Month: December 2016

Journalists from Cameroon and Ivory Coast on Thursday won Africa’s top fact-checking awards for investigating government claims that turned out to be false.
Manfei Anderson Diedri, of the website Eburnietoday.com, scooped the francophone award for an eight-month investigation into a land dispute in central Ivory Coast.
Diedri uncovered that while Abidjan claimed it had ownership of 11,000 hectares of land granted to a Belgian company for industrial rubber plantations — which villagers claimed was their property — there was no proof of this.
Arison Tamfu, of the Cameroon Journal, was named winner of the award for English-language media for an investigation into a promise by President Paul Biya to gift laptops to “each student of a public or private university in Cameroon”.
His report showed the laptops were in fact netbooks, would not reach all students, did not cost what was being declared and were not a gift but the result of a loan from China’s EXIM Bank, to be repaid by taxpayers.
The awards were handed out by Africa Check, which was set up in South Africa in 2012 by the AFP Foundation in partnership with the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
“In a year when fact-checking has been in the news around the world, the standard of entries has been higher than ever; our winners showing why it is so important that journalists do not just report what public figures say, but question their claims and expose those that are not true,” said Africa Check’s Executive Director Peter Cunliffe-Jones.
The way the media reports on politicians’ comments — often directly reported without scrutiny — was thrust into the spotlight during a bitter US presidential campaign in which victor Donald Trump often made tenuous claims or played with the truth.
While Oxford Dictionaries chose “post-truth” as their word of the year, the importance of fact-checking has further been highlighted by the explosion of fake news sites and links that go viral on social media.
Other articles in the running for the prize included a probe into who really bought a new plane for King Mswati III of Swaziland, which the absolute monarch claimed was a gift from anonymous donors.
It turned out the $22.45-million (20 million euro) aircraft had been partly bought by a company wholly owned by the king.
Africa Check regularly takes aim at public utterances and statistics given by politicians on the continent, such as rape and murder figures, while checking on the veracity of viral stories or even whether oft-cited quotes by Nelson Mandela came from the man himself.

Former French budget minister Jerome Cahuzac was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday for hiding millions of euros abroad, adding to a long list of French politicians dogged by scandal.
Here are some of the most notorious scandals over the past three decades:
The government of Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius was caught in a scandal in the mid-1980s after HIV-contaminated blood was knowingly given to French patients. Fabius himself was acquitted of manslaughter in the case, while former health minister Edmond Herve was convicted but not sentenced.
Newspapers Liberation and Le Monde revealed in 1993 that the telephones of more than 100 people had been tapped between 1983 and 1986 at the request of the presidential palace’s anti-terrorist unit.
In 2005, seven officials were given suspended sentences, including the head of then French president Francois Mitterrand’s cabinet.
As investigating judge at Paris’ top court, Eva Joly uncovered several cases of fraud at France’s leading oil company Elf Aquitaine, resulting in the conviction of dozens of persons involved in the oil business.
In 2001 former French Socialist foreign minister Roland Dumas was sentenced to six months in jail and fined 150,000 euros for receiving gifts illegally paid for by Elf, before being acquitted on appeal.
Former minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, one of the world’s most prominent public figures and formerly a Socialist frontrunner for the French presidency, was forced to resign as IMF chief in 2011 after being accused by a 32-year-old hotel chambermaid, Nafissatou Diallo, of sexual assault in his suite in a New York Sofitel hotel. The charges were later dropped and the affair ended with a confidential financial accord with his accuser.
Former conservative president Jacques Chirac was in December 2011 given a two-year suspended jail sentence after being found guilty of embezzlement in connection with charges that he used public money to pay people working for his political party while he was Paris mayor.
Before that, in 2004, former rightwing prime minister Alain Juppe was given a 14-month suspended jail sentence and banned from holding office for a year, in a party finance scandal from the 1980s when he was finance director at Paris City Hall under Chirac.
Former rightwing president Nicolas Sarkozy has faced a number of legal probes into corruption and campaign financing violations since he left office in May 2012 and he lost his presidential immunity. He was charged in February with illegal financing of his 2012 campaign.
Judicial authorities are investigating claims that he received millions in his 2007 campaign funding from the regime of late Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.

Richard McLaren’s full report into doping in Russia, set to be published Friday, will pose an “immediate challenge” to the International Olympic Committee, according to IOC president Thomas Bach.
The IOC on Wednesday pre-empted the report’s publication by extending sanctions against Russia until further notice, despite Bach insisting Thursday that “I cannot speculate, I don’t know the report”.
Bach, speaking after a three-day meeting of the IOC executive board, added: “For the IOC, the challenges are obvious. We we will have an immediate challenge tomorrow with the final McLaren report.
“We will deal (with it) as soon as we have the report. It will be handed to the two (IOC) commissions, then they will take contact with McLaren and will take up their work immediately.”
The IOC first imposed sanctions on Russia in July in the wake of McLaren’s opening report for the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) that revealed a widespread state-backed scheme in Russia to rig drug tests at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
The revelations led to the exclusion of more than 100 Russian athletes from the Rio Olympics and the entire Russian team from the Paralympics. McLaren’s full report is again expected to lift the lid once more on doping in Russia.
Bach added that re-testing from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics had raised “concern regarding some countries, in particular Russia, and some sports, in particular, weightlifting”.
“We will have to analyse this and consult with WADA about this situation.”
When asked whether weightlifting’s presence in the Olympics might be at risk, Bach erred on the side of caution.
“We will have to analyse in detail, we will also have to put in relation the sport and the countries, and to see whether this is more a problem just in a certain number of countries. We will have to consult with WADA and we will see with WADA how to look at this situation.”
Turning to bids for the 2024 Olympic Summer Games, Bach called Budapest, Paris and Los Angeles “strong candidates”, hailing the 2020 Olympic Agenda for successfully keeping the idea of candidacy for the Games affordable.
But, with the hosts of the 2024 Games to be decided in Lima in September 2017, Bach warned that the current bidding procedure produced “too many losers”.
“It’s not the purpose to produce losers but to produce the best possible hopes, so we will have to look into this,” he said.
“It is about to change or to be changed, we will continue to change.”
Bach added: “For 2024, the process it is under way, we are very happy.
“We have to think long term, we have already started with 2024 by reducing the number of bidding cities. In this invitation phase we have already advised some potential bidders not to put their candidature forward. Maybe we need to strengthen this invitation phase, to have dialogue with some cities at an even earlier stage, I’m sure we have to make a change in this procedure.”

Cheyenne Woods, the niece of superstar golfer Tiger, was one shot off the lead held by England’s Florentyna Parker after the first round of the tragedy-hit Dubai Ladies Masters on Thursday.
Play had been suspended early Wednesday in the season-ending championship of the Ladies European Tour following the death of caddie Max Zechmann on the course.
And with the tournament reduced to 54 holes, the field completed the round Thursday.
Parker, who started the day at seven under par after nine holes, moved to eight-under after 16, but having started on the back nine, the closing stretch of the difficult par-4 eighth and ninth holes took its toll.
The 27-year-old, who is fourth in the money list and enjoying a superb year without winning a tournament, made a bogey on the eighth and then closed with a double bogey on the ninth.
Also a victim of the eighth hole was Woods who looked good as she was six under par on the eighth tee having also started from the 10th.
But she pushed her tee shot into the desert and ended up making a double bogey.
Woods and Frenchwoman Sophie Giquel-Bettan were tied for second place at four under par.
Defending champion Feng Shanshan struggled for her even-par 72, while India’s Aditi Ashok, who won the last two individual events on the LET, carded a solid two-under-par 70.
“I have struggled here the last few years,” said Parker. “The last three years I’ve missed the cut, and it’s been very disappointing.
“I was thinking back to 2010, I think I started with five or six-under on the back nine, which was my front nine. And I said, I need to get that feeling back and somehow do the same, and I can do it.
“Well, I went one or two better, so that was really good, and then I struggled a bit this morning. It’s quite hard to find your way again, but it was good that I made back-to-back birdies, and obviously I struggled on the last two holes.”
Woods, who had moved to seven-under with a hat-trick of birdies on the 18th, first and second, made a bogey on the fourth before the double bogey on the eighth.
“That double was not very good. It was ugly. But despite that, I thought I played a really solid round,” said the American.
“I hit the ball well and gave myself a lot of chances for birdies and my putter felt great, so I’m really happy with today.”
Feng rued a cold putter and said: “My ball-striking was actually very good. I had so many birdie chances. But my putting wasn’t really working. I was missing all the short birdie putts and also the par putts.”
The players wore black ribbons and observed a minute’s silence as a tribute to 56-year-old Zechmann, a former caddie on the European Tour.
He was caddying for France’s Anne-Lise Caudal who hit 72 on Thursday.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen proposed Thursday that the children of illegal immigrants should be refused public school places as part of tough proposals to restrict state services for foreigners.
“I’ve got nothing against foreigners but I say to them: if you come to our country, don’t expect that you will be taken care of, treated (by the health system) and that your children will be educated for free,” Le Pen said.
“That’s finished now, it’s the end of playtime,” she told a conference in Paris in comments that provoked a storm of condemnation from the Socialist government.
Opinion polls suggest the leader of the National Front (FN) will finish second in next year’s presidential election, but she is hoping for new momentum after Donald Trump’s victory in the United States.
Speaking to AFP afterwards, the 48-year-old clarified that she wanted to block education for immigrants who are in France illegally, not all foreigners.
Such a move would contravene current French law, which guarantees school places for all children.
She also said that any foreigner using the public education system without paying tax in France would face a bill for school, which would affect European workers based temporarily in the country.
“We’re going to reserve our efforts and our national solidarity for the most humble, the most modest and the most poor among us,” Le Pen told the conference.
The nationalist FN sees itself as part of a global revolt against immigration, established political parties and globalisation epitomised by Trump’s victory last month.
Its leaders regularly criticise the use of France’s chronically over-budget social security system for foreigners, arguing that needy French people should be prioritised.
Polls currently show Le Pen qualifying for the second round of May’s election where she is forecast to face — and lose to — rightwing Republicans party candidate Francois Fillon.
Few analysts see her taking power, but it has been an unpredictable year in politics and France’s sickly economy and immigration are top issues for voters.
The country has unemployment of around 10 percent and rising national debt equivalent to one year’s economic output, or 98.4 percent of gross domestic product. It last ran a federal budget surplus in the 1970s.
Trump made controlling illegal immigration a key part of his pitch to American voters, promising to deport 11 million undocumented migrants, whom he regularly portrayed as violent criminals.
In an interview with Time magazine this week, he signalled he might take a softer approach once in office, however, particularly towards the children of illegal immigrants studying in the US.
Immigration was also crucial in swinging Britain’s referendum on the European Union in June when many voters backed the Leave campaign to gain control over their borders.
Le Pen wants to withdraw France from the eurozone and has called for a referendum to pull the country out of the 28-member European Union, a move that might unravel the project.
Socialist Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem attacked the school proposals as shameful and unworkable, while the minister for children, Laurence Rossignol, called them “inhumane”.
Vallaud-Belkacem underlined that France guaranteed free education for all school-age children on its territory under its national laws and the international conventions it has signed.
“I remind you that it’s a matter of honour for the French republic to guarantee to children, to all children, the right to an education — in other words, the right to a future,” she said.
A spokesman for the Socialist party, Corinne Narassiguin, said Le Pen had shown the “real face of the FN” after years of trying to softer the party’s historic racist and antisemitic image.
The party has a long-standing policy of wanting to expel all illegal immigrants in France.
After a string of terror attacks over the last two years and the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, hardline rhetoric on immigration is seen as a vote-winner on the right.
Fillon has talked tough on newcomers, promising to reduce the influx to a “strict minimum.”
He has also rejected the idea of “multiculturalism”, called Islam a “problem” for France, and insists the country must defend its traditions, language and identity.
Le Pen’s proposals have echoes of plans reportedly drawn up by the interior ministry in Britain in 2015 when it was headed by Theresa May, who is now prime minister.
Leaked documents revealed by the BBC last week showed that May’s department had argued for immigration checks in schools and suggested places could be withdrawn for illegal immigrants.

She never went to college and a neurological disorder almost silenced her, yet Diane Rehm persevered to find her voice again as the celebrated host of one of America’s longest running radio programs.
Nearly four decades after stumbling into the radio business, Rehm is hanging up the mic on December 23 at the humble age of 80.
“I am 1,000 percent ready to step away,” she said in a wide-ranging interview with AFP at the offices of radio station WAMU 88.5 in Washington.
“I was born in 1936, so why not? And I’m frankly tired of getting up at 5:00 am every weekday. I am really, really ready not to do that anymore.”
Rehm’s guests have included top political leaders, actors and thinkers. More than two million people tune in every weekday to her eponymous live call-in program, distributed nationally by National Public Radio (NPR) and carried by some 200 stations.
On January 2, it will be replaced by “1A,” hosted by Joshua Johnson, co-creator of a radio series on America’s troubled race relations.
The first journalist to interview a sitting president — Bill Clinton — in the Oval Office, Rehm has received a slew of honors, including the prestigious Peabody Award.
Her distinctive voice is halting and strained due to a condition known as spasmodic dysphonia.
But Rehm is all steely determination, with hair blown out, red nails, and a navy blue dress hugging her slender body over knee-high black leather boots.
“My spasmodic dysphonia came as a huge shock to me, something I thought would end my career,” Rehm told AFP, recalling her 1998 diagnosis.
“I feel extraordinarily fortunate that… listeners would accept such a flawed voice.”
To treat the disorder, Rehm gets Botox injections straight into her vocal cords three times a year, which takes her off the air for an average of 2.5 weeks.
The radio host dubbed a “national treasure” by her adoring fans has been open about the deeply personal hardships and struggles that have marked her life.
Raised in a strict household by Syrian Christian parents who immigrated in the early 20th century, Rehm was molested when she was only nine years old, divorced her first husband after marrying at 19, and lost her second husband of 54 years to Parkinson’s disease.
“I’m just as human and have had as many failures as anyone else,” said Rehm, who has written three autobiographies.
Donald Trump’s lewd boasts about groping women, which became public just weeks before last month’s US presidential election, brought back “horrific memories” from a fateful day some 70 years ago.
“For a president of the United States to say those things, and to brag about those things, and to have his supporters say it doesn’t matter, shocks me more than I can tell you,” she said.
Rehm never even told her husband the name of her abuser, a congressman who had told Rehm’s parents she had the makings of a “Hollywood star,” before taking her to his hotel room and molesting her.
“It was a terrible experience, a traumatic one in terms of the fear it generated in me in the years following,” Rehm recalled. “I was afraid I might see him again, somehow, somewhere, and be taken away.”
Rehm’s frankness about her personal hurdles sometimes caused friction with NPR’s top brass.
After her husband refused water, medication and food to end his painful battle with Parkinson’s, Rehm became a vocal advocate for the right to choose to die, speaking at fundraising dinners for lobbying group Compassion & Choices.
That eventually earned her a stern rebuke in February 2015 from NPR ombudsman Elizabeth Jensen, who said she had gone “a step too far.”
“It took my husband 10 days to die, and I felt that that was so inhumane, something we do not allow to happen to even the dogs or cats or horses or creatures we love,” said Rehm, who plans on stepping up her activism after ending her show.
When Rehm first volunteered for what was then a tiny local radio station in 1973, she was a stay-at-home mom with no broadcast experience.
The host of the program was sick, and Rehm was thrust into her chair, asking tough questions of a representative of the dairy council — for 90 minutes.
Six years later, she began as full-time host of the program, which was renamed “The Diane Rehm Show” in 1984 and nationally syndicated in 1995.
“I think the reason I’ve hit the mark that I have is because the questions I want answered are the same ones everybody else wants answered,” she said.
“They are not highfalutin, they are not so well educated or so well thought out; they are coming from my own curiosity.”
The venerated veteran faced one of the most difficult moments of her career during the recent presidential campaign when she was tricked by an internet rumor — one of many in a campaign rife with untruths.
In a June 2015 interview with Senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish and was then running for the Democratic nomination, Rehm told him he had dual citizenship with Israel and kept pressing him even after Sanders denied the allegation — which stemmed from a listener’s Facebook post.
“I felt so terrible,” Rehm said, taking “personal responsibility” for the incident that triggered accusations of anti-Semitism.
“Check, check, check, check… that is the way you and I as journalists must be with the proliferation of these websites and this fake information that’s out there.”

Mexican leftist senators screamed insults as they battered a “pinata” effigy of US President-elect Donald Trump in an online video that went viral.
To the cheerful tune of a trumpet, the male and female senators in evening dress take turns swinging a club at the paper doll, a traditional Mexican party game.
The large pinata, hung by the neck at a Christmas party for PRD party lawmakers, resembled the provocative US leader-in-waiting with a dark suit and blonde quiff.
One of the senators finally whacks off the pinata’s legs and the effigy spills out its candy.
The Republican billionaire launched his White House quest by denouncing Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and drug traffickers, and vowing to build a wall on the southern US border.
Mexicans are also concerned about Trump’s protectionist stance on trade with their country.
“I ask you to be united in sending our greetings to Donald,” Senator Miguel Angel Barbosa tells participants before they whistle, yell an obscenity and start whacking.

Malawian police on Thursday said they had arrested a Rwandan who was convicted of genocide crimes back home but has been living in the country for 13 years.
“Yes, we effected the arrest of Vincent Murekezi today on instructions from the director of public prosecutions,” police chief spokesman James Kadazera told AFP.
Murekezi was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia after being found guilty of genocide, according to a Rwandan official source cited by the Malawian media on Thursday.
Kadazera confirmed that Murekezi, who has been living in Malawi since 2003 and holds a Malawian passport, was wanted in Rwanda on “genocide issues”.
The 1994 Rwandan genocide was a four-month slaughter that left 800,000 people dead. It was triggered by the shooting down of the plane of then president Juvenal Habyarimana in April 1994.
It was not immediately clear if or when Murekezi, now a businessman, would be extradited to Rwanda.
Dalitso Kabambe, a top official in Malawi’s foreign affairs ministry, said in a statement that his country had received “several requests for extradition” from Rwanda, but was not sure whether Murekezi’s name was amongst them.
A Malawi immigration spokesman, Joseph Chauwa was last month quoted by a local newspaper saying Murekezi had “met all the requirements for the awarding of citizenship and a travel document”.

The Wiper Party on Thursday resolved to kick out rebels who include Governor Alfred Mutua and six other MPs for publicly supporting other parties.
The six MPs are Regina Ndambuki (Kilome), Joe Mutambu (Mwingi Central), Robert Mutemi (nominated), John Munuve (Mwingi North), Kisoi Munyao (Mbooni) and Richard Makenga (Kaiti).
The committee however pardoned Nominated MP Robert Mutemi citing lack of evidence.
The committee, chaired by Lillian Omondi, resolved leaders had openly showed and declared support for other political parties and as such, were deemed to have resigned from the party that took them to Parliament.
the committee said.
 
After growing diffrences between Mutua and the Wiper Party, the governor formed the Maendeleo Chap Chap in September.
Last month, the party’s whose loyalty had been put into question.
The NEC later instructed the party’s disciplinary committee to deliberate on the issue of rebel MPs and report back to them.
However, s to appear before them citing short notices.
Wiper party leader Kalonzo Musyoka in September put on notice the rebel who defected to the Jubilee party, saying that they must brace themselves for by-elections. 
Musyoka said a by-election must be conducted in all the five constituencies in Ukambani whose representatives had shifted loyalty to President Uhuru Kenyatta.
However, the defiant MPs dared Musyoka to expel and subject them to by-elections and declared they would not allow themselves to be intimidated by anyone for working closely with the government for the betterment of their constituents.

Former presidents Kibaki and Moi will receive Ksh74milion next year as part of their new retirement package.
Mwai Kibaki and Daniel arap Moi’s pensions have been increase by 15.6 per cent next year up from Ksh64 million to Ksh74 million.
According to estimates in the supplementary budget tabled in Parliament last week, the two former presidents have will each pocket a monthly pension of KSh3 million.
The figure is even higher than President Uhuru Kenyatta’s official salary of Ksh1.5 million.

This comes on the background of an o demanding better pay
Kenyans were obviously not too pleased by the news and rightfully said so
” Epraim Njega posted.
The High Court last year stopped payment of allowances worth millions of shillings to the two former leaders, saying they were an unnecessary burden to the taxpayer.
 
However the Attorney-General successfully appealed the decision, allowing the two to continue enjoying the hefty allowances.
Some of the perks Kibaki and Moi are entitled to receive is a Sh379,500 monthly house allowance, fuel allowance of Sh247,500, entertainment perks of Sh247,500 and utilities of Sh379,500.
 
The supplementary budget indicates that the former presidents have a separate benefits budget, which currently stands at Sh58.8 million or Sh4.9 monthly. This budget will remain unchanged next year.
The law are also entitled two personal assistants, four secretaries, four messengers, four drivers and bodyguards.
 

The National Police Service through the Office of the Inspector General had rejected the report by Haki Africa linking them to extra judicial killings and forced disappearances of persons in the Coast region.
Through a statement signed by the Police Spokesperson George Kinoti, the police said the allegations were based on unfounded distortions of the real facts.
the statement read in part.
The report accused the police of killing or ‘forcibly disappearing’ at least 81 Muslims living along the country’s coastline.
 
The report entitled “What Do We Tell the Families?,” Haki Africa said that the figure could be much higher, but that some families refused to come forward due to fear of repercussions.
Of the 81 cases recorded since 2012, 22 , four occurred while the victims were in police custody, 31 were allegedly extra-judicial executions, and 24 were thought to be enforced disappearances.
According to the NGO’s executive director, Hussein Khalid, most of the victims were youths, although they also included people over the age of 50, such as sheikhs and imams.
said Khalid in the report.

Democratic Republic of Congo’s Catholic Church launched “reconciliation” talks on Thursday aimed at ending a political stalemate threatening to push the country back into civil war.
President Joseph Kabila triggered a political crisis in October by agreeing a deal with a fringe opposition group that effectively lets him extend his hold on power for at least another year. He would otherwise have been due to step down in two weeks’ time.
The crisis has led to outbreaks of violence, but the Catholic Church says it hopes to broker a deal to resolve the political standoff.
“We are here for inaugural political discussions on a wider consensus to the electoral process,” Archbishop Marcel Utembi said as he welcomed 30 participants to DR Congo’s national episcopal conference, which brings together negotiators for Kabila’s ruling party and the main opposition group.
Utembi said the discussions, which could last until Tuesday, would lead the country to “peace, reconciliation, the holding of peaceful elections aimed at obtaining a transfer of political power, as prescribed by the constitution”.
The prelate reiterated a call from Pope Francis to “build bridges not walls” in the mineral-rich DRC.
He also warned that the current “stalemate” could provoke “incalculable consequences”.
However, he took a positive tone claiming that Kabila had given “strong and very encouraging signals” matched by the main opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi.
Kabila has been in power since his late father Laurent Kabila was assassinated in 2001.
The younger Kabila has won two elections since then but is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term of office.
Violence flared following the last election in 2011, with Tshisekedi never accepting the official results which he branded as rigged.
He has called himself the president-elect ever since.
But the DR Congo, which was ravaged by two wars from 1996 to 2003, has seen an upsurge in violence over the last few months.
Anti-Kabila protests in September claimed 53 lives, according to the UN.
Pygmy-Bantu clashes over a caterpillar collection tax — the insects are a common food staple for the hunter-gatherer Pygmy people — left 20 dead in October while 34 civilians were killed in ethnic violence in the country’s restive east last month.
And last week another 31 people died in clashes, sparked by a tribal rivalry, between soldiers and police on one side and militia fighters on the other.
Kabila’s term as president is supposed to end on December 20 but he now looks set to remain in power until at least the end of next year.

A Greek appeals court on Thursday ruled against the extradition of two Turkish coup suspects demanded by Ankara, after electing to protect another three and send back three others.
The Athens court accepted a prosecutor’s arguments that the two military officers — out of a total eight seeking asylum in Greece — would be at risk if sent back to Turkey.
They followed a similar reasoning earlier this week for another three of the officers, but approved the deportation of the remaining three for “attempting to topple the regime” of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a judicial source said.
All eight men were in the same helicopter that landed in the northern Greek city of Alexandroupolis in July, hours after the failed military coup against Erdogan.
Government spokesman Dimitris Tzanakopoulos has said the Greek authorities would follow the court rulings “irrespective of the political cost.”
In rejecting extradition, the appeals court said Ankara had not provided sufficient evidence tying five of the eight officers to the coup.
That decision outraged Ankara, which has arrested tens of thousands of people as part of a wide-ranging crackdown since the attempted putsch.
“Greece is in the NATO alliance with Turkey and is a NATO ally. Our expectation is that the Greek government make every effort to return” those individuals to Turkey, Defence Minister Fikri Isik said Monday.
The case will now be be heard by the Supreme Court.
Turkey may still appeal the case, and any final decision to extradite rests with the Greek justice minister.
The two Turkish commanders, four captains and two sergeants requested asylum in Greece after landing in Alexandroupolis shortly after the attempted government takeover in mid-July.
The officers are currently also appealing against a Greek refusal to grant them asylum in September. They say they would not receive a fair trial in Turkey.
The case is awkward for Greece, which depends on Turkey to stem the flow of tens of thousands of migrants to its shores.
Several Turkish nationals, including civil servants and businessmen, have sought refuge in Greece following the coup attempt.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg last month said an unspecified number of Turkish officers serving in NATO command positions had requested asylum in those alliance member states following the botched coup.

The White Helmets rescue group on Thursday urged international organisations to protect its members in rebel-held parts of Syria’s east Aleppo in the face of an advance by government forces.
“If we are not evacuated, our volunteers face torture and execution in the regime’s detention centres,” the rescuers said in a statement released by the Syria Campaign advocacy group that handles communications for them.
The White Helmets, which was nominated this year for a Nobel Peace Prize for its work, said it believed it had “less than 48 hours left” before the army arrived in parts of east Aleppo still held by rebels.
Addressing the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations and Security Council members, the group called for an “urgent safe passage” for its staff, their families and other humanitarian workers.
In the last three weeks, government forces have seized around 85 percent of territory rebels controlled in east Aleppo.
A rebel call for a five-day ceasefire and the evacuation of civilians to opposition territory elsewhere has gone unanswered.
“We have good reason to fear for our lives,” the White Helmets said.
It charged that the Damascus regime and its allies have “falsely claimed many times that our unarmed and impartial rescue workers… are in fact affiliated with radical extremist groups”.
The group said its members in the city feared they would “be treated as terrorists” and could face detention or execution by advancing regime troops.
“We hold the ICRC, the United Nations and the Security Council responsible for our lives and we call on you to secure safe passage,” it added.
The White Helmets operates in rebel-held territory throughout Syria and has won international acclaim for its daring rescues in the aftermaths of government attacks.
It was widely considered a frontrunner for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, and in September won a Swedish right award often described as an “alternative Nobel”.
It is not without its critics, mostly backers of the government of President Bashar al-Assad who accuse it of being a tool of international donors that support the opposition.
But it contends it has no political affiliation, working only to save civilian lives in highly dangerous circumstances.

Kenyan doctors and nurses warned Thursday they will extend a strike crippling public hospitals to private clinics as well next week, unless the government offers them more in a pay dispute.
Public hospitals have been deserted for four days, with patients left to fend for themselves, forced to return home or transfer to private clinics as healthcare workers embarked on a mass stayaway.
“It is very important for Kenyans to know that we don’t hate going to work, we love our work but it has come to a situation where we need to tell the government that we are serious this time,” nurse Eunice Ngare told AFP during a protest march.
Unions are demanding a 300-percent pay rise for doctors and 25- to 40-percent pay rise for nurses that they say was agreed in a 2013 collective bargaining agreement, but has yet to be implemented.
The government on Wednesday offered a 50,000 shilling ($500, 442 euro) increase to the lowest paid doctors — which would have raised their salaries to 176,000 shillings — but unions rejected this outright and again walked out of talks.
“We want to make it very clear that this strike shall only be called off by the implementation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. The doctors in this country have been taken on a goose chase for so long,” said Ouma Oluga of the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union.
He said that from Tuesday next week “all hospitals will be closed, be it private or public.”
A judge on Wednesday ordered union officials to appear in court next Tuesday, threatening them with jail for disobeying a court order to call off the strike.
Judge Helen Wasiliwa said that if they did not show up she would order their arrest.
The strike led to chaos outside hospitals earlier this week, with bystanders helping women give birth, and more than 100 patients escaping from Kenya’s only psychiatric hospital in the capital Nairobi.
At least 14 patients are reported to have died in public hospitals due to lack of care, President Uhuru Kenyatta said Wednesday.
“We are ready to dialogue with our doctors and nurses. Let’s be mindful of the lives of our people,” he said.
However Kenyatta and his government have received short shrift on social media, where supporters of the strike question the loss of millions of dollars in the corruption-plagued country, while doctors battle to secure wage increases.
“It is appalling that Kenya cannot pay its doctors a decent salary, while billions are shamelessly stolen from the public coffers,” said an editorial in the Daily Nation this week.

Russian sport is bracing for more pain after a bruising year that has seen some of its athletes turfed out of the Olympics over revelations of state-run doping.
Further revelations are expected Friday when the final report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on Russian doping is released.
The International Olympic Committee on Wednesday extended sanctions imposed on Russia after the first part of the Richard McLaren report was released in July.
Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren detailed an elaborate scheme to manipulate drug tests at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics involving the sports ministry and the FSB security service.
Russia’s athletics federation was suspended by the IAAF in November 2015 after a bombshell WADA report accused the country of state-sponsored doping.
The banned national track and field team did not take part in the Rio Olympics, while the McLaren report led to a ban on the country’s entire Paralympic squad, sanctions that were extended indefinitely Wednesday.
But Russian authorities claim they are doing all they can to reform — strengthening doping checks and clamping down on cheating.
“Every cloud has a silver lining,” President Vladimir Putin said in his annual state of the nation address this month.
“I am convinced the so-called doping scandal will help us to create the most advanced system to fight this evil.”
But critics insist that the Kremlin is in denial over government involvement and, until that basic hurdle is cleared, nothing will really change.
“There are ongoing statements that there is no state involvement, there are threats to put anybody who reports otherwise in jail,” WADA founder Dick Pound, who led an earlier investigation into doping in Russian athletics, told AFP.
“It’s not a good sign.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was “ready to receive detailed information” in the new report due Friday, insisting that so far all accusations have lacked specifics.
In the wake of the McLaren revelations in July some Russian officials were dismissed and lawmakers passed new legislation making it a crime to force athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs.
More often, however, those in charge have circled the wagons — presenting the doping allegations as part of a broader attack by the West against Russia.
Scandal-mired Vitaly Mutko, barred from the Olympics as part of the sanctions, was shifted from his post as sports minister to a more senior position as deputy prime minister that still gives him control over the field.
Pound called the move a “reward” — designed to take Mutko out of the limelight.
The new sports minister, former fencer Pavel Kolobkov, said at a Russian Olympic Committee meeting Thursday that the country had “declared war” against doping.
A new national anti-doping committee was set up this summer and 81-year-old veteran sports official Vitaly Smirnov placed in charge.
But the same tainted faces that have dominated Russian sports before sit on the body, seen by some as toothless and intended to sugar coat the problem.
The most pressing task for Russia is to try get its track and field athletes competing again in international tournaments while regaining membership of the athletics governing body, the IAAF.
Mutko has said he hoped that Russia’s track and field athletes will be allowed to compete internationally by the spring, but the IAAF Council this month voted to uphold the suspension while conceding the country had made progress since the summer.
Putin — who had blasted the exclusion of Russia’s track and field team as “beyond the legal sphere and common sense” — said earlier this month that he expected the country to implement a new anti-doping system by early 2017.
In addition to the law that punishes coaches and medical staff for forcing athletes to dope, lawmakers say they are planning additional legislation that would punish drug cheats.
One of the parliamentarians who drafted the law, Dmitry Svishchev, maintained that the Russian government could not have endorsed the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
“The government could not have supported illegal actions,” he told AFP. “The government follows the laws that it makes.”
The findings that will be revealed Friday “unfortunately are based on speculation of some individuals,” he said.
“There is no state program, no secret laboratory, no deal with the special services, especially not with the FSB,” he added.
“This is a classic information attack on Russia through sport.”

Moscow’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov on Thursday denounced the “myth of a Russian threat” and accused Western powers of destabilising Europe, at a meeting in Germany of OSCE nations.
He urged all sides to take “a map of the continent and together look at what’s where and what belongs to whom”, referring to NATO’s enlargement in eastern Europe since the Cold War, which Moscow regards as a threat to its security.
“We are sure such a review will convincingly dismantle the myth of a Russian threat and demonstrate where the real risks are coming from,” Lavrov told Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe nation foreign ministers at an annual meeting in the northern city of Hamburg.
“The euphoria the West was in after the end of the Cold War didn’t lead to an architecture of security for all in the Euro-Atlantic space,” he said, adding that instead “the choice was made for a closed NATO-centred system”.
Lavrov also said the Western military interventions in Iraq and Libya had destabilised the region and sparked a surge in refugee, to the point of threatening European security.
“An honest conversation must be held about the causes of the migrant crisis in Europe that are the result of gross interference in the internal affairs of countries in the Middle East and North Africa leading to chaos, terrorism,” he said.
On the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Lavrov charged that Kiev had sabotaged peace efforts by refusing a direct dialogue with the pro-Moscow rebels.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin at the same meeting decried “Russian aggression” and reiterated his government’s call for the deployment of an OSCE armed police mission in eastern Ukraine and along the Russian-Ukrainian border.
“The stakes are bigger and the price is higher than ever, the death toll from the war of Russia against Ukraine has already risen to 10,000,” he said.
Germany, which chaired the meeting of the group created during the Cold War to promote East-West dialogue, noted the dramatic deterioration of relations within the group.
“The pillars of the OSCE are crumbling, the tone is getting harsher between East and West,” said German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, calling however for “common answers to the new global challenges of terrorism, extremism and cyber attacks”.
“Most of all… we need to rebuild trust where it has been lost,” he said.

Thailand thrashed Myanmar 4-0 in Bangkok late Thursday in a ruthless display that sets up a Suzuki Cup final date with Indonesia.
Goals from Sarawut Masuk (33′), Theerathon Bunmathan (65′) Siroch Chatthong (76′) and Chanathip Songkrasin (83′) — known in Thailand as ‘Messi J’ — destroyed the visitor’s slim chances of overturning a two-goal first-leg deficit.
The emphatic win, 6-0 on aggragate, instals the War Elephants as favourites against Indonesia when the two sides meet next week.
Title-holders Thailand dispatched their cup final opponents 4-2 in the group stage.
The Thais have laboured in the final group round for qualification for the 2018 World Cup, but have sprung to life playing against their Southeast Asian rivals.
On Thursday a rout appeared on the cards after Thailand took the lead through Sarawut, who met a delicious cross from the left with a diving header to make it 3-0 on aggragate.
That left Myanmar with a mountain to climb and inevitably gaps appeared as they stoically hunted a goal.
The pick of the goals came with around 15 minutes to play from the War Elephants’ rangy striker Siroch, who celebrated his birthday by thrashing the ball home from an acute angle after latching onto a neat long pass.
His side will play Indonesia in the two-legged final on December 14 and 17 after the Garudas edged passed Vietnam 4-3 on aggragate on Wednesday.
Thailand, who have won all of their Suzuki Cup games so far, will go into the final brimming with confidence and with the group game win against Indonesia under their belt, a result led by a hat-trick by star striker Teerasil Dangda.

Former French budget minister Jerome Cahuzac, whose brief in government was to crack down on tax dodgers, was sentenced to three years in prison on Thursday for tax fraud and money laundering.
A court in Paris also gave Cahuzac’s ex-wife Patricia Menard a two-year prison sentence for her role in stashing millions of euros from the couple’s lucrative hair transplant business in accounts abroad.
The scandal was the first of a series that tarnished Socialist President Francois Hollande’s government and prompted him to order his ministers to disclose their personal wealth, breaking a taboo in France, where the assets of public officials had long been considered a private matter.
Cahuzac, a 64-year-old plastic surgeon by training, initially denied the allegations and sued the Mediapart news website that broke the story in 2012.
Footage of the minister lying to parliament was repeated in an endless loop on French TV news channels after he finally confessed in April 2013, “consumed by remorse”, to having a Swiss bank account.
By the end of the trial, Cahuzac had repeatedly admitted his “inexcusable wrongdoing”.
He remained motionless when the verdict was read out.
Chief judge Peimane Ghaleh-Marzban said Cahuzac, “who embodied France’s tax policy”, had committed an offence of “exceptional gravity”.
His lawyer Jean Veil said Cahuzac would appeal, arguing that a prison term “was not a suitable punishment” for the crime.
Cahuzac said in evidence that he hid funds offshore to maintain his family’s standard of living — which included buying apartments for his children in London and Paris and paying for holidays in Mauritius.
The court also handed down a one-year suspended prison sentence and a 375,000-euro ($405,000) fine to Francois Reyl, a Swiss banker, for assisting the couple.
His bank, Reyl, was fined the maximum 1.875 million euros for money laundering. But it escaped a ban on operating in France that the prosecutor had requested.
Former lawyer Philippe Houman, who advised the couple on their financial affairs, was also fined 375,000 euros and given a one-year suspended sentence.
Prosecutor Xavier Normand-Bodard said the ruling “marks an evolution in the crackdown on tax evasion”.
The story of the fraud, which took place between 1992 and 2013, reads like a cross between a cheap airport novel and an international financial crime manual.
In one episode, Cahuzac, using the codename “Birdie”, was said to have received two cash payments of 10,000 euros on the streets of Paris.
The couple used a Royal Bank of Scotland account in the Isle of Man, an offshore financial centre in the Irish Sea, to channel cheques from English clients of their business.
As the couple’s marriage began to falter, Menard also opened an account in Switzerland.
Menard’s lawyer Sebastien Schapira told the trial the money was “that of fraud, but initially it was that of her work, earned day after day, hour after hour, hair by hair”.
He described Menard as “naive” and an unwitting accomplice who was “swept up” in the fraud before confessing in December 2013.
She testified that the couple had become locked in a “spiral” of wrongdoing.
“I’m extremely ashamed of having done all that,” she said.

Instagram announced today its users can now like user comments in an effort to make the medium more positive.
The update, which rolls out over the next few weeks, will let users tap a heart icon to like a comment. Instagram says the change will let users Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom announced today in a .
And along with adding ‘likes’ for comments, users will now also have a way to turn off comments altogether to prevent unwanted comments on their photos and videos. ” Systrom wrote.
Along with turning off comments, Instagram also will now let users remove followers from private accounts instead of just blocking them. Users can remove unwanted followers by going to their list and tapping the “…” menu next to the person’s name. (Users won’t be notified that they’ve been removed.)
Also read :
Instagram is also creating a way for users to anonymously report any posts that imply a person might be wanting to cause self-harm. Systrom said the company will have teams working around the clock to monitor reports of self-injury. 
he wrote. ”

A sombre mood engulfed residents of Ingobor, Nakuru County after a man killed his lover by chopping off her head after she turned down her marriage proposal.
Confirming the incident, Nakuru Police boss, Joshua Omukata, said the victim, Rose Owuor, also had several wounds on her hand, face and legs.
After killing Rose, the man attempted to commit suicide by taking poison but was stopped by neighbours and was rushed hospital in Kaptembwo, Nakuru Town.
According to the neighbours, the man had been consistently persisting Rose to marry him, an offer which she turned down.
Neighbours said they heard cries of help on Tuesday evening from the house and went to check but found the door locked.
 
They later went and informed the local chief who in turn called the police and came back only to find Rose lying dead in the house.
After interrogation, the man informed police officers that he wanted to marry the woman but she turned down his request.
He claimed to have spent a lot of money wooing Rose into a relationship for several months with the intention of marrying her.
He confessed to have showered Rose with many gifts which  she turned down and then is when he decided to kill her.
Cases of in the country.
Earlier this week, a man in Nyeri died after he set his own house on fire following  a heated argument with his wife.
The wife admitted that her husband was fond of beating her up and burnt the house down with the sole intention of killing her.

Wild giraffe numbers have plummeted by 40 percent in the last three decades, and the species is now “vulnerable” to extinction, a top conservation body warned Thursday.
The population of the world’s tallest land mammal dropped to below 100,000 in 2015, mainly due to shrinking habitat and illegal hunting, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported.
The group added 742 newly-discovered birds to the global species inventory, but said 11 percent were already facing annihilation and 13 previously unknown species have already disappeared in the wild.
“These majestic land animals are undergoing a silent extinction,” Julian Fennessy, co-chairman of the IUCN’s specialist group on giraffes, said in a statement.
Previously, giraffes held the status of “least concern” on the IUCN’s Red List, which tracks the conservation status of fauna and flora and ends with the category “extinct”.
Giraffes are spread out across southern and eastern Africa, with smaller pockets in west and central Africa.
Of nine distinct subspecies, four small populations saw increases. But four larger ones experienced sharp declines, and one remained stable, according to the report.
Numbers have crashed in 30 years from an estimated 157,000 to about 97,500 last year, the IUCN said.
The main culprit is the ever-expanding human population, which has caused a spike in poaching and encroachment upon the giraffe’s natural habitat.
“As one of the world’s most iconic animals, it is time that we stick our neck out for the giraffe before it is too late,” said Fennessy.
The report was part of an update of the Red List, unveiled at a meeting in Cancun, Mexico of the 196-nation Convention on Biological Diversity.
The global assessment now covers 85,604 species of plants and animals, of which 24,307 face the threat of extinction.
“Many species are slipping away before we can even describe them,” said IUCN director general Inger Andersen.
The update “shows that the scale of the global extinction crisis may be even greater than we thought,” she said.
Earth has entered a “mass extinction event” in which species are disappearing 1,000 to 10,000 times more quickly than just a century or two ago, according to scientists.
There have been six such wipeouts in the last half-billion years, some of them claiming up to 95 percent of all lifeforms.
The revised Red List now catalogues 11,121 species of birds.
The recently described Antioquia wren of Colombia is now listed as “endangered”, in part because half of its habitat risks being wiped out by a single dam, planned but not yet built.
Most of the newly discovered birds were known but are being recognised for the first time as distinct species.
Those already deemed extinct — preserved in lab and museum specimens — were island-dwellers, making them vulnerable to predatory or disease-carrying invasive species such as mosquitos that transmit avian malaria.
The Pagan reed-warbler from the South Pacific, along with the Oahu akepa and Laysan honeycreeper from Hawaii, are examples.
“Unfortunately, recognising more than 700 ‘new’ species does not mean that the world’s birds are faring better,” said Ian Burfield, science coordinator for BirdLife International, which collaborated in the global assessment.
“Unsustainable agriculture, logging, invasive species and other threats are still driving many species towards extinction.”
Illegal wildlife trade driven by collectors is emptying forests of some species, the reports said.
Such trafficking caused the African grey parrot of central Africa — prized for its ability to mimic human speech — to be reclassified from “vulnerable” to “endangered”.
A recent analysis in Nature of nearly 8,688 “threatened” or “near-threatened” animal and plant species showed that three-quarters are over-exploited for commerce, recreation or subsistence.
More than half are suffer the conversion of their natural habitats into industrial farms and plantations, mainly to raise livestock and grow commodity crops for fuel or food.
A fifth of species are affected by climate change.

Spinach is one of the greens with highest qualities and has always been regarded as a plant with remarkable abilities to restore energy, increase vitality and improve the quality of the blood.
It’s a side dish that not only goes well with ugali, but also potatoes, rice, and pasta.
 
So than your usuall method of cooking spinach, try the creamy-spinach version, you will not regret.
 
• Cook the spinach in a pot of boiling water for just one minute, add to a cold water bath to stop the cooking, and then squeeze out the excess water from the leaves.
• Now’s the — making the sauce. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the garlic and onion, and cook until just soft. Add in the flour, stirring it together to form a paste. Slowly whisk in the milk and cook until slightly thickened. Enjoy this sight, it’s the transformation of raw ingredients into the most wonderful sauce in the world. Stir in the Parmesan, add in the spinach, white pepper and salt.
 

The Kenyan hospitality Industry is waiting with a bated breath, for the festive session to kick off, hoping to reap big from both domestic and international tourists.
Tourism players at the Coast are expecting increased international guests this festive season, a boost to the industry which has largely relied on domestic tourism.
Compared to last year where business was low due to insecurity cases, this year has been fairly stable and good for business.
A number of high profile festivities like the American singer Chris Brown’s concert followed by has seen the hospitality industry slowly recover.
 
Kenya Coast Tourist Association chairperson, Mohammed Hersi said bed occupancy since October has hovered between 70 and 90 per cent.
Hersi disclosed to the Star.
The year 2014 was especially challenging to the hotel industry following a spate of terror threats linked to militia Al Shabaab, as a result international tourist kept away from kenya.
 
The government then launched an aggressive campaign to promote domestic tourism providing friendly packages in order to wean off its reliance on international tourists, and the strategy seems to have worked.
On Tuesday, beach and safari tourism got a boost after MS Silver Cloud cruise ship docked at the port of Mombasa with 438 guests.
 
Majority of them coming from Europe and the US via Seychelles.
Kenya was also ranked ninth globally and first in Africa top ten world destinations in a recent UK survey, Rough Guides, 2016.
The December festive session will further boost their sales as thousands of Kenyans hope to travel to the coastal city to enjoy themselves and their families and welcome new year at the beach.
 

You could call it stirring up tensions.
A prominent advisor to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cooked up a simmering controversy with the suggestion that foreign chefs on Turkish television shows are undercover spies.
“The other day I was watching a programme — there was an English guy and an Italian wandering from one village to the next and cooking up dishes to discover the delicacies of Anatolia,” said Yigit Bulut, who advises Erdogan on economic affairs.
“Why are English and Italians wandering round villages in Anatolia and Thrace? What is the point of that? They are collecting a database!” he said in an interview with pro-government A-Haber late on Wednesday.
“Our compatriots are credulous. They open up their doors to them (the foreign cooks), tell them their secrets, say there is a military air base in the corner, a munitions depot, and how to get in and out of a village.”
Calling on people to be alert, Bulut added: “And please no-one tell me this is a conspiracy theory or that I am exaggerating!”
Several Turkish TV channels employ wide-eyed foreigners to travel the land, expressing astonishment at every stop at the good food and hospitality encountered and Bulut did not say which shows he had in mind.
But Turkish media including the opposition Sozcu said he was likely referring to the show on private NTV “Tastes from Europe to Anatolia” presented by Dutchman Wilco van Herpen and Italian Danilo Zanna.
The show also highlights projects around the country supported by the European Union.
The comments by Bulut come at a time of strained relations between Turkey and the EU, which Erdogan has bitterly accused of failing to show sufficient solidarity in the wake of the July 15 coup bid.
Bulut is a former journalist who first became a advisor to Erdogan in 2013 during his premiership and then moved to the presidency with him after the August 2014 election.
He earned particular notoriety during the 2013 protests against Erdogan’s rule, making a series of bizarre suggestions that the rallies had been organised by German airline Lufthansa or that his opponents were trying to kill the Turkish leader through “telekinesis”.
The extent of the influence of the advice that he dishes out to Erdogan — who has a number of advisors on all issues — is not known.

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Thursday he had tapped Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, criticized as a climate change denier and a staunch fossil fuel ally, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
“For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many other businesses and industries at every turn,” Trump said in a statement.
It was the property mogul’s formal confirmation of reports Wednesday of Pruitt’s pick, which drew outrage from Trump opponents.
Pruitt “will reverse this trend and restore the EPA’s essential mission of keeping our air and our water clean and safe,” the billionaire businessman said.
“My administration strongly believes in environmental protection, and Scott Pruitt will be a powerful advocate for that mission while promoting jobs, safety and opportunity.”
Opponents, however, said Pruitt is anything but an environmental advocate, pointing out that he has spent much of his time as Oklahoma’s top law enforcement official battling the very agency he is now being nominated to lead.
They described Pruitt as a spectacularly poor choice to lead the fight to protect America’s natural resources.
“Scott Pruitt has spent the past several years fighting tooth and nail to help polluters erase or circumvent the critical environmental protections our nation has put in place,” said Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House of Representatives, in a statement released Wednesday, as news of Pruitt’s nomination began to circulate.
“To put him in charge of the very agency he has worked to undermine is an affront to all Americans who care about the health of our air and water and the very real threat we face from climate change,” Hoyer said.
Pruitt’s own official biography highlights his role as “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda,” and in the past he has sued the EPA on behalf of Oklahoma utilities.
Nevertheless, Pruitt, 48, said he is eager to take up his new post.
“I am deeply grateful and honored to serve as President-elect Trump’s EPA Administrator,” he said in the statement released by the transition team in New York City.
“The American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.”
Republicans have long argued that President Barack Obama’s administration, through the EPA, has imposed burdensome environmental regulations such as anti-pollution measures on US corporations, many in the name of fighting climate change.
Trump, who scored a surprise win in this year’s presidential election, campaigned this year vowing to curtail or terminate such regulations.
The EPA chief also has a strong impact on US actions to combat climate change: the agency both determines what international commitments the country is able to make, and implements the measures.

French police struggled to impose anti-pollution measures on motorists around Paris on Thursday as the city remained shrouded in smog during its worst winter pollution in 10 years.
Since Tuesday, officials in the Paris region have ordered half of all private cars off the road, alternating between a ban on registration plates ending in odd or even numbers.
But the local air-monitoring service AirParif has cast doubt on the effectiveness of the restrictions and AFP reporters saw many motorists flouting the ban on Thursday.
“I wasn’t going to buy another vehicle to go to work today!” said 31-year-old builder Jug who was waiting in his truck to pay a fine of 22 euros ($24) after being stopped by police.
Traffic jams in the morning rush hour were 415 kilometres (258 miles) around Paris, compared with 300 normally, local road traffic officials reported.
France’s Environment Minister Segolene Royal, who has been criticised in several newspapers for failing to take action, announced cabinet-level talks to clean up transport on Saturday.
The surge in pollution around Paris and in other parts of France showed “that much more robust measures are indispensable”, Royal told AFP.
Royal said new initiatives could include extending incentives for the purchase of electric cars.
She would also propose forcing motorists to display colour-coded air-quality certificates on vehicles so that the dirtiest of them could be banned during the next pollution alert.
The current spike in pollution offered a “good opportunity”, said Royal, since people would be more willing to accept constraints having been made more aware of the problem.
For more than a week, the Paris region has been on pollution alert with levels of fine airborne particles known as PM10 consistently above 80 microgrammes per cubic metre of air.
Though high by local standards, the pollution is a fraction of levels in New Delhi, the world’s most polluted capital, where PM10 was above 600 in some areas on Thursday.
The surge in pollution has been driven by cold weather and near windless conditions that have trapped exhaust fumes, smoke from wood fires and other pollutants.

The Cord coalition has called for the current Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to immediately vacate office and a new team to be in place by December 23, 2016.
In a statement, the coalition said Kenyans engaged in intensive campaigns to ensure that the next general elections are not rigged because of the irregularities and flaws of previous elections.
the statement said.
They insisted and there are no transitional provisions enabling the Commissioners to remain in office as constituted prior to the enactment of the statute.
 
They said the commissioners still stand accused in the “chickengate” scandal amid grave allegations that include lack of credibility, impartiality, integrity and independence.
The coalition also wants all tenders related to the 2017 general elections be cancelled or frozen until the new commissioners take office.
They claimed the stage was being state for massive rigging of the elections through ’s awarding of tenders in a questionable manner and without following the law of the elections as presently established.
Cord said.
They insisted they would not accept anything short of a comprehensive audit of the register by a reputable firm procured competitively and through a transparent process for verifying the accuracy of the register and to achieve a biometric voter registration.
The further warned that the Government must bear responsibility and burden of any danger to peace, law and order as “choices have consequences”.

Adolf Burger, the last of the concentration camp inmates forced by Nazi Germany to churn out phoney British money, has died at the age of 99, media reports said Thursday.
Burger wrote a book about his astounding experience, which was turned into the film “The Counterfeiters” that went on to win the Oscar for best foreign film in 2008.
Czech public radio reported that he died on Tuesday, citing information from his daughter. Burger had lived in Prague since the end of World War II.
He was a Jewish activist from Slovakia who spent two years working in the ultra secret counterfeiting operation, one of the largest in history, in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp north of Berlin.
The 139 printers and forgers would succeed in replicating the pound and the dollar before the end of the war, and would produce 131 million pounds in false notes as part of a scheme by the bankrupt German state to flood the British economy with fake cash.
Drawn from Burger’s book, “The Devil’s Workshop”, the film poses questions of morality and survival as the counterfeiters, housed in separate barracks, enjoy small luxuries amid the death and squalor of the camp.
His counterfeiting skills led to Burger’s initial arrest in Bratislava on August 11, 1942, when the professional printer was detained for making false baptism certificates aimed at saving Slovakia’s Jews, already earmarked for destruction by Jozef Tiso’s clerical-fascist regime.
Sent first to Auschwitz and then moved to Birkenau, Burger said he weighed only about 35 kilogrammes (77 pounds) when the Germans decided to exploit his skills and sent him to the Sachsenhausen camp in Germany.
Burger fled during the general confusion caused by the Allied advance during the last days of the war.
On his arrival in Prague in 1945, Burger recounted the story of the biggest economic sabotage attempt in history to local police, with its impact soon becoming apparent.
“They (the police) called a bank and they brought over a suitcase of notes considered to be authentic. As we, the typographers, knew what no one else did, I was able to recognise the false notes we had produced. There were around 200 of them,” he recalled.

The EU recommended Thursday that member states resume sending asylum seekers back to Greece from March next year, after transfers were halted for five years because of poor conditions there.
Brussels said it was a key step towards restoring the European Union’s migration policies and the passport-free Schengen zone, which nearly collapsed under the pressure of the 2015 migrant crisis.
But rights group Amnesty International said it was “outrageously hypocritical” to put pressure on Greece when it had borne the lion’s share of the more than one million migrants who have flooded into the EU.
“We are recommending the gradual resumption of Dublin transfers of asylum seekers starting next year” from March 15, EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a press conference.
Avramopoulos said Athens had made “significant progress” in improving conditions for asylum seekers in line with 2011 court rulings, which had suspended transfers because of “degrading” conditions at time in Greece.
The commissioner, who is Greek, insisted there would be a “very small number of people” going back to Greece as a result of the change announced Thursday.
Only people who move countries from Greece after March 15 will be affected, while unaccompanied minors and vulnerable people will be excluded, he added.
Greece and Italy have been the first point of entry for most of the more than one million migrants who have entered the bloc since 2015 fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.
Under the EU’s Dublin asylum rules, the country where a migrant first lands must first process their asylum request, and must also take them back if they travel to other countries in the 28-nation bloc.
But many of those who landed in Greece moved on to richer northern countries like Germany, especially after Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the door to all Syrian refugees.
In turn, that huge pressure on transit countries, leading to many to bring back border controls and effectively suspending free movement in the Schengen area.
Merkel led calls to overhaul what she called the “obsolete” asylum system, and Brussels has since pushed all EU countries to share the migrant burden, while sending aid to Greece.
But there has been heavy opposition from Eastern Europe and a scheme to relocate 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy around the bloc has moved at a snail’s pace with only 8,162 having moved so far.
Greece is however benefiting from an deal with EU membership-candidate Turkey which has drastically cut the number of refugees and migrants making the dangerous sea crossing to the Greek islands.
Crossing have dropped to 90 a day from 1,740 before the March 20 EU-Turkey deal, the European Commission said.
Under the deal, 748 people, including 95 Syrians, have been returned from Greece to Turkey since March 20, while 2,761 Syrian refugees have been resettled from Turkey to Europe.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has however threatened to sink the deal amid tensions with Europe.
Amnesty’s Iverna McGowan slammed the commission for implying that Greece alone is to blame for the poor conditions.
?It seems that for the European Commission all roads for refugees lead to Greece,” McGowan said in statement.
“It is outrageously hypocritical of the European Commission to insinuate that Greece alone is to blame for dire conditions, when the overcrowding and insecure climate on the Greek islands are for the most part caused by the EU-Turkey deal,” she said.
The conditions — including overcrowding, freezing temperatures and violence — were compounded by a “lack of solidarity from other EU countries to relocate people”, she added.

Keaton Jennings scored a “dream” century on his debut as England made a solid start to their must-win fourth Test against India in Mumbai on Thursday.
The South Africa-born left-hander topscored with 112 as the visitors, trailing 2-0 in the five-match series, ended the day on 288-5 at the Wankhede Stadium.
Jennings was dropped before he had scored and took until his 12th ball to get off the mark but once he opened his account he batted fluently.
“I woke up at 5:00 am thinking I’d missed the bus so I jumped out of bed and panicked about where everything was,” said the 24-year-old opener.
“But then I settled myself down when I saw the time. If someone had told me this morning that you’ve got a Test match hundred I would have bitten their arm off.”
Referring to his early close shave, Jennings said: “When the ball looped up to gully my heart was in my mouth and I thought ‘no you got a nought in your first innings’, but thankfully it went to ground and I went from there.”
Jennings, who was only called up to the squad after Haseeb Hameed was injured in the third Test, hit 13 fours, including a trio of audacious reverse sweeps during his 219-ball stay at the crease.
It was one of those sweeps that brought up his ton midway through the afternoon session, with Jennings raising his arms in delight.
“The emotion that went over me at that moment in time, the elation, the pride, the satisfaction to go to a Test hundred was really incredible, really special,” he said, describing it as a “dream come true”.
Jennings put on 99 for the first wicket with Alastair Cook as England made a strong start before the skipper was stumped on 46 by wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel after swinging at a Ravindra Jadeja delivery.
Joe Root could only make 21 before he was caught in the slips by Indian captain Virat Kohli off a spinning Ravichandran Ashwin ball but Moeen Ali helped guide Jennings to his ton, scoring a half-century of his own until he holed out.
Jennings was dismissed shortly afterwards as Cheteshwar Pujara took a catch to give Ashwin his third wicket of the day, England slipping to 230-4.
Ashwin, ranked as the best bowler in the world, grabbed his fourth wicket when Jonny Bairstow was caught for 14 as India hit back.
Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler were unbeaten on 25 and 18 at the close.
Jennings, who was born in Johannesburg and captained the Proteas at under-19 level, became the latest South African-born English cricketer to score a ton on his international Test debut.
Andrew Strauss and Matt Prior both made centuries in their first outings while Jonathan Trott reached three figures in the second innings of his Test debut.
Jennings, whose mother is English, moved to England in 2011 after leaving school, committing himself to four years there so he could become eligible to play for the national side.
He opted for England to further his career in a similar move to Kevin Pietersen in the early 2000s.
Players who born abroad are eligible to play for England after spending four years in English county cricket, a policy that has attracted some controversy.

BBC Britain, will simulcast the live announcement of African Footballer of the Year from BBC World News for the first time on Monday, 12 December 2016 at 19:30pm CAT.
It will broadcast a 15 minute programme fronted by World News’ Focus on Africa presenter, Peter Okwoche, and feature player profiles, highlights from the award’s launch programme and the live reveal of this year’s winner.
The hugely popular award, which celebrates the best African footballer of the year, has been run by the BBC for over two decades. 
This is the first time that BBC Brit has shown the announcement live on the channel.  It will be a change to the advertised schedule featuring a double bill of popular quiz show .
 
Joel Churcher, Vice President and General Manager for BBC Worldwide Africa said,
This year’s shortlisted players who were nominated and hope to clinch the coveted title are; Ivorian and Man City midfielder, Yaya Toure, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from Gabon who plays for German club Borussia Dortmund, Pierre was also voted the 2015-2016 Player of the Year in Germany’s Bundesliga and is currently Gabon’s highest goal scorer of all time
Algeria national and Leicester City midfielder, Riyad Mahrez, Senegalese and Liverpool  player, Sadio Mane, and André Ayew who plays for Ghana national team and English club  West Ham.
 
 

With that, the Tanzanian sweetheart has been sharing sweet messages confessing  how excited she is to visit her second home, Nairobi.
 
Wema Sepetu went on to  reveal that she has been thinking of relocating to Nairobi city, since she thinks people from here are fun and amazing to be with.
She however has been making headlines in most tabloids; therefore having her would be for good, right?
Anyway, apparently the Tanzanian sweetheart is already in the country as she flew in early this morning as reported. She will be staying in one of the luxurious hotels situated in Westlands as revealed by a close source .

FIFA president Gianni Infantino on Thursday vowed “zero tolerance” for child sex abuse in football following an escalating scandal involving coaches and former players in England.
The world football chief said anyone found to have committed abuse should be banned from the sport “without question” and face criminal charges.
“There are few things in life, not just football life, worse than child (sex) abuse, so it has to be taken seriously,” he told reporters after a three-day FIFA summit in Singapore.
“There must be zero tolerance from a football perspective, but also a criminal perspective as well,” Infantino added.
“We probably have to look into that with more care and more attention in order to prevent any potential child abuse in the future,” he said.
Asked if he was worried the scandal would grow into a much bigger issue beyond just the English Football Association, Infantino said: “Certainly what we have to do is to have it taken very seriously, and that’s what we’re doing now… looking at it very, very seriously.”
Over the past three weeks, English football has been reeling from a series of allegations of sexual abuse of youth players at the hands of their coaches, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.
About 20 former players have spoken out so far over allegations and the English FA has promised to investigate the claims.
According to reports, 55 clubs have been named to police and 18 different police forces across the country are investigating claims.
The scandal blew up as former Crewe Alexandra youth scout Barry Bennell, a convicted paedophile, was charged with abusing players last week.
The FA chairman has said the scandal is the biggest crisis in the association that he can remember, according to media reports.
English Premier League club Chelsea have apologised to former player Gary Johnson for abuse he suffered in the 1970s, while QPR have said they are taking allegations made against former employee Chris Gieler “very seriously”, the reports said.
Ex-England star Matthew Le Tissier earlier this week became the highest profile former footballer to allege inappropriate behaviour involving children, saying he received “a really disgusting” naked massage from a former Southampton youth coach.
Le Tissier, who won 21 caps in his career, broke his silence saying he was given a massage as a youth player in which “everyone was kind of naked” and said Bob Higgins’s behaviour had made him feel uncomfortable.
“It’s very, very wrong,” the 48-year-old Le Tissier told the BBC.
“You kind of look back and think that it was wrong but, as a young boy, you kind of saw everybody else doing it and you thought, ‘Oh right. Is this normal?’
“Looking back, it’s really disgusting, I think.”

Hi,I am Emily. Or little Emily. I was born on May 28th 2014. At birth,I was a perfectly normal kid. I was bouncy,gleeful,exuberant,healthy and fit as they come. That’s according to what Mum,Linet Aketch and Daddy Benedict Adongo say.
And then I started growing up… But unlike all other kids my age,I wasn’t really adding any weight. Infact,I was losing weight. At around one and a half years,I was weighing a meager 5 Kgs. That wasn’t right for a child my age. I should have added something. Grown a little more. Added some little weight. But it was never the case.
I would eat,alright. And suckle from my Mummy. But still,something wasn’t right.
Also,my growth was stunted. I wasn’t making any visible physical developments. I still had the body of an infant. And the hands,head and limbs of one.
Mommy didn’t see much into it. She assumed it was all good. You know,I’ll be fine,she figured. Daddy wouldn’t worry that much either. He’d probably seen or heard of a case like mine – normal child taking too long to develop or add weight.
 
But their worries started to sink in proper when I started experiencing difficulty in breathing. They could put up with my retarded growth. Maybe put up with my dismal weight. But my breathing problems? Something had to be done.
Mummy and Daddy sprang to action. In the mid of the night,they both rushed me to the nearest clinic in the village. And then I had to be referred to one in Kisumu town. And then another referral and another referral.
It was quickly concluded that I urgently needed medical attention and examination at some heart clinic in Nairobi’s Hurlingham. I was referred to a Doctor Jowi. Christine Jowi. Miss Jowi was the medic who finally broke the dreaded news to Mummy and Daddy. ‘Your baby has ….’ she said.
They obviously had never heard of such a word. Such a huge name. So complicated. They sought to be explained to in a language they both understood.
You see,Mummy and Daddy are casual laborers back in the village in Nyanza. Daddy actually has no employment. And Mummy sells vegetables to keep us going. Neither has that much of an education actually.
Dr. Jowi gave them a look. One hard look of despair and pity and then she broke it down to them, ‘Little Emily has a hole in her heart’.
I had a hole in my heart! That explained my difficulties in breathing. That explained my stunted growth. That explained my lack of weight. That explained my lack of appetite. That explained my cold,blank look. That explained my teary eyes. And that explained my pounding little body.
I could almost hear Mummy’s heart stop. And Daddy tried to be strong,all right,but I saw his frame crumble. Saw him sigh hard. Saw him lose hope. Just a bit of it.
It was quickly agreed that Little Me had to be rushed to Kenyatta Hospital. I needed urgent medical attention. And it was also concluded that I’d need a surgery. A heart surgery.
Mummy almost dropped me in shock. She’d heard of heart surgeries for years. She never thought she’d be taking her little one for one. But it was happening.
Mummy and Daddy moved allover. They made a million calls. They contacted anyone and everyone. They organized frantic fundraisers most of which didn’t really bring much to us.
It was finally agreed. I needed to travel to India. And I need Ksh 1.5 million to be operated. But so far, we have only been able to raise Ksh. 700,000 and balance is Ksh. 800,000 for the hole in my heart to finally be operated on and sealed. For me to go back to normalcy. For my health to find me again.
I am speaking for Mummy and Daddy and for Me too.
By the touch of God,kindly help me reach the target. And fly off to India for that much-required surgery.
I haven’t been able to eat yet. My breathing is still very poor. My weight had gone down dramatically. My health is at its worst. But my faith is at it’s most powerful.
Mummy hasn’t given up. Daddy hasn’t given up. And I haven’t either.
All I need to do is to breath. And live.
If only it were that simple.
 
 
Kindly please, to donate to please use the following steps;
To DONATE TO BABY Emily kindly use the M-PESA Paybill Number Medical Paybill No. 317111
How to Donate & Save the Life of this child :
• Go to M-PESA Menu
• Select LIPA NA MPESA then Pay Bill.
• Enter Paybill No. 317111
• Enter Your First Name as account Number
• Enter Amount e.g 10 Bob
• Enter your M-PESA PIN
Also,you can donate via Emily’s special medical BANK account which is Acc number: 10131301000369 Emily Atieno Adongo Medical Account. Bank is CONSOLIDATED BANK.
You can also reach and donate directly to her uncle,Kennedy Omondi directly via 0728629726
Give…And it shall come right back to you.

Charlize Theron gained 30 pounds (which is ALOT by Hollywood’s standards) for ‘Monster’, a movie that won her an , a for and. In the movie, Theron a South-African-based-in-Hollywood had the massive weight gain to perform the role of Aileen Wuornos; one of the world’s most prolific female serial killers.
Aileen, the killer Charlize portrayed gained notoriety because women are generally not serial killers, most murders committed by women are rarely of random strangers, its mostly to a person they are close to.
But Charlize is not the only one who experienced a massive weight change. In 2010; Mila Kunis lived on cigarettes and 1,200 calories a day to portray the role of ‘Lily’ a ballerina in ‘Black Swan’.
 
Aside from Mila losing so much weight, 50 cent lost about 25 Kgs in 2 months thanks to a strict liquid diet for his starring role of a cancer patient in ‘Things Fall Apart’.
 
Closer home, actresses are also making a few changes in their lives for the sake of their roles. Thankfully its not losing 25 Kgs in a few months (which is dangerous by the way) but with subtle yet significant changes like a hair change.
Like Catherine Kamau who let go of her precious weaves for this Carol -Odero like look in an upcoming production with Phil-it-Productions.

What do you guys think of Catherine’s new look?

US Secretary of State John Kerry warned Thursday of “the danger of authoritarian populism” sweeping many Western democracies and cautioned against backsliding on basic freedoms.
“Every chip away at the fundamentals of freedom is actually an ugly building block in the road to tyranny,” he told a meeting in Germany of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
“And the fact is that we all need to beware of the danger of authoritarian populism,” he told the 57-member forum.
Kerry was speaking at an OSCE meeting focused on rising east-west tensions since Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, but also on a rise in populist and far-right movements across Europe, a spike in refugee flows from the Arab world, and Western concern about growing authoritarianism in Turkey.
“In too many places … in the OSCE region, we have seen in recent days a rise of authoritarian thinking, accompanied by backsliding on human rights, on restrictions on independent media, a spike in acts of intolerance and hate crimes,” Kerry said.
Addressing the meeting of foreign ministers in the northern port city of Hamburg, he bemoaned a “troubling shift away from democratic principles, away from openness, away from freedom”.
Listing other ills, he spoke of “growing corruption… increasing authoritarianism, moves by certain leaders to change constitutions in an effort to consolidate power, false news being spread through new platforms of the media, torture being actually advocated in certain quarters”.
“These developments are, simply put, a direct assault on the founding principles of the OSCE,” he said. “Bigotry, repression and the silencing of dissent cannot become the new normal for any of us.”
Kerry had earlier met civil society activists from Azerbaijan, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Ukraine.
According to the State Department, Kerry insisted that Washington would keep speaking out about “the shrinking space” for civil society activism caused by restrictive laws such as labelling groups “foreign agents” and through the misuse of broad anti-extremism laws.
Kerry is on his European farewell tour, six weeks before Barack Obama’s administration hands over to Donald Trump on January 20.
Speaking on Monday in Berlin, Kerry had warned that “anxieties” were sweeping Western democracies, alluding to the US election, Brexit, Sunday’s Italian referendum that cost Prime Minister Matteo Renzi his job, and the Austrian presidential vote where a far-right candidate came a strong second.
In his Hamburg address, Kerry said that “a free press, religious liberty, political openness, transparency in governance, a flourishing civil society — these are the signs of a confident and thriving nation.”

The high court has ruled that the presidential directive that required all county commissioners to collect and keep up to date data of school going children living with HIV unlawful.
Justice Isaac Lenaona, has ruled the directive issued on February 23, 2015 by president Uhuru violates the right of the young ones, their gurdians and all those who are associated with school going children living with the virus.
 
The judge instead directed the heath cabinet secretary, Dr. Cleopa Mailu and the national Aids control council to cordify the names and have the data stored in a manner that does not evidently link to their status in the public domain within 45 days.
Mid this year, the Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and Aids (KELIN) and Children of God Relief Institute filed a petition in court, to stop the profiling of the children, saying it was unconstitutional and a violation of their rights.
 
Lenaona’s rule cements their worry and points out Kenya’s Achilles heel in terms of its public policy.
Kenya has a knack of putting the horse before the cart in most issues of public interest.
Also read :
The government instead of following due process in form of carrying out adequate research, consulting and adhering to the constitution normally resort to blanket hurried directives, which normally backfires at the 11th hour.
 
Do you remember the hype and hurried manner in which the automated matatu cards were introduced in the market? Government through its bull dog, NTSA issues threats, banks sensed meat and jump into the bandwagon, Equity , KCB name them came calling with billions of shillings, where is it now?
Back to KELIN case, through lawyer Allan Maleche, they accused the ministries of Health, Education and Interior of implementing President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directive without consulting persons living with HIV/Aids.
“ Mr Maleche said then.
 
Well it seems the court agrees with their concern, back to drawing board.
The idea of collecting data is not a bad at all, it is actually a noble idea and should be supported because it aids the government in planning and allocating budget for financing HIV programmes.
Currently the bulk of HIV/Aids burden Kenya, is catered by USAID through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the danger of solely relying on it, is if they pull the plug on us we are helpless, hopeless etc. so we need to start creating a way we can fund our own burdens.
 
However while undertaking it, the process must adhere to the constitution and carried out in a manner which won’t stigmatized people living with the HIV virus.
After the ruling, KELIN posted a statement on its website.
  said Allan Maleche – Advocate for the Petitioners and Executive Director of KELIN

“Hello?”
“Please Mr President, we are listening to you…”
“Good evening!” “Good evening, sir, please…”
And so began what is possibly the most famous telephone call in Turkish history when President Recep Tayyip Erdogan phoned into the private channel CNN-Turk on the night of the July 15 coup.
His face peering out from the mobile phone of CNN-Turk correspondent and anchorwoman Hande Firat, Erdogan denounced the putsch and called his supporters out into the streets to defeat it.
His call through the Apple app FaceTime is seen as a crucial turning point in the coup, when the plotters began to lose momentum in the bid to unseat him.
The call made Firat — CNN Turk’s Ankara bureau chief and already a hugely prominent journalist — a national celebrity and an icon of the coup night.
And it also made her mobile phone hot property with reports of gigantic offers made for the device.
“I haven’t sold my telephone,” she told AFP in an interview in Istanbul.
“It is at present safe and sound in my drawer. I am not using it but keep it in my drawer in case I drop and break it.”
Firat said businessmen from Saudi Arabia, Qatar as well as Turkey wanted to buy her phone, as it had played a critical role in reversing the coup.
On the night of July 15, Turkey’s state-run media had been raided by rebel soldiers, with the anchorwoman of TRT channel Tijen Karas forced to read out a statement by the group claiming to have taken over the country.
In the early hours of the coup, there was uncertainty over the whereabouts of Erdogan, who had been holidaying with his family on the Aegean Sea.
But it was to CNN Turk — a channel owned by the private Dogan Media Group with whom Erdogan has had sometimes uneasy relations — that he chose to make his first call.
Firat said that when the call came through she only focused on the interview without thinking about the potential aftermath.
“When I was live, I was very nervous and very worried. You focus on your work in that moment,” she said.
“Rather than think about the aftermath, you focus on the president who is alive and can be seen on the screen of that phone.
“I stayed focused on my job and hoped that, God willing, the connection would not be lost.
“My hand was trembling and I was worried whether the camera showed him (Erdogan) in full screen, whether I should ask this question or that question.”
Firat said she was concerned about the chaos Turkey was being drawn into, with parliament in the capital bombed, jets patrolling the sky and clashes on army bases.
“I said, my God, are we becoming another country? A civil war is breaking out? What kind of a morning will we wake up to?”
Erdogan’s defiant call to CNN Turk dramatically ended any uncertainty about his fate. Shortly afterwards, he flew back to Istanbul and by the morning the coup was defeated.
After the interview, CNN Turk’s Istanbul premises were raided by rebel soldiers, with television showing an empty screen punctuated from time to time with the sound of gunfire and brawls.
However as the coup was defeated, the channel triumphantly returned to air and would replay Firat’s interview with Erdogan repeatedly in the days to come.
The Turkish strongman rapidly regained full control, declaring a state of emergency and overseeing a hugely controversial post-coup crackdown that so far has seen 37,000 people arrested.
Firat said she realised the impact of the call overnight and the next day through messages sent from Turkey and elsewhere.
“I received messages from the Arab world on my Twitter account saying ‘thank you’, ‘that is a phone of freedom’ and ‘you changed the destiny of this region’.”
Asked if she was worried that too much publicity could overshadow her job, Firat said: “I think about it occasionally… but I know that it is my job to tell the reality and tell about that night.”

A Pakistani aircraft carrying 47 people issued a Mayday call before losing radar contact and crashing into a mountain, killing everyone on board, authorities said, as they began collecting DNA Thursday to identify victims.
The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight smashed into a hillside in the country’s north after one of its two turboprop engines failed while travelling from the city of Chitral to the capital Islamabad.
It burst into flames upon impact and parts of the wreckage were found hundreds of metres (yards) away from the main crash site in Abbottabad district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The pilot of the ATR-42 turboprop aircraft contacted ground authorities after one engine failed and issued a Mayday call at 4:14 pm (1114 GMT), Azam Saigol, the airline’s chairman, told a news conference Wednesday in Islamabad.
It began descending a minute later before disappearing from radar at 4:16 pm.
“This plane was technically sound and was checked in October,” he said, adding the captain had flown more than 12,000 hours and the aircraft was nine years old.
“Our focus now is to retrieve all the dead bodies,” he added, vowing a full investigation.
PIA spokesman Danyal Gilani said the aircraft’s black box has been recovered but “it will take time to ascertain a reason of the crash”.
 
The dead included Junaid Jamshed, one of the country’s best loved singers who later became a Muslim evangelist, as well as senior local officials and three foreigners — two Austrians and one Chinese.
Dozens of friends and family members gathered at hospitals in Islamabad and Rawalpindi on Thursday to try to identify the badly charred and dismembered remains.
Relatives have been asked to submit DNA samples to help the identification process.
“My friend died in the plane crash, it is a great tragedy for me as he was my childhood friend,” said Murad Khan from Chitral as he waited at the Pakistan Institute for Medical Sciences (PIMS) in Islamabad.
“His relatives have not arrived yet. As I work in Islamabad I am here to receive his body. I don’t know if I will see his face for the last time or not.”
Raja Aamir, whose mother died in the crash, said: “The sudden death of our mother is a great loss for our family — 40 to 50 members of my family have arrived here in Islamabad we don’t know where we will stay.”
Six of the victims had already been identified through fingerprints, according to Ali Baz, an official at the Ayub Medical Complex.
Funeral prayers were later held for the deceased at PIMS which were attended by relatives, airline officials and hospital staff.
DNA testing would take a little over a week to complete, according to hospital officials.
— Poor track record —
Senior aviation officials on Thursday pushed back against allegations that a maintenance lapse had caused the accident.
“One engine of the plane failed after its takeoff from Chitral and the pilot informed us about that in his call to the control. The plane, however, was cleared for flight and that’s why it flew. Had it not been cleared, it would not fly,” said Muhammad Irfan Elahi, a top aviation official.
Rescuers, including hundreds of villagers, had overnight pulled badly burned remains from the smouldering wreckage of the aircraft near the village of Saddha Batolni.
“We put into sacks whatever we could find… and carried them down to the ambulance,” a villager in his thirties, who declined to give his name, told AFP.
A senior rescue official on the site who requested anonymity added: “The villagers told us that the plane was shaky before it crashed. It was about to hit the village but it seems that the pilot managed to drag the plane towards the hills.”
Wednesday’s crash was the fourth deadliest on Pakistani soil.
The country’s worst air disaster was in 2010, when an Airbus 321 crashed into the hills outside Islamabad while about to land, killing all 152 on board — an incident blamed on pilot error.

The programme reports from Nairobi, where ‘African Voices’ meets with one of Africa’s hottest boy bands, Sauti Sol, who are looking to create a new sound for a worldwide audience.
In recent years, Sauti Sol have created some of the continent’s biggest hits and won at the MTV Africa Music Awards, leading the Kenyan band to be propelled from their humble roots in Nairobi to performing for President Obama.
In their hometown of Nairobi, Kenya, the programme meets the members of Sauti Sol: Savara, Polycarp, Bien Aime and Chimano, who are incorporating traditional Kenyan influence with catchy songs to uplift and try to unite Africans.
The programme accompanies Sauti Sol to their very first recording studio – a basement.
Sitting the basement, Sauti Sol reflect on their humble beginnings with ‘African Voices’:
Aime shares how these early experiences eventually shaped the group:
The programme learns that many of Sauti Sol’s earlier songs, including their first hit ‘Sura Yako’, were created in the very same basement. ‘Sura Yako’ featured traditional dance, the Lipala, to accompany their lively sound, which the band states expressed ‘their Africa’.
Sauti Soul explains the significance of the Lipala to ‘African Voices’:
It was after posting the video – ‘Sura Yako’ and the Lipala went viral.
Sauti Sol tells the programme: “
Aime tells ‘African Voices’:
‘African Voices’ learns that this experience with the President eventually inspired Sauti Sol’s latest song, ‘A Chance of a Lifetime’.
The East African band have propelled into stardom on the continent, but maintaining a commitment to stay in tune with the people, and the continent they come from.
Aime tells ‘African Voices’:
The programme also reports from South Africa, meeting opera singer Noluvuyiso Mpofu in Cape Town, before travelling tom Durban where ‘African Voices’ meets Busiswa, a dance club sensation taking poetic license with pop music.

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The rapper who now has two girls and two boys is among the loving dads seen in the entertainment industry. He however has a tendency of leaving his baby mama who are now 4 judging from the number of kids he has.
Well, the young boy he introduced on his social media is a pointee (mixed race) and he could be in the same age bracket as his daughter Zara. The rapper feels no shame to celebrate his children are the main reason he works hard for his money.
Anyway, his son goes by the name of , (yes like American rapper) looks like his daddy though his complexion is that of his white mum. The rapper captioned this photo to say,
From the way he dresses to his smile, there is no doubt that he is indeed Octopizzo’s son. Meet the young man below.
 
Octopizzo is currently one of the top rappers representing East Africa with his well-written and produced songs. He is playing in the same league as South African rappers as he is among the few certified African rappers.

Kicking off the viewing festivities on Sunday 4 December, DStv Premium customers will be treated to two new blockbuster premieres on a Sunday night – one on M-Net and one on M-Net Movies Premiere. This means that M-Net 101 and M-Net Movies Premiere channel 104 will not be screening the same film 30 minutes apart any more. There will be another fresh blockbuster on M-Net Movies Premiere at around 20:30 CAT.
“ says Jan du Plessis, Director: M-Net Channels.
Jan du Plessis explains.
Some of the premiere blockbuster titles coming up include , starring the always hilarious Seth Rogen.
 
Hugh Jackman will take viewers to Neverland in the family adventure while Chris Pine and Casey Affleck are in grave danger in the disaster and rescue film based on a true event.
Of course not forgetting the young at heart as M-Net has a special treat for them with a visit from their favourite animation characters with a special Animania Festival on DStv‘s M-Net Movies Smile (Channel 105). Animania will feature a festival of the most popular animation films from Monday, 5 December 2016 until Tuesday 10 January 2017 from 06:00 CAT until midnight. And guess who will be paying us a visit for this special animation showcase? Open the door for Maand many more.
 
Then, there’s also a first-class, unprecedented gift for movie connoisseurs: from mid-December, premium channel M-Net Edge will boast a world cinema slot with the best of the best foreign language or nouveau films.
As of Sunday, 18 December at 21:00 CAT discerning viewers can get right into the kind of films they have been craving: highly-acclaimed world cinema. The Palestinian film which received rave reviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, will be on M-Net Edge on Sunday, 18 December. Then, the following week, the French film about famed fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent will be the special Christmas viewing treat.
 
says Jan du Plessis. “
All the Sunday night premiere movies (M-Net 101, M-Net Premiere and M-Net Edge) will also be available on DStv Catch Up and Catch Up Plus as well as through DStv Now. Selected titles from the M-Net Inspire pop-up channel, as well as from the Animania festival, will be available on Catch Up Plus as well as through DStv Now.
For more information you can log on to www.dstv.com