Tag: GreatLakesNews

{{Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has urged the country’s youth to exploit local economic opportunities to create jobs instead of copying Western cultures.}}

Speaking at the launch of a students’ cultural gala in Busitema University at the weekend, President Museveni said while most of Western cultures look modern and interesting to the youth, African culture is richer in promoting social identity and discipline.

He urged Ugandans to stand firm and abhor some of them, especially the divergent sexual orientation, or society would be dragged into danger.

Mr Museveni has recently been in the global spotlight following his decision to last month sign a bill under which “repeat homosexuals” are jailed for life, “promotion” of homosexuality is banned and people are required to report homosexuals.

The Ugandan leader, in power since 1986, challenged the students to scrutinise cultural practices and shun those that do not favour their survival.

“How do you just inherit your late brother’s wife when you are aware of what he was suffering from? I know there are cultures in Uganda still encouraging widow inheritance but this must end,” he said.

“We have fought taking raw milk in Western Uganda without boiling successfully. We shall continue fighting bad cultures that have negative impacts on us,” said President Museveni

Mr Museveni asked the varsity to create a faculty of marine sciences to trains and produce experts instead of hiring foreign ones.

NMG

{{A Ugandan benefit fraudster who stole £4million from the British taxpayer is claiming asylum because of the disgrace she faces if she was sent back to Uganda. }}

Ruth Nabuguzi is insisting that relatives are angry at the shame she has brought on them through her criminal activities in UK, the Daily Mail has reported.

Nabuguzi was accused of an ‘outrageous abuse of the hospitality’ shown to her by Britain when she – along with a gang of other fraudsters – was convicted of stealing more than £4.1million from taxpayers.

The 20-year scam saw her gang create fake identities for up to 100 children to milk the benefits system.

She was yesterday ordered by a judge to pay back £1.5million of the money she stole or face having her six-year jail sentence doubled.

Nabuguzi had also claimed to have HIV and Aids to receive costly drugs which she then sent back to Uganda to be sold to genuine victims at a huge profit.

It was estimated that supplying the medicines to her, as well as four other made-up patients, cost the taxpayer more than £2million.

Now, in a further twist to her case, the Daily Mail has learned that Nabuguzi plans to make an asylum application in a bid to halt deportation. When she was jailed in November 2012 she was told that she would be kicked out of the country.

Immigration sources have said that Nabuguzi claims her life could be ‘in danger’ if she returned to Uganda because of the ‘ill will’ felt towards her for the shame she has brought upon her family.

‘She has repeatedly said people who know her might wish to harm her when she returns to Kampala,’ said an immigration source. When the Nabuguzi case was first heard two years ago it emerged some £154,000 went on education for members of the ‘family’.

Fraud relating to accommodation costs and sub-letting of flats by Nabuguzi cost £650,000, and the family’s benefits, including child allowances, disability benefits, and council tax totalled £900,000.

She re-appeared at Croydon Crown Court in South London last month for a hearing in which the defence and prosecution submitted arguments to Judge Nicholas Ainley – who presided over the 2012 trial – on how much she should repay. At yesterday’s confiscation hearing the judge announced his decision.

She appeared in court alongside Ronald Kavuma, 37, who was told to repay £157,000.

Last night Conservative MP Julian Brazier praised the actions of the judge and said: ‘I welcome the fact the judge has taken such a tough line.

‘However, I hope the tribunal that deals with this woman’s attempt to stay in this country do not allow her to do so. If they do allow her to remain the system is not fit for purpose.’

The lengthy 2012 trial heard that in a campaign of deceit lasting more than two decades Nabuguzi’s ‘family business’ saw them ‘conspire together to create, use and exploit’ false identities to carry out the staggering fraud. Eight of the group were sentenced to a total of 19 years by Judge Ainley.

At the time he told Nabuguzi: ‘This was a fraud on a huge scale and it is an outrageous abuse of the hospitality you were offered by this country.

‘The identities you used and no doubt sold were then used by other people. You had no scruples in bringing children to this country and then involving them in your criminal pursuits. This was motivated entirely by greed.’

During the February hearing the judge heard how she had spent much of the stolen money on a complex consisting of luxury apartments, shops, restaurants and a hotel in her home city of Kampala, the Ugandan capital.

Plans for properties were found when police raided the gang’s homes across East London.

Yesterday the same judge told an emotionless Nabuguzi she had been behind a ‘large scale thriving business over a period of many years’.

The judge told her that she had also rented out at least 15 properties to illegal immigrants and added: ‘Her evidence was that she was helping fellow Ugandans. That is nonsense. She was running a large scale business and she was running it for her own gain.

‘Money was sent out to Uganda and was deployed in building complexes including flats, shops and hotels. She is the beneficial owner of a number of properties in Uganda. She will now have to dispose of them to pay monies back to this country.’

The judge told Nabuguzi to repay £1,512,34.43 in six months or face a further six years in prison.

It emerged during the February hearing that another member of her gang was said to have boasted in prison that police had found only ‘the tip of the iceberg’ of what was stolen by the gang.

NV

{{US officials offered a $3 million reward Friday for help in capturing three notorious Somali terror suspects, including one linked to Al-Qaeda extremists involved in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Africa.}}

“The department has authorized rewards of up to $3 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, Jafar and Yasin Kilwe,” the State Department said in a statement.

Abdulkadir, a Kenyan of Somali origin who is a foreign fighter with Al-Shabaab extremists and goes by the alias Ikrima, was the target of a failed US Navy SEALs assault in Somalia in October.

Al-Shabaab insurgents are believed to have killed thousands of civilians, peacekeepers and aid workers in Africa since 2006, with the group claiming responsibility for September’s shock attack on a Nairobi shopping mall that left 67 people dead.

“Al-Shabaab’s terrorist activities pose a threat to the stability of East Africa and to the national security interests of the United States,” said the State Department, which designated the group a foreign terrorist organization in 2008.

Ikrima is missing three fingers on his left hand, while Jafar is reportedly missing one eye, according to the reward offer.

US officials have linked Ikrima to two now deceased Al-Qaeda operatives who played roles in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

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{{Kenya government on Saturday announced that the Court did not lift the night travel ban on Public Service Vehicles without a licence contrary to earlier reports in a section of the media on Friday.}}

A number of media houses sent incorrect SMS alerts indicating that the ban had been lifted.

As correctly reported by local radio, Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary Michael Kamau said the court upheld the law requiring operators to obtain a special licence allowing their night travel.

Kamau in his statement added that the court found that the industry players had been consulted in the formulation of the laws as such they cannot claim not to have been involved.

The Transport CS urged the operators to continue complying with the regulations and refrain from night travel until they obtain the licence.

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{{A car bomb went off on Saturday in central Mogadishu near a hotel popular with government officials and businessmen, police and witnesses said.}}

“There was a car bomb explosion near the rear gate of the Maka Al Mukarama hotel. It seems that the car was parked there loaded with explosives but we are still investigating casualties”, Mohamed Mire, a police officer told press.

Witnesses told reporters of casualties being carried from the scene of the blast, but it was not clear if they were injured or dead.

Police confirmed at least one person was injured in the blast, which appeared to target hotel, which is popular with government officials and businessmen who have returned home after years abroad.

The area around the hotel has been targeted several times in the recent past and the hotel itself was hit by a car bombing in November 2013 that left several people dead.

AFP

{{A Nairobi court has declined to release four suspects linked to last September’s Westgate shopping mall terror attack on bail.}}

Nairobi acting chief magistrate Daniel Ochenja ruled it was in the interest of the public that the suspects remain in custody.

Mohamed Ahmed Abdi, Liban Abdullah Omar, Adan Mohamed Dheq and Hussein Hassan Mustafah will remain behind bars until the case is concluded.

“For security reasons, I find it unfit to release the accused persons on bail. Their safety is in custody,” ruled the magistrate.

Their advocate Mbugua Mureithi had for the second time tried to implore the court to free the four on bail.

{{DRCongo Government forces backed by UN peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo have begun attacking FDLR rebels based in the eastern border region, UN and Congolese officials say.}}

Hutu rebels from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) have been involved in nearly two decades of regional conflict, which spilled into eastern Congo after neighbouring Rwanda’s 1994 genocide against ethnic Tutsis.

The United Nations force, known as MONUSCO, has a robust mandate to eradicate Congo’s armed groups. UN troops and government forces won a rare victory last year against M23, a Congolese Tutsi rebel force that had been the FDLR’s principal enemy.

Colonel Felix Basse, military spokesman for the UN’s Congo mission, said UN troops had deployed in Virunga National Park in North Kivu province and were backing a Congolese offensive against the FDLR.

“Since Sunday, we have deployed our men and we have had contact with FDLR in that zone,” Basse told a news conference on Wednesday in North Kivu’s provincial capital, Goma. He said two rebels had been killed in the fighting so far.

Basse said the 3,000-strong UN intervention brigade – made up of troops from South Africa, Tanzania and Malawi – was taking part in the joint offensive.

“These operations will continue. We have a mandate to protect the population and restore the authority of the state,” he said.

The FDLR is made up, in part, of former Rwandan soldiers and Hutu militiamen who fled to Congo after taking part in the killing of a million ethnic Tutsis 20 years ago.

Rights groups accuse them of taking part in civilian killings and mass rapes.

{{FDLR refuse to disarm}}

While their numbers have dwindled to a few thousand militants in recent years, previous attempts to disarm the rebels have failed.

They are considered one of the principal obstacles to establishing a durable peace in the mineral-rich region.

“So far the FDLR have refused to disarm, which is why we have attacked,” Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende said Wednesday. “We will not stop until they lay down their arms.”

“We alone, or with the support of our partners in MONUSCO, must put an end to this threat against our populations,” he said.

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