USAfricaonline.com, 1st African-owned U.S.-based professional newspaper on the internet, assessed by The New York Times as the largest (and arguably the most influential) African-owned, U.S-based multimedia networks; established May 1992. News@USAfricaonline.com 713-270-5500. wireless: 832-45-CHIDO (24436)
USAfricaonline.com notes that Cameroon’s President Paul Barthélemy Biya’a bi Mvondo was born on February 13, 1933, and has remained the maximum ruler via controversial elections since November 6, 1982.
Wallstrom called it a “horrific spree of rape, pillage and shooting.” The UN mission in DR Congo has said it is investigating to see whether UN peacekeepers in the region could have done more to prevent the rapes.
Wallstrom said many of the women were deliberately sexually assaulted in front of their families or all members of their village as a move “to put fear into society.”
The victim, Jhalil Tafawa Balewa, said he was kidnapped from his office and taken to a hilly countryside where he was left in the rain. He escaped by himself and was walking to freedom when he saw policemen swarming the entire place not knowing that they were looking for him. A kidnap suspect Adamu Adamu, a student of College of Education, Minna, said he was lured into the act by friends.
Somali man pleads guilty to attacking U.S warship Special to USAfricaonline.com A Somali man pleaded guilty on Friday at a federal court in the US state of Virginia to criminal charges related to an attack on a US warship off the coast of Africa in April, according to the US Department of Justice. The Somali, [...]
SEX TRAFFICKING of Nigerians across west Africa increases, latest Human Rights Watch report. Special to USAfrica, USAfricaonline.com and CLASSmagazine (Houston) By Chido Nwangwu wt HRW investigations http://www.usafricaonline.com/2010/08/27/sex-trafficking-westafrica-hrw2010-chido An 18-year-old Nigerian woman said that the woman who trafficked her two years ago enticed her to leave Nigeria with promises to learn to be a hairdresser. Another [...]
The State of Maryland Medical Examiner Donna Vincenti, MD, informed USAfricaonline.com that Ms. Chinwe Ogbonna died of “natural cause.” She was very polite but reluctant to offer any details. She told USAfrica that “in several weeks, a final official report will be released”. USAfricaonline.com can also report that the official records of her identification were neither Chinwe Masi nor Chinwe Mazi but Chinwe Ogbonna.
POLITICAL KIDNAPPING: 10-year-old son of Nigerian PDP politician abducted by gunmen; draws major concern. Special to USAfricaonline.com Gunmen have abducted the 10-year-old son of a Nigerian politician planning to run for a seat in upcoming National Assembly elections, a government spokesman has said. The kidnapping occurred in the northern Nigerian city of Bauchi, an area [...]
“Although he (Prof. Okafor) is our son, according to our Onitsha custom, he committed an abomination and cannot be buried at home in Onitsha”, said one of the cultural leaders of Onitsha who chatted with me/USAfricaonline.com with a request for anonymity given the sensitive nature of the issues. The repeated, summary phrase from the Onitsha indigenes at home and abroad whom I spoke with is: abomination! The question, then remained, what do they do next, back home? Refuse him burial at home in Onitsha? Or give him a less than significant, less than standard transition for an Onitsha son and scholar of Prof. Okafor’s pre-murder-suicide status?
TRAGEDY: Prof. Okafor shoots his wife, self dead in murder-suicide in U.S. Special to USAfricaonline.com, Nigeria360 e-group, IgboEvents e-group and CLASSmagazine, Houston. One of world’s leading poets of Nigerian descent Prof. Chukwudubem (Dubem) Agha Okafor, 64, shot his wife, Cheryl V. Okafor, 37, then turned the gun on himself after an argument inside his relative’s [...]
Indefinite STRIKE across South Africa over wages begins…. by Fanuel Jongwe Fanuel Jongwe/AFP in Johannesburg. More than a million South African public servants went on strike Wednesday, warning that their increasingly bitter standoff with the government will continue until their wage demands are met. “The strike is indefinite. It will go on until there has [...]
South African opposition parties formalize merger against Zuma’s ANC Special to USAfricaonline.com AFP, JOHANNESBURG — South Africa’s main opposition Democratic Alliance announced on Sunday it had signed a merger agreement with fellow opposition party the Independent Democrats. The agreement between Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Helen Zille and Independent Democrats (ID) president Patricia de Lille aims [...]
Gambia is regularly criticised for its lack of media freedom.
Amnesty International said earlier this year in a report that a government crackdown on press freedom had seen about 29 journalists flee the country since 1994.
In December 2004, The Point’s editor Deyda Hydara, who was also an AFP correspondent in the small west African country, was gunned down by unidentified gunmen in his car. Six other journalists have simply disappeared in recent years.
“Respecting the fact that President Barack Obama and the New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg must defend the constitution which they swore to do on taking office, but the question is which comes first in their line of defense, the constitution or the people? Or let us put it differently, if the constitution as the legal instrument of the state and the citizens come under attack at the same time, which should be saved first by these officials? The constitution is made to protect the wishes of the people in a democracy and not the people to protect the constitution to the detriment of their feelings and well-being.”
“Nineteen dead bodies have so far been recovered while 12 others were rescued alive,” said Abuja police spokesman Abass Jimoh.
Mia Farrow, August 9: ‘(Campbell) was quite excited and said in effect, “Oh my God, in the middle of the night I was awoken by knocking at the door and it was men sent by Charles Taylor and he sent me a huge diamond.”‘
Some of those charged are believed to be in Somalia fighting for the Shebab, which has claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in Uganda last month.
Holder said four separate indictments unsealed in various locations charge the 14 “with terrorism violations for providing money, personnel, and services” to the group.
“If you think about it, back in the 1960s, when your grandparents, great-grandparents, were fighting for independence, the first leaders, they all said that they were for democracy,” Obama — the first African-American US president — said at the gathering on Africa’s next half century.
South Africa removes recognition of six traditional kings. By Jean-Jacques Cornish (AFP) PRETORIA — President Jacob Zuma announced Thursday July 29, that South Africa would stop recognising half the nation’s traditional kings and queens, dismissing them as artificial creations of the apartheid regime. The announcement came after a six-year government study into the traditional monarchies, [...]
Obama to hold forum with African youth from August 3-5, 2010 in Washington DC Special to USAfrica, and CLASSmagazine Houston. By Chido Nwangwu, USAfricaonline.com. A group of 100 young African leaders, mainly from the private sector and civil society, will be hosted by the U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington DC as part of the [...]
Influential U.S Congressman Hon. Al Green of the Homeland Security and Financial Services committee who has attended some of the USAfrica Best of Africa events in Houston notes that “Chido and the team at USAfrica really do a first-class job of promoting with class and deep knowledge, the interests of Africans and Americans. Chido’s a great credit to journalism and our communities.”
