Sunday, 4 June 2017

‘I Learnt About My Wife’s Adultery On Facebook’


If you realise that your spouse has been cheating with you with different people, what would be your reaction?
My name is Benedict, a 46-year-old man working and living in Abuja while my family is based in Lagos. The reason we got separated was because I got a well paying job in a multi-national conglomerate and I was posted to the Federal Capital Territory to run the northern operations of the company.

My wife, Stella, who works in an insurance company, had to stay back in Lagos with our three kids while I shuttled between the two places, most times visiting two weekends in a month. I did not also want to disrupt my children’s education by changing schools for them, coupled with the fact that I was living in a hotel for close to one year before I got an apartment.


Even my physical absence did not tell that much because I was always on the phone with my wife and children. I held morning devotions with them by phone and followed up on their progress.
They lacked nothing I could provide within my powers and I thought I had a perfect wife who would hold the home front together while I was away, but I have realised that if a woman wants to cheat on her husband, you can do all you can but she would still play the field.
Even when Tony, my best friend whom I urged to always visit my family and make them comfortable, told me several times how he met my wife’s absence on several occasions leaving the children with the housemaid most times he visited, I argued that it could be the strain and pressure of her job.

Sincerely, I never believed Stella could be unfaithful. But the stark reality hit me in face when I discovered that she was actually committing adultery with several men. That day, I had retired to my hotel apartment after a very hectic day at work and found it difficult to sleep. After tossing about on the bed for many hours, I switched on my Facebook account to try and catch up with my contacts.

While surfing the net, I stumbled on new pictures posted by my wife and some of the pictures were quite explicit and unbecoming of a married mother. Out of curiosity, I plowed into her private accounts and there, I met the most shocking scenario of my life. There was my wife chatting with different men and the chats showed that they were not just friends but lovers.

She posted photos of them at different places like the beach and hotels where they were unclad, kissing and on the bed. I thought it was another person that just resembled my wife but I decided to further investigate.
The next time I came into Lagos, I stealthily took her phone when she was not in the bedroom and checked her Whatsapp account and what I saw almost sent me into a psychiatric home. My wife had been sending unclad photos to other men, telling them how much she enjoyed s*x with them and what she would do to them the next time they met.
When she came to bed that night, I confronted her with what I saw and naturally, she denied that she ever cheated on me but when I showed her all I had found out, she broke down and confessed, saying it was loneliness that made her do what she did.

After I left for Abuja, I sent my elder sister to go and take my children to stay with her till I come up with a plan. Though I have refused to tell our family and friends what she did so as not to disgrace her, I have refused listen to any explanation from her.
I want to send her out of my life but being from a broken home myself, I fear what that would do to my children but at the same time, I don’t think I can ever live with such an adulterous woman again.

Lagos State : Prostitutes Experience Low Patronage as Ramadan Begins


The ongoing Muslims’ fasting month, Ramadan, is also largely taking its toll on commercial s*x as most prostitutes now find it more difficult to survive.
 
According to the checks carried out by encomium.ng in some fun spots in certain parts of Lagos state, some of the prostitutes, otherwise known as runs girls, are not patronized at the moment. The situation has forced them to reduce their charges ridiculously.
 
One of the prostitutes who volunteered to speak with encomium.ng under the condition of anonymity lamented the dwindling state of the oldest trade. She added the ugly situation has demanded that they settle for any amount if only to survive as most men are now shying away from the act because of the ongoing fasting.
 
“Most of us you see wandering up and down find it difficult to get any offer from men now, whether short rest or lodging, irrespective of the fact that prices are cheaper now compared to what we used to charge before Ramadan. Although, things were also tough before the month started, not as bad as we experience now.

“Now, we close early. What is the essence of standing till late hours and yet, nothing to write home about. No permanent customer now. If you’re lucky to see any man now, just look for extra way of convincing him if you don’t want to sleep hungry. The economy has been terribly bad even before the fasting. That’s why we now find it more difficult to survive.”
 
Another commercial s*x worker, Joy, also corroborated the earlier submission. She added that at times she treks home when she can’t make a dime that can even make up for her transport back home.
 
“This fasting has spoilt business for us as if all men patronizing us are fasting. Even, the non Muslims among them have deserted us since the fasting started. Even most of us settle for as less as N1,500 now so as not to go back home empty handed. Some times, I trek home. And the fasting has just started. That means we still have a long way to go. Coping without customers is now extremely difficult. Some of us even fight because of men now because very few men patronize us. I don’t have any other trade than ‘runs’. I pray the fasting ends, the business will pick up a little.”

15 year old son of mafia boss kills best friend for liking his girlfriend's photo on Facebook


The son of a mafia boss' is facing life in jail for gunning down his best pal who simply 'liked' a Facebook picture of his girlfriend.

Victim Francesco Prestia, 19, was left dead in an olive field in Mileto, Italy, with three bullets in his chest.

His killer has been named in Italian media as 15-year-old Alex Pititto, the son of 'Ndrangheta mafia boss Salvatore Pititto, known as 'El Tio', or the Uncle,El Pais reported

Pititto saw the Facebook 'like' as a "lack of respect", according to local media reports.

victim
 He is reported to have turned himself into police and led them to the olive grove where he had left his friend's body.

Local media reports that the teenage mobster had long suspected his friend had feelings for his girlfriend.


The killer


But when he saw that Francesco had ticked the 'like' button for a new picture on her Facebook profile he called his friend to a meeting in a remote field and gunned him down, reports said.


Pititto's family is one of the lynchpins of Italian organised crime.His father, Salvatore, 49, his mother, Maria Antonia Messiano, his brother and his cousin were arrested in January in a police anti mafia operation called Stammer.

Perez: Zidane can stay for life


Zinedine Zidane can "stay at Real Madrid for life", says club president Florentino Perez after the Frenchman became the first manager to win the Champions League two years in a row with a dominant 4-1 win over Juventus.

Real produced a ruthless second-half display after an evenly matched first 45 minutes and put more goals past Juventus in 90 minutes than the Italian champions had conceded in their previous 12 Champions League games.

The impressive win crowned a remarkable first full season in charge for former Real midfielder Zidane, who led the team to a first La Liga title in five years and delivered the club's first European Cup and league double since 1958.

"Zidane can stay at Real Madrid for the rest of his life," Perez told Spanish radio station Cadena Ser.
"Every Real Madrid fan is so grateful to him, he lifted our level of talent when he arrived in 2001 and was the best player in the world.

"Now he is the best coach in the world. He has been our coach for 17 months but he has done everything possible."

It was Zidane's stunning volley against Bayer Leverkusen that won Real the 2002 title in Glasgow and last year, five months after replacing Rafael Benitez as coach, he breathed new life into a demotivated team and took them to the Champions League trophy.

"I can't say whether I'll stay for the rest of my life but I'm so grateful for the club for everything it has given me," Zidane told a news conference.
"I played here for a long time and I feel part of the  furniture. I'm also lucky to be part of this club and with this squad. Every player in the squad has played their part, and that's been the key factor this season."

Chicago man gets 9 years sentence for Indonesia slaying role


An Illinois man who typed out emoji and other text messages to advise his cousin thousands of miles away on how to kill a wealthy Chicago woman vacationing in Indonesia was sentenced on Friday to nine years in prison.

At Robert Bibbs' sentencing in Chicago federal court, a prosecutor placed the fruit-stand handle used to bludgeon Sheila von Wiese-Mack at a Bali beach resort by the judge's bench. Relatives cried later as prosecutors displayed a photograph of the 62-year-old's body in a suitcase, where her killers stuffed the body.

Bibbs, 26, of Chicago, told Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer he'd been depressed in 2014 when his cousin Tommy Schaefer sought guidance on how he and his girlfriend, Heather Mack — Wiese-Mack's daughter — should commit the murder. For his help, Bibbs hoped for a cut of the mom's inheritance.

"To this day, I don't recognize the person in those messages," he said about his texts, standing in court shackled at the ankles. And he added: "I never expected them to do something so horrific."
Judge Pallmeyer scolded Bibbs for describing his advisory role as "a mistake."

"A mistake is leaving your keys in the car," she told him. "A mistake is not standing by and encouraging an unjustified murder."
Autopsy photos showed to the judge showed Wiese-Mack's body with deep gashes across her face and wounds on her arms that prosecutors say resulted from her desperate bid to fend off the blows.

Within minutes of his cousin texting on Aug. 12, 2014, that the murder was done, Pallmeyer also noted that the men traded casual messages about NBA basketball news.

One of Bibbs' texts incorporated a "high-five" emoji to indicate he approved of their bid to kill Wiese-Mack, who was a widow of highly regarded jazz and classical composer James L. Mack, who died in 2006. Another time, Bibbs said Schaefer could smother Wiese-Mack, texting: "Go sit on her face wit a pillow."

Bibbs pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy to commit foreign murder of a U.S. citizen, which carries a sentence of up to 20 years. But Bibbs lack of a previous criminal record and other factors meant he wouldn't face the maximum penalty. Prosecutors had asked for up to 11 years.

Indonesian authorities arrested Schaefer, now 24, and Mack, 21, after the bloodied suitcase was found in a taxi. In 2015, a court in Indonesia sentenced Schaefer to 18 years in prison for the murder; Mack received a 10-year term for helping.
Wiese-Mack's youngster sister, Debbi Curran, also spoke at Bibbs' sentencing. She described how she had searched the internet the day she learned of her sister's death in Bali — only to see a crime photo online of the suitcase that still contained her sister's body.

"I can't look at a suitcase (now) without thinking of my sister's half-naked body ... in a suitcase," she said. "This will haunt me for the rest of my life."

Bill Wiese told the court about his sister's love of classical music and opera, and how she supported the arts, including by opening her home to aspiring musicians.
"I only wish I could have protected her from this brutal murder," he said. - Associated Press

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The complex story of Polish refugees in Iran


 Taji, a companion parrot, moved about freely in an apartment in central Tehran, occasionally emitting a scream. 

"I don't like to put him in a cage," Helena Stelmach, 86, told  . "I don't like imprisonment."

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Nearly eight decades ago, Stelmach learned her own lessons about imprisonment, exile and the process of seeking refuge. In September 1939, German soldiers invaded Poland from the west and Soviet soldiers occupied the country's east.
The Soviet Union's Red Army deported more than one million Poles to Siberia, and Stelmach's family was among those targeted. Soviet soldiers arrested and imprisoned her father in Poland, while eight-year-old Helena and her mother were forced to leave their home.

"It was midnight when they came for us," Stelmach said. "First, they sent us to a church, and then to Siberia. All we took with us was a suitcase with an old rug, some pieces of jewellery and family photos."

In her diary, self-published in Farsi in 2009 under the title From Warsaw to Tehran, she recalled how Polish refugees died every day in Siberia from the freezing weather, maltreatment and disease. Because of malnutrition, their teeth sometimes fell out of their mouths while they were talking.
The nightmare lasted for two years, until Germany attacked the Soviet Union, prompting Joseph Stalin to change his stance towards the Poles. In 1942, he freed them to move south to Iran, and then to Lebanon and Palestine.

Back in those days, tens of thousands of Poles arrived in the Middle East seeking shelter. Today, however, Poland has slammed the door on a refugee influx going in the opposite direction.

"It's not something that people and politicians like talking about or even mentioning," said Narges Kharaghani, an Iranian director who recently completed a documentary on Polish refugees in Iran during World War II. "I think there has been an untold consensus to forget this topic. After the end of the Second World War, the victorious countries only wanted to talk about Hitler's crimes. Nowadays, considering how the West is treating immigrants, it doesn't make any sense for them to talk about that exodus." 

In 1942, about 120,000 refugeesfrom Poland began their exodus to Iran from remote parts of the Soviet Union.

"When they arrived in Iran, the country was gravely affected by political instability and famine," said Reza Nikpour, an Iranian-Polish historian and member of the Iran-Poland Friendship Association. "Moreover, the Soviets and the Brits confiscated and sent all of the resources from Iran to the frontline in Europe. All of this happened despite the fact that Iran had declared its neutrality when the war started."  

The Poles entered Iran from the port city of Anzali on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. Soviet ships docking in Anzali were packed with starving Polish refugees, and they were the lucky ones: Many others died along the way from typhus, typhoid and hunger. Their bodies were unceremoniously discarded into the sea.

Stelmach was fortunate enough to avoid disease and hunger. Her mother was a nurse, and in return for taking care of the ship captain's sick son during their journey across the Caspian Sea, the young Stelmach received food and care. After two days at sea, they arrived in a new country that was in dire need of food and suffering from bread riots in its capital.

Several sources have documented that when Polish refugees were loaded on to trucks to relocate from Anzali to Tehran, Iranians threw objects at them. The frightened refugees at first thought they were being stoned, but soon noticed that the objects were not rocks, but rather cookies and candies.

"The Polish refugees were nourished more by the smiles and generosity of the Iranian people than by the food dished out by British and Indian soldiers," noted an article by Ryszard Antolak, a specialist in Iranian and Eastern European history whose mother was among the refugees who ended up in Iran.

In Tehran, the refugees were accommodated in four camps; even one of the private gardens of Iran's shah was transformed into a temporary refugee camp, and a special hospital was dedicated to them.

"Polish refugees were well-received in Iran, and they integrated into the host society and worked as translators, nurses, secretaries, cooks and tailors," Nikpour told Al Jazeera. "Some of them also married Iranians and stayed in Iran permanently."
The Polish refugees launched a radio station and published newspapers in their mother tongue. 

They entered into Iran's art scene and, as with other waves of immigration, their food appeared on the menus of their host communities. The pierogi, a Polish dumpling, is still very common in Iran.
It was food that first brought together Stelmach and her husband, Mohammad Ali. Stelmach's mother rented a shop in central Tehran selling Polish dishes; Ali worked in a neighbouring shop while simultaneously taking an English language course.

"Helen knew English and German," Ali recalled with a smile. "I asked her to help me with the English language, and here we are, half a century later, and we are still together."

Many changes have taken place since Stelmach and her mother came to Iran: World War II ended, an Islamic revolution took place in Iran, the Iron Curtain fell, Poland became part of the European Union - yet, throughout all of these years, Stelmach and her mother opted to remain in Iran.
They have visited their former homeland several times, and even received the Order of the White Eagle, one of Poland's highest honours.

In 1983, Stelmach's mother died, and she was buried in the same cemetery as the casualties of the Polish exodus in 1942. Today, a long, high wall separates the cemetery from a sea of matchbox-shaped apartments in one of Tehran's oldest neighbourhoods. 

"There are some visitors still coming to the [cemetery]," caretaker Hamid Tajrishi told Al Jazeera. "A few days ago, a group of old Polish tourists came ... Also, sometimes foreigners come individually, seeking the names of their grandparents in our archive, and then they place a bouquet of flowers on their graves and leave."

The world is sitting on a $400 trillion financial time bomb


Financial disaster is looming, and not because of the stock market or subprime loans. The coming crisis is more insidious, structural, and almost certain to blow up eventually.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts that by 2050 the world will face a $400 trillion shortfall (pdf) in retirement savings. (Yes, that’s trillion, with a “T”.) The WEF defines a shortfall as anything less than what’s required to provide 70% of a person’s pre-retirement income via public pensions and private savings.

The US will find itself in the biggest hole, falling $137 trillion short of what’s necessary to fund adequate retirements in 2050. It is followed by China’s $119 trillion shortfall.

Asset returns have been lower than they were in the past and people are living longer, so some of this shortfall is to be expected. The WEF assumes many people born recently will live beyond 100, which may be a bit much (the Social Security Administration expects most Americans born today to live into their mid-80s). But much of the massive shortfall is baked into retirement systems; setups in which nobody, neither individuals nor the government, saves enough. About three-quarters of the projected comes from underfunded promises from governments, with the rest mostly accounted for by under-saving on the part of individuals.

Michael Drexler, head of financial and infrastructure systems at the WEF, who edited of the report, likens the problem to climate change. “Like climate change, you don’t see the consequences today, but if you do nothing the problem builds up and then there is nothing you can do,” he says. “Today you can still change things, but if you do nothing you’ll wind up with a problem that is three to four times the global economy.”

Forecasting anything accurately in 2050 is tricky. We could get lucky, in a sense, and people might start dying younger. More happily, asset returns might pick up. Some argue that worries are unfounded, because we can still pay pensions today and sort out any future problems if they become acute. Others cite uncertainty around the estimates as reason to delay action today. But uncertainty goes both ways—things could be better or worse, and the worst-case scenario poses much bigger costs than we can bear.

Acting sooner ensures lower costs in the future. Putting money aside for retirement now confers the benefit of compound interest and provides certainty to financial markets that fear ballooning government debts. For example the US Social Security Administration estimates that its shortfall could be fixed with an immediate 2.58-percentage-point tax increase, or a 16% cut in benefits. If the government waits until 2034 (the year it can no longer pay full benefits given its current trajectory) it would need a 3.58-percentage-point tax increase, or a 21% benefit cut. If the shortfall proves bigger than expected, the costs of waiting will be larger, too.

The report offers several suggestions to address the shortfall. Most include ways to boost individual saving by offering retirement accounts to a wider population and expanding financial literacy. The authors advocate diversifying investments beyond traditional stocks and bonds. Drexler says that investing in a diversified portfolio of infrastructure projects can increase returns and enhance economic growth.

Financing a long and comfortable retirement requires contributions from multiple sources, as well as shared risk. “If in 2050 people reach 85 and run out of money they’ll need to rely on Social Security,” Drexler explains. “But if there’s a shortfall the government will be overwhelmed by demand or pensioners living in poverty. We must start educating people now, so we have a good [defined-contribution pension] plans so people have something.”

Still, an overwhelming majority of the short-fall comes from government programs. In order to address this problem, governments must adequately and proactively fund their entitlements too, either by increasing taxes or by cutting benefits. Individuals alone cannot save enough to compensate for the unrealistic promises their governments have made. - Quartz