Monday, November 14, 2011

Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Digest for usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com - 24 Messages in 21 Topics

Here is an article I'd like to share.

Regards,
Ola Nwabara

From the Chicago Tribune:

A young Somali lured into a life of death

When his parents were killed in a rocket attack, the only person to show a lonely Somali boy named Abdi any kindness, or say a caring word, was a family friend named Abdufazil.

The full story can be viewed at: http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-somalia-bomber-20111112,0,1248391.story?track=ctiphoneapp


On Nov 14, 2011, at 6:04 PM, usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com wrote:

Group: http://groups.google.com/group/usaafricadialogue/topics

    Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> Nov 14 04:17PM -0500  

    Protesters heckle Obama at fundraiser. What did they sing? (The Christian Science Monitor)
     
    Washington – President Obama loves having protesters disrupt a big-dollar fundraiser and interrupt his train of thought. Or at least he thought the stunt at a fundraiser in San Francisco Thursday morning was "funny," according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
     
    "You don't get that every day," Mr. Obama said after the event, per Mr. Carney, who spoke to reporters on Air Force One as they flew to their next gig in Reno, Nev.
     
    Here's what happened at the $35,800-a-ticket event at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco, according to pool reporter Carol Lee of The Wall Street Journal: Obama was in the middle of his remarks when a woman in a white suit stood up and said, "Mr. President, we wrote you
     
    Read morehttp://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20110421/ts_csm/378765

     

    Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> Nov 14 04:14PM -0500  

    BRUTAL: Obama Has Lost 'Occupy Wall St.'
     
    Glynnis MacNicol
     
    (Daniel Goodman / Business Insider)
     
    If President Obama is hoping that his support of the Occupy Wall Street movement will help his reelection chances he may want to take a look at this poll.
     
    The New York Times reports on a poll done by a Fordham University political science professor that reveals what some have long suspected: Occupy Wall St. is mainly made up of (very) disgruntled Obama supporters.
     
    Check out these numbers.
     
    Sixty percent of those surveyed said they voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and about three-quarters now disapprove of Mr. Obama's performance as president. A quarter said they were Democrats, but 39 percent said they did not identify with any political party. Eleven percent identified as Socialists, another 11 percent said they were members of the Green Party, 2 percent were Republicans and 12 percent say they identified as something else.
     
    Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-28/politics/30331867_1_president-obama-barack-obama-green-party#ixzz1diULgH2D

     

    Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> Nov 14 04:12PM -0500  

    Nov 14, 2011
     
    Singer sneaks 'Occupy' protest into Obama summit
     
    By David Jackson, USA TODAY
     
    Updated 1h 2m ago
     
    CAPTION
     
    By YES LAB, AFP/Getty Images
     
    A supporter of the "Occupy Wall Street" protests infiltrated the weekend economic summit hosted by President Obama, but few delegates a noticed.
     
    A Hawaiian singer named Makana displayed a T-shirt that read "Occupy with Aloha," and sang lyrics that criticized corporate greed, politicians and the US economic system in general.
     
    "I was pretty nervous. In fact I was terrified. I kept thinking 'what are the consequences going to be?'" Makana told the AFP wire service.
     
    "It was incredibly comical. I was terrified but also enjoying it."
     
    AFP also reported that "Makana, who was born Matthew Swalinkavich, said the song prompted awkward stares from a few of those present but the Obamas appeared too absorbed with their guests to notice what was happening."
     
    The AFP report:
     
    A popular Hawaiian recording artist turned a top-security dinner of Pacific Rim leaders hosted by President Barack Obama into a subtle protest with a song in support of the "Occupy" movement.
     
    Makana, who goes by one name, was enlisted to play a luau, or Hawaiian feast, Saturday night for leaders assembled in Obama's birthplace Honolulu for an annual summit that is formulating plans for a Pacific free-trade pact.
     
    CAPTION
     
    By EMMANUEL DUNAND, AFP/Getty Images
     
    But in the midst of the dinner on the resort strip Waikiki Beach, he pulled open his jacket to reveal a T-shirt that read "Occupy with Aloha," using the Hawaiian word whose various meanings include love and peace. He then sang a marathon version of his new song "We Are The Many."
     
    "I was pretty nervous. In fact I was terrified. I kept thinking 'what are the consequences going to be?'" Makana, 33, told AFP.
     
    "It was incredibly comical. I was terrified but also enjoying it," he said.
     
    Makana, who was born Matthew Swalinkavich, said the song prompted awkward stares from a few of those present but the Obamas appeared too absorbed with their guests to notice what was happening.
     
    The performance occurred at a dinner for summit participants from 21 economies around the Asia-Pacific, including Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, amid a security lockdown in Waikiki.
     
    As Makana sang, about 400 protesters including anti-globalization and native Hawaiian rights activists staged a protest march toward the dinner site but turned back after encountering the smothering security.
     
    Makana released the song on the Internet the day before and decided to play it at the urging of fans, he said.
     
    Inspired by the anti-capitalist movement that began with the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations in New York, it denounces Washington politicians, corporate greed and what he sees as an unfair American economic system.
     
    The song features the refrain, "We'll occupy the streets, we'll occupy the courts, we'll occupy the offices of you, till you do the bidding of the many, not the few."
     
    He sang it "over and over" for 40 minutes, varying his tempo and delivery to avoid triggering an overt reaction.
     
    "Whenever I felt the heat might come down, I would ease off. It was a very careful procedure," he said.

     

    Tracy Flemming <cafenegritude@gmail.com> Nov 13 07:43PM -0800  

    Dictatorship falsely repackaged as Pan-Africanism
    By Kawuma Daniel Busuulwa, MinneAfrica
    November 04, 2011
     
    "If a man cares not for his roots, how then can he care for his
    branches?" –Doyle M. Davis
     
    Pan-Africanism is a philosophy or movement with a plethora of
    definitions but the underlying goal has always been succinct–uniting
    people of African heritage. The outcome of unification is empowerment
    and freedom from dependence. It was a fundamental concept in fighting
    slavery, colonialism and apartheid. Advocates of 'African solutions to
    African problems' still view pan-africanism as a necessity to tame neo-
    colonialism and the ghosts of the inferiority complex. Some of the
    movement icons include Edward Blyden, WEB Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah,
    Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta and Nelson Mandela among others. Pan-
    Africanism has historically been a political engine with major goals
    and accomplishments towards fighting injustice, inequality and human
    rights violations. In modern day Africa and the Diaspora, pan-
    africanism has become more or less a philosophical and toothless
    cultural phenomenon. One would need an archeologist to unearth what is
    left of pan-africanism. The skeletal remains of the once dynamic
    creature are currently on display in the museum known as the African
    Union (AU).
     
    Following the death of Muammar Gaddafi, numerous scholars, pundits and
    media outlets condemned the National Transitional Council (NTC) and
    NATO allied forces for facilitating the killing and overthrow of
    Gaddafi's regime. Some branded Gaddafi as the remaining voice and
    visionary of Pan-africanism and indeed an African hero. Opponents of
    the UN Security Council resolution 1973 also alleged that the mission
    was primarily a quest for black-gold (oil) masquerading as protecting
    civilians. Before we all get carried away, I think we ought to shine
    some light at Pan-Africanism and refresh our minds about the core
    principles laid out by the founding fathers. Dictatorship is the
    antithesis of Pan-Africanism. This movement was about nurturing
    political, social and economic unity, mutual respect and creating a
    climate of opportunity for all Africans. Pan-Africanism was not about
    power greed, the goal was empowerment. It was about creating a new
    breed of leaders– not locking them up behind bars. Pan-Africanism was
    about human rights, justice and tolerance not fear and intimidation.
     
    It is sickening that Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
    and others shelter under the umbrella of Pan-Africanism while
    oppressing their own citizens. It has become common practice for
    dictators to resort to anti-western rhetoric when questions have been
    asked about their patchy and often inconsistent human-rights record
    and abuse of power. The Pan-Africanism card has historically been
    played effectively by the likes of Idi Amin who expelled Asians from
    Uganda and Robert Mugabe who reclaimed land from white farmers in
    Zimbabwe—to appease at the expense of democracy. Anyone who flies the
    Pan-Africanism flag in the name of protecting Africans from carnage
    and exploitation of the western world while engaging in the same
    behavior he condemns is a hypocrite. Robert Mugabe, Muammar Gaddafi,
    Mobutu Sese seko, Idi Amin, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Kamuzu Banda and
    many other dictators don't deserve to sit on the same table as the
    founding fathers of Pan-Africanism.
     
    Leaders should never consider themselves to be under the spell of Pan-
    Africanism without preparing their respective countries for the
    future. This involves putting in place strong and independent
    institutions of democracy that would plant the seeds of a peaceful
    power transition. Pan Africanism was never about simply ranting anti-
    imperialist or anti-western rhetoric. Pan Africanism is about building
    a foundation from which African nations can stand on their own feet.
    Having stability and independence from foreign intervention– such as
    foreign aid and policy influence by the Bretton Woods institutions.
     
    If Gaddafi and other African dictators had the interests of Africa at
    heart, they would have created a free political environment in their
    countries. This would involve promoting and strengthening independent
    branches of government through the ideals of 'separation of powers'
    and nurturing future leaders. There would have been no need for war,
    turmoil and blood-shed in Libya because people would have had a
    platform to make their voices heard. Instead the power hungry leaders
    create a political environment in which they are the heart and soul of
    the nation. Libya and other new governments have to start from scratch
    to fill the power vacuum and rebuild the broken and nonexistent
    political infrastructure. That's not the behavior of an individual or
    leader who acts and leads in the best interest of his people or his
    continent. It is rather symbolic of the current breed of African
    leaders with an insatiable appetite, desire and hunger for power.
     
    Dictators are the enemy of African unity and the sole reason Pan-
    Africanism lies in ruins today. It is no secret that what happened in
    Libya could happen in Zimbabwe, Uganda and a host of other African
    nations. Pan-Africanism could still be relevant today if Africa had
    leaders that lived up to the core principles of this movement.
    Commentators who claim that the fall of Gaddafi's regime was a counter-
    revolution and a battle against the vision of a United Africa are
    forgetting the essence of Pan-Africanism. "If a man cares not for his
    roots, how then can he care for his branches?

     

    "Ifedioramma E. Nwana" <ienwana@yahoo.com> Nov 14 07:36PM  

    Thanks Tracy.  It required courage, good language and style to put accross these FACTS.  I hope more people will see your point and so get recruited into the true force for Pan Africanism. 
     
    Ifedioramma Eugene Nwana
     
    From: Tracy Flemming <cafenegritude@gmail.com>
    To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
    Sent: Monday, 14 November 2011, 4:43
    Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Pan-Africanism: Dictatorship and the Ghosts of the Inferiority Complex
     
    Dictatorship falsely repackaged as Pan-Africanism
    By Kawuma Daniel Busuulwa, MinneAfrica
    November 04, 2011
     
    "If a man cares not for his roots, how then can he care for his
    branches?" –Doyle M. Davis
     
    Pan-Africanism is a philosophy or movement with a plethora of
    definitions but the underlying goal has always been succinct–uniting
    people of African heritage. The outcome of unification is empowerment
    and freedom from dependence. It was a fundamental concept in fighting
    slavery, colonialism and apartheid. Advocates of 'African solutions to
    African problems' still view pan-africanism as a necessity to tame neo-
    colonialism and the ghosts of the inferiority complex. Some of the
    movement icons include Edward Blyden, WEB Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah,
    Julius Nyerere, Jomo Kenyatta and Nelson Mandela among others. Pan-
    Africanism has historically been a political engine with major goals
    and accomplishments towards fighting injustice, inequality and human
    rights violations. In modern day Africa and the Diaspora, pan-
    africanism has become more or less a philosophical and toothless
    cultural phenomenon. One would need an archeologist to unearth what is
    left of pan-africanism. The skeletal remains of the once dynamic
    creature are currently on display in the museum known as the African
    Union (AU).
     
    Following the death of Muammar Gaddafi, numerous scholars, pundits and
    media outlets condemned the National Transitional Council (NTC) and
    NATO allied forces for facilitating the killing and overthrow of
    Gaddafi's regime. Some branded Gaddafi as the remaining voice and
    visionary of Pan-africanism and indeed an African hero. Opponents of
    the UN Security Council resolution 1973 also alleged that the mission
    was primarily a quest for black-gold (oil) masquerading as protecting
    civilians. Before we all get carried away, I think we ought to shine
    some light at Pan-Africanism and refresh our minds about the core
    principles laid out by the founding fathers. Dictatorship is the
    antithesis of Pan-Africanism. This movement was about nurturing
    political, social and economic unity, mutual respect and creating a
    climate of opportunity for all Africans. Pan-Africanism was not about
    power greed, the goal was empowerment. It was about creating a new
    breed of leaders– not locking them up behind bars. Pan-Africanism was
    about human rights, justice and tolerance not fear and intimidation.
     
    It is sickening that Gaddafi, Robert Mugabe, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni
    and others shelter under the umbrella of Pan-Africanism while
    oppressing their own citizens. It has become common practice for
    dictators to resort to anti-western rhetoric when questions have been
    asked about their patchy and often inconsistent human-rights record
    and abuse of power. The Pan-Africanism card has historically been
    played effectively by the likes of Idi Amin who expelled Asians from
    Uganda and Robert Mugabe who reclaimed land from white farmers in
    Zimbabwe—to appease at the expense of democracy. Anyone who flies the
    Pan-Africanism flag in the name of protecting Africans from carnage
    and exploitation of the western world while engaging in the same
    behavior he condemns is a hypocrite. Robert Mugabe, Muammar Gaddafi,
    Mobutu Sese seko, Idi Amin, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Kamuzu Banda and
    many other dictators don't deserve to sit on the same table as the
    founding fathers of Pan-Africanism.
     
    Leaders should never consider themselves to be under the spell of Pan-
    Africanism without preparing their respective countries for the
    future. This involves putting in place strong and independent
    institutions of democracy that would plant the seeds of a peaceful
    power transition. Pan Africanism was never about simply ranting anti-
    imperialist or anti-western rhetoric. Pan Africanism is about building
    a foundation from which African nations can stand on their own feet.
    Having stability and independence from foreign intervention– such as
    foreign aid and policy influence by the Bretton Woods institutions.
     
    If Gaddafi and other African dictators had the interests of Africa at
    heart, they would have created a free political environment in their
    countries. This would involve promoting and strengthening independent
    branches of government through the ideals of 'separation of powers'
    and nurturing future leaders. There would have been no need for war,
    turmoil and blood-shed in Libya because people would have had a
    platform to make their voices heard. Instead the power hungry leaders
    create a political environment in which they are the heart and soul of
    the nation. Libya and other new governments have to start from scratch
    to fill the power vacuum and rebuild the broken and nonexistent
    political infrastructure. That's not the behavior of an individual or
    leader who acts and leads in the best interest of his people or his
    continent. It is rather symbolic of the current breed of African
    leaders with an insatiable appetite, desire and hunger for power.
     
    Dictators are the enemy of African unity and the sole reason Pan-
    Africanism lies in ruins today. It is no secret that what happened in
    Libya could happen in Zimbabwe, Uganda and a host of other African
    nations. Pan-Africanism could still be relevant today if Africa had
    leaders that lived up to the core principles of this movement.
    Commentators who claim that the fall of Gaddafi's regime was a counter-
    revolution and a battle against the vision of a United Africa are
    forgetting the essence of Pan-Africanism. "If a man cares not for his
    roots, how then can he care for his branches?
     
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    "Dompere, Kofi Kissi" <kdompere@Howard.edu> Nov 14 02:01PM -0500  

    Dear All
    This is what governance is about. It is what development entails. It has nothing to do with phantom democracy.
    PEACE
    KOFI
    ________________________________
     
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/sarah-boseley-global-health/2011/nov/10/pharmaceuticals-industry-aids
    [http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/07/28/povertyMattersBlog_620-2.jpg] <http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters>
    Uganda's first electric car proves the potential of Africa's universities
    Critics claim the Kiira EV green car is just a prestige project, but it shows what research funding can achieve in Africa
    [http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2011/11/8/1320767908066/The-Kiira-EV-car-made-by--007.jpg]
    The Kiira EV car made by Makerere University students is shown before a test drive in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. Photograph: Reuters
    In an age of technological marvels, it may not be earth-stopping news that young engineers at Uganda<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/uganda>'s Makerere University<http://mak.ac.ug/> have made an electric car. But, as a university professor reminded me, this is big news for Uganda.
    Last week, the College of Engineering Design, Art and Technology at Makerere conducted a 4km test-drive on its Kiira EV, a two-seater vehicle that runs on rechargeable lithium batteries instead of petrol. Its makers say that in motorway conditions, the Kiira EV can attain a speed of 100km/h and cover 80km (50 miles) before it needs recharging.
    Although the technology has been around for decades, this is the first time anyone in Uganda has been able to part-assemble and part-manufacture a purely electric car, conspicuously green in colour to symbolise its environmental credentials.
    However, despite this achievement emanating from one of the world's poorest countries - Uganda ranked 161 out of 187 countries in the 2011 human development index<http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/> - it has not been without its sceptics and critics. Questions have been raised about priorities, viability and the possibility of prestige projects that have little impact on the lives of the majority.
    Nevertheless, at a time when academics and the World Bank continue to urge states to put research at the heart of the African university, Kiira may be a reminder that given the right conditions, great things can flow out of Africa<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/africa>, just like the river Nile, after which the car is named.
    "Our training in institutions of higher learning has not brought out a lot of research products. I think this vehicle is a manifestation of a changed paradigm of training in our institutions, to go beyond just lectures and laboratory experiments," said Sande Stevens Togboa, an electrical engineering professor who is overall head of the Kiira project.
    Togboa, a deputy vice-chancellor of the university, said the idea for Kiira EV came out of Makerere's participation in the Vehicle Design Summit, an inter-university initiative to build the car of the future. Led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the summit culminated with the building, in 2008, of the prototype Vision 200, a hybrid fuel-electricity car, in Turin, Italy.
    "The performance of our students [at the summit] was good," Togboa told me from Kampala. "So we announced that we would come home and build our own car."
    But, now that the car has been built -at a cost of $35,000 - what happens next? One of the obstacles to Africa's universities churning out solutions to the continent's many problems is lack of funding, which has stifled ambition. In the case of Kiira EV, it took a combination of that "paradigm shift", and a visit to the university by President Yoweri Museveni two years ago. At a follow-up meeting, Museveni announced a grant of around $10m for the college's research projects over five years. If it had not been for that grant, Togboa said, Uganda's green car might have stalled at the design stage.
    "Our funding situation is very poor; funding is the largest part of the problem," Togboa said of the university as a whole. "Another problem is the generations that have gone through university without active research; the younger generation needed to be reoriented."
    With nearly 40,000 students, Makerere university's official research budget is about UShs 1.4bn ($540,000) a year, half of which goes to running the school of postgraduate studies, the professor said. However, specific projects in areas such as health sciences, food science and technology, and agriculture are currently benefiting from $3.1m research grants from donor countries such as Norway and Sweden.
    According to a 2010 World Bank report<http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EDUCATION/Resources/278200-1099079877269/Financing_higher_edu_Africa.pdf>, financing for research in Africa has plummeted over the decades. As enrolment in universities has surged, priority has shifted to bottom-line teaching, enough to see one cohort through the gates so another can come in.
    "The inadequacy of funding has limited institutions' ability to offer adequate remuneration or to invest in infrastructure, research facilities and equipment, thereby hindering overall research capacity," the report says, pointing out that many universities are steadily losing senior research-oriented staff like Togboa to the private sector.
    Some countries, among them South Africa, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Ghana, have supplemented conventional state funding for universities with competitive grants earmarked for research.
    For Uganda's ambitions to be sustainable, however, it will require a well thought-out policy, rather than the personal curiosity of a leader, as happened with the electric car.
    Some critics have questioned the rationale for spending research money on an electric car in a poor agrarian country with an ailing public healthcare system, and where electricity outages are the norm. One cartoon showed the Kiira being pushed by two men apparently because there was no electricity to charge it.
    One commentator wrote in the Sunday Monitor newspaper of "white elephants", suggesting the car may be just another prestige project. Makerere will be out to disprove that. It is reportedly already planning to produce a 37-seater electric van.
    Another charge is that the Makerere team may simply have got parts and assembled them, which would raise questions of how much of the car was actually made in Uganda.
    Togboa admitted that "standard components" like the headlights, wheel, motor and batteries were imported, but, he explained, the chassis was designed and produced locally, as were other parts, such as the firmware, which controls the computerised vehicle's operations. As Makerere's vice-chancellor said at its launch, the Kiira EV is a sign of the university's great potential - making the case for long-term research funding.
    * This article was amended on 11 November 2011. In the original, a sentence in the last paragraph read: "Togboa admitted that 'standard components' like the headlights, wheel, mortar and batteries were imported". This should have read "motor". This has now been changed.
     
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    Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@yahoo.com> Nov 14 09:38AM -0800  

    By Graham Cluleyon
    November 14, 2011
     
    The St John Ambulance service in New
    Zealand fell victim to a computer virus infection last week, according to media reports, which disabled its automated response systems across the
    country.
     
    The service, which provides 90% of
    the emergency and non-emergency ambulance cover for the New Zealand population,
    was struck by a malware attack on Wednesday forcing staff to allocate
    ambulances manually according to Alan Goudge, communications operations manager
    for the St John Ambulance service:
     
    "Anti-virus
    software protected the systems but as a result of the virus it impacted on some
    of the systems services, mainly those related to paging and radio. Back-up
    systems immediately took over when it was detected and the workload was managed
    manually."
     
    No details appear to have been made
    available about which precise piece of malware infected the ambulance service's
    systems, or how it entered the network, but in all likelihood the attack was
    not targeted specifically at the organisation but simply included it amongst
    its victims.
     
    It's far from the first time that a
    medical service has grappled with malware infections.
    For instance, the Mytob worm hit a number of London hospitals in 2008, and in 2005 the Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in
    north Seattle was hit in attack which shut down computers in the facility's intensive
    care unitand prevented doctors' pagers from
    working properly.
     
    In that latter case, nurses were
    said to have run charts down hallways rather than transferring them
    electronically, computers in the facility's intensive care unit were shut down
    and doctors' pagers were prevented from working properly. A 21-year-old man was
    ultimately sentenced to three years in prisonand fined a quarter of a million dollars in connection with
    the case.
     
    The fact is that malware often
    doesn't discriminate between who its victims might be. Whether you're running a
    computer in your spare bedroom, or operating critical systems in a medical environment,
    your PC may still be at risk.
     
    Anyone who still thinks that
    virus-writing is "mostly harmless" and only really impacts the
    foolish who don't have backups, should consider what the possible consequences
    of taking down the systems of an ambulance emergency service might mean.
     
     
    About Me

     

    Tracy Flemming <cafenegritude@gmail.com> Nov 14 08:25AM -0800  

    November 13, 2011
    A Life of Controversy
     
    Chicago History Museum, Getty Images
     
    Margaret Sanger in 1917.
    Enlarge Image
     
    By Nina C. Ayoub
     
    With uncanny timing, Jean H. Baker's new biography of Margaret Sanger
    is hitting the shelves as Sanger is in the news—once again. This time
    it was Herman Cain, the Republican presidential hopeful, who invoked
    the ever-controversial, though long-dead, birth-control pioneer. In a
    recent Face the Nation television interview, Cain charged that Planned
    Parenthood had established 75 percent of its clinics in black
    communities as a means to prevent the birth of black babies.
     
    Cain is "playing his race card," says Baker, the author of Margaret
    Sanger: A Life of Passion (Hill & Wang). The candidate is "using
    factually incorrect information about Sanger to inhibit black women
    from getting abortions," she adds, e-mailing from Goucher College,
    where she is a professor of history.
     
    "In the fact-free, let's-just-make-it-up style of partisan history,
    the vilification of Margaret Sanger has become useful for those who
    would defund Planned Parenthood and thereby deprive American women,
    black and white, of essential health services."
     
    "Herman Cain complains of the large political bull's-eye on his back.
    He has put it there himself as he—and his party—in their chronic abuse
    of history work to take Americans backward to a past when sex
    education was denied, disseminating birth control was prohibited, and
    undergoing an abortion was illegal."
     
    As for Sanger, while her first clinic was established in a largely
    Italian and Jewish immigrant neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1916,
    the activist did establish a clinic in Harlem in 1930. She was
    invited, Baker writes, by leaders in the black community. Among
    Sanger's supporters at the time was W.E.B. Du Bois, who Baker says was
    present at the clinic's opening. "Those who would confine women to
    childbearing are reactionary barbarians," wrote Du Bois in his essay
    "The Damnation of Women." In later ventures in the South, Sanger
    recruited a National Negro Advisory Council, whose members, including
    Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, and E. Franklin Frazier, "read like a who's who
    of black Americans," Baker writes.
     
    Yet, black sentiment was divided. One opponent of Sanger's was Marcus
    Garvey, who saw birth control as against nature and "a white man's
    trick to limit the number of blacks," Baker writes. Asked if Cain
    follows in Garvey's footsteps, the scholar is skeptical. "Clearly Cain
    is not the kind of authentic black nationalist that Garvey, who wanted
    to increase the numbers of blacks in America, represented."
    Enlarge Image A Life of Controversy 2
     
    Baker says her biography "seeks to interlard the personal with the
    political, not as hagiography but as authenticity." Some of that
    authenticity has to be wrestled from the subject herself. Sanger could
    be, Baker writes, an "adroit fabulist," who revised accounts of her
    life.
     
    She was born Margaret Higgins in 1879, the sixth child of Irish
    immigrants in the factory town of Corning, N.Y. Her mother, a devout
    Catholic, would experience 18 pregnancies and 11 births before dying
    young of tuberculosis. Margaret's father, an iconoclast in church
    matters, seems to have inspired her defiance of authority.
     
    Part of Margaret's way out of Corning was nursing education, as well
    as marriage to an aspiring architect and artist, William Sanger, with
    whom she had three children. While Sanger never became fully licensed,
    it was her work as a nurse that led to an epiphany when, she said, she
    witnessed a woman from the Lower East Side—desperate not to have more
    children—die from a self-inflicted abortion. "Controlling conception
    now became the plot of Margaret Sanger's life," writes Baker. Sanger
    would become globally known for the cause and would live long enough—a
    week shy of age 87—to see many of her goals accomplished, including
    the creation of oral contraceptives. But her early career saw arrests
    and jail time and unceasing controversy.
     
    Sanger's first arrest came in 1914 when she fell afoul of a law
    crafted by America's chief prude, Anthony Comstock, which included
    bans on sending written materials related to contraception through the
    mail. Sanger was indicted for her magazine The Woman Rebel, even
    though that publication only advocated birth control but did not
    describe it. The graphic details would fall to Family Limitation, a
    pamphlet by Sanger that in four years sold more than 160,000 copies in
    the United States. Sanger also personally gave demonstrations of the
    proper use of pessaries and spermicides in the clinics she
    established.
     
    Sanger was as passionate about her sexuality as her politics. She
    pursued sex with a frankness and enthusiasm that concurred with her
    philosophy of a liberated life for women. "Sex had become something
    she could study through practice," the author wryly observes. Sanger's
    partners included two husbands, but also numerous extramarital
    relations with, as she put it, "chemically fascinating men."
     
    She succeeded in getting contraceptives into the hands of women by
    exploiting the laws that allowed condoms for the prevention of
    venereal disease, a central concern as America mobilized for World War
    I. "The army which is the least syphilized will, other things being
    equal, win," said an official of the American Social Hygiene
    Association. She enlisted physicians for her clinics who agreed to
    have an expansive notion of disease so as to be able to prescribe
    birth control to all women who asked. Some feminists have condemned
    Sanger for contributing to the medicalization of women's reproduction.
    However, her reputation has been vastly more tarnished by links to
    eugenics.
     
    Though abhorrent and indefensible by today's standards, Baker says
    that Sanger's eugenicist views must be seen in the context of her era.
    Baker also identifies W.E.B. Du Bois as a eugenicist for, among other
    things, his notion of a "talented tenth."
     
    Tentatively in the late 1910s and wholeheartedly by the 1920s, "Sanger
    became a fellow traveler and then a promoter of the eugenics
    movement," Baker writes in the book. She casts Sanger's initial ties
    to eugenics as a strategic, pragmatic choice. In the beginning, Baker
    adds in an e-mail, "Sanger embraced the eugenicists because they were
    scientists who would bring authenticity to her efforts to encourage
    birth-control research. She needed their imprimatur." By the late
    1920s and early 1930s, "Sanger had embraced some of the harsher
    positions of the eugenicists, though in two important ways she opposed
    the standard views of their establishment: She never accepted ideas
    about the hierarchy of races." Sanger's approach was "individualistic—
    that some individuals (never ethnic groups or African-Americans)
    carried genetic material that should not be passed down to their
    descendants."
     
    Sanger, argues Baker, "never believed in the popular position of Teddy
    Roosevelt (who never gets called out about this) of more children from
    the fit and its derivative, fewer from the unfit." Also, while she did
    indeed support the practice of involuntary sterilization, she
    "positively opposed what we call castration—removing ovaries and
    testicles by surgery. She came to support the ruling practice of our
    day—vasectomy and salpingectomy, which retained the sexual feelings
    she felt were so important for all individuals."
     
    So ultimately, how does Baker feel about her controversial subject?
     
    "I ended up admiring Margaret Sanger for her commitment, her
    perseverance, her ability to retain over a long career her passion for
    a cause that has changed all of our lives." But, she adds, "Often our
    heroes have messy lives and don't do the things we would like them to
    do."

     

    "Anunoby, Ogugua" <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> Nov 13 10:40PM -0600  

    One may believe as one please. Beliefs are chioces. They neither determine nor disprove facts.
    There were no nuclear weapons in Mohammed's time. The Koran could not have a passage on Mohammed stating "categorically that nuclear weapons are out" or in.
    Iran has consistently stated that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Some people believe Iran. There are those who do not. It is instructive that the disbelievers have presented no hard verifiable evidence that the Iran claim is untrue.
    Let us not forget that Saddam Hussein said that Iraq had no nuclear weapons. There were those who believed that he did and acted on their belief. The rest as they say is history.
    If I may ask, does Islam approve of weapons of mass destruction? Does anyone know of a widely respect Islamic leader who is on record as stating that nuclear weapons are allowed in Islam and that Iran' assertion is untrue?
    On a matter as serious as the claims that Iran is is developing nuclear weapons and lying about it, my position is that those who love to consume palm wine are usually concerned about the palm wine and not the palmwine tapper. The Iraq experience is too recent and costly to be ignored.
     
    oa
    ________________________________________
    From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow [harrow@msu.edu]
    Sent: Saturday, November 12, 2011 5:01 PM
    To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
    Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Paneta Warns Against Military Strike Against Iran
     
    dear oa
    i can't believe that there are more than 3 people on earth who could
    take seriously your statement that iran's public statements about their
    nuclear program or the use of nuclear weapons under islam mean anything
    whatsoever. why are you stating this??
    further, i have read the qur'an, and despite searching all day and night
    for 348 years still have not found that elusive passage in which
    mohammed stated categorically that nuclear weapons are out.
    ken
     
    On 11/12/11 4:27 PM, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:
    > To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
    > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
    > unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
     
    --
    kenneth w. harrow
    distinguished professor of english
    michigan state university
    department of english
    east lansing, mi 48824-1036
    ph. 517 803 8839
    harrow@msu.edu
     
    --
    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
    To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
    To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
    unsubscribe@googlegroups.com

     

    Yona Maro <oldmoshi@gmail.com> Nov 14 05:06PM +0300  

    State of the World's Street Children: Research brings together a
    comprehensive collection of literature about street children from the last
    decade. It draws on over 400 pieces of research, determining where advances
    have been made in the knowledge about this often over-looked group and
    dispelling some unfounded assumptions. It also identifies where the gaps are
    in current knowledge to reveal areas where further exploration is needed.
    The book is aimed at scholars, researchers, practitioners, NGOs and anyone
    with an interest in street children.
     
    http://www.streetchildren.org.uk/_uploads/publications/State_of_the_Worlds_Street_Children_Research_final_PDF_online.pdf

     

    Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> Nov 14 08:59AM -0500  

    Operation Somalia: The US, Ethiopia and now Kenya
     
    Oct 28, 2011 06:24 EDT
     
    By Aaron Maasho
     
    Ethiopia did it five years ago, the Americans a while back. Now Kenya has rolled tanks and troops across its arid frontier into lawless Somalia, in another campaign to stamp out a rag-tag militia of Islamist rebels that has stoked terror throughout the region with threats of strikes.
     
    The catalyst for Nairobi's incursion was a series of kidnappings by Somali gunmen on its soil. A Frenchwoman was bundled off to Somalia from northern Kenya, while a British woman and two female aid workers from Spain, abducted from a refugee camp inside Kenya, are also being held across the border.
     
    The incidents caused concern over their impact on the country's vital tourism industry, with Kenya's forecast 100 billion shillings or revenue this year expected to falter. The likes of Britain and the United States have already issued warnings against travel to some parts of the country.
     
    Kenyans have so far responded with bravado towards their government's operation against the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group. Local channels regularly show high approval ratings for the campaign, some as high as 98 percent.
     
    "The issue of our security is non-negotiable," one commentator told a TV station in the wake of the announcement. Another chipped in with: "We've been casual to the extent of endangering our national sovereignty. Kenya has what it takes to get rid of this dangerous threat once and for all."
     
    Isn't that what the Ethiopians said in late 2006?
     
    After repeated threats of jihad against the predominantly Christian nation, Addis Ababa wasted little time in deploying thousands of highly-trained and battle-ready troops to Somalia against the Islamic Courts Union, the precursor to today's al Shabaab.
     
    It routed them quickly and the group's leaders retreated to exile, giving way to the much more militant and aggressive al Shabaab. Addis Ababa then found itself bogged down in near-daily bouts of urban warfare and finally withdrew two years later citing mounting costs and a lack of regional will to sort out the situation.
     
    Al Shabaab have since controlled large swathes of southern Somalia against the internationally-backed government's control of the capital.
     
    Ethiopia's ill-fated mission followed a US foray in late 1993. In a bid to capture clan leaders who were trampling on the humanitarian relief following the downfall of dictator Siad Barre in 1991, Washington sent soldiers to enforce a UNmission.
     
    The operation ended in disaster. Two Black Hawk choppers were shot down and 18 servicemen killed. The bodies of several soldiers were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu and a hasty withdrawal followed.
     
    Though Kenyan troops have already encroached inside Somalia on a number of occasions and are well-trained and supplied, questions remain over how they will cope with a potential guerrilla war against fighters hardened on years of skirmishes in the remote region.
     
    With Kenya keeping a tight lid on details of the operation, the media is asking what the desired end game is. Initially, there was speculation that Kenya wanted to secure a buffer zone along its long, porous frontier with Somalia.
     
    Government spokesman Alfred Mutua said on Thursday the aim was only to dismantle al Shabaab's network and leave, not spending an hour longer than necessary in Somalia.
     
    Kenyan soldiers may well find themselves in a different scenario to that of Ethiopia.
     
    Ethiopian troops were at the vanguard of the fight against Somalia's Islamist militants. In this case, an African Union force of 9,000 has more or less secured Mogadishu, Western allies are providing Kenya with technical support and Somali government troops and allied militias are fighting alongside the east African country.
     
    Will Kenya ultimately prove its doubters wrong and secure gains that have eluded its peers? Or will this be another ill-fated operation that will end up in an embarrassing withdrawal?

     

    Yona Maro <oldmoshi@gmail.com> Nov 14 05:06PM +0300  

    A Profitable and Resource Efficient Future: Catalysing Retrofit Finance and
    Investing in Commercial Real Estate is the product of the Retrofit Finance
    & Investing Project, a cross-industry, multistakeholder initiative of the
    World Economic Forum launched in 2010.
     
    The report equips policy-makers and industry leaders with the information
    and tools needed to build and scale retrofit markets around the world. It
    highlights the business potential waiting to be tapped by multiple
    industries and underscores the acute importance for government leaders to
    take action now: to ensure a resource-secure, low-carbon future and to
    benefit from the economic and job creation potential that retrofitting
    promises. It calls to action the range of existing and potential
    stakeholders to fully and jointly participate in growing a healthy retrofit
    market, including government, financial service institutions, investors,
    property owners, utilities, equipment manufacturers, energy service
    companies and other related industries. Finally, it provides
    industry-specific recommendations to enable their participation.
     
    http://www3.weforum.org/docs/IP/IU/WEF_IU_CatalysingRetrofitFinanceInvestingCommercialRealEstate_Brochure_2011.pdf

     

    MsJoe21St@aol.com Nov 14 09:05AM -0500  

    Sounds like a plan as my Dad would say to cheer a solution. The CEMAC
    region - the six countries in Central Africa already have CEMAC passport.

    ==============================================================
     
    _Nairobi Star_ (http://www.the-star.co.ke/) (Nairobi)
    _East Africa:_ (http://allafrica.com/eastafrica/) EAC to Drop U.S. Dollar
    As Regional Currency
    Kennedy Lesiew and Jessica Nyaboke
    11 November 2011
    ____________________________________

    Residents of the East African Community no longer have to use the dollar a
    s a medium when changing currencies from one member state to another.
    Deputy director in charge of regional integration Alice Yalla said traders
    operating within the region can now directly change their currency to the host
    nation in accordance with the exchange rates.
     
    Speaking to the Star in Eldoret, Yalla said the move is a great saving to
    traders who have been losing up to 35 per cent of their currency's value
    during the exchange. She said with the establishment of banks which are
    operating across the region, residents can now withdraw money through the ATM
    when in any member state in the desired currency.
     
    Yalla said the region is yet to achieve the goal of having a common
    currency but hoped that they will beat the April 2012 deadline. "Plans are
    underway to harmonize the education systems and curriculum at every level of
    learning so that all graduates member states can fit in the job market ." Said
    Yalla adding that the process will assist in bridging skills due to current
    shortage of labour in the market.

     

    Yona Maro <oldmoshi@gmail.com> Nov 14 05:05PM +0300  

    The National Planning Commission's vision and plan for 2030 charts a 20
    year path towards achieving the overarching vision embedded in the
    Constitution that South Africa belongs to all who live in it. It breaks the
    five-year electoral cycle to allow for long-term planning.
     
    The plan opens the way for:
     
     
    - The mobilization of society around a commonly agreed set of long-term
    goals
    - Greater coherence in government's work between departments which can
    only be achieved if there is a common understanding of long-term objectives.
    - The development of a broad consensus to encourage business and society
    to think about the long term. This will provide a basis for making
    trade-offs and prioritising major decisions.
     
     
    http://www.npconline.co.za/medialib/downloads/home/NPC%20National%20Development%20Plan%20Vision%202030%20-lo-res.pdf

     

    Yona Maro <oldmoshi@gmail.com> Nov 14 05:04PM +0300  

    This is the first African edition in the GSMA Mobile Observatory series and
    provides a comprehensive review of the African mobile communications
    industry. The report focuses on how mobile operators and African
    governments can work together to continue the remarkable growth story of
    the African mobile industry. The benefits that mobile services have already
    brought to hundreds of millions of Africans can be extended to those who
    have yet to connect. By so doing, the African continent can continue to
    bring not only communication services, but also improved financial
    services, healthcare and education to its people and drive an increase in
    the economic wealth and development.
     
    http://www.gsmworld.com/documents/African_Mobile_Observatory_Full_Report_2011.pdf

     

    Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng <gapenteng@hotmail.com> Nov 14 09:13AM  

    Have we noticed that "the market" has replaced two governments in Europe?The two new prime ministers in Greece and Italy are unelected heads of governmentwho both worked for Goldman Sachs and are darlings of the international financial system. This makes a mockery of democracy and undermines the West's moral right to lectureanyone on the subject.

    Kwasi

    Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng,
    Journalist & Communications Consultant
    Accra
     
    President,
    Ghana Association of Writers
    PAWA House, Accra

     

    Pablo <pidahosa@yorku.ca> Nov 14 08:37AM -0500  

    Brilliantly and succinctly put, Kwasi. Since when did the very invisible, but secret, hands of bondholders replace the will of the people!? In markets we trust to overthrow elected governments, and then no commentary.The language and practices of "the market" have long replaced agency and will of the people-- that there's nothing more paramount than securing the confidence of big private and institutional investors. That's why, despite my reservations about pitching tents outside of all banks (central or otherwise) and treasuries, the principle that they are standing for is unimpeachable.
     
    If ever we saw global class rule at work, here it is.
     
    Pablo
     

     

    Jaye Gaskia <ogbegbe@yahoo.com> Nov 14 02:56AM -0800  

    Dear all,
     
    Starting from Sunday [13/11/11] u will begin getting messages from We the People bulk SMS. Pls text yes to 08163687116 or 08054628325, these are the Campaign numbers, call either at any time to get updates on the Nigerian peoples struggle to resist fuel price increase. Also invite your friends to sign up. Broadcast to all your friends! Post on your Face book status!
    The We The People Campaign, is an initiative ...of the United Action For Democracy [UAD], with which we seek to build the broadest possible coalition of willing and committed individuals and organisations against fuel price increases, for the immediate restoration of full domestic refining capacity, for the immediate idenitification and punishment of the cabal sabotaging the petroleum and energy sectors; and with which we also seek to mobilise active support for every experession of struggle of our peoples against tyranny and exploitation! For example during last week, we organised with Ogoni people protest marches to stop the Landgrab in Ogoniland, and to compel the implementation of the UNEP on the restoration of Ogoni land and environment.
     
    Visit our website: www.wethepeoplecoalition.com for further information and to sign a petition calling for action.
    Also vist our Facebook pages: United Action For Democracy; and We The People.
     
    Join us to RETURN TO THE STREETS, RETAKE OUR COUNTRY, RECLAIM OUR HUMANITY AND OCCUPY NIGERIA
     
    Please Repost this message for maximum impact.
     
    Warm Regards,
    Jaye Gaskia
    National Convener
    United Action For Democracy [UAD]

     

    awori <awori.achoka@gmail.com> Nov 13 08:06PM -0800  

    Please tell the ignorant anarchists that the basis of Christian
    philosophy is African culture.
    Europe is nowhere in the Old Testament but Egypt is mentioned 500
    times.
     
     
     
    AA.
     
     
    On Nov 13, 6:58 pm, toyin adepoju <toyin.adep...@googlemail.com>
    wrote:

     

    "Farooq A. Kperogi" <farooqkperogi@gmail.com> Nov 13 09:57PM -0500  

    "i wonder how many on this list read Persepolis, the graphic novel by
    marhane satrapi. she paints an awful picture of that war, after its initial
    patriotic phase of iranians defending their country." kenneth harrow <
    harrow@msu.edu
     
    I thought you said novels are supposed to be fictional, nay fictive,
    narratives that need not be factual recapitulation of events. You said this
    in defense of Chimamanda's alleged distortion of the history and sociology
    of the Igbo society in her novel. Not being an Igbo, I am in no position to
    make any judgment on the accuracy or facticity of the accusation against
    Chimamanda (whose novels I've never even read), but I was struck (unnerved
    is more like it) by your argument that fidelity to historical facts is
    outside the province of the novelistic enterprise. That, you said, belongs
    to history and anthropology. Now you are inviting us to gaze at a
    historical event through the lenses of a novel!
     
    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<http://www.farooqkperogi.blogspot.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
     
     
     

     

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