Tag: GreatLakesNews

{The United Nations says security forces in Democratic Republic of Congo used excessive and disproportionate force against people protesting President Joseph Kabila’s stay in office and that more than 40 people were killed.}

The report released on Thursday by the UN Joint Human Rights Office for its DRC mission says two children were among those killed during protests in several cities in late December. It says most victims were unarmed civilians wounded by live ammunition.

Many were protesting delayed elections that have seen Kabila remain in power. His final term had been due to end December 20.

Soon after the protests, talks brokered by Catholic church officials ended with political parties signing an agreement for new elections this year in which Kabila will not run.

Source:AP

{The Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn is expected in the country today morning on a three day state visit during which he is expected to hold discussions with President Museveni over the fluid political situation in neighbouring South Sudan.}

Mr Desalegn, accompanied by his wife Roman Tesfaye Abneh and senior officials in the Ethiopia government, is also expected to sign several bilateral agreements in areas of mutual cooperation between Uganda and Ethiopia.

On Friday, he will visit President Museveni’s farm at Kisozi where he will spend the rest of the day, and will on Saturday tour the CIPLA Quality Chemicals Industry in Luzira before departing the country later in the afternoon.

Mr Desalegn and President Museveni under the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Assembly of Heads of State were principle actors in the peace efforts in South Sudan of bringing President Salva Kiir work together with his rival, Dr Riek Machar by sharing power before the deal fell apart last year.

The peace deal retained Kiir as head of state and the chair of the council of ministers, national defence council and national Security Council while the Opposition/rebels led by Dr Machar retained the first vice president who shall be in charge in the absence of the president.

The deal however fell apart last year following an assassination attempt against Dr Machar who fled the country, plunging it in a fresh political crisis.

Recent weeks have seen senior officials both in the army and Kiir’s government resigning and defecting to the opposition camp.

More than 116,000 South Sudanese refugees have fled to Uganda since the year started as a result of instability in the youngest nation of the world. The UN agency for refugees says it needs about $558m (Shs2t) for humanitarian assistance.

Source:Daily Monitor

{Police are looking for a house help who stole a gun from her employer in Lavington on Wednesday.}

The house girl, identified as Florence Nabwire, broke the safe and made away with the firearm and money of different denominations at 11am while her employer was at work.

{{9 Bullets }}

Police say she escaped in the company of an unknown number of people on a yellow motor vehicle, registration number KAC 262H.

Dagoretti police chief Rashid Mohammed on Thursday told the Nation said her employer, the wife to a licensed civilian firearm holder, reported that she arrived home to find the doors to the safe wide open.

This was after the security guard informed her that the house help was leaving the house.

“The Ceska Pistol had nine rounds of ammunition and we have already started investigations into the loss,” Mr Mohammed said.

{{No arrests }}

He said no arrests had been made but he was optimistic that they would find the girl and her accomplices by the end of the day.

Separately, six employees of the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa) were attacked and robbed of their belongings at an apartment in Shanzu.

One of the employees, Mr Evans Okeyo, told police that they were inside Pepo Mingi apartment when a group of youths armed with crude weapons arrived and ordered them to lie down.

They then took away two laptops, eight mobile phones, four wrist watches and Sh50,000 in cash.

And in Kibera 42, police are investigating the circumstances under which a man hanged himself in their house.

His wife, Ms Cecilia Nyongesa, reported that she arrived home at 10pm and when she opened the door, she found out that her husband, Mr Fred Lugale, had hanged himself using an electric cable.

Source:Daily Nation

{Tanzania has performed impressively in making reforms to suit restriction-free capital transaction under the freedom of movement of capital as agreed in the East African Community (EAC) Common Market Protocol.}

The 2016 EAC’s scorecard on common market indicates that the country has made six out of 11 legal and regulatory reforms the partner states have undergone between 2014 and 2016 in the free capital transaction.

The report, which was disseminated to stakeholders in Dar es Salaam yesterday looked at issues of security, credit, direct investment and personal capital as critical areas under the free capital transaction.Presenting the report, the World Bank Consultant, Ms Agatha Nderitu, said Uganda made three reforms and Kenya had the remaining two reforms.

She, however, explained that the 2016 scorecard focused on 20 operations that the partner states had agreed to open for the implementation of the free movement of capital in the region.

Some of the operations, apart from free capital transaction, are free movement of services in professional services including engineering, accounting and legal. Others are transport (roads and air) and movement of goods with a focus on Non-Tariff Barriers.

“Generally, none of the EAC partner state is fully compliant to the areas we have looked at regarding the Common Market Protocol,” she said, noting that out of 20 operations, only three of them have restrictions removed.

The three areas which all member states have commonly removed the restrictions are external borrowing by residents, repatriation of proceeds from the sale of assets and foreign sale of shares or other securities by residents.

Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Officer in the EAC’s secretariat, Mr Julius Birungi, said the integration was all about people and commended the participation of stakeholders across different sectors in the meeting.

He noted that the scorecard would help the partner states to look at where they have not done well and how to improve. Vice-President of the Textile and Garment Manufacturers of Tanzania, Mr Sylvester Kazi, said the private sector seriously headed the decision by the EAC’s Heads of State to ban the second hand clothes and they are up to improve the textile products.

He, however, urged the member states to get rid of the bureaucracy, which impedes business growth in the region, citing the difficulties in business registrations.

Source:Daily News

{Exiled journalists tell of how decades of balanced post-conflict reporting is being dismantled by President Nkurunziza.}

As a journalist, it is Aline’s job to report on her country and president, but she doesn’t know how to without getting killed.

Pierre Nkurunziza is Burundi’s fearsome, undemocratic president who stands accused of inciting ethnic tensions while dismissing any negative stories on him as lies.

Intimidation of the press is a professional operation, according to Aline, who says a member of the president’s communications team regularly sends her WhatsApp messages telling her to stop writing and reporting. “I know him – he used to be my friend,” she adds.

Since Nkurunziza announced that he would run for a third term in April 2015, Burundi has been plunged into chaos, with many warning of a return to civil war. The president, his party and the police have been accused by orchestrating a campaign of violence and intimidation, where targeted assassinations, torture and sexual violence are daily occurrences.

Underpinning this has been a war on independent media. Following a failed coup attempt in May 2015, Nkurunziza declared journalists were “fighting the government” and marked them as an enemy of the people. Journalists were detained and killed, newspaper offices and radio stations were set on fire and radio signals were cut.

The Burundian government and its supporters deny wrongdoing. They say people are leaving the country because of hunger, not because of ethnic targeting or violence. They also say reports of sexual violence and human rights abuses were made up by Human Rights Watch, the UNHCR, and the European Union, and protested their findings in the capital in February 2017, citing the coverage as “fake news”.

“They keep lying and saying it’s fake and none of these things are happening,” Aline said from neighbouring Rwanda where she has sought refuge. “This is why I have to keep reporting, to tell the truth.”

Aline now runs a cafe in Kigali’s Muslim district with two former colleagues, Chanise and Jeanette. By day they serve ugali, beef and vegetable dishes, and by night they revert to their old lives.

The trio, who are all in their mid-20s, are part of a secret network called SOS Media Burundi that works under the radar of Nkurunziza’s control.

Their reports cover everything from the harassment of women by the security forces, to ”disappearances” – such as the ongoing case to find missing journalist Jean Bigirima.

As one of the only lifelines for accurate, truthful reporting, they are widely read by exiled Burundians in refugee camps and those still living in Burundi who oppose Nkurunziza.

Through the network, exiled journalists, and those operating in the country, monitor what is happening in Burundi, and use Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud and WhatsApp to share their reports. The journalists all file under anonymous bylines to protect their identities and their families.

“We do our stories in secret,” said Jeanette. “This is the only way we can report on what’s happening in our country without ending up dead.”

The war on “fake news” and unsubstantiated rumours has become a focal point for politicians and media outlets around the world. But in Burundi, it is not a newdevelopment, but something that has been ingrained in their country’s history for decades.

In the aftermath of 12-year civil war, countering the “hate media” that fuelled much of the violence was crucial. In the late 1990s, several radio stations were established to help reconcile the country’s wounds. They hired both Hutu and Tutsi journalists and the output focused on reconciliation and countering dangerous rumours.

As a result Burundi built one of the most vibrant, independent broadcasting media sectors in Africa. Before they fled, the cafe trio worked at Radio Publique Africaine (RPA), where they covered corruption, financial scandals and human rights abuses, and sexual violence against women.

“Our station said things [the government] didn’t like,” Chanine said passing food around the table. “For us, it was our second home.” When their radio station was set on fire during political violence in May 2015, journalists watched as decades of balanced and trusted post-conflict reporting was dismantled in weeks.

The floodgates have since opened, and with them, the poisonous ethnic propaganda they were seeing before – pitting Hutus against Tutsis. Now they have to contend with their reporting branded as “fake” by the government, too.

Though some independent journalists remain in the country, they are under constant surveillance and under the lingering threat of arbitrary detention. Others, left with no income, have even ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring countries.

“When you see a soldier or a policeman, your heart beats faster, and you say to yourself, ‘now is when I’m going to die’. If someone finds you and beats you, and you survive the beating, you say thank you,” said Aline, reflecting the reality for journalists in Burundi.

“When they take people, you know you’ll never see them again.”

*Names have been changed for the protection of the journalists and their remaining family still living in Burundi.

Source:The Guardian

{Today, the global refugee crises are more complex and long running than previously with more than 65 million forced to leave home – most being women and children. The complexity means a growing need to supplement the existing ways of addressing the issues in order to provide more and better assistance to the growing number of affected people.}

Therefore, the Danish Refugee Council and Ole Kirk’s Foundation have developed a new type of cooperation between a foundation and a humanitarian organization, which allows the Danish Refugee Council to respond to crises in only a matter of days.

This is done through a global emergency fund, to which Ole Kirk’s Foundation have donated the first 15 million DKK over the next three years. These funds can be activated by Ole Kirk’s Foundation in humanitarian refugee crises, where a prompt response is crucial. On top of this, Ole Kirk’s Foundation has also donated 10 million DKK to long-term efforts to assist refugees in the MENA-region.

In order to respond most efficiently to refugee crises, we need to optimize the use of our resources, so we can allocate them to where the need is most urgent. The collaboration with Ole Kirk’s Foundation is innovative because their donation is flexible and has not been donated to specific projects, but instead lets us be well prepared for the crises, which we know are coming, but unfortunately are unable to predict where will happen, says Secretary General for the Danish Refugee Council, Andreas Kamm.

The innovative collaboration will allow the Danish Refugee Council to provide faster and more efficient aid, which will benefit more displaced persons. This month, to give an example, Ole Kirk’s Foundation within a couple of days provided funding for Danish Refugee Council’s acute work in Northern Uganda – an area, which had received about 400,000 new refugees from South Sudan in addition to the close to 200,000 refugees that were already there.

The global refugee situation represents one of the world’s most serious problems. My family and I wish to contribute to the alleviation of this situation and especially to reach some of the many children living under inhumane conditions during an emergency situation often followed by a long period of time in refugee camps. Ole Kirk’s Foundation has the opportunity to provide Danish refugee Council with the flexibility needed in order for them to react with speed and do their work in the best possible way. I am very impressed by the work being done by the Danish Refugee Council and therefore I am extremely pleased by the collaboration we are now launching, says Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, Chairman of Ole Kirk’s Foundation.

On top of the global emergency fund Ole Kirk’s Foundation are also donating 10 million DKK over the course of three years to the Danish Refugee Councils long-term effort for refugees and internally displaced people in the Middle East. Here the purpose is to improve quality of life during the often protracted displacement. This is done through the Danish Refugee Council’s work in community centres. Here a wide range of activities are available – among them safe spaces for women and children, livelihood assistance and help to improve relations between refugees and host communities. The combined efforts through the emergency fund and the community centres will make a great difference, says Andreas Kamm:

We are very grateful for the courage to new approaches, which Ole Kirk’s Foundation displays through this collaboration, so we together can ensure faster and better aid to more people.

Source:Relief Web