Category: People

Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe, often called the father of modern African literature, released his first major work in years Thursday with a long-awaited memoir centred on the war that nearly destroyed his nation.

“There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra” chronicles Achebe’s experiences during Nigeria’s 1967-1970 civil war, which saw his native eastern region, dominated by the Igbo ethnic group, secede as the Republic of Biafra.

The split came largely in response to massacres of Igbos in Nigeria’s north and saw Achebe, author of the revered novel “Things Fall Apart,” speak out forcefully in support of the move.

His memoir was released in Britain on Thursday and will be available in Nigeria shortly after, said publishers Allen Lane, a division of Penguin. Its release in the United States is set for October 11.

The tensions that ignited the Biafran conflict, which left around one million people dead, including many from starvation, are largely settled. Today, sporadic calls for greater Igbo autonomy have limited impact in Nigerian politics.

Experts, however, say a Biafra memoir from the 81-year-old Achebe is urgently needed in a country that remains deeply fractured on other levels, despite the book’s focus on events that happened more than four decades ago.

“Achebe is sustaining the debate on integration, on unity and on oneness,” said Dapo Thomas, a history professor at Lagos State University.

“Until there is a sovereign agreement from the peasants to the elite that we want to remain as one, we must continue that debate. A nation cannot remain comatose while these issues are unresolved.”

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country with 160 million people, groups around 250 ethnic groups and is roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.

Achebe strongly backed his native Biafra in the civil war and even toured to speak on its behalf. Echoes of the conflict emerge in his writing, including his collection “Christmas in Biafra and Other Poems.”

The octogenarian remains a towering figure in Nigerian and African literature, though he has been based in the United States in recent years where he has been a professor at Brown University in Rhode Island. He travels infrequently due to a 1990 car accident that left him in a wheelchair.

Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart”, about the collision between British colonial rule and Igbo society, remains a landmark work 54 years after its release.

“Just as we read Shakespeare, it’s not possible for any student in this department to graduate without reading the works of Chinua Achebe,” said the head of the English department at the University of Lagos, Adeyemi Daramola.

Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s former lover has said she is bitter over being dumped through a text message.

Nosipho Shilubane launched an unsuccessful court application to stop Mr Tsvangirai’s wedding on September 15 to Elizabeth Macheka claiming he had also promised to marry her.

Although her appeal was dismissed for lack of merit, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader’s marriage license was cancelled after another woman Locardia Karimatsenga Tembo convinced the court that he was customarily married to her.

Mr Tsvangirai, aged 60, opted for a customary union with Ms Macheka (35) amid calls for him to be arrested for allegedly lying under oath.

Ms Shulubane (35) told a South African television station eNews Chanel Africa (NCA) the Zimbabwean politician should have had the decency to inform her of the reasons he wanted to end the relationship.

“I deserved for him to sit down with me and say Nosi this is what is happening,” she said.

“That decency I think he owed it to me. He is supposed to be an example to other people, young kids.

“At an age of 60, you dump women through SMS then what do the young ones do?”

Ms Shulubane said she felt used and abused by Mr Tsvangirai whom she met in 2009.

The two enjoyed whirlwind romantic trips to Seychelles, Singapore and Botswana before the relationship ended.

“I received a message from an unknown number that said the relationship was terminated because of distance,” she said.

The woman said the politician ignored her calls and this forced her to resort to the court action to stop the wedding.

Ms Shilubane claims she met the Zimbabwean premier in September 2009, six months after the death of his wife Susan and he told her that he was a widower looking to settle.

She said Mr Tsvangirai was due to pay her bride price in January, but the Prime Minister claimed he was held up by government business and would only do so in December.

The magistrate ruled that her claims had no merit after the premier admitted that she was once his girlfriend but had never promised to marry her.

An American Chef on trial for the murder of his wife told investigators that he disposed of her body by boiling it for four days then trashed the remains with other waste in a grease pit in his restaurant.

David Viens, 49 in Los Angeles, was a chef at the Thyme Contemporary Café in Lomita, Calif., when on Oct. 18, 2009 he came home and argued with his 39-year-old wife, Dawn Viens.

At one point he duct-taped her mouth and bound her hands and feet before falling asleep and finding her corpse the next morning, he told investigators.

“I woke up. I panicked,” Viens said. “She was hard.”

On Tuesday a jury in L.A. heard that Viens told investigators that in a panic he stuffed his wife’s body face-down into a 55-gallon drum of boiling water and proceeded to cook it for four days.

He said that he used weights to submerge Dawn’s 105-pound body in the boiling water.

“I just slowly cooked it and I ended up cooking her for four days,” he told investigators.

Viens then took some of his wife’s body’s remains, mixed it with other waste from the restaurant and poured it into the grease pit at the Thyme Contemporary Café. Other remains were placed in the dumpster in garbage bags.

He said that afterwards all he saved was his wife’s skull, though a search of the house turned up nothing, nor did an excavation of the restaurant.

“That’s the only thing I didn’t want to get rid of in case I wanted to leave it somewhere,” he told police of the skull, saying that he left in “my mother’s attic.”

It wasn’t until 2011 that Viens learned that police investigating Dawn’s disappearance began to suspect him. At that point he leapt feet-first from an 80-foot cliff in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. He survived the fall and is now in a wheelchair.

Viens sat in the courtroom staring ahead and scribbling notes as a stunned-looking jury listened to the 2011 taped hospital bed confession to police.

What Viens says in the taped interviews closely matches what he told his daughter and a former girlfriend, both of whom have testified for the prosecution.

Details of exactly what occurred between David and Dawn Viens that night in October 2009 remain unclear.

Viens told police that he and his wife had eaten at a California Pizza Kitchen before he did some work at the restaurant and then went out with friends. When he arrived back home, he said, the couple began to fight.

In one interview Viens said that he and his wife had argued after he accused her of stealing money from their restaurant.

In a later interview, he said that the couple had taken cocaine, and in yet another interview he said she was bothering him while he was trying to sleep.

Viens told police that he had previously taped her up to prevent her from “driving around wasted, whacked out on coke and drinking.”

“For some reason I just got violent,” Veins said.

ABCnews

A Tanzania Court of Appeal September 17, said the High Court had the jurisdiction to determine the murder case facing an actress, LULU (Elizabeth Michael), charged with killing a film star, Steven Kanumba, regardless of her age.

A panel of three Court of Appeal judges who were handling the appeal that had sought to bar the High Court from determining the age of Ms Michael, also known as Lulu, wondered why the two parties in the case engaged in a legal battle over the age of the respondent, who would be charged by the High Court, anyway.

Judges January Msofe, Benard Luanda and Edward Rutakangwa said the age of the accused whether 18 years old or below did not prevent her from being charged with murder.

Lulu is charged at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court with killing a local movie star on April 7 this year in Sinza, Dar es Salaam.

In June this year, the prosecution filed an application to the Court of Appeal seeking the court to review proceedings and the ruling by High Court judge Fauz Twaibu who had decided to continue determine Lulu’s age.

He ordered the two parties to present evidence that would enable him to rule whether Lulu was underage or not.

Judge Twaib had made a ruling after an application by Lulu’s counsel Peter Kibatara, who wanted the court to determine the accused’s age.

According to Mr Kibatara, his client has not attained 18 years and so she is too young to be charged with murder in ordinary courts.

He, therefore, wants the case to be transferred to the Juvenile Court, which has the jurisdiction to deal with cases like hers and in consideration of section 4(2) of the Child Act, 2009.

However, the Court of Appeal judges yesterday, wondered why the two parties battled over the age of the accused because finally she would be charged at the High Court, which had the jurisdiction to hear her murder case.

“Whether a child commits murder or not, the case will be heard by the High Court and not the Juvenile Court because the latter has no jurisdiction to hear murder cases,” the panel of judges said.

In his ruling judge Twaibu said that, considering the seriousness of the charge facing the applicant and the urgency of determining whether or not the applicant was entitled to the benefits of the law of the Child Act, 2009 and in the interest of justice, the court invoking its supervisory powers under section 44 of the Magistrate’s Court Act shall proceed to determine the correct age of the applicant in terms of section 113 of the Law of the Child Act, 2009. Section 113(1).

says: “Where a person, whether charged with an offence or not, is brought before any court otherwise than for the purpose of giving evidence, and it appears to the court that he is a child, the court shall make due inquiry as to the age of that person.”

Submitting, senior state attorney Faraja Nchimbi said the High Court erred in law for deciding to determine Lulu’s age while knowing that the application by the defence counsel was wrongly filed.

According to Ms Nchimbi, the High Court was supposed to strike out the application, instead, it ordered the parties to produce evidence concerning Lulu’s age.

After passing through submissions from both parties, the Court of Appeal said that, it would give the ruling on notes.

Kanumba died after he fell down in his bedroom on April 7, 2012. He was taken unconscious to Muhimbili National Referral Hospital where it was confirmed he was dead.

His funeral at the Kinondoni cemetery was attended by about 30,000 people including the First Lady, Ms Salma Kikwete, the Vice President, Dr Mohamed Gharib Bilal, and the then minister for Information, Youth, Culture and Sports, Dr Emmanuel Nchimbi.

Citizen

Former heavyweight world champion Mike Tyson says he wants to “dance and sing” in musicals as his next challenge, after leaving the ring and cleaning up his troubled life.

“I want to dance and sing. I want to do some dancing and singing musicals,” Tyson told reporters during a visit to Hong Kong when asked what he wanted to do with his life next.

The 48-year-old Hall of Fame boxer who served time in jail for rape and infamously bit off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a fight in 1997, said he now just wanted to “hang out and entertain”.

“I don’t have the desire to be that guy any more,” he said of his previous life as the self-styled “baddest man on the planet” who won 44 of his 58 fights by knockout.

“I was always the bad guy that wanted to be a good guy, but I didn’t know how to be a good guy. I was always so concentrating on being bad.”

Tyson is in Hong Kong to address the CLSA Investors’ Forum about how he overcame his troubled upbringing, the end of his brilliant but turbulent sporting career and his addiction to drugs and alcohol, to become a better man.

He admitted he didn’t have much to offer the high-powered international business audience on the European debt crisis or the direction of Asian markets.

The Brooklyn native, who squandered millions of dollars on drink and drugs, said the business of boxing was, for him, not about the money.

“I didn’t care about my business. I only cared about my glory,” he said.

“You can’t buy that … (I was) the best fighter in the world. Nobody could beat me with money in my prime, you had to be a better fighter and there wasn’t any.”

But he said he had learned a thing or two about business over the years.

“You learn to always trust your decision-making skills, you learn to always have your own fiduciary lawyers with you, and you also learn to always trust your partners, which is my wife,” he said.

Tyson, who has a tattoo of Chairman Mao on his right arm, said he was thrilled to visit Bruce Lee’s home town and paid tribute to the late legend of kung fu cinema.

“Bruce Lee’s concepts and philosophy is totally off the hook. Bruce Lee’s amazing,” he said.

“Bruce Lee was a street fighter, he’s got to fight to the death… I’m not going to fight Bruce Lee.”

Tyson is no stranger to the stage, having appeared in films and television shows. Last year he performed with his wife, Lakiha Spicer, in Argentinian dance show Bailando.

Earlier this year he made his Broadway debut with his one-man show “Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth”, directed by Spike Lee.

“I’m just so happy to become this guy, to be a responsible adult. For a guy like me this is very courageous,” he said.

AFP

Zimbabwean Priminster Morgan Tsvangirai September 15 wedded his wife Elizabeth Macheka during a traditional wedding ceremony in Harare.

The wedding occurred despite a court ruling that canceled his marriage license on allegations that he would be committing bigamy.

Tsvangirai, 60, and his bride exchanged vows and rings at a luxury convention facility in Harare but did not sign the legal marriage register.

A court on Friday declared Tsvangirai already married under tribal law after seeing video footage of traditional bride price being paid last November to the family of another Zimbabwean woman.

Polygamy is recognized in tribal law but not in Zimbabwe’s national laws.

Zimbabwe law has no jurisdiction over customary marriages, which are agreed between families.

Tadahiro Matsushita, the Japanese Minister of Financial Services commited suicide over an article that was about to be published in a magazine.

According to Jiji News and other sources, the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho, was getting ready to print a story involving Matsushita and an affair involving a woman. Shukan Shincho editors were not available to comment.

The Minister was found dead september 10, on World Suicide Prevention Day in what police are investigating as a suicide. He allegedly hung himself in his own home.

He would not be the first Japanese government minister to kill himself and he won’t be the last. It was reported that he was struggling with the pressures of his job.

The last time a cabinet minister committed suicide was in 2007, when agriculture minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka hung himself after allegations of fiscal misconduct.

The timing of Matsushita’s death underlines the scale of Japan’s suicide problem. Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, according to the World Health Organization.

Despite laws and outlines adopted by the government to tackle Japan’s high suicide rate, the number of suicides has remained over 30,000 per year for 14 years.

While there have been rises and ebbs, the numbers stay high even as Japan’s population continues to shrink.

The Japanese word for the act is remarkably straight-forward: 自殺 (ji-satsu). It literally means “kill” (殺) “oneself“(自)”.

Suicide in Japan has a long tradition of being a means of apology, protest, means of taking revenge, and dealing with illness.

Zimbabwe political opposition accuses President Robert Mugabe of sleeping at crucial meetings saying the 88 year old revolutionary leader has become a liability for the South African country.

Prof Welshman Ncube one of Mugabe’s ministers who also leads of one of the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formations said Mugabe slept at the recent Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Mozambique.

The President had to be roused by Zambian President Michael Sata after he fell asleep a few minutes after the meeting that was meant to discuss the Zimbabwe crisis had began, the opposition politicians told party supporters.

“If you are strong and young, you sleep in a dignified way but his whole body collapses when he sleeps”.

He added, “You sleep as early as 9 am to a point that you are woken up by an equally old Sata. Who would tell other leaders to wake Mugabe while he was sleeping?

“Do you think that person can rule Zimbabwe? We need fresh leaders with strength who you do not have to look at and check if they are still awake.”

Doctors operating on a man who was taken to hospital with stomach pains discovered a 9in long plastic fork that he swallowed a decade ago.

Lee Gardner was taken to Barnsley Hospital when he started vomiting blood and having cramps.

He said he was told the fork, which he swallowed 10 years ago, would pass through his system naturally so he did not think to mention it to doctors.

Surgeon Hanis Shiwani said Gardner was lucky there was not more damage.

Gardner, from Cudworth, Barnsley, said: “I can’t believe it. I have never had any problems with my stomach except once a couple of years ago I remember thinking I felt like something had lodged when I bent over awkwardly.

“But the advice at the time was that it would just pass through my system, and as that was so many years before I really didn’t think it could be the fork.”

‘Handful of cases’

Gardner said he was playing around with the disposable fork in his mouth and gagged, accidentally swallowing it, but it had never caused him problems.

He added: “While they were looking inside me with the camera the doctor said ‘are you sure you’ve not swallowed anything?’ I said no but when he asked again ‘are you sure, I can see prongs of what appears to be a fork’, I remembered accidentally swallowing one years and years ago.”

Doctors found that the prongs had pressed on the stomach lining causing an ulcer that led to the bleeding.

Shiwani said: “If something does get lodged, then normally a patient would become ill almost immediately.

“This is why Lee’s case is so uncharacteristic, not just because the object is a fork but because we believe there are only a handful of cases reported like this where a foreign object has been inside someone for such a long time.

“Lee is extremely lucky that the fork hasn’t caused more damage but we are confident he will make a full recovery.”

BBC

The government of Rwanda through vision 2020 has mandated the mainstreaming of gender, empowering women and girls, family promotion and protection of children.

All these have been major priorities for the Government of Rwanda throughout the process of rebuilding the nation since the genocide.

Changing mindsets and practices which do not favour gender equality and family promotion is seen as a solution where both women and men have equal chance to work together toward sustainable development of the country.

The Ministry in charge of gender and family promotion recognizes the evident that women have been empowered to take up leadership roles and to be free to use their skills and talents and participate in building the nation.

According to the statement posted on MIGEPROF website Hon. Aloisea Inyumba, the Minister of gender and Family Promotion, says presently, economic empowerment of women is a major focus for the country.

She adds that government seeks to create opportunities for more women to use their skills and talents and improve their own livelihoods and those of their families.

In a discussion about gender and employment held earlier this week, youth in Gasabo district conflicted with the way gender is practiced when it comes to job market.

They accused employers to be gender biased when hiring new staff.

Gasabo youth acknowledged many employers do not yet understand the meaning of gender equality and this results in employment denial especially among the males.

By proclaiming his anonymity in media, one of participants in a discussion said, “Beautiful young girls are found everywhere in offices especially receptionists, when you investigate about the way they have been hired you will be aware that they have been employed not because they competed for those posts but because they are beautiful girls not handsome boys”.

He inquired whether this was the real sense of gender adding that he has been denied such position because he is male.

David Ndushabandi 30, said that he has been looking for a job for three years. He says he realised that employers favor women more than men while recruiting new employees.

It has been argued that there are some institutions who have established principles of recruiting 50% of women whether ranked among top scores or not they will be hired simply because they are women.

On the side of girls, those who have been interviewed have not gone far from boys’ views; however, they said women have capacity to compete for the posts where employees are needed without waiting to be favoured.

Nyirazuba Jeanne d’ Arc, is a teacher in a Kinyinya primary school. She said she has competed for the post of teacher with other men and she passed the exam while some men failed.

She adds however, “if there is favoritism among women in the face of employee recruitments it will end up with making female sex incompetent” .

Generally, the youth concluded by calling upon the Ministry of public service and Labor to work with respective institutions to change mindset of employers over gender balance and clearly explain to which extent gender issues are to be taken into consideration while recruiting for the positions where both sex can have equal chance.