Yaya Toure threatens to quit Manchester City by this weekend

Yaya Toure’s agent, Dmitri Seluk, has said that his client will leave Manchester City, if he is not offered a new contract by the end of the week.
The Ivorian midfield powerhouse, has been negotiating with the club for the past six months and now wants the issue resolved during the international break.
“If he signs a contract in the next three or four days, okay. If not, we will not wait any longer and will start negotiations with different clubs,” Seluk told The Sun.
“Today is Tuesday, so it means by Saturday. We will say ‘Thank you. Okay, Yaya will leave in May.’
“I do not feel he will stay at City. This is not about money. He wants to leave because of many reasons. He is one of the best players at Manchester City but does not feel the respect of the staff. Only Roberto Mancini respects Yaya.”

Toure is City’s best paid player at about £220,000 a week, but his agent brushed aside insinuations that the former Barcelona man is looking for a pay rise, but for “small details” in his contract to be ironed out.
“It’s all strange. It’s not normal to have negotiations for six months about a contract. They have been talking about small details all this time,” Seluk added.
“Maybe if the owner speaks to Yaya, maybe he doesn’t know the details.”
 DailyPost

Obama to Meet four African leaders

US President Barack Obama will welcome four African leaders to Washington this month, the White House said Monday.
Obama on March 28 will meet with the president of Senegal, Macky Sall; of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma; of Malawi, Joyce Banda; and the prime minister of Cape Verde, Jose Maria Pereira Neves.
Spokesman Jay Carney said the leaders will discuss issues that include economic development and reinforcing democracy in sub-Saharan Africa. The multi-party meeting is not unprecedented: in late July 2011 Obama met with the presidents of Benin, Guinea, Nigeria and Ivory Coast.
Obama, the son of a Kenyan-born father and a US-born mother, has visited sub-Saharan Africa only once as president — he made a short trip to Ghana in July 2009.
Naij.com

Reps to Jonathan: Give amnesty to Boko Haram

The House of Representatives yesterday called on President Goodluck Jonathan to grant amnesty to members of Boko Haram sect without further delay in order to end the  spate of violence in the country. Adopting a motion on matters of urgent national importance sponsored by Rep. Ibrahim Olaifa (AC, Oyo), MPs said the government and the nation have everything to gain when the violence is ended. In his motion, Rep. Olaifa argued that if the same government had given amnesty to Niger Delta militants there was no reason that it won’t extend same to Boko Haram members because they too are Nigerians who deserve to be treated as such. “We have continued to lose lives and property everyday but there is nothing to lose if we engage these people in dialogue and offer them amnesty. They are Nigerians and we know that poverty pushed some of them to engage in violence. We should turn them to peaceful human beings instead of treating them as goats. Nigeria has nothing to lose,” Olaifa said. The motion was not debated further  but passed  unanimously when the question was put to vote by Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal who presided over the session

.DailyTrust

Newcastle, California Sinkhole Drains Mark Korb's Backyard Pond

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A reporter from KCRA stands in front of Mark Korb's pond in Newcastle, Calif., which a sinkhole drained Sunday morning.

It once took Mark Korb seven days to drain the pond in his Newcastle, California backyard. On Sunday, he woke up to find a sinkhole had accomplished the same feat in merely five hours.
"This looks like the moon," Korb told KCRA. Footage of the drained pond shows what indeed looks like a massive, gray crater.
Korb's discovery comes just two weeks after a 20-foot-wide sinkhole swallowed a man in Florida. A search for his body was called off on March 3, 2012, and he was presumed dead. The next day a second sinkhole formed less than two miles from the first, but no deaths occurred.
Last Tuesday, a sinkhole in Washington, D.C., closed down an entire block as officials worked to prevent a water pipe and nearby vehicles from caving in.
Just in Florida, thousands of sinkholes form each year, according to the Associated Press, but they're known to appear all over the U.S -- typically in areas where water has flowed underground and dissolved rock.
HuffingtonPost

President Jonathan Says He Will Raise Petrol Prices

President Goodluck Jonathan says he will definitely raise gas prices again, but will “discuss” with the public the easiest way to do it.

On New Year’s Day 2012, Jonathan greeted Nigerians with the shock of new oil prices as he attempted to scrap so-called oil subsidies, leading to widespread strikes and protests that almost toppled his government.
He solved the problem at that time by partially revoking the effort. He raised the price to 97 Naira a liter, up from 65 Naira.

Speaking at a press conference in Lagos today, Mr. Jonathan said, “We cannot continue to waste resources meant for a greater number of Nigerians to subsidize the affluent middle class, who are the main beneficiaries.”

He did not make any reference to the mammoth corruption and manipulation in the oil sector, and has kept in place Petroleum Minister Diezani Allison-Madueke, who has been serially accused of corruption and self-enrichment, as well as other officials.

Mr. Jonathan has also failed to implement the report of the Nuhu Ribadu-led Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force which last year made important recommendations on how to correct problems in the sector, just as he has throughout his presidency failed to implement various anti-corruption and good governance reports.

Critics denounce him as weak and indolent, and say he has done more than any of his predecessors in office to boost corruption in the country. Last week, he granted state pardon to Dipreye Alamieyesegha, his predecessor as governor of Bayelsa State who was convicted for corruption. Alamieyesegha is also wanted in the United Kingdom to answer money-laundering charges.

Meanwhile, members of Occupy Nigeria have told SaharaReporters they will be ready for Mr. Jonathan if he gives them the opportunity to again unite Nigerians in street demonstrations.

“We promise never again to be deceived or derailed by organized labor or any pro-government group which may want to sell out,” one organizer said. “So if Jonathan is ready, we encourage him to bring it on.”
Naijaline.com

Alleged Thief Accuses Police Of Bias, Tells Them To Focus On Real Thieves In NASS

THE SUSPECTS

A security guard nabbed for allegedly conniving with robbers to steal goods worth over N28m from his employer, has told the police to stop going after petty thieves like him and instead focus their attention on politicians, especially senators and House members, whom he described as the “real thieves.”
The suspect, Garba Sani who works with Honda Place Company, complained that the N12, 000 he received as salary was too meagre and said he had no choice but to take to crime.
He said, “I’m not an armed robber. I was on duty and I called them (other suspects) and we took the goods. We did not carry guns. We have a lot of senators looting and we also need money. There are many thieves in Nigeria and most of us are jobless youths, we have nothing.
“I earn N12, 000 a month which is too small. We are all criminals in Nigeria and we have criminal blood in our body so nobody should pretend.”

The other suspect, Godwin Okwudili, said the police should drop all charges levelled against them since the stolen goods had since been recovered.
“Sani and I live in the same area. He called me that the goods were available and we went to take them. We did not carry guns. I took the goods to my warehouse and we did not sell them. Everything was recovered intact so what do they (police) want again?” he said.
The Police Public Relations Officer, Ngozi Braide who corroborated the suspects’ story, said that Sani, Okwudili, along with the other suspects, Obinna Ilojebe, Ndubuisi Ike and Anthony Etemah were arrested following painstaking investigation which lasted for over eight months.
 InformationNigeria

FIFA’s Coach Of The Year Award Was Rigged – Mourinho

Real Madrid’s Jose Mourinho has revealed why he did not attend the FIFA Ballon d’Or gala – because he was forewarned by some of those who voted for him as coach of the year that their votes turned up for other candidates instead.
“Am I sorry for not having gone to the gala? No. It was the right decision,” Mourinho told RTP television on Tuesday in excerpts from an interview.
“One, two or three people called me saying they had voted for me but the vote showed up as cast for somebody else. So, I decided not to go,” he said.

InformationNigeria