Mshale

The Itasca Project, a group of about 40 Twin Cities business leaders, academics and public officials in late October released a report called, "Mind the Gap," that it had commissioned. The report showed the seriousness top business leaders in the area attach to the influx of new immigrants that have come to the area. The report noted that Minnesota has the largest Hmong, Somali, and Liberian communities in the , a fact well known by recent census numbers. Immigrants from 160 countries came to Minnesota in 2002, the report noted.

Upcoming African immigrant professionals and entrepreneurs under the banner of Channel Afrique in Minnesota meet every last Friday of the month to network and co-ordinate their activities for greater shared gains. On Friday October 28, they met at the Double Tree Hotel where Tom Gitaa, Editor and Publisher of Mshale – The African Community Newspaper, gave an invigorating talk on how he has worked his way in reaching out to the reading public and now his paper is regarded by many as a leader in the Minnesota African community media circles. 

Former President Bill Clinton told of an experience he had in to illustrate the strategies the can take to combat terrorism. He talked of a Ghanaian woman who ran after him to hand him a shirt as a present to thank the former president for his African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) that provided economic opportunities for her. Mr. Clinton signed into law the AGOA Act in his final year of office.

Some financial maneuvering before year-end can save you considerable money. Here are a few year-end tax avoidance tactics:

East African Traveler

It’s near midnight, and the calabash of honey beer keeps being filled up and passed around the circle of elders in a grass hall, illuminated by firelight, somewhere out in the Great Rift Valley of central .