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Tag: GreatLakesNews

  • Kenyan Peacekeepers Aided Illegal Somalia Charcoal export – U.N.

    The case of the failed ban on Somali charcoal outlined in the report highlights the difficulty of cutting off al Shabaab militants’ funding and ensuring compliance with U.N. sanctions when there is little appetite for enforcing them on the ground.

    The Kenyan military denied the allegations in the U.N. Monitoring Group’s latest annual report to the Security Council’s sanctions committee on Somalia and Eritrea.

    The report was completed before recent clashes in Kismayu.

    In that fighting, rival militias battled for control of the strategic port city after Ahmed Madobe, leader of the Ras Kamboni militia and a former Islamist warlord, became leader of the Jubaland region, which includes Kismayu, in May.

    The situation remains tense though the Mogadishu government, which initially opposed Madobe, is letting him stay on as interim leader.

    Kismayu is a lucrative prize for clan leaders, bringing with it generous revenues from charcoal exports, port taxes and levies on arms and other illegal imports.

    The Security Council banned the export of charcoal from Somalia in February 2012 to cut off one of the main sources of income for al Shabaab, which has been fighting for control of Somalia for years and enforces a strict version of sharia law in the areas it occupies.

    Kenyan forces in the African Union’s AMISOM peacekeeping mission, which has a U.N. Security Council mandate and receives funding from the European Union and United States, helped the Somali government retake control of Kismayu when the al Qaeda-aligned militants fled in September 2012.

    Afterwards, the AU almost immediately urged the Security Council to lift the charcoal export ban, at least temporarily.

    Kenya supported the idea, arguing that Kismayu’s angry charcoal traders could undermine the security of its troops. The Monitoring Group, which reports on compliance with the Somalia/Eritrea sanctions regime, disputed Nairobi’s analysis.

    reuters

  • Saudi Princess Charged with Enslaving Kenyan

    {{A Saudi princess was to be released from US jail on bail Thursday after being charged with enslaving a Kenyan woman, forcing her to work in abusive conditions and withholding her passport.}}

    Meshael Alayban, 42, one of six wives of a grandson of the Saudi King Abdullah, paid a $5 million bond and surrendered her passport, the Orange County, California district attorney’s office said in a statement.

    She “is required to wear a GPS tracking device, is prohibited from leaving Orange County without permission from the Court, and is barred from having any contact with the victim,” the statement explained.

    Alayban, who was arrested Wednesday, is accused of forcing the Kenyan woman to work 16 hour days, seven days a week, for a monthly salary of just $220.

    The unnamed victim, 30, who sought overseas work to pay for her young daughter’s medical care, allegedly worked in Alayban’s palace in Saudi Arabia and then in her home in Irvine, California, southeast of Los Angeles.

    Prosecutors said the victim had signed a contract with an employment agency that promised her a salary of $1,600 a month for a 40-hour work week.

    The princess was charged with “human trafficking of a Kenyan woman into the United States and forcing the victim to work as a domestic servant against her will,” the Orange County District Attorney said in a statement.

    The victim, who began working in Saudi Arabia in March 2012 and moved to the US with the Saudi family in May 2013, was “forced to work tending to at least eight people in four apartments” in Irvine, California, prosecutors said.

    She was given no breaks, no days off, and no chance to leave “except for a family outing so the victim could carry the family’s bags.”

    She told authorities Alayban withheld her passport and refused to allow her to return to Kenya.

    Before her move to the US, Alayban told her to lie to authorities about the conditions of her employment during a visa interview, prosecutors said.

    But on Tuesday, the woman managed to escape, flagging down a bus. Noticing her nervousness, one of the passengers helped her contact the police. She carried a pamphlet with her, given during her visa interview, explaining her rights.

    “She’s a smart woman. She saw her opportunity to get freedom and she took it,” the victim’s lawyer, Steve Baric, said.

    When police arrested Alayban, they found four women from the Philippines who could also be victims of human trafficking. Those cases are still being investigated, the prosecutor said.

    But on this count of human trafficking alone, if convicted Alayban could face up to 12 years in jail.

    It was unclear whether the victim wanted to stay in the United States, but prosecutors said that as a victim of human trafficking she would be entitled to a visa.

    wirestory

  • S.Sudan oil Refinery Equipment Stranded in Kenya

    {{The opening of an oil refinery in South Sudan’s Unity state, has been delayed from 9 July as vital equipment is stranded at the Kenyan port of Mombassa.}}

    According to Unity state’s former governor, Taban Deng Gai, the opening was due to coincide with the second anniversary of South Sudan’s independence from Sudan in 2011.

    The South took with it 75% of Sudan’s oil production but none of the infrastructure needed to export or to refine its oil, for which there is a high demand in the country.

    Since independence South Sudan has been forced to import fuel from neighbouring countries, often at a high cost.

    Unity state’s deputy governor Michael Chiengjiek Geay told media on Thursday that the postponement was due to vital equipment still not reaching the refinery.

    During South Sudan’s second anniversary celebrations in Juba on Tuesday, president Salva Kiir Mayardit said that the country’s oil infrastructure has progressed significantly since separation Sudan.

    {SudanTribune}

  • Africa Urged to Expand Aviation Industry

    {{Despite an expanding global airline industry driven by investment and tourism, Africa’s contribution has been hampered by capacity and infrastructural expansion of its airports, aviation experts have said.}}

    Citing the East African region, key decision makers from leading airlines, airports and tourism sector across Africa, noted during an aviation summit in Kampala that most airports in the region were still undergoing expansion.

    “If you don’t sort out the traffic jams and very long parking, you will not get tourists,” Dr Titus Naikuni, the chief executive officer of Kenya Airways said while citing an example of Entebbe Airport on Monday.

    Uganda’s State minister for Works Stephen Chebrot said, “Each process gives birth to a cost. Until we solve that problem and solve it soon, the cost will continue. It is good to develop routes. However, these positive arrangements must be matched with infrastructural expansion of our airports.”

  • Book Review: Why the 20s Affect Shape of Your Career

    {{Are you in your 20s, fresh from college, already working, or looking for a job? You may want to read The Defining Decade, a book by clinical psychologist Meg Jay.}}

    The author seeks to inspire young people in their 20s into discovering their inner working powers, in ways that even some authors have found intriguing.

    For example, Rachel Nalebuff, the editor of My Little Red Book, confesses: “Before reading The Defining Decade, I didn’t know enough about the importance of our 20s to be concerned that I could mess it all up.

    Now that I do, I could worry myself into paralysis, or, as Meg Jay, suggests, grab life by the helm, even if I still have no idea where I’m going. Without a doubt, The Defining Decade will leave you eager to embark on what I now see can be the most exciting odyssey of one’s life.”

    According to Jay, the things people do and do not do in their twenties will have an enormous effect across years and even generations to come. That’s how important this age is, in her view.

    She writes, for instance, that, “In the 21st Century, careers and lives don’t roll off an assembly line. We have to put together the pieces ourselves.” She continues: “Be intentional. Get to work. Pick your family. Do the math. Make your own certainty. Don’t be defined by what you didn’t know or didn’t do. You are deciding your life now.”

    Many people in this age are either enrolling into college or just entering the job market. A lot of them can easily get confused and end up lonely when they fail to achieve in life.

    Jay’s additional advice is that at such an age, one needs to be realistic about their skills and goals. She argues that at 20s, people already know their weaknesses and strengths. It is therefore the best time to work on one’s dreams.

    Her book tells people at that age to put together endless possibilities of concrete plans that they nurtured and dreamt of as kids. The 20s is the period to best pursue aspirations.

    That’s why she refers to the age as the “defining decade”. The book suggests that every friend you have in your life during this period should be what you exactly need.

    Kenyan psychologist Pius Mureithi agrees to the definition of the 20s as the defining decade. He explains further that this is the period in which self-identity, vocational identity and independence among other issues occur.

    The book urges people of this age to stop believing that work will always come easy so long as they follow their passion. Mr Mureithi finds the statement very applicable.

    “Jay is very correct when she writes that 20-something should stop thinking of the idea of the perfect job. This is like thinking that once you get married, you will live happily ever after,” Mureithi argues.

    The book further dismisses as careless, the attitude among youths that one should quit the moment they don’t like a job. It comes from the ill-informed assumption that an alternative will easily be found.

    In reality, and Mureithi stresses this, that’s hardly ever the case.

  • UNHCR Proposes Body to Repatriate Somalia Refugees

    {{The global refugee agency has proposed the formation of a body that will handle the repatriation of Somalia refugees from Kenya.}}

    United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) boss António Guterres wants the refugees, most based at the Dadaab Camp, be returned home in phases managed by a special commission.

    The Commission would include members from Kenya and Somalia authorities as well as the agency itself in what Mr Guterres argues would ensure an acceptable return of the Somalis to their homes.

    “If we do these returns properly, they can be a positive factor for development in Somalia,” he said.

    “On the other hand, if huge numbers of refugees go home prematurely, they could contribute to destabilisation.”

    Kenya hosts more than 600,000 Somalia refugees, 400,000 of who stay in Dadaab camp in Garissa County. But the government has been demanding that they be returned home following the achievement of relative peace by AU Forces in Somalia.

    In December last year, Commissioner of Refugees Badu Katelo ordered all refugees in urban centres back to camps. The government suspects some Somali refugees are sympathisers to al-Shabaab.

    NMG

  • 12 Kenya Students Killed in Horror Bus Accident

    A deadly School Bus accident in Kenya has claimed 15 lives including Twelve students and two teachers and the driver.

    The grisly accident occured when the bus they were travelling in overturned at a sharp bend along the Itumbe-Nyamache road in Kisii County on Wednesday evening at 6.30pm.

    An unknown number of other students and teachers were also seriously injured.

    The 54-seater bus was reportedly carrying about 60 students. According to an eye witnesses, the bus lost control, and rolled several times.

    The students and teachers were on their way to Nyachogochogo Secondary, in Nyamache District for second term games, which are scheduled to start on Thursday.

    {Standard}

  • South Sudan Fails to Protect Civilians in East, U.S. says

    {{The United States issued a rare criticism of South Sudan on Wednesday, saying the African state was failing to protect civilians in the east where the army is fighting an insurgency.}}

    Western powers have long urged Juba to find a peaceful solution to fighting involving the army, a rebel group and rival tribes in the vast Jonglei state but have so far mostly refrained from criticizing the government.

    A United Nations source said new fighting erupted a week ago between the rival Lou Nuer and Murle tribes in the Pibor area in Jonglei, killing an unknown number of people.

    More violence was expected as armed youths from both sides were amassing forces in the area, the source said. A U.N. team visiting the town said that most civilians had left Pibor, contrary to government figures, the United Nations said in a report.

    The United States, South Sudan’s biggest ally, said it was “deeply disappointed” that the army, or SPLA, had failed to protect civilians in vulnerable areas in Jonglei.

    “The lack of action to protect civilians constitutes an egregious abdication of responsibility by the SPLA and the civilian government,” the U.S. embassy in Juba said in a statement.

    Washington urged the government to prevent “SPLA attacks on U.N. staff and humanitarian assets”. It gave no details but soldiers had looted compounds of U.N. agencies and aid agencies in Pibor in May, according to aid sources.

    Agencies

  • EABL raises beer prices Twice in 4 months

    {{East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL) has increased beer prices for the second time in four months to cover rising raw material costs and grow sales to reverse the drop in half-year profit.}}

    A crate of Tusker is now selling at Sh2,714 up from Sh2,523, which translates to a Sh8 increase per bottle at the wholesale level and sources at the brewer reckon that other products will rise by more than Sh10.

    The price increase comes at a time when EABL is racing to reverse the 14 per cent drop in profit for the six months to December on account of high finance costs, but the brewer maintained that sales across the region were still rising, helped by new product launches and growing demand.

    “Due to various economic factors that have impacted our cost of inputs, we have increased our beer prices,” said a July 5 notice to distributors signed by EABL-Kenya managing director Joe Muganda.

    “The new prices take effect from Saturday July 6.

    NMG

  • Dunford Brothers out of World Championships

    {{For seven years, they have dominated Kenya swimming competitions giving fans new imagination of the country widening its medal scope at major championships.}}

    But for the first time, Kenya will be heading to Barcelona, Spain for the FINA World Championships without the famed Jason Dunford and his brother David Dunford. The championships will run from July 22 to Aug. 4.

    “We have to come up with a strong team for the championships. It is true, the two have curved a niche for themselves in the sport, especially from Kenya, but swimming is bigger than the two and the country must move on,” Kenya Swimming Federation (KSF) treasurer David Ngugi said on Monday.

    Jason and David have opted to skip the World Championships to concentrate on the Glasgow Commonwealth Games next year in Scotland.

    In the absence of the duo, Kenya hopes will be pegged on youngsters Silvia Brunlehner, Emily Muteti and Hamdan Bayusuf, who gained entry to the event via wild card. The trio are all from Mombasa.

    Ngugi, however, pointed out that, it is not about Kenya winning medals at the World Championships, but for the team of youngsters to gain the experience and big stage performance that will go a long way in preparing the country for both Commonwealth Games and the Rio 2016 Olympics.

    The Dunford sibling have been outstanding on global stage ever since they won Kenya first international medal(s) in 2006 Dakar African Swimming Championships.

    {xinhua}