New Nation News - Darkest Africa |
| Updated 29 September, 2008 |
 Psa 74:20 Have respect unto the covenant: for the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty. |
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Africa: Court hears of Congo 'war crimes'  War crimes judges have begun hearing evidence against a militia commanded by former Democratic Republic of Congo Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba. His Movement for the Liberation of Congo intervened in a power struggle in neighbouring Central African Republic in 2002 and 2003. The International Criminal Court pre-trial hearings involve claims of murder and rape. Mr Bemba denies all charges. One man who said he had been raped in front of his family, then forced to watch his wife and children abused. - (Newsroom) - (Africa) |
| South African Stanley Tirizai Mabona kidnapped and raped a 14-year-old American tourist girl A Johannesburg High Court judge said Stanley Tirizai Mabona, 22, of Pimville, Soweto, had shamed his country - and then sentenced him to an effective 18 years in jail for the multiple rape and robbery of a 14-year-old American girl. The girl was in the country for only three days with her mother and other Americans to teach about the dangers of HIV and Aids when Mabona kidnapped her from a group of friends on June 20 last year. They were returning from a party that night when Mabona and his friend Derrick Mabaso pounced. Mabaso later turned state witness. Mabona, who was carrying an object resembling a firearm, then took the girl to a disused golf course in Pimville where he raped her. Afterwards, he took her to his family's house where he raped her again in the presence of his retarded brother. He was found guilty on May 6 of two rapes, two robberies, kidnapping and illegal possession of an object resembling a firearm. - (Newsroom) - (Africa) |
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How secret camera in Catholic archbishop's 'love nest' silenced vocal Mugabe critic The pictures are as grainy and blurry as you might expect from a tiny camera hidden in the ceiling of what Zimbabwe's government press is calling "the archbishop's love nest". But there is little doubt that the man perched on the edge of the bed is Pius Ncube, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo and furious opponent of Robert Mugabe. Behind the cleric, as he takes his shirt off, is a shape that a worker on Zimbabwe railways, Onesimus Sibanda, says is his wife, Rosemary, a secretary in the cathedral. The video, showing a full frontal shot of a naked man who appears to be the archbishop as he climbs on to a woman whose breasts are also visible, is the basis of a lawsuit against the archbishop that is ostensibly about Mr Sibanda's honour but which the government has seized on - and almost certainly engineered - to silence one of Mr Mugabe's most persistent and effective critics. - (Africa) |
Witness Testifies She Was Raped 4 Times * Rwandans focus on war crimes trial in Montreal MONTREAL -- A woman testified Tuesday she was raped four times by a man on trial in Canada for war crimes during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The witness, known as C17 under a court order protecting her identity, is the first person to testify that she was a victim of violence at the hands of Desire Munyaneza, who is accused of leading attacks on members of the Tutsi ethnic minority at the National University of Rwanda and south of the capital, Kigali. More than a half million Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were slain during the genocide. Munyaneza is the first person charged under Canada's War Crimes Act, which permits the trial of suspects for crimes that occurred abroad. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. The woman told the court Tuesday that after days on the run she was taken with several other women to a local government office where she was kept for days before being turned over to Munyaneza. "He undressed me, made me lie on the ground, and then he had his way," the woman recalled during emotional testimony. "Desire raped me." The woman added that Munyaneza raped several other women and hacked Tutsi men to death. - (Newsroom) - (Africa) |
Liberian lawmaker wanted on child rape charges in US The Child Abuse Unit of the Law Enforcement Division of Long Island in New York has published a bulletin containing full description and detailed personal information of Mr. Kettehkumuehn Earl Murray, a lawmaker representing District number 3 of Montserrado County under the Banner of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) party, alleging he sexually abused a minor in the state of North Carolina, USA in 1996. The bulletin said " Murray was charged with indecent liberties with a child, and attempted rape, and a state arrest warrant was issued on April 15, 1997, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. A federal arrest warrant was issued on April 7, 1999, by the United States District Court, Western District of North Carolina, after Murray was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution". - (Newsroom) - (crime) - (Africa) |
Zimbabwe Leader: Dissent to Be Crushed President Robert Mugabe said Wednesday his government will not tolerate dissent created "under the guise of freedom of expression." Mugabe, in his annual state of the nation address to parliament, said law enforcement agencies will continue to crush dissent in the troubled southern African nation. He said government opponents were bent on creating anarchy and pushing what he has described as a British attempt to topple his government. - (Africa) |
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African wife of a missing British pensioner burned him alive  The 26-year-old African wife of a missing British pensioner is to be charged with murdering him after he was found to have been burned alive. Cops said the charred remains of tycoon William West, 76, were close to the couple’s luxury holiday beach home in Gambia. He vanished on July 3 while on a vacation with wife Kate. She claimed he disappeared after popping into a cigar store on a day trip to neighbouring Senegal. Mrs West was originally from Ghana but lived in Gambia with her Nigerian parents. She married Mr West six years ago — when she was 20 — after they met while he was on holiday in Gambia. Police are holding her in custody, along with a West African man. - (Newsroom) - (crime) - (Black-on-white) - (Burned Alive!) - (UK) |
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South African poletics: Zulu Zuma: Not using condom was mistake  JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- South Africa's former Deputy President Jacob Zuma apologized on Tuesday for having unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman and said he was resuming his duties at the ruling ANC party after his acquittal on rape charges. South Africa has the biggest HIV caseload in the world, with nearly 5 million people infected.
Zuma, an ethnic Zulu, was hit with the rape charge following a separate graft scandal last year which prompted Mbeki to sack him as the country's second-highest official. He faces trial on the corruption case in July.. - (Africa) |
Police search for killer chimps |
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Warlord is sent to international court as first case The International Criminal Court is preparing to receive its first prisoner, a Congolese warlord accused of ordering the killing of nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers last year, according to sources at the court. Thomas Lubanga, the leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), was arrested in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), last March, weeks after the peacekeepers were killed in the lawless Ituri region in the east of the country. |
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South Africa: King's brother jailed for rape of 9-year-old girl, his own niece   Prince Mbuyisa Dlamini, elder brother of King Mswati III of Swaziland and a senior member of the Swazi royal household, has been sent to jail for seven years because he raped a nine year-old girl. In his finding Justice Joe Gumede on Thursday strongly condemned Dlamini's act in the Mbabane magistrate's court. "Those who commit this type of crime have to receive heavy sentences because they really do not deserve to be part of the community. "What you did, has brought shame on your own head and also on the heads of your children.
'Won't mention the royal family' "I will not even dare to mention the royal family," Gumede said.
The victim was Dlamini's niece, his sister's grandchild.
Dlamini caused "pain and suffering when he penetrated her and tore her vagina without any qualms about her rights and dignity, the worst aspect being that she was in no position to defend herself". Ref: King Mswati's Time is Up To many on the outside, King Mswati III is just a curiosity - a youngster with an overcharged libido and the political power to feed it. The world laughs at his quirks and his extravagances. When the Western press reports on his excesses, they blithely refer to him as "Africa's last absolute monarch". Mswati's security forces rounded up pro-democracy activists. Unable to solve a string of petrol bomb attacks on government properties, the Swazi authorities are alleged to have tortured the activists in a bid to extract confessions. |
Rwandan rebel convicted of butchering 9 English-speaking gorilla tourists to death with clubs and machetes  A former Rwandan soldier has been given a 15-year jail term for the murder of eight western "gorilla tourists" and a game warden in a Ugandan park in 1999.
The judge spared Jean Paul Bizimana, 32, the death sentence, saying some of the tourists' home-countries view capital punishment as "abhorrent".
He was among Rwandan rebels who abducted 14 tourists and their guide as they tracked rare mountain gorillas.
The tourists were from the US, the UK and New Zealand. Four Britons as well as two Americans, two New Zealanders and a Ugandan game warden, were bludgeoned to death with axes and machetes in the attack. The victims were Americans Rob Haubner and his wife, Susan Miller, of Portland, Ore.; Rhonda Avis, 27, and Michelle Strathern, 26, from New Zealand; Britons Martin Friend, 24, Steven Robert, 27 and Mark Lindgren, 23, and Joanne Cotton, a driver for the London-based outfitter that organized trips to Africa, and Ugandan guide Ross Wagaba. During the march, eight people were killed with machetes and axes. Susan Miller also was allegedly raped by one of the suspects, the indictment said. - (UK) - (Black-on-White) |
South Africa: Son of UK’s High Commissioner to South Africa accused of rape   A son of former Cabinet minister Paul Boateng has been accused of rape. Benjamin Boateng, 21, has been investigated over claims by an 18-year-old girl in Cape Town, South Africa.
He has not been arrested and strongly protests his innocence. He says the girl consented to sex.
Benjamin’s father — a friend of Prime Minister Tony Blair — has been the UK’s High Commissioner to South Africa since last year.
Mr Boateng — who became Britain’s first black minister after Labour’s 1997 election triumph — is said to be shellshocked by the girl’s claims of a double assault. - (NNN Newsroom) - (Africa) - (UK) |
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UK: Reward offered in sex gang case - Black South African migrant pack rapists on the loose   Detectives investigating a series of rapes in Northampton have issued a reward for information leading to the arrest of the sex attackers. Over the last two weeks there have been three rapes and two attempted abductions which Northamptonshire Police believe could be linked. The attacks have led police to warn women and girls not to go out alone in the town after dark. The offenders are described as black, in their 20s, with very dark skin, about 6ft tall and spoke with South African accents. The latest victim, a 30-year-old woman, was found with head injuries early on Monday morning. She had been hit on the head before being raped. On 1 August attempts were made to abduct a 15-year-old in the early hours of the morning. Less than an hour later an 18-year-old was forced into a car, driven to Duston and raped. After police released details of these attacks an 18-year-old woman reported being raped. - (Svejk) - (UK) |
Darkest Africa: South Africa, Cape Town - Cops ask for help in finding baby killers  Police have remained tight-lipped after the murder of a six-month-old baby in Rondebosch East two days ago. On Thursday they released an identikit of one of the four intruders responsible for the murder that has shocked the community. Jordan-Leigh Norton was stabbed when four intruders gained entry to her Scout Road home, held up her nanny and uncle and ransacked the house of valuables. Baby's murder puzzles cops - (African Crusader) - (black on white) |
Mandela son-in-law seeking to resolve rape charge in Connecticut The son-in-law of former South African president Nelson Mandela, who left Connecticut 12-years ago while facing rape charges, is trying to resolve that case, his attorney said Friday. Isaac Amuah, a former professor at Manchester Community Technical College, was accused of sexually assaulting a 34-year-old student from his algebra class inside Amuah's Manchester apartment. Amuah was charged with first-degree sexual assault and unlawful restraint. He was given permission to travel to South Africa for the holidays in 1993 and never returned. - (crime) |
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Zimbabwe, facing food shortages blamed partly on its large-scale
DAKAR, Senegal (Reuters) -- Senegal has suspended the repatriation of Senegalese illegal migrants from Spain's Canary Islands because it said they were mistreated and lied to by Spanish authorities, a government official said on Thursday.
Repatriation flights were halted a day after the two governments announced the start of an operation to return more than 600 Senegalese migrants from the Canaries, where nearly 9,000 sub-Saharan Africans have come ashore in boats this year. 
The trouble started when police tried to arrest illegal street traders.
The BBC's Anne Mawathe says when one of the vendors tried to escape the police opened fire, infuriating the traders. They rioted and set fire to power transformers, which the police had to put out with piles of earth.
Local television reports that some of demonstrators have serious bullet wounds.
Our correspondent says confrontations between hawkers and the police are not unusual in Nairobi as the traders are not allowed to trade in the central business areas of the capital. 
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (AP) -- Police hunted for chimpanzees that escaped from a Sierra Leone preserve and mauled a group of 
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone - Former Liberian President Charles Taylor pleaded not guilty Monday before an international war crimes tribunal, denying 11 counts of helping destabilize West Africa through killings, sexual slavery and sending children into combat.