Kiya Edwards' Weblog

Every year on May 3, World Press Day seeks to celebrate the role of journalists while demanding for greater journalistic freedom, and this Sunday Kenyan journalists held a protest march to demand respect for their profession and an end to the killing of journalists, the Daily Nation reported.

Led by officials from their unions and associations, journalists marched through the streets of Nairobi Sunday. The Kenya Union of Journalists, Media Institute and International Commission of Jurists also took part in the demonstration Sunday. There was little to celebrate and the government deliberately gagged them, members of the Press said.

Protesters attempted to deliver a petition to the attorney general’s office demanding independent investigations for the death of Francis Nyaruri, a media practitioner who was murdered in Nyamira early this year.

However, they were told that he was out of office, and asked to seek him on Monday.

Nyaruri was one of two journalists who has died in mysterious circumstances since the year began, journalists said. Two weeks after he went missing, his mutilated body was found dumped in Kodeka Forest near Oyugis in Rachuonyo District.

Before he disappeared, Nyaruri received death threats after publishing a story on irregularities and embezzlement of funds by senior police officers.

“It is close to four months since he died, but investigations have unearthed nothing so far,” said Bob Wekesa, a member of the Kenya Journalists Association. (Daily Nation)

Citing the Communications (Amendment) Act, they said they were concerned at MPs’ reluctance to prioritize it.

“It took huge efforts for the government to grudgingly agree to expunge a bad section from the Act, although this has not been done yet,” said KUJ’s secretary-general Eric Orina. (Daily Nation)

Posted by edwar292 at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

CNN reported that Roxana Saberi, the American journalist convicted of charges for spying in Iran, has lost weight in prison but is being treated well in her cell with two other prisoners, her father said Sunday.

"She has lost weight and she looks frail and weak," her father Reza Saber told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview. "She says she's not treated harshly. The food is pretty good and they're not hurting her. So it's just the environment of the prison that's very frustrating."

The 31-year-old Iranian-American from Fargo, North Dakota was sentenced Saturday to eight years in prison after a private one-day trial, which prompted denunciation from United States and abroad political and media officials.

Saberi's lawyer has 20 days to file an appeal, and afterward, they must wait for the court of appeals to decide, said her father, who last saw her Tuesday.

"We cannot do anything until they make a decision," he said.

He said he will stay in Iran until his daughter is released, television station FOX 9 news additionally reported from the Associated Press.

Saberi has been living in Iran since 2003, according to the journalist advocacy group Committee to Protect Journalists. She has freelanced for National Public Radio and other news organizations, and was writing a book about Iranian culture.

Saberi continued to file short news items without permission after Iranian authorities revoked her press credentials in 2006, the journalists' group said.

Saberi was detained in January, although no formal charges were disclosed. Officials initially said she was held for buying a bottle of wine. The Foreign Ministry later said she was detained for reporting without proper accreditation.

By April 9, Saberia had ben charged with espionage. She confessed to the charges, authorities said. Her father said he believed she was coerced into making damaging statements.

"Without press credentials and under the name of being a reporter, she was carrying out espionage activities," Hassan Haddad, a deputy public prosecutor, told the Iranian Students News Agency. (CNN)

Her father said tactics used for confessions are the same in security prison as they are for political prisoners, which leads to saying untruthful things in hopes of release from prison.

"Most probably, such tactics were used on our daughter but, again, further investigation is needed," he said.

In addition to Saberi, another Iranian-American student remains detained in Iran.

In addition to Seberi, Estha Momeni, another Iranian-American student, remains detained in Iran after an arrest last October. At a conference on Afghanistan in the Netherlands earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent a letter to the Iranian delegation asking for information on her release.

Clinton also inquired about Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in March 2007.

Posted by edwar292 at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times reported that at least 9 people have been killed and more than 33,300 homes were destroyed by a tropical cyclone on Madagascar, the authorities said Friday.

The cyclone, Jade, landed Monday in the northeastern region of the vast island and has now moved on, leaving enough rain to heighten fears of serious floods.

CNN additionally reported that Jade's winds of 69 mph cut power, which made it difficult to asses damage levels.

"No one has been able to get there yet. There is no electricity, no telephone. We know nothing about what happened there," said Didier Young, emergency coordinator for the humanitarian group CARE. (CNN)

However, some information has come about the strom, from a man who rode out on his motorcycle. He explained that the roads are impassable by car because of heavy damage, Young said.

Young and other CARE workers hope to take a helicopter over the hardest-hit areas later Monday, because bad weather prevented them to do so earlier, he said.

Young said many people in Madagascar, with about a 19.4 million population, live in huts.

"The huts are not very strong," he said. "The houses are made of local materials." (CNN)

As of noon, the storm had weakened and was moving southwest over land, according to AccuWeather.com.

In January, at least 9 people died and more than 20,000 lost their homes after two cyclones hit the island, the New York Times reported. Cyclone Ivan made landfall on the island's northeastern coast with sustained winds near 70 mph (111 km/h), according to the Typhoon Warning Center, CNN reported.

Posted by edwar292 at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Daily Nation reported that Somali pirates hijacked a 20,000 ton German container vessel Sunday in their latest attack on the Indian Ocean’s busy commercial shipping lanes, a regional maritime group said.

The heavily armed gangs from the lawless Horn of Africa nation hijacked dozens of vessels. Last year, they did the same in the Gulf of Aden, taking hundreds of sailors hostage and making off with millions of dollars in ransoms.

Foreign navies have continuously rushed warships to the area in response, but there are still hijacking attempts almost daily. The navies reduced the number of successful attempts, however.

The latest happened Saturday, about 400 miles off the southern Somali port of Kismayu, which is between the Seychelles and Kenya, said Andrew Mwangura of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers’ Assistance Program.

“We believe the German ship has 24 crew on board. We’re trying to establish their identities and the name of the vessel,” Mwangura told Reuters. (Daily Nation)

Somali pirates took two European-owned tankers late last month. Last week, pirates hijacked a second vessel flying the Indian Ocean nation’s flag. The Seychelles military then deployed security forces on its outer islands.

The pirates typically use speed boats launched from mother ships to take the captured vessels to remote coastal village bases in Somalia, where their hostages have awaited a large payment of ransom money.

In January, Somali gunmen freed the Sirius Star, a Saudi supertanker loaded with $100 million worth of crude oil, and its crew of 25 after $3 million was parachuted onto its deck.

They also hijacked a Ukrainian cargo ship in September, which carried 33 Soviet-era T-72 tanks. It was released in February for a $3.2 million ransom.

The arrival of high-tech foreign warships in the waters off their country has made their work more dangerous, pirates said.

One gang member, who wished to remain anonymous, told Reuters News he had been part of an aborted attack on another large commercial vessel late Saturday.

“We opened fire on a ship near the Gulf of Aden, but our ladder was too short to climb up,” he said. “It escaped at high speed. We were nine pirates in two speed boats and immediately we came back. We feared attacks by the warships.” (Reuters)

Posted by edwar292 at 11:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Justice and Development Party, narrowly won Turkey's elections on Sunday, the New York Times reported.

The CNN-Turk news channel reported by late evening that Erdogan’s party led with 39.13 percent of the vote, while the Republican People’s Party, had 22.83 percent and the nationalist People’s Action Party had 16.22 percent.

The party appears to have won most of the mayoral and district administrator posts up for grabs, giving it a renewed mandate to push for constitutional reforms, the Associated Press reported.

The New York Times reported that Erdogan is a former Islamist who pushed for Turkey's membership with the European Union early in his election bid. In recent years, Erdogan stoped pushing as hard, and has been opposing billionaire publisher Aydin Dogan and also prosecutors planning to overthow him.

His party was winning by much narrower margins than in 2007, where it took 47 percent of the vote. Many attributed the decline to the economic downturn, allegations of widespread corruption among members and many Turks voting for its candidates because of political tensions.

“Today’s political atmosphere is much calmer,” law professor Mithat Sancar of Ankara university said. The narrower margins in this year's election “show that the political scene in Turkey is becoming real and normalized,” he said.

Justice and Development appeared to have lost key cities like Izmir, Adana and Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish southeast, which Erdogan even claimed hard to take.

Diyarbakir has traditionally voted for candidates from Turkey’s Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party.

The Senior Electoral Board eventually banned the Justice and Development Party's attempt to distribute free household goods like refrigerators and washing machines, which opposition criticized as bribery.

Posted by edwar292 at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Madagascar's chief opposition leader announced, after two weeks of hiding, that he will be taking over the nation and giving President Marc Ravalomanana a four-hour deadline to step down, the New York Times reported.

In a speech before thousands of supporters, Andry Rajoelina declared he would personally walk to Iavoloha Palace to tell the president the news. As night fell, however, Ravalomanana said he would not quit.

He also issued a public statement that said opposition did not have legitimacy and was only “a street protest which uses terror and repression to survive.”

This is the second time Rajoelina declared himself as president; the first on Jan. 31. And, over the past seven weeks, the rivalry between him and the president have been reason for protests and riots resulting in deaths of over 100 people and also some the military's recent division.

“The military is not willing to protect the president, so everyone who voted for the president is now protecting him,” said Rolland Radasy, one of the government’s education advisers, reached by telephone amid a boisterous crowd. “The people here will not be intimidated.” (New York Times)

However, Rajoelina's only request, he said, is to gain presidency.

“The hands of Andry Rajoelina are clean,” he said. “I don’t intend to kill him. I don’t want to send tanks and soldiers to the palace.” (New York Times)

Most of the 20 million people living in Madagascar make live off $1 per day, and Ravalomanana, 59, once sold yogurt off the back of a bicycle. He later built a conglomerate of dairies, stores and a television station. He took office after a disputed election in 2001 and was re-elected in 2006. Rajoelina, 34, also owns a television station, and became well known as a disc jockey. He was elected mayor of Antananarivo in December 2007.

The rivalry began last year about Antananarivo’s debts, where the mayor then began calling the president a dictator and thief. Many of the poor were increasingly disappointed with Ravalomanana’s presidency, and Rajoelina acuses him of ignoring the high levels of poverty, Reuters news reported. The people's choice that was picked in a free election had to be defended, the president said.

Posted by edwar292 at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times reported that under President Obama's plan to pull combat operations by 2010, United States military announced Sunday that the two combat brigades scheduled to return to Iraq this year will instead not be replaced. The last 4,000 British troops are also scheduled to leave Iraq by September.

“The time and conditions are right for Coalition forces to reduce the number of troops in Iraq," General Ray Odierno, the commander in Iraq, said in a statement.

American forces are being reduced by 12,000 from the 142,000, and the 14 brigades will go down to 12. The United States will also hand off 74 facilities and areas under its control to the Iraqis by the end of March, The Associated Press reported.

The status of forces agreement, a negotiation between George W. Bush and Obama, marks the requirement of reducing troops now and removing all by 2011. CNN additionally reported that the agreement was established by both the Bush administration and Iraqi government and requires troops to leave by June 30 this year.

A "transitional force" of 35,000 to 50,000 troops will remain in the country to assist Iraqi security forces, protect Americans and fight terrorism, Obama said (CNN).

The New York Times reported that at least one suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday morning before the announcement and near the police academy in Baghdad, killing 28 people and injuring 57, Iraq's Interior Ministry said.

Posted by edwar292 at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan announced Saturday that the upcoming presidential elections set in August be moved back to April or May in an effort to avoid constitutional challenges to his legitimacy, the Star Tribune reported.

Karzai's legitimacy was questioned when Afghanistan's election commission announced in January that weather conditions and poor security would delay elections until Aug. 20. Karzai is supposed to step down on May 21 when his current five-year term ends, but will now intervene the next three months. He said he intends to run a second term.

"We are headed for a confrontation," Haroun Mir, head of the Afghanistan Center for Research and Policy Studies based in Kabul said. "This could be the start of a crisis of legitimacy, which would be dangerous in a country mired in instability." (The Christian Science Monitor)

The Star Tribune reported that changing the date of the election back to May would resolve constitutional issue, but would also present the government a large logistical and security task.

Opposition groups protested the delay and insisted that Karzai hold elections 30 to 60 days before May 21 or to have a replacement fill in until the actual voting in August.

When the elections were set to August, U.N. and Western officials had supported the delay and hoped the extra time would allow for improvement in security for southern Afghanistan by the thousands of extra U.S. forces.

The Christian Science Monitor reported that the Interdependent Election Commission said voting in Spring would be more difficult for the ungoverned ares of the country in large parts of the south and east because of voter registration and voting.

Elections in August would ensure every Afghan citizen would be able to express his or her political preference in a secure environment, according to a statement on Saturday from the U.S. State Department.

Posted by edwar292 at 10:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A bomb at a busy tourist location in Cairo killed one Frenchwoman and injured 20 on Sunday, the New York Times reported.

The bomb was home-made, television station Kare 11 News reported.

The New York Times reported that the authorities said in addition to the 17-year-old Frenchwoman who was killed, 13 French citizens, 3 Saudis and 4 Egyptians were wounded. Most of the injuries were minor expect that of a French boy who was in critical condition, a doctor at a hospital in northern Cairo said.

Two bombs were thrown in Hussein Square, a popular tourist attraction with herbs and jewelery, but only one exploded. Tourists ran in many directions, unsure of where the explosion had originated.

Kare 11 News additionally reported that police safely detonated the second bomb.

The Associated Press detained three people, although no one came forward with having done the attack, according to the New York Times.

Tensions were high in Cairo in response to the recent events in Gaza. Egyptians had largely recovered, however, from many terrorist attacks that occurred during the 1990s, but the problem never completely vanished. The last attack took place April 2005 in el-Khalili, when a suicide bomber killed two French citizens and an American near a party of tourists.

Posted by edwar292 at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pope Benedict has confirmed a visit to Israel in May, a historical third trip by a reigning pontiff since it was founded in 1948, despite tensions between the Vatican and Israel, the Star Tribune reported.

Benedict announced the trip that will include visits to Bethlehem in the West Bank and Jordan to Jewish leaders at the Vatican Thursday.

The beatification of Pope Pius XII, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958 was accused by some of not having done enough to save Jews during the Holocaust, which caused tension and debate in 2007 for Israeli officials and Jewish groups. His beatification, potentially leading to sainthood, appears to be on hold, the Star Tribune reported.

Richard Williamson claims "historical evidence" goes against Nazi gas chambers, and the pope had revoked the excommunication of Williamson and three other schismatic bishops, in late January. Benedict claimed Holocaust denial "intolerable and altogether unacceptable."

"We very much hope that the visit will be held in an appropriate atmosphere," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday. The Star Tribune reported that he did not mention the recent tensions.

Yahoo News reported that Rabbi David Rosen said Pope hopes it will be "a sign of peace" for the Middle East.

"The pope's language was very clear," Rosen said. "It was a very strong and quite moving affirmation of his commitment to Catholic-Jewish relations and opposition to anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial." (Yahoo News)

Posted by edwar292 at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

108 were killed in the deadliest wildfire in Australian histroy, the Pioneer Press reported. The 117 degrees fahrenheit fire in Marysville, a town in Victoria state, destroyed 700 homes and 90 percent of buildings, according to witnesses.

When the fire suddenly hit the Kinglake area, at least 18 deaths occurred. Witnesses said they saw trees explode.
Many people tried to flee in their cars but were killed, some by falling trees

"I looked outside the window and said: 'Whoa, we are out of here, this is going to be bad,"' Mandy Darkin, a restaurant worker said. "I could see it coming. I just remember the blackness and you could hear it, it sounded like a train." (Pioneer Press)

The air was blackened by ashes, and temperatures in the area dropped to about 77 degrees on Sunday. Officials said that although cooler conditions had eased considerably, they could push fires in unpredictable directions and pose a threat. Firefighters were battling about 30 fires Sunday.CNN reported that police said they were still trying to confirm details of the deaths and were still trying to get investigative teams into the fire-scarred zone.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced immediate emergency aid of 10 million Australian dollars and there were thousands of volunteers, the Pioneer Press reported. Government officials said the army would be deployed to help fight the fires and clean up the debris.

"It's an appalling tragedy for the nation." Rudd said.

CNN reported that the fires were visible from space Saturday, and NASA has released satellite photographs.

Posted by edwar292 at 10:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A truck carrying petrol exploded and killed over 100 people and injured at least 27 in Molo, Kenya early Sunday, CNN reported.
After the truck spilled petrol, residents were lined up trying to get the fuel for an hour before it exploded.
While the BBC reported that officials do not know how the fire started, Titus Mung'ou. a Red Cross representative out of 80 sent to help, told CNN that one of the residents likely started the fire by lighting a cigarette or fire near the crash.
"There is the need to strengthen the capacity in handling fires," Mung'ou told CNN.
Upset Kenyans perceived this to be "a lack of disaster preparedness," (CNN) and this is the second incident within four days. 80 miles away in the country's capitol, Nairobi, 27 were killed Wednesday in a supermarket fire and 57 are still missing.

Posted by edwar292 at 7:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)