Author: b_igi_adm1n

Fighting has resumed with heavy weapons early Tuesday morning between the Armed Forces of DRC (FARDC) and rebels in the villages of M23 and kakomero Mwaro.

Sources on ground say the rebels have circumvented the positions of the regular army, passing through the towns of Ngugo, Bisoko Rwaza and a consortium of Rugari, more than 50 km from Goma, capital of the province.

The population sector Rugari who fled to the Rumangabo military camp, is currently blocked by road following the detonation of bombs heard between these two localities.

sources say , residents fled towards the direction of Goma.

This is since last April that the FARDC are facing rebellion of M23 that creates a climate of insecurity in the east.

With a political wing, the M23 rebels are seeking negotiations with the government in Kinshasa including the peace agreement signed with the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) in Goma, in the province of North Kivu.

Among other claims, the M23 request to the Kinshasa government to make efforts to eradicate negative forces in the east, including the Democratic Forces for the libértation of Rwanda (FDLR).

Ghana President John Mills is dead. He died on Tuesday the 24th of July 2012 at the 37 Military Hospital at 1630 GMT.
His death was confirmed by the Chief of Staff Martey Newman.

President John Evans Fifii Atta Mills (21 July 1944 – 24 July 2021) was the third President of the Fourth Republic of Ghana. He was inaugurated on 7 January 2009, having defeated the ruling party candidate Nana Akufo-Addo in the 2008 election.

He was Vice-President from 1997 to 2001 under President Jerry Rawlings, and stood unsuccessfully in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections as the candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

He was married to Ernestina Naadu Mills, an educator and had a son, Sam Kofi Atta Mills, with Ruby Addo.

He was a good friend to Prophet T.B. Joshua of The Synagogue, Church Of All Nations in Lagos, Nigeria and regularly visited his church. He said following his inauguration that T.B. Joshua had prophesied to him there would be three elections, the results would be released in January, and he would emerge victorious.

Mills was a Fanti from Ekumfi Otuam in the Central Region of Ghana. He was born in Tarkwa on 21 July 1944,located in the Western Region of Ghana.He was educated at Achimota School, where he completed the Advanced-Level Certificate in 1963, and the University of Ghana, Legon, where he received “Black man of the month” several times.

In 1968, Mills studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and received a PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Thus began the journey of the next twenty years of Mills’ life, which was largely spent with spells both in Ghana and internationally as an academic. Mills earned a Ph.D in Law from London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies(SOAS) after completing his doctoral thesis in the area of taxation and economic development.

Mills’ first formal teaching assignment was as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana Legon. He spent close to twenty five years teaching at Legon and other institutions of higher learning, and rose in position from lecturer to senior lecturer to associate professor, and served on numerous boards and committees.

Additionally, he traveled worldwide as a visiting lecturer and professor at educational institutions such as the LSE, and presented research papers at symposiums and conferences. In 1971, he was selected for the Fulbright Scholar program at Stanford Law School in the United States Of America.

At the age of 27, he was awarded his PhD after successfully defending his doctoral thesis in the area of taxation and economic development. He returned to Ghana that year, becoming a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ghana.

He became a visiting professor of Temple Law School (Philadelphia, USA), with two stints from 1978 to 1979, and 1986 to 1987, and was a visiting professor at Leiden University (Holland) from 1985 to 1986. During this period, he authored several publications relating to taxation during the 1970s & 1980s.

Outside of his academic pursuits, Professor Mills was the Acting Commissioner of Ghana’s Internal Revenue Service from 1986 to 1993, and the substantive Commissioner from 1993 to 1996.By 1992, he had become an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Ghana. Mills was also a Fulbright scholar at Stanford Law School.

For the inaugural Presidential Elections in 1992, the National Convention Party (NCP) had formed an alliance with the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Former Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) Chairman, and leader of Ghana, Flight-Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings chose the NCP leader, Kow Nkensen Arkaah, as his running-mate for Vice-President. Having been elected in the 1992 elections, Arkaah served between 1992–1996.

However, on 29 January 1996, the NCP broke with the NDC, merging with the People’s Convention Party (PCP) to form a rebirth of the Convention People’s Party (the formerly outlawed political party of Ghana’s first President, Kwame Nkrumah). Thus, in a bitter split, Arkaah would stand as candidate for the reborn CPP in the 1996 Presidential Elections against Rawlings.

Rawlings selected Mills for the vacated Vice-Presidency in his bid for re-election to a second term in Ghana’s 1996 Presidential Election. Rawlings was re-elected to his second term in office, and Mills became Vice-President of Ghana between 1996 to 2000.

In 2000, Mills became the NDC’s candidate for the 2000 Presidential elections after Rawlings had served his constitutionally mandated terms as president. At the time, and after essentially two decades of PNDC/NDC rule, the NDC’s war chest for the upcoming elections was certainly much stronger than that of the NPP.

The result would clearly between the NDC’s popularity with the people, and Vice-President Mills’ track-record alongside President Rawlings, and the veteran political experience that the NPP candidate would bring to the campaign.

The main rival for Vice-President Mills’ own bid for the Presidency was a veteran politician, John Agyekum Kufuor, who was running as the candidate for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP).

Ghana’s presidential elections in the year 2000 went into two rounds: In the first round, held on 7 December 2000, Mills gained 44.8% of the vote, Kufuor won the first round with 48.4%.

This result forced the elections into a two-party run-off vote on 28 December 2000, where Kufuor defeated Vice-President Mills with a result of 56.9% of the vote. The NPP won the election, and Kufuor was sworn in as President of Ghana on 7 January 2001.

In December 2002, John Atta Mills was elected by his party to be its flag bearer and lead them into the 2004 elections.

In 2002, former Vice-President Mills was again selected as the candidate of the National Democratic Congress for the upcoming presidential elections in 2004. He was however defeated again by President Kufuor, who won by a margin of 52.45%.

On 21 December 2006, former Vice-President Mills became the NDC’s candidate for the 2008 presidential elections, winning his party’s ticket by an 81.4% result.

Early polls showed that Mills was the favourite, but in another poll taken just months before the first-round voting, Nana Akufo-Addo emerged as the favourite. Election campaigning was strong, particularly with advertising, which was clearly much heavier with the NPP candidate.

The first round of voting occurred on 7 December 2008. In a very close result amongst all parties, Nana Akufo-Addo’s NPP finished with 49.13% of the vote, close to the outright margin required to win in the first round, while Mills’ NDC finished with 47.92%. The other parties garnered 2.37% of the votes. The result forced a second-round of voting between NPP and NDC on 28 December 2008.

The result was a slim margin held by Mills, but due to problems with the distribution of ballots, the Tain constituency, located in the Brong-Ahafo Region, was forced to re-run its voting on 2 January 2009. The voting in the Tain constituency led to a landslide victory to the NDC.

For several days, the Electoral Commission of Ghana did not call the result to the NDC, and the NPP filed a lawsuit, claiming that “the atmosphere in the rural district was not conducive to a free and fair election”.

Eventually, the NPP bowed to the inevitable, and on the morning of 3 January 2009, the election result was finally announced. Former Vice-President John Atta-Mills, who had failed to win in two previous campaigns, made history by winning the 2008 presidential election, becoming the third President of the 4th Republic Of Ghana.

Mills produced several publications during his life, including:
Taxation of Periodical or Deferred Payments arising from the Sale of Fixed Capital (1974)

Exemption of Dividends from Income taxation: A critical Appraisal (1977) In: Review of Ghana Law, 1997, 9: 1, p. 38–47

Report of the Tax Review Commission, Ghana, parts 1–3 (1977)
Ghana’s Income Tax laws and the Investor. (An inter-faculty lecture published by the University of Ghana)

Ghana’s new investment code : an appraisal (1993) In: University of Ghana Law Journal, 1993, vol. 18, p. 1–29

He also held examiner positions with finance-related institutions in Ghana, including the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Institute of Bankers, and Ghana Tax Review Commission.

He contributed to the Ghana Hockey Association, National Sports Council of Ghana, and Accra Hearts of Oak Sporting Club. He enjoyed hockey and swimming, and once played for the national hockey team (he remained a member of the Veterans Hockey Team until his death).

Mills has been involved in various activities and projects such as:
Member of the Ghana Stock Exchange Council

Board of Trustees, Mines Trust

Management Committee Member of, Commonwealth Administration of Tax Experts, United Nations Ad Hoc Group of Experts in International Cooperation in Tax Matters, and United Nations Law and Population Project

A Study on Equipment Leasing in Ghana
Casebook preparation on Ghana’s Income Tax
Review of Ghana’s Double Tax Agreement with the UK

In 1988, John Evans Atta Mills became the acting Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service of Ghana and named Commissioner in September 1996.

In 1997, Prof. Mills received another important appointment when on 7 January 1997 he was sworn-in as Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana.

In 2002, Prof. Mills was a visiting scholar at the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Canada.

In December 2002, John Evans Atta Mills was elected by his party to be its flagbearer and led them into the 2004 elections.

Over the next 60 days MTN Rwanda customers have the chance of winning fantastic prizes worth Rwf90 million including daily airtime vouchers, weekly low-end and high-end phones, laptops and data modems.

The new promotion has been dubbed ‘Sharama’ with daily and winnings including three cars.

According to Yvonne Manzi Makolo, MTN Rwanda’s Chief Marketing Officer the promotion is designed to give back to loyal MTN clients and also stimulate excitement in the market, as the company subscriber base grows.

“At MTN Rwanda we continuously place customer experience as a top priority, and we will continue providing exciting promotions that empower the lives of our customers.

Through the daily and weekly prizes, we believe that MTN Rwanda will make a difference by positively impacting the lives of the winners,” she added.

Last week Rwanda Utilities and Regulatory Agency (RURA) released monthly subscriber figures that indicated MTN Rwanda had grown to 3.03 million subscribers by the end of June 2012.

Sakyi Opoku the Snr Manager Brand and Sponsorship said MTN is delighted to offer such an exciting mega promotion to valued customers in Rwanda because it is also in line with the new brand campaign ‘Better Together’.

“While ‘Sharama’ means ‘shine’ it also rhymes with one of our brand values, which is ‘the ability to do’. This is meant to create an excitement among our subscribers. Subscribers are better striving with us.

Our brand gives hope and gives the winners the belief to achieve. Because we value our clients its in the same spirit that we give back to them in an exciting manner,” Opoku said.

The MTN brand this year received a number of brand accolades. In May Millward Brown, one of the world’s leading research agencies and expert in effective advertising announced that the MTN brand was the first African brand to be listed on the ‘BrandZ Top 100 Global Brand’ listing.

According to a study by U.S. scientists, sitting in front of a computer or TV screen late into the night or leaving it on when you fall asleep could increase your chances of becoming depressed.

The study, by a team of neuroscientists at Ohio State University Medical Center partly funded by the U.S. Department of Defense, will give screen-addicted night owls pause for thought.

The researchers – who exposed hamsters to dim light at night and picked up changes in behavior and the brain that bore striking similarities to symptoms in depressed people – said a surge in exposure to artificial light at night in the last 50 years had coincided with rising rates of depression, particularly among women, who are twice as prone as men.

“The results we found in hamsters are consistent with what we know about depression in humans,” said Tracy Bedrosian, who led the study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Although exposure to night-time light has been linked to an increased risk of breast cancer and obesity, the relationship with mood disorders is poorly understood.

The hamsters involved in the experiment were exposed for four weeks to dim light at night – equivalent to a television screen in a darkened room – and the results compared to a control group exposed to a normal light-dark cycle.

The experimental group was then moved back onto a normal cycle for one, two or four weeks before they were tested.

The results showed they were less active and had a lower than usual interest in drinking sugar water – both symptoms are comparable to signs of depression in people.

The similarity extended to their biological make-up. The researchers found changes in the hippocampus – a part of the brain – that were consistent with people suffering depression.

The hamsters exposed to dim light at night were also shown to produce more of a protein called tumor necrosis factor (TNF), a chemical messenger that is mobilized when the body is injured or infected and causes inflammation in its efforts to repair the damage.

“Researchers have found a strong association in people between chronic inflammation and depression,” said Randy Nelson, who also worked on the study. “That’s why it is very significant that we found this relationship between dim light at night and increased expression of TNF.”

The scientists found that blocking the effects of TNF with a drug prevented signs of depression in the hamsters, though some other indicators in the structure of the brain were unaffected.

For instance, hamsters that were exposed to dim light at night still showed a much reduced density of dendritic spines – hairlike growths on brain cells that are used to send chemical messages from one cell to another.

The overall symptoms of depression were reversible, the researchers said. Those hamsters returned to a normal light-dark cycle saw both their TNF levels and the density of their dendritic spines return to normal after about two weeks.

“The good news is that people who stay up late in front of the television and computer may be able to undo some of the harmful effects just by going back to a regular light-dark cycle and minimizing their exposure to artificial light at night,” Bedrosian said.

The ministry of trade and industry (MINICOM) has today 24th July 2012 opened a Twitter session that will be happening weekly, every Tuesdays from 4:00 pm to 5:00 pm.

Twitter being the most effective modern communication tool in today’s activities, both personal and professional has enabled many of us into staying constantly updated.

President Paul Kagame is well known for being very active on twitter.

Many other government institutions such as the Prime Minister’s office and the Ministry of Health, Twitter it has been a very useful and effective tool of approaching and meeting the people’s needs.

This first open Minicom Twitter session’s aim is to enable people to ask any question about anything they would like to know as well as contributing in a way or another.

Hon. Kanimba Francois said: “Minicom is eager to take full advantage of all modern communication tools to communicate with Rwandans and non-Rwandans alike about what the ministry does, why we do it and how well we are doing against the high standards we set for ourselves”

He added, ”Twitter is emerging as the fastest growing and most readily accessible medium for this kind of citizen engagement. #AskMinicom is therefore an important new element in our ministry’s communication strategy.”

Police in Rwamagana District, Musha sector in Karambo village is holding a man identified as Jacques Kalisa for reportedly killing Daniel Mparaye while attempting to heal him using his traditional medicine concoctions.

Kalisa, the arrested suspect is well known by local residents as a traditional healer.

Information about the death of Mparaye circulated after residents found his dead body in Kalisa’s house.

After getting notified by local residents, Police intervened and took the dead body to Rwamagana Hospital for postmortem while the suspect was taken to Rwamagana District Unit for further management.

Kalisa admits the dead body of Mparaye was recovered in his house but denies any allegation for killing him. The suspect was arrested on 20th July.

According to Police sources in Rwamagana, the medical report confirmed that, the deceased had herbal acid in his stomach.

In an exclusive interview with Superintendent James Muligande, the Rwamagana District Police Commander condemned the criminal act adding that such people have to be fought to ensure security in our localities.

He attributed the arrest of Kalisa to the good cooperation with citizens who did not hesitate to inform Police.

Supt Muligande urged Rwamagana residents to go to Hospitals for medication rather than wasting their resources to witch doctors

As a UN deadline approaches (2 August), South Sudan has provided its last offer of US$3.2Billion in compesation to help Sudan cover a budget deficit resulting from loss of three quarters of its oil production when south sudan seceded in July 2011.

Juba also proposes an increased transit fee to move its oil through Sudan and says it will waive its claim to nearly US$5Billion it says it is owed by Khartoum.

The two parties are currently holding talks in Adis Ababa, Ethiopia.

However, Sudanese negotiators on Monday dismissed as “nothing new” what their South Sudanese counterparts have termed as the “last offer” to resolve the two countries’ disputes over oil transit fees and the status of Abyei, in the latest setback to talks bound by a UN deadline due to end in nine days.

South Sudan’s chief negotiator Pagan Amum, said Monday that Juba told Khartoum it can pay US$9.10 for every barrel of oil that passes through pipelines owned by the China-led Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company (GNPOC), and US$7.26 for every barrel of oil that passes through PetroDar pipelines.

The South Sudanese official said Juba would also forgive US$ 4.9 Billion in what it says are overdue oil payments before its independence and for oil Sudan confiscated after independence. Sudan says it took the oil in lieu of unpaid transit fees.

The offer also includes a new proposal to hold a referendum organized by the AU and the UN on the status of Abyei, Amum said.

But Sudan, which previously rejected the south’s offer of paying US$ 2.6 Billion in financial compensation and insisted on getting US$32 for every barrel of oil, swiftly rejected the new proposal saying carrying “nothing new”, as put by the member of its negotiating delegation Mutrif Sidiq.

Khartoum argues that since South Sudan decided to shifted from direct to AU-mediated talks means that the process is now back to the starting point.

South Sudan suspended direct talks with Sudan on Saturday citing an airstrike carried out the day before by the Sudanese army inside southern territories.

Khartoum denied the charge saying it only bombed forces of the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) after they crossed into Sudanese territories coming from South Sudan.

Khartoum will Host a meeting of defence ministers from the Great Lakes Region on August 2 to review progress and fast tracking implementation of decisions made in a similar meeting about a year ago in Kigali, Rwanda.

The previous Kigali meeting deliberated on the situation in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The meeting will also flesh out the details of how to establish a neutral international force that the region’s heads of state agreed to on July 15 in Addis Ababa on the sidelines of the African Union Summit.

One of the decisions especially establishment of a Joint Intelligence Fusion Centre has already been acted upon. The centre opened in June in the eastern DRC town of Goma.

Illegal mining has been cited as the chief source of funds that the different militias operating in the area use to purchase weaponry.

The neutral international force force will also tackle the FDLR composed of remnants of the Interahamwe who carried out the 1994 genocide — and all other negative forces in eastern DRC, as well as patrol and secure border zones.

The Khartoum meeting is intended to inform the Extraordinary Summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region that Uganda, in its capacity as the current chair of the Conference, agreed to host in Kampala on August 6-7 to address the security situation in eastern Congo.