World News

The U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism’s Division of Festivals will feature two events for this year’s St. John Celebration on July 3 and 4, 2021.

The US white ex-police officer convicted of murdering African-American man George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 has been sentenced to 22 years and six months in jail.

In surely what must be the most unlikely meeting of 2021 so far, Pope Francis has just met Spider-Man himself.

A new US$19.9 million project will bring much needed help to 38,800 rural households facing the impacts of poverty, food insecurity and climate change.

Those planning a “workation” this year should look no further than Emilia Romagna. The northern Italian region offers the ideal conditions to combine working remotely with a peaceful holiday – including stunning landscapes, villages, castles, beaches, a pleasant weather and, of course, a reliable Wi-Fi network.

The number of deaths related to Covid-19 has passed 500,000 in Brazil, the second-highest in the world, as experts say the outbreak could worsen amid slow vaccination and the start of winter.

This week, US President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, which establishes a holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the country.

A potent mix of street protests and social media gave young Nigerians a voice that shattered the country's culture of deference. As the #EndSARS hashtag went viral, so did a defiance of the elite in Nigeria.

Bottega S.p.A., winery and distillery in Bibano di Godega (TV), has been making an unbreakable commitment to sustainability for many years, seeking to maintain a medium-to-long term vision that can lead to real, concrete results in reducing its impact on the environment, the society and the economy.

Commonwealth Secretary-General The Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC has expressed sympathy and a sense of loss at the passing of Zambia’s founding President, HE Dr Kenneth Kaunda.

Kande Summers pens her first book entitled ‘Going Home: Diary of a Teenage Alien’. The book is written through the adolescent lens of the main character called Liz, who adopts a dystopian and explorative perspective of how an intergalactic war would impact life on earth.

Kande, 12, is the first in a generation of her family to have written and published a book, which she has achieved at a very young age. As a reserved and curious child, she began reading at a very early age, while attending Oldfield Primary School in Maidenhead, England.

At the age of 7, she immigrated with her parents to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where she attended English-speaking schools in the emirates of Abu Dhabi, where she began to develop a love of English literature and various writing styles, especially poetry. Influenced by her growing interest in writing, Kande’s first venture into writing began at the age of 10, by virtue of her effervescent younger brother, which inspired her to write a poem entitled ‘My Spirited Little Brother’.

She has had the good fortune of attending numerous book fairs, with her parents. Her path to writing success began in 2020 after she entered a writing competition, which she chose to write about her mum. She then became motivated by her unexpected win in the writing competition and began the writing process with the support of her parents. 

Having tasted success, she embarked on a strategy of independent research, in the world of book publishing, eventually finding a suitable publishing company and inexpensive publishing platform. This is what enabled her to publish her very first book, of which she produced the entire content, including all the illustrations. 

‘Going Home: Diary of a Teenage Alien’ is now available to purchase on Amazon, in both Kindle and paperback format for those who still love the feel of a book in their hand as well as smell the paper. The book was launched at the 39th staging of the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) 2020 and featured at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2021.

This is where Kande signed copies for readers who were able to get their hands on the book, which sold like hotcakes, due to her popularity at the book fair. SIBF is the largest book fair in the Middle East and Africa, as well as the 4th largest book fair in the world.

She has managed to secure and sign an undisclosed deal with Kotopia Publishing House of Egypt, to have the Arabic translation of the book published in the summer of 2021. Apart from writing, Kande is also an accomplished artist and performer.

Buoyed by the success of ‘Going Home: Diary of a Teenage Alien,’ the UAE resident is currently writing her second book and said that she hopes to inspire young people like herself to achieve the impossible that many people have not achieved but only dream of achieving in their lifetime.

To learn more about Kande’s work, you can follow her on Instagram @royalkween.art and Twitter @ks_summers12.

The RSPCA and its sister charity - RSPCA Australia - have joined forces to warn Brits about the country’s low animal welfare standards.

As many expect a deal to be signed ahead of the G7 summit this week, chief executive of the Australian charity, Richard Mussell said that standards in Australia ‘fall below’ those in England and were ‘basic at best’. Shockingly, he said the country still uses methods long outlawed in England and that the standards set in the country are rarely audited and are not mandatory.

New Defra figures reveal that over 26 million livestock animals are based in the West Midlands region - including 677,000 cattle (including 80,000 beef herd cattle) and almost 2.4 million sheep, with the RSPCA particularly concerned about the import of beef and lamb products. A zero-tariff deal with Australia could mean the higher welfare standards of animals farmed in the region and farmers’ livelihoods could be undermined - as it risks sending a signal we are willing to accept cheaper, lower welfare imports from across the globe.

RSPCA Australia CEO Richard said: “Unfortunately, animal welfare standards in Australia are basic at best. In 2021, we still do not have Australia-wide laws that ban the use of sow stalls in pig production, barren battery cages in egg production or require pain relief for very painful procedures like dehorning of calves and mulesing of lambs.

“Standards are rarely audited and, unless implemented into law, which few are, they are only voluntary. The lack of national leadership on animal welfare in Australia needs to be addressed urgently if the lives of farm animals are going to be significantly improved.”

RSPCA chief executive Chris Sherwood said: "The West Midlands has a proud farm animal welfare record - with thousands of farms rearing millions of livestock to higher legal English standards, and many going above and beyond that. 

"But we fear this is all set to be undermined by the signing of a quick trade deal with Australia, which could open the doors in the West Midlands to low welfare imports that undermine our high domestic standards - with beef and lamb a particular concern to us, given Australia's far lower standards. People across the West Midlands will be alarmed to know that local supermarket shelves could soon be stocked with agricultural produce reared to lower standards - including mutilations to sheep and growth hormone treatment for beef.

"This could lead to a lopsided and unlevel playing field for the agricultural community in the West Midlands, and clearly puts farms and hard-won welfare standards at risk." UK Ministers are being urged to ensure tariff or non-tariff safeguards are included in any FTA with Australia - so only products produced to higher animal welfare standards enter the UK.

Australian farming involves a number of practices which are outlawed in the UK.

Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo has planted a tree in the capital, Accra, as part of a plan to put five million trees in the ground across the country in a single day.

The Green Ghana Project is supposed to become an annual event and aims to reverse the process of deforestation.

It has been going on across the country's 16 regions and everyone from school children to judges have been taking part, it was reports.

The focus has been on people planting trees in places where they can easily maintain them, Hugh Brown from the Ghana Forestry Commission said.

In other words, people have been encouraged to put the saplings in the earth in their homes or in places like school, college and church compounds.

Earlier this month, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the cancellation of key school-leaving examinations.

The examinations - popularly called boards - are crucial for students hoping to secure admission in some of India's most prestigious public universities. The exams, originally planned for May, were postponed to July, with the authorities saying they would do a review on June 1.

The cancellation came as a huge relief to many who were anxious about writing exams at a time when Indian towns and cities were gripped by a deadly second wave of Covid-19 pandemic. But, students said, this relief soon gave way to anxiety.

Shubransu Dash, a student from Cuttack city in the eastern state of Odisha (formerly Orissa), described it as a "somewhat bittersweet moment" when he found out that he wouldn't have to write the tests under such pressure but it also opened up a whole world of uncertainty. "I was studying very hard, logged on to Zoom calls from early morning to late noon. But with exams cancelled, how do we prove ourselves?" he asked.

For the most part, the education system in India is geared towards this one big board exam that Class 12 students have to take. It marks the culmination of their school life and forms the basis for all their future studies. The cancellation of these tests, students say, complicates matters.

In their cancellation order of 1 June, authorities said that students would be marked according to a "well-defined, objective criteria" which would be announced later. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the government-controlled board that conducts these examinations, said experts would look at all angles and decide how students would be evaluated.

Some educationists feel that students could be marked on the basis of their performance in previously-held examinations such as pre-boards - internal school tests conducted before the final boards. But students say that this is rife with issues.

"It's unfair as we write the pre-boards to assess ourselves. These are essentially to prepare for the boards. They're not the real thing," Mr Dubey said.

Also, he said, writing the pre-boards during the pandemic meant that many were sick or dealing with losses, while some just lost momentum after the tests were postponed the first time and, as a result, many didn't perform well. Teachers also say that asking the schools to mark their own students could lead to all sorts of issues.

An external exam removes bias as everyone writes the same exam and is graded by a neutral party, whereas schools might be emotionally invested in their own students" and instead of giving a student three on five, I might give them four on five, he explained. Some schools might also take this opportunity to push up the average grades of students to improve the school's ranking, he said.

Students appear unhappy with the arrangement. The CBSE announced that students would be allowed to write an examination if they were not satisfied with their evaluations. "But that could delay my admissions process and I don't want to waste a whole year," Mr Dash contended.

It's not just the exams, many 12th grade students are also unhappy that they have missed out on the last year of school and time with their friends. Schools were shut in March last year when Covid-19 cases first started emerging in India.

With classes moving online, students spent the year at home, logging into Zoom to study and keeping in touch with classmates. "It’s been a lost year for us. We have stayed home for most of this academic year," Sanshray Ghorawat, a student from Kolkata said.

"We couldn't meet our friends or even have a graduation ceremony. It was very disheartening," he continued.

The Society of Authors has revealed the names of the winning writers, poets and illustrators from around the world who will share in the UK’s biggest literary prize fund, worth over £100,000, in an online ceremony.

"Graeme Armstrong: 'I hope this prize speaks volumes to the young men and women in my community about the distinct possibility of their impossible."

The acclaimed author of Chocolat Joanne Harris invited an international audience to celebrate the 2021 Society of Authors’ Awards run digitally for the second year because of Covid-19 restrictions.

Speaking from her home in Yorkshire, Harris previous award recipients to announce the 2021 winners of ten prizes for debut novels, poetry, historical biography, illustrated children’s books, and lifetime bodies of work. The trade union - which counts such household literary names as Philip Pullman, Hilary Mantel, Kazuo Ishiguro, Neil Gaiman and JK Rowling among its members, as well as 11,500 jobbing writers, translators, illustrators and journalists - shared £105,775 between 35 writers, poets and illustrators in a celebration of the ‘phenomenal depth and breadth of books and words’

The winners included Thomas McMullan, who won the £10,000 Betty Trask Prize for his dark dystopian debut The Last Good Man; poet Paula Claire who this week celebrates 60 years of creating poetry as well as her Cholmondeley Award; Graeme Armstrong, who won both a Betty Trask Award and a Somerset Maugham Award for The Young Team; lawyer turned children’s writer Rashmi Sirdeshpande and illustrator Diane Ewen who won the Queen’s Knickers Award, now in its second year, for Never Show a T-Rex a Book; Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and British Book Awards winner Kiran Millwood Hargrave who won a Betty Trask Award for her debut adult novel The Mercies; and Pulitzer Prize winner Fredrik Logevall who won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography for JFK Volume 1.

Gboyega Odubanjo, Milena Williamson and Cynthia Miller were among the young poets celebrated in the Eric Gregory Awards, while other award recipients included Forward Prize winner Kei Miller, award-winning columnist Lola Okolosie, playwright and education worker Lamorna Ash, and short fiction author and literary reviewer DM O'Connor.

Introducing the Awards, Harris reflected on the current challenges facing the author community, saying, ‘for authors, whose careers are precarious at the best of times, the challenge to sustain themselves right now is more acute than ever.’

She continued, ‘that is why all of us are here to celebrate the phenomenal depth and breadth of books and words. Authors at the very beginning of their careers. Authors that are well established. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and everything that lies in between. Literature as a treasure at the centre of society. Writing as a force to be reckoned with.’

In his acceptance speech, Kei Miller described his Cholmondeley Award as ‘a wonderful reminder that we belong to so many societies and so many countries’. McKitterick Prize winner Elaine Feeney spoke of the ‘lovely boost’ the prize has given her, confirming ‘signs of life off the West coast of Ireland!’

Queen’s Knickers Award winner Rashmi Sirdeshpande thanked ‘everyone who has helped [Never Show a T-Rex a Book] find its way into the hands of a child’. And Graeme Johnson whose novel The Young Team mirrors his own experiences of addiction and Scottish gang culture said he hopes his two awards will ‘speak volumes to the young men and women in my community about the distinct possibility of their impossible.’

As she closed the ceremony, Joanne Harris said, ‘There’s no better way to support authors than to read them, so I urge you all to pick up tonight’s winners from your local bookshop and discover their worlds.’

The winners for each award are:

The ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award

Sponsored by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), the ALCS Tom-Gallon Trust Award is awarded for a short story by a writer who has had at least one short story accepted for publication. Judged by Claire Fuller, Sophie Haydock, Billy Kahora, Ardashir Vakil and Mary Watson. Past winners include Benjamin Myers, Lucy Wood, Grace Ingoldby and Claire Harman. Total prize fund: £1,575.

• Winner: DM O'connor for I Told You Not to Fly So High Awarded £1,000
• Runner-Up: Sean Lusk for The Hopelessness of Hope Awarded £575

Betty Trask Prize & Awards

The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are presented for a first novel by a writer under 35. Judged by Sara Collins, Elanor Dymott and Vaseem Khan. Past winners include Zadie Smith, David Szalay, Hari Kunzru and Sarah Waters. Total prize and award fund: £26,200.

Betty Trask Prize Winner

• Thomas Mcmullan for The Last Good Man (Bloomsbury) Awarded £10,000.

Betty Trask Awards Winners

Five winners, each awarded £3,240.

• Maame Blue for Bad Love (Jacaranda Books)
• Eley Williams for The Liar's Dictionary (William Heinemann/Cornerstone Prh)
• Kiran Millwood Hargrave for The Mercies (Pan Macmillan/Picador)
• Nneoma Ike-Njoku for The Water House (Unpublished)
• Graeme Armstrong for The Young Team (Pan Macmillan Picador)

Cholmondeley Award winners

5 winners each awarded £1,680

The Cholmondeley Awards are awarded for a body of work by a poet. Judged by Moniza Alvi, Grace Nichols and Deryn Rees-Jones. Past winners include Seamus Heaney, Carol Ann Duffy, John Agard and Andrew Motion. Total prize fund: £8,400

• Kei Miller
• Paula Claire
• Maurice Riordan
• Susan Wicks
• Katrina Porteous

Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography

The Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography is an annual award for historical biography which combines scholarship and narrative drive. Judged by Roy FosterFlora Fraser, Antonia Fraser, Richard Davenport-Hines and Rana Mitter. Past winners include D.W. Hayton, Anne Somerset and Philip Ziegler. Total prize fund: £5,000.

• Winner: Fredrik Logevall for JFK Volume 1 (Viking)

Eric Gregory Award winners

7 winners each awarded £4,050

The Eric Gregory Award is presented for a collection of poems by a poet under 30. Judged by Vahni Capildeo, Andrew McMillan, Sarah Howe, Jamie McKendrick and Roger Robinson. Past winners include Carol Ann Duffy, Helen Mort and Alan Hollinghurst. Total prize fund: £28,350.

• Phoebe Walker for Animal Noises
• Michael Askew for The Association Game
• Gboyega Odubanjo for Aunty Uncle Poems
• Kandace Siobhan Walker for Cowboy
• Cynthia Miller for Honorifics
• Milena Williamson for The Red Trapeze
• Dominic Hand for Symbiont

McKitterick Prize

The McKitterick Prize is awarded for a first novel by a writer over 40. Judged by Sabrina Mahfouz, Nick Rennison and Christopher Tayler. Past winners include Helen Dunmore, Mark Haddon and Petina Gappah. Total prize fund: £5,250.

• Winner: Elaine Feeney for As You Were (Harvill Secker, Vintage) Awarded £4,000
• Runner-Up: Deepa Anappara for Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line (Chatto & Windus, Vintage) Awarded £1,250

​Paul Torday Memorial Prize

Now in its third year, the Paul Torday Memorial Prize is awarded to a first novel by a writer over 60. The prize includes a set of the collected works of British writer Paul Torday, who published his first novel Salmon Fishing in the Yemen at the age of 60. Judged by Paul Bailey, Roopa Farooki and Anne Youngson. Past winners are Anne Youngson and Donald S Murray.

Total prize fund: £1,000.

• Winner: Kathy O'shaughnessy for In Love with George Eliot (Scribe Uk) Awarded £1,000
• Runner-Up: Karen Raney for All the Water in the World (John Murray/Two Roads)

The Queen’s Knickers Award

Now in its second year, this annual prize, founded by Nicholas Allan, author of The Queen's Knickers, is awarded for an outstanding children’s original illustrated book for ages 0-7. It recognises books that strike a quirky, new note and grab the attention of a child, whether in the form of curiosity, amusement, horror or excitement. Judged by Alexis Deacon, Patrice Lawrence and Tony Ross. ​The inaugural winner of this award in 2020 was Elena Arevalo Melville for Umbrella. Total prize fund: £6,000.

• Winners: Writer Rashmi Sirdeshpande and Illustrator Diane Ewen for Never Show a T-Rex a Book (Puffin) Awarded £5,000
• Runner-Up: Alex T. Smith for Mr Penguin and the Catastrophic Cruise (Hachette) Awarded £1,000

Somerset Maugham Award winners

4 winners each awarded £4,000

The Somerset Maugham Awards are for published works of fiction, non-fiction or poetry by writers under 30, to enable them to enrich their work by gaining experience of foreign countries. Judged by Fred D'Aguiar, Nadifa Mohamed and Roseanne Watt. Past winners include Helen Oyeyemi, Julian Barnes, Zadie Smith and Jonathan Freedland. Total prize fund: £16,000.

• Lamorna Ash for Dark, Salt, Clear (Bloomsbury Publishing)
• Isabelle Baafi for Ripe (Ignition Press)
• Akeem Balogun for The Storm (Okapi Books)
• Graeme Armstrong for The Young Team (Pan Macmillan Picador)

Travelling Scholarships

5 winners each awarded £1,600

The Travelling Scholarships are awarded to British writers to enable engagement with writers abroad. Judged by Tahmima Anam, Aida Edemariam, Anne McElvoy, Adam O'Riordan and Gary Younge. Previous recipients have included Dylan Thomas, Laurie Lee and Margaret Drabble. Total prize fund: £8,000.

• Clare Pollard
• Guy Gunaratne
• Yara Rodrigues Fowler
• Tom Stevenson
• Lola Okolosie

UK born Psychologist and author and photojournalist Delroy Constantine-Simms, is the winner of two Black Excellence Awards (Middle East)   

The inaugural Black Excellence Awards organized by Marsha Fry,  the CEO and founder of online and print publication “ Out and About Magazine .  

The Awards ceremony took place on June 4^th 2021 at the luxurious Sofitel, Palm Resort Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. The awards consisted of 18 categories, ranging from lifestyle coaching and education to inventors and aviation professionals.

The ceremony was hosted by former Dubai TV presenter Layne Redman, featured performances by Afrobeat musician MKO, Singers Kande Sill, Khandice Taylor, Poet Samantha Rodgers, and guest speaker Omar Tom, Founder and Managing Partner, Dukkan Media.

Constantine-Simms’s awards were presented to him by wealthy Emirati Businessman Mr. Yaqoob Al Ali for the following categories.

1. The Out and About Photographer Award, in acknowledgment for his work in photojournalism, on contemporary social political issues, street art, sports and entertainment in the Middle East, Cuba, Brazil and the USA.

2. The Out and About Author Award, after writing and editing two consequential books, #Take A Knee Political Awakening of Colin Kaepernick, and The Brazilian Covid Catastrophe.

Constantine-Simms says,   “I am extremely happy to be the recipient of these awards. I was initially nominated for three awards, unfortunately, I lost out to my Canadian Colleague, Donavan Patterson, but just to be nominated is an honour, but to win two awards, I am ecstatic and extremely happy, not only for me, but for the people that have supported me over the years, especially Dale Williams, Ivor Patterson, Maureen Drackett-Fuller, and the Briscoe, Simms and Dixon family world-wide, and my peers from Wolverhampton, and all the staff at the Phoenix Newspaper and Blacknet.

He goes on to say,

“When I first arrived in the Middle East, I was very wary of the usual stereotypes of Islamic culture, but having lived in Dubai for a few years, you quickly realise that in the UAE anything is possible. The UAE has over 200 nationalities living here. It’s a place where black professionals thrive, and are succeeding, I am happy to be part of the community journey of professional success.  A success that's been pioneered by groups such as the UAE AFRICA Networking Group, Woment Talk and the online website AFRIKANEKT.

Leisa Grace Wilson Editorial Director, Teach Middle East Magazine, says,

"Black excellence is evident in nearly every facet of life in the United Arab Emirates. The Black Excellence Gala and Awards is a celebration of the indelible mark that Black people have been making on all sectors of society, across the Middle East”.

Garfield Kerr CEO, Mokha 1450 says

"The Black Excellence Gala and Awards represents an idea that is long overdue. The event proves what many of us in disparate fields in the UAE, and the Middle East, at large have always known that there are many people of colour in this region at the pinnacle of the industry and the creative arts that are worthy of recognition."

Constantine-Simms is currently a freelance journalist and psychologist pursuing part-time study at the University of Oxford, while running his book publishing company Think Doctor Publications and author agency  Black Book Collective with Christopher Sill and acclaimed author Kande Summers.

Photo Credits: Maureen Drackett-Fuller of Moza Designs