IGIHE

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  • Mandela Can Now sit up, Says Daughter

    {{South Africa’s ailing ex- president Nelson Mandela managed to sit up, a sign of great improvement in his condition, his daughter Zindzi said.}}

    “He’s fine, Tata (father) now manages to sit up, like now he sits up in a chair for a few minutes in a day, every day you know he becomes more alert more responsive,” Zindzi said in remarks published by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

    “Tata is determined not to go anywhere anytime soon, I cannot stress this enough. People must stop saying to the family let go let go, we are just looking at this man who is saying I’m not going anywhere,” Zindzi added.

    Zindzi said her father has a strong constitution, will and strength which keeps him alive. “You know he just doesn’t have the strength of a man, he just has the strength that is beyond anything that can be explained. Because even now with the challenges to his health, he somehow manages to bounce back when everyone assumes this is the end,” Zindzi said.

    The 95-year-old anti-apartheid icon has been in hospital for two months, receiving treatment for a recurring lung infection. He was admitted to hospital on June 8.

    On Thursday, Mandela’s ex-wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela said Mandela was now breathing normally.

    Winnie denied reports that Mandela was in a permanent vegetative state, saying there was no need to conceal the fact.

    Mandela’s eyes still “lit up” when his children came to visit him, Winnie told the British Sky News.

    “That is how he communicates with them.” Winnie said the medical team has done a good job in ensuring that Mandela remains “comfortable.”

    {wirestory}

  • All set for Police FC-KCCA friendly

    {{The Ugandan national football league champions, Kampala City Council Authority (KCCA) FC will arrive in the country on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s friendly tie with Police FC at Nyamirambo regional stadium.}}

    Police FC secretary general, Chief Supt. Jean Nepo Mbonyumuvunyi said the friendly, one of many others to be played before the kick off of this year’s national league, is meant to check on the players’ coordination on the pitch following the massive recruitment of new players.

    “These friendlies are meant to strengthen the squad,” CSP Mbonyumuvunyi said.

    The Sunday’s tie will be free entry to students and Rwf1, 000 and Rwf500 in VIP and other parts of the stadium, respectively.

    He added: “We are still negotiating with other big clubs in the region including those in DRC, Tanzania and Uganda, to set other friendlies to be more prepared for the next season. Our target is to win the 2013/14 national football league.”

    “We want to entertain our fans and Rwandans in general after a long time of no competitive club games in the country. This is a people’s club and a way of being closer to those we serve,” he explained.

    The Sam Ssimbwa’s side made seven new signings this season.

    They are Jean Paul Mutabazi from AS Muhanga, Djabil Mutarambirwa (Kiyovu Sport) and Emmanuel Crespo Sebanani (Mukura).

    Others are Donatien Jojori Tuyizere (Rayon Sport), Pacifique Mugwaneza (Gicumbi FC) and Gibson Atuheire from Uganda’s side, URA.

    The head coach, Sam Ssimbwa said: “We are not taking these friendlies lightly. To us, these are big games to help us test our strength. Our goal is to take next season’s trophy after two consecutive years as first run-ups, and it starts with winning these friendlies.”

    {RNP}

  • 5 Die in Indonesian eruption

    Five people have been killed in a volcanic eruption on a tiny island in Indonesia, officials have said.

    Mount Rokatenda, on the island of Palue some 2,000km (1,250 miles) east of Jakarta, spewed ash and rocks.

    Disaster officials said hot ash covered a nearby beach, leaving three adults and two children dead.

    The volcano had been rumbling since late last year and had occasionally covered parts of nearby Flores island in ash. Hundreds have been evacuated.

    BBC

  • CAR in Chaos, Says UN chief Ban Ki-moon

    {{UN chief Ban Ki-moon says the Central African Republic (CAR) has suffered a “total breakdown of law and order” since rebels seized power in March.}}

    He urged the UN Security Council to consider sanctions or to set up a panel of experts to monitor the situation.

    Seleka rebel group leader Michel Djotodia ousted President Francois Bozize in March.

    Last month Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said the country’s health care system had collapsed.

    In a report that the Security Council is due to discuss on Wednesday, Mr Ban said infighting among rebel groups had led to widespread abuses.

    “They included arbitrary arrests and detention, sexual violence against women and children, torture, rape, targeted killings, recruitment of child soldiers and attacks, committed by uncontrolled Seleka elements and unidentified armed groups throughout the country,” the report said.

    He said the situation was particularly chaotic in rural areas where Seleka forces “continued to wreak havoc”.

    Mr Ban said that some 1.6 million people were now in urgent need of assistance including protection, food, water, health care and shelter.

    “This is unacceptable. The plight of the people of the CAR must be brought to an end,” he said.

    “I call on the Security Council to consider appropriate options, including the adoption of sanctions or the establishment of a panel of experts, to ensure there is no impunity for perpetrators of gross human rights violations.”

    Last month, MSF said that it – along with the UN and other international agencies – had been a victim of robberies and looting in recent months.

    In a report it said malnutrition and preventable diseases were rife, with 33% more malaria cases reported this year then in the same period last year.

    After seizing power, Mr Djotodia pledged to hold elections after an 18-month transitional period.

    In April, regional states agreed to send 2,000 peacekeepers to bolster a 500-strong multinational force that was battling to help the interim government restore stability.

    CAR has an unstable history and is extremely poor, though it has large deposits of minerals including gold and diamonds.

    {agencies}

  • Publishers Challenge Apple e-book Restrictions

    {{HarperCollins, Simon & Shuster and Penguin are among publishers who have filed a complaint against restrictions imposed on Apple by a US court.}}

    Last month Apple was found guilty of conspiring with publishers to fix the price of e-books bought via iTunes.

    It was ordered to terminate deals with five major companies and allow other e-book retailers to sell to iPad and iPhone users for the next two years.

    The publishers say they are being punished by the restrictions.

    Under agreements put in place between Apple and companies including Hatchett and Macmillan, electronic book price-fixing took place, creating unfair competition for other retailers, the court ruled last month.

    At the time most of the publishers reached separate settlements totalling more than $150m (£96m) but Apple said it would fight the “false allegations”.

    According to the Associated Press news agency, the publishers’ complaint says: “The provisions do not impose any limitation on Apple’s pricing behaviour at all.

    “Rather, under the guise of punishing Apple, they effectively punish [publishers that settled in the case].”

    Garner analyst Van Baker told media that the ruling seemed “heavy-handed”.

    “It is basically putting a stake through a portion of Apple’s business, and I confess to being surprised by that,” he said.

    “It strikes me as a pretty heavy-handed solution to the issue.”

  • Sundance Floats Tenders for African iron ore Mine

    {{Australian mining firm Sundance Resources has issued tenders for the financing and infrastructure construction for its Mbalam-Nabeba Iron Ore Project in central Africa}}

    The Mbalam-Nabeba project straddles the border of the central African countries Cameroon and Congo Brazzaville.

    The miner said it was in the process of providing tender documents for the project’s port and rail infrastructure to a number of international engineering, procurement and construction contractors, six of which were Chinese.

    Sundance said it expected that the negotiations will be completed by the later half of 2013.

    Sundance managing director Giulio Casello said, “The interest shown in our project form a wide range of potential investors, constructors and customers has been outstanding.

    “We are aiming to ensure that the project is in production in time to capitalise on the supply shortfall which we believe is set to emerge in the global iron ore market around 2017-2018.”

    Sundance said it had held discussions with all parties receiving tender documents and was encouraged by the strong interest expressed.

    The company has plans to mine 35mn tonnes of ore per annum.

    {Africanreview}

  • Swaziland’s Rail Advances Mirror Southern Africa’s Rail Growth

    {{The future of rail transport in Southern Africa hinges on advances in countries such as Swaziland that ensure the region’s rail systems all work in harmony}}

    Never has the development of a transportation industry been so firmly dependant on correcting past practices. During the 19th and 20th centuries, when African nations’ rail systems were linked to the rail technology of the respective colonial power that administered their territories, rail systems developed independently.

    Rail lines of the 15 member nations of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) must now conform to a common gauge of 1.67cm and efforts are underway to do so. Conforming on all other technical matters from maintenance to signalling systems is ongoing, involving constant meetings of rail officials and technicians.

    Stephenson Ngubane, CEO of Swaziland Railway said, “Regionally, we want to integrate all rail services internationally, and expand the rail system. We must provide our customers with similar service for landlocked countries. The regional rail systems will be made compatible. Goods will move from one point to anywhere in the region without interruption.”

    Swaziland’s rail system is undergoing its most crucial line expansion in three decades, and by doing so is filling one of the six main ‘gaps’ in Southern Africa’s rail system, according to the Southern African Railway Association (SARA).

    The line was built in 1964 to move iron ore from a mine to the port of Maputo. 50 years later, the terminus of the rail system’s 301km of track, the old iron ore mine, will be connected to the South African province of Gauteng, with a new line scheduled for operation in 2017.

    Movements of bulk goods like ore, and in the case of Swaziland, agricultural products such as raw sugar, are more cost-effective by rail than road.

    In partnership with South Africa’s Transnet Freight Rail, Swaziland Rail will build to the country’s western border and link with a new line from the rail head at Lothair in South Africa, allowing cargo from Mpumalanga and Gauteng provinces to travel east and north through Swaziland’s rail system.

    “The line is on schedule, and we are entering Phase 3. Phase 1 was concept and Phase 2 was the probability study, when we explored four route options.

    Where we are now, because we’ve selected the route, is the design phase, economic viability studies, land issues, everything that goes into planning. Phase 4 is construction,” Ngubane explained.

    For a rail line dependant on transit traffic – this past year 2.8mn tonnes of magnetite and 1.7mn tonnes of phosphate originating in Phalaborwa, South Africa, were transported through Swaziland en-route to the sea – the new line is expected to raise company profits by 90%, Ngubane said.

    Swaziland Rail’s expansion mirrors the incremental development of Southern Africa’s rail system.

    The British colonial authorities who administered the Swazi territory as a British protectorate from 1902 to 1968 consented to a local rail line in the 1960s, for freight purposes only.

    However, they agreed to a 1902 Portuguese proposal to build a rail line to the Swaziland border from present-day Maputo, which was accomplished by 1905, and agreed to a Zululand rail line to terminate at Swaziland’s eastern border at Golela in 1927.

    Swaziland’s original line connected with the Maputo line in 1964, and a line was built to connect with the South African line at Golela in 1978. The line to Komatipoort opened in 1986, allowing South African rail freight to pass through Swaziland from one side to the other.

    SARA feels the requisite security and stability exists throughout Southern Africa to concentrate on its master plan of regional rail integration. Tiny Swaziland’s rail system is proving a key link in that system that will soon see vastly more volumes moved by rail.

    Africanreview

  • Mali set for Second-Round Vote

    {{Mali’s presidential front-runner has ended his campaign promising to restore peace to the West African country reeling from a coup and an uprising that led to French military intervention.}}

    Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, 68, a former prime minister with a reputation for toughness, won last month’s first-round ballot with nearly 40 percent of the vote but fell short of an outright majority to avert a second round.

    He faces Soumaila Cisse, former finance minister, in Sunday’s run-off.

    The first round attracted 27 candidates and Keita, popularly known as IBK, has secured the endorsement of 22 of the 25 losing candidates.

    Cisse, 63, the head of the West African monetary union (UEMOA), took just 19 percent of the first-round vote with promises to improve education, create jobs and reform the army.

    Once seen as a model for democracy in turbulent West Africa, Mali was rocked by violence last year when al-Qaeda-linked rebels capitalised on the coup to seize control of the vast desert north, where they imposed a harsh version of Islamic law.

  • Several Migrants Drown, Scores Rescued off Sicily

    {{The Italian coastguard found Saturday the bodies of six migrants dead on a tourist beach in Sicily while more than 100 others, thought to be Syrians, were rescued, officials said.}}

    “The bodies were reported by employees of a beach resort” near the island’s second largest city Catania at dawn, a port official said.

    Investigators said the boat was carrying around 120 people including women and small children.

    “We are transferring the other passengers from the little fishing boat they were in. We assume they are all Syrians,” he said, adding that they included women and small children. He did not know where they had set sail from.

    Italian media said the six migrants who died could not swim and drowned trying to reach the shore just 15 metres (50 feet) from where the boat ran aground.

    Frogmen were searching around the stricken vessel for other possible victims.

    Another group of about 100 migrants, mostly Syrian families, were rescued overnight Wednesday off the coast of Calabria on the Italian mainland.

    They had left Syria two weeks earlier and had to change boats several times before being left adrift aboard an 11-metre (35-foot) vessel.

    Improved weather and calmer waters have seen a spike in boat people arrivals in recent days.

    But shipwrecks are frequent because the boats are often old, rickety and overloaded. Human traffickers regularly abandon their passengers when Italian or Maltese coastguards spot them.

    (AFP)

  • Genocide Survivors Recieve Foodstuffs From HKA Campers

    {{Hope Kids Academy visited the local umurenge office of Kinyinya sector in Gasabo District.}}

    The purpose of the trip was to provide some assistance to local survivors of the Genocide by providing them with foodstuffs and the simple necessities for their day-to-day activities.

    Over 100 families were assisted within the sector, each being given their own sack of provisions including: rice, oil, sugar and beans, amongst other things.

    The trip took place in the morning hours this past Tuesday. It was attended by over twenty students from Hope Kids Academy’s Summer Camp program, most of whom attended other local Kigali schools but now shifting to HKA.

    The intention of the trip was to enlighten these students to the necessity of giving back and of remembering those less fortunate—especially those affected by such atrocities as the genocide—who live in our communities.

    The trip was brief but was a success in its goal of branching out to the local community. Many of the local families in attendance were overjoyed at the presence of primary students in doing their part to give back.

    The school plans to hold similar events in the future as part of its goal to be an active member in the local community and actively engaging its students in social responsibility.

    This was the first time the school hosted such an event for outside students or campers.