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Throwback Pix: Who are these Young Men?

Throwback Pix: Who are these Young Men?

Can anyone identify the guys in this pic? Photo Source: @oyinelebuibon via Femi Davies…

31 Oct 2014

200 Days in Captivity: Kidnapped Chibok Girls Recount Experience

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ7iVM32qVqNqu3Er_FnaXZShPCzHdmbw2Bo8TuSbg1t509tSpBqNPl1OLjwJH8WlnqAjiBt5SbP2a6_N_KDXJyDKV5o7qaF9Wy8gnhbV9Js99vEh36YYzcjyAXUwVFC-6Jblx8TMBXSw/s1600/BringBackOurGirls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ7iVM32qVqNqu3Er_FnaXZShPCzHdmbw2Bo8TuSbg1t509tSpBqNPl1OLjwJH8WlnqAjiBt5SbP2a6_N_KDXJyDKV5o7qaF9Wy8gnhbV9Js99vEh36YYzcjyAXUwVFC-6Jblx8TMBXSw/s1600/BringBackOurGirls.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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When Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from the remote northeastern village of Chibok, Nigeria, earlier this year, the extremist Islamist group and its fight against the Nigerian government became a major story for the world to rally around. A hashtag spread, celebrities spoke out, and the United States sent in a team to help the Nigerian military.</div>
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Six months later, most of the girls kidnapped in Chibok remain captive and negotiations to free them remain inconclusive and confused. Just last week, official statements that Boko Haram would enter talks to free the girls were apparently contradicted by reports that the group had kidnapped more schoolgirls.</div>
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What is life like for the women and girls held captive by Boko Haram? That’s one question Human Rights Watch attempted to answer with a new video, in which the international non-governmental organization interviewed a number of people who had been kidnapped by Boko Haram and were later released or escaped.</div>
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In the video, released Oct. 27, girls detail how they were forced to convert and marry and, in some cases, were raped. In one particularly horrifying account, a young woman describes how she was forced to go on operations with the insurgents and carry their ammunition; she says she considered grabbing a gun and using it to kill herself.</div>
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The video comes as part of a wider 63-page report, “Those Terrible Weeks in their Camp,” which examines the Boko Haram kidnappings and the Nigerian government response to it. HRW reports that the extremist group has kidnapped more than 500 women and girls since 2009.</div>
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For its report, HRW interviewed 30 individuals who had been kidnapped by Boko Haram and 16 others who witnessed the abductions.</div>
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One describes how Christians were especially targeted: “I was dragged to the camp leader who told me the reason I was brought to the camp was because we Christians worship three gods. When I objected to his claim, he tied a rope around my neck and beat me with a plastic cable until I almost passed out. An insurgent who I recognized from my village convinced me to accept Islam lest I should be killed. So I agreed.”</div>
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Another theme is forced marriage, even for young abductees. When one 15-year-old told a Boko Haram commander that she and other girls were too young to get married, he reportedly pointed to his daughter and said: “If she got married last year, and is just waiting till puberty for its consummation, how can you at your age be too young to marry?”</div>
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Some of the kidnapped women and girls were even forced to be complicit in Boko Haram’s attacks: HRW says girls as young as 11 may have taken part.</div>
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And some suffered rape and sexual abuse. One 15-year-old said: “After we were declared married I was ordered to live in his cave but I always managed to avoid him. He soon began to threaten me with a knife to have sex with him, and when I still refused he brought out his gun, warning that he would kill me if I shouted. Then he began to rape me every night.”</div>
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HRW makes a number of recommendations based on the accounts, including asking the Nigerian government to ensure medical and mental health services for victims of abduction and violence.</div>
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<b>Source: <i><a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/10/31/what_captivity_is_like_for_schoolgirls_kidnapped_by_boko_haram.html">The Star</a></i></b></div>

200 Days in Captivity: Kidnapped Chibok Girls Recount Experience

When Boko Haram kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from the remote northeastern village of Chibok, Nigeria, earlier this year, the extremist Islamist group and its fight against the Nigerian governm…

31 Oct 2014

Gambian Diplomats Use London Embassy to Sell Duty-Free Tobacco Worth £5million

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh3W_ShD8YpD-lQvJ1bUxTSik1fPqkQ353e-HVpRB4aUG_RqgYeeyPt0bPD5DrXLHuCe6CqznMCpV5Aux1i1NwZwpQU8dHFvNl4OHlKkCC3KKzbYs5IFaEiJ3pLBhG3aMtL08mRTjz1jM/s1600/Gambian_diplo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh3W_ShD8YpD-lQvJ1bUxTSik1fPqkQ353e-HVpRB4aUG_RqgYeeyPt0bPD5DrXLHuCe6CqznMCpV5Aux1i1NwZwpQU8dHFvNl4OHlKkCC3KKzbYs5IFaEiJ3pLBhG3aMtL08mRTjz1jM/s1600/Gambian_diplo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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A group of Gambian diplomats used their embassy in London as a front for selling duty free tobacco in a £5million scam, a court heard as reported by the <i>Daily Mail</i>.</div>
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The Deputy Head of the Gambian Diplomatic Mission, Yusupha Bojang, 54, and his colleagues are accused of ordering 32 metric tonnes of tobacco in just three years.</div>
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They abused a scheme which granted them a duty-free tax exemption on goods for personal use by using delivery drivers to send them more than half a million 50g pouches of rolling tobacco, Southwark Crown Court heard. </div>
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In some cases they were ordering tobacco worth more than their annual salary but there is no evidence the eight defendants even smoked, the court heard.</div>
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Deliveries to the Gambian High Commission were usually taken and signed for by Audrey Leeward, 48, who sat on the front desk, it was said.</div>
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Witness Christopher Pelc worked as a driver at the time of the allegations and delivered huge quantities of tobacco to the Mission in Kensington.</div>
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He saw Leeward so often that she had a pet name for Mr Pelc, the court heard.</div>
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Boxes crammed with pouches of Golden Virginia and Old Holborn tobacco, were collected by Mr Pelc on behalf of International Diplomatic Supplies Ltd (IDS).</div>
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He collected the high-value tobacco from the London City Bond Warehouse in Tilbury, Essex, before driving it to the Mission and leaving it in a ‘back room’.</div>
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There were ‘frequent occasions’ when neither IDS nor second supply company Chacalli De Decker could meet the Mission’s extraordinary orders for rolling tobacco, the court was told.</div>
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Prosecutor Jane Bewsey QC said: ‘You are asked about the size of the boxes, if you look at where we can see that on this particular document [an order form] the Gambian Mission, it says 5 x 50... in total to satisfy this order this order was 10 boxes?</div>
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‘That’s correct,’ replied Mr Pelc.</div>
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The order was for 1.25kg of tobacco and only made up one part of a larger list of requests for deliveries to the Mission in May 2010.</div>
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Another driver said he saw queues of people at the premises who appeared to be purchasing pouches of tobacco, the jury was told.</div>
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Over the three-year period the eight defendants - Bojang, First Secretary Gaston Sambou, 48, finance attache Ebrima John, 38, welfare officer Georgina Gomez, 29, Leeward, secretary Hasaintu Noah, 60, driver Veerahia Ramarajaha, 54, and Ida Njie, 42 - collectively ordered or were invoiced for in excess of 530,000 50g pouches, it is said.</div>
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Ms Bewsey said there was ‘systematic abuse’ of the privileges granted to diplomatic missions and their staff based in the UK to order goods free from excise duty and VAT.</div>
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The ‘commercial’ scale scam led to a loss to the taxpayer of just short of £4.8m over three years, jurors heard.</div>
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Four of the defendants - Bojang, Sambou, John and Gomez - were employed as diplomatic staff and were therefore entitled to enjoy the tax-break on goods such as alcohol, perfume and tobacco for personal use.</div>
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Leeward, Noah and Ramarajaha were locally employed and therefore not entitled to the privileges.</div>
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Njie was employed by the Gambian Tourist Authority whose offices were in the same building as the High Commission.</div>
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She was not employed by the Gambian Mission and accordingly she should not have enjoyed any diplomatic privileges, the court heard.</div>
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Jurors were told that diplomatic immunity did not apply in this case and all the defendants were subject to UK law.</div>
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The purchase of the duty-free goods were permitted on forms authorised by the Head of Mission at the time, Elizabeth Harding.</div>
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But in her absence, Bojang was permitted to sign off the purchases and authorised 31 forms for more than 21,000kg of tobacco.</div>
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Sambou signed off 29 forms, covering more than 9,000kg, and John signed four, authorising more than 2,000kg of tobacco.</div>
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‘In monetary terms this equated to a loss to the UK revenue of duty and VAT not paid of just under £4.8m,’ said Ms Bewsey.</div>
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The cost of the ‘commercial’ quantity orders made in the names if individual defendants often exceeded their annual salary, jurors heard.</div>
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Ramarajaha denies conspiracy to cheat the public revenue and a further charge of harbouring dutiable goods.</div>
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The seven other defendants all deny a single charge of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue.</div>
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The trial continues.</div>
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<b>Source: <i><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2816268/Gambian-diplomats-used-London-embassy-selling-duty-free-tobacco-5million-scam.html">Daily Mail</a></i></b></div>
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Gambian Diplomats Use London Embassy to Sell Duty-Free Tobacco Worth £5million

A group of Gambian diplomats used their embassy in London as a front for selling duty free tobacco in a £5million scam, a court heard as reported by the Daily Mail. The Deputy Head of the Gambian Dip…

31 Oct 2014

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crashes, Richard Bradson Mourns Dead Pilot

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcu8qjEh6S1dPJ6vf-KiCD2JNFoyM2sZ_vwtNwc2oeLMQIEgTse1hYm40Zu-nBvIP_eOITEdhlinapngDzXOA1qtmk2qFXtkzvj-9XaHB8EVaXbsMC_JWQbL7b_PMmHOe9wWv5BCIXmw/s1600/Virgin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcu8qjEh6S1dPJ6vf-KiCD2JNFoyM2sZ_vwtNwc2oeLMQIEgTse1hYm40Zu-nBvIP_eOITEdhlinapngDzXOA1qtmk2qFXtkzvj-9XaHB8EVaXbsMC_JWQbL7b_PMmHOe9wWv5BCIXmw/s1600/Virgin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has crashed after suffering an "in-flight anomaly" during a test flight on Friday over the Mojave Desert. Californian authorities say one pilot has been killed and the other has suffered "major injury".</div>
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The company tweeted that SpaceShipTwo was flying under rocket power and then tweeted that it had "experienced an in-flight anomaly." The tweet said more information would be forthcoming.</div>
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<b>From the Associated Press:</b></div>
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The SpaceShipTwo rocket is typically flown by a crew of two pilots and has been under development at Mojave Air and Space Port in the desert northeast of Los Angeles.</div>
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Ken Brown, a photographer who witnessed the crash, said the space tourism craft exploded after it was released from a plane that carries it to a high altitude.</div>
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The company founded by British billionaire Richard Branson would not say what happened other that it was working with authorities to determine the cause of the "accident."</div>
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Virgin Galactic has been the front-runner in the fledgling space-tourism industry.</div>
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SpaceShipTwo was designed to be carried aloft by a specially designed jet and then released before igniting its rocket for suborbital thrill ride into space and then a return to Earth as a glider.</div>
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Virgin Galactic, once it finished developing its rocket ship, was going to launch space tourism flights from the quarter-billion-dollar Spaceport America in southern New Mexico.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXZmXg98zO7cByEQe7uxDP3_SanNSxSE9v9DRxiu7YPKQ8iEmKtyO_bAV4GeUoCemTRE7bHqj31VYm_oAWoO3yD6TRnXCraQPBxrAwChO5nohOreHeyWFbO1vA-bVeO-8QrOLtQL1ZJnw/s1600/Virgin+Spacecraft+Crash.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXZmXg98zO7cByEQe7uxDP3_SanNSxSE9v9DRxiu7YPKQ8iEmKtyO_bAV4GeUoCemTRE7bHqj31VYm_oAWoO3yD6TRnXCraQPBxrAwChO5nohOreHeyWFbO1vA-bVeO-8QrOLtQL1ZJnw/s1600/Virgin+Spacecraft+Crash.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>From the Press Association:</b></div>
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A spokeswoman for America's Federal Aviation Administration said: "Just after 10am PDT today, ground controllers at the Mojave Spaceport lost contact with SpaceShipTwo, an experimental space flight vehicle. The incident occurred over the Mojave Desert shortly after the space flight vehicle separated from WhiteKnightTwo, the vehicle that carried it aloft.</div>
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"Two crew members were on board SpaceShipTwo at the time of the incident. WhiteKnightTwo remained airborne after the incident. The FAA is investigating."</div>
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Former Nasa astronaut Michael Massimino said the crash brought back memories of the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003, which disintegrated during its re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members on board.</div>
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Mr Massimino told CNN: "It reminds me of when we had our accident in 2003, when we lost Columbia." He added: "It was a really bad day, bad for everyone involved, particularly the families. It's a tragedy, it's a nightmare. When we lost Columbia it was the worst day of my life."</div>
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Former astronaut Scott Parazynski said he felt sure that the Virgin Galactic programme would recover from tonight's tragedy. He told Sky News: "They will look at all the data and find out what happened. SS2 was an extraordinary craft. It was not just an evolutionary thing but a revolutionary one.</div>
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"I am certain Virgin Galactic will persevere and get to the bottom of what's gone wrong. This kind of venture is very, very challenging and accidents can happen." Mr Parazynski added: "It's too early to speculate on what might have caused the accident."</div>
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<b>Source: <i><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/10/31/virgin-galactics-spaceshiptwo-suffers-in-flight-anomaly_n_6083936.html?utm_hp_ref=uk">Huffington Post</a></i></b>

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crashes, Richard Bradson Mourns Dead Pilot

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has crashed after suffering an "in-flight anomaly" during a test flight on Friday over the Mojave Desert. Californian authorities say one pilot has been killed and the …

31 Oct 2014

Kidnapped Chibok Girls Married Off, No Ceasefire With Nigeria Govt. - Boko Haram

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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha9bBTaTZK2yM5FeSjlTb2hOIcgBjXgfBYB9qKiaulO828KktbgdQ50foFJ5TPur3DU2gz_3yteoNZokH30IEHaWBXu5UGiyX1ltrXCfWcYgO9BPXdjpo5WAkdAM6gvPFAVktbFdc0x58/s1600/BokoHaram.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha9bBTaTZK2yM5FeSjlTb2hOIcgBjXgfBYB9qKiaulO828KktbgdQ50foFJ5TPur3DU2gz_3yteoNZokH30IEHaWBXu5UGiyX1ltrXCfWcYgO9BPXdjpo5WAkdAM6gvPFAVktbFdc0x58/s1600/BokoHaram.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The leader of Boko Haram sect, Abubakar Shekau, has released a new video, a military source in Maiduguri confirmed to <i><a href="http://saharareporters.com/2014/10/31/boko-haram-releases-new-video-debunking-ceasefire-and-saying-kidnapped-girls-married">SaharaReporters</a></i>.<br />
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According to the source, in the new video Shekau dismissed the much-publicized ceasefire with the Nigerian government as announced by Nigeria's military chief, Alex Badeh, whose hometown of Vintim was captured today in Adamawa State.<br />
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On the 200th day since they were kidnapped, Shekau also said the 219 Chibok secondary schoolgirls have been married to members of the sect.<br />
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Shekau further said some of the girls, who earlier refused to convert, have finally accepted Islam.<br />
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<b>Source: <i>SaharaReporters</i></b>

Kidnapped Chibok Girls Married Off, No Ceasefire With Nigeria Govt. - Boko Haram

The leader of Boko Haram sect, Abubakar Shekau, has released a new video, a military source in Maiduguri confirmed to SaharaReporters. According to the source, in the new video Shekau dismissed the m…

31 Oct 2014

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Throwback Pix: Who are these Young Men?

200 Days in Captivity: Kidnapped Chibok Girls Recount Experience

Gambian Diplomats Use London Embassy to Sell Duty-Free Tobacco Worth £5million

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crashes, Richard Bradson Mourns Dead Pilot

Kidnapped Chibok Girls Married Off, No Ceasefire With Nigeria Govt. - Boko Haram

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