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Nine people were killed and more than 40 injured when a fire set off explosions at a military ammunition depot in Chad’s capital.
Announcement of the death of former President Rawlings pic.twitter.com/7ext0fp4sd
— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) November 12, 2020
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Black Enterprise publisher Earl G. Graves and Magic Johnson sign an agreement to purchase Pepsi-Cola of Washington, D.C., becoming the largest minority controlled Pepsi-Cola franchise in the country
The rapper collected an estimated 60,000 votes, including 10,000 in Tennessee.
Tunisia, at the northernmost bulge of Africa, thrusts out toward Sicily to mark the division between the eastern and western Mediterranean Sea. Twice the size of South Carolina, it is bordered on the west by Algeria and by Libya on the south. Coastal plains on the east rise to a north-south escarpment that slopes gently to the west. The Sahara Desert lies in the southernmost part. Tunisia is more mountainous in the north, where the Atlas range continues from Algeria.
Tunisia was settled by the Phoenicians in the 12th century B.C. By the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., the great city-state of Carthage (derived from the Phoenician name for “new city”) dominated much of the western Mediterranean. The three Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage (the second was the most famous, pitting the Roman general Scipio Africanus against Carthages Hannibal) led to the complete destruction of Carthage by 146 B.C.
Except for an interval of Vandal conquest in A.D. 439–533, Carthage was part of the Roman Empire until the Arab conquest of 648–669. It was then ruled by various Arab and Berber dynasties, followed by the Turks, who took it in 1570–1574 and made it part of the Ottoman Empire until the 19th century. In the late 16th century, it was a stronghold for the Barbary pirates. French troops occupied the country in 1881, and the bey, the local Tunisian ruler, signed a treaty acknowledging it as a French protectorate.
Nationalist agitation forced France to recognize Tunisian independence and sovereignty in 1956. The constituent assembly deposed the bey on July 25, 1957, declared Tunisia a republic, and elected Habib Bourguiba as president. Bourguiba maintained a pro-Western foreign policy that earned him enemies. Tunisia refused to break relations with the U.S. during the Arab-Israeli War in June 1967. Concerned with Islamic fundamentalist plots against the state, the government stepped up efforts to eradicate the movement, including censorship and frequent detention of suspects.
In 1987, the aged Bourguiba was declared
Coup attempts in June 2003 and Aug. 2004 were thwarted. Tayas crackdown on Islamists and his support for Israel and the U.S. were believed to have sparked the attempts to overthrow him. In Aug. 2005, however, President Taya was deposed by military officers while out of the country. In June 2006, voters approved to limit the presidency to two five-year terms.
Mauritania started its march toward democracy in November 2006, when local and regional elections were held throughout the country. Presidential elections followed in March 2007. None of the 19 candidates won more than 50% of the vote in the first round, and the two top candidates, Sidi Ould Sheik Abdellahi, a former government minister, and Ahmed Ould Daddah, an opposition leader, faced off in the countrys first-ever second round of voting. Abdellahi prevailed in the runoff to become the countrys first democratically elected president.
In July 2008, the countrys top four military leaders deposed Prime Minister Boubacar and President Abdellahi in a bloodless coup. Some of the same military leaders were involved in the 2005 coup that brought Abdellahi to power. In recent months, the countrys legislature has criticized Abdellahis handling of rising food prices and accused the government of corruption.
In July 2009, a year after taking control of Mauritania in a military coup, Muhammad Ould Abdel Aziz won the presidential election, with 52% of the vote. He prevailed over parliament speaker Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, who garnered only 16%. The election was deemed fair by outside observers, including representatives from the African Union. The election helped to put the country back on a course toward democracy.
When President Abdel Aziz took office on August 5, 2009, Prime Minister Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf resigned. Laghdaf had been retained two months earlier to serve as prime minster as part of a deal with the opposition. Despite his resignation, Laghdaf was reappointed prime minister by President Abdel Aziz in mid-August 2009. On Feb. 2, 2014, Prime
Guinea gĭn´ē [key], an archaic term for the west coast of Africa. In its widest sense it has been applied to the region from Angola to Senegal. Parts of the region bore names originating in early colonial trade, notably Grain Coast , Ivory Coast (see Côte dIvoire ), Gold Coast (see Ghana , country), and Slave Coast . Characteristic of the coast are dense tropical forests, heavy rainfall, and a hot, humid climate. Today the term refers to the Republic of Guinea , Guinea-Bissau , and Equatorial Guinea .
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Schoolteacher, dentist, physician, lawyer, graduate of the American Medical College in Philadelphia, member of the Massachusetts bar, proficient in Greek and Latin, Dr. John S. Rock was unequivocally one of the most distinguished African American leaders to emerge in the United States during the antebellum era. On March 5, 1858, Dr. Rock delivered a speech at Boston’s Fanueil Hall as part of the annual Crispus Attucks Day observance organized by Bostons black abolitionists in response to the Dred Scott decision.
Rock shared the platform with William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Theodore Parker. Three years before the outbreak of the Civil War, Dr. Rock correctly predicted that African Americans were destined to play an important role in the impending military conflict over slavery. His speech appears below.
Ladies and Gentlemen: You will not expect a lengthened speech from me to-night. My health is too poor to allow me to indulge much in speechmaking. But I have not been able to resist the temptation to unite with you in this demonstra-tion of respect for some of my noble but misguided ancestors.
White Americans have taken great pains to try to prove that we are cowards. We are often insulted with the assertion, that if we had had the courage of the Indians or the white man, we would never have submitted to be slaves. I ask if Indians and white men have never been slaves? The white man tested the Indians courage here when he had his organized armies, his battlegrounds, his places of retreat, with everything to hope for and everything to lose. The position of the African slave has been very different. Seized a prisoner of war, unarmed, bound hand and foot, and conveyed to a distant country among what to him were worse than cannibals; brutally beaten, halfstarved, closely watched by armed men, with no means of knowing their own strength or the strength of their enemies, with no weapons, and without a probability of success. But if the white man will take the trouble to fight the black man in Africa or
Niger nī´jər [key], great river of W Africa, c.2,600 mi (4,180 km) long, rising on the Fouta Djallon plateau, SW Guinea, and flowing NE through Guinea and into Mali. In central Mali the Niger forms its vast inland delta (c.30,000 sq mi/77,700 sq km), a maze of channels and shallow lakes. An irrigation project in the delta, begun by the French in the 1930s and including a large dam at Sansanding (1941), has since opened some 250,000 acres (100,000 hectares) to farming, especially rice cultivation. Downstream from Timbuktu, Mali, the Niger begins a great bend, flowing first E and then SE out of Mali, through the Republic of Niger (where it forms part of the border with Benin), and into Nigeria the river also becomes increasingly polluted.
A hydroelectric and irrigation project, centered around the Kainji dam (1968), is located on the Niger near Jebba in E Nigeria. At Lokoja , central Nigeria, the Benue , its chief tributary, joins the Niger, which then flows south, emptying through a great delta into the Gulf of Guinea. The delta (c.14,000 sq mi/36,260 sq km)—the largest in Africa—is characterized by swamps, lagoons, and navigable channels. The region is a major source of palm oil and petroleum the exploitation of the latter has led to significant pollution of the water and land in some areas of the delta. Major towns in the delta are Port Harcourt and Bonny . Much of the Niger is seasonally navigable, and below Lokoja it is open to ships virtually all year. The Niger is a major source of fish, especially perch and tiger fish.
The upper Niger region was an important part of the former empires of Mali and Songhai . The course of the Niger long puzzled European geographers only from 1795 to 1797 did Mungo Park , the Scots explorer, correctly establish the eastern flow of the upper Niger, and it was not until 1830 that Richard and John Lander , English explorers, found that the river emptied into the Gulf of Guinea.
Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Côte dIvoire, Guinea, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria
Ambassador Sue Katherine Brown is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister Counselor. In 2011 President Barack Obama nominated her to become the U.S. Ambassador to Montenegro, the first African American to hold this post and only the second U.S. ambassador since Montenegro declared its independence from Serbia on June 3, 2006. Brown’s nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and she presented her credentials to the President of Montenegro, Filip Vujanovi?, on Thursday, May 12, 2011.
A native of Houston, Texas, Brown joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980. Ambassador Brown worked in various capacities at the U.S. State Department between 1980 and her ambassadorial appointment in 2011. Her other overseas postings include France, Liberia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Côte dIvoire. Additionally while she served in Indonesia she helped coordinate U.S. aid efforts in response to severe flooding on some of the nation’s islands.
Ambassador Brown also served as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassies in Accra, Ghana and Asmara, Eritrea. While serving in Accra, Ghana as Embassy Chargé d’Affaires (second in command) from 2006 to 2009, she was credited with leading a public service campaign that saved a number of young Ghanaian girls from sex trafficking.
In 2009 she became office director for Southern African Affairs in the Bureau of African Affairs at the State Department. She held this post until receiving her ambassador assignment.
While serving as ambassador Brown oversaw U.S. assistance efforts in response to two natural disasters. In February 2012 she coordinated with the government of Montenegro, the work of the 361st Civil Affairs Brigade and the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade in Podgorica, Montenegro. These soldiers were part of a larger U.S. task force providing humanitarian assistance at the request of the government of Montenegro after record snowfalls left tens of thousands in the country’s mountainous north cut off and unable to receive food, fuel, or medical
Nnamdi Azikiwe, by now the best know nationalist leader in Nigeria, addressed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at its 50th anniversary celebration at the Polo Grounds, New York City, July 19, 1959. His speech appears below.
I am greatly indebted to the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People for the invitation to speak on this occasion of the celebration of its fiftieth anniversary. For five decades, this organization has been in the vanguard of the struggle for human freedom in America. Its objective has been the attainment of equal rights for people of African descent and other peoples of colour who are citizens of this great bastion of democracy.
In the thoughts of Abraham Lincoln, this country was conceived in liberty of the individual and it was dedicated to the idea that democracy as a way of life can only be meaningful not only to its inhabitants but to the rest of the world if all facets of its society respect human dignity in the noble attempt to create equality of opportunity for all.
For 183 years, the people of the United States have been involved in a historic experiment to determine whether democracy can survive as an ideology which places a high premium on the value of the individual in a society which is heterogeneous. Throughout this period, this great country has been the cynosure of the world. Every little mistake in human relations has been magnified out of its proportions. Every error of judgement in the relations of the races has been critically analysed. And every act of injustice based on such extraneous factors as race, colour, creed or station in life has been subjected to the most severe strictures.
Such a negative attitude has not been due to any inveterate hatred of the United States per se (although we must admit that those with axes to grind cannot but make capital out of such slips), but the main reason is the universal respect which the world has for this country. Because of this high esteem, the outside world expects
Exercise your hard-earned right to vote. Elections are happening all over the country and who you choose matters. This message was engraved into crops to encourage people to vote. Photo: WithLove.vote
The post NEW YEAR, NEW YOU 2021! Get Out And Vote! appeared first on DivaGalsDaily.
Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. was founded on December 4, 1906 on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York by seven college men who recognized the need for a strong bond of Brotherhood among African descendants in this country. The visionary founders, known as the Jewels of the Fraternity, are Henry Arthur Callis, Charles Henry ChAPman, Eugene Kinckle Jones, George Biddle Kelley, Nathaniel Allison Murray, Robert Harold Ogle, and Vertner Woodson Tandy.
When the economy continued to stagnate, and with it Senghors popularity, he resigned after 20 years at the helm in favor of his protégé, Abdou Diouf. Diouf, who led the country for the next 20 years, initiated further economic and political liberalization, including the sale of government companies and permitting the existence of political parties. In March 2000, opposition party challenger Abdoulaye Wade won 60% of the vote in multiparty elections. Diouf stepped aside in what was hailed as a rare smooth transition of power in Africa. In Jan. 2001, the Senegalese voted in a new constitution that legalized opposition parties and granted women equal property rights with men.
In Sept. 2002, 1,863 passengers were killed when the state-owned Joola ferry sank. The government accepted responsibility for the disaster.
The president removed Prime Minister Idrissa Seck in April 2004. Seck was considered Wades rival. Wade was elected to a second term in February, taking about 56% of the vote—enough to avoid a runoff election. Seck placed second, with about 15%. Wade did not breeze to victory, however, as his opponents accused him of corruption and the electorate has grown impatient with the slow growth in the number of jobs.
Christianity, religion founded in Palestine by the followers of Jesus . One of the worlds major religions, it predominates in Europe and the Americas, where it has been a powerful historical force and cultural influence, but it also claims adherents in virtually every country of the world.
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Ambassador Charles A. James was born in 1922 in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he attended public schools. After high school, James enrolled at Westchester State Teachers College in Pennsylvania (now Westchester University) where he studied for one year before enlisting in the U.S. Navy during World War II where he served for three years. James received his B.A. from Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont in 1949 and an LL.B. from Yale Law School in New Haven, Connecticut in 1952. In 1977, Middlebury College conferred an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree on Ambassador James for his lifetime of public service.
James practiced law in Sacramento and Stockton, California for ten years. In Stockton, he served as area President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) covering northern California and Nevada. In 1961, James was appointed Assistant Attorney General for the State of California by Attorney General Stanley Mosk. James played a significant role in the enactment of truth in lending legislation in California and negotiated changes in the packaging practices of 21 major cosmetic firms. He also served as chairman of the staff to the Committee for Youth and Children in the California State Assembly.
In 1964, James became the Deputy Director and later, Director of the Peace Corps, first in Ghana and then Uganda. He later served in an administrative position for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Thailand and Vietnam. In 1974 he joined the U.S. Foreign Service and from 1974 to 1976, he worked as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C. During his tenure as Deputy Assistant Secretary, James headed the U.S. delegation to the African Economic Commission.
On September 16, 1976, President Gerald Ford nominated James as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Niger. After confirmation by the U.S. Senate, Ambassador Nelson traveled to Niamey, the capital, to
Nearly four times the size of Texas and the largest country on the continent, Algeria is bordered on the west by Morocco and Western Sahara and on the east by Tunisia and Libya. The Mediterranean Sea is to the north, and to the south are Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. The Saharan region, which is 85% of the country, is almost completely uninhabited. The highest point is Mount Tahat in the Sahara, which rises 9,850 ft (3,000 m).
Parliamentary republic.
Excavations in Algeria have indicated that Homo erectus resided there between 500,000 and 700,000 years ago. Phoenician traders settled on the Mediterranean coast in the 1st millennium B.C. As ancient Numidia, Algeria became a Roman colony, part of what was called Mauretania Caesariensis, at the close of the Punic Wars (145 B.C.). Conquered by the Vandals about A.D. 440, it fell from a high state of civilization to virtual barbarism, from which it partly recovered after an invasion by Arabs about 650. Christian during its Roman period, the indigenous Berbers were then converted to Islam. Falling under the control of the Ottoman Empire by 1536, Algiers served for three centuries as the headquarters of the Barbary pirates. Ostensibly to rid the region of the pirates, the French occupied Algeria in 1830 and made it a part of France in 1848.
Algerian independence movements led to the uprisings of 1954–1955, which developed into full-scale war. In 1962, French president Charles de Gaulle began the peace negotiations, and on July 5, 1962, Algeria was proclaimed independent. In Oct. 1963, Ahmed Ben Bella was elected president, and the country became Socialist. He began to nationalize foreign holdings and aroused opposition. He was overthrown in a military coup on June 19, 1965, by Col. Houari Boumédienne, who suspended the constitution and sought to restore economic stability. After his death, Boumédienne was succeeded by Col. Chadli Bendjedid in 1978. Berbers rioted in 1980 when Arabic was made the countrys only official language. Algeria entered a major recession after
In an open letter to his daughters, Malia and Sasha, appearing in PARADE Magazine on Sunday, January 18, 2009, two days before his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama describes his hopes and dreams for the future with them and with the world. The letter appears below.
Dear Malia and Sasha,
I know that youve both had a lot of fun these last two years on the campaign trail, going to picnics and parades and state fairs, eating all sorts of junk food your mother and I probably shouldnt have let you have. But I also know that it hasnt always been easy for you and Mom, and that as excited as you both are about that new puppy, it doesnt make up for all the time weve been apart. I know how much Ive missed these past two years, and today I want to tell you a little more about why I decided to take our family on this journey.
When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me-about how Id make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want. But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didnt seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that my own life wouldnt count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours. In the end, girls, thats why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation.
I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential-schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them. I want them to have the chance to go to college-even if their parents arent rich. And I want them to get good jobs: jobs that pay well and give them benefits like health care, jobs that let them spend time with their own kids and retire with dignity.
I want us to push the
Archibald Grimke was born enslaved in Charleston, South Carolina in 1849. After the Civil War, Archibald and his younger brother Francis, enrolled at Lincoln University. Archibald graduated in 1872 and then entered Harvard Law School. After graduation he practiced in Boston. By the 1880s Grimke became involved in a number of issues such as temperance and women’s rights and developed a reputation as a public speaker. By 1898 he became a member of the American Negro Academy, an organization of black intellectuals, and served as its president from 1903 to 1919. Grimke was also a founding member of both the Niagara Movement and the NAACP. In a speech given at various locations in 1920, seventy-one year-old Archibald Grimke eloquently expounds on the long history of American racism.
The author of the Declaration of Independence said once that he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just. And he did well to do so. But while he was about it he might have quaked a little for himself. For he was certainly guilty of the same crime against humanity, which had aroused in his philo¬sophic and patriotic mind such lively sensations of anxiety and alarm in respect to the Nation. Said Jefferson on paper: We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happi¬ness, while on his plantation he was holding some men as slaves, and continued to hold them as such for fifty years thereafter, and died at the end of a long and brilliant life, a Virginia slaveholder. And yet Thomas Jefferson was sincere, or fancied that he was, when he uttered those sublime sentiments about the rights of man, and when he declared that he trembled for his country when he remembered that God was just. This inconsistency between the mans magnificence in profession and his smallness in practice, between the grandeur of what he promised and the meanness of what he
The Recording Academy announced this year's 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, originally scheduled to air on January 31, has been pushed back to March.
Name at birth: Christopher Breaux
Frank Ocean is the smooth tenor whose 2012 R&B album channel ORANGE put him in the spotlight as a star hip-hop collaborator, with critics comparing him to Marvin Gaye and Prince. He broke into the business as a songwriter for other performers, including Brandy, Justin Bieber and John Legend. He moved from New Orleans to Los Angeles in 2005 and began recording his own mixes as Lonny Breaux, eventually joining the music collective called Odd Future (co-founded by rapper Tyler the Creator). He was signed by Def Jam records in 2009 and recorded the album nostalgia ULTRA, but it wasnt released until 2011. By that time Breaux had changed his name to Christopher Francis Ocean and was recording as Frank Ocean. Critics loved nostalgia ULTRA and heaped praise on Oceans soulful storytelling, and fans loved songs like Novacane. Ocean also got noticed by big-name artists, including Beyoncé, Kanye West, Jay-Z, Andre 3000 and Pharrell Williams. His second album, channel ORANGE, was released in July of 2012 and shot to the top of the charts on the strength of songs such as Bad Religion and Thinkin Bout You. At the same time, Ocean revealed that some songs of unrequited love were directed to a man he had once been in love with.
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Outspoken and outrageous, Charles Barkley was one of the National Basketball Associations most colorful characters during his 16-year career. A 6 6 forward, Barkley entered the NBA in 1984, signing with the Philadelphia 76ers. From 1992 to 1996 he played with the Phoenix Suns, and then was a member of the Houston Rockets until his mid-season retirement in December of 1999. Nicknamed Sir Charles, he was throughout his career a frequent interview subject whose antics on and off the court keep him in the news. He was also an outstanding player: he was named an NBA All-Star 11 times, won 2 Olympic Gold Medals (1992 and 1996), and collected more than 20,000 points and 10,000 rebounds in his career. In 2000 he signed a deal with Turner Sports and became a regular studio analyst on the TNT cable program Inside the NBA.
Extra Credit
As a college player at Auburn, Charles Barkley earned the nickname “The Round Mound of Rebound.”
Al-Shabab formally declared allegiance to al-Qaeda in February 2010, sparking further concern that the group posed a global threat. It claimed responsibility for the July bombing at a restaurant in Kampala, Uganda, that killed about 75 people who were watching the final game of the World Cup. The bombing was intended to send a message to countries that have sent troops to support Somalias transitional government.
Prime Minister Omar Sharmarke, who has been criticized for failing to defeat the Shabab and who has been at odds with President Ahmed, resigned in September 2010. He was succeeded in November by Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.
Piracy continued to plague the waters off Somalia and other parts of eastern Africa into 2011. In February, Somalia pirates killed four Americans who were sailing on their yacht in the piracy-laden water off the coast of Somalia.
The summer of 2011 brought drought to a country already laid low by nearly constant conflict, resulting in a UN-declared famine in two regions in southern Somalia. With tens of thousands of Somalis dead of malnutrition and its related causes and ten million more at risk, those who could, fled, trying to reach neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia for help. According to a report released by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organizationin in April 2013, about 260,000 died in the famine—more than half under age 6. The figure is double early estimates. The report cites the delayed response by donor nations and the Shabab for not allowing the delivery of aid the affected areas.
In June, Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed resigned; Abdiweli Mohamed Ali became acting prime minister and was approved by parliament and sworn in on June 28, 2011.
Best Known As:
Jazz legend who was King of the Vibes
Lionel Hampton was a 20th century jazz musician and composer, and the most famous player of the vibraphone in the world. Hampton grew up in Alabama, Illinois and Wisconsin. While in Catholic school in Wisconsin he learned to play the drums, and after high school he went to Los Angeles and started his professional career at the age of 16. The story goes that Hampton first played the vibraphone -- an amplified xylophone with vibrato -- with Louis Armstrong on Memories of You (1930) and the song became a hit. He stuck with the vibes and played during the 1930s with Benny Goodman, as well as on various recordings. Hampton organized his own big band in 1940 and became famous for his entertaining live shows and for his commitment to spreading jazz throughout the world. Always a crowd pleaser, Hampton played with smaller bands after 1965 with continued success, up until his health began to fail in the 1990s. Some of his most famous songs include On The Sunny Side of the Street, Hot Mallets (with Dizzy Gillespie), Flying Home and Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop.
Port-au-Spain is the capital and third largest city of the island nation Trinidad and Tobago in the southwestern West Indies and north of the South American nation of Venezuela. The city, which is only about 5 square miles, had a population of 37,074 people in 2011 but its surrounding metropolitan area had 269,923 people in a nation of 1.3 million people. Like the country as a whole, Trinidadians of Indian descent are the largest ethnic group at 38% of the city’s population. Afro-Trinidadians are the second largest group at 36%. Mixed race people comprise another 24%. Europeans, Chinese, Syrians, and Lebanese, among other groups, make up the remainder of the population (2%).
Port-au-Spain is located in the northwest of Trinidad on the Gulf of Paria and is 11 miles away from the country’s largest city, Chaguanas. Although tourism is an important part of the Port-au-Spain economy, it also produces beer, cigarettes, margarine, oils, and building materials and has citrus canneries, sawmills, and textile factories. The city’s port, a major center of trade in the West Indies, is 15 miles east of the city and Trinidad’s chief airport is located in the suburb of Piarco.
The history of Port-au-Spain began in 1560 when the Spanish built a small mud walled fort to protect a settlement they had founded on an Amerindian fishing village called Cumucarpo. The settlement in 1757 became the administrative center of the island, replacing San Jose de Oruna.
By 1783 Port-au-Spain was a prosperous city with a population of 3,000 making it one of the largest urban settlements in the Caribbean. The British conquered the island of Trinidad in 1797 and Sir Thomas Picton became the new governor. During his time as governor Picton helped to expand the amount of livable area in Port-au-Spain.
From 1958 to 1962 Port-au-Spain was the capital of the short-lived Federation of the West Indies, an attempt by Trinidad, Tobago, Barbados, Jamaica, and smaller British Caribbean colonies to form a single independent nation upon
The History of NamibiaThe country has ever since that historical day; 21 March 1990 enjoyed peace, stability and progress in many ways. Namibia is also known as the smile of Africa because, of its geographical position and the friendliness and warmth of its citizens. Currently the country has a population of 1.7 million and covers an area of approximately 824,269 square km. The country is divided into 13 regions. Namibia is a very diverse country with breathtaking landscapes from the Orange River, bordering South Africa up to the Okavango, the Kunene and the Zambezi in the North and North East respectively, all flowing rivers throughout the year and being the natural borders of Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. In the heart of this beautiful country lies the capital of Namibia, Windhoek. As the country itself, Windhoek was at one stage first occupied by Germany and then by South Africa. Namibia was a German protectorate from 1884 till 1915, when South Africa defeated the German colonial troops in the first year of the First World War. Throughout the years of being a protectorate, many Namibians lost their lives trying to fight the colonisers, the Germans as well as the South Africans. Out of that struggle many historically famous people were born and historical battles were fought. Hendrik Witbooi fought the Germans as early as 1880s, 90s and then again in 1904-07 uprising. On the other hand, Samuel Maharero declared war on the Germans in 1904. Other famous resistors were, Jakob Marengo, Simon Kooper and Mandume who became king of the Kwanyama in 1911 as a teenager and died at an early age fighting against the Portuguese and then against the South Africans. Today Hendrik Witbooi because of his many achievements and historical significance was honoured by getting a street called after him and being printed on Namibias currency.
Hugh M. Browne, educator, Presbyterian minister, and college professor in Liberia, positioned himself between the advocates of industrial and higher education for African Americans. In the speech below he describes his educational philosophy and the forces and experiences that shaped it.
In my invitation to take part in the discussion of the higher education of the colored people of the South, your Vice-President indicated that the fact that I had lived in Liberia would enable me to speak as one having authority. I am not sure that I understand just what Dr. Wayland meant by this hint,-whether he wished me to give an account of Liberia, the republic which began with an imported college, and has not yet established a common school; nor been able, although maintained financially by friends in the United States, to prevent this college from falling into the condition which Mr. Cleveland calls innocuous desuetude,---or whether, possessing himself a knowledge of the retrograding effects of higher education upon that republic, he predicates there from the position which I shall take in this discussion. If the latter, he is perfectly right. No man whose judgement is worth accepting can live one week in Liberia without becoming a radical advocate of the now celebrated ratio of 16 to 1,-not between gold and silver money, for Liberia has neither, but between higher and industrial education. I mean that, in the matter of the education of my people, one part of industrial is worth, in weight, volume, and potential energy, sixteen parts of the best literary or higher education the world has ever seen. After much thought and prayerful consideration, I have arrived at the conclusion that the Great Creator has permitted the foundation and existence of Liberia in order to give to the world a striking and forcible object-lesson on the folly of attempting to prepare an undeveloped race for the ceaseless and inevitable struggle and competition of life by higher education.
In the time allotted, it is impossible to enter into
Guinea, in West Africa on the Atlantic, is also bordered by Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Mali, Côte dIvoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Slightly smaller than Oregon, the country consists of a coastal plain, a mountainous region, a savanna interior, and a forest area in the Guinea Highlands. The highest peak is Mount Nimba at 5,748 ft (1,752 m).
Republic.
Beginning in 900, the Susu migrated from the north and began settling in the area that is now Guinea. The Susu civilization reached its height in the 13th century. Today the Susu make up about 20% of Guineas population. From the 16th to the 19th century, the Fulani empire dominated the region. In 1849, the French claimed it as a protectorate. First called Rivières du Sud, the protectorate was rechristened French Guinea; finally, in 1895, it became part of French West Africa.
Guinea achieved independence on Oct. 2, 1958, and became an independent state with Sékou Touré as president. Under Touré, the country was the first avowedly Marxist state in Africa. Diplomatic relations with France were suspended in 1965, with the Soviet Union replacing France as the countrys chief source of economic and technical assistance.
Prosperity came in 1960 after the start of exploitation of bauxite deposits. Touré was reelected to a seven-year term in 1974 and again in 1981. He died after 26 years as president in March 1984. A week later, a military regime headed by Col. Lansana Conté took power.
In 1989, President Conté announced that Guinea would move to a multiparty democracy, and in 1991, voters approved a new constitution. In Dec. 1993 elections, the presidents Unity and Progress Party took almost 51% of the vote. In 2001, a government referendum was passed that eliminated presidential term limits, thus allowing Conté to run for a third term in 2003. Despite the trappings of multiparty rule, Conté has ruled the country with an iron fist.
Guinea has had ongoing difficulties with its neighbor Liberia, which was embroiled in a long civil war during the 1990s and again in
