Early this morning, one of the major headliners of the highly anticipated show, Music Meets Runway, Amber Rose tweeted that she will not be coming to Nigeria to host Music Meets Runway 2011.
Due to recent developments of Amber Roses nude photos that surfaced on the internet last week, were in discussion as to what to do about the situation with some of our sponsors who had understandably shown some concern.
We were still in discussions with our sponsors to accommodate Amber when we read Amber Roses tweet about her not being booked to host Music Meets Runway.
Amber has indeed been booked and paid for through a reputable international booking agent and we were as surprised as anyone to see the tweet.
This situation is under investigation and details will be passed as more information comes.
The show, Music Meets Runway will still hold come Saturday, July 9 at Expo Center, Eko Hotel and Suites in Lagos.
Music Meets Runway is an event poised & designed to create awareness for the laudable and fledging growth the Nigerian fashion industry has recorded in recent times. The event won’t be all about fashion as 10 musical artistes will also grace the occasion dishing out hits after hits. It will be a great networking opportunity for fashion industry, professionals including educators, retail buyers, fashion journalists, trendsetters and consumers.
We want to assure the public that we are bringing you a great show with some of the most amazing Nigerian Artists and Designers and that this event will be nothing short of a phenomenal experience.
A press conference will be scheduled shortly and information will be sent to all media houses.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
PARIS (AP)  The son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi is warning the Western powers currently bombarding his country that they could become a target if they continue to support the forces trying to oust his father.
In an interview on French television, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi also said Libya is ready to call a cease-fire, adopt a new constitution and hold democratic elections.
But he warned that, by supporting the Libyan opposition, Western countries “are going to be a reasonable target for us.”
In a separate newspaper interview published Monday, he said Libya is “ready to put in place a transition government” for three or four months.
A coalition including France, Britain and the United States are affressively striking and destroying western tripoli while hiding under a U.N. resolution to protect civilians. In mean time, These coalition have killed more civilians than they had protected. The UN is silent on the terror this coalition is causing in the region. The AU have threatened to leave UN for such targeted striking continues. Yesterday AU called on African states to disregard the sham arrest by ICC as invalid
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
BEIJING – Bilateral trade between China and Finland rose 29.5 percent year-on-year to reach 2.2 billion euros during the first four months of this year, the Ministry of Commerce said on Saturday.
Finland’s exports to China totaled 810 million euros, an increase of 35 percent from one year earlier, while China’s exports to Finland jumped 26 percent to hit 1.38 billion euros during the first four months, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.
China is Finland’s fifth-largest trading partner, its main source of imports and its seventh-largest export market, the statement said.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Violent electrical storms hit parts of south-central Finland on Sunday, setting off fires, slowing trains and endangering public events.
Particularly hard hit were the areas around Somero, Riihimäki and Lahti. YLE meteorologist Matti Huutonen says the thunderstorm front is moving westward. He adds that it is likely to end the latest heatwave in southern and central Finland.
The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI) notes the storms have brought exceptionally heavy hail, with hailstones measuring more than two centimetres across.
Recent days have also brought an unusually high number of lightning strikes. On Friday and Saturday the FMI recorded nearly 20,000 strikes.
Road, rail traffic hampered
Lightning has caused many fires and blackouts. On Friday one person was killed by lightning in the parking lot of Seinäjoki Airport in western Finland, while eight conscripts were injured when lightning hit their tent in Hanko.
In the central town of Uurainen, fallen trees that blocked roads were cleared on Saturday night. Some people had been able to leave their summer cottages after lighting knocked down hundreds of trees in a one-hectare area of Pitkäniemi. Trees also damaged outbuildings and a car.
Lightning also damaged rail equipment, delaying trains on Sunday. Trains between Tampere and Seinäjoki were running between 20 and 60 minutes behind schedule. Those between Jyväskylä and Pieksämäki were 20-40 minutes late.
Meanwhile trains between Pori and Vammala were replaced by busses on Sunday evening due to an electrical fault.
Thirty-two residents of a retirement home in Pori had to be evacuated on Saturday night due to storm water damage.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Mary Lambie spent last Christmas lugging her three young children to Lapland to meet the “real” Mr Claus.
Lapland, 68 degrees north, inside the Arctic Circle. Why would you head into temperatures of -25C just as a New Zealand summer is heating up? Santa, of course. The chance to meet the “real” Santa Claus at Christmas in his purpose-built Santa Village sounds too much fun to miss.
Santa’s Village is about a 20-minute car ride from the centre of the Finnish city of Rovaniemi. Unsurprisingly December is boom time for this otherwise unremarkable tourist town, which is around the size of New Plymouth. Visitors (mainly – don’t ask me why – Australians and Italians) use Rovaniemi as a base for visits to Mr Claus’ compound which is small and thoroughly commercial (of course) but provides a quintessential Christmas experience.
The village is lined with snow-white trees laden with fairy lights, and contains a dozen or so buildings including a post office (Santa gets two million letters a year), shops and Santa’s inner sanctum, where the bearded one sits and welcomes thousands and thousands of the faithful each Christmas. Actually you can go and see him any time, but in summer there won’t be snow.
The Santa Village experience is very slick, but in the end wasn’t the highlight of our trip.
We struck an afternoon where Santa was a little weary, so he had little chat and seemed a trifle stern, but to the children he was the real deal. They may well have thought that’s what Santa should be.
Unlike most Laplanders, his English was a bit rusty so he didn’t understand Elizabeth’s joke – “Where does Santa stay when he travels? In a ho-ho-hotel”.
We were in his private library for less than three minutes (having waited a good hour to see him). In that time he presented the kids with a present (a small toy reindeer each), had us all lined up for a photo, shook our hands, then showed us the door. It was brisk, but informative.
We discovered the Great Secret of Christmas gift delivery. How does Santa get around the globe so quickly? Because he stops time to do it. It’s simple once you know.
As well as the Santa Village there’s a plethora of outdoor activities – riding on frozen rivers on snowmobiles, trotting behind reindeer or huskies, fishing through holes in the ice, or trekking through forests at night to see the flickering green curtain of the Aurora Borealis.
Children get taken into the forest to meet elves and see reindeer. (The official story is that the younger reindeer fly; the ones you see are all retired from Christmas duties.) The elves are friendly, though their resemblance to humans is so striking that even the children couldn’t suspend disbelief.
Santa makes various appearances at Christmas functions around Rovaniemi. Obligingly he visits all the hotels and is seen roaming the snowy streets to remind us of the season. He’s not the only one travelling by sled. Little sled scooters are common transport.
You can make an Arctic holiday as comfortable or as challenging as you want, we discovered. With children in tow, we chose easy options – not more than four hours outdoors, for example – although in calm conditions with good clothing, your risk of frostbite is nil at temperatures less than -25C.
There is a superb, child-friendly Museum of the Arctic with an entire history of the Sami indigenous people and life in the north in less cosseted times.
We were surprised at how easily the Finns cope with the cold, even in the middle of the coldest European winter for decades. Their airports don’t close, their buildings are warm, and the biggest risk we faced was slipping on icy footpaths.
Value for money? Yes. Bragging rights from having met Santa are huge, and it’s an experience which couldn’t be more different from a Kiwi Christmas.
It’s a one-off holiday never to be forgotten.
TRAVELLERS’ TIPS
Getting there: On Singapore Airlines we flew via Changi to Copenhagen. Then we jumped on a Finn Air flight to Helsinki and took the overnight Finnish Rail train north to Rovaniemi from Helsinki – 900km and 13 hours in total darkness.
Where to stay: Hotels in Rovaniemi are modern and warm. Most come with wi-fi, saunas and excellent food. Reindeer makes an appearance on the buffet table.
What to do:Bentours‘ Christmas packages of five days ex Rovaniemi start from $3300 twin share, including four nights’ accommodation, meals, airport transfers, the loan of winter outdoor clothing, trip to Santa’s Hideaway, reindeer sleigh ride, Santa Claus Village and Arktikum Museum visit.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Malaysia’s prime minister plans to meet Pope Benedict XVI this month as part of efforts to establish diplomatic ties with the Vatican, a government official said Monday.
It would be only the second meeting between a leader of Muslim-majority Malaysia and the pope. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad met Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in 2002 for talks focusing on Christian-Muslim relations and the Middle East.
The planned meeting comes following tensions between Malaysia’s Muslims and religious minorities in recent years over complaints of religious discrimination. The Roman Catholic Church’s newspaper in Malaysia has been embroiled in a protracted legal battle against a government ban on the use of “Allah” as a Malay-language translation for God.
A representative of Prime Minister Najib Razak said a meeting with Benedict is scheduled for shortly after July 15, when Najib wraps up a visit to London. The exact location of the talks has not been determined.
Establishing diplomatic links is expected to be among the subjects discussed, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make public statements.
Malaysia is one of about 16 countries  including China, Afghanistan, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Vietnam  that currently have no diplomatic relations with the Holy See. However, the Vatican has an “Apostolic Delegate” who serves as its liaison with Malaysia.
Roman Catholics and other Christians comprise nearly 10 percent of Malaysia’s 28 million people. Nearly two-thirds of the population are ethnic Malay Muslims, while other minorities include ethnic Chinese and Indian Buddhists and Hindus.
It was not clear if Najib would speak to the pope about Malaysia’s court tussle over the use of “Allah.” A December 2009 court verdict granted non-Muslims the right to use the word, but anger among some Muslims over the ruling sparked an unprecedented string of arson attacks and vandalism that mostly targeted churches in January 2010.
Some Muslims insist that using “Allah” in Christian literature might confuse Muslims and tempt them to convert. The government has appealed the court verdict.
The Malaysian Insider news website said Najib will be accompanied at his meeting by Malaysian Catholic officials headed by the Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur, Murphy Pakiam. Pakiam’s representatives could not immediately be contacted.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
DSK Accuser’s African Connection – The sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is crumbling. Was there a shakedown? A conspiracy? The answers will come from New York’s West African community.
The May 15 arrest of DSK and his subsequent resignation from his powerful position as director of the International Monetary Fund seemed to end his presidential prospects. That was such a lucky break for the very unpopular Sarkozy that many French people found the story incredible to the point of implausibility. Some 57 percent, when polled soon after the arrest, said they thought somebody (the poll didn’t ask who) had set up DSK.
NYPD detectives initially ordered the arrest of Strauss-Kahn as he was about to leave JFK airport on a flight to Paris because the accuser’s testimony and corroborating accounts gave them probable cause to believe he had committed a serious crime. The charges included criminal sexual assault and attempted rape, and DNA evidence of sexual contact between the accuser and Strauss-Kahn supported the case. Initially, the police did not conduct extensive interviews of the accuser’s close associates in the African community. But the cops did not stop investigating once DSK was arraigned.
“You want to check everything – everything,†said a law enforcement source familiar with the case who is not authorized to talk on the record. “You have to know if you are going to have something that will hold up in court.†Probable cause is not enough for a jury to convict; guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. “If the further investigation shows that you don’t have that kind of proof,†said the same source, “then you want to show that the NYPD was doing its job.â€Â
Blake Diallo speaks at a press conference on May 19, 2011, inset: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, May 15, 2011, youtube.com (inset) AP Photos
So, according to this source, more detectives were assigned to look at the accuser’s possible criminal associations. Strauss-Kahn had hired TD International, an international investigating and troubleshooting firm with extensive CIA connections, to dig into the accuser’s background and connections. But the NYPD appears to have turned up the most damaging information first.
As The Daily Beast’s John Solomon confirmed earlier this morning, there were inconsistencies in the accuser’s asylum application when she came to the United States, unusual financial transactions into her personal accounts, and she had contacts with an incarcerated drug suspect. The day after she allegedly suffered the Strauss-Kahn assault, she was recorded talking to the suspect in jail about the possibility of getting money by proceeding with the charges against Strauss-Kahn. According to The New York Times, which first reported the concerns of prosecutors Thursday night, the woman had five different phones and had received as much as $100,000 into her accounts in the last two years from the man in prison and others, although those were not thought to be linked in any way to the DSK case
While the accuser’s ties to these alleged criminal elements did raise serious doubts, law enforcement sources say they have not come across anything to suggest a premeditated conspiracy.
While the accuser’s ties to these alleged criminal elements did raise serious doubts, law enforcement sources say they have not come across anything to suggest a premeditated conspiracy.
Just two days after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, Fofanah and the restaurant manager, Blake Diallo, held a press conference on Frederick Douglass Boulevard to vouch for the woman’s character. She was a simple mother, they said, just trying to raise her teenage daughter in peace. Diallo described himself then as her brother, but later said that was just a manner of speaking; in fact he was just a friend. She is from Guinea and Blake Diallo is from Senegal, but both are from the large Fulla ethnic group, which spans several West African countries. It was Diallo who got the accuser her first lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro. “He found him on the Internet,†said Fofanah. “He’s now off the case.†The accuser has been represented since last month by the more high-powered firm of Thompson-Wigdor.
Over a long lunch of okra and rice with Fofanah and Diallo at the 2115 last month, they continued to express their support for the woman, but with a certain reserve. “We don’t know the details,†said Fofanah, “but the message the community is sending is that we stand with her until all the facts are out.†When I reached Fofanah by phone early this morning, he said he had heard about the new developments in the case but said, “I don’t know anything about it.â€Â
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
MALABO, Equatorial Guinea  The body representing nations in Africa called on its members to disregard the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Moammar Gadhafi, an official confirmed Saturday, in a move that seriously weakens the tribunal’s ability to bring the embattled Libyan leader to justice.
The decision passed by the 53-member African Union late Friday states that the warrant against Gadhafi “seriously complicates†efforts by the organization to find a solution to the Libyan crisis.
AU executive Jean Ping also told reporters that the ICC is “discriminatory†and only goes after crimes committed in Africa, while ignoring those he says were committed by Western powers in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“With this in mind, we recommend that the member states do not cooperate with the execution of this arrest warrant,†said the motion, which was shown to The Associated Press and whose passage was confirmed by Daniel Adugna, a spokesman in the AU commissioner’s office.
If countries in Africa abide by the recommendation, it opens the possibility that Gadhafi could avoid prosecution by seeking refuge on the soil of his neighbors.
A total of 31 states in Africa are signatories to the International Criminal Court, representing nearly a third of the nations where the mandate applies. However, there has been increasing malaise in Africa over the ICC, which has been denounced by the continent’s entrenched rulers as an instrument of neocolonialism.
Being a signatory has not always signalled compliance, and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who was indicted of charges of genocide in Darfur, has been able to thumb his nose at the court, repeatedly flying to friendly nations like Kenya without arrest.
Diplomats present during this week’s AU summit in Malabo said that although they support the court, they agree with the AU’s claim that the warrant complicates effort to end the crisis in Libya.
“If he knows he has nowhere to go, he will fight till the end. He would rather die than be tried,” according to a Western diplomat who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Gadhafi’s chief of staff Bashir Saleh, who travelled to Malabo to attend the summit, applauded the AU’s decision, holding a copy of it in his hand on Friday evening as the heads of state emerged for their declaration following a day of closed-door deliberations on Libya.
They announced that they were inviting the warring sides to talks which will begin soon in Addis Ababa and which aim to put in place a transitional government that will oversee state affairs until new elections can be held.
Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim welcomed the AU’s decision not to enforce the ICC warrant, repeating the government’s position that the court is an “imperialist” institution that only targets African leaders, but not Western officials.
“The ICC is a European Guantanamo Bay. It’s only against the African leaders. It never deals with the crimes committed by the United States of America … and by the European powers … everywhere in the world.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The Housemates heaved a huge sigh of relief when it turned out none of them would be Evicted tonight.
There was a flurry of nervous activity in the build up to tonight’s Live Eviction Show. The girls whipped out their Sunday best and piled on the make-up, hoping not to be caught looking anything but glamorous on the Live stage should they be headed home. The Housemates gathered in the lounge and nervously waited for IK to put them out of their misery. After keeping them in suspense for couple of seconds, IK broke the news that they were all safe. There were loud cheers and evident relief on the Housemates faces. Lomwe, Karen and Kimwere then put on the spot and asked about the love connections they have made since the week began. Millicent was very candid and spoke about the cold reception he received from the Tails girls. South African diva Lolo brought the house down with a scintillating performance on the Live Stage, while Hip Hop group Zone Fam held it down with an inspired performance.
We wonder what Big Brother is up to? Are there more dramatic twists coming our way, as the show draws to a close?
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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