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.
guest column:Admire Dube The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was established in 2018 with the aim to create a single market for goods and services, facilitated by movement of people to deepen the economic integration of the continent, under the Pan African Vision of “An integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa.” Consolidating Africa into one trade area provides great opportunities for entrepreneurs, businesses and consumers across the continent and ultimately countries, which boosts chances to support sustainable development in the world’s least developed region. With the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic exponentially increasing the challenges of a continent already ravaged by socio-economic ills, AfCFTA offers great potential to not only offer economic mitigations against the pandemic, but also speedily extricate African nations from regression and to a path of self-betterment. 2019 statistics show that Africa’s population stood at 1,3 billion with a combined nominal GDP of US$2,58 trillion and a healthy 3,7% growth rate. This stood firmly abreast of fellow rising economies like India with the exact same population count and a GDP of US$3,2 trillion and Brazil with its nominal GDP of US$2 trillion. However, in 2020 the pandemic took a toll on African lives and economies as economic activity declined by a projected 3,3%, confirming the region’s first recession in 25 years. The substantial downturn in economic activity cost the region at least US$115 billion this year, in part caused by depressed domestic consumption and competition as investments were divested to measures for mitigating the spread of the coronavirus. This situation could also push up to approximately 40 million people into extreme poverty erasing at least five years of progress in fighting poverty. Similarly, COVID-19 could set back progress in building human capital, as school closures continue to affect nearly 253 million students, potentially causing losses in learning which does not bode well for the continent’s future. The full implementation of the AfCFTA will certainly stem a downward trajectory by progressively eliminating tariffs on intra-African trade, making it easier for African businesses to trade within the continent and benefit from the growing African market. Africa, being a diverse continent fragmented into 54 States which are organised into trade blocs and associations under the African Union as members, will necessarily morph into a single business entity, or as close to one as anyone can hope for such a heterogeneous cocktail of diverse people. COVID-19 aside, the continent already faced a myriad of social, economic, and political challenges weakening current African trading blocs and their ability to promote integration and intra-trade among each other. The share of intra-African exports among constituent countries (trade among each other) as a percentage of total exports out of the African continent was still a miniscule 17% as at 2017, which remains low compared to levels in Europe (69%), Asia (59%), and North A
In May, Burundi held a presidential election which was won by Evariste Ndayishimiye, candidate of the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy - Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) party.
Ndayishimiye was hurriedly sworn in after the untimely death of president Pierre Nkurunziza in June.
Rights violations continue
The Council encouraged donor countries which had suspended aid to Burundi to continue dialogue towards resumption of development assistance.
A report by a UN watchdog in September said human rights violations were still being committed in Burundi, including sexual violence and murder.
The country was plunged into a crisis in April 2015 when Ndayishimiye’s predecessor Pierre Nkurunziza decided to run for a controversial third term, which he ultimately won in July 2015.
His candidature, which was opposed by the opposition and civil society groups, resulted in a wave of protests, violence and even a failed coup in May 2015.
Hundreds of people were killed and over 300,000 fled to neighboring countries.
On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in as the President and Vice President of the United States of America. For the monumental event, Burna Boy's 'Destiny,' a song about the power of providence and divination is part of the 46-track playlist. The song dropped off Burna Boy's Grammy-nominated album, African Giant. The playlist was put together by producer and rapper DJ D-Nice and actress Issa Rae’s Raedio, in partnership with the Presidential Inaugural Committee. “During a tumultuous year that has kept so many loved ones apart, music has been a consistent vehicle that has kept us connected,” the chief executive of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, Tony Allen, said. “Whether you are a country soul, a jazz enthusiast, a hip-hop head, a classical sort, or just love that old-time rock and roll, music clarifies, inspires, unites, and heals. “These songs and artists reflect the relentless spirit and rich diversity of America. They are the score to a new chapter and will help bring people together as the Biden-Harris administration begins its important work to unite our country.” Raedio co-founder Benoni Tagoe said: “We know that music has the power to bring people together, and after a year of national challenges and division, we hope this collection serves as an indication of a new beginning, positive change, and a reminder that music of all types is a common language.”- pulse.ng
During the week of the Republican convention fear was a reoccurring theme that never left the stage. Trump has steadfastly avoiding being critical of the recent violence seen in Wisconsin after Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha Police Officer.
The post Trump Brands Black U.S. Senator To Crime And Avoids Denouncing Violence appeared first on The Seattle Medium.
Current incidents of cyber hacking have uncovered how customers haven’t any authorized or technical safety not even the suitable to know when their private particulars have leaked. When was the…
ON Wednesday, Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi told Parliament that government had no immediate plans to abandon the local currency, crashing civil servants’ hopes of having their salaries paid in the more stable United States dollar. NewsDay Comment “Government has no desire to abandon the Zimdollar,” Ziyambi declared, to which Kambuzuma MP Willias Madzimure asked if the minister was aware that shops preferred the greenback to the Zimdollar and that it would be more logical to just dollarise for the benefit of the entire nation. In response, Ziyambi emphatically said: “Let me repeat, government has no plans to abandon use of the Zimdollar and we are working to ensure it is the sole trading currency.” And, indeed, Finance minister Mthuli Ncube made similar indications when he presented the mid-term 2020 budget review statement on Thursday. It is puzzling how the government is burying its head in the sand, refusing to accept the reality on the ground. Maybe government thinks that by awarding its restive employees a US$75 COVID-19 cushioning allowance, which is not even given as hard currency, that should suffice. This ignores the fundamental fact that everyone is living in a hyperinflationary environment driven by a depreciating Zimdollar. Funny enough, even the bureaucrats themselves know that the Zimbabwe dollar no longer holds value, hence the move by other government departments to demand US$ for their services. A case in point is Statutory Instrument 161 of 2020, where government demands that all vehicle number plates be paid for in US$, and the fact that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has ordered all shops to adopt the two-tier pricing system. Another curious thing about President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government is its mantra “Zimbabwe is open for business”. How on earth can the country be said to be open for business when it bans trade on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange for days on end? The happenings on the political, business and economic front could be an indication that the wheels are coming off quickly.
Using violent coercion, ICE agents forced dozens of Cameroonians to sign off on their own deportation, according to lawyers.
Not only has he derided “looters and lowlifes,” but he has also threatened the full force of federal law enforcement to threaten people’s legal right to protest.
There are documented cases of economically envious looting Black communities (Wilmington, Tulsa, Rosewood) because of economic envy, plundering our homes, and then using the power of the majority media to turn a Massacre into a “riot.”
Why don’t you think about the fire that ran people out of Greenwood, the broken windows that destroyed Black presses, the looting that has stolen Black wealth?
Many of the so-called “looters and lowlifes” are descended of enslaved people who have had enough.
I stand with the looters and lowlifes, the people who, in the shadow of the poet Langston Hughes, ask, “What happened to a dream deferred.”
On September 13, 1886, Alexander Crummell preached a sermon at his church, St. Luke’s Church in Washington, D.C. where he challenged many of the prevailing ideas about the importance of classical education. His sermon is reprinted below.
That the soul should be without knowledge is not good.—Prov. 9: 12.
Tomorrow morning we shall witness the reopening of the public schools and the beginning of another years school session. As the training and instruction of our children is a matter of very great interest and importance, I am glad of the opportunity to say a few words upon the whole subject of Common School education.
I need not pause to explain the special significance of the text. It is so plain and apparent that even the youngest can readily take it in, and you, who are their elders, have years ago become familiar with its point and power.
It has had during the last few years a special and peculiar influence upon us as a people. Rarely in the history of man has any people, sitting in the region and shadow of death a people almost literally enveloped in darkness rarely, I say, has any such people risen up from their Egyptian darkness with such a craving for light as the black race in this country.
It has been almost the repetition of the Homeric incident:
Dispel this gloom—the light of heaven restore—
Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.
Almost universal ignorance was the mental condition of the race previous to emancipation. Out of millions of people, not more than 30,000 were allowed an acquaintance with letters. To day, hundreds of schools are in existence, and over a million of our children are receiving the elements of common school education.
The point of interest in this grand fact is that this intellectual receptivity was no tardy and reluctant faculty. Albeit an ignorant people, yet we did not need either to be goaded or even stimulated to intellectual desire. There was no need of any compulsory laws to force our children into the schools. No; the mental appetite of the Negro was like
Former President Bill Clinton and leaders from of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation welcomed Darrin Williams, Speaker Pro-Tem of the Arkansas General Assembly, and Dr. Glendell Jones, Jr., President of Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, as the respective CEO and Governing Board Chair of the nation’s leading rural development financial institution, Southern Bancorp, Inc. The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation hosted the event.
President Clinton’s message, sent from New York, described how Southern is fulfilling the vision that he and then the First Lady of Arkansas Hillary Clinton, along with Rob Walton, Muhammad Yunus, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and others had when they founded Southern Bancorp in 1986 to help generate long-lasting and catalytic investments in rural communities. Attendees also viewed a short video about Southern Bancorp featuring some of its founders, customers and partners. (To view both videos, visit https://banksouthern.com/mission/history.)
Cory Anderson and Dr. Sherece West-Scantlebury of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and Mr. William Buster of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation also congratulated the two for continuing and strengthening Southern’s mission to invest in rural communities and empower the individuals and businesses there to transform those communities for the better. Both foundations are significant shareholders and supporters of Southern. (To view photos from the event, visithttps://banksouthern.com/mission/photos.)
“The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation has been part of Southern Bancorp’s journey since the beginning,” said Dr. West-Scantlebury. “And the addition of this new, vibrant leadership makes us greatly anticipate the road ahead. We look forward to continuing our strong partnership with Southern Bancorp well into the future.”
Williams, an attorney and three-term member of the Arkansas General Assembly where he currently serves as Speaker Pro-Tem, accepted the position of CEO earlier in the year after previously serving as a
