South Korean police said Thursday they had arrested three Nigerians for allegedly obtaining millions of dollars from Citibank with a forged document purportedly from Ethiopia’s central bank.
Police said the suspects were caught Monday in the Yongsan district of Seoul following a tip-off from a local bank employee as they tried to withdraw money from a bank account. It had been frozen at Citibank’s request.
In August the trio allegedly sent a forged payment request from the Ethiopian central bank to Citibank in New York. They asked for more than 30 million dollars to be sent to bank accounts in several countries, including South Korea, China and Tanzania.
“Citibank apparently transferred most of the money, including nine billion won (6.4 million dollars) sent to four local banks in Seoul,” Detective Jung Hyun-Soo at Yongsan police station told AFP.
It was unclear whether money was withdrawn from accounts in other countries, he said.
Of the nine billion won transferred to South Korea, police said the Nigerians had already withdrawn eight billion and were detained while trying to obtain the remaining one billion.
Han Jeong, a senior police officer at Yongsan, told Yonhap news agency the Nigerians had already handed over most of the eight billion won to unspecified Ethiopians.
“After belatedly discovering that the documents had been forged, Citibank notified the Korean banks,” Han said.
Two of the suspects were in South Korea on business visas while a third was an illegal immigrant. Their names were withheld.
“We’re working closely with police in their investigation,” a Citibank Korea spokeswoman said.
Police said Citibank officials told them that the forged document looked authentic and had the signatures of the central bank governor and directors.
For Madin Dula, this election is different. The thought of casting her vote makes her smile. This is her third U.S. presidential election, but the first one in which she can vote.
Ten years ago, life was very different for Dula, an Oromo refugee from Ethiopia. Following a civil war in her country, Dula fled to Kenya with her family, settling in a refugee camp.
Dula says she had always been politically active, even when she lived in a refugee camp at the Kenyan coastal town of Mombasa. She is now a social worker, and uses her experience living as a refugee to work with immigrants in Minnesota as they face the challenges of settling in a new country.
Though she was engaged politically in the refugee camp, Dula felt that her voice was barely audible. Now, an American citizen, Dula would like to have her voice heard, her issues listened to. Like many Americans, central to her concerns is the economy, healthcare, and access to education.
Dula decided not to vote in the primaries. She did not feel that there was big policy difference between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Dula is an advocate for unrepresented people: women, and people of color in general.
“I knew that one of them would win,” she says, “and I did not want to be the one to kick either Clinton or Obama out.”
On Governor Sarah Palin, and her appeal to women voters, Dula was adamant that Palin is not progressive.
“I am a Muslim woman”, she says, “in many ways I am considered conservative. But there are many things I would rather people make their own choice, because when it comes to God, that relationship is personal.”
Dula is disappointed that Islam has become synonymous with terrorism in the rhetoric of the campaign, and with the racial undertones that the race to the White House has taken. She also knows her facts: that Senator Obama is not a Muslim.
“Foreigners think highly of America, that is why many people seek refuge in this country. I am shocked at the ignorance displayed by many people in their attack of Obama. He is half-black, half-white American, raised by his white Christian grandparents. How much more American can he get?
“It is very sad that they are disowning their own child [Obama], and are identifying him with a people and a culture [Islam] that he doesn’t know.”
Dula says that she understands that a politician cannot change the lives of people overnight. She is concerned, however, that with the current economic crisis it seems like common sense to allow the Democrats to work out solutions “for the problems that the Republicans have allowed to happen.”
Dula is honored to have citizenship of a country that she describes as the most diverse, and one that ought to demonstrate democracy to the rest of the world. “I am proud to be an American, and I will vote for Barack Obama.”
MOSCOW, Oct. 22 — Russia has been ranked 141 out of 173 countries in the 2008 press freedom index published on Wednesday by the international organization Reporters Without Borders.
The report’s authors say the Russian media “continues to be subject to violence and harassment.” Russia, up from 144th in 2007 and 147th in 2006 but still not back to the 138th spot it occupied in 2005, was ranked between Mexico (140th) and Ethiopia (142nd).
The research is based on events that took place between September 1, 2007, and September 1, 2008. It is aimed to show the degree of freedom that journalists and media enjoy in a country and efforts by its authorities to respect and ensure press freedom.
The index is based on 49 criteria, including “every kind of violation directly affecting journalists (such as murders, imprisonment, physical attacks and threats) and news media (censorship, confiscation of newspaper issues, searches and harassment).”
“It is not economic prosperity but peace that guarantees press freedom. That is the main lesson to be drawn from the world press freedom index,” the organization said in the report.
Most of the top 20 countries are European, except for New Zealand (7th) and Canada (13th). The top three countries are Iceland, Luxembourg and Norway. The former Soviet republics Estonia and Latvia were fourth and seventh, respectively.
France has lost four positions in the rating and was ranked 35th. Italy (44th) and Spain (36th) have also showed mediocre rankings, “due, in the former, to a poor overall climate and to mafia threats and violence, and in the latter, to the fear imposed by the Basque armed separatist group ETA.”
The United States is level with Spain in 36th place, climbing 12 spots in part thanks to the “release of Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj after six years in the Guantanamo Bay military base.”
Press freedom has significantly deteriorated in the Caucasus, where “two of its three independent countries – Armenia (102nd) and Georgia (120th) – had major problems and introduced states of emergency.” Several journalists were killed in the brief armed conflict between Georgia and its breakaway republic of South Ossetia in August.
Azerbaijan, which did not introduce the state of emergency during the relevant period was, however, ranked 150th.
The former Soviet Central Asian countries continue to lag far behind, with Turkmenistan (171st) and Uzbekistan (162nd) coming in the bottom 20, along with Belarus (154th). Ukraine (88th), Kazakhstan (125th) and Kyrgyzstan (111th), however, were ranked higher than Russia.
Below Turkmenistan in the bottom three – the “infernal trio,” which is unchanged from last year – are North Korea (172nd) and Eritrea (173rd).
Reporters Without Borders is registered in France as a non-profit organization and has consultant status at the United Nations. (PNA/RIA Novosti)
At least eight Kenyan Somalis have been killed in renewed fighting between two Somali clans in and outside the north-eastern Kenyan city of Mandera bordering Somalia early on Wednesday morning, a source from Mandera told APA in Mogadishu.
The fighting which erupted over the ownership of grazing lands first started in Koroney village about 14km south of Mandera and then spread into the town, Somali elder Abdi Samad Nur Ibrahim told APA by phone on Wednesday morning.
Abdi Samad Nur Ibrahim said in a telephone conversation with APA that 6 people were killed early Wednesday morning after they left a mosque in Mandera while 2 others were killed in Koroney village.
“The situation in Mandera is very tense today and the riot police are using teargas and rubber bullets to quell the intensifying fighting between Garre and Murale Kenyan ethnic Somalis,” he added.
“People were using swords, knives, bayonets and axes in the fighting and many bleeding people could be seen running everywhere in the city,” he added.
Schools and businesses were closed down because of the reigning tension and the clan-based hostility in the city.
Last week, at least 9 people were killed and dozens of houses burned when the two clans first fought over the ownership of grazing lands, but police and local elders were able to quell the incident.
Mandera is located in the north eastern part of Kenya, bordering Ethiopia and Somalia. It is located at 1000km from Mogadishu.
Inflation in most East African countries is said to be rising this year. In Ethiopia it moved from 33.6 % in August to37.2 % in September; In Kenya from 27.6% in August 2008 to 28.2% in September 2008 and In Tanzania a 10-year high point of 11.6 percent in September.
Inflation in Ethiopia for the month of September 2008 rises to 37.2 % from 33.6 % in August and from 27.6% in August to 28.2% in September in Kenya, while annual inflation in Tanzania surged to a 10-year high point of 11.6 percent in September owing to soaring food prices, official data from the National Bureau of Statistics show.
Inflation on food items in Ethiopia for the month of September 2008 has also reached 51.8 % from 46.9% in August. After the Ethiopian government TPLF announced lifting subsidy on fuel and shifted to importing wheat, many people including the opposition parties expressing their fear that the current inflation in the country will get worse.
According to critics, it is better for thegovernment Woyanne to continue subsidizing at least kerosene along with importing wheat and selling it with cheaper prices for the low income groups, which represents the majority of the around 80 million population of Ethiopia.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) indicated that the overall year on year inflation rate increased from 27.6% in August 2008 to 28.2% in September 2008. Underlying inflation, excluding food prices, rose more modestly from 13.1% to 13.3%.
On a monthly basis, food items (2%), housing costs (2%) and medical goods and services (1.4%) showed the strongest price increases. Year on year, food and non-alcoholic drinks (37.2%), fuel and power (31.6%), transport and communications (19.1%), alcohol and tobacco (15.6%) and medical goods and services (14%) had the largest price increases.
In August this year, the inflation rate in Tanzania was 9.8 percent. The recent surge indicates a 1.8-point increase within a month. In February this year, inflation was 8.9 percent.
Analysts say the government would not be able to bring down the inflation rate to seven percent by the end of the current financial year.
Dr Honest Ngowi of the Mzumbe University, said: “The seven percent goal is now unrealistic since, under the current system, Tanzania has nothing in place to control food and fuel prices, the two most dominant factors in the country’s inflation basket,” according to the citizen newspaper in Tanzania.
He said since the inflationary spiral was mainly on food, fuel and other production factors, it would be very difficult for the country to control it in the short-term.
“It could be easily contained if it was caused by excess money supply on the market. However, this is due to production factors,” he said.
He said this could worsen considering that the holiday season was just around the corner.
“Inflation will now be fluctuating between 10 and 12 percent. It requires magic for the government to bring it back to seven per cent,” said Dr Semboja Haji, of the University of Dar es Salaam’s Economic Research Bureau (ERB).
He criticized the government for having no mechanism in place to protect the country from the negative effects of economic developments outside.
The top U.S. official for human rights and democracy issues has met Ethiopia’s TPLF leaders to express concern about pending legislation that critics say would curtail political freedoms. VOA’s Peter Heinlein in Addis Ababa reports Ethiopian Woyanne officials flatly reject the criticisms, arguing that the rights of citizens are being protected.
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy and Human Rights David Kramer says he came to Ethiopia this week to ask Prime Minister Dictator extraordinaire Meles Zenawi to reconsider provisions in a draft law that would criminalize many activities of foreign non-governmental organizations. The bill is set for presentation to parliament in the coming days.
The so-called Charities and Societies Proclamation would give the government oversight authority over NGOs receiving at least 10 percent foreign funding, including money from Ethiopians living abroad. It prohibits these NGOs from promoting the advancement of human and democratic rights, gender equality or the rights of children and the disabled.
After what he described as a ‘useful and productive’ two-hour meeting with the prime minister, Dictator Assistant Secretary Kramer told reporters he had expressed U.S. concerns about a number of issues, including the conduct of recent local council elections and a newly-passed law limiting press freedom.
“I did convey to him concerns that we have and we have heard from others about some trends that would point to a closing of political space. When you look at the April election earlier this year, when you look at the media law that was passed. When you look at the draft CSO legislation, and we had a discussion about that,” he said.
Kramer says he is worried about provisions in the draft legislation that could force the closure of several aid projects funded by the U.S. government. “My bureau for example funds programs that deal with issues of women’s empowerment, with media, with conflict resolution, and based on my understanding of the latest version of the proclamation that I’ve seen so far, those programs could be adversely affected,” he said.
Ethiopian officials TPLF have staunchly defended the draft law, saying it will not jeopardize the rights of Ethiopians. In a recent VOA interview, senior government adviser TPLF cadre Bereket Simon dismissed criticisms that the proposal would constitute a blow to democracy. “This is simply a ridiculous assertion. Since we’re promoting democracy, I don’t think any genuinely democratic NGO shall be afraid of empowering our people. We are empowering our people. Nothing has been taken from the right of the people, and that’s what concerns us most, and if these NGO critics are really interested in what is taking place in Ethiopia, in empowering the public, I think there should be no concern or fear,” he said.
Assistant Secretary of State Kramer declined to speculate on what impact passage of the Charities Proclamation might have on the level of U.S. aid to Ethiopia. The Horn of Africa country is currently the third largest recipient of U.S. aid in Africa, after Egypt and Sudan. During fiscal year 2008, U.S. assistance to Ethiopia Woyanne totaled nearly $800 million, most of it humanitarian food military aid.
There are an estimated 3,000 NGOs currently operating in Ethiopia. Their combined budgets are believed to be more than $1 billion a year.
