IGIHE

Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

  • Arrests after 20 people killed at Sargodha shrine

    {Three people, including custodian, arrested after bloodbath at shrine outside city of Sargodha in Punjab province.}

    Lahore, Pakistan – The custodian of a shrine and two others have been arrested after murdering 20 devotees in Pakistan’s Punjab province, police said.

    Abdul Waheed, custodian of the Ali Muhammad Gujjar shrine, drugged the devotees before beating them with sticks and stabbing them to death late on Saturday, local police officer Shaukat Manzoor told Al Jazeera.

    He then handed himself over to authorities, the official added.

    The incident occurred in the small village of Chak 95, just outside the city of Sarghoda located about 160km west of Lahore.

    “There were no survivors. He drugged everyone who was at the shrine,” Manzoor said, adding that Waheed appeared to suffer from mental instability.

    Chief of the local police station Shamsher Khan said Waheed was found sitting outside the shrine when authorities reached the location.

    “He had a dagger dripping with blood on him,” said Khan. “He told us not to come near him otherwise he will attack us … But we managed to arrest him and the two other men who were sitting outside the shrine with him.

    “The whole shrine was filled with bodies. There were 20 dead bodies, including three women and 17 men.”

    Two other men, Zafar Ali and Sanaullah, believed to be Waheed’s accomplices, were arrested from the scene, Khan said.

    Police said it was unclear if the men have any affiliation with armed extremist groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, who often carry out attacks targeting shrines and Pakistan’s minorities.

    The officials added they would decide whether or not to file terrorism charges after completing their questioning of the suspects and any witnesses.

    “Waheed is in custody. We are currently taking down witness statements. We will decide on terrorism charges after that,” said Manzoor.

    On Friday, at least 22 people were killed when the Pakistani Taliban’s Jamaat-ur-Ahrar faction targeted a Shia Muslim mosque in the northwestern town of Parachinar.

    In February, 88 people were killed when a suicide bomber targeted one of Pakistan’s most well-known shrines in the southern town of Sehwan.

    The attack, the worst in Pakistan since the 2014 attack on a school in Peshawar, was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

    The incident occurred in the small village of Chak 95, just outside the city of Sarghoda located about 160km west of Lahore

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Fire breaks out at under-construction Dubai skyscraper

    {No injuries reported in fire that broke out near Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.}

    A large fire broke out at a high-rise under-construction building near Dubai’s largest shopping mall, sending thick gray smoke billowing over the heart of the city.

    The site is next to the Dubai Mall and the 63-storey The Address Downtown Dubai tower, which was heavily damaged in a fire on New Year’s Eve in 2015.

    Dubai’s government media office said the fire erupted at the Address Residences Fountain Views towers, and that firefighters have brought it under control.

    “Cooling operations are underway and ambulance units are on site,” the media office posted on its Twitter account. It said there were no injuries.

    The fire broke out at around 6:30am (0230 GMT). Flames licked out of the podium level of the building as firefighters shot water inside.

    Every few minutes, small blasts could be heard inside the structure, presumably from exploding propane or welding tanks used by the workers. Ambulances stood nearby but there was no sign of any worker being treated.

    The fire appeared to be confined to the lower floors of the structure.

    Fountain Views complex is being built by Dubai-based developer Emaar Properties, which raised the mall and the hotel struck in the 2015 blaze.

    The property has three towers each 60 floors high and had been due to be completed in April 2018.

    Large numbers of firefighters were on the scene, and police cordoned off nearby roads.

    “It was plumes and plumes of black smoke. It looks like it was quite low down,” said witness Anthea Ayache, before adding that firefighters responded quickly.

    “There’s so many fire brigades, so they seem to have gotten on top of it very quickly,” she said.

    Dramatic fires have hit skyscrapers in Dubai and other fast-growing cities in the United Arab Emirates in recent years.

    Building and safety experts have cited a popular type of cladding covering the buildings that can be highly flammable.

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia ‘in close race’

    {Voting in landmark legislative poll begins in first election since the adoption of constitutional reforms.}

    Armenians started voting in landmark legislative elections for the first time since the adoption of constitutional reforms aimed at transforming the ex-Soviet country into a parliamentary republic.

    Sunday’s election is expected to be a close race between the majority-wielding Republican Party of Armenia, backed by President Serzh Sarkisian, and an alliance of businessman and former world champion arm wrestler Gagik Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia party.

    The poll election is a key democratic test for the small landlocked nation of 2.9 million, which has no history of transfers of power to an opposition through the ballot box.

    But the campaign has already been marred by opposition claims that the government is preparing mass electoral fraud.

    Ahead of the vote, the European Union delegation to Armenia and the US embassy said in a joint statement that they were “concerned by allegations of voter intimidation, attempts to buy votes, and the systemic use of administrative resources to aid certain competing parties”.

    WATCH: Armenia – Divided Within?

    There are also fears of violence after 10 people were killed in 2008 clashes between police and opposition supporters following the election of pro-Moscow President Sarkisian.

    This time, the country aims to hold an exemplary vote to elect “a parliament trusted by society,” the president told AFP news agency in an interview in March.

    He said his government “has made enormous efforts so that (Sunday’s) milestone vote is flawless”.

    The polls come after constitutional amendments initiated by Sarkisian in 2015 that his opponents say were designed to keep the ruling Republican Party in power.

    The changes were passed after a referendum, but they also prompted thousands to rally in protest.

    The amendments will shift the country away from strong presidency to a parliamentary form of government after Sarkisian’s second and final term ends in 2018.

    Two decades in power

    The opposition alleges that the changes were made to allow Sarkisian, 62, to maintain his grip on power by remaining party leader after he steps down as president.

    “The amendments will perpetuate the rule of Sarkisian and his Republican Party,” which has held onto power for two decades, said Aram Manukyan, an MP from the Armenian National Congress opposition party.

    Sarkisian has denied the allegations and defended the changes as “part of Armenia’s democratisation process,” saying they would empower the opposition.

    Ahead of the vote – in his first comments on his political future – Sarkisian said that he would remain “active” after he left office and hinted that he would keep influencing Armenia’s politics as leader of the Republican Party.

    “When one is leader of a big political party, the scope of one’s responsibility and duties increase,” he said.

    “As chairman of the Republican Party, I assume responsibility for my teammates,” he said when asked about his post-2018 future.

    A total of five parties and four electoral blocs are running in Sunday’s vote, with 101 parliamentary seats up for grabs under a proportional representation system.

    A party needs to clear a five-percent threshold to be represented in parliament, while an electoral bloc made up of several parties needs to garner at least seven percent of the vote.

    Voting, which started at 04:00 GMT and ends at 16:00 GMT, will be monitored by international observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

    The election is a key democratic test for the landlocked nation of 2.9 million

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Iraq’s parliament bans Kurdish flag in Kirkuk

    {MPs reverse a decision to raise the Kurdistan flag alongside the Iraqi flag on public buildings in Kirkuk city.}

    Iraq’s parliament has rejected a decision to raise the Kurdistan flag alongside the Iraqi flag on public buildings and institutions in Kirkuk city.

    Iraqi MPs voted in favour of displaying only the Iraqi flag on Kirkuk’s buildings on Saturday, in a session attended by 186 members of the 328-seat parliament.

    Hasan Turan, an MP for Kirkuk province, told the Anadolu news agency that Kurdish politicians walked out before the vote could take place.

    Earlier in the week, the semi-autonomous Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC) voted in favour of raising the Kurdistan Regional Government’s flag (KRG) alongside Iraqi national flag on public buildings in the city.

    However, that vote was vetoed by most Arab and Turkmen members of the KPC.

    The issue comes at a time when KRG leader Massoud Barzani has made several remarks on holding a possible referendum on independence.

    Kurdish news agency Rudaw reported that members of the KPC are determined to embark on a project aimed at merging Kirkuk with the Kurdistan region’s administration.

    “We have collected 22 signatures to renew that demand and present it to the concerned parties in the Kurdistan Region so that they act on it,” Ibrahim Khalil, a Kurdish member of the Council told Rudaw on Friday.

    “It is our rightful and constitutional right.”

    Kirkuk lies in an oil-rich and ethnically mixed part of Iraq. Control over the city is contested by Kurdish and Iraqi authorities.

    Kurdish forces took over the city in 2014 when the Iraqi army fled during ISIL’s summer offensive in northern Iraq.

    The city is home to Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, and Assyrians, as well as tens of thousands of people fleeing ISIL and Shia militias from other areas of Iraq.

    Kirkuk city is home to Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, and Assyrians, as well as tens of thousands of people fleeing ISIL and Shia militias from other areas of Iraq

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • Suspects in arms depot raid claim torture, humiliation

    {Twenty Burkinabe soldiers claim torture after being held for a failed raid on an arms depot last year.}

    About 20 Burkinabe soldiers on trial at a military tribunal over a failed raid on an arms depot last year have said they were tortured to extract their confessions.

    Almost all of them said they had suffered beatings, humiliation and food deprivation at the police camp where they were held after their arrest following the raid in January 2016, for which they have been on trial since Tuesday.

    “When I was arrested on January 25, 2016, I was abused by police officers from 2:00pm to 4:00pm,” Sergeant Ollo Stanislas Poda said on Saturday.

    “I was beaten with a wet rope, threatened with an [automatic pistol], handcuffed and suspended from a table to make me talk.”

    Like him, most of the soldiers being prosecuted for “military conspiracy” said they had been physically abused and subjected to inhumane treatment.

    “If you arrest someone like my client on January 21, 2016, and eventually it is on March 16 – 52 days later – that you present him to an investigating judge and in the meantime he was detained, we are posing the question about what has been done to him during all this time,” said Issouf Kabre, lawyer for soldier Kam Ollo Bienvenu.

    The soldiers, including about 10 members of the former elite presidential guard (RSP) of ousted leader Blaise Compaore, are also accused of “removing military equipment by breaking and entering” at the arms depot in Yimdi, near the capital, Ouagadougou.

    The arms were allegedly to be used to attack Ouagadougou military prison to release former RSP head General Gilbert Diendere and other soldiers jailed for their alleged involvement in a failed coup in September 2015.

    The coup bid was thwarted by street protesters and support from the army, which attacked the plotters’ barracks.

    Source:Al Jazeera

  • New South Africa finance minister Gigaba calls for radical reform

    {South Africa needs to “radically transform” its economy, the country’s new finance minister has said.}

    The treasury has been seen for too long as belonging to “big business, powerful interests and international investors,” Malusi Gigaba said.

    “This is a people’s government,” he told his first news conference since President Jacob Zuma fired his respected predecessor, Pravin Gordhan.

    Thursday night’s sacking shook markets and divided the ruling party.

    Mr Gordhan’s sudden dismissal, part of a reshuffle affecting nine ministers, led to a 5% plunge in the value of the currency, the rand.

    The ruling African National Congress’ deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, called it “totally, totally unacceptable” and ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe also opposed it.

    {{What does ‘radical transformation’ mean?}}

    In 2014, the ANC adopted “radical economic transformation” policies to boost the economic position of the black majority in the post-apartheid nation.

    But many in the ruling party believe the process has been “too slow and in many instances superficial”, said Mr Gigaba, who was previously home affairs minister.
    “The ownership of wealth and assets remains concentrated in the hands of a small part of the population,” he said.

    But he added that he did not “seek to implement a reckless lurch in a particular direction”.

    “We will stay the course in terms of the fiscal policy stance approved by government,” the new minister said.

    {{Why has this caused such a fuss?}}

    Pravin Gordhan was seen by many as a safe pair of hands when it came to managing the economy.

    He was seen as a bulwark against corruption in an administration that is facing growing criticism.

    He resisted calls from the president to increase government expenditure.
    Malusi Gigaba, however, is widely seen as an ally of Mr Zuma and does not have a background in finance.

    {{Why was Mr Gordhan sacked?}}

    Opposition parties say it is because he was obstructing President Zuma and his allies – whom they accused of corruption – from gaining access to state funds.

    Mr Zuma, who rejects the allegations, said the move was about a “radical socio-economic transformation”.

    Local media point to an alleged intelligence report accusing Mr Gordhan of working with foreigners to undermine Mr Zuma’s administration.

    Last October, Mr Gordhan was charged with fraud but the charges were later dropped. He has described the allegations as politically motivated.

    Mr Gigaba: "Wealth... remains concentrated in the hands of a small part of the population"

    Source:BBC

  • Niger court action over ‘fraudulent’ uranium deal

    {Activists in Niger have started legal action into a uranium deal in which the country is said to have lost $3.25m.}

    The scandal, known as “uranium-gate”, resulted from a 2011 transaction between French nuclear giant Areva and companies both in Niger and abroad.

    There is also a French investigation into some of Areva’s business dealings, with aspects related to this deal.

    Areva has not commented on the legal case in Niger, but says it is cooperating in the French enquiry.

    Niger is one of the biggest uranium producers in the world and the metal is the country’s largest export.

    Many people turned up on Friday morning outside the court in the capital, Niamey, as representatives of civil society movements arrived to register the court action, the BBC’s Himadou Hamadou said.

    Their complaint alleges embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, forgery and conspiracy to defraud.

    The legal action centres on the allegation that Areva in 2011 bought a stock of uranium from Niger at a discounted price.

    Niger has two significant uranium mines that provides 7.5% of the world mining output from Africa’s highest-grade uranium ores, according to the World Nuclear Association, the international organisation that represents the global nuclear industry.

    Niger’s first commercial uranium mine began operating in 1971, with a strong government support for expanding uranium mining.

    Students and civil society activists in Niger believe they do not get a fair share from their country's uranium trade

    Source:BBC

  • Kuwaiti woman ‘investigated over Ethiopian maid’s window fall’

    {The Kuwaiti authorities are reportedly investigating a video that appears to show a woman filming her Ethiopian maid falling from a seventh-floor window without attempting to help her.}

    The maid can be heard screaming “hold me, hold me” just before her hand slips and she falls onto a roof below.

    She was subsequently rescued by paramedics and treated in hospital for a broken arm and other injuries.

    The Kuwait Society for Human Rights said the employer had a duty of rescue.
    The organisation noted that emirate’s penal code decreed that anyone who deliberately refrained from coming to the aid of a person in peril was liable to be sentenced to up to three months in prison.

    The Kuwait Times meanwhile cited a lawyer, Fawzia al-Sabah, as saying she would file a complaint against the employer with the public prosecutor.

    The newspaper said it was believed the maid initially climbed out of the window because she was suicidal.

    In the 12-second video posted online, she is seen hanging outside a block of flats in the Sabah al-Salem district of Kuwait City, with one hand gripping the window.

    The woman holding the camera is then heard telling her: “Oh crazy, come back.”

    The maid pleads with the woman to help her shortly before she loses her grip and she falls onto the metal roof of an adjoining one-storey building.

    Another video posted online by the Alanba newspaper on Thursday appears to show the maid being helped to climb down a ladder by paramedics and a fireman.

    Alanba cited the employer as saying that she had filmed the incident and shared it because she did not want to be accused of the maid’s murder if she had died.

    Source:BBC

  • DR Congo peacekeeping: UN votes to scale down mission

    {The UN Security Council has voted to cut the size of Monusco, its largest and most expensive peacekeeping mission, which operates in the Democratic Republic of Congo.}

    Under a draft plan, the total of 19,000 peacekeepers will be reduced by 3,000.
    The UN force is already undermanned by close to that number.

    The move came as a political deal brokered by the Catholic Church to pave the way to presidential elections collapsed, leaving the country on edge.

    Several UN member states have signalled a desire to cut spending on peacekeeping, in particular the new Trump administration in the United States – which is the largest donor.

    On Wednesday, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Hailey, said the UN was partnering with a “corrupt” government in Congo, and called for the downsizing of Monusco.

    Monusco was instrumental in defeating the M23, the largest rebel group in DR Congo, by setting up special brigade authorised to resort to use force if necessary.

    However it has also faced violent demonstrations and attacks by civilians, who accuse it of being ineffective.

    Most of the anti-UN protests have taken place in the eastern region of Kivu, where armed groups continue to commit massacres, especially in the Beni region.

    In the region, peacekeepers have often been referred to as “tourists” because they are associated with travel in helicopters and 4×4 vehicles.

    Monusco is the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world

    Source:BBC

  • Colombia mudslides kill more than 200, sweep homes away

    {Rescuers clawed through piles of mud and twisted debris Sunday searching for survivors after violent mudslides destroyed homes in southern Colombia, killing over 200 people and injuring hundreds more.}

    They were the latest victims of deadly floods and mudslides that have struck the Pacific side of South America over recent months, also killing scores of people in Peru and Ecuador.

    In the southwestern Colombian town of Mocoa a sudden surge of mud and water swept away homes, bridges, vehicles and trees, leaving piles of wrecked timber buried in thick mud.

    The mudslides slammed Mocoa late Friday after days of torrential rain in the Amazon basin area town of 40,000.

    “The latest information we have is that there are 206 people confirmed dead, 202 injured, 220 missing, 17 neighbourhoods hit hard,” Colombian Red Cross chief Cesar Uruena told AFP.

    On Sunday President Juan Manuel Santos is set to return to the town, the capital of Putumayo department, with cabinet ministers to supervise rescue efforts in the heavily forested region.

    Santos met with rescuers and survivors in Mocoa on Saturday, and declared a public health and safety emergency to speed up rescue and aid operations.

    NATION IN MOURNING

    “Dear God, I don’t want to even remember that,” said street vendor Marta Ceballos, who survived the mudslide.

    “To see how some people screamed, and others cried, ran, tried to flee in cars, on motorcycles, and how they were trapped in the mud. It’s all too, too difficult,” she told AFP.

    Ceballos said that she lost all of her material possessions. “The only things I fortunately did not lose were my husband, my daughters and my nephews,” she said.
    Putumayo Governor Sorrel Aroca called the event “an unprecedented tragedy” for the area.

    There are “hundreds of families we have not yet found and whole neighbourhoods have disappeared,” he told W Radio.

    Carlos Ivan Marquez, director of the National Disaster Risk Management Unit, told AFP the mudslides were caused by the rise of the Mocoa River and tributaries.
    The flooded rivers caused a “big avalanche,” the army said in a statement.

    Some 130 millimetres (5 inches) of rain fell Friday night, president Santos said. “That means 30 percent of monthly rainfall fell last night, which precipitated a sudden rise of several rivers,” he said.

    He promised earlier on Twitter to “guarantee assistance to the victims of this tragedy, which has Colombians in mourning.”

    “Our prayers are with the victims and those affected,” he added.

    {{RESCUE EFFORTS}}

    One thousand emergency personnel, including soldiers and local police, were helping the rescue effort. Mocoa was left without power or running water, and there were reports of people looting stores in search of bottled water.

    “There are lots of people in the streets, lots of people displaced and many houses have collapsed,” retired Mocoa resident Hernando Rodriguez, 69, said by telephone.
    “People do not know what to do… there were no preparations” for such a disaster, he said.

    “We are just starting to realize what has hit us.”

    Several deadly landslides have struck Colombia in recent months.

    A landslide in November killed nine people in the rural southwestern town of El Tambo, officials said at the time.

    A landslide the month before killed 10 people in the north of the country.

    Climate change can play a big role in the scale of natural disasters, such as this one, a senior UN official said.

    “Climate change is generating dynamics and we see the tremendous results in terms of intensity, frequency and magnitude of these natural effects, as we have just seen in Mocoa,” said Martin Santiago, UN chief for Colombia.

    A man talks on his mobile phone amid the rubble left by mudslides following heavy rains, in Mocoa, Putumayo department, southern Colombia on April 1, 2017.

    Source:AFP