Aug 28 (GIN) – Riots erupted in Kenya’s touristic port city of Mombasa over the contract-style killing of a popular Muslim cleric who had many followers among the youth.
Aug 28 (GIN) – Riots erupted in Kenya’s touristic port city of Mombasa over the contract-style killing of a popular Muslim cleric who had many followers among the youth.
Aboud Rogo Mohammed was murdered Monday, Aug. 27, by suspects traveling in a car that had been trailing his. The gunmen’s car suddenly sped up and shots were fired at the driver’s side of the imam’s vehicle. Rogo Mohammed died instantly while his wife, father-in-law and 8 year old daughter suffered minor wounds.
Rogo Mohammad had been placed on a U.S. and U.N. sanctions list for “engaging in acts that directly or indirectly threaten the peace, security or stability of Somalia,” specifically for recruiting and fundraising for the al-Shabab, a Somali Islamist group fighting the U.S.-backed government in Mogadishu, Somalia since 2010.
Last year, in a major policy shift, Kenya sent troops into Somali territory in pursuit of al-Shabab. The controversial move created new security problems for the Kenyan nation. It was the first incursion into another country since Kenyan independence in 1963.
After Rogo’s burial, angry mobs threw stones at police, broke store windows, forcing tourist hotels to close and safaris to be canceled. Police responded with tear gas, said Ben Lawrence of Human Rights Watch.
The violence could worsen if it taps into long-standing local grievances over land ownership and unemployment, as well as calls by the Mombasa Republican Council for the coastal strip to secede.
Meanwhile, Abdi Yusuf, a senior Somali military commander, said on Sunday that fighter jets struck two al-Shabab bases in southern Somalia, but could not confirm if the aircraft belonged to Kenya.
w/pix of A.R. Mohammed
AS ELECTION NEARS, ANGOLAN RAPPERS ARE “FED UP” AND READY FOR CHANGE
Aug 28 (GIN) – Victory for Angola’s 70 year old commander in chief in this Friday’s polls seems inevitable but that hasn’t stopped massive rallies lead by the opposition and militant new lyrics by some of the country’s hot young rappers.
Pres. Jose Eduardo des Santos is getting an earful from young people who have never known another president.
“We are all victims of catastrophic governance, that's why I don't just do music, but I hit the streets with other young people and demonstrate against the government”, says hiphop artist Carbono Casimoro. “But the government suppresses our freedoms, and we are afraid something could happen to us. We are peaceful and we're not looking for confrontation with the government. We want justice."
About half a dozen anti-government rallies, inspired by the Arab Spring, have been held in Luanda, the capital, and other cities over the past year, sparking clashes with police.
This Friday, the ruling MPLA runs against the opposition Unita party. It will be the second such vote in Angola, Africa's No. 2 oil producer after Nigeria, since the end of a 27-year civil war a decade ago.
A third party, the Ample Convergence for the Salvation of Angola, or Casa, hopes to tap into the youth vote, which makes up more than 60 percent of Angola’s 19 million people.
Rapper Luaty Beirão, known as "Ikonoklasta" in hip-hop circles, said: "People of my age have never known a time when there was another party in power," he said.
“Now, we’ve got elections coming up on Aug 31 and procedures … are being set in motion before our very eyes, in total disregard to the electoral law, the constitution and, most of all, to the Angolan citizens… We’re FED UP!” w/pix of C. Casimiro
A video of Carbono Casimiro can be found at on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=1344871557303&set=t.100001363987293&type=3&theater
RUSSIANS REFUSE WAGE DEMANDS OF STRIKING GUINEAN MINERS

Aug. 28 (GIN) – Africa’s first aluminum refinery, in the town of Fria, north of Guinea’s capital Conakry, remains locked down five months after workers struck the plant in a fierce battle over wages. The mine’s Russian owners abandoned their posts alleging security reasons.
Rusal, the Russian company, objected to the country’s revised mining code that would give the West African nation a 15% share in mining companies and offered greater transparency.
The “mining code adopted in Guinea increases considerably tax pressure on mining companies, making it senseless to invest in development and new projects,” Moscow-based Rusal was quoted to say. “Any investor of good sense will look for investment opportunities somewhere outside Guinea.”
Guinea, the world's largest exporter of bauxite, the main ingredient in aluminum, is home to some of the largest, undeveloped high-grade, iron-ore reserves. Yet it is one of Africa's poorest countries.
Elsewhere in Guinea, five people were killed by security forces last month at a protest for jobs in Zogota, where a joint venture between Brazil's Vale, the world's second largest mining company, and Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz's BSG Resources is seeking to build an iron ore mine, an official in the mines ministry said. w/map of Guinea
MANDELA’S JAIL MATE SUCCUMBS TO CANCER
By Fungai Maboreke
Aug. 28 (GIN) - Ex-Robben Island political prisoner and anti apartheid activist Neville Alexander spent a decade jailed with former president Nelson Mandela. From 1964-1974, he taught fellow inmates history, while Mandela instructed them in law.
His passing was noted by current President Jacob Zuma.
“The country has lost a person of high intellectual and academic standing,” said Zuma. “We extend our deepest condolences to Dr Alexander’s family, relatives and friends.”
In 1962, Alexander was one of nine members of the Yu Chi Chan Club – the Chinese name for guerrilla warfare which was to become the National Liberation Front, which he co-founded.
He was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit sabotage against the racist white minority regime in 1964.
Upon his release from prison, Alexander joined Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness Movement. SA History Online quoted Alexander to say, “the ‘University of Robben Island’ was one of the best universities in the country. It also showed me that you don’t need professors.”
Alexander, a “Cape Coloured” (minority of mixed race) died at home in Grassy Park, on the Cape Flats. He was 75. w/pix of N.Alexander