Author: Publisher

5 Things We Wish Guys Knew About Sex

When it comes to sex, most guys aren’t clueless. In fact, some are experts/national treasures who should teach lessons.

But they don’t all always get it right, and sometimes, that’s just because of a simple misunderstanding.

For instance, most guys know that finishing too quickly isn’t optimal. But according to Swiss research, the real problem most women have with premature ejaculation isn’t that the actual intercourse doesn’t last very long.

It’s that men get so focused on delaying their orgasm that they ignore women’s other needs like kissing, caressing, and other stimulation that’s just as important for women to have satisfying sex.

Sure, guys, we want sex to last longer than two minutes. But what good is it if he stretches it out to 15 minutes of the kind of sex where his eyes are glazed over as he clearly recites baseball statistics to distract himself and basically forgets you’re even there? (Yeah, dudes, we can tell when you do that.)

Besides dealing with the timing, here are a few other things we think could clear up a lot of problems during sex if guys would pay attention to them.

Confidence =/= Aggression. Guys are told over and over to be confident, and that’s good advice.

But sometimes it seems like they equate confidence with force. A guy who confidently goes in for the kiss is good, but a guy who’s too pushy is never, ever OK.

Plus, even when you want him to touch you, hardly any woman I know appreciates a tongue jammed down her throat or a too-tight embrace. Ease up, dudes.

Not every girl likes the same things. We’re all different, but some guys find a move that works for one girl and then stick with it for the next five, despite the fact that those girls clearly aren’t into it.

Follow her lead. We know, we know, it’s confusing when we don’t all like the same things.

But guys would find it much easier to figure out the next girl if they’d just pay attention to her own actions. If she’s doing it, she probably would like you to do it as well.

If she’s pulling away for more than just catching a breath, she doesn’t like it. Don’t do it again.

It’s more about passion than technical skill. Some guys are technically good at sex, sure. We’re grateful for that.

But the best guys in bed aren’t always the ones who seemed like they’ve had a ton of practice. More often, it’s the ones who seem like they really want to be there, in that moment, with you specifically. Guys, it makes all the difference in the world.

What do you wish more guys would or wouldn’t do during sex?

June 13, 2014
ECOWAS to Develope Renewable Energy in West Africa

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has announced that it is working on a common agenda to develop renewable energy across West Africa.

In order to implement renewable energy projects faster, governments of the different West African nations will adopt a common strategy to speed up the adoption and development of different forms of green energy.

Mohammed Wakil, minister of power for Nigeria, said, “We met and agreed to pursue a common agenda that will see various countries working faster to implement renewable energy projects.

This will build on the commitment of the respective country heads who have signed the renewable energy declaration.”

This decision to combine resources and ideas to develop green energy was taken at the United Nations’ Sustainable SE4ALL conference, held in New York and attended by the heads of power departments of 100 countries.

Though at the national level, various African governments were working independently to achieve the most out of renewable energy, Wakil noted that the new initiative would guide and propel faster action in the energy sector overall.

“We all agree on the need to speed up programmes in the sector and exchange ideas. We all accept the importance of green energy and its beneficial effect.

More importantly, we all see the potential of renewable energy as complementary to conventional energy generation,” Wakil said.

With a 170mn-strong population, Nigeria is keen to develop renewable energy to provide citizens with better access to power.

Wakil revealed that the Nigerian government is also working on the National Policy on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (NREEEP).

Other initiatives that have been launched include the National Rural Electrification Strategy and Implementation Plan (NRESIP) and Operation Light-Up Rural Nigeria (OLRN).

africanreview

June 13, 2014
Film About Chechen Massacre Under Stalin Banned

Seventy years after Chechens were deported en masse to Central Asia on the orders of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, a film about the brutalities of the operation has been banned, with officials citing the threat of provoking ethnic enmity.

Russia’s Culture Ministry has also cited insufficient evidence to prove that the dramatic enactment is historically accurate, the film’s producer and director Ruslan Kokanayev said on his Facebook page.

At the center of the dispute is a scene, featured in a movie trailer that the filmmaker has posted online, that shows Chechen prisoners in the mountainous village of Khaibakh— in what was then the Chechen-Ingush Soviet autonomous republic— being locked up in a barn by Stalin’s secret police and burned alive.

Though the film titled “Ordered to Forget” makes no claims to being a historical documentary, Kokanayev has insisted that its plot, including the barn scene, is based on detailed testimony by multiple witnesses — several of whom he named in press interviews— and on historical evidence.

But head of the Culture Ministry’s cinematographic department Vyacheslav Telnov said in a letter to Kokanayev that the ministry had found no evidence in secret police archives to back up the barn incident, calling the film’s depiction a “historical falsehood,” the filmmaker said.

The Culture Ministry has argued that the film is based on a single letter by former secret police General Mikhail Gvishiani “about having been forced to eliminate people there,” Kokanayev told BBC.

But the fim director said the barn scene was based on interviews with several Chechen historians, including university professor Khizri Khadzhiyev and head of Chechnya’s archive service Magomed Muzayev, on the testimony of a survivor, Mumady Elgakayev, who was 8 years old at the time, as well as on a video testimony of a then- deputy justice minister of the region, Dziyaudin Malgasov.

The problem seems to be that the film deals not only with the forced deportation of hundreds of thousands of Chechens in 1944 —which has been acknowledged by the Russian government — but with additional brutalities that were supposedly committed in the process, Kokanayev said in an interview with BBC this week.

“Nobody before had publicly talked about the fact that people who were unfit for transportation were physically destroyed,” Kokanayev was quoted as saying.

The Culture Ministry has cited the barn scene and the movie’s supposed potential for “inciting ethnic enmity” as grounds for denying it a distribution license, Kokanayev said in a Facebook post.

In his video testimony, Malgasov “narrates and shows at the scene how it all happened: ‘I was standing here, the colonel was standing there, and over there was the barn that was set on fire,” and so on,” Kokanayev told BBC. “We have more than enough facts, but despite this, they [the ministry officials] deny those facts.”

Headed by its ultrapatriotic chief Vladimir Medinsky, the Culture Ministry recently also criticized a Russian winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Best Screenplay award – Andrei Zvyagintsev’s social satire titled “Leviathan.” The film sold to 50 countries, but not to Russia.

The issue of Stalin’s forceful deportation of hundreds of thousands of Chechens in 1944 has been a painful issue in the country, with some Russians saying that Moscow should have apologized, and that a display of repentance might have helped avoid the two wars that ravaged Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s.

But aside from a 1992 law that “rehabilitated” ethnic groups repressed by the Soviet regime, no apology has been issued.

A pro-Moscow administration in Chechnya canceled memorial events this year to mark the 70th anniversary of the deportation. The republic’s government said that mourning ceremonies on Feb. 23 – the day the deportation began in 1944 – should not sour the celebrations of Russia’s Defender of the Fatherland Day on the same date, Ekho Moskvy reported.

The denial of a distribution license means that Kokanayev’s film cannot be shown in Russian movie theaters or be broadcast on television.

“A small question for the esteemed protectors of inter-ethnic accord remains: What would you have us do to the 250 witnesses of that crime?” Kokanayev said in a Facebook post.

themoscowtimes

June 13, 2014
Jamaica to Radically Legalise Marijuana

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June 13, 2014
Brazil Wins, Comes Alive for World Cup Despite Protests

Brazil exploded with street parties as its soccer team won the World Cup’s opening game on Thursday but scattered violent protests were a reminder that many locals remain angry over the billions spent to host the tournament.

Millions of fans dressed in Brazil’s canary yellow, green and blue home colors, cheered throughout Brazil’s victory over Croatia in Sao Paulo and continued the revelry into the night, with a heavy presence of police and troops to maintain order.

The country briefly fell silent when Croatia took an early lead, but fireworks, horns and drum beats reached a crescendo as Brazil rallied for a 3-1 win.

Despite worries over traffic and the Sao Paulo stadium, which was completed six months late and wasn’t fully tested before the game, there were no reports of major logistical problems before or after the game.

Brazil’s coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, after the game praised the stadium as “incredible” and “fantastic.”

The smooth first game, and especially the victory, raised the spirits of many who feared the worries of the past year could spoil the party.

“Despite all the controversy, this is the World Cup and we are Brazilians. We need to forget about all that now and cheer,” said Natia Souza, a fan in downtown Sao Paulo.

President Dilma Rousseff, who attended the game and has defended the Cup against criticism ahead of her bid for re-election in October, was jeered by many in the stadium crowd and by fans at big-screen viewings across the country.

wirestory

June 13, 2014
Bolivian Man Dies Aged 123 Years

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June 13, 2014
Obama Threatens Air Strikes Against Iraqi Insurgents

Sunni Islamist militants gained more ground in Iraq overnight, moving into two towns in the eastern province of Diyala, while U.S. President Barack Obama considered military strikes to halt their advance towards the capital Baghdad.

After security forces abandoned their posts, security sources said the towns of Saadiyah and Jalawla had fallen to the insurgents, along with several villages around the Himreen mountains, which have long been a hideout for militants.

Militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) overran the northern city of Mosul earlier this week and have since pressed south towards Baghdad in an onslaught against the Shi’ite-led government.

The Kurds, who run their own autonomous region in the north, have taken advantage of the chaos to expand their territory, taking control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and other areas outside the formal boundary of their enclave.

Kurdish peshmerga forces also deployed men to secure their political party offices in Jalawla before the insurgents arrived in the town. There were no confrontations between them.

The Iraqi army fired artillery at Saadiya and Jalawla from the nearby town of Muqdadiya, sending dozens of families fleeing towards Khaniqin near the Iranian border, security sources said.

On Thursday Obama threatened U.S. military strikes against the Sunni Islamist militants who want to establish their own state in Iraq and Syria.

“I don’t rule out anything because we do have a stake in making sure that these jihadists are not getting a permanent foothold in either Iraq or Syria,” Obama said at the White House when asked whether he was contemplating air strikes. Officials later stressed that ground troops would not be sent in.

Obama was looking at “all options” to help Iraq’s leaders, who took full control when the U.S. occupation ended in 2011.

wirestory

June 13, 2014
Laurent Gbagbo to Be Tried For Election Violence

Former Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo is be tried at the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity during post-election violence in which around 3,000 people were killed, judges said on Thursday.

Gbagbo is accused of plunging his country into civil war rather than relinquish his grip on power after losing a presidential run-off vote in 2010.

In the 131-page ruling, judges found there were “substantial grounds to believe” Gbagbo was criminally responsible for the crimes committed during the violence, singling out supporters of his political rival Alassane Ouattara for “systematic attack”.

Prosecutors say he devised a plan with co-conspirators including his wife Simone, who remains under house arrest in Ivory Coast, and youth leader Charles Ble Goude, currently in ICC custody, to stoke the violence and benefit from it.

“It’s the first victory for the victims of the post-election crisis,” said Issiaka Diaby, who heads a collective of victims of the violence. “From today, people will know you can no longer kill and burn people with impunity.”

Lawyers for Gbagbo could not be immediately reached for comment and it was unclear whether they planned to appeal the judges’ decision that prosecutors had submitted enough evidence to justify pursuing the case.

“The Ivorian Popular Front expresses its astonishment and bitterness faced with a decision that contributes nothing to national reconciliation,” Gbagbo’s political party said in a statement published late on Thursday.

Supporters of Gbagbo and Ble Goude have accused Ouattara, now president, of using the court as a political tool to get rid of his political enemies. They have criticised prosecutors for bringing cases only against Gbagbo and his allies.

reuters

June 13, 2014
U.N. Chief Urges Libya to Hold June 25 Elections as Planned

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged Libya to stick to its plan to hold parliamentary elections on June 25 and defended the United Nations’ goal of organizing a meeting to promote reconciliation among the North African country’s competing factions.

“The secretary-general continues to follow closely the situation in Libya and stresses the importance of the peaceful and timely holding of elections on 25 June,” U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.

“He also commends UNSMIL’s (U.N. Support Mission in Libya) work in the areas of good offices and facilitation of dialogue, which it carries out with impartiality and openness to all national parties concerned,” he added.

Libya has been in a state of near constant turmoil for three years with successive prime ministers struggling for legitimacy, various armed groups paralyzing governance and a loss of vital oil export revenue due to a port blockade by armed rebels.

The U.N. announcement to convene a “dialogue” meeting in Libya was met with criticism from the Tripoli government, which complained that the world body failed to consult with Libyan partners before announcing it.

The dialogue refers to an UNSMIL announcement on Wednesday that it would hold a “dialogue meeting among representatives of Libyan political forces and stakeholders to reach a national agreement, irrespective of their differences and divisions.”

In response to Libyan demonstrations against the United Nations, Libyan government spokesman Ahmed Lamin urged Libyans not to resort to violence against UNSMIL and U.N. special envoy Tarek Mitri.

“We are against any attacks against the U.N. mission,” Lamin said. “We respect the role the U.N. mission has played since Libya’s independence even if we have differences. Any opposition should be peaceful.”

Two years ago, there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt against then U.N. special envoy Ian Martin.

wirestory

June 13, 2014
Ghana’s Economy Loses its Shine

Rising bond yields, mounting inflation and a weakening currency have taken the shine off Ghana, a country until recently hailed as a model for African growth.

An oil boom helped fuel five years of GDP growth above 8% making Ghana an emerging market star, a stable democracy whose population of 25 million was moving steadily into middle income status.

It is now, however, paying a steep price for not coming through with a new tranche of fiscal reforms.

Political consensus is stymied, the public is dismayed by rising costs and the dream of new wealth is on hold.

Analysts put the immediate difficulty down to a delay in announcing reforms, saying it makes it harder for the government to meet its 2014 economic targets and has increased the chance it will eventually need a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

It has also created a perception of policy drift at a time of economic trouble rather than decisive action to shore up gains made during the boom years in which the gold and cocoa exporter started pumping oil.

“The situation is becoming quite critical. There has been a chronic underestimation of the seriousness of the problem by the authorities,” said Angus Downie, head of economic research at Ecobank.

In May, faced with worsening economic indicators and rising calls for action, the government of President John Mahama said it would adopt a “home grown” stabilisation policy rather than resort to an IMF financial assistance programme.

Such a policy would necessarily include spending cuts, steps for increasing revenue and an answer to costly public sector wages, the single biggest contributor to the rise of the deficit in 2012 to 11.8%.

reuters

June 13, 2014