IGIHE

Category: People

  • Uganda Parliament Debates Anti Gay Bill

    {{Ugandan lawmakers are to debate a controversial anti-gay bill calling for the death penalty for certain homosexual acts, a parliamentary spokeswoman said Thursday.}}

    The proposed legislation could come up for debate in the next few days after it was included as the third item on Thursday’s order paper for parliamentary business, said Helen Kawesa.

    “After parliament has disposed of all the business ahead of it on the order paper it will then move on to discussing that bill,” Kawesa said.

    First introduced in 2009, the bill was initially shelved following international condemnation. US President Barack Obama described its contents as “odious”.

    Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, but the new bill proposes introducing the death sentence for anyone caught engaging in homosexual acts for a second time, as well as for gay sex where one partner is a minor or has HIV.

    It would also criminalise the public promotion of homosexuality — including discussions by rights groups — with a sentence of up to seven years in prison for anyone convicted.

    The bill proposes to toughen laws “to protect the cherished culture of the people of Uganda…against the attempts of sexual rights activists seeking to impose their values of sexual promiscuity,” according to the text.

    The lawmaker behind the bill, David Bahati has said that the death penalty clause is likely to be dropped from the final version of the bill.

    The current session of Uganda’s parliament ends in mid-December.

    As news of the bill was announced, a Ugandan court on Thursday postponed the trial of a British theatre producer for staging a play about a gay man without proper authorisation until early next year, his lawyer said.

    David Cecil — who faces up to two years in jail if found guilty — was arrested in September on two counts, including one of “disobeying lawful orders” and briefly jailed before being granted bail.

    “The trial was adjourned until January 2 after the prosecution said that the police are still carrying out investigations,” said John Francis Onyango, Cecil’s lawyer.

    Onyango said that the court had granted Cecil, 34, a request to travel to Britain ahead of the next hearing.

    The groundbreaking play “The River and The Mountain” was performed at several venues around Kampala in August despite an injunction by Uganda’s government-run media council.

    It had issued a temporary ban on the play pending review of the script.

    The play examines the plight of a man coming out as a homosexual and the motivations of Uganda’s vociferous anti-gay lobby.

    Written by British playwright Beau Hopkins, it was directed and performed by Ugandans.

    Cecil’s arrest was condemned by activists inside Uganda and abroad.

  • Why You Failed to Get The Job

    {{There is no need to over emphasise how critical a job is in any person’s life. Some people’s lives depend on it.

    But getting a job is not an easy task because of high competition and limited number of institutions or companies recruiting.}}

    As a result many people today go through suffering because they did not get the job they wanted.

    They believe the job could have fixed some of the problems around them, like the lack of food, decent shelter and clothes.

    For some people, happiness depends on whether or not they get their dream job. This is so because some jobs give some people a sense of belonging and satisfaction. They need the job to get respect in their society.

    Yet many people struggle to get or keep their jobs simply because they are carefree.

    They fail what you, naturally, must pass to get the job that you need: The Interview!

    I ask myself: Why do people fail interviews when there is so much to learn from past experiences or the experiences of others? In looking for answers, I was shocked to discover that there are too many people who do not know the basics of interview skills.

    For their benefit, I list some of the basics below:
    Know your potential employer: It is important to find out as much information as possible about the company. Don’t go into an interview empty-headed.

    Your appearance is key: Make sure you look good; dress professionally. Even if the company has casual dress code, flip-flops, jeans, and T-shirts are never appropriate attire for a job interview.

    Be prepared: Be prepared to answer questions with specific examples of your strength and your accomplishment. Answer the question that you have been asked and don’t show you know much.

    {{Negativity}}: Avoid being a pessimist. Keep your comments and your attitude positive; negativity about your former or current company is an interview killer.

    {{Avoid lying}}: Don’t be a desperate liar in an interview. It will bite you on the ankle at some point. Be proud of your achievements, talk them up, and don’t make them up.

    {{Failing to listen}}: Without listening carefully to the interviewer, you’re shooting at target while blind folded.

    {{Time is crucial}}: Make sure to arrive a few minutes before your interview time but not too early. It is better to arrive 15 minutes before your interview is scheduled.

    Relax, while we know interviewing can be a stressful situation, all of our interviewers are excited to talk with you and learn more about your past experience and interest.

  • FBI Prepares Timeline for Gen. Patreus Probe

    {{In US, the CIA Director General David Petraeus and his alleged mistress Paula Broadwell took steps to conceal some of their online messages during their affair, the Associated Press reports, citing law enforcement officials.}}

    Petraeus and Broadwell would leave messages in the drafts folder of a shared Gmail account, according to a law enforcement official.

    This trick allowed them to see each others’ messages without creating an easily traceable email trail.

    “Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a trick, known to terrorists and teenagers alike, to conceal their email traffic, one of the law enforcement officials said.

    Rather than transmitting emails to the other’s inbox, they composed at least some messages and instead of transmitting them, left them in a draft folder or in an electronic “dropbox,” the official said.

    Then the other person could log onto the same account and read the draft emails there.

    This avoids creating an email trail that is easier to trace.”

    The Washington Post reports that this tactic has been used by al-Qaeda terrorists as far back as 2005.

    The Post notes that using draft mode rather than hitting “send” on an email leaves less of an electronic trail.

    When messages are actually sent, ” both accounts record the transmission as well as such metadata as the IP addresses on either end, something the two seemed to be seeking to avoid,” the Post notes.

    Between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of emails between Petraeus and Broadwell sent from 2010 to 2012 are currently under investigation.

  • Kenyan Mother Names Twins Obama, Romney

    {{A young Kenyan mother has named her newborn twin sons after the U.S. president-elect and his defeated Republican challenger.}}

    Millicent Owuor, 20, gave birth to Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on Wednesday at the Siaya District Hospital in southwest Kenya.

    Owuor told the Kenyan news outlet her sons’ names will always remind her of the election in the United States.”I named the first twin Barack and the second one Mitt,” Owuor said.

    The hospital is near the village of Kogelo, where President Barack Obama’s father was born and where his 90-year-old step grandmother, Sarah Obama, resides.

  • Rwandan Among 4 African Women Changing The Face Of Coffee

    {“Its a new Rwanda,” says Immy Kamarade (second from right), who says women today have access to education, to open an account and to land ownership.}

    {{If you’re a coffee drinker, chances are the cup of java you drank this morning was made from beans that were produced or harvested by women.

    Women’s handprints can be found at every point in coffee production.}}

    In fact, on family-owned coffee farms in Africa, about 70 percent of maintenance and harvesting work is done by women, according to an analysis by the International Trade Centre, but only rarely do women own the land or have financial control.

    The International Women’s Coffee Alliance (IWCA) is trying to change that by giving them access to training and networking, and the opportunity to develop new trade relationships.

    We sat down recently with four African women on the cusp of change who were on a trip to Washington, D.C., sponsored jointly by the IWCA and the International Trade Centre’s Women in Coffee Project. Here are their stories, in brief.

    Angele Ciza of Burundi is ahead of her time; she owns the land she farms on. Her 10-hectare (24.7 acre) coffee plantation in the northern part of the country has some 26,000 trees producing Arabica coffee, and she’s also purchased seven washing stations (part of the coffee processing procedure).

    She’s employing about 100 women, and she also helps pay school fees for the children of her employees.

    “We work very, very hard,” says Ciza. Her vision for lifting more people out of poverty in her region is clear. “If you want to develop Burundi, you develop the women,” she says.

    Fatima Aziz Faraji agrees. She manages a family coffee farm called Finca Estate in Tanzania. She’s pushed for a larger voice for women by filling the seats on coffee oversight boards traditionally reserved for men.

    For instance, she’s getting ready to begin a stint on the Tanzanian Coffee Board, and she’s a co-director of the Tanzania Coffee Research Institute.

    So what is the IWCA’s alliance doing for women in her country? She explains the IWCA is bringing women together who previously had no access to each other, or the outside world.

    “The ones [women] who are doing well can help” the ones who are just getting started, she explains. “Some women are resistant because of their culture.”

    They’re not used to having financial control, Faraji explains. They need mentors — or “sisters,” as she describes other women in coffee — to learn from.

    When Immy Kamarade wanted to spend more time with her kids (sound familiar, working moms?), she knew she had to learn a new trade. She quit her job in the medical field and started a coffee business.

    She says she’s now working as hard as ever, but it’s more on her own terms. She’s established a cooperative of 100 women who are producing and processing coffee in her home country of Rwanda.

    “It’s a new day for Rwanda,” she says. As we’ve reported before, Rwanda is finding that producing premium coffee pays.

    Women there never had access to education or rights to land ownership, but “today a woman owns land like her husband and signs on the land title, and a woman has a right to open a [banking] account.”

    Kamarade says the IWCA is helping to form connections with the people who are actually buying and consuming her coffee in the U.S. and elsewhere. And through these relationships, “we’ll be able to access better markets now,” she says.

    Mbula Musau of Kenya holds one of the most coveted titles in the coffee industry: certified Q-grader. This means buyers know that she knows her stuff when it comes to grading the quality of a coffee bean.

    And she’s also served as a sensory judge at the World Barista Championship competition.

    She now works on the trade and marketing side of the industry, but as a “sister of coffee,” as she calls herself, she wants to help empower women involved at all levels of coffee production in her country.

    “The majority of labor is women,” Musua explains. By connecting them with women around the world, “it creates hope.” And, she hopes, opportunities, too.

    npr.org

  • Malawi Suspends anti Hormosexual Laws

    {{Malawi has suspended laws against same-sex relationships pending a decision on whether to repeal the legislation, the justice minister has said.}}

    Police have been ordered not to arrest or prosecute homosexuals until parliament has debated the issue, said Ralph Kasambara.
    At present, homosexual acts carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in jail.

    Some Western leaders have suggested they would cut aid to African countries failing to recognise gay rights.

    Homosexuality is illegal in most African nations and remains a controversial topic in Malawi’s traditionally conservative society.
    One of Malawi’s most influential traditional leaders, Chief Kaomba, has urged the government not to let parliament change its laws on homosexuality.

    “This is against our culture,” he said.
    Repealing the legislation would be an unpopular move with many church leaders, as well as the wider population.

    Indecent practices

    In 2010, two Malawian men were arrested and charged with public indecency after saying they were getting married.
    The prosecution drew international condemnation and led to some donors withdrawing budget support – a major blow to one of the world’s poorest countries.

    The then-president Bingu wa Mutharika – who died of a heart attack earlier this year – pardoned both men on “humanitarian grounds” but said they had “committed a crime against our culture, against our religion, and against our laws”.

    However Mr Mutharika’s successor, Joyce Banda, told MPs shortly after taking office that she wanted to overturn the ban on homosexuality.

    In her first state-of-the-nation address to parliament, Mrs Banda said: “Some laws which were duly passed by the august house… will be repealed as a matter of urgency… these include the provisions regarding indecent practices and unnatural acts.”

    The authorities are hoping the suspension of anti-gay legislation will encourage public debate and help parliament make a decision on the matter.

    “If we continue arresting and prosecuting people based on the said laws and later such laws are found to be unconstitutional, it would be an embarrassment to government,” Mr Kasambara told Reuters news agency.

    “It is better to let one criminal get away with it rather than throw a lot of innocent people in jail.”

    Human rights group Amnesty International welcomed the announcement as a “historic step” forward.

  • Meet Auma, Obama’s Kenyan Sister

    {{When Barack Obama won the U.S. election four years ago, his Kenyan half sister Auma was with her family at their homestead, watching the historic occasion on television.}}

    It was a night Auma Obama remembers well. “We had a lot of people visiting to watch with us,” she says. “There was a lot of excitement because it had been such a tough race. There was a sense of relief that all the hard work had paid off.”

    Alongside Auma and her family was filmmaker Branwen Okpako, who was making a documentary about Auma, “The Education of Auma Obama.”

    “I will never forget that period in their homestead,” says Okpako. “It was indescribable. Imagine something like that is happening to your family, yet so far away.”

    Okpako, 43, a Nigerian-born filmmaker living in Germany, became friends with Auma when they were both film students in Berlin in the early 1990s.

    “We were two of four African women studying at the film school at the time and we talked a lot about how the African continent was portrayed in film and how we wanted to change it,” says Okpako.

    Auma shares a father — Barack Senior — with her younger half brother, Barack. The pair did not meet until after their father died in 1982 and Barack got in touch with Auma to explore his Kenyan roots.

    Okpako had the idea for a film about her friend Auma in the run-up to the 2008 election.

    Auma recalls: “I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic when Branwen first suggested the film, but I agreed because she is a friend and I trusted her. If it had been a stranger, I don’t think I would have done it.”

    Okpako says Auma was initially reticent about the film because of the huge media interest in her family that came with Barack Obama’s rise to prominence.

    “It has put me in the limelight in a way that wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” says Auma. “I don’t like talking about my family but it’s great if it gives me the chance to talk about my work with deprived and underprivileged children.”

    Auma, who lives in Nairobi, traveled with Okpako to the family’s homestead in the village of Kogelo, where her grandmother lives and Barack Senior is buried.

    “We were sitting together for 10 days waiting for the election and reflecting how we got to this moment in time,” says Okpako.

    “We were reading the newspapers and reading the statistics, but of course we didn’t know what was going to happen. It was intense and full of anticipation.

    “The film deals with that moment in time when history was made, but also how they got to that moment.”

    She adds: “All the family was there, the grandmother, all the cousins. Once the result was known everybody in the village came into the compound to celebrate. There must have been hundreds of people there.”

    Auma Obama grew up in the family’s homestead in Kogelo before moving to Germany where she spent 16 years as a journalist, broadcaster and studied for a PhD in German literature.

    She then lived for a period in the United Kingdom before returning to Kenya, where she works now as a social worker and youth advocate.

    The film is partly a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the family watching the 2008 election from their homestead, and partly uses interviews and old footage to tell the family’s story.

    Okpako traveled with Auma Obama to many significant places in her life to trace her story. She had hoped to interview Barack Obama for the film, but was unable to arrange time with the president.

    “I thought it would be good to have him as a small character in a film about an African woman, but it wasn’t possible,” she said.

    The president did, however, get to hear about the film when the cameraman’s mother-in-law visited the White House with German chancellor Angela Merkel and told him about it.

    “He asked for a copy and we sent it, but I don’t know if he has watched it,” says Okpako. “I think it would be interesting for him to see what his Kenyan family was doing that day.”

    “The Education of Auma Obama” will be shown in London on this year’s election day, Tuesday, November 6, as part of the Film Africa festival, and Okpako will be there for a question and answer session with the audience.

    Auma says she has to work on election day, but she will still be watching events unfold.

    “I follow my brother’s career as closely as any sibling would,” she says.
    “It’s important for me to know whether or not he is happy in his job,” she adds.

    “He makes me very proud because he has a tough job and does it 100% to his ability.”

    The film premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and has won awards at the PanAfrican Film Festival in Los Angeles and the Africa International Film Festival in Lagos.

    CNN

  • Morgan Tsvangirai Pays off X-Lover

    {{Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has reportedly paid an estranged lover who blocked his September wedding over $300,000, leading her to drop a $15,000 monthly maintenance claim from the courts.}}

    The state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported that, among other things, Mr Tsvangirai agreed a cash payment of between $280,000 and $300,000 to end their relationship.

    Ms Locardia Karimatsenga Tembo’s lawyers confirmed on Thursday that they had withdrawn the case, but they refused to disclose the amount paid to their client.

    Mr Tsvangirai, who lost his first wife in an accident in 2009, was forced to cancel his wedding to Ms Elizabeth Macheka on September 25 after Ms Tembo proved in court that they were customarily married.

    The customary marriage in November 2011 lasted less than 24 hours after President Robert Mugabe’s fierce rival claimed that state security agents were manipulating their relationship.

    He had reportedly paid over $30,000 in damages to Ms Tembo’s family for impregnating her, but the Prime Minister denied paying bride price or seeking the Harare businesswoman’s hand in marriage.

    Another South African woman, Ms Nosipho Shilubane, also emerged at the 11th hour seeking to block the high profile wedding, arguing that Mr Tsvangirai had promised to marry her.

    However, the claim was thrown out by the courts for lack of merit.

    But it was Ms Tembo’s case that threatened to torpedo Mr Tsvangirai’s political career as his opponents used it to maximum effect to question his suitability for high office.

    The out of court settlement will remove a distraction for the Prime Minister as he prepares to revive his rivalry with President Mugabe for elections set for March next year.

    The woman’s lawyer, Mr Jonathan Samukange, confirmed that the case had been withdrawn following a deal with Mr Tsvangirai’s lawyers.

    “Yes the matter is now settled,” he told the state owned Herald newspaper. “We agreed on a once off payment but I cannot disclose the amount.”

    In her maintenance claim filed in August, Ms Tembo had demanded $15,000 a month, arguing that Mr Tsvangirai had introduced her to an expensive lifestyle.

    Last week, there were media reports that she was now demanding demanding $500,000 and three oxen in a once off payment while the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader offered $200,000.

  • Genocide Survivor House Given Facelift

    {{Winifrida Mukagihana 53, a genocide survivor and widow will November 2, be officially handed a renovated house courtesy of Aegis Trust-Rwanda.}}

    Mukagihana is resident at Muhima Sector, Nyarugenge District where she takes care of 6 people including her four grandchildren. She does not have any source of income.

    The courageous genocide survivor has lived positive with HIV since 1994 and has serious abdominal problems which are the result of bullets and bayonet cuts that the militiamen inflicted on her during the genocide.

    This is the 5th house renovated by Aegis Trust since 2008.

    The renovation of the first 4widows houses were made possible by a group of well wishers in UK, while this 5th one was mainly funded by Share 4More.

    Share4More is a charitable fund created and run by Rabobank employees. It primarily supports small-scale education and healthcare projects for women, children and the disabled in developing countries.

    The projects are chosen by the employees themselves and usually complement the activities of the Rabobank Foundation.

    The Rabobank is one of the biggest banks in Netherland and works with Banque populaire du Rwanda as partner.

    Since 2004, Aegis Trust in Rwanda has been providing support to genocide survivors through its Social Programme.

    Moved by the stories of survivors whilst gathering testimonies for Aegis Trust’s Genocide Archive, the staff of Aegis put aside a small amount of their salaries to help the survivors.

    Inspired by the actions of its staff, Aegis then formally implemented a Social Programme, which now supports around 100 beneficiaries.

    After genocide, survivor support is not simply a matter of poverty reduction; it is also a matter of reparation to people for whom real justice against the perpetrators is impossible.

    The main beneficiaries of the Social Programme are orphan-headed households and widows, many of whom contracted HIV as a result of being raped during the genocide.

    The support provided by Aegis is tailored to the needs of each case with the aim of raising the quality of life of the beneficiaries, providing self- respect and dignity and giving them hope for the future.

    Support may take the form of:Financial aid,Educational support ,Psychological support and medical treatment,Refurbishment of houses,Assistance with setting up small enterprises and Provision of training, work experience or employment.

  • Miss Umutara Polytechnique Fired Over Fraud

    {{The 2012 Crown Beauty Queen of UMutara Polytechnique University located in the Eastern Province has been suspended for misapropriating funds for the needy students.}}

    Bukiza Ange Pascale has been suspended from the University for a period of One year.

    She is said to have solicited for funds to help needy students. She later failed to account for over Frw 200,000 she had obtained.

    IGIHE contacted Bukiza but she couldnt answer her cell phone.

    Dr Gashumba James the head of the University confirmed Bukiza’s suspension but didnt divulge details.