Ailing former South African President Nelson Mandela spent almost three months in a Pretoria hospital after being admitted in June with a recurring lung infection.The 95-year-old liberation struggle icon was discharged in September and has been receiving home-based medical attention since then.
'Mandela is not doing well' but is continuing to put up a courageous fight from his 'deathbed', according to his family..His daughter, Makaziwe Mandela, told the South African Broadcasting Corporation in an interview: 'Tata is still with us, strong, courageous. Even for a lack of a better word .... on his `deathbed' he is teaching us lessons; lessons in patience, in love, lessons of tolerance.
Although the government has given an ultimatum to all striking lecturers and issued a sack threat if the deadline is not met, the lecturers have all remained unshaken. They say that until the government does what its supposed to do,they'll stand their ground.
"We shall bow only to what we as academics are convinced will serve the interest of Nigeria and its people, no matter their ethnic, religious or class origins. This is where we stand we shall never be cowed.
Justifying government's plans to sack lecturers, the Public Relations Officer, National Universities Commission, Mallam Ibrahim Yakassai said: "Federal Government has every right to sack ASUU if the union is being unreasonable, just the same way your employer has the right to sack you.
"Government would be justified in sacking lecturers if they do not return to the classrooms, lecturers are not the only ones in the employ of the Federal Government to be causing this kind of headache."
For the ASUU Ibadan Zonal Chairman, Dr Adesola Nasir, government's order for schools to reopen is not the same thing as the academic staff resuming work because the schools were shut down by the management.
"The threat is so primitive in this day and time, especially coming from someone who is from the academic. Rather than worrying how to fill in the over 23,000 short in teaching staff and move the sector forward, government is threatening to sack us.
"We are not bothered by the threat because we are not asking for money for our pockets but for the development of the varsity system. Government keeps complaining that our graduates are not employable yet they don't want to put things in place to make them employable."
Videos have emerged of Harrison Okene, the cook who survived for almost three days after his ship sunk without any food and just a few canned drinks.
Watch the video Here
Christina Speirs, 22, of New York, exercised almost every single day, taught yoga and stayed in top shape. What she thought was a product of drinking too much water turned out to be a cancerous tumor growing inside her.
‘I had a lot of energy,’ Ms Speirs said. ‘I wasn't sleeping... I was always on the go, I was never tired.’
Ms Speirs thought the high amounts of water she was drinking caused her to wake up often during the night, so she did nothing about it until a medical
exam made a shocking discovery.
Doctors discovered last fall that her blood pressure was high, ‘through the roof’ high, but her potassium levels were low – it stumped them.
‘That really freaked me out because them not knowing what's wrong with me, they're doctors, you know?’ Said Ms Speirs.
After ruling out a heart condition, doctors checked her kidneys at the urging of her mother.
The sonogram stumped doctors as well, it appeared she had one combined kidney, throwing the co-ed into further panic as she was whisked to an MRI.
The MRI showed she had two kidneys, but instead she horrifyingly had a tumor almost the size of a grapefruit growing inside her.
‘I was in complete shock,’ Ms Speirs recalled to ABC, saying she called her parents because she needed surgery. ‘Then, I got so upset honestly. I had no idea where this came from.’
Doctors removed the tumor, stage 2 cancer. Described as adrenal cortical carcinoma, the tumor was growing on her liver – it affects one in several hundred thousand people, Ms Speirs’ doctor told ABC.
She is now cancer-free, but takes medication to stay that way. One of the side effects of the medication happens to be drowsiness – she can’t do hot yoga
anymore, but now she can sleep.
Previous findings have shown that when people try hard to control their emotions and thoughts, the risk of aggressive outbursts and binge drinking or eating rises.
New study shows that Praying helps people stay in control of their emotions and behaviour.
People turn to prayer 'as a coping response to the high demands in life' and are rewarded with increased strength and ability to resist temptation, researchers
said.
'A brief period of personal prayer buffered the self-control depletion effect', wrote the team, whose findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology online.
'These results are consistent with and contribute to a growing body of work attesting to the beneficial effects of praying on self-control.'
Praying has already been linked in the past to reduced levels of infidelity and alcohol consumption.
