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(Nigeria) As the world marks the International Right to Know Day, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, has urged the government of President Goodluck Jonathan to drop threat of attacks against social media, as “any such threat can only continue to strangle freedom of expression and limit the accountability of government.” In a statement dated September 29, 2013 by SERAP’s Executive Director, Mr Adetokunbo Mumuni, in Lagos, the organisation said “The 2011 Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression has underscored the importance of freedom of expression on the Internet, and urged governments not to arbitrarily restrict this right. “The call by government officials for censorship of social media is entirely unnecessary as social media has played an important role in educating the ordinary citizens about the performance of their governments, and on issues of transparency and accountability. Social media are important to the work of

A new United States space freighter Cygnus, which has been orbiting already for 10 days, is to dock with the International Space Station, ISS on Sunday, reports Itar-Tass. The docking will begin at 04:30 EDT (12:30 Moscow time) on Sunday, NASA reported. All partners in the ISS programme approved the docking operation. When the cargo freighter approaches the ISS, crewmembers of the 37th ISS expedition U.S. astronaut Karen Nyberg and Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano will take it with a robotic arm and will dock to the U.S. module Harmony, the U.S. space agency added. Cygnus is to bring about 600 kilograms of cargoes, including water, foodstuffs, clothes and materials for scientific experiments, to the ISS crew. Cygnus went on its first flight to the ISS on September 18 by the rocket Antares, which was launched from the NASA spaceport on Wallops Island, State Virginia, off U.S. Atlantic coast. The docking with the ISS should have taken place on

The death toll of a blast that hit Pakistan's northwest city of Peshawar on Sunday morning has risen to 39, said a local hospital official, reports Xinhua. Local media quoted Chief Executive of Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital, which admitted all the blast victims, as saying that the killed include six children and three women. Over 100 others were injured in the blast, said the hospital official. Local media reported that 12 members of a family who happened to be shopping at the blast site were killed. The deadly blast took place at 10:50 a.m. local time at Qissa Khawani Bazar, one of the busiest markets in Peshawar. The bomb was planted inside a car parked about 20 meters away from a police station in the market and it was detonated through a remote control device, said police. No policemen have been killed or injured in the blast. Shafqat Malik, assistant inspector general of Bomb Disposal Squad, said that an estimated 200 kg of explosives were used in the bo

A Nigerian, Lawal Babafemi, was on Friday arraigned  in a United States  Federal Court, Brooklyn, on charges of providing material support to al Qaeda and criminal use of firearms. Babafemi, 33, also known as ``Ayatollah Mustapha’’, was arraigned on a four-count charge of indictment, conspiracy, providing material support to AQAP, and use of firearms. He allegedly provided the support to the group in the Arabian Peninsula, the terrorist organisation’s Yemen-based affiliate. A local media stated that between January 2010 and August 2011, Babafemi travelled twice from Nigeria to Yemen to train with leaders of al Qaeda, known as AQAP. According to the media, a statement by U.S. prosecutors said that he helped AQAP's media operations, including the publication of its magazine, called ``Inspire’’. It said that the group's leadership, including Anwar al-Awlaki, paid Babafemi almost $9,000 to recruit English-speaking people from Nigeria. According to prosecutors, Awlaki,

(Nigeria) No fewer than 11 people were on Saturday killed in a renewed attack in Zangang village in Attakar Chiefdom, Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State. News Agency of Nigeria learnt that the gunmen attacked the village early in the morning, leaving several houses completely burnt. A resident of the village, Isuwa Jiga, told NAN that more corpses were likely to be discovered as many residents were still missing. ``We have not seen some of our family members yet,’’ Jiga said. When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer, DSP. Aminu Lawal, confirmed the incident. Lawal said that a combined team of security operatives had been deployed to the area. NAN recalls that Zangang village had witnessed three consecutive attacks since the beginning of this year, while several lives and property were lost in the attacks. 

(Nigeria) The Joint Military Task Force, JTF, in the Niger Delta has nabbed 29 oil thieves and destroyed 127 illegal oil refineries in various locations in the area. The Media Coordinator of the JTF, Lt.-Col. Onyema Nwachukwu, who made the disclosure in a statement on Sunday in Yenagoa, said that the anti-oil theft operations were carried out between September 16 and 28. ``Between September 16 and 28, we carried out multiple anti-oil-theft operations in which a total of 29 suspects were arrested for oil theft related offences. ``Anti-oil theft troops of the Joint Task Force `Operation Pulo Shield’ also crushed 127 illegal crude oil distillation sites in the Niger Delta.’’ The JTF spokesman explained that troops of the 19 and 3 Battalions of the JTF, covering Edo and Delta also scuttled 24 illegal oil distillation camps and 73 wooden boats. ``31 of the 73 boats were intercepted at an illegal crude oil loading point close to an abandoned oil well-head in Okpoghare in Warri No

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on Thursday berated the United States and former colonial power Britain and its allies for trying to control his nation and its resources. ``Shame, shame, shame to the U.S. Shame, shame, shame to Britain and its allies," Mugabe, 89, said in a speech to the UN General Assembly. ``Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans, so are its resources. Please remove your illegal and filthy sanctions from my peaceful country.'' Mugabe said that the sanctions imposed by the EU and the U.S. violated the UN Charter on state sovereignty and condemned them as a "foreign-policy tool to effect regime change". The U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions on Zimbabwean state firms and travel restrictions on Mugabe and dozens of his associates after a violent 2000 election, and at the start of sometimes violent seizures of white-owned commercial farms for black resettlement. Mugabe did not refer to the lifting of EU sanctions on September 17 against Zi