Nigeria's finance minister has resigned over allegations she used a forged certificate to avoid the country's mandatory one-year youth service scheme.
Kemi Adeosun, who lived in the UK until she was 34, said she had been told she was exempt because she was over 30.
The former investment banker said she was issued with a certificate that she thought was genuine.
But an internal investigation showed that it was forged.
Ms Adeosun's resignation follows months of speculation in local media about whether her National Youth Service Corps certificate was genuine.
The dual Nigerian and British national did not initially comment on the claims, leading to criticism from her opponents.
However in a statement, she said she felt bound to resign after the investigation result became known.
"This has come as a shock to me and I believe that in line with this administration's focus on integrity, I must do the honourable thing and resign," she said.
Ms Adeosun was appointed as finance minister by President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015. Her main policy was a bid to improve tax collection and crack down on mismanagement by government agencies…
Nigerian university students have to do a year of national service upon graduation as a way of ensuring that graduates contributed to Nigeria's development.
Corp members are posted to states outside their state of origin to encourage national unity.
Nigerian graduates are not eligible for government work or many private jobs until they have completed the mandatory year of service.
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It began with a televised address in Iran in celebration of Persian New Year on Tuesday, when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei urged Iranians to support local products rather than importing from abroad.
Soon afterwards, photos began to emerge on social media of some officials purportedly failing to follow that advice - including Khamenei himself.
A photo of the Supreme Leader apparently getting out of a BMW was liked more than 1,200 times, with some people reposting the image alongside a picture of pre-Islamic Republic Prime Minister Amir-Abbas Hoveyda driving the first Iranian-made Paykan car in the 1960s.
This tweet reads: "The PM of the corrupt Pahlavi regime driving a domestically made car, but the spiritual Leader of Muslims around the world riding on the unbelievers' hundred-million [dollar] car, the Republic of mottos."
Some people defended Khamenei over the photo, with one person suggesting that the car may have belonged to the security department and not him.
But others were highly critical, with one person labelling locally-made cars as "junk products", and another sharing images of badly damaged Iranian cars in response…
Other members of the Khamenei family who came in for criticism include Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, the former Speaker of the Iranian Parliament whose daughter married Ali Khamenei's son Mojtaba.
In one tweet liked more than 700 times, a person shared pictures of Haddad-Adel appearing to buy clothes from a popular British high street shop…
This tweet reads: "#support_for_Iranian_products just by Haddad-Adel, father-in-law of Mojtaba Khamenei, the Prince of Iran, who is buying clothes in the wicked Britain."
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The question is, how will international events and pronouncements affect the domestic politics in Iran? A near revival of Persian nationalism? A political unity?
After years of cynicism, sneering or simply tuning out all things political, Iran’s urban middle-classes have been swept up in a wave of nationalist fervor.
The changing attitude, while some years in the making, can be attributed to two related factors: the election of President Donald J. Trump and the growing competition with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s sectarian rival, for regional dominance.
Iranians listened during the 2016 campaign as Mr. Trump denounced the Iran nuclear treaty as “the worst deal ever negotiated” and promised to tear it up. They watched in horror when, as president, he sold more than $100 billion worth of weapons to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and participated in a traditional war dance in Riyadh. And they are alarmed at the foreign policy moves of the young Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who they see as hotheaded and inexperienced.
At the same time, they now believe they have something to be proud of, with Iranian-led militias playing a central role in defeating the Islamic State militant group in Syria and Iraq, increasing Iran’s regional influence in the process.
The two most popular stars in Iran today — a country with thriving film, theater and music industries — are not actors or singers but two establishment figures: Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s regional military effort, which is widely seen as a smashing success; and the foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the symbol of a reasonable and measured Iran.
In short, it appears that Mr. Trump and the Saudis have helped the government achieve what years of repression could never accomplish: widespread public support for the hard-line view that the United States and Riyadh cannot be trusted and that Iran is now a strong and capable state capable of staring down its enemies…
Iran’s hard-liners are savoring the reversal in their fortunes, after losing influence in the Obama years. “Thanks to Trump’s dishonest, cheating and crazy remarks, he has proved what we have said for a long time: America cannot be trusted,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, a hard-line political analyst. “Many didn’t believe us, but now they do.”…
Iran’s leaders have begun promoting patriotic causes, recognizing in the changing mood a chance to reinforce their credibility, which had been flagging…
Encouraging nationalism in Tehran
The state’s theocratic ideology has long dictated an artificial version of nationalism, where everything is related to Islam. Love for Iran’s long pre-Islamic [Persian] history has been illegal in some instances, and often deliberately ignored by officials and state television.
But in light of the new national unity, those restraints have been relaxed so long as the presentations encourage patriotism…
There are limits to the new nationalism. Iranians who tried in October to commemorate the ancient King Cyrus with a gathering at his tomb found roads blocked and a high fence around the site. Well-known nationalists were sent text messages warning them not to participate…
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China's National Anthem Law came into force Sunday to ensure appropriate performance of the song.
The anthem shall be sung at formal political gatherings, including the opening and closing of National People's Congress sessions, constitutional oath ceremonies, flag raising ceremonies, major celebrations, awards ceremonies, commemorations, national memorial day events, important diplomatic occasions, major sport events and other suitable occasions, according to the law…
It is now illegal to use the national anthem during funerals, "inappropriate" private occasions, commercials or as background music in public places.
Violators, including those who maliciously modify the lyrics, play or sing the national anthem in a distorted or disrespectful way, can be detained for up to 15 days, even be held criminally liable…
Previously, without a law to standardize etiquette for the national anthem, the song was sometimes used inappropriately…
Chinese national anthem
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"Anyone who offends China will be killed no matter how far the target is."
That is the tagline for Wolf Warriors 2, the Chinese box office hit that is equal parts testosterone-fuelled machismo - think blazing guns, explosions, and tanks - and chest-thumping Chinese patriotism.
It sees a soldier venturing into an African warzone and saving hundreds of lives from Western baddies. It's basically the plot of your typical Hollywood action movie, but this time it's a Chinese man upholding justice and keeping the world safe…
The film has raked in a record 1.6bn yuan ($238m; £181m) in just one week. The massive response in China also made the film top the global box office worldwide last weekend, beating Hollywood blockbuster Dunkirk…
The film revolves around a covert rescue mission when rebels overrun a town in an unnamed African country.
Leng Feng, a Chinese special forces soldier played by Wu Jing, is sent in to save Chinese businessmen and locals held by Western mercenaries.
Many moviegoers said online that they were touched by the patriotic plot…
The film premiered just ahead of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese army, a hugely symbolic event for the country.
Over the weekend, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) held a grand military parade which presented the latest in China's arsenal of weapons.
In a stern speech, which in parts was not dissimilar to lines from the film, President Xi Jinping vowed to fight anyone who tried to split China.
The Chinese government's mouthpiece People's Daily hailed Wolf Warrior 2 as a "superhero movie of Chinese style" that showed "fearless heroism and responsibility" and evoked passion for patriotism…
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China’s national anthem can no longer be performed at weddings, funerals, balls or other non-political functions and should only be performed at certain dignified events, state media said on Friday.
The rule is to “standardise proper etiquette for the national anthem, which reflects national independence and liberation, a prosperous, strong country and the affluence of the people”, the official Xinhua news agency said.
The March of the Volunteers may, however, be played at the start of important celebrations or public political gatherings, formal diplomatic occasions or significant international gatherings, it added, citing a Communist party statement.
The anthem can also be performed when Chinese athletes win medals and “at arenas where national dignity should be fought for and safeguarded”…
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“YOU work for a foreign state.” That is what Tatiana Lysova, the editor of Vedomosti, a respected daily business paper, says one of Vladimir Putin’s advisers told her in a meeting in the Kremlin last year. Vedomosti is jointly owned by three foreign media groups: News Corp of America, Pearson of Britain (part-owner of The Economist) and Sanoma of Finland. In the Kremlin’s reductionist and conspiratorial worldview, that practically makes the paper a branch office of the CIA and MI6.
This paranoid patriotism, intensified by Russia’s conflict with the West over Ukraine, helps to explain a law Mr Putin signed last month. It bans foreign firms and individuals from owning more than 20% of any media outlet based in the country. Vedomosti will be among its first victims…
A report by Bloomberg, an American news service, said Vedomosti may end up being bought by an affiliate of Gazprom, a state energy giant, or Yury Kovalchuk, an ally of Mr Putin. If so there would surely be fears over its ability to keep up its robust reporting…
Selling soon to a Putin friend?
Floriana Fossato, who worked in the media business in Moscow in the 2000s and now studies Russian television at University College London, wonders if the new law is ultimately rooted in a play among politically-connected insiders to control the country’s advertising market. She says those close to power think: let’s solve a political problem, but why not also make money at the same time?…
Just as the paranoid politics of war can be costly for some, it can be profitable for others. There are few areas of the Russian economy that are not vulnerable to the arguments of national security and the need to stand up to the West… A rash of closings of McDonald’s restaurants across the country, supposedly for “sanitary” reasons, is another sign of how even the most seemingly uncontroversial businesses can get caught up in the current mood…
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Plan your holiday shopping: a few pages a day between now and the exam in May will help you remember things like the distinctions between government and regime and between nation and state. Just The Facts!is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
Please note that this levy is not being proposed by the Council that represents the member states or by the European Parliament that represents citizens. Talk about democratic deficit.
A demand from the European Union for an extra payment worth $2.7 billion would not be welcome news for any European leader…
The request for 1.7 billion pounds came after a recalculation of data showed that the British economy performed better in recent years than previously thought, suggesting that its payments into the European Union budget should rise according to the bloc’s formula for contributions. The payment would come in addition to Britain’s annual payment of about $13.8 billion to the union’s treasury…
The revision took place after the European Commission, the executive arm of the bloc, reviewed the economic performance of all member states since 1995 and revised its statistics to take into account elements such as the underground economy.
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You could call it cultural imperialism. You could call it nationalism. You could even call it absurd.
Except, under a new plan supported by the State Duma's Culture Committee, you really couldn't. Because the plan proposes to ban foreign words from public speech in Russia — including terms like the ones used above.
Aimed at protecting the Russian language, the new bill would see citizens face a fine for using words that have roots in another language.
It would also deprive the language of some of its most interesting, complex and evocative terms — as well as making some subject matters virtually impossible to talk about.
Small talk has just gotten that much harder now that these five topics could become taboo…
The story of how Peter the Great worked undercover at a Dutch shipyard during his Grand Embassy is famous… But Russians would have a hard time even talking about shipbuilding and seafaring without the Dutch language.
Upon his return to Russia, the Tsar brought with him not only Dutch shipbuilding expertise to strengthen the Russian navy, but also a myriad of Dutch terms. Without каюта (cabin), шкипер (skipper), киль (keel) and флагшток (flagstaff), there wouldn't be much of a boat to begin with…
Don't get us started on Latin. For the starting letter "a" alone, there are hundreds of words in Russian whose roots trace back to ancient Rome…
Many professions take their Russian names from German terms. Without them, there's no… секретарь (secretary) to take dictation, no коммандир (commander) leading his troops. You'd also have to grow your hair long without the парикмахер (literally, the "wig-maker") to cut them for you…
When St.Petersburg was Russia's capital, everyone looked to France as the example to follow. Needless to say, this has left Russia with beaucoup de French words. And it is telling that without French, you couldn't come home to find someone waiting on the шезлонг (chaise longue) wearing a неглиже (negligée)…
Without English, working in Russia would be nigh impossible to talk about. No бизнес-ланч (business lunch) for the hungry бизнесме́н (businessmen) and his colleagues, whether they work in маркетинг (marketing) or пиар (pr).
Back at the office, they'd be hard pressed to get their work done - what with no компьютер (computer), no Интернет (Internet), no бра́узер (browser) and no Принтер (printer). And if they do manage to send a mail, they can't even sign off with a Смайлик (smiley)…
Samuel Johnson, an 18th century British author was critiquing the "false patriotism" of his political opponents, but the quotation has been used in many other ways since 1775.
(That year Johnson also wrote that if colonists in America wanted representation in Parliament all they had to do was come back to England and buy an estate to be eligible to vote.)
All of which may be irrelevant to Russia's President Putin and his desire to bring Russians "back… to patriotic feelings."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has tabled [introduced] a bill in parliament for wider use of state symbols such as the flag and national anthem.
He told a meeting of legal academics that their increased use in colleges would help foster patriotism among young Russians in particular…
"The wider use, at least in educational institutions, will contribute to increasing patriotism, especially among the younger generation," Mr Putin said.
"[Watching] the flying of the state flag and listening to the anthem will bring our citizens back... to patriotic feelings."
Nation states sometimes have trouble maintaining the legitimacy of their governments and regimes. It's even more difficult for a supranational organization like the EU.
To me it's distressing that the dangers of emotional nationalism that inspired the creation of the EU are apparent now as threats to the survival of international cooperation. Do your students of European history recognize history repeating itself?
Public confidence in the European Union has fallen to historically low levels in the six biggest EU countries, raising fundamental questions about its democratic legitimacy more than three years into the union's worst ever crisis, new data shows.
After financial, currency and debt crises, wrenching budget and spending cuts, rich nations' bailouts of the poor, and surrenders of sovereign powers over policymaking to international technocrats, Euroscepticism is soaring to a degree that is likely to feed populist anti-EU politics and frustrate European leaders' efforts to arrest the collapse in support for their project…
The findings… represent a nightmare for Europe's leaders, whether in the wealthy north or in the bailout-battered south, suggesting a much bigger crisis of political and democratic legitimacy…
EU leaders are aware of the problem, utterly at odds over what to do about it, and have yet to come up with any coherent policy proposals addressing the mismatch between the pooling of economic and fiscal powers and the democratic mandate deemed necessary to underpin such radical policy shifts.
José Manuel Barroso, the European commission president, said… the European "dream" was under threat from a "resurgence of populism and nationalism" across the EU…
Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk… [said] "We can't escape this dilemma: how do you get a new model of sovereignty so that limited national sovereignty in the EU is not dominated by the biggest countries like Germany… "
More serious rankings are probably important for political scientists, but anthropologists and sociologists might appreciate these more than political scientists.
But if people lose confidence in the country, isn't that part of the political culture? What are the Belgians to think?
Nigerian people are known for many things; but calling them sad has not gone down well with most citizens.
Despite the widely spread belief that Nigerians are one of the happiest in the world based on their resilience and ability to smile even in the face of hardship, Forbes has ranked Nigeria as the 20th saddest country…
Taking the first position on the list is the Central African Republic followed closely by the Republic of Congo and Afghanistan.
Sudan takes the 18th position, Mozambique the 19th and Nigeria the 20th.
Among the world's happiest countries, Norway ranked first, Denmark ranked second and Sweden ranked third.
Canada took the sixth position, United States of America the 12th and United Kingdom the 13th among the world's happiest countries…
ACCORDING to a report that was recently published in the Washington Post newspaper, Nigeria is the worst country in the entire world to be born in.
The report, based on a study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), examined 80 countries and used a scoring system comprising 11 variables to determine "which country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead."…
I used to be a Copy Editor at the EIU's London office when I was younger and I developed a deep affection for the organisation - which was widely respected - then. But everyone makes mistakes from time to time and the authors of this study have definitely gotten it wrong on the Nigerian front.
OK so Nigeria is nowhere near Paradise, thanks to the Boko Haram menace and many other dysfunctions, including the fact that it is riddled with various forms of oppression. Furthermore, nothing works well enough in Nigeria. Then there's the constant, never-punished sexual harassment of women by men who have the power to make or break them; and the paralysing cronyism, rigged elections, chronic corruption, awful schools, deadly hospitals; and so on.
But - trust me! - Nigeria is like heaven on earth compared to some of the alternative locations I have found myself in over the years. Nigeria is, for example, considerably less grim than Poland, considerably less frustrating than The Gambia and considerably less boring than Belgium!…
While the nationalistic wing of the Conservative Party in the UK continues to argue that the United Kingdom is NOT part of Europe and only loses sovereignty and pride as part of the EU, one of the main lobbying groups in the country argues the other side.
Why is it that the CBI does its lobbying in public and not behind the closed doors of ministries or Downing Street?
Britain must carve out a new global trading role for itself as part of a new, rapidly-changing European Union (EU), John Cridland, director-general of the Conferderation of British Industry (CBI), urged on Monday…
In his message, he said a historic U.S. deal [between the EU and the USA] is vital to creating long-term, sustainable economic growth and job creation in Britain and the EU. It would eliminate tariffs, liberalize goods and services, harmonize regulation, promote investment and set benchmark standards for trade in the 21st century.
Britain could not afford to "miss out on opportunities to use the EU to help rebalance the economy towards exports and create new trade deals based on its world-class reputation - in particular in financial and professional services; pharmaceuticals; and creative industries."
The message comes as the CBI kickstarts a major project in the New Year to flesh out how the UK's global role should look in a new Europe. It will examine how the UK can remain a leading location to do business globally - expanding export markets particularly for high-growth small and medium-sized firms, without losing access to the Single Market. It will report in mid-2013…
"We need global trade deals to drive growth and create jobs, especially when the domestic economy is growing more slowly than required. Businesses don't want the baby thrown out with the bathwater - not with 50 percent of our exports heading to Europe."
The president once again makes nationalism his theme. This seems to be a continuation of his attempts to win more support from a less-than-enthusiastic electorate.
In an annual state-of-the-nation address in Moscow strong on patriotic themes, he talked of the need to preserve Russian national identity.
He urged more births, saying a family with three children should be the norm…
It is his first such speech since being re-elected in March for a third term following a winter of political protests over ballot-rigging and state corruption.
His return to office has been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent with the arrest of opposition activists and introduction of restrictive legislation.
"Any external interference in our affairs is unacceptable," he said.
"A politician who receives money from beyond the borders of the Russian Federation cannot be a politician on its territory," he said to applause.
In July, Mr Putin signed a bill forcing foreign-funded non-governmental groups (NGOs) involved in political activity to register as "foreign agents" in Russia.
Critics condemned the move as a bid to gag NGOs which exposed vote-rigging and other abuses…
Russians, Mr Putin said, should remember they had "1,000 years of history". This should give them "inner strength".
Russia must remain a sovereign and influential country and retain its national identity, he told parliament…
On the economy, Mr Putin said: "Our entrepreneurs have often been accused of lacking patriotism."
He criticised companies carrying out their business in offshore jurisdictions.
"According to available data, nine out of 10 transactions by them are not regulated by our laws."...
With just over a week left in office, the president of Mexico has offered perhaps the boldest proposal of his six-year tenure. He wants Mexico to just be “Mexico.”
The formal name of the country is Estados Unidos Mexicanos, often translated as “United Mexican States” or “United States of Mexico.”
It is the “Estados Unidos” that nags at President Felipe de Jesús Calderón Hinojosa… and he wants it out, once and for all. It happens to be the Spanish name of the big neighbor up north…
Now it is time, [Calderón] said, for Mexico to step out of the shadow of the United States, at least in name.
“Mexico does not need a name that emulates another country and that none of us Mexicans use every day,” he said Thursday at a morning announcement at the presidential residence…
Making it so, however, will take a constitutional change…
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Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.
