Thank You for being our dear reader always despite many choices out there. Many thanks from Darey P.N.G (Chief Editor)eNews Nigeria.

Thank You for being our dear reader always despite many choices out there. Many thanks from Darey P.N.G (Chief Editor)eNews Nigeria.

PRINCE WILLIAM'S romantic engagement to Kate Middleton is not the only reason Mount Kenya holds a special place in his heart, according to excerpts from a book about the royal couple to be published in New Idea tomorrow.
William and Kate, The Love Story, by British royalty reporter Robert Jobson, details the couple's shaky past and the significance of Mount Kenya as a romantic getaway for the prince and his ex-girlfriend, Jecca Craig.
''Jecca and William were said to be so close that in 2000 they performed a mock engagement ceremony on her parents' 22,500-hectare wildlife reserve at the foot of Mount Kenya,'' Jobson writes.
William then returned there after a public stoush with Kate in 2004 that left him feeling claustrophobic and stale, although the prince did not pursue his romance with Jecca.
Trying to act the part of a newly single party prince at this time, Jobson says, William responded to the couple's first official break-up with an over-the-top display of crass behaviour and unfeeling emotion.
Kate's reaction to the heartless behaviour was, writes Jobson, matter-of-fact and without tears. ''A well-placed source told me: 'She was cool and quite relaxed when she told everybody. She almost seemed relieved it was over and it was out'.''
After reuniting, then splitting again in 2007, the New Idea book excerpt tells, Wills and Kate appeared to be over for good … until a weekend at the home of close friends of the royal family reunited them.
''The body language said it all,'' a guest confided to Jobson. ''You got the impression that if we had not been there, they'd have been all over each other.
''The power of their love, like a magnet, had pulled them back together.''

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We want to use this medium to apologize to our dear readers for previously not keeping you updated due to underground works presently going on in order to serve you better. We hope you will accept our sincere apology.

We want to use this medium to apologize to our dear readers for previously not keeping you updated due to underground works presently going on in order to serve you better. We hope you will accept our sincere apology.

It's a sign of how much times, and Eminem himself, have changed that his leading nominations were not controversial, but expected and respected.
The person with the second-leading tally, Bruno Mars with seven, was not without his own drama this year, after being arrested in Las Vegas in a cocaine possession case, which is pending. It was the only negative in a brilliant year for Mars, who co-wrote "(Expletive) You" and was also featured on B.o.B's "Nothin' on You," also nominated for record of the year.
"It's just been a great year, incredible, incredible year, and I can't believe this is happening to me," said Mars, who was also nominated for best male pop vocal for his own hit, "Just the Way You Are."
"We've worked so hard trying to make a living doing music and the fact that we're here right now is incredible, incredible," he added, speaking from Club Nokia in downtown Los Angeles, where the nominations were announced as part of an hourlong live special on CBS.
Other top nominees included Lady Antebellum, Jay-Z and Lady Gaga, who were all nominated with six each. Gaga also was nominated for album of the year — the second straight nomination in the category for her.
For Eminem, "Recovery" was a critical and commercial triumph. It became the best-selling album of the year so far, with more than 3 million copies sold, and spawned top hits like "Love the Way You Lie" featuring Rihanna, which was nominated for song and record of the year.
It also marked a stark contrast between the Eminem nominated 10 years ago and the one today. Back then, he was a stunning yet divisive figure whose violent imagery and slurs against gays and women outraged as many people as he entertained. Eminem would become one of the best-selling artists in the world and arguably rap's greatest artist, but his stature was diminished as his battle with prescription drug addiction led to lags between albums and sub-par material.
With "Recovery," an album that detailed his battles and how he overcame them, his status as the best rapper — and pop's top artist — was restored.
Country trio Lady Antebellum couldn't be more opposite than Eminem, but their album "Need You Now" was the second-best selling album of the year, doing almost as well as "Recovery," with almost 3 million albums sold and fueled by the lovelorn title track — a huge crossover hit for the band. Grammy voters rewarded that success, nominating them for album of the year and record and song of the year for the hit.
Only last year, they were celebrating their first Grammy win.
"It's been a wild and crazy year; it definitely feels like Christmas came early for us," said Lady A's Dave Haywood in a telephone interview after the awards were announced. He wasn't watching with his bandmates, Charles Kelley and Hillary Scott, but they watched the special and texted each other.
"It's just kind of complete shock that we'd be recognized, especially to be recognized in some of these all-genre categories," said Haywood. "It's pretty bizarre for a couple of rednecks from Tennessee and Georgia."
Other nominees for record of the year included Jay-Z and Alicia Keys' anthem for New York, "Empire State of Mind."
Rounding out the nominations for song of the year were Ray LaMontagne's "Beg Steal or Borrow" and Miranda Lambert's hit "The House That Built Me," written by Tom Douglas and Allen Shamblin.
Katy Perry's "California Gurls" was one of the year's top hits but was shut out of the record and song of the year categories. Yet Perry, who performed the hit on the nominations broadcast, was far from disappointed: Her album "Teenage Dream" was nominated for album of the year, along with Gaga's "The Fame Monster," ''Recovery," ''Need You Now" and Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs."
"It's amazing. It's like no other award show because I feel like you're being recognized by your peers," she said. "And there's so many fantastic performers and artists that could be in this category, so when they nominate you, it feels like a win."
Justin Bieber appeared on the show from London and the 16-year-old was rewarded for staying up: He was nominated for best new artist in a category that also included Drake, Florence & the Machine, Mumford & Sons and jazz artist Esperanza Spaulding.
"It feels amazing. I can't believe I'm in this position. Thank you to the fans," he said. "I don't know what to say."
The evening's biggest snub may have belonged to Ke$ha. Even though the party-girl singer had a top-selling debut and several hit songs, she was not nominated for any awards.




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As usual Lady Gaga won most of the awards and her eccentric presence was missed. However, she said her thanks via a video link from Budapest where she was performing. Her wins were, Best Pop, Best Female and Best Song. Justin Bieber followed closely with 2 wins for Best Male and Best Push Artist. Other winners were Ke$ha for Best New Act, Paramore for Best Alternative, Bon Jovi for MTV EMA Global Icon, Thirty Seconds To Mars for Best Rock, Katy Perry for Best Video, Eminem for Best Hip Hop, Shakira for Free Your Mind, Linkin Park  for Best Live, Marco Mengoni for Best European Act and Tokio Hotel for World Stage. The Girls on the purple carpet also dazzled in short (really short) dresses.

Although some of them cannot be classified as dresses. All in all, it was a beautiful and entertaining event.

The call for government’s intervention in the entertainment industry, particularly from Nollywood quarters, has been very loud. 

However, the loudness of the calls or the seemingly unending complaints, successive governments have always looked the other way. 

So, it is sort of coming out of the blues when President Goodluck Jonathan made an announcement regarding a package of $200million for the entertainment at 30^th anniversary of the Silverbird Group, which held in Lagos on Saturday, November 6.

When it was time for the President to deliver his speech, it was unexpected that he would talk beyond the Silverbird Group but the knowledge he demonstrated was one of the high points of the night but totally eclipsed by the cheering news of massive funding. 

“Silverbird and its dedicated staff, shareholders, supporters and fans, I salute your courage and imagination. To your chairman and my brother, Ben Murray-Bruce, I say keep up the good work. Ben can clearly be said to be a middle-aged man now, but he started at a very young age and that makes him a role model for Nigerian youths to emulate.

“Our youths must be supported and encouraged to choose that part of handwork so that they can use their creative minds to secure the buttress of success for the benefit of our nation. Silverbird opted to develop three industries: entertainment, media and mall development.  These three industries today generate hundreds and thousands of jobs and provide hope for millions of young people.”

He continued: “My rating is that Nollywood is getting set to dominate the world.  Our music has set Africa on fire. My prayer is that Silverbird will rise to be the most formidable global plan to come out of Nigeria. I recognise the importance of the entertainment industry in the Nigerian economy and the unquantifiable national prize that constitutes  our entertainment sector, has a high growth in job creation potentials. In Nigeria, the industry generates over 250million dollars of annual revenue and presents more people with gainful employment. Till date, the chief constraint to the industry’s growth is the absence of long term funding. This government is determined to encourage and support an industry that makes all Nigerians happy and proud. Before coming here, the CBN governor was here specifically to listen to the speech of what we discussed but some how, he left for another urgent engagement but the finance minister is still present. I have given them directives to make sure that forms are created to enable people in this sector have loans. As we are talking, the Finance Minster told me that we have $200million  to start with. Two weeks from our post date, the modalities of disbursement of the work starts. I can assure you that that is just the flag-off. I urge you to make more movies; write and produce hit songs, build more malls and more cinemas, provide jobs and give hope to our people. I close by saying congratulations once more to Silverbird Group.”

To say members of the audience especially the Nolly-wood stakeholders were simply thrown overboard with joy, is an understatement. 

The ecstatic feeling increased with time as the President’s announcement dawned on them the more as time passed.

In a chat with Saturday Independent, veteran filmmaker, Eddie Ugbomah, applauded the decision but voiced his opinion on how the money should be disbursed.

“I want the money to be shared into two parts between the elderly ones and the young ones in the movie industry. I am in the process of calling on the elderly people in the industry, like myself, Femi Robinson, Olu Jacobs, Ola Balogun, Francis Oladele, Enebeli Elebuwa, Justus Esiri, Enebeli Elebuwa, Tunde Kelani and the likes for a meeting to talk about this issue. All I am clamouring for is that they give $50 million dollars to those of us who are the elders and experienced film makers and then $150 million should go to the young ones. The challenge after-wards is let us meet at the cinemas houses and let us see who will come up with more quality jobs and sell more between the two groups. What they need to do now is to get people like us who are experienced and are unbiased to read stories and approve the scripts that the fund should go into.  And another thing is that it is a risk thing and so, again, the money should not be given to just anybody, don’t give the money to people who would go and make some stupid films or sing Nigeria praises all over the place. If you shoot a good film and it sells and goes round the whole world, it inevitably lifts Nigeria’s image but if you say Nigeria, Nigeria and you want to be a hypocrite or sycophant and the film does not sell, it is an utter waste. 

“To me, it is the biggest thing that has ever happened to the industry because neither (Shehu) Shagari, nor (Sani) Abacha or even (Olusegun) Obasanjo deemed it fit to do this. So what Goodluck Jonathan has done is a big challenge to those of us in the entertainment industry and we must not let him fail. Bust as I said earlier, they should just allow the young to grow and also let the old live,”he said.   

Another veteran, Tunde Kelani applauded the announcement while expressing caution that the implementation of the announcement might be long in coming with biting sarcasm.

“Well in terms of my opinion about it, I don’t know much about it, also because I just heard it too. But the thing about government is that, you know this is Nigeria and when government is thinking about building a bridge in any place in four years, they would rather announce that the people of the mentioned area are going to smile soon because they will benefit from the bridge, which is to be built. Why don’t they first complete the construction of the said bridge and then announce that it has been built for the people? Why do they have to announce it before it is built? This is because as one can see in this particular case, the announcement gives the wrong impression in that everybody would want to be a film maker or an entertainment person overnight. People who are into other businesses would suddenly start to register to become entertainment people and it is simply just because they mentioned some money as being involved. 

“Well it is good, because if they mentioned it, that means we would have the benefit of accessing it in three years,” Kelani added.

For Ejike Asiegbu, former President of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), it was a highway of praises for the President, for he believes it is the beginning of a good omen for the whole industry.

“The President has done well and it is a very cheering news, and those of us in the motion picture industry are glad that the President has taken this initiative. It goes to speak volumes about what to expect of his administration and we urge all entertainers everywhere as well as well-meaning Nigerians to appreciate him and in what other ways can we appreciate him than to ensure Goodluck Jonathan remains there to fulfill his promise. For us in the motion picture industry, there is need for us to be more professional because with such largesse comes rules and regulations guiding implementation and only those who are qualified to have it should be able to access it in terms of loans. I also urge my colleagues, those of us that would be lucky to get out of it to be very careful towards ensuring that they come up with only good story lines and efforts with great technical quality that the whole country would be looking up to. This will make Nigerians appreciate Nollywood when it comes to projecting the image of Nigeria culturally and otherwise,” Asiegbu said.

Mahmud Ali Balogun, another notable filmmaker and arts critic whose forthcoming film, Tango With Me is being eagerly awaited had this to say: “I think it is a welcome development, the money will help to energise the industry but I think it should be channelled towards setting up the National Film Fund. This will prevent a situation whereby it is distributed or shared out haphazardly. The Ministry of Information and Communication knows all about the clamour for the National Film Fund already and what should be done now is just to establish it (with this fund). Due to the nature of the industry, the issue of collateral will begin to come up if the money is left to the banks. Therefore, it should be used as a take-off grant for the National Film Fund.”

Segun Arinze, who is currently the President of the AGN, also spoke to Saturday Independent, saying the details are still vague but it is the beginning of something great and unprecedented.

His words: “I agree that the modalities are not specified. How is the money going to be handled or managed? How is the Ministry of Finance and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) going to handle the money and what qualifies you to get loans from that fund to make a movie? Hope we will not begin to do paddy paddy, ‘man know man’ and then mess it up. We have seen so many laudable projects from government that ended up as white elephant projects just like we have seen People’s Bank come up and die a natural death. But the good thing is I think it is the first time any president in Nigeria is talking directly about the entertainment industry, movies, music and what have you. It is a welcome development and Ben Bruce’s speech is the best I have heard over the past 45 years because the speech was articulate, on-point and straight to the point, it had everything but the next question is how do we begin to package and articulate ourselves? I have spoken with some of my colleagues who are heads of other guilds and I believe heads of different guilds making up CONGA (Coalition of Nolly-wood Guilds and Associations) will be a part of it, the Yoruba and Hausa sections of the industry as well as the marketers and distributors to be part of it too. Here is where we need some egg heads, people like Afrolabi Adesanya, Emeka Mba and others to help implement it. 

“Let’s do something because I believe if we use this judiciously, the government might even increase it because this is a starting point as he said and we hope the Ministry of Finance, the CBN, the Ministry of Information and Communication under whose purview the movie industry falls, will ensure it is judiciously utilized so that people don’t take money to go and buy houses, pay for rent or buy flashy cars and begin to call themselves the big boys of the industry. So, to Ben Bruce for being the initiator of this, I say thank you and to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, I say a very big thank you, kudos to him.”

Bieber bagged best Push artist and the best male artist award, beating top contenders such as Eminem, Usher, Enrique Iglesias and Kanye West. MTV's Push is a show featuring up and coming artists.
Stratford, Ont.-born Bieber, 16, is riding a wave of popularity in the wake of his My World 2.0 album and tour.
The MTV Europe Music Awards, held in Madrid, drew tens of thousands of fans to a ceremony hosted by Eva Longoria, who changed her costume 13 times throughout the night. The ceremony featured performances by Miley Cyrus, Rihanna and Bon Jovi.

Lady Gaga, the singer known for her outlandish costumes and savvy pop image was declared best female and best pop act and won best song for her hit Bad Romance.
She missed the ceremony, but accepted her awards from Budapest, where she is on tour.
"This means so much to me, Europe, I love you. I hate not being there, I am working so hard."
Katy Perry, who won best video for California Gurls, arrived at the event with husband Russell Brand. It was their first public appearance together since marrying in India two weeks ago.
U.S. singer Miley Cyrus presented the best rock award, which went to U.S. rock group 30 Seconds to Mars.
Other award winners included best hip-hop act for Eminem, best alternative act for Nashville-based Paramore and best new act for singer-songwriter Ke$ha.
The new MTV Global Icon award went to Bon Jovi, who finished off the show with a rock medley of hits like Shot Through the Heart and It's My Life.

For 25 years, Oprah Winfrey has been giving women the courage to come forward with their stories of surviving abuse. Now she wants to empower male survivors to do the same.

As a follow-up to Winfrey's October 20th sit-down with filmmaker Tyler Perry -- who spoke for the first time about the repeated physical and sexual abuse in his childhood -- Winfrey will dedicate two shows to the stories of men who were sexually abused as children. Winfrey is calling the shows "two of the most phenomenal" she's ever produced.

The first show, airing November 5th, will introduce an audience of 200 men, each holding a photo of himself at the age when he was first abused. Tyler Perry and a psychologist specializing in male sexual abuse survivors will speak to the crowd. On the second show, airing November 12th, the men in the audience will be joined by their significant others to discuss how the abuse has affected their relationships.

This is obviously not the first time that The Oprah Winfrey Show has taken on the issue of child abuse. Winfrey herself is a sexual abuse survivor, and came out spontaneously on an emotional episode in 1990. However, the fact that she's talking to men, and not women, is significant. When Perry told his story to Oprah, he said that being molested made him extremely confused about his sexuality.

"I knew I liked the little girls in the neighborhood, but this man was doing something to me and my body kept betraying me," says Perry, who was being sexually abused by a man at his church. "It took me all of my 20s to figure out what this was that this man had given me to carry inside of my heterosexuality that did not belong to me. This is why so many men will not talk about this — the shame of having to admit that."

Men are more likely than women to keep complicated emotions buried, and to fear that revealing abuse makes them somehow weak. Unfortunately, denying a childhood trauma is the worst way to deal with it; by burying that pain, victims force it to leak into their relationships with their significant others, and even their children. Oprah says she hopes that these two episodes "can be an open door to freedom" for men who have been abused. In her final season, perhaps Oprah will lift yet another veil of silence: allowing abused men to finally bring their pain out in the open, without fear of judgement or blame.