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 About Rwanda
 The Life AfterWhen I began visiting Rwanda, in 1995, a year after the genocide, the country was still pretty well annihilated: blood-sodden and pillaged, with bands of orphans roaming the hills and women who'd been raped squatting in the ruins, its humanity betrayed, its infrastructure trashed, its economy gutted, its government improvised...Read the full story  Rwanda Rising: A New Model of Economic DevelopmentNobody likes to say "No, Mr. President." So three years ago, when Costco CEO Jim Sinegal got a call from shareholder Dan Cooper, a partner in Chicago's Fox River Financial Resources, asking if he'd have lunch with Rwandan president Paul Kagame, he agreed. That meeting in New York led to a presidential stop at Costco HQ near Seattle. Which led to Sinegal's promise to visit Rwanda. "I made it in a moment of weakness," he says, "before I realized how long it takes to get there." He ended up taking his whole family, and today Costco is one of the two biggest buyers of Rwandan coffee beans -- about 25% of the country's premium crop, by Sinegal's estimation.Read the full story  Rwanda Led All Nations in Business ‘Reforms,’ World Bank SaysRwanda, the African nation torn apart by genocide in 1994, made more business-friendly changes to its regulations in the past year than any other government, a World Bank report showed.The sub-Saharan country vaulted to the 67th from the 143rd rank in the bank’s 2010 “Doing Business Report,” ahead of India, Italy and Turkey. The index ranks 183 participants by their rules for setting up, running and closing a business. Read the full story Passing Through the FireA report on Rwanda's history, trends and development since the genocide.Read the report  100 days of blood and horrorTHE 100-day genocide started after Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana was assassinated on April 6, 1994. The same night, Hutu extremists embarked on a pre-planned massacre of minority Tutsis across the country. The international community dithered while the death toll reached one million. The bloodbath ended after the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a Tutsi rebel movement, defeated the Hutu regime.Read the full story About RwandaPopulation: 10.47 millionLocation: Landlocked country in east-central Africa Size: 26,388 sq km. One of the smallest and most densely populated African countries Capital: Kigali President: General Paul Kagame (since April 22, 2000) Politics: Presidential, multi-party system. After the 1994 genocide, Rwanda embarked on national reconciliation and rebuilding, with signs of rapid development. Peace and political stability were re-established, though lingering conflict with Hutu insurgents across the border with Democratic Republic of Congo is a concern Read the full story Investors new hunting groundIN A never-ending quest for economic space, Singapore is taking new steps into vast Africa. Why Africa, exactly?Singapore is waking up to a continent abundant in minerals, people and land. International trade hubs are rising there. Importantly, Africa is a new market of 900 million people for Singapore - as it intensifies its hunt for new markets. Says Mr Alphonsus Chia, chief executive of the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE): 'Singapore wants to enlarge its economic space, especially in markets that are less familiar to us. Read the full story American volunteer chairman, CEOWEALTHY Chicago trader and adventurer Joe Ritchie, 62, is a new Rwandan. He became a citizen three years ago, convinced that Rwanda was on the rise. For the past year, he has volunteered as chairman and chief executive of the Rwanda Development Board. He styles the agency as a 'nimble hit squad' to capture opportunities and propel the economy.In that role, Mr. Ritchie has set his eyes on Singapore. It is now a partner in Rwanda's workforce development, civil aviation, city planning and social security system. 'I didn't realize how sensational Singapore was,' he says. His ideal is to extend the partnership to more realms as Rwanda rebuilds itself after the 1994 genocide. Read the full story Cheers to a new RwandaTHE world believed Rwanda was destined to be a failed state after the genocide in 1994. One million lives were lost in 100 days on a horrific scale and speed never before imagined. For survivors, it was a land of the walking dead. Death, 15 years later, is still the paramount image when Rwanda is remembered. However, Singapore, which loves to spot winners, sees an entire country on the move. It is now a player in the rebirth of Rwanda. It is doing what it has done best since Singapore itself was an improbable nation in the 1960s: It is taking on the singularly pragmatic task of building vital institutions for a vulnerable land, this time Rwanda.Read the full story Diplomat bonds with AsiaMANDARIN-SPEAKING Paul Kayoboke, 31, is Rwanda's charge d'affaires here. In that role, he presents the new Rwanda to Singaporeans who know about its 1994 genocide and gorillas, and very little else.Rwanda is rising, he says. It was very different for his aristocratic parents, who left for Uganda amid the 1959 revolution.' My parents started all over again. There's a fighting spirit in Rwanda,' says the diplomat, who was born in Uganda. His father found success again as a businessman in Kenya and sent his children to British public schools. Young Paul graduated with a law degree from Reading, and soon worked as a Reuters reporter in Nairobi, Kenya. Read the full story Eager to rebuild their homelandHIS baby girl was born while Mr Deogratias Harorimana, 37, was in Singapore on a trip to discuss Rwanda's manpower needs in April. 'Shall I go back?' the senior official asked his wife. But she responded: 'Work is more important. Rwanda is bigger than me and my family.' Her only request: 'Just keep your phone on.'Their sacrifice is one personal facet of a national quest to rebuild Rwanda after genocide. Mr. Harorimana is the deputy chief executive of the Rwanda Development Board, where he manages human capital and institutional development. He lived for many years in Britain and is one face of the diaspora, which is returning home with talent and zeal to see Rwanda succeed. While pursuing a PhD in know- ledge management at Southampton Solent University, he led a firm hosting conferences. Then came the official invitation from Rwanda to return home. Read the full story Escape to Hotel RwandaLAWYER Fatina Mukarubibi, 35, is deputy director-general of Rwanda's Workforce Development Authority.1994: Then a student in the capital Kigali, she survived a shooting at a road block. She was beaten at a second road block till she lost consciousness. Finally, she escaped to Mille Collines Hotel where the Hutu manager bribed the Hutu Interahamwe militia not to kill 1,000 Tutsi refugees hiding there - a story that inspired the Hotel Rwanda movie. Read the full story Global seller of peace basketsENTREPRENEUR Janet Nkubana's peace baskets are woven by women on both sides of the genocide - Hutus and Tutsis.Sold in New York and Tokyo, the baskets put cash and hope in their hands. In the days after the genocide, MsNkubana, 46, traveled from church to church to mobilize basket weavers in rural Rwanda. Her message is the same to the wives of both killers and victims: There's hope for all. As the women wove under one roof, hatred faded over time. 'The government put in place tools of reconciliation. Some prayed to God,' she says. 'It is not easy. We still think about the genocide as a nation.' She tells the story of a Tutsi who lost 65 family members. Their bodies are buried in a big graveyard next to her house. Yet, when she faced a killer at a community court, she said: 'I want to forgive this man. My neighbours are my new family.' Read the full story Growing towgay and institutionsSINGAPOREAN Chong Fook Yen, 37, is fruitful in planting institutions and towgay in remote Rwanda.He is among a tiny band of spirited Singaporeans who build expertise in the country. As the first director-general of Rwanda's Workforce Development Authority, he started up the agency to ramp up skills in the national workforce. This was vital as the genocide had destroyed precious intellectual assets - manpower. Based in the capital Kigali for more than a year till April, he is now an adviser who flies in to fine-tune what he started. He was contracted by the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE) to transfer expertise. This agency advises foreign nations wishing to replicate pieces of Singapore's popular development model. Read the full story He speaks of possibilitiesMR JEAN Marie Muhire, 27, danced joyously with friends, evoking the beauty of Rwanda, Land of a Thousand Hills. Their Singaporean hosts were soon on their happy feet. That was in April, when about 100 Rwandan trainers wrapped up their study trip here with dinner at a yacht club.Among them were chefs, builders and Java programmers, who will train the trainers in Rwanda. They spent several weeks at institutions such as the Singapore Polytechnic and ComfortDelGro Engineering. That night, Mr. Muhire spontaneously steps over to Saturday Special and depicts the heightened purpose of his land 15 years after the genocide. 'All children will master computer skills, because they are the people of tomorrow,' says the friendly infocomm technology instructor. Read the full story Orphan is now mother to many kidsMISS Janet Mukadimda, 37, is a sociology graduate working part-time as a reservations clerk.She lives in a house built by the state for genocide orphans. She mothers children in the neighbourhood who gravitate towards her. 'The children have a hope for a better tomorrow,' she says. Read the full story What the S'pore team loves about Rwanda'The Rwandans are very focused. You want to be part of the story early, when the country is moving up.'Teacher Sophia Tsang (above, right), 50, who accompanied her husband Alan to Rwanda 'It's fun to train the Rwandans. They ask many questions. They discuss everything among themselves and share experiences. They learn very fast. They make the training come alive. I love it.' Mr. Daniel Teh, 25, training executive in ComfortDelGro Engineering, where Rwandan trainers took an intensive automotive course 'I came here for adventure, and I like to teach. Maybe it's providence that I've worked in two countries that experienced genocide. Rwanda and Cambodia have suffered a lot and are renewing themselves. We are just on hand to contribute.' Read the full story The Backbone of a New RwandaH. E. Paul KagamePresident of the Republic of Rwanda Recently, I spoke to a young person on the streets of Kigali. I asked him, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” He said he wanted to go and start his own business and move into the private sector. This is wonderful news. I felt like I knew this young man by the height of his ambitions. It’s very exciting and interesting that people are beginning to think like that, and indeed, it shows the shifting in mindset away from when people thought the only jobs they could do were with the government. Read the full story  Rwanda: Blair Advisor to Kagame - Lessons to DrawOn January 18, The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom reported that former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, had taken on the role of advisor to the Rwanda government. For a person of Blair's standing in the world, this is the greatest public relations coup by the Rwandan government.Read the full story Rwanda : U.S. Panel to Oppose Rusesabagina 'Lies'A group of Emory faculty members who opposed allowing the "Hotel Rwanda" figure Paul Rusesabagina to speak unopposed at State of Race last month has organized a follow-up event to present other views on the Rwandan genocide. The event, scheduled for Nov. 27, is titled "Beyond Hollywood's Rwanda: Truth and Justice, Security and Development after the 1994 Genocide," will be a panel discussion about Rwanda. Susan Allen, professor of global health at the Rollins School of Public Health, said Rusesabagina is a "genocide denier" who has misrepresented the facts of the 1994 genocide for political purposes.Read the full story  Seeds of Change in RwandaWe step inside Nyamata church and my guide, Josh Ruxin, points out the wall where babies were smashed up against the brick. "You can still see the blood," he says. More blood, wide dry brown stains, covers the altar cloth. Against a side wall, I find two new-looking closed coffins covered in cloth, a stack of 20 more, empty and expectant, and an open sack scattered with ribs, femurs and broken skulls. "Oh yeah," says Ruxin, looking over.Read the full story 
Time for Africa to insist on defining its own futureTHERE is very little to show for the $300bn in aid that has apparently been disbursed to the African continent since 1970. Economic growth and human development in Africa still lag behind the rest of the world. In part, this is because past aid flows were often spent to suit the geostrategic interests of the givers.Read the full story 
Dubai World to invest In Rwanda's Tourism IndustryDubai WorldLoading... Will Invest in Eight Tourism Facilities In Rwanda Partnership with the Government of Rwanda to develop country's tourism offering will include: The 1,080 sq kilometre Akagera National Park Projects in Nyungwe Forest National Park and The Volcanoes National Park Read the full story 
Rwanda 'most improved' in AfricaRwanda is the most improved sub-Saharan nation according to a survey looking at performances over the past five years.The Ibrahim Index, financed by Sudanese mobile phone magnate Mo Ibrahim, names Mauritius as the best-governed and Somalia as the worst-governed state. Read the full story  Startup: RwandaMore than a decade after the genocide, the tiny African nation has reemerged as a mecca for American entrepreneurs seeking redemption and profits alike. Rod Dubitsky sits under an umbrella at a roadside restaurant near the center of Kigali, munching on a plate of cooked bananas, stewed goat, and roasted beans.Read the full story  Rwanda`s Kagame gets human rights prizeKigali, Rwanda 08/31 - Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who has been in Italy for two days, has received a prize awarded annually to the leaders of countries who abolish the death penalty, the local media reported here Thursday.The organisation, Hands Off Chain (HOC), which awarded the prize through Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, is campaigning for the abolition of death penalty. Read the full story  Africa, Offline: Waiting for the WebON a muggy day in Kigali in 2003, some of the highest-ranking officials in the Rwandan government, including President Paul Kagame, flanked an American businessman, Greg Wyler, as he boldly described how he could help turn their small country into a hub of Internet activity.Read the full story  'Hotel Rwanda' hero comes under fire in native landKIGALI, Rwanda (Reuters) -- To much of the outside world, Paul Rusesabagina is a hero who saved 1,200 people from genocide in events depicted in the Oscar-nominated film "Hotel Rwanda."But as the genocide's 13th anniversary approaches in his native Rwanda, a bitter row has erupted between Rusesabagina and critics, including President Paul Kagame, who say he is profiting from the victims' misery and rewriting Rwanda's history for his own gain. Read the full story  As last summer's World Cup was approaching its climax, an argument broke out during dinner at the home of Rwandan President Paul Kagame. One of his sons announced that he was rooting for France, the team of his favorite player, Thierry Henry. "How can you root for France?" his older brother protested. "They were fighting against father!" President Kagame, by his own account, smiled but said nothing. A few days later, he flew to Berlin for the World Cup finals, and there he chatted with President Jacques Chirac of France. "We didn't have any problem," he reported. Read the full story The Nation's Coffee Captures World Market, StarbucksPresident Paul Kagame yesterday held discussions with the leaders of the America's giant coffee company, Starbucks Company, at the State House in Kiyovu, Kigali. The plank of the meeting was the excellent current trade relations between the United States and Rwanda, which have greatly benefited the country.Read the full story  Startup: RwandaMore than a decade after the genocide, the tiny African nation has reemerged as a mecca for American entrepreneurs seeking redemption and profits alike.Rod Dubitsky sits under an umbrella at a roadside restaurant near the center of Kigali, munching on a plate of cooked bananas, stewed goat, and roasted beans. If the 43-year-old Wall Street bond analyst from Hoboken, N.J., feels a little out of place on his first trip to Rwanda, the feeling doesn't last more than a couple of minutes. Read the full story Coffee, and Hope, Grow in RwandaOVER the last dozen years, the view from Gemima Mukashyaka’s small coffee garden in the lush emerald-green hills of southwestern Rwanda has changed. In 1994, after the genocide that killed 800,000 people, it was a site of devastation, chaos and abandonment. Five years ago, when worldwide coffee prices spiraled downward, her neighbors in the densely populated region near Butare were uprooting their coffee trees and planting quick-growing food crops to survive.Read the full story  Blood on their handsSILENT ACCOMPLICE: The Untold Story of France’s Role in the Rwandan GenocideFrance has recently infuriated Turkey by making it illegal to deny the Turkish massacre of the Armenians in 1915. But if Turkey is in denial, so is France, which bears a central responsibility for the 1994 genocide of 937,000 Tutsis in Rwanda. On occasion, as he tells this terrible story, Andrew Wallis’s indignation gets the better of him, causing him to lapse into heavy-handed infelicities. These do not, however, weaken the power of what he has to say. Read the full story France, steeped in genocidal blood, must face trialThe hastily arranged car boot sale outside the French Embassy in downtown Kigali last Monday did good business. On offer were laptop computers, televisions, three-piece suites and, well, even the cars themselves. Given the decision taken by the Rwandan Government ten days ago to expel the French Ambassador, his staff and to close all official French buildings in the tiny Central African country, there was clearly little expectation of a return.Read the full story  Special Report: Rwanda RebornFrom the horrors of genocide, this tiny nation is emerging as a surprise success story in Africa. But can it truly overcome its past?Read the full story  Women make leadership gains in AfricaKIGALI, Rwanda -- Sweden and Norway once claimed the world's highest percentage of female lawmakers. Now that distinction belongs to an African nation: Rwanda.Women in the tiny, land-locked country still recovering from a 1994 genocide hold 48 percent of the country's legislative seats. A woman heads the Supreme Court and half of the country's judges are women, as are half of its college graduates. 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