Teenage Female Bombers on the Prowl in Northern Nigeria

BAUCHI, Nigeria -Two teenage girls entered the busy marketplace separately Tuesday, their vests of explosives hidden beneath their full hijabs. The first detonated her bomb, killing three women. As rescuers rushed in, the second girl screamed and set off her explosives, killing dozens more, according to witnesses and authorities.

More than 40 people died in the double suicide bombing in Maiduguri, a provincial capital in northeastern Nigeria, according to Haruna Issa, a hospital volunteer in the city. Suspicion immediately fell on the insurgents from the Islamic militant group Boko Haram, which controls a large part of northeastern Nigeria and is blamed for the deaths this year of at least 1,500 people in Africa's most populous country.

In its campaign of violence, Boko Haram has used car bombs and men wearing vests of explosives. It also has begun using women who can cover the explosives with their hijabs, and the recruits appear to have gotten younger, with several instances of teenage attackers earlier this year. Source AP

Ferguson, Missouri on fire as grand jury reaches verdict

A Missouri grand jury has decided not to indict Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, a prosecutor announced late Monday. Hundreds of people gathered outside the Ferguson police station reacted with anger and dismay as word spread that there would be no indictment.

Some protesters destroyed a police car, and one demonstrator was seen dousing another patrol car with lighter fluid. President Barack Obama echoed the words of Michael Brown's father, calling for the Brown's death to lead to "incredible change, positive change" and for people not to hurt others or destroy property.

It is an "understandable reaction" that some Americans will agree and others will be made angry by the decision to not indict Officer Darren Wilson, Obama said Monday night.

"First and foremost, we are a nation built on the rule of law, so we need to accept this decision was the grand jury's to make," he said.

After an "exhaustive review," the jurors deliberated for two days, he said. The grand jurors are "the only ones who have heard all the evidence," St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch told reporters.

"The physical and scientific evidence examined by the grand jury, combined with the witness statements, supported and substantiated by that physical evidence, tells the accurate and tragic story of what happened," he said. 

Source: CNN

Online Mall flirts mobile strength in Lagos

Nigeria’s largest online mall, Konga.com took the general public by surprise as its delivery unit – KExpress – embarked on an impressive tour across Lagos, with a convoy of about 200 KExpress vehicles of different types!

The tour went by iconic locations in Lagos such as the Oshodi Heritage Park, the Maryland Independence Tunnel, the Third Mainland bridge, the National Stadium in Surulere etc. This move demonstrated Konga.com’s readiness to satisfactorily fulfill the huge volume of orders expected this yuletide season.

To further drive entrepreneurship, Konga.com established an employee reward program for the KExpress drivers. Through the program, Konga.com donates delivery bikes to their long service drivers. The first beneficiaries received their bikes on the 9th of November 2014, after working with Konga.com for about 2 years.

Ebola: Still A Serious Crisis

In Mali, a nurse and a patient became the second and third people thought to have died from Ebola there. Malian authorities said that a nurse and the patient he was treating at a clinic in Bamako had died. The 25-year-old nurse worked at the Pasteur Clinic, which has now been placed in quarantine. The government said the nurse was confirmed to have had Ebola.

His patient, a traditional Muslim healer in his 50s, had recently arrived from Guinea. Officials believe the healer, who died from Ebola-like symptoms, passed the Ebola virus to the nurse. However, he was buried without being tested for Ebola. The latest deaths are unrelated to Mali's first Ebola case, when a two-year-old girl died from the disease in October.

The new cases in Mali follow the WHO's confirmation that 25 of the 100 people who were thought to have come into contact with the two-year-old girl were being released from quarantine. Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak a global health emergency.

The Bandajuma clinic is run by medical charity MSF, which said it would be forced to close the facility if the strike continued. The toddler's case alarmed the authorities in Mali after it was found she had displayed symptoms whilst travelling through the country by bus, including Bamako, on her return from neighbouring Guinea.

Meanwhile hundreds of health workers involved in treating Ebola patients have gone on strike at a clinic in Sierra Leone. The staff are protesting about the government's failure to pay an agreed weekly $100 (£63) "hazard payment". A few are still assisting at the clinic. The clinic, in Bandajuma near Bo, is the only Ebola treatment centre in southern Sierra Leone.

Source: BBC

Suicide bomber massacres high-school students in Northern Nigeria

Boko Haram were suspected of killing nearly 50 pupils Monday in a suicide bombing in northeast Nigeria, in one of the worst attacks against schools teaching a so-called Western curriculum.

The explosion at the all-boys school in Potiskum is the latest in a series of atrocities against schoolchildren in the state of Yobe, and the second suicide attack in the town in eight days.

The massacre came just a day after the release of a new Boko Haram video in which the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, again rejected Nigerian government claims of a ceasefire and peace talks.

Students at the Government Comprehensive Senior Science Secondary School in Potiskum were waiting to hear the principal’s daily address when the explosion happened at 7:50 am (0650 GMT).