With the leaders at last sitting together in the same room – and speaking English – the hard work begins

After the first private sessions, photographs were issued showing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deep in conversation.

Apparently they spoke in English. No translators, the state department said, were present.

The message was that face-to-face contact had started and might even work, though a year of effort lies ahead. And a lot more talk. The next meeting is in two weeks’ time.

If you go by past history – and almost every Israeli and Palestinian I spoke to on a trip to the region last week did – then you will expect the talks to come to nothing.

After all, it has been almost 20 years since the first of several peace processes started. All the years of failure have turned this into a long-running Middle Eastern saga of lost hope.

The Americans are telling both sides that time is running out, that they cannot postpone the hard choices that making peace entails any longer.

It may be difficult, they’re saying, but it will be even worse if you don’t agree on the borders of a Palestinian state and decide the other big issues.

The hardest ones are the future of Jerusalem and finding justice for the millions of Palestinians whose families lost their homes in 1948 in what became Israel. At the moment there is a big gulf between the public positions of the two sides.

The first hurdle for the Americans has been surmounted. They got the two leaders together and, in the words of one official, they didn’t throw any chairs at each other.

From now on it gets harder.
Hamas’ grisly reminder

Here are some of the questions that need an answer.

What happens after 26 September? That is the day when Israel’s partial freeze on building for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank ends. Israel says it will not be extended. The Palestinians say if it is not, they will walk away from the talks.

The Americans are working hard to find a way ahead. One suggestion is that Mr Netanyahu will say the freeze is not being extended but will assure the Palestinians privately that no new developments will be authorised.

That kind of arrangement probably would not last long, but perhaps long enough to keep Mr Abbas talking.

Each of the leaders pledged to work towards peace

What about Hamas? The Palestinian group were not invited to the talks and say they would not have come if they had been.

They have condemned the talks as a fraud. Hamas says Mr Abbas, whose electoral term has expired without a fresh poll, has no right to represent the Palestinian people.

Earlier this week, Hamas killed four Jewish settlers not far from Hebron in the West Bank. It is looking as if they did not expect to stop the talks. Instead they were sending a grisly reminder of what they are prepared to do.
‘Israel’s Gorbachev’

If Hamas is as capable as it claims of sustained violence despite the attentions of the Israelis and the security forces of President Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, it will have what amounts to a right of veto.

Past negotiations failed because of the combination of problems at the negotiating table and the spilling of blood on the streets of Israel and the occupied territories.

At the moment the idea at the talks seems to be to ignore Hamas in the hope that a deal would be so attractive to the Palestinian people that the group would be powerless to oppose it. That is not a very robust strategy. It relies on a lot going right, quite quickly.

Will Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing government veto any concessions?

It is quite likely, if concessions involve Jerusalem or occupied land his coalition partners believe should stay under Jewish control. Mr Netanyahu chose to form a right-wing coalition. If he is serious about the talks, he may need a new one, one more amenable to paying the necessary price for peace.

Is Mr Netanyahu serious? There is a debate in Israel about what exactly he wants. Some believe he is an ideologue who is just reacting to American pressure to play for time.

The talks will not get far if he sticks to the preconditions he cited when he said a year ago he wanted peace through the establishment of a Palestinian state.

But others believe he is ready to do a deal. One leading Israeli journalist recently wrote a long piece comparing him to Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader who was installed to save the Soviet Union and ended up dismantling it.

The suggestion was that Mr Netanyahu could do the same for the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Obama’s gamble

Israel is the strong side. It is in possession of the occupied territories and will have to give most of them up if this is going to work.

The Palestinians at the talks are weak. It will be easy, and politically cost-free, for the Americans to twist Palestinian arms. Twisting Israeli arms will become necessary too. That can be politically costly in the US.

The Obama administration is taking a gamble. The calculation is that it is worth it, that the other intractable problems in the Middle East will be easier to deal with if the process goes well.

Glory lies ahead for a president who can deliver real peace (though not the Nobel Prize, which Mr Obama already holds, somewhat prematurely).

But failure, at a time when the region is fast-changing and unstable, could make matters in the Middle East much worse.

The Americans have given the new talks between the Palestinian president and the Israeli prime minister the biggest launch they can – meetings with President Obama, a dinner at the White House with the King of Jordan and the Egyptian president, and a globally televised first session at the US Department of State.

Hamas militants did not rule out suicide attacks against Israel

Militants in Gaza have vowed to step up attacks against Israel, following the first direct talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders since 2008.

A Hamas spokesman said that 13 groups had joined forces to launch “more effective attacks”.

In Israel, right-wing activists also condemned the talks in Washington.

The US Middle East envoy earlier said the talks, between Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, had been “constructive”.

The talks at the US state department – the first such negotiations in 20 months – had been initiated by US President Barack Obama, who gave both sides a one-year deadline to reach a solution.

The Israeli and Palestinian delegations agreed to meet again in the Middle East in two weeks.
‘All options open’

Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, said that 13 armed Palestinian groups – including the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees – met in Gaza City on Thursday.

“We declare that the actions of resistance have gone into a new and advanced stage of co-operation in the field at the highest levels in preparations for more effective attacks against the enemy (Israel),” the spokesman was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Asked if such attacks would include also suicide bombings, he said: “All options are open.”

Earlier this week, the armed wing of Hamas claimed responsibility for two attacks that killed four Israeli settlers and wounded two others in the West Bank.

Hamas, who seized control in the Gaza Strip, is a rival of Mr Abbas’ Fatah group, which runs the West Bank.

Hamas was responsible for dozens of suicides attacks against Israel since 2000.

In Israel, there has also been an angry reaction to the Washington talks from right-wing activists, the BBC’s Wyre Davies in Jerusalem reports.

Some of the activists condemned Mr Netanyahu for calling the Palestinians his partners in peace.

Even some members of Mr Netanyahu’s coalition government said that talks would lead nowhere because Israel could not compromise on issues like Jewish settlements on the occupied Palestinian territories, our correspondent adds.
‘Constructive mood’

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who hosted the talks, told Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu they had the “opportunity to end this conflict”.
Almost exactly 17 years ago at the White House, an earlier generation of leaders signed a document that was supposed to start the process of ending the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

It didn’t. Thousands have been killed since then.

If these talks fail – which is quite possible – it will be even harder next time around.

This is no longer just a conflict between rival nationalists over the possession of land.

Steadily, a religious war is being grafted on to it as well.

Making deals between nationalists has so far been impossible.

Compromise between those on both sides back in Israel and the Palestinian territories who believe they are doing God’s will would be much more complicated.
Leaders clear first hurdle

She said the US had “pledged its full support to these talks and we will be an active and sustained partner”, but said Washington would not impose a solution.

“The core issues at the centre of these negotiations – territory, security, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and others – will get no easier if we wait, nor will they resolve themselves.”

Speaking after Mrs Clinton, both Mr Netanyahu and Mr Abbas acknowledged the difficulty of the task ahead.

“This will not be easy,” Mr Netanyahu said. “True peace, a lasting peace, will be achieved only with mutual and painful concessions from both sides.”

Mr Abbas said: “We do know how hard are the hurdles and obstacles we face during these negotiations – negotiations that within a year should result in an agreement that will bring peace.”

The leaders also raised two of the issues that are central to the talks: security for the Israelis, and Jewish settlement construction on Palestinian territories.

“We call on the Israeli government to move forward with its commitment to end all settlement activities and completely lift the embargo over the Gaza Strip,” Mr Abbas said.

Mr Netanyahu said “a genuine peace must take into account the security needs of Israel”. He also repeated the demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state.

After their statements, Mrs Clinton, Mr Abbas, Mr Netanyahu and the US envoy to the Middle East talks, George Mitchell, broke off for talks away from the media.

Mr Mitchell emerged to say that Mr Abbas and Mr Netanyahu were talking alone. He said relations between the two men were “cordial” and there was a “constructive and positive mood”.

He said the two leaders had agreed to hold further talks in the Middle East on 14-15 September, then about every two weeks after that.

It had already been agreed, Mr Mitchell said, that the two sides would work to reach a framework agreement on all the issues dividing them that would pave the way for a comprehensive treaty.

Dr. Joel Ross, the founder and chief executive of the Memory Enhancement Centers of New Jersey, makes his living enrolling subjects in drug company clinical trials that are testing drugs for Alzheimer’s disease, among others.

So when Eli Lilly announced last week that its promising Alzheimer’s drug was making patients worse and that it was halting two large clinical trials, it seemed likely that Ross would hear from family members of his patients. Are other experimental Alzheimer’s drugs safe? they might ask. Should they get their family members out of those Alzheimer’s studies?

Not a single family member called. And Ross is not sure why.

If a study of an experimental breast cancer drug was ended because it made the cancer grow and spread, women in other breast cancer studies of similar drugs would be calling their doctors and asking what to do.

Alzheimer’s is different.

“It may reflect the incredible desperation surrounding Alzheimer’s disease,” said Baruch Brody, director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine.

There is no treatment and no way to prevent Alzheimer’s. It is a leading cause of death, ravaging patients and their families.

“Possibly, the overworked caregiver has precious little time to listen to news or read a paper,” Ross said.

Whatever the reason, the silence of Alzheimer’s family members gives rise to an ethical question. Do families now need extra protection or warnings about the Lilly experience when they sign up Alzheimer’s patients for studies?

There are no easy answers, ethicists and drug companies say, in part because it is not known what went wrong with the Lilly drug.

When patients enter studies or, in the case of patients with Alzheimer’s, when caregivers sign them up for studies, they or their caregivers sign an informed consent document. The forms are reviewed by ethics panels known as institutional review boards.

When the federal government conducts studies, it makes the consent forms public. Drug companies, though, generally insist that their forms be confidential. Investigators conducting studies for companies and institutional review boards must agree not to distribute the forms.

Every form contains a statement that warns patients that a drug might not help, said Angela Bowen of the Western Institutional Review Board, a private group that does ethical reviews of research on human subjects, including studies of Alzheimer drugs. The forms say a clinical trial is aimed at helping future patients. It is not a treatment for a disease.

The forms also say “there may be side effects that are not known at this time” and “your condition may not get better or may get worse during this study.”

It is often difficult to convey those ideas, said Dr. John Ennever, Western’s vice president for medical affairs.

“We realize drugs can cause side effects and that sometimes they don’t work but we don’t think they can make conditions worse,” he said. “We are dealing with humans who have hopes and aspirations. The whole idea of research is a difficult concept. We all forget that if we knew the answer we wouldn’t be doing the research.”

The Lilly drug disabled an enzyme needed to make a protein, beta amyloid, that accumulates in plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease. Other companies are testing different drugs that disable that enzyme, gamma secretase.

Researchers at other companies like Elan and Bristol-Myers Squibb said the Lilly drug, among the first of the gamma secretase inhibitors, took a sledgehammer to the enzyme. As a result, it probably affected levels of many other proteins besides beta amyloid. They say gamma secretase inhibitors now under development are much more selective and may be much safer.

Elan is one of those companies with a newer-generation gamma secretase inhibitor, and its chief scientific officer, Dr. Dale Schenk, said he did not think it necessary to emphasize the Lilly drug result to people taking his company’s drug.

“To be fair, this is the first anti-amyloid drug that has demonstrated a negative effect,” Schenk said. “I’m not worried about the class.”

Ted Yanock, Elan’s head of global research, agreed. Telling people taking the Elan drug about the Lilly results “would almost be misleading,” he said.

Schenk said he awaits further details from Lilly. For example, he said, patients taking the drug could score worse on the scale used to measure cognitive decline if the drug made them feel ill. Alzheimer’s patients who do not feel well score low on “activities of daily living,” which can drag down their overall cognitive score. And the Lilly drug, which may have altered a wide variety of body proteins, could have made people feel ill.

Some Alzheimer’s researchers are not so sanguine. They say it remains possible that even those more selective drugs will make Alzheimer’s symptoms worse or, like the Lilly drug, make symptoms worse and increase the risk for skin cancer.

There also is a different group of experimental Alzheimer’s therapies that use antibodies to attack amyloid plaque. With those drugs, said Dr. Jason Karlawish, a professor of medicine and ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, the Lilly result may be less of an issue.

The antibody therapies are distinctly different from the gamma secretase inhibitors. Warning about the Lilly drug would be like warning someone taking an antibiotic about side effects found with a very different antibiotic.

For gamma secretase inhibitors, Karlawish said, “you’d have a case about whether this information should be told.”

Dr. Paul Aisen of the University of California, San Diego, agreed. Aisen directs the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study, a program financed by the National Institute on Aging to conduct clinical trials of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. He said that all he knew so far about the Lilly study was what the company said in a press release and that “the details are important.”

But, he said, “based on the contents of the press release, I would say that both the risk of skin cancer and the risk of increased cognitive decline should be added to consent forms for gamma secretase inhibitors.”

Most patients entering clinical trials believe they are getting a new treatment that may benefit them, Brody said. Ethicists call that a “therapeutic misconception,” he said, adding, “No one should ever assume that in a clinical trial.”

“There are certain clinical conditions like Alzheimer’s where people are pretty desperate,” Brody said. “People say, ‘What do I have to lose? Look what I’m facing.”’

And so, he said, the Lilly drug result should serve as a caution – no matter how promising an experimental therapy seems, it might turn out to be worse than a placebo.

“The companies and, even more so, the institutional review boards need to take this to heart,” Brody said. “They need to make sure the consent forms say, ‘You may not benefit and may be harmed.”’ And, he said, that warning should be prominent, “not just a side remark.”

How does the metabolism of oil-eating bacteria break down oil? And how do they survive when no oil is available?

The most closely studied of these rod-shaped bacteria, Alcanivorax borkumensis, was first identified in 1998 near the Isle of Borkum in the North Sea. It has several efficient enzymes that break down a variety of the components of crude oil called alkanes.

The process transforms these large hydrocarbon molecules into smaller components, producing energy and carbon. The bacteria can also use some other organic compounds found in oil. Certain strains of the organism were found to produce a previously unknown class of glucose lipids that reduce the surface tension of water, and most of their degradation action takes place where oil meets water.

The bacteria are widespread and are found in barely detectable concentrations wherever even a thin film of oil is present in the ocean, a common phenomenon resulting from natural oil deposits as well as oil spills.

When there is a large supply of oil, Alcanivorax borkumensis quickly become the dominant microorganism and thrive on the contamination. The species is said to have a competitive advantage over other bacteria because its multiplicity of enzymes lets it use so many of the components of crude oil.

Gone are the days when parents seized the opportunity of long vacations to introduce their children to their roots. In those days, it was almost always the norm that once schools closed between June and September, parents would take their children to their home towns or villages, during which the growing kids had the opportunity to know their grandparents and other relations they might not have met before.

Things have changed, however, as the ‘tradition’ has been overtaken by ‘modern’ ways of raising children, especially among the rich.

Such is the trend that private schools have included in the school programmes, excursions abroad. Most of these schools — especially the high-fee-paying ones in places like Victoria Island, Ikoyi, Lekki, Ikeja, Gbagada, all in Lagos; Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Enugu, Port-Harcourt, and other parts of the country — now use it as a form of money making and competitive instruments amongst themselves.

For some schools, it is an advertising instrument, as many parents are easily carried away by the claims that their children’s school make regular trips abroad. Yet, it has become a veritable tool for schools to raise funds. Based on our correspondent’s investigation, a pupil pays N500,000 and even more per trip, depending on the school and the destination.

In some schools, excursions outside the country is organised every term; which means that a parent may have to fork out N1.5m per session on holiday travels alone, excluding school fees, developmental fees and the so-called miscellaneous charges. For instance, a school in Ikorodu, Lagos, charged €2,500 (N492,500) per child for holiday trip to France in July.

Most people polled by our correspondent could not understand why any parent would spend so much on a child’s vacation trip, considering the harsh economic reality that stares the average Nigerian in the face.

In his opinion, the principal, Stars International College, Ikorodu, Lagos, Mr. Sola Ayeomoni, said, “excursion is educational;” adding that there is nothing wrong in schools taking their pupils for overseas excursions. He, however, condemned the profits that some schools allegedly make from such trips.

“Education has gone beyond national boundary,” Ayeomoni said. “Globally, it is believed that pupils must see what is happening outside their borders because it enriches their experience. Though the Internet has made the world a global village, sight-seeing is important. Pupils can easily discuss or relate with what they see. Excursion is part of education. It demonstrates in practical terms the reality of what the children have been taught in the classroom. Also, it exposes pupils to experiences that will help their academic pursuit.

“But what I quarrel with is the exorbitant fees that schools charge per pupil. These days, schools seem to organise excursions for profit, which I question,” he said.

Talking about profit motive, a parent complained that he got to know of the rip-off that schools visit on parents when his child was billed N20,000 (about $134) as visa fee to Ghana, a neighbouring West African country. Since Ghana is signatory to the ECOWAS protocol that allows for freedom of goods and people within the Sub-Saharan African region, a Nigerian with his green passport does not need a visa to enter Ghana.

Reacting to the issue, a worker at Chrisland Schools, Mr. Solomon, said trips abroad for children should be for educational purposes. He said, “Our school organises excursions abroad because it is an international school. The excursion is mainly for educational summits, where pupils interact with pupils from other countries in order to gain more knowledge, and classes are organised for them over there. But parents don’t have to engage in it if they don’t have the means. We don’t force anybody.”

As far as the chairman of Landmark College, Ikorodu, Lagos, Mr. Isiaka Oyebamiji is concerned, the essence of summer trips is to distinguish high-class schools from the regular ones.

“The programme is far more than being a competitive instrument. Every school wants to go international by travelling abroad, irrespective of what its programmes are. Summer trips should be seen as a programme to enrich pupils and should not be used as a competitive instrument. In our school, we organise trips abroad and within Nigeria. This time, some of our pupils are being taken on a trip to France. It is not as if they will go just for sight-seeing, but there are international programmes being organised for them, during which they also visit some places and take notes. Also, some parents encourage it because they believe that it is easier for schools to get visa for their children.”

Speaking in the same vein, the Executive Director, Zinnia College, Ikeja, Lagos, Mrs. Titilola Ismail, said travelling is educational, though she agreed that it also depends on the parents’ financial ability.

Our correspondent discovered that while some schools are passionate about going to countries such as Europe, United States of America, Canada and the United Kingdom, there are some schools that prefer to take their pupils to West African countries such as Togo, Ghana, or Benin Republic, which costs about N70,000 or a little bit more.

Said Ismail, “We take our pupils to francophone countries, believing that French is the second foreign language in Nigeria. So, we try to improve our pupils’ knowledge of French by taking them to Togo. This, we do during the school term so that they will participate in class activities alongside other pupils over there. It is an annual program, but this year, we had to cancel it because only a few parents paid for their children’s trip. Others said they could not afford the cost of the trip.”

Meanwhile, watchers of the education sector have said that the long vacation is not just about travelling. Rather, they said, pupils should do a bit of academic activities (summer schools) during the long vacation; while others say vocational activities are more vital.

Oyebamiji of the Landmark is of the view that children should not engage in rigorous academic activities during the holiday.

“During the holiday, if you engage children in rigorous academic activities, you are overstretching them. It is not as if they won’t read at all, but it won’t be like the normal school activities. We can simply call it summer programme because if we say it is summer coaching, that means it is totalling academic. So, when you call it summer programme, it means there will be a bit of academics and some other social activities that will enrich pupils.”

Ismail said, “Summer schools should be where pupils are engaged in vocational activities. That is why we have academic activities for two days, while the other days are used for relaxation activities. Everything is not about academics. The summer school is also used to help take care of the kids when the parents are at work.”

A parent, Mrs. Oluwakemi Oke, said, “ vacation should be a period when children stay close to their parents and travel together if there is opportunity for that. But then, working parents do not hesitate to enrol their children in summer schools because they serve as a safe place for kids to be.”

However, a lecturer at the Department of Guidance and Counselling, University of Ibadan, Dr. Soji Aremu, said sending children to school during holiday is alien to our culture.

“In the past, parents looked forward to the period when children would be on holiday so that they could travel together or help in the farm. But the introduction of summer school came as a result of many factors, which include the inability of schools to cover the syllabus before the end of the term. Therefore, children are asked to attend summer school. This idea is sold to parents through organising various programmes that schools cannot do during normal school term.

“My advice is that children should not be overstretched with too much of academic activities. Give them relaxation programmes; otherwise, they become too loaded and confused. There should be a time to refresh the memory. If at all children want to go for summer school, let them learn something different. They could learn one thing or the other, ranging from sporting to vocational activities, which would be an added advantage,” he said.

A Senior Secondary School Two pupil, Master Kolade Oseni, said though children should be engaged in one programme or the other in order to expand the scope of their knowledge, they should not be forced to do too much of academic activities during holidays.

“Though it is a long vacation, I still believe pupils need to relax and engage in light activities. It is not necessary to engage them in academic work. The senior pupils can enrol for or engage in vocational and relaxation programmes,” he said.

For most people, donating blood is as simple as rolling up a sleeve. But not for gay men. Since 1983, the Food and Drug Administration has barred them from donating.

The FDA has re-examined the ban over the years, but maintains that the restriction is necessary to keep the blood supply safe and untainted by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Critics say the ban is scientifically and medically unjustified and that it unfairly singles out gay men.

Earlier this year, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and 17 other senators sent a letter to the agency opposing the ban. The agency announced it would revisit the issue, but in June a government advisory board voted to uphold the restriction, disappointing not only gays but also the nation‘s leading blood banks, which have spoken out against the rule.

Some saw a silver lining in the acknowledgment by the panel, known as the Advisory Committee on Blood Safety and Availability, that the current policy is ”suboptimal.” The committee recommended that more research be done on alternative policies before the ban is lifted.

”We certainly see this as a discriminatory issue,” said Nathan Schaefer, director of public policy for the Gay Men‘s Health Crisis, an AIDS service organization in New York City. ”But while the committee‘s decision wasn‘t ideal, we have them on the record saying that they can do better.”

While the FDA is not bound to follow the advisory committee‘s decision, the agency generally follows its recommendations, said Shelly Burgess, a spokeswoman for the FDA. The final decision to lift the ban will be made by the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services. She could not give a timeline for when that decision will be made.

The ban has been defended by groups representing hemophiliacs, who say that scientific evidence for establishing more lenient donation guidelines is lacking.

”We appreciate the altruism of those wishing to donate,” Mark Skinner, president of the World Federation of Hemophilia, said in an e-mail message. ”We recognize that donor deferral policies are discriminatory by their very nature.”

”Currently we don‘t have the answers to change the system,” he added, ”but through research we may be able to answer the critical questions in a way that would allow adapting the system.”

The FDA initially banned gay men from giving blood when the risk of AIDS from transfusions was recognized. At the time, it was considered the best way to keep the blood supply safe. The restriction applies to any man who acknowledges having had sex with another man since 1977.

Gay rights groups, blood banks, and many doctors and scientists consider the ban inconsistent with the restrictions placed on other high-risk groups and antiquated in light of the advances that have been made in testing donated blood.

Donated blood is routinely screened for HIV and other infectious agents. The FDA employs multiple safeguards, including donor evaluations and computerized blood testing, to ensure that infected blood is not distributed.

Since the 1980s, when the ban was enacted, the tests have become much more sensitive and accurate. The FDA did not take this into account when it reviewed the restriction in past years, said Bebe Anderson, HIV Project Director for Lambda Legal, a national gay rights group that has opposed the ban.

Seyi Olofinjana

Cardiff new signing Seyi Olofinjana is set to face his former club Hull City, after a clause restraining him from the clash was withdrawn.

Hull‘s move for Anthony Gerrard on Tuesday opened the door for defensive midfield player Olofinjana to play against the Humberside club.

Hull had insisted that Olofinjana, who has played a major role in Cardiff‘s unbeaten start to the nPower Championship season, could not play in either fixture between the two clubs.

But when Hull moved in for Gerrard, manager Dave Jones agreed as long as the Olofinjana clause was withdrawn.

Hull agreed and Olofinjana will again throw his protective screen in front of the Bluebirds‘ back four in their next League match.

Both the Nigerian international and Gerrard can now feature in the Bluebirds versus Hull City league fixture at Cardiff City Stadium next week Saturday. They can also play when the clubs meet at the KC Stadium in February.

A special Argungun fishing festival motor rally will be staged in honour of Nigeria‘s foremost nationalists, Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Tafawa Balewa and Sir Ahmadu Bello.

According to the CEO of Hemenga Grand Prix, Abdulrahman Agunbiade, the rally, which is tagged Argungun Fishing Festival Golden Jubilee Unity Motor Rally, is part of activities scheduled for Nigeria‘s 50th Anniversary celebration.

Agunbiade who is also the consultant to the project disclosed that the rally would hold between September 20 and 25 in four cities – Ikenne, Bauchi, Sokoto and Onitsha.

He added that more than one hundred vehicles and two hundred drivers and pilots would participate in the competition.

He said, ”Nigeria is in joyous mood as we celebrate 50 years of our independence from colonial rule and as a mark of honour to our national heroes who fought for our independence from the British masters, we have decided to stage this motor rally in their places of origin.”

Motor rally has always been a part of Argungun fishing festival which is one of foremost cultural festivals in Nigeria. The fishing festival has developed into a great global brand with motor rally playing huge part in the success story and it is no surprise the rally has been adopted as part of the Golden jubilee celebration.

The total prize money for the 6th International Obudu Mountain Race has been increased by over $35,000 by the organisers of the event – regarded as the best mountain race in the world – following the introduction, this year, of the women‘s version of the African Nations Mountain Running Championship.

The total prize money previously $245,500 is now $278,000. The prize money for the first to the 10th positions for this year‘s race however remains the same with the winners in each gender category going home with $50,000 each while $20,000 and $9,000 respectively will go to the second and third placed finishers.

The prizes for 4th to 10th placed finishers in each category also remains at $4,500, $4,000, $3,000, $2,500, $2,000, $1,500 and $1,000 respectively.

The Chairman of the Local OrganiSing Committee, William Archibong, in a brief statement in Calabar, Cross River state, said, ”The increase in the total figure is necessitated by the addition this year of the female team version of the African Nations Mountain Running Championship. The prize money for this event is also the same for both the men and women.”

The African Championship attracts a prize money of $15,000 for first team position, $10,000 for second and $7,500 for third team position for both men and women.

Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan

Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, has described as ”a rude shock” the death of sports journalist Emeka Enechi.

Uduaghan said Enechi‘s death was a huge loss to Nigerian sports. He sent his condolence to the family of the deceased and SportsDay, his last employers.

He said, ”The death was untimely and very painful especially now that efforts should be geared towards improving our sports.

“Emeka is resting in the Lord and I pray that everybody takes consolation in the fact that he has answered a call each of us will one day answer. The family and everybody in Nigerian sports should take heart. May his soul rest in peace.”

Former West Africa Football Union Secretary, Austin Akosa, and a former Nigeria Football Association Chairman, Kojo Williams, also sent condolence messages.

”During the Nations Cup in Ghana he was using Thisday car and he drove me to many places. He was a jolly good fellow,” Akosa said.

Williams was chairman of the occasion at Enechi‘s wedding.

Amaju Pinnick of Delta Sports Commission also commiserated with the family of the late sports writer.