Msanii huyu wa Zimbambwe apata kashfa ya kuiga video ya Mdogomdogo ya Diamond

HARARE - Jah Prayzah, the country’s current favourite musician, stands accused of plagiarising the concept of Tanzania’s Diamond Platnumz’s Mdogo Mdogo for his Jerusarema video.

The striking similarities between the two videos have sent tongues wagging in the local entertainment industry. In Diamond Platnumz’s video a black man, donning traditional attire, falls in love with a white king’s daughter. After initial resistance, the king grants the two his blessings.

The Mdogo Mdogo video was shot in a jungle and features some 18th century King Castles.

Jah Prayzah’s Jerusarema video follows the same route. The high-riding star, who is portrayed in the video as a struggling musician, falls in love with a white princess, angering the royal family in the process.

Eventually Jah Prayzah gets his girl. Just like the Mdogo Mdogo video, the Jerusarema one was shot in a jungle and features some 18th century King Castles.

The fact that Jah Prayzah’s video was only released late last year, more than a year after 27-year-old Diamond Platnumz had released his, has seen the Uzumba-born artiste being attacked in the court of public opinion.

Efforts to get a comment from Jah Prayzah on the similarities of the two videos were fruitless yesterday but his manager Keen Mushapaidze dismissed the resemblance as “pure coincidence.”

“We got to know about Diamond Platnumz’s video when people started commenting on our Facebook after we had released ours.

“That was a mere coincidence of art. Actually, Jah Prayzah is the one who wrote the script and it was initially supposed to be shot in the Australia but we then decided to shoot it in Vumba in the Eastern Highlands,” he said.

Mushapaidze added that nothing is new under the sun.

“When we noticed it, we laughed it off saying it happens in the music industry but it is now slowly getting onto our nerves because some people are starting to talk about it in a negative manner,” he said.

This is not the first time the award-winning Jah Prayzah has been accused of ‘stealing’ a work of art. Last year the Jerusarema singer was accused of copying the beat of the song

“Mwanasikana,” off his “Tsviriyo” album from Ghanaian musician Emmanuel Samini’s 2007 hit

track titled “Samini”.

After incessant attacks on social media, Jah Prayzah later owned up.

The Uzumba-born star said the heard Samini on an African movie that he watched when he was making Tsviriyo in 2013.

“I was watching an African movie and I enjoyed the soundtrack. I did not know it was a released song (on the market). I just thought it was a track made for the movie. The beat was good and I was tempted to use it on one of my songs,” he said.

Jah Prayzah added that he did not know the composer of the song at the time he plagiarised the beat. Interestingly the popular music star won the Outstanding Video award for the contentious ‘Mwanasikana.”

News Alert: Mkuu wa Mkoa wa Shinyanga, Mama Anna Kilango Malechela atumbuliwa na rais Magufuli

Anna Kilango Malechela

Rais wa Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania, Dkt. John Pombe Joseph Magufuli, mchana huu ametengua uteuzi wa Mkuu wa Mkoa wa Shinyanga, Mama Anna Kilango Malecella, kwa kubaini kuwa alimwambia uwongo kuwa Mkoa wake hauna wafanyakazi hewa.

Pia amemsimamisha kazi Mkurugenzi wa Mkoa huo.

HABARI KAMILI ITAKUJIA HIVI PUNDE.

Tanzania’s girls flee their families — and marriage

Female circumcision, child marriage, young girls on the run. A new multimedia graphic novel dramatically depicts the trials of tribal Tanzania — and the safe house trying to help.

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Marc Ellison for the Toronto Star

Girls desperate to escape being cut by their families clamber into the back of a vehicle that will take them to the safe house in Mugumu, Tanzania.

By: Marc Ellison Special to the Star, Published on Mon Apr 11 2016

MUGUMU, TANZANIA—The girls erupt from the roadside bushes, their brilliant shawls swirling behind them as they beeline for the idling car.

They clamber into the back, wide-eyed and breathing hard.

School is out, and girls like Dorika are fleeing their families to save their childhoods and, maybe, save their lives.

The cutting season has begun, and safe house staff are busy.

The December rains mark not only the end of the school term but the start of the four-week period when girls in Tanzania’s northern Mara region typically are forced to endure female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision or, simply, cutting. Men in the Kurya and Mungurimi tribes are brought up to believe that msagani — uncut girls — are unclean and unfit for marriage.

“My mother threatened to bind my arms and legs and have me cut by force if I refused,” says Dorika, speaking through a translator.

She is 12 years old.

The immersive story

Read — and watch — an interactive graphic-novel treatment about ‘the cutting season’ in Tanzania

Dorika fled her home in Masinki, two hours west of Mugumu, two weeks ago, terrified about stories of young girls bleeding to death, their cursed bodies dumped in the bush where the wild things are.

Five girls in Machochwe village died during last year’s cutting season — and those are just the reported deaths.

FGM has been illegal in Tanzania since 1998, but many tribespeople still believe the life-threatening procedure is a mandatory rite of passage into womanhood — and an indicator to men in the village the girl is now ready to get married. A 2010 government survey found that in the Mara region 40 per cent of girls and women had been cut.

Tanzania does not rank among the countries with the highest rates of child marriage — four in 10 girls are wed before their 18th birthdays — but in many regions it is a significant problem.

Here, in Mara, 55 per cent of girls are forced into marriages, although the actual figure is likely higher, masked by the remoteness of rural communities and by corrupt police and court officials ignoring cases in exchange for bribes.

The lure of lucrative dowries of livestock for impoverished parents perpetuates the inextricably linked practices of FGM and child marriage.

Daughters become cash cows, at the expense of a girl’s schooling and health.

Related stories at thestar.com:

The haunted child soldier: An interactive graphic novel

Can a reality show really deliver aid to Africa?

Finding sanctuary

Dorika is one of the lucky ones — she made it to the safe house.

Funded by donations from the Anglican Church, construction of this sanctuary was barely completed in time for the cutting season in December 2014. It offers girls not only refuge during the cutting season but, with two classrooms, a temporary return to normal life.

But the safe house has become a victim of its own success. What began as a trickle of girls has rapidly turned into a flood. Designed for 40 occupants, more than 160 girls like Dorika fled to Mugumu in December. At night, the classrooms transform into makeshift dormitories where girls sleep three to a bed.

“We don’t have a big budget, and yet the girls keep coming, coming, coming,” says co-ordinator Rhobi Samwelly.

Samwelly feels unable to turn any of them away. She was only 13 when she was pushed into FGM by her parents.

“I thought about running away,” she says. “But where could I go, how would I get food, where would I sleep?”

Abuse and pain

A young woman named Mama Mary faced the same dilemma more than 10 years ago.

She was forced to undergo FGM at age 11 and was married to an older husband at 13. Starting from their wedding night, Mama Mary was subjected to a decade of physical and sexual violence — all for the price of 10 cows.

“I think he beat me harder than any other woman has been beaten,” Mary says, revealing a gap where three teeth were knocked out by her husband.

She begged him to end the violence.

“I will only stop beating you when our first daughter undergoes FGM,” he told her. “Then the dowry I paid for you will be repaid.”

Her husband is now in jail, but life is still hard for Mama Mary.

With three young children, her only income is from making charcoal which she sells in town for a dollar a bag.

“They learn about computers and tailoring,” she says wistfully of the girls at the safe house. “Things that could have given a better life for me and my kids.”

That’s the hope for girls like Dorika. Their schooling continues, and they’re making new friends.

They are rediscovering what it means to be children.

An excerpt from a graphic novel about FGM in Tanzania by Marc Ellison and Daniel Lafrance. See the full story at bit.ly/SafeHouseComic

About the project

Funding

The graphic novel, stories and videos about child marriage and FGM in Tanzania were produced with aid from the $25,000 International Development Reporting Fellowship. The fellowship is part of Aga Khan Foundation Canada’s public engagement programming, which aims to help Canadians gain a better understanding of international development issues. The program gets financial support from the Canadian government.

Marc Ellison was awarded one of two inaugural fellowships to report on the complex topic of child marriage in Tanzania through the medium of an interactive, multimedia graphic novel.

The project has been translated into Swahili in the hope it can be used as an educational tool in the communities where FGM and child marriage still thrive.

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Marc Ellison

Ellison is an award-winning photojournalist based in Glasgow, Scotland. He has worked extensively in Africa since 2011, reporting on female child soldiers in Uganda, sex workers in Mozambique and Sudanese refugee camps. Ellison has produced work for 60 Minutes, Al Jazeera, BBC, the Guardian, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and Vice.

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Daniel Lafrance

Lafrance is a professional storyboard artist with more than 30 years in the animation industry. In 2014, his graphic novel adaptation of Sharon E. McKay’s novel War Brothers — about children forced to become child soldiers for the LRA in Uganda — was nominated for an Eisner Award. Originally from Quebec, he now lives in Toronto with his wife and son.

Dutch Choice on EU-Ukraine Treaty Could Affect Brexit Vote

By Reuters On 4/3/16 at 7:24 PM

Demonstrators call for people to vote no in the EU referendum during a protest Sunday at Dam Square in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.Cris Toala Olivares/Reuters

Dutch voters will decide on Wednesday whether to support a European treaty deepening ties with Ukraine in a referendum that will test sentiment toward Brussels ahead of Britain's June Brexit vote and could also bring a boost for Russia.
The broad political, trade and defense treaty is already provisionally in place but has to be ratified by all 28 European Union member states for every part of it to have full legal force. The Netherlands is the only country that has not done so.
While a "no" vote in the non-binding referendum would not force the Dutch government to veto the treaty on an EU level, the fragile coalition, which holds the rotating EU presidency, might find it hard to ignore with less than a year to general elections.
Subscribe now - Free phone/tablet charger worth over $60Any rejection by Dutch voters or by the government would give Russian President Vladimir Putin, who opposes deeper EU-Ukraine ties and who many Dutch blame for the downing by pro-Russian rebels of a plane traveling from Amsterdam, a victory in his war of words with the West.
An EU decision to push on with the treaty despite a "no vote," whether the government respects it or not, could be damaging for the EU and highlight EU problems ahead of the British vote.
"If politicians ignore the Dutch no then it will be an even stronger signal than what the British have already received that there is no way to correct the European political class and that they should vote to leave," said Thierry Baudet, a "no" campaigner and one of the architects of the referendum that was triggered when activists gathered thousands of signatures of support.
Many Dutch feel they are being asked to choose between two unattractive options: EU expansion plans dreamed up by unaccountable bureaucrats in Brussels or helping Putin, who they blame for the MH17 plane disaster which killed almost 200 Dutch citizens in July 2014.

Turnout crucial

Others are confused by the issues.
"I'm not voting," says Gijs, a driving instructor in Amsterdam. "I can't understand what this referendum is about, and I can't understand why it was called."
A poll by Maurice De Hond on Sunday forecast that 66 percent of people certain to vote would back 'No' with only 25 percent in favor, with turnout likely to be decisive in shaping the final result. Pollsters TNS Nipo have forecast turnout of 32 percent, just above the 30 percent threshold that is needed for the referendum to be valid.

Sofia Pavlovska and Anastasiya Dusanska of Ukraine, who both live in The Hague, attend a demonstration Sunday on the EU referendum at the Dam Square in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.Cris Toala Olivares/Reuters

The government, which supports a "yes" vote, fears it could turn into a protest vote like in 2005, when a majority of the Dutch electorate broke from a pro-European tradition and rejected the EU constitution.
"I hope the Dutch can get over their chagrin and say: 'Yes, we are annoyed with Europe, we are annoyed with this Dutch government, but we will still support Ukraine," said Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem.
While some parliamentary parties have said they would be bound by the outcome, "the government position is that we will follow the law, which simply says we will reconsider," said Dijsselbloem, lending weight to the view that the government will seek to preserve the treaty, or its essence, whatever the outcome.

Putin's shadow

The government itself shied away from framing the vote in a Russian context but shifted tactic as the referendum approaches.
The youth wing of Dijsselbloem's Labour Party, the junior party in the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, have run a poster campaign showing anti-EU populist Geert Wilders passionately kissing Putin.
"Vladimir Putin's shadow is lurking fairly significantly over this treaty," says "yes" campaigner Joshua Livestro, arguing that a "no" vote will play into Putin's hands.
"Are we now going to give Putin what he wants after all?" he said.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte's cabinet initially stressed the treaty's economic benefits, but has since focused on its importance for Ukrainian reform in the areas of corruption, human rights and democracy.
"Everyone who wants progress in Ukraine is asking us to vote 'yes,' along with 27 other countries. That's what the referendum is about and nothing else," Deputy Prime Minister Lodewijk Asscher said on Friday.
"No" campaigners say the treaty is a first step toward full EU membership. "Legal scholars call it quasi membership," says Baudet.
Many Ukrainian politicians feel their country deserves the treaty and are keen to show they have made progress in aligning their country with EU standards since the 2014 uprising that toppled pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovich.
In a Dutch television interview on Sunday, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin emphasized progress in areas such as gay and transgender rights where the Dutch have always viewed themselves as progressive leaders.
"In the past 24 months since Maidan we've done more reforms than in the last 24 years," he said.

Ukrainians May Get Visa-Free Travel Despite Dutch Vote, Source Says

By Reuters On 4/10/16 at 9:32 PM

A woman attends a flash mob to support a European treaty deepening ties with Ukraine on the eve of a now-failed referendum held in the Netherlands in this April 5 photo.Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

The European Commission will propose this month granting visa-free travel to Ukrainians despite a Dutch referendum vote against an EU-Ukraine agreement partly motivated by hostility to migration, a senior EU source said.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker promised Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March that the EU executive would put forward the eagerly awaited proposal in April, offering Ukrainians the most tangible benefit of closer ties at a time when a free trade deal has not yet borne fruit for their economy.
"It may look as if we're ignoring the Dutch voters, but we have to keep our word to Ukraine, which has met the conditions," the source says.
Subscribe now - Free phone/tablet charger worth over $60The proposal must be approved by a qualified majority of EU member states and by the European Parliament to take effect.
The source says the Commission would include some form of safeguard enabling EU countries to reinstate visas temporarily in case of a surge of migration.
Ukraine has a population of some 45 million. Russia's 2013 annexation of Crimea and the fighting with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine has not so far led to a large exodus from the country, EU officials note.
The Dutch voted by 61 percent last week in a non-binding referendum to reject the association agreement on closer political, security and trade ties between Kiev and the 28-nation bloc.
Less than a third of the electorate turned out, but the turnout was just more than the 30 percent required for the result to be valid.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte says the government could not proceed with ratification of the deal which the other 27 EU countries have already approved, and which has provisionally entered into force. The EU Commission said it was up to Dutch leaders to reflect on the vote and suggest a way forward.
Ukraine is not the only country impatiently awaiting visa-free travel. EU leaders have promised to speed up visa liberalization for Turkey, aiming for agreement by late June if Ankara meets the many conditions. The Commission is also working on a politically sensitive proposal to extend it to Kosovo.

Wild Tiger Population Increases For First Time in a 100 Years

By Douglas Main On 4/10/16 at 7:40 PM

The world population of tigers has risen slightly over the past six years, for the first time in a century. This tiger was photographed by a camera trap in Bhutan. Royal Government of Bhutan, Department of Forests and Park Services

There is finally some positive news for tigers: After declining—often precipitously—for a century, global populations of this endangered animal have risen slightly over the past six years.
In 2010, there were an estimated 3,200 tigers living in the wild. New estimates suggest that there are now just under 3,900.
Then, as now, tigers are primarily killed by poachers, who seek the animal for its skins, as well as body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine, despite zero evidence of medicinal value. Habitat loss and fragmentation continue to take a toll, as well as conflict with people, such as when tigers are killed after run-ins with locals and their livestock.
Subscribe now - Free phone/tablet charger worth over $60The increase in tiger numbers has primarily been seen in India, Russia, Nepal and Bhutan, says Ginette Hemley, a senior vice president with the World Wildlife Fund. The group has collated and released the population estimates on the eve of the third Asian Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation, in New Delhi, India, a meeting of 13 countries that have tigers living within their borders.
“We’ve got a good, positive start, [especially] since before 2010 things were in dramatic decline,” says Barney Long, director of species conservation with the environmental group Global Wildlife Conservation. In 1900, for example, there were an estimated 100,000 tigers roaming the wilds of Asia, a number that declined by 97 percent by 2010. The reversal of the decline “needs to be heartily congratulated, but we can’t be complacent.”
In 2010, tiger-range countries met and set a goal of doubling tiger populations to a total of more than 6000 by 2022, the second Year of the Tiger (in the Chinese calendar). A study published April 1 in the journal Science Advances found that there are still enough intact forests to support a doubling of the tiger population, but only if these areas are kept protected.

India has the majority of the world's wild tigers, with an estimated total population of 2,226, followed by Russia (433), Indonesia (371), Malaysia (250), Nepal (198), Thailand (189), Bangladesh (106) and Bhutan (103). WWF/TX2/GTF

“We have a long ways to go, but we are hopeful we have a chance to reach our goal,” Hemley says.
The increase has been driven by political commitments of host-range countries, especially the aforementioned central and south Asian countries, Hemley says. But much work still needs to be done in Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia and Indonesia. In some of these places, comprehensive estimates haven’t been undertaken, and there haven’t been major commitments in all tiger countries to protect the animals.
Cambodia likely has no tigers left in the wild, but luckily the government has acknowledged this and announced in early April its intent to eventually reintroduced tigers into the country, Long says.
One thing tigers have going for them is they can rebound quickly if left alone. This has been the case in Nepal, where their numbers have increased by 63 percent since the previous survey five years earlier, Hemley says.
Poaching remains an “ever-present threat,” Long says, and will exist as long as there remains demand for tiger products in countries such as China. It will require continued effort to fight back against it, and much work remains to be done if populations of the animal are to continue to increase globally, he says.
"I am so proud that our collective efforts have begun to make progress toward our goal, but there is still so much to be done," said WWF board member Leonardo DiCaprio, who also runs a foundation involved in tiger conservation, in a statement.
India has by far the most tigers, with an estimated total population of 2,226, followed by Russia (433), Indonesia (371), Malaysia (250), Nepal (198), Thailand (189), Bangladesh (106) and Bhutan (103).

BARAZA LA MAWAZIRI ZANZIBAR

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Sunday, April 10, 2016
BARAZA LA MAWAZIRI ZANZIBAR

RAIS wa Serikali ya Mapinduzi Zanzibar (SMZ), Dkt. Ali Mohamed Shein jana Jumamosi, April 9, 2016 ametangaza Baraza la Mawaziri litakalosimamia kazi za serikali kwa kipindi cha uongozi wake wake kwa mujibu wa sheria.

Dkt. Shein amesema amepunguza ukubwa wa baraza hilo kutoka wizara 16 hadi kuwa wizara 13, ambapo wizara tatu amezivunja na kuzigawa ndani ya hizo wizara 13 za sasa.

Mawaziri ni 13 na Manaibu waziri 7.Ameongeza kuwa, mawaziri aliowatangaza leo atawaapisha kesho Jumapili asubuhi katika Viwanja vya Ikulu visiwani Zanzibar.

Baraza la Mawaziri Zanzibar hao ni;

1). Ofisi ya Rais na mwenyekiti wa Baraza la Mapinduzi – Issa Haji Ussi Gavu.

2). Katiba na Sheria Utumishi wa Umma – Haroun Ali Sleiman.

3). Tawala za Mikoa na Idara maalum – Haji Omari Kheir.

4). Makamo wa 2 wa Rais – Mohamed Aboud.

5). Waziri wa Fedha na Mipango – Dk. Khalid Salum Mohamed.

6). Afya – Mahmoud Thabit Kombo.

7). Wizara ya Elimu – Riziki Pembe Juma.

8). Viwanda na Masoko – Amina Salum Ali.

9). Ujenzi, Mawasiliano na Uchukuzi – Ali Karume.

10). Habari Utalii Utamaduni na Michezo – Rashid Ali Juma.

11). Kilimo Maliasili Mifugo na Uvuvi – Hamad Rashid Mohamed.

12). Uwezeshaji, Wazee, Wanawake na Watoto – Mauldine Castiko.

13). Maji Ardhi Nishati na Mazingira – Salama Aboud Talib.

Pia amewataja Manaibu Waziri 7 kuwa ni:

1).Harusi Said Suleiman - Wizara ya Afya

2).Mmanga Mjengo Mjawili – Wizara ya Elimu na Mafunzo ya Amali

3).Mahamed Ahmed Salum – Wizara ya Ujenzi, Mawasiliano na Uchukuzi

4).Lulu Mshamu Khamis – Wizara ya Kilimo, Maliasili, Mifugo na Uvuvi

5).Chum Kombo Khamis – Wizara ya Habari, Utalii, Utamaduni na Michezo

6).Juma Makungu Juma – Wizara ya Ardhi, Maji, Nishati na Mazingira

7).Khamis Juma Maalim - Ofisi ya Rais Katiba, Sheria, Utumishi na Utawala Bora.

Dkt Shein pia amewajumuisha Juma Ally Khatib na Said Sud Said kutoka vyama vya upinzani kuwa wajumbe katika baraza hilo