Essien wins second FA Cup

Ghana’s Michael Essien lasted for an hour at Wembley as Chelsea came from an early goal down to lift the FA Cup in a 2-1 win over Everton on Saturday.

Essien was replaced by Michael Ballack after struggling to keep his head afloat in a see-sawing contest.

The match was less than half a minute old when Louis Saha found the net for the Merseysiders.

It was 13 minutes before Chelsea registered a shot, Drogba’s persistence partially paying off as he laid back to Essien, but the Ghanaian’s left-footed shot was always too high to trouble goalkeeper Tim Howard.

On the 72nd minute, Lampard collected a lay-off from Anelka, assisted by a slight slip as he checked inside Phil Neville – allowing him a couple of extra seconds to get a sight of Everton’s goal and he duly drilled home from 20 yards.

Celebrations for fans and players will go on long into the night as a long and difficult season ends with a sweet victory, and a fifth Final success from nine attempts.

Essien is expected back home to join the Black Stars prepare for next month’s 2010 combined qualifier against Mali in Bamako.

Source: ghanasoccernet – Ghana Soccernet

Church organizes prayer session against cyber fraud

Ho, May 31, GNA – Reverend James Noble Tulasi, Head Pastor of Jubilee Christian Centre at Ho on Sunday called on Christians, especially Pastors to declare war against cyber fraud also known as “sakawa” and all other forms of crime in the society. Read more

Farmer sentenced for stealing goat

Akim Sowedro (E/R), May 31, GNA- The Akim Sowedro Circuit court in the Eastern Region, has sentenced Seth Kwame, a farmer from Akim Ayirebi to a fine of GH¢350.00 for stealing a goat valued at GH¢50.00.

Kwame, 42, who pleaded guilty to the offence will go to prison for 12 months if he failed to pay the fine.

Presenting the facts of the case, Police Chief Inspector Ben Osei Kojo told the court, presided over by Mr. Kofi Akrowiah that complainant Madam Akosua Donkor also a farmer lived in the same vicinity at Akim Ayirebi in the Akyemmansa District.

Chief Inspector Kojo said on May 11, this year, Mad. Donkor returned from farm to detect the theft of her goat from its pen and therefore enquired from Kwame who denied the theft.

He said the following day, Mad. Donkor noticed that there was a burnt fire wood used to dress an animal and again confronted the accused person who denied any knowledge about the theft and the complainant made a report to the police.

The police went to invite Kwame to assist in their investigations but did not meet him. While in the house, the Police Inspector sniffed the scent of a dressed goat. He then confronted Kwame’s wife who was in the house.

Kwame’s wife, a witness in the case, told the police that when she returned from farm, her husband had slaughtered a goat, part of which was used to prepare the food and the rest hidden in the bush and therefore led the police to retrieve the rest.

He said when the accused returned to his house in the evening, people from the town arrested and handed him over to the police where Kwame said in his caution statement that the goat was knocked down by a vehicle.

Source:
GNA

Female teachers sleeping with their students -A Florida Epidemic

If you’re the parent of a teen-aged boy in Florida, you probably would have muttered “not again” while reading your morning newspaper this week.

There on the front page was yet another case of an adult female teacher being arrested for admitting to having had sex with an underage male student. This time the alleged perp was Maria Guzman Hernandez, a 32-year-old instructor at the private Our Lady of Charity school in Hialeah; her victim was 15.

But she just as well could have been the 34-year-old Jacksonville public-school science teacher arrested last month for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old student, once in her SUV; or the 32-year-old St. Petersburg teacher collared in March for allegedly “sexting” nude pictures of herself to an 8th-grade boy; or the 45-year-old teacher at a private Christian academy in South Daytona arrested days before for allegedly having sex with a boy from her class in various Daytona Beach hotels.

Other female teachers in Florida have been booked for the same crime this year — and scores of others have also been arrested or disciplined in the past few years for sexual misconduct with students, according to a recent investigation by the Orlando Sentinel, which noted the problem is rising in the state “among female educators in particular.” Florida, of course, is hardly the only state where female teachers have been nabbed for preying on boys. And nationwide, male teachers still commit far more sexual misconduct than females. A 2004 Education Department study found that about 10% of the nation’s 50 million public-school students had experienced some kind of improper sexual attention from teachers and other school employees; and a 2007 Associated Press report indicated that men were involved almost 90% of the time. What’s more, even in Florida those offenders are a small fraction of the state’s more than 200,000 public and private school teachers. (View the Top 10 Crime Stories of 2008.)
But parents and prosecutors alike are nonetheless asking why the female version of pedagogue perversion seems more common on their peninsula compared to other places. “It certainly seems more prevalent, although we can’t say for sure if it’s worse than other large states,” says Michael Sinacore, the Hillsborough County assistant state attorney who, in 2005, prosecuted one of Florida’s most high-profile cases, that of Tampa middle-school teacher Debra Lafave, a blond siren who pleaded guilty to lewd and lascivious behavior after being charged with having sex with a 14-year-old boy. (In a controversial decision, a judge did not make her serve prison time.) “None of us can really say why at this point.”

Whatever the reason, the crime appears to be getting more cavalier in the Sunshine State. According to police in Hialeah, a mostly Cuban-American enclave adjoining Miami, Hernandez had been having sex with the 15-year-old boy since March, often right in the apartment he shared with his mother (who herself is now under investigation for allowing the abuse to occur).

After the principal at Our Lady of Charity (a private Catholic school that is not formally affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church) began hearing of the illicit relationship last week, she reported it to the state’s Department of Children and Family Services. Police questioned Hernandez last weekend — after she returned from a trip to Disney World with the boy — and she made a taped confession, they say. She was charged with sexual battery on a minor, akin to statutory rape, but has not yet been arraigned.
One theory for the growing number of cases like these, says Sinacore, is what he calls “the more relaxed if not blurred boundary lines between teachers and students as teachers try to communicate with kids in this day and age.” Those kids, as the media have often reported recently, are far less shy about innocent physical contact, like hugging, than their parents were as teens. That can be exploited by any male pervert overseeing a classroom. But it can also embolden predatory female teachers, who experts say are often in emotionally needy states. “The trend with female offenders, more than males, is that they have emotional turmoil going on in their lives,” says Sinacore.

Lafave’s pregnant sister, for example, had been killed by a drunk driver before she began hitting on a student; Hernandez is estranged from her husband. Such problems certainly aren’t excuses for pedophilia; but they can compel women like Lafave to seek out emotional comfort — or a feeling of control that they might not experience in relationships with adult men. (Read about the notorious Mary K. Letourneau teacher-student affair case.)

It doesn’t help that society already brings a double standard to these cases, the notion that somehow it isn’t as harmful for a boy to be seduced by a woman as it is for a girl to have sex with a man. In fact, it’s not uncommon in the wake of news like Hernandez’s arrest to hear morning radio jocks in Florida declare congratulatory high-fives for the boys.

“This isn’t an ‘affair,’ it’s abuse, and we have to shift that paradigm,” says Terri Miller, president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation (SESAME) in Nevada. “We say, ‘Bully for the boy and his conquest of the geometry teacher,’ but that makes it harder for boys to vocalize their victimization.” Indeed, studies by psychologists like Julie Hislop, author of the 2001 book Female Sex Offenders: What Therapists, Law Enforcement and Child Protective Services Need to Know, note that boys who are sexually abused by women often develop alcoholism, depression and their own sexual dysfunctions, including rape, as men.
But why should Florida seem to be experiencing an especially high number of such cases? Are those women, and for that matter the hormonally charged boys they target, somehow egged on by the state’s more sexually relaxed atmosphere, with its sultry climate and scantily clad beach culture? (California also has a high rate of teacher sexual misconduct.) Or are Floridians simply reporting more cases like Hernandez’s? It is a crime in Florida, as in most states, not to; but perhaps the tabloid publicity of the Lafave case has prodded Sunshine State denizens to be more vigilant, to no longer be in denial about cases like these or take them so lightly.

And yet paradoxically, says Sinacore, it might also be engendering more cases. As potential female predators see more and more headlines about teachers like themselves bedding boys, it can seem more acceptable behavior in their eyes — especially when they see that offenders like Lafave get relatively light sentences. (That might be changing, however: a Florida judge recently slapped a two-year prison term on a 28-year-old female teacher in Pensacola convicted of unlawful sexual activity with a 15-year-old male student.)

Activists like Miller are calling for stricter hiring processes for teachers — the kind of psychological and polygraph testing, for example, that police are subject to — and they complain that school boards and teachers unions have blocked legislative efforts to more effectively ferret out potential or actual abusers. But Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the Florida Teachers Association, the state’s major teachers union, insists the group is doing its part to attack the problem and raise teacher awareness. At the same time, he points out, unions also have an obligation to help teachers who are themselves victims of bogus accusations, also a problem. “There needs to be an understanding,” says Pudlow, “that even when a false accusation hits the newspapers, it can ruin a teaching career.”
True enough. But for the moment, Florida seems more concerned with the growing number of valid complaints. (Jacksonville alone saw two female teachers arrested last month.) So it’s no surprise that a Florida congressman, U.S. Representative Adam Putnam, recently co-introduced a bill, the Student Protection Act, to set up a scholastic version of the national sex offender database and prevent teachers like Lafave from getting classroom jobs in other districts or states. Whether or not the legislation passes, it’s a sign of the emotional turmoil that women like her have wrought in their communities.

Source: Time – The Ghanaian Times

Victor Smith: Mills will not meet Obama at Golden Jubilee House

The Presidency has denied media speculations that President Mills would be moving to the Golden Jubilee House to host visiting US President Barack Obama.

Head of Protocol at the Presidency, Victor Smith, told Joy FM that while that idea “has not featured in any discussion” with the visiting team, “there are no immediate plans to occupy that building.”

The Golden Jubilee House which was built by the Kufuor administration was inaugurated early November 2008 as the new seat of government but the Mills-led administration after assuming power insisted there still were issues unresolved over the facility.

The former president spent the last days of his presidency in the magnificent edifice and later conducted then president-elect Prof. John Atta Mills round his supposed new office.

Prof. Mills described the palace as an imposing and lasting monument during the tour led by the former president and the former Chief of Staff Kwadwo Mpiani.

But speaking to Joy News’ Seth Kwame Boateng, Mr Smith stressed that several portions of the edifice are still incomplete.

He denied the speculation which was reinforced by a publication in the Friday edition of The Mail newspaper that President Mills is due to move into the palace as work on the complex is almost complete.

Asked whether the president is likely to move into the house during his tenure, Mr Smith responded in the affirmative and intimated that an earlier discussion with the Chief of Staff points to the fact that “it will happen but ‘when?’ we are not ready to tell.”

Commenting on the state of work on the building, Mr Smith said the president’s residence in the complex was yet to be completed but said “some of the work is quite shoddy and inferior.”

He maintained that failure of government to move into the new residence is borne out of a barrage of issues and that an investigative committee would be constituted to review them.

“There are several reasons why we need to take our time before we move the president into that property,” he added.

According to him, the committee will be asked to “delve into the kind of work that has been done there and the amount of money that has been spent,” Mr Smith hinted.

Story by Fiifi Koomson/Myjoyonline.com

PLB defends ‘El-Classico’ date

The Premier League Board has fixed this season’s local derby between Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko for Saturday 6 June despite protests from fans.

Fans of the two clubs have raised concerns about the date of the crucial match and have been calling for a change of date.

They complain that the Glo Premier League could overshadow the Black Stars joint 2010 Nations Cup/World Cup qualifier against Mali in Bamako a day after.

Hearts beat their arch-rivals 1-2 in their corresponding fixture but Kotoko’s recent resurgence has given the tie a new outlook.

“We met with the clubs’ representatives and they did not raise any objections to all these, so why all these complains,” PLB boss Abra Appiah

“The PLB has a calendar which must be followed to its latter and we discussed all these with the clubs.

“It is not as if Abra Appiah just wakes up and formulates the time table for league matches. We are in constant consultations with the Ghana Football Association and other stakeholder.” he added.

Source: Ghanasoccernet

40-year-old widow awaits BECE results

Though the burning desire of Beatrice Saah, as a kid, to become a professional nurse in future was aborted, because she was forced into marriage by her selfish uncle, the 40-year-old widow still wants to acquire a certificate that she can use to acquire a job.

Narrating her ordeal in an exclusive interview with the Upper East File, Madam Saah said it started when she lost her father in 1983. She was then in the Adakura Continuation Middle School Form 2.

Before the tragic death of her father, Adogapale Adongo, who had been transferred from A-Lang Company in Kumasi as a Chief Cook to Bolgatanga, Beatrice was a Class Five pupil at the Bushein Primary School in Kumasi, where she started her education in 1975.

She then continued her education at the Beo Primary School at Zuarungu, a suburb of Bolgatanga.

It was upon her completion at the Beo Primary School that she gained admission into the Adakura Continuation Middle School, where soon after she was forced into marriage.

While at her so-called husband’s house, Beatrice said she wrote a letter to her uncle to come and take her home to continue her education, but he refused.

As the days passed by, Beatrice lived with a heavy heart in her supposed husband’s house against her will.
In her attempts to find solution to her predicament, she ran from her husband’s place, Dakiu, to Bawku, where she put up with her aunt for some years. She later returned to her uncle’s house.

While staying with her uncle, she continued to plead with him to allow her go back to school, but that never yielded any result, and she later got married to one Robert Saah, a Fire Service Officer.

According to her, Mr. Saah was very cooperative, and so when she requested to go back to school, he agreed with her. By then she had two kids with him.

Madam Saah said just when the man had found a school for her to continue, she picked seed, and when she was nine months pregnant, her husband passed away.

Two weeks after the death of her husband, she delivered a baby boy. Soon after the death of her husband, the man’s brother started maltreating her, beating her up without any provocation.

Disturbed by the predicament of their daughter, her mother and her uncle asked to come and stay with them at Zuarungu, which she did. Madam Saah then gained a job at the Diplomat Restaurant in Bolgatanga as a cook, while staying with her mother and her uncle. Latter on, she rented a room in Bolgatanga, where she stayed with her three children.
She said she later realised that her job as a cook was too demanding, so much that she could not take proper care of her children, as she went to work as early as 6:30 a.m. and closed as late as 10:00 p.m.

The widow said she then went into petty trading, but that did not yield her any dividend, so she stopped and went into rice and maize buying and selling until her church (Baptist) employed her as a Day Nursery teacher.

Presently, Beatrice is a cleaner at the Upper East Regional Coordinating Council.

She told the Upper East File that it was out of the little savings she made from all her trading ventures, working as a cook, teaching and cleaning, that she had been able to pay her children’s school fees.

The first child, Miss Florence Saah, has just completed Bolgatanga Girls’ Senior High School (BOGISS) in the recent West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE). Beatrice was grateful to the former Member of Parliament (MP) for the Bolgatanga Central Constituency, Mr. David Apasera, for assisting her pay Florence’s admission fees, when she gained admission into BOGISS.

If God wills, the second child, Susana Saah, would complete the Sacred Heart Junior High School in April 2010, while the third, Emmanuel Saah, is now in the St. George’s Primary School Class Five.

In spite of all these abuses against Beatrice, she took the boldest step and sat for the 2009 Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE).

Though she admitted the examination was quite though for her, her trust was in the Lord to see her through.

Sounding very religious, Madam Saah said, “when I entered the exams hall and saw my index number, I sat down and wrote on my table, ‘Have faith in God’.”

When asked why she decided to write the exams, and what she intends doing with the certificate? The widow replied, “I just want to get a certificate so that I may get a better job to take care of my children.”

With the high conviction that she would make it to the tertiary level when their results are released, she has already started buying some of the necessary things she would need at school.

Madam Saah made a passionate appeal to religious bodies, non-governmental organisations, philanthropists, and everyone touched by her pathetic situation, to help her give her children a good education, so that they would not suffer what she was going through.

From the beginning of this widow’s life story to the end, shows clearly that where she finds herself today is no fault of hers.

Rather, her childhood desire, dream and ambition of becoming a professional nurse were shut down by her selfish uncle.

There are so many ‘Beatrices’ today, whose stories have not been told, but this particular story has been told in black and white.

The question now is, what will you do to ensure that her kids get quality education, as she is struggling to do?

Upper East File, therefore, believes that you can do a lot, and there is no better time to do that but, now!

Source: Upper East File

Ostrich meat is good for pregnant women

Ostrich meat has been found by animal scientist to reduce the incidence of heart attack. This is because the meat is rich in omega 3 fatty acids which are good for the heart and essentially for growth and development. The meat tastes better than beef; and can practically be used in any meal. Read more

NDC Government to guarantee press freedom

Accra May 31, GNA – Mrs. Zita Okaikwe, Minister for Information, has said that the National Democratic Congress (NDC), government would regarded the media as a partner in development and ensure that press freedom was guaranteed. She advised journalists to be objective and avoid misrepresentation, tribalism and factual errors that could inflame passion.

Mrs. Okaikwe, who was speaking at a two-day workshop for parliamentary press corps in Accra, reminded the media that the escalation of conflicts and chaos in some African countries were due to irresponsible journalism.

The programme that was under the theme: “Reporting Objectively in the Face of Challenges, the Role of the Parliamentary Reporter”, was sponsored by the UNDP. Mr. Edwin Arther, Dean of the Parliamentary Press Corps, said that professionalism and journalistic ethics “had been thrown to the wind and the media today is polarized and is being manipulated by the politicians.”

He said journalists engaging in such practices lacked credibility and the moral right to call others to order. Mr Arthur urged the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA), to initiated measures to prevent negative journalism, which he said was dividing the country.

He said that “Some Journalists have neglected the coverage of other issues and are concentrating on politics giving room for politicians to capitalize on it”.

Mr. Arthur said that with the mushrooming of Journalism training institutions in the country, most of which were producing half-baked media practitioners, the profession could be endangered. Mr. Affail Monney, Vive President of GJA, called on Journalists to specialize in specific areas of reporting because it was “the hall mark of professionalism.”

He said Parliament required elaborate coverage since members represented people of the entire country and urged parliamentary reporters to have a good grasp of how the law making body operated. Mr. Monney advised media houses to maintain their parliamentary reporters for a long period to enable them to learn and be abreast with parliamentary procedures.
Source:
GNA

NDC Storms FM Station

AN IRATE group of National Democratic Congress (NDC) youth, allegedly organized by the Member of Parliament for Techiman South in the Brong Ahafo region, Addai Simon, and led by the Constituency Organizer, Mumuni Saaka, invaded a local radio station, Classic FM, on Thursday May 28, 2009 with cutlasses, knives and sharp implements.

The NDC hoodlums stabbed two workers and vandalized the station, leaving behind tales of woes, as the workers ran helter-skelter for dear life.

A desperate call made by Alhaji Tanko, host of the programme ‘Kanawu’, to the police and a follow-up by one of the workers to report the case, did not receive any response. But for the quick response of the Military Patrol team, lives would have been lost.

The ‘Kanawu’ programme comes off every Thursday to discuss topical issues in the Techiman Municipality and had picked on a story about Hon. Addai who had allegedly threatened to sack National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) officials in the municipality.

The Member of Parliament had earlier on met with women groupings of the Techiman Dagombaline and made certain comments to the effect that the former MCE had stolen one billion old Cedis meant for an electrification project.

He also told his listeners, that a trained teacher by name David Boakye, who had been contributing to the programme, would be transferred to a remote area, where he would not be able to go on air again.

On the staff of the National Health Insurance Scheme at Techiman, the MP said he would make sure they were all dismissed and jailed 20 years each for sabotaging the scheme.
He also indicated that he would do everything possible to make sure the Techiman Market Manager was sacked.

These comments by the MP, were secretly recorded and handed over to the radio station which also played the tape on air.

Callers who contributed to the programme were not charitable to the MP, saying they should have known better than to vote for him.

They accused him of trying to take the law into his own hands and reminded him that in this democratic dispensation, an MP was not expected to make such comments.

At about 8.30 pm when the programme was at its peak, the Constituency Organizer led the mob to the station and ordered them to take action.

When DAILY GUIDE visited the station, blood stains and broken glasses could be seen everywhere.

Meanwhile, some of the assailants who were identified, are being sought after by the Techiman Police.
This latest incident marked the third time the NDC youth had attacked the station. The other two attacks took place during the New Patriotic Party (NPP) era when the youth, who perceived workers of the station to be NPP sympathizers, attacked them.

This time around, they warned that since their party was in power, they would do everything possible to make life very difficult for workers of the station.

From Eric Bawah, Techiman
Source:DailyGuide

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