Informer East Africa accepts donations to continue delivering daily news to you.

Donation Amount. Min £2

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Britain’s top government-appointed cleric, places a crown on the head of King Charles, the country’s hereditary ruler, during the coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey in London, 6 May.  Mirrorpix/MEGA

More than 35 years ago, leaders of the Church of England voted against divesting from apartheid South Africa.

One would think that today’s leaders of Britain’s official state religion would look back on that decision with shame and an earnest desire to learn from their grave errors.

But that does not appear to be the case as Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the church’s top cleric, has made clear with his denial that Israel perpetrates apartheid against the Palestinian people.

At an event in London on Wednesday, Welby was asked if Israel is an apartheid state.

“I know it’s going to be an unpopular answer,” Welby said before asserting, “I don’t want to use the word apartheid because the apartheid regime in South Africa – and I knew Desmond Tutu and listened to him at length on this – the apartheid regime was built on a constitution that in the very fabric of the constitution, set up apartheid.”

“It remains a risk if the constitution changes to an apartheid constitution, then it obviously would become an apartheid state. But until that happens, I won’t use that word about Israel,” Welby added.

So as long as it doesn’t say it’s an apartheid state, Welby is happy to take Israel’s word for it.

Nonetheless, the cleric seems to oblivious to the fact that Israel’s constitutional “basic law” was revised in 2018 to even more deeply entrench Jewish supremacy over indigenous Palestinians throughout historic Palestine – essentially confirming that it is an apartheid regime.

After denying apartheid, Welby did indulge in some light hand-wringing that Israel “is in a place of turmoil” and that “what’s happening in the settlements” is “unjust” and “against international law.”

But those mild statements could just as easily have come from a British government or European Union official. They hardly demonstrate the courage of a moral leader.

Tutu called it apartheid

It is particularly grotesque and reprehensible that Welby invoked his fellow churchman, the late, great Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to shield Israel from being named as an apartheid state.

Tutu, who helped lead the struggle against South Africa’s racist regime as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, was among the first major international figures to consistently label Israel’s systematic persecution of the Palestinian people as apartheid.

“We have visited Israel/Palestine on a number of occasions and every time have been struck by the similarities with the South African apartheid regime,” Tutu wrote in 2011, for instance. “The separate roads and areas for Palestinians, the humiliation at roadblocks and checkpoints, the evictions and house demolitions.”

He added that “parts of East Jerusalem resemble what was District Six in Cape Town” – a century-old multiracial community that was destroyed by the apartheid regime in 1966 and declared a whites-only area.

Since Tutu wrote those words, major international and Israeli human rights groups, including B’TselemHuman Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have belatedly come to the same conclusion: Israel perpetrates apartheid against the Palestinian people as a whole – one of the most heinous crimes against humanity enumerated in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Official religion

The Church of England’s complicity with apartheid then and now should be shocking given how Welby and the church pose as fearless moral arbiters willing to speak truth to power.

But this can never be the role of an official church whose leader has to be approved by the British prime minister before being formally appointed by the king.

As a fixture of Britain’s ruling establishment, Welby amplified and tacitly endorsed the Israel’s lobby’s destructive smear campaign falsely labeling Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party he headed at the time as “anti-Semitic.”

former oil executive, one Welby’s first acts after the government named to lead the Church of England was to help rehabilitate Tony Blair, the former prime minister widely reviled for perpetrating, alongside US President George W. Bush, the criminal invasion of Iraq that ended and uprooted millions of lives.

It may be mere coincidence that the archbishop’s son Peter Welby was subsequently given “plum job” at Blair’s Faith Foundation.

The Church of England is moreover only now tentatively addressing its centuries-old wilful profiteering from the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans.

Grassroots activism

To be sure, many members of the Church of England’s dwindling rank and file do support justice in Palestine, as do many members of the UK Labour Party – despite the cowardice and betrayal of their erstwhile leaders.

Notably, in 2006, the Church of England’s legislative body did vote for limited divestment from companies that are directly complicit in Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.

In 2018, the Episcopal Church – the Anglican church in the United States – also decided to divested from several companies involved in the settlements.

It must be clear, however, that these modest steps forward have been the result not of courageous leadership from the top, but the hard work of grassroots activists within the churches challenging the complicity of political appointees like Welby.

But in general, Anglican churches have lagged behind other Christian communities in adopting divestment as a strategy to support justice in Palestine.

Last year, the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA formally affirmed that Israel perpetrates the crime of apartheid and urged members to seek ways to bring it to an end.

And across the United States, grassroots members of Christian, Muslim and Jewish faith groups are participating in the new Apartheid-Free Communities initiative, recently convened by the American Friends Service Committee.

Among its endorsers are several Episcopalian groups.

If the Archbishop of Canterbury won’t listen to Palestinians or to major human rights groups, perhaps he will pay attention to members of his own Anglican communion. By Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada

Police car. PHOTO/Courtesy
 A suspected carjacker was on Friday, September 8, 2023, shot dead by police while another was arrested during a raid in Machakos.

According to police commander Patrick Lobolia, the two were highly involved in a car theft syndicate causing sleepless nights to residents in Machakos and neighbouring counties. The stolen vehicles would then be sold to neighbouring counties.

"For the last few weeks, they have been targeting D-Max vehicles along Mombasa Road. We believe that once stolen the vehicles are taken to a neighbouring country," the police boss said.

Lobolia noted that the arrested suspects' primary role in the syndicate was to deactivate the vehicle tracking systems.

In the recent incident that led to their arrest, the two had rented out the vehicle recovered from a car-hiring service situated at City Cabanas. At the time, they claimed that they needed it to transport some items to Machakos.

The car hire service was inclusive of an in-house driver who drove them to their destination. 

Shortly after taking off, the two allegedly commandeered the truck and disabled only two of its tracking devices unaware of a third tracking device pinned on the track.

The driver was able to escape and reported the matter to Kyumbi police station leading to a police chase.

The officers were able to catch up with the gang after following the truck. However, they only managed to arrest one suspect after the others escaped in another vehicle. 

The officers recovered a stolen Isuzu D-max truck and a fake gun during the operation. They also seized four Safaricom lines, two Airtel lines and a toy pistol.

"Police officers caught up with the gang at Mutituni, with some of the suspects managing to escape in another vehicle. We recovered four Safaricom lines, two Airtel lines and a toy pistol," Lobolia added. By , K24

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has detailed how a Kenyan registered investment firm fleeced over 5,000 investors of their hard-earned cash in a well-choreographed scheme.

The DCI disclosed on Thursday that NMK Capital Investment Limited, masquerading as a legitimate investment entity, lured thousands of unsuspecting investors into a deceptive web, where they ultimately lost their hard-earned money.

The agency said the suspicious company believed to have been registered in the country in 2021 has seven directors, among them one Ngugi Mucheru Keeru (NMK) whom authorities identified as the sole Director and Signatory of a sister company; Bidsworth Autorents Capital Limited.

The DCI’s Serious Crime Unit said that it had received numerous complaints from victims who ventured into the scheme, laying claims that nothing is left of their thousands and millions of investment after the directors fell out and the key suspect, Keeru went into hiding.

 “In the streetwise machinations, over 5,000 investors were hoodwinked to enter into a 6 months contract with NMK with a minimum investment of Sh50,000,” the DCI said while explaining the modus operandi of the scheme.

“This would accrue a redeemable monthly interest of 15 per cent, or a similar percentage of compounded interest redeemable at the end of the contract period (6 months).”

Additionally, the company ventured into car hire services, leasing vehicles from unsuspecting members of the public and then renting them out to individuals and agencies.

Car owners reportedly received only 30 per cent of the proceeds from the company.

 The scheme also extended into off-plan property investments.

The agency says, investors are reporting to have lost millions of monies from the investment and payments made for off-plan houses, while some of those who leased out their vehicles have no track of them.

The DCI cautioned the public against engaging in any business with the two companies noting that its detectives are currently investigating them.

The agency advised Kenyans to exercise caution and due diligence before engaging in any such fraudulent ventures. By Bruhan Makong, Capital News

 

 

JUBA, SEPTEMBER 8, 2023 (SUDANS POST) – President Salva Kiir has appointed Ramadan Mohamed Abdallah Goc as the new deputy foreign minister.

The announcement was made in a presidential decree read out on the state-owned South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC) on Thursday.

Goc is a young SPLM cadre who has served in a number of positions in the ruling party.

He was the secretary of information of the SPLM party after South Sudan’s independence in 2011.

He also served as the secretary for training, research and planning at the SPLM northern sector secretariat before South Sudan’s independence from Sudan.

Goc is currently a lecturer at Bahr el Ghazal University. He is a graduate of the University of Khartoum and the University of Juba.

Goc’s appointment is seen as a move by President Kiir to reward a loyal SPLM cadre. It is also seen as a way to bring in new blood to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Goc’s predecessor, Deng Dau Deng, was removed from his position as deputy foreign minister last week by President Kiir. The reasons for Deng’s removal are not clear.

The appointment of Goc is the latest in a series of changes that President Kiir has made to his government in recent months. The changes are seen as an attempt by Kiir to consolidate his power and to appease his allies in the SPLM party.

The revitalized peace agreement, which was signed in 2018, stipulates that the SPLM party is to select the deputy foreign minister.

Goc’s appointment is likely to be welcomed by the SPLM party.

He is a young and relatively unknown figure, which could make him more acceptable to the party’s base.

He is also a graduate of two prestigious universities, which could give him the credibility to be an effective diplomat.

However, Goc’s lack of experience in foreign affairs could be a liability. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a complex and demanding institution, and Goc will need to quickly learn the ropes if he is to be successful in his new role. - Sudans Post

The Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rejected US sanctions Thursday that were imposed on its leader Abdel-Rahim Dagalo during the war which has continued for almost five months.

The armed group described the sanctions for human rights abuses and atrocities as selective, unfair and based on false information. It accused Washington of blinding eyes from violations committed by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) during the war, including airstrikes.

The RSF warned that the US move against the group would reflect negatively on roles by Washington to mediate an end to the war.

“RSF is welcoming any efforts to stop the war, through addressing its root causes which will lead to the stabilization of the political troubles and the war,” it said. 

The US imposed sanctions Wednesday on paramilitary commander Abdel-Rahim, who is the brother of RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), for acts of violence, “including the massacre of civilians, ethnic killings, and use of sexual violence.”

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said: “Both sides have failed to implement a ceasefire, and the RSF and allied militias have been credibly accused of extensive human rights abuses in Darfur and elsewhere,” since the war started in April. Yeni Safak



About IEA Media Ltd

Informer East Africa is a UK based diaspora Newspaper. It is a unique platform connecting East Africans at home and abroad through news dissemination. It is a forum to learn together, grow together and get entertained at the same time.

To advertise events or products, get in touch by info [at] informereastafrica [dot] com or call +447957636854.
If you have an issue or a story, get in touch with the editor through editor[at] informereastafrica [dot] com or call +447886544135.

We also accept donations from our supporters. Please click on "donate". Your donations will go along way in supporting the newspaper.

Get in touch

Our Offices

London, UK
+44 7886 544135
editor (@) informereastafrica.com
Slough, UK
+44 7957 636854
info (@) informereastafrica.com

Latest News

It would be premature to ask Mapisa-Nqakula to step down: Mashatile

It would be prematur...

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has challenged Deputy President Paul Mashatile on whether the African N...

Unilever accelerates Growth Action Plan by launching productivity programme

Unilever accelerates...

Unilever has announced steps to accelerate its Growth Action Plan (GAP) through the separation of Ic...

Gov't Dismisses COVID-19 Resurgence, Attributes Rise in Respiratory Infections to Influenza

Gov't Dismisses COVI...

The Ministry of Health refuted claims linking the rise in respiratory infections to SARS-CoV-2, attr...

Comforting or creepy? AI tech 'resurrects' loved ones after they've died

Comforting or creepy...

Bisset says grief tech is helping people deal with the loss of a loved one and is an emerging trend...

For Advertisement

Big Reach

Informer East Africa is one platform for all people. It is a platform where you find so many professionals under one umbrella serving the African communities together.

Very Flexible

We exist to inform you, hear from you and connect you with what is happening around you. We do this professionally and timely as we endeavour to capture all that you should never miss. Informer East Africa is simply news for right now and the future.

Quality News

We only bring to you news that is verified, checked and follows strict journalistic guidelines and standards. We believe in 1. Objective coverage, 2. Impartiality and 3. Fair play.

Banner & Video Ads

A banner & video advertisement from our sponsors will show up every once in a while. It keeps us and our writers coffee replenished.