Amachukwu Innocent's Blog

Harmful, mentally damaging phrases kids hear too often. These words might affect a child’s psychological development far into his adult life. Kids have fragile brains. If 10-year-old Jimmy bashes his head against concrete, he’ll suffer greater injury than his 35-year-old dad would under the same conditions. Most of us instinctively know that much. What we often ignore, though, is the fact that kids’ brains are not only physically more fragile but mentally as well. Psychologists liken a child’s brain to soft, impressionable play-doh. Harsh words that Jimmy’s dad could shrug off might stay with his son for years. Those seemingly harmless words might affect his psychological development far into his adult life. What follows is a list of 4 harmful and mentally damaging phrases kids hear far too often. # 1 – “You’re too sensitive.” According to psychologists, many kids are simply born with a more finely tuned nervous system. As a result, they react quickly and intensely to just...

LONDON — Theresa May has been urged to apologise after it emerged that the number of foreign students overstaying their visas is vastly lower than official figures. Conservative and Labour politicians condemned May's policy of including student numbers in migration figures, after officials were found to be   massively overestimating   how many international students stayed in the country after their degree. The latest   ONS migration statistics showed that only 4,600 students remained in the country illegally, far less than the almost 100,000 previously estimated. The prime minister insisted on including international students in immigration statistics during her time as home secretary and has continued this despite disagreement from Chancellor Philip Hammond and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable said: "This debacle happened on Theresa May’s watch at the Home Office. I spent five years in coalition battling her depa...

BEIJING –   A look at recent developments in the South China Sea, where China is pitted against smaller neighbors in multiple disputes over islands, coral reefs and lagoons in waters crucial for global commerce and rich in fish and potential oil and gas reserves: EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a weekly look at the latest developments in the South China Sea, the location of several territorial conflicts that have raised tensions in the region. CHINA SLAMS UK PLAN TO SEND CARRIERS TO SOUTH CHINA SEA China's foreign ministry criticized plans by Britain to send its new aircraft carriers on freedom of navigation missions in the South China Sea to challenge Beijing's expansive territorial claims in the strategic waterway. Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters Friday in response to a question on statements by British officials that "some countries" from outside the region "insist on stirring up trouble while the situation is trending toward calm in the South...

LONDON — After the briefest of pauses in electioneering, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain found her record on security and terrorism under scrutiny on Monday, in the aftermath of a deadly attack in London over the weekend — the third serious terrorist episode in the country in three months. Before she replaced David Cameron as prime minister last year, Mrs. May was responsible for security during a six-year tenure as home secretary, and opposition politicians are highlighting reductions in the number of police officers, including those who are armed, during her tenure. “The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has said that the Met is well resourced, and they are; and that they have very powerful counterterrorism capabilities, and they do,” Mrs. May said at a news conference on Monday. “We have protected counterterrorism policing budgets. We have also provided funding for an increase in the number of armed police officers.” The prime minister also came to t...

London (AFP) - Prime Minister Theresa May's government was to publish its Brexit strategy Thursday after winning a first parliamentary vote on a bill that would empower her to start pulling Britain out of the EU. The so-called "white paper" will outline Britain's negotiating aims as May prepares to officially begin the process of divorce from the European Union following last year's historic referendum vote. In an emotional parliamentary session, MPs on Wednesday approved the first stage of a bill for triggering Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, which would fire the starting gun on two years of exit negotiations. Many pro-EU MPs voiced their anguish at voting against their own deeply-held beliefs to pass the bill, which is expected to receive final approval by the House of Lords next month. One MP was heard shouting "Suicide!" as the result of the vote was announced in the chamber. Pro-Brexit newspapers lauded the result...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's abrupt, late-night firing of the acting U.S. attorney general sends a clear message to his future Cabinet about his tolerance for public dissent. The president will soon have in place like-minded political appointees, not inherited officials like Sally Yates who refused to allow the Justice Department to defend his immigration orders in court. And they will be less inclined to publicly disagree with him. But his haste in firing an Obama administration holdover, his spokesman's admonishment that career employees should "either get with the program or go" and Trump's comments about issues he wants federal prosecutors to investigate all illustrate how he moves aggressively to ensure his directives are carried out, even at agencies like the Justice Department that cherish their independence. Over the decades, there has "been respect for the independence of the Justice Department as a law enforcement...

Downing Street has declared that it will not entertain calls by the public to cancel U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed state visit to the U.K. despite a petition urging the government to do so having reached over a million signatures since Saturday. BBC citing anonymous sources said that the decision was made considering that rejection of Trump's proposed state visit to the U.K., which was announced last week during U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May's trip to the U.S., would be a "populist gesture," apart from the fact that the invitation has already been accepted. "The government's position is that an invitation has been extended to the President and it has been accepted," Downing Street, the official residence of the prime minister, told CNBC. The petition stated that Trump’s entry into the United Kingdom would cause embarrassment to “Her Majesty the Queen." "Donald Trump's well documented misogyny and vulgarity d...

“Yes we can,” he said one last time. “Yes we did.” And the crowd roared. Barack Obama – the son of a Kenyan goat herder and self-described “skinny kid with a funny name” who grew up to become America’s first black president – had come to say goodbye. But while for most of the past eight years it had seemed this night would be one of joy and nostalgia, now it came with a sober note, laden with omens and warnings about a democracy under siege. Obama had hoped to be talking about passing on the baton to fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton. Instead Donald Trump’s stunning victory implied an existential threat and called for him to paint on a bigger canvas. In a “state of our democracy” speech he deftly concentrated his fire not on the president-elect but on the malaise that produce him. In 4,300 words he only mentioned Trump by name once – but delivered much by way of repudiation. Obama dismissed talk of post-racial America, in vogue after his own ascent in 2008, as unrea...

On Tuesday morning the Fifa Council met in Zurcih and voted unanimously to expand the World Cup from 32 teams to 48 teams from 2026 onwards. While there is no doubt that the club game now dominates the footballing landscape in every way, the four-yearly meeting of nations from all around the globe is still a huge deal, particularly for Fifa and their cash reserves. New president Gianni Infantino used the expansion as one of his key marketing tools during his campaign for election and he has now been vindicated. While full details won’t emerge for some time yet, here is everything you need to know about how the biggest sporting event in the world will play out from 2026. First off, how will the format change? The World Cup is currently played between 32 countries with eight groups of four. The top two in each group then advance to the last 16 before the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. Y...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In selecting Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state, President-elect Donald Trump is making the same bet he asked voters to make on him: that a track record of business accomplishment will translate into success in government. Indeed, Trump, the first billionaire businessman to win the White House, is broadly testing that proposition across his administration. He's tapped fast food executive Andy Puzder to lead the Labor Department, billionaire investor Wilbur Ross for Commerce, financier Steven Mnuchin as Treasury secretary and Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn as his top economic adviser. But he's taking perhaps his biggest chance on Tillerson, pulling an executive from the rough-and-tumble world of oil production into the delicate arena of international diplomacy. If confirmed by the Senate — and his deep ties to Russia make that no sure thing — Tillerson will be at the center of discussions over the Syrian civil war, ...