Patricia Scotland
African leaders mourn Zambia’s founding president Kenneth Kaunda
African leaders and diplomats on Friday joined Zambia in mourning its founding president and liberation hero Kenneth Kaunda, who died last month aged 97 after a bout of pneumonia. “KK”, as he was affectionately known, ruled over Zambia from 1964, when the southern African nation won its independence from Britain, until losing an election in 1991. He died on June 17 in a military hospital in Lusaka. Kaunda’s casket draped in the green, orange, black and red national flag was driven into the main arena of the Lusaka show ground on a gun carriage by an army jeep. His son, Panji, wept, as did Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. Other mourners waved white handkerchiefs, one of the most prominent idiosyncrasies of Kaunda, who after leaving office became a committed activist against HIV/AIDS. Althou...
British lawmakers write Commonwealth over killings in Nigeria
Thirteen members of the House of Lords, United Kingdom, have expressed concern over the killings by Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East and Fulani herdsmen in the Middle Belt region. The upper house of parliament members said the failure of the Federal Government to protect Nigerians was a breach of the Commonwealth Charter. They requested the Commonwealth to raise the killings with its Ministerial Action Group. This was contained in a letter to the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland, dated September 14, co-signed by Baroness Cox, Baroness Kennedy, Jim Shannon, Fiona Bruce, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams and 14 others. They cited a report by the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief, which accused unnamed ...
