The Story of Ethiopia's Jewish Warrior Queen Gudit (እሳቶ) “The fire”
By dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
Gudit (Ge'ez: ጉዲት) which translates as beautiful in Geez (the ancient language of Ethiopia), was an Ethiopian Jewish Queen from the 9th century AD. Ethiopia’s historical chronicles tell of Gudit laying waste to Ethiopia’s ancient capital of Axum and the surrounding areas. Gudit enacted her historic act of revenge in retaliation for the mistreatment she received as a Jewish young princess from a mainly Christian Ethiopian royal family. Upon Gudit’s triumphant return from exile she destroyed churches, monuments, and attempted to exterminate the members of the dynasty of the Kingdom of Axum.
Gudit’s deeds are recorded both in Ethiopian oral traditions and contemporaneously in various historical accounts by outside sources chiefly Arab and Egyptian Orthodox Christian (Coptics). According to the best dating of the Ethiopian chronicles, Gudit’s reign lasted from 850 to 890 AD.
I first heard of Gundit as a kid in Jamaica when I snuck out of my uncle’s house to listen a Rastafari ceremony known as a reason (Rastas have a complex relationship with both Ethiopia and to some extent Judaism). Years later as an adult, I then brought up Gudit’s name when I met some Beta Israeli (Ethiopian Jews) and was surprise when they told me a number of sources I could use to look her up (Funny side note, at the time I thought her name was Judith, because Judith pronounced with a Jamaica accent sounds like Gudit). They were quiet familiar with Gudit and assured me she was a real historical figure. With today of course being Rosh Hashanah (The Jewish New Year) I thought it would be a great opportunity to write on the long history of Judaism in East Africa by exploring one of Africa’s most famous Jewish Queens. In this story I’ll tie together a number sources to try and give a full picture of Gudit’s reign.
The Ethiopian chronicles are early texts written both in Ge'ez (ancient Ethiopia’s scrip) and Greek (the main language of Orthodox Christianity). The chronicles include manuscripts and inscriptions on both monumental stelae and obelisks that documented historical events. Written history only became an established genre during the early Solomonic dynasty (1270–1974). So the history by most native Ethiopian literary accounts were written a few hundred years after the events themselves. Never the less the Ethiopian chronicles of Gudit line up quite well with the first accounts of her from Arab sources which mention an Ethiopian capital other than the famous ancient Ethiopian capital of Axum. In most accounts Gudit and her family are said to have ostracized by the majority of the Ethiopian royals and powerful families because they refused conversion to the Eastern Orthodox Christianity that was rabidly gaining converts in North East Africa. This mistreatment appears to have been the driving force that motivated her to overthrown the reigning Orthodox Christian leadership of Axum.
First just a little background on Christianity and Judaism in Ethiopia. The exact date when Christianity emerged in Ethiopia is a bit uncertain. The earliest known reference to the introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia is in the New Testament (Acts 8:26-38) when Philip the Evangelist converted an Ethiopian court official in the 1st Century AD. Thus, although Christianity was practice in Ethiopia long before the rule of King Ezana the Great of Axum, Christianity really gained its foothold when it was declared the state religion in 330 AD. By declaring Christianity an official state religion that year, Ethiopia became the third country in the world to officially become Christian (after only Armenia, and Greece). According to noted Church Historian Nicephorus, the apostle St. Matthias later preached the Christian Gospel to modern-day Ethiopia after having preached in Judea. The Garima Gospels are thought to be the world's oldest illuminated Christian manuscripts.
But many scholars, argue that Ethiopian was a common term used for black Africans. They argue that the 330 AD African Queen Candace, converted to Christianity by Phillip the Evangelist, actually ruled in nearby Nubia (modern Sudan). The word "Candace" may also refer to the position of "queen" rather than to a specific person (see the term Kandake). But in any event the practice of Christianity in the Horm of Africa is old.
On the other hand Judaism was practiced in Ethiopia long before Christianity arrived and left its mark because even today the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible contains numerous Jewish Aramaic (the language of Israel during the age of Christ) loan words. Furthermore the Old Testament used in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church appears to be a direct translation from Hebrew. This contrasts with the King James Bible which is a translation from Greek into English, or the standard Catholic Bible which is Greek into Latin.
According to the Beta Israeli (Ethiopian Jews) tradition, the Jewish kingdom of Beta Israel, was initially established after Ezana was crowned as the Emperor of Axum (in 325 CE). Ezana, who was educated in his childhood by the missionary Frumentius, declared Christianity as the religion of the Ethiopian empire soon after he was crowned. The inhabitants of Ethiopia who practiced Judaism and refused to convert to Christianity began revolting. This group was referred to as "Beta Israel" by the emperor and formed a kingdom the Jews called Gondar. Modern Ethiopia Jews trace heir lineage from this area.
Now back to Gudit the main topic of this story. The Ethiopian Chronicle’s of Gudit spin the tale of a young beautiful non-Christianized Jewish girl of Axum who belonged to a stigmatized family that resisted conversion to Christianity by Axumite Orthodox Christian. In the stories she is loved by a young deacon serving the Church of Zion where the Orthodox Ethiopians believe the Ark of the Covenant resides.
As the chronicles tell, Gudit convinces her young lover to fetch her a piece of the holy cloth cover of the Tabot (sarcophagi) where the Ark resides. She tell him this will be a token of his for love for her. The young man entranced by her beauty does not hesitate to bring her a piece of the Tabot (perhaps unaware of her plan). Gudit then made a shoe and a harp, from this sacred cloth.
Next Gudit publicly exposes herself wearing her new holy gift. This act blasphemes the sacred church and the holy artifact. Once the outraged priests found out that Gudit was the mastermind of the bizarre ceremony they exile her to the Middle East, selling her to an Assyrian general.
But in a twist of fate, the General, prince Zenobis a son of the Assyrian King, falls in love with Gudit. After their wedding, her new husband returns with Gudit to Ethiopia and wages a war against the kingdom of Axum. According to the Chronicles, Gudit first arrives with an expeditionary force, and hides in the monastery of Debre Bizen in Eritrea. This is a monastery where woman are not allowed to enter even today. This was another blasphemy ceremony conducted in secret.
Gudit then sets out with her husband at the head of an army attacking the capital Axum in vengeance for the disrespect she had received as a princess sold to a foreigner. Gudit successfully destroyed the Empire of Axum and reigns over Ethiopia for four decades, established the Jewish religion of Sheba as the state religion. During the campaign against him the king of Axum writes to the Orthodox Archbishop (Coptic) of Alexandria Egypt asking for help to preserve Christendom from a Jewish usurper, this letter remains part of the historical archives.
But help from the Coptics comes too late and Gudit destroyed the Axumite Empire bringing to an end over 700 years of the former royal bloodline’s domination. Because Gudit burned most of the monasteries of the nine Saints, and many holy artifacts that came from Eastern Orthodox Byzantines, she was given the negative name Esato meaning the fire. Arabic writing from this time also called her Hwyia which also translates as fire. Several Ethiopian traditions also state that Gudit sacked and burned Debre Damo, an amba which at the time was both a royal treasury and a male prison for the royal family. Gudit is so closely associated with the destruction of the Axumite Empire, that the name Gudit (ጉዲት) is commonly translated in Amharic (Ethiopia’s language) as "destruction".
A lot of the sources on Gudit are difficult reading (unless your a fan of epic poetry). But I found a link to Italian historian Carlo Conti Rossini one of the first European to translate the account of this warrior queen in the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, where she was described as Bani al-Hamwiyah. Italy at the time of his research was attempting to become the primary power in the Horn of Africa, leading to a plethora of Italian academic scholarship in the region. There was also in general a lot of European interest in Ethiopia due to the enduring the legend of Prestor John.
Several corroborating sources have established that Gudit began her campaign during the reign of Pope Philotheos of Alexandria. Further proof is recorded in the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria. During the the reign of Patriarchate of Philotheos (979-1003 A.D.), George, the King of Nubia, received an appeal to ferry a message to the Patriarch from an unnamed ruler of Ethiopia seeking the appointment of a new Metropolitan (Orthodox Archbishop). The letter described how a woman, the queen of the Bani al-Hamuya, was laying waste to the country and attacking Emperor and his followers in an effort to wipe out Christianity in Ethiopia.
In his letter the Ethiopian Emperor attributed his dilemma to divine retribution from the Metropolitan (archbishop) Abunä Pétros having been disposed by and impostor named Minas during the reign of Patriarchate of Cosmas (923-34 A.D.). Because of this interference in church affairs Ethiopia had been without a Metropolitan.. In response to this appeal Philotheos appointed Dan’él, a monk from Abbu Maqar as bishop. After arrival in Ethiopia, religious sectarian violence appeared to end. The Ethiopian chronicles record that “God was no longer angry with them and put an end to the activities of the woman who had risen against them.” The timelines of these events, the tenure of Patriarch Philotheos, and the intervention of king Georgios II of Makuria (Nubia), provide a historical marker of about 960 for Gudit.
A contemporary Arab historian, Ibn Hawqal, provides this account of Gudit:
“As for Abyssinia, it has been ruled by a woman for many years. It is she who killed the Emperor of Abyssinia, known as the hadani and she still holds sway over her own country and the neighbouring regions of the hadani’s country *in the interior**of Abyssinia”.
- sic, translation by Enrico Cerulli (RSE, III, 273); but cf. J. S. Trimingham (Islam in Ethiopia, 52) “…in the west of Abyssinia” and Taddesse Tamrat (Journal of Ethiopian Studies, X, No. 1, p. 137, n. 4), after G. Wiet, Configuration de la Terre I, 56, “…in the southern part of the land of the Habesha”.
Another historian mentions that a King of Yemen sent a zebra to the ruler of Iraq in approximately 969, which he had received as a gift from the Queen of the al-Habasha. All these accounts from independent sources confirm a rebellious non-Christian queen harried the Emperor and the Christian populace of northern Ethiopia in mid-tenth century.
Trying to identify Queen Gudit as the queen documented in the Arabic text is a frequently debated among Horn Of African scholars. Even with an abundance of corroborating evidence the problem of identifying the queen as Gudit remains frustratingly complicated.
Carlo Rossini, reading Bani al-Damutafor al-Hamuya, suggested that Gudit was the ruler of the powerful ancient kingdom of Damot, and that her rebellion represented an attempt by the indigenous southern Ethiopian ethnic Sidama people to resist domination by the Christian north. Rossini in his research argued that Gudit may have actually been the ruler of the once powerful kingdom and that parts of her story were retconned into the Ethiopian chronicles to give them a Jewish history.
Rossini’s plausible hypothesis was revived by Western scholars in the 1980’s, who felt the warrior queen as ruler of a Sidama kingdom made more sense. However a new batch of scholars lead by Enrico Cerulli have pointed out that other warrior queens, such as Badit daughter of Maya (~1063 A.D.) seized control of their houses in this region. Queens returning to overthrow dynasties in turmoil was true even among the Muslim populations of Ethiopia. Cerulli points out that even with some historical alliteration, the story of Gudit told in the chronicles is plausible.
Furthermore Dr. Sergew Hable-Selassie author of Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History to 1270, discovered manuscripts at Axum detailing that Gudit was related to the royal family. The manuscripts detail that Gudit was in fact a grand-daughter to the female line of Emperor Wedem-Asfäré. In them Gudit is said to have been married to a Jewish prince, Zenobis, son of the King Assyria. The only contradiction is the the text locate her husband’s kingdom of Assyria on the Red Sea coastal plain in Eritrea. In the work Dr. Selassie details, Gudit set out with her husband at the head of his army to attack Axum in vengeance for the harsh treatment that she had received in the past, coming across the coast from a different direction that other accounts.
The manuscripts at Axum give a detailed description of the destruction of Axum, “first the cathedral and then the ancient stelae … constructed by Greek artisans, at great cost.” East African scholars generally agree that queen Gudit’s invasion dealt the city of Axum a death blow. The Ethiopian Chronicles (Gädlä ‘Iyäsus-Mo’a) contains a passage that in the seventh year of the reign of Del-Nä’ad ( the son or grandson of Degna-Zan) ,
“…[the seat of] the kingdom was transferred from Axum to the country of the east.” The text strongly suggest that in planning her campaign, Gudit took advantage of the death of Emperor Degna-Zan. The emperor and the entire main force of Axumite army had just perished in a desert expedition to the “land of the Arabs,” (the border with modern Sudan).
Ethiopia’s oral traditions text that that Gudit ruled Ethiopia from another city after storming the capital of Axum lines up with other written sources. Arab historian Al Ya’qubi (872–891) wrote the first recorded mention of Ka’bar, as the capital of the kingdom of the Najashi (Ethiopia).
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Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of archaeological evidence of the regional base of Queen Gudit. The prevailing interpretation from the historians I look at is that Gudit was from Damot (Southern Ethiopia). Based on Ethiopian oral traditions, most believe Judith was a princes of the Felasha Mura (Ethiopian Jews) who controlled the area near the present day cities of Gojam and Begamedir .
Historian Paul B. Henze wrote:
"She is said to have killed the emperor, ascended the throne herself, and reigned for 40 years. Accounts of her violent misdeeds are still related among peasants in the north Ethiopian countryside."
Henze continues in a footnote:
On my first visit to the rock church of Abreha and Atsbeha in eastern Tigray in 1970, I noticed that its intricately carved ceiling was blackened by soot. The priest explained it as the work of Gudit, who had piled the church full of hay and set it ablaze nine centuries before.
As a powerful Jewish African monarch Gudit has attracted a lot of scholarship and research, especially concerning her ethnic origin. This was especially true at the time the Beta Israeli were petitioning to receive permission to migrate to Israel. Modern historian Enrico Cerulli discovered Arabic documents that mention a Muslim queen named Badit daughter of Maya in the tenth century who reigned under the Makhzumi dynasty. According to historian Tekeste Negash, Gudit was a Cushitic queen based at Lake Hayq in the Wollo Province of Ethiopia. He further explains that there may have been a regional power struggle between Axum and this queen of Wollo whom had ties to Yemeni traders through the port of Zeila. Somali folklore also mentions a Harla queen Arawelo, who governed from Zeila into much of the interior of the Eastern Africa.
Finally Jewish historian J.A. Rogers in the early 1900’s identified Gudit as one in the same with a black Hebrew Queen named Esther. He closely associated her with the "Falasha" Jewish dynasty that reigned from 950 to 1260 in Ethiopia. Many Falashas today proudly claim her as one of their own.
But to be clear more recent scholarship surrounding Gudit’s ethnicity, has cast more uncertainty on her actual religious identity. Many experts on the Horn of Africa contest the likelihood she actually possessed Judaic beliefs or any association with the Beta Israel. Many believe Gudit probably adhered to indigenous African-Ethiopian based religion, hence her seemingly strong resentment towards a then encroaching Judeo-Christian Axum. To quote from Kaplan (1992):
Despite the Judith legend's popularity and its prominent position in the traditions of both Jews and Christians to this day, there appears to be several good reasons for rejecting the depiction of the tenth century queen of the Bani al-Hamwiyah as a Falasha. Although some Ethiopic sources do portray Yodit [Gudit] as a Jewess, these generally identify her as a convert rather than the product of a well entrenched indigenous religious community. The material recorded by Bruce, which contains the earliest complete account of the legend, must be considered suspect on several grounds... The suggestion that the Falasha queen Yodit [Guidt], putative conqueror of Aksum [Axum], is in fact the pagan queen of the Sidama, vanquisher of the haḍani is not as startling as it might appear at first glance. By transforming the queen from a pagan to a Jewess and her primary area of activity from the south of Aksum, Christian tradition neatly places her within the primary categories of Ethiopian political-religious discourse. On some levels, the Judith traditions can be said to mirror the themes of the Kebra Nagast. Both the Queen of Sheba and Judith are depicted as converts to Judaism.
In an interesting side note, as both a powerful Jewish and African historical figure Gudit has begone to appeared in popular culture. Gudit (also known as Yodit) is featured in the Age of Empires II: HD Edition: The African Kingdoms. The campaign is based on a tradition that she was a ruler who was exiled, where she married a Syrian Jew then returned to Axum to restore her throne. She also is said to have inspired some of the designs and characters in Marvel studios Black Panther blockbuster.
Today Gudit the beautiful warrior queen is a powerful symbol of black girl magic, and a figure that inspires mountains of research and scholarship. As a powerful historical figure that spans both the black African and Jewish worlds, and who came into contact with both Christians and Arab Muslims Gudit is one of histories most unique figures. Gudit was a warrior queen like no other in history.
Sources:
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Finch, Charles S. and Larry Williams, "The Great Queens of Ethiopia" in Black Women in Antiquity, ed. by Ivan Van Sertima (1990).
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Ragsdale, Phyllis W., ed., A Salute to Historica African Kings and Queens (1993).
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Italy and Ethiopia from the Treaty of Uccialli to the Battle of Adwa, (Italia ed Etiopia dal trattato di Uccialli alla battaglia d'Adua) — Carlo Conti Rossini (1935 — Translated 2005)
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NEWS ROUND UP BY DOPPER0189, BLACK KOS MANAGING EDITOR
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Our conversation over race and policing — like our conversations over virtually everything in America — is shot through with a crude individualism. Talking in terms of systems and contexts comes less naturally to us, but that means we often miss the true story.
Phillip Atiba Goff is the co-founder and CEO of the Center for Policing Equity, as well as a professor of African American studies and psychology at Yale University. At CPE, Goff sits atop the world’s largest collection of police behavioral data. So he has the evidence, and he knows what it tells us — and, just as importantly, what it doesn’t even attempt to measure. He knows what we can say with confidence about race and policing, and what we wish we knew but simply don’t. He thinks in systems, in contexts, in uncertainty — in the bigger, harder picture.
That’s what this conversation on The Ezra Klein Show is about. What do we know about racial bias in policing? At what levels does it operate? Where has it been measured, and what haven’t we even tried to measure? How much of policing is driven by crime rates? How do we think about the conditions that create crime in this analysis, and what do we miss when we ignore them? What do we know about the investments that actually make people safe? How do we balance the reality that police do help reduce violent crime with the fury communities have at being overpoliced or victimized by police? How do we experiment with other models of safety carefully and systematically?
There’s a lot in this one. This conversation could’ve gone for hours longer. But these are tough issues, and they deserve someone who understands both the micro-level data and the macro-level context. Goff does, and he shares that knowledge generously and clearly here.
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Misconduct in interrogations and trials has sent hundreds of innocent Black men to prison. The Atlantic: The Other Police Violence
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What Richard Miles experienced at the hands of the police was not captured on cellphone video, did not involve a dramatic altercation with seven bullets to the back or a knee on the neck. His experience was slow, almost invisible, but still devastating—more like a cancer than a heart attack. Miles, who spent 15 years in a Texas prison for a murder he did not commit, told me the images that are horrifying the public today are only a starting point in a sequence of events that has ruined the lives of hundreds of innocent Black men who landed in prison because of police malfeasance.
For Miles, the loss amounts to years spent in a cell, the death of his father before he was cleared, the stigma of having spent time in prison, and others’ suspicion that he really is a killer. “All of those wounds, I still walk with mentally,” he said. “We have all died by the misconduct of people in authority.”
In a new study published by the National Registry of Exonerations, four researchers analyzed 2,400 exonerations from 1989 to 2019. (The study defines exoneration as an instance when a prisoner has been officially cleared based on new evidence of innocence.) Perjury or false accusations (which were lumped together in the study) are the single most-common source of such convictions, but police misconduct ranked second—responsible for nearly 850 of the convictions examined in the report—ahead of mistaken witnesses, jailhouse informants, bad forensic testimony, and rogue prosecutors. Researchers found that police bent or broke the rules in 35 percent of the cases—tampering with witnesses, coercively interrogating suspects, fabricating evidence, hiding exculpatory evidence, and lying at trial. Samuel Gross, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan Law School and the study’s editor, says that when you also take into account the behavior of prosecutors (and some of the cases included both prosecutorial and police misconduct), government officials’ misconduct contributed to more than half of all bad convictions. “And it probably occurs in other cases, because we don’t know about a lot of misconduct that did occur,” Gross adds. “By its nature, it’s concealed.”
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Let’s celebrate Andrew and R. Jai Gillum for finding the freedom to define themselves and their relationship on their terms and for making space for others to do the same. The Grio: Andrew Gillum provides an opportunity to celebrate diverse Black love
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It’s with this in mind that I write to thank my brother, Andrew Gillum, and my sister, R. Jai Gillum, for inviting us in. Andrew and R. Jai are a family. Period, full stop. The contours of their marriage and how they show up for one another was, is, and will remain for them to negotiate. They do not owe anyone an explanation of their relationship.
In spite of this fact, Andrew and R. Jai sat down with talk show Host Tamron Hall to invite the world into seeing who they are and how they’re choosing to show up for one another and their family.
“Inviting in” is an idea that acknowledges that “coming out” is a problematic construct based on pejorative expectations and is most often enjoyed by people who have access to privilege based on genetic code or zip code (that is: they’re White and/or live in communities protected by privilege).
Instead of “coming out,” members of our community who may have experiences that one may classify as non-traditional may decide to “invite in” those in their lives who are concerned, competent, and compassionate, to have conversations with them about things that are important to how they show up in the world. Sometimes, this happens without public proclamation.
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We need to treat Black community health like the same public health emergency that COVID is. Slate: Racism Is a Pandemic
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When two colleagues and I started examining infectious mortality rates during the early 20th century, we were looking for regional differences in how the United States handled influenza, tuberculosis, and other kinds of infections. Of course, we were especially interested in that era’s deadly pandemic. The 1918 flu had killed on a scale that’s hard to fathom: an estimated 50 million people worldwide, and half a million in the U.S.
To get a detailed look at infectious disease mortality in that era, we digitized and carefully checked old public health records, linked them to census population estimates, and categorized the causes of death. We didn’t believe the results. We discovered that white mortality during the 1918 flu pandemic was still lower than Black mortality, up to that point, had ever been. This wasn’t only true in the South, but in every region of the United States. This wasn’t about regional public health—it was about racism.
We knew that, in cities at the time, Black people were forced to live in intensely segregated housing, often under threat of violence and often in intense poverty, in both the North and the South. But as three white researchers—I worked alongside James Feigenbaum, an economist at Boston University, and Christopher Muller, a sociologist at Berkeley—we were accustomed to reading papers and hearing scholarly presentations that treat the 1918 pandemic as an unprecedented experience in terms of biology but also in terms of cold, hard death rates. It had never occurred to us that the same death rates might also represent an ordinary experience for a large segment of the population.
Our first thought was that we might have made a mistake. We examined the data every which way and found the same result each time: Racial inequality in the early 20th century was more deadly than the 1918 flu. We had begun our project hoping that regional differences in death rates would hint at which of the sweeping social changes of that era had been particularly consequential in saving lives. But it turned out that regional differences in death rates could simply be explained by racial inequality—they were higher in the South simply because the urban Black population was greater there. It wasn’t until the 1930s that Black mortality in total declined to the level of white death during the 1918 flu pandemic, as new water and sewage infrastructures, general improvements in living standards and nutrition, and, eventually, technologies like vaccines gradually lowered mortality rates across the board.
This spring, while recovering from my own COVID-19 infection, I wondered whether the same thing would still be true today. I found it unfathomable that the disaster unfolding around me that spring in New York, where my parents live and where I had become sick, could bear any resemblance to more typical life in the United States. And yet, thinking about how the 1918 results had stunned me, I wanted to see for myself. As life ground to a halt in the midst of another cataclysmic pandemic, how did the toll of this one compare to that of the more ordinary, ubiquitous catastrophe? Will white mortality during the coronavirus pandemic still be less than what Blacks experience routinely, without any pandemic? I began to work out equations and search for data.
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Mali’s military junta, which staged a coup last month, has agreed to an 18-month transition government led by a military or civilian leader that would pave the way to elections.
Three days of consultations with leaders of political and civil society groups laid out a charter for the transition on Saturday, which will also include a vice-president and transitional council that will serve as the national assembly. The president and vice-president will be chosen by a group of people appointed by the junta, according to Moussa Camara, spokesman for the talks.
Mali’s opposition coalition, the international communities and the west African regional bloc have called for a civilian leader for the transition.
The 15-nation west African regional bloc known as Ecowas has warned that the junta must designate a transitional civilian leader by next week or face further sanctions. Ecowas has already stopped financial transfers into the country and has closed its borders with Mali.
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President Filipe Nyusi is finally facing the reality of the "resource curse".
Insurgents are recruiting more members by exploiting the poverty of young people in the north of Mozambique, he explained in a recent speech in Pemba, the capital of Cabo Delgado province.
And he admitted that despite the three northern provinces - Cabo Delgado, Niassa and Nampula - having great natural wealth and enormous agricultural potential, they have the country's highest levels of poverty.
For 15 years, Mozambique's GDP rose by more than 6% a year, largely thanks to coal, titanium, hydro-electricity and other natural resources. Yet the majority of people did not benefit; poverty and inequality both increased.
Discoveries of a huge ruby deposit and a giant gas field in Cabo Delgado in 2009-10, raised hopes of jobs and a better life for many local people, but those hopes were soon dashed.
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WELCOME TO THE FRIDAY’S PORCH
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