Sex Scandals Threaten to Bring Down Nation Media Group

Even as he began setting his own agenda, sacking 36 senior managers and sending home a great number of editorial staff over the last six days, Linus Gitahi is a man literally under fire over internal grumbling by staff over the management of the giant Group pridefully coded NMG (Nation Media Group), a media house has reported.

According to a web posting by www.abunuwasi.com, an online media house, the Staff are threatening to take complains out of the newsroom referred in journalism lingua as 'House on the Hill' and to the houses of its senior managers and the streets of Nairobi - a situation Gitahi is working overtime to avoid.

The staff at NMG is complaining of open favoritism, demands for sexual favors and lack of outright professionalism from a large section of its serving senior managers.

The three managers who are mentioned in the letter to the CEO and whose names we withhold to enable our independent investigations are accused of taking sexual escapades with employees to the romantic resort of Malindi in Coast and other places before promoting female employees.

The authors of the letter alleged to be responsible for the recent mass sackings that have sent shockwaves across the giant media house, take issue with specific promotions that they say, "were done without consideration of merit."

In one particular case they say, " the promotion of (name withheld) came after a senior manager (name withheld) took her to Malindi and she did not go through the process she instantly became an editor of one of the pullout magazines (Name of pullout magazine withheld), that is despite the fact that she cannot write anything of literal value and the editing of the (said) magazine is done by correspondents."

The journalists drawn from the Nairobi office and Bureaus countrywide claim in the letter: “We held a meeting at a location which we will not disclose and came up with a clear strategy which we will soon be affecting."

The employees have further warned the new CEO to either sack four of its senior managers or face their wrath through a system they do not disclose in the letter.

"Let us warn them (the managers whose names we withhold) that if their conscience does not warrant them to resign their posts by the end of February we will present their wives with the evidence we have about their escapades, and after that we will also inform the Agha Khan, the founder and Chairman of the Agha Khan Development Network (AKDN), of how his house has been turned into a ‘brothel’, the employees threaten.

A senior female manager in the Human Resources (HR) Section is also being warned to quit her post or be sacked of face an expose of an extra-marital affair with a Director of another leading media house located along Harry Thuku Road.

Gitahi has since responded to demands in the first letter which had a deadline of January and the employees have given him a benefit of doubt stretched to the end of next month.

"Like President Kibaki put his foot into his mouth, by not sacking senior civil servants who served under the Moi Regime (read Kiboro), we are the opinion that by retaining some of this managers you are wasting an opportunity of real reform in the Editorial Department."

"Some of those managers do not deserve a sitting anywhere beyond the copy-editing desk," the media house stated in accordance with documents leaked to them by a prime source at NMG.

As the storm in Nation rises, the employees conclude their letter thus, "we cannot hold Bishop Margaret Wanjiru (the beleaguered head of Jesus Is Alive Ministries) and Samuel Gichuru (former Kenya Power and Lighting Company CEO) to higher moral standards when we the face of the society continue to grapple in immorality."

They however offer a reprieve, "if our demands are met we will support you and the reform process you are undertaking." Their chief complains is that the same people they are complaining about are the same ones in charge of the reform process.

Gitahi, just two months in office faces a gigantic task of steering the influential media house through the same path that was treaded by his predecessor Wilfred Kiboro who now sits in the board of the company as an advisor.

Ends…

President Hussein Obama: Are Americans ready for a Muslim in Whitehouse?

Are the American people ready for an elected president who was educated in a Madrassa as a young boy and has not been forthcoming about his Muslim heritage?

This is the question Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s camp is asking about Senator Barack Obama.

An investigation of Mr. Obama by political opponents within the Democratic Party has discovered that Mr. Obama was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia. Sources close to the background check, which has not yet been released, said Mr. Obama, 45, spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia.

"He was a Muslim, but he concealed it," the source said. "His opponents within the Democrats hope this will become a major issue in the campaign."

When contacted by Insight, Mr. Obama’s press secretary said he would consult with “his boss” and call back. He did not.

Sources said the background check, conducted by researchers connected to Senator Clinton, disclosed details of Mr. Obama's Muslim past. The sources said the Clinton camp concluded the Illinois Democrat concealed his prior Muslim faith and education.

"The background investigation will provide major ammunition to his opponents," the source said. "The idea is to show Obama as deceptive."

In two best-selling autobiographies—"The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream" and "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance"—Mr. Obama, born in Honolulu where his parents met, mentions but does not expand on his Muslim background, alluding only to his attendance at a "predominantly Muslim school."

The sources said the young Obama was given the name Hussein by his Muslim father, which the Illinois Democrat rarely uses in public.

His father was black and came from Kenya. Mr. Obama’s mother, the daughter of a farmer, came from Wichita, Kansas. Mr. Obama's parents divorced when he was two years old. His father returned to Kenya.

Later, Mr. Obama's mother married an Indonesian student and the family moved to Jakarta. Mr. Obama returned to Hawaii when he was 10 to live with his maternal grandparents.

The sources said the background check concerned Mr. Obama's years in Jakarta. In Indonesia, the young Obama was enrolled in a Madrassa and was raised and educated as a Muslim. Although Indonesia is regarded as a moderate Muslim state, the U.S. intelligence community has determined that today most of these schools are financed by the Saudi Arabian government and they teach a Wahhabi doctrine that denies the rights of non-Muslims.

Although the background check has not confirmed that the specific Madrassa Mr. Obama attended was espousing Wahhabism, the sources said his Democratic opponents believe this to be the case—and are seeking to prove it. The sources said the opponents are searching for evidence that Mr. Obama is still a Muslim or has ties to Islam.

Mr. Obama attends services at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago’s South Side. However, he is not known to be a regular parishioner.

"Obama's education began a life-long relationship with Islam as a faith and Muslims as a community," the source said. "This has been a relationship that contains numerous question marks."

The sources said Mr. Obama spent at least four years in a Muslim school in Indonesia. They said when Mr. Obama was 10, his mother and her second husband separated. She and her son returned to Hawaii.

"Then the official biography begins," the source said. "Obama never returned to Kenya to see relatives or family until it became politically expedient."

In both of his autobiographies, Mr. Obama characterizes himself as a Christian—although he describes his upbringing as mostly secular.

In “The Audacity of Hope,” Mr. Obama says, "I was not raised in a religious household." He describes his mother as secular, but says she had copies of the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita in their home.

Mr. Obama says his father was "raised a Muslim, but by the time he met my mother he was a confirmed atheist...." Mr. Obama also describes his father as largely absent from his life. He says his Indonesian stepfather was "skeptical" about religion and "saw religion as not particularly useful in the practical business of making one's way in the world ...."

Adapted from Insight, Jan 22, 2007

Ends…

Libya to honor Saddam

Libya is set to build a statue in honor of the late Iraqi Head of State Saddam Hussein, executed in Baghdad on Saturday, it has been reported.

According to information released by Libya's state-owned Jana News Agency, the statue will show him standing on the gallows alongside a Libyan resistance leader who fought Italian occupation, and who was similarly executed in 1931.

Tripoli declared three days of mourning after Saddam’s death and cancelled public celebrations around the Eid religious holiday. Flags on Libyan government buildings flew at half-mast following his death. The former Iraq leader was sentenced to death after being convicted of crimes against humanity.

An Iraqi court handed down the sentence in November after a year-long trial over the killings of 148 Shias from the town of Dujail in the 1980s.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki hailed the execution, but it also sparked protests among Sunni Muslim communities in the country with U.S President George Bush terming the eventual demise of Saddam a “milestone”.

Ends…

AM AVAILABLE AND CHEAP!

A true story of secret love affairs between
Kenyan gals and shabby-dressed touts

I

t’s a little past 5 in the evening. A horde of wathii (Commuters) hovers around the ever-busy Westlands bus-stage not far from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) offices. A music-blaring mathree plying the No.30 route comes up from the direction of town and screeches to a halt. All the seats are taken except for the one next to the driver. The driver is Dave, a slim fellow in his late twenties. He impatiently honks twice, his eyes searching the assembled commuters. Almost immediately, Shiku, an 18-year-old college student in a short skirt and an overkill of makeup, materializes from the crowd. She climbs into the mathree with practiced ease and sits in the unoccupied chair. The mathree swings back into traffic and drives off, Shiku and Dave talking animatedly…

This is a scenario that is repeated many times every day. There exists, in our society, a category of girls for whom the matatu industry is a godsend. Not only do they enjoy free rides aboard their favourite matatus but some have seats reserved for them and are therefore assured of a free ride every day. They are universally young and often very attractive. It is in this category that Shiku belongs.

Her relationship with driver Dave began one crisp morning about a month ago when she was standing at the bus stage with her friend, Susan. Shiku was running late but Susan told her not to worry because she (Susan) had friend who was a driver and they was therefore assured of a ride no matter how crowded the stage was.

Sure enough, Dave rolled in with his music-blaring mathree (more a mobile disco than a public transport vehicle) and greeted Susan with evident familiarity. Shiku and Susan boarded the vehicle and, to Shiku’s surprise, none of the girls was asked to pay for the ride to Westlands where Shiku had landed a part-time job. In the evening, Dave recognized Shiku in the middle of a home-bound crowd at the Westlands stage and beckoned her over. She didn’t pay for that ride either and since then, she and Dave have been getting on like a house on fire.

He picks her up and drops her off as if the mathree were a personal vehicle and she is so important to him that when young man made the mistake of entering the mathree when it stopped to pick Shiku up was rudely told to alight by the conductor! The man protested, saying, ‘Kwani pesa zake ni nzuri kuliko zangu?’ (‘Is her money better than mine?’) to which the conductor barked, ‘Wee shukaaa!’ (‘You just alight!’). The man alighted in a huff and Shiku took her now-customary position next to the driver. More recently, Dave surprised Shiku with a music CD with her name written on the back. It was a compilation of love songs.

Meet Elizabeth. She’s another one of the ‘mathree girls’. Vivacious, talkative and built on a small scale, Elizabeth is in her early twenties but looks much younger. She is currently ‘between jobs’ but previously worked as a trainer with a ‘kid’s club’ on Ngong Rd.

On any given day, the most likely place you’ll find her is the front of a route No.34b matatu driven by her boyfriend, Kimani. She lives in Donholm but she and her boyfriend pass her house several times as matatu shuttles back and forth. She loves music and will often be bobbing her head to beats emanating from the matatu’s powerful music system. Incidentally, Kimani’s father owns the matatu he drives.

I remember seeing a sticker in a worn-out matatu that read: ‘DON’T LAUGH AT MY VEHICLE – YOUR DAUGHTER MIGHT BE INSIDE.’ This message may be amusing to most people, but the young girls/matatu drivers’ relationship is no laughing matter.

School girls have discovered the convenience and adventure of free city tours and it’s an open secret that some of them don’t even reach school, choosing instead to go for endless ‘rounds’ in matatus. Still in their school uniforms, they can be seen listening to music and conversing with the drivers and conductors during school hours.

This kind of truancy must surely be affecting their school grades, not to mention opening them up to sexual promiscuity and abuse. And of course the unholy alliance between schoolgirls and young matatu drivers takes place behind the backs of parents who think that their daughters are busy at school, laying the foundation for a productive future!

It’s pretty clear what the girls get out of the deal – free rides. But what does the matatu guy get? It appears that some of these types use the matatu as a courting tool. They exercise the little power they have by exploiting it – waiving fees, reserving seats, terrorizing other road users and so on. Shiku confessed to me that the reason she likes Dave for is his adventurism.

‘There’s always (a sense of) action around him! One day he hit a muhindi’s car, another time the cops were looking for him and another time he kept changing the route number because he wanted to take me to a place past Hurlingham. He is full of action and I like action!’ she crooned.

Shiku and Dave’s relationship has even progressed from the roads to real life and they have had a couple of dates outside working hours. She however insists that she has never slept with him although he once kissed her in public: ‘He just crossed the road and kissed me! He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t care what other people think.’ Nancy, the girl who introduced Shiku to Dave, has also dated him outside the mathree circuit. As for Elizabeth and Kimani, Elizabeth says that the matatu rides are incidental to their relationship because they were dating even before Kimani started working for his father.

For the most part, the matatu boys seem content to just enjoy the company of the girls. Like the snazzy music systems in the vehicles, the joyriding girls brighten the working days of the young drivers/conductors. If they’re close enough, there may be touching and even after-hours rendezvous but these appear to be the exception rather than the rule. Sometimes the girls sacrifice nothing at all. A case in point is Irene, a light-skinned Lang’ata girl who works for a tours and travel firm based in Ngara. When a neigbourhood friend landed a job as matatu conductor, she enjoyed free rides on a daily basis until he quit six months later. They remain casual friends.

In this joyriding sub-culture, the girls are far from innocent. Aware of the financial ramifications of waiving fees, drivers hardly go scouting for talent. From the inception of the ‘manyanga’ craze a few years ago, certain girls made it a practice to never part with money for short trips. They would ask, plead or even beg to be carried for free. Smiles and seductive behaviour were all tools of the trade and they often worked like a charm. You will still see these joyriders at matatu termini, ignoring vehicle after vehicle until the one that will carry them for free comes along.

A case in point: A girl from Nyeri was visiting her cousin in Nairobi’s Southlands Estate. When it was time to leave, they went outside the Southlands gate. Almost immediately, a route No.15 matatu put in an appearance and the country girl made a move to enter but her cousin pulled her back, saying: ‘Leave him (the conductor) alone – he can’t give you a sare (free ride)!’ So they stood there, discriminating matatus, until a ‘friendly’ one pulled up.

As the freemasonry between joyriding girls and mathree boys continues unabated, who are the losers?

It goes without saying that the matatu owners are directly – and negatively –affected by this secret communion that takes place every day. A ton of cash is lost every year as joyriders (including some men) are transported for free.

Parents are also negatively affected, especially where schoolgirls are involved. Traditionally, there is very little love lost between matatu men and parents of teenagers. Before the Michuki (then transport minister) reforms, when matatus were more crowded, there were numerous complains of girls being inappropriately groped or ‘touched’ especially by conductors offering unsolicited assistance when the girls were alighting or embarking.

With a maximum of fourteen passengers now allowed, such incidents have greatly reduced but the girls occasionally have to deal with sexual overtures and crude language. With so many complaints leveled at matatu men and given their reputation for rudeness, flouting road rules and door-swinging antics, it is no wonder that many parents regard matatu drivers and their touts as proof positive that human beings are descended from apes.

Unfortunately for the parents, the public transport sector is profoundly important to the nation’s development. With the railway transport system performing way under par and the Kenya Bus Service’s fortunes dwindling, the matatus are left with main load of taking commuters from point A to point B. In short, the matatus are here to stay, and the only hope for more responsible behaviour can only come in the form of inter-sector reforms.

For starters, more women are required and, indeed, many young women are both ready and willing to take up the challenge, either as drivers or conductors of PSVs. Some taxis now have women drivers and a few matatus have women as conductors but there is still way too much testosterone on the roads.

In fact, the liaison between young girls and the matatu boys was bound to happen. Most drivers and their conductors are, after all, single young men in their twenties and early thirties. They are at a point in their lives when the energy levels are high, libido is strong and the pressure to find a mate is optimal. As the transport sector reforms were introduced, there was a call to balance out the youngsters with older, more mature, drivers.

The young bloods were seen as too aggressive, inexperienced and more given to adventurism. On the other hand, there was fear that old drivers are ‘dead wood’ and unlikely to maximize the use of a matatu. The general idea was to mix up these two categories of drivers and hopefully bring more sanity to the all-important transport sector.

The Matatu Owners Association (MoA), PSV umbrella body, recently called for more individual responsibility amongst matatu operators. The Transport Licensing Board was asked to reconsider penalizing the whole matatu where an individual (mostly the driver) was actualy responsible for a traffic offence. A move towards personal responsibility would go far in curbing some of the uglier aspects of the matatu business. Parents of schoolgirls who utilize matatus might also want to call or pass by their daughter’s school once in a while – just to make sure that they actually get there. And the next time you’re honking and waving your fist at a lane-switching matatu, remember that your daughter may be right inside there, pouting defiantly at you and the world at large.

Ends…

Somali PM addresses Mogadishu opinion Leaders

By Mohammed Abdi Farah

S

omali’s interim Prime Minister Prof. Ali Mohamed Ghedi said that the military mission by the Ethiopia-Somalia forces against the Islamists was completed and the government would work out the peace and stability in the country vowing to hunt down the remnants of the defeated Islamic Courts Union.
More than thousand heavily armed Ethiopian forces on military convoys along with interim government troops have moved into the Somalia capital where hundreds of Mogadishu’s people welcomed them with hospitality.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said in a news conference held in Addis Ababa that his Ethiopian forces have entered Mogadishu but asserted that Ethiopia government would track down the extremists in the region until to their end.
He said his government would cooperate with the international community not to let the terrorists escape by sea or land.
He indicated the Ethiopian troops would withdraw from Somalia when the government is able to handle the control of whole Somalia.
Premier Ali Ghedi delivered a speech to elders, intellectuals, officials of civil society groups and some of the defected parliamentarians who he met at the building of late Emirates president Sheik Bin Ziad Anahyan in Afgoye town, 30 km south of the capital Mogadishu.
“I am telling everyone that state of emergency will be imposed on the capital until the government and the Ethiopian troops secure the capital Mogadishu,” said Gedi. “No clan will be allowed to possess weapons of any kind and also no one will claim illegal grounds or homes,”
All the weapons he said will be collected to specific military locations in Somalia according to the government law.
Ghedi, accompanied by his deputy minister Hussein Mohamed Aideed, said Somalis should not feel worry but trust their government and help restore peace and security.
Ghedi seemed to be much confident that Ethiopian forces would help along the way. “Our good Ethiopian friends will help the government restore the law and order,” He said Somalia people should forget the created animosity between Somalia and Ethiopia but people must see Ethiopians as good neighbors.
He latest remarks came as residents in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia were waiting for arrival of government officials in the city.
Hussen Aideed, the Interior minister of Somalia, who talked to the reporters, said his government would move to Mogadishu. “The president will settle his Presidential Palace popularly known as Villa Somalia in Mogadishu.

Ends…

Wisdom Nuggets

1. "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream." -- Mark Twain, American humorist, writer and lecturer, 1835-1910
2. The purpose of a business is to create and keep customers - Theodore Levitt
3. “Whatever advice you give, be brief.”
4. If we find a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
5. The company's most urgent task is to learn to welcome, beg for, demand - innovation from everyone” - Tom Peters
6. "If you really want to do something, you will find a way. If you don't, you will find an excuse." –Anonymous
7. "The task ahead of us is never as great as the power behind us." – Anonymous
8. The man on top of the mountain didn't fall there. --Vince Lombardi
9. Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
   - Mark Twain
10. It is awfully important to know what is and what is not your business - Gertrude Stein
11. Nothing focuses the mind better than the constant sight of a competitor who wants to wipe you off the map - Wayne Calloway
12. You have to learn to treat people as a resource......you have to ask not what do they cost, but what is the yield, what can they produce? - Peter F. Drucker
13. A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one - Henry Ford

Somalia Crisis

The fall of Union of Islamic Courts-led administration in Southern Somalia was as sudden as its rise. UIC was little-known at the international level until it run-over a US-backed anti-terrorism alliance led by warlords in the bullet-scarred capital Mogadishu. Within weeks, the courts leadership went on an expansionist mission whereby it spread its wings of dominance to the entire Somalia and started to install Islamic administration/courts in every trading center on site.

The swift rise of the Islamists prompted Ethiopia’s PM Meles Zenawi to send a contingent of heavily armed military into the Somali soil to protect his “baby”, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) then based in the provisional seat of government in the town of Baidoa.

Many observers had predicted that the UIC militia would engage the Addis Ababa army into a bloody-way that would last for months and some had even predicted that it would run-over the Ethiopian-backed TFG. However, as it turned out, UIC militia were too weak to face the military might of Ethiopia, reputed to have the strongest force in the horn of Africa and one of the largest in the continent. It is now official: Mogadishu has fallen, from the hands of ‘terrorists’ to the “safety” of elected “democrats”.

But what does this signify? What is the most probable outcome?

Scenario one

The TFG administration of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed would for the first time exert full authority over the official capital Mogadishu whose leadership has been changing hands ever since Marxist dictator Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. However, in doing so it has to overcome some serious challenges. The warlords, most of who now serve in the TFG, are back to the same city they controlled, albeit with personal interests at hand, for nearly two decades.

The first to return just a day following the fall of Mogadishu was the influential Hussen Aideed who by then was on a Holiday in Nairobi, Kenya. Before returning he intimated to me of his desire to get back “my resources” which have been heavily interfered with by Islamists. One of his treasured “resources” is the famous and prestigious Presidential Palace popularly known as Villa Somalia and the strategic port of Mogadishu.

On Tuesday, he held a day-long closed-door parley with leaders of his Hawiye clan that is predominant in the capital and constitutes 30 per cent of the entire national population.

The disposed warlords may use their clan and sub-clans to create divisions that would eventually spill-over into a full-blown conflict to complicate matters for the TFG in its bid to consolidate its authority in the new home (Mogadishu).

Most experts privy the Somali affairs’ now want the TFG to enter into serious dialogue with all clan leaders and effectively articulate their intentions and national policy at large with a view to elbow the warlords who most probably would want to spoil the party for their common rival to the throne – President Yusuf.

Yusuf hails from the Darod clan, the historical rival to the Hawiye, which was the predominant clan throughout the Barre regime. Yusuf opposed Barre (Darod Clan) on the fact that his Majeerteen sub-clan was sidelined by President Barre’s Marehan sub-clan.

Prof. Ghedi (Abgaal sub-clan) and his Deputy Aideed (Habar Gedir sub-clan) are from the Larger Hawiye Clan and both are natives of Mogadishu. Hawiyes have never forgiven the Darods for the suffering they underwent, particularly when Barre (Darod) was the Head of State. Many, indeed, want the young Aideed to be President. Actually, nearly all warlords and disposed leaders of Islamic Courts in Somalia hail from the Hawiye clan but from different sub-clans. When Mohammed Farah Aideed (Hussen’s) father took over as the President of Somali in 1994, the first uprising towards his regime was from the Abgaal sub-clan led by the late Ali Mahdi Mohammed.

Another feared and extremely wealthy warlord Mohamed Qanyareh Afrah (Abgaal) has also returned in Mogadishu and was reported by a local radio saying he would regroup his 2,000-strong militia to take back his territory - the Mogadishu International Airport.

Warlord Osman Ali Atto, Aideed’s key ally from his Habar Gedir sub-clan could be returning soon to his native capital from which he was the key player in slaughtering UN and US peacekeepers in 1993.

Scenario two

Somalia is now, for the first time in history, under Ethiopian occupation – what every Somalia never thought it would one day be a reality. Even the slightest perception that Addis Ababa would ‘rule’ their homeland, directly or indirectly, will stir-up acrimony among ordinary Somalis. In part such a remote perception would make the TFG unpopular on the ground as many will look at it as a “the enemy within”, a situation that could complicate matters for the TFG.

Actually, an Executive order by Prime Minister Prof. Ali Mohammed Ghedi that every Mogadishu residents surrender their arms has been seriously ignored and international press in the capital say only a handful could be seen delivering their arms.

Many will be reluctant to disarm until the TFG pacifies the city, reputed to have the largest cache of illegal arms in the world. They keep arms for ‘personal security’.

Scenario three

The deposed UIC leader might opt for an Iraq-style insurgency to paralyze the TFG and dim any hope of regional countries deploying a peacekeeping force. Currently, they UIC top brass) are said to have retreated to the Mountainous region of Kismayo which is quite complex for any military. Experts say only air bombings would flush them out from their rocky hideouts. With the amount of weapons in the hands of freelance militia, this could be a real scenario.

Scenario four

With the regional countries now in the thick of things, anything could happen. The Islamists would opt to target specific areas within regional cities to divert attention. Alternatively, they would aim at United States, British and any Western Mission in any of the regional capitals as a punishment for their open support of the Ethiopian-backed TFG.

Whatever the outcome of the unfolding Somali crisis, it’s obvious that there will be an increase in illicit arms in the region and an influx of refugees mainly in Kenya and possibly Ethiopia.

Ends…

Don’t hang dictators just deny them Gold!

By Kipkoech Tanui

S

ADDAM Hussein’s hanging was crude and crass. Not that the scoundrel, who fled the palace, for the rat hole, was good.

No, he was a vampire. But with the humiliation in the hands of the allied forces, he was on the road to natural death. Dictators and warlords die heartbroken and dishonoured. Public humiliation, the handcuffs, the absence of gold, the mat for a bed, taunting and defeat are simply too much for them. Because of pride and arrogance, they die slowly, haunted by guilt and public recoil.

The last moments of the likes of Pol Pot in Cambodia, Sani Abacha in Nigeria, former Soviet’s strongman Joseph Stalin, Idi Amin Dada of Uganda and Adolf Hitler of Germany speak volumes about the likes of Saddam. It is strange that Americans are ecstatic, with President Bush saying Saddam got the justice he denied millions of Iraqis.

Even the US violates international law

His spokesman Tony Snow was more imaginative: "There seems to be a lot of concern about the last two minutes of Saddam Hussein’s life and less about the first 69 years, in which he murdered hundreds of thousands of people. That’s why he was executed."

Curtis FJ Doebbler, a member of Saddam’s defence team, put it succinctly: "This is the type of world that American President is promoting: One in which victims of American aggression must depend on using all necessary means — including violence — to respond to America’s violations of international law because the US is blind to the scales of law. This does not bode well for the new year."

Hanged on a holly day

The timing was also awful; he was goaded to the gallows on a holy day for Muslims. The men of the biceps and hoods pulled the trapdoor in the middle of his final prayers. He was also taunted — ‘Go to hell’ — by the Shi’ite hangmen. That was fuel poured on the fires of Iraqi's sectarianism. They are now after the guy who used his mobile to get the grainy pictures of the dictator as he slipped into the life hereafter.

Pol Pot, who soaked Cambodia with blood under the banner of Khmer Rouge, was arrested and kept in confinement until he died. By then, he was a shrunken and heartbroken man humbled by the sands of time.

His shame wasn’t even that he strove to return his country to the medieval age by abolishing money and pushing communities out of towns into farmlands. It was the ease with which the educated were pumped off just for speaking foreign languages.

In Russia, many believe Stalin was assisted to die through poisoning. He collapsed in his bedroom after a night of partying. There was talk of stroke and brain haemorrhage.

Hitler chose to kill himself next to his poison-gulping wife. What Saddam got is similar to the Italian fascist of all time, Benito Mussolini. They shot him and his mistress and hung them on meat hooks.

That buffoon born in Koibatek, Idi Amin Dada, was kept alive and from Saudi Arabia he saw Uganda rise from the ashes. He died in obscurity. Jean-Bedel Bokassa of the Central African Republic got a death sentence, which was later reduced to life in prison, and far much later, 20 years in jail. President Kolingba later declared a general amnesty. He died, like Abacha, of heart attack but not before he proclaimed himself the 13th disciple.

In Liberia, the king of limb cutters Foday Sankoh died of stroke awaiting trial. Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa za Banga died of prostate cancer in a foreign land. Somalia’s Siad Barre too died forlorn and in faraway lands. Ferdinand Marcos of Philippines died of heart, kidney and lung problems in Hawaii. Similar excruciating deaths awaited Agustino Pinochet (Chile), Turmekistan’s President-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov, Haiti’s Papa Doc, Spain’s Francisco Franco and the Butcher of the Balkans, Slobodan Milosevic.

Iraqis dying of America’s adventurism

After being hauled of the rat hole, knowing his pride and arrogance, Saddam wouldn’t have lived long. I wonder why he did not take the bullet like Hitler. But his blood is now dripping from the hands of Bush and his choice of leaders for Iraq. Thousands of Iraqis too have died on the altar of America’s adventurism.

Death sentence is vile, particularly when handed by a partisan court. The heart also goes out to those who suffered in his rule. They include Jawad Abdul-Aziz who, when Saddam was hanged, shouted; "Now he is in the dustbin of history.’’ He lost his father, three brothers and 22 cousins in Saddam’s revenge killings. But in Bushland last January, Clarence Ray Allen was given the lethal injection for a 1976 murder. He was 76, deaf, blind and on a wheelchair. His lawyers called it "gratuitous punishment".

The writer is The Standard Managing Editor, Weekend Editions

ktanui@eastandard.net

Flirting eyes' to be banned in China

By AFP Mon, 04 Dec 2006

Lawmakers in a northern Chinese province are considering a sexual harassment law that bans looking at women with "flirting eyes", state press said on Monday.

The Shaanxi provincial congress is studying a proposal that would define sexual harassment, with "casting flirting eyes at women" listed alongside actions such as using inappropriate language, the China Daily reported.

In an editorial, the China Daily ridiculed the efforts to control how people look at each other, but nevertheless said the Shaanxi lawmakers' work was a welcome attempt to establish much-needed sexual harassment laws in China.

"The discussion in Shaanxi could set an important national precedent in encouraging women to protect themselves by legal means," the paper said in an editorial.

Sexual harassment is mentioned in China's national laws, but they fail to specify what constitutes such behavior.

The city government in Shanghai, China's biggest city and premier financial center, is also mulling what could be the country's first comprehensive sexual harassment laws, state press reports said in October.

The city government is reviewing a bill that would outlaw sexually suggestive language, even if used in jest, and the emailing or text-messaging of explicitly sexual pictures.

The bill would also ban unwanted advances and public groping, as well as address the issue of domestic violence.

Ends…