IGIHE

Author: Publisher

  • Zimbabwe’s Opposition Suspends Official who Asked Leader to Quit

    Zimbabwe’s Opposition Suspends Official who Asked Leader to Quit

    Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Friday suspended a senior official who had asked party leader Morgan Tsvangirai to quit, a move which has divided a party recovering from election defeat last year.

    Dozens of anti-riot police kept watch outside the MDC headquarters in central Harare as the party’s national council, its top decision-making body, met.

    MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti said the suspension of deputy treasurer Elton Mangoma was irregular and said members had been intimidated during a meeting he said was not properly constituted.

    Biti, finance minister in a coalition government with President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party until last July, said Mangoma had not been given a proper opportunity to defend himself and the national council members had not conducted a vote as required under party rules.

    “We are very frightened about the mutation of the MDC into another ZANU-PF and in my capacity as secretary general I have a duty to protect a movement, and one which so many people believe in,” Biti said, speaking at his law firm in Harare.

    “We have to rectify what went wrong, to make sure we have a properly constituted national council that will deal with the matter properly with respect to due process,” Biti said.

    Mangoma angered Tsvangirai’s supporters when he sent the party leader an open letter in January asking him to resign, arguing that he had failed to push through reforms while in the four-year power-sharing government with Mugabe.

    Mangoma last month said he had been assaulted by Tsvangirai loyalists while emerging from a party meeting and went on to make a police report. He said Tsvangirai had organized his beating, an accusation Tsvangirai has denied, and the case is now before the courts.

    MDC spokesman Douglas Mwonzora told journalists after the national council meeting: “The actions by Mr Mangoma have seriously undermined our relationship with strategic partners. It is also further noticed that his behavior and attitude undermines the party.”

    Mangoma was served with his suspension letter during the meeting and will appear before a tribunal, Mwonzora said.

    Tsvangirai, 61, has led the MDC since it was formed in 1999 to challenge Mugabe, the sole ruler since the former Rhodesia gained independence from Britain in 1980, and his ZANU-PF party.

    But the ex-labor union leader has failed to dislodge 90-year-old Mugabe in three elections, although none of them was free or fair according to the MDC and Western observers.

    {wirestory}

  • William Clay Ford Sr., Grandson of Pioneer Automaker, Dies at 88

    William Clay Ford Sr., Grandson of Pioneer Automaker, Dies at 88

    {{Former Ford Motor Co executive William Clay Ford Sr., the last surviving grandchild of the automaker’s founder, Henry Ford, and the longtime owner of the Detroit Lions football team, died on Sunday at age 88, the company said.}}

    Ford, who spent many of his 57 years at Ford focusing on automobile design, died of pneumonia at his home in the Detroit suburb Grosse Pointe Shores.

    Ford was the father of William Clay Ford Jr., the automaker’s current executive chairman. He was director emeritus of the company at the time of his death.

    He joined the automaker’s sales and advertising staff after graduating from Yale in 1949 and was named a company vice president in 1953.

    Ford’s notable executive positions included vice president of product design, head of the former Continental Division and member of the Office of the Chief Executive.

    His board positions included vice chairman, chairman of the Executive Committee and chairman of the Finance Committee.

    He was a Ford director from 1948 until his retirement in 2005 – more than half the automaker’s 110-year history. Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at $1.35 billion.

    “My father was a great business leader and humanitarian who dedicated his life to the company and the community,” William Jr. said in a statement released by Ford.

    Nick Scheele, a former Ford Motor president and former chief executive of Jaguar Cars, said William Sr. was one of the key supporters of Ford’s 1990 purchase of Jaguar, the British sports carmaker, and appreciated fine European design.

    “You could see it in his Continental Mark II,” Scheele said. “He had a great eye for styling.”

    {{HEIRS TO EDSEL}}

    Ford and his brother Henry II were sons of Edsel Ford, whose father founded the storied automaker.

    Henry II outshone his younger brother in his career at the company. Known as “HF2,” and “Hank the Deuce,” he was Ford’s chairman and chief executive officer before his death in 1987.

    William Clay inherited Edsel’s love of design and it showed in his stewardship of the Continental Mark II, a beautiful but short-lived Ford luxury car in the mid-1950s.

    Bill Chapin, president of the Detroit-based Automotive Hall of Fame and longtime friend of the Ford family, said Ford would be remembered for the Mark II, which was inspired in part by his father Edsel’s personal 1939 Lincoln Continental.

    Considered a postwar classic of automotive design, the Continental Mark II “was not a financial success, but it helped build Ford’s image and reputation,” Chapin said.

    Ford bought the Lions in 1963 for a reported $4.5 million and was the team’s chairman until his death.

    In recent years, the club has been managed by his son Bill Jr. The Lions never won a National Football League championship under his ownership; its last NFL crown came in 1957.

    Forbes last year valued the Lions franchise at $900 million.

    On the team’s website on Sunday, Lions President Tom Lewand said: “No owner loved his team more than Mr. Ford loved the Lions.”

    Ford shunned the spotlight, but in recent years talked about his grandfather giving him his first driving lesson at age 10 – they were going 70 miles per hour with young William in Henry’s lap when a policeman stopped them.

    Ford took his first airplane ride with celebrated aviator Charles Lindbergh at the controls of a Ford Tri-Motor and enlisted in the Naval Air Corps during World War Two. He was taking flight training at the time of his discharge in 1945.

    He would have marked his 89th birthday on Friday.

    His survivors include his wife of 66 years, Martha Firestone Ford, granddaughter of Harvey Firestone. Harvey Firestone was the founder of the Firestone tire company and a good friend of the first Henry Ford.

    In addition to his wife and William Jr., Ford is survived by his daughters Martha Ford Morse, Sheila Ford Hamp and Elizabeth Ford Kontulis; 14 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

    At the 2003 shareholder meeting, marking the automaker’s centennial, Ford said: “We have tremendous pride in the Ford name … We have a passion for cars. And we also have a great desire to see the Ford name in the forefront of world transportation.”

    {agencies}

  • Nuns Held by Rebels in Syria are Freed

    Nuns Held by Rebels in Syria are Freed

    {{About a dozen nuns held by rebels in Syria for more than three months were released on Sunday and arrived back in Syria after traveling through Lebanon, officials and witnesses said.}}

    Witnesses at the Syrian border with Lebanon said the nuns arrived at the crossing late on Sunday night and headed toward Damascus in a minibus. One witness counted 13 nuns and three other workers from their convent.

    “I’m in good health, thank God,” one of the nuns said by phone, leaving before she could give her name or further details.

    A Lebanese security source had said the nuns had been taken to the Lebanese town of Arsal earlier in the week and would head to the Syrian capital on Sunday accompanied by the head of a Lebanese security agency and a Qatari intelligence official.

    The nuns went missing in December after Islamist fighters took the ancient quarter of the Christian town of Maaloula north of Damascus.

    After being held in the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Thecla in Maaloula, they were reportedly moved to the rebel-held town of Yabroud, about 20 km (13 miles) to the north, which is now the focus of a government military operation.

    Speaking to reporters at the border, Syrian Greek Orthodox Bishop Louka al-Khoury welcomed the reported release of the nuns. “What the Syrian army achieved in Yabroud facilitated this process,” he said.

    Shortly after the nuns disappeared, Islamist rebels said they had taken them as their “guests” and that they would release them soon.

    The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group identified the rebels who took the nuns as militants from the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.

    The Observatory and a rebel source in the area said the release of the nuns had been agreed as part of a swap in which the government would free scores of women prisoners.

    “The deal is for the release of 138 women from Assad’s prisons,” the rebel source said, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

    Other reports by activists on social media said around 150 prisoners would be released.

    In December, the nuns appeared in a video obtained by Al Jazeera television, saying they were in good health, but it was not clear under what conditions the video had been filmed.

    Syrian state television devoted significant coverage to the release on Sunday, but made no mention of any prisoner exchange agreement.

    It broadcast live footage from the Lebanese border and interviews with church officials, including one who denounced the West as only believing “in the dollar”.

    A montage of Christian imagery including churches, a statue of the Virgin Mary and murals of Jesus was set against music and described Syria as a “cradle of the monotheistic faiths.”

    Syria’s Christian minority has broadly tried to stay on the sidelines of the three-year-old-conflict, which has killed over 140,000 people and which has become increasingly sectarian.

    But the rise of hardline Islamists among the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim opposition has alarmed many. Assad, whose minority Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, has portrayed himself as a bulwark against militant and intolerant ideologies.

    {wirestory}

  • 42 African Migrants drown off Yemeni coast

    42 African Migrants drown off Yemeni coast

    At least 42 illegal African migrants drowned in the Arabian Sea off the southern coast of Yemen late on Sunday, the defense ministry said on its website.

    {{The ministry’s September 26 website quoted a local official in Shabwa province as saying the migrants drowned off the coastal town of Bir Ali. }}

    A naval patrol managed to rescue 30 other migrants, the source said, and were taking them to a refugee camp in the town of Mayfaa.

    African migrants often use unseaworthy boats to try to reach Yemen, seen as a gateway to wealthier parts of the Middle East and the West. Hundreds of migrants have died at sea.

    The International Organisation for Migration said in December that more than 7,000 migrants have perished at sea or while crossing deserts trying to reach a safe haven in 2013, believed to be the deadliest year on record.

    Of those figures, some 2,000-5,000 Africans are thought to have lost their lives while crossing the Sinai peninsula to Israel and the Gulf of Aden to reach Yemen, although no firm figures were available, the IOM said.

  • Libyan Rebels Warn of ‘War’ if Navy Attacks oil Tanker

    Libyan Rebels Warn of ‘War’ if Navy Attacks oil Tanker

    {{Armed protesters in eastern Libya traded threats with the government on Sunday in a tense stand-off over the unauthorized sale of oil from a rebel-held port.}}

    A North Korean-flagged tanker, the Morning Glory, docked on Saturday at the port of Es Sider and local daily al-Wasat said it had loaded $36 million of crude oil. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has said the military will bomb the 37,000-tonne vessel if it tries to leave.

    Officials said on Sunday that the navy and pro-government militias had dispatched boats to stop it from getting out. The rebels said any attack on the tanker would be “a declaration of war.”

    The escalating conflict over the country’s oil wealth is a sign of mounting chaos in Libya, where the government has failed to rein in fighters who helped oust veteran ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and who now defy state authority.

    The protesters, who also include former soldiers and ex-oil guards led by a former anti-Gaddafi commander, Ibrahim Jathran, have seized three eastern ports in the OPEC member country.

    The Defence Ministry issued orders to the chief of staff, air force and navy to deal with the tanker. “The order authorizes the use of force and puts the responsibility for any resulting damage on the ship owner,” it said in a statement.

    “Several navy boats have been dispatched. Now the tanker’s movements are under complete control and nobody can move it,” said Culture Minister Habib al-Amin, who acts as informal government spokesman. “The tanker will stay where it is.”

    “All efforts are being undertaken to stop and seize the tanker, if necessary by a (military) strike, if it does not follow orders,” he said, adding that state prosecutors would treat the loading of the crude as smuggling.

    There was no sign of any immediate military action, but Libyan news websites showed some small boats close to a tanker which they said was the Morning Glory.

    Libya has been trying to rebuild its army since Gaddafi’s overthrow, but analysts say it is not yet a match for battle-hardened militias that fought in the eight-month uprising that toppled him.

  • Britain Ignored Genocide Threat in Rwanda

    Britain Ignored Genocide Threat in Rwanda

    {{It was an unparalleled modern genocide, an attempt to exterminate an entire people in 100 days. And in the years that followed the killing of some 800,000 Rwandans in 1994, political leaders have expressed their regret at an international failure to stop the violence.}}

    Bill Clinton, United States president at the time, admitted last year that if the West had intervened earlier to stop the killing, mostly by Hutus against Tutsis, 300,000 lives could have been saved.

    The violence began with the killing of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April. Within hours, violence spread from the capital across the country, and did not subside until three months later.

    Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the genocide, last week declassified diplomatic cables were released by the National Security Archive at George Washington University which showed that the US, Britain and the United Nations were explicitly warned that a “new bloodbath” was imminent in Rwanda.

    Rather than increasing the power of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (Unamir), the governments of John Major in Britain and President Clinton in the US were considering rowing back the peacekeeping effort, according to the cables.

    The diplomatic messages showed that on 25 February 1994, the Belgian foreign ministry had expressed “alarm” at the worsening security situation in Kigali.

    Lode Willems, the Belgian ministry’s chief of staff, wrote to Paul Noterdaeme, the country’s ambassador to the UN, describing Rwanda’s “significant deterioration” and asking for greater UN powers to act.

    The UN mission in the country could not “firmly maintain public order” and had “a serious credibility problem”, Willems added.

    But in reply Noterdaeme said that both the US and UK were opposed to action. “Not only are the United States and the United Kingdom against it, they may even, according to their delegations, withdraw Unamir altogether in case of difficulties…

    There is a financial logic behind this: the United States never wanted more than 500 men for Unamir,” wrote Noterdaeme. The UN, he added, was against intervention in the former Belgian colony and “not inclined to adjust the rules of engagement”.

    Three months after the cables were sent, in May, UN members agreed to increase the contingent of troops to 5,000. They were not deployed for a further six months – by which time the killing had already stopped.

    While John Major defended his decision not to send troops to Rwanda – he told MPs in July 1994 it was “simply not practicable” for the UN Security Council to become the “policeman of every part of the world” – Mr Clinton was apologetic on a visit to the country in 1998. “We did not act quickly enough after the killing began,” he said.

    “We should not have allowed the refugee camps to become safe havens for the killers. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide.”

    Next month a series of events will be held to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the genocide. Kwibuka20, translated as “remember20” asks the world to ensure that “such an atrocity can never happen again”.

  • Rwanda Peacekeepers Disarm Ex-Seleka in Bangui

    Rwanda Peacekeepers Disarm Ex-Seleka in Bangui

    {{Rwanda Mechanised Infantry Battalion (RwaMechBatt1) serving in the African-led International Support Mission to the Central African Republic (MISCA) held disarmament exercise of Seleka fighters in cantonment camp in Bangui. More than 1600 laid down their arms.}}

    On Friday 7 March, Rwandan Contingent Commander in MISCA, Lt Col Jean Paul Karangwa met with ‘General’ Issa Isaka and his 1623 Seleka fighters cantoned in Regiment de Defence Operationnelle du Territoire (RDOT) Camp at PK 12 in North Bangui. The aim of the meeting was to persuade them to hand in their weapons.

    According to RwaMechBatt1 Forces, after the meeting, Seleka fighters were convinced and agreed to lay down and hand over their arms to Rwanda Peacekeepers serving in MISCA.

    “The Seleka Militia accepted the disarmament programme and handed over arms they had in the camp”, said Lt Col Jean Paul Karangwa, RwaMechBatt1 Commander who qualified the exercise as big achievement toward disarmament and demobilisation of all armed groups in CAR.

    Seleka fighters cantoned in camp RDOT in Bangui is guarded and protected by Rwanda Peacekeepers and accommodates 1623 Seleka members.

    On 27 February, Rwanda Peacekeepers thwarted attack on RDOT camp by the Anti-Balaka armed group who tried-in vain- to enter by force in the camp.

    “The Anti-balaka militia armed with grenades tried to enter by force in the RDOT Camp where Seleka are cantoned.

    Our Forces on ground contained and repulsed the assailants attack. We condemn this violence and call upon all armed groups and their supporters in CAR to lay down their arms and stop violence.

    RwaMechBatt1 forces shall continue to perform their duties with impartiality in providing security to all CAR citizens” said Brigadier General Joseph Nzabamwita, the Rwanda Defence Forces Spokesman.

    On 23 February 2014, Rwanda peacekeepers foiled Anti-Balaka jailbreak of Ngaragba prison, 7th arrondissement in Bangui. The prison accommodates leaders of the Central African Republic’s militias.

  • RNP and Women Empowerment

    RNP and Women Empowerment

    {{Every March 8, every year, Rwanda joins the rest of the world to mark the International Women’s Day.}}

    This is a global day to celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

    Following the inception of Rwanda National Police (RNP) in June 2000, the force embarked on empowering women both within the force and protecting the rights of women and girls in general.

    Fourteen years down the road, the number of Female Police Officers has risen from almost zero percent to 20% of the current total Police force.

    Development cannot be attained when there is no gender balance or when one group is left behind.

    The RNP target is therefore to attain the minimum 30% of female police officers in the force as per the government’s requirement.

    The force has also established various initiatives to empower women and girls and fight Gender Based Violence (GBV).

    The establishment of the Anti Gender Desk and decentralizing it to the district level is a step towards this development path.

    In 2009, the RNP in collaboration with One-UN-Rwanda and Imbuto foundation established Isange One Stop Centre in Kacyiru Police Hospital to provide free medical, psycho-socio and legal services to GBV victims.

    Late last month, the First Jeannette Kagame presided over the official launch of the scale-up of Isange One Stop Centre for GBV victims in Nyagatare District.

    The centre which operates under the supervision of RNP is expected to be established in 41 Hospitals across the country.

    This is a holistic approach towards a free GBV community whose ideal purpose is to observe the rights of women and girls and developing together.

    In 2012, Isange One stop centre received the United Nations Public Award (UNPSA), for being a holistic centre in fighting Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV).

    Rwanda also maintains the highest number of female police peacekeepers worldwide. These female officers act as mentors and advisors to Police forces in countries of their operation.

    The RNP has also given female officers chance to operate in areas where they have families and the annual Female Convention is meant to give them chance to deliberate on issues that might develop them and lay strategies to solve their challenges.

    Women empowerment and fighting violence against women and girls, therefore remains among the priorities of the force.

    RNP

  • AMISOM Retake Strategic Somali Towns

    AMISOM Retake Strategic Somali Towns

    {{African peacekeepers in Somalia operating with government forces have recaptured several strategic towns in the southwest from the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militia, officials said Sunday.}}

    The African Union’s AMISOM force announced it had launched a widescale offensive on Thursday against the Islamist fighters in areas near the Ethiopian border.

    The operation comes in the wake of a surge of attacks in the Somali capital Mogadishu, where the Shebab is fighting to oust the internationally-backed government.

    {{FIERCE FIGHTING}}

    “AMISOM and the Somali troops kicked Al-Shabaab out of several key towns including Wajid and (regional capital) Hudur,” regional government official Abdulahi Yarisow told media.

    “Our military advancement will continue until we eliminate the enemy from the rest of the country.”

    AMISOM said in a statement it had also secured the towns of Ted, Rabdhure and Buudhubow and driven out Al-Shabaab militiamen, but witnesses reported fierce fighting on Sunday in Buudhubow.

    “The SNA (Somali National Army) and AMISOM joint operations signal the beginning of the renewed efforts by the Somali government forces working more closely with AMISOM forces to dislodge Al-Shabaab from many of its strongholds across the country,” it added.

    Hudur had been taken from the Islamists in March 2012 by Ethiopian troops who later withdrew and it then fell back into Al-Shabaab hands.

    Ethiopia intervened in Somalia between 2006 and 2009 and again sent in troops in November 2011 to battle Islamist fighters in border regions, providing crucial aid to the peacekeeping force.

    In January of this year, Ethiopian troops joined AMISOM, sending a contingent of 4,400 men and boosting the peacekeeping force to some 22,000.

    Local residents contacted by AFP confirmed that Wajid and Hudur had been retaken by AMISOM.

    “The town (Wajid) is empty, Al-Shabaab ordered people to leave the town before the Ethiopian and Somali troops (arrived) but the situation is quite calm now,” said Abdi Hassan, who lives in a neighbouring village.

  • Mt. Rwenzori May Lose Ice Mass

    Mt. Rwenzori May Lose Ice Mass

    {{A two-week expedition to Uganda’s “Doomed Glaciers of Africa” has revealed disturbing impacts linked to climate change, including rapid ice melting and the threat of reduced access to water for the area’s inhabitants.}}

    The expedition to western Uganda’s Rwenzori Mountains was a collaborative effort between Pax Arctica, Makerere University’s Mountain Resource Centre, Green Cross International and the World Youth Parliament for Water.

    According to a press release to the Sunday Monitor on Thursday, the expedition was to study Africa’s disappearing glaciers and raise awareness on the global water crisis.

    A final report is expected in the coming months, but initial observations were disturbing.

    {{Cease in two decades}}

    “Normal melting caused by the dry season (June-August) has worsened,” said expedition leader Luc Hardy of Green Cross France et Territoires, and founder of Pax Arctica.

    “You can see how the glacier is sandwiched between warming at the top and warming at the bottom.”

    Scientists have predicted the glaciers in the Rwenzori Mountains, commonly known as the Mountains of the Moon, may cease to exist in two decades, possibly as early as the mid-2020s.

    Studies have shown that from 1906 to 2003, the area covered by glaciers has reduced from 7.5 km2 to less than 1 km2 (a decline at a rate of 0.7 km2 per decade.)

    Receding glaciers have seen a reduction over time of water flow in the Nyamwamba River, leading to noticeable declines in hydroelectric power and reduced agricultural production. Research efforts to discover the impact of the disappearance of these glaciers are now critical.

    monitor