Tag: GreatLakesNews

Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao has arrived in Burundi for a two-day state visit.

Yuanchao was welcomed to the capital, Bujumbura, by his Burundian counterpart, Vice President Gaston Sindimwo, on Wednesday.

Yuanchao is expected to meet Thursday with Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, whose government receives foreign aid from China.

He will also visit projects that are supported by China, including technical schools and a new presidential palace that is still under construction.

Burundi is trying to recover from a violent conflict that followed Nkurunziza’s decision in April 2015 to seek a disputed third term which he ultimately won.

Hundreds of people have been killed in the violence.

Source:AP

{President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday met Prime Minister Theresa May and sought an agreement to guarantee access of Kenyan exports to the United Kingdom market after the country exits from the European Union.}

At a meeting at Number 10 Downing Street, President Kenyatta also spoke strongly about strengthening bilateral relations with Britain, and closer security cooperation, especially in regard to Somalia.

President Kenyatta arrived in Britain on Wednesday night to attend the Third London Conference on Somalia, and to meet the British Prime Minister on deepening bilateral relations for one of the country’s long-term allies. The President will also meet Prince William at Buckingham Palace on Friday.

It was the first meeting between the Kenyan leader and the British Prime Minister. The UK is Kenya’s third most important export destination after Uganda and the United States, and the leading source market for Kenya’s lifeblood tourism sector.

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There are hundreds of UK companies conducting business in Kenya.

The President’s agenda is about ensuring a conducive environment so businesses can thrive in order to provide much-needed jobs, and deepen security in Kenya and the region in order to foster growth and inclusive prosperity.

“It is Kenya’s desire to continue having seamless trade relations during and after Brexit. We wish to continue accessing the UK market duty-free and quota-free after the UK exits the EU,” President Kenyatta said.

President Kenyatta and Ms May agreed on creating a working group to examine a new framework for bilateral and economic relations between the two countries to ensure predictability and continuation of the existing market conditions after Brexit.

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The two leaders also discussed Kenya’s counter-terrorism program in the context of deepening the security architecture for Kenya and the region, and the Prime Minister made commitment to support the program.

President Kenyatta also pressed for the re-establishment of a UK visa processing centre in Nairobi to serve as a regional office for Eastern and Central Africa. Currently UK visas for the region are processed in the South African capital Pretoria.

He praised the PM for lifting the travel advisories that had adversely affected Lamu and Manda Island, which he said would lead to a significant increase in tourist arrivals from the UK. He reassured her that the government had taken extensive measures to bolster security in the area.

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The meeting between President Kenyatta was the latest in high-profile meetings between the two countries. UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson visited Kenya last year while President Kenyatta met then UK Prime Minister David Cameron on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2015.

Miraa (Khat) also featured in the London talks. President Kenyatta asked Ms May to extend technical cooperation and financial assistance to areas growing the crop to enable diversification and to minimise negative effects of the export ban to the UK imposed three years ago.

President Kenyatta also spoke of the benefits of mutual legal assistance to both countries, saying it had led to the tracing and repatriation of funds acquired fraudulently by Kenyan officials and stashed away in Jersey accounts.

On Thursday, the President will separately meet British investors in East Africa.

Source:Daily Nation

{Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Co-operation, Dr Augustine Mahiga has underscored the need to turn the historic relations between Tanzania and South Africa into co-operation and partnership for prosperity of the two countries.}

“We have enjoyed cordial and historic relations dating back to founding fathers of Tanzania’s Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

The relations should now be translated to improved economic ties. “Not only that, there is need for the two partners to pass on the heritage of this historic relations and liberation struggles to future generations in Tanzania and South Africa,” he remarked.

Dr Mahiga was speaking during a ministerial session with South African Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Relations, Ms MaiteNkoana-Mashabane, ahead of the inaugural session of Bi-National Commission (BNC), today.

The BNC is a unique forum established between two countries to allow regular exchanges at cabinetlevel on a wide range of issues, critical to them. Tanzania and South Africa agreed on the arrangement during a visit by former Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete to South Africa, in Pretoria, way back in 2012, but it was yet to be put into action.

President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, who jetted into the country yesterday and his host President John Magufuli are today expected to witness signing of an agreement and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on co-operation in transport, bio-diversity and conservation.

Speaking at the session yesterday, the Minister said it was high time the two countries aimed higher in areas of trade, investment and interactions for common interests. “We have both recorded impressive figures in trade and investment, but we must aim higher, the existing opportunities ought to be scaled-up.

The BNC sets the stage for a properly structured modality to achieve this,” he stressed.

Dr Mahiga said the ministerial session had as well set out priorities and implementation plan for agreements to be signed today, in addition to 14 others, which were inked in the past between Dar es Salaam and Pretoria

Source:Daily News

{An 18-year-old woman was yesterday sentenced to 18 months in prison for giving false information to the police regarding the murder of former police spokesperson Andrew Felix Kaweesi.}

Sheila Nalubega was sentenced after she pleaded guilty to giving false information to police.

“The said wrong information made to Detective ASP Sophy Neboshi led to wasting of taxpayer’s money while investigating it, hence Nalubega deserves a deterrent sentence. She is hereby convicted on her own plea of guilty,” declared Mr Moses Nabende, the Grade One Magistrate at City Hall Court.

During the trial the prosecution submitted that Ms Nalubega, a resident of Bukomansimbi in Masaka District on April 29 at Kyaliwajjala in Kampala lied to Detective ASP Neboshi that she saw and knew Kaweesi’s killers.

The soft-spoken Nalubega told court that she volunteered the false information in order to get the reward money the police had promised to any person with information that could lead to the arrest of the killers.

According to the court record, Nalubega went to Kyaliwajjala Police Post near Kampala where she informed Detective ASP Neboshi that she had witnessed and seen the people who killed Kaweesi. However, upon interrogation, she admitted she was lying.

Kaweesi was gunned down in a police vehicle on March 17 by unknown assailants a few metres from his residence in Kulambiro suburb as he left for work.

He was killed together with his bodyguard Kenneth Erau and driver Godfrey Wambewo. Thirteen suspects have been charged in court and remanded to Luzira Prison.

Four of the suspects were arrested at Kaweesi’s burial in Kitwekyanjovu in Kyazanga Sub-county, Lwengo District.

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Sheila Nalubega was sentenced after she pleaded guilty to giving false information to police. The soft-spoken Nalubega told court that she volunteered the false information in order to get the reward money the police had promised to any person with information that could lead to the arrest of the killers.

Source:Daily Monitor

{Former NTV news anchor and media personality Janet Kanini Ikua, who died on April 1, was the most searched person in Google search trends for the month of April.}

Mrs Ikua had battled lung cancer for some time.

Jobs at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries commission (IEBC) came second on the list of trending searches.

The IEBC was recruiting temporary workers as it gears up for the August 8 elections.

Football came in third, with people searching for matches such as Arsenal vs Manchester City and Chelsea vs Tottenham.

{{JUBILEE NOMINATIONS}}

Other football searches that topped the trends included the Barclays Premier League and the Champions League.

The Real Madrid vs Barcelona was the trending march searched under the Spanish La Liga.

Jubilee nominations came in fourth.

Searched for “top restaurants nearby” took the fifth spot, portraying the culture of eating out increasingly becoming popular among Kenyans, especially the young.

Taking the sixth position was the government’s web portal www.delivery.go.ke, which was launched in April to document and communicate to Kenyans the achievements of the Uhuru Kenyatta administration since it took office in 2013.

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Other trends were the popular comedian Emanuel Makori, popularly known as Ayeiya, who died in a car crash.

British professional boxer Antony Joshua and the late veteran politician David Mwiraria were also among those Kenyans searched on Google.

Other trending search queries were about the Kiambu Jubilee Party nominations, where Kabete MP Ferdinand Waititu defeated incumbent Governor William Kabogo, and the Teachers Service Commission’s TSC-Tpad, which stands for Teacher Performance Appraisal and Development.

The TSC-Tpad is an appraisal programme for teachers and 30,000 school heads that is intended as a gateway to higher pay and promotions.

Source:Daily Nation

{More than 100 companies from Changzhou city, Jiangsu Province, have participated in the Forum organised here in China to explore investment and trade opportunities in Tanzania. Minister of Trade, Industries and Marketing of Zanzibar, Ambassador Amina Salum Ali has revealed to the ‘Daily News’.}

“From this forum, we have already registered over 20 Chinese companies that are planning to visit our country next month to explore various opportunities… They are ready to start investment in textile, agriculture and construction industry,” she said.

Ambassador Amina said Tanzania was invited to give detailed explanations on key investment opportunities in Tanzania and encourage seizing them.

The minister also met with other five investors in Beijing. “Our visit has been successful following the pledge of 20 Chinese companies to come and identify various investment opportunities in the country,” she said.

She said during the meeting, investors wanted to know various issues regarding shares, rents, and other crucial details in investment in Tanzania.

She said with the collaboration with the Tanzania ambassador in China and other government officials, special committee was formed to fix some things that frustrated them before.

Present in the meeting were the Tanzania’s Ambassador to China Mbelwa Kairuki, John Mnali from Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC), Representative of Zanzibar Investment Center (ZIC) Nasriya Nassor, and Director of Research and Planning in National Development Corporation (NDC) Godwill Wanga .

In her speech, the Minister Amina Salum advised investors seeking to invest in Tanzania to ensure they get correct information from government institutions responsible for investments.

Source:Daily News

{Scuffles, frustrations, quarrels…. are noticed at the north bus stop in Bujumbura city center. Long queues of passengers are built up at different bus stops.}

Pupils, civil servants, everyone rushes to go back home. But a shortage of buses is observed; they come in small numbers due to the shortage of fuel. Some agents in uniform are trying to get things in order. It is not easy, all passengers must line up.

Some of them refuse while others follow the instructions. They threaten to use force.

“I have just spent an hour and a half and I do not even know if I am going to get a bus to go back home,” says a resident living in “Mutanga Nord”, northern Bujumbura neighborhood.

A student says she has just spent two hours at the bus stop waiting for the bus.

“I have been waiting for the bus since 5p.m., I do not even know if I am going to get time to review my studies,” he says.

“Seeing the small number of buses transporting passengers, I am not sure my children will eat tonight. I wanted to go home to give money to buy something to eat but cannot make it now,” says a mother of five.

However, the passengers accuse the people charged with ensuring order of favoritism.

“It is frustrating to see a person jumping the queue”, says angrily a passenger at the stop of buses going to the north of the capital.

One of the agents says they did that to protect young children and pregnant women.

“We cannot allow youths to push children and pregnant women and we must protect them by letting them get on the bus,” he says. For them, buses using fuel oil should complete those which consume gasoline.

Charles Ntirampeba, secretary general of the Burundi Association of Transport says the shortage of buses due to fuel scarcity is beyond their competence.

“From this Monday 8 May, the shortage of fuel has been added to the lack of gasoline. We don’t know how to handle these long queues”, he says.

Ntirampeba says some measures have been imposed. “Some buses from less crowded neighborhoods of the capital and those from the countryside must complete buses carrying passengers to more crowded areas”, he says.

Following the shortage of fuel these few months, the Minister of Energy and Mining had announced that petroleum products will now be distributed only at fuel stations and in daytime from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Source:Iwacu

{A man in Otwal Sub-county, Oyam District, has committed suicide due to stigma of his chronic illness.}

Mr Patrick Odongo, a resident of Acan-ling village in Anyomolyec parish, who had been suffering from epilepsy for several years, hanged self on Monday morning.

The officer in charge (OC) of Otwal Police Station, Mr Robert Okello, said before the incident the deceased reportedly bought a rope from a nearby trading centre and informed his wife, Ms Scovia Odongo, that the rope looked very good for hanging someone.

Mr Odongo, who appeared over excited, then explained to his wife how he had all along been suffering from abusive words hurled at him by his friends at drinking joints.

For instance, he reportedly told his wife how his friends were threatening to beat him up if he ever experienced convulsion again because they claim he was responsible for their misfortune.

Mr Odongo’s wife reportedly pleaded with him not to commit suicide when he threatened to do so, assuring him of his importance to the family and in the end getting temporary success in dissuading Odongo from committing suicide as he put away the rope and headed out later to drink.

“At the drinking joint, he was very happy and seemed to enjoy every moment with colleagues. He returned home at around 10pm,” the LC1 chairman of Acan-ling village, Mr Tom Okello, said.
While at his home, the deceased reportedly reassured his wife that he had abandoned his earlier plan of ending his life because of stigma and was even very “happy” before they retired to sleep.

However, at around midnight, Ms Odongo woke up and found her husband missing, prompting her to make an alarm which drew the attention of the couple’s neighbors, soon a search ensued.
Mr Odongo was later found dangling alive on a tree near his home but died moments later after he was disentangled from the rope.
The deceased left behind one wife and four children.

“I put the blame on the relatives, especially his wife for not alerting the police in time because the deceased had already informed her that he was planning to commit suicide,” Mr Okello said.

Depression and suicide tendencies are common in chronic diseases, especially epilepsy and diabetes, according to US National Library of Medicine. Suicide is one of the most important causes of death, and is usually underestimated.

Source:Daily Monitor

“We are aware that there are people who used the Red Cross emblem to commit crimes. Their vehicles were seized and the criminals arrested”, says Anselme Katiyunguruza, Secretary General of Red Cross in Burundi. He said that on the occasion of the International Red Cross on 8 May, in the capital Bujumbura.

Katiyunguruza says the use of the Red Cross emblem during operations is the only protection available to volunteers and staff of the Red Cross and the International Committee for Red Cross- ICRC. “Access to people in need must be guaranteed at all times, everywhere and for all”, he says.

The Red Cross Secretary General says this emblem must be respected and protected by all and in all circumstances. “Failure to respect the emblem by either party may endanger the rescuers and cost the lives of the wounded what would thus compromise the humanitarian action”, he says.

Katiyunguruza urges Burundian authorities to introduce a law protecting the emblem of the Red Cross in Burundi. “This law would prevent any confusion in an emergency situation. The safety of our volunteers as well as the access to all the victims depends on it”, he says.

Burundi Red Cross has a vast network of more than 600 thousand volunteers that assists the most vulnerable in their communities. Iwacu contacted the police to react on the criminals’ arrest following seizure of the Red Cross fake emblem but in vain.

Source:Iwacu