Celine Dion cancels 2023-24 shows over health condition

Singer posted a video in December 2022 to say she had recently been diagnosed with Stiff-Person Syndrome.

Pop icon Celine Dion has cancelled all her remaining shows scheduled for 2023-24, saying she was not strong enough to tour as she battles a rare neurological disorder.

Last year, the 55-year-old Canadian revealed that her condition – Stiff-Person Syndrome – was affecting her singing.

“I’m so sorry to disappoint all of you once again… and even though it breaks my heart, it’s best that we cancel everything until I’m really ready to be back on stage,” Dion tweeted.

“I’m not giving up… and I can’t wait to see you again!” she added.

A statement released by her tour said, “With a sense of tremendous disappointment, Celine Dion’s Courage World Tour today announced the cancellation of all remaining dates currently on sale for 2023 and 2024.”

Dion, one of the top women singers with an octave-busting voice, is the author of hits like, Because You Loved Me, My Heart Will Go On, and, Think Twice.

In December 2022, she posted a tearful video on Instagram to say she had recently been diagnosed with Stiff-Person Syndrome and would not be ready to start her European tour in February as planned.

She said the disorder was causing muscle spasms and was “not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I’m used to”.

Sufferers commonly experience stiff muscles in the torso, arms and legs, with noise or emotional distress known to trigger spasms.

The cancellations will affect her 16-country tour in Europe which was due to start in Amsterdam in August and conclude with two dates at the O2 arena in London in April next year.

Her “Courage World Tour” began in 2019, and Dion completed 52 shows before the coronavirus pandemic put the remainder on hold. She later cancelled the North American section of the tour due to her health problems.

“Not surprising, but no less sad. Courage to you Celine, we are with you,” wrote one fan information account @LesRedHeads.

“You don’t have to apologize queen! Take care of yourself. Your health should take number one priority,” wrote @notaerz.

The youngest of 14 children, Dion was born in Quebec, Canada and got her start at 12, when her mother sent a recording of her to Angelil, who mortgaged his own home to finance her first album. She began singing in French, but started bellowing out hits in English after taking English lessons in the 1980s.

She gained worldwide fame in 1997 with, My Heart Will Go On, the theme to James Cameron’s extremely popular film, Titanic.

She parlayed that success into a regular gig at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, playing for audiences night after night for 16 years, with only a few breaks.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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The 7 Anti-Christianity Points In Primary 4 History Textbook

 A primary four history textbook has become the center of discussions after it emerged that it had content that in many parts listed disadvantages of religion, specifically of Christianity.

The book, History of Ghana for Basic Schools, Learner’s Book 4, was authored by Francis Benjamin Appiah and Henry David Appiah.

The cover page sighted by GhanaWeb has the approval of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) even though the outfit has denied approving the said copy.
The contentious page making the rounds on social media platforms is under the section titled: “NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES.”

The authors list seven anti-Christianity points which have triggered the social media debates. The points range from religion being a major cause of conflict globally, that Christianity has led to increase in poverty and that the religion missionaries brought “create a sense of fear or timidity in their adherents.”
Find the seven points below:

NaCCA reacts:

The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) in reacting to the book has stated that the version cited is not what was approved.

A Deputy Spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Yaw Opoku Mensah is quoted by Joy News as stating that NaCCA had not approved the particular copy.

He claimed that per the information provided to him by NaCCA, the approved version of the book did not have the section in question, the Joy News report added.

NaCCA is an entity mandated by the Education Regulatory Bodies Act, 2020 (Act 1023) to develop national curriculum and assessment standards for pre-tertiary education institutions other than technical and vocational education and training institutions.

Source: ghanaweb.com

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Former BBNaija Star, Joseph Ada, Dies In The US

 Joseph, a former BBNaija star who took part in the inaugural season of Big Brother Nigeria in 2006, died on Wednesday, May 24, in Delaware, United States. He had pancreatitis, and on Wednesday, he sadly passed away.

Joseph Ada was in the house in 2006 with Obi-Uchendu, Gideon Okeke, Maureen Osuji, Katung Aduwak, Francisca Owumi, Ify Ejikeme, Helen, and others.

At the time, Joseph was the oldest resident in the Big Brother house at 32 years old. Nevertheless, he showed excellent performance, finishing as the ninth candidate to be booted from the house out of 14.

After the show, Joseph, a former flight attendant with Virgin Atlantic, relocated to the US and resided in Delaware. Joseph Ada died at age 49 in the United States of America after a bout with pancreatitis.

May his soul rest in peace.

Source: Tru News Report

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2 Killed and 23 Injured Following An Attack on Medical Facility in Dnipro

 At least two people have died and 23 people left injured following an attack on a medical facility in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday.

A 69-year-old man “was just passing by when the rocket struck the city” and the body of another man “was pulled out of the rubble,” said Serhii Lysak, head of the regional military administration.
He said that 23 people were wounded in the bombardment, with 21 of them hospitalized and three in a critical condition.

At least four people are missing following the attack in Dnipro, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office.
The fire covered 1,000 square meters of the medical facility, where a three-story building was partially destroyed, Lysak added.
He added that rescue workers are searching for people under the rubble.
CNN geolocated the attack to Dnipropetrovsk City Hospital No. 14 and a veterinary clinic in an industrial district north of the Dnipro river in Dnipro.

Source: CNN

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Ukraine’s Zelenskyy makes surprise visit to Saudi Arabia

President arrives in the kingdom as Arab leaders hold a regional summit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a surprise trip to Saudi Arabia, where the Arab League is hosting a summit.

“Beginning my first-ever visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to enhance bilateral relations and Ukraine’s ties with the Arab world,”
Zelenskyy wrote on Twitter on Friday.

He said he would discuss “political prisoners in Crimea and temporarily occupied territories, the return of our people, peace formula [and] energy cooperation”.

Saudi Arabia “plays a significant role and we are ready to take our cooperation to a new level”, Zelenskyy added.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Oldest Most Complete Hebrew Bible Sells For $38m At Auction

 The oldest most complete Hebrew Bible has been bought at Sotheby’s New York for $38.1m (£30.6m), becoming the most valuable manuscript sold at auction.

The Codex Sassoon is thought to have been written about 1,100 years ago.
It is the earliest surviving example of a single manuscript containing all 24 books of the Hebrew Bible with punctuation, vowels and accents.

US lawyer and former ambassador Alfred Moses bought it for the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, Israel.
“The Hebrew Bible is the most influential in history and constitutes the bedrock of Western civilisation,” Mr Moses said in a statement.
“I rejoice in knowing that it belongs to the Jewish people. It was my mission, realising the historic significance of Codex Sassoon, to see it reside in a place with global access to all people.”

The winning bid exceeded the $30.8m paid by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates in 1994 for the Codex Leicester, Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific notebook.
But it fell short of the record for a historical document sold at auction set by hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who bought a first-edition printed copy of the US constitution for $43.2m two years ago.

The Codex Sassoon is named after a previous owner, David Solomon Sassoon, who acquired it in 1929 and assembled the largest and most important private collection of Hebrew manuscripts in the world at his home in London.
The text of the Hebrew Bible – whose 24 books make up what Christians call the Old Testament – remained in flux until the early Middle Ages, when Jewish scholars known as Masoretes began to create a body of notes that standardised it.

The Aleppo Codex, which was assembled around 930, is considered the most authoritative Masoretic text. However, damage from a fire in the Syrian city of Aleppo in 1947 means that only 295 of the original 487 pages survive today.
The Codex Sassoon, which carbon dating shows was created around 900, is missing only 12 pages, according to Sotheby’s.

“It presents to us the first time an almost-complete book of the Hebrew Bible appears with the vowel points, the cantillation and the notes on the bottom telling scribes how the correct text should be written,” Sharon Mintz, senior Jewish artefact specialist at the auction house, said in March.
Centuries of annotations and inscriptions reveal that the manuscript was sold by a man named Khalaf ben Abraham to Isaac ben Ezekiel al-Attar, who later transferred ownership to his two sons, Ezekiel and Maimon.
In the 13th Century, the codex was dedicated to a synagogue in Makisin, in north-eastern Syria.

After the town was destroyed by either by the Mongols later in the 13th Century or by the Timurids at the start of the 15th Century, the manuscript was entrusted for safekeeping to Salama ibn Abi al-Fakhr. It then disappeared in history for 500 years.

The Codex Sassoon’s most recent owner was Swiss investor Jacqui Safra, who bought it for £2m ($2.5m) at auction in London in 1989.

Source: BBC

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Sudan’s Burhan sacks paramilitary leader as his deputy

 Sudan’s army chief Lt Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has sacked his deputy and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti. Both Gen Burhan and Hemedti have served as chairman and deputy of the ruling Sovereign Council respectively, since the October 2021 military coup.

In a decree released on Friday, Gen Burhan appointed former rebel leader Malik Agar as his deputy. Mr Agar is also a Sovereign Council member.He directed the secretariat of the Sovereign Council and the relevant state authorities to immediately effect the decree.

The army chief had last month dissolved the RSF and designated its fighters as rebels after a power struggle erupted between the rival forces.

The country has since plunged into deadly fighting and turmoil.

Source: BBC

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