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BY DESMOND CHINGARANDE OUTSPOKEN Norton legislator Temba Mliswa (Independent), accused of violating COVID-9 regulations by hosting a Press conference at his Borrowdale, Harare home on Thursday, was yesterday released on $20 000 bail. Mliswa, who was represented by Musindo Hungwe, will be back in court on March 4. Harare magistrate Vongai Muchuchuti-Guwuriro presided over the case. As part of his bail conditions, Mliswa was ordered not to interfere with State witnesses, to reside at his given address until the matter is finalised, to surrender his passport, not to address a Press conference until the matter is finalised and to report at Borrowdale Police Station every Friday. The State, represented by Charles Muchemwa and Constance Ngombengombe, did not oppose the bail. Hungwe, however, put the State on notice saying he would file for Mliswa's removal from remand on the next remand date. “We believe the charges are politically motivated and we will challenge his continued stay on remand since we believe he committed no offence by gathering essential service providers who are protected by COVID-19 regulations,” Hungwe said. Allegations are that Mliswa posted on his Twitter handle inviting people to attend a Press conference at his house on Thursday. Mliswa then allegedly gathered 22 journalists. Police, acting on a tip off from one Joshua Tigere, stormed Mliswa’s home and found him addressing the journalists, leading to his arrest. Follow Desmond on Twitter @ DChingarande1
Nationwide protests have taken place since October 7 despite the disbanding of the controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit.
The demonstrators have been accused of attacking police stations and personnel.
The rallies which are mostly attended by young people have become avenues to vent against corruption and unemployment.
Rights groups say at least 15 people have been killed the demonstrations began in early October.
Guinea's opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo declared on Monday declared himself winner of Sunday's vote, defeating Alpha Conde, the incumbent president.
Speaking at a press conference in the capital Conakry a day after the hotly contested election, Diallo said he had emerged \"victorious\" despite \"anomalies which marred the ballot\".
\"I invite all my fellow citizens who love peace and justice to stay vigilant and committed to defend this democratic victory,\" the 68-year-old said, dressed in a sky-blue robe, from his party headquarters.
Outside the building, supporters erupted in joy and chanted \"Cellou, president\". Elsewhere in the city, security forces fired tear gas canisters at crowds assembling in support of Diallo.
Bakary Mansare, the vice-president of Guinea's electoral authority, told AFP that Diallo's self-proclaimed victory was \"null and void\".
\"It is not up to a candidate or a person to proclaim himself the winner outside the bodies defined by the law,\" he said.
Conde's RPG party also said in a statement Monday that it condemned \"with the utmost firmness the irresponsible and dangerous declaration\" by Diallo. It called for its activists to remain calm.
Diallo's announcement sets the stage for a showdown with the government, which insists that Sunday's vote was fair and that the official electoral authority must declare the results.
Signs of a looming electoral dispute began to appear during the vote, however, when Diallo told reporters that Conde could \"cheat\" his way to power.
'Chaos'
Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, a cadre in Diallo's UFDG party, said that results at individual polling states were public, enabling the party's own observers to conduct a count.
\"If we are the winners, we will defend our victory,\" he said. \"We won't wait.\"
Earlier on Monday, Guinea's government said in a statement that the opposition \"clearly intended to create chaos and to call into question the real results that will come out of the ballot box\".
Much of the tension in Guinea relates to President Conde's controversial bid for a third term.
He pushed through a new constitution in March which he argued would modernise the country. But it also allowed him to bypass a two-term limit for presidents, provoking mass protests.
Prime Minister Kassory Fofana said that the opposition publishing results ahead of the official results was tantamount to pouring \"oil on the fire\".
Second round
Guinea's acrimonious political campaign saw Conde and Diallo trade insults, and was marked by violent incidents in some parts of the west African country.
But it also raised the spectre of ethnic strife, with Conde accused of exploiting divisions for electoral ends - a charge he denies.
Guinea's politics are mainly drawn along ethnic lines: the president's base is mostly from the ethnic Malinke community and Diallo's from the Fulani people.
A second round of voting, if needed, is scheduled for November 24.
Rwanda continued fighting against the Democratic Republic of the Congo throughout its four-year civil war. Finally, in July 2002, the two countries signed a peace accord: Rwanda promised to withdraw its 35,000 troops from the Congolese border; Congo in turn agreed to disarm the thousands of Hutu militiamen in its territory, who threatened Rwandan security.
In May 2003, 93% of Rwandans voted to approve a new constitution that instituted a balance of political power between Hutu and Tutsi. No party, for example, can hold more than half the seats in parliament. The constitution also outlawed the incitement of ethnic hatred. In Aug. 26 presidential elections, the first since the Rwandan genocide, Paul Kagame, who had served as president since 2000, won a landslide victory. In June 2004, Pasteur Bizimungu, the Hutu who had served as president between 1994 and 2000 (then–vice president Kagame held the real power), was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of inciting ethnic hatred. Many considered the trial politically motivated.
Economic and social conditions in Rwanda during President Kagames first term improved markedly. He has clamped down on corruption and crime, per capita income doubled between 2000 and 2008, life expectancy increased, and nearly half of the countrys children are completing primary school, compared to 20% pre-Kagame.
In 2004, a French judge asserted that Kagame was responsible for the 1994 downing of a plane that killed the presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi and set off ethnic violence that killed some 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu. Kagame vehemently denied the charge. In 2008, Rose Kabuye, a senior aide to Kagame, was arrested at Frankfurt International Airport on a warrant from France and charged in connection with the crash.
A UN court in Dec. 2008 convicted Col. Theoneste Bagosora, a Hutu extremist, of genocide for his involvement in the 1994 massacre of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu. He is the highest-ranking military official charged in connection with the genocide. Several
In 1894 Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin founded the Womens New Era Club, a charitable organization of sixty prominent black women in Boston. Soon afterwards she began editing its monthly publication, the Womens Era. Encouraged by the success of the New Era Club and heartened by the rapid growth of similar black womens groups across the nation, Ruffin organized and convened the first National Conference of Colored Women at the Charles Street A. M. E. Church in Boston in 1895. While the new organization emphasized its refusal to exclude non-black women, Ruffin nonetheless argued that African American women needed to take the leadership for their own welfare. Two years after the convention met, the National Association of Colored Women was formed with Mary Church Terrell as its first president and Ruffin as editor of the Womens Era, now the official newspaper for the national organization. Ruffins speech on July 29, 1895 to the assembled women at the Charles Street Church appears below.
It is with especial joy and pride that I welcome you all to this, our first conference. It is only recently that women have waked up to the importance of meeting in council, and great as has been the advantage to women generally, and important as it is and has been that they should confer, the necessity has not been nearly so great, matters at stake not nearly so vital, as that we, bearing peculiar blunders, suffering under especial hardships, enduring peculiar privations, should meet for a good talk among ourselves. Although rather hastily called, you as well as I can testify how long and how earnestly a conference has been thought of and hoped for and even prepared for.
These womens clubs, which have sprung up all over the country, build and run upon broad and strong lines, have all been a preparation, small conferences in themselves, and their spontaneous birth and enthusiastic support have been little less than inspiration on the part of our women and a general preparation for a large union such as it is hoped
The Philadelphia Police Department has released the 911 calls and bodycam footage showing the fatal encounter with 27-year-old Walter Wallace... View Article
The post Philadelphia police release bodycam footage of Walter Wallace Jr. shooting appeared first on TheGrio.
