THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 2017 INTERNATIONAL Kenyans mock president’s passion for project launch NAIROBI: Kenya’s notoriously caustic tweeters Project” was a step too far for Kenyans on the er tied with a ribbon, one Kenyan wrote: “I have the only thing you are not launched yet is a spirited have taken aim at President Uhuru Kenyatta’s love social networking site. commissioned the multi-million manually pro- fight against corruption,” one person wrote. for a good ribbon-cutting, mocking his endless They criticized him and his advisors for publiciz- pelled dental debris excavator project.” Others referred to the biting drought in the unveilings of often bizarrely named projects. ing such small projects highlighting that many Another posted a picture of a condom tied with country, and a strike by public health doctors that Kenyatta, who is seeking re-election in August, has had been previously launched or commissioned. a ribbon, declaring he was launching a “virginity has lasted over a month. Meanwhile data science an active Twitter account which has recently been “This fetish with ribbons must be investigated,” eradication program.” An even more inventive company Odipo Dev published graphs showing abuzz with him launching a series of infrastructure tweeted James W. The publicity stunt saw the tweeter came up with a “launching kit” of a pair of that a quarter of all projects launched by Kenyatta projects alongside tweets reminding the country country’s twittering class, widely known as scissors and a roll of ribbon, while another pictured were carried out in the past six months. The elec- of how much development he has brought. Kenyans of Twitter (KOT) launch the hashtag a pair of flip-flops to commission his “advanced tion race is heating up in the country, with some However his commissioning last week of a foot- #UhuruChallenge in which they came up with mobility apparatus project.” Others took a more 4,000 opposition members meeting in the capital bridge in the coastal region of Mombasa, dubbed their own projects to be launched or commis- serious tone, pointing to some of the problems Wednesday in a bid to come up with a common the “Buxton Footbridge Non-Motorized Transport sioned. Alongside a picture of a toothpick contain- plaguing the east African nation.”When you realize platform to unseat Kenyatta. —AFP Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner died in Syria basement in 2001 ‘He suffered and cried a lot in his final years’ PARIS: Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner, who was Sheltered in Damascus, he became an advisor to responsible for the deaths of an estimated the Syria secret police, allegedly passing on tor- 130,000 Jews, died in 2001 at the age of 89, ture and interrogation methods developed by locked up in a squalid Damascus basement, a the Nazis. French magazine reported yesterday. Its investi- gation described as “highly credible” by veteran Survived parcel bombs Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld aims at resolving the But the Israeli intelligence services were fate of one of the most notorious figures of the quickly on his trail. He was said to have been Holocaust. Three ex-members of the Syrian killed by a parcel bomb on Sept 13, 1961. In fact, secret service interviewed by the magazine XXI he lost an eye in that attack and four fingers in said Adolf Eichmann’s former assistant spent his another parcel bomb in 1981, although the last years in miserable conditions underneath an Syrian authorities continued to deny his exis- apartment block in the Syrian capital. tence. He was convicted of war crimes by French BRAZIL: In this photo released by Agencia Brasil, a ceremony is held for Greece’s late The Austrian-born SS commander was in courts in his absence in 1954, when he was sen- Ambassador to Brazil Kyriakos Amiridis before his remains are flown home from the charge of the Drancy camp north of Paris from tenced to death. In 2001, another French trial, airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. —AP which Jews in occupied France were sent to the which for the first time included the specific gas chambers. He remained to the end an unre- charge of arresting and deporting hundreds of pentant Nazi and anti-Semite, the sources told orphans, sentenced him to life imprisonment. Gambia election ruling XXI. One of his guards said Brunner, who went The death sentence had been abolished in by the name of Abu Hussein, “suffered and cried France in 1981. delayed for several months a lot in his final years, everyone heard him.” The According to XXI, Brunner was practically man, identified only as Omar, said he “couldn’t under house arrest in his apartment in the diplo- BANJUL, Gambia: The Gambia’s chief until his complaint is heard.On Dec 20 he even wash.” All he had to eat were “army rations, matic quarter of Damascus from 1989. It said at Supreme Court justice dealt a blow to was broadcast on state television saying awful stuff and an egg or a potato. He had to the end of the 1990s he was moved for “security President Yahya Jammeh’s legal challenge “unless the Court decides the case, there will chose one or the other.” reasons” to the basement, and he was confined against the result of December’s election on be no inauguration on the 19 Jan. And let The circumstances of Brunner’s final years there until his death. “Once he was in the room, Tuesday, saying it would not be heard for me see what ECOWAS and those big powers have remained an enigma for decades. The the door was closed and never opened again,” several months. Jammeh’s political party behind them can do.” Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Vienna, which tracks Omar told the magazine. He claimed Brunner was lodged a legal case on his behalf last month down former Nazis, had declared that he had buried secretly in accordance with Muslim rites in aimed at annulling his Dec 1 election defeat West African leaders apply pressure died in Damascus in 2010. Klarsfeld, a prominent PARIS: This undated file photo shows the city’s Al-Affif cemetery in December 2001. to opponent Adama Barrow, and triggering The leaders from the ECOWAS regional lawyer and historian, flew to Syria with his wife Austrian-born Nazi war criminal Alois “In a dictatorship like Syria, he was untouch- new elections. “We can only hear this matter grouping led by Nigerian President and fellow investigator Beate in 1982 to urge the Brunner. — AFP able as long as the dictator didn’t want rid of when we have a full bench of the Supreme Muhammadu Buhari will return to The Assad regime to expel him. Klarsfeld’s father was him,” said Klarsfeld. “Until the end he kept his Court,” Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle Gambia for the second time this week since arrested in Nice in September 1943 in an SS than well,” Klarsfeld said. “XXI’s investigation is hatred of Jews intact, as well as his faith in said, adding that the extra judges needed to the election to attempt to find a diplomatic roundup led by Brunner. He later died in highly credible. They have questioned someone National Socialism,” he added. “He was someone hear the case were not available and could solution to the crisis. They were due to arrive Auschwitz. who knew him at close quarters,” he added. who hated France as much as he hated Jews.” In arrive only in May or November. Wednesday but the trip was delayed until Brunner slipped through the Allies’ hands at the a short telephone interview in 1987 Brunner is The Gambia relies on foreign judges, Friday, Buhari’s spokesman said, because Eichmann’s ‘right-hand man’ end of the war. He left Germany for Egypt in alleged to have told the Chicago Sun-Times that notably from Nigeria, to staff its courts due Jammeh had asked for more time. “Delay Eichmann, one of the architects of the so- 1953 with a passport in the name of Georg he didn’t regret his part in the Holocaust. “All of to a lack of trained professionals in the tiny notwithstanding, the mandate of the ECOW- called Final Solution who was hanged in Israel in Fischer. He worked for a time running guns to them deserved to die because they were the west African state. Fagbenle is the panel’s AS will be accomplished,” Garba Shehu said. 1962, called Brunner his “right-hand man.” “We the Algerian independence movement, the FLN, devil’s agents and human garbage. I have no only sitting judge, as the Supreme Court has Nigeria’s foreign minister said Monday the are satisfied to learn that he lived badly rather before moving to Syria the following year. regrets and I would do it again.” — AFP lain dormant since May 2015. The chief jus- use of force remained an option if there was tice added that he would prefer the country no movement in the situation. “Violence to resolve its political deadlock through the should be avoided but nothing is ruled out,” mediation underway by a group of west Geoffrey Onyeama said. Meanwhile an ex- African leaders, who are attempting to per- minister and high-profile defector from suade Jammeh to respect the constitution Jammeh’s government declared his support and step aside. “This is why alternative dis- for Barrow, and said the Supreme Court case pute resolution is important,” he said. “We was an attempt to “subvert the express will are now only left with the ECOWAS media- of the Gambian electorate.” Former informa- tion initiative and the inter-party committee tion and communication minister Sheriff set up by government to resolve the dis- Bojang fled to neighboring Senegal on pute.” The inter-party committee is a UN- Monday after resigning.