Get ready to Celebrate Black History Month 2012 with @smarterhiphop

Black History Month is an annual celebration of achievements by black Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of African Americans in U.S. history. The event grew out of “Negro History Week,” the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating black history.

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NEWs & events review for 2011 find out here

Japan, Libya, Egypt: RT picks biggest events of 2011

 RT is looking back at the events that shaped 2011. We present the top ten stories of 2011 through the eyes of RT correspondents who witnessed them.

In March Japan was shaken by a devastating earthquake and half an hour later a disastrous tsunami hit the north-eastern coast of the country smashing buildings and wiping away whole towns. The subsequent meltdown of the nuclear reactor at Fukushima power plant added the threat of radiation to the vast destruction already inflicted.

Ivor Bennett was in Japan in the hours which followed the catastrophes.

With his crew stranded by visa problems, he found himself alone in a country living in constant fear and uncertainty.

Another pivotal event of 2011 was the Libyan uprising, which eventually turned into the civil war that ended 42 years of Muammar Gaddafi`s regime. Maria Finoshina recalls visiting Libya as the country was being bombed by NATO and torn apart by rebels, and the dramatic changes it went through as war raged. She also shares her impressions of Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, whom she interviewed during her time in Libya.

While Libya was on fire, its close neighbor Egypt was also experiencing radical changes. The Egyptian revolution did more than just change the course of the country's history. Along with the Tunisian uprising, it spearheaded the Arab Spring, the wave of protests that swept across the Middle East. RT's Paula Slier reported from Tahrir Square, a place that saw hundreds of thousands protesting against the regime of the now ousted President Hosni Mubarak. She shares what never made it into her live news reports.

Across from Africa Europe was fighting its own war as the eurozone was going through the worst economic crisis in decades. For Greece, the country most severely affected by the financial disaster, 2011 was a year of despair and discontent.

The year has certainly been an unusual one for Russian politics. The December parliamentary elections triggeredmass protests in Russia, as people doubted the results, leading to debate about the popularity of the ruling United Russia party.

The United States has also witnessed mass protests in 2011, as thousands of Occupy Wall Street movement supporters took to the streets across the country demanding social and financial equality.

Making its way into the headlines all over the world in mid-March, Syria has not been out of them since. The conflict is ongoing and the country is fractured under the strain of political disputes, anger and violence.

Tragedy shook Russia when a fatal plane crash in the city of Yaroslavalclaimed the lives of the entire first-team squad of the city’s hockey team Lokomotiv. The younger team members left behind managed to focus and start rebuilding the team.

It has been a tough year for the UK, which saw its worst unrest in decades, as several cities, including the capital London, descended into rioting, looting and arson. Five summer days of chaos in August shocked the world, raising questions about the social situation in the country.

Space projects consistently made the news in 2011. RT closely followed the events in the sphere that saw a fair share of both breakthroughs and failures.

The year of dissent: Keeping America’s 1% Occupied

When the Occupy Wall Street movement set up camp in New York’s financial district in September 2011, few people paid much attention to the self-proclaimed 99 per cent. But the tents in Zuccotti Park were like a spark to America’s social kindling.

Soon, the indignant voice of the people spread across the country. People supported a movement aimed at awakening all to the negative effects of the growing, and strangely seldom-questioned, income and wealth disparities in the country. 

Staggering national debt, never-ending job cuts and foreclosures, all amid reports of cushy bonuses for Fortune 500 CEOs, drove the Occupy movement beyond America’s borders. Just a few months after the first tents were pitched in NYC, the movement and its ideology were truly global.

It followed on the footsteps of global unrest. The protesters themselves came up with the slogan "Arab Spring, European Summer, American Fall." 

But even though it was non-violent, unlike rallies in the Middle East and Africa, these media-savvy youths couldn’t have picked a better time. Recent studies show that the gap between the rich and the poor is the biggest in 30 years. In addition, the US is gearing up for presidential elections in 2012.

RT’s Marina Portnaya, who covered the protests in New York, says this may be why American mainstream media avoided the Occupy movement for as long as possible.

“They were marginalized in the very beginning. But there was a moment when the mainstream media couldn’t ignore the movement, because it became the biggest story in the United States. There were clearly biases and different points of view given from mainstream media outlets here in the United States, because they are owned by corporations and these Americans are talking about corporate influence on US politics,” Portnaya told RT.

And even though the movement has lost some of its momentum after camps were raided by police nationwide, this is most definitely not the last time the Occupiers will be heard from. In fact the clampdown on the demos, if it was intended to end them, did quite the opposite, says Max Fraad Wolff, a senior analyst at Greencrest Capital.

“Authorities have hoped that the protest will fizzle out or go away. And when it didn’t, it grew and got more and more attention and adherence, there was a bit of heavy-handed over-response by authorities, the use of force…I do think that that’s going to be a problem because what it tends to do is to bring more protesters and bring public sympathies for the protesters. The ham-handed and over-marshaled response to the protest has actually helped to build the Occupy movement,” he told RT.

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Last U.S. troops leave Iraq, ending war

(Reuters) - The last convoy of U.S. soldiers pulled out of Iraq on Sunday, ending nearly nine years of war that cost almost 4,500 American and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, and left a country grappling with political uncertainty.

The war launched in March 2003 with missiles striking Baghdad to oust President Saddam Hussein closes with a fragile democracy still facing insurgents, sectarian tensions and the challenge of defining its place in an Arab region in turmoil.

As U.S. soldiers pulled out, Iraq's delicate power-sharing deal for , Sunni and Kurdish factions was already under pressure. The Shi'ite-led government asked parliament to fire the Sunni deputy prime minister, and security sources said the Sunni vice president faced an arrest warrant.

The final column of around 100 mostly U.S. military MRAP armoured vehicles carrying 500 U.S. troops trundled across the southern Iraq desert from their last base through the night and daybreak along an empty highway to the Kuwaiti border.

Honking their horns, the last batch of around 25 American military trucks and tractor trailers carrying Bradley fighting vehicles crossed the border early on Sunday morning, their crews waving at fellow troops along the route.

"I just can't wait to call my wife and kids and let them know I am safe," Sgt. First Class Rodolfo Ruiz said as the border came into sight. Soon afterwards, he told his men the mission was over, "Hey guys, you made it."

For U.S. President Barack Obama, the military pullout is the fulfilment of an election promise to bring troops home from a conflict inherited from his predecessor, the most unpopular war since Vietnam and one that tainted America's standing worldwide.

For Iraqis, though, the U.S. departure brings a sense of sovereignty tempered by nagging fears their country may slide once again into the kind of sectarian violence that killed many thousands of people at its peak in 2006-2007.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government still struggles with a delicate power-sharing arrangement between Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni parties, leaving Iraq vulnerable to meddling by Sunni Arab nations and Shi'ite Iran.

The extent of those divisions was clear on Sunday when Maliki asked parliament for a vote of no confidence against Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq, and security sources and lawmakers said an arrest warrant had been issued for Tareq al-Hashemi, one of Iraq's two vice presidents.

Hashemi and Mutlaq are Iraq's two most-senior Sunni politicians. The security sources said only intervention by Sunni and Shi'ite politicians had blocked Hashemi's arrest after he was linked to terrorism by four bodyguards.

The intensity of violence and suicide bombings has subsided. But a stubborn Sunni Islamist insurgency and rival Shi'ite militias remain a threat, carrying out almost daily attacks, often on Iraqi government and security officials.

Iraq says its forces can contain the violence but they lack capabilities in areas such as air defence and intelligence gathering. A deal for several thousand U.S. troops to stay on as trainers fell apart over the sensitive issue of legal immunity.

For many Iraqis, security remains a worry - but no more than jobs and getting access to power in a country whose national grid provides only a few hours of electricity a day despite vast oil potential.

U.S. and foreign companies are already helping Iraq develop the world's fourth-largest oil reserves, but its economy needs investment in all sectors, from hospitals to infrastructure.

"We don't think about America... We think about electricity, jobs, our oil, our daily problems," said Abbas Jaber, a government employee in Baghdad. "They (Americans) left chaos."

GOING HOME

After Obama announced in October that troops would come home by the end of the year as scheduled, the number of U.S. military bases was whittled down quickly as hundreds of troops and trucks carrying equipment headed south to Kuwait.

U.S. forces, which had ended combat missions in 2010, paid $100,000 a month to tribal sheikhs to secure stretches of the highways leading south to reduce the risk of roadside bombings and attacks on the last convoys.

Only around 150 U.S. troops will remain in the country attached to a training and cooperation mission at the huge U.S. embassy on the banks of the Tigris river.

At the height of the war, more than 170,000 U.S. troops were in Iraq at more than 500 bases. By Saturday, there were fewer than 3,000 troops, and one base - Contingency Operating Base Adder, 300 km (185 miles) south of Baghdad.

At COB Adder, as dusk fell before the departure of the last convoy, soldiers slapped barbecue sauce on slabs of ribs brought from Kuwait and laid them on grills beside hotdogs and sausages.

Earlier, 25 soldiers sat on folding chairs in front of two armoured vehicles watching a five-minute ceremony as their brigade's flags were packed up for the last time before loading up their possessions and lining up their trucks.

The last troops flicked on the lights studding their MRAP vehicles and stacked flak jackets and helmets in neat piles, ready for the final departure for Kuwait and then home.

"A good chunk of me is happy to leave. I spent 31 months in this country," said Sgt. Steven Schirmer, 25, after three tours of Iraq since 2007. "It almost seems I can have a life now, though I know I am probably going to Afghanistan in 2013. Once these wars end I wonder what I will end up doing."

NEIGHBOURS KEEP WATCH

Iran and Turkey, major investors in Iraq, will be watching with Gulf nations to see how their neighbour handles its sectarian and ethnic tensions, as the crisis in Syria threatens to spill over its borders.

The fall of Saddam allowed the long-suppressed Shi'ite majority to rise to power. The Shi'ite-led government has drawn the country closer to Iran and Syria's Bashar al-Assad, who is struggling to put down a nine-month-old uprising.

Iraq's Sunni minority is chafing under what it sees as the increasingly authoritarian control of Maliki's Shi'ite coalition. Some local leaders are already pushing mainly Sunni provinces to demand more autonomy from Baghdad.

The main Sunni-backed political bloc Iraqiya said on Saturday it was temporarily suspending its participation in the parliament to protest against what it said was Maliki's unwillingness to deliver on power-sharing.

A dispute between the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and Maliki's central government over oil and territory is also brewing, and is a potential flashpoint after the buffer of the American military presence is gone.

"There is little to suggest that Iraq's government will manage, or be willing, to get itself out of the current stalemate," said Gala Riani, an analyst at IHS Global Insight.

"The perennial divisive issues that have become part of the fabric of Iraqi politics, such as divisions with Kurdistan and Sunni suspicions of the government, are also likely to persist."

(Additional reporting by Rania El Gamal, Suadad al-Salhy and Serena Chaudhry in Baghdad; Writing by Patrick Markey in Baghdad; Editing by Peter Graff)

Rapper @SlimDunkin1017 Reportedly Dead After Shooting !!!

Rapper Slim Dunkin Reportedly Dead After Shooting

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Brick Squad Monopoly rapper Slim Dunkin has been reported dead. Rappers including French Montana and Brick Squad's Wooh Da Kid have tweeted messages acknowledging the death of the Waka Flocka Flame affiliate.

Rumors circulated that Slim, who grew up with Waka, was fatally shot at a recording studio today (December 16) in Atlanta, Georgia. HipHopDX is awaiting confirmation of these details.

Slim Dunkin appeared on Gucci Mane and Waka's Ferrari Boyz album released this summer on Brick Squad 1017/Warner Brothers, as well as on Waka's studio debut, Flockaveli.

His video for "Twitter That" featuring Gucci Mane, released just less than a year ago, can be seen below: