Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Achebe's "There Was A Country" Among TIME Magazine’s 12 Most Highly Anticipated Books Of The Fall
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RELATED REPORT
Chinua Achebe's There Was A Country - A Personal History Of Biafra
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Saturday, August 11, 2012
Chinua Achebe: 'Peaceful World My Sincerest Wish'
Recently, the classic African novel Things Fall Apart by Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe, was
translated into Persian by Ali Hodavand and released in Iran. Nasrin
Pourhamrang, Editor-in-Chief of Hatef Weekly Magazine interviewed the author on a wide range of topics from Art, culture
and literature; politics, cultural and linguistic preservation; to the legacy
of colonialism and his forthcoming book, There
Was a Country-A Personal History of Biafra.
Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930. He was raised in the large village
of Ogidi, one of the first centers of Anglican missionary work in Eastern
Nigeria, and is a graduate of University College, Ibadan. His early career in
radio ended abruptly in 1966, when he left his post as Director of External
Broadcasting in Nigeria during the national upheaval that led to the Biafran
War. Achebe joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra
on various diplomatic and fund-raising missions. He was appointed Senior
Research Fellow at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and began lecturing widely
abroad. For over fifteen years, he was the Charles P. Stevenson Professor of
Languages and Literature at Bard College. He is now the David and Marianna
Fisher University Professor and Professor of Africana Studies at
Brown University.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' Translated Into Persian
Chinua Achebe
Soyinka’s Utterance Against Me Is “Aggravated Libel” – Maja-Pearce
BY YEMI ADEBISI
Wole Soyinka
How would you describe your experience so far in Nigeria’s book industry?
I’m right now a consultant for Evans. Evans bought over Nelson Publishers and they want to develop together a literary series. I told them we shouldn’t leave the foreign publishers to be publishing Nigerian writers. Some of these old publishing houses publish textbooks for schools. We are ready to publish six papers every year. Instead of waiting for other series, let’s publish the first two so we would generate interest. We would begin to launch our first papers in November at the Lagos Book Fair that is run by Toyin Akinosho. We have to make things happen in Nigeria. Apart from that I have a small publishing company since 2005 called New Gong. So that is really a small fascinating publishing house we have and we don’t physically publish books. We load up a book and then they print, sell it as Print On Demand (POD). We don’t have probably any physical book in Nigeria. If you want to buy it you have to go online to purchase the book. The only problem we have in Nigeria is distribution because in small developed country like South Africa and even in America, the publisher is not involved in selling the book. The publisher goes to train that we have so, so and so copies, bla, bla, bla. So the train has bookshops all over the countries and they will distribute it. So the publisher doesn’t know how they sell the books; we don’t have that in Nigeria.
Adewale Maja-Pearce
Let’s talk about the POD you spoke about. Judging by probably what you have been able to put together, what would you advise an author that wishes to publish through such medium too?
Anybody can do it. If you simply go to our site, there is an icon in the site called ‘create space.’ When the book is ready you upload it, the cover and the inside pages. They will give you a file page so that every of your work will be filed. What you see about a week is your book on our site. We print and sell as requested. And it is a big advantage, a very big one.
There is this rumour that you have some personal grudges with Wole Soyinka over your comments in your review on one of his books. It was even gathered that you were exchanging abusive words publicly. Can you throw more light into this?
Grudge! No! I first met Soyinka shortly after he won the Nobel Prize because I used to work for a magazine in London called Index On Censorship. I was their African editor from 1983 to 1997. So, before I joined, Soyinka had already been published by them and also had written for them. He was familiar with the magazine. So when I joined, I told him, “I am the new African editor. I hope you will continue with us.” We have a means he used to send us materials; we had a good working relationship. The problem came when he published You Must Set Forth At Dawn. I was asked by the London Review of Books to review it. I didn’t like the book so I gave my reasons. So, when it came out people told me that Soyinka didn’t take it kindly with criticism. I was just working for a magazine anyway.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Police Officer Threatens To Shoot Michelle Obama
The officer who reportedly issued the threat during a Wednesday July 11, 2012 morning roll call in the presence of his colleagues while they discussed threats against the Obamas has been reassigned to the administrative section pending the outcome of investigations.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Should Math Determine Who Can Read English In Nigerian Universities?
Great expectations are usually piled on our universities as very essential intellectual factories for the production of reliable human resources for achieving our lofty dreams and aspirations as a people. That is what it should be. Every year, the universities are expected to give the country quality graduates whose formal education and other forms of grooming ought to duly equip with sound intellectual, psychological and even ethical properties to assume very important and strategic positions in both private and public institutions for the advancement of national development.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
Alleged Plagiarism: Dike Drags Two UNIPORT Professors To Court
Victor Dike
University of Port Harcourt
Professor Ruqqayatu Rufai,
Nigeria's Education Minister
Dike Sues Nigerian CBN Governor Sanusi For Plagiarism
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
AZAPO Asks Mandela To Apologise For Selling Out Black People's Struggle
"Many of his friends did not get an opportunity to apologise before they died, and he must consider himself lucky and use the opportunity for his soul to rest peacefully before it is too late" - AZAPO
"This is a case of insensitivity at its worst" - the Sowetan newspaper in an editorial .
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Nelson Mandela
Apparently seeking to draw attention to itself, an obscure group that identifies itself as the youth league of the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO) has early this week called on former South African president and world statesmen, Mr. Nelson Mandela, to apologise to the South African people "before he dies" for "selling out black people's struggle."
In statement, the president of the league, Mr. Amukelani Ngobeni, said that if Mandela dies without rendering the apology, he would be denied eternal peace. According to him, Mandela and his fellow anti-Apartheid activists had sold "out black people's struggle through the secret talks [they had undertaken] with the apartheid government."
Sowetan newspaper reported yesterday that Mr. Ngobeni had alleged that "Mandela entered into secret talks and agreed on a compromised constitution which today makes it very difficult, or almost impossible, for government to deliver in its duties to service the citizens."
Nelson Mandela With Michelle Obama
"Many of his [Mandela's] friends did not get an opportunity to apologise before they died, and he must consider himself lucky and use the opportunity for his soul to rest peacefully before it is too late", Mr. Ngobeni said.
According to him: "Mandela and his friends were excited and could not wait to occupy the global political space at the expense of the struggle for complete political, social and economic emancipation." He added that he and his organisation were closely monitoring information and developments about Mandela's state of health.
Reacting to Mr. Ngobeni's assertions, Sello Hatang, spokesman to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said that Mandela had always insisted that "that he was always acting as part of the collective." He would rather the African National Congress (ANC) react to Ngobeni's allegations. The ANC spokesman, Keith Khoza, however, has said that his party would not dignify Mr. Ngobeni's statement with any comment, according to the Sowetan.
In an editorial which appeared today, the Sowetan described Mr. Ngobeni's outburst as an unambiguous advertisement of "of insensitivity at its worst." The paper advised him to offer without delay an unreserved apology to Nelson Mandela for his atrocious comments. The editorial is reproduced below:
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Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Nobel Prize Amounts Reduced
There will also be a drastic reduction in the size and nature of the Nobel Prize annual banquet. In a statement in
The Foundation's statement is reproduced in full below:
(L-R) Queen Silvia of Sweden, Princess Madeleine
of Sweden, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Prince
Carl Philip of Sweden and Crown Princess Victoria
of Sweden during the Nobel Foundation Prize 2008
Awards Ceremony at the Concert Hall on December
10, 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden. ( Source: Pascal Le
Segretain/Getty Images Europe)
The decision to lower the prize sum, from SEK 10.0 to 8.0 million, is related to the assessment that the Board of Directors makes today of the potential for achieving a good inflation-adjusted return on the Nobel Foundation's capital during the next several years. Another part of the picture is that during the past decade, the average return on the Foundation's capital has fallen short of the overall sum of all Nobel Prizes and operating expenses. The costs of the Nobel Foundation's central administration and the Nobel festivities are therefore being reviewed.
"The Nobel Foundation is responsible for ensuring that the prize sum can be maintained at a high level in the long term. We have made the assessment that it is important to implement necessary measures in good time," says Lars Heikensten, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation.
Professor Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize Winner
The various organisations in the Nobel sphere also jointly manage large assets connected to the Nobel Prize as a trademark. This includes not only the Nobel Foundation and the prize-awarding institutions, but also the organisations that disseminate information about the Nobel Prize and the achievements of the Laureates, such as Nobel Media and the Nobel Museum in Stockholm and the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.
Since the Nobel Foundation's capital must be used primarily to pay for the work of the Nobel committees and the prize sum itself, these information activities are essentially externally financed, for example via grants from central or local government authorities, corporate sponsors, private donors, foundations or philanthropic entities.
Nadine Gordmer, Another Nobel Prize Winner
The same is true of the investment in a Nobel Prize Center on the Blasieholmen peninsula in central Stockholm which was announced earlier. The equity of the Nobel Foundation will not be used either for the building or for the operation of a future Center.
"The Nobel Prize Center will become an important base in our long-term efforts to preserve the stature of the Nobel Prize and disseminate the message of the Nobel Prize to a global audience," says Lars Heikensten, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
60% Of EU Citizens Support Stronger Tobacco Control Measures - New Survey
EU-wide Survey Shows That A Majority Of EU Citizens Supports Stronger Tobacco Control Measures
Burning Away Their Lives!
Tobacco Is The Single Largest Cause Of Avoidable
Death In The EU. It Accounts For Around 700.000
Premature Deaths Each Year In The EU.
European Commissioner in charge of Health & Consumer Policy, John Dalli, said: "I am deeply concerned about the fact that most Europeans start smoking in their early youth, before their 18th birthday.This is why, as I stressed at a meeting today with Dr. Nikogosian, Head of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control's Secretariat, I am committed to ensuring that Europe lives up to its international commitments on regulating tobacco products, including reducing cigarettes' appeal to young people. It is in this spirit that the European Commission is currently shaping a proposal to revise the Tobacco Products Directive".
- The number of cigarettes smoked on a daily basis is 14.2, which represents a slight decrease from the previous (2009) survey (14.4 cigarettes/day)
- Half of the EU population has never smoked : the prevalence has not evolved in the past three years
- 61% of current smokers have already tried to quit smoking, including 1 in 5 in the year prior to the survey
- Although there has been a 17% fall in the proportion of people exposed to tobacco smoke in restaurants and bars, 14% of EU citizens still reported that they were exposed to smoking in restaurants and 28% inside cafés and bars in the last 6 months.
- 73% of EU citizens are in favour of introducing security features to curb illicit trade of cigarettes, even if it makes them more expensive.
- 33% of smokers and ex-smokers in the EU say health warnings on tobacco packs have/have had an impact on their attitudes and behaviour towards smoking.
Background
The review of the 2001 Directive on Tobacco Products is on-going and the Commission intends to table its proposal in the second half of 2012. The EU and all Member States have ratified the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which entered into force in February 2005.
A Council Recommendation on Smoke-Free Environments, adopted in 2009, calls on Member States to adopt and implement laws to protect citizens from exposure to tobacco smoke in enclosed public places, workplaces, and public transport. It also calls for the enhancement of smoke-free laws with supporting measures to protect children, encourage efforts to quit smoking and display pictorial warnings on cigarette packages.
As part of its awareness-raising campaign, the Commission launched its "Ex-smokers are unstoppable" campaign in 2011. The campaign is now entering a new phase, building on the success of its first year. A renewed programme adheres to the original strategy that “Ex-Smokers are Unstoppable” should effect change by shifting the emphasis from the negative health consequences associated with smoking towards the positive benefits of becoming an ‘ex-smoker’, thus motivating men and women across Europe to quit smoking.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
The Ruthless Killer Next Door
This year, attention will be focused on the very urgent need to expose and counter the brazen and increasingly aggressive attempts by tobacco companies to use their blood-stained billions to undermine campaigns and efforts world-wide to reduce and eventually completely halt the consumption of tobacco.