New British leader’s disturbing remarks recalled by African media outlets
GINNEWS (GIN)–African media greeted the new British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, by recalling some of particularly cringe-worthy remarks made during his formative years in politics. The new Conservative Party leader has a history of gaffes involving Kenya and Africa, having once attacked Barack Obama saying the “part-Kenyan president” had an “ancestral dislike of the British Empire” after he removed a bust...
‘Pink Tax’ costly for African females needing personal care products
@jehronmuhammad While South Africa and Tanzania, facing increased “global” scrutiny in 2018 removed their tax on women's sanitary pads, the government of the East African country re-introduced the tax while unveiling its budget, according to the Daily Nation. This taxation of menstrual products has intensified menstruation stigma and has been especially “punishing to girls from low-income homes who have...
Venezuela – past and present
I remember so many wonderful things about the place I was born. I would travel back to Venezuela with my mother—the entrepreneur who would go down to sell the latest fashions she bought in Miami or New York. My father worked for an airline in those years so, flying back and forth was a constant. We had moved to...
France, U.S. strike different notes in Africa
GINNEWS (GIN)–There were smiles all around in Kenya as French President Emmanuel Macron and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta shook hands over a series of infrastructure deals worth $3.3 billion. It was the third stop on the French president's East African charm offensive–and the first-ever visit to Kenya by a French head of state. France wants trade and commercial relationships that are “fair...
Cold War is good for business
By RT.com U.S. contractors rejoice at the new Red Scare U.S. politicians and media peddling scary stories about Russia and China may have a more pedestrian motive than defending “American values and way of life”–a return to the halcyon days of the Cold War and the Pentagon gravy train. If there's one thing mainstream Democrats and Republicans agree upon, it's that...
Nigeria’s president battles chief judge over millions in unexplained funds
GINNEWS (GIN)–Efforts to clean up government–difficult in the best of times–were hamstrung by none other than Nigeria's top judge accused of failing to declare hundreds of thousands of dollars that “suspiciously” appear in his accounts but were never declared as required by law. President Muhammadu Buhari, who has often accused the judiciary of frustrating his anti-corruption fight, defended his announced suspension...
Income inequality fueling backlash and elites are worried
GINNEWS (GIN)–The rich are getting richer, businesses are thriving, but it's hard not to notice that discontent is growing among the expanding poor and middle class and could soon pose a threat to the well-to-do. At the exclusive World Economic Forum, an annual event held in Davos, Switzerland, income inequality was the talk among many corporate leaders, and the good jobs...
Uproar Over Expulsion Of Famed Anti-Colonialist Professor
GINNEWS (GIN)–China's influence in Africa has some leaders trying hard to please their new, rich and seemingly generous foreign partners. Recently, Zambian authorities roiled the nation's waters by deporting an influential pan- Africanist professor before he could disembark at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport and before he could address a class of graduating university seniors on the topic: “Africa in the age...
Brazil museum tallies up African antiquities lost in fire
GINNEWS (GIN)–A fast-moving fire that swept Brazil's National Museum on Sept. 2 incinerated priceless objects and reduced hundreds of African antiquities to ash, museum officials are now saying. The museum's permanent African exhibit was named Kumbukumbu–a Swahili word for the memory of people, objects and experiences. A throne from the Kingdom of Dahomey (current-day Benin) and ritual objects of Afro-Brazilian...
Nation faced with rising suicides among young and old
GINNEWS (GIN)–South Africa's rising suicide rate is in the spotlight as the World Health Organization marks World Suicide Prevention Day. According to the Men's Foundation of South Africa, 450 men take their lives every month with four out of five deaths being the result of suicide. In August, Professor Bongani Mayosi succumbed to the pressures of being one of the few Blacks...