Igihe

Category: Information Center

  • China donates to Inyange Girls School

    China built a 115m tarmac road that connects Inyange Girls School of Sciences to Kigali- Musanze highway meaning that the mutual cooperation between Rwanda and China has spread to individual schools.

    The school is located in Rulindo District, Northern Province.
    Headteacher Vital Nsengimana stated that before the construction of the passage to their school, the road was impassable during the rainy season which was risky to students and the people using it.

    The Chinese government constructed the school, stocked the computer lab with about 36 machines, given us text books, sports equipment and two volunteers who teach students Chinese language among others.

    It is expected that the best performing students in the school will be sponsored to study in the universities in China.

    Inyange Girls School of Science is a project under the frame work of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Beijing Summit in 2006.

    According to Chinese Ambassador Shu Zhan, said the construction of this school is part of the implementation of FOCAC 2006 Beijing summit declaration adding that these are the fruits of the summit.

  • Banana Plantation Destroyed over Family Dispute

    Safari Jean Baptiste, 35, is detained at Kaborondo police station over cutting down banana crops belonging to his neighbors.

    Residents said a group of people invaded their area and destroyed several crops especially banana plantations.

    One of the culprits identified as Jean Baptiste was arrested. He was said to be in disagreement with members of his family, who he said, sold land property when he was still in jail serving a sentence.

    Safari said he was revenging to family decision to sell off the land without his knowledge.

    “Five years ago Safari was jailed over using illegal drugs. When he was released he became aggressive with the family noting the fact that they have sold parcels of land when he was in prison” A neighbors told IGIHE.

    According to Rutayisire Theoneste, the Executive Secretary of Mukoyoyo Cell, it is not Safari only because most of these brutal acts are being conducted by people in different parts who use night hours to destroy banana plantations.

  • Man Kills Mother in Land Dispute

    Harerimana Etienne 21 was October 16, arrested in connection with the murderer of two persons in Mururu sector of Rusizi District.

    The suspect is accused of killing two family members including his own mother.

    The deceased were identified as his mother Nyiraneza Anasthasie, 72 and his niece Mfashingabo Jean Damascene, 18.

    Neighbors said Harerimana Etienne got into argument with family members over land disputes and cows which he claimed to help him access SACCO loans.

    Harerimana is currently detained by security organs in Rusizi District.

  • Obama Not Involved in Benghazi Security Decisions–Clinton

    U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has told CNN that she assumes responsibility for last month’s deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

    “I take responsibility” for what happened on September 11, Clinton said in an interview during a visit to Lima, Peru.

    She added: “I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha,” citing the Nov. 6 presidential election. She insisted President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden had not been involved in security decisions related to the consulate.

    The attacks on the Benghazi mission, and the Obama administration’s response to the violence, has become a contentious election issue and Clinton’s comments came a day before the second presidential debate between Obama and Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

    Romney has seized on the attack and said the death of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other Americans killed at the consulate reveal weakness in Obama’s foreign policy.

    Romney has accused the administration of not providing adequate security to American diplomats and misrepresenting the nature of the attack.

    Foreign policy has been considered a strength for Obama, who has been praised for the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the withdrawal of troops from unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Congress has increased pressure on the State Department to release information about the attack. Obama and Clinton have both vowed a full investigation.

    “We can’t not engage,” Clinton told CNN. “We cannot retreat.”

    Clinton also sought to play down criticism that the administration initially linked the violence to deaths to a protest over an anti-Muslim film.

    There is always “confusion” after an attack, she said.

    Reuters

  • Sudan Counts 600 Dead in Border Fighting

    More than 600 people have been killed in insurgencies that erupted in two Sudanese states bordering South Sudan last year, Sudan’s interior minister said on Tuesday in the first official count.

    Fighting between Sudan’s army and SPLM-North rebels broke out in the oil-producing state of South Kordofan in June 2011, shortly before South Sudan became independent.

    Violence then spread in September 2011 to nearby Blue Nile state which also borders the new African republic.

    The fighting has forced more than half a million people to flee and stoked tensions between Sudan and South Sudan, former enemies in a civil war that was fueled by oil, ethnicity and religion.

    Khartoum accuses South Sudan of backing the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-North), charges dismissed by the South’s government.

    A total of 633 people have been killed in both states since last year, Interior Minister Ibrahim Mahmoud told parliament. Most of the dead were civilians, the rest government soldiers, he said, without giving an estimate of rebel casualties.

    Since the start of the year, 147 people have been killed in South Kordofan and 41 in Blue Nile state, he said.

    A total of 791 people have been wounded since last year in South Kordofan, and 151 people were missing there, he added.

    South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in July last year, under the terms of the 2005 peace deal that ended their civil war.

    But the two countries have still not agreed on the ownership of a number of disputed territories and their armies have clashed a number of times across the border since the secession.

    They agreed to set up a buffer zone along their shared boundary last month after coming under international pressure to end the violence.

    But there has been scant progress in parallel indirect talks between Khartoum and SPLM-North, which fought as part of the southern rebel army during the civil war.

    SPLM-North, which accuses the government of marginalising large parts of South Kordofan and other border areas, has formed an alliance with other rebel groups to try and topple the country’s veteran President Omar Hassan al-Bashir.

  • 10 Kenyan Police Injured in Grenade Attack

    At least 10 Kenyan police officers were injured when a grenade was hurled at them by suspected al Shabaab sympathisers during a police operation at the country’s Coast province in the early hours of Wednesday.

    “We recovered a pistol, an AK-47 rifle, 15 rounds of ammunition and two grenades … We believe these people are connected to al Shabaab,” said Aggrey Adoli, the head of police for Coast province.

  • Agricultural cooperatives Key to Feeding World

    Kanayo F. Nwanze President of the International Fund on Agricultural Development said that working with farmers has proven time again that cooperatives are critical to reach IFAD’ objectives.

    “From tea growers in Rwanda to livestock resource centres in Nepal, there are many examples of how cooperatives better support smallholder farmers to not only organize themselves, but to collectively increase their opportunities and resources”, he said.

    The note was addressed to participants in the celebration of World Food Day at FAO Headquarter-Rome, on 16th October 2012, and the theme for this year, 2012 is “Agricultural cooperatives – key to feeding the world”.

    FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva emphasized the need to work for the total eradication of hunger, adding that many countries, in South America, Africa and Asia, are proving that it is possible.

    In line with improving agricultural productivity Rwanda has been working closely with small farmers and grouped them into cooperatives which resulted in reducing the trend of speculation in essential food commodities intended for human consumption.

    This also reduce large-scale acquisition of arable lands that in many regions forces farmers off their land because by themselves they are too weak to make it productive.

  • China gives US$1.3Milion to Improve Burundi Infrastructure

    Chinese Ambassador to Burundi, Mr. Yu gave Xuzhong last week evening Burundian Minister of Energy and Mines, Como Manirakiza, infrastructure lighting by solar photovoltaic system installed on the Boulevard November 1st.

    They were funded by a donation from the Government of Burundi by the Chinese government.

    In his speech for the occasion, Ambassador Yu said that the funding for this project, whose cost is estimated at 1.34 million U.S. dollars, is part of the implementation implement technical assistance measures defined by the 4th Ministerial Conference of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) in favor of African countries including Burundi.

    In a context of climate change, said Mr. Yu, the development of clean and renewable energy, such as solar energy, represents a huge potential for a country like Burundi.

    He said China will continue to do its best to support Burundi in the development of the energy sector to cope with the shortage in this area.

    From his part, Mr. Como Manirakiza Burundian Minister of Energy and Mines, particularly welcomed the efforts of the Chinese company Huawei Technologies has nothing spared to carry out the work on time, and he said, “compliance with art in the field.”

    Manirakiza Minister took the opportunity to pay tribute to the Chinese government for its multifaceted support to the location of the Burundian people.

    Already, he said, “we make our request to the Government of the People’s Republic of China to always remain with us for the continuation of this project on other sites.”

  • Former Bosnian Serb Leader Wants Reward

    Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic has said he should be rewarded for “reducing suffering”, not accused of carrying out war crimes.

    Beginning his defence at his trial in The Hague, he said he was a “tolerant man” who had sought peace in Bosnia.

    Mr Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in 2008 after almost 13 years on the run.

    He faces 10 charges of genocide and crimes against humanity during the war in the 1990s, including the Srebrenica massacre and the siege of Sarajevo.

    More than 7,000 Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were killed at Srebrenica in the worst single atrocity in Europe since the end of World War II.

    During the 44-month siege of Sarajevo more than 12,000 civilians died.

    Mr Karadzic, 67, went on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in October 2009.

  • Cubans to travel freely for First time in 51 years

    The Cuban government announced Tuesday that it will eliminate a half-century-old restriction that requires citizens to get an exit visa to leave the country.

    The decree that takes effect Jan. 14 will eliminate a much-loathed bureaucratic procedure that has kept many Cubans from traveling or moving abroad.

    “These measures are truly substantial and profound,” said Col. Lamberto Fraga, Cuba’s deputy chief of immigration, at a morning news conference. “What we are doing is not just cosmetic.”

    Under the new measure announced in the Communist Party daily Granma, islanders will only have to show their passport and a visa from the country they are traveling to.

    It is the most significant advance this year in President Raul Castro’s five-year plan of reforms that has already seen the legalization of home and car sales and a big increase in the number of Cubans owning private businesses.

    Migration is a highly politicized issue in Cuba and beyond its borders.

    Under the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, the United States allows nearly all Cubans who reach its territory to remain. Granma published an editorial blaming the travel restrictions imposed in 1961 on U.S. attempts to topple the island’s government, plant spies and recruit its best-educated citizens.

    “It is because of this that any analysis of Cuba’s problematic migration inevitably passes through the policy of hostility that the U.S. government has developed against the country for more than 50 years,” the editorial said.

    It assured Cubans that the government recognizes their right to travel abroad and said the new measure is part of “an irreversible process of normalization of relations between emigrants and their homeland.”

    The decree still imposes limits on travel by many Cubans. People cannot obtain a passport or travel abroad without permission if they face criminal charges, if the trip affects national security or if their departure would affect efforts to keep qualified labor in the country.

    Doctors, scientists, members of the military and others considered valuable parts of society currently face restrictions on travel to combat brain drain.