World News - .geographical media - RSS

Men Arraigned for Affray

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:04:23 GMT

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Alieu Sabally and Lamin Saidykhan were on the 25th November 2008 arraigned before Senior Magistrate Mbacke of the Kanifing Magistrates’ Court for fighting and wilful damage to property.

The first accused, Alieu Sabally, pleaded guilty on two counts while the second accused pleaded not guilty.

According to the charge sheet, the accused persons on the 13th November, 2008, at Dippa Kunda wilfully and unlawfully damaged the windscreen of a Toyota van by hitting it during a fight whose value is D45, 000.

Prosecutor Cadet- Inspector Mballow subsequently narrated the facts of the matter against the first accused who pleaded guilty on both counts.

Magistrate Mbacke then adjourned the case to the 1st December 2008, for judgement and hearing, and granted the second accused bail in the sum of D45, 000 with a Gambian surety.

Author: Dawda Faye

CONGO: Heavy rains cause havoc, raise fears of disease outbreaks

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 14:43:30 GMT

Saturday, November 22, 2008

BRAZZAVILLE Friday, November 07, 2008 (IRIN) - Days of torrential rain have caused severe damage to the capital of the Republic of Congo and given rise to fears of water-borne disease. “It’s been raining for several days across the country. There is an urgent need to solve hygiene and sanitation problems,” said Minister of Health, Family and Social Affairs Emilienne Raoul. “We already have four cases of cholera in Kindamba district in the Pool region because of the rains,” she said. In northern...

Source: http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=81356

Another Truck Accident at Bass Market

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:18:47 GMT

Thursday, November 20, 2008

A truck recently went out of control and caused serious damage to a shop at Bass, Main Market. The loaded truck forcefully found its way into the shop of one Sheik Fall thereby causing very serious destruction.

According our sources, the incident happened when the driver was trying climb the market side hill in an effort to off-load the goods. The hand brake suddenly cut off and the weight of the goods forced the truck to reverse and scramble into the Mauritanian’s shop. Our sources added that the truck was said to have mechanical failure after being tested by the authorities, but there was no causalities during the incident.

Our sources further lamented that the Diver (name withheld) was having closed discussion with the market authorities as to whether he can repair the damage he made during the accident and also to pay the alleged damages of goods in the shop.

Author: Bakary Samateh

Wiful Damage Lands man in Trouble

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:43:34 GMT

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

A young man from Kunkujang village, who pleaded guilty for unlawful damage to property, has been fined by the Bundung Magistrates’ Court in default to go to prison.

Edrissa Badjie, a young man living in Kunkujang, Kombo North appeared before the Sheriff of the High Court Amina Saho-Ceesay standing for Magistrate Kumba Sillah, put the case to the defendant who pleaded guilty.

Prosecutor, Cpl. Sambou, reading the facts of the case, said, “On the 3rdAugust 2008 at Kunkujang, Kombo North, Western Region, the accused who lives in the same compound with Taffa Badjie, the complainant borrowed a spade from the complainant and was given to the accused. He then used the spade to remove his door. When the complainant asked him why he was doing that, he said the complainant had no right to ask him.

Push and pull ensued between them, it was then the complainant reported to the Wellingara police.”

When Magistrate Amina Saho Ceesay put it to the accused he answered in the positive and pleaded for mercy.

The accused said, “I lost my father and I care for 5 sisters, 6 brothers and 2 mothers. Please forgive me.”

Magistrate Amina Saho Ceesay said, passing her judgement, “the court takes cognisance of the accused person being a first offender. Offenders are given the chance to go back in society to comport themselves like others.” As a result of this and being a breadwinner for eleven persons he was fined to pay D1, 000 or in default to serve 3 months imprisonment. “And to pay D1, 000 as compensation or in default to serve 3 months both to run concurrently,” Magistrate Amina Ceesay said.

Author: Malafie Badjie

Man in Court for Wilful Damage

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:07:23 GMT

Monday, July 21, 2008

The trial of Nfamara Ndure commenced recently at the Brikama Magistrates’ Court before Magistrate John Njie.

Mr Ndure is being tried for the offence of wilful damage to property. He denied the charge.

Testifying, the complainer Sabati Yaya Bayo told the court that on the day in question he was driving from Katong when the accused asked to be given a lift. And that when he told the accused that he would not be able to give him a lift, he got angry and insulted his mother and threw stones at his vehicle, which damaged his windscreen.

He then reported the matter to the police.

He is expected back in court today.

Author: By Yai Dibba

Man convicted for Property Damage

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:01:27 GMT

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Pay a D2,500 fine or face nine months imprisonment. This was the sentence imposed by the Brikama Magistrates’ Court to one Nguda Touray. He was also ordered to pay compensation of D10,000 to the complainant in default to serve one year in prison

Mr Touray was found guilt of damaging property value at D3,550.

Author: By Yai Dibba & Binta Fatty

Downpour destroys 10 compounds

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:06:19 GMT

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Sunday’s downpour has caused havoc to at least 10 compounds in Kafuta Village, Kombo East District, Western Region.

The downpour, which lasted for several hours, has forced many out of their homes, leaving behind irreparable damage to property.

But all hope is not lost. Those affected have been provided temporal shelter by neighbours. But they continue to painfully mull over what the future holds for them, as some of their belongings had also perished.

The responsive intervention of neighbours to the flood was said to have contributed in abating the extent of the damage to properties and some foodstuffs.

Our reporter, who was on the ground shortly after the flood struck, said although the victims were gripped by despair, they admitted that the incident would not have been averted, as it was an unexpected natural phenomenon.

Mbagaye Sonko, one of the affected villagers, who works as a farmer, said “there is nothing we could have done to prevent it from happening. But it will be difficult for us to rebuild our houses again”.

Ismaila Bojang, another flood victim, said they have no money to restore their dwellings, expressing fear that the incident would disrupt their farming.

For Kata Bojang, the village alkalo and Nfamara Colley, the chairman of the Village Development Committee, appealed to the public, the government, NGOs, parastatals and philanthropists, to urgently come to the aid of the victims.

Bakary Touray and Muktarr Jallow, who were also affected by the flood, expressed similar sentiments.

Author: by Sheriff Barry

Storm displaces over 200 people

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 04:54:06 GMT

Monday, June 23, 2008

At least 14 families in the villages of Kuloro, Mandinaba, Tubakuta, Giboroh, Bonto, Pirang and Faraba, all in Kombo East, Western Region, have been hit by a powerful windstorm, which left at least 200 villagers displaced.

The storm struck in the wee hours of Saturday and lasted for about two hours, causing extensive damage to property. The violent storm battered many houses, leaving most of them roofless. Walls were cracked and a good number of trees collapsed in some of the villages. Even the newly built houses at Pirang Village were not spared. Billboards erected along the highways were also affected.

However, there is yet to be any report on a major casualty. But in Mandinaba Village, a young girl was said to have been hit by a mud-block, which fell from the walls of a house.

In a similar incident, the windstorm was said to have hit some families in the districts of Foni.

Meanwhile, some of those affected by the natural disaster were said to be sheltered by neighbours under difficult conditions, including overcrowding.

Our reporter, who was in Kuloro, Mandinaba and Tubakuta villages, observed that most of the houses that were hard-hit by the storm were built in areas sparsely surrounded by trees, which serve as breakers in such situations.

As we went to press last night, fresh reports of the windstorm flooded into the Daily Observer. In Wulli Barrow Kunda, Upper River Region, 10 families were rendered homeless by the storm, which was accompanied by a heavy downpour.

According to our sources, the affected families are currently sheltered at the Barrow Kunda Lower Basic School, as efforts intensified to re-build their homes.

Yaya Sumareh, a board chairman of Beakanyang Kafo, visited the affected families and appealed to the government, NGOs, philanthropists, and the general public to come to their aid.

For the victims of Kombo East, anyone who wishes to help can contact: Lamin M. Dibba of the Daily Observer on 992 5898; and for victims in Wuli, please contact Yaya Sumareh on 992 6285 or Nfamara Jawneh, the secretary-general of Beakanyang on 986 8882.

Author: by Amadou Jallow

ZIMBABWE: Food security forecast to worsen

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:17:01 GMT

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

A combination of post election turmoil and arid weather conditions are presenting a bleak scenario for food security in Zimbabwe.

The UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said in a statement on 10 April that "extreme dry weather in several provinces of Zimbabwe is likely to cause serious damage to the main 2008 maize harvest. This could aggravate an already precarious food security situation in the country."

The new year ushered in widespread flooding in low lying areas, FAO said, and this gave way "to prolonged dry spells since February. This will affect maize growth and yields to be harvested in May/June."

Zimbabwe's stagnating economy suffers the world's highest inflation rate of more than 100,000 percent and this had resulted in farmers being unable to source key inputs, such as fertilizer, seed and fuel.

"The food security situation in Zimbabwe is critical," FAO said. "Of the estimated 1.03 million tonnes of cereal import requirement for 2007/08, some 839,000mt, or about 81 percent of the total, have reportedly been imported so far."

"With dwindling foreign exchange reserves and shrinking purchasing power, another year of low cereal production would severely affect the food security condition for a significant part of the population unless substantial assistance is provided," the UN agency said.

About one third of Zimbabwe's about 12 million population is currently receiving emergency food aid.

Farm invasions

In the aftermath of the March 29 presidential and parliamentary poll, in which President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party lost control of parliament for the first time since independence from Britain in 1980, veterans of Zimbabwe's liberation war have reportedly begun evictions of the country's last remaining white farmers.

The opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has also claimed victory for their leader Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential poll. The official results have yet to be released.

South Africa's Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad reportedly said on 10 April, following a meeting last week by South African diplomats with the Zimbabwean Commercial Farmers' Union president Trevor Gifford, that "The problem here...is that most of the farmers are about to harvest their crops and as a result Zimbabwe is at risk of losing food worth millions of dollars."

The South African government had sent a diplomatic note to the Zimbabwean Ministry of Foreign Affairs after war veterans had allegedly forced two South Africans nationals from their land. "[The note was] to plead for the protection of our farmers in Zimbabwe," Pahad said.

Gifford reportedly told international media that veterans loyal to Mugabe had evicted about 60 farmers since the results of the parliamentary elections, including a black commercial farmer for his alleged support of the MDC, from their farms.

In 2000, war veterans loyal to ZANU-PF, were at the forefront of Zimbabwe's fast track land reform programme that saw white commercial farmland redistributed to landless blacks.

Eight years ago there were about 4,500 white owned farms in Zimbabwe, currently there are about 300 white commercial farmers remaining on their farms.

Source: IRIN http://www.irinnews.org

CAR: Struggling to undo the damage of sexual violence

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:44:24 GMT

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

The Monam group of rape survivors in the northern town of Bossangoa in the Central African Republic (CAR) does what it can to keep going, but morale is low and money tight.

"We've been left to fend for ourselves. We get little help from outside. Many of our members have died," the group's chairwoman, Pelagie Ndokoyanga, told IRIN/PlusNews.

Monam, which means "common good" in the Sango language, was set up in 2006 to bring together female survivors of sexual violence committed in 2001 and 2002 amid the mayhem leading up to the most recent of CAR's numerous coups d'etat that brought Francois Bozize to power in March 2003.

As well as providing a forum for solidarity, revenue-generation and wellbeing for women who have suffered gender-based violence (GBV), Monam also aims to combat such abuse, identify its perpetrators and fight against the stigmatisation of women in general and rape survivors in particular. According to Ndokoyanga, several members of the group were abandoned by their husbands after they were raped.

When an HIV testing and counselling centre was set up in Bossangoa in 2005, many of the first HIV-positive cases were the result of rape.

Among them is Nkokoyanga, who also works with the Bossangoa Association of People Living with HIV.

"It's normal to tell relatives when one is infected, it's not a sin," she said when several dozen members of the association met IRIN/PlusNews. "But they are the first to spread the news."

"Nobody has a job here. I have all my certificates but I never get a job because people know I am HIV-positive," she added.

Both organisations would like to enhance their incoming-generating activities such as market trading, but lack of the necessary capital makes it hard to get such projects off the ground.

With UNAIDS estimating CAR's HIV prevalence at 10 percent, with just three percent of HIV-positive adults on life-prolonging antiretroviral therapy, there is a clear and urgent need to scale up HIV education, testing and treatment, but continued armed conflict and insecurity have made this difficult in many areas of the country.

Many rapes, little data

Accurate, detailed statistics about the number of women who suffer GBV in CAR are unavailable. This is partly because of the stigma attached to such attacks, but also because the government barely functions outside the capital and international humanitarian actors have only recently begun working in the country in significant numbers.

In late February 2007, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that "sexual and gender-based violence strikes well over 15 percent of women and girls" in northern CAR.

Such attacks increased during the pre-coup unrest and during rebel clashes in early 2006 and early 2007.

One of the main areas of investigation opened in May 2007 by the International Criminal Court (ICC), following a request by the CAR government, is the "many allegations of rape and other aspects of sexual violence perpetrated against hundreds of reported victims...during a peak of violence in 2002/03", according to an ICC statement.

The court’s prosecutor is also closely monitoring reported incidences of GBV committed after 2005, when two rebellions emerged in the north.

“[Following a failed coup attempt in late 2002] there emerged a pattern of massive rapes and sexual violence perpetrated by armed individuals. Sexual violence appears to have been a central feature of the conflict," the ICC statement said, adding that at least 600 victims of GBV had been identified over the course of just five months.

Those targeted included elderly women, young girls and men, the ICC said.

"There were often aggravating aspects of cruelty such as rapes committed by multiple perpetrators, in front of third persons, sometimes with relatives forced to participate," the statement added, noting that the social impact of such crimes "appears devastating".

Programmes slowly getting off the ground

For now, there is little outside help for those directly affected by GBV. Clients of the Organisation pour la compassion et le développement des familles en détresse (OCODEFAD), a domestic NGO, have given testimony about sexual attacks against them to the Bangui office of the ICC prosecutor.

OCODEFAD was founded by Bernadette Sayo, a secondary school teacher whose husband was killed in front of her in 2002 by DRC rebels allied to CAR's then president Ange-Félix Patassé amid a coup attempt. The gunmen subsequently raped her.

OCODEFAD registered hundreds of women and dozens of men, as well as young children and elderly people, sexually abused during this period of unrest. It was largely thanks to pressure from this organisation and international rights groups that the government in Bangui called on the ICC to open its investigation.

In terms of foreign assistance, one NGO, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), set up a GBV programme in the northern town of Kaga-Bandoro in May 2007, providing free medical care and psycho-social counselling for its clients, raising awareness about GBV in nearby communities and holding discussions with various military groups.

Language, as well as stigma, was an obstacle in the beginning. "It took us a month to get a definition of rape. There's no word for it in Sango," Catherine Poulton, IRC GBV coordinator in CAR, told IRIN/PlusNews.

Since it began, the IRC's programme - which covers households along a 50km stretch of road - has handled 1,040 cases of GBV, dealing with associated problems such as sexually transmitted diseases, trauma and rejection by families.

Another seven GBV programmes are in the pipeline for 2008, involving agencies such as the UN World Health Organization, UNICEF, the UN Population Fund and Comité d'Aide Medicale.

In the case of CAR, where the data is so limited, donors may need to break with the tradition of seeking detailed assessments of a problem before signing their cheques. According to some analysts, one has to assume widespread prevalence; in IRC's experience the data emerged from the programme, rather than vice versa.

Source: IRIN