Kenya elections haunted by the past

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Kenya is bracing itself for a presidential vote on March 4 that is a tight two-way contest between bitter rivals.

One of the top contenders is outgoing Prime Minister Raila Odinga, 68, who narrowly lost out in the last presidential vote in 2007. That election sparked violence, which claimed more than 1,200 lives.

Odinga is reportedly neck-and-neck in the polls with outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta, 51 – the son of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s first President (1964-78).

Uhuru Kenyatta has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague for inciting violence after the last election, which he refutes. The incident galvanised support for him amongst many Kenyans, who see the ICC charges as foreign meddling in domestic matters.

Political Analyst Tom Maliti believes the vote is crucial for how Kenya is viewed internationally:

“The outcome of the Kenyan election is important for the international community because Kenya is a regional hub, both economic and diplomatic regional hub, for the region, and if Kenya is stable then it means they can continue to do business to further relations with Kenya,” Maliti says.

Outgoing President Mwai Kibaki’s 2007 win led to weeks of violent unrest – damaging Kenya’s economy and shattering its reputation as one of Africa’s most stable democracies.

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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NIGERIA: Jonathan, First Lady Receive Ivorien National Honours

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 President Alassane Ouattara late Friday in Abidjan conferred Cote d’Ivoire’s highest honour, the Grand Cross of the Order of the Nation on President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in appreciation of Nigeria’s contributions to peace, stability and progress in his country.

President Ouattara also conferred the honour of Commander of the Order of the Nation on the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan at a State Banquet in the Ivorian seat of government.

Speaking at the occasion, President Jonathan, who began a state visit to the country on Friday, said that Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire must continue to strengthen their bilateral cooperation for the benefit of their citizens and others in the West African sub-region.

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Mali: ECOWAS Leaders Condemn Suicide Bombings

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The Authority of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Heads of State and Government (HoSG) has condemned the recent suicide bombings and guerilla attacks in Mali by terrorists in the North of Mali, urging that necessary steps should be taken to neutralise them.

The Authority also renewed the mandate of the President of Côte d’Ivoire, Mr. Alassane Ouattara, as its chairman for another year, noting that he has demonstrated constant commitment to the regional body and its integration process and good management of the crises in Mali and Guinea Bissau.

Rising from its 42nd Ordinary Session in Abidjan, on Thursday, the Authority directed the allied forces to work hard at counter- insurgency operations to stops the attacks and apprehend their collaborators.

According to a copy of the final communiqué made available by the ECOWAS Commission at the end of the meeting, also lauded the government and people of Chad, some of whose soldiers were killed in Mali recently.

“Authority endorses the revised Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for AFISMA and urges both the political leadership and Commanders of the allied forces to ensure improved coordination among themselves for a harmonious and effective operation,” the communiqué read.

It also directed the ECOWAS Commission to ensure that the needs of AFISMA troops were met without delay, especially with regards to the deployment of troops and provision of additional logistics.

While directing AFISMA Commanders to urgently integrate the recently deployed Burundi troop into the ongoing operations, the communiqué harped on the necessity of AFISMA troops and allied forces to respect all human rights and international laws during their operation to avoid abuse.

“The summit reiterates its call on international humanitarian actors to continue to provide assistance to the affected populations. It directs the ECOWAS Commission, in collaboration with humanitarian partners, to monitor and coordinate the relief efforts to ensure effectiveness,” it added.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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German legislators arrive Nigeria

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A delegation of legislators from Germany accompanied by the President of the country’s Federal Environmental Agency will arrive in Lagos this weekend.

A statement from the Consulate-General of Germany in Lagos stated that the delegation headed by a Parliamentarian, Mr Uwe Kekeritz, ‘’is the first for a long time to visit Nigeria’s former capital and now flourishing economic and cultural hub of the country and beyond.’’

The statement further read, ‘’the delegation will visit Eko Atlantic City site, obtain information about problems of coastal erosion due to climate change and man-made interventions; visit Beachland Estate at Ibadan, the nucleus of the German community, and stilted settlements on the banks of the Lagos Lagoon.

’’Furthermore, the delegation will visit EFInA (Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access), dealing  with financial inclusion and micro-banking, funded among others by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The German MPs among them, highly African interested and experienced Mr Hartmut Fischer too, will meet with persons active in the cultural sector, research scholarship holders of Alexander- von-Humboldt Foundation and members of the German business community.

’On a reception hosted in their honour by Consul-General Walter von den Driesch, they will also meet with members of the Lagos State House of Assembly and members of the Diplomatic and Consular Corps in Lagos as well as the media.

’’It has to be noted that at the same time, Mr Jochen Flasbarth, president of German Federal Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt) will sojourn in Lagos, later in Ibadan and Abuja, on a lecture tour.

The delegation will meet with members of the German corporate community before heading for Abuja for talks with the Federal  Government,’’ and top officials of the National Assembly (parliamentary).

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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20,000 run in Jerusalem marathon

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About 20,000 runners took part in Jerusalem’s third annual marathon on Friday, with 1,000 police deployed to provide security along the route, police said.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation had called for a boycott of the marathon, part of which went through annexed, mainly Arab east Jerusalem.

Near the walled Old City’s Damascus Gate in east Jerusalem a group of protesters tried to approach the course but were kept back by police and barricades, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.

“There was an attempt by about 50-60 demonstrators to try and make their way toward the running area,” he said. “(There were) no major incidents apart from that.”

Rosenfeld did not identify the protesters but said that one of them was questioned and then released.

The PLO appealed to “all participants and sponsors of the International Jerusalem Winner Marathon to withdraw their sponsorship and participation or else become complicit in covering up Israel’s grave human rights abuses in its occupation of the State of Palestine.”

The race had participants from 52 countries running in either the full 42-kilometre (26-mile) marathon, the half marathon or a 10-kilometre dash.

It started at the Israeli parliament and followed a hilly course, part of which goes through east Jerusalem including a short stretch inside the Old City.

Ethiopia’s Abraham Kabeto Ketla won the men’s marathon in a time of two hours, 16 minutes and 29 seconds, a record for the Jerusalem event, organisers said.

In second and third place were Kenyans Luka Kipkemoi Chelimo and Vincent Kiplagat Kiptoo.

Ethiopia’s Mihiret Anamo Anotonios won the women’s event for the second consecutive year, in a time of two hours, 47 minutes and 26 seconds.

Unlike the stormy conditions of last year, this Friday morning in Jerusalem was mild and dry.

Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the rest of the world.

The Jewish state considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital, a claim not recognised by the international community. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their promised state.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Death of immigrant taxi driver: S.Africa suspends 8 police officers

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South Africa’s police commissioner on Friday suspended eight police officers accused of dragging an immigrant taxi driver behind their patrol car and killing him, prompting an international outcry.

Commissioner Riah Phiyega said that the eight officers had been disarmed and suspended for “callous and unacceptable behaviour” and the station commander had been removed from his post pending investigation.

Twenty-seven-year-old Mozambican taxi driver Mido Macia was filmed being manhandled, handcuffed and dragged by a police van through the streets to a police station east of Johannesburg.

Just over two hours later he was found dead in custody.

A post mortem found the cause of death was head injuries with internal bleeding.
See video here
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate has opened a murder investigation.

Phiyega condemned the incident and insisted it was being thoroughly investigated.

“Any one death is one too many,” she said adding that “what is in the video is not how the (South African Police Service) in a democratic South Africa goes about its work.”

“We believe in the principal of police being policed.”

South African President Jacob Zuma earlier condemned the killing as “horrific, disturbing and unacceptable”.

Footage of the incident spread quickly online, sending shockwaves through the country and put the conduct of South Africa’s much maligned police force back in the dock.

The country’s beleaguered police service has been pilloried for the shooting deaths of 34 striking miners last August.

It was also humiliated when it emerged that the officer investigating the murder case against star sprinter Oscar Pistorius himself faced charges of attempted murder for shooting at a taxi.

“They are criminals in uniform,” Bongani Hlela, a street trader based at the taxi stand where the Macia incident occurred earlier told AFP.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate received 720 new cases for investigation of suspicious deaths in custody or in other policing contexts from April 2011 to March 2012, according to Amnesty International.

In an interview with AFP, Phiyega, who has been in the job for less than a year, rejected suggestions that the police force under her watch was lurching from crisis to crisis.

She insisted the force was regionally respected and counts more than 200,000 officers in its ranks, so such incidents are likely to arise.

“It’s a monstrous organisation, so to have these types of incidents, it’s not untoward, you will always have them,” she said.

“Because it shall always happen, the big question is how do you deal with them.”

“As and when they happen, we shall decisively and unequivocally, without doubt, deal with those.”

She also insisted that the force had not lost the trust of South Africans and had a “dedicated leadership.”

Macia’s death has also prompted a diplomatic incident with neighbouring Mozambique.

The Mozambique government said it was “outraged by what happened”.

“It is very sad that a life was lost so stupidly,” Foreign Affairs Minister Oldemiro Baloi told reporters in the capital Maputo.

“I think that whatever perspective you want to attach to it — either human or the relations between the two countries — it is absolutely unacceptable.”

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Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Al Qaeda commander Abu Zeid killed in Mali.

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French forces in Mali have killed Abdelhamid Abu Zeid, a leading field commander of al Qaeda's north Africa wing AQIM.

The station said 40 militants including Abu Zeid were killed in the region of Tigargara in northern Mali three days ago. A French Defence Ministry official declined to comment on the report. Algeria did not confirm the killing.

France launched a whirlwind assault to retake Mali's vast northern desert region from AQIM and other Islamist rebels on January 11 after a plea from Mali's caretaker government. The military intervention dislodged the rebels from several main towns they had occupied and drove them back into desert wilds.

AQIM, which stands for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, has earned tens of millions of dollars in ransom payments for Western hostages taken to its strongholds in northern Mali.

Abu Zeid has been regarded as one of AQIM's most ruthless operators. He is believed to have executed British national Edwin Dyer in 2009 and a 78-year-old Frenchman, Michel Germaneau, in 2010.

Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, in an account of his kidnapping by another Islamist cell in the Sahara, recounted how Abou Zeid refused to give medication to two hostages suffering from dysentery, one of whom had been stung by a scorpion.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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South Africa: Taxi driver handcuffed to back of police van and dragged to his death

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(Codewit) Taxi driver handcuffed to back of police van and dragged to his death as cops responsible are suspended in South Africa
This is the face of the taxi driver handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged to his death in South Africa over an alleged parking dispute.

Video footage captured on a mobile phone shows officers attaching Mido Macia, 27, to the back of their van and brazenly speeding off before a crowd of horrified onlookers.
The Mozambican immigrant was found dead in a police cell two hours later.
South Africa's police chief today said she shared 'the extreme shock and outrage' over the video footage, as she announced the officers involved had been suspended and the local police commander removed from his post.
General Riah Phiyega said she fully supports the investigation by the police watchdog agency and added the rights of Mr Macia were 'violated in the most extreme form'.

Investigators are said to have been told that the taxi driver assaulted one of the police officers and took his gun.
But South Africa's Daily Sun today revealed new video footage which appears to contradict officers' version of events.
It appears to show the cab driver arguing with police officers with his hands by his side, before he is manhandled to the ground by up to five men in uniform.

The scandal is only the latest to undermine confidence in South Africa's police, heaping yet more shame on a force that opened fire on striking workers at the Marikana platinum mine in August last year, killing 34 people.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Zuma Condemns horrific attack on Mozambican taxi driver by SA Police

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South African President Jacob Zuma has condemned an incident captured on video in which a Mozambican taxi driver was handcuffed to the back of a police van and dragged through the streets.

He is reported to have died in custody later. President Zuma called the incident "horrific" and "unacceptable".

"No human being should be treated in that manner," Zuma added. He said police must operate within the law.

Human rights groups have often accused South African police of brutality, reports the BBC.

South Africa's police watchdog is investigating the footage taken by a bystander of the incident near Johannesburg. It has been widely shown in the media.

Reports say police initially assaulted the 27-year-old driver, accusing him of parking his vehicle incorrectly in Daveyton, east of Johannesburg.

The video shows a large crowd gathering, as uniformed policemen tie him to a van, dragging him as they drive away.

He was later taken into custody, where he died, local media has reported.

Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) spokesman Moses Dlamini said his organisation was investigating the incident and that it too was shocked by the footage.

The opposition Democratic Alliance party (DA) called for the officers involved to be suspended and for a thorough investigation to be carried out.

It said that the fact that the crowd watched and did nothing to help – some even cheering – was a sad indictment of South African society.

Rights group Amnesty International said there was an "increasingly disturbing pattern" of police brutality in South Africa.

The IPID had received 720 cases for investigation, including suspicious deaths in police custody, from April 2011 to March 2012, said Amnesty's southern Africa director Noel Kututwa, AFP reports.

Police have not conformed if the officers involved in the incident had been suspended, AFP reports. Dlamini said the IPID did not have the power to suspend the officers.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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Kenya: Hate Leaflets Trigger Voter Poll Fears

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Hate leaflets threatening violence ahead of Kenya's elections are being distributed in numerous parts of the country, police have confirmed.

In one leaflet obtained by Sky News, a politician in Western Kenya accused a rival tribe of seeking to uproot his community ahead of the March 4 polls.

Referring to the tribe members as "weeds", he promised to push them off their land and return them to their "original home" if elected.

Deputy Police spokesman Charles Owino Wahong'o said in a statement: "The leaflets are causing fear and may cause people to leave the regions where they registered as voters.

"Other leaflets are warning people of possible violence during and after the election."

Kenya was rocked by ethnic conflict during its 2007-2008 elections.

More than 1,100 people were killed and up to 600,000 forced from their homes as a result of the disputed poll, where members of two rival tribes both claimed victory.

Hate speech, often reported by local media, was a major catalyst for the fighting.

Journalist Joshua Arap Sang is now wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity for allegedly inciting violence on his radio station KASS FM.

His trial is due to start in April, along with that of current presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta – who is also indicted on charges of crimes against humanity.

About Post Author

Anthony-Claret Ifeanyi Onwutalobi

Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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