Buckingham Palace reception: Malala Yousafzai Meets Queen Elizabeth

Pakistani schoolgirl tells monarch about importance of education and gives her copy of book I Am Malala

Malala Yousafzai, who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban, spoke to the Queen about the importance of education when they met at Buckingham Palace on Friday.

The 16-year-old schoolgirl was shot in the head in Pakistan last October after campaigning for the right of girls to go to school without fear in a part of the country where Islamic fundamentalists were trying to impose a strict form of sharia law.

Malala was one of the guests at a reception for Commonwealth, youth and education hosted by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

She was reduced to laughter by a comment from the duke, who quipped that in this country people wanted children to go to school to get them out of the house. Malala covered her face while in a fit of giggles at his joke.

The teenager, accompanied by her father Ziauddin, gave the Queen a copy of her book, I Am Malala, during their meeting in the palace's White Drawing Room, telling her: "It is a great honour for me to be here, and I wanted to present you with this book."

Accepting the gift, the Queen replied: "That's very kind of you."

Malala told the Queen she was passionate about every child having a right to an education, everywhere around the world.

She added: "Especially in this country as well. I have heard about many children that can't go to school, and I want to continue our work."

Mr Yousafzai also spoke to the Queen and duke about their past visits to his home country.

Malala was flown from Pakistan to the UK for emergency treatment after the attack. Surgeons who treated her said she came within inches of death when the bullet grazed her brain in the attack on a school bus.

She was treated at Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham and has now settled in the city with her family. Since the attack she has addressed the United Nations and been nominated for the Nobel peace prize.

Princess Beatrice and the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester were also present at the reception, attended by 350 guests from academic institutions around the world. It included a performance from the Commonwealth Youth Orchestra and choir

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ASUU To Meet Over Strike Tomorrw, Says Union Not Under Any Pressure To Call Off The Strike

THE National Strike Coordinating Committee, NSCC, comprising of principal officers and Zonal Coordinators of Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU will be meeting Saturday to take stock of the ongoing strike embarked by the union that is entering the fourth months.
Meantime, ASUU said that it was not under any pressure to call-off the strike despite what it called sponsored protests and rallies against the union, stressing that before the union decided to embark on the strike, it holistically took objective assessment of the situation.
One of the branch Chairmen of ASUU and member of NSCC who spoke exclusively to Saturday Vanguard on the condition of anonymity said that the meeting will take place in Ondo state and that there would be a situation report including the meeting representatives of ASUU had with the Federal government last week’s Friday.
He said,”We are meeting tomorrow, National Strike Coordinating Committee. Tomorrow is arrival. Our Principal officers and Zonal Coordinators met with government last week Friday, one week today, so we want to discus the outcome of the meeting, after that we will now meet.”
Commenting on the plethora of protests by different groups over the strike which could be mounting pressure on the union to call off the strike, he said that “There is no pressure on us. We look at things objectively and remember that even me as I am talking we cannot suspend the strike.
“We have to get inputs from the branches that is why our strike is always very tight, because before we declared the strike, we have collected inputs from all branch officers in the universities in Nigeria, we collated it, discussed it extensively for two days before we declared the strike.
“And if there is any offer made by government, we have to look at it, that is the principal officers ten of them in number, the zonal coordinators who take over functions of NEC during the strike, so, they will look at what government has offered, brief us the branch chair persons then it is at this point we will now know whether to convene an emergency NEC to look at it holistically.
“By the time they are briefing us, they will also ask us to brief our committee members and take the issue to the congress, it is not a one man show, all these ones they are talking about politics it is not true, the process right from the least of all the lecturers to the highest that is the professor from each branch, we collate all their responses, it is only when they advice us to suspend that we suspend, it is not just one man show.”
He explained that during strike situation, the National Strike Coordinating Committee comprising of principal officers and zonal coordinators always take over the functions of NEC, adding, “every single week, the zonal coordinators will take the information to the various branches who will now take the information to congress, collating information from congress, the branch chairman will take it back to the zonal coordinator, the zonal coordinator takes it back to NSCC, the reason is that NEC has the larger component, we are many.”
He said that the reason behind allowing the smaller number of officers to meet during strike situation was to cut cost.
“Why NEC cannot meet during the strike is because of cost, we are more in number. In NEC we have over 100 people, but NSCC will be between 10 and 20, so it is manageable, we have a channel of communication.”
All attempts made to call the National President of ASUU, Dr. Nasir Fagge failed as he neither picked calls put across his GSM line nor replied the text message sent to him.

BY JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU, Abuja

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Master P's Wife files for divorce After 24 years Of Marriage

 New Orleans Hip-Hop mogul Master P's wife, Sonya Miller has filed for divorce from him citing irreconcilable differences after 24 years of marriage.

According to TMZ, Sonya is seeking full custody of their minor children and spousal support. Sonya is also the mother of popular actor and rapper Romeo Miller.

Two years ago Sonya tried unsuccessfully to sue Master P for an increase in child support after they separated but ended up with only $271.00 a month for all four of their minor children. Now that she's finally divorcing him, he'll definitely be ordered to pay more. Master P used to be worth about $200million based off of the success of his defunct Hip-Hop label, No Limit Record

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ASUU STRIKE UPDATE: ASUU Rejects N600 Billion Offer, Insists On Full Implementation Of 2009 Agreement

Varsity teachers remained adamant last night, saying their strike would go on, despite the government’s shifting of its position. The strike has been on for four months.

More cash has been pledged for projects on the campuses. Besides, the earned allowances due to the teachers have been increased from the initial N30 billion offer, which the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) rejected. The teachers are insisting on the 2009 agreement, which they say President Goodluck Jonathan was part of. Besides, they say, they do not trust the government.

According to a circular by the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Otuoke, Bayelsa State, Prof. Bolaji Aluko, to the staff of the school, quoted yesterday by the news website, Sahara Reporters, the government has pledged to spend N200 billion on the universities in the 2014 budget and the same amount annually for the next three to four years.

This is in addition to the N100 billion already made available this year, but which ASUU has rejected.

The government has also increased to N40 billion, as a first installment, funds for the payment of earned allowances to the striking lecturers – an improvement from the N30 billion previously released.

On the earned allowances, Aluko said: “Government will top it up with further releases once universities are through with the disbursement of this new figure of N40 million. So, Vice-Chancellors are urged to expedite this disbursement within the shortest possible time using guiding templates that have been sent by the CVC,” the circular said.

Aluko said the latest development followed meetings on September 19 and Oct 11 of representatives of the Association of Vice-Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, led by its Chairman, Prof. Hamisu of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) and ASUU representatives led by its President, Dr.Nasir Fagge, with Vice-President Namadi Sambo and Minister of Education Nyesome Wike.

A source in the Ministry of Education last night also confirmed that the meeting took place.

“But the government decided to leave the announcement of the decision to the ASUU chiefs,” the source said.

It was gathered that Sambo urged ASUU to call off the strike, as he apologised for the “take-it-or-leave-it” comments credited to Minister of Finance Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at the beginning of the strike. The Minister did not seem to have been involved in either meeting, perhaps as the government’s way of soothing the feelings of the university teachers.

Other points of agreement at the meetings include:

•Project Prioritisation: Universities will now be allowed to determine their priorities and not be “rail-roaded” into implementing a pre-determined set of projects with respect to the NEEDS assessment. Decisions are not to be centralized;

•TETFund Intervention: The government assured the teachers that the operations of the TETFund will not be impaired, and that the regular TETFund intervention disbursement to universities will continue, unaffected. So the NEEDS assessment capital outlays are in addition to regular TETFund intervention;

•Project Monitoring: A new Implementation Monitoring Committee (IMC) for the NEEDS Assessment intervention for universities has been set up to take over from the Suswam Committee. The new one is under the Federal Ministry of Education and chaired by the Minister of Education. In addition, to build confidence and ensure faithful implementation and prevent any relapse as before, the Vice President will meet quarterly with the implementors to monitor progress.

.Blueprint: ASUU was mandated to submit a blueprint for revitalising the universities to the Vice President.

Prof. Aluko stated that a signed document will soon be issued to itemise the full issues on which the consensus was reached.

But ASUU last night was unimpressed with the new offer. National Treasurer Dr. Ademola Aremu said the offer failed to meet the teachers’ expectations.

He said the offer falls short of the agreement signed with ASUU by the government.

Aremu insisted that ASUU would not end the strike until the 2009 agreement is fully implemented by injecting N500 billion into the universities yearly to shore up the system’s quality.

Aremu, who spoke to our correspondent on the telephone, said any offer below what is contained in the signed agreement, would amount to unilateral repudiation of an agreement the government willingly signed in 2009.

According to the unionist, ASUU is not making any new demand, but a mere implementation of an agreement. He pointed out that the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by both parties in 2009 stated that the government would commit N1.5 trillion to the system in three years.

He said: “ Even if the Federal Government made that promise, it would be a unilateral repudiation of the 2009 agreement. By now, the government should have injected N500 billion. That amounts to N100 billion in 2012 and N400 billion in the current year.

“As a matter of fact, any new commitment from the Federal Government is belated. Implementation of the agreement ought to have started before this year. I don’t think there is any way we can trust this government, going by its past behaviour on this issue.

“The mandate from our principal as at the last time we met was that we won’t end the strike until the agreement is fully implemented.

“We do not need promises again. What we need now is actual implementation. What if they do not release the funds again after making the promise?

“It was this same Mr President that mid-wifed the agreement in 2009 when he was the Vice President. The MoU was in his custody. He studied the agreement well before asking then President Umaru Yar’Adua to sign it. We can’t trust this government

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