MOGADISHU, Somalia — Landlocked Ethiopia took the first steps toward gaining access to the sea on Monday, signing an agreement in the capital of Addis Ababa with the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland to access the Somaliland coastline.

The memorandum of understanding was signed by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali and Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi.

As part of the deal, Somaliland plans to lease a 20-km (12.4-mile) stretch of land along its coastline to Ethiopia to establish a marine force base, Abdi said at the signing.

With a population estimated at over 120 million, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world.

The agreement strengthens the security, economic and political partnership between Ethiopia and Somaliland, a statement from the Ethiopian prime minister’s office said.

Somaliland President Abdi said the agreement included a statement that Ethiopia would recognize Somaliland as an independent country in the near future.

Somaliland seceded from Somalia more than 30 years ago, but is not recognized by the African Union or the United Nations as an independent state. Somalia still considers Somaliland part of its territory and reactions by officials from there were swift.

“Somalia is indivisible. Its sovereignty and territorial integrity is uncompromisable,” Abdirizak Omar Mohamed, Somalia’s petroleum and mineral resources minister, said.

Somalia posted on the social media platform “X,” formerly Twitter: “Ethiopia knows well that it can’t sign a military pact/MOU to lease a port with the regional head of state- that mandate is the prerogative of the Federal Government of Somalia.”

Somali state-owned media said in a post on social media that the Somali Cabinet would convene Tuesday to discuss the agreement between Somaliland and Ethiopia.

Somalia and Somaliland reached an agreement in Djibouti on Friday to strengthen cooperation on security and the fight against organized crime.

Ethiopia lost its access to the sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993. Ethiopia has been using the port in neighboring Djibouti for most of its imports and exports.

JOHANNESBURG — Renowned South African playwright, producer and composer Mbongeni Ngema, the creator of the Broadway hit “Sarafina!”, has died in a car crash at the age of 68, his family said.

Ngema was killed in a head-on accident while returning from a funeral in a rural town in Eastern Cape province, the family said in a statement Wednesday. The celebrated playwright was a passenger in the vehicle.

He was best known for writing “Sarafina!”, which premiered on Broadway in 1988. It was adapted into a musical drama starring Whoopi Goldberg in 1992 and became an international success, being nominated for Tony and Grammy awards.

“Sarafina!” told the story of a student and how she inspired her peers to fight against racial segregation in apartheid South Africa after her favorite teacher, played by Goldberg, was thrown in jail for protesting against the system.

The story was based on the events of the 1976 Soweto uprising in South Africa, when thousands of students took part in protests against the apartheid government.

Apartheid was an institutionalized system that discriminated against non-whites and ensured South Africa was ruled by the minority white population from 1948 until the first all-race democratic elections in 1994.

Ngema’s body of work also included the lauded theater production “Woza Albert,” which premiered in 1981 and won more than 20 awards around the world. The political satire explored the second coming of Jesus Christ as a black man in South Africa during apartheid.

Tributes to Ngema poured in, including from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

“The many productions he created or to which he contributed inspired resilience and pride among us as fellow South Africans and took South Africa and our continent into the theaters, homes and consciousness of millions of people around the world,” Ramaphosa said in a statement.

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress party and one of its biggest rivals, the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters, both conveyed their condolences.

The ANC said in a statement: “He was a globally acclaimed playwright, composer and producer. We have lost a true legend, a doyen, and a genuine ambassador of theater.”

The Economic Freedom Fighters party described him as “more than just an artist; he was a cultural icon and a beacon of hope during some of our darkest times.”

Zizi Kodwa, South Africa’s minister of sports, arts and culture, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Ngema’s work “touched and moved audiences around the world and made an important contribution in telling the South African story.”

The passing of Dr Mbongeni Ngema is a significant loss to South African arts. Dr Ngema’s work touched and moved audiences around the world and made an important contribution in telling the South African story@SportArtsCultur @GovernmentZA @DurbanPlayhouse @kzngov @SACulturalObs https://t.co/EUyzphVz0z

— Minister of Sport, Arts & Culture (@zizikodwa) December 28, 2023

By the end of the century, the U.S. population will be declining without substantial immigration, older adults will outnumber children and white, non- Hispanic residents will account for less than 50% of the population, according to projections released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The population projections offer a glimpse of what the nation may look like at the turn of the next century, though a forecast decades into the future can’t predict the unexpected like a global pandemic.

The projections can help the U.S. prepare for change, from anticipating the demands of health care for seniors to providing insight into the number of schools that need to be built over the coming decades, said Paul Ong, a public affairs professor at UCLA.

“As most demographers realize, population projection is not an inevitable destiny, just a glimpse into a possible future,” Ong said. “Seeing that possibility also opens up opportunities for action.”

Population changes due to births and deaths, which are more predictable, and immigration, which is more uncertain. Because of that, the Census Bureau offers three different projections through 2100 based on high, medium and low immigration.

Under the low-immigration scenario, the U.S. population shrinks to 319 million people by 2100 from the current population of 333 million residents. It grows to 365 million people at the end of the century under the medium immigration scenario and to 435 million residents with high immigration. In each immigration scenario, the country is on track to become older and more diverse.

Americans of college age and younger are already part of a majority-minority cohort.

Aliana Mediratta, a 20-year-old student at Washington University in St. Louis, welcomes a future with a more diverse population and believes immigration “is great for our society and our economy.”

But that optimism is tempered by existential worries that things seem to be getting worse, including climate change and gun violence.

“I feel like I have to be optimistic about the future since, if I’m pessimistic, it disables me from doing things that I want to do, that are hard, but morally right to do,” Mediratta said.

Here’s a look at how the U.S. population is expected to change through 2100, using the medium immigration scenario.

2020s

By 2029, older adults will outnumber children, with 71 million U.S. residents aged 65 and older and 69 million residents under age 18.

The numeric superiority of seniors will mean fewer workers. Combined with children, they’ll represent 40% of the population. Only around 60% of the population that is of working age — between 18 and 64 — will be paying the bulk of taxes for Social Security and Medicare.

2030s

“Natural increase” in the U.S. will go negative in 2038, meaning deaths outpacing births due to an aging population and declines in fertility. The Census projects 13,000 more deaths than births in the U.S., and that shortfall grows to 1.2 million more deaths than births by 2100.

2050s

By 2050, the share of the U.S. population that is white and not Hispanic will be under 50% for the first time.

Currently, 58.9% of U.S. residents are white and not Hispanic. By 2050, Hispanic residents will account for a quarter of the U.S. population, up from 19.1% today. African Americans will make up 14.4% of the population, up from 13.6% currently. Asians will account for 8.6% of the population, up from 6.2% today.

Also in the 2050s, Asians will surpass Hispanics as the largest group of immigrants by race or ethnicity.

2060s

The increasing diversity of the nation will be most noticeable in children. By the 2060s, non-Hispanic white children will be a third of the population under age 18, compared to under half currently.

2080s

Under that medium immigration scenario, the U.S. population peaks at more than 369 million residents in 2081. After that, the Census Bureau predicts a slight population decline, with deaths outpacing births and immigration.

2090s

By the end of the 2090s, the foreign population will make up almost 19.5% of U.S. residents, the highest share since the Census Bureau started keeping track in 1850. The highest rate previously was 14.8% in 1890. It currently is 13.9%.

FOREIGN BORN AND IMMIGRATION

Experts say that predicting immigration trends is more difficult than in the past when migration was tightly linked to the pull of economic opportunity in the U.S.

When immigration is instead driven by the push of climate change, social tensions exacerbated by authoritarian rulers and gangs, as well as fluctuating anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S., it is harder to predict, said Manuel Pastor, a professor of sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.

“In the past we would say we get immigration from economics, and you can make some reasonable projections,” Pastor said. “Now, we have these push pressures for people to come to the U.S., and we have a further racialized reaction to migration, we have a much wider band or error, or the potential to make mistakes.”

RELIABILITY

How reliable will the numbers be, especially as race and ethnic definitions change, and immigration levels are hard to predict?

While there is an extreme level of uncertainty projecting almost eight decades into the future, it is a good starting point, said Ong, the UCLA professor.

“Over 80 years, birth and death rates, fertility rates and migration rates can be changed through policies, programs and resources,” Ong said.

Mediratta, the college student, imagines that 20-year-olds like her two centuries ago were also concerned about the future, but they didn’t have TikTok or Instagram to amplify their worries.

“It seems like things are bad all the time,” Mediratta said. “I feel that things were probably bad all the time 200 years ago, but nobody could tell everyone about it.”

After three successful conventions, African Economic Development Solutions (AEDS) returned for the annual African Leadership Conference. The theme for this year’s event, which was held virtually on Dec. 8, was “African Immigrants’ Challenge in Wealth Building Efforts.” Panelists from across the nation explored strategies for African immigrant economic prosperity.

“This is a space where we can share information and build a network across the U.S.,” said AEDS President Gene Gelgelu.

AEDS works by linking African immigrants in Minnesota’s Twin Cities metro area to resources to help them attain home ownership, build businesses, and achieve financial security. The leadership conference brings together African immigrant officials and leaders from across the state to address economic disparities.

Minnesota has some of the widest racial disparities in economic achievement in the country. The state has the second largest income inequality gap between Blacks and whites in the nation – second only to the District of Columbia. Many African immigrants in Minnesota lack the necessary resources and connections need to improve their economic well-being and close the wealth gap. By bringing together African immigrants and leaders, AEDS hopes to gather ideas on how the community can speed up addressing economic inequalities.

A key theme was the idea of entrepreneurship as an avenue of upward mobility. Panelists discussed the advantages of owning a business over working traditional jobs, including increased professional freedom. But they also nodded to the potential challenges of immigrant entrepreneurship. Business owner Margaret Dureke said that it was important to nurture entrepreneurial talent in the community by being supportive.

“We need to push the people who want to become entrepreneurs,” Dureke said. “We need to become financially independent.”

AEDS Director Idris Mohamed said many African newcomers struggle to acclimate to cultural changes as they navigate establishing their businesses in a new country.

“Many of us ran businesses back in Africa but came here unprepared because the way it’s done here is very different,” Mohamed said.

One way Africans could adjust, Mohamed said, was to embrace small business educational programs. By seeking training, African immigrants could familiarize themselves with American business practices, he said. One thing nonprofit director Hibo Abdi wants to see in trainings is a focus on technology education.

“A lot of the younger immigrants are tech savvy but the older generations are left behind,” Abdi said.

Amidst the optimism around entrepreneurship, professor Sombo Muzata, an assistant professor of Political Science at James Maddison University, urged Africans to remember the value of traditional schooling and careers. An MIT study found that lower profits and higher closure rates plague Black owned businesses, making entrepreneurship a risky endeavor for many Black people. Muzata said it was important to encourage entrepreneurial growth, while also being realistic about potential challenges.

“Not everyone is going to succeed as an entrepreneur, so education is our next best shot,” Muzata said.

But the dream of African immigrant prosperity could be futile, panelists said, if they did not first pour into the children. After all, they would be the ones to carry the torch when today’s business leaders retire. Beirut Abagofi, a policy aide for the City of Minneapolis, said that there was a direct link between the quality of children’s’ education and workforce readiness in adulthood, adding that it was crucial to prioritize polices that would support young African learners.

“For me the workforce preparation is deeply tied to the education system,” Abagofi said. “They need to align.”

Fortunately, African youth in America are doing relatively well. A Kansas University study found that immigrants aged 16 and over have an employment rate of 69%, six percentage points above that of the American rate.

Still, there are gaps. A report from the Migration Policy Institute revealed that despite being more educated, African immigrants earn less on average than immigrants from other regions. About 20% of African immigrants are said to be living below the poverty line. Film director Chuckwunonso Dureke, a child of Nigerian immigrants, said her upbringing taught her the value of African youths’ access to a strong internet connection.

“For African youth to have internet access in the 5G era would be powerful, you’re gonna need certain things in your hour to be able to keep up,” Dureke said.

Beverly Booker Ammah, an associate professor at Howard University, said there are obstacles such as forms of “unproductive” entertainment that prevent African immigrant youth. Ammah said she would like to see a shift in the interests of young Black youth, where appetite for pop culture is replaced by intellectual curiosity.

“It is key to have analytic discussions about what are those distractions and how youth and elders can dismantle them to move forward,” Ammah said.

Gelgelu thanked participants before concluding the conference, mentioning his anticipation for seeing guests in person in the summer of next year. But before everyone signed off, he reminded them why conferences like the National African Leadership Conference are important for the community.

“We think we are so resilient, but we have to remember we are navigating two cultures, our own and the one here,” Gelgelu said.

18-year-old Marley Dias, one of Time Magazine’s 2018 “25 Most Influential Teens,” will make history on Jan. 15 when she becomes the youngest person to keynote the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Breakfast in Minneapolis, joining luminaries such as Dr. Bernice King and the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis that have headlined it.

The annual breakfast which honors the legacy of the late civil rights leader will be marking its 34th year and is one of the nation’s largest. It is presented by General Mills and the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) to raise funds to fund college scholarships for Twin Cities students.  The state’s education department recently revealed that Black Minnesotans have a postsecondary educational attainment rate of 31%, half of that of their white peers.

“Each year, this event gives us the opportunity to come together as a community to create an imperative to live out Dr. King’s legacy today and celebrate his unwavering commitment to education,” said Mary Jane Melendez, chief sustainability and global impact officer at General Mills.

The event’s theme, “Leading Onward– Elevating New Voices for Justice and Equality,” was inspired by Dr. King’s commitment to uplifting the youth in the Civil Rights movement. Dr. Yohuru Williams from the University of St. Thomas will lead a moderated conversation with Ms. Dias following her remarks.

The 18-year-old activist and cultural influencer first came to the national spotlight when in 2015, at the age of 11, she launched the #1000BlackGirlBooks initiative, which aimed to collect and donate 1,000 books featuring Black girls as the main characters to schools and libraries across the United States. That initiative has collected 15,000 books-to-date.

She is a student at Harvard and also hosts and executive produces Netflix’s Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices. Additionally, she serves as the ambassador of National Educational Association’s (NEA) Read Across America program.

This will also mark the longest consecutive streak of women keynote speakers in the breakfast’s history. Since 2021 when Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of the late civil rights leader, delivered a keynote along with Ambassador Andrew J. Young, speakers since then have been women.

Dr. Michael L. Lomax, president and CEO at UNCF, in a statement Thursday praised his organization’s partnership with General Mills which he said has been critical in securing a college education for many underrepresented students in the Twin Cities.

“This year, UNCF celebrates its 80^th anniversary, and through our incredible partnership with General Mills we have been able to provide unprecedented support for HBCUs and the students they’ve served over the decades,” said Dr. Lomax.

Minnesota’s four-sibling pop band, NUNNABOVE, will perform for the second year. They appeared on America’s Got Talent in 2018, and the group has since performed at a wide variety of local festivals, community events and fundraisers in and around the Twin Cities. Known MPLS, a youth choir, will also perform.

The event will be held at the Minneapolis Convention Center from 8 to 9:30 a.m. Doors open at 7 a.m.

To purchase tickets or for more information, visit MLKBreakfast.com. The event will include an ASL interpreter.

The event will also be broadcast on WCCO AM 830.

Lifeworks hosted a reception at the Bell Museum on Dec. 7 to celebrate a successful 2023 and the partners that made it possible.

The Richfield based nonprofit helps people with disabilities find paid work and help them with finding volunteering opportunities and field trips. It works with an average of over 3,000 people with disabilities annually.

The Thursday reception provided the opportunity for Lifeworks’ CEO Ms. Gertrude Matemba-Mutasa to update partners on the nonprofit’s wins this year and to thank them for their partnership. Some of the key partners present that she thanked was Allianz, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota and Marsden, among others. These are some of the companies that offer paid work to those with disabilities that Lifeworks refers.

“These employer partners have embraced the notion that workplaces that fully include people with disabilities see two times more profit and higher productivity than their competitors,” said Matemba-Mutasa during formal remarks. “If you are here from a business that is not hiring people with disabilities, yet, we would love to talk to you and figure out how we can get that done,” she added.

According to Minnesota Compass, 11.6% of Minnesotans live with one or more disabilities, with almost 330,000 of them in the Twin Cities metro area.

Ms. Matemba-Mutasa is the only African-born person leading one of the Twin Cities’ 25 largest metro-area civic and cultural nonprofits, and one of only two Black people, the other being Mr. Rico Alexander of Parents in Community Action (PICA). For 2023, Twin Cities Business Journal ranked Lifeworks, which was founded in 1974, ninth largest in the Twin Cities with 2022 revenues of just over $90 million while PICA was number 25 with revenues of just over $39 million in 2022.

The CEO spoke with Mshale after her formal remarks and said one of the most existing things she is looking forward to that her organization is embarking on in 2024, is disability inclusion training for companies and organizations looking to integrate disability hiring as part of their hiring and human resource strategy. She said there is already a waiting list for the training.

“We can provide services all day long (for the disabled) but without disability inclusion training we are not going to really meet their needs,” she said.

Mr. Mamady Konneh, executive director of We Network Now which connects African professionals, said he was fully in support of Lifeworks’ mission and work in the community understood the value of what it brings to the community and not just to the disabled community. He however said he wished it was not such a taboo topic in many African communities to discuss those with disabilities.

“In the African community, disability is a taboo subject and some even hide it, and for me its services like the ones provided by Lifeworks that we can let the community know will help their loved ones live up to their full potential,” Mr. Konneh said.

Ms. Dawn Selle, vice president for community partnerships at the Sanneh Foundation, was one of Lifeworks’ partners that was attending the event. She said Lifeworks’ mission and activities in the community complement those of nonprofits like hers that also work to ensure individual reach their full potential.

“We are here to support them (Lifeworks), bring them up and to show that nonprofits don’t have to compete against each other and we do work together, especially for our people,” Ms. Selle said.

Tom Gitaa contributed to this story.

Two new board members and two incumbents seeking reelection have won seats on the Organization of Liberians in Minnesota (OLM) board of directors.

Terms for four of the nine members on the board were expiring and up for election on Sunday.

Six candidates – including three that were seeking reelection- vied for the four board seats. The candidate field was split evenly between men and women.

One board member, Mr. Alec Deah, did not seek reelection.

Messrs. Arthur Biah and Mohammed Dukuly were reelected while the voters decided not to retain Mr. Ishmael Komara on the board. Biah is also the current board chair.

Big win for women

Voters also decided to double the number of women on the board by electing Mses. Charlesetta George and Romanda Gaye-Schaeppi to join Mses. Edwina Willie and Cora Sneh. The board will now have five men and four women.

Members serve a two-year term.

The board of directors is the governing body of OLM, which is a membership-based organization, but day-to-day operations are run by the executive director who reports to the board. The current executive director is Kamaty Diahn.

Yesterday’s election was held at the Liberian Community Center in Brooklyn Park starting at 7 a.m. and went on for 12 hours. It was conducted by an independent elections commission chaired by local nonprofit sector executive Mr. Stephen Wreh-Wilson.

The electoral body chair in a written statement on behalf of the commission expressed “deep gratitude to the OLM membership for their active participation throughout the electoral process.”

“OLM congratulates the newly elected members and calls upon the community to extend a warm welcome to these leaders,” she said. “As the elected board members assume their roles, the organization looks forward to a future marked by unity, growth, and prosperity under their guidance.”

Minnesota is home to the largest population of Liberians in the nation.

Induction

The four elected on Sunday will be sworn in on Sunday, Dec. 10, 2023. The ceremony will be held starting 5 p.m. at the Liberian Community Center, 7001 78^th Ave. N, Brooklyn Park, MN 55445.

When standout Kenyan journalist Alex Chamwada left a secure job at a prominent Kenyan broadcaster to launch Chams Media, a content creation and communication consulting firm, 10 years ago, he wanted to “tell positive stories that were often overlooked.”

He  has done exactly that and those stories are everywhere: online in places like YouTube and social media especially Facebook, on free-to-air Kenyan TV, and its flagship program Daring Abroad is among the most widely shared on diaspora WhatsApp groups.

In the decade since its launching, Chams Media has featured stories of over 1,000 individuals and companies in its flagship program Daring Abroad, with production of the series involving Mr. Chamwada and his crew traveling overseas to gather content. The series highlights successful Kenyans abroad in the areas of business, economic and social endeavors.

Daring Abroad airs on NTV Kenya, the second most viewed tv station in Kenya according to data provided by GeoPoll, the Washington, DC-based data research firm that operates in Africa, Asia and Latin America. According GeoPoll, NTV had a viewership of 10.6 million people in the month of September 2023, the most recent surveyed month.

Those in the diaspora normally catch the show on YouTube and are among the over 120,000 subscribers on the Chams Media TV channel that has a cumulative viewership of over 6 million views across its different programs. In addition to the popular Daring Abroad series, other programs closer to home include The Chamwada Report which delves into development issues in the country.

″It was difficult to convince media that the positive can sell,” Chamwada tells Mshale during a WhatsApp interview. “It was difficult to overcome the narrative that numbers are built on sensation. But we have demonstrated that you can step out of the norm and excel.”

Interacting with Chamwada on a personal level, most recently in August when he was in Minneapolis for a live taping of Daring Abroad, one gets the sense he didn’t start the business exclusively just for the money, a thought that was posed to him during the WhatsApp interview.

“This is a journey of faith, a journey of resilience anchored on passion and humility and powered by the grace of the Almighty God,” Chamwada says. “When I stepped out of the newsroom to go independent, I had no savings, I had no office. I had zero equipment except my cellphone, laptop, the idea and networks.”

Chamwada says with a smile he finds it ironic that Chams Media’s main business with Kenyan mainstream media is with content they had ignored.

From the humble beginnings of just him as the staff, he has since grown Chams Media to a company of over 20 employees spanning the editorial and production crew and a strong the back office operations team.

He points out the case of the large Kenyan diaspora that media in Kenya had mostly ignored except for when there was tragedy. There were no human-interest stories that showed Kenyans abroad in their full scope.

Central Bank of Kenya figures show remittances from Kenyans in the diaspora were the leading foreign exchange earner last year totaling $4.027 billion in 2022.

“One of our most exciting episodes of Daring Abroad show featured Bramwell Bushuru, the only Kenyan living on the little known St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic Ocean,” Chamwada says. “The Island is a British protectorate with a population of only 4,000. Bramwell is an air traffic controller at the Island.”

The production of the St. Helena episode, which as of the time of this writing has over 135,000 views, involved Chamwada and his cameraman Eric Maweu timing their visit to coincide with the once a week flight that gets one to the tiny island via Johannesburg using South Africa-based FlyAirlink.

As Chamwada and his team have crisscrossed the globe showcasing Kenyans in all of their glory, he has transformed Chams Media into a trusted medium for connecting Kenya with its sprawling and all-important diaspora trusted by both government and business and most importantly, the audience.

Blue chip companies in Kenya such as Co-Operative Bank and Kenya Airways that are  trying to expand their businesses to the diaspora have made Chams Media their partner of choice for reaching the lucrative market.

Additionally, conversations he has had with Kenyans in the diaspora have sparked new unrelated ventures for the 10-year-old firm, as those abroad express hunger for trusted business partners and service providers.

“I realized as I met with Kenyans whether in the U.S. or Europe or anywhere else, that they were looking for businesses they could trust,” Chamwada says. “They kept asking me where can we invest? can you recommend a trusted developer? and that is when ideas for Chams Adventures, Chams Real Estate and Chams Insurance Agency came up.”

“The future looks bright. There are many opportunities in the digital space. We will continue to diversify our content. We have also diversified into organizing and hosting investment forums abroad under the Daring Abroad brand. We will continue to nurture talents,” said Chamwada.

A formal celebration of company’s 10-year anniversary will be livestreamed on its social media pages from Nairobi’s Jacaranda Hotel on Friday, Dec. 1 starting at 5PM local Kenyan time (2:00 PM GMT or 9:00 A.M. CST). Links are below.

Chams Media Facebook
Chams Media YouTube
Chams Meda LinkedIn

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Liberian President George Weah conceded defeat late Friday after provisional results from this week’s runoff vote showed challenger Joseph Boakai beating him by just over a percentage point.

Elections officials said that with 99.58% of ballots counted from Tuesday’s election, Boakai was in the lead, with 50.89% to Weah’s 49.11%. The results were a dramatic reversal from the election six years ago when Weah easily beat Boakai in the second round.

“The Liberian people have spoken and we have heard their voice,” Weah said in an address to the nation, adding that Boakai “is in a lead that we cannot surpass.”

“I urge you to follow my example and accept the result of the elections,” he said, adding that “our time will come again” in 2029.

The concession speech given even before official results were announced in Liberia comes at a time when there have been growing concerns about the decline of democracy in West Africa. The region has seen a spate of military coups over the last several years, including one earlier this year carried out in Gabon in the aftermath of a presidential election.

Weah said he had “the utmost respect for the democracy process that has defined our nation.”

The 57-year-old former international soccer star won the 2017 election after his promise to fight poverty and generate infrastructure development. It was the first democratic transfer of power in the West African nation since the end of the country’s back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003 that killed some 250,000 people.

But Weah has been accused of not living up to key campaign promises that he would fight corruption and ensure justice for victims of conflict.

Tuesday’s second round lived up to expectations of an extremely tight contest following the first round last month in which Weah got 43.83% of the votes and Boakai 43.44% to move on to the runoff. Boakai later managed to win endorsements from the candidates who finished third, fourth and fifth.

Boakai, 78, served as vice president under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first democratically elected female leader. He appeared to have an upper hand in the vote because of the many Liberians aggrieved over the unfulfilled promises of Weah to fix the country’s ailing economy and stamp out corruption, said Ryan Cummings, director of Africa-focused Signal Risk consulting.

The outcome of the second round so far shows “public disaffection with his (Weah’s) administration with Boakai considered a viable alternative for a lot of Liberians,” Cummings said.

Weah is the only African to have won international soccer’s Ballon d’Or. He played as a forward for Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, Chelsea and Manchester City during an 18-year club career. His 23-year-old son, Tim, now plays for Serie A club Juventus and the U.S. national team.
___
Associated Press writers Chinedu Asadu in Abuja, Nigeria and Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal contributed.

The city of Minneapolis is committed to finding a lasting solution that both rideshare companies and their drivers can agree on, according to Mayor Jacob Frey. The mayor spoke during a press conference he held at his office on Wednesday to brief local ethnic media on an issue that is important to the communities they cover.

“We’ve been working hard to find a solution that raises the wage for drivers in our city,” Frey said.

Fair pay for rideshare drivers in Minneapolis has been a very contentious issue, with the mayor and city council members unable to agree on how best to make sure drivers earn a living wage while keeping companies like Uber and Lyft operating in the city. In August, Frey vetoed an ordinance the City Council passed requiring Uber, Lyft, and other ride hailing companies to pay their drivers more.

On Wednesday, Frey acknowledged the need for a balanced approach and expressed readiness to consider a revised ordinance this year to address the issue of wage increase for drivers. The commitment came after extensive consultations with drivers, advocates, rideshare companies, individuals with disabilities, and residents relying on the service, he said.

“We need to get an increase in pay, and at the same time, ensure this valuable service in our city continues to exist,” Frey said.

There are three competing driver compensation models for rides that take place in Minneapolis. Model A, which was the original proposal Frey vetoed, would compel ride hailing companies to pay drivers a minimum of $1.40 per mile and $0.51 per minute. The second proposal, known as Model B, which the mayor supports, calls for $1.17 per mile and $0.34 per minute. The final proposal, Model C, would require rideshare companies to pay drivers a flat rate of $24 per hour, applicable only during the time the driver on the way to pick up a rider or during the time transporting a rider.

A day before Frey’s press conference, council members Jason Chavez (Ward 9), Robin Wonsley (Ward 2), and Jamal Osman (Ward 6) issued a joint statement declaring their intent to conduct a thorough analysis of minimum wage policies, aligning with an ethical approach to policymaking. This initiative originated from their collaborative effort in formulating the Fair Drives, Safe Rides policy, which aimed to establish minimum wage standards and protect the rights of rideshare drivers. The leaders said they had introduced a legislative motion for a comparative analysis of the three minimum compensation models and will present their findings to Council by Jan. 19th, 2024.

“We are hopeful that such a policy could pass with full support of the Council and Mayor early next year once there is full clarity on how the models compare to each other” their statement read.

Eid Ali, the president of the Uber/Lyft Drivers Association said that drivers the group represents did not have a stand on any of three proposals and would wait to see how the comparative analysis goes.

“We obviously want what is best for our drivers, so they have a living wage,” Ali said.

Tom Gitaa contributed to this report.