It’s been a tumultuous month for France and its relationship with former colonies in Africa, as its influence on the continent faces the biggest challenge in decades.As Paris was devising a new military strategy that would sharply reduce its permanent troop presence in Africa, two of its closest allies struck a double blow.The government of Chad, considered France’s most stable and loyal partner in Africa, announced on its Independence Day it was ending defense cooperation to redefine its sovereignty.And in an interview published hours later by Le Monde, Senegal’s new president said it was “obvious” that soon French soldiers wouldn’t be on Senegalese soil.“Just...
Amazon Workers Are Striking At Multiple Delivery Hubs Over Higher Wages And Better Safe Working Conditions.
Amazon workers affiliated with the Teamsters union launched a strike at seven of the company’s delivery hubs less than a week before Christmas.The Teamsters said the workers, who voted to authorize strikes in recent days, joined picket lines on Thursday after Amazon ignored a Sunday deadline the union had set for contract negotiations.The company says it doesn’t expect the strike to impact holiday shipments.Amazon has a couple hundred employees at each delivery station. The Teamsters mainly have focused on organizing delivery drivers, who work for contractors that handle package deliveries for the company. But Amazon has rebuffed demands to come to the negotiating table since it doesn’t...
Police Brutality: NPF Assault and Lock up Legal Practitioner over His Client Failed Health
Public interest and human rights lawyer Inibehe Effiong narrated police brutality that his colleague, Ernest Okpaga suffered for representing a client whose offense is yet to be known.Effiong said his colleague had gone to the station upon being summoned by the personnel that they are ready to take his client’s statement and Okpaga had gone to the station, however he suffered assault and brutality.@InibeheEffiong post read: “My colleague, Ernest Okpaga, Esq., a member of the legal team representing Abiodun Thomas was dragged, beaten mercilessly and disgraced thoroughly by policemen at the Nigeria Police Force National Cyber Crime Centre (NPF-NCCC) in...
School Official Reveals Wisconsin 15-Year-Old Shooter Was New Student At Christian School.
A school official on Thursday disclosed that the Wisconsin 15-year-old shooter was only in her first semester at the school but seemed to be settling in.Abundant Life Christian School student Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14, of Madison and teacher Erin West, 42, of DeForest were killed Monday by the minor. Two other students who were shot remained hospitalized Thursday in critical condition.Barbara Wiers, the school’s director for elementary and communications, told The Associated Press that the attack lasted eight minutes. She said the community’s faith and connection to one another has sustained them as they struggle with the possibility that the...
Democratic Republic Of Congo Narrows Mysterious Illness Down to Severe Malaria
The illness Health officials in Africa regarded as ‘Disease X’ and sometimes called mysterious due to the unexplainable deaths in Democratic Republic of Congo has been narrowed down to severe form of malaria.According to Africa CDC, the mysterious sickness, for weeks has killed at least 37 people and sickened 592, while local authorities previously told Reuters that the death toll exceeded 140.The Africa CDC said Thursday that lab tests of samples taken from 51 people suggest that a malaria outbreak may be behind the cases. Concurrent health issues among the population, such malnutrition and known viral infections, could exacerbate the illnesses.“The diagnosis...
Video: Timi Dakolo Shares His Love Story
The winner of the inaugural season of Idols West Africa in 2007 and song-writer Timi Dakolo in an interview explained how he met his wife in church.He narrated how he got her number, called and called while she refused to pick, then, tried to friend zone him.Yet, he was doing boyfriend duties for her, and anytime he went to pick her or drop her with the Picanto he won from Nigerian Idol, she would ask him to park it far away so that people won’t associate her with him with it.He sighed and said “that girl suffered me”.However critics didn’t...
CNN Clarifies Report On Its Freed Syrian Prisoner Coverage
CNN is acknowledging that a gripping story it aired last week depicting a Syrian man being let free from a Damascus prison after the fall of dictator Bashar Assad’s regime was not what it seemed.The network said that it has since found out that the man shown in correspondent Clarissa Ward’s report, which initially aired on Dec. 11, apparently gave a false identity.“This moment captures the complexity of the situation in Syria,” CNN’s Jake Tapper said on Tuesday.In the report, Ward was being escorted by a Syrian rebel through a prison that had been run by the Syrian Air Force intelligence services and...
Fiji’s Tourism Minister, Viliame R. Gavoka Confirms Foreign Tourist Full Recovery, Says They Were Not Poisoned By Alcohol
Officials revealed on Wednesday that the Seven foreign tourists who were hospitalized in Fiji after drinking cocktails at a resort bar were not poisoned by alcohol or illicit drugs.According to Fiji’s Tourism Minister, Viliame R. Gavoka the cause of the tourists’ illness over the weekend remains under investigation.“I can confirm that no illicit substances or methanol were found in the ingredients or liquor samples.“The findings that there is no evidence of alcohol poisoning is great news for Fiji, especially for our vital tourism industry,” Gavoka told reportersAll seven tourists have since fully recovered, he said.They became ill at the five-star Warwick...
Court Sentence All 51 Men to Imprisonment in Drug and Rape Trial of Gisèle Pelicot
Gisèle Pelicot spoke of her “very difficult ordeal” after 51 men were all found guilty Thursday in the drugging-and-rape trial that turned her into a feminist hero, expressing support for other victims of sexual violence whose cases don’t get such attention and “whose stories remain untold.”“I want you to know that we share the same fight,” she said in her first words after the court in the southern French city of Avignon handed down prison sentences ranging from three to 20 years in the shocking case that stunned France and spurred a national reckoning about the blight of rape culture.As campaigners against...