- Eight (8) out of the ten (10) alleged coupists in custody in Gambia, Friday appeared in court, to face a three count treason charges preferred against them for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government of President Yahya Jammeh, a former military Lt. who himself came to power after overthrowing another democratically elected government in 1994.
The accused, who were officially charged on Thursday, appeared before Nigerian Justice Emmnanuel A. Amadi, at the High Court in Banjul. They arrived at the crowded court room with a heavily armed escort, and were immediately arraigned and the charge sheet read to them. They then pleaded not guilty.
According to report, procedural battle soo…
The Gambian government has finally announced treason charges against a number of security officers rounded up since last October, in a wave of arrests that still appears unabated. They are accused of attempting to overthrow President Yahya Jammeh's government. - Among the accused are General Lang Tombong Tamba, former Chief of Defense Staff of the Gambian Armed Forces, who was sacked alongside a number of other high profile security personnel in the army, police and the country’s National Intelligence Agency.
Also part of those charged is renegade former army chief, Colonel Ndure Cham, mastermind of the alleged March 2006 abortive coup. While Colonel Cham remains at large since fle…
- A new report published by the World Bank and release Monday 15th March, 2010, has uncovered the hindering effect of a form of corruption hardly spoken about on the development efforts across the African continent.
Titled: ‘Africa Development Indicators 2010, this report brings to light the fact that most studies on corruption focus on money exchanging hands in the form of bribery, involving ‘‘powerful political designees or kickbacks to public officials’’, but that ‘Quiet corruption’ also poses quite a substantial threats to the continent’s development.
The World Bank report refers to this ‘Quiet corruption’ as the failure of pu…
Police in Guinea Bissau have arrested 14 officials from the country's Ministry of Finance on charges of forgery and embezzlement of funds. Deputy Director of the Judicial Police, Edmundo Mendes, said the arrests are part of the fight against corruption launched earlier by the country's Ministry of Public Service and Labour. - The accused allegedly allocated salaries to ghost workers in the Guinea Bissau civil service, according to Edmundo Mendes; they succeeded by forging identity cards of some war veterans.
"These 14 employees who still enjoy the presumption of innocence were remanded in custody", the judicial police official was quoted by the Africa Press Agency (APA), and he added that…
- Delegates at a regional human rights confab have called on African leaders to move towards domesticating and implementing the numerous adopted instruments.
This call was made in Banjul, where participants from various African Union organs were gathered with a view to developing modalities for enhancing the Human Rights Strategy for the continent. The Banjul meeting was also aimed at establishing ‘‘the practice and focus action on moving forward the collective Human Rights Strategy; and make recommendations for building synergies between the strategy and other governance initiatives in Africa,’’ according to a press release published by the African Union Commission…
The Gambian government has embarked on a foreign investment attraction onslaught, eyeing the United Arab Emirates based Emirates Investment Group (EIG). - Gambian ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Mambury Njie, has held talks with the chairman of the group, Sheikh Tariq Bin Faisal Al Qassimi, with the aim of enticing the group to explore investment opportunities Gambia has on offer.
The Emirates Investments Group LLC is an investment company with interests in the Middle East and Asia Pacific regions. According to a statement on the group’s website, it offers business development opportunities, working closely with established companies through partnerships. With an initial fo…
- Barely 24 hours after the US government released an incriminating report on the human rights situation in Gambia, Amnesty International has issued a statement, urging the Gambian authorities to either charge or release sacked government officials in their custody.
The statement from the UK based human right organization is contained in a press release issued last Friday evening, in which it Africa Programme Director, Erwin van der Borght was quoted as saying: “Through this latest spate of arbitrary arrests and detentions, Gambian authorities have once again shown their blatant disregard for human rights.”
Among the detained officials are the country’s former police chi…
Mixed feelings cut across West African nation Senegal over the choice of Chelsea and Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba as the Best African Player of 2009. - Karim Dahaba a local football coach said: “The decision was a matured one. They could not have made a better choice. The man makes the best representation in terms of quality football player, and also playing at a top club team like Chelsea tells a lot about him and his quality.”
“How do you explain choosing a player from a team that performed so bad in the continental tournament as the best player?” queried Ebrima Foon, a trader in sport jerseys.
He said although Ghana did not emerge winners at the last Af…
The government of Senegal has made a giant step with the signing of a multimillion dollar project that aims at resolving chronic energy problems for the people residing in a section of the capital, Dakar. - Senegal’s Minister of International Cooperation, Karim Wade and the Chinese ambassador to the West African nation, Yuan Xing Gong, signed a financing agreement of a project as part of extension of electricity network in the capital.
The 35 billion CFA Franc project is earmarked for the area of Guédiawaye, a suburb of Dakar. According to the Minister of Energy, the project also entails the construction of some 475 substations, unwinding of 354 km of underground cable, 30 KV and 2…
- Renowned Gambian human rights lawyer, who happens to be the country’s main opposition leader, Lawyer Ousainou Darboe, has vowed never to defend drug offenders in court.
The opposition leader was reacting to the latest move by the Gambian president, Yahya Jammeh, with whom he hardly see eye-to-eye on almost all matters, who recently sacked almost the entirety of his security chiefs amid rumors of drug offenses.
“I have for the past 18 or 20 years declined to defend anybody who is charged with any offence connected with drug trafficking. Because of my abhorrence for those who are involved in drug trafficking, my abhorrence for those who use drugs. And I think it’s a menac…
- A Gambian journalist, based in the United Kingdom, has reported receiving death threat emails from people claiming to be working with the feared Gambian intelligence body, the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).
Mr Cham who worked with the Gambia base The Point Newspaper, co-founded by slain editor, Dayda Hydara, before leaving for the UK, has been running a sports website, Gamsports Online, popular among the growing Gambian sports loving population. At the beginning of this year, Cham ventured into purely political writing when he founded Jollof News Online, which covers Senegal and Guinea Bissau, with a stronger focus on his country, the Gambia.
It is not clear whether the alleged thre…
A UN-German supported agricultural scheme is changing the lives of farmers engaging in organic farming in five West African nations - Senegal, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Ghana. Some 5000 farmers have so far benefited from this rewarding project, according to a statement by the FAO. - The $2.4 million UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) project involves helping the beneficiary farmer groups meet the necessary requirements in terms of certification and methods to grow and export their produce to the growing organic food market in the industrialized world.
According to the UN food agency, the German-backed project has also resulted in improved living conditions and food…
- Business Insider, a US based business news site, is at loggerhead with government officials allied to Senegalese President Abdoulie Wade and his son, Karim Wade, over a damning report the newspaper published about the aging president’s son.
Karim Wade, who is described as the most powerful minister in his father’s government, holding the portfolios of International Cooperation, Spatial Planning, Air Transport and Infrastructure, was the subject of a damning article by paper, captioned: ‘The Joy Of Doing Business In Africa: How Senegalese Politicians Tried To Shake Down Millicom For $200 Million.’
That article, published February 4, 2010, gave account of how the p…
Legendary Senegalese film director, screenwriter and producer, Mahama Johnson Traore, has died, after a long illness. - A founding member of the Pan-African Film Festival (FESPACO), Traore reportedly died Monday morning in Paris, France, at age 68. Born in 1942 in Dakar, he directed several feature films and movies with themes of societal and political issues, especially those related to women and their daily struggle.
The late Traore studied in France where he made his first film, "Diankha-bi" (The Maiden, in Wolof) in 1968. That film discusses the situation of women in Senegal.
Johnson Traore is perhaps best remembered for his instrumentality in the founding in 1969 of FESPACO, which …
Emirates Airlines has unveiled its intention to commence direct flights to the Senegalese capital, Dakar. According to a statement released Monday by the embassy of United Arab Emirates (UAE) in Dakar, the airlines said from the 1st September it will commence its non-stop flights to the Senegalese capital, five times a week. - According to the statement, these flights will be operated by Airbus A340-300 with a configuration of 3 classes (1-era, business and economy).
‘‘Emirates flight 979 will depart Dubai at 9am 55 and arrive at the Léopold Sédar Senghor International Airport in Dakar at 16h on the same day,’’ the statement said. It added, ‘‘the return…
- The Ambassador of the United States of America to Senegal, Marcia S. Bernicat, said Monday in Dakar that Senegal has not benefited greatly from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a US-Africa economic cooperation legislation for which the West African nation is eligible.
''Senegal has not benefited greatly from the benefits of AGOA. We're working with the Ministry of Commerce to enhance exports to the United States,'' Ms. Bernicat said on the sidelines of a meeting with a mission of visiting US business officials.
A legislation past by US congress with the goal of assisting the economies of sub-Saharan African countries and to improve economic relations between the United Stat…
- The world Health Organization (WHO) has unveiled a massive synchronized campaign against polio in Africa. The global health body Thursday announced that over 85 million children will be immunized across 19 countries in West and Central Africa.
What will take the form of a cross-border cooperation with the aim of stopping a year-long polio epidemic, has been made true thanks largely to a US$ 30 million funding released by Rotary International, described by the WHO as a major partner in the global effort to stop the disease.
According to the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Gomes Sambo, the synchronized campaign showed Africa's determination to be free of polio.
"From the top le…
A landmark initiative, geared towards enhancing the effort of sub-regional integration, has just been launched; it will take the form of a caravan, covering 12 West African countries. Dubbed 'Caravan of Integration', the sub-regional integration scheme, is being spearheaded by Africable. - According to the organizers, the main goal of the initiative is to bridge the knowledge gap among Africans about the continent.
The caravan is scheduled to last for 90 days, commencing in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, on May 1, 2010, ending in the Ivorian capital, Abidjan, on July 31, 2010. The other countries that will receive the caravan are Mauritania, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Mali, Ni…
Two Moroccan nationals were arrested at Senegal's Leopold Sedar Senghor International Airport, in possession of eight kilograms of cocaine. - The two culprits were arrested by officers from the Central Office for the Suppression of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs (OCRTIS), shortly after arriving on board a Turkish Airline from the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo, last week.
According to information, it emerged that the duo had received advance payment for their commodity, and were only on the mission of delivering it to their clients somewhere in the Senegal capital of Dakar.
The hard drug is said to cost about 60 000 CFA francs (about US$120) per gram in the local market.
Apparently …
- Senegalese have an enduring proclivity for obsession. Whether it is sport, politics, music, or religion, Senegalese put their whole in whatever they get involved in. It makes it a somewhat knotty task to pinpoint a particular domineering passion for the people here, like you would soccer for Brazil, American football for the US, cricket for India, or rugby for South Africa.
But music is certainly not a diminutive part of daily life here. Every aspect of Senegalese life touches on it. In fact, one of the most fascinating thing you can find in wrestling, for instance, which appears to be doing well here, despite seemingly losing grounds in many other countries in the region, is the dancin…
-
Gambia might not be the only country whose rights situation was reviewed in Geneva recently, at the 7th session of the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR), but thanks to a largely unfavorable press and an unhelpful attitude of indifference on the part of the leadership to the media attention it gets, the country’s highly debatable human rights record remained prominently in focus. Even countries with equally moot reputation had the courage to preach, cautiously though, to the government of the ‘Smiling Coast’ about the need for a free society.
Perhaps the only country in the world that appears to closely rival Gambia in terms of this attitude of pretence o…
- Senegalese superstar, Youssou Ndour, last Sunday told reporters that by staging concerts artists are not able to make anything in terms of finance. Mr Ndour was speaking at the launching ceremony of a singing competition, as part of the second phase of a national anti-malaria campaign, dubbed Xeex Sibbiru, Wollof for fighting malaria.
"Artists do not come off with concerts in Senegal," Ndour said. "Artists do not do get anything by organizing concerts. When you organize a concert, if you subtract the cost you gain nothing. Ticket prices do not allow us to cover costs."
The lead vocal of the Super Etoile de Dakar argued that the only sure way for musicians to make something out of their w…
- The government of Senegal is on the verge of declaring slave trade and slavery crimes against humanity, according to government sources. Reports say that the Senegalese president has forwarded a bill to parliament to that affect.
French newspaper, Le Monde, last Friday quoted an official statement it said was received by AFP, saying, "the president of the Republic, Abdoulaye Wade, presented a bill declaring slavery a crime against humanity."
According to the statement, the new bill, when passed, will empower the country’s parliament to declare or proclaim slavery and slave trade crimes against humanity, coming just nine years after former colonial power, France, passed a similar …
A court in Bissau has charged and ordered the remand of two foreign nationals in that country. Cesar Nilton Teixeira Barbosa, Cape Verdean, was arrested alongside his Lebanese accomplice, Jean Hal Jaal. Their crime is importation of unauthorized weapons and illegal possession of firearms and ammunition. - The Police has arrested and detained the two since February 9th.
Information from investigation surrounding their case revealed that the suspects were in possession of several firearms with silencers and chargers for twenty bullets each. They are also said to have been found with supplies of 200 bullets for each.
However, neither investigators nor the Bissau court hearing their case …
- Senegalese Mbalax superstar, Youssou Ndour, over the week end joined growing calls for an end to the on going fighting between Senegalese forces and the MFDC separatist movement, which has brought life in that area to a virtual standstill.
Mr Ndour was speaking in the regional capital of Southern Senegal, Ziguinchor, where he performed to multitude of audiences as part of a country wide tour.
''There is concern over the peace in Casamance,’’ Youssou said, shortly before performing at an evening concert at the Stade Aline Sitoe Diatta in Ziguinchor.
The Senegal musician, media mogul, business man and humanitarian especially directed his call to opinion leaders in the form of…
