IGIHE

Author: Publisher

  • China Destroys 6.1 tons of Ivory

    China Destroys 6.1 tons of Ivory

    {{In a surprise move the Government of China on Monday destroyed 6.1 tons of ivory and other wildlife products confiscated from illegal trade at a public ceremony witnessed by Kenyan officials.}}

    Delegations from nine other countries also attended the event in the city of Dongguan, near Guangzhou. They include those from the U.S., UK, India, Gabon and Tanzania. China’s action follows a similar ivory crush in the U.S. on November 15, 2013.

    A statement from the anti-poaching and anti-trafficking organisation, Elephant Action League (EAL) termed the action: “An important symbolic gesture that acknowledges the fact that the illegal ivory, being the product of illicit and criminal activities, sometimes even linked to terrorist groups, must be destroyed, as we do for other illicit goods like narcotics. It’s a moral obligation to destroy the seized ivory, all over the world, not just in China.”

    EAL however, said China’s ivory destruction is less relevant owing to the fact that there is a domestic legal ivory market that is fuelling both elephant poaching and the illegal ivory trade. “Tens of tons of illegal ivory keep entering China every year and are laundered into the legal market.

    This is the single most important factor behind the current elephant poaching crisis.” Said the statement. The most crucial and urgent thing to do is to crack down on the illegal traffic inside China for good.

    “Chinese authorities must admit that the current monitoring system is not working and it even facilitates the laundering of the illegal ivory. The current system is a heaven for criminals, the mafia and illegal traders”, Elephant Action League’s Executive Director Mr Andrea Crosta said. Mr Crosta also said the quantity of ivory destroyed is just a tiny fraction of China’s stockpile of illegal ivory.

    “We think that this ceremony is just a public relation exercise to ease the pressure from the international community”, he said. Over 35,000 elephants are killed every year in Africa for their ivory. In many African countries elephants are now extinct or much endangered.

    {standard}

  • Corruption Costs EU Economy £99bn Annualy

    Corruption Costs EU Economy £99bn Annualy

    {EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom}

    {{The European Commission reports that the extent of corruption in Europe is “breathtaking” and it costs the EU economy at least 120bn euros (£99bn) annually.}}

    EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has presented a full report on the problem.

    She said the true cost of corruption was “probably much higher” than 120bn.

    Three-quarters of Europeans surveyed for the Commission study said that corruption was widespread, and more than half said the level had increased.

    “The extent of the problem in Europe is breathtaking, although Sweden is among the countries with the least problems,” Ms Malmstroem wrote in Sweden’s Goeteborgs-Posten daily.

    The cost to the EU economy is equivalent to the bloc’s annual budget.

    For the report the Commission studied corruption in all 28 EU member states. The Commission says it is the first time it has done such a survey.

    {{Bribes}}

    In the UK only five people out of 1,115 – less than 1% – said they had been expected to pay a bribe. It was “the best result in all Europe”, the report said.

    In Croatia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania and Greece, between 6% and 29% of respondents said they had been asked for a bribe, or had been expected to pay one, in the past 12 months.

    The EU has an anti-fraud agency, Olaf, which focuses on fraud and corruption affecting the EU budget, but it has limited resources. In 2011 its budget was just 23.5m euros.

    {agencies}

  • How Facebook is celebrating its 10th anniversary

    How Facebook is celebrating its 10th anniversary

    {Facebook has grown into an Internet giant over the last decade, but it is celebrating its birthday with a low-key, belated party and an eye toward the future.}

    While the arrival of its 10th anniversary on Tuesday has pundits analyzing the social network’s past and theorizing about its future, the Internet juggernaut is trying to stay focused on the job at hand.

    “Just as we do every year, we will have an internal party on Friday afternoon,” Facebook spokeswoman Arielle Aryah told AFP in response to a query regarding the company’s birthday celebration plans.

    It remained to be seen whether the Menlo Park, California-based social network, which now boasts over a billion users, had something playful planned for its actual anniversary on Tuesday.

    In an earnings call last week to discuss stellar quarterly results, Facebook chief and co-found Mark Zuckerberg gave a nod to the growth seen during the past decade but focused on the future.

    Zuckerberg spoke of making “apps” for showcasing Facebook features on smartphones or tablets to stay in synch with mobile Internet lifestyles.

    Long-range goals included using artificial intelligence to figure out how pictures, videos, comments and more shared at Facebook are related and of shooting toward helping people share anything they want, with anyone they want, whenever they want.

    Facebook broke ground late last year on an expansion to its campus in former Sun Microsystem digs in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park.

    The new West Campus was designed by respected architect Frank Gehry.

    As Facebook celebrates its 10th anniversary, the world’s biggest social network is finding its path as a maturing company, adapting to an aging user base.

    Zuckerberg has repeatedly described Facebook’s mission as “making the world more open and connected,” and some say he has accomplished just that.

    The company created in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 has established itself as a phenomenon, securing its place in the world of the technology giants.

    “Facebook has made the world much smaller, much more interactive,” said Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry.

    In its short history, Facebook has become a part of daily life for more than a billion people around the globe.

    “More than 20 percent of all time spent on the Internet is spent on Facebook,” says Lou Kerner, founder of the Social Internet Fund.

    Facebook says it has a global total of 1.23 billion monthly active users, including 945 million who use the social network on a mobile device.

    And, a Pew Research Center survey released Monday suggests no slowing momentum for the network, even though more than half of US Facebook users said they are turned off by oversharing and didn’t like the fact that they showed up in pictures without giving permission.

    After a calamitous initial public offering in May 2012 plagued by technical glitches, Facebook saw its share price slump by half.

    But the company has been on a roll for the past year, with its stock hitting record highs.

    According to the research firm eMarketer, Facebook has become the second-largest recipient of digital advertising spending behind Google, and is particularly strong in mobile ads.

    “Facebook appears the best way to play the social Internet,” Morgan Stanley analysts said in a note to clients, preferring Facebook to the up-and-coming network Twitter.

    {{Agence France-Presse}}

  • Kinnear Quits Newcastle

    Kinnear Quits Newcastle

    {{Newcastle’s director of football Joe Kinnear has resigned after less than eight months in the role. }}

    The 67-year-old was above boss Alan Pardew in the club’s management structure, reporting to owner Mike Ashley on all footballing matters.

    The Magpies failed to sign a player on a permanent deal during Kinnear’s spell at the club.

    And Pardew refused the chance to back him after Saturday’s 3-0 derby defeat by Sunderland.

    “If I was in charge, solely, of transfers things might be different but I’m not,” said Pardew.

    “I think I’ve made my opinions very clear this week and all the rest of it is confidential.”

    After selling midfielder Yohan Cabaye to Paris St-Germain for £19m on 29 January, Newcastle did not recruit a replacement in the remaining two days of the transfer window.

    The arrival of strikers Luuk de Jong and Loic Remy, on loan from Borussia Monchengladbach and QPR respectively, were the only additions to the first-team squad while Kinnear was director of football.

    BBC Sport

  • South Sudan Rebels Say Army Razed Town, Using Foreign Fighters

    South Sudan Rebels Say Army Razed Town, Using Foreign Fighters

    {{South Sudanese rebels accused government forces on Sunday of razing the hometown of their leader Riek Machar, violating a ceasefire, and said the army was drawing support from foreign fighters now in the country.}}

    Rebel spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said government SPLA forces and fighters from the Sudanese Justice and Equality Movement – a rebel group from north of the border – had destroyed the northern town of Leer on Saturday, massacring women and children as they fled.

    An army spokesman said he had not received any reports of fighting in Leer, where the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said last week more than 200 of its staff had been forced to flee because of growing insecurity.

    The government accuses the rebels of flouting the ceasefire signed on January 23.

    The claims and counter-claims came as east African ceasefire monitors began to arrive in South Sudan, seven weeks after violence erupted in the capital, Juba, before spreading across the world’s newest state.

    “(President Salva) Kiir’s forces burned down the whole of Leer town and entire surrounding villages,” Koang said in a statement.

    “The latest destruction of Leer town in Unity state has no strategic, operational or tactical importance, but mere need for psychological satisfaction.”

    Koang said the Ugandan military, which gave air and ground support to the SPLA as it battled to recapture rebel-held towns before the ceasefire, had swollen its ranks with fighters from the defeated M23 Congolese rebel group.

    Hundreds of M23 rebels fled into Uganda after the Congolese army and a U.N. brigade flushed them from their strongholds. SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer said he had received no reports of foreign militiamen joining the conflict.

    CEASEFIRE MONITORS

    Ugandan army spokesman Colonel Paddy Ankunda called the rebel allegations “cheap lies”.

    Thousands of people have been killed and more than 800,000 have fled their homes since fighting was triggered by a power struggle between President Kiir and Machar, his former deputy whom he sacked in July.

    The conflict, which has taken on a largely ethnic dimension between the Dinka and Nuer tribes of Kiir and Machar respectively, has brought oil-producing South Sudan, a country the size of France, to the brink of civil war.

    Machar on Friday accused Kiir of sabotaging the peace talks – which resume in neighbouring Ethiopia this week – and of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing, in a Reuters interview at his bush hideout in remote Jonglei state.

    An advance team of monitors sent by east African nations arrived in Juba on Sunday to start observing the shaky truce.

    Diplomats expect them to focus on the three flashpoint towns of Malakal and Bentiu, near the main oilfields, and Bor, where some of the heaviest clashes have occurred, as well as the capital.

    “We will start our mission, at least the teams will be deployed, within the next week,” General Gebreegzabher Mebrahtu, a retired Ethiopian general who is leading the advance team, told reporters in Juba.

    The violence, the worst since South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011, has caused a humanitarian crisis.

    At least 3.2 million people – more than a quarter of the population – face food shortages, the United Nations says. Aid agencies say insecurity is hampering their operations.

    Defence Web

  • Treatment alone will not win war on cancer: prevention is crucial, UN reports

    Treatment alone will not win war on cancer: prevention is crucial, UN reports

    {With new cancer cases worldwide expected to rise from 14 million to 22 million per year within the next two decades, and annual cancer deaths rising from 8.2 million to 13 million, the United Nations today called for multipronged preventive action including treaties and laws extending tobacco-style restrictions to alcohol and sweetened beverages.
    }

    “More commitment to prevention and early detection is desperately needed in order to complement improved treatments and address the alarming rise in the cancer burden,” said Dr. Christopher Wild, Director of the specialized UN cancer agency in launching a new report ahead of World Cancer Day on Tuesday.

    The report warns that the global battle against cancer won’t be won with treatment alone and urgently needs effective prevention measures to curb the disease.

    As an example of preventive strategies the report highlights the need for adequate legislation to reduce exposure and risk behaviours, citing the first international treaty sponsored by WHO, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, as critical to reducing tobacco consumption, a major contributor to lung and other cancers, through taxes, advertising restrictions, and other regulations and measures to control and discourage its use of tobacco.

    Similar approaches need to be evaluated in other areas, notably consumption of alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages, and in limiting exposure to occupational and environmental carcinogenic risks, including air pollution, it stresses, noting that about half of all cancers, whose total annual economic cost is estimated to reach approximately $1.16 trillion, could be avoided if current knowledge was adequately implemented.

    “Adequate legislation can encourage healthier behaviour, as well as having its recognized role in protecting people from workplace hazards and environmental pollutants,” said Dr. Bernard Stewart, who co-edited the report with Dr. Wild. “In low- and middle-income countries, it is critical that Governments commit to enforcing regulatory measures to protect their populations and implement cancer prevention plans.”

    The study, World Cancer Report 2014, issued by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a specialized agency of the UN World Health Organization headed by Dr. Wild, stresses that the cancer burden is mounting at an alarming pace. Due to growing and ageing populations, developing countries are disproportionately affected, with more than 60 per cent of cases and 70 per cent of deaths occurring in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America.

    “Despite exciting advances, this report shows that we cannot treat our way out of the cancer problem,” Dr. Wild said, noting that the situation in the developing world is made worse by the lack of early detection and access to treatment.

    Access to effective and affordable cancer treatments in developing countries, including for childhood cancers, would significantly reduce mortality, even in settings where health-care services are less well developed, the report notes.

    But the spiralling costs of the cancer burden are damaging the economies of even the richest countries and are way beyond the reach of developing countries, as well as placing impossible strains on health-care systems, according to the report, compiled with the collaboration of over 250 leading scientists from more than 40 countries.

    “The rise of cancer worldwide is a major obstacle to human development and well-being. These new figures and projections send a strong signal that immediate action is needed to confront this human disaster, which touches every community worldwide, without exception,” Dr Wild said.

    Many developing countries continue to be disproportionately affected by the double burden of high infection-related cancers, including those of the cervix, liver, and stomach, and the rising incidence of cancers linked to industrialized lifestyles, such as those of the lung, breast, and large bowel.

    Yet the implementation of effective vaccination against hepatitis B virus and human papillomavirus can markedly reduce cancers of the liver and cervix, respectively, the report says, stressing that preventing the spread of tobacco use in low- and middle-income countries is crucial to cancer control.

    Likewise, in rapidly industrializing countries, measures to promote physical activity and avoid obesity should also be prioritized in relation to cancers such as those of the large bowel and breast.

    In addition, low-tech approaches to early detection and screening have proven their efficacy in developing countries. A prime example is cervical cancer screening using visual inspection with acetic acid and cryotherapy or cold coagulation treatment of precancerous lesions. This type of “screen-and-treat” programme has been successfully implemented in India and Costa Rica, for example.

    “Governments must show political commitment to progressively step up the implementation of high-quality screening and early detection programmes, which are an investment rather than a cost,” Dr Stewart said.

    Globally, in 2012 the most common cancers diagnosed were those of the lung (1.8 million cases, 13 per cent of the total), breast (1.7 million, 11.9 per cent), and large bowel (1.4 million, 9.7 per cent). The most common causes of cancer death were cancers of the lung (1.6 million, 19.4 per cent), liver (0.8 million, 9.1 per cent), and stomach (0.7 million, 8.8 per cent).

  • RDF Never Killed Refugees in Congo-Maj. Gen. Rwarakabije Confirms

    RDF Never Killed Refugees in Congo-Maj. Gen. Rwarakabije Confirms

    {{Former Ex-FAR boss Major General Paul Rwarakabije has thrown back allegations as a commander and witness who was on the ground that RDF never killed even a single Congolese refugee while in Congo.}}

    According to the UN mapping report, there was an article saying RDF (former RPF) participated in the killings of Congolese refugees who were living in camps during that time.

    Maj. Gen. Paul Rwarakabije confirmed, “RDF (RPF) was in Congo to maintain Rwandan security, rescue and return its Rwandan refugees to Rwanda and it was achieved, but didn’t go to Congo for the killings”.

    Maj.Gen. Rwarakabije confirmed this, as one of the high commanders of Ex-FAR who were fighting against RDF that time in Congo.

    The former lieutenant Colonel and the 1993 escapee of President Juvenal Habyarimana brutal regime Rwarakabije urged Rwandans to appreciate achievements the country has reached today.

    Maj. Gen.Rwarakabije currently the Commissioner of RCS is a father of 3.

    He was born on 15th may 1953 in Nyabihu district (Rwanda), escaped Rwanda to Zaire (current DRC) where he stayed at Katare (Rutchuru), although he spent most of his time in Goma where the main offices of Ex-FAR were situated since 1994-1996 before it was defeated by RDF forces(Former RPF).

    This testimony was offered on the 19th Heroes day 1st February 2014 by Former EX-Far Commander, and current commissioner of Rwanda Correctional Services (RCS) Major general Paul Rwarakabije.

  • Why Pascal Simbikangwa judged in France

    Why Pascal Simbikangwa judged in France

    {IGIHE learnt that if an alleged perpetrator of genocide is stopped on its territory, France must pass him/her to justice. Here is what is called “universal jurisdiction “of national courts to judge what type of defendant. }

    Meanwhile, Pascal Simbikangwa was arrested in Mayotte in 2008 for trafficking in false documents. He lived under the pseudonym Senyamuhara Safari. The police then identified him as Simbikangwa, a Rwandan who is the subject of an Interpol red plug.

    The man was transferred to Fresnes prison, where he had been in custody pending trial. Rwanda has requested his extradition, that France refused because of doubts about the ability of the Rwandan justice system to conduct a fair trial.

    The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR, based in Arusha, Tanzania), which held the trials of largest fishes, was set to close its doors after 20 years of existence. As the International Criminal Court in The Hague, it has jurisdiction over crimes committed after 2002.

    From Tuesday, 4th February, 2014, Pascal Simbikangwa will be tried in Paris for six to eight weeks by a jury of: six close friends of the defendant, twenty witnesses – farmers, traders, guardians of dams and neighbors of the accused – especially coming from Rwanda. Others will give their testimonies from Sweden, Belgium or Canada by videoconference.

  • Petrol station business resumes as Sopetrad road reopens

    Petrol station business resumes as Sopetrad road reopens

    {{Petrol station businesses operating along the road leading to downtown Kigali through Sopetrad in Gikondo, which had been closed following damages caused by rain last December, has been reopened to traffic.}}

    Located near the damaged road is an Engen Petrol Station, Rwanda Cooperatives Agency and Clarido Communications company.

    Although the latter two weren’t affected much by the closure, Engen Petrol Station was closed during the time but is now set to resume operations. Efforts to get to the station’s spokesperson were futile by press time.

    According to the Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA) and City of Kigali told journalists repair works are nearing completion.

    This road re-opened is one of the busiest routes during peak hours was re-opened on Sunday evening and traffic is now moving as usual along the road.

    “Part of the works that allow the road to be open for traffic was completed. The remaining bit is to put asphalt, which requires at least a month for the embedment to settle,” said Theophile Dusabe, the acting head of road maintenance division at RTDA.

    John Kamanzi, the foreman at the site being carried out by NPD Cotraco, said the road was damaged because the old drainage culverts were too small and had been clogged.

    “We have now put two bigger steel culverts that will be able to sustain the pressure and drain the water with no risk of damaging the road,” he said.

    However, he urged the City of Kigali to engage their cleaners more along the drainage channels to remove the garbage so that it does not accumulate to later clog the culverts.

  • Central African Republic clashes ‘kill 75’ in Boda town

    Central African Republic clashes ‘kill 75’ in Boda town

    {Sectarian fighting in the Central African Republic town of Boda since Tuesday has left at least 75 people dead, a local priest has said. }

    Father Cassien Kamatari said help was needed to stop the violence between Muslims and Christians.

    The majority of those confirmed dead were Christian, Fr Kamatari said.

    Because Muslim victims were buried soon after the attacks it was not known how many of them were killed, he said.

    There have been widespread reports of revenge attacks since mainly Muslim fighters withdrew from the capital Bangui last month.

    They did so following the resignation of interim President Michel Djotodia.

    Correspondents say that while the security situation in Bangui has improved since the peacekeepers’ arrival, outbreaks of violence continue in the north and west of CAR.

    {{‘Horrific’}}

    “Instead of thinking only of Bangui, people must also think of what’s happening in the countryside because what we are living through in these communities is horrific,” Fr Kamatari said.

    BBC