President Paul Kagame has indicated to the One-Laptop-Per-Child project that government will buy laptops from the new sales promotion scheme 'Give 1 and Get 1' (GIGI), RNA has learnt from a senior official behind the plan. Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child - the brain-child of American Prof. Nicholas Negroponte will be offering a 'Give 1 and Get 1' (G1G1) promotion. For US$399, a person in a developed country will be purchasing two XO laptops. One that will be sent to a child in a developing nation and one that will be sent to their child at home.

Amnesty International has urged governments not to send anyone suspected of crimes during Rwanda's 1994 genocide to be tried in the country, saying it had serious concerns over the justice system. The central African country wants suspects in the 100-day slaughter of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus to be transferred to its custody.

Gone are the days when Africans used to see Information and Communication Technology as a luxury, President Paul Kagame has said. “In just ten years, what was once an object of luxury and privilege, the mobile phone has become a basic necessity in urban and rural Africa,” Kagame said yesterday. He was addressing hundreds of top government and telecoms industry leaders who are attending a two-day high-level Connect Africa summit at Serena Hotel in Kigali. The meeting is attended by six African Heads of State, including Kagame.

A Rwandan genocide suspect accused of coordinating the massacre of up to 25,000 people in one incident has been arrested in France, the United Nations said on Thursday. Dominique Ntawukuriryayo was detained by French police in the southern town of Carcassonne earlier this week and is due to be transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, in the coming days.

Our client, the Government of Rwanda (GoR) has launched a new Rwanda Investment Climate Project (RICP) aimed to strengthen and speed up the pace of investment in climate reforms in the commercial justice, business registration and land registration sectors. The Project Director will be held accountable for project delivery and achievement of its mission. Manage project resources to ensure all the three project components (commercial justice, business registration and land registration) are implemented efficiently and effectively within set timeframes as well as mantain goodwill and effective stakeholder support.

ADAD Statement 10/10/07 - Objections to Transfer of Cases to Rwanda ADAD Denounces the Transfer of ICTR Cases to Rwanda as a Violation of the Rights of the Accused to a Fair Trial and Urges the ICTR Judges to Reject the Prosecution's Motions for Transfer The Association of Defence Attorneys at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) unequivocally condemns the transfer of any cases to Rwanda.

Rwanda has joined other countries in appealing for a global moratorium on executions, saying that if its government could abolish the death penalty while perpetrators of the 1994 genocide still await sentences, no country should use it. Diplomats and human right organisations met at the United Nations to push for a global moratorium on executions with the goal of ending the death penalty altogether.

African Rights and REDRESS, two human rights organisations committed to ending impunity for serious international crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture, commend German authorities for their decision to arrest Augustin Ngirabatware in Frankfurt, Germany. Ngirabatware was arrested at the request of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which issued a warrant for his arrest in 2001 on charges related to the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.

The United Nations war crimes tribunal for the 1994 Rwandan genocide says it will not succeed in meeting the Security Council-imposed timetable for completing its work unless UN Member States help to arrest suspects still at large, accept the transfer of cases and provide enough funds for it to conduct the remaining trials. In its annual report, covering July 2006 to June this year, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) says it is committed to doing all it can to meet the 'completion strategy', the Council plan under which all trials, excluding appeals, are supposed to be finished by the end of next year.

A United Nations-backed Africa communications summit in Rwanda next month will seek to boost high-speed internet access to match the continent's explosive growth in cellphones, officials said on Wednesday. The 'Connect Africa' gathering of African political leaders and international investors to be held on 29 and 30 October 2007 in the Rwandan capital Kigali will be a networking opportunity, not a forum for negotiating new regulations, they said.

Reporters Without Borders has voiced deep concern about the future of press freedom and independent journalists in Rwanda after studying the very disturbing comments made by four government ministers, another senior official and two members of the security forces during a programme broadcast by the state-owned media on 9 September.

French soldiers stationed in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994 have been accused of "widespread rape" by a Rwandan commission investigating France's role during the conflict. The commission, which is due to publish its final report in October, will also provide fresh evidence that French soldiers trained the Interahamwe, the extremist Hutu militia responsible for most of the killing, and even provided them with weapons.

The National Human Development Report 2007 released on Thursday in Kigali has called for a new agenda of scaling up of investment, increase in the quantity and quality of Official Development Assistance (ODA). The report further urges development stakeholders in Rwanda to promote a greater coordination and management of aid. The report entitled “Turning Vision 2020 into Reality: From Recovery to Sustainable Human Development” has been commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Rwanda and prepared by a group of researchers from the National University of Rwanda.

REDRESS and African Rights are initiating a fact- finding and advocacy initiative aimed at eliminating European safe havens for Rwandese genocide suspects and ensuring that perpetrators are brought to justice. We are currently seeking a full- time project intern to assist with the implementation of the Project in Rwanda. Salary: Living expenses will be covered.Closing Date: 10/8/2007

Deaths of detainees in the hands of national police officers of Rwanda have now become norm, a new report released by the New York-based Human Rights Watch has unearthed. From November 2006 to date, at least 20 such killings have taken place in the east African country. Suspecting that some of the police killings appear to be extra-judicial executions, the rights watchdog asked for prompt investigations by an independent and impartial board of inquiry to take place.

Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda is to host this years Connect Africa Summit that is to be held from October 29-30 2007. According to a statement issued by the Geneva based International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the announcement was made by ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré at a Press Conference in Geneva, held jointly with the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID).

Rwandan senators have unanimously approved the abolition of the death penalty for all sorts of crimes, including those relating to genocide. The senators concurred with the country's lower house of parliament. The move was first initiated by the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front before getting the blessings of the cabinet.

Less than fifteen years after the genocide that destroyed much of Rwanda's human capital, infrastructure, and socio-economic fabric, the country is set to become sub-Saharan Africa's hub for information and communications technology (ICT).

A Belgian court sentenced a former Rwandan army major to 20 years in prison on Thursday for the murder of 10 Belgian peacekeepers and an undetermined number of Rwandan civilians at the start of the 1994 genocide. Bernard Ntuyahaga was earlier acquitted on two other charges of involvement in the murder of then Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and killing civilians in the Butare district.

Sylvestre Munyalibanje has been accustomed to farming in the Rwandan district of Rutsiro, on the shores of Lake Kivu. But now, he's facing the end of an era. The 40-year-old father of six has had almost all his land expropriated as part of a government initiative to clear the surrounds of the lake to protect it from pollution. In all, 364 families comprising some 1,800 people who had previously been living or farming on the banks of Kivu left the area earlier this month.