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Ugandan opposition leader and popular singer Bobi Wine has been freed after a brief arrest by the police. WIne had been taken away just after he was confirmed as a candidate in next year’s presidential election.
The local NBS Television, reporting from the scene, said the singer was put into a police van amid violent scuffles between police and his supporters.
Wine on Monday had gone to the nomination centre in Kyambogo in the capital, Kampala as Uganda’s electoral body started the nomination process for presidential candidates in the upcoming 2021 general elections.
Police fired tear gas to disperse his supporters who turned up to support him on nomination day.
Bobi Wine presented his nomination papers to the electoral commission to be cleared to challenge President Yoweri Museveni in next year's election.
Joel Senyonyi, spokesman for Wine’s NUP party, said “they [police] used a hammer and broke the windows of his vehicle and forcefully dragged him out … they bundled him into their own vehicle and took off”.
So far, 10 aspirants are vying for the top job. Others include former army commander General Mugisha Muntu and former Security Minister General Henry Tumukunde.
President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the country for 34 years, was the first to be nominated. He warned that any opponents who destabilize the country will be dealt with.
One presidential candidate Patrick Amuriat was arrested at the headquarters of his Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party.
Soldiers and police officers have been heavily deployed at the party's offices, the Daily Monitor newspaper reports.
Mr Amuriat is reported to have vowed to defy restrictions on the number of supporters accompanying him to the electoral commission where he is scheduled to submit his nomination papers at midday. The newspaper has tweeted a video of his arrest.
These are some of the events analysts say makes the outlook of the politics tense as Uganda braces up for elections February next year.
Wine, 38, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, aims to end President Yoweri Museveni’s 34 years in power.
Many people have been killed since clashes began on Monday. Scores too had been killed in the run up to the vote as protestors marched against Conde's bid for a third term.
In summary Fewer inmates are available for hand crews so the state is filling the gap. So far, slightly more acreage has burned this year than last year. California will hire nearly 900 new seasonal firefighters to make up for a dwindling number of firefighting inmates as wildfires already have blackened more acreage than last []
The post As wildfire season looms, California adds 900 firefighters to its crews appeared first on Black Voice News.
Malawi’s President Peter Mutharika has appointed a new electoral commission chairperson ahead of a presidential re-run.
The country’s Constitutional Court in February ordered a fresh presidential election be held within 150 days after annulling last year’s re-election of President Mutharika – a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court.
The former commission chairperson Jane Ansah resigned amid criticism by the opposition on how she managed the disputed election.
President Mutharika on Sunday appointed Justice Chifundo Kachale to head the electoral commission.
The new chairperson is expected by voters to deliver a credible presidential election devoid of irregularities as ordered by the courts.
If the NCAA isn’t responsible enough to suspend the season, it should at the very least require that every athlete be given a choice on whether to take the risk, without losing the scholarship that has been promised to them. The NCAA has just ruled that mandatory football practices can begin in July, anticipating a []
The post College football practices during COVID-19 are nuts appeared first on Daytona Times.
Other ministers, however, rejected Mr Kutesa's suggestion and asked Mr Matia Kasaija of Finance to look for funds in the 2020/21 budget for buying radios and TV sets for the 15 million learners.
While the planned distribution of free radios and TV sets was never intended to assist virtual political campaigns but ease access to distance learning and teaching across Uganda, sources in Cabinet talked of \"killing two birds with one stone\".
She, however, said the distribution of radio sets and TV had nothing to do with the anticipated virtual political campaigns.
Dr Arthur Bainomugisha, the executive director of Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (Acode), and other analysts have questioned the rationale of buying radios and TV sets for households without access to electricity, money for buying batteries and struggling to feed themselves in the face of the pandemic.
According to another Cabinet source, the President also told Cabinet that since Education requires only two senses - listening and seeing, the planned distribution of free government TV sets and radios will boost distance learning infrastructure, a teaching strategy needed to combat the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic.
Malawi's electoral commission has appealed for peace and calm as it tallied ballots following a historic poll to re-elect a president after Peter Mutharika's victory was overturned.
Washington, D.C., city attorney George Valentine was Black, brilliant, and fit. But after contracting COVID-19, he became so weak, he had trouble moving and even speaking. When it got to the point where he could barely breathe, George called an ambulance and waited on the steps of his house for it to arrive. Every second he waited must have seemed []
Electoral authorities in Guinea on Saturday declared President Alpha Conde winner of Sunday's election with 59.49% of the vote, defeating his main rival Cellou Diallo.
\t Some people went to the streets to protest immediately after the announcement. Such demonstrations have occurred for months after the government changed the constitution through a national referendum, allowing Conde to extend his decade in power.
\t Opposition candidate Cellou Diallo received 33.50% of the vote, the electoral commission said. Voter turnout was almost 80%.
\t Political tensions in the West African nation turned violent in recent days after Diallo claimed victory ahead of the official results. Celebrations by his supporters were suppressed when security forces fired tear gas to disperse them.
They accuse the electoral authorities of rigging the vote for incumbent president Alpha Conde.
\t At least nine people have been killed since the election, according to the government. The violence sparked international condemnation by the U.S. and others.
\t ``Today is a sad day for African democracy,'' said Sally Bilaly Sow, a Guinean blogger and activist living abroad. The government should take into account the will of the people who have a desire for change, he said.
ICC warning
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor warned on Friday that warring factions in Guinea could be prosecuted after fighting erupted.
“I wish to repeat this important reminder: anyone who commits, orders, incites, encourages and contributes in any other way to crimes … is liable to prosecution either by the Guinean courts or the ICC,” she said.
#ICC Prosecutor #FatouBensouda: "I wish to repeat this important reminder: anyone who commits, orders, incites, encourages or contributes, in any other way, to the commission of #RomeStatute crimes, is liable to prosecution either by #Guinean courts or by the #ICC."
— Int'l Criminal Court (@IntlCrimCourt) October 23, 2020
\t On Friday, internet and international calls were cut off across the West African nation in anticipation of the election results, according to locals and international observers in the capital, Conakry.
\t This was the third time that Conde matched-up against Diallo. Before the election, observers raised concerns that an electoral dispute could reignite ethnic tensions between Guinea's largest ethnic groups.
He said the ‘Real Economy’ is the economy that deals with the nine basic human needs of food, clothing, shelter, medicine, security, physical infrastructure (the railways, the roads, the electricity, the telephones), health infrastructure (hospitals etc.), the education infrastructure (schools, etc.) as well as the teaching of numeracy, literacy, skilling and intellectuality and the spiritual work (churches, mosques, radios, TVs).
Ministry of Finance relief measures
He also outline 11 measures Ministry of Finance will take to provide relief to individual and businesses to offset the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Measures from Ministry of Finance
(i) Allow corporations including small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to delay payment of corporation tax or presumptive tax for taxes due between April and June 2020 and for tourism, manufacturing, horticulture and floriculture to defer until September 2020;
(ii) Defer payment of Pay-As-You Earn (PAYE) tax by those sectors which are most affected until September 2020;
(iii) Waiver of interest on tax arrears;
(iv) Support to water and electricity utilities in order to ensure continued supply of these essential services to consumers during the period April to June 2020;
(v) Expedite payment of outstanding VAT refunds;
(vi) Payment of domestic arrears for goods and services supplied to Government by the private sector;
(vii) For those unable to pay their loans, Government through the Bank of Uganda has already put in the gazette the measures to support businesses; including allowing extension of repayment periods, postponement of loan repayment for a limited period, relaxing the conditions for non-performing loans, reduction of reserve funds commercial banks are required to keep with Bank of Uganda and creating a special liquidity facility to rescue businesses that are not able to meet operational costs due to low demand or reduced production due to COVID-19;
(viii) Capitalisation of Uganda Development Corporation (UDC) with Ug Shs.
100 billion to enable Government to invest in strategic areas;
(ix) Boosting funding to Uganda Industrial Research Institute (UIRI) in FY 2020/21 to continue with innovation research and incubation of business start-ups.
(x) Securing funding for the development of Kampala Industrial Business Park at Namanve and for power transmission and substations for Mbale, Kapeeka, Bweyogerere, Kasese, Soroti, Luzira, Jinja and Mbarara industrial parks; and
(xi) Provision of additional UGX 300 billion immediately to boost agricultural production and productivity for seedlings, fertilizers, irrigation, storage facilities and value addition.
Major highways in Kampala on Wednesday experienced heavy traffic after the government partially lifted lockdown measures that barred private transport.
Police said several people had been arrested and their cars impounded for violating the 7pm to 6.30am curfew rules.
According to directives issued last week by President Yoweri Museveni, private transport was allowed to resume from May 26 and to carry a maximum of three passengers.
Public transport will resume on June 2 with buses operating at half capacity to ensure physical distancing rules are adhered to.
\"This opening of public transport will not be allowed in the border districts of Uganda for another 21 days.
President of the People’s National Party (PNP), Dr Peter Phillips, is demanding assurances that the legal and technical issues involved in staging both the local government and general elections on one ballot be ironed out before concluding on what would be a historic move.
Addressing PNP councillors and councillor caretakers at The Mico University College on Sunday, Phillips said that the Government had formally engaged the Electoral Commission of Jamaica on the cost-saving measure.
“The Electoral Commission has identified a number of technical and legal issues that they are examining, and certainly, we would need as a party to be entirely clear that all the arrangements are in place are legal and constitutional and, in fact, are practical, if we are to agree to do it, and that is being done,” Phillips said.
The PNP president told Comrades that the slate of 63 prospective parliamentary candidates was the “best” ever assembled, adding that a majority of the party’s local government standard-bearers were in place.
He said that the electorate was looking for the PNP “... to provide a set of representatives in local and central government whose only objective is to serve the people of Jamaica and not to serve themselves or to secure personal benefit for themselves.
The Electoral Commission now has to make arrangements to include them on the voters’ register to participate in next year’s general election.
The ruling is a result of a petition filed in 2018 by lawyer Stephen Kalali seeking declarations and orders that prisoners and Ugandans in the diaspora have a fundamental and absolute right to be registered as voters.
Mr Kalali argued that their omission and exclusion from voting amounts to segregation and discrimination, demanding that all prisons in Uganda be declared registration and polling centres ahead of the 2021 election.
She added that prisoners were allowed to vote in countries like South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia, which subscribe to several international human rights instruments to which Uganda is signatory
The ruling is bound to impact the Electoral Commission’s preparations for elections due to be held between January 8, 2021 and February 10, 2021.
Commission spokesperson Jonathan Taremwa said they were yet to receive the ruling and promised to study it and take a decision.
