Kagame takes centre stage at World Economic Forum

THE WISE MAN says you can malign someone day and night, but you can’t take away what he truly is. And a peek into the events at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is enough testimony that President Paul Kagame is a living testimony of such a victim.While many aliens spend much of their time maligning the image of the President and the country, such criticisms are nothing but a ship without a ballast. President Kagame arrived in Davos for the four-day summit and left a mark as he ‘represented’ the silent wishes of Africa.Contributing to the discussion: “De-risking Africa”, one of the topical issues addressed at the forum, President Kagame said Africans should tell their own story to avoid outsiders misrepresenting the continent. “The major problem I see is that Africa’s story is written from somewhere else and not by Africans themselves,” Kagame said. “That is why the rest of the world looks at Africa and Africans and wants to define us. They want to shape the perception about Africa.”The following day, he joined renowned global personalities such as Novartis CEO Joseph Jimenez and Earth Institute Director Jeffrey Sachs in unveiling a ‘One Million Community Health Workers Campaign’ to scale up workforce across the continent. The campaign aims to increase the number of health workers in Africa, which will be overseen by a steering committee at the Earth Institute and will be run through the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.Renewed calls for France to extradite Genocide suspectsWHILE THE ARREST Tuesday in France of Innocent Musabyimana, alias Ibrahim Niyonsenga should have given Rwanda hope that Paris will finally look at the olive leaf of justice and extradite Genocide suspects, a France-based rights group says it is not a serious attempt to really clamp down on Genocide fugitives living there. Musabyimana, 40, is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. Rwanda has indicted 20 Genocide suspects in France. Rwanda wants them to be extradited or tried on French soil. France, which maintained close ties with the genocidal regime in Rwanda, is accused of blocking justice.Meanwhile, Century Park Hotels and Residences Ltd, a Chinese construction firm, has acquired 7.6 hectares of land in Remera sector for development that will see the construction of Sheraton Kigali.