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Up in arms over the Egyptian President's state visit to France, around 20 protesters gathered outside the Paris National Assembly late on Monday, shouting "down with dictatorship".
The demonstration outside the parliament painted a very different picture to earlier in the day when France welcomed President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi with a cavalry parade through Paris.
Before the three-day visit, rights groups accused France of indulging President al-Sisi's "brutal repression of any form of dissent".
"We've come across a President of the Republic who welcomes the butcher of Cairo, the butcher of Egypt, in great pomp, on a state visit, with the Republican Guard," said François de Roche, chief of the NGO Justice and Rights Without Borders.
"We have fallen on our heads. This is unacceptable. France, the country of Human Rights, cannot accept this."
But French President Emmanuel Macron refrained from direct criticism of former army general Sisi, who has cracked down on supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi, as well as on leftists and liberals.
Macron told a joint press conference with Sisi that he would not condition the sale of weapons to Egypt and trade ties on human rights as he did not want to weaken Cairo’s ability to counter-terrorism in the region.
"I think it is more effective to have a policy of dialogue than a policy of boycott which would reduce the effectiveness of one of our partners in the fight against terrorism and for regional stability," he said.
To force the issue of human rights would be both "ineffective on the subject of human rights and counter-productive in the fight against terrorism, that's why I won't do it," he added
Nationwide protests have taken place since October 7 despite the disbanding of the controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit.
The demonstrators have been accused of attacking police stations and personnel.
The rallies which are mostly attended by young people have become avenues to vent against corruption and unemployment.
Rights groups say at least 15 people have been killed the demonstrations began in early October.
In 1995, career Foreign Service Officer Mosina H. Jordan was nominated by President Bill Clinton to serve as ambassador to the Central African Republic (CAR). After U.S. Senate confirmation she arrived in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic and presented her credentials on November 29, 1995.
Mosina Jordan was born in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1943, to Frank Montero and Alice Mann. In 1964, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work from New York University. After she earned her Juris Doctorate from American University in 1973, Jordan became a civil servant, working for the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, and for the Community Services Administration.
In 1982, Jordan started her career with the U.S. Foreign Service as an Administrative Officer for Economic Programs for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington, D.C. After working at USAID headquarters for seven years, she rose in rank to become a Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator. Her first overseas experience came in 1989 when she served as a USAID Representative to Belize. From 1991 to 1995, Jordan supervised various USAID missions as Director for Regional Development in the Eastern Caribbean from an office in Bridgetown, Barbados. In this position, she directed a $24 million development program that promoted economic diversification, free trade, and legal reform for regional sustainability for seven Caribbean island nations.
In 1995, Jordan was appointed Ambassador to the Central African Republic (CAR). Her mission was to promote economic diversification, free market economic development, democracy, and human rights in a nation transitioning to democracy after decades of dictatorships. On May 21, 1996, this mission abruptly changed when CAR army soldiers staged a mutiny at the capital, Bangui, over unpaid wages. Jordan responded by closing the U.S. Embassy, and having her staff and other Americans safely evacuated to nearby Cameroon with the assistance of 35 U.S. Marines. The Embassy
[Nation] Mozambique authorities say they are detaining 12 Iraqi nationals linked with supporting insurgents in Cabo Delgado province, providing further evidence of an external hand in the local violence that has claimed thousands.
You have been at the heart of government virtually all your political career, enjoying State power and its largess.
We held meetings with the President in Mombasa, at State House, and other places where I strongly defended the Senate and devolution.
It is not a befitting image, because our proverbial sun is the Constitution.
But, well, you know they are people of different backgrounds and are unique in their own ways.
Going forward, the next President of Kenya, be they Ruto or someone else, will have to deal with the adverse effects of Covid -19.
Amnesty International has published two major reports on human rights and environmental issues associated with cobalt mining and launched an initiative that challenged the electric vehicle industry to produce a battery with a completely clean human rights record for all its components.
At the Responsible Business Alliance, the Responsible Minerals Initiative is helping companies understand and improve the social and environmental performance of their cobalt supply chains.
The alliance recently teamed up with RCS Global Group, a company that specializes in responsible sourcing of materials, to expand assessment, monitoring and improvement of artisanal and small-scale cobalt mining practices in the DRC.
Butler says the Responsible Business Alliance now has over 50% of globally identified cobalt refiners -- the companies buying and processing cobalt from small-scale and artisanal mines -- in its program, largely because of customer demand for ethical and sustainable products, investor expectations of responsible sourcing, and global interest in the social and environmental costs of minerals.
Photo courtesy of Sumitomo Metal Mining
A Japanese company, Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd., recently announced it had developed a method for melting down spent electric vehicle batteries and recovering the cobalt.
Elected officials say NYPD should show ‘zero tolerance’ to Central Park ‘Karen’ and launch criminal probe
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NY Officials said Wednesday that the white woman who called the cops on a black man in Central Park should face an NYPD probe along with the city human rights investigation.
Adams was referring to Amy Cooper, the white woman in Christian’s viral video who repeatedly told a 911 operator that an “African American” man was threatening her.
In a video that has since gone viral, Christian Cooper, an African American man simply called Amy Cooper, a white woman out for not having her dog on a leash in that part of Central Park that requires it.
Adams takes issue with this and says:
“For anyone in the police department to state they have ‘bigger fish to fry,’ while black men are frying inside correctional facilities because of false accusations, that is the wrong mindset, the wrong attitude.”
Late Tuesday New York City’s Commission on Human Rights announced it was launching an investigation and had sent a letter to Amy Cooper asking her to cooperate.
In 1901 William Monroe Trotter (1873-1934) founded the Boston Equal Rights League to push for civil and human rights for Black people. The league operated nine years before the establishment of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).
In October 2007, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) quit the national unity government, leaving the peace agreement signed in 2005 on the brink of collapse. The SPLA claimed that the governing party, the National Congress Party, had ignored its concerns over boundary between the north and south and how to divide the countrys oil wealth.
Sudan faced international criticism once again in January 2008, when Musa Hilal, a Janjaweed leader, was appointed to a top government position as an adviser to the minister of federal affairs. Human Rights Watch called Hilal the poster child for Janjaweed atrocities in Darfur.
Government forces and the janjaweed resumed their attacks in the Darfur region in February 2008, forcing as many as 45,000 people to flee their homes. The government claimed it was targeting the Justice and Equality Movement, a rebel group that has become increasingly powerful and is believed to be linked to the government of Chad. Civilians in the region, however, say the attacks have continued after the rebels escape. The Justice and Equality Movement launched a bold attack in May, coming within a few miles of Khartoum before being repulsed by government troops. It was the first time that the conflict in Darfur has threatened to spill over into Khartoum.
In July 2008, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), indicted Bashir with genocide for planning and executing the decimation of Darfurs three main ethnic tribes: the Fur, the Masalit, and the Zaghawa. Moreno-Ocampo also said Bashir purposefully targeted civilians and used rapes, hunger, and fear to terrorize civilians. Many observers feared that Bashir would respond to the charges with further violence. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Bashir in March 2009, charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. An indictment for genocide was rejected by the court, and Moreno-Ocampo appealed the decision. Bashir responded by shutting down the 13 aid agencies that operate
Foreign missions in Maseru yesterday urged the country's political parties to expedite the installation of a new government to enable it to get down to the task of addressing the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic and other pressing developmental issues.
In a joint statement yesterday, the European Union (EU), United States of America (USA) and the High Commissioners of South Africa and the United Kingdom said it was necessary to speed up the negotiations for the installation of the new government.
\"The ambassadors of the EU and the USA and the High Commissioners of South Africa and the UK take note of the termination of the four-party coalition government of Lesotho in a consensual decision of the National Assembly,\" the statement reads.
\"It is important now that the negotiations for a new government proceed (sic) as swiftly as possible and that participants focus their deliberations on addressing the main challenges ahead, notably the threat of COVID-19 and the implementation of the reforms agreed in last year's National Dialogue.
\"It is vital during the transition ahead that all those entrusted with government responsibility are especially attentive to maintaining the safety and security of citizens, supporting democratic processes, and preserving human rights and fundamental freedoms,\" the ambassadors said.
Don Carlton Lemon is a prominent, award-winning black television anchor in the United States. In 2011, he publicly came out as a gay man. In so doing, he became the most prominent African American journalist to announce his sexual orientation and was immediately considered a major role model for other gay men of color.
Lemon was born on March 1, 1966 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to a single working mother. His father, known only as Mr. Richardson, played a positive role in Lemon’s young life. He and his sisters, Yma and Leisa, grew up in west Baton Rouge and Port Allen. They lived there with their mother and grandmother until 1976 when his mother married Lemon’s step-father. As an adult, Lemon reported that at the age of five he was sexually abused by a teenage male neighbor.
Lemon enrolled at Louisiana State University in 1984 but did not complete his studies. He moved to New York City in 1990 and entered the broadcasting field. His first job there was as a reporter for the Fox Affiliate, WNYW. Lemon graduated from Brooklyn College in Broadcast Journalism in 1996. He then moved to Birmingham, Alabama to anchor the news at Fox’s WBRC. St. Louis, Missouri was his next stop where he anchored and reported for KTVI.
In the late 1990s, he started his NBC affiliation at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s WCAU. Lemon then stepped up to network news as correspondent for NBC’s Today and NBC Nightly News. At this time, he also guest anchored the Today show and was seen on MSNBC on weekends. Lemon earned the Edward R. Murrow Award for his 2002 reporting on the Washington D.C. snipers.
Lemon moved to Chicago in 2003 to co-anchor the 5 p.m. newscast at WMAQ. His investigative report on the Chicago real estate market garnered him an Emmy. He financed his own fact-finding trip to Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, and Tanzania in 2005. Reporting on the African AIDS pandemic, he connected the international situation to the home context. He won another Emmy for this special coverage as well as one for his reporting on Hurricane Katrina.
CNN hired
The second inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States, marked the commencement of the second term of Barack Obama as President and Joe Biden as Vice President. A private swearing-in ceremony took place on Sunday, January 20, 2013 in the Blue Room of the White House. A public inauguration ceremony took place on Monday, January 21, 2013, at the United States Capitol building.
The inauguration theme was Faith in Americas Future, a phrase that draws upon the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation and the completion of the Capitol dome in 1863. The theme also stressed the perseverance and unity of the United States and echoed the Forward theme used in the closing months of Obamas reelection campaign. The inaugural events held in Washington, D.C. from January 19 to 21, 2013 included concerts, a national day of community service on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the swearing-in ceremony, luncheon and parade, inaugural balls, and the interfaith inaugural prayer service. The presidential oath was administered to Obama during his swearing-in ceremony on January 20 and 21, 2013 by Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts.
In his second inauguration address, Obama proclaimed that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. He called for laws to combat climate change, enactment of immigration reform and gun control. Obama stated that more progress was needed on human rights and civil rights (including racial minority rights, womens rights, and LGBT rights). He vowed to promote democracy abroad and stated that the United States must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice around the world. Additionally, the president vowed to keep existing alliances strong, emphasized the economic recovery and the end of wars, and stated that no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation. During the speech, Obama linked the Seneca Falls Convention, Selma to
[Dalsan Radio] The African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has concluded a two-day training on International Humanitarian Law, Human Rights and Gender for AMISOM, Somalia National Army (SNA) and Jubbaland forces.
A crucial election has begun in the East African nation of Burundi, where President Pierre Nkurunziza is stepping aside after 15 years in charge but he will remain “paramount leader” in the country that continues to reject outside scrutiny.
Face masks and social distancing were observed as voting began after 6 a.m. but Burundi’s government has been criticized for not appearing to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously.
Ahead of the vote, government agents were accused of harassing the main opposition party, the CNL, whose leader Agathon Rwasa is believed to be in a close race with Nkurunziza’s chosen successor in the ruling CNDD-FDD, Evariste Ndayishimiye.
Some in Burundi worry that a rigged election could spark the kind of street demonstrations that marked the previous vote in 2015, when Nkurunziza decided to run for a third term that some called unconstitutional.
More than 300,000 people who fled Burundi amid the turmoil caused by the previous election remain refugees.
Modern Tunisians are the descendants of indigenous Berbers and of people from numerous civilizations that have invaded, migrated to, and been assimilated into the population over the millennia. Recorded history in Tunisia begins with the arrival of Phoenicians, who founded Carthage and other North African settlements in the 8th century B.C. Carthage became a major sea power, clashing with Rome for control of the Mediterranean until it was defeated and captured by the Romans in 146 B.C.
The Romans ruled and settled in North Africa until the 5th century, when the Roman Empire fell and Tunisia was invaded by European tribes, including the Vandals. The Muslim conquest in the 7th century transformed Tunisia and the make-up of its population, with subsequent waves of migration from around the Arab and Ottoman world, including significant numbers of Spanish Muslims and Jews at the end of the 15th century.
Tunisia became a center of Arab culture and learning and was assimilated into the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. It was a French protectorate from 1881 until independence in 1956, and retains close political, economic, and cultural ties with France.
Tunisias independence from France in 1956 ended the protectorate established in 1881. President Habib Ali Bourguiba, who had been the leader of the independence movement, declared Tunisia a republic in 1957, ending the nominal rule of the Ottoman Beys.
In June 1959, Tunisia adopted a constitution modeled on the French system, which established the basic outline of the highly centralized presidential system that continues today. The military was given a defined defensive role, which excluded participation in politics.
Starting from independence, President Bourguiba placed strong emphasis on economic and social development, especially education, the status of women, and the creation of jobs, policies that continued under Zine El Abidine Ben Alis administration.
The result was strong social progress – high literacy and school attendance rates, low population
Analysis - We lost colleagues. Others were intubated. It was really scary…. [I am] praying to have a vaccine soon. —“Fernanda”, nurse at a public hospital in Ceará state, Brazil, July 28, 2020
In July 2015, Barack Obama visited Kenya for the first time since he became president of the United States. His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was born in Nyangoma Kogelo and returned to Kenya in 1964, after he graduated from Harvard. Obama, Sr. lived in Nairobi at the time of his death in 1982. Kenyans have seen President Obama as a long-lost son and treated him as such during his 2015 visit, including welcoming ceremonies and lines of people holding signs greeting him wherever he went.
While there, President Obama was at odds with President Uhuru Kenyatta over human rights, including issues such as same-sex marriage. Under Kenyan law, sexual activity between men is illegal. When you start treating people differently not because of any harm they are doing to anybody, but because they are different, thats the path whereby freedoms begin to erode, Obama said during a joint press conference in Nairobi. President Kenyatta responded, There are some things we must admit we dont share, our culture, our society dont accept. It is very difficult for us to be able to impose on people that which they themselves do not accept.
Despite the disagreements, President Obama kept the focus on his personal history with the country, having visited Kenya three times before he took office. During a speech at a business forum while there, he said, Im proud to be the first U.S. president to visit Kenya, and obviously, this is personal for me. Theres a reason why my name is Barack Hussein Obama. My father came from these parts and I have family and relatives here. And in my visits over the years, walking the streets of Nairobi, Ive come to know the warmth and the spirit of the Kenyan people. President Obama also made an effort to repeatedly praise the countrys democratic progress and economic growth.
See also Encyclopedia: Kenya .
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes: Kenya
