Tag: GreatLakesNews

{{Actress Angelina Jolie urged the U.N. Security Council on Monday to make dealing with war zone rape a top priority as she shared stories of survivors she has met, including a Congolese mother whose 5-year-old daughter was raped outside a police station.}}

Oscar-winner Jolie, a special envoy for the U.N. Refugee Agency, told the council that it must shoulder its responsibility and provide leadership “for these crimes happen not because they are inherent to war, but because the global climate allows it.”

“Young girls raped and impregnated before their bodies are able to carry a child, causing fistula,” she told the debate on sexual violence in conflict which was organized by Britain, the president of the council for June.

“Boys held at gunpoint and forced to sexually assault their mothers and sisters. Women raped with bottles, wood branches and knives to cause as much damage as possible. Toddlers and even babies dragged from their homes, and violated,” she said.

Jolie, who has visited refugee camps around the world, said that while there were hundreds of thousands of survivors of sexual violence there had only been a handful of prosecutions because the world had not made the issue a priority.

“They suffer the most at the hands of their rapists, but they are also victims of this culture of impunity. That is the sad, upsetting and indeed shameful reality,” Jolie said.

Jolie visited a refugee camp last week in Jordan and told the council about meeting a Syrian woman who feared retaliation if she spoke out about the sexual violence she had suffered.

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{{Kenya’s parliamentary committee on energy has warned against plans to shut down the Kenya Petroleum Refinery Limited (KPRL) plant in Mombasa saying instead it should be modernized to improve its efficiency.}}

The nine-member committee argues that the plant’s role should remain in the petroleum sector adding that importing refined products will be more costly.

Led by the chairman, Kigumo Member of Parliament Jamleck Kamau, the committee said it had commenced investigation into alleged cartels in the oil industry that might risk the closure of the facility.

Kamau said the committee will meet all stakeholders including oil marketers, the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Davis Chirchir and Kenya Pipeline Company this week before compiling report a within a period of two weeks.

“The mandate of the committee is to address concerns raised by all the players and we will put the interest of common mwananchi first not for any individual,” Kamau said.

He said the decision to shut down the refinery is ill -advised since the demand for crude oil is likely to be high in the country following discovery of oils deposits in Turkana and continue demand from Uganda.

“It will be costly for the nation to export crude oil and refine in other countries. That is even unacceptable. Plus the plight of workers and locals depending on this factory; we need to modernise the facility and not shutting it down, ”the committee chair maintained.

The residents say the closure of the facility will affect the community living near the facility besides rendering many jobless.

The refinery performed dismally last year, with its uptake of crude oil declining by about 50% to 992,000 tonnes from 1.6 million tonnes in 2011.

KPRL Chief Executive Brij Bansal attributed this to a failure by oil marketers to buy refined petroleum products from the facility.

Oil marketers claim that the refinery is inefficient and too costly and want it closed.
The marketers have been pushing the government to allow them to directly import all refined petroleum products to cut on costs.

In the current arrangement, the marketers are expected to uplift 40% of the products of their refined products from KPRL.

Close to 1,000 employees and contractors at KPRL face an uncertain future if the government’s decision to transform the facility into a receipt terminal is implemented.

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{{The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) on Monday declared a nationwide strike over over failure by government to pay allowances.}}

This is the seventh strike the teachers have had since 2007.

National chairman Wilson Sossion accused the government of playing politics on the matter since they are bound by the Notice 534 of 1997 which tasked the government to increase teachers’ hardship, special, house, medical and commuter allowances.

Knut acting secretary general Xavier Nyamu said the union had narrowed down their demands allowances agreed upon in 1997.

“All these allowances must be paid in total. We have gone to the ministry and presented our issues,” said Mr Nyamu.

Nyamu also appealed to parents to withdraw their children from schools as teachers will not be available.

“The ball is now on the government’s side, we will sit down and watch,” said Mr Nyamu.

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{{Governments in the East African Community (EAC) bloc have been urged to ensure that their constitutions provide for a free and secure media regime.}}

They have also been urged to make sure that other laws do not infringe on the freedom of the press and expression.

The call is among seven recommendations put forward by media stakeholders. The recommendations, dubbed ‘The Mount Meru Declaration’, was compiled by a special committee selected after the commemoration of the World Press Freedom Day in Arusha on May 3, this year.

Reading the Declaration in a meeting in Dar es Salaam yesterday, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) – Tanzania Chapter chairperson, Mr Mohamed Tibanyendera, said that the statement aims at ensuring better and safer working environments for journalists in East Africa.

“The declaration outlines responsibilities of governments and state organs towards journalists as well as responsibilities of media practitioners towards the government and the public at large,” he said.

Other recommendations, according to Tibanyendera, include the call for media owners to undertake structural reforms.

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{{When President Barack Obama arrives in Africa this week, there will be one notable omission from his travel itinerary: Kenya, the birthplace of his father and home to many of his relatives.}}

Concerns about Kenya’s political situation have trumped Obama’s family ties. Kenya’s new president is facing charges of crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court, accused of orchestrating the violence that marred the country’s 2007 election.

Ahead of Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory earlier this year, a top Obama administration official warned Kenyans that their “choices have consequences” — a remark that now appears prescient given the president’s decision to skip a stop in his ancestral homeland.

“The optics of that, of a presidential trip, are not what he wants to be demonstrating right now,” said Jennifer Cooke, Africa director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The president will instead visit Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, all countries that fit more neatly into the democracy and good governance message he’ll tout during his weeklong trip. Obama, along with first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha, is scheduled to depart Washington Wednesday morning.

The White House did consider a visit to Kenya when they contemplated an African swing during the president’s first term, before Kenyatta’s election. That trip never happened, but Obama pledged that he would, in fact, visit Kenya before leaving office.

“I’m positive that before my service as president is completed I will visit Kenya again,” he said in a 2010 interview with Kenya’s state broadcaster.

White House officials say they respect the right of Kenyans to choose their own leaders. But deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the U.S. also has “a commitment to accountability and justice.”

“Given the fact that Kenya is in the aftermath of their election and the new government has come into place and is going to be reviewing these issues with the ICC and the international community, it just wasn’t the best time for the president to travel to Kenya,” Rhodes said.

Kenya’s government has been muted in its response to the president’s decision to leave the county off his itinerary.

“It’s for the Americans to decide where Obama goes,” spokesman Muthui Kariuki said. “There are 54 nations on the African continent and he’s only visiting three, so I don’t see the real big deal about not going to Kenya.”

But Sam Ochieng, a political activitist who lives in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum, said the U.S. president was sending a message about Kenya’s political problems by putting democratic values ahead of his personal connections.

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{{Members of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) have been urged to deepen cooperation among them to enable inhabitants of the River Nile basin enjoy its tangible benefits.}}

The call came at the end of a one-day Nile Council of Ministers (Nile-COM) conference, which was held last Thursday in Juba, the South Sudan capital.

The meeting, among others, addressed strategic issues to advance the Nile cooperation as well as operational business issues within NBI countries.

The conference, Nile-COM chairperson in a statement, resolved that cooperation is the only way forward to achieve the shared vision of sustainable socio-economic development, through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources.

“The Nile is one of the world’s great assets and its sustainable management and development is essential if the countries of the Nile Basin are to continue to reduce poverty and to gain economic prosperity”, Paul Mayom Akec said in a statement.

Nile-COM, Akec further noted, applauded Sudan’s resumption in the full participation of NBI activities, after its suspended last year over differences with other countries on the Cooperation Framework Agreement (CFA).

“Nile-COM members call upon the Arab Republic of Egypt to follow the example of Sudan and return to the cooperation platform for Nile issues, the Nile Basin Initiative that it has contributed to building”, the statement reads in part.

Akec, also South Sudan’s minister for water and irrigation, pledged to strengthen the Nile cooperation and work towards member states’ continued support to NBI, which he described as the only viable mechanism for equitable resource utilisation.

The one-day conference, among others, discussed institutional strengths of NBI countries, investment financing, transboundary water resources analysis, donor partnerships and NBI business activities.

Meanwhile, Sudan has been earmarked as host of the next Nile-COM meeting, expected to place, mid-next year.

Established in 1999, NBI serves as a forum through which member states seek to develop the River Nile in a cooperative manner, share substantial socio-economic benefits and promote regional peace and security.

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{{South African troops have begun deploying to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s volatile east as part of a special United Nations brigade to battle armed rebels, a junior minister told media.}}

“South African troops are on their way to the DRC now,” deputy foreign minister Ebrahim Ebrahim told reporters.

South Africa has pledged 1,345 soldiers to the first-ever offensive United Nations brigade.

Tanzania and Malawi are also part of the 3,000-strong force, which began deploying to Goma on May 13.

“The Tanzanians are already on the ground,” said Ebrahim.

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{{AMISOM’s Police Component has began a training of trainers exercise for 100 members of the Somali Police Force (SPF) at the Police Transport Centre. }}

The officers will undergo a 13-day training aimed at equipping them with the skills to facilitate future trainings and capacity building exercises earmarked for the force.

AMISOM’s Police Training Co-ordinator Dr. Benjamin Agordzo commended the commitment displayed by the Somali Police Force officers and affirmed AMISOM’s continued support and partnership with the force.

The training is part of a long-term plan to engrain a robust training element in the local police force through the training of its own members as facilitators and trainers.

Over the course of the next two weeks, the trainees will be introduced to facilitation skills, management of training environments and other concepts central to their work.

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