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 JAIROS SAUNYAMA FEAR and anxiety has gripped villagers in Chimanimani ahead of another tropical storm that is expected to hit the region on New Year’s eve. The storm, named Cyclone Chalane, is currently brewing in the Indian Ocean near Madagascar and comes nearly two years after the region was devastated by Cyclone Idai which killed 340 people, displacing 247 000 with 300 people still missing. It was one of the country’s worst recorded natural disaster. Cyclone Chalane is expected to make landfall in Beira and hit some parts of Zimbabwe, especially Manicaland province. Chimanimani Hotel manager Mandla Mataure, whose premises housed thousands of Cyclone Idai victims in Ngangu, said fear and anxiety had gripped villagers, adding that they had begun awareness campaigns on the issue in communities. “What we have done now is to communicate to communities and to do this effectively, we have engaged traditional leaders who are now alerting people of a possible disaster. We will know more in the next few days if the cyclone gathers momentum. “There is fear and anxiety within the people. We have to be prepared and this is what we are currently doing together with other stakeholders,” he said. According to the Meteorological Services Department, Cyclone Chalane is expected to follow the path of its predecessor. Zimbabwe has not yet recovered from the devastating effects of Cyclone Idai. l Follow Jairos on Twitter @jairossaunyama
He replaces Debretsion Gebremichael, whose immunity from prosecution was removed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians were killed in a \"massacre\" in the Tigray region, that witnesses blamed on forces backing the local ruling party.
The \"massacre\" is the first reported incident of large-scale civilian fatalities in a week-old conflict between the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
\"Amnesty International can today confirm... that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest of Ethiopia's Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,\" the rights group said in a report.
Amnesty said it had \"digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers.\"
The dead \"had gaping wounds that appear to have been inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes,\" Amnesty said, citing witness accounts.
Witnesses said the attack was carried out by TPLF-aligned forces after a defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian military, though Amnesty said it \"has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings\".
It nonetheless called on TPLF commanders and officials to \"make clear to their forces and their supporters that deliberate attacks on civilians are absolutely prohibited and constitute war crimes\".
Abiy ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were prompted by a TPLF attack on federal military camps -- a claim the party denies.
The region has been under a communications blackout ever since, making it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground.
Abiy said Thursday his army had made major gains in western Tigray.
Thousands of Ethiopians have fled across the border into neighboring Sudan, and the UN is sounding the alarm about a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
Post-Electoral Crisis
Violence erupted in many parts of Côte d'Ivoire after the Constitutional Council officially validated on November 9 the re-election of President Alassane Ouattara for a controversial third term.
However, the political unrest in the small landlocked city of M'Batto was exacerbated by circulating false information. Dr Jean Serge Kouassi Kouassi, the director of the M'Batto hospital, shares his insight into the situation of the ground, \"When this information arrived on social media, the phone calls rained down on us to find out if it was true and what was going on. So that's it. Everyone reassured their parents stating that there were indeed skirmishes here, there were shootings and we could hear shots, and we would send the wounded to the hospital.\"
Problematic Fake News
M'Batto fell victim to fictitious gendarmerie reports and press releases about so-called fatalities — as well as misleading and inappropriate images trending online. All of which did not help the already tense political atmosphere. Abdoulaye Konaté, a teacher, outlines what was really happening to contribute to the regional tension, \"The rumours were: such and such shop was burned, so and so was killed, so every time one of the parties heard, everyone wanted revenge, so that's what made the situation even worse. It was the rumours themselves that made the situation worse.\"
Inter-ethnic Friction
An opposition demonstration degenerated into inter-community clashes between Agni (local ethnic group reputed pro-opposition) and Dioula (an ethnic group from the north reputed pro-Ouattara). The electoral unrest saw the loss of six lives. Nanan Béda Kadio II, the Chief of the Agnikro district, expressed his peaceful stance,
\"We don't want war here. We have been here for several years, there is no war between us. Before this year, we had never seen anything like this. So I wouldn't like it to happen again. I want peace in my village of M'Batto.\"
Armed forces have now been stationed across the city of 50,000 inhabitants to prevent any further confrontation and many shops have been closed.
After four exhausting years of President Donald Trump and four excruciating days of vote counting, the election was called for President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on Saturday. Hallelujah!
The post A Huge Victory – And More Work To Do appeared first on The Seattle Medium.
BELIZE CITY, (Reuters) - Belize resoundingly voted to elect opposition leader Johnny Briceno to replace longtime Prime Minister Dean Barrow in Wednesday’s general election as the Central American nation seeks to revive an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The article Belize elects opposition leader to succeed retiring prime minister appeared first on Stabroek News.
A sub-committee of Cabinet will today be meeting to discuss the COVID-19 containment protocols which will govern the fast approaching Christmas season, even as the coronavirus spread continues to trend down nationally.
BY PATRICIA SIBANDA EPIDEMIOLOGY and disease control director in the Health and Child Care ministry, Portia Manangazira, has emphasised on the need for the unification of traditional and conventional medicines in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing a workshop in Bulawayo on Wednesday, Manangazira said there was need to ensure the maximum use of locally available medicines and herbs in the supportive care and management of COVID-19 patients. She said her ministry had harnessed traditional medical practitioners, conventional medical practitioners and their communities together so that dual intervention is done to mitigate COVID-19. “So we must start, we should have continued and furthered that, and today, we would be having even a large manufacturing plant which we say, it's our marula tree or some other nutritious shrub,” she said. “Sometimes we end up having healthy animals and malnourished people and we haven’t really explored that. All I am saying is, we are living and failing to utilise our locally available medicines.” She said it was worrisome that the ministry had not taken traditional medicine on board. “We do have a lot of herbs and they form raw materials for the pharmaceuticals. If I heard correctly, the International Traditional Healers Association leader said uMsuzwane has got some anti-ceptive properties, a bit disappointing is that we have not taken our traditional medicine a step further so that we describe and display the content and the ingredients in the market places.” Manangazira said the late former Health minister Herbert Ushewokunze attempted to introduce the system, but died before his ideas were adopted. “I think we are also in the right place because at some time, we had a former Minister of Health, the late Herbert Ushewokunze. He operated the Marondera Clinic here in Bulawayo and that clinic was unique. It would treat you for modern medicine if you so wished or for traditional medicine and he had labels on his containers, but he died and that practice also died with him,” she said.
A bipartisan task force of former presidents has recommended that outgoing commander-in-chief Donald J. Trump be allowed to immediately use all of his accumulated vacation ...
By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — The British serial killer known as the 'Yorkshire Ripper,' a man who instilled terror and fear across northern England in the 1970s, died Friday at a hospital there. He was 74. Peter Sutcliffe, a former grave digger, was serving concurrent life sentences for killing 13 women in Yorkshire and northwest England between 1975 and 1980. British media reported he had refused treatment after testing positive for COVID-19 and was suffering from a number of underlying health conditions. His death will be investigated by the coroner. Sutcliffe's barbaric attacks on young women were […]
The post UK's 'Yorkshire Ripper' serial killer Peter Sutcliffe dies appeared first on Black News Channel.
For just the second time in more than seven decades, a Democrat will carry Arizona in a presidential election, a monumental shift for a state that was once a Republican stronghold. CNN projected on Thursday that President-elect Joe Biden will carry Arizona, defeating President Donald Trump and providing Democrats in Arizona and the universe of allied grassroots organizations in the […]
Toshao of Kwebanna Paul Pierre yesterday said that the community hasn’t recorded a single coronavirus disease (COVID-19) case during the past few days noting that this is largely due to the lockdown that was imposed on the community more than two weeks ago.
The article No new COVID-19 cases reported at Kwebanna in recent days – toshao appeared first on Stabroek News.
President-elect Joe Biden is already taking major steps to address issues of diversity in the White House.
By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent Led by Rudy Giuliani, lawyers for President Donald Trump have continued to claim without evidence that the 2020 Presidential Election has been rife with fraud, specifically in places like Philadelphia, Clark County, Nevada, and Fulton County, Georgia. It’s no coincidence that those three areas, comprised overwhelmingly of African American voters, are targets of misinformation and outright false allegations by the Trump campaign. Those three areas are largely credited with pushing President-Elect Joe Biden to victory, as they were the last of the battleground and swing states to project a winner and […]
The post Legal Experts Suggest Trump’s Lawyers on Verge of Committing Litigation Crimes appeared first on Black News Channel.
Columns share an author’s personal perspective.*****Psyches started to thaw at the news that the 2020 presidential election was called for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Supporters gathered; they danced. They relaxed. Then they froze up again as pundits talked concessions, cons and coups. The anxiety of Trump’s tenure, specifically 2020 and, even more specifically, the last quarter of the year, has been a constant buzz of apprehension. There’s nothing exciting about it.
DAVID BILLER and MAURICIO SAVARESE SAO PAULO (AP) - Bold styles are usually the talk of the town for Sao Paulo Fashion Week. This year, couture connoisseurs in Brazil's most cosmopolitan city have focused on the models - more specifically, the color of their skin. For the first time, designers in Latin America's largest fashion […]
The post Fashion-Forward: Affirmative Action Hits Brazil's Runways appeared first on Voice and Viewpoint.
Researchers at Oxford University in Great Britain noted that first-time diagnosis of anxiety, depression, and insomnia increased two-fold in patients after they’ve recovered from COVID. Further, they discovered that COVID survivors also found significantly higher risks of dementia.
The post New Study Suggests COVID Patients More Susceptible To Mental Illness appeared first on The Seattle Medium.
By ANDREW TAYLOR Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Joe Biden's top allies on Capitol Hill adopted a combative posture on COVID-19 relief on Thursday, pressing their case for a $2 trillion bill that's a nonstarter for Republicans and faulting the GOP for dragging its feet on acknowledging Biden's victory. The message from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — both of whom witnessed disappointing outcomes in House and Senate races last week — was that Republicans should concede Biden won and immediately return to negotiations on COVID relief, with the Democrats' $2.4 trillion […]
The post Post-election rancor clouds chances for COVID relief bill appeared first on Black News Channel.
By MICHAEL BALSAMO and ERIC TUCKER Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — A Justice Department report has found former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta exercised 'poor judgment' in handling an investigation into wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein when he was a top federal prosecutor in Florida. The report, obtained by The Associated Press, is a culmination of an investigation by the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility over Acosta's handling of a secret plea deal with Epstein, who had been accused of sexually abusing dozens of underage girls. The report also concludes that none of the prosecutors committed misconduct in their interactions with […]
The post Justice Dept.: 'Poor judgment' used in Epstein plea deal appeared first on Black News Channel.
College enrollment has slipped since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, a new study shows.
President-elect Joe Biden has promised to fight the student loan debt crisis plaguing 37 million Americans, and some are divided on if he can pull it off
