Nepal earthquake: UK government gives £5m

1 hour ago
 From the section Uk


There are fears the death toll could rise yet further
Nepal quake

Everest survivors describe ordeal
Nepal quake 'followed historic pattern'
Nepal's architectural jewels destroyed
In pictures: Nepal overwhelmed by quake
The UK government has given £5m to help people affected by the Nepal earthquake, which has killed at least 2,500 people.
The Department for International Development said it had released £3m to address immediate needs on the ground, and £2m will be given to the Red Cross.
A number of Britons have been caught up in Saturday's earthquake and the powerful aftershock felt on Sunday.
At least 17 people have been killed in avalanches on Mount Everest.
Climbers and their guides have been cut off from Everest's devastated base camp, unable to come down because climbing ropes and ladders have been swept away.
Rescuers told the BBC the mountaineers were waiting to be rescued by helicopter but bad weather had hampered efforts.

It has been confirmed that 17 people have been killed on Mount Everest - the mountain's worst-ever tragedy
The exact number of stranded mountaineers is not known but the Nepalese government said more than 50 climbers had been rescued.
The earthquake struck in the midst of the spring season in Nepal, when most of the attempts to climb mountains in the region are made.
Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said "we would expect there to be several hundred British nationals in Nepal" but there are currently no reports of any killed or injured.
"British embassy staff have helped over 200 British nationals who've presented at the embassy directly," he said.
The Foreign Office (FCO) has released an emergency number +44 (0) 207 008 0000 for people worried about loved ones who may have been in the area at the time.
'Swaying streets'
A British couple on their honeymoon are among a number of Britons caught up in the earthquake and subsequent avalanches in the Everest area.

Alex Schneider (l)and Sam Chappatte (r) were making their second attempt at Everest
Alex Schneider and Sam Chappatte, who are safe but cut off at a Mt Everest camp, described seeing an "avalanche coming straight" at them.
Alex Staniforth, 19 from Chester, who is also stranded at camp one, texted via satellite phone on Sunday to say his team will spend another night there because "the weather has drawn in making helicopter entry dangerous".
Tom Elphinstone and Zara Carey, both 26 and from London, had been hiking the Annapurna circuit in western Nepal and were in the town of Tansen when the earthquake hit.
They have told family members of "swaying streets" and being in a building which moved "like a ship" with "plaster falling off the walls".

Tom Elphinstone and his girlfriend Zara Carey were travelling in western Nepal when they were caught up in the earthquake
International Development Secretary Justine Greening, who chaired an emergency meeting about Nepal on Sunday, said the funds could be fast-tracked to aid workers so they could provide supplies including clean water, shelter, household items and blankets.
"We are also sending humanitarian experts from the UK to provide urgent support on the ground," she added.
Several British charities are sending funds and teams to the region, and rescue organisations are deploying specialists:
A team of 16 from Search and Rescue Assistance in Disasters is set to fly out from London
Eight volunteers are set to travel to the country with Salisbury-based charity Serve On as part of its International Rescue Team
Save the Children is making an initial allocation of £300,000 from its Children's Emergency Fund
Christian Aid has made an initial £50,000 available to help victims.

Music boss Len Blavatnik named as Britain's richest man

7 hours ago
 From the section UK

Len Blavatnik (L) has taken the top spot from Gopi Hinduja (R) and his brother Sri

Warner Music owner Len Blavatnik is Britain's richest man with a £13.17bn fortune, according to the 2015 Sunday Times Rich List.
He takes the top spot from brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja, now worth £13bn.
The total wealth of the richest 1,000 individuals and families in Britain has more than doubled in the last 10 years to £547bn, the survey reported.
The Queen, who topped the first list in 1989, has dropped out of the top 300 for the first time.

The Queen has been on every Sunday Times Rich List since she topped the first one in 1989
There are now 117 billionaires on the list, up from 104 in 2014, with 80 of them living in London.
Mr Blavatnik, a Ukrainian whose investments range from metals and oil to music publishing and digital media, has a £41m home in London and has donated £75m to Oxford University to found the Blavatnik School of Government.
More billionaires
The highest risers in terms of wealth are the retail family headed by Galen and George Weston, who run Selfridges and Primark in the UK.
Their fortune has grown by £3.7bn - more than 50% in a year - to £11bn.
Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich comes in at number 10 on the list with a fortune of £7.29bn, down £1.23bn on last year, while Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson has seen his wealth rise from £3.6bn to £4.1bn, making him 20th richest in Britain.
A personal fortune of £100m is now required to become one of the 1,000 richest people in the country, up £15m compared with last year's entry point of £85m.
In 1997 it took a fortune of just £15m to join Britain's richest 1,000 people.

Ghana told to stop new oil drilling in disputed waters

5 hours ago
 From the section Business


Ghana and Ivory Coast want to develop their offshore oil reserves
Energy

Harnessing the power of the ocean
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Ice cold water heats whole city
Wind turbines take to the skies
Ghana has been told by an international tribunal not to begin any new offshore drilling for oil in disputed waters with the Ivory Coast.
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea did, however, allow Ghana to continue developing current oilfields.
These include the so called-Ten fields, part owned by UK firm Tullow Oil.
Ivory Coast had asked that all drilling be suspended, but the tribunal ruled this would risk "considerable financial loss" to Ghana.
Instead, it told the West African nation to "take all necessary steps to ensure than no new drilling either by Ghana or under its control takes place in the disputed area" and to "refrain from granting any new permit for oil exploration and exploitation in the disputed area".
'Call for restraint'
The area is believed to contain large reserves of oil, which both countries are keen to exploit.
Pending a ruling on the precise maritime border, the tribunal told both countries to "pursue co-operation and refrain from any unilateral action that might lead to aggravating the dispute".
The ruling was welcomed by Tullow Oil, which owns a large stake in the near $5bn (£3.3bn) Ten project, which could reportedly produce up to 80,000 barrels a day.
"Following this ruling, the Ten project can move ahead and we will now await instructions from the government of Ghana with regard to implementing those provisional measures that have been ordered by [the tribunal]," a Tullow spokesman said.

Russia jails three women over twerking video at WW2 memorial

3 hours ago
 From the section Europe


A Russian court has jailed three women for performing a twerking dance in front of a World War Two memorial.
The court in Novorossiysk gave two of the dancers 10 days in jail each, a third 15 days and two others received fines on charges of petty hooliganism.
Prosecutors had said their "erotic and sexual twerk dance" was disrespectful to historic memory and unacceptable.
Earlier this month, Russian officials closed a dance school after a similar dance video emerged on the internet.
The latest incident involves six dancers - one of them a minor who was not convicted - who had posted a video on YouTube.
"This incident of disrespect for the memory of war history is unacceptable and any attempts to desecrate sites of military glory will be stopped immediately," prosecutors said.

The Orenburg dance school video has been a huge YouTube hit
The sentences come as Russia prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the World War Two victory.
They also follow the incident early in April when a video clip from the Orenburg dance school on YouTube was viewed millions of times.
The video clip, entitled Winnie the Pooh and the Bees, showed a group of teenage girls dancing on stage in striped leotards, long socks and mini-skirts,
They perform hip-thrusting moves characteristic of twerking.
A committee is investigating whether the performance amounts to negligence or even "debauched action", which is punishable by a range of sanctions from community service to three years behind bars.

Union, most precious product since independence

 Union Parliament where legislators from both sides of the United Republic of Tanzania meet to make laws.
CELEBRATING one’s 51st birth anniversary is telling one’s history on one page and that is not saying much, because there is a lot more to the celebration than just having been existence for over half a century.

The Union – the merger of the mainland formerly called Tanganyika and the insular previously known as Zanzibar - is just as old. Since their coming together a lot of water has passed under the bridge and triumph is not so much in order as self-examination is.

The people of the two parts of the country can walk with their chests thrust forward, proud that they have weathered tests of time and lasted so long and even improved on a couple of things.

Such co-existence despite occasional disagreements merely prompts the question of: “Why in the first place, had the two parts of the country been separated as different nations when their people are essentially the same with the same language and cultural background?

“Why didn’t Rwanda and Burundi with almost similar ethnic communities on the same mass of land as Tanganyika form a similar union while Zanzibar separated from Tanganyika by a massive oceanic body of about 22 miles found it so easy to form such a union?”

We revisit our history and see a suggested answer there. We both belong to what once was called the Zenj Empire. It will be in order to talk about this political entity albeit for a while.

ZENJ is the Arabic word for “BLACK.” the first outsiders to visit the East African Coast were the Arabs. They called it the ‘Land of Zenj’ – land of the black people.

The interaction of peoples of the Middle, Near and Far East in culture, economics and politics created the first inter-continental Eastern Africa economic and quasi-political region known as the ‘ZENJ EMPIRE’ spanning from the port of Ras Hafun in the North of what is today Somalia to the Mozambican port of Sofala in the south with Malindi in Kenya as it’s centre.

The Europeans disseminated the natural organic growth of this region and fragmented it. The past was frozen, while the present is constantly in flux and shifting in form.

“But to this day within the countries of what are Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi and Mozambique, these peoples’ land is laden with cultural influences that speak volumes of their formative union which was spurred by their external contacts with the orient, be it in language i.e.

Kiswahili, music, dress patterns and ornamentation,” a source in the Internet says. And there we go again. Rwanda and Burundi are mentioned as our fellow members of the Zenj Empire with similar cultural and lingual possessions.

Yet, even though we today aspire to forge a union of some sort with other continental neighbours it was easier for the two territorial parts of our nation fifty five plus one years ago to amalgamate because they had uncles on either side or brothers and sisters on the other side.

We have about three generations since Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form a union on 26 April 1964, who know nothing more than the Union.

They talk Union, sing Union, read Union and live in the Union. Telling them have something differently is hitting them in their under soft belly.

For years Northern Ireland fought along denominational lines and simply bled themselves to the death. The fight common as the Troubles. Primarily a political one, the conflict had also and ethnic or sectarian dimension, although it was not a religious conflict.

A key issue was the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. “Quebec independence debates have played a large role in the politics of the province.

Parti Quebecois governments held referendums on sovereign in 1980 and 1995: both were voted down by voters, the latter defeated by a very narrow margin.

Analysis of the regional results show that both referendums, a majority of francophones voted ‘Yes’, says a report. In 2006, the House of Commons of Canada passed a symbolic motion recognising the Quebecois as a nation within a united Canada.

The nation is so much a product of the Union that the president whose nearly five sixths part of life is existence in the Union found it ideal for the people today to have a Constitution based on their wishes and opinions. The strength of a union more often than not has prevailed over personal dissent.

Independence referendum question of the Scottish Independence Referendum Bill on the November 2013 wanted voters to answer with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. The question was “Should Scotland be an independent country?” The ‘No’ side won with 2,001, 926 (55.3 per cent) voting against independence and 1, 617,989 (44.7 per cent).

The two cases illustrate that after two peoples have been together for so long as the Quebec province and the rest of Canada it is never easy for them to separate.

The reasons are valid since in killing their oneness there is likelihood to arise fierce disagreements than the differences bothering them within the Union or the federation for that matter.

Most of all, it is proper at this time to have a glance at our nation’s past back until the Union Day when the two gallant leaders of the two parts of Tanzania sat down and drew the Union Charter.

There can be no gainsaying that there is much to admire. Tanzania has surmounted several economic mountains and on top there stand triumphant.

There is no doubt we have rode some rough parts of the Union’s sea with so scary political and economic waves, but we survived. Lessons abound for us to learn of benefits of unity contrary to an existence of erecting a territorial boundary between two peoples who essentially are the same ethnically.

Moreover, pooling resources together and joining manpower from several territorial divisions has developed the nation’s ability to solve problems.

It has also created a vast natural resource base for the people and made possible abundant potential that that can adequately be exploited by the new nation that is Tanzania.

Immigration Department inaugurates office on Isles

  AS Tanzanians mark the 51st anniversary of the Union today, Immigration S e r v i c e s Department (ISD) which falls under the Union matters is progressing well, but still faces multiple challenges, Mr Sylvester Ambokile, the Principal Commissioner (PC) of Immigration Services has said.

Speaking at the opening of the building for the Immigration Services, head office at Maisara/Kilimani area in Zanzibar, Mr Ambokile said the expansion of services, improved services delivery, new buildings for offices and houses for the staff, are some of the achievements recorded over the last ten years.

“We have been working hard to achieve our goals, but the shortage of funds remains a stumbling block despite the fact that our revenue collection has been increasing annually. We request the government to review the budget for the department and increase allocation,” said Mr Ambokile.

He said some of the big challenges facing the Immigration Department include shortage of manpower, increased sophisticated crimes, lack of equipment and shortage of buildings for offices and staff.

“We need to overcome these challenges for efficiency. For example, we need to have about eight thousand staff to meet the international standard, but currently we (Immigration officers) are about three thousand…” the Principal Commissioner said, at the event officiated by President Ali Mohamed Shein on behalf of President Jakaya Kikwete.

Deputy Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Pereira Silima, said a good working environment like the new building is important in improving delivery of services and the government is determined to put up more buildings, instal equipment and avail training for its defence and security departments.

“Our founding leaders, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume thought wisely to have immigration and citizenship to fall under Union matters, as it is good to identify ourselves as Tanzanians. We need an Africa with one people and Tanzania is leading with good example,” said Dr Shein.

Tanzania’s Union is wake-up call for Africa

 United Republic of Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete ( left) is greeted by his Zanzibar counterpart, Dr Ali Mohamed Shein, at Amani Stadium in Zanzibar during 2013 Mapinduzi celebrations.
FORMER presidents of Tanzania and Ghana, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Kwame Nkrumah respectively, had a dream of uniting all countries in Africa to form a single state.

The dream however, never came true. The idea for the United States of Africa was derived from a poem written in 1924 by Jamaican Pan Africanist Marcus Garvey; Hail, United States of Africa, in which he proposed that all African countries should unite to form a federation.

As Tanzania celebrates 51 years of the Union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar formed in 1964, African countries have a lesson to learn from this unification, one of its kind on the whole continent.

The African statesmen were of the view that Africans should live together in brotherhood and do away with artificial borders that were created by former colonial masters who partitioned the continent for their interests.

Nyerere was in favour of gradual unification while Nkurumah wanted to ‘fast track’ the process. Decades after African countries gained self-rule however, it seems neither ‘gradual’ nor ‘fast-track’ mode is closer to Africa’s unification

. Mwalimu Nyerere is on record for stating that he was ready to have the independence of the then Tanganyika delayed to wait for her neighbours Uganda and Kenya.

The aim was to attain independence at once and form the East African Community. After Tanganyika gained her independence on December 9, 1961, and following the Zanzibar Revolution of January 12, 1964, Nyerere engaged the Late Sheikh Abeid Karume to form a union.

And indeed, on April 26, 1964, the then Tanganyika united with Zanzibar to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is a unification that has faced the tests of time to date.

Some countries in Africa had tried to unite but never succeeded. In a speech prior to the 50th Anniversary of the union last year, President Jakaya Kikwete, cited commitment of the founding fathers, shared background and close working relations, as among factors that helped strengthen the Union during the past 50 years.

“Before and after independence, political leaders of the then Tanganyika and Zanzibar worked closely in Pan African movements, native associations and eventually political parties, formed to liberate Africans from maltreatment by colonial masters. “Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and Sheikh Abeid Karume decided that it was crucial to put the interests of their people ahead of personal interests.

They were self-giving leaders whose immense contribution was exemplary,” Mr Kikwete said then. The merger of political parties which played a crucial role in the independence of Tanganyika and Zanzibar namely Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) and Afro-Shiraz Party (ASP), respectively, in 1977 was also vital in cementing the union.

On the economic front, the Union has seen positive improvements registering an increase in per capita income from just US $35 dollars during the 1960’s to US $647 dollars as of last year.

The target is to make it to US $3,000 dollars by 2025 as the country seeks to become middle-income economy. By uniting Tanganyika and Zanzibar, Mwalimu Nyerere was walking his talk on gradual unification of the continent. It should be noted that Uganda and Kenya gained their independence in 1963 and 1962, respectively.

Three years after the union between Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar, Nyerere managed to engage once again the Late Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Milton Obote of Uganda to form the East African Community in 1967.

In Nyerere’s inspiration, before the whole of Africa could be united there was a need for countries to form regional integration which would be easy to join forces to form a single union for all African countries. Unfortunately, the then East African Community lasted for only ten years between 1967 and 1977.

It collapsed in 1977 due to a number of factors. The people of Africa may be united but some of their leaders do not feel the same way. Among causes for the collapse of the then EAC in 1977 were demands by Kenya for more seats than Uganda and Tanzania in decision-making organs as well as disagreements with Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

The then Ugandan President Amin was irked that a fellow member state in the EAC, Tanzania, was harbouring freedom fighters who were fighting to topple dictatorship in his country. On top of it, the disparate economic systems of socialism in Tanzania and capitalism in Kenya seemed to be the final straw that broke the camel’s back.

After 10 years of unity, the three countries which share a lot in common parted ways. It was not until the year 2000 that leaders in the region decided to revive the regional integration, realising that working together was beneficial to the people of the region rather than working single-handedly. Fifteen years down the lane, the EAC is now doing better.

Senegal and Zambia had formed a union of sort dubbed Senegambia Federation in February 1982 but it only lasted for few years before it collapsed in September, 1989. Between 1958 and 1963, Ghana, Guinea and Mali formed what was then known as the Union of African States, originally linking the West African nations of Ghana and Guinea (under the name Union of Independent African States) and then adding Mali in 1960.

The union planned to develop a common currency and unified foreign policy amongst members; however, none of these proposals were implemented by the countries.

The union was the first organisation in Africa to bring together former colonies of the British and the French. Although the union was open to all independent states in Africa, no states joined.

At 51 years, the United Republic of Tanzania remains an excellent example of unification in Africa. Only if other countries in the continent could emulate; the late Nyerere, Nkrumah and Garvey’s dream of United States of Africa would become a reality.

Nyerere pushed for nationalism, language identity

 

 A class in Zanzibar. Both the Isles and Mainland use Kiswahili as a medium of instruction.
RECENTLY, I read an informative post from a journalist colleague Sammy Awami currently in Canada for media studies. He had noticed something while on visit to Finland during a study tour.

His observation at a Museum in Helsinki brought back the debate on language as a medium of research and teaching. He made reference to a note on the language strife in the history of the country which had one of the major conflicts of national history and domestic politics.

That it revolved around the question of what status Swedish - the language whichsince the Middle Ages had been the main language of administration and high culture in Finland - and, on the other hand, Finnish - the first language of the majority of Finns—should have in political, cultural, educational, and other national arenas.

The strife began in the latter half of the 19th century, continuing well into the 1920s and 1930s. The language question has today lost its prominence as Finnish has attained a dominant status.

A significant contribution to the Finnish national awakening from the mid-19th century onwards came from the members of the mostly Swedish- speaking upper classes deliberately choosing to promote Finnish culture and language.

This brings us to a recent writing by Austin Bukenya , a poet, playwright, novelist and academic who referred to Mwalimu Julius Nyerere’s emergence as a literary figure, with his Juliasi Kaizari and Mabepari wa Venisi. He examined the works of African intellectual Mwalimu Nyerere as an alternative critique of the role and purposes of adult education in colonial and post-colonial conditions.

He reffered to literary and linguistic interest, however, is Mwalimu’s decision to launch his literary career with Shakespeare in Kiswahili. It points to a number of significant developments in his and Tanzania’s literary journey.

Bukenya argues that Mwalimu knew that the future of Tanzania’s culture lay in Kiswahili. To share Shakespeare with his people, he had to deliver him in Kiswahili, hence his daring translation enterprise.

“I call it daring because translation is such a complex affair that some purists even claim that it is impossible to properly translate any text at all.

Yet experience tells us that translation is a necessary channel of communication wherever two or more languages meet. How many people have ever read the Bible in its original tongues?” he wondered.

But that doesn’t mean that Mwalimu’s task of taking the English bull by the horns (or is it sharp spears?) and dragging it into the Kiswahili zizi was an easy feat by any means.

He noted Mwalimu probably took it on because he saw the great teaching value in the bard’s texts. Julius Caesar, for example, is an engaging study in the quest for political power, while The Merchant of Venice is a startling revelation of the evils of rapacious money- dominated systems.

According to Bukenya, apart from the relevant content, Mwalimu’s translations were practical demonstrations of the versatility and sophistication of Kiswahili, and its capability to take on the subtlest nuances of dramatic poetry.

“Anyway, his work across the two transnational languages in which he was equally fluent points to a significant trend in Tanzanian creative writing, which we may tend to ignore today.

Most East Africans assume that Tanzania’s creative writers publish almost exclusively in Kiswahili,” he noted. This is not accurate. Tanzanian authors, especially those of my generation, were as likely to write in English as in Kiswahili. He said only, the Tanzanians never seem to lose sight of their Kiswahili home.

A good example of this is the early work of my undergraduate contemporary, Ibrahim Hussein. His Kinjeketile Kiswahili and English texts were published almost simultaneously.

“The Tanzanians also maintain Mwalimu’s conviction that the best of world literature should be brought home, through quality translation, to their Kiswahili reading compatriots. Hence the appearance of texts like Masaibu ya Ndugu Jero, Shamba la Wanyama, Mkaguzi Mkuu wa Serikali and Mfalme Edipode, which we read today as Kiswahili texts in their own right,”noted Bujenya.

It is in the same light that recently, President Jakaya Kikwete launched the new education system that has abolished national examinations for primary school leavers and extended basic education to four years at secondary level. The policy will effectively make Kiswahili the medium of instruction from primary school to university level, thus dropping English that was initially used in the country’s education system from secondary to tertiary level.

The new policy is in line with Vision 2025 and has made considerations for global economic, social and technological changes. The president said that in the next seven years, the government would have built capacity whereby every child who starts Standard One would reach Form Four.

The new education system will incorporate vocational education in the basic education syllabus so that students who do not make it to Form Five have skills to contribute to the development of the country.

The argument is that there is need for a critical mass of skilled labour for the country’s development. It was proper that Kiswahili be the channel by which the skills are transferred to students.

Language studies will then be available to enable students to communicate in English. The document says the government will continue strengthening English in teaching along with Kiswahili during the transition period because using only Kiswahili will require a lot of resources.

Kiswahili is currently the language of instruction at primary level and English remains a subject. Thereafter, English becomes the language of instruction from secondary level to higher learning.

According to the policy, making Kiswahili the language of instruction at all levels of education is aimed at bringing sustainable efficiency in providing the skillful workforce that is needed for national development.

Voter registration starts in Iringa this weekend - NEC.

NEC chairman Damian Lubuva.
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) will this weekend start registering Iringa region’s potential voters in the permanent voters’ registration book.

Speaking to this paper in his office yesterday, the Iringa municipality registration officer, Gabriel Msunza, said the exercise will use the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits.

He expected that all potential voters would be registered within the planned period in the 192 identified registration centres in Iringa Region.

Saying they expected to receive 49 BVR kits from NEC for the exercise, he explained:

“We expect to complete the exercise in 28 days and we are very optimistic that the 49 BVR kits will be enough for all the two million people in our region.”  He said they were well prepared to overcome challenges like those which occurred during the registration exercise in Njombe Region.

However, a potential voter, Rajab Abdalah, felt that the 28 days were not enough because Iringa Region has more people than Njombe Region.

He said with the small population in Njombe the exercise took more than 50 days. Thus it is very possible that the exercise may not be successful in Iringa Region.

“It is not possible to register all the people in 28 days…the population here is very big compared to that of Njombe,” said Abdallah.

Early this week, the NEC announced that it had received 1,600 BVR kits.

NEC chairman Damian Lubuva told journalists that his office had received 248 kits that would be used in training NEC officials ahead of the start of registration in Iringa, Lindi, Ruvuma and Mtwara on April 24.

According to him, another set of 1,600 kits was expected to arrive at the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) in Dar es Salaam this week.

“We will thereafter receive 1,152 kits that will be sent to Singida, Tabora, Kigoma and Kagera regions on a date that will be communicated later,’’ Lubuva said.

The NEC boss said his office had no plan to postpone this year’s General Election in October. He warned politicians not to make statements that had not got even an iota of truth.

Education stakeholders for impregnated girls returning to school after delivery.

23rd April 2015

Arusha.
Education stakeholders in Arusha are of the view that impregnated schoolgirls should be allowed to return to school after delivery.

They aired their views recently when speaking at a stakeholders’ forum held in Arusha attended by over 1,000 participants from Tanzania and neighbouring Kenya.

Speaking at the event,  Arusha Regional Educational Officer (Academic), Kabesi Kabeja, cited the need for government to review the related law.

“Girls who get pregnant while in schools should be given another chance,” he urged.

“We must relook at the current law that prohibits schoolgirls from resuming classes even after delivering,” he said.

“The law humiliates and denies the girls their right to education…it is time for the government to work on this law because it is oppressive,” he asserted.

He emphasized the need for laws to reflect current needs of society, rather than embracing outdated practices.

“We can even look at how our neighbours deal with this matter…for instance, Kenya’s laws allow impregnated girls to go back to school after delivering and it has proved to be effective,” he said.

“Tanzania’s laws don’t provide room for such girls to enjoy their right to education after delivering, instead they are being chased out of school for good,” he decried.

In attendance was an official from Kenya Primary Schools Head Teachers Association (KEPSHA), Wintred Mbinyasila who said teachers must deliberate challenges facing the education sector and exchange views on how to improve the sector across the region.

 “Our law allows a girl who was impregnated while in school to go back after delivery and it has been effective,” the official said and pointed out that the law there also assigns hefty punishment on those who impregnate the schoolgirls.

Uncharted waters: ACT thrust creates triangular election map, thrill.

25th April 2015

Alliance for Change and Transparency (ACT) leader Zitto Kabwe addresses a public rally in Mwanza recently.
Legendary French President Charles de Gaulle (d. 1970) is reputed to have declared that "a week is a long time in politics," which sums up the kaleidoscopic movement that has come up right before our eyes.

It is in relation to how the political map of the country is  changing well before the various political parties have found their feet ready for the general elections, new opportunities coming up for aspirants especially for parliamentary and ward polls, but also the presidency. A king-maker has been born named ACT.

What is daunting is the manner in which the party has scaled three levels of growth in the space of one month, first graduating from a crisis-ridden infant party like CCJ and CCJK before it, to stand on firm footing.

 This occurred after it handed a party card to ex-Kigoma North MP Zitto Kabwe, and at that moment the party was reconstituted, topping the chairmanship with supreme leadership handed to the ex-MP.

 As befits a pre-electoral atmosphere, newly inaugurated ACT went on campaign stump to get members, prepare for polls.

Despite that everyone knew that Zitto Kabwe was a popular MP, there was still an impression that parties could more than individuals, so he was likely to fade out without CHADEMA anchorage. There was a debate with his ex-colleagues at Ufipa Street, Kinondoni area in Dar es Salaam where his old party has its headquarters, as to whether he brought up the party or, on the contrary, it brought him up.

In life there are lessons that are hard to learn, so soon CHADEMA was learning it owed Zitto more than would care to admit.
The psychological contention with CHADEMA was supposed to take the whole year as Zitto seeks to enhance his legitimacy, and starts to scout for presidential material, now that he is himself out of the contest.

 But it was soon becoming clear the debate with CHADEMA was irrelevant to ACT, and an aghast CHADEMA was now waking up to declare that ACT was its 'enemy number one.' From opposing CCM, it now principally opposes ACT.

Before the ink had dried over ACT's scaling of the second ladder to become a party on equal terms with CHADEMA and ready to take malcontents of both the old opposition party and the ruling party, a third stage beckoned.

 As top CCM secretariat officials continued to swear they mean to sideline Edward Lowassa, and amid fertile rumours of Zitto-Mwigulu Nchemba and Lowassa artery, the supreme ACT leader formally invited he former premier to join ACT, on condition of explaining how he got his wealth. That is easy.

Someone has recently done the job for Lowassa, and all he would need is to rubber stamp that explanation.

 His name is advocate Nyaronyo Kicheere, a former secondary school teacher turned journalist, trained as a lawyer at UDSM and is a prominent name in media and human rights litigation in the city of Dar es Salaam at present.

 He gave a simple explanation, as to how Ed Lowassa bought a large coffee farm in the 1980s in an area that later became the principal low density residential area in Arusha, selling plots for 10m each. As the farm was cut up into 400 such plots, would Lowassa be poor?

That explanation took care of Mwalimu's old criticism against Lowassa, that he was director at the Arusha International Conference Centre (AICC) for two years or so and he had ten daladalas thereafter, implying, purposely or otherwise, that he stole monies there.

The lawyer effusively and humorously insisted that the former premier was squeak clean, that there was no public monies in what he owns, and more significantly, he dishes out largely his own money, no debts being incurred.

It means he is not covered by caution that Mwalimu raised in 1995, as to how to pay debts incurred to enter Ikulu.

The possibility of a Lowassa passage into ACT as candidate, without having to go through a humiliating CCM process of explaining what he has given to numerous people to campaign for him, just denouncing those machinations, could change the calendar of events.

With Zitto seemingly capable of drawing  a third or more of CHADEMA followers to him, and Lowassa capable of doing the same for CCM followers, an overwhelming axis can be formed within the context of the run up to the polls, from a party that barely existed  as of first of April.

 That is why, as Gen, de Gaulle declared, a week is a long time in politics, and no weeks have seen politics move faster than this, ever.

At the moment only that scenario is plausible to draw up in the political map, as what follows next is merely the subject of dreams as in the story about Alinacha, that this axis wins polls and takes office.

 Then there is a problem of repeating what occurred in the fourth phase as an ethos of vibrant rejection  and combating of public-private partnership is official Zitto parliamentary line, while the former premier is far more guarded, though in the past he also tore up the city water contract.

That such an axis could improve the business environment would depend on how far Lowassa can shake off ACT influence.

Were such fusion to take place, it would be interesting to see what campaign roles fall upon the rump ruling party as well as the rump opposition party, their respective stings in popular imagination hived off to form a new axis that is untrammeled with the need to share out power, and influence, with the also-rans in party organisation. How far they would still pull crowds and make an impact in the general elections would depend on enthusiasm that remains after such event, as in soccer side; if they bind together, they survive, but if they fail that test they collapse. It depends on the level of pain inflicted.

Since the formal notice for such a fusion has already been given, it is not a sin - as Mwalimu Nyerere underlined back in 1990 - to start projecting possible outcomes.

At the moment the CCM Secretariat has retained electoral forms for aspirants, waiting up to June or thereabouts before releasing them, but even if the urge to start campaigning is stiff on the ex-premier's side, it is not plausible to take a move before Mangula and Co. do anything unacceptable. The technique ties down Lowassa to CCM for the moment but also helps him.

At each instance that CCM has raised this or that stumbling block for the former premier it has ended up helping him, as for instance in February last year.

Stopping premature prenomination campaigns left Ngoyai top of the league table, and others barred from assailing him. Of late another banning order of visitations came up, which means the others too won't organise any such visits, and voters remember only the visits to Ngoyai.

Now it is heard he is given easy conditions to join ACT as Mrema in 1995, with no Nyerere to frustrate him as previously the case, not due to any scandal but unacceptable  machinations of party bigwigs. It sounds like a fairy tale but it could happen.

Buhari Meets Man Who Walked From Lagos To Abuja

President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) has met with Suleiman Hashimu, a man who walked from Lagos to Abuja in 18 days, to celebrate the General’s victory in the polls.



On meeting the President-elect, Mr Hashimu presented to the President-elect, a folder filled with messages from Emirs and other Nigerians in communities he passed through, on his way to Abuja, the capital city.

He said: “I made a promise because of the love I have for Mr President that if Buhari should win the 2015 elections, I will trek from Lagos to Abuja which I have done. I thank God that I made a promise and I fulfilled the promise.

“I passed through Kwara and Niger states to Abuja. I was trekking from 6.00am to 6.00pm and anywhere I find myself when it is 6.00pm, I pass the night there.I spent 18 days from Lagos to Abuja.

“Once I found myself inside the bush by 6.00pm and I managed to continue the trek till 9.00pm to a nearby village.

“I made this promise two years ago. I am based in Ibadan and I started my journey from Lagos, because Lagos is the most popular city in Nigeria and I started from Berger junction in Lagos.

“I am not bothered about what people think. It is a promise between me and my God. I don’t want anybody to believe me. I left Lagos because I made a promise. Right from Kwara state, I never walked alone for five kilometers. People always walk with me to the next village. I work with a construction company based in Ibadan”.

In response, General Buhari thanked him for his support and for embarking on the journey saying: “I want to congratulate you for making it. He is a young man and he was lucky that his health did not fail him. I also heard so many stories that you wore almost half a dozen pair of shoes. I also understand that there are people who have been quite generous to help you to pay for pair of shoes”.