IGIHE

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  • Yemen warning as temporary closure of UK embassy begins

    {{The Foreign Office is continuing to “strongly urge” Britons to leave Yemen as a two-day closure of its embassy begins amid a terrorism warning.}}

    It also advised against travel to Yemen due to “increased security concerns”.

    The closure of the Sanaa embassy, which had already been operating only with essential staff, was said to be a “precautionary measure” until Tuesday.

    The French and German embassies are also shut as are US diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa.

    US officials met in Washington on Saturday to review the threat of a terrorist attack that led to the Sunday closure of 21 embassies and consulates and a global travel warning to Americans.

    It came after the US reportedly intercepted al-Qaeda messages, which, it has been claimed, were between senior figures talking about a plot against an embassy.

    Meanwhile, Interpol issued a separate global security alert, citing jail breaks linked to al-Qaeda in nine countries.

    The international policing organisation said “hundreds of terrorists” had been freed during breakouts in countries including Iraq, Libya and Pakistan in the past month.

    Several hundred Britons are thought to live in Yemen, with most working for the embassy, charities, UN organisations and oil companies.
    BBC

  • Honduras Troops Sent to Take Control of Jail After Riot

    {{Honduras has sent troops to take control of the country’s main prison near the capital Tegucigalpa after three inmates were killed in a riot.}}

    Three security guards were also wounded in the clashes, officials said.

    The move was aimed at ending “the reign of criminals in our prison system”, President Porfirio Lobo said.

    It follows the release of a report, which said the government had given up on rehabilitating criminals and left prisons to be controlled by inmates.

    The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said the country’s prisons were impoverished, overcrowded and corrupt.

    Government figures show more than 12,000 people in Honduras are currently incarcerated in prisons that were built for just 8,000.

    {{‘Cell-by-cell review’}}

    A police spokesman said a riot broke out at the National Penitentiary after fighting erupted between gang members and other prisoners.

    The prison, located north of Tegucigalpa, reportedly houses some 3,300 inmates.

    Authorities were carrying out a “cell-by-cell review to find out what happened”, prison director Simeon Flores was quoted as saying.

    After the clash, the authorities found hand grenades and firearms in the prison.

    Hours later, the government ordered an immediate military takeover at the facility saying it should end the reign of criminals in the prison.

    Security forces were also guarding injured inmates taken to a hospital in Tegucigalpa, to prevent any attempt by gangs to free the prisoners.

    The violence occurred a day after a new report described the jail system in Honduras as “dehumanised, miserly, and corrupt”.

    The Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said the jails were under the de-facto command of inmates – often belonging the country’s violent criminal gangs – who even set rules and enforce physical punishments.

    The report also found that women shared prisons with men and were often victims of abuse.

    “It is essential that the state take on this crisis in the prison system as one of its priorities, because the system has totally collapsed,” said commission spokesman Escobar Gil.

    The report highlighted a lack of staffing, resources and organisation, saying the government had abandoned its responsibilities towards funding and rehabilitation programmes.

    {agencies}

  • Moroccan king to investigate Spanish paedophile pardon

    {{The Moroccan king has promised an investigation into the royal pardoning of a Spanish man convicted of raping 11 children aged between four and 15.}}

    The paedophile was among 48 jailed Spaniards freed by King Mohammed VI, sparking angry protests and violent clashes with police in Rabat on Friday.

    A royal statement said the king had been unaware of the gravity of the Spaniard’s crimes.

    Fresh protests are expected in Casablanca and Rabat next week.

    Daniel Galvan Vina, believed to be in his sixties, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in September 2011.

    However, last week he was freed by royal decree from a jail in Kenitra, north of the capital. He is reported to have left the country.

    Dozens of people were injured in violent confrontations between hundreds of protesters and police outside parliament in the Moroccan capital on Friday.

    Demonstrations were also reported in the cities of Kenitra, Tangier and Tetouan, as well as outside the Moroccan embassy in Paris.

    “The king was never informed – in any way or at any time – of the seriousness of the abject crimes of which the person concerned was convicted,” a statement released by the royal palace said on Sunday.

    “It is clear that the sovereign would never have consented” to his release, given the “monstrous crimes” committed, the statement concluded.

    It is normal procedure for the king to pardon prisoners on special occasions, such as Throne Day, last Tuesday.

    Morocco’s Justice Ministry said on Friday the pardons were based on national interests and “friendly relations” with Spain.

    A number of foreign nationals have recently been detained in Morocco under suspicion of paedophilia.

    In June, a British man was arrested in the port town of Tetouan over allegations of raping a six-year-old girl. In May, a Casablanca court sentenced a French man to 12 years in jail on paedophilia charges.

    Thousands of Moroccans marched in Casablanca earlier this year to condemn paedophilia and violence against children in the north African country.

    {agencies}

  • Isuzu to use GM Engines in Pick-up truck made in India

    {{Japanese truck maker Isuzu Motors Ltd (7202.T) will use diesel engines made by General Motors Co (GM.N) in its new pick-up truck made in India to cut costs and lessen the burden of technology development, the Nikkei daily reported on Sunday.}}

    Isuzu plans to supply some 100,000 engines made at GM’s factory based in India. The engines are produced with use of Isuzu technology.

    The move will allow Isuzu, which plans to start making the low-cost truck in 2016, to make it affordable to customers in India and Africa, the Nikkei report said.

    The cooperation will further strengthen ties between the two companies. GM is eager to tap Isuzu’s strength in Southeast Asian markets and its diesel technology, while Isuzu wants to share the burden of developing technologies.

    The largest U.S. automaker first took a stake in Isuzu in 1971 and at one point owned as much as 49% of the Japanese truck maker before selling the holding down. In 2006, GM sold its remaining 7.9% stake for $300 million.

    The companies, which worked together on trucks such as the GM Chevrolet Colorado mid-size pickup, sold as the i-Series by Isuzu, still cooperate in some areas.

    They jointly developed the updated Isuzu D-Max in 2011 and collaborate in sales in Latin America and South Africa.

    In May, shares in Isuzu climbed some 20% after the automaker posted a record net profit of 96.5 billion yen ($946 million) for the year ended March 31, thanks to brisk overseas sales.

    {agencies}

  • Zimbabwe’s Mugabe declared winner, rival challenges poll result

    {{Africa’s oldest president, Robert Mugabe, was declared winner of Zimbabwe’s election on Saturday, but his rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, said he would challenge in court a result he called a fraud that would push the nation back into crisis.}}

    Mugabe, 89, who has ruled the former British colony in southern Africa since its independence in 1980, was formally proclaimed re-elected for a five-year term barely an hour after Tsvangirai announced his planned legal challenge.

    “We are going to go to court, we are going to go to the AU (African Union), we are going to go to the SADC (Southern African Development Community),” Tsvangirai angrily told a news conference in Harare.

    While African observers from the AU and SADC have already broadly approved Wednesday’s peaceful vote, independent domestic monitors have described it as vitiated by registration problems that may have disenfranchised up to a million people.

    The United States, which has imposed sanctions on Mugabe over previous flawed elections and alleged abuses of power, said the evidence of irregularities in the July 31 vote indicated the result was “the culmination of a deeply flawed process”.

    “The United States does not believe that the results announced today represent a credible expression of the will of the Zimbabwean people,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.

    The European Union also expressed its concern. Western election observers were kept out by Harare.

    Zimbabwe’s Election Commission announced Mugabe had beaten Tsvangirai with just over 61 percent of the votes, against nearly 34 percent for Tsvangirai.

    “Mugabe, Robert Gabriel, of ZANU-PF party, is therefore declared duly elected president of the Republic of Zimbabwe with effect of today,” commission head Rita Makarau told a news conference, drawing cheers from ZANU-PF supporters.

    SADC observers have urged Tsvangirai to accept the result. They expressed relief that the elections had so far avoided the kind of violent turmoil that marred a vote in 2008. Then, 200 supporters of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)were killed by ZANU-PF supporters.

    {reuters}

  • Libya’s turmoil revealed in feud for custody of Gaddafi’s son

    {{To his captors, the fate of Libya’s most prominent prisoner, the son of ousted dictator Muammar Gaddafi, can be sealed only in one place – in the small straggling mountain town where they have kept him locked up for nearly two years.}}

    The prize of former rebel fighters who triumphed in catching him as he tried to flee the country, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is being kept in a secret location somewhere among Zintan’s sandstone and concrete buildings.

    The one-time heir apparent remains out of reach of the government in Tripoli and even further from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, which also wants to try him. His captors, distrustful of a government they say is failing the state, say any tribunal he will face should be in Zintan.

    If the country’s leaders do not hold a trial soon over crimes committed before and during the 2011 uprising that toppled his father, they will do so themselves, they say.

    “If there is no trial for him, the Libyan people will bring him to justice,” said Alajmi Ali Ahmed al-Atiri, the man who led the patrol that caught Saif al-Islam in the Sahara desert.

    “We will give the Libyan government a chance to bring him to trial. If they delay it, frankly we will say that we, as Libyan revolutionaries, will bring Saif to the revolutionary court. It will be a public and just trial.”

    Such declarations highlight the limited power the central government has on the fighters who chased out Gaddafi and now believe they deserve to be the real beneficiaries of the 2011 uprising.

    Zintan, a dusty Arab garrison town sprawled atop a steep-walled plateau in the mainly ethnic Berber Western Mountains, played an outsized role in the 2011 war. Two years ago, its fighters came down from the highlands, broke Gaddafi’s defenses along the coast and led the charge into Tripoli.

    Today, they remain organized and contemptuous of a central administration that, faced with assassinations, attacks on national and Western targets and a mass jail break, is losing its grip over the oil-producing state.

    Tripoli is already involved in a legal dispute with The Hague, which is seeking Saif al-Islam for war crimes. But the real tussle is at home, where the government has unsuccessfully tried to move him to a specially-built jail in the capital.

    His impending trial, whenever and wherever it may be, will be emblematic of who has the real power on the ground – the frontline rebels who fought Gaddafi’s forces or Tripoli’s politicians, who already face increasing popular discontent.

    “The ball is now in the government’s court and the government is very fragile – it is probably going through its most fragile phase ever in this transition,” Human Rights Watch Libya researcher Hanan Salah said.

    “This is a case of one very prominent detainee but think about the so many more detainees being held by other militias that are given some sort of legitimacy or not. It showcases where the country is at in this stage of its transition.”

    {agencies}

  • Nyamasheke District Official Arrested over Offering Bribe

    {{Ndagijimana Jean Pierre, the executive secretary of Nyamasheke district has been detained over allegations of giving bribes.}}

    The official is accused of not declaring some of his property to the ombudsman office as required every year.

    Ndagijimana had registered some of his Assets to other individuals as a means of shielding off the critical Ombudsman officials from detecting his extensively accumulated property.

    However, residents in Nyamasheke had notified the ombudsman office about extra assets amassed by Ndagijimana a move that prompted an investigation and eventual confirmation of the hidden assets.

    According to Ombusdmans office, when such officials are found to have undisclosed assets, a dossier is prepared and sent to Court.

    On realising that his hidden assets had been discovered and fearing to be dragged to court thereafter, Ndagijimana attempted to offer a bribe to some officials from the ombudsman office.

    Ndagijimana and the ombudsman official had agreed to meet in Kigali to offer him a bribe to neutralise the alleged dosseir that would drag Ndagijimana to court.

    Ndagijimana had offered a bribe of one million to an official from the ombudsman office but on the first day he had offered Frw800,000 and the balance would be offered later.

    Police Arrested Ndagijimana as he was offering Frw800,000 in the morning and had promised to bring more Frw200,000 in the evening.

    However, the Frw500,000 would according to their agreement be offered if only the dossier would be canceled. The total offer was Frw1.500,000.

    Nkurunziza Jean Pierre, Spokesperson-Ombudsman office

  • Congo-Brazzaville Delegation on Study Tour in Rwanda

    {{On August 1st, 2013, at RSSB HQS, Dr Innocent GAKWAYA, the RSSB Deputy in charge of medical benefits, Lt Col Dr Jean Paul BITEGA, the MMI Director General, and other officials from Public and Private medical insurances received a delegation from Congo Brazzaville, lead by Mr. Claver Okuya, the Head of the delegation and Advisor to His Excellency Denis SASSOU NGWESSO, the President of the Republic of Congo Brazzaville.}}

    In his opening word, Dr Innocent Gakwaya, the Deputy of RSSB, gave highly appreciation to the visiting delegation by ensuring to the audience a very interesting presentation.

    He said that: “All of our achievements were reached based on the good Leadership and political will in our country lead by His Excellency Paul KAGAME, the President of Rwanda. The RSSB Deputy Chief added that:

    “We, as Rwandans, we are very proud and lucky of being born in a country in which over 90% of its population health wise is covered by either public or private institutions”.

    The Head of the Congolese delegation has showed the aim and their interest to learn from the Rwandan experience whereby a lot of achievements are observed specifically in the domain of Social Security.

    “He mentioned that this visit is a proof and an enhancement of the existing fraternity, collaboration and friendship between the two sister countries, this is being done under the umbrella of the existing political will and relationship between our Leaders, His Excellency Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda and His Excellency Denis Sassou Ngwesso, the President of Congo Brazzaville”.

    The MMI Director General, Lt Col Dr Jean Paul Bitega, has shown the Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF) Medical Historical background before MMI incoming into existence, how and when MMI was established, how it operates, its achievements, the faced challenges, arising and shared or common ones by all medical insurances in Rwanda.

    The MMI DG has also illustrated the MMI perspectives whereby it intends to invest in medical sector, to cover RDF retirees and open doors to other public and private Institutions on an ICT based knowledge.

    All presenters assured the audience in reducing the indigence rate at 10% before the end of 2017 by covering 100% of the Rwandan population.

    A lot of questions were answered and therefore the Head of the delegation, Mr. Claver Okuya promised to be quick learners and implement what was leant from this educative Rwandan experience.

  • First Lady to Attend Mushaka Parish’s 50-year Jubilee

    {{The First Lady, Mrs. Jeannette Kagame will be the Guest of Honour at the Mushaka Parish’s 50-year jubilee, to be celebrated in Rusizi District on August 4th, 2013.}}

    Over 6,000 people are expected to attend the celebrations including Catholic church leaders, government ministers, senators, MPs and Mushaka community members.

    On this day, Ildephonse Maniragaba will also be ordained as a new priest.

    Mushaka Parish has since 1963, constructed schools, health facilities and supported vulnerable families.

    To build on Rwanda’s national unity and reconciliation program, Mushaka Parish introduced a unique approach to helping Rwandans recover from the consequences of the Genocide against the Tutsi.

    Since 2009, 140 Genocide survivors and perpetrators have completed 6-month sessions where they are taught how to live together fearlessly and heal their broken spirits, using biblical principles.

    Genocide perpetrators who participate in this program are temporarily banned from church activities such as receiving eucharist and getting married, until they complete the sessions.

    Today, 10 Mushaka community members are being re-integrated back into the church after successfully completing the 6 month session.

    To date Mushaka Diocese has 59,912 church members and is one of 14 parishes that make up the Catholic Diocese of Cyangugu.

    The Diocese is led by Monsignor Jean Damascene Bimenyimana.

  • Kikwete Accuses Rwanda of Making Inflamatory Statements

    {{Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete has accused Rwanda government officials of attacking him through what he described as making inflamatory statements that have sent engagement between the two countries to its Lowest Levels.}}

    Kikwete said, “Utterances of Rwandan leaders towards me and our country is evidence of that (turbulent relations).”

    President Paul Kagame had earlier described the utterances as nonsense by Mr. Kiwete as dancing on the “mass graves of our people.”

    Kikwete said Friday, “I have been shocked and dismayed at the verbal attack and criticism levelled against me by Rwandan officials.”

    The Tanzanian leader who had remained silent despite several responces against his remarks from Rwanda said on Friday, “What they are doing and saying does not reflect the true position …. (it is) completely out of proportion and out of context.”

    Kikwete said he had chosen to ignore insults from Rwanda in the best interest of the people of the two nations.

    “It is not because I do not know how to speak or that I do not have anything to say,” he added. “I haven’t done so because I do not see its benefit.I want to assure my fellow Tanzanians and our Rwandan friends that I, my government and the people of Tanzania want to have good relations and close cooperation with Rwanda as we have with all our neighbours.”

    Kikwete had origianally stated that “ADF is attacking Uganda and FDRL is doing the same to Rwanda so efforts should be made to end such attacks.”

    He said, “Talks should be held between governments and rebels hiding in the DRC where they launch attacks against their countries of origin. Military operations against the rebels will not yield fruit”.

    Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Louise Mushikiwabo had earlier descibed Kikwete’s remarks as “aberrant” and “shocking”.

    Mushikiwabo then noted, “Those who think that Rwanda today should sit down at the negotiating table with FDLR simply don’t know what they are talking about.”

    IBUKA a Rwandan Umbrella organisation for Genocide Survivors had also condemned Kikwete’s remarks that he made at the AU Heads of State Summit on the 26 May 2013.

    In a statement, IBUKA noted, “no negotiation is acceptable with a known terrorist group that is responsible for the death of over a million Tutsis in Rwanda and continues its deadly work in the eastern DRC.

    We are offended that a Head of State who is well aware of the history of the genocide against the Tutsi would promote unrepentant genocidaires and their ideology.”

    However, Tanzania’s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation minister Bernard Membe said there was no way the Tanzanian Head of State could apologise for saying the truth and stating a fact.