Mashada Blogs » January 31, 2008

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January 31, 2008
23:38
Kumekucha HITS 1,000,000
» ‎ You Missed This

Executive Blood Harvesting Season is Here - Taabu in his element.

Yesterday was a very sad day for Kenya with the assassination of an opposition MP under circumstances that are still very far from being clear.

But something worth celebrating also happened yesterday and I had just began to write this post, when the news of the assassination broke.

Yesterday the Kumekucha counter on our main site registered ONE MILLION HITS.

1 , 0 0 0 0 0 0 !!!

We thank you all wonderful people out there for making this happen. It is a proud moment not only for me but for all those who blog here regularly. It illustrates the victory and sheer power of citizen journalism at a time when our country's media is more opressed and intimidated than it has ever been in the history of Kenya. My joy is that many times it has been our readers and visitors who have broken major stories here.

Congratulations, Kumekucha and Kumekuchans.

P.S. Kindly note that the moderator will prompty delete any comments that attempt to advertise any product or site in the comments section. If you want to advertise anything to the captive ad mainly Kenyan audience here, our rates are dirt cheap and there is no need to behave so crudely. Just send an email to umissedthis at yahoo dot com for details about our rates if you're interested in reaching a million eye balls and counting. We are also willing to listen to your story if you feel that we should allow you to advertise here for FREE.

22:33
Raila’s Strange Alliance With The Libyans
» ‎ Kenyanentrepreneur.com

Tags: Kenyan PoliticsBusiness

So, I’m watching this video and I see Raila at the home of the Libyan Ambassador to Kenya (forward video to minute 1:31). Why is Raila so close to the Libyans? This is a rhetorical question because the answer is obvious: It’s all about the money. However, I want to talk about why this alliance is [...]

21:26
Let us talk about what really ails our country
» ‎ Kenya Imagine

Tags: post election analysis

Last week, I treaded where angels dread. I talked about what I believe has plunged our beloved country into chaos.

I received overwhelming response. Readers concurred that we have swept the ugly truth under the carpet for too long. That is why we are consumed by passions we cannot control. I also stirred the hornet's nest, so the barbs came fast and furious.

Read more from Nancy Mburu here.

21:12
Executive Blood Harvesting Season is Here
» ‎ You Missed This

Two MPs down in under 36 hours. With the death of Ainamoi MP David Kimutai Too, the sharks have their jaws wide open ready to claim their next suitable victim. Kenya is paying the ultimate price of having IMPUNITY as a national and official policy. Why then can't murders take cue from the top and do the necessary to squeeze a life and another there for either speculative passion or official reasons?

Kenya remains a country in both self denial of national deception and steady grand match to self-destruction. No parent cannot stop his kids from misbehaving if he fails do lead by example and from inform. So why would a police constable not execute an MP given a template of a President getting away with daylight ELECTORAL THEFT. For those doubt that fact and shamelessly asko for proof please go back to Mars, you are aliens here on earth.

Ours is a country that has become a theatre of contradiction. Just look at policemen now partnering Mungiki who were hitherto chopping the cops' head a few months ago. Instead the ordinary Kenyan who were up in arms against Mungiki's beheading are now the cannon fodder aka STOPPERS of both police bullets and matchetes. Political fortunes can really change drastically for the less 'INDUSTRIOUS'.

By the way the Kibaki government does no need a manual on political assassination given its composition. They have been there since Pio Gama's death in the 1960s. And with 21st Century technology their work is even make much lighter.

With an 'EFFICIENT' police force that knows the cause of death before it even happens, it couldn't get much politically manageable. Mark you only Kenyan police can afford to tear gas the dead and mourners. Now they have graduated to prescribe infedelity to the dead. That is reversed honour Kenyan style for you.

Well, that is two votes less and woe unto you if you are an ODM MP whose blood attracts and has higher affinity for stray bullets. We haven't seen anything yet, BADO.

18:12
The first black person to…
» ‎ Black Looks

Sowetan: A few years ago we had a young kwaito sensation aptly named Lekgoa [sic] because he was white and lekgoa [sic] is Sesotho for white person. But never have I read anywhere that this young musician was the first white artist to choose kwaito. Neither were many eyebrows raised when Johnny Clegg and [...]

16:15
A Brief DEMO Redux
» ‎ Afromusing

Tags: Environment

I am honored to have been part of the Africa Panel at DEMO 08 which happened yesterday. Erik and Mike did an awesome job of blogging about the sessions. My sincere thanks to Chris Shipley and Erica Lee for having us.

There were so many interesting exhibitors, you can explore a full list and find more information about the cool stuff that launched. I will highlight just a few of the products and services that stood out for me.

The first one is Green Plug - A charger that can be used for multiple devices. Their tag line is “One plug, one planet”. Think of the many chargers you have to carry with you, and when you abandon a device, that charger ends up in a landfill somewhere. The Green plug eliminates the need to carry multiple chargers. The small chip pictured here makes it all happen.

Asankya Hypermesh Network
Forget the current OSPF and BGP routing of packets, this company optimises content delivery by in their own words…

…Using a breakthrough technique for transporting packets over multiple network paths, it enables delivery of real-time content consistently and at a high quality over the Internet.

It is geared towards ISP’s and larger content delivery companies, but from their demo it seems their products could useful for those building new networks and want higher quality video delivery than is currently being offered. I thought of the now delayed EASSYproject that would have brought fibre optic backbone to Kenya…:( and to step back to something i had written last year about building network of networks, in time, it would be great to revisit how this new technology could help in low bandwidth areas or in new network systems being implemented in Africa.

Celsias
“Cooling the planet one project at a time”

Celsias is all about doing something practical to reduce climate change
On Celsias, you can read a widely-recognized climate change blog, review practical projects from all over the world and meet the coolest people who share your passion for stopping human-induced global warming. If you want to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty, register on the site, create a project, then recruit people or funding to get your project off the ground.

I think i may have taken too many pics, you can browse through them on this flickr set.

13:07
There are So Many Ways to Define Yourself: Is This How You Define Yourself?
» ‎ The Displaced African

Part four of the 10 things I wish I knew before I landed in Australia

From time to time I write a post that is not specific to the African community but is more general and a lot more far reaching. Consider this one of those posts.

We begin with the age old question:

Who Are You, Really?

(more…)

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10:52

Africa Panel and Top DEMO Picks

» ‎ White African

9:57
Silobreaker: Information, Context and Correlation
» ‎ White African

Tags: Conferences

Of all the products that I saw at DEMO 2008, none impressed me more than Silobreaker. It’s a website that pulls in content from all over the web; mainstream news, citizen media, images, video and documents. All of that content is then run through their proprietary engine, which parses it for keywords, names, places and events. Correlations are drawn between items and shown in a number of different ways.

As a user, all you need to do is enter in a search term, so it’s a simple and easy to understand tool. I was able to spend some time talking to Silobreaker’s team, who are based out of London and Stockholm, it wasn’t surprising to find out that many government security agencies, multinationals and risk-assessment firms use their service. Beyond public usage, I can see how Silobreaker’s engine could be useful for large enterprises who are trying to map people, documents and events internally.

The tool becomes really interesting once you get past the initial aggregation of news and start looking at the “Network Search” and “Trend Search” tools.

Network Search
This is the part that I enjoyed the most. I did a search for Kenya, since it’s on my mind a lot these days, and started drilling into the content revolving around the conflict. Correlations between people and events started to emerge, and I was surprised to find that the people profiles had a lot more data on each person that I expected.

Silobreaker auto-extracts, in real-time from thousands of articles, the most related companies, people, events, etc - and displays them in the relationship network. By hovering over over the midpoint of any relationship the user can easily see the articles that explain the association between two points.

Media Trends
The Trend Search view shows the mainstream media’s focus by topic. Below you can see how the media has followed then entrance of Kofi Annan and John Kufuor as they try (tried) to mediate in Kenya.

Hotspots
Track hotspots by date and geographic location. The size of the hotspot indicates the number of articles written about that specific geographic location. You can drill down into any of them for further information.

9:42
Raila is a cold, calculating, evil man
» ‎ Kenyanentrepreneur.com

Tags: Kenyan PoliticsBusiness

A second MP has been shot. This time, the murder is being attributed to a lovers spat. He was having an affair with a policeman’s wife and according to the New York Times: “Mr. Too was driving in his car with a female police officer whose boyfriend was also a police officer. The boyfriend drove [...]

8:17
Kenya up in smoke as Britain, USA, EU, UN, AU and EAC watch from a distance
» ‎ The Benin Epilogue Part I: Africa-Ready for Business

The world risks loosing over 33 million people in Kenya’s post election violence that has rocked the country over the past one month. The European Union, The commonwealth and the African Union raised concerns that presidential vote tallying was deeply flawed and fell short....READ MORE

7:40
Now ODM, PNU Crisis Talks Postponed To Friday
» ‎ You Missed This

Senior police officer and wananchi mingle around the car belonging to the late MP David Kimutai Too in Eldoret at the scene-of-crime where he shot and his partner serious wounded. Following the news of the murder, there have been reports of tension in Western Kenya towns of Kericho and Kisumu, while in Eldoret demonstrations have been held outside the Eldoret Police HQS.
============================
The ODM /P NU crisis talks that were launched yesterday by both President Kibaki and Raila Odinga have been postponed to Friday.

The convener of the talks Kofi Annan did not give any reasons for the postponement which came against the backdrop of the murder of Ainamoi Member of Parliament David Kimutai Too in Eldoret earlier today. At the same time, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in an apparent change of mind, plans to visit Kenya tomorrow (Friday) to add his weight to the efforts of Mr. Annan toward ending the crisis.

Kibaki is presently in Addis Ababa attending the AU summit while Raila Odinga spoke at an ODM press conference in Nairobi (Pentagon House) where he termed the murder of the ODM MP "The second killing of an MP belonging to Orange Democratic Movement is part of a plot to reduce our majority in parliament".

Meanwhile, the Police Commissioner has announced that the assailant, a unnamed police constable, has been arrested in Turbo along the Malaba - Eldoret Road and is currently in police custody in Nakuru. The alleged murderer will appear in court tomorrow, the police commissioner promised.

6:56
Econet, Safaricom & Another 'Execution'
» ‎ KA-INVESTOR

Econet Roll Out Deadline Shifted
The government, through Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), has moved the roll out deadline for Econet Wireless by six-month to June 2008. Their earlier deadline was expiring at the end of this January. If they fail to roll out by June they risk losing concession. Econet was awarded a license more than four years ago but has since been beset by financial troubles and shareholder feuds. Econet paid its USD27 million license fee in September 2007, but is yet to announce a launch schedule. Earlier this month Indian conglomerate Essar Group bought a 49% stake in the parent company, Econet Wireless International

However, Econet says it is facing some difficulties setting up national roaming agreements with Safaricom and Celtel Kenya, which would allow it to piggyback on their networks until it completes its own rollout.
Safaricom IPOThere are fears in the government circles that the current violence and unrest could result in lower returns from the planned public offering of Safaricom shares. The sale, which was postponed in December, is however still scheduled for the 1st quarter of 2008. The main fears is that that potential investors may be wary of buying into what is one of Africa’s most profitable firms. The success of this IPO will suffer both a broad and locally. The fate of the Euro-bond also hangs on the balance.

‘Crime of Passion’
Another ODM MP, David Kimutai Too – of Ainamoi, has just been shoot dead by a traffic policeman. The shooting has been quickly termed as a ‘crime of passion’ has it is said that the MP was having an illicit affair with the policeman’s girlfriend. This reminds me of Tony Ndilinge’s shooting.

It’s now official, all emails, phone calls and sms are being monitored. So be careful what you say, send or receive.

6:19
Good Luck Kenya!
» ‎ My Life is...Mochalicious!

Life has to continue and on my end its following the progress of the National Sevens Teams as they continue their tour of the IRB 2007/08 Season. I shall be keeping you posted with Press Releases from KRFU and IRB website as events unfold. Good Luck Lads!!! Make Us Proud!!! JET-LAGGED VIRGIN ATLANTIC KENYA ARRIVE IN WELLINGTON January [...]

6:19
Orange Democratic Movement Member of Parliament David Kimutai Too shot dead by a Police officer
» ‎ Eyes on Kenya

According to Reuters, Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) member of parliament David Kimutai Too, was killed, along with an unidentified woman, in the Rift Valley town of Eldoret by a traffic Police officer.
“He has been shot dead, by a traffic policeman in Eldoret, we think. The circumstances are very unclear. This crisis is just getting deeper every day,” said ODM spokesman Tony Gachoka.

“He was killed by a traffic police officer,” in a suburb of Eldoret in western Kenya, a police commander told AFP in Nairobi, adding that the killing appeared to be connected to a romantic dispute.
“He was with a girl who is a police officer. He was shot by another policeman believed to be her boyfriend,” he said.

A senior police officer checks the car in which Ainamoi MP David Kimutai Too and a policewoman were driving in when they were ambushed and shot dead. Photo/ JARED NYATAYA

The policewoman is currently in ICU in at the hospital of Eldoret. Reports from Eldoret indicate that members of public have jammed the Moi Teaching and Referral mortuary following the incident. Nation reports that Police Commissioner Major General Hussein Ali assured the public that “the constable will stand charges of murder tomorrow”. He also warned the public against using the incident to incite others.

The death of Ainamoi MP, David Kimutai Too, happened only 2 days after the assassination of ODM MP Melitus Mugabe Were.

For what ever reason David Kimutai Too was killed, it demonstrates that the government is not providing protection and security for opposition politicians.Only a few days after Nobel Peace Price winner Wangari Maathai criticized the government for failing to provide security for its citizens, the Minister of Internal Security Prof George Saitoti withdrew her bodyguards on Monday.

6:00
Ainamoi MP Shot Dead
» ‎ tHiNkEr'S rOoM

Breaking news indicates that Aimamoi MP David Too has been shot dead in Eldoret. The circumstances behind the shooting are not clear as yet. I shudder to think of the conclusions that will be drawn from this; so soon after fellow Embakasi MP, ODM's Mugabe Were was similarly shot dead. I ...

5:29
More Cooking With Windows Mobile 6…
» ‎ Me, Life & Everything

Rendezvous: 2347hrs Prolixity: Short Mood: Geeky Whereabouts: Home Track: United in Love, The Commodores I found a treasure trove of software and themes for my HTC Wizard which i have downloaded and tweaked to no end while keenly following advice from these forums here and may have achieved a certain look on my device… Then there is one that looks a [...]

4:46
Koffi Annan's Peace Mission doomed to fail as Another Kenyan Oposition MP killed in cold blood
» ‎ The Benin Epilogue Part I: Africa-Ready for Business

Another opposition (ODM) MP has been killed in Kenya, as violence continues over last month's disputed election. David Kimutai Too was shot dead Thursday and his body taken to Moi Teaching and Referal Hospital. The man was shot dead in the western town of.....READ MORE

4:16
Breaking News: Another Opposition MP Shot Dead
» ‎ You Missed This

Hon David Kimutai the MP for Ainamoi constituency has been shot dead. His body is lying at the Moi Teaching and Referal hospital in Eldoret.

It is not clear exactly what happened but Kenyans are in shock because the other slain MP Mugabe Were is yet to be buried. It is believed that he was shot outside an Eldoret hotel by a police officer. Unconfirmed reports claim that the death may have been linked to a love affair.

We will give you more details as we get them. I am also expecting some details from Phil.

4:01
Dominoes Falling All Over The Place
» ‎ What An African Woman Thinks

This morning there’s an article in the Business Daily about how Internally Displaced People are selling off their shares on the stock exchange because they are in need of emergency funds. Apparently, big investors are swooping in and buying all these relatively undervalued shares.

That made me sad. It reminded me that everywhere you turn, you're bound to see yet another adverse effect of the current state of unrest. And that the effects of this turmoil will likely be felt for many many years to come.

In the last few years, banks in Kenya have become admirably proactive in tailoring their products to cater to the specific needs of Kenyans. Is there no bank willing to quickly to put together a product where people can borrow against their shares?

And yes, I know share value goes up and down.

Duh.

Still.

Edit

* Pastor M informs me that Equity Bank has this exact product. Well alright then.It's my window, but I don't own the view.

4:00
Britain's high-risk drama of mixed-gender hospital wards, op-ed in the Independent
» ‎ Marian's Blog

Perhaps I am a "minority" as an American who believes it important to seek out news from and about the enormous world beyond one's own country. So today, Jan 31st, I stumbled upon an op-ed in The Independent where I...
4:00
Britain's high-risk drama of mixed-gender hospital wards, op-ed in the Independent
» ‎ Marian's Blog

Perhaps I am a "minority" as an American who believes it important to seek out news from and about the enormous world beyond one's own country. So today, Jan 31st, I stumbled upon an op-ed in The Independent where I...

3:52
Diary 25 - The obituary of Simiyu Barasa, written by himself
» ‎ Kenyan Pundit

Tags: kenyaelection07

DIARY BY SIMIYU BARASA When you find yourself talking with several guests of the morbid situation of your country during the wedding of one of your friends, you quickly realize there is something wrong with your country. When your National broadcasters show men being dragged out of public service vehicles and hacked to death by [...]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "Diary 25 - The obituary of Simiyu Barasa, written by himself", url: "http://www.kenyanpundit.com/?p=451" });

1:03
Kenya's Collapse
» ‎ The Benin Epilogue Part I: Africa-Ready for Business

A rigged election, ethnic violence, economic dysfunction and now a political assassination -- the crisis in Kenya has hit a sad superfecta. Worse, the politicians who loosed these forces don't look capable of reining them back in.

It's been a month since.......READ MORE

0:36
Dealing With a Hollow
» ‎ Cock And Bull

One of the reasons why we hold on to things despite our better judgment is because of the fear of loss. A person simple cannot bear the thought of the hollow that the absence will create.

How can a person look at a hole without seeing its emptiness? Simply by putting something inside the hole. A person can decide to take a young seedling and plant it inside a hole. And each time the person looks at the hole, in the place of the hollow he or she will see the young plant needing Love and care. And will then nurture it moment by moment.

When it comes to the emptiness of the heart, the best seedling to fill the hollow would be anything that has spiritual meaning. Jesus Christ for example, supported by the practices of reading the Bible, praying, contemplation and meditation can be an excellent way. And soon what seemed like unbearable emptiness turns out to become a source of joy and lifelong sustenance.

← January 30 (29 items) February 1 (14 items) →

DEMO Gods 2008	Erik’s Choices
Xtranormal	Silobreaker
Flypaper	Skyfire
Leapfrog	Ribbit Amphibian
Education.com	Seesmic
Vidyo	Vidyo
Erico Mobeam	Visible Measures
Sprout	Sprout
Green Plug	Good2Gether
Livescribe Pulse SmartPen	Livescribe Pulse SmartPen
BitGravity	BitGravity

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Tags: Kenyan PoliticsBusiness

Tags: post election analysis

Tags: Environment

Tags: Conferences

Tags: Conferences

Tags: Kenyan PoliticsBusiness

Tags: kenyaelection07