The News Review:
- Senegal leads in volleyball qualifiers
- INTERVIEW-nly military reform can save Guinea-Bissau
- African singer criticized by Muslims plays in NYC
- Mauritania election postponed till July 21 after Senegal mediation
- Insecurity Taxes Hurting Senegal Tourism
- Putting Faith in His Music
- Senegal’s president inaugurates gold mine
Senegal leads in volleyball qualifiers
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He said: “We want to qualify and that’s why we are here and spent so much money to participate in the tournament. We spent two weeks in Italy to prepare the team before coming to Nigeria. Senegal started on a right note by beating Botswana 3-0 in the first match of the tournament which was played on Wednesday. The team will be playing hosts Nigeria in its second game on Friday. Speaking of his expectations he said: “We won our first game and we hope to win the rest in order to qualify. Nigeria has an excellent team but we have a young team and they are motivated to qualify. “The score is not very important; the most important thing is just to win and qualify and be among the two teams that will represent Africa”.
INTERVIEW-nly military reform can save Guinea-Bissau
Reuters
Aristide Gomes head of government in the former Portuguese colony from 2005-07 told Reuters politicians were so dependent on the support of powerful factions within the armed forces to survive that the country had become impossible to govern. Gomes who fled to neighbouring Senegal after soldiers assassinated President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira in March was speaking a day after military police killed a candidate in upcoming presidential elections and a former minister. "The army occupies the central space in Guinea-Bissau’s political system. It is not a national army in the true sense.
African singer criticized by Muslims plays in NYC
The Associated Press
The next year N’Dour and his band filled Carnegie Hall. “When I listened to ‘Egypt’ I was moved because he grew up listening to the (late) Egyptian singer Umm Kulthoum the voice of the Muslim world” said Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi who directed the documentary. “And he wanted to celebrate Islam in Senegal as a peaceful tolerant culture. “At the time in N’Dour’s native West Africa some stores returned copies of the album radio stations refused to play it and sales were poor compared with those of his previous releases. He persisted winning over many of his detractors as an official UNICEF goodwill ambassador who is working to stop malaria in Africa on behalf of the U. -based nonprofit Malaria No More distributing free mosquito nets to families on the continent while entertaining them.
Related from Maniafest: African singer criticized by Muslims plays in NYC
Mauritania election postponed till July 21 after Senegal mediation
Xinhua
The FNDD and the RFD also demanded the vote take place within three to five months after all their preconditions are met. They threatened to boycott the polls if otherwise. The Senegal-brokered accord comes with the backing of the International Contact Group on Mauritania composed of the AU the Arab League the European Union the International rganization of the Francophonie and the United Nations. Mauritania is suspended from the AU and the Economic Community of West African States as part of the international sanctions to force the return of the constitutional order. The military junta announced the June 6 election and the formation of an electoral commission in January in search for an end to the months-old political crisis. Abdel Aziz resigned on April 15 from the presidency of the ruling High Council of State to run for the election. The FNDD and RFD voiced the boycott saying the electoral agenda was unilaterally imposed by the junta.
Insecurity Taxes Hurting Senegal Tourism
Voice of America
Local dancers entertain European tourists at one of the big hotels along Senegal’s southern coast. While the global economic crisis has slowed business there it has been hardest on smaller village-based guest houses farther inland where a simmering rebellion against the government in Dakar has helped give Casamance a bad name. Bakary Denis Sane chairs the organization of small hotel operators in Casamance. In the more than 20 years since the start of the security crisis brought on by the rebellion Sane says many of the small hotels in Casamance have declined.
Putting Faith in His Music
Wall Street Journal
“And he has always sung about what he believes in—it’s kind of like the way Bob Marley was. N’Dour who was born in Dakar Senegal in 1959 comes from a clan of griot singers with a family history of preserving cultural memory in song. He burst onto the music scene in the 1970s with a genre of music known as mbalax—a hard-driving form of pop that draws on traditional Senegalese rhythms Cuban music and jazz. N’Dour’s lyrics captured the everyday lives of people in Senegal while also offering up themes of solidarity and cultural pride.
Senegal’s president inaugurates gold mine
AFP
“Senegal has entered the circle of gold-producing countries with the making of the first ingot from the Sabodala mine” said Wade at Wednesday’s event in the south-eastern Kedougou region the scene of violent riots five months ago. He was formally opening a mine operated by Mineral Deposits Limited (MDL) more than 800 kilometres (500 miles) from the capital Dakar and in an area where most of the country’s mineral wealth is concentrated. The Sabodala mine will have an average production of 4. 2 tonnes a year for the next 10 years according to APS agency.