5 Storey-Building Collapses In Lagos, 4 Dead

Four people have been confirmed dead after a five-storey building collapsed at Chisco bus stop, opposite Oando Gas Station in the Lekki area of Lagos this morning.

Spokesperson of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, Ibrahim Farinloye, says five people have been rescued from the rubble.

The diseases caused by Tattoos and body art

Tattooing has been in vogue since times immemorial. An artistic way to beautify the body, tattoos can be a great way to reflect your personality, religious thoughts and beliefs or even your attitude. Gaining immense popularity, tattoos are, today, available in an extensive range of designs and styles, to suit the needs and styles of every person. Be it fairy tattoos exclusively designed for girls or cross tattoos, for people with a religious bent or dragon tattoos, the options is almost endless. The number of people, captivated by this mesmerizing body art, has been continuously on the rise. However, with the growth of the art of tattooing, the safety issues and risk concerns have also increased. One such safety issue concerned with tattooing is the striking of diseases.  
Disease - Causes & Precautionary Measures
Tattoo is a body art that involves injection of ink into the skin of a person, using needles. The needle used, comes in contact with blood and bodily fluids of a person. If more than one person is tattooed with the same needle (without sterilization), chances are that the subsequent person may fall prey to disease. Hence, sterilization of the needle becomes highly essential. Though most of the reputable tattoo shops use fresh disposable needles for each client, there are tattoo artists, who sterilize reusable instruments between clients. However, in case of reusable needles, make sure that it is properly cleansed using an autoclave. In addition, it is important that needles and other instruments used in the tattooing process do not come in contact with inks, which will be used on other clients. The best way to avoid disease through infected ink would be to pour the required amount of ink from the larger bottles into disposable cups. This way, the ink taken out would be used for a single session on a client and later, discarded off, lessening any chances of contamination through ink. It is very important for the tattoo artist to be well-versed with the risks of diseases that are associated with tattooing. It is possible to get infected with diseases, such as HIV Virus and hepatitis, syphilis, tetanus, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, at the time of tattooing. However, such a misfortune is likely to take place, only if tattoo artist use non-sterile equipments. Though there has never been a case wherein an individual contracting HIV as a direct result of getting tattooed, you cannot rule out the probability completely. Nonetheless, it is imperative for a person to be aware of the potential risks of tattooing. The universal precautionary measures, such as washing hands, wearing latex gloves and the thorough cleaning of floors and surfaces, are crucial and trim down chances of getting infected with diseases. It has been noticed over the past few years that the modern tattoo inks are causing more and more complications. This includes grave infections, allergic reactions and skin cancer like symptoms. This is probably because the ink used these days in engraving tattoos has been changed composition wise. Now days instead of metal salts, lead, carbon and cobalt material like organic azo dyes with plastic based pigments is used in tattooing. These are the materials that are basically used in printing, textile and car painting industries. It is not completely understood how these materials interact with the skin cells and trigger the complications. These materials are especially found in concntrated red and yellow inks. Allergy is the most common complication that the tattoos trigger in the body. It is not necessarily an instant reaction; it can take years after getting a tattoo to develop. If someone is already suffering from skin diseases like psoriasis and eczema then tattooing can cause their skin conditions to flare up aggressively. There is another complication called sarcoidosis, which is an autoimmune disorder that is easily triggered by getting a tattoo on the skin. It is typified by swelling of the skin and itching. It has the capacity to affect other organs of the skin, like lungs and eyes. Studies show that cancerous cells can develop easily under the tattooed region on the skin. Some people suffer from a bump on the top of their tattoo which ruins it completely. It is called the squamous cell carcinoma. This bump is so similar to skin cancer that it calls for a biopsy and in extreme cases requires a skin surgery. Amongst the other breakout issues, it is recently noticed that atypical breakout caused by mycobacterial infections is very common now and the distinctive feature of this outbreak is the development of painful pustules with red bumps and itchiness. This bacterial infection is much harder to treat than the regular staph bacterial infections caused by tattooing. This is the reason why it takes months and months to treat it as the only possible solution to cure it is to take oral antibiotics.

Written by Dr Adebimpe Adeoluwa

Singer dies of Anal cancer

36 year old HIV positive South African singer, Koyo Bala, lost his two year battle with anal cancer yesterday March 7th. Bala was part of a pop gay trio known as 3Sum who were known in the South African entertainment industry as activists for gay rights.
Bala returned to Cape Town from Johannesburg on Sunday March 6th, complained of having serious pains. He was taken to the Groote Schuur hospital that same day but died the following morning.

Nigerian removed from plane over whatsapp prayer group called ISI

Armed police removed a British man from an easyJet plane after a passenger saw a WhatsApp message on his phone about 'prayer' and feared he was a terrorist.

Devout Christian Laolu Opebiyi, 40, from London, was ordered off the flight at Luton Airport and asked if he was converting to Islam as the 6.45am flight to Amsterdam took off without him.

A fellow passenger had been spying on his phone from over his shoulder and may have misread the title of the group 'Isi men' as 'Isis men', he says.

His accuser then asked him: 'What do you mean by "prayer?"' before walking towards the cockpit and asking to get off. In the minutes that followed another six passengers also left the plane.

Two armed police officers then arrived and told Mr Opebiyi to pick up his belongings and get off the plane too.

They then repeatedly questioned him about his faith, which church he attended in London and whether he was considering converting to Islam. 

He told reporters 'Even if I was a Muslim, it was pretty unfair the way I was treated. I don't think anyone, irrespective of their religion should be treated in such a way.

'If we keep on giving into this kind of bigotry and irrational fear, I dare say that the terrorists will have achieved their aim.'

He explained to police the WhatsApp group was called 'ISI' because it is short for 'iron sharpens iron' - a Bible passage about prayer which says: 'As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another'.

The police then released him but he was further shamed because as he returned to the easyJet desk to get to Holland the seven passengers refused to travel with him.

Ray Tomlinson, the creator of email is dead

Ray Tomlinson, widely credited as the creator of email, has died, his employer, Raytheon, told CNN on Sunday. He was 74.

Tomlinson invented direct email messages in 1971. Before his invention, electronic messages could be shared only on a very limited network.

Among those paying tribute was Gmail, one of many offshoots of Tomlinson's creation."Thank you, Ray Tomlinson, for inventing email and putting the @ sign on the map," Gmail's Twitter account said.

Delta Community to Partner Security Agencies in Fight Against Crime

Worried by the high rate of insecurity in the country, Okpare-Olomu community in Ughelli South Local Government Area, Delta State, has promised to collaborate with security agencies to track down hoodlums in the area.

They condemned the spate of kidnappings in the country, particularly the kidnap of the octogenarian mother of Senator Emmanuel Aguariavwodo, Mrs Sarah Aguariavwodo.

Expressing gratitude to God for her release, the people, in a statement by the community's President General and spokesman, Chief Joseph Oluku, Pa. Onosevwe Barnabas respectively, warned criminals to stay away from the community henceforth.

They said the community was no longer safe for criminals, as the people abhor all forms of criminality.

Iran Sentences Billionaire to Death for Corruption

An Iranian court has sentenced a billionaire businessman to death for corruption linked to oil sales during the rule of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a judiciary spokesman said on Monday.

The businessman, Babak Zanjani, and two of his associates were sentenced to death for money laundering, among other charges, the spokesman, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehi, said in remarks broadcast on state television. He did not identify the two associates. Previous reports in the state news media said the three had been charged with forgery and fraud.

“The court has recognized the three defendants as ‘corrupters on earth’ and sentenced them to death,” Mr. Ejehi said. “Corrupters on earth” is an Islamic term referring to crimes that are punishable by death because they have a major impact on society. The verdict can be appealed.

 Mr. Zanjani was arrested in 2013, shortly after the election of President Hassan Rouhani, who ordered a crackdown on alleged corruption during the eight-year rule of Mr. Ahmadinejad, his hard-line predecessor. Mr. Zanjani owes about $2.25 billion for oil sales he made on behalf of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s government, Iran’s Oil Ministry has said.