IGIHE

Author: Publisher

  • RSE market highlights as of 20 June

    Today, the RSE remained in the same trading range as far as prices are concerned but went up in volume.

    BRALIRWA shares closed unchanged from last week’s closing price of Rwf 220. A total turnover Rwf 2, 820,000 was recorded from 11,200 BRALIRWA shares transacted in 3 deals at Rwf 230 and Rwf 220.

    The KCB and NMG counters did not record any transaction today and their share prices remained unchanged from last week’s closing prices of Rwf 175 and Rwf 1200 respectively.

    At the end of formal business hours, there was an outstanding bid of 10,000 BRALIRWA shares at Rwf 215 each and outstanding offers of 32,000 BRALIRWA shares and 21,900 BRALIRWA shares at Rwf 230 and Rwf 220 respectively.
    There was also an outstanding offer of 2,100 KCB shares at Rwf 180 eac

  • Drain the dam, residents urge authorities after series of deaths in the water

    {{Residents in Kamatamu cell Nyarutarama golf club were once shocked to find a young lady’s dead body floating in a nearby dam. 8 people have so far died in the dam since 2009.
    }}

    postmortem results affirm that the cause of the death was not a result of physical assault or sexual harassment as proposed earlier by the majority of onlookers.

    Vedaste Nsabimana the Kacyiru sector executive secretary noted that investigations are in its peak and that he was hopeful that the mystery would be solved to the yet to be identified woman.

    The corpse was first noted by child who was heading home from the market and raised the alarm to an official in charge of social affairs in the Kamatamu cell. The police was later informed but arrived on the scene after the residents had pulled out that body.

    According to public concerns the incident was not new since in the past three years there have been eight cases of death in the dam, causes of human loss are often attributed to suicide and drowning.

    The deceased lady had a height of 1.40 meters; she was wearing a jacket with red and white stripes as well as black spectacles.

    Christian Murenzi one of the residents noted. “This dam has caused many deaths especially among kids who drown or even acquire harmful waterborne diseases,” he commented.

    In this regard, the majority of residents urged authorities to dry-out the damn as a way of reducing the number of deaths. Though this sounds like a sustainable solution Nsabimana differed with the proposal citing that the advantages of the lake were enormous particularly in environmental conservation. He further pointed out that the dam’s security will be stepped-up from the current day time surveillance till overnight.

    “Normally we have people who guard the dam from morning to evening but we hope that strange incidents which occur often during the night will reduce once we increase the watchmen,” he remarked.

    The Kacyiru executive secretary also advised that investors should utilize the dam since there were lots of business opportunities. He was more optimistic that the dam would attract investors since it was first constructed to facilitate recreational activities but got stuck in the building process.

  • 22 baby gorillas christened

    {{All roads led to Kinigi’s Musanze district for the Kwita Izina ceremony which saw the naming of 22 gorilla babies, the foster parents included government officials, diplomats, company representatives, conservationists and community advocates.}}

    The ceremony also aimed to recognize the conservation efforts by local communities, which is also in line with this year’s theme “Community development for sustained conservation”.

    Leading the naming team, Prime Minister Bernard Makuza christened the first gorilla Ijambo meaning action, achievement, determination and dignity that symbolize the country’s efforts towards gorilla conservation.

    Other names chosen were Urahirwa (prospects and future), Indamutso (greetings), Umujyanama (advisor) and Sakaara (known). The twins (only the sixth pair to be born in the last 40 years) were baptized Isangano (meeting-place) and Isango (appointment)

    Since the first Kwita Izina was held in 2005, 123 Gorilla have been given a name. It has since become an international event meant to create awareness on the importance of protecting mountain gorillas as well as the conservation of Volcanoes National Park (VNP).

    The Rwanda Development Board (RDB) which oversees the conservation process recorded a rise in its tourism revenue sharing schemes at the tune of Rwf 460 million in 2008. The amount was used to construct 11 schools and 3 health-centers, as well as other amenities such as water tanks.

    Normally the constructions are part of the Gorilla conservation projects are not only meant to improve the livelihoods of the park’s enclosed communities but also encourage them to protect the parrk , yet prior to this year’s Kwita Izina ceremony RDB launched 52 small household based water collective tanks and 4 large public water collective tanks that were constructed at a cost of 62 million Rwandan francs; raised from the past Gorilla conservation efforts.

    With the local communities being sensitized to the benefits of gorilla tourism, the gorillas are more protected than ever before. A census conducted in April 2010 showed a 26.3% increase of the mountain gorillas over the past seven years, with an average 3.7% annual growth rate. This also means that the gorillas have risen from 380 to 480.

    Commenting on the same, RDB Chief Executive Officer John Gara, said these statistics are very encouraging given that it was predicted in the 60s that the gorillas would be extinct by the year 2000. He credits the steady increase in the gorilla population to the efforts of RDB, local administrators not forgetting the communities.

    In this respect, Rwanda has set a good example by developing several measures that hinder those destroying forests and its inhabitants. Poachers for instance have been transformed and they now have income generating activities while some have even been trained as rangers and guides in the park. What is more fencing of all national parks is underway.

    Similarly, Akagera national park for example has been training its rangers on law enforcement, security, anti poaching and wildlife management. This knowhow contributes to forest conservation.

  • Trinidad and Tobago ought to learn from the country’s genocide

    {{Survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide Immaculée Ilibagiza believes Trinidad and Tobago should learn from other countries in an effort to avoid similar incidents of ethnic violence.}}

    She disclosed this during a media briefing yesterday at the Hyatt Regency, Wrightson Road, Port-of-Spain.

    Ilibagiza is one of the world’s leading speakers on peace, faith, and forgiveness. She is also a best-selling author of Left to Tell; Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust.

    “You realise hate is like a snake, it is in different shapes but the damage is the same. What happened in Rwanda, with people who look completely alike, one with a bigger nose, one with a smaller nose, that was the beginning of tribes in Rwanda so I would advise learn from outside, and realise hate is just hate, it is not about people of different origins. Don’t be like us, don’t do what we did to ourselves… please learn from other people and be wise,” she said.

    She advised women who also experienced hate throughout their lives that there was always hope and God. “There is a time I didn’t have nothing, when I came out the bathroom after three months, my family was gone, every home was destroyed, the only thing I had was the rosary my father gave me, all I had was God, the Almighty,” she said.

    Ilibagiza was one of eight women who spent 91 days confined in a bathroom of a Rwandan pastor’s house. She entered the bathroom as a 115-pound university student with a family and came out, weighing just 65 pounds, to find out her entire family had been killed in the genocide with the exception of one brother who had been studying out of the country.

    When asked how long it took her to forgive those who wronged her and her people she said about a month.

    “For three months, we haven’t showered, haven’t brushed our teeth, sharing a plate of garbage food. It took maybe a month, I went through a stage, I went through rage, there is no way God would want me to forgive them. I remember hurling out of anger, sweating of thinking of what I could do, I blew up the country in my mind…then I moved into a time through prayer when I knew God was there,” she said. Ilibagiza arrived in Trinidad yesterday afternoon from New York.

    She will be giving lectures today and tomorrow at the National Academy of Perform-ing Arts (NAPA). She is also expected to pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar tomorrow at 9.30 am. some parts of the story were borrowed from NewsDay.

  • Mighty Popo’s dream of a folk festival in his native land (Rwanda) is about to come true

    {{Mighty Popo has a dream. The Ottawa-based musician is organizing an outdoor music festival in Rwanda that he hopes will bring the spirit of a Canadian music festival to his Central African homeland.}}

    KigaliUp will be a family-friendly event that takes place in a park in Kigali, the capital, in September. The lineup includes the Juno-winning Canadian hiphop artist Shad, blues singer Shakura S’Aida, Popo and other musicians from Canada and Africa.

    The festival has been in the works for years, inspired by the folk festivals that have had such a strong influence on Jacques “Popo” Murigande, who was born in Burundi to Tutsi refugees from Rwanda. He immigrated to Canada as a teenager and settled in Ottawa, where he was welcomed in the music scene. He released his first album in 1997; the latest, Gakonda, was nominated for a Juno Award.

    “To me, the Canadian music festivals made me who I am, really,” said the singer-songwriter-guitarist during a backstage interview last weekend at Westfest. “They made me realize how healthy it is to do workshops with other musicians and to learn from them. If you’re open enough, you end up developing this art form that you really weren’t expecting.”

    What’s more, Murigande has always been concerned about African children losing touch with their musical roots. The youngsters tend to idolize American rappers and stay away from learning to play instruments.

    For many, their notion of making music is limited to singing or rapping along to a computer- generated track.

    Murigande, who has a two-yearold son in Rwanda, wants to change the culture to bring back an awareness of creating music on instruments. The young people he meets at Canadian festivals talk about seeing him play when they were children, and how it made them want to learn an instrument and become involved in community events.

    “How great it would be to create something like that in Rwanda, where the kids can grow up having some kind of reference to music, and somewhere they can really look forward to going to every year,” he says. “With this festival I’m copying (Bluesfest’s) Blues in the Schools program. Eventually we will go the schools and present music to them, and show the kids live musicians. ‘This is how the music is made: First there are the humans, the players of instruments. Not machines.’ ”

    Not surprisingly, the biggest challenge is funding. Murigande has raised about $40,000 toward the $150,000 required to put on a oneday event, but it’s a slow process and he’s had to scale it back from the three-day festival he originally envisioned. The volunteer organizing team includes well-connected Canadians such as former CBC Radio broadcaster Tom Metuzals and the Calgary Folk Festival’s artistic director Kerry Clarke, who accompanied Popo to Rwanda in February to check out the site.

    “It’s beautiful,” Clarke said in a phone interview. “It’s everything we’d want in a folk festival site. It’s lush, central and there’s lots of room for growth. I had heard that Rwanda was quite beautiful but I had no idea.”

    Clarke first met Murigande several years ago when they were both serving on a Canada Council jury. They’ve been talking seriously about the Kigali festival for three years. The Calgary folkfest has already contributed more than $5,000 to the effort, while another $5,000 has come from the Edmonton Folk Festival. Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest has pledged $1,000, and an IndieGoGo. com campaign has raised almost $10,000 so far. Murigande is also performing benefit concerts to raise money, including one in Ottawa on Wednesday.

    Clarke believes Popo not only has the initiative to make it happen, but also the connections in Canada and Rwanda. “He’s not just some Canadian landing in the country,” she says. “He has a long history in Rwanda. Popo has had such a good experience living in Canada and he loves Rwanda so I think it’s to meld the two experiences. Really, it’s just to give back.

    “I think we all see that music festivals can be a very positive thing to bring to a country, and they can have a lot of other spinoffs in terms of education and gathering people together.”

    The reaction in Kigali has been one of surprise. When Murigande went to the city for permission to use the site for a concert, officials thought the request was a mistake. Most public events in Kigali are held in the stadium. A music festival in a park aimed at families is a foreign concept.

    “When I went to rent the park, they said, ‘Are you crazy? Music in here?’ ” Murigande says.

    “But music should happen there, not in the stadium, where it’s VIP over there and soccer poles everywhere. I want your kids to be safe in the park and I want them to feel comfortable and feel like they belong to this Rwanda that we’re trying to build.”
    source, Ottawa Citizen

  • Gorrila conservation projects beneficial to the park’s enclosed community

    Gorilla conservation projects have been among activities improving the livelihoods of communities sorrounding the park.

    Prior to this year’s gorrila naming ceremony which is now taking place in Kinigi, the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) launched 52 small household based water collective tanks and 4 large public water collective tanks that were constructed at a cost of 62 million Rwandan francs; raised from the past Gorilla conservation efforts.

    Clare Akamanzi, the Chief Operating Officer RDB said, “by celebrating Kwita Izina, we seek to accrue the merits of conservation to the communities around our National Parks. We seek better livelihoods for our people achieved through the growth in tourism revenues which would not be possible without the active protection of our mountain gorillas and conservation of their habitat.”

    She clarified that, in the spirit of fundraising at Kwita Izina ceremonies and revenue sharing, RDB board and partners have been able to design and implement strategies that would manage the delicate balance between conservation of biological diversity and human development needs.

    The launched household based water collective tanks will facilitate the communities adjacent to the Volcanoes National park have access to water harvested from the rain for their daily activities.

  • urban inflation dips to 4.54 pct

    Falling food prices in May helped slow the inflation rate in Rwanda’s urban centres for the first time in seven months to 4.54 percent, official data showed on Thursday.

    The National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda said the country’s urban consumer price index rose less than 0.1 percent in May from a month earlier as a 0.92 percent fall in food and non-alcoholic beverages prices was off-set by increases in the cost of transport and housing and utilities.

    “The increase in the consumer prices index … is attributable primarily to the increase in housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels (0.73 percent) and Transport (0.87 percent),” the statistics office said in a statement.

    Year-on-year, food prices rose by 4.69 percent in urban areas.

    Rwanda’s overall inflation rate, which has a higher weighting for food, increased to 3.82 percent in May from 3.05 percent a month earlier.

    Rwanda has the lowest inflation rate within the five-nation East African Community trade bloc. Uganda has the highest inflation rate at 16.0 percent, followed by Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and then Rwanda.

    Rwanda’s Finance Minister John Rwangombwa said in his budget last week he forecast inflation rising to about 7.5 percent this year. This story was first published by Reuters.

  • Jimmy Henchman associate admits his role in robbery/shooting of Tupac

    {{ A man has admitted to being involved in the attack on rap star Tupac Shakur in 1994, inside Manhattan’s Quad Studios in November of 1994, after allegedly being paid $2,500 dollars by James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond.}}

    Dexter Isaac, a former friend of Rosemond, is an inmate currently serving life in prison for murder, robbery and other offenses. Isaac came forward Wednesday (June 15th) with the information on the eve of what would be Tupac’s 40th birthday.

    He confessed to his involvement in the November 30th, 1994 robbery of Tupac Shakur after Jimmy Henchman identified him in a statement, relating to Henchman’s indictment for dealing numerous kilos of cocaine.

    “I want to apologize to his family [Tupac Shakur] and for the mistake I did for that sucker [Jimmy Henchman],” Dexter Isaac from prison. “I am trying to clean it up to give [Tupac and Biggie’s] mothers some closure.”

    Henchman, who’s is currently on the run from federal officials, claimed that Dexter Isaac, along with other incarcerated inmates were cooperating with the government in an investigation of his alleged drug dealing activities.

    “If the government is relying on informants like Winston “Winnie” Harris, a convicted drug dealer and Jamaican deportee, who came to me and motioned via hand signal that he was forced to wear a wire and begged me to skip town or Dexter Isaac who is serving life in prison plus 30 years, then I’m sure I will not be offered a fair trial,” Henchman remarked.

    Dexter Isaac highlighted that he decided to confess to the robbery to prove Jimmy Henchman’s involvement, in addition to clearing his conscience for his role in the robbery.

    Isaac said he was comfortable going on record relating to the robbery and shooting which resulted in Pac being reportedly shot, five times.

    Since the statute of limitations had expired, legally, no one can be prosecuted for the assault at this time.
    Isaac was a lifelong friend of Jimmy Hechmen, who helped the former mogul set up his first company, Henchman Entertainment, in 1989.

    Isaac claims he never cooperated with the government in any investigation, and Jimmy Henchman’s allegations infuriated him.

    Isaac, who is also from Brooklyn, has long been suspected of being involved in the Quad shooting of Tupac Shakur, along with an associate name Spencer “Scooter” Bowens, who is also serving a life sentence and another man named George Roland Campbell.

    According to the confession Dexter Isaac not only knows what happened to Tupac Shakur’s jewelry, but he claims he is also in possession of the Hip-Hop star’s chain that was taken during the altercation on that infamous night on November 7, 1994.

    The shooting on November 30th, was the start of a deadly feud that resulted in the murders of both Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G.
    Their murders have never been solved.

    Isaac was indicted by the government in 1998 and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison for murder, robbery, fraud and witness intimidation charges.

  • RSE market highlights as of 16 June 2011

    {{Today, the RSE traded higher in volume than yesterday but went slightly down in price. BRALIRWA shares traded at Rwf 230 and Rwf 220 and closed at Rwf 220; a decrease of 2% from yesterday’s closing price of Rwf 225.}}

    A total turnover Rwf 2,333,000 was recorded from 10,600 BRALIRWA shares transacted in 5 deals.BRALIRWA shares are trading ex-dividend since Monday 14 June, 2011.

    The KCB and NMG counters did not record any transaction today and their share prices remained unchanged from yesterday’s closing prices of Rwf 175 and Rwf 1200 respectively.

    At the end business, there were outstanding bids of 5,000 BRALIRWA shares and 10,000 BRALIRWA shares at Rwf 216 and Rwf 215 respectively. There were also outstanding offers of 6,900 BRALIRWA shares at Rwf 225 and 47,300
    BRALIRWA shares at Rwf 226 each. On the other hand, there were outstanding offers of 2,100 KCB shares at Rwf 180 each.

  • ICTR complains Zimbabwe uncooperative on fugitive

    {{The prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha (ICTR() Hassan Jallow says the former Rwandan presidential guard commander Protais Mpiranya is hiding somewhere in Zimbabwe but Harare has not cooperated in his extradition}}

    Jallow explains the former Rwandan presidential guard commander Protais Mpiranya is hiding somewhere in the southern African country but the Harare government has not taken action on Rwanda’s request for his extradition.

    Mpiranya is wanted for genocide and crimes against humanity by the UNs war crimes tribunal for Rwanda.

    Despite a $US5m ($5.2m) bounty, Mpiranya has evaded justice for 14 years. But his presence has been detected, sometimes in Zimbabwe and sometimes in the Congo, a UN source said.

    Yet the Zimbabwean government and police have denied Mpiranya is in Zimbabwe. But sources say he enjoys ties with the military and may be enjoying their protection.

    He is suspected of enjoying business links with former army officers close to the country’s president, Robert Mugabe.

    Mpiranya fled to neighbouring Congo. When conflict erupted there in 1998, sucking in six African countries including Zimbabwe, he allied his forces with the 11,000 Zimbabwean troops that Mugabe had sent in.

    UN sources said Mpiranya established personal business links with several Zimbabwean officers, some of whom set up their own companies to plunder Congos wealth. It is these links that enable him to feel secure in Zimbabwe.

    After hunting down, sexually assaulting and murdering Agathe Uwilingiyimana, the prime minister, on April 7, 1994, troops under his command hacked to death the 10 Belgian UN paratroops who had been ordered to protect her.
    Their slaughter panicked the Belgian government into withdrawing its troops, in effect rendering the UN force powerless.