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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.
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
The African rainforest stretches across much of the central African continent, encompassing the following countries in its woods: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote dIvoire (Ivory Coast), Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Except for the Congo Basin, the tropical rainforests of Africa have been largely depleted by commercial exploitation by logging and conversion for agriculture, and in West Africa, nearly 90 percent of the original rainforest is gone and the remainder is heavily fragmented and in poor use.
Especially problematic in Africa is desertification and conversion of rainforests to erodible agriculture and grazing lands, though there are a number of global initiatives in place through the World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations which are hoping to mitigate these concerns.
By far, the largest number of countries with rainforests are located in one geographical section of the World — the Afrotropical region. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indicates these 38 countries exist mainly in West and Central Africa. These countries, for the most part, are very poor and live at the subsistence level.
Most of the tropical rainforests of Africa exist in the Congo (Zaire) River Basin, though remnants also exist throughout Western Africa in a sorry state due to the plight of poverty which encourages subsistence agriculture and firewood harvesting. This realm is dry and seasonal when compared to the other realms, and the outlying portions of this rainforest are steadily becoming a desert.
Over 90% of West Africas original forest has been lost over the last century and only a small part of what remains qualifies as closed forest. Africa lost the highest percentage of rainforests during the
It has become a pattern every year for insurgents to step up attacks near Eid to sabotage the celebrations
\t“They arrived around 5:30pm and went on for more than four hours before the soldiers came to fight them,” said Bashir Manzo, a resident of Dapchi.
This attack is characteristic of the Boko Haram group, with which ISWAP split off in 2016, which regularly uses suicide bombers to target civilians.
Konduga is located in the Sambisa forest, a stronghold of Boko Haram from which suicide bombers have often launched their attacks in the past.
Earlier Monday, fighters from Boko Haram also attacked the village of Kautikeri in southern Borno State, beheading a resident and kidnapping a herder of 150 cattle, Ayuba Alamson, a Chibok community leader, told AFP.
“It has become a pattern every year for insurgents to step up attacks near Eid to sabotage the celebrations,” said the head of the anti-Jihadist militia in Borno, Babakura Kolo, saying this year “will be no different.
With Nigeria one of 36 countries at the risk of an acute food crisis in Africa, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) says it has scaled up its outreach to 1.2 million people monthly in the northeast region of the country in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.
While the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening to double the number of hungry people in Nigeria, Mr Onyemaobi said the food security situation in Nigeria was quite alarming even before the pandemic.
Mr Onyemaobi said COVID-19 would double the number of food insecure people in Nigeria \"unless we all put heads together to extend food assistance to the most vulnerable people in our communities, towns and villages.\"
Current efforts
As a strategy to curtail the spread of the coronavirus disease, Mr Onyemaobi said WFP is distributing two months' of food and nutrition assistance in IDP camps and among vulnerable communities to ensure that people have sufficient food while they are on lockdown.
Hunger threat in West Africa
Meanwhile,Elisabeth Byers, the WFP spokesperson, according to a report by the United Nations (UN) website, said, in West Africa, \"An additional 20 million people could struggle to feed themselves due to the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 in the next six months, doubling the number of food-insecure to 43 million in this region.\"
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday launched a GH¢1 billion COVID-19 Alleviation Business Support Programme to support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
According to President Akufo-Addo, the business support programme, which is expected to reach 180 beneficiaries across the country will help minimise job losses in the wake of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aside the GH¢1billion facility for MSMEs, the President indicated that the government will make available a GH¢3 billion credit and stimulus package to help boost businesses.
This is why it is imperative that we support all efforts to ensure the success of the COVID-19 Alleviation Programme (CAP) Business Support Scheme to protect jobs and bring back the country's economy to life when the dust settles.
We urge all businesses to take advantage of the government's support programme and use the funds for the intended purposes to resuscitate their businesses and further enhance Ghana's economic growth.
Afro-Caribbeans are Caribbean people who trace at least some of their ancestry to West Africa in the period since Christopher Columbuss arrival in the region in 1492. Other names for this ethnicity include African-Caribbean (especially preferred among the United Kingdom branch of the diaspora), Afro-Antillean, or Afro-West Indian. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, European-led triangular trade brought enslaved West African people to work on Caribbean islands, primarily on various sugar plantations and in domestic households. Many Afro-Caribbeans also have non-African ancestry, such as European, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American, as there has been extensive intermarriage and unions among the peoples over the centuries.
Although most Afro-Caribbean people today live in French, English, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean nations, there are also significant diaspora populations throughout the Western world – especially in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Both the home and diaspora populations have produced a number of individuals who have had a notable influence on modern Western, Caribbean, and African societies; they include political activists such as Marcus Garvey and C.L.R. James; writers and theorists such as Aime Cesaire and Frantz Fanon; US military leader and statesman Colin Powell, whose parents were immigrants; and Jamaican musician Bob Marley.
During the post-Columbian era, the archipelagos and islands of the Caribbean were the first sites of African diaspora dispersal in the western Atlantic. Specifically, in 1492, Pedro Alonso Niño, an African-Spanish seafarer, was recorded as piloting one of Columbuss ships. He returned in 1499, but did not settle. In the early 16th century, more Africans began to enter the population of the Spanish Caribbean colonies, sometimes arriving as free men of mixed ancestry or as indentured servants, but increasingly as enslaved workers and servants. This increasing demand for African labour in the Caribbean was in part the
In the 21st century, there’s never been more focus on Africa than now. Thanks to the revolutions sweeping through North Africa and the Middle East, Africa has the world’s attention. But just because all eyes happen to be on Africa at the moment doesn’t mean myths about this part of the world have been dispelled. Despite the intense interest in Africa today, racial stereotypes about it persist. Do you have any misperceptions about Africa?
This list of common myths about Africa aims to clear them up.
What’s the No. 1 stereotype about Africa? Arguably, that Africa’s not a continent, but a country. Ever hear someone refer to African food or African art or even the African language? Such individuals have no idea that Africa’s the second largest continent in the world. Instead, they view it as a tiny country with no distinct traditions, cultures or ethnic groups. They fail to realize that referring to, say, African food sounds just as odd as referring to North American food or the North American language or the North American people.
Africa’s home to 53 countries, including island nations along the continent’s coast. These countries contain diverse groups of people who speak a variety of languages and practice a wide range of customs. Take Nigeria--Africa’s most populous country. Among the nation’s population of 152 million, more than 250 distinct ethnic groups live.
While English is the former British colonys official language, the dialects of ethnic groups indigenous to the West African nation, such as Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, are commonly spoken as well. To boot, Nigerians practice Christianity, Islam and indigenous religions. So much for the myth that all Africans are alike.
The most populated nation on the continent certainly proves otherwise.
If you turn to popular culture for images of people on the African continent, you’re likely to notice a pattern. Time and time again, Africans are depicted as if they’re one and the same. You’ll see Africans portrayed wearing face paint and animal print and all with
On July 2, 2009 President Barack Obama appointed Gayleatha Beatrice Brown to be the United States ambassador to Burkina Faso, a nation in West Africa. This was her second ambassadorial appointment. Previously, Brown had been appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Benin, a post she held from 2006 to 2009.
Brown was born in Matawan, West Virginia on June 20, 1947. Her family moved to New Jersey when she was a child and she graduated from Edison High School, in Edison, New Jersey in 1964. She received bachelor’s and master’s honor degrees from Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1968 and 1970, respectively. Brown also did post-graduate work in international relations at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.
Before joining the United States Foreign Service in 1982, Brown was a Special Assistant at the Agency for International Development (USAID). She was later Assistant Administrator for Africa and a legislative assistant to the House of Representatives.
Brown had had extensive overseas experience before her ambassadorial appointment. Her first posts were, successively, as Development Officer at the U.S. Embassies in Paris, France and Abidjan, Côte dIvoire. She also served as Counselor for Political Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, and U.S. Consul General and U.S. Deputy Permanent Observer (concurrently) to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. She was Chief of the Economic and Commercial Sections at the U.S. Embassies in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She was also desk officer at the U.S. State Department for Canada, Senegal, Guinea, and Mauritania.
Brown has represented the Department of State at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) at Credit Arrangement negotiations, and she was a Desk Officer for the U.S. Export-Import Bank (EXIM).
Brown’s honors and recognitions include the Lady of the Golden Horseshoe (West Virginia state
African philosophy is philosophy produced by African people, philosophy that presents African worldviews, or philosophy that uses distinct African philosophical methods.[1] Although African philosophers may be found in the various academic fields of philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, and political philosophy, much of the modern African philosophy has been concerned with defining the ethnophilosophical parameters of African philosophy and identifying what differentiates it from other philosophical traditions.[1] One of the implicit assumptions of ethnophilosophy is that a specific culture can have a philosophy that is not applicable and accessible to all peoples and cultures in the world, however this concept is disputed by traditional philosophers.[2] Furthermore, in A Discourse on African Philosophy: A New Perspective on Ubuntu and Transitional Justice in South Africa, Christian B. N. Gade argues that the ethnophilosophical approach to African philosophy as a static group property is highly problematic. His research on ubuntu presents an alternative collective discourse on African philosophy (collective in the sense that it does not focus on any individual in particular) that takes differences, historical developments, and social contexts seriously.
Father of African Philosophy, Uzodinma Nwala, prior to his employment to teach at UNN, there was nothing called African Philosophy as course of study in any university. All we were taught as students were Western philosophy. Nothing like African philosophy existed anywhere. In fact, many years after the introduction of the courses, there still remained arguments among experts, whether there was really African Philosophy. He was awarded the Aime Cesiare award in 2013 at the University of Abuja. African Philosophy can be formally defined as a critical thinking by Africans on their experiences of reality. Nigerian born Philosopher K.C. Anyanwu defined African philosophy as that which concerns itself with the way in which African
John F. Hicks is a diplomat and global educator who served as a United States Ambassador to the United Nations (UN). A native of Goldsboro, North Carolina, Hicks was born in 1949. Hicks holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Morehouse College, a diploma and master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, Italy and Washington, D.C.
His career in international relations and diplomacy began in 1973 when he joined the United Internship Program with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). This service propelled him through the ranks where he served in senior leadership positions in Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, Zambia, and the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. In 1989, Hicks was awarded the Agency’s Senior Foreign Service Presidential Meritorious Service Award.
Hicks received his first presidential appointment in 1993 as the Assistant Administrator for USAID’s Africa Bureau. In this capacity Hicks was responsible for distributing aid in addition to strategically managing United States humanitarian and economic development programs on behalf of Sub-Saharan Africa. Towards the end of his tenure with USAID, he became a member the Senior Foreign Service and was promoted to the rank of Career Minister.
In 1996 President Bill Clinton announced Hicks’s second appointment, as Ambassador to Eritrea. By 1997, Federal investigator Jacquelyn L. Williams-Bridgers had begun investigating Hicks on accusations of sexual misconduct. In September of 1997 Hicks resigned after a report by Williams-Bridgers concluded that he had engaged in sexual misconduct. Hicks was accused of sexual harassment against two secretaries in the U.S. Embassy in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. The women claimed he engaged in inappropriate physical contact and created a hostile work environment for them.
Originally, Hicks denied these accusations and prepared to defend himself in the upcoming hearings. He decided, however, to resign to spare his family embarrassment, and instead to pursue a career in the United
In 2007, Ambassador John L. Withers II, a second generation diplomat, was appointed by President George H.W. Bush to serve as ambassador to Albania. Withers was born in 1948 in Guilford, North Carolina, to John L. Withers, Sr. and Daisy P. Withers. His father had briefly worked as a political science professor but is best known for his service as a diplomat for the United States Agency for International Development. His mother was a homemaker, raising John II and his brother Gregory. Withers, whose grandfather, Robert Baxter Withers, and father fought in World War I and World War II, respectively, spent his childhood where his father was stationed, in Laos, Thailand, Burma, Korea, Ethiopia, and Kenya, witnessing, first-hand, the struggle for Southeast Asian and East African independence.
Withers graduated from Harvard University in 1971 with a Bachelor’s Degree in History. In 1975, he earned his Master’s Degree in East Asian Studies from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. A year after graduating from Yale University (1983), with a Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Modern Chinese History, Withers began pursuing his Foreign Service career.
From 1984 to 1993, Withers’s path to the ambassadorship was unusual. He served in typical junior officer posts that ranged from Political Officer (PO) to Desk Officer (DO) but he was also posted in key countries to U.S. diplomacy in Northern/Eastern Europe, West Africa, and Southeast Asia, a rare combination of geographic areas for any diplomat. In this period he served at U.S. Embassies at The Hague, Netherlands (PO, 1985-1986), Lagos, Nigeria (PO, 1987-1990), and Moscow, Russia (PO, 1991-1993). At the State Department he was Desk Offer in the Office of Chinese Affairs (1986-1988), and in the Office of Northern European Affairs specifically assigned to Ireland and Iceland (1993).
As senior diplomat, Withers assisted mission chiefs in the Office of the Deputy Secretary, as Special Assistant (1993-1996), and in the U.S. Embassy in Riga, Latvia, as Deputy Chief of Mission
Air ambulance services operating on the African continent are seeing an uptick in medevacs linked to Covid-19 and are adjusting to a number of difficulties in transporting infected patients, both within Africa and outside the continent.
\"In the air ambulance industry, Covid-19 has had a huge impact,\" says Fraser Lamond of Air Rescue Africa, a Johannesburg-based company operating two Hawker aircraft.
Typical clients for air ambulance services in Africa include workers for non-governmental organisations, corporations, tourists and governments, although this has changed with permission to move infectious patients becoming more difficult to obtain.
Some African governments have reportedly employed air ambulances to provide medevacs for officials suffering from Covid-19.
A typical Covid-19 medical evacuation by aircraft ranges from between $60,000 to $100,000 for taking a patient from west Africa to South Africa or Europe, depending on the aircraft employed, according to industry estimates.
May 17: 5,735 cases, prez fact-checked on testing ‘record’
\tTotal confirmed cases = 5735 (new cases = 97)
Total recoveries = 1,754 (new = 294)
Total deaths = 29 (new = 5)
Active cases = 3,952
\tFigures valid as of close of day May 16, 2020
\tGhana maintained her spot as West Africa’s most impacted after the Health Ministry released latest figures yesterday.
AFP Fact-check – Ghana’s leader falsely claims his country fronts COVID-19 testing
May 16: 5,530 cases, jumbo recoveries
\tTotal confirmed cases = 5,638 (new cases = 108)
Total recoveries = 1,460 (new recoveries = 1086)
Total deaths = 24 (new deaths = 0)
Active cases = 4,150
\tGhana recorded a boost in recoveries with a record 1,086 discharges authorities reported early Saturday.
READ MORE – Uniting behind a people’s vaccine against COVID-19
\t
May 14: 5,530 cases, 13 of 16 regions infected
\tTotal confirmed cases = 5,530 (new cases = 122)
Total recoveries = 674 (new recoveries = 160)
Active cases = 4,832
\tThirteen of the 16 regions in the country have recorded cases of the disease.
Statistics as at close of day May 13, 2020
\tTotal confirmed cases = 5,408 (new cases = 281)
Total recoveries = 514
Total deaths = 24
Active cases = 4,872
May 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.
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.
The Faith Congregational Church in Hartford, Connecticut began in 1819 as a place for African Americans to worship on their own since they were previously only able to worship in the backs of churches and in church galleries in that city. A group of African Americans began worshipping in the conference room of the First Church of Christ in Hartford, Connecticut, which is now known as Center Church. This congregation moved to a building on State Street in 1820 and formed the first black Congregational Church in Connecticut and the third oldest in the nation. The church initially called itself the African American Religious Society of Hartford and vowed to create a place of worship where there would be no assigned seating and where anyone was welcome to worship. The congregation purchased property in 1826 where it built a stone-and-brick church on the corner of Talcott and Market Streets.
By the 1830s with the rise of the New England abolitionist movement, the church building became an anti-slavery meetinghouse. Popular lecturers spoke at the church in support of abolition, including Rev. Henry Highland Garnet and Arnold Buffman, former president of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. James Pennington, an early church minister and abolitionist, was himself a fugitive slave from Maryland. Rev. Pennington and his congregation became supporters of the Amistad slave case in neighboring New Haven in 1839-1840 and fought for the release of the captured men, women, and children and their return to West Africa. The church also raised funds for the captives’ legal defense.
The church established a school in 1840, which served as the only place in Hartford where black children could obtain an education at that time. That same year, the congregation changed its name to First Hartford Colored Congregational Church. In 1860, another name change took place; the church became the Talcott Street Congregational Church and had several pastors until Rev. Robert F. Wheeler aided in the church’s stability and growing membership
In the following account historian William L. Katz revisits an essay he first wrote in 1968 as the introduction to the reprinted volume of William Lloyd Garrison’s Thoughts on African Colonization which was first published in 1832. In the article below he describes the first mass protest meeting at Philadelphia in 1817 that eventually led to a nationwide black rejection of African colonization and compares it to the Black Lives Matter Movement that grew out of local protests in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri over the killing of Michael Brown. Katz notes that in both Ferguson and Philadelphia nearly two centuries earlier, a “grassroots” protest arose which became so powerful that established African American leaders were compelled to join and support it.
In January 1817 nearly 3,000 African American men met at the Bethel A.M.E. Church (popularly known as Mother Bethel AME) in Philadelphia and denounced the American Colonization Society’s plan to resettle free blacks in West Africa. This gathering was the first black mass protest meeting in the United States. The black leaders who summoned the men to the church endorsed the ACS scheme and fully expected the black men who gathered there to follow their leadership. Instead they rejected the scheme and forced the black leaders to embrace their position.
The genesis of this remarkable meeting can found in the early efforts of Captain Paul Cuffee, a wealthy black New Bedford ship owner. After an 1811 visit to the British colony of Sierra Leone which had been established to receive free blacks and later recaptives -- blacks freed by the British Navy from slaving vessels taking them from Africa to the New World -- Cuffee envisioned a similar colony for African Americans somewhere in West Africa. To promote his vision, Cuffee, at great financial loss, brought 38 black volunteer settlers from the United States to Sierra Leone in 1815.
When he returned to the United States with news of the resettlement he persuaded many of the most influential black leaders of the era
The Ghana Football Association (GFA) on behalf of the entire football fraternity, has congratulated the newly-appointed Justice of the Supreme Court (JSC) Issifu Omoro Amadu Tanko.
Amadu Tanko JSC was a former Appeals Committee Chairman of the GFA.
\"We are profoundly proud, but unsurprised by the achievements and the well-deserved elevation of Justice Issifu Omoro Amadu Tanko,\" a GFA statement said.
The statement added that as a former Chairman of the GFA Appeals Committee and other judicial bodies of the Football Association, Justice Tanko's contribution to the judicial jurisprudence of the GFA could not be overemphasised.
The GFA wished the Supreme Court Judge Amadu Tanko the very best \"as he begins his important journey for the nation.\"
May 16: Nigeria receives COVID-Organics, scientific tests ordered
\tNigerian president Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday (May 16) received the country’s share of a purported coronavirus herbal cure, COVID-Organics.
Madagascar donated a consignment of the controversial cure to the West African bloc, ECOWAS.
May 12: Nigeria accepts COVID-Organics
\tNigeria is set to fly in Madagascar’s herbal cure donation from Guinea-Bissau, a top official at the president who is leader of the presidential task force on COVID-19 disclosed on Monday.
“Mr President has given instructions for the airlifting of Nigeria’s allocation of the Madagascar Covid-19 Syrup; also given clear instructions that it must be subjected to the standard validation process for pharmaceuticals; there will be no exceptions for this.
May 6: ECOWAS ‘rejects’ COVID-Organics, Madagascar’s untested virus cure
\tThe Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, has dissociated itself from reports of a donation from Madagascar regarding a coronavirus herbal cure, COVID-Organics.
Total confirmed cases = 6,269 (new cases = 173)
Total recoveries = 1,898 (new = 125)
Total deaths = 31
Active cases = 4,340
\tFigures valid as of May 21, 2020
May 20: Cases pass 6,000 mark, govt eyes COVID-Organics
\tGhana’s case count passed 6,000 mark reaching 6,096 on Tuesday according to tallies released by the Ghana Health Service.
Total confirmed cases = 6,069
Total recoveries = 1,773
Active cases = 4,292
\tFigures valid as of May 19, 2020
May 19: govt to explain boom recoveries and address hot spot case management
\tNo new figures were released on Monday but the government through the Information Ministry will release new tallies at a press conference scheduled for later today.
April 14: 5,530 cases, 13 of 16 regions infected
Total confirmed cases = 6,683 (new cases = 66)
Total recoveries = 1,978 (new = 20)
Total deaths = 32
May 23: 6,617 cases, Ashanti region pass 1,000 mark
\tThe case count in the Ashanti region crossed the 1,000 mark according to latest stats released this Saturday.
Total confirmed cases = 6,617 (new cases = 131)
Total recoveries = 1,978 (new = 27)
May 22: 6,486 cases, NDC jabs EC
\tMain opposition NDC continued their collision with the elections body over the compilation of a new voters register ahead of December 2020 polls.
Senegal, one of West Africa’s largest economies, has torn up its tax treaty with Mauritius as debate rages over the island tax haven’s impact on developing economies.
Senegal unilaterally ended its double non-taxation treaty, or DTA, with Mauritius without fanfare earlier this year – and it is only now coming to the attention of tax officials in the region.
In the 2018 West Africa Leaks investigation, ICIJ revealed that a Canadian engineering giant avoided paying up to $8.9 million in taxes to Senegal with the help of a shell company in Mauritius.
ICIJ spoke to officials from Zambia, Lesotho, Uganda and the Republic of Congo who are seeking to modify treaties with Mauritius because the current deals are costing poorer countries millions of dollars in lost tax revenue each year.
One Senegalese official who wished to remain anonymous told ICIJ that it was important to cancel the treaty with Mauritius as soon as possible because recent oil and gas discoveries will bring an influx of investment to the West African nation.
Ahead of the September 19 and October 10 governorship elections in Edo and Ondo states respectively, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has warned politicians planning to undermine or disrupt the processes.
The INEC boss assured of the commission's commitment to free, fair and credible elections and warned that where an election was disrupted, the commission would not make a declaration on the outcome due to lack of adherence to guiding rules of the election.
He said, \"Where the election is disrupted and the commission cannot vouch for the integrity of the process, we will not go ahead to make any declaration.\"
He said there would be no point in making a declaration in such situation because the commission would not endorse fraud or function outside the minimum standard set for the conduct of credible elections anywhere.
On his part, the Executive Director of CDD Ghana, Henry Prempeh, said the COVID-19 pandemic had compressed elections in the country.
Clinton’s primary challenger, Democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, endorsed her, but Sanders had a difficult time getting his diehard supporters to do the same.
In response to this rebellion, Sanders told his supporters the movement has to grow inside the Democratic Party, not outside of it.
(2016 Pennsylvania vote count…Clinton: 47.85 percent; 2,926,441—Trump: (48.58 percent; 2,970,733)
In 2016 Sanders was unable to hand over his Democratic socialist movement to Hillary Clinton and in 2020 Sanders is struggling to hand it over to Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden.
The “Old New Left” wrote, “We are gravely concerned that some (Bernie Supporters), including the leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America, refuse to support Biden, whom they see as a representative of Wall Street… Some of us think “endorsing” Joe Biden is a step too far; but we who now write this open letter all know we must work hard to elect him.
The editor of the Jacobin Magazine (which offers socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture) declared he was voting for the Green Party candidate, and took issue with the “Old New Left” haranguing young socialist.
Robert Perry was born in Durham, North Carolina in 1945. He graduated from Hillside High School in that city in 1963. During his time in high school, Perry played in the marching band, was a member of the Honor Society, and served as president of his sophomore and senior classes. He was an acolyte at St. Titus Episcopal Church. As a member of Boy Scout Troop 55, Robert Perry earned the rank of Eagle Scout.
Perry graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio in 1967. He completed a Master’s Degree in International Relations at American University in Washington, D.C. the following year.
Robert joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1968. He began his career with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and served in the Vietnam rural development program. In the 1970s and early 1980s he was a Special Assistant to the Undersecretary for Political Affairs, serving at the South African and Cuban desks. He was also an analyst for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research with the U.S. State Department.
From 1986 to 1989, Perry served as the Deputy Chief of Mission in Mauritius. From 1990 to 1994, he was the Division Chief and Office Director for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, then from 1995 to 1998, Perry was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Bolivia. Perry also served at U.S. Embassies in Mexico, Ethiopia, and Chile. While in Latin America, Perry managed a $100 million counternarcotic program.
In 1998 President Bill Clinton nominated Perry to become Ambassador to the Central African Republic. After U.S. Senate confirmation he served in Bangui, the nation’s capital, from 1998 to 2001. While in the Central African Republic, Perry coordinated the contribution of the United States to the United Nations peace building efforts in the country.
In July 2001, Perry became the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of African Affairs. There he was responsible for Economic Policy, West Africa, and Public Diplomacy, including
Total confirmed cases = 7,117 (new cases = 309)
Total recoveries = 2,317
Total deaths = 34
Active cases = 4,766
\tFigures valid as of close of day May 26, 2020
May 26: 6,808 cases, further easing of restrictions expected
\tA major religious group is advocating a phased lifting of remaining restrictions in the country.
\tGhana maintained her spot as West Africa’s most impacte
During the lean season in June and August, more than 21 million people across West Africa \"will struggle to feed themselves\", she explained, adding Gambia and Benin to the list of countries in need.
\"An additional 20 million people could struggle to feed themselves due to the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 in the next six months, doubling the number of food-insecure to 43 million in this region\", the WFP official added.
Highest forced displacement in Africa
Highlighting people's vulnerabilities, Babar Baloch from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), described West and central Africa as \"one of largest displacement situations in Africa…we are talking about 5.6 million internally displaced people, more than 1.3 million refugees and 1.6 million stateless.\"
The UN refugee agency has repeatedly called for greater support for increasing numbers of people forced to flee for their lives amid renewed conflict in West Africa's turbulent Sahel and Lake Chad region.
On Monday, the agency condemned attacks on 2 May on Malian refugees in Burkina Faso – \"reportedly by the country's security forces\", in Mentao refugee camp in which at least 32 people were injured.
Diplomat, scholar and author Hugh Heyne Smythe was born on August 19, 1913 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His mother was a housemaid and his father, who died when Smythe was three years old, was a mailman. One of five siblings, at age six Smythe was forced to start work as a paperboy to help support his struggling family. In 1936, upon earning a degree in sociology from Virginia State College for Negroes (now Virginia State University) where he won varsity letters in basketball and track, Smythe made his first unsuccessful attempt to be employed in the U.S. Department of State. Fortunately, his outstanding academic record allowed him to continue his studies and acquire a master’s degree in sociology at Atlanta University. In 1939 Smythe married Mabel Murphy, a student at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. He then served two years in the Army during World War II. In 1946 he completed his doctorate in cultural anthropology at Northwestern University with the dissertation titled Patterns of Kinship Structure in West Africa.
When he was initially unable to obtain employment as a diplomat with the U.S. State Department in the late 1940s, Smythe taught sociology at Tennessee A&I College (now Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tennessee), and worked as a researcher for the NAACP. From 1951 until 1953 he was a visiting professor at Yamaguchi National University in Japan. In 1953 Smythe was hired as a sociology professor at Brooklyn College in New York City, New York. Smythe and his wife assisted James H. Robinson in launching Operation Crossroads Africa in 1958, a forerunner of and inspiration for the U.S. Peace Corps.
Still longing for a diplomatic assignment, and encouraged by the more liberal presidency of John F. Kennedy, Smythe sought every opportunity to work abroad. He traveled with American delegations to international conferences, served on numerous committees and was a consultant to various agencies affiliated with the United Nations. He also added to his résumé lectures at the U.S. Foreign
