News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

#EgyptAir plane had no problems before takeoff

Posted: 24 May 2016 07:23 PM PDT

The EgyptAir jet that disappeared last week did not have any technical problems before leaving Paris.

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Cairo/Paris - The EgyptAir jet that disappeared last week did not show technical problems before taking off from Paris, sources within the Egyptian investigation committee said late on Tuesday.

The sources said the plane did not make contact with Egyptian air traffic control, but Egyptian air traffic controllers were able to see it on radar on a border area between Egyptian and Greek airspace known as KUMBI, 260 nautical miles from Cairo.

Read: #EgyptAir victims' remains arrive at Cairo morgue

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the sources said the plane disappeared without swerving off radar screens after less than a minute of it entering Egyptian airspace. Air traffic controllers from Greece and Egypt have given differing accounts of the plane's final moments.

Egypt's state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Tuesday that the plane had shown no technical problems before taking off, citing an Aircraft Technical Log signed by its pilot before takeoff.

Al-Ahram published a scan of the technical log on its website. The paper said EgyptAir flight 804 transmitted 11 “electronic messages” starting at 21h09 GMT on May 18, about 3 1/2 hours before disappearing from radar screens with 66 passengers and crew on board.

The first two messages indicated the engines were functional. The third message came at 00h26 GMT on May 19 and showed a rise in the temperature of the co-pilot's window. The plane kept transmitting messages for the next three minutes before vanishing, Al-Ahram said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the head of Egypt's forensics authority dismissed as premature a suggestion that the small size of the body parts retrieved since the Airbus 320 jet crashed indicated there had been an explosion on board.

Investigators are looking for clues in the human remains and debris recovered from the Mediterranean Sea.

The plane and its black box recorders, which could explain what brought down the Paris-to-Cairo flight as it entered Egyptian air space, have not been located.

An Egyptian forensics official said 23 bags of body parts had been collected, the largest no bigger than the palm of a hand. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said their size pointed to an explosion, although no trace of explosives had been detected.

But Hisham Abdelhamid, head of Egypt's forensics authority, said this assessment was “mere assumptions” and that it was too early to draw conclusions.

At least two other sources with direct knowledge of the investigation also said it would be premature to say what caused the plane to plunge into the sea.

“All we know is it disappeared suddenly without making a distress call,” one of them said, adding that only by analysing the black boxes or a large amount of debris could authorities begin to form a clearer picture.

Scraps of data

Investigators do have a few scraps of data in the form of fault messages sent by the jet in the last minutes of flight, logging smoke alarms in the forward lavatory and an electronics bay just underneath, but they are tantalisingly incomplete.

“The difficulty is to connect these bits of information,” said John Cox, executive of Washington-based Safety Operating Systems who co-authored a report on smoke and fire risks by Britain's Royal Aeronautical Society.

There are too few messages to fit a typical fire, which would normally trigger a cascade of error reports as multiple systems failed, he said, and too many of them to tie in neatly with a single significant explosion.

Investigators also need to understand why, for example, there was no message indicating the autopilot had cut off, progressively handing control back to the pilots as systems failed and computers became unsure what to do.

The Frenchman who headed a three-year probe into the 2009 loss of an Air France jet in the Atlantic said the data published so far appeared insufficient for any conclusion.

Egypt has deployed a robot submarine and France has sent a search ship to help hunt for the black boxes, but it is not clear whether either of them can detect signals emitted by the flight recorders, lying in waters possibly 3 000m (10 000 feet) deep. The signal emitters have a battery life of 30 days.

Although government officials have acknowledged the need for international assistance, the US Navy said Egypt had not formally requested American support beyond a P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, which was deployed on Thursday.

Last moments

Eighteen loads of debris have been recovered, the Egyptian investigation committee said, in a search operation assisted by French and Greek aircraft.

Five days after the plane vanished from radar screens, air traffic controllers from Greece and Egypt were still giving differing accounts of its last moments.

In Greece, two officials stood by earlier statements that Greek radar had picked up sharp swings in the jet's trajectory - 90 degrees left, then 360 degrees right - as it plunged from a cruising altitude to 15 000 feet before vanishing.

Ehab Mohieldin Azmi, head of Egypt's air navigation services, said Egyptian officials had seen no sign of the plane making sharp turns, and that it had been visible at 37 000 feet until it disappeared.

“Of course, we tried to call it more than once and it did not respond,” he told Reuters.

Relatives of the victims were giving DNA samples at a hotel near Cairo airport on Tuesday to help identify the body parts, their grief mixed with frustration.

Amjad Haqi, an Iraqi man whose mother Najla was flying back from medical treatment in France, said the families were being kept in the dark and had not been formally told that any body parts had been recovered.

“All they are concerned about is to find the black box and the debris of the plane. That's their problem, not mine,” he said. “And then they come and talk to us about insurance and compensation. I don't care about compensation, all I care about is to find my mother and bury her.”

REUTERS

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#EgyptAir: Egypt denies explosion reports

Posted: 24 May 2016 05:55 AM PDT

Egypt's head of forensics denied reports that an initial examination of human remains pointed towards an explosion, state news said.

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Cairo - Egypt's head of forensics denied reports that an initial examination of human remains belonging to victims aboard the EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean pointed towards an explosion, state news agency MENA said on Tuesday.

“Everything published about this matter is completely false, and mere assumptions that did not come from the Forensics Authority,” MENA quoted Hesham Abdelhamid as saying in a statement.

Reuters

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Libya intercepts hundreds bound for Europe

Posted: 24 May 2016 05:53 AM PDT

Libyan coastguards said they detained 550 people trying to reach Europe illegally by boat.

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Tripoli - Libyan coastguards said they detained 550 people trying to reach Europe illegally by boat on Tuesday, the second time in three days they have intercepted migrants in the same area.

“Coastguards in the west who were patrolling off the Zawiya refinery on Tuesday intercepted four large inflatables carrying around 550 illegal migrants,” navy spokesman Colonel Ayoub Qassem said.

Those detained were from “several African countries” and included three children and 30 women, eight of whom are pregnant, he told AFP.

“The migrants have been handed over to the relevant authorities to be taken to detention centres,” Qassem said.

On Sunday, Qassem told AFP that coastguards had intercepted seven vessels carrying around 850 migrants, again off Zawiya which is about 45 kilometres west of the capital Tripoli.

The chaos in the North African country since Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow in 2011 has been exploited by people traffickers, with thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe from Libya just 300 kilometres from Italy.

The onset of better weather conditions has raised fears of huge numbers of people attempting the still perilous sea crossing.

On Monday, Italy's coastguard said two Italian naval vessels and two operated by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) rescued around 2,000 migrants from unseaworthy boats in 15 separate operations.

An Irish navy ship rescued hundreds more, as did a passing cargo ship, the Italian coastguard said.

So far this year more that 34 000 people have been brought to the Italian coast after being rescued off Libya, according to the UN refugee agency.

A May 13 British parliamentary report said the EU's naval mission to combat people trafficking off Libya was “failing” and succeeded only in forcing people smugglers to change tactics.

It said Operation Sophia “does not in any meaningful way deter the flow of migrants, disrupt the smugglers' networks or impede the business of people smuggling on the central Mediterranean route”.

On Monday, EU foreign ministers gave the green light to expand Operation Sophia's mandate to include training for the Libyan coastguard service.

AFP

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Kenya protests turns deadly

Posted: 24 May 2016 03:38 AM PDT

Three people died during clashes which erupted during opposition protests in two towns in western Kenya, police said.

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Nairobi - Three people died during clashes which erupted during opposition protests in two towns in western Kenya, police said late on Monday.

Two people died of gunshot wounds in the western town of Siaya, and one from a head injury after falling over while running from tear gas in Kisumu, also in the west.

Police in Siaya opened fire “in self defence” after “a mob with catapults” approached a municipal office, according to a police statement, which said 29 officers were injured in the incident.

Riot police equipped with shields and batons used tear gas and water canon to disperse protesters who also tried to gather in the capital Nairobi and the port city of Mombasa.

The opposition protests, in their fourth week, are organised by the CORD party and aimed at forcing a change of leadership at the country's election commission ahead of polls due next year.

CORD leader Raila Odinga believes the commission is biased, blaming it for his defeat by President Uhuru Kenyatta in the 2013 vote.

The police statement also said prison wardens escorting criminals shot and injured five “rioters” who attacked their bus.

Opposition leaders claimed on Monday that several of their supporters had been “killed in various parts of the country” but gave no numbers.

“Innocent Kenyans have lost lives today,” said Odinga.

“We must condemn this in the strongest terms possible.”

AFP

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Uganda threatens DRC after bloody clash

Posted: 24 May 2016 03:36 AM PDT

The Ugandan government threatened to use military force against the DRC following the killing of four Ugandan policemen by suspected soldiers from that country.

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Kampala - The Ugandan government has threatened to use military force against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) following the killing of four Ugandan policemen by suspected soldiers from that country during a bloody border clash on the weekend.

Armed men thought to be soldiers from the DRC shot the Ugandan policemen dead as they patrolled Uganda’s part of Lake Albert.

The policemen were responding to information they received that Congolese nationals were in Ugandan fishing waters illegally.

Uganda’s outgoing State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Okello Oryem, who described the incident as an “abhorrent conduct of Congolese soldiers”, said they have put DRC on notice.

A repeat attack may lead to hot pursuit by Uganda’s armed force to repel such attackers, said Oryem.

“A repeat of these incidents may compel the Uganda authorities to take self-defence measures to protect its citizens,” Oryem said in a press briefing at Foreign Affairs ministry in Kampala City.

International law dictates that in a case of hot pursuit the armed forces of one country can pursue and arrest armed and violent suspects fleeing into a neighbouring country.

After the policemen were shot dead the suspected Congolese soldiers took their bodies, weapons and speedboat.

The bodies were taken to Bunia General Hospital in Eastern DRC.

The incident was one of a number of violent attacks allegedly carried out by Congolese nationals in disputed areas on Lake Albert despite the 2007 Ngurdoto Agreement between the two countries.

The Daily Monitor reports that the aim of the agreement was to resolve such issues in a peaceful manner.

Following the violent clash Kampala summoned DRC’s Chargé d’affaires and gave him a protest note in which it made four major demands including bringing the suspects to justice and compensation for the families of the killed officers.

“Uganda demands the immediate repatriation of the bodies, equipment and all the personal belongings of the victims,” said Oryem.

The Ugandan authorities further demanded “an immediate joint implementation of the agreed to mechanisms under the NGURDOTO Agreement under Article III and the outcomes of the Joint Permanent Commission between the two countries of August 23 to 27, 2014 in Kinshasa, to forestall the reccurrence of similar incidents.”

“The situation on the border is calm and under control at the moment. We are liaising with our Congolese counterparts to verify the facts behind the clash,” said Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) spokesman for Western Uganda Major Ronald Kakurungu.

“There is good cooperation between both sides and at this point in time it appears to be an act carried out by individuals of the Congolese army not deliberate DRC government policy. But the investigation is continuing,” Kakurungu told the African News Agency (ANA).

Recently, 20 armed Congolese soldiers who had crossed into Uganda’s waters were detained by Ugandan fishermen.

“We had to intervene as the situation escalated and eventually the Congolese soldiers were later released after they were cautioned,” said Kakurungu.

Meanwhile, the top United Nations official in the DRC has expressed deep concern about the increasing political tensions in some parts of the Central African country, urging both the majority and opposition sides to reawaken their patriotism.

“The current situation and the dangers weighing upon it need patriotic reawakening both on the part of the majority as well as the opposition, to place the interests of the country above any other consideration,” Maman Sidikou, Special Representative of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a press release at the weekend.

Sidikou is also the head of the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO).

He noted that increasing the number of judiciary proceedings and actions likely to shrink the political space will only exacerbate the tensions and make it even more difficult to hold the political dialogue insistently called for by President Joseph Kabila.

Sidikou urged strict respect for the rule of law and the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.

Citing Security Council resolution 2 277, he said that the UN stands resolutely with the African Union and its appointed facilitator, former Togolese Prime Minister Edem Kodjo, to facilitate the launch of the political talks.

The Special Representative further expressed the UN’s readiness to assist an independent nation electoral commission in 2016 organising free and transparent elections to mark a new step forward in the advancement of the democratic process in the DRC.

– African News Agency

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Opposition slams Zanu-PF over Africa Day march

Posted: 23 May 2016 11:53 PM PDT

Zanu-PF youths have been criticised for planning to stage a “senseless one million fools march” on Africa Day.

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Harare - A group of youths from different opposition political parties on Monday criticised Zanu-PF youths for planning their million man march on Africa Day on Wednesday, saying they should rather direct their energies to more serious national issues than singing praises for the ageing President Robert Mugabe.

The youths, who were led by the Zimbabwe Informal Sector Organisation (ZISO) leader, Promise Mkwananzi, held a short demonstration in the streets of Harare on Monday where they called on Mugabe to step down as a matter of urgency and pave the way for the economic reforms.

“We note with disdain that you plan to stage your senseless one million fools march on one of the most significant days in this continent. You cannot use Africa Day to march for an individual, not least to marshal the country’s already meagre resources towards a senseless and meaningless march. We urge you to abandon the idiotic march and direct your efforts towards restoring sanity in this country,” Mkwananzi urged Zanu-PF youth.

He said the demonstration Monday was the beginning of a series of sustained demonstrations under the hash tag, #Tajamuka, meant to pressure Mugabe to relinquish power.

The organisers claim to represent 15 youth wings of opposition political parties, as well as some 40 civic organisations, although Monday saw only representatives from Vendors Initiative for Sustainable Economic Transformation, the Zimbabwe National Students Union and the MDC-T.

“The streets are going to be our second home until Robert Mugabe steps away from the throne and paves way for the implementation of the reforms encapsulated in the new Constitution. Robert Mugabe has to step aside now. He no longer has the agility to superintend over the affairs of our country,” Mkwananzi said.

Mkwananzi said it was no longer possible for the country to wait for 2018, adding that elections under the current Zimbabwe Electoral Commission would not be fair.

“ZEC will have to reform. This country will have to respect the will of the people going forward and no party or individual will be allowed to govern illegally or illegitimately,” he said.

The youths also spoke strongly against the recent introduction of bond notes, saying it was a ploy by those in power to print and loot money, adding that those politically connected were already hoarding cash hoping to distort the money market for their own gains.

“We are going to work together to ensure the total rejection and failure of the bond issue. We ask with no answers what happened to the $15 billion from our natural resources and the missing $10 million Youth Fund launched six months ago,” he said.

He said the youth were not happy with the partisan distribution of food aid, warning they would descend on food distribution points across the country to ensure fair and non-partisan distribution of food.

They also demanded an end to the abduction and disappearances of innocent citizens.

– African News Agency

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#EgyptAir victims’ remains arrive at Cairo morgue

Posted: 23 May 2016 11:46 PM PDT

Egypt requested data on the crashed EgyptAir plane from France and Greece, as the victims' remains began arriving at a Cairo morgue.

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Cairo - Egypt's public prosecutor formally requested data on the crashed EgyptAir plane from France and Greece on Monday, as the victims' remains began arriving at a Cairo morgue ready for DNA testing.

EgyptAir flight 804 from Paris to Cairo vanished off radar screens early on Thursday as it entered Egyptian airspace over the Mediterranean.

The 10 crew and 56 passengers included 30 Egyptian and 15 French nationals, all believed to be dead.

Public Prosecutor Nabil Sadek asked his French counterpart to hand over documents, audio and visual records on the plane during its stay at Charles de Gaulle airport and until it left French airspace, his office said in a statement.

He also asked Greek authorities to hand over transcripts of calls between the pilot and Greek air traffic control officials, and for the officials to be questioned over whether the pilot sent a distress signal.

Egyptian officials say they received no mayday call from the pilots before the plane disappeared.

Greek officials say that controllers chatted with the pilot after the plane entered Greek airspace and that he sounded cheerful.

He thanked them in Greek, they said. When they tried to call him again to hand over to Egyptian air traffic control they got no response. The plane then disappeared from radar.

French investigators say the plane sent a series of warnings indicating that smoke had been detected on board as well as other possible computer faults shortly before it disappeared.

The signals did not indicate what may have caused smoke, and aviation experts have not ruled out either deliberate sabotage or a technical fault.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said all scenarios were possible and that none were being ruled out.

He promised a transparent investigation but said it could take a long time.

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said on Friday that Greek radar had picked up sharp swings in the jet's trajectory as it plunged from a cruising altitude to 15 000 feet, then vanished from radar.

That description of the plane's last moments has not been confirmed officially by Egyptian officials.

The head of Egyptian air navigation services said Egyptian officials did not spot the plane swerving.

“We did not record any form of swerving,” head of National Air Navigation Services Company Ehab Mohieeldin told privately owned local television channel CBC on Monday night.

He added that Egyptian officials were able to spot the jet on radar for one minute before it disappeared but they were unable to communicate with it.

Ships and planes scouring the sea north of Alexandria found body parts, personal belongings and debris from the Airbus 320, but were still trying to locate two “black box” recorders that could shed light on the cause of Thursday's crash.

If recorders are found intact their contents will be studied in Egypt, air accident investigator Captain Hani Galal told CBC, but they will be sent abroad for analysis if found damaged.

The State Security Prosecution will handle the criminal side of the investigation and will examine all debris and remains, state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported on Sunday.

An Egyptian team formed by the Civil Aviation Ministry is conducting the technical investigation and three officials from France's BEA air accident investigation agency arrived in Cairo on Friday with an expert from Airbus.

“There were enough body parts to fill one body bag,” a security official who saw the body parts arrive at Zeinhom morgue in Cairo told Reuters. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to the media.

Investigators are due to take DNA samples from the families of passengers and crew on Tuesday as the task begins of identifying what few remains have been recovered so far.

Air crash investigation experts say the search teams have around 30 days to listen for pings sent out once every second from beacons attached to the two black boxes.

While global aviation regulators agreed several years ago to extend the life of such devices to 90 days, their decision will not take effect until 2018.

The crash was the third blow since October to hit Egypt's travel industry, still reeling from political unrest following the 2011 uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak.

A suspected Islamic State bombing brought down a Russian airliner after it took off from Sharm al-Sheikh airport in late October, killing all 224 people on board, and an EgyptAir plane was hijacked in March by a man wearing a fake suicide belt.

Islamic State claimed responsibility for the Sharm al-Sheikh bombing within hours but a purported statement from the group's spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, distributed on Saturday, made no mention of the crash.

The October crash devastated Egyptian tourism, a main source of foreign exchange for a country of 80 million people.

Tourism revenue in the first three months of the year plunged by two-thirds to $500 million from a year earlier, and the latest incident could crush hopes for a swift recovery.

Reuters

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Ugandan Christian university bans politics

Posted: 23 May 2016 11:44 PM PDT

University vice chancellor, Professor Mauda Kamatenesi, warned that politics was against the values of the institution.

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Kampala - The Bishop Stuart University (BSU) in Mbarara in Western Uganda (BSU) has banned political party activities.

During a swearing-in of the new students guild council at the weekend, university vice chancellor, Professor Mauda Kamatenesi, warned that politics was against the values of the institution, reported the Daily Monitor on Monday.

“I stand to remind you again of the mission, vision and values of this university that include being non-partisan. You are all requested not to bring political party politics to this university as any such groups would violate what we stand for,” said Kamatenesi.

Kamatenesi explained that as a Christian university, BSU was meant to be non-partisan and embrace people of all persuasions.

The university’s apolitical stance was the reason it had been able to attract development partnerships from various groups, reasoned the professor.

Kamatenesi, however, pointed out that she belonged to a political party which she had voted for in February’s presidential elections but that her political affiliation would not be shown at BSU.

Asked whether the move did not infringe on the students’ rights, she said students were free to exercise their political beliefs outside the university campus.

Bernabas Nsengiuva, the outgoing guild president, said student leaders supported the university’s stance against political activity at campus as it prevented divisions and tensions, reported the Monitor.

“Most of the strikes in some of the high institutions of learning in the country are facilitated by parties, movements and divisions, and I think this is partly the reason our university has never had strikes since its inception,” said Nsengiuva.

He also said although party politics was good for democracy, if not handled well, it could be a recipe for violence.

However, some students said the ban infringed on their rights and that the university should revise it.

– African News Agency

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