Happy wedding anniversary to the American president and his wife. On October 3, 2012, the US first couple, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. The couple talked about when they met, their first date as well as their first kiss.
In addition, they shared photos of their love and special moments. According to them, the little moments keep their love strong and their family inspires them every day.
Below are some special moments of Michelle and Barack Obama, as well as with their two girls – Malia and Sasia.
Before becoming the first family in America, here the first lady and the president of the United States (POTUS) is seen in a photo with his children looking younger than when they arrived the White House. President Obama won the 2008 election and was sworn into office a few months later. He went on to win the second term.
Africans have flocked to Europe for years, in search of a better life and to make money they could send back home. Now, as Europe’s economy struggles, many Africans are ready to pack up and head back home, where the economy is better.
Italy’s economic crisis continues to deepen. Its economic growth forecasts have worsened the economy is expected to shrink even more than was once believed. Despite that, the government is imposing austerity measures and increasing taxes.
The marketplace in the northern Italian town of Cologno al Serio radiates tradition. The castle and the moat surrounding it add to a sense of history and security.
But probe a little deeper and you see there’s little feeling of security here.
Italians have left the country in increasing numbers in search of jobs elsewhere. Four million Italians live outside the country while a similar number of migrants have moved into Italy to make a life there. But as the economy struggles it’s getting more difficult for these migrants, many of them from Africa, who find themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Djembe Cisse comes from Senegal in West Africa. She runs a market stall in Cologno al Serio selling imitation leather handbags she buys wholesale from Chinese suppliers. She’s been making a living for 30 years in Italy, sending money to her family back home at the same time. But the country’s shrinking economy is taking a toll: sales are down and taxes are up.
“At the beginning we managed to make a little money but now there’s the economic crisis and we can’t do anything,” Cisse said. “Working and paying, working and paying. You breathe and you pay.”
She pays rent on her place in the market and a large loan on the van she uses to transport her stall and merchandise. She said not only is it harder to support her kids, the economic downturn means she can’t send money home to her parents.
“We can barely even live decently ourselves. In fact, now we take money from Senegal to live,” she said, “to pay the rent, the food, to get through the month. It’s very tough. My parents sometimes send us up to a $1,000 because I can’t make it on my own.”
The number of Senegalese people coming to Italy, as Cisse did, increased dramatically in the 1980s after a new law allowed them to work legally in the private sector.
Some 90,000 Senegalese now live in the country. As they settled in the region they created their own community association. Ahmadou Ndiaye has been vice president of the association for 25 years. He said the situation now is worse than it’s ever been.
“People who’ve lost their jobs can’t find work again — a lot of the unemployment is permanent. Some of our members can’t even pay the rent so they can’t afford to send money home to Senegal,” he said. “This really is a crisis and people are now wanting to buy a ticket to return home to Africa.”
It’s not just money that isn’t flowing into Senegal.
Customarily the Senegalese community repatriates its dead for burial in Africa. Ndiaye said this was a key reason his association was set up. As the crisis has gotten worse, the group’s members have found themselves passing the hat more and more to help people send their relatives back.
Back in the market, Cisse has decided enough is enough.
“Now we’re arranging to shut the business down and go back to live in Senegal. I want to go back, but not my children and their friends. For me it’s not convenient anymore. I spend more than I earn, I get money from Senegal to be able to stay here,” she said
Senegal receives around $1.4 billion a year in remittances, roughly 10 percent of its GDP. Italy is the most popular destination for Senegalese migrants in Europe after France, the country that colonized it. So if enough people follow Cisse home, the West African nation could find itself in a great deal of economic trouble.
Belgians Upgraded their Profile with Cheeky Fashion Designs in Paris
Belgians have upgraded their profile with Cheeky Fashion designs to Paris fashion week.
Fashion has become an outstanding trend these days. Many are into fashion but there are veterants in Fashion designs who have made a clear difference. Great fashion designers have come from all parts of the world, and Belgium is not excluded.
The famous names in designing industry in Belgium Dries Van Noten who started design in the early eighties has been creating different kinds of designs till date. His 1986 collection took the country international.
Aside from being a nation popularly known for the produce of beer, chocolate and waffles, Belgians have upgraded their profile by producing great designs which has continued to reign. Designers came from the cities of Antwerpen and Brussels. The great Dries Van Noten who launced mens wear show in Paris in 1996 has come up with another outstanding design for ladies.
This year he has come up with fabulous Grunge-plaid-meets-organza , and scalpel-sharp, asymmetrical folds and layers reminiscent of Samurai armor together with Cédric Charlier another popular designer who was born in Brussels but cuurently lives in Paris. They both participated in the Paris Fashion Week. Their models were looking flamboyant with exaggerated pink lips all looking very cheeky and beautiful
A UK based Nigerian couple who tried to claim £3.8million in an ‘eye-watering’ benefits scam using 1,400 stolen identities has been jailed for a total of almost 10 years.
Adeola Thomas, 38, assisted by his partner, Abimbola Abiola, 34, managed to pocket £87,000 after submitting almost 2,500 handwritten applications for tax credits and benefits.
The pair spent the money on designer clothing and electrical items including a 50-inch plasma television.
But the fraud was discovered when benefits staff noticed the same address was being used for multiple claims, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.
Thomas, an illegal immigrant, was jailed for seven years while Abiola, also a Nigerian national with leave to remain in the UK, received two-and-a-half years.
Passing sentence, Judge William Kennedy said: ‘This was no less than a criminal industry, with simple and eye-watering criminality designed to maximise the loss to the public.
‘It was a difficult investigation carried out with skill and tenacity.
‘The largest single joint conspiracy [of its kind] for these departments and the actual loss was kept down because of the work of both departments.’
Judge Kennedy also indicated that both Thomas and Abiola should be deported at the end of their prison terms.
The pair, who carried out the scam between January 3, 2007, and October 7, 2011, tried to claim £827,000 from HMRC, securing £43,000.
They also claimed £3 million from the Department of Work and Pensions and received £44,000.
With Abiola’s help, Thomas used stolen personal details to complete 2,495 handwritten application forms, which were sent to the appropriate departments for processing.
Thomas trying to withdraw money from a cash machine.
It is believed that others unknown to investigators, also provided postal addresses and assisted with correspondence.
When the claims were successful, the pair withdrew cash from acquaintances’ bank accounts or from bogus post office accounts that Thomas, who masterminded the scam, had set up.
As well as analysing tax credit records, computer systems, handwritten application forms and bank account details and listening to hours of recorded phones calls to the Tax Credit Helpline, HMRC investigators viewed CCTV footage showing activity outside various North London Post Office ATMs and carried out surveillance on Thomas.
He was arrested outside a cash point at Upper Clacton Post Office in Hackney, east London last October 7 where he was found to be in possession of 17 Post Office accounts.
He also had two mobile phones and two fraudulently completed application forms addressed to Job Centre Plus.
Abiola, a mother-of-one, was caught on the same day with £4,125 cash in her handbag, which she claimed was child benefit payment.
Thomas, of Hackney, east London, admitted three counts of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering.
Abiola, of the same address, was found guilty of four counts of conspiracy to defraud, money laundering and possession of the criminal property following a trial at the court in August.
The moment Thomas was arrested outside a cash machine.
Every year, Simi Osomo makes six trips to London from Nigeria. The 25-year-old spends about two weeks here and every day she goes shopping. Today she’s at the boutique shop Matches Townhouse in Marylebone with a personal shopper. “When it comes to shopping and Nigerians, I can tell you it’s just what we have to do,” she tells me while admiring the patterned dresses.
For Nigerians, London is a shopping mecca. Visitors from the West African country are the UK’s fourth biggest foreign spenders, parting with an average of £500 in each luxury shop they visit — four times what UK shoppers typically spend. When I ask Osomo how much a two-week shopping trip in London costs she makes a bashful face. “Ooh, should I really be saying this? It depends, but most times about £5,000.”
Osomo is wearing a green top from Zara that’s “the colour of the Nigerian flag”, blue skinny jeans and new Christian Louboutin shoes. Later today she’s going to buy an iPhone 5 for her sister.
“You can get lots of things in Lagos but they are cheaper here and you get to take a holiday and relax a bit. It’s only six hours away.” The number of Nigerian visitors to the UK increased by more than 50 percent to 142,000 a year between 1991 and 2011, according to the Office for National Statistics. Nigeria is projected to become Africa’s biggest economy by next year and the world’s fifth most populous country by 2050, and London is cashing in.
Debenhams’ Oxford Street branch has put up signs in Hausa, one of the official Nigerian languages, and said customers from this part of West Africa are its biggest overseas spenders. Yet Osomo says it’s not just rich Nigerians who come over. “Middle-class people can afford to come and spend £600 on shopping in a week here. What I like about the UK is that it doesn’t discriminate. As long as you’re able to prove you have an income, accommodation in London and a return ticket, the authorities are more than willing to give you a visa. It’s closer than America and the customer service here is phenomenal.”
Back home in Lagos, the technology market has been flooded with fake products from China, which means more people are coming to London for electronic goods and are even taking items back to sell. “No one wants to spend more than 100,000 Naira (£390) and find out it is fake, so they prefer to come over for a holiday and buy something they know is real and has a guarantee in case something goes wrong.”
Marks & Spencer is one of Osomo’s favourite shops. “I love their fajitas. You can’t get them in Nigeria. I also buy soy sauce and Thai green curry paste, which is good because it lasts for a long time. Oh, and Crunchy Nut cereal, Skittles, Maltesers and tea. There’s nothing like a British cuppa. I get Lipton, PG and green tea.” She likes the variety of London. “I love Zara, H&M, Topshop. But if I want something more high end, there’s Sloane Street.”
More than £3 billion a year is spent on high-end goods in London, according to the London Luxury Quarter Report, and it predicts this will rise to £4.5 billion by 2020, with new shops including Burberry’s flagship fuelling the trend. Luxury concierge services are also popular. Osomo is a client of Quintessentially, which organises shopping trips and parties for her and has an office in Lagos.
Although summer is the height of the shopping season, Osomo likes to come back for the January sales too. Her mother, a lawyer, and father, a businessman, often join her. She has just finished a law degree and is about to start a job in fashion journalism, which she hopes will give her enough holidays for trips to London. But flights can get booked up quickly.
“You don’t want to get the Lagos to London flight in July. It’s packed with parents and their kids making noise.” Return flights at high season start at about £369.
But what about getting her haul of shopping back from London to Lagos? That, says Osomo, is costly. “All I pack when I come over is one pair of jeans and three tops. I bring two big suitcases but I always have to get another one and pay for excess baggage. I never learn.” British Airways has increased its excess baggage charge on flights from London to Lagos from £40 to £97 per suitcase in the past year. “They must have realised we always put an extra bag in and thought they’d try to make money out of it,” says Osomo.
Fashion-wise, she still picks up the odd item in Nigeria. Six months ago Zara opened an outlet store in Lagos, and Mango has been there for about a year. “Zara is affordable because it’s an outlet but what I find is that things are a bit last season. Nigeria’s hot all the time so there are always maxi dresses and swimwear but the colours are boring and we lack variety. Customer service is not great and some shops can get really crowded, which is challenging.” There is a burgeoning online shopping industry in Nigeria too. Currently, ASOS is the only shop that ships to Lagos free of charge and everyone Osomo’s age uses it.
“Nigeria is a fun place, I’d encourage people to go. Shopping is evolving. In five years I think a lot of stores will come to Nigeria because there is a gap in the market. Ten years ago I never thought Zara would come to Nigeria. I believe in the next five years we will catch up. But I still love London and won’t stop coming here.”
The article was written by Susannah Butter for Standard UK about how Nigerians are becoming the UK’s big spenders
Democratic-representative government is now perceived by many as the right to elect their own dictators. Democracy, a model for good governance has been redefined by many African countries in a way that suits them. However, the most important development of the past century has been the spread of democracy.
For over two decades now, President Paul Biya has dominated the political landscape of Cameroon since he came into the scene in 1982. As then prime minister, he was appointed president of the one-party state following a startling resignation of President Ahmadou Ahidjo. In January 1984, president Biya won his first full term election as president and was re-elected unopposed in 1988 with more than 90 percent of the votes.
Despite Biya’s re-election, frustration with the government has become intense as economic crisis and repression worsened. As the Cold War ended and a wave of democratization began to sweep across Africa and other parts of the world, Biya grudgingly allowed the formation of political parties in 1990, after several efforts by his government to hinder the movement for multiparty politics in Cameroon.
In Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni celebrated his twenty years in power in January 2006. Yoweri fought his way to power in 1986 where he said he needed five years to clean up Uganda. Ten years later, he made exactly the same promise to his country men. In 2005, he changed the 1995 constitution that limits the presidency to two five years term in order to enable his re-election.
The government of President Yoweri Museveni has been marked with heavy human rights abuses. When his main rivaled Kizza Besigye who returned from exile to challenge his position, he was arrested for rape, treason and other charges and later adopted at gunpoint by mufti gunmen suspected to be armed by Museveni in the courtroom.
A transformed dictator, who came into power through the barrel of gun, legitimized himself through tolerance and democratic institutions. In an interview with Christiana Amarpour on CNN in August, he said, he was not done with the cleaning up work. One would only imagine, how many years does he need more to get the job done?
By the same token, the same situation is attainable in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Rwanda and other democratic states whose sole interest is to safeguard their position and offer little or nothing to its citizens. for this reason, we continue to witness the fall of other great dictators in the continent such as Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Hussein Mubarak of Egypt, etc.
Now, we have the likes of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Russia president, Vladimir Putin who has already been in power for 12 years. Putin’s first eight years was spent as a president while the other four were spent as prime minister. Mr. Putin vowed to strengthen Russian democracy and guarantee freedom for all as he returned to presidency, but his words echoed hollow as more than 120 protesters were arrested in Moscow during his inauguration.
Vladimir Putin juggling between the office of the prime minister and the presidency is gradually consolidating his grip on power. To conclude, the saying that, “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” is a fact.
Paris Hiltion aplogizes for insultng the gay community
On September 21, 2012, Paris Hilton released a statement in which she apologised to the gay community for stating earlier that they are all infested with aids. According to her, “Gay guys are the horniest people in the world,” earlier in the week, Hilton was secretly recorded by a New York City cab driver while she made the claim. “They’re disgusting. Most of them probably have AIDS. I would be so scared if I was a gay guy . . . you’ll like die of AIDS.”
Her apology was posted on the official website of the Gay and lesbian Alliance against defamation. She added, “I am so sorry and so upset that I caused pain to my gay friends, fans and their families with the comments heard this morning.” “I was having this private conversation with a friend of mine who is gay and our conversation was in no way towards the entire gay community. It is the last thing that I would ever want to do, and I cannot put into words how much I wish I could take back every word. Gay people are the strongest and most inspiring people I know … Again, I am so sorry from the bottom of my heart and I feel absolutely horrible. I hope that everyone can accept my apology and know that it is not who I am or how I feel in any way.”
Rihanna performed at the 2012 iHeart Radio Music Festival over the weekend in Las Vegas Nevada wearing a sequined jersey dress from Jeremy Scott’s Arab inspired 2013 Spring Collection. The artist wore the dress with a pair of Air Jordan 7 Retro sneakers from the Golden Moments’ pack which is retailed at $350 a pair. The festival took place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on September 21, 2012. Below are more photos from her stage performance as well as those from her outfit. Take a look at all of them and you might find some inspiration from her look.
The singer pictured on stage drinking some liquids to quench her taste while performing at the event and rocking her mini outfit.
The Umbrella singer wore the jersey dress with a piece of gold armband as accessories to complete her glittery look. She completed the look with a pair of black sneakers to give her look a sporty edge.
Her super mini gown has the number 23 writer on its front. The neck and arms are finished with black bias fabric.
Above is a photo of a model showcasing the dress on the runway. She wore it with a pair of high heel boots and a black face cap.
What do you think of Rihanna’s sequinned jersey dress to the iHeart Radio performance? Let us know what you think about the whole presentation, by leaving a comment below. We look forward to seeing your views on it.
If you like this post and want to be notified when similar content is posted, please like the AfroCosmopolitan Facebook page, and subscribe to our Youtube channels to see what we upload. We are also on LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, and other social networks. You can connect with us on any of the platforms that you are using and we cannot wait to interact with you on another level.
Take a look at this orange print outfit from 5th and 6th. Bright colours like yellow and orange are usually great on black women. You too can step out in orange print and bold colours as an African woman. This 5th and 6th blogger is taking advantage of it and colour blocking in style. She paired her orange midi dress with an orange floral print jacket that matched perfectly well. She completed the look with a matching print bag, a pair of bright yellow earrings, a pair of matching high heels, a gold wristwatch, gold wrist chain and armbands, a couple of gold rings, as well as a pair of dark sunglasses.
You can steal her orange print outfit or use it as an inspiration for your next colour blocking. As you all know, colour blocking can be fun but not knowing how to put all the colours together can result in a fashion disaster you would not like to experience. So, it’s always a good idea to get some inspiration from those who do it well. Good luck!!!
What And Who Is She Wearing with Her Orange African Print Dress And Coat?
According to her, her shoes are from Boutique 9. She’s carrying a Mide-Miro African print purse and wearing a pair of Burberry Sunglasses. She’s also a Moschino wrist watch, RL Bracelet, Bangles and a pair of earrings that was bought from Dubai.
On Monday the 24th of September 2012, 46 year old Jeanette Kindouba left home before 11am. Until she went missing, Jeannette lived at Blokstraat in Sint-Gillis-Waas, Belgium.
The disappearance of the woman is very worrying because she is known as a caring mother who takes care of her frail son.
Ms. Kindouba comes from Cameroon and has a dark complexion. She is 1m65 tall, has dark eyes and black hair with purple hues.
Jeanette wore a denim skirt with half knee length, a green brown wool sweater with buttons, black shoes with a heel and a long black coat. She has with her, shopping and meal vouchers.
If you have seen Jeanette KINDOUBA or know where she might be, please contact the police with the free number below. :
