IGIHE

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  • 1,000 Migrants Reach Italy on rickety boats

    {{More than 1,000 migrants have arrived in Sicily aboard rickety boats in the past two days, after braving the dangerous voyage from Africa in search of work in the European Union, Italian officials said on Tuesday.}}

    Many thousands of migrants try to reach the southern shores of Italy every summer, when Mediterranean waters are sufficiently calm for small boats to make the crossing.

    The migrants, mostly from Africa, usually embark in Libya or Tunisia in an exodus increased by political turmoil in North Africa and the Syrian civil war.

    About 325 migrants, among them 64 women and four children, were sighted on Tuesday morning on a fishing boat off the coast of Porto Empedocle on Sicily’s southern coast. They were transferred to coastguard boats and taken to shore, police said.

    Another 230 were brought ashore after they were intercepted off the coast of the island of Lampedusa, Italy’s most southern point, while a group of about 110 reached the shores of Siracusa, in Sicily. Tuesday’s arrivals followed those of about 400 migrants on Monday afternoon.

    The flow of migrant boats has been intense this summer, but roughly in line with the past two years. Almost 9,000 immigrants reached Italy by boat between July 1 and August 10, the Interior Ministry said last week.

    In the past 12 months, more than 24,000 have come, compared with more than 17,000 in the same period a year earlier, and almost 25,000 in the 12 months before that, the ministry said.

    The flood of migrants is drawn by the prospect of finding work in the European Union and many do not remain in Italy.

    Illegal migrants intercepted by Italian authorities are taken to state-run immigration centers. Some leave the often lightly guarded buildings to seek work, and those who remain and cannot prove that they are political refugees can be sent home.

    Some of the migrants who arrived on Tuesday said they were from Syria, where the civil war has been raging for two years.

    {reuters}

  • India, Brazil, other Emerging Economies hit by Currency Rout

    {{The Indian rupee plummeted to a record low against the dollar on Monday, leading a rout by Brazil’s real and other emerging market currencies seen by investors as the most vulnerable to an exodus of foreign capital.}}

    A fierce selloff in many emerging currencies shows no sign of abating as the expected withdrawal of U.S. monetary stimulus prompts investors to shun markets seen as riskier because of funding deficits, slowing economies and inflation.

    The rupee fits that bill, as do the Indonesian rupiah, the South African rand and the Brazilian real. The rupiah plunged to four-year troughs on Monday while the rand lost another 1 percent to bring year-to-date losses to almost 17 percent against the dollar.

    Brazil’s real extended last week’s fall of more than 5 percent fall to trade at its weakest level since March 2009 even as the central bank sold nearly $3 billion worth of currency swaps, which are derivatives that mimic an injection of dollars in the futures market. Like the rupee, it has been hammered by doubts over the efficacy of policy actions to stem the rout.

    The rupee and the real, respectively, have been the worst performers in Asia and Latin America since late May when the Fed first signaled that it may begin winding down its monetary stimulus this year.

    India’s currency has lost 13 percent against the dollar this year while the real has plunged 15 percent in the same period.

    A decline in the Fed’s bond purchases will push government debt yields higher, which should raise the attractiveness of the dollar and dollar-denominated assets.

    In Brazil, the currency weakness has complicated policymakers’ efforts to rein in inflation, leading many investors to bet the central bank may speed up the pace of monetary tightening next week.

    In India, the rupee’s sell-off threatens to drive Asia’s third-largest economy towards a full-blown crisis.

    “Our primary concern is that the policy authorities still don’t ‘get it’ – thinking this is a fairly minor squall which will simmer down relatively quickly with fairly minor actions,” Robert Prior-Wandesforde, an economist at Credit Suisse in Singapore, wrote in a note on the Indian currency on Monday.

    The partially convertible rupee has continued to weaken despite the central bank’s dollar sales and its latest curbs on outflows from companies and individuals, announced last Wednesday, which have dented India’s stock and bond markets.

    {agencies}

  • Nigeria Navy Parades 4 From Rare Pirate Capture

    {{The Nigerian sailors had started marching four captured pirates onto a boat when an officer shouted “hold on” to give the cameras a chance to get into position.}}

    With a semi-circle of local reporters in dark orange life jackets snapping photos and rolling film, the men started moving again at Lagos naval command, chains clanking around their ankles.

    The four were arrested during one of only two successful operations against a sharp rise in pirate attacks this year – and Nigerian authorities were determined to squeeze the maximum publicity out of their coup.

    Pirate raids off West Africa’s coastline have jeopardized shipping of commodities from the region, while insurance costs are soaring.

    Commodore Chris Ezekobe, naval commander at the NNS Beecroft, a Lagos naval base, said the four had hijacked the barge and its crew on August 14 on the eastern edge of the Nigerian coast, near the port city of Calabar.

    The navy intercepted the vessel, which had the pirates’ speedboat in tow behind it. No one came out, nor did they respond to a radio call, Ezekobe said.

    After the navy fired shots across their bow, they dropped their weapons into the water, he said, with the four bedraggled and skinny men in shorts and T-shirts standing behind him as he spoke.

    Last week, the navy said it killed 12 pirates in a gun battle as they tried to flee a fuel tanker, and captured the four remaining survivors.

    “These guys and the guys on the other boat, that’s it,” he said, when asked how many pirates had been arrested this year.

    Police operations faced significant challenges in the oil-producing Niger Delta’s labyrinthine creeks and swamps, he added.

    “It’s easy to make a sneak attack and head back into the creeks,” he told reporters.

    The crew of nine who had been taken hostage were also on the freed vessel during his statement. None spoke to the press.

    It is very rare for the navy to catch pirates. Vessels are usually quickly robbed of cargo and valuables then released, while the pirates make their escape.

    Crews are usually abducted alongside the boat, sometimes for ransom, which makes it dangerous to fire on the pirates to stop them, Lagos Navy spokesman Jerry Omodara said.

    {reuters}

  • Over 200 killed in Gas Attack Near Damascus

    {{Syrian activists accused President Bashar al-Assad’s forces of launching a nerve gas attack that killed at least 213 people on Wednesday, in what would, if confirmed, be by far the worst reported use of poison gas in the two-year-old civil war.}}

    Reuters was not able to verify the accounts independently and they were denied by Syrian state television, which said they were disseminated deliberately to distract a team of United Nations chemical weapons experts which arrived three days ago.

    The U.N. team is in Syria investigating allegations that both rebels and army forces used poison gas in the past, one of the main disputes in international diplomacy over Syria.

    Activists said rockets with chemical agents hit the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar before dawn.

    A nurse at Douma Emergency Collection facility, Bayan Baker, said the death toll, as collated from medical centers in the suburbs east of Damascus, was 213.

    “Many of the casualties are women and children. They arrived with their pupil dilated, cold limbs and foam in their mouths. The doctors say these are typical symptoms of nerve gas victims,” the nurse said.

    Extensive amateur video and photographs purporting to show victims appeared on the Internet. A video purportedly shot in the Kafr Batna neighborhood showed a room filled with more than 90 bodies, many of them children and a few women and elderly men. Most of the bodies appeared ashen or pale but with no visible injuries. About a dozen were wrapped in blankets.

    Other footage showed doctors treating people in makeshift clinics. One video showed the bodies of a dozen people lying on the floor of a clinic, with no visible wounds. The narrator in the video said they were all members of a single family. In a corridor outside lay another five bodies.

    A photograph taken by activists in Douma showed the bodies of at least 16 children and three adults, one wearing combat fatigues, laid at the floor of a room in a medical facility where bodies were collected.

    Syrian state television quoted a source as saying there was “no truth whatsoever” to the reports.

    reuters

  • Meles Zenawi Dedicated Entire Life to Service – Mushikiwabo

    {{Foreign Minister, Louise Mushikwanbo, on Tuesday paid tribute to Ethiopia’s great leader and African Statesman, late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. This was at the first memorial held at Gulele Botanical Gardens in Addis Ababa. }}

    Representing President Paul Kagame at the anniversary, Mushikiwabo described Meles as a friend, comrade, great leader and true son of Africa with exemplary dedication to Ethiopia and to the African Continent:

    “Meles Zenawi dedicated his entire political life in the service of his people, always searching for answers to Ethiopia’s development challenges, and what would propel Africans forward. In this search, he was steadfast, selfless and uncompromising.”

    Minister Mushikiwabo also applauded Meles Zenawi’s visionary policies and his belief in the ability of Ethiopians to transform their lives:

    “We take pride in Meles Zenawi’s transformational leadership that led to impressive levels of social and economic development in a short time. We have to have the conviction that it can be done, the will to do it and the ability to rally our people to this need. Meles Zenawi had all this and the progress that Ethiopia has made and continues to make is an unmistakable sign of his great leadership and that of his successor.”

    Minister Mushikiwabo concluded by calling on all present to honor Meles Zenawi’s legacy through action:

    “We must do everything possible to ensure that the many contributions he made to the emancipation of our continent will never be forgotten. We must uphold and promote his message that Africa must make its own decisions”.

    The event was marked by the unveiling of a cornerstone for the construction of a public park and library in honor of Meles as well as a photo exhibition of key moments that marked his life.

    Leaders present: Hailemariam Desalegn, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, President’s Omar Al Bashir of Sudan, Ismail Guelleh of Djibouti, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia, Vice President Ssekandi of Uganda, Joseph Lenku, Cabinet Secretary of Kenya, Barnaba Benjamin, Foreign Minister of South Sudan. About 500 people attended the memorial.

  • 600 Congolese Refugees cross to Burundi

    {{Over 600 congolese refugees have crossed into Burundi following the recent fighting between Congolese government forces and rebels in Eastern DRCongo.}}

    Red Cross in Burundi says, they are doing everything possible to help the refugees by providing food and shelter including other basic needs.

    Refugees told RedCross that they fled heavy fighting between FARDC forces and Mai Mai militia in the troubled DRC’s Eastern province.

    Burundi hosts over 40,000 congolese refugees mostly children and women.
    On arrival, refugees are said to be sheltered in Commune Buganda in Cyibitoki province.

  • Nyamagabe: Man Chopps Wife to Death

    {{Uwizeyimana Pelagie, resident in Nyamagabe district has been murdered by her husband with a machete that cut her back on Sunday evening. Area authorities have confirmed.}}

    The suspect has been identified as Muyango Samuel a resident of Nyanza village in Cyanika sector in Nyamagabe district.

    According to the sector Executive secretary Jean Chrisostome Ndolimana, its alleged that Muyango returned home in the evening after beating his mother and attempted to strangle her using a shirt but neighbours rescued her.

    When Muyango reached home, he quarrelled with his wife prompting neighbours to rush to the scene but found that the angry Muyango had already cut his wife with a machete.

    Uwizeyimana was later rushed to Kirambi health center in Nyagisozi sector in Nyanza district where she died. Muyango has since disappeared.

    Sector authorities noted that Muyango’s family was among those listed with regular wrangles. The two had been married for six years and had two children.

  • Candle Factory to Benefit 61 PWDs in Rulindo

    {{People living with disabilities in Rulindo district are slated to improve their livelihoods through earning an income from a newly established wax-candle factory. }}

    The candle factory is owned by a Cooperative solidalite de Buriza (COOSOBU) established in 2006 with 61 members and located at Murambi sector in the district. The factory produces over 4000 candles daily.

    Ntawigenera Gapard one of the members of the cooperative and beneficiary told IGIHE that the factory will transform their lives and help them turn away from begging habbit associated with most people living with disabilities.

    Rwabuhungu Venant, the director of COOSOBU said the factory will enable its members improve their lives and be able to secure health insurence and access to financial services from SACCO banks.

    Niwemwiza Emilienne in charge of social affairs in Rulindo pledged district support to the cooperative especially connecting the area to electricity grid, water and accomodation.

  • UN mission chief in Haiti visits Rwandan Camp

    {{The Police Commissioner for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) visited the Rwandan Front Protection Unit (FPU4) camp in Jeremie and urged them to maintain their professional conduct to accomplish the mission tasks.}}

    Luis Miguel Carritho, who was accompanied by his deputy, said their mission in the disaster-prone Caribbean nation is to “ensure a stable country in terms of security and economy.”

    He added that MINUSTAH has zero tolerance towards gender based violence and violence against women and girls, and thanked the Rwandan force for exercising discipline and commitment in their duties.

    He lauded the work done by the Rwandan police contingents, especially in strengthening the capacity of the Haitian police force, civil unrest, professional convoy escorting.

    The mission in Haiti serves as a protection force for the UN staffs, crowd control and help in aid distribution in internally displaced camps.

    He reiterated that “Rwanda Police force makes a difference in mission areas” by having two psychologists as experts for stress management and it’s “very crucial for personnel management.”

    The Rwandan contingent commander, CSP Peter Hodari, who received MINUSTAH police chiefs, said Rwanda is committed to bringing peace to the rest of the world by working professionally.

    source:RNP

  • African Laders in Ethiopia for Zenawi Memorial

    {{Several African leaders and high-level delegations from Rwanda,Uganda, Burundi, Somalia, Kenya, South Africa, South Sudan and Djibouti are also expected this morning in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to attend the first memorial service of the late Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi.}}

    Sudanese president Omar Hassan Al-Bashir was among the first to jet in on Monday.

    The widow of the late premier and board chairperson of the Meles Zenawi Foundation (MZF), Azeb Mesfin, said that the occasion will be marked across the nation on Tuesday, with various events planned to commemorate the legacy of the former Ethiopian leader.

    At the memorial service, African leaders will pay tribute to the late prime minister for his outstanding efforts at both national and continental level to maintain regional peace and security, as well as his lead role in environmental protection and climate change negotiations.

    Zenawi, regarded as one of Ethiopia’s greatest leaders, died on 20 August 2012 after leading the country for over two decades.