Login to BlackFacts.com using your favorite Social Media Login. Click the appropriate button below and you will be redirected to your Social Media Website for confirmation and then back to Blackfacts.com once successful.
Enter the email address and password you used to join BlackFacts.com. If you cannot remember your login information, click the “Forgot Password” link to reset your password.
Jamaican senior citizens age 75 years and older received their first monthly payout of $3,400 under the new Social Pension Programme on July 22. Some $800 million has been allocated in this fiscal year to implement the programme, which targets...
Nationwide protests have taken place since October 7 despite the disbanding of the controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit.
The demonstrators have been accused of attacking police stations and personnel.
The rallies which are mostly attended by young people have become avenues to vent against corruption and unemployment.
Rights groups say at least 15 people have been killed the demonstrations began in early October.
Compensation payouts for the death and destruction that occurred during the internal security operation to arrest drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke have already cost taxpayers a little over $300 million, a figure that will increase when over two dozen lawsuits filed on behalf of detainees are wrapped up.
“Sixty-nine dead, compensation having been offered and paid by taxpayers, there has been no accountability within the JCF (Jamaica Constabulary Force) or the JDF (Jamaica Defence Force) for deaths or property damage,” Harrison Henry told The Sunday Gleaner during an interview last Friday.
A commission of enquiry, which investigated a number of issues around the operation, concluded that there was compelling evidence to suggest that members of the security forces engaged in extrajudicial killings, and used strong language to criticise the actions of police and military commanders.
“The time has surely come to usher in a radical new culture in the operations of the security forces, a culture that provides for greater transparency and accountability,” suggested the commission, which was chaired by former Barbados Chief Justice Sir David Simmons.
Cabinet later accepted the recommendation of a committee appointed by the Government – also in keeping with a proposal by the Simmons commission – that $200 million in compensation be paid to relatives of those killed in the operation as well as those who were injured or suffered property damage.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness has lauded the contribution of late Labour and Social Security Minister Shahine Robinson to politics and national development.
Holness opened tributes to Robinson in the House of Representatives this afternoon, which are now under way.
Robinson had sat just behind Holness in Parliament and was always within proximity to him, even when she entered Gordon House in 2001.
Holness said Robinson, who was the North East St Ann Member of Parliament, took her politics seriously, recalling how well she knew her constituents.
Meanwhile, Holness also paid tribute to another former social security minister Dr Neville Gallimore who died recently.
\tPrime Minister Andrew Holness has not ruled out declaring more States of Public Emergency before the next general election due by February next year.\tHowever, the prime minister says where a State of Emergency exists when he is ready to call an...
ZIMBABWE is now a sad story where youths have been robbed of a whole generation of prime time, the self-exiled director of the Dumiso Dabengwa Foundation Mthulisi Hanana has claimed. BY SILAS NKALA Hanana who skipped the country at the height of State-sponsored abductions and persecution of activists ahead of the abortive July 31 protests, said young people in the country had been subjected to poverty since independence. “Zimbabwe has succeeded in robbing many young people of their prime time and their potential has been destroyed, their dreams have been parked, and they hustle in the hope that one day Zimbabwe will change,” Hanana said in a statement. “Young people keep waiting on ‘Hope Street’ and they forget that they have no obligation to wait for Zimbabwe to change at the expense of their lives. At some intervals, it feels as if change is close and one is lulled into a false sense of security and hope.” Hanana criticised Zimbabwean youths for being timid and afraid of change. “We would rather believe that somehow change is near and leave our destinies in the hands of fate. I remember that when MDC was formed, many young people believed that change was nigh. We could see a new dawn. Many snubbed opportunities to go abroad and chose to wait for that change,” he said. The human rights activist said since the era of the late former President Robert Mugabe, young people hoped for change which never came. 'We calculated that once we are done with our first degrees, Mugabe would be dead and the country would be better, but 15 years later, Mugabe was not dead. The country was worse. Our calculations were based on hope and nothing else. Many lost opportunities waiting for Mugabe to die. “Even our professors with whom we shared a packet of maputi (snacks) as they walked from Mt Pleasant to Harare central business district, told us to be patient. However, our age mates who left Zimbabwe 15 years ago are now far in terms of life's achievements,” he said. Hanana alleged that President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s new dispensation was presiding over misgovernance, while the opposition was weak. “The biggest deception now is to think that the MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa will bring change. His political stamina lacks sting and ‘that thing’. Yet we keep hoping that change is near,” he said. “As young people if we are not careful we will rot in this grave while waiting for a ‘messiah’ to come and perform a Lazarus-like resurrection.” Follow Silas on Twitter @silasnkala
More than 4.5 million Californians have already cast ballots in the 2020 general election - and there're still 12 days to go. Roughly one-fifth of the 21.5 million ballots mailed to registered voters had been processed as of Tuesday evening, blowing away previous election totals. About three times as many California residents have participated in […]
The post Early voter turnout smashing California election records appeared first on Black Voice News.
Luanda — The draft law on the Organic Structure of the Constitutional Court (TC) is to be submitted to the National Assembly (parliament), after having been favourably assessed, last Wednesday, by the Angolan Government, in a Cabinet Council meeting.
According to the final communiqué of this session of the Cabinet Council, chaired by President João Lourenço, the draft law clarifies the role of the Constitutional Court.
On the way to the National Assembly are also the draft law that amends the Law of Judicial Fees, as well as the draft law on the Constitutional Court Proceedings.
The protocol amending the treaty on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights and the cooperation agreement between the Ministry of Interior of Angola and the counterpart of the Republic of Hungary, in the field of security and public order, were also analyzed.
The session agreed to the cooperation memorandum between the Ministry of Social Action, Family and Promotion of Women of Angola and the Ministry of Labour and Social Security of Cuba, in the field of social action.
FOR SOME time it had not rained in Claremont, St Ann, but the showers came down yesterday, forcing supporters of Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Member of Parliament (MP) for St Ann North East, Shahine Robinson, to seek shelter inside her home or other sections of the property.
Robinson, 66, lost her two-year battle with lung cancer on Friday, prompting an outpouring of love from well-wishers near and far and marking the second straight day that the ruling party was losing a member, after Thursday’s passing of former minister, Dr Neville Gallimore.
I fell in love with her before I was a political representative and every day I walk the Lime Hall division or North East St Ann constituency, I walk it feeling strong and proud,” she said.
Mayor of St Ann’s Bay, Michael Belnavis, and several councillors also visited the home of the late minister.
Belnavis, who Robinson replaced as constituency representative after his 1997 general election defeat to the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Danny Melville, described her as “an icon in St Ann, a mother to everyone in the constituency of North East St Ann.”
\tPrime Minister Andrew Holness has declared a Zone of Special Operation (ZOSO) in August Town, St Andrew to restore public order and sustainable peace. \tAt a press conference this morning, Holness stated that crime has been affecting...
Best known for being the first black woman to be elected to Congress in the state of North Carolina, Eva Clayton, a Democrat, became known as a vigorous advocate for the concerns of African Americans and for social improvement.
Eva Clayton was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1934. She attended Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina where she received her B.S. in 1955. She then received her M.S. at North Carolina Central University, graduating in 1962. She then enrolled at the University of North Carolina Law School.
Clayton was simultaneously the director of Health Manpower Development Programs for the University of North Carolina and Assistant Secretary for Community Development for the North Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Community Development from 1977 to 1981. She later served as a member and chair of the Warren County, North Carolina Board of Commissioners from 1982 to 1992.
Clayton ran for a congressional seat and won in 1992 with over 68 percent of the vote, against her opponent who was a white Republican. Her victory made history, as she became the first African American woman to represent the state of North Carolina as well as one of two African Americans elected to Congress from that state for the first time since Reconstruction.
Eva Clayton has served on the Agriculture and Budget Committees and the Department Operations, Nutrition, and Foreign Agriculture Subcommittee. She was also the co-chair of the Democratic Task Force on Health and member of the Social Security Task Force.
She has also been the executive director of the Soul City Foundation, which specialized in low incoming housing, and been a member of the Congressional Advisory Board to the national Campaign to Prevent Teenage Pregnancy. Clayton was the principal sponsor of the “Patients Bill of Rights” bill. She also sought to reduce crime in inner city schools and fight drug abuse.
Clayton was reelected to Congress for four additional terms and retired from that body in 2003.
Cedric Richmond is the U.S. Representative for Louisiana’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes much of New Orleans. Richmond, a Democrat, won the post after more than a decade of service in the Louisiana House of Representatives.
Born September 13, 1973, his mother was a public school teacher and a small business owner, and his father died when he was seven years old. Growing up in East New Orleans he played baseball at Goretti playground and was inspired by his coaches there, which later influenced him to coach Little League Baseball at Goretti starting in 1989, at the age of 16.
Richmond graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in 1991, and earned his undergraduate degree from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. He completed his Juris Doctorate at Tulane University School of Law, passed the Louisiana Bar Exam, and worked as an attorney at the New Orleans law firm of Gray & Gray. During this period he was elected president of the Louis A. Martinet Legal Foundation. Richmond also graduated from the Harvard University Executive Education Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1997.
Richmond entered politics as a Louisiana State Representative for District 101, serving from 2000 to 2011. He is one of the youngest legislators in Louisiana history, elected at the age of 26. During this time, he served on the Natural Resources and Transportation, Highways and Public Works, and Legislative Audit Advisory committees. He was Chair of the Committee on Judiciary, and president of the black caucus in the Louisiana State Legislature. In 2005, as Hurricane Katrina was headed toward New Orleans, he tried to get as many people to evacuate as possible and alerted Governor Kathleen Blanco to the complacent attitudes of some residents and local officials. He later criticized Mayor Ray Nagin for not calling for a mandatory evacuation.
A residency dispute disqualified Richmond from the New Orleans City Council race in 2005 and suspended his license to practice law for six months. Three years
More than 100 students across the parish of Clarendon were gifted with tablets, courtesy of the James and Friends Education Programme on Wednesday. Founder of the organisation, Otis James, told The Gleaner that the programme caters to almost 200...
HEAD of the Independent Jamaica Council for Human Rights (IJCHR) Dr Lloyd Barnett yesterday poured cold water on a suggestion by a deportee that the Government monitor Jamaicans with criminal backgrounds who have been involuntarily sent back to the island.
Speaking to the Jamaica Observer by telephone, Dr Barnett, one of the country's foremost constitutional attorneys, said the Government cannot legally monitor deportees.
On Thursday, Charlie Brown, a Jamaican man who was deported from the United States 16 years ago, in an Observer article, insisted that the Government here accept responsibility for some of the crimes perpetrated by people involuntarily sent back to the country, following the shooting death of two policemen last week, allegedly by a deportee.
He also urged the Andrew Holness-led Administration to monitor those returning to the island with a criminal file, and suggested that last Friday's incident could have been prevented if the Government had a monitoring system in place for deportees with criminal backgrounds.
However, hours after the shooting deaths of the lawmen, Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson told journalists during a virtual press conference from Jamaica House that the Jamaica Constabulary Force cannot legally monitor deportees with criminal backgrounds.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness says he will announce the protocols that have been established for the reopening of nurseries and day-care facilities shortly.
“Day care and nurseries — it's a big issue; we spent some time last week discussing them — the Ministry of Health [and Wellness], the Ministry of Local Government and [Community Development], and the Ministry of Education [Youth and Information].
We are expecting that by our next press conference we should be able to have some protocols as to how we would treat with the reopening of day cares and nurseries.
The prime minister was speaking at a virtual press conference from the Office of the Prime Minister Media Centre in Kingston on Monday.
Day-care centres and nurseries have been ordered closed by the Government since March, as part of measures to contain and reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
APPROXIMATELY two months after the completion of the autopsy for Jodian Fearon, the first-time mother who died after being denied access to health care at several hospitals in April, her family is yet to receive a copy of the report.
In the meantime, the family's attorney Isat Buchanan, in a letter to Dr Neblett, a copy of which the Observer has obtained, said that the family would revert to the Supreme Court for assistance in obtaining the report if a copy was not provided soon.
“We hereby request that the family be supplied with a copy of the final report of the autopsy conducted by you, as a death certificate has not been issued, caused by your extended delay in this matter,” the attorney said.
In a previous letter addressed to Dr Mowatt, executive director at the Institute of Forensic Science and Legal Medicine, dated June 12, 2020, Dr Ford also requested a copy of the autopsy report.
“There is one lesson to be learnt from the post-mortem of George Floyd in the United States, there may be other factors pertaining to the traumatic death of an individual and I have already spoken to them, including the unforgivable knowledge that she died on the ground of the intensive care unit and this may also be consequential,” Ford's letter, a copy of which was provided to the Observer, read.
In an interview, the recently crowned N.B.A. champion addressed his latest political push: combating misinformation among Black communities before Election Day.
A falling-out amid the executive of the Jamaica Egg Farmers’ Association (JEFA) over alleged abuse of government subsidy, as well as the subsequent sidelining of the sector lobby, has pitted President Roy Baker against his vice-president, Mark Campbell, and secretary Cheryl McLeod.
The Egg Farmers’ Association worked in tandem with the agriculture ministry and the Rural Agricultural Development Authority from mid-April until June in organising farmers’ markets.
But Baker’s gravest concern is that select egg producers appeared to be getting a bye to vend at farmers’ markets through favouritism.
With the special on eggs over, Baker said that the ministry verbally agreed to a minimum price of $600 per tray, but advertisements for endorsed farmers’ markets are still being printed with eggs selling at $500 per flat.
Meanwhile, permanent secretary in the agriculture ministry, Dermon Spence, said that he understood that all matters relating to the sale of eggs at sanctioned farmers’ markets were routed through JEFA.
YOUNG PEOPLE on Action for Climate Change, Jamaica are getting a group of stakeholders together for a virtual forum that takes stock of flood risk in a changing climate. The event, set for this Friday (November 6), is being held under the theme ‘...
Yet the federal correctional institution that housed Manafort had no coronavirus cases, and Manafort had served fewer than two years of his more than seven-year sentence.
Nearly forty percent of those incarcerated in federal prisons are African American, many serving very long sentences for drug-related crimes.
But Manafort, citing “fear of coronavirus,” ended up serving less than a quarter of his sentence.
Manafort had a lot less to fear, at his minimum-security prison, than a Black inmate might.
Other countries have reacted to coronavirus crowding by releasing inmates in the tens of thousands.
By Tom Winschel
For New Pittsburgh Courier
With so many services available online through my Social Security, signing up for a secure account will help you conduct Social Security business from home.
With your personal my Social Security account, you can:
• Estimate your future benefits with our Retirement Calculator to compare different dates or ages to begin receiving benefits;
• Check the status of your Social Security application;
If you already receive benefits, you can also:
• Get a benefit verification or proof of income letter;
• Set up or change your direct deposit;
You can even use your personal my Social Security account to opt out of receiving certain notices by mail, such as the annual cost-of-living adjustments and the income-related monthly adjustment amount notice.
Instead, through the Message Center you can receive secure, sensitive communications.
Let your friends and family know that they can create a my Social Security account today at www.ssa.gov/myaccount.
WESTERN BUREAU: British High Commissioner Asif Ahmad has labelled as “insanity” the practice of running utility cables above ground in a hurricane-prone country as he urged town planners to also upgrade sewerage systems as they push for development...
The #SharingPositivity movement calls on South Africans to stand up against cyberbullying and online harassment.
According to Forbes, Robert F. Smith believes that big banks and major companies should spend the next 10 years investing directly in technology, education, telecom, banking and healthcare infrastructures that support Black communities.
“If you think about structural racism and access to capital, 70% of African American communities don’t even have a branch, bank of any type.”
Smith encountered structural racism in banking firsthand during the coronavirus pandemic when he tried to assist Black businesses and banks that help Black communities obtain Paycheck Protection Program loans.
“The deprivation of capital is one of the areas that creates a major problem to the enablement of the African American community,” Smith explained to the more than 200 top philanthropists who attended the 9th annual Forbes philanthropy summit, which was held on Zoom this year.
Smith’s proposal would be a private-sector solution to reparations, and he says the 2 percent funds from the major companies could be used to execute things like strengthen healthcare infrastructure in Black communities, equalize broadband access, fund STEM education at historically Black colleges and digitize Black small businesses.
The curtain on a new era of transparency in public service appeared ready to be lifted when three months before his February 2016 election win, then Opposition Leader Andrew Holness promised to publicly release his health records.
“I wouldn’t be opposed to something like that for the persons who are going to be possibly leading us – like the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition,” the representative for St Andrew West Rural said.
The use of the information by political enemies and the treatment by media must also be considered, said Professor Denise Eldemire-Shearer, a physician and professor of public health at The University of West Indies.
Two recent events – the passing of Labour and Social Security Minister Shahine Robinson and the disclosure by Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips that he had surgery for colon cancer – have triggered the latest discussion surrounding health disclosures by leaders.
“God forbids, if the minister of finance had a debilitating illness, we would certainly have a setback; similarly with health; similarly with national security,” Mitchell told The Sunday Gleaner.
\tPrime Minister Andrew Holness has recommended to the Governor General that the tenure of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn be extended by three years. The Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips had objected to the extension after...
ATLANTA, GA – Attorney General Chris Carr is warning older Georgians, their families and their caretakers to be on the lookout for signs of financial exploitation, especially with regard to the recent issuance of federal stimulus checks.
Medicaid recipients who reside in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, along with their family members, should make sure that the economic stimulus payments of these residents are not utilized by the facility or individuals working in the facility.
Although Medicaid recipients may sometimes be required to sign over certain resources to the facility where they reside, this does not apply to the economic stimulus payments.
To report abuse, neglect, and exploitation of an older adult, disabled adult or resident in a facility, contact Healthcare Facility Regulation: 1-800-878-6442.
If you believe that the stimulus payment of a Medicaid recipient who resides in a nursing home or assisted living facility was improperly taken by the facility, you can contact the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Division by calling (404) 656-5400 or by emailing
Labour and Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Officers are to be trained in foreign languages to ensure proper communication with all segments of the workforce.
The article Foreign language training for labour officers - Hamilton appeared first on Stabroek News.
The New York Times reported today that Netflix, which has $5B in its cash reserves will place 2 percent of its holdings with financial institutions that loan to Black businesses.
(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
The idea came from a call to improve diversity at Netflix, which has partnered with several Black creators including the Obamas, Kenya Barris, and Shonda Rhimes who signed big contracts with the streamer.
The idea to invest in Black financial institutions stemmed from those dinners, according to Bloomberg.
READ MORE: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings donates over $100M to HBCUs, talks importance of supporting Black colleges
Netflix executive Aaron Mitchell suggested the idea of the CFO Spencer Neumann, referencing the book “The Color of Money,” by Mehrsa Baradaran as a guide to the challenges faced by Black financial institutions.
“Having a global voice like Netflix say it’s important to invest in financial institutions like Hope is tremendously important, not just for the capital we will use to make mortgage loans and small business loans, but for what it says.”
