The federal government is set towards achieving its goals of decreasing maternal and infant mortality rate by ensuring that about 7.3 million women have access to family planning in the country. Director, Family Health Planning, Federal Ministry of Health, FMoH, Ms. Adebimpe Adebiyi, said during a news conference on Friday in Abuja that the campaign, would close the contraceptive gap in the country. FMoH plans to do this with the use of a new National Family Planning Communication Campaign. Adebiyi noted that the fear of side effect, norms and belief, misconception among others were the major factors affecting the use…

Slow-moving funeral processions converged on Juchitan's cemeteries from all directions on Saturday, so many that they sometimes caused temporary gridlock when they met at intersections. A monster earthquake and a Gulf coast hurricane have combined to take at least 67 lives in Mexico, and no place suffered more than the Oaxaca state city of Juchitan, where 37 died as buildings collapsed in the magnitude 8.1 temblor. The graveyard swelled with mourners and blaring serenades for the dead - the sounds of snare drums, saxophones and sobbing. Pallbearers carried the caskets around rubble the quake had knocked from the simple concrete…

Enugu State Executive Council says it approves automatic employment of 50 graduates living with disabilities in line with United Nations Convention on non-discrimination against such persons.The state Commissioner for Information, Mr Ogbuagu Anikwe, disclosed this on Saturday in Enugu while briefing newsmen on the outcome of the council meeting held on Friday evening. Anikwe said that the approval followed council’s deliberation on a letter of employment appeal from a league of visually impaired graduate applicants. “The council received a letter of appeal from unemployed visually impaired graduates, who are indigenes of the state,” he said. “They wrote to the governor…

University lecturers are close to calling off their one month old strike after reaching a fresh agreement with the Federal Government on their demands. Top of the agreement reached at a 15-hour meeting that ended early yesterday in Abuja, is the immediate release, by government, of N220 billion to the universities to fund the revitalization of federal universities in the country. The sum is expected to be paid not later than next month. The money is to enable the institutions buy working tools needed for effective discharge of their responsibilities. Representatives of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) are scheduled…