The escapees have been identified as Sam Mugisha who was serving three years and a half sentence for rape and Alphonse Tuyishimire who was serving a five-year sentence for a similar crime.
The spokesperson of Rwanda Correctional Service (RCS), Hillary Sengabo has told IGIHE that the inmates have escaped in the wee hours of this Tuesday and are on the run.
“It is the first time children escape this prison. We request people to provide information as the investigation is underway to rearrest them,” he said.
Rwanda’s penal code stipulates that an escaping convicted inmate gets a doubled jail term of the remaining sentence.
From each Friday to Sunday, two episodes will be broadcasted per day on StarTimes Novela E Plus channel.
“The fiction is simply astonishing and I’m sure that the Rwandan audience will love Asintado,” said Echo Zhao, Chief Editor of StarTimes Novela E Plus channel.
“It is definitely a must-watch telenovela this year because people will be compelled by the complex relationship between Juliana and Katrina,” she added.
Asintado tells a story of two girls, Juliana and Katrina, who were separated by a fire that destroyed their home and took their parents’ lives, and the disaster turned them from sisters to strangers.
While Juliana decides to keep her name and identity, Katrina changes hers into Samantha Del Mundo. Years later, their worlds cross when Juliana coincidentally falls in love with Gael, Samantha’s ex-boyfriend.
Fueled by jealousy, Samantha hatches a plan to kill Juliana, not knowing she is her long lost sister. Unfortunately for her, Juliana survives. Seeking revenge, Juliana rebuilds her life and vows to destroy Samantha, along with everyone else who has hurt her.
What will happen once the chaos is over and the truth comes out? Don’t miss the TV series of Asintado on StarTimes Novela E Plus!
StarTimes is a leading digital TV operator in Africa, serving over 22 million users with a signal covering the whole continent and a massive distribution network of 200 brand halls, 10,000 convenience stores and 15,000 distributors in 30 countries.
Standing stoic among her fellow masons and civil engineers on a sunny day, Donata watches her employees pour a new layer of cement. She does not speak often, but she is clearly in charge of the construction bustling around her.
She watches the work silently, the other masons moving aside when she kneels to smooth a rough edge or guide an unsteady hand.
In her white helmet and dark blue uniform, Donata is overseeing construction of Rwanda’s newest early childhood development centre in Bugesera District.
The centre will enroll 80 children between the ages of 3 and 6, providing the community’s first pre-primary infrastructure.
“Construction has an essential role in Rwanda’s development, and women are indispensable participants.” Donata Umutoni, Lead Civil Engineer
“Whether it is schools, bridges or hospitals, development requires infrastructure and construction, and centres like this one are important to help children develop from a young age, both socially and in their education so they are more prepared for their future.”
She pauses, and watches two women walk past, who are helping each other carry a large pile of bricks. “There is nothing a man does that a woman cannot also do.”
“In Kinyarwanda, we have a proverb: ‘gushaka ni ugushobora.’ It means that if you put energy into making something happen, it will. It only depends on your motivation.”
The construction of the early childhood development centre is nearly complete. With funding support from UNICEF United Kingdom and UK-based NGO Ready for Schools Rwanda, the UNICEF-supported centre will host two play-based learning and stimulation rooms for children, a kitchen and administrative block, new toilets, and a community gathering space for parents.
“I love my job, and I am proud to be a part of this project,” says Donata, returning her attention to her employees. “As women, we need to be confident in ourselves and know that we have power. Power to do any job, and power to develop our country.”
The Executive Secretary of Kigeyo sector, Pontien Nkusi has confirmed that the thief was shot dead last night as he and a gang of others tried to fight policemen who intervened to stop the theft.
“Three people are suspected to have conspired to steal computers last night at Groupe Scolaire Kinihira. They perforated buildings and fought back policemen who went to arrest them. Police arrived on the crime scene at around 1:00am and found the suspects were breaking into the building in which computers are stored. The suspected ring leader warned others and moved forward threatening to stab policemen,” he said.
The body of the dead suspect has been taken to Murunda hospital.
The officials headed by Maj. Gen. Garang Akuei Diing, the director for finance in SSNPS, are visiting RNP particularly to learn from its areas of welfare and development.
The Deputy Inspector General (DIGP) in charge of Administration and Personnel, Juvenal Marizamunda who welcomed them said that RNP and SSNPS enjoy good relations highlighting that both Heads of State have set a line to build on.
“We have a memorandum of understanding that guides us in various areas of policing including the exchange of information and training,” he said.
As part of the partnership, South Sudan Police officers have been trained in cyber and aviation security, attend the Police Senior Command and Staff Course (PSCSC) and cadet course in Rwanda, among others areas of training.
Two South Sudan Police officers are currently part of the 7th intake of the PSCSC at the National Police College (NPC) in Musanze District.
“RNP believes in cooperation both locally and cross-border, to effectively combat the emerging security threats… criminals might commit a crime in one country and attempt to use the other as a refuge; such exchange of best practices is beneficial to us all and good for our people to make them feel safe,” said the Deputy Police Chief.
The delegation was also briefed on the RNP welfare programs such as accommodation for officers, medical insurance and the lower interest rate on loans, Ration Cash Allowance and duty-free goods at the Armed Forces Shop, among others.
Maj. Gen. Garang said that South Sudan as a new nation is still growing in many aspects of policing, adding that RNP has been supportive.
“Rwanda is doing better in many aspects of security and development and we came here to learn from this milestone. Development of Police and the welfare of officers are important aspects in policing, and we want to explore such good practices,” Maj. Gen. Garang said.
The delegation is expected to visit the Motor-vehicle Inspection Centre (MIC), National Police College (NPC) and Police Training School (PTS) Gishari.
This was announced Monday during the bank’s Annual General Meeting presenting 2018 financial performance report to shareholders.
The bank recorded Rwf 7.46 billion net profit after tax rising by 15% compared to Rwf 6.5 billion of the previous year 2017.
The Chairman of the Board at I&M Bank Rwanda, Bill Irwin said that the 40% profits to be paid to shareholders was approved by the board of directors.
The Managing Director of I&M Bank Rwanda, Robin Bairstow explained that following the bank’s good performance on Rwanda stock market last year, it looks forward to increased investment working with microfinance institutions, widening the profit pool and improved service delivery.
According to I&M Bank executive director, Faustin Byishimo “The bank plans to draw emphasis on working with small and medium enterprises. It is one of the sectors that brought in remarkable profits last year.”
He explained that the bank’s signing of a partnership with International Finance Corporation (IFC) last year is expected to bear fruits as they work with SMEs.
Shareholders received a Rwf 5.16 dividend per share last year.
The Annual General Meeting also approved the increase of board of directors from 10 to 12 directors and extended tenure of the Board of Directors including Bill Irwin; Robin Byishimo Faustin who served in the financial year that ended 31st December 2018.
Mr. Simon Morris, Mr. Nikhil Hira, and Mrs. Alice Nkulikiyinka were approved as independent Non-Executive Directors while PwC Rwanda was re-appointed as the auditor of the Bank to hold office from the conclusion of the meeting until the conclusion of the next Annual General Meeting of the Bank.
Last year, I&M Bank increased total assets by 13% reaching Rwf 294 billion while loans increased by 15.4% reaching Rwf 169 billion.
The three-day forum is taking place in Kigali Convention Centre, from 20th -22nd May 2019.
As he addressed participants, the Premier highlighted the consideration of quality and relevant education, training and research as the core for technological innovation and entrepreneurship, as well one of the key principles of Africa’s Education Strategy.
“As Africans, our ambition should be to consider mathematics as an important tool that will help our students to develop their analytical thinking. In doing so, we should ensure that pupils who complete their primary schools are well equipped with relevant basic numeracy skills while those who complete their secondary schools have minimum proficiency in Mathematics.” He noted.
PM Ngirente insisted that in Africa much was done, and countries are making efforts to promote the teaching of mathematics.
He explained that it is high time that all African countries as they have done in promoting literacy also set up strategies that will guarantee to teach of mathematics at all levels of education.
He commanded that languages should not be put aside as they are also the medium through which mathematics and other sciences are taught.
Among others, the Prime Minister called for continuous investment in education and skills development because a highly educated labor force is the significant catalyst for transforming Africa’s economies.
He noted observed that this will move up the value chain into more job-creating manufacturing and service sectors while increasing these sectors productivity levels.
Premier Ngirente reminded participants that today, many African countries including Rwanda have been fully committed to their membership to PASET, as one of their key strategies to achieving the goal of quality relevant skills in higher education and research.
The forum focuses on the Implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and Digital Economy on Higher Education and Skills Development in Africa.
The Prime Minister says that this forum will help Africa to benefit from the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and to build all required skills to produce relevant technologies for Africa’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and future leaders.
He commended some of the initiatives undertaken by PASET, and one of them is the Regional Scholarship and Innovation Fund (RSIF) which will play a key role in training a critical mass of highly skilled scientists, professionals, and innovators.
This will be done through capacity building for research, innovation support and scholarships for at least 10,000 PhD training, doubling the number of PhDs in Sub-Saharan Africa in the next decade.
Premier Ngirente urged all African countries and their partners to support PASET in achieving its objectives and reiterated the commitment of the Government of Rwanda to support all initiatives of PASET.
A Kenyan, Prof George Magoha heading PASET said African countries need to impart quality knowledge to the youth for them to compete at the labor market. He called for extended research and writing books upon which the youth will draw knowledge.
The event held on 17th May 2019 was preceded by laying wreaths at mass graves where 47,409 victims from neighboring sectors are laid to rest.
Wellars Kayirangwa, a survivor in the area said Tutsi were persecuted and deprived of their rights until the genocide plan was executed when Interahamwe set roadblocks to kill them.
Bank of Africa, Managing Director, Mr. Abderrahmane Belbachir said the Bank consoles with Rwandans especially Kamonyi residents to honor genocide victims.
“We are here to remember and honor victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi,” he said.
Bank of Africa Rwanda, a subsidiary of Bank of Africa Group has different initiatives to give back to the community.
Belbachir said in line with these initiatives the Bank provided a contribution to renovate the memorial.
“As Rwanda commemorates for the 25th time the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi we have donated Rwf1 million for the renovation of Kamonyi memorial,” he revealed.
The management of Bank of Africa also promised Rwf1 million support to a cooperative of genocide survivors in Kamonyi in development projects.
The vice president of IBUKA in Kamonyi district, Benedata Zacharie hailed Bank of Africa for joining the district in commemoration of genocide victims.
“It is of great value to see people supporting and condoling with us because we have needy orphans and widows in our district. This is what you have done today,” he said.
Last year, Bank of Africa donated funds for maintenance of Kigali Genocide Memorial.
In 2017, Bank of Africa provided a grinding machine to ‘Abarikumwe’, a group of 24 genocide survivors living in Gishaka village, Nyagasozi cell of Bumbogo sector in Gasabo district.
Bank of Africa Group has branches in 18 countries born from BMCE Bank based in Morocco.
It opened shop in Rwanda on 9th December 2016. It has so far opened 14 branches in the country.
Umubano Hotel was acquired in January 2017, by Marasa Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of Madhvani Group.
With over 25 hotels and a hundred years of experience, the Madhvani Group is one of the largest diversified private-sector groups which has developed into a widely-diversified conglomerate and a wide geographical spread into the East-African region, the Middle East, India, and North America.
At the time, Marasa Umubano Hotel, which was built in 1979, was given two years for renovation but technicians realized that it required a lot of work compared to statistics gathered before.
Technicians established that $14 million was needed to complete renovations other than the $ 2.2 million that was proposed before.
As the renovation activities began, the management closed the left side of the hotel which has over 50 rooms.
Joel Uwizeye, Director Corporate Affairs at Marasa Holdings Ltd told IGIHE that RDB informed the hotel that it cannot receive clients while construction activities are ongoing.
On May 06th, 2019, the hotel received an official letter communicating that clients were given a period of 14 days until 20th May 2019, where they would no longer be received in the establishment.
The notification followed RDB inspection at the hotel, held on April 17th, 2019.
“RDB established that we should not host clients because we are still under construction. With regards to the request, we held an internal meeting on May 19th, 2019 and informed the staff that we were closing temporally,” said Uwizeye.
Marasa Umubano Hotel has over 140 employees with 20 conducting professional internships.
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Though RDB asked the hotel to halt services while waiting to complete construction activities, Kigali City halted the renovation and construction activities and requested the hotel to first meet construction requirements, following an inspection held on April 19th, 2019.
These include signposts to be erected at the construction site and the presence of an engineer on site.
“We wrote to Kigali city communicating that all requirements have been made available. We hope they will visit us soon to witness how we implemented regulations. We assure clients that we shall re-open because the contractor and engineers are available while necessary equipment was ordered,” said Uwizeye.
“We communicated to RDB of our wish to fix everything by April 2020 because we are aware of the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Rwanda in June next year. We want to be among members of the hospitality sector accommodating the CHOGM guests,” he added.
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Uwizeye says that the hotel had originally intended to renovate one part of the hotel and keep the other part operational, hence having the hotel’s staff working in shifts. After RDB’s decision, the hotel’s management decided to keep paying the staff, since the establishment believes in maintaining the staff and their families’ financial stability.
Uwizeye added that the hotel looks forward to the city’s go-ahead towards construction activities so to reduce the loss for the hotel, clients, and employees.
“Employees are not to be held accountable for this issue. It is rather a concern of the investor. Madhvani Group acknowledges that its employee’s welfare has to be maintained, thus why they were not stopped from work. We have agreed on providing their salary for specific months as we follow up on the issue,” he revealed.
If things go well, Marasa Umubano Hotel is expected to be officially launched at the beginning of 2020. Kim Kardashian, an American media personality, businesswoman, socialite, and model is among guests expected to grace the re-opening of the hotel.
Africa is home to a rich diversity of languages, but most of the voice-enabled technologies aren’t being developed in African languages. How are Africans expected to tell their own stories if they cannot do so in their native tongues?
In many ways, there is also a high risk of losing many local languages and dialects in this digital era due to the dominance of certain languages used in regional and global conversations.
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Mozilla’s Common Voice project is the largest repository of voice data in the world, and it’s free and open source. This means anyone can use it and the vast data is contributed by people all over the world who donate their voices and reading or verifying sentences that help to build this database that anyone can use.
All this is happening in large part because the monetization opportunities for large companies, that currently sell voice interfaces and datasets, are not available.
Mozilla is owned by a non-profit foundation, and as such, is not concerned with maximizing profit or shareholder value at the risk of a healthy, open and free internet. Therefore, building a platform that focuses on building a database that includes many languages from across the globe is well within its mandate.
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Considering that half the world remains unconnected to the internet, one of the biggest obstacles to the development of internet infrastructure in many countries is a lack of experienced network engineers. A critical mass of network engineers is needed to help shape the future of network infrastructure at both in Africa and global levels.
In a bid to address this gap, Mozilla Foundation, the Internet Society, and the Network Startup Resource Center have partnered to create a cohort of Mozilla Fellows focused on open internet engineering in countries with low internet penetration. Fellows will undertake transformational infrastructure-building projects to ensure efficient and affordable internet transit, working to develop municipal/community internet infrastructure, or establishing national data centers based on open standards and software.
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Last week, Mozilla, in partnership with Technology Service Providers of Kenya (TESPOK), held several Lean Data Practices (LDP) workshops in Nairobi following a workshop we held in Delhi in November. Lean Data Practice (LDP) is a framework that individuals should consider when giving their personal data away as well as for corporate and government organizations to think about when collecting and storing data.
“Lean Data Practices are important because they ensure that governments and companies collect only the data that is relevant and necessary for a particular process or activity. We are encouraging the government and companies to adopt the LDPs as a concept and as a practice,” said Alice Munyua, the Africa Policy Advisor for Mozilla.
Ms. Alice Munyua will be leading Mozilla’s policy activities in Africa.
The team at Mozilla feel that growing both the voice, human capacity, and proper data management facets will have a transformational impact on the way business is conducted, how governments operate and the way in which people interact with each other; giving rise to new business and operational models that will provide a wider scope for innovation in Africa. Mozilla is here for all that.
“Our main aim is to support the open internet, empower people to design their online life, stay safe and protected on the internet.” Ms. Katharina Borchert, Mozilla’s Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) at a panel discussion on Strengthening Innovation Ecosystems in Africa at the 2019 Transform Africa Summit held in Kigali, Rwanda.
Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, is a global community of technologists, thinkers, and builders working together to keep the Internet open and accessible, so people worldwide can be informed contributors and creators of the Web.
