'He ripped off my clothes'

Two soldiers dragged a 14-year-old girl into the tall grass in November. One held her down, the other raped her.

That same month, a 30-year-old woman was approached by a man in uniform.

"We are going to have sex like a man and wife," he said. She tried to resist, was punched in the face and was then raped.

Another girl, 14, was walking down a path in the bush when she was approached in late December.

"He ripped off my clothes and used them to tie my hands behind my back," she said.

These three incidents are among eight sexual abuse allegations documented by Human Rights Watch from October to December 2015 in the Central African Republic.

All of them were allegedly committed by United Nations peacekeepers.

"In a country where armed groups routinely prey on civilians, peacekeepers should be protectors, not predators," Hillary Margolis, women's rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said in a news release.

The rights group conducted its research from January 16 to 30 in Bambari, where the Democratic Republic of Congo has deployed approximately 800 soldiers.

Human Rights Watch said all of the victims it spoke with believed the peacekeepers that assaulted them were from the Republic of Congo or from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Its report comes less than a week after the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights announced six cases from 2014 in which children may have been abused by foreign soldiers: five girls and a boy, between the ages of 7 and 16.

Those follow a litany of other abuse claims, both from the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations monitoring the region.

The head of the peacekeeping mission was fired over the issue in August.

"I believe the disturbing number of allegations we have seen in many countries -- but particularly in the Central African Republic in the period before U.N. peacekeepers were deployed and since -- speaks to the need to take action now," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in August. "Enough is enough."

In December, the U.N. issued a report on sexual assault by peacekeepers.

It's over 100 pages, but its findings can be summed up in two words: We failed.

"Overall, the response of the UN was fragmented and bureaucratic, and failed to satisfy the UN's core mandate to address human rights violations," it said. "In the absence of concrete action to address wrongdoing by the very persons sent to protect vulnerable populations, the credibility of the UN and the future of peacekeeping operations are in jeopardy."

The report issued a dozen recommendations on what needed to be done.

And though more allegations have surfaced since the report was issued, it's unclear whether any formal charges have been filed against possible perpetrators.

The peacekeepers' involvement in the Central African Republic, one of the world's poorest nations, stems from political violence that began in 2013.

France and African nations sent peacekeepers after a coalition of mostly Muslim rebels ousted President Francois Bozize in March 2013. Christian and Muslim militias battled for control before a tentative political transition began.

The violence prompted a humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing their homes. Some sought refuge in neighboring countries, but many others were internally displaced, living in makeshift camps.

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Capital Investment Plan Will Trigger Economic Turnaround, Says Adeosun

Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, has said that the planned 1.8 Trillion Naira capital investment in 2016 by the Federal Government will drive economic growth, according to Channel.

Giving a breakdown of the current administration’s plans to reposition the economy at a Forum and Survey Launch in Lagos on Friday, Mrs Adeosun said a spending stimulus was needed to reflate the economy and avoid recession.

The Minister, in her keynote address, told the participating Chief Financial Officers at the forum organised by the KPMG, that Nigeria’s GDP in 2015 was the lowest in the last 15 years and pointed out that even whilst oil prices were high, GDP had been falling.

According to a statement issued by the Special Adviser to the Finance Minister on Media Matters, Mr Festus Akanbi, the Minister recalled that a similar stimulus had actually been provided in the global downturn in 2008.

She pointed out that the stimulus now needed, would be strategically targeted at investments that would support a diversified economic growth.

The Finance Minister said the proposed 2016 budget would finance investments in key infrastructure particularly in transport, power, health, housing and education.

“These investments would create jobs with the various contractors that would execute the projects,” Mrs Adeosun further told the gathering.

She explained that public investments would attract further investments from the private sector and that investments in power and transport would increase the competitive position of Nigerian businesses.

The Minister cited the case of Ethiopia, which is now seen as a model for African economy which has diversified from a single product, coffee to a multi-product with exports of flowers providing US3.5bn Dollars of earnings as well as leather goods and other products.

Mrs Adeosun said that to attain that level of growth, the Ethiopian Government had invested up to 60 per cent of its budget in capital, pointing out that this threshold contrasted to the Nigerian situation, where In 2015, Nigeria’s capital expenditure was just 10 per cent of the total.

“No economy has ever grown by underinvesting in infrastructure,” the Minister stressed.

Explaining the strategies that the government had adopted, the Minister said: “The ongoing “fiscal housekeeping”, which included sanitising the payroll, which to date, has unveiled over 23,000 possible ghost workers and the creation of the Efficiency Unit, are key strategies in managing recurrent expenditure.

“The focus on improving non-oil revenue collections is also an important strategic objective”.

According to the Minister, this is essential in ensuring that the planned borrowings were channelled to capital projects rather than being spent on recurrent items.

On the subject of the planned borrowing, the Minister explained that Government was seeking the lowest cost funds and was therefore, consulting with the multilateral agencies, which offered concessional rates of interest as low as 1.5 per cent before looking at the commercial Eurobond Market.

She said that the financing strategy was to restructure much of the existing debts, which had short maturity and aligned it with the investment plans of the government in line with its Medium Term Expenditure Framework.

The Minister assured Nigerians that the government was ensuring that projects to be undertaken, would create direct and indirect revenues, which would be used to repay the obligations.

Mrs Adeosun said that for the medium term, the outlook for the economy was strong.

“If the planned investments in capital are undertaken, the GDP growth projections show that Nigeria would become a leading global economy.

The government will work to ensure that consumption from our huge population would drive internal growth across a number of key sectors,” she stated.

The Minister, however, assured the audience that if the disciplined implementation of the plans could be attained, Nigeria would finally be able to diversify and end the situation where the entire nation focus on oil price.

Ini Edo Appointed Special Adviser To Akwa Ibom Governor

The veteran Nollywood actress, Ini Edo, has been appointed the Special Adviser on Tourism to Akwa Ibom state governor, Emmanuel Udoh.

Reliable sources close to the actress reveal that she was given the appointment last week and she will be spending most of her time in the state.

Man Faces 1,000 Lashes For Having s*x With Vacuum Cleaner in Saudi

A man accused of having s*x with his vacuum cleaner have been arrested, reports the Riyadh Daily. 

The man was caught in full action by his wife of 17 years before she reported her husband to authorities. “After 17 years of loyalty, this is how this miscreant treats me,” she told local reporters. “I feel used, I feel dirty,” she added.

As adultery is a crime punishable by death in Islamic law, usually performed by stoning the person to death, experts believe the man’s condemnation is a light one.

“Due to the peculiar nature of this case of adultery, in which the accused performed s*x with a home appliance and not with an animal or a human being, the judge has decided to give him a lighter sentence than usual for this crime” admits legal expert and Middle East specialist, Hakim Ben Ali. “Two years in prison and 1,000 lashes is more than acceptable for the region,” he acknowledges.

The man accused of adultery strongly maintained his innocence before the court. “We were unable to identify if the suspect performed any s*xual act with his vacuum cleaner,” Saeed Saleh Trad, the spokesperson for Al-Shafi police, said. “He was arrested and is held in custody pending further investigations,” he told reporters.

The case could be a first one for Saudi law as nothing in Islamic law is stated about s*xual acts performed onto home appliances but the accusation still applies as an act of adultery, believe experts.

Iara Oshiomhole Shuts Down Divorce Rumors, Says “I’m Enjoying My Marriage”

Wife of Edo State Governor, Iara Oshiomhole, has described as ‘most wicked and malicious’, rumors making the rounds, especially on social media that she filed for divorce from Governor Adams Oshiomhole.

Former Miss Iara Fortes, a Cape Verdean, got married to Oshiomhole, a widower, last year May at a private marriage registry at Iyamho, Etsako West LGA of Edo State.

Less than one year into the marriage, rumors surfaced online this week that Iara had filed for divorce from the governor on claims that he is fetish and diabolic.

She was also alleged to have accused her husband of being responsible for the death of his former wife, Mrs Clara Oshiomhle, who died in 2010, after a protracted battle with chest cancer.

Reacting to the unconfirmed reports, Iara said she is currently enjoying her marriage and that there was no reason to divorce her husband.

She spoke in a press statement signed by Executive Director, Media and Public Affairs, Governor’s Office, John Mayaki.

Iara said she was in her office throughout the week holding meetings and brainstorming on how to better the lots of the less-privileged Women and Children in the state through her pet project: “We Care Trust”.

Mrs. Oshiomhole added that she followed her husband on project inspection to the World-Class Central Hospital, Erosion Control sites, Road Construction sites as well as visited four Orphanage homes in Benin metropolis, in demonstration of her milk of kindness, drawing from the support of her husband.

According to the statement, “We Care Trust”, Mrs. Iara Oshiomhole’s pet project is embarking on training of Edo Youths under a programmed christened “Project Focus”.

“This is part of her efforts to uplift the socio-economic life of Edo people just as details of this event would soon be made public”, the statement said.

Mr. Mayaki, however, advised those he called rumor mongers “to engage in more productive engagements to deploy their energies rather than market inanities about public personalities all in their bid to sell their medium”.

“Which Court of Law was the alleged divorce initiated and to whom was it served? Which country, state, municipal or county, if any, is the Court situated? And when was the action/suit filed? Of course the writers didn’t bother to inform their readers. The truth however is that the answers only exist in the warped imagination of the purveyors of the lies”, he stated.

With Information Nigeria