France and Mali: The Operation Begins

Malian soldiers have captured the key town of Konna from Islamists rebels in a major offensive backed by the French Army. The French President has said the aim of the French Army is to give life and hope to the government of Traore in Mali and this seems to be yielding positive results. Read More

Central African Republic and the Rebellion

If the agreement reached between the rebels and the government of the Central African Republic is anything to go by, then the country could be on her way out of the current fiasco. The United Nations has offered to engage more forcefully, politically, financially and diplomatically with the country and the rebels. Read More

Africa: The Angles to the stories

While South Africa is battling with various strikes, brutality and an unknown future, Kenya is brewing up in tribal conflicts in preparation for election and having sleepless nights over al Shabab in Somalia. Rwanda on her own has rejected the deployment of drones to Congo in a war she is accused of supporting the M23 rebels. Central African Republic is facing a hot contest from the rebels hell-bent on deposing the President. Nigeria has Boko Haram to deal with. Mali has become a country of bombs and land of destructions. Read More

Kenya and Technology

Kenya continues to add more medals to its giant technological stride in Africa. Safaricom finally has the iPhone 5 in stock. Unlocked (free to use on any network) 16 GB versions of the phone are now available in Safaricom shops at KSh. 109,999. CIO East Africa announced in September last year that Safaricom had plans to stock the device.

Nigeria and the Lions: Death of Tourism

                                Photo Courtesy: allafrica.com

Report released in London indicated that various species of lions in Nigeria and other countries in West Africa face increasing decline and are most probably on the verge of extinction in few years if nothing is done to redress the ugly trend.

While countries in East Africa are waking up everyday to the benefits of  tourism and making all attempts to stop the extinction of lions and other wildlife animals.

West Africa is completely sleeping. Nigeria's tourism can earn her billions of naira in foreign exchange  but the easy oil cash which encourages corruption is preventing all investments in the sector.

 The Yankari Games Reserve is almost dead. With the Islamists in Mali now and Boko Haram in Nigeria, one wonders if any tourist sector will survive in West Africa because all the regions that these two operate in are the best for wildlife and tourism; Northern Nigeria and Northern Mali

Growing up in Africa

The elections of both Sierra Leone and Ghana show a brighter side for Africa. The two countries are models to copy from. Despite all the catastrophes in Nigeria, Somalia, Mali, DR Congo, Central African Republic, Egypt not excluding the building political turmoil in Kenya, Africa with these two can boast of better days ahead. Read More

US and Afghanistan: A Future Ready

The United States' President, Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai have discussed the kind of future that is possible for Afghanistan. The US troops as known will not totally withdraw in full as more needs to be done on the Afghan security forces.A good percentage of US troops will remain in Afghanistan for training and advisory purposes. Read More

France and Mali: State of Emergency Declared

The government of Mali has declared a state of emergency to allow the French troops perform perfectly in the country. The Islamists linked to al Qaeda has been destroying the historical artefacts and monuments in Mali. The UN has already given ECOWAS the go-ahead to combat the rebels but no action has been taken. The coming of France is a relief to Traore and his regime. Read More

From Israel to Palestine

Palestinian youths discuss their ordeal and treatment in Israeli jails. Read More

Aljazeera and US

For a long period of time, Aljazeera has tried all its best to break into the media outfit of the United States. She continues to display the demand in her online news centre calling for citizens to demand Aljazeera in the United States. Despite being a land of media freedom, the US is averse to Aljazeera. Why? The history of Aljazeera is that of Western antagonism but along the line, she dropped this aspect and became kind of objective on Western actions especially that of the United States. Now, it has a breakthrough into the US news market. Read More

Palestinian shot dead by Israel

A Palestinian farmer has been shot dead in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources say.

A health ministry official said the 22-year-old man was hit by Israeli army fire near Jabaliya refugee camp, in the north of the coastal territory.

US and Afghanistan: Discussing a Future

President Barack Hussein Obama has welcomed his counterpart from Afghanistan, Hamid Kazai to the White House to discuss the future of Afghanistan. The United States has until 2014 as her deadline to stay in the country. There would be bilateral arrangement and agreement on security, peace talks with the Taliban, Afghan elections and other allied matters because the current level of Afghan combat readiness and control of insurgency is still not fully recommendable. Read More

Freedom: Shaking up the Shura in Saudi Arabia

The agitation for freedom around the world is beginning to yield dividends. Women are crucial to the development of  a nation and any attempt to subvert their freedom is creating a loophole for doom. The realisation of this has made King Abdullah move to a revolutionary stance by appointing women into his cabinet.

For the first time, Saudi Arabian women will advise the king on policy and legislation. King Abdullah appointed 30 female advisors to the all-male Consultative Council. They will have a separate entrance to the chamber and sit apart from the men. Read More

Noises from Nigeria

The recent interview granted the erstwhile President of Nigeria, President Olusegun Obasanjo by CNN and the uproar it generated within the government circle is nothing but mere noises as usual. Obasanjo's outburst of the endemic corruption in the Jonathan administration is not untrue but the basis of that outburst can be questioned likewise that of the government handling of the Boko Haram menace. Obasanjo traveled to Britain to launch a foundation for African children, one wonders how many African countries he visited before going to Britain. Is his action not a kind of writing his own continent off?

Besides, the whole saga between the strong man of Owu and the Otu-oke don revolves around 2015; who gets what, when and how. Abati, the media spokesman of the President, Goodluck Jonathan  is the worst of all. He came out publicly to say his boss needs no lecture from anybody on how to tackle insurgency. One begins to wonder if the United States' counter-terrorists experts requested for by his boss are coming just to sleep with no advise and ways of actions. Saying his boss has the best way to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency is confirming his own stupidity and the regime's ineptitude.

Education and Africa: What Future?

The government of Mali has ordered the closure of schools around Bamako due to the attacks of the Islamists. Mali is not the only one in this quagmire. In Northern Nigeria, Boko Haram has made education so uninteresting in a region in diehard need of learning and enlightenment. The activities of the Boko Haram sect has turned schools into fearful environmernts. DR Congo is having sleepless nights. Despite the unilateral ceasefire of the M23 rebels, no one knows what to come next.

Joseph Kony continues to recruit child soldiers, thereby creating a bleak and militarised future for these young ones in Uganda. Central African Republic is having lots of nightmares due to rebels' activities which, just like Mali, could soon totally affect education. Somalia for decades have no functioning educational system. Though Kenya is recording giant strides in learning and innovation but with the various tribal wars, it is just a matter of time before the deja vu of 2008 is witnessed and youths result  into weapons handling.

Africa lost out in the heinous slave trade, became retarded with colonialism, got stagnant with neo-colonialism and now destroying itself with leadership greed in the globalisation age. Without the education of its youths, Africa can never meet up with the global pace. The leaders are not in any way interested in this.

 Their main concern and issue is how to perpetuate themselves in power and keep on embezzling as if the 'thrones' are their families' properties. It is high time African youths stood up and fight this dieing future wholeheartedly otherwise we will be snail when the world becomes an eagle tomorrow. They have succeeded in infesting our minds with tribalism and carry out the divisive religious campaigns with great dexterity so our voice will never be one and united. Ours is the future and the time is now.

France and Mali

French President, Francois Hollande has made known the intention of his government to support the government of Traore militarily in mali if the Islamist Rebels did not halt their advance.Hollande said the 'Islamists are trying to deliver a fatal blow to the very existence of this country'. He also said France will only work within the authorisation of the United Nations. Long before now, the United Nations has given the regional body, ECOWAS, a green light to stem the tide and advance of the rebels but so far, no cogent action has been taken.

Afghanistan: Lesson of Foreign Wars

                            Afghan President: Hamed karzai
Photo Courtesy: Google Images

The Pentagon and White House are stylishly speeding up withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. The United States has always made the noise of not negotiating with terrorists. An idea she has rammed into the throats of many who never knew how indirectly desperate she has been to talk to the Taliban. Now, the meeting of Panetta and Karzai proves that Washington is wearied. From Vietnam to USSR's Afghanistan down to Somalia, back to Iraq and US' Afghanistan today, no major power has successfully won any foreign interventionist war outrightly. Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Army should have been an everlasting lesson but Washington is drunk in the euphoria of being the only superpower. Iran should be off her table.

The Dilemma in Syria

                                Photo Courtesy: Google Images

The headache in Syria happens to be double now. The first surrounds Assad's usage of chemical weapons if the regime is about to completely fall and no alternative exists. Another is the hysteria about the post-Assad era. Who will get hold of the chemical weapons? In the event that the weapons fall into wrong hands, how can they be tamed? That will definately be a death trap for any foreign troops just like Somalia. It seems the best open alternative now is to talk Assad out of power.

Israel and the United States

Israel and the United States

Who controls who?

                   Photo Courtesy: Google Images

The unfolding drama over the appointment of Chuck Hagel and John Brennan is playing out like an Hollywood 24 Hours movie staring Jack Bauer. Chuck Hagel has been confirmed from all quarters as more than qualified but it seems some people will not get over the 'daymare' of Barack Obama winning the presidency. From the protest letter of secession to fiscalcliff now to Chuck Hagel and his purported anti-Israeli stance, America is telling the world that all is well and really well too only if a white 'guy' is in the White House for white reasons.

It is totally open that the fear of Israel is the beginning of wisdom for America. The revered erstwhile Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon has opined before that Americans themselves know that Israel controls their country. The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has bought the hearts and minds of Americans. It is never against human rights if Israel kills Palestinians, blocks funds, occupy lands illegally and build settlements at will. It is never against human rights to kill harmless Palestinian protesters at Israel's leisure. Israel has every right to defend itself by killing innocent Palestinians with flimsy excuses of Hamas' human shield but it is an act of aggression if Iran sends US' drone away from her airspace.

Chuck Hagel is a Vietnam veteran. A pentagon foot soldier who still carries shrapnel wounds around. Chuck and his brother Tom were the first two brothers to serve in the same unit in the army. Chuck rescued his brother when he was almost killed by a landmine. His own convoy was later hit causing him severe injuries. He is a realist alongside John Brennan not a pacifist who genuflects for Israel. His statement about 'Jewish lobby' is the only thing that disqualifies him in a country he spends his life to defend. Who really owns the US? Americans or Israel? Hagel and Brennan are averse to the use of unnecessary military power. This qualifies them more to Obama.

Alon Pinkus, former Israeli consul to New York gave Chuck a thousand and one pass-marks on the job. He declared that the noise against Hagel is to get at Obama and that those manoeuvering around Israel wants the issue public and create sort of scandal with it. In this, they are succeeding. Publicly, in a joint interview and discussion, President Barack Obama in 2011 calmly and diplomatically informed the rash and harsh Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been confirmed to be a renowned liar by both Obama and Sarkozy, that the best method to end the Palestinian debacle is for Israel to revert to the 1967 borders and renounce all lands it is illegally occupying. Netanyahu openly, publicly blatantly rebuffed this, calling it an indefensible border. Indefensible indeed to the only nuclear power in the Middle East.

In presenting the duo, Barack Obama said: 'Chuck knows war is not an abstraction. He understands that sending American troops to fight and bleed...is something we have to do when it's ABSOLUTELY necessary. (Emphasis mine). This of course does not and cannot go down well with Binyamin and his American apologists who as at now are impatient to see the first bomb land on Iranian soil. It is in this 'daymare' that a UK-based Iranian foreign policy expert, Mohamed Ali Shabari, who shuttles Tehran and Britain confirmed that officials in Tehran believe the US cannot afford a war now and are less worried. They even hold on to the notion that the least credible thing to occur is an Israeli attack.

Hagel has been labeled 'enemy of Israel, friend to Iran'. Is it a crime to be rational on war in the United States when it comes to Israel? Obama is an anti-war President. An end-war leader. Hagel is a military personnel who understands the agony of war. A real human-soldier not monster-soldier. Israel continues to drag and push America into wars she can avoid. Once Israeli leaders ratchet up rhetoric against a potential enemy in the Middle East, the war drum immediately begins to sound in Pentagon and reverberates in the White House. When Israel sneezes, United States catches cold.

Gun Control: Inside the Real America

Gun Control: Inside the Real America

 Piers meets Jones

                                                    

       Photos Courtesy:                CNN                and                     Youtube

America prides itself as the land of freedom, the land where 'anything' is possible. Well, yes! Anything is possible including unregulated shootings. The election of Barack Obama reveals how intolerant Americans can be. From the Obamacare bill to the issue of cutting greenhouse gas emission not excluding the fiscalcliff, Americans mostly those who go with the cry of the 'republic' continue to portray him as a sort of 'imported leader' meant to destabilize the republic. Maybe they should be reminded that the sweats, toils and labour of the black men laid the stones of strength for the most powerful nation on earth.

The Gun control debate opens another chapter in the nature of intolerance in the US. Before Piers Morgan, some states in the US had threatened secession, signing a petition to be allowed to part ways with the US of A. The same US is the country that is fast in condemning and intervening in any country in which a sector is willing to secede calling it freedom and self-determination. She ably monitored the break-up of Sudan and is spreading message of doom on Nigeria. Why not allow hers? The United States has two knives gradually cutting her; the powerful Israeli lobby through AIPAC and the assault rifles proponents through NRA. Just like Obama, Piers Morgan became an easy target.

Alex Jones, an influential public figure with 'Alex Jones Shows' having millions of of audience has gone deep to show the real America. He is irascible, impatient, irrational and extremely intolerant. The best deducible point and fact from his irascibility is that every nation, country and society has principles and by all standard and acceptable norms, such principles must not be toiled with, spoken against or jettisoned especially by outsiders. Such is the Second Amendment to the pro-gun Americans and the American Constitution to Americans. Why then are Americans always quick, fast and sharp to speak against others and even the US outrightly intervening in others' affairs causing pains and agonies with and after her presence?

What is Morgan's crime? That the US should ban all assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons as well as increase her spending and actions on mental illnesses and cases. Are they too much to suggest? Alex Jones is trying to tell the world that the US needs nothing of such. He inherently opined that the US should be a country of mad men wielding assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons as if they are knives. He is saying that the Second Amendment legalizes the shootings and to prevent and protect against the shootings, weapons have to be made available in large numbers for more shootings to guard against the shootings. This can only come from a real gun maniac with real mental frailty.

To Piers Morgan, Jones made a 'heretic' statement by implicitly implicating George W. Bush in the 9/11 attacks but by sources and reports, George Bush received an intelligence report of an impending terrorist attack on the US yet he did nothing. The Bush and the Osama families have ties. They have shares in Carlyle Group, a manufacturing group centred on military industrial complex. The company sold heavy machinery and weapons thereby making large gains in the US-Afghanistan-Iraq war. No past President ever demanded CIA reports though they have the right to but H.W. Bush did request for it and flew to Saudi Arabia. All these after 9/11. In every disorder, there is always an order; such is Alex Jones here. (Watch Fahrenheit 9/11)

After the 9/11 attack, the America Airspace was closed and no flight was allowed out of the country but on the 12^th of September, 2001, a plane flew out of the United States carrying the Osama family members who came for a meeting at Carlyle Group. Can George Bush really be exculpated? Even the Kennedys did not directly answer the question. They systematically sidestep it. Is it wrong to point a conspiracy if one is found in the US and in an American President? If African leaders could be controlled to suffer their own people and continuously do so and Gorbachev could be bribed, deceived and praised into allowing the USSR, a powerful nation at that to disintegrate and he did that cheaply and easily just because the US and the West courted and romanced him, there is virtually nothing any leader in the world cannot do against the people and the country. 9/11 was a kind of smokescreen and a foundational structure to get Saddam.

Alex Jones did not forget to mention a polemical angle worth nothing. This is the zenith of his rantings. He said '1776 will commit itself again' if they try to take away their freedom. Gun is their freedom. Shame. This is significant because after so many centuries, despite eliminating independence anniversary unlike most colonised countries and being hegemonic for decades even having Britain genuflect for their country, some Americans still view Britain as a arch foe. They are also the ones to quickly tell Africa to leave the most inhuman occurrence in human history; slave trade behind. We ask; who are the Americans (in this case, deducing Jones, White Americans) if not British and European immigrants? Alex Jones needs tutelage.

The meaning of 1776 committing itself is what? That the 104,658? signatories supporting the deportation of Piers Morgan could demand America go to war with Britain? Or maybe, that a major row could ensue among ordinary Britons and Americans on the streets and public places? People like Jones in America must know and should know that without Britain and the Black man, there would not have been any foundation for the United States of America.