Kenya says arrests key member of militant group plotting attacks

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenyan police have arrested a suspected key member of an Islamist militant group that was plotting attacks similar to one in 2013 on the Westgate shopping mall that killed at least 67 people, authorities said on Tuesday.

Militant attacks mostly by al Shabaab militants from neighbouring Somalia have increased in recent years in Kenya, which has a large Muslim population concentrated mostly along its Indian Ocean coast.

President Uhuru Kenyatta sent troops into Somalia in 2011 to join African Union military operations against al Shabaab that have driven it out of its major territorial strongholds but not ended its ability to carry out selective, deadly attacks.

Al Shabaab has vowed to fight Kenya until it withdraws its troops and it claimed responsibility for the assault on the Westgate Mall in the capital Nairobi as well as on a university in eastern Kenya where at least 148 people were killed.

In a statement, Kenyan police said Muhammed Abdi Ali was arrested on Friday as a suspected member of an east African militant group with links to Islamic State, which has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria and inspired offshoot groups elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa.

Ali worked as a medical intern at a hospital in eastern Kenya before his arrest and also studied at a university in neighbouring Uganda, the police statement said.

“Ali has been engaged in the active radicalisation, recruitment of university students and other Kenyan youth into terrorism networks,” it said.

His militant group was also planning “large-scale attacks akin to” the Westgate Mall, the statement said, and Ali’s network included medical experts who were plotting a biological attack in Kenya using anthrax.

The police statement said two suspected accomplices of Ali – Nuseiba Muhammed Haji, who is also his wife, and Fatuma Muhammed Hanshi – had been arrested in neighbouring Uganda.

Police did not say whether Ali’s group had links to al Shabaab. The Somali jihadist group aims to topple the Western-backed government in Mogadishu and impose its own strict version of Islamic law on the Horn of Africa country.

The African Union peace force known as AMISOM has managed to push al Shabaab out of Mogadishu and large parts of Somalia although analysts say it remains a resilient force.

Laws fail victims of forced, early marriage in “chauvinistic” Burkina Faso – Amnesty

huts — Huts in the village of Bagare, Passore province, northern Burkina Faso, March 30, 2016. REUTERS/Zoe Tabary

By Kieran Guilbert | Thomson Reuters Foundation

DAKAR, April 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Burkina Faso’s marriage laws are failing girls who are forced into early marriage by their families and threatened, abused and beaten by their partners for seeking contraception, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

Forced marriage is illegal in the West African nation, but the law applies only to state-registered marriages, rather than the religious and traditional ceremonies which account for most of Burkina Faso’s forced and early marriages, Amnesty said.

The law also states that a girl must be aged 17 or above to marry, yet half of girls aged 15 to 17 in the northern Sahel region are married, the rights group said in a report.

“Current legislation in Burkina Faso has critical gaps… leaving many women and girls unprotected and unsupported,” the report said.

Burkina Faso has the sixth highest rate of early marriage in Africa, with one in 10 girls married by the age of 15 and more than half married by 18, according to the United Nations children’s agency UNICEF.

Families often marry off girls to improve family alliances and social status, or in return for goods, money and services.

Some areas of Burkina Faso also have the practice of ‘Pog-lenga’ or ‘bonus woman’, where a bride brings her niece to the husband’s family as an extra girl to be married, Amnesty said.

“I did not want to marry the man (her aunt’s husband). My aunt told me ‘if you flee, we will destroy you’,” Amnesty quoted 15-year-old Celine as saying, one of 379 women and girls interviewed by the human rights group.

While the government and donors subsidise the cost of contraception, many married women and girls still struggle to buy it as they cannot afford it, do not have control of their income and are prevented by their partners, Amnesty said.

Fewer than one in six women and girls in Burkina Faso use contraception, dramatically increasing the risk of unwanted and sometimes high-risk pregnancies, according to Amnesty.

At least 2,800 women in Burkina Faso die in childbirth every year, a figure that could be reduced by one-third with better access to birth control, the report said.

“There is a male chauvinistic culture which says: ‘I will decide in the place of the woman’,” Gaetan Mooto, West Africa researcher at Amnesty, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“Even when women have the money for contraception, they don’t have the control over their own bodies,” Mooto added.

The government of Burkina Faso was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert, Editing by Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit news.trust.org)

Ethiopian Army Locates Abducted Children In South Sudan: Report

located kids — FILE: A young woman and a child displaced by fighting in South Sudan wait to be registered in the Kule 1 and 2 camps for internally displaced people at the Pagak border crossing in Gambela, Ethiopia.

International Business Times |

Ethiopia’s army has encircled an area in neighboring South Sudan where it believes more than 100 abducted Ethiopian children are being held by armed militants. A government official in Ethiopia’s western Gambela region told local media late Wednesday the children would soon be rescued and reunited with their families. The Ethiopian children may have been kidnapped to be serve as workers.

There are also efforts to bring back the more than 2,000 cattle stolen by the armed group, according to Ethiopia’s government-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate. The Ethiopian government has blamed members of South Sudan’s Murle tribe for the cross-border raid in Gambela last Friday, which left 208 people dead and dozens injured in 13 kebeles, or neighborhoods.

Cross-border raids are not unusual in the Horn of Africa country’s Gambela region, which is situated on the border with South Sudan. Ethnic communities in both nations have frequently clashed over land, livestock and resources such as grazing rights and water. The Murle tribe has been accused of stealing cattle as well as children to raise as their own during previous raids. Those targeted in the raid Friday were members of the Nuer ethnic group, who live in both Ethiopia and South Sudan, BBC News said.

The Gambela region and a neighboring province host more than 284,000 South Sudanese refugees who fled deadly conflict in their country. The gunmen responsible for the raid Friday are not believed to have links with the South Sudanese military or the nation’s rebels, who fought the government in the capital of Juba in a civil war that ended with a peace accord signed last year, as Reuters reported.

Ethiopia’s communications minister, Getachew Reda, said his government had good relations with South Sudan and was calling on its neighboring country to help bring an end to the danger.

“We have to neutralize the threat, hold whoever perpetrated these heinous crimes to account,” Reda told CNN by phone Tuesday from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital. “People have been displaced from their villages.”

Gambia opposition leader arrested as fresh protest erupts

Lawyer Ousainou Darboe, party leader and Secretary General of the opposition United Democratic Party, UDP

Banjul (Gambia) (AFP) – The leader of the Gambia’s main political opposition was arrested Saturday following a second round of demonstrations in the country, with supporters demanding answers over the death in custody of a senior party figure.

United Democratic Party (UDP) chief Ousainou Darboe, a human rights lawyer, was hauled away by police with three other party leaders after beginning a protest march from his residence just outside the capital of Banjul.

Gambian security forces armed with assault rifles fired tear gas at the protesters, according to eyewitnesses.

“Ousainou Darboe and other senior executive members were arrested by the security agents who dispersed the crowd after firing tear gas on them,” witness Modou Ceesay told AFP. “Several people were beaten,” he added.

Around 150 supporters had joined Darboe to call for justice in the case of UDP organising secretary Solo Sandeng, who died in custody on Thursday, according to his party and the Amnesty International rights group.

Sandeng had led a protest which ended with Gambian security forces beating and arresting dozens for making a public call for electoral reform and the resignation of strongman President Yahya Jammeh.

The opposition leader gave a defiant speech at a press conference prior to his arrest calling for the release of his detained colleagues and the return of Sandeng’s body.

“These people have done nothing wrong. They have exercised their constitutional right and that constitutional right we are now going to exercise,” Darboe said.

“We are going out there to ask for Solo’s body to be given to us. We are going to ask for Madam Fatoumata Jawara and the rest to be released.”

Jawara is president of the UDP youth wing and one of two women believed to be in a coma in detention.

“We are not going to allow anyone to trample on our rights on the pretext you want to maintain security and stability in this country,” Darboe told journalists.

– ‘Another crackdown’ expected –

Amnesty International west Africa researcher Sabrina Mahtani told AFP that Sandang had “died shortly after his arrest for participating in what we’ve been told by eyewitnesses was a peaceful protest.”

The circumstances of Sandeng’s death were “as yet unknown”, Mahtani added, calling on the authorities to conduct an immediate and thorough investigation and to release any other UDP members still being held.

Gambia’s information minister did not respond to a call for comment.

President Jammeh was out of the country when both protests took place, but was expected to address the nation upon his return, expected later on Saturday.

A military officer and former wrestler, he has ruled the tiny west African country with an iron fist since he seized power in a coup in 1994, and is regularly accused of sanctioning a catalogue of human rights abuses.

Amnesty’s Mahtani said further repressive measures against opposition activity were likely in the run-up to a presidential election in December widely expected to return Jammeh to power for a fifth term.

“We are concerned with the election period coming up that there will be a further crackdown on fundamental human rights,” she said.

A US State department report released this week accused the Gambia of torture, arbitrary arrest, incommunicado detention and enforced disappearance of citizens, as well as routine harassment of critics.

The UDP has recently filed a lawsuit against the state for keeping the chairman of the electoral commission in power long after his mandate expired, alleging he was also a Jammeh ally in a supposedly neutral position.

The Independent Electoral Commission last year submitted a bill to parliament, later enacted into law, which opposition parties viewed as placing harsh restrictions on their ability to field candidates in elections.

Africa’s top 4 economies are in trouble

Growth in Africa has outpaced most emerging markets in recent years, but that’s changing fast as a slew of problems beset its leading economies. Here’s what you need to know about sub-Saharan Africa’s big four:

SOUTH AFRICA

The prospects for Africa’s most advanced economy are not looking good. The country is set to grow by just 0.6% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. It’s one of the slowest growing countries in one of the world’s fastest growing territories.

The rand plummeted 30% last year, and not just because of an emerging market sell-off. Political turmoil has also had a big impact.

Just this month, South African President Jacob Zuma survived impeachment despite the highest court in the land finding him guilty of breaching the constitution over how public money was spent renovating his home. Well known figures from the anti-apartheid struggle are now calling for Zuma to step down.

Chaos in government isn’t helping either. Zuma stunned investors by replacing Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene with a little known politician. The president then backtracked and asked Nene’s predecessor Pravin Gordhan to take the position in order to stop the rand’s freefall.

The rand has steadied this year, rallying by about 7%. It’s been helped by a broader rally in markets driven by rising commodity prices. As a platinum, gold and coal producer, South Africa is sensitive to shifts in the commodity cycle.

But the country is not out of the woods yet. It’s on the brink of a ratings downgrade that would plunge its sovereign debt into junk status.

Still, investors are showing some renewed confidence, buying up $1.86 billion worth of bonds so far in 2016 — the best start to a year since 2010.

NIGERIA

Africa’s largest economy is buckling under the low oil price. Nigeria relies on oil for 70% of government revenue and accounts for 90% of export revenue. That leaves very little room to adjust the country’s budget. For an emerging market that can only mean one thing — slower growth. The West African nation is expected to clock in growth of 2.3%, the lowest rate in 15 years, according to the IMF. Its facing a shortfall of $11 billion in its 2016 budget.

Discussions between Nigeria and the World Bank are continuing on a possible loan or credit facility that would be tied to policy reforms. It has drawn down its currency reserves and implemented capital controls, making access to dollars very difficult. In an economy that relies on imports, the controls have made life difficult for companies and two South African businesses have already pulled out.

Index compiler MSCI is considering removing Nigeria from its frontier market index because the restrictions have made it harder for investors to repatriate money. To make matters worse, the country is facing a fuel crisis. Despite being Africa’s largest oil producer, it has never had enough refining capacity, and the scarcity of dollars is making it harder for importers to bring gas into the country. The war against Al-Qaeda linked terror group Boko Haram, which the government has vowed to eradicate, is placing further strain on the country’s finances.

ANGOLA

What was once one of Africa’s fastest growing economies is now on its knees and asking for help from the IMF. Angola is Africa’s second largest oil producer and relies on oil for 95% of government revenue.

After debuting on the international debt market last year, the country appears unable to meet its budget and debt obligations. It has requested assistance from the IMF in the form of monetary support. Angola is also bound to money-for-oil deals with China. It has used oil as collateral for loans from China, and that is further squeezing state finances. The country is set to grow by 3.5% this year, down from 6.8% in 2013, according to the IMF.

KENYA

Kenya’s economy is more resilient and diversified but there’s trouble brewing in its banking sector. Three banks are being wound down by the central bank. Two of the banks failed last year, and a third was forced into the arms of the lender of last resort this month. A fourth bank is being investigated, and analysts believe consolidation in the industry is inevitable.

The East African nation has 43 banks, most of which have overstated profits and are buckling under the weight of non-performing loans and a big fall in deposits. A dozen banks may end up under central bank control as it tries to clean up the sector. All this is weighing on Kenya’s growth prospects: The IMF has just cut its forecast to 6% for 2016, down from 6.8% previously.

Somalia: Man executed for journalists’ killings

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A former journalist who joined the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab was executed in Somalia’s capital for the killings of five Somali journalists.

Hassan Hanafi Haji, who was extradited from Kenya last year on the request of the Somali government, was killed by firing squad at a police academy in Mogadishu on Monday. Firing squad is the only execution method in Somalia.

In his role as a liaison officer with al-Shabab, Haji was known to threaten journalists and radio stations for any reporting not in favor of the Islamic extremist rebels, forcing many media outlets to practice self-censorship for security reasons. Haji later led al-Shabab’s media unit, inviting journalists to press conferences and giving them tours of battlefields.

He often urged journalists to report according to al-Shabab’s media rules, which included avoiding stories related to the group’s military setbacks.

Haji was one of the few suspects prosecuted by the Somali government following years of criticism by rights groups who urged authorities to do more to establish the rule of law and end the killings of journalists.

Hanafi said he confessed to the killing of journalists following torture by authorities in Mogadishu [AP]

The killings of media workers often happened in government-controlled areas that journalists generally consider safe.

Somalia is one of the most dangerous countries for media workers. At least 18 Somali journalists were killed last year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

It’s not entirely clear who has been killing journalists. Al-Shabab rebels, warlords, criminals, and even government agents all could have reasons to see journalists killed in Somalia.

Chad: President in power since 1990 seeks another term

A man casts his ballot during elections in N’Djamena, Chad, Sunday, April 10, 2016. Chadian President Idriss Deby faced off against more than a dozen challengers Sunday as he seeks another term after more than 25 years in power in this central African nation which is battling Islamic extremists. (Abakar Mahamad/Associated Press)

By Dany Padire and Carley Petesch | AP

N’DJAMENA, Chad — Chadian President Idriss Deby faced off against more than a dozen challengers Sunday as he seeks another term after more than 25 years in power in this central African nation which is battling Islamic extremists.

The election comes amid mounting international concern about Chad’s human rights record. Four activists are currently awaiting verdicts on charges of trying to disturb the peace and resisting arrest. Internet access was down in the capital of N’Djamena on election day, residents reported.

Deby, who has been in power since 1990, could face a second round of voting because of the large number of candidates. It could be one of the toughest challenges he has faced, according to Thibaud Lesueur, central African senior analyst for the International Crisis Group.

“It’s quite unprecedented to have so many people in the street,” he said, noting that many have been afraid to demonstrate against the incumbent.

Chad, a former French colony, is now home to the French military’s operations in Africa. Chadian soldiers are also on the front lines of the battle against Boko Haram, the Islamic militant group based in northeastern Nigeria.

Many Chadians see the cooperation with the international militaries, including the French, U.S., Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria, as international acceptance of Deby’s leadership, Lesueur said.

As a result of Chad’s support for the ant-extremist battle, the country has been attacked by Boko Haram through a series of suicide bombing attacks. The regional economic upheaval has severely disrupted trade, deepening poverty in this country that has remained desperately poor despite producing oil.

Cameroon: Joint forces arrest 300 Boko Haram fighters

Cameroonian soldiers stand guard at a lookout post on Feb. 25 as they take part in operations against the Islamist extremist group Boko Haram in northern Cameroon, near the border with Nigeria.

AP – YAOUNDE, Cameroon — Cameroon says multinational forces fighting Boko Haram have arrested over 300 Islamic extremists and freed at least 2,000 people from their strongholds along Cameroon, Nigeria and Chad borders.

Cameroon’s commander of the joint forces, Bouba Dobekreo, said Tuesday that during the three-day operation, forces also destroyed a Boko Haram training and logistic base about 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of the Nigerian town of Kumshe.

The governor of Cameroon’s Far North province, Midjiyawa Bakari, has asked that all displaced people be directed by the military to the Minawao refugee camp in northern Cameroon to be better tracked.Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Benin have contributed about 9,000 troops to fight the six-year insurgency launched by the Nigeria-based militants. More than 1,000 humanitarian workers have also been deployed.

Liberia authorities call for calm after new Ebola case

Monrovia (AFP) – Liberian authorities on Saturday called for calm following the discovery of a fresh case of the deadly Ebola virus, more than two months after the epidemic had been declared over in the country.

The latest victim was a 30-year-old woman who died on Thursday while being transferred to hospital in the capital Monrovia

The country’s health ministry put out a statement urging citizens “not to panic in the wake of the new Ebola case”

There was no news on the origins of the latest case, after Liberia was declared Ebola-free, for a second time, in January.

“We continue to investigate the source of transmission of this newer flare-up,” deputy health minister Tolbert Nyensuah told AFP.

Liberian authorities and their partners, including the World Health Organisation, “are on top of this. We know what to do now, we can contain it, we can control it. No need to panic,” he said.

The new case in Liberia was discovered days after a resurgence of Ebola in neighbouring Guinea which has killed seven people in the last few weeks.

Liberia briefly closed its border with Guinea following the announcement of new cases there, but it has subsequently reopened it, several Guinean sources confirmed to AFP.

Sierra Leone announced beefed up security measures along with screening and surveillance points at all border crossings with Guinea on Thursday.

Liberia was the country worst hit by the outbreak of the disease which has claimed 11,300 lives since December 2013, the vast majority in the three West Africa countries.

The WHO had said on Tuesday that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa no longer constituted an international emergency, voicing confidence that remaining isolated cases in the affected countries can be contained.

But a significant number of deaths are believed to have gone unreported and “flare-ups” relating to the persistence of the virus in survivors’ bodies pose ongoing challenges.

Ebola causes severe fever and muscle pain, weakness, vomiting and diarrhoea. In many cases it shuts down organs and causes unstoppable internal bleeding. Patients often succumb within days.

The virus is spread through close contact with the sweat, vomit, blood or other bodily fluids of an infected person, or the recently deceased.

Some Monrovia residents, showing no signs of panic, told AFP that at first the news of a fresh outbreak of Ebola had seemed like an April Fools’ joke.

“It is worrisome to hear that Ebola is back, but I am confident that it will pass. I am sure that it will never be like the first time,” said saleswoman Agnes Mulbah.

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