Akwa-Ibom gathers the largest assembly of carol singers in the World

As Enugu state Governor Host Road block every December to mark the celebration of Christmas, the oil state Akwa Ibom State Government Host Christmas Carol Night, described as the biggest Christmas Party in West Africa and the largest gathering of carol singers in the world, held last night Saturday December 21st at the Uyo Township Stadium. The event saw a gathering of 10, 000 carol singers and top artists. All expenses paid trip by the Akwa Ibom state government for over 50,000 delegates, many of them from various parts of the world.

'Fast & Furious 7' to be released in April 2015

That's what "Fast & Furious" actor Vin Diesel told fans Sunday night about the franchise's seventh installment.

He posted a message and photograph on Facebook that showed the last scene he and Paul Walker filmed together.

"There was a unique sense of completion, of pride we shared... in the film we were now completing... the magic captured... and, in just how far we've come...," Diesel wrote, announcing a new release date for the film -- April 10, 2015.

The movie had been scheduled for a July 2014 release, but production was put on hold following Walker's sudden death.

Walker, 40, and the rest of the "Fast & Furious" cast were on a short break for Thanksgiving when he stepped into a red 2005 Porsche Carerra GT for a short ride around a Santa Clarita, California, business park.

Investigators believe the car, driven by Walker's friend, was speeding when it clipped a light pole and was engulfed in flames, killing both men.

Walker's ex-cop character, Brian O'Conner, was central to five of the first six "Fast & Furious" stories, and his death left the future of the next film in doubt.

Millions of dollars are at stake, considering the franchise has sold $2.6 billion in tickets around the world since 2001.

Katy Perry Gave Up Alcohol for Three Months

Katy Perry may have been living off Flamin' Hot Cheetos and alcohol for the first couple of weeks following her split from ex-husband Russell Brand, but she sobered up -- in more ways than one -- soon after. During an interview for the Friday, Dec. 20, episode of Alan Carr: Chatty Man, the 29-year-old "Roar" singer revealed she went through a booze-free detoxing period as part of her healing process in the wake of her divorce.

"You know, I did a lot of different things," she told Carr, according to the Daily Mail. "I surrounded myself with my good friends, I did this whole cleanse where I didn't have any alcohol for three months -- that was devastating -- I did vitamins and supplements, and hikes and meditation and prayer."

Ultimately, there wasn't any one particular thing that helped her move on. "I think at the end of it all, as much as the things I did, I think there was something cosmically happening that was looking out for me in some ways," she said. "But I was putting my best positive foot forward."

That positivity didn't come easy, though. "It's fun to laugh at it now. It wasn't fun to laugh at it then," the "Who You Love" songstress told Carr. "You know, I was going through a period where a lot of negative thoughts were entering my mind. Obviously they did not succeed, but I had my confidence kind of beaten down."

That period of her life -- and how she bounced back -- inspired her new album, Prism. "It's a record of me going inside, and [doing] a lot of self-reflection, and figuring out, like, 'Where can I make areas of myself better, or what responsibility can I take?'" she explained. "Rather than pointing the finger and saying, 'You're the problem,' or 'You're the reason for all my problems,' or 'You're awful; my life is awful,' I go, 'Okay, how can I fix this?' So yeah, it was not fun."

Perry has come a long way since then. She's now in a long-term relationship with fellow musician John Mayer, her duet partner on "Who You Love."

"We have a lot of fun," she told Ellen DeGeneres of their relationship on Dec. 20. "We have music as an understanding and love between each other and we connect. It's like he understands what I do because he does the same thing. And so after a long day, if it's been tough, I don't really have to go into it. He just gets it. So it's nice with that understanding."

'Harry Potter' play coming to British

There's some magic coming to a British stage.
Author J.K. Rowling has announced she is developing a play based on her "Harry Potter" stories. According to her website, Rowling is working in collaboration with award-winning producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender on the project.

"Over the years I have received countless approaches about turning Harry Potter into a theatrical production, but Sonia and Colin's vision was the only one that really made sense to me, and which had the sensitivity, intensity and intimacy I thought appropriate for bringing Harry's story to the stage," Rowling said in a statement.

"After a year in gestation it is exciting to see this project moving on to the next phase. I'd like to thank Warner Bros. for their continuing support in this project."

Rowling will reportedly be a producer of the play and work with a writer, but she will not be writing the play. The story will follow Potter in his early years as an orphan.

Directors and writers for the play, which will go into development in 2014, are currently being considered.

Nearly 1,000 killed in 2 days in CAR

(CNN) - Former rebels in the Central African Republic killed almost 1,000 in a two-day rampage earlier this month, Amnesty International said, as together with Human Rights Watch it warned of a surge in sectarian violence.


War crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed in the country, Amnesty International said.

"Crimes that have been committed include extrajudicial executions, mutilation of bodies, intentional destruction of religious buildings such as mosques, and the forced displacement of massive numbers of people," said Christian Mukosa, Amnesty International's Central Africa expert.

The country has seen violence and chaos since the Muslim-backed Seleka militia and other rebel groups from the marginalized northeast seized the capital Bangui in March. President Francios Bozize fled to Cameroon, and Michel Djotodia, who had been one of the Seleka leaders, made himself President.

Djotodia later officially disbanded the Seleka, but as many as 15,000 kept their arms and instead continued to wreak havoc in Bangui and elsewhere. They mainly targeted Christian communities, which in turn formed their own vigilante group, the anti-balaka (literally "anti-machete").

Anti-balaka forces staged an early morning attack in the capital on December 5, going door to door in some neighborhoods and killing approximately 60 Muslim men, Amnesty International said.

De facto government forces, known as ex-Seleka, retaliated against Christians, killing nearly 1,000 men over a two-day period, according to the rights group. A small number of women and children also were killed.

In a statement, Amnesty International called for the deployment of a "robust" U.N. peacekeeping force, with a mandate to protect civilians, and enough resources to do so effectively.

"The continuing violence, the extensive destruction of property, and the forced displacement of the population in Bangui are feeding enormous anger, hostility and mistrust," said Mukosa.

"There can be no prospect of ending the cycle of violence until the militias are disarmed and there is proper and effective protection for the thousands of civilians at risk in the country. Residential neighborhoods must be made safe as an urgent priority in order to allow people to go back to their homes and resume their normal lives."

Pastor docked over sexual assault

28-year–old pastor, Chibuike Israel, yesterday, appeared before an Ejigbo Magistrate's Court in Lagos, over alleged unlawful carnal knowledge and stealing.
The accused, who resides at the Ijegun area of Lagos, is facing three-count charge of sexual assault, stealing and obtaining by false pretences.
The prosecutor, Cpl. Femi Adeleye, told the court that the accused committed the offences sometime in August at  4, Ojorubutu St;, Kudeyibu, Ijegun, a suburb of Lagos.
Adeleye said the accused unlawfully had sex with his victim (name withheld), when she was nine months pregnant for another man.
He added that the accused also unlawfully obtained N250 from her under false pretence.
The prosecutor said that the offences contravene Sections 250, 263 and 312 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.
The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The counsel to the accused, Mrs Jacint  Ogbedele, pleaded with the court to grant her client bail in the most liberal terms.
The Magistrate, Mr P. E. Nwaka, granted the accused bail in the sum of N200, 000 with two sureties in like sum and adjourned the case to February 10, 2014.

Kelly Sexual Assault Allegations Revealed in Graphic, Stomach-Churning

It's been nearly 15 years since music journalist Jim DeRogatis of Chicago Sun-Times was anonymously delivered two videos that would change his life.

Those videos depicted R&B star R. Kelly engaging in sexual acts with underage girls.

Now the host of the syndicated public radio show and a professor at Columbia College, DeRogatis didn't just break the story that shocked the nation.

He did the only significant reporting on the accusations against Kelly, interviewing hundreds of people over the years, including dozens of women.

Women whose lives DeRogatis says were ruined by Kelly, who went unpunished.


R. Kelly Sexual Assault Allegations
This summer, leading up to Kelly's headlining performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival, DeRogatis posted a series of discussions about Kelly's career.

He published a live review of the singer's festival set that was an indictment of Pitchfork and its audience for essentially endorsing a man he calls "a monster."

In the two weeks since Kelly released his album Black Panties, the conversation about him and why he gets a pass from the media has been rekindled.

As part of an exhaustive interview with the Village Voice, DeRogatis gave access to every file and transcript he has collected in reporting this story.

DeRogatis speaks frankly when he opines that "the saddest fact I've learned is nobody matters less to our society than young black women. Nobody."

"Being a beat reporter, music critic at a Chicago daily, the Sun-Times, R. Kelly was a huge story for me," he recalls. "I interviewed him a number of times."

"This guy who rose from not graduating from Kenwood Academy, singing at backyard barbecues and on the El, to suddenly selling millions of records."

He wrote in a review that the jarring thing about Kelly is that "one moment he wants to be riding you" and "then next minute he's on his knees, crying."

Watching Kelly's overtly sexual performances juxtaposed with "praying to his dead mother for forgiveness for his unnamed sins ... it's a little weird at times."

The next day at the Sun-Times, an anonymous fax came claiming R. Kelly had been under investigation for years by the sex crimes unit of the Chicago police.

His first thought was a dismissive "player-hater." But there were rumors from the beginning that Kelly likes them young, so DeRogatis did some digging.

What he found were lawsuits (multiple) "that were explosive" and extremely, graphically detailed and "didn't understand why nobody had reported them."

"They were stomach-churning. The one young woman, 14 or 15 when R. Kelly began a relationship with her, detailed in great length a sexual relationship that began at Kenwood Academy."

"He would go to Lina McLin's gospel choir class. She's a legend in Chicago, gospel royalty. He would go to her sophomore class and hook up with girls afterward and have sex with them."

"Sometimes buy them a pair of sneakers. Sometimes just letting them hang out in his presence in the recording studio. She detailed the sexual relationship that she was scarred by."

"It lasted about one and a half to two years, and then he dumped her and she slit her wrists, tried to kill herself. Other girls were involved."

"She recruited other girls. He picked up other girls and made them all have sex together. A level of specificity that was pretty disgusting."

Her lawsuit was hundreds of pages long, and Kelly counter-sued, denying everything. The lawsuits, the two that he had found initially, had been settled.

Kelly paid the women and their families money and the settlements were sealed by the court. But of course, the initial lawsuits are public record.

The shocking part? Having videos sent to him next.

"These were dozens of girls - not one, not two, dozens - with harrowing lawsuits," he says. "There are videotapes. Not just one videotape, numerous videotapes."

"Not Tommy Lee/Pam Anderson, [Kim Kardashian sex tape] fun videos. You watch the video for which he was indicted and there is the disembodied look of the rape victim."

"He orders her to call him Daddy. He urinates in her mouth and instructs her at great length on how to position herself to receive his 'gift.'"

"It's a rape that you're watching. So we're not talking about rock star misbehavior, which men or women can do. We're talking about predatory behavior."

"Their lives were ruined. Read the lawsuits! There was a young woman that he picked up on the evening of her prom. The relationship lasted a year and a half or two years."

"Impregnated her, paid for her abortion, had his goons drive her."

"None of which she wanted. She sued him. The saddest fact I've learned is: Nobody matters less to our society than young black women. Nobody."

"They have any complaint about the way they are treated."

They are 'bitches, hos, and gold-diggers,' plain and simple. Kelly never misbehaved with a single white girl who sued him or that we know of."

"Mark Anthony Neal, the African-American scholar, makes this point: one white girl in Winnetka and the story would have been different."

"No, it was young black girls and all of them settled. They settled because they felt they could get no justice whatsoever. They didn't have a chance."

"These girls feared for their lives. They feared for the safety of their families. And these people talked to me not because I'm super reporter."

"We rang a lot of doorbells on the South and West sides, and people were eager to talk about this guy, because they wanted him to stop!"