MAAJABU YA BONGO MAITI YA FUFULIWA

MAAJABU YA BONGO MAITI YA FUFULIWA

BINTI aitwaye Nuru Omari anayedaiwa kufariki dunia mwaka 2010 ameibuliwa hivi karibuni wilayani Mkuranga, Mkoa wa Pwani na mganga akiwa hai kwenye banda kuukuu. 

Binti Nuru Omari aliyeibuliwa.

Tukio hilo limetokea kwenye Kijiji cha Kalole, Tarafa ya Kisiju, walayani humo.

Kwa mujibu wa baba wa binti huyo, Omari Salum, mwaka 2010 ndugu wa mkewe aitwaye Nyasenene aliyekuwa akiishi Charambe Mbagala, jijini Dar alifika nyumbani kwake na kuwaomba wampe mtoto wao kwa ajili ya kwenda kufanya kazi za ndani ‘hausigeli’.

Kijumba alimokuwa Nuru.

Baada ya binti huyo kufanya kazi kwa muda mfupi aliugua malaria, baba mtu akapewa taarifa  na kufika Dar kwa ajili ya kumuona mwanaye  aliyekuwa amelazwa katika Hospitali ya Taifa ya Muhimbili jijini Dar.

Mzee huyo amesema alikwenda Muhimbili na kufanikiwa kuzungumza machache na mwanaye huyo ambapo alikuwa akilalamikia maumivu ya tumbo.

Ndugu na majirani waliofika kumtazama Nuru.

Mzee huyo alisema ilibidi aondoke licha ya mwanaye kumtaka alale lakini kwa vile yeye ni mwanaume isingewezekana kulala hospitalini hapo.

“Kesho yake nilipewa taarifa kuwa mwanangu amefariki dunia usiku. Tulianza taratibu za mazishi na  kumzika kwenye Makaburi ya Kichangani, Mbagala, Dar kutokana na kukosa fedha za kuusafirisha mwili hadi Mkuranga,” alisema mzazi huyo

Mganga wa kienyeji aliyejulikana kwa jina la Said Ali Ngaora ‘Dr. Lamba’ anayeishi Mbagala Rangi Tatu, Dar  alifika katika kijiji hicho cha Kalole mwaka huu na kuwaambia wananchi kuwa kijijini hapo pana mtu anaonekana alikufa na kuzikwa lakini bado yupo hai na amewekwa sehemu na kutaja gharama za kumtoa ni shilingi milioni tatu.

Mganga aliyemuibua Nuru.

Akielezea tukio zima Dr. Lamba alisema wananchi walimruhusu akaanza kazi kwa kushirikiana na wataalamu wenzake.

Dr. Lamba na timu yake walifanikiwa kumuibua msichana huyo anayekadiriwa kuwa na miaka 12-15 kwenye mji ambao hakuna mtu anayeishi akiwa ndani ya banda la kuku huku kukiwa na chungu chenye damu, asali na udongo ambavyo vilikuwa ndivyo vyakula vyake akiwa na muonekano wa kutisha kwa kuwa na nywele ndefu na chafu na kucha zikiwa ndefu mithili ya jini.

Baada ya kumtoa alipelekwa katika uwanja wa mpira kijijini hapo na kuogeshwa pamoja na kukatwa kucha kisha akapelekwa katika nyumba aliyofikia mganga huyo, hata hivyo hakuweza kuongea vizuri.

Kwa mujibu wa mashuhuda ulimi wa Nuru ulikuwa mzito na mpaka sasa anazungumza kwa vitendo kama bubu huku chakula ambacho ameanza kula vikiwa ni ugali na kuku, uji na juisi ya embe.

Mbali na shilingi milioni tatu za kutoa, mganga huyo anataka milioni 15  kutokana na  dawa anazompa  kwa ajili ya matibabu ili arudi katika hali ya kibinadamu .

Hata hivyo, baadhi ya ndugu wanaopinga kuwa Nuru siyo mtoto wao lakini baba mzazi anasema ni  mwanaye kutokana na alama zilizopo mgongoni mwake na  anafanana sana na mdogo wake.

Makamu Mwenyekiti wa kijiji hicho, Ali Hassan Ndeko alithibitisha kutokea kwa tukio hilo na kusema mpaka sasa  wanakijiji wanaendelea kumiminika kwa ajili ya kumuona mtoto huyo akiwa chini ya uangalizi maalumu wa mganga huyo huku wakijitolea vyakula.

PICTORIAL :OBAMA VISIT TO AFRICA-SENEGAL!!

PICTORIAL :OBAMA VISIT TO AFRICA-SENEGAL!!

RwandAir acquires new aircraft

The 737-700 NG brand new Aircraft will replace the second Boeing 737-500 which has been serving for about 20 years The New Times/Timothy Kisambira.

RwandAir has added another brand new aircraft to its fleet.
A second dry leased Boeing 737-700 NG brand new Aircraft from Germany landed at Kigali International Airport 3:05pm local time yesterday.

The aircraft will replace the second Boeing 737-500 which has served for about 20 years, according to John Mirenge, CEO RwandAir.

“The arrival of this aircraft means that our fleet is now standing at two owned Boeing 737 – 800NG, two owned CRJ900NG, two dry leased Boeing 737-700NG and one wet leased DASH8,” Mirenge noted.

He added that the aircraft will help consolidate the newly launched flight routes in Africa but also enable the airline to reach further places, including southern Europe.

 “Our vision as an airline is to make sure that we operate aircrafts not exceeding six years and above,” Mirenge said. 

Silas Lwakabamba, the Minister for Infrastructure, commended the national flag carrier for its contribution towards the country’s economic development.

“Everybody should be proud of this airline because of the contribution its making for us, especially on trade promotion, tourism and aviation industry; many airlines are coming here partly because of the success story of RwandAir,” Lwakabamba said.

He reaffirmed government’s support to the aviation industry.

“We are not only giving Kigali International Airport a vigour facelift but are also doing what we must do to ensure that Bugesera Airport is ready by 2017. This will not only support Kigali International Airport but also boost our aviation industry.”   

Recently, RwandAir opened a new route to Accra Ghana.

It also operates international flights to Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya, Entebbe, Uganda, Bujumbura, Burundi and Dar es Salaam, Kilimanjaro and Mwanza in Tanzania.

The airline also flies to Johannesburg, South Africa, Dubai, Libreville and Brazzaville.

It is also planning to start flights to Juba in South Sudan, as well as Douala in Cameroon and Abidjan, Ivory Coast this year, according to Mirenge.

The next delivery is expected to arrive February next year according to the airline officials.

Update on former President Mandela’s health

27 June 2013

President Jacob Zuma visited former President Nelson Mandela in hospital in Pretoria today, 27 June, and was informed by the medical team that Madiba’s condition has improved during the course of the night. He remains critical but is now stable.

 “I cancelled my visit to Mozambique today so that I could see him and confer with the doctors. He is much better today than he was when I saw him last night. The medical team continues to do a sterling job. We must pray for Tata’s health and wish him well. We must also continue with our work and daily activities while Madiba remains hospitalised, ’’ President Zuma said.

The Presidency is disturbed by the rumours that are being spread about former President Mandela’s health. We appeal for respect for the privacy and dignity of the former President.

Enquiries:  Mac Maharaj on 079 879 3203.

Issued by: The Presidency

Pretoria

MEET ISSA MICHUZI-TANZANIA'S TOP BLOGGER

Mandela family in court fight over burial locations

By AFP | June 28, 2013

As Nelson Mandela fights for his life in hospital, his relatives are pitted against each other in a legal battle/AFP

MTHATHA, Jun 28 – As Nelson Mandela fights for his life in hospital, his relatives are pitted against each other in a legal battle, reportedly over where members of the family should be buried.

On Friday, sixteen members of the Mandela family brought an urgent application to a regional court, reportedly to force Mandela’s grandson Mandla to return remains of family members to a plot in the ancestral village where Mandela has said he wants to be buried.

Mandla, a local chief in nearby Mvezo, had exhumed the remains of three of Mandela’s children in Qunu in 2011 and brought them to his village, allegedly without the consent of the rest of the family.

“I have been instructed by the 16 family members including (daughters) Makaziwe and Zindzi to take action against Mandla,” the family lawyer Wesley Heyes said.

Heyes refused to comment on the reason for the legal tussle, but local media said it was about a long-running feud over the remains.

“We can’t say anything further due to the sensitivity of the case,” said Heyes.

The court was told that a sheriff delivered the paper to Mandla’s homestead and found the gates locked. The papers were nailed to the gate after several unsuccessful attempts to hand them over.

“The sheriff hooted and called Mandla on his phone, which was not answered,” said one of the Mandela lawyers David Smith.

Mandla’s spokesman Freddy Pilusa said he was not able to comment on the case.

“He hasn’t been served with those papers so he wouldn’t be able to comment.”

The controversial removal of graves has recently came into the spotlight following reported family squabbles over the final resting place of the ailing Mandela.

The hastily removed graves belonged to Mandela’s eldest son Thembekile who died in 1969, his nine-month-old infant Makaziwe who passed away in 1948, and Mandla’s own father Magkatho who died from an AIDS related illness in 2005.

The trio were reburied under the cover of darkness in Mvezo, in a ceremony overseen by Mandla.

The issue of the graves was also at the centre of a family meeting earlier this week.
On Thursday local media reported that Makaziwe, Mandela’s oldest daughter, was granted permission by a chief in
Qunu to have the remains repatriated. Mandla had reportedly argued Mandela should be buried in Mvezo.

Meet  mr  Issa  michuzi-Tanzania's top  blogger

MEDIA EVENT:  President Obama will hold a Pan-African Town Hall in Johannesburg to engage with Young African Leaders onSaturday, June 29 at 0935 EDT / / 13:35 GMT/UTC / 15:35 Central African Time

Washington Foreign Press Center

U.S. Department of State

======================================

As part of his historic trip to Africa, U.S. President Barack Obama will engage with an invited audience of young African leaders in a pan-African Town Hall event. The event will take place at the University of Johannesburg’s Soweto Campus on Saturday, June 29 at 0935 EDT / / 13:35 GMT/UTC / 15:35 local time.

Kipanya LEO

i | // 0 comments

JUN28

Taswira Kutoka IKULU:Rais Mahinda Rajapaksa wa Sri lanka Atua Nchini

Written by haki | // 0 comments

 Mtoto Faith Warioba nayesoma katika shule ya awali ya Montessori jijini Dar es Salaam akimlaki kwa maua Rais Mahinda Rajapaksa wa Srilanka muda mfupi baada ya kuwasili katika uwanja wa kimataifa wa Mwalimu Julius Nyerere kwa ziara ya kikazi nchini huku Rais Dkt.Jakaya Kikwete akishuhudia.

 Rais Dkt.Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete akiwa na mgeni wake Rais Mahinda Rajapaksa wa Srilanka muda mfupi baada ya kuweasili nchini  kwa ziara ya kikazi leo asubuhi katika uwanja wa ndege wa kimataifa wa Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.Kushoto ni mkuu wa mkoa wa Dar es Salaam Said Meck Sadik.

Rais Wa Sri Lanka Me.Mahinda Rajapaksa akikagua gwaride la heshima liliandaliwa na Jeshi la ulinzi la Wananchi wa Tanzania(JWTZ) muda mfupi baada ya kuwasili katika uwanja wa ndege wa kimataifa wa Mwalimu Julius Nyerere jijini Dar es Salaam leo asubuhi kwa ziara ya kikazi nchini.

Press release Thursday 27th June 2013 For immediate use Ed Miliband's speech to to Women in Advertising and Communications London - Check Against Delivery - Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, said: I am delighted to be here tonight. I am hugely proud to join the illustrious list of politicians who have spoken to you during your extraordinary history. David Lloyd George Jennie Lee Stanley Baldwin And it is an extraordinary tribute to the history and influence of your organisation that you are still going strong in your 90th year. Nine months ago at the Labour party Conference I set out the idea of One Nation. Not a Labour vision or a Conservative one. But a British one. Benjamin Disraeli, the great Conservative Prime Minister, was probably first to use the idea in the 19th century. But it was also used by Labour after 1945 as Britain rebuilt after the War. Its essence is that the way a country succeeds is by everyone playing their part. For me, it is rooted in something that drives my politics: the cause of equality. Not mathematical equality for every person. But a passionate belief in equal opportunity for all. And in the dangers of a society becoming too unequal. About citizens living separate lives from one another. Tonight I want to talk—appropriately I hope to this group--- about the equality of women and men. We have some of the most senior people in advertising and communications here. And I believe there are urgent issues we need to address together. First, at the heart of a One Nation idea is that we must drive further and faster towards equality for men and women from the shop floor to the boardroom to the cabinet room. Second, if we are truly to become a more equal society -- not just in numbers but in reality -- we must change the structures of our society. Third, I want to address a subject which a growing number of people, especially young women, are talking about: the representation of women in our culture, in our national life. I want to do that as a Dad, the father of two boys, and not just as a politician. Let me start with representation in its most formal sense. We should celebrate progress but note how far we have to go. When Harriet Harman, my Deputy, entered Parliament, just 3% of Labour MPs were women. Today it is 33%. And my Shadow Cabinet is now 40% women. That has changed politics. From childcare to parental leave to women’s employment – women MPs have put these issues centre stage. Indeed, there are women MPs in Parliament now who would not have been there but for the trail that people like Harriet blazed. But I don’t need to remind this audience that there are still enormous problems in the representation of women. Even now, all these years after women got the vote, still over three quarters of MPs are men. More than four fifths of the Cabinet. And as our shadow equalities minister Yvette Cooper has exposed, this government’s chosen cuts have affected women at least three times as hard as men. I strongly believe that wouldn’t have happened in a Cabinet with equal female representation. And I know we have the same problems in business, the law and other areas too. Being here tonight celebrating women in business, it is simply wrong that just 17% of FTSE 100 Directorships are held by women. Just 14% of senior judges. Just 5% of national newspaper editors. Now I know that people have campaigned for decades to put this right. But let me be clear: my goal is to get to a Labour cabinet that is 50% women and a Parliament that is like that, and boardrooms and everywhere major decisions are made. We can’t be One Nation if the majority of the population is under-represented in every area of public life. My second point tonight is that it is not enough to think about how we change representation but leave everything else unchanged. The reality is that women are so often at the sharp end of the injustices in our society. They are more likely to be carers for the elderly and disabled. More likely to have primary responsibility for looking after the children. More likely to be low paid, finding that their husbands or partners are working the longest hours in Western Europe. Tonight as we enjoy this dinner, there are women all over this city, working as cleaners and carers, doing two jobs or sometimes three, travelling late into the night to get there, and still not earning a living wage. And finding themselves working for their poverty. So the call of economic and social change is urgent. It is what I call a more “responsible capitalism”. Because I think our country faces a choice in the years ahead: A nasty, brutish, more insecure country. Or a country where we recognise that to get the best out of workforce we need big change. Reforming our workplace to make it less exploitative. Taking further steps to make it more supportive of those who have families. Dealing with all the many other issues we face: zero hours contracts, exploitation of agency workers, and shockingly low pay. These are vital for the cause of equality. And for the cause of equality between women and men. So if we are truly to be One Nation where everyone can play their part we need change in formal representation, change in the way our economy works, but I believe we need something else. We need cultural change if women and men are to realise their full potential. Let me read you something that a 15 year old wrote to the Everyday Sexism project. She said: “I am 15 and I feel that girls my age are under pressure that boys of my age aren’t under ... I always feel like if I don’t look a certain way, if boys don’t think I’m sexy or hot then I’ve failed and it doesn’t even matter if I am a doctor or writer, I’ll still feel like nothing.” Friends, I think of my two sons, Daniel and Sam. They are 4 and 2 years old. And I think about the world that they are set to grow up in. I think forward a decade, to their teenage years. And thinking that decade ahead, I want different messages going out to them than too often go out to teenage boys and girls today. Representation is not just about the jobs that people do, it also about how people are seen. About the images we have of each other. Now, we all know the changes our culture has gone through in recent years. But I still believe we face a crisis of representation of women and men in our culture today. Greater prominence is given to fantastic role models for women and girls than was true in the past. Clare Balding, Doreen Lawrence, J.K. Rowling, Jocelyn Bell Burnell. As well as some of you present tonight. My kids will grow up with Dora the Explorer as much as my generation did with Dennis the Menace, and that matters. The success of Jessica Ennis inspired a generation, just as much as Mo Farah. And we are supporting Laura Robson just as much as Andy Murray at Wimbledon. And if they both win, they will finally now be rewarded to the same extent too. But we would be fooling ourselves if we deny the problems. There is a culture of increasingly sexualised images among young people. The culture that says that girls will only get on in life, if they live up to the crudest of stereotypes, as that 15 year old wrote. The culture where pornographic images, some violent, are available to children at a click on a smartphone or a laptop. Like any parent, I worry about this. There are things that can be done about that, like safer default settings on our computers. But my point tonight is different. It puts a greater responsibility on all of us to do what we can to counter these images. Schools should offer proper relationship education at all stages to ensure all our children have a proper chance to understand what good loving relationships are about. And Schools should always encourage the aspirations of girls and boys. And our society should always be promoting real role models of heroic women and their achievements. That applies to everything from banknotes to statues around our great city of London. When Winston Churchill replaces Elizabeth Fry, everyone who will appear on our banknotes will be a man apart from the Queen, our Head of State. What kind of signal does that send? I read this week that Jane Austen is “quietly waiting in the wings” to appear on a banknote one day. But 100 years on from the great struggle to give women the right to vote, women shouldn’t be “waiting quietly in the wings” for anything. This is a small but important symbol of the kind of country we are. Why don’t we have one of our great women scientists, like Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and a suffragette like Emmeline Pankhurst on our banknotes? And it applies to the school curriculum too. We all know the trouble Michael Gove has had writing a History curriculum. He’s on his third go now. But he still can’t get it right when it comes to women. It seems as if he thinks it is alright to talk about women when you are specifically teaching Women’s History. But then to talk almost exclusively about men when you are teaching the rest of History. Well I don’t think that’s right. The role of women should be taught throughout the History curriculum in our schools. And, if I may say so, responsibility applies to broadcasting and communications. In broadcasting, it is just wrong that older male broadcasters are seen as distinguished, and older female broadcasters are not seen at all. What greater example could there be of double standards. And it applies to your world, to advertising. That same young woman I talked about earlier, also wrote: “I wish people would think about what pressures they are putting on everyone, not just teenage girls ... I wish the people who had real power and control of the images and messages we get fed all day actually thought about what they did for once.” Now, of course, you do think about these issues. There are great examples where the advertising industry has led the way in displaying 21st century images of men and women. Including people in this room. And I applaud the creativity, the freshness, the innovation that your industry displays. But it does not always do so. We all know there are still too many images in our advertising that reflect outdated ideas about the role of men and women, boys and girls. There are still too many adverts which do not show the modern world as it is – let alone as it should be. Of course, there are limits to what government can do about this. But it is something we must to talk about. And something which advertisers have a responsibility to address. Conclusion Let me end with this thought. Ninety years ago WACL was founded. Just five years after women had got the vote. In the 1924 Parliament, there were just eight woman MPs. There had never been a woman Cabinet Minister. And no thought that there could ever be a woman Prime Minister. Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the founders of feminism right back in the eighteenth century, said: “In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has carried all before it.” And what she meant is this: If we change the way we think, then we can change the way we are. Change has happened not because politicians wanted it to happen. But because people made it happen. There needs to be political leadership, but as I always say politics is too important simply to be left to politicians. What excites me about this debate, about the equality between men and women, is that there is a new wave of young women, with high expectations of what this society should offer. They are not impressed that we have a Parliament of 25% women, they expect it to be 50%. They are not impressed that there are some women business leaders, they expect there to be half of business leaders to be women. They are not impressed that there is a law on equal pay, they expect pay actually to be equal. They are not impressed that we have some positive female role models in advertising, they expect to see them every day. They are not impressed that women can be doctors and writers, they expect all women to be respected for who they are. We should listen to their voices. All of us. Politicians. Advertisers. Business leaders. Newspaper editors. Because they are right. We can only be One Nation if we have true equality for men and women. This is one of the biggest causes of our century. To complete the work of the last century. To turn a formal commitment to equality in to real equality. I know that it is your cause. And this will be my cause, as part of the next Labour government. Ends

No Joke: White House Defends Obama Family’s $100 Million Trip To Africa As A “Great Bang For Our Buck”…

President Obama’s $100 million trip to African offers “great bang for our buck,” the White House said Friday.
Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes defended the cost of Obama’s upcoming trip to South Africa, Senegal and Tanzania, which could cost taxpayers as much as $100 million.
He said the White House doesn’t determine the cost of security, and argued traveling to the often overlooked region would help the U.S.
“Frankly, there will be a great bang for our buck for being in Africa, because when you travel to regions like Africa that don’t get a lot of presidential attention, you can have very long-standing and long-running impact from the visit,” Rhodes said.
The White House spokesman added that “the president’s not going to retreat from an entire continent on terms of the cost.”

Obama Urged to Focus on Development in Africa

Pete Souza/White House

Several advocacy groups have called on U.S. President Barack Obama to focus on more than just economic development while on his trip to Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. More»

PRESS RELEASE . . . PRESS RELEASE . . . PRESS RELEASE Information: 0207 482 2496 GREAT NEWS!  We just heard Linda Nakibuuka’s flight to Uganda has been cancelled!  Thanks to all those who responded to our call for help.  Hear more about our own and others’ work tonight at 6pm at Crossroads Women’s Centre whenLegal Action for Women launches their newly revised Self-help Guide for Asylum Seekers and their Supporters.  We hope you can make it!

Ms Nakibuuka was targeted for rape because of her sexuality and was refused protection by the police in Uganda. She remains very traumatized by her terrible experiences and has been attending the self-help group which Women Against Rape helps co-ordinate. The Home Office has refused to accept that she is a lesbian despite overwhelming evidence from LBGTQ organizations supporting her.  WAR has also made submissions to about the impact of Ms Nakibuuka’s ordeal and her ongoing needs as a victim of torture.  The Home Office refused all this evidence and was planning to remove her tonight at 8pm.  We continue to work with her lawyer in pursuing her legal case.  Ms Nakibuuka urgently needs to be released while her case is reconsidered so that she can access our own and other support.    Petition Background (Preamble): In Uganda Linda Nakibuka was attacked, sexually harassed and beaten by people who think homosexuality is a sin and contiguous. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda She came to the UK to be able for the first time to be herself as a lesbian and to live and study free from the persecution she faced in her own country. On 11April 2012, Linda went to the UK Borders Agency to apply for asylum. However, despite her visa still being valid she was put in detention, placed on fast track and her claim was dismissed by the UKBA and the Immigration Judge, despite the fact that she had witnesses who knew her from Uganda and as well LGBT friends in the UK. Thanks to all who signed the petition, demonstrated and wrote letters LINDA HAS BEEN FREED FROM DETENTION! On the 24th July Linda was freed , now out of Yarls Wood she is fighting the next stage to get asylum which has been refused. On 7th July 2010 the UK Supreme Court overturned the racist, homophobic policy of sending Lesbian/Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people to their deaths. However little has changed. The UKBA has devised another trick of telling LGBT asylum seekers that they are not gay, as a pretext to deport them. We cannot let this continue - be a part of the change by signing this petition. Linda is known to be gay in Uganda - She cannot be safe there. Asylum NOW for Linda Nakibuuka! Petition: Women Against Rape, Crossroads Women’s Centre, 25 Wolsey Mews, London NW5 2DX

Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda for joint railway line

newvisionPresidents Museveni, Uhuru and Kagame

By Vision Reporter

Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda have agreed to construct a railway line from Kenya to Uganda and extend to Rwanda.

This was reached at a joint meeting of Presidents Yoweri Museveni, Paul Kagame and Uhuru Kenyatta held State House Entebbe Uganda.

Foreign affairs minister, Sam Kutesa, told a joint news conference addressed by the three Heads of State that East African leaders also agreed to construct of an oil pipeline from Mombasa to Eldoret to Kampala to Rwanda.

The minister explained that the pipeline will be configured to have a reverse mechanism with another pipe line for the evacuation of crude oil.

  Joint Communique by President Uhuru Kenya, President Yoweri Museveni and President Paul Kagame by State House Kenya

The Presidents resolved to introduce an East African Identity Card as well as fast tracking of the political integration. “The Three Heads of State have undertaken to speed up the process,” Kutesa said. 

The UK has banned the issuance of travel visas to tuberculosis (TB) patients from Uganda because of the high incidence of the disease as identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The UK has reviewed its visa application procedures. 

According to the new visa application procedures issued by the UK, Ugandan TB patients intending to stay there for more than six months will be denied visas with effect from June 30. This also applies to children above 11 years.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Kampala is currently operating a health centre, where Ugandans intending to travel and stay in Britain for over six months are being subjected to pre-entry screening.

Each applicant will pay $70 (about sh182,000) for the test.

Sadati Sserunjogi, a medical officer at IOM, confirmed that they were screening Ugandans for tuberculosis before allowing them to apply for the visas.

“We are the ones doing the screening in Kampala,” he said.

A notice on the UK border agency under the Home Office website states: “From 30 June 2013, residents of Uganda, who wish to come to the UK for more than six months, must be tested for tuberculosis before applying for a visa. If you plan to come to the UK for less than six months, you do not need a TB test.”

Officials at the UK visa application centre in Kampala on Tuesday said this was one of the measures of preventing the spread, but did not state if UK was experiencing a rise in TB cases attributed to immigrants.

The officials, who requested not to be quoted as they are not authorised to speak on behalf of the UK government, said those found to be having the disease will have to be treated and be subjected to another test to show that they are free from TB before applying for the visa.

The new procedures will apply to about 100 countries, mainly in Africa, which include Rwanda, Tanzania, Sudan, Burundi and Kenya.

The procedures, issued last month, apply to countries where incidence of the disease is above 40 per 100, 000 people (WHO’s threshold for high incidence).

The pre-testing for the disease will go on in the affected countries for the next 12 months.

Rukia Nakamate, the health ministry spokesperson, said they were not aware that Uganda’s tuberculosis incidence was alarming.

“We have just received fresh reports on all diseases and there isn’t any upsurge in cases of TB,” she pointed out.

This is one of the most sur­pris­ing and mov­ing videos Capital Lifestyle Magazine has seen in a very long time.

It’s from GE Focus For­ward, and it fol­lows a group of doc­tors who inject a six year-old cancer patient named Emma with the HIV virus. That’s right, they purposely infect her with HIV – literally, “Fire with fire.”

Their rea­son? To pit one fatal dis­ease against another by cre­at­ing “ser­ial killer cells” inside her body.

It’s a risky oper­a­tion, but the results will amaze you.

Thanks to http://firsttoknow.com for post­ing the video.

If you were in Nairobi, Kampala, Dar-es-Salaam and I suspect Kigali by the afternoon of Friday, June 14, you would have read the details of the budgets of all the East African Community countries except one — Burundi.

Indeed, The East African, which came out a day later, had extensive reports on the EAC budgets – except, again, Burundi’s.

This conformed to a pattern that we have seen since Burundi and Rwanda joined the EAC in 2009. Burundi rarely gets any action.

This Burundi isolation is puzzling. Some people argue that it is because its main foreign language is French, unlike the other four who speak English.

However, Senegal, which is far away in West Africa, is French-speaking, and no one there can utter even a word of Kiswahili, which many Barundi speak, but it still gets more play in the East African media than Burundi.

Okay, it is one of Africa’s smallest countries, yes, but it is bigger than Rwanda, which cannot complain of inadequate coverage. In fact, Rwanda gets too much press, although some of it, according to Kigali, is of the “wrong” kind.

So size is not the issue.

One could say that it uses a currency, the franc, which East Africans don’t understand. But then so does Rwanda.

Burundi only appears when the regional media go the extra kilometre to cover it. So what can Burundi do to get East Africa’s attention?

100 foreign journalists

Well, to start with, it needs to host a big private sector event, not just government and state sector stuff. If I were President Pierre Nkurunziza, I would channel money through a civil society group or something not directly associated with the government, and hold a big East African Bloggers conference.

True, that will bring a lot of badly dressed people to Bujumbura, but they are smart and would get Burundi’s story not just around East Africa, but the world.

Second, Nkurunziza needs to ensure that a Burundi football club becomes the winningest team in the region.

However, that alone wouldn’t do it. He needs to steal a leaf from his neighbour President Paul Kagame’s book, and set up the Nkurunziza Cup (with a handsome cash prize in dollars, not francs) for which East African teams compete.

But it is really the youth market Burundi needs to break into. And music is the route. Nairobi-based but Burundi-born Kidum is the country’s most famous musician in the region. However, Kidum is too much of a gentleman.

The country needs a colourful, controversial and wild musician like Uganda’s Chameleone, who seems to smoke and drink strange things, falls through his hotel room window, and is forever getting involved in car crashes.

He is a hot East African music property. Of course, he’d have to be as extravagantly talented too.

But nothing beats all the above like a good scandal. Not a corruption scandal; East Africans hardly pay attention anymore. Something like a Burundi minister running away with a top Western ambassador’s wife, then the ambassador chasing after and shooting both of them.

There would be 100 foreign journalists in Bujumbura within 24 hours of the shooting, and Burundi would be on television all over the world.

We all hope that this last suggestion is the one Bujumbura will dismiss immediately.

Charles Onyango-Obbo is Nation Media Group’s executive editor for Africa & Digital Media. E-mail: cobbo@ke.nationmedia.com. Twitter: @cobbo3