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.
[MAP] Rabat -- The security and stability challenges facing Africa, and which manifest themselves in the multiplication of conflicts and crises, require a synergy of efforts and a concerted and united response from all, underlined, Sunday in Rabat, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccans Abroad, Mohcine Jazouli.
The president also stressed the importance of keeping the economy open after months of stifling movement restrictions.
He urged citizens not to drop their guard and continue adhering to the health rules, such as wearing face masks and respecting curfew times.
South Africa has recorded just over 800,000 coronavirus infections - more than a third of the cases reported across the African continent - and over 20,000 deaths.
AFP
Press Release - The ongoing and escalating violence in Nigeria must be condemned in the strongest terms. The use of military force against innocent civilians undermines human rights, democratic principles and freedom.
The Head of the African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM), Ambassador Francisco Madeira, on Thursday reported on the progress Somalia has made in economic recovery, inclusive politics, and security through containing terrorism, dialogue and reconciliation, state building, reconstruction and recovery.
In the area of inclusive politics, Ambassador Madeira said there have been encouraging signs of progress on reconciliation and dialogue processes at the state and local levels, and a degree of readiness by the Federal Government and Federal Member States to move forward on key national issues.
Ambassador Madeira also highlighted recent AMISOM security gains that degraded and disrupted Al-Shabaab's operational capabilities across Somalia, including the March 16 Operation BADBAADO that dislodged the terrorists from the bridge town of Janaale in Lower Shabelle.
Madeira said the recent successes in Lower Shabelle were possible because of the generation of a professional Somali national force that relieved AMISOM forces to other areas where they created mobile units that have made a difference.
However, Ambassador Madeira warned that if the process of generating sufficient, well trained, well equipped and regularly paid Somali security forces does not speed up, the country may not, by the end of 2021, be able to achieve the goal of producing a critical mass of Somali forces capable of taking over from AMISOM, hold and preserve the gains accumulated over the years.slowib
Donald McHenry is a diplomat, scholar, corporate governor and educator who served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (UN). Because the hospitals of his home town, East St. Louis, Illinois, where he would grow up, were segregated, McHenry was born in St. Louis, Missouri on October 13, 1936. After his parents divorced he and his two siblings were raised by their mother.
McHenry received his bachelor’s degree from Illinois State University in 1957, and his master’s degree from Southern Illinois University in 1959. He found his niche in diplomacy and international affairs between 1963 and 1971, while working at the U.S. Department of State in its Office of Dependent Area Affairs. While there, he received its Superior Honor Award in 1966.
From 1971 to 1973 McHenry served as a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and scholar at the Brookings Institution, and in 1973 he worked on humanitarian policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He joined President-elect Jimmy Carter’s Presidential transition team in 1976, and in 1977 President Carter sent him to the UN where he served for two years as Deputy Representative to the UN Security Council. He was then appointed as U.S. Permanent Representative to the UN with rank of Ambassador, a position he held as part of the President’s Cabinet from 1979 to 1981.
Ambassador McHenry has served on numerous corporate boards, commencing in 1981 when he became the first African American to be appointed to the board of the Coca-Cola Company. As the inaugural chair of Coca-Cola’s Public Issues and Diversity Review Committee, McHenry also led corporate efforts to improve internal opportunities.
Because of Ambassador McHenry’s leadership and diplomatic experience, President Bill Clinton appointed him as Special Envoy to Nigeria from 1994 to 1996, where he led efforts to mediate unrest in that country. In 1998 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan tapped Ambassador McHenry to join a delegation to travel to Algeria to gather information and provide guidance on the
Tina Allen is no longer with us but her sculptures can be seen around the world.
In 1997, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), an international court established by the United Nations Security Council to judge people responsible for the genocide, indicted Kabuga on seven criminal charges including genocide.
Bubacar Jallow spoke to Al Jazeera about the significance of Kabuga's arrest.
Bubacar Jallow: We had clear evidence that he left Rwanda after the genocide and had gone to Kenya.
Al Jazeera: Had Kabuga travelled to Kenya under his own name?
Bubacar Jallow: In addition to the process of justice, you need other elements such as healing in the community to bring closure.
Dear Editor,
I refer to `Payara review will take account of concerns raised by local agencies – Bharrat’ (SN Aug 17).
The article There are too many unanswered questions relating to this Payara review appeared first on Stabroek News.
Côte dIvoire (also known as the Ivory Coast), in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea, is a little larger than New Mexico. Its neighbors are Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana. The country consists of a coastal strip in the south, dense forests in the interior, and savannas in the north.
Republic.
Côte dIvoire was originally made up of numerous isolated settlements; today it represents more than sixty distinct tribes, including the Baoule, Bete, Senoufou, Agni, Malinke, Dan, and Lobi. Côte dIvoire attracted both French and Portuguese merchants in the 15th century who were in search of ivory and slaves. French traders set up establishments early in the 19th century, and in 1842, the French obtained territorial concessions from local tribes, gradually extending their influence along the coast and inland. The area was organized as a territory in 1893, became an autonomous republic in the French Union after World War II, and achieved independence on Aug. 7, 1960. Côte dIvoire formed a customs union in 1959 with Dahomey (Benin), Niger, and Burkina Faso. The nations economy is one of the most developed in sub-Saharan Africa. It is the worlds largest exporter of cocoa and one of the largest exporters of coffee.
From independence until his death in 1993, Felix Houphouët-Boigny served as president. Massive protests by students, farmers, and professionals forced the president to legalize opposition parties and hold the first contested presidential election in Oct. 1990, which Houphouët-Boigny won with 81% of the vote.
Beginning in Sept. 1998, thousands of demonstrators protested a constitutional revision that granted President Henri Konan Bédié greatly enhanced powers. Bédié also promoted the concept of ivoirité, which, roughly translated, means “pure Ivoirian pride.” Although its defenders describe ivoirité as a term of positive national pride, it has led to dangerous xenophobia, with numerous ethnic Malians and Burkinans driven out of the country in 1999.
President Bédié was overthrown in the
Four ministers were this afternoon sworn in to continue their previous portfolios. They are Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr Nigel Clarke; Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton; Minister of National Security, Dr Horace Chang;...
[This Day] Abuja -- The federal government has announced that it has approved the fifth evacuation flight that would bring home stranded Nigerians in the United States.
It has been a promising beginning for the new Minister of Sport, Charles Ramson Jnr. Though only days on the job, the minister has begun his term like the
Prime Minister Andrew Holness, his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will on Thursday co-convene a special high-level panel to look at solutions to the development emergency of COVID19.
The conference will raise Canada's profile as it competes for a seat on UN Security Council next month against Norway and Ireland.
Trudeau has spoken to his French, German and other Caribbean nation counterparts about Thursday's conference.
The UN vote is set for next month, and Canada is running on a platform of trying to help rebuild the post-pandemic world.
Just as Sudans civil war seemed to be coming to an end, another war intensified in the northwestern Darfur region. After the government quelled a rebellion in Darfur in Jan. 2004, it allowed pro-government militias called the Janjaweed to carry out massacres against black villagers and rebel groups in the region. These Arab militias, believed to have been armed by the government, have killed between 200,000 and 300,000 civilians and displaced more than 1 million. While the war in the south was fought against black Christians and animists, the Darfur conflict is being fought against black Muslims. Although the international community has reacted with alarm to the humanitarian disaster—unmistakably the worlds worst—it has been ineffective in persuading the Sudanese government to rein in the Janjaweed. Despite the EU and the U.S. describing the killing as genocide, and despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Sudan stop the Arab militias, the killing continued throughout 2005.
On Jan. 9, 2005, after three years of negotiations, the peace deal between the southern rebels, led by John Garang of the SPLA, and the Khartoum government to end the two-decades-long civil war was signed, giving roughly half of Sudan’s oil wealth to the south, as well as nearly complete autonomy and the right to secede after six years. But just two weeks after Garang was sworn in as first vice president as part of the power-sharing agreement, he was killed in a helicopter crash during bad weather. Rioting erupted in Khartoum, killing nearly 100. Garang’s deputy, Salva Kiir, was quickly sworn in as the new vice president, and both north and south vowed that the peace agreement would hold.
In 2006, the slaughter in Darfur escalated, and the Khartoum government remained defiantly indifferent to the international communities calls to stop the violence. The 7,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers deployed to Darfur proved too small and ill equipped a force to prevent much of it. A fragile peace deal in May 2006 was signed between
1541: Members of a Spanish expedition seeking gold, led by Hernando de Soto, become the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River, south of what is now Memphis, Tennessee.
1927: US aviator Charles A Lindbergh lands in Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across Atlantic Ocean.
1994: Bakili Muluzi sworn in as Malawi's first democratically elected president.
2012: US President Barack Obama and leaders around the globe lock in place their exit path from the war in Afghanistan, affirming they will close the largely stalemated conflict at the end of 2014, but keep their troops fighting and dying there for two more years.
Albrecht Duerer, German artist (1471-1528); Alexander Pope, English poet (1686-1744); Henri Rousseau, French painter (1844-1910); Lazaro Cardenas, Mexican president (1895-1970); Andrey Sakharov, Russian physicist, dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate (1921-1989); J Malcolm Fraser, former Australian prime minister (1930-2015); Leo Sayer, British singer (1948- ); Mr T, US actor (1952- ); Al Franken, US comedian/politician (1951- )
Most of Mali, in West Africa, lies in the Sahara. A landlocked country four-fifths the size of Alaska, it is bordered by Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and the Côte dIvoire. The only fertile area is in the south, where the Niger and Senegal rivers provide water for irrigation.
Caravan routes have passed through Mali since A.D. 300. The Malinke empire ruled regions of Mali from the 12th to the 16th century, and the Songhai empire reigned over the Timbuktu-Gao region in the 15th century. Morocco conquered Timbuktu in 1591 and ruled over it for two centuries. Subjugated by France by the end of the 19th century, the land became a colony in 1904 (named French Sudan in 1920) and in 1946 became part of the French Union. On June 20, 1960, it became independent and, under the name of Sudanese Republic, was joined with the Republic of Senegal in the Mali federation. However, Senegal seceded from the federation on Aug. 20, 1960, and the Sudanese Republic then changed its name to the Republic of Mali on Sept. 22.
In the 1960s, Mali concentrated on economic development, continuing to accept aid from both Soviet bloc and Western nations, as well as international agencies. In the late 1960s, it began retreating from close ties with China. But a purge of conservative opponents brought greater power to President Modibo Keita, and in 1968, the influence of the Chinese and their Malian sympathizers increased. The army overthrew the government on Nov. 19, 1968 and brought Mali under military rule for the next 20 years. Mali and Burkina Faso fought a brief border war from Dec. 25 to 29, 1985. In 1991, dictator Moussa Traoré was overthrown, and Mali made a peaceful transition to democracy. In 1992, Alpha Konaré became Malis first democratically elected president.
In the early 1990s, the government fought the Tuaregs, nomads of Berber and Arab descent who inhabit the northern desert regions of Mali and have little in common with Malis black African majority. The Tuaregs accused the government
Leader of the Opposition, Dr Peter Phillip, says he strongly rejects claims from Prime Minister Andrew Holness that the United Kingdom prison offer to Jamaica was implicitly refused by the People’s National Party (PNP) administration.
But, this was rebuffed by Phillips in a statement this afternoon and he accused Holness of using the UK prison offer debate as “a feeble attempt at blaming others for the deteriorating prison conditions and lack of proper governance of correctional facilities.”
The Leader of the Opposition, Dr Peter Phillip, M.P., says there needs to be no controversy over the UK offer to assist Jamaica in building a new correctional facility, as the Cabinet Office and Ministries of National Security and Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade have the records which can be made public.
In a statement this afternoon, Dr Phillips said the Opposition repudiates in the strongest terms, the account given to the nation by the Prime Minister that the offer was implicitly rejected by the PNP Administration, through a lack of follow up of the MOU signed by both countries, and was therefore inactive when his government took office.
Dr Phillips said Prime Minister Holness should recall that he had vociferously opposed the prison offer from as early as during the official visit of British Prime Minister David Cameron in November 2015 and repeated his opposition many times during the 2016 general election campaign.
