Gambian police are examining the bank accounts of former President Yahya Jammeh and his family.

Mr Jammeh who ruled the Gambia for 22 years, went into exile in January following his defeat by Adama Barrow in December 2016 presidential elections.

Mr Barrow’s government have since accused him of looting from state coffers and leaving the country’s economy nearly bankcrupt.

Acting on presidential directives, police have contacted the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Central Bank of the Gambia to go after Mr Jammeh’s various accounts where he may have to stashed over US$50 million he allegedly looted from the state.

As part of investigations, police will forensically examine key data including the dates the accounts were opened and statements.

Mr Jammeh was the richest Gambian. During his long reign, he was able to accumulate a personal wealth which was more than the Gambian state.

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A British mother-of-two has gone missing in Rwanda and may have been abducted by the African country’s feared security services, her husband said.

Nothing has been heard of Violette Uwamahoro, 39, a youth worker from Leeds, since she disappeared nearly two weeks ago in the Rwandan capital Kigali after travelling to attend her father’s funeral elsewhere in the country.

The mother-of-two had arranged to meet a relative at the city’s bus station on February 14 but failed to make the rendezvous and her mobile phone was switched off within minutes of her scheduled arrival time.

Her husband, Faustin Rukundo, believes his wife has fallen into the hands of Rwanda’s military intelligence as part of efforts to disrupt opposition to the country’s president, Paul Kagame, who has been frequently criticised by human rights groups for imposing an increasingly authoritarian grip on his citizens.

Mr Rukundo, a laboratory technician who gained British nationality along with his wife in 2014 and has lived in the UK since 2004, said he believed her disappearance was directly linked to his role as an activist in the opposition to Mr Kagame and fears she is being held incommunicado.

He said he has been contacted by an officer within the Rwandan military who confirmed his wife was being held by intelligence officers and he is now afraid he may never see her again. It is understood that Rwandan officials have told British diplomats that they do not know the whereabouts of Mrs Uwamahoro, who has two sons aged 10 and eight. Former Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn, who is Mrs Uwamahoro’s MP, has tabled a parliamentary question asking Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson what contact has been made with the Rwandan government concerning her disappearance.

Mr Rukundo, 37, said: “This is completely out of character for my wife. Up until 20 minutes before she was due to arrive in Kigali we were exchanging messages and nothing was wrong. Then she simply vanishes. We know that the government uses abduction against its critics and this seems to be a way of applying pressure on me and obtaining intelligence.

“I am incredibly worried for my wife’s safety. Our children are having nightmares and wanting to know where their mother is. I am very worried that unless the British government applies enough pressure we will never see Violette again.”

Human Rights Watch has warned of a spate of disappearances, unlawful detentions and politically motivated arrests in Rwanda ahead of the country’s presidential elections later this year.

Mr Kagame, who secured a change to the constitution to be allowed to stand for a third term this year, was lauded for leading his country’s recovery from the 1994 genocide which saw 800,000 people murdered, transforming the economy and holding together a country riven by the atrocities of its recent past.

But critics say that this has been at the price of tight restrictions on freedom of expression and increasing evidence of political repression with an opposition activist and a journalist disappearing last year. Human Rights Watch said the government was also arbitrarily detaining scores of poor people and placing them in ‘transit centres’ where inhumane treatment is common.

Mr Rukundo, who is a youth organiser with the Rwandan National Congress opposition group, said he had been able to access his wife’s email account since her disappearance and found all her messages had been forwarded to an address unknown to him.

He said: “My wife has no involvement politics. She had merely travelled home to attend her father’s funeral. I would implore the authorities to either charge her with an offence if they have evidence or let her go. Knowing she is alive is now the main thing for me.”

In a statement, the Foreign Office said: “We are providing assistance to the family of a British woman reported missing in Rwanda, and our staff in Kigali are in touch with local authorities.”

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“Ooooh My, JKL is back!” you’ve probably heard that today. Well, it’s about the return of Kenyan Emmy award-winning journalist and talk show host Jeff Koinange on TV after a while.

The 51-year-old has been off TV screens for close to four months attracting several pleas from his fans. However, the long wait is finally over as his show debuts today on his new home station, Citizen TV.

“At last I have one more reason to tune into @citizentvkenya apart from flipping to see what Lillian Muli is wearing@KoinangeJeff,” Wandia Kamau, a fan tweeted today. “@KoinangeJeff like the Israelites waiting for Moses and 10 commandments I have waited for you. Karibu.@citizentvkenya Fire signal sounded,” writes another fan, Jeff Kiage‏.

 Koinange once worked with CNN before going separate ways in 2007. He bounced back with Capital talk on the bench on K24, a TV station he pioneered and catapulted single-handedly to fame between 2008 and 2012 with the catchphrase; ‘all Kenyan all the time’, Jeff has cut a niche that only he can execute. Prior to his time at CNN, Jeff had worked for Reuters and ABC News in the US with remarkable achievements during his time with the stations.

After successfully setting up K24 TV and drawing viewers to the new station, it was once again time to leave. This time, he took a longer hiatus before bouncing back on the bench on KTN where he hosted his live talk show twice a week. His charisma just like in the past drew his fans to his new home where he hosted the late night show on Wednesdays and Thursdays propelling the station’s ratings to even greater heights.

Before his departure from KTN last year, the media council of Kenya had warned TV station KTN and show host Jeff Koinange against violating journalistic practice following a squabble between Nairobi governor aspirants Miguna Miguna and Esther Passaris that got out of hand on Jeff Koinange’s watch as the moderator.

Here are 9 awards associated with Jeff Koinange:

2005 Television Emmyfor coverage of the devastating famine in the West African nation of Niger. The Primetime Emmy Award is a symbol of peer recognition from over 16,000 Television Academy members. An Emmy Award recognises excellence in the television industry. Academy Award (for film), Tony Award (for theatre), Grammy Award (for music).

2006 George Foster PEABODY Award for his coverage of the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina. The George Foster Peabody Award (Peabody Award) recognises distinguished and meritorious public service by radio and television stations, networks, producing organisations and individuals. The Peabody Awards judging process is unusually rigorous. Judges seek “Excellence On Its Own Terms.”

2006 Vernon Jarrett Bronze Medal for ‘Best Feature’ on ‘Mass Rapes in the Congo’. The Vernon Jarrett Institute awards the medal, for journalistic excellence, annually to exceptional journalists. It honour’s outstanding coverage of people of African descent and the issues that impact their lives.

2006 The Prix Bayeux for War Correspondents for humanely reporting on the civil war in the Congo.

Since I994, the city of Bayeux, associated with Calvados General Council organises this award to pay tribute to journalists who are working in hazardous conditions to allow access to free information.

2006 Finalist of the Diageo Awards for Business Reporting in Africa.

2007 Finalist of the Diageo Awards for Business Reporting in Africa.

2007 Vernon Jarrett Bronze Medal and ‘Famine in Malawi’.

2008 The Moran of the Order of The Burning Spear (MBS).

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Once known as the food basket in the region, Uganda is currently hit by famine where by an estimated 10.9 million Ugandans are experiencing acute food insecurity while 1.6 million have no food at all, a report released Tuesday indicates.

This can be partly blamed on production, storage and post-harvest handling.

According to the World Food Program (WFP), nearly one-third of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted, and over half of that food waste happens during production, post-harvest handling, and storage.

WFP has been carrying out a research aimed at evaluating various post-harvest storage technologies sold in Uganda to better understand which technologies are best poised for scale.

In 2014, the WFP established a special operation to train Ugandan farmers in post-harvest storage and introduce them to post-harvest technologies, while also supporting Uganda’s private sector to develop business models for post-harvest loss reduction.

“The World Food Program offered four products to over 16,000 farmers at a subsidized price: metal silos in two sizes produced by local artisans, plastic silos produced by a local manufacturer, and hermetic bags, which were imported,” explains Jarrod Goentzel, Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation (CITE) scalability lead and director of the Humanitarian Response Lab.

“We wanted to understand how these products compared in cost, availability, and value to the farmer. And we sought to identify opportunities for improvements in local supply chains to better deliver these products in the future.”

The researchers found that plastic silos produced by a local manufacturer showed the most potential, with a strong value proposition to farmers and capacity to scale production.

However, the cost structure as reported by the manufacturer indicated they were selling the silos at a loss.

“After the study, the World Food Program worked with a new manufacturer to reduce the cost,” Goentzel says, adding: “They redesigned the product so silos could be nested for stacking to increase transportation efficiency.”

Metals silos produced by local artisans were attractive to farmers, but were less available than other products. Artisans that employed skilled labor and utilized manufacturing equipment had higher productivity, indicating that local production could be competitive through labor training and capital investment. Researchers found imported hermetic bags were affordable but offered low margins for the sales channel partners.

“Because local artisans were not consistently able to produce silos at the scale needed, the World Food Program decided to source their metal silos from a central manufacturer in Kampala. Still, there’s potential to be explored in the local artisan model. It will just take longer to scale up,” Goentzel explains.

Based on findings from the study, the World Food Program also changed the distribution of post-harvest technologies. Before, the organization arranged for transport directly, and now, they instead arrange for manufacturers to transport products to local distributors or agro dealers for distribution to farmers.

Another important aspect of the study was the training on improved handling and storage practices that accompanied the sale of post-harvest technologies.

“The special purpose trainings facilitated by the World Food Programme in this initial program were expensive, but important: They became the ‘power users’, essential for effective word-of-mouth marketing. It’s key that post-harvest training become part of the business model for private sector actors and incorporated into local extension services in the future,” Goentzel says. “There is already interest from distributors and agro dealers, as well as from the Ugandan government.”

In their research, MIT researchers used mixed methods, employing empirical research — surveys, semi-structured interviews, and even hypothetical behavioral experiments — to gather data that informed an analytical model.

Combining empirical research with modeling helped researchers better understand the current trajectory in farmer adoption and identify the most critical factors in scaling faster.

“Unlike the products themselves, you can’t bring supply chains into the lab,” Goentzel explains. “Market facilitation by a development organization like the World Food Program provides an important laboratory in developing effective business models.”

WFP is now working on rolling out similar post-harvest storage initiatives in Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, South Sudan, Burkina Faso, Mali, Zambia, and Zimbabwe – countries that have been hit by famine too.

Meanwhile, the government of China came to Uganda’s rescue with food aid of about 119,660 bags(50kgs each) of rice valued at Shs22billion.

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The French Embassy in Uganda has partnered with Airtel Uganda to celebrate the France – Uganda Friendship Week.

Scheduled for 18^th to 25^th March 2017, the friendship week will be used to organize a joyful, positive series of events concretising the friendship between Uganda and France through music, culture, food, wildlife and sport.

Some of these include; Francophonie in collaboration with other francophone embassies, eco-tourism, Good France to promote the French fine dining, debates at Makerere University, sports in schools and the music and football event at Mandela Stadium on the 25^th of March.

There will also be a charity dinner at the French Ambassador’s residence, proceeds of which will be given to a chosen charity project.

Speaking during the press conference to announce the partnership at the French Embassy, Mr. Phanindra Nichanametla, the Airtel Uganda Finance Director, expressed happiness with the partnership.

“Partnerships are essential to the development of a brand and we at Airtel Uganda have always been and will always be willing to get into partnerships that promote culture, wildlife, music and sports,” he said.

“One of the activities that very strongly resonates with us during this week will be the football match between the Uganda Cranes, which we sponsor, and the French Military Football Team,” he added.

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