The pornography case involving one Anthony Michael Dobson, a Norwegian national with his co-accused, Mustapha Drammeh, continued on Wednesday 17th September 2008 at the Brikama Magistrates’ Court with the testimony of a 15-year old girl (name withheld) who is said to be a victim this pornographic infamy.

The 15-year-old girl told the court that when she was going round with a friend in search of job, they went to Yarambaba Estate, where they met the second accused who took them to the first accused.  

 She explained that first accused asked her to return the following day to start work.

She testified that she returned the following day as agreed and commenced work, and after closing for that day the first accused gave her one hundred dalasis. She maintained that the man did that repeatedly for two days. And on the third day as she was coming out of the bathroom, to her astonishment she found the first accused sitting completely naked in the sitting room. “When I came out he grasped me and forced me to be on to the chair and then the strangling began until I fell on the floor and he forced himself on me. I got hold of his private parts, but he bit her on her right hand and eventually had carnal knowledge of me,” she told the court.

She added that after that the man took pictures of her before pushing her out of the house.

The dress she claimed to be wearing at the time of the affair was tendered as exhibit and was in rags.

Under cross-examination the defence counsel, Lawyer Borry Touray asked the witness whether she happened to sustain any injury as a result of alleged episode and she replied in the negative.

“Have you ever had sex before?” asked the defence counsel.

“No, he is the first man to penetrate me,” she answered.

When further asked whether she reported the alleged incident to her parents, she replied in the negative and added that she was not living with her parents, but with an uncle.

“You want the court to believe that Anthony had thorough penetration?” he defence asked again.

“Yes”, she answered.

“I am putting it to you that you are not telling the truth that he is the first person to touch you. You had the experience before,” Lawyer Touray told her.

“No that’s not true”.

“I am also putting it to you that your facial presentation does not seem to be a virgin.”

“No he is the first man to have carnal knowledge of me.”

“Did he spend time on top of you?”

“Yes, he did.”

The case continues.

The defilement trial involving one Musa Ceesay continued at the Bundung Magistrates’ Court presided over by Magistrate Kumba Sillah-Camara.

Testifying, Pw2 Kaddy Drammeh told the court that on the day in question she sent the victim to the shop to buy jumbo and on her return she observed that something unusual had happened to the victim. She said she enquired from the victim and the victim told her that she was raped by the accused, adding that it was then she explained to the victim’s mother who also said she asked the victim who confirmed again the action of the accused Musa Ceesay.

Hearing continues.

Thousands have been affected by flooding in more than 40 neighbourhoods across Senegal, including 21 Dakar suburbs according to the Senegalese fire rescue services. AFP has reported at least one drowning.

Dakar neighbourhoods affected include Pikine, Guédiawaye, Thiaroye and Diamaguène, according to Mayé Konate, spokesman the National Association of Firefighters.

Rainfall is up by 70 percent compared to the first week in September 2007, according to the Senegalese Meteorological Organization. Drainage canals across the capital are full, said Konate.

On 4 September the government launched a national emergency response strategy, directing US$650,000 to water pumping in submerged neighbourhoods. Up to 60 rescue teams are now pumping water from the streets into canals, ponds or directly into the sea, according to Prime Minister Shekih Hadjibou Soumaré.

During his tour of flooded areas, Soumaré told reporters "Following more heavy rains in recent days there remains much more to be done [to help flooded neighbourhoods]. I call on everyone, including the private sector to help the state in preparingfor further floods.”

Angry victims

In Pikine, one of the worst-affected areas, on 6 September citizens protested against what they saw as the government’s inadequate response by upturning two public transport buses, leading local authorities to position police in front of government buildings.

Many families here were forced to flee their homes and shelter in the local school. During past flooding, schools throughout the country have been turned into official temporary shelters receiving government help but this year, “this must be the last option,” Interior Minister Cheikh Tidiane Sy, announced on 6 September.

The prime minister has pledged help is on the way, but has not specified when. "I am aware of their demands…The government, with its partners inside and outside of the country, will bring relief to these people in flooded areas."

The International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC) is delivering emergency supplies to some 50 families displaced in these schools, while non-governmental organisations such as Islamic Relief are delivering food parcels to affected families.

But Youcef Ait Chellouche, disaster management coordinator at the IFRC, warns the problems are only beginning. “We need to be ready for potential epidemics – like cholera – to break out as the water starts to subside. We are closely monitoring this situation.”

Flooding worsened a cholera epidemic already underway in Dakar in 2005, which eventually infected more than 23,000 people.

IRIN 

Mr Barra Secka, a driver, was recently convicted and sentenced to a fine of D1000, in default to serve three months’ imprisonment by Magistrate B.O Jobe of the Bundung Magistrates’ Court.

He was also ordered to compensate the victim the sum of D6000, in default to serve another 12 months’ imprisonment. All sentences are to run concurrently.

The convict was, on 5^th August 2008 at Sukuta Junction, said to have hit one Fiedel Camara with his vehicle and thereby broke his legs.

In passing his sentence, Magistrate Jobe stated that the accused pleaded guilty to charges and that he did not waste the court’s time. He said the convict is a first-time offender and pleaded for mercy.

FAO Goodwill Ambassador says support for women crucial to nation’s improvement amid fragile peace

Singer and activist Miriam Makeba says women survivors of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo face a “triple tragedy” of physical, psychological and social damage, undermining the country’s attempts to improve living conditions.

Makeba, who is on a four-day visit to Kinshasa in her role as FAO Goodwill Ambassador, is planning to tour small farming projects designed to help rape survivors feed their families and increase self-reliance. The women have received FAO-donated seeds, tools and agricultural training. Makeba is to be accompanied by the DRC’s Minister of Gender, Family and Child Welfare, Philomène Omatuku.

Makeba, who won the Dag Hammarskjöld Prize for Peace in 1986, called the systematic rape of women in recent years the “most horrifying feature of the complex emergency” in DRC, Africa’s third-largest country.

“Women guarantee the survival of 80 percent of the households in DRC. Yet despite their crucial role for the well-being of the family, they are frequently victims to rape and sexual violence,” Makeba said. “In the province of North Kivu alone, 27 000 cases of sex violence were recorded in 2006.”

Vast potential

The DRC has “a vast potential for economic growth,” said the South African singer, who has been an active supporter of FAO's campaign against world hunger since her appointment as Goodwill Ambassador in 1999. “Yet 70 percent of the people have difficulty getting enough food to eat, malnutrition rates are on the rise and some 3.5 million people have died in the last 20 years as a result of violence, famine and disease.”

The FAO Emergency Coordination and Rehabilitation Unit, in collaboration with other UN agencies, non-governmental organizations and local authorities, has provided assistance to 500 000 households, or more than two million people. FAO plans to increase assistance to 800 000 households this year.

FAO projects have provided farming and fishing equipment, quality seeds and disease-free plants, and road repairs to improve access to markets. The programmes have placed priority on the most vulnerable groups, including internally displaced persons, malnourished children and ex-combatants.

Urging the international community not to forget the ongoing crisis in the DRC, Makeba said, “I would like my visit to this country to be an opportunity to renew and strengthen our commitment and ensure that innocent victims suffering from hunger have access to the necessary resources to cultivate their hope for a better life.”

Makeba’s schedule also includes a visit to a project for families affected by HIV/AIDS, meetings with high-ranking government officials and encounters with representatives of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations.

The constitutional impasse engulfing the national union of Gambian students (NUGS) seems to have taking a shape for the worst as the ousted University of the Gambia Students’ Union (UTGSU) representative at NUGS, Mr Ebrima Sanneh, is showing no sign of backing out.

On Monday Mr Sanneh walked into our office complex with a six page document purportedly from NUGS. The document, entitled "NUGS IPRO debunks UTGSU", accused the latter of political victimization against their president. It also dismissed as "misleading and rubbish" a report earlier published by the Daily Observer that the last congress of NUGS ended in disarray, despite the marching out of UTGSU delegates, the institution that holds the chairmanship.

The document also quoted Mr Morr B. ceesay, president of GTTI Students’ union, who doubles as the IPRO of NUGS, as saying "we shall make our feelings known to UTGSU through a formal warning letter and a demand for apology". Mr Ceesay, according to the document, vowed that any charges against "our president, Mr Ebrima Sanneh, that is not substantiated and which is not channeled through the executive council of NUGS, shall be rejected and thrown out.

According to the NUGS IPRO, the overwhelming belief by NUGS is that "our president is the victim of politically motivated witch-hunt and organized stunt and it shall be countered anywhere under the sun. By their action at the congress, they (UTGSU) have fully violated our constitution."

The document further revealed that the executive council of NUGS, during their crisis meeting, came close to punishing UTGSU with a suspension or a hefty fine. It however warned that such attitude would not be tolerated. All effort to reach Mr Morr Ceesay for verification proofed futile.

However, when contacted on the issue, the UTGSU president, Mr Ousman Badjie, said that he did not know under whose chairmanship that crisis meeting said to have been held by NUGS came up. He said: "as far as I know, we have not been approached about any meeting, and as the president and chairman of NUGS, I am supposed to call for meetings not anybody else.

He referred to the decision of the UTGSU congress as binding, and something that concerns UTG students, not GTTI. We have all the right to decide who represents us, not anyone else.

That is what prevails in all the other institutions." Mr Badjie further said that he had discussed the decision taken by their congress with the university authority, whom he said had expressed satisfaction about the step of integration by students. According to him, the Vice chancellor was appreciative of the fact that the integration process had actually started at the level of the students themselves.

The UTGSU president dismissed treat by the said document as not worth responding to, because "the people who are said to have written this document do not know enough about the national union, therefore they do not have the moral authority to threaten an institution like UTGSU with punishment.” He however urged for restraint and maturity. And he concluded: "the issue is for UTGSU not anybody.

It was this congress of ours that decided last year that we separate the two positions, those of us who were against it had no choice but to go by the decision. If the same people decide so, apparently after realizing the mistake they had done, who are you to refuse it?"

Bakary Marong, 33, has been arrested for seriously cutting one Seedy Hydara, a grade 11 student, with a cutlass, this paper has been reliably informed.

Dependable sources told this paper that Bakary on Thursday, around 7:40am, went after the victim’s father, Sheriff Maline Hydara, in his Bundung compound but did not meet him home at the time.

Just after the victim, Seedy Hydara, informed him that his father was out, Bakary all of a sudden went berserk and struck him first on the forehead, then the arm and lastly on his back, apparently incensed at something the victim’s father had done.

According to the sources, Bakary Marong disclosed that he was bent on settling a score with Sheriff Maline Hydra for reportedly employing his service in Dasilami for six long years on the alleged promise that he would give him a wife in return but reneged on it.

Meanwhile, Seedy Hydra, said to be in a critical condition, is being treated at the Intensive Care Unit of RVTH. 

Bakary Marong is said to be a native of Farafenni but currently residing in Tanji, Kombo South.

At the time of writing this story, a 23-year-old Sinchu Alagi girl was still in custody at Wellingara police station and will soon undergo trial for assault, occasioning actual bodily harm.

Fatou Bah is awaiting trial after her arrest by the police in Wellingara for lacerating one Isatou Jallow with a razor blade.

The case was mentioned at the Bundung Magistrates’ Court on Monday but thanks to the prosecution’s failure to carry out its homework it had to be deferred until March 10th.

According to the charge sheet prepared by the police, Fatou Bah had used a razor blade to stab her victim but Magistrate Kumba Sillah-Janneh, presiding, elucidated that it is incomprehensible for one to use a razor blade to stab.  After this assertion, she ordered the prosecution to go back to the drawing board and reconstruct its case.  Magistrate Sillah-Janneh went on to point out that without a properly composed charge sheet, the medical certificate issued to Ms. Jallow and the statement of the accused could not be admitted as pieces of evidence.

Fatou Bah, who maintains her innocence, could in the meantime gain her liberty in the sum of D5000 with a surety in the like sum. The surety must also be a holder of a Gambian identity card.

Floodwaters in central Mozambique have displaced at least 100 families and the death toll in neighbouring Zimbabwe has risen to at least nine as heavy rains lashed the neighbouring southern African countries, according to media reports.

Sergio Moiane, administrator of the district of Buzi in Sofala Province, in central Mozambique, told local media at least 100 families had been evacuated from their homes in the low-lying area of Bandua after experiencing consistently heavy rainfall since 7 December. He said floodwater had swept away about 188 hectares of crops, although water levels in the Buzi River had begun to recede.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, the state-run newspaper, the Herald, said the government had declared a state of emergency in the Muzarabani District of Mashonaland Central Province, in the north, while extensive flood damage was reported in Masvingo Province's Chiredzi and Chivi districts in the southeast.

The declaration of an emergency allows the state to provide assistance to Mashonaland Central Province in the southeast of the country, where two people have died and more than 600 families were left homeless by flooding.

Sibusisiwe Ndlovu, deputy director of the Civil Protection Unit (CPU), the government's emergency assistance arm, the told the Herald that floods were leaving a trail of destruction in Chiredzi District, on the floodplains of the Runde River in southeastern Masvingo.

Among the nine people reportedly killed by the flooding in Masvingo were a father and his two children, who drowned while attempting to cross the flooded Shashe River in Chivi District, also in the southeast, on Wednesday, while two other children were swept away trying to cross the swollen rivers.

The CPU remained on high alert, expecting more flooding in southern Masvingo because of the continuous rain, the newspaper said.

The heavy rains in Zimbabwe are part of a weather system stretching south from the Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa to the southeastern shore of the continent, across Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. More rain is expected.

"Indications are that the wet spell will extend beyond today into Christmas, with heavy rains expected in the northern parts of the country, including Harare and the Zambezi Valley," Zimbabwean meteorologist Hector Chikoore told the Herald.

A year of natural disasters

The flooding in Mozambique caps a year of natural disasters that have descended on one of the world poorest countries: early in 2007 drought severely affected the central and southern parts of the country, while major flooding struck along the Zambezi River in the north.

February this year brought cyclone Favio. According to World Food Programme (WFP) Country Director Ken Davies, his organisation was already assisting 471,000 people throughout the country as a result of the drought and flooding.

Davies warned that supplies were becoming thin. "The bad news is that we have had to cut cereal portions by 50 percent and there is no oil in the rations," he told IRIN, adding that WFP was "anxious to receive funding" because they expected to continue assisting people into March/April 2008 when new the harvests were due.

According to the Mozambican government's annual Food Security and Nutrition Vulnerability Report, up to 660,000 people would need food assistance until then.

Davies said WFP had contributed to local development by purchasing a great portion of the food they distributed this year. He said the US$13 million spent on over 45,000 tonnes of food in Mozambique was a "tremendous contribution to increasing the size of the local market."

Yet another fire incident, believed to have been caused by a candle, completely razed at least two tailoring workshops in the Latri Kunda Sabiji market over the weekend.

Speaking to this reporter at the scene one Bada Secka, a Senegalese national, a victim, said that the fire started in the early hours of Saturday around 4:30am when his apprentice called to inform him that their workshop was on fire.

According to him the fire emanated from an adjoining tailoring shop belonging to one Modi Yaya, where an apprentice went to sleep living a lighted candle. Having burnt itself out, the flame from the candle caught on to the cloths, setting alight other objects in the congested shop.

According to our sources, about 10 sewing machines and heaps of cloth believed to be part of the lot brought by clients preparing for the approaching Tobaski were engulfed by the fire.

The sources further revealed that an estimated 1.5 million dalasis worth of equipment and cloths were destroyed while the man in the shop where the fire originally emanated sustained serious injuries. He was rushed to the Faji Kunda Health centre.

As women in the country compete to put on well-tailored and expensive cloths for the Tobaski, the fate of the clients of Bada Secka and Modi Yaya remains uncertain.

Meanwhile, the principal victims of the incident are in the incident have appealed to the government, NGOs and philantrophists to come to their aid. They can be reached on (00220) 9906086 for any assistance.