Tag: GreatLakesNews

{{Kenya Police in port city Mombasa on Monday killed suspected terrorists Kassim Omolo and Salim Mohamed Nyiro linked to Al Shabaab and a slain Al Qaeda leader wanted over the August 7, 1998 bombing of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.}}

The operation was conducted by special forces from the Kenya Defence Forces working in concert with Anti-Terror Police unit.

Kassim was described as an expert bomb maker trained with Al Qaeda allied terrorists in Somalia as well as a past accomplice of slain Al Qaeda leader Fazul Abdullah Mohamed who was killed in Mogadishu on June 11, 2011, exactly two years ago.

Kisauni Deputy OCPD Thomas Sanguti described Kassim as “one of the most wanted terrorists” and added that Salim was killed as he “ran towards his bedroom for his gun” indicating the suspect tried to kill security men.

Security officials claimed they had received crucial intelligence from a Kenyan terrorist fugitive living in Somalia and the trove of documents recovered from Kassim early Monday.

{Standard}

{{Security in Congo’s copper-mining heartland of Katanga is a “very serious concern” that must be tackled politically and militarily, the outgoing head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission said on Monday.}}

The province, which sits on some of the world’s largest copper reserves, last year exported 600,000 tonnes. Miners including Freeport McMoRan and Glencore already operate there.

In March, hundreds of rebel fighters attacked the Katangan capital of Lubumbashi and then surrendered following bloody clashes with security forces. On Sunday, a soldier was killed during fighting between the army and insurgents 20 km (12 miles) from the city.

“It’s a quite significant problem, and I think it has all the prospects of becoming worse,” Roger Meece, the head of the U.N.’s peacekeeping mission in Congo, known as MONUSCO, said.

“One can do what is possible militarily and or with a police force but … the real solutions have to be found in these political factors,” Meece, who is leaving his post later this month, said in an interview.

Meece said fears that the province would be broken up were feeding the tension.

“Probably it’s related at least in part to people looking towards future election cycles, both provincial and national,” he added.

Katanga has long had a fractious relationship with the central government in Kinshasa and attempted to secede directly after independence in 1960.

More recently, provincial and national leaders have clashed over management of the mining industry and its revenues. Katanga’s governor earlier this year refused to implement a decision by Kinshasa to ban the export of copper concentrate.

Katanga is also the home province of President Joseph Kabila and some of his prominent allies. Analysts have said that growing splits within the ruling coalition could be behind the recent upsurge in violence.

On Sunday, one soldier died after clashes with the Bakata Katanga rebel group, according to government spokesman Lambert Mende, who said the authorities were investigating who or what was behind the growing insecurity.

“We don’t have proof and we don’t want to accuse anyone unfairly, but we want to find out what is behind this. Politicians or not, these are still crimes,” he said.

Earlier this month U.N.-backed broadcaster Radio Okapi reported that 13 women, eight of them pregnant, were burnt alive by rebels in the north of the vast province, which is the same size as France.

But the province’s business-friendly governor said such media reports had blown the security problem out of proportion.

“There’s no problem in the province, everything is going well,” Moise Katumbi said by telephone.

“No leaders in Katanga are going to support these (rebels). We have to give confidence to investors,” he added.

{agencies}

{{Uganda Police are investigating the killing of a journalist, Thomas Pere 36, whose body was discovered dumped in a field Monday morning during a routine police patrol.}}

The slain journalist is believed to have been beaten to death and later dumped in the field by unknown people. He has been working at New Vision as a features writer and occasionally engaged in photography.

The Kampala Metropolitan Police spokesperson, Ibin Ssenkumbi, said the deceased’s body was found with wounds on the head resulting from beating with a blunt object, possibly an iron bar.

“The wallet, phone and other possessions of the deceased were retrieved hence ruling out theft and robbery,” Ssenkumbi said.

{additional reporting: NV}

{{When President Obama goes to Africa at month’s end, the first African American president will have a rare opportunity to spread U.S. values to that continent. It would be a shame if his trip instead validated slavery.}}

By selecting Tanzania as one of the three countries that will receive a presidential visit on that trip, the Obama administration is honoring a government that has been in a multiyear diplomatic dispute with the United States over human trafficking.

Specifically, a U.S. court in 2008 issued a $1 million judgment against a Tanzanian diplomat stationed in Washington because he and his wife held a young woman against her will as a domestic servant at their Bethesda home, refusing to pay her and abusing her for four years until she escaped.

The diplomat, Alan Mzengi, didn’t contest the civil lawsuit and, instead of paying the default judgment, returned to Tanzania, where at last report he served as an adviser to President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete — the very person Obama will meet with.

The State Department has tried to pressure Kikwete’s government to get the judgment paid and to sanction diplomats who engage in human trafficking.

But the efforts have produced nothing but a derisory settlement offer, and the State Department has not moved to punish Tanzania.

Now Obama is rewarding Tanzania with a presidential trip. “An official visit from the U.S. president is a gift that is utterly inappropriate after a Tanzanian government official committed horrifying human rights violations just a few miles from the White House,” said Martina Vandenberg, a human rights lawyer who represented the victim, Zipora Mazengo, pro bono. Vandenberg, a Washington lawyer I’ve known for years, said Obama “would undermine all credibility on trafficking.”

A spokeswoman for the State Department’s African Affairs bureau said that the case “continues to be of significant concern” and that “we are again engaging the government of Tanzania to do what is necessary to see that this matter is addressed.”

Obama has made human trafficking a centerpiece of his foreign policy agenda, saying in a speech to the Clinton Global Initiative last year that “it is a debasement of our common humanity” that “must be called by its true name, modern slavery. . . . When a woman is locked in a sweatshop, or trapped in a home as a domestic servant, alone and abused and incapable of leaving — that’s slavery.”

Unfortunately, the administration’s actions haven’t always matched its high-minded words, as has been the case with targeted assassinations, Chinese dissidents, Guantanamo Bay, domestic surveillance and other challenges to human rights and civil liberties.

The Tanzania case appears to be an instance of business interests trumping human rights.

The Chinese president visited the East African country a few months ago, and U.S. businesses are eager to get in on the region’s petroleum supplies and other natural resources before China becomes dominant there.

Beyond that calculation, the administration has been reluctant to use the few tools it has to combat human trafficking by diplomats, who are protected from some prosecutions.

After federal authorities said they were investigating a possible case of human trafficking in McLean by a Saudi diplomat, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry, citing the Mzengi case and questioning why State seldom seeks waivers of diplomatic immunity for offenders and has not used its power to block visas for servants of diplomats from offending countries.

In the Mzengi case, a federal judge found that the diplomat and his wife confiscated Mazengo’s passport and forced her to work 17-hour days.

They refused her medical care (she couldn’t wear shoes because of an untreated ingrown toenail and was once forced to shovel snow barefoot) and wouldn’t let her leave the house without an escort.

After the $1,059,349 judgment, the woman said she would accept a settlement that included only her back wages of $170,000; the Tanzanians eventually offered $22,000 with an iffy promise of small future payments from Mzengi.

Mzengi returned to Tanzania a few months after the judgment and got a position advising Kikwete, according to a 2010 Time magazine report, citing an academic adviser of Mzengi. Embassy officials didn’t return my phone calls.

According to cables released by WikiLeaks, U.S. officials formally told the Tanzanians that diplomats such as Mzengi should “face appropriate sanction.” The Tanzanians were also told the matter could call into question Tanzania’s “commitment to combating human trafficking.”

The U.S. officials wrote that they made it clear “that the Tanzanian government cannot ignore our requests for information and assistance.”

Or can it?

Twitter: @Milbank

{{Ugandan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have called for a joint border re-demarcation of the two countries.}}

The announcement was made during a dialogue organised by International Alert, a non-governmental organisation, held under the theme: “Promoting Information Sharing and Collaborative Efforts in Exploration and Exploitation of Oil Reserves in the Albertine Rift”.

The border between the two countries is endowed with oil and other natural resources. Independent observers argued that the presence of the bi-lateral agreements between Uganda and the DR Congo such as the agreement for cooperation for the exploration of hydrocarbons, are significant in promoting peaceful coexistence and exploitation of mineral resources on the border of the two countries.

The head of the Congolese delegation, Mr Francois Dhengo Bura, said the existence of militia groups pose a threat to the security of the two countries and the oil industry. “It is proposed that peaceful resolution of conflict with the different negative forces in the Albertine Graben be adopted,” they said in the joint statement.

{{At least 16 people have been killed during clashes between rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and villagers in Central African Republic, a military source said late Saturday.}}

LRA fighters attacked two villages in the central mining region of Bria on Thursday, initially killing six people and wounding about 10 others as they looted houses, said the source.

“The rebels were pursued and caught by villagers armed with rifles… who killed four of them,” the source added.

The LRA fighters responded with a fresh attack during which they killed six more people, who they decapitated, placing their heads on tree trunks, he said.

The region has suffered regular attacks from fighters of the LRA and other rebel groups.

After the Seleka rebel coalition ousted president Francois Bozize in a March coup, interim leader Michel Djotodia vowed to put an end to LRA incursions.

The LRA, a Ugandan force set up by Joseph Kony, has killed more than 100,000 people during a reign of terror in Central Africa over the past 25 years, UN leader Ban Ki-moon said last month.

It is also blamed for the abduction of between 60,000 and 100,000 children, many of whom have been forced to fight as child soldiers, he said in a report on the region.

Kony, a former church altar boy, originally launched an uprising against the Ugandan government in the 1980s. His group has since staged attacks in several countries.

He is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and is believed to be hiding in jungles on the border between Sudan, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

But conflict in the region has brought the international hunt for Kony to a near standstill.

The group is notorious for the brutality of its attacks and has been held responsible for the rape, murder and mutilation of civilians.

Children, as well as being forced to fight for the group, have also been used as sex slaves.

NMG

{{The United Nations announced that an Ethiopian peacekeeper was killed during a mortar attack the sudan rebels attacked a town in south kodofan.}}

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) said they captured a locality, west of the capital of South Kordofan Kadugli.

SPLM-N spokesperson, Arnu Ngutulu Lodi, said that on Friday morning their fighters seized Hajar Nimir garrison located one and half km from Mujama west Kadugli.

Lodi further said they shot down a Mig jet-fighter, adding it crashed in the government controlled areas.

He pointed out that their forces are advancing towards the state capital.

However, the Sudanese army did not yet issue any statement about the fighting. Also the spokesperson office was not reachable due to the weekend holiday.

The rebel spokesperson said they shelled a military base at Kadugli airport calling on the civilians to move away from “military targets”.

In New York, UN chief Ban Ki-Moon condemned in “the strongest terms” the shelling of a logistics base, located near Kadugli airport, of the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA).

A statement released by the office of the spokesperson for the UN secretary general also said that one Ethiopian peacekeeper was killed and two more were injured as a result of the shelling.

UN chief “expresses his condolences to the family of the fallen peacekeeper and to the Government of Ethiopia”.

Ban further urged the Sudanese government and SPLM-N rebels “to immediately suspend hostilities and resume ceasefire negotiations to end the conflict in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile States”.

Nafei Ali Nafie, presidential assistant told Khartoum’s legislators they had intelligence that the rebels plan to capture Kaduglei and El-Fasher of North Darfur and Al-Obeid of North Kordofan. But he asserted they are ready to confront them.

ST

{{Burundi and Uganda and the UNHCR will hold technical meetings that will add inertia to earlier efforts to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of Burundian refugees in the country.}}

The decision to hold the meetings that will discuss the modalities for the repatriation of the refugees .

Apollo Kazungu, the commissioner for refugees in the Office of Prime minister of Uganda said, there was need to discuss the finer details of how the exercise will be conducted.

Kazungu said it was crucial that all the refugees who want to return do so at their own will. “If it is necessary, where there is doubt and some of them want to first visit before so as to enable them make informed decisions that can be arranged.”

“What is important is that it must be voluntarily,” he added. The development comes after both the governments of Uganda and Burundi and the UNHCR signed a tripartite agreement for the voluntary repatriation of the refugees in March this year. Presently there are about 13,000 Burundian refugees in Uganda.

The agreement among others establishes a framework for the voluntary return of Burundian refugees in Uganda; specifies a right of return of the refugees without any preconditions; defines the responsibilities of the parties and establishes a tripartite commission and a technical working group.

NV

{{Results of a trial in Bangkok, Thailand have revealed that using Tenofovir, an ARV, daily, can reduce the risk of acquiring HIV by almost 50%.}}

The findings were released this week as the first evidence that daily medication of the drug, which is already part of the combinations used to treat HIV, can reduce the risk of acquiring HIV.

The results of the study, which were done since 2005 among 2,413 people who use injectable drugs in Bangkok city-run drug treatment clinics, are published online in the Lancet.

Using a known medicine for an infection you do not have but fear to get is known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

Scientists have been studying how people who are at high risk, especially those who have HIV positive partners (discordant couples), can be protected from infection using PrEP.

Some of those studies have already proven effective in reducing sexual transmission of HIV. This study is new revelation that even people who are likely to get HIV from sharing needles, can be protected by PrEP.

Dr. Patrick Ndase, the regional HIV prevention research expert, said this just confirms what scientists now believe is the potential of the drugs Tenofovir and Truvada.

‘‘What remains now is to decide how best to implement PrEP in conjunction with other proven prevention measures against HIV,’’ he says.

“Right now, we are struggling with the Ministry of Health to be more proactive for discordant couples and at least issue guidelines on how to use PrEP.”

“People are already using these drugs whenever they suspect that their partners are HIV positive. Misguided use will cause avoidable problems,” Ndase said.

He said to use PrEP, one must first confirm that they are HIV negative and not rely on tests that were made some time ago. Taking it when one is already HIV positive is dangerous because it gives the virus an underdose, leading to resistance issues.

“PrEP should be taken daily one week before and after unprotected sex with a person who is HIV positive. It helps discordant couples who have been on condoms but are planning to have a baby.”

According to the Lancet, the Bangkok study tested a daily oral pill of Tenofovir and concluded that the risk of HIV had been reduced by 49%. There were 17 HIV infections among the volunteers who were taking Tenofovir, compared to 33 infections among those on the placebo.

This translates into a statistically significant 49% reduction in risk of HIV acquisition overall. However, participants who took the medication consistently saw a 74% reduction in HIV transmission, underscoring the importance of adherence.

There were no significant safety concerns and no one who became infected with HIV during the trial developed drug resistance.

{First published in the New Vision}