Four newborn babies found in freezer in South Africa

South African police say they have discovered the frozen corpses of four newborn babies in freezers at a home in the southern city of Mthatha.

Acting on a tip-off, officers raided the house, making the grim discovery.

It's estimated the infants were aged between just one and two months.

Detectives are looking for the owner of the house, a woman away in Johannesburg at the time of the search.

Presidential election postponed until March 28

The Presidential election have been postponed,  chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC)  on Saturday announced a six-week postponement to the presidential elections, due to security concerns

"In consideration of the advice by the security agencies, it will be unconscionable to have elections without adequate security," said elections chairman Attahiru Jega, according to a tweet from the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Attahiru Jega, said security chiefs advised a delay as troops would not be available because of operations against the militants.

"If the security of personnel, voters, election observers and election materials cannot be guaranteed, the lives of innocent young men and women and the prospect of free, fair and credible elections will be greatly jeopardised," he told reporters.

The secret clause in Whitney Houston's will

Whitney Houston and daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown

Reports have popped up about a secret clause in Whitney Hosuton's will in the event of her daughter death.

According to Radar, terms of Whitney’s 1993 Last Will & Testament dictate that if daughter Bobbi Kristina “doesn’t survive her,” the estate shall be divided by her mother, Cissy, and other family members.

Whitney's fortune is an estimated $20millinon. Her mother Cissy is the executor of her will.

The will, which was completed before Whitney divorced Bobby, states,

“If no child of mine survives me: I give all jewelry own at my death to my mother, Emily Cissy Houston, if she survives me; and I give the rest of my tangible personal property to those of my mother, Emily Cissy Houston, my father, John R. Houston, my husband, Robert Brown, my brother Michael Houston, and my brother Gary Houston, as survive me to be amicably divided among them as they might agree, in shares as nearly equal as possible.”

Whitney and Bobbi

Whitney Houston's and Bobby Brown's daughter Bobbi Kristina was found unresponsive in her bath at home last weekend.

She was later placed in a medically induced coma as she fought for her life while her father, husband and other family members keep vigil at the hospital and pray for a miracle

.Please remember her in your prayer always.

Remembering Bob Marley

Robert Nesta Marley

Today,February 6, 2015 would have been the 70th birthday of Bob Marley. Though dead, his legend lives on, nearly 34 years after his death in 1981, the reggae pioneer's songs of love, dissatisfaction, peace, and protest are still as powerful and timely as they were when they originally moved the people of Jamaica and beyond in his heyday.

With the countless uprisings, confrontations, and soul revolutions in the decades since his passing, it's incredible how many of the charged tracks could have been written only a few weeks ago. Some people see most of his songs as being prophetic as they see have much relevance in today;s world events.


Robert Nesta "Bob" Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981) was a Jamaican reggae singer-songwriter, musician, and guitarist who achieved international fame and acclaim. His music career took off in 1963 with the group the Wailing Wailers before they changed their name to Wailers, With his distinctive songwriting talent he forged his own vocal style that gained him worldwide audiences later in life.


The Wailers released some of their earliest reggae records with producer Lee Scratch Perry. After they disbanded in 1974, Marley pursued a solo career which led to the release of the album Exodus in 1977 which established his worldwide reputation and produced his status as one of the world's best-selling artists of all time, with sales of more than 75 million records.He was a committed Rastafari who infused his music with a sense of spirituality.

It is OK to spank children as long as their dignity is maintained - Pope Francis

Pope Francis

Pope Francis said it is OK to spank children to discipline them — as long as their dignity is maintained.

The Pope made this comments during his weekly general audience in the Vatican, where he dealt with the role of fathers in the family.

He outlined the traits of a good father — one who forgives but is able to “correct with firmness” while not discouraging the child.

According to AP news agency, the pontiff commended the behavior of one father who had told him, "I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them."

"How beautiful!" Francis is quoted as having said. "He knows the sense of dignity! He has to punish them, but does it justly and moves on."

Defending the pope's remarks, Rev. Thomas Rosica, who collaborates with the Vatican's press office, said Francis was not condoning violence or cruelty against children, but speaking about "helping someone to grow and mature."

"Simply watch Pope Francis when he is with children and let the images and gestures speak for themselves! To infer or distort anything else ... reveals a greater problem for those who don't seem to understand a pope who has ushered in a revolution of normalcy of simple speech and plain gesture," Rosica wrote.

E-cigarettes can compromise the immune system in the lungs

Electronic cigarette

New study has shown that vapour from e-cigarettes can compromise the immune system in the lungs, leaving them more vulnerable to infection by harmful bacteria and viruses.

Scientists from John Hopkins University in Maryland, exposed mice to e-cigarette vapour twice a day for two weeks at a level designed to proportionally mimic the amount a person who regularly used e-cigarettes would inhale. They then administered some of the mice with an influenza virus and others with the streptococcus pneumoniae bacteria, which is responsible for pneumonia, sinusitis and other illnesses.

Compared to a control group, the mice that had been exposed to the vapour were less able to fight off illness, and some died. Professor Shyam Biswal, senior author of the study, said the findings suggested “e-cigarettes are not neutral in terms of the effects on the lungs” and said that studies should now be carried out on people, particularly those with common lung problems such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which often affects smokers and ex-smokers – the main users of e-cigarettes.

Debate over the public health impact of e-cigarettes remains fierce. They have been shown to be highly effective in helping smokers to quit, and there is a broad consensus that despite some uncertainty over their health impact, they are less harmful than tobacco cigarettes.

However, this very uncertainty means other health experts remain concerned e-cigarettes could pose risks to future generations, particularly given evidence from some countries that they are becoming more popular among young people who have never smoked.

There are also concerns that more tobacco companies are increasingly entering the e-cigarette market, and so, World Health Organisation has recommended they be banned in indoor public spaces – a measure the Department of Health in England has ruled out, but which is being considered by the Welsh government.

The new study, published in the PLOS ONE journal, also found e-cigarettes contain DNA-damaging toxins known as free radicals – but at levels about 1 per cent of that found in a cigarette. “We have observed that [e-cigarettes] increase the susceptibility to respiratory infections in mouse models,” said Professor Biswal. “This warrants further study in susceptible individuals, such as COPD patients who have switched from cigarettes to e-cigarettes or to new users of e-cigarettes who may never have used cigarettes.”

However, Professor John Britton, director of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies said the most important point was that harm to the lungs was less from e-cigarettes than from tobacco.

“The lung is an exquisitely delicate organ and therefore nobody with any common sense would believe that inhaling heated vapour many times a day would be harmless,” he said. “What matters here is not a comparison of the effects of e-cigarette vapour compared with nothing, but the effects compared with those of tobacco smoke.

“Harm to the lungs will be less with electronic cigarettes than tobacco cigarettes, and any smoker who cannot quit using nicotine, and doesn't find medicinal products effective, would be well advised to try an electronic cigarette.”

Green tea helps kill cancer cells while promoting health of normal ones - researchers

A woman picks tea leaves at the Moriuchi Tea Farm in Shizuoka, Japan
(Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

Green tea may help kick-start cycles of cancerous cell death while leaving healthy ones alone, scientists have claimed.

A compound found in the tea called epigallocatechin-3-gallate – or EGCG – could trigger a process of destroying malignant cells, researchers at Penn State’s Center for Plant and Mushroom Foods for Health have found.

While the tea has always been known to contain powerful anti-oxidants that are beneficial to all-round health, new developments have shown that the compound is partly responsible for destroying cells that are likely to lead to growth of deadly tumours.

Associate professor Joshua Lambert said: “EGCG is doing something to damage the mitochondria and that mitochondrial damage sets up a cycle causing more damage and it spirals out, until the cell undergoes programmed cell death.”

As the mitochondria – the membrane of a cell – is killed, the chances of the malignant cells returning or growing is further reduced by inducing oxidative stress while feeding the benefits of anti-oxidant into normal cells.

The presence of sirtuin 3, a protein vital to the health and life-span of cells, is also found to be increased in healthy cells and reduced in cancerous ones with the help of the EGCG compound.

The findings could be vital in developing alternative medicines to chemotherapy, that do not pose harmful side effects, or for formulating effective preventative treatments, researchers believe.

The study has been published in the Molecular Nutrition and Food Research journal.