African youth poised to become first Black chess grandmaster

   
(GIN) — With a trail of tournament successes, a young man from Zambia has shaken up the world chess community.

   
Amon Simutowe, already an international master, is only steps away from being the first Black grandmaster from sub-Saharan Africa. A decisive match is under way in Namibia.

   
Born Jan. 6, 1982 in Ndola, Zambia, Amon learned to play chess at age 10 from magazines sent to him from England by his brother.  By the age of 14 he had won Zambia’s national championship. He was an international master by age 16.

   
As a student at the University of Texas at Dallas, one of the few universities that offer chess scholarships, he helped the school win two collegiate championships.

   
With his eye on a graduate degree in business, Amon  Simutowe says he also wants to promote chess, which is very popular in Zambia.

   
“Sometimes I am the headlines for the sport in my country,” he said. “Any contribution I can make, I am happy.”

African plays for U.S. wins gold

   
(GIN) — Bernard Lagat, a U.S. naturalized citizen from Kenya, has become the first man to win two gold medals in the same world championship.

   
Bernard Kipchirchir Lagat is a middle- and long-distance champion athlete. He represented the U.S. at the 11th world track and field championships that took place recently in Osaka, Japan.

   
Lagat is a Nandi, a sub-tribe of the Kalenjin people, born on Jamhuri Day, which is Kenyan Independence Day. Awarded a running scholarship to Washington State University in  1996, he began competing for his adopted nation after the required three-year waiting period. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2005.

   
“It means a lot to me,” Lagat said of his gold medal. “I’ll be setting an example for the younger ones in America. There will be other kids born and raised in America who will do what I do.”

Presidential contenders march for peace

   
(GIN) — In an effort to lead their followers in the path of peace, Sierra Leone’s contenders for the presidency pledged to work for “violence-free elections” and condemned the current outbreaks of intimidation and attacks on persons and property.

   
They agreed to ride in the same vehicle together in a “march for peace” in Freetown, two days before they were to face a deciding run-off vote.

   
Opposition frontrunner Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People’s Congress and his ruling party rival, Vice-President Solomon Berewa of the Sierra Leone People’s Party, announced the plans after talks with President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.

   
The first round of voting, on Aug. 11, put Koroma ahead of Berewa but without the required votes to win outright, making a run-off necessary.

   
A peaceful transition of power will be a true test of Sierra Leone’s recovery from a 1991 to 2002 civil war that was fueled by illegal diamond smuggling and killed more than 50,000 people.

   
Candidates are banned from using ex-combatants and vigilante groups under the new peace agreement and Sierra Leone’s cell phone companies are sending texts to customers urging them to “say no to violence.”

War heats up in Congo

   
(GIN) — Peace accords are near collapse in this Central African nation and a renegade Tutsi general has declared war on the government.

   
Gen. Laurent Nkunda accused the government of forming an alliance against him with the Hutu “Democratic Forces of Liberation,” a group accused of involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide of Tutsis.

   
Nkunda recently pulled thousands of his men out of the national army and began attacking government troops.

   
A U.N. airlift of thousands of government troops is under way into the eastern Kivu region, backing up the installed government which views Nkunda as a “bandit,” guilty of killings and rapes that have driven up to 200,000 people from their homes in recent months, according to the World Food Program.

   
Anneke Van Woudenburg, Congo analyst of the watchdog Human Rights Watch fears the worst.

   
“Instead of diplomacy they are resorting to past behavior of military force as the solution to the problem, one that is unlikely to succeed and will only result in further suffering for the people,” Woudenburg said.

Ford gets federal prison time

   
John Ford, an uncle of former Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr., is heading to federal prison for corruption. The former state senator will spend five-and-a-half years in prison for taking $55,000 in bribes that were exposed in a federal corruption investigation that rocked the Tennessee General Assembly.

Bishop T.D. Jakes responds to Bynum beating

   
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Bishop T. D. Jakes, preparing for another “For Ladies Only” women’s conference, says he is hoping recent separation and divorce announcements of Christian power couples, including the hotel parking lot beating of Prophetess Juanita Bynum-Weeks by her minister husband, won’t deter marriages.

   
“I don’t want to comment on their specific cases because I am counseling them and that would not be professional. But to make a general statement about women who are going through divorce, divorce does not have to be the end of your life,” said Jakes in an interview with the NNPA News Service.

   
“It is a tragedy. The Bible says that God hates divorce and I believe that it is God’s will that we walk together and keep our vows. But your life doesn’t have to end because your marriage did. And to those women who are dealing with domestic violence, I think the first thing to do is to put you and your children in a safe environment and then begin to work out a resolution.”

Blacks at economic bottom

   
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – Black people in America had less health care last year than they did in 2005 and they remained at the economic bottom of America, below Hispanic Americans.

   
According to a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the median household incomes for Black families remained last year at $32,000, the same as it was in 2005. That’s $5,800 less than Hispanic families, which remained at $37,800 and $20,400 less than White families, which remained at $52,400.

           
Poverty rates in 2006 were no better for African Americans.