IGIHE

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  • FIVB: Algeria Whips Rwandan U19 Volleyball team

    {{The Rwanda’s U19 volleyball national team was pounded by Algerians on thursday at the ongoing FIVB Youth World Championships in Mexico.The Algerian team won 25-19, 25-22, and 25-18.}}

    Larbi Hadroug was Algeria’s top scorer with 14 points while Akram Dekkiche scored 12 and Roubai Boumediene finished with 7 including 4 aces.

    On the Rwandan side, Samuel Niyogisubizo Tyson led the offensive with 12 points and 2 blocks. His teammate Elias Ndagano finished with 10 points and blocked successfully a couple of times.

    Rwanda had defeated Algeria previously at the African championship; however the Algerians improved to look like the more superior at the World Championships.

  • KQ Plane Diverted to Athens After Fire ‘Warning’

    {{Kenya Airways (KQ) says the diversion of one of its flight to Nairobi from Amsterdam on Saturday morning was due to a fire warning indication in one of the cargo holds.}}

    The airline’s CEO Titus Naikuni said the diverted flight, a Boeing 777 200ER landed safely in Athens and all the 301 passengers on board are safe.

    He says the functional tests and profiling of the cargo to confirm the source of the fire warning, required a rescheduling of the flight.

    “As is the normal standard procedure in the industry, the fire suppression system was activated and the aircraft diverted to the nearest airport for further assessment,” Naikuni said in a statement.

    He said that all tests that were later conducted on the fire detection system and that the cargo hold is now functioning properly.

    “The flight landed safely in Athens and all passengers and crew were taken to a hotel in Athens,” he said.

    The flight is now scheduled to depart Athens today at 1700 hours Kenya time, arriving in Nairobi at 2255 hours.

    {agencies}

  • World’s Biggest Cocaine Dealer Deported to Italy

    {{An Italian mafia capo alleged to be the biggest cocaine trafficker in the world will be deported to Italy on Saturday, a day after being arrested in a Colombian shopping mall, prosecutors said.}}

    Roberto Pannunzi was detained in Bogota with a fake Venezuelan identity card in a joint operation by Colombian police together with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

    “He is the biggest cocaine importer in the world,” said Nicola Gratteri, deputy chief prosecutor in Reggio Calabria in southern Italy.

    “He is the only one who can organise purchases and sales of cocaine shipments of 3,000 kilos (6,600 pounds) and up,” he said.

    “Pannunzi is the only one who can sell both to the ‘Ndrangheta and to Cosa Nostra. He is definitely the most powerful drug broker in the world,” he said.

    The ‘Ndrangheta is based in Calabria and is a major player in international drug trafficking. The Sicilian mafia is known as Cosa Nostra.

    Gratteri said Pannunzi was being deported since “an extradition order would have taken several months”.

    He is expected to land at Rome’s Fiumicino airport later on Saturday.

    In April, Colombia captured another suspected top mafioso, Domenico Trimboli, alleged to be a lynchpin between the Medellin drug cartel and the ‘Ndrangheta.

    Pannunzi had escaped from a Rome clinic where he was being held under house arrest in 2010 — repeating an earlier escape in the same way in 1999.

    He was previously been detained in Colombia in 1994, when he reportedly offered the arresting officers a million dollars in cash to walk away.

    Gratteri said that during Friday’s arrest, Pannunzi had told the police he was ill but he said he hoped the alleged trafficker would not be granted house arrest in a hospital in Italy again.

    “I hope that he is not given house arrest a third time because he could attempt a third escape.

    “It’s exhausting having to go around the world to find him every time he escapes,” Gratteri said.

    wirestory

  • Kenya, Somalia ties Shacky over Jubaland Row

    Officials of Jubaland State say they have, cleared Kismayu of Mogadishu-backed militia.

    The army chief confirmed this just days after the military and militia clash left dozens dead.

    Although Kenya Defence Forces ( KDF) and other Amisom troops fighting Al Shabaab entered Kismayu on October 1, last year, the city remained dangerous.

    Warlords maintained control of several pockets in the city; militia killed civilians and erected illegal checkpoints.

    Now, the Jubaland administration says it has fully secured the port city. This follows the routing of two warlords – Barre Aadan Shire (Hiiraale) and Iftiin Xasan (Baasto) – in a three-day gun battle that ended last Sunday.

    “Kismayu… is free of hostile gunmen and warlords,” General Ismail Sahardid, the army chief, told this reporter on the telephone from Kismayu. “It is absolutely safe for the first time since we arrived here.”

    Differences

    However, this development has kicked up a diplomatic storm between Nairobi and Mogadishu, over what to do with the southern border regions.

    Somalia last weekend called on KDF to vacate Kismayu over claims they were supporting one of the warring parties.

    KDF who are serving under the Amisom, denied the allegations. This has not stopped agitation by Hiiraale and others.

    “We will return to Kismayu,” he told radio stations in Mogadishu. “The war is between us and Kenya.”

    He sensationally talked of “returning the sovereignty” of Somalia. Both Hiiraale and Abbas Ibrahim Gurey, a commander in the Somali National Forces, whose brief arrest by the KDF irked Mogadishu, said they would fight Kenyan forces, with Hiiraale “swearing to God” that his men will defeat Kenya and kill those captured “on the spot”.

    NMG

  • IMF Urges Ethiopia to Open Economy

    {{The International Monetary Fund has urged the Ethiopian government to allow more private investment in areas of the economy that it normally controls as a monopoly.}}

    A visiting IMF mission has for the last two weeks been meeting with several top government officials to discuss the country’s economy.

    Addis Ababa maintains tight control of companies in key sectors such as telecommunications and financial services.

    “It would be important to foster competition in areas where public enterprises enjoy monopolies, and gradually withdrawing from sectors where they crowd out the private sector,” Mr S. Kal Wajid, the head of the IMF mission, said in a statement.

    “Ethiopia’s public sector led development strategy has delivered robust growth and rising living standards but is now at crossroads. To sustain growth and employment creation, there is a need to carefully consider the balance between public and private sectors in the economy,” Mr Wajid said.

    “A vibrant private sector is essential to attain middle income status.”

    Last week, private sector representatives raised the issue of being “crowded” out by state enterprises during a business forum with the country’s prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn.

    NMG

  • Beautiful New Apple Computer Most People Won’t Buy

    {{The big hardware unveil an Apple press event was the new Mac Pro, a sleek cylindrical desktop computer and the most powerful machine Apple has ever built. It was the announcement that prompted Apple executive Phil Schiller to exclaim, “Can’t innovate anymore, my ass.”}}

    It also costs thousands of dollars and is way more machine than most people will ever need.

    The Mac Pro is aimed at a narrow market of professionals such as photographers, videographers, designers and animators. Since the line was first announced in 2006, the Pro has received relatively few upgrades compared to the rest of Apple’s product line. The company has been busy focusing on its hit consumer and mobile devices, leaving many professionals wondering if they were being left behind.

    For people using the desktop computers in their businesses, the external look of a Mac is often secondary. So periodic internal improvements to the old tower design were enough to keep them satiated. Others had already abandoned the Pro line as the iMac and MacBook Pro became powerful enough to meet their photo- and video-production needs.

    For the remaining power users, reaction to the new Mac Pro is mixed. And the future of the computer, which is 2.5 times faster than the current model, is still unclear.

    First things first: The new Pro is a design marvel compared to its clunky predecessor — a sleek, black cylinder that bears little resemblance to computers as we’ve traditionally imagined them.

    It’s smaller and cannot be expanded and customized as much as the previous system. Apple has built a machine so unique that people who want to add to it will end up building out, adding components like hard drives and PCI cards externally.

    To make that expansion possible, the industry must first embrace the Thunderbolt input-output standard.

    For example, it’s no longer possible to pop in standard video cards. Mac Pro users will have to either get cards that fit the custom shape of the new computer or plug them into the computer using a Thunderbolt 2 connection.

    “It’s either going to change the way computers are built, or it will fall by the wayside,” said Tony Welch, the creative services director at the Beyond Pix production studio.

    Welch is excited about the new product and hopes to upgrade his studio’s systems, but he hopes Apple’s “risky” bet to depend heavily on Thunderbolt for expansion pushes the companies that make hard drives, PCI cards and other peripherals to support the connection technology.

    But Chris Layhe of CLAi, a San Francisco post-production studio, is less impressed.

    “Basically, it’s two Mac Minis tied together in a cylinder,” he said. “It’s a load of rubbish. The things that we need in the film and video business, everything’s dependent on cards.”

    Users of the new Mac Pro may want to stray outside Apple’s closed system. Layhe, who has been shooting and editing film for 28 years, has seven Macs at his company. He is in the process of building a “hackintosh” — a custom PC that uses the same cards and boards found in a Mac that can run Mac software, but has more USB slots and can take additional cards. These unofficial systems can cost as little as $1,500 to build.

    “We don’t want to switch to PC because a lot of the software we use is Mac only, and we’ve been Mac users for a long, long time,” said Layhe, adding that all his backups and stored video are Mac compatible.

    Launched in 2006, the Mac Pro is one of Apple’s priciest products, starting at $2,499 for the most basic setup. Many creatives who need to squeeze the maximum amount of power out of their machines get custom Mac Pro configurations, which can go as high as $12,000, not including monitors or accessories.

    A price hasn’t been announced for the new Mac Pro. Monday’s unveiling was just an early preview, and the computer won’t be available until later this year.

    Pro users are a small part of Apple’s business. Only 19% of the company’s revenue in the first quarter of this year came from Macs. That’s just shy of the 21% it made selling iPads and a far cry from the 49% it made on the iPhone.

    When Mac Pros were struggling, it was creatives who gave the brand some of its respectability and a cool factor. For now, they are enjoying a rare bit of attention from Apple and hoping for the best.

    “We’re all glad that they came out with a Pro tower at all,” Welch said. “I think we were all fearful that they would abandon the pro community.”

    agencies

  • Mali Lifts State of Emergency

    {{Mali has lifted a state of emergency in place since January, when France intervened to help drive out Islamists occupying the north, officials say.}}

    The move comes after Mali’s army re-entered the key town of Kidal, held by Tuareg rebels, to improve security ahead of the presidential election.

    Rebels agreed to allow troops into the northern town as part of a peace deal.

    The election on 28 July will be the first in Mali since the military staged a coup in 2012.

    The occupation of Kidal had been a major obstacle to organising the presidential election.

    Tuareg rebels captured the town after the French-led offensive forced militant Islamists out of northern Mali in February.

    {agencies}

  • Vatican Announces John Paul II & John XXIII Will be Saints

    {{The late Pope John Paul II will be made a saint, the Vatican has said, announcing that Pope Francis had approved a second miracle attributed to the Polish pontiff, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005.}}

    The Vatican said on Friday that Pope John XXIII, who reigned from 1958 to 1963 and called the Second Vatican Council – which enacted sweeping reforms to modernise the Church – would also be made a saint.

    No dates for the canonisation ceremonies were immediately given but the Vatican said they were expected by the end of the year.

    John Paul had already been credited with asking God to cure French nun Marie Simon-Pierre Normand of Parkinson’s disease, which helped lead to his beatification in 2011, when he was declared a “blessed” of the Church.

    Two confirmed miracles are usually required under Vatican rules for the declaration of a saint.

    The second miracle attributed to John Paul’s intercession is the inexplicable curing of a woman from Costa Rica who prayed to him for help with her medical condition on the day of his beatification.

    Details of that miracle were due to be announced in Costa Rica on Friday.

    {wirestory}

  • Dozens of Students Killed in Nigeria Attack

    {{At least 29 students and one teacher have been killed in an attack by gunmen on a boarding school in Nigeria’s northeast, media reported.}}

    Survivors being treated for burn and gunshots wounds said some students were burned alive in the attack on the Government Secondary School in Mamudo town in Yobe state early on Saturday.

    As he wept over the bodies of his two boys, farmer Malam Abdullahi swore he would withdraw three remaining sons from a nearby school.

    He complained there was no protection for students despite the deployment of thousands of troops since the government declared a state of emergency mid-May in three northeastern states.

    Dozens of schools have been torched and unknown scores of students killed among more than 1,600 victims slain by armed groups since 2010.

    {Aljazeera}

  • Syrian troops advance in rebel-held parts of Homs

    {{Syrian troops have advanced into rebel-held areas of the city of Homs, occupying buildings after pummeling the area with artillery that drove out opposition fighters, an activist said Saturday.}}

    The push into Khaldiyeh district was the first significant gain for troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, who have been waging an eight-day campaign to seize parts of the central Syrian city in rebel hands for over a year.

    Tariq Badrakhan, an activist based in the neighborhood, said government troops used rockets, mortars and cannon fire to flush out the area’s “first line of defenses” on Friday evening.

    The offensive continued Saturday morning, he said via Skype, as explosions were heard in the background.

    “We feel like they are shaking the sky,” Badrakhan said.

    Another activist said eight rebels were killed in the fighting. He requested anonymity because rebels have accused him in the past of damaging their morale by reporting their casualties.

    Syria has been embroiled in a civil war since a peaceful uprising against the Assad regime two years ago turned into armed revolt after a violent government crackdown.

    Government forces, sometimes bolstered by fighters of the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, have launched a major countrywide offensive to reclaim territory lost to rebels, who operate in chaotic groups with ideologies ranging from secular to hardline Islamic extremists.

    Hardline Sunni Muslims from other countries have also joined the fighting, which has left more than 93,000 people dead.

    AP