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(Nigeria) Nigeria's military on Thursday dismissed as "empty propaganda" claims by Boko Haram's leader that soldiers have retreated during an ongoing offensive, insisting the campaign has heavily damaged the Islamist insurgents. In a video obtained by AFP on Tuesday, Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau said soldiers have at times "turned and ran" when facing Islamist fighters and rejected military boasting about the success of the operation. "We consider it as empty propoganda," defence spokesman Brigadier General Chris Olukolade said of the video. "To the best of our understanding, at the moment (the insurgents) are in disarray. They are on the run and so many of them have been captured," he told AFP. He declined to provide figures of those captured or killed in the operation launched on May 15 after President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in three northeastern states considered Boko Haram strongholds. She

Ghana’s President, John Mahama has said that he did not rig the 2012 presidential election in the country as alleged by the opposition parties. A statement from the Ghanaian presidency quoted Mahama as saying this when he spoke to the BBC on Wednesday during his three-day official visit to France. He said the challenge against his legitimacy as president currently before the Supreme Court was not a source of distraction to his poise to ensure good governance. News Agency of Nigeria reports that Nana Akufo-Addo, the presidential candidate of Ghana’s major opposition party, New Patriotic Party, NPP is challenging Mahama’s victory in the court. The NPP is alleging irregularities and massive rigging during the general election that brought in Mahama as president. The statement further quoted the president as expressing huge trust in the ability of the Supreme Court to deliver sincere judgement in the matter. ``I am not perturbed at all, it is also not impacti

Israel does not want to provoke a military "escalation" with Syria but will not allow it to transfer strategic arms to groups like Lebanon's Hezbollah, a cabinet minister said on Thursday. "There is no need to provoke an escalation, there is no need to heat up the border with Syria, that was not our objective and it will never be," Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom told public radio. Asked about Moscow's plans to supply S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Syria, Shalom said they would only become a problem if they fell into the wrong hands. "Syria has had strategic weapons for years, but the problem arises when these arms fall into other hands and could be used against us. In that case, we would have to act," he said. Moscow has defended its arms shipments to Damascus, describing them as a "stabilising factor" which could act as a deterrent against foreign intervention. Shalom's remarks were made a day after Prime Minis

(Nigeria) A Federal High Court, Lagos, on Thursday ordered the officials of the Ikoyi Prison, Lagos, to allow a sick convict, Adeyemo Abiodun, get medical attention. Abiodun was sentenced to seven years imprisonment, for the sale of adulterated teething mixture, "My Pikin". He was sentenced by Justice Okechukwu Okeke on May 17, alongside one Ebele Eromosele, both employees of Barewa Pharmaceutical Company Ltd., makers of the teething syrup. Justice Mohammed Idris, gave the order for medical treatment, following the hearing of an exparte application filed on behalf of the convict by his counsel. Counsel in his application, prayed the court to allow the convict whom he said collapsed for the second time in custody, to be admitted in a nearby hospital for proper medical attention. Justice Idris in his ruling, ordered that the convict be allowed to seek medical attention at the prison's clinic. The judge said that ``where it is evidence that medi

(Nigeria)  Abductors of Mrs. Adedoyin Rhodes-Vivour, wife of a Supreme Court Justice, Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour, his daughter and driver, collected N3 million ransom before they released them on   Monday night.   It was gathered that the ransom was paid more than a week before they were released, but the kidnappers still kept them because the other victims in their camp were yet to pay their ransom, and they were only released when all the victims' families had paid up. It was learnt that one of the victims is a top official of   Delta State Water Board, who was also kidnapped, some weeks ago, and he was released along with the Rhodes-Vivours Monday night,   after his ransom was also paid. It was gathered that the victims were held at a camp in Delta State. The kidnappers, it was gathered,   contacted the families of their victims and the judge’s family paid N2 million, while somebody else paid N1 million to bring the total to N3 million. The victims were sunsequent

For the first time in France, two men who were together for six years, on Wednesday exchanged vows in the city hall of the southern city of Montpellier, reports Xinhua . The first gay marriage came after the Socialists's major reform that triggered month-long hot debates and violent street protests. Wearing black suits, Vincent Aubin and Bruno Boileau, the gay couple, arrived to the town hall of France's most gay-friendly city at around 17:47 local time (15:47 GMT) under the crackling flashes. The two men entered the ceremony room to sounds of "Love", a Jazz song of Nat King Cole. Aubin, a 40-year-old gay activist and Boileau, a government worker in his 30s were the first same-sex couple who signed the marriage registry entry for gay people before Montpellier's mayor Helene Mandroux who declared them "united by the marriage link in the name of the law." "This day you have dreamed of, and today, it becomes reality. Vinent and Bru

The number of American troops committing suicide has increased to nearly two a day, with experts beginning to take notice of its deleterious effects, Press TV reports.   “I think we’ve paid more attention to it. The data wasn’t too good in the beginning. They really don’t take it seriously till 2010. The other thing that’s happening is the cumulative effect,” said Lary Korb, a US military health advocate. This is while a new US military report released last week recorded 161 potential suicides among active US troops and service members in 2013, indicating that the pace of self-inflicted deaths is set to rival the record rate in 2012. The military registered 349 suicides or one every 17 hours in 2012, much higher than the 295 American soldiers who died in Afghanistan during the same period.   “They don’t really talk about it. It’s not something the people - I mean I don’t know it that close enough that they would tell me about it,” said Richard Weitz, a US foreign policy