Should these things be put in the culture section

Mogadishu, Somalia (CNN) At least three people were killed and seven wounded Saturday when a car packed with explosives exploded outside a shopping mall in Somalia's capital, a senior police official said.

Police Col. Ahmed Hassan said the attack apparently was aimed at Hussein Wehliye Irfo, the governor of central Somalia's Galgaduud region. The explosions happened a few meters from his convoy on Makka Al Mukarama Street in Mogadishu.

Irfo escaped the blast unharmed, according to Hassan.


Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the bombing, spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab said on the terrorist group's radio station.

The spokesman claimed that the blasted targeted senior police and regional officials, claiming that a district commissioner was among the wounded. But police said that all those killed were civilians.

The Global Terrorism Index, an annual report crafted by the Institute for Economics and Peace, noted that Somalia has been among the 10 countries most affected by terrorism for the past eight years.

And it hasn't gotten much better, with the report indicating that in 2014 the nation on the Horn of Africa saw its highest levels of terrorism in its history, with 801 deaths tied to some 469 incidents, both of which are roughly double those of the previous year.

Al Shabaab, a militant group that wants to turn Somalia into a fundamentalist Islamic state, has been behind much of this violence. This includes an attack -- which features multiple bombs and gunfire -- last month at a popular hotel in Mogadishu that killed at least 15 people, according to medical and police officials.

Somalia's government has fought back, sometimes with help from the U.S. military in raids or drone strikes.

This bloodshed comes at a time of apparent turmoil within Al-Shabaab and in Africa's terrorist landscape generally.

Its leadership pledged loyalty to al Qaeda in 2012. But this fall, a high-ranking Al-Shabaab member and spiritual leader publicly sided with ISIS, a terror group that established itself in Iraq and Syria but that's made inroads elsewhere.

Journalist Omar Nor reported from Mogadishu, and CNN's Greg Botelho reported and wrote from Atlanta

Yes well it will be very interesting tokyo will not have the 'first' you see there may be deeper reasoning behind this rwanda of all places.

Ok

hmm

The British architect is working on a large-scale project to build 3 droneports to deliver medical supplies and electrical parts

Lord Norman Foster, the British architect who has built iconic buildings like the Gherkin in London, is building the world's first "droneports" in Rwanda.

The goal is to transport urgent medical supplies and electronic parts to remote parts of the East African country via unmanned flying vehicles or drones.

"There will be about 2.2 billion people in Africa by 2050, or 1 in 4 inhabitants of the planet will be African. How can their infrastructure even think about keeping up with this expansion?" Lord Foster told the Telegraph.

The solution is clear: cargo drone routes have value wherever roads are limited. "Only a third of Africans live within 2km of an all-season road," Lord Foster said. There are currently no continental motorways, almost no tunnels, and not enough bridges that can reach people living in far-flung areas of the continent. The architecture firm Foster + Partners are working with Lausanne-based university École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and its associated initiative Afrotech on the project, which includes three separate droneports and is expected to be built within four years.

"[Afrotech director] Jonathan Ledgard approached me and said you've built the biggest airport in the world, now how do you feel about doing the smallest one?" Lord Foster said.Each droneport will operate two parallel networks of drones, which are being designed by engineers at Afrotech/EPFL and Imperial College London.The Redline drones will have a wingspan of 3m and can deliver medical and emergency supplies weighing up to 10 kilograms, such as 20 adult blood transfusions or vaccines and drugs.The commercial Blueline drones can deliver heavier equipment, electronics and e-commerce items weighing up to 100 kilograms.Drones will make 2 types of cargo deliveries: emergency medical supplies vs electronics and e-commerce.

"For example, an entire village can be deprived of water because a vital component of a pump has broken down," Lord Foster says. "The drone can deliver in 1/12th of the time that it would take a Land Rover to get through."The droneports will be designed as a row of vaulted brick structures and will host a health clinic, a digital fabrication shop to make spare drone parts, a post and courier room, and an e-commerce trading hub. It is estimated that drones flying from the port will be able to cover 44 per cent of Rwanda.Rwanda's challenging geographical landscape makes it an ideal test-bed for the pilot project, but it won't just stop there.

Lord Foster says he sees the potential for droneports to become as commonplace as petrol stations, and there are plans to expand the scheme across Rwanda and into neighbouring countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. "This project can have massive impact through the century and save lives immediately," he said.The Droneport project is an evolution of Foster + Partners' airport schemes in Mexico City, Jordan and Beijing, as well as a project to build a habitation on the Moon. The lunar project, in association with the European Space Agency, used a basic inflatable framework and sourced raw materials, like moondust, locally - very similar to the principles behind the droneports. Lord Foster said, "What started as the world's smallest airport could become bigger than the biggest airport, in terms of sheer scale and impact."

Yes for both sides of course

Unfortunately kagame is a major western collaborator and spy in the great lake region.

Will kagame be sent to the hutu high court

Rwanda's High Court has sentenced a pastor to life in prison for his role in the 1994 genocide.

Jean Uwinkindi organised and participated in attacks on the minority Tutsi ethnic group, the court ruled.

Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by militias from the majority Hutu ethnic group.

The 64-year-old Hutu pastor was the first genocide suspect to be sent back to Rwanda for trial by the Tanzanian-based UN tribunal.

The tribunal shut down this month after sentencing 61 individuals and acquitting 14 others.

Uwinkindi - the former head of a Pentecostal church on the outskirts of the capital, Kigali - had opposed his transfer.

He said he would not get a fair trial in Rwanda, where there is now a Tutsi-led government.

His lawyers said he would appeal against the High Court's ruling. "The court finds that there were killings of the Tutsi at Rwankeri and Kanzenze hills and that the attacks were led by Uwinkindi," said Judge Kanyegeri Timothee, Reuters news agency reports.

The prosecution alleged that in investigations after the genocide, some 2,000 bodies were found near the church in Kanzenze, just outside Kigali, where Uwinkindi was pastor.

He was indicted in 2011 after he was arrested in 2010 in neighbouring Uganda.

Another key suspect, Ladislas Ntaganzwa, who has a $5m (£3.2m) US bounty on him, was arrested two weeks ago in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo.

Will the west be disturbed about inroads china and russia have made into Burundi's nickel reserves

The AU announced two weeks ago that it would send 5,000 troops to protect civilians in the country, even without the government's consent.
"Everyone has to respect Burundi borders," Mr Nkurunziza said in his first public response to the AU plan. At least 400 people have been killed and 220,000 displaced since April. The violence began after Mr Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third term in office. He survived a coup attempt in May, and secured a landslide victory in disputed elections in July. There have been fears that the violence could spiral into civil war and possible ethnic conflict.

Letter from Africa: Has the African Union grown some teeth? Is Burundi on the verge of ethnic conflict?

Tit-for-tat killings spread fear Under Burundi's constitution, foreign troops can only intervene if the warring parties ask for it, or if there is no legitimate government in place, the president said in comments broadcast on state radio. Any violation of those principles would be considered "an attack on the country and every Burundian will stand up and fight against them," he said. Other government officials have already criticised the AU proposal saying it would violate the country's sovereignty.

Nearly 3,500 people have been arrested by Burundi's security forces If the deployment goes ahead, it would be the first time the AU uses its power to deploy a force without a country's consent. A clause in the organisation's charter allows it to intervene in a member state because of grave circumstances, which include war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

Diplomatic moves to prevent a civil war in Burundi have recently accelerated with the UN, the European Union and the East African Community fearful of the impact of worsening violence both on the local population and the region. The government has said there is no threat of genocide.
A peace meeting held in neighbouring Uganda on Tuesday to find a solution to the crisis ended without any agreement.

A recent AU fact-finding mission reports of arbitrary killings, torture and the arbitrary... "closure of some civil society organisations and the media". Ethnic conflict between Hutus and Tutsis in the 1990s claimed an estimated 300,000 lives. Mr Nkurunziza is the former leader of a Hutu rebel group, who has been in power since a 2005 peace deal. Both the government and the opposition are ethnically mixed.

Timeline - Burundi crisis
April 2015 - Protests erupt after President Pierre Nkurunziza announces he will seek a third term in office.

May 2015 - Constitutional court rules in favour of Mr Nkurunziza, amid reports of judges being intimidated. Tens of thousands flee violence amid protests.

May 2015 - Army officers launch a coup attempt, which fails.

July 2015 - Elections are held, with Mr Nkurunziza re-elected. The polls are disputed, with opposition leader Agathon Rwasa describing them as "a joke".

November 2015 - Burundi government gives those opposing President Nkurunziza's third term five days to surrender their weapons ahead of a promised crackdown.

November 2015 - UN warns it is less equipped to deal with violence in Burundi than it was for the Rwandan genocide.

December 2015 - 87 people killed on one day as soldiers respond to an attack on military sites in Bujumbura

Is any one reading about the absurdness? What will be the final solution to the absurdity?

One bad apple can ruin a tree should the entire tree be chopped down

Africa could be the first region in the world to power its economic development on renewable energy rather than fossil fuels such as coal, according to the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA).

“I’m very excited about this,” said Fatih Birol as he launched the World Energy Outlook 2015 last month. “When we look at the history of energy – in Europe, the U.S., China – economic development was realized by a substantial amount of coal. But in Africa, we may well see, for the first time, a region [realizing] its economic growth using renewable energy.”

Wind farm in Cape Town, South Africa.
Credit: jbdodane/flickr
Birol said the big push from governments to get electricity to the two out of three people in Africa who don’t have access will help support this, as will falling costs of renewable energy. The price of solar panels fell by 75 percent from 2009 to 2014 and the costs of producing energy from the sun continues to fall.

Energy demand is growing in Africa, the Middle East and south-east Asia, said Birol, but India is “the engine of the global energy demand” now that China’s energy demand is plateauing.

This year, India is the special focus of the World Energy Outlook report, the “bible” of the sector, which comes out annually. It predicts that industrial growth, with the government’s emphasis on “make in India,” will lead to a rapid growth in energy demand. Birol told the press conference that the IEA expects coal and oil consumption to grow significantly in India, but the country is also focusing on renewables, with a pledge to have 40 percent of power sector capacity non-fossil fuels by 2030.

According to the report’s central scenario, which forecasts changes to the global sector by 2040, energy demand in south-east Asia will rise by 80 percent and by 70 percent in the Middle East, 90 percent of which which still be provided by domestic oil and natural gas.

In Latin America, according to the report, energy demand will increase by 50 percent and the region expands its relatively high share of renewables to 35 percent in 2040. This takes into account Brazil’s current drought, which is affecting hydropower and increasing reliance on gas. The report predicts that the region will continue to be a world leader in biofuels.

Low oil prices are affecting Africa’s exporting countries – Libya, Algeria, Nigeria and Angola. But countries in east Africa, such as Mozambique and Tanzania, are becoming significant natural gas exporters and users. The report predicts that nearly 40 percent of the total power generation capacity in Africa will be from renewables by 2040.

In developed countries, the report observes that economic growth and carbon emissions are no longer inextricably linked. “In advanced economies – Europe, U.S. and Japan – energy demand is declining despite growth in [their economies],” said Birol. “So we see a decoupling of energy demand growth and economic growth in major advanced economies.”

In total, the report predicts that electricity consumption will grow by more than 70 percent to 2040, although 550 million people will still not have access, and that renewables will overtake coal as the largest source of power generation by the early 2030s. “Renewables are not a niche fuel anymore,” said Birol. “Renewables have become a mainstream fuel as of now.”

It may be time for Somalia to reevaluate the islam tradition

A Somali official was on December 23, 2015 publicly executed by the Al Shabaab firing squad.

Osman Ma’ani, the Commissioner of Marerey Township in Lower Shabelle region was killed at Barire settlement, about 55 km southwest of Mogadishu.

Hundreds of the area residents were invited to witness the execution of Mr Ma’ani alongside an officer belonging to the Somali National Army whose name was not made public.

Jihadists belonging to the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab group fired rounds on the official and the army officer. Both were tied on poles.

A sheikh representing the Al-Shabaab court told the crowd that Ma’ani and an accompanying officer were seized by militants in an undisclosed zone in Lower Shabelle region.

“The fate of those who oppose our jihadist crusade will end up like this,” remarked the group's judge.

He added, “It is not the first time and is not going to be the last time we punish anti-jihad elements.”

Meanwhile, reports from Lower Juba region indicated that war planes carried out airstrikes in rural areas next to Kismayu town, 500 km south of Mogadishu, on December 23.

According to local media, there were airstrikes at a place called Berhani, about 45 km west of the port town of Kismayu.

Some sources say that up to 7 persons died during the bombardment.

Other sources confirmed that allied forces composed of the local Jubaland State and the Kenyan troops serving under the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) carried out an operation to seize Berhani Area.

An official with South Sudan’s rebels loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar said South Sudan President Salva Kiir’s decree creating 28 new states violates the spirit of the August peace accord.

In his Christmas Eve decree, Kiir also appointed 28 new governors, all of them loyal to him.

The president’s announcement came as rebel advance teams are in Juba to work with their government counterparts on modalities for the joint implementation of the August peace agreement.

Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth is the secretary for foreign affairs of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition. He said the rebels are urging President Kiir to rescind his Christmas Eve decree.

“Our position has been very clear. We have an agreement signed on the 17th and 26th of August 2015, and the agreement clearly states that there will be only 10 states in South Sudan for the next three years. So creating 28 states is basically not in line with the agreement that we have signed. So we are basically stating clearly that President Salva should stick to the implementation of the agreement which says 10 states for the next three years,” he said.

August agreement

Gatkuoth said in addition to 10 states, the August agreement calls for the formation of a government of national unity, reconstituting the parliament and restructuring South Sudan government institutions.

“So if you are going to operate outside the agreement, definitely you are violating it. We are calling the government and the president of Republic of South Sudan, General Salva Kiir Mayardit to implement the agreement. Two, to reverse the decision he has taken,” Gatkuoth said.

Gatkuoth said the rebels believe in federalism and do not reject the creation of new states per se, but they are rejecting the creation of more states when it is in conflict with the August agreement.

“More states can be created as long as the boundaries are delineated and clearly we know that those boundaries reflect the British colonial districts of 1966, the districts that were created when the British handed over Sudan into the new republic,” Gatkuoth said.

Constitutional concerns

But South Sudan Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin said President Kiir’s decree creating 28 new states is within the bounds of the country’s constitution.

Benjamin said all South Sudanese are on the path to peace. He said rebel foreign affairs secretary Ezekiel Gatkuoth should stop preaching war and join the peace "bandwagon" instead.

“I think Ezekiel is behind time. We are talking that peace has come and that we are going to implement the agreement. If there are any issues that he thinks are being violated, let him come and we will discuss them internally here. President Salva Kiir cannot do something which is not in line with our transitional constitution,” he said.

He asked how the rebels could criticize President Kiir when they themselves had announced in exile the creation of 21 new states and named governors - decisions they have yet to rescind.

“I think Ezekiel should behave like an ambassador. The issue reconciling our people, bring them together and then bringing peace and stability under the umbrella of peace, solidarity and brotherhood,” Benjamin said.

Benjamin said South Sudan, a country of about 12 million people, cannot be held hostage.

“The government will continue to do the things that are entrusted through the transitional constitution of this country. The country with parliament, a country with government, a country with judiciary cannot put everything on hold because somebody called Ezekiel is outside the country,” he said.

What happened to my post

Another reason it will not end is because of widespread degeneracy at the executive levels. If a book were made and you read this book I am sure you would only be certain this is fiction. Except the book is real and the things in them are real. Neocolonialists surely aid this epidemic but nonetheless it is the Person who is left to effectuate this order of business. The example below is a microcosm of what we can see as some form of degeneracy with compromised officials. This is a good example because someone who may survive only with porridge and water are depending on things like resources to help improve their quality of life. These types of things are just as detrimental to society as any sanction would be so it will take things like this as well for the racism to end.

Zimbabwe’s discovery of extensive alluvial diamond deposits was a God-sent miracle at a time when illegal sanctions against the country had almost totally broken the economy. But the US, the EU and their white allies did not hesitate to mobilise their imperialist structures to turn the diamond miracle into a curse.

At the Kimberley Process conference in Tel Aviv, for instance, the strategy of the racist minority was to turn the whole process and the conference on its head, by rejecting the official legal documents and replacing them with un-official and clandestine ones obtained through fraud and espionage. The strategy first revealed itself when two Western spy-linked organisations demanded the rewriting of KP rules and the re-definition of “blood diamonds”, especially against Zimbabwe and for the purpose of vengeance against Zimbabwe.

These two spy-linked organisations are the British Global Watch and the Canadian Partnership Africa Canada. They were soon followed by yet another pair, the British Amnesty International and the US-based Human Rights Watch. When the Zimbabwean delegation got to Tel Aviv, they discovered that the racist countries had conspired to treat the official KP Monitor, Mr Abbey Chikane, and his reports on Zimbabwe as mere decoys which were used to keep the Zimbabwean state from noticing an alternative and clandestine network of spies and compromised officials operating secretly inside Zimbabwe and working on a fraudulent report or reports which would then be introduced abruptly and dramatically at the meeting in order to force a displacement and rejection of the officially sanctioned-KP Monitor’s report.

Farai Muguwu of the so-called Centre for Research and Development was a key figure in the clandestine network.
The bogus “Chief Chiadzwa” by the name of Newman Chiadzwa was another key player. Then there were some officials in the inclusive Government and the Parliament of Zimbabwe who had also been roped in to concoct the fraudulent report(s) which were supposed to bury Mr Chikane’s official and professional report in the muck.

What the Anglo-Saxon racists did not count on was that the state would uncover enough of the clandestine and criminal network to force the isolation of the US and its allies at the conference. What was uncovered demonstrated to the majority of the members of the KPCS that the US-led operations to tarnish Zimbabwe’s diamonds were not only illegal but also diabolic, bordering on economic terrorism and total contempt for the rules of international trade, diplomacy and decorum.

Despite their defeat at Tel Aviv, the imperial powers did not give up. The struggle continued at St Petersburg, Russia; at Kinshasa, DRC; and within Zimbabwe, where the Anglo-Saxon powers paid and mobilised NGOs to try to reverse Zimbabwe’s victories at Tel Aviv, St Petersburg and Kinshasa. The EU, for instance, infiltrated the African Diamond Producers’ Association by bribing the Liberian representative. When India and other diamond marketing countries neutralised US-EU machinations, the US managed to pressure enough KPCS members into electing it as chairman of the process, even though the US is not a diamond producing country. At the same time, US used its global control of the US-dollar-denominated payments to block Zimbabwe’s diamond earnings from reaching the country.

The strategy as usual is to deny the Government and people of Zimbabwe any independent sources of income and development resources while driving the population into poverty and into accepting and praising US-sponsored charity and relief as a substitute for autonomous development.

African economies struggle with dollar crunch
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/23/world/africa-currencies/index.html

The inclusion of the Yuan in the basket of SDR, or Special Drawing Rights, along with the other four currencies with
SDR status—the US dollar, the euro, the UK pound sterling and the Japanese yen—will make up the overwhelming input into global international currency reserves. As a knock-on effect, it will dominate international bond markets and global financial transactions. This is most welcome for countries like Zimbabwe for the following additional reasons. The launch of a new yuan international payment system seeks to reduce the cost of conducting payment in yuan for Zimbabwean banks. Secondly Zimbabwe Importers will obtain an important advantage by paying in yuan since Chinese suppliers always apply a surcharge to dollar payments. Lastly the use of the Yuan will have the potential of lowering borrowing costs and facilitating cross-border contracts in major commodities that are priced in Yuan thereby easing foreign exchange risks arising from pricing in US dollars.

Is Mugabe the one with those seven Phd.s

ZUBY77:
All my shoes are Chinese. All my clothes are Chinese. In fact, I left Europe and I live in China now.

!

Tpiar you could be right then again I'm not the greatest cook, I don't think the suya spice came out right I don't think I'll try to make it from scratch again.

Anybody has tips

Starting to make my own suya after being introduced to it over a year ago. The dish is simply like heaven to me!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIqJwLAbAOM

I followed this and it still didn't quite turn out like the suya I get at naija spots.

SirShymexx:


[b]He also has interest in the huge water reservoir in Africa - and that's where the money will be in the future.

Africa has enormous untapped potentials and that's what everyone cares about. However, the funniest thing is that: the people who ought to claim these potentials can't really see them...only the few elites, their kids, and foreigners are the ones benefiting from them. For Africa to be great, everyone has to be carried along, and there has to be an awakening, which is non-existent right now. Currently, I'm networking with a few friends out here, with folks in naij, and you need to see the type of figures (money) folks throw around for things you can just do for free. Also, a lot of basic things are lacking and if you can go in there with the right connect/networking and resources for a start-up - you'll make loads of money. That's what all the folks screaming Africa care about - not how to move Africa to the next level. It's just a pity that folks out there can't really see these things and the rough diamonds they're sitting on.[/b]

gatiano:
Thankyou brother for being able to think, the bloods in your brains is not clotted like many who insist to be blind and deaf. People are homeless in the same united states, fires are burning out their crops their, tornedoes destroying their properties etc.

This bill gate employed the use of prison/jail workers (80% blacks) to make chips for computers and other stuffs at below a dollar per day, Then when the prisoners are released, they can't get the jobs now. that is how they increase their billions. through physical modern slavery. Slavery in the first place built their civilization.


The more they give these aids and philanthropies, the more we go broke, and i don't understand why we fail to see the pattern. afterall aids and AIDS carry the same word and alphabet (There is nothing called coincidence).

SirShymexx:


Are these folks actually involved in philanthropic cause, or is it just a ruse to enlarge their business empire at the expense of gullible 3rd world countries?

Bill Gates actively got into philanthropy in 2000, and in 2009 he started an aggressive campaign with the Gates foundation claiming they have given out US$28 billion. However, between 2009 and 2014, his net worth doubled from $40 billion to $82 billion, and he made a whooping $15 billion between 2013 and 2014. Now start doing the maths.

Good question.

https://www.nairaland.com/2238878/grabbing-africas-seeds-usaid-eu

Rivertemz:

I really like how you think, especially when you mentioned more african influence in architecture. That's a thought that has crossed my mind.
but please before you do plan on moving, think wisely about the economic advantage you could benefit from and help improve in a specific country.

first of all, what intrigues you about senegal or botswana, two very different regions.
Im not surprised you didn't say Nigeria, even if it was a tourist attraction, it's a competitive place to make a type of living, Nigerians are very sharp and decisive, it's alot harder to make wealth in Nigeria, because everyone else is making money and hustling fast compared to black people in America. We don't play games in Nigeria.

Do realize you would either be starting from bottom up or have at least several connections with wealthy people in the places you're interested in.

Senegal, I have a connection there I'm very interested in learning more about the Diola people and their traditional spiritual practices, not to mention a hero of mine Cheikh Diop is from there. Niokolo Koba National Park and the saloum delta also have my interest, plenty of rivers abound in Senegal. There's other little things like the house of slaves museum, the museum of african arts and the african renaissance monument that let me know the ideology there isn't too white washed . The only small drawback for me is becoming efficient in french. Botswana, I'd like to study wildlife in that region the animals in the okavango delta are MAJESTIC the lions look like they could eat a jeep. Botswana is also another place politically stable enough for me to set long term goals without disruption interfering with the plans I have.

There's other reasons and I won't divulge all of them but yeah those two are pretty high on my list.

I want to go to Senegal or Botswana.

I can't wait to make the move I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ready to leave this place behind. I plan on working to help the environment once I'm there maybe starting some planting and breeding programs. Promoting indigenous 'religion' and contemporary african fashion are other interest I have, there also needs to be more of an african influence on the architecture, the homes and buildings should reflect they are actually in AFRICA.

AGRICULTURE

Flets:
What is wrong with black race?

Native SAs vs foreign blacks
Native Lagosians vs other Nigerians
Igbo vs Yoruba
Middle belt vs Fulani
Ijaw vs Itsekiri

Its never against the white race but against themselves. What is wrong with the black man?

In order to do something against the white race you have to be united but I guess when you're black it's just fair game

White liberals tend to have an objective outlook but it doesn't stop them from practicing racism

Julius K. Nyerere

“African nationalism is meaningless, dangerous, anachronistic, if it is not, at the same time, pan-Africanism”