PRESIDENT KAGAME LINKED TO MISSING SOUTH AFRICAN MAN IN RWANDA.

Kigali, RWANDA:

Leon Orsmond, a South African advertising executive, has ”disappeared” in Kigali, Rwanda. He has not been seen for about a month. Leon has been living in Kigali for about eight years, running an advertising business.

Leon Orsmond.

It is not rocket science to figure out what might have happened to Leon, because of the following two reasons:

First, Leon was outspoken on Twitter and Facebook about Kagame and lack of freedom of speech in Rwanda.

Second, Leon ran Diane Rwigara’s social media campaign before she was blocked from running for Rwandan presidency — and later thrown in jail along with her mother, Adeline Rwigara.

Diane Shima Rwigara is a Rwandan businesswoman and women's rights activist who stood as an independent candidate in the Rwandan presidential election, 2017 .

Leon Orsmond was putting the final touches to a book that was critical of the Rwandan state‚ according to the statement.

His disappearance was reported to Rwandan and South African authorities by his cousin‚ Digby Orsmond‚ who lives in the UK‚ and his stepdaughter‚ Chelsey May. There has been no official confirmation of his arrest or detention.

“It is believed that Mr Orsmond had been living illegally in the country after both his passport and visa had expired some years ago‚” the statement read.

May said her stepfather’s last post on social media was on February 17 and that she became concerned about a week later when she had heard nothing from him. They had had regular contact‚ she said.

May claimed that Orsmond was arrested at his home in Kigali by security forces not reporting to the Rwandan National Police. When May contacted Orsmond’s landlord‚ from whom he had been renting a room for years‚ the landlord denied knowing Orsmond.

Officials from SA’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation were liaising with their Rwandan counterparts‚ but neither had commented‚ the statement said.

Orsmond was a freelancer in Rwanda. During his advertising career in South Africa he worked for various agencies‚ including Leo Burnett‚ Ogilvy and Bernstein Loxton Golding & Klein.

In recent years, most well-intentioned expatriates who join the cause of Rwandan opposition leaders end up in deep trouble at the hands of the Kagame brutal regime.

Some Rwandan experts recall the case of Peter Erlinder, an American law professor who, in 2011, sought to help the Rwandan opposition leader, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Erlinder nearly died in Kagame’s dungeon. Pressure from the Obama Administration led to his release.

American law professor Peter Erlinder and Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza together at Erlinder’s June 14 2011 bail hearing. She was under house arrest and he was in prison after traveling to Rwanda to defend her.

Image: Rwanda News Agency.

Experts also suggests pressure from South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa will free Leon Orsmond. And Ramaphosa has something Kagame badly wants – the reopening of South Africa’s consular services in Rwanda.

SOURCE:
The Rwandan.

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...

NAMIBIA VOWS TO GRAB FARMS FROM WHITE FARMERS.

Okahandja, NAMIBIA: Vibrant rows of neatly lined plants grow on a patch once trampled by the cattle of a large commercial farm run by a family of German descent in Namibia. From that 2,400 square-meter rectangle of sand in the northern Otjozondjupa region, Kornelius Hamasab, 69, now produces spinach, onions and tomatoes. Hamasab is among the 16 percent of black Namibians owning arable land in the semi-desert southwest African nation. White Namibians, who are descended from former colonizers Germany and South Africa and make up six percent of the population, own 70 percent of the land. "It doesn't seem right to me," said Hamasab, who acquired his land as compensation five years after the farm downsized into a guesthouse in 2000 and laid off its staff. "The government should do something about it," he added, while his family picked and rinsed collared greens to be sold in the capital Windhoek, 150 kilometers away. Namibia adopted ...

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 ...

"GO BACK TO YOUR ROOTS IN ETHIOPIA", KHOI KHOI DESCENDANTS URGES MALEMA.

Following the continuing restlessness by EFF Julius Malema and the Black Land First leader, jointly demanding for a return of the land, a new group comprising of Khoi Khoi descendants have issued a lengthy white paper detailing the true situation of the land transition and ownership. According to the group’s spokesperson Hung Sangawe, who vehemently warned Malema to go back to Ethiopia were it is alleged he has biological roots. Hung Sangawe. Sangawe noted with dismay that the group was sick and tired of the perpetual racial tension orchestrated and perpetuated by Malema to further enrich himself, by exploiting the high level of illiteracy and youth unemployment in South Africa. Subsequently, the tenacious group unanimously issued a strongly worded white paper, that he Malema must stop claiming the land he knows nothing about: “White people didn’t steal the land, other black tribes invaded it' The so-called Bantu speaking South Afri...

SWAZI KING DIRECTS MEN TO MARRY MORE WIVES OR RISK JAIL TERMS.

Mbabane, ESWATINI: King Mswati III of eSwatini has without mincing words stated that men will be required to marry at least two or more wives or be jailed if they fail to do so starting in June 2019. Mswati III (born as Prince Makhosetive on 19 April 1968) is the King of eSWATINI(SWAZI). He was born in Manzini, Eswatini, to King Sobhuza II and one of his younger wives, Ntfombi Tfwala . He was crowned as Mswati III, Ingwenyama and King of Swaziland , on 25 April 1986 at the age of 18, thus becoming the youngest ruling monarch in the world at that time. Together with his mother, Ntfombi Tfwala, now Queen Mother ( Ndlovukati), he rules the country as an absolute monarch. The king, who has 15 wives and 25 children, and his father and predecessor having more than 70 wives and 150+ children revealed that eSwatini is facing a very serious problem as there are more women than men in his country - husband scarcity. In a statement, king Mswati called for all men in the countr...

WHY CHINA'S DOG-MEAT MARKET HAS EXPANDED.

Every year during the summer solstice, a dog-eating festival takes place in Yulin, a city in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi. This year’s event ended with the usual controversy. Photographs of dogs being fried or treated cruelly went viral. The Jinhua Hutou Dog Meat Festival, as it is called, was abruptly canceled last week. Animal-rights activists and American congressmen demanded that China ban the eating of dogs and cats, as Taiwan did in April. Yulin’s local government took modest steps to restrain or hide some of the more contentious activities, such as selling dogs in food markets. Still, the festival was packed. Why has the controversial culinary habit become so popular in China? Contrary to cliché, dog meat has not always been a common item in the Chinese diet. Unlike in the West, eating dogs has never been taboo, but it appears to have been rare in the past. Government accounts single out butchers who sold dog meat, suggesting it ...

"PAINTING COW TO LOOK LIKE ZEBRA REDUCES FLIES BY 50%", JAPANESE RESEARCHERS.

Painting a cow to look something like a zebra has been found to reduce fly bites by 50%. Researchers believe painting stripes on to cattle is a world-first and could become an environmentally friendly alternative to pesticides. The study, published by Japanese scientists in the journal Plos One , found fly attacks were “significantly reduced” by the disguise. The scientists believe the striped pattern confuses the fly’s motion detection and deters the pests. In what was a five-minute process for each animal, researchers painted white, 4cm to 5cm stripes on six pregnant Japanese black cows. The stripes were drawn freehand, using “commercial waterborne white lacquers” that faded easily. The laquered bovines were then observed. Two of the cows were painted with white stripes, two with black stripes and two were left unpainted for a control. The process then repeated so, over nine days, each cow spent three days striped, painted black or unpainted. Only 55 flies ...

MINERS IN NAMIBIA DISCOVER SHIPWRECK LOADED $13 MILLION WORTH OF GOLD.

Image: Dieter Noli. Diamond miners working off the coast of Africa were beyond surprised when they discovered a 500-year-old shipwreck teeming with gold worth $13 million and other treasures. The ship, aptly named ‘Bom Jesus’ or ‘Good Jesus,’ was like a miracle to the miners. Bom Jesus was first identified and discovered by geologists working for the mining company De Beers in 2008. It was found off the coast of Namibia near Oranjemund. Image: Dieter Noli. According to experts, Bom Jesus is from the Golden era of Portuguese explorers who set sail in all directions in search of new lands to colonize. The ship left Lisbon in 1533 under the supervision of Sir Francisco de Noronha. But on its way to India, it mysteriously vanished. Before the discovery, the miners were draining an artificial salt lake. As the lake dried out, many lost ships were found at the bottom of the lake. Bom Jesus was among them, and it is considered the oldest of all ...

WOMAN WHO HAD 44 CHILDREN BY 36 YEARS-OLD BANNED FROM HAVING MORE BABIES.

Kampala, UGANDA: Mariam Nabatanzi had her first set of twins when she was just 13 and has since had another five sets, three sets of quads and four sets of triplets Mariam Nabatanzi suffers from a rare genetic condition and had given birth to 44 children by the age of 36. Tragically, Mariam has been left to raise her massive family alone after her husband walked out on her almost four years ago. Now 40, doctors have taken action to stop Mariam having more children after it emerged her father had 45 children with several different women. Mariam has three sets of quadruplets, four sets of triplets and six sets of twins and incredibly manages to care for and feed them all on her own. The fertile mum was just 12 when she was married to her husband, who at 40 was 28 years her senior. Just a year later she gave birth to her first set of twins. Now, she and all of her kids have no choice to live in appallingly cramped conditions in just four ...

PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA'S SON TO MARRY UGANDAN EX-PRIME MINISTER'S DAUGHTER.

Kampala, UGANDA: Former Uganda Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi is set to become an in-law at the Mahlamba Ndlopfu, the home of the new President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa. John Patrick Amama Mbabazi, SC (simply known as Amama Mbabazi , born 16 January 1949) is a Ugandan politician who served as the ninth Prime Minister of Uganda from 24 May 2011 to 19 September 2014. Image: NP. Mbabazi’s niece, Ms. Bridget Birungi Rwakairu who he raised after her father was killed in the 1980s, will soon be exchanging vows with the South African First Son Mr. Andile Ramaphosa, Mbabazi’s family announced yesterday. The wedding will be preceded by a traditional function known as “Okushaba” which will be held this weekend at Mbabazi’s home on Saturday. 36 year old Bridget Birungi Rwakairu is daughter to Shadrack Rwakairu and Peace Ruhindi. Rwakairu was murdered in 1983 by the UNLA soldiers just five years into his marriage with Mrs Ruhindi. In a statement, Mbab...

Kioo17 Journal

Search This Blog