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.
Shafqat Hussain’s lawyers say he was a minor at the time of his conviction.
Pakistan has executed Shafqat Hussain, convicted of killing a child in 2004, despite appeals from international human rights groups.
His lawyers say he was 14 when found guilty and his confession was extracted by torture, but officials say there is no proof he was a minor when convicted.
He met his family one last time before midnight, then was hanged shortly before dawn at a jail in Karachi.
Legal challenges saw his execution postponed four times this year.
But despite the postponements, legal challenges and intense lobbying, all his appeals for mercy were ultimately turned down.
The Pakistani government scrapped a moratorium on capital punishment in the aftermath of an attack on a school in Peshawar in December last years in which more than 150 school pupils and teachers were killed by the Taliban.
How Pakistan is reacting: Shahzeb Jillani, BBC News, Karachi
Pakistan is a country where most people support capital punishment. It is often justified as an essential part of the Islamic principle of “an eye for an eye”.
Many believe justice has been served and a child-killer hanged.
The campaign by global human rights groups like Reprieve and Amnesty International helped delay the execution four times this year. But here in Pakistan it was also seen as an attempt by “Western NGOs” to try to save one man from the thousands on death row.
In the end, Pakistan’s top judges and elected leadership stood their ground.
For Pakistan’s civil rights activists, however, this case exemplifies all that ails the legal system. The execution is seen as a sad day for a flawed and inefficient judicial system.
It’s a deeper institutional problem that governments have failed to fix, focusing instead on rushing alleged criminals through faulty trials and executions.
Since then, authorities have hanged at least 193 convicts in jails across the country.
Pakistan has the world’s largest number of death row inmates, with more than 8,000 people reported to be awaiting execution and it is on course to have one of the highest rates of executions in the world.
Reprieve has argued that Pakistan’s legal system failed Shafqat Hussain at every turn and that his case has not been properly investigated.
“The government’s decision to push ahead with the execution despite calls to halt it from across Pakistan and around the world seems to have been more a show of political power than anything to do with justice,” the group said in a statement shortly after the execution.
But Pakistan’s government believes Hussain was 23 when found guilty, and courts dismissed petitions seeking verification of his age.
Executions around the world
Pakistan has executed almost 200 people since December 2014, almost all of them this year
Figures for executions in other countries in 2015 are not yet available
By the end of 2014, the countries with the highest number of reported executions were: Iran: 289, Saudi Arabia: 90, Iraq: 61, USA: 35, and Sudan: 23
In 2013 the numbers were: Iran: 369, Iraq: 169, Saudi Arabia: 79, Somalia: 68, USA: 39
China and North Korea refuse to divulge information on the number of executions that take place within their borders
Rwandan delegation perform at Jamafest on the streets of Nairobi.
Rwandan delegation perform at Jamafest on the streets of Nairobi.
The second edition of Jamafest kicked off yesterday in Nairobi, with participants upbeat about cultural and creative markets in the East Africa region and beyond.
The Jumuiya ya Africa Mashariki Utamaduni Festival (Jamafest) is to be opened tomorrow August 4 at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre, and is aimed at promoting arts and culture in the EAC region.
The 1st edition of JAMAFEST was held in January 2013 in Amahoro Stadium Kigali, Rwanda and attracted an audience of over 17,500.
Kenya was selected to host the second edition of Jamafest in November 2013, and this year all the five EAC member states expect to take part in the fete that is organised under the theme: ‘Unleashing the economic potential of cultural and creative industries in the EAC’
Kenyans partake in the Jamafest.
According to Article 119 of the EAC treaty, partner states undertake and promote close co-operation amongst themselves in culture and sports with respect to the promotion of cultural activities including the fine arts, literature, music, the preforming arts and other artistic creations.
Jose Mourinho now aged 52 years and wants to retire in his 70s.
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho considers himself a superior manager than he was a decade ago, and now plans to continue with his managerial duties until he is in his 70s.
At 52, Mourinho is fairly middle-aged as a Premier League manager, if compared with Sir Alex Ferguson who retired as Manchester United manager in 2013 aged 71. Other long-serving managers include Arsenal boss 65 year old Arsene Wenger and Manuel Pellegrino, 61.
“I see myself managing until I clock seventies, “Mourinho said. Not for the rest of my life but for as long as my condition is good.”
He added: “With my career experience is very vital. With players there moments when their experience has a contest with their physical conditions. For managers it’s not like that; the story is different. But now I am better than I was a decade ago. I am in progress not static.”
Meanwhile, yesterday Mourinho’s side lost the Community Shield to Arsenal 0-1.
