Category: News

{{Congolese musician, Koffi Olomide spent wednesday night behind bars after Gombe Court remanded him for malicious damage to property and assaulting Diego Lubaki, the producer of his latest album-Abracadabra.}}

Koffi appeared on the same day in the Court of flagrancy of Gombe peace for assault charges. The judge decided to keep him in custody.

The hearing resumes on Thursday 16 August with the pleadings and the indictment.

He was arrested Wednesday at Ndiaye music studio. Koffi is accused of assaulting and battering Diego Music Lubaki and malicious destruction of hotel facilities where the incident occurred.

Koffi and his producer had misunderstandings resulting from a debt of Euros 3000 he owed his producer. However, Diego told Gombe court that Koffi owed him Euros 6,000.

During the fight,the door to hotel room and some of Lubaki Diego property were damaged.

Three witnesses, all employees of the Hotel Venus, made their depositions against Koffi. But their testimony has been inconsistent.

The first two said they saw the head of the orchestra Latin Quarter administer a kick at Diego Lubaki, saying he was arguing a suitcase belonging to the producer.

The third witness, the manager of the hotel, said she had seen Koffi walking up to the room in which Diego Lubaki stayed without being reported to the reception.

The first two witnesses had said they had seen Koffi taking the elevator to reach Diego’s room. The incident occurred around 10 am.

However, faced with this contradiction, the defense testified there was no evidence and called for his client’s innocence .

The courtroom was packed. Several artists, journalists and supporters of Koffi stormed the Prosecutor General of the Republic when they learned of the arrest of the head of the Latin Quarter.

Two of Koffi’s fans were arrested for disrupting the audience loudly manifesting their support for Koffi.

A dramatic, late in the evening, lawyers Diego Lubaki council presented him with a sly act of withdrawal of a civil party. The latter still hesitated to endorse it at the end of the trial.

{{African countries have been challenged to find ways to avert illegal movement of money out of the continent.}}

Experts have said an estimated US$15 billion is illicitly moved each year out of Africa to the developed nations,.

The revelations were made during a high-Level Panel on Illicit Financial flows from Africa chaired by former South African President Thabo Mbeki,concluded its third meeting in Nairobi on Wednesday.

“This problem (illicit flow of funds) is very serious. We are engaging with governments across the continent to come up with ways to stop it,” Mbeki told a Press in Nairobi.

Mbeki says multinational corporations are the top culprits as they have financial muscles to take part in the prohibited business.

“Multinational corporations are the only ones that can move $15 billion, not those with $5,” he said.

Mbeki praised African governments for showing the will to curb the menace blamed for slow pace in development.

Africa’s finance ministers formed the panel and tasked the retired president with finding the sources of the money and ways the money was channelled to the recipient countries.

Mbeki blamed “corrupt practices in the public and private sectors” saying they promoted the illicit movement.

The team’s next meeting will be in Tunis as it traverses the continent in search of ways to stop the money that would otherwise have been used for development in the continent still in need of funds to finance development programmes.

{{About 21kg of Tromaline mineral was intercepted Tuesday from smugglers. The arresred include Selemani Basomingera and Esperance Mukashema, residents of Gatumba sector, Ngororero District.}}

The pair is held at Gatumba Police station.

Another woman Claudine Uwamahoro was arrested in Mururu sector, Rusizi District with 75 litres of Palm Oil. The oil was handed over to Rwanda Revenue Authority.

Of recent, an anti-smuggling campaign was conducted in the country but this campaign can’t only be achieved without the involvement of neighbouring countries which act as sources of such smuggled goods.

Police reports indicate that most of the smuggled goods originate from neighboring countries like Congo and Burundi.

The seizure of these items is the result of Police check points and patrols in different areas in collaboration with citizens, other security organs and community policing efforts through sharing of information

{{Tuesday, 58 widows survivors of the 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rutunga sector, Gasabo District,were given hybrid goats to help improve their livelihoods.}}

The donation included; 33 high breed goats, agricultural equipments; watering cans and pesticide containers.

All donated items were valued at Frw 1,130,000 courtesy of contributions from Kacyiru Police Hospital staff members.

ACP Daniel Nyamwasa the Commandant of Kacyiru Police Hospital, urged the widows to take good care of donated goats.

“These goats are going to reproduce and play an impact in your lives once they are given good care.”

James Nzirimu in charge of advocacy at the National Commission against Genocide (CNLG) thanked Police Hospital’s contribution towards the welfare of survivors of Genocide.

Nzirimu urged reciepients on better care for the goats to have high production which he said would help to solve a number of basic needs.

Sarafina Uwimana one of the recipients said, “Citizens in Rutunga, mostly survivors of 94 Genocide were extremely poor, but God has done us a miracle with us being the first beneficiaries.”

Three people have been injured in a deadly explosion that struck a truck close to a military compound in Damascus,Syria near a hotel used by the UN’s observer mission.

Syrian state TV reported that three people had been injured in the blast, but that none of them were UN monitors.

The intended target of the explosion was not immediately clear.

The UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, currently visiting Syria, has said it should be made easier for aid to be delivered to civilians who need it.

Later on Wednesday, the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) is expected to suspend Syria’s membership over the ongoing violence.

The 57-member organisation, meeting in the Saudi city of Mecca, is expected to endorse a statement put forward by its members’ foreign ministers, despite objections from Iran, Syria’s last regional ally.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad visited the scene and told state media it was “a criminal act aimed at distorting Syria’s image”.

He called on the international community to “work hand-in-hand against terrorism”.

“Our primary goal is to secure the observer mission team and thank God no one from this mission has been hurt since it arrived in Syria,” he said.

{{As the whereabouts of Ethiopia’s Prime minister Meles Zenawi remains unknown, Ethiopian government has suspended the provision of foreign currency in a decision that has been linked to the political uncertainties surrounding prime minister Zenawi’s deteriorating health.}}

A notice to this effect has been issued by the regulator, the National Bank of Ethiopia, to the country’s commercial banks as Addis Ababa also appealed for food aid.

The country’s foreign currency reserves are running alarmingly low and can only cover the importation of basic goods such as petroleum, medicine and food.

The measure is likely to lead to a black market boom that would further weaken the country’s import-export trade, observers say, with shortages already being experienced.

The country’s leading commercial bank has stopped issuing letters of credit–essentially a promise to pay–with fears of a rise in the cost of living.

Banking in the Horn of Africa nation of about 85 million people is highly centrally regulated.

Industry insiders argue that massive capital flight and illegal transactions are the main reasons for the rapid depletion of forex reserves.

One of the fastest growing sub-Saharan Africa countries, Ethiopia’s growth has touched seven per cent annually for the last nine years, according to the IMF.

Big businesses owned by Mr Meles’ ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) play a key role in the daily operation of the economy.

{{Insurgency reports from Eastern DRC indicate that notorious Mai-Mai militia August 10 attacked fifteen villages about 80 km west of Goma, Masisi in North Kivu.}}

At least five people were killed, three others injured, and seven villages burnt. Congolese forces in the region are said to have deployed since Saturday to secure the area.

The Raïa Mutomboki attacked Nkokwe market to Remeka and the surrounding villages in pursuit of the rebel Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

During the attack on the market, a woman, two men, a girl and a boy were killed.

The Mai-Mai are a vigilante group which performs popular recurring raids on the positions of the FDLR, considered in the area as a foreign occupation force.

In the villages, these militiamen wounded elderly and children with machetes. Two seriously injured were transported Sunday to a hospital in Goma.

The victims reported that Raïa Mutomboki burned at least seven villages and the people were left to die in burning houses.

Hundreds of people fled Remeka by Friday to take refuge in Bukumbiri.
Military sources in Ngungu, near Remeka have said a team of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) has been dispatched.

Masisi Member of Parliament Jean-Bosco Sebishimbo, also confirmed the attacks. He asked the area authorities to investigate to determine responsibilities, but also to secure the local population.

{{The president of the court, Justice Harold Nsekela announced on August 10 in Kigali that the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) would now handle all arbitration cases in East Africa.}}

He said during the opening of the first sub-registry of the regional court in Rwanda that the judicial body was open to cases involving disputes, disagreements and misunderstandings between various aggrieved parties in the bloc.

“The court must be visible in all the partner states,” he said before the Rwandese Chief Justice, Prof Sam Rugege, cut the tape to officially inaugurate the sub-registry at the High Court of Rwanda premises.

He said the opening of the facility would cut down costs of filing cases at the EACJ headquarters in Arusha as well as reduce time spent by the concerned parties in travelling between Kigali and Arusha.

Judge Nsekela told an audience that the opening of the registries was intended to take services closer to the citizens of East Africa.

{{The trial of Leon Mugesera has been slated to start on September 17, after months of procastination.

Mugesera was extradited from Canada in January 2012 after a legal battle lasting more than 15 years.}}

The former lecturer is accused of inciting genocide in a 1992 speech delivered in Kinyarwanda, during a meeting of his political party in northern Rwanda. Mugesera was in 1992 one of the vice-presidents of the then ruling MRND party.

His trial was due to start on February 2, 2012, but Mugesera had asked for additional time to make sure his defence team would be complete.

Mugesera was also requesting that the official language for the trial would be French and not Kinyarwanda.

At last, he had argued that one of his lawyers had given up on his case while keeping the files.

“The opening of the trial has been set up for September 17, before a special chamber of the High Court of Kigali”, Rwandan courts’ spokesperson Charles Kaliwabo said.

The High Court was created in February 2012 to try cases referred by the International criminal court for Rwanda (ICTR) and other foreign countries.

Mugesera’s defence lawyer Felix Rudakemwa said that they would be ready.

{{President Paul Kagame warned that the slow pace by some member states of the East African Community in executing the principles that have been agreed upon should not be allowed to make the bloc lose sight of what it has set itself to achieve.}}

“One good thing is that we are doing better in putting in place standards and benchmarks of what we want to achieve… these benchmarks will always remind us of what is expected of each member,” he said.

The president was August 10, speaking to media owners, editors and senior journalists on the sidelines of the two-day 5th East Africa Media Summit in the Rwanda capital.

He urged the media to play a key role in accelerating the pace of integration in East Africa such as the swift implementation of the Common Market and Customs Union protocols.

He noted that it was neither right nor fair to accuse any particular EAC member state of being the stumbling block in the rather sluggish implementation of programmes meant to cement regional integration.

Kagame said there was no way everyone among the five members of the EAC would realize each and every programme at the same pace.

“Implementation of the regional integration agenda wouldn’t always be same among the member states because of certain existing differences among them. But I can assure you that we are all keeping our eyes on where we want to go, individually and collectively,” he said.

He explained that the agreement on the basic principles on what should be done or achieved at what time helps in reducing disparities.

“You cannot avoid or wish them (differences between member countries) away… even the European Union is experiencing the same problems though they started much earlier than us,” he said.

The president added that the level of implementation of the regional integration agenda would differ among countries as even within each separate country the level of understanding these goals differed from one category of people to another.

He noted that even in Rwanda, level of understanding on EAC issues varied among the Rwandans.

“But, as I have said earlier, this should not make us lose sight of what we have set to achieve. This should help us to encourage one another on what we are supposed to do to reach there,” he said.

President Kagame criticised Africa’s media for leaving Western media to tell the African story.

“They are imposing their views on us and want everybody to believe what they are reporting is always correct,” he said addingn that though he respected the freedom of the press, he does not accept blanket criticisms and negative reporting on Africa “by those who want to impose ideas on what other people should believe.”