changamkamkenya

Why Kenya Will Rout Al Shabaab Through Its Operation Linda Nchi.

2011-11-02T17:20:00.000+03:00

Why Kenya Will Rout Al Shabaab Through Its Operation Linda Nchi.

By Marcel Masaga.

I have been inadvertently drawn into this huge and seemingly raging debate in western liberal media and blogs that is predicting that Kenya's Army is not up to the task of removing or neutralizing the Al Shaabab threat from Somalia. I wish to put the record straight in light of the facts at hand and to dispel this erroneous notion once and for all.

God Bless Kenya.

First and foremost they liken Kenya's Operation Linda Nchi to the doomed American Invasion Operation Gothic Serpent of the early 90's that resulted in the shooting down of Two Black Hawk helicopters and the killing of some 19 odd American Army Rangers as proof that Kenya, having a vastly less endowed Army will not fare any better.

I want to dispel this wrong comparison once and for all, America at that time had a handful of soldiers numbering 160 combatants intent on securing a city with more than 1 million "hostile inhabitants" intent on removing a popular warlord Farah Aideed and his Habr Gidr Clansmen from combat operations in the first battle of Mogadishu. In practical terms this was tantamount to a suicide mission, the Americans were outnumbered by a ratio of 1: 10,000, and they were fighting man-to-man in an urban setting of Mogadishu a city they were grossly unfamiliar with, the odds were heavily stacked against them and their mission was doomed right from the word go.

Second America's intervention lacked one critical ingredient that Operation Linda Nchi has, namely the relative distances between Kenya and Somalia measured in hundreds of Kilometers vis the distance from the USA to Somalia measured in the thousands of kilometers. Therefore Kenya has immense flexibility in deciding the number of forces to deploy to the war front, it can deploy, in theory anywhere from a company to 75,000 soldiers (our entire armed forces) to the theater of combat by road, air and sea in under 72 hours anywhere in Southern Somalia.

Therefore to compare these two outcomes the failed American adventurism Operation Gothic Serpent in early 1993 and Operation Linda Nchi an evolving conflict and to base the former as a benchmark for the latter is not only illogical but is scientifically unsound to say anything but the least.It is similar to comparing the number of ants in Antarctica and the number of goats in Garissa and trying to draw a one-to-one co-relation between the two without any more information supplied to the model, which is a useless exercise.

History Is Not Good At Predicting Outliers.

Similar arguments are used with reference to Ethiopia's similarly failed mission in the mid 2000's to argue that Kenya will fail, the same argument as above suffices. Two Kenya is bearing the brunt of Al Shabaab as it has trained its nefarious eye on hapless Kenyan youth who it has recruited in its jihadist ministry. Therefore Kenya is at zero option but to engage these criminals wherever they are to safeguard its sovereignty, Kenya"s entry into this war is the Black Swan nobody had predicted but one which will have a very marked effect in the future direction of Somalia as a country .

Three the Daadab Refugee Camp is unofficially Kenya's fourth largest city with 600, 000 inhabitants largely displaced from unstable Somalia. They are here largely due to the misadventures of outfits like Al Shabaab who have pushed them into our territory, therefore it follows logically that if we remove the factor, Al Shabaab, which is impeding the safe return of these somali peasants back to their farms not only will we dismantle Kenya's city number four but we will have rescued the livelihoods of our fellow human beings as good neighborliness dictates.

Four, the quality of our intelligence on Al Shabaab operations and locations within and without Somalia so far has been spot on which greatly enhances our tactical effectiveness in the war. And finally we have a written commitment and broad support from the Somali government and the "liberated" people of Somalia which significantly tips the odds in favor of Kenya's Operation Linda Nchi, we have won the heart and minds of the international community with IGAD pledging unconditional support, AMISOM pledging to increase its troop numbers in Somalia, Tanzania, Rwanda and South Africa supporting Kenya in its drive to stabilize and pacify Somalia Pax Eterna.

Al Shabaab Have Woken Up A Sleeping Giant.

Heading To The War Front.

Another argument being banded about which has become necessary to rebuff, is the term that is being used with much abandon, inexperienced, when talking about the Kenya Army. This argument also needs to be shot out of the water, it is a fact that our Armed Forces are among the top five best trained professional forces in Africa. Our Armed Forces have won many accolades and have historically provided the bulk of troops in UN Peace Keeping missions from Yugoslavia to Sierra Leone.The fact that we have been to such missions has exposed our forces to sufficient experience in combat and pacifying a subdued populace. And for the record I have never heard of a National Defense College that exclusively teaches Peace Keeping in its curriculum, Armies are trained to wage war. Our troops are well trained in combat and superbly operational, this is evidenced by the speed with which we marched into enemy territory.

A Remarkable Parallel To Pearl Harbor

Therefore to try and rely exclusively in the past to predict the future is fraught with dangers and tends to oversimplify the situation at hand. And for you good students of history you will recall that before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 without any provocation, thus drawing the reluctant American's into World War 2, America had not fought any major war so there was no precedent against which one could measure the effect of America on the outcome of the war, suffice to say this small bombardment marked the beginning of the end of World War Two, as America's entry into this war turned the odds against the axis forces of Germany, Japan and Italy. It is said that the Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto the Japanese Naval Marshall and C-I-C of the combined Japanese Fleet in World War Two remarked after the bombing of Pearl Harbor the culmination of Operation AI, that they, the Japanese "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." And regret they did, Hiroshima and Nagasaki was enough testimony of this error, the same can be said of Al Shabaab picking a fight with Kenya.

To parapharase our Right Honorable Prime Minister Raila Amolo Odinga we have the reason , means, capability and determination to see this Operation Linda Nchi through, (even if need be on our own), with resounding success . God Bless the Republic and The Proud People of Kenya.

Marcel Masaga :The Writer Is A Polymath and Freelance Writer Writing About Most Topics Under The Sun.

Second Al Shabaab Bomb Goes Off Within 24 Hours At OTC Nairobi Kenya Killing At Least 2 People

2011-10-24T21:05:00.001+03:00

Second Al Shabaab Bomb Goes Off Within 24 Hours At OTC Nairobi Kenya Killing At Least 2 People

By Marcel Masaga,

God Bless Kenya.

The news wires are reporting that a second grenade attack within 24 hours has been reported within Kenya's Capital City Nairobi. This second grenade went off at the OTC Bus terminus, next to Jack And Jill Supermarket at 7: 56 P.M local time, instantly killing at least 2 rush hour commuters, on their commute back home and leaving scores injured. The OTC Bus terminus is a popular spot for city dwellers to catch the minivans, known as Matatu's heading towards the populous easterly suburbs of Nairobi City.

Kenya Army Convoy Heading To Somalia.

The first bombing, was in the form of a grenade attack that was lobbed into a popular pub in downtown Nairobi, Mwaura's Pub in the wee hours of Monday morning injuring at least 13 revelers. The Al Shabaab are quickly living up to their threat to disrupt Kenyan life by launching terror attacks on Kenyan soil in response to Kenya's on going military operation in lawless Somalia code named "Operation Linda Maisha".

As a patriot I aver here on this blog that we the Kenyan People stand hand in hand with our men and women in uniform as they continue forth in their quest to route this Al Shabaab rubble from the face of the planet. And that no amount of suicide bombings or threats of terror attack will sideline this country and its proud people, I being one of them, from going the full course and taking this just war to this bunch of cowards on to their Waterloo. God Bless Kenya.

Isaiah The Old Testament Prophet Had Predicted The Death Of Muamar Gaddaffi Two Millenia Ago.

2011-10-22T22:02:00.000+03:00

How The Prophet Isaiah Predicted The Death Of Colonel Muammar Gaddaffi Two Millenia Ago.

Isaiah The Prophet.

The cruel king has fallen! He will never oppress anyone again!⁵ The Lord has ended the power of the evil rulers⁶ who angrily oppressed the peoples and never stopped persecuting the nations they had conquered.⁷ Now at last the whole world enjoys rest and peace, and everyone sings for joy.⁸ The cypress trees and the cedars of Lebanon rejoice over the fallen king, because there is no one to cut them down, now that he is gone!

⁹ The world of the dead is getting ready to welcome the king of Babylon. The ghosts of those who were powerful on earth are stirring about. The ghosts of kings are rising from their thrones.¹⁰ They all call out to him,
         Now you are as weak as we are! You are one of us!¹¹ You used to be honored with the music of harps, but now here you are in the world of the dead. You lie on a bed of maggots and are covered with a blanket of worms.


¹² ^(A)King of Babylon, bright morning star, you have fallen from heaven! In the past you conquered nations, but now you have been thrown to the ground.¹³ ^(B)You were determined to climb up to heaven and to place your throne above the highest stars. You thought you would sit like a king on that mountain in the north where the gods assemble.¹⁴ You said you would climb to the tops of the clouds and be like the Almighty.¹⁵ But instead, you have been brought down to the deepest part of the world of the dead.
¹⁶ The dead will stare and gape at you. They will ask,
         Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble?¹⁷ Is this the man who destroyed cities and turned the world into a desert? Is this the man who never freed his prisoners or let them go home?

¹⁸ All the kings of the earth lie in their magnificent tombs,¹⁹ but you have no tomb, and your corpse is thrown out to rot. It is covered by the bodies of soldiers killed in battle, thrown with them into a rocky pit, and trampled down.²⁰ Because you ruined your country and killed your own people, you will not be buried like other kings. None of your evil family will survive.²¹ Let the slaughter begin! The sons of this king will die because of their ancestors' sins. None of them will ever rule the earth or cover it with cities.

NB:-Please Feel Free To Replace The King Of Babylon In The Above Passage With The Very Dead King Of Libya Gaddaffi.

Isaiah 14:9-21

Cautionary Tale: That is what you get when you blaspheme and dare call yourself "King Of Kings" a title solely reserved for Yeshua Ha-Masiach, Jesus Christ Our Lord And Saviour.

Lesson: Never Ever Blaspheme. Jehovah El Kano Is A Jealous God.

'You've got to find what you love,' Steve Jobs Once Famously Said

2011-10-09T00:53:00.001+03:00

This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

Video of the Commencement address.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

Stanford University News

Apple Founder Steve Jobs Dies at 56: RIP

2011-10-06T10:07:00.000+03:00

Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder who pioneered the PC industry andtransformed the way people consume music, movies and mobile media, died Wednesday at the age of 56.

The Ubiquitous Apple Logo.

“Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being,” said Tim Cook, his longtime deputy, in a letter to employees. “We will honor his memory by dedicating ourselves to continuing the work he loved so much.”

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company didn’t specify the cause of death, but a friend of the family said Jobs died of complications from his battle with pancreatic cancer. Several years ago received a liver transplant, and in August, Jobs resigned as chief executive, handing the reins to Cook.

In 1976, Jobs, along with partner Steve Wozniak, started Apple with a focus on personal computers, releasing the Apple II a year later. The Apple II became the benchmark for PCs and helped jumpstart the desktop computer revolution.

Despite Apple’s early success, an industry-wide downturn and a deteriorating relationship with then-CEO John Sculley forced Jobs out of the company he started in 1985.

But Jobs returned in 1996, and turned Apple around from the brink of bankruptcy. He set up standards for design and user-friendliness — combining efficiency and aesthetic elegance — and led the creation of the iPod, changing not just the MP3 player, but the entire music industry.

But the most productive chapter in Jobs’ career came near the end of his life, with a string of successful products like the iPhone and iPad. The products changed the way people use mobile devices and consume digital-media, helping to turn Apple into a pop-culture phenomenon.

Cook is expected to continue Apple’s momentum, and Wozniak believes Jobs has left behind a well-oiled machine.

“He really has had to sacrifice a lot to run Apple,” Wozniak said. “Everyone wants you day and night, that’s what I mean by sacrifices. It takes so much out of anyone to be under just constant pressure and demands like that.”

As Jobs said when he lured then-Pepsi CEO Sculley to lead Apple in 1983, “Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

Courtesy Forbes

Rest In Peace Polymath, Till We Meet Again.

Medical Team Remove 12 Centimeter Pin From Man's Privates

2011-09-26T14:26:00.000+03:00

A four-member medical team at the Tamale TeachingHospital on Saturday successfully removed a 12-centimeter safety-pin from the penis of a 32-year old man.

Safety Pin.

The team, comprising two doctors, an anaesthetist and a nurse, used a surgical procedure called ‘open ureterolithotomy,’ which lasted for about 30 minutes.

Dr. Akis Afoko, a surgeon/urologist, who led the operation, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Tamale that for the sore to heal quickly the urinepassage had been diverted for a few days.

He said on September 12, the patient was admitted with the condition of a pin in his penis.

When asked about the cause, the patient, he said, initially said the pin was fixed in his bed spread but upon further query, he later confessed that he was masturbating with the safety pin.

Dr Afoko said the patient revealed that in the process of masturbating the pin moved deeper and close to the bladder.

He explained that the patient tried to get it out but the pin pierced the cavernous body, the opening of the genital.

Dr Afoko said the team also discovered that the patient was suffering from a psychological condition which needed immediate attention.

He advised those engaged in dangerous practices of masturbation to stop because they could end up impotent when their injuries were not properly treated.

Source: Ghana News Agency

RIP:Kenya's Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai Is Dead

2011-09-26T09:38:00.002+03:00

NAIROBI — Kenya's Wangari Maathai, who won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental work, has died of cancer, the campaigning movement she founded announced Monday.

Professor Wangari Maathai April 1-1940-September 25-2011

"It is with great sadness that the family of professor Wangari Maathai announces her passing away on 25th September 2011 at the Nairobi hospital after a prolonged and bravely borne struggle with cancer," the Green Belt Movement said in a statement.

Born in 1940, Maathai became a key figure in Kenya since founding the movement in 1977, staunchly campaigning for environmental conservation and good governance.

Since its founding, her organisation has planted some 40 million trees across Africa. In the 1970s, she also headed the Kenya Red Cross.

Maathai won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her environmental work and reforestation in her native Kenya.

She was the first woman in east and central Africa to earn a PhD, and also the first African woman and Kenyan to receive the Nobel Peace prize.

Aside from her conservation work, Maathai was in 2002 elected an MP then named the environment assistant minister, a position which she held between 2003 and 2005.

Outside Kenya, Maathai was involved in efforts to save central Africa's Congo basin forest, the world's second largest tropical forest.

Maathai, who was divorced, leaves behind three children and a grandchild.

AFP.

Tens Feared Dead In Another Oil Tanker Explosion Tragedy Along Suo River, 20 Kilometres From Busia Town Along The Kenya-Uganda Highway.

2011-09-20T22:55:00.000+03:00

By Marcel Masaga, 9:30 PM Tuesday, September 20, 2011.

File:Trailer Tanker On Fire.

Yet another fire tragedy has hit Kenya in the wake of the Sinai accident, as an out of control tanker carrying Super a highly inflammable petroleum product, explodes along a bridge on River Suo in Busia County, Kenya. The 9:30 P.M accident occurred at Suo River 12 kilometers from Busia Town, Busia County Along The Kenya-Uganda Highway on the frontier of Kenya and Uganda.

At least four people have been confirmed dead .So far fifteen people with severe 3rd degree burns have been rushed to the nearby Busia District Hospital, the Busia Police Division OCPD Mr Micheni Muthamia has confirmed to a local FM station .So far the trailer is Still Burning and it is feared that some fuel compartments might yet ignite.

File: Huge Oil Tanker Explosion

The trailer is said to have lost control while maneouvering through the notorious blackspot, that has claimed hundreds of lives in the recent past. Many more people, who had come to partake in the free fuel, are now feared dead in the surrounding bushes rescue operations are still ongoing. We will keep you updated with this breaking story.

Offer Khweza Bed & Breakfast-A Top Accommodation Venue In Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa. Kenya Ngara Nairobi

2011-09-20T09:21:00.000+03:00

Offer Khweza Bed & Breakfast-A Top Accommodation Venue In Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa. Kenya Ngara Nairobi

Gamers Solve AIDS Cure Puzzle Which Has Stumped Scientists For 20+ Years and In Under 10 Days.

2011-09-19T14:31:00.000+03:00

Game of life: Foldit players can use different tools to interactively twist, jiggle and reshape proteins

Videogame players have solved a molecular puzzle that stumped scientists for years and could hold the key to finding a cure for AIDS.

A team of gamers needed just ten days to produce an answer to an enzyme riddle that had eluded experts for more than a decade.

The feat was accomplished using a collaborative online game called Foldit, which has been likened to Tetris and encourages players to fold a protein into intricate shapes.

'This is one small piece of the puzzle in being able to help with AIDS,' Firas Khatib, a biochemist at the University of Washington, the institution which invented the game, told MSNBC.

Mr Khatib is the lead author of a research paper on the project, published on Sunday by Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, which credits the gamers, mainly non-biologists, for the breakthrough.

The news is a boost for so-called citizen science, which enlists internet users to work on large-scale scientific tasks that sheer computer power cannot accomplish easily.

'People have spatial reasoning skills, something computers are not yet good at,' Seth Cooper, a UW computer scientist who is Foldit's lead designer and developer, explained. 'Games provide a framework for bringing together the strengths of computers and humans.'

For more than a decade, an international team of scientists has been trying to figure out the detailed molecular structure of an enzyme from an AIDS-like virus found in rhesus monkeys.

Such enzymes, known as retroviral proteases, play a key role in the virus' spread - and if medical researchers can figure out their structure, they could conceivably design drugs to stop the virus in its tracks.

Scientists know the pieces that make up a protein but cannot predict how those parts fit together into a 3D structure. And since proteins act like locks and keys, the structure is crucial.

Breakthrough: The gamers have solved a puzzle which could help cure AIDS

There are millions of ways that the bonds between the atoms in the enzyme's molecules could twist and turn. To design the right chemical key, you have to figure out the most efficient, lowest-energy configuration for the molecule.

No computer in the world is big enough for the challenge, and computers may not take the smartest approach.

Tens of thousands of players have taken on the challenge of Foldit, which awards points based on the internal energy of the 3-D protein structure, dictated by the laws of physics.

When someone playing the game comes up with a more elegant structure that reflects a lower energy state for the molecule, his or her score goes up.

The author list for the paper includes an acknowledgement of more than 57,000 Foldit players, which may be unprecedented on a scientific publication.

The monkey-virus puzzle was one of several unsolved molecular mysteries that a colleague of Mr Khatib's at the university, Frank DiMaio, recently tried to solve.

'This was one of the cases where his method wasn't able to solve it,' Mr Khatib told MSNBC. So he and his colleagues put the puzzle to Foldit's teams to work on. 'This was really kind of a last-ditch effort,' he recalled. 'Can the Foldit players really solve it?

'They actually did it in less than 10 days,' Mr Khatib told MSNBC.

One piece in the puzzle: Firas Khatib, a biochemist at the University of Washington, the institution which invented the game said it was a boost for citizen-science

The final decisive move was performed by a player going only by the name 'mimi', who told MSNBC in an email that she had been playing the game for nearly three years since its inception in 2008.

'The game is not only an interesting intellectual challenge… but it also provides a unique society of players driven by both individual and team rivalry with an overall purpose of improving the game and the results achieved,' she wrote.

'I had looked at the structure of the options we were presented with and identified that it would be better if the 'flap' could be made to sit closer to the body of the protein… when I applied the same approach to the evolved solution that had been worked on by other team members, I was able to get it to tuck in.

'We were all very excited to hear that we had helped to find the answer to this crystal form, especially since it had been outstanding so long.'

Foldit has been well known in the scientific community for some time, even if it was not seriously thought of as a ground-breaking tool.

But Principal investigator Zoran Popovic, a UW associate professor of computer science and engineering, told UW Today: 'I hope this paper will convince a lot of those people who were sitting on the sidelines, and the whole genre of scientific discovery games will really take off.'

Scientists are aware of the need to keep the game fun, though. 'Let's be honest, proteins aren't the sexiest video game out there,' Mr Khatib told MSNBC.

Source Daily Mail.

The New Windows 8-A First Look.

2011-09-18T20:22:00.001+03:00

The Windows 8 Lock Screen.

For Windows to work on tablets and touchscreens, it needed to be designed with fingers, short battery life, and on-the-go tasks in mind.

Microsoft accomplished that with Windows 8 by redesigning everything, right through to the first screen you see before you log on. That "lock screen," which displays at boot-up and when the screen times out, shows quick-glance information about users' next calendar appointment, how many e-mails and messages they have, battery life and Wi-Fi signal strength.

Users navigate out of this lock screen to begin using applications with an upwards swipe of the finger, or a swing of the mouse.

The Windows 8 Start Screen.

Windows' new "Metro" user interface does away with the desktop and replaces it with the start screen. Customizable, interactive tiles replace icons.

But for those longing for a traditional desktop, never fear: Windows 8 still offers a point-and-click desktop that is similar to the experience in Windows 7. Users can navigate between the interfaces with the touch of a button, a click, or -- since this is a Microsoft product -- a keyboard shortcut (Ctrl - Page Down).

Windows 8 also offers a hybrid experience, allowing laptop and desktop PC users to navigate the Metro user interface with a mouse or a keyboard.

The Windows 8 File Management Screen.

Microsoft was among the first software companies to bring a graphical interface to file management. With Windows 8, users will be able to navigate through files with touches, drags, swipes and pinches.

The new user interface works particularly well with photos, which can be automatically synced with your other PCs as well as cloud-based services like Facebook and Flickr. That means photos uploaded to Facebook or stored on another computer will immediately populate on all of that user's Windows 8 devices.

The Windows 8 Applications Screen.

It's not just the operating system's user interface that comes in two flavors, Metro and desktop. Applications themselves will also be available in the two different formats.

The Metro applications, like Internet Explorer 10, pictured above, have a distinct touchscreen look and feel to them, simplifying the layout to just a few large buttons and boxes.

But if that doesn't suit you, users can quickly load their browser session -- or calendar, e-mail, etc. -- in desktop mode with a click of a button.

Many applications will have both Metro and desktop versions, but some apps will only work with Metro, and others will work exclusively on the desktop experience

The Windows 8 Apps And Keyboard.

Like a traditional desktop experience, Metro allows users to pin frequently used applications to the start screen and leave the rest in navigable folders and application lists.

For power users with hundreds of applications, that's where the keyboard can come in handy -- start typing, and Windows 8 immediately begins searching for the application you're looking for. Not searching for an app? You can make the computer search through settings, files, or the Web with a touch of a virtual button. Read More Here

Courtesy Of CNN Money.

Google Introduces Search By Image.

2011-09-15T11:44:00.002+03:00

Google Search by Image

Now you can explore the web in an entirely new way by beginning your Google search with an image. Learn more about images on the web and your own photos.

Four Ways to Search by Google Image Search.

Drag and drop

Drag and drop an image from the web or your computer into the search box on images.google.com.

Upload an image

On images.google.com, click the camera icon, then select “Upload an image.” Select the image you want to use to start your search.

Copy and paste the URL for an image

Found an image on the web you’re curious about? Right-click the image to copy the URL. On images.google.com, click the camera icon, and “Paste image URL”.

Right-click an image on the web

To search by image even faster,download the Chrome extension or the Firefox extension. With the extension installed, simply right-click an image on the web to search Google with that image.

Courtesy Of Google

Bharti Airtel Kenya Launches Online Payment System - PayOnline Allows Mobile Subscribers To Purchase Online In Partnership With Standard Chartered Bank and MasterCard Worldwide.

2011-09-15T10:52:00.001+03:00

Bharti Airtel Kenya Distinctive Logo.

KENYA/NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel Wednesday said that its African-arm has launched an online payment system - PayOnline that will allow its mobile subscribers to use handsets to make purchase online along with Standard Chartered Bank and MasterCard Worldwide.

"While initially launched in Kenya, this product will soon be available across Africa," the company said in a statement.

PayOnline will allow registered airtel consumers to make online purchases from any site where MasterCard is accepted. The customers will be able to request a one-time virtual card number with the amount of purchase.

Airtel money services platform will generate a special 16 digit number that enables the completion of the transaction. On completion of the transaction, a confirmation message will be sent to the consumer's handset.

"The sustained socio-economic changes witnessed in Africa over the last decade have shown that the continent has the ability to leapfrog conventional systems and embrace innovations on platforms such as the mobile phone," said N. Arjun, chief projects and transformation officer, Airtel Africa.

The global opportunity for mobile payments is growing. According IE Market Research Corporation the global mobile purchases will reach $224.4 billion by 2014.

The PayOnline solution is compatible with all mobile phones and operating systems via a configured update from Airtel customer service.

Economic Times India.

At Least Twenty Seven-27 Die After Consuming The 'yokozuna' Killer Brew In Kiamaina Slum Nyahururu, And Ruiru Kenya.

2011-09-13T23:54:00.002+03:00

At least twelve people met their death in Kiamaina slums of Nyahururu district after ingesting an illicit local brew.

By Wangari Kanyongo,

And even before the nation comes to the reality of the trail of disaster left by the Sinal fire tragedy, death has come knocking once more.

The men succumbed to complications they developed after taking a new brew in the region known as Yokozuna.

9 people are still admitted at the Nyahururu and Ol kalou district hospitals where 7 of them have already gone blind.

Emotions ran high at Nyahururu Hospital as scores of relatives among them young mothers grieved the death of their young husbands whom they said had stopped working since the ‘yokozuna' brew, only introduced to the region last week.

It all began on Monday after two dead bodies were collected by the roadside at Kiamaina slum with foam oozing from their mouths.

Reports from the Olkalou police station indicate that four others had died over night and their bodies were collected in trenches where they fell as they went home with similar symptoms.

A Makeshift Factory Where The Killer Brews Are "Manufactured".

Eight other people at the slum who had been drinking together woke up complaining of stomach pains and were rushed to the Nyahururu district hospital in serious condition where four were admitted.

Six of the blind are at Olkalou Hospital while one is at Nyahururu district hospital where three more other are admitted in critical condition.

As residents of the slum threatened to demonstrate in the town against the brewers, Nyahururu District Commisioner Lucy Mulili ordered a crackdown on all drinking dens believed to be stocking the brew and other illicit drinks.

The Administration police managed to establish a depot believed to be distributing the brew which was broken into in the absence of its owners.

Speaking after confiscating over 100 cartons of the brew, the DC confirmed that the depot had no business license, health license and the brew had not been certified by the Kenya Bureau of standards.

A Man Afflicted, Inebriated, Shunned And Dispossessed After Over Indulging In A Yokozuna -Like Drink In Kenya.

A raid on several bars in Nyahururu town enabled police to impound several cartons of Yokozuna where the plastic bottles had been pierced with a needle and dangerous concoctions added to the beer with syringes.

Other brews that were confiscated for lack of the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) label included Njamba, Sherehe, Tusky, Savana and Santana Ice.

On his part Nyandarua police boss Jaspher Ombati said the hauls would be taken to the Government chemist for analysis.

He appealed to the residents to stop taking taking adulterated brews.

Over 120 dead in Kenyan Pipeline Fire Explosion In Sinai, Lunga Lunga Slum Of Nairobi, Kenya.

2011-09-12T14:00:00.000+03:00

NAIROBI — More than 100 people burned to death in a fire on a fuel pipeline in Sinai, Lunga Lunga slum area in the Kenyan Capital, three miles from the city center of Nairobi, police said Monday.

"We are putting the number of dead at over 120, we are waiting for body bags to put the victims into," said Thomas Atuti, area police commander.

The explosion took place in Nairobi's Lunga Lunga industrial area, which is surrounded by the densely packed tin-shack housing of the Sinai slum.

"There had been a leak in the fuel pipline earlier, and people were going to collect the fuel that was coming out," said Joseph Mwego, a resident.

"Then there was a loud bang, a big explosion, and smoke and fire burst up high."

Many residents were caught up in the blaze, and an AFP reporter at the scene counted scores of charred bodies around the fire.

"People were trying to scoop fuel from the pipeline," a Red Cross official told AFP by telephone, adding that the organisation had sent a team to the scene of the fire.

Firefighters sprayed chemical foam to try to contain the fire, while both police and soldiers roped off the area and pushed people back from the area.

Fuel leaks and oil tanker accidents in Africa often draw huge crowds scrambling to scoop fuel, resulting in many deaths due to accidental fires.

In 2009, 122 people were killed after a fire erupted while they were drawing fuel from an overturned tanker in western Kenya.

AFP.

The Ferry M.V. Spice Islanders-Sinks Of The Island Of Zanzibar, Tanzania With 300 Feared Dead -The Boat Capsized Early 10th September 2011

2011-09-10T10:14:00.000+03:00

By Marcel Masaga.

Details are still emerging with reports of emergency rescue crews descending into the isles surrounding Zanzibar part of Tanzania in a bid to search and rescue the 610 people who were aboard the ill fated boat, the M.V. Spice Islanders. We will keep you updated with more details as this story develops.

The MV Spice Islander was so overloaded leaving Zanzibar's port it started to list and passengers scrambled to get off, but most were prevented and remained aboard for Tanzania's worst maritime disaster for 15 years.

Four hours after the ferry left on Friday, Abuu Masoud got a call from relatives as the ferry started to sink. They were among the nearly 200 people who perished in the fast Indian Ocean currents.

"We were woken up by phone calls from our relatives at around 1 a.m. telling us their ship was sinking ... At around 3 a.m., they told us the vessel had tipped over and they were standing on its back waiting for assistance," Masoud said.

"They told us there were about 25 to 30 of them who were left standing on the ship. At around 4 a.m., their phones were not reachable and we haven't seen or heard from them since," said Masoud, who lost seven relatives in the accident.

Zanzibar Police Commissioner Mussa Alli Mussa said early on Saturday that more than 500 people were on the ship's manifest. According to the registrar of Zanzibar's seafaring vessels, the MV Spice Islander was licensed to carry 600 passengers.

But by Saturday evening Zanzibar police said 192 bodies had been recovered, as well as 606 survivors, plucked from the sea after clinging for hours to strewn cargo, some floating on mattresses and hanging onto a fridge.

The police said more bodies were brought later to the Maisara grounds in Stone Town, where the victims were wrapped in black blankets and laid in rows for men, women and children.

Rescue workers said the death toll was likely to rise on Sunday because more bodies were trapped in the wreckage.

The ship began its voyage in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, where it was loaded with passengers, some motor vehicles, bags of food, cement and other building materials.

When the ferry reached the Zanzibar, also known as Unguja, it was loaded with more passengers and cargo for its ill-fated voyage to the smaller Pemba island in the Tanzanian archipelago.

LADDERS REMOVED

Some passengers began to fret as the ship started to list while still at dock.

"A few of the passengers managed to get off the ship after noticing that it was tilting," said Aze Faki Chande, a 27-year-old mother who lost her two children and a sister.

"We also tried to disembark, but the ship's crew quickly removed the ladder and started sailing toward Pemba," she said, lying on a mattress between beds at the crowded Mnazi Mmoja Hospital in Stone Town.

The Zanzibar government and aid workers set up tents and emergency lights at the Maisara grounds to help relatives search for their loved ones, but sent them home shortly before 10 p.m. telling them to return in the morning.

Some hastily buried their relatives as the bodies started to decay in the humid equatorial climate. By the time people were told to leave, around 10 bodies were yet to be identified. The authorities said they would bury them on Sunday.

SLIM HOPE FOR SURVIVORS

Zanzibar residents said ships plying the Unguja-Pemba route are notoriously overcrowded and there are few, or no, inspections to ensure their safety.

"These ships are death traps, which have been brought here to finish us all," said Nassoro Abdallah Nassoro, who said he lost five relatives in the accident.

"The ships sailing to Pemba are always so overcrowded, you can't even find a place to put a foot. We've always warned that such a tragedy would happen one day, but no one was listening."

The government declared three days of mourning starting on Sunday and President Jakaya Kikwete postponed a trip to Canada.

Doctors at the Mnazi Mmoja Hospital said many of the survivors were dehydrated and suffered physical wounds from being thrown around the cargo-laden ferry before it capsized.

"I have never seen anything like this in my life. It is highly unlikely that we will find any more survivors now," Hamid Saleh, a rescue workers at the Zanzibar port, told Reuters.

"Many of those who drowned were children who were returning to Pemba ready for the start of school after celebrating Eid in Unguja," he said.

Tanzania's worst maritime disaster was in May 1996 on Lake Victoria. The MV Bukoba ferry sank with as many as 1,000 people on board. Only 114 passengers survived and the captain and eight officials were charged with the murders of 615 people.

- Reuters

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2011-04-23T19:43:00.001+03:00

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The Waki Report-Read, Share, Print & Download-The Full 529 Page Report On Kenya's 2007/2008 Post Election Violence Chief Perpetrators & Financiers.

2011-03-29T11:40:00.001+03:00

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2011-03-27T21:22:00.003+03:00

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2011-03-23T22:54:00.000+03:00

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Eugene Ludovic Wamalwa's Presidential Bid Suffers A Blow With This Damning Revelations

2011-03-19T17:17:00.000+03:00

Here is a caution to Kenyans of the man previously known as EUGENE LUDIVIC SIMIYU who seeks the highest Public office in the Land come 2012: -

Eugene Wamalwa cannot be trusted with the Presidency or even the governorship/senatorship position come 2012 for the following reasons.

At his own hometown (so to speak) the man has, inter alia (amongst others): -

1. Issued a Keshs. 50,000 bouncing cheque to a local ACK church in Bungoma.
2. Is several months in debt of Keshs. 11,000 at Kanduyi Petrol Station and has been playing cat and mouse.
3. Issued another bouncing cheque at St Anthony's School Kitale.
4. Owe Rosewood Hotel in Bungoma Keshs. 5,000.
5. Eugene is virtually a persona non Gratia in all petrol stations within Bungoma County.
6. He still owes ODM money for nominations
7. Matunda Bus company has refused to ferry boys from Kitale to Bumgoma tomorrow until he pays upfront. The last time they trusted him, he took them round for 4 months before finally settling the bill. He has no crowd after all other than the ferried crowds. Ferried on debt.
8.

Ps: 1. If he is man enough, let him write to the speaker and have his seat declared vacant.

Triniti Guest House | Boutique Guesthouse-Top Eco-Resort For Social Events In Oyster Bay, Dar Es Salaam,Tanzania.

2011-03-10T09:28:00.002+03:00

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O'Campo Strikes The Full Text Of The ICC Hague Summons To Uhuru, Muthaura and Ali To Appear On 7th April 2011 For A Case To Answer On Kenya's Post Election Violence 2007/2008.

2011-03-08T23:45:00.000+03:00

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2011-03-08T23:21:00.000+03:00

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2011-03-07T19:26:00.001+03:00

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2011-02-14T23:53:00.000+03:00

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2011-02-14T17:47:00.003+03:00

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Timeline of The Live Coverage In Cairo: Hosni Mubarak Bull Of Egypt Resigns, Hands Power To The Military.

2011-02-11T19:39:00.002+03:00

Timeline of The Live Coverage In Cairo: Hosni Mubarak Bull Of Egypt Resigns, Hands Power To The Military.

Update at 11:08 a.m. ET: Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators erupted in jubilation in Tahrir Square as vice president Omar Suleiman announces that President Mubarak has resigned and called on the army to "run the affairs of the country."

Update at 11:05 a.m. ET: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has resigne.d Vice President Omar Suleiman said in a brief televised statement. His statement in full: "Hosni Mubarak has waived the office of presidency and told the army to run the affairs of the country. "

Update at 11:03 a.m. ET: Hossam Badrawi, who was recently appointed general secretary of the NDP, resigns saying Egypt needs new parties, Al-Jazeera reports.

Update at 10:42 a.m. ET:Reuters quotes a U.S. official as describing Mubarak's departure from Cairo as a "positive first step."

Update at 10:16 a.m. ET:Al-Jazeera TV reports that one person has died and 20 injured when a police station in north Sinai town of El-Arish came under small arms fire during protests.

Update at 10:08 am. ET: Reuters, quoting witnesses, reports 1,000 protesters in the north Sinai town of El-Arish have exchanged gunfire and tossed firebombs at a police station.

Update at 10:04 am. ET: Crowds move in large numbers from Tahrir Square in Cairo to the presidential palace ahead of an "urgent and important" statement from the presidency. Thousands of other have gathered outside Egypt state TV.

Update at 9:51 am. ET: Al-Jazeera reports that two helicopters have arrived at the presidential palace ahead of a statement by the presidency. Tens of thousands of protesters have surrounded the building in a peaceful demonstration.

Update at 9:36 am. ET: Egypt state tv says to expect a statement shortly from the presidential palace, Reuters reports.

Update at 9:14 am. ET:The Associated Press quotes a local official in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh as confirming that President Mubarak is there.

Update at 8:39 am. ET: Denmark's prime minister has become the first European Union leader to publicly urge President Hosni Mubarak to step down. "Mubarak is history, Mubarak must step down," Lars Loekke Rasmussen said Friday in Copenhagen, the Associated Presss reports.

Update at 8:23 am. ET: President Mubarak and his family have left Cairo and are now in his Red Sea residence in Sharm el-Sheikh, CBS News, NBC and Al-Arabiya TV report.

Update at 8 am. ET:Egypt's military is supporting President Mubarak's plans for a transfer of power, but is not preventing hundreds of thousands of protesters to demonstrate in Tahrir Square in Cairo and to gather outside both the presidential palace and the building housing Egypt state TV, the Associated Press reports.

Update at 8 am. ET: Al Jazeera TV reports that the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is preparing to issue its third statement in two days regarding the transfer of power.

Update at 6:38 am. ET: Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate, says in a statement on Twitter that the "entire nation is on the streets." "Only way out is for regime to go," he tweets. "People power can't be crushed. We shall prevail. Still hope army can join"

CAPTION

By Pedro Ugarte, AFP/Getty Images

Update at 6:18 am. ET: In Cairo, thousands of demonstrators are blocking access to the building housing state TV, Al-Jazeera reports, keeping some employees and guests from reaching the station. Al-Arabiya TV quotes witnesses in the Egyptian city of Suez as saying protesters there have seized control of some governmental buildings.

Update at 6:14 am. ET:Protesters at Cairo's Tahrir Square have finished Friday prayers, but it is unclear whether they will continue their demonstration there or march to other locations.

As thousands of protesters keep up their call for the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's Supreme Council of Armed Forces issues cautious statement promising free and fair presidential elections later this year and a conditional lifting of emergency law.

It did not specific a date for elections.

The statement also endorses Mubarak's transfer of power to his vice president and promises the lifting of the 30-year-old emergency laws "as soon as current circumstances end."

It is the second statement from the council within 24 hours as the stalemate continues in Egypt for the 18th day.

The statement, in effect, endorses the plan for transfer of power as presented Thursday by Mubarak in a national speech. In it, he announced the transfer of all presidential powers to his new vice president, Omar Suleiman, and the guarantee of free and fair elections in September.

The statement angered hundreds of thousands of protesters in Tahrir Square. They vowed to continue their effort to force Mubarak from office.

Opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate, issued a statement afterward on Twitter, calling on the military to take over power: "Egypt will explode. Army must save the country now."

The Obama administration says the voice of the Egyptian people "must be heard" and calls on the government to clarify its plans for a transition to democracy.

Gorilla's Nest Hotel-A Top Eco-Lodge Kinigi ,Virunga Mountains,Ruhengeri,Rwanda.

2011-02-10T21:43:00.001+03:00

Gorilla's Nest Hotel-A Top Eco-Lodge Kinigi ,Virunga Mountains,Ruhengeri,Rwanda.

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Vijana Access The Pasha Loan-Affordable Credit Facilities For The Establishment of Intergrated Digital Villages Countrywide @Kenya Constituency.

2011-02-10T14:48:00.002+03:00

	Product Attributes
Purpose	To enable prospective entrepreneurs obtain access to affordable credit facilities for the establishment of Digital Villages countrywide
Ownership	The Pasha Centers are run by private entrepreneurs. Prospective entrepreneurs who apply for the Digital Villages Revolving Fund and are successful will be eligible to set up Pasha Centres.
Target market	Individuals, Youth groups, Self Help Groups, Public and Private Institutions, businesses enterprises in forms of sole proprietorship, partnerships and companies, from any constituency countrywide.
Eligibility	Eligible Kenyan Citizen, Over 18 years of Age Can be Individuals Entrepreneur Youth Practicing Business people Retrenched/ retired employees Can be Registered Kenyan company, Partnership, Non Governmental Organization, Business Associations, Limited company, Savings and Credit cooperative organization (SACCO) Not Eligible Kenya ICT Board Employees and Directors Family Bank Employees Government Ministry and Departments State Corporations Local Government authorities/ units Individuals without a Valid Kenyan Citizen identification document. A foreign registered Company Partnership, Non Governmental Organization
Requirements	There are some basic requirements that a successful applicant must have: Kenyan citizen above the age of 18 years old Valid Kenya National Identity Card (ID) or Passport (original) Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Personal Identification Number (PIN) Certificate Premises for Pasha Centre with access to electricity and internet connection Capacity to contribute 10% of the total project cost Demonstrate ability to repay the loan *If applying as a legal entity* Certified copy of certificate of registration Certified copy of local business license/certificate Certified copy of business’ KRA PIN certificate Certified copy of Articles & Memorandum of Association (for limited companies) Certified copy of Partnership Deed (for partnerships) Minutes or Letter of Resolution to apply for Pasha loan (with a company seal where applicable) Sketch map to current business premises *Optional Documentation* bank accounts statements of any accounts held with any Financial Institution Loan statements for any current loan facilities with any financial institution Business’ financial statements (if applying as a legal entity) (Valid reason should be given as to why the optional documents haven’t been submitted) *For successful applicants only* Insurance proposal forms Valid chattels mortgage(Household items) Offer Letter Service Level Agreement
Loan Amounts	To be guided by investment requirements for the Pasha Centre Project
Mode of Repayment	Monthly instalments recovered directly from borrower(s) Family Bank Account Maximum repayment period – 36 Months
Grace Period	3 Months
Collateral/Security	Chattel Mortgage (household items) on Financed Assets Monthly DVRF Entrepreneur Reporting to ensure default cases are minimized through identifying warning signs and instituting timely corrective measures
Pricing	Interest rate - 11.5% p.a. on reducing balance Insurance Premium on equipment to be reviewed on a case by case basis Credit Insurance to cover death and disability - 0.35% of loan amount multiplied by the number of years (months/12) Borrower’s contribution - 10% of digital village project costs
Physical Evidence	Approved application form by Kenya ICT Board Offer Letter Kenya ICT Board Service Level Agreement
General Process	Pasha Loan Application 1. Kenya ICT Board issues public call for Pasha Loan Applications for the set up of new Pasha Centres or to improve or expand existing e-center facilities. 2. Applicants collect application forms from designated collection points or download from FBL & Kenya ICT Board websites. 3. Applicants submit Pasha Loan Applications together with all the required documents to the nearest FBL Branch. 4. FBL Branch Credit Officers receive loan applications and Confirm the forms are duly completed · All necessary documents are enclosed · Certify copies of any legal documents submitted · Register applications online and issue the applicant with an official KICTB Reference Number 5. FBL Branch Credit Officers prescreen applications 6. Applicants who meet prerequisite requirements are invited for credit appraisal interview at the nearest FBL Branch. 7. FBL Credit Branch Committee appraises the applications and selects the best applications 8. Selected applications are subjected to home and business visits as well as verification of the intended location of the Pasha Centre and vendor quotations 9. FBL Branch Credit Committee selects the best applications and forwards them to FBL Head Office Credit Committee 10. FBL Head Office Credit Committee reviews the applications and selects the best three per constituency to forward to the KICTB Grants Committee 11. Grants Committee reviews the submitted applications and selects the best application per constituency, and notifies FBL 12. FBL issues the successful Applicants with an Offer Letter 13. Successful Applicant signs Offer Letter and Kenya ICT Board Service Level Agreement; opens a FBL bank account and deposits 10% of the project cost. 14. FBL disburses the loan as per the Offer Letter Terms and Conditions. 15. Successful Applicant repays loan in installments as stipulated in the Offer Letter.
	You can also visit: http://www.ict.go.ke and http://pasha.co.ke

Film festival: Images de France, Feb. 14-20 2010 @ Alliance Francaise/Silverbird Westgate

2011-02-10T13:54:00.001+03:00

Film festival: Images de France, Feb. 14-20 2010 @ Alliance Francaise/Silverbird Westgate.

Film festival: Images de France, Feb. 14-20 2010 @ Alliance Francaise/Silverbird Westgate « East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge

Tandaa Symposium on Growing Your Brand Online-You Must Be There To Understand Online Branding@Sarova Stanley « East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge

2011-02-10T10:45:00.001+03:00

Tandaa Symposium on Growing Your Brand Online-You Must Be There To Understand Online Branding@Sarova Stanley « East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge

Delivering your brand promise in an increasingly digital world requires a whole new marketing strategy.

A recent TNS study* indicates that internet usage in Kenya has more than doubled in the last two years. An estimated 6.69 million Kenyans have access to the internet and according to TNS, 76% of Kenyan internet users are on Facebook. With increasing access to laptops, broadband internet and web enable mobile phones, Kenyan consumers are changing the way they interact with their favorite brands.

So Should Your Brand Be On Facebook?

So should your brand be on Facebook? How should you manage your Twitter handle? The first Tandaa Symposium of the year will explore the opportunities and risks the Internet and social media offer Kenyan brands today.

The internet may seem like an overcrowded platform in which to compete. With real-time news, celebrity gossip and millions of intriguing web pages to browse–not to mention engaging and all consuming social media sites–attracting and holding consumer’s attention may seem like an uphill task. But today’s savvy marketing or brand manager must find innovative ways to maximize online spend in a crowded and competitive platform.

Beyond offering a platform to communicate your brand promise, the Internet, especially social networks, also offer the unique opportunity to better understand your customer. The data and insight from online social interaction with consumers can contribute significantly to how your company designs new products and campaigns.

Understanding how to effectively grow your brand online is therefore crucial for every marketing or brand manager. The Tandaa Symposium will give you insights on how to update your marketing strategy to make the most of today’s digital world. Courtesy of Tandaa Kenya

Join our Facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/tandaakenya

Tandaa Symposium on Growing Your Brand Online-You Must Be There To Understand Online Branding@Sarova Stanley « East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge.

Spot On Events Management Articles.-East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge

2011-02-08T18:26:00.001+03:00

Spot On Events Management Articles.

East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge

Excellent Corporate Team Building Events and Exercises To Boost Your Organizations Productivity. « East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge

2011-02-08T12:01:00.001+03:00

Excellent Corporate Team Building Events and Exercises To Boost Your Organizations Productivity.

Excellent Team Building Events and Exercises To Boost Your Organizations Productivity.

Kenya's 7s Rugby Team

This document is all about understanding teams and team building training; the purpose of team building activities; why corporate team building events can be effective; planning a team building strategy; building creative teams.

Why have a team building activity or event?

This is a phrase we hear a lot these days: ‘we need some kind of teambuilding activity’. Corporate team building events are on the increase: everyone seems to be having them these days. But are they living up to expectations?

See, from our point of view, often the people talking about team building don’t really know what they mean.

The reality is, that many, if not most, team building activities don’t work. They should. All that thought, effort, money, planning should make your team building event exciting, worthwhile and productive.

It’s as if we all know that teams are good. We understand the sum of the parts thing, but we don’t quite know how to make a team work in the way we’d like it to, so we think, ‘My team isn’t working as well as it could; a team building will sort it all out.’

Why a team building event?

When people say they want a team building event their picture is of this perfectly working group of people. But they don’t take the time to pin that picture down and really get clear what the issues are. If they did that then their team building activity would certainly help them get their team working more effectively.

So, before you can even tackle the ‘how’ you need to tackle the ‘why’.

Here are some questions that will help you clarify ‘why a team building event’.

Do you want people working better together? Do you want to set new team goals and agreements? Do you need to iron out communication difficulties that have crept in? Do you want a jolly – to reward the team for being terrific? Do you simply want to get everyone’s creative juices going and brainstorm new ideas? Do you need to set clear parameters and boundaries so everyone knows what’s expected of them? Do you want to inject some fresh enthusiasm and energy into a group that’s been working too hard and may have lost sight of the goal posts? Have the goals posts moved and you need to let everyone know that?

Benefits of team building activity

A good corporate team building event can tackle many of the challenges facing your team. There are real payoffs and advantages to being part of a well-functioning team. To begin with, it’s just pleasanter being around people who get on.

More importantly, real benefits include:

A feeling of identity On-going support Creative pooling of ideas Increased confidence Things tend to work better as a result of team effort You aren’t alone Goals that make sense You don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel If you do have to reinvent the wheel for some reason, so is everyone else in the team

A team building training can address a huge range of issues you may be facing and certainly make work a better place to be.

How teams work

What is a team?

It may help you decide what your team building activity is going to look like if you understand a bit more about how teams work. And, get this – no matter what the books say (and there are plenty of them) – every single team is different: there is no model you can follow that will create the perfect team.

You’ll read that you need ideas people, drivers, completer-finishers, etc., etc., etc. And yes, possibly you do need a variety of ‘types’. But for our money, the ‘types’ are far less important than ensuring that your team knows why it exists and what its aims are.

So let’s look first at just exactly what being a team means. You might think that the very word ‘team’ is clear in and of itself: a group of people working towards shared goals. We wish it were that straightforward. As it isn’t, we thought we would unpick it a bit.

Sports teams

Kenya's Successful Rugby Team.

The most obvious kind of team that everyone knows about is a sports team. Every team member is on the same side trying to beat the opposition. They train together, get to understand how to make the most of each other’s skills, and when working well, they are able to fulfil the manager or coach’s strategy.

They know who their opposition is and they have very clear goals. Yes, there may be personality quirks and differences, but the whole truly is greater than the sum of its parts.

Work teams

However, it’s not quite so straightforward when it comes to work teams, though, is it? Personalities, which in a sporting context might get absorbed by the team for the good of the game, often take centre stage in the workplace.

The oddest thing of all, of course, is that it’s not always clear who the ‘opposition’ is. You’d think it would be the competition – whoever your closest corporate rival is. Unfortunately, far too often, the opposition turns out to be right at home base: another team or department, the ‘management’ or someone sitting right beside you.

The common enemy

Now the thing about ‘opposition’ is that it gives a common focus, a common ‘enemy’ if you will. Now that’s great if it’s productive. Creative ideas can pour out of a group when they have to figure out how to handle the competition.

However, when the common enemy is someone or some group or some department, or the ‘them’ and ‘they’ are within the same company, the results are divisiveness, gossip, complaining. The end result of this is, of course, a loss of productivity and people working against, not for each other.

Then it’s all about ‘them’ and ‘us’, with people running around using their energies to get more of ‘us’ to agree just what’s wrong with ‘them’. We see this in company after company after company – people are spending vast amounts of time and energy having a ‘go’ at each other rather than using that same amount of time and energy to make things work better.

This is one of the key reasons why team building is such a hot topic. People can easily recognise that something needs to be done, but they aren’t quite sure what.

Defining your team

Kinds of teams

These days we see a lot of ‘virtual’ teams – people who hardly ever see each other, or even work in the same office or even the same country.

Then there are teams that all sit in an open plan space and chat with each other all day as things arise.

There are teams where people sit in separate spaces and get together once a day/week/fortnight.

There are teams that seem to do all their communicating via e-mail or conference calls.

There are teams that work on projects together and others where people go off and do their own thing and come together every once in a while to report and bring everyone else up to date.

Whatever your team looks like, however, it still has to be able to function well and achieve its goals.

What teams aren’t

They don’t have to be a family People don’t have to be bosom buddies People don’t even have to like each enough to want to have dinner together Teams aren’t group therapy

Teams can, however, on occasion, be any or all of those things.

Team building training

Effective team building

Teams are complex machines and it’s not surprising that they malfunction occasionally or need re-alignment. Every once in a while all teams need an MOT, so of course, you want to ensure that your team building event is as effective as it can be.

The one thing that everyone recognises is that your team building activity needs to be done away from the office environment. The idea is to slow things right down; to get away from e-mails, phone calls, questions and demands, being asked to pop into unscheduled meetings, people dropping by.

Moving away from the daily grind.

It means getting away from all the day-to-day stuff that sometimes makes it hard to see what’s going on and what’s needed.

Here are a few hints and tips to make planning your team building event more effective:

Everyone needs to have some input into what the team building event should accomplish Listen carefully to people’s concerns and incorporate them in the team building training No one should ever be put on the spot or humiliated People shouldn’t be forced to do things they don’t want to People learn better when they’re having fun Focus on the positives of the team rather than just what isn’t working

Team building activities

Once you know what you want your event to achieve, then you can decide what it’s going to look like. You can do the go-carting thing, the throwing people off Welsh mountains thing. You can have the cosy get-away in a country hotel thing. You can have it non-stop fun, be business focused or have a bit of both.

There are hundreds of different team building exercises, games, workshops, courses, all designed to get your team working better and handling the day-to-day challenges in the workplace.

There is no ‘right’ kind of team building activity, only the one that’s right for you.

The key always is to ensure that your event has a positive effect on the morale, motivation, confidence and effectiveness of the team and its individual members.
Thanks To Robin Chandler

Excellent Corporate Team Building Events and Exercises To Boost Your Organizations Productivity. « East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge

Kenya-The Top Reasons For Enhancing Your Facebook Page Now.

2011-02-07T16:52:00.002+03:00

Top Reasons For Enhancing Your Facebook Page Now!

The social networking site Facebook is used by more than 520,000,000 people to share personal information with friends online. In Kenya alone it is estimated that up to 80% of all Internet users (a full 4,000,000 or some 10% of the country’s population) are Facebook users. With those kinds of numbers, you knew it would not be long until businesses saw the potential. If you're looking to tap the marketing potential of Facebook, you can create free Facebook Business Pages—leveraging Facebook business options can provide a new channel for you to interact with your customers At the same time these pages, called Public Profiles, can also help you acquire new customers as your Facebook fans spread the word about your business to their friends.

A Statistical Case For Using Facebook Pages To Enhance Your Brand In Kenya.

Some of the key highlights for Kenya on Facebook that should make any marketer salivate are as follows:

· Total Facebook Users: 1,005,400

· Penetration of population: 2.51%

· Position in the global country ranking: 67.

· Penetration of online population in Kenya: 25.16%

· Average CPC (Cost Per Click): US$ 0.33

· Average CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions): US$0.15

Facebook Kenya Usage By Age Distribution.

· 13-15: 2%

· 16-17: 4%

· 18-24: 43%

· 25-34: 36%

· 35-44: 9%

· 45-54: 2%

· 55-64: 1%

· 65+: 2%

Setting Up Your Page

If you’re a one-person business, rather than creating Facebook pages for your name, consider setting up a Facebook Page for the company, product or service name and add keywords to it. People may be more likely to subscrbe to your Page (become a “fan”) when they see the topic that follows the company name. For example, I’m a one-person business, so instead of creating my Page using my name, I used my official company name of “meryl.net.” I then expanded it to show “meryl.net: writing and editing.” Using this approach shows what kind of valuable information people will get if they subscribe to my Page. Not all of us have well-known brands like Coca Cola, Twitter or IBM.

Creating a new Facebook page requires picking a category for your Page. There are three main choices: “Local,” “Brand, Product or Organization” or “Artist, Band or Public Figure.” For my Page, I decided that “Local” was out, as all except one of my clients is located outside of Texas. I could have selected “Artist, Band, or Public Figure.” Not because I think I’m a rock star, but because it has a “Writer” subcategory. However, I decided to go with “Brand, Product or Organization” as it has “Communications” and “Professional Service” subcategories, which are a good fit for me. Take a look at the categories and their subcategories to see where you best fit.

Before Opening for Business

Prior to broadcasting that your Facebook Page is open for business, add some valuable content so people will see the benefits of subscribing:

· Share tips on how to do things faster or more effectively with your product or service.

· Post how-to videos or screencasts.

· Announce free upcoming events or webinars.

· Mention if you or someone from your company will be attending an event for a potential meet up.

· Import your blog entries.

If you’re not ready for a page or want to become familiar with Facebook Pages, subscribe to some other pages and visit them regularly. See which ones work, and what makes them better than those that don’t work well. As long as you don’t come across as overly promotional, you’ll do fine

Enhance Your Page with Apps

You can also enhance your Facebook Page by adding applications to it. Apps add particular functions to your page, such as drawing in your blog’s RSS feed (the Social RSS app is a good example of this) or YouTube videos, Custom Tabs & Content,E-Commerce, Polls, Chat, Contests, FeedBack Forms and Incorporating your Twitter stream into your Facebook Page .

Finally You May Ask -Why Add Facebook Apps To My Page?

The above question may sound like a no brainer but the reason why you need to add apps to your Facebook Business (Fan) page by customizing your Fan page with apps, is so that you can significantly enhance the user’s experience. And, the more you keep your fans engaged and coming back for more, the more likely you’ll increase your “viral visibility.”

They are a great way to further engage visitors to your Page and provide them reason to come back, and there are hundreds of apps designed to help you do business better on Facebook. If you’re looking for full hands-on customization service at very affordable rates then you can contact us meanwhile do not forget to view an example of our custom branded Company Facebook Page SarakaTECH iNTERACTIVE.

Additional Sources Webopedia.

Royal Hometown Limousines & Events Ltd-Finest Limousines Hire In Nairobi, Kenya,East Africa.

2011-02-07T09:16:00.001+03:00

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2011-02-06T19:38:00.001+03:00

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Concert: Blankets & Wine, Feb. 6 2011 @ Mamba Village Leisure Gardens Karen.

2011-02-06T14:53:00.001+03:00

Concert: Blankets & Wine, Feb. 6 2011 @ Mamba Village Leisure Gardens Karen.

Concert: Blankets & Wine, Feb. 6 2011 @ Mamba Village Leisure Gardens Karen. « East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge

2011-02-05T12:40:00.001+03:00

Blankets & Wine Concert, Feb 6th, Mamba Village Leisure Gardens, Karen,Nairobi,Kenya:

Concert: Blankets & Wine, Feb. 6 2011 @ Mamba Village Leisure Gardens Karen. « East Africa Events Kahawa Lounge

Rock City Gardens-Top Wedding Planners & Events Consultants Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa

2011-02-04T19:53:00.001+03:00

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2011-02-03T18:19:00.001+03:00

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2011-02-03T13:51:00.001+03:00

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NASA Spots Six Planets In Tight Orbits Around Sun-Like Star-Yet Again Tangible Proof That We Are Not Alone

2011-02-03T12:26:00.000+03:00

NASA Spots Six Planets In Tight Orbits Around Sun-Like Star-Yet Again Tangible Proof That We Are Not Alone.

Today, the team running NASA's Kepler observatory is announcing the largest collection of planets yet spotted orbiting a single star. That star, now called Kepler-11, hosts at least a half-dozen planets, most in orbits closer to their star than Mercury is to ours. The tightly packed system consists of low-density planets, suggesting that they have a substantial gas or liquid composition at distances close enough to the star that the material risks boiling off. The whole thing, from the orbits to the planets themselves, appears to be teetering on the edge of stability.

The Kepler team's paper starts with a short description of the Kepler hardware, which is pointing a CCD and a telescope down a spiral arm of the Milky Way, watching for periodic dips in the amount of light originating from stars. The raw light curve for Kepler-11 shows a large series of gaps in the star's light, as several of the planets transited in rapid succession at several points. Single planetary transits are a bit harder to detect, but when the data is zoomed in, a characteristic U-shaped curve for each planet is apparent, which occurs as each planet passes through the line of sight between the star and Earth.

(Ground-based spectroscopy shows that, within measurement errors, Kepler-11 is identical in mass and size to our own Sun.)

One of the challenges faced by the Kepler team is confirming that the periodic dips come from an actual planet, not from another astronomical phenomenon. Because of the tight packing of the planets—their orbital periods range from 10 to 47 days—this task was made much easier; their mutual gravitational interactions cause variations in the precise timing of their transits across the star. By tracking these shifts, researchers were able to confirm that five of the bodies were all orbiting close enough to gravitationally interact, so they must be planets.

The sixth body is quite a bit further out (it orbits the star every 118 days, a period 2.5 times longer than the next closest body), so this method wouldn't work. Instead, the authors performed a probability analysis, comparing the chances that it was a planet to the chances that the signal matched a number of other options. The probabilities worked out such that they've termed its planetary identity "validated," though detailed followups would obviously be welcome.

The system is largely flat. Five of the planets have an inclination within a single degree of each other, even without measurement errors being considered. The sixth is less than half a degree off.

A question of stability

Can you actually cram this many planets into this small a space? Yes, apparently, but just barely. All but the innermost two planets are far enough apart to avoid destabilizing gravitational interactions. The inner two could reach a stable resonance, provided that they don't gravitationally interact significantly with the rest of the planets. (Their orbit is right on the edge of where that should happen.)

Models of the system are very sensitive to initial conditions; if the distances are just right, the system is stable, but many of the model runs showed the system going unstable over short time periods. Continued imaging should narrow some of the errors from Kepler's initial measurements, and may give us a clearer picture of whether the system can persist in this configuration.

What about the planets themselves? The amount of starlight blocked gives us a measure of their size, while the orbital interactions and distance from the star gives us a measure of mass, so it's possible to estimate densities for all of them. The planets are all larger than the Earth, with radii that range from twice as large as ours to 4.5 times as large. All are quite a bit less dense than the Earth, however, suggesting that they have hydrogen-rich atmospheres, or are primarily composed of liquids. There's a single planet that might be consistent with an iron-free silicate solid, but the authors can't imagine how something like that would form, so they find the prospect pretty unlikely. Followup observations should allow us to distinguish between steam-heavy atmospheres and hydrogen-rich ones.

Based on the energy delivered by the nearby star, the authors estimate that the planets will lose portions of their atmospheres to space annually, with about a tenth of the Earth's mass lost in 10 billion years, which could cause them to lose their entire atmosphere within this span. Our current models of this process are crude, but the authors suggest that it's safe to assume the system has seen a lot of hydrogen pushed off the planets by their host star.

Because the planets are at the edge of stability, the authors suggest they formed in place, rather than migrated inwards. That, in turn, suggests a "massive protoplanetary disk of solids" near the star, or else that small bodies wandered in, were slowed by gasses, and then gathered those same gasses into an atmosphere. Either case would help us update our ideas on planet formation, so the Kepler team is keen for more data on this system.

Source ArsTechnica

Westgate Shopping Mall-A Top Shopping Mall In Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa.

2011-02-03T11:51:00.001+03:00

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2011-02-03T09:05:00.001+03:00

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Nairobi Java House-A Top Coffee,Tea, Eating Out Venue In Nairobi, Kenya,East Africa.

2011-02-02T22:48:00.001+03:00

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Read,Download Kenya's Alcohol Bill Supplement No 70 -Mututho Laws-Alcohol Control Act 2010- In Full In Pdf Format Here.

2011-02-02T20:19:00.003+03:00

"And Ye Shall Know The Truth And The Truth Shall Set You Free"-John 8:32-KJV.

Read, Share, Download or Print This Elusive Document-The Alcohol Control Act 2010- Also Known As The Mututho Law Here-Changamkamkenya.
Kenya Supplement No 70 Alcohol Bill-Mututho Laws.

Kenya Comfort Hotel Suites-Top Eco-Resorts In Nairobi,Kenya, East Africa.

2011-02-02T19:30:00.001+03:00

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