BoNgo Ya leO

Former Barcelona scout Bojan Krkic senior has revealed that the Catalans had the chance to sign Thibaut Courtois, Raphael Varane and Viktor Fischer for a combined transfer fee of €10 million.
Krkic recommended the trio to Barcelona before they became household names in European football, but the Camp Nou outfit opted against bringing them to La Liga.
Courtois eventually left Genk for Chelsea, Varane joined Real Madrid from Lens, while Fischer ended up at Ajax after leaving Midtjylland.
"Courtois was really keen to join Barcelona. It was in 2011 and the club could have signed him for €3-4 million. He was ready to be farmed out on loan first or start in the B team. [Andoni] Zubizarreta didn't do anything with it and he joined Chelsea a few months later," Krkic sr. told Cadena SER.
"Varane made a great impression on me when I saw him and thought he would be a good signing. We could have sent him out on loan first. But Barcelona sent another scout to watch him during Monaco-Lens and he put together a negative report.
"We could have signed Fischer from Denmark for €1.4m. But Barcelona eventually preferred Kiko Femenia for €3m. I saw Viktor a few times and he really impressed me. He was very talented and a number of English clubs were also after him.
"These three players together would have been available for less than €10m. These days, there are world-class players."
Courtois has been Chelsea's first-choice goalkeeper this season, while Varane is an important first-team member at Madrid. Fischer, meanwhile, is currently recovering from a serious injury at Ajax.

 
Last week during an appearance on The Tonight Show, comedian Dave Chappelle relayed the story of his first encounter with rap star Kanye West. It was on the set of Chappelle’s television show, and he recalled hearing West take a phone call and telling the caller, “I’m at the edit for … Chappelle’s Show watching sketches no one has seen before … because my life is dope and I do dope sh**.”
Ten years later, West’s life is still pretty dope and he continues to do pretty dope sh**, like make a surprise appearance at Chappelle’s standup show at Radio City Music Hall on Friday night. As Complex notes, Kanye delivered a brief three song performances, “New Slaves,” “Gold Digger,” and “Jesus Walks.”
The night marked the second of Chappelle’s nine-night residency at the New York music hall. Several of the performances will feature support from an already-announced musical guests, including Nas, The Roots, Busta Rhymes, Janelle Monáe, and Erykah Badu.
source: consequenceofsound.net

Some 30 journalists from various areas of the Mainland and Zanzibar are today starting a two day training on photo coverage of acts of violence against women and children.

The training is being conducted in Dar es Salaam along with a photo exhibition at the National Museum.
The training and exhibition are spearheaded by Tanzania Media Women’s Associati
on (TAMWA) to raise public awareness on acts of violence against women and children.

The workshop is part of a 16 days global annual campaign (Nov 25 –Dec 10) campaign against Gender Based Violence (GBV).
The photo journalist will be taught how to take varieties of photos of gender violence cases as well as cases of female genital mutilation, rape and child marriages.

TAMWA will use various photographs to provide the realism of these events for women and children.

TAMWA also provided a journal that provides manual for writers when writing detailed news about violence against women.

Statistics from the United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA), which is funding the trainings and exhibition, indicate that from 2004 – 2010, there was a rise of 39.9 per cent in FGM practices in Mara Region alone and cited that the practice is also prevalent in Shinyanga Region.

The journalists at the training and exhibition are from Shinyanga, Simiyu, Dodoma, Mtwara, Tanga, Mara, Dar es Salaam, Iringa, Mbeya, Rukwa, Mwanza and parts of Zanzibar.

Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition (THRDs-Coalition) has called on media outlets in the country to equip journalists with basic knowledge on digital security ahead of the local government elections slated for mid next month.

The call was made by the National Coordinator for the Coalition, Onesmo Olengurumwa at a two-day digital security training for journalists from different media houses.

He said as the country is heading towards the elections, cybercrimes are likely to rise, something that could interfere with journalists’ work of
informing and educating the public.

Citing examples of the mushrooming social media, he said digital security training is vital if freedom of speech is to be maintained during elections.
“The knowledge will be of much assistance to journalists as it will help them protect themselves,” he said.

“Digital security training in Tanzania must be given priority due to the increase of cybercrimes. This training couldn’t have come at a better time as the country is in the process of writing a new constitution as well as the coming general elections,” he said.

He said the training will equip journalists with knowledge on how to use various social media while being watchful on security and privacy.

Olengurumwa noted that digital security training must include both online and offline security, “offline, we need to learn how to secure and protect our information in case of theft or loss of our hardware so that no one can access our personal information. Online we need to protect our digital devices from viruses and create strong passwords to avoid hacking of accounts.”

Citing an example, he said according to various international reports on average, more than 70 journalists are murdered every year, and the murderers go unpunished.

“Every year hundreds of journalists are attacked, threatened or harassed. Many are stalked or have their phone calls and internet communications hacked,” he said.

“As human rights advocates, journalists, bloggers and media personnel often face harassment, detention, torture, defamation, suspension from their employment and other difficulties. In some countries they are killed or just disappear,” he added.

Commenting on the training, one of the Coalition’s facilitators, Boka Melkisedeck said the aim of equipping journalists with such knowledge is to empower them on digital security issues and raise awareness on managing digital security risks.

“We want them to be able to analyse basic security practices related to technology, digital media and information technology,” he said.

For their part,  digital security experts, Mark Kiggundu from the East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project (EHAHRDP) Kampala, Uganda and  John Kaoneka from Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC) said journalists as human rights defenders have the right to be trained on digital security issues so that they can effectively and efficiently execute their duties.

“We are training 14 Human Rights Defenders including journalists, media workers and bloggers who are mostly at risk. After the training, we expect the knowledge acquired will be shared with their colleagues in their respective media houses,” they said.

The Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition and East and Horn of Africa Human Rights Defenders Project jointly planned to train 14 vocal journalists, media personnel and bloggers.

The government is working to modify and secure methodology used in mobile phone Sim Card registration particularly in identity verification as cases of forgery run rampant.

Deputy Minister for Communication, Science and Technology, January Makamba, told the House that because of the unchecked use of fake documents in registering sim-cards.


In an interview with this paper yesterday, Tanzania    Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) Corporate Communications Manager, Innocent Mungy, admitted that there are challenges facing Sim Card registration.

However, he maintained that TCRA will address the ‘glitches’ but it will not repeat the entire exercise because according to him, ‘it will cost a lot of money.’

Earlier in parliament, the deputy minister’s announcement of the planned modification of the registration process was prompted by a question by Jaku Hashim Ayoub (CCM) MP, who wanted to know what the government is doing to curb the increasing abuse of Sim cards.

Ayoub also wanted to know when the government will come up with a law that will enforce penalties and punishment to telecommunication companies that keep selling unregistered Sim cards.

In his response, Deputy Minister Makamba said the government is actually already in the process of changing regulations to increase punishment to telecommunication providers who provide agents to conduct the registrations of the Sim cards.

The deputy minister said that according to the Electronic and Postal Communication Act (EPOCA) OF 2010, it is a criminal offence to use unregistered Sim cards.
“Whoever will be caught using unregistered Sim cards will be charged a penalty of 500,000/-, or jail term of 3 months, according to EPOCA section 131 and a supplier or trader who will be caught selling unregistered Sim cards will be charged a penalty of 3m/- or a jail term of not less than 12 months or both,” he said.

He said the public has been very cooperative in registering their Sim cards, attributing it to the fact that without registration, the user will not be able to access services such as mobile money transactions.

In April last year TCRA, mobile phone firms and police launched a crackdown meant to arrest violations of laws and regulations governing Sim Card registration and mobile phone use.

The move came hardly two months after The Guardian sought to know TCRA’s stance with regard to misuse of Sim Cards by unauthorized subscribers despite the fact that the law is clear about the matter.

Speaking to journalists in Dar es Salaam then, TCRA Director General Prof John Nkoma said the campaign was meant to protect the public against unlawful use of mobile phones.

The campaign, he said, was a result of the meetings held on April 4 and 11, 2013 between TCRA and mobile phone firms to review registration of Sim cards and other related issues which agreed on corrective measures to be taken.

It's now official that the eagerly awaited debate on the raging controversy over the Tegeta escrow account scandal reports will run for three consecutive days in the National Assembly starting tomorrow.

The decision came after a dramatic back and forth exchange between House Speaker Anne Makinda and legislators who were pushing for the deliberations to be held y
esterday and not tomorrow.

The MPs wanted other House business shelved for the day to pave the way for debate on the scandal reports, which have seen several of Tanzania’s development partners withhold some 1trn/- in national budget funding, to take precedence.

It all started with a private motion tabled by Nominated MP James Mbatia seeking to have the scam debated promptly “so as to clear the air”.

The lawmaker asked for the Speaker’s guidance, citing distribution of a report on the matter from the Office of the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) to some MPs and the public. He said the presumed distributor of the documents was being held for questioning after officials from the Parliament Office and the police intervened.

He said the person was found with several copies of the report in hand and that the person had stolen the documents from the Speaker’s Office before it was handed over to Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman Zitto Zuberi Kabwe on Monday.

“Copies of the documents handed over to PAC had special signs that differentiate them from the ones circulated in the streets…this is against Parliamentary Powers, Ethics and Privileges Act,” Mbatia said, imploring the Speaker to ensure the CAG’s report was debated there and then.

According to the Parliamentary Powers, Ethics and Privileges Act, Section 296 (31) (g): “Any person publishing, serving as general of special leave of the Assembly, any favour, report for any document prepared explicitly for submission to the Assembly before the same has been laid before the table of the Assembly shall be guilty of an offence and shall be on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding 500,000/- or imprisonment to a term not exceeding 3 years.”

Speaker Makinda then retorted: “I personally thank Mbatia and other MPs who assisted in the preliminary investigation that led to the arrest of the man who was distributing the CAG’s report…this is a serious abuse of my office…let the police investigate the matter and I will set the date for the debate.”
She said discussions on findings of the parliamentary subcommittee on causalities of land disputes that was set for Thursday and Friday have now been waved to allow more time for the MPs to discuss the PAC’s report.

But Tundu Lissu (Singida-West, Chadema) was not impressed and argued that the matter under dispute was, according to Section 51 (3) of the Parliamentary Standing Orders, about parliamentary constitutional rights.

The same section, he said, allows discussion on such a matter to be given priority by the Speaker above any other business slated for debate in the House.