Mercyvill

Join the Nigerian author for a discussion of her latest novel Americanah at Kings Place on 2 June Photograph: David Levenson/Getty Images Monday 2 June, 7pm Hall Two, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9AG Tickets: £9.50 online /£11.50 from the box office Americanah is the story of Ifemula and Obinze, who fall in love as teenagers in a Nigeria under military dictatorship.

The next Call of Duty video game— Black Ops 3 —will launch on November 6th, Activision has confirmed—a Friday. Friday is an unusual day for a Call of Duty release. Traditionally, most video games, including the Black Ops games, have released on Tuesdays in North America. “We thought  it would be really fun for the fans to kick-off Black Ops 3 on a weekend,” Rob Kostich, Senior Vice President at Activision Publishing told me, explaining the change.

A young girl detonated explosives hidden under her clothes as she approached the gates of Damaturu bus station in northeast Nigeria The aftermath of the bomb blast in Damaturu. Photograph: Twitter Agencies in Potiskum and Maiduguri Saturday 16 May 2015 16.14 BST A young girl on Saturday carried out a suicide attack at a bus station in Damaturu in northeastern Nigeria , killing seven people and injuring 31, witnesses and the local hospital said. “A girl aged about 12 detonated an explosive under her clothes as she approached the station’s perimeter fence,” said witness Danbaba Nguru.

Nigerian Nobel laureate receives strong support to win 300-year-old position, held in the past by writers from Matthew Arnold to Seamus Heaney Poetry polling ... Wole Soyinka. Photograph: Graeme Robertson Nobel laureate and political activist Wole Soyinka has put himself forward as one of three candidates for the position of Oxford professor of poetry , a 300-year-old elected post which is seen as the top academic poetry role in the UK. First held by Joseph Trapp in 1708, the professorship, second only in prestige to that of poet laureate, has been filled in the past by Matthew Arnold, Cecil Day-Lewis, WH Auden, Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon.

Thanks in part $90 million in the first four days of play in China and a whopping $76m this far in South Korea among other markets,  Walt Disney's DIS +0.34%   Avengers: Age of Ultron  has passed $1 billion worldwide today. It was at $990 million as of yesterday, so it should be passing the magic milestone by the end of this sentence. It is the 21st film to cross the respective box office milestone, doing so in its 24th day of global play.

Opened in 1956, GM's sprawling Tech Center outside Detroit is getting a $1 billion makeover General Motors GM +0.75% will invest $1 billion in its research and development campus in suburban Detroit, part of an ongoing effort to attract the world’s best engineers, designers and IT professionals to an industry some still view as symbolic of a bygone, rust-belt era.

White House says Abu Sayyaf killed and wife Umm Sayyaf captured Defense secretary Carter calls operation a ‘significant blow to Isis’ Pentagon spokesman tells Guardian: ‘No one’s going to Gitmo’ Isis fighters marching in Raqqa, Syria. Photograph: Uncredited/AP US special operations forces have killed an Islamic State commander through a dramatic and secretive raid into Syria and have taken a woman prisoner, the first US-held detainee of the war against Isis and a move that places immediate stress on one of Barack Obama’s signature wartime policies. Ashton Carter, the US defense secretary, confirmed on Saturday that Obama ordered the elite troops to raid a location in eastern Syria and “capture” an Isis figure, Abu Sayyaf. Unusually, Carter said the raid also targeted the man’s wife, identified as Umm Sayyaf.

Leadership changes are challenging. They can be even tougher when an iconic company founder is replaced. Nike and Starbucks SBUX -0.27% both stumbled after Phil Knight and Howard Schultz stepped down from leading their respective companies. Steve Jobs was ousted from  Apple AAPL +0.13%  in 1985 and the company entered a near death spiral in the early 1990s. But Jobs returned in 1996 to lead the company to unprecedented heights. In Apple’s latest transition, the train keeps on rolling under CEO Tim Cook, who replaced Jobs in 2011. “The brand promise with Apple is so strong and they continue to deliver on that,” says Kevin Lane Keller, a branding expert and professor at Dartmouth’s  Tuck School of Business . #1 Apple ...

Are you tempted by Windows 10? On paper you should be: it combines the best of Windows 8 with a desktop similar to Windows 7, it works across PCs, phones and tablets and – best of all – it will be free. Actually scrap that last part… Here is the official line: Windows 10 will be a free upgrade to existing Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 devices that upgrade within a year of its release . Furthermore Microsoft MSFT +0.57% states “once a qualified Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it up to date for the supported lifetime of the device, keeping it more secure, and introducing new features and functionality over time – for no additional charge.” Yes there are some exclusions – notably Windows 7 Enterprise , Windows 8/8.1 Enterprise and Windows RT/RT 8.1 – but for the everyday user this sounds almost too good to be true. And the problem is: it just might be. Here’s three reasons why: Reason #1: Windows By Another ...

Hundred of thousands have fled to their neighbouring country since the current conflict began, with some taking jobs vacated by emigrants to the west A class for children following Sunday mass in the church of the Basilian Fathers, serving the Ukrainian community in Warsaw. Photograph: Matt Lutton/Boreal Collective As sunlight streams through the windows of Warsaw’s Church of the Basilian Fathers, a priest in gold robes swings a clanking censer around the altar. He chants with a low intonation, and a choir in an upper gallery responds, their voices filling the airy church interior, which is dominated by huge oil paintings and numerous small icons of haloed saints.

The record-smashing numbers done by Mayweather-Pacquiao won’t save boxing any more than years of mainstream neglect will kill it. The sport is permanently adhered to our culture Roland Purificacion celebrates after watching a live satellite feed of Mayweather-Pacquiao in downtown Manila. The fight drew unprecedented global interest. Photograph: Aaron Favila/AP T he numbers are in and they’re predictably huge, with the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao blockbuster clocking in at 4.4m pay-per-view buys . Since the event, fans, pundits and everyone with an opinion have given their own not-so-unique insight as to the grandiose meaning of what we all saw.

American Eagle Energy became the fourth U.S. energy producer to file for bankruptcy protection in the aftermath of the big drop in crude oil prices. The Colorado-based company that buys and develops oil wells in the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota and Montana filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday in Denver’s bankruptcy court. American Eagle Energy, which recently missed an interest payment on its debt, listed assets of $222 million and liabilities of $215 million. Shares of American Eagle Energy traded for as much as $7.05 less than a year ago, reflecting the stunningly fast collapse of oil prices in recent months. Still, big financial busts generally produce many corporate bankruptcies. But that has not been the case in the U.S. oil sector, where many independent oil companies emerged in recent years and raised lots of debt financing to drill for shale oil using new techniques like horizontal drilling and hydra...

Verizon’s announcement on Tuesday that it had agreed to buy AOL for $50 per share in cash is a huge victory for Armstrong, who since taking the CEO position at AOL has created a lot of value for shareholders, most notably himself. Armstrong’s AOL delivered to shareholders a return of 147% since November 2009, when AOL started trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The deal will bolster Armstrong’s reputation as a CEO who produces results. It will also make him richer. According to the figures provided by the latest proxy AOL filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, Armstrong stands to receive about $200 million for his AOL shares under the deal. Armstrong received a big chunk of his AOL shares and options when he left Google to join Time Warner as head of AOL in 2009. To attract him, Time Warner gave stock and options to Armstrong, who had to give up some in-the-money opti...

• Fighter arrives home wearing sling on his right arm • Defiant Pacquiao insists he ‘did not deserve to lose’ to Floyd Mayweather Manny Pacquiao waves to the crowds during a motorcade in Manila after arriving back from Las Vegas. Photograph: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images Reuters Wednesday 13 May 2015 09.38 BST An injured Manny Pacquiao arrived back in the Philippines to a hero’s welcome on Wednesday, still adamant he did enough to win his fight against Floyd Mayweather at the start of the month. The 36-year-old was wearing a sling on his right arm following shoulder surgery on a torn rotator cuff suffered before his unanimous points decision loss in the heavily-hyped fight in Las Vegas on 2 May . Pacquiao was sued in a US court last week by two people who felt defrauded by his failure to disclose the pre-bout injury.

  Lagos — A medical expert,   Prof. Emmanuel Bamidele, has said that asthma patients usually possess higher IQ than non-patients.  He spoke during the free screening exercise and lecture organised by the Nigeria Thoracic Society, one of the societies in the fore-front of caring for  asthma patients to mark this year’s world asthma day.

We all know Apple AAPL -0.94% is the most valuable company in the world. But for the first time, the company has not only the largest market cap, but also the largest sales, profits, and assets among the world’s biggest technology companies. The FORBES Global 2000 is a comprehensive list of the world’s largest, most powerful public companies, as measured by a composite score of revenues, profits, assets and market value. This year’s Global 2000 companies hail from 61 countries and account for combined revenues of $39 trillion, profits of $3 trillion, with assets worth $162 trillion, and a market value of $48 trillion.

How do you run one of the largest empires in history, spanning thousands of miles, dozens of languages, and too many skin colors and cultures to count? Put a celebrity in charge. True, the Romans may not have had Rolling Stone covers or Oprah interviews , but they were the original publicity gurus. Before the Roman Empire came to be in the first century B.C., Rome itself was the picture of civil disorder. After the dictator Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated, factions duked it out for dominance, causing financial upheaval, violence, strife and partisan politics that would make even today’s Congress blush. To Roman oracles, the explanation was simple: The gods must be angry. The solution? Create new gods. Augustus Caesar, the adopted son of Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire’s first emperor, was a natural at public relations. To appease the people and avoid the same bloody end as his father, he called...

Actor who plays Martin Luther King in Selma was early voice on racial inequality on screen and stage, friends suggest David Oyelowo arrives for the European premiere of Selma in London. Photograph: Jack Taylor/AFP/Getty Images There’s a theatrical anecdote in which the wife of a leading performer advises a friend: “I wouldn’t come round for lunch on Sunday if I were you. He’s playing Stalin at the moment.” In a more benevolent example of the phenomenon of actors overlapping with their characters, David Oyelowo, while promoting his role as the African-American civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King in the movie Selma, has become a leader of the fight for racial equality in his own profession.

What do you do after an Oscar nomination and a raft of Hollywood offers? You go home to star in a 500-year-old play about death, of course. Chiwetel Ejiofor talks fame, race and childhood trauma Chiwetel Ejiofor: ‘When you’re young and encounter death, you are stalked by it. Boom! Deal with it.’ Photograph: Frederike Helwig for the Guardian P unctual to the minute, Chiwetel Ejiofor walks towards the pub where we’ve arranged to meet, wearing a long, wind-ballooned overcoat, his takeaway coffee thrust out like a compass. The actor ploughs right by – gets a couple of crossings down the road before I can catch him and lead him back.

Author Taiye Selasi says the simple question ‘Where are you from?’ is a difficult one for her to answer Stephanie Sy:  I have read that you do not like to be asked where you're from. Taiye Selasi: It's not that I don't like to be asked the question. It's just that I've begun to question what it actually means and where that question, where that convention comes from. I think that when someone says, "Where are you from?" and is waiting to hear a country, that person is not actually accessing information that I think is essential to who I am or to who we are as people.

The Nigerian-born novelist on the feminine gaze, wicked stepmothers and the phenomenon of 'passing' Helen Oyeyemi: 'I wanted to look at the aesthetics of beauty – who gets to be the fairest of them all?'  Born in Nigeria in 1984, Helen Oyeyemi, 29, moved to London with her family aged four. She signed a publishing deal while still at school and her first novel, The Icarus Girl , a ghost story about an eight-year-old girl torn between her British and Nigerian identity, received rave reviews.

Why the viciousness of modern Israeli law directed against Palestinians must be taken as seriously as the cruelties of war Palestinian children collect water in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. Photograph: Amir Cohen/Reuters N ot all violence is hot. There’s cold violence too, which takes its time and finally gets its way. Children going to school and coming home are exposed to it. Fathers and mothers listen to politicians on television calling for their extermination. Grandmothers have no expectation that even their aged bodies are safe: any young man may lay a hand on them with no consequence. The police could arrive at night and drag a family out into the street.

Writers are finding imaginative ways to negotiate the new era of electronic intimacy with readers. Here are some of the best Keying in to the web ... social networks. Photograph: Anatolii Babii / Alamy/Alamy Kate Gwynne Monday 11 May 2015 16.00 BST Last modified on Monday 11 May 2015 16.25 BST T he internet offers authors the next best thing to teleportation: the chance to connect with readers from almost anywhere, in real time. Many writers fall back on self-serving updates or retreat in fear like cats avoiding a cold bath, but a few are using the etherland as a canvas for experimentation and play. They have moved their storytelling, wit and insight from page to pixel, winning fans and readers in the process.

Italian-inspired dining brand PizzaExpress has acquired its UAE franchise operation from operator Jordana Restaurants, it announced on Sunday. The acquisition is part of ambitious international expansion plans as PizzaExpress celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and prepares to double the number of UAE outlets in the next five years, the company said.

0 in Share Almost 24% of Gulf consumers place Apple’s notebooks above those from global market leaders. A recent poll by ITP.net revealed Gulf residents prefer Apple MacBooks to those of other vendors, despite the Cupertino company traditionally lying outside the top five vendors by shipments. The Brand Preference Survey, which was conducted recently in conjunction with Channel Middle East magazine, showed 23.91% of GCC consumers favoured Apple in laptops, with 17.2% picking global PC shipments leader Lenovo. HP and Dell, the world's number two and three in shipments, respectively, were joint third in the vote, with 16.91% each.

Ukraine crisis looms over Putin-Merkel meeting Story highlights John Kerry is expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as Russia's foreign minister "It's important to try to talk to the senior decision maker," a State Department official says Moscow (CNN) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Sochi, Russia, on Tuesday ahead of a planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov, Kerry's Russian counterpart. A senior State Department Official said of the meeting: "It's important to try to talk to the senior decision maker. We have an opportunity to do that."

If you are one of the rising number of people working part-time, earn some extra cash in dog walking or rampant veg growing Putting your skills or knowledge to practical use can earn you some extra pounds. H appy days are here again – or so you might assume from a recent wave of optimistic reports about the economic outlook and rising consumer confidence . But while unemployment is down, the latest labour market figures reveal a surge in part-time jobs as employers remain anxious about long-term recovery prospects, suggesting it may not be time to hang out the bunting just yet.With more of us working fewer hours and with a resulting earnings gap to close, there's arguably never been a better time to set up a business you can run in your spare time from home. Whether it's to help make ends meet, or to follow your passion, or maybe even both, we've asked the experts to come up with 50 practical and cheap ways to make some extra cash.

Egypt's justice minister resigned on Monday, the prime minister said in a statement, after being criticised for suggesting that the son of a garbage collector would be unworthy to serve as a judge. The statement quoted Mahfouz Saber as saying his remarks in a televised interview a day earlier had been "a slip of the tongue". It was not immediately clear who would replace him.

Source: CNN Washington (CNN) The Obama administration, citing "rigorous safety standards" and a long review process, has granted conditional approval to energy giant Shell to begin oil drilling in the Arctic waters off the coast of Alaska. The Interior Department wrote in a statement that Shell could begin drilling in the Chukchi Sea once several environmental conditions are met, including a sign-off from agencies assessing the impact on endangered species.

On Sunday 8 March, it’s International Women’s Day. To celebrate, Helen Lewis pays tribute to 10 inspirational feminists Have we missed someone from the list? Leave your suggestion in the comments below and it could feature in the alternative list next week Helen Lewis Aphra Behn Facebook Twitter Pinterest Portrait of Aphra Behn, 1670. Photograph: Oxford University A playwright, translator and spy, Behn (also known as Astrea) has a good claim to being the first Englishwoman to make a living out of her writing. In the centuries after her death in 1689, her plays were dismissed as indecent because of their focus on female sexuality (“The stage how loosely does Astrea tread/ Who fairly puts all characters to bed!” wrote Alexander Pope in 1737). Recent feminist scholars have rediscovered her writing, and have made the case that the publication of her prose fiction Oroonoko , the story of a slave , was a key moment in the development o...

Japanese novelist is joined by Nigeria’s Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in famous ranking of the people ‘shaping the future’ Hero of our Time ... Haruki Murakami. Photograph: Peska Stan/AP Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has been named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine, backed by Yoko Ono as “a valuable voice for peace” as Japan’s government becomes “more conservative”. Alongside Pope Francis, Kanye West, Kim Jong-un and Hillary Clinton, there are two novelists on a list of 100 names Time has dubbed “the most influential people in the world: the titans, pioneers, artists, icons and leaders who are shaping the future” - Murakami, and the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie . The Japanese writer, whose most recent novel Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage sold one million copies in a week in Japan, is regularly named as one of the frontrunners for the Nobel prize in literature.

Author Barnaby Phillips chooses fiction and non-fiction that shows an often caricatured nation in all its rich variety Complexity and variety … a man walks on a pedestrian bridge overlooking traffic in Lagos. Photograph: Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters N igeria has a terrible image – as a land of email scammers, obscene corruption and religious bigotry and violence – but the stereotypes only tell part of a more complex, and often more attractive, truth. When I was based in Nigeria as a BBC correspondent, I learnt that the country I was covering had all the complexity and variety of an entire continent. From the oil-polluted swamps of the Niger Delta in the south, to the sharia-governed Muslim states in the arid north, Nigeria's regions and many ethnicities often have little in common. Of course this diversity is one of Nigeria's intrinsic problems but it is also what makes it such a stimulating place. Nigeria is a land of rich cultures, stunn...

In closing lecture at the PEN World Voices festival, author critiques ‘dangerous silencing’ in American conversation and Bring Back Our Girls narrative Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie giving the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write lecture at the PEN World Voices Festival on 10 May. Photograph: Beowulf Sheehan/PEN World Voices Festival “No one is being murdered or hauled off by the American government to prison for writing a novel,” said Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her Arthur Miller Freedom to Write lecture, which closed the PEN World Voices festival in New York Sunday night. Though couched in a thoughtful set of anecdotes, Adichie had sharp words for her mostly young and vocal audience about the “codes of silence” that govern American life. “To choose to write is to reject silence,” Adichie went on to say.