IGIHE

Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

  • Chelsea Manning to be released next week, say lawyers

    {Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted in 2013, has been locked up since May 2010.}

    Former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, who was convicted of stealing classified documents on the war in Iraq and turning them over to WikiLeaks, will be released next week, her lawyers have said.

    Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison after being convicted in 2013, will be released following President Barack Obama’s order commuting her sentence in January just before he left office after more than 115,000 people signed a petition for her release.

    Manning’s representatives could not provide the exact day she will be released, but a White House statement in January said she would be freed on May 17.

    The 29-year-old Army private, formerly known as Bradley Manning, made international headlines after releasing thousands of classified US military documents to WikiLeaks.

    The documents were stolen while Manning worked in Iraq. Their publication by WikiLeaks was one of the largest and most embarrassing leaks of classified information in US history. Manning has been in custody since being arrested in May 2010.

    “Chelsea has already served the longest sentence of any whistle-blower in the history of this country. It has been far too long, too severe, too draconian,” said Manning’s lawyers in a joint statement.

    Manning, who began the process of gender reassignment while in custody, said in a statement she can now see a future for herself as Chelsea.

    “Freedom was only a dream, and hard to imagine. Now it’s here! You kept me alive,” she said on Twitter.

    Manning had reportedly tried to commit suicide and gone on hunger strikes while in custody in a military prison.

    A former intelligence analyst in Iraq, Manning was convicted in 2013 of leaking more than 700,000 secret military and State Department documents and battlefield videos. Manning’s leaks of classified information were among the largest in US history.

    Manning admitted to leaking the materials, arguing that she wanted to expose the US military’s disregard for human rights and the impact of war on civilians. She said she chose information that wouldn’t harm US personnel or security.

    The US government and critics said the leaks put sources in harm’s way.

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • US arming of Kurdish fighters ‘unacceptable’

    {Responding to Trump’s move to send arms supplies to YPG in battle for Raqqa, Turkish official hopes US will ‘turn back’.}

    The US announcement to supply weapons to Kurdish units in Syria is “unacceptable”, Turkey’s deputy prime minister has said in a TV interview.

    Speaking to broadcaster A Haber, Nurettin Canikli said on Wednesday that Turkey “cannot accept the presence of terrorist organisations that would threaten the future of the Turkish state”.

    “We hope the US administration will put a stop to this wrong and turn back from it,” he said.

    Canikli said the US claim that cooperation with the People’s Protection Units (YPG) was the only way to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant ( ISIL ) group in a ground offensive was not based on facts.

    Earlier Dana White, the Pentagon’s chief spokeswoman, said in a written statement that President Donald Trump had authorised the arms shipments on Monday.

    She said Trump’s approval gave the Pentagon the go-ahead to ” equip Kurdish elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as necessary to ensure a clear victory” over ISIL in Raqqa, the group’s self-declared capital in Syria.

    Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkey-Syria border, said this announcement gets right to the heart of Turkey’s security concerns not only in Syria but also in Turkey.

    “Turkey has long considered the YPG, the strongest Kurdish fighting force in Syria along that northern border, to be affiliated with a terrorist organisation,” he said.

    “Last year, Turkey’s operation Euphrates Shield was not only targeting ISIL positions in that area, but was aimed at weakening Kurdish forces along that border”.

    INFOGRAPHIC: Syrian civil war – Who controls what

    The US has said it will closely monitor weapons transfers, and has promised that if arms are smuggled into other areas that could threaten Turkey, the supply will be cut off.

    The SDF was founded in Syria’s mainly Kurdish northeastern region in October 2015 and is made up of at least 15 armed factions, mostly fighters from the YPG and the Free Syrian Army.

    One faction, Ghadab al-Furat launched a campaign in October 2016 to retake Raqqa.

    Last week it said it had taken 90 percent of Tabqa city in Raqqa province.

    The YPG is the main faction battling ISIL, also known as ISIS, on the ground in Syria.

    Turkey says YPG fighters are linked to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) inside Turkey who have waged an armed campaign since 1984 that has killed more than 40,000 people.

    Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said on Tuesday that the US wants to reassure the people and government of Turkey that it is committed to preventing additional security risks and protecting our NATO ally.

    For its part, the YPG praised on Wednesday the “historic” US decision to arm its fighters battling ISIL and said it expected to play a stronger and more influential role in what it called the fight against terrorism.

    “We believe that from now on and after this historic decision, [the YPG] will play a stronger, more influential and more decisive role in combating terrorism at a fast pace,” Redur Xelil, YPG spokesperson, said in a written statement to the Reuters news agency on Wednesday.

    The US says as of March 31, 2017, the total cost of operations related to ISIL since August 8, 2014, is $12.5bn. The average daily cost is $13m for 967 days of operations.

    As of May 3, 2017, the US coalition has conducted a total of 21,065 strikes, including 12,561 in Iraq and 8,504 Syria.

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Ousted FIFA ethics investigator: ‘100s cases ongoing’

    {Officials were ‘investigating wrongdoing’ at world football’s governing body – the focus of numerous corruption cases.}

    A FIFA ethics investigator removed from office has said that his committee was investigating “several hundred” cases of possible wrongdoing, some involving senior officials.

    World football’s governing body recommended on Tuesday that Cornel Borbely, along with the chief ethics judge Hans-Joachim Eckert, not be re-elected at the FIFA Congress, which takes place on May 11 in Bahrain.

    Eckert led the clean-up attempt at the organisation, which has been the focus of numerous corruption allegations, and helped bring down Sepp Blatter as FIFA president.

    The removal of the ethics investigators is a “setback in the fight against corruption” and “means nothing else but the end of the reform process”, Borbely said in Bahrain on Wednesday.

    Borbely earlier said that the “removal was unnecessary and, because of that, political”, adding it is a “setback for the fight against corruption”, with experience in the cases being lost.

    Eckert and Borbely predicted long delays in current investigations, saying on Wednesday that there is “no period of transition” to the new ethics leadership for the ongoing cases.

    “We investigated several hundred cases and several hundred are still pending and ongoing at the moment,” Borbely said.

    FIFA issued a statement on Tuesday saying that the Colombian investigator Maria Claudia Rojas had been nominated as the new head of the investigatory chamber, with Vassilios Skouris, of Greece, a former president of the European Court of Justice, put forward as head of the adjudicatory chamber.

    The decision is set to be ratified by FIFA at its annual Congress, which convenes in Bahrain on Thursday.

    The decision is controversial as critics have accused Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, of having a personal motive to replace Eckert and Borbely, as an ethics investigation was launched against him last year.

    Eckert was the judge who opened proceedings against Blatter and Michel Platini in November 2015.

    Following Tuesday’s decision, one FIFA council official was quoted by AFP news agency as saying: “Congress members felt that FIFA and the Ethics Commission needed freshening up.”

    {{Reform agenda in question}}

    FIFA’s decision threatens to overshadow its congress and critics will argus that it calls into question the reform agenda set by the president, who was elected last year after football’s governing body was engulfed by corruption scandals and high-ranking executives were arrested in Zurich hotel raids.

    Infantino had claimed to be ushering in a “new era” in after succeeding the discredited and banned Blatter.

    Against this backdrop, FIFA has been trying to persuade commercial backers to sign up after many were scared off by the corruption allegations.

    FIFA’s leadership was able to start its congress week in Bahrain by boasting the arrival of Qatar Airways to fill the airline sponsorship category that has been vacant for more than two years.

    But the deal was anticipated given that Qatar Airways is the state-owned carrier of the 2022 World Cup hosts.

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Tunisia orders army to protect oil and gas fields

    {Troops’ deployment comes after protests erupt at industrial sites amid growing discontent over bad economic conditions.}

    Tunisia’s President Beji Caid Essebsi has ordered the army to protect the output of the country’s main resources following a wave of protests over unemployment and worsening economic conditions.

    It is the first time that troops in Tunisia were deployed to guard industrial installations, including phosphate, gas and oil production facilities, that are key to the national economy.

    “It is a serious decision, but it must be applied to protect our resources,” Essebsi said on Wednesday in a speech to the nation.

    “Our democratic path has become threatened and law must be applied but we will respect freedoms.”

    Since the 2011 revolution, Tunisia’s democracy has advanced with free elections and a new constitution. Yet, the government has faced growing social discontent over the economy, especially in inland regions.

    Protesters have often staged strikes and sit-ins that block access to production sites, costing the state billions of dollars.

    Tunisia is trying to enact sensitive reforms to help growth, but many unemployed youth in the marginalised south still feel they have gained few opportunities.

    For several weeks, about 1,000 protesters in Tatouine province, where Italy’s ENI and Austria’s OMV have gas operations, have been demanding jobs and a share in revenue for the area’s natural resources.

    Protests have also broken out in another southern province, Kebili.

    Demonstrations that hit the phosphate sector in past years cost the country more than $2bn, according to officials. But production there has returned to the highest levels since 2010 after officials negotiated deals with protesters.

    Tourism, another key earner for the government accounting for about eight percent of the economy, was badly hit by two attacks on foreigners in 2015.

    Bookings, however, are returning and officials expected 30 percent tourism growth this year.

    President Essebsi says law must be applied, but freedoms are to be respected

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • South Africa’s Stellenbosch University in Nazi furore

    {A leading South African university says it is investigating Nazi-inspired posters that have appeared on campus notice boards.}

    Stellenbosch University condemned “racial superiority and any attempts to polarise” the campus, a spokesman said.

    The posters, reminiscent of Nazi propaganda to rally support for Hitler, called for a “Fight for Stellenbosch”.

    The university has been fraught with racial tension since white minority rule ended in 1994.

    Before the end of apartheid, it was an elite institution for Afrikaans-speaking white people.

    The university, now open to all races, has been hit by protests over language policy, tuition fees, and alleged racism.

    In 2015, the university’s governing body voted to retain Afrikaans as the main language of instruction, rejecting calls for it to be replaced by English.

    Most black people in South Africa prefer to speak English than Afrikaans.

    The posters were issued in the name of “The New Right”, and called on “Anglo-Afrikaner” students to attend a meeting on Thursday to “Fight for Stellenbosch”.

    The images were a recreation of the Nazi-era League of German Girls, and of slogans such as “The German student fighting for the Fuhrer and the people”.

    The posters have caused outrage, with people saying they were the latest example of racism and inequality at the prestigious institution, says the BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in the main city, Johannesburg.

    In a statement, the university said it had so far identified three individuals who were allegedly linked to the “totally unacceptable” and “highly offensive” posters.

    Investigations, led by the university’s Equality Unit, were continuing, it added.

    “There seems to be deliberate mischief-making involved and, if that should be the case, disciplinary steps will be taken,” Vice-Chancellor Wim de Villiers said.

    Source:BBC

  • Tigo Rwanda signs two-year deal to provide ICT solutions to Kigali Convention Center, Radisson Blu Hotel

    {Tigo Rwanda has signed a two-year deal with Kigali Convention Centre/ Radisson Blu Hotel in which Tigo Rwanda will provide various ICT solutions to the largest conference venue in the country.}

    Tigo Rwanda will avail bulk (fixed and on demand) internet bandwidth services to Kigali Convention Centre/ Radisson Blu, via the stable and reliable Kt- Rwanda Network fully backed up by multiple local fiber rings and international upstream routes. In addition, Tigo will also provide mobile voice, data and 4G communication services for the 162 KCC employees.

    Furthermore, Tigo will develop an online food menu that will allow Radisson Blu customers to directly place orders for themselves using tablet computers right from their tables and deploy intelligent screens for digital advertisement and entertainment.

    Lauding the deal, the General Manager of KCC and Radisson Blue Hotel Kigali, Denis J. Dernault said; “Partnering with Tigo Rwanda will give Kigali Convention Centre and Radisson Blu hotel a unique opportunity to make sure that our customers have a world class hospitality experience right here in Rwanda. The solutions offered by Tigo have come to the right time as we prepare to host one of the largest ICT event in the African continent, the Transform Africa Summit that will see the launch of Smart Cities Blueprint. ”

    Expressing his delight in the partnership, Tigo Rwanda Chief Business Officer, Amit Chawla, said; “By providing connectivity to KCC, Tigo is ensuring that participants in high level conferences and meetings at the KCC will enjoy the very best Internet services Rwanda has to offer. Additionally, the Online Menu project at the Radisson Blu hotel is an example of the strength of our content proposition and our commitment to innovation.

    This deal is further evidence of Tigo Rwanda’s well-earned reputation as a reliable service provider of both data and voice solutions for the public sector and large corporates. Our corporate clients include some of the largest financial institutions in Rwanda as well as 5-Star hotels and government institutions.”

    {{About Kigali Convention Center}}

    The Kigali Convention Centre complex was inaugurated in July 2016 and include a 5-star hotel, Radisson Blu Hotel Kigali, with 292 rooms on five floors, a conference center spanning over 32,200 square meters (346,598 sq ft) with seating capacity over 5,000 including state of the art Auditorium with a capability to host nearly 3,000 delegates.

  • Uganda:Kaweesi murder: Woman convicted over telling lies

    {An 18-year-old woman was yesterday sentenced to 18 months in prison for giving false information to the police regarding the murder of former police spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi.}

    Sheila Nalubega was sentenced after she pleaded guilty to giving false information to police.

    “The said wrong information made to Detective ASP Sophy Neboshi led to wasting of taxpayer’s money while investigating it, hence Nalubega deserves a deterrent sentence. She is hereby convicted on her own plea of guilty,” declared Mr Moses Nabende, the Grade One Magistrate at City Hall Court.

    During the trial the prosecution submitted that Ms Nalubega, a resident of Bukomansimbi in Masaka District on April 29 at Kyaliwajjala in Kampala lied to Detective ASP Neboshi that she saw and knew Kaweesi’s killers.

    The soft-spoken Nalubega told court that she volunteered the false information in order to get the reward money the police had promised to any person with information that could lead to the arrest of the killers.

    According to the court record, Nalubega went to Kyaliwajjala Police Post near Kampala where she informed Detective ASP Neboshi that she had witnessed and seen the people who killed Kaweesi. However, upon interrogation, she admitted she was lying.

    Kaweesi was gunned down in a police vehicle on March 17 by unknown assailants a few metres from his residence in Kulambiro suburb as he left for work.

    He was killed together with his bodyguard Kenneth Erau and driver Godfrey Wambewo. Thirteen suspects have been charged in court and remanded to Luzira Prison.

    Four of the suspects were arrested at Kaweesi’s burial in Kitwekyanjovu in Kyazanga Sub-county, Lwengo District.

    {{The case
    }}

    Sheila Nalubega was sentenced after she pleaded guilty to giving false information to police. The soft-spoken Nalubega told court that she volunteered the false information in order to get the reward money the police had promised to any person with information that could lead to the arrest of the killers.

    Source:Daily Monitor

  • Janet Ikua, IEBC jobs top most searched trends

    {Former NTV news anchor and media personality Janet Kanini Ikua, who died on April 1, was the most searched person in Google search trends for the month of April.}

    Mrs Ikua had battled lung cancer for some time.

    Jobs at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries commission (IEBC) came second on the list of trending searches.

    The IEBC was recruiting temporary workers as it gears up for the August 8 elections.

    Football came in third, with people searching for matches such as Arsenal vs Manchester City and Chelsea vs Tottenham.

    {{JUBILEE NOMINATIONS}}

    Other football searches that topped the trends included the Barclays Premier League and the Champions League.

    The Real Madrid vs Barcelona was the trending march searched under the Spanish La Liga.

    Jubilee nominations came in fourth.

    Searched for “top restaurants nearby” took the fifth spot, portraying the culture of eating out increasingly becoming popular among Kenyans, especially the young.

    Taking the sixth position was the government’s web portal www.delivery.go.ke, which was launched in April to document and communicate to Kenyans the achievements of the Uhuru Kenyatta administration since it took office in 2013.

    {{COMEDIAN AYEIYA}}

    Other trends were the popular comedian Emanuel Makori, popularly known as Ayeiya, who died in a car crash.

    British professional boxer Antony Joshua and the late veteran politician David Mwiraria were also among those Kenyans searched on Google.

    Other trending search queries were about the Kiambu Jubilee Party nominations, where Kabete MP Ferdinand Waititu defeated incumbent Governor William Kabogo, and the Teachers Service Commission’s TSC-Tpad, which stands for Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development.

    The TSC-Tpad is an appraisal programme for teachers and 30,000 school heads that is intended as a gateway to higher pay and promotions.

    Janet Kanini Ikua with her trophy during the Top 40 under 40 Women gala night at the Sankara Hotel in Nairobi on October 14, 2016. She died on April 1, 2017.

    Source:Daily Nation

  • Over 20 Chinese firms eye investing in Tanzania

    {More than 100 companies from Changzhou city, Jiangsu Province, have participated in the Forum organised here in China to explore investment and trade opportunities in Tanzania. Minister of Trade, Industries and Marketing of Zanzibar, Ambassador Amina Salum Ali has revealed to the ‘Daily News’.}

    “From this forum, we have already registered over 20 Chinese companies that are planning to visit our country next month to explore various opportunities… They are ready to start investment in textile, agriculture and construction industry,” she said.

    Ambassador Amina said Tanzania was invited to give detailed explanations on key investment opportunities in Tanzania and encourage seizing them.

    The minister also met with other five investors in Beijing. “Our visit has been successful following the pledge of 20 Chinese companies to come and identify various investment opportunities in the country,” she said.

    She said during the meeting, investors wanted to know various issues regarding shares, rents, and other crucial details in investment in Tanzania.

    She said with the collaboration with the Tanzania ambassador in China and other government officials, special committee was formed to fix some things that frustrated them before.

    Present in the meeting were the Tanzania’s Ambassador to China Mbelwa Kairuki, John Mnali from Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC), Representative of Zanzibar Investment Center (ZIC) Nasriya Nassor, and Director of Research and Planning in National Development Corporation (NDC) Godwill Wanga .

    In her speech, the Minister Amina Salum advised investors seeking to invest in Tanzania to ensure they get correct information from government institutions responsible for investments.

    Source:Daily News

  • President Kabila names new DRC government despite agreement for elections

    {The president’s list followed last month’s naming of a former opposition leader as his prime minister. The move seems at variance with his commitment to hold elections before year-end.}

    President Joseph Kabila kept the same people from his previous government in charge of key ministries, including foreign affairs, interior, justice and mines.

    In an agreement signed with the opposition last December, Kabila was allowed to stay in power beyond the end of his term that month, so long as he held elections before the end of 2017.

    In response to Tuesday’s announcement, the main opposition bloc immediately called on Kabila to name a government that respected that December agreement. “This government is illegitimate and we don’t recognise it,” Martin Fayulu, president of the Engagement for Citizenship and Development (ECIDE) party, told Reuters. “There is no other roadmap besides the accord,” he said. “If the accord is dead, Kabila has to leave,” Fayulu added.

    {{A premier named instead of election day?}}

    Last month Kabila named Bruno Tshibala, a former member of the country’s largest opposition party, as his new prime minister. In March, talks with the opposition had broken down when Kabila refused to confirm the bloc’s choice for prime minister.

    Last year, there were violent protests over the agreement for the election delay and security forces killed dozens of people. There are concerns that the DRC could slip back into the civil wars of 20 years ago which left hundreds of thousands dead.

    Kabila has been president of the DRC since January 2001 when he took over 10 days after his father, President Laurent Kabila was shot dead by one of his teenage bodyguards. Kabila won elections in 2006 and 2011 and his term was due to expire last December but in September, electoral authorities announced elections would not be held until early 2018.

    Rival militias with varying loyalties have been active for decades, particularly in the mineral-rich east of the country, but there has been increasing violence in the Kasai region in central Congo in recent months.

    Rein Paulsen, who heads operations in the DRC for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said on Monday there had been a sharp increase in the number of civilians displaced by fighting over the last 15 months, to a total of 3.7 million. Nearly 1.9 million children under five years of age are severely malnourished in the DRC, Paulsen said.

    Two UN researchers and their Congolese interpreter went missing in March when they were looking into recent large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups. Their bodies were found two weeks later in Kasai-Central province.

    The UN has almost 19,000 troops deployed in Congo, its largest and costliest peacekeeping mission.

    The DRC is a major source of minerals, including diamonds, gold, cobalt, zinc and tin, especially in the east where they are extracted in small mines, many of them under the control of armed groups.

    Source:DW