Discuss the role of future US foreign policy to wards Africa: Expectation, Constraints and opportunities for better governance on the Continent.
TIME: Saturday. December 13, 2008 from 7:00PM-10: 00PM
HOST: Jim Tufa
LOCATION: The Oromo Center (Washington DC)
811 Upshur Street NW
Washington, DC 20011
Direction: Corner of Upshur and Georgia Ave. NW
Nairobi — The government has blocked Kenyan members of President-elect Barrack Obama’s extended family from talking to the media.
Family members will have to ask permission from government before issuing making any statement concerning Obama.
The government will also vet all those seeking information about the family.
“We are doing this because we want to ensure better flow of information.
The government has decided that you should inform its officers who will be based here if you want to address the media,” Athman Said, an Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Heritage, told the Obama family in Kogelo yesterday.
A proposed Obama Cultural Home comprising of a museum, a gallery, a library and a leadership centre will be put up in Kogelo, Said told the family. A cultural officer, Dorcas Obege, will be assigned to Kogelo to vet visitors and others seeking information about the family.
Said, who was leading a delegation from the Department of Culture, said the government had set aside Sh30 million to upgrade the proposed Obama cultural home.
Athman said his department was liaising with the United States government to have both published and un-published materials by President-elect Obama on display at the proposed library. The government was also planning to produce a video of Mama Sarah Obama, the President elect’s step-grandmother, telling the history of the Obama family.
The government has graded all the roads leading to Kogelo and set up a police station within the home to protect the Obama family after there was an attempted robbery.
Kenya Power and Lighting Company has also connected power to what used to be a sleepy village. The value of land has doubled in the last few months and several investors are understood to be planning to build hotels in the area to provide for the many tourists who are expected to visit Kogelo on what will be known as the Presidential Heritage Tourism Circuit.
Heritage minister William Ole Ntimama confirmed that the government had decided to make Obama’s fathers home in Kogelo , Siaya district into a national heritage site.
“This is a great opportunity to open up the western tourism circuit and we have asked Treasury to find us some money so that we can roll out a number of projects that will make this a truly memorable cultural site,” said Ntimama.
He however expressed surprise at the veto on the family talking to the media. “I am not aware of that ban because my officers have not told me about it. It will be surprising if they have done that because it is not right. The Obama family should be allowed to say whatever they want to without any bureaucracy,” said Ntimama.
The location of the proposed heritage centre has caused a row in the family with some Obama relatives from Kendu Bay insisting it should be built at Kanyadhiang which was Obama Senior’s ancestral home before the family moved to Kogelo.
The family made the claims last week to Gender and Culture Minister Esther Mirugi who unveiled a signpost showing where the museum will be built in Kogelo.
– Nairobi Star
By Yechiel Spira
Major Tzion Shenker, who currently serves as the operations officer of the northern Gaza brigade, will soon be promoted to lt.-colonel, thereby becoming the army’s first-ever Ethiopian battalion commander.
Commander of IDF Ground Forces Major-General Avi Mizrachi already approved the appointment, and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi is expected to sign off without any objections. Shenker is expected to serve in the army’s Kfir infantry brigade, where he spent most of his career.
Shenker came to Israel with his parents when he was four. He walked with his family from Ethiopia to Sudan, and from there they were air-lifted to Eretz Yisrael. He began his life in Israel in Beersheva and later attended a dati school.
After being promoted he will be the highest ranking Ethiopian officer in the IDF, and he has already signaled he plans to continue, hoping to become the army’s first major-general.
IDF officials report that enlistment among the Ethiopian community is higher than in most other sectors of society, but the numbers entering elite combat units and officers school are relatively low.
Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers
A Panel Discussion on the Report of the Genocide Prevention Task Force
A public event co-sponsored with the American Academy of Diplomacy and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Date and Time
Thursday, December 11, 2008
12:00 PM – 2:00 PM
Location
U.S. Institute of Peace
2nd Floor Conference Room
1200 17th St, NW
Washington, DC 20036
Directions
The Genocide Prevention Task Force, chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, released its final report on December 8. The report provides practical recommendations to enhance the U.S. government’s capacity to respond to emerging threats of genocide and mass atrocities around the world. Some of the task force’s lead experts will discuss the report’s findings and recommendations.
In addition to Sec. Albright and Sec. Cohen, the Task Force consists of John Danforth, Tom Daschle, Stuart Eizenstat, Michael Gerson, Dan Glickman, Jack Kemp, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, Tom Pickering, Julia Taft (dec.), Vin Weber and Anthony Zinni. The Genocide Prevention Task Force is a project of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Academy of Diplomacy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace.
The Genocide Prevention Task Force report can be read or downloaded online.
Please contact Ian Larsen (+1.202.429.3870) or Lauren Sucher (+1.202.429.3822) in the Office of Public Affairs and Communications.
To RSVP, please send your name, affiliation, daytime phone number, and name of the event to Nicholas Howenstein at [email protected].
By Karyn Maughan | IOL
Terror-reeling India and South Africa have something in common: both are rated as one of the world’s 20 most dangerous countries.
Backed by travel advice issued by the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), London’s The Telegraph newspaper has placed South Africa alongside Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Haiti, Eritrea, Pakistan, Burundi, Nigeria and the DRC in terms of danger to travellers.
According to the FCO, South Africa has “an underlying threat from terrorism”.
“Attacks, although unlikely, could be indiscriminate, including in places frequented by expatriates and foreign travellers.”
The FCO’s travel advisory on SA also states: “South Africa has a very high level of crime, including rape and murder. However, most cases occur in the townships and in areas away from the main tourist destinations.
“In 2007 and 2008 there were a number of incidents involving foreigners being followed from OR Tambo Airport, Johannesburg, to their destinations by car and then robbed, often at gunpoint. We recommend you exercise particular caution in and around the airport and extra vigilance when driving away.
“The standard of driving is variable and there are many fatal accidents.”
BOSTON – Wide Horizons for Children, a nonprofit based in Waltham, Massachusetts, is sending the doctors to Ethiopia to provide medical care for children and pregnant women. The first mission went to the impoverished nation in November, according to a news release, with a second mission scheduled for the spring.
The missions are voluntary, and the physicians perform surgeries without charge. The M.D.’s also train Ethiopian physicians and midwives.
The November team was led by Dr. Fletcher R. Wilson, an obstetrics and gynecological doctor and adjunct professor at Dartmouth Medical School. Dr. Stephan W. Coffman, a surgeon at Monadnock Surgical Associates in Petersborough, N.H., was also on the trip.
The team spent a week at the Adwa Hospital in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region and completed 40 surgeries, including removing goiters, making surgical repairs and performing C-sections. The doctors also performed one life-saving procedure.
Wide Horizons for Children is a nonprofit focused on adoption and child welfare and, since 1974, has placed more than 10,000 children with adoptive parents in the United States.
