Ghana's most wanted gets 70 years.
Ataa Ayi plans to appeal. The man who for years was Ghana's most wanted criminal has been sentenced to 70 years in prison with hard labour. Aryee Aryeety, alias Ataa Ayi, was found guilty of robbing at gunpoint a foreign exchange bureau of $7,000. The 34-year-old also received a concurrent 70 years for conspiracy. His three gang members received two concurrent sentences of 69 years. The 10-month trial has been keenly followed by Ghanaians in one of the country's biggest recent court cases.
The BBC's Kwaku Sakyi-Addo in the capital, Accra, says the robbers, who had pleaded not guilty, seemed stunned when the verdict was announced. Their lawyers say they plan to appeal. The gang are due back in court soon before the same judge along with another gang for allegedly robbing a businesswoman of approximately $70,000 three years ago.
Until a spate of robberies several years ago, Accra was considered to be a very safe city.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Row cuts off Rwanda's air links.
No other companies fly direct from Rwanda to Europe. Rwanda's only air link to Europe has been cut off after a row between the government and the SN Brussels airline. SN Brussels has suspended its flights after one of its planes was impounded in Rwanda last week. Rwanda's foreign minister accused the airline of "disgusting" and "shocking" behaviour - treating European passengers better than Africans. Belgian officials allege the seizure may be linked to the black-listing of a Rwandan air cargo firm last year.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande on Monday said that when the last section of a Brussels-Nairobi-Kigali flight was cancelled, Dutch citizens were put up in a hotel and their connecting flights paid for. He said that Rwandans and Burundians had been left to their own devices. "We find such an attitude unacceptable, condemnable and even disgusting," he said.The flight was cancelled after a SN Brussels plane was grounded in Kigali for three days last week, with Rwanda citing safety concerns.
This caused outrage in Belgium and Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt telephoned Rwanda's President Paul Kagame in a bid to get the plane freed. Rwandan officials denied that the SN Brussels plane was grounded in retaliation for Belgium's ban on Rwanda's Silverback Cargo Freighters last year. Rwanda used to be a Belgian colony.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
South African singer found dead.
An award-winning South African singer has been found dead by staff in a hotel room in Johannesburg. Twenty-seven year old R&B singer Tsakani Mhinga, aka TK, won three South African music awards in recent years. Her record company Electromode Music announced her death, describing it as a "devastating loss to the music world - TK will be sorely missed."
Fellow musicians, who were with her the evening before, reported that she seemed to have been depressed. A police spokesperson said she was found by hotel staff covered by a sheet and lying on the bed. "There were no marks on her body and no signs of forced entry into the room or a struggle," police Captain Schalk Bornman told South African media. She leaves behind a young son.
"TK lived a full life as a talented performer, a mother, a sister, a daughter and a friend to many," said an Electromode Music statement.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Posted by: Mara at February 28, 2006 13:38 |
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africa
Jailbreak during election party.
President Museveni won last Thursday's election. More than 400 Ugandan inmates escaped from a prison at the weekend, as guards celebrated President Yoweri Museveni's election triumph. As guards partied in Arua, some 600km north-west of the capital, inmates pulled down a fence and ran to freedom. "They escaped right after the announcement that President Museveni had won and the celebration was noisy," prisons chief Johnson Byabasaija said. Many local residents fled fearing war had erupted when they heard gun shots. The incident is the second recent election-related jailbreak.
On election day, last Thursday, some 80 prisoners in northern Uganda escaped from a work party - having taking advantage of distractions over voting and the transfer of prison guards to protect polling stations. Security forces are still trying to recapture the Arua escapees, who include five people convicted on treason charges, the prisons chief told AFP news agency. A Ugandan radio station reports that 60 of them have been recaptured.
BBC NEWS REPORT
Reprieve for disabled Kenyan.
Disability rights campaigner Peter Gichura was released on Friday. A disabled Kenyan man who was about to be deported from the UK has been released from a Home Office detention centre in west London. Peter Gichura - a wheelchair user - was being held at Harmondsworth Detention Centre, but was not deported as expected on Thursday evening. His lawyer applied to delay proceedings while a fresh application for asylum was considered. The Home Office denied the centre was unsuitable for a wheelchair user.
Campaigners had been lobbying the Home Office on Mr Gichura's behalf. It was claimed that Mr Gichura was denied access to appropriate medication. The Home Office had refused to comment on Mr Gichura's case, but said the Harmondsworth detention centre - in which he was being held - was wheelchair accessible. Representations were made to Home Office ministers by the disability charity, Leonard Cheshire, and Mr Gichura's MP, Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks.
Speaking shortly after his release, Mr Gichura thanked those who had been campaigning on his behalf. "At the detention centre, despite being dependent on my wheelchair, I was detained in an inaccessible environment," he said. "I could barely open the door of my room, was locked out from using the toilet and they had no facilities to allow me to bathe." He says he will fight to stay in the UK and will campaign to change the asylum laws so that others are not subjected to the same "racism and heartlessness" which he says are part of the immigration process.
The Home Office, in a statement, said that due care and attention was always given to the health and welfare of anyone in detention. And it says that Harmondsworth is suitable for wheelchair users."Detainees who use a wheelchair are able to access all levels of Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre," the statement said. "The dining hall, association rooms and the courtyard at Harmondsworth are all accessible from the ground floor, and a detainee who uses a wheelchair will be provided a room on the ground floor." Mr Gichura became disabled in 1990 after falling from a tree while trying to escape from the police following a political demonstration.
He then began to support himself as a street hawker, and formed a disability rights organisation of which he became chairman. Mr Gichura says that because of his political activism, he was frequently arrested and beaten. He said he also received a death threat from a senior government official. Along with fellow campaigners, Mr Gichura says he was forced to leave Kenya because of the violence and intimidation. He arrived in London in June 2001. Mr Gichura has now submitted a new application for asylum, based on the lack of access to the healthcare in Kenya that he needs to survive.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
POPE PIUS V EXCOMMUNICATED, ON THIS DAY,
QUEEN ELIZABETH 1 IN 1570!
Posted by: Mara at February 25, 2006 21:43 |
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Zimbabwe faction chooses leader.
Morgan Tsvangirai led the MDC since it was formed six years ago. A breakaway faction of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has chosen an ex-student leader as its president. Arthur Mutambara was elected unopposed at a meeting of 3,000 of the faction's supporters in the city of Bulawayo. Mr Mutambara led student protests against state corruption in the 1980s. He returned to Zimbabwe recently after being in South Africa for 15 years.
The MDC split has weakened opposition to President Mugabe, observers say. The MDC, led since it was formed in 1999 by Morgan Tsvangirai, divided into two hostile camps last year when differences emerged over whether to contest senate elections. The breakaway faction, known as the pro-Senate group, has accused Mr Tsvangirai of arrogance and failing to accept his party's decisions. In front of several thousand delegates, Mr Mutambara promised to take the opposition forward in its efforts to oust Robert Mugabe, who turned 82 this week.
Mr Mutambara returned to Zimbabwe saying the MDC needed new leaders after several years of in-fighting over political strategy. He is a member of the majority Shona ethnic group - seen by many analysts as essential for any party leader. Mr. Tsvangirai's MDC faction will hold its own party leadership congress in mid-March.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
The Earth Moved.
Dear Family and Friends,
Something amazing happened in Zimbabwe this week. On Wednesday night at 20 minutes past midnight the earth shook for a few minutes. The earthquake which measured 7.5 on the Richter scale was centred in Espungabera, a small farming town in a remote area of Mozambique near the Zimbabwe border. The earthquake was felt as far as 1000 kilometres away from the epicentre. In north east Zimbabwe beds shook, furniture trembled and glasses and plates tinkled on shelves in cupboards. Many of us heard a rushing noise like a high wind just as the shaking started and had no idea about what to do or where to go to be safe. It was a confusing and frightening experience, exacerbated by our ignorance as earthquakes are virtually unknown in Zimbabwe.
At 6am the following morning, the obvious place to get news and information about the strange shaking in the night, was the state owned radio and television. I listened in confusion and disbelief as the headline morning news wasn't about an earthquake, tremors or shaking but about the "unbundling" of Air Zimbabwe into six individual companies. This "unbundling" is the latest phenomenon of loss making government companies here. Instead of being closed down or privatized, these huge debt ridden establishments are split up into lots of different little companies. 'Unbundling' is the 'Zim-glish' word that had sprung up to describe this strange activity which I suppose is undertaken to share the debts and make the losses look smaller than they actually are. The second story on the first news bulletin of the day was about some scandal with a stripper on Valentines Day and still not about an earthquake and so I gave up and went looking for news elsewhere.
For one day, we had something else to talk about in Zimbabwe, something other than massive price rises and inflation that is going up faster than anyone can cope with. In queues everywhere, whether for passport forms, cash machines or petrol, a strange shaking in the middle of the night was the only topic of conversation and it brought Zimbabweans together. Everyone, everywhere was talking about the earthquake but by lunch time it was still not making headline news on state owned television which was now talking about bumper harvests and the Presidents 82nd birthday party. On Thursday evening, 18 hours after the earthquake, I was forced to give up trying to find out about the tremors as the electricity had gone off - again. A lot of people were worried about aftershocks but we were mostly in the dark - literally and figuratively. For six hours the next night, sitting in the dark with only the sound of hordes of screeching mosquitoes it was hard not to think scary and superstitious thoughts as we waited for more shaking. When the power did finally come back on the television was again talking about the the nationwide celebrations planned to commemorate President Mugabe's 82nd birthday party. It seems that even the earth moving does match the importance of birthdays.
Until next week, love cathy
Shell told to pay Nigeria $1.5bn.
Shell facilities have been attacks in the Niger Delta. A Nigerian court has ordered oil multinational Shell to pay $1.5bn to the Ijaw people of the Delta region. The Ijaw have been fighting since 2000 for compensation for environmental degradation in the oil-rich region. They took the case to court after Shell refused to make the payment ordered by Nigeria's parliament. Ijaw militants have staged a spate of attacks against Shell facilities recently and are holding seven foreign oil workers hostage.
Shell intends to appeal against the judgement. Shell's lawyers argued in the federal court in Port Harcourt that joint committee of the National Assembly that made the order in 2000 did not have the power to compel the oil company to make the payment. But Judge Okechukwu Okeke said since the National Assembly had made the order after having listened to both sides, and that the committee set was comprised impartial officials, and that both feuding sides agreed to go before the legal committee, the order was therefore binding on the two sides.
Nigeria is one of the world's biggest oil exporters but despite its oil wealth, many Nigerians live in abject poverty.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
SA beer fails to qualify for 2010.
SABMiller owns Miller Lite as well as local brands like Castle. The World Cup in South Africa is four years away - but the country's beer has been knocked out during qualifying. American giant Budweiser has gained the exclusive rights to sell beer inside 2010 World Cup stadiums. Local brands met the same fate as the national side, which made an early exit from the recent Cup of Nations and failed to reach the 2006 World Cup. SABMiller, the biggest local brewer, says it does not have a suitable brand for the $100m sponsorship deal. "SABMiller does not have any international beer brands that sponsor football - consequently, this would not be an appropriate venture for us," head of media relations Nigel Fairbrass told the BBC News website.
Fifa says SABMiller was approached as a potential sponsor but did not respond. "We waited for three months for them to respond, and they did not, so we signed with Budweiser," Jerome Valcke, chief executive officer of Fifa Marketing and TV, told a seminar this week. Mr Fairbrass said he was not aware of SABMiller having been approached, but said that would not have changed the company's position with respect to the sponsorship. SABMiller, now the world's second-largest brewer, was formed from a merger between South African Breweries and United States-based Miller. In South Africa, it markets long-established SAB beers such as Castle and Amstel, as well as international brands such as Miller Genuine Draft and Pilsner Urquell that arrived in South Africa as a result of the merger.
BBC NEW REPORT.
Strong quake hits southern Africa .
At least two Mozambicans have died and 13 been injured as an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 shook southern Africa. The quake struck central Mozambique at midnight local time and was also felt in several neighbouring countries including Zimbabwe and South Africa. It is the most powerful earthquake in the area for more than a century.The two dead were a child and a sick person in the town of Espungabero in Manica province near the epicentre. Cities escaped serious damage. Traditional houses collapsed in Espungabero says the BBC's Jose Tembe.
Further south in the capital, Maputo, one resident living on the 24th floor of a block of flats said he woke to find his building swaying. There are no reports of buildings damaged in Maputo, but 15 people in the city were injured, most of them while trying to get out of buildings in panic. In Espungabero, officials confirmed 13 injuries. In Zimbabwe, the quake was felt most strongly in the eastern city of Mutare, near the Mozambique border, but also as far west as Gweru in central Zimbabwe. "It sounded like an explosion, but I haven't heard of any casualties," said a journalist in Mutare who spoke to Reuters news agency by telephone.
Major earthquakes are unusual in southern Africa. "It's a significant and unexpected earthquake in this region," William Leith of the United States Geological Survey told Reuters. "We'll expect aftershocks from an earthquake this large." Officials in Mozambique's Manica province, where the earthquake was centred, were assessing damage but communication were difficult, provincial governor Raimundo Diomba said. "We have no human or material damage to report yet - we sent teams to make a detailed evaluation of the situation," he said.
Emergency services in the South African city of Durban, nearly 1,000km from the epicentre, received calls from frightened people in hotels and flats on the beachfront. BBC World Service listeners in the Swaziland capital, Mbabane, and the central Zambian city of Ndola sent text messages saying they had felt tremors. Tremors were also felt in Johannesburg.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Posted by: Mara at February 23, 2006 12:34 |
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africa
Arrests at Mugabe birthday demo.
Nearly 400 were arrested at last week's protests. Zimbabwe police have detained 73 women at a protest marking President Robert Mugabe's 82nd birthday on Tuesday. A lawyer confirmed the women were still in detention in the capital, Harare, on Wednesday afternoon. They had been calling for changes to the constitution to protect women's rights and other human rights. Nearly 400 women arrested at two separate protests last week have all now been released.
On Tuesday, more than 200 female members of the National Constitutional Assembly - a group lobbying for law reform - began a march to government buildings hoping to meet the president, NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku said in a statement. "In response the police blocked them and started beating them at the Parliament building," the statement read. "Seventy three NCA members were eventually arrested and asked to lie down in the streets near the Africa Unity Square and 12 were seriously injured." The group were still in detention at Harare Central Police Station on Wednesday, lawyer Alec Muchadehama told the BBC News website. Last week, 181 women were detained on Monday in Bulawayo and another group of about 200 were arrested on Tuesday in Harare, during protests in the two cities demanding better living conditions.
ZIMBABWE CRISIS
Life expectancy 30 years
3m expecting food aid
20% adult HIV prevalence
3,000 Aids deaths each week
500,000 left homeless this year
200,000 lost livelihoods
Inflation has reached 600%
Crisis compounded by drought
Both protests were organised by the pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza). The Bulawayo group was released after being held overnight. The Harare detainees were released on Friday, and are expected to appear in court next week charged with disturbing the peace, Otto Saki of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights told the BBC News website. The protests came as inflation hit 613% - the second highest rate in its history and the current world highest. Zimbabwe's economy has been in sharp decline for more than six years. Under Zimbabwean laws, public demonstrations require police clearance and unauthorised gatherings are frequently broken up.
BBC NEWS REPORT
More riots over SA province shift.
Residents of South Africa's Khutsong township have rioted in protest at their area being incorporated into a different province. The latest riots began on Sunday and continued on Monday night, with houses burnt and stones thrown, police said. Khutsong, west of Johannesburg, is currently in Gauteng province, but is to be moved to North-West province. Khutsong residents fear they will receive inferior services if their area is moved to North-West. President Thabo Mbeki, campaigning for local polls due on 1 March, said police must act to quell the recent unrest.
Twenty-eight people are due to appear in court on Tuesday in connection with weekend violence, and more were arrested on Monday evening. "Five people were arrested for stone throwing and tyre burning and a house was petrol bombed," Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht told the South African Press Association. Speaking to the BBC, President Thabo Mbeki said that what has been happening in Khutsong is thoroughly unacceptable. He said protestors had a right to express themselves but it was wrong for them to use violence to intimidate those who held an opposing view. "Certainly it can't be allowed that people go around burning other people's houses, stoning people and so on," he said. "These are criminal acts. I've spoken to the minister of safety and security to say that we can't allow criminal acts to be perpetrated like this. So the police have to act."
Rioting first broke out in Khutsong in December, and has resumed apparently in response to campaigning for the countrywide municipal elections on 1 March. The protestors in Khutsong had earlier said they would not allow the ANC to campaign for the municipal elections, since they blame the governing party for the decision to change the provincial border. The ANC national chairman, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, has been in the area in an effort to calm the atmosphere.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Lithuania warms to African band
By Laura Sheeter - BBC News, Vilnius.
Afroband say they are hoping to create a Lithuanian fusion music. It is late on a Friday night in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius. The streets are freezing as the temperature falls to a bone-chilling -20C and it starts to snow. But inside a small bar in the city centre the rhythms of West Africa are warming a crowd who clap enthusiastically in time to the music. They have come to see one of the most talked-about new groups in Lithuania - Afroband. The group is only three months old, but it already has a strong following. Its gigs sell out fast, and its popularity is being fuelled by media coverage. Afroband has played on national TV and radio several times, providing the music for a political talk show about immigration and jamming live with some of Lithuania's most popular musicians.
But it is not just Afroband's music that is getting Lithuanians excited. The group has a remarkable story too. The band was born in the Pabrade centre for immigrants, home at the time for its four members, who arrived here from Liberia, Nigeria and Togo. The lead singer has since got a Lithuanian visa and moved out, but the rest of Afroband are still waiting for permission to stay. In a country whose population is overwhelmingly white, it is rare to see a black person, even in Vilnius. New immigrants who are starting to arrive in Lithuania from Africa and Asia are often met with amazement on the streets. The members of Afroband say people tell them they have never seen a black person before. Plazi, the band's lead singer, says that he thinks exposure to Afroband's music is changing some people's minds about immigrants to Lithuania.
"It's hard, there are very few of us here, and for some it is the first time they are seeing black, so you can see through their eyes that they are surprised," he says. "But what we are doing gives them interest. That's why we have a good relationship with them." The band members hope that they will eventually all receive permission to stay in Lithuania and build a future. Their band, they say, is not African, but Lithuanian. "It was born here and will grow here," says Plazi. And, they say, they want to collaborate with other local musicians, to create fusion music. Whatever the future for their musical career, Afroband's popularity is a sign of change in Lithuania as the country, which is for the first time receiving immigrants from across the world, starts to embrace their cultures as part of its own.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Posted by: Mara at February 21, 2006 18:01 |
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africa
Thandie Newton's unhurried success.
Thandie Newton has a Zimbabwean mother and British father.
Thandie Newton has won the best supporting actress Bafta for her role in Crash after developing her film career over 16 unhurried years. Newton's portrayal of the forthright Christine, whose racial prejudices are challenged in Crash, further develops upon her arresting debut in 1991's Flirting. She was born Thandiwe Newton in November 1972 in Zambia, to a Zimbabwean mother and a British father. She has been known as Thandie - pronounced "tandy" - throughout her acting career. Newton lived in a "cosmopolitan hippie community" in Lusaka, Zambia, until her family moved to Penzance in Cornwall when she was five. "When we moved to England there were very few black people in the town," she told the New York Times "We were almost a novelty." Nevertheless Newton said she "never really experienced racial hassle" and went into the arts "where difference is celebrated".
KEY FILMS
2004 Crash
2000 Mission: Impossible II
1998 Beloved
1995 Jefferson in Paris
1991 Flirting
At 11 she studied modern dance at Hertfordshire's Arts Education School. However, a back injury prevented her from pursuing a dance career and she won her first film role in Flirting after auditioning on a whim. Set in 1960s Australia, it was the sequel to director John Duigan's The Year My Voice Broke. It co-starred 19-year-old Newton as a student who arrives from Uganda and embarks upon a problematic romance with Noah Taylor's Danny. A surprise hit, Flirting also featured Nicole Kidman as Newton's school friend Nicola.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Posted by: Mara at February 21, 2006 02:48 |
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africa
By Tim Vickery - South American football reporter.
Assistant coach Hugo Tocalli's Argentina face Ivory Coast at the World Cup. Egypt may have won the African Cup of Nations - but Argentina also came away from the tournament in profit. The South Americans had the chance to take a long, hard look at Ivory Coast, their opening World Cup opponents.
Just as well, because otherwise they might have taken some basic misconceptions along with them on the road to Hamburg on 10 June. Argentina's assistant coach Hugo Tocalli went to the draw last December. "Ivory Coast attack a lot and don't defend very much," was his instant verdict on his side's first Group C rivals. Six games in Egypt later, Argentina have been alerted to the fact that the truth is very different.
The Elephants, as shown in game after game, defend deep and look to attack quickly, in moves of one or two passes that set free their dangerous strikers. The ideal Ivory Coast goal was the semi-final winner against Nigeria; one long, diagonal pass from deep putting Didier Drogba clear of the entire opposing defence. Coach Henry Michel's Ivory Coast team are counter-attack specialists. It means that the 10 June meeting has the potential to be a terrific game. Styles makes fights, as the boxing writers say. The current Argentina side do not base their game on rapid breaks or on set-pieces. They look to have as much possession as possible, dictate the rhythm of the game and pass their way through the opposition. They are like an old-fashioned boxer who wears down his adversary by controlling the centre of the ring. Didier Drogba epitomises Ivory Coast's direct approach. So 10 June then, matches the puncher against the counter-puncher.
Twelve years ago such a clash of styles produced a masterpiece. In USA 94, Alfio Basile's Argentina side, like José Pekerman's current outfit, had a similar romantic approach to the game. They were an adventurous and attractive passing team. In the second round in Los Angeles they came up against Romania, who, with the skill and shrewdness of Gheorghe Hagi and the speed of Ilie Dumitrescu, were lethal on the break. Romania won 3-2, although it could have gone either way. Whoever won, it was far and away the outstanding game of the tournament. The clash of styles made for a marvellous contest.
If Argentina against Ivory Coast is anything like as good then Germany 2006 will have got off to a wonderful start. I would also hope that this time the counter-attacking team do not prevail. This wish is not founded on any South American loyalty. Instead, it is based on loyalty to football. Increasingly, in international tournaments the road more travelled by is the less risky one - sit back, take few risks, strike on the break. I truly believe that the game will be all the better if sides with Argentina's current approach - wherever they come from - are successful in Germany this June. By no means have all Argentina sides upheld such high-minded principles of the joys of the passing game but it is part of their mix, part of their self-expression, part of their footballing identity. I wonder - and please let me stress that I am posing the question rather than making any definitive statement - if some of the African sides are in danger of losing their own identity.
Perhaps, traumatised by all those accusations of naivety, they have gone too far in the other direction. Maybe they have turned to European coaches, who have brought them organisation but have stifled their self-expression, magic and unpredictability. It would be fantastic if there were plenty of all three of these things from both sides on 10 June when Argentina meet Ivory Coast with World Cup points at stake.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Tear gas fired at Besigye rally.
Kizza Besigye says his supporters are being intimidated by the army. Ugandan police have used tear gas and water cannon to break up the last rally of opposition leader Kizza Besigye before Thursday's election. The police say they needed to clear the crowd from the main road but the opposition says it is intimidation. Correspondents say stones were thrown before the police fired tear gas. Dr Besigye is expected to pose the strongest challenge to President Yoweri Museveni in Uganda's first multi-party poll in a generation. "This is just sabotage," said a parliamentary candidate for Dr Besigye's party. "They are scared of the popularity of Besigye," Umah Tete Nelson said, reports the AP news agency. But Kampala Regional Police Commander Oyo Nyeko told the AFP news agency that the police were acting according to "clear guidelines". Mr Museveni defeated Dr Besigye at the last election. "We don't want processions, we don't want hooliganism."
The BBC's Adam Mynott at the scene says the crowd scattered quickly after the tear gas was fired - many back into the stadium where the rally was due to take place. Dr Besigye is understood to have gone to complain to the Ugandan electoral commissioner. Over the weekend, seven people were hurt after a convoy of army trucks ploughed into a crowd of Dr Besigye's supporters. The army says the injuries were caused by a stampede. Last week, Dr Besigye urged his supporters to exercise restraint after two of his supporters were shot dead. He alleged that the violence was part of a military campaign to intimidate his supporters. Dr Besigye lost the 2001 elections to Mr Museveni and then went into exile, saying he feared for his life. He returned last year and was arrested on charges of treason and rape. He denies having links to rebel groups. Mr Museveni has been holding his own rally in the same district of the capital. The president defended his record on security saying they had been able to maintain "core security" for 20 years despite problems in neighbouring countries.
BBV NEWS REPORT.
Rwanda fired up by methane plans - By Robert Walker In Kigali.
As part of the BBC's Fuelling the Future season, Rob Walker looks at plans in Rwanda for exploiting methane from the bottom of a lake in order to boost the country's faltering electricity supply.
Rwandans are struggling to make ends meet in the energy crisis. Rwanda is gradually shaking off the horrors of the genocide in 1994 which shaped the image of the country for years. The economy is being rebuilt but recovery is slow as daily life reveals. Trade is brisk in Felix Akiba's barber shop in the centre of the capital, Kigali. A line of customers chat and read newspapers while waiting their turn under the expert clippers of Felix and his fellow barbers. But suddenly the electricity is cut, and Felix's clients have to wait while he coaxes a small and ancient generator into life. "It is difficult to make a good profit. We have to pay for the fuel to run the generator, buy oil, it is very expensive." Rwanda has made strides in rebuilding infrastructure after the devastation of the genocide in 1994.
Lake Kivu may offer a solution to Rwanda's energy woes. Kigali is expanding rapidly with multi-storey buildings and new housing estates springing up. But just as the country needs it most, hydro-electricity production has crashed, resulting in frequent power cuts over the past 18 months. The cause of the crisis lies north of the capital, among lush green hills and extinct volcanoes wreathed in cloud. Here, the reservoirs which are the source of Rwanda's hydro-power are drying up. A dip in rainfall in recent years means less water flowing into the reservoirs at the same time as power stations have been sucking more out of them to meet the spiralling demand for energy. Now water levels have reached a critical point, and power stations are only able to run at half capacity.
Construction is springing up all over the place in the capital."As demand has grown, we have operated the machines for too much of the time until now we are at a situation where we have to reduce generation so we match water coming in," said Brian Allan, Director of Electricity at the national electricity company, Electrogaz. But now there are hopes of a solution and it comes from a surprising source - the bottom of Lake Kivu, a huge inland lake running along Rwanda's western border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Three hundred metres below the surface are an estimated 55 billion cubic metres of methane gas.
The Rwandan government has signed an $80m deal with an international consortium, Dane Associates, to start exploiting the methane. The aim is to double Rwanda's electricity supply within two years. But in the longer term, the potential is even higher. Methane could increase Rwanda's energy production by more than 20 times. "We are talking of more than 700 megawatts of energy supply which goes far beyond what our country needs. It could be used for export purposes, or regional sharing," said Albert Butare, Minister of Energy. The technology required is already available. A brewery next to Lake Kivu has used methane from a pilot plant to power its boilers for more than two decades. It could even turn Rwanda from a net importer of electricity to a source of power for the whole region.
And the process of extracting the gas is surprisingly simple. Pipes suck up water rich in methane from the bottom of the lake. Then the gas is separated out and dried, leaving almost pure methane. The length of time taken to start exploiting the gas on a meaningful scale has provoked scepticism among Rwanda's long suffering consumers about whether an end to power cuts and high electricity bills is really in sight. But if the new project succeeds, it could finally offer businesses like Felix Akiba's barber shop more reliable power and higher profits. And it could even turn Rwanda from a net importer of electricity to a source of power for the whole region.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
The cost of corruption in Africa.
Many African countries are conducting anti-corruption campaigns. Corruption costs African countries an estimated 25% of its combined national income, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said - some $148bn a year. The outgoing leader of the African Union called the problem "a preventable loss" and said that industries such as oil, gas and minerals were worst hit. He blamed "unpatriotic citizens", who he said were looting African resources. The West was collaborating, he added, by allowing the proceeds from graft to be held in banks outside Africa. Speaking at the the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) in Abuja, Mr Obasanjo promised a "war against corruption" in Nigeria, which is notorious for graft. Unpatriotic citizens in our midst loot our resources and cart the proceeds away into Western banks said Olusegun Obasanjo.
Mr Obasanjo said revenue from extractive industries - mining and oil production - was "a major contributor to this monumental and preventable loss".
"The popular 'paradox of poverty in the midst of plenty' is a daily experience in many African countries rich in oil, gas and minerals," the president said. "The majority of citizens in these countries still lack basic health and educational facilities."
EITI was formed as part of an effort to oblige governments to open their oil accounts to scrutiny, and to hold them accountable for their income. "Unpatriotic citizens in our midst loot our resources and cart the proceeds away into Western banks with the collaboration of Western financial systems," Mr Obasanjo said, in comments quoted by the This Day newspaper. "When we signed into EITI in 2003, we resolved to implement it through a model of coalition." President Obasanjo blamed the prevalence of corruption revealed by recent audits on the "institutional decay and dislocation that our country suffered over the last two decades". "Our challenge is to use the impetus granted us by these audits to transform our revenue reporting mechanisms, production institutions and human personnel for a more transparent extractive industry," he said. He said civil society organisations could serve as "whistle blowers that can complement our anti-corruption drive".
BBC NEWS REPORT.
Good Lord Deliver Us
Saturday 18th February 2006
Dear Family and Friends,
The Litany Bird is back in my neighbourhood this week and it is cause for considerable comfort to hear its voice these evenings. The fiery necked nightjar is a nocturnal bird and lays its eggs on the ground amongst a small scratch of leaves. Its piercing call, such a familiar Zimbabwean sound in the early evenings and on moonlit nights, is matched to the words Good Lord Deliver Us. It is amazing that the nightjars have managed to survive another year in our dirty, plundered and ravaged semi urban environment. They have survived the fires that scorched every inch of bush 6 months ago. They have survived the endless flow of men, women and children who walk out into the bush every day with axes to chop trees, hoes to dig roots and packets to collect mushrooms and fruits. The Litany Birds have miraculously survived the boys who aren't in school anymore because the fees are just too expensive; boys who harvest birds with catapaults and boys who climb trees to take eggs and fledglings in every nest they find. The Litany Birds have also survived the unemployed young men who walk into the bush in small groups every day. They are armed with crude home made weapons and follow lean and fearsome packs of hunting dogs which flush out every living creature.
This February the Litany Birds are back, they have survived the piles of garbage dumped in the bush, the people and the plunder and they cry out defiantly every evening. Their voices give hope for a similar resilience for our people and country.
The call of the Litany Birds is particularly appropriate for Zimbabwe this week. Over 150 women in Bulawayo and 240 in Harare were arrested for trying to march on Valentines Day. Unarmed women, calling only for dignity and food were arrested. Some of the women carried babies, they too were taken into police cells. As I sat in the dark this week, in these evenings of incessant power cuts, I listened to the Litany Bird calling out Good Lord Deliver Us and I struggled to find peace. It was hard not to think of ordinary women: mothers, daughters, sisters, some with babies - crammed into police cells. I feel such shame that things like this are happening in our beautiful country and so ashamed that for 6 years we have watched helpless, rudderless and aimless as everything has deteriorated to the most appalling levels.
In one week in Zimbabwe there are now so many horrors that it is hard to accept that such things can really be happening. This week we hear that the Gweru mortuary which can only hold 24 bodies, has over 100 corpses in it. State media reports that the cooling plant in the mortuary has broken and that nurses and doctors are complaining of the smell. This week we hear municipal authorities in Harare blaming overflowing sewers and burst pipes in the Capital city on dumped babies and aborted foetuses. The cold, callous and inhumane way in which the reports are presented are almost as unbearable as the facts they tell of. Good Lord Deliver Us.
