Djibouti Begins U.S.$600 Million Rail to Link Ethiopia, South Sudan

by Nesru Jemal
20 September 2013

The Djibouti Government on Thursday said that its rail project under construction would facilitate business activities and improve revenue for countries in the East African region.

The rail project is being undertaken by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) at a cost of 600 million dollars and financed by the China EXIM Bank.

Djibouti's Transport Minister, Moussa Ahmed, had on Tuesday inaugurated a committee to supervise the project expected to be completed within two years.

Ahmed, who is attending the Joint Rail Commission meeting in Addis Ababa told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday that the railway line "will facilitate access to different markets in the region and will also link Djibouti to South Sudan through Ethiopia."

Meanwhile Ethiopia's Transport Minister, Workneh Gebeyehu said that the new railway line would change the socio-economic conditions of the two countries as well as generate jobs for youths.

Workneh appealed to the project handlers and the government of Djibouti to ensure its completion within the time frame for the speedy realization of its economic benefits to the countries.

The Ethiopian Government is also undertaking a similar project handled by the Chinese company linking Addis Ababa with Djibouti. The Ethiopian project is also expected to be completed within the next two years, the Ethiopian transport minister said.

Source: allAfrica.
Link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201309201162.html.

Brunei's sultan announces strict Islamic penalties

October 23, 2013

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei (AP) — A new criminal law that could include penalties like amputation for theft and stoning for adultery will be enforced for Muslims in Brunei in six months, its ruling sultan announced.

Brunei's Shariah Islamic court had previously handled mainly family-related disputes. The sultan has been hoping to implement the new law for years to bolster the influence of Islam in the tiny, oil-rich monarchy on Southeast Asia's Borneo island.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah said the Shariah Penal Code should be regarded as a form of "special guidance" from God and would be "part of the great history" of Brunei. "By the grace of Allah, with the coming into effect of this legislation, our duty to Allah is therefore being fulfilled," the sultan said at a legal conference in Brunei's capital.

The law would apply only to Muslims, who comprise about two-thirds of the population of nearly 420,000 people. The others follow mainly Buddhist, Christianity and indigenous beliefs. Brunei's Mufti Awang Abdul Aziz, the country's top Islamic scholar, told Tuesday's conference that the Shariah law "guarantees justice for everyone and safeguards their well-being."

"Let us not just look at the hand-cutting or the stoning or the caning per se, but let us also look at the conditions governing them," Awang said. "It is not indiscriminate cutting or stoning or caning. There are conditions and there are methods that are just and fair."

Under secular laws, Brunei already prescribes caning as a penalty for crimes including immigration offenses, for which convicts can be flogged with a rattan cane. Awang said there should be no concerns that foreign travelers might end up avoiding Brunei after the law is implemented.

"Please listen to our answer. Sir, do all potential tourists to Brunei plan to steal? If they do not, then what do they need to fear," he said. "Believe me when I say that with our Shariah criminal law, everyone, including tourists, will receive proper protection."

The implementation of Shariah criminal law is not expected to face vocal opposition in Brunei, which has long been known for conservative policies such as banning the public sale of liquor. Sultan Hassanal, who has reigned since 1967, is Brunei's head of state with full executive authority. Public criticism of his policies is extremely rare in Brunei.

Associated Press writer Sean Yoong in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.

Bosnia begins holding 1st postwar census

October 01, 2013

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Bosnia began holding its first post-war census Tuesday, a sensitive exercise expected to reveal the effects of ethnic expulsions during the 1990s conflict and also impact the country's power-sharing system.

Over the next two weeks, officials will be knocking on people's doors and asking them to answer around 70 questions. Preliminary results are expected in January. In the last census in 1991, Bosnia had 4.4 million people, of whom 43.5 percent were Muslims, 31.2 percent Serbs and 17.4 percent Croats and a small percentage of others. After separating from the then-Yugoslavia in 1992, the group known as Muslims were labeled Bosniaks.

The various groups all lived mixed throughout Bosnia but ethnic expulsions and killings during the 1992-95 war created ethnic exclusive territories, divided the country into almost autonomous ethnic regions and sent an estimated million people permanently abroad.

The country's power-sharing system, imposed by a 1995 peace agreement, gives each of the three main ethnic groups in Bosnia a share of power based on the size of their populations according to the 1991 census.

Changes in the size of the ethnic groups in the past two decades could influence their share of power in the future.

Bangladesh sentences 2 men to death for war crimes

November 03, 2013

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — A special war crimes tribunal in Bangladesh on Sunday sentenced to death two Bangladeshis now living abroad for crimes against humanity during the country's independence war against Pakistan in 1971.

Chowdhury Mueen Uddin, who lives in Britain, and Ashrafuzzaman Khan, who lives in New York, were found guilty by a three-judge panel of abducting and murdering 18 people in December 1971, including nine university teachers, six journalists and three physicians.

The two were tried in absentia after they refused to return to Bangladesh to face trial. Bangladesh says Pakistani soldiers and local collaborators killed 3 million people and raped 200,000 women during the 1971 war.

The two men were members of Jamaat-e-Islami during the war. The Islamic party is an ally of the country's main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, headed by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, a rival of current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Hasina formed the special tribunal in 2010 to try war crimes suspects. A Supreme Court ruling last month that upheld the conviction and death sentence of a senior member of Jamaat-e-Islami, Abdul Quader Mollah, triggered deadly clashes and a nationwide general strike.

Thousands protest elections in Azerbaijan

October 12, 2013

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Thousands gathered in the capital of Azerbaijan on Saturday to protest the re-election of President Ilham Aliyev in a vote widely criticized by international election monitors.

The protesters in Baku demanded that the election be nullified and that Aliyev resign. Aliyev succeeded his father to the presidency of this small oil-rich nation in 2003, extending decades of dynastic rule.

Leading the march was Jamil Hasanli, the historian who ran as the main opposition candidate but snagged less than 6 percent of the vote to Aliyev's 85 percent. Police estimated that there were 1,500 at the rally, whereas the opposition put the number between 8,000 and 10,000. The protest was significantly smaller than in previous presidential elections in 2003 and 2008, when at least three to four times as many people gathered to contest the results.

Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called the Wednesday vote flawed. The day before, the Central Election Commission released the results of the vote on a smartphone app, showing Aliyev comfortably in the lead.

"This government must go and it will go," said Hasanli. He criticized Azerbaijani election officials, saying "they will all receive their punishment." Booming oil prices and a growing economy have allowed Aliyev to cement his control over the country, particularly after the tumultuous collapse of the Soviet Union, when Azerbaijan plunged into war with neighboring Armenia.

Years of relentless government crackdowns and bitter infighting has also weakened the opposition, which found it hard to mount a challenge to Aliyev in the latest vote. Hasanli was forwarded as a candidate at the last minute after the opposition's first choice was unable to register because he had Russian citizenship, and many observers said his campaign was poorly planned and lacked energy.

Azerbaijan announces election winner, before vote

October 10, 2013

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Something funny happened the day before Azerbaijan's presidential election: The election commission announced the winner.

On Tuesday, a day before the voting began, the smartphone app of the Central Election Commission released results showing President Ilham Aliyev, whose family has been at the helm of the Caspian Sea nation for four decades, winning 73 percent of the vote.

On Wednesday, the commission said Aliyev had won 85 percent of the vote. His closest contender, Jamil Hasanli, trailed with 6 percent, it said. The commission apologized for the early result on Thursday, saying it was only a test at one polling station conducted by the software developer. It expressed "deep regret" for the "misunderstanding."

International monitors said Thursday that the vote that kept the dynasty in power was marred by violations.

Early results show Azerbaijan president keeps seat

October 09, 2013

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — Azerbaijan's president won a third five-year term by a landslide in Wednesday's election, according to preliminary results, extending decades of dynastic rule in the oil-rich Caspian Sea nation allied with the West.

An opposition challenger quickly cried foul, protesting what he described as widespread vote-rigging and questioning the legitimacy of the vote. With 72 percent of precincts counted, Ilham Aliyev was leading the field with nearly 85 percent of the vote, said the Central Election Commission chief, Mazahir Panahov.

The main opposition candidate, historian Jamil Hasanli, had about 5 percent of the vote, followed by eight other contenders. Full preliminary results are expected Thursday. Exit polls have earlier shown similar figures, prompting Aliyev's campaign chief, Ali Ahmadov, to quickly claim victory. "Ilham Aliyev has unconditional support of the population," Ahmadov said.

In a statement after the election, Hasanli condemned what he called "total falsification and rude trampling on the people's rights." "Already now the legitimacy of the election can be called into question," he said.

Earlier in the day, Hasanli said that his supporters registered cases of ballot stuffing at a number of polling stations. "Regrettably, many government officials are involved in falsification, becoming accomplices of a grave crime," he said.

The Central Election Commission chief insisted that the vote was clean. International election monitors are to issue their report Thursday. International rights groups have accused Aliyev of pressuring and harassing government critics, leaving them little chance to campaign. The government, however, loosened restrictions ahead of the ballot, withdrawing its longtime ban on rallies in the center of the capital.

Aliyev has ruled the ex-Soviet nation of 9 million since 2003, succeeding his father, Geidar Aliyev, who had been at the helm for most of the previous three decades, first as Azerbaijan's Communist Party boss during the Soviet times, then as its president.

The younger Aliyev has presented himself as a guarantor of stability, an image with broad appeal in a nation where painful memories are still fresh of the years of turmoil that accompanied the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

A six-year war with neighboring Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh left ethnic Armenian forces in control of Nagorno-Karabakh and neighboring areas in Azerbaijan and turned 1 million Azerbaijanis into refugees.

The Azerbaijani leader has shown little tolerance for dissent and extended his rule through elections criticized by Western observers. At the same time, he has firmly allied the Shiite Muslim nation with the West, helping to secure its energy and security interests and to offset Russia's influence in the strategic Caspian region.

Under Aliyev, Azerbaijan has basked in oil riches that have more than tripled its GDP and helped bolster his popularity. The State Oil Fund that accumulates oil revenues held $34 billion at the start of the year.

After hearing the exit poll data, hundreds of Aliyev's supporters carrying national flags and pictures of the president took to the streets, some dancing to popular music. Motorists and bikers drove around the city, waving Azerbaijani flags and honking horns.

"We all are very happy and think that Azerbaijan in the coming five years will continue to prosper and will become the best country in the world," Baku resident Samira Kulieva said.

__ Sophiko Megrelidze contributed to this report.