US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today called for coordinated action to revive the global economy and invited Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso to meet US President Barack Obama at the White House next week.

Making Japan her first destination as Secretary of State, Mrs Clinton also offered Mr Aso’s ailing government reassurance on the solidity of the US-Japan alliance and on US concerns about Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea decades ago.

It is unclear whether her gestures will help Mr Aso, whose unpopular government is grappling with the worst recession in a generation and whose Finance minister said he would resign after having to deny he was drunk at a G7 news conference.

In a sign Washington may be hedging its bets on the Aso government, Mrs Clinton planned to meet with the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, Mr Ichiro Ozawa.

Speaking at a news conference with Japanese Foreign minister Hirofumi Nakasone, Mrs Clinton said the two discussed “the economic challenges facing our two countries and the world as a whole, which demand a coordinated global response”.

Might be delayed

“As the first- and second-largest economies in the world, we understand those responsibilities,” she added.

The two also signed an agreement to move 8,000 US Marines from Japan’s southern island of Okinawa to the US territory of Guam, a transfer long in the works and that a US general this month said might be delayed beyond its 2014 target date.

“This agreement … reinforces the core of our alliance: this mission to ensure the defence of Japan against attack and to deter any attack by all necessary means,” Mrs Clinton said in an allusion to the nuclear umbrella that the United States extends over Japan.

On a one-week visit to Asia that will also take her to Jakarta, Seoul and Beijing, Mrs Clinton made time to visit Tokyo’s Meiji shrine and was scheduled to have tea with the empress of Japan, meet the families of Japanese abducted by North Korea decades ago and to hold a town hall meeting with students.

The head priest

After taking part in a purification ceremony at the Shinto shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji, considered the father of modern Japan, Mrs Clinton said the head priest there had spoken to her “about the importance of balance and harmony”.

Speaking to US diplomats, Mrs Clinton drew an implicit contrast to the administration of former US President George W. Bush, whose legacy includes wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“It’s not only a good concept for religious shrines, it’s a good concept for America’s role in the world,” she said without citing Mr Bush by name. (Reuters)

source,nation.ke

Are you perpetually busy or don’t have the time to go hunting for a date with whom one thing could lead to another and, voila, you are man and wife? Thank God there is such a thing as speed dating, courtesy of the out-of-the-box thinkers.

On this Wednesday evening it’s speed dating night at the Rangers Restaurant, Nairobi. In the dimly-lit room ” ambiance has to be romantic ” the women outnumber the men.

We are also that serious daters are supposed to have registered with the organisers in advance. You have seen all this in Hitch, GilmoreGirls, Sex and the City among others: Once there is an equal number of skirts and shirts, each person is given only eight minutes to talk to one partner before moving to the next.

As much as moralists would love to dismiss it, speed dating is slowly becoming a romantic lifeline to many love-hunting Kenyans.

Kimberly Wanja speed-dated in Boston, USA, as student a year ago. She is now back home and was too excited to hear that she can actually do it in her own country.

I first thought it was too Western to happen here. But here I am, doing it over and over again, says the 28-year-old pharmacist. But has she found her perfect match yet?

That’s why I keep coming back. You see, it’s not a must for one to find a perfect match, what I do is just to try my luck and wait for the day I will find my future partner, she says.

Wanja actually believes that she can get her future husband through speed dating. Her friend, Zahra, met her husband Mike in a London club less than two years ago. Although he is white, they have a lot in common.

I was in this speed dating game, all I wanted was just to have fun, and slightly try if it could work. I saw him and instantly knew he was the kind of man I wanted to be with. When we clicked and decided to hang out a week later, the rest became history, says Zahra, now expecting Mike’s child.

However, it has not been a smooth ride between the two. Soon after they started hanging out a, there would be occasional fights over petty issues, says Zahra, who is visiting her family in Nairobi.

How we stuck together, I still don’t know. What I know is that it has not been a bed of roses in this relationship. Many believe that speed dating cannot work in Kenya. That if it did, it would be only for the big jokers in the clubs.

Now entertainment spots are slowly slotting speed dating in their theme nights. Ahmed, the entertainment manager at Tamasha Clubs, is yet to introduce speed dating as one of the theme nights in the chain.

I think they can attract people, but most of them would be spectators. According to my experience abroad, speed dating in Kenya would need people with money to waste, such that they can be able to spend the money anyhow with the new partners, says Ahmed, who was an entertainment manager in Turkey before coming to Kenya two years ago.

According to his experience most speed daters are married men, mainly looking for young girls. However, most of the organisers have different motives as far as speed dating is concerned, and some arrangements differ too.

According to the brand manager of Rangers Restaurant, Chris Kirwa, speed dating is already big in the country, but few people talk about it.

Let’s face it; Kenyans don’t talk about speed dating because they don’t want to look desperate. As Rangers, we help people network, it’s not only because of love, says Kirwa.

Rangers has partnered with Priority Entertainment to offer free salsa lessons to the daters. This makes sure that revellers get a full package in entertainment. If you do not get to learn more about a partner while speed dating, you’ll definitely get to know whether it’s a hit or a miss during the salsa lessons, says Kirwa.

Again, he says the restaurant has had couples coming back regularly after meeting during the speed dating sessions. But what’s the level of morality in speed dating?

According to James Maina, of Lagaan Consulting, dating in itself is a very innocent thing to do, only that its motive can change the whole meaning.

If you want to date so that you can have sex, then that is as simple as saying it is prostitution, explains Maina, who is also a published author. He maintains that dating should lead to courtship where couples get to know each other more, then marriage, and only then should sexual intercourse occur.

Speed dating was started to help single Jewish people to marry. Although it’s believed that it’s been around for a longer period, the first event took place at Pete’s Caf© in Beverly Hills, USA, in late 1998.

By 2000, it had spread to the rest of America and parts of Europe. The dating mode has obvious advantages, which include the speed. It is yet to be broadly accepted here in Kenya, but fact is that speed dating is not about to go away. How fast are you dating?

source.nation.ke