The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has today called on authorities in South Sudan to reopen the Nation Mirror newspaper, ordered closed by security services.
The newspaper’s editor, Aurelions Simon Cholee, said that security officials summoned editors and accused them of ‘engaging in activities that are incompatible with [the newspaper’s registration] status’, but did not offer further explanation.
Cholee said that authorities ordered the Nation Mirror closed and did not specify when it would be able to resume publication. The paper’s website appeared to be last updated on September 13.
In its most recent edition, the Nation Mirror covered a report by The Sentry, a Washington advocacy group, which alleged that President Salva Kiir and his rival, the former vice president Riek Machar, had amassed enormous wealth and invested it in multi-million dollar properties abroad, while a conflict triggered by a dispute between the pair has left many citizens in South Sudan living in poverty.
“President Salva Kiir’s government should immediately allow the Nation Mirror to resume publication,” said Murithi Mutiga, CPJ’s East Africa representative. “South Sudan needs more, not fewer, independent and critical voices. Preventing professional journalists from doing their work will not advance efforts to build a democratic and stable South Sudan,” he added.
Paul Jacob Kumbo, South Sudan’s director general of information, told CPJ he did not know why the paper was closed or how long it would remain shuttered.”This was a decision by the security officials and I am still waiting for more information on it,” he said.
The Nation Mirror has been closed before; in February 2015, the CPJ documented how National Security Service agents seized a print run and issued a publishing ban after the paper was accused of printing anti-government reports.
The media environment in South Sudan has deteriorated in recent months.
CPJ reported in July that the major daily, Juba Monitor, was ordered closed and its editor, Alfred Taban, was arrested after he wrote a column critical of both Kiir and Machar.
Singer Ibrahim Mayanja aka Big Eye with former lover Don Zella, when the latter was pregnant with their child.
Singer Ibrahim Mayanja, popularly known as Big Eye, began his career with close buddy Eddy Kenzo, featuring performances as the ‘Big Talent’ duo. However, the two bitterly fell out and to date don’t see eye-to-eye.
It has since emerged that the person who was behind their bitter split is Don Zella, who later went on to become Big Eye’s wife. According to Zella, she got to know her husband through Eddy Kenzo.
She says Big Eye tried to snatch her from Kenzo for two months but all his efforts were fruitless.
However, Zella says she later fell for Big Eye’s sweet words and when Kenzo got to know about it, the two Big Talent members fell out.
AT EASE WITH SELF: Don Zella
The Birth of Big Music
On falling out with Kenzo, Zella, then based in Dubai literally took on the ‘motherly’ role paying all Big Eye’s bills; from paying for his studio bills to rent.
“By the time I met Big Eye, he was renting a sixty thousand shilling room behind the Makindye Court. We had been dating for over two months and I often used to visit him but we weren’t intimate at all,” Zella says in a video statement on Facebook.
With time, she says, she moved the ‘physically fit’ artiste from a rented room and took him to her home. As though this wasn’t enough, she says, she even bought him his first car. Later, she would organise him his first concert using the money that she had saved to buy a Hummer, so the story goes.
“The concert didn’t go well but at least the Big Eye name had got enough publicity and I was hopeful that it would pay off in future….”
The couple was later blessed with a baby.
Big Eye ‘takes family to Zella’s home’
Life was indeed good at Zella’s home and like any relative living a good life, Big Eye, too, tried to elevate the lives of his brothers by getting them from the life of hustle to the good life. He brought them to Zella’s home.
In addition, Big Eye brought two more of his hangers-on home, something that Zella says she later protested because the family had expanded to almost 20 people.
“It was too much for me to take in anymore. I requested him to get somewhere to put the people who were not his relatives because I had two young daughters, who I couldn’t just leave to grow up while watching people doing bad things at home,” Zella says.
Apparently his hangers-on would smoke ‘weed’, booze and usually return home late, actions she couldn’t bear anymore.
“Big Eye became incensed, accusing me of not being social and against his friends. He left home, telling me he was going to look for a house for his hangers-on. A few days back he returned and wanted to take away one of the beds but I advised him to go buy a new one for his boys. He left and spent a couple of days without returning back on. When I inquired why he wasn’t returning, he told me that, ‘since you don’t want my friends to stay home, I am also not returning,’” Zella wrote.
Big Eye with former close buddy Eddy Kenzo and the kids
Zella loses her twins
At the time she was carrying Big Eye’s pregnancy when he left, leaving behind his three brothers.
Zella took care of them for nine months before requesting Big Eye to come for his brothers. Unfortunately, Zella got a miscarriage and lost her twins. However, Big Eye never bothered to attend the burial and this greatly left her down hearted.
“He wasn’t there for me at the time that I badly needed him yet I had always been there for him in time of need. I have never forgiven him from that time,” she says.
She says she wouldn’t be talking all this had it not been for Big Eye, who she says often talks ill about her in the media. “I moved on a while back and I am not interested in Big Eye in anyway but all I want is some respect on my name. He should stop badmouthing after all that I have than for him. He can’t be the only righteous one since to him, we are all bad. He talks bad about Kenzo, his once close friend, Peter Ayo and now even me.”
At the moment, Big Eye, who is currently dating a one Sasha Brighton has reacted to Zella by saying, “I will stay focused, silent and strong no matter what is done & forged to spoil, to weaken and to tarnish my name. In the name of God.”
BACK TO MY MAN: Don Zella’s Mzungu lover with who they have reportedly reunited.
Zella says she is also back to her American man, the father of her first two children, who she dumped to date Big Eye.
Four men are being questioned in Italy in connection with the suicide of a woman who battled for months to have a viral video that showed her having sex removed from the internet.
The 31-year-old, identified as Tiziana, sent the video to her ex-boyfriend and three others, who put it online.
More than a million people watched it, and she became the subject of jokes and abuse.
Tiziana killed herself in her aunt’s home in Mugnano near Naples on Tuesday.
Local prosecutors have opened an investigation into her death, which came more than a year after the video was circulated on Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media.
The four men are being investigated for defamation.
After the video went viral, Tiziana left her job, moved to Tuscany and was in the process of changing her name, but the story kept following her.
The words “You’re filming? Bravo”, spoken by her in the video, have become an online joke and the phrase has been printed on T-shirts, smart phone cases and other items.
In a court case, Tiziana won a “right to be forgotten” ruling, ordering the video to be removed from various sites and search engines, including Facebook.
But she was also ordered to pay 20,000 euros (£17,000; $22,500) in legal costs, which local media have called a “final insult”.
Italy has reacted to Tiziana’s suicide with a mixture of shock and shame. Her death has provoked a debate about the corrosive effects of the public shaming of young women.
“As a government, there’s not a lot that we can do,” said Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. “It’s mainly a cultural battle – also a social and political battle. Our commitment is try to do everything we can… Violence against women is not an ineradicable phenomenon.”
The procession of the hearse carrying Tiziana’s body was broadcast live. A reporter offered commentary in a hushed voice as the vehicle drove by, followed by dozens of mourners.
The woman who wanted to be forgotten is now remembered across the country.
The woman’s family have called for justice and for an end to shaming.
“Now we call for the justice system to act so that her death was not in vain,” the family said, quoted by Italian media.
The SPLM-IO faction allied to former first vice president Riek Machar is planning to relocate its leader to either Kenya or Ethiopia, a spokesman for the armed opposition group said.
According to Peter Gatkuoth, spokesman of the SPLM-IO faction, senior members of the armed opposition faction will also meet in Khartoum to discuss the ongoing political developments in South Sudan.
Further, Gatkuoth pointed out that they want to meet the Troika countries in order to explain the armed opposition group’s position on the clashes that broke out in Juba last July, besides the appointment of Taban Deng Gai as the First Vice President replacing Machar.
The opposition official noted that they will also discuss the position of some foreign countries that seek to recognise Taban Deng Gai, saying the SPLM-IO leader Riek Machar will tour some countries to clarify the armed group’s position on the peace agreement after the Juba events.
Separately, Gatkuoth said that the SPLM-IO leadership agreed to hold another conference in Yuai town in Uror County of Jonglei State, saying the meeting will be attended by leaders of the White Army and military commanders. He explained that the conference aims to discuss the latest political developments after the July events in Juba.
President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could be put off till mid next year, following a compromise position arrived at between the government of President Joseph Kabila and some members of the ‘weak’ opposition political parties.
According to available information, on Wednesday the two sides agreed to hold the presidential, parliamentary and local government/provincial elections on the same day, failure of which the elections that were scheduled for November be put off till July next year after a comprehensive process that will also include updating the voter register.
The development follows clamours by the opposition delegation to the talks led by Vital Kamerhe, who had insisted that the country hold presidential elections first before the other two polls, a position that contrasts that of President Kabila’s delegation that is led by Justice Minister Alexis Thambwe, who also hinted at putting in place a ‘unity government’.
However, no dates have been set for any of the polls, while leading opposition figures like veteran politician Etienne Tshisekedi have refused to take part in the dialogue, saying that the position arrived at during the dialogue will pave the way for President Kabila to manipulate the constitutional process and cling to power beyond the mandatory tw0-term cap.
The parties have since formed a coalition, the ‘Rassemblement’ (Assembly) headed by Tshisekedi, and plan to hold a demonstration in Kinshasa on Monday next week, to protest the failure to hold elections.
President Joseph Kabila Kabenge, 45, became DRC leader in January 2001 following the assassination of his father Laurent Kabila.
He first organised and won elections in 2006, and according to the Constitution promulgated the same year, his two term mandate is supposed to expire this year, making him ineligible to contest.
However, since the development dawned on him, Mr Kabila has tried to change the rules of the game, several times attracting the wrath of citizens who have taken to the streets in violent protest.
OPERATIONS NORMAL: Crane Bank Board chairman Joseph Biribonwa
The operations of Crane Bank continue uninterrupted by the proposition of the acquisition of a strategic equity investor, the bank’s board has said.
Responding to reports that Crane Bank shareholders had disposed off their shares through a ‘sale’, Board chairman Joseph Biribonwa assured depositors that over the past seven years the 21-year old bank had mooted several strategies to strengthen its service delivery and financial base including the idea of issuing an Initial Public Offer (IPO).
‘Five years ago, the shareholders and the Board decided to diversify and at the time the proposal that became public prematurely was the Initial Public Offer (IPO) root. That was a thought process as the branches spread and the expansion took root’, a release signed by Biribonwa states in part.
According to Biribonwa, the second phase saw the shareholders pursue the strategic investor option.
Two years ago, still with the drive to strengthen the Bank, the shareholders and the Board decided to get a strategic equity investor preferably with a regional and even better continental network. This strategy is in sync with the inevitable trend of mergers and acquisitions, not just as an important forum of growth for purposes of the East African integration but as a strategic move at a global level too’, the release adds.
Over the years, Crane Bank has improved its investment portfolio, opening 46 branches and also installing over 100 ATM machines across the country.
Isaac Imaka,President Uganda Parliamentary Reporters Association.
Today from the press gallery, I watched with dismay as parliamentarians debated and hatched a plan to not only trample media freedoms in parliament but also attempt to set the agenda for journalists who cover plan.
The genesis of the over two hour debate were particularly stories that were published by Daily Monitor, about MPs getting Shs200 million for cars and the Shs68 million to be spent on the each MP’s funeral.
The Observer published a story that 78 MPs had travelled to attend the UNAA convention in the USA.
Parliament argued that the stories were false and depicted the institution in bad light and that parliament journalists are working with “enemies” of parliament to taint its image.
Therefore, they want to bring a stringent law to control the media, they want journalists to be taking oath (I don’t know whether of allegiance or secrecy) before being accredited to cover Parliament. Most critical, however, parliament resolved that the parliament rules committee investigates the journalists who authored the stories with the goal of charging them with contempt of Parliament.
I respond as follows
It is wrong for a parliament which is supposed to make laws that protect fundamental human rights to be the same people hatching plans to muzzle media freedom simply because a story has annoyed them.
As legislators, they should actually know that there is nothing like false news on our law books. Let them ask themselves a question, were the stories true or false? On our end, the stories were well sourced and represent the truth.
As journalists who cover parliament, we subscribe to the journalists creed and the journalists code of ethics. We are not paid to publish stories and we challenge any MP who has ever paid for a story to come forward.
We strongly oppose the plan to have journalists swears oaths and we actually describe it as laughable.
We will continue doing that which is right as we execute our mandate as journalists and protecting the public’s right to know.
We are representatives of the public in parliament. We are not in Parliament as a show of courtesy from Parliament. We are in Parliament as a right. We are legally protected.
It is not our role to ensure that parliament has a glittering public image; that is for those who are paid by the institution to do. We will not allow parliament to set the agenda for us. If parliament or any individual is aggrieved about a story, the best option is to go to court and challenge the story.
Anyone who is aggrieved by a media story about parliament should do the most honourable thing of going to court. Controlling the media, through stringent and draconian laws, as a show of power and might will only boomerang because the public and the media will always win.
About appearing before the Rules committee, we shall when invited and we shall argue the case for the media.
For God and Journalism
Isaac Imaka
President Uganda Parliamentary Reporters Association
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga has today directed rules, discipline and privileges committee of Parliament to investigate some of the stories that she deemed painted Parliament in a negative light.
Kadaga said that such negative stories published by media houses and Journalists accredited to cover Parliament are false and tainting the image of the August House.
“Media continues to paint a negative image of Parliament, this is intentional so the chairman of the rules committee needs to look at these publications and charge them on contempt of Parliament.If they are found guilty, the editors should appear before the committee and apologize” said Kadaga
The debate arose from the Speakers’ communication after she called out media houses like Monitor Publications Limited, the publishers of Daily Monitor, The Observer and Red pepper accusing them of publishing false news about Parliament.
Aruu County South legislator, Samuel Odonga Otto informed Parliament of his experience while suing media on grounds of defamation
“When I went to Court to sue, some media houses ran to me saying they will finish me, I told them that I was already finished, The public relations should sue media houses that publish false stores, make them lose money” he said.
Supporting Otto, Kabula County MP, James Kakooza said any media house that publishes false news should go to hell.
One of the stories that had MPs are accusing the media of running is the Shs68 million set aside for their burials.
“The Shs68 Million is not eaten by the dead MP, it is the relatives, coffin makers, so what is wrong with that?” said MP Odonga Otto
Kadaga also cautioned MPs who are willing to speak to media on issues that they are not conversant about. “Some of you MPs talk a lot, commenting on things you don’t understand, you should stop it.” Kadaga said
Jalia Bintu, the Masindi district woman MP called on her colleagues to demand that government gives them Shs500 Million for brand news rather than buy old cars.
THE 'FUNNY MEN' OF UGANDA: Patrick Idringi aka Salvador, Alex Muhangi (C) and Kenneth Kimuli aka Pablo.
Two of Uganda’s ‘funny men’ are set to tussle it out for global accolades and a cash prize of UgsShs350 million.
“Greetings my friends! I’m glad to inform you that I have been entered for an international comedy competition for the funniest comedian in the world,” Kenneth Kimuli, popularly known as Pablo, broke the news to his fans via social media.
Pablo is nominated for the competition along with other comedians from all over the world including fellow countryman Patrick Idringi aka Salvador.
The winner of the competition will be the ‘comedy peace ambassador’ and will walk away with the grand prize of US$100,000 (approx. UgShs350million). The chosen clip below is what will make it or break it.
“My call to you is to watch the 3 minute video via the link (http://indi.com/7fz6m), LIKE IT and SHARE IT. You will have voted for yours truly by just doing that. If we managed to beat Comoros, we can beat the world at this…,” he added.
Meanwhile, this is the second time Pablo and Salvador are facing off in an international competition.
In 2009 the two faced off in the first comedy competition in Uganda, the M-Net Stand Up Comedy Competition, and Pablo emerged winner, taking the jackpot of Shs20million.
GAVE ULTIMATUM FOR WEALTH DECLARATION: IGG Irene Mulyagonja.
It is increasingly becoming difficult for top public servants to escape allegations of favouring their kin and kith, when it comes to the prickly issue of employment in Uganda.
And so early last week a top official at the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) was on the spotlight for allegedly giving jobs to four relatives, to work in UNRA, one of the best-paying parastatals in Uganda.
The matter of allegedly hiring relatives, commonly known as nepotism, has now been put at the discretion of the Inspectorate of Government (IGG), who has since started investigations into the allegations that will, if found true, further tarnish the image of the institution that is charged with overseeing the development of the road sector in Uganda, a task heaped on the UNRA Executive Director Allen Kagina and members of her team, most of them newly-recruited.
It should be recalled that in May last year, following scathing allegations of massive corruption at UNRA, the institution laid off over 900 workers in the biggest-ever single public sector restricting drive and consequently embarked on a new recruitment drive. It is this new process that has now come under scrutiny.
And sources within UNRA told this Website that ‘a top boss’ brought the four relatives from Canada and posted them in the lucrative planning and administration department.
“It is sad that competent people were sacked under the pretext of sweeping corrupt officials but what is happening here is dangerous. How can four members of one family be recruited in one department as if they are no other qualified Ugandans?” a source told EagleOnline.
Inspectorate of Government Spokesperson, Ali Munira confirmed investigations were underway but said the inquiry is still at a tender stage for her to divulge details.
“We are working on it but as you are aware, we only received the complaints two weeks ago but investigations are going on,” Ms Munira said on phone.
Meanwhile, sources at UNRA have intimated to the EagleOnline that all new projects have been put on halt to clear the way for the completion of all ongoing projects.
Efforts to contact UNRA spokesperson Mark Ssali over the developments were, by press time, futile.
