Most Popular Articles

• Mugabe under house arrest as military takes control

  Nov 15, 2017 by Admin / 904 Views

  

  Zimbabwe's military was in control of the country on Wednesday as President Robert Mugabe said he was under house arrest and his generals denied staging a coup.

  Mugabe's decades-long grip on power appeared to be slipping as armoured military vehicles blockaded parliament, soldiers took up positions at strategic points across Harare and senior soldiers commandeered state television to broadcast a late-night address.

  "The president... and his family are safe and sound and their security is guaranteed," Major General Sibusiso Moyo said late Tuesday.

  "We are only targeting criminals around him who are committing crimes... As soon as we have accomplished our mission we expect that the situation will return to normalcy."

  AFP/File / Jekesai NJIKIZANAThe ruling ZANU-PF party accused army chief General Constantino Chiwenga of "treasonable conduct" after he criticised President Robert Mugabe for sacking vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa. 
  

  Moyo added: "This is not a military takeover of government".

  Their shock announcement was later followed by heavy gunfire close to the 93-year-old president's private residence, and prompted angry responses from around the world.

  Mugabe later told South African President Jacob Zuma that he was effectively under house arrest -- though unharmed. Several supporters of Mugabe and his wife Grace are reportedly in military custody.

  Pretoria said it would deploy a military and intelligence delegation to Harare to help broker a resolution to the crisis on behalf of southern Africa's regional bloc.

  The Southern African Development Community said it would hold an emergency meeting in Botswana on Thursday to discuss the situation.

  South Africa, the European Union, the United Nations and Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial master, all called for restraint.

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• Kobe Bryant's foundation gave at least $1M to build Museum of African American History

  Jan 29, 2020 by Admin / 899 Views

  

  The Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation is listed on the museum's website as one of the founding donors to the museum.

  Founding donors are "donors who make a commitment of $1 million or more to the National Museum of African American History and Culture prior to its opening in 2016."

  “I will tell you what moved me more than anything else is my memory of Kobe coming to all the opening events around the museum and the fact that he was so generous with his time," said Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian Instutition. "He would stop and talk to people, he would let everybody take pictures with him. He never let them forget they were there to celebrate the museum.”

  After the museum opened in 2016, Bryant said, “Go see this museum. There is no greater testament to this country than the stories in this building. Honored to be part of it.”

  Some Bryant memorabilia is on display at the museum, including a uniform and a 2002 photo of him. The uniform was donated by Bryant himself.

  “I was right near the sports area in the museum [when I found out], and we had just watched a clip of President Obama saying, ‘Obama out,’ which was him imitating Kobe Bryant, so it was sad and poignant," said Jackie Laughlin, another visitor to the museum.

   

  

  Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Kobe Bryant

   

   

   

  

  Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Walter Iooss

   

   

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• Stunned Zimbabweans face uncertain future without Mugabe

  Nov 16, 2017 by Admin / 892 Views

  

  Zimbabweans were weighing an uncertain future without President Robert Mugabe Thursday after the army took power and placed the 93-year-old veteran, once seen as a liberation hero, under house arrest.

  Most people in the country have not known a time without Mugabe, who has been at the epicentre of public life since coming to power in 1980 on the country's independence from Britain.

  The nation was left stunned after the ailing leader was confined to his residence late Tuesday as soldiers took up positions at strategic points across Harare and senior officers commandeered state television.

  AFP/File / Jekesai NJIKIZANARobert Mugabe took power in Zimbabwe after its independence from Britain in 1980
  

  The Southern African Development Community bloc, currently chaired by Zimbabwe's powerhouse neighbour South Africa, was to meet in Botswana later Thursday to discuss the dramatic situation.

  And though nothing has been heard from Mugabe or his wife Grace directly since the start of the army operation, many Zimbabweans are hopeful that the crisis will mark the beginning of a more prosperous future.

  AFP / Jean Michel CORNU, Vincent LEFAIZimbabwe's Robert Mugabe

  "Our economic situation has deteriorated every day -- no employment, no jobs," Tafadzwa Masango, a 35-year-old unemployed man, told AFP.

  "We hope for a better Zimbabwe after the Mugabe era. We feel very happy. It is now his time to go."

  Harare's residents have largely ignored the military presence on the streets and continued commuting, socialising and working much as normal, while analysts speculated that Mugabe and the army could be negotiating a transition.

  - 'The demise of Robert' -

  Derek Matyszak, an analyst at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, said he expects Mugabe and the military are thrashing out a handover to a new head of state.

  "I think Mugabe can still stay in the country. I think they would like to present him as a liberation icon and accord him due respect.

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• Congo asks companies to block social media before anti-Kabila protests

  Dec 18, 2016 by Admin / 891 Views

  

  KINSHASA (Reuters) - Authorities in Democratic Republic of Congo have asked telecoms companies to block social media networks from Monday, apparently to thwart protests against plans by President Joseph Kabila to stay in power beyond the end of his mandate.

  Providers including Vodacom, Orange and Airtel did not immediately comment on whether they would comply, but one industry executive said all companies had signed an agreement to respect national security injunctions.

  The country's top court has extended Kabila's tenure beyond the end of his two-term limit in the wake of a deal between the government and some opposition leaders to delay a vote in November to choose a successor until April 2018.

  The government blocked social media networks and the Internet during protests in January 2015, justifying the measure as necessary to prevent rumours that could fuel violence. Human rights groups criticized the decision.

  Kabila took power in 2001 and a campaign by the opposition to force him to step down has led to years of sporadic demonstrations and arrests. More than 50 died in protests in September and a similar number died in January 2015.

  The request to block social media was made in a letter by the Regulatory Authority of the Post and Telecommunications of Congo (ARPTC), a copy of which was seen by Reuters. It listed Facebook, Twitter, Skype, YouTube and LinkedIn as services that should be blocked temporarily.

  The government spokesman and telecommunications minister could not immediately be reached for comment.

  In November, police in Kinshasa fired tear gas to disperse opposition supporters seeking to defy a ban on public protests and rally against Kabila, and the signals of two radio broadcasters were disabled.

  Opposition leaders called new protests for this month.

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• Two Christian Aid Workers Executed In Nigeria

  Jan 28, 2020 by Admin / 890 Views

  

  JOS, Nigeria (BP) -- Islamic extremist group Boko Haram reportedly released a video last week showing the execution of two Christian aid workers in Nigeria.
  
  Lawrence Duna Dacighir and Godfrey Ali Shikagham, both members of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) in Plateau state, are shown kneeling while three masked, armed men stand behind them in a video posted Sept. 22 on Boko Haram's Amaq news agency site. The two young men, who had gone to Maiduguri to help build shelters for people displaced by Islamic extremist violence, are then shot from behind.
  
  Speaking in the Hausa language, one of the three terrorists says in the video that they have vowed to kill every Christian they capture in revenge for Muslims killed in past religious conflicts in Nigeria.
  Dacighir and Shikagham, originally from Plateau state's Mangu County, were captured by Boko Haram, now called the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), as they carried out their work in displaced persons camps.
  
  Ethnic and religious tensions resulted in large-scale clashes between Muslims and Christians in Jos in 2001 and 2008.
  
  It is not clear from the video, temporarily posted on YouTube, when the two men were executed. Their identities were confirmed by a relative, John Pofi, a COCIN pastor.
  Pastor Pofi, a cousin of the two executed Christians, told Morning Star News in a text message statement also shared with others that the two Plateau state natives had gone to Maiduguri from Abuja.
  
  "Lawrence and Godfrey left Abuja for Maiduguri in search of opportunities to utilize their skills for the betterment of humanity and paid with their lives," Pofi said. "We will never get their corpses to bury. The community will have to make do with a makeshift memorial to these young lives cut short so horrifically."
  
  Pastor Pofi noted, "We must ask ourselves if this is the kind of country we want where young men who are earning an honest living are brutally killed while those who abduct and kill others are invited to dialogue with government and paid handsomely," he said.
  
  In a letter last week to the United Nations secretary general, attorney Emmanuel Ogebe of the U.S.- Nigeria Law Group, a legal consulting firm with an emphasis on human rights, expressed concern that the Nigerian government did not condemn the killing of the two men even though they were helping to provide shelter for displaced

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