Facebook Inc’s oversight board on Wednesday upheld the company’s suspension of former U.S.  President Donald Trump but gave the company six months to determine a “proportionate response” going forward, a verdict that may chart how social media will treat rule-breaking world leaders in the future.

The company inappropriately imposed an indeterminate suspension without clear standards, the board said, requiring a company review.

The Board said Facebook should determine a response that is consistent with rules applied to other users of the platform.

“Facebook left the indefinite suspension in place and referred the entire matter to the Oversight Board, apparently hoping the board would do what it had not done,” said Michael McConnell, co-chair of the Oversight Board, during a press conference after publishing its decision on Wednesday.

McConnell added, “Indefinite penalties of this sort, do not pass the international or American smell test for clarity, consistency, and transparency.”

Facebook indefinitely blocked Trump’s access to his Facebook and Instagram accounts over concerns of further violent unrest following the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of the former president.

“We will now consider the board’s decision and determine an action that is clear and proportionate,” Nick Clegg, Facebook vice president of global affairs and communication, published in a blog entry following the decision. “In the meantime, Mr. Trump’s accounts remain suspended.”

At the time of the suspension, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a post that “the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.” The company later referred the case to its recently established board, which includes academics, lawyers and rights activists, to decide whether to uphold the ban or restore Trump.

“Both of those decisions are no-win decisions for Facebook,” said Kate Klonick, an assistant law professor at St. John’s University who embedded at Facebook to follow the board’s creation. “So, offloading those to a third party, the Oversight Board, is a win for them no matter what.”

The binding verdict marks a major decision for the board, which rules on a small slice of challenging content decisions and which Facebook created as an independent body as a response to criticism over how it handles problematic material. Facebook has also asked the board to provide recommendations on how it should handle political leaders’ accounts.

Tech platforms have grappled in recent years with how to police world leaders and politicians that violate their guidelines. Facebook has come under fire both from those who think it should abandon its hands-off approach to political speech and those who saw the Trump ban as a worrying act of censorship.

Trump was permanently banned from Twitter Inc, where he has more than 88 million followers.

Trump, who has been sending out short, emailed press releases, continued to promote election misinformation in one on Monday, saying “the Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020 will be, from this day forth, known as THE BIG LIE!”

On Tuesday, he launched a new web page to share messages that readers can then re-post to their Facebook or Twitter accounts. A senior adviser has said Trump also has plans to launch his own social media platform.

Source: REUTERS

Music fans in Barcelona hugged, danced and sang along at a sold-out rock concert on Saturday night after taking rapid COVID-19 tests in a trial that could revive the live music industry in Spain and beyond.

Some 5,000 fans at the show for Spanish indie band Love of Lesbian had to wear masks but social distancing was not required in the Palau Sant Jordi arena.

“It was spectacular. We felt safe at all times. We were in the front row and it was something we’d missed a lot,” said publicist Salvador, 29, after the show. “We are very proud to have had the chance to take part in this. We hope it’ll be the first of many.”

In surreal scenes after a year of social distancing, fans danced up close to one another, but the sea of faces covered in masks showed that things were not quite back to normal.

Health controls at the entrance delayed the start of the concert, but could not dampen the celebratory spirit.

“Welcome to one of the most exciting concerts of our lives!” lead singer Santi Balmes told the crowd to a roar of cheers.

The government-approved concert served as a test for whether similar events will be able to start up again.

“It will be safer to be in the Palau Sant Jordi than walking down the street,” concert co-organiser Jordi Herreruela told Reuters earlier on Saturday.

Pre-concert testing at three Barcelona locations was carried out by 80 nurses wearing full personal protective equipment. Some people winced as nurses swabbed their noses.

By midday, three out of 2,400 people already screened had tested positive and one had come into contact with a positive case, said Dr. Josep Maria Libre, a doctor who oversaw the testing. They were unable to attend the concert and would get a refund.

Attendees received their antigen test results in 10 to 15 minutes via an app on their phones. The test and a mask were included in the ticket price.

“I believe today we have made one thing a reality which is to show the world that culture is safe,” said Ramon, a 49-year-old fan.

(REUTERS)

A year ago, Cameroon, Africa and the world lost a music legend – Emmanuel N’Djoke Dibango, better known as Manu Dibango.

The Afro-jazz artiste died on March 24, 2020 after contracting the coronavirus in a Paris hospital where he was being treated for another illness, his family said.

Born on December 12, 1933, Manu first came to global prominence in 1973 inspired many a younger generation of Afro-jazz musicians, including Michael Jackson.

He was celebrated for his unique tunes that blended American funk and traditional jazz with local Cameroonian rhythms to form a unique genre, with fans remembering him as a man whose hearty laughter filled his conversations.

Manu’s biggest hit, Soul Makossa, is said to have influenced Michael Jackson’s Wanna Be Starting’ Something, which was the opening track of the American’s famous 1982 album Thriller.

Manu’s song was originally written as the anthem of the 1972 African Cup of Nations football tournament that Cameroon hosted.

Manu sued the American singer for lifting a line from the song without authorisation and the two artistes settled out of court after Michael Jackson admitted his fault and requested an amicable settlement.

Manu’s love for music dates back to his teens when he attended Protestant church every night in Douala. He later moved to France where he attended high school and began learning instruments: first the piano, then saxophone – for which he became best known – and also the vibraphone.

At 86, Manu was still able to withstand a two-hour long concert and despite being a chronic smoker, he could still play the saxophone, an instrument that required ‘lung power’.

The trailblazing saxophonist, nicknamed “Papy Groove”, collaborated with many other musicians, including Fela Kuti, the Nigerian multi-instrumentalist, musician, composer and Hugh Masekela, the South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer.

In an autobiography, Manu said he left Africa for France, carrying three kilos of coffee for his adopted family. The book, Trois kilos de café: autobiographie (Three Kilos of Coffee: An Autobiography), chronicles his remarkable rise from his birth in Douala, Cameroon, to his worldwide success—with Soul Makossa in 1972—as the first African musician to record a top 40s hit.

On the first anniversary of Manu’s demise, local radio and television stations in Cameroon played his songs as a tribute to the iconic musician.

Manu Dibango died five days after singer and composer Aurlus Mabélé, whose family confirmed also died of the virus. His daughter and singer, Liza Monet, confirmed he died of the coronavirus in Paris on March 19, 2020, at the age of 67.

Aurlus had a fragile health condition for more than 15 years after suffering a stroke.

Aurlus Mabélé created the musical brand Soukous, a high-tempo African and Caribbean dance hall style with pop and soul blends. He also created a dancing and dressing style that accompanied the music genre, which many of his fans adopted.

Born Aurélien Miatsonama on October 24, 1953, the man who was nicknamed “King of Soukous” moved to France after rising to prominence in Brazzaville, in his native Republic of Congo in the 70s and the 80s with the group Les Ndimbola Lokole. While in France, he cofounded the group “Loketo” with the famous guitarist Diblo Dibala and became its lead singer. The group toured Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the United States.

The Congolese legend sold more than 10 million records and had a huge following across Africa.

Culled from The East African

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Spain for  a third consecutive night demanding the release of a jailed rapper.

For the third night in a row, protesters took to the streets on Thursday night demanding the rapper be released.

In Barcelona, hooded youths hurled stones and bottles at police vans, damaged some vehicles, and a barricade was erected, prompting police to fire tear gas. Small fires were lit in various places in the Catalan capital where protesters burned whatever furniture they found.

The newsroom of the newspaper El Periodico de Cataluna was attacked, while TVE television showed images of clashes in the eastern city of Valencia. Protesters also took to the streets in several cities in the Basque Country.

Since the protests started on Tuesday, police have arrested dozens of protesters in protests that intensified on Wednesday night, with police in Madrid, Barcelona and other Catalan cities firing tear gas, foam and sound bombs at the growing number of protesters who hurled projectiles and set fire to dumpsters. Fifty-five people were injured in the clashes, including 35 police officers. In total, police arrested some 80 protesters in the past days and one woman lost an eye after being hit by a projectile during clashes with Barcelona police who were shooting rubber bullets at protesters.

Source: Presstv

Cicely Tyson, the pioneering African-American actress and honorary Oscar winner, died Thursday aged 96, her manager said.

Known best for Emmy-winning television movie “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” and her Academy-nominated turn in 1972 film “Sounder,” Tyson’s acting career spanned seven decades and often tackled issues of racism and social justice.

She frequently turned down roles she saw as reinforcing negative Black stereotypes, including maids and prostitutes, and was seen as recently as last year on the small-screen thriller “How to Get Away with Murder.”

“With heavy heart, the family of Miss Cicely Tyson announces her peaceful transition this afternoon,” manager Larry Thompson said in a statement to AFP.

“I have managed Miss Tyson’s career for over 40 years, and each year was a privilege and blessing,” Thompson wrote, without further details of the cause of death.

Tyson’s highly decorated career included multiple Emmys and a Tony in 2013 for “A Trip to Bountiful.”

Beside Depression-era drama adaptation “Sounder,” her other film credits include “Fried Green Tomatoes” and “The Help”.

In 2018, at the age of 93, Tyson was granted an honorary Oscar for her life-long work as an icon for two generations of African American actresses.

“She’s a queen to us, Afro-Americans,” the actor and producer Tyler Perry said at the glitzy Hollywood ceremony.

“She had to work ten times harder to be paid a hundred times less” because she was a black woman, Perry said.

The composer Quincy Jones, in an emotional tribute, said Tyson “opened the door” for Black actresses from Angela Bassett to Lupita Nyong’o.

Born in New York’s Harlem to Caribbean immigrant parents, Tyson began her career as a model before turning to acting.

She won Emmys for “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” in which she played a 110-year-old woman in the Civil Rights Era reflecting on a life dating back to slavery times, and for “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.”

She played other legendary Black female historical figures, including Harriet Tubman and Coretta Scott King, the activist wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Trailblazer is not a sufficient description. What a legendary artist, sage and matriarch. We salute her. Rest in power, Lady Cicely,” tweeted the Martin Luther King Jr Center on Thursday.

Tyson’s memoir, “Just as I Am: A Memoir” had just been published Tuesday.

“Cicely thought of her new memoir as a Christmas tree decorated with all the ornaments of her personal and professional life,” wrote manager Thompson.

“Today she placed the last ornament, a Star, on top of the tree.”

(AFP)

Larry King, the suspenders-sporting everyman whose broadcast interviews with world leaders, movie stars and ordinary Joes helped define American conversation for a half-century, died Saturday. He was 87.

King died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, Ora Media, the studio and network he co-founded, tweeted. No cause of death was given, but CNN had earlier reported he was hospitalised with COVID-19.

A long-time nationally syndicated radio host, from 1985 through 2010 he was a nightly fixture on CNN, where he won many honours, including two Peabody awards.

With his celebrity interviews, political debates and topical discussions, King wasn’t just an enduring on-air personality. He also set himself apart with the curiosity he brought to every interview, whether questioning the assault victim known as the “Central Park Jogger” or billionaire industrialist Ross Perot, who in 1992 rocked the presidential contest by announcing his candidacy on King’s show.

In its early years, “Larry King Live” was based in Washington, D.C., which gave the show an air of gravitas. Likewise King. He was the plainspoken go-between through whom Beltway bigwigs could reach their public, and they did, earning the show prestige as a place where things happened, where news was made.

King conducted an estimated 50,000 on-air interviews. In 1995 he presided over a Middle East peace summit with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. He welcomed everyone from the Dalai Lama to Elizabeth Taylor, from Mikhail Gorbachev to Barack Obama, Bill Gates to Lady Gaga.

Especially after he relocated to Los Angeles, his shows were frequently in the thick of breaking celebrity news, including Paris Hilton talking about her stint in jail in 2007 and Michael Jackson’s friends and family members talking about his death in 2009.

King boasted of never over-preparing for an interview. His non-confrontational style relaxed his guests and made him readily relatable to his audience.

“I don’t pretend to know it all,” he said in a 1995 Associated Press interview. “Not, `What about Geneva or Cuba?′ I ask, `Mr. President, what don’t you like about this job?′ Or `What’s the biggest mistake you made?′ That’s fascinating.”

At a time when CNN, as the lone player in cable news, was deemed politically neutral, and King was the essence of its middle-of-the-road stance, political figures and people at the centre of controversies would seek out his show.

And he was known for getting guests who were notoriously elusive. Frank Sinatra, who rarely gave interviews and often lashed out at reporters, spoke to King in 1988 in what would be the singer’s last major TV appearance. Sinatra was an old friend of King’s and acted accordingly.

“Why are you here?” King asks. Sinatra responds, “Because you asked me to come and I hadn’t seen you in a long time to begin with, I thought we ought to get together and chat, just talk about a lot of things.”

King had never met Marlon Brando, who was even tougher to get and tougher to interview, when the acting giant asked to appear on King’s show in 1994. The two hit it off so famously they ended their 90-minute talk with a song and an on-the-mouth kiss, an image that was all over media in subsequent weeks.

‘Regular-guy’ approach became dated

After a gala week marking his 25th anniversary in June 2010, King abruptly announced he was retiring from his show, telling viewers, “It’s time to hang up my nightly suspenders.” Named as his successor in the time slot: British journalist and TV personality Piers Morgan.

By King’s departure that December, suspicion had grown that he had waited a little too long to hang up those suspenders. Once the leader in cable TV news, he ranked third in his time slot with less than half the nightly audience of his peak year, 1998, when “Larry King Live” drew 1.64 million viewers.

His wide-eyed, regular-guy approach to interviewing by then felt dated in an era of edgy, pushy or loaded questioning by other hosts.

Meanwhile, occasional flubs had made him seem out of touch, or worse. A prime example from 2007 found King asking Jerry Seinfeld if he had voluntarily left his sitcom or been canceled by his network, NBC.

“I was the No. 1 show in television, Larry,” replied Seinfeld with a flabbergasted look. “Do you know who I am?”

Always a workaholic, King would be back doing specials for CNN within a few months of performing his nightly duties.

He found a new sort of celebrity as a plain-spoken natural on Twitter when the platform emerged, winning over more than 2 million followers who simultaneously mocked and loved him for his esoteric style.

“I’ve never been in a canoe. #Itsmy2cents,” he said in a typical tweet in 2015.

His Twitter account was essentially a revival of a USA Today column he wrote for two decades full of one-off, disjointed thoughts. Norm Macdonald delivered a parody version of the column when he played King on “Saturday Night Live,” with deadpan lines like, “The more I think about it, the more I appreciate the equator.”

King was constantly parodied, often through old-age jokes on late-night talk shows from hosts including David Letterman and Conan O’Brien, often appearing with the latter to get in on the roasting himself.

Broadcasting ambitions

King came by his voracious but no-frills manner honestly. He was born Lawrence Harvey Zeiger in 1933, a son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who ran a bar and grill in Brooklyn. But after his father’s death when Larry was a boy, he faced a troubled, sometimes destitute youth.

A fan of such radio stars as Arthur Godfrey and comedians Bob & Ray, on reaching adulthood, King set his sights on a broadcasting career. With word that Miami was a good place to break in, he headed south in 1957 and landed a job sweeping floors at a tiny AM station. When a DJ abruptly quit, King was put on the air — and was handed his new surname by the station manager, who thought Zeiger “too Jewish.”

A year later he moved to a larger station, where his duties were expanded from the usual patter to serving as host of a daily interview show that aired from a local restaurant. He quickly proved equally adept at talking to the waitresses, and the celebrities who began dropping by.

By the early 1960s King had gone to yet a larger Miami station, scored a newspaper column and become a local celebrity himself.

At the same time, he fell victim to living large.

“It was important to me to come across as a ‘big man,”’ he wrote in his autobiography, which meant “I made a lot of money and spread it around lavishly.”

He accumulated debts and his first broken marriages (he was married eight times to seven women). He gambled, borrowed wildly and failed to pay his taxes. He also became involved with a shady financier in a scheme to bankroll an investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination. But when King skimmed some of the cash to pay his overdue taxes, his partner sued him for grand larceny in 1971. The charges were dropped, but King’s reputation appeared ruined.

King lost his radio show and, for several years, struggled to find work. But by 1975 the scandal had largely blown over and a Miami station gave him another chance. Regaining his local popularity, King was signed in 1978 to host radio’s first nationwide call-in show.

Originating from Washington on the Mutual network, “The Larry King Show” was eventually heard on more than 300 stations and made King a national phenomenon.

A few years later, CNN founder Ted Turner offered King a slot on his young network. “Larry King Live” debuted on June 1, 1985, and became CNN’s highest-rated program. King’s beginning salary of $100,000 a year eventually grew to more than $7 million.

Covid-19 hospitalisation

A three-packs-a-day cigarette habit led to a heart attack in 1987, but King’s quintuple-bypass surgery didn’t slow him down.

Meanwhile, he continued to prove that, in his words, “I’m not good at marriage, but I’m a great boyfriend.”

He was just 18 when he married high school girlfriend Freda Miller, in 1952. The marriage lasted less than a year. In subsequent decades he would marry Annette Kay, Alene Akins (twice), Mickey Sutfin, Sharon Lepore and Julie Alexander.

In 1997, he wed Shawn Southwick, a country singer and actress 26 years his junior. They would file for divorce in 2010, rescind the filing, then file for divorce again in 2019.

The couple had two sons, King’s fourth and fifth kids, Chance Armstrong, born in 1999, and Cannon Edward, born in 2000. In 2020, King lost his two eldest children, Andy King and Chaia King, who died of unrelated health problems within weeks of each other.

He had many other medical issues in recent decades, including more heart attacks and diagnoses of type 2 diabetes and lung cancer.

Early in 2021, CNN reported that King was hospitalized for more than a week with COVID-19.

Through his setbacks he continued to work into his late 80s, taking on online talk shows and infomercials as his appearances on CNN grew fewer.

“Work,” King once said. “It’s the easiest thing I do.”

(AP)

In the framework of the 30th celebration of the law of December 19, 1990, on social communication, Repac (a media owners’ association) recently addressed a memorandum to Paul Biya, president of the Republic of Cameroon.

In its memorandum aimed at making media companies sustainable, Repac mainly asked state subsidies to be increased to XAF2 billion or XAF3 billion yearly. 

Indeed, up to early this year, that subsidy ranged between XAF150 million and XAF300 million every year (The last support granted was XAF240 million.

Previously named “aide publique à la communication privée au Cameroun” (public support for private communication in Cameroon), it was distributed to media companies and trade associations. However, in April 2020, its name changed to “appui institutionnel de l’État à la presse à capitaux privés” (State institutional support to private media). The beneficiaries also changed; they now include companies that publish offline and online magazines regularly.

Source: Business in Cameroon

The King of Makossa Love Claude Adolphe Moundi aka Petit Pays has made public a new single to honour two African legends, Manu Dibango and Pape Diouf who passed away in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Les baobabs sont tombés” (The giants have fallen) is a six-minute single released over the weekend which celebrates the lives of these two African icons who distinguished themselves in music and in football.

Speaking to Cameroon Concord News Group, Petit Pays manager Eyong Eyong Ebot said Petit Pays used his trademark vocals to express regret at the tragic demise of the African heroes who departed this world in difficult circumstances.

Petit Pays Rabbi however observed that we all shall meet with these fallen icons one day at the “waiting room in heaven to meet Jehovah”.

Saxophonist Manu Dibango passed away on March 24, after succumbing to the COVID-19 in a hospital in France. Buried in typical COVID-19 fashion, family members have said honours will be paid to the fallen artiste at the appropriate time.

On the other hand, Senegalese-born Pape Diouf succumbed to the virus on March 31 in Dakar. He had made a name in the world of football, becoming the first black man to be president of a club in Europe-Olympique Marseille in France.

Just after the World War II, in 1948, a gangly youth arrived in Strasbourg, France, after a long trip from Douala in Cameroon. He had 3kg of coffee in his luggage and a burning desire to be a saxophonist like Lester Young (later he would don a Young-esque pork pie hat and blow smoke rings like the acclaimed master). His name was Manu Dibango. Sadly, this veteran musician died of complications from the Covid-19 virus. He was 86 years old.

Dibango was born in Douala, Cameroon, in 1933. He was from two different ethnic groups, Duala, his father’s group, and Yabassi, his mother’s.  He grew up playing religious music at the Protestant church he attended, learning quickly and mastering choral techniques and piano; later he would learn saxophone and vibraphone. He completed his high school education in France and began his life-long love affair with jazz, which he credited with opening up the musical world for him, so that his very eclectic taste included Western classical music, all kinds of African music, tango, salsa and hip-hop.

The world of African football was also plunged into mourning on March 31, following the news that Senegalese journalist-turned- football agent Pape Diouf, the first black chairman of a club in a major European league, had become the continent’s high-profile sporting loss to the coronavirus.

Various African football figures throughout history could reasonably be classed as pioneers, but Diouf, who was appointed Olympique de Marseille president in 2005, held a position of power, prominence and influence within the European game that no other black personality has matched before or since.

No other figure represents, more emphatically than Diouf, the bridge between the worlds of African and French sports.

Born in 1951 in Chad to Senegalese parents — his father was a member of General Charles de Gaulle’s Compagnon de Liberation — Diouf was raised in Richard-Toll, on the Senegal-Mauritania border, and in Dakar.

At 18, with independence having already swept through Africa, he was sent to Marseille to complete his studies by his father, who served in Chad while the country was still a French colony.

He arrived on April 25, 1970, and despite complaining about the wind and cold, he began a longtime and profound love affair with the Phocean City.

After prematurely curtailing his studies at Sciences Po, Diouf opted against following his father’s wishes that he join the military, and he instead embarked on a career as a sports journalist, initially as a freelancer with La Marseillaise, with the club at the heart of the city, OM, his beat.

It was here, at this junction between sport and Africa, that Diouf met the legendary Cameroon goalkeeper Joseph-Antoine Bell, who facilitated the young man’s entrance into the inner workings of French football and set him on his way to a prominent role in one of Europe’s great institutions.

Reported by the management team of Petit Pays

Paul Rusesabagina, depicted in a Hollywood movie as a hero who helped save Tutsis during the Rwandan genocide, told the New York Times he believed he was flying to Burundi at the invitation of a pastor, but was instead lured to Rwanda and arrested on terrorism charges,

Rusesabagina was speaking to the US daily in an interview the paper said had been authorised by the Rwandan government and had taken place in the presence of government officials. “How I got here – now that is a surprise,” he told the newspaper. “I was actually not coming here.”

The 66-year-old Hutu political dissident and former hotel manager was propelled to fame after the Oscar-nominated film “Hotel Rwanda” portrayed him using his connections with the Hutu elite to protect Tutsis fleeing slaughter during the 1994 genocide. The Hollywood film credits him with saving the lives of more than 1,200 people as they sheltered in the hotel he ran.

Some 800,000 mostly Tutsi but also moderate Hutu were killed in the genocide.

He had been living in exile since 1996, where he was a prominent critic of Tutsi President Paul Kagame, accusing him of stifling political opposition, authoritarianism and anti-Hutu sentiment. He holds both Belgian citizenship and a US “green card”.

Rusesabagina ‘delivered himself’, Rwanda’s spy chief says

Rusesabagina suddenly appeared in custody in Rwanda earlier this month, prompting accusations from his family that he had been kidnapped. But he says he voluntarily boarded a private plane in Dubai that he believed was bound for Burundi’s capital Bujumbura, where he had planned to speak to churches at the invitation of a local pastor.

Instead, he landed in Kigali, where he now faces 13 charges, including terrorism, complicity in murder and forming or joining an irregular armed group with children involved. The NYT quoted Rwanda’s spy chief as saying “he delivered himself here”.

The plane was operated by GainJet, a charter company based in Greece that is often used by Kagame, the report said.

Bail denied

A spokesman for the prosecution on Wednesday told Reuters that Rusesabagina, who once called for armed resistance to the government in a YouTube video, faces a possible life sentence. He was denied bail on Thursday and will stay in jail for 30 days as the prosecution ends its investigations.

The NYT was not able to speak to the pastor, and says Rwandan officials believe he was actually heading there to coordinate with armed groups based in Burundi and Congo.

In 2018, Rusesabagina co-founded an opposition group, the Rwandan Movement for Democratic Change (MRCD), which is said to have an armed wing called the National Liberation Front (FLN).

In multiple speeches, Rusesabagina has expressed support for the FLN – which has carried out armed attacks and is described as a terrorist organisation by Rwanda – but the extent of his involvement in its actions is unclear.

He has nevertheless denied forming the group.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

Ronald Bell — a co-founder of Kool and the Gang, the heavyweight funk group behind hits like “Celebration,” “Jungle Boogie” and “Ladies’ Night” — died Wednesday. He was 68 years old.

The performer died at his home in the US Virgin Islands, the group’s publicist Angelo Ellerbee told AFP, without specifying a cause of death.

Bell founded Kool and the Gang with his brother Robert and friends Dennis Thomas, Robert Mickens, Charles Smith, George Brown and Ricky West in the early 1960s, fusing a foundation of jazz with smatterings of funk, disco, R&B and pop.

The group became a major smash in the 1970s, its brassy funk putting it in a class with Earth, Wind and Fire, the Isley Brothers and Sly and the Family Stone.

Kool and the Gang scored a Grammy in 1978 for their contributions to the soundtrack for “Saturday Night Fever” starring John Travolta.

The group was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.

Born in Youngstown, Ohio in 1951, Bell also went by his Muslim name Khalis Bayyan.

A self-taught musician, he wrote some of the ensemble’s major hits including “Celebration,” which is still a popular anthem at sporting events.

The group remains a DJ favorite and is heavily sampled especially in the rap world, its tracks appearing in songs by artists including Jay-Z, Nas, NWA, Tupac, The Wu-Tang Clan, Snoop Dogg, A Tribe Called Quest and Busta Rhymes.

Source: AFP