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Tag: GreatLakesNews

  • Burundi Court Jails 182 Followers of Catholic Cult

    {{A Burundian court has sentenced 182 followers of a Catholic prophet, who claims to see visions of the Virgin Mary, to up to five years in jail for defying police orders, a court spokesman said Saturday.}}

    The disciples of 30-year-old prophet Zebiya, were arrested Tuesday morning after defying a ban to gather on a hilltop that has become a place of pilgrimage.

    Zebiya has reportedly seen visions on the hill on the 12th day of every month.

    “Fifteen adults thought to be the leaders of the group were sentenced to five years each,” Elie Ntunwanayo, Burundi Supreme Court spokesman .

    Court documents showed 182 people had been sentenced, with jail terms varying between three years and six months.

    “They were all arrested and sentenced for civil disobedience,” Ntunwanayo said.

    Twenty children under 14 years-old were released by the court.

    The trial took just over 5 hours with a verdict reached at around midnight on Friday.

    In March, police in the east African nation clashed with Zebiya’s followers leaving at least six people dead and 35 wounded.

    Violence broke out after hundreds of her followers were blocked by police as they tried to gather at her hilltop shrine.

    {AFP}

  • Google Kenya site compromised

    Global technology giant Google has been the victim of a cyber-attack.

    On Monday morning, their Kenyan domain google.co.ke did not have the usual doodle and search bar, instead the page splayed a black background ‘hacked’ stamped in red across it.

    The hacker who identified himself as TiGER-M@TE also said that he was from Bangaldesh, a country in South East Asia.

    When a user visited the page the hacked screen spiraled in as some foreign music played in the background.

    News of the cyber-attack spread on social media causing the site’s to link shoot to the top of the trends.

    Social media users attached screen shots of the site and the images have gone viral.

  • S. Sudan’s First oil Shipment Reaches Khartoum

    {{South Sudan has confirmed that its first oil shipment, destined for international markets, reached Sudanese territory on Saturday, raising hopes for reviving the country’s turbulent economy.}}

    Stephen Dhiew Dau, South Sudan’s Petroleum and Mining minister said authorities in neighbouring Sudan acknowledged receiving the first crude oil shipped from the young nation’s territory, following last week’s resumption of oil production.

    South Sudan halted its oil production early last year after a dispute arose between it and neighbouring Sudan over transit fees. The situation worsened after the young nation accused Khartoum of confiscating its oil entitlements, which they claim was illegally sold in international markets.

    The minister, however, added that first consignment of the oil reached Sudanese territory on Saturday, a day after the Sudanese President; Omer Al-Bashir visited the South Sudan capital, Juba where he held talks with President Salva Kiir.

    The two leaders, during Friday’s meeting, discussed a range of issues, on the current unresolved post-session issued, but failed to agree on the issue of the disputed oil-producing region of Abyei.

    Bashir, at a joint news conference shortly after one-one- discussion with his counterpart, and several government officials, said they have agreed to work together to implement September 2012 cooperation agreement and strengthen bilateral cooperation between the two nations.

    Meanwhile, Dau said he expects South Sudan’s oil to continue flowing to the international market through the Sudanese territory over the three year period agreed in the September, last year.

    The minister, on Saturday, also visited oil fields in Unity to monitor progress in the area, ever since oil production commenced.

    “The other reason for visiting the oil fields was to ensure increased exploration of other wells together with our partners. We want them to help in the construction of affordable pipeline connections. We need to ensure maximum production on oil production by 2014,” Dau stressed during the interview.

    South Sudan, the Petroleum minister earlier said, was producing up to 10,000 barrels of oil per day from its Tharjath oil fields in Unity state.

    The resumption of oil production showed our commitment to implementing cooperation agreement which the two presidents signed in September last year, he emphasized.

    In a separate development, SUDD Petroleum Company has affirmed its commitment and readiness to work with the country’s ministry of petroleum and mining as it resumes oil production.

    “On our side, we have been ready for oil resumption through coordination the ministry of petroleum and mining. All 24 wells here in Tharjath with all facilities have been ready and already started resumption and flow of the oil to Sudan”, SUDD president, Emi Suhardi Hohd Fadzil said in a statement on SSTV.

    He further said the company expects it oil to reach international markets by 20 April.

    Our technical staff members are already working on the ground and we will give our full commitment to operate in a safe manner, for the well being of South Sudan, our shareholder, our stakeholder as well as our nations, Fadzil assured.

    (ST)

  • DRC Banking on wage Revolution for State Workers

    {{Civil servants working in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the arrival of mobile banking has been just short of a miracle.}}

    Aside from getting paid on time, workers are now receiving what is actually owed to them, circumventing greedy superiors who used to dip into their pay envelopes to “tip” themselves and leave staff with only a fraction of their salaries.

    “The first time, they’re surprised” to see what they actually make, Hassan Wazni said, managing director at Sofibanque – one of about a dozen banks offering mobile banking accounts in the conflict-torn Congo.

    For the impoverished central African country the size of western Europe, the introduction of the service represents a minor revolution and comes about a year after Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo vowed to end the practice where state workers were paid in cash.

    With an average annual revenue of $240 (185 euros) per person, most Congolese had never visited a bank before, let alone had an account.

    Like a number of other countries in Africa and Asia that had only a tiny network of bank branches but where mobile phones are now ubiquitous, Congo opted for mobile banking.

    No smartphones are needed. Clients can pay bills, make deposits or conduct other transactions via text messages.

    Many shops, even in rural areas, have the equipment and can take deposits, make withdrawals or make sales with transactions confirmed by the clients with their phones.

    “It’s very practical,” said Barthelemy Bosongo, who works at the Youth and Sports Ministry.

    “Everyone likes it” even though there were a few hiccups with spelling of names at the outset.

    So far some 270,000 state employees have received bank accounts, and by June all one million civil servants should have their accounts.
    A year ago, only 2 percent of Congo’s 75 million population had bank accounts, now, that number is at 5.7 percent – thanks mostly to the government push to provide them to civil servants.

    Widespread banking is important for economic development, and while the amounts many Africans hold in their accounts is small, the do add up.

    Sofibanque’s Wazni noted that in Kenya some $7 billion now flows through the mobile banking system every year.

    Mobile banking should put a dent into the corruption that victimised even state employees.

    According to the head of a non-governmental organisation which works with the Congolese army, it was common for state workers and soldiers to end up with the equivalent of about $5 after their $60 salaries had passed down the hierarchy to reach them.

    AFP

  • al-Shabab Attacks Somali Supreme Court, 16 Killed

    {{A barrage of bullets and two car bomb blasts rattled Mogadishu on Sunday when nine al-Shabab Islamic extremists stormed Somalia’s main court complex, officials said, in a two-hour attack that shows the country’s most dangerous militant group may be down but not defeated.}}

    A preliminary death toll stood at 16, including all nine attackers. The government didn’t immediately publicize the number of security forces, government employees and civilians who died during the attack.

    The assault was the most serious in Mogadishu since al-Shabab was forced out of the capital in August 2011.

    Al-Shabab controls far less territory today than in recent years, and its influence appears to be on the decline, but Sunday’s attack proved the extremists are still capable of pulling off well-planned, audacious assaults.

    The top U.N. official for Somalia, Augustine P. Mahiga, said he was shocked and outraged by the attack. Mahiga said the total number of dead wasn’t clear, but that reports indicated that “many innocent civilians were killed including women and at least one child.”

    The attack on the Supreme Court complex began at around 12:30 p.m., sparking running battles with police and army forces.

    One car bomb detonated outside the court, and gunmen were seen on the roof of a court building firing shots, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said.

    Police officer Hassan Abdulahi said he saw five dead bodies lying at the entrance to the court.

    The militants took an unknown number of hostages during the siege. Many other government workers and civilians in the court complex — a confusing labyrinth of buildings and rooms — hid while fearing for their lives.

    {wirestory}

  • Kenya IT Audit Reveals Poll Machines Were Faulty

    {{In Kenya, a local Information Technology (IT) firm, Next Technology, has produced an audit report that provides never-heard-before detailed insights into the many things that went wrong during the March 4, General Election.}}

    The Next Technologies report on the collapse of the electronic results transmission system during last month’s elections is the first independent account of the failures on a national scale.

    In a report that reads like a sensational catalogue of things not-to-do, Next Technologies details the failures starting from the national tallying centre at Bomas in Nairobi to the polling centres in the various counties.

    The report says that IEBC’s computer system was incomplete and untested before the elections that were marred by the catastrophic failure to transmit results electronically, according to a technical report just released.

    The Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) contracted NEXT Technologies to carry out an assessment and provide national IT support to for the elections.

    The sheer lack of preparedness is revealed in the report that noted that one of the two main servers required for the elections was not installed until a day before the election and it was therefore not tested.

    {{Faulty equipment}}

    The report’s findings paint the picture of an overwhelmed IEBC desperately struggling with technology in the final hours ahead of the election and its field staff — many untrained or ill-equipped for the task — oblivious of the technological nightmare that awaited them on March 4.

    “It is the view of this completion report based on observations during the first round of the elections that the development of the system was incomplete by the time of election,” reads the report.

    The report adds: “This can be attributed to the noted system behaviour characterised by the different system components which were intended to function as a whole seeming to have been functioning in isolation which led to the system being unstable and unable to fulfil user requirements especially in the transmission of the bulk of the results.”

    readmore..http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/?articleID=2000081518&story_title=Kenya–IT-audit-report-reveals-what-went-wrong-in-the-polls

  • Joseph Kony Calls Home to say he is Alive

    {Mr Martin Okidi, Uncle to Joseph Kony}

    {{Joseph Kony a Ugandan Rebel Leader who has remained elusive for over 26years, has managed to telephone his relatives assuring them that he and his children are very fine.}}

    The leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) called his relatives and other friends this week, reassuring them that he was well and had no intentions of returning to Uganda.

    According to a ugandan newspaper, Mr Martin Okidi, an uncle to Joseph Kony, said his nephew called on Wednesday night, saying he was safe and now engaged in farming in between Central African Republic and the DR Congo.

    “He told us that he is farming and no one is seeing him. He is with his children and a few guards,” Mr Okidi was quoted adding that Kony had also talked to two other paternal uncles.

    the rebel’s relatives who had come to receive a message from Kony, said they were excited to receive his call after five years of no communication. His relatives said he last called in 2008.

    The three claimed that Kony said he would not return to Uganda to fight for change in leadership.

    “He assured us that the change would come from within Uganda and not through him,” Mr Okidi said.

    He, however, did not say he would denounce rebellion, but only insisted he would not return to fight in Uganda.

    The claim of the relatives could not be verified from any other source. Army and intelligence network in northern Uganda said they were not aware of the call.

    But the UPDF Political Commissar, Col. Felix Kulayigye, dismissed claims that Kony is engaged in farming, adding, “our intelligence indicates he is in Darfur region of Sudan.”

    NMG

  • President Uhuru Hosts Raila Odinga at State House

    {{Kenya’s new president Uhuru Kenyatta has today met Raila Odinga his fierce opponent in the recently concluded elections that ended with a supreme court ruling declairing Uhuru the absolute winner.}}

    Raila Oding and his runningmate Kalonzo Musyoka met President Uhuru and Vice President William Ruto at Kenyas state House.

    Uhuru’s meeting with the Pair of CORD leadership has been seen as a brotherly gesture by people in the region signaling an end to previous situations where losers in political competitions never met eye to eye with their opponents.

    The Saturday meeting focused on the upcoming State Opening of the 11th Parliament, which the two CORD leaders promised to attend.

    President Kenyatta and Deputy President Ruto pledged that the Jubilee Coalition, which commands majority in both houses, is committed to ensuring the existence of a strong opposition party as a necessary tool for democratization and to ensure steady check on the government.

    The President and his deputy said they were keen to see the minority party playing a critical role in key committees like the Accounts Committee.

    The leaders agreed to ensure ethical relations between the parties and in general politics.

    {Standard}

  • Kenyan Chief Justice Defends Tanganyika-Zanzibar Union

    {{Tanzanians have been urged to use the opportunity of writing a new Constitution to iron out problems facing the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar for the agenda of East African Federation to make sense and materialise.}}

    Addressing the fifth Julius Nyerere Intellectual Festival at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) in the city yesterday, the Chief Justice of Kenya, Dr Willy Mutunga, said it wouldn’t make sense to speak of federations or African unity if the first union in Africa which gave birth of Tanzania collapses.

    “I urge my Tanzanian brothers and sisters to uphold the Union and you can do that by choosing a fair Union format that will take on board good politics for common benefits to all citizens,” he said.

    Dr Mutunga, an alumnus of the university’s Faculty of Law (now School of Law), was presenting a paper on how “viruses” of the 1967 Arusha Declaration have impacted his life to this point.

    He arrived at the UDSM for his bachelor studies in 1968, only 15 months after the adoption of the declaration.

    “During that time, we used to debate a lot about the declaration regardless of our nationalities, and from it, I still hold up to this day that all human beings are equal and Africa is one,” said the Kenyan CJ. Dr Mutunga said, he drew a number of useful lessons from the declaration and he is still living them, as a true “Nyerereist.”

    The declaration was founded by Tanzania’s first president, Julius Nyerere, who borrowed ideas and concepts from the Marxist school of thought.

    “I was impressed on how the declaration talked about equality and social justice, something which is now expressed in our (Kenya) Constitution which I fought for it nearly four decades,” he said.

    Dr Mutunga said he vied for the post of CJ of Kenya to ensure the foundation of social justice he learned from the Arusha Declaration was preserved his country’s justice corridors.

    “We should now focus our attention on spreading the ‘viruses’ of Arusha Declaration to youths. The principles set by the declaration are of essence up to date,” he said.

    In her vote of thanks, the director of Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), Dr Hellen Kijo-Bisimba, said Justice Mutunga during initial stages of the formation of her centre.

    Dr Mutunga was elected CJ in 2011. He did both his bachelor and master degrees in law at the UDSM.

    Just two weeks ago he delivered historic ruling over presidential elections in Kenya, which upheld Uhuru Kenyatta’s victory in a petition filled in the Supreme Court by the first runner up in the March polls, Mr Raila Odinga, who contested results of the elections.

    NMG

  • Gen. Bashir Denies Calling South Sudanese ‘insects’

    {{Sudanese president, Omer Al-Bashir on Friday denied describing South Sudanese as “insects” saying he only used the term against the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).}}

    Following the seizure of Heglig/Panthou in April 2012 by the south Sudanese troops, Al-Bashir in a speech he delivered, replaced the term used to call the SPLM “popular Movement” by the “popular insect”, and vowed to crush it.

    The South Sudanese government at the time compared the expression with the term of “cockroaches” that the Rwandese Hutus used to describe the Tutsi before the 1994 genocide they perpetrated against the latter.

    The statement also attracted outrage and anger among citizens on the country’s streets.

    “I didn’t call the people of South Sudan insects. I cannot do this because I ruled them for 20 years, I was only making a play in Arabic about the SPLM which you in the media did not covey well,” Bashir said when he was asked about the issue by a reporter during the joint press conference with president on Friday.

    He further explained that Sudan was simply hurt when the SPLA, which became tje official army of South Sudan after its secession from Sudan in 2011, took control of Heglig/Panthou.

    “Sudan was hurt by the act which had no justification,” Bashir said.

    While addressing a mix of South Sudanese Muslims and Sudanese nationals in Juba at the Kuwait Mosque where he performed Friday prayer, the Sudanese leader said he came to the South Sudan capital because the two countries’ leaders have the biggest chance to make peace and avoid a repeat of war.

    “We have agreed to work together with my brother Salva Kiir. There are also things which hold us together. We have common things between us, socially or economically because we were one country. So we have agreed to follow the path of peace”, he told worshipers.

    Ali Ahmed Karti, Sudan’s Foreign Affairs minister, in statements before the country’s national assembly on 14 May last year, criticised Bashir without mentioning his name, saying the use of words like “insect” has had a disastrous effect in Sudan’s foreign policy, particularly in Africa.

    (ST)