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  • Cape Verde out of World Cup qualifying

    Cape Verde out of World Cup qualifying

    Cape Verde have been disqualified from the African play-offs for the 2014 World Cup for fielding an ineligible player in Saturday’s group qualifier against Tunisia.

    The Tunisians will now be in the draw on 16 September instead of Cape Verde.

    Fifa ruled that Fernando Verela should not have played in his side’s 2-0 win as he had not completed a suspension.

    Football’s world governing body instead awarded Tunisia a 3-0 victory.

    The decision means Tunisia finish top of Group B with 14 points, with Cape Verde second on nine points.

    Fifa said Verela “failed to serve a four-match suspension imposed on him after receiving a red card for unsporting conduct towards a match official during a World Cup qualifier on 24 March”.

    Cape Verde Football Association has also been fined $6,400.

    The Blue Sharks had caused a major upset with their victory in Rades on Saturday to edge ahead of Tunisia, who had only needed a draw to advance.

    With a population of just 505,000 if the islanders had gone onto eventually qualify for Brazil next year they would have been the smallest ever African nation to play at the World Cup.

    Ironically, Cape Verde were awarded the points from the match in March, when Varela was sent off, after Fifa ruled opponents Equatorial Guinea had used an ineligible player.

    Equatorial Guinea originally won the match 4-3 only for the result to be overturned when Fifa decided Emilio Nsue Lopez did not meet eligibility rules on nationality.

    Tunisia believed they had progressed to the play-offs in June after a 1-1 draw in Equatorial Guinea only to be denied by the sanctions imposed for the use of Nsue.

    agencies

  • Twitter Plans Stock Market Listing

    Twitter Plans Stock Market Listing

    {{Twitter says it plans to join the stock market in the most hotly anticipated flotation since Facebook’s last year.}}

    Referring to the official paperwork needed to join the market the company tweeted: “We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned [initial public offering].”

    Investors value Twitter, founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams, at more than $10bn (£6.3bn).

    Twitter gave no further details as to the timing or price of the offering.

    It is on track to post $583 million in revenue in 2013, according to advertising consultancy eMarketer.

    Once a company has filed paperwork with US regulators for a planned IPO it enters a so-called “quiet period” when it is not allowed to speak with the press.

    According to the Securities and Exchanges Commission’s website, a company can file a confidential prospectus for a public share sale if it is classified as an “emerging growth company” with revenue of less than $1bn.

    wirestory

  • Qatar rejects 2022 World Cup concerns

    Qatar rejects 2022 World Cup concerns

    {{The head of the Qatar 2022 World Cup has rejected calls for the tournament to be awarded to another country.}}

    Governing body Fifa is expected to move the tournament to winter to avoid Qatar’s high summer temperatures.

    And Football Association chairman Greg Dyke said the tournament might have to move location if a suitable time to play in Qatar could not be agreed.

    But Hassan al-Thawadi insists there is “no reason” why Qatar should not host the event as planned in 2022.

    “We’ve worked very, very hard to ensure we’re within the rules of the bidding, within the rules of the hosting agreement,” he told media.

    “At the same time we’re delivering on all the promises that we’ve made. We’re working very hard to deliver it. The commitment is there.”

    Fifa president Sepp Blatter is determined to switch the 2022 World Cup to the winter as summer temperatures can reach 50C in the Middle Eastern country.

    Blatter, 77, has admitted the governing body may have made a “mistake” in awarding the tournament to Qatar in the summer.

    “[Qatar] is the right place, the Middle East is the right place,” said Al-Thawadi, who is Secretary General of the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee.

    “We are representing the Middle East, it is a Middle Eastern World Cup, so it is the right place. The Middle East deserves to host a major tournament.”

    FA chairman Dyke told media in August that a summer World Cup in Qatar, who defeated rival bids from South Korea, Japan, Australia and the United States in December 2010, would be “impossible”.

    The Premier League has taken an opposing stance, with chief executive Richard Scudamore insisting the tournament should go ahead in the summer.

    However, Europe’s leading clubs have said they are “open” to the possibility of a winter World Cup in Qatar in 2022.

    Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chairman of the European Club Association (ECA) believes it is “probably” better to switch the finals to winter.

    The ECA is an independent body representing the interests of Europe’s leading clubs. Ten English clubs are members – Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle and Tottenham.

    BBCsport

  • Abu Dhabi Commits Record $5Bln to Russian Infrastructure

    Abu Dhabi Commits Record $5Bln to Russian Infrastructure

    {{Another Arab investor on Thursday tentatively agreed to set foot in Russia, setting a record with its possible commitment of $5 billion}}.

    The emirate of Abu Dhabi’s Department of Finance will invest in a partnership with the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the fund said in a statement.

    Announced during a meeting of President Vladimir Putin and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the partnership deal calls for joint financing to build roads, ports and other Russian infrastructure.

    The potential contribution of the Arab partners has elicited a superlative description from Kirill Dmitriyev, the chief of the Russian fund.

    “Their $5 billion contribution is the largest investment from the Middle East ever made into Russia as well as one of the largest into an infrastructure fund globally,” he said in the statement.

    Hamad Mohammed Al Hurr Al Suwaidi, chairman of the Abu Dhabi Department of Finance, said the commitment to invest up to $5 billion reflected Abu Dhabi’s belief in the returns from the future investment in Russian infrastructure.

    Crown Prince Al Nahyan used an infrastructure notion to comment on the agreement.

    “I thank you, your excellency, for giving us a chance to build this new bridge for relations with Russia,” he said in the meeting with Putin, according to a transcript on the Kremlin website.

    The partnership emerged not long after Mubadala, another fund from Abu Dhabi, in June agreed to invest up to $1 billion alongside the Russian Direct Investment Fund. Last year, the Kuwait Investment Authority pledged $500 million to a joint fund with the Russian investment vehicle.

    The Kremlin said Wednesday in a statement, which announced the crown prince’s visit, that Russia and Abu Dhabi had completed building the legal groundwork that would make Arab investors feel more comfortable putting money into Russian projects.

    A bilateral agreement to protect mutual investments took effect in August, while an agreement that regulates taxation of investment returns entered into force in July.

    Vladislav Senkovich, an Arab relations expert at the international economic cooperation department of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, expressed reservations about the prospects of tapping Arab money.

    He said the earlier agreements of joint investment, which did not involve the Russian Direct Investment Fund, did not materialize.

    Senkovich pointed to two separate deals that state corporation Rostec signed in 2010 with seaport operator Gulftainer and real estate developer Damac Holding for the Arab companies to invest $500 million and $300 million in Russia, respectively.

    Speaking of the latest partnership, he said, “No money has been transferred yet. … It’s early to give rosy comments, for the time being.”

    On the other hand, Gulftainer has taken on an investment commitment in Russia on its own. In September 2011, it announced it would operate the port of Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea and plough $275 million in its development. It did not say if that meant taking a stake in the port.

    Earlier this year, Gulftainer vice-chairman Badr Jafar said the company was in talks with the government and private companies in Russia to expand its operations, Bloomberg reported.

    The expansion, if any, will not necessarily be only into new ports, but could also target related logistics including in-land container depots and rail, he said.

    In addition to Rostec, another state corporation that is interested in attracting Arab capital is Russian Railways. Its vice-president Alexander Saltanov said in June that the company was negotiating with the Bahraini Riyada Group.

    {The Moscow Times }

  • US-Russia talks on Syrian Chemical Weapons Continue

    US-Russia talks on Syrian Chemical Weapons Continue

    {{The United States and Russia began high-stakes talks on Thursday on Moscow’s plan for Syria to surrender its chemical weapons as Damascus formally applied to join a global poison gas ban, but Secretary of State John Kerry underscored that U.S. military force may still be necessary if diplomacy fails.}}

    “This is not a game,” Kerry said in an appearance with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after opening talks in Geneva aimed at fleshing out Russia’s plan to secure and dispose of Syria’s stockpiles of chemical arms.

    The talks were part of a diplomatic push that prompted President Barack Obama to put on hold plans for U.S. air strikes in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians near Damascus on Aug. 21.

    The United States and its allies say Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces carried out the attack with sarin nerve gas, killing more than 1,400 people, including 400 children. Russia and Assad blame rebel forces.

    The United Nations said it received a document from Syria on joining the global anti-chemical weapons treaty, a move Assad promised as part of a deal to avoid U.S. air strikes.

    The move would end Syria’s status as one of only seven nations outside the 1997 international convention that outlaws stockpiling chemical weapons. Other holdouts include neighbours Egypt and Israel, as well as North Korea.

    The United States immediately warned Syria against stalling tactics to avoid military strikes. Assad told Russian state television in an interview broadcast on Thursday he would finalise plans to abandon his chemical arsenal only when the United States stops threatening to attack him.

    Kerry expressed some optimism about the talks in Geneva – expected to last two days – saying, “We do believe there is a way to get this done” and that the United States was “grateful” for ideas put forward by Russia to resolve the crisis.

    But he and Lavrov differed sharply on U.S. military threats.

    “We proceed from the fact that the solution of this problem will make unnecessary any strike on the Syrian Arab Republic,” Lavrov said during the appearance with Kerry.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been Assad’s most powerful backer during the civil war, which has killed more than 100,000 people since 2011, delivering arms and – with China – blocking three U.N. resolutions meant to pressure Assad.

    {France24}

  • Al Qaeda Calls for Attacks inside United States

    Al Qaeda Calls for Attacks inside United States

    {{Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri urged small-scale attacks inside the United States to “bleed America economically”, adding he hoped eventually to see a more significant strike, according to the SITE monitoring service.}}

    In an audio speech released online a day after the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 strikes, Zawahri said attacks “by one brother or a few of the brothers” would weaken the U.S. economy by triggering big spending on security, SITE reported.

    Western counter-terrorism chiefs have warned that radicalized “lone wolves” who might have had no direct contact with al Qaeda posed as great a risk as those who carried out complex plots like the 9/11 attacks.

    “We should bleed America economically by provoking it to continue in its massive expenditure on its security, for the weak point of America is its economy, which has already begun to stagger due to the military and security expenditure,” he said.

    Keeping America in such a state of tension and anticipation only required a few disparate attacks “here and there”, he said

    “As we defeated it in the gang warfare in Somalia, Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan, so we should follow it with …war on its own land. These disparate strikes can be done by one brother or a few of the brothers.”

    At the same time, Muslims should seize any opportunity to land “a large strike” on the United States, even if this took years of patience.

    The Sept 11, 2011 attacks, in which hijacked airliners were flown into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon in Washington and a Pennsylvania field, triggered a global fight against al Qaeda extremists and their affiliates. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.

    In his audio speech, Zawahri said Muslims should refuse to buy goods from America and its allies, as such spending only helped to fund U.S. military action in Muslim lands.

    reuters

  • Kagame Proposes Candidates for new Prosecutor General

    Kagame Proposes Candidates for new Prosecutor General

    {{President Paul Kagame has nominated Richard Muhumuza and Agnes Mukagashugi for the positions of prosecutor general and deputy prosecutor general, respectively.}}

    If confirmed by the Senate after a hearing, Muhumuza will replace Martin Ngoga.

    Mukagashugi get the senators nod, she will replace Alphonse Hitiyaremye, who was nominated, alongside two others, as a Supreme Court judge.

    Both Muhumuza and Mukagashugi are currently senior prosecutors at the National Public Prosecution Authority. Both the prosecutor general and the deputy have a term of five years renewable once.

    Charles Kaliwabo, the spokesperson of the Judiciary was nominated to the position of the President of the High Court, which has been practically vacant since the now-Justice minister Johnston Busingye moved to EAC as a principle judge more than a year ago.

    Emmanuel Kamere was nominated president of the Commercial Court, with Fanfan Rwanyindo Kayirangwa nominated to deputise him.

    Kamere, once approved by the Senate, will take over from Benoït Gakwaya Gatete who was nominated as a Supreme Court judge. Another nominee for Supreme Court (judge) is Justin Gakwaya.

    Meanwhile, the Cabinet meeting also appointed former EAC ministry permanent secretary George William Kayonga as director general, National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB), replacing Corneille Ntakirutimana, who was acting.

    Dr Papias Malimba Musafiri, the Acting Rector of the School of Finance and Banking (SFB), was named board chairperson of the Energy, Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA) with Clementine Umugwaneza named deputy chair.

    Musafiri and Umugwaneza replace Robert Bayigamba and Fabien Majoro, respectively.

    In Media High Council, Alphonse Nkusi was named board chair while Peacemaker Mbungiramihigo replaces Emmanuel Mugisha as executive secretary.

    Vianney Kagabo becomes the first director general of the Agaciro Development Fund (AgDF).

    {Charles Kaliwabo nominated to the position of the President of the High Court}

    {Newtimes}

  • Observers Urge Rwandans to Exercise Voting Rights

    Observers Urge Rwandans to Exercise Voting Rights

    {{Voters in the country have been urged to exercise their civic rights by participating in the forthcoming parliamentary polls; African Union observers have said.}}

    Polls are scheduled to kick off on Monday, during which up to 5,953,531 Rwandans are expected to participate in the general elections. 410 candidates are vying for the 80 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

    About 30 elections observers are in the country mostly from the Pan-African Parliament, African ambassadors /representatives to the AU in Addis Ababa, African electoral management bodies and members of civil society.

    The team of observers will assess and determine whether the elections have been conducted in accordance with the constitutional and legal framework governing elections in Rwanda and determine whether the outcome reflects the will of the people of Rwanda.

    Elections observers : {Newtimes Photo}

  • EDPRS 2 Launches to Push Rwanda to Middle Income

    EDPRS 2 Launches to Push Rwanda to Middle Income

    {{The Government of Rwanda will on Friday, September 13, 2013 at parliament launch the second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS2). }}

    The launch of the EDPRS 2 follows a year-long elaboration process during which a focused strategy has been developed taking into account contributions from a broad range of stakeholders including those of the grassroots population, development partners and the private sector.

    The main objective of the strategy is to accelerate Rwanda’s progress towards a middle income country by rapid and sustainable growth and poverty reduction.

    The strategy further draws on the lessons learned from the first EDPRS which delivered unprecedented success.

    The achievements of the EDPRS were described by Prof. Paul Collier as the “hat trick” of growth, poverty reduction and inequality.

    Growth averaged 8.3% over the last five years, poverty reduced by 12 percentage points and inequality reduced to below the 2001 levels.

    The EDPRS 2 is based on analysis of evidence from national and household level data on important indicators on poverty, health and the population in general.

    To achieve the targets of the EPDRS 2, the strategy focuses on themes of economic transformation for growth, rural development for poverty reduction, accountable governance for efficient service delivery and productivity and youth employment.

    The strategy also includes key issues of a foundational and cross cutting nature that will ensure Rwanda’s development and competitiveness is maintained over the long term in a broad based and inclusive manner. EDPRS 2 places particular emphasis upon community and district-based planning, private sector development and urbanization.

    The launch will provide the opportunity for Rwanda to officially showcase the fundamental components of the EDPRS 2 and to show the Rwandan population the output of this comprehensive consultative process. It will also develop a sense of awareness of what will be required to achieve these targets.

    The event will be marked by the signing of the central and local government contracts that will set out to implement the first year of the EDPRS 2 targets. This will include recognition of outstanding performers in implementing the 2012-13 performance contracts from the final year of EDPRS 1 through a presentation of awards.

    The event is expected to bring together the top leadership of the country at both Central and Local government, as well as invited guests from the international community, members of the Diplomatic corps, development partners, private sector, academia and representatives from local communities. Approximately 700 people will be in attendance.

  • Districts 2012-2013 Performance Evaluation Results to Be Released

    Districts 2012-2013 Performance Evaluation Results to Be Released

    {{“The Office of The President in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government will, today Friday, release publicly the outcome of the 2012-2013 fiscal year performance contracts evaluation and sign the performance contracts for the fiscal year 2013-2014”, the Minister of Local Government revealed.}}

    This follows the three weeks performance evaluation that was carried out in all districts countrywide from July 16th to August 10th, 2013, which evaluation was conducted by a National Team composed of Senior Officials and Experts from different sectoral ministries, public agencies, Civil Society Platform, and Private Sector.

    Nonetheless, this year’s evaluation had a supervisory team composed of Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government, Senior Officials from the Office of The President and Prime Minister’s Office who were monitoring and ensuring efficiency of imihigo evaluation exercise.

    The Minister of Local Government appreciated the level of achievements all Districts showcased and stressed the need to maintain the momentum in this journey of self-reliance.

    “Imihigo program and its annual evaluations findings have promoted the spirit of competitiveness in Local Economic Development; identifying challenges that impede implementation of government priorities and contributes to identifying solutions for fast-tracking socio-economic development whereas identifying best practices”, Minister James Musoni said.

    The just concluded districts performance contracts established the following key highlights; Increased access to both electricity and clean water; increased kilometers
    of public street lights; more efforts put in constructing feeder and tarmac roads; construction of classrooms and teachers’ hostels with citizens’ contribution, 1,739 classrooms and 416 teachers’ hostels were constructed in all districts.

    Besides set imihigo, evaluators assessed how other cross cutting national priorities are performing e.g. reinstating properties for genocide survivors, use of alternative energy sources among the few and key development challenges encountered by Local Governments.

    The total number of activities evaluated was 1846, clustered in pillars of economic development (927); Social Development (381); Governance and Justice (538). The general performance was very impressive in all pillars.

    The Ministry of Local Government will soon get an opportunity to elaborate
    further in the course of the next week and thereafter.

    The average performance is tremendously increasing while the margin between the first and the last districts has been narrowing every successive year.

    The Minister of Local Government, Hon James Musoni, has also outlined the way forward for local governments to keep the development path towards self-reliance:

    “District leaders should maintain the course in improving their planning, coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation and support to lower entities. As we are signing Imihigo for the new fiscal year, local governments understand that, all institutions concerned (both at central and local level) shall consider the challenges observed and address them in the forthcoming planning and budgeting processes”, Minister James Musoni
    observed.

    “Central Government’s support to Districts remains vital, especially on some challenges where districts capacities are too low compared to the need. Now that Imihigo have been institutionalized in central and local governments, we should all join our efforts and have them institutionalized at village and household levels”, Minister James Musoni asserted.