By David Ochwangi

Folks,
The recent headline articles in the Daily Nation which called attention to parts of the new constitution that decree, require, compel or whatever description fits your fancy,  Kenyans to vote for a certain quota  of female representatives to Parliament and local assemblies illuminate a fundamental flaw those of us who opposed the constitution were concerned about. Kenya’s new constitution has been hyped as the BEST in the world by those who campaigned for it and while all that is perfectly OK depending on who you talk to, the truth is, this new constitution was founded on quick sand and the more we now learn the truth, the harder it will be believe anything the state or her stewards try to pass in the future.

It clearly has its shortcomings, some of them so severe that absolute care must be taken so that it does not become an avenue upon which the country self-destructive, no constitution on earth is perfect and I am  cognizant of this fact but when you have one like Kenya’s with sections which blatantly violate, impugn and contradict itself on the most fundamental provisions of which it purports to protect and frustrates the very purpose for which we sought a new constitution, i.e. self-governance through the sovereignty of  “we the people”, then we are losing  our existential compass as a nation.

 
It appears that we are finally coming to terms with the fact that the new constitution is wrought with blunders, some of which if not quickly addressed, would do irreparable harm to the democratic advances Kenya has made since independence. It isn’t so much that the document was passed on false promises such as what was told to the Chiefs, District Officers, District Commissioners and Provincial Commissioners that they will keep their jobs in the new Kenya or Members of Parliament who are now disillusioned at the realization that they too, like the rest of us, MUST pay taxes notwithstanding repeated assurances from the powers that be that they will not pay taxes and several other fallacies contained in the document, far from it.
I fully understand the need and desire to advance and empower women in our society and frankly I think they make better leaders, after all they are the majority and if you ask me, male leaders have for the most part let us down. That being said, I don’t think this is the proper way to accomplish that, NO! This provision undercuts the integrity of the constitution; it renders the document gratuitously inconsistent and convoluted.  

The framers of the constitution made an indelible error in judgment with respect to this provision among others and it will be an even greater tragedy if we don’t fix it now.  Admittedly, during the campaign to pass it,  Kenya’s leaders conceded to the fact that the document in its current form, then just a draft, was far from perfect and that Kenyans should pass it first and question or amend it later; the argument made at the time was that there wasn’t enough time to correct inherent mistakes before the scheduled vote but now it appears the chicken are coming home to roost and I want to see the same leaders who rushed to pass this document to also be at the forefront of fixing it with equal zeal.

The framers didn’t even attempt to mitigate the erosion this idea would have on democracy much less provide for enforcement mechanism; who decides which ward/location, county, constituency must vote for a woman and at what election cycle for example? I say let the people themselves decide.
These sections, along with others yet to be discussed and the contemplated drafts designed to implement local governments’ formation, elections and functions make a complete mockery of the supremacy of “we the people” prominently promised in the new document in so far as it subverts the will of the people to elect their representatives.

The principle of the people’s sovereignty as unambiguously spelled in the constitution is supposed to be non-negotiable and yet the same document severely compromises that which it purports to promote.  A paradox I am struggling to reconcile a constitution which at the outset claims to revert  power and governance to the people  but in reality undermines that very sovereignty by placing unreasonable and unrealistic caveats, demands and prescriptions to the people as to whom they MUST elect based on gender. Which is which? We cannot have it BOTH WAYS folks; it is one or the other democracy or forced  representation-pick one.
As far as I am concerned, there cannot be a better election formula to substitute the will of the people or their right to democratically elect their representatives than the ballot box and to pretend otherwise is not only delusional but also grossly ill-advised. These attempts to subvert the people’s will as this constitution surreptitiously does must be rejected otherwise this whole constitution risks being rendered hollow. We must respect that which we have promised the nation, observe common sense, preserve our sensibilities as a nation, be consistent in form, substance and purpose otherwise we are going round in circles and wasting valuable time and resources healing self-inflicted wounds.

We need to develop and grow competitive democracy where competent and qualified candidates vie for elective office and win elections on account of their ideas and leadership-not this retrogressive cockamamie notion that a country can only advance by denigrating  the people’s sovereignty in the name of a badly crafted constitution. Folks, I say let’s speak up and let’s fix this glaring anomaly in this document now.

End

Our life and times are in your hands, O God.

By Rev. LED Dowell, Five-Fold Minister , USA

 AT LAST! SHALL WE BEGIN?! The God we serve is real. He is alive. He is everlasting to everlasting — God! And, like the Apostle Paul, “We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe.” Believers on the Lord Jesus shall continue to “Cry loud and spare not!” Please share this vital information about The Prayer Response, which is scheduled to be held in Houston, TX, on Saturday, August 6, 2011.

Let us continue to pray with, and for, Gov. Rick Perry and all who join in this long-awaited Spirit-filled response to the nation’s ills and all the entire world’s sins. Evildoers do not want this gathering to happen, because their cover will be torn away such that they will be laid open and bare for all to see their filthy nakedness and shame. It is called sin. “We are all born in sin and shaped in iniquity.” “All your righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

There is none righteous – no not one.” But it is God who pulls the covers back so that we may look, see, know, and repent with Godly repentence, and be saved! “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son (Jesus) so that whosoever believeth on Him (may come and) be saved (by Jesus.)” Barack Hussein Obama is at the helm and Hell awaits. In this crucial time when Barack Hussein Obama is at the helm, we have awakened, as a nation, to see just how far we have fallen from God’s grace. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Even atheists have gotten the upper hand through legislation which allows them to dare cry out that they are offended, because we pray in public, and even in private, in Jesus’ name.

They object to our faith by filing lawsuits all across this country to have the courts keep us from living out our faith and patriotism openly. And all of this has been done to block and stumble and stop us under the guise of “Separation of Church and State.” However, the state constantly takes steps to supplant God and the church in our life so that they can legislate God out of every area of this nation. We can no more tolerate that ungodly separation of church and state concept which man has woven out of whole cloth any more than we could consent to having our head severed from our body with the expectation that we could survive. When our faith informs us, and it does, we must not leave it outside any area of our life. We shall invite our faith to come along with us wherever we go.

Come join us to let it be known that all such foolishness coming from the atheists’ skewered thinking is being perpetrated upon the Godly by the ungodly. Every Christian leader is duty bound to advocate that kind of mindset has to be shunned, rejected, turned back, ignored as illegal, untrue. And let it be known, also, that it certainly offers no cause for our adhering to any such frivolous litigation. “Let God be true though every man be a liar.” If mankind had the answers to every problem apart from God, where would the need be for God? If mankind could make life live, then where are they? What kind of mindset is it that convinces mankind that they are invincible, above the law, above God Himself?

It is the mindset which is lost and has no redeeming value — not to God, mankind, or to his ownself. It is the pathetic sight of a reprobate who does not even have the mind to know he is out of God’s will lest he should repent and be saved. But when God makes you a reprobate, as only He can and does, there is nothing to reverse it. So, what is there to fear from man? Fear God and Reverence Him! As a Judeo-Christian nation, we need not ever have to ask mankind’s permission to: -say the name, Jesus. -bless our food in His name. -work in His name. -play in His name. -preach, pray, teach, love, give, heal, receive, and forgive in His name. And, may I say, Americans who know God never would have been deceived into accepting all that is against His will, word, and way, in the secular name of diversity and political correctness, except that those who were entrusted with leadership oversight down through the years have abused their positions.

Moreover, they have corrupted the laws of God and man to alter our entire national political and religious makeup. Politicians, lobbyists, coalitions, unelected hangers on and even foreigners have voted into every area of our life all that is illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional, and ungodly. Yet, politicians expect us citizens to obediently accept their confused ideologies as something that is true and pleasing to God on their say so? We say No. Human Secularist viewpoints are not food for the Godly. Human secularist ideologies of all kinds are plundering our rich, Godly heritage that so many patriots have fought and died at home and abroad “to protect, preserve, and defend.” Many of them survived, but just barely, and only to return home to a place they did not even recognize.

Our brave military sons and daughters, our beloved family and friends, loved ones all, will forever lay in young, cold graves. Gone much too soon. And, now we see all of those on whose behalf they fought to save have come into America, shifted us aside, and settled into the spaces left behind by our warriors. But too many of these newcomers have come here with the mindset that America gives them the freedom to arbitrarily change the entire nature of our nation, because they are living among us. And more and more, our elected leadership on the local, state, and national levels have given them “lawful” permission to eject us from our land as if America has no code of honor, ethics, dignity, respect, and constitutional rule of law.

Foreigners and strangers are welcomed to these shores, daily, because Americans have a compassionate and forgiving heart. But it is time for Americans to realize that when immigrants who come are spurred on by our own people to help them drive us into Hellfire and damnation through their self-same traditions which they despised enough to come to America, then it is time for us to call a halt and say, “No more!” We are not deceived. It is DONE! It is time to be done with it. It is time to let it be widely known that Americans will love you, will help you, will protect you, and will encourage you, but we will never consent to any form of modern-day enslavement which comes to rob us of our faith, family, and country regardless of whichever way the thief comes! What’s more, there is no such thing as a “bully pulpit.” We stand firm knowing that our God never forces Himself on anybody.

So, that is one more assertion that has to be refuted every time it is promoted by politicians in their attempt to shut our mouths and to shut down our free and independent nature to act in accordance with God’s law and man’s law, and to have the wherewithall to know and discern the difference between the two. These manmade laws are wrong and commonsense has taken a holiday for too long. a.. Abortion and Pro-choice have become buzzwords for murder and free sex without the legitimacy of Godly marriage. b.. Homosexual, Gay, Lesbian, Trans(whatever they choose) are buzzwords for perversions of every kind of which no such kind is of God or Godly. c.. Flag burning and desecration of Godly emblems are representative of the disdain that people show for having to live decent and orderly lives in which they are held to the highest standards, which they fail to meet since standards have been lowered. d.. Our overbearing government is forever changing rules, policies, and laws to conform to the whims of ill-prepared leaders who deliberately act to confuse citizens enough that they would choose to subject their will to others rather than to be held personally accountable for their own actions. e.. Higher Education is the buzzword for the release of sinister propaganda that begins to trickle down and take hold from birth and continues to follow to the grave. In this way, citizens are trained to be submissive and to never question authority figures. f..

Diversity and Political Correctness are buzzwords for “everything goes,” and “hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil,” never mind that it is not evil but the truth that speaks. Politics and money are killers when married to greed and avarice. We have lived under the throes of a troubling nation for a very long time. That is because most citizens trusted men and women enough to allow them to act on their behalf, as the constitution allows. As a result, the nation was lulled to sleep and those elected to office acted as if they had inherited the right to hold onto that office and to pass their position along to family and friends. America is great, because our God IS. And, because He IS, we are! This is America, “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” Our foundation is firm. We belong to the God who “has brought us thus far along the way,” and He has kept us down through the years until now.

What is more, our historical context comes along with us regardless of how many teachers and educational institutions fail to adhere to the truth of our forefathers and foremothers. We are not so easily persuaded otherwise, for our hope is in Him who changes not. And it does not take a legislative body, executive body, or judicial body to determine who He is nor does it take a military to enforce His will. For, Almighty God’s will shall be done, because He has the first, last, and forever say over every say so — be they heavenly, demonic, or human!

There is no better time than right now to stop and prayerfully conduct a legislative and religious overhaul all across America. Our God will lead the way. His truth still marches on to victory. Prayerfully visit THE RESPONSE site and resolve to pray beyond your roof on into the very Throne Room of our God! For, it is all to the glory, honor, and praise to God, in Jesus’ name, that we journey on. “Let us journey on.” Amen! God bless you.

End.

EASTERN AFRICA: Too soon to blame climate change for drought

Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN

Ali Abdi, 60, a pastoralist in Bisle, Shinile zone of Ethiopia’s Somali region, says it is the worst drought he has seen in his lifetime

ADDIS ABABA, 12 July 2011 (IRIN) – As parts of the Horn of Africa experience their driest periods in 60 years, pushing the numbers needing aid to beyond 10 million, some have been quick to blame climate change.

But no single event can be attributed to climate change, which involves long-term (decades or longer) trends in climate variability. There is, however, consensus in attributing the drought to the particularly strong La Niña event. The impact of climate change on the intensity and frequency of La Niña and El Niño in future is a big unknown.

IRIN spoke to two experts, an environmentalist and a scientist, who have worked extensively in the region:

Philip Thornton, a senior scientist who works part-time with the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the University of Edinburgh-based Institute of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, has done some pioneering work on projections of climate-change impact in eastern and southern Africa.

He told IRIN via email that projections of the climate-change impact in East Africa were “a problem” as the authoritative Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report “indicated that there was good consensus among the climate models that rainfall was likely to increase during the current century.

“But work by other climate scientists since then suggests that … certain Indian Ocean effects in East Africa may not actually occur.

“Some people think that East Africa is drying, and has dried over recent years; currently there is no hard, general evidence of this, and it is very difficult as yet to see where the statistical trends of rainfall in the region are heading, but these will of course become apparent in time.” [see Unpacking La Niña]

The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report will be released in 2014.

Photo: ILRI

Rainfall in East Africa related to El Niño Southern Oscillation points to severe La Niña phase

Jan de Leeuw is the operating project leader in the vulnerability and sustainability in pastoral and agro-pastoral systems within ILRI’s People, Livestock and Environment theme. He points out that this La Niña event is one of the strongest since the 1970s. But he says La Niña, along with El Niño, appear in cycles that “we don’t understand”.

What we do know is that La Niña started to develop in August 2010. It cools surface waters in the central and eastern Pacific Ocean, while allowing warmer water to build in the eastern Pacific. “The pool of warm water in the east intensifies rains in Australia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Domino-style, this pattern also increases the intensity of westerly winds over the Indian Ocean, pulling moisture away from East Africa toward Indonesia and Australia. The result? Drought over most of East Africa and floods and lush vegetation in Australia and other parts of Southeast Asia,” according to the US government’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

De Leeuw writes: “La Niña events were common from 1950 till 1976. Since then we had two decades [until about 1996] with fewer events of lesser depth. This has changed since then and over the last 15 years or so we have had more frequent La Niña events.”

Events as deep as the current La Niña occur once in 20 or 30 years, writes De Leeuw. “We are in a period now of more frequent La Niña events, but such a situation was there from 1950 till 1976 also.”

Thornton has the last word when he says research attention must focus on developing effective early warning systems and ways to help people affected by these events, who have no use for “academic” consideration of the linkages with climate change to cope better with the current levels of weather variability, “whatever happens in the future”.

jk/mw source www.irinnews.org

KENYA: Locals feel the strain as refugee numbers soar

Photo: Kate Holt/IRIN

New arrivals from Somalia waiting to be registered at Dagehaley camp, in Dadaab

DADAAB, 13 July 2011 (IRIN) – About 1,300 Somalis are arriving at the Dadaab refugee camps in northeast Kenya every day. The help they are seeking – refuge from a severe drought and the effects of years of conflict – is being handed out as fast as possible. But in a camp complex that has already been stretched well beyond its limits, the new arrivals need more assistance than can be provided. The nutritional state of older children, as well as under fives, is of concern, but the local Kenyan population is faring little better.

“The number has skyrocketed,” a registration expert with the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, told IRIN.

The official, who declined to be named, said UNHCR had had to hire more employees, who now work in shifts, to accommodate the rush.

The three Dadaab refugee camps – Dagahaley, Ifo and Hagadera – were originally meant to cater for 90,000 refugees, but housed at least 380,000 people, according to UNHCR.

Despite the overcrowding, the government of Kenya has yet to allow people to move into a fourth camp, known as Ifo II, which stands empty.

“Water systems, latrines and healthcare facilities are ready to use but are standing idle,” Oxfam said in a statement.

Oxfam reported that 60,000 new arrivals were living in basic tents outside the camp boundaries, with limited access to clean water or latrines, risking an outbreak of disease.

Malnutrition

Those living in these informal settlements are some of the worst-off. In the settlements on the outskirts of Dagahaley camp, 17.5 percent of children between six months and almost five years old are severely malnourished, three times the emergency level, according to Caroline Abu-Sada, a research unit coordinator with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

Rates of malnutrition are lower at the reception centres than in the outskirt settlements, according to MSF, indicating that children are deteriorating quickly after their arrival at Dadaab due to a lack of access to clean water and nutritious food adapted to their special needs.

“We drank some tea this morning, but we have very little food,” Madina Farah Yusuf, a Somali refugee with four foster children, told Oxfam. “The rations are not enough for everyone to eat every day.”

A rapid nutrition assessment by MSF showed that more than 43 percent of children in the outskirts aged six to 10 years were [also] malnourished. This age group is not usually included at all in nutrition programmes. Abu-Sada said even refugees who had lived in the camp for years had deteriorating nutritional status because they were sharing food with newcomers.

In response, MSF is increasing its capacity, opening a sixth health outpost, recruiting more community health workers, and attending medical screenings at refugees’ arrival.

The lack of water in the outskirts was a real concern. Refugees are only able to obtain up to three litres of water a day, 80 percent less than they need according to the Sphere Standards, which are already based on emergency situations. Some are only receiving 500ml for drinking, bathing, washing clothes, and everything else.

By comparison, in North America and Japan most people use 350l a day, according to the World Water Council.

Risk of disease

Water is now being trucked to the camp outskirts by MSF and CARE, but there were previously only 48 taps for 20,000 people. Abu-Sada said diarrhoea was already rampant, along with skin rashes and respiratory infections.

Photo: Jennifer Brookland/IRIN

Dadaab shopkeeper Deckon Sirad Salah said refugees are welcomed despite the strain they put on the host community

She said a family with six children came to the clinic; two children were infected with chicken pox and the others had various ailments. MSF gave them all medicine, but the family had no containers to carry water to help take it.

Abu-Sada said the lack of clean water, adequate sanitation and nutritious food was just increasing the vulnerability of people who were already weak.

That threat is compounded by the fact that only 65 percent of the refugees have been vaccinated against measles. “With the massive influx, we’re way below coverage to avoid an outbreak,” she said. The disease is so contagious that just one infected child is considered an outbreak.

Locals suffering

Outside the camp, the host population is not faring much better. An MSF nutrition assessment showed that the local community was suffering from malnutrition at the same rates as the refugees living in camp outskirts, and people had stopped feeding their animals in order to have enough food for themselves.

Half the people arriving in villages near the camps came from the Kenyan countryside, according to Abu-Sada, unable to qualify as refugees and officially obtain the corresponding food and medical aid.

The UNHCR registration expert said many Kenyans attempted to register as refugees to obtain aid. Kenyans just outside the camp have to pay for water, schooling and medicine while people inside the camps get them for free. Despite the fact that education opportunities in the camp are meagre, those whose children are left out still perceive an injustice.

“They get free and better education and healthcare,” said local shopkeeper Deckon Sirad Salah, who was a young boy when the first refugees arrived in Dadaab. “Livelihoods are even better in the camp,” he said.

The local community used to graze their animals on the land now occupied by refugees, who also cut down surrounding trees for firewood.

Salah also believed new arrivals were to blame for growing insecurity in Dadaab town, and suggested refugees who were not receiving enough food were responsible for an uptick in store robberies, animal raids, and arms dealing. It was a problem when the camp was first created in the early 1990s, he said. “The new influx is taking us back to those bad old days.”

Sahara Dhubou, a mother and vegetable seller, also noticed a change in the town’s security. She couldn’t prove the new refugees were the culprits, but said that “before the new arrivals came, there was peace”. Now, she says, “there is fear in the night”.

Salah blamed the aid agencies who worked in the area, saying if the refugees were being provided for they would not need to steal from the host population.

“It’s a natural disaster that brought them here and we locals are very sympathetic and willing to welcome them,” said Salah. “We know there’s no way for them to go back.”

jb/am/mw/bp source www.irinnews.org

by Eric Reeves
 

In a recent op-ed in The Washington Post about the independence of South
Sudan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton offered a conspicuous example
of the Obama administration’s policy of equivocation when it comes to the
world’s newest nation and the country it split from last weekend.  
The evident logic of such false equivalence is that it’s necessary to keep
Khartoum engaged in negotiations:

If “both sides,” as Clinton refers to them repeatedly, are equally responsible for violence and for the failure to resolve outstanding issues like the North-South border delineation, then diplomacy will be able to exert pressure to compromise. Never mind that compromise–indeed, many compromises–have already been made by the South; the real problem here is that President Omar Al Bashir’s regime has refused to live up to the agreements.
 
The disputed region of Abyei is a perfect example. Despite the compromises already embodied in the Abyei Protocol from 2004 and a “final and binding” ruling in 2009 by the Permanent Court of Arbitration, both Clinton and Scott Gration, the former U.S. envoy to Sudan, pushed last fall for South Sudan to “compromise” further on Abyei.

This had the effect of convincing Khartoum that there was more to gain from further intransigence in negotiations, and the ultimate consequence was the May 2011 invasion of Abyei by Al Bashir’s military. Although the U.N. has said it will deploy Ethiopian peacekeepers to Abyei, Khartoum now exerts de facto military control over the region, and the population of indigenous Ngok Dinka has been forced to flee to South Sudan. The prospects for long-term security are bleak.
 
Clinton’s take? “The violence that has flared in Abyei in recent months cannot be allowed to return and jeopardize the larger piece.” No assignment of responsibility, even though the violence was clearly instigated by Khartoum and culminated in the seizure of the region in a period of just two days. This only works to encourage Khartoum’s conviction that, when the Ethiopian force leaves (assuming it effectively deploys in the first place), it will retain control of the region.

President Al Bashir more or less confirmed this in a much-noted interview with the BBC onJuly 10. He said Abyei will always belonged to the North, unless there is a referendum—long-promised to the region’s people, but denied because of newly contrived arguments over residency–which voters choose to be part of the South. Of course, he said this referendum must include migrating Arab tribes who are loyal to the North and would thus almost certainly skew the vote in Khartoum’s favor.
 
Clinton also erred when she wrote, “One urgent step both sides must take
is agreeing to a cessation of hostilities in the northern border state of Southern Kordofan, which started in early June.” This is wildly misleading. The reality is that, after signing a vague frame-work agreement that had such cessation of hostilities as its key agenda item, AlBashir disowned the commitment, saying the “cleansing” of South Kordofan and the Nuba Mountains would continue. Those to be “cleansed,” of course, are the African Nuba people.

The leaders of South Sudan and the chief negotiator for the Nuba, former deputy governor Abdel Aziz El Hilu, are desperate for a true ceasefire and commitment to resolving under.  We’ve seen plenty of previous examples of the Obama administration’s policies and rhetoric of equivocation. For instance, after the devastating assault on Khor Abeche (South Darfur) in December 2010 by Khartoum and its janjaweed allies, National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer noted the many civilian casualties and thousands of displaced persons, but then went on to declare:
 
“This attack comes at a time that we are also seeing increased evidence
of support to militant proxies from the Governments of Sudan and Southern
Sudan. All Sudanese leaders have a responsibility to protect civilian
populations—to do otherwise is unacceptable.”
 
In other words, Hammer was flatly comparing more than eight years of
genocidal predation by Khartoum-directed militias to actions that, while
troubling, were of relatively little consequence.  This is outrageous distortion–and an apparent effort at a soothing even-handedness meant to placate Khartoum. (It’s also not clear that South Sudan has ever supported rebels in Darfur.) Given the U.S. response, it shouldn’t be surprising that the North’s military campaign that began in Khor Abeche continues today.
 
Clinton and other U.S. diplomats should understand that being an honest
broker does not necessitate accommodating genocide or other violence. Yet
disingenuousness and diplomatic equivocation continue to be the hallmarks
of the Obama administration’s Sudan policy.

Tragically, the consequences of this policy are coming into exceedingly grim focus.
 
[Eric Reeves is a professor at Smith College and author of A Long Day's
Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide.]
_____________________________
Eric Reeves
Smith College
Northampton, MA  01063