face of prejudice and fear.
It was filmed over six years and shows first hand how albinos are living in fear for their lives. One of the men who features is Josephat Torner, who was born the only albino child out of 35 siblings.
He has spent his life campaigning for albino rights.

Superstitions: Albinos are targeted by witchdoctors

He said: 'People with the albinism are being hunted and killed for our body parts. It is because people want to become rich.
'We are still living in danger. It is because people, they have different ideas. Some people, they are thinking they should get our body parts and sell to different places."
Josephat believes it could be rich businessmen and politicians behind the trade in body parts, but is determined to help those with albinism live normal lives.
"We can't be refugees in our own country just because of our colour."
But the attacks have led to segregation, with hundreds of albino children being moved to live in special government schools surrounded by high walls and guarded by police. Yet it still hasn't stopped the sick trade continuing.
The most recent case is that of four-year-old Pendo Emmanuelle Nundi who was abducted from her home in December.
Despite promises of rewards and her father and uncle being arrested in connection with her disappearance, she has not been found.

Mr freefold, who was also one of the founders of standing voice, added: "We are holding a press conference in Tanzania next week, but are expecting the worst."

Magic Banks

From experience, investments that promise outrageous and quick returns have always been scam;and this is no different.It proves that hardwork,diligence and patience are superior ways of making a living.Examples are rife in these kind of failed promises like in the network marketing,crazy issuance of IPOs and the eventual stock market crash 2008/2009 in Nigeria.

The proprietor of a popular secondary school in Abaka­liki, the capital of Ebonyi State, Dr Pius (surname withheld), died recently. Family sources at­tributed the death of the seasoned educationist, who hailed from Ngodo village in Afikpo North Lo­cal Government Area of Ebonyi State, to frustration arising from a multi million naira investment gone awry.
According to an impeccable family source, “Dr Pius (surname withheld by us) invested about N50 million in a wonder bank which promised tan­talising returns on investments but he lost all the money. The promoters of the scheme had made promises to the effect that they will soon begin to pay investors but after waiting endlessly for some years without getting back his investment, he began to think and worry so much that his health took a dip. And the man died.”
Dr Pius was one of the custom­ers of Cash Flow ABI (American Biographical Institute) Network Limited, an organisation which pro­moted various schemes and offered extra-ordinary returns on investments to its clients but had been unable to discharge its obligation to them for about three years.
Indeed, the development is taking its toll on the thousands of investors in Ebonyi State and elsewhere whose investments appear trapped in the or­ganization. It was learnt that some of the investors had committed suicide while some developed such ailments as stroke and hypertension which in­capacitated them and, even claimed the lives of many.
One of the investors or victims, Mr Leonard Ugama, a retiree, recently told the reporter in his residence at Uburu in Ohaozara Local Govern­ment Area of Ebonyi State: “Yes, many of the investors have died, even somebody we may regard as the highest investor, the owner of a secondary school at Abakaliki died as a result of frustration. He threw in all he had worked for and it got trapped. Some died in Uburu here too.”
Another source said: “Many of the Cash Flow investors are dying and I do not think it is natural death. Many of them who were healthy not long ago have been plagued by all manner of ailments. It has to do with their in­vestments which vanished just like that. You know, we are poor people, so if you lose all you have laboured for in one go, there is nobody to help you. So, many of them are turning into vegetable.”
Rev. Charles Egbo, ICT manager of Cash Flow, Ebonyi State chapter, told the reporter that the network had many packages in online business, building investment, robot invest­ment, car investment, and soft loan facility. He added that the organisa­tion was “having close to N152 mil­lion investments from Ebonyi State and more than 1800 clients in the state,” but a source hinted that the ‘in­vestments’ could be much more than that amount. “I believe that they are indebted to Ebonyi people to the tune of more than N500 million. It is diffi­cult to see a family in the community without an investor or victim as the case may be. If you send money to your aged parents in the village, they will go and ‘invest’ it and go hungry. One elderly man was boasting to his son that he will surprise the young man,” the source disclosed.
It was gathered that “the investors were spread across various social strata. Educated, semi-educated and stark illiterates. Professionals, civil servants, businessmen and artisans all went for easy wealth and invested handsomely. In fact, anyone who was not part of the deal was regarded as lacking business acumen.”
How the cookie crum­bled
Many of the Cash Flow investors have been weeping in the valley of tears for years. They are dancing on the canvass of despair, sorrow and grief following the disappearance of their life savings and loans obtained with running interests from coopera­tives, among other sources.
Madam Rachael Nnennaya Chuk­wu, a teacher, is an investor with Cash Flow. Indeed, for her, it is like a bad dream. Cash Flow lifted her to an Olympian height, so to say and plunged her into a deep pit of shit. The reporter met her recently and she told a heart touching story. According to her, the investment nearly tore her family apart even as her integrity is now at stake. Her son in-law, brother, sister and church invested through her but their investments went down the drain or so it seems.
Hear her: “On October 1, 2011, I met one headmistress, Mrs Ebere Aja and she was introducing Cash Flow. She asked me if I knew any­thing about Cash Flow. I wanted to explain it in economic terms but she told me to stop blowing grammar. She said that Cash Flow is an organi­sation that rewards investors with 70 percent of their investment within 45 days. I asked her to explain it prop­erly and she did. She told me that if I was ready at the time that I could invest and in 45 days I would get an alert of 70 percent of what I deposited in the bank. I told her that I did not have money but that there was some money in my custody and that I will go and withdraw it and she said okay. The money belonged to the Mothers Guild in the church and I am their president.
“On Ocbober 13, 2011, we went to the bank in Abakaliki where the money was and we withdrew it. The amount was N700,000. I came home and met them at the Cash Flow office. I told them that I wanted to invest with them and they gave me their account number in Diamond Bank and asked me to go and deposit it and come with the teller so that they will open a file for me. So, I went and deposited the N700,000 in the ac­count they gave me which they said automatically becomes my account; they said I would be withdrawing my dividends from that account. After depositing the money, I brought the teller and they opened a file for me and gave me a receipt. They also gave me a certificate, showing that I had become their client. I still have the certificate. I did not want to take the money because it wasn’t mine; it was God’s money and I wanted to know if what they were saying was true.
“They didn’t give me alert until March 2012. That March 2012, they went round announcing that there will be verification and documenta­tion. It was even announced on the radio, that the owners of the invest­ment were coming to Ebonyi State and Uburu was the headquarters for the state. After checking their ledger, they discovered that I had not re­ceived any alert. After the documen­tation, they said I had N1.7million and asked me if I wanted the money. I told them that I wanted N1.6million and immediately they issued me a UBA cheque for N1.6million. They told me that they had five more days to stay at Uburu and that they were not fraudsters. They said that if I en­countered any problem at the bank I should call them with the number they gave me. I went to the bank at Abakaliki and cashed N1.6million.I left N100,000 in the account. I said it was God’s money, so I used the mon­ey to buy Toyota Bus for the church. I bought the bus for N1.2 million but we used the balance to b ring back the bus from Togo, registration and seats.”
Madam Chukwu became a super star in the community. She was the cynosure of all eyes wherever she went and everyone wanted to be like her. She continued: “With the way I spent the money, the news spread like a wild fire. Wherever I went, people pointed at me, saying this is Madam Chukwu who bought a bus for the church. Individuals and groups were coming, asking me how it happened and I explained everything to them. On account of that, people were rushing to invest with Cash Flow. In August 2012, they brought another promo, saying it attracted 50 percent interest on investment because as at that March 2012, they had reduced the interest to 20 percent. But I got 50 percent for November and December 2011 and 20 percent for January, Feb­ruary and March 2012. That was how they calculated my money.
“When the CEO, Engineer Phile­mon Gora, came with the 50 per cent promo in August 2012, he also re­duced the days of maturity to 30 days from 45 days. The news spread to nooks and crannies of Ebonyi State and people rushed to deposit mon­ey. The owner of Cash Flow came himself to an old hotel in Uburu, Chi­manelo Hotel and announced that his intention was to enrich people. There was a sea of human heads there. He said that he was not a politician and there was no politician who could compete with him in terms of mon­ey. He usually quoted Malachi 3:10, imploring everyone to pay tithe on whatever they were paid. He said no investor in Cash Flow will ever be broke. So, so many people invested within the period.”
Madam Chukwu added: “Many people borrowed money with run­ning interests to invest. I told my in-law who was working with the bank and many of my relatives. I told them I had seen the pathway to making money. I also invested another N1.55 million plus the N100,000 I already had with them. So, I had a total in­vestment of NI.65 million. They said that in 30 days “you will get 50per cent dividend on your investment and if you want to withdraw your investment you can do so after 30 days.” Since that August, till Decem­ber 2012, people were filling forms to withdraw but nothing was given to them. Then people started crying because many of them had borrowed the money they invested with the in­tention of paying back the loans.
“Gora later announced that every­one should go and open an account in a micro finance bank on Ogoja Road, Abakaliki. He categorized their clients according to the value of investment. He said that those who invested N5million and above would be getting a certain amount of money weekly until everything is paid if they so desired. And those who had between N1 million and N5 million would be receiving a certain amount of money through the micro finance bank. We rushed and opened accounts in the micro finance bank but nothing has been paid ever since. Those I introduced to the scheme in­clude my brother, sister, son in-law and the church.”
Madam Chukwu has been under severe pressure since the investments got stuck. She had been called names and accused of cheating. It almost destroyed her family. “I have been on fire since that time, as if I embezzled the money. The reason they gave me money was that they saw what I did with money from the scheme. But it appeared to them that I did not in­vested the money or that I refused to return the money to them. This thing caused a lot of problems in my fami­ly; it almost separated my son in-law and I because he brought N1 million. He appreciated what I did when I bought the vehicle for the church be­cause I explained everything to him but when the money got trapped, everything changed. They trusted me but with what happened, trouble arose.
“I am pleading for the man (Gora) to bring back my money. It is one of my prayer points. If it were my money, I would have endured it but it made me a liar. If I get the money, I will prove to them that I did not dupe them,” she said in an emotion soaked voice. It was learnt that “a few other investors who embraced the scheme early made bountiful harvest and be­gan to spread the ‘good’ news in the community and beyond. To convince anyone who had an iota of doubt, they flaunted the gains they had made within few months of investing in the scheme and even boasted about what they would do with money in the near future.
“As the early beneficiaries spread the good news as it were, many other investors came aboard. Many people who maintained accounts in regular banks withdrew all they had in them and invested same in the scheme. Even those people who didn’t have money of their own did not want to be left out. Hence they went to bor­row from any available sources, in­cluding money lenders, cooperative societies and traders unions, with running interests. The situation was such that the scheme was announced in the church and worshippers were encouraged to take up the opportu­nity.”
Like father, like sons
Mr Leonard Ugama, a pensioner, also narrated to the reporter how he invested in Cash Flow. Ironically, he didn’t invest alone; two of his sons were also investors in the ill-fated transaction. He said: “In November 2011, an old man told me that there was an announcement in their church that there was somebody who want­ed to make people rich. He said that the person was a Christian, that he was interested in helping people. He said that his pastor’s wife invested with the man and she had been get­ting some interest. They referred me to the Cash Flow office in Uburu. I went there and they showed me the returns that people had been getting. So, I decided to invest.
“My first investment was on No­vember 4, 2011; I invested N250,000 that time. When it started yielding, I opened another one with a little less than N250,000. I continued until I reached the fourth and fifth entries. They were paying us as you de­manded; they were giving us 20per cent for 45 days. So, after sometime they said that they were going to do promo and that the promo will attract 50per cent interest. Many people like me sourced money and invested in the promo which they called Local Robot. From the time of the Local  Robot, we started having problems. I was expecting that when I get money from the ones I had invested earlier, I would put it in the promo but it didn’t work that way because what I was expecting was never paid to me. Robot, we started having problems. I
“Later on, we started hearing the rumour that the people were having problems and we were waiting. One day, the owner of Cash Flow came by himself to address us. He told us that people were jealous of the peo­ple investing with him. He said that very soon, he will be free and start paying us, which he never did. We have decided to wait until whenever it is God’s wish that we shall get our investment back.
“I invested N1.3million in the pro­mo. Before the promo, I had N646, 800 in the scheme. There was a time he asked us to pay N50,000 to facili­tate the release of our funds and some of us did. In my immediate family, we were three that invested – my two sons and me. One of my sons invest­ed N700,000 in the promo and had a balance of N20,000 from other en­tries he made. The other one invested N200,000 plus N20,000 from other entries he made. They do not an­swer phone calls but when you send them a text, anybody there can reply. It was about a year ago that we had any form of communication. He has made us suffer beyond our expec­tation. My appeal, therefore, is that he should do something to help by giving us at least what we invested, even if the dividends are not forth­coming. Many of the investors have died, even somebody we may regard as the highest investor, the owner of a secondary school at Abakaliki died. Some died in Uburu here.”
In an earlier report, some of the investors had lamented their inabili­ty to access their investments. Mrs. Florence Chukwu, a retiree, had dis­closed that she invested N120,000 without getting anything in return. Mrs. Irene Ada Akpo, a school prin­cipal, said that she invested millions of naira in the scheme. She said: “I joined in December 2011 with the sum of N500,000. I was getting my interest up till June 2012 before the CEO introduced what he called ‘promo’ which he said that if some­one puts a certain sum, the interest would be 50 percent. So, some of us even borrowed money to join. I personally at that period put in N1. 6million. Then, we waited and the next month when we were supposed to have gotten our interest, nothing was forthcoming. We later learnt that the EFCC were interrogating him somehow. We continued to get in­formation that they will soon be over it and that about eight or nine of his accounts were closed, that we should be patient. Then, he came to Uburu and had a seminar at Chimnelo Ho­tel. Many of us attended. In fact, the hall was filled to the brim. He narrat­ed his ordeal in the EFCC, how they asked him to open a micro-finance bank and that he struggled to open it. He gave us some papers he called modalities for payment. He told us that the EFCC said that he should pay us our capital but that he was willing to add the interest there. And that was the reason he refused to pay his clients their capital only. Most of us believed him. They gave everybody the paper tagged modalities for pay­ment; some of us borrowed money again to pay into one account called Gadonkay GLC or something like that. I personally borrowed N50,000 and paid it in so that my money will come out but up till this moment, I have not seen anything”.
Mrs Precious Odi said that she in­vested N650,000, adding: “To wors­en my case, I collected the money I deposited with Cash Flow from someone and I’m paying interest on it up till now. So, each time I collect­ed my salary, I use it to service my debt, leaving me with nothing.”
Ugo Okolie, a teacher at Commu­nity High School, Uburu invested N70,000 while Mrs.Orienta, also a teacher invested over N60, 000. Another teacher, Victor Nnenna Ene, also a teacher, lost more than N70,000. Mrs Lucy Umahi, council staff, also invested N50,000.
Mr Onu Agodichi Emmanu­el committed N220,000 and Hon. Thomas U. Chukwu, invested over N1million. According to Chukwu, “the CEO came sometime ago and addressed us. He told us that those with deposit worth up to N1million will be rewarded with accumulated interests of over N1million. He told me to pay N50,000 into his account with Diamond Bank. He called it counter fund, saying it will facilitate repayment of my deposit. He also told me to go to a micro finance bank in Abakaliki to open an account with N1,000. He said that once we comply with these, they would com­mence payment to all depositors within a space of one week.”
About three years later, no investor had been paid.
Why payments stopped
Rev Egbo had told the reporter that the firm had “problems with Securities and Exchange Commis­sion (SEC) which made our ac­counts to be closed. Up to eight of our accounts were closed; we had no access to our accounts, that was why we couldn’t pay again. But the board of directors and CEO are pro­cessing the matter with SEC. They have finalized their investigations with him. They went to the banks with him and inspected the accounts and saw that the whole money was still intact. That what he was say­ing were not mere fabrications or falsehood. The CEO, Engineer Philemon Gora, a native of Kadu­na State, has been a Christian and truthful somebody. Since we came to work with him, we’ve not seen him misbehaving or maltreating or intimidating any client. And he is somebody who doesn’t want to hear that a staff harassed a customer.”

It was learnt that the firm also had issues with the CBN, EFCC and ICPC. The reporter wanted to con­firm the situation with the Kaduna office but the call rang out without response. On January 19, 2015, an sms was sent to the phone number on the certificate of investment issued to customer but there was no reply.

Why would you have sex in your baby's tomb?

Maud Gonne played a public role in the struggle for Irish independence, but her life also included private tragedy. Her grief over a child who died at the age of two inspired an unpublished poem by W B Yeats - and she was so desperate to reincarnate the boy that she had sex in his tomb.

Actress, activist, feminist, mystic, Maud Gonne was also the muse and inspiration for the poet W B Yeats, who immortalised her in some of his most famous verses.
After the Free State was established in 1922, Maud Gonne remained a vocal figure in Irish politics and civil rights. Born in 1866, she died in Dublin in 1953.
But for many years in her youth and early adulthood, Maud Gonne lived in France.
Of this part of her life, much less is known. There is one long-secret and bizarre episode, however, that has now been established as almost certainly true.
This was the attempt in late 1893 to reincarnate her two-year-old son, through an act of sexual intercourse next to the dead infant's coffin.

''I cannot imagine any reason why she would have made the story up - it is too bizarre and too personal”

End Quote Warwick Gould Yeats scholar

Maud Gonne was English by birth. Her father, Thomas, was a captain in the British army, and during part of her childhood the family lived in Ireland. This was where her interest in Ireland began.

Later Maud was sent to be educated by a governess in France. There was also a rich aunt who introduced her to society in Paris. She was barely out of her teens when her father died, and not long afterward she began a relationship with a right-wing French politician called Lucien Millevoye.
"Millevoye was obviously a replacement father figure," says Yeats scholar Deirdre Toomey. "He was 16 years older than she."
Millevoye was a follower of Gen Georges Boulanger, a hardline nationalist who in the late 1880s briefly looked like he might be the future leader of France.
Boulangistes like Millevoye were obsessed with recapturing the lost eastern territories of Alsace and Lorraine. But Millevoye was also strongly anti-English, and he encouraged Maud Gonne in her own growing hostility to the Crown in Ireland.

Maud had been travelling regularly to Ireland, learning at first hand of the rent strikes and evictions in the countryside. She was increasingly sure her future lay in opposing the English interest in Irish politics.
Then on 30 January 1889, in Bedford Park, London, there took place the famous meeting between Maud Gonne and the young poet William Butler Yeats.

Yeats was immediately overwhelmed. According to his biographer R F Foster, Maud Gonne appeared to Yeats "majestic, unearthly… Immensely tall, bronze-haired, with a strong profile and beautiful skin, she was a fin-de-siecle beauty in Valkyrie mode".

It was the start of a mutually obsessive relationship that would last half a century. But what Yeats did not discover until very much later was that less than three weeks before this momentous first encounter, Maud Gonne had given birth to a baby boy.
The baby was called Georges, he was born in Paris, and he was Lucien Millevoye's.
Gonne - a complicated character if ever there was one - initially kept Georges' existence secret from Yeats. When he did find out about the baby, she insisted that he was not hers but adopted.
"It is surprising how naive Yeats seems to have been over Gonne's child," Toomey says. "He must have wanted to believe that what she said was true about it not being hers."
But two-and-a-half years later Georges was dead. It is not certain how he died, but it was probably meningitis.
When Yeats met Gonne next, it was in Dublin in October 1891 and she was shattered. By a strange twist, she arrived in Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire) on the same mail boat that brought the body of the just-dead Irish politician-cum-hero Charles Parnell.
People thought her tears were for Parnell, but they were for Georges.
Over the next two years, in Dublin, London and Paris, a grief-stricken Gonne was drawn into the occultist and spiritualist worlds that were already of deep importance to Yeats.
Writing many years later in his memoirs, Yeats recalled that Gonne repeatedly asked his circle of friends about the reality of reincarnation. One friend - the writer and mystic George Russell - assured her that it was indeed possible to recreate a dead child's soul if the parents went about it in the right way.
And so the story leads to a white stone mausoleum in the cemetery of the small riverside town of Samois-sur-Seine, 50km (30 miles) south-east of Paris.

Maud Gonne used to rent a house here, to get away from the bustle of Paris and when Georges died, she had him interred in the town's graveyard.
Having inherited a large sum of money on the death of her father, she paid for a memorial chapel - the biggest in the cemetery. In a crypt beneath, the child's coffin was laid.
In late 1893 Gonne re-contacted Lucien Millevoye, from whom she had separated after Georges' death.
She asked him to meet her in Samois-sur-Seine. First the couple entered the small chapel, then opened the metal doors leading down to the crypt.
They descended the small metal ladder - just five or six steps. And then - next to the dead baby's coffin - they had sexual intercourse.

Hugh Schofield visits the mausoleum where Georges was laid to rest

How do we know this?
The evidence comes from Yeats. In his posthumous memoirs - not published till 1972 - he wrote that Gonne herself told him the story.
"Gonne and Yeats were always extremely close," says Yeats scholar Warwick Gould.
"And I cannot imagine any reason why she would have made the story up. It is too bizarre and too personal. But it accords with what we know of her interest in reincarnation."

On a Child's Death
In 1893 Yeats wrote a poem that was never published. It is called On a Child's Death, and it is clearly inspired by Maud Gonne's dead son, and her consequent grief - though when he wrote it Yeats still thought Georges was adopted. Scholars say it is of uneven quality, which is why Yeats did not want it to be part of his canon.
You shadowy armies of the dead
Why did you take the starlike head
The faltering feet, the little hand?
For purple kings are in your band
And there the hearts of poets beat;
Why did you take the faltering feet?
She had much need of some fair thing
To make love spread his quiet wing
Above the tumult of her days
And shut out foolish blame & praise.
She has her squirrel & her birds
But these have no sweet human words
And cannot call her by her name:
Their love is but a woodland flames
You wealthy armies of the dead
Why did you take the starlike head.
On A Child's Death was reproduced with the permission of Caitriona Yeats

The purpose of the act was to recreate the baby's soul in the new baby that she would conceive with the same father. By having sex next to the corpse, it was hoped that the process of metempsychosis - the transmigration of the soul - would be made easier.
Whether the soul of Georges transmigrated is a matter for metaphysicians. What is certain is that in August 1894 Maud Gonne had another baby.
This was her daughter Iseult. Maud Gonne brought up the child as her own, but their relationship was always odd. Later she refused to call her "daughter" in company, instead describing her as a "kinswoman" or "cousin".
As an adult Iseult had an affair with Ezra Pound and married the controversial Irish-Australian novelist (and Nazi sympathizer) Francis Stuart. She died a year after her mother, in 1954.
Maud Gonne, meanwhile, converted to Catholicism (much to Yeats' dismay) and in 1903 married the Irish soldier and Republican, John MacBride.
With him she had her third child, who grew up to be the Irish politician, IRA leader, international statesman and Nobel peace prize winner Sean MacBride.
John MacBride was shot by the English in the Easter Rising of 1916. Sean MacBride lived until 1988.
The Gonne mausoleum in Samois-sur-Seine was long forgotten. Few knew the story of Maud Gonne's dead baby - almost no-one knew the story of the secret sex.
Occasionally Yeats scholars would come to pay a visit out of curiosity. But in the town - once the generations had moved on - they had never heard of Maud Gonne.
Interest in the cemetery resided solely in its other famous occupant - the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.

A plaque commemorating guitarist and composer Django Reinhardt who lived and died in Samois-sur-Seine

Today though, there is a small resurgence of interest. Intrigued by the mausoleum, local councillor Josette Dufour conducted her own research and has now written a short monograph on the Georges Gonne story.
The mausoleum no longer belongs to the Gonne family. Though the plot was bought by Gonne "in perpetuity", in practice the freehold had to be renewed - and it wasn't.
But inside the Grecian-style edifice, there are still the metal doors in the ground.
Josette Dufour provided a key for the padlock. And there in the crypt, on a small trestle - lies the coffin of baby Georges. It is in fact a double-coffin, because for transport from Paris the law stated that the original coffin had to be encased in another.
On the lid are some crumbling flowers made of papier-mache or some other material. And a plaque bears his name: Georges Gonne. Born January 11 1889. Died August 31 1891.
When she died in 1953, Maud Gonne's will bore no reference to Iseult.
But she asked to be buried with Georges' baby-shoes in her coffin.

The woman who chose a hut over a home

For much of her life, Devi Asmadiredja was a housewife in Germany - but then her husband told her to pack her bags and leave the country. She ended up 3,000km (2,000 miles) away living in a remote mountain hut among the Chechens of Georgia's Pankisi Gorge.

Few tourists visit the gorge, a notoriously insular region with a reputation for drug and arms smuggling, and radical Islam - one of the top leaders of Islamic State (IS), Abu Omar al-Shishani, hails from here.
But this remote part of the Caucasus Mountains is where Devi Asmadiredja, a German woman of Indonesian descent, found refuge.
Four years ago, she was living in Germany with her husband and three children. But in early 2011 he abruptly informed her that he no longer loved her, and told her to leave their home. He ordered her to go to Pankisi to learn Chechen, the language of his forefathers.
"He knew I was good at languages, he thought I could come back and teach him," she says.
He bought her a plane ticket and gave her enough money for food. "I had never travelled before. For me it was interesting and a chance to run away from him," she says. Leaving behind her three children - then five, eight, and 12 - was harder. "It was very difficult. I'd never slept a single night without them," she says. But she didn't feel she had a choice.
Asmadiredja arrived in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and took a series of marshrutki - shared minibuses - to the village of Duisi, the first of five villages that snake along the gorge. She says she didn't even have any local contacts, "I had nothing."

She asked the first locals she saw where she could find someone to teach her Chechen. Within 20 minutes, tuition and free accommodation with a local family had been arranged.
She quickly learned the language and members of the community soon gave her a Chechen name, Khedi - derived from Khedijat, the name of Muhammad's wife.
Still, she attracted some suspicion, both as a foreigner and as a woman travelling alone. "They thought I was a Russian spy," she says. Her uncovered hair, her independence, her seven tattoos - she sports a traditional Indonesian dagger on her left leg, a Caucasian one on her right - set her apart.
Under pressure from the imam at the recently built hardline Wahhabi mosque, her hosts told her she had to leave and she moved in with another Kist family, the people she now refers to as "my mother" and "my sister". The Kists, Georgians of Chechen descent, migrated to the valley in the 19th Century.

After 18 months in the village, her estranged husband called, to tell her that he had moved on, and that there was no need for her to come home.
"So I went to the mountains," she says. A friend took her to a cowherd's hut - a simple stone building with no heating, electricity, or running water. She had one modern convenience - a mobile phone with a camera and solar charger.
Asmadiredja spent two months there living alone, surviving off the occasional donation of food from passing shepherds and water from the many mountain streams.

Despite - or because of - the harsh circumstances, the solitude and mountain life brought her fulfilment. "I fell in love with the mountains," she says. "I had never seen mountains like this before - the light was unbelievable up there, the people I met while wandering around were unbelievable. She ate little, she says, and kept warm by walking.
She began to walk further - to the villages of Khevsureti, Tusheti, and Georgia's most remote mountain regions. "I didn't have any money. I had no choice but to walk," she says.
At this point Asmadiredja had only mastered the Chechen language, but now, meeting Tush and Khevsur shepherds, she learned to speak Georgian as well.
She memorised the labyrinthine, unmarked trails from Pankisi into the mountains. Once she injured her ankle and was stranded, without food and only a stream for water, for 12 days before passers-by found her. "It was damned close," she admits.

Other challenges came from the locals. Initially some shepherds aggressively pursued her. "They hadn't seen a woman in a long time" - and a woman like Asmadiredja, living alone, was particularly interesting. Most of them were dissuaded by sharp words but one she had to fight off. "Nothing happened," she says. Other shepherds - who had by now come to recognise her - stepped in to stop the attack.
Eventually, Asmadiredja returned from the mountains to the village. A German travel agency offered her a job - $100 a day to guide hikers through the Caucasus, where there is little tourist infrastructure and few locals speak either English or German.
"I had to open a bank account," she laughs. Another friend, hearing of Asmadiredja's interest in photography, brought her a second-hand camera, and she began displaying her photographs of Pankisi in galleries across Tbilisi. "I'm not an intruder," she says. "People know me." Early next year, Asmadiredja's work will have its first international showing, at the Georgian Embassy in Indonesia.
But life back in the village could, at times, feel oppressive. "I am not Chechen, I am not Kist. I am not even Georgian. I was born in East Germany. I need my freedom. I am an independent woman, who does not ask for permission to do or go anywhere. In the Kist traditions you have to follow your elders. I needed some time for me alone, [in a place] where I didn't know anyone."
In March last year, a friend told her about a small, hidden cave in Georgia's southern Samtskhe-Javakheti province. She went at once, taking only a camping stove, a sleeping bag, and some fruit and nuts.

The entrance to the cave where Devi Asmadiredja stayed

But once there, something happened that would change Asmadiredja's life again. Two local cowherds driving their cattle happened across the cave, and at once insisted that she return home with them. She refused.
"My first thought was 'Why don't they leave me alone?'" They asked her if she liked khinkali - traditional Georgian meat dumplings. "They left and a half-hour later they were back with khinkali and wine."
One of the cowherds, a Georgian called Dato, began to visit her every day, insisting that she give him her telephone number. At last, she relented, and the two began a relationship.
They plan to marry later this year. The ceremony will not be legally binding - Asmadiredja is still married to her Chechen husband who is in Germany. But her adoptive family has already planned a traditional Pankisi supra feast anyway. "I never thought I would have love like that," she says.
She knows he cannot join her in the various caves and huts she has called home, but envisages a life spent between a home in Pankisi and the mountains - she is encouraging him to learn to drive, so that he can work alongside her on her guided tours.

Even so, Asmadiredja, now 45, is aware of how much she left behind. Two of her children, aged nine and 12, who initially remained with her husband, are now in foster care. With a different partner, she also had an older child, a daughter who lives with her father.
Asmadiredja emails her children from time to time, but they do not respond. She has been tempted to return to Germany to seek custody, but has been given no assurances that she would be able to get them back.
"I have a life here," she says. "It has cost me a lot of strength. To go back to Germany... maybe I will get my kids, maybe not, but even if I get them, [it would only be] for a few years - and for this, I should throw everything away? I cannot. Maybe I'm selfish, [but] I have built my life here. My name is known here as a guide, as a photographer. Why should I throw it all away - just to live off [benefits] there?"

The mountains, she says, are her real home. "In the mountains I am free."

One teacher with 26 million students

Zach Sims founded the site to teach himself

Of the many buzzwords making the rounds in Davos this year, "skills gap" is the most ubiquitous.

The great and good attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) have done much hand wringing over how to address what one report termed a "worrying mismatch between the demand for specific skills and the supply of suitable candidates".
While there seems to be a broad consensus on what the causes of the said gap are - outdated teaching methods and course syllabuses, and lack of in-work training - there is less agreement on what needs to be done, or who should be doing it.
But one unlikely WEF attendee - a 24-year-old from New York who dropped out of Columbia University before completing his degree - is grabbing the attention of crusty executives gathered in this mountain resort.
Introduced by global leaders as the "man who has 26 million students", Zach Sims runs a three-year-old website called Codecademy, which enables users to learn six popular programming languages, via a simple interface, for free.
Relevant skills
Zach is hardly the Davos type - he apologises when using buzzwords such as "intersection" and uses sarcastic air quotes when talking about the WEF's "new digital context" slogan - but he is a vivid example of a "skills gap" victim, albeit a first-world one.
"When I was looking for internships in my junior year, at companies like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, I realised that nobody I was going to college with had any skills that would be relevant in that context," he says.
In the first weekend of Codecademy's launch more than 200,000 people used the product
"We were spending our days learning about Greek mythology, and our nights studying thick financial modelling textbooks.
"We figured if students at Columbia - a top five school in the country, can't find jobs when they graduate, there was probably a problem."
So Zach started to teach himself to code. "We built the first version of Codecademy for me," he explains, and with the help of a friend, Ryan Bubinski, he expanded the site.
Mr Bubinski became co-founder and together they launched Codecademy, in August 2011.
In the first weekend more than 200,000 people used the product - "it gave the ability to send emails to all those people who said the market size was limited," Zach quips, unable to suppress a smile.
'New currency'
The site now reaches almost 26 million students in more than 100 countries, and is helping people from all economic backgrounds to "up-skill", including residents of African refugee camps and single mothers in the US.
Business leaders may be catching on.
A report on "global talent competitiveness" released at the beginning of the week in Davos by business school INSEAD and recruiters Adecco, emphasised that talent was the "new currency of the global economy." It said an estimated 8.4 million jobs were not being filled because of "mismatches in skills and geographies".
At a packed Davos lunch event entitled Business Backs Education, featuring a panel including Tony Blair, one chairman cautioned that companies could no longer "stick to the assumption that you get educated for 25 years and then you work for 45 years".

The site now reaches almost 26 million students

Another panellist, US business magnate Stephen Schwarzman, said improving training was "how you deal with income inequality".
But while a broad consensus may be forming, attracting investment is as hard as ever. Just 13% of the money spent by the top 500 US companies on social development in 2013 went toward education projects, according to one report.
And while the demand for more in-work training is rising, the desire of businesses to provide such opportunities is waning, some say.
But if Zach has one message for the Davos elite, it's that employers need to take "a little bit of responsibility", and that the appetite for learning is at an all time high.
"Its crazy that two kids could start something in a one-bedroom apartment in California, and educate more people in a weekend than a formal institution could in years," he says.

"Education is having a moment".

Three major sponsors leave FIFA

Will it be because of the perceived rot in the organisation,with heavy allegations popping up every now and then? Or is it simply contract expiration as they claim?

Sepp Blatter, FIFA president

World governing body FIFA confirmed on Friday that three major sponsors have ended their relationships with the organisation, but said there was nothing unusual about the development.
Oil manufacturers Castrol, tyre company Continental and healthcare giant Johnson and Johnson have followed Emirates and Sony by choosing not to renew contracts with FIFA that expired last year.
British newspaper the Daily Telegraph claimed the three companies had been deterred by allegations of corruption that have been levelled at FIFA following the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
But in a statement sent to AFP, FIFA marketing director Thierry Weil said: “Rotations at the end of a sponsorship cycle are commonplace in the sports industry and have continuously occurred since the commercialisation of the FIFA World Cup began.
“It is natural that as brands’ strategies evolve they reassess their sponsorship properties.
“The contracts with Castrol, Continental and Johnson and Johnson were always planned to run until the end of 2014 and therefore expired on 31 December 2014 accordingly.”
Weil added that FIFA was in “advanced negotiations with a number of companies” regarding sponsorship deals for the next World Cup cycle.
FIFA has already signed up Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom as a commercial partner ahead of the 2018 World Cup in Russia.
Quoted by the Telegraph, a spokesperson from Castrol said: “We have not been sponsors of FIFA since, I believe, the World Cup last year.”
Johnson and Johnson stated: “It was a decision that was made for business reasons after a comprehensive review.”
Continental told the newspaper: “It was a great platform for us and now we’re using football on a regionalised level.”
British politician Damian Collins, who is leading a campaign to impose reform on FIFA, said the sponsors’ withdrawals proved that the organisation had become a “toxic brand”.
FIFA and its 78-year-old Swiss president Sepp Blatter have been dogged by accusations of corruption ever since Russia and Qatar won the rights to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in 2010.
Blatter, who has presided over FIFA since 1998, will seek a fifth term in office in a presidential election scheduled to take place on May 29.

Chimps and Tourist photograghers

 These chimps at Jacksonville Zoo in Florida just can't get enough of being snapped by tourists

Give us a gurn: Happy chimp

Getting a chimp to smile for the cameras is always gurn to be a tall order but these shots show they are happy to strike a pose for an audience.
One chimp monkeyed around pulling funny faces for its babies, while another stroked its chin, just like Rodin’s The Thinker, as if deep in thought.
Graham McGeorge, 43, of Dumfries in Scotland, took the shots at Jacksonville Zoo while on holiday in Florida.

Graham McGeorge / Media Drum World

Big grin: Happy chimp

And captured a bit of animal magic.
Chimps are the closest living relatives to humans, although few people can gurn like this chap.
They are known for their love of sex and have even been known to use it to resolve arguments.
Chimps have also been observed mourning other members of their group after they've died.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz joins his ancestors

King Abdullah of Saudi is dead

Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was the fifth of his brothers to take the throne and became king in 2005, reports Caroline Hawley

Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz has died, royal officials have announced, weeks after he was admitted to hospital.

King Abdullah, who was said to be aged about 90, had been suffering from a lung infection.
A statement early on Friday said his 79-year-old half brother, Salman, had become king.
Abdullah came to the throne in 2005 but had suffered frequent bouts of ill health in recent years.

Analysis: BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner
The official announcement from the Royal Court came as little surprise, but this is still a historic and sad moment for this deeply conservative Muslim country, home to the two holiest sites in Islam, at Mecca and Medina, and the world's biggest oil exporter and producer.
As king he pushed through cautious reforms, including giving women a greater public role, against opposition from religious conservatives.
King Salman assumes the throne at a difficult time for Saudi Arabia. Having defeated an Islamist insurgency 10 years ago, the country now finds itself sandwiched between the growing threats from al-Qaeda in Yemen to the south and Islamic State to the north. Both groups have their sympathisers inside Saudi Arabia.

King Salman, 79, had recently taken on the ailing monarch's responsibilities.
Before the announcement, Saudi television cut to Koranic verses, which often signifies the death of a senior royal.
The late king's half brother Muqrin, who is in his late 60s, has been named the new crown prince, the official statement said.

The BBC's Frank Gardner says Saudi Arabia could face an increasing internal security problem following the death of King Abdullah

All three are sons of the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz, usually referred to as Ibn Saud, who died in 1953.
King Salman called on the royal family's Allegiance Council to recognise Muqrin as his crown prince and heir.
"His Highness Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud and all members of the family and the nation mourn the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, who passed away at exactly 1am this morning," the statement said.
US President Barack Obama expressed his personal sympathies and those of the American people, on the death of King Abdullah.
"As a leader, he was always candid and had the courage of his convictions. One of those convictions was his steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the US-Saudi relationship as a force for stability and security in the Middle East and beyond," he said.
Vice-President Joe Biden tweeted that he would lead a delegation to Riyadh to pay respects.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron said Abdullah would be remembered for his "commitment to peace and for strengthening understanding between faiths".

King Abdullah: Key events

• Believed born in Riyadh in August 1924, although actual date is disputed
• His mother, Fahda, was the eighth of King Abdulaziz al-Saud's 16 wives
• Appointed commander of the Saudi National Guard in 1962
• Became crown prince and first deputy prime minister in 1982 when King Fahd succeeded King Khalid
• Succeeded to the throne in August 2005 following the death of King Fahd

Obituary: King Abdullah

Abdullah was the 13th of the 37 sons of King Abdulaziz. He is believed to have been born in August 1924 in Riyadh, although there is some dispute about his actual birth date.
In 1962 he was appointed commander of the Saudi National Guard, where he earned the respect and loyalty of the desert tribes.
When he came to the throne in 2005 he succeeded another half-brother, Fahd.
However, he had already been Saudi Arabia's de-facto leader for 10 years because his predecessor had been debilitated by a stroke.
Correspondents say Abdullah was seen as a reformer at home, albeit a slow and steady one.
He allowed mild criticism of his government in the press, and hinted that more women should be allowed to work.
King Salman spent 48 years as governor of Riyadh Province before becoming crown prince and defence minister.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says it is thought unlikely that he will embark on any great changes.
In a recent meeting with the BBC in Jeddah, he appeared alert and well-briefed but walked with the aid of a stick, our correspondent adds.

King Salman has succeeded Abdullah

King Salman: Key facts

• Born on 31 December 1935
• Son of Princess Hassa al-Sudairi
• Governor of Riyadh from 1955-1960 and again from 1963 to 2011
• Appointed defence minister upon death of his brother Crown Prince Sultan
• Owns important stake in one of the Arab world's largest media groups

CHARLIE HEBDO back with a bang

Long queues have formed at newsstands in France for the latest edition of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

Three million copies are being printed - a week after Islamist gunmen murdered eight journalists at the magazine and four other people in Paris.
The cover shows a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad weeping while holding a sign saying "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie").
It is believed earlier cartoons of the Prophet prompted the attack.
The slogan "Je suis Charlie" has been widely used following the shootings.
In a separate attack in Paris two days later, four Jewish men died after an Islamist gunmen took hostages at a kosher shop in the French capital. A police woman was shot dead in a third shooting believed to have been carried out by the same attacker.

 All copies of the magazine were sold out by Wednesday morning at this Paris newsstand

Some kiosks said they had received dozens of reservation requests

On Sunday, about 1.5 million people rallied in Paris in a show of solidarity with the victims

Referring to last week's shocking events, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said his country was at war with extremism and terrorism - but not with Muslims.
He was speaking on Tuesday after funeral ceremonies were held for seven of the victims in France and Israel.
France has deployed 10,000 troops at various sites across the country - including synagogues, mosques and airports - in response to the attacks.
New threats

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Charlie Hebdo editor-in-chief Gerard Biard comforted Renald "Luz" Luzier, who drew the latest cover, at a news conference

Wednesday's edition of Charlie Hebdo has an unprecedented print run of three million copies. Normally only 60,000 are printed each week.
Demand for what is being called the "survivor's issue" of the magazine is high, correspondents say, especially as the proceeds will go to the victims' families.
Kiosk owners told French media they had received large numbers of reservation requests, while at one shop in Paris all copies were reportedly sold out within 30 minutes.

Hugh Schofield in Paris on the new edition:
There's the full-page cartoon of a weeping Muhammad on the front cover, but inside there are no more caricatures of the Prophet.
There are plenty - in the paper's characteristic scurrilous vein - of Muslim extremists. In one cartoon, two terrorists are seen ascending to heaven and asking: "Where are the 70 virgins?" In the background, the murdered staff at Charlie Hebdo are enjoying an orgy.
An editorial thanks the millions of people who have declared themselves as Charlie in the past few days - but it says it wants no more of the past insinuations that by provoking Muslims, it has somehow brought trouble on itself.

The issue will be available in six languages - including English, Arabic and Turkish - some in print and some online.
Editor-in-chief Gerard Biard told reporters: "We are happy to have done it and happy to have been able to do it, to have achieved it. It was tough. The front page... was complicated to put together, because it had to express something new, it had to say something relating to the event that we had to deal with."
The front cover of the edition had been widely published in advance by French media.

Security has been increased dramatically across France after the attacks

Outside France, the Washington Post, Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine, Corriere della Sera in Italy and the UK's Guardian are among publications to show the cartoon.
Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet has published a section of the magazine, including a small image of the cover in one of its columns.
Very few outlets in the Middle East and North Africa have shown the image.
Charlie Hebdo's decision to publish another cartoon of the Prophet has already generated threats from militant Islamist websites and criticism from the Islamic world, the BBC's Chris Morris in Paris reports.
Meanwhile, controversial French comedian Dieudonne M'bala M'bala was arrested on Wednesday for "defending terrorism".
Police opened an investigation into the comic on Monday, after he wrote on a Facebook post "I feel like Charlie Coulibaly" - merging Charlie Hebdo with the name of supermarket gunman Amedy Coulibaly.
Suspect on the run The three days of violence in Paris began after brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi attacked the magazine's office. They shouted "We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad" after the shootings.

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New mobile phone footage shows the Kouachi brothers opening fire on police

The brothers were later killed by French security services after a stand-off in a town north of Paris.
Separately, Coulibaly - whom investigators have linked to the brothers - killed the four men at the kosher supermarket on Friday, apparently before police stormed the building. Coulibaly is also believed to have shot dead the policewoman the day before.
His partner Hayat Boumeddiene is now thought to be in Syria. She has been identified as a suspect by French police, although she left France before the attacks.

How the attacks unfolded (all times GMT)

• Wednesday 7 January 10:30 - Two masked gunmen enter Charlie Hebdo offices, killing 11 people, including the magazine's editor. Shortly after the attack, the gunmen kill a police officer nearby.
• 11:00 - Police lose track of the men after they abandon their getaway car and hijack another vehicle. They are later identified as brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi.
• Thursday 8 January 08:45 - A lone gunman shoots dead a policewoman and injures a man in the south of Paris. Gunman later identified as Amedy Coulibaly.
• 10:30 - The Kouachi brothers rob a service station near Villers-Cotterets, in the Aisne region, but disappear again.
• Friday 9 January 08:30 - Police exchange gunfire with the Kouachi brothers during a car chase on the National 2 highway northeast of Paris.
• 10:00 - Police surround the brothers at an industrial building in at Dammartin-en-Goele, 35km (22 miles) from Paris.
• 12:15 - Coulibaly reappears and takes several people hostage at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris. Heavily-armed police arrive and surround the store.
• 16:00 - Kouachi brothers come out of the warehouse, firing at police. They are both shot dead.
• 16:15 - Police storm the kosher supermarket in Paris, killing Coulibaly and rescuing 15 hostages. The bodies of four hostages are recovered.

• 
  

US Secretary of state safe after car accident

•••US Secretary of State John Kerry emerged unscathed after his motorcade was involved in a minor car accident in India.
Kerry was riding in the first of two vehicles involved in the collision, which resulted in “some damage to both cars,” said State Department Spokes­woman Jen Psaki.
The SUV in which Kerry was traveling was rear-ended as it made its way through streets of the city of Ahmedabad, where Kerry had attended an interna­tional business conference.
Kerry suffered “no injuries nor did any staff or personnel,” Psaki said. “One vehicle was switched out and the motorcade proceeded to the airport without further incident.”

Source:Daily Times

MEND wanted Jonathan dead

It’s true MEND wanted Jonathan dead – Asari-Dokubo

Leader of the Niger Delta Peoples Vol­unteers Force(NDPVF), Alhaji Mujahid Asari-Dokubo, formerly known as Mel­ford Dokubo Goodhead Jr., has earned a reputation as a man who has, arguably, made some controversial pronouncements over the 2015 general elections.
In this interview, he spoke on the claim by President Goodluck Jonathan that Mr. Henry Okah attempted to kill him, his al­leged threat to overrun Yoruba and other issues.Excerpts:

What is your reaction to the recent endorsement of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari by MEND?
Our people say that birds of the same feather flock together. It is not strange that this phantom organisation is endorsing Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. I have always maintained that there is nothing like MEND. Anybody who has been reading my write-ups and interviews know my position on this. Let me make some expla­nation, regarding the coming into being of MEND.
When I was in the prison, NDPVF, the the political arm of organisation I belong to, went to Okerenkuku on the invitation of Tompolo. The IYC also went. Tom­polo’s organisation was there too. Other organisations were equally there. They went to Okerenkuku for a meeting on how to come together for our struggle. They decided that they did not want any more arrest. They resolved to use a faceless organisation. Denis Otuaro came with Kingston Poto and later Henry Okah came to me at Kuje prison.
They came to get my opinion on the need to get a name that would be used. Although members of the NDPVF resisted the new alignment, I coerced them into joining them. Okah and others wanted us to be faceless. They decided that fighters would bear phantom names. So, they came up with names, like Gen. Godswill, Tamino, Gbo­mo Jomo, Alaibe, etc. These were phantom names. They were not real. That was how the organisation, MEND, was formed. Be­fore I came out of prison, there was a break when Henry Okah became more domi­neering. He was extorting money from oil companies. Almost all the governors in the Niger Delta were paying him millions. A former of Rivers State governor was paying him N100 million monthly.
Some groups started breaking out when they could no longer bear what was hap­pening. There was a group that came out. The name was Nabina. It was the authentic MEND that started issuing statement. Anytime there was an attack, authentic MEND would come out with the nature of the attack, where it took place. It would do that before the other MEND would react. They started attacking each other. Nabina was linked to me. It was formed by members of the NDPVF, who felt that they were doing the job but another group was taking the glory. They were the people who went to Brass, Cutting Channel, etc. So, why would another group be taking the glory? That issue dragged until I came out from the prison.

At what point did President Jonathan come into the picture?When I met with the then Vice President, now President Goodluck Jonathan, he asked me all that was happening. I decided that NDPVF should stop all forms of arms struggle. That was how we disbanded arms struggle. That does not mean that we never had clashes with these groups. The Henry Okah group started to mop up people. Kidnapping became a vehicle for making money.
Ijaw struggle is a spiritual one. A lot of people do not know this. The struggle was based on Egbesu.
When you are an adherent of Egbesu, you do not steal. If you pick a toothpick that is not yours, you will die; if you rape a woman, you will die; If you shoot a person who is not armed, someone who is not fighting, you will die. Also, if you cut down economic tree or destroy a fishpond you will die and if you burn down a house, you will die. These are laws of Egbesu. Those who believe in Egbesu don’t do these things I mentioned. All the songs we sang then were Egbesu songs. Only a few of us – Labikeremana and I – who were a born again Christian and a Muslim that were a bit different. Even at that, we could not say that we were totally immune from Egbesu’s influence .
When Henry Okah first came to the Niger Delta, he didn’t know anything about Ijaw because he is a Yoruba Ijaw. He was misbehaving when he came. I have always called him a Yoruba man. He came through me to be known to everybody in Ijaw and Niger Delta generally. How his disagreement with Goodluck Jonathan started was that he wanted Jonathan to pay him money. I wrote a piece on this titled: ‘When silence is not golden’ in 2007, I revealed a lot in the piece, which I tagged part one.Ijaw elders begged me not to reveal more in my proposed part two of the write up. The part two was ready but I didn’t publish it because Clarke and others begged me not to. They said that I was revealing the secret of Ijaw. I told them that what they were doing would backfire. Everybody was on my head. I became their enemy.
If Henry Okah asked for money and you didn’t give him, they would come after you. When Jonathan was governor of Bayelsa, the Okah group asked him to share the budget of the state and give five per cent. They wanted five per cent of the state’s earning every month to service the ‘boys.’ But Jonathan said no. Because Jonathan refused, the Okah group invaded Government House. Some of the people who are now claiming to support Jonathan were part of the people that invaded Gov­ernment House, Bayelsa. They destroyed some important things. My people ran away with Jonathan as governor. They went to Otueke, thinking he was there and burnt down his country home. The gover­nor ran. Some of them are today the people around Jonathan.

You seem to habour personal grudges against Okah?I am the only person who has been talking against Henry Okah. He is nobody. He does not have the power they think he has. If he challenges me, we will meet. We will throw Ijaw into an orgy of violence. Back to the issue, the Henry Okah group contin­ued with his strategy when Yar’Adua came to power. He continued arm-twisting him. He demanded for an oil bloc and Yar’Adua agreed to give him and his boys the oil bloc. But that could not be done until he died . Henry was still in prison while the discussion was going on. When Goodluck Jonathan took over, he reneged on that agreement. But Jonathan released him from prison on account of the amnesty programme. I had told the world that Henry was involved in a coup plot in Equatorial Guinea but it was denied. Later it was discovered to be true and he was arrested, detained and tried. But Presi­dent Yar’Adua caused him to be released because some Ijaw people who today have ruined President Goodluck Jonathan’s gov­ernment, impressed on the late president to help release him. Some Ijaw people, I must tell you, have ruined Jonathan’s govern­ment. They see danger but they tell him to go to the danger.
Back to the issue, Okah, after he was released, struck a deal with Yar’Adua to take amnesty. All the militants, except me took amnesty. Because I did not take the amnesty, Yar’Adua chased me out of the country and I went into exile. Between 2009 and 2010, I was in exile. When Good­luck became president, I was called and asked why I was still outside the country. I told them that I had no business coming back. But everybody came to Benin Re­public to plead with me to return. In Benin, I was visiting Libya, Niger and Holland frequently. When I returned to Nigeria, one of my assistants, who is my cousin, one day called me and said, when one Chima was coming back, give him some money for me. I called Chima and he said he was coming to meet me the next day.
I am saying all these because people are asking why didn’t Goodluck say it. Some Ijaw people want him to make mistakes. When the call came, I decided to call back. I quickly remembered that when I was in prison, Chima used to work with Henry Okah. I told myself that something was wrong somewhere. One Orji, Chima’s friend, who was also close to me, called me and said they were in Abuja. He said that Chima would call me later. Anytime they called, after the conversation they would switch off their phones. I would call them, but their phones would be dead.
Immediately, I alerted the office of NSA that something was going to happen. That was two days to October 1. I told them that there were people in town and something was going to happen. One of our com­manders told me that Chima called him and showed him some weapons, night vision goggles, explosives, etc. and that they wanted to renew the attack in the Niger Delta. He took the picture of the weapons. I went home, collected the picture and took it to the JTF commander. He printed the picture. He later sent the picture to Abuja. On Thursday, they went to search the home of Henry Okah in South Africa. One of the closest persons to Goodluck came to my hotel room in Bolingo and asked when I would end the hatred against Henry Okah. He asked if it was because he was more popular than I. I told him that we were not in popularity contest. This was happening on Thursday. On Friday, the bomb went off. Instead of helping to arrest Henry Okah, when he was here, they were calling him on phone to advise him that MEND should not claim responsibility for the bomb blast. Some of the things I am telling you were on my Facebook wall. I was the first person, after the October 1, 2010 blast, to come out to say that Henry Okah was responsible for the bomb explosion. Many people attacked me. The former president of IYC came out and abused me. They were all thinking that Ijaw must be united. It has dawned on all of them now that Henry Okah was the greatest danger to our struggle.
The reason I cannot be charged by the Nigerian state is that there is no evidence that I did oil bunkering, kidnapping or other evils. All my charges are political. As far as our struggle was concerned, we saw it as a moral one. We believe that morality must come first before any other thing. We are finished if we lose the support of God. It is the support of God that emboldened us to fight. It is what gives us the impetus, the drive to say that if you shoot us, we will not die. For me, what the president said is belated. He had known since 2007 that the Henry Okah group wanted to kill him. For not saying it out since, it is the fault of Ijaw leaders, including Clarke, who had been saying they should hide those thing and sweep it under the carpet. They forgot that one day, the debris under the carpet would become too much that the carpet would be undulated. The stench is coming out now and the president can no longer hold back; he has now come out to say that Henry Okah wanted to assassinate him. What he said was true. Henry Okah wanted him dead.

Were Ijaw leaders the people that asked the President to exonerate MEND when the blast took place?The argument that the president gave was in order. When you talk about MEND, Tompolo, Boy Loaf, Africa, Ogunbos and Varadagogo were all MEND leaders. They were field commanders but they were not among those that carried out the bomb blast. It is like IRA, a branch of the organisation goes to carry out a bomb blast and the mainstream IRA says no, we are not part of it . Ninety nine per cent of the so-called conglomerate of MEND was not there. They had taken amnesty and they were with Mr. President. So, the president was right in saying that MEND was not in­volved. If Mr. President had exonerated all the MEND elements, Henry Okah would not have been arrested. The president was making a distinction between Henry Okah and the mainstream MEND, which was led by Tompolo and which is still with Mr. President.
He was not wrong. Let me give you another analogy. It is like some APC mem­bers attacking somebody. They didn’t have the authority and backing of the authorities of APC before carrying out the attack. The party will not take responsibil­ity. The party would be right to say that the attack was not carried out by it; that those people who did the attack are members of APC does equate to APC being responsible for the attack .

Is it safe to say that security agents at a point deceived the president by going after Chief Raymond Dokpesi?That is not true. A lot of things happened that Nigerians do not know. If we go into it, we will spill a lot of beans. Ebiwari, who is in prison now, was working with Dokpesi. My driver, who is late, was also working with Dokpesi and co. Henry Okah was with them. When they were caught, they saw messages in their handsets sent to Dokpesi, Henry Okah and other people. For everybody that was investigated, there were telephone calls that linked them together. The security tried to arrest every­body that was connected in the calls and text messages, etc.
When I was in the prison, kidnapping was going on. Dokpesi came to me when the first set of kidnapping was done. The police brought phone to me at Area 10. Dokpesi spoke to me through my sister, Hilda Dokubo. He asked me how I could facilitate and talk to these boys to release the people kidnapped. He said that it was giving a bad image to the government.
The Henry Okah people were anti-Goodluck. They didn’t want Goodluck to win the 2011 election; the same thing they are doing now endorsing Buhari. They issued the same statement in 2011 that nobody should vote for Goodluck.

You said that some Niger Delta lead­ers are deceiving Jonathan. Is Clarke among the people?
No, I didn’t say that Clarke was among those deceiving the president . What Clarke and few Ijaw leaders wanted was genuine. They wanted unity among Ijaw fighters, among Niger Delta people. They did not want disunity. They saw me as somebody who was not ready to abide by this. They felt that I was not ready to hide a few people who were doing some wrongs. They wanted me to keep quite, even when some things were not right but I cannot do that. By the way I was brought up I cannot keep quiet in the face of evil. Most of the people I am working with are from poor background. I have never known poverty. I have always had whatever I wanted. People want to be rich but wealth means nothing to me, it does not entice me. I was chauffeur-driven to school, except when I was in the village with my grandmother. My other siblings never experienced village life; that is why I am different from them. I went to live in the village because my father wanted me to learn the culture and language of my people. Most of siblings cannot speak our dialect very well. Clarke and others saw me as being arrogant.

You are considered as one of the few Nigerians making inflammatory utter­ances ahead of the February election. How do you feel being associated with this toga?
I have never made a statement without reacting to somebody. I am not a mad man. I see somebody with a gun on televi­sion, standing and saying: ‘We are going to kill you, Niger Delta; Niger Delta, we are coming’ and you expect me to fold my hands and watch him? No, I can’t do that. That is how the people in Gwoza waited: where are they today? The people in Mubi waited; where are they today? The people in Baga waited; where are they today? I will not wait. Let Ango Abdullahi and Bu­hari call their boys to order. If they shoot us, we will shoot them back. There are no two ways about it. You cannot tell me that I should fold my hands and get killed.
You see a man with armoured vehicle, anti aircraft and you tell me to fold my hands. I will not do so. I will also buy mine. I will also prepare. Before the man would shoot at me, I will shoot him. It is my right to life. Who is Ango Abdullahi? If not that he is from the North, would he have been a professor in the first place? What is his academic contribution? He makes careless and provocative statements and expects us to keep quiet. I will not do that. There is this thing that everybody has been doing – leave them, please, you are not like them, don’t go and compare your life with them, they will kill you, etc. That is nonsense. Don’t they have fleas and blood? If I shoot them, will they not die? Why should I leave them? They will look at me and say they are born to rule. I will punch anybody that says that.

You were quoted as having threatened to overrun Yorubaland if the people fail to vote for Jonathan next month. How true is the claim?
I never made such statement; it is a lie. Everybody knows that whenever I make a statement, I own up to it. There is no such thing. Many times, a lot of things are ascribed to me. For instance, they claimed I said ‘this Fulani man.’ I don’t use the world Fulani. What I use is Gambari for Fulani people. They claimed I said ‘this Fulani man, Buhari’ will do better for Ni­ger Delta people than President Jonathan. How can I say such thing? When he was head of state, let him show what he did for the Niger Delta. He was in the PTF, let him show what he did for the Niger Delta. What they do is that, because they feel that I am very vocal for the election, they ascribe all manner of things to me. They know that they have lost Yorubaland; how can they win in Yoruba? There is noth­ing they can do to win in Yorubaland. They lost the election in Ekiti. In Osun, where they have the power, they scored 52/48. They know they have lost elec­tion in Yorubaland. They want to inflame tempers; they came up with the claim that Jonathan’s brother said he would overrun Yorubaland. They have failed; they have access to the press and I have too. I never said such thing.
Source:The Sun