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Ghanaians voted in an election seen as a close fight between President Nana Akufo-Addo and his longtime rival John Mahama, in a country long viewed a beacon of stability in a troubled region.
Announcement of the death of former President Rawlings pic.twitter.com/7ext0fp4sd
— Nana Akufo-Addo (@NAkufoAddo) November 12, 2020
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The Sierra Leone Creole people (or Krio people) is an ethnic group in Sierra Leone. The Creole people are descendants of freed African American, West Indian and Liberated African slaves who settled in the Western Area of Sierra Leone between 1787 and about 1885. The colony was established by the British, supported by abolitionists, under the Sierra Leone Company as a place for freedmen. The settlers called their new settlement Freetown.[1] Today, the Creoles comprise about 5% of the population of Sierra Leone.[2] [3]
Like their Americo-Liberian neighbors in Liberia, Creoles have varying degrees of European ancestry because some of the settlers were descended from European Americans and other Europeans. Though the Jamaican Maroons, some Creoles probably also have indigenous Jamaican Amerindian Taíno ancestry.[4] Alongside the Americo-Liberians, the Creoles are the only recognised ethnic group of African-American, Liberated African, and West Indian descent in West Africa. As with their Americo-Liberian neighbors, Creole culture is primarily westernized. The Creoles developed close relationships with the British colonial power; they became educated in British institutions and held prominent leadership positions in Sierra Leone under British colonialism.
The vast majority of Creoles reside in Freetown and its surrounding Western Area region of Sierra Leone.[5] The only Sierra Leonean ethnic group whose culture is similar (in terms of its integration of Western culture) are the Sherbro. From their mix of peoples, the Creoles developed what is now the native Krio language (a mixture of English, indigenous West African languages, and other European languages). It has been widely used for trade and communication among ethnic groups and is the most widely spoken language in Sierra Leone.[6]
The Creoles are primarily Christian, at 90 percent and are the descendants of freed African American and West Indian slaves who were virtually all Christians. However, some scholars such as consider the Oku people as Creoles
Nok art refers to huge human, animal and other figures made out of terracotta pottery, found throughout Nigeria. They represent the earliest sculptural art in West Africa, dated between 500 BC and AD 500; and they co-occur with the earliest evidence of iron smelting in Africa south of the Sahara desert. Theromluminescence dates produced on the figures themselves have returned dates between between 580 BC-540 AD.
The figures are made of local clays with coarse tempers. They are nearly life size, although few have been found intact: most are known from broken fragments, representing human heads and other body parts wearing a profusion of beads, anklets and bracelets. Artistic conventions recognized as Nok art by scholars include perforations for pupils, geometric indications of eyes and eyebrows, and detailed treatment of heads, noses, nostrils and mouths. Many have exaggerated features such as enormous ears and genitals, which some scholars such as Insoll (2011) have argued are representations of diseases such as elephantiasis. Animals illustrated in Nok art include snakes and elephants; some are human and animal combinations and there is a recurring two-headed Janus theme.
A possible precursor to the art are figurines depicting cattle found throughout the Sahara-Sahel region of North Africa beginning in the 2nd millennium BC; later connections include the Benin brasses and other Yoruba art.
Most of the known examples of Nok Art are fragments found out of context, recovered from alluvial deposits when those deposits were excavated for tin extraction. Only a handful of archaeological sites have been tentatively identified as Nok culture, and scientific excavations are rare. None so far have established absolutely conclusive evidence of the arts context.
Taruga, the first site identified with Nok art fragments, was discovered in the 1960s, by archaeologist Bernard Fagg who made the connection between Nok art and early iron smelting sites.
More recently, however, archaeologists have traced Nok culture by linking
Home
Global African History Timelines: After 1801
Global African American History Timelines:
To 1800
After 1801
This timeline covers all the events not listed on the African American History or African American History in the West timelines.
Year Events SubjectCountryEra
1801 Haitian forces capture the Spanish-ruled section of Hispaniola called Santo Domingo. The area is returned to Spanish control in 1809. The Haitians will regain control in 1822 and remain in Santo Domingo until 1844. 01-01 International Conflict
Dominican Republic
1801-1900
1804 On January 1, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the successor to Toussaint LOuverture, declares Saint Dominque independent and renames it Haiti. It becomes the second independent nation in the western hemisphere (after the United States). 01-01 Haitian Revolution
Haiti
1804 Usman Dan Fodio initiates a holy war (jihad) that established an Islamic theocratic state, the Sokoto Caliphate, in present day Northern Nigeria. 01-02 West African Empires
Nigeria
1807 Great Britain abolishes the importation of enslaved Africans into its colonial possessions. 01-01 The Slave Trade
Great Britain
1807 George Bridgetower, a former child prodigy who at 11 performs his first concert before a Paris audience, is elected to the British Royal Society of Musicians. 01-02 19th Century Black Music
1811 Spain abolishes slavery at home and in all colonies except Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo. 01-01 Emancipation
Spain
1813 Argentina abolishes slavery. 01-01 Emancipation
Argentina
1814 Mauritania becomes a French colony. 01-01 Colonial Conquest
Mauritania
1814 Great Britain gains control of the Seychelles from France. 01-02 Colonial Administration
The Seychelles
1816 Shaka Zulu becomes King of the Zulu nation and begins to create an empire in the southern African interior. 01-01
On August 5, 1999 President William Clinton appointed Gregory Lee Johnson U.S. Ambassador to Swaziland. He served in that post from November 16, 1999 to October 18, 2001. Johnson began his career in the Foreign Service in 1968 and has served in Vietnam (1968-1971). His next posts were in Japan (1972-1976), Brazil (1976-1980), and the Soviet Union (1981-1983). He has also served in Somalia, Canada, and as Interim Charge d’ Affaires in the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. Ambassador Johnson speaks Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, and Vietnamese.
Gregory Lee Johnson was born in Ellensburg, Washington on July 18, 1945. His parents are Orville and Edith Johnson. He graduated from Franklin High School in Seattle, Washington in 1963 and four years later received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Washington State University. He later attended The American University, Washington, D.C. and received a master’s degree in international relations in 1968.
Besides his service abroad, Ambassador Johnson held assignments in the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and attended the U.S. Army War College between 1983 and 1988. From 1989 to 1992, Johnson returned to Japan where he served as Consul General at the U.S. Consulate General in Osaka-Kobe, Japan.
Johnson’s appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Swaziland provided him the opportunity to help deepen relationships with the United States. Swaziland was the last nation in Africa to be governed by a monarchy and was seen as the most stable nation in Southern Africa. Johnson‘s greatest challenge was in helping Swaziland confront its HIV/AIDS epidemic where one-fifth of its one million people were HIV-positive.
Ambassador Johnson helped negotiate the lifting of sanctions on cane sugar exports from Swaziland to the U.S. and played a key role in gaining commitment from the Government of Swaziland to contribute resources to the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) peacekeeping efforts in in Northeast and West
Total confirmed cases = 7,768
Total recoveries = 2,540
Total deaths = 35
Active cases = 5,193
May 28: 7,303 cases, voter register brouhaha continues
\tCompilation of a new voters register will proceed according to the Electoral Commission, EC; despite a fightback from the main opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC.
Total confirmed cases = 7,303 (new cases = 186)
Total recoveries = 2,414
Total deaths = 34
Active cases = 4,857
\tFigures valid as of close of day May 27, 2020
May 27: Accra case count pass 5,000; MP infection controversy
\tThe case count passed 7,000 when an additional 309 cases were reported.
Total confirmed cases = 7,117 (new cases = 309)
Total recoveries = 2,317
Active cases = 4,766
\tFigures valid as of close of day May 26, 2020
May 26: 6,808 cases, further easing of restrictions expected
\tA major religious group is advocating a phased lifting of remaining restrictions in the country.
Total confirmed cases = 6,617 (new cases = 131)
Total recoveries = 1,978 (new = 27)
Total deaths = 31
\tFigures valid as of May 21, 2020
May 22: 6,486 cases, NDC jabs EC
\tMain opposition NDC continued their collision with the elections body over the compilation of a new voters register ahead of December 2020 polls.
Total confirmed cases = 6,269 (new cases = 173)
Total recoveries = 1,898 (new = 125)
Active cases = 4,340
May 20: Cases pass 6,000 mark, govt eyes COVID-Organics
\tGhana’s case count passed 6,000 mark reaching 6,096 on Tuesday according to tallies released by the Ghana Health Service.
Afro-Caribbeans are Caribbean people who trace at least some of their ancestry to West Africa in the period since Christopher Columbuss arrival in the region in 1492. Other names for this ethnicity include African-Caribbean (especially preferred among the United Kingdom branch of the diaspora), Afro-Antillean, or Afro-West Indian. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, European-led triangular trade brought enslaved West African people to work on Caribbean islands, primarily on various sugar plantations and in domestic households. Many Afro-Caribbeans also have non-African ancestry, such as European, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American, as there has been extensive intermarriage and unions among the peoples over the centuries.
Although most Afro-Caribbean people today live in French, English, and Spanish-speaking Caribbean nations, there are also significant diaspora populations throughout the Western world – especially in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Both the home and diaspora populations have produced a number of individuals who have had a notable influence on modern Western, Caribbean, and African societies; they include political activists such as Marcus Garvey and C.L.R. James; writers and theorists such as Aime Cesaire and Frantz Fanon; US military leader and statesman Colin Powell, whose parents were immigrants; and Jamaican musician Bob Marley.
During the post-Columbian era, the archipelagos and islands of the Caribbean were the first sites of African diaspora dispersal in the western Atlantic. Specifically, in 1492, Pedro Alonso Niño, an African-Spanish seafarer, was recorded as piloting one of Columbuss ships. He returned in 1499, but did not settle. In the early 16th century, more Africans began to enter the population of the Spanish Caribbean colonies, sometimes arriving as free men of mixed ancestry or as indentured servants, but increasingly as enslaved workers and servants. This increasing demand for African labour in the Caribbean was in part the
Kente is a brightly coloured, banded material and is the most widely known cloth produced in Africa. Although kente cloth is now identified with the Akan people in West Africa, and particularly the Asante Kingdom, the term originates from the neighbouring Fante. Kente cloth is closely related to Adinkra cloth, which has symbols stenciled into cloth and is associated with mourning.
Kente cloth is made from thin strips about four cm thick woven together on narrow looms - typically by men.
The strips are interlaced to form a fabric which is usually worn wrapped around the shoulders and waist like a toga - the garment is also known as kente. Women wear two shorter lengths to form a skirt and bodice.
Originally made from white cotton with some indigo patterning, kente cloth evolved when silk arrived with Portuguese traders in the seventeenth century. Fabric samples were pulled apart for the silken thread, which was then woven into the kente cloth. Later, when skeins of silk became available, more sophisticated patters were created - although the extortionate cost of the silk meant they were only available to Akan royalty.
Kente has its own mythology - claiming the original cloth was taken from the web of a spider - and related superstitions - such as no work can be started or completed on a Friday and that mistakes require an offering to be made to the loom.
In kente cloth colours are significant:
Even today, when a new design is created, it must first be offered to the royal house.
If the king declines to take the pattern, it can be sold to the public. Designs worn by Asante royalty may not be worn by others.
As one of the prominent symbols of African arts and culture, Kente cloth has been embraced by the broader African diaspora (which means people of African descent wherever they might live.) Kente cloth is particularly popular in the United States among African-Americans and can be found on all types of clothing, accessories, and objects. These designs replicate registered Kente designs, but are often
Even in the 18th century, much of the interior of Africa was unfamiliar to Europeans. Rather they limited themselves to trade along the coast, first in gold, ivory, spices, and later slaves. In 1788 Joseph Banks, the botanist whod sailed across the Pacific Ocean with Cook, went as far as to found the African Association to promote the exploration of the interior of the continent. What follows is a list of those explorers whose names went down in history.
Ibn Battuta (1304-1377) traveled over 100,000 kilometres from his home in Morocco. According to the book he dictated, he traveled as far as Beijing and the Volga River; scholars say its unlikely he traveled everywhere he claims to have.
James Bruce (1730-94) was a Scottish explorer who set off from Cairo in 1768 to find the source of the River Nile. He arrived at Lake Tana in 1770, confirming that this lake was the origin of the Blue Nile, one of the tributaries of the Nile.
Mungo Park (1771-1806) was hired by the African Association in 1795 to explore the River Niger. When the Scotsman returned to Britain having reached the Niger, he was disappointed by the lack of public recognition of his achievement and that he was not acknowledged as a great explorer. In 1805 he set out to follow the Niger to its source. His canoe was ambushed by tribesmen at the Bussa Falls and he drowned.
René-Auguste Caillié (1799-1838), a Frenchman, was the first European to visit Timbuktu and survive to tell the tale.
Hed disguised himself as an Arab to make the trip. Imagine his disappointment when he discovered that the city wasnt made of gold, as legend said, but of mud. His journey started in West Africa in March 1827, headed towards Timbuktu where he stayed for two weeks. He then crossed the Sahara (the first European to do so) in a caravan of 1,200 animals, then the Atlas Mountains to reach Tangier in 1828, from where he sailed home to France.
Heinrich Barth (1821-1865) was a German working for the British government. His first expedition (1844-1845)was from Rabat (Morocco)
Sierra Leone Telegraph: 12 November 2020: United Nations Deputy Secretary-General (DSG), Ms. Amina J. Mohammed will arrive in Freetown, Sierra Leone on Saturday, 14 November 2020, for a two-day official visit as part of her solidarity mission to West Africa and the Sahel region. The DSG is visiting Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Mali and Sierra Leone…
The country with the continent’s most developed economy also has its highest number of confirmed infections — more than 21,000, representing 20% of Africa’s total.
The lockdown that began March 27 in South Africa is increasing tensions in Soweto, said Dlamini, who closed her tourism business.
Five weeks into the lockdown, South Africa began a gradual easing on May 1, allowing selected mines, factories and businesses to reopen with up to 30% of employees.
South Africa is still a long way from full economic activity, and further easing will be determined by the spread of the disease and hospitalizations.
South Africa is rated as one of the world’s most unequal countries, and the president has said in his evening addresses to the nation that his response to the pandemic aims to build a more equitable country.
Kenya has announced ground and aerial control operations against hopper bands that were sighted in northwest Turkana and Marsabit.
Ministry of Agriculture Principal Secretary Prof Hamadi Boga, in the State Department for Crop Development and Agriculture Research announced the spraying of the hoppers that were seen in Turkana last Sunday, and which are likely to spread into Eastern Uganda.
\"The new swarm of locusts that was seen in Turkana this week is in the hopper state.
The PS's remarks come a few days after Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned that the first generation of desert locusts in Kenya has matured and was ready to breed.
FAO's May 26 update said the situation in East Africa remains alarming as more swarms form and mature in Ethiopia and northern and central Kenya.
On Nov. 25, 2014, Malis Ministry of Health confirmed two new cases of Ebola. This was seen as a setback because it happened after the country thought it had overcome an earlier outbreak of the virus. Both cases were connected to previous ones. One case was the 23-year-old fiancée of a 25-year-old nurse who died of the virus earlier in November. The second case was a family member of previously confirmed and deceased Ebola victims.
Malis Ministry of Health planned to meet with Guinea health officials to discuss how to coordinate efforts to control the virus outbreak and reduce the chances of additional cases being imported to Mali. As of Dec. 31, 2014, the Ebola virus was still spreading in West Africa with 7,905 deaths and 20,206 known cases, according to the World Health Organization.
The Council of Federated Organization was founded in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962, COFO included the statewide organizations of three national civil rights groups, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) led by Bob Moses, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) under Tom Gaither, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The organization was […]
The sole child of immigrants from the Barbados, Ulric St. Clair Haynes Jr. was born June 8, 1931 in Brooklyn, New York. Haynes attended Amherst College in Massachusetts, graduating cum laude in 1952, and then earned a law degree at Yale University four years later. Haynes worked briefly as an executive assistant with the New York State Department of Commerce, and from 1956 to 1959 he was an administrative officer with the United Nations’ European Office in Geneva, Switzerland, assigned to recruit military and police officers for the UN’s Palestine peacekeeping missions and attend to UN concerns in the newly independent Republic of Guinea.
A hallmark of Haynes’ professional life was his alternating private sector and public service employment. From 1960 to 1963 he was the Ford Foundation’s Assistant Regional Director for West Africa. In 1964 he was the U.S. State Department’s desk officer for Southwest Africa, and from 1964 to 1966 he monitored politics in Africa for the National Security Council under McGeorge Bundy. While working as a management consultant from 1966 to 1972, Haynes also taught as an adjunct business professor at Harvard University. Hired in 1972 as Vice President of Management Development for Cummins Engine Company, located in Columbus, Indiana, two years later he became the company’s Vice President for the Middle East and African Affairs and was relocated in Tehran, Iran from 1975 to 1977.
Made aware of his varied experiences in Africa and the Middle East, in 1977 President Jimmy Carter nominated Haynes as U.S. Ambassador to Algeria. Starting November 4, 1979, Americans were riveted by reports out of Iran concerning 66 persons taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Because of his experience in the Iranian capital and familiarity with the Middle East and North Africa, Haynes helped negotiate the release of the hostages. On January 20, 1981 Haynes stood beside Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher to greet the liberated hostages upon their arrival in Algiers, Algeria. Fluent
Sister Marie Stella's association has joined with others to call for help from donors abroad through a new organization \"Enfants de l'Espoir\" (Children of Hope).
Last September, Noura joined the Fraternité Hospitalière des Serviteurs de la Miséricorde (Hospital Fraternity of the Servants of Mercy) created in 2015, where Sister Marie Stella, the only nun engaged in the association, lives with five other women who work for Vivre dans l'Espérance.
After meeting several young women who were sisters or were hoping to become nuns but were rejected by religious congregations when they told them they were HIV-positive, Sister Marie Stella felt she had to welcome them to a place where they could live their commitment to religious life.
Every morning, with other people working for Vivre dans l'Espérance and sometimes young volunteers from Europe spending a few weeks or a few months to help the association, members of the fraternité attend Mass and pray together.
At Sister Marie Stella's organization, Muslim children study the Quran when Christians go to catechism class.
HIV-positive children in developing countries will have access to more appropriate and, above all, four times cheaper treatment.
The much-needed HIV treatment especially among children will now be available in low and middle-income countries, thanks to a landmark agreement between Unitaid and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI).
\"Children in low and middle-income countries often wait years to have access to the same medicines as adults, which affects their quality of life and sometimes leads to unnecessary deaths,\" Philippe Duneton, Unitaid Executive Director exclusively spoke to Africanews.
\"This agreement will help children access medication at a record pace, with a guaranteed quality. By ensuring early access to this treatment will transform the lives of children living with HIV, helping them stay on treatment and saving thousands of lives,\" he added
The new product will be first available in Benin, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe during the first half of 2021, \"with a goal of rapidly expanding distributions to other countries..
“Today, with triple therapy, if pregnant women who are HIV-positive are screened and maintain their treatment correctly, they cannot transmit the HIV virus to their child. This explains why in Europe or in the United States, we hardly see children contacting the virus. Unfortunately, in countries like Nigeria and others in states in Africa, there is low access by these programs yet we are having a lot of HIV positive children still being born with the virus and still need this treatment. We have therefore chosen countries with which we already have partnership in place and which have real need for treatment among children infected with HIV ,\" Louis Pizzaro, head of Unitaid program in charge of HIV projects said.
For Mûtahi Kagwe, Kenya's health cabinet secrertary, said, “this announcement marks a radical change in the quality of treatment for children with HIV. Kenya intends to be the first country to adopt the new DTG 10mg pediatric formulation, which will improve treatment, reduce unpleasant side effects and help children stay on treatment and lead healthy lives. We are delighted that for the first time in Kenya and other countries can provide children with the same quality of treatment as adults, which has been made possible by the development of this new formulation.\"
\"Today, after years of work, with this new drug, we are at the forefront of recommendations and Africa has access to the best treatment in the world against HIV among children\" - Louis Pizzaro, head of a Unitaid program in HIV projects said.
Access to Treatment and Regional Disparities
\"In recent years we have seen, thanks to the efforts of the international community, a considerable increase in access to treatment for adults. In southern African countries, for example, we now have antiretroviral coverage - people who need treatment are actually receiving it - but there are still disparities in Africa by regions.
West Africa or Central Africa, which have smaller epidemics than tho
Ghana’s former president Jerry Rawlings, who staged two coups and later led the West African country’s transition to a stable... View Article
The post Ghana’s former president Jerry Rawlings dies at 73 appeared first on TheGrio.
The Federal Republic of Nigeria /n aɪ ˈ dʒ ɪər i ə/ ( listen), commonly referred to as Nigeria, is a federal republic in West Africa, bordering Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean. It comprises 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja is located. Nigeria is officially a democratic secular country.[6]
Modern-day Nigeria has been the site of numerous kingdoms and tribal states over the millennia. The modern state originated from British colonial rule beginning in the 19th century and the merging of the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate in 1914. The British set up administrative and legal structures whilst practising indirect rule through traditional chiefdoms. Nigeria became a formally independent federation in 1960. It experienced a civil war from 1967 to 1970. It then alternated between democratically elected civilian governments and military dictatorships until it achieved a stable democracy in 1999, with the 2011 presidential elections considered the first to be reasonably free and fair.[7]
Nigeria is often referred to as the Giant of Africa, owing to its large population and economy.[8] With approximately 186 million inhabitants, Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world. Nigeria has one of the largest populations of youth in the world.[9] [10] The country is viewed as a multinational state as it is inhabited by over 500 ethnic groups, of which the three largest are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba; these ethnic groups speak over 500 different languages and are identified with wide variety of cultures.[11] [12]
Air ambulance services operating on the African continent are seeing an uptick in medevacs linked to Covid-19 and are adjusting to a number of difficulties in transporting infected patients, both within Africa and outside the continent.
\"In the air ambulance industry, Covid-19 has had a huge impact,\" says Fraser Lamond of Air Rescue Africa, a Johannesburg-based company operating two Hawker aircraft.
Typical clients for air ambulance services in Africa include workers for non-governmental organisations, corporations, tourists and governments, although this has changed with permission to move infectious patients becoming more difficult to obtain.
Some African governments have reportedly employed air ambulances to provide medevacs for officials suffering from Covid-19.
A typical Covid-19 medical evacuation by aircraft ranges from between $60,000 to $100,000 for taking a patient from west Africa to South Africa or Europe, depending on the aircraft employed, according to industry estimates.
African health practitioners should own the narrative of the coronavirus pandemic and take advantage of Africa's experience of other outbreaks of disease in order to mount a tailored response, says the writer in a guest column for AllAfrica.
To survive this marathon, doctors, researchers and others responding to the pandemic across Africa must take ownership of the narrative of the fight against COVID-19 and provide hard evidence to remove emotions and promote a rational response to the pandemic.
Reanchoring the debate in local communities
On March 18, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, called on Africa to \"wake up\" and face the pandemic.
But in a continent consisting of 54 states, each at a very different level of preparedness, the COVID-19 response in Africa cannot be judged as if it is a single territory.
MSF is an international, independent, medical humanitarian organisation that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, pandemics, natural disasters and exclusion from healthcare.
