Raging inferno tears through residential blocks in UAE

In what is becoming a disturbing consistency, two residential tower blocks have been hit by large fires, the third such incident in about a year. The fire began in the Ajman One complex, a $735million development of 12 towers with some 3,000 apartments before spreading to a nearby building.

Residents were evacuated, but several have reportedly been treated for breathing problems and minor injuries.

BREAKING NEWS: Hijacker forced EgyptAir jet to land in Cyprus 'so he can deliver a letter to his ex-wife' and demand asylum it is revealed as four passengers are still held on plane

The man holding 11 people, including four 'foreigners', hostage on an Egyptian passenger jet at a Cypriot airport after hijacking the plane with a suicide vest is demanding to give a letter to his ex.

Ibrahim Samaha, 27, has asked negotiators for  political asylum - and to be able to give a letter to his Cypriot ex-wife, local state television reports.

EgyptAir MS181, carrying 62 people, including eight Brits and ten Americans, was en-route from Alexandria to Cairo when it was hijacked, forcing it to land at Larnaca airport, Cyprus. 

Negotiations with the hijacker has since resulted in the release of a majority of the hostages, except for the crew and four foreigners, EgyptAir said.  

The plane diverted to Cyprus after a man on the flight threatened to detonate a belt or a vest containing explosives, Egypt's civil aviation authority said. 

Egyptian newsite Youm7 is reporting that the attacker told the pilot to fly to Turkey but was told they did not have enough fuel.

Gamers Are Going Full Sherlock on Alleged Photos of Nintendo’s New Console

Photos purportedly showing the controller of Nintendo’s next console, codenamed “NX,” have “leaked” onto the internet, and internet supersleuths have been working overtime to determine if they’re legit.

Images surfaced earlier this week, posted by Redditor Perkele37, that were supposedly of the controller for a developer kit of the NX. The controller itself looks like a patent that Nintendo grabbed last year, showing a device with a big screen and no physical buttons.

The folks on Reddit have been hard at work ever since the images were posted, trying both to determine whether they’re the real thing, and where they might have come from. That’s led to dissections of the images showing the controllers. Redditors looked at the keyboard that’s partially in the shot and determined it’s showing the configuration of keys used in Sweden. And then someone compared the tree reflected on the right side of the image to a photo of the building that houses Sweden-based studio Massive, the folks behind Tom Clancy’s The Division.

Codeine abuse spikes in women, teens across North

Once the preserve of hardened criminals, abuse of drugs like codeine and others is on the rise, especially among married women in the North, as well as teenagers. Daily Trust takes a look at the disturbing trend.
Fadeela, 18, is helpless. She is addicted to Tutolin, a codeine-containing cough syrup she consumes at least twice a day. Two bottles per day is what her system demands or it may just shut down. This has done great harm to her life already. She has since dropped out of school and now spends time at Mami Market in the city of Sokoto.
At Mami Market, both male and female addicts - mostly in their twenties - have found a haven where they freely indulge in using a variety of substances to get ‘high’. But Fadeela is fed-up with the control it has over her. It has estranged her family from her. “If you can help me out of this life, I will ever be grateful,” she says.
Recently, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) decried the increasing involvement of married women in drug abuse. The Assistant Superintendant in charge of exhibits at the Sokoto State Command, Ali Baba Mustapha, pointed out at the Jigawa Day celebration that women take cough syrups that contain codeine - an opiate used to treat pain - more than any segment of the society, believing erroneously that it will enhance their sexual appetite. He warned that if unchecked, the trend could lead to marital problems and even divorce. There are, also, attendant health problems.
Daily Trust investigations revealed that the stability of some homes is already being affected by this trend. There is the case of a new bride whose husband discovered under their bed, a carton of Tutolin, usually abused to induce intoxication and supposedly boost sexual drive. It was gathered that the groom took both his wife and the drugs to her parents’ house in anger. Even before then, during the wedding, the loss of a necklace had prompted a search that led to the astonishing discovery that some of the women at the occasion, mostly housewives, had varieties of cough syrup containing codeine in their handbags.

Is Lagos the Most Dangerous Party City on the Planet?

it was midnight on Saturday and the club was heating up. Some men were decked out in black tie, others in Ankara print caftans and matching fezzes. They leaned on the bar in double-breasted sports coats and Windsor knots, and glided across the dance floor in high-dollar sneakers, draped in silver and gold chains, eyeballing women of all shapes and shades who dazzled in designer gowns, slinky dresses, short shorts or miniskirts, by turns accentuating or revealing ample curves, long legs or an elegant neckline.

It was my second night in Lagos, Nigeria, and once more I was in a room of clinking glasses and rumbling bass, a room filled with Nigeria’s upper crust bouncing to indigenous Afro-pop. Everything was washed in hot pink. Beams from a bank of rotating lights glinted off gaslight chandeliers and mirrored ornaments behind the bar. Bottles of Dom Pérignon set in buckets of dry ice left vapor trails as they streamed from the bar in the arms of statuesque African beauties conveying them to booths manned by oil or telecom executives, real estate developers, entrepreneurs and their guests.

Many of them, still in their 20s and 30s, were already millionaires, and all of them were hustlers. This was Lagos (pronounced “lay-gos”) after all, and one conceit is that everybody here has three hustles: An oil mogul may also own a restaurant while bankrolling a recording session with an up-and-coming MC. On the street level it’s no different. In this export-dependent, corrupt, dangerous city, whether you’re living high or low, one job never feels like enough.

Isis 'crucifies Catholic Priest on Good Friday' after Yemen kidnapping

An Indian Catholic priest is believed to have been crucified by Isis on Good Friday. 

There were fears of the Islamist group's intention to kill Tom Uzhunnalil, who was believed have been kidnapped, after rumours circulated online suggesting he may be crucified around the holy festival.

Mr Uzhunnalil is believed to have been taken from a retirement home in Yemen during an attack by Islamic extremists on 4 March. 

The group shot 16 people - including four nuns - during the incident at the home in Aden, which is run by missionaries, the International Business Times India said.

The execution of the priest by the same method the Romans used to kill Jesus – an event marked by Christians around the world on Good Friday – was confirmed at the Easter Vigil Mass by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn of Vienna. 

Donald Trump says UK and Europe are not safe places following Brussels terror attacks

Donal Trump has said Britain and Europe are "not safe places" following the terror attacks, which killed at least 31 people in Brussels on Tuesday. 

The twin blasts at the Zaventeem airport and at the Maalbeek Metro station in the heart of the Belgian capital left more than 360 people injured, with 62 people still in critical conditions. 

Speaking five days after the attack,  US Republican president front-runner said Europe has lots of "very, very severe" problems and that even America is not a safe place for Americans. 

I don't think Bruss - England or I don't think that Europe is a safe place. No, I don't. I think there are a lot of problems in Europe that are very, very severe," he told ABC. 

"When you look at Brussels, when you look at the way they've handled things from law enforcement standpoints, when you look at Paris, when you look at so many other places, no, it's not (safe)".