Posted on

Today in fashion: Flatter your face with earrings

by KATE HALIM

Do you believe that wearing a pair of earrings could flatter your face? There are few women who have perfect face shapes, others who are not so lucky think of changing their hair styles often to make them look great.

Earrings are a popular piece of jewellery and it is essential to choose the right ones for your face shape, because wearing the right earrings will lift and define your facial features. To determine your face shape, start by pulling your hair away from your forehead with a hair band, stand in front of a mirror and trace the outline of your face with a soap bar or lipstick in the mirror.

Below are some face shapes and best earrings to flatter your face:
The oval face is the ideal shape, and many kinds of earrings could go for this shape perfectly. You can try some sterling silver earrings, but avoid sporting a too-long face, don’t wear incredibly long shapes that will pull the face down.
Ladies who have round faces will have to make their face look slimmer, and the long length earrings are really helpful. Circular earrings, such as hoops, as well as tiny studs and button earrings are a no-no for this face shape.

To balance the wide forehead for the heart face, you should wear chandelier and teardrop earrings. Avoid earrings that have the same shape as your face, like heart-shaped hoops and short earrings. For ladies endowed with square face, which is characterized by strong and broad forehead with angular jaw and a square hair line, circular earrings, such as hoops do the magic. Square, rectangular or harshly angled earrings that echo your face shape should be done away with.

The oblong face shape is longer than it is wide, ladies with this face should lift their faces with statement chandelier earrings, as well as studs because they create appeal. Avoid long and angular earrings that echo your face shape. With the above tips, you are ready to flatter your face with the right earrings.

 

Posted on

Journey to Canada, a Refugee’s Story

 Twenty-three years ago, Madut Majok arrived in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, where his life consisted of guarded compounds and food rations. Today, he is a Canadian citizen, university graduate and civil servant.

He relishes the opportunities he has earned in his adopted country and feels that he has integrated into Canadian society. However, one minor detail still puzzles him. With a smile, he says “I still do not understand the level of politeness here—if I am at the mall and I step on someone’s toes, they say sorry instead of me saying that…and that always takes me off guard.” Social intricacies aside, the future is wide open for Madut—a future that seemed impossible only a few years ago.

 

Born in 1978 in rural South Sudan, Madut had a childhood plagued by violence and war.  By 1983, the second Sudanese civil war had broken out and many villages were burned down, crops destroyed and cattle killed. Thousands of villagers from Madut’s town were forced to flee when the attacks intensified in 1987.

 

His family chose to seek protection within Sudan in the garrison town of Wau. In the ensuing chaos, eight‑year‑old Madut became separated from them and had to join a small group of villagers on the dangerous two month trek to Ethiopia. 

He arrived at a United Nations refugee camp, located near the border, very ill from infected wounds sustained along the way. After a three-month recovery, Madut was transferred to another camp specifically for children and unaccompanied minors, where he stayed until 1991.

 

When war broke out in Ethiopia, those in the refugee camps were told that they were no longer safe. Madut had to flee again—a journey that took him to Pochalla, a town near the Sudan-Ethiopia border. He spent nine months there before embarking on another journey that finally brought him to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya in 1992, where he spent his next 10 years.

 

“Conditions at the camps were difficult at times,” says Madhut. Food was distributed every two weeks but lasted only eight days; many would go for days without getting enough water to cater for essential needs. 
School, set up in the camp, saved him. “Had I not gone to school in the camp,” says Madut, “I never would have competed in the Student Refugee Program.”

Madut focused on his studies, knowing that education could be a way out of the refugee camp. He applied to the Student Refugee Program run by World University Service of Canada in 2001 and was selected to attend Dalhousie University. 

In 2006, after four years in Canada, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in International Development Studies and Political Science. That same year, he became a Canadian citizen.  Today, Madut is studying for his Master’s degree while working for the Foreign Credential Referral Office at Citizenship and Immigration Canada. 

“After living on handouts, the ability to provide for yourself and the freedom to determine your own future is the first goal,” he says. As for his future, Madut says he has many goals. “Now that I have a job, I want to raise a family…and progress in my career. I would say that I am very lucky.”
“You need strong mentorship—people who believe in your ability and, at the same time, who realize that you are learning how your potential can be developed. Canada has given me this.”
 
Posted on

Africa’s youth can do great things, says UN Chief

African graduate leaving the continent for greener pastures

Africa’s young population can drive the continent’s future development, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon told an international symposium taking place in Benin.

More than 60 per cent of Africa’s 1 billion people are under the age of 25 years, he noted in a message to the meeting in Cotonou.

“While it will be a tremendous undertaking to provide them with jobs and income opportunities, this energetic creative and vibrant workforce can do great things for African standards of living if only they are given the tools.

“Africa’s impressive economic growth during the past decade shows what is possible. The challenge now is to translate growth into improved social welfare for the people and faster progress towards the Millennium Development Goals,” Mr. Ban said, referring to the targets to slash hunger, poverty, disease and a host of other social and economic ills by 2015.

The other challengeWe can end povertys the Secretary-General outlined for the continent to address included climate change, desertification and democratic backsliding, as well as continued armed conflict and sexual violence against women.

At the same time, he praised the achievements of African countries since their independence from colonial rule, with particular tribute paid to the African Union (AU), and the efforts it has made to improve the political and economic situation in the continent.

“Africa has taken charge of preventing and resolving its conflicts and promoting the economic and social development of its people,” he said.

Through African institutions, such as the AU, the continent had become less reliant on the international community for aid and support, Mr. Ban noted, while adding that the UN will continue to support Africa’s efforts to ensure stability and progress.

(United Nations)

Posted on

Late, but not too late, for Sudan

John Prendergast & George Clooney

George Clooney and John Prendergast

George Clooney is an actor and co-founder of the NGO Not On Our Watch. John Prendergast is co-founder of the Enough Project and co-author of The Enough Moment: The Fight to End Human Rights Crimes in Africa

Well, we’re in it now. What we do best. Diplomacy. The White House has dispatched Senator John Kerry to Sudan with a proposal for peace between the North and South. It’s a giant step toward avoiding the kind of bloodshed that killed more than two million people in Sudan’s previous 20-year North-South civil war, which ended only in 2005 — and is threatening to erupt once again.

In recent months, President Barack Obama has stepped up his own involvement and that of senior figures in his administration in support of a peace strategy for Sudan. On his behalf, Kerry has delivered a package of proposals designed to break the logjam that has brought the North and South to a dangerous crossroads.
We have written a memo that spells out some of the essential elements of what a grand bargain for peace in Sudan could look like. If you’re interested in the specifics of a possible peace deal — and in actions that you can take to support it — go to SudanActionNow.org.
There is little time to waste. On January 9, 2011, the people of Southern Sudan will vote for independence from the North, taking with them up to three-quarters of the country’s known oil reserves and placing millions of civilians in the direct path of war.
The government in Khartoum (the capital in the North) is led by Omar al-Bashir, whose accomplishments, which include overseeing war crimes during the previous North-South war and engineering the atrocities in Darfur, have brought him arrest warrants for war crimes and genocide from the International Criminal Court.
And yet renewed war in Sudan is not inevitable. A complex but workable peace can be brokered if all interested parties become more deeply involved. The current moment requires robust diplomacy — the kind that can leave a bad taste in your mouth, but that gets the job done. We believe that Kerry is a skilled emissary and can help the parties find the compromises necessary for peace.
Any agreement preventing a return to war would necessarily involve the National Congress Party, representing the North, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, representing the South. But it would also involve the United States, whose post-referendum relationship with the two parties will have enormous influence over whether a deal gets done.
We believe that a grand bargain to lay the foundation for lasting peace between the North and South would oblige the parties to:
  • Hold the Southern Sudan referendum on time and fully respect and implement the results;
  • Reach a mutually satisfactory agreement concerning the territory of Abyei, a key disputed border area;
  • Craft a multi-year revenue-sharing arrangement in which the oil wealth of Abyei and key border areas could be divided equitably between the North and South, with a small percentage going to the Arab Misseriya border populations for development purposes;
  • Demarcate the uncontested 80% of the border and refer the remaining 20% to binding international arbitration;
  • Create serious protections for minority groups, with consideration of joint citizenship for certain populations, backed by significant international consequences for attacks on southerners in the North or northerners in the South.

The US role as the invisible third party to the agreement involves a series of incentives offered to the regime in Khartoum to ensure agreement and implementation of a peace deal. In exchange for action on the North-South and Darfur peace efforts, the US would implement a clear, sequenced, and binding path to normalization of relations.
This would involve — in order — removal of Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, exchange of ambassadors, lifting of unilateral sanctions, and support for bilateral and multilateral debt relief, together with other economic measures by international financial institutions. Conversely, the US must be prepared to lead international efforts to impose severe consequences on any party that plunges the country back into war.
Peace and security in Darfur should be an essential benchmark for normalized relations between the US and Sudan. The Obama administration should hold firm on this through the coming rounds of negotiation, and should appoint a senior official to help coordinate US policy on Darfur in order to ensure that peace efforts there receive the same level of attention as the North-South efforts.
What is needed now is political will — and not only in the US — to sustain this diplomacy. The European Union and Sudan’s neighbors — in particular Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda — will also need to play a robust role. And China’s diplomacy in Sudan, where it has invested massively in developing the country’s oil resources, will be a test of whether or not it intends to be a responsible stakeholder in Africa and the wider world.
Ensuring that governments work toward peace is where you come in. Keep the pressure on them. Support the peace process. Your voice can prevent a war. Not guns. Not money. Just our voices.
The way to peace in Sudan is not simple, but it is achievable. There are hard choices to be made. We can make those choices now, or we can persuade ourselves that peace is too hard or too complex, and then look on resignedly from the sidelines as hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children needlessly die. It’s up to us.
George Clooney is an actor and co-founder of the NGO Not On Our Watch. John Prendergast is co-founder of the Enough Project and co-author of The Enough Moment: The Fight to End Human Rights Crimes in Africa.
Posted on

Is the West the Best?

If you follow African football, you would that West Africa has dominated the sports for a number of centuries.

The BBC Piers Edwards asked important question last week: Why has West Africa dominated African soccer for decades?

This is what he wrote in his introduction:

“The BBC shortlist for the 2010 African Footballer of the Year has underlined West Africa’s dominance of such awards – because around three-quarters of winners of both the BBC and Confederation of African Football (CAF) accolades hail from the region.

Great names stand out: Jay-Jay Okocha and Nwankwo Kanu (Nigeria), Abedi Pele and Michael Essien (Ghana), Ivorian Didier Drogba, and Roger Milla and Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon) to name but a few.

Liberia’s George Weah, meanwhile, is the only African to be crowned FIFA World Player of the Year.

Weah also won the BBC award in 1995 and this year, another West African will join him – with Drogba and Eto’o joined on the shortlist by Yaya Toure, Asamoah Gyan and Andre ‘Dede’ Ayew.

And it’s not just a matter of a few talented individuals – look at the results and you will also see that West Africa’s footballing pre-eminence is unquestionable:

Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana are Africa’s only ever World Cup quarter-finalists; Nigeria and Cameroon are the continent’s sole winners of Olympic gold, while Nigeria and Ghana share six FIFA world titles at U17 and U20 level”

I would like us to debate question here on TalkAfrique. Please use the space below to provide why you think West Africa has such dominance in African soccer.

 

Posted on

Would you rather marry a virgin? An African perpective

African wedding
 
GIDEON OPARINDE (odili.net)
(views expressed are those of the responders and not necessarily of TalkAfrique)
In the past, it was expected that a maiden must go into marriage as a virgin. If on the first night, her husband found her not to be so, the family suffered instant condemnation.
 
But civilization has substantially changed the way people perceive virginity. At one time, it was even thought to be ‘bush’ if a girl dared reveal to her peers that she was still a virgin. Some girls even competed to be the first to lose their virginity to a boyfriend.
Once again, attitudes are changing, and it is becoming fashionable to be a virgin. This new development is driven more by the Pentecostal revival spreading through the world. Virginity, at least among Pentecostal Christians and fundamentalist Muslims, is being appreciated again.
Being a virgin is good, these people argue, saying that it is a key factor to whether there would be deep trust between the couple. However, there are women who were married as virgins but are now worse than whores. But then, the issue of virginity is like a two-sided coin as it also applies to men who go into marriage without having ever had sex with a woman. For women who marry such men, and considering the realities of the present time, when women have become bolder and assertive, they expect to be sexually satisfied by their husbands. So would you, whether as a man or lady prefer marrying a virgin?
 
Edna
Marrying a female virgin is an advantage to a man because you will know she has never been touched by any man and she is free from sexually transmitted diseases, but the other part is that when you have let her loose and she happens to have funny friends, they might talk her into testing the waters, except she is a true child of God.
 
Afolabi
I really would love marry a virgin, but looking at the percentage of people who are lucky enough to have virgins today, they are very few. A number of men today would not want to marry any lady without having an affair with her. When a man marries a woman who is not a virgin and he is not the first man in her life, it becomes a stigma on her. But men cause most of theses things.
Definitely, not all deflowered ladies are irresponsible, some could be victims of circumstance like rape, sweet coated men who may have promised them marriage, but determined to exploit her first. Should she not get married again?
How many women today got married as virgins? The same applies to men.
I believe if there is virginity test for men, many ladies/ women too would not want to marry an experienced man due to fear of sexually transmitted diseases. But the point is that hardly would you find a man that would satisfy an experienced lady in bed and you would hardly have rest of mind that she is still faithful to you alone.
 
Samuel
Yes I would like to marry a virgin because a virgin has a higher tendency to be faithful. But it is important to note that when a man marries a virgin, the lady may be tempted to stray outside to see what she missed out during her youthful days. If a man marries a woman as a virgin, it might turn out a problem to the man because of lack of experience and not knowing what to do or expect. Living in complete control of her sexuality, she might not like it but she got no choice since she is new in the game.
 
Ola
I would like to marry a virgin presuming that she has second hand experience on the bedmatics of sex and how to handle her man in bed. These days, virgins are hard to come by and even if there are, a large percentage of them are light years behind their peers when it comes to knowledge on the dynamics of sex.
As for me, when it comes to the issue of marriage, the most important thing is the question of sexual satisfaction. I can’t imagine my newly wedded wife on the wedding night lying down like a log of wood in bed, awaiting the long old missionary style position. Kai…what an anachronism!
There is nothing wrong in a grown-up lady getting to learn how to satisfy her man in bed whilst she is still a virgin. Some religious women feel it is wrong or immoral to explore the wonders of sex and are in themselves unattractive and anti-sexy in nature due to their mind-set. A lot of Nigerian women out there have joined the league of ladies who have thrown their ‘husbands’ away in the guise of Christian beliefs and dignity.
I can never be attracted to a woman who dresses like her grandmother no matter how anointed she is: my woman must be hot, sexy, affable and must be vast in the things that make for life and good relationships. Even the Bible says in Proverbs 5:19 that let her breasts satisfy you at all times, meaning the man is entitled to full enjoyment of his spouse in all ramifications and it is to a large extent the onus of the woman to see to the satisfaction of her man even before marriage.
The chances are that marrying a virgin might make one a victim of unsatisfactory sex life up to certain number of months or years into the marriage depending on the willingness of the woman to learn but the friction from tightness due to the novelty of the ‘wentus’ gives the man some great initial pleasure even though the woman may lack the necessary bedmatic skills.
But frankly speaking, the advantages of marrying a virgin are not far-fetched: protection from venereal diseases as long as the virgin wife remains faithful to the man and the sense of pride being gained by the man for being the one that tore open the honey well of the virgin wife.
 
Aderibigbe
No, I would not want to marry one because marrying a virgin today can turn into marrying of a slack hole sort. Somebody that has not tasted how sweet sex is. Now you are enjoying it from one man called your husband. If that man is not good enough to satisfy her sexual needs, she may like to change her taste by giving another man a try. In this case she may not have had the experience to handle the situation and it may lead to a break-up. In this case, marrying a sexually experienced lady will be better because they have all it takes to be a married woman.
 
Omole
Yes, I would love to marry a virgin, likewise every man’s desire, but let us ask ourselves too as men; how many of us are virgins? What I am looking for is not virginity but a Godsent that would add positive values to my life; a woman of great substance, a virtuous woman. I am not interested in virginity but reliability.
Why do we capitalize on women alone, let’s clear ourselves first before others, most time we are the cause of their predicaments.
 
Dare
Definitely yes! A virgin is an innocent female that has not been spoilt and have a sense of responsibility. Besides that, I learnt when a lady loses her virginity to someone who jilted her, she goes weird and becomes derailed. I never had the opportunity of being engaged to a virgin. If I had, I would not have allowed her elude me.
 
Funke
No, I won’t like to marry any guy who is a virgin. You could hardly find about 10 percent of men who are virgins. The only advantage is that he would be well informed with loads of experiences. The disadvantage is that he could be unfaithful.
 
Yomi
If I have my way, I would marry a virgin, but sometimes virginity has nothing to do with how cultured a lady is; rather it is just a sign of being able to vouch for her. Many virgins are worse than even those we see and tag wayward. The most important thing is marrying a God-fearing lady.
Posted on

Africa can reach development targets if given a push-Migiro

Africa, with its immense human and material wealth, can achieve the globally agreed development targets world leaders have pledged to achieve by 2015, Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro told United Nations agencies working on the continent, while also stressing the need for strong support from the international community.

Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro

“The continent’s people need neither pity nor charity, but rather the tools, institutions, stability and freedoms to create incomes and jobs,” Ms. Migiro stated in her remarks to the Regional Coordination Mechanism meeting held yesterday in Addis Ababa.

“International solidarity and a level playing field – especially in global trade – will go a long way toward helping the continent realize its noble objectives for its people, its prosperity and its stability,” she told the meeting, which seeks to ensure that various UN departments and agencies work more effectively together in the region.

She noted that the broad impacts of climate change and the multiple crises, including those related to finance, food and energy, continue to hamper development efforts in Africa and threaten to scale back hard-won development gains.

In spite of these challenging trends, Africa’s economic performance rebounded and has remained steadfast, with growth projected to be 4.8 per cent in 2010, driven mainly by recovery in mineral exports, official development assistance (ODA) inflows, strong government expenditure on infrastructure development, and remittances.

In September, world leaders meeting in New York noted the remarkable achievements that have been made, especially in terms of reducing poverty and expanding education and access to clean water, just some of the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

They sent a clear message, said Ms. Migiro: “If we step up our efforts, the MDGs remain achievable by 2015, including in the least developed countries.

“However, the Summit also stressed that more concerted efforts are needed, particularly in Africa,” she pointed out, adding that the September summit’s outcome document set out some of the key challenges.

These include addressing climate change, reducing inequalities, advancing the well-being of vulnerable groups, and continuing to implement the global action plan for the least developed countries (LDCs), 33 of which are in Africa.

Addis Ababa is the last stop on the Deputy Secretary-General’s current three-nation trip, which also included visits to Lebanon and Laos.

(UN Release)