IGIHE

Author: Publisher

  • Muhammad Ali’s Gloves Auctioned at $836,500

    Muhammad Ali’s Gloves Auctioned at $836,500

    {{The gloves Muhammad Ali wore when he beat Sonny Liston to win his first heavyweight world title fetched $836,500 Shat Auction on Saturday, almost 50 years to the day after the fight.}}

    The gloves were part of Heritage Auctions’ Sports Platinum Night Auction, and the price was posted on their website. The buyer was not identified.

    The gloves were used by the young fighter from Louisville, Kentucky, then named Cassius Clay, to launch a legendary boxing career that made him a global sport icon.

    Clay won a gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics and four years later faced a heavily favoured Liston at Miami Beach.

    Liston was coming off back-to-back first-round knockouts of Floyd Patterson, the first to end Patterson’s six-year reign in the heavyweight division and the second to defend the crown. But along came Clay, a brash and outspoken 22-year-old who taunted Liston.

    On February 25, 1964, Clay stopped Liston in the seventh round to claim the crown, screaming as he jumped around the ring with his arms raised.

    “I shook up the world,” said Clay, who the next day announced that he was changing his name to Muhammad Ali and embracing the Islamic faith.

    Ali would knock out Liston the following year in the first round at Lewiston, Maine, and defend the title eight more times before his 1967 refusal to be inducted into the US Army caused him to be stripped of his titles and banned from boxing for 3.5 years.

    In 1971, the US Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and Ali would go on to win the title twice more.

    -AFP

  • Somali Pirates Hold Hostage 2 Kenyans

    Somali Pirates Hold Hostage 2 Kenyans

    {{Two Kenyans working for a construction company in Mogadishu, Somalia have been abducted by suspected pirates who are now demanding a ransom of Sh80 million.}}

    The two engineers were kidnapped by armed gunmen in Hodan District before they were transferred to Harardhere 700 kilometers North of Mogadishu, according to the Seafarers Union of Kenya.

    “We are yet to contact the families but we have confirmed that Somali gunmen are holding the two Kenyan engineers,” the union’s Secretary General Andrew Mwangura told reporters in Mombasa, adding “Reports indicate that the two are safe and the gunmen are demanding ransom to release them.”

    He said the militia group from Habargidir region has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings, after asking for the ransom.

    According to Mwangura, the incident was first reported at the Malaysia piracy reporting center, but families of those abducted have not been informed.

    The recent kidnapping brings the numbers of Kenyans held captive in Somalia to six among them two soldiers and four civilians.

    Piracy cases had dropped significantly in the Indian Ocean since Kenya sent its troops to fight Al Shabaab militants in Somalia, while at the same time increasing surveillance of Naval ships.

    Early this month a Kenyan-based merchant vessel was attacked by suspected Somali pirates off the coast of Somalia.

    The ill-fated vessel, MV Andrea, was attacked by assailants aboard a white hulled skiff while underway to the port of Mogadishu, Somalia.

    {capitalfm}

  • ADF Rebels Blamed for Killing Journalist

    ADF Rebels Blamed for Killing Journalist

    The Allied Democratic Forces rebel group is being blamed for the attack in which radio journalist Germain Kennedy Muliwavyo was killed in an ambush while covering military operations of government forces in eastern Congo.

    The 28-year-old worked a private broadcaster Radio Television Muungano in the town of Oicha.

    He was shot in the stomach and head in the ambush 60 kilometers outside of Beni in the eastern part of Congo.

    According to a friend, Jacques Kikuni, head of the Muungano radio station, two other journalists were injured and rushed to a nearby hospital.

    The two Mitterand Hangi, reporter for Radio Television Muungano, and Patient Subiri, reporter for Radio Télévision Rwanzururu, a community radio station based in the city of Beni, were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, the Associated Press reported.

    The journalists were in North Kivu and were on their way to report on the village of Kamango, which the Congolese national armed forces had retaken from Ugandan rebels the day before, according to Congolese press freedom group Journaliste En Danger (JED).

    Periodic fighting between the Congolese armed forces and rebel groups has made North Kivu the most dangerous region for journalists, according to CPJ research.

    CPJ documented at least 15 anti-press violations in 2013.

    NV

  • Malema: My Manifesto for South Africans

    Malema: My Manifesto for South Africans

    {{Populist South African leader Julius Malema presented a typically fiery manifesto for upcoming elections to a stadium packed with supporters on Saturday, calling for “real freedom” for the black majority.}}

    “Now it’s time to bring bread on the table,” the 31-year-old told a crowd of 30,000 supporters, reprising his demands for the seizure of farms from white owners and the nationalisation of mines.

    The leader of the Economic Freedom Front (EFF) is infamous for his controversial statements, and has used a spate of miners’ strikes to attack the ruling African National Congress, which booted him from its ranks two years ago.

    “Juju”, as he is known, called for better access to water, electricity and jobs in his speech Saturday at a stadium in Tembisa, a mainly black township outside Johannesburg, denouncing what he called the “slave wages” of ordinary blacks.

    Malema’s inflammatory statements have gained currency in a country with seven million unemployed. Twenty years on from the end of apartheid, South Africa’s “black people are still not free,” he said.

    “We have the responsibility to end the pain of our people, we are saying enough is enough, now it’s time for economic freedom… time to rescue South Africa from deep levels of inequality.”

    He promised to create more positions at universities, lower taxes, raise pensions and give priority to the hiring of blacks.

    “You must no longer be ashamed,” he told the crowd.

    Were kicked out

    He also reiterated his support for gold miners, who have been on strike over wages for the past month, and whom Malema visited on a recent tour to drum up opposition to the government.

    The EFF was created in 2012 after Malema and his allies were kicked out of the ANC for criticising the party leadership.

    The ANC, in power since the end of white-minority rule in 1994, is almost certain to win elections on May 7, giving President Jacob Zuma a new five-year term. But it faces growing frustration from voters and increased competition from opposition parties.

    Malema called on his supporters “not to fight with anyone” amid fears of clashes with the ANC Youth League, which he used to lead and which was holding a meeting nearby.

    He also called for special tribunals and sentences of 20 years’ imprisonment to deal with corruption cases.

    Malema was himself issued an arrest warrant on Friday in relation to allegations that he has funded a wealthy lifestyle through corruption.

    He denies the charges and says they are politically motivated.

    AFP

  • UN to Boost Troops in DR Congo’s Katanga Region

    UN to Boost Troops in DR Congo’s Katanga Region

    {{The United Nations has it will send more peacekeeping troops to the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of Congo after a surge in attacks by local militias caused a critical humanitarian crisis.}}

    The UN mission in the country (MONUSCO) “has decided to deploy special forces at Pweto to protect Katanga’s population”, MONUSCO chief Martin Kobler said on Twitter.

    No decision has been made on the exact size of the reinforcement, but a date for the deployment should be announced shortly, MONUSCO’s military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Prosper Basse told reporters.

    Moustapha Soumare, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in DR Congo, called the situation in mineral-rich Katanga “critical”.

    “We must step up our humanitarian response if we want to save the province from a general crisis,” he said in a statement.

    Katanga’s impoverished area around Manono, Mitwaba and Pweto, in the north of the province, is widely known as the “triangle of death”.

    The rampant violence is mainly attributed to the Mai Mai rebel group which fights for a better distribution between the north and south of the wealth stemming from the province’s immense natural resources.

    Bakata Katanga rebels, who claim to fight for independence, launched brazen attacks that left dozens of people dead in Lubumbashi in March and November 2013.

    Since September 2013 Mai Mai rebels have also burnt down more than 60 villages in attacks on Manono, Mitwaba and Pweto, a statement issued by the UN’s OCHA humanitarian affairs office said Tuesday.

    In Pweto alone about 60,000 people have been accommodated after fleeing their homes because of the violence, according to the UN.

    The figure for all of Katanga is 402,000 displaced people, compared with 51,000 in 2011.

    Katanga, which at almost half a million square kilometres (190,000 square miles) is about the size of Spain, is believed to hold around a third of the world’s cobalt and 10 percent of its copper reserves.

    Its capital Lubumbashi is DR Congo’s second largest city and the province has been plagued by secessionist violence since the country’s independence from Belgium in 1960.

    AFP

  • Morsi ‘Leaked Secrets to Iran’

    Morsi ‘Leaked Secrets to Iran’

    Egyptian prosecutors have accused ousted President Mohammed Morsi of leaking state secrets to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

    The claim came during the second hearing of his trial on espionage charges.

    Prosecutors allege that he and 35 others were involved in a plot to destabilise Egypt. The trial was later adjourned to 27 February.

    The deposed Islamist leader is facing four separate trials.

    Mr Morsi’s supporters say he and other senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders are the victims of politically motivated prosecutions.

    The espionage trail opened on 16 February and on Sunday prosecutors detailed the charges against Mr Morsi and his co-defendants.

    They were specifically accused of “delivering to a foreign country… national defence secrets and providing the Iranian Revolutionary Guards with security reports in order to destabilise the security and stability of the country”, AFP news agency reported.

    The statement read in court did not identify the “foreign country”.

    Mr Morsi is also accused of collaborating with the Palestinian movement Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement. If convicted, he could receive the death penalty.

    BBC

  • Nyarugenge Residents Trained On Fire Fighting

    Nyarugenge Residents Trained On Fire Fighting

    {{In an effort to further fight and prevent fire accidents, Rwanda National Police through the Fire and Rescue Brigade Unit on 21st February, visited residents of Muhima sector and shared with them some fire fighting skills.}}

    Senior superintendent (SSP) Jean de Dieu Gashiramanga, the Commanding Officer of RNP’s Fire and Rescue Brigade reminded residents that, fire accident destroys properties and life adding that preventing it requires everyone’s responsibility.

    SSP Gashiramanga urged them to share timely information for Police to intervene before properties extinct in fire accidents.

    “Fire always starts as a very tiny flame which could be put out by everybody, “said Gashiramanga adding however that the small flame could spread very quickly if no one intervened to put it out.

    RNP

  • President Kagame joins Masaka Residents in Umuganda to Build Homes for Vulnerable

    President Kagame joins Masaka Residents in Umuganda to Build Homes for Vulnerable

    {{President Kagame today joined residents of Masaka Sector, Kicukiro District during the monthly Umuganda to build homes in Rusheshe cell for survivors of the genocide against the Tutsi, Rwandans evicted from Tanzania and combatants injured during the liberation struggle.}}

    The District of Kicukiro aims to build a total of 360 homes in Rusheshe cell to accommodate the families.

    Addressing hundreds of residents after Umuganda, President Kagame President Kagame reiterated on the need for all Rwandans to work hard in bid to transform their lives:

    “Development is within our ability. You are as capable as anyone else anywhere in the world. Our goal is to ensure that every Rwandan plays an active role in the socio economic transformation of our nation basing on our belief that every Rwandan deserves good standard of life.”

    President Kagame pointed out that there is no pride in always waiting upon other people to come and assist you, when you have all it takes to work and achieve all you want. He said if there has to be any assistance; it should only come to complement what Rwandans already have.

    “We deserve to have all the values of a good life like education, healthcare, security and education for our children. Our children need good education built on good upbringing based on our good culture so that they can grow to be worthy citizens of this country. We will be there to ensure that the leaders to you elect into office serve your interests and not their own.”

    The Mayor of Kicukiro, Ndamage Jules thanks President Kagame for good leadership which put ordinary Rwandans first. He said his District aimed at ensuring that all residents live a better life by providing them with homes, clean water, markets, schools and electricity.

    {Presidency}

  • Mexico Arrests Powerful Drug Kingpin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman

    Mexico Arrests Powerful Drug Kingpin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman

    {{In a US-backed raid early on Saturday, Mexican marines captured the country’s most powerful drug kingpin in a resort city in his home state of Sinaloa. Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman had eluded capture for 13 years.}}

    The arrest is a major victory for President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose administration is striving to tame a surge in drug violence that has killed more than 77,000 people in the past seven years.

    The man whose nickname means “shorty” headed Mexico’s most powerful drug gang, the Sinaloa cartel, whose empire stretches along the Pacific coast and smuggles drugs to the United States, Europe and Asia.

    Hours after his capture, the 56-year-old drug lord was taken to Mexico City’s airport, where he was paraded in front of television cameras, wearing a white shirt and jeans and sporting thick black hair and a matching mustache.

    He was flanked by two masked marines who held him by the arms and the back of the neck before hauling him inside a federal police helicopter, which flew him to a maximum-security prison.

    US Attorney General Eric Holder hailed the arrest as “a landmark achievement, and a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States”.

    The United States had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Guzman, who is accused of being behind much of the drug violence that has plagued Mexico for years.

    Mexico’s Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam said “nobody was hurt” in the arrest, which was the result of months of collaborative work with US law enforcement agencies and led to 13 arrests as well as the seizure of more than 100 weapons.

    The authorities had tracked Guzman down in Culiacan, Sinaloa state’s largest city, and came close to capturing him between February 13-17 in one of the seven homes he was using.

    But Guzman managed to escape through specially built tunnels that were linked to the city’s drainage systems as security forces struggled to break down a steel-reinforced door, Murillo Karam said.

    Guzman was eventually detained with an unidentified associate in Mazatlan.

    A US security official said Mexican forces had acted on intelligence from the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

    france24

  • Dogs’ Brain Scans Reveal Vocal Responses

    Dogs’ Brain Scans Reveal Vocal Responses

    {{By placing dogs in an MRI scanner, researchers from Hungary found that the canine brain reacts to voices in the same way that the human brain does.}}

    Emotionally charged sounds, such as crying or laughter, also prompted similar responses, perhaps explaining why dogs are attuned to human emotions.

    The work is published in the journal Current Biology.

    Lead author Attila Andics, from the Hungarian Academy of Science’s Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, said: “We think dogs and humans have a very similar mechanism to process emotional information.”

    Eleven pet dogs took part in the study; training them took some time.

    “We used positive reinforcement strategies – lots of praise,” said Dr Andics.

    “There were 12 sessions of preparatory training, then seven sessions in the scanner room, then these dogs were able to lie motionless for as long as eight minutes. Once they were trained, they were so happy, I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see it.”

    For comparison, the team looked at the brains of 22 human volunteers in the same MRI scanners.

    The scientists played the people and pooches 200 different sounds, ranging from environmental noises, such as car sounds and whistles, to human sounds (but not words) and dog vocalisations.

    The researchers found that a similar region – the temporal pole, which is the most anterior part of the temporal lobe – was activated when both the animals and people heard human voices.

    “We do know there are voice areas in humans, areas that respond more strongly to human sounds that any other types of sounds,” Dr Andics explained.

    “The location (of the activity) in the dog brain is very similar to where we found it in the human brain. The fact that we found these areas exist at all in the dog brain at all is a surprise – it is the first time we have seen this in a non-primate.”

    Emotional sounds, such as crying and laughter also had a similar pattern of activity, with an area near the primary auditory cortex lighting up in dogs and humans.

    Likewise, emotionally charged dog vocalisations – such as whimpering or angry barking – also caused a similar reaction in all volunteers,

    Dr Andics said: “We know very well that dogs are very good at tuning into the feelings of their owners, and we know a good dog owner can detect emotional changes in his dog – but we now begin to understand why this can be.”

    However, while the dogs responded to the human voice, their reactions were far stronger when it came to canine sounds.

    They also seemed less able to distinguish between environmental sounds and vocal noises compared with humans.

    About half of the whole auditory cortex lit up in dogs when listening to these noises, compared with 3% of the same area in humans.

    Commenting on the research, Prof Sophie Scott, from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, said: “Finding something like this in a primate brain isn’t too surprising – but it is quite something to demonstrate it in dogs.

    “Dogs are a very interesting animal to look at – we have selected for a lot of traits in dogs that have made them very amenable to humans. Some studies have show they understand a lot of words and they understand intentionality – pointing.”

    But she added: “It would be interesting to see the animal’s response to words rather than just sounds. When we cry and laugh, they are much more like animal calls and this might be causing this response.

    “A step further would be if they had gone in and shown sensitivity to words in the language their owners speech.”

    Dr Andics said this would be the focus of his next set of experiments.

    BBC