Author: IGIHE

Flight ministry sees uptick in aid requests as DRC violence continues

{DRC (MNN) — In 2016, the Democratic Republic of the Congo had more newly-displaced people than Syria or Iraq. According to the latest Global Report on Internal Displacement by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 966,000 people fled their homes in the DRC last year, making it the largest group of displaced people from 2016.}

What caused such a massive upset of the country’s people? National tensions had already been building in the DRC leading up to their elections, which were supposed to take place in November 2016. But then President Joseph Kabila refused to step down from his position in December, stirring up a lot of political outrage. Now the election postponement could take even longer as the nation’s budget minister essentially says they can’t afford the $1.8 billion it would cost to hold the elections.

The outrage has led to multiple protests, and clashes between ethnic groups and the militia. Just in the last five months in the DRC’s central Kasai region, over 500 rebels and security forces were killed. Investigators with the United Nations have discovered several mass graves since the unrest began.

Nick Frey with Mission Aviation Fellowship in the DRC explains, “The violence, first of all, in the Kasai region has been ramping up for the last few months…. two UN employees, one American and a Swedish woman, were kidnapped and eventually killed in the region. So that really brought international attention and forced the international community to get more involved.”

The last civil war in the DRC ended in 2003, but there are new fears that recent tensions could lead to another civil war.

MAF works to fly ministry partners and humanitarian workers into remote regions in the countries they serve to bring aid, supplies, and share God’s love. The MAF team in the DRC has continued their aviation services, even since the start of the unrest.

“Since then, we’ve done a handful of flights. I think we’re up to somewhere around 10 to 15 flights now to the region, mostly for medical teams that are going to work in hospitals there. Sometimes we’re taking vaccinations and medications and other things, and then mostly health staff — doctors, nurses, logistics people — to and from so they can help the internally displaced people in the region and the other people affected by the violence.”

So where does the Gospel come in? Frey says it’s in everything they do, from how the aviation staff conducts themselves to the conversations they have.

“Before we fly, for example, we give the pre-flight briefing for the passengers and then we always start with a prayer. So that’s a perfect opportunity to pray for the country, pray for the people affected, pray for the passengers and the work they’re going to be doing in the humanitarian area, and then integrate God’s grace into that.

“[We] thank Him for the daily grace He gives us, for Jesus dying on the cross, and for the hope that is found in Him that is so much more solid than hoping in international aid groups that can come and save us for a day, but not save our souls. So there’s doors into all kinds of really great conversations that we’ve been having with these humanitarian aid workers.”

However, the MAF team in the DRC has still faced challenges. The biggest one Frey shares is the need for more hands on deck.

“With this current increase in flight requests, we’ve been really short-staffed. So we don’t have a lot of pilots and mechanics right now. It’s a constant need in MAF around the world. Most of the programs I know about are understaffed in terms of pilots and mechanics, especially maintenance specialists. So that’s a real need right now. We have pilots flying five and six days a week, and we all have other duties to maintain. We have lives here, and our children are here, and our families are here. It just takes a lot of time to pull all this off and it’s pretty straining on our program.”

Interested in service or career opportunities with MAF? Click here to see the listings at their website!

But most of all, they could really use your prayers — for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the people they serve, the partners they serve with, and the MAF ministry.

“We would really appreciate prayers for the country. It’s been a year of much instability in different regions and different areas, including the city of Kinshasa where our main base is. So we really covet prayers for the country, for the country’s leaders…. We really appreciate prayers for peace and for opportunities to share Christ’s love with people on a daily basis and to point people in the direction of real hope.”

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Source:Mission Network

May 26, 2017
Nyamwasa to seek new SA refugee status

{The Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein has granted an order that withdraws the refugee status of a former Rwandan Army Chief of Staff, Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa. He will now have to make a fresh application for refugee status in South Africa.}

An agreement was reached in the Appeal Court on Wednesday between the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants (CORMSA) and the Litigation Centre as appellants and the Department of Home Affairs as respondent.

The matter was taken to the Appeal Court by the NGO CORMSA who argued that Nyamwasa’s refugee status be withdrawn and reviewed because of claims that he was a party to war crimes.

He should therefore not be granted refugee status as suspected perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity were ineligible.

Nyamwasa fled to South Africa in 2010. He survived an assassination attempt in South Africa.

He was accused of committing war crimes in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The High Court in Pretoria dismissed CORMSA’s application to set aside the South African government’s 2010 decision to grant him refugee status.

Before Justice AzharCachalia read out the court’s order, the parties present in court first deliberated for about an hour. Below is the order read out by Justice AzharCachalia:

“The decision taken in June 2010 by the ninth respondent to grant KayumbaNyamwasa refugee status in term of the refugees act is reviewed and set aside.”

KaajalRamjathan-Keiog of the Centre of Litigation welcomed the development:

“This matter was brought to protect the integrity of the refugees system in South Africa. It’s important for the refugee system to be there to protect vulnerable individuals and persons fleeing persecution and anybody who is suspected of having committed a war crime should not be offered protection within the system and this is the reason why CORMSA and Southern Africa Litigation centre (SALC) and the Wits Law clinic brought the matter originally.”

The family of Nyamwasa is upset about the allegations and plans to sue. His brother-in-law, Frank NtwaliNyamwasa attended the court proceedings and had this to say:

“We are going to sue Kaajal in her personal capacity for defamation. She keeps calling the general a war criminal. She will have her day in court where she will have to substantiate her allegations.”

Nyamwasa now has to re-apply for refugee status.

This means the legal process on whether he remains in South Africa or is declared persona-non-grata will restart.

His family also believes that the attempts on his life in the past have been politically motivated.

[Nyamwasa to seek new SA refugee status ->http://www.sabc.co.za/news/a/e4aeb60041419081975d9f47c5f82b19/Faustin-Nyamwasa-to-seek-new-refugee-status-in-S-A-]

Source:SABC

May 26, 2017
RDF inaugurates 32 affordable houses built by reservists

{The Minister of Defence, General James Kabarebe has officiated the inauguration of 32 affordable houses built by Rwanda Defence Force Reservists affiliated Company, ABADAHIGWA KU NTEGO Ltd. The inaugurated houses were constructed near Kabuga suburb, in Butangampundu village, Gako Cell, Masaka Sector, Kicukiro District.}

In his key note address during the inauguration yesterday, Gen Kabarebe congratulated ABADAHIGWA KU NTEGO Ltd and other stakeholders for their collaborative efforts in availing such low cost houses. In particular, Hon Minister of Defense commended the Veterans/Reservists for their continued commitment to national transformation and loyalty to the guidance of president Paul Kagame on the national transformation he delivered back in 1992. “It is our Army (RPA) that will be the foundation of the transformation of our nation”, The Commander-in-Chief stated at that time.

The Minister further urged ABADAHIGWA KU NTEGO Ltd to keep it up, among other things avoiding any mismanagement of their assets and other differences that might hinder the Company’s development. He also suggested that the Company and other potential investors in this sector think about owners of the expropriated lands and make them Partners of the Project.

“You should think and come up with a platform whereby the expropriated citizens can be given the opportunity of acquiring on the same land their own affordable house but in line with the City Master Plan”, Gen Kabarebe said.

All the 32 housing units (four-in-one) have already attracted clients: 13 of them have already been fully paid for, whereas 19 of them have been booked and certainly ready to be paid within a week. Each unit is worth 18.6 Million rwandan francs according to Willy Rukundo, Managing Director of ABADAHIGWA KU NTEGO Ltd. The three bedrooms affordable houses benefited from government subsidiaries especially Rwanda Housing Authority that made the houses really affordable. Those facilities include electricity, water, sewage, roads and other essential needs for decent and modern accommodation facilities.

ABADAHIGWA KU NTEGO Ltd is a Company limited by shares that was created by the Kigali Veterans Cooperative Society (KVCS) as the main shareholder. The Company mission focuses on creating a more human environment where poverty is alleviated by improving welfare of all reservists, the youth (through Iwawa rehabilitation Centre) and women through their different activities. It is in this context that 60 young men and girls from Iwawa Youth rehabilitation Centre and vulnerable women were employed during the construction phase of the inaugurated affordable houses.

Source:Minadef

May 26, 2017
Three arrested trafficking narcotic drugs

{Police in Kirehe District have arrested three people including a woman, who had allegedly trafficked 115 kilogrammes of cannabis into the country.
}

Police spokesperson for the Eastern Province, Inspector of Police (IP) Emmanuel Kayigi identified the suspects as Francois Nyandwi, 43, Elia Nsabimana, 33, and Clemance Uwimana, 25.

“On May 24, information received from residents lead to the arrest of Nyandwi and Nsabimana in Nyamiyumba Village of Saruhembe Cell in Mahama Sector. We recovered 100kgs of cannabis from them,” IP Kayigi said.

“We have since established that Nyandwi and Nsabimana had a cannabis plantation across the border in Kimisi game reserve in Karagwe, Tanzania,” he added.

In March this year, Rwanda National Police and Tanzania Police Force signed a memorandum of understanding, partly to fight drug trafficking and to destroy cannabis plantations in Tanzanian areas that neighbors Rwanda.

Uwimana, on the other hand, was arrested separately in the same police operation with 15kgs.

The arrest comes at a time when RNP is conducting countrywide campaign as part of ‘Police Week 17’ which was officially launched in Kirehe, to raise awareness against illicit drugs, among others.

In a related development, Police in Nyagatare District also destroyed an assortment of contrabands estimated at over Rwf4.6 million.

The contrabands include 190 cartons of Zebra, Africa Gin, and 70 liters of Kanyanga.

“The campaigns and operations against illicit drugs continue. We know the routes used by traffickers, and residents are playing a significant role in identifying and arresting traffickers,” said IP Kayigi.

Source:Police

May 26, 2017
Ministers Nyirasafari, Biruta call for strengthened neighborhood watch

{The ministers; Esperance Nyirasafari of Gender and Family Promotion, and Dr Vincent Biruta of the Natural Resources have called on beneficiaries of solar power systems donated by Rwanda National Police (RNP) to ensure they are well maintained become anti-crime ambassadors.}

The two ministers made the call separately as they presided over the handover of solar energy systems to residents of Kamonyi and Ngororero districts, respectively.

In Kamonyi, the solar power systems we distributed to 120 homes in Nyagihamba Village in Kambyeyi Cell, Nyarubaka sector and also connected Nyagihamba Health Center.

More 122 houses of Rubindi Village in Sovu Sector in Ngororero were also connected with solar home systems.

Also in Kamonyi, RNP together with members of Rwanda Youth Volunteers in Community Policing commenced the construction of a house for a disadvantaged woman and removed another in Nyarubaka Sector.

Minister Nyirasafari, while speaking in Kamonyi, reminded thousands of residents who had showed up to witness the handover of solar systems that although these solar power systems contribute tremendously to improving the welfare of the beneficiaries, they also have a security connotation where crimes committed at night and facilitated by darkness, will reduce.

The event was also attended by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Emmanuel K. Gasana and the Governor of the Southern Province Marie Rose Mureshyankwano, among others

“Contribution to security starts with ensuring the safety of your neighbors, reporting Gender Based Violence, Child Abuse, Human trafficking and drug users and sellers,” Minister Nyirasafari said.

She reminded that every Rwandan has a right to live safely that several measures adopted by Police like establishment of anti-narcotics directorate, anti-GBV Unit, Isange One Stop Center, Community Policing Committees and several others are all in the interest of building a safer society and ensuring that people’s rights are protected and promoted.

Addressing residents, IGP Gasana said: “Through partnership with citizens, Rwanda achieved a lot including effective policing. Today, all Rwandan are living safely and our country is well protected. That spirit of community policing should continue to thrive.”

In Ngororero, Minister Biruta reminded thousands of residents who had gathered in Rubindi Village of Musenyi in Sovu that their contribution to community policing is paramount and urged them to keep up the momentum.

He emphasized the need to protect the environment singling out illegal and substandard mining, cutting of trees, wild fire and burning of waste in gardens as some of environmental degradation and unlawful acts that should be fought by reporting those involved to police.

The Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Administration and Personnel, Juvenal Marizamunda also spoke about the role of residents in combating crimes like drug trafficking and abuse, and urged them to be agents of change in security and development.

The Governor of the Western Province Alphonse Munyantwari also attended the event in Ngororero in which Umuganda was conducted to rehabilitate feeder roads.

Source:Police

May 26, 2017
Off-the-shelf, power-generating clothes are almost here

{Scientists introduce coating that turns fabrics into circuits}

A lightweight, comfortable jacket that can generate the power to light up a jogger at night may sound futuristic, but materials scientist Trisha Andrew at the University of Massachusetts Amherst could make one today. In a new paper this month, she and colleagues outline how they have invented a way to apply breathable, pliable, metal-free electrodes to fabric and off-the-shelf clothing so it feels good to the touch and also transports enough electricity to power small electronics.

She says, “Our lab works on textile electronics. We aim to build up the materials science so you can give us any garment you want, any fabric, any weave type, and turn it into a conductor. Such conducting textiles can then be built up into sophisticated electronics. One such application is to harvest body motion energy and convert it into electricity in such a way that every time you move, it generates power.” Powering advanced fabrics that can monitor health data remotely are important to the military and increasingly valued by the health care industry, she notes.

Generating small electric currents through relative movement of layers is called triboelectric charging, explains Andrew, who trained as a polymer chemist and electrical engineer. Materials can become electrically charged as they create friction by moving against a different material, like rubbing a comb on a sweater. “By sandwiching layers of differently materials between two conducting electrodes, a few microwatts of power can be generated when we move,” she adds.

In the current early online edition of Advanced Functional Materials, she and postdoctoral researcher Lu Shuai Zhang in her lab describe the vapor deposition method they use to coat fabrics with a conducting polymer, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxytiophene) also known as PEDOT, to make plain-woven, conducting fabrics that are resistant to stretching and wear and remain stable after washing and ironing. The thickest coating they put down is about 500 nanometers, or about 1/10 the diameter of a human hair, which retains a fabric’s hand feel.

The authors report results of testing electrical conductivity, fabric stability, chemical and mechanical stability of PEDOT films and textile parameter effects on conductivity for 14 fabrics, including five cottons with different weaves, linen and silk from a craft store.

“Our article describes the materials science needed to make these robust conductors,” Andrew says. “We show them to be stable to washing, rubbing, human sweat and a lot of wear and tear.” PEDOT coating did not change the feel of any fabric as determined by touch with bare hands before and after coating. Coating did not increase fabric weight by more than 2 percent. The work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Until recently, she and Zhang point out, textile scientists have tended not to use vapor deposition because of technical difficulties and high cost of scaling up from the laboratory. But over the last 10 years, industries such as carpet manufacturers and mechanical component makers have shown that the technology can be scaled up and remain cost-effective. The researchers say their invention also overcomes the obstacle of power-generating electronics mounted on plastic or cladded, veneer-like fibers that make garments heavier and/or less flexible than off-the-shelf clothing “no matter how thin or flexible these device arrays are.”

“There is strong motivation to use something that is already familiar, such as cotton/silk thread, fabrics and clothes, and imperceptibly adapting it to a new technological application.” Andrew adds, “This is a huge leap for consumer products, if you don’t have to convince people to wear something different than what they are already wearing.”

Test results were sometimes a surprise, Andrew notes. “You’d be amazed how much stress your clothes go through until you try to make a coating that will survive a shirt being pulled over the head. The stress can be huge, up to a thousand newtons of force. For comparison, one footstep is equal to about 10 newtons, so it’s yanking hard. If your coating is not stable, a single pull like that will flake it all off. That’s why we had to show that we could bend it, rub it and torture it. That is a very powerful requirement to move forward.”

Andrew is director of wearable electronics at the Center for Personalized Health Monitoring in UMass Amherst’s Institute of Applied Life Sciences (IALS). Since the basic work reported this month was completed, her lab has also made a wearable heart rate monitor with an off-the-shelf fitness bra to which they added eight monitoring electrodes. They will soon test it with volunteers on a treadmill at the IALS human movement facility.

She explains that a hospital heart rate monitor has 12 electrodes, while the wrist-worn fitness devices popular today have one, which makes them prone to false positives. They will be testing a bra with eight electrodes, alone and worn with leggings that add four more, against a control to see if sensors can match the accuracy and sensitivity of what a hospital can do. As the authors note in their paper, flexible, body-worn electronics represent a frontier of human interface devices that make advanced physiological and performance monitoring possible.

For the future, Andrew says, “We’re working on taking any garment you give us and turning it into a solar cell so that as you are walking around the sunlight that hits your clothes can be stored in a battery or be plugged in to power a small electronic device.”

Zhang and Andrew believe their vapor coating is able to stick to fabrics by a process called surface grafting, which takes advantage of free bonds dangling on the surface chemically bonding to one end of the polymer coating, but they have yet to investigate this fully.

Source:Science Daily

May 26, 2017
Marmoset monkeys learn to call the same way human infants learn to babble

{A baby’s babbles start to sound like speech more quickly if they get frequent vocal feedback from adults. Princeton University researchers have found the same type of feedback speeds the vocal development of infant marmoset monkeys, in the first evidence of such learning in nonhuman primates, researchers report in Current Biology on May 25.}

“We wanted to find out whether the idea that monkeys don’t do any learning during their vocal development is actually true,” says the study’s senior co-author Asif Ghazanfar, a professor of psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. “So we picked a species that we know really relies on vocalizations as its primary social signals. What we found in marmoset vocal development very closely parallels pre-linguistic vocal development in humans.”

Although marmoset vocal calls do not approach the complexity of human language systems, vocal development in both species begins with infants making more or less random sounds.

“When an infant blurts out something and the parent responds, that’s a contingent response. And the more often a parent provides that contingent response, the faster the human infant will develop its vocalizations,” Ghazanfar says.

To find out whether the same principle held true for marmosets, Ghazanfar and his colleagues set up an experiment using pairs of fraternal twin marmosets, small, highly social monkeys from South America. Starting from the day after the marmosets were born, the researchers would separate the infants from the adult marmosets for 40 minutes each day. In the first 10 minutes, they recorded the noises that the infant marmosets made while sitting alone. Then, for the next half hour, the researchers gave the young marmosets contingent feedback in the form of audio playbacks of the parent’s calls.

One twin in each pair got consistent feedback, mirroring what a young marmoset would receive from an especially attentive parent; the other twin got less consistent feedback on their vocalizations. They repeated these experiments up until the infants were 2 months old, roughly the equivalent of 2 years old in marmoset years.

Even though these sessions lasted less than an hour each day, infant marmosets that received lots of contingent feedback developed adult-sounding calls more rapidly than their siblings.

“When they’re infants, this call is really noisy,” Ghazanfar says. “It sounds kind of coarse, and then gradually it becomes very clean and tonal like an adult call.”

Previous studies had found a correlation between the amount of feedback marmosets get from parents and the rate of vocal development, but the experimental design in this study more firmly establishes the causality between parental responses and vocal development, the researchers say.

“This system of vocal learning production may be linked to the idea that an infant that more quickly produces adult-sounding calls is more likely to get care from a caregiver in a cooperative breeding environment where multiple individuals could be that caregiver in addition to the parents,” Ghazanfar says. “So it’s not only this process of learning that’s similar to humans; the whole reproductive strategy is similar to humans.”

The researchers’ next steps will include collecting more detailed data on marmosets’ neural activity when they are chattering or calling to neighbors, he says.

Even though marmosets can’t “talk” in the same way humans do, understanding marmoset communication may help us understand the evolution and development of speech.

“Vocal production learning isn’t just about imitation,” Ghazanfar saus. “And you can no longer say that nonhuman primates shows no evidence of vocal learning.”

Source:Science Daily

May 26, 2017
Mountain honey bees have ancient adaptation for high-altitude foraging

{Despite differences, mountain and savannah honey bees in East Africa are same sub-species}

Mountain-dwelling East African honey bees have distinct genetic variations compared to their savannah relatives that likely help them to survive at high altitudes, report Martin Hasselmann of the University of Hohenheim, Germany, Matthew Webster of Uppsala University, Sweden, and colleagues May 25th, 2017, in PLOS Genetics.

Honey bees living in the mountain forests of East Africa look and behave differently from bees inhabiting the surrounding lowland savannahs. Mountain bees are larger, darker and less aggressive than savannah bees, and can fly at lower temperatures and conserve honey when flowers aren’t blooming. To understand the genetic basis for these high-altitude adaptations, researchers sequenced the genomes of 39 bees from two highland and two lowland populations in Kenya. The genomes of all the populations are highly similar, but two regions located on chromosome 7 and 9 show consistent differences between bees living in high and low-altitude environments. The segment on chromosome 7 contains e.g. receptor genes for a neurotransmitter called octopamine, which plays a role in learning and foraging. The clear divergence of these two genetic variations suggests that they have an ancient origin and likely existed in bee populations before the groups spread their mountain and savannah habitats.

This comprehensive study of the genomes of high-altitude honey bees in Kenya reveals novel insights into their evolutionary history and the genetic basis of local adaptation. Scientists had thought that mountain and savannah populations were each distinct sub-species. The high degree of similarity in their genomes, as revealed in the current study, shows that they constantly interbreed. The highly diverged segments likely represent structural rearrangements, such as inversions, in which the exchange of genetic material is suppressed. Previous studies have identified octopamine as an important signaling molecule in other insects living in low temperature and low oxygen conditions.

Martin Hasselmann adds: “Our findings complement several other landmark studies (for example in Heliconius butterflies and Solenopsis ants) where adaptations have been similarly tied to structural variants or supergenes. However, this phenomenon has never been documented in honey bees before. Our results should therefore spur further research into the role of supergenes in environmental adaptation. We are planning now to measure the distribution of these divergent segments in other geographic locations and to elucidate the functional link of these genes with behavior.”

Source:Science Daily

May 26, 2017
Kagame receives Wharton Business School students

{President Paul Kagame has received a delegation of 30 students from Wharton Business School who are on a study trip on Rwanda’s development.}

The delegation which arrived in Rwanda on 23rd May will conclude the visit on 27th May 2017.

After holding exclusive talks with president Kagame, the CEO of Rwanda Development Board (RDB), Clare Akamanzi told the media that the students are learning from various areas of developments attained in Rwanda following the 1994 genocide against Tutsi.

“They have learnt the role of leadership in development. They learnt how leadership decentralization was made possible and how private sector enhances the country’s development,” she said.

Akamanzi explained that students were taken through Rwanda’s home grown solutions including Girinka program, performance contracts among others.

She reiterated that such a visit is important to Rwanda as they can bring in their business operations or conduct advocacy.

“The students may return to invest in the country as a result of identified opportunities after witnessing our best achievements, and the way we facilitate private investors,” he said.

Prof. Katherine Klein, the vice dean of Wharton Social Impact Initiative said students acquired a lot from talks with president Kagame.

“I and my students have been in Rwanda for days where we have been surprised by the country’s development. We acquired lessons from the vision of president Kagame, the way he structured his leadership. We have also drawn attention on challenges and opportunities in the country’s development,” she said.

The students’ itinerary indicates that they will visit Kigali genocide memorial, Trust Industries, Model village in Rweru and Gashora Girls academy among others.

All Photos:Village Urugwiro

May 26, 2017
Presidential polls preparations on course -NEC

{Preparations of upcoming presidential polls slated in August 2017 are on course, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) has reassured. }

“We have had a steady tread in preparations of upcoming presidential elections because we started earlier. Voters’ registers are being updated with great participation of all voters,” said NEC chairperson Prof Kalisa Mbanda.

Prof Mbanda unveiled that members of diaspora were also facilitated to update voters’ register.

“We sat together with stakeholders including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National ID Agency (NIDA), Immigration and Emigration office and outlined guidelines that were sent to embassies to be respected while updating voters’ register . They will use written documents or other platforms used in Rwanda,” he said.

Mbanda reiterated that NEC has already invited election observers from inside and outside the country.

“We sent invitations to all bodies from partner countries that can play a role in elections, embassies representing their countries to Rwanda, commissions from regional countries, civil society among other institutions concerned with elections. Some invitations were confirmed,” he said.

NEC executive secretary, Munyaneza Charles has explained that presidential polls preparations stand above 90%.

“We find preparations standing above 90% considering planned activities. This year, we spent the budget worth Rwf 5.2 billion on polls preparations. The government will give us more Rwf 1.4 billion to complete planned activities including follow up of campaigns, training over 75,000 volunteers and offering civic education courses,” he said.

May 26, 2017