At least four people have been found dead on a cargo ship carrying around 900 clandestine migrants, which was found adrift in Greek waters, the Red Cross says.

The Blue Sky M had apparently been abandoned by its crew and at one point seemed to be heading directly towards the Italian coast on autopilot.

The migrants, believed to be mainly Syrians and Kurds, have been taken to a local school and gymnasium where an identification process is under-way.

The exact number of people on board is still not known. Italian authorities had originally thought there were 600-700 passengers, but by the time the ship reached the port city of Gallipoli, the estimated number had risen.

Police and maritime authorities will investigate how the migrants, including a heavily pregnant woman, came to be hidden on the Blue Sky M as it sailed to the Croatian port of Rijeka.

The Blue Sky is listed as a general cargo ship, flying under a Moldovan flag.

The safety manager of a company hired to provide safety certification for the ship told the BBC he had withdrawn its certificate several months ago after finding it unsafe

Weather conditions in the Ionian sea have been poor for several days, hampering the rescue of those on board the Norman Atlantic ferry which caught fire in the area, killing at least 10 people.

Civil war in Syria and upheaval in Libya have swelled the number of people crossing the Mediterranean in unstable boats this year, often bound for Italy and Greece.

The United Nations refugee agency says 160,000 migrants arrived in Italy using this method by November 2014 and a further 40,000 in Greece. Thousands more have died attempting the journey.

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The Supervising Minister of Information, Doctor Nurudeen Mohammed, has reaffirmed the commitment of the Federal Government to ending insurgency in the north-east.

Dr Mohammed gave the assurance on Wednesday at a news conference on the activities of the government,.

He said the economy had grown tremendously to become the largest in Africa despite the security challenges.

Highlighting the milestones in different sectors such as agriculture, trade and investment, health and housing, the minister said more would be achieved once the security challenges were tackled by the security agencies.

The security challenges the country is grappling with was top on the agenda as the Minister gave the assurance that everything possible was being done to restore sanity.

As the year winds to a close, ushering in the election year, the Minister urged the media to give an objective account of the elections to ensure that the polity was not heated up, something he said could affect the sustainability of growth and development in the coming year.

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(WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT) Bodies are scattered at a cultural center in central Yemen after a suicide bomber kills at least 33 people. Jennifer Davis reports.

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Coffins with the bodies of two AirAsia crash victims arrive at an Indonesian military base in Surabaya. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

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The Jamatu Nasril Islam (JNI) says for peace and progress to be restored back in Nigeria, Government at all levels must wake up to their fundamental Constitutional responsibilities of providing adequate security to the citizens so as to stop the increasing human bombings and killings by the Boko Haram sect.

In a communique issued by the group’s Secretary General, Dr Khalid Abubakar, at the end of its one day security meeting chaired by the Sultan of Sokoto in Kaduna on Wednesday, the forum noted that the current security challenges bedeviling the country persisted largely as a result of the inability of Government to deploy effective strategies to tackle them.

The group also identified endemic corruption, social injustice and flagrant disregard of the rule of law as contributing factors to the security challenges in the nation’s north-east.

It expressed fears that the economic base and development of Nigeria were being systematically and grossly crippled by all forms of insurgencies, from Boko Haram to Cattle Rustling, Oil Bunkering/Theft and other Militant activities.

It expressed concern that the low morale of troops due to inadequate welfare, lack of desired weaponry and failure of Intelligence among other reasons are severely hindering the fight against insurgency.

The Islamic Umbrella body in Nigeria further stated that despite the devastation being caused by the incessant sophisticated bombings evidenced by huge losses of innocent lives and gross destruction of properties, politicians at all levels had regrettably showed very scanty or no concern about the national predicament and anguish, while they were at the same time busy with their political campaigns.

The forum called on the government to consider other alternative means of finding final solution to the prevailing violence and insurgency in the country, such as infrastructural development, youth employment programs and stepping-up the dialogue option, rather than depending on force alone since it …read more      

Book writers in Nigeria have been asked to avoid the use of languages that could heat up the polity in their books.

A former Vice Chancellor (VC) of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Professor Oye Ibidapo-Obe, said that the language of most books in Nigeria could be better if there were reviews and adequate regulations of the content of books.

He was giving his opinion on recent books published by a former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo and Mr Yinka Odumakin.

About three weeks after former President Obasanjo published his book, ‘My Watch’, Mr Odumakin released his book entitled ‘Watch the Watchman’, countering some claims that the President had made in his book.

Professor Ibidapo-Obe commended the writers’ efforts in putting the materials together, emphasising such contents were needed in Nigeria for the sake of history.

“It is part of the things that are missing in Nigeria today.

“But I think we need to do things a little more cautious in terms of the language we use.

“I find it strange, in terms of our culture, that you will say an elder is lying,” he said, apparently referring to Mr Yinka Odumakin’s claims that Mr Obasanjo’s book “is a package of lies”.

“A man has given his own memoirs and we might say, this are the things that are missing.

“I thought it is a question of what we want to achieve. We can still achieve the same thing without casting insults and aspersions. It is not good for our polity I think.

“You know, all of them are politicians and they try to score a point in short time. Unfortunately I have not seen, apart from my initial forefathers in Nigeria, politicians that think long term.

“All of them are looking at the next election and that is a terrible constraint. It does not give us an opportunity to look at …read more      

Afghan politician Shukria Barekzai fears for the loss of hard-won women’s rights, as U.S. led combat mission ends. Jennifer Davis reports.

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Joseph Warungu looks back at Africa’s 2014 highs and lows …read more      

The crisis rocking the All Progressive Congress in Benue state has deepened, as some of the aspirants head to court to challenge the submission of Dr Samuel Ortom’s name as consensus candidate for next years governorship election.

The case filed by two of the five aspirants, who participated in the botched December 5 primary election, Mr Emmanuel Jime and Joseph Waku, is billed for hearing on January 7, 2015 at a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja.

They are seeking the court’s order to compel the party to conclude the primary election it started.

Four of the aspirants had jointly petitioned the party headquarters, alleging lack of level playing grounds and subsequent sidelining from the meeting where Mr Ortom was selected as a consensus candidate of the party.

The Jime campaign organisation said it resorted to the court after the petition jointly signed by its candidate and three others was not addressed by the party. The consensus candidate, however, says due process was followed in his selection.

Despite this claims, the party and some members are locked in counter accusations on the legality or otherwise of the emergence of its governorship candidate.

Some of the candidate in reacting to the claim by Doctor Samuel Ortom, are stuck to their guns, insisting that the botch December 5 primary must be concluded.

Notwithstanding the threat, the APC governorship candidate said he remained the best man for the job, identifying critical areas of socio-economic needs of the state that needed urgent attention.

With this internal division, the much anticipated challenge the APC promised to haul on the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, may be a mirage, as key actors in the opposition party are locked in the supremacy battle.

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Some communities in Nigeria’s north-east are yet to be re-captured from the insurgents because the military wants to reduce civilian casualties during the operations, a military official has said.

A spokesman for the Nigerian Army, Brigadier General Olajide Laleye, told journalists in Abuja on Wednesday that the army was carefully planning strategies to adopt in other to reclaim the territories from the terrorists.

At the press conference, Mr Olaleye also attributed the successes the Nigerian Army had recorded in the on-going counter terrorism operations in the north-east to strict enforcement of service regulations.

He said that the regulations had resulted in the court martialing of over 200 soldiers in the last three months alone.

Some of the soldiers have been sentence to death for different offences.

In the last court martial that was held about a week ago in Abuja, the court delivered its verdict in the case of conspiracy to commit mutiny and incitement of mutiny involving five soldiers.

LCPL Sule Ochehepo was discharged and acquitted, while LCPL Bankole Taiwo, LCPL Bankole Olawale, LCPL Isaiah Olofu and PTE Adebayo Gbenga were convicted and sentenced to death.

The allegation against the soldiers was that they asked “inciting questions” from their Commanding Officer of 81 Battalion when he addressed them on September 14, 2013.

The questions pertained to the corpses of some of their colleagues brought to the camp after they were killed by members of a terrorist group, Boko Haram, due to lack of weapons.

Meanwhile, a rights group, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has asked a group of five United Nations human rights independent experts to individually and jointly request that the mass death sentences imposed on 54 Nigerian soldiers found guilty of …read more