Why we are in danger of becoming a failed State

Published on 25/06/2011

By Billow Kerrow
Our great nation has again been ranked as a State in ‘danger’ of becoming a failed State. Ranked 16th out of 172 countries surveyed by Fund for Peace, Kenya is 15 places below the topmost failed state in the world – Somalia. We are ranked worse than Burundi, Liberia and Eritrea in the league of the world’s most vulnerable countries that are deemed to be a ‘threat to their own inhabitants’, the face of a ‘new world disorder’. Combined, the failed states are home to ‘humanity’s bottom billions’.
Believe it or not – that’s the way some in the world sees us – a nearly failed state! Meaning, Kenya is an unstable country.
We scored dismally on most of the dozen parameters used in the survey such as uneven development, delegitimisation of the State and factionalised elites. But our key weaknesses were said to be over-indulgence in foreigners to resolve our problems, demographic pressures such as the IDPs and growing insecurity.
The bottom line is that our institutions of governance are deemed to be dysfunctional. The risk of political instability is a major cause of worry for investors, international businessmen and even tourists who only visit the country on short stays.
So, what is the truth in these arguments? The 2007 post-election violence marked the beginning of our unfortunate descent into this league of nations.
Despite the rhetoric, we still have thousands of IDPs languishing in camps for fear of reprisals if they go back to their land.
In recent months, we have made world news headlines for all the wrong reasons. Our leaders are wanted by the International Criminal Court, US or Jersey because our criminal justice system is deemed to have failed. A good number cannot even fly to the US or Europe even on official State business.
We are literally told how to run our country – the US, Kofi Annan, Eminent Persons, etc who audit our progress every so often, ostensibly to ensure we carry out our pledges for reforms to prevent a repeat of 2007 chaos. WikiLeaks revelations spoke volumes about our leaders whose views are shaped by Western envoys.
Mega corruption scandals rock the nation every so often and the masterminds hardly get convicted. Leaders do not take responsibility for their actions, and do not get fired unless we shout ourselves hoarse, if at all. A third of our public expenditure is deemed to be looted every year in public procurements, driving the majority into abject poverty. Big time criminals with phantom ‘fly by night’ companies empty public coffers as they usually enjoy political patronage. And when they get caught in the act, they invariably get away with it, only if the loot is big!
In Northern Kenya, the inequality is appalling. Deprivation, destitution and squalor marks the vast landscape as residents fight for survival and even succumb to starvation. Images of Kenyans going without water and food for days, and livestock carcass dotting the area are a stark reminder of the disregard for human dignity and utter neglect. To residents of this region, truly the ‘country’ they know is a failed state because it has failed to provide for them the last 50 years.
Extra-judicial killings by the security forces particularly in Central Kenya, and torture during operations to flush out bandits in pastoralist areas are glaring human rights violations that have become common. We frequently feature in UN human rights reports in this regard. Remember Alison?
Ethnicisation and politicisation of policy and legal decisions by our leaders give an impression of a nation unable to savour the real fruits of democracy. Blatant impunity is the second nature to our leaders. Our elite are in the shackles of ethnic chauvinism.
Yet, despite all these signs, the country is making efforts, however feeble, towards reversing the trend. The variable, as often, is the leadership, not the masses!
—The writer is a former MP for Mandera Central and political economist.

Circumcision Helps Prevent Cervical Cancer

Healthy Always

Live Healthy Live Longer

January 2011

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers have documented yet another health benefit for circumcision, which can protect men against the AIDS virus, saying it can protect their wives and girlfriends from a virus that causes cervical cancer.

Wives and girlfriends of circumcised men had a 28% lower rate of infection over 2 years with the human papilloma virus or HPV, which causes warts and cervical cancer, they reported in the Lancet medical journal on Thursday.

"Our findings indicate that male circumcision should now be accepted as an efficacious intervention for reducing the prevalence and incidence of HPV infections in female partners. However, protection is only partial; the promotion of safe sex practices is also important," Dr. Maria Wawer and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore wrote.

Research in Uganda

Wawer's team piggybacked the HPV study onto a larger study that has shown circumcised men are less likely to be infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS.

"We enrolled HIV-negative men and their female partners between 2003 and 2006, in Rakai, Uganda," they wrote in their report in the Lancet medical journal.


They were able to get details on HPV infections for nearly 1,000 of the women, all identified by men as long-term sex partners such as wives. After two years, 27.8 percent of the steady partners of circumcised men had HPV infections, compared to 38.7 percent of the partners of uncircumcised men.

2nd Most Common Cancer

HPV infection is best known as the primary cause of cervical cancer, but it causes genital warts and can also lead to cancers of the anus, penis, head and neck.

There are dozens of strains of HPV, which are highly contagious and which infect the majority of the population within a few years of beginning sexual activity. Most people clear the virus but in some, it can cause changes that lead to cancer.

Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide and is expected to kill 328,000 this year, mostly in developing countries.

GlaxoSmithKline and Merck make vaccines against HPV but they are not available to most women in developing countries.


Male Circumcision

Circumcision removes the foreskin of the penis, which is rich in immune system cells targeted by HIV and perhaps other viruses. Taking off the foreskin likely makes the penis less likely to carry a range of microbes, Wawer's team said.

"Male circumcision has now been shown to decrease HIV, herpes simplex virus-2, and HPV infections and genital ulcer disease in men, and also HPV infection, trichomoniasis, and bacterial vaginosis and genital ulcer disease in their female partners," Wawer's team wrote.

"Thus, male circumcision reduces the risk of several sexually transmitted infections in both sexes, and these benefits should guide public health policies for neonatal, adolescent, and adult male circumcision programs."



More info on CURCUMCISION here.

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Woman who filmed cops acquitted

RT

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Published: 28 June, 2011, 23:33

RT previously reported on a New York woman arrested for filming police from her front lawn. Now charges have been dropped against Emily Good.

Charges against the Rochester, New York woman that was arrested after filming police outside her home last month have been dropped, a month after she was detained by cops for recording from her front lawn.
Emily Good made national headlines when the iPhone footage she made went viral after it was posted to YouTube. In the clip, Good is chastised by a Rochester police officer for filming a routine traffic stop outside of her home. Good claims that she is allowed to film from her own front yard, but the arresting officer, Mario Masic, insists she retreats to her home or face arrest.
Good refused, and her arrest is then caught on tape.
After the incident made waves, Rochester Police Chief James Sheppard said he had “researched the incident and determined that the case is currently proceeding through the adjudication process.” Now all charges against Good have been dropped.
On Monday, Sheppard and the district attorney’s office and Rochester Mayor Thomas S. Richards all agreed that charges should be dismissed.
Sheppard now says he supports the initiative of Officer Masic, but adds, "nonetheless, we must conduct ourselves with the appropriate respect for those involved as well as those observing our behavior."
Good says she plans on opening a civil suit against the Rochester PD for violating her civil rights.
"People recognize me going down the street and they say 'wow, thank you for standing up to this,'" Good tells Rochester network YNN, "because this is happening everyday and people just don't pay attention."

US: inspiring attacks from within

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Published: 01 July, 2011, 09:40

US: inspiring attacks from within

 

Three men convicted of trying to blow up synagogues in New York have each been sentenced to 25 years in prison. But the case has raised allegations of entrapment, after they were actually incited by the FBI, and handed fake bombs.
­Critics claim it was a set-up, but the judge said her hands were tied.
For nearly a decade, the US has waged a widespread global war on terror. It has required a multi-tasking military effort overseas.
On the domestic front, US officials have decided to redouble their efforts, recently announcing counter-terrorism plans that refocus resources on combating home-grown plots.
“This is the first counter-terrorism strategy that focuses on the ability of Al-Qaeda and its network to inspire people in the United States to attack us from within, ” John Brennan, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor declared recently.
Yet in countless so-called FBI sting operations, media reports suggest the FBI operative provided the fake C4, and actually showed them the fake stinger missile.
The inspiration to attack America has sometimes come from a government-paid informant working to orchestrate the plot.
Critics of this tactic say it was exercised in a New York case dubbed the “Newburgh Four”.
The suspects – poor, illiterate, African-American Muslims – were presented as the faces of homegrown terrorism, and subsequently found guilty of conspiring and attempting US terrorist attacks.
 “There was no direction by a foreign entity or terrorist group,” said Joseph Demarest, the head of the FBI’s New York office in May 2009.
Instead direction came from Shahid Hussain. a Pakistani immigrant on the FBI payroll. He was reportedly paid $100,000 for his services.
According to court testimony, Hussain recruited the cash-strapped former convicts by offering cars and cash to carry out the operation he reportedly orchestrated.
“Four individuals sought to bomb Jewish facilities here in the Bronx and also take down a military aircraft in Newburgh,” Demarest subsequently acknowledged.
None of the defendants had passports or licenses. What the government had was an agent provocateur who testified in court as a key witness.
The same day, a new counter-terrorism strategy was touted, the Newburgh Four were sentenced to 25 years in prison each.
A tearful and angered crowd of supporters gathered outside Manhattan’s federal courthouse.
“Who holds the government accountable? Turning on your own American citizens. People that’s [sic] born right here on American soil. This is a damn shame. Miscarriage of justice and we will keep fighting back,” says Alicia McWilliams McCollum, an aunt of David Williams, a Newburgh Four defendant.
“The government should not be allowed to entrap folks, make plans, and set the whole course of a complete plan, and then take the victims and sentence them to 25 years in prison,” says David Williams Sr., Williams’ father.
FBI-informants have reportedly been used in dozens of so called foiled plots since 9/11.
Critics say hundreds of Americans are languishing behind bars for fake terror attacks planted and grown by the US government.
“Our tax dollars are being used to incentivize criminals to manufacture terror plots that they catch other people up in? I can't see how that in any way benefits the country,” says New Yorker Joseph Jordan.
“That means they can pick anybody out from New York City, or of course the United States, and make a plot,” suggests New Yorker L Amir. Amma.
“You have to be very careful, very aware, of who you speak to, who you are around, because you have many FBI agents, many informants that are out there that they are using,” warns Marlene Jenkins, whose son has been arrested and imprisoned through an FBI-orchestrated sting.
The US federal judge said outrageous government behavior was exercised in the case of the Newburgh Four, expressing doubt the convicts could have or would have planned an attack without the FBI informant. However, the specific charges against the men required a mandatory minimum 25-year prison sentence. US prosecutors say the manufactured plot would have been a colossal attack if carried out and “the fact that it was fake does not matter.”

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