20100814
reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States expressed concern on Friday about "disturbing events" surrounding this week's presidential election in Rwanda in which incumbent Paul Kagame drew 93 percent of the votes.

20100814
reuters

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. humanitarian chief on Friday urged Sudanese authorities to allow humanitarian aid workers into a Darfur refugee camp that they have been prevented from entering for nearly two weeks.

20100814
reuters

NTANANARIVO (Reuters) - Madgascar's President Andry Rajoelina signed a deal late on Friday with dozens of minor parties aimed at ending a protracted political crisis, but the pact was rejected by the country's main opposition leaders.

20100814
ANC

A letter from the President of the African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, carried on the party's website:

20100814
This Day

Abuja — President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday directed the Minister of Defence and Service Chiefs to ensure that necessary structures are put in place to enable the Armed Forces remain "resolutely focused" on their constitutional duty of defending Nigeria's territorial integrity and protecting its democratic institutions.

20100814
Nation

New York — President Barack Obama's special envoy for Sudan may soon be nominated to replace Michael Ranneberger as US ambassador to Kenya, a Washington-based blogger reported on Friday.

20100814
africanews

A total of 124 Nigerians have been deported from London following issues of indistinctness in their travel documents.

20100814
africanews

A Rwandan opposition leader Victoire Ingabire has called on the international community, which provides half of the country's budget, to reject President Paul Kagame's re-election.

5060101
Together, they cut the image of four innocent youths—only until they narrated how they planned and executed the bomb attacks that left 76 people dead in Kampala last month.

Paraded before journalists in Kampala yesterday by military intelligence officials, the suspects accused of masterminding the attacks in Kabalagala and Kyadondo Rugby Club, gave chilling narrations of how serving as al Shabaab conduits, they meted death and misery in Kampala.

al Shabaab factor
Their suspected coordinator, Mr Issa Ahmed Luyima, spoke of how he had joined the Somali terrorist outfit in 2009 and participated in fighting Ugandan-led peacekeepers in Mogadishu.
The 33-year-old Luyima, speaking with a straight face, revealed how he recruited his brother, Hassan Haruna Luyima, into the mission after two suicide bombers disagreed with him and went back to Kenya.

“I was forced to recruit my brother after two of the suicide bombers left because they said they were not getting enough information on the preparations of the attack,” he told journalists; his face betraying no emotion.
It is the younger Luyima who was tasked with the aborted attack on Makindye House and also helped a Somali suicide bomber blow himself up at the Ethiopian Restaurant in Kabalagala, a Kampala suburb.

But for the third suspect, Mr Edris Nsubuga, it was a battle of emotions as he broke down while narrating how he travelled with a Somali suicide bomber from Namasuba, a city suburb, to Kyadondo where they committed the grisly act.

The Bachelor of Commerce student at Makerere University described himself as an evil man who caused misery to Ugandans. “I am very sorry for the loss of life that happened because of my actions. I’m an evil man,” he said amid sobs.

Mr Nsubuga said he detonated the second bomb at exactly 11:15pm, using a phone a few seconds after the suicide bomber blew up himself. There were two bomb explosions at Kyadondo.

Preparations
Asked about what punishment he thought he deserves, Mr Nsubuga said, “I want my life but let the law take its course,” as he wiped away tears. The narration indicates that the attackers rented a house in Namasuba where the planning, assembling and testing of the bombs was done for days before the attack.

The fourth suspect, Mr Mohamoud Mugisha, whose parents migrated from Rwanda, joined Al Shabaab in 2008 in Nairobi. His brief, he said involved looking for a house in which the terrorist cell would work.

His first choice, a house in Nakulabye, was rejected by his bosses in Kenya because there were soldiers living in the neighbourhood. The military intelligence boss, Brig. James Mugira, said they had dismantled the network of the terrorists.

“We spent sleepless nights and our efforts have yielded good results. We would like to warn anybody whether inside or outside Uganda not to dare to attack Ugandans,” he said.

5060100 (Uganda)
The mission looked accomplished. Suspects had confessed to the crime but silently, a war was simmering. Who was to take the credit for arresting suspects behind the 7/11 bomb attacks that left 76 people dead?

Yesterday, this clash came to the fore when the police and the army openly feuded on who was to be lauded for apprehending the suspects.
Both security organs held parallel press conferences at about the same time—each seeking to be credited for the accomplishment.

The police chief, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura, who held a press conference at the Uganda Media Centre in Kampala at 12.20pm, said the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, which had paraded the suspects about an hour earlier at its headquarters in Kitante, had acted “unprofessionally”.
“That is unprofessional. I don’t want to argue before the press but we shall sort them out later,” Maj. Gen. Kayihura said after learning of the army briefing.
He wondered how suspects could be paraded when investigations were still ongoing. “This will jeopardise our investigations. Please I plead with you to just give us one day and publish those photographs,” he said.

Maj. Gen. Kayihura learnt later that the information he was reluctant to give had already been given out to the press by the head of CMI, Brig. James Mugira and army and Defence spokesperson Lt. Col. Felix Kulayigye.

He said the police were the lead-agency in hunting for the suspects while the Joint Anti Terrorism Task Force and CMI were “just to keep suspects in custody”.
Brig. Mugira had earlier on paraded four key suspects, given out the details of the investigations and even given them a chance to narrate their alleged operations to the media.

Brig. Mugira told reporters: “We promised the public that we would hunt down the perpetrators. We have kept our promise. We have apprehended all those responsible for the planning and execution of these cowardly attacks.”

Lt. Col. Kulayigye when contacted later said he could not respond to his superiors through the media.

The number of Ugandans who have been condemned to death by hanging in China for trafficking in illegal drugs has risen to 20, the country’s envoy to Beijing has said.

Ambassador Charles Madibo Wagidoso told Ugandan journalists on tour in China that up to 54 nationals are currently behind bars in China.
“It is unfortunate but we have more than 50 Ugandans detained in various prisons in China and counting because just last week another one was arrested,” he said. “Twenty have been sentenced to death and the rest have sentences ranging from 15 years to life imprisonment.”

By 2008, eight Ugandans out of a group of 38 apprehended suspects, had been sentenced to death. The envoy spoke of a worrying trend and said there were indications that more women were getting involved in the dodgy business of narcotics, a trade he admitted is claiming youthful jobless victims. Of the 54 locked up, 25 are women, he revealed.

“They are innocent vulnerable young people,” he said. “All of them below 40 years.”
The convicts are held at prisons in Beijing, China’s capital, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, a city frequently thronged by African businessmen, Mr Wagidoso revealed.
He spoke of a narcotics trafficking racket between drug lords in Kampala, Dubai and Thailand, where unemployed Ugandans are recruited into smuggling the drugs with baits of quick cash.

“These people are out of employment and they are normally paid ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 (between Shs6-10 million) for single transmission,” he said. “To an unemployed person, he sees $5,000 as a fortune and will undertake the risk without weighing the problem.”

Narcotics trade is a matter that has put Ugandan travellers to China on police radars following the first arrests and eventual sentencing of more than a dozen countrymen between September 2006 and December 2007.
Many of the suspects were arrested transporting between 800 grammes to a kilogramme of heroine, crimes that carry a maximum death penalty.

The Ugandan government subsequently engaged in closed negotiations with China to lessen the sentences or repatriate its condemned citizens but the talks appear to have dragged on.

Mr Wagidoso said he was still engaging Beijing. “We are negotiating to see if they can be allowed to be extradited to serve their sentences in Uganda so that they can have access to their relatives and friends so that they can be a little more comfortable.”

The ambassador said: “We are getting a good response from the Chinese government but that is now subject to signing of a consular treaty and extradition treaty. When that happens, then we will be able to firmly move forward.”

The envoy admitted, however, to a an obstacle: “There is also the dilemma for the Chinese government; if they do it for one country, will they do it for all the other countries?”

20100813
reuters

BRAZZAVILLE (Reuters) - Congo Republic will give all public sector workers a 25 percent pay rise to mark the 50th anniversary of its independence from France, the central African country said on Friday.

20100813
reuters

LAGOS (Reuters) - The death toll from the collapse of a multi-storey building in Nigeria's capital Abuja three days ago has climbed to 23 from an initial two, the Nigerian Red Cross said on Friday.

20100813
reuters

LAGOS (Reuters) - The former head of Nigeria's Intercontinental Bank was formally charged on Friday with mismanagement which led to the near collapse of the lender in the run-up to a $4 billion sector-wide bailout.

20100813
reuters

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South African police found four bullet-riddled bodies in an unused shaft of a mine belonging to relatives of Nelson Mandela and President Jacob Zuma, an officer said on Thursday.

20100812
reuters

ABUJA (Reuters) - The chairman of Nigeria's ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) said on Thursday President Goodluck Jonathan had the right to contest elections due next January but stopped short of giving him outright backing.

20100813
reuters

KIGALI (Reuters) - A Rwandan confessed to throwing a grenade in the capital Kigali which killed two people on Wednesday when results showed that President Paul Kagame won re-election by a landslide, police said.

20100813
reuters

PRETORIA (Reuters) - Major South African public sector unions will respond next week to a revised government pay offer, suspending for several days a threatened mass strike they said would bring services to a halt, officials said on Friday.

20100813
reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday met his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, who praised the two nations' "strong and deep friendship" and pledged to boost trade and investment and strengthen political ties.

20100813
reuters

LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia, Africa's largest copper producer, signed an agreement on Friday with two Chinese companies to build a 600 megawatts plant expected to cost $1.5 billion, Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane said.