Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

China launches first domestically made aircraft carrier

{Newly built 50,000-tonne carrier demonstrates the growing technical sophistication of China’s defence industries.}

China has launched its first domestically made aircraft carrier, in a demonstration of the growing technical sophistication of its defence industries.

The 50,000-tonne carrier was towed from its dockyard on Wednesday morning after a ceremony in the northern port city of Dalian.

Development of the new carrier began in 2013 and construction commenced in late 2015. It is expected to be formally commissioned some time before 2020, after sea trials and the arrival of its full air complement.

Reports of the launch said a bottle of champagne was broken across the ship’s bow and other craft in the port sounded their horns in celebration.

Like the 60,000-tonne Liaoning aircraft carrier, which was purchased from the Ukraine, the new carrier is based on the Soviet Kuznetsov class design, with a ski jump-style deck for taking off and a conventional oil-fuelled steam turbine power plant.

The design limits the weight of payloads its planes can carry, its speed and the amount of time it can spend at sea compared with US nuclear-powered carriers.

The main hull of the new carrier has been completed and its power supply put into place. Next up are mooring tests and the debugging of its electronic systems, the defence ministry said.

China is believed to be planning to build at least two – and possibly as many as four – additional carriers, with one of them, the Type 002, reported to be already under construction at a shipyard outside Shanghai.

They are expected to be closer in size to the US Navy’s nuclear-powered 100,000-tonne Nimitz class ships, with flat flight decks and catapults to allow planes to launch with more bombs and fuel aboard.

China has offered little information about the roles it expects its carriers to play, although its planning appears to be evolving as it gains more experience.

The Liaoning was initially touted mainly as an experimental and training platform, but in December was declared to be combat-ready and has taken part in live-firing exercises in the South China Sea, where tensions have risen over China’s construction of man-made islands complete with airstrips and military structures.

Source:Al Jazeera

April 26, 2017
Reporters Without Borders: Journalism at tipping point

{Reporters Without Borders warns of tipping point for press freedom in era of ‘strongmen and propaganda’.}

Press freedom has never been as threatened as it is now, in the “new post-truth era of fake news”, strongmen and propaganda, Reporters Without Borders said.

Its annual World Press Freedom Index, published on Wednesday, warned of a “tipping point” for journalism.

“Attacks on the media have become commonplace and strongmen are on the rise. We have reached the age of post-truth, propaganda, and suppression of freedoms – especially in democracies,” the report said.

“Media freedom has never been so threatened.”

Syria, where a bloody civil war has entered its sixth year, was the deadliest country for journalists, according to the watchdog, known by its French initials RSF.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, which has jailed 81 journalists after a failed coup attempt, and Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s Egypt, where Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud Hussein has been detained, were branded the world’s biggest prisons for journalists.

Hussein is awaiting trial on charges of spreading false news, a charge Al Jazeera denies.

Also in several democracies, “nothing seems to be checking” the erosion of liberty of the press, RSF said.

It blamed the continuing fall to “an obsession with surveillance and violations of the right to confidentiality of sources”.

These include the US and Britain, which both slipped two places in the index to 43rd and 40th.

The report also warned of the “highly toxic” media-bashing of US President Donald Trump’s election campaign and Britain’s Brexit referendum, saying this has pushed “the world into a new era of post-truth, disinformation and fake news.”

RSF Secretary General Christophe Deloire said: “The rate at which democracies are approaching the tipping point is alarming for all those who understand that, if media freedom is not secure, then none of the other freedoms can be guaranteed.”

“Where will this downward spiral take us?” he asked.

In the past year nearly two thirds of the countries had registered a deterioration in their situation, while the number of countries where the media freedom situation was “good” or “fairly good” fell by more than two percent, the report found.

“Media freedom has retreated wherever the authoritarian strongman model has triumphed,” the report went on.

Turkey “swung over into the authoritarian regime camp” after the failed coup against President Erdogan in July, it said, adding that it “now distinguishes itself as the world’s biggest prison for media professionals”.

Seven places ahead of Turkey, “Vladimir Putin’s Russia remains firmly entrenched in the bottom fifth of the index,” in 148th place, it added.

Liberty of the press is in peril or in a “very serious situation” in 72 countries, including Russia, India and China, the report found.

Norway came out top of the index with the world’s freest media.

North Korea took bottom place from another repressive closed state, Eritrea, which has propped up the table for a decade.

North Korea continues to keep “its population in ignorance and terror,” RSF said. “Even listening to a foreign radio broadcast can lead to a spell in a concentration camp.”

Source:Al Jazeera

April 26, 2017
Nikki Haley blames Salva Kiir for ‘man made’ famine

{US ambassador to UN urges Security Council to impose sanctions on South Sudan to end humanitarian crisis caused by war.}

The United States has condemned South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir for the state’s “man-made” famine and ongoing conflict, urging him to fulfill a month-old pledge of a unilateral truce by ordering his troops back to their barracks.

“We must see a sign that progress is possible,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told a United Nations Security Council briefing on South Sudan on Tuesday. “We must see that ceasefire implemented.”

South Sudan descended into civil war in 2013 after Kiir fired his deputy, unleashing a conflict that has spawned armed factions often following ethnic lines. A peace deal signed in August 2015 has not stopped the fighting.

UN South Sudan envoy David Shearer told the Security Council, “The political process in South Sudan is not dead, however it requires significant resuscitation.”

The United Nations has warned of a possible genocide, millions have fled their homes, the oil-producing economy is in a tail-spin, crop harvests are devastated because of the worst drought in years and millions face famine.

Some 7.5 million people, two-thirds of the population, require humanitarian assistance.

Around 1.6 million people have fled the country, while a further 1.9 million are displaced internally.

“The famine in South Sudan is man made. It is the result of ongoing conflict in that country. It is the result of an apparent campaign against the civilian population. It is the result of killing humanitarian workers,” Haley said.

She also blasted deadlock among Security Council members on how to deal with the civil war in the country that gained independence from Sudan in 2011.

Haley said Kiir and his government were benefiting from the council’s division. She urged the council to impose further targeted sanctions and an arms embargo on South Sudan.

“You’re allowing President Kiir to continue to do what he’s doing,” she said. “If you truly care for the people of South Sudan then we must tell the South Sudanese government that we are not going to put up with this anymore.”

The 15-member Security Council failed in December to get nine votes to adopt a US-drafted resolution to impose an arms embargo and further sanctions on South Sudan despite warnings by UN officials of a possible genocide.

Eight council members, including Russia and China, abstained in the vote.

Deputy Russian UN Ambassador Petr Ilichev told the council that it was unfair to lay all blame on Kiir’s troops for the violence and that Moscow opposed additional sanctions.

“Sound peace in South Sudan will not be brought about by a Security Council arms embargo, but rather by targeted measures to disarm civilians, as well as demobilise and reintegrate combatants,” he said.

Source:Al Jazeera

April 26, 2017
Last male northern white rhino joins Tinder to raise money

{The last male northern white rhino on earth has joined the dating app Tinder – as part of fundraising efforts by conservationists to save the species.}

At 43 (or 100 in rhino years), Sudan is described as “one of a kind”, who likes to eat grass and chill in the mud.

Attempts to mate the animal – who lives in Kenya – with only two surviving females have failed.

Conservationists say they need to raise $10m (£7.8m) to develop in vitro fertilisation (IVF) methods for rhinos.

“It’s never ever has been done in rhinos before,” Richard Vigne, head of Ol Pejeta Conservancy, told the BBC.

“This is a 10-year programme to recover that species.

“We’ll hopefully keep him alive as long as we can – but we are in a race against time if we are going to recover this species.”

On Tinder, Sudan’s profile reads: “I don’t mean to be too forward, but the fate of my species literally depends on me.

“I perform well under pressure… 6ft (183cm) tall and 5,000lb (2,268kg) if it matters.”
In a joint campaign launched by Ol Pejeta Conservancy and Tinder, app users now have an option to donate when they open Sudan’s profile.

Scientists in several countries are currently testing how to use IVF techniques on the two northern white rhino females.

They also do not rule out using Sudan’s sperm for IVF with southern white rhinos – although they are a distinct species. Still the crossing option would be better than extinction, they say.

Sudan – who is often described as “the most eligible bachelor in the world” – has his own team of armed bodyguards, who are protecting him around the clock.

Countless TV shows have been made about the ageing animal.

Northern whites are the only rhinos that can survive in the wild in central Africa.

But they have been hunted into near extinction by poachers who target their horns.

Source:BBC

April 26, 2017
Primitive human ‘lived much more recently’

{A primitive type of human, once thought to be up to three million years old, actually lived much more recently, a study suggests.}

The remains of 15 partial skeletons belonging to the species Homo naledi were described in 2015.

They were found deep in a cave system in South Africa by a team led by Lee Berger from Wits University.

In an interview, he now says the remains are probably just 200,000 to 300,000 years old.

Although its anatomy shares some similarities with modern people, other anatomical features of Homo naledi hark back to humans that lived in much earlier times – some two million years ago or more.

“These look like a primitive form of our own genus – Homo. It looks like it might be connected to early Homo erectus, or Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis,” said Prof Berger’s colleague, John Hawks, from the University of Wisconsin.

Although some experts guessed that naledi could had lived relatively recently, in 2015, Prof Berger told BBC News that the remains could be up to three million years old.

New dating evidence places the species in a time period where Homo naledi could have overlapped with early examples of our own kind, Homo sapiens.

Prof Hawks told the BBC’s Inside Science radio programme: “They’re the age of Neanderthals in Europe, they’re the age of Denisovans in Asia, they’re the age of early modern humans in Africa. They’re part of this diversity in the world that’s there as our species was originating.”

“We have no idea what else is out there in Africa for us to find – for me that’s the big message. If this lineage, which looks like it originated two million years ago was still hanging around 200,000 years ago, then maybe that’s not the end of it. We haven’t found the last [Homo naledi], we’ve found one.”

The naledi remains were uncovered in 2013 inside a difficult-to-access chamber within the Rising Star cave system. At the time, Prof Berger said he believed the remains had been deposited in the chamber deliberately, perhaps over generations.

This idea, which would suggest that Homo naledi was capable of ritual behaviour, met with controversy because such practices are thought by some to be characteristic of human modernity.

Prof Hawks says that the team has since started exploring a second chamber.

“[The second] chamber has the remains of an additional three individuals, at least, including a really, really cool partial skeleton with a skull,” said Prof Hawks.

Researchers have already attempted to extract DNA from the remains to gain more information about naledi’s place in the human evolutionary tree. However, they have not yet been successful.

“[The remains] are obviously at an age where we have every reason to think there might be some chance. The cave is relatively warm compared to the cold caves in northern Europe and Asia where we have really good DNA preservation,” said Prof Hawks.

A study outlining the dating evidence is due for publication in coming months.

Source:BBC

April 26, 2017
US troops end hunt for brutal Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony

{Brutal rebel commander Joseph Kony has sowed terror across four African nations for three decades, even evading capture by US and Ugandan soldiers who have now given up the chase.}

The former Catholic altar boy became one of Africa’s most notorious rebels at the head of his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), combining religious mysticism with an astute guerilla mind and bloodthirsty ruthlessness.

The US passed a law in 2010 to deploy around 100 special forces to work with regional armies in hunting down Kony but is now withdrawing while the rebel leader remains at large, though his power is much diminished.

Kony’s marauding insurgency claimed to be fighting to overthrow the Ugandan government and impose a regime based on the Bible’s Ten Commandments. It has killed more than 100,000 people and abducted 60,000 children who were forced to become sex slaves, soldiers and porters.

While battling the Ugandan government Kony and his dwindling band of bush fighters have earned a grim reputation for kidnapping and mutilation.

The leader’s whereabouts are not known and his forces have been hit by a constant stream of defections, deaths and surrenders of both foot-soldiers and commanders.

Small LRA groups continue to carry out attacks, mostly on civilians in villages, in the border regions of Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Sudan.

{{Self-proclaimed prophet }}

In 2005, the self-proclaimed prophet — along with four of his deputies — were the first people indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

One commander, Dominic Ongwen, is currently on trial while the three others are believed to have been killed.

A member of Uganda’s northern Acholi ethnic group, Kony attended primary school before taking up arms in around 1987, following in the footsteps of another messianic rebel, Alice Auma Lakwena, a former prostitute who is believed to have been either his cousin or aunt.

Lakwena, who died in exile in Kenya in early 2007, believed she could channel the spirits of the dead, and also told her followers that holy oil she gave them could stop bullets.

Kony claims the Holy Spirit issues orders to him on everything from military tactics to personal hygiene, terrifying his subordinates into obedience.

The rebellion claimed to be defending the Acholi people against President Yoweri Museveni, who seized power from northern military rulers at the head of a rebel army in 1986.

Despite widespread northern resentment against Museveni, Kony’s policy of abductions soon lost him the support of local groups, who suffered in the government’s brutal war against the LRA.

At the height of the conflict, the government had forced some 2 million people into camps.

{{Evading capture, justice }}

Kony, who is thought to be in his 50s, speaks broken English and Acholi and has only rarely met outsiders, but in an interview with a western journalist in 2006 he insisted that he was “not a terrorist” and had not committed atrocities.

“We want the people of Uganda to be free. We are fighting for democracy,” he claimed.

Nevertheless, ex-LRA abductees say they were forced to maim and kill friends, neighbours and relatives, and participate in gruesome rites such as drinking their victims’ blood.

In the 1990s, the LRA conflict spilt into neighbouring countries after the Sudanese government in Khartoum began backing the group in retaliation for Uganda’s support of southern Sudanese rebels battling for independence.

When Sudan signed a peace deal with the southern rebels in 2005, support for the LRA dried up and, after being forced into neighbouring DR Congo by the Ugandan army, Kony agreed to peace talks.

But negotiations dragged on and, amid mutual distrust and anxiety over the ICC warrant, Kony repeatedly failed to turn up to sign a deal.

In late 2011, following pressure from US campaigners, President Barack Obama deployed US special forces troops to help regional armies track down Kony.

Kony surged to unexpected worldwide prominence in March 2012 on the back of a hugely popular internet video that called for his capture.

Made by US-based advocacy group Invisible Children, the Kony2012 film became one of the fastest-spreading internet videos in history after more than 100 million users across the globe watched it in just a few days.

But popular interest quickly waned and despite the increased pressure, after more than 30 years in the bush Kony remains a master of evasion, ditching satellite telephones in favour of runners to communicate, and living off wild roots and animals.

The US and Ugandan militaries claim the LRA is all but defeated and rendered irrelevant, yet Kony remains free, outsmarting and outlasting all who have sought him.

Source:AFP

April 26, 2017
Kenya: Knife attack leaves one dead, another injured in Nairobi

{One person has died and another seriously injured after being stabbed by supporters of a parliamentary aspirant in Pangani, Nairobi.}

The two were posting campaign posters on a wall near the Pangani Girls High School Wednesday morning when a group affiliated to another aspirant attacked them.

Nairobi County Police Commander Japheth Koome said the two were stabbed using a knife and while they were crossing the road to escape from the attackers, one of them was knocked by a car and was rushed to hospital where he was confirmed dead.

However, Mr Koome said a post-mortem will be conducted to ascertain whether the death was caused by the stabbing or the knocking down by the car.

He said police have been directed to be vigilant and prevent youth from campaigning during the nominations as it is illegal.

The other victim of the attack is being treated in hospital.

Source:Daily Nation

April 26, 2017
Tanzania wants UN worker removed

{Tanzania government has asked the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to remove its Country Director, Ms Awa Dabo, who is blamed over poor working relations with her colleagues, a situation that has led to inefficiency at the agency.}

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation explained in a statement yesterday that the UN official was involved in disagreements with some of her co-workers and the management and thus putting into jeopardy the implementation of development projects.

According to the statement, her poor working relations with colleagues at the UNDP Tanzania country office was likely to stall development projects if action was not taken.

“After her departure from Tanzania was confirmed; the government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Co-operation advises the UNDP to remind its staff of their obligation of working with the government faithfully in order to attain its development goals,” it stated.

These include Tanzania Development Vision 2025, the Five Year Development Plan and the Agenda 2030.

Source:Daily News

April 26, 2017
One&Only to open hotels in Rwanda

{One&Only is to launch two resorts in Rwanda, One&Only Nyungwe House and One&Only Gorilla’s Nest.}

The two properties will sit under the new brand of One&Only Nature Resorts, as the hotel operator seeks to expand its reach beyond its traditional beach resort roots.

Along with the One&Only Nature Resorts brand will be One&Only Urban Resorts and One&Only Private Homes, as well as One&Only Beach Resorts.

The company had its foundations in the African continent where its founder Sol Kerzner is from, but it only has one property there at the moment, One&Only Cape Town.

The addition of the two properties in Rwanda gives it a strong foothold in a growing destination where few other international luxury brands have yet ventured.

One&Only Nyungwe House will open first in Gisakura, a working tea plantation on the edge of the Nyungwe National Park.

The park is home to the Nyungwe forest, thought to be one of the oldest in Africa, with a diverse environment that is home to more than 13 species of primates, representing 20% of all the apes in Africa; 275 species of birds; and 75 different species of mammals.

The hotel will have 22 rooms and two, two-room Forest suites; no firm date was given for its opening, but the company said Q4 2017 was likely.

The other property, One&Only Gorilla’s Nest, is located near the village of Kingi, on the foothills of the Virunga Volcano range and is set for a 2018 opening.

Guests will have views of of the Volcanoes national park and the rare chance of trekking to see the Mountain Gorillas Rwanda is famous for.

It is one of only three countries in the world where these critically endangered creatures live; experts estimate there are only 780 mountain gorillas in existence, a third of which are in Rwanda, with numbers increasing there by 14% in the past 12 years.

In addition to the gorilla trek, guests will also be able to visit Dian Fossey’s Karisoke Camp.

“Rwanda is such an incredible destination with truly once-in-a-lifetime experiences,” said One&Only chief executive officer Philippe Zuber. “We look forward to immersing our guests in the country and culture and providing that ultimate connection with nature in the ultimate locations. Building on the legacy and success of One&Only, it is an exciting time for the brand.”

He hinted he would be able to share “additional locations for our resorts”, soon.

Also under the One&Only Nature Resorts will sit Emirates One&Only Wolgan Valley in Australia.

It was the first hotel in the world to achieve carbon-neutral certification by CarbonZero, and all One&Only Nature Resorts will aim for this distinction.

[One&Only to open hotels in Rwanda->https://www.ttgmedia.com/luxury/luxury/oneonly-to-open-hotels-in-rwanda-9931]

Source:TTG

April 26, 2017
UN renews call for negotiated solution to Kasai conflict in DRC

{A U.N. official in the Democratic Republic of Congo has repeated calls for a dialogue to end the deadly, months-long conflict in the Kasai region of the central DRC.}

“There is no solution in Kasai other than a negotiated solution,” said Mamadou Diallo, the coordinator of humanitarian affairs for the U.N.’s mission in DRC.

Diallo addressed a news conference in Kinshasa the day after DRC government spokesman Lambert Mende showed journalists grisly videos of executions he said were carried out by the Kamwina Nsapu rebels, including the murders of two U.N. experts who disappeared in Kasai in March and were later found dead.

“They [The Kamwina Nsapu] are terrorists,” Mende said. “Terrorism in the DRC must be eradicated without condition and [there is] no question of negotiating with these people,” he said.

{{Gruesome videos of killings}}

One of the videos Mende showed at the briefing, which VOA attended, appeared online in a tweet Tuesday but was quickly removed.

The spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general has condemned the government’s decision to play the videos to the media, saying in a statement that “we’re disappointed that the video was shown publicly” and that “it does harm… to the ongoing investigation.”

Mende told reporters the videos had been recorded by the rebels and obtained by the police, without providing further information.

In one, disarmed policemen sit on the ground and are interrogated by their captors. The scene then cuts away to images of decapitated bodies in police uniforms. The video purportedly showed the aftermath of an ambush of a police convoy in late March near Kananga, the capital of Kasai-Central province, when 39 policemen were beheaded.

The second video showed the final moments of two U.N. experts who went missing in Kasai-Central on March 12 and whose bodies were found several weeks later. Michael Sharp, an American, and Zaida Catalan, from Sweden, are seen walking surrounded by men wearing the red headbands associated with Kamwina Nsapu. Both are instructed to sit and soon after are shot and killed. Catalan is then decapitated.

{{Calls for negotiations criticized }}

Mende criticized those calling for a negotiated end to the conflict and the establishment of an independent investigation into the actions of both sides. His statements appear to represent a departure from what looked to be an easing of tensions earlier this month.

The conflict began in August 2016 after the customary chief to which the rebels were loyal — also called Kamwina Nsapu — was killed during clashes with the police. The violence has intensified this year. At least 400 people have been killed and one million displaced since the conflict started, according to the U.N. Initially confined to Kasai-Central, Kamwina Nsapu are now active in five provinces of central DRC. The rebels reject the authority of the central government.

However, discreet negotiations with the customary chief’s family have been taking place. In mid-April, the interior ministry said it had returned the chief’s body to his family and designated a successor. Kamwina Nsapu’s family told the media that the violence would come to an end while the interior ministry called on fighters to surrender.

On Tuesday, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator urged the government to continue the approach.

“We take note of this first gesture and this willingness to extend a hand to find a solution”, Diallo said. “We encourage the government and all local actors to continue down this road.”

The European Union, African Union and the influential Congolese Catholic Church are also calling for dialogue to end the crisis.

{{Mass graves found }}

U.N. investigators say they have found 40 mass graves in Kasai, reportedly dug by the Congolese military after bouts of fighting, and videos that appeared to show soldiers shooting civilians in Kasai have also surfaced this year. The U.N. has regularly also criticized Kamwina Nsapu for its recruitment of child soldiers.

Source:Voice of America

April 26, 2017