Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Like Reagan, Like Obama

"The U.S. provides 22 percent of its budget - roughly $80 million a year - but has survived without it in the past: The United States pulled out of UNESCO under President Ronald Reagan and rejoined two decades later under President George W. Bush."

Thanks for this reminder. The US will be back, again. Some countries are always in need of pulpits/platforms to exert their national interest, read bully others. For years, UNESCO has been one of the few UN agencies to resist bullying from some countries. Of course, its programmes have suffered financially for it, but not intellectually.

Sulaiman

Sulaiman Adebowale
BP 5637 Dakar-Fann
Dakar, Senegal

-----Original Message-----
From: Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2011 00:36:02
To: <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: <leonenet@lists.umbc.edu>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Like Reagan, Like Obama

US cuts UNESCO funding over Palestinian vote


October 31, 2011 - WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration on Monday cut off funding for the U.N. cultural agency, after its member countries defied an American warning and approved a Palestinian bid for full membership in the body.

The lopsided vote to admit Palestine as a member of UNESCO, which only the United States and 13 other countries opposed, triggered a long-standing congressional ban on U.S. funding to U.N. bodies that recognize Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached. The State Department said a $60 million payment to UNESCO scheduled for November would not be made as a result, and U.S. officials warned of a "cascade" effect at other U.N. bodies that might follow UNESCO's lead.

"Today's vote by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as a member is regrettable, premature, and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters. She said the U.S. remained committed to UNESCO and its goals, which include the promotion of science, education and culture, and that the administration would work with Congress to preserve U.S. interests and influence in the body.

But, while Nuland said the U.S. would maintain its membership and participation in UNESCO, the organization's internal rules will strip Washington of its vote if it is delinquent in paying its dues for two years.

It is not clear how U.S. membership would work in the interim, especially since UNESCO depends heavily on U.S. funding. The U.S. provides 22 percent of its budget - roughly $80 million a year - but has survived without it in the past: The United States pulled out of UNESCO under President Ronald Reagan and rejoined two decades later under President George W. Bush.

Of potential greater concern to the administration is the possibility that the Palestinians, buoyed by the 107-14 vote in their favor at UNESCO, will apply for membership in other U.N. organizations that the United States values, like the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, or the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"We don't see any benefit, and we see considerable potential damage, if this move is replicated in other U.N. organizations," Nuland said. "We are trying to make clear what the implications for us, what the implications for these organizations are, of the move that the Palestinians started here. And we are hoping that this will end here and we can get back to the peace talks because that is the place where we're going to be able to achieve the aspirations of the Palestinian people."

Senior State Department officials were meeting Monday with executives from numerous high-tech firms to consider options if the U.S. is forced to restrict its participation in the World Intellectual Property Organization, which sets global standards for copyrights and adjudicates cross-border patent disputes. "We need to make sure that our companies understand the implications of what's happened and begin that conversation with them."

The UNESCO vote was a fallback for the Palestinian leadership that presented its plan for U.N. recognition as a state and full membership in the global body in September. Israel has fiercely opposed the bid, and it has no chance of passing because the Obama administration has promised to veto any resolution in the Security Council.

Nuland said U.S. payments to the Paris-based organization effectively stopped Monday. While more than 150 countries voted for the Palestinian bid or abstained, Nuland insisted that their decision "creates tensions when all of us should be concerting our efforts to get the parties back to the table."

The U.S. has long brandished the Palestinian efforts at the U.N. as counterproductive to the Mideast peace process. But Washington has been unable to present a viable alternative, after a year when Israelis and Palestinians have refused to hold any direct talks on the parameters of peace agreement with one another.

"The United States remains steadfast in its support for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, but such a state can only be realized through direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians," Nuland said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney also called UNESCO's approval "premature" and a distraction for peace talks. Carney spoke as U.N. Mideast peace envoy Tony Blair was meeting Monday with President Barack Obama at the White House.
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USA Africa Dialogue Series - A Writer of Slasher Books Finds More Than a Muse

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/books/review/mr-fox-by-helen-oyeyemi-book-review.html?_r=4

A Writer of Slasher Books Finds More Than a Muse

By AIMEE BENDER

Published: October 28, 2011

Helen Oyeyemi's captivating new novel, "Mr. Fox," begins with a jaunty spirit and a sense of play. We meet Mr. Fox; he is a writer of slasher books, and he has an assistant, a woman named Mary whom he conjured in a trench during his days fighting in World War I. He also has a wife, Daphne. At some point or other, all three of them write.

Illustration by Katia Fouquet

MR. FOX

By Helen Oyeyemi

324 pp. Riverhead Books. $25.95.

Mr. Fox is also a reference to the English folk tale character Bluebeard — a man who murders and dismembers women freely until his wife-to-be, the clever Lady Mary, turns the tables and exposes him.

This book's Mary (full name Mary Foxe) acts like a muse and is called a muse, but she is more than that, and I actually wish Oyeyemi had kept the word clear out of the book. Mary is mysterious, both tangible and intangible, crossing fluidly between dreams and reality. She is far more involved than a muse, or an inspiration. She's an alternate life, a safety net — and also the one who knows how best to push Mr. Fox and rip that safety net away.

The premise is established in the first few chapters: Mary is tired of seeing Mr. Fox kill all the women in his books, and seems to imply that he's avoiding any conflict, any real connection, by opting for easy decapitation. That his murder stories provide an easy out is both funny and believable; Mary the taskmaster is asking him to explore the murkier, scarier territory of human connection pre-death. It's a satisfying and unexpected reframing of violence toward women — Mary is not only protesting the act itself; she is angry about the artistic dodging.

The two start to collaborate, cautiously, and a sequence of back-and-forth storytelling follows. The reader is left to figure out whose story is whose, as Fox and Foxe spar creatively, making new tales and striving to avoid pat endings. At first the writers, who are also recurring characters in their own stories, don't even meet in the world of their fictions. They must find their footing: if there is no dramatic death moment, then how on earth do stories go? How do people interact? Through letters, perhaps, but never in person. Through missed meetings, or elusive glimpses, or, once, another murder, because Mr. Fox can't help himself.

These early pieces reflect the newness of this kind of storytelling for both writers. And in part because of the setup, this section is lighter; there's a bit of a "solve the puzzle" feeling, as the reader tries to discern who is writing what and when. That solving mode can offer its own pleasures, but it's also tricky. The pages are enjoyable, and well written, but they don't yet hint at the riches to come. In a way, this makes sense. The writerly flirtation and competition between Mary and Mr. Fox are mere glances and winks; the two have not yet embarked on a true discussion and investigation of the nature of violence and love. But compared with the rest of the book, the beginning belies Oyeyemi's gifts. Maybe it's necessary, as Mary and Mr. Fox are also figuring out the rules, but it took a while to trust Oyeyemi's intent. Once I did, I was in, fully.

In the middle, Fox and Foxe's stories, written together, gain gravity and depth. Now the characters can connect, even if these connections are fraught and painful. Oyeyemi never lets go her ability to turn a phrase, but here she uses her powers for the gut-level work, the agony and beauty of passion and love. And the stories are wonderful. Whether it's a tragedy about a model whose father is dying after having committed a brutal act of violence, or a fairy tale about heart and body and aloneness, or a fascinating romp involving a prep school as we've never seen one before, or an unexpectedly moving story of a fox and his lover, Oyeyemi's writing is gorgeous and resonant and fresh. "The words didn't come easily," she says of one character who has discovered her own capacity to write. "She put large spaces between some of them for fear they would attack one another." Words are this active — they can harm, they can soothe; they are living creatures, participants in image and tale, just as Mary is, constructed as she is by Mr. Fox's imagination (or is she?), and even as Mr. Fox is, constructed as he is by Oyeyemi's.

The violence in these stories also changes from the cartoonish Mr. Fox violence of fairy tales, which is frightening but funny, jokey at the start, to real murder, to armies in occupied towns, to domestic abuse, to a gentle but firm questioning of the varied ways we care for and hurt one another. Here, the book makes a case for itself and its unusual structure that is utterly convincing. Some readers may crave more overt connections between the stories. Yet they create a mosaic between Fox and Foxe, a cracked portrait of love, all the while working as a refracted mirror of the relationship between husband and wife, which has been strained by the dominance of Mr. Fox's increasingly active fantasy world. His daily life, his regular, ordinary world, becomes more and more relevant, and as the book progresses, the interactions among Daphne, Mr. Fox and Mary gain urgency, and that head-scratching "puzzle" feeling falls away.

Oyeyemi has a talent for writing complex, often villainous situations without imposing judgment. (Even writing "domestic abuse" a few lines back felt a little false — too categorized, too diagnostic for this book.) She sidesteps any verdicts and goes instead to the raw, doing what Flannery O'Connor advises, which is to look closer, to put aside one's assumptions and instead try to view the world as it is, with curiosity and an interest in describing what one sees. Oyeyemi shows us, and shows us, but her people are allowed to do what they do without her weighing in too heavily. She writes of one of her characters: "The man liked to make things. He took a chisel to stone with kindness and enquiry, as if finding out what else the stone would like to be." His technique mirrors hers.

In the folk tale, Mr. Fox lures women into his lair to kill them. Oyeyemi's Mr. Fox used to lure women into his stories and kill them. She, of course, is her own Mr. Fox, and surely she lures us in, too. Not to kill us, not to repel us, but the opposite — to hold us in these stories and give us something along the way, something complicated and genuine. Charm is a quality that overflows in this novel, and it works under its best definition: as a kind of magical attraction and delight. Oyeyemi casts her word-spell, sentence by sentence, story by story, and by the end, the oppressive lair has opened up into a shimmering landscape pulsing with life.

Aimee Bender's most recent book is "The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake."

A version of this review appeared in print on October 30, 2011, on page BR16 of the Sunday Book Review with the headline: Leaping Off the Page.

• 
  
  

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - November , month of Mathematicains?

When did he finish at Oduduwa College Ile-Ife? How old was he when he entered the college?  

When we have answers to the above questions it may give us a clue to the actual age of the SAN.
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi. 
Sent from my iPhone

On Oct 31, 2011, at 5:09 PM, augustine Togonu-Bickersteth <abickersteth@googlemail.com> wrote:

                           The Eternal Lieutenant               

 

Volume 1 No 1                                                     October 31 2011

Publisher/Editor/Staff Writer/Researcher/Reporter: Augustine Adebayo Togonu-Bickersteth email:atogonub@yahoo.com

 November: Month of mathematicians?

   Chief Richard Akinjide would be 60 years on November 4, a Lawyer, Senior Advocate of Nigeria and now on the Judicial reform Committee recently put together by the Chief Justice of Nigeria,Akinjide is known for his controversial mathematical interpretation of "Two thirds of 19 States". Akinjide who made six distinctions (A1) in his West African school Certificate Exam at Oduduwa College,Ile Ife is perhaps

 The "return" of the Swiss Mathematician and Lawyer, Johann Bernoulli, known as a Child prodigy who,   was born,   on November 4 1744. Bernoulli is a family of mathematicians and just about all Chief Akinjides Children are Lawyers

 

November also sees a Mathematician cum Lawyer being honoured with an Honorary Doctorate Degree of the University of Ibadan and this is Chief Folake Solanke SAN, first Non Caucasian President of the Zonta International world wide Founded in   November 1919, Zonta International is a global organization of executives and professionals working together to advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy. With more than 30,000 members in 64 countries.

Folake Solanke has been described as at one time as Nigeria's most powerful Woman perhaps because of the power wielded by Members of Zonta International. You do not apply to Zonta. You have to be invited. You must have been doing very well professionally or Business wise.

 

Alongside Folake Solanke, wife of the late  ,"and ex President, Pan African College of Surgeons,  Professor Toriola, , to be honoured with a Doctorate  Degree  is the mathematician and  Pastor  Enoch Adeboye referred to as Africa's most respected man of God. This is a very interesting development because Chief Folake Solanke once affirmed that Jesus was not given a fair Trial      Perhaps. November is the time to put heads together to prepare a very strong case for Jesus.      .

 

I also think that Chief Solanke and Chief  Akinjide can collaborate in writing a book. Akinjide is lucid with economics as could be seen with his famed Essay on IMF , World Bank and Africa and Solanke seems to have strength in Sociology as could be gathered from one of her lectures at the Methodist Girls High School, Yaba, Lagos.

Louis Brandeis, the first Jew to rise up to the Supreme Court of the United States was to affirm that a Lawyer who is not learned in Sociology and Economics is an enemy of the Public

Of Two Jumokes

Olajumoke Akinjide  Lawyer,,Junior Minister for Abuja, Capital of Nigeria was born August 4 1959

Whereas Olajumoke  , Alao, Biochemist,  junior Lecturer in Lead City university, Ibadan, Capital of South west Nigeria was born on August 4 1974.

Both of their Fathers are Lawyers and have been, "Generals" Chief Richard Akinjide, Attorney General

And Mr Alao, Director-General    . What's more Chief, Akinjide and Mr Alao have been members of the Parent Teachers Association of International School University of, Ibadan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                           The Eternal Lieutenant               

 

Volume 1 No 1                                                     October 31 2011

Publisher/Editor/Staff Writer/Researcher/Reporter: Augustine Adebayo Togonu-Bickersteth email:atogonub@yahoo.com

 November: Month of mathematicians?

   Chief Richard Akinjide would be 60 years on November 4, a Lawyer, Senior Advocate of Nigeria and now on the Judicial reform Committee recently put together by the Chief Justice of Nigeria,Akinjide is known for his controversial mathematical interpretation of "Two thirds of 19 States". Akinjide who made six distinctions (A1) in his West African school Certificate Exam at Oduduwa College,Ile Ife is perhaps

 The "return" of the Swiss Mathematician and Lawyer, Johann Bernoulli, known as a Child prodigy who,   was born,   on November 4 1744. Bernoulli is a family of mathematicians and just about all Chief Akinjides Children are Lawyers

 

November also sees a Mathematician cum Lawyer being honoured with an Honorary Doctorate Degree of the University of Ibadan and this is Chief Folake Solanke SAN, first Non Caucasian President of the Zonta International world wide Founded in   November 1919, Zonta International is a global organization of executives and professionals working together to advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy. With more than 30,000 members in 64 countries.

Folake Solanke has been described as at one time as Nigeria's most powerful Woman perhaps because of the power wielded by Members of Zonta International. You do not apply to Zonta. You have to be invited. You must have been doing very well professionally or Business wise.

 

Alongside Folake Solanke, wife of the late  ,"and ex President, Pan African College of Surgeons,  Professor Toriola, , to be honoured with a Doctorate  Degree  is the mathematician and  Pastor  Enoch Adeboye referred to as Africa's most respected man of God. This is a very interesting development because Chief Folake Solanke once affirmed that Jesus was not given a fair Trial      Perhaps. November is the time to put heads together to prepare a very strong case for Jesus.      .

 

I also think that Chief Solanke and Chief  Akinjide can collaborate in writing a book. Akinjide is lucid with economics as could be seen with his famed Essay on IMF , World Bank and Africa and Solanke seems to have strength in Sociology as could be gathered from one of her lectures at the Methodist Girls High School, Yaba, Lagos.

Louis Brandeis, the first Jew to rise up to the Supreme Court of the United States was to affirm that a Lawyer who is not learned in Sociology and Economics is an enemy of the Public

Of Two Jumokes

Olajumoke Akinjide  Lawyer,,Junior Minister for Abuja, Capital of Nigeria was born August 4 1959

Whereas Olajumoke  , Alao, Biochemist,  junior Lecturer in Lead City university, Ibadan, Capital of South west Nigeria was born on August 4 1974.

Both of their Fathers are Lawyers and have been, "Generals" Chief Richard Akinjide, Attorney General

And Mr Alao, Director-General    . What's more Chief, Akinjide and Mr Alao have been members of the Parent Teachers Association of International School University of, Ibadan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I

 

I

 

--
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USA Africa Dialogue Series - Like Reagan, Like Obama

US cuts UNESCO funding over Palestinian vote

October 31, 2011 — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Monday cut off funding for the U.N. cultural agency, after its member countries defied an American warning and approved a Palestinian bid for full membership in the body.

The lopsided vote to admit Palestine as a member of UNESCO, which only the United States and 13 other countries opposed, triggered a long-standing congressional ban on U.S. funding to U.N. bodies that recognize Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached. The State Department said a $60 million payment to UNESCO scheduled for November would not be made as a result, and U.S. officials warned of a "cascade" effect at other U.N. bodies that might follow UNESCO's lead.

"Today's vote by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as a member is regrettable, premature, and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters. She said the U.S. remained committed to UNESCO and its goals, which include the promotion of science, education and culture, and that the administration would work with Congress to preserve U.S. interests and influence in the body.

But, while Nuland said the U.S. would maintain its membership and participation in UNESCO, the organization's internal rules will strip Washington of its vote if it is delinquent in paying its dues for two years.

It is not clear how U.S. membership would work in the interim, especially since UNESCO depends heavily on U.S. funding. The U.S. provides 22 percent of its budget — roughly $80 million a year — but has survived without it in the past: The United States pulled out of UNESCO under President Ronald Reagan and rejoined two decades later under President George W. Bush.

Of potential greater concern to the administration is the possibility that the Palestinians, buoyed by the 107-14 vote in their favor at UNESCO, will apply for membership in other U.N. organizations that the United States values, like the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Health Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, or the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"We don't see any benefit, and we see considerable potential damage, if this move is replicated in other U.N. organizations," Nuland said. "We are trying to make clear what the implications for us, what the implications for these organizations are, of the move that the Palestinians started here. And we are hoping that this will end here and we can get back to the peace talks because that is the place where we're going to be able to achieve the aspirations of the Palestinian people."

Senior State Department officials were meeting Monday with executives from numerous high-tech firms to consider options if the U.S. is forced to restrict its participation in the World Intellectual Property Organization, which sets global standards for copyrights and adjudicates cross-border patent disputes. "We need to make sure that our companies understand the implications of what's happened and begin that conversation with them."

The UNESCO vote was a fallback for the Palestinian leadership that presented its plan for U.N. recognition as a state and full membership in the global body in September. Israel has fiercely opposed the bid, and it has no chance of passing because the Obama administration has promised to veto any resolution in the Security Council.

Nuland said U.S. payments to the Paris-based organization effectively stopped Monday. While more than 150 countries voted for the Palestinian bid or abstained, Nuland insisted that their decision "creates tensions when all of us should be concerting our efforts to get the parties back to the table."

The U.S. has long brandished the Palestinian efforts at the U.N. as counterproductive to the Mideast peace process. But Washington has been unable to present a viable alternative, after a year when Israelis and Palestinians have refused to hold any direct talks on the parameters of peace agreement with one another.

"The United States remains steadfast in its support for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, but such a state can only be realized through direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians," Nuland said.

White House spokesman Jay Carney also called UNESCO's approval "premature" and a distraction for peace talks. Carney spoke as U.N. Mideast peace envoy Tony Blair was meeting Monday with President Barack Obama at the White House.

USA Africa Dialogue Series - World defies US Over Palestinian Vote and US Cuts funding....

Is this dictatorship or economic tyranny? Hehehehehe.

 

 

In a message dated 10/31/2011 4:27:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jmunugu@yahoo.com writes:

The United States cut-off funding to UNESCO, the United Nation's cultural arm, after UNESCO defied the White House by voting overwhelmingly to accept the Palestinian Authority as a full UN member.  The US State Department announced a halt to funding of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation just hours after it became the first UN body effectively to grant the right of statehood to the Palestinian people. Despite United States' threat of a financial boycott, just 14 states voted against Palestinian membership, with 107 backing the bid, easily clearing the two-thirds majority needed for the Palestinian Authority to become a member of any UN body for the first time. The United States said on Monday it had stopped funding UNESCO following its vote to grant the Palestinians full membership, throwing the future of UNESCO into doubt. US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters the United States had no choice but to halt funding because of U.S. laws passed in the 1990s, saying Washington would not make a planned $60 million transfer that was due in November. "The United States ... remains strongly committed to robust, multilateral engagement across the U.N. system. However, Palestinian membership as a state in UNESCO triggers long-standing legislative restrictions which will compel the United States to refrain from making contributions to UNESCO," Nuland said. Nuland also said the vote Monday by the member states of UNESCO to admit Palestine as a member was "regrettable, premature and undermines our shared goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East." The United States provides 22 percent of the funding of the United Nations Economic, Scientific and Cultural Organization. That agency decided on Monday to give the Palestinians full membership, a vote that will boost their bid at the United Nations for recognition as a state. UNESCO is the first U.N. agency the Palestinians have joined as a full member since President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership of the United Nations on September 23. TWO-DECADE PROCESS The United States and its ally Israel oppose the Palestinian diplomatic foray in the U.N. system, describing it as an attempt to bypass the two-decade old peace process. Washington says only a resumption of peace talks ending in a treaty with Israel can bring about the Palestinian goal of statehood. Earlier Monday, Republican U.S. lawmakers demanded the funding cutoff, and the White House as well as other officials across the U.S. political spectrum criticized UNESCO's action. "I expect the administration to enforce existing law and stop contributions to UNESCO and any other U.N. agency that enables the Palestinians to short-cut the peace process," said Representative Kay Granger, the Republican chairwoman of the House committee in charge of foreign aid. Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said the UNESCO move was "no substitute for negotiations, but it is deeply damaging to UNESCO." The laws passed in the 1990s prohibit U.S. funding to any U.N. organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have the "internationally recognized attributes" of statehood. The language was intended to pre-emotively block normalization of Palestinian relations and activities in the international community, said Lara Friedman, policy director at Americans for Peace Now, an American Jewish group. The American Jewish group J Street called on Congress to amend U.S. law to preserve American contributions to UNESCO, saying without U.S. support, the group's work in development and expanding educational opportunities around the globe would be at risk. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told U.S. lawmakers earlier this month that the U.S. government should have the flexibility to decide whether to cut off money for such agencies if they take in the Palestinians.

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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - November , month of Mathematicains?

Richard Akinjide cannot be sixty; he must be 70 plus if not 80!

ib
==========================

On 10/31/11, augustine Togonu-Bickersteth <abickersteth@googlemail.com> wrote:
> *The Eternal Lieutenant ***
>
> * *
>
> Volume 1 No 1 October
> 31 2011
>
> Publisher/Editor/Staff Writer/Researcher/Reporter: Augustine Adebayo
> Togonu-Bickersteth email:atogonub@yahoo.com
>
> *November: Month of mathematicians?*
>
> Chief Richard Akinjide would be 60 years on November 4, a Lawyer, Senior
> Advocate of Nigeria and now on the Judicial reform Committee recently put
> together by the Chief Justice of Nigeria,Akinjide is known for his
> controversial mathematical interpretation of "Two thirds of 19 States".
> Akinjide who made six distinctions (A1) in his West African school
> Certificate Exam at Oduduwa College,Ile Ife is perhaps
>
> The "return" of the Swiss Mathematician and Lawyer, Johann Bernoulli,
> known as a Child prodigy who, was born, on November 4 1744. Bernoulli
> is a family of mathematicians and just about all Chief Akinjides Children
> are Lawyers
>
>
>
> November also sees a Mathematician cum Lawyer being honoured with an
> Honorary Doctorate Degree of the University of Ibadan and this is Chief
> Folake Solanke SAN, first Non Caucasian President of the Zonta
> International world wide Founded in November 1919, Zonta International is
> a global organization of executives and professionals working together to
> advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy. With
> more than 30,000 members in 64 countries.
>
> Folake Solanke has been described as at one time as Nigeria's most powerful
> Woman perhaps because of the power wielded by Members of Zonta
> International. You do not apply to Zonta. You have to be invited. You must
> have been doing very well professionally or Business wise.
>
>
>
> Alongside Folake Solanke, wife of the late ,"and ex President, Pan African
> College of Surgeons, Professor Toriola, , to be honoured with a
> Doctorate Degree
> is the mathematician and Pastor Enoch Adeboye referred to as Africa's
> most respected man of God. This is a very interesting development because
> Chief Folake Solanke once affirmed that Jesus was not given a fair Trial
> Perhaps. November is the time to put heads together to prepare a very
> strong case for Jesus. .
>
>
>
> I also think that Chief Solanke and Chief Akinjide can collaborate in
> writing a book. Akinjide is lucid with economics as could be seen with his
> famed Essay on IMF , World Bank and Africa and Solanke seems to have
> strength in Sociology as could be gathered from one of her lectures at the
> Methodist Girls High School, Yaba, Lagos.
>
> Louis Brandeis, the first Jew to rise up to the Supreme Court of the United
> States was to affirm that a Lawyer who is not learned in Sociology and
> Economics is an enemy of the Public
>
> *Of Two Jumokes*
>
> Olajumoke Akinjide Lawyer,,Junior Minister for Abuja, Capital of Nigeria
> was born August 4 1959
>
> Whereas Olajumoke , Alao, Biochemist, junior Lecturer in Lead City
> university, Ibadan, Capital of South west Nigeria was born on August 4 1974.
>
> Both of their Fathers are Lawyers and have been, "Generals" Chief Richard
> Akinjide, Attorney General
>
> And Mr Alao, Director-General . What's more Chief, Akinjide and Mr Alao
> have been members of the Parent Teachers Association of International
> School University of, Ibadan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *The Eternal Lieutenant ***
>
> * *
>
> Volume 1 No 1 October
> 31 2011
>
> Publisher/Editor/Staff Writer/Researcher/Reporter: Augustine Adebayo
> Togonu-Bickersteth email:atogonub@yahoo.com
>
> *November: Month of mathematicians?*
>
> Chief Richard Akinjide would be 60 years on November 4, a Lawyer, Senior
> Advocate of Nigeria and now on the Judicial reform Committee recently put
> together by the Chief Justice of Nigeria,Akinjide is known for his
> controversial mathematical interpretation of "Two thirds of 19 States".
> Akinjide who made six distinctions (A1) in his West African school
> Certificate Exam at Oduduwa College,Ile Ife is perhaps
>
> The "return" of the Swiss Mathematician and Lawyer, Johann Bernoulli,
> known as a Child prodigy who, was born, on November 4 1744. Bernoulli
> is a family of mathematicians and just about all Chief Akinjides Children
> are Lawyers
>
>
>
> November also sees a Mathematician cum Lawyer being honoured with an
> Honorary Doctorate Degree of the University of Ibadan and this is Chief
> Folake Solanke SAN, first Non Caucasian President of the Zonta
> International world wide Founded in November 1919, Zonta International is
> a global organization of executives and professionals working together to
> advance the status of women worldwide through service and advocacy. With
> more than 30,000 members in 64 countries.
>
> Folake Solanke has been described as at one time as Nigeria's most powerful
> Woman perhaps because of the power wielded by Members of Zonta
> International. You do not apply to Zonta. You have to be invited. You must
> have been doing very well professionally or Business wise.
>
>
>
> Alongside Folake Solanke, wife of the late ,"and ex President, Pan African
> College of Surgeons, Professor Toriola, , to be honoured with a
> Doctorate Degree
> is the mathematician and Pastor Enoch Adeboye referred to as Africa's
> most respected man of God. This is a very interesting development because
> Chief Folake Solanke once affirmed that Jesus was not given a fair Trial
> Perhaps. November is the time to put heads together to prepare a very
> strong case for Jesus. .
>
>
>
> I also think that Chief Solanke and Chief Akinjide can collaborate in
> writing a book. Akinjide is lucid with economics as could be seen with his
> famed Essay on IMF , World Bank and Africa and Solanke seems to have
> strength in Sociology as could be gathered from one of her lectures at the
> Methodist Girls High School, Yaba, Lagos.
>
> Louis Brandeis, the first Jew to rise up to the Supreme Court of the United
> States was to affirm that a Lawyer who is not learned in Sociology and
> Economics is an enemy of the Public
>
> *Of Two Jumokes*
>
> Olajumoke Akinjide Lawyer,,Junior Minister for Abuja, Capital of Nigeria
> was born August 4 1959
>
> Whereas Olajumoke , Alao, Biochemist, junior Lecturer in Lead City
> university, Ibadan, Capital of South west Nigeria was born on August 4 1974.
>
> Both of their Fathers are Lawyers and have been, "Generals" Chief Richard
> Akinjide, Attorney General
>
> And Mr Alao, Director-General . What's more Chief, Akinjide and Mr Alao
> have been members of the Parent Teachers Association of International
> School University of, Ibadan
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I
>
>
>
> I
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa
> Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
> For current archives, visit
> http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
> For previous archives, visit
> http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: NigerianID | NATO all but rules out Syria no-fly zone

Quoting Femi Kolapo <kolapof@uoguelph.ca>:Shades of gthe 60s.The U.S in
AN ECONOMIC CRISIS is hardly in an imperialist position.Perhaps in the
late 1890s but people are NOT clamoring to leave.Qadeaffi a victim of
imperialism?It was a risky business from the beginning ,the NATO air
assault and risky.The Russians and Chinese have their own
reasons.Oil?Perhaps>Afghahistan has many minerals.Make what nyou will
pout of THAT!!!

>
>
> Below is one partial answer ? a Marxian one by Stephen Gowans,
> focusing on the determinate role of imperialism?s economic interest.
> However, I believe there could be important conditioning or
> ?superstructural? forces operating in specific instances that could
> negate the economic argument or produce something akin to a wild
> card. For Gaddafi?s Libya, I am of the opinion, despite Russia?s
> grandstanding following Gaddafi?s death, that the Russians and
> Chinese virtually made a quid pro quo decision with NATO. They both
> have burning backyards from which they like to perpetually keep outt
> NATO and the West.
>
>
>
> Also, the UN may be weak, but its general assembly has assumed a
> morality from time to time that helped to checkmate or at least
> complicate the more oppressive plans of the powerful. For political
> or geopolitical reasons, China and Russian may not support a no -ly
> zone over Syria, and for economic reason or lack of it, NATO may not
> need to ask for one.
>
> Whatever the case may be, local tyranny that is feared may ?result in
> humanitarian catastrophes? can be expected to make intervention
> easier and UN resolution backing it up swifter if indeed imperialist
> powers already feel their major economic interest endangered. More
> interesting though, is why wouldn't the Arab League apply to the UN
> for a no-fly zone over Syria?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ?The relevant consideration in explaining why interventions occur is
> not the political orientation of the government under siege, nor its
> relations with its citizens, but whether it accommodates the
> profit-making interests of the dominant class in the intervening
> countries. Does it welcome foreign investment, allow repatriation of
> profits, demand little in the way of corporate income tax, open its
> markets, and offer abundant supplies of cheap labor and raw
> materials? Or does it impose high tariffs on imports, subsidize
> domestic production, operate state-owned enterprises (displacing
> opportunities for foreign-private-owned ones), force investors to
> take on local partners, and insist that workers be protected from
> desperation wages and intolerable working conditions?
>
> Much as it might be supposed that imperialist interventions target
> worker and peasant-led governments alone, this is not the case.
> Regimes that promote national bourgeois interests by denying or
> limiting the profit-making interests in their own countries of the
> dominant class of other countries are routinely targeted for regime
> change, especially if they are militarily weak or have pluralist
> political systems that afford space for destabilization and political
> interference. Since the effects are the same in imperialist countries
> of a local regime, say, expropriating a foreign-privately-owned oil
> company, no matter whether the company is turned over to local
> business people, the state, or the company?s employees, it is a
> matter of supreme indifference to imperialist countries whether the
> expropriation is carried out by communists, socialists or radical
> nationalists. Whether you?re inspired by Marx and Lenin, 21st century
> socialism, or the actually-existing capitalist policies that the
> United States, Germany and Japan followed to challenge Britain?s
> industrial monopoly, if you?re going to mess with the profit-making
> opportunities of an imperialist country?s capital class, it will mess
> with you.
>
> Gaddafi was faulted by the US State Department for his ?increasingly
> nationalistic policies in the energy sector? and for trying to
> ?Libyanize? the economy. (1) He ?proved to be a problematic partner
> for international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes
> and making other demands.? (2) And his pro-Libya trade and foreign
> investment policies were irritants to Western banks, corporations and
> major investors as they surveyed the globe for lucrative
> profit-making opportunities.? - Stephen Gowans
> http://www.trinicenter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2353
>
>
> ------------------------
>
> F. J. Kolapo,
>
> (Associate Professor of African History)
> History Department * University of Guelph * Guelph * Ontario *
> Canada* N1G 2W1
> Phone:519/ 824.4120 ex.53212 Fax: 519.766.9516
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooqkperogi@gmail.com>
> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
> Cc: "kenneth harrow" <harrow@msu.edu>
> Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 12:09:06 AM
> Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: NigerianID | NATO all
> but rules out Syria no-fly zone
>
> "Nato has all but ruled out the possibility of establishing a no-fly
> zone in Syria after the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, warned
> that any western intervention would cause an 'earthquake' that would
> 'burn the whole region'."
>
> "Some Syrian anti-government groups have called on the west to defend
> them as bloody fighting between security forces and armed protesters
> escalates and the country drifts towards civil war."
>
> Why did NATO respond to the cry for help by Libyan rebels but has
> ruled out doing the same to Syrian rebels? Gaddafi almost exactly
> said the same thing that the Syrian president is saying now: that any
> external intervention would precipitate the country into an
> internecine civil war. The Syrian president is also murdering his own
> people in the exact manner that Gaddafi did. Maybe NATO's
> "spokespersons" on this forum can help me here. Is Dr. Ken Harrow
> reading this?
>
> UN "approval"? Tell that to naive, unquestioningly trusting little kids!
>
> Farooq
>
>
> Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Journalism & Citizen Media
> Department of Communication
> Kennesaw State University
> 1000 Chastain Road, MD 2207
> Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
> Cell: (+1) 404-573-969:
> Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
> Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/farooqkperogi
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/farooqkperogi
>
> "The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being
> either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 11:15 PM, toyin adepoju <
> toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com > wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Nowa Omoigui < nowa_o@yahoo.com >
> Date: 31 October 2011 03:02
> Subject: NigerianID | NATO all but rules out Syria no-fly zone
> To: defsec@egroups.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Nato all but rules out Syria no-fly zone
>
> Syrian president warns that intervention could lead to 'another
> Afghanistan' as Nato officials say Libya-like action lacks support
>
> Luke Harding and agencies
> guardian.co.uk , Sunday 30 October 2011 15.15 EDT
>
> Nato has all but ruled out the possibility of establishing a no-fly
> zone in Syria after the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, warned
> that any western intervention would cause an "earthquake" that would
> "burn the whole region".
>
> Despite the success of its Libya mission, which formally ends on
> Monday, Nato officials made it clear there was little prospect of the
> alliance establishing a similar no-fly zone to protect civilians and
> stem the mounting death toll in the eight-month Syrian uprising.
>
> Some Syrian anti-government groups have called on the west to defend
> them as bloody fighting between security forces and armed protesters
> escalates and the country drifts towards civil war.
>
> Tanks were reported to have shelled a historic district in the
> central city and opposition stronghold of Homs today. At least 20
> soldiers were killed and 53 wounded on Saturday in clashes with
> opposition forces in the city. Rebel gunmen also ambushed a bus in
> the north-west province of Idlib, killing 10 security officers, the
> Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. One attacker also died.
>
> But Nato officials say the Libya "template" is unlikely to work in
> Syria, adding that currently a Syrian "mission" lacks both
> international consensus and wider regional support.
>
> The UN security council would need to approve any Syrian operation ?
> a step that would be unlikely given Russian and Chinese opposition.
> "We would need a clear mandate from the international community, as
> well as support from the Arab League and Syria's neighbours," a Nato
> official said, adding that so far "no-one had asked" for Nato's help.
>
> Nato's reluctance to get embroiled in Syria internal conflict came as
> Assad warned that outside intervention in his country's affairs could
> lead to "another Afghanistan". In an interview with the Sunday
> Telegraph, he conceded that western states "are going to ratchet up
> the pressure".
>
> But he added: "Syria is different in every respect from Egypt,
> Tunisia and Yemen. The history is different. The politics is
> different. Syria is the hub in this region. It is the fault line, and
> if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake ? Do you
> want so see another Afghanistan?"
>
> Assad showed little sympathy for opposition protesters, more than
> 3,000 of whom have been killed, since the uprising began in
> mid-March, the UN says. Some 1,200 troops have also died, Assad's
> government says. He admitted that "many mistakes" had been made by
> his forces, but said his regime was now battling "terrorists".
>
> The Syrian president maintained that those demonstrating against his
> rule were Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood members opposed to secular
> rule or "pan-Arabism", as he put it, under which the rights of
> Syria's Christian and Alawite minorities were guaranteed. He insisted
> he still enjoyed "popular legitimacy". "I live a normal life. I drive
> my own car, we have neighbours. I take my kids to school," he said.
>
> With no end to the violence in sight, a Syrian delegation met in Doha
> on Sunday with an Arab League ministerial committee. On 16 October
> the league gave Damascus a 15-day deadline to put in place a
> ceasefire, which ends on Sunday. Since then 343 people have been
> killed, including 40 on Friday, one of the worst days of bloodshed
> since the uprising began. Protests have intensified amid fast-moving
> events in the Arab world: the brutal death of Muammar Gaddafi, and
> Tunisia's successful democratic elections last week. In a show of
> support for Assad's regime, thousands of Syrians carrying the
> national flag rallied in Sweida, a city 70 miles south of Damascus,
> on Sunday. There have been two other large pro-Assad rallies in the
> capital and the coastal city of Latakia.
>
> The situation in Syria remains at the top of the international
> agenda. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, said the latest
> civilian killings were alarming and called for Assad to carry out
> "far-reaching reforms, not repression and violence"." He also
> appealed for military operations to stop, and for the release of
> political prisoners ands well as those detained during recent
> protests.
>
> China's Middle East envoy also expressed concern. He said the
> fighting could not continue. Wu Sike told reporters that Assad's
> government must take "palpable steps" to end the bloodshed.said: "The
> Syrian government has to speed up implementing its promises of
> reform," said Wu. "There must be respect and response to the
> aspirations ? of the Syrian people."
>
> The US has accused China and Russia of failing to throw their weight
> behind western efforts to isolate Assad's government diplomatically
> and toughen economic sanctions.
>
> Assad has friendly relations with Moscow, a crucial backer and
> supplier of military hardware. During an interview with Russia's
> state-run Channel One channel, he praised the Kremlin for its veto of
> the European-backed UN security council resolution imposing sanctions
> on Damascus.
>
> "We are relying on Russia as a country with which we have strong
> historic ties," Assad said.
>
>
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> --
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USA Africa Dialogue Series - Academic linked to Gaddafi's fugitive son leaves LSE

Academic linked to Gaddafi's fugitive son leaves LSE

David Held was adviser to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi at the university and
director of a research programme funded by his charity

Jeevan Vasagar, education editor
Tuesday November 1 2011
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/31/saif-gaddafi-lse-academic

A British academic with close links to Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-
Islam has left the London School of Economics before a report on the
university's relationship with Libya is published.

David Held was an academic adviser to the toppled dictator's son when
he studied at the LSE and was director of the research programme
funded by his charity.

Held, who is currently Graham Wallas professor of political science at
the LSE, has announced that he is leaving in January to take up a post
at Durham University.

The LSE is expected to face sharp criticism over the academic
independence of the North Africa Research Programme, which was funded
with a £1.5m donation from the Gaddafi charitable foundation, and
Held's departure is regarded internally as the latest aftershock from
the donation. The LSE's links with Libya have already triggered the
resignation of its director, Howard Davies.

Held has extensive ties to Saif al-Islam, now on the run after the
violent collapse of his father's dictatorship. Held was on the board
of the Gaddafi foundation, the charity run by Saif al-Islam.

He was appointed to the board of the charity on 28 June 2009, a few
days after the gift was discussed and accepted by the LSE council, the
university's governing body. He subsequently resigned from the charity
on the LSE council's advice.

The donation - £300,000 was received - was paid to a research centre
LSE Global Governance, of which Held was co-director.

Saif al-Islam was allowed to lay out "objectives and expectations" for
the programme, according to leaked LSE documents.

Lord Woolf, a former lord chief justice, has completed an independent
inquiry into the university's Libyan links. Its publication has been
delayed pending the results of a separate inquiry into allegations of
plagiarism in Saif al-Islam's PhD thesis.

Held is taking up a new position as master of University College and
chair of politics and international relations at Durham University.

An LSE insider said that he expected the Woolf inquiry report to
criticise the "close consultations" between LSE scholars and the
Gaddafi regime. The funding was accepted despite internal protest.
Fred Halliday, a distinguished Middle East expert at the LSE,
criticised the donation in a letter that described the country's
rulers as a "secretive, erratic and corrupt elite".

The letter calls Held "the leading proponent of our accepting this
grant".

Held viewed Saif al-Islam as a potential reformer.

The academic introduced the dictator's son when Saif al-Islam
delivered the Ralph Miliband memorial lecture at the LSE last May,
telling the audience: "I've come to know Saif as someone who looks to
democracy, civil society and deep liberal values as the core of his
inspiration."

The North Africa Research Programme was suspended when the Libyan
uprising began this year, while LSE Global Governance was closed at
the end of July. The LSE has agreed to put £300,000 - equivalent to
the cash it has received from the Gaddafi foundation to set up the
research programme - into a scholarship for north African students.

Held said in a statement: "I will be taking up the positions of master
of University College and chair of politics and international
relations at the University of Durham from January.

"This move is being made for academic reasons and I look forward to
the new avenues of research that this role will bring. I have many
links to LSE which will be maintained in the years ahead."

An LSE spokesman said: "Prof Held was offered, and has taken up, a
position at Durham University. This is a personal decision made by
Prof Held for academic reasons."

Referring to the Woolf inquiry report, the university's spokesman
added: "No donor can expect to influence the academic content of
research. I don't know what the report says but that has always been
our understanding and our strong expectation."

guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2011

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Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: NigerianID | NATO all but rules out Syria no-fly zone

Below is one partial answer – a Marxian one by Stephen Gowans, focusing on the determinate role of imperialism's economic interest. However, I believe there could be important conditioning or "superstructural" forces operating in specific instances that could negate the economic argument or produce something akin to a wild card. For Gaddafi's Libya, I am of the opinion, despite Russia's grandstanding following Gaddafi's death,  that the Russians and Chinese virtually made a quid pro quo decision with NATO.  They both have burning backyards from which they like to perpetually keep outt NATO and the West.

Also, the UN may be weak, but its general assembly has assumed a morality from time to time that helped to checkmate or at least complicate the more oppressive plans of the powerful. For political or geopolitical reasons, China and Russian may not support a no -ly zone over Syria, and for economic reason or lack of it, NATO may not need to ask for one.

Whatever the case may be, local tyranny that is feared may "result in humanitarian catastrophes" can be expected to make intervention easier and UN resolution backing it up  swifter if indeed imperialist powers already feel their major economic interest endangered. More interesting though, is why wouldn't the Arab League apply to the UN for a no-fly zone over Syria?

 

 

 

"The relevant consideration in explaining why interventions occur is not the political orientation of the government under siege, nor its relations with its citizens, but whether it accommodates the profit-making interests of the dominant class in the intervening countries. Does it welcome foreign investment, allow repatriation of profits, demand little in the way of corporate income tax, open its markets, and offer abundant supplies of cheap labor and raw materials? Or does it impose high tariffs on imports, subsidize domestic production, operate state-owned enterprises (displacing opportunities for foreign-private-owned ones), force investors to take on local partners, and insist that workers be protected from desperation wages and intolerable working conditions?

Much as it might be supposed that imperialist interventions target worker and peasant-led governments alone, this is not the case. Regimes that promote national bourgeois interests by denying or limiting the profit-making interests in their own countries of the dominant class of other countries are routinely targeted for regime change, especially if they are militarily weak or have pluralist political systems that afford space for destabilization and political interference. Since the effects are the same in imperialist countries of a local regime, say, expropriating a foreign-privately-owned oil company, no matter whether the company is turned over to local business people, the state, or the company's employees, it is a matter of supreme indifference to imperialist countries whether the expropriation is carried out by communists, socialists or radical nationalists. Whether you're inspired by Marx and Lenin, 21st century socialism, or the actually-existing capitalist policies that the United States, Germany and Japan followed to challenge Britain's industrial monopoly, if you're going to mess with the profit-making opportunities of an imperialist country's capital class, it will mess with you. 

Gaddafi was faulted by the US State Department for his "increasingly nationalistic policies in the energy sector" and for trying to "Libyanize" the economy. (1) He "proved to be a problematic partner for international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands." (2) And his pro-Libya trade and foreign investment policies were irritants to Western banks, corporations and major investors as they surveyed the globe for lucrative profit-making opportunities." - Stephen Gowans  http://www.trinicenter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2353

------------------------

F. J. Kolapo,  

(Associate Professor of African History)
History Department *  University of Guelph * Guelph * Ontario * Canada* N1G 2W1
Phone:519/824.4120 ex.53212  Fax: 519.766.9516

---

From: "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooqkperogi@gmail.com>
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Cc: "kenneth harrow" <harrow@msu.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 12:09:06 AM
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: NigerianID | NATO all but rules out Syria no-fly zone

"Nato has all but ruled out the possibility of establishing a no-fly zone in Syria after the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, warned that any western intervention would cause an 'earthquake' that would 'burn the whole region'."

"Some Syrian anti-government groups have called on the west to defend them as bloody fighting between security forces and armed protesters escalates and the country drifts towards civil war."

Why did NATO respond to the cry for help by Libyan rebels but has ruled out doing the same to Syrian rebels? Gaddafi almost exactly said the same thing that the Syrian president is saying now: that any external intervention would precipitate the country into an internecine civil war. The Syrian president is also murdering his own people in the exact manner that Gaddafi did. Maybe NATO's "spokespersons" on this forum can help me here. Is Dr. Ken Harrow reading this?

UN "approval"? Tell that to naive, unquestioningly trusting little kids!

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Journalism & Citizen Media
Department of Communication
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, MD 2207 

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
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"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

On Sun, Oct 30, 2011 at 11:15 PM, toyin adepoju <toyin.adepoju@googlemail.com> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nowa Omoigui <nowa_o@yahoo.com>
Date: 31 October 2011 03:02
Subject: NigerianID | NATO all but rules out Syria no-fly zone
To: defsec@egroups.com

 

Nato all but rules out Syria no-fly zone

Syrian president warns that intervention could lead to 'another Afghanistan' as Nato officials say Libya-like action lacks support

Luke Harding and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 30 October 2011 15.15 EDT

Nato has all but ruled out the possibility of establishing a no-fly zone in Syria after the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, warned that any western intervention would cause an "earthquake" that would "burn the whole region".

Despite the success of its Libya mission, which formally ends on Monday, Nato officials made it clear there was little prospect of the alliance establishing a similar no-fly zone to protect civilians and stem the mounting death toll in the eight-month Syrian uprising.

Some Syrian anti-government groups have called on the west to defend them as bloody fighting between security forces and armed protesters escalates and the country drifts towards civil war.

Tanks were reported to have shelled a historic district in the central city and opposition stronghold of Homs today. At least 20 soldiers were killed and 53 wounded on Saturday in clashes with opposition forces in the city. Rebel gunmen also ambushed a bus in the north-west province of Idlib, killing 10 security officers, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. One attacker also died.

But Nato officials say the Libya "template" is unlikely to work in Syria, adding that currently a Syrian "mission" lacks both international consensus and wider regional support.

The UN security council would need to approve any Syrian operation – a step that would be unlikely given Russian and Chinese opposition. "We would need a clear mandate from the international community, as well as support from the Arab League and Syria's neighbours," a Nato official said, adding that so far "no-one had asked" for Nato's help.

Nato's reluctance to get embroiled in Syria internal conflict came as Assad warned that outside intervention in his country's affairs could lead to "another Afghanistan". In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, he conceded that western states "are going to ratchet up the pressure".

But he added: "Syria is different in every respect from Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. The history is different. The politics is different. Syria is the hub in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake … Do you want so see another Afghanistan?"

Assad showed little sympathy for opposition protesters, more than 3,000 of whom have been killed, since the uprising began in mid-March, the UN says. Some 1,200 troops have also died, Assad's government says. He admitted that "many mistakes" had been made by his forces, but said his regime was now battling "terrorists".

The Syrian president maintained that those demonstrating against his rule were Islamists and Muslim Brotherhood members opposed to secular rule or "pan-Arabism", as he put it, under which the rights of Syria's Christian and Alawite minorities were guaranteed. He insisted he still enjoyed "popular legitimacy". "I live a normal life. I drive my own car, we have neighbours. I take my kids to school," he said.

With no end to the violence in sight, a Syrian delegation met in Doha on Sunday with an Arab League ministerial committee. On 16 October the league gave Damascus a 15-day deadline to put in place a ceasefire, which ends on Sunday. Since then 343 people have been killed, including 40 on Friday, one of the worst days of bloodshed since the uprising began. Protests have intensified amid fast-moving events in the Arab world: the brutal death of Muammar Gaddafi, and Tunisia's successful democratic elections last week. In a show of support for Assad's regime, thousands of Syrians carrying the national flag rallied in Sweida, a city 70 miles south of Damascus, on Sunday. There have been two other large pro-Assad rallies in the capital and the coastal city of Latakia.

The situation in Syria remains at the top of the international agenda. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, said the latest civilian killings were alarming and called for Assad to carry out "far-reaching reforms, not repression and violence"." He also appealed for military operations to stop, and for the release of political prisoners ands well as those detained during recent protests.

China's Middle East envoy also expressed concern. He said the fighting could not continue. Wu Sike told reporters that Assad's government must take "palpable steps" to end the bloodshed.said: "The Syrian government has to speed up implementing its promises of reform," said Wu. "There must be respect and response to the aspirations … of the Syrian people."

The US has accused China and Russia of failing to throw their weight behind western efforts to isolate Assad's government diplomatically and toughen economic sanctions.

Assad has friendly relations with Moscow, a crucial backer and supplier of military hardware. During an interview with Russia's state-run Channel One channel, he praised the Kremlin for its veto of the European-backed UN security council resolution imposing sanctions on Damascus.

"We are relying on Russia as a country with which we have strong historic ties," Assad said.

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