Lagos closes Oshodi market over insecurity

Lagos State Government yesterday shut down Owonifari market in the Oshodi, Oshodi/Isolo Local Government, aimed at addressing the security challenges in the area.
Lagos State Government often arrested hoodlums in Oshodi for various robberies and other petty incidents.Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Steve Ayorinde, lamented that the market has constituted a menace and an eyesore to the locality.
He added that they have relocated affected traders and shop owners to the newly built Isopakodowo market stalls at Bolade area in Oshodi. The government has also started fencing-off of the set-back on Agege Motor Road that stretches from Ilupeju end of Oshodi all the way to the PWD/Ikeja GRA end of the area.

He said that the fencing-off of the long stretch of the set-back is being undertaken to assist the Federal Government and the Nigerian Railway Corporation in particular with a view to beautifying it and safeguard lives along the railway corridor by discouraging street trading and indiscriminate use of the space.

In the statement,  Ayorinde added that the Owonifari loop will be transformed into an ultra modern bus terminus with new bus shelters that are befitting of a structured park in a mega city.

He stated further that Oshodi will be sane and safe and a place where both traders and commuters would be pleased to visit and trade


SOURCE : LINDAIKEJI BLOG

Scientist develop Super Condoms that kill HIV virus and enhances pleasure

A new hydrogel-based condom that contains antioxidants has been invented by a team of Indian-American scientists at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center. Not only does it contain plant-based antioxidants, which kills the HIV-virus in case of condom breakage but it also uses antioxidants to enhance pleasure. Experts say it is the new big player to join the fight against AIDS

ISIS bans TV in Syrian strongholds to stop people from watching channels that condemn its barbarity

Terrorist group ISIS has banned the use, purchase and sales of television sets in it's strongholds in Syria and Iraq in order to stop its members and subjects from watching channels that condemn their abominable acts. According to an ISIS leaflet obtained by Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered (RBSS), an anti-ISIS group, ISIS has ordered its fighters to break into homes to destroy TV sets and satellite receivers.

The Terrorist group is known for banning and destroying anything that represents 'Western' symbols, and in recent months they have banned all Nike products from use within it's territory with ISIS fighters even comparing Nike's trademark logo to the sign of the cross being worn by many Christians in the West. ISIS in July also banned private internet use and access in Raqqa, meaning the people in the area had to use internet cafes maintained and monitored by the ISIS terrorists.

SOURCE: LINDAIKEJI BLOG 

Manhunt After Incendiary Device Found In Toilet

Police have released CCTV footage of a man they are hunting over the discovery of an incendiary device in a shopping centre toilet.

The Fishergate Shopping Centre in Preston, Lancashire, was evacuated on Thursday morning after the device was found by a member of the public.

Lancashire Police said they believed it had ignited, adding that had it exploded it had the potential to cause "serious injury".

Chief Superintendent James Lee, South Division Commander for Preston, told local radio: "I would describe it as a small incendiary device which could have caused damage or injury to someone had it fully gone off."

The shopping centre was evacuated "as a precaution" and remained closed for the rest of the day. It is due to reopen as normal on Friday.

Detective Chief Inspector Jill Johnston, of Preston Police, said: "We are keen to speak to the man in this CCTV as we believe he could have information which could assist us.

"We are treating this as a criminal investigation and while the motivation for this incident remains unclear at this stage, we believe this device has been left there deliberately and did have the potential to cause serious injury if it had exploded."

The footage shows the man walking up an escalator in the city's St George's Shopping Centre just after 8.30am.

The device was discovered at the nearby Fishergate Shopping Centre some 40 minutes later and was recovered by bomb disposal officers.

One shopper, Adam Donnellan, tweeted: "Just been evacuated out of Preston fishergate shopping centre anyone heard anything? People running around like nut jobs."

Lancashire Police are appealing to anyone who recognises the man or has any further information to contact police on 101 and quote log number 293 of 17 December or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111

SOURCE: SKY NEWS

Russia: 20 ISIL-linked rebel leaders killed in 2015

Moscow, Russia - Twenty leaders of 26 armed groups that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) have been "neutralised" in Russia this year, a top security official announced on Tuesday. 

Vladimir Bortnikov, head of Russia's security service (FSB), said in televised remarks a total of 156 rebels were killed in 2015 in Russia's North Caucasus region, a multi-ethnic and predominantly Muslim region between the Black and Caspian Seas that has been plagued by waves of unrest for decades. 

Almost 3,000 Russian nationals suspected of ties to ISIL were identified, and more than 120 Russians who fought for ISIL and other armed groups in Syria and Iraq have been arrested and convicted, Bortnikov said.The rebel underworld in Russia has been fractured and "virtually paralysed" following about 5,000 investigations into "suspected sponsors of terrorism", said Bortnikov, citing an FSB report on efforts to tackle armed groups. 

The report presented to a panel of counter-terrorism and security officials in Moscow sounded triumphant, but analysts doubted the scope of Moscow's success in the troubled North Caucasus region.Although Russian authorities claimed to have succeeded in killing two notorious armed group leaders with ties to ISIL several weeks ago, there is also a worrying tendency to claim that civilians - many of them unarmed young men, killed in counter-terrorism raids - were "militant jihadists", a security expert closely familiar with counter-terrorism efforts in the North Caucasus told Al Jazeera. 

"There is a trend to fabricate cases, when we understand that the killed [men] are called leaders of local militants that joined ISIL, or just militants. But in reality the cases are fabricated, and such victorious messages are very useful in terms of reporting," the expert said on condition of anonymity citing, fears of official retribution. 

A massive exodus of fighters to Syria has also contributed to a reduction of violent crimes in the North Caucasus, where extrajudicial killings, abductions and torture committed by federal forces and security agencies fuel the violence, human rights groups and observers say. 

"What really helped is that many active [armed rebels] have left" for Syria, Alexei Malashenko, a Moscow-based analyst, told Al Jazeera.He estimated between 3,000 and 7,000 Russian nationals were believed to have joined ISIL. 

In November, ISIL released a video promising that "soon, very soon, blood will spill like a sea" in Russia as a result of ISIL-organised attacks in retaliation for Moscow's air strikes on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's opponents, which started in late September.

Bortnikov's report also emphasised the persistence of "Islamic militancy" in the region, where many armed rebels emerged despite relentless official pressure to eradicate "terrorist cells" and their leaders, Malashenko said.

"These leaders have been killed since 1994 - and they still re-appear. There are certain successes, but it only proves that there are a lot of [armed rebels], plenty, dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, and since the situation does not change in principle, the turnaround will go on and on. Some will leave [for Syria], some will return," he said.

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The unrest in the North Caucasus is rooted in two separatist wars Chechnya - one of the region's provinces - fought against Moscow since 1994. The secular separatism in Chechnya has later turned into a region-wide rebellion and the creation of the Caucasus Emirate group.

It strove to carve out a huge swath of southern Russia with a sizable Muslim population and claimed responsibility for a series of attacks that killed hundreds in the North Caucasus and Russia's urban centres.

But the group failed to gain control of a single town or city and remained a loose conglomerate of cells scattered across the North Caucasus, mostly in forested or mountainous areas. It also could not unite fighters from dozens of ethnic groups in the region divided by feuds over land and power.

In recent years, the Emirate was decimated by pressure from Russia's military and police, while a growing number of its cells started to pledge allegiance to ISIL though obligatory videos posted online.

Source: Aljazeera