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 MIRIAM MANGWAYA THE Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) has filed an urgent chamber application at the High Court seeking an order to compel government to provide a COVID-19 national vaccination roll-out plan. In papers filed at the High Court, ZimRights, represented by Tendai Biti of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, wants the government to present the budget for COVID-19 vaccine before Parliament. Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga who is the Health minister, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube and President Emmerson Mnangagwa were cited as respondents. ZimRights wants the government to provide the COVID-19 national vaccination deployment plan within seven days of the High Court order. In his founding affidavit filed at the courts, ZimRights national director Dzikamai Bere stated that section 29 of the Constitution obliges the government to take all practical measures to ensure the provision of basic accessible and adequate health services throughout Zimbabwe. In the face of a ravaging pandemic that has claimed lives of over two million people globally and over 1 200 in Zimbabwe, ZimRights is calling for government to act timeously and save lives from the pandemic. “Section 29(3), in particular, obliges the state to take all preventive measures within the limits of resources available to it, including education and public awareness programmes against the spread of diseases. Section 76 obliges the State to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within the limits of the resources available to it, to achieve the progressive realisation of the right to healthcare,” Bere said. He also urged government to take a cue from other countries and take the necessary steps and a human rights-centred approach to fight coronavirus. “We are simply asking the government to lead, and save lives.” ZimRights said. “We don’t understand how anyone can fail to agree with us given the far-reaching consequences of inaction.” The World Health Organisation is urging governments to avail factual information on COVID-19 to the public. In its efforts to combat the spread of the deadly virus, ZimRights provided urgent humanitarian support to marginalised communities and institutions reaching out to over 17 000 people and 26 institutions that include rural clinics, schools, quarantine centres and correctional facilities. Follow Miriam on Twitter@FloMangwaya
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.
On June 1, 1956, all NAACP offices in Alabama were forced to close, as a result of Attorney General John Patterson’s nine-year injunction against the civil rights organization. This left a void in local civil rights leadership and a desperate need for a new group to lead Birmingham’s black community in its campaign to end unfair treatment from whites. Recognizing this need, local black leaders called a mass meeting at Sardis Baptist Church. Approximately 1,000 people attended and created the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Its mission was to fight for freedom, democracy and first class citizenship for Birmingham blacks. Unlike the NAACP, they vowed to attain their goals through direct action and to test the validity of Jim Crow laws through the courts.
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth was appointed as president of the ACMHR. He was known for tirelessly pushing reforms for blacks and placing his members and himself in danger to attain them. The group’s goals included hiring black policemen, integrating Birminghams public schools, and desegregating all public accommodations.
Their initial efforts were unsuccessful. An attempt to enroll black students in an all-white school was met by mob violence, a bus boycott failed due to lack of unity, and gains made in school desegregation led white officials to close facilities rather than integrate them.
In 1957, the group became affiliated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Together in 1963, they created “Project C,” a month-long campaign involving protests and mass marches led by Shuttlesworth and Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., then pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. The project was met with brutal white opposition, including the use of clubs, dogs, hoses, and enough arrests to overflow the city jail. The project ended on May 10, 1963; one month later President Kennedy announced his plan to desegregate public facilities in Birmingham.
On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
Malawi has been named country of the year for 'reviving democracy in an authoritarian region' by the Economist newspaper. The newspaper cites the nullification of the 2019 presidential election results that were marred by irregularities. 'The vote-count was rigged with correction fluid on the tally sheets. Foreign observers cynically approved it anyway. Malawians launched mass protests against the 'Tipp-Ex election'. Malawian judges turned down suitcases of bribes and annulled it,' the Economist reports. The country held a presidential election re-run in June and President Peter Mutharika was beaten by President Lazarus Chakwera. The Economist says Freedom House's report that democracy and respect for human rights regressed in 80 countries between the start of the pandemic and September but only improved in Malawi. 'Malawi is still poor, but its people are citizens, not subjects,' the newspaper adds. - BBC
[IPS] Nairobi, Kenya -- On 10 December every year, we celebrate Human Rights Day, marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Universal Declaration guarantees a spectrum of human rights that belong to each of us equally, and unite us as a global community and upholds our humanity.
Death of Mary McLeod Bethune (79), educator and civil rights leader, Daytona Beach, Florida.
Mary McLeod Bethune was the fifteenth of seventeen children of Samuel and Patsy McLeod, slaves on the McLeod Plantation in Mayesville, South Carolina. Born after the Emancipation, Mary McLeod was a free woman. Seeing the overriding importance of real freedom and equality, she became a powerful force in the emerging struggle for civil rights. Beginning as an educator and founder of a school which bears her name, she became the valued counselor to four presidents, the director of a major government agency, the founder of a major organization for human rights (the National Council of Negro Women), and a consultant to world figures seeking to build universal peace through the United Nations.
Mrs. Bethune obtained prominence as an educator. She Founded the Daytona Normal and Industrial Institute for Negro Girls (now Bethune-Cookman College) in 1904, and served as president from 1904-1942 and from 1946-47. Her work, building the Daytona Normal School for Negro Girls into Bethune-Cookman College, brought her into contact with important political and financial figures. Under President Cavin Coolidge, and later Herbert Hoover, the national government began utilizing Mrs. Bethunes considerable experience for the National Child Welfare Commission.. However, it was Franklin Delano Roosevelt who recognized the important role Mary McLeod Bethune could play in the implementation of his New Deal policies. Roosevelt created the office of Special Advisor on Minority Affairs in 1935. This position later became a part of the National Youth Administration (NYA).
Was a leader in the black womens club movement and served as president of the National Association of Colored Women. Was a delegate and advisor to national conferences on education, child welfare, and home ownership.Was Director of Negro Affairs in the the National Youth Adminstration from 1936 to 1944. Served as consultant to the U.S. Secretary of War for selection of
On July 18, 1988, Charles Z. Smith became the first African American to serve on the Washington Supreme Court. He was appointed to the court by Washington’s then Governor Booth Gardner and was subsequently elected to his position on the court for a two-year term in 1988. Justice Smith was elected thereafter to full six-year terms in 1990 and 1996. Justice Smith was never opposed in any of his elections. He retired from the court on December 31, 2002.
When Governor Gardner appointed Charles Smith to the Washington Supreme Court, he hoped that the new justice, who was noted for his “mediator-conciliator type of personality,” could bring the often sharply divided court closer together. Justice Smith’s voting record on the court indicated that he met the governor’s expectations. In his first two years on the court, Justice Smith wrote twenty-five opinions and of that number, eighteen were unanimous opinions, a percentage that far exceeded that of the full court. During his entire career on the court, Justice Smith showed a tendency to be the swing vote in many cases and he rarely dissented.
Charles Z. Smith was born in Lakeland, Florida in 1927. His father was Cuban. His mother was African American. He graduated from Temple University in 1952 and from the University of Washington School of Law in 1955. His first employment, following graduation from law school, was as a law clerk for Washington Supreme Court Justice Matthew W. Hill (1955). He, thereafter, served as a deputy prosecuting attorney for King County (1956-60) where he distinguished himself by successfully prosecuting labor leader Dave Beck. Smith also served as a special assistant to United States Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy (1960-64) to investigate corruption related to Teamster Union pension funds. Smith brought an indictment in Chicago, Illinois against Teamster Union President James Hoffa. Charles Z. Smith resigned from the Justice Department to help Robert Kennedy run for the United States Senate from New York.
Justice
By GEIR MOULSON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic is colliding with politics as Germany embarks on its vaccination drive and one of the most unpredictable election years in the country's post-World War II history. After months of relatively harmonious pandemic management, fingers are being pointed as the center-left junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government takes aim at what it says has been a chaotic start to vaccinating the population. The discord is likely a sign of the times to come. An electoral marathon in Germany starts in mid-March, when two of six state elections scheduled […]
The post Virus collides with politics as German election year starts appeared first on Black News Channel.
Dorothy Height was born on this day.
For nearly half a century, Dorothy Irene Height has given leadership to the struggle for equality and human rights for all people. Her life exemplifies her passionate commitment for a just society and her vision of a better world. - National Council of Negro Women
Education:
1929 - Graduated Rankin High School, Rank PA (Valedictorian)
1932 - BA New York University, New York City
1933 - Master in Educational Psychology - New York University
New York School of Social Work - Columbia University (Advance studies)
Honorary Degrees:
1967- Doctor of Humane Letters, Tuskegee Institute
1970- Doctor of Humane Letters, Coppin State College
1970- Doctor of Humane Letters, Harvard University
1970- Doctor of Civil Law, Pace University
1974- Board of Humane Letters, University of Massachusetts
1975- Doctor of Humane Letters, Howard University
1975- Doctor of Humane Letters, Smith University
1975- Doctor of Humane Letters, New York University
1977- Doctor of Humane Letters, Bethune Cookman College
1980- Distinguished Service Medal, Barnard College
1981- Doctor of Humane Letters, Spelman College
1982- Doctor of Humane Letters, Emmanuel College
1982 Doctor of Humane Letters, Berea College
1983-Doctor of Humane Letters, Bowie State College
1985- Doctor of Humane Letters, Smith College
1989- Doctor of Humane Letters, College of the City of New York
1989- Doctor of Humane Letters, Lincoln University
1990- Doctor of Laws, Princeton University
1992- Doctor of Humane Letters, Central State University
1993- Doctor of Humane Letters, Tougaloo College
1994- Doctor of Humane Letters, Bennett College
1996- Doctor of Humane Letters, University of the District of Columbia
Degree information provided by the National Council of Negro Women
I come to you from a liberated South Africa, a nation that many of you helped to set free. I come from a continent about which more is written but less is understood; so I come with a message that is straight-forward and simple. Like the Apostle Paul on his return from the provinces, I come to bring good news, but I also come with an appeal for your support of a new generation of Africans who have a bold, new futurist vision for their countries and their continent; but who live for the moment between two worlds, an old order that is dying but not yet dead and a new order that is conceived but not yet born.
The reports coming out of Africa are often confusing and contradictory:
Transformation and reconciliation in Southern Africa; conflict and crisis in Central Africa; new leaders with new vision in some areas and old leaders desperately hanging onto the past in others. It is now obvious that one can not speak of Africa as one continuous stream of ideas and social arrangements providing either cultural unity or political uniformity. There is much that unites Africans; W.E.B. Dubois reminded us at the turn of the century of the common bond created by the problem of the color line, for example. But the first thing that must be accepted and acknowledged by any one who dares to write or speak about the new Africa is that what seems self-evident in one area may not be the reality in another. Far too many people who would not dare to speak of a homogeneous Europe or Asia speak of the more than fifty independent nations of Africa as if the continent was a single political entity.
It is indeed difficult for many Americans to grasp either the extraordinary range of cultural, political and economic diversity or the immense size of a continent so large that the whole of China, the continental United States, Europe, Argentina, India, and New Zealand can fit within its boundaries. It is even more difficult for Americans to recognize that any idea of a retreat from the African continent at the very moment so many
MUMBAI — Switzerland-based agrochemical company Syngenta is at the center of a new complaint related to pesticide poisoning of farmers in Yavatmal, India. A complaint over the alleged poisoning of Indian farmers from Syngenta’s pesticide [...]
In October 2007, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) quit the national unity government, leaving the peace agreement signed in 2005 on the brink of collapse. The SPLA claimed that the governing party, the National Congress Party, had ignored its concerns over boundary between the north and south and how to divide the countrys oil wealth.
Sudan faced international criticism once again in January 2008, when Musa Hilal, a Janjaweed leader, was appointed to a top government position as an adviser to the minister of federal affairs. Human Rights Watch called Hilal the poster child for Janjaweed atrocities in Darfur.
Government forces and the janjaweed resumed their attacks in the Darfur region in February 2008, forcing as many as 45,000 people to flee their homes. The government claimed it was targeting the Justice and Equality Movement, a rebel group that has become increasingly powerful and is believed to be linked to the government of Chad. Civilians in the region, however, say the attacks have continued after the rebels escape. The Justice and Equality Movement launched a bold attack in May, coming within a few miles of Khartoum before being repulsed by government troops. It was the first time that the conflict in Darfur has threatened to spill over into Khartoum.
In July 2008, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), indicted Bashir with genocide for planning and executing the decimation of Darfurs three main ethnic tribes: the Fur, the Masalit, and the Zaghawa. Moreno-Ocampo also said Bashir purposefully targeted civilians and used rapes, hunger, and fear to terrorize civilians. Many observers feared that Bashir would respond to the charges with further violence. The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Bashir in March 2009, charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur region. An indictment for genocide was rejected by the court, and Moreno-Ocampo appealed the decision. Bashir responded by shutting down the 13 aid agencies that operate
As government looks mainly to the public purse to foot the bill for the COVID-19 vaccine, the SACP has said there must be no room for corruption in the sourcing of treatment
Herman Mashaba says he finds Mkhwebane's report to be disappointing and vows not only to challenge its merits in the High Court but will also seek a cost order against the Public Protector.
It’s Friday 1 February 2021, and this is The South African's Daily News Wrap - with the latest news you really need to know.
On March 2, 1807 Congress enacted a law that banned the external slave trade beginning January 1, 1808. With that act enslaved persons could no longer be brought to the United States. Although the law would be frequently violated until the eve of the Civil War, many black and white anti-slavery activitists hailed it as the first major step toward banning slavery itself. One of those activists, young Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. (1780?-1840), the son of the founder of New York’s African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1796, delivered the address that appears below in the New York African Church in New York City on January 1, 1808 celebrating the passage of the act.
Fathers, Brethren, and Fellow Citizens: At this auspicious moment I felicitate you on the abolition of the Slave Trade. This inhuman branch of commerce, which, for some centuries past, has been carried on to a consid¬erable extent, is, by the singular interposition of Divine Providence, this day extinguished. An event so important, so pregnant with happy consequences, must be extremely consonant to every philanthropic heart.
But to us, Africans and descendants of Africans, this period is deeply interesting. We have felt, sensibly felt, the sad effects of this abominable traffic. It has made, if not ourselves, our forefathers and kinsmen its unhappy victims; and pronounced on them, and their posterity, the sentence of perpetual slavery. But benevolent men have voluntarily stepped forward to obviate the consequences of this injustice and barbarity. They have striven assiduously, to restore our natural rights; to guaranty them from fresh innovations; to furnish us with necessary information; and to stop the source from whence our evils have flowed.
The fruits of these laudable endeavors have long been visible; each moment they appear more conspicuous; and this day has produced an event which shall ever be memorable and glorious in the annals of history. We are now assembled to celebrate this momentous era; to recognize the beneficial influences of humane
Tanzania minister: No interest in procuring COVID -19 vaccines
BY GARIKAI TUNHIRA Residents and civic society organisations (CSOs) criticised government at a COVID-19 response and preparedness consultative meeting held in Gweru on Friday, saying that it had failed to consider the plight of people living with disabilities in its interventions. The meeting, organised by the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) in conjunction with the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations, sought to elicit views on government efforts to fight COVID-19. MAPRORIWEB’s Belinda Msesengwe said government failed to provide Braille material for the visually-impaired. “We had hoped that we would get Braille material so that we could read and get to understand what coronavirus entailed. Unfortunately, no one bothered to consider our situation. Government should have led in that area,” Msesengwe said. Rabecca Butau, from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, bemoaned the neglect by government in cushioning the vulnerable and those rendered jobless because of COVID-19. “Government was supposed to cushion mostly the vulnerable and workers whose employment was on the line. It was supposed to give employers money so they could pay their employees. Now what is happening is that because of the lockdown and reduced working hours, employees had their leave days taken away and it means they will most likely go into 2021 with their leave days in the minus,” Butau said. McAuthur Mkwapatira, from Youth Essence, said government had bungled by “prematurely” reopening schools, suggesting it should have, instead, only allowed final examination classes to return to class. Meanwhile, ZADHR secretary Norman Matara trained teachers at Mudavanhu ZimCare Trust in Mkoba 11 and caregivers and residents at Batanai Old People’s Home on COVID-19 and the correct use of personal protective equipment (PPE). The rights doctors also donated PPE and medical sundries to the two institutions. Follow Garikai on Twitter @garietunhira
Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton and contractors involved in works at the Cornwall Regional Hospital are slated to have a no-holds-barred meeting at 10 a.m. Monday after both sides traded blame for the bungled renovation of the Type A St James...
