Keeping up with doings in Nigeria’s oil region:

Nigeria’s Supreme Court on Thursday nullified the election in the oil-producing Niger Delta state of Rivers, the third major indictment of April’s vote this month.

The elections were meant to be a democratic milestone for Africa’s most populous country, but they were so marred by fraud and violence that international observers said they were “not credible”.

The Supreme Court ruled Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who won the primaries for the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in December, was the lawfully elected governor of Rivers, not Celestine Omehia.

Omehia did not win the primary but his name replaced Amaechi’s on the ballot as the PDP candidate in the April 14 vote.

The ruling has the potential of sparking a fresh wave of trouble in Africa’s oil heartland, where politicians are backed by rival armed groups. Article

Also:

Nigeria’s pledge to review its relationship with major oil companies is likely to ring alarm bells among investors who fear soaring crude prices will tempt the government to demand a bigger profit share. Article

An achievement, with out doubt, but — cockroaches?

A Russian cockroach called Nadezhda (Hope) has given birth to the first creatures ever conceived in space, scientists in Voronezh, central Russia, said on Tuesday.

Nadezhda conceived during the Foton-M bio-satellite September 14-26 flight.

“We recently received the first batch of 33 cockroaches conceived in microgravity,” Dmitry Atyakshin said.

Though the newborn creatures already eat and drink respectively well, microgravity conditions may have had an impact on the natural darkening of their chitinous carapace, a part of a cockroach’s exoskeleton.

“Cockroaches are born with a transparent carapace, which gradually turns into brown, and the space cockroaches went darker earlier than usual,” the scientist explained, adding that final conclusions would only be able to drawn only after the second female had given birth. Article

Now there’s something you don’t hear or read everyday.

“We don’t hear a lot of complaints about glowing seafood, but then people rarely look at their shrimp and crab in the dark.” Article