Copenhagen Draws Ever Nearer

As issues of climate gain prominence this week as the Copenhagen Climate Conference draw nigh, all we can hope for is for our leaders to come with conclusively successful agreements. With the global state of the economy still not as sure-footed as it was thought to be three years ago, we can only hope for a positive outcome from these talks. Climate change policies require a deliberate globalised effort from each and every other country, big or small, land-locked or coastal and even rich or poor.

The question of compromise should surely not be allowed to bring disunity as it seems likely to do so. Although it should be a globalised effort, the huge polluters should surely agree with the numbers and take serious measures directly proportional to their footprints. For earth's sake, capitalists should agree that a major market failure needs fixing and should therefore feel obliged to want to do more. They have all convinced us that something is being done but 'more' is needed than just the bare minimum.

Nations can disagree on anything else else but climate change. Just to mention two, Australia and the US should stop politicising their domestic policies which seem to be struggling in the respective houses of parliaments.

God help us.

Have Things Seriously Stalled

The heading of this week's The Economist Magazine boldly states, "East Africa’s most important country is failing to pick itself up after a traumatic and bloody election". The article again looks at the major problems pulling reform behind with the root of all the political confusion conspicuously being a leadership regime that just won't get it. With inflation at a rate of 18%, 4 million reportedly depending on food aid, dragged justice just really is too much for Kenyans to handle not to mention growing tensions arising from the angry and highly charged mostly-youth population. If leaders or should I say same old leaders, don't really put their words to action now and implement reform and serve justice as best desired by Kenyans, I am really afraid of a bleak future comprising instability and chaos generally.

Of course problems facing the East African stronghold do not just stem from the post-election violence and processes following from the violence but they are very deep-seated issues which would probably need more time to fix than is being expected but just for the sake of the immediate future a quick and rigid solution needs to be reached at quick hastily. Kenyans' problem's with political differences will not just be decided at a court but should come from the people themselves. That is probably a question for another day so for now, why don't "we" all just get done with the acting and do something about the delayed justice which as I see it might be a huge course of concern from the international community(which has to again be the big Bretton Woods institutions which we are now forced to look up to).

Why should we let justice and the demise of a few front line individuals, which is definitely what some of the alleged instigators are looking at by me, pull our rating down?

You can read the whole Economist article here

Speaking of Bears

This is one interesting read and I particularly like when they describe the bears as, "The word “bear” brings to mind an irrational, angry creature that lashes out at anything in its path. Of course, like their animal counterparts, some bears can be very wild indeed. The most excitable bears are not so much polar as bipolar. They dabble in conspiracy theories and talk of the collapse of civilisation and the need for investors to sell all paper assets, buy gold and retreat to Idaho. But bulls can be overenthusiastic too, talking of new eras in which asset prices will reach undreamed-of heights (remember the book “Dow 36,000”?). Over the past 20 years it has been the repeated interventions of central banks to rescue bulls, not bears, that have contributed to the current mess by encouraging too much risk-taking."

View full article here from the Economist.

A Test Of Faith

I always wanted to attribute my christianity and faith(which I would want to believe is undivided to God) to my rural upbringing. Something for which I owe so much to the village where I was born and raised. Ironically though I never really attended formal sunday school classes as other kids would because I would always sneak into the main church where the elongated service was held. Maybe I just liked being there as a way of mischief but one thing was for sure, I wasn't getting bored with doing that each and every other sunday service. My grandparents, with whom I lived with then always said they were fascinated by my perpetual interest in the church and more so the main service. It was a Presbyterian church and now that am at it I still can't explain how I held up a 4 hour service as that was how long it would normally take. The time never really seemed to a bother at that time of my childhood. As I grew up and was now well into my youth my heart didn't seem disinterested enough by the prospect of church-going although like every other kid at such tender age, it did pose some questions whether to go or not. I have always found comfort in having to congregate in church my reasons nice and simple; a quiet place to worship God and grow. Faith in God to me to me is something I believe is personal and depends so much with every individual's attitude. My upbringing did contribute a considerable deal to me being as pious as I would want to think I am but also it was only keeping the habit up by my own discretion and no duress ever forced me to do what I did. If there are things in life that really matter, I think the upbringing of kids should be on top of the list. It gives me joy to proclaim God's love and continued support in all these things because of course he is the maker of all things and the graceful one here. It has been a while since I sat and wrote something so i really hope this one is worth the while for now. Until next time that was "Something That Mattered". DAVID KINYUA

Why Debian?

Debian, The Universal Operating System, is one robust and amazing open-source distribution I consider the best running GNU/Linux. The reason I would ditch the TV for it are simply much more that just the eye candy, and in brief, a secure experience, the vast software resources, vibrant mailing lists and community to learn from, fast and slim flux box window manager besides the widely used gnome desktops, full and flawless support for most of the programming languages I am keen to put my mind to, ability to run on very old hardware that is also low on memory and with basic video and sound cards leave alone an old wireless card that needed some few hours to just get recognised, amongst many other reasons.

Its been almost 3 years using Linux and I can finally say that this is where I finally wanted to be, running a robust, multiple desktop, clean partition Linux. The succession was Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, OpenSuse, Ubuntu and now comfortable at Debian 5.0 with kernel 2.6.29 on 32bit 17GB Toshiba laptop which must be 5 years old now.

It has been almost 6 months on Debian Lenny and the experience is just one of a kind. Being able to survive a clean upgrade from Etch to Lenny with just a few weeks after my first ever install of Debian was just like water-boarding for me but luckily enough I survived it and learning so much more from the Debian community.

Just being able to cleanly run Debian that plays flash well, compiles C code neatly, roams and catches wireless networks without hitches, sounds clear with the sound servers all souped up for comfort, can Skype, telnet, putty or ssh to Uni, has my own style in fluxbox not forgetting to mention transparent aterm, hibernates properly(had to get 2.6.29 for this), xnests just fine, social-networks fully with Pidgin, can Compiz on gnome when feeling lazy but with my video card I wouldn’t normally want compiz slowing me down so I just have it off amongst other things is just amazing. And at this rate I am about to convince all of my friends to get their tux on. And I haven’t even talked about the server side of things. Xorg for now gets me happy!

Peter Schiff on Inflation, Fed, Rule of law

Tackling the Mungiki Menace;We need action Mr President

Assuming that what is reported in the Kenyan mass media is only a fraction of what is happening in the ground, the Mungiki case to me qualifies to be one that needs serious urgency Mr President sir. Can anyone educate me otherwise because this to me is what I would call damning ridiculous: the fact that nothing is being done. At one instance some weeks back 29 villagers were taken down by this "outlawed" sect. And their reason, well, who really bothered to investigate?
Maybe the political instability after the elections might have helped legitimise this bloody group but I would be so intrigued if they actually closed their eyes (if in case they have any) did it on purpose

If I recall right, what I learned a government to be(a democratic one for the sake of this argument) is one that represents the people that voted it in. According to my understanding, a government seeks to protect its people just as importantly as it should its general sovereignty. When a sect like Mungiki gets out of hands and seems to be as strong as if they have some atomic weapons is completely puts me off. If the worst is this why should not help from the army be invoked as it seems the Kenya Police appear to be comprised(then again I understand this is not star-trek but there seems to be mixed feelings here and possibly some dirty tricks which we as the citizens of Kenya have not been told about but have been left to the evil hands of speculation.

When people die at the magnitude they are dying at the hands of Mungiki and yet a president does nothing to inspire some hope physically to me indicates a hole in the bag. I can not abstract this issue further since I am not on the ground but what the hell is Kibaki waiting for. I am only loking up to the president because as of now Mr Odinga has been given no such powers to be capacitated to turn things round and if I were Odinga I would really reconsider issues. Where on earth does a government fight its own. Just why will not fellow party members agree to support Raila for once for the sake of the Kenyan majority.

Democracy I say is at a huge test here and unless someone does something real quick, alternatives will sure have to crop up but I dare spare that thought for the benefit of my sanity. The government needs to step up real quick before these anti-Mungiki vigilantes take their missions too far out.

Coming to terms with religion

Am just a little distressed at the fact that it seems the more 'civilised' things and people seem to get, the more separated they are becoming to their spiritual affiliations. As this 'civilised' group is mostly composed of the youth, I guess where am pointing at is the seemingly religious emancipation that the young generation is tending to be struggling to achieve.

The only viable explanation I can come up with at the top of my head would be a stronger peer pressure this time coming from a wide variety that the internet and technology as a whole has brought along.

While this is one topic that no one can say they have mandate over referring to people's choices about who or what they believe in, it also brings to great question the moral spiritual judgment and uprightness that I suppose ought to be there and which ought to be taken more seriously if that was the case. When people are left to decide what to do with their freedoms of having to choose whether or not to recognise a greater being, supernatural in being to bring the point home, given the magnitude of the current revolution of globalisation, what I am most afraid of is a supersonic  degradation of Christianity in general. Of course am being too pessimistic generalising everything this way but to me it seems the wholesome thing to do.

For now, my message to Christians is for them to keep strong of their belief in God and remain faithful for I believe it is not in vain. Those who have faith and earnestly seek him, as I paraphrase from the Bible in Hebrews 11:6, will be rewarded

THIS is the tale of the tragic failure of a brave and honest man appointed to expose corruption by a new Kenyan president who came to power on a wave of high-minded enthusiasm in late 2002, claiming to be a clean-handed reformer. Within a few years the brave man, John Githongo, is betrayed by the president, Mwai Kibaki, and by most of the big man’s closest colleagues, many of whom prove themselves to be patently corrupt. Mr Githongo is at first intensely loyal to Mr Kibaki, who gives him an office down the corridor in State House. But the whistleblower comes to realise that the president acquiesces in corruption of the grossest kind, and flees for his life into exile.

There is far more to this gripping saga than that. It is a down-to-earth yet sophisticated exposé of how an entire country can be munched in the clammy claws of corruption. It is also a devastating account of how corruption and tribalism—the author prefers the grander term ethno-nationalism—reinforce each other, as clannish elites exploit collective feelings of jealousy or superiority in an effort to ensure that their lot wins a fat, or the fattest, share of the cake. Hence the book’s title: “It’s our turn to eat”.

Mr Githongo, who reported for The Economist (among other journals) in the 1990s, is portrayed by the author, an outstanding former Financial Times journalist, to whose house in London he fled, as a complex character: jovial, moody, dogged, ingenious and understandably obsessive. Through his prism, the author describes Kenya’s history over the past two decades, “probing the roots of a dysfunctional African nation”.

After independence in 1963, Jomo Kenyatta and his mainly Kikuyu inner circle steadily plundered the country, ensuring that their fellow Kikuyus and closely related Meru and Embu groups, together comprising some 28% of Kenya’s people, acquired an ever-larger slice of the land. After his death in 1978, his successor, Daniel arap Moi, who hailed from the much smaller Kalenjin-speaking group of tribes, reckoned it was their turn to eat—and how. Eventually, in 2002, in what looked like a pan-ethnic revolt against Mr Moi’s lot, Mr Kibaki, another Kikuyu, won a multiparty election amid hopes that Kenya would at last have a decent, reasonably clean administration in which merit rather than tribe would be the way to advancement. Mr Githongo’s appointment as the government’s anti-corruption tsar was hailed as a happy sign of intent.

No such luck. Mr Githongo almost immediately spotted a massive scam, to be known after a murky company called Anglo-Leasing, that creamed off some $750m mainly by overbilling the state—with ministerial connivance—in some 18 projects. He noted that more than half of these scams had originated in Mr Moi’s era but had deftly been carried over into the new and supposedly clean one. It soon became clear that not only were some of the most senior ministers in the government involved but also that the president was unwilling to do anything about it.

Moreover, as Mr Githongo made secret tapes of conversations with these villains, two more things became equally clear. The main perpetrators, bound by a tight code of ethnic solidarity, flagrantly appealed to him, as a fellow Kikuyu, to be loyal to his tribe. He also realised, even after he had fled into exile, that this so-called “Mount Kenya Mafia” was determined to use some of its ill-gotten gains to fill its party’s coffers in an effort to win the general and presidential elections due at the end of 2007. This group would stop at nothing to hold on to power.

In the event, when it seemed that Raila Odinga, the populist presidential candidate whose campaign was full of anti-Kikuyu innuendo, was winning the race in late 2007, the old guard around Mr Kibaki set about fiddling the result, prompting riots and ethnic massacres around the country in which some 1,500 perished and at least 300,000 were displaced. After two months of turmoil and political paralysis, a shabby and unwieldy compromise was reached under the aegis of the UN’s former secretary-general, Kofi Annan, whereby Mr Kibaki held on to the presidency while Mr Odinga became prime minister.

Kenya, meanwhile, had been torn apart as never before. Mr Odinga, like President Barack Obama’s father, is a Luo, Kenya’s third-most-populous group, which fiercely considered that it was its “turn to eat”. It had grievously missed out under two Kikuyu-dominated administrations and under Mr Moi’s Kalenjin one.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the book is the dismal performance both of the World Bank and of Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID). The bank has been indulgent towards Kenya’s leaders and inept when it tried to do something about their corruption. There was a “dangerous cosiness” between the bank and Kenya’s government.

For the current British government, the book is even more disturbing. A flagship of Tony Blair’s New Labour, DFID was a new ministry no longer subordinate, as its predecessors had been, to the Foreign Office. It disbursed cash for aid far more abundantly than ever before and with fewer strings, betokening a determination to “end poverty”. As Michela Wrong puts it, the amount of money which it disbursed became “the only solid yardstick of progress, hardly a situation likely to encourage discrimination amongst officials responsible for approving projects”. When Britain’s then high commissioner to Kenya, Sir Edward Clay, one of a small band of righteous heroes in the book, spoke out courageously against corruption, his DFID counterparts did their best to undermine him.

A year after the corrupt election fiasco of late 2007 and early 2008, nothing fundamentally has changed. Almost all the top ministers and civil servants fingered by Mr Githongo are still in office; so is Mr Kibaki. Even if Mr Odinga were president, as the majority of voters almost certainly intended him to be, few Kenya-watchers would be confident that the basics would have changed, except that a new elite would be “eating” better. The mixture of greed and ethnic exploitation is as potent and combustible as ever: a sorry state of affairs.

Excerpt from:

Corruption in Kenya

How to ruin a country

Feb 26th 2009
From The Economist print edition