Category: News

{{Khartoum will Host a meeting of defence ministers from the Great Lakes Region on August 2 to review progress and fast tracking implementation of decisions made in a similar meeting about a year ago in Kigali, Rwanda.}}

The previous Kigali meeting deliberated on the situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The meeting will also flesh out the details of how to establish a neutral international force that the region’s heads of state agreed to on July 15 in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the African Union Summit.

One of the decisions especially establishment of a Joint Intelligence Fusion Centre has already been acted upon. The centre opened in June in the eastern DRC town of Goma.

Illegal mining has been cited as the chief source of funds that the different militias operating in the area use to purchase weaponry.

The neutral international force force will also tackle the FDLR composed of remnants of the Interahamwe who carried out the 1994 genocide — and all other negative forces in eastern DRC, as well as patrol and secure border zones.

The Khartoum meeting is intended to inform the Extraordinary Summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region that Uganda, in its capacity as the current chair of the Conference, agreed to host in Kampala on August 6-7 to address the security situation in eastern Congo.

{{Africa is critically viewed as a new battle against narcotics syndicates and terrorism.

Cocaine smuggling through West Africa has increased in recent years.}}

Several years ago, a South American drug gang tried to bribe the son of the Liberian president to allow it to use the country for smuggling.

However, he tipped off the DEA, and the gang members got arrested and convicted.

The United states government says its behind the curve in some ways to deal with these major threats.

Thus the US government is already training anti-drug specialists in Ghana and plans to do the same in Nigeria and Kenya to counter Latin American cartels smuggling drugs through Africa to Europe.

“We see Africa as the new frontier in terms of counterterrorism and counternarcotics issues,”Jeffrey Breeden, chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Europe, Asia and Africa was quoted as saying.

“It’s a place that we need to get ahead of — we’re already behind the curve in some ways, and we need to catch up.”

The United States is already conducting extensive anti-drug training programs in Mexico, Colombia and other countries.

US anti-drug assistance to West Africa has reached nearly $50 million for each of the past two years, up from just $7.5 million in 2009.

The DEA also is opening its first country office in Senegal.

Additional information: NY Times

{{The East African Community deputy secretary general (Political Federation), Dr Julius Tangus Rotich, says arms trafficking is potent threat to stability, security and development.}}

The EAC wants an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in order to address the problems associated with unregulated transfer of conventional arms.

“A robust ATT, if fully implemented, would reduce the incentive to accumulate arms and hence reduce spending on arms and spur economic development,” he said in an address to the United Nations headquarters in New York last week.

He said the regional bloc was keen to have a treaty that would address problems associated with unregulated transfer of conventional arms ” in all its manifestations”, he said in a statement sent to The Citizen.

According to him, the matter has been discussed thoroughly by experts from the EAC partner states; Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda in the past years and should now be put into practice.

He added that the region has experienced and continues to experience the devastating consequences of unregulated arms transfer, a situation which has facilitated displacement of populations, human rights abuses and destabilisation of legitimate governments.

Whereas the region was not producing arms, it remained awash with them, he said.

The nexus between easy availability of arms, terrorism and piracy continues to manifest itself in the region and remains of primary concern for regional peace and security.

“The inextricable link between unregulated arms transfer, human rights and humanitarian issues should thus be at the core of the treaty’s objectives, drawing from our regional experience,” Dr Rotich explained.

He underscored the need for the proposed ATT which includes all arms in the UN Conventional Arms Register along with Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) and ammunitions as well as accommodate all aspects of transfer

{{Jean Bosco Tugirabega narrowly survived death after his wife hit him on the head with a small hoe (locally known as ifuni).

The incident happened at Ruhuha cell,Mugano in Ngororero District.}}

Uwimana Julienne hit her husband after the two failed to settle a dispute where Tugirabega accused his wife of adultery.

However, IGIHE reporter who found Tugirabega at the hospital,noticed that he had no medical insurance and was only provided with basic first aid and advised to find money to get extra treatment.

Later IGIHE went to Tugirabega’s home where local authorities and residents had gathered saying they were going to sell Tugirabegas land to raise funds for medical treatment.

Uwimana told IGIHE that fights in their home are common and it was not the first time that they had engaged in fights.

She added that although she admitted that this case of infidelity occurred, she has always been incited by the husband leading into quarrels and fights.

“My clothes have been burnt before, He has also poured away the food I prepared, I have endured frequent insults. He claims that am sleeping with other men yet its not true” Uwimana narrated.

Tugirabega also told IGIHE that this is the third time he has been hurt by his own wife saying that the source of the fights his adulterous wife.

Asked whether he had any evidence that his wife was involved in any extramarital affair, Tugirabega said that , “ I have never caught her but am aware of her extra marital affairs, even neighbours are aware.”

{{In Liberia, Journalists will not be arrested anymore for defaming and insulting the public, thus giving them greater freedom to operate.}}

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, has signed (Saturday) the Table Mountain Declaration which calls for repeal of criminal defamation and “insult” laws journalists are usually charged with.

The Table Mountain Declaration is an international initiative being championed by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the World Editors Forum, the African Editors Forum and Liberia’s media advocacy group, President Union of Liberia.

The statement seeks to halt the continuous detention of journalists and closure of media houses on charges of defamation by governments for “insulting” authorities.

President Sirleaf is the second African leader after Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou to sign the Declaration since its adoption at the World Newspaper Congress in Cape Town, South Africa in 2007.

The ceremony which took place in the office of the President at the Foreign Ministry in the capital Monrovia, was attended by the president of the World Association of Newspapers, Xavier Vidal-Folch, among other members of the international community.

Prior to signing the declaration, President Sirleaf reiterated her commitment to advancing freedom of expression and free press not just in Liberia but the entire African Continent, noting that these attributes were the foundation of democracy.

She said the fact that Liberia was not among the 27 African countries where 229 journalists were imprisoned in 2007 also demonstrates her government’s commitment to free expression and free press.

She said setting freedom of speech and free press in Africa is one of her over-arching goals, as evidenced by the passage by her of the Freedom of Information Act in 2010 and the Access to Free Press Act in 2011.

{{Just a few days after agreeing in Addis Ababa,Ethiopia to resume peace talks South Sudan has announced (Saturday) it has cancelled face-to-face peace talks with the northern neighbor Sudan.}}

South Sudan government accuses Khartoum of launching a new air raid on its territory.

However, Sudan has denied bombing its southern neighbour, saying it had only targeted Darfuri rebels inside its own territory.

“We were left with no choice but to suspend our direct bilateral talks with Sudan,” the spokesman for Juba’s delegation at the talks in Addis Ababa, Atif Kiir, said.

“You cannot sit with them to negotiate when they are bombing our territory,” he added.

“The only negotiations that will happen now will happen through the panel,” he said, referring to an African Union mediation panel conducting the talks in the Ethiopian capital.

“There was bombing yesterday morning at a place called Rubaker,” in northern Bahr el Ghazal, South Sudan’s military spokesman Philip Aguer told Press, adding that “this might have implications because maybe that is the intention of Sudan to bomb us and to stop talking.”

Aguer said eight bombs were dropped by Sudanese army Antonov planes.
“Two civilians were wounded — a man and a woman. They were sleeping in their houses in the villages of Wuer Kil and Wuer Puech”, he said.

“Last time they wanted to break off talks in Addis Ababa, they bombed us … that was on March 26” at a military base in oil-producing Unity state, he added.

“SAF (Sudanese Armed Forces) didn’t violate South Sudanese territory,” Khartoum’s official SUNA news agency quoted one of Sudan’s negotiators to the African Union-led talks, Omar Dahab, as saying.

“What happened is the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebels tried to attack Sudan by coming through South Sudanese territory and SAF responded to them, but inside Sudan,” he said.

Dahab added that his team “is ready to continue direct negotiations with South Sudan’s delegation.”

A new round of talks is due to begin Sunday at AU headquarters, a week after Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir and his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir exchanged a symbolic handshake at a summit of the bloc.

Spokesman Kiir said there was “no reflection” of the mood set by the meeting of the two presidents, adding: “We are doing our best.”

South Sudanese Communications Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin commented, “There are people who don’t want the talks within the Khartoum regime — that’s why they are bombing us.”

The African Union’s Peace and Security Council has urged Khartoum and Juba to settle their differences on oil and border demarcation before an August 2 deadline set by the United Nations.

{{The Eastern Africa region would experience a severe deficit of maize and rice in the next few years because of recurring droughts and marketing constraints, the Eastern Africa Grain Council (EAGC) has warned.}}

While deficit in the production of rice could rise to 2.84 million tonnes in 2020, the deficit of maize, the country’s main staple food, would reach a staggering 7.76 million tonnes in eight years’ time.

EAGC said in a statement that Tanzania has a strong comparative advantage for production and export of maize and rice to feed the region.

This, the organisation said, was especially made more apparent over the last three years and especially in 2011 when Kenya faced a food crisis due to severe drought to hit EA and the Horn of Africa.

The peak of the crisis not only witnessed the sharp rise of food prices in the region ‘’to unprecedented levels’’ but also an export ban on cereals by the Tanzania government which EAGC claimed “denied producers a great opportunity to access more lucrative prices”.

The Council, which is organising the two-day event in collaboration with the Arusha-based Selian Agricultural Research Institute (Sari), said Tanzania can feed the rest of EA if it utilised its great land potentia.

“At the regional level other partner states in EAC do not have the natural resource endowment and comparative advantage that Tanzania has particularly with regard to agricultural land,” it added.

{{The Rwanda Defence Force will inaugurate on Monday 23 July a new military College named Rwanda Defence Force Command and Staff College.

The event will take place at Nyakinama, Musanze district at the former campus of Rwanda Military Academy.}}

The military college that will teach senior officers from the rank of Major to Colonel comes at a time when RDF has been sending its officers to attend Senior Command and Staff Courses in the region and abroad, at a very high cost.

At the end of May this year, a UK defence experts’s team validated the RDF Senior Command and Staff College curriculum.

Lt. Col Jeremy Sharpe from UK Defence Academy, Dr. Andrew Stewert from Kings College London, Commander Chris Taylor, and Aaron Clipps, a librarian expressed their satisfaction that all requirements were in place for the College to commence immediately.

The College has been accredited to National University of Rwanda to offer a Masters degree to qualified officers, with the signing of an MOU between NUR and RDF on 18thJune this year.

RDF Senior Command and Staff College is starting with 45 senior officers that will attend the one year course.

{{The Ministry of Education through Rwanda Education Board (REB) has organised an initiative referred to as “Rwanda Reads” to develop a culture of reading in Rwanda.}}

The event will be launched at the Kigali Institute Education conference Hall on Thursday, 19/07/2012; starting at 8:00 am.

The objective of Rwanda Reads initiative is to dismantle literacy barriers and develop a thriving and sustainable culture of reading.

The initiative will utilize a variety of strategies, including public awareness campaigns, improved literacy instruction, and increased availability of reading materials, all ages of the Rwandan population.

Rwanda Reads is an initiative that will enable Rwandans to achieve our collective vision for the future of our country. We must all be empowered to contribute to the development of our country as described in Vision2020.

But achieving this goal cannot happen by reading a book here and a website there. We need, all of us, to develop the habit of reading every day for life-long learning and pleasure

{{The Rwanda central bank (BNR) in the partnership with IMF and IGC is preparing a Regional Central Bank Governors conference to discuss monetary frame work.

The conference is scheduled for July 19, 2012 at Kigali Serena Hotel. On the top of discussion will be price stability within the region.}}

In the previous consecutive press conference, The Governor of Rwanda Central Bank Ambassador Claver Gatete announced that Rwanda’s Economy is still much stable in the region.

Rwanda was presented as the country of lowest inflation on average of 8.3% rate while other countries in the region have a superior average.
The press asked whether these countries economy will not end up affecting Rwanda’s economy.

For this question Amb. Claver Gatete said that, they accepted to collaborate because of the effort these countries put in decreasing their inflation rate.

He gave examples from Uganda which brought its inflation rate from 30% to 17%, Burundi which dropped it to 22% from 26% and Kenya which dropped it to 10% from 18% and so on.

About worries from Euro zone troubles, the Rwanda Central Bank Governor said that the Euro Zone is not the only one market.

He added that Rwanda is expanding its market in the African Region and even in the Asia and ensured that the monetary policy committee in its survey showed evidence of enough capital in Rwandan Banks.

But he accepted that as Rwanda has an open economy, what affect other countries may end up affecting Rwanda’s economy. For that the conference will take measures to overcome challenges and threats from outside countries.

During the meeting, Regional Central Bank Governors will have an opportunity to share experiences from Latin America to make regional monetary policy stable.

Economic crisis started in 2008 in Western Countries. With Arab Revolution, economic situation becomes worse with the increase of Fuel prices. Nowadays Euro zone which is the donor for the most of African countries is in economic crisis, for that, Regional countries have to get united to overcome threats from Western countries.