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Now that the Nigerian government has suddenly enforced the fuel subsidy removal policy, the Sleeping giant of Africa is finally waking up from her slumber. The cost of transportation and other services and goods have expectedly risen astronomically. The nation is paralyzed by strike and protesters have taken over the streets. The Nigerian awakening is here and the masses are making a plethora of uncoordinated demands.

Some have asked that the president be impeached, others that he should resign. Majority have insisted on the return of fuel price to 65 naira, some have argued that it should even sell for less than that. Only a few have seen the opportunity that these protests presents us to address some of the even more fundamental and critical challenges that we face as a nation.

The boko haram crisis and the senseless killings in the north for instance have claimed scores of lives since January 1st 2012 when the fuel subsidy removal took off. How many lives have been lost so far to the fuel subsidy removal? Yet, there hasn`t been much talk about the former. In fact, there are reports that Christians in the north have been asked to evacuate and the evacuation is going on en-masse.

Many have welcomed the national assembly`s condemnation of the fuel subsidy removal and some legislators participation in the protests but they have not asked themselves, how much does these legislators earn in total salaries and allowances? Why can`t they also give up a reasonable percentage of these ridiculous largesse? And how distant are these legislators from the oil cartel that is benefiting from oil subsidy or are they one and the same?

The reactions of Nigerians of the Igbo ethnic nationality however have been instructive. There has been a relative silence on the issue of fuel subsidy removal among Igbo`s. Instead, the Igbo`s are demanding an end to the killing of Christians in the north (mainly Igbo`s). This however is a demand that cannot be settled at a round table. Neither can protests alone solve that crisis. It is neither a matter of policy reversal nor a question of commodity price control. Much more diplomatic steps will have to be taken.

An emergency meeting of church heads had concluded ‘that the pattern of the killings does suggest a systematic ethnic and religious cleansing and the Christian leadership resolved to work out a means for Christians to defend themselves against the senseless killings’ – This is according to pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria.

Similarly, there are indications that Southerners may be preparing for counter attacks. Reports are widespread about Hausa`s fleeing the south already. Some ex-militants are also planning to re-group in other to react.

Meanwhile, infrastructures remain dysfunctional, political office holders get the larger part of our budget while an oil cartel claims an even larger amount as non-budgeted subsidy grants. All these have been going on for years without any major reaction from Nigerians who seem to be well suited to the situation.

It has taken the president’s decision to remove oil subsidy to finally bring out the fury in Nigerians. All the same, it is yet to be seen how these protests will evolve.

One can only hope that we somehow find a way to make use of these protests to get this government to:

1. Slash the over subsidized legislative and executive largesse in allowances and basic salary including presidential feeding allowance, bullet proof car vote etc. by up to 75%

2. Reduce the over bloated cabinet of fat cows by 50%

3. Pass the petroleum Industry bill at once

4. Pay the new minimum wage

5. Start the mass transit program and functional rail system

6. Start a well mapped out deregulation process

7, Privatize the refineries I the next few months

8. Privatise PHCN in the next few months.

9. Continue to implement the 2011 budget until march and start implementing the 2012 budget in April as proposed originally, meaning that fuel price would go back to sell at 65 naira until the budget as passed by the House, when it is passed, decide if and how subsidy is to be removed, in which case, protests can be discontinued on the streets but there will be need to “OccupyNASS” and state assemblies until all our conditions are met.

If we are serious, these protests will be sustained at the level of NASS in the next one year or more. We have so much catching up to do, so many changes to make. In other to reduce the ethno-religious friction amongst us while retaining a one Nigeria and avoiding a descent to Naijanistan, we must have a new constitution that allows us to practise a well-adapted kind of federalism that allows for the independent evolution of major ethnic groups, otherwise we will simply need to split.

As for the removal of fuel subsidy in itself, it is doing the right thing under the wrong circumstances and in the wrong way. We should not be satisfied with a mere price reversal to 65 naira. That alone will not help us in the long run. A well-informed, well planned holistic approach is necessary. Fuel price is the least of our problems; we should seize this opportunity to tackle real issues.

Thus, I consider the above as an appropriate course of action as we “OccupyNigeria”

Over and above all these, we should now begin to realise, that mankind today stands in spiritual judgment and purification. All that is wrong and evil will be brought out and swept away; all that is right and good will be uplifted. Let he who has ears, let him hear “Everything must become new.”

By
Charles Adeyemi

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AppId is over the quota

Animal suicide is a topic that sparks robust debate among scientists and animal behaviorists. Obviously people have the ability to end their own lives voluntarily, but do animals? When animals go off to die is it suicide or some instinctual habit of sickness or old age?

Why would an entire pod of more than 60 whales beach themselves? One whale might be sick and dying and unable to support himself in order to breathe, leading him to travel to shallow waters and eventually (purposefully or accidentally) end up on the beach, but dozens at the same time? Barring some unfortunate contamination in the waters, animal suicide doesn’t quite make sense.

The reason animal suicide doesn’t quite make sense is that scientists and animal behaviorists don’t attribute human emotions to animals. It’s called anthropomorphizing and it’s a big no-no (except most people do it anyway). Attributing human emotions to animal behaviors can make studying animal behaviors complicated, especially behaviors that appear to be suicide. Human suicide is an intensely emotional act. If animals are committing suicide it means several things:

1) Animals have an awareness of themselves, including that they’re alive.

2) Animals recognize that a specific act or series of events will end their lives, it’s not just an instinct.

3) Animals have the emotional and/or cognitive ability to make a choice between life and death.

So, do animals have these abilities? If might be easy for us to recognize the difference between dolphins (which can voluntarily stop breathing and drown) and ants (which will leave a colony if they contract a communicable disease), but are either of them “committing suicide?” It’s difficult to say for the same reasons it’s difficult to say what animals are feeling or thinking on a day to day basis. Do they really know what they’re doing and what the implications are? The problem lies within our wording: suicide is an inherently human word. But then again, all words are human words. Many animals will end their lives when they contract a disease, particularly when those animals are part of a group or a hed and the disease can devastate that group, which leads scientists to believe that it’s not suicide as we know it. But don’t many human individuals with neurological or physical disorders commit suicide? Seems like a fine line that straddles little more than connotation and may perhaps be a natural reaction for all animals.

Lindsay writes her animal loving blog Miniature Mastadon and, right up until her senior year of high school, was going to work with animals. After changing courses and getting a degree in writing, she ended up working in a zoo for a little more than a year. Being face to face with rhinos, giraffes, ostriches, gaur and even super close to an elephant herd (faves) dawned the realization that she can’t quite ignore the need to be involved in some way. The Miniature Mastadon is an outlet to write about animal news, triumphs, discoveries, and even some sadness. All discussion, thoughts, questions and stories are most fully welcome so come chime in!

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It is hard to believe that this year is about to come to a close. It has been a very difficult year for most of us, in many ways. We have seen our economy fall to the lowest level since the Great Depression. Too many people have lost their homes due to the illegal activity of the banking system. Far too many have lost their jobs and there are no new jobs for them. Older people are being thrown to the side and are no longer considered an asset to a company.

There have been Earthquakes in places where they don’t normally happen. We watched helplessly as Japan was destroyed by a tsunami. Solar Flares have increased in size and intensity. There has been an increase in volcanoes and other natural disasters.

Internationally, we have seen governments toppled. We have watched as truths that have been hidden by individuals and nations have come to the surface. We have watched as skeletons have come out of closets for all to finally see.

And, most importantly, we have seen the people stand up and say ‘enough’. The Occupy Movement has been the best thing I personally have seen come from 2011. It is wonderful to see our young people take on their role as the creators of our future.

I am excited about the year 2012. So many have predicted doom and destruction through the years, and they are right, there will be doom and destruction of the dense, heavy energies of the 3rd dimension. This will not be an easy time for those stuck in that density.

This next year will be a year of change, change and more change. If we can flow with the changes and allow them to occur, it will be much easier on us. If we fight the changes, it will be much more difficult.

The ‘Powers That Were’ (no longer ‘Be’) will have a very difficult time because they are not ready to let go of their control. But, let go they will, one way or another. Just as some dictators have been forced out of power, these people will also be forced out. Yes, this may include war and destruction to convince them that they have to relinquish their power. Although ‘Occupy’ is attempting to create change through peaceful protesting, in the end, we may be forced into fighting for our freedom. But, free we will be.

It is very important in the next year for us to learn to center ourselves in our heart, in Love. We will come to learn that Love is all there is. Love will be what changes our world. Love will be what gets us through.

More than ever, we will be creating our reality.

It is important that we stay informed about what is happening in our world. Hiding our heads in the sand is no longer an option. This now affects all of us, and it will take all of us knowing the truth to create the change that we all desire.

Through it all, it is important to stay focused on the goal. Focused on Peace, Harmony and LOVE. Even when we are fighting for our rights, we must stay focused on the New World we WILL create.

Economically, it is important for us to be open to helping each other. It is important to learn to work as a community again instead of only as individuals. We must help each other, help those who are down, help each other to thrive. Instead of depending on others to provide us with jobs, we need to create our own way to earn money. This is the perfect time to start your own business, especially in alternative power, cleaning up the waters, growing healthy food and other areas that will benefit the Earth.

Most of all, learn to live every moment of every day from your Heart, from a place of LOVE. That is what will herald in our future and the New World we have dreamed of for so long.

Claudia McNeely is a Master Energy Healer and Law of Attraction Coach. Request a free ebook on ‘Self-Healing’ at http://www.askclaudia.com/divineempowerment.htm.

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Just over three hundred miles south of Hyderabad, the hub of all the IT giants including Microsoft and Google in India, nestled amidst the rocky hills lies the temple city of Tirupati. Not only does this obscure place on the map attract millions of Hindu pilgrims from across India and the world, it also plays the starting point of to an intriguing multi-million dollar business – trade of human hair.

Surpassing Mecca, Jerusalem or Rome in terms of pilgrim numbers, every year more than 30 million pilgrims make a visit to the temple in quest of the blessings of Venkateshwara, an incarnation of lord Vishnu – the four armed deity venerated as the supreme god. The pilgrims who come here – arrive with a desire to catch the all-potent glimpse of the god and a vow to shave off every strand of hair from their head as a gesture of humility. This sacred practice is believed to be an ancient ritual. Hair, being a symbol of individuality and attractiveness, when offered to god is considered an act of great sacrifice.

At Tirupati, it is not only the men who undergo tonsuring, even women and children participate in this fascinating mass head-shaving practice before visiting the holy shrine. Over five hundred barbers work in three shifts, round the clock shaving the heads of thousands of pilgrims in the main tonsure centre in the town. The daily amount of human hair offering weighs nearly a ton.

Over the last few decades, the temple has begun to convert the everyday nuisance presented by tonnes of sacrificed human hair into a money spinning scheme. The ancient ritual has been transformed into a business venture feeding into the multi million dollar hair trade. Every day more than fifteen thousand devotees sit in front of a barber and a straight razor in the spacious tonsure hall called Kalyankatta inside the temple. The sacrificed hair is collected and sealed in containers, stored in a collection center till the date of the auction. Not a single strand is allowed to be wasted.

Ironically, hair collected in this ancient practice is bartered through the most technologically advanced medium, via online auctions. This divine business model adds a significant share of income to the temple revenue which is believed to be more than twenty million dollars annually, making it the richest temple in India. While for the devotees the path of sacrifice leads to happiness, the commercial opportunity provided by the mass-practice of this ritual has turned into a goldmine for hair trading businesses.

Across the globe, this offering made to god is eagerly exchanged for dollars, since profit margins in the hair trade business are high, fueled by a recent fad for hair extensions in the west. Importers say that the market for Indian hair is growing exponentially yearly, most of it being bought by Europe and China. The longer the hair strand the more it’s price and good quality long hair can sell upwards of Rs. 10,000 a kilo. After passing through hands of several middlemen, much of the hair finds its way to the beauty salons of western nations where “Temple Hair” has become a prized accessory. Apart from finding its use in the cosmetics industry, the hair is also used to manufacture an amino acid which is used as a preservative.

It is fascinating to know that most devotees who go through the tonsuring ritual have no idea about the money the temple is earning from selling their personal sacrifice. While the Temple trust claims that the money earned through this hair auction is employed for the welfare of pilgrims and is put back into the society, there are no systems in place to check the same. Yet the queue at Kalyankatta keeps getting longer and longer every year with more pilgrims making an offering of hair before the deity.

A sacrifice of one allows someone else, thousands of miles away, to satisfy a desire to look and feel more confident and beautiful such is the glory of globalization.

For more great travel & culture articles please visit us at http://www.utterlyfrank.com/

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With 2012 looming before us, we should wonder, are doomsday scenarios complete hogwash or can science validate them?

Planet X and Asteroids

Planet X is an example of scientific misunderstanding meets ancient mythology. Planet X describes any potential new planet. Once confirmed as a planet, it then receives an actual name; however, somehow Planet X became synonymous with Nibiru, an ancient mythological mystery planet that is going to destroy earth someday. According to NASA, there is no sign that Nibiru exists. Much of the evidence samples offered as proof of Nibiru’s existence on the internet are actually photographic artifacts or lens flares, and not an actual planet. We should be perfectly safe.

Asteroids; however, could be a problem. Earth has been hit before and it will be hit again. Mathematical models have calculated that in 2186, an 1800 foot asteroid, which could lead to mass extinctions, has a 1 in 1000 chance of hitting the earth, which really aren’t great odds for us. NASA is presently developing new innovative techniques to safely land on an asteroid, which may be useful in diverting this disaster, similar to the movie Armageddon; however, unlike the movies, scientists feel that to successfully alter the asteroid trajectory, the mission would need to be accomplished a century before the impact.

The Big Bang and Black Holes

When the physics community starts talking about how they’re going to try to reproduce the event that created the universe in Switzerland, people begin to wonder. What effect would an artificial, miniature big bang have on the world? Can a miniature black hole actually be formed? Can a single experiment ultimately cause the destruction of the universe as we know it? Most scientists view these risks as negligible. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) simply doesn’t have enough power to ever reach the energy necessary to be a major risk to the world and if a black hole was possible, it would dissipate immediately and be inconsequential. The general consensus among physicist is that the LHC is completely safe; however, I would be lying if I claimed we knew everything about the universe. We have hardly scratched the surface. Who knows what is possible, but then again, isn’t that part of the fun? Nothing would ever get done in life without taking some calculated risks. Because of the LHC, we are closer to finding the Higgs Boson particle, an essential key component in particle physics.

Artificial Intelligence

As a society, if we create a slave work-force of artificially intelligent computers, we might be asking for trouble, at least that is the general consensus of countless science fiction movies and books. Presently we are creating lifelike human robots and incredible artificial neural networks. The first stand-up comedian computer and the first computer that actually understands emotions are presently being developed. Research is also underway to developing self-healing electronics and one scientist is actually running a robot with neuronal cells. These innovations are pushing the line between human and machine. If that line is crossed, and the differences between human and machine are no longer so cut and dry, societal rules will need to change. We cannot enslave our fellow man, nor can we mistreat our pets. A self-emoting and intelligent machine will need to be given the same rights.

Genetic Engineering

A genetically engineered monster will not likely bring our destruction. We can be monsters all by ourselves. The movie Gattaca does not describe your average doomsday scenario, but it does show how genetic engineering could lead to social and cultural destruction. In the movie, society has genetically removed all “bad” traits from humans, ranging from disease to personality traits. Anyone not genetically engineered in the movie, was considered less than human and had become a lower caste of working-class slaves.

This theme is reminiscent of the abhorrent and evil quest of the Third Reich to create a perfect Aryan nation during WWII, and for this reason alone, this future should be avoided at all costs. Furthermore, in nature there is no perfection. It is a constantly evolving system. If we reached a state of perfection, as a human race we would have no need to grow or evolve. We would become stagnant and eventually die off. While we are way off from the future observed in the movie, the recent introduction of personal genotyping is scary. These companies, with your DNA, will determine your ancestors and tell you what diseases and medication you are most susceptible to. This could be a disaster because many of these disease and medication connections are actually based on limited scientific studies. They are not necessarily accurate. Not only can this make people worry unnecessarily, if insurance companies ever get their hands on this information, they would potentially have another reason to deny health coverage to people in need.

We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

Doomsday scenarios are fun. They have a hint of mystery to them, a bit of conspiracy, and they pique our basic emotions – fear of the unknown and fear of death. The more fantastical they are, the more exciting they become; however, a key in most Armageddon stories, modern or otherwise, not counting a random asteroid strike, is that our ultimate destruction comes from the choices we make. Whether it’s poor foresight (not thinking of possible consequences of scientific actions, using up all of our natural resources) or complacency, (not fighting injustices), our own downfall will likely be our own fault.