About 30 youngsters were on a golf course, practicing their swing on a hot Saturday morning in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

The students were as young as 3 and as old as 16. For nearly a year, they’ve come out every Saturday to Abuja’s IBB International Golf and Country Club to learn the rules of the game.

Uloma Mbuko guided them with a watchful eye.

“Princess, I want to see you hold your swing,” she said to one of them.  

Mbuko walked up and down the line of students.

She is the lead instructor at this beginners’ golf training program for boys and girls. Nigeria’s premier female golfer, Mbuko has played in tournaments across Africa, winning a place in nearly all of them and garnering about 200 awards. She has been called the Queen of Golf in Africa. After 17 years as a Class A professional, she has risen to a level in sports that few women in Nigeria ever reach.

Ambitious youth

Even from a young age, Mbuko showed ambition, said her sister, Chinyere Mbuko.

“She’s always been a sports lady. She started with football, then handball. So when she was starting, you know, playing golf, I was like, ‘Ah! Serious?’ ” Chinyere Mbuko said with a laugh. “But I knew she could do it.”

The golfer comes from a working-class family, so getting into the sport was not easy.

“We all know that golf is expensive, even though we try to shy away from it. But it is expensive,” Uloma Mbuko said. “Now, to be a member of a golf club in Nigeria, definitely you’re talking about nothing less than 500,000.”

The 500,000 naira ($1,640) covers only the membership. At the IBB club where Mbuko spends most of her time, the fee is upward of 800,000 naira ($2,622). A golfer has to pay for access to practice facilities, training, a caddy, proper clothing and equipment.

WATCH: Nigeria’s ‘Queen of Golf’ Trains Her Potential Successors

More Nigerian golf professionals, like Mbuko, are trying to help young people overcome the financial hurdles of playing golf. Emeka Okatta, president and founder of the West Africa Golf Tour, said the government should help make golf more affordable.

No public courses

“There are no facilities for common people to play golf. We only have absolute member golf courses and a common man cannot walk into here and play. For you to walk in here just to have green fees is 10,000 naira ($32); that’s a lot of money. That’s probably some people’s salary in a month,” Okatta said. “But in other parts of the world, the government provides public golf courses, public drive ranges; but here there’s none and so a common man cannot play. That’s why it’s called a rich man’s game.”

Okatta founded the West Africa Golf Tour to give young golf enthusiasts more opportunities and exposure. Okatta said he was looking forward to collaborating with Mbuko’s Ladies Professional Golfers Association of Nigeria to organize tournaments.

Mbuko created the LPGAN in 2016 because there was no professional golf group for women in Nigeria. That was one of the challenges she faced in her early years. Women who wanted to become professionals had to join associations outside the country. Mbuko joined the Professional Golfers Association in South Africa and was able to attract sponsors for her training.

Mbuko has slowed down from playing in tournaments to focus on training the next generation of Nigerian women to reach the level of success she has attained. They meet several days a week under the LPGAN banner.

Mbuko’s students, like Stella Kadiri and Obiageli Ayodele, all hope to become pros.

“I’m here Monday to Friday. I’ve been playing golf since 2011,” said Kadiri, 25. “I’ve been going to Ladies’ Open, different places, and I’ve been winning. When I see my medal, it inspires me to play more.”

Swing barrel

Mbuko instructs the women to stand in a swing barrel. It’s a metallic circle that goes around the body. The golfer runs the club across it. The prop helps the golfer learn the proper hip rotation to get that perfect swing.  

“Wow, it’s fantastic,” Ayodele said after using the barrel. “The few days that I took lessons from her, I found out that my game changed automatically.”

The 29-year-old golfer is one of the few female players whose husband supports her athletic goals.

“In our country, Nigeria, they find it difficult for the ladies to get into sports because of their husbands — I mean, the ones that are married. They don’t want their wives to be out there. They don’t want them to be in the midst of other men. They feel they will not properly take care of their home,” Ayodele said.

IN PHOTOS: Nigeria’s ‘Queen of Golf’ Mentors Next Generation of Potential Pro Golfers

Mbuko said she wanted to see her ladies playing internationally in the next three years.

“Yes, we are ladies, yes, we are African, but we have what it takes, we have the talent,” she said. “I want to sit down and watch television and see Nigerian ladies competing in ladies’ Masters and say, ‘This is my girl, this is my girl.’ ” 
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From: MeNeedIt

President Donald Trump was expected to sign an executive order Friday authorizing a comprehensive review of the U.S. manufacturing sector to help ensure the security of the nation, according to White House officials.

White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro told reporters Friday industrial supply chains will also be reviewed in the effort to address possible industrial vulnerabilities that may have been created as a result of U.S. factory closings.

Administration officials say there is a dearth of U.S. companies that can repair submarine propellers and circuit boards and produce parts such as flat panels in the event of a war.

“America’s defense industrial base is now facing increasing gaps in its capabilities,” Navarro said, adding that “certain types of military-grade semiconductors and printed circuit boards have become endangered species.”

The order will call for a 270-day review that will be conducted by the Pentagon, along with the departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor and the National Security Council.

The Commerce Department is already reviewing the possibility of imposing steel tariffs for national security reasons as a possible way to reshape international trade without negotiating new agreements with foreign countries.
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From: MeNeedIt

An international energy watchdog warns that the decline in global investment in the oil sector could lead to energy shortages when prices start to rebound. The International Energy Agency says energy investments have declined 20 percent in the past three years as oil profits fell. One analyst tells VOA that is a short-term recipe for long-term problems. Mil Arcega reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

In some parts of the world, the race is on to find the next generation of clean fuel. In the Netherlands, a group of students called Team Fast has developed a unique secret catalyst that can produce hydrogen fuel that is cheaper and cleaner than gasoline. VOA’s Kevin Enochs.
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From: MeNeedIt

A team of forensics experts Thursday opened the tomb of famed Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali to take DNA samples to settle a paternity suit.

In a spectacle that most likely would have pleased the eccentric Dali, a crowd stood outside the Dali Theater-Museum in Figueras, Spain, to watch the experts file in.

The undertaker who embalmed Dali’s body when he died in 1989 told Reuters it would be easy to get a tooth or bone sample because the body would be “in relatively good condition.”

The sample will be sent to Madrid, where it will be analyzed for a match with the DNA in a saliva sample provided by Maria Pilar Abel, 61.

Abel alleges her mother and Dali had an affair in the fishing village where he lived and that it was no secret among the villagers.

The Dali estate is worth about $460 million. But Abel has said she’s not interested in money and only wants to be recognized as Dali’s daughter.

Dali is the world’s most renowned surrealist painter. His picture of melting watches, The Persistence of Memory, is an icon of surrealism.

Dali was was also known for his long, pencil-thin mustache that curled on each end. He delighted in painting mustaches on the upper lips of those he met.
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From: MeNeedIt

China says its large economic collaboration program with Pakistan has entered “the stage of early harvest”, making it the “fastest and most effective” among all projects in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, or BRI.

President Xi Jinping launched the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, two years ago, during his landmark visit to Islamabad.  Cooperation has since cemented decades-old relations between the traditionally close allies.

China is investing about $60 billion on a network of roads, railways, fiber optic cables, energy pipelines, industrial clusters and special economic zones in Pakistan.

The corridor will link China’s western region of Xinjiang to the Pakistani port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, giving the Chinese region the shortest trade route to international markets.

China’s acting ambassador to Islamabad, Lijian Zhao, says that 19 CPEC projects worth about $19 billion are either completed or in progress.

“CPEC, as a pilot and major project of BRI, is now the fastest and most effective project among all the projects under the BRI,” he told a seminar in Islamabad.

He described the cooperation as an “unprecedented undertaking” in the history of China-Pakistan relations.

Economic cooperation connected to CPEC has employed thousands of Pakistanis and officials anticipate tens of thousands more will be hired in the next few years.

Gwadar is in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, where deadly attacks on CPEC workers have taken place in recent months.

Some critics in Pakistan have raised concerns about the viability of CPEC, while others have questioned its implications for the country.  But officials dismiss the skepticism as unfounded.

“Despite (the fact) there is this criticism and noises here and there, after this four years of hard work and joint efforts of both countries, the CPEC has not been affected by those noises.  I can report to you that CPEC is going on very well on the ground,” said the Chinese envoy.  He did not elaborate further.

Most of the CPEC projects are in Baluchistan.  Pakistani officials allege rival India’s intelligence agency is behind the militant attacks in the province in an attempt to sabotage the Chinese investment.

New Delhi denies the charge, but officials there have voiced concerns over the corridor because it passes through the Pakistan-controlled portion of Kashmir, which is divided between India and Pakistan and both claim the Himalayan region in its entirety.

Pakistan’s foreign secretary, Tehmina Janjua, while addressing the conference, explained security challenges facing her country’s project with China.

“May I point out, unfortunately, our eastern neighbor (India) has publicly announced its opposition to CPEC.  The grounds they give for their opposition are baseless,” Janjua noted.

She went on to denounce India’s opposition as “appalling” for a project that she said would bring development and prosperity to the people of Kashmir.

“China and Pakistan stand shoulder to shoulder in developing CPEC on the agreed time lines. We will continue to march ahead with complete determination, ignoring the negative voices and forcefully responding to any threat to CPEC,” said Janjua.

The Pakistani military has deployed thousands of security personnel to guard the projects and protect Chinese experts and workers.

China has also rejected reported U.S. concerns China plans to turn Gwadar into a Chinese naval base.

Major infrastructure projects being established in the Chinese-funded port of Gwadar include a Free Zone and a new international airport that will be operational by next year, officials say.

While new highways are being built and existing roads upgraded to link areas under CPEC, a coal fired power plant in the central city of Sahiwal has recently been completed, adding 1,320-megawatts of electricity to Pakistan’s national grid.

A second 1,320-megawatt coal fired power plant in the southern port city of Karachi is expected to be inaugurated by November at an estimated cast of about $2 billion.

China is also focusing on upgrading Pakistan’s railways, increasing average speeds to about 180 kilometers an hour from the current  average of 80 kilometers an hour, said Chinese envoy Zhao.
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From: MeNeedIt

There are no proven ways to stave off Alzheimer’s, but a new report raises the prospect that avoiding nine key risks starting in childhood just might delay or even prevent about a third of dementia cases around the world.

How? It has to do with lifestyle factors that may make the brain more vulnerable to problems with memory and thinking as we get older. They’re such risks as not getting enough education early in life, high blood pressure and obesity in middle age, and being sedentary and socially isolated in the senior years.

Thursday’s report in the British journal Lancet is provocative – its authors acknowledge their estimate is theoretical, based on statistical modeling. A recent U.S. report was much more cautious, saying there are encouraging hints that a few lifestyle changes can bolster brain health but little if any proof.

Still, it’s never too early to try, said Lancet lead author Gill Livingston, a psychiatry professor at University College London.

“Although dementia is diagnosed in later life, the brain changes usually begin to develop years before,” she noted.

Early next year, a $20 million U.S. study will begin rigorously testing if some simple day-to-day activities truly help older adults stay sharp. In the meantime, Alzheimer’s specialists say there’s little down side to certain common-sense recommendations.

“Increased health of the body supports increased health of the brain,” said cognitive neuroscientist Laura Baker of Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina, who will lead the upcoming U.S. study.

Consider physical activity, crucial for heart health. “If in fact it should also improve the prospects for cognitive function and dementia, all the better,” said Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the U.S. National Institute on Aging and an avid exerciser.

Here’s the latest from this week’s Alzheimer’s Association International Conference on possible ways to guard your brain:

Key risks

A Lancet-appointed panel created a model of dementia risks throughout life that estimates about 35 percent of all cases of dementia are attributable to nine risk factors – risks that people potentially could change.

Their resulting recommendations: Ensure good childhood education; avoid high blood pressure, obesity and smoking; manage diabetes, depression and age-related hearing loss; be physically active; stay socially engaged in old age.

The theory: These factors together play a role in whether your brain is resilient enough to withstand years of silent damage that eventually leads to Alzheimer’s.

Does changing these or other lifestyle factors really help?

Last month, the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine reported there’s little rigorous proof. That report found some evidence that controlling blood pressure, exercise and some forms of brain training – keeping intellectually stimulated – might work and couldn’t hurt.

Why? What’s good for the heart is generally good for the brain. In fact, high blood pressure that can trigger heart attacks and strokes also increase risk for what’s called “vascular dementia.”

And exercising your gray matter may bulk up the brain, whether it’s from childhood education or learning a new language as an adult. The more you learn, the more connections your brain forms, what scientists call cognitive reserve. Some U.S. studies have suggested that generations better educated than their grandparents have somewhat less risk of dementia.

Other factors have less scientific support. Studies show people with hearing loss are more likely to experience memory problems, and have speculated that it’s because hearing loss leads to depression and social isolation – or even makes the brain work harder to deal with garbled sound, at the expense of other thinking skills. But so far there aren’t studies proving hearing aids reverse that risk.

In fact, the strongest evidence that lifestyle changes help comes from Finland, where a large, randomized study found older adults at high risk of dementia scored better on brain tests after two years of exercise, diet, cognitive stimulation and social activities.

Hunting proof

Would those strategies help Americans, who tend to be sicker, fatter and more sedentary than Scandinavians? The Alzheimer’s Association is funding a study to find out, with enrollment of 2,500 cognitively healthy but high-risk older adults to begin next year.

Want to try on your own? They’ll test:

-Walking – supervised, so no cheating. Wake Forest’s Baker puts seniors on treadmills at the local YMCA to avoid bumpy sidewalks. She starts exercise-newbies at 10 minutes a day for two days a week and works up to longer walks on more days.

-A diet that includes more leafy greens, vegetables, whole grains, fish and poultry than the typical American menu.

-Certain brain games and what Baker called an “intellectual stimulation barrage,” outings and other steps that keep people social, not sitting home on a computer, while they exercise their brains.

-Improving control of medical conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes that are toxic to the brain.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

For the first time in the global AIDS epidemic that has spanned four decades and killed 35 million people, more than half of all those infected with HIV are on drugs to treat the virus, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday.

AIDS deaths are also now close to half of what they were in 2005, according to the U.N. AIDS agency, although those figures are based on estimates and not actual counts from countries.

Experts applauded the progress, but questioned if the billions spent in the past two decades should have brought more impressive results. The U.N. report was released in Paris where an AIDS meeting begins this weekend.

“When you think about the money that’s been spent on AIDS, it could have been better,” said Sophie Harman, a senior lecturer in global health politics at Queen Mary University in London. 

She said more resources might have gone to strengthening health systems in poor countries.

“The real test will come in five to 10 years once the funding goes down,” Harman said, warning that countries might not be able to sustain the U.N.-funded AIDS programs on their own.

The Trump administration has proposed a 31 percent cut in contributions to the U.N. starting in October.

According to the report, about 19.5 million people with HIV were taking AIDS drugs in 2016, compared to 17.1 million the previous year.

UNAIDS also said there were about 36.7 million people with HIV in 2016, up slightly from 36.1 million the year before.

In the report’s introduction, Michel Sidibe, UNAIDS’ executive director, said more and more countries are starting treatment as early as possible, in line with scientific findings that the approach keeps people healthy and helps prevent new infections. Studies show that people whose virus is under control are far less likely to pass it on to an uninfected sex partner.

“Our quest to end AIDS has only just begun,” he wrote.

The report notes that about three-quarters of pregnant women with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, now have access to medicines to prevent them from passing it to their babies. It also said five hard-hit African countries now provide lifelong AIDS drugs to 95 percent of pregnant and breast-feeding women with the virus.

“For more than 35 years, the world has grappled with an AIDS epidemic that has claimed an estimated 35 million lives,” the report said. “Today, the United Nations General Assembly has a shared vision to consign AIDS to the history books.” The death toll from AIDS has dropped dramatically in recent years as the wide availability of affordable, life-saving drugs has made the illness a manageable disease.

But Harman said that “Ending AIDS” — the report’s title — was unrealistic.

“I can see why they do it, because it’s bold and no one would ever disagree with the idea of ending AIDS, but I think we should be pragmatic,” she said. “I don’t think we will ever eliminate AIDS so it’s possible this will give people the wrong idea.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Thirty-five European children have died from measles in the past 12 months in what the World Health Organization calls an “unacceptable” tragedy. The deaths could have been prevented by a vaccine. A measles outbreak in Minnesota sent nearly two dozen people to the hospital. Still, some parents in developed countries continue to believe false reports that the measles vaccine causes autism. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Thirty-five European children have died from measles in the past 12 months in what the World Health Organization calls an “unacceptable” tragedy. The deaths could have been prevented by a vaccine. A measles outbreak in Minnesota sent nearly two dozen people to the hospital. Still, some parents in developed countries continue to believe false reports that the measles vaccine causes autism. And now a number of parents are refusing to get their children vaccinated for other diseases as well.

A vaccine ended small pox. Another vaccine is close to ending polio. Vaccines prevent the flu, hepatitis, liver cancer, cervical, oral and penile cancers and a dozen or so other diseases. They have saved countless lives and prevented enormous suffering. Scientists are now working on vaccines for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

Dr. Flavia Bustreo is an outspoken advocate for immunizations at the World Health Organization.

“Immunization and vaccines are the most powerful public health tools that we have,” said Bustreo.

One of the most effective vaccines available, to prevent measles, mumps and rubella, is meeting resistance from many parents because of a debunked study that linked the vaccine to autism. Yet some parents oppose all vaccines. Gabriella Cashman is hoping to start a family soon, and says she is not going to give any vaccines to her children.

“We don’t want anybody to force anything on our children. As parents, it’s our decision whether or not we want to vaccinate,” she said.

In the U.S., the issue goes beyond autism. It’s become a parents’ rights issue. Dr. Peter Hotez is an immunologist who develops vaccines for tropical diseases at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

“In the state of Texas, we now have 50,000 kids whose parents are opting them out of getting vaccinated,” he said.

Dr. Hope Scott says all pediatricians strongly favor vaccines. The topic is very personal to her, because she lost a daughter to pneumococcal meningitis five years before a vaccine became available.

“I’d give a million dollars and my right arm to have the opportunity to vaccinate my child and save her life. … And I didn’t have that opportunity. And I have a hard time understanding why people choose to not protect their children,” she said.

Doctors and other health professionals are sometimes at a loss when it comes to convincing parents that vaccines will keep their children healthy. As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci oversees programs to immunize and care for people around the globe who suffer from infectious diseases. His institute funds the research and development of vaccines for AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.

“I think the approach toward people who are anti-vaccinating is to respect their opinion and don’t denigrate them and don’t criticize them, but try to explain to them on the basis of solid evidence why the risk benefit of vaccines clearly, clearly — very, very heavily — leans toward vaccinating your children,” he said.

In a column written for The Seattle Times newspaper, autism expert Annette Este said health professionals need to “urgently find a way out of our impasse and rediscover the connections between” those who oppose immunizations and the medical community.

The American Medical Association has adopted a policy to continue efforts to promote public understanding and confidence in the safety of vaccines. Some European countries are now making vaccines against measles and other diseases mandatory. Meanwhile, the measles outbreak in Minnesota is not over. A 19-year-old whose parents opposed vaccinations is Minnesota’s 79th case.
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From: MeNeedIt

An impending auction of pop star Madonna’s personal items, including a love letter from her ex-boyfriend the late rapper Tupac Shakur, a pair of previously worn panties and a hairbrush containing her hair, was halted by a judge on Tuesday.

Manhattan state Supreme Court Judge Gerald Leibovitz ordered Gotta Have It! Collectibles to pull 22 items from its rock-and-roll-themed auction scheduled for Wednesday.

The Material Girl had earlier sought an emergency court order saying she was “shocked to learn” of the planned online auction of the Tupac letter and had no idea it was no longer in her possession.

“The fact that I have attained celebrity status as a result of success in my career does not obviate my right to maintain my privacy, including with regard to highly personal items,” Madonna said in court papers. “I understand that my DNA could be extracted from a piece of my hair. It is outrageous and grossly offensive that my DNA could be auctioned for sale to the general public.”

Court papers said the Tupac letter was expected to fetch up to $400,000. Tupac, one of the best-selling rappers of all time, dated Madonna in the early 1990s and died of injuries suffered in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting in 1996.

Madonna, behind such hit songs as “Like a Virgin” and “Vogue,” has sold hundreds of millions of albums. Other Madonna items scheduled to be auctioned were private photographs taken at a bachelorette party at her Miami home, personal letters and cassette tapes of unreleased recordings.

Madonna’s court papers name Darlene Lutz, a former friend, art consultant and “frequent overnight guest” in Madonna’s home when she was “not in residence,” as behind the sale of the property.

A spokesman for Lutz and the auction house said the allegations will be “vigorously challenged and refuted” in court.

“Madonna and her legal army have taken what we believe to be completely baseless and meritless action to temporarily halt the sale of Ms. Lutz’s legal property,” spokesman Pete Siegel told the New York Post. “We are confident that the Madonna memorabilia will be back.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. President Donald Trump is looking for ways to defend American-made products by certifying legitimate U.S. goods and aggressively going after imported products unfairly sporting the “Made in America” label, the White House said on Tuesday.

Trump, who campaigned on reviving the U.S. manufacturing sector, vowed on Monday that his administration would crack down on “predatory online sales of foreign goods” hurting U.S. retailers.

On Wednesday, Trump will discuss with small- and medium-sized manufacturers how to certify their products and keep out foreign counterfeits, a senior administration official told reporters. Their products include gutter filters, flags and pillows.

“There’s just too many examples of foreigners slapping on ‘Made in America’ labels to products and the worst insult is when they do it after they have actually stolen the product design,” the official said.

The United States loses about $300 billion a year to theft of intellectual property ranging from semiconductors to jeans, the official said.

In March, Trump signed an executive order that gave customs officials more authority to stop pirated and counterfeit items, the official told reporters.

The White House plans to work with the private sector on the new certification and verification system rather than create new regulations or spend taxpayer money, the official said, citing as a model the LEED system used to rate the environmental sustainability of building projects.
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From: MeNeedIt