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Gezawa (Nigeria) (AFP) - A 14-year-old Nigerian girl accused of murdering her 35-year-old husband by putting rat poison in his food could face the death penalty, Nigerian prosecutors said Thursday.

The trial of Wasila Tasi'u, from a poor northern Nigeria family, has sparked a heated debate on the role of underage marriage in the conservative Muslim region, especially whether an adolescent girl can consent to be a bride.

Prosecutors at the High Court in Gezawa, outside Nigeria's second city of Kano, filed an amended complaint that charged Tasi'u with one count of murder over the killing of Umar Sani two weeks after their April wedding in the village of Unguwar Yansoro.

Lead prosecutor Lamido Abba Soron-Dinki said that if convicted, the charge is "punishable with death" and indicated the state would seek the maximum penalty.

Nigeria is not known to have executed a juvenile offender since 1997, when the country was ruled by military dictator Sani Abacha, according to Human Rights Watch.

Tasi'u entered the court wearing a cream-coloured hijab and was escorted by two policemen.

Her parents, who have condemned their daughter's alleged act, were in the public gallery -- the first time the three were in the same room since Tasi'u's arrest in April, her legal representatives said.

The English-language charge sheet was translated into Hausa for the accused by the court clerk.

Tasi'u refused to answer when asked if she understood the charges.

The case was adjourned for 30 minutes so the charges could be better explained to the defendant, but when the alleged offences were read again Tasi'u stayed silent, turned her head to the wall and broke down in tears.


"The court records (that) she pleads not guilty," Judge Mohammed Yahaya said, apparently regarding her silence as equal to a denial of the charges and adjourned the case until November 26.

Activists, including in Nigeria's mainly Christian south, have called for Tasi'u's immediate release, saying she should be rehabilitated as a victim and noting the prospect that she was raped by the man she married.

But in the north, Islamic law operates alongside the secular criminal code, a hybrid system that has complicated the question of marital consent.

The affected families have denied that Tasi'u was forced into marriage, arguing that girls across the impoverished region marry at 14 and that Tasi'u and Sani followed the traditional system of courtship.

According to Nigeria's marriage act, anyone under 21 can marry provided they have parental consent and so evidence of an agreement between Tasi'u and her father Tasiu Mohammed could undermine claims of a forced union.

But defence lawyer Hussaina Aliyu has insisted the case is not a debate about the role of youth marriage in a Muslim society.

Instead, she has argued that under criminal law a 14-year-old cannot be charged with murder in a high court and has demanded that the case be moved to the juvenile system.

Nigeria defines the age of adulthood as 17 but the situation is less clear in the 12 northern states under Islamic law, where courts theoretically have the right to consider people under 17 as legally responsible.

Guidelines for how courts should blend Islamic and secular legal codes have not been well defined.
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While the 911 facility downstairs produces 200 finished cars every day, the 918 line — hidden in a former paint shop on the second floor of the Zuffenhausen complex —produces only four. The meticulous attention to detail is one of the reasons. When a single dollop of synthetic lubricant dripped on the floor, we saw two workers immediately spend at least 45 seconds spraying it with solvent, wiping it with a pristine white rag, and examining the area for shmears; likewise for an inspector going over every millimeter of the car’s cosmetically-woven carbon-fiber monocoque with a spotlight and a jeweler’s loup.

The dearness of the parts from which the 918 is built is another factor. Everything has been optimized for light weight, tensile strength, and ultimate performance so great care must be taken not to cause damage — nothing scratched will readily buff out. The basic materials costs for a 918 are higher than the retail price of a 911 Turbo. The hand-cut stainless steel exhaust surround on the car’s deck is more expensive than the entire painted body of a Panamera.

 

Even the screws that connect primary components are treated with deific respect. The cordless electric screwdrivers used to insert them are Bluetooth connected to a central network. If their torque pressure does not register as proper for the coded part they’re attaching, the entire line will shut down until such a time as the problem is remedied. On the Weissach model, which costs an additional $80,000, these screws — along with some other relevant bits — are made of titanium, which weighs 60% less than the standard part, and is ten times as expensive.

Despite all of this exquisite material, we were allowed free reign to wander about. The lack of a true “assembly line” made this both safe and feasible — the cars travel about the factory on wheeled and motorized precision lifts until such time as their battery assembly is inserted and they are able to drive electrically through their final stations.
If nearly a million dollars seems a high price to pay for a vehicle, viewing up close what goes into the 918 quickly subverts that thinking. Suspension components, brake discs, exhaust manifolds, and dash assemblies are crafted with the care and materials befitting a Henry Moore sculpture, and stand on racks and pedestals as if awaiting adoration in a museum. Save for the fact that we were allowed to put our hands on everything, we could have been at a MOMA retrospective.

 

Only 918 of these rolling objet d’art will be built. Porsche is about a third of the way through this production allotment. But while the Vehicle Identification Numbers of the cars will be sequential, their creation will not. Some customers have requested particular VINs to match their concept of what is lucky (888 or 777), what is valuable (001 or 918), or what is iconic and beloved to the brand (911 or 917). These are constructed out of turn as the orders are received.

At the end of our visit, Herr Drolshagen tells us that the full run will be completed by July 2015. When we ask him if there are upcoming plans for this space — perhaps production of a rumored successor — he shrugs. “Maybe we return it to a paint shop for the 911?” His taciturn demeanor gives nothing away, but his sly smile says those smart screwdrivers will find something more to do once the 918 rolls into history.

Hearing loss is one of the most common health handicapping conditions among children and adults. The hearing sense is the cornerstone upon which our unique human communication system is built.

This handicap therefore makes it very difficult for people to learn to speak a language, which impairs their ability to communicate naturally with other people. It also has a detrimental effect on personality and emotional development. It is easy to take hearing for granted as sound is such a common part of everyday life. To be able to understand how sound is perceived by people and the processes involved in hearing and hearing losses, we should have a closer look at the anatomy of the ear.

Anatomy of the ear

The ear can primarily be divided into three parts, namely:

• the outer ear
• the middle ear
• the inner ear

The outer ear

The outer ear consists of two parts, namely the external ear or ear lobe (pinna) and the ear canal. It is the part of the ear that one can see.
The ear lobe is flexible and consists of cartilage and skin. It functions as a sound receiver.
Sounds are sent down the ear canal. There is a soft membrane or skin between the outer ear and the middle ear, called the eardrum or tympanic membrane.

The middle ear

Sound waves travelling down the ear canal cause the eardrum to vibrate. Just behind the eardrum are three very small bones – the smallest bones in the body.
The bones are called the hammer (maleus), the anvil (incus) and the stirrup (stapes). The hammer is attached to the eardrum and the stirrup to membrane between the middle and inner ear.
The vibrations of the eardrum are transferred to these tiny bones in the middle ear, which in turn cause fluid in the inner ear to move in wave patterns.
The function of the middle ear is called a transmitting function.

The inner ear

The cochlea is the most important component of the inner ear with regard to hearing sounds. Within the cochlea are located the auditory sensory elements known as hair cells. Each hair cell has a delicate series of hairs that stick up into the fluids of the cochlea.
As fluid waves travel through the cochlea, the delicate hairs on the sensory nerve endings bend, creating neural impulses in the eighth cranial nerve (nerve acoesticus). These impulses are interpreted by the brain as sounds.
The fluids of the cochlea can also be sent into motion by vibrations carried through the skull. This is called bone conduction.

Perception of sound

The main aim of the working of the ear is the perception of sound. Let use an example: If Lisa says to George: "what is the time?" George will detect that someone is talking to him. He will discriminate speech sounds from other sounds, for example an aeroplane flying past or a car hooting. He will identify that someone is asking him a question about time and he will understand the question and react by answering: "It is three o' clock".
The ability to perceive what was heard (auditory perception) plays an important role in human communication.
There are many children whose hearing is within normal limits, but give the impression that they cannot hear. These children have an auditory perceptual problem. They have difficulty detection, discriminating, identifying or understanding sounds. An inability to listen effectively can hamper communication, the development of language abilities as well as most areas of their school work.
Children with auditory perceptual (listening skills) difficulties should be helped by a speech therapist. Parents can also help their children improve their listening and language skills by means of a home programme such as the Listening and Language Home Programme.

Location of sound

A person’s brain can work out where a sound is coming from. One’s brain receives messages from both ears. The ear closest to the sound hears first. This helps your brain work out where the sound is coming from. A person who cannot hear in one ear can therefore not locate the source of the sound.

Maiduguri - More than 130 Boko Haramfighters have surrendered to Nigerian forces, and a man posing as the group's leader in numerous videos had been killed in clashes, the military said on Wednesday.
The army has stepped up military operations against Boko Haram in the remote northeast since the rebels seized several small towns and declared the area they control a "Muslim territory".
The group, which has killed thousands in five years of hit-and-run attacks on military installations and civilians has grown increasingly ambitious in the past two months and started trying to take and hold ground in Africa's largest oil producer.
The army said 135 Boko Haram fighters had handed their weapons to troops on Tuesday in the northeast town of Biu, near the epicentre of Boko Haram's campaign to carve out an Islamist state.
The military added Boko Haram had also been trying to take over the town of Konduga, near the Cameroon border, from Sept. 12-17 but had been repelled by air and land forces.

"In the course of those encounters, one Mohammed Bashir, who has been acting or posing on videos as the deceased Abubakar Shekau ... known as leader of the group, died," said Defence spokesman Major-General Chris Olukolade.
Throughout the militants' insurgency, which has morphed from a radical but relatively peaceful clerical movement into a bloodthirsty insurrection, a man claiming to be theleader, Abubakar Shekau, has periodically released videos of himself issuing threats and taunting the authorities.
One showed him claiming responsibility for the April abduction of 200 schoolgirls from the remote village of Chibok, which sparked an international outcry. They remain in captivity.
The military also released photographs of dozens of detainees sitting on the floor and the alleged body of the leader.
Shekau took over leadership of the movement after its founder Mohammed Yusuf died in police custody in 2009.
The military in August 2013 said Shekau may have died of gunshot wounds some weeks after a clash with soldiers between July 25 and August 4 that year.
After that, the man appearing in videos appeared to look different, with a rounder, less narrow face and a wider nose

Ekiti - Authorities in Ekiti State on Thursday ordered the immediate closure of all state courts there after political thugs backing the governor-elect, Ayodele Fayose, descended on a court, attacking a judge and other staff.

Hoodlums invaded the Ekiti State High Court  to disrupt proceedings in a case challenging the eligibility of the Governor-elect and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP, Ayodele Fayose, to contest the June 21 governorship election

The assailants attacked Justice John Adeyeye, beating him up and ripping his clothes for being allegedly rude to Fayose.

The Chief Registrar of the state Judiciary, Obafemi Fasanmi, stated this in a statement in Ado-Ekiti on Thursday.

Fasanmi said the decision was taken as a result of series of attacks launched on the court premises by hoodlums since Monday which, he said, had continued unabated.

 He said the action of the chief judge had become necessary in order to protect the lives of judges and other judicial officers who were being harassed and man-handled by thugs on a daily basis.

The chief registrar said that a new date for the reopening of the courts would be announced later.