- Latest Popular Stories, Instablogs Community by Gitta_ivan

Uganda proposes death penalty for HIV positive gays

Ivan — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 07:46:39 +0000

Britain and Canada protested yesterday over a proposed law that would result in gays in Uganda being imprisoned for life or even executed.

Gordon Brown followed Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, in telling Uganda that the legislation was unacceptable.

Mr Brown made his views plain in a breakfast conversation with President Museveni of Uganda on the margins of the Commonwealth summit.

Homosexuality remains criminalised in many Commonwealth countries, but the more liberal countries have been horrified by the new legislation.

Children go into hiding as albino killings cause fear, anxiety

Ivan — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:10:33 +0000

The bizarre killings of albinos in Burundi and Tanzania has evoked deep fear and anxiety in the two countries, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies says.

In a report, Through Albino Eyes, IFRC says nearly 300 children and teenagers have gone into hiding in schools for the disabled in Tanzania and in emergency shelters established by the police in Burundi, where they live under deplorable conditions. Parents who are forced to take care of them have been rendered jobless.

Thousands more in the countryside cannot trade, study or farm freely for fear of being hunted down by killers who harvest their blood and body parts such as hair, genitals and limbs for magic.

The official toll is 44 in Tanzania, mainly in the highly superstitious northwest region near Lake Victoria, and 12 in the eastern Burundi provinces of Cankuzo, Kirundo, Muyinga and Ruyigi near the Tanzania border.

IFRC secretary-general Bekele Geleta described albinism as one of the most unfortunate “vulnerabilities” that urgently needs to be tackled at the international level.

Sierra Leone police enlist youth volunteers as young as 10 years

Ivan — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:07:26 +0000

Sierra Leone has launched an initiative to enlist boys as young as 10 as crime-fighting volunteers in Freetown.

Police chief Chris Charley said the capital, which is blighted by rampant criminality, would be divided into 860 zones with 10 youth volunteers in each.

He said they would help the police to tackle endemic problems like anti-social behaviour and armed robbery.

Sierra Leone is still recovering from a decade-long civil war that ended in 2002, in which child soldiers fought.

The BBC’s Lansana Fofana, in Freetown, says hundreds of boys have already agreed to sign up.

Sexual violence on the rise but too few arrests

Ivan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:27:44 +0000

Rape and defilement have been documented as the most common violations against women in the East Africa and Great Lakes Region, a scenario that women activists fear could retard development in the region.

A review of the types of sexual and gender-based violence cases that are presented in the courts, shows that rape and defilement are the highest prosecuted offences in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the latest study by the Action for Co-operation and Research in Development (ACORD).

The study was presented by ACORD’s Awino Oketch at the recent Pan African Conference on Women’s Security in Kampala.

The findings show for instance that in 2007 in Uganda, out of the 22 cases reviewed, 91 per cent were classified as defilement and nine per cent as rape.

In Burundi, out of the 62 cases reported in 2007 in Bujumbura Marie, 58 of them were rape.

Rivals claim Gabon poll victory

Ivan — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:35:50 +0000

Three different candidates say they gained the most votes in Sunday’s election to choose a successor to Gabon’s long-time leader Omar Bongo. Mr Bongo’s son, Ali Ben Bongo, veteran opposition leader Pierre Mamboundou and former...

Independent Appeal: Volunteers go to work in a ravaged country

Ivan — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:39:53 +0000

Once, Samson Ndangana earned a decent salary as a teacher. He could afford to pay Z$600,000 for a nice suburban house. He enjoyed a typical middle class lifestyle. His children were enrolled in decent schools. He drove them to school in his own car. They had access to medical aid and ate decent meals. Indeed, the profession of teacher, not so long ago, in his district in eastern Zimbabwe, was not so much a calling as a status symbol.