DAKAR, Senegal (AP)—The rumors started to swirl around Ghana in June: President John Atta Mills was ill, maybe too sick to seek re-election, and he was going abroad to seek medical treatment. Some radio stations went so far as to prematurely report his death.

PROTECTING HIS IMAGE—President Barack Obama listens as the late President John Atta Mills of Ghana, left, speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 8. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

by Abdi Guled

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP)—Beachfront dining, fresh lobster, and a European clientele: Somalia's restaurant scene is quickly changing for the better.

NEW RESTAURANT—Ahmed Jama, right, walks in front of his restaurant in Mogadishu, Somalia. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)

Somali businessman Ahmed Jama recently returned to Somalia from London to open two Western-style restaurants in two hotels he owns, one on the beachfront and the other downtown Mogadishu. His beachfront property boasts stylish beach beds and flat-screen TVs.

It has become something of a rite of passage for Caribbean political leaders who direct the fortunes of the nations and territories that form the archipelago.

In recent weeks and months, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, Guyana’s new President Donald Ramotar, Grenada’s head of government Tillman Thomas and Mia Mottley, a former Deputy Prime Minister of Barbados, came to New York at the helm of a six member delegation of the Barbados Labor Party to meet the Diaspora. What they all did was deliver an interesting message: nationals of their respective countries must continue to play an invaluable role in the further economic and social development of America’s third border.

MIA MOTTLEY

(NNPA)—Three Blacks sit atop the new government unveiled this month by newly elected President Francois Hollande, making the French Republic the European leader in political diversity with a government loaded with people of color.

EUROPEAN LEADER IN DIVERSITY—French President Francois Hollande addresses reporters during a joint press conference with Benin and African Union President Thomas Boni Yayi, left, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, May 29. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)

All three are from the Caribbean region and one is a veteran Parisian lawmaker. A prominent member of the new cabinet is Christiane Taubira from French Guiana.

Taubira was named justice minister—making her the highest ranking woman in the new cabinet. A lawmaker since 1993, she authored a French law in 2001 making slavery a crime against humanity.