POLAND SWEARS IN A NIGERIAN AS THE FIRST BLACK MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT.

John Abraham Godson, now a Polish citizen born and raised in Nigeria, has been sworn in as the first black member of Poland’s parliament. Mr Godson had served as a councilor in the city of Lodz before taking up a parliamentary seat. His entry into parliament has created a media stir in the mainly white country.

He came to Poland in the 1990s, opening an English-language school and working as a pastor in a Protestant church. He has since married a Polish woman and the couple have four children.

It is still quite rare to see black people even in polish capital of Warsaw, Poland’s most cosmopolitan city. Racism is still a problem in Poland, where it is not uncommon for well-educated people to make racist jokes. Mr Godson was beaten up twice in the 1990s but he says attitudes to black people in Poland are changing for the better, particularly since the country joined the European Union six years ago.

LAGOS TO OVERTAKE CAIRO AS AFRICA’S BIGGEST CITY.

People living in African cities will triple over the next 40 years and by 2050, 60% of Africans will be city dwellers, a United Nations report has said. In five years, Nigeria’s former capital Lagos is set to overtake the Egyptian capital Cairo as Africa’s biggest city. UN-Habitat’s Joan Clos said Africa needed to invest urgently in housing.

He told the BBC THAT Sub-Saharan Africa could learn from North Africa as Egypt, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia had almost halved slum areas in the past 20 years.

IMMIGRANTS WANT NEW YORK MAYOR TO COOL IMMIGRATION HEAT.

Immigrant advocates demanded Mayor Bloomberg take a stand on a new program that forces cops to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement the fingerprints of anyone arrested. ”We hope that he would take a stand on this. It’s supposed to be a sanctuary city.” Said Angela Fernandez, executive director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights.

Bloomberg was noncommittal, though, saying there are times when city authorities must ask about immigration status. “If there is a public safety reason to do it, if you get arrested.” Bloomberg said.

ICE officials say the program, called Secure Communities, will flag and remove dangerous criminals who are here illegally. Opponents say it will make immigrants afraid to go to police and could result in the deportation of domestic violence victims who are sometimes booked by cops after a dispute.

When the state signed on this spring, ICE assured officials that each county could decide if it would take part in the information exchange, according to a Division of Criminal Justice Service spokesman. Homeland Security officials now say counties can’t opt out completely; they can only delay implementing the program.

Advocates who want Gov. Paterson to cancel the state’s agreement with ICE rallied in front of his office. They also sued the feds- and a judge has ordered ICE to turn over documents that would clarify whether cities or counties can opt out.

IVORY COAST ON THE BRINK OF WAR.

Cote d’ Ivoire (also called the Ivory Coast) is moving closer and closer to another civil war due to election dispute. The first round of the election was held on October 31, 2010 and the second round , in which President Laurent Gbagbo faced opposition leader Alassane Quattara, was held on November 28, 2010.

The election, in which ethnicity and the country’s north-south divide played a crucial role, ultimately pitted President Gbagbo, who had a strong support base in the south, against the long-time opposition leader and former Prime Minister Quattara, who had overwhelming support in much of the north.

The election was considered by International observers to be essentially free and fair, but on December 2, 2010, the Independent Electoral Commission released provisional results showing that Alassane Quattara had won the election in the second round with 54%of the vote. However the President of the Constitutional Council immediately declared that the results were invalid and the next day, the Constitutional Council declared Gbagbo the winner. The United States, United Nations, ECOWAS, as well as the influential former colonial power France affirmed their support for Quattara.

Ivory Coast is the second largest economy  in West Africa, a region that has been ravaged with civil wars in the last twenty years in Liberia, Sierra-Leone and Guinea. The largest economy in the region, Nigeria is working hard to get a peaceful settlement to the crisis through ECOWAS. Nigeria is afraid of an exodus of refugees from ivory Coast into her territory  if the country explodes.

Olakunle O. Bolarinwa,

Is a Nightline Family Member Of The Voice Of America {VOA}.

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