Tiwa Savage bags role on MTV Shuga series

Singer Tiwa Savage has bagged a role on the MTV Shuga series, which starts filming on location in and around Lagos this week.

Tiwa will make her TV debut in Shuga in the role of Sade – glamorous owner of Badoo Tree nightclub, a favorite hangout of the key characters.

The cast will join previously announced Shuga Series 2 stars Emmanuel Ikubese, who returns in the role of music promoter Femi, and Kenyan actor, singer and model Nick Mutuma who plays the role of Leo, a close friend of Femi’s from his Nairobi student days.

Bale misses out on Uefa Best Player

Gareth Bale, who has been valued at £100 million-plus by Real Madrid, has failed to make the 2013 Uefa Best Player in Europe shortlist.

The award is voted for by select journalists from Uefa’s member associations, and with the second round of voting completed, Tottenham Hotspur’s want-away star has been knocked out of contention.

Bale came in at number eight as the longlist of 10 was reduced to three.

Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, and Bayern Munich’s Franck Ribery stay in contention.

Robin van Persie, who scored 26 goals last season as Manchester United won the English Premier League title came in at number 10.

The winner will be decided after another round of voting on August 29.

Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesta won the award last year.

The voting breakdown for 4-10

4. Arjen Robben (Ned) – Bayern Munich (57 points)

5. Robert Lewandowski (Pol) – Borussia Dortmund (39)

6. Thomas Muller (Ger) – Bayern Munich (38)

7. Bastian Schweinsteiger (Ger) – Bayern Munich (32)

8. Gareth Bale (Wal) – Tottenham (24)

9. Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Swe) – Paris St-Germain (14)

10. Robin van Persie (Ned) – Manchester United (10)

Lagos to host CAF Awards

The 2013 CAF awards will be held in Lagos on January 9, the Confederation of African Football have announced.

It will mark the first time since 2008 that the gala event will return to Nigeria’s commercial capital.

Since 2005 when the CAF awards have been sponsored by Globacom, the event has held in five cities; the 2005 edition was held in Abuja (Nigeria), 2006 in Accra (Ghana), 2007 in Lome (Togo), 2008 in Lagos (Nigeria), 2009 in Accra (Ghana), 2010 in Cairo (Egypt) and the last two editions in Accra Ghana.

Ivorian midfielder Yaya Toure is the current African Player of the Year, having won the last two editions, while the 2013 African Player of the Year – Based in Africa winner is Mohamed Abou Trieka of Egypt.

CAF 2013 Awards Categories
1. African Player of the Year
2. African Player of the Year - Based in Africa
3. National Team of the Year
4. Women’s National Team of the Year
5. Club of the Year
6. CAF Fair Play Award
7. Coach of the Year
8. Most Promising Talent
9. Women’s Footballer of the Year
10. Referee of the Year
11. CAF Legend
12. Africa Finest XI
13. CAF Platinum Award

HTC unveils affordable quad-core Desire 500 for Europe

Recently announced in Taiwan, the HTC Desire 500 has now made its way to Europe.

The device will first come to the UK and will continue later on to other European markets. In a select few, HTC will also offer a dual-SIM version.

The HTC Desire 500 offers a Snapdragon 200 chipset with a 1.2GHz quad-core processor and 1GB of RAM. On the imaging front the smartphone offers an 8 MP camera with a dedicated HTC ImageChip processor, f/2.0 28mm lens and a 1.6 MP front-facing camera. The 4.3" WVGA display up front is of the LCD variety and there will be a microSD card slot for cheap expansion of the 4GB internal memory by up to 64 gigs.

Along with HTC's Flipboard-like BlinkFeed and Beats Audio the Desire 500 will also feature Video Highlights - a 30 second video reel of your images. The battery on board the HTC Desire 500 is a 1800 mAh unit that HTC says is good for some 12 hours of talk time on 3G.

 
HTC Desire 500 official photos

We're yet to hear the actual price or specific launch dates of the HTC Desire 500, but those should follow soon enough.

Let me leave Liverpool, pleads Luis Suarez

Luis Suarez says he wants to leave Liverpool and join a side which is competing in the Champions League.

The Uruguay striker, 26, intends to submit a transfer request by the end of the week if a move is blocked.

Suarez told the Guardian and Daily Telegraph that the Reds "promised" he could leave this summer if they did not qualify for the Champions League.

"I gave absolutely everything last season. Now all I want is for Liverpool to honour our agreement," he said.

"Last year I had the opportunity to move to a big European club and I stayed on the understanding that if we failed to qualify for the Champions League the following season I'd be allowed to go."

Arsenal have made two bids, with the latest a pound more than £40m, in an attempt to trigger a release clause.

Liverpool, who finished seventh in the Premier League last season, have rejected the offers and insisted the clause does not force them to sell.

Suarez has not travelled with the squad for a pre-season match in Norway because of a foot injury.

"I am 26, I need to be playing in the Champions League. I feel I have done enough to be playing in the Champions League at this stage of my career. Now there is an option for me to do that and I want very much to take it," he said.

"I don't feel betrayed but the club promised me something a year ago, just as I promised them that I would stay and try everything possible to get us into the Champions League."

Liverpool meet Valerenga on Wednesday in their penultimate friendly before the start of the season but Suarez will not feature.

He is due to have a scan on his foot injury in the next 24 hours, joining Daniel Agger, Glen Johnson and Martin Skrtel in staying in England to receive treatment.

‘Artificial photosynthesis’ can create hydrogen from solar energy

Scientists have developed a simple system which allows solar energy to be stored in the form of hydrogen

A process, called artificial photosynthesis, creates hydrogen which can then be used as a fuel either directly or in the form of methane, or it can generate electricity in a fuel cell for cars.

The scientists from HZB research institute and TU Delft claim this energy also has the potential to be available at night or on cloudy days.

Professor Bernard Dam of the Faculty of Applied Sciences at TU Delft explained: “Our focus has been a ‘cheap and stable’ solution. In this way we have reached a yield of almost 5%.

In other words, nearly 5% of the energy in the incident sunlight is stored in the hydrogen produced. For this type of set-up, that is a record.”

Hydrogen’s primary emission when used is water vapour, and as a result is regarded as one of the best forms of fuel for transport of the future.

But for that its production has to be made affordable, efficient and environmentally friendly. One way of achieving this is through the electrolysis of water, breaking it down into hydrogen and oxygen, particularly if that is done using electricity generated sustainably. Electrolysis is an expensive technique, though, whereas solar is not.

“We’ve just created a cost-effective, highly stable, and highly efficient solar fuel device,” Professor Dr. Roel van de Krol, head of the HZB Institute told RTCC.

“The big advantage of this compared to normal solar cells where you generate electricity and have to store it somewhere [else] – we store it as hydrogen in this device… as a single device,” he said.

Theoretically, a solar-to-chemical efficiency of up to 10% is possible, but de Krol admits his team still have some way to go before they can bring it to market requiring at least a 5% to make it attractive to private investors.

“We’re not there yet, [and] it will be quite challenging. It’s very hard to put a time frame on,” he said. “Our dream is to make large fuels of this technology then instead of normal cells with electrical cables we would then have pipelines of hydrogen.”

Lagos deports Osun indigenes too – Govt

Osun State government has declared that it was also a victim of the Lagos State government’s policy on evacuation of destitute to their various states and cautioned the Anambra State government against politicising the issue.

Also, the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state asked the Anambra State government to bury its anger on the matter and stop turning the issue into a serious political matter because of the forthcoming gubernatorial election in the state.

At a joint press conference by the officials of the state government and APC in Osogbo, yesterday, the government claimed that between April 27, 2010 and now about 135 indigenes of the state that were destitute have been moved from Lagos to the state.

Similarly, the state government had equally received two persons each who were indigenes of the state from Ogun and Ondo states on April 16, last year while four persons were also sent from Oyo State to the state in June this year.

Both the Acting Chairman of the APC in the state, Elder Adelowo Adebiyi and the Special Adviser to the Governor on Youths, Sports and Special Needs, Hon. Biyi Odunlade and other government officials spoke at the press conference.

“There is no bitterness or any sensation about this. It is routine administrative process, that when you have a destitute on your hand, without home or family, and after doing your best for them you send them to their people,”

“In Osun, we have similar programme of clearing the streets of beggars and the destitute. Those that can be empowered are given the needed assistance to be on their own. We are also going to resettle them one way or the other,” they argued.

They described the condemnation of the Lagos State government policy on the relocation of the destitute by the Anambra State government as unfortunate.

They maintained that the action of the Lagos state government did not conflict with the constitutional and God’s given right of people to live and work in any place of their choice within the country, adding that there was a large population of non-indigenes living and working in Lagos.

iOS 7 beta 5 is now out for devs, reportedly more stable

Only a week after beta 4 was released, we welcome beta 5 of the upcoming iOS7. As usual, there is no public changelog, so we are on our own to spot the differences.


Early birds report they are experiencing a much smoother sailing with this one even though start-up times are noticeably longer. Also, all settings icons are now redesigned, along with the in-call icons and the slide-to-power-off slider (left is new).

The new beta is available as an Over-The-Air update if you use a developer-registered device.

Check out more screenshots of the new stuff at our source link below.

Source (external link)

Scores injured as Alaafin son’s loyalists, Oyo lawmaker clash

Some people were injured, yesterday, in Oyo town when supporters believed to be sympathetic to Mr. Akeem Adeyemi, son of the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi and a lawmaker representing Oyo Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Mr. Khamil Akinlabi clashed.

During the period that the fracas lasted, dangerous weapons, including cutlasses, bottles and other items were said to have been freely used by the feuding parties.

The crisis, according to a source, was triggered when a group of people, last Friday, marched to the palace of Oba Adeyemi allegedly pleading with the monarch for the recall of Akinlabi whom they accused of not making any remarkable improvement in the lives of the people in his constituency since he assumed the seat in 2011.

Instead of the lawmaker, they clamoured for Prince Adeyemi to assume the seat in the National Assembly.

But, a counter protest was staged, yesterday, in Oyo with loyalists of Akinlabi from Oyo-East, Oyo-West, Afijio and Atiba local governments, faulting the earlier allegations against the legislator.

They displayed placards with inscriptions such as “Stop politics of bitterness”, “Kamil, man of the people”, ‘Kamil, hero of our time’ and went through major streets in Isale Oyo.

Leader of the Akinlabi’s group, Mr. Waheed Ajagbe said it was not fair to say the lawmaker had not done anything, noting that “about 175 boreholes were provided by the lawmaker across his constituency.

“He has distributed 16 vehicles to party leaders and Oyo Mesi (kingmakers). Akinlabi has also facilitated the construction of Erelu water project.

“In the area of education, he has facilitated the rehabilitation of Olivet Baptist High School, Isale-Oyo Community Grammar School, distributed textbooks and notebooks for pupils at Primary School level.”

He alleged that “of the 10 political appointments given to Oyo, six are being occupied by the sons and wives of the monarch. Are we going to fold our arms and watch people who want to help us being frustrated selfish reason?”

The protest had been peaceful until some people from the other group allegedly  stormed the venue and chased them away.

Armed mobile  police men from Durbar division reportedly arrived the scene with Armoured Personnel Carrier to quell the riot.

When asked to comment on the issue, the police said it would find out.