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By BABA AHMED Associated Press BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Mali's opposition leader Soumaila Cisse, who was held hostage for six months earlier this year by jihadists and was considered a leading contender in 2022 elections, has died in Paris, his family said Friday. Cissé, 71, died after contracting COVID-19, his eldest son Bocar told The Associated Press. 'The doctors did everything to keep him alive, but that's the way of God's will,' he said. The news throws Malian politics into new uncertainty. Cissé was the runner-up in the past three presidential elections and many thought he had the best chances […]
The post Mali's opposition leader and ex-hostage dies with COVID-19 appeared first on Black News Channel.
A November 26 letter from the presidency asked the head of Uganda's national drug authority to 'work out a mechanism' to clear the importation of the vaccines.
China has about five COVID-19 vaccine candidates at different levels of trials. It was not clear what vaccine was being imported into Uganda.
One of the frontrunners is the Sinopharm vaccine developed by the Beijing Institute of Biological Product, a unit of Sinopharm’s China National Biotec Group (CNBG).
On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates said the vaccine has 86% efficacy, citing an interim analysis of late-stage clinical trials.
China has used the drug to vaccinate up to a million people under its emergency use program.
On Tuesday, Morocco said it was ordering up to 10 million doses of the vaccine.
Record cases
Uganda on Monday registered 701 new COVID-19 cases, the highest-ever daily increase, bringing its national count to 23,200.
The new cases were out of the 5,578 samples tested for the novel coronavirus over the past 24 hours, the country's health ministry said in a statement.
Tuesday's tally was 606, the second-highest ever number of new infections, bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the east African country to 23,860.
Health authorities have blamed ongoing election campaigns which have drawn huge crowds for the rise in infections.
Ohio congresswoman Marcia Fudge (D) has been tapped to become the next Housing and Urban Development Secretary by the Biden-Harris administration. Following the current HUD Secretary, Ben Carson's' horrendous gutting of the department, Fudge is faced with a daunting job of repairing the damage done and restoring HUD's mission to provide affordable housing opportunities for … Continued
The post Biden-Harris Administration tap Marcia Fudge for HUD Scretary appeared first on Atlanta Daily World.
Nigeria on Monday began conducting trial operations for the Lagos-Ibadan railway ahead of a January launch.
The experimental operations were conducted with passengers on board. The train covered the 156km journey between Ibadan and Lagos in 2 hours and 40 minutes.
The Lagos-Ibadan line is a double-track standard gauge rail, the first of its kind in West Africa.
Ir runs from Nigeria's economic hub and most populous city to Ibadan, capital of Oyo state.
The $1.5bn project was financed by China with Abuja providing counterpart funding.
After official inauguration, travel time will be cut to two hours, according to a statement by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCEC), the project's contractors.
Passengers will pay between N3,000 ($8) and N6,000 ($16) for tickets .
Here we go! 🇳🇬🚞 #Lagos #Ibadan railway in #Nigeria made trial operations with passengers! The first double-track standard gauge modern railway in West #Africa is constructed by Chinese company @CCECC8. pic.twitter.com/D529v0T8rt
— Shen Shiwei沈诗伟 (@shen_shiwei) December 9, 2020
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.
Title: Victor Trammell for Your Black World | Photo credits: Matt Sayles/Invision/AP
The Sacramento Observer and Capital Public Radio (CapRadio) are pleased to announce that they have been selected as one of 64 new newsrooms around the nation to co-host a Report for America journalist to expand coverage of underserved areas in the greater Sacramento region. This support from Report for America will enable the organizations to […]
FLORIDA, United States (CMC) - Strategies for the quick recovery of Caribbean economies from the devastation wrought by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will be discussed by regional and global stakeholders at a virtual forum on Friday.The event is being hosted by the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), the Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), and the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre (GTRCMC).
DeKalb County Commissioner Lorraine Cochran-Johnson has allocated $200,000 in District 7 Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding to Operation HOPE to assist DeKalb County small business owners and entrepreneurs who have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, lost their business, or have reduced wages as a result of the crisis. Cochran-Johnson said the appropriation will be […]
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.
Twitter users used the hashtag #CrybabyTrump to poke fun at President Donald Trump's cries about the 2020 election results.
FireEye, one of the largest cybersecurity companies in the US, said on Tuesday that foreign government hackers with “world-class capabilities” broke into its network and stole tools it uses to test the defenses of its thousands of customers, who include federal, state and local governments and major global corporations. The hackers “primarily sought information related to certain government customers”, said FireEye’s CEO, Kevin Mandia, in a statement, without naming them. He said there was no indication the hackers got customer information from the company’s consulting or incident-response businesses or threat intelligence data it collects. “I’ve concluded we are witnessing an attack by a nation with top-tier offensive capabilities,” Mandia said, deeming it “different from the tens of thousands of incidents we have responded to throughout the years”. The hack of FireEye, a company with an array of business contracts across the national security space in the US and among its allies, is among the most significant breaches in recent memory. “I do think what we know of the operation is consistent with a Russian state actor,” said the former NSA hacker Jake Williams, president of Rendition Infosec. “Whether or not customer data was accessed, it’s still a big win for Russia.” The FireEye breach was disclosed in a blogpost authored by Mandia. The post said “red team tools” were stolen as part of a highly sophisticated operation. It is not clear exactly when the hack initially took place. Beyond the tool theft, the hackers also appeared to be interested in a subset of FireEye customers: government agencies. “We hope that by sharing the details of our investigation, the entire community will be better equipped to fight and defeat cyber-attacks,” Mandia wrote. The company itself has partnered in recent weeks with different software makers to share defensive measures. There is no evidence yet that FireEye’s hacking tools have been used or that client data was exfiltrated. But the investigation, which includes help from the FBI and Microsoft, is in its early phases. “This incident demonstrates why the security industry must work together to defend against and respond to threats posed by well-funded adversaries using novel and sophisticated attack techniques,” a Microsoft spokesperson said. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The stolen computer espionage kit targets a myriad of different vulnerabilities in popular software products. It is not yet clear exactly which systems may be affected. But Mandia wrote that none of the red team tools exploited so-called “zero day vulnerabilities”, meaning the relevant flaws should already be public. Experts say it can be difficult to measure the impact of a hacking tool leak which focuses on known software vulnerabilities. When a private company becomes aware of a vulnerability in their software product, they often try to offer a “patch” or upgrade that nullifies the issue. Yet users do not always download these patches quickly, leaving themselves exposed for month
Ron Filipkowski, a lifelong Republican and a former state and federal prosecutor, resigned from his role from the 12th Circuit Judicial... View Article
The post GOP lawyer steps down over raid of Florida analyst's home appeared first on TheGrio.
[Cameroon Tribune] Dr Godwin Nchinda, Senior Immunologist, Deputy Director General, Head of Vaccinology Laboratory, CIRCB.
Save the Giraffes
Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), Save Giraffes Now , and the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) make up the team of conservation groups coordinating a daring and unusual rescue operation to save eight Rothschild’s giraffes from the flooded Longicharo Island near Lake Baringo in Western Kenya.
The team is using a specially adapted barge to float the giraffes one-by-one to a nearby nature preserve on custom-made steel that is part of the Ruko Community
Wildlife Conservancy built by the local Ruko community for animal rescues.
The animals are part of a group of Rothschild's giraffes that were sent to the remote Kenyan Rift Valley in 2011 in anti-poaching protection efforts and in the hopes that the tranquillity of the remote area would help increase the subspecies' population.
Not Out of Danger Just Yet
Asiwa, an adult female, was the first giraffe to arrive \"safely on the mainland, safe from rising floodwaters.\" She had been stranded on a more remote part of the island away from the other giraffes — making her rescue a priority. Pasaka, a young male was the second giraffe to be brought to safety.
The same barge will likely be used to move the remaining six giraffes — five females, Susan, Nkarikoni, Nalangu, Awala, and Nasieku, and one adult male, Lbarnnoti, who are still stranded on the island which has been steadily shrinking due to intense rainfall.
With six more to go, the rescue team stated at least one more giraffe is set to be moved this week, with the rest likely to be moved over the next few months.
Giraffe Protection Efforts in Kenya
Africa’s population of giraffes has been on a steady decline over the last few decades due to habitat loss and poaching activity. However, some subspecies within the giraffe family are at higher risk of extinction than others. One of the most threatened populations is The Rothschild’s giraffe —who once roamed the entire western Rift Valley in Kenya, but there are fewer than 3,000 left in Africa today with as little as 1,600 of these giraffes are estimated to still be living in the wild and only about 800 in Kenya.
So, on Monday, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) issued a threat against purported and alleged cyber-bullying of government officials including President Emmerson Mnangagwa. editorial comment Interestingly, ZRP issued its statement after Zanu PF acting spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa said colonial masters had turned to social media to “discredit icons like Mnangagwa” who were “working for economic emancipation.” Well, the President is not God, he is very human. If we voted him into office, please allow us to hold him to account. Checks and balances must apply to him too. Didn’t he say he was “a listening president?” If he cannot stand criticism then he should stay out of public office or politics altogether. Perhaps the ZRP needs to furnish us with their definition of cyber-bullying. We may also need to know why we should be limited or be told what to and not to say. Why does the ZRP keep quiet when ordinary Zimbabweans are subjected to cyber-bullying only to grow teeth after politicians give them instructions? But things have changed from the old days of German philosopher Jürgen Habermas’ public sphere. It's high time government accepted that people think, they have hopes and hunger for engagement. It should be easy especially in the internet age where social media has prompted the return of the public sphere. Social media platforms attract millions of users who connect digitally. Looking closely at all alleged cases of cyber-bullying, the people are simply calling on the government to act on corruption, poor governance and lack of accountability. It’s only particular individuals who carry the burden of excessive bootlicking who try to gag people. There should be no intimidatory tactics on social media platforms. Citizens must express their opinions freely. Some issues are tip offs on corrupt activities which the ZRP ignore and focus on threatening people. A government that does not allow for checks and balances is likely to be involved in unconstitutional acts which it fears could be exposed. The arrests of journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, Jacob Ngarivhume, a politician, and the hounding of another scribe, Mduduzi Mathuthu, are exactly what is wrong with a regime that fears being made to look into the mirror. The media or social media users did not create the animal you see in that mirror. Mnangagwa and his administration should respect freedom of expression and engagement as prescribed by the Constitution. It should sink into politicians' heads that a healthy functioning democracy is premised on the electorate making informed choices based on engagement. Clearly, the government of Zimbabwe wants people to live in fear and not to openly express their wishes and hopes, it’s not new. We saw it even during the Mugabe era. A process where citizens are empowered to participate in public decision-making is an effective means to tackle “democracy deficits” and improve public accountability.
