Login to BlackFacts.com using your favorite Social Media Login. Click the appropriate button below and you will be redirected to your Social Media Website for confirmation and then back to Blackfacts.com once successful.
Enter the email address and password you used to join BlackFacts.com. If you cannot remember your login information, click the “Forgot Password” link to reset your password.
Mourners waving white handkerchiefs, Kenneth Kaunda's trademark symbol, gathered at a Lusaka stadium on Friday for a state memorial service for Zambia's first president, who died last month aged 97.
In May, Burundi held a presidential election which was won by Evariste Ndayishimiye, candidate of the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy - Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) party.
Ndayishimiye was hurriedly sworn in after the untimely death of president Pierre Nkurunziza in June.
Rights violations continue
The Council encouraged donor countries which had suspended aid to Burundi to continue dialogue towards resumption of development assistance.
A report by a UN watchdog in September said human rights violations were still being committed in Burundi, including sexual violence and murder.
The country was plunged into a crisis in April 2015 when Ndayishimiye’s predecessor Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a controversial third term, which he ultimately won in July 2015.
His candidature, which was opposed by the opposition and civil society groups, resulted in a wave of protests, violence and even a failed coup in May 2015.
Hundreds of people were killed and over 300,000 fled to neighboring countries.
Having long lagged behind much of the world in terms of e-commerce, South African retailers have been doing a roaring trade online as consumers shy away from shops during the Covid-19 pandemic.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa also paid tribute to Kuanda, saying his passing had \"saddened us as South Africans\", adding that South Africans would \"bow our heads in grief at the passing of a beloved and rightfully revered father of African independence and unity.\"
REPORTS that top officials from South Africa’s governing African National Congress (ANC) party are exasperated and have had enough of the antics “characterised by threats and blackmail” by the Johnny-come-latelies in Zanu PF are a sad development. The reality though is that the ruling party upstarts tend to hold themselves above the Johnny-come-latelies and thus cause problems for the greater majority. It is unfortunate that things have turned this way, but given the myriad of challenges Zimbabwe is facing from economic malfunction to a political crisis, we do not believe that this will end well for Zanu PF. An abusive neighbour is always a challenge to deal with. They see shadows everywhere. How does Zanu PF, a sister liberation movement, allow its upstarts to trigger diplomatic tiffs with its well-meaning neighbour? It’s on record that there are millions of Zimbabwean economic refugees in South Africa as a result of our prolonged political crisis back home. Is it not time for Zanu PF to focus on rehabilitating the country’s economy to ensure our nationals working in neighbouring countries will one day come back to develop Zimbabwe? With an estimated three million Zimbabweans across the Limpopo River, surely Zanu PF should remain civil even in the face of extreme provocation — suppose there is. It is in this light that we applaud Zanu PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo’s chastisement of information director Tafadzwa Mugwadi over his misplaced utterances. Is it a good sign surely to have millions of your citizens seeking succour next door? If you are a father it means you have abdicated your role, you have failed! That is why we believe ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe is right to question Zanu PF’s moral standing. Blackmailing your neighbour for whatever reason shows one’s unstable mind. Zanu PF cannot play macho when it is neck deep in economic trouble, political crisis and is having an exodus of its citizens to regional countries. Besides, democratic space is forever shrinking with those holding a different opinion being arrested daily. Should citizens blindly support government opinion? The country’s governance charter allows everyone to hold a different view, yet the Zanu PF government criminalises opposing views. The fact that South African President Cyril Ramaphosa last year dispatched three envoys to meet Zanu PF in an effort to resolve the country’s political and economic logjam amid fears that problems in Harare could destabilise the southern African region shows he meant well. That good gesture should never be politicised at the expense of the country’s citizens. Citizens, demand better leadership from Zanu PF and not for the party to act as some rag-tag militia out there. Ruling parties the world over are expected to show leadership — the citizens demand just that, period!
Nathan Zecks Mazvazva, a 25-year-old farmer in Zimbabwe, stands in his sugarcane field, marveling at a recent savings of 60%...
Malawians have mourned the death former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda whose father hailed from Malawi. Kaunda died yesterday at a hospital in Lusaka. The 97-year-old was president of Zambia from 1964 to 1991. Former President Peter Mutharika said in a Facebook post that Kaunda is a hero who fought very hard for the liberation of […]
The post Malawians mourn Kenneth Kaunda appeared first on Malawi 24.
In the current context of rising geopolitical tensions between the US and China, African countries may find themselves repeating the same mistakes unless they proactively shape their own destinies.
The COVID-19 reality, combined with the ratcheting up of US-China tensions over trade, technology and supply chains, has opened up opportunities that African countries should exploit.
This leads us to the third domain, namely the need for African countries to deepen trade integration and economic cooperation.
African trade is highly concentrated on a few economic hubs: China and Europe together account for 54% of total African trade, with China being Africa's single largest trading partner.
Imagination and courage
African countries should seize the opportunities presented by deepening tensions between China and the US to realise positive agency and chart their own future.
Hard-hitting statistics have been released by health authorities, which reinforces President Cyril Ramaphosa's announcement that alcohol will be banned again.
Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu has confirmed during a media briefing that the head offices of the GCIS have been shut down following a Covid-19 outbreak.
[allAfrica] Cape Town -- Zambia's former president Kenneth Kaunda has died.
The Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) yesterday called on the Government to give the nation a clear indication of the reopening timeline for the country's borders and the resumption of both local and international tourism.
Pointing out that other Caribbean countries have already made known when they intend to reopen air and seaports, the JHTA said the closure of the tourism industry since March when the first COVID-19 case was reported here has had a devastating effect on businesses, resulting in job losses.
“Additionally, since our businesses are now closed, the thousands of suppliers, including farmers, entertainers, distributors, craft traders, taxi drivers, banks, artisans, tradesmen and many more have seen precipitous and devastating declines in their businesses, resulting in massive job losses and business closures in those sectors as well,” the JHTA added.
The association said it has been working in close partnership with the Government for the development of strengthened sanitisation and personal health protocols to govern the operations of businesses in the tourism sector.
Even after Jamaica announces its borders reopened, we in the tourism sector still have a massive amount of work to do to rebuild travel trade agreements and relationships, so the time is now to allow us to get out there and do the job our sector is designed to do for the country.”
Recently, Color of Change (COC) published a report, Normalizing Injustice: The Dangerous Misrepresentations that Define Television’s Scripted Crime Genre about how the crime genre glamorizes policing to the detriment of the entire country, but Black people, the victim of police violence, specifically.
The Civil Rights was a whole other thing but when those White kids got killed at Kent State, the average American thought that they could not trust law enforcement.
“Bonanza” and “Adam 12” weren’t more popular than “Mary Tyler Moore” or “The Brady Bunch” Now, if you look at the cable guide, 90 percent of those shows are cop shows, police procedurals.
On the Black side of things, we had a very radical movement that was deeply critical of the police with the Black Panthers.
You take a city like New York where 51 percent of the city budget is spent on policing even though this is a city that had a decline in crime for the past ten years, in the past four years there’s been a 22 percent increase on spending on police.
Today, June 20, is officially the first day of summer, the longest day of the year (for us folks in the Northern Hemisphere), and the welcoming of our warmest weather season.
From the swaying Isley Brothers cover of Seals & Croft‘s “Summer Breeze” to DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince‘s rap anthem “Summertime” to Sly & The Family Stone‘s warm, feel good “Hot Fun in the Summertime'” to the contemporary mellow moods of Childish Gambino‘s “Summertime Magic” (with over 156M Spotify spins), our list is packed with summer classics.
In the process we’ve also hopefully rediscovered some “shoulda-been” classics, like the mostly forgotten Nat King Cole standard ‘This Morning It Was Summer” (with arrangements by Nelson Riddle), the breezy Larry Graham album track “I’m So Glad It’s Summer Again” (trying to capture a little of the “Hot Fun In the Summertime” mood) and the driving ’60s Joe Simon track “Long Hot Summer.”
In that vein, we’ve included two sunny Marvelettes tunes “I Can’t Wait Til Summer Comes” (co-written by Gladys Knight) and “So Glad It’s Summertime” that both remained unreleased in the Motown vaults until a 2011 rerelease.
Finally, no soulful “summer” playlist would be complete without the haunting “Summertime” from Gershwin’s Porgy & Bess,one of the most recorded songs in history.
