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Tag: GreatLakesNews

  • Hong Kong Seizes $3.4m ivory From East Africa

    Hong Kong authorities have confiscated two shipping containers from Tanzania and Kenya loaded with jumbo tusks worth $3.4 million (about Sh5.4billion).

    This incident involving ivory weighing more than 3,628kg, could affect the country’s attempt to release into the international market its huge stock.

    Hong Kong customs officials as saying the containers arrived from Tanzania and Kenya. The agency seized a total of 1,209 pieces of ivory tusks and three pounds of ornaments from the two containers.

    The Hong Kong Customs department was kept on alert after a tip-off from Guangdong officials in China. On October 16, Hong Kong officers inspected a container from Tanzania purporting to contain plastic scrap and found $1.7 million worth of ivory.

    A day later, a second container from Kenya was seized with ivory valued at $1.7 million, according to Hong Kong Customs.

    Seven people, including one Hong Kong resident, have been arrested by Chinese authorities in connection with the cases, said a customs spokeswoman.

    Hong Kong is viewed as a transit point for the illegal ivory trade, feeding into increasing demands in China, according to an article published this week.

    Elephants are being killed in Africa at an alarming rate as international demand for ivory soars. Much of the demand comes from increasingly affluent Asian countries, particularly China and Thailand.

  • M23 Rebels Renamed ‘Congolese Revolutionary Army’

    M23 rebel movement leader Jean-Marie Runiga said M23 has changed its name and is preparing to fend off expected new attacks by the government army.

    “The M23 army… is now named the Congolese Revolutionary Army (ARC),” the group’s leader Jean-Marie Runiga said in a statement issued after a press conference on Saturday.

    Runiga accused the FARDC army of collaborating with the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).

    DR Congo’s army has itself accused the M23 of collaborating with the FDLR in the east, a chronically unstable region that is home to numerous armed groups with murky allegiances and motives.

  • Exploring Witchcraft in Tanzania

    Around the world a sense of mystery and fear engulfs witchcraft and nowhere is this more evident than in the East African nation of Tanzania.

    Here, faith in this specific form of African tradition can turn deadly.

    People with albinism have been dismembered in western parts of the country because so-called witchdoctors perpetuate a belief that albino body parts bring great wealth.

    From the archives: Scores of albinos in hiding after attacks
    Those suspected of witchcraft are also targeted; an estimated 600 elderly women were killed in 2011 due to the suspicion they were witches, according to the Legal and Human Rights Center in Tanzania.

    In fact, the Pew Forum on Religious and Public life conducted 25,000 face-to-face interviews in 19 African nations and found that among them, Tanzanians hold the strongest belief in witchcraft.

    It says 60% of the Tanzanians interviewed believe that sacrifices to ancestors or spirits can protect them from harm, and that many Christians and Muslims incorporate elements of traditional African beliefs into their daily lives.

    Dark arts flourished in Tanzania partly because, compared to its neighbors, it was “less colonized” by European powers, explains Joachim Mwami of Dar Es Salaam University.

    The anthropology professor says for centuries, witchcraft has “served to explain anything inexplicable,” in rural villages like a severely sick child or strange illness.

    Professor Mwami admitted that, “even in my own family, I was advised [as a child] not to visit certain relatives considered to be witches,” even though there was no proof.

    He says without access to education, people are more likely to follow the claims of traditional healers and pass down those beliefs to the next generation.

    Students at Dar Es Salaam University were reluctant to talk about opinions relating to witchcraft. Some explained, even if they don’t personally believe in the practice, their relatives take it seriously.
    Others feel one must believe in the practice for it to have any power over them.

    So even with a university education, some students retain some faith in witchcraft.

    CNN

  • Chris Brown To Perform in Uganda

    Uganda Entertainment industry has definately evolved so quickly….there have been several international superstars performing in Kampala city..

    This year in December US star performer Chris Brown will entertain Ugandans on December 21.
    cbreezy.jpg

  • President Kibaki Warns Against Mombasa Independence

    President Mwai Kibaki has once again warned the Mombasa Republican Council that his government will not tolerate calls for secession.

    The president, who spoke when he led the nation in commemorating Mashujaa Day, warned that his administration will not tolerate any groups that threaten the country’s security.

    “As a government we will take firm and decisive action in dealing with those who have issued threats of secession or those who threaten our security. Kenya is one unitary state. The Constitution is clear on that and so is our history. Let us learn from that history and not seek to distort it and let us respect our Constitution,” he warned.

    “Let it be known to those who seek to harm us that we will not relent in the work we have begun. We shall get the job done, until we have order and security,” further warned the president saying that he intends to abide by the oath he took to defend the Constitution and the people of Kenya.

    President Kibaki spoke a day after a magistrate in Mombasa declared the MRC unlawful and ordered the police to arraign all its leaders in court to face charges of being members of the banned group.

    Mombasa Chief Magistrate Stephen Riech who declared the group illegal following a successful application by the State, said all its leaders – including those who are in remand after failing to raise bonds of Sh2 million each for incitement and firearm possession charges – will face fresh indictment.

    On Saturday, President Kibaki further called on Kenyans work closely with security forces and the Provincial Administration in order to flush out dangerous elements who threaten Kenya’s security.

    The Commander in Chief of the armed forces congratulated the Kenyan Defence Forces for their role in liberating Somalia from the Al Shabaab – for over a year now – as well as internal security agencies that have continued ward off threats of terrorism.

  • Oil Production To Resume Immidiately in South Sudan

    South Sudan issued an order October 18, instructing foreign and national companies involved in oil industry to immediately resume production and exports through the territory of neigbouring Sudan.

    Stephen Dhieu Dau, South Sudan’s Minister of Petroleum and Mining on Thursday said the government had completed assessing all oil infrastructures located in the world’s youngest nation and was technically ready to recommence operations within three months.

    Production was halted at the beginning of the year over a transit fee disputed between the two countries. South Sudan split from Sudan in July 2011 without bilateral agreements on oil and other issues leading to a conflict over a disputed border area in April this year.

  • DRC to Connect to Submarine Optical Fiber

    DRC is expected to get connected to the Optical fiber The Managing Director of the Company Congolese General of Posts and Telecommunications (SCPT), Placide Mbatika said October 18.

    Mbatika said the work of installing transmission equipment will start next Monday at the Moanda landing station, where the DRC must be connected to the optical fiber.

    According to Mbatika, the connection to the optical fiber must be made two weeks after the beginning of this work.

    However,Mbatika said that the commercialization of the connection will begin three months later.

    DRC missed a first opportunity to connect to the fiber in May. Thirteen other African countries had done at the start of the project WACS (West African Cable system submarin).

    This project Telecom giant MTN aims to connect fourteen African countries to use fiber optic broadband internet.

    “The DRC has not been connected because we’re a little behind the construction of the landfall to be connected to the optical fiber.

    In two months, the work [construction of this station] will be finished, “said Mbatika who attended the launch of the WACS in South Africa.

    Arrested at the National Assembly in June, about this failure, the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Kin-Kiey Mulumba, said connecting the DRC to the optical fiber was blocked following the hijacking of the US$3 million for this operation.

  • Kenyan Woman Dies After Wedding in Hospital

    A Kenyan woman whose wedding took place in a ward at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi this week, has died.

    Mrs Agnes Wathanu Muchoki, 54, died on Tuesday night after her wedding to her husband, Mr Peter Muchoki, two days earlier.

    During the interview with a Kenyan Press, a tired Mrs Muchoki, who had cancer, had recalled how doctors, relatives, friends and even journalists witnessed the two love-birds tie the knot before hospital chaplain Fr John Kariba.

    On her wedding, Mrs Muchoki said: “It was wonderful… It was nice… In fact I have no words to describe what happened. I have been pestering my husband for a long time to tie the knot.”

    “Oh, the flowers and the cake..I have also been given a marriage certificate as well as the wedding sacrament by my Catholic church,” she added.

    She had said she was looking forward to being discharged from hospital so she could be near her family on her road to recovery.

    In the story, the mother of seven, had appealed to well-wishers to assist her family.

    She said her first born son, who completed his medical laboratory degree course in 2009, remains unemployed.

  • Snake Disrupts Kenya Killings Incquiry

    Proceedings of the Commission of Inquiry into the Tana River clashes were adjourned for 30 minutes on Thursday when a green snake appeared at the roof of the Maridhiano Hall at Minjila, Tana River sending officials scampering for safety.

    Trouble begun with an unusual chirping of birds at the roof of the hall. It attracted those in the hall to look up whereupon they noticed the green serpent coiled on the makuti fronds.

    At that time, the advocate for the Pokomo Council of Elders (Gasa) Mr Joel Obura was in the middle of making an application for the council to be granted full standing to give evidence on the clashes.

    Joint secretary Mr McDonald Oguya sent a notice to the Commission chair Lady Justice Grace Nzioka.

    Lady Nzioka gave the ‘warning snake note’ to Ms Emily Ominde, the assisting commissioner who was sitting beside her. They then waited nervously for Mr Obura to end his submission.

    When he finished, Ms Nzioka gave the assisting counsel Mr Wamuti Ndegwa the opportunity to respond to the application, after which the hearing was adjourned.

    “This Commission adjourns for two or three minutes,” she announced, and with her colleagues quickly dashed out to safety with tension building among participants who had now spotted the reptile.

    Administration Police officer Mr Amin Hussein, from the Minjila DC’s office, climbed on the roof to battle the snake. But it slithered and disappeared into the makuti roofing.

    But that was not the end of drama. The serpent re-appeared after about five minutes causing another round of anxiety.

    The three commissioners, Ms Nzioka, Ms Ominde and Mr Abdulkadir Lorot, were still at their rooms a few meters from the hall and were alerted not to come out yet.

    Pokomo elders present and staff of the Maridhiano CBO Center volunteered to pursue the snake on the roof with sticks. One of them managed to hit it. It was then dumped in a pit latrine ending the drama and to the relief of all.

    The commissioners were called in after at the end of the 30-minute interlude.

  • Mai-Mai Veterans Form New Rebel Group

    Veterans of the Mai-Mai militia have created a new armed group called “Raïa Mukombozi.”

    MONUSCO military spokesman, Lt. Col. Felix Prosper Basse, said, October 17 the leaders of this new armed group intend to fight their former comrades and control Shabunda territory.

    Felix Prosper Basse reveals that the two former executives of Mai-Mai Raïa Mutomboki who created the new militia could not stand the regular clashes between the two factions of their former internal movement.

    “These two factions have been fighting for a long time to control Shabunda, especially control of the mines that are in this area,” he noted.

    It’s alleged that the new armed group wants to recruit in Shabunda, Lt. Col.Felix Basse is very concerned by the situation, announcing that the Congolese military “will soon launch operations in this sector.”

    In September, the Joint United Nations Office for Human Rights (UNJHRO) expressed his concern for violations of human rights committed by militia Raïa Mutomboki between mid-August and early September 2012 in the territory of Masisi in North Kivu.

    The militia was accused of killing dozens of civilians and burned villages.

    The Raïa Mutomboki claim to be a self-defense militia fighting against Rwandan FDLR rebels. But they illustrate regularly abuses against civilians.

    In April 2012, they signed an agreement in principle with the FARDC Shabunda-center for the pacification of the territory.

    The militiamen were committed to disarm and return to civilian life. The military authorities had promised to guarantee security if they laid down their arms. The agreement was never followed.

    In September, the militia had even taken control of some areas of North Kivu including Njingala and Walikale-center, before being dislodged by the FARDC.