Category: News

{{In Kenya, maize farmers are increasingly abandoning their crops following an attack by a deadly disease (maize lethal necrosis) that has ravaged the crop in various zones, raising concern over food supply in the short run.}}

More than 160,000 bags of maize on more than 10,000 hectares in Kenya’s South Rift Valley have been damaged by the disease, which has spread fast to the North Rift, Central, and Eastern Kenya, raising concern over the next season’s crop and national food security.

The disease destroys cells, hindering crop maturity of the popular H614 variety that nearly 80% of farmers have adopted.

“We have stopped planting maize for the past three months. Every maize plant dies and this has caused panic in Narok and surrounding areas,” said Hugo Wood, a Narok farmer.

Wood said that some 50,000 tonnes of the Olerai 46 variety, sourced from Narok, which was undergoing breeding were rejected by Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (Kephis) raising fears that the disease could be seed-based and not viral as earlier reported by researchers.

{{Four hundred and sixteen Proximity Business Advisors September 8, closed a nine day civic education and business skills training.}}

The training focused on empowering them to provide business skills through coaching, counseling and provision of other advisory services that are close and accessible to rural micro enterprises while responding to real needs in the rural business setting.

The Minister of Trade and Industry, François Kanimba noted that 416 participants completing the training is a sizeable and energetic group that carries the responsibility to ignite an entrepreneurial culture in communities across the country, support new business creation and foster business expansion to create new jobs.

“In order to kick-start the proximity business advisory initiative, a common training was organized to ensure a harmonized and shared understanding of the business advisory scheme as an unconventional move to pursue accelerated private sector growth and ultimately attain rapid economic growth to the tune of 11.5% per annum”, the Minister said.

He added that the success of the scheme will be judged by the number of SMEs born/grow, the jobs created directly by new businesses established as well as existing businesses. The tasks ahead have clear impact if undertaken effectively.

Participants in the training have called for adequate facilitation to be able to reach out to the community especially transport, communication, office materials and equipment.

Minister François Kanimba promised that the Ministry of Trade and Industry and its Partners will continue to garner support for SME development and private sector growth in general.

As they go back to their respective districts and sectors, the Proximity Business Advisors (PROBAs) vowed to ensure that local entrepreneurs have easier access to business services (training, business management and marketing, access to finance).

According to the 2011 Establishment census 52.3% are engaged in whole sale and trade and 27% are in accommodation and food services.

The whole PROBA arrangement is expected to serve as a feedback mechanism to all stakeholders engaged in SME development to help partners provide meaningful and relevant support for entrepreneurship development across the country.

PROBA is a scheme designed to reach out to rural micro and small enterprises with the support of International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) through PPPMER II Project (Projet pour la Promotion des Petites et Micro Enterprises Rurales).

The training has been a blend of civic education and business Skills organized and delivered through collaboration with “Itorero ry’Igihugu” and other partners; the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), the Rwanda Development Board, the Ministry of Defense, the Rwanda National Police, the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, the Business Development Fund, the Association of Microfinance in Rwanda (AMIR) and the Rwanda Cooperative Agency.

{Friday, September 07, 2012} – Police in Thika are in hot pursuit of a middle aged father of three who is alleged to have been defiling his daughters night after night at their home in Kiganjo estate Thika.

Residents said they suspected something was wrong with the children after the man moved to the area three months ago. The children cried every night though the neighbors thought it was normal.

Yesterday a concerned neighbor invited the children to her home and prepared a nice meal for them. She then asked them a series of questions and they confided in her that their father defiles them.

The children were taken to a children’s officer who took them to Thika Level Five Hospital and medics’ report confirmed that the girls had been severely raped for a period of time.

It is still not clear where the mother of the children is. Police are hunting for the father of the children who has gone missing.

{Kenya Post}

{{President Kagame has arrived in Hong Kong where he will be hosted on Sunday by the city’s chapter of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and meet on Monday with members of the Hong Kong business community.}}

President Kagame will then attend the World Economic Forum’s sixth Annual Meeting of the New Champions (also known as the Summer Davos) taking place in Tianjin, China from 11 to 13 September.

President Kagame will speak on two panels; Competitiveness Champions and Africa’s Future Economy. In Tianjin, President Kagame is expected to meet with Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao and will end his visit to China with a key note address at the Peking University in Beijing.

Introduced in 2007, the Annual Meeting of the New Champions has become the foremost global business gathering in Asia. Over 1,500 business, government and civil society leaders from 90 countries have annually participated in the three-day Meeting.

The first Meeting was held at a critical time as the world sought new ways to move forward from the global economic crisis. The Meeting focuses on the response of the new generation of fast-emerging multinational companies to the current economic challenges and future opportunities.

The Annual Meeting of the New Champions provides a platform for the rising generation of global leaders from business and society to contribute to broader policy discussions and engage with the world’s top business executives.

The New Champions are led by the Forum’s growing Global Growth Companies Community as well as the communities of Technology Pioneers, Young Global Leaders and Young Scientists.

{(Reuters) – A top opposition figure in the Democratic Republic of Congo wanted by the government on treason charges is seeking asylum in the South African embassy in neighbouring Burundi, a spokesman for the Congolese government said on Saturday.}

The government accuses Roger Lumbala, a Congolese MP and former rebel, of helping Rwanda support a rebellion in eastern Congo that has deepened political divisions in the capital Kinshasa, where the government and the opposition accuse each other of fanning the flames of the distant war.

The worsening political chaos threatens to undermine President Joseph Kabila’s ability to push through reforms in the country – a potential mining and oil giant – after his reelection in flawed polls last year.

Lambert Mende, a spokesman for the Congolese government, said Lumbala had been trying to win asylum at the South African embassy in Bujumbura, the Burundian capital, and had evaded arrest by Burundian security forces whom Kinshasa had asked to detain him.

“We’re convinced he is in a group who are helping the Rwandans in North Kivu,” Mende said, referring to the province where the M23 rebels operate.

Negotiations were underway to try to get Lumbala transferred to Kinshasa, Mende said, but there had been no response yet from South Africa. At least two other unnamed opposition figures were also being investigated for rebel links, he added.

Officials from South Africa and Burundi were not immediately available to comment.

The opposition has also accused President Joseph Kabila of The same alleged crime as Lumbala – of helping Rwanda back the rebellion in the east.

“It’s practically impossible that (Kabila) will be indicted (for treason), but it could still cause him problems if he has to defend himself from these allegations,” said Philippe Biyoya, a professor of politics at Kinshasa University.

REBELLION

Fighting in Congo’s eastern hills erupted earlier this year after a mutinous general organised a rebel force and began attacking government-held territory, the latest conflict after nearly two decades of uprisings.

A U.N. report – strongly denied by Rwanda – has again linked Kigali to the M23 anti-Kinshasa armed group, whose six month-old rebellion has forced 220,000 people to flee their homes near the Rwandan border.

Congo’s neighbours are studying a potential intervention force to help crush the rebels. But in Kinshasa, Kabila’s government has set its sights on the opposition.

Relations between Congo and Rwanda had thawed in the wake of a 2009 peace deal which saw rebels integrated into the Congolese army and joint efforts to tackle the FDLR Rwandan militia.

Rwanda’s announcement last week that it was withdrawing more than 300 soldiers from eastern Congo who had been staging covert operations with Congolese troops against the FDLR prompted Congo’s two biggest opposition movements to accuse Kabila of complicity in treason.

A statement released by the party of leading opposition figure Etienne Tshisekedi on Thursday said Kabila was guilty of “high treason” for allowing Rwandan troops onto Congolese soil. It also called on the population to rise up against the government.

On Monday, leading eastern politician Vital Kamerhe – a longtime opponent of joint military operations with Rwanda – signed a declaration calling for Kabila to be prosecuted for his role in the operations.

In Congo’s largely opposition-supporting capital the declarations are feeding deep-seated anti-Rwandan sentiment, a prominent feature of last year’s election, which international observers said appeared fraudulent.

“Rwanda knows our leaders, they’re together, it’s Rwanda who rules us,” a 47-year-old Kinshasa resident who gave his name as only Indu told Reuters.

In return, Rwandan bloggers have taken to the Internet to accuse the Congolese authorities of stirring up ethnic hatred in a region still recovering from the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in which over 1,000,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred.

{Reuters}

{The decision of the UK government to partially disburse frozen aid to Rwanda could mark the start of a more demanding relationship between Rwanda and international donors, Fitch Ratings says.}

The conditionality of the UK’s aid disbursements could mark the start of international donors taking tougher stance towards Rwanda. The UK said it was paying out half of the aid it had frozen last July in recognition of Rwanda’s engagement with internationally backed peace efforts in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. However, it also said that the decision to reschedule the remaining GBP8m reflected “caution” about Rwanda’s alleged involvement with M23, an armed group active in destabilising that area.

We now expect other bilateral donors to take decisions on aid disbursements in the coming months, with some waiting for the final UN report on the issue due in November 2012. Nevertheless, we believe that Rwanda will continue to attract significant aid flows from international donors, reflecting its strong track record in poverty reduction and control of corruption.

The UK decision to disburse half of its frozen general budget support to Rwanda will come as a relief for the latter’s budget. Total grants (including general budget support, sectoral and capital grants) from international donors account for almost half of government revenue (44% of revenue in FY12), and the UK is the biggest bilateral donor for general budget support. The GBP8m that the UK will now pay out represents 0.2% of GDP or 0.7% of government revenue.

Fitch affirmed Rwanda’s rating at ‘B’ in August 2012. The rating is supported by solid economic policies and a track record of structural reforms, macroeconomic stability and low government debt (22.8% of GDP). The rating is constrained by structural weaknesses including low GDP per capita and limited economic diversification. Potential further delays to aid disbursements increase downside risks. Lower aid inflows could in particular affect growth, mainly through lower public spending.

Should the issues relating to the alleged role played by Rwanda in eastern DRC lead to a permanent deterioration in relationships with the donor community, which is not our central scenario, marked fiscal adjustment would be necessary to maintain public finance sustainability and the rating at the current level.

The UK froze general budget support to Rwanda last July, along with some other bilateral donors, following allegations published in a draft UN Group of Experts’ report about Rwanda’s relationship with M23. Rwanda disputed the findings of the report and submitted an official counter argument to the UN Security Council.

{{Reuters}}

{Kigali – A Rwandan court on Friday postponed the verdict for opposition figure Victoire Ingabire, accused of bankrolling terrorism and denying the 1994 genocide, until October 19.}

The court said it would wait for the decision of a higher court on a separate suit filed by Ingabire before handing down its verdict.

“The court realised that Ingabire filed a suit in the Supreme Court challenging the genocide ideology law,” judge Alice Rulisa told the court, adding that a lawyer for Ingabire had also requested the court wait for the Supreme Court ruling before handing down its own decision.

In late June the same court had already postponed the verdict once.

Ingabire, leader of the Unified Democratic Forces (FDU), a political grouping that has not been allowed to register as a party, is charged with “giving financial support to a terrorist group, planning to cause state insecurity and divisionism”.

Prosecutors in April called for her to be given a life sentence.

Ingabire has been in custody since her arrest in October 2010, and has boycotted proceedings since April after the court cut short a witness who accused Rwandan authorities of rigging evidence against her.

Rwandan prosecutors claim to have evidence of Ingabire’s “terrorist” activities, including proof of financial transfers to the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Rwanda, a rebel movement based in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ingabire was absent as she has been boycotting the court proceedings in recent months, but her four co-accused were in court.

{{Sapa-AFP}}

{{A lifeless body of a young man aged about 22, was found September 7, left at a bushy swamp at Akabimbura cell, Nyamugari in Gatsata sector.

His tongue was popped out. He had a big wound on his chest close to the heart.}}

The incidence follows the recent death of six sex workers in the same area just a few days ago.

This bushy area is common hiding place to thugs that are involved in pick pocketing and snatching of handbags in the busy Nyabugogo area.

Dozens of people who turned up at the site of murder,couldn’t identify him probably he was not resident in the area.

Kabanda Joseph the Gasata Sector leader said, “its imposible to tell the cause of his death but its clear he was stubbed right into his heart”.

{{In US, a federal judge has continued by five months the retrial of Beatrice Munyenyezi, citing the 11 Rwandan witnesses prosecutors recently produced to testify against the Manchester woman on charges she lied to immigration officials about her role in the 1994 genocide.}}

In postponing the trial, which had been scheduled to start next week, Judge Steven McAuliffe said Munyenyezi’s attorneys were reasonable to request time to prepare for the new witnesses, whom prosecutors identified after traveling to Rwanda this summer.

While the government may call some of the witnesses who testified during Munyenyezi’s first trial in U.S. District Court in Concord earlier this year, it likely won’t call most, McAuliffe said.

Given the number of possible new witnesses, defense attorneys Mark
Howard and David Ruoff “reasonably think it critical that they investigate the new witnesses’ backgrounds, potential biases, possible cultural and political influences;

Also whether the witnesses have made statements in the past that might be inconsistent with the testimony they propose to offer in this court,” McAuliffe said in an order last week continuing the trial until February.

“That takes time, effort, and money,” McAuliffe’s order continued, “but counsel have little choice given the government’s determination to present what is essentially a new cast during the retrial.”

McAuliffe declared a mistrial in the case in March after jurors failed to decide whether Munyenyezi, a Rwandan native who came to the United States as a refugee in 1998 and became a citizen in 2003, was guilty of naturalization fraud for denying any involvement in her home country’s genocide.

Numerous Rwandan witnesses testified to seeing Munyenyezi order the rapes and killings of Tutsis at a roadblock outside the hotel run by her husband’s family in Butare.

But family members of Munyenyezi said she took no part in the violence, and Howard and Ruoff argued the witnesses against her had been influenced to lie by the Rwandan government.

The new witnesses against Munyenyezi may present different and specific claims, including that she took part in killings at the roadblock and kept a notebook with the names of the people she ordered killed, according to Howard and Ruoff.

The attorneys, who said the government notified them of the new witnesses at the end of July, asked McAuliffe to delay the trial by at least six months, arguing that they needed time to investigate the witnesses and how prosecutors, who opened an investigation into Munyenyezi four years ago, were able to identify them within months of the mistrial.

Assistant U.S. attorneys John Capin and Aloke Chakravarty argued a continuance that long was unnecessary and also accused Howard and Ruoff of mischaracterizing the government’s investigation, saying they found the witnesses by interviewing Rwandans and other sources familiar with genocide events in Butare.

Asked last week about their response to McAuliffe’s decision, Chakravarty said prosecutors “think there’s a public interest in having an efficient conclusion to the case.”

“But we also want to make sure justice is done,” he said.
Capin and Chakravarty have not commented on how they might reshape their case with the new witnesses, apart from saying the charges against Munyenyezi haven’t changed.

But Chakravarty acknowledged last week that he and Capin plan to address translation issues differently in light of the first trial. A juror told the Associated Press after the mistrial that doubts over the accuracy of translations contributed to the panel’s deadlock.

“We’re obviously intending to present a case that’s much more sensitive to the perception and the translation issues, among other issues,” Chakravarty said.

Whatever changes prosecutors make, “the evidence of the defendant’s guilt hasn’t changed,” Chakravarty said.

Munyenyezi, who was held without bail after her arrest in 2010, was released on house arrest after the mistrial. That likely won’t change as a result of the new trial date, Chakravarty said.

In his order continuing the trial, McAuliffe said preparation in the case had been “unusually difficult for both the government and the defense due to difficulties associated with traveling to Rwanda, diplomatic issues, cultural differences, language barriers, and complexities associated with arranging Rwandan witness travel to this country.”

He also noted that a number of government witnesses during the first trial “were effectively impeached based upon extensive investigative and preparatory efforts by defense counsel.”

Last week, Howard said he and Ruoff had yet to receive signed releases from the new witnesses regarding any testimony they may have given in other genocide cases.

While the witnesses don’t appear to have testified in the trial of Munyenyezi’s husband, who was convicted of genocide by an international tribunal, their testimony elsewhere needs to be reviewed to determine their truthfulness, Howard said.

Howard said prosecutors also haven’t given the defense documentation of their investigation this summer in Rwanda.

“The federal agent is supposed to produce a report of his activities, and we haven’t seen anything like that,” Howard said. He said he and Ruoff may ask the court to address that issue.

{Concord Monitor}

{{In the ongoing contributions made to the Agaciro Development Fund, the Eastern Province of Rwanda has so far contributed a whooping Frw3 Billion.}}

The Governor of East province, Uwamariya Odette, said more contributions were coming in (by press time the figure had reached Frw3,084 180 551).

Uwamariya commended residents of the province saying this was a sign that united Rwandans can achieve their goals of building their country.

Senator Karemera Joseph was a chief guest at the event told participants that the real value of Rwandans is to find solutions within themselves.