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Dr. Kefa Otiso becomes Third Kenyan in the Diaspora to Receive Award

The President of the Kenya Scholars and Students Association (KESSA) and Bowling Green State University (BGSU) professor, Dr. Kefa Otiso is among four recipients of the Elder of Order of the Burning Spear (EBS) service award bestowed by Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, on December 12, 2008. Dr. Otiso is Associate Professor of Geography at Bowling Green University.

The immigration laws provide two ways for religious workers (ministers & non-ministers) to legally work in the United States, either as a non-immigrant temporary worker under the R-1 category or as a special immigrant (Form I-360).

Organizers of this year’s Somali Independence Day soccer tournament barred a section of Twin Cities mainstream media from reporting on the scene accusing them of a continuous “negative publicity and profiling of the community in a bad light”. The tournament’s spokesperson Abdirizack Ismail Said Maashal, told Mshale of his doubts regarding mainstream media’s sincerity in their renewed interest in the community after ignoring pleas from organizers in the last six years to cover the tournament.

During his visit to Ghana, President Barack Obama laid out a U.S. policy that wasn’t any different from that of his predecessors. But because Obama’s father hailed from my home country of Kenya, and because blood – African blood, especially - is thicker than water, Africans exempted their son’s plan for the continent from the tough questions it warranted.

MINNEAPOLIS - More than one hundred Somali Minnesotans held a rally on Friday to denounce Al-Shabaab, the hard-line Islamist insurgents in Somalia and a series of suicide bombings in their homeland.

The radical Islamic group Al-Shabaab has carried out several suicide bombings attacks on African peacekeeper’s bases and against government officials and clan leaders whom they suspect to be allied to a weakening Somali government led by their former ally, President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.

The 2010 H-1B visa cap remains unfilled.  Each year, the U.S. government allocates 65,000 temporary employment visas for foreign-national workers engaging in “specialty occupations.”  Specialty occupations are jobs that require theoretical or technical expertise in a specialized field and a bachelor's degree or its equivalent.  Examples include engineers, computer programmers, and accountants.

Wilson Coker left his Nigerian homeland 17 years ago.  He now supervises a group home for Ramsey County, Minnesota.  Tuesday evening, although still dressed in business attire, he moves his hips in true Nigerian dance style.  He might have lost a bit of his accent, but he hasn’t lost the beat of traditional dance.

He came to the Minnesota Zoo on June 30^th to hear a favorite musician, King Sunny Adé who opened the evening of Nigerian music to a near-capacity crowd of over 1300 people.  He stayed to experience superstar Femi Kuti close the house.

Despite fears of distractions from  the missing Somali youth saga that has engulfed the Somali community in Minnesota, the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center held its 9th Annual Convention at the Minneapolis Convention Center over the  weekend where thirty speakers addressed 10,000 people over three days. Participants said it was encouraging to see the number of attendees, the breadth of topics, and the scope of talent.

CLARKSON, GA. -– In this small town on the edge of Atlanta, the FBI and local law enforcement are looking out for an alarming kind of crime: radical Islamist terrorists potentially trying to recruit the town's young Somali-Americans to fight a war in Africa.

There is terrorist recruitment taking place already in Minnesota, said Clarkston police chief Tony J. Scipio. That's why his department and the FBI are looking for anything similar in the Somali-American community here in Clarkston.

^{Federal district courts continue to play a significant role in reviewing immigration cases, despite the passing of the REAL ID Act of 2005, which makes it more difficult to obtain judicial review of discretionary decisions by U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) and other government agencies.}

Transport Minister Chirau Ali Mwakwere said over the weekend that the coalition government in Kenya was stable despite what was portrayed in the press.”Sasa tuko katika hali ya kusikizana ki sawa sawa (we are in the process of being in agreement)”. The Minister was speaking to Kenyans in Minnesota gathered to celebrate Madaraka day at a local park. He is in the country to be part of the inaugural flight to Nairobi by Atlanta based Delta Airlines on June 2.