QUOTE OF THE MOMENT

"the covenant ladder of climbing high places is high PRAISES" ....so give God the praise all the time he deserves it.  And wait for His miracles in your life.  #Shalom.

POEM OF THE MOMENT : When I say, "I am a Christian" by Carol Wimmer

When I say, "I am a Christian"
I'm not shouting, "I’ve been saved!"
I'm whispering, "I get lost!
That's why I chose this way".
When I say, "I am a Christian"
I don't speak with human pride
I'm confessing that I stumble -
Needing God to be my guide
When I say, "I am a Christian"
I'm not trying to be strong
I'm professing that I'm weak
And pray for strength to carry on.
When I say, "I am a Christian"
I'm not bragging of success
I'm admitting that I've failed
And cannot ever pay the debt.
When I say, "I am a Christian"
I don't think I know it all
I submit to my confusion
Asking humbly to be taught.
When I say, "I am a Christian"
I'm not claiming to be perfect
My flaws are all too visible
But God believes I'm worth it.
When I say, "I am a Christian"
I still feel the sting of pain
I have my share of heartache,
Which is why I seek His name.
When I say, "I am a Christian"
I do not wish to judge
I have no authority...
I only know I'm loved
................
What about you? Are you searching for inner peace and
unconditional love? Are you having a difficult time finding true
peace? If you would like to have a personal relationship with
God through Jesus Christ, you can say this prayer:
Dear Father, I need you. I acknowledge that I have sinned
against you by directing my own life. I thank you that You
have forgiven my sins through Christ's death on the cross for
me. I now invite Christ to again take His place on the throne
of my life. Fill me with the Holy Spirit as You commanded me
to be filled, and as You promised in Your Word that You
would do if I asked in faith. I pray this in the name of Jesus.
As an expression of my faith, I thank You for directing my life
and for filling me with the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Saying this prayer is the first step towards a personal
relationship with Jesus, who will guide and encourage you
every step of the way. We would love to pray for you and
send you further information by e-mail. Please fill out the
form below: Here

HIS WORD: DAILY GRACE INSPIRATIONS

Thanksgiving Can Raise The Dead!
Nov 26, 2015
After Jesus had said these words, He
cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come
forth!” And the man who had been dead
for four days came out of his tomb!
This is one of the greatest miracles that
Jesus performed. Lazarus had been
dead for four days when Jesus raised
him to life. Wouldn’t you agree that
death is indeed an extreme problem?
Having no money in the bank, being
sick and losing your job, bad as they
are, are not as bad as being dead!
But what I want you to see is this: If
Jesus, in the most extreme of problems,
shows us that the solution is still, “Father, I thank You,” then
how much more should we thank God in the midst of the less
serious problems we face. If thanksgiving can raise the dead,
then let us give thanks in spite of the negative circumstances
and we will see victory.
Unfortunately, we tend to do the opposite—murmur and
complain. But murmuring and complaining only magnify the
problem. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is the language of
faith which pleases God. I am not saying that we give thanks
for the problems we have. No, we thank God that He is our
answer and that He has already given every blessing to us.
(Ephesians 1:3)
“But Pastor Prince, what I have is so little.”
My friend, thank God for the little you have and it will multiply.
Jesus thanked His Father for the five barley loaves and two
small fish, a little boy’s lunch, and they were multiplied to
feed more than 5,000 people with 12 baskets full of leftovers!
(John 6:8–13) And notice that when the Holy Spirit talked
about this event again, He specifically mentioned the Lord
giving thanks—“the place where they ate bread after the Lord
had given thanks”. (John 6:23) The Holy Spirit seemed to be
more pleased with the act of giving thanks than the miracle of
multiplication or the 12 baskets full of leftovers.
Beloved, the more you thank God, the more you please Him.
What little you have will be multiplied and whatever is dead in
your life will be raised to life!
Thought For The Day
Thanksgiving is the language of faith which pleases God and
causes miracles to manifest in your life.
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FOUNDATIONAL TEACHINGS
Subscribe To Our FREE Daily Grace Inspirations Email
Continue
John 11:41–42
…And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said,
“Father, I thank You that You have heard
Me. And I know that You always hear Me…
Topics
Faith
Keywords
Faith(ful) , Miracle(s) , Lazarus ,
Thanksgiving
Scripture Reference
John
Get daily grace Devotional from Joseph Prince  here

QUOTE OF THE MOMENT

Aim For the MOON if you miss it you may hit the STAR

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HIS WORD: Catching a Vision of Our Worth in Redemption! by Bishop David Oyedepo

Catching a Vision of Our Worth in
Redemption!
And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a
book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned,
saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is
sealed: And the book is delivered to him that is not learned,
saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I am not learned
(Isaiah 29:11-12) .
We understand from scripture that the vision of God for
everyone in the Kingdom is packaged in the Bible. For
instance, Jesus opened the Book and found this written about
Him:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed
me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal
the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are
bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord (Luke
4:18-19; see also Hebrews 10:5-7).
John the Baptist also discovered God’s plan for his life from
the Book (Matthew 3:3).
It is important to recognize that the Bible is God’s mirror that
shows us who we are and what redemption has made of us
(James 1:22-25).
Let’s examine our worth in redemption from the mirror of the
Bible
By redemption, our lineage has changed: Before we became
born again, we were sons of men but after our encounter with
Christ at new birth, we became sons of God. That means our
lineage changed.
As it is written: But as many as received him, to them gave
he power to become the sons of God, even to them that
believe on his name (John 1:12; see also 1 John 3:2).
Everyone who is born again is a son of God and according to
scripture, the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for
the manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19).
By redemption, every child of God has been disconnected
from his/her old family tree (natural/biological) and grafted
into a new family (spiritual). This makes every child of God a
member of God’s household. The Bible says:
Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but
fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God
(Ephesians 2:19).
The Bible also records: And if some of the branches be
broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in
among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness
of the olive tree (Romans 11:17).
For instance, in agricultural sciences, when the branch of a
tree is grafted into another, it begins to bear fruits according
to the new root. As we all know, everything bears fruit
according to its root. Therefore, the fruits of whatever
obtained in our old roots are not permitted to show forth in
our lives. That means since our roots have changed, our
fruits must also change.
Furthermore, since we have been detached from our old
family tree and grafted into the divine family tree, we are no
longer subjected to the woes and misfortunes of the old
family. Thus, whatever obtains in our natural family no longer
control our lives.
As it is written: Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are
become new (2 Corinthians 5:17; see also Numbers 23:23;
Galatians 3:13-14).
However, until we have an understanding of our new position
and the worth of our salvation, we will continue to partake of
the woes and calamities of our biological families. That is
why salvation is not an ideology but an experience.
Interestingly, by God’s design, we and our households are
ordained to be saved. For instance, after Paul and Silas
engaged in high praises while in prison, and were freed by the
power of God, the Jailer said:
Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy
house (Acts 16:30-31; see also Acts 10:24).
That is why our salvation must not stop with us but extend
to our households. Remember, Joseph found himself in the
palace to preserve lives. Esther was also in the palace for the
rescue of the Jews. Therefore, we have a covenant
responsibility to stand in the gap for the salvation, divine
interventions and breakthroughs of our lineage (Genesis
45:5-7; Esther 4:14-16; Ezekiel 22:30; Obadiah 1:21; 1
Timothy 5:8).
By redemption, we are seated in heavenly places with Christ
Jesus, far above the realms of torture and torments of life:
Redemption has repositioned us for sweatless triumph over
all circumstances of life.
As it is written: Behold, I give unto you power to tread on
serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy:
and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19).
It is also written: Even when we were dead in sins, hath
quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;).
And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in
heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6; see also
Ephesians 1:20-21).
We need a consciousness of our new position in Christ to
command dominion, because our liberty is the product of our
insight.
We are redeemed to live in health and vitality: One of the
principal offers of redemption is health and vitality. This is
because health is one area the devil torments humanity most.
We understand from scripture that healing was a vital aspect
of Jesus’ messianic ministry. Wherever He went, He healed
the sick and delivered the oppressed, and His disciples did
same. The Bible says:
How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and
with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that
were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him (Acts
10:38).
Moreover, Jesus Christ paid the price for our total health on
the cross and any resistance against it, is an assault on our
Redeemer.
As it is written: For ye are bought with a price: therefore
glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s
(1 Corinthians 6:20).
It is also written: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried
our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God,
and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he
was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace
was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed (Isaiah
53:4-5; see also Matthew 8:16-17; 1 Peter 2:24).
By redemption, we are entitled to health and vitality. This is
because Jesus Christ is not only the Saviour of our soul but
our body also (Ephesians 5:23).
Concerning the Israelites’ journey in the wilderness, the Bible
records:
Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot
swell, these forty years (Deuteronomy 8:4).
…and there was not one feeble person among their tribes
(Psalms 105:37).
According to scriptures, every redeemed child of God is a
spiritual Israelite and that entitles us to the same order of
health and vitality the Israelites enjoyed in the wilderness
(Exodus 15:26; Romans 2:28-29; Galatians 3:29).
Moreover, as ambassadors of Christ, divine health is our
portion and we understand from scripture that a faithful
ambassador is entitled to healthy living (Proverbs 13:17).
But, who is an ambassador? An ambassador is one who is
involved in reconciling the world to God.
As it is written: Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as
though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s
stead, be ye reconciled to God (2 Corinthians 5:20).
As we engage in soul-winning and interceding for souls to be
saved, with zeal and zest, we are renewing our health
insurance with God and His integrity is committed to keep us
fit so we can keep bearing fruits (Exodus 23:25-26; John
15:2; Ephesians 6:6).
Therefore, for sustainable health and vitality, we must:
Live on the Word: It is written: My son, attend to my words;
incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from
thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are
life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh
(Proverbs 4:20-22).
The Word is the principal balm in Gilead and nothing
rejuvenates like revelation from the Word of God. Also, the
Word of God is the source of real joy. As it is written: Thy
words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto
me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy
name, O Lord God of hosts (Jeremiah 15:16).
We must, therefore, place ourselves on a daily dose of the
Word. That means, the Word of God must be our medication
every day. As we do so, it shall be health to our flesh
because God’s nature is immune to sickness. Thus, the more
addicted we are to the Word, the healthier we live (Job
33:21-25; 2 Peter 1:4).
Engage the mystery of the Communion: The Communion is
God’s toast for our total health. From scripture, we
understand that the life of the flesh is in the blood. Thus, as
we partake of Jesus’ Blood via the Communion, we imbibe
His life, which empowers us to live like Him (John 6:48-58; 1
Corinthians 11:23-30).
Engage the mystery of the anointing oil: The anointing oil
contains healing, health and wholeness virtues. When Jesus
called His twelve disciples, He gave them power against
unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of
sicknesses and diseases. That power represents the oil. The
Bible records that:
And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many
that were sick, and healed them (Mark 6:13; see also Mark
6:7).
That means the anointing oil contains healing virtues that
keep our bodies healthy and strong. Also, inside the oil lies
the Spirit of the Lord in a mystery. David was anointed with
oil and the Spirit of the Lord came upon him from that day.
The Bible says: But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus
from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that
dwelleth in you (Romans 8:11; see also Isaiah 10:27;
Matthew 3:11-12).
The oil also contains quickening forces, ordained to keep the
organs of our bodies in perfect condition (Luke 3:16-17).
Keep speaking right: Death and life are in the power of the
tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof
(Proverbs 18:21; see also Psalms 81:10-14).
When we are filled with the Word, we speak right words
naturally, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth
speaks (Matthew 12:34).
Rejoice in the Lord always: Apostle Paul admonished, Rejoice
in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice (Philippians 4:4;
see also 1 Thessalonians 5:16).
It is also written: A merry heart doeth good like a medicine:
but a broken spirit drieth the bones (Proverbs 17:22; see also
Proverbs 18:14).
Maintaining the joy of the Lord in our lives is key to healthy
living. We must understand that until the devil tampers with
our joy, we cannot be afflicted. Therefore, the more joyful we
are, the healthier we live.
We must recognize that God sends us Apostles and Prophets
to open the seal of the Word to us by the Holy Ghost, so we
can see into God’s plan and purpose for our lives as
contained in His Book. Therefore, I decree the eyes of your
understanding to be opened to see your worth in redemption
as contained in the mirror of the Word in Jesus’ name!
Remain ever blessed!
Jesus is Lord!
Prophetic Blessings!
Every oppression of the wicked on your life and family
returns back to the sender!
That assault on your life ceases in Jesus’ name!
Every shame and reproach in your lineage is terminated!
I decree full restoration of your physical dignity!
Whatever has been tormenting your family from
generation to generation ceases today!
Henceforth, begin to live an oppression-free life!
The siege over your life and family is declared over in
Jesus’ name!
I declare your family and lineage blessed!
David Oyedepo Ministries

Review: Jesus love you ACCEPT him into you life

Historical View on Babylon 1

The empire of Hammurabi: 18th century BC
Babylon is just one among many small kingdoms in
Mesopotamia when Hammurabi becomes its ruler in about
1728 BC. He defeats his rivals in the region, and establishes
a society based on the rule of law (famous also for the skill
of its astronomers and mathematicians ). By the end of his
reign the whole of Mesopotamia is under central control for
the first time since the empire of Sargon, 500 years earlier.
The society over which Hammurabi presides is vividly
reflected in the famous code of laws, the Code of
Hammurabi , which towards the end of his life the king
orders to be inscribed on a stele, or upright stone pillar -
the only way, at the time, of publishing them.     

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Opinion/Article: My Wish For Nigeria At 55, By Joe Igbokwe

My Wish For Nigeria At
55, By Joe Igbokwe
This is our chance to prove to the
world that we did not go to school
to learn how to accumulate what
we do not need. This is not the time
to stand and stare. This is not the
time for bedtime stories and
frivolities. This is the time for us to
tear ourselves away from primitive
accumulation of wealth to service
delivery. This is the time to grow
up. This is my wish for Nigeria at
55.
Make no mistake about it, there is a finger of God in the
coming of President Buhari at this critical moment in the
nation’s history after making attempts at the presidency
in 2003, 2007, and 2011, before eventually clinching it at
the Saturday March 28, 2015 election. If one is not deep
in the knowledge of how God works, one might not
know the full meaning of President Buhari’s emergence
at a time like this to do what he is doing presently.
There was nothing PDP and its massive followers, with
deep pockets, did not do to stop him but their efforts
were not enough to stop an idea whose time had come.
Those who did not follow the campaigns fully may not
have known what the wreckers, the ruiners and
destroyers of Nigeria did to stop him, but the grace of
God and the love of God for Nigeria stopped them. Huge
amounts of money in various currencies were deployed,
mercenaries were hired to execute the worst form of
hate campaign ever known in the history of Nigeria, the
instrumentality of the full weight of the federal
government was fully deployed, the full weight of
Nigeria’s security forces were fully and maximally
employed to stop President Buhari but God had other
plans for Nigeria. Despite these onslaughts and
desperation to change the will of God for Nigeria, this
will of God prevailed. I may not have been a Reverend
Father, Prophet, an Evangelist, General Overseer, Bishop
or General Superintendent etc. but I saw it coming. God
has not finished with Nigeria and this I know. Promotion
does not come from the East, West, North or South. God
is the judge. He chooses whom to lift up and whom to
bring down, thus says the Holy Book.
Since Buhari came to power, I have seen a lot of deep
changes which ordinary eyes may not see. The 2015
election losers may not see this because they are still
very angry. Inordinate ambition and hate have
beclouded their senses of reasoning as they continue to
curse the day President Buhari was born. But a deep
look into Nigeria’s political landscape shows evidence of
change to new ways of doing things. Saboteurs who
have sworn that our power sector and the downstream
energy sector will never work have distanced
themselves from the vandalisation gas pipelines, power
plants and refineries. Looters of our common patrimony
are now thinking twice because a new sheriff is in town.
The fear of President Buhari is now the beginning of
wisdom. Yes, they have stolen enough for the real
owners to take notice but they have not stolen our
brains and ideas. With brains and ideas, we can start
the process of rebuilding Nigeria. I am told that ideas
are better than money at high levels of offices.
It is historic and prophetic that the new ministers’ list
will be out when Nigeria is clocking 55 on Thursday,
October 1, 2015. My late father once told me that you
will never get up unless you have fallen down. I have an
idea of the kind of people who will make the ministers
list in a Buhari-led government, and I know that 70
percent of them know that we have to build Nigeria now
or never. We have the political will to recover every
kobo stolen and use it effectively to rebuild our
dilapidated infrastructure, create jobs in millions,
rebuild our institutions, feed our teeming population
and provide maximum security for all Nigerians. This is
not the time to eat but time for work and work for the
good of the commonwealth.
The massive flow of Refugees from
Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Africa
into Europe should serve as
teachable moments for Nigerian
leaders. Boko Haram insurgents,
MASSOB and Niger Delta Militants
remain a big challenge to all of us,
especially our leaders. We must rise
above ethnic sentiments in order to
confront these threats and build a
new Nigeria of our dream.
Last week, I took a tour of the Tin Can Island and
Apapa, Lagos, where the federal government makes
trillions every year via the seaports. One only needs to
see the state of the roads in these gold mines to know
the state of minds of those who serve as managing
directors of companies at the Tin Can Island, the Apapa
Wharf, the flour mills, banks, oil companies, etc. There
is no law that prevents them from building roads that
lead to their premises. What stops them from doing the
needful by mounting pressure on the Federal Ministry of
Works to use part of the huge amount they cart away
every year to fix those roads? Roads in Apapa and Tin
Can Island remain not only an eye sore, but a head sore,
a mind sore, a soul sore and a heart sore.
The incoming ministers must know that it is not business
as usual. President Buhari has a mission and time is not
on his side. It therefore behoves all of them to key in to
the president’s vision of zero tolerance for corruption.
They have no choice. Nigeria has gone full cycle in
stupidity and selfishness and this is the time to rebuild
or we all perish.
Nigeria at 55 with Muhammadu Buhari as President
provides a new window for all of us to sit up and be
smart in re-ordering the way we do things in Nigeria.
The massive flow of Refugees from Libya, Iraq, Syria,
Yemen, Africa into Europe should serve as teachable
moments for Nigerian leaders. Boko Haram insurgents,
MASSOB and Niger Delta Militants remain a big
challenge to all of us, especially our leaders. We must
rise above ethnic sentiments in order to confront these
threats and build a new Nigeria of our dream. Diversity
remains our greatest assets in this country and should
we bungle it as a result of greed, selfishness, ethnic
preoccupation and political irresponsibility, woe betide
us.
President Buhari’s team should be our first eleven for
the first time in 55 years, and we demand nothing less. I
pity any minister who will go there to mess up when
the need is greatest. I pity any minister who will go
there to think it is business as usual. I pity any minister
who will go there to betray the president and the
country. This is our chance to prove to the world that
we did not go to school to learn how to accumulate what
we do not need. This is not the time to stand and stare.
This is not the time for bedtime stories and frivolities.
This is the time for us to tear ourselves away from
primitive accumulation of wealth to service delivery.
This is the time to grow up. This is my wish for Nigeria
at 55.
Joe Igbokwe is Publicity Secretary of the Lagos
Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

DID YOU KNOW???

For correct display,
hold your device
in LANDSCAPE mode.

Bolivia was not a landlocked
country . Its territory on the
Pacific Ocean was lost to
Chile after the War of the
Pacific in the mid 19 th
century .

Novelist Stephen King
said that Professor
Umbridge from the
Harry Potter series is
the "greatest make-
believe villain to come
along since Hannibal
Lecter."

The Irish surname prefix
"Mac " means " son of , " while
"O " means " descendant of . "

Americans spend
an average of US
$ 1 ,092 on coffee
each year .

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POEM OF THE MOMENT: Oh Arise! by Afolabi Oluwaseun

Oh Arise!
the city with wonderful natural resources
country where all are loyals
Country where peace and unity are our watchwords
leaders are serving in good manners
masters and servants are truthful to themselves
in seeing each other as brothers and sisters
children future are care for in parents' hands
fundamental human rights lives
country where thou gripe corruptions
education is the greatest for all of us

Oh Arise!
suddenly you become a changer
country where no one wants to be truster
what a quarter!
servant is not trustworthy to master
helpless is useless to the helper
parent is not faithful to the shaver
thy children are not surer
everyone now become a gamer
when will the future be brighter?
corruption reignth in thy pastoral

Oh Arise!
thy lie is thy precision
peace and unity is not fashion
fundamental human rights in consumption
shedding of blood is thy ambition
not even planning for the next generation
frivolous has taken our education
to be educated is not for misappropriation
different between truth and lie is truth use you intuition
let us try to be positive exception
arise to the positive direction
Oh Arise! to peace and justice oh ye nation
Oh Arise!

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Review POEM OF THE MOMENT: From CALVARY by Afolabi Oluwaseun

From CALVARY by Afolabi Oluwaseun

Purer and whiter than snow, thicker than water
protecting His people from the plans of the doer
if not for the one thing I wonder
for the love of the working ways wonder

where will you and I be for the past years?
from age to age, years to years
performing great job for the righteous
unto those that know His ways

cleanse away all predicament
with a genuine heart of commitment
guiding for the future betterment
putting the antagonist into an open embarrassment

have you been to cleanse by it?
Cos it is great to experience such work of it
the one that freely flows from Calvary home
that can never dry till years to come

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Quote of the moment

The Lord thy God is unchangeable changer
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HIS WORD: SEPTEMBER 2015: I AM A CHILD OF DESTINY BY BISHOP DAVID OYEDEPO

HIS WORD: SEPTEMBER 2015: I AM A CHILD OF DESTINY BISHOP DAVID OYEDEPO

SEPTEMBER 2015: I AM A CHILD OF DESTINY Heaven on Earth greetings to you in Jesus’ name. The month of August has been a month of consolidation of the gains of the wonder-double agenda across over church network worldwide with multiplying signs & wonders and diverse miracles among the people. To God alone be all the glory! God said to me clearly on Monday, 24th August 2015, “I have come down to make Heaven on Earth a reality both for this church and for the individual members”. We are indeed in our season of divine visitation as a Commission; my prayer is that we all stay spiritually awake to maximize the blessedness of this visitation both as a church and as individuals (Amen) – Gen. 28:16-17 But what is the Spirit of the Lord saying for this new month of September? The purpose of every product is determined in the factory and not in the market. It is God that has made us and not we ourselves – Ps. 100:3 We are fearfully and wonderfully made – Ps. 129:4 Therefore, our purpose on earth has been pre-determined from above – Jer. 1:5/ Gal. 1:15 When one is saved, he steps into God’s predestination agenda – Eph. 1:5-6 Redemption makes the believer a child of destiny – Rom. 8:29-30 From scriptures, we discover that we have: A glorious destiny (2Pet. 1:3/ Rom. 8:29-30). An enviable destiny (Gen. 26:12-14/ Gal. 4:28). A royal destiny (Rev. 5:10/ Gen. 17:5-7/ Gal. 3:17). A prosperous destiny (Gen. 12:1-3/ Gal. 3:13-14). A mountain top destiny (Deut. 28:1/ Matt. 5:13-16/ Rev. 22:16). Therefore, as children of God, we are not permitted to live as destitutes. But vision is the spiritual access to our glorious destiny – Joel 2:1-11 Because walking in God’s plan makes us unstoppable, irresistible, unmolestable and unassaultable – Is. 45:1-3/ Joel 2:10 From scriptures, we understand that we can access the vision of the Lord through Four (4) major ways, among others: Through the Word of God (The Bible) – Is. 14:24/ Ps. 119:105 Through Heavenly Vision – Joel 2:28/ Acts 16:8-10/ Acts 26:19 Through identification of our unique giftings – Matt. 25:14-30/ Gen. 41:15-16 Through the passion that burns within us as in Nehemiah – Neh. 2:2-3 However, we must understand that God’s plan for every man only becomes accessible after one is born again. As it is written; “Unto you (redeemed) it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without (unbelievers), all these things are done in parables” – Mk. 4:11 (See also: 1Cor. 2:14/ Rom. 8:29-30) In the light of the above, we should set ourselves for continuous access to God’s next levels plan as it relates to each of us through the encounter with the word this month. Therefore, the prophetic theme for the month of September 2015 is: I AM A CHILD OF DESTINY – Rom. 8:29-30 Recommended books of the month authored by David O. Oyedepo include: In Pursuit of Vision Understanding Divine Direction Understanding Vision and those authored by Kenneth E. Hagin: Following God’s Plan for your life How to be led by the Spirit Remain ever blessed! Jesus is Lord! David O. Oyedepo

QUTOE OF THE MOMENT

All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people. Alexis Carrel Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_wisdom.html#kBM8cAuGOQtLx2jV.99

HISTORICAL VIEW ON : Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa's devotional work among the poor and dying of India won her the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979. She is also known as the founder of the only Catholic religious order still growing in membership. Early life Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, Macedonia, on August 27, 1910. At the time of her birth Skopje was located within the Ottoman Empire, a vast empire controlled by the Turks in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Agnes was the last of three children born to Nikola and Dranafile Bojaxhiu, Albanian grocers. When Agnes was nine years old, her happy, comfortable, close-knit family life was upset when her father died. She attended public school in Skopje, and first showed religious interests as a member of a school society that focused on foreign missions (groups that travel to foreign countries to spread their religious beliefs). By the age of twelve she felt she had a calling to help the poor. This calling took sharper focus through Mother Teresa's teenage years, when she was especially inspired by reports of work being done in India by Yugoslav Jesuit missionaries serving in Bengal, India. When she was eighteen, Mother Teresa left home to join a community of Irish nuns, the Sisters of Loretto, who had a mission in Calcutta, India. She received training in Dublin, Ireland, and in Darjeeling, India, taking her first religious vows in 1928 and her final religious vows in 1937. One of Mother Teresa's first assignments was to teach, and eventually to serve as principal, in a girls' high school in Calcutta. Although the school was close to the slums (terribly poor sections), the students were mainly wealthy. In 1946 Mother Teresa experienced what she called a second vocation or "call within a call." She felt an inner urging to leave the convent life (life of a nun) and work directly with the poor. In 1948 the Vatican (residence of the pope in Vatican City, Italy) gave her permission to leave the Sisters of Loretto and to start a new work under the guidance of the Archbishop of Calcutta. Founding the Missionaries of Charity To prepare to work with the poor, Mother Teresa took an intensive medical training with the American Medical Missionary Sisters in Patna, India. Her first venture in Calcutta was to gather unschooled children from the slums and start to teach them. She quickly attracted both financial support and volunteers. In 1950 her group, now called the Missionaries of Charity, received official status as a religious community within the Archdiocese of Calcutta. Members took the traditional vows of poverty, chastity (purity), and obedience, but they added a fourth vow—to give free service to the most poor. The Missionaries of Charity received considerable publicity, and Mother Teresa used it to benefit her work. In 1957 they began to work with lepers (those suffering from leprosy, a terrible infectious disease) and slowly expanded their educational work, at one point running nine elementary schools in Calcutta. They also opened a home for orphans and abandoned children. Before long they had a presence in more than twenty-two Indian cities. Mother Teresa also visited other countries such as Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Australia, Tanzania, Venezuela, and Italy to begin new foundations. Dedication to the very poor Mother Teresa's group continued to expand throughout the 1970s, opening new missions in places such as Amman, Jordan; London, England; and New York, New York. She received both recognition and financial support through such awards as the Pope John XXIII Peace Prize and a grant from the Joseph Kennedy Jr. Foundation. Benefactors, or those donating money, regularly would arrive to support works in progress or to encourage the Sisters to open new ventures. By 1979 Mother Teresa's groups had more than two hundred different operations in over twenty-five countries around the world, with dozens more ventures on the horizon. The same year she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. In 1986 she persuaded President Fidel Castro (1926–) to allow a mission in Cuba. The characteristics of all of Mother Teresa's works—shelters for the dying, orphanages, and homes for the mentally ill—continued to be of service to the very poor. In 1988 Mother Teresa sent her Missionaries of Charity into Russia and opened a home for acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS; an incurable disease that weakens the immune system) patients in San Francisco, California. In 1991 she returned home to Albania and opened a home in Tirana, the capital. At this time there were 168 homes operating in India. Mother Teresa. Reproduced by permission of AP/Wide World Photos. Mother Teresa. Reproduced by permission of AP/Wide World Photos . Saint Teresa Despite the appeal of this saintly work, all commentators remarked that Mother Teresa herself was the most important reason for the growth of her order and the fame that came to it. Unlike many "social critics," she did not find it necessary to attack the economic or political structures of the cultures that were producing the terribly poor people she was serving. For her, the primary rule was a constant love, and when social critics or religious reformers (improvers) chose to demonstrate anger at the evils of structures underlying poverty and suffering, that was between them and God. In the 1980s and 1990s Mother Teresa's health problems became a concern. She suffered a heart attack while visiting Pope John Paul II (1920–) in 1983. She had a near fatal heart attack in 1989 and began wearing a pacemaker, a device that regulates the heartbeat. In March 1997, after an eight week selection process, sixty-three-year-old Sister Nirmala was named as the new leader of the Missionaries of Charity. Although Mother Teresa had been trying to cut back on her duties for some time because of her health, she stayed on in an advisory role to Sister Nirmala. Mother Teresa celebrated her eighty-seventh birthday in August, and died shortly thereafter of a heart attack on September 5, 1997. The world grieved her loss and one mourner noted, "It was Mother herself who poor people respected. When they bury her, we will have lost something that cannot be replaced." Legacy of Mother Teresa In appearance Mother Teresa was both tiny and energetic. Her face was quite wrinkled, but her dark eyes commanded attention, radiating an energy and intelligence that shone without expressing nervousness or impatience. Conservatives within the Catholic Church sometimes used her as a symbol of traditional religious values that they felt were lacking in their churches. By most accounts she was a saint for the times, and several almost adoring books and articles started to canonize (declare a saint) her in the 1980s and well into the 1990s. She herself tried to deflect all attention away from what she did to either the works of her group or to the God who was her inspiration. The Missionaries of Charity, who had brothers as well as sisters by the mid-1980s, are guided by the constitution Mother Teresa wrote for them. They have their vivid memo ries of the love for the poor that created the phenomenon of Mother Teresa in the first place. The final part of her story will be the lasting impact her memory has on the next generations of missionaries, as well as on the world as a whole. For More Information Egan, Eileen. Such a Vision of the Street. Gar den City, NY: Doubleday, 1985. Le Joly, Edward. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1983. Mother Teresa. In My Own Words. Liguori, MO: Liguori Publications, 1996. Muggeridge, Malcolm. Something Beautiful for God. New York: Walker and Company, 1984. Spink, Kathryn. Mother Teresa: A Complete Authorized Biography. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1997. Read more: http://www.notablebiographies.com/Mo-Ni/Mother-Teresa.html#ixzz3lFiUT9o5 HOPE YOU'VE GAINED FROM THAT ?

OPINION/ARTICLE: Facing the Facts About African Illegal Immigration to Europe, By Olusegun Obasanjo

Facing the Facts About African Illegal Immigration to Europe, By Olusegun Obasanjo

Main News About Us Contact Premium Times Blogs Home Democracy and Governance Bámidélé Upfront Jibrin Ibrahim Okey Ndibe Economy Ifeanyi Uddin Issues of the Day Adeolu Ademoyo Aribisala on Tuesday Dele Agekameh Pius Adesanmi Politics Ebeneezer Obadare Femi Fani-Kayode Garba Shehu Hannatu Musawa Zainab Suleiman Okino Guest Columns Faith Article of Faith Sunday Ogidigbo Friday Sermon Elevated Sight Home » Guest Columns » Opinion » Facing the Facts About African Illegal Immigration to Europe, By Olusegun Obasanjo Facing the Facts About African Illegal Immigration to Europe, By Olusegun Obasanjo Premium Times September 8, 2015 Facing the Facts About African Illegal Immigration to Europe, By Olusegun Obasanjo2015-09-08T08:20:02+00:00 Guest Columns, Opinion 3 Comments Olusegun Obasanjo The sure way of prevention is the elimination of conflict and abject poverty and creation of employment in the countries where migrants originate. In the meantime, let the African Union (AU) form a bulwark to stem the spate of migrants from Africa across the Mediterranean to Europe. It can be done. Sometime in September 2000, Libyan leader Col. Muammar Ghaddafi called me and brought to my attention the presence in Libya of thousands of Nigerian illegal immigrants attempting to make their way to Europe. These illegal immigrants, almost entirely consisting of young men and women, who were prevented from using the facilities of Libya to sail to Europe, had constituted themselves into a menace. Some of them were involved in crimes and anti-social activities such as credit card fraud, burglary, drug trafficking and even violent crimes such as armed robbery. There was tension between the illegal immigrants and local Libyan communities resulting in the immigrants often being subjected to violent attacks. I agreed with Ghaddafi on the need to take immediate action to repatriate the immigrants to Nigeria. In this regard, I instructed the National Security Adviser to raise a team of officials from the Security Agencies to proceed to Libya to document all the illegal immigrants from Nigeria. I also approved funds for an aircraft to be chartered to evacuate them to Nigeria. The team worked assiduously over a period of two months with the cooperation of their Libyan colleagues. They travelled all over Libya and brought out to safety and provided protection to Nigerians who were in hiding for fear of attacks from local Libyan gangs. A camp was provided by the Libyan authorities where the illegal immigrants were accommodated, provided with basic necessities and documented. I also spoke to other West African leaders whose citizens had found their way to Libya and encouraged them to accept responsibility for the repatriation of their citizens back from Libya. Those who lacked the capacity to effect the repatriation were assisted by Libya and Nigeria – Libya by providing additional aircrafts and Nigeria by accepting the return to Nigeria of citizens of ECOWAS countries, who I then arranged to be transported to their countries from Lagos. I had instructed our special team in Libya to extend support, documentation and protection for our ECOWAS brothers. …it is undeniable that the vacuum created by the lack of effective governance in Libya precipitated by the direct action of Western powers is responsible for the current anarchy in that country. The current inflow of African refugees into Europe from Libya is a direct consequence. The government in Libya which in 2000 acted humanely and responsibly to stem the outflow of illegal migrants to Europe has been replaced by unconscionable bandits and terrorists who have forcibly seized the instruments of state to facilitate human trafficking and illegal migration for their own material benefit. This process resulted in the return of over 17,000 Nigerians back from Libya. Considerable numbers of illegal immigrants were also repatriated back to other countries by air and by road. According to reports I received, Ghana evacuated 5,000 of its citizens and Sudan 3,000. Africans crossing the Mediterranean With the cooperation of the Nigerien and Libyan authorities, our security agencies acquired the necessary intelligence on which action was taken to dismantle several human trafficking rings operating in Lagos, Benin City, Sokoto, and Kano in Nigeria, Agadez, Maradi, Dogondoutchie and Niamey in the Republic of Niger and Gatroun and Sabha in Libya. It is thus a matter of considerable sadness for me when I witness the current wave of desperate youths risking their lives to travel to Europe and the futile efforts of European countries to deal with those who have already set sail or have even reached shores of the European continent. Although there are strenuous efforts to deny it, it is undeniable that the vacuum created by the lack of effective governance in Libya precipitated by the direct action of Western powers is responsible for the current anarchy in that country. The current inflow of African refugees into Europe from Libya is a direct consequence. The government in Libya which in 2000 acted humanely and responsibly to stem the outflow of illegal migrants to Europe has been replaced by unconscionable bandits and terrorists who have forcibly seized the instruments of state to facilitate human trafficking and illegal migration for their own material benefit. It is time for the international community and particularly African leaders to take a good look at the factors responsible for the death and destruction with the Mediterranean by illegal migration of youths from Africa and address the causes in an honest, responsible, humane and holistic manner, rather than the current futile attempt to half-heartedly deal with the symptoms rather than the cause. The sure way of prevention is the elimination of conflict and abject poverty and creation of employment in the countries where migrants originate. In the meantime, let the African Union (AU) form a bulwark to stem the spate of migrants from Africa across the Mediterranean to Europe. It can be done. Mr. Obasanjo is a former President of Nigeria.

DID YOU KNOW???

Snakes use their tongues to smell. Catnip is a natural cockroach repellent. An eerie prophecy attributed to Nostradamus regarding the 9/11 attacks was in fact fabricated by a college student in 1997 to show how easily such prophecies can be misused. Anne Frank wrote most of her diary in the form of letters to a person named "Kitty." "Tinku" is a festival in Bolivia where people beat each other for 2 or 3 days straight.

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HISTORICAL VIEW: ON ADVENT CELL PHONE

This history focuses on communication devices which connect wirelessly to the public switched telephone network. The transmission of speech by radio has a long and varied history going back to Reginald Fessenden's invention and shore-to-ship demonstration of radio telephony. The first mobile telephones were barely portable compared to today's compact hand-held devices. Along with the process of developing more portable technology, drastic changes have taken place in the networking of wireless communication and the prevalence of its use. Predecessors Before the devices that are now referred to as mobile phones existed, there were some precursors. In 1908 a Professor Albert Jahnke and the Oakland Transcontinental Aerial Telephone and Power Company claimed to have developed a wireless telephone. They were accused of fraud and the charge was then dropped, but they do not seem to have proceeded with production.[2] Beginning in 1918 the German railroad system tested wireless telephony on military trains between Berlin and Zossen.[3] In 1924, public trials started with telephone connection on trains between Berlin and Hamburg. In 1925, the company Zugtelephonie A. G. was founded to supply train telephony equipment and in 1926 telephone service in trains of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the German mail service on the route between Hamburg and Berlin was approved and offered to 1st class travelers.[4] Karl Arnold drawing of public use of mobile telephones In 1907, the English caricaturist Lewis Baumer published a cartoon in Punch magazine entitled "Predictions for 1907" in which he showed a man and a woman in London's Hyde Park each separately engaged in gambling and dating on wireless telephony equipment. Then in 1926 the artist Karl Arnold created a visionary cartoon about the use of mobile phones in the street, in the picture "wireless telephony", published in the German satirical magazine Simplicissimus.[5] The portrayal of a utopia of mobile phone in literature dates back to the year 1931. It is found in Erich Kästner's children's book The 35th of May, or Conrad's Ride to the South Seas: “ A gentleman who rode along the sidewalk in front of them, suddenly stepped off the conveyor belt, pulled a phone from his coat pocket, spoke a number into it and shouted: "Gertrude, listen, I'll be an hour late for lunch because I want to go to the laboratory. Goodbye, sweetheart!" Then he put his pocket phone away again, stepped back on the conveyor belt, started reading a book... ” —Erich Kästner The Second World War made military use of radio telephony links. Hand-held radio transceivers have been available since the 1940s. Mobile telephones for automobiles became available from some telephone companies in the 1940s. Early devices were bulky and consumed high power and the network supported only a few simultaneous conversations. Modern cellular networks allow automatic and pervasive use of mobile phones for voice and data communications. In the United States, engineers from Bell Labs began work on a system to allow mobile users to place and receive telephone calls from automobiles, leading to the inauguration of mobile service on 17 June 1946 in St. Louis, Missouri. Shortly after, AT&T offered Mobile Telephone Service. A wide range of mostly incompatible mobile telephone services offered limited coverage area and only a few available channels in urban areas. The introduction of cellular technology, which allowed re-use of frequencies many times in small adjacent areas covered by relatively low powered transmitters, made widespread adoption of mobile telephones economically feasible. One of the earliest fictional descriptions of a mobile phone can be found in the 1948 science fiction novel Space Cadet by Robert Heinlein. The protagonist, who has just traveled to Colorado from his home in Des Moines, receives a call from his father on a pocket telephone. Before going to space he decides to ship the telephone home “since it was limited by its short range to the neighborhood of an earth-side [i.e. terrestrial] relay office.” Ten years later, an essay by Arthur C. Clarke envisioned a "personal transceiver, so small and compact that every man carries one." He wrote: "the time will come when we will be able to call a person anywhere on Earth merely by dialing a number." Such a device would also, in Clarke's vision, include means for global positioning so that "no one need ever again be lost." Later, in Profiles of the Future, he predicted the advent of such a device taking place in the mid-1980s.[6] US TV series Get Smart (1965-1970) depicted spy gadgets with mobile telephones concealed in random objects, including shoes. In the USSR, Leonid Kupriyanovich, an engineer from Moscow, in 1957-1961 developed and presented a number of experimental models of handheld mobile phones. The weight of one model, presented in 1961, was only 70 g and could fit on a palm.[7][8] However, in the USSR the decision at first to develop the system of the automobile "Altai" phone was made. [9] In 1965, Bulgarian company "Radioelektronika" presented on the Inforga-65 international exhibition in Moscow the mobile automatic phone combined with a base station. Solutions of this phone were based on a system developed by Leonid Kupriyanovich. One base station, connected to one telephone wire line, could serve up to 15 customers. [10] The advances in mobile telephony can be traced in successive generations from the early "0G" services like MTS and its successor Improved Mobile Telephone Service, to first generation (1G) analog cellular network, second generation (2G) digital cellular networks, third generation (3G) broadband data services to the current state of the art, fourth generation (4G) native-IP networks. Early services MTS In 1949 AT&T commercialized Mobile Telephone Service. From its start in St. Louis in 1946, AT&T then introduced Mobile Telephone Service to one hundred towns and highway corridors by 1948. Mobile Telephone Service was a rarity with only 5,000 customers placing about 30 000 calls each week. Calls were set up manually by an operator and the user had to depress a button on the handset to talk and release the button to listen. The call subscriber equipment weighed about 36 kg.[11] Subscriber growth and revenue generation were hampered by the constraints of the technology. Because only three radio channels were available, only three customers in any given city could make mobile telephone calls at one time.[12] Mobile Telephone Service was expensive, costing 15 USD per month, plus 0.30 to 0.40 USD per local call, equivalent to about 176 USD per month and 3.50 to 4.75 per call in 2012 USD.[11] In the UK there was also a vehicle based system called "Post Office Radiophone Service"[13] it was launched around the city of Manchester in 1959, and although it required callers to speak to an operator, it was possible to be put through to any subscriber in Great Britain. The service was extended to London in 1965 and other major cities in 1972. IMTS AT&T introduced the first major improvement to mobile telephony in 1965, giving the improved service the obvious name of Improved Mobile Telephone Service. IMTS used additional radio channels, allowing more simultaneous calls in a given geographic area, introduced customer dialing, eliminating manual call setup by an operator, and reduced the size and weight of the subscriber equipment.[11] Despite the capacity improvement offered by IMTS, demand outstripped capacity. In agreement with state regulatory agencies, AT&T limited the service to just 40,000 customers system wide. In New York City, for example, 2,000 customers shared just 12 radio channels and typically had to wait 30 minutes to place a call.[11] Radio Common Carrier A mobile radio telephone Radio Common Carrier [14] or RCC was a service introduced in the 1960s by independent telephone companies to compete against AT&T's IMTS. RCC systems used paired UHF 454/459 MHz and VHF 152/158 MHz frequencies near those used by IMTS. RCC based services were provided until the 1980s when cellular AMPS systems made RCC equipment obsolete. Some RCC systems were designed to allow customers of adjacent carriers to use their facilities, but equipment used by RCCs did not allow the equivalent of modern "roaming" because technical standards were not uniform. For example, the phone of an Omaha, Nebraska–based RCC service would not be likely to work in Phoenix, Arizona. Roaming was not encouraged, in part, because there was no centralized industry billing database for RCCs. Signaling formats were not standardized. For example, some systems used two-tone sequential paging to alert a mobile of an incoming call. Other systems used DTMF. Some used Secode 2805, which transmitted an interrupted 2805 Hz tone (similar to IMTS signaling) to alert mobiles of an offered call. Some radio equipment used with RCC systems was half-duplex, push-to-talk LOMO equipment such as Motorola hand-helds or RCA 700-series conventional two-way radios. Other vehicular equipment had telephone handsets and rotary dials or pushbutton pads, and operated full duplex like a conventional wired telephone. A few users had full-duplex briefcase telephones (radically advanced for their day) At the end of RCC's existence, industry associations were working on a technical standard that would have allowed roaming, and some mobile users had multiple decoders to enable operation with more than one of the common signaling formats (600/1500, 2805, and Reach). Manual operation was often a fallback for RCC roamers. Other services In 1969 Penn Central Railroad equipped commuter trains along the 360 km New York-Washington route with special pay phones that allowed passengers to place telephone calls while the train was moving. The system re-used six frequencies in the 450 MHz band in nine sites.[12] European mobile radio networks This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (April 2012) In Europe, several mutually incompatible mobile radio services were developed. West Germany had a network called A-Netz launched in 1952 as the country's first public commercial mobile phone network. In 1972 this was displaced by B-Netz which connected calls automatically. In 1966 Norway had a system called OLT which was manually controlled. Cellular concepts See also: Cellular network A multi-directional, cellular network antenna array ("cell tower") In December 1947, Douglas H. Ring and W. Rae Young, Bell Labs engineers, proposed hexagonal cells for mobile phones in vehicles.[15] At this stage, the technology to implement these ideas did not exist, nor had the frequencies been allocated. Two decades would pass before Richard H. Frenkiel, Joel S. Engel and Philip T. Porter of Bell Labs expanded the early proposals into a much more detailed system plan. It was Porter who first proposed that the cell towers use the now-familiar directional antennas to reduce interference and increase channel reuse (see picture at right) [16] Porter also invented the dial-then-send method used by all cell phones to reduce wasted channel time. In all these early examples, a mobile phone had to stay within the coverage area serviced by one base station throughout the phone call, i.e. there was no continuity of service as the phones moved through several cell areas. The concepts of frequency reuse and handoff, as well as a number of other concepts that formed the basis of modern cell phone technology, were described in the late 1960s, in papers by Frenkiel and Porter. In 1970 Amos E. Joel, Jr., a Bell Labs engineer,[17] invented a "three-sided trunk circuit" to aid in the "call handoff" process from one cell to another. His patent contained an early description of the Bell Labs cellular concept, but as switching systems became faster, such a circuit became unnecessary and was never implemented in a system. A cellular telephone switching plan was described by Fluhr and Nussbaum in 1973,[18] and a cellular telephone data signaling system was described in 1977 by Hachenburg et al.[19] Emergence of automated services The first fully automated mobile phone system for vehicles was launched in Sweden in 1956. Named MTA (Mobiltelefonisystem A), it allowed calls to be made and received in the car using a rotary dial. The car phone could also be paged. Calls from the car were direct dial, whereas incoming calls required an operator to locate the nearest base station to the car. It was developed by Sture Laurén and other engineers at Televerket network operator. Ericsson provided the switchboard while Svenska Radioaktiebolaget (SRA) and Marconi provided the telephones and base station equipment. MTA phones consisted of vacuum tubes and relays, and weighed 40 kg. In 1962, an upgraded version called Mobile System B (MTB) was introduced. This was a push-button telephone, and used transistors and DTMF signaling to improve its operational reliability. In 1971 the MTD version was launched, opening for several different brands of equipment and gaining commercial success.[20][21] The network remained open until 1983 and still had 600 customers when it closed. In 1958 development began on a similar system for motorists in the USSR.[22] The "Altay" national civil mobile phone service was based on Soviet MRT-1327 standard. The main developers of the Altay system were the Voronezh Science Research Institute of Communications (VNIIS) and the State Specialized Project Institute (GSPI). In 1963 the service started in Moscow, and by 1970 was deployed in 30 cities across the USSR. Versions of the Altay system are still in use today as a trunking system in some parts of Russia. In 1959 a private telephone company located in Brewster, Kansas, USA, the S&T Telephone Company, (still in business today) with the use of Motorola Radio Telephone equipment and a private tower facility, offered to the public mobile telephone services in that local area of NW Kansas. This system was a direct dial up service through their local switchboard, and was installed in many private vehicles including grain combines, trucks, and automobiles. For some as yet unknown reason, the system, after being placed online and operated for a very brief time period, was shut down. The management of the company was immediately changed, and the fully operable system and related equipment was immediately dismantled in early 1960, not to be seen again.[citation needed] In 1966, Bulgaria presented the pocket mobile automatic phone RAT-0,5 combined with a base station RATZ-10 (RATC-10) on Interorgtechnika-66 international exhibition. One base station, connected to one telephone wire line, could serve up to six customers ("Radio" magazine, 2, 1967; "Novosti dnya" newsreel, 37, 1966). One of the first successful public commercial mobile phone networks was the ARP network in Finland, launched in 1971. Posthumously, ARP is sometimes viewed as a zero generation (0G) cellular network, being slightly above previous proprietary and limited coverage networks.[citation needed] Handheld mobile phone Martin Cooper photographed in 2007 with his 1973 handheld mobile phone prototype Prior to 1973, mobile telephony was limited to phones installed in cars and other vehicles.[17] Motorola was the first company to produce a handheld mobile phone. On 3 April 1973 when Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher and executive, made the first mobile telephone call from handheld subscriber equipment, placing a call to Dr. Joel S. Engel of Bell Labs.[23][24] The prototype handheld phone used by Dr. Cooper weighed 1.1 kg and measured 23 cm long, 13 cm deep and 4.45 cm wide. The prototype offered a talk time of just 30 minutes and took 10 hours to re-charge.[25] John F. Mitchell,[26][27][28] Motorola's chief of portable communication products and Cooper's boss in 1973, played a key role in advancing the development of handheld mobile telephone equipment. Mitchell successfully pushed Motorola to develop wireless communication products that would be small enough to use anywhere and participated in the design of the cellular phone.[29][30] Analog cellular networks – 1G Main article: 1G The first automatic analog cellular systems deployed were NTT's system first used in Tokyo in 1979, later spreading to the whole of Japan, and NMT in the Nordic countries in 1981. The first analog cellular system widely deployed in North America was the Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS).[31] It was commercially introduced in the Americas in October 1983, Israel in 1986, and Australia in 1987. AMPS was a pioneering technology that helped drive mass market usage of cellular technology, but it had several serious issues by modern standards. It was unencrypted and easily vulnerable to eavesdropping via a scanner; it was susceptible to cell phone "cloning;" and it used a Frequency-division multiple access (FDMA) scheme and required significant amounts of wireless spectrum to support. On 6 March 1983, the DynaTAC mobile phone launched on the first US 1G network by Ameritech. It cost $100m to develop, and took over a decade to reach the market.[32] The phone had a talk time of just half an hour and took ten hours to charge. Consumer demand was strong despite the battery life, weight, and low talk time, and waiting lists were in the thousands.[33][34] Many of the iconic early commercial cell phones such as the Motorola DynaTAC Analog AMPS were eventually superseded by Digital AMPS (D-AMPS) in 1990, and AMPS service was shut down by most North American carriers by 2008. Digital cellular networks – 2G Main articles: 2G, 2.5G and 2.75G Two 1991 GSM mobile phones with several AC adapters In the 1990s, the 'second generation' mobile phone systems emerged. Two systems competed for supremacy in the global market: the European developed GSM standard and the U.S. developed CDMA standard. These differed from the previous generation by using digital instead of analog transmission, and also fast out-of-band phone-to-network signaling. The rise in mobile phone usage as a result of 2G was explosive and this era also saw the advent of prepaid mobile phones. In 1991 the first GSM network (Radiolinja) launched in Finland. In general the frequencies used by 2G systems in Europe were higher than those in America, though with some overlap. For example, the 900 MHz frequency range was used for both 1G and 2G systems in Europe, so the 1G systems were rapidly closed down to make space for the 2G systems. In America the IS-54 standard was deployed in the same band as AMPS and displaced some of the existing analog channels. In 1993, IBM Simon was introduced. This was possibly the world's first smartphone. It was a mobile phone, pager, fax machine, and PDA all rolled into one. It included a calendar, address book, clock, calculator, notepad, email, and a touchscreen with a QWERTY keyboard.[35] The IBM Simon had a stylus you used to tap the touch screen with. It featured predictive typing that would guess the next characters as you tapped. It had applications, or at least a way to deliver more features by plugging a PCMCIA 1.8 MB memory card into the phone.[36] Coinciding with the introduction of 2G systems was a trend away from the larger "brick" phones toward tiny 100 – 200 gram hand-held devices. This change was possible not only through technological improvements such as more advanced batteries and more energy-efficient electronics, but also because of the higher density of cell sites to accommodate increasing usage. The latter meant that the average distance transmission from phone to the base station shortened, leading to increased battery life while on the move. Personal Handy-phone System mobiles and modems used in Japan around 1997–2003 The second generation introduced a new variant of communication called SMS or text messaging. It was initially available only on GSM networks but spread eventually on all digital networks. The first machine-generated SMS message was sent in the UK on 3 December 1992 followed in 1993 by the first person-to-person SMS sent in Finland. The advent of prepaid services in the late 1990s soon made SMS the communication method of choice among the young, a trend which spread across all ages. 2G also introduced the ability to access media content on mobile phones. In 1998 the first downloadable content sold to mobile phones was the ring tone, launched by Finland's Radiolinja (now Elisa). Advertising on the mobile phone first appeared in Finland when a free daily SMS news headline service was launched in 2000, sponsored by advertising. Mobile payments were trialed in 1998 in Finland and Sweden where a mobile phone was used to pay for a Coca Cola vending machine and car parking. Commercial launches followed in 1999 in Norway. The first commercial payment system to mimic banks and credit cards was launched in the Philippines in 1999 simultaneously by mobile operators Globe and Smart. The first full internet service on mobile phones was introduced by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 1999. Mobile broadband data - 3G Main article: 3G As the use of 2G phones became more widespread and people began to utilize mobile phones in their daily lives, it became clear that demand for data (such as access to browse the internet) was growing. Further, experience from fixed broadband services showed there would also be an ever increasing demand for greater data speeds. The 2G technology was nowhere near up to the job, so the industry began to work on the next generation of technology known as 3G. The main technological difference that distinguishes 3G technology from 2G technology is the use of packet switching rather than circuit switching for data transmission.[37] In addition, the standardization process focused on requirements more than technology (2 Mbit/s maximum data rate indoors, 384 kbit/s outdoors, for example). Inevitably this led to many competing standards with different contenders pushing their own technologies, and the vision of a single unified worldwide standard looked far from reality. The standard 2G CDMA networks became 3G compliant with the adoption of Revision A to EV-DO, which made several additions to the protocol while retaining backwards compatibility: Introduction of several new forward link data rates that increase the maximum burst rate from 2.45 Mbit/s to 3.1 Mbit/s Protocols that would decrease connection establishment time Ability for more than one mobile to share the same time slot Introduction of QoS flags All these were put in place to allow for low latency, low bit rate communications such as VoIP.[38] The first pre-commercial trial network with 3G was launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in the Tokyo region in May 2001. NTT DoCoMo launched the first commercial 3G network on 1 October 2001, using the WCDMA technology. In 2002 the first 3G networks on the rival CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology were launched by SK Telecom and KTF in South Korea, and Monet in the USA. Monet has since gone bankrupt. By the end of 2002, the second WCDMA network was launched in Japan by Vodafone KK (now Softbank). European launches of 3G were in Italy and the UK by the Three/Hutchison group, on WCDMA. 2003 saw a further 8 commercial launches of 3G, six more on WCDMA and two more on the EV-DO standard. During the development of 3G systems, 2.5G systems such as CDMA2000 1x and GPRS were developed as extensions to existing 2G networks. These provide some of the features of 3G without fulfilling the promised high data rates or full range of multimedia services. CDMA2000-1X delivers theoretical maximum data speeds of up to 307 kbit/s. Just beyond these is the EDGE system which in theory covers the requirements for 3G system, but is so narrowly above these that any practical system would be sure to fall short. The high connection speeds of 3G technology enabled a transformation in the industry: for the first time, media streaming of radio (and even television) content to 3G handsets became possible,[39] with companies such as RealNetworks[40] and Disney[41] among the early pioneers in this type of offering. In the mid-2000s (decade), an evolution of 3G technology began to be implemented, namely High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). It is an enhanced 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communications protocol in the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family, also coined 3.5G, 3G+ or turbo 3G, which allows networks based on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity. Current HSDPA deployments support down-link speeds of 1.8, 3.6, 7.2 and 14.0 Mbit/s. By the end of 2007, there were 295 million subscribers on 3G networks worldwide, which reflected 9% of the total worldwide subscriber base. About two thirds of these were on the WCDMA standard and one third on the EV-DO standard. The 3G telecoms services generated over 120 Billion dollars of revenues during 2007 and at many markets the majority of new phones activated were 3G phones. In Japan and South Korea the market no longer supplies phones of the second generation. Although mobile phones had long had the ability to access data networks such as the Internet, it was not until the widespread availability of good quality 3G coverage in the mid-2000s (decade) that specialized devices appeared to access the mobile internet. The first such devices, known as "dongles", plugged directly into a computer through the USB port. Another new class of device appeared subsequently, the so-called "compact wireless router" such as the Novatel MiFi, which makes 3G internet connectivity available to multiple computers simultaneously over Wi-Fi, rather than just to a single computer via a USB plug-in. Such devices became especially popular for use with laptop computers due to the added portability they bestow. Consequently, some computer manufacturers started to embed the mobile data function directly into the laptop so a dongle or MiFi wasn't needed. Instead, the SIM card could be inserted directly into the device itself to access the mobile data services. Such 3G-capable laptops became commonly known as "netbooks". Other types of data-aware devices followed in the netbook's footsteps. By the beginning of 2010, E-readers, such as the Amazon Kindle and the Nook from Barnes & Noble, had already become available with embedded wireless internet, and Apple Computer had announced plans for embedded wireless internet on its iPad tablet devices beginning that Fall. Native IP networks – 4G Main article: 4G By 2009, it had become clear that, at some point, 3G networks would be overwhelmed by the growth of bandwidth-intensive applications like streaming media.[42] Consequently, the industry began looking to data-optimized 4th-generation technologies, with the promise of speed improvements up to 10-fold over existing 3G technologies. The first two commercially available technologies billed as 4G were the WiMAX standard (offered in the U.S. by Sprint) and the LTE standard, first offered in Scandinavia by TeliaSonera. One of the main ways in which 4G differed technologically from 3G was in its elimination of circuit switching, instead employing an all-IP network. Thus, 4G ushered in a treatment of voice calls just like any other type of streaming audio media, utilizing packet switching over internet, LAN or WAN networks via VoIP.[43] Thefts According to the Federal Communications Commission, one out of three robberies involved the theft of a cellular phone. Police data in San Francisco showed that one-half of all robberies in 2012 were thefts of cellular phones. An online petition on Change.org called Secure our Smartphones urged smartphone manuacturers to install kill switches in their devices to make them unusable in case of theft. The petition is part of a joint effort by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and was directed to the CEOs of the major smartphone manufacturers and telecommunication carriers. [45] On Monday, 10 June 2013, Apple announced it would install a kill switch on its next iPhone operating system, due to debut in October 2013.[46] Satellite mobile Main article: Satellite phone Earth-orbiting satellites can cover remote areas out of reach of wired networks or where construction of a cellular network is uneconomic. The Inmarsat satellite telephone system, originally developed in 1979 for safety of life at sea, is now also useful for areas out of reach of landline, conventional cellular, or marine VHF radio stations. In 1998 the Iridium satellite system was set up, and although the initial operating company went bankrupt due to high initial expenses, the service is available today.

DID YOU KNOW ???

Actor Michael Keaton's real name is Michael Douglas. He decided for a stage name to avoid confusion with the well-known actor of the same name. Nelson Mandela was banned from entering the U.S. and needed a special waiver until 2008. In 1977, 3 men attempted to steal Elvis Presley's remains for ransom. That's why his body was moved to Graceland where they are monitored by security. A city in Texas renamed itself to "DISH, Texas" in order to receive free Dish Satellite service for 10 years.

ARTICLE/OPINION: Lord Lugard’s Magic and Flora Shaw’s Spell, By Femi Fani-Kayode

Lord Lugard’s Magic and Flora Shaw’s Spell, By Femi Fani-Kayode Premium Times September 8, 2015 Lord Lugard’s Magic and Flora Shaw’s Spell, By Femi Fani-Kayode2015-09-08T05:45:52+00:00 Columns, Femi Fani-Kayode, Politics Comment (19) Lugard and Shaw In 1916, Lord Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, the 1st Baron Lugard, the fourteenth Governor of Hong Kong and the first Governor-General of Nigeria, said the following: “Lagos has for 20 years opposed every Governor and has fomented strife and bloodshed in the hinterland. I have spent the best part of my life in Africa; my aim has been the betterment of the natives for whom I have been ready to give my life. But after some 29 years, and after nearly 12 years as Governor here, I am free to say that the people of Lagos and indeed the westerners are the lowest, the most seditious and disloyal, the most purely prompted by self-seeking money motives of any people I have met.” As if that were not bad enough, two years later, on September 25th, 1918, in a letter to his colleague Walter H. Lang, Lugard wrote the following: “The Hausa-Fulani has no ideals, no ambitions save such as sensual in character. He is a fatalist, spendthrift and a gambler. He is gravely immoral and is seriously diseased that he is a menace to any community to which he seeks to attach himself.” Lugard’s words are utterly reprehensible. They represent the most appalling examples of racial stereotyping that I have ever seen. Yet he didn’t stop there. In his book titled The Dual Mandate (pg. 70) of 1926, he wrote the following: “In character and temperament, the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. LACKING IN SELF-CONTROL, DISCIPLINE, AND FORESIGHT. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewelry. HIS THOUGHTS ARE CONCENTRATED ON THE EVENTS AND FEELINGS OF THE MOMENT, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals’ placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached. Through the ages THE AFRICAN APPEARS TO HAVE EVOLVED NO ORGANISED RELIGIOUS CREED, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural. HE LACKS THE POWER OF ORGANISATION, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. HE LOVES THE DISPLAY OF POWER, but fails to realise its responsibility… he will work hard with a less incentive than most races. He has the courage of the fighting animal, an instinct rather than a moral virtue… In brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy…Perhaps the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are HIS LACK OF APPREHENSION AND HIS LACK OF ABILITY TO VISUALISE THE FUTURE.” There can be little doubt that this arrogant English man was a rabid racist who had nothing but the deepest contempt for our people. He was also one of the most uncouth and vulgar souls that ever polluted our shores with his unwholesome and malevolent presence. It is one of the greatest ironies of modern history that this ignorant seafarer was the individual that recommended to the British Colonial Office that the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria and the Lagos colony, should all be merged into one large country. That recommendation was accepted and consequently Lord Lugard can legitimately be described as the chief architect of modern-day Nigeria. It was actually Lord Lugard’s wife, Miss Flora Shaw, that proposed the name Nigeria for our country. This was done in an article that she wrote for the London Times on January 8th, 1897. She and Lugard got married five years later in June 1902, after which she became known as Lady Flora Lugard. Shaw was well connected. Her mother was a French lady of Mauritian stock by the name of Marie Adrienne Josephine and her father was Major-General George Shaw, a respected British army officer. She was colonial editor of the Times of London where she wrote an influential weekly column titled “The Colony”. She was not only stunningly beautiful but she also had vision and substance. Given that, one finds it difficult to comprehend what an enterprising and extraordinary woman like this found attractive in an abominable scalywag like Lord Lugard. I daresay that this was a classic case of the beauty and the beast. Despite his pretensions of love, Lugard despised the numerous ethnic nationalities of Nigeria and he continuously expressed his contempt for us with his insulting and condescending commentaries. Perhaps his best known intervention was made in 1914, in a letter that he wrote to the British government just a few weeks prior to the amalgamation. He wrote as follows: “What we often call the Northern Protectorate of Nigeria today can be better described as the poor husband whilst it’s southern counterpart can be fairly described as the rich wife or the woman of substance and means. A forced union of marriage between the two will undoubtedly result in peace, prosperity and marital bliss for both husband and wife for many years to come. It is my prayer that that union will last forever”. From this contribution, it is clear that ours was a “forced” union. It is also clear that Lugard saw northern Nigeria as a “poor husband” that needed constant attention and support whilst he saw southern Nigeria as nothing more than a “rich wife” or a “woman of substance and means” whose plight was to be constantly pillaged and ravished. This was his vision: a northern Nigeria that was essentially the “head of the household” and that would remain in control of all the power and resources of the state, and a southern Nigeria that would play the role of a passive and subservient wife whose destiny it was to remain in perpetual subjugation and bondage. Sadly this was the crooked foundation upon which our union was built. What made it even worse was the fact that the so-called “southern wife” and “northern husband” were never asked if they wanted the marriage in the first place. The truth is that the British colonialists were masters of divide and rule. The amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorates was a Greek gift, which was designed to fail and to crumble at the appropriate time. Nigerians have done well to have held it together for so long and the fact that we have only experienced one civil war is miraculous. Despite all pretensions, the only thing that has kept us together is the oil of the Niger Delta and the extraordinary resilience, patience, faith, fortitude, zeal and strength of the Nigerian people themselves. Mr. Sola Adebowale, a writer, understood the mindset of Lord Lugard. He captured it rather well on Facebook in 2014 when he wrote the following: “Lugard was a stark illiterate and it was quite unfortunate that that was the best that imperial Britain could send to Africa. Hence he was noted to have vehemently opposed native education for Africans. And he was said to have loathed the educated and sophisticated Africans of the southern coastal regions who had been educated by the Christian Missionaries before him and instead wined and dined and positioned the uneducated feudal hordes of Africa to the forefront of leadership of Africa. Is that not the albatross (of) many African nations till date? Hence the moral right of Devil Lugard to pontificate about Africans is questionable”. Mr. Adebowale has hit the nail on the head. I concur with his submissions. Permit me to end this contribution with an interesting aside. It is generally agreed though not commonly admitted that both Lugard and Flora Shaw were Luciferians who practiced the black arts and all manner of satanic rituals. He was a “High Priest of the Freemasons” whilst they were both avid followers of Aleister Crowley, the leading satanist of his day and the self-styled “world’s most wicked man”. This explains a lot. It also explains why Shaw gave us the name “Nigeria” – a name which has questionable roots. Anyone that doubts this should consider the literal translation of ‘Nigeria’ from latin: it means “the area of darkness” and there is a deep spiritual and mystical reason that she gave us that name. It comes with a lot of baggage because not much good can come out of an area of darkness. Most of the former British colonies changed their names after independence for similar reasons but because most of our leaders in Nigeria were not aware of these matters they refused to do so. Lugard and Shaw were an unlikely couple who had no children. What held them together was more spiritual and mystical than anything else, and Nigeria and the Sudan are their joint legacy to the world. Sadly both countries are having major challenges today. Sudan has broken into two after a protracted and bitter civil war, whilst Nigeria is experiencing serious regional, ethnic and religious tensions. It is clear that our nation needs a good deal of prayer. May God deliver us from Lord Lugard’s magic and his beautiful wife’s spell.