According to the youth, during the construction of the dams over 50 years ago, their forefathers were not paid adequate compensation by the VRA, considering that a lot of their crop farms were affected.

They are thus demanding details of the agreement signed between their chiefs and the VRA at the time, to ascertain what benefits have accrued to the towns from the VRA.

They lamented farmers have been left with no option than to lease lands outside the Krobo Traditional Area for their farming activities, adding that some even lease lands outside the Eastern region, a situation that is creating “economic hardships.”

To register the urgency with which their demands should be met, in a letter addressed to the chiefs of Yilo and Manya Krobo, the youth of these towns noted that, they will ensure the suspension of the Kloyosikplemi and Ngmayem festivals if the Chiefs fail to promptly address their concerns.

The Akosombo Dam was completed in 1965 as part of the Volta River Project. Its construction was jointly financed by the government of Ghana, the World Bank, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

In another development, the youth of Yilo and Manya Krobo,  have alleged that, the chiefs mismanage the levies meant to maintain the symbolic mountain central to these festivals. In their view, “the mountain as at now is devoid of any major landmark or relic worthy of celebration.”

This year’s Ngmayem festival is slated for October 26- November 1, while the Kloyosikplemi festival is slated for November 1- November 21.

–

By: Marie-Franz Fordjoe/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Photos By: Neil Nii Amartey Kanarku

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Mr. Kwarteng noted that “over the years, we allowed the VRA to stray into the provision of energy through thermal plants.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”sPJyQqPDdLt63swHCDhVlc6zMs7HWb79″]”The long and short of it is that we want the VRA to focus on what it is best at doing; management of the hydro plants. That is what traditionally they have been good at,” he explained on Eyewitness News.

This policy direction was announced by the Finance Minister in the 2017 budget in Parliament and the advertised the sale of at least a majority stake in specified thermal plants owned by the VRA formed part of the “implementation of a policy that has been announced in a budget statement and that has been approved by Parliament,” Mr. Kwarteng said.

The government had decided that the VRA was not doing a good enough job with the management of the thermal plants, hence the recent move that has upset some workers of the VRA.

“The management of these thermal assets by VRA has not been as we would have wanted it and most of these plants are indebted and if you look at the energy sector indebtedness, nobody can say, as a country, we have managed these thermal assets as well as we should have. Therefore, this policy intervention is to address this.”

With the $2.4 million bond to tackle the energy sector, limiting the constraints brought on by the management of the thermal pants would also ensure Ghana doesn’t have to borrow again to offset debts, the Minister pointed out.

“This decision is part of a comprehensive arrangement to deal with the energy sector indebtedness and energy sector mismanagement to ensure that dumsor and the problems associated with energy delivery are consigned to history.”

–

By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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The school was disconnected on July 7, 2017 over its indebtedness to VRA and that greatly affected both academic and administrative work.

The management of the school on Monday,  July 17, 2017 pleaded with VRA to reconnect the school to the national grid to enable authorities for the appropriate authorities to settle the arrears.

Speaking to Citi News, the Acting Area Manager of VRA Bolgatanga Station, Mr. Abubakari Gbanzaba indicated that, the indebtedness of the Polytechnic and many other institutions was affecting the operation of VRA, thus the disconnection.

He said the  Bolgatanga Polytechnic main campus owed VRA a sum of GHC346,652.72 while its Bukeri campus owes GHC366,675.78, adding that, the last payment was in 2013.

“We (VRA) have agreed to connect the Polytechnic to electricity today  July 17, 2017 after a plea by management of the school to enable them write correspondence to the authorities that be, to  settle the arrears and they have up to 3rd August to make payment of their electricity bills. failure to do so will force us to disconnect them,” Mr. Gbanzaba noted.

Mr. Gbanzaba bemoaned the huge indebtedness of educational and health institutions as well as departments and agencies to VRA hence needed a multi-faceted approach to get them to settle their bills.

“Educational institutions within Bolga, Talensi and Bongo districts owe VRA GHC3,136,222.31 as at May 2017. The Bolga Regional hospital Out Patient Department (OPD) alone owe GHC1,310,850.34 while the Bongo district hospital owe GHC69,529.22, both made the last payment of electricity bills in 2012.”

VRA to embark on mass disconnection

Mr. Gbanzaba stated that, his outfit have served all MDAs, Educational and Health institutions within the Bolga, Talensi and Bongo districts a demand notice to pay all outstanding electricity bills within two weeks or risk being disconnected.

He added that, the exercise will be extended to the Navrongo and Bawku VRA stations to ensure that customers clear their indebtedness to VRA.

–

By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Militants wearing masks and dressed in black gunned down seven of those condemned, whose faces were covered and hands bound, in front of worshippers emerging from the Omari mosque on Palestine Square, in the first public executions in the enclave since the 1990s.

A further 11 were killed at an abandoned police station near Gaza City, Hamas security officials said.

“The resistance has begun an operation called ‘strangling the necks’, targeting collaborators who aid the (Israeli) occupation, kill our people and destroy houses,” said Al-Majd, a website run by Hamas’s internal security service.

A so-called conviction letter signed by the “Palestinian Resistance” was posted on a wall near where the bodies of the alleged collaborators lay. The notice read:

“They provided the enemy with information about the whereabouts of fighters, tunnels of resistance, bombs, houses of fighters and places of rockets, and the occupation bombarded these areas, killing a number of fighters … Therefore, the ruling of revolutionary justice was handed upon him.”

Earlier on Friday, 11 suspected collaborators were shot dead at the abandoned police station, a Hamas security official said. Two bodies were seen being loaded onto an ambulance before Reuters journalists were told to leave the area.

Executions Denounced

The crackdown on suspected collaborators follows the killing of three of Hamas’s most senior military commanders in an Israeli air strike on Thursday. That attack depended on precise intelligence on their whereabouts.

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights denounced the killings of Gazans by militants.

“We demand the Palestinian National Authority and the resistance (Palestinian armed factions) to intervene to stop these extra-judicial executions, no matter what the reasons and motives are,” Raji al-Surani, the chairman of the organisation, said in a statement.

Fighting between Israel and Hamas raged on. More than 60 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, one of them hitting a synagogue in the city of Ashdod, wounding 5 people, the Israeli police said.

Israeli forces carried out more than 25 air strikes in Gaza on Friday, killing four people, Palestinian health officials said.

Israel launched its offensive on Gaza on July 8 with the stated aim of putting an end to cross-border rocket fire.

More than 2,070 Palestinians have since been killed in the conflict, most of them civilians, while large areas of Gaza have been destroyed, leaving around 400,000 of the enclave’s 1.8 million people displaced. Sixty-four Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel have also been killed.

Hamas Leaders are Targets

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised cooperation between Israel’s military and its internal security service, Shin Bet, for the air strike that killed the three Hamas commanders, saying it demonstrated a high level of knowledge about the whereabouts of Hamas’s leaders.

Hamas identified the three as Mohammed Abu Shammala, Raed al-Attar and Mohammed Barhoum, saying they had been at the forefront of the fight against Israel for two decades.

Israel said two of them had been instrumental in the 2006 kidnapping of an Israeli soldier who was held in Gaza for five years before being freed in a prisoner exchange, as well as other deadly attacks.

Since a 10-day ceasefire collapsed on Tuesday, Israel has focused its attacks on the military leadership of Hamas.

On Tuesday, as the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire fell apart, an Israeli air strike hit a building in northern Gaza, killing the wife and two children of Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s top military commander.

Deif, mastermind of a tunnel network under Gaza that has been used to attack Israel and long a target, appears to have survived, although his whereabouts are unknown.

On Thursday, Netanyahu granted preliminary approval for the call-up of 10,000 army reservists, signalling the possibility of heightened military action in Gaza.

–

Source: Reuters

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Mohammed Abu Shamala, Mohammed Barhoum and Raed al-Attar died in the attack near the southern town of Rafah.

They were among at least 19 killed, a day after Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif reportedly survived a strike that killed his wife and child.

An Israeli was severely injured as rockets were fired into Israel on Thursday, the army said.

Hostilities resumed after peace talks collapsed on Tuesday.

Israel has vowed to pursue its campaign until “full security” is achieved.

Six weeks of fierce fighting have left at least 2,103 people dead, all but 67 of them Palestinians and most of them said to be civilians.

In other developments:

• The Israeli air force attacked and “hit” six Islamic Jihad activists reportedly poised to fire rockets at Israel from northern Gaza
• An Israeli air strike killed four Palestinians as they were burying relatives killed earlier at a graveyard in Gaza City, medics told AFP news agency
• At least six Palestinians, four of them children, were killed in Israeli attacks overnight in the northern town of Beit Lahiya and in Gaza City, AFP reports

The grandfather of three children killed by an Israeli air strike weeps outside a morgue in Gaza City

Smoke rises after an Israeli air strike on the northern Gaza Strip

Israeli tanks near the Gaza Strip

A sniffer dog patrol at Ben Gurion airport

‘Missile after missile’

Israel’s strike on Rafah demolished a four-storey building, killing at least three people in addition to the Hamas leaders.

Local man Hamza Khalifa told AP news agency there had been no warning: “We only heard multiple F-16 [warplane] missiles, one after the other, six or seven missiles.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the “superior intelligence” of the domestic Shin Bet security service and the “precise execution” of the attack.

The three commanders killed were key to operations including smuggling, tunnel construction and capturing the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006, the BBC’s Yolande Knell reports

Hamas commanders killed

Mohammed Abu Shamala (L) with Hamas official Ismail Haniya in February

• Raed al-Attar, the most senior Hamas commander in the south, personally handed over Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit to the Egyptians during the 2011 prisoner exchange; his role in Hamas was to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip and oversee recruitment and arms in the Rafah region, according to Israel
• Mohammed Abu Shamala was the Rafah commander said to have been responsible for planning the capture of Mr Shalit; he was also accused by Israel of killing an army officer in 1994 and orchestrating an attack in 2004 which killed six soldiers
• Mohammed Barhoum, a close relative of Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, was a senior local Hamas commander

“The assassinations of the three Qassam [Hamas military wing] leaders is a grave crime,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters news agency. “But it will not break our people and Israel will pay the price for it.”

Israel’s military said it had carried out 20 attacks on targets in Gaza during the night in response to militant rocket attacks. Since talks on extending the ceasefire failed, 213 rockets had been fired at Israel, it added.

In another development, Hamas warned foreign airlines to stop flying to and from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport from Thursday.

Talks off

Hamas also confirmed it was abandoning efforts to negotiate a durable ceasefire with Israel.

It had gone to the talks in Cairo demanding an end to the Israeli and Egyptian blockades of Gaza, and the establishment of a seaport and airport.

Israel, for its part, had sought guarantees that Hamas and other factions in Gaza would be disarmed.

The UN Security Council voiced “grave concern” at the resumption of hostilities and “called upon the parties to resume negotiations to urgently reach a sustainable and lasting ceasefire”.

–

Source: BBC

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As rocket-warning sirens sounded in southern Israel, the military said Hamas had fired at least 18 rockets from Gaza and Israel’s “Iron Dome” interceptor system brought down two. Gaza militants said they had fired 10 rockets on Friday.

In the first casualties since hostilities resumed on Friday, Palestinian medical officials said a 10-year-old boy was killed in an Israeli strike near a mosque in Gaza City. In Israel, police said two people were injured by mortar fire from Gaza.

After a huge explosion in Gaza City, apparently from an air raid, a military spokesman said Israel had responded to Hamas rocket fire by launching air strikes at “terror sites” across the Gaza Strip.

“We will continue to strike Hamas, its infrastructure, its operatives, and restore security for the State of Israel,” Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said in a statement.

An Israeli government official said Israel would not negotiate with Palestinians about renewing the truce in Gaza as long as militants continued to launch rockets.

Heavy civilian casualties and destruction during Israel’s campaign against militants in packed residential areas of the Gaza Strip have raised international alarm over the past month, but efforts to extend a ceasefire at talks in Cairo failed.

Israel had earlier said it was ready to agree to an extension as Egyptian go-betweens pursued negotiations with Israeli and Palestinian delegates.

Hamas said Palestinian factions had not agreed to extend the truce, but would continue negotiations in Cairo.

An Islamic Jihad official added: “Discussions in Cairo have not finished and we will pursue our efforts to stop the aggression and achieve the just demands of our people.”

The Palestinians had wanted Israel to agree in principle to demands which include a lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip, the release of prisoners and the opening of a sea port.

The armed wing of Hamas released a statement late on Thursday warning Palestinian negotiators not to agree to an extension unless Israel offered concessions.

Naval Blockade

Israel has shown little interest in easing its naval blockade of Gaza and controls on overland traffic and airspace, suspecting Hamas could restock with weapons from abroad.

Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, speaking on Army Radio, raised the prospect of Israel relaunching a ground operation it halted on Tuesday and “taking control of the Gaza Strip in order to topple the Hamas regime”.

But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown little inclination to do so.

In Gaza, some families who had returned to their homes in the northern town of Beit Hanoun during the ceasefire gathered their belongings and headed back to the United Nations shelters where they had sought refuge over the past few weeks.

Beit Hanoun resident Yamen Mahmoud, a 35-year-old father of four, said: “Today I am fleeing again, back to displacement. I am not against resistance but we need to know what to do. Is it war or peace?”

Gaza officials say the war has killed 1,876 Palestinians, most of them civilians. Hamas said on Thursday it had executed an unspecified number of Palestinians as Israeli spies.

Israel says 64 of its soldiers and three civilians have died in the fighting that began on July 8, after a surge in Palestinian rocket salvoes into Israel.

It expanded its air and naval bombardment of the Gaza Strip into a ground offensive on July 17, and pulled its infantry and armor out of the enclave on Tuesday after saying it had destroyed more than 30 infiltration tunnels dug by militants.

Alienate Egypt

Hamas’s refusal to extend the ceasefire could further alienate Egypt, whose government has been hostile to the group and which ultimately controls Gaza’s main gateway to the world, the Rafah border crossing.

The announcement that the truce would not be extended came a few minutes after it expired at 0500 GMT (1 a.m. EDT) after lengthy talks that continued in Cairo through the night.

Palestinian negotiators from factions including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah left their luxury hotel for talks with Egyptian intelligence at 9.30 p.m. on Thursday, returning more than six and a half hours later looking subdued and saying no deal had yet been reached.

Palestinian officials paced the lobby, speaking on their phones and holding meetings, trying to reach a final decision as the deadline approached.

A source at Cairo airport said the Israeli delegation left shortly before the truce expired. He said the Israeli visit had lasted nine hours, longer than the previous two visits this week, as Egyptian mediators pushed the two sides to renew the truce. There was no immediate comment from Egypt.

–

Source: Reuters

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The soldier, named as Hadar Goldin, 23, went missing when Israeli forces trying to destroy a suspected militant tunnel were attacked, Israel’s military said.

Israel and Hamas accused each other of breaching the 72-hour ceasefire.

Palestinian sources said at least 35 people were killed by Israeli shelling in the southern town of Rafah.

In 2006 Palestinian militants captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and held him for five years.

He was released in November 2011 in exchange for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Hamas has not commented on the latest reported capture.

Some 1,460 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died in the latest conflict and 63 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

The ceasefire had been brokered by the US and UN to give civilians a reprieve from the violence, and had been seen as an unforeseen breakthrough after days of diplomatic deadlock.

Also on Friday, Palestinian and Israeli delegations arrived in Cairo, Egypt, with the hope of negotiating a longer-term cessation of hostilities, but Egyptian officials said the talks had now been postponed.

–

Source: BBC

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The army said it had warned residents to stay indoors.

Palestinian sources said at least eight people had been killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza. Israel said it was in response to rocket fire from Hamas.

Some 1,460 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died in the conflict and 63 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

The ceasefire had been brokered by the US and UN to give civilians a reprieve from the violence, and had been seen as an unforeseen breakthrough after days of diplomatic deadlock.

Palestinian and Israeli delegations have arrived in Cairo, Egypt, with the hope of negotiating a longer-term cessation of hostilities, but the fate of the talks now seems unclear.

The BBC’s Bethany Bell, in Jerusalem, says there had been enormous international pressure for a 72-hour lull to allow people in Gaza to bury their dead and restock with food.

–

Source: BBC

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Dozens of deaths reported each day. Dwindling fuel and water supplies. And now Gaza’s only power plant is off the grid after it was struck.

The violence continued Wednesday morning, when Israeli forces shelled the Abu Hussein School in northern Gaza and killed at least 20 people, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

The Israeli military said it is investigating.

The school was a U.N. facility based in Gaza’s Jebaliya refugee camp, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency said. Agency spokesman Gaza Adnan Abu Hasna said 19 people were killed and 126 were injured.

Abu Hasna attributed the high number of casualties to the timing of the attack — when many had gathered for morning prayers.

The daily bloodshed is now exasperated by crumbling infrastructure from the violence.

Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli airstrike for the attack on Gaza’s only power plant. But Israel said it didn’t target the power plant.

“I’ve gone through our air force, our navy, our ground forces on the ground. Haven’t been able to determine it was IDF activity,” Israel Defense Forces spokesman Peter Lerner said.

Either way, residents must depend almost entirely on small generators for electricity. Clean water is inaccessible for most. And some 3,600 people have lost their homes.

“We cannot supply electricity” for hospitals, sewage treatment or domestic use, said Fathi al-Sheikh Khalil, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Energy Natural Resources Authority in Gaza. “This is a disaster.”

Salah Jarour owns a small convenience store in Gaza. He now runs the store in the dark.

“This is not fair. We have children. Hospitals need power,” Jarour said. “The Israelis are not human.”

Many roads in Gaza City are deserted, except for ambulances pre-positioned to assist in case of an Israeli airstrike.

At least 1,242 people in Gaza have died and more than 7,000 have been wounded since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said.

The number of militants killed is unclear, but the United Nations estimates that 70% to 80% of the dead are civilians.

On the Israeli side, 53 soldiers have died since Operation Protective Edge began July 8, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Three civilians have been killed in Israel as well.

No cease-fire, but lots of blame

Hamas and Israel blamed one another for the lack of a cease-fire — raising questions about just what it will take to end the fighting in Gaza.

International efforts to broker a deal to end the violence failed again Tuesday, with Hamas rejecting a cease-fire proposal put forward by the Palestinian Authority that called for a 24-hour truce that could be extended to 72 hours.

The sticking points: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said any truce must allow for its protection against tunnels used by Palestinian militants in Gaza to make their way into Israel.

“Hamas is responsible for all deaths on their side and on our side because they are the ones who kept this conflict going,” Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev told CNN.

“People are fighting and people are dying because Hamas said no to a cease-fire.”

But Hamas says any deal must include an end to Israel’s blockade of Gaza. On Hamas-run TV, Mohammed Deif, chief of the group’s military wing, said that “there is no middle ground” regarding a truce until Israel ends its “siege” of Gaza.

“The Israeli enemy will not have security as long as we don’t have security for our people,” he said.

Hamas wants Israel to lift a blockade it began on Gaza in 2007, a move Israel has said was necessary to stop Hamas and other allied militant group from bringing weapons into Gaza.

But Israel has been criticized for sealing the borders, with aid groups saying the blockade has cut off basic supplies and created a humanitarian crisis.

–

Source: CNN

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Maccabi Tel Aviv, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Hapoel Be’er Sheva will have to propose alternative home venues “until further notice” to Uefa, European football’s governing body.

Uefa has also ruled that Russian and Ukrainian teams cannot be drawn against each other in European competition.

This is as a result of the political situation between the two countries.

This decision means Russian side FC Zenit and Dnipro of Ukraine will not be paired together at the Champions League third qualifying round draw on 18 July.

However, Uefa’s Emergency Panel say that European club competition matches can be played in Ukrainian cities.

A Uefa statement added: “Based on an updated assessment of the security situation in Ukraine, the UEFA Emergency Panel has decided to allow UEFA club competition matches to be played in Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa, in addition to Kyiv and Lviv.

“This concerns FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk and FC Chornomorets Odesa, entering the third qualifying round of the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League respectively.”

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Source: BBC Sport

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