Tag: GreatLakesNews

{{A Kenyan is among five film-makers who will launch their short stories to highlight issues affecting them and their communities at the Commonwealth Shorts in New Zealand next week.}}

The Shorts are a capacity building scheme to give emerging writers /directors the opportunity to make a film on the theme of relationships.

The one documentary and four dramas explore migration, indigenous rights and same-sex relationships from New Zealand, Kenya, Bahamas, Barbados, and Canada.

Kenya’s offering to this event on February 26 is titled New Year’s Eve by Wanjiru Kairu, who describes the ‘short’ as a story of a married man who struggles to come out of a life of deceit and risks losing true love.

“These films are the result of many months’ hard work by five emerging film-makers from across the Commonwealth. As well as being accomplished pieces in their own right, each film highlights an important issue which affects its writer and their community in some way.

Commonwealth Writers is excited to be able to share these films internationally to bring these new voices to a wider audience,” said Lucy Hannah, Programme Manager, Commonwealth Foundation.

“Throughout this journey, I re-learned how to develop, research, and write a universal story with a deep controversial issue.

The insights I’ve gained are excellent and the team’s dedication to the task at hand, particularly through some testing moments, was second to none,” expresses Kairu.

The launch of Commonwealth Shorts takes place at Academy Cinemas in Auckland, New Zealand, in association with Documentary NZ Trust and with support from the New Zealand Film Commission.

The screening marks the end of the 2012 Commonwealth Shorts project and follows a film production lab in Auckland for the five international film-makers along with seven local writers/directors from the Pacific region.

capitalfm

{{The East African Community has deployed a 40-member election observer team to monitor Kenya’s March 4 polls.}}

The team is headed by former East African Legislative Assembly Speaker Abdulrahman Kinana.

Kinana urged Kenyans to turn up in large numbers to exercise their civil and legal rights in an environment that promotes competition and tolerance and elect their leaders peacefully.

“Elections are usually characterised by various political temperatures.

There are times that it will go too high to the extent that raises concern that things might tip over, but that is expected of any process that is run by a man, because people have different stands, different ideals and different goals and they all want to win,” he said during the unveiling of the team.

“It is my hope that Kenyans will unite to ensure they have an election that’s free and credible.”

The group’s mandate is to assess the democratic standards in the Kenyan electoral systems, the preparedness of the election process by the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the voter education, the voting process and the tallying processes.

The group will be required to submit an independent report and submit it to the EAC in order for the regional body to dissect the level of transparency, free and fairness, as well as democracy in the country.

He said that they will only be in the country to monitor the process but its Kenyans who will determine how to express their democratic rights under the new constitutional and political dispensation.

“The EAC mission, apart from observing elections, will also provide a supportive role that enhances the credibility of the elections, complement the findings of domestic observer groups and increase public confidence in the entire electoral process,” he said.

He said Kenya is an integral part of the EAC in terms of infrastructural, economic and industrial development.

EAC Secretary General Richard Sezibera said that there are plans to ensure for more deployments from IGAD and COMESA to which Kenya is a key member.

He lauded the country’s media for the historic presidential debate saying that the electoral process is people centred.

Commenting ahead of the deployment, Sezibera said: “The membership includes members of the East African Legislative Assembly, National Electoral Commissions, National Human Rights Commissions, and Youth Representatives from EAC Youth Ambassadors Forum.

The nominations were based on the principle of gender balance and youth involvement.”

Sezibera challenged other member states to emulate the developments made by the country as well as join hands to make such events more frequent during the electioneering period.

“In the long term, the mission will contribute to strengthening political accountability amongst partner states, provide an avenue for partner states to share experiences on election management and facilitate peer learning.”

Sezibera said that the regional body will work with whichever government Kenyans put in power and urged the international community mainly from the West to respect the will of the Kenyan electorate.

“Come March 4 the people of Kenya will have spoken, and we will have to listen very carefully to what the people of Kenya have said.

It’s not for anybody else to interpret what the people of Kenya have said, the rest of the world only have to listen, take note and accept their will,” he said.

CapitalFM

{{Member states of the East African community have endorsed the candidature of Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa for the Presidency of the 69th Session of the United National General Assembly 2014-2015.}}

The EAC Sectoral Council of Foreign Policy Coordination meeting in Tanzania’s capital of Dar es Salaam over the weekend, in their resolutions also urged the African Union to endorse and mobilize support for Kutesa’s candidature.

The only competitor in Africa for the same office is Cameron. African Union is to decide on a sole candidate in May.

The Council approved several other EAC candidatures including Kenya’s bid for the Non-Permanent seat at the UN Security Council for the period 2017-18. Elections are due late 2016.

In a brief interview on the sidelines of the meeting, Kutesa observed, “currently UN is considering reforms on the Security Council including membership. I intend to push and spearhead reforms so that Africa gets a permanent representation on the Security Council.”

Mean -while, the five partner states of the East African Community on the same weekend signed a Peace and Security Protocol aimed at improving security in the region.

The signing of the agreement in Dar es Salaam on Saturday was followed by the open-air burning of 3,193 illicit firearms at Ukonga Prison Grounds on the outskirts of the city.

NV

{{Somalia’s most senior religious preachers has been in killed in Puntland.}}

Sheikh Abdulkadir Nur Farah, who is also known as Sheikh Abdulkadir Ga’amey, was Friday gunned down inside a mosque in Garowe town, the capital of the semiautonomous state of Puntland.

Garowe is some 1,000 km north of the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

Witnesses said Sheikh Farah was in the middle of afternoon prayers at Beder Mosque when he was attacked by a young man wielding a pistol.

He was shot several times and died while being transferred to a hospital.

Puntland President Abdurahman Mohamed Farole, confirmed the Sheikh’s death and said that an outraged crowd had captured the gunman.

“He was a great sheikh who preached the true Islamic faith,” President Farole said.

“His only crime was that he was very critical of the methods of Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda,” he said, adding that the cleric would get a state funeral.

The President named the arrested suspect as Abdurahman Hussein Jama Bile.

Puntland security officials confirmed that a suspect had been detained and investigations were underway.

Officers also confirmed that the gunman also wounded three people while trying to escape from pursuers.

One of the injured was in a critical state.

Puntland leaders that Al-Shabaab militants who have been facing military pressure from African Union peacekeepers have been moving into their territory, leading to increased security problems in Puntland.

In January, several countries including Britain, Ireland and the US, issued travel advisories against Somaliland, a self-declared republic in north-western Somalia, citing increased terrorist threats.

Wirestory

{{A delayed U.N.-mediated peace deal aimed at ending two decades of conflict in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is due to be signed in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Feb. 24, the United Nations said.}}

African leaders failed to sign the deal last month due to the concerns of some countries over who would command a new regional force that would deploy in eastern Congo and take on armed groups operating in the conflict-torn region.

The so-called intervention brigade would be contained within the existing U.N. peacekeeping force in Congo, known as MONUSCO.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent out invitations on Friday for the Feb. 24 signing ceremony and intended to travel to Ethiopia for the event, his spokesman, Martin Nesirky, said. “All the invited presidents have committed to either be there or delegate power to sign,” Nesirky said.

Rwandan Deputy U.N. Ambassador Olivier Nduhungirehe posted on Twitter that the “African Union, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, Southern African Development Community Chairs, as well as 10 Heads of States of the region will attend the signing ceremony.”

Envoys have said that one of the main reasons the deal was not signed in January was that three countries in the 15-member Southern African Development Community regional bloc – South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique – felt they did not have enough information on the enforcement brigade.

The creation of an enforcement brigade within a U.N. peacekeeping mission is new for the United Nations, according to officials in the world body. Peace enforcement missions allow the use of lethal force in serious combat situations, while peacekeeping operations are intended to support and monitor an already existing ceasefire, diplomats and U.N. officials say.

A new Security Council resolution would be needed to approve the intervention unit and is likely to be supported by the 15-member council, envoys have said.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous has made clear that the brigade would fight under the banner of MONUSCO, which means it would be under the same command as regular MONUSCO troops, who conduct patrols and support the Congolese security forces.

But diplomats had said South Africa, Tanzania and Mozambique, which are the most likely candidates to supply the several thousand troops of the brigade, believed it should have its own command.

The countries take the view that MONUSCO has not performed well under its current command, such as when it allowed M23 rebels to occupy the eastern city of Goma last year for 11 days before they withdrew.

Rebels in mineral-rich East

The M23 rebels began taking large swathes of the mineral-rich east early last year, accusing the government of failing to honor a 2009 peace deal. That peace deal ended a previous rebellion and led to the rebels’ integration into the national army. They have since deserted the army.

The Congolese army has failed to quell the growing 10-month insurgency by M23, which has dragged Congo’s eastern region back toward war and, according to U.N. experts, has received cross-border support from Rwanda and Uganda. Rwanda and Uganda strongly deny the accusations of involvement.

Ladsous said that if approved by the U.N. Security Council, the enforcement unit would be equipped with a three-pronged mandate to prevent the expansion of armed groups in eastern Congo as well as to “neutralize” and disarm them.

It would have the aid of unmanned surveillance drones to hunt down armed militias difficult to spot in the vast territory of eastern Congo. Ladsous said the drones would provide an element of deterrence because the rebels would know they were being watched.

The planned use of drones, is also new for the United Nations, U.N. officials say. Congo’s prime minister said on Thursday that the drones could be deployed as early as June.

Reuters

{{Ambassadors from five member states surrounding Lake Tanganyika Basin have agreed to undertake a joint campaign to mobilise resources to push for the implementation of development programmes in the area.}}

With a population of over 40 million people and high levels of poverty, vulnerability, persistent conflicts and pollution, the initiative is set to open a new chapter of collective efforts to redress the disappointing situation.

Chairmanof the group of ambassadors based in Belgium – Brussels, Dr Diodorus Kamala, said in a statement recently that there was a compelling need to support Lake Tanganyika Basin development initiatives.

The group comprises ambassadors from Tanzania, Zambia, Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC.

He said the development initiative aimed to implement the Lake Tanganyika Water Sanitation and Environmental Management (LTWASAN) project was initiated by the East African Community (EAC), Comesa, UN-Habitat and the Lake Tanganyika Authority.

“In stepping up the exchange of goods and enhancing passenger traffic, the following ports are to be expanded and the port facilities in Bujumbura, Kigoma, Kasanga, Mpulungu, Moba and Kalemie, Uvira, Kiliba modernised,” reads part of the statement adding,“The purpose of the port development is to increase the safety of passengers, facilitate and accelerate shipping traffic, and to link up all the countries and towns on Lake Tanganyika.”

Dr Kamala said that the group wanted to modernise communications technology in the basin to control shipping traffic, prevent accidents and be able to alert rescue services in an emergency.

As part of the shipping traffic refurbishment and development programme, Dr Kamala said, waste water treatment plants would be built in the ports and standards in existing ones improved.

“At the same time, a waste disposal system is to be set up that will help generate energy from waste.”

He added; “We also want to promote sustainable eco-tourism. The purpose of this type of tourism is to benefit the local population by conveying the unique attractiveness of nature and landscape and at the same time to ensure that livelihoods and the area itself are safeguarded.”

According to the diplomat, the basin is to be connected to traffic systems in the surrounding countries by extending and modernising airports at Mbala, Kalemie, Bujumbura, Kigoma, and Kasanga.

NMG

{{A leading media advocacy group is calling on Congolese authorities to release a journalist who was sentenced in December to six months in prison on defamation charges.}}

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Saturday that Joachim Diana Gikupa, editor of daily newspaper La Colombe, should be released pending an appeal. U.N. radio Okapi reported that Gikupa’s lawyers filed an appeal saying he was in poor health.

CPJ says that Gikupa was convicted of criminal defamation for publishing a report alleging that a Chinese company managing a local hospital had sold expired medication, among other things.

It condemned Congo’s use of criminal defamation charges to jail journalists for critical reporting.

The group says the Chinese company, Gen Tai, denied the allegations and filed a complaint against the Feb. 9, 2012 report.

wirestory

Surveillance drones could be used by peacekeepers in the rugged hills of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the first such deployment of unmanned aircraft in a U.N. mission, as early as June, Congo’s prime minister said on Thursday.

The Security Council approved their use last month in Congo’s porous and volatile borderlands, where U.N. experts claim a year-old rebellion has received support from neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda, a charge both countries deny.

“The process of acquiring drones has already been launched. By June or July they should be operational,” Augustin Matata Ponyo Mapon told reporters after returning from New York where he met Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon.

A spokesman for Congo’s U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MONUSCO, said he was not aware of a deployment date for the drones.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous told the Security Council in January that aerial systems were needed to monitor an area of rugged terrain, thick forests and possessing few roads. But unlike unmanned U.S. aircraft that have carried out strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, the U.N. drones will not be armed.

The Council said it would be a trial deployment “to enhance situational awareness … on a case-by case basis” after concerns from Russia, China and Rwanda over the use of aerial surveillance equipment delayed the decision for weeks.

MONUSCO initially asked for surveillance drones in 2008, but the request was never met.

The M23 rebels began taking large swathes of the mineral-rich east early last year, accusing the government of failing to honour a previous peace deal.

They seized and held the eastern city of Goma for 11 days in November, dealing a severe blow to the image of MONUSCO, whose peacekeepers did not intervene to stop the well-equipped force, and reviving interest in the use of drones.

An uneasy truce is now in place, and Uganda is currently hosting talks between Kinshasa and the rebels. But progress towards a negotiated settlement to the crisis in the east, scene of two decades of bloodshed, has been slow.

Matata Ponyo also said that significant advances had been made towards the deployment to the country’s east of a 4000-troop strong intervention force agreed by central African nations last year.

The force, composed mainly of soldiers from eastern and southern African nations, will operate under the existing U.N. peacekeeping mandate but is tasked with pursing illegal armed groups.

wirestory

{{Jubilee Presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta has condemned the stoning of Raila supporters at a rally in Embu on Friday.}}

In a statement, Uhuru says such incidents are not acceptable and urged all his supporters to always maintain peace and tolerate his competitors.

A statement from Uhuru’s Director of Communications Munyori Buku reads, “Uhuru Kenyatta has called for peaceful campaigns. He also called on leaders not to incite or provoke the public with language full of hate. Mr. Kenyatta called on all Kenyans to tolerate the views of others even when they do not agree with them.”

TNA’s National Chairman Johnson Sakaja has also termed the incident as a ‘retrogressive action’ which should be condemned in the strongest terms possible.

“TNA would like to dissociate itself from such retrogressive actions and in the same vein, condemn in the strongest terms any acts of violence meted out on any candidates in the course of their campaigns.”

Sakaja is urging all polititicans to desist from provocative language or statements likely to incite youths to violence during campaigns.

Trouble started when a group of about 500 youths who were chanting ‘Jubilee! Jubilee!’ started pelting the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) supporters with stones but were soon restrained by police.

The group seemed to have been incensed by a pronouncement by Mwea parliamentary aspirant Bishop Daniel Njagi who said the region was not a Jubilee stronghold and accused its flag bearer of doing little for the region.

Some of the stones narrowly missed two helicopters which were parked in the stadium, but no injuries were reported.

Outgoing Kangundo Member of Parliament (MP) and CORD member Johnston Muthama who was also at the rally accused a rival party for hiring the unruly youth.

“If you think you are helping your candidate by pelting us, you better know that the rest of the country is watching. It is better to listen to what we have to say then accept or ignore it,” Muthama warned.

The CORD deputy presidential candidate Kalonzo Musyoka also called on politicians to stop using youths to carry out their dirty work.

Echoing Sakaja also in a statement sent to newsrooms the CORD National Coordinating Committee chairman Franklin Bett termed the act retrogressive “because politicians have a right to campaign in any region of the country.”

“Mr. Odinga just like any other Presidential candidate in Kenya has a right to tour any part of this country to ask for votes. Such acts of violence are unacceptable in the Kenya of today and should be condemned by all and sundry,” he said.

Police led by the Embu police chief formed a buffer zone of about 200 metres between the Jubilee and CORD supporters to allow the luminaries carry on with their meeting.

Odinga successfully addressed the crowd and said he had written to the British Prime Minister urging him not to petition a case where Mau Mau fighters are seeking compensation.

“The British government has appealed the ruling and I have talked to the PM because the survivors are now very old and could die before getting justice. He wrote back telling me that we will discuss the issue soon after the March 4 elections,” he said.

He also called on teachers to shelve a planned nationwide strike until the elections are held.

“Teachers want to strike while we are nearing an election. What we have is a caretaker government because there is no Parliament which can discuss the issues,” he appealed.

capitalFM

Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia claimed Friday that they have executed a Kenyan soldier after the Nairobi government failed to meet their demands.

The Islamic extremist rebels of al-Shabab said in a statement Friday that they executed an army private after deadline expired Thursday. The militants want the release of all “Muslim prisoners being held on so-called terrorism charges in Kenya.”

Al-Shabab threatened to execute the five remaining Kenyan hostages in 72 hours if the Muslim prisoners are not released.

“While the Mujahideen have executed the serving KDF (Kenya Defense Forces) soldier, there is still a chance of securing the release of the remaining 5 prisoners. As a response to the growing pleas of the prisoners’ families who have contacted us, HSM (al-Shabab) is adding a grace period of 72 hours,” the statement said.

Al-Shabab said the Kenyan government does not value the lives of Kenyan citizens because it had not taken the opportunity to negotiate for the lives of the hostages.

Kenya has said it will not negotiate with terrorists.
“We cannot negotiate with terrorists … we want to rescue the hostages or have al-Shabab surrender them unconditionally,” said military spokesman Col. Cyrus Oguna.

Oguna said the Kenyan army cannot confirm al-Shabab’s claim that the rebels executed the soldier in their custody.

Kenya has suffered a spate of gun and explosive attacks since it deployed troops to Somalia to fight the militants in October 2011. This move came after cross-border attacks blamed on the militants.

Twitter on Jan 25 suspended the account used by al-Shabab after the insurgents used the micro-blogging site to announce a death threat against Kenyan hostages. Twitter’s terms of service says it does not allow specific threats of violence against others in its posts.

Al-Shabab uses Twitter mainly to make claims of enemy kills and to spread its view of events in Somalia and East Africa. Terrorism analysts believe the account is run by a Western-educated person; al-Shabab claims several dozen American and Britons among its ranks.