IGIHE

Category: People

  • Clinton faints, now Recovering

    {{The State Department says Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who skipped an overseas trip this past week because of a stomach virus, sustained a concussion after fainting.}}

    She’s now recovering at home and being monitored by doctors.

    An aide, Philippe Reines, says Clinton will work from home next week, at the recommendation of doctors.

    Congressional aides do not expect her to testify as scheduled at congressional hearings on Thursday into the Sept. 11 attack against a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador.

    The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss Clinton’s status.

    The department says Clinton was dehydrated because of the virus and that she fainted, causing the concussion. No further details were immediately available.

    {Huffingtonpost}

  • Kibaki,Museveni Set for Lifetime Africa Achievement Award

    {{President Kibaki is among four African Statesmen who will receive the Lifetime Africa Achievement award.}}

    Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the late Ghanaian President John Atta Mills and Dr Mohammed Mo Ibrahim are among the other winners to be recognised.

    The award is organised by Ghana’s Millennium Excellence Foundation (MEF).

    The ceremony will be held at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC), Nairobi Saturday where the recipients will be officially presented with the honours at an event to be televised live in Kenya and around Africa.

    A statement by MEF also named seven other recipients of the awards including businessman Kamlesh Pattni.

    Others expected in Nairobi to receive the awards are Egyptian opposition leader Mohammed El Baradei, Godswil Apkabio , Kaumbi Chapwe, Aliko Dangote Laureate Isabel Dos Santos and Noo Letele.

    President Kibaki will be awarded the prize for leadership, national cohesion and stability while President Museveni has won the prize in the Nation Building and African Leadership category.

    The late Prof Mills has been posthumously honoured under Democratic Governance and Development category.

    Dr Ibrahim of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation is the winner of Action for Africa prize to recognise his dedication to democratic governance in Africa.

    “This exaltation of character, which is worthy of emulation, has made positive impact on the lives of his people today and will continue to sustain them for a better future.

    “By dint of his hard work, foresight and resourcefulness, the world is walking up to a new Africa wherein the predominant theme in the emerging narrative about Africa is no longer war, famine and disease but rather strong economic performance,” MEF said of Dr Mo.

    Previous winners of the award include South African businessman Cyril Ramaphosa, former UN Secretary General Dr Kofi Annan, Nigerian author Wole Soyinka among others.

    NMG

  • Mandela Accepts His Condition–Grand Daughter

    {{Ailing anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela was on Tuesday spending a fourth day in hospital for more tests, as his wife said his trademark “sparkle” was waning.}}

    At the same time President Jacob Zuma’s office has disclosed that Mandela is being treated for a lung infection.

    This is the first time officials have revealed why Mr Mandela, 94, was rushed to a military hospital in the capital, Pretoria, on Saturday.

    Tests showed a “recurrence of a previous lung infection”, presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said.

    Looking calm in an interview with a local television network, Graca Machel did not give details about Mandela’s health status, just saying it was painful to see the nonagenarian “aging”.

    “I mean, this spirit and this sparkle, you see that somehow it’s fading,” she told ENews Central Africa (ENCA) on Monday in her first interview since Mandela was hospitalised at the weekend.

    South African government officials have said the former president is comfortable and does not face immediate danger, but they refuse to speculate on when he is likely to be discharged from a Pretoria military hospital.

    Mandela, 94, was at the weekend admitted to hospital for tests that authorities say are expected of people of his age.

    “To see him aging, it’s something also which pains you. . . . You understand and you know it has to happen,” said Graca.

    Mandela’s grand-daughter Ndileka told the same TV network that he has taken to accept his condition.

    “I think he takes it in his stride, he has come to accept that it’s part of growing old, and it’s part of humanity as such. At some point you will be dependent on someone else, he has come to embrace it,” she said.

  • Australian DJs Apologize for Royal Hoax Call

    {{They expected a hang-up and a few laughs. Instead, the Australian DJs behind a hoax phone call to the U.K. hospital where the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was treated were in tears Monday as they described how their joke ended up going too far.}}

    The phone call — in which they impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles — went through, and their station broadcast and even trumpeted the confidential information received.

    Whatever pride there had been over the hoax was obliterated in a storm of worldwide public outrage after Friday’s death, still unexplained, of the first nurse they talked to.

    “There’s not a minute that goes by that we don’t think about her family and what they must be going through,” 2DayFM radio host Mel Greig told Australia’s “A Current Affair,” her voice shaking.

    “And the thought that we may have played a part in that is gut-wrenching.”

    She and co-host Michael Christian spoke publicly about the prank for the first time in the televised interview.

    A separate interview on rival show “Today Tonight” also aired Monday evening.

    Both DJs apologized for the hoax and broke down in tears when asked about the moment they learned that the nurse, Jacintha Saldanha, was dead.

    But neither described having reservations before the hoax tape was broadcast; they said higher-ups made the decision to air it.
    “We didn’t have that discussion,” Greig said.

    Southern Cross Austereo, the parent company of 2DayFM, released a statement on Monday saying Greig and Christian’s show had been terminated, and that there would be a company-wide suspension of prank calls. The DJs themselves remain suspended.

    Saldanha, 46, had transferred their call last week to a fellow nurse caring for the duchess, who was being treated for acute morning sickness. That nurse said the former Kate Middleton “hasn’t had any retching with me and she’s been sleeping on and off.”

    Three days later, Saldanha died. Police have not yet determined the cause of death, but many immediately assumed it was related to the stress from the call.

    The DJs said that when the idea for the call came up in a team meeting, no one expected that they would actually be put through to the duchess’ ward.

    “We just assumed we’d get cut off at every single point and that’d be it,” Christian said.

    “The joke 100 percent was on us,” he said. “The idea was never, ‘Let’s call up and get through to Kate,’ or ‘Let’s speak to a nurse.’ The joke was our accents are horrible, they don’t sound anything like who they’re intended to be.”

    “The entertainment value was in us,” Greig added. “It was meant to be in our silly accents. That’s where it was meant to end.”

    The decision to air the prerecorded call was made by executives higher up the chain, the DJs said.

    Southern Cross Austereo CEO Rhys Holleran has called Saldanha’s death a tragedy, but defended the prank as a standard part of radio culture. He has also insisted the station had not broken any laws and had adhered to procedures.

    On Monday, Holleran told Fairfax Radio that the station had tried at least five times to contact the hospital to discuss the prank before it went to air, though the station never succeeded.

    When asked why the company made the attempts, Holleran replied, “Because we did want to speak with them about it.”

    When pressed as to whether this meant the station had reservations about the prank, Holleran said only, “I think that that’s a process that we follow and we have checks and balances on all those things.”

    The hoax has sparked broad outrage, with the hosts receiving death threats and calls for them to be fired. Greig said she doesn’t even want to think about returning to the airwaves.

    “I remember my first question was, ‘Was she a mother?’” she said on “Today Tonight.”

    Saldanha had two children. Her husband, Ben Barboza, expressed his sadness on his Facebook page with a short note “Obituary Jacintha.”
    “I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances,” he wrote. He said she will be laid to rest in Shirva, India.

  • Archbishop Tutu Pleads for Homos

    {{Archbishop Desmond Tutu has urged Uganda to scrap a controversial draft law that would send gays and lesbians to jail and, some say, put them at risk of the death penalty.}}

    The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is expected to become law after Parliamentary Speaker Rebecca Kadaga offered it to Ugandans as a “Christmas gift.”

    The bill is believed to exclude the death penalty clause after international pressure forced its removal, but gay rights activists say much of it is still horrendous.

    “I am opposed to discrimination, that is unfair discrimination, and would that I could persuade legislators in Uganda to drop their draft legislation, because I think it is totally unjust,” Tutu told reporters here on Tuesday at the All Africa Conference of Churches meeting.

    The former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, who was a hero of the anti-apartheid movement, has emerged as a leading pro-gay voice both in the church and across Africa.

    With African church leaders passionately preaching against homosexuality as sinful and against African culture, Tutu said the church must stand with minorities.

    “My brothers and sisters, you stood with people who were oppressed because of their skin color.

    If you are going to be true to the Lord you worship, you are also going to be there for the people who are being oppressed for something they can do nothing about: their sexual orientation,” he said.

    Tutu said people do not choose their sexual orientation, and would be crazy to choose homosexuality “when you expose yourself to so much hatred, even to the extent of being killed.”

    Washingtonpost

  • Henry of KGB Music Group Drowns in L. Muhazi

    {In the Photo (center)Hirwa Henry a.k.a HENRY WOW}

    {{Unconfirmed reports circulating Facebook indicate that a member of a Kigali Based music group KGB has lost one of its members.}}

    The deceased member has been identified as Henry. Its said he had gone on vacation at Lake Muhazi in Eastern Province with his collegues.

    Reports also indicate that Henry and his collegues walked into the calm waters and began enjoying swimming.

    However, fate had it that after sometime some of his collegues moved out of the water to the shores. Its when they realised that Henry was not returning to the shores.

    They later returned to the waters to find where he was only to find he had been floating. They tried to resusticate him but he was no more.

    Several comments are being posted and shared on various Posts on Facebook about Henrys passing.

    IGIHE is already establishing the detailed facts of this story and we will bring you the details.

  • World Wont End December 21st

    {{The Maya people did not really mark their calendar for the end of the world on December 21, 2012.}}

    As tourists book hotels rooms in Mexico’s Maya Riviera and Guatemalan resorts ahead of next month’s fateful date, experts are busy debunking the doomsday myth.

    The apocalyptic prophecy that has inspired authors and filmmakers never appears in the tall T-shaped stone calendar that was carved by the Maya around the year 669 in southeastern Mexico.

    In reality, the stone recounts the life and battles of a ruler from that era, experts say. Plus, the last date on the calendar is actually December 23, 2012, not the 21st, and it merely marks the end of a cycle.

    So no need to build giant arks, because the terrible floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions depicted in the Hollywood blockbuster “2012″ were not prophesied by the Mayas.

    “The Mayas had a cyclical idea of time. They were not preoccupied with the end of the world,” Mexican archeologist Jose Romero told AFP.

    The stone, known as Monument 6, was located in El Tortuguero, an archeological site that was discovered in 1915.

    Broken in six pieces, the different fragments are exhibited in US and Mexican museums, including Tabasco’s Carlos Pellicer Camara Anthropology Museum and New York’s Metropolitan Museum.

    The first study on the stone was published by a German researcher in 1978. Since then, various archeologists have examined its significance and agree that it refers to the December 23 date.

    “The last inscription refers to December 23, 2012, but the central theme of Monument 6 is not the date, it’s not the prophecies or the end of the world. It’s the story of (then ruler) Bahlam Ajaw,” Romero said.

    The final date represents the end of a cycle in the Mayan long count calendar that began in the year 3114 before Christ. It is the completion of 13 baak t’uunes, a unit of time equivalent to 144,000 days.

    “It is not the end of the Mayan long count calendar, which is endless. It’s the beginning of a new cycle, that’s all,” said Mexican historian Erick Velasquez.

    Though the Maya made prophecies, they looked at events in the near future and were related to day-to-day concerns like rain, droughts, or harvests.

    The belief that the calendar foresees the end of the world comes from Judeo-Christian interpretations, the experts said.

    Velasquez warned against giving too much weight to Monument 6, noting that it is just one of more than 5,000 stones from the Mayan culture that have been studied.

    The Earth still has a few years left, even in eyes of the ancient Maya: Some stones refer to the year 7000.

  • Parents Learn of Daughter’s Death on Facebook

    {{In The Unite States, parents of a college freshman who was found dead on campus say they found out about her death on Facebook.}}

    Jasmine Benjamin, a 17-year-old nursing student at Valdosta State University from Lawrenceville, Ga., was found dead in a study area in her dorm on Nov. 18.

    According to CBS Atlanta, police are treating the death as a homicide, pending the results of an autopsy.

    Jasmine’s parents say the school did not inform them of her death, learning about it instead through a friend’s Facebook post.

    “For someone to be so insensitive not to reach out to the family, it’s very, very hurtful to say the least,” James Jackson, Jasmine’s stepfather, told the network.

    School officials say campus police notified Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department, which then notified her parents.

    Jackson said police told him that Jasmine “had been dead for at least 12 hours before she was found, because passers-by thought she was simply sleeping on the study room couch,” adding to the family’s frustration.

    “That’s the most disturbing part,” Jackson said. “What kind of school is this that they know someone’s laying on the couch to go check on them after a certain amount of hours?”

    The parents told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution late last week that they were initially told their daughter died of natural causes.

    “To find out it was a homicide and that somebody actually murdered our daughter changed everything,” Jackson said. “It was like hearing the news all over again.”

    In a statement released Monday, the university said it is “continuing to work with law enforcement agencies in their ongoing investigation.”

    {Wirestory}

  • Moi’s Son Arrested

    {{Philip Moi the son of former Kenyan President Danied Arap Moi was on Monday arrested at his Nairobi home and is expected to be arraigned in court.}}

    In July, his estranged wife succeeded in an application to extend jurisdiction under which her husband can be arrested.

    Court had previously ordered Philip Moi to pay his estranged wife Rossana Pluda Sh500,000 for upkeep payment and children maintenance.

    Justice GBM Kariuki allowed an application by Ms Rossana Pluda, through her lawyer Judy Thongori, seeking to extend the jurisdiction under which Mr Moi can be arrested for failing to pay her maintenance fee as had been ordered by the court, to be extended to cover the entire country.

    Initially, Mr Moi could only be placed under arrest within Muthaiga area, Nairobi.

    Mr Moi had been ordered to pay Ms Pluda Sh250,000 a month for her upkeep and the maintenance of their two children. However, Mr Moi failed to comply.

    The application filed by Ms Pluda Moi, on July 4, 2012 required that the orders of the arrest and detention in civil jail at the industrial area, Nairobi that were issued against Mr Moi for execution by the officers in charge of the police station nearest Mr Moi’s place of residence be expanded to include the order that the Commissioner of Police to execute such arrest whenever the respondent maybe in the Republic of Kenya.

  • Violence in Africa Stems From Disempowered Men

    {{The crime rate in Africa in has risen to deplorable heights in the recent past. Indeed, violent crimes of varying degrees have become synonymous with the continent, from the family to regional levels.}}

    Every day we wake up to shocking horror and terror in our neighbourhood of individuals killing their wives, children and/or neighbours in cold blood.

    The length and breadth of Africa – from South Africa to Libya, Sierra Leone to Sudan, Liberia to Somalia as well as Rwanda to Congo – have all had their moments of despicable madness and senseless ethnic pogroms.

    One question that boggles minds in and outside the “dark continent” is why Africa.

    Anzetse Were has studied the African scene widely and deeply enough to offer some interesting insight into the nature and cause of violence in Africa.

    In the book, Drivers of Violence: Male Disempowerment in the African Context, Anzetse lays bare the vicious web and cycle of violence in Africa.

    She not only blames the male African for most of the physical and verbal aggression but also delves deeper into the cause of such violence.

    Police and other official records have indicted men as the major perpetrators of assault, rape, robbery and murder both in the family and society.

    The book, published by Mvule Africa, introduces the concept of male disempowerment and establishes a veritable link between it and all forms of violence in Africa.

    Many African men, the author says, are disempowered to the point of their own destruction and that of others. This is a flip side of the female disempowerment that we have hitherto been accustomed to.

    {{Maladjusted adult}}

    Over the years, woman’s marginalisation and disempowerment by their opposite gender has been hyped much to the exclusion the men.

    Yet the real or perceived disempowerment of women and girls in Africa stems from the unaddressed disempowerment of the men.

    Anzetse suggests that society should acknowledge existence of male disempowerment in their midst and address it accordingly.

    She adds that the single-minded focus on women disempowerment alone will not achieve an empowered existence since they are surrounded by disempowered men.

    In a trip reminiscent of Chinua Achebe’s “where did the rain start beating us?” Anzetse traces male disempowerment in Africa to various social, cultural, historical and economic factors.

    Some of these emanate from African communities while others are from external or global forces.

    The author looks at the main forms and stages of the male African thus literally and figuratively separating the boys from men and isolating the males too.

    She establishes a natural order in which the boy child grows progressively from boyhood to malehood and ultimately manhood each with distinct characteristics and age bracket.

    A delayed or stunted graduation from one stage to another results in a maladjusted adult.

    Accordingly, most of the violence and aggression occur at the malehood stage, where the individual is under the influence of his primitive instincts.

    Interestingly, the book finds patriarchy and masculinity as some of the major obstacles to the empowerment of the African man.

    This is contrary to popular view that the two practices are the main tools that African men use to oppress their women.

    {{Slave trade}}

    Patriarchy fosters male domination and superiority over females. But the same power trades with subtle yet stringent responsibilities and expectations from the same man.

    The same patriarchy confers upon men a false sense of power and invincibility to conquer all odds.

    For this privilege, it sets high standards for achievement and judges the men harshly by equating failure with weakness and less manliness.

    Slave trade was one of the most oppressive and disempowering events in Africa. Between 1400 and 1800 AD, Arab and European slave traders brutally raided Africa villages for slaves, mainly strong men.

    Where slave trade left off its cruelty, colonialism took over treating Africans, particularly men, as sub-humans to be subjugated.

    Throughout the continent, African resistance to colonial rule was violently broken further traumatising the men.

    Modern economic factors have continued to entrench the male African’s powerlessness and vulnerability.

    Ironically, they are considered heads of households when indeed they are rated as the poorest in the world.

    Anzetse states that African men are unable to feed, educate or provide shelter for themselves and their families.

    Consequently, they resort to violent behaviours often with addiction to sex, alcohol and drugs.

    They use violence to express their disempowerment which paradoxically perpetuates and intensifies their cycle of disempowerment.