Bush’s Iraq chickens come home to roost

By Naomi Wolf

Background The First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division, three to four thousand soldiers, has been deployed in the United States as of October 1. Their stated mission is the form of crowd control they practised in Iraq, subduing "unruly individuals", and the management of a national emergency.

I am in Seattle and heard from the brother of one of the soldiers that they are engaged in exercises now.

Amy Goodman reported that an army spokesperson confirmed that they will have access to lethal and non-lethal crowd control technologies and tanks.

George Bush struck down Posse Comitatus, thus making it legal for military to patrol the US. He has also legally established that in the "War on Terror", the US is at war around the globe and thus the whole world is a battlefield. Thus the US is also a battlefield.

He also led change to the 1807 Insurrection Act to give him far broader powers in the event of a loosely defined "insurrection" or many other "conditions" he has the power to identify. The US Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus — habeas corpus prevents us from being seized by the state and held without trial — in the event of an "insurrection". With his own army force now, his power to call a group of protesters or angry voters "insurgents" staging an "insurrection" is strengthened.

US Rep Brad Sherman of California said to Congress, captured on C-Span and viewable on YouTube, that individual members of the House were threatened with martial law within a week if they did not pass the bailout Bill:

"The only way they can pass this Bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere . . . Many of us were told in private conversations that if we voted against this Bill on Monday that the sky would fall, the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day and a couple of thousand on the second day, and a few members were even told that there would be martial law in America if we voted no."

If this is true and Rep Sherman is not delusional, I ask you to consider that if they are willing to threaten martial law now, it is foolish to assume they will never use that threat again. It is also foolish to trust in an orderly election process to resolve this threat. And why deploy the First Brigade? One thing the deployment accomplishes is to put teeth into such a threat.

I interviewed Vietnam veteran, retired US Air Force colonel and patriot David Antoon for clarification:

"If the president directed the First Brigade to arrest Congress, what could stop him?"

"Nothing. Their only recourse is to cut off funding. The Congress would be at the mercy of military leaders to go to them and ask them not to obey illegal orders."

"But these orders are now legal?"

"Correct."

"If the president directs the First Brigade to arrest a bunch of voters, what would stop him?"

"Nothing. It would end up in courts but the action would have been taken."

"If the president directs the First Brigade to kill civilians, what would stop him?"

"Nothing."

"What would prevent him from sending the First Brigade to arrest the editor of the Washington Post?"

"Nothing. He could do what he did in Iraq — send a tank down a street in Washington and fire a shell into the Washington Post as they did into Al-Jazeera, and claim they were firing at something else."

"What happens to members of the First Brigade who refuse to take up arms against US citizens?"

"They’d probably be treated as deserters as in Iraq: arrested, detained and facing five years in prison. In Iraq a study by Ann Wright shows that deserters — reservists who refused to go back to Iraq — got longer sentences than war criminals."

"Does Congress have any military of their own?"

"No. Congress has no direct control of any military units. The governors have the National Guard but they report to the president in an emergency that he declares."

"Who can arrest the president?"

"The Attorney-General can arrest the president after he leaves or after impeachment."

[Note: Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi has asserted it is possible for district attorneys around the country to charge President Bush with murder if they represent districts where one or more military members who have been killed in Iraq formerly resided.]

"Given the danger do you advocate impeachment?"

"Yes. President Bush struck down Posse Comitatus — which has prevented, with a penalty of two years in prison, US leaders since after the Civil War from sending military forces into our streets — with a ‘signing statement’. He should be impeached immediately in a bipartisan process to prevent the use of military forces and mercenary forces against US citizens."

"Should Americans call on senior leaders in the military to break publicly with this action and call on their own men and women to disobey these orders?"

"Every senior military officer’s loyalty should ultimately be to the constitution. Every officer should publicly break with any illegal order, even from the president."

"But if these are now legal. If they say, ‘Don’t obey the commander-in-chief,’ what happens to the military?"

"Perhaps they would be arrested and prosecuted as those who refuse to participate in the current illegal war. That’s what would be considered a coup."

"But it’s a coup already."

"Yes."

l This article was first posted on www.alternet.org on October 8, 2008. The author, Naomi Wolf, is the author of Give Me Liberty (Simon and Schuster, 2008), the sequel to the New York Times bestseller The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot (Chelsea Green, 2007).

Day in day out I am always suffering
No permanent place to sleep
Hunger, hunger my stomach complains
The mouth always dry
Bins are the sources of my food
Clothes are tattered and torn
When I cry for help , no one come to my rescue

Everyday I am always shouting
Begging in the city centre streets
Where the riches do their shopping
Sometimes I don’t
± ± ± ± because of weakness and hunger
They always scold me and neglect me

I walk barefooted
My teeth always dirt
My hair scruffy
No toothpaste and soap available
I use water from public places

My fellows go to school
Whilst I am busy walking in the streets
My relatives denied me
I am an opharn
I have no one to care for me

When I seek help from churches
They say we have no money
Public places are the source of water
I hope one day in my life
God will rescue me
From this bondage of poverty

poem by
HANDSEN CHIKOWORE from Zimbabwe

Poverty is a scandal in a world that produces more than is necessary to nurture all the planet's inhabitants. It is an attack on dignity and a form of exclusion so serious that it leads to wars, conflicts and violence.

Violence often results from the refusal to share, from exclusion, from inadequate education and poverty; the resulting sense of frustration manifests itself through the outbreak of all sorts of violence.

The demographic explosion, human movements, violence, exclusion, poverty, aggression against migrants and terrorism are problems which must not be dealt with in an isolated manner, within one country or group of countries, but rather in a perspective of solidarity and co-operation.

Over the years, we have heard theories advanced by leaders of G8 countries, NGOs, the World Bank and other donor agencies as the causes of poverty in Third World countries.

What is more intriguing is that they are all in agreement that poverty in poor countries is caused by corruption and poor governance. They deliberately side step the more critical issue of external debt.

More than two billion people in the world today live in extreme poverty, lacking access to clean water and without basic sanitation. Statistics from Unicef shows that this year alone, 15 million children under the age of five years will die of preventable diseases.

For those children who live past five years, more than 300 million will work instead of going to school.

Several hundred millions live in countries where crushing debts stand in the way of lasting poverty reduction.

It is imperative to understand the genesis of debt in our country and indeed other poor nations for the sake of posterity.

Unless factors which perpetuated poverty are acted upon decisively, next year, there could be a large proportion of people living in poverty than today.

Standing on solid ground
Lovemore Nyatsine




THE events over the last few weeks have led many people to do some soul searching. The centre of power has shifted in both South Africa and Zimbabwe. A cataclysmic financial crisis is rocking the world at the moment with a devastating ripple effect on the whole world’s financial markets.

As I write the rand is on R9.60 to the US Dollar (a level it last reached six years ago!)

How the US financial system which is the doyen of prudent financial practice resorted to sub prime lending policies beats me. Would you rather be run over by a tractor or by Schumacher? The US chose the former. Even banks in the developing world know the basics of prudent credit policy.

The bottom line is that the foundations have been shaken. Institutions of confidence such as governments and financial houses are now dens of robbers and habitations of cruelty.

If anyone had put faith in the government and financial systems of this world, all that is now shattered. In order to stand when the storms of life come you need to stand on principles.

The importance of principles

Principles do not change because the world around you has changed. They are like laws, such as the law of gravity. As sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, whatever goes up will still be pulled down by the force of gravity. It’s a law! I always like to use the example of a plane flying on GPS (Global Positioning System). Even if there is turbulence, the plane will stay the course. Principles are like an internal compass or GPS – they will take you where you must go. I would like to share important principles which you need to cultivate in your life. These principles provide a source of strength and stability in times of turbulence and anchors in life’s ocean.

Principle of security

This refers to your sense of worth, emotional anchorage, self esteem, personal strength and identity. Who are you and who you are? The best part you can play in life is simply the one which expresses who you are. If you are secure in your identity, you approach life with confidence. One of things which destroy potential is to allow others to label you...stupid, lazy, useless or confused. The labels become a self fulfilling prophecy. Self-awareness enables you to examine your paradigms, to look at your glasses as well as through them, to think about your thoughts, and to enlarge the separation between stimulus and response. Self-aware, you can take responsibility for reprogramming or rescripting yourself out of the stimulus-response mode. You can face today and tomorrow with a sure confidence because you know who you are and you are in charge.

Principle of wisdom

Wisdom refers to your perspective on life; your sense of balance and understanding, judgment, discernment and comprehension. Wisdom is the highest level on the knowledge continuum (knowledge, understanding and wisdom). This is respectively gnosis, phronesis and sophia in Greek. These have a deeper meaning in the Greek but for time and space we won’t go there. If you only have knowledge but have no understanding, you are like a car without an engine. Wisdom includes both the engine and the driver.

The principle of wisdom means you know what, how, where and when to do and with who. The financial mandarins at Lehman Brothers or Merrill Lynch are no better than the guy who caused the Barings Bank collapse. Wisdom is the principle thing which makes you operate with discernment, insight, moderation and comprehension. You can easily navigate the mine fields of life. You can never get a foot wrong when you operate in wisdom.

Principle of independent will

Independent will is your capacity to act, the power to transcend your paradigms, to swim upstream, to re-write your scripts, to act based on principles rather than reacting based on emotions, moods, or circumstances. While environmental or genetic influences may be very powerful, they do not control you. You are not a victim. You are not the product of your past. You are the product of your choices. You are "response-able," meaning you are able to choose our response. This power to choose is a reflection of your independent will. This means you can never allow despots, inflation, economy, geography or anything or anybody for that matter to interfere with your destiny. This principle means no more excuses – you can walk away or you can rewrite your own rules.

Principle of conscience

Conscience puts you in touch with something within you even deeper than your thoughts and something outside you more reliable than your values. It connects you with the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the heart. It is an internal guidance system that allows you to sense when you act or even contemplate acting in a way that's contrary to your deepest values and "true north" principles. This principle is important because it is what makes you to act with integrity when you would rather take the easy way out. The voice of conscience is so important in a world with so many noises and where many have seared their conscience. How can 80% of a whole nation starve while politicians play power games?

Principle of creativity

Creative imagination empowers you to create beyond your present reality. It enables you to write personal mission statements, set goals or visualize yourself living your vision even in the most challenging circumstances. You can imagine any scenario you want for the future. Memory is limited. It's finite because it deals with the past. Imagination is infinite; it deals with the present and the future, with potential, with vision and mission and goals with anything that is not now but can be. You can create and imagine a way out of any situation.





http://www.talkzimbabwe.com/news/138/ARTICLE/3493/2008-10-09.html

Zim’s undemocratic ‘democrats’

By Reason Wafawarova in SYDNEY, Australia

THE Western-sponsored political running by Zimbabwe’s opposition is in many ways a replay of Washington’s mindless and reckless games that started soon after the US declared the American century just after the Second World War.

There is nothing new in the sponsorship of client political parties and the regime change doctrine was actually overplayed in Latin America during the peak of the Cold War.

There is nothing new in the role of sanctions as a form of pressure to coerce compliant political behaviour and as a tool to force the public into submission and to create conditions that may lead to an uprising.

This writer will revisit Nicaragua in the 1980s and draw the attention of the readers to some glaring similarities between what was happening then and what we have seen happen in Zimbabwe in this first decade of the 21st century.

Nicaragua held an election in November 1984 and the United States clarified their subversive aims towards Nicaragua by an outstandingly hysterical reaction to this election.

It was a reaction not very different from what we saw in the run-up to Zimbabwe’s March 29 harmonised elections and the subsequent June 27 presidential run-off.

The US carried out a classical well-crafted propaganda coup over the Nicaraguan election by deflecting attention from the voting itself through regular diatribes that were seriously reported as news in all Western media.

Equally, the Zimbabwean election was tactfully deprived of objective coverage as the Western media went into overdrive to paint the picture of an election contested by a ruthless military junta on behalf of the ruling Zanu-PF (or vice versa) and against a well-meaning and most civilised team of democrats in the opposition MDC, particularly the faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

In the run-up to the June presidential election run-off, the Western media and the South African media raved hysterical about a Chinese ship carrying military supplies destined for Zimbabwe in much the same way the US national Press went hysterical about a concocted story over Russian MIGs in Nicaragua, also in the run-up to the 1984 election.

The Chinese ship story was abandoned after it had served its function of eliminating potential allies to the Zimbabwe Government, especially those from Sadc. The Nicaragua MIG story was similarly abandoned quickly as soon as Washington realised that it had served its purpose of eliminating honest coverage of the election.

In fact, the concocted story elicited some highly emotional outrage by some dovish senators in the US, well exemplified by Massachusetts Democrat Paul Tsongas, who warned that the US would have to bomb Nicaragua to eliminate the MIGs because "they are also capable against the United States". It is obviously ludicrous for any sane person to ever imagine that Nicaragua would even for once consider the possibility of attacking the United States, but such is the mentality of US elites.

Well, the Chinese ship story ended up with suggestions for military intervention in the UK House of Lords and revelations that Tony Blair had long mooted the idea of military engagement over Zimbabwe. This time the ludicrous reasoning was that Zimbabweans needed protection from their own "monstrous government" and that Britain was too good to stand aside and watch the people of Zimbabwe suffer. There is nothing sweeter than rhetoric in politics.

The US Latin American Studies Association carried a study of the Nicaraguan election and its largely objective report was virtually ignored by the national Press in the US, as were the elections themselves.

The report rejected that Arturo Cruz, the official "democrat" according to Washington, was excluded from the elections. Rather, his business backed political grouping made an ill-advised decision to exclude themselves from the election despite the fair playing field, the report said.

The report submitted the "observers’ doubts" that Cruz’s group had a broad following in Nicaragua.

This LASA report resonates well with the view that Tsvangirai made an ill-advised decision to exclude himself from the presidential election run-off, just five days before voting day. He was not excluded from the process by anyone but himself, of course under instruction issued at a golf course.

The report noted that Cruz’s agenda was "more attuned to the policy debate in Washington than to the hardships of life in Nicaragua". There is this perpetual argument that the MDC-T agenda is more attuned to policy debates in the UK House of Lords and to Washington’s foreign policy than it is to the hardships of life in Zimbabwe — and the argument makes perfect sense when one considers the elusiveness of the MDC-T position whenever Africa comes in the open condemning the illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Cruz’s call for talks with the US-sponsored Contras was reported as failing to "strike a popular chord in Managua". Even Cruz’s own sister, Lilian, opposed her brother’s treacherous call by penning an open letter to two pro-government newspapers to remind her brother that her son, Sandinista army officer David Baez, had been slain battling the Contras.

Similarly, the July call by Zimbabwe’s opposition for more sanctions against their own country through the UN Security Council was an embarrassment that was widely condemned by the African Union minus Burkina Faso and by Sadc minus Botswana.

China and Russia stood in defence of international law and the United Nations Charter by blocking the ruinous move by the West to effect a fatal punishment on the people of Zimbabwe for their "disappointing" failure to engage in an uprising against their own Government.

The LASA report made a very revealing observation saying: "We know of no election in Latin America or elsewhere, in which groups advocating the violent overthrow of an incumbent government have themselves been incorporated into the electoral process; particularly when these groups have been openly supported by a foreign power."

Well, in Zimbabwe we have now known of at least five such elections in just eight years. Not only that, the groups advocating the violent overthrow of the incumbent government have actually been offered an agreement that seeks to incorporate them in an inclusive government. Then we have the amazing reality that one of the groups has the temerity to declare the offer to be not good enough.

Surely, nothing of this sort would be tolerated for an instant in the US and in the West in general.

The LASA report noted that the Nicaragua elections were indeed "manipulated", but by the Reagan administration, which did everything in its power to block and discredit them, including the inducement of Cruz and others to abstain.

Wasn’t Zimbabwe’s March election manipulated through politicised food aid that was given campaign-style by Western-sponsored NGOs? We have heard such reports and surely we cannot just conveniently ignore them as Zanu-PF propaganda, not when the ban on such food distribution actually resulted in Tsvangirai chickening out of the subsequent run-off.

Were there no attempts to block and discredit the presidential run-off and did we not see the West inducing Tsvangirai to boycott? It is all part of the same old strategy and for sure we are going to see more of history repeating itself.

Anyone who will demand evidence for these assertions has no idea what four-hour golf sessions between a US-backed opposition leader and a US ambassador mean and this writer will excuse them.

Cruz was later busted as being on the CIA payroll and he defended himself saying he had only "received assistance for a short period from an institution that was dedicated to support the struggle for liberty".

Pressed to name the institution, Cruz went mute while his mate, Alfonso Robelo, admitted that Cruz "had been given money in the past by the Central Intelligence Agency to carry out what the (CIA) official called ‘political work’."

It is this writer’s hope that someone is not going to be busted too soon. If this so-called deal either fails or leaves out some over-ambitious novice out there, then we may in reality have our own Alfonso Robelo telling it like it is.

After all, we saw a bit of that with the 2006 split of the MDC-T branch based in the UK, didn’t we? Remember Job Sikhala going berserk about a "donated" couple of million US dollars the other year?

Christopher Hitchens commented on the democratic credentials of Arturo Cruz. He said: "He would not take part in an election that he felt to be insufficiently democratic, but he will take part in a war of sabotage and attrition that has no democratic pretences at all."

Have we not seen in Zimbabwe, someone refusing to take part in a "sham" election but showing religious commitment to the perpetuation of the illegal sanctions under the so-called "Tongai Tione" slogan? There is obviously no semblance of democracy in calling for sanctions against one’s own country and it is not surprising that the advocates are too ashamed to stand openly and publicly withdraw their call.

Arturo Cruz and his colleagues were labelled "democrats" by US commentators not on the basis of any credible information about such commitment, but because their concept of democracy rejected the logic of the majority, which meant that Nicaragua’s poor majority would have access to, and be the primary beneficiaries of their country’s resources and its public programmes.

This stance, much similar to the position of the Zimbabwe opposition in relation to the popular land reclamation policy of 2000, is what suffices to confer democratic credentials by Washington and London. It is the crowning of the undemocratic democrats.

The Managua correspondent for the London Guardian, Tony Jenkins, summed up what was happening in Nicaragua by saying: "The political opposition in Nicaragua has never really committed itself to trying to win power by democratic means."

Challenged to respond to this assertion, one of the leaders of the opposition Democratic Co-ordinating Committee, a group proudly named "democratic" by Washington, which abstained from the elections, explained this posture.

He said: "It is true that we have never really tried to build up a big membership or tried to show our strength by organising regular demonstrations. Perhaps it is a mistake, but we prefer to get European and Latin American governments to put pressure on the Sandinistas."

Do we know who is playing around with the idea of running away from the negotiating table in the hope of getting European and African governments to put pressure on Zanu-PF?

While some of the reasons advanced by the MDC-T for "boycotting" the run-off might have received a degree of plausibility, there is a more fundamental reason for "the true democrats" to refuse to condemn sanctions and to rely on outsiders more than they do on political mobilisation.

We have learnt the lessons from the "democratic opposition" of Nicaragua, Miami-based Cubans, Honduras, Venezuela and our very own Zimbabwe.

In Nicaragua, Tony Jenkins noted that the opposition "never accepted the basic Sandinista precept of the revolution; that society must be reorganised to the benefit of the workers and the peasants".

Did the Zimbabwean opposition ever accept the basic precept of the Chimurenga revolution and did they ever accept that Zimbabwean society must be reorganised in terms of the distribution of land for the benefit of the landless masses?

In the absence of such acceptances the only route is to bank on pressure from outside forces and this is the only logic behind ZDERA and the shameful support for the so-called targeted sanctions. The idea is to render conditions of life intolerable, forcing the Government to tougher measures, and reinforcing the true allies of the West by presenting them as the only "democratic hope" to end the people’s suffering.

That idea has largely done its cycle in Zimbabwe although the opposition still runs a clear risk of overplaying its hand posturing as a party with a popular appeal among the masses.

After all, they just agreed and accepted that the ruling Zanu-PF commanded the most popular vote in March 2008, and accordingly conceded the majority Cabinet posts in the proposed inclusive government to the ruling party.

These comparisons have been made in light of the influences that are at play in the political process in Zimbabwe and this writer’s position is that whatever negotiations might still be pending between the three political parties involved; such negotiations must be in the context of Zimbabwe’s national interest and must be driven by a desire to build Zimbabwe and not to build on its ruins.

There must be no room for foreign influence in the running of Zimbabwe’s affairs and any deviation from this commitment cannot be rewarded or honoured. Indeed, we all seek a solution to the biting problems bedevilling the country but none of us has a right to look for slavery and servitude.

We owe it to posterity to build a solid future for Zimbabwe and any weakness now will be a crack to be mended for many years to come.

Zimbabweans we are always one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

l Reason Wafawarova is a political writer and can be contacted on wafawarova@yahoo.co.uk or reason@rwafawarova. com or visit www.rwafawarova.com

NAIROBI, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- The British energy firm, Aldwych International and Burmeister &Wain Holdings, said on Thursday they will spend 12 billion shillings (about 162 million U.S. dollars)to build a 90 megawatt diesel power plant in Kenya.

The plant to be constructed by Aldwych International Ltd (Aldwych) and Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor A/S (BWSC) is expected to bring stability and prosperity to Kenya's electricity consumers and its citizens.

"As developer and contractor of the Rabai power plant, we at BWSC are very proud to have been associated with the development of this vital project and awarded this important milestone," SorenBarkhold, Executive Director at BWSC told journalists in Nairobi.

"We are looking forward to becoming part of the Kenyan community and to participating in the country's further development and prosperity," Barkholt said.

The Rabai Power Plant is the largest single investment in Kenyasince the establishment of the new administration and will be delivering much needed power to the national grid before the end of 2009.

"Electricity is fundamental to Kenya's economic prosperity and development. In implementing the Rabai project we will do our very best to contribute to the Kenyan goal of providing a reliable and cost effective supply of electricity for the whole country", stated Mark Fitzpatrick, Managing Director of Aldwych.

The task of developing, financing, constructing and operating the 90MW diesel engine based power plant was awarded to Aldwych and BWSC on Nov. 30, 2006.

"I am thrilled to have such experienced and professional sponsors responsible for the construction and operation of the power plant. For Kenya, the project is a vital catalyst for the further development of the country, and I am confident that the sponsors will fulfill all their obligations. I wish them every success in their new venture," said Joseph Njoroge, CEO of KPLC which was responsible for awarding the contract.

The output (90MW), sufficient to provide power to up to 400,000households, will be sold to Kenya Power & Lighting Company Ltd. (KPLC), through a 20-year power purchase agreement.

The project was awarded on a build-own-operate-transfer basis through an international competitive bidding process.

The facility's output will be sold to Kenya Power and Lighting Co. in a 20-year power-purchase agreement.

The new plant, located 20 km from Mombasa, will be not only the most efficient thermal fuel plant in Kenya but also one of the cleanest, as it will be operated to meet stringent international environmental and social standards.

Following commercial operations, BWSC and Aldwych have forecasted savings of billions of shillings as the Rabai plant will displace some of the older and more costly emergency diesel plants that are currently being used to bolster the constrained Kenyan power supply.

POSTED: Monday, September 22, 2008
FROM BLOG: White African - Where Africa and technology Collide

My good friend Josiah Mugambi in Nairobi was at the Kenya chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) exhibition in Nairobi last weekend. This is where students showcase their innovation in engineering, ICT, mobile application and renewable energy. He did me a great favor by sharing some pictures and research that he did on some of the really interesting students he came across.

1. MPESA Online Shopping

By Denis Ndwiga Nyaga

Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph was especially interested in this one for obvious reasons. Denis called it ‘nakupesi‘, Naku for Nakumatt (the local mega-store). nakupesi is an online shopping mall, with payment based on MPESA. One would need to be registered on MPESA to be able to pay for items online via MPESA. One thing that is possibly lacking is delivery to one’s residence or office after purchase. This shouldn’t be too hard to incorporate though.

2. Green Tree Markets - a Business Intelligence tool for farmers

By Andrew Owuor

This looked quite interesting - A business intelligence tool that allows a farmer to choose where to sell his produce based on price, and location. Some of the obstacles that the developer Andrew Owuor mentioned include the need for real time market data from markets round the country, for the system to be of use. This isn’t a completely new idea, but it’ll be interesting to see what local twists are created for East Africa.


3. Automatic headlight dimming for two approaching vehicles -

By Jemimah Wachenje

Jemimah has developed a system that automatically dips two vehicles head lights when approaching each other at night. Josiah has ranted about headlights before, and I agree, it would be very useful and potential could reduce some accidents on those dark lightless roads around Kenya.

4. Energy harvesting using piezos to charge mobile phones -

by Richard Assanga Otolo and Gilbert Barasa

Very interesting, yet practical.

5. Synchronous Solar Heliostat -

by Samuel Njoroge

Sammy Njoroge’s demostration of a synchronous solar heliostat used to track the sun, and orient a solar panel accordingly thus improving the efficiency of solar panels. Automatic tracking of the sun to increase the efficiency of solar panels, Makes economic sense. Innovation runs in the family it seems.

A man told today how he was shot three times in a London street for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt.

Dube Egwuatu was buying a mobile telephone top-up card in an off-licence when the gunman confronted him and glared at the top, which carries an image of the Democrat US presidential candidate underneath the legend 'Believe'.

The man then launched into a tirade of racist slurs, shouting 'I f***ing hate n*****s' and urging 36-year-old Mr Egwuatu to leave the shop with him.
Respect: Dube Egwuatu wearing the Obama T-shirt that provoked a racist attack



The man then left the shop but when Mr Egwuatu re-emerged, the attacker was waiting for him in broad daylight with a threatening-looking dog and holding a gun behind his back.

Realising what had sparked the increasingly violent assault, the terrified Mr Egwuatu zipped up his jacket to cover the image of Mr Obama and walked to his car.

But the shaven-headed man, who was white, followed Mr Egwuatu and after pulling open the passenger door pointed the gun at him.

After pleading with the man to leave him alone, the married former street warden put the keys in the ignition and turned the engine on.

The attacker then fired the gas-powered ball-bearing pistol three times, hitting the civil servant in the face, hand and shoulder.

Fearing for his life and bleeding heavily, Mr Egwuatu raced away in his car and found somewhere safe to call for help.

He was taken to hospital and later sent to have a piece of metal removed from his jaw.

Mr Egwuatu, a data analyst with Croydon Council, said: 'The venom in his voice was frightening.

'He was telling me that he was going to kill me.

'I couldn't believe it was happening - and just because I was wearing an Obama T-shirt. He was trying to make me walk somewhere quieter, saying: 'I've got something for you,' and 'I'm going to kill you.'

He added: 'Obama inspires me, his educational track record alone is quite unbelievable - that is why I was wearing the T-shirt.

'I did not think for one minute it could stir up such powerful feelings of hatred and I never said a word to him.'

Mr Egwuatu's wife, Angela, 35, said neither of them had experienced anything like it during their childhood in Nigeria.

Mrs Egwuatu, an immigration officer, said: 'At first my feelings were pure horror and now it is pure anger.

'If he had been carrying a real gun I would have been a widow. It is just ridiculous.

'I don't know how a person's mentality works. Why would a T-shirt get you to the point where you want to shoot someone.'

To the untrained eye, ball-bearing guns like the one used in the attack look every bit like a real firearm.

The potentially lethal weapons are often converted by criminals to fire real bullets, and can be bought easily in high-street shops and on websites.

The Met said it was investigating the incident, which took place in South Norwood, and that police searched a nearby house which the attacker was seen going into.


No one has been arrested.

America learning from China


Sam Garande - Opinion


Mon, 06 Oct 2008 00:10:00 +0000

America learning from China



THE events of the few days in the West are astounding. The Western capitalist system as espoused by the Washington Consensus is crumbling or has already crumbled.



The West faces a moral hazard as it defies its own economic logic. The Western State, after years of criticising developing and semi-developed economies for stepping in at crucial junctures to protect a meltdown in their economies, has also started stepping in to pick up the tab for under-performing institutions.



This move was never underwritten in the Western capitalist economic model.



The West is now adopting the Chinese approach to capitalism – an approach they criticised and despised barely ten years ago when China was going through accession at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).



Learning from China now seems like a possibility, although the West would never publicly admit doing so.



America’s ‘Look East Policy’ pre-dated that of Zimbabwe or Africa. Many Western companies had already relocated to China, India, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. when Zimbabwe adopted the Look East Policy.



The West is urgently looking for new models to explain the current crisis north of the Atlantic. The situation threatens to crumble these once magnanimous economies.



China’s growth has been consistent, and has altered the international balance of power. American unilateralism is perpetually challenged by China, and its economy is likely to be superseded in the three decades – not a long time in economic terms.



According to Earth Policy: “During the 26 years since the far-reaching economic reforms of 1978, China’s economy has been growing at a breakneck pace of 9.5 percent a year. If it were now to grow at 8 percent per year, doubling every nine years, income per person in 2031 for China’s projected population of 1.45 billion would reach $38,000. (At a more conservative 6 percent annual growth rate, the economy would double every 12 years, overtaking the current U.S. income per person in 2040.)”



Existing Western economic models cannot sustain the ‘economic progress’ in these countries and the sooner these countries realize this, the better it will be for the entire world.



Current consumption levels are unsustainable and these countries are fast looking to countries like Zimbabwe and other sub-Saharan countries for mineral resources on which their modern industrial economy depends.



They are also consuming beyond the sustainable yield of the earth’s natural systems, and the sooner the developing world realizes this impending threat the better. As we are encouraged to “overcut, overplow, overpump, overgraze, and overfish” to satisfy Western consumption habits, “we are consuming not only the interest from our natural endowment, we are devouring the endowment itself.” In ecology, as in economics, this leads to bankruptcy.



Africa still has a large endowment, the developing world still has. These countries making up these regions need to learn, and learn fast that they should not be exploited.



Let America, and the rest of the West learn from the Chinese model and for once let’s look after our own natural endowment.







[Sam Garande writes from Cambridge, UK. He can be contacted at samgarande@live.co.uk ]

Amidst the great economic turmoil last week, the UN Summit in New York produced some notable outcomes for the world’s poorest people. We had ONE staff on the ground delivering our petition—with over 50,000 signatures—to the UN’s Assistant Secretary General and working with ONE co-founder Bono and fellow activist Bob Geldof to keep pressure on decision-makers throughout the week.

More important than the work we did though, are the results. Private sector donors and several countries including the Netherlands, Turkey, and China made commitments to agriculture. While this news marks good progress, it isn’t really comparable with the USD 1 billion we were asking for and we’ll have to keep working to get the funding necessary to end the global hunger crisis.

You can watch our inspiring new video, “Celebrate and Accelerate” that we used to motivate leaders and read more about the results—including a bold new initiative to eliminate deaths from malaria by 2015 and the World Bank committing USD 3 billion over two years for basic education – by clicking here:

http://www.one.org/r?r=65&id=611-2987369-RLlTtwx&t=2

Of course, more remains to be done. Donors need to lay out timelines for delivering the aid, and we need to make sure that in delivering their promises they don’t cut aid elsewhere. But in the meantime, I hope you’ll join me in a little muted celebration about these small steps forward in a difficult time.

Thank you,