Category: APO-OPA

ABUJA, Nigeria, June 3, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — For the second consecutive year, Nigerian philanthropist and business leader Sir Emeka Offor (affectionately known as Sir Emeka) has donated US$1 million to Rotary’s PolioPlus program (http://www.rotary.org), which supports global efforts to eradicate the disease.

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Sir Emeka announced his gift today at the organization’s annual convention, which is taking place this week in Sydney, Australia, and has drawn more than 18,000 Rotarians from 150 countries. Last year’s gift was also announced at Rotary’s convention, held in Lisbon.

The eradication effort is a personal commitment for Sir Emeka, who hails from one of the three countries where wild polio has never been stopped (the others are Afghanistan and Pakistan).

“Polio was common during my childhood in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, Nigeria,” explained Sir Emeka, the Executive Vice Chairman of the Chrome Group, a Nigerian oil and gas conglomerate. “My friends, classmates, and their siblings all fell victim to this terrible disease. As a young man, I vowed I would someday do something significant to end polio in Nigeria.”

Sir Emeka has made good on his promise. This new gift brings his total contributions to Rotary to $3.1 million; however, he has done far more than simply donate money to fight polio. Since last year’s contribution, he has been increasingly active as Rotary’s PolioPlus Ambassador in Nigeria. Sir Emeka works with a team of Rotary leaders to liaise with the Government of Nigeria through the federal and state health systems and primary health centers in local government areas where polio eradication efforts are most needed. They also work with religious and traditional leaders whose support is needed for successful immunization campaigns. Furthermore, two months ago, Sir Emeka opened a PolioPlus Ambassador’s Office at no cost to Rotary in Abuja, Nigeria. This office, which was commissioned by Rotary Trustee Chair Dong Kurn Lee, serves as a hub for Sir Emeka’s PolioPlus ambassadorial activities in Nigeria and supports the work of Rotary’s National PolioPlus Committee.

“Rotary is proud to be working with a business and humanitarian leader like Sir Emeka Offor,” said Past Rotary Vice President John Germ, who leads the organization’s fundraising efforts for polio eradication. “With Sir Emeka’s support, Nigeria has made significant progress and is closer than ever to eliminating polio within its borders. We are confident we will eliminate this disease from the world and ensure no child ever again has to suffer from its crippling effects. ”

Sir Emeka’s support comes at a critical time for global polio eradication efforts. Nigeria in particular has seen tremendous progress in recent years and is closer than ever to ending the disease. In 2013, the country had only 53 cases of polio, a record low for a nation that, as recently as 2012, was home to more than half the world’s cases. However, conflict and insecurity continue to pose challenges to polio eradication. Sir Emeka’s new gift will help Rotary fund critically-needed immunization activities to ensure the disease is stopped for good.

The $1 million gifts from both 2013 and 2014 are eligible for matching funds under the End Polio Now – Make History Today fundraising campaign, carried out in conjunction with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Under the agreement, the Gates Foundation will match 2 for 1 every dollar Rotary commits to polio eradication, up to $35 million per year. Thus, Sir Emeka’s $2 million in support of PolioPlus leverages $6 million toward polio eradication.

Beyond last year’s $1 million gift, Sir Emeka has previously supported Rotary’s polio eradication work through a $250,000 gift to celebrate World Polio Day, and has also generously contributed to Rotary’s maternal and child health, peace and conflict resolution and educational programs. His gifts make him the largest contributor from Africa in Rotary’s 109 year history.

In addition to his support for Rotary, he is the founder of the Sir Emeka Offor Foundation, which focuses on poverty alleviation through literacy and education programs in West Africa’s poorest communities.

Distributed by APO (African Press Organization) on behalf of Rotary International.

Contacts:

Vivian Fiore Vivian.fiore@rotary.org Phone: +1 (847) 866-3234 (US)

About Rotary

Rotary (http://www.rotary.org) brings together a global network of volunteer leaders dedicated to tackling the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges. Rotary connects 1.2 million members of more than 34,000 Rotary clubs in over 200 countries and geographical areas. Their work improves lives at both the local and international levels, from helping families in need in their own communities to working toward a polio-free world. To access broadcast quality video footage and still photos go to: The Newsmarket (http://www.thenewsmarket.com/rotaryinternational).

WASHINGTON, June 3, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
June 2, 2014

Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman will deliver remarks on the U.S. strategy in Somalia on Tuesday, June…

STUTTGART, Germany, June 2, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — With support from regionally aligned forces from 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division out of Fort Riley, Kan., U.S. Army Africa trained more than 4,000 troops in Chad, Guinea, and Malawi in March.

This USARAF training continues to provide different African nations with help in securing their own borders, thereby helping them secure the region, and protecting U.S. interests.

“Second Bde., 1st Inf. Div. did an incredible amount of work in their preparation and training,” said Maj. Lee Torres from USARAF SCD. “They lived in austere environments and worked with our African Partners to improve the level of training and preparation for a UN deployment. They leveraged their experiences and improved bi-lateral relationships with their interaction with the host nations.”

Sgt. Maj. John Dudas from USARAF Operations and Plans concurred.

“The junior noncommissioned officers and Soldiers assigned to the RAF should be recognized for their work during these missions,” Dudas said. “They are the ones who executed the plans and should be given the proper credit. Once they empowered to do the mission, they were confident and competent in their duties.”

USARAF’s mission of protecting and defending national security interests is accomplished by strengthening African land forces. USARAF leveraged relationships with partner nations like the United Kingdom to provide a multi-national approach to training. USARAF partnered with the British Peace Support Training Team in South Africa to train and mentor the Malawi Infantry Battalion.

“By helping Africans help themselves, it means that we don’t have to get involved ourselves. If Africans are solving African problems, then the U.S. government doesn’t have to use the U.S. Army to solve African problems,” said Maj. Albert Conley III, USARAF’s Counter Terrorism Desk Officer for International Military Engagements. “By having a conglomerate of nations in the African Union going into [a particular country] to help fix that nation’s problems, American servicemen won’t have to go into ‘that’ country to help fix that problem,” he said.

Training these troops in Chad, Guinea and Malawi is an example of the impact USARAF’s training is making on the continent to prevent atrocities and provide a stabilizing influence.

“Patrolling, fixed-site defense, and live fire training were central tasks presented to all three countries,” Dudas said. “However, in Malawi, it was one third U.S. and two-thirds British Army who provided the training. We provided the live-fire training and they provided the rest.”

The goal of the recent training of 4,000 troops in Chad, Guinea and Malawi was to assist African Partners in their preparation for United Nations Peace Keeping Operations for which their respective governments have accepted from the United Nations.

VATICAN, Holy See, June 2, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — “The Church in your country has stood fast with her people both before and after independence, now also in the years of overwhelming suffering as millions have left the country in frustration and desperation, as many lives have been lost, so many tears shed”, writes Pope Francis in the address he handed to the prelates of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference this morning, at the end of their “ad limina” visit.

The Holy Father writes about the growth of the Church in the country, comparing it to a young, strong tree, full of life and bearing fruit, and mentions that “generations of Zimbabweans – including many political leaders – have been educated in Church schools. He then goes on to praise the prelates for the exercise of their prophetic ministry, in which they have given voice to all the struggling people of their country, especially to the downtrodden and refugees. He refers to their 2007 Pastoral Letter, “God Hears the Cry of the Oppressed”, which describes “the origins of the spiritual and moral crisis, stretching from colonial times through the present moment”, and how the “structures of sin” embedded in the social order “are ultimately rooted in personal sin, requiring of all a profound personal conversion”.

“Christians find themselves on all sides of the conflict in Zimbabwe, and so I urge you to guide everyone with great tenderness towards unity and healing”, he continues. “This is a people both black and white, some richer but most exceedingly poorer, of numerous tribes; the followers of Christ belong to all political parties, some in positions of authority, many not. But together as the one pilgrim People of God, they need conversion and healing, in order to become ever more fully ‘one Body, one Spirit in Christ’. Through preaching and works of the apostolate, may your local Churches demonstrate that ‘reconciliation is not an isolated act but a lengthy process by which all parties are re-established in love – a love that heals through the working of God’s word’”.

“While Zimbabweans’ faithfulness is already a balm on some of these national wounds, I know that many people have reached their human limit, and do not know where to turn. In the midst of all this, I ask you to encourage the faithful never to lose sight of the ways in which God is hearing their supplications and answering their prayers, for, as you have written, he cannot fail to hear the cry of the poor. In this Easter season, as the Church throughout the world celebrates the victory of Christ over the power of sin and death, the Gospel of the resurrection which you are entrusted to proclaim must be clearly preached and lived in Zimbabwe. Let us never forget the lesson of the resurrection: ‘on razed land life breaks through, stubbornly yet invincibly. However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads”. Pope Francis concluded by quoting from his Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: “Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it rises transformed through the storms of history”.

SINGAPORE, Singapore, June 2, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Senior Minister of State (SMS) for Foreign Affairs and Home Affairs Masagos Zulkifli will visit the Republic of Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania from 3 to 9 June 2014. SM…

ROME, Italy, June 2, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Late rains and erratic weather patterns in Somalia have raised concerns over a worsening of the food security situation, as food stocks from the last, poor harvest become depleted and prices continue to rise sharply, a new FAO report says.

The situation is being exacerbated by conflict and inadequate funding for priority actions designed to address the needs of hard-hit communities, according to FAO’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) report. This is in line with an earlier report from FAO Somalia’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU).

GIEWS presents a worrisome picture as the lean season progresses and the recent escalation in conflict in the southern and central regions continues to have a disruptive impact on markets.

“The people of Somalia cannot afford to wait to see how the next harvest turns out. They need urgent support to improve their food security and maintain their livelihoods, most of which depend directly on agriculture,” said Luca Alinovi, acting Head of FAO’s Somalia Office and FAO Representative in Kenya.

FAO, in coordination with partners in the Food Security Cluster (FSC) addressing the humanitarian situation, is urgently seeking $18 million to scale up rapid interventions (90-day priority needs response) to prevent and mitigate the further deterioration of the food security situation.

A delayed start to the 2014 gu season (April-June) has added to concerns already fuelled by the weak January harvest of the 2013/2014 deyr cereal crops, cultivated during the secondary, late-year rainy period. Harvests were well below average in the central and southern areas of the country, following weeks of late and erratic rainfall, as well as flooding around rivers.

Lower stocks, coupled with the market and trade disruptions, led to double-digit increases in wholesale prices of maize and sorghum in some areas.

In the main producing areas of the south, April retail prices of maize and sorghum were as much as 60 and 80 percent higher, respectively, than one year earlier, also due to the scaling back of humanitarian assistance operations.

The gu rains resumed in early May, but rains will need to continue through the end of June in order to prevent further deterioration of the food security situation in Somalia.

Conditions are expected to improve slightly in August and September when the harvest is ready for consumption, but the positive impact is likely to be moderate given the unfavourable prospects of the current season.

The number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Somalia is currently estimated at about 860 000, including over 200 000 malnourished children under five years of age.

Urgent action needed

The urgent activities proposed by FAO are aimed at meeting the most vulnerable Somali communities’ immediate needs and making them more resilient to droughts and other shocks:

• temporary employment creation through FAO’s Cash-for-Work programme for the rehabilitation of water catchments and irrigation canals for an estimated 13000 households (estimated cost: $6.3million);

• distribution of adapted crop and fodder production inputs (seed and vouchers for fertilizer and tractor hours) for the coming Deyr 2014 season for an estimated 15000 households ($5.5million);

• livestock restocking for 4000 destitute pastoralists ($3.2million);

• pest and disease prevention and control (mass vaccination and treatment against sheep and goat pox (SGP), peste des petits ruminants (PPR) and contagious caprine pleuropneumonia (CCPP) in affected areas ($3million).

These interventions, planned for the upcoming three months, will be in the priority target areas of Hiran, Middle Shabelle, Lower Shabelle, Galgadug and Bakol Regions in South Central Somalia and Bari region in the Northeast.

The overall FAO programme in Somalia consists of three pillars, namely 1) resilience; 2) institutional capacity development and policy support; and 3) information for action, which includes early warning systems for food security, nutrition, drought and floods. The total planned value of the FAO Somalia Programme (2014-2017) is $566 million, but as of today, only 14 percent of the planned figures is funded.

GENEVA, Switzerland, June 2, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — African Union peacekeepers from the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) have been implicated in the enforced disappearance on March 24, 2014, of at least 11 people in the Central African Republic, Human Rights Watch said today.

Approximately 20 soldiers from the African Union peacekeeping force known as MISCA took the group of 11, including four women, from the home of a local militia leader in Boali, a town 80 kilometers north of the capital, Bangui, witnesses told Human Rights Watch.

The peacekeepers detained the men and women after the militia group known as the anti-balaka, who are predominantly Christian and animist rebel fighters, on March 24 killed one Congolese peacekeeper and wounded four others. Those detained have not been heard from since, although their families have inquired about their whereabouts at the MISCA base and local police stations.

“The African Union needs to say what happened to the group that was detained and taken by the Congolese peacekeepers,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch. “The peacekeepers are there to protect the civilian population, not to abuse them.”

Human Rights Watch called for an independent and impartial international investigation into the incident and the immediate suspension from peacekeeping duties of the implicated troops.

Human Rights Watch conducted a detailed investigation into the incident and spoke with five witnesses. Many other local residents, including officials and activists, told Human Rights Watch that they were too afraid to investigate or even discuss the incident because the Congolese MISCA troops have been known for intimidation and violence. Confirming this hostile atmosphere, while Human Rights Watch was investigating the March incident on May 25, Congolese MISCA soldiers severely beat a local police officer at a checkpoint following a dispute, and broke a beer bottle over his head, injuring him.

Contacted by Human Rights Watch, MISCA’s leadership announced that an investigation into the incident had been ordered and would be conducted by the human rights section of MISCA. Human Rights Watch is cooperating fully with the investigators.

The anti-balaka are largely Christian and animist fighters engaged in a battle against predominantly Muslim Seleka forces, which overthrew the previous government in a March 2013 military campaign. Both groups have committed massive human rights violations against the local population over the past year. African Union and French peacekeepers were deployed to help stabilize the volatile situation and protect civilians.

This is not the first incident of abuse by Congolese forces Human Rights Watch has investigated. Human Rights Watch has gathered evidence that, in December 2013, Congolese troops in the town of Bossangoa tortured to death two anti-balaka leaders following the brutal lynching of a Congolese MISCA soldier the same day.

An enforced disappearance occurs when someone is deprived of their liberty by state agents, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person. Under customary international law, there is an absolute prohibition on enforced disappearances, and they may be prosecuted as a crime by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Although a discrete crime in and of itself, the act of enforced disappearance also simultaneously violates multiple human rights protections, including the prohibition of torture and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention.

“Enforced disappearances, torture, and extrajudicial killings of civilians are serious human rights crimes and make a mockery of MISCA’s mandate,” Bouckaert said. “The African Union needs to investigate and address these crimes immediately. At stake is nothing less than the reputation and legitimacy of the peacekeeping force in a country that desperately needs protection.”

KINSHASA, Dem. Rep. of Congo (DRC) June 2, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — Special Envoy of the Secretary-General to the Great Lakes Region Mary Robinson, U.S. Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region and the Democratic Republic of the Congo…

KHARTOUM, Sudan, June 2, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan has expressed alarm and concern that the marked increase in humanitarian needs in the country is not being met with a sufficient level of

aid, putting at risk hundreds of thousands of affected people throughout Sudan. He confirmed that so far the UN and its partners have only received 33% of the US$ 995 million needed in 2014 to meet the country’s humanitarian needs.

Earlier in 2014, in response to Sudan’s growing humanitarian needs, the Under‐Secretary‐General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ms. Valerie Amos, who oversees the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), authorized an initial amount of US$ 20 million to support lifesaving projects in Sudan and later released an additional US$ 6.5 million from the CERF to support the needs of the South Sudanese citizens seeking shelter in Sudan.

“While there seems to be less international humanitarian funding available for Sudan due to emerging crises elsewhere in the region and other reasons, Sudan’s humanitarian needs are increasing. In the first quarter of 2014 alone, close to 300,000 people in Darfur were displaced from their homes by violence.

These people join the 2 million people in Darfur who are already living in camps and depend on international humanitarian aid to survive. The conflict in South Sudan has also driven thousands of civilians, some 80,000 in total so far, to take refuge in Sudan. This figure will likely grow, if instability continues,” said Ali Al-Za’tari, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan.

The CERF funding is provided in response to underfunded and/or rapid response situations both of which afflict Sudan but is not an alternative to sustainable international funding. The CERF funding augments the Sudan Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF), which has been operating in Sudan since 2006 and has been witnessing a steady decline in the past three years from US$79.9 million in 2012 and US$56.5 million in 2013 to US$39.4million in 2014. Both funds support Sudan’s UN and partner’s humanitarian strategic response plan which remains strikingly underfunded.

“Both the CERF and the CHF help humanitarian organizations receive funding quickly when it is needed to save lives. They help humanitarian organizations improve access to primary healthcare and malnutrition, and provide shelter and the clearance of unexploded ordnance, but this is not an alternative to sustainable international funding” said Ali Al-Za’tari.

Sudan has qualified in previous years for both underfunded and rapid response CERF funding and had received in 2013 the highest CERF allocation of US$ 47.5 million among eligible countries due to the crises it witnessed.

“We are grateful for the CERF and the CHF. We are also grateful to the Member States and all partners that contribute to them. The CERF and CHF funding alone, however, cannot be expected to meet all of Sudan’s mounting humanitarian needs. The donor community and the government of Sudan are therefore called upon to step up its support to the Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan directly and through and the Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF), which together with the CERF are key to saving lives and protecting affected people,” Al-Za’tari said.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, June 2, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ — The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, H.E. Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma congratulates the people of Malawi for hosting peaceful and successful elections and reinforcing …