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Ghanaians voted in an election seen as a close fight between President Nana Akufo-Addo and his longtime rival John Mahama, in a country long viewed a beacon of stability in a troubled region.
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
With this historic maiden voyage at the weekend from its Export Terminal located in Apapa Port, Lagos, Dangote has gradually made Nigeria, which until recently was one of the world's largest bulk importers of cement, first self-sufficient in cement production, and now an exporter of cement clinker to other countries.
The exportation of the clinker from the Dangote Cement Export Terminal would also place Nigeria as one of the leading clinker exporters in the world.
Speaking during the departure of the ship conveying the clinker from the Export Terminal at the weekend, Group Executive Director, Dangote Group, Alhaji Sada Ladan-Baki, said the increased exportation of clinker and cement to other African countries would not only place Dangote Cement among top clinker exporters in the world, but also boost Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings and reduce unemployment in the country.
Ladan-Baki recalled that only a few years ago, Nigeria was one of the world's largest bulk importers of cement, saying \"Dangote has gradually made Nigeria self-sufficient in cement production as well as an exporter of clinker to other countries.\"
\"But, apart from job creation opportunities, the exportation of clinker by Dangote will position the country to participate fully in the Africa Free Trade Liberalisation Agreement when it comes into being, so that Nigeria will be protected against foreign products.
The police chief called on Nigerians to join in efforts to tackle rape and other sexual violence by ensuring prompt report of cases and working with the police to apprehend the suspects.
\"I will call on every Nigerian that comes across any victim of sexual offences, rape or gender-based violence to quickly report to law enforcement agents because keeping quiet without reporting it will give room for the perpetrators to continue to commit the offences,\" he said.
\"It has come to the public knowledge now that because of the COVID-19 restrictions, we have a surge in cases of rape and gender-based violence.
These are cases that are now coming up but we want to let members of the public know that, rape and gender-based violence has been there.
\"The police and other security agencies and other Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have been collaborating, to see to it that these cases of rape and gender-based violence are dealt with.
Ivory has been desired since antiquity because its relative softness made it easy to carve into intricate decorative items for the very wealthy. For the past one hundred years, the ivory trade in Africa has been closely regulated, yet the trade continues to thrive.
During the days of the Roman Empire, the ivory exported from Africa largely came from North African elephants.
These elephants were also used in the Roman coliseum fights and occasionally as transport in war and were hunted to extinction around the 4th century C.E. After that point, the ivory trade in Africa declined for several centuries.
By the 800s, the trade in African ivory had picked-up again. In these years, traders transported ivory from West Africa along the trans-Saharan trade routes to the North African coast or brought East African ivory up in boats along the coast line to the market-cities of north-east Africa and the Middle East. From these depots, ivory was taken across the Mediterranean to Europe or to Central and East Asia, though the latter regions could easily acquire ivory from southeast Asian elephants.
As Portuguese navigators began exploring the West African coast line in the 1400s, they soon entered into the lucrative ivory trade, and other European sailors were not far behind.
During these years, ivory was still acquired almost exclusively by African hunters, and as the demand continued, the elephant population near the coast lines declined. In response, African hunters traveled further and further inland in search of elephant herds.
As the trade in ivory moved inland, the hunters and traders needed a way to tranport the ivory to the coast.
In West Africa, trade focused on numerous rivers that emptied into the Atlantic, but in Central and East Africa, there were fewer rivers to use. Sleeping Sickness and other tropical diseases also made it almost impossible to use animals (like horses, oxen, or camels) to transport goods in West, Central, or central-East Africa, and this meant that people were the primary movers of
As black America remains under an ongoing murderous and unrelenting police occupation, black social scientists have continued performing their much-needed work as the demand for true justice grows by the day.
In these countless numbers of cases, police officers (predominantly white males) have even slaughtered black America’s women (Sandra Bland, Texas) and children (Tamir Rice, Ohio).
The 22-page report on this study examines black oppression by society-at-large, poverty, and the downright criminal element within America’s primarily white male-dominated local police forces.
Hitchens and her two other co-authors also provide the empirical data that is needed to fully understand the impact of black America’s nightmarish reality.
The hundreds of years that highlight the oppression of blacks in America is nothing short of devilish and vile.
Amanda Smith , née Berry (born Jan. 23, 1837, Long Green, Md., U.S.—died Feb. 24, 1915, Sebring, Fla.), American evangelist and missionary who opened an orphanage for African-American girls.
Born a slave, Berry grew up in York county, Pa., after her father bought his own freedom and that of most of the family. She was educated mainly at home and at an early age began working as a domestic. An unhappy first marriage ended with the disappearance of her husband in the American Civil War. In 1863 she married James Smith and eventually moved with him to New York City. An experience of sanctification in 1868 led to her first hesitant attempts at preaching. By 1869 her husband and her children had died, and she was preaching regularly in African-American churches in New York and New Jersey.
Smith’s success in preaching before a white audience at a holiness camp meeting in the summer of 1870 led her to commit herself entirely to evangelism. She traveled widely over the next eight years, and in 1878 she sailed for England, where she spent a year evangelizing at holiness meetings. From 1879 to 1881 she was in India, and after another brief stay in England she sailed in 1881 for West Africa. For eight years she did missionary work in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Following another sojourn in Great Britain from 1889 to 1890, she returned to the United States. She preached in eastern cities until 1892, when she moved to Chicago.
In 1893 Smith published An Autobiography. The proceeds from the book, together with her savings, the income from a small newspaper she published, and gifts from others, enabled her to open a home for African-American orphans in Harvey, Ill., in 1899. Eventually she resumed preaching and singing in order to support the home. In 1912, when she retired to Florida, the orphanage was taken over by the state of Illinois and chartered as the Amanda Smith Industrial School for Girls. It was destroyed by fire in 1918.
Born: October 17, 1956
Birthplace: Decatur, Alabama
Mae C. Jemison was born the youngest of three children of Charlie and Dorothy Jemison, a maintenance worker and
schoolteacher. Raised in Chicago, Illinois, she graduated from Morgan Park High School in 1973. She earned a Bachelor of
Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 1977, while also fulfilling the requirements for a Bachelor
of Arts in African-American Studies. She attended medical school and received a Doctor of Medicine degree from Cornell
University in 1981. While in medical school she traveled to Cuba, Kenya and Thailand, providing primary medical care to
people living there.
Following medical school Dr. Jemison served in the Peace Corps, from January 1983 to June 1985. She was stationed in
Sierra Leone and Liberia, West Africa as the area Peace Corps medical officer. There she supervised the pharmacy,
laboratory, medical staff. She provided medical care, wrote self-care manuals, developed and implemented guidelines for health
and safety issues. She also had contact with and worked in conjunction with the Center for Disease Control (CDC) on
research for various vaccines.
In 1985, after returning from the Peace Corps, Dr. Jemison secured a position with the CIGNA Health Plans of California as a
general practitioner in Los Angeles, California. There she began attending graduate classes in engineering and applied to the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for admission to the astronaut program. Her first application was not
accepted. It was her second application in 1987 that was accepted as an astronaut candidate; Mae Jemison became one of the
fifteen candidate accepted from some 2,000 applicants.
Dr. Jemison successfully completed her astronaut training program in August 1988, becoming the fifth black astronaut and the
first black female astronaut in NASA history. In August 1992, SPACELAB J was a successful joint U.S. and Japanese science
mission, making Mae Jemison the first black woman in space.
Elliott Percival Skinner, a leading late 20th Century anthropologist, also served as the United States ambassador to the Republic of Upper Volta (the West African country renamed itself Burkina Faso in 1984). Skinner was born on June 20, 1924 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. During World War II, he immigrated to the United States and in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Army. His combat service in France earned him American citizenship.
Upon his honorable discharge from the military, Skinner enrolled in New York University in 1947, graduating four years later with a degree in anthropology. In 1952 he earned a master’s degree in the same academic area from Columbia University in New York, New York. In 1955, Skinner earned a doctorate degree in anthropology from Columbia with a dissertation titled: “Ethnic Interaction in a British Guiana Rural Community: A Study in Secondary Acculturation and Group Dynamics.”
After obtaining his Ph.D. Skinner’s research interest shifted from Latin America to West Africa. From 1955 to 1957 Skinner lived and worked in what is now Burkina Faso. While there, he learned the More language, the most popular language of the Mossi people in the Upper Volta region. In 1959 Skinner accepted a teaching position in the anthropology department at New York University where he researched and taught African ethnology. He earned tenure at that institution in 1963. In 1966, he joined the anthropology department at Columbia University and served there until his retirement in 1994.
Skinner’s career path in academe took a significant detour when in 1966 President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated the 42 year-old scholar as U.S. Ambassador to Upper Volta. At the time he was only the eleventh African American named a U.S. ambassador and the only one who actually conducted academic research in a country before his appointment. Skinner’s first major book, The Mossi of Upper Volta, was published just two years before his appointment.
Ambassador Skinner returned to the United States in 1969 and resumed
Ishmael Beah is a Sierra Leonean author and human rights activist who rose to fame with his personal history, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Solider. Beah was born on November 23, 1980, in Mattru Jong, Bonthe District, Sierra Leone, in West Africa. The Sierra Leone Civil War started in March 1991 when Beah was ten years old. When he was twelve, the war affected him directly. Rebel forces attacked his home village of Mogbwemo, killing his parents.
Beah wandered as a refugee from place to place for nearly a year, both alone and with a small group of boys who included his older brother. Shortly after his brother was killed, Beah was recruited as a child soldier in the Sierra Leonean government army when he was just thirteen years old. Beah took part in numerous battles with the army, but in early 1996, at the age of fifteen, he was rescued from the military by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and placed in a rehabilitation home in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital city. He spent eight months in the home before being sent to live with his uncle. In November 1996, he traveled to New York City to take part in United Nation’s First International Children’s Parliament, a conference that addressed the devastating impact of war on children in various nations around the world.
In 1997 with the help of UNICEF, Beah left Sierra Leone and arrived in New York City, New York, where he lived with Laura Simms, his foster mother. Beah, now seventeen, attended high school at the United Nations International School. After graduating, Beah enrolled Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, graduating in 2004 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He also won Oberlin’s Dainne Vruels Fiction Prize for his Story at Noon.
While at Oberlin, Beah was an advocate for the rights of children caught up in war. In 2006 he gave a speech at the Religious for Peace Youth Assembly, titled “Religious Youth for Peace: Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security” in Tokyo, Japan. In 2007 Beah published A Long Way Gone: Memoirs
Kenya has announced ground and aerial control operations against hopper bands that were sighted in northwest Turkana and Marsabit.
Ministry of Agriculture Principal Secretary Prof Hamadi Boga, in the State Department for Crop Development and Agriculture Research announced the spraying of the hoppers that were seen in Turkana last Sunday, and which are likely to spread into Eastern Uganda.
\"The new swarm of locusts that was seen in Turkana this week is in the hopper state.
The PS's remarks come a few days after Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that the first generation of desert locusts in Kenya has matured and was ready to breed.
FAO's May 26 update said the situation in East Africa remains alarming as more swarms form and mature in Ethiopia and northern and central Kenya.
Elections generally have become a key fixture on the African news calendar and the year 2020 was no different.
West Africa has undertaken a number of key presidential votes that seen incumbents being retained – some under very tense circumstances. Two other polls are awaited in the region – Ghana and Niger; December 7 and 27 respectively.
As part of our 2020 review, we look back at some of the major elections that took place in the region. The review metrics shall be the significance of the vote, the main candidates, major issues, the final outcome and the poll aftermath.
The piece is the concluding part of our election review and focuses on polls in Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Togo.
Togo re-elects Faure
Togo held Africa’s first presidential vote in February, just in time before the disruption of COVID-19 which forced other countries to postpone or consider postponing their elections.
The February 22 poll was the first since constitutional reforms capped the presidential term limits. The new legislation means that incumbent Faure Gnassingbe could run for two more terms (2020 – 2030).
Two days after the vote, he was declared winner of the vote at a time opposition said it was contesting the process and outcome. The elections body announced that the president had won 72 percent of the vote in the first round.
The body added that main contender and former Prime Minister, Agbeyome Kodjo, came in second with just 18 percent of votes. The president was subsequently sworn into office at a social distanced event in the capital Lome.
Guinea’s busy, bustling election year
Guinea conducted three different votes this year. A referendum on extending presidential term limits, a partial legislative poll and a presidential poll. The referendum was passed amid tension and widespread opposition protest. That set the tone for the equally bloody presidential poll as opposition protesters clashed with security forces.
At the end of the vote, President Alpha Conde was declared winner with 59.49% of the vote, defeating his main rival Cellou Diallo. Diallo received 33.50% of the vote, the electoral commission said. Voter turnout was almost 80%.
Political tensions in the West African nation turned violent after Diallo claimed victory ahead of the official results. Celebrations by his supporters were suppressed when security forces fired tear gas to disperse them.
Ouattara pushes ahead with third term
Ivorian president Alassane Ouattara was on his way out of the presidency until his Prime Minister and candidate of the ruling party Amadou Gon Coulibaly died.
Then the president reversed his quit promise. The consequence of which was an opposition mobilization against his candidature. Clashes with security forces did little to deter Ouattara who had been cleared with three others to run in the October 31 poll.
Days to the vote, main opposition candidates ex-president Henri Konan Bedie and ex-prime minister Pascal Affi N’guessan announced a boycott of the vote. Ouattara press
Hubert Ogunde , (born 1916, Ososa, near Ijebu-Ode, Nigeria—died April 4, 1990, London, Eng.), Nigerian playwright, actor, theatre manager, and musician, who was a pioneer in the field of Nigerian folk opera (drama in which music and dancing play a significant role). He was the founder of the Ogunde Concert Party (1945), the first professional theatrical company in Nigeria. Often regarded as the father of Nigerian theatre, Ogunde sought to reawaken interest in his country’s indigenous culture.
Ogunde’s first folk opera, The Garden of Eden and the Throne of God, was performed with success in 1944 while he was still a member of the Nigerian Police Force. It was produced under the patronage of an African Protestant sect, and it mixed biblical themes with the traditions of Yoruba dance-drama. His popularity was established throughout Nigeria by his timely play Strike and Hunger (performed 1946), which dramatized the general strike of 1945. In 1946 the name of Ogunde’s group was changed to the African Music Research Party, and in 1947 it became the Ogunde Theatre Company. Many of Ogunde’s early plays were attacks on colonialism, while those of his later works with political themes deplored interparty strife and government corruption within Nigeria. Yoruba theatre became secularized through his careful blending of astute political or social satire with elements of music hall routines and slapstick.
Ogunde’s most famous play, Yoruba Ronu (performed 1964; “Yorubas, Think!”), was such a biting attack on the premier of Nigeria’s Western region that his company was banned from the region—the first instance in post-independence Nigeria of literary censorship. The ban was lifted in 1966 by Nigeria’s new military government, and in that same year the Ogunde Dance Company was formed. Otito Koro (performed 1965; “Truth is Bitter”) also satirizes political events in western Nigeria in 1963. An earlier play produced in 1946, The Tiger’s Empire, also marked the first instance in Yoruban theatre that women were billed to appear in
Mae Jemison , in full Mae Carol Jemison (born Oct. 17, 1956, Decatur, Ala., U.S.), American physician and the first African American woman to become an astronaut. In 1992 she spent more than a week orbiting Earth in the space shuttle Endeavour.
Jemison moved with her family to Chicago at the age of three. There she was introduced to science by her uncle and developed interests throughout her childhood in anthropology, archaeology, evolution, and astronomy. While still a high school student, she became interested in biomedical engineering, and after graduating in 1973, at the age of 16, she entered Stanford University. There she received degrees in chemical engineering and African American studies (1977).
In 1977 Jemison entered medical school at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where she pursued an interest in international medicine. After volunteering for a summer in a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand, she studied in Kenya in 1979. She graduated from medical school in 1981, and, after a short time as a general practitioner with a Los Angeles medical group, she became a medical officer with the Peace Corps in West Africa. There she managed health care for Peace Corps and U.S. embassy personnel and worked in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control on several research projects, including development of a hepatitis B vaccine.
After returning to the United States, Jemison applied to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to be an astronaut. In October 1986, she was 1 of 15 accepted out of 2,000 applicants. Jemison completed her training as a mission specialist with NASA in 1988. She became an astronaut office representative with the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, working to process space shuttles for launching and to verify shuttle software. Next, she was assigned to support a cooperative mission between the United States and Japan designed to conduct experiments in materials processing and the life sciences. In September
The letter by Dominic Gaskin follows:
I refer to a letter by Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye, published in your letter columns today (June, 21st 2020), entitled `Can Mr Gaskin explain what constitutes a seriously rigged election’?
Having shared a few platforms with Mr. Ogunseye during the recent elections campaign, I wish to respond as respectfully as possible to several of the points made in his letter.
If I could dwell on this for a moment, I’d like to make it clear that nowhere in any of my three Facebook posts have I suggested that Mr. Mingo’s fraudulent declarations were done on behalf of the Coalition.
However, the context in which Mr. Ogunseye was seeking my interpretation of what constitutes a “seriously rigged election” has to do with the following extract from my most recent Facebook post which he quoted: The claims of fraud were grossly exaggerated and, unfortunately, designed to fool party supporters, who had placed their faith in the Coalition, into believing that there was actual evidence of serious election rigging by the PPP-C.
This statement pertains to the recount period, and I stand by its two main assertions: 1) that the claims of fraud were grossly exaggerated; and 2) that these claims were designed to fool supporters into believing that there was actual evidence of serious election rigging by the PPP-C.
June 10: Cases pass 10,000 mark as rapid test kit makers advance
\tGhana reached 10,000 mark in terms of confirmed cases on Tuesday (June 9); the case load reached 10,201 with deaths still at 48, 3,755 recoveries and 6,398 active cases.
Total confirmed cases = 9,910
Total recoveries = 3,645
Total deaths = 48
Active cases = 6,217
June 8: 9,638 cases, govt evacuation plans
\tGovernment has confirmed that it was preparing to evacuate some Ghanaians stranded overseas due to the COVID-19 disruption.
Total confirmed cases = 9,638
Total recoveries = 3,636
Total deaths = 44
Active cases = 5,958
\tFigures valid as of close of day June 7, 2020
June 7: 9,462 cases, deaths hit 44
\tThe Managing Director of a major private health care facility in the capital Accra reported testing positive for the virus.
Total confirmed cases = 9,462
Total recoveries = 3,547
Active cases = 5,871
\tFigures valid as of close of day June 6, 2020
June 3: 8,297 cases; govt defends ban on football
\tSports Minister, Isaac Asiamah has defended government’s decision to maintain a ban on football despite the recent lifting of a raft of restrictions.
Total confirmed cases = 8,297
Total recoveries = 2,986
Total deaths = 38
Active cases = 5,273
June 2: Minister issues guidelines for churches, mosques
\tThe Minister of Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Samuel Kofi Dzamesi, has expanded on a government plan for reopening of places of worship across the country.
Opinion - The two front-runners in Ghana's 2020 election have weak records on tackling corruption. This leaves voters with little choice.
Slightly larger than Colorado, Burkina Faso, formerly known as Upper Volta, is a landlocked country in West Africa. Its neighbors are Côte dIvoire, Mali, Niger, Benin, Togo, and Ghana. The country consists of extensive plains, low hills, high savannas, and a desert area in the north.
Parliamentary.
Burkina Faso was originally inhabited by the Bobo, Lobi, and Gurunsi peoples, with the Mossi and Gurma peoples immigrating to the region in the 14th century. The lands of the Mossi empire became a French protectorate in 1897, and by 1903 France had subjugated the other ethnic groups. Called Upper Volta by the French, it became a separate colony in 1919, was partitioned among Niger, the Sudan, and Côte dIvoire in 1932, and was reconstituted in 1947. An autonomous republic within the French Community, Upper Volta became independent on Aug. 5, 1960.
President Maurice Yameogo was deposed on Jan. 3, 1966, by a military coup led by Col. Sangoulé Lamizana, who dissolved the national assembly and suspended the constitution. Constitutional rule returned in 1978 with the election of an assembly and a presidential vote in June in which Gen. Lamizana won by a narrow margin over three other candidates.
On Nov. 25, 1980, Col. Sayé Zerbo led a bloodless coup that toppled Lamizana. In turn, Maj. Jean-Baptist Ouedraogo ousted Zerbo on Nov. 7, 1982. But the real revolutionary change occurred the following year when a 33-year-old flight commander, Thomas Sankara, took control. A Marxist-Leninist, he challenged the traditional Mossi chiefs, advocated womens liberation, and allied the country with North Korea, Libya, and Cuba. To sever ties to the colonial past, Sankara changed the name of the country in 1984 to Burkina Faso, which combines two of the nations languages and means “the land of upright men.”
While Sankaras investments in schools, food production, and clinics brought some improvement in living standards, foreign investment declined, many businesses left the country, and unhappy labor unions began strikes. On Oct. 15,
Coordinates: 14°N 14°W / 14°N 14°W
Senegal (/ˌ s ɛ n ɪ ˈ ɡ ɔː l, -ˈ ɡ ɑː l/ ( listen);[7] [8] French: Sénégal ), officially the Republic of Senegal (French: République du Sénégal [ʁepyblik dy seneɡal]), is a country in West Africa. Senegal is bordered by Mauritania in the north, Mali to the east, Guinea to the southeast, and Guinea-Bissau to the southwest. Senegal also borders The Gambia, a country occupying a narrow sliver of land along the banks of the Gambia River, which separates Senegals southern region of Casamance from the rest of the country. Senegal also shares a maritime border with Cape Verde. Senegals economic and political capital is Dakar. It is the westernmost country in the mainland of the Old World, or Afro-Eurasia,[9] and owes its name to the Senegal River, which borders it to the east and north. The name Senegal comes from the Wolof Sunuu Gaal, which means Our Boat. Senegal covers a land area of almost 197,000 square kilometres (76,000 sq mi) and has an estimated population of about 15 million[2]. The climate is Sahelian, but there is a rainy season.
Cultures and influences [ edit ]
The territory of modern Senegal has been inhabited by various ethnic groups since prehistory. Organized kingdoms emerged around the seventh century, and parts of the country were ruled by prominent regional empires such as the Jolof Empire. The present state of Senegal has its roots in European colonialism, which began during the mid-15th century, when various European powers began competing for trade in the area. The establishment of coastal trading posts gradually led to control of the mainland, culminating in French rule of the area by the 19th century, albeit amid much local resistance. Senegal peacefully attained independence from France in 1960, and has since been among the more politically stable countries in Africa.
Senegals economy is centered mostly on commodities and natural resources. Major industries are fish processing, phosphate mining, fertilizer production, petroleum
Sierra Leone more than doubled its coronavirus cases in the last 10 days (April 20 – 30 from 64 cases to 124).
April 21: President Bio enters in quarantine
\tSierra Leone president Julius Maada Bio is to undergo 14-day self-isolation after one of his bodyguards tested positive for COVID-19, reports from the West African country indicated as of Monday evening.
March 31: Sierra Leone confirms index case
\tSierra Leone president Julius Maada Bio has confirmed that the country has its first case of COVID-19, multiple media outlets in the West African country have confirmed.
March 27: Sierra Leone closes borders for 30 days
\tVirus-free Sierra Leone on Friday announced closure of its borders for a 30-day period barely days after President Julius Maada Bio announced a state of public health emergency.
VIDEO
March 24: President Maada Bio declares 12-month state of Public Health emergency
\tDespite being among 11 African countries that have not recorded any cases of the coronavirus, Sierra Leone president Julius Maada Bio has imposed a twelve-month state of public health emergency effe
Shirley Elizabeth Barnes is a former United States Ambassador to the African country of Madagascar, 1998-2001. Barnes was nominated by President Bill Clinton on June 29, 1998 and after confirmation by the U.S. Senate, arrived in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar, and presented her credentials on August 30, 1998.
Ambassador Barnes was born in St. Augustine, Florida on April 5, 1938. Her father worked as a waiter out of Miami for the Seaboard Airlines Railroad before he moved his family to Saratoga, New York, when Shirley was just five years old. There, her father continued to work as a waiter most of his life, while her mother worked as a teacher, a pianist, and a dressmaker. Eventually, the family prospered and settled in the Sugar Hill neighborhood of New York City.
Barnes attended the Baruch School of Business at the City College of New York and graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 1956. While in college, she joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and pledged Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She also became fluent in the French language while at City College.
Through her church, Barnes was introduced to Crossroads Africa, a recently created student exchange program that connected student service projects in rural villages of various African countries. Through this experience, Barnes travelled to Togo, West Africa, and helped to build schools in 1958.
Upon her return, she decided to return to school to study international affairs and international relations at Boston University in Massachusetts. While at Boston University, a Crossroads Africa colleague connected her to an opportunity in the Congo. She worked there for the Ford Foundation from 1961 to 1965 as a program assistant. During her time in the Congo she worked on education, environmental issues, gender issues, and civil unrest. Returning to the United States in 1965, Barnes worked for the African American Institute, an organization of African Americans who
Kente is a brightly coloured, banded material and is the most widely known cloth produced in Africa. Although kente cloth is now identified with the Akan people in West Africa, and particularly the Asante Kingdom, the term originates from the neighbouring Fante. Kente cloth is closely related to Adinkra cloth, which has symbols stenciled into cloth and is associated with mourning.
Kente cloth is made from thin strips about four cm thick woven together on narrow looms - typically by men.
The strips are interlaced to form a fabric which is usually worn wrapped around the shoulders and waist like a toga - the garment is also known as kente. Women wear two shorter lengths to form a skirt and bodice.
Originally made from white cotton with some indigo patterning, kente cloth evolved when silk arrived with Portuguese traders in the seventeenth century. Fabric samples were pulled apart for the silken thread, which was then woven into the kente cloth. Later, when skeins of silk became available, more sophisticated patters were created - although the extortionate cost of the silk meant they were only available to Akan royalty.
Kente has its own mythology - claiming the original cloth was taken from the web of a spider - and related superstitions - such as no work can be started or completed on a Friday and that mistakes require an offering to be made to the loom.
In kente cloth colours are significant:
Even today, when a new design is created, it must first be offered to the royal house.
If the king declines to take the pattern, it can be sold to the public. Designs worn by Asante royalty may not be worn by others.
As one of the prominent symbols of African arts and culture, Kente cloth has been embraced by the broader African diaspora (which means people of African descent wherever they might live.) Kente cloth is particularly popular in the United States among African-Americans and can be found on all types of clothing, accessories, and objects. These designs replicate registered Kente designs, but are often
April 12: Cases hit 5,127; gold-rich Obuasi new hotspot
\tGhana’s case statistics passed the 5,000 mark after 427 new cases were recorded according to head of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Aboagye.
Ghana has undertaken 160,501 tests since the outbreak, a figure the president touted as highest per million people than any other country in Africa.
May 10: 4,263 cases, Accra prison ‘infected’
\tGhana’s case statistics as of close of day May 9 stood at 3,263 according tallies released by the health service.
May 9: 900+ new cases, tally hits 4,012
\tGhana returned to most impacted West African country after authorities disclosed a record one-day increase of over 900 cases late Friday.
May 7: 3,091 cases, police rolls out mass tests
\tGhana’s case statistics stood at 3,091 in the latest tallies released early Thursday by the Ghana Health Service.
Gunmen have attacked a security post in northern Ivory Coast near the border with Burkina Faso, killing at least 10 soldiers and injuring six others, Ivory Coast’s army chief said Thursday.
Thursday’s early morning assault targeted an army and gendarmerie post in Kafolo in Sikolo prefecture, according to a statement by Armed Forces Chief Lassina Doumbia.
In May, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso launched joint operations along the border region.
Fighters affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have staged a growing number of attacks and gained more territory in the past year in Burkina Faso, displacing more than 750,000 people in that country’s north.
There have been growing concerns over the possible presence of Islamic militants in Ivory Coast.
A Dallas police oversight board reported that it has had over 100 calls from residents complaining about police brutalizing protesters and reporting injuries as a result of police firing non-lethal but obviously harmful projectiles.
Louisville man defending himself from police attack shot and killed
Louisville police shot and killed restaurant owner David McAtee last week during a protest on behalf of George Floyd.
Minneapolis police claim they don’t fire rubber bullets, but protesters have reported being hit by projectiles and have shown news media large rocket- and bullet-shaped objects that police have fired at them.
The protest was one of many across the nation following the police killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day.
First, the Christian Monitor reported that Trump’s approval rating has dropped 20 points among voters over age 65, the biggest drop any other age group aside from 18-29-year-olds.
Deprived of work and access to aid, thousands of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa living in Morocco are struggling to make ends meet under Covid-19 restrictions.
“The misery is across the board,” said Ousmane Ba, head of the Collective of sub-Saharan Communities in Morocco.
The north African kingdom has long been a transit country for migrants and refugees seeking a better life in Europe, and it has also become a host country for many.
Abdoulaye Diop, head of the Federation of sub-Saharan associations in Morocco, organises food basket distribution within the Senegalese community.
“Today you eat rice, tomorrow pasta, the day after rice,” said Eouani Mambia Morelline, the 40-year-old Congolese head of a collective for migrant women in Morocco.
Subsequently, government reserved 425 hospital beds and five ventilators for COVID-19 at one of the tertiary care hospitals in the capital, Harare, and is upgrading and refurbishing infectious diseases hospitals around the country.
Apart from increasing hospital capacity for COVID-19 cases, the response in Zimbabwe has included public awareness campaigns, promotion of social distancing including banning public gatherings, closing schools and colleges, and culminated in a 21-day general lockdown, which was later extended by 14 days.
The nascent SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa has not followed the usual script of infectious diseases, of being predominantly found in impoverished areas.
Older age has been consistently associated with heightened mortality from differences in the population age structure can lead to dramatic differences in mortality for COVID-19 disease[18] Thus, it is reasonable to anticipate a much lower mortality from COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa, compared to Europe and North America, where there is a much larger proportion of older people.
A potential source of higher than anticipated mortality from COVID-19 disease in sub-Saharan Africa is the high burden of HIV infection [5].
Roseau is the capital, principal town, and major port of Dominica, an island nation of 72,000 people in the Caribbean Sea. The town had a population of 16,582 people in 2007, making it one of the least populous capitals in the world. Roseau is located on the southwestern coast of the nation at the mouth of the Roseau River. Its main exports are skin oils, limes and their juice, tropical vegetables, and spices. Throughout the nation’s history the town has been the commercial center of the island.
The history of Roseau had begun well before Europeans began to settle the island nation. The island of Dominica was discovered and named by Christopher Columbus on November 3, 1493. It was occupied, however, only by the Carib people for the next century. When the Spanish finally attempted a settlement, the Carib drove them from the island.
In 1642 Father Raymond Breton, a French missionary, visited the island and encountered a Carib village where Roseau now sits. The Carib called the area Sari. French woodcutters, who were the first Europeans on the island, befriended the natives and lived together with them until increasing French settlement caused the Caribs to retreat to interior forests.
The new French settlers renamed the Carib village Roseau after the river reeds, Roseaux, that grew on the river banks. The town’s location meant settlers had access to fresh water from the river and flat lands in the area to cultivate. The French also brought the first enslaved people from West Africa to the island colony. By 1800 people of African ancestry were the majority of the island’s residents where they toiled on coffee plantations, and the majority of the inhabitants of Roseau. Slavery was abolished on the island and throughout the British Empire in 1833.
Dominica by that point had become the object of nearly half-century struggle between the French and the English. The 1763 Treaty of Paris which ended a global conflict between the British and the French called the Seven Years’ War (on North America it was
Slavery has been rife throughout all of ancient history. Most, if not all, ancient civilizations practiced this institution and it is described (and defended) in early writings of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Egyptians. It was also practiced by early societies in central America and Africa. (See Bernard Lewiss work Race and Slavery in the Middle East 1 for a detailed chapter on the origins and practices of slavery.)
The Quran prescribes a humanitarian approach to slavery -- free men could not be enslaved, and those faithful to foreign religions could live as protected persons, dhimmis, under Muslim rule (as long as they maintained payment of taxes called Kharaj and Jizya). However, the spread of the Islamic Empire resulted in a much harsher interpretation of the law. For example, if a dhimmis was unable to pay the taxes they could be enslaved, and people from outside the borders of the Islamic Empire were considered an acceptable source of slaves.
Although the law required owners to treat slaves well and provide medical treatment, a slave had no right to be heard in court (testimony was forbidden by slaves), had no right to property, could marry only with permission of their owner, and was considered to be a chattel, that is the (moveable) property, of the slave owner. Conversion to Islam did not automatically give a slave freedom nor did it confer freedom to their children.
Whilst highly educated slaves and those in the military did win their freedom, those used for basic duties rarely achieved freedom. In addition, the recorded mortality rate was high -- this was still significant even as late as the nineteenth century and was remarked upon by western travelers in North Africa and Egypt.
Slaves were obtained through conquest, tribute from vassal states (in the first such treaty, Nubia was required to provide hundreds of male and female slaves), offspring (children of slaves were also slaves, but since many slaves were castrated this was not as common as it had been in the Roman empire), and purchase.
