IGIHE

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  • Snowden’s father to visit him in Russia ‘soon

    {{Lon Snowden, father of US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden, has got a Russian visa and will visit his son “very soon”, his lawyer says.}}

    Mr Snowden told the US ABC network he wanted his son to return home provided the justice system is applied “correctly” in his case.

    He added that his son had “spoken the truth” and made great sacrifices.

    Edward Snowden has been granted asylum by Russia despite requests from the US that he be returned.

    Lon Snowden said “We have visas, we have a date, which we won’t disclose right now because of the frenzy,” Mr Fein said, referring to the planned visit to Moscow.

    Edward Snowden arrived in Moscow on 23 June from Hong Kong, after making revelations about a secret US data-gathering programme.

    He then spent more than five weeks in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport’s transit zone. He left the airport last week after having been granted the necessary documents.

    {wirestory}

  • Mugabe makes First Speech Since Disputed Poll

    Robert Mugabe is to deliver his first public speech since he won Zimbabwe’s disputed presidential election.

    Mr Mugabe will address a Heroes’ Day celebration in the capital, Harare, to commemorate those who died during the country’s war of independence.

    The Movement for Democratic Change of his main rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, is boycotting the event.

    The party has lodged a legal challenge against the result of the “stolen election”, demanding it be rerun.

    Mr Mugabe won 61% of the vote in the election on 31 July, while Mr Tsvangirai came second with 35% and Welshman Ncube third with 3%, according to official results.

    The president’s Zanu-PF party also gained a parliamentary majority of more than two-thirds on the same day, winning 160 of the 210 seats.

    BBC

  • Nazi war crimes suspect Laszlo Csatary dies

    {{A 98-year-old Nazi war crimes suspect, Hungarian Laszlo Csatary, has died while awaiting trial, his lawyer said.}}

    Csatary died in a Hungarian hospital after suffering from a number of medical problems, Gabor Horvath said.

    He at one time topped the list of most wanted Nazi war crimes suspects and is alleged to have helped deport 15,700 Jews to death camps in World War II.

    He faced charges relating to his wartime activities in both Hungary and in neighbouring Slovakia.

    Mr Horvath said his client died on Saturday morning. “He had been treated for medical issues for some time but contracted pneumonia, from which he died.”

    Csatary had denied the allegations against him, saying he was merely an intermediary between Hungarian and German officials and was not involved in war crimes.

    Art dealer
    He was charged in June by Hungarian prosecutors in relation to what they said had been his role as chief of an internment camp for Jews in Kosice, a town then part of Hungary but now in Slovakia.

    Kosice, known at the time as Kassa, was the first to be established after Germany occupied Hungary in March 1944.

    wirestory

  • Greece beats January-July budget target

    Greece easily beat its fiscal targets in the first seven months of the year, propped up by aid from euro zone central banks and European Union funds, finance ministry figures showed on Monday.

    The central government had a primary budget surplus – before interest payments – of 2.57 billion euros ($3.4 billion). That compares with an interim target for a deficit of 3.14 billion euros, it said.

    The budget excludes the finances of local authorities and social security organizations.

    But about half of that 5.7 billion-euro-overshoot is explained by the fact that Athens received more European Union subsidies than expected and also spent far less of them on investment projects than initially planned, the figures showed.

    The figures also include about 1.5 billion euros in one-off revenue from euro zone central banks. This money derives from profits which the central banks earned from Greek government bonds they held and which they returned to Athens under the terms of its international bailout.

    By contrast, gross tax revenues are about 1.5 billion euros million euros behind target, hit by a severe, six-year recession which has wiped out about a quarter of the country’s economy.

    At the same time, Athens cut primary spending by 10 percent to 25.1 billion euros, beating its interim target by 1.88 billion.

    {reuters}

  • Israel to release Palestinian prisoners

    {{Israel will release 26 Palestinian prisoners ahead of renewed peace talks set for later this week, an official statement said.}}

    Following the government decision late on Sunday, the Israel Prisons Service published the names of the 26 selected to be freed ahead of the talks.

    The detailed list, published shortly after the announcement, includes the prisoners’ names, felonies, date of arrest as well as the names of their victims.

    Al Jazeera’s Sue Turton, reporting from Jerusalem, said that the Israeli security agency said most of them were “low risk” prisinors.

    The longest serving prosoner has written a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas saying they “didn’t want to be used as a bargaining chip”, Journalists reported.

    “You should not agree with the releases to give way in any way in these peace talks,” the letter said.

    The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a panel had decided upon the identity of the prisoners to be released within the next two days, the first of 104 long-term Palestinian prisoners to be freed in four stages, depending on progress in the talks.

    {Aljazeera}

  • Darfur battles rage as scores reported killed

    {{Fighting between rival Arab tribes has rocked Sudan’s Darfur region for a second day, after 100 people were reported killed in unrest that has already left hundreds dead this year.}}

    Battles were taking place in the Adila area of southeastern Darfur on Sunday, the sources said.

    “The fighting today spread to many areas,” said a member of the Rezeigat tribe. “I saw some wounded Rezeigat taken to the hospital in Ed Daein on Land Cruisers.”

    A Maaliya resident confirmed the fighting south of Adila, and a doctor in Nyala city to the west told AFP news agency that some wounded Maaliya had been taken there for treatment.

    “We clashed with Maaliya… and we destroyed a compound of theirs and killed 70 of them,” another Rezeigat source said, declining to be named.

    They were not able to give casualty figures for Sunday’s fighting but tribal sources said dozens had died on Saturday.

    Inter-ethnic fighting has been the major source of violence in Darfur this year, where an estimated 300,000 people were displaced in the first five months alone, according to African Union-UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID).

    Prior to this year’s surge of violence, there were already 1.4 million people in camps for those uprooted by the conflict in Darfur.

    Source: Agencies

  • Tuareg of Mali say Election Wont Bring Peace

    {{In the birthplace of a Tuareg revolt that nearly tore Mali apart last year, residents said Sunday’s election would not bring lasting peace unless a new president in the distant south gave them more freedom.}}

    The desert region of Kidal in Mali’s desolate northeast has produced four rebellions since independence from France in 1960. Its light-skinned Tuareg people say successive black African governments in the capital Bamako have excluded them from power.

    “The way the Malian state treated our people, before it was chased out of here last year, we cannot allow that to happen again,” the elderly Tuareg clan chief Intallah ag Attaher, shrouded in traditional blue robes, told U.N. Special Representative Bert Koenders during an election-day visit.

    Last year’s Tuareg uprising was triggered by accusations that the government had violated a 2006 peace accord to develop the region. President Amadou Toumani Toure’s failure to tackle the uprising prompted a military coup in the capital Bamako that allowed Islamists to occupy the northern two-thirds of Mali, where they imposed a violent form of Islamic sharia law.

    Despite a lack of voting cards and confusion over where to vote, people trickled in to cast their ballots at the Baye Ag Mahaha school in the town centre, hoping the election would give the country a fresh start. Voting bureaux were guarded by heavily armed U.N. peacekeepers and Malian police.

    “Things will get better after these elections. We will have a real president again and the peace agreements will be respected,” said Tamoument Diallo, 53, seated at a desk in a dilapidated schoolroom after casting her vote.

    France sent thousands of troops to halt a southward push by the Islamists in January, destroying their enclave but leaving the Tuareg separatist MNLA movement in charge of Kidal. It said the Tuaregs were not a terrorist group and had helped fight the Islamists – a position which outraged many in Mali’s south.

    On the streets of Kidal, buildings are daubed with the red, yellow, black and green flag of Azawad, the name Tuaregs give their homeland. Graffiti reads “Mali no” and “Azawad only Azawad”.

    Turnout in the July 28 first round was just 12 percent in the town – well below the national average of 48 percent. Participation again appeared low on Sunday, with just over 30 voters on a list of more than 430 casting their ballot in one central voting bureau as of 3 p.m.

    Although 35,000 people were registered to vote in the Kidal region before last year’s conflict, only 15,000 voting cards have been distributed, the governor said, as many people had fled the fighting to refugee camps in neighboring Niger.

    Some people have heeded the MNLA’s call not to go to the polls. A small group of around 15 young rebel supporters demonstrated outside one polling station. Elsewhere, MNLA representatives watched voters at another bureau in what they said was an effort to avoid fraud.

    “I’m not going to vote. I am from Azawad, not Mali. This election is just for Malians,” said Mohamed Ag Hainza, 23, a student wearing a flowing crimson robe on a dusty Kidal street.

    A June ceasefire deal allowed Malian soldiers and civilian administrators to return to the town but the MNLA still occupies the main government offices. The governor has been forced to live and work in the town hall, sleeping on a mattress in his office.

    Election front runner Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, a former prime minister known universally as IBK, has pledged to restore order to Mali and quickly open lasting peace talks if elected. But in a sign of local hostility, his plane was nearly prevented from landing in Kidal during his campaign when separatists tried to block the runway.

    Kidal, like the other two regions of northern Mali, is home to a mix of Arab, black African and Tuareg peoples. Keita has insisted that peace talks, due to begin within two months of a new government taking office under the terms of the June ceasefire, would have to include all the peoples of northern Mali, not just the Tuareg.

    With some $4 billion in foreign aid promised to redevelop Mali and a backlash against deep-rooted corruption, some say there is a chance for peace.

    “We have to make a thorough analysis of why earlier peace deals failed,” Koenders told Tuareg leaders. “We have a historic opportunity not to repeat the errors of the past.”

    {agencies}

  • Man Arrested Over Fake Currency Notes

    {{Bamuteze Levis, 36, resident of Kimironko sector in Gasabo District was arrested on Saturday after he was found with fake money amounting to Rwf66, 000 , all in 2, 000 denominations.}}

    He is currently held at Remera Police Station.

    It all started when Bamuteze paid a phone technician after repairing his handset, but the latter realized the notes were fake.

    Investigations are also still going on to see if there are other people working with Bamuteze in this illegal act, the District Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Tom Murangira, said.

    He warned the public that involving themselves in such counterfeit activities won’t take long before they are apprehended because the “community now know real money and what’s fake.”

    He appealed to the business community and the entire public to always verify currency notes thoroughly before any transaction, to avoid falling prey of such people.

    “I am urging the public to beware and report immediately any suspected incidents related to counterfeit or even any other crimes such that these criminals can be arrested,” he added.

    Counterfeit is treacherous to the economy and also affects family and personal income, he observed.

    Article 604 of the Rwandan penal code which states that using or circulating, by any means, items misrepresented as money or negotiable instruments shall be liable to a term of imprisonment of two to five years and a fine of two to ten times the value of the counterfeit money.

    {RNP}

  • Mursi backers call for marches to foil Egypt crackdown

    {{Supporters of deposed President Mohamed Mursi urged Egyptians to take to the streets on Monday to foil any police crackdown on two Cairo protest camps that Islamists have manned for weeks.}}

    Officials had said police would move at dawn to disperse the camps in what could prove a bloody confrontation with those seeking Mursi’s restitution, but by midday they had not done so.

    A pro-Mursi grouping, which includes the Muslim Brotherhood, called for nationwide rallies against the military, which toppled Egypt’s first freely elected leader on July 3.

    “The alliance calls on the people of Egypt in all provinces to go out on marches on Monday and gather everywhere,” it said in a statement.

    Security sources and a government official had said police would begin operations against the two sit-ins early on Monday to end a six-week street standoff between crowds demanding Mursi’s reinstatement and the army-installed government.

    Western and Arab envoys and some senior Egyptian government officials have pressed the army to avoid using force as it tries to end the crisis in the troubled Arab nation of 84 million.

    Mursi’s defiant supporters have fortified the protest camps with sandbags and piles of rocks in anticipation of a crackdown.

    “We expect anything to happen any time. The talk about dispersals doesn’t affect people, we are staying here,” said protester Assam Abu Ammar at the biggest camp in northeast Cairo.

    One security source said action against the protesters had been delayed because larger crowds had arrived at the protest camps after news broke that a crackdown was imminent.

    Army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ousted Mursi, has come under pressure from hardline military officers to break up the Brotherhood sit-ins in the capital, security sources say.

    Almost 300 people have been killed in political violence since Mursi’s overthrow, including dozens of his supporters shot dead by security forces in two incidents.

    Egypt has been convulsed by political and economic turmoil since the 2011 uprising that ended 30 years of autocratic rule by U.S.-backed President Hosni Mubarak, and the most populous Arab nation is now more polarized than any time for many years.

    There is deepening alarm in the West over the course taken by Egypt, which sits astride the Suez Canal and receives $1.5 billion a year in mainly military aid from the United States.

    Mursi became president in June 2012. But concerns he was seeking an Islamist autocracy and his failure to ease economic hardships led to mass rallies prompting the army to oust him.

    Since then Brotherhood leaders have been sentenced to jail for inciting violence. Mursi is detained in an unknown location.

    {reuters}

  • CHANGE OF NAME FROM BANQUE COMMERCIALE DU RWANDA LIMITED TO I&M BANK (RWANDA) LIMITED

    PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

    CHANGE OF NAME FROM BANQUE COMMERCIALE DU RWANDA LIMITED TO I&M BANK (RWANDA) LIMITED

    We wish to inform that upon receipt of statutory approvals, effective immediately, the Bank has changed its name from Banque Commerciale du Rwanda Ltd (BCR) to I&M Bank (Rwanda) Limited.

    By way of background, in July 2012, a consortium led by I&M Bank Ltd acquired 80% of the shareholding in BCR. As a result of the transaction, the effective shareholding of BCR changed with 55% being held by I&M Bank Ltd, a leading regional bank incorporated in Kenya, 12.5% each by PROPARCO and DEG, two leading European Development Finance Institutions, 19.8% by the Government of Rwanda and 0.2% by private shareholders.

    Since then, the management and staff have worked together towards a smooth and effective integration with the majority shareholder, culminating in the change in name.

    The change in name has no impact on the management structure and operations of the bank. We will continue to provide our esteemed customers with the highest levels of service.

    All existing contracts, agreements and documents in the name of Banque Commerciale Du Rwanda Limited (BCR) will remain contractually binding and enforceable.

    For any query, please contact any member of the management team.

    {{BY ORDER OF THE BOARD}}