IGIHE

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  • Media Urged to Partner With Security Organs During Elections

    {{Media practitioners in the country have been called upon to partner with security organs to ensure peaceful parliamentary elections slated for September 16.}}

    Speaking to journalists in Kigali, who included chief editors of various media outlets, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Theos Badege appealed to journalists to always carry their service cards during the electoral process to avoid possible conflicts with officials and security personnel.

    “Police and media almost have the same responsibility – to serve the community. It is, therefore, important that we work together to ensure that elections are done in a more secure and peaceful manner,” said ACP Badege.

    He further reminded journalists that Rwanda National has the obligation to facilitate people living in Rwanda carry out their routine activities in a manner that complies with the laws.

    “We need every Rwandan particularly journalists, to help us so that we achieve set objectives in a professional manner,” he reiterated.

    Source:RNP

  • Ethiopia’s Aman Steps into Rudisha’s Shoes

    {{Mohammed Aman was outmuscled and jostled, but belied his diminutive size to produce a devastating sprint and claim a first-ever medal of any colour for Ethiopia in the world 800m by winning gold on Tuesday.}}

    The two-lap event had sadly been shorn of the sublime talents of the injured David Rudisha, the Kenyan who broke the world record in winning the Olympic title last year.

    But, in his absence, Aman, the 19-year-old world indoor champion who has twice got the better of Rudisha, stepped into the void with some style.

    “I’m the first Ethiopian to win a 800m gold medal!” Aman said. “This gold medal is a big thing for me and my country.

    “It was not easy, a world championships final is such a hard race. All the athletes in the race were very strong and it’s a double pleasure to be first in such company.”

    Aman added: “I was confident because I have speed on the last 100 metres and also nervous because it is the worlds and one has to be careful and smart.

    “I didn’t want to be boxed in like the semi-final so I just stayed patient when Symmonds and Solomon kicked off.”

    The race was bunched for all but the final 200 metres, fancied American Duane Solomon bossing his way into the front as Frenchman Pierre-Ambroise Bosse almost sideswiped Aman coming out of the first corner run in lanes.

    At the bell, American Nick Symmonds came racing through, Aman again muscled out of the way and then boxed in behind the leading American duo.

    The field spread with 200m to go in the run-in to the home strait. Symmonds went wide around Solomon, but Aman worked to go wider and outsprinted the American to the line for victory in 1min 43.31sec.

    Symmonds held on for silver in 1:43.55, with a fast-advancing Ayanleh Souleiman claiming bronze in 1:43.76, a first medal for Djibouti since Ahmed Salah won silver in the marathon in the 1991 Tokyo worlds.

    “I’m happy with my performance,” said Symmonds. “I had a chance for gold and I hope some day I’ll win it.

    “The competition without Rudisha was like a gift on a silver plate and nobody wanted to waste the chance.”

    Souleiman said that “tonight all of Djibouti will celebrate because there hasn’t been any medal since 25 years”.

    “I’m still in the 1500m on Wednesday and God willing I will win.”

    Solomon, who finished fourth in the London Olympic final in a time that in all previous finals would have seen him win a medal, faded to sixth behind Poland’s Marcin Lewandowski and fifth-place Briton Andrew Osagie.

    {wirestory}

  • Women above 30 more Likely to Have Babies with Heart Defects

    {{A woman who gives giving birth at older age, above 35 years, has higher chances of her having babies with heart problems.}}

    This is because there are increased health risks associated with later-age pregnancies, according to Dr. Twalib Aliku, a paediatric cardiologist at the Uganda Heart Institute,

    “Taking of excessive amounts of alcohol, or having chronic medical diseases like diabetes can result in congenital heart problems,” he adds.

    According to Dr. Sulaiman Lubega, a paediatric cardiologist, the major cause of heart defects among children is unknown. Even mothers who are very cautious during pregnancy, for instance by staying away from alcohol and smoking, can still have a child with a heart defect.

    Aliku says some heart conditions may not be noticed during pregnancy and can cause death of the baby a few days after birth. A heart condition can also result from an infection such as streptococcus. “But some infections can be avoided,” Lubega adds.

    Aliku says premature birth also affects the growth of a baby’s organs like the heart; the blood vessels may not have developed fully resulting in a congenital heart disease called patent ductus arteriosus. A mother having infections like HIV, rubella, syphilis or even malaria can cause pre-term birth, predisposing the babies to heart disease.

    “When a pregnant woman takes strong medication like epilepsy drugs, it may damage the heart of the unborn baby,” he adds.

    {Newvision}

  • Fire Burns Ammunition store of Guards to South Sudan ex-VP

    {{Fire has burned down a small ammunitions store which belonged to the bodyguards of the former Vice-president of the Republic, Riek Machar Teny, at his Juba resident.}}

    On Thursday morning, the fire engulfed the one-room store near the main gate of the ex-VP’s resident, about 100 meters from the main house.

    The incident caused the ammunitions to explode which sent a wave of panic in the area of Hai Amarat where many senior government officials, including president Salva Kiir Mayardit, live.

    Electricity fault was blamed for the incident, but the resident managers said an investigation was to be carried out into the matter.

    The former Vice-president was in his compound when the incident occurred at 10am. Nobody was reported hurt.

    Machar was sacked on 23 July 2013 by president Kiir, who fell out with him on the future of leadership in 2015.

    Source: {Sudantribune}

  • Tsvangirai Drags Mugabe to Court

    {{The founding affidavit of the petition filed by MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai seeking to nullify results of the harmonised elections is a clear abuse of court process as it was not made under oath presumably to protect him from the prosecutable crime of perjury, President Robert Mugabe has said.}}

    The President yesterday filed his opposing papers to Mr Tsvangirai’s application at the Constitutional Court.

    Through his lawyer, Mr Terence Hussein of Hussein, Ranchod and Company, the President argues that the MDC-T leader wilfully filed an unsworn affidavit based on defamatory and unsubstantiated allegations designed to impugn the integrity and professionalism of innocent individuals and institutions.

    “It appears the applicant filed an unsworn statement after he must have been advised by his lawyers not to swear to falsehoods (given to him by the British ambassador in Harare (Ms Deborah Bronnert)) out of the fear that he would risk committing the prosecutable crime of perjury.’’

    As such, the President said, Mr Tsvangirai’s petition had no legal basis whatsoever and should be disregarded and dismissed in its entirety with costs.

    In terms of the law, an affidavit is evidence and all evidence must be sworn to. An applicant must take an oath before a notary public or commissioner of oaths, who must also countersign the documents.

    Although Mr Tsvangirai claimed that his submissions were made under oath, the President argues that the MDC-T leader had failed to file a sworn affidavit as required by law.

    “His entire founding affidavit is a mere statement certified by Duduzile Legal Practitioners as ‘a true copy of the original’ but there is no original copy filed with this Honourable Court which is sworn to by the applicant.

    “It is trite to mention that there is a difference of night and day between a sworn affidavit and a statement merely certified as a true copy of the original without being sworn to by the author of the statement.

    “It appears that the applicant filed an unsworn statement after he must have been advised by his lawyers not to swear to falsehoods (given to him by the British ambassador in Harare) out of the fear that he would risk committing the prosecutable crime of perjury,” submitted the President.

    The entire petition, President Mugabe argues, contains self indulgent generalisations, sweeping statements and outlandish exaggerations all of which are not made under oath.

    “I would also like to place it on record that at the time the applicant filed his petition, he in fact, had no evidence whatsoever save for an unhelpful affidavit from one Tongai Matutu who was defeated in the election and a pamphlet of scandalous and unsubstantiated assertions,” President Mugabe said.

    Section 59 of the Electoral Act permits persons who are illiterate, physically impaired or elderly to be assisted to vote upon request.

    Ms Bronnert, however, appeared on SkyNews on August 4 claiming that of the 17 000 people who allegedly voted in an unnamed constituency, 10 000 had been assisted to vote, a claim that is repeated in toto in Mr Tsvangirai’s application.

    Source: {Herald}

  • Cameroon takes full Control of Disputed Bakassi

    {{Cameroon took full sovereignty over the disputed territory of Bakassi on Wednesday, state radio reported, five years after an agreement with Nigeria signalling the end of a bloody conflict over the land.}}

    “The transitional period in the Cameroonian peninsula of Bakassi has come to an end,” said an announcement on the radio.

    Nigeria formally ceded Bakassi to Cameroon on August 14, 2008, halting 15 years of border conflict.

    A UN-backed period of transition agreed by the two countries followed to allow Cameroon to develop an administrative presence in the area.

    Nigeria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Nurudeen Mohammed told reporters the government had taken note of the landmark date.

    “This has been going on for 10 years. We are aware. We are part of the process,” he said.

    The peninsula in the west of the country was formerly part of South Cameroon, itself an area of Nigeria, until inhabitants voted to join Cameroon in 1961. It has around 40,000 inhabitants, including many Nigerian expatriates.

    Nigerians living in the peninsula will now have to apply for a visa or apply for Cameroonian citizenship, and Cameroonians will have to register with the tax authorities.

    Mr Mohammed said a committee had been set up to address a range of citizenship issues.

    {wirestory}

  • Boko Haram Commander Momodu Bama’ Killed

    Nigeria’s military has said it has killed the second-in-command of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.

    His death earlier in the month had been “confirmed by other arrested terrorists”, a military spokesman, Brig Gen Chris Olukolade said.

    Momodu Bama, also known by his alias “Abu Saad”, was a specialist in manning anti-aircraft guns, he said.

    In May, Nigeria declared an emergency in three north-eastern states in order to battle the militants.

    There has been no independent confirmation of Momodu Bama’s death and Boko Haram has not commented on the statement.

    On Tuesday, Nigeria’s Interior Minister Abba Moro told media that the army was making progress in its war against Boko Haram, despite the killing of 44 people in a mosque in the region on Sunday.

    The attack by suspected militants took place in the town of Konduga, 35km (22 miles) from the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, where Boko Haram was first established.

    Gen Olukolade, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters, said Momodu Bama was one of the “most-wanted” militant commanders and had a 25m naira ($155,000, £100,000) bounty on his head.

    He was killed during fighting in Borno state around “the Bama corridor”, he said.

    Seventeen other militants, including Momodu Bama’s father Abatcha Flatari – “one of the spiritual guiding lights of the outlawed terrorist group”, were also killed, he said.

    Another 24 fighters were arrested, his statement added.

    Boko Haram is fighting to establish an Islamic state in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north.

    Thousands of people have died since it began its insurgency in 2009.

    Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, said in a recent video that his fighters’ continuing attacks showed that the army’s claims to have inflicted heavy losses on the group were “lies”.

    {BBC}

  • Mauritania sets conditions for joining UN force in Mali

    {{Mauritania said Wednesday it would send soldiers to the UN peacekeeping force charged with ensuring security after elections in conflict-scarred Mali — but only to areas near their shared border.}}

    The MINUSMA force has replaced an African military mission which had been supporting French soldiers who entered Mali in January to halt an Islamist advance and to help the government re-establish its authority over the vast country.

    Mauritania has promised to provide up to 1,800 soldiers to the mission, which is made up of around 6,300 mostly African troops.

    Mauritania’s contribution will be part of a planned doubling in the size of MINUSMA by the end of the year but Nouakchott says “technical details” have delayed the deployment.

    “We have set our conditions. Our contribution will be the deployment of our forces to the border areas… and not other parts of Mali,” President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz told a “meet the public” event in the southeastern town of Nema.

    {{New president}}

    The proviso goes against the wishes of the Malian government, which has requested that the Mauritanian soldiers be deployed to its borders with Niger and Burkina Faso, a Mauritanian government source said.

    Mauritania shares a 2,200-kilometre (1,350-mile) border with Mali, which has just elected former premier Ibrahim Boubacar Keita as its new president, 17 months after a coup which upended what was seen as one of the most stable democracies in the region.

    Mauritania’s own coup in 2008 saw Abdel Aziz seize power and he was elected a year later, but the opposition has never accepted his rule as legitimate and said on Monday it would boycott parliamentary elections planned for October 12.

    Abdel Aziz told the Nema meeting he would be prepared to postpone the vote “for two or three weeks at the most” to allow the opposition to change its mind.

    {{NMG}}

  • Chad suspends China firm CNPC over oil spill

    {{Chad has suspended all operations of a Chinese state-run oil firm for causing environmental damage, Chad’s oil minister has told media.}}

    Djerassem Le Bemadjiel said the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) was to blame for an oil spill in several sites near a forest.

    He said the situation was “intolerable” but did not make it clear how long the suspension would last.

    The company also runs an oil refinery in the capital, N’Djamena.

    Chad became an oil-producing nation in 2003 with the completion of a $4bn (£2.6bn) pipeline linking its oilfields to terminals on the Atlantic coast.

    {{‘Very serious’}}

    The oil minister took the decision after officials visited Koudalwa, some 200km (125 miles) south of N’Djamena, where CNPC was exploring for oil.

    “It’s a very serious situation, it’s intolerable,” Mr Le Bemadjiel told media describing how trees had been destroyed.

    He said such violations were a crime, adding: “In the oil sector you don’t do this.”

    The minister told media that the Chinese exploration unit had dug huge trenches and let oil flow into them, and then had it removed by local workers without protective gear.

    {BBC}

  • Dalai Lama’s Chinese Website Hacked

    {{Hackers have attacked Dalai Lama’s Chinese-language website, installing an unidentified piece of malware which could have compromised visitors’ computers, a spokesperson said.}}

    The brief attack targeted the Tibet.net, which is the official site of the Tibetan government-in-exile, providing information about the parliament, cabinet, administrative departments and public offices.

    “We are a prominent target for attacks by Chinese hackers,” Tashi Phuntsok, a spokesperson for the exiled government based in the northern Indian town of Dharamshala, told media.

    “I assume they do it to steal our documents, disable our communication systems or spy on people who visit our sites,” he added.

    Later on Tuesday, the website was functioning again and the virus had been removed.

    Kurt Baumgartner, a researcher at Kaspersky Lab, a global manufacturer of antivirus software based in Moscow, detected the attack late on Monday and said the website had been “strategically compromised” as a result.

    The attack involved the installation of a type of malware called a “backdoor” on users’ computers, Baumgartner wrote on a blog maintained by the cyber-security firm.

    {wirestory}