Photo of the day (Ronaldo or Messi?) 23-06-2013

15 year old girl who looks like a granny

Zara, 15, presurgery (John Robertson/Barcroft/Landov)

 When she was 12, Zara Hartshorn, from South Yorkshire, England, started feeling like a little girl trapped in an old woman's body. Strangers often mistook her for the mother of her older sister Chloe, and she endured taunts like "granny" and "monkey" from other children, reports the Daily Mail. Hartshorn, now 16, suffers from a rare genetic disease — it affects only about 2,000 people worldwide — called cutis laxa, which causes the fatty and connective tissues and bones under the skin to deteriorate and can lead to the appearance of extreme premature aging. She's the subject of an upcoming episode of the documentary series "Extraordinary People" (airing Thursday in the U.K).

Also on Yahoo!: Bullied Bus Monitor Teaches Kindness A Year Later

Hartshorn inherited the condition, which was initially misdiagnosed as lipodystrophy (also called "reverse Benjamin Button disease"), from her mother, Tracey Gibson. The symptoms first appeared when she was a young child. At 4 years old, her physician noticed excess flesh around her jawline. "Mum explained that I had an illness like she did," she said, "but that I was beautiful and shouldn't pay any attention to what anyone said." By the time she was 8, she was being bullied mercilessly at school. Gibson says her daughter "was kicked and punched." Hartshorn adds, "It got so bad, I stopped to school going for awhile."

More on Shine: I'm Overweight, My Boyfriend's Not. Get Over it.

Switching schools didn't help her self-esteem. Hartshorn dreaded being asked her age. She recalls, "I was even mistaken for a teacher in school on a couple of occasions, which was just mortifying in front of my classmates," according to the Mirror U.K. Her mother took her to get collagen injections, believing it would help tighten her skin, but they turned into hard lumps instead.

Also on Yahoo!: The Real Benjamin Button Brothers

Her story reached Dr. Abhimanyu Garg, M.D., a lipodystrophy expert in Texas, who provided a correct diagnosis to her and her mother. Her older sister Jolene, 24, also suffers from a less severe form of cutis laxa. Another Texas physician, plastic surgeon Robert Ersek, M.D. offered Hartshorn a free face-lift and rhinoplasty. "I realized how life-changing it could be, but I was still so nervous about how it would turn out. The night before the operation I couldn't sleep because I was so excited."

When the bandages first came off, she was upset by the results. "Everything was so swollen. I thought I'd made a huge mistake. But after nine days I had the nose cast removed and realized straight away how good it looked." [See Zara postsurgery].

 While cosmetic surgery won't cure her condition and she's unsure if she wants to have children for fear of passing on the gene, it has given her the confidence to pursue a normal life. Hartshorn says she wants to go to college and eventually open her own beauty salon. "I remember the unhappy little girl who was bullied, and I want to go back and tell her it will all be all right. Now when I look in the mirror I can see opportunities that weren't there before."

Hartshorn says that in middle school she finally found friends who loved her for who she was as a person and didn't care about her appearance, but she was always too insecure to date. She met her current boyfriend Ricky, 22, a housepainter and aspiring decorator, through mutual acquaintances after her procedures. "He's seen pictures of me before and told me I was beautiful," she says, "but I wouldn't have believed him." Ricky says, "I tell her she's beautiful every day. But I mean she's a beautiful person inside as well."

Now fully recovered from her surgery and moving ahead with her life, she finally feels like the teenager  she is. Still, through enduring the torment of bullies and holding her head high, she's gained a wisdom that far exceeds her years. "I've carried those hurtful comments with me all my life but now I feel ready to leave the past behind and forgive and forget." And to Ricky, she's a hero. "The way Zara has handled things has been inspirational. I'm so proud of her—she means the world to me."

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/beauty/zara-hartshorn-facelift-gives-teen-back-her-youth-191300472.html

Julius Berger begins work on 2nd Niger Bridge

Work on the long-awaited second Niger bridge  has commenced. Wolfgang Goetsch, Managing Director of Julius Berger stated this at the 43rd annual general meeting of the company in Abuja.

Goetsch also said the Federal Government had given Julius Berger a letter of intent, which would enable it to do preliminary work such as, soil testing and engineering design.

According to him, the bridge is to be built under the private public partnership arrangement.

Goetsch said: “A consortium that included a company from South Africa participated in the bidding for the project. In January 2013, our group became the preferred bidder. We are excited because it will be the first of its kind in Nigeria”.



He also said mobilization to site for the construction of the 125-kilometre Lagos-Sagamu road will begin in 10 days.

Five lanes are expected to be added to the road. The Build, Operate and Transfer, BOT, arrangement the Federal Government had with Bi-Courtney Highways Services Limited, had been terminated.

At the annual general meeting, Julius Berger declared a profit before tax of N12.34 billion, for the 2012 financial year, as against N9.93 billion recorded in the previous year.

Profit after tax stood at N8.02 billion, as against N4.41 billion, while the company approved an increased dividend of N2.50, resulting in a total gross dividend payment of N3 billion.

This is a marked improvement over that of 2011 fiscal year, which was N2.40 per share.  Retired Air Vice Marshal Nura Imam, chairman of the company, said the performance in 2012 increased by 17.7 percent from 2011.

“This commendable achievement is attributable to a number of factors, including the handover of large-scale projects such as the Admiralty Alexander link bridge in Lagos, the Escravos Gas-to-liquids plant, as well as the completion of a major segment of the Lagos-Badagry expressway and several projects in Akwa Ibom State,” he said.

Rapper Fat Joe 4 Months In Prison For Bilking Uncle Sam

So much for a carefree summer ... Fat Joe has just been ordered to spend 4 months behind bars for failing to pay more than $1 MILLION in income taxes.

As TMZ previously reported, Joe (real name Joseph Cartagena) pled guilty back in December to stiffing Uncle Sam on a boatload of taxes for the years 2007 and 2008.

He originally faced up to two years in the slammer for the crime -- but today, the rapper was sentenced to just 4 months in prison, a $15,000 fine, and one-year supervised release. He's scheduled to report to prison by August 26.

Not so bad all things considered.


Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2013/06/24/fat-joe-joseph-cartagena-sentenced-4-months-prison/#ixzz2XDmpN2lv

Husband, wife die mysteriously in Okrika

TRAGEDY struck in Okrika, Sunday, when a husband and his wife suddenly died under questionable circumstances, yesterday.

The Rivers State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP, Angela Agabe, who confirmed the development, said the couple allegedly died after a meal.

Vanguard gathered that their remains had since been deposited in a morgue in Port Harcourt.

Some neighbours of the deceased who spoke to Vanguard simply identified the man as Thomas and the wife as Beauty. They said they probably died from food poison.

Another possible angle to the ugly development is that the couple might have been strangled to death by unknown assailants.

Meantime, the state Police spokesperson, DSP Agabe has said the last meal the couples had before their untimely passage had been taken to the hospital for analysis, adding that the Police was investigating the incident.

Boko Haram Members Dressed As Women Arrested In Borno

Citizens of Gwange region in Maiduguri, The Borno State capital has cautioned their women from leaving the home and going out in the evening as news filter in thath Boko Haram members now cross dress with women clothes to avoid soldier's and commit crimes

Reports states that four terrorists from the sect boko haram were caught on saturday in Gwange ward cross dressing and trying to escape arrest as a result of presure mounted on them in the area by vigilante groups who have been looking for the terrorists in the area

According to the residents, who asked to not be mentioned due to security reasons said that the terrorists conceal their weapons also in there female cloak. “They have been doing that for a long time according to one of them who was arrested last month in Gwange and since that time so many of them have been arrested and handed to security,” he said.

Speaking on whether the soldiers are killing the arrested Boko Haram members, he said, “They (vigilante youths) have been arresting them, but killing them, we do not know because the soldiers always carry them to the JTF headquarters.”

According to him, even those that were arrested with ‘hijab’ last week Saturday, we were told that the youths beat them up and handed them over to the military for further interrogation.

My baby has turned me into a kind of celebrity” – OAU student finally speaks out

400-level student, Oyinlola Rotimi has reportedly spoken put for the first time since she delivered her baby boy in the student residence toilet of Moremi Hall at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State.

Already OAU authorities have explained that it was not an attempted murder as earlier speculated and both mother and child were doing well.

In an interview published on CKN Nigeria, Rotimi said: “Why would I flush or kill my baby after going through the pains of carrying him for about good nine months? I am not heartless and I thank God for my life and the safe delivery. I know God has the best plan for me and my baby. I seriously appreciate the cleaners for their assistance because I got here (health centre) before I understood everything that happened to me. I am happy that I am alive and my baby is alive too. I’m also using this opportunity to thank the VC, the doctors and nurses, my lecturers and everybody because they all stood by me. They all became my father, my mother and everything to me.”

“Right now, I can call myself a celebrity and definitely I’m going to be greater than a celebrity. My baby too is going to be great. Look at the circumstance that surrounds his birth, just some days old, he is already all over in the news around the world and everybody is happy to see him or hear about his story.  He will surely go beyond where I am now. He has turned me into a kind of celebrity. ”
“I was purging all through the night and I had no idea of what labour pain was all about. Actually, I was feeling pressed, I can’t call it a labour pain because I was visiting the toilet all through the night till that morning. I just went to the toilet to go and purge when I noticed something just came out of me which I found out was the baby. The baby entered  the closet. I was just there shouting, bleeding and people who saw the blood came out to help me  alongside the baby.
“I was really scared! I was not expecting a baby. I went to the toilet but seeing a baby was terrifying because I was not expecting him or her to come out yet. It is absolutely not true that I took to my heels when people came to help me. It happened in Moremi Hall toilet and the toilet is a public one where everybody takes their bath, fetch water and clean up. So, some people were around fetching water, having their bath as usual, while I was in the toilet planning to defecate. My friend called the cleaner for help because she was an elderly woman. I was very scared and people around too couldn’t help because we are all young female students. The cleaner later helped to carry the baby out and brought it to the Health Centre along with me.”
CKN Nigeria reports:

 In spite of the trauma she had passed through since last Wednesday, the student, a native of Ijabe,  a border town between Osun and Kwara states, says she is happy that the embarrassment she received from the controversy that surrounded the birth of her baby has turned into a blessing for her.
She says the baby’s birth has made her more popular and important in the society.
Her plan for the baby
“I will continue to keep him more handsome, healthier and nurture him to attain greater height in life. But what he will become later in life is not for me to decide but he will definitely become what God wants him to become. I will just try to train him in God’s way and I am sure His (God) plan for his life will be realised.”
The bean cake she ate deceived her – CSO
According to the institution’s Chief Security Officer, Mr. Paul Ogidi, Rotimi thought she had stomach upset instead of labour pains because of the bean cake she took before going to bed.
“She got to campus late at night on Tuesday and  it was learnt that she could not immediately get herself something to eat but later resolved to buy beans cake within the campus. After eating the snack, she complained severely of running stomach, urinated and defecated at regular intervals.
“She felt her stomach disorder was caused by the bean cake that she took the previous night – not knowing it was labour pains.”
Varsity law does not forbid pregnancy - OAU
Authorities of OAU have blamed the improper use of the social media for the allegation that Oyinlola attempted to flush her baby away.
The Head of Public Relations, Mr. Biodun Olarenwaju, who spoke on behalf of the management, described the incident as a “social media rumour.”
He said, “Social media is designed primarily to disseminate information. But in the Nigerian context, many people disseminate rumours. The only information that should be seen there should be those persons who have the authority to speak concerning that particular incident.
“The only truth in the social media episode is that a bouncing baby boy was delivered in the toilet of the female hostel in our university. Other tales on the social media were totally incorrect. Students should not encourage rumour mongering because of the image of the person involved. They have to be careful not to make rumour the news.”
He explained that it was legal for the student to have delivered the baby in the school, stating that universities are institutions for adults.
“It is not a crime for a student to be pregnant. There is no law or decree that states that a student should be punished, an adult for that matter,  for getting pregnant. And there is no law in this university that states that an undergraduate cannot become pregnant,” he added.
‘My friend didn’t plan to kill her baby’
Rotimi’s friend, Oluwayemisi Satope, who was in Room 103, Block B of Moremi Hall, together with the undergraduate mother, the night before the incident, said Oyinlola was willing to have the baby.
She explained that there was no attempt by them to kill the boy.
She added, “The truth of the matter is that we don’t know how to go about it when we saw the baby. It was our first time and we didn’t want to make a mistake. I had to call Mama Cleaner to assist us. Immediately it happened, I was the first person to shout for help and two cleaners appeared to assist.
“Diana (Rotimi) had to spend the night on campus to enable her to prepare for her 8:00 am examination the next day,  because she stays off-campus. That mid-night, she started complaining of stomach upset and was visiting toilet regularly. A  few minutes to 7:00am,  she went to the toilet to defecate but delivered a baby.”
Students name baby after VC
And as soon as the birth and survival of the baby became known on campus, students in their characteristic manner, launched into an unsolicited naming feast for the baby. Before the official naming ceremony scheduled to hold on Wednesday (tomorrow), OAU students have named him after the institution’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Bamitale Omole.
At the Anglo-Moz Car Park of the university,  they gathered and named the baby Moremigbemi (Moremi-blesses-me), Oriyomi (My-head-saves-me), Oluwadayisi (God-protects-this), Eniolorunopa (He-who-God-does-not-kill), Bamitale (Be-with-me-permanently) Omole.
Others at the Moremi Hall named the baby Orisamoremi (Deity Moremi), Moremidayisi (Moremi-protects-this), Omomoremi (Child-of-Moremi), Olorunwa (God-exists), Oniyapupo (One-with-many-mothers) Moremioku (Moremi-is-alive), Iyabo (Mother-Moremi-is-Back), among others.
Moremi is a mythical legend of the Yoruba race.
We forced the door open to rescue Oyinlola, baby – Cleaners
Also, the two cleaners, Mrs. Shipebi Grace and Mrs. Cecilia Ologbenla,  in a chat with our correspondents,  said there was no evidence to prove that Oyinlola wanted to kill her baby.
The cleaners noted that they had to force the door open when they were called to ensure the safety of Oyinlola and her baby who was crying.
According to them, the baby was in the water closet when they entered the toilet.
“She would not have wanted to attempt to kill the baby the way we saw her. She only panicked when we forced the door in. We had to force the door in because of the cry of the baby. In fact, it was one of them that came to call us, but you know some students are impatient. They didn’t confirm what happened before they started spreading rumour.”
Undergraduate father keeps mum
Meanwhile, efforts made by our correspondents to speak with the baby’s father proved abortive. He is a 400 Level student of Mechanical Engineering, and is sitting for the second semester examination currently on at the institution.
One of his friends who spoke on the condition of anonymity explained that the young father is very sober about the development. The friend alleged that the young man and Rotimi had been friends for some time. Along the line,  Oyinlola got pregnant and they decided not to abort it in order not to compound their ‘sin’.