Controversial Nigerian musician, Burna Boy has reportedly tendered an apology to Mr 2Kay after allegedly sending armed robbers to attack him.
Nigerian musician, Mr 2Kay has revealed that Burna Boy called him to apologise and deny the accusations leveled against him.
2Kay revealed this during an interview with Pulse on Thursday, December 7, 2017. He said Burna Boy called him with a UK number and started by apologising for what happened before denying it, a statement which he, Mr 2Kay, finds complicating.
“Yes, they have tried to get across to us, speaking to people from our families back in Rivers states, people who know us, even people who haven’t spoken to us in years. Burna Boy called me with a UK number. I picked the call and he said it was Burna and he said to me, apologising and denying that he was not the one, apologising, so its a bit funny. I don’t feel okay with that.
“If I got a threat from you and then something happens to me like this because on your threat you said I should have the same energy that I have when I meet you or your people and in not too long after two weeks this happens and your manager was part of it, your manager was in my room. I never thought about it that way, I was so angry with the hotel people about how they can be so loose. He has spoken to me saying it didn’t know it would go this far, saying it was the manager who took it upon himself,” he concluded.
It would be recalled that Burna Boy was implicated by a statement released by the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Edgal Imohimi who revealed that the armed robbers who carried the attack were hired by Burna boy.
“Four armed robbers carried out the attack and detectives were able to arrest one of their girlfriends who is identified as ‘Matejero’ which led to the capture of the others. During interrogation, the robbers confessed that they were hired by Burna Boy through his manager, Joel Kantiock who was arrested in Zaria, Kaduna State.
“They confessed to receiving a part payment of 50,000 Naira before the job and another 50,000 was paid to the robbers directly by Burna Boy when the job was done. At the moment, efforts to apprehend Burna Boy is proving futile but we count on him to make himself available for questioning immediately” he explained.
Source: Pulse

President Trump’s recent gaffe has raised valid questions about his state of health prompting him to clarify issues.
The White House has said that U.S. President Donald Trump will undergo a physical examination while promising to allow the results to be released.
Trump will be examined by a doctor at Walter Reed, a military medical center, “scheduled for the first part of 2018,” said White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.
“Those records will be released by the doctor following that taking place,” she added. Sanders’s announcement came a day after Trump appeared to get a dry mouth and slurred his words when delivering remarks on Wednesday, leading to questions about the president’s health.
“There were a lot of questions on that, frankly pretty ridiculous questions,” Sanders said. “The president’s throat was dry. Nothing more than that.”
Trump’s predecessors typically underwent annual physical examinations with a military doctor and had details of their examination results released to the public. It is the first time that the White House has committed to releasing medical records about Trump’s health.
Trump, 71, is the oldest U.S. president at this point in his tenure. In 2016, Trump released a clean bill of health but some pointed out that the record lacked details and had an over-the-top portrait of the president’s health condition.
Source: Xinhua/NAN

One of the many highlights of the third day of RCCG’s Holy Ghost Congress, holding at the Redemption Camp of the church, was when Pastor Adeboye narrated how he was ambushed during a morning prayer.
Pastor Enoch Adeboye, general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) was ambushed during an early morning prayer walk on Wednesday, according to Premium Times.
The story, narrated by him on Wednesday night, was one of the many highlights of the third day of Congress, holding at the Redemption Camp of the church, along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.
According to the pastor, he was trying to look for a quiet place in the Camp, which is fast becoming a big town, at about 4am, when some people ambushed him for blessing.
The high demand for meeting the pastor has often denied him privacy.
“If you see a man of over 75 years old walking alone at night, you must know that he is doing that on a purpose, but the people won’t let me,” he recounted. “I tried to veer along a path into the bush, and was relieved to be alone to pray, but they traced me there.”
He said finally, he was able to be alone with God, who assured him during the Wednesday programme every yoke of bondage would be broken.
He did not explain how he was able to free himself from the people who were following him, but the deliverance service later that day and early Thursday, was attended by millions of people.
Another major highlight of the day was the demographics of attendance, which confirmed the spread of the church around the world – now in 196 countries- and the popularity of the Congress.
There were delegates from several African countries and many representatives from the Europe and the Americas.
The congregation shouted with joy when representatives from countries like Mongolia, Macao, Bangladesh, Thailand, Bahrain, and Peru were announced.
So also was the congregation excited by the recognition and praises of RCCG by some of the foreign delegates and representatives.
Source: Premium Times

A love-drunk Nigerian couple dared the invasion of a train to pose on the track for quick pictures during a romantic photo-shoot.
The identities of this beautiful couple haven’t been ascertained but the interesting location of the pre-wedding photoshoot has grabbed the headlines.

This is an interesting concept in the history of pre-wedding photos in Nigeria. It has been reported that the couple will tie the nuptial knot next year, 2018.
See more photos:

Source: Tori




Applications for the 2018 CERN openlab Summer Student Programme will open in Decmber. Be sure to check back for details.
CERN is the birthplace of the World Wide Web and where the Higgs particle was discovered by two of the major LHC experiments, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations. The laboratory hosts ground-breaking experiments and is at the heart of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG). This is a place like no other where dizzying IT challenges abound!
Located just outside Geneva, straddling the border between Switzerland and France, CERN explores what matter is made of and what holds it together by accelerating particles to a fraction under the speed of light and then smashing them together. CERN is home to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 km circumference accelerator buried 50-175 m below ground. Particles collide in the LHC experiments’ detectors approximately 1 billion times per second, generating about one petabyte of collision data per second.

CERN openlab is a unique public-private partnership, first established in 2001, that accelerates the development of cutting-edge solutions for the worldwide LHC community and wider scientific research. Through CERN openlab, CERN collaborates with leading ICT companies and research institutes.
CERN openlab’s current three-year phase tackles ambitious challenges covering the most critical needs of IT infrastructures in domains such as:
• Data Acquisition
• Computing Platforms
• Data Storage Architectures
• Compute Provisioning and Management
• Networks and Communication
• Data Analytics
By joining the CERN openlab Summer Student Programme, you will work with some of the latest hardware and software technologies and see how advanced IT solutions are used in high energy physics. You will have the opportunity to attend a series of lectures developed for the CERN openlab Summer Students, given by IT experts on advanced CERN-related topics. Included in the programme are also visits at the CERN facilities and experiments as well as other research laboratories and companies.
The CERN openlab Summer Student Programme is much more than just a summer at CERN. It can lead to follow-on projects in your home institute. It may even inspire you to become an entrepreneur in cutting-edge computing technologies!
Who should apply?
Are you a B.Sc. or M.Sc. student (who will have completed at least three years of full-time studies at university level by next spring) in computer science, mathematics, engineering, or physics
— with a strong computing profile? Would you be interested in working on an advanced IT project for two full months (nine weeks) during the period June-September 2018? If so, you should apply to the CERN openlab Summer Student Programme!
How to apply?
The application must be submitted to
http://ift.tt/2jaYv5U by 19 February 2018 with the following documents attached to it: the applicant’s CV, recommendation letter(s) by university supervisor(s), a motivation letter with an indication of the preferred area of work, and the university declaration for the current year. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Replies to applicants will be sent out by the end of April 2018.
Stipend
A stipend of 90 CHF per day during contractual dates (generally 61 days) is sponsored by CERN and the CERN openlab industrial members and should cover accommodation and living costs during the nine-week stay. Students are covered by the CERN health and accident insurance scheme, and are offered a travel allowance on a lump sum basis.
Students’ projects
Several projects and groups at CERN will host CERN openlab Summer Students. Examples of projects that students undertook in the past years include:
• Porting a Java-based Brain Simulation Software to C++
• Performance study of detector alignment software
• Evaluating the performance of Seagate Kinetic technology and its integration with EOS
• Upgrading the Huawei Cloud Storage Benchmark to make it compatible with ROOT6
• Archiving OpenStack cloud volumes
• Processing of the WLCG job monitoring data using ElasticSearch
A report on the work carried out is to be handed in at the end of the stay. The CERN openlab Summer Students are also given the opportunity to present their work at dedicated lightning talks’ events.

About 100 Nigerian students may forfeit scholarships worth over $1.5 million provided by the Russian government if the Nigerian government fails to pay for their flight tickets and agree to cover their stipend before December 13.
Yearly, the Russian government offers about 100 scholarship of between four to seven years to Nigerian students in courses ranging from Medicine and engineering. The successful candidates are chosen after a rigorous selection process that includes writing exercises and interviews.
This year alone, over 4,000 students applied but only 88 were awarded the competitive scholarship. Many of the successful candidates are graduates of Federal government-run gifted schools, where some of the most brilliant Nigerian pupils are educated.
It was learned that each of the scholarship is worth between $14,000 and $20,000 yearly, which is covered by the Russian government. The Nigerian government, however, is required to pay for the flight tickets of the students to Russia and provide for them a monthly living stipend for the duration of their studies.
But many of the successful candidates may see their hope of studying abroad and perhaps, of a better future dashed because the Nigerian government has refused to pay for their trip to Russia, and to commit to covering their living stipend, in clear violation of its Bilateral Education Agreement with Russia.
According to the agreement, the Russian government covers the basic education needs of the Nigerian students, including the payment of tuition, as well for a Russian language course and a stipend of $30 for students who pass their examination with distinction.
Source: ( Premium Times )

The highest paid musician in the year 2017 has been revealed by Forbes and it has come as a surprise to many people.
American hip-hop superstar, Sean Combs, a.k.a P Diddy has emerged Forbes highest earning musician for the year, without releasing any album for the period.

“Diddy is the top-earning musician on the planet, pulling in a career-best 130 million dollars pretax this year.
“His total got a boost from his Bad Boy Family Reunion Tour, his Ciroc vodka deal and the sale of one-third of his Sean John clothing line for an estimated 70 million dollars.”
According to Forbes, Diddy has used a combination of charisma, smarts and showmanship to elevate himself from modest means to the top of an empire that encompasses music, spirits, clothing, television and more.
“I’m the average person,” Diddy told Forbes earlier this year.
“I started looking at business at the age of 12, from delivering newspapers to working in gas station bathrooms, or even doing things like being a background dancer or a stylist.
“Whatever I could do to get close to the industry,” he said.
Also, Beyoncé ranked second with 105 million dollars, making her the only other act top to pull in nine figures.
Her Formation World Tour, which wrapped up in late 2016 and fell partly in the scoring period, was a major income contributor to her.
The Formation World Tour was the seventh concert tour by the American singer in support of her sixth studio album, ‘Lemonade’.
Drake, the world’s acclaimed most-streamed artist in recent years, rounds out the top three with 94 million dollars, much of it from his Boy Meets World Tour.
The highest earning artistes list is generated considering pretax income from June 1, 2016 through June 1, 2017, fees charged by agents, managers and lawyers inclusive.
“We gathered data from Nielsen SoundScan, Pollstar, the RIAA and interviews with industry insiders,” Forbes said.
Source: Forbes

The leadership of the People’s Democratic Party of Nigeria appears to be buzzing about the return of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar with a massive poster mounted outside the office building.
A magnifient and colourful poster of Atiku Abubakar tagged ‘Face of Hope’ has been spotted outside the PDP Headquarters, Wadata Plaza, Wuse District.
Atiku Abubakar is hoping to fulfill his longtime dream of becoming the President of Nigeria under the banner of the People’s Democratic Party.
Atiku is vastly winning the hearts of Nigerian youths ahead of the presidential election in the year 2019.
See more photos:

Nigerians have been sternly warned to stop abusing the naira as the punishment will now attract severe punishment.
The Central Bank of Nigeria on Friday warned Nigerians against abusing the naira notes, Punch has reported.
An official of the Currency Operation Department of the CBN in Abuja, Mr. Samuel Shuaibu, in Calabar, Cross River State, during the commencement of a ‘CBN Fair’ to sensitise campaign for residents in the state on the appropriate use of the naira said anyone caught abusing the naira would be prosecuted and if convicted the person risked six months in jail fine of N50, 000.
The fair had the theme: Promoting Financial Stability and Economic Development.
Shuaibu said that the abuse of the naira was not in line with the CBN’s policy, adding that offenders would henceforth be arrested and prosecuted.
According to him, the awareness programme was aimed at sensitising the public on the need to accord respect to naira, online transfer system, how to identify fake currency notes, how to approach the CBN for complaints amongst others.
Shuaibu said, “The naira has suffered abuse from a majority of Nigerians. Today, we find some people spraying the naira in occasions, soiling it, writing on it, squeezing it while others are hawking it.
“The CBN spent a lot of money in the printing of this naira notes. We urge Nigerians to respect the naira and value it. Anyone caught abusing the naira will risk a jail term of six months or pay a fine of N50, 000.”
He urged Nigerians to desist from home banking, adding that such money could be gutted by fire outbreak or carted away by criminals.
The bank’s Head of Development Financial Department, Mr. Chukwudum Nzelu, added that the Anchor Borrowers Programme of the apex bank has led to an increase in the local production of rice from 30 to 70 per cent.
Nzelu said the CBN was also designing other agricultural programmes that would engage thousands of Nigerians youths in meaningful agricultural ventures that would make them self-reliant.
Source: Tori

Portuguese forward, Ronaldo has in the last four years given Lionel Messi a hot chase on the Ballon d’Or award records.
Cristiano Ronaldo has said he hopes “the battle with Lionel Messi continues” , after he equalled the Argentine’s record of five Ballon d’Or awards on Thursday night.
The 32-year-old was named the winner of France Football’s prestigious award at a ceremony in Paris on Thursday.
Ronaldo had previously won the award in 2008, 2013, 2014 and 2016 respectively.
Speaking shortly after he was announced winner, the Real Madrid forward said, “I feel very happy, it’s a fantastic moment in my career, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.
“This year has been great, we won the Champions League and LaLiga and, on a personal level, I was a top scorer in the Champions League.
“Trophies help win these awards and we have to thank my colleagues from Madrid and Portugal, it was very important for me.
“I hope to play at this level for a few more years, I hope the battle with Messi continues, things happen for a reason.
“I feel good this season and we’ll see what we win at the end of the year.
“Neymar has a lot of talent, a lot of potential, and I’m sure he’ll have some chance to win in the future,” he said.
Source: Tori

A 58-year-old tailor, Kalu Mba, was on Friday charged before a Yaba Chief Magistrates’ Court, Lagos for allegedly defiling a 15-year-old groundnut hawker and in the process, got her impregnated.
Mba, who resides at Makoko Area of Lagos, is facing a charge of defilement.
The prosecutor, Asp. Ibijoke Akinpelu told the court that the accused committed the offence sometime in July at No 11 Makoko Road, Yaba, Lagos.
Akinpelu said the accused had on several occasions bought groundnuts from the girl and also told her to always bring her torn dresses for amendment.
“She eventually took her torn skirt to the accused for amendment and he had carnal knowledge of her without her consent.
“When she found out she was pregnant, she had no choice but to tell her mother what happened.
“The case was reported to the police and the accused was immediately arrested,” she said.
The prosecutor said that the offence contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Law.
Source: ( Punch Newspaper )

The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami, has signed an agreement with the United States of America spelling out the roadmap for the return to Nigeria over $300m looted by Nigeria’s former Head of State, the late Gen. Sani Abacha, and a former Governor of Bayelsa State, the late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.
Malami said the US government had taken custody of the money, including parts of it stashed in the United Kingdom, France and Jersey.
This is contained in the speech delivered by the AGF at Chatham House, London in the UK on Thursday.
A copy of the speech made available to journalists in Abuja by the minister’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Salihu Isah, via e-mail, was titled, ‘Nigeria’s Anti-Corruption Effort: Working with the Media, Civil Society and International Partners’.
The minister stated that the US government took custody of the over $300m following forfeiture orders made by American courts.
He said of the $300m, the sums of $1.6m and £21.7m were in the UK, $145m was stashed in France, and $299m in Jersey.
The disclosure by the AGF followed an earlier tripartite agreement he signed alongside the representatives of the Swiss government and World Bank for the return by Switzerland to Nigeria the sum of $321m looted by Abacha and members of his family.
Source: ( Punch Newspaper )

A chief priest was on Friday remanded in prison on a 10-count charge bordering on forceful encroachment of NTA premises with firearms and causing fear among staff of the station.
An Evboriaria Magistrate Court has remanded a Chief Priest of Aduwawa community in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State, Prince Nosa Osadolor, to prison custody for alleged forceful encroachment on the land belonging to the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA), Benin.
He was remanded on a 10-count charge bordering on demolition of NTA Aduwawa perimeter fencing, forceful encroachment of NTA premises with firearms and causing fear among staff of the station.
Osadolor, also known as Afro, had earlier told newsmen that the land belonged to the community’s shrine.
The priest said the land is known as ‘Egbebo’ (juju forest) and it is where the building of the priest was supposed to be built.
He said the shrine was erected by Oba Ewuare in the 15th century and that the priesthood passed from father to son.
His words: “The shrine is not mine. It was planted by Oba Ewuare. This place is a traditional ground for the shrine.”
However, presiding Magistrate, T. O. Omoruyi, remanded Osadolor to prison custody pending legal advice from the Department of Public Prosecution on whether the court has jurisdiction to hear the case.
The case was adjourned to January 22, 2018 for mentioning.
Source: Tori

Feeling knowledgeable? I have two different opportunities to put your software development knowledge to work. They could
not be more different!
Not-so-serious first. In preparing for this blog, I wasted enough time to become the leader on this interactive game (my initials: “JRR”). Some of the questions are based on a trivia contest we held at the Supercomputing conference a few years ago. The booth trivia contest was a hit with our audience. Now we can all participate and show off our knowledge in a simple video game. Can you displace me?

Five Students, nine weeks, and our votes help determine the winner
On the more serious note, my friends at CERN openlab have five brilliant students working on applications as part of their Summer Student Programme. In conjunction with Intel, they’ll be giving us an opportunity to review their progress, comment on it, question it, and vote on our favorites. I’ll share what I know now – and you can visit this link for updates.

The five challenges are:
1. Smash-simulation–fifth generation GEANT This project aims to develop faster algorithms for simulating particle-collision events as part of creating a fifth generation of the popular GEANT (GEometry ANd Tracking) software. Physicists widely use a software toolkit called GEANT4 . An international team, led by researchers at CERN , is now working to develop a new version of this simulation toolkit, called GeantV . This work is supported by a CERN openlab project with Intel on code modernization . GeantV aims to improve physics accuracy and boost performance.
2. Connecting the dots – can machine learning help? Particle detectors , such as those used at CERN, are designed to recognize different types of charged particles produced by the collisions at the heart of the detector. As the charged particles fly outwards through the various layers of the detector, they leave traces (or ‘hits’). This project aims to combine the use of machine-learning techniques to help recognize these hit shapes more efficiently.
3. Cells in the cloud This project aims to adapt the BioDynaMo for running high-performance computing resources over the cloud. It focuses on adding network support for the single-node simulator and prototyping the computation management across many nodes.
4. Disaster reliefHelping computers “see” objects in UN satellite maps: This project is exploring new approaches to image analysis and automated feature recognition to ease the task of identifying different classes of objects from satellite maps. It will evaluate available machine-learning-based feature-extraction algorithms.
5. IoT at the LHC small computing for the largest science project in the world?: The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) accelerates particles to over 99.9999% of the speed of light. It is the most complex machine ever built, relying on a wide range of industrial control systems for proper functioning. This project will focus on integrating modern “systems-on-a-chip” devices into the LHC control systems so they will be able to communicate via an overlaying cloud-computing service. A goal is to reduce the network load within the entire control infrastructure and ensure that applications are not disrupted by limited or intermittent network connectivity.
I will post updates as the summer continues – and we’ll all be able to review and vote on our favorites. One of the five students will be selected to showcase the winning project. The winner will be announced at the upcoming
Intel HPC Developers Conference on November 11, and will be demonstrated in the days following that at the Supercomputing 2017 conference in Denver.