MTN officials and kick boxer Moses Goloola during the launch of MTN Kaja.
MTN officials and kick boxer Moses Goloola during the launch of MTN Kaja.
MTN has so far paid out Shs230million in the MTN Kaja promotion; about a year after the lottery game was launched on August 28 last year.
The lottery is a partnership between MTN and SMS2bet and according to an short messaging service (sms), the next ‘lucky winners’ stand to win Shs40 million every day.
‘Draws are conducted daily in which one MTN number is randomly drawn. Any customer who plays Kaja and whose mobile number constitutes 8 digits of the drawn number reading sequentially from right to left will win the grand prize of 40 million shillings.
Any customer who matches 7 to 2 digits of the drawn number reading from right to left also wins one of the other different cash and airtime prizes’ a release states.
To join, an MTN customer dials *178# and selects 1, and sends an sms that costs Shs220.
US President Barack Obama has announced that one thousand youthful Africans will travel to the United States for next year’s Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) Summit.
Launched five years ago, the YALI supports young leaders to enhance socio-economic and political initiatives in Africa.
This year’s summit brought together 500 African youth from sub-Saharan Africa, with President Obama, fresh from a two-nation African tour of Kenya and Ethiopia, telling them that the youth are driving Africa’s progress.
“Africa is on the move” he said and added: “And young people like you are driving so much of this progress, because Africa is the youngest continent.”
He said the continent had registered progress in areas like HIV/Aids, maternal health and poverty eradication.
President Obama announced up to 80 Americans will be traveling to Africa next year to work with Mandela-Washington Fellow alumni and other young Africans.
YALI was announced by President Obama during a trip to South Africa in 2013, and this year the young leaders were connected to 20 universities ‘where they spent six weeks expanding their skills in everything from entrepreneurship to civic affairs’.
“…when you have all gone on to be ministers in government or leaders in business or pioneers of social change, you will still be connecting with each other, that you will still be learning from each other and that, together, you will be reaching back and helping the next generation,” President Obama said.
According to the White House, about 140,000 members of the YALI network have access to online courses, including guidance on how to start a business.
On top of the existing leadership centre in Kenya, YALI will open up other leadership centres in Ghana, South Africa and Senegal this year, with all four expected to train 3,500 young Africans each year.
Cristiano Ronaldo and his agent Jorge Mendes whom he rewarded with an Island.
Cristiano Ronaldo and his agent Jorge Mendes whom he rewarded with an Island.
Cristiano Ronaldo has bought his agent Jorge Mendes a Greek island as a wedding present.
The island given to the agent has not been named but the price label run into the millions.
Spain’s Mundo Deportivo website says Ronaldo knows the Greek islands well from holidays. Dozens of Greek islands are up for sale and on the website Private Islands online, one island goes for about €3m.
Mr. Mendes, one of Portugal’s richest men with a €100m fortune, wedded his spouse Sandra Barbosa in Portugal on Sunday at a glitzy function attended by European football’s big names.
Mr. Mendes and Ms Barbosa have three children and they have been in a civil partnership since 2005 and their glamorous wedding took place in an exclusive residential area of Porto.
Various best footballers from Spain and Portugal attended the wedding, alongside Real Madrid President Florentino Perez, Benfica President Luis Filipe Vieira and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and the former Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson.
Ferguson signed Ronaldo in 2003 and the Portuguese became one of the world’s best players while at the Old Trafford club until 2009.
Ronald is a three times winner of Ballon d’Or world footballer of the year. He acted as the best man for Mr. Mendes, 49.
Mendes, the most successful football agent runs a business called Gestifute that develops top football talent.
A refreshed Manchester United is set to open the 2015/16 Premier League season with Tottenham Hotspurs at the Old Trafford Square early afternoon on Saturday, August 8.
With new signings Memphis Depay, Morgan Schneidelin and Bastian Schweinsteiger, the Red Devils kick off with manager Louis Van Gaal applying his favoured 4-3-3 system of play.
Billed the biggest game of the opening weekend, Spurs goes intoSaturday’s game with an edge over Man U, winning two, drawing three and losing one in their last six matches.
Meanwhile, Spurs have signed defenders Kieran Trippier and Toby Alderweireld.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn will visit Uganda this week.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn will visit Uganda this week.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Hailemariam Desalegn will visit Uganda at the invitation of President Yoweri Museveni.
President Uhuru will arrive on Friday August 7, 2015 and will in the afternoon address Uganda’s Parliament after which he will be hosted to a state dinner.
During the visit President Uhuru will hold a bilateral meeting with President Museveni, attend a business forum and also meet members of the Kenyan Community in Uganda.
On Sunday President Uhuru and his host President Museveni will hold a joint press conference, and they will later be joined by Prime Minister Desalegn for a tripartite meeting.
Recently, both Uhuru and Desalegn hosted US President Barack Obama, and the meeting in Uganda might among other issues review Obama’s visit in relation to the security situation in East Africa and the Horn, particularly Somalia.
Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia are ‘contributing countries’ which have sent troops to pacify war-torn Somalia.
The other African country that has sent troops to Somalia is Burundi, but the country’s president Pierre Nkurunziza recently came under fire from the US president, who castigated the events that preceded Nkurunziza’s recent return to power after a controversial election.
Burundi security forces detained and beat a journalist on Sunday while he was covering the assassination of a top general in the capital, Bujumbura.
According to Media watchdog, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPG), Esdras Ndikumana, a correspondent for Agence France-Presse and Radio France Internationale, was detained for about two hours after he was found photographing the scene at which General Adolphe Nshimiramana was killed in a drive-by shooting.
Ndikumana said agents beat him on the back, legs, and soles of his feet, and then released him and sent him to a hospital for treatment. According to news reports, Ndikumana, who was accused of being a ‘journalist enemy’, was not charged.
CPJ’s calls to Philippe Nzobonariba, a government spokesman, were not answered. The body however condemned the attack and urged the Burundian authorities to launch a full and efficient investigation.
“The government in Burundi must allow journalists for local and international media to cover the news without any fear of arrest or violence,” said CPJ East Africa Representative Tom Rhodes. “We call on authorities to investigate this attack on Esdras Ndikumana and hold the perpetrators to account,” he added.
Gen Nshimiramana was killed just a week after elections resulted in President Pierre Nkurunziza being declared the winner on July 24.The opposition condemned Nkurunziza’s candidacy for a third term and called it unconstitutional. Months of protests followed, as well as an attempted coup in mid-May.
Journalists have been attacked since the violence began. At least five radio stations were attacked during the attempted coup, and one newspaperstopped publishing after it received threats. Diane Nininahazwe, a correspondent for Voice of America, told CPJ assailants threw a grenade at her home on June 24. No one was hurt. She said she also received three threatening text messages. On June 4, authorities withdrew the accreditation of France 24 journalist Thaïs Brouck, saying he had he failed to cover the elections process according to the terms of his accreditation letter and that he was inciting the public to demonstrate. Brouck had reported on the protests against Nkurunziza, news reports said.
Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) continues to terrorise vulnerable populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central Africa Republic and in South Sudan.
This year alone, the LRA has carried out 66 attacks in which three people have been killed and another 121 abducted and subjected to cruel treatment.
The ragtag outfit has also displaced close to two hundred thousand people in the areas under their control in the three countries.
Kony is an international pariah, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In fact, to demonstrate how dangerous Kony is to the society, the US government also placed a bounty on his head.
He refused to talk peace when the chance availed itself and has instead chosen to wreak havoc on the innocent people in the areas where he is hiding, an undesirable development that must be brought to an end.
It is important to recall that before being forced to flee from Uganda, Kony subjected the people in northern Uganda to very nasty experiences for close to two decades, something which disrupted their socio-economic settings and progress.
As a result, today the area is still undergoing a slow recovery process and there are a number of people who lost the bread winners and are finding it difficult to reconstruct their trails after their families disintegrated.
Given such a background, there is need for sustained pursuit of the elusive LRA leader by the international community, so that the people in the areas where he operates continue with their lives without the fear of either being killed or abducted.
SC-Villa and KCC players during the disputed game in Ntungamo.
The Federation of Uganda Football Associations (FUFA) has pardoned the referees who presided over the botched Uganda Cup finals between Sports Club Villa and Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA FC) at Kyamate grounds in Ntungamo.
Robert Donney and his assistants, Musa Balikowa and Robert Bakwali and the match official, Brian Miiro Nsubuga, a FIFA referee, had been suspended effective July 1.
But recently Ahmed Hussein, the FUFA Communications boss released the list of 124 referees that included the suspended referees, who are to undergo the Cooper Tests.
According to Hussein the four referees successfully appealed their suspension and were cleared.
Meanwhile, the 124 FIFA badge holding referees, beach soccer referees and national referees from several FUFA regions will undertake the checkups and physical fitness tests in preparation for the new season.
The medicals will take place on Saturday, August 8 at FUFA House in Mengo with the fitness tests slated for the next day at the Nelson Mandela Stadium.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has continued to pose a threat to vulnerable populations in the Central Africa Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo and in South Sudan.
According to an August 3 release by the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), the rag tag LRA carried out 66 attacks in which three deaths and 121 abductions were reported between April and June this year. UNOCHA also reported that an estimated 199,898 people remain displaced in LRA-affected areas of South Sudan, CAR and DRC.
Further, UNOCHA reported that the trend in attacks and deaths has remained constant since 2012, but that the abductions have increased steadily. In 2006 the LRA led by Joseph Kony fled Ugandan after hot pursuit by the Uganda Peoples Defence Forces (UPDF). Since then most of the LRA senior commanders have either been captured or killed and these include Vincent Otti, Okot Odhiambo, Raska Lukwiya, Ceasar Acellam and Dominic Ongwen who surrendered and is now facing war crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. In 2011 the US government sent 100 Special Forces to help the UPDF pursue and arrest Kony but he fled to the CAR and has since remained elusive.
Central African Republic Twenty-two LRA attacks and 36 abductions were reported in CAR in Quarter 2 of 2015. No deaths were reported in Quarter 2 of 2015. This is an increase 9 per cent in the number of abductions over Quarter 1 of 2015. The number of attacks decreased by 4 per cent. 46 per cent, 36 per cent and 18 per cent of the attacks occurred in Haute-Kotto, Haut-Mbomou and Mbomou Prefectures respectively.
The number of displaced people in LRA-affected areas remains at 18,200. Democratic Republic of Congo Forty-four LRA attacks, 3 deaths and 85 abductions were reported in Quarter 2 of 2015. This is a decrease of 67 per cent and 42 per cent in the number of deaths and abductions respectively over Quarter 1 of 2015. The number of attacks increased by 10 per cent. Over 162,000 people remain displaced in Bas-Uélé and Haut-Uélé Districts of Province Orientale – many of them long term but with approximately 49,000 newly displaced since 2014 – due to LRA activity. An estimated 9,243 CAR refugees remain hosted in the area.
Mr Mbonimpa’s work over the years for prisoners and others has won international acclaim.
A prominent Burundi human rights activist has been shot and seriously wounded by gunmen on motorbikes, his family and witnesses say.
Pierre Claver Mbonimpa was attacked in the capital, Bujumbura.
He was a stern critic of President Pierre Nkurunziza’s controversial bid for a third term in office.
On Sunday presidential aide Gen Adolphe Nshimirimana was killed in an attack on his car in Bujumbura. He was in charge of the president’s personal security.
Burundi has suffered serious unrest since President Nkurunziza’s decision in April to seek a third term in office.
Opponents argued this contravened the constitution and there was a failed coup attempt in May.
A presidential election was then held last month which Mr Nkurunziza won, but which was boycotted by the opposition.
Bikers with guns
A relative of Mr Mbonimpa told the Reuters news agency that the activist was in intensive care in a Bujumbura hospital following the shooting which took place near his home north of the capital on Monday evening.
“He was going home when suddenly a group of motorcyclists encircled him and started shooting at him. Many of the bikers had guns,” the relative said.
Mr Mbonimpa is believed to be one of the few members of Burundi’s civil society opposed to the president who had not fled the country.
He is reported to have been jailed several times because of his activism and in April was held without charge for more than 24 hours by the intelligence services after he called for protests against the president’s efforts to secure a third term.
Correspondents say that Mr Mbonimpa’s work over the years for the rights of prisoners and others has won international acclaim and that chilling rumours of his death had circulated in Burundi before the shooting took place.
