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.
By NQOBANI NDLOVU THE Affirmative Action Group (AAG) has taken the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to task for failing to authorise a vehicle parking management tender deal, resulting in potential revenue losses. AAG in a statement said the financial challenges faced by council could be eased if it regularised a parking tender deal which was awarded to a local private company in 2019. The parking tender caused divisions among city fathers, a development that saw government probing the tender process. “Nothing has been seen on the ground to show any development. “This is revenue loss to the council yet there is nothing on the side of management to show the urgency to push implementation of the deal,” the AAG statement read. “There is always urgency (by council) in pushing up rates and charges to residents. Who is really benefiting from these tenders? “It must be remembered that this same parking tender was delayed for years in the courts after a legal battle with a company that had links with one of the directors.” Bulawayo town clerk Christopher Dube yesterday said the local authority was still awaiting clearance from the Zimbabwe Development Agency (ZDA) before authorising the vehicle parking management deal. “It was sent back to ZDA for further adjudication and clearance, otherwise before that we can’t do anything. “Normally, clearance has to be sought from a council oversight committee but then this one needs clearance from ZDA,” Dube said. Reports show that one of the companies linked to the parking management system, Harare City Council’s Easypark made an unsolicited bid for the parking management tender. However, questions were raised over engaging Easypark after reports emerged that the company pampered some Bulawayo councillors by booking them into a five-star hotel and provided them with goodies to influence the awarding process. The parking management services tender in Bulawayo was cancelled in 2012 by council despite having been granted to Megalithic Marketing (Private) Limited. In cancelling the tender then, council cited a “shambolic tendering” process. This resulted in a long court battle with the company as it contested the cancellation. In April 2019, BCC shortlisted Ducretion Logistics (Private) Limited and Lauvax Trading (Private) Limited trading as Propark to manage the city’s parking system, but the deal is yet to be finalised.
The post AAG, BCC clash over vehicle parking tender appeared first on NewsDay Zimbabwe.
A Nigeria Railways Corporation official said the train departs Ibadan for Lagos at 8am daily with a return trip scheduled at 4pm.
The Lagos-Ibadan expressway is notorious for heavy trucks and traffic gridlocks that can stretch for several kilometres.
The Lagos-Ibadan line is the first part of a new 2,733km Lagos-Kano standard gauge line. The total cost of the project was valued at $11.117bn.
[HRW] Washington -- The World Bank's Covid-19 support project does not adequately address the Egyptian government's arrests and intimidation of health professionals, Human Rights Watch said today.
[Thomson Reuters Foundation] New York -- Many shipping and transport workers have been at sea as long as 17 months or longer, due to COVID-19-related restrictions
I have read with great consternation and utter dismay that the Government is giving serious consideration to the abolition of August 1st as Emancipation Day and August 6th as our Independence Day.
Less than a week after Nelson Mandela Bay (NMB) was hit by tougher lockdown restrictions, another district has asked for the same treatment.
National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) commissioner Geoffrey Chada says the commission would look into the issue of the Gukurahundi genocide next year during public hearings. Evans Mathanda Chada said this on Tuesday during an NPRC capacity-building workshop in Harare which discussed the commission's activities to be rolled out next year, including the public hearings. He, however, said the commission was facing challenges in that there was lack of dialogue between the NPRC and citizens, adding that people also did not understand its role. Chada said lack of knowledge on the terms of reference of the NPRC, had hindered progress because people were not presenting complaints to the commission. “Issues like Gukurahundi are actually things that we expect to be raised during our public hearings, however, Gukurahundi is not the only crisis that the commission is going to be dealing with next year,” Chada said. “There are a lot of crisis situations in the country like the issue of resettling of the people in Chiyadzwa and other areas like Chimanimani that have been affected by natural disasters. All these issues of need to be well addressed in order to foster national healing”, he said. Chada said the NPRC was in the process of identifying issues of paramount importance that affected people, including those of electoral violence. “People are also allowed to come before the NPRC and ask whether the reports on the 2018 electoral violence were properly implemented so that they put forward their complaints before the commission. “There is nothing that we will leave behind in dealing with the issues. “We are not going to be challenged by anyone, we will work in accordance with the NPRC Act which empowers us to deal with issues of peace and reconciliation,” he said. Chada said there were a lot of sensitive things that would be exposed next year when the NPRC public hearings began, adding that some of the issues would be new to the media and the people of Zimbabwe.
A man suspected of being mentally unstable, who allegedly murdered a 12-year-old Gweru girl by stoning her on Tuesday was yesterday remanded in custody at Hwahwa Prison where he will be examined before his re-appearance in court. STEPHEN CHADENGA The man, who was only identified as Derick in court, struck Natasha Manunure, a Grade Seven pupil near her home in Mtapa suburb in Gweru. Gweru magistrate, Beuality Dube, had a tough time trying to make Derick understand why he was appearing in court as the accused started speaking inaudibly. The man even insisted before the court that he was not Derick, but Danisa, adding that Derick was the name of “a donkey at the market.” When he was told that he was going to be mentally examined before coming back to court he exclaimed in surprise, asking if it was going to be in Harare. The State counsel then made an application to have the accused mentally examined by two doctors before the magistrate granted the request and remanded the accused to December 23. Allegations are that Natasha was coming from school when accused struck her with a stone on the left ear leading to her falling down and dying on the spot. Natasha, of section 3, Mtapa, who was preparing for her exams, was walking home reading a question paper when she met her fate. The accused then fled from the scene but was caught by members of the public who handed him to the police. Derick, who usually roams the streets of Gweru is notorious for assaulting girls and women usually with stones and other objects that he picks on the streets.
A bodybuilder from Kazakhstan legally married a sex doll and shared the happy news on Instagram after going viral over the globe.
Could Ethical Capital Exist?
Former Ivorian CEO of Credit Suisse, Tidjane Thiam, has joined the Council for an Inclusive Capitalism — a US organisation which brings together some 20 world business leaders and advocates for a virtuous vision of the market economy and is officially in partnership with the Vatican as of Tuesday’s announcement. Tidjane is among a group of investors and leaders of major global corporations — often referred to by some as \"gatekeepers,\" who are supposedly committed to \"reforming capitalism for the good of humanity\" and who want to promote the private sector's drive to make capitalism operate more in line with justice, inclusion and sustainable development.
These leaders — who represent more than 10.5 trillion USD in assets under management, are scheduled to meet annually with Pope Francis and Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson.
Turkson is one of two African cardinals expected to succeed Benedict XVI in 2013 and become the first \"black pope\" in history.
A manhunt has been launched following the escape of two sentenced prisoners from the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre.
By VANESSA GERA Associated Press WARSAW, Poland (AP) — As the Polish government plays a game of chicken with the European Union over its next long-term budget, some Poles are voicing fears that a drawn-out conflict could put their country on a path toward an eventual departure from the bloc, or 'Polexit.' Poland's conservative government, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski's Law and Justice party, denies that it has ever wanted to leave the 27-member bloc, and popular support for EU membership runs extremely high. But critics fear the combative tone of Polish leaders — who have recently compared the EU to […]
The post Poles voice fears of 'Polexit' as govt defies EU over budget appeared first on Black News Channel.
Despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and prolonged border closures between countries, some people still swapped South Africa for Australia in 2020.
While the CDC said there should be enough doses for as many as 20 million people to receive vaccination by the end of December, health officials expect a much larger supply in the coming months. Still, with a justified distrust of unproven vaccines, and a perceived limited participation by African Americans in clinical the trials that lead to the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, many question whether African Americans will accept vaccination.
IMPLYING that the masses of South Africans are stupid for repeatedly voting for the African National Congress (ANC) is a denial of the enormous sacrifices they made during the struggle against apartheid — and of the huge gains we have made since the advent of democracy. guest column:Oscar Van Heerden Justice Malala implied during a panel discussion on eNCA recently that our people are stupid for electing the ANC over and over again, regardless of how much the party messes up. He stated, and I am not quoting verbatim, they mess up the economy, the people vote for them; they allow State capture, they vote for them; there is blatant corruption with respect to COVID-19 protective gear, the people vote for the ANC. He concluded that there is a problem with our people. On the one hand, he might imply they, therefore, deserve what they get, which would be callous, or on the other hand, they are stupid. I decided to take serious issue with his sentiments because I have often also heard it being expressed by my white compatriots: the ANC can do whatever it wants and the stupid masses will keep on voting for them and they know it, so don’t expect any change from the ANC any time soon. I presume these are the same people who fought for centuries to rid themselves of slavery, colonial occupation and apartheid? These stupid people are the same ones who have bled and died in pursuit of their freedoms, justice? Many of them chose to languish in our prisons, jail cells and indeed on the gallows, stupid fools. These are the stupid people you are referring to, right? A people who saw the fruits of their labour come to fruition in 1990 and as a result could savour that sweet taste of freedom on that fateful day, April 27 1994. After so many of them died between the period of 1989-1994, right until the eve of the election day. Are these the stupid people you are referring to? They, who experienced first-hand in many communities how their ordinary poor and destitute lives were improving and taking shape in the right direction post-1994. Perhaps you are not used to not having piped water, but they saw this ANC government give them access, similarly with electricity, a most basic commodity. It was slow on the job front, yes; the global economy can be a very complex and lonely place, but these are the people who saw their government making the effort and at least giving them a child grant, equalising old-age pensions across the colour line and restoring the dignity of our aged and most vulnerable. Even at a time of a desperate shortage of extra cash, it is this ANC government that went an extra mile and provided an additional seven million of these stupid people with some relief to assist in a desperate situation with the COVID-19 special grant. You might have the luxury of debating dependency syndromes etc, but the stupid people can feel the difference in their tummies. With literally thousands of service delivery protests all over the country for a number of years already now, with civil society taking good shape in holding government at
[East African] Kenya's national carrier Kenya Airways is seeking to play a role in the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines in Africa.
CHILD-FOCUSED non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Africa often use international policy guidelines in their efforts to protect children. They also depend on international donors to fund their activities. guest column:Sampson Addo Yeboah NGOs rely on standardised childhood policy frameworks, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Little attention is given to indigenous knowledge on childhood and its inclusion in child-focused interventions. We conducted a study to explore the interplay between these two worlds. The study, using an ethnographic method of participant observation and interviews, explored indigenous knowledge on child protection in a rural cocoa growing community of Ghana. We explored rural parents’ attitudes to an NGO intervention on children’s rights to basic schooling and the illegality of child labour. We focused mainly on the effects of indigenous knowledge on the outcomes of a child-rights based intervention; and interactions between parents and staff of a child-focused NGO. Using ethnographic methods enabled us to capture insights behind practices on rural childhood which would have been impossible with a quantitative approach. Findings from the study shows that parents perspectives on child protection were fundamentally different from those promoted by NGO frontline workers and the UNCRC. Rural parents viewed child protection as providing for the physical wellbeing of children and making sure they were trained in the norms and customs of the community. Based on our findings we recommended that for sustainable child protection interventions in rural Africa, child-focused NGOs working in these settings should meaningfully include local knowledge on childhood in their intervention programmes. This may ensure long-term local ownership by rural stakeholders and sustainability of the intervention. The history The idea of a “normative child” only came into being in Western Europe between the 17th and 19th century. During this period, childhood was constructed as a distinct phase of life separate from adulthood and children were seen as needing an enabling environment to play, receive formal education and to be free from work. Today these constructs are the embodiment of childhood in Western countries and are enshrined in documents such as the UNCRC which has become the conveying instrument of this approach. Organisations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and United Kingdom and US aid bodies work mostly with countries that have ratified the UNCRC. In most African countries, too, the legal construction of what a proper childhood should be is guided by the UNCRC. But, as realised in our study, traditional African childhoods differ from the child-rights based on UNCRC. The organisation and coherence of African childhoods are usefully oriented toward different contextual purposes to those reflected in the UNCRC approach. In traditional African societies, children get to know the ways of their community through family traditions. They work alon
By Associated Press Undefined BEIJING (AP) — The world's highest mountain is now officially a little higher, and that might not be the end of the story. China and Nepal agreed this week on a new standard height for Mount Everest, the rugged Himalayan peak that straddles their border. As definitive as that sounds, geological changes, the complicated business of measuring a mountain and varying criteria for determining the world's highest peak will likely ensure the question isn't settled for good. GEOLOGICAL UPS AND DOWNS The mountain's height changes. The movement of tectonic plates can lift it up ever so […]
The post EXPLAINER: Why did Mount Everest's height change? appeared first on Black News Channel.
[The Herald] The provincial data for gross domestic product (GDP) show glaring inequalities in the distribution of the country's wealth with Harare alone accounting for 39,55 percent of the total while the other nine provinces share the remaining 60,44 percent.
While Congress debates another potential round of PPP funding for small businesses, the urgency for this money is becoming more acute by the minute. Alignable's latest poll conducted from 12/5 to 12/7/20 among 5,500 small business owners reveals that 85% say additional funding is very important for the survival of their businesses from now to June 2021. On […]
The post 85% Of Small Businesses Need New Federal Funds Now appeared first on Milwaukee Community Journal.
Many Remember Their British Pop Star
Tuesday marked the 40th anniversary of the death of John Lennon — a quarter of the internationally celebrated English band The Beatles, who was fatally shot outside his New York City apartment building on the evening of December 8, 1980, at coincidentally just 40 years old. His former bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, his surviving widow Yoko — as well as other family members, took to social media to post messages in remembrance of the singer-songwriter.
Four friends from Liverpool, England, formed a music group that would become a worldwide phenomenon in the early 1960s, The Beatles.
The Black-American Influenced Beatles
The rock and roll musical style they adopted had its roots in Black American music and Lennon, in particular, was outspoken on the impact black artists had on the group’s sound and songs. Music stars like Elvis Presley were never known to publicly admit to the imitation and — in several occasions, the alleged outright stealing of musical styles and songs from black American artists who typically did not have access to the same platforms and production technology. A symptom of a structurally and historically racist and segregated society at the time in the USA.
The Beatles, however, were more open and honest about the musical and artistic influences on their songs — even naming highly innovative and legendary black American talents such as Chuck Berry, Arthur Alexander, and Barrett Strong.
Following the band’s breakup, Lennon sent a handwritten response to a piece published by the New York Times entitled 'So in the End, the Beatles Have Proved False Prophets,' accusing the band, among other things, of making off with black music for their own benefit.
Lennon’s reply read, \"We didn’t sing our own songs in the early days — they weren’t good enough. The one thing we always did was to make it known that there were black originals, we loved the music and wanted to spread it in any way we could.”
A sentiment apparently shared by bandmate McCartney who has also admitted, “We were the biggest nickers in town. Plagiarists extraordinaires.”
Nevertheless, both The Beatles and John Lennon were beloved worldwide by many of their fans, who continue to remember him on the anniversary of his passing.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden made two key domestic policy picks, selecting Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge as his housing and urban development secretary and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reprise that role in his administration, according to five people familiar with the decisions. The picks on Tuesday highlighted Biden’s delicate balancing act as […]
Need to stay updated on coronavirus news in Texas? Our evening roundup will help you stay on top of the day's latest updates. Sign up here. At least three members of the State Board of Education tested positive for COVID-19 after meeting in person for four days in November, according to multiple board members. Georgina Pérez, an El Paso […]
By Quinci LeGardye | California Black Media More than half of California is now under a regional stay-at-home order. Last week, when the governor announced the impending shutdown, he said health officials had carved the state into five regions. Their goal is to coordinate a broad emergency response that would reach across county lines and […]
Thus, we face yet another conundrum in our nation’s educational system as factors and issues, of which they have no control, serve to derail the efforts and defuse the dreams of innocent students of color.
Marcia Fudge will be nominated as the next Housing and Urban Development Secretary.
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH and RYAN FOLEY Associated Press KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Arguments over mask requirements and other restrictions have turned ugly in recent days as the deadly coronavirus surge across the U.S. engulfs small and medium-size cities that once seemed at a safe remove from the outbreak. In Boise, Idaho, public health officials about to vote on a four-county mask mandate abruptly ended a meeting Tuesday evening because of fears for their safety amid anti-mask protests outside the building and at some of their homes. One health board member tearfully announced she had to rush home to be […]
The post Tensions rise over masks as virus grips smaller US cities appeared first on Black News Channel.
