The United States is deeply disappointed that President Paul Kagame has announced his intention to run for a third term in office.
With this decision, President Kagame ignores an historic opportunity to reinforce and solidify the democratic institutions the Rwandan people have for more than twenty years labored so hard to establish.
The United States believes constitutional transitions of power are essential for strong democracies and that efforts by incumbents to change rules to stay in power weaken democratic institutions. We are particularly concerned by changes that favor one individual over the principle of democratic transitions.
As Rwanda moves toward local elections this year, presidential elections next year, and parliamentary elections in 2018, we call upon the Government of Rwanda to ensure and respect the rights of its citizens to exercise their freedom of expression, conscience, and peaceful assembly -- the hallmarks of true democracies.
The United States remains committed to supporting the free and full participation of the Rwandan people in the electoral processes ahead.
Saturday, January 2, 2016
Israeli police searching for gunman who killed two in Tel Aviv
Israeli police are searching for a gunman who killed two people in an attack in Tel Aviv.
Spokeswoman Luba Samri says police remained on "heightened alert" Saturday. She says police and special forces searched for the shooter throughout the night.
The gunman opened fire outside a bar on a main street in Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon, killing two people and wounding at least three others before fleeing the scene.
The suspect has been identified as Nesha'at Milhem, a 29-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel from Arara, a town in central Israel.
Local Arabic-language media reports said that Milhem, who did a stint in Israeli prison in 2006, was identified when his father called and informed police after seeing footage related to the incident on television.
Israel's Channel 2 also noted that Milhem's cousin was shot and killed by a police officer in 2006.
Speaking to Israel's army radio, the owner of the bar said that "a man with automatic weapon arrived and started shooting people all over the place".
On Friday night, Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Israel's Channel 2 that the motive behind the attack is still unclear. "There is no definitive indication that this was a nationalist act," he said.
Over the past three months, Palestinians have protested against Israel's ongoing occupation, as well as incursions by right-wing settler groups into the Al-Aqsa mosque — the third holiest site for Muslims — in East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health stated Friday that Israeli soldiers or settlers in 2015 shot and killed 179 Palestinians, including unarmed protesters, bystanders and alleged attackers. Of that total, 143 have been killed since Oct. 1, when tensions escalated sharply.
Palestinian assailants have since Oct. 1 killed 23 Israelis, including soldiers and civilians.
Chicago's historic property tax increase expected to burden working class
CHICAGO — Helen Alexander tried to make her new apartment building a little nicer when she moved in a year and a half ago.
The 56-year-old grandmother scrubbed the hallways and planted a garden outside the four-unit building in the Belmont Craigin neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side. She lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her 21-year-old granddaughter and shih tzu. A lifelong resident of Chicago, she can name the address of the house in which she was born.
“It’s scary,” Alexander said. “It’s scary when you not knowing where you’re going to be, where you’re going to go, and if you can stay in your apartment.”
Alexander pays $1,050 per month in rent, but that’s likely to increase. In October, Chicago’s city council passed a historic property tax increase — said to be the largest in the city’s modern history. Chicago landlords are likely to pass that cost onto tenants like Alexander, who is barely getting by as is.
That burden, activists say, is going to displace long term, lower-to-middle income residents in Chicago’s diverse communities, hastening gentrification of the city that has already been called the most segregated in the United States. Overall rent in the city jumped more than seven percent between 2013 and 2014.
Around half of all Chicago’s residents are renters, according to the Chicago Rehab Network. According to real estate website Zillow, Chicagoans put an average 21 percent of their income towards rent between 1985 and 2000. That percentage is now more than 30 percent. According to Census data, more than half of Chicago’s renters are paying more than a third of their incomes in rent — a rate that the federal government defines as unaffordable.
And that was before the new property tax.
“I don’t have no more money to give that landlord,” said Alexander, who lives on a fixed income and pays more than a third of her income on rent. “I’m just one of those scared as hell, just waiting to see what’s going to happen.”
On Oct. 28, Chicago’s city council passed Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s $7.8 billion budget in a 35-15 vote. The budget included a 72 percent property tax increase worth some $550 million, to be fully implemented by 2019, raising the overall tax bill 13 percent. For every $250,000 of a home’s appraised value, property owners will see a $500 increase in annual property taxes.
“It’s now to the point where working families cannot give anymore,” said Diane Limas of Communities United, a grassroots organization in Chicago. “Our backs are bending already, and I’m afraid that this tax increase on working families is the straw that’s going to break the camel’s back.”
For tenants, this means higher rent. Nearly one-third of the city’s rental stock is composed of two-to-four-flat buildings, according to the Institute for Housing Studies at DePaul University. A higher property tax will be spread between fewer tenants in buildings like these. In 2014, Communities United, a grassroots advocacy organization in northwest Chicago, analyzed census data and found that, in some neighborhoods, the property tax increase could translate to a rent hike upwards of $100 per month.
Data for 2015 is not yet complete, but according to rental service Zumperrents were still on the rise even before the property tax increase. Rent for one-bedroom units in Chicago have increased by more than 13 percent this year — though cities like Oakland and Phoenix saw higher increase of 19 and 15.4 percent, respectively.
“I don’t have secure income,” said Veronica Solis, who supports her family by selling corn flour in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, where she’s lived for two decades. “And with the increase of property tax, it’s going to affect me even more.”
Solis pays $1,100 per month in rent, and said her friends and neighbors share her concerns of having their rents hiked to account for the property tax and a $9.50-per-month garbage fee that was also tacked on to the new budget.
“That’s not enough to pay the rent and bills,” Crescencia Delgado, a resident of Albany Park — a diverse neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side — said of her husband’s minimum wage job. “So how are we going to be able to afford that [property tax increase]?”
Helen Slade, an Albany Park property manager, said she will have to pass the property tax hike onto her tenants. The most conservative estimate she’s been able to come up with is an additional $20 per month.
“That’s a lot for some of our tenants,” She said. “It’s unavoidable. We’ll have to pass it on.”
Proponents of the increase say it is needed to stabilize the troubled finances of the country’s third largest city. The property tax hike will largely go toward backing up Chicago police and firefighter pensions. Earlier this year, Moody’s Investors Service knocked the city’s credit to junk statusbecause of its $20 billion pension deficit.
The city’s public school system is also facing a looming crisis. If state money doesn’t come through, Chicago Public School District officials are warning of possible layoffs amid discussion of school closures, consolidation, and cuts. Chicago Public Schools relies on the state for nearly $500 million.
“It’s one thing to raise our taxes, but our services aren’t getting better,” Limas said. “Our services are getting worse and worse. As working families are paying more and more, the services from our city are getting less and less.”
“All of this affects the children,” Solis said. “Everything goes hand in hand. And they’re the future of this country, and this is the problem.”
Limas and others have informally proposed alternatives to the tax increase, including a so-called “luxury tax” or raising taxes on the city’s wealthiest residents, who they say can afford to pay more.
“There’s ideas on the table,” Chicago Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said at a Communities United press conference ahead of the city council’s October vote. “Whether it’s a TIF surplus, whether it’s the revenue ordinances the Progressive Caucus brought forth that are now being held in the Finance Committee — there’s more that we could do to mitigate this property tax increase before Oct. 28.”
He added: “Unfortunately, I don’t think that we have a partner in the mayor’s office that’s willing to do that.”
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement released by the Mayor’s office the day the budget was passed, Emanuel commended the city council for moving to stabilize the city’s troubled finances.
Back in Chicago’s northwestern neighborhoods, residents and property owners are trying to plan — or brace — for the next step.
“The diversity and the areas that look like this, they’ll be gone,” Limas said. “To lose that, it would be a catastrophe.”
“I think the desire to make money off real estate is the problem,” Slade said. “I think if we as a society saw housing as a protected right instead of a way to make money, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
Helen Alexander of Belmont Craigin said she’s waiting to hear from her landlord if her rent will go up.
“I’m just hurt, confused, and don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said.
“I just hope somebody will look out for us.”
Obama considers unilateral action on US gun violence
weekly address of 2016, Mr Obama said he would meet Attorney General Loretta Lynch to discuss possible actions.
He said he would seek to use his executive powers as president because the US Congress had failed to address the problem.
Analysts say there will be a backlash from gun activists and Republicans.
But Mr Obama told Americans that he had received too many letters from parents, and teachers, and children, to sit around and do nothing.
"We know that we can't stop every act of violence," the president said. "But what if we tried to stop even one? What if Congress did something - anything - to protect our kids from gun violence?"
He has admitted that his inability to win Congressional backing for what he called "common sense gun laws" was the greatest frustration of his presidency.
The BBC's Laura Bicker in Washington says the president could use his executive authority in several areas, including expanding new background check requirements for buyers who purchase weapons from high-volume dealers.
However he is likely to face stiff opposition to his plans, our correspondent says.
The National Rifle Association has already launched a video series attacking gun control activists.
And in Texas, a new "open carry law" will allow Texans with a permit to wear handguns on their hips in holsters - openly displaying the fact they are armed.
Last month a Texas police chief warned the president that trying to disarm Americans could spark a revolution.
Previous efforts to introduce stricter gun control laws have repeatedly foundered despite the large number of people dying in gun attacks.
A joint Democrat-Republican bill following the 2012 shooting of 20 children and six adults at a primary school in Connecticut failed to get the 60 votes needed to broaden background checks and ban assault weapons.
The Force Awakens Passes Titanic at Box Office
Star Wars: The Force Awakenssurpassed Titanic over the weekend to become the second highest-grossing movie of all-time domestically.
The Force Awakens has brought in $686 million, according to Disney, passing Titanic, which brought in $658 million, USA Today reports. It also jumped over Jurassic World, which earned $652 million, to become the most successful movie of 2015.
The seventh movie in the Star Wars franchise still trails Avatar, which remains the highest-grossing domestic movie of all-time at $760 million. According to the paper, the newest Star Wars flick made $600 million faster than any other movie in history.
Globally, The Force Awakens has made $1.3 billion, currently 7th all-time, according to Box Office Mojo, a site that tracks film earnings, recently passing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace and the original Star Wars are also in the top 10 highest domestic box offices of all-time, at seventh and eighth, respectively, according to the site.
India says air force base secured after deadly siege
A pre-dawn raid on an Indian air base in the northwestern state of Punjab has ended after a 15-hour gun battle that left all five attackers and three soldiers dead, according to police and security forces.
Saturday's attack, 50km from the border with Pakistan, came just a week after Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, made an unannounced Pakistan visit to meet his counterpart in a bid to revive bilateral talks that had previously been derailed by armed attacks.
Rajnath Singh, home minister, confirmed that all five attackers were killed in Pathankot.
The defence ministry said there had been intelligence reports about a possible attack on military installations in Pathankot, and that the air force had been prepared to thwart any attackers.
"Due to the effective preparation and coordinated efforts by all the security agencies a group of terrorists were detected by the aerial surveillance platforms as soon as they entered the air force station at Pathankot," the ministry said in a statement.
Intermittent gunfire had continued into the day and helicopters flew as an operations continued to comb the base.
Suresh Arora, Punjab's police chief, said the attackers had earlier hijacked a police officer's car and driven it to the heavily guarded base.
Rochelle D'Silva, Indian Air Force spokesperson, said the men entered the living quarters of the base, but were not able to penetrate the area that houses fighter helicopters and other equipment.
The airbase was cordoned off and a heavy contingent of police deployed to the area, with elite paramilitary force of the National Security Guard (NSG) and the Guard Commando Force called in.
A senior Indian police officer said that a red alert was issued across Punjab in the wake of the incident.
No responsibility claim
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but India's junior home minister hinted at involvement of armed groups based in Pakistan.
"We have credible information that this attack was sponsored by some elements across the border," Kiren Rijiju, the minister, said in New Delhi.
Pakistan strongly condemns #Pathankot airbase attack in India: Foreign Office
Birth Defect-Linked Zika Virus In Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico's Health Secretary Ana Rius said the unidentified patient had not travelled recently and lives in the island's eastern region.
Zika, which has no cure but is not known to be fatal, has been spreading across South America and the Caribbean.
Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico's representative in Congress, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed to him the single case of Zika on the island.
The virus has been blamed by Brazilian authorities for cases of babies being born with abnormally small heads, or microcephaly, which often results in mental developmental issues.
More than 2,700 babies in Brazil were born with microcephaly in 2015, up from fewer than 150 in 2014.
The Zika virus was first detected in humans about 40 years ago in Uganda.
Officials say symptoms are similar to those of dengue and chikungunya and can include a slight fever, headache and pain in the hands and feet.
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