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Today is the sixth day of 2021. There are 359 days left in the year,TODAY'S HIGHLIGHT1942: The Pan American Airways Pacific Clipper arrives in New York after making the first round-the-world trip by a commercial aeroplane.�OTHER EVENTS
\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.
From October 11, 1899 until May 31, 1902, the Second Boer War (also known as the South African War and the Anglo-Boer War) was fought in South Africa between the British and the Boers (Dutch settlers in southern Africa). The Boers had founded two independent South African republics (the Orange Free State and the South African Republic) and had a long history of distrust and dislike for the British that surrounded them.
After gold was discovered in the South African Republic in 1886, the British wanted the area under their control.
In 1899, the conflict between the British and the Boers burgeoned into a full-fledged war that was fought in three stages: a Boer offensive against British command posts and railway lines, a British counteroffensive that brought the two republics under British control, and a Boer guerrilla resistance movement that prompted a widespread scorched-earth campaign by the British and the internment and deaths of thousands of Boer civilians in British concentration camps.
The first phase of the war gave the Boers the upper hand over British forces, but the latter two phases eventually brought victory to the British and placed the previously independent Boer territories firmly under British dominion -- leading, eventually, to the complete unification of South Africa as a British colony in 1910.
Who Were the Boers?
In 1652, the Dutch East India Company established the first staging post at the Cape of Good Hope (the southernmost tip of Africa); this was a place where ships could rest and resupply during the long voyage to the exotic spice markets along India’s western coast.
This staging post attracted settlers from Europe for whom life on the continent had become unbearable due to economic difficulties and religious oppression.
At the turn of the 18th century, the Cape had become home to settlers from Germany and France; however, it was the Dutch who made up the majority of the settler population. They came to be known as “Boers”’—the Dutch word for farmers.
As time passed, a number of
In March this year, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 — a flu-like health crisis a pandemic — forcing many governments across the globe to declare states of disaster or emergency depending on their statutes.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that nearly 70% of the population in Zimbabwe are in abject poverty as they live on less than US$2/day — the scientific threshold of poverty across the globe.
In a post-Cabinet briefing, Information minister Monica Mutsvangwa said: “Under the cash transfers to the informal sector members affected by COVID-19, the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare has paid cushioning allowances to a total of 197 000 people.
From the Cabinet briefing, it is clear that the government has only been able to assist less than one in five (>20%) of the most vulnerable people.
It is rare for lightning to strike twice in the same place, but Zimbabwe has had successive disasters — Cyclone Idai and COVID-19 — and on both occasions the regime has been found wanting in its disaster preparedness.
A woman who gave birth at sea was among 93 migrants rescued off Libyan shores as they tried to reach Europe, but six others died along the way, the UN's migration agency said.
The situation of refugees and migrants in Libya worsened after eastern Libya-based military commander Khalifa Haftar launched an assault on Tripoli in 2019 and the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Human rights groups have repeatedly criticised the systematic return of migrants intercepted in the Mediterranean to Libya, where they are held in crowded detention centres.
The latest operation came just days after French charity vessel Ocean Viking picked up dozens of migrants off the Italian island of Lampedusa after they had drifted from Libya.
Nicholas Romaniuk, who coordinated the mission aboard that vessel, said rescue ships are often out-run by the Libyan coastguard who beat them to intercept migrants and return them to Libya.
Democratic Republic of Congo police fired tear gas and water cannon on Wednesday to repel hundreds of protesters whose rally against a proposed new law threatened to spill into the parliament compound in the capital Kinshasa.
We will fight to the end to protect the independence of the judicial system.
The proposal was put forward by a member of ex-president Joseph Kabila’s PPRD party, but has faced opposition from the UDPS party of President Felix Tshisekedi.
The tension and frustration felt by Tshisekedi’s party long predates the current events, said Fred Bauma from the Congo Research Group at New York University.
Tshisekedi took power last year, but his presidency has been hampered by an awkward power-sharing deal with Kabila, whose allies control a majority of ministries and seats in parliament.
Zambian President Edgar Lungu on Thursday announced the reopening of his country’s air borders and airports in order to boost the economy, which had been undermined by restrictions imposed to combat the coronavirus.
I am therefore announcing the immediate reopening of all international airports,” Mr Lungu said in a radio and television address.
His country is one of the first in Africa to reopen its air borders.
Its authorities had closed borders and schools, banned large public gatherings and shut down sectors deemed non-essential to the economy.
According to the Zambian National Chamber of Trades, the coronavirus pandemic has caused the country’s mining revenues, Africa’s second largest copper producer, to fall by nearly a third.
Ayi Kwei Armah , (born 1939, Takoradi, Gold Coast [now Ghana]), Ghanaian novelist whose work deals with corruption and materialism in contemporary Africa.
Armah was educated in local mission schools and at Achimota College before going to the United States in 1959 to complete his secondary education at Groton School and his bachelor’s degree at Harvard University. He thereafter worked as a scriptwriter, translator, and English teacher in Paris, Tanzania, Lesotho, Senegal, and the United States, among other places.
In his first novel, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968), Armah showed his deep concern for greed and political corruption in a newly independent African nation. In his second novel, Fragments (1970), a young Ghanaian returns home after living in the United States and is disillusioned by the Western-inspired materialism and moral decay that he sees around him. The theme of return and disillusionment continued in Why Are We So Blest? (1971), but with a somewhat wider scope. In Two Thousand Seasons (1973) Armah borrowed language from the African dirge and praise song to produce a chronicle of the African past, which is portrayed as having a certain romantic perfection before being destroyed by Arab and European despoilers. The Healers (1979), Armah’s fifth novel, explores a young man’s quest to become a practitioner of traditional medicine while the Asante empire falls to British forces. Armah took an extended break from publishing before releasing Osiris Rising in 1995. The novel examines the struggles of independent Africa and the lingering effects of colonialism.
All of Armah’s works were concerned with the widening moral and spiritual chasm that existed between appearance and reality, spirit and substance, and past and present in his native Ghana.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula cancelled a meeting planned for Sunday with taxi operators who have been negotiating to be able carry more passengers, and to cross provincial borders during the coronavirus restrictions.
\"The minister needs to hear from the [National Coronavirus Command Council] what their final decision will be regarding the inter-provincial travel, as well as the 100% loading capacity that the taxi industry is asking for,\" said Mbalula's spokesperson Ayanda Allie-Payne.
Western Cape SA National Taxi Council provincial secretary Nazeem Abdurahman told News24 that they had lost a lot of income from operating with fewer passengers.
They also feel that the proposed compensation of income losses during coronavirus of around R5 000 per operator is far too little, given how hard they have worked to keep people moving and how much they have lost by the enforced 70% passenger limit.
Santaco national spokesperson Thabisho Molelekwa said the taxi operators would conduct a virtual meeting at 14:00 on Sunday to discuss Mbalula's bailing on Sunday's meeting.
The crisis at some Nelson Mandela Bay hospitals has reached new lows as doctors are having to clean wards and wash bed linen, while dirt stands in hallways amid crippling staff shortages.
Nursing staff at Livingstone Hospital have told a shocking tale of overwhelmed staff and overflowing wards that are manned by just two nurses.
Most of the patients are under investigation [for Covid-19], and we don't know where we stand,\" a nurse at Livingstone Hospital said.
Nurses at Dora Ngiza Hospital went on a go-slow after patient admissions shot up as a result of Covid-19, complaining of being overwhelmed and short-staffed.
He said the department had approved the appointment of 100 general assistants and 59 professional nurses for the Covid-19 period at Livingstone hospital, he said.
Gambia’s renowned justice minister Abubacarr Tambadou, who established a probe to investigate abuses under the country’s ex-dictator and spearheaded the international defence of Myanmar’s Rohingya, has resigned, the government said Thursday.
Appointed justice minister in 2017, Tambadou was instrumental in setting up The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, designed to investigate abuses committed under the country’s former dictator, Yahya Jammeh.
We didn't always agree with Tambadou, but he always listened to human rights advocates and especially to Yahya Jammeh's victims.
On Thursday, President Barrow’s office released a statement praising Tambadou’s “patriotic and selfless service” as justice minister, and for helping restore The Gambia’s international image.
“We didn’t always agree with Tambadou, but he always listened to human rights advocates and especially to Yahya Jammeh’s victims,” Brody said.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ (CA-43) statement on Donald Trump’s negligence in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic and his threats to protestors calling for the removal of statues of Confederate generals and slaveholders:
“One would hope that the president of the United States would rise to the level of leadership that our country needs in confronting the deadly uptick in coronavirus cases in America.
Instead, we are left with Donald Trump, an incompetent and heartless man who is more focused on saving statues of slaveholders, Confederate generals, and racists, than protecting the health of living and breathing Americans.
Instead of using the full power of his office to fight this deadly pandemic, Donald Trump would rather ignore the coronavirus and call in U.S. marshals to confront protestors who are taking down memorials to racist Confederate generals and slaveholders.
Donald Trump has decried efforts to increase coronavirus testing, and his administration has stripped federal funding for community testing sites in at least 13 states, including Texas, which is enduring a sharp increase in coronavirus cases.
“We have a real, deadly public health crisis on our hands, and Donald Trump is more concerned about statues and relics of the Confederacy and slavery than he is the survival of the American people.
NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks with Louie Dean Valencia-Garcia, assistant professor of digital history at Texas State, about the Latino community's push to remove statues of Spanish conquistadors.
And so a lot of the colonial statues that we see of Christopher Columbus, of Isabel, of Ponce de Leon, all these people really comes from this idea that there were people that were not being accepted as Americans in the 19th century, and they tried to lay claim to that through these statues.
And is there a link between movements on the far-right supporting the Confederate statues and those within the Hispanic community to maintain these monuments to Spanish colonialism?
VALENCIA-GARCIA: A lot of the far-right actors are using this language of reconquest to talk about taking back land, and that's prominent in, like, the statues of Isabel and Columbus.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Louie Dean Valencia-Garcia is assistant professor of digital history at Texas State University.
Senegalese President Macky Sall has quarantined himself as a precaution after coming in contact with someone who tested positive for the novel coronavirus, according to a presidential statement late Wednesday.
Although Sall tested negative for the virus, he will be undergoing a quarantine process of 15 days based on medical recommendations.
Yeya Diallo, a lawmaker in parliament, announced earlier in the day that she had tested positive for the virus and called on people to take essential personal measures such as maintaining hygiene and social distancing.
The pandemic has killed more than 482,000 people worldwide, with an excess of 9.4 million confirmed cases and greater than 4.7 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by US-based Johns Hopkins University.
Three years ago Kenya Barris tried to bring awareness to Juneteenth when an entire episode of his show “Black-ish” was dedicated to the holiday.
Barris was a guest on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” on Tuesday and said that he and Pharrell Williams have created a Juneteenth musical that they’ll bring to Netflix.
Juneteenth was also acknowledged on Barris’ latest series “BlackAF,” as a party was thrown for the holiday during an episode.
Like Barris, Williams has worked to raise awareness about Juneteenth and helped to get his home state of Virginia to recognize it as an official paid holiday, which started this year for state employees.
Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in 1865 for Black people in Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation declared all slaves in Confederate states as free.
The People’s National Party (PNP) is rejecting as baseless the assertion by Prime Minister Andrew Holness that the party is pushing a strategy of confrontation in the ongoing election campaign. \tHolness issued the critique following his...
By The Associated Press
French cosmetics giant L’Oreal said June 27 that it will remove words like “whitening” from its skin care products, a move that comes amid global protests against racism sparked by the death of George Floyd in the United States.
The company said in a statement June 27 that it “has decided to remove the words white/whitening, fair/fairness, light/lightening from all its skin evening products.”
L’Oreal’s decision follows a similar move by Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever on June 25.
The post drew a negative reaction from people who see the company’s business model and advertising as focused on White consumers.
Bergdorf was sacked as L’Oreal UK’s first openly transgender model in 2017 for decrying “the racial violence of White people.”
JUSTICE Minister Delroy Chuck yesterday drew harsh criticism from the public following comments he made while agreeing with a recommendation that a one-year cap be instituted on the period for reporting sexual harassment incidents.
While speaking at a joint select committee meeting at Gordon House, where the sexual harassment Bill was being examined, Chuck indicated that victims of sexual harassment either report the matter within the one-year time frame or forget about the matter.
Yesterday some social media users called for Chuck to be sacked, arguing that the comments and manner in which they were delivered are unacceptable from the country's justice minister.
“As someone who has been a part of the committee presentations from start to finish and have watched them from start to finish, the 'out of context' comments are in line with the minister's previous behaviour towards the subject matter,” the user said.
Government Senator Dr Sapphire Longmore had raised concerns about the proposed one-year cap during the committee meeting, noting that a time frame cannot be placed on trauma and when a victim's symptoms may evolve.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minneapolis City Council on Friday unanimously advanced a proposal to change the city charter to allow the police department to be dismantled, following widespread criticism of law enforcement over the killing of George Floyd.
The proposed amendment, which would replace the police department with a new “Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention” that has yet to be fully defined, next goes to a policy committee and to the city’s Charter Commission for a formal review, at which point citizens and city officials can weigh in.
Jeremiah Ellison, a member of the council, said after the vote that the charter is one of three major barriers to “transformative public safety,” along with the city’s police union and the Minnesota Legislature.
The charter — which requires the city to have a police department of a certain size — is the one thing the city council has a say over, he said.
The coalition wants the department under community control via a new elected civilian council with the power to hire, fire and prosecute officers.
VIDEO
June 12: Tigray ‘rejects’ HoF mandate extension, vows to hold polls
\tTigray regional state has all but rejected the regional parliament’s mandate extension granted by the House of Federation earlier this week.
June 10: MPs back extending Abiy’s term amid election delay
\tEthiopia’s upper parliamentary chamber, House of Federation (HoF), has approved an extension to the mandate of the current parliament as well as regional parliaments and councils.
The CCI’s recommendations included that terms of office of the House of Peoples Representatives, HoPR, the HoF, state councils and the executive at federal and state levels be extended for as long as COVID-19 pandemic continues to be a threat to public health, and a current State of Emergency (SOE) remained in place.
If major opposition parties reject the recommendations from the Council of Constitutional Inquiry, “protests or election boycotts could become a reality, reducing the chances of successful competitive polls in 2021,” said William Davison of the International Crisis Group (ICG), a conflict-prevention organisation.
June 8: Abiy rejects talk of transitional govt amid delayed polls
\tEthiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Monday rejected the idea of forming a transitional government when his term of office expires in October, brushing aside fears of a constitutional crisis.
About five months before he was killed by Atlanta police in a Wendy’s parking lot — before his name and case would become the latest rallying point in a massive call for racial justice and equality nationwide — Brooks gave an interview to an advocacy group about his years of struggle in the criminal justice system.
Without his income from working full time in trucking, his wife was struggling with a new job and care of their kids, and she had to borrow money from a friend to get by, Brooks explained.
In 2018, Brooks traveled to Toledo, Ohio, and met his father for the first time.
In January, Georgia authorities brought Brooks back to the state on a fugitive warrant alleging he failed to notify them of his address and complete a theft prevention class as his probation required.
Brooks had stayed in touch with ARK Restoration and talked of returning there for work once he could move to Toledo with his family, Mikolajczyk said.
Danville was a tobacco and textile town of about 50,000 residents, a third of whom were black.
In May 1883, the town’s black majority helped elect the Readjusters—a political coalition of moderate whites, Republicans, and African Americans—and blacks were appointed as aldermen and policemen.
On May 31, 1963, a group of blacks met under the auspices of the Danville Christian Progressive Association.
Like their counterparts in Birmingham, the protesters in Danville pressed for desegregated facilities, equal employment opportunities, representation in city government, and creation of a biracial commission to monitor racial progress.
The city resisted the demands of the movement, and with every strength of power, created a hostile environment which included seeking injunctions under a pre-Civil war “John Brown” statute against any person conspiring to incite the black population to uprise against the city.
The U.S. criticized Tanzania’s arrest of eight opposition leaders during their party meeting on Wednesday, saying the action stifles democratic norms.
ACT-Wazalendo party leader Zitto Kabwe and other members were taken by authorities, citing alleged illegal assembly.“The police detained us for more than 30 hours,” Zitto told reporters, adding it was politically motivated.
Political tensions are rising in Tanzania ahead of the October general elections in which President John Magufuli plans to seek re-election.
The government also closed the Tanzania Daima newspaper following coverage critical of Magufuli’s administration.
“These actions follow a disconcerting pattern of intimidation toward opposition members, civil society and media outlets,” the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania said in a statement on its Twitter account.
Kilwa District Commissioner Christopher Ngubiagai couldn’t immediately comment on the allegations of politically-motivated arrests when contacted on Thursday. Magufuli has denied in the past he is cracking down on dissent.
Agencies
It seems Joseline Hernandez may be firing shots at her longtime foe and former “Love and Hip Hop Atlanta” cast mate Mimi Faust.
Hernandez, 33, seemed amazed by the woman’s bold actions and wrote in her caption, “Now you know when the girls dance holding on to the fence or the shower rod either way they want in 😂 only on #joselinescabaretsauditions #joselinescabaret #getmoney.”
Hernandez and Faust’s beef started in 2012 after Faust learned that she and Hernandez were both in a romantic relationship with Faust’s then-boyfriend Stevie J.
In a March interview with VH1, Faust reflected on the love triangle and admitted that it still bothered her, considering that she didn’t know the “Hitman” producer was cheating on her with Hernandez.
Hernandez and Faust each share a daughter with Stevie.
African American Freemen In Louisiana: African Americans in Louisiana had already organized their own battalion in September 1812. The state legislature of Louisiana had organized a Corp of free African Americans as part of the state militia. After General Andrew Jacksons call to arms, the Battalion of Free men of color, as they were called were joined by a second battalion of African American soldiers organized by a free Black Santo Domingan emigrant, Joseph Savary, and together they were pressed into service in December 1914 to defend New Orleans. While one battalion attended British forces at Chalmette Plains, the other built fortifications against the British attack in January 1815. Both were engaged on January 8 during the main attack by the British, and together they kept the center of the fortifications, the artillery batteries from being taken. Although the African Americans had repulsed the British assault, British sharpshooters took up positions after the battle and picked off Americans trying to rescue their wounded in the field. Savary, now a captain, led a group of African American men who routed the British sharpshooters in the last major battle of the contest. Afterward, Jackson praised the African American soldiers as having not disappointed the hopes that were formed of their courage and perseverance in the performance of their duty.
Georgia set a record Friday, June 26 for new COVID-19 cases recorded in a 24-hour period: 1,900 cases in a day.
The previous record for most new cases reported in a day was Saturday, when Georgia reported 1,800 new cases.
As the number of Georgia cases has continued to rise, the state is increasing testing while simultaneously relaxing restrictions on businesses and gatherings.
Counties in or near metro Atlanta also continue to have the highest number of deaths, with DeKalb County now edging out Gwinnett for third place.
In addition counties in or near metro Atlanta continue to have the highest number of cases, with Gwinnett still in the lead.
A lawsuit has been filed in the Fulton County Superior Court on Friday, June 26, 2020, to compel the General Manager and CEO Jeffrey Parker to comply with its mandatory public duty under the MARTA ACT of 1965 (1965 Ga.
Laws p 2243) and its amendments and the limitations of the RTCAA contract to unbind and re-instate the unlawful elimination of the 70 bus routes, schedules, and fares which required board approval before the routes were eliminated by CEO Jeffrey Parker on April 20, 2020.
The Plaintiff seeks the enforcement of the MARTA Act sections 9 (a) and 9 (c).
MARTA transit service on April 20, 2020, eliminated 70 out of 101 routes without the MARTA board vote or any public hearing as required by law using the coronavirus safety as the reason that MARTA did not follow the regular procedures to obtain MARTA board approval.
The CEO of MARTA is acting outside of the authority of the law.
Attorney Anil Nandlall today rapped Grenadian Queen’s Counsel, Dr Francis Alexis for remarks attributed to him in today’s Guyana Chronicle that a PPP appeal to the Caribbean Court of Justice over a Guyana Court of Appeal ruling has no “real prospect of success”.
An edited statement issued by Nandlall follows:
Today’s Sunday Edition of the Guyana Chronicle’s, lead headline loudly screams, `Dr. Francis Alexis, QC says PPP/C appeal to the CCJ has no real prospect of success’.
The stated mission of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission is to appoint judges of the Caribbean Court of Justice.
These conventions supplement the law to protect institutions of the law, the legal system itself, the rule of law and cannons of fundamental justice.
I take solace from the fact that the CCJ had no difficulty in rejecting Dr. Alexis’s argument in the Guyana Court of Appeal, in the No-Confidence Motion cases, where he submitted that the term “majority” means “absolute majority” in Article 106 of the Constitution of Guyana.
This Man Is Bringing World’s First African And Caribbean Rum To The United via Purple PR
\t
\tRum is considered one of the staple drinks of the
Caribbean with different islands each specializing in a different blend of the famous spirit.
Now one company is introducing a new kind of rum to the world with the first rum that blends
African and Caribbean cultures, and he’s bringing it to the United States.
Global Rum Ambassador
Ian Burrell is the co-creator of
Equiano, a 100% natural rum that blends Mauritius culture and taste with Foursqaure, a Barbadian distillery known for its high-quality spirits, making it the first rum of its kind.
“Equiano is a world’s first blend of rums aged in Cognac casks in Mauritius, and Barbados rums aged in ex-Bourbon barrels,” said Burrell in an email QA with BLACK ENTERPRISE.
Equiano’s memoirs were some of the first work published by a major publisher from an African writer, and his journey influenced Burrell when it came time to crafting his brand story.
The number of confirmed new coronavirus cases per day in the U.S. hit an all-time high of 40,000 Friday — eclipsing the mark set during one of the deadliest stretches in late April — in a resurgence that has led some governors to backtrack or at least pause the reopening of their states.
The number of confirmed infections soared past the previous high set on April 24 of 36,400, according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University.
The virus is blamed for 124,000 deaths in the U.S. and 2.4 million confirmed infections nationwide, by Johns Hopkins’ count.
South Africa, which accounts for about half of the infections on the African continent with over 118,000, reported a record of nearly 6,600 new cases after loosening what had been one of the world’s strictest lockdowns earlier this month.
In the U.S., Arizona reported over 3,000 additional infections reported Thursday, the fourth day in a week with a increase over that mark.
