Collectively Black Americans are the richest blacks in the world. But, only two Black Americans can claim a nine-figure income. Times are changing and Black Africans are making more money than Black Americans and have made it onto Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest billionaires. At the top of Forbes’ list, Warren Buffett’s $62 billion ranks him as the world’s richest man. Of the world’s 1125 wealthiest individuals, Mexico’s Carlos Slim Helu ranks second with $60 billion. Despite being worth $58 billion, $2 billion more than last year, Microsoft’s Bill Gates is now just the world’s third-richest person.
Ethiopian-born Mohammed Al Amoudi is the richest Black person in the world with a total net worth of $9 billion [Some of it is stolen from the people of Ethiopia in partnership with the Meles crime family]. Al Amoudi is ranked 97th on the Forbes list and followed by billionaire Blacks such as Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote ($ 3.3 billion), America’s Oprah Winfrey ($2.5 billion), London-based Sudanese national Mohamed ìMoî Ibrahim ($2.5 billion) and South African Patrice Motsepe ($2.4 billion). BET founder Robert Johnson’s divorce dropped him to just a $1 billion fortune.
Al Amoudi made his fortune in construction and real estate before betting on Swedish and Moroccan oil refineries. His Svenska Petroleum conducts oil exploration from the Nordic shelf to the Ivory Coast. He is the largest private investor in Ethiopia, putting money into such diverse assets as a hotel, gold mines and a food processing plant.
At the age of 21, Aliko Dangote became a stock trader off a loan from his uncle. After he built his company, The Dangote Group, into a conglomerate with interests in sugar, flour milling, cement and salt processing, he struck gold when his sugar production company was listed on the Nigerian stock exchange last year. The Dangote Group dominates the sugar market in Nigeria and is the country’s largest industrial group. Dangote is ranked the 334th richest man in the world.
Oprah Winfrey is 215th on Forbes’ 2008 list. The queen of American media’s show will run through the 2010-11 season. She launched The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1986. It is now aired in 110 countries and draws 30 million viewers a week in the U.S. Oprah owns Harpo Studios and property in Hawaii, Illinois and Santa Barbara. She gives to needy women, children and families via Oprah’s Angel Network and her personal charity, the Oprah Winfrey Foundation.
Sudanese-born Mohamed “Mo” Ibrahim ranks 462 on Forbes’ 2008 list. A communications entrepreneur, Ibrahim founded Celtel, a mobile phone company that now serves 15 African countries. Sold it in 2005 for $3.4 billion, pocketing $1.4 billion. The London resident now spends his time on philanthropy and investing in Africa. He created Mo Ibrahim Foundation to award monetary prize to former African heads of state that have shown exemplary leadership in such areas as promoting political freedom, and awarded first $5 million prize in October.
Johannesburg mining magnate Patrice Motsepe is South Africa’s first Black billionaire. Born in the sprawling Black township of Soweto and then trained as a lawyer, Motsepe has grown in business and dubbed the ìprince of minesî by many because of the vast fortune he has amassed through his company African Rainbow Minerals (ARM). Motsepe bought low-producing gold mine shafts in 1994 and turned them profitable by using a lean, and mean, management style. Now, not only is he the executive chairman of ARM, but he also holds a 42 percent stake in the company.
The Robert Johnson everybody knows is now only the 1,062nd richest person in the world. Founder of Black Entertainment Television, Johnson became America’s first Black billionaire in 2001 by selling BET to Viacom for $3 billion. His ex-wife, Sheila, took a big chunk the following year in a divorce settlement. Johnson is rebuilding his fortune with hotel investments and now owns interest in 100 hotels. He is the first person of color to hold a controlling interest in an American professional sports team: basketball’s Charlotte Bobcats. Other investments include: recording studios (Three Keys Music), and restaurants (Posh). Johnson has pledged $3 million to jumpstart a $30 million investment fund for Liberia.
The partnership will focus
on the area of Hintalo Wajerat
in the Tigray region where
only 22% of the population
currently has access to safe water
[Photo: WaterAid / Marco Betti]
Ecover, the world’s leading manufacturer of ecological cleaning products, launched a three-year partnership with international charity WaterAid. This partnership supports a project in Ethiopia, providing sustainable and ongoing access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education.
Ecover and WaterAid share the objective to provide effective, sustainable solutions for the hygienic needs of people around the world, and it is this common interest that has led to the formation of the partnership.
This is the first time WaterAid has worked with a business where both parties are actively working together to drive change. Ecover has always recognised that water is a precious commodity, and this is considered alongside total environmental impact at every stage, from product concept to final delivery to the store.
The partnership will focus on the area of Hintalo Wajerat in the Tigray region where only 22% of the population currently has access to safe water and just 6% have access to adequate sanitation. More shocking is the fact that 17 out of every 100 children will die before they reach their fifth birthday. On completion of the project 14,750 people across eleven villages in the region will have access to safe water and effective sanitation.
The partnership was launched at an event for media and friends and from the end of June will be promoted on 1.5 million Ecover products across 10 lines. Two members of staff from both Ecover UK and Ecover Belgium have also travelled to Ethiopia to see the issues first hand and WaterAid’s project work that is being funded by the partnership.
It sounds like a joke. The brother of the world’s most famous terrorist wants to build one of the world’s longest suspension bridges, linking two continents across some of the world’s most dangerous waters. As if that’s not enough, he also plans to build two new cities – one at each end.
If Sheikh Tarek bin Laden is joking, it’s an expensive gag. The Al Noor project will cost some US$200 billion ($290 billion) and, according to bin Laden’s people, he has already ploughed hundreds of millions of dollars into the scheme himself.
The project is nothing if not ambitious. A bridge, 29km long, will link Africa with Arabia across the Bab al-Mandib (Gate of Tears), the strait connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.
Two cities, one in Djibouti, the other in Yemen, will sit at either end.
The new metropolises, the Saudi developer claims, will be the envy of the world: the finest hospitals and schools, world-class universities and sporting facilities – everything will be the biggest and the best. Building them will require a staggering influx of migrant labour. The Djibouti city alone needs 850,000 workers – the country’s entire population is 800,000.
An odd mix of Djiboutian government officials, American military contractors and journalists gathered in the splendour of the Djibouti Kempinsky Palace, the country’s sole five-star hotel, to watch hyperbolic promotional videos as part of the scheme’s grand launch.
The project was compared to the construction of the Pyramids, the Garden of Eden and the Great Wall of China. It would be a “hope for all humanity”. Whereas once people from around the world dreamed of one day living in America, soon they would hope and pray for a life in Djibouti, said the company’s chief executive, Mohamed Ahmed al Ahmed.
The bridge linking the two continents would allow trade to blossom “from Dakar to Beijing”, he said.
Without new transport infrastructure on both sides of the bridge, people will not be able to travel far. Maybe that’s just as well. Djibouti’s neighbours are not premiere business destinations. Ethiopia, the largest, is currently fighting three wars. Eritrea, to the north, is currently engaged in a small border war with Djibouti. And then there is Somalia – a failed state and one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
Which makes it all the more curious that some major United States companies with strong links to the Bush Administration appear to be in charge of the project. The main contractors are a firm called L3 Communications, a company which styles itself as offering “global security and engineering solutions”. It is also one of America’s largest defence contractors and its senior staff includes retired military officials and Republican businessmen.
And yet, despite all the hype, the project does not appear to be particularly well thought through. No one seemed to think it was a problem building two new cities in one of the most unstable regions in the world.
Nor did anyone think it was a problem that neither country has enough water or food for its current population – the Djibouti city will raise the country’s population from 800,000 to more than three million. One eighth of the current population is already in need of food aid, according to the World Food Programme. Ahmed claimed these were minor problems.
So far, the project has no major investors. But Ahmed said: “People will have doubts. But we will realise our dream.”
Bekoor.com presents the latest Ethiopian Gospel Songs (Mezmur) at affordable prices. It is the first Ethiopian online store of its kind.
The store carries hundreds of songs by well known gospel singers such as Sofia Shibabaw, Bethelhem Woldu and Naod H. Giorgis. The store says that it guarantees fast delivery.
The 1st rate professional design, the quality as well as the quantity of the items it carries, and an easy payment system makes bekoor.com a model online store that other Ethiopian businesses can emulate when taking their businesses online.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – A Chinese company has signed a $34 million deal with Ethiopia to build four factories producing leather goods north of the capital Addis Ababa.
A statement issued by the Ethiopian government on Wednesday said the firm, Sino-Overseas Leather Products, had bought 50,000 square metres of land for the plants.
It said the first factory, a tannery, was due to be completed before the end of the year and would produce more than 1 million square metres of finished leather annually.
The other three will make gloves, shoes and jackets.
Last month, Ethiopia’s government said Chinese investors had built the country’s first glass factory, worth some $15 million. The Chinese have been investing heavily in Africa, especially in resource rich areas.
Also last month, ZTE Corp, China’s second-largest telecoms gear maker, said it had agreed to build a national network covering 14 major cities in Ethiopia.
(hurriyet.com) The Turkish-Ethiopian Business Council, which will serve under the umbrella of Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK), has been established, DEIK said in a statement on Wednesday.
The number of business councils operating in Africa had risen to eight, and the executive board president or Turkish Ayka Textiles company, Yusuf Aydeniz would serve as the head of the Turkish-Ethiopian Business Council, the statement said.
“DEIK accelerated works to establish such a council during Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s visit to Turkey,” the statement also said.
Turkish exports to Ethiopia reached $145 million and imports from Ethiopia were recorded at $42 million in 2007.
