Bobby Brown's sister reveals shocking details about Bobbi Kristina

Bobby Brown's sister Leolah Brown has revealed shocking previously unknown details about Bobbi Kristina's condition when she was found in the bathtub in January 2015, days after it was revealed that she died of drugs, alcohol and drowning. Read what she wrote after the cut...

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Lagos sets up revenue court to tackle tax evaders, defaulters.. housemaids, artisans to start paying taxes

For those who live in Lagos state who don't pay taxes..y'all have to read this. It's about to get serious. 

"The Lagos State Government on Tuesday said it would apply the relevant laws to ensure that more Lagosians voluntarily pay their taxes, just as it warned that tax evaders and defaulters would be prosecuted. 

State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Adeniji Kazeem, who stated this during a press conference held at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre in Alausa Secretariat, said in view of the extreme financial downturn, there was the strong need for government to ramp up its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), stressing that the state would spare nothing in enforcing the laws regulating tax payment.

He said the administration of Governor Ambode had put in place necessary measures to end the era of tax evasion and indeed avoidance in the state, adding that tax avoiders and evaders would be aggressively pursued in line with the provisions of the law.

The Commissioner, who disclosed that the Ministry of Justice had established a Rapid Tax Prosecution Unit to aid the Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) in its drive to collect taxes, added that the unit would work closely with the Revenue Court which the Chief Judge of Lagos State recently agreed to set up.

He said: “Prosecution and jail term for defaulting tax payers will be a tool that we will be actively using to ensure full compliance. Tax officers, I understand, will be very aggressive in their collection of taxes and the public is hereby advised to cooperate with them because obstruction of these tax officers in their lawful duty can and will lead to prosecution.

“Tax dodgers watch out because the long arm of the law will eventually reach you. All tax payers are also reminded that giving false information is also an offence and can be used in the prosecution of your tax default. If you pay your taxes regularly, you will have no problem,” Kazeem said.

On his part, the State Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Mustapha Akinkunmi, said the state generated at least N24.5billion from IGR in the month of January 2016, in line with the efforts of the Governor Akinwunmi Ambode-led administration to reform its tax system and develop a tax paying culture.

Akinkunmi said in the light of the reduction of federal transfers to states including Lagos, the state government was looking inwards to secure sustainable ways of increasing its revenue profile and plugging leakages in the system.

He said majority of the state’s IGR is generated through tax collection, administered by the LIRS.

According to Akinkunmi, the LIRS contributed 79 per cent to the State’s IGR in 2015, which equates to 56 per cent of the State’s total revenue including Federal transfers, adding that the revenue is expected to continue on an upward swing, driven by strong tax collection.

He said, “This trend of strong performance is continuing. In January this year, LIRS has contributed N24.5billion in revenue, attaining 98 per cent budget performance for the month and recording 12 per cent growth from the same period in 2014.”

The Finance Commissioner attributed the improvement in the revenue generation of the state to voluntary tax compliance by tax paying members of the public despite the harsh economic terrain.

On his part, the LIRS Chairman, Mr. Olufolarin Ogunsanwo, said the agency had consistently been at the vanguard of ensuring reforms in the state to improve the ease of doing business in Lagos, adding that such reforms would aid voluntary tax compliance.

Ogunsanwo said that government was already working to bring more members of the informal sector into the tax net, saying that the Tax Returns Form had been reduced to two pages as against the six pages document hitherto in operation.

He also said that the agency, in an effort to bring efficient service delivery closer to the people, recently commissioned two new tax offices in Tejuosho and Sangotedo, adding that efforts was also being made to open additional two Tax Stations within Amuwo Odofin/Festac and Alimosho axis.

He thanked willful taxpayers and implored Lagosians to continue to pay their taxes as at when due, saying that in doing this, they empowered the state government to embark on infrastructural renewal and provision of dividends of democracy to the citizenry. 

He said so far, the provision of the N4.8billion security equipment, provision of new ambulances, the N25billion Employment Trust Fund, the Light Up Lagos project, massive road construction, among others, had been provided through revenue generated from tax. 

SIGNED
HABIB ARUNA
CHIEF PRESS SECRETARY
MARCH 8, 2016

'Dentist Of Horror' Allegedly Mutilated Scores Of Patients In France

Dutch dentist Jacobus Van Nierop in his dental office in Chateau-Chinon, France, in 2009.

The Dutch dentist was initially welcomed to the rural French town of Chateau-Chinon, which had been without a dental care provider for two years.

Then the horror stories started.

Now Jacobus Van Nierop is standing trial on charges of aggravated assault and insurance fraud, after scores of patients said he caused them injuries since arriving in town in 2008, Agence France-Presse reports. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to as many as 10 years in prison and fined up to $165,000, according to AFP.

The Associated Press has this account from a woman who said she was treated by the "Dentist of Horror," as he has been dubbed in French media:

"One patient, Sylviane Boulesteix, has said she was unexpectedly summoned to the dental office in central-eastern France in May 2012. Without warning, the dentist pulled eight of her teeth out and immediately fixed dentures on her raw gums. For three hours, the elderly woman says she sat gushing blood.

"In the following days, she says Van Nierop refused to relieve her pain. A judicial expert later described a 'cruel and perverse' man whose incompetence made Boulesteix lose several health teeth, go through trauma and suffer irreversible damage to her mouth."

The town of Chateau-Chinon, where Van Nierop is accused of mutilating dozens of patients

According to AFP, some patients said they would wake to find notes asking them to come back for further treatment:

" 'Every time, he would give us what he called 'a little prick' and we were asleep, knocked out,' said Nicole Martin, a retired teacher who lost several teeth to abscesses caused by the horrific operations.

" 'When it was over, we would find a Post-it note saying to come back for an appointment the next day or the day after,' she added."

Martin set up a victims' group to press charges that grew to more than 120 members, according to AFP.

Van Nierop, 51, has said he "suffers from 'psychological problems' including gender identity issues and suicidal tendencies," AFP reports.

He had a blanket over his head when he arrived today at the courthouse in the nearby city of Nevers, AFP reports. He has been incarcerated for the past 18 months.

"What my clients and I expect are explanations," Charles Joseph-Oudin, who is representing some of the victims, tells AFP. "To understand how Mr. Van Nierop could have acted in such a way for so long, how things could have become so bad. Today, we have no explanations. Understanding is the first step of the victims' healing process."

According to the AP, the defendant has "refused to answer questions during the investigation, saying only that the oral health of the people in the region was 'deplorable.' "

Van Nierop was arrested in 2013 but was released and then fled to Canada, AFP reports. He was found in New Brunswick in 2014, extradited to the Netherlands and then sent back to France to stand trial.

According to Vice, the Van Nierop case highlights the problem of France's 192 " 'medical deserts' — areas where the authorities have failed to find successors for retiring doctors." Vice says some 2.5 million people live in these areas.

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Hulk Hogan Testifies In His $100 Million Lawsuit Against Gawker

Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, testifies in court on Tuesday during his trial against Gawker Media, in St Petersburg, Fla

Former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan testified in his invasion of privacy suit in St. Petersburg, Fla., against the media organization Gawker, which published a portion of a sex tape.

The case raises major questions about freedom of expression, privacy and celebrity. That being said — "it really couldn't be seedier in terms of the topic that provoked this suit," as NPR's David Folkenflik told Here and Now.

The news and gossip site published a portion of a tape showing Hulk Hogan (whose legal name is Terry Bollea) having sex with the wife of a former friend. That's accompanied by a 1,400-word graphic description of the extended encounter. Bollea maintains he was unaware that they were being taped, and Gawker says an anonymous source mailed it to the organization.

Bollea is seeking $100 million in damages from Gawker.

The issue of whether this video is "newsworthy" was in focus in court today. Gawker argues that Bollea's "frequent public discussion of his sex life made the clip newsworthy and thus protected by the First Amendment."

That's a point Bollea rejected under cross-examination from Gawker's lawyer Michael Sullivan, The New York Times reports:

"[Bollea] gently rebuffed attempts by Mr. Sullivan to paint him as someone who carelessly and routinely flaunted his sexuality and his conquests, and for whom even the most intimate personal details were fodder for publicity. Mr. Bollea insisted that any such disclosures in public were purely an act, a crucial component of his 'character' as Hulk Hogan."

Making the distinction between the character of Hogan and the person of Terry Bollea, he says he was playing Hogan in interviews where he discussed personal and intimate details of his sex life, his anatomy and his family.

"I'm kind of concerned about Hulk Hogan's privacy, but you kind of give it away," Bollea testified, according to the Times. "But in the privacy of your own home, no one invades my privacy."

Additionally, Bollea says he didn't have a problem with "news outlets discussing or even writing about the sex tape," The Associated Press reports. "It was only when Gawker broadcast an edited clip of the actual video that he said he began to suffer."

Gawker also rests its First Amendment argument on the claim that the videorepresents events truthfully:

"I am not going to make a case that the future of the Republic rises or falls on the ability of the general public to watch a video of Hulk Hogan f****** his friend's ex-wife. But the Constitution does unambiguously accord us the right to publish true things about public figures."

Conversely, Bollea's lawyers "cautioned that the privacy of many Americans could be compromised" as a result of the case, the Times reports.

Other recent cases have grappled with the issue of newsworthiness versus privacy.

David breaks down why a case about a sex tape could have significant implications for other kinds of news:

"If you're thinking about this from a legal perspective, the idea that a public figure can say what about his or her life you can publish or post and what you cannot is troubling. Because even if one concedes — as most reasonable human beings would — that this isn't something that should be out there, this isn't something he seems to have encouraged the filming of, this is not a video he wanted out there at all. He's not a pornographic actor — he should have the right for his sex ... he has the right for that, in a sense, one would think, not to get out.

"But if you cede that right to individuals to do it, then suddenly news organizations and citizens are suddenly having taken away from them the right to publish what we want. There are consequences to what we publish in this country — if you libel somebody that is something that you face consequences for. But the idea that pre-emptively you can prevent somebody from doing that is really deeply problematic."

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