American DNA pioneer James Watson who was recently stripped of his honorary titles at a leading research institution in New York for repeating racist views he expressed in 2007, will keep the 1962 Nobel Prize he won with two others for his part in discovering the DNA double helix.

In 2007, the now 90-year-old Watson told Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper that “there are many people of color who are very talented” but he is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa.”

“All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really,” the geneticist said at the time, adding that he hoped everyone was equal but “people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.”

After a heavy backlash, he apologized in a statement saying: “I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said. There is no scientific basis for such a belief.”

The apology only led to his suspension from the research institution until he resurfaced in 2018 in a new PBS film, American Masters: Decoding Watson, in which he said his views had since not changed.

In the documentary which aired earlier this month, Watson said that genes cause a difference in intelligence between white and black people in IQ tests. A comment described by Long Island’s Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) as “reprehensible”, “reckless” and “unsupported by science”.

Dr Watson was stripped of three titles – chancellor emeritus, Oliver R. Grace Professor Emeritus, and honorary trustee – from CSHL where he has a school named after him following his service as its director in 1968, president in 1994 and chancellor a decade later.

He will keep his Nobel Prize because the Norwegian Nobel Institute says its rules did not provide for the possibility of withdrawing the honour from laureates.

“It is not possible to strip a Nobel laureate of his or her award once bestowed… None of the prize awarding committees in Stockholm and Oslo has ever considered revoking a prize after it has been awarded,” says Olav Njolstad, the head of the institute, in an email to The Associated Press in response to a petition to revoke the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Myanmar’s Aung Sang Suu Kyi.

The same applies to James Watson who is not the first laureate to make such racist claims. William B. Shockley, a Nobel laureate for his work with transistors, in later life developed ideas of eugenics based on the supposed intellectual inferiority of blacks, cites the New York Times.

Dr Watson’s son came to his aid claiming his father’s awareness of his surroundings were “very minimal” since he is in a nursing home as a result of a car crash in October.

“My dad’s statements might make him out to be a bigot and discriminatory… [but] they just represent his rather narrow interpretation of genetic destiny… My dad had made the lab his life, and yet now the lab considers him a liability,” he was quoted by British media Sky News.

However, in 1997, he was quoted by Britain’s Sunday Telegraph as saying that if a gene for homosexuality were found in the fetus or for any reason, women should be allowed to abort a child.

He also said during a lecture tour in 2000 that there might be links between a person’s weight and their level of ambition and between skin colour and sexual prowess, reports the Associated Press.

Also in 2003, he said in a British TV documentary that stupidity was a genetic disease that should be treated.

For centuries, black people have been subjects of research on intelligence and there is no scientific proof that suggests black people were inferior to white people.

This article by Ismail Akwei was first published on face2faceafrica.com

Cameroonian leader Paul Biya is known for living a notoriously lavish lifestyle in Geneva where he has unofficially created a seat of government in a 5-star hotel.

The 85-year-old has spent a lot of his time as president at the Hotel Intercontinental which has a great view of the Swiss Alps. Several former hotel managers have told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the hotel reserves the entire sixteenth floor for Biya and his entourage who sometimes take an extra 30 rooms on other floors.

According to an early 2018 report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), Biya spent at least 1,645 days on private visits abroad since he came to power in 1982 costing the Cameroonian taxpayers $65 million, exclusive of food, private jet and entertainment.

The OCCRP estimates, which were based on publicly available hotel room prices, state that Biya spends around $40,000 per day for one stay at the hotel with his entourage. Biya’s former chief advisor, Christian Penda Ekoka, told the WSJ that the money was paid in cash and came directly from the country’s treasury.

Cameroonians have demonstrated against the expenditure of the president in Switzerland which has taken a toll on the country’s economy and development. The Northwest and Southwest regions of the country have been protesting against marginalization and inadequate development.

Meanwhile, Biya continued his governance from Switzerland and ordered the military to quell dissent, a move that added to the long list of problems facing the country including corruption, poverty, weak institutions and dictatorship.

These developments prompted Swiss news site, swissinfo.ch, to ask why Switzerland is not acting on Paul Biya’s lavish stay in the country while his people continue to face hardships.

“Foreign heads of state can – in a private capacity – stay in Switzerland without the federal authorities being formally informed or involved in the visit,” swissinfo.ch quotes the foreign ministry in a report.

The ministry said Biya enjoys diplomatic immunity as a head of state. “As for the members of his entourage, the statute they may be granted in Switzerland is examined on a case by case basis, according to the aim of the visit and the function they perform,” the ministry added.

According to Marc Guéniat, Senior Researcher at Swiss NGO Public Eye, Biya has the right to travel to Geneva as a legitimate head of state, but “what is problematic is that he spends so much time at taxpayers’ expense, taking over an entire floor of a 5-star hotel,” he told swissinfo.ch.

For analyst, Daniel Warner, who is a retired former deputy head of the Geneva Institute of International and Development Studies, “Unless he’s on trial somewhere, it’s a political question and a judgment question, and as a neutral country what do you expect the Geneva or Swiss authorities to do? If he’s wanted for a crime, that would be something different, but there is no formal legal process against him.”

The report further expatiated on why huge amounts of cash are allowed in Geneva by Paul Biya stating that Switzerland does not automatically require a declaration when importing large amounts of cash of at least CHF10,000 ($10,000). However, Swiss customs officials can request information on the money if there is suspicion of money laundering or terrorist financing.

It seems Paul Biya will continue his lavish stay in Geneva unabated until the end of his regime which is the longest-ruling non-royal government dispensation in the world.

This article by Ismail Akwei was first published on face2faceafrica.com

An independent black company Essence Ventures LLC just acquired Essence, the premier black women’s lifestyle magazine, from Time Inc. This acquisition makes Essence a fully black-owned publication for the first time in nearly two decades.

The owner of Essence Ventures LLC is a 48-year-old Liberian entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist Richelieu Dennis. He is the co-founder of the personal-care products company Sundial Brands, which he started with his mother Mary and college roommate, Nyema Tubman in 1991.

Dennis was born and raised in Liberia where he lived with his parents. His father died when he was 8 and he moved with his mother to her native country Sierra Leone together with his sister. Both countries faced growing tensions at the time and Dennis gained a scholarship to the United States where he attended Babson College in Massachusetts.

He graduated in 1991 when his home country and Sierra Leone were both facing civil war. His mother joined him after escaping the first civil war which lasted between 1989 and 1997.

Dennis could not return home, therefore, he teamed up with his college roommate Nyema Tubman to make soaps and other natural products. He had some recipes from his Sierra Leonean grandmother, Sofi Tucker, who made soaps with shea butter and salves.

They moved with his mother from Boston to Queens in New York after launching Sundial Brands. They sold raw black soaps and essential oils on the streets of Harlem and Bed-Stuy before they later rented a van to move the products to street vendors and shops.

They continued to grow progressively and are currently valued at $700 million in 2015, reports Fast Company. They created brands including SheaMoisture, Nubian Heritage, and Madam C.J. Walker Beauty Culture which are sold in large stores like Sephora, Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods.

They sold minority stakes to private-equity firm Bain Capital in 2015 and currently, Richelieu Dennis’s mother is Sundial’s treasurer.

Dennis founded Essence Ventures in 2017 to focus on “merging content, community, and commerce to meet the evolving cultural and lifestyle needs of women of color.”

Richelieu Dennis has never forgotten about his home country Liberia where he visits regularly. He even granted an interview to the New York Times on the acquisition of Essence magazine while on a flight from Liberia to the United States on Wednesday.

He also purchases over 250,000 kilos of raw shea butter from Africa – Ghana – where Sundial provides a seven-fold increase in income for each member of the local and women-led cooperatives that supply the product.

This article by Ismail Akwei was first published on face2faceafrica.com