Philippine typhoon death toll nears 300

STUNNED parents searching for missing children examined a row of mud-stained bodies covered with banana leaves while survivors dried their soaked belongings on roadsides a day after a powerful typhoon killed nearly 300 people in the southern Philippines.

 

Officials fear more bodies may be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that were isolated by landslides, floods and downed communications.

At least 151 people died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley when Typhoon Bopha lashed the region on Tuesday, including 78 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp, provincial spokeswoman Fe Maestre said.

Disaster-response agencies reported 284 dead in the region and 14 fatalities elsewhere from the typhoon, one of the strongest to hit the country this year.

About 80 people survived the deluge in New Bataan with injuries, and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas, who visited the town, said 319 others remained missing.

Source : Philippine typhoon death toll nears 300

South Africa hip-hop rapper gets 20 yrs in prison for Killing

A SOUTH African judge has sentenced a hip-hop star and his co-accused to 20 years in prison for the killings of four schoolchildren in a drag-race crash.

The South African Press Association reported on Wednesday that Magistrate Judge Brian Nemavhidi handed down the sentences to Molemo Maarohanye, best known by his stage name Jub Jub, and Themba Tshabalala. The judge previously ruled that the men had been driving under the influence of drugs at the time of the March 8, 2010, crash.

The crash in Soweto also seriously injured two other schoolchildren.
Jub Jub is one of the most recognisable artists in South Africa. Thousands of high school students protested during his bail hearing in May and riots erupted when he was granted bail.

Source : South Africa hip-hop rapper gets 20 yrs in prison for Killing

Dogs can sniff out lung cancer

DOGS are surprisingly adept at sniffing out lung cancer, results from a pilot project in Austria published on Wednesday suggested, potentially offering hope for earlier, life-saving diagnosis.

 

"Dogs have no problem identifying tumour patients," said Peter Errhalt, head of the pulmonology department at Krems hospital in northern Austria, one of the authors of the study.

The test saw dogs achieve a 70-per cent success rate identifying cancer from 120 breath samples, a result so "encouraging" that a two-year study 10 times larger will now take place, Errhalt said.

The results echo anecdotal evidence of odd canine behaviour when around cancer sufferers and are backed up by the results of similar small studies, including one by German scientists in 2011.

The ultimate aim is not however to have canines stationed in hospitals, but for scientists to identify what scents the dogs are detecting, explained Michael Mueller from the Otto Wagner Hospital in Vienna, who collaborated on the pilot project.

This in turn could help scientists reproduce in the long term a kind of "electronic nose" - minus the wagging tail - that could help diagnose lung cancer in the early stages, thereby dramatically improving survival rates, Mueller said.

 

Source :  Dogs can sniff out lung cancer

 

World Richest Black Woman: Folorunsho Alakija from Nigeria

Oprah Winfrey has lost her long-held title as the richest black woman in the world to a Nigerian oil tycoon, according to a report by an African business magazine.


Edging out Oprah is Folorunsho Alakija, a 61-year-old woman from Nigeria who is reportedly worth at least $3.2 billion, or roughly $500 million more than Oprah's $2.7 billion net worth, Ventures Africa reported.

Alakija is the founder and owner of Famfa Oil, which owns a 60 per cent interest in OML 127, an offshore oil field that produces roughly 200,000 barrels of oil per day and is worth an estimated $6.44 billion.

Also a fashion designer and philanthropist, Alakija is married and has four grown sons, as well as one grandchild. She owns at least $100 million in real estate and $46 million private jet, Ventures Africa reported.

Born into a wealthy Nigerian family, Alakija started out as a secretary in the mid 1970s at the now defunct International Merchant Bank of Nigeria.

Several years later, she quit her job and moved to London, where she studied fashion design. She later returned to Nigeria and launched her fashion line, Supreme Stitches, which caters to upscale, high-society women.

While she was building her name as a fashion designer, Alakija in 1993 applied for an Oil Prospecting License -- an expensive permit that allows for oil exploration in a specified area.

The Nigerian government granted her request and allocated a 617,000-acre block of land to Alakija for oil exploration -- but she knew nothing about finding and extracting oil.

So in September of 1996, she appointed Star Deep Water Petroleum Limited -- a subsidiary of Texaco -- to act as a technical adviser for her business.

In 2000, Star Deep Petroleum determined that Alakija's land contained an excess of one billion barrels of oil. When this was discovered, the Nigerian government tried to re-acquire half of the oil-rich block it had sold to Alakija.

The Nigerian government was successful and Alakija lost control of all but 10 percent of her oil company until 2012, when Nigeria's highest court reversed the government's actions.

With Alakija now back in control of 60 percent of the oil company, her net worth has shot up to $3.2 billion, an estimate that Ventures Africa calls extremely conservative.

Alakija's sons now run Famfa Oil and her husband, Modupe Alakija, is the chairman of the company.

She recently purchased a $102 million property at One Hyde Park in London, as well as a Bombardier Global Express 6000 jet, which she bought earlier this year for $46 million.

Her charity, Rose of Sharon Foundation, gives out small grants to widows and orphans.



Source : The richest black woman in the world: Folorunsho Alakija from Nigeria

Nasa to send new rover to Mars

The US space agency (Nasa) says it will launch a new rover to Mars in 2020. 

The vehicle will be based on its Curiosity robot, which landed on the Red Planet in August.
Nasa expects to re-use many of the technologies that worked so successfully in getting the one-tonne spacecraft down into the huge equatorial bowl known as Gale Crater.

This included a rocket-powered crane that lowered Curiosity to the surface on nylon cords.
The announcement of a follow-up robot was made at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco, the world's largest annual gathering for Earth and planetary scientists, and a major showcase for Nasa-led research.

Full Story :  Nasa to send new rover to Mars