Home Blog Page 1400

Rwanda offers refuge to enslaved Libya migrants

By
Africaprimenews
-
0
African migrants gather at the Tripoli branch of the Anti-Illegal Immigration Authority, in the Libyan capital, 23 March 2017Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption The International Migration Organization says it has also gathered evidence of slavery in Libya

Rwanda has offered to give refuge to around 30,000 African migrants stuck in Libya often in enslaved conditions.

It comes in the wake of a video, released by CNN last week, showing men being auctioned off as farm workers.

“Given our own history… we cannot remain silent when human beings are being mistreated and auctioned off like cattle,” the foreign ministry said.

Hundreds of thousands of Africans travel through Libya every year as they try to make their way to Europe.

They are often held by smugglers and forced to work for little or no money.

During Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutu were massacred in 100 days while most countries did little to help.

“Rwanda, like the rest of the world, was horrified by the images of the tragedy currently unfolding in Libya, where African men, women and children who were on the road to exile, have been held and turned into slaves,” the foreign ministry statement said.

Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said Rwanda was a small country but it would find space.

She told the pro-government New Times newspaper that Rwanda was in talks with African Union (AU) Commission to determine how to intervene and resettle them.

“What I expect and know is that Rwandans will welcome these people. As Rwandans we are sensitive to people who are helpless and have no way of protecting themselves. It is something that is deep in ourselves, we take pride in human beings,” the paper quotes her as saying.

The minister also said negotiations were also continuing with Israel about accommodating African migrants seeking asylum there.

Last week, the AU expressed outrage after the footage emerged appearing to show slave markets in Libya.

Youths from Niger and other sub-Saharan countries were seen being sold to buyers for about $400 (£300) at undisclosed locations in Libya.

In April, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said it had gathered evidence of slavery in Libya.

Smugglers hold migrants for ransom and if their families could not pay, they were sold off at different prices depending on their qualifications, an IOM official in Libya said.

Note: This story is auto-generated from ‘BBC News’ syndicated feed and has not been edited by Africa Prime News staff.

IFS Senior Fellow Says Gov’t Is Choking Economy With Too Many Dev’t Projects

By
Nancy
-
0
Dr. Said Boakye

A Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) wants the government to reduce the number of development initiatives it is pursuing, and focus on only a few within a particular time frame.

Dr Said Boakye says the Nana Akufo-Addo-led administration risks accomplishing little if its capital-intensive projects like Planting for Food and Jobs, Zongo Development Fund, One Million Dollars per Constituency, Free Senior High School (SHS) etc,  are not rolled out gradually.

“I am not saying they [initiatives] are bad. Who wouldn’t like an industrialised economy? Nobody would. But if you don’t take your time, and try to do so many things at the same time, you will not be able to achieve anything, none of them will succeed,” he said on The Hard Truth, a political talk show on the Joy News channel.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) campaign in the 2016 election made promises that many in the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) say are populist and unattainable.

Although initiatives like the free SHS programme, Zongo Development Fund and the Planting for Food and Jobs have been rolled out, teething challenges have raised doubts about their sustainability.

Dr Boakye says beyond their sustainability government must reduce its expenditure mix in order not to choke other important sectors of the economy.

“President Kufuor did something similar – district industrialisation programme – every district was supposed to get one factory. After his term how many factories have been established? It is because of a funding issue.

“That is why we are only cautioning the [current] government, ‘take your time, move slowly, don’t bring all these things onboard at the same time,’” he admonished.

He also said the current government must work to achieve a more robust economic growth that is not fueled by the oil sector.

“If you look at other sectors of the economy, they are performing worse than last year, “he said, urging managers of the economy to focus on the Services and other sectors of the economy that have taken a nose dive.

Member of Parliament for Assin South, John Ntim Fordjour, who was also on the show disagreed with Dr Said’s view that the growth of the economy was fueled largely by the oil sector.

According to him, that argument is over-exaggeration of the oil sector’s contribution since the industry sector — which captures the contribution of the oil sector to GDP — also contains subsectors such as Manufacturing, which is doing well.

Source: www.myjoyonline.com

US school bullying: Mother charged over hidden recording

By
Africaprimenews
-
0
Sarah Sims (November 2017)Image copyright Wavy.com
Image caption Ms Sims said she hid the recoding device in her daughter’s backpack to prove that no effort was being made to stop bullying

A mother in the US who equipped her daughter with a hidden digital recorder at school to catch alleged incidents of bullying has been charged by police and faces five years in jail.

Sarah Sims is accused of wrongfully using the device to intercept oral communication.

She is also accused of “contributing towards the delinquency of a minor”.

She said she took the action because her daughter’s school did not address her repeated complaints about bullying.

“If I’m not getting an answer from [the school] what am I left to do?” she asked Wavy.com in relation to the sustained bullying she says her nine-year-old daughter experienced at the school in Norfolk, Virginia.

Ms Sims said she hid the recording device in her daughter’s backpack in September to prove that no effort was being made to help her.

The school has not commented on the case, but a spokesperson for the Norfolk Public School District made clear that electronic devices are not allowed in elementary schools.

The district has stringent anti-bullying rules on its website, with parents and children alike encouraged to report incidents.

Ms Sims said that she was “mortified” to hear that she had been charged for “trying to look out for my kid”. She faces a possible five years in jail for a felony charge and 12 months for a misdemeanour allegation.

Her lawyers say they do not expect proceedings against her to progress in the courts.

A preliminary hearing for her case is initially scheduled for 18 January.

Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS

Facebook to expose Russian fake news pages

By
Africaprimenews
-
0
Facebook
Facebook
Facebook logoImage copyright Getty Images

Facebook plans to let people see if they had “liked” pages created by “foreign actors” to spread propaganda during the US presidential election.

The social network has previously said as many as 126 million Americans may have seen content uploaded by Russia-based agents over the past two years.

It is building a tool to let people see whether they had followed now-deleted pages made by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency.

The tool will be launched in December.

The Internet Research Agency was behind hundreds of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts and posted thousands of politically-charged messages.

Many of the pages such as Heart Of Texas, Being Patriotic and Secured Borders were designed to look like they were created by US citizens.

Image copyright facebook
Image caption Facebook hopes to launch the tool before the end of the year

In November 2016, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said it was a “pretty crazy idea” to suggest misinformation spread on the social network influenced the US presidential election.

Since then, the company has identified thousands of posts and paid advertisements placed by Russia-based operatives.

It has been criticised for allowing propaganda and fake news to spread on its platform and taking too long to address the problem.

Russia has repeatedly denied allegations that it attempted to influence the last US presidential election, in which Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton.

“It is important that people understand how foreign actors tried to sow division and mistrust using Facebook before and after the 2016 US election,” Facebook said in a blog post.

“That’s why, as we have discovered information, we have continually come forward to share it publicly and have provided it to congressional investigators.

“And it’s also why we’re building the tool we are announcing today.”

Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS

US gun control: Jeff Sessions announces review into background checks

By
Africaprimenews
-
0
Mourners are comforted during a memorial service for the 26 people killed at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas (10 November 2017)Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption Twenty-six people died in the mass killing in Texas

US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered a thorough review of the FBI database used to check the backgrounds of people who want to buy guns.

The review will assess how key information about the gunman who carried out a mass shooting at a church in Texas on 6 November was apparently not registered.

Mr Sessions said it was “unacceptable” that this may have been the case.

Twenty-six people were killed and 20 wounded in the Texas shooting.

That incident came just a month after a gunman in Las Vegas opened fire on an outdoor music festival, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds in the deadliest mass shooting in recent US history.

Mr Sessions called for clarity from federal agencies in cases where people had lied on their gun-purchase applications.

Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption Mr Sessions says that he wants to ensure that people who are prohibited from purchasing firearms are prevented from doing so

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionWarning signs of a potential mass shooter

“The recent shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas revealed that relevant information may not be getting reported to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (Nics) – this is alarming and it is unacceptable,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.

Are US mass shootings getting more deadly?

Trump rejects stricter gun checks

Five reasons US gun control won’t happen

America’s gun culture in 10 charts

Mr Sessions said he was directing the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives “to do a comprehensive review of the Nics” and report back to him the measures that could be taken to ensure that “people who are prohibited from purchasing firearms are prevented from doing so”.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Media captionHow US mass shootings are getting worse

He said that Texas gunman Devin Kelley’s 2012 conviction for domestic assault showed that not all the necessary information was being added to the Nics.

US gun violence

Kelley, a former Air Force serviceman, was convicted for assaulting his first wife and a stepson. US federal law does not allow anyone to sell a gun to someone who has been convicted of a crime involving domestic violence against a spouse or child.

The gunman killed himself while trying to get away after the shooting. He is believed to have bought guns from a store in Texas in 2016 and 2017, but it is not clear whether they were used in the attack.

The Pentagon has already launched its own inquiry into Kelley. The House of Representatives Armed Services Committee has said that it will be investigating the Air Force’s alleged failure to notify the FBI of Kelley’s criminal record.

Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS

San Francisco accepts ‘comfort women’ statue

By
Africaprimenews
-
0
Comfort women statueImage copyright Getty Images
Image caption The controversial statue depicts three young women from Korea, China and the Philippines

San Francisco has officially accepted a statue representing the “comfort women” forced to work as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War Two.

The work depicts three young women – from Korea, China and the Philippines – standing in a circle holding hands.

Similar statues around the world have angered Japan. San Francisco’s Japanese sister city, Osaka, has already threatened to cut ties over the move.

It’s estimated that some 200,000 women were kept in these military brothels.

Some of the women were willing, others were lured with the offer of paid work as cooks or cleaners and many were forced, a UN report said.

They are thought to have been mainly from Korea, but also from China, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

The statue in San Francisco was set up privately in late September, but on Wednesday mayor Edwin Lee signed confirmation that the city council officially accepted the monument.

Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption Kim Hak-sun was the first woman to speak out about her experiences as a comfort woman

An inscription on the side of the statue reads: “This monument bears witness to the suffering of hundreds of thousands of women and girls euphemistically called ‘Comfort Women,’ who were sexually enslaved by the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces in thirteen Asian-Pacific countries from 1931 to 1945”.

A fourth figure stands nearby, depicting an elderly woman meant to be Kim Hak-sun, the first woman to speak out about her experience during the Japanese occupation of Korea during the war.

Similar memorials have been placed elsewhere, most notably in South Korea.

In January, Japan temporarily withdrew its ambassador to South Korea over a new statue outside the Japanese consulate in South Korea’s port city Busan. A statue also stands outside Japan’s consulate in Seoul.

Japan says the statues in South Korea violate a 2015 deal, which agreed that Japan’s reparations would “finally and irreversibly” resolve the issue – but many Koreans view that settlement as inadequate and the issue continues to plague ties.

But there are other statues in the United States and Canada as well as in Australia, which saw its first “comfort woman” statue set up in 2016 – these have caused varying degrees of tension.

In this case Osaka mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura wrote to his San Francisco counterpart to protest against the statue and said he might end the sisterhood between the two cities, which dates back to 1957.

Note: This story is auto-generated from BBC syndicated feed and has not been edited by AFRICA PRIME NEWS

Nigeria Targets 7 Million Metric Tonnes Of Rice Production To Attain Self Sufficiency

By
Nancy
-
0
Lai Mohammed
Nigeria's Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed
Lai Muhammed, Minister of Information and Culture,

By Amos Tauna

Kaduna (Nigeria)–Nigeria is targeting rice production of 7 million Metric Tonnes by 2018 to meet self sufficiency .
Nigeria’s rice demand in 2015  was 6.3 million Metric Tonnes.

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Muhammed who announced this while addressing newsmen in Abuja,  explained that the Administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has drastically cut rice importation and moved Nigeria very close to achieving self-sufficiency in rice, a major staple food in the country.

A statement by the Special Adviser to the Minister, Segun Adeyemi said the Minister quoted figures from the Thailand Rice Exporters Association that “Rice importation from Thailand, which supplies the bulk of the parboiled rice being imported into Nigeria, dropped from 644,131 Metric Tonnes to about 21,000 Metric Tonnes between September 2015 and September 2017.

“We are happy to tell Nigerians of a giant stride made by the Administration in the agriculture sector, specifically rice production: Nigeria is inching closer to achieving self-sufficiency in rice, due to the success recorded by the Administration in the local
production of rice.”

He explained that the result of the administration’s success in local production, some investors from Thailand have even shown interest in establishing rice milling plants in Nigeria, a development
he said would further boost rice production in Nigeria.

“A few years ago, this (Thai investors establishing rice mills in Nigeria) would not have been possible since Nigeria was not considered a top rice producing country. Today, Nigeria is one of the largest producers of rice,” he said.

The Minister said the increase in rice production across the country did not happen by accident, but was largely due to the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme, initiated by President Muhammadu Buhari to support farmers through inputs distribution and loans to boost rice production, and the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative, among others.

He said the increased rice production has, in turn, led to the establishment of rice mills, including the 120,000Metric Tonnes WACOT Mill in Kebbi and the 1,000,000Metric Tonnes Dangote Rice Mill.

Mohammed said with the Administration targetting rice production of 7 million MT by 2018, the country was closer than ever to achieving self-sufficiency in rice, going by the fact that as at 2015, rice demand in the country was 6.3 million Metric Tonnes.

He said the increased production was bound to force down the price of locally-produced rice and provide succour to Nigerians.

Attacks By Insurgents, Nigeria’s Inspector General Of Police Put Officers On Red Alert

By
Nancy
-
0
ibrahim-idris-igp
Inspector-General of Nigeria Police, Ibrahim Idris
Ibrahim Idris, Inspector General of Police

By Amos Tauna

Kaduna (Nigeria) –Nigeria’s  Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim  Idris, has ordered all Commissioners of Police and their Supervising Assistant Inspectors General nationwide to be on red-alert to nip in the bud any possible attacks by Boko Haram

The Force Public Relations Officer, Jimoh Moshood in a statement said  Mosques, Churches, Markets, Schools, Motor Parks, Farm Lands, Settlements, Villages, Towns and Cities in the North East States of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States are being targeted.

The statement directed that efforts should be made to quell the recent attacks by armed bandits in Zamfara State and other vulnerable states in the country.

“The Police Joint Team will also pay particular attention to the security of IDP Camps and liberated areas in the Mentioned States.

 “While the ongoing Joint Operations between the Police and other Security agencies in the States of the North East of the Country is being sustained, additional deployment of Police Personnel from Police Mobile Force (PMF), the Counter Terrorism Unit (CTU), Police Explosive Ordinance Department (EOD), Force Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Department (FCIID) Personnel would be effected.

“Attack and Sniffer Dogs Section have been made to the States of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe to bring new impetus to the fight against insurgency by Nigeria Police Force in the affected States,” the statement explained.

The Nigeria Police Force, according to the statement , commiserates with the government and people of Adamawa and Zamfara States over the recent killings in a mosque in Mubi and another attack in Numan, Shinkafi and Maradun local government areas.

“The Force also wishes to implore the people in the affected States to be vigilant and more security conscious most especially during periods of worship.

“A significant number of worshippers should be assigned and rotated to screen and watch over the praying venues to complement Police Personnel deployed to protect them. They are to promptly report suspicious acts or persons to the nearest Police detachment or station to avert untoward incidents.

“The Commissioners of Police in the affected States have been redirected by the Inspector General of Police to make additional posting of Joint Police Team to patrol mosques and churches and other vulnerable locations on twenty four (24) hours bases to ensure that no such attack occur again.

“The Area Commanders, Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) and other Commanding Officers in the Area Commands, Divisions in the towns and villages are under strict instructions to work with the people in the localities and sustain Police Visibility Patrols in the mentioned States,” it directed.

Meanwhile, the  Commissioner of Police, Federal Operations has been redeployed to Zamfara State and has  resumed duty.

It said additional Police Personnel comprising 20-Units of Police Mobile Force, 10-Cells of Counter Terrorism Unit, and Special Police Forces and Two Thousand (2000) conventional Police Personnel in compliance with the Presidential directive have equally been posted to the State.

It said the new Commissioner of Police has been mandated by the Inspector General of Police to re-gird the security architecture of the State and quell the recent attacks by armed bandits on villagers and other innocent Nigerians at Shinkafi and Maradin local government areas of the State and restore lasting peace, security and normalcy to the state.

1...1,3991,4001,401...1,782Page 1,400 of 1,782

Currency Exchange Rates

USD - United States Dollar
ZAR
0.06
EUR
1.17
CAD
0.73
ILS
0.31
INR
0.01
GBP
1.34
CNY
0.14

About us

Africa Prime News is an online news platform whose mission is to provide high-quality development journalism about Africa.

Company

The latest

ADC Debunks Planned Party Secretariat Commissioning In Kaduna

Politics 0
. . . Says No Plan To Do So...

Benue Born Award Winning Investigative Journalist Late Mother’s Finial Burial Rites Kick off 

Death 0
...Invites Benue, Kaduna Govs, others Final burial ceremony of late...

A Tribute To Mallam Umaru Lakorok: A Life Of Service, Integrity, And Community Leadership

News 0
By Iliya Kure The life of Mallam Umaru Lakorok—fondly known...

Subscribe

© 2021 tagDiv. All Rights Reserved. Made with Newspaper Theme.

Enable Notifications OK No thanks