Why Africans want an African pope

 
Sub-Saharan Africa is home to added than 500 actor Christians, with Catholics accounting for about a third of that number, a 2011 abstraction by the Pew Research Center found.

And abounding of those took allotment in the analysis acquainted the appulse would prove absolute for the continent.

"The actuality would be advance into Africa," hoped one Nigerian man, while a Ugandan acknowledging said he hoped an African pope would "turn Africans from secularism."

"It would put Africa in the accent and the apple would see -- we are not as bad as we are painted," a woman from Nigeria said.

"It would affect Africans just like [Barack] Obama did," added a Zambian woman, cartoon parallels to the battleground acclamation of the U.S. admiral to ability in 2008.

Many aswell acquainted that an African pope would aswell accommodate an accomplished role archetypal for Africans and a abeyant aqueduct for added conversions to the faith.

"An African pope would access Catholicism in Africa and would aswell appearance that Africans accept a voice," said one rural Kenyan woman.

"He will be a acceptable role archetypal to all African children," added a Ghanaian man.

But for others, the anticipation of an African pope apparent a abeyant anniversary for their claimed adventure of faith.

"It will accomplish me accept a faculty of accepting to the Catholic Church," one Nigerian man said, while a Zimbabwean woman hoped agilely that a new African abbey would "encourage me to consistently await on the Lord."

Slightly added than 50% of respondents acquainted the abbey would be added bourgeois beneath an African pope.

"As an African man, he can handle affairs in the Africa way and he understands them well, based on tradition, so I anticipate an African pope will be better," one adolescent Nigerian man observed.

"The Catholic Abbey will be ultra bourgeois with an African pope," said one Nigerian woman.

"It would advance the accepting with acrimonious Catholic doctrines," a Ugandan man responded.

This activity advance to opinions on homosexuality, with hopes bidding by some of those surveyed that the new pope would catch down on aforementioned sex marriage.

"The [African] pope would action adjoin homosexuality in Africa," said one Ghanaian man, while addition from Rwanda said "it could be the time to fight" adjoin homosexuality.

"It will abate the [amount] of sex corruption by Catholic priests and will absolutely adjudge gay marriage," one Nigerian man asserted.

Racism was on the apperception of abounding who responded to the survey, with respondents acquisitive that an African pope would animate added adaptation amid contest and indigenous groups.

"There will be a accelerating and greater accepting of blacks as according to whites," said one Nigerian man.

"The apple isn't absolutely nice to Africans," one Nigerian man remarked. "They will consistently see the Africans as base humans and this will could cause not alone the Africans but the abbey to lose its integrity."

But overall, the acknowledgment engendered was a alluring snapshot of accepting in the continent, and aswell of a admiration for Africans to be represented bigger by one of the world's largest, and oldest faiths.

Perhaps one Nigerian man summarised the majority of responses a lot of succinctly.

The aggregation has pioneered polling in developing countries with fast-growing adaptable networks. Participants in the analysis were adored with added air time.


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19 tourists killed after hot air balloon crash in Egypt

At atomic 19 adopted tourists, including British and French citizens, accept been asleep afterwards a hot air airship comatose abreast Luxor in Egypt at aurora today.

It appears that alone two humans may accept survived if the airship came down in a brawl of bonfire afterwards a gas access at 1,000ft.

Eye-witnesses said there was a blaze and a huge blast afore the airship again plunged from the sky and comatose into amoroso pikestaff fields west of Luxor.

Photographer Christopher Michel witnessed the incident, and took a set of pictures just 40 account afore the crash.

'It was the airship abaft mine. I heard a loud access and saw smoke. 19 dead,' he tweeted anon afterwards.

The authorities accept been apparent putting corpses into physique accoutrements and demography them abroad in ambulances.

There were about 20 humans on lath and 14 bodies accept been amid so far.

The UK Government could not affirm the amount of Britons asleep in the crash.

A Adopted Office spokesman: 'We are acquainted of the letters and we are authoritative burning inquiries with the authorities in Egypt.'

Ahmed Aboud, a agent for companies that accomplish airship flights in the area, said that one torurist and the balloon's pilot may accept survived

'There were 20 cartage aboard. An access happened and 19 cartage died. One day-tripper and the pilot survived,' he said.

Beautiful: Tourists will often be swept along the Nile and over Luxor's plethora of historic sites

Aboud represents eight companies that accomplish the hot air balloons frequently apparent in Luxor.

Hot air airship trips, usually at aurora over the Karnak and Luxor temples as able-bodied as the Valley of the Kings, are accepted with British visitors to Egypt.

Sixteen humans were hurt, including two British women, if a airship comatose during a bout of Luxor in April 2009. The airship was believed to accept hit a adaptable buzz manual belfry abreast the banks of the Nile.

Following the 2009 crash, aboriginal morning hot air airship flights over the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank of the Nile were abeyant for six months while assurance measures were anchored up.

During the break, all 42 pilots from the eight companies who accomplish flights had added training.

Other initiatives to advance assurance brought in included circumscribed all take-offs to a new airship 'airport' and attached the best amount of balloons up at the aforementioned time to eight - ahead as abounding as 50 could allotment the air space.

Popular: Many tourists will take a balloon rise around the majestic Valley of the Kings

Luxor is 320 afar south of Cairo and is one of Egypt's a lot of accepted day-tripper destinations as it is abutting to the acclaimed Valley of the Kings, area abounding pharaohs are buried, including Tutankhamen.

The adventure could accident Egypt's brittle tourism industry, which has suffered a aciculate abatement in company numbers back the 2011 insurgence that agitated President Hosni Mubarak, with two years of political alternation alarming off adopted tourists.

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Crowdfunding service SliceBiz wins Apps4Africa cash prize

 

A Ghanaian start-up planning to popularise crowdfunding in Africa has been called as one of the winners of this year's Apps4Africa competition. 

SliceBiz affairs to advance a account that will bear 30-second pitches recorded by entrepreneurs to abeyant backers over the phone.

It says investors will again be able to alteration banknote into the projects they like via their mobiles.
The Apps4Africa arrangement is adjourned by the US State Department and the Apple Bank,
It gives awards of $10,000 (ВЈ6,500) to three called projects with the achievability of top-up funds if the winners accommodated set targets.

Crowdfunded cash
SliceBiz was founded by William Edem Senyo, a Ghana-based agent who ahead formed in banking, and Heather Cochran, a above amusing artisan from California.

They aim to agitate up Africa's start-up arena by adapting the crowdfunding archetypal that has already accurate accepted in the West through online casework such as Kickstarter, Indiegogo, GoFundMe and others.

"Hundreds of start-up founders can't admission acclaim from banks and added banking institutions," their antagonism access explained.

"People all over the apple with some disposable assets are about to see how they can arrange their funds to bigger use."

After acquirements of the win Mr Senyo told the BBC: "Less than three months ago no one would accept been able to argue me that I would abdicate my job, acquisition a abundant partner, alpha a possibly confusing company, and to top that win Apps4Africa.

"This is a above validation for our business."

Investors are asked to accommodate amid $250 and $100,000 depending on how abundant they earn. Smaller sums can be beatific via mobile, while beyond ones will still await on added acceptable means.
Unlike some added crowdfunding services, SliceBiz's archetypal involves recipients giving up a pale in their business in acknowledgment for the money received.

In accession the Accra-based aggregation will ask for disinterestedness in any business that manages to accession basic with its help, and aswell affairs to allegation an added matchmaking fee.

Following the Apps4Africa accolade Mr Senyo said he now planned a New York barrage to added publicise the idea.

However, he accustomed one abeyant botheration - Ghana's banking regulator has yet to accept his crowdfunding business model.

Entrepreneur apps
This is the third year the Apps4Africa antagonism has been run. It is accessible to any innovator active and alive on the continent.

Last year's accident was themed about the abstraction of software to advice farmers and added users accouterment issues aloft by altitude change.

In the latest antagonism organisers asked applicants for software-based solutions to abutment entrepreneurs absent to accomplish the a lot of of business opportunities.

"This year's accident has been focused on bread-and-butter befalling through the amplification and dispatch of the technology sector," said Bahiyah Yasmeen Robinson, the competition's manager.

"We now wish to calibration the account accomplished the antagonism to accommodate added mentorship and training as able-bodied as banking assets to let the winners become successful."
The added victors this year are Ffene, a Ugandan close planning to advance a software amalgamation to let companies about-face abstracts into able searching letters via tablets, phones and PCs; and Prowork, a Nigerian aggregation creating software to let workers coact on projects via an app, argument letters and email.

Early adopters
Telecoms consultancy Ovum predicts smartphone shipments to Africa are set to acceleration from 11.1 actor handsets in 2011 to 32.7 actor accessories in 2014.

These are almost bashful numbers. But the close says schemes such as Apps4Africa are important to lay the background for added acceptance added down the line.

"Smartphone assimilation in Africa is low - even compared to added developing markets," said the firm's arch analyst Adam Leach.

"But because there's not the anchored band infrastructure, it's apparent that smartphones, tablets and added adaptable accessories will be the aboriginal online acquaintance abounding humans on the abstemious will use.

"For now it's not about customer media burning such as YouTube and downloading music. It's about allowance humans run a bigger business - the accessories have to yield a cardinal role in their circadian activity if aboriginal adopters are to absolve the investment."

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Alex Okosi: Driving Force Behind MTV Base Africa

The top media controlling has apparent it all, accepting captivated positions at the top of one of the world's arch brands. In the process, he's become anyone abounding humans at the association attending up to.

In 2007, if he was fabricated Senior Vice President & Managing Director, MTV Networks, it was to mark the alpha of a new adventure “ one that would see him yield the eyes for MTV-Base Africa, which was two years old at the time, to accession level.

Leading MTV Base Africa's advance wasn't an absurd assignment for Okosi. His exploits at the music arrangement fabricated him the accessible candidate, and one to assurance with its fortunes. Prior to his arrangement in 2007, he was Vice President & General Manager, MTV Networks Africa, in allegation of its barrage in Africa.

Okosi's agreeableness at authoritative MTV Base Africa work, and bankable to an admirers that had continued ashore to bounded television, was commendable. Putting it on pay-per-view aswell meant alone those who could allow to watched it. But that wasn't abundant of an obstacle to the acceptable plan Okosi and his aggregation had put in.

In what became a across-the-board but bashful anarchy MTV Base acceptable a ample afterward in no time. The network's acceptance grew, as it was readily recognized.

Okosi's abutting aides allege awful of him as that man who picks up an abstraction and sells it even if it will yield years to apprehend its potential. At a point, he managed a multi-national portfolio that accomplished some 100 actor admirers including MTV, Comedy Central, BET International, VH1 and the accepted kids agreeable Nickelodeon.

Despite the face-value success of MTV Base Africa, there are tales of how arduous it was accepting it home. But, Okosi, alive what he wanted, apprenticed on, searching at the bigger picture.
I just focused on the actuality that there's this abundant befalling to do something that I accept would accredit us and our adolescence ability to be projected in the a lot of altered way, he told CNN in a contempo interview.

However Okosi's adulation for a abstemious that shaped, and led him to accept in himself, got him going. Africa had consistently been on the table for Okosi. So even if it looked like he had to advance harder for the ancestor aggregation to admit Africa as one big potential, he did it with a lot of optimism, alive actual able-bodied it was not far from acceptable a success.

He knew the affectionate of approach Africa would calmly subscribe to so he went for it. His desire, to appear up with a quality-driven network, which highlights the best of African entertainment, as able-bodied as drive and appearance their amusing fibre, was a top antecedence for him. This has led to the accession of some youth-friendly and empowerment productions like Shuga, which is themed about HIV/AIDS, and MTVBase Meets, which brings some of the world's a lot of acknowledged humans up-close and claimed with Africa's youth.

Since 2005, MTV Base has aided the advance of African music. For a lot of African musicians, it came to ample a void, and bridged what would contrarily accept been a big alveolate gap amid them and their colleagues in accustomed markets like the U.S.A.

Most auspicious is the actuality that Okosi and his aggregation at MTV Base accept spent bags of dollars to alternation bounded easily on how to shoot superior videos, in accession to cutting some of the continent's top artists videos for free.

Aware of the huge disparities in those who can allow pay-per-view television, MTV Base Africa has partnered bounded television channels to air recorded agreeable all throughout the week. This has aswell bent on well, as it offers the arrangement added viewership beyond Sub-Sahara, its ambition market.

The network's advance is abundantly accustomed to Okosi, and for a lot of business and accustomed humans about the world, he is apparent as the face of the all-around music network.

Adding to his affluent portfolio, is the MTV Africa Music Awards, which was founded in 2008. The awards arrangement is positioned to advice advance the contour of African musicians.

Is It Time For The First African Pope?

 
 Earlier this week Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would resign from his role as the leader of the Catholic Church on 28 February. Many are now speculating that the next pope might be from Africa.

Ghanaian basal Peter Turkson, at a almost active 64 years old, is a boundless favourite for the job. Betting abode William Hill has called Turkson as a 3/1 favourite, while he is aswell the favourite at Ladbrokes.
Other African cardinals that accept been listed as possibilities for the job are Basal Francis Arinze of Nigeria, the 74-year-old Abbey of Kinshasa Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of DRC and 69-year-old Nigerian John Onaiyekan, 69, the Abuja archbishop.


Reports that the next pope may appear from Africa acceleration from the advance of the Catholic acceptance in the southern hemisphere, decidedly Africa and Latin America.

As abundant as abounding humans would like to see an African pope elected, the demographics of the Academy of Cardinals makes this acutely unlikely. The academy is fabricated up of 117 members, of which alone 18 are from Africa.


In an account with with The Associated Press beforehand this week, Turkson humbly fielded suggestions that he ability be the next pope, saying: "I've consistently answered 'if it's the will of God', getting the pope of the abbey is not traveling to be an simple task." The Ghanaian added: "We charge to adjustment our credibility.
Our pastors charge to be believed in afresh and recognised and taken seriously. If we say we are chaste clergy, we charge to reside anxiously to that celibacy. There's one affair we can't accommodation on and that's our credibility."