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/ 17 September 2008
Women are playing a crucial role in post-genocide Rwandan politics.
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/ 15 September 2008
Rwanda held an election on Monday but with hardly any opposition candidates standing, President Paul Kagame is expected to tighten his grip.
Rwanda formally accused senior French officials on Tuesday of involvement in its 1994 genocide and called for them to be put on trial.
Rwanda says it could withdraw peacekeepers from Darfur if the UN fails to renew the contract of a top Rwandan commander indicted for war crimes.
The United Nations Security Council has lifted an arms embargo on Rwanda, about 13 years since it was imposed after the 1994 genocide.
Medical records and other health information can now be easily shared via cellhone and other modern technologies. Such information and communication technologies are an important way for Africa to address some of its most pressing challenges, writes Mary Kimani.
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/ 19 February 2008
After seeing graphic reminders of the Rwandan genocide, United States President George Bush on Tuesday called for increased international efforts to help Darfur. Bush visited a memorial to the 1994 genocide, in which 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered by Hutu extremists.
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/ 4 February 2008
The death toll from a series of earthquakes that hit Central Africa rose on Monday to 43 as a major aid operation for hundreds of injured and thousands of homeless gathered pace amid new aftershocks. Thirty-seven of the deaths were reported in Rwanda’s Western Province and six around the Democratic Republic of Congo city of Bukavu, which was near the epicentre.
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/ 3 February 2008
Two strong earthquakes shook the African Great Lakes region on Sunday, killing at least 34 people in Rwanda and six in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to officials and hospital sources. Hundreds of people were wounded, many with fractured limbs, after the two quakes struck close together along the western Rift Valley fault.
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/ 29 January 2008
United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon kicked off a landmark trip to Rwanda on Tuesday with a visit to the genocide memorial, amid simmering resentment over the world body’s failure to prevent the 1994 massacres. Ban paid homage to the victims of the massacres, which left about 800 000 people dead, mainly from the Tutsi minority of President Paul Kagame.
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/ 23 January 2008
With most formal banks inaccessible to many Africans, the service of cellphone banking is expanding to the poor on the continent. Mary Kimani examines how financial institutions are extending their services through the ubiquitous usage of cellphones in rural areas.
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/ 22 November 2007
Commonwealth leaders are aiming to reach a decision by the end of the weekend on whether to make former Belgian colony Rwanda a new member, the head of the 53-nation grouping said on Thursday. Commonwealth heads of government are meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, from Friday.
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/ 16 November 2007
A special Rwandan commission handed over on Friday a 500-page report on France’s alleged role in the country’s 1994 genocide, the commission’s president said. Paris has already rejected the competency of the commission of historians and jurists tasked to assemble evidence of France’s role in Rwanda’s genocide.
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/ 14 November 2007
A Rwandan journalist has been acquitted of genocide charges by a traditional court after serving 11 years in prison, a human rights group said on Tuesday. Tatiana Mukakibibi (42) was charged in 1996 with genocide, planning and participating in genocide and distributing arms during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.
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/ 30 October 2007
African countries working jointly to construct an undersea telecoms cable should harmonise laws governing the sector if they are to land the much-awaited communications link, a senior United Nations official said on Monday. About 23 nations have long harboured a much-delayed plan to build the submarine cable to slash internet and calling costs.
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/ 29 October 2007
African leaders and technology experts met on Monday in Rwanda to discuss plans to boost the continent’s development by securing universal internet access by 2012. Several heads of state attended the Connect Africa gathering, organised by the International Telecommunication Union and supported by international bodies including the African Union.
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/ 19 October 2007
Rwanda called on France on Friday to extradite a Rwandan wanted for his alleged role in the country’s 1994 genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Dominique Ntawukuriryayo, a former sub-prefect during the mass killings, was arrested by French police in Carcassonne, south-west France.
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/ 19 September 2007
Thousands of children are being forced into armed service in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since fighting erupted between rebels and the Congolese army in North Kivu province in late August, the United Nations Children’s Fund said on Wednesday.
Rwanda called on the United Nations on Wednesday to take action against peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) accused of trading food and intelligence with Rwandan Hutu rebels for gold. The world body is investigating allegations made against Indian troops in eastern DRC’s North Kivu province.
It’s not cheap motels or the back seats of cars, but the marriage bed where the new high-risk sex takes place in Uganda, delegates attending a conference on scaling up Aids services, held in Kigali, Rwanda, heard this week. Dr David Apuuli, director general of the Uganda Aids Commission, warned that marital sex accounts for 42% of new infections.
French troops advised Rwandan Hutu extremists how to hide their gruesome work from spy satellites, the author of a new book on the central African nation’s 1994 genocide said on Thursday. Silent Accomplice, by British researcher and author Andrew Wallis, gives what the author says is new evidence of French complicity in the 1994 slaughter of Rwandan Tutsis.
Rwanda’s first post-genocide president walked out of prison on Friday, freed after a presidential pardon for a 15-year sentence he received on charges that included inciting ethnic violence. Pasteur Bizimungu was jailed in 2004 after a trial critics said was politically motivated.
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/ 14 February 2007
A Rwandan journalist was beaten unconscious and left in a coma for hours by unknown attackers, a media rights group said on Wednesday. Rwanda’s government has long been criticised for keeping a tight grip on the media. Kigali is accused of arresting and harassing journalists who write critical articles about the government.
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/ 19 January 2007
Rwanda’s government said on Friday it had approved plans to scrap the death penalty, in a step which could remove a major obstacle to the transfer back home of defendants facing trial over the 1994 genocide. Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama said the legislation had been voted through at a Cabinet meeting this week.
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/ 11 December 2006
France armed and trained radical militia blamed for most of the killings in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, two Rwandan ex-soldiers told a panel probing alleged French complicity in the massacres on Monday. The pair said French troops had worked closely with the former Rwandan army and members of the Interahamwe militia.
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/ 4 December 2006
A Rwandan witness has accused a French judge of distorting his testimony in a probe into the killing of a former president that sparked the country’s genocide. It was the latest blow to Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who has been heavily criticised by Rwanda after calling for President Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, to face trial over the assassination of his Hutu predecessor in 1994.
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/ 28 November 2006
Protesting at what they insist is France’s role in their nation’s genocide, Rwandans from all walks of life have united in fury at calls last week by a French judge for their President Paul Kagame to be arrested. Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in anger at the allegation Kagame was behind the downing of a plane carrying his predecessor in 1994.
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/ 27 November 2006
Rwanda moved on Monday to clear vestiges of French interests in the country after breaking all ties with Paris in a major diplomatic row stemming from the Central African nation’s 1994 genocide. As a 72-hour deadline for the French embassy to close its operations in Kigali neared, authorities also ordered Radio France International to halt its local broadcasts.
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/ 27 November 2006
Ange Mukarusagara never thought she would get the chance to use a computer at school. That used to be the exclusive privilege of a handful of students at the National University of Rwanda. But times are changing. The tiny Central African country wants to become one of the most plugged-in countries on the continent.
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/ 25 November 2006
Rwanda on Friday severed all ties with France as a row over a French judge’s implication of the Rwandan president and top aides in the assassination of the country’s former leader boiled over. President Paul Kagame’s Cabinet ordered the closure of the French embassy and the expulsion of its envoy in Kigali.
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/ 24 November 2006
Rwanda on Friday recalled its ambassador to France and hinted it might break diplomatic relations with Paris in a row over arrest warrants issued by a French judge related to the 1994 genocide. A day after more than 25Â 000 people rallied in Kigali to denounce France, Rwanda’s foreign minister accused Paris of trying to destroy his government.
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/ 23 November 2006
More than 25 000 angry Rwandans protested in the capital of Rwanda, Kigali, on Thursday over France’s alleged complicity in the 1994 genocide after a French judge called for the prosecution of President Paul Kagame and associates. Led by genocide survivors and community leaders, thousands paraded through the streets.