Most Popular Articles

• Family of DR Congo leader Kabila built fortune:

  Dec 15, 2016 by Admin / 1,151 Views

  

   

  President Joseph Kabila and his family in the Democratic Republic of Congo have created a personal economic empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars, the Bloomberg News agency reported Thursday.

  "Together the Kabilas have built a network of businesses that reaches into every corner of Congo's economy and has brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the family," the US news agency said five days before Kabila's mandate to rule expires.

  "The sprawling network may help explain why the president is ignoring pleas by the (United States), the European Union and a majority of the Congolese people to hand over power next week."

  Bloomberg News stated that the report was based on a year-long investigation by three journalists into the Kabila family's business network in and beyond the mineral-rich yet dirt-poor central African country.

  Backed by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the journalists carried out dozens of interviews in DR Congo, where Kabila came to power in wartime in 2001 after the assassination of his father by a bodyguard.

  The young soldier was later elected twice, but his constitutional mandate expires on December 20, and the results of the last poll in 2011 were rejected by the opposition, while observers decried massive fraud.

  Bloomberg News said the journalists had amassed "hundreds of thousands of pages of corporate documents that show that (Kabila's) wife, two children and eight of his siblings control more than 120 permits to dig gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and other minerals."

  The DRC was swept by two successive wars between 1996 and 2003, hard on the heels of three decades of kleptocratic dictatorship by Mobutu Sese Seko, who was long supported by the West as a regional ally.

  - Family with a finger in every pie -

  The vast country, about two-thirds the size of Western Europe, is known for tremendous wealth in minerals, yet 90 percent of the population lives on less than $1.5 (1.4 euros) a day, according to UN figures.

  Though Kabila's final five-year term runs out next Tuesday, no date has been set for the next election and a contested ruling by the Constitutional Court allows him to stay in power until polls take place.

  Dozens of people have been killed this year during opposition protests against the prolongation of Kabila's rule.

  Since 2003, the Kabila family has established an international business network stretching across at least 70 companies operating in the United States, Panama, Tanzania and the tax haven of Nuie island in the South Pacific as well as in the DRC, according to Bloomberg News.

  Apart from mining interests, "family members also have stakes in banks, farms, fuel distributors, airline operators, a road builder, hotels, a pharmaceutical supplier, travel agencies, boutiques and nightclubs," the report said.

  Asked by AFP to comment on the report, Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende said "You can't stop one of the president's relatives from being ambitious or owning property, let alone from doing business."

  He said the report was yet another instance of the West's campaign to undermine his country.

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• Guards set fire to tires, block gates to 18 prisons in France after 'terror attack'

  Mar 7, 2019 by Admin / 1,134 Views

  

  The entrances to 18 prisons in France were blocked by guards Wednesday who burned tires and other materials at the gates in protest of the stabbing of two colleagues at a jail in the northwest of the country in what has been described as a "terrorist" attack.

   

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• Mugabe: Liberation hero turned despot

  Nov 15, 2017 by Admin / 1,129 Views

  

  Zimbabwe's veteran leader Robert Mugabe once quipped that he'd rule his country until he turned 100.

  But, aged 93, his grip on power seems to be ebbing as tensions erupt between his loyal ZANU-PF party and the military that has helped keep him in office.

  First heralded as a liberator who rid the former British colony Rhodesia of white minority rule, Robert Gabriel Mugabe was soon cast in the role of a despot who crushed political dissent and ruined the national economy.

  The former political prisoner turned guerrilla leader swept to power in 1980 elections after a violent insurgency and economic sanctions forced the Rhodesian government to the negotiating table.

  In office he initially won international plaudits for his declared policy of racial reconciliation and for extending improved education and health services to the black majority.

  But his lustre faded quickly.

  Mugabe took control of one wing in the guerrilla war for independence -- the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and its armed forces -- after his release from prison in 1974.

  His partner in the armed struggle -- the leader of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), Joshua Nkomo -- was one of the early casualties of Mugabe's crackdown on dissent.

  Nkomo was dismissed from government, where he held the home affairs portfolio, after the discovery of an arms cache in his Matabeleland province stronghold in 1982.

  Mugabe, whose party drew most of its support from the ethnic Shona majority, then unleashed his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade on Nkomo's Ndebele people in a campaign known as Gukurahundi that killed an estimated 20,000 suspected dissidents.

  It was the seizure of white-owned farms nearly two decades later that would complete Mugabe's transformation from darling of the West into international pariah -- though his status as a liberation hero still resonates in many parts of Africa.

  Aimed largely at placating angry war veterans who threatened to destabilise his rule, the land reform policy wrecked the crucial agricultural sector, caused foreign investors to flee and helped plunge the country into economic misery.

  At the same time, critics say, Mugabe clung to power through increased repression of human rights and by rigging elections.

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• Ethiopia PM moves to resolve Oromia – Addis Ababa boundary rift

  Mar 10, 2019 by Admin / 1,124 Views

  

  After two days of protest earlier this week, the federal government of Ethiopia has officially responded to the voice of protesters.

   

  The office of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Saturday issued a statement that named a committee to resolve administrative boundary issues between Oromia regional state and the capital, Addis Ababa.

  The federal government is represented on the 8-member committee by Minister of Peace Muferiat Kamil. Addis Ababa deputy mayor Takele Uma Banti is also listed as are three other members of the city administration.

  The Oromia region also has three representatives on the committee including the deputy regional president, Tayiba Hassen, and two other top officials.

   

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• Nigerian army 'crushes' Boko Haram in key stronghold

  Dec 24, 2016 by Admin / 1,116 Views

  

   

  Nigerian army 'crushes' Boko Haram in key stronghold

  Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday claimed the military had routed Boko Haram in a key northeastern stronghold, a year after saying the Islamist militants had been "technically" defeated.

  A campaign lasting for months in the 1,300 square-kilometre (500 square-mile) forest in northeastern Borno state led to the "final crushing of Boko Haram terrorists in their last enclave in Sambisa Forest" on Thursday, Buhari said in a statement.

  The government in Abuja and the military have frequently claimed victories against the Islamic State group affiliate but access to the epicentre of the conflict in Borno state is strictly controlled.

  That has made independent verification of official statements about victories virtually impossible. Attacks have meanwhile continued, making claims of defeating Boko Haram questionable despite undoubted progress in pushing back the group.

  "The terrorists are on the run, and no longer have a place to hide. I urge you to maintain the tempo by pursuing them and bringing them to justice," Buhari said.

  The announcement came after Nigeria launched a barrage of land and air assaults in Borno state at the heart of the insurgency that has spread to three neighbouring countries -- Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

  While the counter-insurgency has clawed back some territory, Boko Haram has responded by stepping up guerrilla tactics, ambushing troops when it can and terrorising civilians when it cannot.

  Buhari's statement made no mention of the whereabouts of Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram faction based in the forest.

  AFP/File /The Sambisa forest, covering an area of about 1,300 square kilometres (500 square miles), was a stronghold of the Boko Haram islamists
  

  Boko Haram, which last year pledged allegiance to IS, has been in the grips of a power struggle since late last year.

  Shekau led Boko Haram for several years, until the IS command said in August that he had been replaced as leader by Abu Musab al-Barnawi, the 22-year-old son of the group's founder Mohammed Yusuf.

  Shekau says he is still in charge, however, as rival factions vie for control.

  - Chibok girls still missing -

  On Wednesday, a military commander said Nigerian troops had rescued 1,880 civilians from a Boko Haram redoubt in the restive northeast over the past week and arrested hundreds of insurgents.

  Buhari also said Saturday that "further efforts should be intensified to locate and free our remaining Chibok girls still in captivity", referring to more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped in April 2014. To date only a few of them have been freed.

  Boko Haram seeks to create a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.

  The army's claim of recapturing Sambisa Forest brought a rare glimmer of hope for millions of people caught up in the devastating conflict.

  But Buhari has been keen to announce any positive news, with his government increasingly under fire for its handling of the economy, which is officially in recession.

  The humanitarian fallout from the conflict is also huge and aid agencies say it is too big for the country to handle on its own, heaping pressure on already overstretched resources.

  Buhari has previously claimed that Boko Haram had already been "technically defeated".

  His government has however struggled to stop attacks on soft targets such as markets, including the use of women and child suicide bombers.

  At least 20,000 people have been killed since the insurgency erupted in 2009. The fighting has also displaced some 2.6 million people, sparking a humanitarian crisis in the region.

  - 'Africa's largest crisis' -

  The United Nations said earlier this month a billion dollars are needed to help victims of Boko Haram and called the conflict "the largest crisis in Africa."

  It estimates that 14 million people will need outside help in 2017, particularly in Borno state, where villagers under siege have typically been forced to abandon their crops.

  "A projected 5.1 million people will face serious food shortages as the conflict and risk of unexploded improvised devices prevented farmers planting for a third year in a row, causing a major food crisis," the UN said on December 2.

  People freed from Boko Haram's grip by the army have generally been taken to camps where basic supplies are also scarce.

  The Nigerian presidency has since accused aid groups of exaggerating the food crisis.

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