News — black excellence

A judge has rejected Dr. Dre’s estranged wife, Nicole Young’s request for $1.5 million to pay for various expenses, such as security.

The former couple revealed they were divorcing in June 2020 with former attorney Nicole citing irreconcilable differences as the reason behind the split.

In the latest legal decision, the judge rejected Nicole's requests because she had already fired a security team Dre had employed and was paying for.

The judge also dismissed her request to expedite Dre paying out $5 million for her lawyer’s fees. Young’s lawyers were in court on Thursday, urging the judge to accept her $1.5 million claim for security since she’s getting death threats.

Part of the reason why the judge rejected her request is because she let her security team go, which Dre was already paying for. She alleged that Dre has been controlling and wanted to bring on her own security, saying Dre warned her that he would fire her security if they didn’t do what he said. Dre’s lawyer told the judge that the hip-hop mogul is inclined to pay Young’s expenses, including security, which the judge accepted.

Young’s lawyers also urged the judge to advance the hearing regarding the $5 million for attorney’s fees, wanting it moved from January to this month. However, the judge said no.

When the judge dismissed Young’s requests, he remarked that he’s working on more crucial domestic violence and custody cases, and her case isn’t anywhere as serious. He noted that if Dre was trying to control Young, then she could file a restraining order against him.

Earlier this month, news surfaced that Young had filed a nearly $2 million a month temporary spousal support request. It’s unclear at this time if that's the same claim as the $1.5 million request she made for security.

Their split has been messy and well-document, with the latest ruling a win for Dre's team.

Nicole has also accused Dre, also known as Andre Romelle Young - of hiding valuable assets after they split, including trademarks for his stage name and "The Chronic" album

This week, Dre responded to Young's $2 million claim, saying, "This all seems like the wrath of an angry person being exacerbated by opportunistic lawyers." He also revealed that he's already paid $5 million in lawyer fees for Young for their divorce.

While African members will be buoyed by the progression of Okonjo-Iweala, a former World Bank managing director and Nigerian finance minister, and Mohamed, a former chairwoman of the WTO’s general council, Egyptian Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh failed to gain enough support to reach the next round. Mamdouh served as a former director of the trade in services and investment division of the WTO.

The two African candidates, who will now compete to unify the continent’s vote, will face off against Yoo Myung-hee of South Korea, Mohammad Maziad Al-Tuwaijri of Saudi Arabia, and Liam Fox of the United Kingdom.

The second phase will run until 6 October. Member states will express two preferences to bring the number of candidates from five to two. There is intended to be three stages of consultations, with the winner taking office in November.

The new director-general, who will replace incumbent Roberto Azevêdo, will take charge in an era of high global trade tensions, including an ongoing trade war between the US and China, the world’s two largest economies. It is hoped that an African candidate can help to mediate that dispute and put African trade concerns at the heart of the international agenda.

“Africa has some painful choices to make both in terms of its own unity and, in the long run, for its future in international trade. Should an African DG be selected, they would be symbolic of African unity and, subsequently, well-positioned to cajole Africa on internal issues,” wrote JP Singh, professor of international commerce and policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University in August for African Business magazine.

“Africa also has to undertake another internal reckoning toward a reform agenda in the long-run…To grow, Africa needs to graduate toward non-preferential trade access, and compete on the strength of its exports. African exports have remained depressed and stuck in preferential access.”

In an interview with African Business magazine last week, Kenya’s Mohamed said she would be well-placed to resolve multilateral trade tensions. She is credited with helping to abolish export subsidies for agricultural exports in a critical WTO deal. 

In an interview with the Guardian last week, Ojonko-Iweala argued her own suitability for the post.

The uprising of the Black Lives Matter movement in wake of the death of George Floyd started protests and most importantly, conversations on what needs to happen in order for racial injustice to stop occurring and for black people to be treated as equal. An ongoing topic I see all over social media in regards to this is the topic of educating our white counterparts about racism and why it’s wrong.

For most of us, we know that racism is wrong. We know that judging someone by the colour of their skin is wrong. However, as we continue to see in our daily lives, there are a lot of people who for whatever reason have been taught that judging someone by the colour of their skin is the right thing to do and in accordance with that, to treat people with certain skin tones in a certain way.

It’s clear that these people do need to be taught that what they have been taught is wrong, but is that for us as black people to do? Or is it something that we should leave to these people to do for themselves? 

Sayce Holmes-Lewis, the Co-founder of Mentivity, a black owned service that supports young people through sports, education and much more, took matters into his own hands following an incident where he was unfairly stopped and search by the Metropolitan Police. In an area such as London especially, that is very diverse and multi-cultural and with the current climate of racism that we're living in, it's no surprise that Holmes-Lewis was yet another victim of an unfair and unjust stop and search. Below is data that shows the Stop & Search rate per 1000 people by ethnicity and the results are unsurprising: 

Click here for source

Holmes-Lewis, in the video which he took whilst being searched, vowed to have a sit-down conversation with the Metropolitan Police and educate them on how to approach not just young black kids, but also black people in general.

ITV covered parts of this first of what will hopefully be many sit downs between Holmes-Lewis and the Metropolitan Police and from what we can see in video, the conversation had seemed to be very productive.

I have personally always been in favour of educating our white counterparts on racism and seeing the conversation that Holmes-Lewis was having with the police was really encouraging and I believe that more conversations like this need to be had, not just with the police, but with as many people as possible especially if we want change.

These conversations will be difficult and they will be awkward and they may even cause a bit of friction. Not everyone will be receptive and open to these kinds of conversations simply because they are too stuck in their ways, but the more people we are able to educate, the more people we are able to have these type of productive conversations with and the more people we can finally get to understand why the racist mentality they’ve been taught is so wrong, the closer we can get to providing the next generation and even potentially ourselves with a life that is free of racial injustice and a life where black people are treated as equals as we very well should be.

Be sure to check out & support Sayce Holmes-Lewis and ‘Mentivity’ by clicking the link below:

https://www.mentivity.com/our-story

Written by Lore Adekeye (twitter: @loreadekeye, IG: @shemz_nl).

It is estimated that there are approximately 30 million people around the world who are speech impaired and therefore rely on the use of sign language to be able to communicate with others. Not everyone understands sign language, so for someone who is speech impaired it will obviously be difficult for them to communicate what they want to say.

In steps Roy Allela, a 25-year old man from Kenya who has created an invention that’ll solve this problem: Smart Gloves. These gloves are able to convert sign language into audio speech, meaning that a person who does not know sign language would be able to communicate much more effectively with those with speaking difficulties. 

Allela says that he was inspired to create these gloves by his 6-year old deaf niece, who uses the gloves to communicate with him. Each of these gloves contains sensors in the fingertips which detect the movement being made once connected to the mobile application created also by Allela to work in tandem with it. Once connected and upon a movement being made, the corresponding letter or word comes out as audio speech.

One of the most important features about this product according to Allela is the speed of the audio. He says: “People speak at different speeds and it’s the same with people who sign – others are really fast, others are slow, so we integrated that into the mobile application so that it’s comfortable for anyone to use it.”

Inventors like Roy Allela are the people that the black community needs to push, push and push some more. These are the kind of inventions that get swept up by someone else claiming it was theirs and getting all the rewards from it as well as being recognised as the creator. Take Thomas Edison for example, the ‘creator’ of the light bulb. The innovation used to create longer, more efficient light bulbs with the carbon filament that we use today was created by an African-American man, Lewis Latimer. He’s often the one who gets overshadowed and forgotten about but without him, there would be no light bulb. 

With this being said, it is important that we as a community give Roy Allela the recognition and exposure his invention deserves. It has incredible potential and is something that a lot of people, maybe even 30 million people, will be able to benefit from. Click here to see a video of the gloves in action. 

Written by Lore Adekeye (Twitter: @loreadekeye, Instagram: @shemz_nl) 

Source(s): wearable-technologies.com