Billionaire Playgrounds 2010: Where the world's super-rich go for fun.

Oprah: Antigua

Talk about luxury. Oprah has both a 60-acre Maui getaway and a 42-acre estate in Montecito, Calif., that she calls "Promised Land." Yet when she wants crystal-clear Caribbean water and perfect palm trees, she returns to her playground on Antigua, where Eric Clapton and Giorgio Armani are among her famous neighbors. Much like George Clooney's villa on Lake Como, Oprah's vacation home is featured in many of the boat tours that run along the beautiful coastline.

Silvio Berlusconi: Sardinia, Italy

For years Italy's prime minister and media magnate billionaire butted heads with Sardinia's president, Renato Soru, over development issues. The former sought to expand Villa Certosa, his 150-acre playground on the island's northeast coast. The latter had ordered no more construction near the shoreline. Berlusconi moved forward anyway and built an artificial lagoon, two more pools and even a James Bond villain-style underwater entrance; he classified the construction as a "state secret."

More here.

Marcelas Owens Discusses His Mother's Death and Lobbying Congress for Health Care Reform (US)

Founder of A-Town Day: What inspired him to help his community (USA)

Who Does Ken Chenault Admire Most?

Answer:

Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway

"He embodies this incredible blend of high intellect and business judgment with the ability to emotionally engage with people."

Source.

To be successful you need role models and there's no better role model than Super-Investor Warren Buffett. Find out more about Warren, here.

Nayland House

www.naylandhouse.com

Are You Born to Be a Billionaire?

It takes more than smarts. Here is an honest guide for assessing your ability to go big.

Link here.

Congolese crusader

Eddie Kadi is on a mission to sell out the O2 Arena and put his homeland of Congo on the map

IT’S a feat that has never been attempted by any Black British comedian. But north London funny man, Eddie Kadi is hoping to make history when he headlines at London’s iconic O2 Arena on September 4.

The 20,000-seater venue is a popular choice with worldwide superstars such as Beyoncé and Prince when they’re in town, so news that the young British comic would take on a venue of this magnitude was sure to raise a few eyebrows. And it did.

Many questioned how a relatively unknown comic could land a venue of this size and acclaim. But for Eddie and his legions of fans that have attended his sell-out one man shows – two of which were held in the O2’s popular venue, IndigO2 – it was a simple case of “taking things to the next level.”

More here.

Billionaires from the Diaspora

Forbes has just released the 2010 Billionaire Rich List - check out these articles for news on Billionaires from across the Black Diaspora:

Caribbean

http://www.caribbeanworldnews.com/middle_top_news_detail.php?mid=3267

Africa

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2010/03/11/dangote-makes-forbes-rich-men’s-list-as-otedola-drops-out/

http://www.timeslive.co.za/business/article351452.ece

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_Mohammed-Al-Amoudi_AQ88.html

UK

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_Mohammed-Ibrahim_IK9A.html

Get all the details of the Rich List here:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/10/worlds-richest-people-slim-gates-buffett-billionaires-2010_land.html?boxes=Homepagetopspecialreports

Nayland House

www.naylandhouse.com

Go Ahead, Start That Side Business

3 entrepreneurs offer tips on how to have a full-time job, sideline business and a great life.

Full details here.

Advice Summary below:

1. Choose a Sideline You're Passionate About

2. Create Clear Boundaries

3. Show Your Employer How Having a Sideline is Useful

4. Set Up a Strong Support System

Why Isn't My Company Making Money?

Some people are in business to save the planet or share their unique gifts with the world. Some people are in business just to make money. Either way, whatever a business does, it succeeds by making money. So let’s forget about social value, put aside purpose and look at a simple question: How do I make money in my business?

More here.

HHWIRED Exclusive: Birdman Speaks On Lil Wayne's Jail Sentence & Cash Money's Dominance

Chicago Doctor Plans To Give Back To His Native Nigeria

Dr. Godwin holding a picture of his father, Augustine. PHOTO: GEANCO.org

In the late 1950s, Godwin Onyema was a student at an all-boys boarding school in Nigeria. He had a history teacher whose wife was a missionary doctor from Liverpool, England, and assigned to a hospital several miles from Onyema’s school.

Because the doctor’s husband was a teacher at the school, she came whenever the students fell ill during outbreaks of measles, malaria, chickenpox, stomach flu.

When Onyema (pronounced Un-YEAH-ma) was younger, he wondered why she chose to practice medicine in Nigeria rather than the safe and cozy confines of England. But he thinks about her now when people ask him why a board-certified physician would choose to spend his 40-year medical career working as a gynecologist in small clinics in some of Chicago’s most impoverished and gang-infested neighborhoods.

“They also ask me how many times my car has been broken into,” Onyema said with a laugh. “I say, ‘Never.’ I also say that I’ve taken care of generations of patients: grandmothers, mothers and now their daughters. How satisfying is that? That’s why I’ve worked here.”

But “here” isn’t restricted to just one place. “Here” can be the facility at 85th Street and Ashland Avenue, where the building, which is currently under renovation, has walls that are crumbling and 1950s-type pale green and powder blue examining tables. “Here” can be the humble apartments of teen patients, where he has on occasion been forced to make house calls.

More here.

Abolishing Fees Boosts African Schooling

When the Kenyan government announced it would stop charging fees for primary school education — just days before the beginning of the 2003 school year — the result was pandemonium. Teachers, headmasters and parents scrambled to find desks, pencils and books for over a million extra students.

But the policy shift also provided a stepping stone into the record books for 84-year-old Kimani Ng’ang’a Maruge, who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, became the oldest person ever to enroll in Standard 1 when he appeared before astonished teachers and fellow pupils in 2004. “I wanted to learn how to read the Bible,” an ambition previously frustrated by the high cost of schooling, he later told Voice of America journalist Cathy Majtenyi in 2008. “The preachers mislead people. That is why I am back in school.”

Despite economic hard times and the violence that swept parts of the country after the 2007 elections, UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, reports that the abolition of school fees has had the intended effect of vastly increasing access to education. The number of primary students in Kenya has increased by nearly 2 million.

Encouragingly, the dropout rate, an important measurement of affordability and educational quality, has also fallen. The share of students completing primary school jumped from 62.8 per cent in 2002, the last year fees were charged, to 76.2 per cent two years later as fewer poor children were forced out for nonpayment.

More here.

Alicia Keys Talks To Oprah (Video)

ELAN PERSONALITY: Nkiru Asika (Nigeria)

Beautiful, intelligent and blessed with a wit that many a talk show host would envy, Nkiru Asika, director of Storm 360 — oh, and Storm 360 CEO Obi Asika’s little sister — has been working up, well, quite a storm. Since returning to Nigeria in 2004, Nkiru Asika, along with other members of the Storm Media Group, have worked diligently to produce hit TV shows like Doctor’s Quarters, Naija Sings, and The Apprentice Africa.

Find out more here.

Yinka's Plinth (VIDEO)

Former Turner Prize winner Yinka Shonibare's Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, a miniature replica of HMS Victory in a bottle, will begin a two-year residency on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square (London, UK) on the morning of May 24 2010.

More details here.