'I was disconnected from everyone'

Ella Ingram, one of the BBC 100 Women 2015, had to be hospitalised with her depression while she was still at school.

"I feel really suicidal, I feel like I want to do something," Ella told her teachers, when they found her sobbing in a dark and empty drama room.

Viewpoint: 'Why I chose to have an abortion'

Many people have certain expectations about the circumstances that lead women to have an abortion. Here one woman who already happily had two children talks about her decision.

Can eating less meat help reduce climate change?

As the Paris Conference of the Parties (COP21) draws near, the international spotlight is more focused on climate change than at any time since the Copenhagen talks of 2009.

BIAFRA: Answer to grievances of Ndigbo isn’t secession but… – Nwabueze

By Ikenna Asomba

Constitutional lawyer and Chairman of The Patriots, Professor Ben Nwabueze (SAN), has admonished pro-Biafra groups under the umbrellas of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualization of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), to have a rethink over their renewed calls for the State of Biafra.

Speaking on Monday, in Lagos, at a press conference to announce the 4th Goddy Jidenma Foundation (GJF) bi-annual Public Lecture, entitled: “Leadership, Responsibility & Good Governance,” holding on Wednesday, December 3, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos, Professor Nwabueze, who blamed the nation’s leadership problem, for the renewed agitations for the State of Biafra, however, stated that the answer to their genuine grievances does not lie in secession.

TB Joshua suggests sabotage over deadly building collapse

TB Joshua suggests sabotage over deadly building collapse

TB Joshua and two contractors facing trial for criminal negligence over a church building collapse that killed 116 worshippers failed to appear in court on Monday, prompting the judge to adjourn the case. The case at the Lagos high court followed a coroner’s ruling in July that blamed Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) and two engineers for the September 12, 2014 tragedy.

Solved: The problem that haunts any man in light trousers ... urinal splashback

 

THE humiliating effects of urinal splashback could soon be a thing of the past thanks to a bunch of enterprising scientists.

Former prison inmate Robert Hinton killed on the eve of $600,000 compensation payout

LAYING on a hospital bed with blood filling his eyes, Robert Hinton was barely recognisable.

He could’ve been forgiven for thinking things could only get better.

Waitress shot dead by restaurant customer she asked to stop smoking

A RESTAURANT waitress died when shot in the head after asking a customer to put out his cigarette.

Johnny Mount pulled a 9mm pistol from his shirt and shot 52-year-old mother of two Julie Brightwell who worked at a smoke-free Waffle House in the coastal city of Biloxi in Mississippi.

Iranian women's fight for freedom

Women in Iran are taking photos of themselves without headscarves as part of an online campaign by journalist Masih Alinejad.

Iran is better known for its religious conservatism than its history of women's rights. But although it might not be obvious to outsiders, the feminist movement in the country has a rich and varied history.

Adele's comeback album 25 breaks US records

Adele announced last week she will tour next year.

Adele's comeback album - 25 - has sold a record-breaking 3.38 million copies in its first week on sale in the US, according to Nielsen Music data.

Eldar Ryazanov Soviet comedy film giant dies

Eldar Ryazanov's comedies were hugely popular in Soviet times

One of Russia's best-loved Soviet-era film directors, Eldar Ryazanov, has died of heart failure aged 88.

Nigerian female students die in Kano school dormitory fire

At least seven female students have died after a fire at a boarding school hostel near the northern Nigerian city of Kano on Sunday night, officials say.

What it’s like to be a Muslim woman living in the United States

I FIRST noticed things were changing after 9/11.

I was living in upstate New York at the time of the September 11 attacks, we were living in a town called Potsdam and we were one of the very few Muslim families living there.

Brazil links Zika fever to birth defects

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are carriers of the yellow fever, dengue, chikungunya viruses as well as Zika.

The Brazilian health ministry has confirmed a link between a mosquito-borne virus from Africa, Zika Fever, and a high incidence of birth defects.

Letter To Mr President

By Babajide Alabi

Dear Mr President,

May I seize this opportunity to congratulate you on your success at the last General Elections in which you won convincingly. Pardon me this is coming late.

Buhari must prove he is serious about his anti-corruption campaign — Rep. Pondi

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru, Abuja

Honourable Julius Pondi represents Burutu Federal Constituency of Delta State in the House of Representatives. In this interview, he says Nigeria has celebrated 55 years of nationhood but has really nothing to show for it and that the much talked about fight against corruption by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration will not achieve much result. Excerpts:

Dele Momodu writes Buhari, says Nigerians are lamenting

Dele Momodu has written a memo to President Muhammadu Buhari asking him to as a matter of urgency fix Nigeria saying that Nigerians are lamenting that the change he promised is fast becoming a mirage and that Buhari’s style and methodology appear too slow.

‘Bankrupt’ 50 Cent stashes wads of $100 bills in his refrigerator

RAPPER 50 Cent says he’s penniless — yet keeps a dozen bundles of $US100 bills in his fridge.

The cold, hard cash shares shelf space with a bottle of vodka and two packages of Kraft American cheese, according to a photo that Fitty, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, bizarrely posted on Instagram that will no doubt intrigue his fans — not to mention his bankruptcy judge.

Russian MP died when husband set off grenade during sex in car

A GLAMOROUS Russian politician and her husband died semi-naked in the back of their 4x4 when he set off a bomb in a jealous rage, police said.

Live boxing: Wladimir Klitschko vs Tyson Fury in heavyweight clash

UNBEATEN champion Wladimir Klitschko puts his heavyweight titles on the line in a blockbuster fight against Manchester’s Tyson Fury on Sunday morning.

We know the city where HIV first emerged

When HIV and AIDS appeared they seemed to come from nowhere, but genetics has told us when and where the virus first entered the human population

The trouble with saying you don't want children

When Holly Brockwell spoke to the BBC about her decision not to have children, she knew she might be criticised on social media. But the attacks went far beyond what she had expected - accusations of selfishness soon turned into vitriolic abuse that made her deactivate her Twitter account.

Return of a topless rebel

In 2013, Tunisian feminist Amina Sboui left the country after publishing a topless photograph that caused a scandal across the Arab world. After two years in France, Amina is back in Tunis - with a new plan to stir things up.

Why Greeks are exhuming their parents

Cemeteries in Greek cities are so overcrowded that bodies are often only kept in the ground for three years. Then families have to pay for exhumation - and for the bones to be kept in a building known as an ossuary. But many cannot afford to pay even for this limited degree of dignity in death.

Katerina Kitsiou stands weeping by her father's grave in Thessaloniki's main cemetery. She has come to watch as her father Christodoulos is exhumed.

IS blamed for mass Yazidi grave found near Sinjar, Iraq

A booby-trapped mass grave containing the bodies of at least 110 people from the minority Yazidi sect has been found in northern Iraq, officials say.

The grave was found close to the town of Sinjar after it was recaptured from the so-called Islamic State (IS) group earlier in November.

Buhari’s six months of deceitful change – Fayose

Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has described the last six months of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration as that of “deceitful change,” lamenting that the President was destroying the image of Nigeria and its people for cheap international recognition.

Does President Muhammadu Buhari have a conscience? by Femi Fani-Kayode

”Aside the 105 soldiers killed by Boko Haram, additional 34 soldiers were killed two days ago but it wasn’t in the news”- Deji Adeyanju.

I concur with Mr. Deji Adeyanju. The most heartless and reprehensible thing that our government could have done is to cover-up the fact that 105 of our soldiers were killed by Boko Haram a few days ago. To do such a thing is simply evil.

11-year-old girl delivers baby sister... then goes to school

                               

                                           

AN 11-year-old girl single-handedly delivered her baby sister when her mum suddenly went into labour – then calmly went off to school.

Caitlin Burke sprang into action when mum Tara Knightley’s waters suddenly broke on Tuesday morning.

Smoking potent marijuana may mess up brain signals

A new study raises concerns for those who indulge in potent forms of marijuana. Researchers out of King’s College London and Rome's Sapienza University studied brain scans of 56 patients who had reported an episode of psychosis and 43 healthy volunteers.

Benzema 'sex tape plot': Valbuena breaks silence

Neither Mathieu Valbuena (left) nor Karim Benzema were involved in recent France matches

Footballer Mathieu Valbuena has spoken publicly for the first time about France team-mate Karim Benzema and an alleged sex tape blackmail plot.

Critics vote Taiwanese film The Assassin the best of 2015

Shu Qi plays a young woman who was kidnapped as a child and trained to kill

Taiwanese martial arts drama The Assassin has been named the best film of 2015 in a poll of 168 critics.

Set in the 9th Century, the film earned Hou Hsiao-Hsien the Cannes Film Festival's best director prize in May.

Adele's 25 makes UK chart history with 800,000 album sales

Adele's first-week sales were more than eight times those for any other album this year

Adele's new album 25 has sold more than 800,000 copies in its first week of release - the highest ever figure for a single UK chart week.

Suicide attack hits Nigeria Shia march

Deaths and injuries did not stop the procession - an annual event lasting seven days

A suicide bomber has killed at least 21 people in an attack on a Shia Muslim procession in Nigeria's Kano state, eyewitnesses and organisers say.

Where is the Nigerian Petroleum Minister?

The current spate of fuel scarcity, which started like a joke about three weeks ago, is about to hit the one month target with no apparent end in sight. If anything, petrol is getting scarcer by the day all over the country, with prices ranging from N150 to N500 per litre depending on the location around Nigeria.

Official sources blamed this on the activities of speculators, hoarders and saboteurs; a story we have always been told since fuel scarcity became a normal part of our lives from the early 1990’s.

Petrol dealers apparently sensed that the continued lowering of crude oil prices in the international market could lead to a drastic cut in the official price of petrol and thus decided to hoard the stock at hand. Things were not helped by the federal government’s delay in paying the N413 billion owed importers of the product.

Though the federal government sent officials of the Directorate of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to indentify the hoarders and dispense their products free of charge to the public, this has proved incapable of easing off the scarcity because DPR can hardly do much in terms of coverage.

Loneliness can kill you — researchers discover it can increase the risk of premature death

LONELINESS can increase the risk of premature death by 14 per cent in older adults, according to a study that suggests a physiological basis for the phenomenon.

The dangers of social isolation have long been known but its effects on the body have not been well understood, the researchers said in the work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences/PNAS.

Disgusting tentacle found growing in Aldi egg

FINDING a tentacle poking out of your egg is enough to put anyone off their morning fry-up.

But that’s exactly what happened to Lavern Dooley, 54, when she bought an $1.70 box of budget eggs from an Aldi store in the northern UK town of Scarborough.

‘My relationship with a feeder almost killed me’

A MORBIDLY obese “squasher” from Nevada in the US who piled on the kilos to satisfy her “feeder” boyfriend’s fat fetish — has now lost almost 109 kilos after their breakup — and saved her own life.

Ailing billionaire can barely speak, but demands steak and sex every day

AILING 92-year-old media mogul Sumner Redstone may be losing his edge — but not his appetite for sex and steak, according to explosive court papers filed by a spurned gal pal.

‘What would you like me to do?’ The question Stacey June was too shocked to answer

WARNING: Adult themes.

I WAS completely floored. Gobsmacked. I had just been asked a huge question in the bedroom by a new guy and had no idea what to say.

Miss World Canada 'barred from China flight'

Canada's Miss World contender has said she was barred from boarding a plane from Hong Kong to the Chinese city hosting this year's pageant.

Chinese-born Anastasia Lin, 25, says she did not receive an invitation to attend the event, which meant she could not apply for a visa.

BBC 100 Women: The fearless nun inside 'hell on earth'

Neyda Rojas has been visiting this Venezuelan prison for 17 years

For more than 17 years, a Catholic nun named Neyda Rojas has been serving God in a place that many describe as hell on earth - a Venezuelan prison.

Russia and Iran: an uneasy alliance

Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran this week has been greeted with much enthusiasm in official circles.

There has been warm praise for his decision to head straight from the airport to a meeting with Iran's Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

Audu’s inconclusive death, Mugabe’s wheelchair by Reuben Abati

“You look sleepy”
“My brother, let’s just say I slept at a fuel station, looking for fuel.”
“For which of the women in your life, because I hear these days, to please a woman in Nigeria, you must be ready to supply the three major things lacking in the land: money, fuel, and happiness.”

Buhari has failed Nigerian youth, says Dasuki, APC national youth leader

By Levinus Nwabughiogu
ABUJA – National Youth Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hon. Ibrahim Dasuki Jalo, yesterday declared that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has failed to carry the Nigerian youth along.

Los Angeles man exonerated after 16 years in jail over ‘Teardrop rapist’ attacks

HE MAY have looked like a killer to a jury, but it turns out that a man who served 16 years in jail for three sexual assaults was actually innocent.

The art of ‘rinsing’ landed these sisters $160,000 worth of gifts

THESE are the women that turn sultry selfies in to a serious salary.

They are part of the “rinsing royalty” phenomenon, that sees young, attractive women post sexual photos online in exchange for lavish gifts and cash from complete strangers.

Man's attempt to kill spider confused with domestic violence, sparks police call

A man's noisy attempts to kill a spider caused his neighbors to call the police, reporting a suspected violent domestic incident.

Zambian businesses pummelled by power cuts

Carpenter Stanford Mwanza says power cuts are seriously affecting his business

During an afternoon power cut in the Lusaka township of Bauleni, 52-year-old Stanford Mwanza does what work he can in his carpentry workshop by varnishing a wardrobe.

Born in the USA but choosing Ghana

Generations ago their ancestors were sold into slavery, now some Americans of African descent are choosing to return to the lands of their forefathers. Nancy Kacungira has been finding out why.

Why don't women become truckers?

All over the world it's the same - a woman driving a lorry gets funny looks and has to listen to unfunny jokes. It's a career women are not expected to choose, it seems, and often one they don't even consider. But why not? The job no longer requires brute strength and some women who do it say they love it.

El Salvador Church suspends Father Delgado over sexual abuse

El Salvador's Catholic Church asked for the faithful to pray for it

The Roman Catholic Church in El Salvador has suspended a well-known priest for paedophilia.

Father Jesus Delgado sexually abused a young girl over an eight-year period during the 1980s, the Church said in statement.

Saudi Arabia 'to execute more than 50 convicted of terrorism'

Ali al-Nimr - whose case sparked a global outcry - is reportedly among those at risk of execution

Amnesty International has expressed alarm at reports that the authorities in Saudi Arabia are planning to execute dozens of people in a single day.

IPOB warns S-East Govs, Ohaneze Ndigbo, others on release of Nnamdi Kanu

The Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB Thursday warned the South East Governors and members of Ohaneze Ndigbo to stop any meeting they are planning to hold with Federal Government in the name of representing and speaking for them because they do not have their support for such meeting.

One of IPOB’s spokesmen Comrade Emma Powerful said “if the South East Governors and the Ohaneze Ndigbo are serious they should be talking about getting unconditional release for the Director of Radio Biafra Mr. Nnamdi Kanu who is still being incarcerated for the past one month now, that should be the starting point.

Fayose to Buhari: Tell Nigerians who the looters are, how much they returned

Fayose and Buhari

* Says President making noise in foreign lands about non-existing fight against corruption

* Urges him to get to work, instead of junketing around the globe

Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, on Thursday, berated President Muhammadu Buhari’s claim that many of those who looted the public treasuries in the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan had started returning the stolen funds to the government, saying the President should rather stay at home to govern the country instead of junketing around the globe and acting like a saint before the international community.

Laquan McDonald case: Obama 'disturbed' by dashcam video

Some protesters taunted police with shouts of "Shoot me 16 times"

President Barack Obama has said he is "deeply disturbed" by a police video that shows a white officer shooting a black teenager 16 times in Chicago.

Amazing mum finishes uni exam during labour

“Strong priorities” ... An American woman has become a social media hero after completing her online psychology exam while in labour. Picture: Facebook/Shanell Brinkley-ChapmanSource:Supplied

An American woman has become a social media hero after completing her online psychology exam while in labour.

Australia’s corporate titans reveal what they were doing at age 25

THEY’RE at the top of their game, running multi-million dollar companies and managing large numbers of employees. But everyone had to start somewhere.

We asked Australia’s high-achieving corporate bosses what they were doing when they were 25-years-old — an age when many of us are still trying to work out what to do with our lives.

Trainee doctor posted Liam Neeson quote on Facebook and it cost him his career

A TRAINEE doctor was banned from practising medicine after he posted a famous Liam Neeson quote from the film Taken on his Facebook page.

T.D. Jakes: 'Stick Together': Thankful for the lessons I learned from my parents

“Stick together” my mother whispered as she ebbed between life and eternity, uttering the very last words I would ever hear from the matriarch who’d raised me singularly since my father’s passing decades earlier.

No specific or credible threat to US - Obama

President Barack Obama has announced ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday that there is no "specific or credible" threat of a terrorist attack in the US.

Petrobras scandal: Brazil billionaire Andre Esteves arrested

One of Brazil's richest businessmen and a top senator have been arrested as part of the sweeping corruption probe into state oil giant Petrobras.

Andre Esteves was arrested at his home in Rio de Janeiro. Documents were seized both from there and from the bank he heads in Sao Paulo.

Donald Trump under fire for mocking disabled reporter

Mr Trump has met Mr Kovaleski on several occasions

Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has been criticised for mocking a disabled New York Times reporter.

Anatomy of female genital mutilation

The world could put a stop to female genital mutilation (FGM) within a generation, international leaders and campaigners say. (This report contains graphic descriptions of the practices involved).