FM: Iran Ready to Expand All-Out Ties with Congo
TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in a meeting with his Congolese counterpart Alexis Tambwe Mwamba in Tehran announced the country's preparedness to develop bilateral relations with Congo in all fields.
During the meeting on Wednesday, Mottaki said that the two countries' presidents are determined to establish excellent, deep and strategic ties, adding, "Iran is ready for expansion of comprehensive ties with Congo."
The Iranian top diplomat emphasized need for identification of each other's countries' potentials for bilateral cooperation in economic, project implementation, and joint investments.
"The establishment of the joint economic commission, cooperation in mines field, agricultural activities, excavation of oil and gas, manufacturing passenger cars and home appliances, setting up irrigation systems, dam construction and erecting cement factories are among the important fields for strengthening bilateral ties," he added.
Referring to the need for increasing bilateral transactions, arranging for business exhibitions, facilitating for consular and trade bonuses as promotional measures for boosting investments, he said, "Double taxation should be lifted, preferential tariffs must be applied and the traffic and residence of the merchants and businessmen should be facilitated in order to reach that end."
Mottaki also said that a UN-brokered nuclear fuel swap proposal can serve to build confidence in the Iranian nuclear issue.
"The fuel swap is a constructive solution and an opportunity for various parties involved in supplying fuel for Tehran's research reactor to build confidence," Mottaki said in a joint press conference with his Congolese counterpart on Wednesday.
A UN-brokered proposal envisaged Iran sending most of its low-enriched uranium abroad for further processing and eventual conversion into fuel rods for the Tehran research reactor, which produces radiomedicine essential for cancer patients.
Mottaki said that the idea has been fully analyzed since it was first floated by Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
He added that the Vienna group consisting of France, Russia, the US, the IAEA and Iran are the main parties seeking to clinch the deal, and said the UN Security Council, the P5+1, China and Japan could help with their encouragement.
The top official expressed the hope that an agreement could be reached during the upcoming meeting of Iran, Brazil, and Turkey in Tehran. He said that Iran was waiting to hear the new proposals prepared by Ankara and Brasilia.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Brazilian President Luiz In?cio Lula da Silva are slated to visit Iran to take part in nuclear talks.
As two non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, Brazil and Turkey have been looking to find solutions to the nuclear standoff and help reach a fuel swap deal.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
The Youth of the DR Congo Fight Back
Congo: Civilians capture rebel leader in northwest Equateur province where 200,000 displaced
KINSHASA, Congo
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Civilians who were being recruited to a new rebel movement in Congo's northwest captured the group's leader Wednesday and he now will stand trial for war crimes, the government information minister said.
The rebel leader known as Odjani is accused of leading an attack on the capital of Equateur province last month and other fighting in the region that has forced 200,000 people from their homes. Odjani, who claims to have mystical powers that protect his fighters from bullets, opened a new front in what was a relatively peaceful corner of this enormous Central African nation long brutalized by violent rebel groups.
Information Minister Lambert Mende said Odjani was captured by youths he was trying to recruit in the village of Dongo. The youths handed Odjani to police officers, Mende said, and the rebel leader is now being transported to the capital where he will stand trial before a military tribunal.
Last month, Odjani's fighters briefly defeated a small force of U.N. peacekeepers and overcame scores of Congolese army troops to capture the airport of Equateur's capital, Mbandaka, for a day. A Ghanaian peacekeeper and a South African pilot were killed, the U.N. said. The government said nine insurgents, four soldiers and two police were killed. A human rights group said many civilians drowned as they overcrowded canoes in attempts to flee across the river to the neighboring Republic of Congo.
"We hope that this latest development, if confirmed, will bring improved stability," said Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the U.N.'s humanitarian affairs office.
An estimated 100 people have been killed in more than six months of fighting in the region, which is Congo's poorest. An unknown number of civilians also drowned when they tried to escape last month's attack on Equateur's capital, Mbandaka.
It is the latest unrest to roil Congo, whose people suffered through back-to-back civil wars from 1996-2002 that devastated the mineral-rich nation and dragged in the armies of half a dozen African countries.
The new group, which calls itself Nzobo Yalobo in the Lingala language, and in French calls itself the Movement for Independent Liberation and Its Allies, has fed off grievances about Equateur province being the country's poorest and being marginalized since its most famous son, former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, was ousted in 1997 by a rebellion that splintered the country among various warlords. Also marginalized are people associated with another native of the province, former warlord and Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba, who was arrested last year to face charges of war crime and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. Former soldiers and fighters loyal to Mobutu and Bemba reportedly have joined Odjani's rebellion.
KINSHASA, Congo
KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Civilians who were being recruited to a new rebel movement in Congo's northwest captured the group's leader Wednesday and he now will stand trial for war crimes, the government information minister said.
The rebel leader known as Odjani is accused of leading an attack on the capital of Equateur province last month and other fighting in the region that has forced 200,000 people from their homes. Odjani, who claims to have mystical powers that protect his fighters from bullets, opened a new front in what was a relatively peaceful corner of this enormous Central African nation long brutalized by violent rebel groups.
Information Minister Lambert Mende said Odjani was captured by youths he was trying to recruit in the village of Dongo. The youths handed Odjani to police officers, Mende said, and the rebel leader is now being transported to the capital where he will stand trial before a military tribunal.
Last month, Odjani's fighters briefly defeated a small force of U.N. peacekeepers and overcame scores of Congolese army troops to capture the airport of Equateur's capital, Mbandaka, for a day. A Ghanaian peacekeeper and a South African pilot were killed, the U.N. said. The government said nine insurgents, four soldiers and two police were killed. A human rights group said many civilians drowned as they overcrowded canoes in attempts to flee across the river to the neighboring Republic of Congo.
"We hope that this latest development, if confirmed, will bring improved stability," said Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the U.N.'s humanitarian affairs office.
An estimated 100 people have been killed in more than six months of fighting in the region, which is Congo's poorest. An unknown number of civilians also drowned when they tried to escape last month's attack on Equateur's capital, Mbandaka.
It is the latest unrest to roil Congo, whose people suffered through back-to-back civil wars from 1996-2002 that devastated the mineral-rich nation and dragged in the armies of half a dozen African countries.
The new group, which calls itself Nzobo Yalobo in the Lingala language, and in French calls itself the Movement for Independent Liberation and Its Allies, has fed off grievances about Equateur province being the country's poorest and being marginalized since its most famous son, former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, was ousted in 1997 by a rebellion that splintered the country among various warlords. Also marginalized are people associated with another native of the province, former warlord and Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba, who was arrested last year to face charges of war crime and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court. Former soldiers and fighters loyal to Mobutu and Bemba reportedly have joined Odjani's rebellion.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The Atrocities Continue...
Rapes 'surge' in DR Congo
Report says that many rapes occur inside homes in the presence of family members
The number of sexual assaults in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has increased dramatically, according to a study by the UK-based aid group, Oxfam International.
Researchers from Harvard University in the US examined more than 4,000 cases of sexual assault from 2004 to 2008 and discovered that the number of rapes carried out by civilians had increased seventeen-fold.
The study, based at the Panzi hospital in the eastern city of Bukavu, which specialises in treating victims of rape, revealed that more than half of the victims were "raped by gangs of armed men and more than half of the aggressions took place inside homes".
Fifty-six per cent of the attacks were perpetrated by armed men inside family homes, nearly 16 per cent in fields and nearly 15 per cent in the forest, the report said, citing statements by the 4,311 women questioned.
Carried out for Oxfam by The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the report spoke of "the stigmatisation that the women are victims of in their families after having been raped and the difficulties they encounter in accessing medical care".
"Fewer than one per cent of the rape victims went to Panzi hospital with their husbands and nine per cent of them were abandoned by their partner," Oxfam said.
Violence escalated in the DRC after many Rwandan Hutus fled to the country following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Since then, the country has been embroiled in widespread conflicts between its army and Rwandan and Congolese militias.
'Wake-up call'
Around 20,000 UN peacekeepers have been deployed in the nation since 1999 to help stabilise it, but thousands are raped each year as sporadic fighting between the various armed groups continues.
Joseph Kabila, the DRC president, has asked the UN to withdraw its peacekeeping mission by 2011, but some UN officials have said they are reluctant to do so.
Krista Riddley, who directs humanitarian policies for Oxfam, said: "This is a wake-up call at a time when plans are being discussed for UN peacekeepers to leave the country.
"The situation is not secure if a woman can't even sleep safely in her own bed at night.'"
The Oxfam report reveals that many of sexual assault cases were carried out by armed men in the presence of the victim's families, including their children.
Susan Bartels, the chief researcher of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, said: "Sexual violence has become more normal in civilian life.
"The scale of rape over Congo's years of war has made this crime seem more acceptable."
Report says that many rapes occur inside homes in the presence of family members
The number of sexual assaults in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has increased dramatically, according to a study by the UK-based aid group, Oxfam International.
Researchers from Harvard University in the US examined more than 4,000 cases of sexual assault from 2004 to 2008 and discovered that the number of rapes carried out by civilians had increased seventeen-fold.
The study, based at the Panzi hospital in the eastern city of Bukavu, which specialises in treating victims of rape, revealed that more than half of the victims were "raped by gangs of armed men and more than half of the aggressions took place inside homes".
Fifty-six per cent of the attacks were perpetrated by armed men inside family homes, nearly 16 per cent in fields and nearly 15 per cent in the forest, the report said, citing statements by the 4,311 women questioned.
Carried out for Oxfam by The Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the report spoke of "the stigmatisation that the women are victims of in their families after having been raped and the difficulties they encounter in accessing medical care".
"Fewer than one per cent of the rape victims went to Panzi hospital with their husbands and nine per cent of them were abandoned by their partner," Oxfam said.
Violence escalated in the DRC after many Rwandan Hutus fled to the country following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
Since then, the country has been embroiled in widespread conflicts between its army and Rwandan and Congolese militias.
'Wake-up call'
Around 20,000 UN peacekeepers have been deployed in the nation since 1999 to help stabilise it, but thousands are raped each year as sporadic fighting between the various armed groups continues.
Joseph Kabila, the DRC president, has asked the UN to withdraw its peacekeeping mission by 2011, but some UN officials have said they are reluctant to do so.
Krista Riddley, who directs humanitarian policies for Oxfam, said: "This is a wake-up call at a time when plans are being discussed for UN peacekeepers to leave the country.
"The situation is not secure if a woman can't even sleep safely in her own bed at night.'"
The Oxfam report reveals that many of sexual assault cases were carried out by armed men in the presence of the victim's families, including their children.
Susan Bartels, the chief researcher of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, said: "Sexual violence has become more normal in civilian life.
"The scale of rape over Congo's years of war has made this crime seem more acceptable."
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Leja Bulela Annual Conference Flyer: Miami 2010
This year's conference will be held in Miami, FL at July 2-5, 2010:
Courtyard Miami Downtown
200 SE Second Avenue
Miami, Florida 33131 USA
We hope to see you there!
(click flyer picture for more detail)
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