African Cultural Winter Celebration, hosted by REACH Multicultural Family Center (MFC)

By Jenny Francis The Afro News Burnaby

An important community event took place at Eastburn Community Centre in Burnaby on 12 December 2009. The 3rd annual African Cultural Winter Celebration, hosted by REACH Multicultural Family Center (MFC) brought together approximately two hundred people from all over the world. Following prayers in Arabic and English, guests enjoyed a delicious halal meal prepared by Iraqi and African women, musical entertainment by the Togolese Ensemble and Zion’s Children of God (from Congo), and inspired storytelling by Jean-Pierre Makosso. Welcoming speeches were offered by guests of honour including NDP MP Peter Julian; Burnaby City Counsellors Sav Dhaliwal and Paul McDonell; Ros Salvador, a lawyer with the BC Public Interest Advocacy Centre; and Lina Fabiano, interim Executive Director of REACH Community Health Centre. After the performances, a crowd of adults and children hit the dance floor, shaking it to the sound of DJ beats. At the end of the night, laundry baskets filled with donated gifts were distributed to sixty-five families and individuals. Guests and organisers expressed their appreciation for the generosity of the donors (local businesses and individuals) who contributed items to the baskets.

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Author Beth Rowles Scott Photo By Michael Moster

Helena Kaufman The Afro News Vancouver

In the midst of a book detailing the life journey of a Canadian woman from girlhood to unexpected gratification, lies a formula for happiness. It is nestled in the chapters of “Pinch Me, A Long Walk From Home”, a first volume of stories by author Beth Rowles Scott. Extraordinarily readable and engaging, the segments detail her life path from being a self described fat little girl on the Saskatchewan prairie to her move to maturity in British Columbia. Finally, there is an unplanned adventure that would prove to reinvigorate and redesign her own life, and that of thousands of others, through her work in Kenya.

“Like beads in a bowl,” as Beth characterizes her chapters, she gathered up a life story that informs and inspires. “Pinch Me” contrasts how she felt as a child and how she feels now. For a long time she felt she was that young fat girl, despite external growth and achievement. It could have slowed her down that self image. She could perhaps have limited herself by her environment and her body. Today in her daily life and throughout her book, Beth looks at all the blessings in her life and opportunities and thinks, “Pinch me, is it real?”

Stages

Satisfaction surrounds Beth as she looks back on an amazing life, but to the reader she represents hope. Following the formula she discovered for herself at a very young age, the reader is given privy to possibility. Any aspirations it seems can come true and pay off in current and ongoing achievement – even for late bloomers. For Beth, happiness is comprised of the life guiding elements of ‘Someone to Love, Something to Do, Something to Look Forward To.”

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SPECIAL INTERVIEW (Part 3)   Development/Africa

Prof. George Ayittey

Kofi Akosah-Sarpong continues his discussions with Prof. George Ayittey on his argument that US President Barack Obama’s Accra proclamation that Africa’s future is in Africans hands is an “intellectual vindication” for the “Internalist School” of African development

Q. Did the “Internalist School” demonstrate that African intellectuals have finally come out with an African-centred development paradigm, filling a long-running vacuum in this regard?

The internalist orthodoxy and the Africa-centered development paradigm are two separate animals, although they are somewhat related. The development paradigm refers more to development that benefits Africa and not metropolitan Europe. Recall that under colonialism, the colonies were expected to be purveyors of raw materials and labor for Europe’s industrial machines. That was a Euro-centric development model. The internalist orthodoxy, by contrast, deals with the causes of Africa’s crises. Now, it is possible to expand the internalist orthodoxy into development modeling by insisting that the model should not only be Africa-centered but also draw its inputs from Africa, which I tried to do when I coined the express “African solution for Africa’s problems” in 1994. For far too long, African leaders sought external solutions – from the World Bank, Western donors and the international community – for their development problems. They also copied too many foreign models – for example, the “Asian model.” They should be developing their own “African model.” Such a model can be found on the African continent itself —in Botswana.

Q. “I listened to Obama’s speech with a bemused sense of vindication. To many of us, what he was saying was not new. We have known of these “self-evident truths” for decades – just that we were afraid to say so openly or publicly.” You wrote this at www.ghanaweb.com (2009-07-20). Why were African elites, civil societies and the Western world afraid to campaign this aloud as it confirms your “African solution for African problems” paradigm?In the West, political correctness or racial over-sensitivity has shielded African leaders. Whites are reluctant to criticize black African leaders for fear of being labeled racist. Black Americans, for reasons of racial solidarity, won’t criticize black Africans leaders either. Those Africans like me who publicly criticize African leaders have been pilloried, reviled and denounced as “traitors,” “Uncle Toms,” House niggers” and accused of “washing Africa’s dirty linen in public” and providing “ammunition to racists.” This atmosphere of intimidation and vilification has prevented many Africans in the West from speaking out publicly against atrocities committed by African leaders against their own people. This sort of gives African despots a free pass as they are shielded from criticism from the West, even when muted.

The intellectual environment is even more pernicious in Africa where repression still prevails. Freedom of expression is not tolerated in many African countries. Write something an African government doesn’t like and “poof!” you are either dead or in jail. Take corruption for example. To fight it, it must first be exposed. “He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured,” says an Ethiopian proverb. Yet, for much of the postcolonial period, exposing a problem in Africa has almost always been impossible because of censorship, brutal suppression of dissent, and state ownership or control of the media. Corrupt and incompetent governments deny or conceal their embarrassing failings (abuse of power, looting and atrocities) until the problems blow up in their faces. But by then it was too late to solve them. As Adam Feinstein, editor of the monthly publication of the International Press Institute put it: “The press is always a first scapegoat of governments. They can’t blame themselves, so they have to blame somebody else” (The Washington Post, April 6, 1995, A15). Examples abound in Africa:

• On April 22, 2003, Mozambique’s Supreme Court president, Mario Mangaze sued the weekly newspaper, Zambeze, for libel after it alleged that he had tried to intervene in the decision of a lower court in return for gifts of land in Maputo province. Mangaze’s lawyer accused the paper of failing to check its sources. But the newspaper director, “Salomao Moyana said officials had told his reporters that ‘affairs of a state institution are not discussed in the press’” (Index on Censorship, July 2003; p.154).

• On May 5, 2003, the weekly Le Temps in Gabon was suspended for three months after publishing an article about state mismanagement of funds (Index on Censorship, July 2003; p.146).

African governments always want to hide the truth and keep their people in the dark. Teeming with barbarous dictators, Africa is now a continent where freedom of expression, freedom of the press and the free flow of information are most restricted. In its Freedom of the Press Report, 2007, Freedom House noted that free news media exist in only 8 African countries: Benin, Botswana, Cape Verde Islands, Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Sao Tome & Principe, and South Africa. In Equatorial Guinea, the people “can choose among two TV and two radio stations — in both cases the government operates one and Teodoro Obiang (the president) the other. There are no daily newspapers, and the few publications that do circulate offer fawning praise of the regime” (The Nation, April 22, 2002; p.18).

Due to the explosion in the number of satellite dishes, electronic communications (fax machines, the internet, e-mail, etc.), much more information is now available in Africa. The new technology has severely crippled the ability of African dictators to control the flow of information and keep their people in the dark. In their desperate attempts to retain control, corrupt African despots resorted to defamation or libel suits, heavy fines and assassinations. The new tactic is that private newspapers are allowed to operate — hence, there is a “free press.” But publish an offending article and a newspaper can be slapped with a huge fine that makes it impossible to continue operation. Private newspapers that are courageous enough to expose problems of corruption are often shut down and their editors either jailed or murdered. Perhaps a quick tour of Africa would be instructive about the fate of journalists who attempted to expose corruption:

• Angola: BBC reporter Gustavo Costa was slapped with a defamation suit in June 1994 by oil minister Albna Affis after filing stories about government corruption. On 18 January 1995 Ricardo de Melo, the editor of the Luanda-based Impartial Fax, was killed for writing stories about official corruption. On April 13, 2000, Angolan news editor Graca Campos and editor Americo Goncalves were sentenced to 4 months and 3 months in prison respectively and ordered to pay $40,000 compensation for a series of articles published in 1998 and 1999 in their paper, Angolense, which described Kwanza-Norte governor Manuel Pedro Pakavita as “incompetent” (Index On Censorship, 3/2000; p.86).

• Burkina Faso: The Independent Commission of Inquiry investigating the death of journalist Norbert Zongo on Dec 13, 1998 concluded on May 7, 1999 that Zongo was “assassinated for purely political motives because he practiced investigative journalism.” He was investigating allegations of corruption among the ruling elite. The Commission’s 35-page report released a list of “likely culprits,” including six soldiers from the President’s security regiment (Index on Censorship, July/August 1999; p.130).

• Cameroon: Emmanuel Noubissie Ngankam, director of the independent Dikalo was given a one-year suspended sentence, fined CFA 5 million ($8,800), and ordered to pay CFA 15 million in damages after publishing an article alleging that the former minister of public works and transportation had expropriated property in the capital Yaounde. Also in Cameroon, staff at two other newspapers, La Nouvelle Expression and Galaxie, were sued for defamation by Augustin Frederick Kodock, state planning and regional development minister, over newspaper articles alleging that the minister’s private secretary had embezzled large sums of money. Then “the Cameroonian newspaper which reported President Biya’s marriage to a 24-year-old has been suspended by the government. When Perspectives-Hebdo ran the story on March 17, 1994, police quickly seized all available copies. Joseph-Marie Besseri, the publisher, said the official reason for the ban was failure to show the edition to censors before distribution, as the law requires. He denies the charge (African News Weekly, 8 April 1994, 5).

• Kenya: Abraham Kipsang Kiptanui, former controller of State House, was awarded over $250,000 in damages on March 31, 1998, for libel caused by an article published in Target magazine. Kiptanui sued over an article entitled, “Three Billion Shilling Deal Off” (Index On Censorship, May/June, 1998, 113). On March 28, 1996, Kipruto arap Kirwa held a press conference at Kenya’s Parliament Building to complain about the stifling of alternative views with the ruling KANU party: “I had hoped President Moi would, on the basis of his wealth of experience and shrewdness as a political operator and a democrat, albeit reluctant one, find some accommodation [with] those of us with dissenting views. But I have now come to the conclusion that the President is not a democrat of any shade” (The African Observer, 25 April – 8 May 1996, 13). Since he delivered that broadside, Kirwa has not been seen, fueling speculation that he might have paid the penalty reserved for overly outspoken critics of Moi. As mentioned earlier, in 1990 former Foreign Minister Robert Ouko was murdered after threatening to expose corruption in the government.

• Mozambique: Carlos Cardoso, an investigative journalist, was murdered in November 2000 for uncovering a bank scandal in which about $14 million was looted from Mozambique’s largest bank, BCM on the eve of its privatization. The official in charge of banking supervision, Antonio Siba Siba, was also murdered investigating the banking scandals. Cardoso’s six alleged killers were finally put on trial in November 2002. One of them, Manuel dos Anjos, admitted taking part in the killing but claimed to have acted on orders from Nyimpine Chissano, the son of the president of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano (The Economist, Nov 23, 2002; p.45). Nyimpine Chissano has a strange way of warding off inquisitive journalists. In October, 2002, three journalists probing the president’s son were sent dozens of live chickens, allegedly by the president’s wife, Marcelina. “They saw this as a threat (Nyimpine Chissano is known as the `son of the cockerel’)” (The Economist, Nov 23, 2002; p.45).

• Namibia: President Sam Nujoma and Home Affairs Minister Jerry Ekandjo have served separate summonses on the weekly, Windhoek Observer, for defamation and are demanding a total of up to $200,000 in damages. President Nujoma served his summons against editor Hannes Smith on 7 August 1998 and is demanding NR 1 million for a series of articles that accused him of abuse of office, nepotism, criminal conduct and corruption. Ekandjo’s complaint arose from an article which implied that he had abused his position to subvert the rule of law and that he was engaged in corrupt practices (Index On Censorship, November/December 1998, 102).

• Zimbabwe: Although the country is on paper a multi-party democracy, open debate — let alone outright political dissent — has been increasingly discouraged. At the University of Zimbabwe, students and staff have been swatted by riot police with teargas and clubs for complaining about corruption, a growing scourge. [And] three senior journalists at the weekly Financial Gazette, the country’s leading free voice, have been charged with “criminal defamation.” [And] a new law enables Mugabe to sack outspoken board members of any independent charitable organization and replace them with government-blessed appointees” (The Economist, 19 August 1995, 38).

President Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe has launched an all-out war against independent media, using weapons of mass intimidation that range from lawsuits to physical violence. Since January 1999, two local journalists have been tortured and two foreign correspondents expelled, while the secret service screens e-mail and Internet communications to preserve “national security.” Bomb attacks twice damaged the premises of the independent Daily News; the second bombing followed close on the heels of a call from Mugabe’s information minister to silence that paper “once and for all.” Meanwhile, Mugabe makes liberal use of his courts to prosecute independent journalists for criminal defamation (From the web site of Committee to Protect Journalists, www.cpj.org). On April 28, 2000, state-owned media editors were instructed by the Information Minister, Chenhamo Chimutengwende, that “they had an obligation to support and amplify government policy and views without question and to write positive stories about the ruling party and to attack the opposition” (“Zimbabwe Alert: Government Tells state-owned editors to Conform,” www.misanet.org, April 28, 2000).

On January 20, 2003, the office of President Robert Mugabe took control of the country’s forecasting service after learning that the drought-affected country was facing two more years of low rainfall. “The government does not want any information on the weather to be leaked,” an official from the Meteorological Office said. “All our forecasts are to be sent to the president’s office, and only then can they be released” (The Washington Times, January 26, 2003; p. A7). The president’s office was expected to 4 most negative aspects before authorizing their release, the official said. Informed sources said Mr. Mugabe feared that the revelation that no early end to the drought was in sight would heighten discontent at a time when nearly half the country’s 13 million people were starving. Food riots had already erupted in the capital, Harare, and the southwestern city of Bulawayo.

Even the internet is coming under increasing attack by repressive governments. Many governments in Africa (Liberia, Sudan and Zimbabwe) restrict Internet access on the pretext of protecting the public from pornography, subversive material, or violations of national security. To restrict Internet access, governments may require special licensing and regulation of internet use, limit Internet traffic to filtered government servers, remove controversial pages from web sites, and even apply existing press laws to Internet content.

To be sure, the picture is not entirely bleak. Some progress has haltingly been made. In 1985, there were only 10 community broadcasters in the whole of Africa; in 2000 there were more than 300″ (The Economist, May 11, 2002; p.43). But persecution of journalists, harsh press laws and resistance to press freedoms remain. In the beginning of the 21st Century, however, there was a subtle shift from the brutal tactics favored in the past. Africa’s “Big Men” began using new media laws to introduce a subtler form of censorship. “Instead of the heavy-handed ways they used in the past, dictators are using the laws of the country,” said Yves Sorokobi, Africa Programme Coordinator with the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). “They have a lot to hide, they have skeletons in the closet, but they can’t get away with murder” (The Financial Gazette, May 3, 2002).

Recall that in Ghana in the 1990s, human waste was dumped in the offices of the Ghanaian Chronicle, Free Press, and Crusading Guide for publishing articles that displeased the Rawlings regime. It is this kind of intellectual barbarism that prevented Africans from speaking out and also held the internalist orthodoxy in check to the detriment of Africa’s progress. Today, most Africans point to the catastrophic failure of leadership – not external factors — as the primary obstacle holding Africa back.

To be continued

Grammy-Award winning international recording artist Wyclef Jean to promote Western Union Money Transfer

The Western Union Company A leader in the money transfer segment of global payments, officially began its holiday season today by announcing a strategic alliance with multi-platinum Grammy-Award winning international recording artist Wyclef Jean to promote Western Union Money Transfer® to consumers. Western Union’s relationship with Wyclef will be multi-faceted and will include outreach through social media, grassroots events and consumer promotions. To kick-off Western Union’s “Random Acts of Giving” holiday campaign, Western Union, through its corporate signature program Our World, Our Family®, also announced at its U.S. flagship store in Times Square, a $225,000 donation to Wyclef’s charitable organization, Yéle Haiti www.yele.org, to support education projects in his native country of Haiti. Adding to this year’s holiday theme of “Random Acts of Giving,” Western Union is hosting a free ‘Lunchtime Jam Session’ featuring Wyclef and approximately 2,000 New Yorkers at the Nokia Theater in Times Square on November 9, 2009. “I am extremely proud to be part of the Western Union family,” said Wyclef Jean. “For years I have trusted Western Union to help manage my money-transfer needs worldwide.” “Through this relationship, Western Union and I hope to inspire people to lend a helping hand and do a Random Act of Giving this holiday season, whether it’s sending money to family and friends or donating time to a charity or cause.” Stewart A. Stockdale, Executive Vice President and President, The Americas for Western Union, added, “Wyclef’s resounding success in music and philanthropy have made him an icon worldwide. He relates to our brand and is the ideal ambassador to help amplify our message to new consumers with a need to move money around the corner, or the world.” “Through this relationship, we hope to harness Wyclef’s star power to bring the Western Union brand to every home in America and at the same time support social causes both Wyclef Jean and Western Union strongly believe] in and support.” According to a recent Western Union survey conducted by GfK Inc., the spirit of giving is alive and well this holiday season, despite recent recessionary woes. The Western Union survey found nearly 7 out of 10 consumers in the U.S. plan to give cash or prepaid gift cards this holiday season.]Wyclef Jean has numerous music projects he is working on including a mixtape EP set to release on November 10, 2009 entitled DJ Drama Presents Wyclef Jean AKA Toussaint St. Jean “From the Hut, To the Projects, To the Mansion” (Carnival House / MegaForce / RED / Sony Music) and his seventh solo LP entitled “Wyclef Jean” (Carnival House / Columbia / Sony Music) is set to release in March 2010. About Western Union The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a leader in global payment services. Together with its Vigo, Orlandi Valuta and Pago Facil branded payment services, Western Union provides consumers with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, as well as send payments and purchase money orders. Western Union, Vigo and Orlandi Valuta operate through a combined network of more than 400,000 Agent locations in 200 countries and territories. In 2008, The Western Union Company completed 188 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $74 billion of principal between consumers, and 412 million consumer-to-businesstransactions. For more information, visit www.westernunion.com.

About Yéle Haiti Yéle Haiti is a grassroots movement inspiring change in Haiti through programs in education, sports, the arts and environment. Our community service programs include food distribution and mobilizing emergency relief.

Grammy-Award winning musician, humanitarian and Goodwill Ambassador to Haiti Wyclef Jean founded Yéle Haiti in 2005. For more information please go to www.yele.org. To learn more about Wyclef Jean please go to:www.wyclef.com   www.yele.org

Ozone Depletion & Global Warming

By Frank T. Scruggs  M.A.Ph.D. The Afro News USA International

When venturing away from one’s own city, town or village a keen sense of the vastness of the African Diaspora becomes apparent. Even more people of African descent populate our planet when serious consideration is given to Keith O. Hilton’s TALO theory which explores the idea of acknowledged and unacknowledged African people. Black people are everywhere on the planet and yet so many of us think in terms of only what we can readily see from a domestic or local point of view. Changes occurring in populations and the environment combined with political considerations has propelled the transformation of world politics and created a number of global policy issues. These issues affect us as Black people as much as civil, human rights, the economy and the politics in general. Present and projected trends continue to shape the world during this century. We as Black people must now compare how each of the developed and undeveloped nations creates policies for addressing these issues which include:

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Koku Anyidoho, the director of communications at President John Atta Mills’

By Kofi Akosah-Sarpong The Afro News International

Koku Anyidoho, the director of communications at President John Atta Mills’ Osu Castle, says he hates ex-President John Kufour’s face more than any other person in Ghana. “I don’t like his face, so I don’t want to hear anything about him.” That’s disturbing from a high profile government figure in Ghana’s/Africa’s volatile political environment where hatred emanating from top government official has set ablaze many an African state – Rwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and the Democratic of the Congo attest to this. In all these countries, as Koku is increasingly positioning himself into against the backdrop of the poisonous and fire-spitting Jerry Rawlings, his political godfather, people in charge of communications fueled some of Africa’s destruction. You cannot understand some of the reasons for Africa’s disaster without reading Koku. The increasing saturation of the Kokus and their lackeys gives me a jolt of anxiety. Ghana, like either Rwanda or Liberia, doesn’t have any immunities against hate-driven disaster. In the fickle African environment, with its ancient, tribal hatred flowing into the modern nation-states, hate is difficult to talk about. The African mind resists it, yet it exists. Hate is amorphous and disorderly. As the hearings at the UN Special Courts in Freetown and Arusha revealed, even people responsible for hate-driven horrors in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda and DRC, find it difficult to discuss why they committed such atrocities. But Africans know such people were juvenilely saying that “I don’t like his face, so I don’t want to hear anything about him.” And boom, a genocide, a deadly civil war and an African nation-state turned into ashes. In Koku, hatred is intellectually and morally difficult to debate; hatred is such a dangerous, unmanageable mess, such a monster that even I am sure Koku cannot tell us deeply why he doesn’t like Kufour’s face, in an atmosphere charged with his political godfather constantly attacking Kufour. I have nightmares hearing the hate-filled venoms of Kuko and Rawlings.

Why wondering why Kuko, part of Ghana’s new generation of elites, haven’t learned from Rwanda, DRC and the Central African Republic, and why President Atta Mills is still keeping him at his presidency, as a response to Africa full of hatred, I reviewed the Sierra Leonean disaster, where I covered the initial outbreak of the country’s horrendous civil some 14 years ago. As images of Sierra Leone, supposed to be the most civilized country in West Africa then, with its remarkable ancient Fourah Bay College, flashed through my mind, my wits drifted to key figures like Koku who made hatefully mindless speeches. It is Siaka Stevens, Sierra Leone’s long ruling despot, who hatefully said, “pass I die,” as majority yearned for democracy, the rule of law and freedoms. Stevens prepared the grounds for Sierra Leone’s explosion. And the fuel was hatred, as Foday Sankoh demonstrated.

What is hate? A Rwanda turned upside down, the senses and the brain darkened? Deadly African tribalism projected openly? The Other demeaned and seen in gloom? Arrogance killing humility? Feelings and love amputated? Darkness ruling over light? Whatever. The image may give hate too much power, as Koku is using his powerful office to do, but in the long run, as Sierra Leone shows, light and justice prevail. Are Koku and his ilk know that there is hate crime laws in Ghana, in Ecowas regulations, in the African Union charter, and other international laws?

The reason hate is hard to discuss is that it is an ambiguity. As Koku exhibits, hate is either too weighty to comprehend or too superficial and dim-witted to bear much analysis – the machetes used to commit genocide in Rwanda, violent, irrational, an albino cut into pieces for traditional rituals, Jean-Bedel Bokassa cannibalizing for juju powers, a dark power intoxication, a negative energy spilled all over, an accessory of disaster. In Koku, there are no subjectivists or objectivists of hate – all are blurred, for in the final analysis, hatred will consume all Ghanaians, no matter one’s ethnic group, as the Rwandans’ hard realities tell us.

Koku’s hatred of Kufour reveals his mounting, misguided arrogance since he assumed the communication directorship at the Osu Castle, where power has gone into his tangled head and is tormented by his spiritual and emotional inadequacies. At an international conference on hate, held in Oslo, Norway in 1990, Vaclav Havel, the writer and former president of Czech Republic, who had experienced immense hatred under communist rule, revealed the psychology of individual hate, when he said, “…The hater longs for the object of his hatred” and that the classic hater has “serious face, a quickness to take offence, strong language, shouting, the inability to step outside himself and see his own foolishness.”

While Ghana’s on-going 17-year-old democracy may have brought out the likes of Koku from the cocoon of hatred into the open for resolution, democracy may not be the answer. The genocide that occurred in Rwanda, the civil wars that took place in Sierra Leone and Liberia and the paralysis of the Central African Republic were undertaken under some sort of democracy. In Koku, Africans do not want to remember that. It was the regional grouping Economic Community of West African States faith in dialogue that neutralized the clouds of hate that nearly destroyed Guinea Bissau, Guinea Conakry and Ivory Coast. What is the antidote to the likes of Koku? Hope. Spirituality. Culture. Education. Law. Integrity. Charity. Love.

Canadian freelance reporter Ms Amanda Lindhout

CTV.ca News Staff

Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout has been freed in Somalia after 15 months in captivity, along with Australian photographer Nigel Brennan. In a telephone interview from Mogadishu on Wednesday afternoon, Lindhout told CTV News Channel that she had only been freed for a few hours and provided minimal details on the process that led to her release. Lindhout acknowledged that a ransom was paid to her and Brennan’s kidnappers, and that money “was paid by our families.”

“I believe they are taking that money and, as far as I understand, they plan on leaving the country,” she told News Channel. “It’s a long story. It’s been sort of going on for the last couple of weeks, and tonight finally everything came together and the men who had kidnapped us turned us over to the federal government in Somalia. They’ve now taken us to a hotel and it sounds like tomorrow, we’ll be in Nairobi,” Lindhout said. Lindhout, originally from Sylvan Lake, Alta., and Brennan have been missing since August 23, 2008, when they were kidnapped near Mogadishu.

She remembered the day she was kidnapped and described the circumstances to CTV.

“I was going to research a story about some of the IDTs — the internally-displaced people — in Somalia and on our way there one morning, our vehicle was ambushed and we were taken by a group of gunmen who then proceeded to take us around the country and keep us in different houses, extremely oppressive conditions, myself and another freelance photographer from Australia (Brennan),” Lindhout said.

She said she knew little about her kidnappers.

“I don’t think it was political — you know 15 months with these men and I don’t know very much about them. But I think, from the information that I’ve gathered, I think that it was criminals — criminals under the guise of being freedom fighters for Somalia.”    Lindhout said she was beaten and tortured while in captivity.

“It was extremely oppressive. I was kept by myself at all times. I had no one to speak to. I was normally kept in a room with a light, no window, I had nothing to write on or with. There was very little food. I was allowed to use the toilet exactly five times a day,” Lindhout said.

“So, basically, my day was sitting on a corner, on the floor, 24 hours a day for the last 15 months. There were times that I was beaten, that I was tortured. It was an extremely, extremely difficult situation.”

The kidnappers told her that they were beating her because the money “wasn’t coming quickly enough.”

“They seemed to think that if they beat me enough, then when I was able to speak to my mother – which they would put me on the line with her every couple of months – that I would be able to say the right thing to convince her to pay the ransom for me, which was $1 million.

“Of course, my family didn’t have $1 million and it didn’t matter what I said to them. But they didn’t really understand that. They thought: She’s Canadian, everyone in Canada is rich. She must have $1 million.”

The phone calls to her mother were “very short and they were usually scripted on my part,” Lindhout said.

“My mother wasn’t allowed to ask any questions and I also wasn’t allowed to say what I wanted to say. They would come to me beforehand with a pen and paper, and sort of guide me and tell me what I needed to say to her. And it was always wonderful to hear my mother’s voice but the circumstances that we were talking were not very happy.”

She acknowledged that she was forced to call media outlets.

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Oprah-winfrey & Obama Barack- Michelle Obama november-5-2008

Oprah Winfrey makes the tearful announcement

A tearful Oprah Winfrey has announced her talk show will end in September 2011 after 25 years on the air. Speaking to her live studio audience, the chat show queen said she had decided to end the show “after much prayer and months of careful thought”.  “I love this show, and I love it enough to know when it’s time to say goodbye,” the 55-year-old said. Winfrey’s show, currently syndicated in 145 countries, has transformed the star into a cultural phenomenon.

“Twenty-five years feels right in my bones, and it feels right in my spirit – it’s the perfect number, the exact right time,” she said.

Winfrey also promised she would be working with her production team to find new ways to entertain, inform and uplift her audience for her remaining shows.  “We are going to knock your socks off. And until that day in 2011 when it ends, I intend to soak up every meaningful, joyful moment with you,” she said.

Winfrey’s empire The Oprah Winfrey Show’s open atmosphere and frank conversation redefined the talk show genre and made Winfrey one of the most influential women in the US as well as the wealthiest black woman in the world.

Her reputation was clearly appreciated by the big-name stars who opened their souls on her show, from Michael Jackson to Tom Cruise – who famously jumped on the sofa to announce his love for his future wife Katie Holmes. The introduction of Oprah’s Book Club helped authors whose novels were selected become bestsellers overnight, and Winfrey’s support for US President Barack Obama was seen as crucial to his presidential election campaign. Winfrey’s empire also includes magazines, books and a satellite radio station – Oprah Radio – with presenters including Dr Maya Angelou and sex therapist Dr Laura Berman. She is expected to focus instead on the launch of her own cable TV network in 2011. OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network is a joint venture between Winfrey and Discovery Communications and is set to replace the Discovery Health Channel in more than 70 million US homes. Oprah is still the highest-rated US talk show with an average seven million daily viewers, but audiences are half what they were a decade ago. Winfrey’s announcement comes less than 24 hours after Tim Bennett, president of Winfrey’s Harpo production company, broke the news to TV stations that broadcast the show. In a letter he wrote: “The sun will set on the Oprah show as its 25th season draws to a close on 9 September 2011.” The end of the programme will be a blow to distributor CBS, which earns a percentage of licensing fees – estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars – from the more than 200 local ABC TV stations across the US that broadcast it. Many stations also built their schedules around Winfrey’s show, using it to promote other programmes while also delivering a large audience to their local news programming.

BBC News Report .

Musical tribute to former Ontario Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander.

By michelle-lee The Afro News Toronto

The Jazz Performance & Education Centre, recently obtained charitable status and held its first fundraising gala October 2nd. The event, held at Glenn Gould Theatre, was a $250.00 per person musical tribute to former Ontario Lieutenant Governor Lincoln Alexander. Alexander is an honorary co-chair of the organization with Ontario Chief Justice Warren K. Winkler. Two life long jazz fans, Ray and Rochelle Koskie, the driving forces of the group, said the gala is the first step to building a permanent home for jazz in Toronto, similar to New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Centre, “to inspire and grow audiences for jazz music” in Canada. The current plans call for a 9,000 square foot space that can accommodate a performance hall, recording studio, classrooms, archives and a restaurant. Ray Koskie said, “we know we have to expose the younger generation to jazz in its many different forms” and next month a reasonably priced concert series will begin with Montreal pianist Oliver Jones at the Bluma Appel Theatre. There will also be a children’s jazz music program launched at Casa Loma in the spring.

Deputy Chief Keith Forde

By michelle-lee The Afro News Ontario

The Toronto Police Service (TPS) hosted a one day conference titled “Racially Biased Policing: Trends and Progressive Solutions”. Attending the conference were more than 250 officers from 25 services across Ontario. The keynote speaker was Deputy Chief Keith Forde who prefaced his address by saying that he hoped officers would feel uncomfortable during some of the day’s discussions – “understand, the discussions that will be the most painful are the ones that will have the deepest impact”. Although in 2002 former officers including Toronto Police Chief Julian Fantino, Mayor Mel Lastman and Union President Craig Brommel flatly denied racial profiling existed, Forde said he was “intimately familiar with the topic” based on his experiences “as an officer, a Deputy Chief and a Black man”. He praised current Chief Bill Blair for admitting that racial profiling did exist and vowing to work hard to change the systems that were complicit in upholding inequalities. Since Blair’s appointment in 2006, the TPS has developed ways to combat the problem said Forde who added “now we have a better and more positive relationship and understanding with Toronto’s diverse communities which helps us to better relate and work together”. Scarborough Centre Representative Michael Thompson, who is the only Black councilor at City Hall, said of the conference, “I am pleased to see that the Chief and others are prepared to address the issue. That can only be a positive opportunity”. Community leaders in the Black community also applauded the TPS for initiating an open dialogue on the issue.