African Leaders speak at U.S.-Africa Business Summit

Rwandan President Paul Kagame — whose government has been voted the top world reformer in the recently published World Bank report Doing Business 2010 — said his government and citizens are working to be the “best we can be” in their quest for prosperity.

“What we have done is what other people can do. It is not magic,” he said. “We have focused on stabilizing our country, making sure there is peace and security … [and] institutions of governance that deliver the public good as required.”

Tunisia ranked first in North Africa on good governance

The third annual report published by the Kennedy School of Governance which is part of Harvard’s school of political sciences, focuses this year on “Strengthening Governance in Africa”. The rankings were established on the basis of 57 indexes of good governance centred on such determinants as security, transparency, rule of law, participation and human rights, economic stability and human development.

Liberia’s Sirleaf demands ECOWAS meeting on Guinea

Liberia’s Sirleaf demands ECOWAS meeting on Guinea Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has called for “an emergency meeting” of the Economic Community of West African States on the crisis in neighbouring Guinea, the government has said. “The president has sent a letter to the ECOWAS for this sub-regional body to convene an emergency meeting to [...]

Polanski, Whoopi and amoral Hollywood’s favorite rapist

Weinstein supported a documentary last year arguing that the real injustice came not from the rape, but from the oppression of Polanski by his prosecutors/persecutors in Los Angeles.
Weinstein compounded the foolishness by circulating a petition of famous directors who’ve joined the protest. Amazingly, the list includes Woody Allen, another famous dirty old man in Hollywood, who scandalously carried on a sexual relationship with an adopted stepdaughter 34 years his junior, and then married her.
Then there’s Whoopi Goldberg, whose defense of Polanski on ABC’s “The View” was that “it wasn’t rape-rape,” since he pleaded guilty to sex with a minor. Earth to Whoopi: It was statutory rape. It was non-consensual. Goldberg claimed everybody needed to wait for facts, even though the facts of the rape are crystal clear, as is the justice this man tried to evade. None of that matters to her.

Literature, Culture and Development: The African Experience

In all of these essays and more, we can readily discern a tentative, but increasingly confident approach towards a definitive statement concerning what Dr. Madubuike was clearly beginning to be convinced was an inevitable linkage between a normative species of African Literature which derived from an authentic elucidation of African cultural values, and the inevitable obligation to fight, through it, for, and promote ‘African development’. Now, ‘African development’, in this context, was not to be construed merely as just a socio-economic term. It is in fact an omnibus term. It implied the cultural and psychological struggle for self-identification in reaction against silly European notions of the non-identity, if you like, of the African person. It implied the political obligation of the African writer, and the critic of his writings, to deploy their talents in support of the struggle to liberate all Africans from their colonial masters. And it also implicated a clear duty, both on the part of the creative writer and of the literary critic of his offerings, to come up with a canonical definition of the Africanness in African literature.

Soccer FIFA Under-20: Ghana vs South Africa on Tuesday

Ghana vs South Africa lock horns on Tuesday in FIFA Under-20 World Cup; certain an African team will qualify for Quarter finals Four African teams are still chasing the elusive FIFA Under-20 World Cup with either Ghana or South Africa good for a quarterfinal berth… The all-African second round clash between Ghana and South Africa means that [...]

Pope launches synod on Africa’s issues until Oct 25

Pope launches synod on Africa’s woes until October 25 Special to USAfricaonline.com Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday celebrated a special mass to open a month-long synod of African bishops to discuss their continent’s conflicts, social injustice and grinding poverty. Saint Peter’s Basilica swelled to the strains of a hymn in the Congolese language Lingala, while [...]

Poetry: The Rainy Season.

USAfricaPOETRY: THE RAINY SEASON By Chris Chinwe Ulasi Special to USAfricaonline.com What’s on your mind, these pelting rains, borne of Nature’s generous appetite, whose wet soul I would like to know? “Will you drown my land under her own teary mist? Will August break come sooner to our rescue? What’s in it for you if [...]

Poetry: The Music in my heart….By Nkem Ekeopara

Download the original attachment 4 poems for publication in Class The Music in my Heart My honey-coated tunes to your ears Come not from the twisting of my tongue Nor from the mere movement of my mouth It is from the heart, my heart Pumping all its fluids, issuing all its feelings In celebration of [...]

Somalia’s president meets with members of Minnesota’s Somali community; warns radical recruiters here in U.S

Speaking through an interpreter, President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed said the problems in Somalia are not clans fighting each other, but rather a “foreign idea” trying to take hold. A group called al-Shabab, which the U.S. says has ties to al-Qaida, is leading much of the fighting in Somalia. As many as 20 young Somali men from Minnesota are believed to have traveled to Somalia to fight. Three have died. Ahmed plans to head to Chicago and Columbus, Ohio, after Minnesota.

USAfricaonline.com goes richly interactive with new look, content….

“The importance of this latest interactive re-positioning of USAfricaonline.com is to fully tap into the advantages of the digital world to benefit our community and readers. With this initiative, USAfrica advances, further, the immigrant African views and news into the international media and public policy mainstream. It leverages the global resources of USAfrica, again, into the electronic frontline of critically informed, responsible discourse and seasoned reportage of African and American interests as well as debating relevant issues of disagreement”, notes Chido Nwangwu, the Founder & Publisher of USAfricaonline.com, AchebeBooks.com, The Black Business Journal, USAfrica.TV and CLASSmagazine.

Rio de Janeiro wins bid for 2016 Olympic Games..

‘Hosting the Olympic Games should not be a privilege for rich countries,’ Lula said recently in New York. In that sentence, the Brazilian synthesized all his shrewdness, in the effort to help Rio de Janeiro get past Chicago – as well as Madrid and Tokyo – in the race to host the 2016 Olympics.
The world’s tenth-largest economy, Brazil is not a poor country, although it is inhabited by legions of poor people. But playing the ‘third world’ card still pays off at an IOC in which anti-US feelings are rife even in the ‘Obama era.’