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Uganda’s inter-religious council called off the eagerly awaited presidential candidates’ debate.
The council said the debate, that was due on Thursday 03 was cancelled due to limited resources.
Local media reported that a total of ten presidential candidates were expected to grace the occasion.
This comes amid numerous complaints majorly from the opposition who have constantly blamed the security apparatus for rights violations.
Uganda opposition have in most cases face wrath of the police especially the renowned musician-turned politician, Bobi Wine.
Two weeks ago, 54 people died in protests after Wines supporters called for his release following a brief arrest at campaign rally.
They have defended themselves by claiming that they were only implementing Covid-19 guidelines to prevent the spread of Coronavirus.
Bobi Wine was later charged with violating pandemic restrictions on gathering of crowds and granted bail.
The embattled singer later met the electoral commission and asked them to ensure that there should be equitable campaigns and police should be stopped from intimidating the opposition leaders and their members.
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.
Agathon Rwasa, Burundi's opposition leader and deputy speaker of Parliament has filed a petition at the country's constitutional court disputing the win of the ruling CNDD-FDD party's Evariste Ndayishimiye.
Mr Ndayishimiye won the May 20 presidential election with 68 per cent of the vote against Mr Rwasa's 24 per cent.
\"If the constitutional court rules in their favour I will move to the African Court because all the results that were announced by the electoral commission were wrong,\" said Mr Rwasa.
The country's Catholic Church deployed 2,716 observers countrywide, and has also expressed misgivings on the election process and its outcome.
However the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission, Pierre Claver Kazihise, said that members of the Catholic church observer mission weren't well educated and informed about the electoral process.
Journalists in Cameroon have marched to government offices to demand an account of their missing colleague, Samuel Wazizi, after local media this week reported he was died in military custody.
Isidore Abah of the Cameroon Association of English-Speaking Journalists’ (CAMASEJ) says he led scores of reporters Thursday in a march to government offices in the southwestern town of Buea.
Abah said among the government offices they visited was that of Southwest Region Governor Bernard Okalia Bilai.
According to Abah, Bilai said only the central government in the capital Yaounde could tell them what happened to Wazizi.
Journalists in the French-speaking town of Douala staged a similar protest march Thursday to government offices.
Vote counting is underway following Ivory Coast's tense presidential election on Saturday.
President Alassane Ouattara is trying his luck for a contested third term, leading to two opposition candidates calling for a boycott and labelling the vote as a \"failure\" of power.
Official numbers on voter turnout have not been released but according to media reports, it was low.
But the ruling Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) said voters come out \"massively\".
\"October 31 was not the day of the flood as predicted by all the opposition leaders, but better, Ivorians have appropriated this election by going to vote massively this morning,\" said Adama Bictogo, executive director of ruling RHDP.
The Electoral Commission President Ibrahime Kuibiert-Coulibaly said there were some local problems at polling stations but that only 30 or 40 of them had been ransacked out of 22,000 nationwide.
He did not say the number of polling stations that were not opened.
Electoral authorities by law have up to five days to announce the results.
Electric buses made by students of the Makerere University in Uganda have now hit the road with improved health guidelines as the country battles Covid-19.
According to local media, the EVS bus has an onboard Wi-Fi to ensure the travelers stay connected, USB charging ports to enable charging of traveler’s display boards for timely and accurate information dissemination.
Kiira Motors, who assembled the buses, have equity partners made up of the Government of the Republic of Uganda represented by the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (96%) and Makerere University (4%).
The company, which is made up of students from the Makerere University has also produced the Kiira EV, Kiira EV SMACK – the first electric hybrid vehicle to be designed and built in Africa, as well as, the Kayoola which is Africa’s first solar powered bus.
According to the company, the production of the bus, “provides an unprecedented opportunity for participation of a wide range of local manufacturers making components to feed the production line at the Kiira vehicle plant addressing the key aspects of Supply Chain Localization and engendering import substitution.”
Other countries scheduled to hold elections are Egypt, Guinea, Seychelles and Tanzania.
For countries that do hold elections, there may be special voting arrangements that can allow polls to go ahead but reduce the risk of spreading the virus.
In South Korea's elections in mid-April, the electoral commission encouraged people to vote before election day at any of the 3,500 polling stations throughout the country.
This not only decongested polling stations on election day but contributed to the highest turnout in the country for nearly 30 years.
This means that countries planning to hold elections in 2020 or early-2021 need to start discussing these arrangements - across party lines and among multiple relevant agencies - as soon as possible.
The electoral commission, INEC, has approved direct primary for the All Progressives Congress (APC) to select its candidate for the September 19 governorship election in Edo State.
The APC headquarters had approved direct primary while the Edo chapter of the party wanted indirect primary.
Festus Okoye, the INEC spokesperson, appealed to the various political parties to conduct their primaries in full compliance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and Electoral Act 2010 law.
\"In accordance with Sections 85 and 87 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), 15 out of the 18 registered Political Parties have notified the Commission of their intention to conduct primaries for the purpose of nominating candidates for the Edo State Governorship election slated for 19 September 2020.
\"The Commission appeals to the various Political Parties to conduct their primaries in full compliance with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Political Party Primaries (2018) and the INEC Police COVID-19 Pandemic of 21\" May 2020.
The East African Court of Justice (EACJ) has declined to halt enforcement of disputed provisions of the Tanzania Political Parties (Amendment) Act, 2019, as petitioned by leaders of opposition parties.
Five opposition party leaders wanted the regional court to stop the Tanzania government from implementing disputed provisions of the Act, pending determination on their compliance with the East African Community Treaty.
The court agrees with counsel representing the Tanzanian government that halting the Act would hold back civic education for political parties.
The opposition leaders in their temporary Application No 3 of 2019 seeking the regional court’s orders to stop enforcing provisions of the Act pending decision of their main Application No 2 of 2019.
In the main Application, the opposition leaders maintain that the Act violates human rights contrary to the Tanzania Constitution, the EAC Treaty, Leadership Ethics, the Universal Human Rights Declaration and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
President Donald Trump addressed an enthusiastic — though smaller than expected — crowd of supporters at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night as some protesters gathered outside to call for an end to systemic racism and police brutality.
We had some very bad people outside,” Trump told the crowd inside the BOK Center, later referring to protesters as “thugs.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, advised in an interview earlier this month that large events of any kind, including Trump’s rally, remain “risky,” and he urged people to avoid such gatherings.
On Saturday afternoon, a peaceful protester wearing an “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt was arrested by Tulsa police outside the BOK Center at the behest of Trump’s campaign staff.
Trump lambasted protesters, calling them “thugs” and “bad people,” but did not respond their calls to end racial injustice or police brutality in the wake of Floyd’s death.
A fatal Israeli police shooting of an unarmed Palestinian man in Jerusalem last weekend has led to a government apology and protests comparing the case to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Eyad Hallaq, 32, was on his way to a school for special needs students in the historic Old City of Jerusalem on May 30 when police shouted, \"terrorist!\"
\"Policing in Jerusalem and in particular in the Old City is a particularly complex task that involves complex decisions and the risk of life,\" the police said in a statement following the shooting.
Aviad Friedman, an Israeli father of a child with autism, paid Hallaq's father a condolence visit, despite friends warning him against traveling alone to a Palestinian neighborhood of Jerusalem.
\"I do not think [the Hallaq killing] is similar to the incident in Minneapolis,\" he wrote, citing the stress Israeli police face in Jerusalem.
Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) speaks at a campaign rally for Senator (I-VT) and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders at Nashua Community College on December 13, 2019 in Nashua, New Hampshire.
(Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s metamorphosis from refugee to the first Somali-American in Congress has been well-documented.
Civil war broke out when she was 8, and after her family’s compound came under attack by militia, the family escaped and eventually made it to a refugee camp in Kenya, where Omar spent four years before the family moved to the U.S.
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 23: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) participates in a panel discussion during the Muslim Collective For Equitable Democracy Conference and Presidential Forum at the The National Housing Center July 23, 2019 in Washington, DC.
READ MORE: Ilhan Omar announces she’s newly married to her former political consultant Tim Mynett
She then had what she called “a Britney Spears-style meltdown” in which she shaved her head and eloped with a man, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, whom she wrote she “spent so little time with that I wouldn’t even make him a footnote in my story if it weren’t for the fact that this event turned into the main headline later on.”
(AP/Christian Thompson)
“SPECULATION AND CONSPIRACIES”
Since Omar ran for state lawmaker in 2016, she has been met with allegations that Elmi, the man she married during her split from Hirsi, is her brother.
The Electoral Commission (EC) has outlined measures to curb spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) as it laces its boots for the compilation of a new voters register.
Though it is yet to give an exact date for the exercise, the EC has given indication of compiling a new register once it gets the green light from health experts.
The EC had scheduled April 18 for compilation of the new voters register ahead of the December general elections but had to put it on hold due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.
The move to discard the old voter register, the EC contends, is in favour of the new Biometric Voter Management System (BVMS) which would among other things have a facial recognition ability.
The NDC has however vehemently resisted attempts by the EC to register citizens for a new register amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jayasekara, also known as Chokka Malli, was found guilty by the High Court of Ratnapura on July 31 of murdering activist Sunil Perera, popularly known as Shantha Dodamgoda, ahead of presidential elections in 2015. He was sentenced to death along with two others convicted of the same crime. Nonetheless, he took the oath as a […]
The post Murderer on Death Row Sworn In as Member of Sri Lanka’s Parliament appeared first on L.A. Focus Newspaper.
Confirmed cases = 6,673
\t\tActive cases = 4,435
\t\tRecoveries = 2,089
\t\tNumber of deaths = 149
\t
John Hopkins Uni stats valid as of July 1, 2020
June 21: 100 days since index case; 4,738 cases
\tHealth Minister Mutahi Kagwe today announced that Kenya was marking 100 days since the first case was confirmed.
Total confirmed cases = 3,860
Total recoveries = 1,328
Total deaths = 105
Active cases = 2,427
\tFigures valid as of close of day June 16, 2020
June 15: 3,727 cases; burial guidelines relaxed
\tThe health ministry announced a relaxation of burial guidelines for victims of COVID-19.
Confirmed cases = 3,727
\t\tNumber of deaths = 104
\t\tRecoveries = 1,286
\t\tTotal tests = 118,701
\tMinistry of Health data, valid as of June 12, 2020
VIDEO
June 10: Kenya tops 3,000 mark
\tCase load topped 3,000 mark today with 105 new cases taking the tally to 3,094 confirmed cases, Health CAS Rashid Aman disclosed at the daily briefing on COVID-19.
Total confirmed cases = 2,600
Total recoveries = 706
Total deaths = 83
Active cases = 1,811
June 3: 2,216 cases, record recoveries
\t“This is the highest number of recoveries we have so far recorded since we announced the first discharge case on 1st April, 2020,” CAS Health Rashid Aman announced at today’s briefing.
\tMajor topics covered below include:
\t\tMay 31: Cases approach 2,000; Laikipia records case
\t\tMay 30: 1,888 cases, Kericho records infection
\t\tMay 27: Record one-day increase
\t\tMay 26: Govt intensifies voluntary testing calls
\t\tMay 23: 1,192 cases, additional health workers to be hired
\t\tMay 21: record one-day increase, Wajir rolls out campaign
\t\tMay 20: cases pass 1,000 mark, foreigners deported
\t\tMay 16: 830 cases, TZ, Somali borders shut
\t\tMay 14: Cases hit 758, focus turns to Kenya-Tanzania border town
\t\tMay 12: 715 cases, border crossings becoming flash point
\t\tMay 11: Cases reach 700, mass prisoner release
\t\tMay 10: 649 cases, Raila worries about Magufuli
\t\tMay 8: May 8: Govt to foot quarantine bills, cases at 607
\t\tMay 7: 582 cases, lockdown in Eastleigh, Mombasa City
\t\tMay 5: KQ’s UK repatriation flight returns
\t\tMay 4: Cases hit 535, govt decries abuse of relaxed measures
\t\tMay 3: KQ repatriation flight, Nairobi fumigation
\t\tMay 2: Case count at 435, mass testing starts
\t\tMay 1: Case count hits 411, Uhuru vows transparency
May 31: 1,962 cases as Laikipia records infection
\tToday, 74 people have tested positive for the virus fro
By Russ Bynum and Ed White
The Associated Press
Anti-racism protesters on June 13 sought to call attention to the deaths of two more Black men — one who was found hanging from a tree in California and another who was fatally shot by police outside an Atlanta restaurant.
In Palmdale, Calif., hundreds of people marched to demand an investigation into the death of 24-year-old Robert Fuller, who was found hanging from a tree early June 10 near city hall.
Fuller’s death has brought to light the death of another Black man found hanging from a tree on May 31 in Victorville, a desert city 45 miles (72 kilometers) east of Palmdale.
Meanwhile in Europe, far-right activists scuffled with police in London and Paris as more Black Lives Matter demonstrations unfolded nearly three weeks after George Floyd, another Black man, died at the hands of a White Minneapolis police officer who pressed a knee to his neck.
In Paris, police stopped protesters from confronting far-right activists who unfurled a huge banner from a building denouncing “anti-white racism.”
Preparations for next year's general elections got off to a bumpy start yesterday after authorities at the Electoral Commission (EC), rejected Opposition demand for a new 2021 roadmap, born out of a meticulous consultative process.
But the Commission maintained that the elections would go on as planned and asked Opposition parties to either accept the new roadmap announced on Tuesday or push for last-minute constitutional amendments to the current electoral laws.
Under the revised EC roadmap, political parties were given one month to organise their internal elections (primaries).
\"As an electoral management body that is interested in holding free and fair general elections, you ought to have sufficient consultation with all key stakeholder before you roll out this \"scientific\" revised roadmap...\" the letter to EC reads in part.
\"In the most ridiculous fashion, the Commission has released a revised roadmap for the 2021 General Election; which roadmap violates every aspect of a free and fair election, envisaged under Article 1(4) of the Constitution of Uganda,\" Mr Kyagulanyi said in a Facebook post yesterday.
\"Ours is not going to be the politics of praise and favour; it will be politics of a service, inclusiveness and humanity,\" Dr Lina Zedriga Waru Abuku said after being unveiled as People Power deputy principal by Kyadondo East MP Robert Kyagulanyi, alias Bobi Wine, last month.
Having held different positions in many organisations, including at the Centre for Peace and Security Governance in Juba, South Sudan, and the Uganda National Committee for the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Dr Zedriga, a lawyer by profession, says she had opted to retire and concentrate on empowering girls in northern Uganda.
According to Bobi Wine, Dr Zedriga has been tested on all fronts and qualifies for any position that would cause impact to their political group that is eyeing the presidential seat in 2021.
Dr Zedriga says the turn of events that brought about the death of two People Power supporters, Ritah Nabukenya, who was allegedly knocked down by a police vehicle in Nakawa, Kampala, and Dan Kyeyune, who was shot dead in Nansana, Wakiso District, cemented her decision to join the political pressure group.
Bobi Wine says Dr Zedriga will be charged with grassroots mobilisation, especially among the women.
The South African government is facing criticism over its plans to reopen schools.
Learning centers are to be opened when the country eases its lockdown from level four to level three of a five-level system at the end of May.
The country’s major teachers’ unions describes the plan as an “irrational and arbitrary” one-size-fits-all approach, according to local media.
The National Association of Parents in School Governance has expressed concerns that reopening schools will put the lives of pupils, teachers and their families in danger of infection.
The association has filed a court application to oppose the lockdown regulations.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - A coalition of political parties in Venezuela led by US-backed Juan Guaid� said yesterday that it won't participate in upcoming congressional elections called by officials loyal to President Nicol�s Maduro.A group of 27 opposition parties rejected the December 6 election as 'fraud'.
Many were waiting for Ivorian opposition leader Henri Konan Bédié to speak, but instead it was FPI's P ascal Affi N'guessan who spoke for the opposition parties.
N'guessan confirmed they rejected the October 31st vote , and stated once more the opposition no longer recognized Alassane Ouattara as the country's president.
\" The Ivorian opposition political parties do not recognize the election of october 31st 2020. They note the end of president Ouattara's mandate as of October 31st 2020, and call on the international community to duly record it.\"
\"Therefore, the Ivorian opposition political parties demand the opening of a civilian transition, in order to create conditions for a just, transparant and inclusive presidential election \" N'guessan said.
Affi N'gessan also called for a transitional government to be instaured shortly with all opposition forces.
In the meantime, partial results have arrived at the electoral commission , which, department after department, continues to gather reports.
\" The key point tonight remains the turnout rate of this vote . This is what everyone is waiting for \" added Africanews' Abidjan correspondant Yannick Djahoun.
Authorities in Tanzania are redeploying potbellied traffic police officers.
Interior Minister George Simbachewere contended that the move was necessary because such officers are an embarrassment to the police service.
Speaking over the weekend during a road safety symposium in Tanzania’s capital Dodoma, Simbachewere argued that the physical condition of the officers made them unfit to serve.
Simbachewere, therefore, ordered Inspector General of Police Simon Sirro to immediately reassign the pot-bellied officers to departments where they can be effective in the service.
In the meantime, president, John Magufuli, is justifying his country’s laissez-faire approach to fighting the spread of the coronavirus, declaring that “God will help us”, at a church service.
Virtual event takes place on Oct. 20 With just weeks to go before Election Day on Nov. 3, now is the time to make sure everyone’s vote counts. That’s why ten publishers of the leading Black newspapers in America will come together for a live event to discuss voting with purpose in the upcoming … Continued
The post 10 leading Black newspapers join forces to host ‘Voting With Purpose’ live event appeared first on New Pittsburgh Courier.
