Wangari Maathai Dies

Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai, Africa’s first woman recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, died late Sunday after a long battle with cancer. Maathai, 71, won the Nobel Prize in 2004 for combining environmentalism and social activism.

According to the Nobel committee, Maathai made significant contributions “to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”The Kenyan environmentalist founded the Green Belt Movement (GBM) in 1977 – planting tens of millions of trees throughout her homeland.

Maathai served as an assistant minister in President Mwai Kibaki's government from 2003 to 2005.

Maathai is survived by her three children and a granddaughter. (Wiki,  Various News Sources)

AAEA Director Named Editor of Balozi Journal Magazine

A Journey Magazine into Science, Reason & Rationality [January 2012 Vol. 5.]

Boaz Adhengo has been named editor of the Balozi Journal, which will examine numerous issues within the broad categories of: 1) Science, 2) Reason, and 3) Rationality.  Mr. Adhengo is excited about the new assignment. 

Please feel free to donate to this new effort.

WRITERS WANTED

One of the first articles in the journal includes the tome below:

The Range of Religious Freedom

By Paul Marshall

Belief in the supernatural dimension is central to all world religions Religion by its nature defies precise definition. However, the central commonality to all world religions is the belief in the supernatural dimension. Thus, it can be said that the most significant element of a religious worldview is this belief in a divine being or power, which is greater than humankind and the natural world. This being or power is believed to be responsible for the creation of the world, for providing a moral framework for human life and being the ultimate destiny of a human person at the end of their mortal life.

Oil Pipeline Fire Kills Approximately 150 People

According to local officials, scores of people were burned to death and many more were injured when a fire from a pipeline explosion engulfed a thickly populated slum in Nairobi. The provincial commissioner said more than 60 were confirmed dead, with the number likely to rise. One local television station quoted an official at the scene declaring that he had counted more than 120 bodies, while a local radio station said the dead numbered more than 150.

The cause of the explosion was still unclear, but local officials said it was likely caused by a cigarette butt that ignited gasoline leaked from the pipeline. Local television broadcast images of smoldering bodies as firefighters battled the blaze, and showed badly burned slum residents emerging from the flames.

It is believed the fire started after a fuel tank spilled fuel into an open sewer that flows through the slum. As slum residents tried to scoop up the fuel, someone tossed a cigarette into the sewer. (Wash Post, 9/12/2011)

AAEA Kenya Director Named Director at Jahwar Amber Fund

Boaz Adhengo

Jahwar Amber Fund, publisher of the Balozi Journal has appointed Mr. Boaz Adhengo as its Programs Director, a role that could lead to being ‘Editor–in– Chief’ of the Balozi Magazine.

Boaz established the AAEA Kenya Office in 2010.  His role as director will complement the Jahwar Amber Fund and AAEA.  AAEA will provide outreach support for the fund and the fund's journal will provide an additional platform for disemination of AAEA information.

Boaz is the man for the job because he has the unique entrepreneurial qualities to make both institutions a success.  We hope that others will support his efforts by making donations to the fund and AAEA.

The fund was established in 2009 as an effort to steer the realization of Church – State separation in Kenya, focusing greatly on campus projects and consequently diversifying its approach to involve capacity building of like-minded organizations in East Africa.

The next issue of Balozi Journal will focus on “Genetically Modified Organisms,’ highlighting the possible debates en route to ending famine and drought in Africa at large, using successful Kenyan examples and documented cases. This owes to the fact that at this time of the year, Kenya is recording numbers of starved children and the whole region is suffering from food insecurity, which warrants a probable debate on such issues.

Articles are welcomed for submission to be considered on the next issue of Balozi Journal, which is managed by the AAEA Kenya Office.

Obama Rumored To Attend Mboya Statue Unveiling

Mboya Statue

President Barack Obama might attend the unveiling of the Tom Joseph Mboya statue on Mashujaa Day on October 20. The late Tom Mboya was a freedom fighter and economics minister. The statue weighs about 1.5 tonnes and was mounted on a pedestal of cast stones in Nairobi city centre. The Tom Mboya statue is made out of cast bronze and stands on curved stone foundation.

Tom Mboya was a friend and mentor to Barack Obama, Sr.  Tom Mboya was assassinated in July 5, 1969 due to his political activities.

The cast stone the statue is standing on, the fountain and the flamingo birds underneath symbolise the planes for which Tom Mboya paid tickets for Kenyan students to study abroad during the famous airlifts of the 1960s. The 10 metres high statue has been erected two metres away from the scene where he was shot 42 years ago. The statue is on Moi Avenue formerly Government Road, near Stanbank House and faces the National Archives and Ambassadeur Hotel. The statue has been dressed in Ghanaian regalia, which the late Kwame Nkuruma presented to Mboya. (The Star, 8/3/2011, The Latest Kenyan News, 2/26/2011)

National Black Chamber on Trade Mission to Kenya

The National Black Chamber of Commerce is sponsoring a Trade Mission to Kenya to evaluate business opportunities during June 12 – 17, 2011.

Contact Charles DeBow for more information.

UNEP Meeting In Nairobi Struggles on Environmental Issues

Approximately 100 environment ministers gathered last week in Nairobi under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to address the need for an in-depth reform its own system for addressing environmental issues, particularly climate change.  The ministers called for the question to be studied and if possible decided on at the next UN summit on sustainable development planned for June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro.  Beginning with the 1992 earth summit in Rio, a thick mesh of directives that remain confusing even to specialists have evolved.

UNEP is behind the World Trade Organization or the World Health Organization. With a 2010 budget of 83 million dollars, it is one of only two UN agencies to be headquartered in Africa. Only 58 states, out of a total of 193 in the world, are members. Each convention has its own secretariat, which scarcely communicates with the others.

Between 1992 and 2007, 540 meetings have been called under 18 international treaties, generating more than 5000 decisions. The convention on climate change, adopted in 1992, has collected about 100 billion dollars for its budget. But beyond the facade of everything being unanimous, talks on how to harmonize the system have been deadlocked for years. (AFP, 2/25/2011)

J. Scott Gration Appointed Ambassador to Kenya

Scott Gration

J. Scott Gration, the Obama administration's Sudan envoy, will become U.S. ambassador to Kenya.

Gration, a retired Air Force major general, was one of the first prominent military officials to embrace Obama as a presidential candidate, and he traveled with the then senator to Africa in 2006. Gration grew up in Africa, the son of missionaries, and speaks Swahili.

He has a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University and earned a master's degree in national security studies from Georgetown University in Washington in 1988. (Wash Post, 2/11/2011, Wiki)