BURUNDI BECOMES THE FIRST COUNTRY TO LEAVE ICC.

Burundi becomes first country to leave International Criminal Court

An ICC spokesman has confirmed that Burundi's pullout took effect on Friday, a year after the country notified the court of its intention to leave. Some African nations feel the ICC focuses too much on the continent.

Burundi has become the first country to pull out from the International Criminal Court after a one-year withdrawal process came to an end.

The country notified former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of its intent to leave the court on October 27, 2016, as one of three countries — along with South Africa and The Gambia — to make such moves last year.

Both South Africa and The Gambia later took back their withdrawals.

The ICC, which was established to prosecute the world's worst atrocities, has said Burundi's withdrawal does not affect the preliminary examination of the country's situation already being undertaken by the court's prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.

BENSOUDA IS THE FIRST AFRICAN TO BECOME ICC CHIEF PROSECUTOR.

Political turmoil:

Burundi, a former German and Belgian colony, has been in a state of deadly political turmoil since 2015, when protests broke out after the ruling party announced that President Pierre Nkurunziza would seek a third five-year term.

Protests and violence have continued since Nkurunziza was elected to the third term in a disputed election held on July 21, 2015, without the participation of the opposition.

A UN commission of inquiry said last month that crimes against humanity, including killings and sexual violence, were still being committed in Burundi. The commission asked the ICC to open an investigation as soon as possible.

Those implicated in the human rights abuses include top officials in Burundi's National Intelligence Services and police force, as well as military officials and members of the ruling party's youth branch, known as Imbonerakure. The ongoing violence and unrest have forced hundreds of thousands to leave the country.

Shielding perpetrators:

"Burundi's official withdrawal from the International Criminal Court is the latest expample of the government's deplorable efforts to shield those responsible for grave human rights violations from any kind of accountability," said Param-Preet Singh, Human Rights Watch's associated director of international justice in a statement.

Catherine Ray, a spokeswoman for the European Union's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, said that Burundi's withdrawal "marks a serious step backwards which risks further isolating the country within the international community."

Burundi's justice minister, Aimee Laurentine Kanyana, however called the ICC withdrawal "a great achievement" toward increased independence, while calling on police and prosecutors to respect human rights so that "white people" would not have "false proofs to rely on in accusing Burundi."

AU call for withdrawal

Many African nations have long accused the court of being biased against Africa, with the overwhelming majority of its investigations targeting the continent. In February 2017, the African Union (AU) called at a summit for a mass withdrawal of member states, but the resolution was not legally binding and was opposed by Nigeria and Senegal.

Following Burundi's withdrawal, a total of 33 African states are now signatories to the Rome Statute that is the foundation of the ICC, among 123 countries worldwide.

The United States, along with Israel, Sudan and Russia, have not ratified the statute, while other countries such as China and India have not even signed it.

SOURCE

dw.com

Comments

CUBA CLAIMS CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER IS FIDEL CASTRO'S SON.

The suicide note left by Fidel Castro’s eldest son has rocked the Cuban nation this week, with the most astonishing revelation being the claim that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was his half-brother and the son of the late Fidel Castro. The handwritten note left by Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, 68, the eldest of Fidel Castro’s children, appears to confirm the longstanding rumor in Cuba that Fidel Castro fathered Justin Trudeau after a public tryst with Margaret Trudeau in 1970. “ Castro Diaz-Balart, who had been attended by a group of doctors for several months due to a state of profound depression, committed suicide this morning ,” Cubadebate website reported. The death of the high-profile government nuclear scientist, also known as “Fidelito”, or Little Fidel, because of how much he looked like his father, stunned the nation, however it is his “ explosive ” suicide note that has set tongues wagging in Havana. Amid a wide-ranging barrage of compl...

MALARIA VACCINE PROVES HIGHLY EFFECTIVE IN BURKINA FASO.

A vaccine against malaria has been shown to be highly effective in trials in Africa, holding out the real possibility of slashing the death toll of a disease that kills 400,000 mostly small children every year. The vaccine, developed by scientists at the Jenner Institute of Oxford University, showed up to 77% efficacy in a trial of 450 children in Burkina Faso over 12 months. The hunt for a malaria vaccine has been going on the best part of a century. One, the Mosquirix vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline, has been through lengthy clinical trials but is only partially effective, preventing 39% of malaria cases and 29% of severe malaria cases among small children in Africa over four years. It is being piloted by the World Health Organization in parts of Kenya, Ghana and Malawi. The Oxford vaccine is the first to meet the WHO goal of 75% efficacy against the mosquito-borne parasite disease. Larger trials are now beginning, involving 4,800 children in four countries. Prof ...

GORILLA SWALLOWED NEARLY $20,000 IN NIGERIAN ZOO.

Kano, NIGERIA: According to BBC Pidgin, the Chief Revenue Officer for the zoo, when approached, said on Wednesday, that the said money, approximately six million, eight hundred and twenty thousand naira(nearly 20,000), was money realised as gate fee from fun-seekers who had visited the zoo during Sallah celebration to watch the animals. Kano Zoological Gardens where Gorilla allegedly swallowed 7 million naira(nearly $20,000). A local radio station in the state, Freedom Radio had reported on Thursday that one of the finance officers it spoke with had said that one huge Gorilla sneaked into their office and carried the money and ran away, where it went and allegedly swallowed the close to seven million naira. Also, when asked, the Managing Director of the zoo, Kashekobo, confirmed the development to the BBC Pidgin but, however, said that he had nothing more to say about it other than that the matter was under investigation. According to him, ” the issue is unde...

INNOCENT WORDS THAT SOUNDS COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES.

This article was originally published by: 'THE LANGUAGE NERDS' When you speak more than one language, you realize that words mean different things in different languages. Sometimes an innocent word in a language can sound really bad in another, and that’s where the real fun is. Below are some words that are completely innocuous in their native language but sound downright inappropriate and rude to the ears of speakers of other languages; Die If you don’t speak Dutch, this commercial may seem terrifying. For a Dutch speaker, it simply means “Mom, that one, that one, that one.” Bico In Brazilian Portuguese, the word “bico” means a small or casual job. In Portuguese (the one spoken in Portugal), however, it has an unexpected meaning: “blowjob”! There is this Brazillian guy who recently came to Portugal and went to a job interview where he was asked about the kind of jobs he was doing in Brazil. His reply was something like “nothing speci...

NIGERIAN SCHOOL ACCEPTS USED PLASTIC BOTTLES FOR TUITION FEES.

Lagos, NIGERIA: An agreement has been reached between parents of students of Morit International School, Ajegunle, Lagos, and the school management to pay their wards' fees with waste plastic bottles. This became possible after the school adopted the RecyclesPay Education Project, an initiative of African Clean Up Initiative (ACI), an environmental non-governmental organisational in Lagos. The school management embraced the initiative to ease the burden of parents finding it hard to pay their wards' fees. Over 25 parents of the low-income school have reportedly embraced the initiative whereby parents bring plastic wastes on designated days. Wecyclers, the recycling company attached to the project, comes to collect the plastic bottles after getting a substantial amount of the plastic wastes. The amount given to parents are determined after weighing what each of them has brought. Speaking on the development, Partrick Mbamara, Proprietor of ...

2 NAMIBIAN MINISTERS RESIGN OVER FISHING INDUSTRY CORRUPTION SCANDAL.

Windhoek, NAMIBIA: Two Namibian ministers resigned on Wednesday following reports accusing them of corruption in a deal involving Iceland’s biggest fishing firm, Samherji, the presidency said. Justice Minister Sackeus Shanghala and Fisheries Minister Bernard Esau are accused of taking bribes to award horse mackerel quotas to Samherji, according to media reports in Namibia and Iceland which cite documents published by Wikileaks. WikiLeak’s website shows that the data leakage includes thousands of documents – e-mails, internal reports, spreadsheets, presentations and photos – related to Samherji. This is the first of two batches of documents, containing information about the company. The second batch of documents will be released in two to three weeks. According to the WikiLeak’s website, the documents “expose how the company spent millions of dollars in pay-offs to senior Namibian officials and politicians in order to ensure growing and continued access to the coun...

CHINESE WOMAN MAKES $3300 A MONTH SELLING BIRD DIAPERS.

Jiangsu, CHINA: A young Chinese woman who sells hand-made diapers for birds earns 30,000 yuan ($4350) a month, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Sunday. Twenty-five-year-old Zheng Han, from East China's Jiangsu province, now has customers from Australia, the United States, Canada, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Zheng working with bird models. Image: Sina . Zheng quit her job as a nurse in 2014 and started her own online store on Taobao, one of the largest e-commerce platforms in China. Image: Taobao. She started by selling decorative costumes for birds. Later on, she began designing diapers for birds after inquiries from some friends who wanted a better way to deal with bird waste. She found via an online search that bird diapers exist in the US, "but they are poorly designed and expensive, selling at 200-400 yuan ($29-$58) each." So, she started to design more convenient and practical bird diapers on her own and filled a vacuum in the...

BOTSWANA SET TO LIFT MALEMA & BUSHIRI TRAVEL BAN.

Firebrand EFF leader Julius Malema and prominent Malawian prophet Shepherd Bushiri may have their Botswana travel restrictions lifted as early as next month, with strong indications that a decision to reverse the bans has already been taken. The duo, together with lawyer and EFF chairperson Dali Mpofu, Korean-American actor Rick Yune and British human rights lawyer Gordon Bennet, who previously represented Basarwa (San) people in court cases, were among over 40 foreign nationals who were placed on travel restrictions by former Botswana president Ian Khama over “security concerns”. Botswana’s Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS) director-general Peter Magosi on Thursday said that they would present a report on their assessment of the restrictions. Brigadier Magosi said, in most cases, there was no evidence of security threats. “We felt some of the allegations were baseless and we want to ensure government is not condemned internationally for being an...

NIGERIAN SENATORS EARN MORE THAN TRUMP AND UK PM, SAY CHIEF OYEBOLA

Image:premiumtimesng.com. Chairman of the Movement for Nigeria’s Total Transformation, Chief Areoye Oyebola, has faulted the Nigerian federal lawmakers for ignoring the widespread call for the downward review of their “monumental salaries and allowances.” Oyebola said the recent outburst of the federal legislators by the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), was just one of many criticisms that had trailed the lawmakers over the years but to which they had turned deaf ears. “It is also strange, unthinkable and very disheartening that a senator, not minding the grinding poverty of Nigerians, earns $1.7m a year, which is far higher than the $400,000 yearly income of the United States’ President, whose stupendous country is the richest in the world. Even a member of the House of Representatives also earns more than the American President. What a tragic and pathetic situation! “Worse still, each of our National Assembly member...

ARSENAL STRIKER, PIERRE-EMERICK AUBAMEYANG MAY NOT PLAY FOR GABON AGAIN.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang may not play for Gabon again following a row with the country's football association, new coach Daniel Cousin has told RMC. Gabon captain Aubameyang reacted angrily when the Gabon Football Federation announced that his father, Pierre Francois, would be co-coach, claiming they had done so the day before he had said he would give his decision on the offer. Pierre-Emerick Emiliano François Aubameyang born on 18 June 1989 is a Gabonese professional footballer who plays as a striker for the Premier League club Arsenal captains the Gabonese national team. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has criticised the country's football federation (FEGAFOOT) after they appointed his father as national team coach and said Pierre Francois did not want the job. Pierre François Aubameyang "Yaya" is a Gabonese international footballer. He also holds French passport. He is the father of Catilina, Willy and Pierre-Emerick. He won 80 caps for the...

Kioo17 Journal

Search This Blog