Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

Egypt’s shaken Copts mark Good Friday after double bombing

{Pope Tawadros II had been in one of the two churches targeted on Palm Sunday when 45 people were killed in attacks claimed by so-called Islamic State.}

Security has been tightened at churches across Egypt and Easter celebrations have been scaled back.

Both suicide bombers were Egyptians, the government said.

A three-month state of emergency was imposed following the bombings in Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta.

The attacks on Christians, who make up about 10% of Egypt’s population, raised security fears ahead of a visit to Cairo by Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, scheduled for 28 and 29 April.

In a visit to Pope Tawadros, President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi vowed to hunt down those who had organised the bombings.

Good Friday is the day Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

“With these incidents we are now living with Christ in his pain,” Coptic Bishop Kirillos told AFP news agency.

“Given the current circumstances and our solidarity with the families of the dead, we are going to limit our celebrations to Easter Mass,” the Church said in a statement.

There would be no decorations in churches and rooms normally reserved for the reception of worshippers wishing to exchange season’s greetings would remain closed, an official at the Coptic patriarchate told AFP.

Another Coptic bishop, Macarius, told Reuters news agency earlier that the Church wanted greater guarantees of security.

“We can consider ourselves in a wave of persecution but the Church has gone through a lot in 20 centuries,” he said.

“There are waves of persecution. It reaches to the highest point like a pyramid and then it goes down again. We are at a very high point.”

Victims of the attacks will be mourned at Masses on Saturday night.

{{‘Homes burnt’}}

The bombers were both identified as coming from the southern province of Qena.

One used to work for a petroleum company and was linked to a cell that carried out the attack on a Cairo church last December, in which 25 people were killed.

He blew himself up after being stopped by police at the gates of St Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria, where Pope Tawadros was leading a Palm Sunday service.

The other bomber was identified as a member of a “terrorist” cell.

Meanwhile, in the province of Minya, Muslims fought with Christians who had tried praying in an abandoned home in a village on Thursday, AFP reports.

The Muslims then set fire to four nearby homes, police officials were quoted as saying.

Source:BBC

April 15, 2017
Three aid workers killed in restive South Sudan

{World Food Programme says contract workers were hacked to death with machetes and shot in violence earlier this week.}

The World Food Programme said on Friday it was “horrified” to learn that three of its South Sudanese workers were killed in violence that claimed at least 16 lives earlier this week.

The three men, contracted as porters, appear to have been killed while trying to get to a WFP warehouse amid fighting between rebel and government troops near the western city of Wau.

Two were hacked to death with machetes and one was shot dead, the UN agency said.

South Sudan, which split from Sudan in 2011, has been mired in a crisis since a power struggle between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar escalated into a military conflict in 2013.

Joyce Luma, the WFP country director, said: “We are outraged and heartbroken by the deaths of our colleagues, who worked every day to help provide life-saving food to millions of their fellow countrymen.”

She called on South Sudanese authorities to hold the attackers accountable.

Prior to the killings of the WFP staff, the United Nations said at least 79 of its aid workers have been killed since December 2013.

Attacks on aid workers and obstruction of their work have contributed to a man-made famine affecting 100,000 people and threatening another one million in the country.

Last month, three Kenyans and three South Sudanese aid workers were hauled from their vehicle and shot dead in an ambush – the deadliest single attack on aid workers since the war began.

Some 8,000 people have fled the clashes in Wau, the International Organisation for Migration said on Thursday. They join more than 3.5 million South Sudanese displaced by the war.

Witnesses told news agencies that government-aligned militia had targeted residents based on their ethnic group who are seen supporting the rebels.

“The pattern of abuses by government forces against civilians in Wau has become predictable, with soldiers taking revenge against unarmed civilians based on their ethnicity,” said Human Rights Watch’s Daniel Bekele in a statement.

The UN said in December it had evidence of ethnic cleansing by both government forces and rebels.

Source:Al Jazeera

April 15, 2017
DRC suspends military cooperation with Belgium

{Suspension in response to Belgian criticism of president’s choice of prime minister}

The Democratic Republic of Congo has suspended military cooperation with Belgium, UN radio reported on Friday.

This comes after Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders criticized the appointment of Bruno Tshibala as prime minister.

The appointment of Tshibala was also opposed by the DRC opposition coalition, the EU and some donor countries which said it was not in line with a Dec. 31, 2016 agreement between the government and the opposition.

DRC’s opposition coalition had named Felix Tshisekedi as their choice for prime minister but were ignored by President Joseph Kabila.

In response to the criticism, DRC Foreign Minister Leonard Okitundu warned foreign countries against interfering in Congo’s internal affairs, saying it is an independent country.

The DRC was a Belgian colony for 52 years, gaining its independence in 1960.

UN radio quoted a Belgian spokesman saying: “Our defense attache in Kinshasa received a letter informing us of the suspension of our military cooperation. We are now making an inventory of what this cooperation covered.”

The cooperation, which began in 1997, mainly concerns training activities. In particular, the Belgian military had formed two brigades in DRC which helped government forces during the rebellion of the Movement of 23 March (M23) in Kivu in 2012 and 2013.

Source:AA

April 15, 2017
Burundi government has suspended MSD Party for six months

{Three main allegations made against the Movement for Democracy and Solidarity-MSD party are the violation of the Burundi Constitution, breaking the rules of political parties and a plan to form an armed group to fight against the government. Following these accusations, Pascal Barandagiye, Minister of Home Affairs decided on 4 April to suspend the activities and close all MSD party’s offices for six months.}

Térence Ntahiraja, Assistant to and Spokesperson for the Ministry of Home Affairs, says the decision will oblige the political parties to work in the strict respect of the rules and laws of the political parties in Burundi. “The lack of punishment has made some political parties be characterized by indiscipline. We don’t need to see the 2020 Elections to be disturbed by some political parties”, he says.

In March 2014, MSD party was also suspended for two months due to unrest sparked off at its headquarters in the capital Bujumbura. Ntahiraja also says there are young troublemakers claiming to be members of the MSD party who gave themselves up to the police. “All of these motives are sufficient to impose such sanctions”, he says.

The Assistant to the Home Affairs Ministry says the sanctions will end when the MSD party asks for pardon. “We will file the case to court which should lead to a complete suspension”, he says.

Epitace Nshimirimana, Spokesperson for MSD party, says they are not surprised by the decision. “We were aware that the Ministry of Home Affairs was planning to suspend completely our political party and divide its members”, he says.

Nshimirimana says nothing should go beyond the detention and forcing their members to flee the country rather than suspending the party and closing its offices. “We are accused of fighting the current government but we could not close our eyes in front of the human rights violations”, he says.

Nshimirimana calls on other members to be stronger and determined to fight for democracy and solidarity in Burundi.

Source:Iwacu

April 15, 2017
Uganda:Mother asks court to release daughter’s defiler

{A mother in Hoima District has asked Court to release a man accused of defiling her seven year-old-daughter about five years ago.}

Ms Lucy Aliganyira was asked by Justice Alexandra Rugadya Nkonge to give her opinion before a sentence is handed to Justus Monday who was on Thursday convicted for aggravated defilement.

Monday ,38, changed his plea in the middle of his trial by instructing his lawyer Peter Kobwemi to ask court to re-read his charges at a time when the prosecution was about to conclude its case.

He had initially pleaded not guilty two weeks ago at the start of the ongoing criminal session.

Court heard that on the night of November 11, 2012 while at Kizirafumbi trading centre in Kizirafumbi Sub-county, Hoima District, Monday who worked as a casual labourer at the home of David Busobozi, defiled the seven year-old girl.

At that time, according to prosecution, Monday capitalised on the drunkenness of the victim’s father as the mother was away in hospital for medication. The father only suspected foul play when the daughter failed to walk in the morning.

Mr Robert Arinaitwe, the state prosecutor asked court to protect the girl child from more harm by handing a 10-year custodial sentence to the convict because he had pleaded guilty and also being a first offender.

Defence lawyer Peter Kobwemi asked for a seven-year imprisonment including the four years and five months he has spent on remand. Mr Kobwemi told court that his client has been diagnosed with tuberculosis and was also operated on for hernia while on remand.

It is at this point that the presiding judge asked the victim’s mother to give court her opinion.

Ms Aliganyira told court that she has already forgiven Monday and asked court to consider the remand period as his punishment. She however, said the convict will not be allowed back in her home to continue with his casual work. She informed court that her daughter has since healed from the wounds and trauma and is back in school where she is doing well.

When asked, the victim who is aged 12 now told court she would concur with her mother’s opinion.

Justice Alexandra Rugadya Ngonge adjourned the matter to April 19 when she will sentence the convict.

Meanwhile, the same judge will sentence on the same day, Moses Aganyira who pleaded guilty to aggravated defilement of a 12-year-old girl in Kyamasuka village, Bugambe sub county in Hoima district.

Court heard that on July, 6, 2014 Aganyira, who was then in his senior six vacation, defiled the girl whom he had asked to deliver a hammer to his house in the neighbourhood.

Aggravated defilement represents 24 of the 40 cases on the cause list for the ongoing criminal session in Hoima district.

Aggravated defilement carries a maximum sentence of death but a presiding judge could hand a custodial punishment according to the sentencing guidelines. Such a decision is based on the circumstances during the trial that include the remand period and remorsefulness of the convict.

Source:Daily Monitor

April 15, 2017
Kenya:Police arrest two terror suspects in Likoni, Mandera

{Anti-Terror Police Unit (ATPU) working with their counterparts in Likoni and Kwale have thwarted a terrorist attack in Mombasa County.}

The ATPU team arrested Juma Mwangoh Athuman, 24, in Kibundani, Shika Adabu.

Security officers had been trailing the suspect in and out of Likoni for a while before pouncing on him Friday evening.

During the raid the security agents seized two hand grenades, poaches of AK47 rifles, one jungle jacket, one binocular, assorted CDs, among other items.

The suspect is being held at Likoni Police Station for further interrogation.

The other suspect, Stephen Wagechi was nabbed while sneaking into Mandera from Bula Hawa, Somalia.

“Information about him (Wagechi) is scanty as per now but he is in custody where he is being interrogated,” said an ATPU officer.

The arrests came hours after the Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet released pictures of terrorists planning to attack the Coast region during the Easter holidays.

Holidaymakers were urged to be on the alert and report any suspicious activities.

Source:

April 15, 2017
Device pulls water from dry air, powered only by the sun

{Metal-organic framework sucks up water from air with humidity as low as 20 percent}

Imagine a future in which every home has an appliance that pulls all the water the household needs out of the air, even in dry or desert climates, using only the power of the sun.

That future may be around the corner, with the demonstration this week of a water harvester that uses only ambient sunlight to pull liters of water out of the air each day in conditions as low as 20 percent humidity, a level common in arid areas.

The solar-powered harvester, reported in the journal Science, was constructed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using a special material — a metal-organic framework, or MOF — produced at the University of California, Berkeley.

“This is a major breakthrough in the long-standing challenge of harvesting water from the air at low humidity,” said Omar Yaghi, one of two senior authors of the paper, who holds the James and Neeltje Tretter chair in chemistry at UC Berkeley and is a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “There is no other way to do that right now, except by using extra energy. Your electric dehumidifier at home ‘produces’ very expensive water.”

The prototype, under conditions of 20-30 percent humidity, was able to pull 2.8 liters (3 quarts) of water from the air over a 12-hour period, using one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of MOF. Rooftop tests at MIT confirmed that the device works in real-world conditions.

“One vision for the future is to have water off-grid, where you have a device at home running on ambient solar for delivering water that satisfies the needs of a household,” said Yaghi, who is the founding director of the Berkeley Global Science Institute, a co-director of the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute and the California Research Alliance by BASF. “To me, that will be made possible because of this experiment. I call it personalized water.”

Yaghi invented metal-organic frameworks more than 20 years ago, combining metals like magnesium or aluminum with organic molecules in a tinker-toy arrangement to create rigid, porous structures ideal for storing gases and liquids. Since then, more than 20,000 different MOFs have been created by researchers worldwide. Some hold chemicals such as hydrogen or methane: the chemical company BASF is testing one of Yaghi’s MOFs in natural gas-fueled trucks, since MOF-filled tanks hold three times the methane that can be pumped under pressure into an empty tank.

Other MOFs are able to capture carbon dioxide from flue gases, catalyze the reaction of adsorbed chemicals or separate petrochemicals in processing plants.

In 2014, Yaghi and his UC Berkeley team synthesized a MOF — a combination of zirconium metal and adipic acid — that binds water vapor, and he suggested to Evelyn Wang, a mechanical engineer at MIT, that they join forces to turn the MOF into a water-collecting system.

The system Wang and her students designed consisted of more than two pounds of dust-sized MOF crystals compressed between a solar absorber and a condenser plate, placed inside a chamber open to the air. As ambient air diffuses through the porous MOF, water molecules preferentially attach to the interior surfaces. X-ray diffraction studies have shown that the water vapor molecules often gather in groups of eight to form cubes.

Sunlight entering through a window heats up the MOF and drives the bound water toward the condenser, which is at the temperature of the outside air. The vapor condenses as liquid water and drips into a collector.

“This work offers a new way to harvest water from air that does not require high relative humidity conditions and is much more energy efficient than other existing technologies,” Wang said.

This proof of concept harvester leaves much room for improvement, Yaghi said. The current MOF can absorb only 20 percent of its weight in water, but other MOF materials could possibly absorb 40 percent or more. The material can also be tweaked to be more effective at higher or lower humidity levels.

“It’s not just that we made a passive device that sits there collecting water; we have now laid both the experimental and theoretical foundations so that we can screen other MOFs, thousands of which could be made, to find even better materials,” he said. “There is a lot of potential for scaling up the amount of water that is being harvested. It is just a matter of further engineering now.”

Yaghi and his team are at work improving their MOFs, while Wang continues to improve the harvesting system to produce more water.

“To have water running all the time, you could design a system that absorbs the humidity during the night and evolves it during the day,” he said. “Or design the solar collector to allow for this at a much faster rate, where more air is pushed in. We wanted to demonstrate that if you are cut off somewhere in the desert, you could survive because of this device. A person needs about a Coke can of water per day. That is something one could collect in less than an hour with this system.”

Source:Science Daily

April 15, 2017
Security situation calm during Kwibuka23 week, says Police

{The security situation across the country was generally calm during the 23rd commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Rwanda National Police (RNP) spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Theos Badege, has said.}

In an interview, ACP Badege said that the commemoration week was marked with mass participation in commemorative events and security organs ensured that security was well maintained at all sites.

Normally, cases of genocide ideology are commonly reported during the commemoration period and according to the spokesperson, these cases keep dropping each year – “an indication that there is hope that at one point there won’t be a single case.”

“Since this month began, we have recorded 24 cases related to Genocide ideology. These cases project about 50 percent decrease compared to last year,” he said.

While breaking down the figures, ACP Badege said that of the 24 cases reported, majority involve elderly people, especially men.

“Most of these offences were verbal in nature against genocide survivors and a few physical cases,” he said.

Meanwhile, the spokesperson also disclosed that police have apprehended three men in connection with the killing of a genocide survivor’s cow in Kicukiro District, recently.

He also highlighted another case in Rubavu District where three men left a commemoration event early, went to set ablaze a house belonging to an 80-year old genocide survivor.

“Residents managed to put out the fire and the three men were immediately arrested,” he said.

He hailed public partnership in reporting such cases and vigilance in fighting genocide ideology.

Source:Police

April 15, 2017
Hunting accounts for 83 and 58 percent declines in tropical mammal and bird populations

{Hunting is a major threat to wildlife particularly in tropical regions, but a systematic large-scale estimate of hunting-induced declines of animal numbers was lacking so far. A study published in Science on April 14 fills this gap. An international team of ecologists and environmental scientists found that bird and mammal populations were reduced within 7 and 40 km of hunters’ access points, such as roads and settlements.}

Within these impact zones, mammal populations declined on average by 83% and bird populations by 58%. Additionally, the team found that commercial hunting had a higher impact than hunting for family food, and that hunting pressure was higher in areas with better accessibility to major towns where wild meat could be traded. The impact of hunting was found to be larger than the team expected. ‘Thanks to this study, we estimate that only 17 percent of the original mammal abundance and 42 percent of the birds remain in hunted areas.’

The researchers synthesised 176 studies to quantify hunting-induced declines of mammal and bird populations across the tropics of Central and South America, Africa and Asia. The study was led by Ana Benítez-López, who works at the department of Environmental Science at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. She cooperated with researchers from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), the universities of Wageningen and Utrecht in the Netherlands and a colleague from the School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex.

{{Higher hunting pressure around villages and roads}}

‘There are several drivers of animal decline in tropical landscapes: habitat destruction, overhunting, fragmentation etcetera. While deforestation and habitat loss can be monitored using remote sensing, hunting can only be tracked on the ground. We wanted to find a systematic and consistent way to estimate the impact of hunting across the tropics. As a starting point, we used the hypothesis that humans gather resources in a circle around their village and in the proximity of roads. As such, hunting pressure is higher in the proximity of villages and other access points. From there the densities of species increase up to a distance where no effect of hunting is observed. We called this species depletion distances which we quantified in our analysis. This allowed us to map hunting-induced declines across the tropics for the first time,’ Benítez-López explains.

{{Not only the big cuddly species
}}

The main novelty of the current study is that it combined the evidence across many local studies, thus for the first time providing an overarching picture of the magnitude of the impact across a large number of species. The study takes all animals into account — not only the big cuddly species, but birds and rodents as well. Benítez-López explains the difference in impact between birds and mammals: ‘Mammals are more sought after because they’re bigger and provide more food. They are worth a longer trip. The bigger the mammal, the further a hunter would walk to catch it.’ With increasing wild meat demand for rural and urban supply, hunters have harvested the larger species almost to extinction in the proximity of the villages and they must travel further distances to hunt. Besides, for commercially interesting species such as elephants and gorillas, hunting distances are much larger because the returns are higher.

{{Protected areas are no safe haven}}

Another interesting finding of this study is that mammal populations have also been reduced by hunting even within protected areas. ‘Strategies to sustainably manage wild meat hunting in both protected and unprotected tropical ecosystems are urgently needed to avoid further defaunation,’ she says. ‘This includes monitoring hunting activities by increasing anti-poaching patrols and controlling overexploitation via law enforcement’.

Source:Science Daily

April 15, 2017
Police rallies public against littering

{In line with keeping the City of Kigali clean and green, police has reminded drivers and road users to always refrain from throwing or dumping waste in unauthorised places, which contravenes the law on environmental protection.}

In an interview, the spokesperson for Traffic and Road Safety Department in Rwanda National Police (RNP), Chief Inspector of Police (CIP) Emmanuel Kabanda, said that part of ensuring road safety is maintaining cleanliness along roads and “this can only be done by ensuring the public doesn’t litter objects or waste on streets.”

“Dumping wastes on sidewalks and streets either while walking or throw them through car windows is prohibited and punishable by law…. However, as part of our mandate, we always opt to educate and remind the public about the laws as a preventive rather than imposing the law,” CIP Kabanda said.

He added: “The reason we keep sensitizing the public is because the country has invested a lot in ensuring total cleanliness; this kind of investment can’t be put to waste, that is why we encourage them to always use trash cans placed by the roadside and also own the responsibility of keeping our cities and country clean.”

He made a reference to the organic law determining the modalities of protection, conservation and promotion of environment in Rwanda that defines waste as any substance whether solid, liquid or gaseous resulting from household activities, from manufacturing plants or any abandoned movable or immovable property, and which may be harmful.

Article 32 of this organic law stipulates that, no one is permitted to dispose waste in an inappropriate place, except where it is destroyed from or in a treatment plant and after being approved by competent authorities.

He pointed out that litter can build up and attract insects that bring unwanted germs and disease to the ecosystems, which can as well be a security issue.

He further cited article 107 of the mentioned organic law which states that “any person who deposits, abandons or dumps waste, materials, or who pours sewage in a public or private place, is punished by a fine ranging from Rwf10.000 to Rwf100.000 except if such a place has been designated by competent authorities.”

It adds in part that: “The person is punished by a fine of Rwf10.000 or he or she may be compelled to clean the place where persons have polluted public or private property with human and domestic waste, except if such a place has been designated by the competent authorities.”

“Littering has many effects; waste that has not been disposed properly can affect human lives and the environment, and this is why we normally have Umuganda – monthly communal work – and the law,” said the traffic spokesperson.

In the same context CIP Kabanda also reminded the public that it is illegal to trespass in areas gazetted as ‘special green spaces’.

Police and the City of Kigali are frequently engaged in joint campaigns geared towards safety and beautification of the city.

Source:Police

April 15, 2017