Tag: GreatLakesNews

{{A Ugandan musician only known as Roy Kapale (Pictured below) has been set to death by hanging in China for Drug Trafficking.}}

{{Former Prime Minister in Kenya, Raila Odinga has lashed out at African Leaders whom he says are demonising the International Criminal Court (ICC).}}

He defended the ICC from accusations that it targeted African leaders saying the continent was a victim of its own failures.

Odinga added that African leaders facing charges at the ICC were referred by their countries.

He said Kenya voted to have the post election violence suspects tried at The Hague while Laurent Gbagbo, Charles Taylor and Joseph Kony have all been referred to the same court by their respective countries.

Odinga made the remarks while addressing students and staff of the University of Pretoria on Wednesday saying said increasing attacks on the International Criminal Court by Africa’s leaders were disturbing and hypocritical.

Odinga said it was difficult to understand why leaders who voluntarily appended their signatures to the Rome Statute that set up the ICC have turned around to condemn the same institution.

The Kenyan politician said he is disturbed by attempts to demonise institutions that seek to provide relief to citizens who have suffered abuse in the hands of the leaders asking African governments to come up with concrete steps to provide justice to its citizens.

He said that Africans are suffering as a result of the betrayal of the ideals that informed the struggle for independence.

“Independence has come. The leadership comprised those who had fought for basic freedoms of expression, speech, association and movement. We assumed the leaders understood the pain of being denied these freedoms. They understood the pain of inequitable distribution of resources.

“They knew the pain of being discriminated against on the basis of tribe, race, religion and place of origin. They would not commit such sins against their own people. Today, we know we were wrong,” Odinga said.

He lamented that the struggle that the African people have had to endure in the years after independence have been as vicious and sometimes more vicious than what they waged against the colonialists.

“It has been a struggle laced with the pain of being betrayed by a brother, an uncle, a father, a neighbour, and a friend. Where are we to turn?”

{Nation}

{{A Kenyan Man John Githinji and his family are in distress following his daughter’s detention by an Indian hospital over a Sh1.8 million bill.}}

The hospital’s management has refused to release his daughter who has undergone a successful kidney transplant, unless the money is paid.

{{Declared fit}}

Ms Esther Wacera Githinji, 33, flew to Hinduja Hospital in March last year for a kidney transplant after waiting for 10 years to get a suitable donor.

This is the second transplant after an earlier one where her 60-year-old mother donated to her her kidney in 2005 failed.

Thankfully, Ann Githinji, Wacera’s sister volunteered to donate a kidney to her last year. To facilitate a transplant, the family raised Sh1.1 million by selling off some of their assets, including taking a loan and holding a fundraising. The money, he says, was enough for exercise that was to take between three to four weeks.

However after medical analysis, doctors at the hospital said Wacera’s body was not compatible with a kidney from a family member especially because it had rejected the organ donated by her mother seven years ago after using it for only 11 months.

Doctors advised them to seek a donor outside their family and were lucky when they found an Indian family that was suffering a similar plight and were willing to do a kidney exchange.

However, there was an obstacle. “The Indian Government refused to do the transplant, saying that one of their own could not give a kidney to a Kenyan, leading to a legal tussle,” said Ms Julia Wambui an older sister to the detainee. It took 13 months to clear the legal hurdles for the exchange to take place.

All this time, Wacera and her mother were living in a rental house in the country and the family was spending between Sh60, 000 to Sh80, 000 per month for their upkeep.
After the transplant, Wacera developed complications and had to undergo three other costly operations, adding to the already astronomical bill.

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{{The UK will compensate thousands of Kenyans tortured by colonial forces during an uprising that began as the British Empire wound down, a lawyer and expert witness have said.}}

“We have agreed on an out-of-court settlement,” Kenyan lawyer Paul Muite, an advisor to the Mau Mau veterans seeking compensation, told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday.

“[The negotiations] have included everybody with sufficient evidence of torture. And that number is about 5,200,” he said, declining to comment on the size of the payout.

Britain’s foreign office declined to comment on UK media reports that the settlement would total $21.5m.

Negotiations began after a London court ruled in October that three elderly Kenyans, who suffered castration, rape and beatings while in detention during a crackdown by British forces and their Kenyan allies in the 1950s, could sue Britain.

The torture took place during the so-called Kenyan Emergency of 1952-60, when fighters from the Mau Mau movement attacked British targets, causing panic among white settlers.

A formal announcement on the settlement is expected later on Thursday.

{aljazeera}

{African Union-United Nations Information Support Team on Monday, Nicholas Kay (centre), the new Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General (SRSG) and head of the new UN political mission for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) (right) , speak to the media during a joint press briefing with Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon (left) at the mission’s headquarters in the Somali capital Mogadishu. PHOTO | AFP}

{{The United Nations has opened a new Somalia office to replace the previous UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS).}}

The UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) was launched on Sunday after the arrival of UN envoy Nicholas Kay in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

The new UN Somalia office comes with a new mandate “to support state building and peace building.” Kay, the new special representative of the UN Secretary-General in the country, said upon his arrival in Mogadishu he was pleased to work with the people and government of Somalia.

“I am very pleased to be in Mogadishu and to have this opportunity to support the Federal Government and people of Somalia to bring peace, security and prosperity back to Somalia,” he said.

Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon welcomed the launch of the UN office as a “vote of confidence in the new Somalia.”

“You have shown the world that to engage with Somalia it is possible – and indeed necessary – to come to Somalia,” the Somali prime minister told the UN envoy.

Special African Union representative for Somalia Mahamat Saleh Annadif also gave his welcoming remarks: “I wish to affirm my support, as head of Amisom, to the UN Assistance Mission to ensure that the people of Somalia realise their dream of a peaceful and stable country.”

Kay, a British national, will take over from the Tanzanian, Augustine Mahiga, who headed the UNPOS.

{wirestory}

{{Kenya has announced plans to open up several missions in countries across Africa as the Uhuru Kenyatta administration seeks to strengthen ties within the continent.}}

Foreign Affairs Secretary Amina Mohamed says, “Kenya will soon be opening several Missions and Consulates in those African regions that we are unrepresented to enhance our engagement in Africa.”

She said that the vocal point of cooperation between Kenyan and African countries will be based on trade ties hinting that Nairobi was shifting its focus from the traditional western and Far East trade partners and work closely with African countries.

“Trade and investment are key for the growth and development of countries like ours. Currently the balance of trade remains heavily in favour of non- African trade partners, yet the pattern globally is in sharp contrast to this arrangement.”

While reiterating Kenya’s fully committment to Africa’s economic development, the country’s top diplomat added that Kenya’s long term development policy the Vision 2030 which is also premised on cooperation on projects with regional focus including the proposed LAPSET corridor aimed at linking Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and the Sudan through rail, road, oil pipelines and fibre optic cables as an integral part of the African Union transcontinental program.