<![CDATA[BEEAFRICAN.COM forum discussion]]> http://BeeAfrican.com en Wed, 1 Feb 2012 02:07:30 GMTBEEAFRICAN.COM forum discussionhttp://BeeAfrican.com<![CDATA[RE:Africa launches satellite into space]]>Loading post content...

]]>Fri, 3 Feb 2012 09:38:11 GMT<![CDATA[What is to love Africa?]]> "It is as dark as the night, it smells, the food there smells too, the people there smell too and they are loud barbarians who simply pass for monkeys. It is a sh*thole, and its name is Africa"

So they tell us.

Yet day and night we stand there, sit there and confess that we love Africa. What is it that we love really. What is it?

]]>Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:32:36 GMT<![CDATA[RE:The African Union: A Worthless Organization? By Kwadwo Mante (PhD)]]> An interesting observation Dr. Kwadwo Mante, which goes to show the passivity of most so-called African Thing X and African Thing Z Institutions and their imbecile leaders in all their glory. The structure of Africa's dependency is appallingly complex: from donations in cash and kind to mental and intellectual competencies including the ugly face of war. Africa has always depended on the West and will continue to do so, while you, I and others like us with our degrees often obtained at western universities will continue whining and blogging. That's so much we can do.

]]>Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:14:21 GMT<![CDATA[Africa does not want to sell off its wealth]]>  

The basement of the African continent, home to large mineral resources, raises serious envy. But often unstable, African countries are easy prey for unscrupulous investors ... or too powerful. They have long and tended to sell off their wealth.
 
Lucrative contracts
in 2007 for example, a Chinese consortium had entered into a highly advantageous with the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). 
In exchange for 10.6 million tonnes of copper, 200,000 tonnes of cobalt and 372 tonnes of gold , almost 7 billion euros of raw materials, Chinese entrepreneurs committed to building 3,600 km of roads, two hydroelectric power stations and rehabilitate 2,000 km of railways. While enjoying outstanding benefits: monopoly, zero-rating ...
 
In Guinea, where the first world's bauxite reserves, the first agreement with Rio Tinto on the exploitation of the Simandou was described by local tax officials of "unprecedented sellout."
 
African states seem determined to reverse the trend. The new Guinean Mining Code, adopted in September, strengthens the role of the state, while Zambia, a major producer of copper, is considering reinstating taxes.
 
 
In 2009, the DRC had already lowered the Chinese contract, reduced to 6.5 billion and private sectors of the state guarantee. It remains to improve transparency.
 
 
African associations of the "Publish What You Pay" and require governments to report regularly the amount of taxes and royalties generated by the contracts on natural resources of their countries.
 
FIGURES 
21% of the gold mined in the world is on the continent, as in South Africa or Ghana. 
89% of world reserves of platinum are in Africa. 46% of world diamond production is After the African continent, mainly from Angola and Botswana. 20% of the world's uranium is mined in Africa, including Niger.
 
Source: villageafro
]]>Sat, 14 Jan 2012 14:05:29 GMT<![CDATA[Should Africa be an allied of the West or China by Jean–Paul Pougala]]> The past 12 months were very intense on the African continent. Some very important elections stirred- up a whole lot of interests. Those interests went far more outside of the African borders for the simple fact that the outcome of each one of those elections defines the new frontiers of the shared zones of influence, which are being renegotiated between the old powers of the world.

The case of Cameroun and Côte d’Ivoire

by Jean-Paul Pougala  -  Translated from French by Therese Boua – North Carolina USA  12/24/2011

The Western, and the new power, China. In quoting the ranking seen in Ukraine, one can freely state that in Cote d’Ivoire, in Zambia or in Liberia, the pro-westerner won the party. In Cameroun or in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is the pro- China who won.

Since the African Independences about 50 years ago, in the logic of the cold war, African countries were all under one of the 2 banners, pro-western or pro–Soviet Union. With the fall of Berlin wall in 1989 and the consequent end of the cold war era, all Africa became, either by their own willing or by force, pro-western.

The tandem, International Monetary Founds’ (IMF) and the World Bank took in fact power in Africa, deciding entirely or partially the economical, financial, social and even the judicial politics of most African countries. As a result of those 20-30 years of that kind of power in Africa, there is not in existence, a single country that succeeded thanks to their revenues coming straight from Washington DC. This brought about dissidences and rebellions from some countries against the ultraliberal IMF-World Bank, with one particularity: when it fails, only African leaders take the blame. They are re-baptized for the circumstance “African dictators” in order to divert attention from the real authorship of the failure: the western ultra liberalism. This tragic comedy continues to this day, since the same recipes are being prescribed to Greece, Portugal and to Italy, recipes which failed in Africa 20 years ago.

These African dissidents looked elsewhere, toward Eastern, toward China. There are not many, because they have to have courage to brave tremendous western pressure, which pressure may well end up in coup-d’états maneuvered through rebels who never explained how and by whom they were financed. This is the context in which electoral rendezvous are held on the African continent, where the only true social project is to find out if countries will be content with the status quo, with the same old known misery of 50 years in the hand of the West, or will they take a jump into the unknown by choosing China, in the hope of emerging with her, not really knowing where we are all going to land?

Today, I will take, in examination, 2 African countries that made opposite choices, first, the Ivory Coast, who decided to stay like before, under western control and second, theCameroun, who chose to jump into the unknown with China.

Which one of those 2 countries made the right choice?

To answer this question, I am restraining myself in giving any judgment in the value of either one of those elections. I’m not about to re-create history here. I will only review the events on a purely geostrategic angle.

Cameroun and Cote d’Ivoire are two African countries in which election took place recently. The common point of these two elections is that the two world’s giants, China and the West threw their full support behind their selective choice. In Cote d’Ivoire, we may or may not agree on the methods used, but every modern citizen was able to watch, live, the induction of an African administration by both France and the United States of America. It is not wrong to assert that the power in place was pro-Western.

In Cameroun, Mr. Biya has been the “darling” of Beijing. The city has become the only official destination for Biya and his ministers’ outside of Cameroun’s geographical borders, for these past couple of years. At the last congress of the RDPC, Mr. Biya’s political party, Mr. Sarkozy’s UMP was not invited as usual. In this rightful place, instead, China’s communist party was invited and was designated as “the best friend” of Cameroun. In addition, the results of the presidential election in Cameroon were announced by Beijing and not Yaoundé, four hours before the results’ were proclaimed by the Cameroun’s  Supreme Court. This bring us to say, without fear of being wrong, that Cameroun’s position is pro-China. This is the reason why Mr. Obama’s America could only throw in the tower, as a sign of giving up, in front of the displayed support of China, in what had been afraid to be called “post election crisis of Cameroun”. The American Ambassador, Mr. Jackson’s accusations against the electoral process only got the effect of “a barking dog while the caravan continues its merry way”. With these maneuvers, Beijing had already made ​​it clear that Cameroon was not Cote d’Ivoire. As this was not a random decision in Beijing to choose the date of 10/8/2011, one day before the election, the joint ceremony between Mr. Biya and the Chinese representative to put together, the foundation stone of Kribi’s deep water construction site, with an initial envelop of $ 1 billion paid as a real challenge to Westerners who themselves are in deep financial crisis. Cameroun’s electoral approved of this act, by sanctifying, the day after, the election of Mr. Biya with 78%. This is Far from the mismanagement of the situation in Cote d’Ivoire by the West a few months earlier.

Whom, Between Cameroun and Cote D’Ivoire Will be Right about Their Choice ?

While it is still too early to speak of Cameroun, we can already draw the first conclusions on the case of Cote d’Ivoire, and realized that the situation today is far worse than what prevailed during the crisis under Mr. Laurent Gbagbo. The IMF has put forward a figure of -7.5% growth in the country for 2011, making the Ivory Coast, the only country in recession for the entire African continent, that is to say , worse than Somalia, where even without a stable government, there will 1% growth for 2011, which means a growth somehow positive.

The same sources inform us of underperformances against the Ivorian economy, where the state owe the tidy sum of nearly 1,000 billion CFA francs to companies. And the entire 2012 budget that just passed will be financed from abroad.

Let us take randomly, a common date in the two countries, as of yesterday 23/11/2011. What is the main news in Côte d’Ivoire: the spokesman for the European Commission President, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, who announces that Mr. Alassane Ouattara Dramane is in Brussels where he will be meeting throughout the day, Mr. Karel de Gucht, European Trade and export Commissioner, is to speak of Ivorian cocoa exportation toward the European Union’s countries.

In the Meantime, in Cameroun, Mr. Martin Yankwa, General Inspector of the Cameroun’s Ministry of Industry, Mines and Technological Development, is announcing the signing of an agreement with the Chinese government, to set up a factory, the SITRACO, worth 1.6 billion FCFA in Douala for the conversion of 40% of all the cotton from Cameroon, in order to supply the many hospitals that China is also building across Cameroun, with medical supplies such as pads and rolls of gauze of cotton.

In the first case, this is yet another visit to the West since taking power last May, 2011. The first visit was at the G8 summit,  in Deauville, France, where the friend Sarkozy, President of France had a great desire to celebrate the military victory of his presidency, but had forgotten to inform his protégé, Mr. Ouattara, that he was in a financial storm himself, with three major banks that had just lost at the stock market nearly 40% of their value, which reach very quickly the following day, 65% for the biggest one.

There was the 07/27/2011 visit to Washington to ask for money. Unfortunately again, we forgot to tell Ouattara that Mr. Obama was in a quarrel with the new Republican majority in Congress, that would not grant him (Obama) an extension for new debt, and suddenly, accompanied by other African presidents who all seemed in the White House, like schoolboys in the principal’s office, giving the pictures published by the White House of the meeting, they have the bitter looks on their faces, giving the impression of being at a funeral ceremony. 

How to Read These Two Events?

IN COTE D’IVOIRE

The Ivorian approach is wrong, in my opinion, because the Cocoa and Coffee should simply be eradicated in the African continent. This is the only certainty to end the dark days of colonial submission and humiliation, with all its economy, as the cultivation of certain plants, that even a major financial newspapers in the West continues to rank, at the end of 2011 as “colonial products. More than 50 years after independence, an African leader still going to Europe to negotiate a colonial product, that is to say, to voluntarily continue to grow this product, which corresponded to the vision and interests of the European colonial Africa. It’s a political mistake, and especially an historical and economical one, because no country in the face of the world has ever been enriched by continuing the production of a colonial product. Even Brazil was forced to renounced his position, as the world’s leading Coffee producer, to produce Meat, and is now exporting to Europe because it is one 100 times profitable, and the production is weekly, not annually……”.

Former President Mr. Laurent Gbagbo had a choice: to turn to Africa in order for his country to move from a colonial economy to something else, the repositioning of Cote d’Ivoire, to abandon the colonial products such as Coffee and Cocoa, for strategic profitable sectors such as petrochemicals which is 100% African. To achieve this, it is the Ivorian experts who have been admitted to advise and develop infrastructure for this migration concept, including Equatorial Guinea, Angola, etc …

In other words, Côte d’Ivoire was going to specialized in “Intelligence” to count and control in Africa and that, in only six months, Cote d’Ivoire is back to the dark hours of field work, the colonial period , manual work, putting its old servants’ apron back to use, as required by European master, its place in the Cocoa and Coffee plantations and tropical countries.

IN CAMEROUN

The approach in Cameroun is to encourage, because the decision to establish a cotton processing plant in Cameroun has two advantages: First, because the real added value of an agricultural product resides in its transformation into finished product, second, because the produce to satisfy a national need, helps to boost local demand and establishes the virtuous circle of wealth creation. It is expected that within the next 10 years, Cameroun will move from being a cotton importer country  to a cotton exporting one, satisfying  the country’s cotton demand in hospitals and also being able to satisfy the African market.

What the leaders from Cameroun understood is Laurent Gbagbo’ vision, which is that from now on, it is in Africa that we must seek wealth. Sitraco is the tree hiding the forest’s vast health development project’s  business in Cameroun, which will attract patients not only from neighbouring countries but from much further. Through its hospitals, Cameroun wants to get the lucrative medical evacuation bonanza  to France from French-speaking African countries, in particular for very specific specialties: cardiovascular, trauma, neurosurgical, ontological ophthalmological. According to incredible figures provided by Mr. Bedouma Alain Yoda, Minister of Health of Burkina Faso, the government of a small and poor country like Burkina Faso pays to France to evacuate about fifty patients a year, a whopping 900 million FCFA (1,372,000 Euros) annually. This information was made public by the daily Burkina Faso daily news paper, “The Country”, in its edition of September 19, 2007. In Yaoundé, we want some of that cake. History does not tell us yet, if Paris is very happy with the activism of this new unexpected competitor.

Another area in which the leaders of Yaoundé are looking for trouble with Mr. Sarkozy of France is in training and education. One can easily imagine the scene inside the Etoudi Palace (home of the President of Cameroun), where the host takes a pen and calculator to see how much cash is generated each year from  African students who flock in Europe? A real jack pot! And all productive reflections had to be on knowing how to catch some of that!  Once again, thanks to the Chinese partnership,  public and private Universities are now coming out of the ground like mushrooms, with University campuses, and a shipyards of Chinese construction sites to deliver the works as soon as possible. Cameroun, enjoying the privileged position of being the only bilingual (French / English) country  in the African continent, is not only trying to prevent Cameroonians to leave their country, but is also trying to attract other African students. While the host of the Elysee (home of the French President) counts on the stigmatization of African students to boost their poll numbers, one can bet that removing such an excuse will be lived as a crime. Since the month of May 2011 already, a decree has surfaced to summon African students to leave France the day after their graduation.

 

 What To Do Once One Realizes The Mistake in Choosing Alliances?

Today, the development of Africa is a matter of decisive choice in the geostrategic position of each country. The alliance with the West, on the verge of bankruptcy, seems suicidal to me as choice, because the result is known in advance: misery guaranteed as main course and debts for dessert. The Libyan leader Gaddafi is an example of the suicidal choice. He chose the alliance with the West, snubbing China or Russia, and by letting his Secret Service’s be controlled by the CIA. Which later will be fatal to him, knowing that it is the same Secret Service, by becoming american, who was no longer safe for him nowhere on the Libyan soil, let alone for his dolphin.  In the wild, mammals look for powerful and strong males to mate and provide offspring in order to guarantee the future. Because the weak is often bitter and generates other weaknesses that leave little to no chance for the race to survive for a longtime, and do not portend any future. Right now, the West is this weakened animal and for that reason, is more dangerous to himself and to its allies. Its weakness makes it bitter.

A day will come when they will understand that they will no longer be saved from their deep financial and social crisis by Cote d’Ivoire and only then, they will realize that they do not need Mr. Ouattara.

 When that day comes, coinciding with the awareness of doing the best interest of Ivoirians people first , it will whistle the end of the recreation for the colonial Cocoa. That day, Ouattara will be soon renamed “African dictator” and there is no need to be a magician in order to predict that, on that day, all NGOs will come out, raising from everywhere to explain how he is wicked and how he enriched himself on the backs of his own people. Another African will be found quickly to replace Ouattara that day and we, the African people will be there to support him with all our strength, exactly as we did for the Libyan Leader and its predecessors. Because the African tradition requiring us to never abandon one of our own, no matter what.

Nicolas Machiavelli (1469-1527) did he not say that “To predict the future, we must know the past, for the events of this world at all times, have links to the times that preceded them. Created by men animated by the same passions, these events must necessarily have the same results? “

How many will we be to  respond  “present” in support of Mr. Ouattara when his hour of disgrace arrives? What history will remember of him beyond his inglorious page he wrote with his famous “International Community”? only Ouattara and his team will be able to answer these questions, through the actions and decisions they will lead using their brains to not insist on recipes that have already shown their limits. The worst is not to make mistakes, but to persist in making them. And the wisest move for him, in my opinion, will be to have the courage and strength to go against those who put him in power and to free his brother Laurent Gbagbo. He, then will have left the treachery Africa and the “governors” club to enter into the courageous Africa in defense of African human Dignity. We are different from Europeans. To build the European Union, they resorted to a catalog of all conditions to be met before entering the EU and countries like Turkey since 1962, have continuously failed to satisfy these conditions. In Africa we have privileged other values ​​than money. That is why there has never been any catalog of conditions for accession to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) yesterday and to the African Union (AU) today and tomorrow in the United States of Africaunder construction. What unites us is primarily the fight against the humiliation that the West wants to impose on us since the dawn of time. The International Criminal Tribunal is not a clear evidence of the animosity against human dignity in Africa?

How to explain that with the 3 million deaths in Cambodia, a genocide perpetrated by the “Khmer Rouge”, the special court is undergoing on the Cambodian soil? The common denominator of the African people is anti-colonialism. It  even was the basis for the foundation of the OAU.

And we will not build the United States of Africa without involving everyone, without realizing the harmful ability of those who want to arm us, those who want to divide us in order to  hunt our Heads of State from power, and kill them. We are extremely outraged by these acts of barbarism and if those who have power are not aware of this, we must be outraged twice as much.

CONCLUSION

The decline of the West is paradoxically an opportunity for Africa, provided that we are aware of the importance of the place we can occupy in this new era with the redistribution of seats.

The West cannot help us because it cannot help itself.

 Mr. Obama visited Ghana and presented that country as the window of a Western allied who is succeeding, but the truth is  a bit bitter. Ghana, for its growth, turned to China and received 10 billion  of American dollars, provided by China alone, an amount that no Western country is capable to offer.

For the story, yesterday 11/23/2011, for the first time, even Germany, the European most virtuous and richest country, could not borrow money on the markets, their operators are the first to bet on their inexorable downward spiral.

In this 21st century this is the end of the United Nations and the triumph of CONTINENT-STATES. I do not look forward to the beginning of the prosperity in my country, Cameroun, as long as the economy of another African country, such as Cote d’Ivoire is lowered, because we need to be together, all of us, to have the necessary strength to resist to the aggressors in order to built the basis for a stable continental economy.

To do so, we need alliances, we need to count our friends, our true friends. For now, the best friend of Africa is China and we should all be outraged when Europe goes to Beijing to talk about Africa, about us, without us. Have we not sufficiently grown out of adolescence in the eyes of the West?

Other African heads of state, as Laurent Gbagbo, will be further humiliated by them, and some others, as Kadhafi, will be killed. But the worst thing that an African can do is to be a  participant in any way, of these acts, to be an accomplice , directly or indirectly, and direct these acts against his own, against all of us.

Because every African who is demeaned, it is all of us who are demeaned, every African who is humiliated,  it is all of us who are humiliated and every African who is insulted “scum” , it is all of us who are insulted “scum”, every African who is killed, it is us all who are killed. Defending one another  is to defend oneself today, is to defend our children tomorrow. And to choose our alliances, we must first identify, against whom we have to defend ourselves.

Source: Jean-Paul Pougala

]]>Sun, 25 Dec 2011 04:50:56 GMT<![CDATA[Racism? Shake hands and forget all about it by Ako Amadi]]>  

Perhaps, since Geneva is headquarters of both WHO, the World Health Organization and the Red Cross, citizens of that beautiful city are not unlikely, once in a while to try their hands at finding medicines to cure some of the world's diseases. At 75, Dr.Josef Blatter, aka. Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA, the World Governing Football body, also in Geneva had actually been following the epidemiology of an ancient ailment for quite a long time.
 
Three weeks ago the part-time physician was out with the solution! "Racism does not exist in football, and in any case the victims ought to shake the hands of those who racially insult them, and march off jointly for beers at the local pub!" so Sepp Blatter's declaration.
 
Unfortunately Blatter's thesis had neither been edited and proof-read, nor peer-reviewed before the soccer impresario went on air to inform the world of his strange discovery. The reactions from all corners of the globe have been volcanic! Some of his most vitriolic critics come from England where the captain of the national team, John Terry, and the Uruguayan Liverpool striker Suarez are under investigation for racially abusing black opponents on the field of play. Blatter and others argue that foolish comments made in the heat of physical exchanges should not be placed on the golden scale. Fine!
 
The question is why these white players whose team-mates and probable friends are black resort to racial abuse of black opponents. Logically, the inference is that deep down they feel superior to all non-whites, including their friends of African extraction. Psychologists often theorise that the football stadium is a microcosmic reflection of the wider society. People from all works of life are in a soccer stadium every Saturday or Sunday afternoon, stimulated by the passionate encounters of the beautiful game to give away their innermost emotions and prejudices.
 
It is not easy to brand someone a racist on the basis of a silly slur, but incidents of the Terry-Suarez type provide food for thought and analysis. The problem of racism on the other hand is not helped by the high percentage of black people, who mainly as a result of extreme poverty feel inferior to whites. Africans are naïve and unaware of racial prejudice until it hits them. Nigerians in particular are all smiles and laughter, prone to dominating conversation once a European pours wine in their glass and pats them on the back.
 
The revelations of contacts between foreign diplomatic missions and Nigerian ministers by Wikileaks buttress this fact. In civilised democracies state security agents monitor the movements and associations of cabinet members and holders of sensitive appointments with foreigners. No secretary of state or senate president in the US goes to a private wedding reception on Saturday afternoon accompanied by a battery of diplomats from the Nigerian embassy in Washington DC.
 
Race relations have a long history. Sepp Blatter, a Swiss of German origin knows that the Jews and their Nazi-SS tormentors were not shaking hands and drinking beer in the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Mauthausen and Dachau. To this day the Jews have a Simon Wiesenthal Foundation which tracks, arrests or kills the perpetrators of racist acts during the Third Reich.
 
Racism will not be cured by carrying banners and reading protest statements before international soccer games, or through turning the other cheek and laughing the matter away in a bar. When Africans empower themselves economically and stop selling their compatriots into slavery or sending their women to work as prostitutes in Europe respect will come to them.
 
Source: Ako Amadi | 234next
]]>Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:43:31 GMT<![CDATA[Africa? Where is Africa? By Timothy Bancroft–Hinchey]]>  

Correct, we might well ask because Africa is apparently invisible and has certainly been inaudible, looking on cowering in fear as a new wave of neo-colonialism is launched against her shores, by the same demons who sold Africans into slavery and stole her resources. As Mother Africa is raped, her sons look on like voyeurs.
 
Those of us who have worked hard behind the scenes telling the world about the real intentions of NATO, telling the world that there is a grand scheme and a pattern which began with Afghanistan not in 2001 after 9/11 but back in the 1990s when Mullah Omar refused to take a bribe from the USA giving US energy companies transportation rights of the fuel resources from Central Asia across his country. It continued with Iraq, the last piece in the puzzle securing Iran’s western frontier for invasion.
 
For those who have any doubts at all, then google up Iran and US bases and tell me the Islamic Republic is not surrounded both on land and by sea. Tunisia and Egypt set the scene in preparation for Libya, as I said in this column and then, as Mother Africa was gang-raped by among the worst demonic scourge this planet has ever seen, what did Africa’s sons do? Absolutely nothing at all.
 
One or two of them went through the token motions of trying to appear interested, most of them shrugged their shoulders, asked “what can we do?” and then reiterated the soundbites spoon-fed to them by their western masters. One of them stood up and fought like a hero, and his name is Muammar al-Qathafi.
 
What a disgusting comment on Africa’s leaders, collectively a bunch of useless, vapid, sniveling cowards, fat porcine creatures snorting on their own gold-lined thrones and like donkeys, being ridden by foreigners, the very same foreign masters who colonised them for centuries, destroyed their cultures, massacred their peoples, turned them into slaves, raped their women, killed their children, dessecrated their fields and stole their produce.
 
It is time Africa stood up for itself and assumed its position on the world stage. However, with Muammar al-Qathafi apparently removed from the scene, gone is the influence behind a unified Africa, gone are the Pan-African projects providing Africa with African solutions for African problems, gone is the African financing for African interests. And as NATO destroyed the African dream before our very eyes this year, 2011, watch this space as Libya free-falls to become once again one of the poorest countries on Earth, as instead of sporting a billionaire sovereign fund it becomes indebted to the greedy IMF bankers and its future and independence are sold out to foreigners. In fact, this has already happened, thanks to NATO’s terrorists, you know, those bearded wonders who decapitated Negroes in the streets, raped girls and women, torched buildings, ransacked government and private property and went on a murderous looting spree. Cameron’s, Sarkozy’s and Obama’s darlings. Allahu Akhbar!
 
After Libia, it is the rest of Africa and AFRICOM will soon be installed around the continent, setting up US military bases which will serve ostensibly as trading posts but in fact will be permanent seats from which Washington and the real capital city of the USA, Tel Aviv, will control Africa’s resources. That is why Gaddafy was removed, he was getting too dangerous for the vested interests.
 
And here is where the media steps in. What is the worldwide image of Africa? Poor. Poverty, famine, disease. AIDS, corruption. Negative images, squalor, misery. All of this is cultivated by a corporate media which likes to have a “them” to justify the “us” and by saying Africa is poor, they give out the idea that it is a continent not worth bothering about. In fact, due to the nonchalance and connivance of Africa’s leaders, so intent on lining their own pockets (with few exceptions), it is as if Africa, and especially now without Gaddafi, did not exist. It is there but is neither seen nor heard.
 
Africa, indeed, is not a poor continent, neither is it a dry one. Its water resources are massive, it is rich in copper, in silver, in gold, in platinum. It is rich in natural gas and oil, diamonds, manganese. Africa has iron, cobalt, uranium, bauxite. Vast swathes of Africa’s lands are so fertile they support three harvests a year and the continent is rich in wood.
 
Africa’s coastline is huge, its seas vast. Africa is not a poor continent. In geo-political terms, Africa is not even a continent. It is a collection of peoples, led by sheep-like sycophants who lick the crud off the boots that kicked them into slavery as their backs are beaten and they say obediently “Thank you, master!” as they receive a handful of coins as they sell out the futures of their sons and daughters.
 
When a few years ago I shocked a group of visitors to a sanzala, or sugar plantation which used slave labour, by asking to be placed in the “punishment place” which was a heavy door closed onto the slave, pinning him or her against a wall so there was barely room to breathe, and I stayed there all day, surrounded by scorpions and snakes and cockroaches the size of platters, forcing myself to stay there until after dark, as I purged the evil that committed these crimes from my soul, I could feel for the first time the anger of the African psyche, I could feel the desperation in the heart of the last young man to be pinned there, no doubt snatched away from his family and children and after a horrific voyage of several weeks or months in deplorable conditions, sitting in a sea of excrement and being lashed daily, fed badly, emerging unwashed and stinking from that ship, to be prodded and goaded and ridiculed and treated like an object before being forced to sleep in a space where the ceiling was so low, he had to crawl… he was beyond tears, he was beyond anger, he was beyond rage but the last thing he lost was hope.
 
Africa’s youth today are sons of the young man I was speaking about. The resources of Africa do not belong to a handful of leaders, wilfully corrupted by the western powers who carved Africa up drawing lines on maps, murdering the people – Africa’s resources belong to Africa’s youth, who must understand that the African Project of Gaddafi was and is viable and is the only way the Continent will defend itself from what can only be called corporate looting backed by the terrorist organization NATO, whose Governor in Africa is AFRICOM.
 
What can you do? Africans can network, can form powerful civic society groups forcing their leaders to be accountable, can empower the African Union so that Africa does not once again become colonised and Africa can declare very firmly that she does NOT want US bases on African soil, does NOT want AFRICOM and does NOT do business or shake the hands of those who murder Africans. And those were the nations behind the escapade in Libya. Africa must make Libya their commercial grave, make them feel it was the worst mistake they made by shutting them out of the Continent. After all, what have they given Africa? Nothing but interference and disrespect for local cultures (visible now that the UK tells countries they have to accept gays or there is no aid).
 
Africa can only make a difference by standing up for herself and taking her rightful place among the community of nations as an equal partner, proud and as powerful as any other. For trading partners, the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India, China) appears as a powerful block without political strings attached to commercial agreements and other emerging powers like Iran, Indonesia and Mexico are not countries who grew fat by stealing and murdering.
 
Mark my words, Africa.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
​
Source: indepthafrica
 
]]>Wed, 7 Dec 2011 12:36:03 GMT<![CDATA['Africa needs modern peacekeeping approaches' says Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni]]>  

The Minister of unfamiliar Affairs and  Regional Integration, Alhaji  Mohammed Mumuni, has pronounced that  Africa needs contemporary peacekeeping approaches to radically change towards practicalisation of a unpractical couple between confidence and development.
 
According to him, this, in turn, requires multi-dimensional approaches that would mix military, troops and municipal resources in ways that accommodate a political, economic, security, tellurian rights, order of law and rapist probity exigencies prevalent in warring and post-conflict environments.
 
To effectively exercise this, “the purpose of municipal and troops peacekeepers can no longer be seen as auxiliary to their troops counterparts,” he stated.
He pronounced such measures had turn required since countries in Africa were still grappling with formidable and mixed sources of hazard to security, such as a prevalent internecine armed conflicts that fleece municipal populations opposite a continent.
 
These were contained in a debate review on interest of a Minister by his Chief Director, Ambassador Leslie K. Christian, during a opening rite of a 2011 International Advisory Board Meeting for a Training for Peace (TfP) in Africa programme during a Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra, yesterday.
 
The TfP is an general ability building programme, saved and concurrent by a Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), directed during strengthening African municipal and troops ability for peacekeeping operations.
 
The programme partners control a operation of residential, pre-deployment, and in-mission training courses for both municipal and police, covering topics such as polite affairs, insurance of civilians, gender, dispute management, and extensive re-deployment courses for a police.
 
Furthermore, he forked out that nonetheless a occurrence of armed conflicts in Africa had in a past decade insincere a downward trend, a converging of assent and confidence remained cryptic for a series of African states.
 
Hence, a need for extensive and integrated approaches to peacekeeping had necessitated a increasing final for a participation of troops and municipal experts in a African Union (AU) and a United Nations assent support operations.
 
This integrated proceed was even some-more relevant, because, “Today, municipal and troops crew are discharging mandates that cut opposite all aspects of life in post-conflict states,” like from Liberia to Cote d’Ivoire, where municipal and troops peacekeepers were being called on to support in a replacement of arguable law coercion systems, a insurance of civilians, and remodel of a confidence and rapist probity complement among others, he said.
 
In perspective of this, he celebrated that a TfP topics did not usually simulate a hurdles of today, though minister to charity new directions for rebellious some of a assent support operations difficulties.
 
He commended a KAIPTC Commandant and his group for their contributions towards ability building training for African civilian, troops and troops peacekeeping personnel, and a initiatives being undertaken to residence a sub-regional needs of a Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and a African Union (AU) to assembly a final of formidable and multi-dimensional peacekeeping environments in Africa and beyond.
 
The Commandant of a KAIPTC, Air Vice Marshall Christian E.K. Dovlo, remarkable that a occurrence of armed conflicts in Africa had generally insincere a downward trend, generally in West Africa, such that countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Burundi were creation a transition from armed and aroused conflict, to tolerable assent and development.
 
However, a converging of assent and confidence remained a eager endeavour for post-conflict states, while in many cases, countries were still grappling with a really issues that led to conflict, he lamented.
 
These embody bad governance, domestic and mercantile marginalisation, elemental tellurian rights abuses, exclusionary politics, personalisation of power, corruption, miss of nurse period to power, agonizing poverty, and a inability settle effective constructional and institutional arrangements for addressing these difficulties.
 
To him, “most post dispute states in Africa do not usually miss a structures indispensable to residence these issues, though are indeed during risk of expected relapse into conflict,” that creates “the Norwegian Government’s support to KAIPTC, particularly, by this TfP, really profitable and appreciated in a unchanging joining to assistance residence vicious municipal and troops gaps in African peacekeeping.”
 
He pronounced a objectives of KAIPTC were closely related to those of a TfP, and to accomplish their common idea for assent and confidence in Africa, KAIPTC would work assiduously, and in tighten partnership with a several partners of a programme.
 
He affianced that a KAIPTC would continue to yield pre-redeployment training for a United Nations Mission in Dafur (UNAMID) troops personnel, while delivering courses in dispute impediment for municipal experts, with a ECOWAS and civilians deployed to a UN and AU missions in Africa.

 

Source: Phyllis D. Osabutey | ghanaian-chronicle

]]>Fri, 4 Nov 2011 12:44:08 GMT<![CDATA[Libyan President Gaddafi murdered by imperialist lynch mob]]>  

NATO, Obama, Sarkozy and Cameron: bloody murderers!
Luwezi Kinshasa, Secretary-General of the African Socialist International

The imperialist broadcast of the murder of Gaddafi is too late to demoralize or stop the ongoing rise of the African revolution. The white press and their puppet presses around the world are celebrating the murder and fall of Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi. It is no surprise that imperialist culture finds joy in the theft of other peoples’ resources and joy in murdering oppressed peoples’ leaders or anyone who dares to resist them.

 
U.S. culture revolves around the oppression and murder of African people and African leaders. The broadcasting of the humiliation of Colonel Gaddafi was a “pick a nigger” operation—or picnic, as it is popularly known today. The capture was broadcast to satisfy white people’s lust for blood. In Africa, the vast majority of the people are in support of resistance against imperialism, even in the form of Gaddafi.
 
We were not calling for the blood of Gaddafi. It was an internet-televised lynching, part of the popular current and historical white culture of violence that has strangled African people for over 500 years. Imperialism is a barbaric system that kills people who oppose it, or who prevent it from looting with unparalleled barbarity. Historical examples include the murders of Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Crazy Horse and Steve Biko, to name just a few.
 
National Transition Council (NTC) are imperialist henchmen, not revolutionaries 
 
The white imperialist press, including the Russian and even the Iranian presses, refer to the NTC as revolutionaries. This intentional misinformation is meant to add confusion. The NTC is a creation of U.S, French and British intelligences — secret, murderous police forces. There is nothing democratic about that. What kind of revolution is it to place the U.S. CIA, British MI5 and French DGSE in power? A revolution of traitors, cutthroats and anti-black thugs?
 
To term the NTC a “revolutionary” organization is an insult to the people of Africa and to oppressed peoples everywhere. To call imperialist installed Libyan prime minister Mammouh Djibril and president Mustafa Jalil revolutionaries is to call U.S. president Barack Obama, French president Nicolas Sarkozy and British prime minister David Cameron revolutionaries, too. These leaders all represent imperialism. Any genuine revolution in Africa must:
 
  1. end the relationship that exists between oppressor white nations and the oppressed African nation,
  2. throw white power in any form—black face or Arab face—out of Africa,
  3. tear down all borders between African countries,
  4. demand reparations for enslavement and colonization of Africa and African people, and
  5. consolidate the foundation of a single African state, capable to respond to the basic and strategic needs and aspirations of the people of Africa.
Libya is under white imperialist occupation
 
There should be no doubt in any African’s mind that wherever there is a foreign soldier in the service of imperialism in Africa or in any part of the African nation anywhere, that it is under occupation.
 
Where there is a UN army — with or without Brazilian, Indian and other soldiers — or a French, U.S. AFRICOM or British military base, it is an occupation that must be resisted with all of our will and might.
 
The policies of Libya will go first to Washington, London and Paris for approval before being implemented.
 
These policies would speak first to the interests of imperialism and last — or never — to the interests of the people of Libya.
 
Libya today is a NATO military outpost against all struggles to overturn tyrannies in North Africa and in the whole of Africa.
 
The conquest of Libya is part of the white imperialist wars to recolonize Africa as a solution to rescue Europe from its current crisis of imperialism.
 
The Congo war, with more than five million dead; Somalia under the daily drone attacks; the split and occupation of South Sudan; the French assault on Ivory Coast to impose Ouattara; the joint French-U.S aggression on Haiti: are all part of imperialism’s war attempts to rescue imperialist oppressor nations at the expense of Africa and African people.
 
Obama: the highest manifestation of African petty bourgeois opportunism 
 
The African petty bourgeois class’ future depends on selling their services and their souls to imperialism, in exchange for lucrative jobs and personal gains, at the expense of African people. U.S. president Barack Obama represents the apex of that trajectory of treason.
 
A bigger betrayal of Africa cannot be found than Obama, than the assault on Africa under the leadership of a black man. In his term, this black man has ordered the murders of both Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi.
 
Obama has led the first AFRICOM assault on Africa, has consolidated the split of Sudan, currently is leading the daily murder of Africans in Somalia with barbaric drone assaults, and has just sent U.S troops into Uganda to intensify the war in central Africa.
 
Obama belongs to the class of historical traitor figures that includes the likes of Mobutu, Bokassa, Compaore, and the sell-out ANC, which voted for the UN resolution that gave NATO airplanes the legal cover to bomb Libya and murder Gaddafi and African peoples in Libya.
 
African Socialist International is the only way forward
 
It has been clear from the beginning that to accept to be a president of a fragmented Africa is to agree with the status quo.
 
There is no safety for any population in Africa as long as Africa remains fragmented.
 
A true African is one who organizes across the whole of the African nation for a united African action against imperialism.
 
For every conflict, we must respond as one people, until all imperialist power has been defeated.
 
To fight alone against imperialism is to accept the verdict of imperialism on Africa and African people: a permanent slave status.
 
African leaders must actively organize for the death of imperialism everywhere in the African world.
 
The fall of Gaddafi’s regime is just another example that it does not matter how radical the leader is, if his petty bourgeois class outlook and worldview prevent him from understanding the revolutionary role of the international African working class.
 
We understand that only the African working class, who created the wealth that made and maintains white imperialist life, can succeed in making this international African revolution.
 
Libya’s liberation is part of the ASI struggle to free and unite Africa.
 
The people must lead their own struggle, which is why we do say this is our time.
 
Join us for demonstrations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the U.S. and in London, England on November 5, 2011.
 
In Philadelphia, we will rally at Broad Street and Susquehanna at 12pm and march from there to the conference site at 1310 North Broad Street.
 
In London, we will demonstrate outside the U.S. embassy at 1pm.
 
Contact : uhuruasi@aol.com, 07862 294 364
 
NATO and AFRICOM out of Africa!
 
Obama and NTC are puppets of white imperialism!
 
African resistance goes on until victory!

Source: http://uhurunews.com

]]>Wed, 2 Nov 2011 13:06:47 GMT<![CDATA[Should we take 50 Cent Seriously in his Stance Against Poverty & Corrupt Companies?]]>

Since the plight of those suffering due to the recent drought in the Horn of Africa has gotten to the point where many of us in the West can no longer turn a blind eye, many celebrities have come forward to express their empathy and need to help. One such celebrity has been rapper, actor and entrepreneur Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent. While his initial statement that he wanted “to impact peoples lives more. I created a new goal for my self, I want to feed a billion people in Africa over the next 5 years” was ridiculed for it’s obvious myopic and some argued ignorant view of Africa and Africans (Africa has just over 1 billion people and obviously the entire continent is not starving), he has since made a commitment to help feeding starving children.
 
By partnering with Pure Growth Partners and their new energy shot called Street King, the rapper has pledged to donate a meal for every Facebook ‘like’ Street King receives over the next week for up to 1 million dollars. Additionally, as a gesture of goodwill, if the one million target is reached by the end of the week, he has vowed to double the donation, which mean that he will pay for an extra million meals – feeding a total of two million children
 
Regardless of your opinion about the rapper, it is always refreshing to see a celebrity making good on their promise and doing good deeds to help those less fortunate. In today’s world, it seems to be more difficult to find a man who’s “word is his bond.”
 
Since embarking on this new mission, it seems like 50 Cent has been reflecting more and has gained a new perspective on life. According to various reports, he recently stated the following:
 
The world is so f***** up. People don’t seem to care anymore. People seem to have distanced themselves from other people’s problems, they have been programmed not to care! Politicians are corrupt. So many companies are corrupt and taking excessive profits in certain sectors, and we keep allowing this shit to happen.
 
There are 1 billion plus people living in extreme poverty. You know what that is? You don’t know if your getting your next meal, no shelter, no medical. You have no chance of hustling your way out of it! We have been programmed to not give a shit about these people!
 
Well I have woken up and Im not turning a blind eye anymore! I’m not playing the game anymore. Our Company CEO’s and politicians want us to keep our heads down and not ask questions. Not demand the truth. They don’t want us to care, they have trained us to turn a blind eye! Because they control us and profit from us this way, to push back at them questions and threatens their lifestyles.
 
Children are dying everyday from hunger. Its f***** up, its wrong and I am angry! I’m not going to shut up or give up! Fuck the system, its wrong. Wake up, we are being used!
 
Innocent children are dying each day. We need to shout out to companies, politicians that we aren’t playing their games anymore! We are waking up to their lies and deceitful dealings.
 
Im angry, Im going to make a difference and no one is going to stop me! Join me if your tired of being used and manipulated. Make this world fair for everyone!
 
While I admire 50 Cent’s commitment to his promise, I must admit that I was somewhat perplexed by his recent statement. I commend him for the passion expressed in the above statement; however, I’m sure many people thought the same thing after reading it. How are we supposed to take him seriously when has been and continues to be a large part of the same corporations and machinery he chastises? How can we take his statement that he  cares about the starving people in the world when he “stunts” in cars worth hundreds of thousands and decorate his neck and wrists with jewels and “ice” many of these very starving children probably died for?
 
Some will argue that the fact that 50 Cent has taken a stance and is committed to making good on his promise to help the starving kids in this world is enough and that his personal wealth is his to do with it what he chooses. Others will argue that his recent statement is a publicity stunt aim to garnering attention for himself.
 
Maybe he had a epiphany and his recent statement is a true reflection of his newly acquired perspective on life. Regardless his intentions, he will undoubtedly bring warranted attention to an important human issue.
 
 
 
Source: orijinculture
]]>Thu, 27 Oct 2011 11:07:00 GMT<![CDATA[Obama Sends Troops To Help Fight Africa Rebels: Modern Version Of The "Scramble For Africa" ​]]>  

The de facto conquest of Libya by the U.S. imperialists and its partners announced the modern version of the "scramble for Africa" ​​of the late 19th century.
 
On October 14 last, President Obama announced that the United America would send U.S. special forces in Uganda to take part in the civil war. In the coming months, U.S. troops will be sent to southern Sudan, Congo and Central Africa. They shall incur the fight in case of "self-defense," Obama said in a satirical. With Libya fell into the hands and the death of Qaddafi, a U.S. invasion of Africa is taking shape. Obama's decision is described as "highly unusual" and "surprising" and even "weird". But it is nothing. 
 
This is the logic of U.S. policy since 1945. Take Vietnam. The priority was to stop the influence of China, a rival imperialist and "protect" Indonesia, as President Nixon called "the largest hoard of natural resources in the region. The biggest rewards. " Vietnam was just on the way and the massacre of more than three million Vietnamese, and poisoning the devastation of their country were the price of the goals of America. Like all American invasion following a trail of blood stretching from Latin America to Afghanistan through Iraq, the motto was always "self-defense" or "humanitarian cause" empty words long their sense. 
 
In Africa, Obama said, "humanitarian mission" is to assist the Government of Uganda to get rid of the god's Resistance Army (LRA) who "killed, raped and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in Central Africa. " This is a fair description of the LRA, citing numerous atrocities administered by the United States, as the bloodshed of the 1960s following the assassination of the CIA arranged by Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese leader independent and legally elected Prime Minister for the first time in the Congo, and the coup perpetrated by the CIA, installing the power Mobutu Sese Seko, seen as the most corrupt African tyrants. 
 
 
The other justification for Obama also invites mockery. This is a matter for U.S. national security. The LRA has done its dirty work for 24 years, without interest of the United States. Today it consists of some 400 armed members and has never been so low. Anyway, the "U.S. national security" means in general that the purchase of a corrupt and weak, which has something Washington wants. The "president for life" Yoweri Museveni has received the largest share of the $ 45 million in military aid the United States, including Obama drones favorites. This is a tip to fight another war by proxy against the Islamist enemy ghost of America, the Shabaab group based in Somalia. The LRA will limit its role in public relations diversion, by distracting Western journalists with his usual horror stories.    However, the main reason why the U.S. invaded Africa is no different the one that ignited the Vietnam War. Is China. 
 
In the world of paranoia, institutionalized self-inflicted, which justifies what General David Petraeus, the former chief of staff now head of the CIA, supposed to be a permanent state of war, China is now replace al Qaeda as the "threat" against America official. When a reporter interviewed Bryan Whitman, Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence last year, he asked her to describe the current threat that America faces right now. He repeated visibly embarrassed, "asymmetric threats, asymmetric threats." These threats justify the money laundering that the state does with the weapons conglomerates and the largest military budget in history. With Osama bin Laden out of service, China took over. Africa is the success story of China. Where the Americans bring their drones and destabilization, the Chinese bring road networks, bridges, dams. What they want is resources, specifically oil. With the largest oil reserves in Africa, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was one of the most important sources of China. When civil war broke out and that the "rebels" were supported by NATO under the guise of a fabricated story about Gadhafi planning a "genocide" in Benghazi, China evacuated its 30,000 workers in Libya. 
 
The resolution of the Security Council of the United Nations authorized a "humanitarian intervention" of the West was briefly explained by the transitional Council to the French government, which was released last month by the newspaper Liberation, in which the National Council transition Libya offered 35% of domestic oil production to France 'in exchange' (the term used) to support "total and permanent" of France to the transition board. Bearing the Stars and Stripes in Tripoli "liberated" last month, the U.S. ambassador Gene Cretz blurted out: "We know that oil is the jewel in the crown of Libyan natural resources! " The de facto conquest of Libya by the U.S. imperialists and its partners announced the modern version of the "scramble for Africa" ​​of the late 19th century. 
 
Like the "victory" in Iraq, journalists have played a key role and critical dividing the Libyans in good victims and bad victims. A recent Guardian newspaper shows a picture of a fighter "pro-Gaddafi" scared the hands of his captors eyes widened with "Celebrate". According to General Petraeus, there is now a war of "perception ... that is continuously conducted through the media." For more than ten years the U.S. has tried to establish a military command in Africa, AFRICOM, but were repulsed by governments, regional tensions apprehensive that this would imply. Libya and now Uganda, southern Sudan and Congo give them another good chance. 
 
As revealed by Wikileaks cables leak of the National Strategy for against-terrorism, the U.S. plans for Africa are part of an overall scheme which will see 60 000 special forces, including death squads operating in 75 countries , soon to operate in 120 countries. Dick Cheney says in his plan (defensive strategy) of the 1990s, America just want world domination.    That this is now the gift of Barack Obama, the "son of Africa", is an irony Supreme. Where it is it really? As Frantz Fanon has explained in "Black Skin, White Masks," in fact what matters is not the color of your skin, but the power you serve and you betray millions. John James Stone
 
Source: The Combat | Maliweb
]]>Wed, 26 Oct 2011 12:05:08 GMT<![CDATA[African Dream, My Dream And My Story Written by Syany Slokani]]>  

I have a dream that one day, there won't be dictators in Africa and African governments and the polices will be able to respect human rights. There won't need for African to risk their live to migrant in Europe, America, etc, and some ended up in detention centres in cross Europe, America, Australian and laboured as illegal immigrants. Some African beaten or even killed because of refusing to be deported back to Africa.
 
African politicians will be able to protect their people and give better condition of live for African people; there won't be slums cross all Africa such as Soweto(in South Africa), Kibera (in Kenya), Makoko (in Nigeria) ,Sambizanga(in Angola), Manshiet Nasser(Egypt), etc.
 
African will be able to be proud to be African and not feel embarrassed or tried to obtain Western passport to feel free. African will give values of their local languages and their identities also we'll live in peace and mutual respect among tribes, it won't be tribes issues anymore that always create civil war among us. 
Our leaders will be able to go to UN (Unite Nation) and speak in our local languages (African dialects) instance speaking colonial languages.
 
We'll be able to value our education system such as African certificates, diplomas, degrees, etc its will be accepted everywhere in World. Our Education system won't be based in European model anymore but it will be African system based in African values. Africa should be build by the African with cooperation with others. But not by European, American or Chinese.
 
This is the African Dream, my dream and my story.
 
Written by Syany Slokani
]]>Sat, 15 Oct 2011 11:21:34 GMT<![CDATA[Why true African leaders never stand a chance?]]>  

An obstinate myth that refuses to die: Africa is incapable of producing responsible leadership. Really?
 
No African country has experienced genuine democracy after decolonization. Without exception, African leaders were autocratic, corrupt, bloodthirsty tyrants out for one thing only: their own personal enrichment. That’s Africa in a nutshell. At least that’s what the former colonial powers like you to believe. 
 
Examples abound: Mobutu fled Zaire (Congo) with a fortune of half the national debt, there was the grotesque Bokassa in the Central African Republic, gruesome Idi Amin in Uganda, Siad Barre in Somalia, Houphouet-Boigny in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Compaore in Burkina Faso and many more.
 
These men (they are all “men”) had quite a few things in common: coming to power by military force, full support and unlimited military supplies from their former colonizers, lavish funding by IMF and World Bank, brutal repression and exploitation of their own people … And, yes, all of them were dropped like rotten fruit once they didn’t suit Western interests any longer. Actually, one of them is still in power: Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso is hanging on.
 
He came to power by a coup d’etat 24 years ago this week, on 15 October, 1987. On that day he killed his predecessor (and former ally) Thomas Sankara. Only 38 years old when he died, Sankara became president of Upper Volta in 1983, also after a military coup against another classic military dictator. He is the one who renamed the country Burkina Faso (literally “Land of upright men” meaning “men of integrity”). 
 
His rule only lasted four years, but what an amazing period it was: in three years’ time he managed to make the famine stricken and aid dependent country food self-sufficient; he was the first African leader to appoint women as ministers – and not just for “Women’s Affairs” or “Family Planning” – forbade polygamy and decreed laws against domestic violence; he redistributed land to the farmers owned and unused by tribal lords; he was the first African leader to recognize the scourge of AIDS; he undertook a countrywide infrastructure program, while refusing foreign aid for it; he publicly condemned IMF and World Bank as neocolonial instruments of domination and spoke out against odious debt.
 
He also enraged the tiny pro-French wealthy elite by slashing salaries of top branch officials, sold the government’s Mercedes fleet, reduced his own salary to $450 a month, drove a tiny Renault 5, ended the African-wide practice of large billboards all over the country with the president’s picture on it, abolished first class travel for officials and started a campaign against corruption – not just in words, like his colleagues in the rest of Africa, but in deeds – and most of all, he openly criticized his colleagues in the rest of Africa.
 
Houphouet-Boigny, dictator of neighboring Ivory Coast didn’t like it, for exposing him as the bloody dictator he was, but most of all, because he had a direct interest in keeping Burkina Faso poor. The blooming cocoa trade in Ivory Coast depended on cheap migrant labor from Burkina Faso. 
 
With full logistic support from France, he convinced Sankara’s second man, Blaise Compaore, to overthrow him. Today Compaore still is France’s strongest ally in the region. He also is one of the richest men in Africa and Burkina Faso one of the poorest African countries, deeply indebted to IMF and World Bank.
 
Would Sankara have stayed the course he was on beyond those four years? We will never know. We will also never know whether Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of independent Congo would have fulfilled his promises. But one thing is for sure, they never stood a chance to prove themselves, for one reason only: the West did not like what the likes of Sankara stood for. They did not suit our interests.
 
Come next October 15, European media will not waste any headlines on Sankara, perhaps a few words on the back pages with some demeaning comments. For ordinary Africans however, Sankara is a hero, the African “Che”.
 
Lack of African responsible leadership is a myth. The West preventing responsible African leadership is reality.
 
Sankara, Lumumba, Cabral are true African leaders. If we were sincere about helping Africa to develop itself, they are the ones we would support.
 
Source: Lode Vanoost from RT
]]>Sat, 15 Oct 2011 09:51:21 GMT<![CDATA[Liberia's Presidential Election 2011: Weighing the Options: Lectured By Bishop R.S.W Chea,Th.D.]]>

Liberia's Presidential Election 2011:
Weighing the Options, Thinking Peace, Stability and Progressive Development
 
 
Dear Fellow Liberians:
 
      It has been quite some time since I wrote anything in light of our government and the forthcoming elections. My silence was due to the fact that there was no real new development in this regard, at least from my perspective.  In the wake of all the confusion, I needed some time to re-analyse the whole situation on the ground in this regard.  I had enough time to re-think my position on the current (Sirleaf) administration.  Does one have the right to re-think and change his position on an issue (s)?  Absolutely yes!  One has the right to change his position completely or in part; and in light of the President, my position has changed (being altered) in part.  
 
      A biased researcher may maintain his original position in his final presentation, but his research is of less value.  A true researcher is open to the point of even changing his original position in his final presentation in light of his findings.  Such research has much greater value than that of a biased research.  The truth must always outweigh any position one may hold!  In this light, our people have always been my concern, as they have suffered long enough; and not loyalty to any individual or political party, and certainly not blind loyalty.  My only allegiance is to the "flag of Liberia, and to the republic for which it stands." (Liberian Pledge of Allegiance)  I have only permanent interest in light of the betterment of our country and people and nothing else.   
 
      In light of the President, her administration, and the elections, I have spoken to a number of reliable sources, and a very dear relative of mine being my primary 
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source of information.  The information received from my investigative inquiries were not in favor of the opposition (in any camp), but the President, except one, who is on the borderline between the President and one opposition candidate.  The report received from my collective sources were overwhelmingly in favor of the President, and it was something I could not buck against, even as much as I wanted.  It is like doing any research; your findings (if you remain open to truth [facts] even while holding a preconceived position) will influence your writing and help formulate your final presentation.  After weighing the options and re-analyzing the whole situation, I was led to change or alter my views in part.  In this light, I tend to believe that  perhaps Madam Sirleaf is the best candidate in this race after all.  
 
      While I currently support a particular opposition party (Which has only began this year), I'm now beginning to re-evaluate my balance of neutrality.  In order to be completely neutral from a clergy position, at least from my perspective, I must be completely independent focusing solely on the issues.  In this light, I must and will gracefully withdraw from my current party to completely maintain my neutrality.  Being truly objective will allow us to place our focus on the issues and not on individuals.  From my position, total neutrality must take its course focusing on the issues for the continuity of peace and progress in Liberia and not on individuals.  Individuals must surface only in light of their position on the issues with our people in mind.  Our people must truly be placed first and above any self interest; and not merely used as a springboard to accomplish one's selfish agenda. 
 
      Am I a Unity Party supporter?  Absolutely not!  Yet my neutrality allows me to truly weigh the issues with our people and the key candidates in mind.  My final investigative inquiry was yesterday, when I spoke with my primary source of information on the elections, the candidates, and the issues at hand.  Again, my position that Madam Sirleaf may in fact be the best candidate, was taken after analyzing all the reports from my collective sources.  I was also told that the rebel thugs who participated in the Ivorian conflict returned to Liberia with arms reserved for post election conflict in the country.  And I was told that there were many discovery of arms buried in caskets in light of the impending conflict.  I was also given names of those behind the scheme to destabilize the country with former rebel leaders now in government included, and some are even participating in the elections; among which one stood out to be the primary architect.  I have chosen not to name any names herein.      
 
      In light of the reports from my investigative inquiries, I believe that if Madam Sirleaf must maintain her position as President of Liberia, she must win the first round of the election.  If not, she will lose the presidency in light of the collaborative agreement among the various opposition parties.  Many thing were brought to my attention by my primary source in light of the Sirleaf government, and which were corroborated by my collective sources.  This included the level of pay raise for civil servants, which has never been done under any previous administration; and in light education in the country, the MCSS system and its teachers were precisely brought into focus.  Things take time to improve; the government is not perfect, but the administration is trying as hard as it can to bring significant progress.  
 
      Was Madam Sirleaf behind past conflicts in Liberia?  Yes!  Is she guilty of sponsoring the 1990 civil war which became uncivil from her own lips?  Absolutely yes!  If Madam Sirleaf were to lose the election, will things change overnight?  Absolutely not!  Will we be in a better position as a nation?  Very doubtful!  Will corruption go away?  Absolutely not!  Are there others in the current government who are also guilty of the atrocities committed against our people?  Absolutely yes!  Do all the presidential candidates have their own issues?  Absolutely yes!  Is there any one among them who is better than the other in light of their corrupt behavior?  Absolutely no!  Will peace be guaranteed even if the collaborative agreement among the members of the opposition allows an opposition candidate to win the election?  Very Uncertain and perhaps doubtful!  
 
      Wining the Nobel Peace Prize is certainly a boost to Madam Sirleaf's campaign.  Liberians are divided on the positive effects it may make on her bid for a second term and if she even deserves it, but does it really matter?  The international community apparently has spoken; and does it have a lot of weight?  Yes, it does!  Do I believe that Madam Sirleaf deserve this prize?  No, I do not!  Am I for Madam Sirleaf or any other candidate?  As of yesterday, absolutely not!  I'm for Liberia and her people period!  The candidate that may be truly best for the people in light of the issues at hand determines who I'm for, and Madam Sirleaf is not excluded.  While this is true, there is yet a dilemma in light of the TRC Recommendation.  If Madam Sirleaf wins, will the Recommendation to end impunity for war crimes also win?  Absolutely no!  And will it finally win if any opposition candidate wins the election?  Very uncertain and even doubtful, especially in light of the collaborative agreement among the opposition parties to support the candidate who may have a showdown with the President in the second round to determine the winner.    
 
      I am very sure that in light of the collaborative agreement among the opposition, there were issues of grave concern including that of the TRC Recommendation, which had to be resolved.  They had to arrive at some kind of agreement; there had to be some sort of resolution to appease those concerned in order that they may maintain their support in light of this collaborative agreement.  The fear factor had to be removed; those concerned needed an assurance that they were home safe.  Such winner in the opposition will have to honor such resolution passed among themselves.  If the next President is an opposition candidate, who won the election as a result of the collaborative agreement, refuses to honor the resolution passed among themselves and chooses to implement the TRC Recommendation and go after those same people who supported him to win, it would be considered double-crossing (betrayal) and there will be serious trouble in the country.  
 
      With all the criticizing (myself included), I am sure at her (Sirleaf) age, she regrets a lot in light of her involvement in the war.  I am sure as President, she now understands that rebuilding is much more difficult then she had anticipated; and perhaps wishes that there was no destruction in the first place.  I am sure, knowing what she knows now, if she could turn back the hands of time, she would.  And I am only giving her the benefit of doubt.  In light of Liberia, there is no such thing as rapid development, but progressive development; and progressive development requires time.  While she may have chosen to run for a second term to avoid the TRC Recommendation, I am sure at her age conscience yet plays a major role within her in light of how thing have turned out in the country after the long and extended uncivil war.  I'm sure she would like to fix all that she helped to destroy and leave a better legacy for herself.  In this light, I would say give Madam Sirleaf another six years to finish what she had started (fixed what she helped destroy).  She is already very old, how long is six years?  Provided, however, if she finishes her second term.        
 
CONCLUSION 
      My presentation herein is based on the findings from my investigative inquires.  Being an independent thinker, after weighing the positives and negatives of all the key candidates for the presidential election, I have found that Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is the best candidate in the presidential race thus far in light of the continuity of peace and stability in the country.  It is strongly possible that she could win the election; provided, however, that she wins in the first round.  If not, the presidency will certainly go to the candidate who will go against her in the second round in the wake of the collaborative agreement among opposition leaders.  After all the empty talk and politics, it is our people who have to live under any condition the political climate may present.  In this regard, it does not matter who wins; whether Madam Sirleaf or any opposition candidate, the TRC Recommendation, which I am strongly for, will lose for the next six years and perhaps even for good.  However, weighing the options, thinking peace, stability and progressive development, I would like to believe that Madam Sirleaf is our best option.  Coming from me, considering my previous writings, it is quite unusual, yet it not an endorsement.  As an independent thinker, I only wrote based on the results of my findings.  I did not go into my investigation with the thought that I would be saying that Madam Sirleaf is the best candidate to lead our people for the next six years; yet my findings dictated my presentation herein.  Facts remain facts even if we disagree!  Thanks for reading and for your time!  Have a lovely day and many blessings!
 
Best Regards,
 
Bishop R.S.W. Chea, Th.D.
President & C.E.O.
Adonai International
A Concerned Liberian for Progress and Development
Sacramento, California
]]>Mon, 10 Oct 2011 06:53:46 GMT<![CDATA[George Weah (CDC): Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Does Not Deserve Nobel Prize]]> On Oct 8, I did post an article about Two African Women's Rights Activist Wins Nobel Peace Prize. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf alongside with another Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and women's right activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen winning the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize. But many Africans especially some Liberians was shocked and surprised to hear the news involving President Ellen Johnson 'poor award recognition' by the Nobel Peace Prize panel. Among those Liberians was CDC leaders George Weah and Winston Tubman. And a foreign citizen on facebook profile name Tosh Marley argued 'How can you even put Ellen in the same sentence as Leymah Gbowee?' by email and facebook wall posting. He suggested that Ellen funded Charles Taylor's regime that led to the raping of women and killing of an entire generation. 

Below is a news story from Reuters news:

MONROVIA (Reuters) - Liberian opposition leaders Winston Tubman and George Weah said on Friday that President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize and awarding it to her was a "provocative intervention" in Liberian politics.
Sirleaf, who won the prize along with fellow Liberian Leymah Gbowee, a peace activist, and Yemeni pro-democracy campaigner Tawakul Karman, faces Tubman and 14 other candidates in a first-round presidential vote on October 11.
"She does not deserve it. She is a warmonger. She brought war on our country and spoiled the country," Tubman told Reuters late on Friday during a rally by his CDC party in a stadium packed with 60,000 people in the Liberian capital.
"Now she has said she will run again and on the eve of the election the Nobel Peace Prize committee gives her this prize, which we think is a provocative intervention within our politics," he said.
Earlier in Oslo on Friday, Norwegian Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland dismissed suggestions that the award to Sirleaf might look like meddling in the Liberian vote.
Tubman's presidential running mate Weah, a former Liberian soccer star, said he did not care about the prize because Sirleaf did not deserve it. "She won it but I don't know for what," Weah also told Reuters.
"Every Liberian is preparing for Madame Sirleaf to leave power and we will tell the world that we are tired of her inability to reconcile us and we will tell her that we are getting ready for her to leave power in October 11," he said.
The Nobel committee said all three women were rewarded for "their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work".
Sirleaf's detractors say she has not done enough to heal her West African nation's divisions. She has admitted providing supplies and money to rebel leader and indicted war criminal Charles Taylor in the early years of Liberia's civil war, something her critics say dims her image as a promoter of peace.
Analysts have said the award was likely to bolster Sirleaf's chances at the poll, even possibly allowing her to win an absolute majority in the first round and avoid a run-off, but also risks aggravating tension in a country scarred by civil war.
 
The 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award was split three ways between Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, peace activist Leyma Gbowee from the same African country and democracy activist Tawakkul Karman of Yemen — the first Arab woman to win the prize.
 
Source: Lartink@beeafrican.info / Reuters
]]>Sun, 9 Oct 2011 08:48:34 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Is Samuel Eto'o the world's best striker?]]> Thank you for sharing such a good post!

]]>Wed, 5 Oct 2011 08:20:58 GMT<![CDATA[Retailers eye Africa as 'final frontier' for growth]]>  

BERLIN (Reuters) - Africa is starting to appear on the radar screens of western retailers as they look for the next growth opportunity in emerging markets while having to cope with subdued consumer spending at home.
 
Consultants Deloitte and Planet Retail on Tuesday identified five African countries -- Algeria, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa -- as being among the 10 new markets most likely to appeal to multinational store groups in the coming years.
 
"All have fast-growing economies, young and growing populations, and fragmented retail sectors," Deloitte and Planet Retail said in a report published on the second day of the World Retail Congress in Berlin.
 
"Moreover, although traditional forms of retailing are still dominant, a growing middle class is demanding branded products and the opportunity to shop in modern retail formats," they said.
 
Africa was thrust into the retail limelight this year when U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart bought a majority stake in South Africa's Massmart, giving it a foothold in the continent's biggest economy and a presence in some 13 other African markets, ranging from Botswana to Zambia.
 
"With the world's largest retailer now active in the continent it seems likely other leading global retailers will investigate opportunities in the region," said Ira Kalish, Deloitte's director of global research.
 
LONG-TERM INVESTMENT
 
Faced with limited population growth and sluggish economies at home, many U.S. and particularly European retailers have been expanding into emerging markets in the hope of finding growth opportunities but with competition intense in China and Brazil many are looking elsewhere to gain an advantage.
 
This year, for example, Belgium's Delhaize bought Serbian retailer Delta Maxi Group, while Germany's Metro is expanding in Pakistan -- two countries also tipped in the report as likely to attract more attention among international chains in coming years.
 
As most Africans are on low incomes and focused on basic needs, grocers such as France's Carrefour and Auchan and Britain's Tesco are set to be the first movers.
 
Other brands, particularly those focused on clothing and footwear, could quickly follow.
 
John McCarvel, chief executive of footwear company Crocs, told Reuters that Africa was potentially an attractive region, not least because its trademark plastic clogs are well suited to the hot climate.
 
However, he said the marketplaces in much of the region were small and the company was focusing in the short term on expanding in Asia and filling out gaps in Europe.
 
"Africa is the final frontier in retailing," said John Fraser, an executive at South African store group Woolworths, which this month outlined plans to more than double its presence in Africa over three years.
 
He cautioned it was a long-term investment, though, and with few strong local players in many countries, new entrants might have to seek partners from outside the sector, meaning it would take longer to establish themselves.
 
While a weak banking infrastructure may deter some retailers from Africa, it could be an opportunity for those prepared to offer their own financial services, which can boost customer loyalty and give an advantage over rivals when it comes to larger purchases, he added.
 
Deloitte and Planet Retail also identified Kazakhstan, Peru and Vietnam as markets with a high potential.
 
Source: Reuters
]]>Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:38:27 GMT<![CDATA[Ancient stone tools shed new light on man’s origins]]>  

Writing in the journal Nature a group of scientists have revealed their discovery of early human stone tools dating back as much as 1.76 million years, suggesting that different types of proto-human co-existed and used similar technologies much earlier than previously thought.
 
The discovery of the cache of oval-shaped, sharp-edged ‘hand axes’ on the shores of Kenya’s Lake Turkana predates other such tools by around 350,000 and re-affirms East Africa’s reputation as the cradle of mankind.
 
It is thought the hand axes were made by Homo erectus, a species of early human that co-existed with the more primitive Homo habilis, another species that made a cruder kind of stone tool.
 
The presence of both types of stone tool in archaeological sites in Europe and Asia suggest that both Homo erectus and Homo habilis began separate migrations across the world, a theory known as ‘Out of Africa’.
 
Homo erectus became extinct around 70,000 years ago, replaced by Neanderthals and modern humans.
 
Source: globalpost
]]>Wed, 7 Sep 2011 22:37:40 GMT<![CDATA[East Africa famine: Ikea makes record $62m aid pledge]]>  

The charitable arm of the furniture giant Ikea is donating $62m (£38m) over the next three years for people in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. The funds will go through the UN refugee agency, which said it was the largest private donation it had received in its 60-year history. Dadaab, which mainly houses Somalis, is the biggest refugee camp in the world.
 
Its population has swollen by 150,000 in past months, following drought and famine in the Horn of Africa.
 
It now holds some 440,000 people, despite only being designed for 90,000.
 
The money from the Ikea Foundation will be used to expand emergency relief and assist up to 120,000 people, said the UNHCR.
 
"This humanitarian gesture by the Ikea Foundation comes at a critical time," said Antonio Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
 
"The crisis in the Horn of Africa continues to deepen with thousands of people fleeing Somalia every week. We are extremely grateful. Help like this can't come a moment too soon."
 
A spokesman said said the UN had examined the donation with "due diligence" before it was accepted, news agency AP reported.
 
'Bold'
The UN says tens of thousands of people have already died in Somalia alone, and some 3.2m others are thought to be on the brink of starvation.
 
In a statement, chief executive officer of the Ikea Foundation Per Heggenes said the donation was a "bold but natural extension of Ikea Foundation's longstanding commitment to making a better everyday life for children and families in need throughout the developing world".
 
Ikea spokesman Jonathan Spanpinata told the BBC that the donations would not include any flatpack furniture - though it has previously sent mattresses and duvets to Tunisian refugees.
 
The furniture chain is the world's largest and published financial results for the first time last year, showing that total sales were 23.1bn euros ($31.7bn; £20bn) for the year ending in August.
 
It did not provide profit figures.
 
Source: BBC News Africa
]]>Tue, 6 Sep 2011 01:53:14 GMT<![CDATA[The African Union: A Worthless Organization? By Kwadwo Mante (PhD)]]>  

Like many Africans, I have been watching events in Libya with a lot of sadness and sorrow in my heart. During the initial stages of the conflict, I was happy to see the African Union (AU) Leaders acting as mediators to convince Ghadafi and the rebels to agree to a peace plan. I was even happier when I saw the South African president holding talks with both the rebels and loyalists to find a common ground that will avoid the drums of war and conflict.
 
To my chagrin (surprise/disappointment), after these initial initiatives, the leaders of the AU outsourced the handling of the conflict to NATO and the European Union. It must be noted that, one of the cardinal objectives of the AU is to to “promote and defend African common positions on issues of interest to the continent and its peoples… and to achieve peace and security in Africa” (au.int/en/about/vision). Those objectives, while nicely written, can only be achieved if the chicken hearted and unfettered leaders of the AU stand up to the bullies from the EU and defend African interests. Yet, despite their initial opposition to outside intervention in Libyan conflict, the three African countries sitting on the United Nation Security Council voted in favor of the resolution which authorized member states "to take all necessary measures ... to protect civilians”. As it turns out, the interpretation of “all necessary measures… to protect civilians” was misconstrued to mean arming and equipping the Benghazi rebels to overthrow Ghadafi.
 
I am not a fan of Murmar Ghadafi— who in my opinion mishandled the conflict— but I also don’t subscribe to the tendency of other nations meddling in the internal affairs of other sovereign countries. The situation in Libya (had the AU acted swiftly), could have been diffused without the need for bombs, missiles and bullets in that country. When the conflict in Libya started, it become apparent that Ghadafi was more willing to listen to the AU than any other organization in the world.Yet the AU failed to tenaciously push both sides of the conflict to amicable solution. By allowing NATO and the EU to experiment their new bombs and missiles on the soils of Libya (in the name of protecting civilians,) the clock of development has been turn backwards in Libya for the next 20 plus years. It has also given companies from EU the opportunity to make more profits through postwar reconstruction and development; these economic pirates will prevent African companies from post conflict reconstruction and development.
 
The end result of the inaction on the part of the AU is the depressing chaos, the untold suffering of residents in that country, and destruction of infrastructure in Libya. Why should Africans continue to rely on outsiders to solve our problems for us? Are there more men in Africa now with balls? Is the mumbling Nicolas Sarkozy smarter than Tabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma? Is David Cameroun more eloquent and political savvy than Atta Mills, John Koffour, Jerry Rawlings, and Jonathan Goodluck? Are there more leaders in Africa with testicular fortitude?
 
Until we learn to solve our own problems, we will eternally depend on these countries to teach us how to walk, eat, dress, bath, brush our teeth, and talk. They will dictate to us, and demand we obey them: that master servant relationship will continue unabated. The current leaders of the AU have failed miserably as far the Libyan conflict is concerned. God have mercy on this continent.
 
Dr. Kwadwo Mante is freshly minted PhD. He is a Corporate Finance and Public Health expert based in the US. He can be reached at mantea1@gmail.com.
 
Source: Mante, Kwadwo
]]>Sun, 28 Aug 2011 08:32:27 GMT<![CDATA[Document: The Gaddafi I Know By Yoweri Kaguta Museveni Ugandan politician and statesman]]>  

"The Libyan leader was no saint. But the West was wrong to intervene in African affairs" Yoweri Kaguta Museveni argued.
By the time Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi came to power in 1969, I was a third-year university student at Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. We welcomed his rise because he was a leader in the tradition of Col. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt who had a nationalist and pan-Arabist position.
 
 
Soon, however, problems cropped up with Qaddafi as far as Uganda and black Africa were concerned:
 
Backing Idi Amin: Idi Amin came to power in 1971 with the support of Britain and Israel because they thought he was uneducated enough to be used by them. Amin, however, turned against his sponsors when they refused to sell him guns to fight Tanzania. Unfortunately, Qaddafi, without first getting enough information about Uganda, jumped in to support Idi Amin. He did this because Amin was a "Muslim" and Uganda was a "Muslim country," where Muslims were being "oppressed" by Christians. Amin killed a lot of people extrajudicially, and Qaddafi was identified with these mistakes.
 
In 1972 and 1979, Qaddafi sent Libyan troops to defend Amin when we [the Uganda National Liberation Front] attacked him. I remember a Libyan Tupolev Tu-22 bomber trying to bomb us in Mbarara in 1979. The bomb ended up in Nyarubanga, Burundi, because the pilots were scared. They could not come close to bombing their intended target properly. We had already shot-down many of Amin's MIGs using surface-to-air missiles. Our Tanzanian brothers and sisters were doing much of this fighting. Many Libyan militias were captured and repatriated to Libya by Tanzania. This was a big mistake by Qaddafi and a direct aggression against the people of Uganda and East Africa.
 
Pushing for a United States of Africa: The second big mistake by Qaddafi was his position vis-à-vis the African Union (AU), where he called for a continental government "now." Since 1999, he has been pushing this position. Black people are always polite. They, normally, do not want to offend other people. This is called obufura in the Runyankore language, or mwolo in Luo -- handling, especially strangers, with care and respect. It seems some of the non-African cultures do not have obufura. You can witness a person talking to a mature person as if he or she is talking to a kindergarten child. "You should do this; you should do that; etc." We tried to politely point out to Qaddafi that continental governance was difficult in the short and medium term. We should, instead, aim at the Economic Community of Africa and, where possible, also aim at Regional Federations.
 
But Qaddafi would not relent. He would not respect the rules of the AU. Topics or discussions that had been covered by previous meetings would be resurrected by Qaddafi. He would "overrule" a decision taken by all other African heads of state. Some of us were forced to come out and oppose his wrong position and, working with others, we repeatedly defeated his illogical position.
 
Proclaiming himself king of kings: The third mistake has been the tendency by Qaddafi to interfere in the internal affairs of many African countries, using the little money Libya has compared to those countries. One blatant example was his involvement with cultural leaders of black Africa -- kings, chiefs, etc. Since the political leaders of Africa had refused to back his project of an African government, Qaddafi, incredibly, thought that he could bypass them and work with these kings to implement his wishes. I warned Qaddafi in Addis Ababa that action would be taken against any Ugandan king who involved himself in politics, because it was against our Constitution. I moved a motion in Addis Ababa to expunge from the records of the AU all references to kings (cultural leaders) who had made speeches in our forum, because they had been invited there illegally by Colonel Qaddafi.
 
Ignoring the plight of Southern Sudan: The fourth big mistake was made by most of the Arab leaders, including Qaddafi to some extent. This was in connection with the long suffering people of southern Sudan. Many of the Arab leaders either supported or ignored the suffering of the black people in that country. This unfairness always created tension and friction between us and the Arabs. However, I must salute Qaddafi and President Hosni Mubarak for travelling to Khartoum just before the referendum in Sudan, during which time they advised President Omar al-Bashir to respect the results of that exercise.
 
Terrorism: Sometimes Qaddafi and other Middle Eastern radicals do not distance themselves sufficiently from terrorism, even when they are fighting for a just cause. Terrorism is the use of indiscriminate violence -- not distinguishing between military and nonmilitary targets. The Middle Eastern radicals, quite different from the revolutionaries of black Africa, seem to say that any means is acceptable as long as you are fighting the enemy. That is why they hijack planes, use assassinations, plant bombs in bars, etc. Why bomb bars? People who go to bars are normally merrymakers, not politically minded people.
 
We were together with the Arabs in the anticolonial struggle. The black African liberation movements, however, developed differently from the Arab ones. Where we used arms, we fought soldiers or sabotaged infrastructure but never targeted noncombatants. These indiscriminate methods tend to isolate the struggles of the Middle East and the Arab world. It would be good if the radicals in these areas could streamline their work methods in this area of using violence indiscriminately.
 
These are some of the negative points in connection to Qaddafi as far as Uganda's patriots have been concerned over the years. Each of these positions taken by Qaddafi have been unfortunate and unnecessary.
 
Nevertheless, Qaddafi has also had many positive points, objectively speaking. These positive points have been for the good of Africa, Libya, and the Third World.
 
I will deal with them point by point:
 
Qaddafi is a nationalist: Qaddafi has conducted an independent foreign policy and, of course, also independent internal policies. I am not able to understand the position of Western countries, which appear to resent independent-minded leaders and seem to prefer puppets. Puppets are not good for any country. Most of the countries that have transitioned from Third World to First World status since 1945 have had independent-minded leaders: South Korea (Park Chung-hee), Singapore (Lee Kuan Yew), China People's Republic (Mao Tse Tung, Chou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, Marshal Yang Shangkun, Li Peng, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao), Malaysia (Dr. Mahthir Mohamad), Brazil (Luis Inacio Lula da Silva), Iran (the Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei), etc. Between World War I and World War II, the Soviet Union transitioned into an industrial country, propelled by the dictatorial but independent-minded Joseph Stalin. In Africa, we have also benefited from a number of independent-minded leaders: Colonel Nasser of Egypt, Mwalimu Nyerere of Tanzania, Samora Machel of Mozambique, and others. That is how southern Africa was liberated. That is how we got rid of Idi Amin. The stopping of genocide in Rwanda and the overthrow of Mobutu Sese-Seko in the Democratic Republic of the Congo were as a result of efforts of independent-minded African leaders.
 
Qaddafi, whatever his faults, is a true nationalist. I prefer nationalists to puppets of foreign interests. Where have the puppets caused the transformation of countries? I need some assistance with information on this from those who are familiar with puppetry.
 
By contrast, the independent-minded Qaddafi had some positive contributions to Libya, I believe, as well as Africa and the Third World. Take just one example: At the time we were fighting the criminal dictatorships here in Uganda, we had a problem arising of a complication caused by our failure to capture enough guns at Kabamba on Feb. 6, 1981. Qaddafi gave us a small consignment of 96 rifles, 100 anti-tank mines, etc., that was very useful. He did not consult Washington or Moscow before he did this. This was good for Libya, for Africa, and for the Middle East. We should also remember as part of that independent-mindedness the fact that he expelled British and American military bases from Libya.
 
He raised the price of oil: Before Qaddafi came to power in 1969, a barrel of oil was 40 American cents. He launched a campaign to withhold Arab oil unless the West paid more for it. I think the price went up to $20 per barrel. When the Arab-Israel war of 1973 broke out, the barrel of oil went up to $40. I am, therefore, surprised to hear that many oil producers in the world, including the Gulf countries, do not appreciate the historical role played by Qaddafi on this issue. The huge wealth many of these oil producers are enjoying was, at least in part, due to Qaddafi's efforts. The Western countries have continued to develop in spite of paying more for oil. It therefore means that the pre-Qaddafi oil situation was characterized by super exploitation of oil producing countries by the Western countries.
 
Qaddafi built Libya: I have never taken the time to investigate socio-economic conditions within Libya. When I was last there, I could see good roads, even from the air. From the TV pictures, you can even see the rebels zooming up and down in pick-up trucks on very good roads accompanied by Western journalists. Who built these good roads? Who built the oil refineries in Brega and those other places where the fighting has been taking place recently? Were these facilities built during the time of the king and his American and British allies, or were they built by Qaddafi?
 
In Tunisia and Egypt, some youths immolated themselves because they failed to get jobs. Are the Libyans without jobs also? If so, why are there hundreds of thousands of foreign workers? Is Libya's policy of providing so many jobs to Third World workers bad? Are all the children going to school in Libya? Was that the case in the past -- before Qaddafi? Is the conflict in Libya economic or purely political? Possibly Libya could have transitioned more if they encouraged the private sector further. However, this is something the Libyans are better placed to judge. As it is, Libya is a middle income country with a GDP of $62 billion.
 
He's a moderate: Qaddafi is one of the few secular leaders in the Arab world. He does not believe in Islamic fundamentalism, which is why Libyan women have been able to go to school, to join the army, and so forth. This is a positive point on Qaddafi's side.
 
Coming to the present crisis, therefore, I need to point out some issues:
 
First, we must distinguish between demonstrations and insurrections. Peaceful demonstrations should not be fired upon with live bullets. Of course, even peaceful demonstrations should coordinate with the police to ensure that they do not interfere with the rights of other citizens. However, when rioters are attacking police stations and army barracks with the aim of taking power, then they are no longer demonstrators; they are insurrectionists. They will have to be treated as such. A responsible government would have to use reasonable force to neutralize them. Of course, the ideal responsible government should also be one that is elected by the people at periodic intervals. If there is a doubt about the legitimacy of a government, and the people decide to launch an insurrection, that should be the decision of the internal forces. It should not be for external forces to arrogate themselves that role; often, they do not have enough knowledge to decide rightly.
 
Excessive external involvement always brings terrible distortions. Why should external forces involve themselves? That is a vote of no confidence in the people themselves. A legitimate internal insurrection, if that is the strategy chosen by the leaders of that effort, can succeed. The Shah of Iran was defeated by an internal insurrection; the Russian Revolution in 1917 was an internal insurrection; the Revolution in Zanzibar in 1964 was an internal insurrection; the changes in Ukraine, Georgia, and so forth -- all were internal insurrections. It should be for the leaders of the resistance in a given country to decide their strategy, not for foreigners to sponsor insurrection groups in sovereign countries.
 
I am totally allergic to foreign, political, and military involvement in sovereign countries, especially the African countries. If foreign intervention is good, then, African countries should be the most prosperous countries in the world, because we have had the greatest dosages of that: the slave trade, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, etc. But all those foreign-imposed phenomena have been disastrous. It is only recently that Africa is beginning to come up, partly because we are rejecting external meddling. External meddling and the acquiescence by Africans into that meddling have been responsible for the stagnation on our continent. The wrong definition of priorities in many African countries is, in many cases, imposed by external groups. Failure to prioritize infrastructure, for instance, especially energy, is, in part, due to some of these pressures. Instead, consumption is promoted. I have witnessed this wrong definition of priorities even here in Uganda. External interests linked up, for instance, with bogus internal groups to oppose energy projects for false reasons. How will an economy develop without energy? Quislings and their external backers do not care about all this.
 
Second, if you promote foreign backed insurrections in small countries like Libya, what will you do with the big ones like China, a country with a system different from the Western system? Are you going to impose a no-fly zone over China in case of some internal insurrections, as happened in Tiananmen Square, in Tibet, or in Urumqi?
 
Third, Western countries always use double standards. In Libya, they are very eager to impose a no-fly zone. In Bahrain and other areas where there are pro-Western regimes, they turn a blind eye to the very same or even worse conditions. We have been appealing to the United Nations to impose a no-fly zone over Somalia -- so as to impede the free movement of terrorists linked to al Qaeda, which killed Americans on September 11th, killed Ugandans last July, and have caused so much damage to the Somalis -- without success. Why? Are there no human beings in Somalia, as there are in Benghazi? Or is it because Somalia does not have oil that is not fully controlled by the Western oil companies, as in Libya on account of Qaddafi's nationalist posture?
 
Fourth, the Western countries are always very prompt in commenting on every problem in the Third World -- Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, etc. Yet, some of these very countries were the ones impeding growth in those countries. There was a military coup d'état that slowly became a revolution in backward Egypt in 1952. The new leader, Nasser, had ambitions to oversee the transformation of Egypt. He wanted to build a dam not only to generate electricity but also to help with the ancient irrigation system of Egypt. He was denied money by the West because they did not believe that Egyptians needed electricity. Nasser decided to raise that money by nationalizing the Suez Canal. He was attacked by Israel, France, and Britain. To be fair to the United States, President Eisenhower opposed that aggression that time. Of course, there was also the firm stance of the Soviet Union at that time. How much electricity was this dam supposed to produce? Just 2000 megawatts -- for a country like Egypt!! What moral right, then, do such people have to comment on the affairs of these countries?.
 
NOTE: This was posted on 

MARCH 24, 201 on http://www.foreignpolicy.com

Source: foreignpolicy

]]>Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:44:23 GMT<![CDATA[The Rejection of the TRC Recommendation]]> The Rejection of the TRC Recommendation & The Distortion and Minimization of the Liberian Constitution: The Culture of Impunity!

Dear Fellow Liberians:
The rejection of the TRC recommendation and the distortion and minimization of the Liberian constitution in light of the culture of impunity is a very serious matter with grave consequences for our country.  And in this regard I also, and sincerely, concur with Pastor Claudius Cooper, who is even willing to return to Liberia in light of the TRC, as we both are on the same page in light of the TRC and the culture of impunity.  I see him as a man without the normal display of cowardice and hypocrisy; though it is something I cannot say for some in ministry.  However, the problem we have in light of the rejection of the TRC recommendation cannot and should not be ignored; as it poses a threat to the stability of our country.  
 
Without the implementation of the TRC recommendation, what would then serve as a deterrent in the future for would be rebels with the intention of repeating the past?  Actually the Liberian constitution itself could solve this problem, but due to the fact that our Supreme Court is in the hands of those who really do not have the country at heart, but with personal interest against this, is why we are where we are: the distortion and minimization of the constitution and total disregard for the TRC recommendation.  It is a no win situation which leaves both the Liberian constitution and TRC recommendation hanging in the balance!  We need to have some regard for the rule of law if we must move forward as a nation.  
 
Why can't the Liberian constitution then serve its real purpose in regard to this matter, since "the TRC recommendation is not constitutional" as they claim?  In reality, if the constitution is truly allowed to serve its purpose in light of this matter, it has a tougher penalty than that of the TRC recommendation as it also involves imprisonment for those who commit treason against the nation.  Under the TRC recommendation, while they are banned from office for a 30-year period, they still walk away free from any prison term.  The recommendation of the Commission, however, is our best option for now, since the Liberian constitution itself has apparently lost its value in the last two governments (Taylor and Johnson-Sirleaf).  Our country is held captive by treasonous men and women with no regard for our constitution, the TRC recommendation, or human rights.   
 
We have people in power with no regard for the rule of law.  In this current government, some even violate on a regular basis the so-
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The Late great Liberia Must Rise Again: The Cry for Redemption!
Bishop R.W. Chea: The Dream of A United Africa
Bishop R.W Chea: THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR AFRICA!
called laws they are making and imposing upon the nation.  A clear example is the new law of one having to pay for parking, of which Representative Snowe, former Speaker of the House was recently in direct violation.  He refused to pay the $50.00 (LD) for parking as if he was above the law; and a law that he strongly supported.  Government officials are in direct violation to the laws of the country everyday, including the very ones they make themselves.   We have a terribly poor economy in which the vast majority of the people can barely afford to feed themselves and their families, let alone to pay for parking.  
 
With all the suffering in the country, yet this terribly ridiculous law is imposed upon the people.  Countries which have such laws are well developed and with a far better economy in which everyone can afford such payment for public parking.  In light of this paying for parking law, it is apparent that some of those in high office who can clearly afford to pay such fees are refusing to pay; yet they expect the poor who cannot afford to pay, be in strict conformity to this law of which they are clearly in violation themselves.  What a country!  What a terrible injustice!  How can we have a country in which laws are made with the intention of those making such laws to not be in conformity to the same?  This is preposterous!  Why shouldn't they be subject to the same laws they make?  Such a gesture by those in high public office is irrational; it is insane; it is corruption!  What a political insanity!           
 
Insanity is the picture of our political climate in which nearly everyone in power feels they are above the law.  The application of true justice in light of those who participated in our destruction is a hopeless dream in Liberia while this current government is still in power.  Calling for justice in this regard is obviously a waste of time considering our insane political climate.  Very simply put, in order to redeem ourselves from this state of political insanity with such stone cold and hardened hearts with no real sense of nationalism, the Sirleaf government must be voted out of power!  Why set up the TRC when there was no real intent to accept and implement their recommendation?  Why can't the Liberian constitution then serve its real purpose in regard to this matter, since "the TRC recommendation is not constitutional" as they claim?   
 
In light of the Ukrainian former Prime Minister Tymoshenko and former Egyptian President Mubarak's prosecution for their crimes, the same fate lies in wait for those who destroyed our great country, killed our people, continue to roam about freely, live comfortably, and enjoy the wealth of the nation, while its people have not regained their dignity.  Our people are still living in the gutters of poverty after being reduced to common beggars in their own country in the face of endless desperation and despair as a result of the actions of these very people now in power!    
 
A ten-year sentence is not enough in the unique case of Liberia; I believe any prison sentence in this regard must be 30 years, an equivalent of the TRC 30-year ban, and which is more appropriate in light of the provisions of the Liberian constitution in this regard.  Why do we have a constitution if we will simply ignore the provisions provided therein in light of the act of treason committed against our country and people by those very same people now in power?  How can we ever become a better country with such attitude towards the rule of law and that of impunity for crimes committed against our country and its people?     
 
There is so much that needs to be corrected in our country, and in this regard the system must be changed. Liberians in the diaspora should be and must be allowed to cast their votes for the candidate of their choice.  I think a major part of this is the fear that those living in the diaspora are more independent and positive thinkers who can really change the course of our country. I believe there is a fear in the mind of old recycled politicians of having a different and better Liberia for reasons best known to them.  I think the fear of allowing Liberia to become something more than it has been in the past is one thing they cannot deal with and have a problem handling, no matter how much they claim to want change. 
 
The very negative view of Liberia being a lawless, free for all country is why we have every Tom, Dick and Harry from Waterside wanting to be to be President.  Liberia is really in trouble and needs to break loose from the shackles of the past!  The list of presidential candidates contesting to lead our country is quite disturbing!  The list of those contesting for the Liberian presidency, as was in 2005, is almost incomprehensible and inconceivable, but again that is Liberia and everything appears to be acceptable, and political normalcy is still foreign.   Some candidates appear to be even unable to tell their left from their right; some could not even serve as good director of an agency or bureau, let alone be President of Liberia and a good one for that matter.     
 
In light of a multi-party system, I personally think that a maximum of five political parties would do our country much good; it would do Liberia much justice.  What is happening in light of all these different, and in some cases strange political parties, is an abuse of the system.  Why is this?  Because there is no real law governing number of parties to be registered and accredited.  Most of these people even know that they have no chance from the outset, but it is a simple and legal way of duping people out of money for so-called campaign, which is in fact for personal enrichment.  In this light, I would describe those falling in this category as "legal con artists"; opportunists taking advantage of the situation at hand - a very poor system.  This problem can be easily resolved by amending the Liberian constitution with strict provisions that would allow a limited registration and accreditation of a maximum of five political parties and bring an end to this nonsense once and for all.
 
However, such abuse cannot be prevented; it will continue; we will continue to have such problems of political abuse in the form of countless and worthless parties with a range of agendas from brilliant to ridiculous, from almost senseless to even stupid to none at all.  However, these are some of the very important causes the new generation of leaders must champion in Liberia in order to restore sanity to our political climate.  Liberia needs a new breed of leadership that is young, vibrant, patriotic and nationalistic, to change her course of direction; and I'm very positive that there are such leaders in the making for a new and better Liberia!  
 
Currently the way things are in our multi-party democratic system, it is hard to follow and make sense of every political agenda due to the abundance of registered parties.  There is so much confusion in this regard; it is madness, and sanity needs to be restored back in the system.  Most of these parties need to seriously consider merging with others; something that will give them even greater political strength, and it would be in the best interest of the country as well.  In this light, when done, true patriotism and nationalism can begin to take root and prepare the way for future generations.  Arriving at true patriotism and nationalism will require a journey; yet any journey begins with a first step.  Have a lovely time; enjoy your day and many blessings!   
 
Best regards,
 
Bishop R.S.W. Chea, Th.D.   
President & C.E.O.
Adonai International
A Concerned Liberian for Progress & Real Change
www. adonaiworldwide.org
www.facebook.com/bishoprswchea
www.cafelib.com/profile/RSWChea
www.kingdomrace.com/profile/BishopChea
www.facebook.com/pages/Bishop-RSW-Chea/124546
www.cafelib.com/profile/RSWChea
]]>Sat, 13 Aug 2011 23:19:17 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Central Africa's beguiling republic]]>

Personally I'd like to visit Africa really very much - it should be so interesting!

]]>Mon, 8 Aug 2011 08:11:34 GMT<![CDATA[RE:France–Africa summit in Nice seeks business boost]]>
 I think Africa really needs such support from Europe!college essays
 
]]>Mon, 8 Aug 2011 08:03:59 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Africa launches satellite into space]]>

I haven't heard about this - it's really wonderful for Africa!

professional writer
]]>Mon, 8 Aug 2011 08:02:44 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Nigeria And Cameroon Highway Transport Facilitation Program]]>

It's really good for Africa to have such transport ways!

professional resume

]]>Mon, 8 Aug 2011 08:01:22 GMT<![CDATA[“Go beyond Pictures of Candidates”— National Orator Urges Liberians]]>  

The National Orator for Liberia’s July 26 Independence Day celebrations on Tuesday called on Liberians to consider the prime interest of the country as they cast their votes in the upcoming general and presidential elections. Mrs. Estella Garmai Korboi Calvins urged Liberians to look beyond the pictures of candidates and instead focus on the Liberian nation. Election, the Orator said, is an opportunity for all Liberians to contribute to the decision on who will lead the country. Elections, she said, make each of us a decider on the fate of our nation. “I urge all of us to look beyond the pictures of the candidates and instead focus on the red, white and blue Liberian flag. ”
 
The Liberian nation and people, Mrs. Calvins said, should emerge stronger from these elections, “not weaker; Liberia and Liberians should emerge better from these elections, not bitter.
 
“Liberia and Liberians should progress as a result of this elections, not retrogress. Most importantly, Liberia and Liberians should smile at a result of these elections, not cry.”
 
The local businesswomen admonished Liberians to “play by the rules and go through a violence-free election that will make us a great nation – that will make you proud that you contributed to a great decision for the greater good of the motherland. ”
 
In a speech marking the 164th Independence Day Anniversary in Voinjama, Lofa County, the National Orator expressed concern over the lack of skills by Liberian youths to contribute to the rebuilding of the country. To address the inadequacy, Mrs. Korboi Calvins recommended the inclusion of apprenticeship as another component of formal education to improve the skills of the country’s youth. This form of education, the local businesswoman observed, will supplement adult education, thereby assisting girls as well as a huge number of the population that have reached adulthood without much formal education. ”The idea here is to help the youth acquire certain functional skills that could be useful in adulthood and for earning legitimate incomes.”
 
The National Orator indicated that the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Administration continues to attract big companies to Liberia, with huge job potential in mining, agriculture, and many more for Liberians, but observed that the country lacks adequately trained Liberians to take advantage of the potential job opportunities.
 
“These jobs require specific skill sets. This is why our schools must be ready and get prepared to train Liberians in the skills that these companies will want to hire for. This is a key step towards empowerment. If some of our citizens can acquire skills through apprenticeship to become mechanics, midwives, caterers, farmers or small business entrepreneurs, we can gradually battle poverty and outgrow our tendencies towards idleness, deception and particularly the belief that government should provide all of our needs,” the National Orator recommended.
 
The mother of four, Mrs. Calvins also spoke of the need to provide more educational opportunities for school-age children, particularly girls who, she said, are underrepresented at all levels of education in almost all counties.
 
“This is unacceptable! The bottom line is this: as long as girls do not have access, and equal access to education, that empowerment vision will remain out of reach, and our goals of healthier families and healthier communities will remain a pie in the sky,” the National Orator cautioned.
 
Meanwhile, Mrs. Garmai Estella Korboi Calvins has been conferred the distinction of Dame Grand Commander in the Humane Order of African Redemption. In a citation read out during the Independence Day program, the President praised the National Orator for her role in the promotion of the entrepreneur spirit and serving as a good role model for market women throughout the country.
 
The National Orator was among several other citizens and other dignitaries on whom the President conferred distinctions. The honorees included the Vice President, Honorable Joseph N. Boakai, Sr., who was conferred the distinction of Grand Band in the Order of Africa.
 
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Alex Tyler (Knight Great Band – Humane Order of African Redemption); President Pro-Tempore of the Liberian Senate, Hon. Cletus Wortorson (Knight Great Band – Humane Order of African Redemption); Acting Monrovia Mayor, Madam Mary T. Broh (Grand Commander – Order of the Star of Africa); and Dr. James Adama Sirleaf, Chairman & Founder, HEARTT Foundation (Knight Great Band) were also honored by the Liberian Government.
 
Other honorees included Ambassador Walter Fust, former Director, Swiss Development (Knight Grand Commander – Humane Order of African Redemption); Mr. David A. Straz, Jr., Honorary Consul of Liberia in Tampa, Florida, USA (Knight Grand Commander – Human Order of African Redemption); Mr. U.S. Sachdeva (Jeety), Honorary Consul General of India – Humanitarian worker in Liberia (Knight Grand Commander - Humane Order of African Redemption); Madam Edith Nahwelee, Dahwomeh Curran, Zorzor, Lofa County (Dame Grand Commander – Humane Order of African Redemption); and Mr. Henry Baysah Sellie, Octogenenarian, Classroom Teacher, Principal, Lawalazu Public School (Grand Commander – Order of the Star of Africa).
 
Also honored were the Senior Aide-de-camp to the President, General Jeremiah Hinneh (Knight Commander – Humane Order of African Redemption); Chief Fatorma Kamara, Senior Citizen (Knight Officer – Humane Order of African Redemption); Mr. David Doe, Public Servant (Knight Officer – Humane Order of African Redemption); Mr. Josiah N. Johnson, Veteran Sports Administrator (Commander – Order of the Star of Africa); and a Missionary and Humanitarian, Mrs. Yennida Glaydor Paygar (Commander – Order of the Star of Africa), who was posthumously conferred the distinction.
 
Source: isria
]]>Mon, 1 Aug 2011 10:03:42 GMT<![CDATA[Google Remains Busy in Africa]]>  

Google continues to work on making the Internet be part of everyday life in Africa. They are serious about Africa and their strategy is simple: get users online by developing a relevant, accessible, vibrant and self-sufficient Internet ecosystem. The current focus is to strengthen the African developer community so that they can provide local innovation for Africa. Of course, the local content will naturally rely on Google’s tools.

The Google Africa Blog is a great source to hear immediate news and view a calendar of Google events on tap for Africa. From this site we can gather major events in Google’s African timeline and examine how Google is focusing its efforts. Recent major happenings include:

  • Mapping efforts have begun for Southern Sudan. Google Maps.
  • g|funze, a workshop for teaching with technology was held in late April. Google Search, Google Apps, Google Earth.
  • AdSense payments made easier for Cameroon, Senegal, and Mauritius. Google AdSense.
  • Somalia received a local Google search domain, Google.so. Google Search.
  • AdSense for mobile content was made available in Nigeria as part of a global effort to add 15 nations to the program. Google AdSense.
  • A business conference in the Gambia touted Google Apps. Google Search, Google Maps, Google Apps.

Additionally, three events for developers – g-Cameroon , g-Nigeria , g-Ghana – will have occurred from late-April to late-June. g-Kenya and g-Uganda were held back in September 2010. These events use a two-day format to help both software developers and marketers. The events tout the use of Google Maps, Apps, Chrome, Trends, YouTube, Analytics, Website Optimizer, and AdSense to facilitate business. So far, these events have been limited to areas where Google has offices.

Speaking of events, Google looks busy throughout the summer.

 

Lastly, Google is actively growing various teams in the African region. Google is hiring for these following locations in: East Africa (Kenya/Uganda), Francophone Africa (Senegal), Nigeria, South Africa and West/Central Africa (Ghana). There are roles open in various areas: Business Operations and Development, Engineering Operations and Management, Legal & Public Policy, Marketing and Communications and Sales.

Source: oAfrica

]]>Mon, 1 Aug 2011 09:49:06 GMT<![CDATA[Dream of a United Land of Africa II: Liberia's Potential in a United Africa: Bishop R.S.W Chea]]>

Dear Fellow Liberians:
 
Greetings! I bring you tidings of hope for the future of Liberia!  Happy Independence Day to you all! Perhaps this is not the most appropriate message for this day, but I operate outside of the box as an independent thinker as some of you are.  It has been my dream now for some time, and perhaps even the dream of other Liberians (considering all our problems) to see a united Africa. Do I believe in Pan Africanism? You bet I do, and I believe it is the only true hope for our sweet land of Africa. I believe that true success of a nation comes through real capitalism where the people are equally given the opportunity to succeed, and this has a place in Pan-Africanism, without which Africa can never measure up to the West and other developed nations even with all our great potentials. We are so far behind and it is like we got stuck in a time machine.  Think about our beloved Liberia and where she could be in a united Africa.
 
Ironically enough, I recently spoke with my mother of my intention of adventuring into Liberian politics, precisely the National Legislature; something in which I previously did not have any direct interest, but to limit my work externally through educational and developmental aspects.  Understanding that in order for one to make a change, he has to be an insider within the system, I decided on this, though the season has not come.  And I also understand that being an insider is not necessary in order to make a difference in a normal political democracy, but ours is not what you would call normal.
 
My position on being an insider in light of Liberia's democracy is due to our "very unique" political climate.  Our attitude towards politics as well as nationalism is quite "unique' if I may use such a term.  Even as small as Liberia is, it is yet a very complex country that operates in a unique type of norm that is distinct from other countries.  Normalcy in most cases is not necessarily applicable to our "glorious land of liberty"  The concept of political normalcy in the true sense is still foreign to Liberia.  Hence my position on being an insider in light of a "very unique" country.
 
My mother sternly warned me not to get involved in this regard and gave me her reasons.  I said "Ma, but why do we come to America to better ourselves if we cannot help change our country by getting directly involved in the government?"  And she gave me even more reasons.  She did not warn me in this regard simply because she did not want her son getting involved with government, but due to the fact that she knows me very well and knows what I stand for; and she knows if I'm involved in this manner, I would be a good leader who will not compromise for any reason.  Her real concern is fear, but that is from her position as a mother, and she knows the type of country we have.  However, when the season is right, we will revisit the context of our conversation, as I have a desire to contribute and make a difference in our beloved Liberia.
 
 
 
Being a good leader is not something that has been popular in Liberia.  Can you imagine what Liberia will become if every potential good leader decided not to get involved, and leave the fate of our country in the hands of bad and terribly corrupt leaders?  Without an ounce of doubt, I'm indeed sick and tired of unpatriotic thieves and so-called elites who have no sense of nationalism.  I'm tired of those who call themselves leaders and keep our people in severe poverty while they gain overnight riches and keep our country at a stand still and at the mercy of handouts from the West.  From the level of our commitment to nationalism, it appears that everyone (at least most of us) wants to be a leader solely for personal gain.  
 
Over a number of years now however, as a result of the senseless uncivil war in our country, neighboring nations and other parts of Africa, I've been reflecting on the idea of a "United Africa".  With so much suffering, hatred and division, and capstone with chronic corruption as a result of greed and political drunkenness, the only hope is to have a united continent where leaders are truly accountable and power is easily neutralized.  As a youth growing up in Liberia, I was never really into politics, but entertainment, and while music, ministry and education are yet my first calling; law, politics and development have been of great interest to me over the years.  They have now become a passion which has driven me and given me a great zeal to the point of further and advanced preparation in light of the future of our beloved Liberia and a united Africa.  
 
I highly admire African leaders like the late Dr. Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana who originally embraced the idea of Pan-Africanism. Though there have been 
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others, he is the icon of such ideas. Nkrumah won the first democratic general election in the British Colony of Gold Coast in 1951 by a landslide while still in jail. He was then released and asked by the British Governor of the Colony (Charles Arden-Clark) to establish a government - Ghana. His party also won 34 out of 38 seats in the Ghanaian Legislative Assembly. Though he made one mistake of trying to silence his opponents, he still meant well for Ghana and Africa.  We all know the story behind the coup which led to him being overthrown in 1966. By 1981 under Jerry Rawlings, they were all silenced anyway as a result of the banning of all political parties.  Though Rawlings had his own political issues, he yet meant well for Ghana and led that nation on a course which has led to her social and economic success today, as well as one of Africa's best democracies in recent times.  He truly cared about his people!  
 
Do we have leaders who truly care about us other than themselves, families, and friends?  I also admire great leaders like Nelson Mandela and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania and others.  While Africa has had many bad leaders, she has still been fortunate enough to have some very good ones, and Liberia, however, has been very unfortunate in this regard!  Africa is in desperate need of leaders who really care about the people they lead or aspire to lead! We seldom find a good leader in Africa, and it appears that everyone wants to be a leader for personal gain. A continent that is so rich, yet so poor; well educated people, yet we act as though we have no wisdom or understanding as a result of greed, selfishness, political drunkenness and power hunger in a climate of political insanity!
 
Africa can be united, and the only true hope for a glorious land not lacking far behind the western world is a continent with one centralized government - the United Land of Africa (ULA). The only remedy for this is: 1. Forget about our selfish ideas and agendas and think about what a united Africa will bring; 2. Reject the spirit of division and embrace the power of oneness; 3. Safeguard ourselves from the lure of quick riches from "outsiders" which results in the betrayal of a brother, a people, a nation, and ultimately an entire continent (Africa).  When this is done, we can become insulated from the sin of greed and the temptation of self-destruction for personal gain. 
 
Though in this regard, the name "United States of Africa (USA)" has been suggested at the inception of such idea; Yet for Africa, I think "United Land of Africa (ULA)" is more appropriate.  "Land" should be much preferred over "States"; and as Africans, this would do the name of our continent much justice.  Secondly, there is is already a USA; and such duplication of initials (USA) is very unnecessary.   However, think real hard about Liberia; think about Africa and what a united continent will bring.  Will you want to be stuck in America dreaming of a better Liberia with your great grandchildren?  Begin to think beyond Liberia in light of one united Africa.  I'm a Liberian patriot, a Liberian nationalist, but far beyond that, I consider myself an African nationalist desiring to see a united Africa.  We take pride in being the oldest African republic, and while that may be nice, we yet have nothing concrete to show for it.  164 years of independence, we are living on handouts from Western imperialists, because we have no true sense of nationalism.  Our actions are yet divorced from the education we receive as Liberians and subsequently as Africans.  Unless we have a better plan away from this narrow path we have taken generation after another, we must begin to think real hard about the future of our country.
 
In light of our failure after 164 years of independence, are we really capable of self governance without a central governing body of Africans to include Liberians?  We live in the United States and enjoy the benefits of this Union; why can't we think about the same for Liberia and Africa?  Don't you know that through such a union, Africa, with all its potentials, can become one of the greatest nations in the world and Liberia becoming one of its greatest states?  Unless you have a better agenda for Liberia with the people in mind, take some time and think about a united one Africa and begin to promote this idea in light of real success for Liberia.  Are Liberians in New York and California equally enjoying the benefits of the one Union of the United States of America?  Can we not also enjoy the benefits of the one Union of the United Land of Africa?  
 
Our level of commitment to nationalism in every aspect of life and our attitude towards each other as Liberians are the result of quick independence without development, true commitment to nationalism or care for native nationals!  This has resulted to our “don't care” attitude as Liberians today; it has saturated our national fabric.  While we must work on improving our level of nationalism, we must yet look at Liberia in a much broader context in light of a united Africa and consider all our problems in the process.  Perhaps in light of our endless troubles, the concept of a one united Africa can be further fostered by Liberians, citizens of the oldest African nation.  Perhaps this can begin with the Minor River Union countries, then ECOWAS nations, and ultimately all AU countries.  
 
Think about this idea carefully and do not quickly form a negative opinion in this regard. I'm sure you truly want to see Liberia succeed; and I'm sure you wouldn't mind all of Africa being available to you to succeed - I mean true success without border, like what you and I now enjoy in the United States of America!  How about the United Land of Africa?  Again, Happy Independence Day! Thank you for your time; have a wonderful day, and many blessings!
 
Best regards,
 
Bishop R.S.W. Chea, Th.D.  
President & C.E.O.
Adonai International
A Concerned Liberian for Progress & Real Change
www.adonaiworldwide.org
http://www.facebook.com/bishoprswchea
http://www.cafelib.com/profile/RSWChea
http://www.kingdomrace.com/profile/BishopChea
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bishop-RSW-Chea/124546297562807
http://www.cafelib.com/profile/RSWChea
]]>Wed, 27 Jul 2011 01:19:39 GMT<![CDATA[TALKS AFRICA: What can be done to make the horn of Africa self– sufficient?]]>  

Millions of people across East Africa are looking down the barrel of the worst famine for 60 years.
Thousands of families have picked up their possessions to walk towards what they hope might hold the promise of food. But what they didn't and don't know is that what lies ahead of them is as scorched and barren as their homelands. 
 
]]>Fri, 22 Jul 2011 01:43:25 GMT<![CDATA[In Land Deals In Africa: What Is In The Tontracts? Author Lorenzo Cotula Analysed]]>  

In Land deals in Africa: What is in the contracts? author Lorenzo Cotula analysed several contracts and found that most were negotiated in secret “Expected benefits are often in the form of jobs or irrigation and infrastructure development, rather than rental fees,” he says in the report produced by London-based think-tank, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
 
The report analyses 12 recent contracts through which investors have leased millions of hectares of land in East, West, Central and Southern Africa for farming. It found many problems with the contracts but also some signs of positive deals.
 
In Kenya, multinationals have applied for 500,000-plus hectares of land - more than five times the size of Nairobi – to do large scale farming and mining. The government earlier agreed to lease 40,000 hectares in the Tana River Delta to the Government of Qatar to grow crops to feed the people of Qatar.
 
Further, an Italian company, Kenya Biofuel Ltd, has been allowed to convert 5,000 acres of Dakatcha woodland at the Coast and plant Jatropha.
 
The investor had asked for 50,000 acres to plant Jatropha but that was scaled-down to 5,000 for “trial” after protests by conservation groups. “I will use any means to ensure the project begins,” Magarini MP and Fisheries minister Amason Kingi, who is the area MP, said recently.
 
In Nyanza, Belgium Company HG consulting is expected to put 42,000 hectares of land under sugarcane production while Dominion Farms Ltd has invested in 17,500 hectares around the Yala Swamp. There are other projects in the works, mostly at the Coast.
 
A second report released in Nairobi last week by Oxfam predicts food riots in East Africa, saying decreasing farmland will severely limit food production in the next 20 years. Oxfam is grouping of 15 international organisations which campaigns against poverty and injustice.
 
Its report, Growing A Better Future: Food Justice In a Resource-Constrained World, Oxfam advises governments to stop leasing fertile farmland and grazing land to foreign companies for tourism, large-scale agriculture for exports and biofuels. The report says African governments should instead support women and small scale farmers.
 
Oxfam projects food prices across the world will double in the 20 years and biofuels will increase hunger in Africa. “The grain required to fill the fuel tank of one 4×4 vehicle with ethanol is enough to feed one person for a year,” said Irungu Houghton, Oxfam’s pan Africa director. Oxfam says with the current trends, population will far outstrip food production.
 
The latest revision of United Nation’s World Population Prospects, for instance, shows that Kenya will be grappling with 71.5 million people in the next 20 years, yet maize production is only expected to rise by a third.
 
Continue reading here
 
Source: By John Muchangi - Nairobi Star
]]>Sun, 10 Jul 2011 08:23:29 GMT<![CDATA[RE:I Was Made Interim Leader of the RUF By West African Leaders, Not Charles Taylor Alone and Operation]]> I think it`s not fair, he could have shown his personal statement

]]>Thu, 7 Jul 2011 18:15:39 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Nike And (Red) Unite To Leverage The Power Of Sport To Fight HIV/AIDS In Africa]]> I`m ready to provide research papers about this new alliance 

]]>Thu, 7 Jul 2011 18:13:14 GMT<![CDATA[RE:African players, teams capable of dominating world football – Hudanski]]> I wander what kind of resumes does this coach have

]]>Thu, 7 Jul 2011 18:10:19 GMT<![CDATA[ICC says protecting Africans, not targeting them?]]>  

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The International Criminal Court's deputy prosecutor rejected charges it unfairly targets Africa on Wednesday, saying the victims were also African and that indictments were led by referrals from Africans themselves.
 
In a joint interview with Reuters and France's TV5 in the Ivorian capital, ICC Deputy Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said the high rate of referrals in Africa could just as easily show that leaders on the continent were taking their responsibilities to international justice seriously.
 
Bensouda, a Gambian, is in Ivory Coast to lay the ground work for a possible investigation of war crimes relating to a violent power struggle between President Alassane Ouattara and former president Laurent Gbabgo over a disputed poll.
 
Critics including African Union president Jean Ping have accused ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of double standards for so far only targeting crimes committed in Africa.
 
"Any time I hear this about ICC targeting Africa, ICC doing double justice (standards), it saddens me, especially as an African woman," she said. "Most of these conflicts are happening on the continent ... The ICC's concentration on Africa is always as a result of the engagement of the African people with ICC."
 
In January, the African Union backed a plan by Kenya to call for the U.N. Security Council to defer or suspend trials from taking place for serious crimes committed during its disputed vote at the end of 2007, in which 1,200 were killed.
 
Kenya wants to try them in its own courts, but the ICC prosecutor argues it failed to take action for years afterwards.
 
"We say that ICC is targeting Africans, but all of the victims in our cases in Africa are African victims. They are not from another continent. And they're the ones who are suffering these crimes," Bensouda said.
 
She signed a cooperation accord with Ivorian authorities on Tuesday that could pave the way for an investigation into its own armed conflict over a disputed November election. The prosecutor requested authorisation from judges last week.
 
That election degenerated into violence ending in a war that killed at least 3,000 people before Gbagbo, who refused to step down despite losing the poll, was finally ousted in April.
 
The deputy prosecutor said the first three cases it took on -- Uganda, Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- were all referrals from governments.
 
"Now if you are telling me that, if we have those referrals from these states, we should say 'we won't go there because they are African states', I am sorry, we will not do that."
 
The case against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir was brought by the U.N. Security Council. Only in Kenya had the prosecutor himself initiated the proceedings.
 
"Why don't we look at the positive side? Why don't we look at the fact that African leaders are taking leadership in international criminal justice?" Bensouda said.
 
ICC defenders have also argued that many states still do not have the legal capacity to deal with crimes on such a big scale. Bensouda said the court "takes a back seat" when they do.
 
Source: Reuters Africa
]]>Thu, 30 Jun 2011 13:11:12 GMT<![CDATA[Nigeria To Launch Two New Satellites Next Month]]>  

satlite NigerARRANGEMENTS are being perfected by the Federal Government to launch Nigeria’s second and third satellites, SAT2 and SATX that cost £34 million, into the orbit by July 7. The launching of the two satellites from Dnepr vehicle in Russia alongside five other countries, including RASAT for Turkey, EDUSAT for Italy, ARSAT-5 and 6 for United States of America and Sich-2 for Ukraine, will be televised live at 8.12 a.m. by Nigerian Television Authority(NTA).
 
The news was broken as the Director General of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Dr. Saidu Mohammed, dismissed the report of volcanic activity in Ndanijam Kargo village in Funakaye Local Council of Gombe State, noting that the occurrence of smoke in the region was a result of cracked cave undergoing magma process that required monitoring before conclusion can be maD on the activities of the rock.
 
Meanwhile, the NIGCOMSAT1 which de-orbited 18 months after its launch in 2007 owing to power related problem will soon be replaced, as a proposal for its launch next year is ongoing between the Federal Government and the agency responsible for its design.
 
NigeriaSat-2 with a high resolution of 2.5 metre GSD in the panchromatic channel is an improvement on Sat-1 with a resolution of 32 metres and Nigeria-SatX was designed by 26 Nigerian engineers trained in Russia for the project.
 
The Director General of NASRDA Dr. Saidu Mohammed who announced the plan to launch the new satellites at an occasion marking preparation for the event yesterday in Abuja informed that 18 per cent of the total cost had been secured for insurance of the project designed for seven years.
 
He disclosed that the African Union had indicated interest in ensuring that the continent has a space centre for development in Africa.     The agency boss noted that the success of Sat-1 which had supported over 2000 applications within and outside Nigeria since its launch in 2003, gave impetus for the design of both NigeriaSat-2 and Sat-X.
 
According to him, the launch will be a gift to President Goodluck Jonathan and other Nigerians for the avowed commitment of the Federal Government towards improving the lives of every citizen through space application.
 
He said: “We are once more on the path to greasing the wheels of our success story, as the stage is set for the launch of our third and fourth satellites code named NigeriaSat-2 and Nigeria Sat-X. 
 
“Nigeria Sat-X is the ingenuity of our engineers who have undergone training in the design and building of satellites. It depicts Nigeria’s first effort at developing satellite and will be launched alongside NigeriaSat-2. Technology application is needed in all facets of human life including health, security, defence, agriculture, environment, and information-communication.
 
Explaining the occurrence of gas emission in Gombe, Director of Geodesy and Geodynamics, Mr. Tahir Abubakar said what is going on in the state is gaseous emission of sulphide dioxide and carbon dioxide as a result of crack in the silt of a cave with a combination of magma reaction.
 
According to him, the occurrence is a pointer to future activity that requires monitoring now, and such that is compelling us to strengthen our research platform.
 
Engineer Frank Chizea who spoke on the two satellites said the Nigeria SAT2 is a mini-satellite, adding that same is capable of imaging in several modes about six different modes.
 
“It allows for more application areas to be carried out with better result from data obtained. The Nigeria SAT2 is almost ten times better and more advanced than the SAT1 within the same budget. It can pick ground resolution of 2.5 meters on the ground like a car packed in a place can clearly be identifed.”
 
Source: ngrguardiannews
]]>Sat, 25 Jun 2011 01:37:20 GMT<![CDATA[Hillary Clinton v.s African Union On Liyba]]>  

<p>U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks to the media during a visit to the Foreign Minister's Residence in Abuja August 12, 2009. REUTERS/Sunday Alamba/Pool</p>DAR ES SALAAM (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will urge the African Union to get tougher on Libya on Monday, hoping to push Africa's leaders into a firmer stance on the ousting of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. Clinton, the first U.S. secretary of state to address the 53-member AU in Addis Ababa, is also expected to warn that Middle East protests could echo in Africa, where many entrenched leaders have yet to deliver on political and economic reforms.

Clinton's AU speech comes at the end of a three-nation Africa tour during which she sought to highlight the Obama administration's drive to boost trade ties with Africa and encourage better political and economic governance.

U.S. officials say Clinton's AU speech will carry a number of messages, chief among them the need for more African nations to support the western-led coalition demanding the ouster of Gaddafi -- for years a major diplomatic and financial backer of many African leaders.

"African countries are very deeply divided and conflicted over Libya," a U.S. senior official told reporters traveling with Clinton.

Clinton will also address rising tensions in Sudan, where fears are growing of a return to civil war after Khartoum's forces clashed in border areas with those of South Sudan less than a month before the South is due to declare independence.

U.S. officials say Clinton will praise the AU for taking a more assertive role in regional affairs including on Ivory Coast, where it joined a successful drive to force former president Laurent Gbagbo to step down after an election widely judged to have been won by his rival, Alassane Ouattara.

But the AU's position on Libya has been murkier and the organization has declined to join calls for Gaddafi's ouster, instead accusing Western nations of undermining its own efforts to find a solution to the conflict.

Diplomats say the lack of a clear African voice on the Libyan conflict has complicated the Libyan crisis, where NATO has unleashed air strikes to support Libyan rebels demanding Gaddafi's exit.

U.S. officials have praised several African nations including Senegal and Mauritania for publicly declaring that Gaddafi must go.

And they say the time has come for more African countries to join the chorus -- although they concede that Gaddafi's shadow still looms over the AU, which without his financial support may find it hard to pay its bills.

"We know that there is hesitation on the part of a number of African states, in large measure because of the enormous influence that Gaddafi has wielded across Africa for such a long time, and they have shown some reluctance," the official said.

Clinton is scheduled to hold meetings in Addis Ababa on Tuesday on Sudan, where diplomats said President Omar Hassan al-Bashir agreed on Sunday to pull troops out of the disputed border region of Abyei before the south secedes -- a move which could help reduce tensions.

But the two sides have yet to agree on sensitive issues such as where to draw the common border and how to share oil revenues, leaving the potential for further conflict as the South prepares for formal independence on July 9.

"The United States strongly believes that a strong peacekeeping presence should be a central part of the security arrangements in Abyei," Clinton said in a joint press conference with Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete.

"The government of Sudan should urgently facilitate a viable security arrangement, starting with the withdrawal of Sudanese armed forces."

Source: Reuters
]]>Mon, 13 Jun 2011 12:38:05 GMT<![CDATA[South Africa approves Wal–Mart deal]]>  

Walmart took control of Massmart, which runs wholesale and retail chains in 14 African countries [Reuters]. South Africa has cleared the way for Wal-Mart to gain its first foothold in Africa, approving the company's $2.4bn bid for control of retailer Massmart with minimal conditions. South Africa's competition tribunal on Tuesday gave Wal-Mart the go-ahead to buy a 51 per cent stake in Massmart provided the US retailer does not lay off any workers for two years.

The condition is designed to placate organised labour, which has accused the world's largest retailer of union-bashing.

"We have decided to approve the merger subject to the undertakings made by the parties becoming conditions for the approval," the tribunal said in a statement.

"The merged entity must ensure that there are no retrenchments, based on the merged entity's operational requirements in South Africa, resulting from the merger, for a period of two years."

Wal-Mart in January signed a $2.5 bn offer for a controlling stake in Massmart, which runs nine wholesale and retail chains with 288 stores in 14 African countries.

'Mother of all boycotts'

But the deal has been slammed by South Africa's politically powerful unions. 

The country's largest labour federation, Cosatu, initially threatened "the mother of all boycotts" if the merger went through.

The tribunal has ordered Wal-Mart to honour all existing labour agreements and not challenge the position of the country's largest retail-sector labour union, the South Africa Commercial, Catering and Allied Workers Union.

But Mike Abrahams, a spokesman for SACCAWU, told the Reuters news agency that the union might consider appealing to the Competition Appeals Court.

"We are meeting with our legal representatives to explore legal possibilities," he said.

The deal will for the first time give Arkansas-based Wal-Mart a foothold in Africa and increase its market share in emerging countries, which have been driving its profits as US retail sales have slowed.

The company believes South Africa is a key market for growth, accounting for some 20 per cent of consumer spending on the African continent.

The tribunal acknowledged the merger was likely to have losers, as Wal-Mart's entry might displace small businesses and reduce the market share of some of the country's major retailers.

"That is an inevitable consequence of the competitive process," it said. 

Cheap imports

Unions had raised concerns that Wal-Mart would flood the local market with cheap imports, resulting in job losses at local manufacturers. 

Cosatu also accused the retail giant of being "one of the worst union-bashing employers in the world".

The labour federation pledged on Tuesday to continue its anti-Wal-Mart campaign.

"Overall we think that (the tribunal's approval) is a victory for Wal-Mart and we shall be continuing our campaign against the takeover of the Massmart stores," Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven told eNews television.

"We believe all the reasons for that campaign are still absolutely valid."

The government, which has prioritised job creation in its policies, had also voiced concern about the deal, saying South Africa stood to lose jobs to China if the cost-cutting giant boosted imports.

South Africa is struggling with a 25 per cent unemployment rate.

Ayo Akanbi, an economist at Pan African Investments told the AFP news agency that the investment was a positive development for the country's economy but its impact would only be felt if it contributed to job creation.

"The net effect of the deal will only be favourable for South Africa if it can create jobs and stimulate local industries," Akanbi said.

Source: Agencies

]]>Sun, 5 Jun 2011 05:36:19 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Why women don’t make it to CEO level?]]> Some women are just afraid of accepting cv help and being successful

]]>Wed, 25 May 2011 16:06:44 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Gaddafi: Africa's 'king of kings' ]]> This a good information for my essays about african people`s temperament and culture

]]>Wed, 25 May 2011 16:03:04 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Pan African Bank 'Ecobank' wins 11 country awards at the Banker’s 2010 Awards]]> Speaking about the work in Africa, i wonder if it`s possible to find some cv help there

]]>Wed, 25 May 2011 15:59:06 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Yomi Abiola: Can Fashion Stimulate an Africa Renaissance ?]]> Yeah, yhe chosen photo isn`t the best, maybe you`d like to buy essay the right photoshoping?

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]]>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:18:21 GMT<![CDATA[RE:France–Africa summit in Nice seeks business boost]]>  

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]]>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:17:03 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Central Africa's beguiling republic]]> Excellently written article, if only all bloggers offered the same content as you, the internet would be a much better place

]]>Mon, 18 Apr 2011 20:15:41 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Africa's water infrastructure 'to improve with better governance']]> This country is very poor. The people there have a lot of bad things in their lifes. You can read a lot of research papers about people in that country. 

]]>Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:34:55 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Obama to increase engagement with Africa in 2011]]> I think that hi did a lot of good things for people. You can write order essay  about his activity. 
]]>Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:31:05 GMT<![CDATA[RE:INDIA HAS GRANTED A NEW LINE OF CREDIT OF USD 250 MILLION TO EBID]]>
They have a lot of money. You can buy term papers about ways of waste them. 

 

]]>Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:28:34 GMT<![CDATA[RE:INDIA HAS GRANTED A NEW LINE OF CREDIT OF USD 250 MILLION TO EBID]]> well, those dissertations you've been talking about, were really powerful and very imaginative if you know what i mean

]]>Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:31:59 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Obama to increase engagement with Africa in 2011]]> i always tried to look nice while talking about some research paper to deal with, if you know what i mean exactly

]]>Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:30:33 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Obama to increase engagement with Africa in 2011]]>]]>Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:29:45 GMT<![CDATA[Sameul Et'o Why Is He Famous?]]>  

Samuel Eto’o knows how to win. This three-time African Footballer of the Year has captured three La Liga titles, two UEFA Champions League titles, two Copa del Rey, two Spanish Super Cups, two African Cup of Nations, and one Olympic medal over the last decade. He now hopes to add to his trophy case with a championship at the 2010 FIFA World Cup. “That's my dream,” he says. “I am already lucky enough to have an Olympic gold medal from Sydney, when we beat Spain in the final. Who is to say that we can't do the same again in South Africa?”
 
Samuel Eto'o Quote
" “I’ve always said that football is free. I don’t know of anything else in the world you can get such an emotional jolt from, to go so quickly from anger to bliss in two minutes. Soccer is the only weapon -- I take that back -- it is the most important thing in the world, only surpassed by politics. But where politics stops, football begins. Two countries could be at war, but when the game begins they put down their guns.” - Samuel Eto’o, 2008"
 
80 MAGNETISM
David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo get all the credit. Samuel Eto’o has everything a woman could want in a partner: A sharp mind, a chiseled physique, a charitable spirit, and a bulging bank account. That probably explains why this ruggedly handsome 29-year-old striker has been off the market since July 6, 2007, when he married his longtime girlfriend Georgette. The jet-setting pair presently spends most of their free time in Paris, where Georgette lives with their three children: Étienne, Maelle and Siena.
86 SUCCESS
 
Samuel Eto’o is Africa’s gift to football. This prolific Cameroonian striker has been keeping defenders on their heels since 1997 when he made his professional debut with Leganés in Spain’s Segunda Division B. He has since scored 175 goals in 337 club appearances and is the all-time leading scorer in the history of the African Nations Cup. “It's all about hunger and commitment,” he says. “I keep scoring because I keep wanting to score. I am never satisfied. I always fight.” Those are frightening words indeed for anyone who has the misfortune of facing Cameroon at the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
 
SAMUEL ETO'O BIOGRAPHY
Samuel Eto'o has overcome one obstacle after another to become football’s most feared striker. “I was born in a lost corner of Africa, in the middle of nowhere in Cameroon, a place where only one boy out of 10 achieves a good level of education,” he says. Eto’o may have languished like many of his peers had he not discovered football and, more specifically, Cameroonian forward Roger Milla, at a young age. “I was lucky enough to have seen him play a great match when I was only 6,” he recalls. “At the end of the match, Milla threw his shirt to the fans and I was very lucky to catch it. Ever since then, I was fascinated by football.”
Samuel Eto’o Plays For Cameroon
Samuel Eto’o began practicing around the clock and within nine short years he was invited to play for Cameroon. “I was 15 when I made my debut for the national team,” he recalls. “Then I found out that the game was being watched by Pirri.” The legendary defensive midfielder was so impressed with Eto’o’s skills that he convinced Real Madrid to sign him on the spot. The Spanish super club promptly loaned him to Leganés in Segunda Division B, where he scored four goals in 30 appearances during the 1997-1998 season.
 
“That early experience helped me to grow and become strong inside,” he says. It also earned him a spot on Cameroon’s squad at the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France, where he was the youngest player in the entire tournament.
Source: askmen
]]>Thu, 17 Feb 2011 10:59:40 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Why women don’t make it to CEO level?]]> Very informative, even if read casually. Thanks for the article.
Tell me, on what specific load you now expect?

]]>Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:07:01 GMT<![CDATA[The Late Great Liberia Must Rise Again By Bishop R.W Chea]]> The Road Ahead: A Vision for Liberia's Future - Bishop R.W. Chea's Lecture

My Dear Fellow Liberians: Greetings! I pray this message finds you in great spirit! Our once great Liberia must rise again; and the countless tears of our people must be wiped away. Our dignity as a great people must be redeemed both in Africa and the world; we must be restored back to our rightful place in Africa and among developing nations. Our country must be saved from the very hands of those who brought it into waywardness and political, economic and social paralysis.
 
Yes, in response to some, we are once again at a "crossroads" of important decisions regarding our beloved country, and of that we are fully aware. 
 
We know what we want, and though achieving it is the issue and does not come without difficulty; but settling for less than what we deserve is not the remedy for our problem. 
 
We are the people facing the real problem, and we know what's best for us not outsiders!  I understand that I don't speak for everyone in terms of this current administration, but I'm very certain that I speak for the majority of natives in desperate need of real change in Liberia.  
 
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's Message Questions:
This last state of the union address surely reveals the heart of our president, all in her own words.  Was that a "state of the union" or "state of the party" (Unity Party) 
Related Storie
Bishop R.W. Chea: The Dream of A United Africa
Bishop R.W Chea: THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR AFRICA!
 
address?  Was she addressing the country or her party?  Saying "the Unity Party" throughout her message and "Unity Partisans", and not "my administration", is not a good sign!  It is very unhealthy coming from one who claims she's for reconciliation; it is not helpful in light of national unity!  It denotes ownership by the Unity Party.  Is this president really serious?  Is she for real?  The mouth can only communicate what the heart has conceived!  I thought an administration was to be inclusive of others and not exclusive to a single party?  Have we gone back to the days of one party system (TWP) ushered in by Anthony Gardiner?  If we did, I was not aware!  Was it a message to us that yes indeed the TWP is back in the form of UP and must maintain ownership?  Are they planning to hijack the elections by all means?.  
 
Liberia is in more trouble than we may realize, and I concur with Dr. Gbaba that there be an Interim Government in order to allow room for the implementation of the TRC recommendations that would never see the light of day under this administration; and perhaps not even under a new administration in the event the names of its key members are also included on the list of those banned from public office for the period outlined in the report.  This would also serve as an assurance for a guaranteed "absence of citizens' intimidation and harassment".  I also concur with Rev. Cllr. Jeyweh in his proposal regarding the constitution, if Liberia must be a viable country.  Though my agreement in this regard is only in part; in that the 1986 Constitution does not need repealing, but some serious amendments are very necessary under Articles 91 & 92.  One provision in the Constitution under Article 90, which has to do with "Conflict of Interest", is limited and unclear in light of the penalties of violation. 
 
This must be taken seriously and amended in the Constitution as a result of gross violation by government officials without consequence; and this must be enforced in order to avoid further economic sabotage. 
 
The Liberian political system needs some restructuring; it needs an overhaul, and this must be done in the constitution if real change must become a reality.  I have read the constitution a few times, and I must say it is very limited to be the blueprint for any nation, and certainly not in this 21st century. 
 
If Liberia must be a developing nation that can compete in a global economy, this must be done, and must be taken very seriously.  Why would Liberians want to "invest their lives" in a country where there is no apparent end to hopelessness in sight?  I'm always puzzled as I read sections of the Liberian constitution, and can't help but wonder where we are headed if we continue on this narrow path; and this path must be broadened.          
 
The TRC recommendations are not less harsh than the penalty of imprisonment outlined in Article 76 of the Liberian Constitution; which also needs to be seriously amended (Section b) in light of the new culture of impunity. 
 
If the TRC recommendations are not appropriate for this administration, then let the constitution take its effect and let it be invoked by its citizens without fear of retaliation.  Now of course this is not going to happen; and in order for Liberia to move forward, the TRC recommendations must be implemented.  Liberia cannot continue to have a culture of impunity!
 
War criminals cannot continue to go free and be handsomely rewarded for their heinous crimes against our people, while very sound and well educated Liberians desiring to help move our country forward, who have not shed the blood of a single Liberian, are denied the privilege of serving their country in the best interest of the people.  What will encourage our people to go back home?  We all long for the day when we shall finally return; but really, what do we go back to?  There must be some new changes, and serious changes to warrant our permanent return back home.   
 
One other significant change that must take effect in light of the constitution is the term of the president under Articles 50, 61 & 93.  The Constitution also gives birth to dictatorship, in that it gives the president no accountability; and when there is no accountability, you cannot expect one to govern with conscience and transparency in the best interest of the country, especially a country like Liberia. 
 
Liberia In The Past:
We must go back to the four year term of 1907, taking away two years from the president's current six years.  How do we know that this president will not add her one year to the term to make it seven?  After all, she wouldn't be the first!  The longer they stay in office, the more they tend to claim their right (greed) to ownership.  Power is sweet; it's like honey in the mouth of an African leader, and how dare you try to take that sweet honey away?  When you try, it spells trouble!  Whatever happened to her claim or promise that she would not seek a second term?  It was false - all lies to begin with.  What do you expect from the woman who did everything she could to be president at all cost regardless of the number of innocent Liberian lives that would be lost and the destruction of our country in the process?  Her desperate quest for the presidency was all that mattered to her and nothing else; and it was selfishness to its highest degree!  After all she had done, the Liberian people gave her the benefit of doubt by voting for her (though with a question mark in my opinion), and she won their confidence by stating that she would not seek a second term, and here we are again.      
 
In light of the TRC recommendations, what else do you expect from the one who is one of the most guilty, if not the most guilty of all in light of the 14-year senseless war?  Do you expect the TRC recommendation to be implemented under this current administration when the leader herself is included on that list of persons banned from office?  Do you expect this to happen when other parties included on the list are currently serving in all three branches of the government?  Don't be deceived! 
 
The president was all for it when she thought she had "clearance", up until her name was included among the others.  I can only assume (rightfully) that she perhaps thought that the commission was going to keep her out because "she's the president". 
 
The bottom line is when you point your finger, there are three pointing back at you and one pointing up; there are three witnesses who are the recipients of your fingers when you point, namely the person you are pointing at, yourself and God.  This president is only reaping what she has sown; it's noting more than what she's done to others in the name of "I can do it better", now our country is destroyed.  She has no intention of implementing the TRC recommendations period.   
 
In light of the level of corruption in our country, that continues to keep it handicapped, what do you expect from the very one who is primarily responsible for our destruction?  I paraphrase: "destroy it and we will rebuild it", and I'm sure you can recall that; or perhaps I should quote exactly her very reckless and selfish remark on BBC: "burn down Monrovia and we will rebuild it"!  Where is the development she promised? 
 
We repeatedly voted for these ferocious wolves who have wreaked havoc on our country, leaving it in utter despair, desperately crying and shedding blood for tears.  The hopelessness we face today is of our own making!  Do we have to arrive at the point of almost total annihilation before we take a stand for what is good and right in light of the survival and development of our country?   
 
I'm very much appalled by the actions of people who continue to support those who have killed our people without conscience to accomplish their own selfish agendas!  And those who support them do so in order to accomplish their own selfish agendas as well.  Every man is entitled to his position and must follow his heart, but let it also be in the best interest of the county.  I know there are Africans who endeavor to lead out of pure motive for the betterment of their countries and their people; or at least those who would not allow their selfish agendas clouding their judgment and ability to lead properly.  We have examples of men like Kwame Nkrumah (though he had his political short comings), Jerry Rawlings, Julius Nyerere, and Nelson Mandela.  I know it's possible in Liberia, but the constitution issue must be deeply considered.  Against the popular notion, I'm certain that there are Liberians who truly love and care for the people they desire or aspire to lead; and would truly like to improve the quality of life of our people from the present state of degradation, desperation and hopelessness to that of redemption, glorification and hopefulness!       
 
How can you have a country with a good political, economic, social and educational balance when its people are held captive by fear and ignorance?  Who created the ignorance of our people to begin with?  Those who wrote the original constitution and established two classes of citizens, and enjoyed the wealth of the nation while its natives were sentenced to the bondage of ignorance and poverty!  Now we are at a crossroads and must make a very wise decision in light of the development of our country.  We cannot survive on lies and deception; and cannot depend on the very same people who deliberately and arrogantly destroyed our country to accomplish their own personal and selfish agendas.  We must say enough is enough!   
 
Vote Liberians For The Truth:
How can you ever have a reasonably decent government when vicious people, cold blooded murderers, thieves and thugs are running such government?  How can you have a viable country when those who aspire to lead only embark on such endeavor solely to enrich themselves, their families and friends?  Only God Almighty can save a country like Liberia and deliver us from our chronic disease - the mentality of regression.  Every Liberian has an obligation to the land in this election, and must make their voice heard in the benefit of the people; they must do so for the betterment of our country and nothing less.  Anything other than that, we will have ourselves to blame again.  This ever lingering imperial dynasty must come to an end and not continue to be a shadow over our people!  Vote your heart; vote your conscience, for the benefit of the country, and not from a selfish motive!    
 
It is only sad that the Liberians in the diaspora cannot vote; and this is why all the more the system must be changed to improve the way we think and act, and have a better political system.  However, I understand that everyone cannot go to Liberia for one reason or another, that's just impossible; but those who cannot go to Liberia at the time of the elections, yet have the power to influence votes for the candidate of their choice.  This you can do by establishing a mini party headquarter with your family members and friends, who will then spread the message to others in your absence.  You can do this knowing that our people are easily influenced by small change (though for their own benefit in this regard and not in the normal deceptive manner employed by some), and that is what's happening on the ground.  If this was to be done by everyone, considering the fact that majority rules with one voice, there will be a much greater voice coming from the diaspora.  Make your voice heard!   
 
In light of dual citizenship, many of us would like to return and give back to our beloved country.  We have and continue to develop ourselves, and would like to contribute and make a real difference in our country, but how are we encouraged to go back home in the midst of uncertainties?  Why is our youthfulness wasting away in the diaspora when we could be back home?  Why are outsiders enjoying Liberia while contributing to factors that are elements of poverty, when her people are in the diaspora for lack of economic assurance?  I'm 100% for dual citizenship with one sanction, that it is limited to blacks only, regardless of place of birth and no other.  There are full Liberians who are not Liberian citizens; half Liberians who are not Liberian citizens; as well as non-Liberian spouses of Liberians, who may love Liberia, but may never take the country very seriously in the absence of dual citizenship; they need assurance of equal opportunity and to be recognized as being fully Liberian.  This would help bring about a viable economy once again.  Let Liberians and blacks from everywhere come and bring development and constructive ideas, and help pour into our very crippled and devastated economy, and bring social change that will improve the quality of life of our people.     
 
Rebuilding Liberia:
All Liberians have to do their share in getting Liberia to be a viable country once again.  Get involved and be a part of the process of development; help bring real change to our country and not merely sit around, talk, write, argue and somehow try to demean each other.  The beautiful Palmbale land in Little Cola, Grand Bassa County is owned by my family; it was my grandfather's and the deed is held by my mother who is the steward.  I certainly have great plans for that land in light of development in Liberia, and a county in which I grew up as a little boy before taking residence in Monrovia.  Sweet Liberia will certainly be sweet again if every Liberian who can, will only do their share.  I commend all who are taking on initiatives for our country, and I salute you!  Don't exploit your own people as some have done, they have suffered enough; let their pain be your motivation, and the resulting blessing for you will be fulfilling and rewarding!  
 
The late great Liberia must rise again; and her cry for redemption must not be ignored for personal enrichment.  Our once great Liberia must shine again; and the countless tears of our people must be wiped away.  Hope must be restored to our people; and the level of their self-esteem must be elevated!  Help change the system; vote or send money to influence votes in a positive direction; make your voice heard!  I conclude with the very popular phrase of the early 1980s: "In the cause of the people, the struggle continues!"  
 
Sincerely and respectfully,   
Bishop R.S.W. Chea, Th.D.
President & C.E.O.
Adonai International
A Concerned Liberian for Progress & Real Change
www.adonaiworldwide.org
]]>Fri, 4 Feb 2011 13:40:02 GMT<![CDATA[RE:Yomi Abiola: Can Fashion Stimulate an Africa Renaissance ?]]> And so what? Maybe she isn't a perfect beauty, but this is not a reason for laughing on her. I think a real TROLL here is YOU :(

writing essay help
 
]]>Fri, 4 Feb 2011 03:42:57 GMT<![CDATA[Nestle to invest $1 bln in Africa over next 2 years]]>  

LAGOS (Reuters) - Nestle, the world's biggest food group, said on Thursday it would invest 1 billion Swiss francs expanding capacity in Africa over the next two years.
 
Chief Executive Paul Bulcke made the comments at the opening of a 12 billion naira factory to produce Maggi seasoning cubes in the southwestern state of Ogun in Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa's second-biggest economy.
 
"This latest investment is proof of our commitment to Africa in which we will invest 1 billion Swiss francs over the next two years," Bulcke said.
 
Nestle has operated in Nigeria for five decades. The new factory in Ogun is its 27th in Africa.
 
Several global brands in the fast-moving consumer goods sector have announced investment in Nigeria in recent weeks, including the world's largest Coke bottler Coca-Cola Hellenic (CCH) and British soap and shampoo maker PZ Cussons.
 
Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation, with more than 150 million people, and is seen as one of the world's last relatively untapped but scaleable frontier markets.
 
Source: Reuters Africa
]]>Thu, 3 Feb 2011 19:10:49 GMT<![CDATA[West Africa seems likely to be hit by Jasmine’s smell?]]>  

As protestors in Egypt continue to push out dictator Hosni Mubarak out of office after three decades in office, anti dictator activists in West Africa are keeping their fingers under lock to see if the dose of the Jasmine will surely spread across their region. Days of protests have left the rest of the world to watch in awe, as people still are in shock if the events are real or fiction. But as night fell and the skies continue to be darkened, protestors also became more emboldened and expressed their determination to continue the demonstrating till Hosni Mubarak is flashed out. 
 
And as Egypt becomes the second country in North Africa to face unrest immediately after Tunisia-the architect of what has become known as the Jasmine Revolution- people are now singling out dictatorial regimes in the continent. The list certainly runs tall: Zimbabwe, Gabon, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Morocco, Swaziland, Central African Republic, Uganda, Sudan, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Togo etc. The list surely is tall but the jasmine must be spread on regional basis. Whilst North Africa obviously becomes the birth of such a revolution, people are now looking further across sub of the Sahara to West Africa for a spread of the jasmine. Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Togo surely come to mind.
 
Though Togo appears to be heading to a somewhat reform, it is all cosmetic. Both Burkina Faso and Cameroon need the jasmine flavor more than anyone other regimes in the sub-region. Cote D’Ivoire’s case is pretty much different, though I’m confident it sure will not that as well. But the two French speaking countries have had dictatorial regimes that are impervious to change and free speech, clamping down heavily on dissent. Corruption, human rights abuses and massive unemployment are very deeply nailed into the hearts of the millions of citizens in these countries who live on less than a dollar a day. 
 
 
The increasing levels of poverty very much contrast the affluent and gluttonous lifestyles of the leadership of the autocratic regimes. Cameroon dictatorial leader Paul Biya has refused to listen to wisdom to reform, as he continues to use his position to plunder the resources in his country. A day’s makeover of his wife is ten times the live savings of a Cameroonian who has served in the civil service for many than three decades of his life. The same could be said about Burkina Faso, where Blaise Compoare has spent decades in office plundering the resources of his country at the expense of the already oppressed. The two dictators are obviously perfect target for the revolution.
 
Meanwhile in Egypt, a protester tweeted to the BBC the following soon after Mubarak finished a midnight broadcast: "We want a resignation speech from Mubarak, nothing else will satisfy us." His broadcast was the first after he pig headedly turned a blind eye and ear to the voices on the streets. It was his first speech since protestors took to the streets in almost a week, leading to the destruction of properties and scores of casualties. Events in Egypt are still shocking especially when one considers the brutish nature of Mubarak’s regime that had been sustained by an equally brutish security force. The protest comes on the heels of a similar one in Tunisia which led to the collapse of the twenty three year old regime of dictator, Ben Ali. Protestors in that country stood to the grounds despite the brutish nature of the regime.
 
They took the fight to them and at the end of the day, the same security regime turned around in support of the people. The peoples defiant is what is providing an incentive to ordinary Egyptians who now feel embolden to take the fight to a regime that had not only deprived them of jobs but sealed their lips to free expression.
 
There are countless numbers of activists locked behind bars without trial, as Mubarak, who has the backing of the US, appears to be grooming his son,Gamal, to take over. Obviously overwhelmed by the momentum from the protestors the government shut down communication links, hoping to prevent people from spreading the message of the protest around, via social network. That did not deter protestors to stay up in the streets despite the imposition of curfew. 
 
The embattled dictator is hanging on the support of the US government to hold on to power. It is however clear that support is because of Egypt’s recognition of Israel as an existing state, a position which is in avariance with other Arab countries in the Middle East. However, the US government is appears unwilling to have his back this time around: “Surely, there will be difficult days to come, but the United States will continue to stand up for the rights of the Egyptian people and work with their government in pursuit of a future that is more just, more free and more hopeful," Mr. Obama said. 
 
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has also backed calls for reform: "I think what we need is reform in Egypt. We support reform and progress in the greater strengthening of their democracy and civil rights and the rule of law.
 
"Clearly there are grievances that people have and they need to be met and matched. "I don't think it's in anyone's interest that people are being killed on the streets of Egypt as we speak, and so I hope the violence will cease.
 
"But clearly, when you have people who have grievances and problems that want them responded to, it's in all our interests that these countries have stronger rule of law, stronger rights, stronger democracy."
 
Source: osabuteyanny
]]>Tue, 1 Feb 2011 19:51:11 GMT<![CDATA[Why women don’t make it to CEO level?]]>  

Imagine this; a six foot tall woman with golden dreads and fine long legs in a mini suit swinging her hips all the way into the corner office, nodding at people she passes by. Her neat-sparkling desk has a photo frame of her family, and a gold nameplate displaying her title, “Chief Executive Officer.”
 
The scene sounds normal, but it is quite rare to find in a typical Tanzanian workplace.
Women have come along way since the olden times whereby their place was at home, but now they have entered in the workforce.
 
But, despite feminism and girl power, women still face barriers to make it to the top management.
Definitely, women can compile important business reports, file, fax, travel and give presentations just as well as any men. 
But it is clear that the situation at hand is, women are under-represented at the upper-level.
They don’t just seem to break the glass ceiling.
 
As a result, their earning potential and decision making capability is also limited. 
Gender stereotyping, preferred styles of leadership, women’s own timidness and attitudes all have been cited as contributing factors.
 
The politics game 
But one of the factors that is never pointed out is office politics. Experts contend that the fact that women are relatively new in the working world, means that they don’t know how to play their cards right as they rise up the ladder.
 
Career research says that while hard work and dedication are crucial for one to move from the bottom to the top, one needs more guts and instinct.
 
“Most women burry themselves in work and forget to play the visibility card. They don’t even know what happens in the next cubicle. They often get passed for promotion as the men are busy playing golf or having social evening to catch the big boys favour,” says Lilian Amasa, 38, who works in a pharmaceutical firm in Dar es Salaam.  
 
Her sentiments are backed by Margaret Simon, 34, a corporate affairs manager in Dar es Salaam.
Magret who works in a bank, has experienced her coworkers who are less talented than her getting on top while she has stuck in the same position for seven years.
 
“In my office normal promotion norms are by passed. Men go extra miles deliberately being puppets of the bosses, covering up their mistakes with a conscious plan to get the promotion,” she says.
 
But the women are no better.
“At my office women are less friendly and much more they backstab each other but men have a certain bond which I can not be in it. You will see them hanging out in the clubs and have a lot of chatting, which personally as a mother and wife can’t join. They give each other promotion due to the closeness they have,” she says.
 
Magret says some of her female co-workers play the politics well and some even sleep with bosses to make way to the top but for her the whole idea is uncomfortable.
 
“I can not fake that I enjoy the company of my boss. And that is who I am. I can’t lower my pride,” she says.
A survival tactic that is quite evident as the furnace thins, is that office politics exist in almost all work places globally, according to human resource officer, Alice Malima from a local bank. 
 
“Nobody teaches politics in university or in management schools or in corporate training rooms but many play it. But women sometimes have more difficulty dealing with this kind of situation than their male coworkers because of their attitudes of being forthright,” she says.
 
She adds that, women can be frustrated by workplace interaction that seems to require altering their approach.
But for Anita Rwehumbiza, a general manager with Pearson, a publishing company in Dar es Salaam, blames women’s attitudes for their inability to take the corner office.
 
“Women have this say; I need people to recognise me instead of ;I want to be recognised by people. To get to the top a woman must show-off her capacity just like men rather than locking herself in the office and dying with work,” she says.
For her to be on top she depended on networking and proving to people that she could handle the task.
 
The men’s world  
As we are living in the third world, the myth that men are better still exists. 
 
A recent study by Gender Links of South Africa in partnership with GEMSA (Gender and Media Southern Africa) network concluded that patriarchal attitudes are largely responsible for the glass ceiling in media houses.
 
The study revealed discouraging working conditions as the leading reason as to why there are fewer women in Tanzania’s media. Other factors include that of men being favoured more than women.
 
A senior female journalist who experienced glass ceilings at her workplace was quoted in this study.
 
“In 1994 I left teaching and joined a news company as a sub-editor. But after serving in this position for two  years without a promotion, I left in 2005 in protest and decided to venture into business.
 
 “On many occasions I have taken up the issue of promotion with top management without success. All they have done is to promise that something will be done. Nothing ever happens after that. When you complain and ask why other people are being promoted, they say they have strengths which I do not have. Yet nobody explains these strengths or gives you a convincing reason why you cannot be promoted. 
 
 Sometimes you just hear people murmuring that the bosses say they cannot promote a woman. “I have given up, because you complain to the same men who have made up their minds that they will not promote a woman. Some of these men are less educated than I, and would feel threatened if I were to be their boss or hold an influential position in this company.
 
  “Even for those who have managed to break the glass ceiling it has not been easy. A couple of months ago a woman managing editor was not allowed to attend management meetings because she was a woman. She had to fight her way through. But when a man replaced her, the same objections were not extended to him.”
 
 Godius Kahyarara, an economist and researcher at the university of Dar es Salaam agrees that the patriarchal system has affected workplace culture.
 
“Men see themselves as natural leaders so it takes extra work for a woman to be a leader. Even women themselves have the mentality that they cannot take the lead,” she says.
Kahyarara also adds that the mentality has made women to be too choosy when it comes to careers.
 
 
Too many excuses 
 
A typical career woman is a busy bee. If married, she can simultaneously work and raise a family, but sometimes she is typically viewed as less stable when performing both roles. According to a book, Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap And What Women Can Do About It by Warren Farrell.
 
The reason men are offered top positions   over women is due to the perception that women like to maintain a balance between their home and careers, while men focus more on careers.
A human resource officer of a mobile phone company, Anna Swai agrees that female employees can be less reliable than men when it comes to their availability.
 
 “Women are perfect at work, but they mix work with personal life. They rarely make mistakes but they have a lot of excuses like breastfeeding, going to school graduations. This makes them less reliable since at the end of the day productivity is what a firm needs,” she says.
 
Anna says that when it comes to promoting a woman, a lot of factors have to be considered and unmarried women are in a better position of getting a boost. 
 
“For a person to be on top, he or she must be available, productive, creative, confident and a good team player,” she says.  
Dina Bina (54), a successful woman entrepreneur and CEO of Dina Flowers and a life coach in Dar es Salaam disagrees that a woman’s success can be turned down if she multitasks.
 
“Women are natural multi-taskers even if they have big families and demanding careers,” she says.
Dina says the only way for women to make sure they balance work and family is to find a way to save time with household activities.
 
She advises working women to invest in buying housework gadgets and save time while doing housework.
“Buy a rice cooker, a gas stove, a microwave, a refrigerator, a dishwasher, washing machine, a vacuum cleaner and anything that will save time with house work, so that you can extend your work hours at the office,” says the married mother of two.
 
She also advises women to hire a nanny or maid that would help to handle children.
“Times have changed. Nowadays, children are proud and happy seeing their mums are in senior positions,” she says.
Dina says the only tool for reaching the top is good performance.
 
“Women should try to focus while at work. Good performance will prove wrong the myth that women are lazy,” she says.
Dina who was a mere flourist, her business has now grown up to be a huge success.
 
Hard work 
But starting a company is obviously not an option for every woman, especially those fresh out of college since they have no capital. But by being employed some Tanzanian women have made it to the top.
 
Being in a senior position came through hardwork for Dr Mwele Malecela (47), a recently appointed director general of the National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR).
 
Malecela says that it took her extra long hours of work for her to make it to the top. 
“I can multitask, that is why I have achieved my goals,” she says.
 
Source: sherriekola@yahoo.com 
]]>Sun, 23 Jan 2011 08:14:24 GMT<![CDATA[African players, teams capable of dominating world football – Hudanski]]>