Farmers' bank due next financial year

The government has announced that the long awaited Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) to empower farmers in the country will commence operations in the next financial year.

Winding up her budget estimates on Wednesday, Finance minister Saada Mkuya said the bank will commence its operations during the fiscal year 2014/15 after finalizing all prerequisite preparations and at which point the ministry is set to obtain the operation license and employ workers for the bank.

According to her, the ministry has already selected and assigned the bank’s board of directors, setting ground for operations to commence.

The board will be responsible for making policies, regulations, prepare business plan and oversee the activities of the bank so that the government’s plan to increase agricultural production is achieved.

“Through the bank, the government expects to see farmers have more access to capital loans both short and long term periods that will boost their agricultural activities and improve their household incomes as well as the country’s revenue in general,” Mkuya explained.

She said the government projects a 10 per cent increase in national income from the expected annual growth of the agricultural sector as a result of increased funding to farmers.

She also said the nation can expect increased employment, increased agricultural commodities for trade, decrease in rural-urban migration and availability of more agricultural food products across the country.

The government is the only shareholder of the bank, and is responsible to offer the seed capital of 100bn/- and keep on allocating 100bn/- in its annual budget to ensure the bank’s start-up capital reaches 800bn/- ($500 million).

Explaining, the ministry’s permanent secretary, Servacius Likwelile said formation of the bank is the result of implementing the resolutions reached in the 2012 cabinet of minister’s meeting that was chaired by President Jakaya Kikwete.

To put to effect the resolution, the Finance ministry formed a Task Force to oversee the formation of the decided TADB, appointed Steering Committee comprised of permanent secretaries from President Office-Planning Commission, Prime Minister’s office, Attorney General, Finance ministry, ministry of Livestock Development and Fisheries, ministry of Industry and Trade, Bank of Tanzania Governor and executive director from Tanzania investment Bank (TIB) and formation of Nomination Committee. 

Good news: Dengue fever cases drop in Dar

New cases of dengue fever reported in Dar es Salaam hospitals have dropped, according to the latest reports released yesterday.

According to the reports, some of the factors that have greatly contributed to the decrease in the number of patients are destruction of mosquito breeding areas, cleaning of the environment, spraying of passenger buses and the coming to an end of the rain season.

Speaking yesterday in separate interviews, Mwananyamala Regional Hospital chief medical officer Dr Faustine Ngonyani said that since the dengue fever was first reported the hospital has received and diagnosed a total of 308 patients whereby 135 among them were found to be positive.

Generally, not less than five patients were admitted every day, he said.
“We have not received new cases for the past two days. This is an indication that people have adhered to protection measures including cleaning their surroundings. Thanks to the media for the job well done in educating the society,” he said.

Chief Medical Officer of Temeke Regional Hospital Dr Joyce Msumba said the number of new cases has dropped, saying that the hospital used to admit up to 20 patients a day but now they have only three patients.On Wednesday and yesterday the hospital received eight patients but only four were admitted and the rest were treated and discharged.

According to Dr Msumba since the fever broke out, a total of 163 were found to be positive.

“Dengue fever is about to disappear because the rains have ended and people are out to clean the environment,” Dr Msumba said.

At Amana Regional Hospital only one patient was admitted. The Chief Medical Officer, Andrew Method called on Dar es Salaam residents to continue cleaning the environment so as to destroy the mosquito breeding areas.

He advised the residents to rush to hospital whenever they suspect dengue fever symptoms.

For his part, Health and Social Welfare ministry spokesperson Nsachris Mwamwaja said the government will continue to educate the public through the media on how they can protect themselves against the disease.

According to Mwamaja no dengue fever cases have been reported in other regions save in Mbeya where only one person was diagnosed positive with the viral disease. He said the patient was treated and discharged.

Dengue fever was first recorded in the country in 2010 whereby about 40 people were diagnosed with the disease.

In mid-2013, 172 people were diagnosed with the disease, while more than 400 people have been diagnosed with the disease since it was again reported in Dar es Salaam in early February this year.

Last month the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) identified areas to conduct research on the viral disease in each district, as the government allocated 500m/- in an effort to combat the disease.

To ensure the disease doesn’t spread to other regions, the Tanzania Bus Owners Association (TABOA) last month sprayed over 500 passenger upcountry bound buses.

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

Meet the Hacker Who Stole $100 Million

The U.S. Department of Justice began dismantling the Cryptolocker and Gameover Zeus botnets this week, freeing up to 1 million computers from malware controlled by a legendary Russian hacker “Slavik,” real name Evgeniy Mikhailovitch Bogachev.

You can read the DOJ’s press release here. Bogachev has been charged in a 14-count indictment with conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.

But USA Today has an enlightening story on the scale of Slavik’s operations: His botnets took up to $100 million from their victims. Cryptolocker, for instance, would lock down a users’ files and render them inaccessible unless the owner paid a ransom fee. Gameover Zeus tempted users to click on an email link. That link would then surreptitiously install a keylogger on the machine, which Slavik would allegedly use to figure out your bank account numbers and passwords. In one operation, Slavik launched a denial-of-service attack (a massive number of fake traffic requests from his botnet) at PNC Bank. While PNC was scrambling to defend its web sites from the attack, Slavik removed $198,000 from a single account, belonging to a plastics company in Pennsylvania.

The most frustrating part of all is that Slavik remains free, USA Today notes:

Bogachev, 30, who lives luxuriously in Anapa, Russia, a beautiful seaside resort town of 60,000 on the northern coast of the Black Sea, and often sails his yacht to various Black Sea ports, remains a fugitive.

Here’s the FBI’s wanted poster for him:

Qatar World Cup: $5m corruption claim

Fifa is facing fresh allegations of corruption over its controversial decision to award the 2022 World Cup to Qatar.

The Sunday Times (external) has obtained millions 

of secret documents - emails, letters and bank transfers - which it alleges are proof that the disgraced Qatari football official Mohamed Bin Hammam made payments totalling $5m to football officials in return for their support for the Qatar bid.

Qatar 2022 and Bin Hammam have always strenuously denied the former Fifa vice-president actively lobbied on their behalf in the run-up to the vote in December 2010.

But, according to emails obtained by the Sunday Times and seen by the BBC, it is now clear that Bin Hammam, 65, was lobbying on his country's behalf at least a year before the decision.

The documents also show how Bin Hammam was making payments direct to football officials in Africa to allegedly buy their support for Qatar in the contest.

Qatar strongly deny any wrongdoing and insist that Bin Hammam never had any official role supporting the bid and always acted independently from the Qatar 2022 campaign.

When approached by the Sunday Times to respond to their claims, Bin Hammam's son Hamad Al Abdulla declined to comment on his behalf. Although the vast majority of the officials did not have a vote, the Sunday Times alleges Bin Hammam's strategy was to win a groundswell of support for the Qatari bid which would then influence the four African Fifa executive committee members who were able to take part in the election.

The Sunday Times also alleges that it has documents which prove Bin Hammam paid 305,000 Euros (£250,000) to cover the legal expenses of another former Fifa executive committee member from Oceania, Reynald Temarii. Temarii, from Tahiti, was unable to vote in the contest as he had already been suspended by Fifa after he was caught out by a Sunday Times sting asking bogus American bid officials for money in return for his support.

But the paper now alleges that Bin Hammam provided him with financial assistance to allow him to appeal against the Fifa suspension, delaying his removal from the executive committee and blocking his deputy David Chung from voting in the 2022 election.

The paper claims that had Chung been allowed to vote he would have supported Qatar's rivals Australia. Instead there was no representative from Oceania allowed to vote, a decision which may have influenced the outcome in Qatar's favour. The paper also makes fresh allegations about the relationship between Bin Hammam and his disgraced Fifa ally Jack Warner, from Trinidad.

Although Warner was forced to resign as a Fifa vice-president in 2011, after it was proved he helped Bin Hammam bribe Caribbean football officials in return for their support in his bid to oust the long-standing Fifa president Sepp Blatter, the paper says it has evidence which shows more than $1.6m was paid by Bin Hammam to Warner, including $450,000 in the period before the vote.

The new allegations will place Fifa under fresh pressure to re-run the vote for the 2022 World Cup, which was held in conjunction with the vote for the 2018 tournament, in which England were eliminated in the first round with just two votes.

Fifa's chief investigator Michael Garcia is already conducting a long-running inquiry into allegations of corruption and wrongdoing during the 2018/22 decisions. He is due to meet senior officials from the Qatar 2022 organising committee in Oman on Monday.

But that meeting may now have to be postponed in light of the Sunday Times revelations which have raised important new questions about the link between Bin Hammam and the successful Qatari World Cup campaign.

I wish my daughter had been killed too, says mother of 'untouchable' India gang-rape victim

As outrage grows in India over the gang rape and murder of two Dalit teenagers found hanging from a tree, the mother of a 14-year-old “untouchable” who was kidnapped and raped earlier this year has said she wishes her daughter had been killed too.

India’s new government on Friday said it was planning to set up a special crisis cell to ensure justice for victims of sex attacks and two police officers were sacked in the wake of the rape and murder of the teenagers that has revived nationwide anger over the frequency and brutality of attacks.

In a further shocking example of how women from India’s “untouchable” caste are easy targets for rapists – and rarely get justice – The Daily Telegraph spoke to a mother who said she wished her raped daughter had died, such is the stigma surrounding the issue in her caste.

Brimti Ram, 40, had been living in a form of slavery with her Dalit family in Bagana village, around 100 miles from the capital Delhi, when her daughter and three friends were seized by five relatives and neighbours of their feudal landlord.

They later revealed that had been drugged and raped throughout the night.

She, her husband Lila Ram and their five children farm 20 acres of rice and barley fields – without pay – in a futile attempt to service a £7,000 generational debt that they can never pay off.

“It’s not really a loan but something to control us,” Lila Ram said yesterday.

Many of their fellow villagers live under the same bonded conditions, which are illegal but common in India. Rapes and sexual assaults of Dalits are common but often unreported and violence is frequent.

Fifteen “untouchable” boys have been murdered in the village in the last thirty years, his community leader Virender Singh Bagodia said on Friday. The community is treated “a notch above how people treat their animals”, he said.

Brimti Ram said they have been so shamed by their daughter’s rape that neither she nor her 16-year-old sister will ever be able to find a husband. She had heard of the murders of the two Dalit girls in Badaun in Uttar Pradesh and said she could understand the pain of their families, but she wishes her daughter had been killed too.

“Rape is loss of our reputation, livelihood, honour and the end of our future,” she said. “If my daughter doesn’t get married and suffers her entire life, wouldn’t it have been better for her that she had been killed by those beasts?”

Her family is one of more than eighty who fled their village amid death threats from the upper caste Hindus in their village who had already banned them from sending their children to school, visiting the temple, or buying food from their shops. They are now living on a pavement in central Delhi and are too afraid to return to their homes.

“My daughter was a cheerful girl before but now she’s just silent”, she added.

She was speaking after aides to India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, demanded a report on the gang-rape and murder of two 14 and 15 year old “untouchable” cousins who were found hanging from a mango tree in Katra village, near Badaun.

The unnamed girls, aged 14 and 15, were, just like the girls in Bagana, going to the lavatory in a nearby field when they were grabbed by higher caste men – from the local Yadav peasant farmer community.

They were last seen by an uncle as they were being led away but when he challenged the men they threatened him with a gun.

The father of one of the girls yesterday said the police had “refused to look for my girl” and that when he confronted one of the accused at his home, he admitted abducting the girls but refused to release them. They were found hanging from a mango tree the following morning. The father said the girls would still have been alive if the police had acted immediately.

Police in Uttar Pradesh said yesterday that three people, including a police constable, had been arrested in connection with the sex attack, while they were still searching for two further suspects. A “thorough investigation” is under way, police said, Mukul Goel, a senior police officer, said it had still not been determined whether the victims had committed suicide or been strung up as a way of silencing them after they were raped.

Akhilesh Yadav, the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, on Friday snapped at a reporter when asked about the rising number of rape cases in his state: “You are safe, why are you bothered?”

Campaigners said the two separate cases highlight the high level of sexual violence suffered by its low caste and “untouchable” women. Many rapes of Dalits go unreported, campaigners said, citing official figures which show there were 1576 “untouchable” victims among the 24,923 women raped in India in 2012. There are 200 million Dalits in India – one sixth of its population.

The figures also highlight how upper caste police officers and political leaders often side with the higher caste accused, campaigners said. The higher caste Hindu Jats and Yadavs accused of the Bagana gang rapes and the mango tree murders are among northern India’s most powerful groups. Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose party controls the government in Uttar Pradesh recently questioned whether boys who “make mistakes” should be hanged for rapes where the victims die. The Jats in Haryana were one of the most extensively courted groups in the Indian general election campaign.

Brinda Karat, the veteran women’s rights campaigner and Communist leader, said it was not uncommon today in India for Dalits to live in conditions of slavery and that rape and sexual violence was a regular feature of it.

Many rapes and sexual assaults of poor Dalit girls happen when they go to relieve themselves in fields, while many upper caste young men believe they have “first choice” rights over any Dalit girl they prefer.

As more Dalit children attend school, forbidden mixed caste friendships and romances have developed which have led to “honour killings”.

“Love has become the new battlefield where caste supremacy is being played out in India. It’s an indication of change and assertion by young Dalits”, she said. It also shows that “India remains a land where the worst kind of caste discrimination and violence still exists”.

Sudanese woman Meriam Ibrahim sentenced to death for apostasy 'to be freed'

Sudan appeared to be bowing to international pressure on Saturday night to free a woman sentenced to death for apostasy. A foreign ministry spokesman said that Meriam Ibrahim would be released and not face further charges.

But lawyers for 27-year-old Ms Ibrahim expressed scepticism that she would be freed so quickly.

“It’s a statement to silence the international media,” said Elshareef Ali Mohammed. “This is what the government does. We will not believe that she is being freed until she walks out of the prison."

He said he had even heard reports that the spokesman was in the UK on medical leave when he told the BBC she would soon be freed.

“If they were to release her, the announcement would come from the appeal court, and not from the ministry of foreign affairs. But at least it shows our campaign to free Meriam is rattling them. We must keep up the pressure.”

The sentence, which was first reported in The Telegraph on the day that Judge Abbas Khalifa handed down his ruling, caused anger which has mushroomed into a global campaign to free her. In Sudan, abandoning Islam is a crime punishable by death.

The mother of two, whose husband Daniel Wani has dual American-Sudanese citizenship, insists that she was raised as a Christian. She says her Muslim father abandoned the family when she was a child.

Mark Simmonds, the Foreign Office’s Africa minister, said on Saturday that Britain was “putting intense pressure on the Sudanese government” to ensure her release.

“Hopefully the international outrage will push the Sudanese authorities into a situation where they feel they have to release Meriam,” he said.

David Cameron has added his voice to that of former US president Bill Clinton, the United Nations and a series of American senators in condemning the sentence.

“The way she is being treated is barbaric and has no place in today’s world,” the Prime Minister said. “Religious freedom is an absolute, fundamental human right.

“I urge the government of Sudan to overturn the sentence and immediately provide appropriate support and medical care for her and her children.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Justin Welby, backed a statement from the Christian Muslim Forum in Britain calling for the sentence to be rescinded. “I wholeheartedly endorse this call for the death sentence against Meriam to be dropped,” he said.

And on Twitter, the campaign to “Save Meriam” gathered pace – with many calling on the US to do more to prevent the execution. No senior official has yet spoken about the case. Mia Farrow, the actress and humanitarian activist, took matters into her own hands, tweeting the telephone number of the Sudanese embassy in Washington, and urging her 490,000 followers to call and register their anger.

The outcry is evidently rattling the Sudanese government of President Omar al-Bashir.

Last week, in an attempt to counter the growing wave of international condemnation, a group of about 10 employees of the state-controlled press went to see Ms Ibrahim, photographed her and published a series of articles claiming that she was actually a practising Muslim.

“They wrote that she prayed five times a day and read the Koran – which is totally not true,” said Mr Elshareef. “She didn’t want to talk to them but did not have the right to say no. They took photos and filmed her, and she did not like the photos. She asked them to delete the photos, but they said no, and that they had permission from the head of prisons in Sudan.”

Mr Elshareef told The Telegraph that they had taken copies of the newspaper reports – published in the government-owned Hikayat, Al Dar, Al Sudani, and Al Intibaha – to show Ms Ibrahim in her cell. Al Intibaha is owned by the uncle of Mr Bashir.

“She was very upset,” he said. “And we were angry because it could influence the court of appeal. “We went to the prison director to complain, but she said that she couldn’t stop them, because they were sent by the government.”

On Tuesday, Ms Ibrahim gave birth in prison to a daughter, Maya – her second child – which poured fuel on the fire of criticism. Mr Wani provoked an outcry when he told The Telegraph that his wife had been forced to give birth in a clinic in the prison, rather than in hospital, and with her legs still shackled.

His comments were republished in the Sudanese daily Alyoum Altali newspaper, and clearly shook the government in Khartoum. “They wrote about how a campaign was starting in the UK, and talked about Western involvement to save her,” said Mr Elshareef. “They said that it was damaging the reputation of Sudan.”

A day after the birth, the government sent in the reporters to justify Ms Ibrahim’s detention.

“They interviewed a scholar, who goes into the prison to teach the women about Islam,” he said. “She also said that Meriam is a Muslim, because she is part of this campaign by some Islamists to claim that she committed apostasy. But everyone who knows Meriam knows that she is a Christian, and this is not true.”

Ms Ibrahim testified, from inside a cage, that she was raised as a Christian, and so could not be accused of “abandoning” Islam. She produced a marriage certificate as evidence that she had not committed adultery, and called three witnesses from her eastern Sudanese home town to testify of her lifelong adherence to Christianity.

But, eight months pregnant, she was found guilty of apostasy on May 11, and given four days to convert to Islam. On refusing to do so, she was sentenced to hang – although the judge ruled that it should not be carried out until two years after she had given birth.

Abu-Bakr Al-Sideeg, a foreign ministry spokesman, had earlier said that the verdict on Ms Ibrahim – whose 20-month-old son Martin is in prison with her – was not final and the court would hear her appeal.

People should trust the court, he said, adding: “Sudan is committed to all human rights and freedom of faith granted in Sudan by the constitution and law.”

Three dead after crash at road rally

Three people were killed when a car careered into spectators at a road rally.

Police said the Jim Clark Rally was cancelled immediately after the accident, which left a fourth person in hospital. 

Observers said a car lost control and careered into four people at the side of the road.  An air ambulance was believed to have been sent to the scene of the crash at Little Swinton near Coldstream in the Scottish Borders.

Police Scotland confirmed in a statement on Saturday night that three people died after a car collided with spectators at the rally near Kelso at about 4pm.

The three people were pronounced dead at the scene, with a fourth taken to hospital,” the statement said.

It added that in a separate incident earlier in the afternoon a rally car collided with five people.

Four people were treated at the scene after the first incident and a fifth was taken to hospital.

“Emergency services were in attendance. Investigations into both incidents are ongoing,” police said. Tony Cowan, who witnessed the second, fatal accident, said: “It was just one car that lost control. It went sideways one way and then to the other side of the road and ploughed into four people.

“It was terrible … absolutely terrible. I ran to help but there was little I could do. The air ambulance arrived after about three quarters of an hour. There were police cars and ambulances. It was chaos, just chaos.”

The annual three-day rally is named after the Scottish Formula One driver, who grew up in the area. Jim Clark was killed in a motor racing accident in Hockenheim, Germany, in 1968.

Peter Cunningham, 40, a care worker from Bolton, was about 60ft from the crash, along with his eight-year-old son Callum. He said that about 20 minutes before the cars set off officials warned a group of about a dozen spectators to move because they were in an “unsafe place” just beyond a small bridge.

He saw one car race over the bridge, followed by another about 10 seconds later.

The second car appeared to lose control after hurtling over the “bump” of the bridge.

“The back end wobbled and the guy just lost control of the car and went into spectators sideways,” he said.

John Lamont, the local Tory MSP, who lives about five miles from the crash site in Coldstream, said: “There’s shock and disbelief that something as tragic as this could happen.

“Clearly there’s an element of risk in any rally of this nature but the organisers go to great lengths to ensure that safety is paramount at all times.”