Africa’s best and brightest minds are leaving the continent in their millions.

“Africa could be the best place on earth, but instead our best and brightest minds are leaving the continent in their millions.” So says June Arunga, a 22-year-old Kenyan law student who’s facing the same dilemma. Should she stay or should she go?

To find an answer to that question, June embarked on a 5000-mile, six-week, soul-searching journey, travelling the length of Africa through Egypt, Sudan, Congo, Angola, Namibia and, finally, South Africa. Six conflict-riven countries that span the continent – from Cairo to Cape Town – and comprise ‘The Devil’s Footpath’.

Aid agencies, UN peacekeepers and even multinationals fly June into some of the continent’s bleakest war zones – meeting tribal chiefs, DJs, rappers, soldiers, miners, students, school kids and witch doctors. The journey is an emotional one, showing the very best and the very worst of Africa.

After six weeks June arrives in Cape Town – angry at the continent’s leaders, proud of everyday Africans and very confused. Can Desmond Tutu, one of Africa’s most respected statesmen, help June decide whether there is a future for her in

SOURCE: http://www.insightnewstv.com/footpath/

Kenya: How KQ Used Communication to Confront Crisis

It is one week and a few days since a Kenya Airways aircraft Boeing 737-800 heading to Nairobi, crushed into a think forest in Douala, Cameroon. By press time last week, only 80 bodies out of 114 had been recovered. Business Week’s BEN MOSES ILAKUT talked to KQ, Uganda Country Manager, Mr Daniel Maundu about the crisis and future of the region’s best performing airline. Below are excerpts:

How is the airline coping with the recent tragedy in which one of your aircrafts crushed killing all people on board?

It was an accident that we least expected. What we are doing now as a customer sensitive company is to communicate to all affected persons.

We set up a media centre at the Panari Hotel in Nairobi to communicate on the crisis immediately we learnt of the disappearance of the plane.

Our CEO Mr Titus Naikuni has since then had to update the public, the media and relatives on the latest developments after every three hours.

The President of Kenya Mr Mwai Kibaki was briefed by KQ managers on what was being done to address the post crisis situation. At this point communication is very important.

Other than communication what else are you up to?

We have gone further and set up five crisis centres.

There are three in Nairobi because it is the headquarters of the airline. Most of the passengers were on transit hoping to connect from Nairobi to other destinations. One centre is at the Intercontinental, another one at our headquarters in Embakasi and the other is at Jomo Kenyatta International airport.

The other crisis centres are in Johannesburg, South Africa and Douala Cameroon. In all these centres we have people working 24 hours with dedicated phone lines to attend to all affected persons. We have hired psychiatrists to receive relatives of the affected and take them through counselling, because they are traumatised by lose of relatives.

As we continue to communicate we also have to facilitate those who want to travel to the scene. Two nominated relatives of each of the deceased or next of kin are being facilitated to visit the scene. We will provide tickets, visa, accommodation and food for at least a week for kinsmen coming from any part of the world. Of course they have to be vetted by the crisis centres.

The centres have also become the official communication offices. Successful companies are increasingly being judged by how they communicate and how they manage crisis-it’s the biggest test.

What should your clients and well-wishers out there expect?

It’s business as usual now; we would like to assure the public that KQ is one of the only two IASO (International Operation Safety Audit) recognised airlines in Africa. And this is the highest recognition an airline can get in terms of safety.

Our commercial operations to Cameroon have continued, since then. Cameroon is a very critical, market for us because we fly to two cities; Douala and Younde.

We want to assure them that safety is supreme to us and we don’t compromise on it. We have in the past, for example, staked and lost [invested] millions of dollars to divert flights from Nairobi to Mombasa or Entebbe because of the early morning fog in Nairobi.

We have delayed flights for hours whenever we are not sure about even the slightest internal or external conditions. That means we have spent money to re-book passengers into hotels, pay for food and a few minutes of airtime and we will continue to do that. To us that is part of the business.

The crushed aircraft was one among three that were brought in December last year and was just beginning its sixth month of operation and has had no incident. In Cameroon it was delayed for one hour because of bad weather, before being cleared later.

Can you summarise Kenya Airways’ performance, particularly on the Entebbe- Nairobi route over the last quota?

Our financial year is April to March 31. We are soon publishing the performance results but generally we have been growing in the last three quarters of the year.

The passenger numbers have been growing at a rate of about 15% every year. Last year we broke the 2 million passenger mark because of the expansion.

What are KQ’s expectations; what new strategies do you have in place to achieve these expectations?

We will continue the growth trend. Later this month we are getting a new fleet of three Embraer 170 Jets, with a seating capacity of 72.

They are expected to help expand the domestic routes. The Embraer will replace the SAAB A340’s which will be retired from the Kenya Airways Fleet.

We are continuing to modernise, bringing in fleet that is fit for our business requirements. The network expansion will also continue. Recently we launched the Nairobi- Paris route and a number of other routes have been brought on board.

We added the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. In West Africa we have Cotonou, the capital of Benin and Monrovia in Liberia. In West Africa alone we now reach 11 destinations from nine previously in just one year.

In East Africa we have grown the list to nine points by three additions, notably Mauritius, the Comoros Islands of Moroni and Hahaya.

In Southern Africa we fly to six cities, in Northern Africa we fly to five routes. Of course we also fly to Asia, the Middle East, and Europe and operate domestic flights to Lamu, Kisumu, Malindi and Mombasa.

There is a general feeling that the Entebbe Nairobi route is overbooked most of the time, and that suggests low capacity. What is your take on this observation?

Let me explain how timing plays a role in the level of booking and pricing.

The 5:00am flight for example is crucial to many passengers because they are keen on catching their early morning connecting flights. The 3:00pm flight also crucially connects early evening departures, so you find them fully booked.

Similarly towards the weekend, especially Friday and Sunday, the bookings go up because social travel within the region peaks, so again there is tendency of full booking.

The 10:30 and 2:10 flights, however, are under booked during the week and you find many empty seats in the aircraft.

That is the only way you may view the capacity issue. It affects only peak hours. There is, however, a lot of room for clients to exploit day time flights because they get special rates.

Your passengers also complain of high cost. They say the Entebbe-Nairobi Route is the most expensive of all KQ operations. How would you explain that?

The fair from Entebbe to Nairobi has two components; namely the fair itself and the taxes.

Seven months ago, our lowest fair without taxes was US$225, now the lowest is $199. So you can see the reduction margin. Including taxes it was $315 and now is $289.

The other thing about fares is that they are not fixed.

We offer a spread of fares depending on the time of the day and the situation at booking time. When the booking is heavy, the fare becomes more competitive and when booking is low, competition goes down.

That means clients can benefit from discounts. KQ carries passengers to 44 destinations and so they are not necessarily Entebbe Nairobi passengers.

If for example we were flying strictly Entebbe- Nairobi, the fares would be extremely high. So it is not just a matter for Entebbe-Nairobi. Fares are mainly determined by operational costs like servicing, fuel etc.

What is KQ’s position on the single sky project?

The single sky project is more of a national/country project than the airline project.

KQ as a player will support any treaties that the Kenya government signs. Each country normally signs Bilateral Air Service Agreements, which determine how many times a flag carrier flies into another country.

As KQ, we will advice KAA and government on which bilateral agreements we should enter to foster business

What plans do you have for the Common Wealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)?

CHOGM is a great opportunity for Uganda and East Africa as a region. We definitely welcome it.

We are positioned well to bring in delegates and fly them back to their respective destinations. KQ covers most of the Commonwealth in Africa. We will also bring in other delegates from Europe, Asia. We will have to increase our capacity of aircraft and readiness. We are prepared to deploy enough aircraft depending on the demand. We will be flexible.

You are the official airline for the e-Leaning Conference at the end of this month in Nairobi, how come?

Conference tourism has been on the increase in East Africa, Nairobi has increasingly become a conference tourism destination.

The overall picture of benefit to the region motivated us to offer discounted rates to participants as long as the conference organisers introduce them to us.

It is under that policy that the e-learning conference is benefiting a 10% discount on all tickets to persons introduced to us by the organisers.

Child sex in Kenya: Kenyans are the biggest customers.

THIS POST HAS BEEN MOVED TO : http://myafricatoday.blogspot.com/2007/05/child-sex-in-kenya-kenyans-are-biggest.html

Wolfowitz’s Woes

Wolfowitz says keep focus on ‘important work’ of World Bank, not controversy

WASHINGTON (AP) – World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz said Wednesday that attention should be “focused on the very, very important work of the bank” and not on the investigation that has put his job in jeopardy.

His comments to a European Union-hosted meeting in Brussels, Belgium, came after the bank’s board expressed fresh concern that the controversy over Wolfowitz’s handling of pay for his girlfriend, Shaha Riza, was hurting the poverty-fighting institution’s ability to do its job.

The flap has led to calls for Wolfowitz’s resignation and has hurt morale among the bank’s 10,000 employees worldwide. Critics contend the bank’s reputation has been damaged and its efforts to raise billions of dollars to help poor countries may be hobbled.

“The bank’s work goes on,” Wolfowitz said. “It is critical, there are millions of poor people who depend on us.”

The 24-member board, after meeting several hours with a special panel probing Wolfowitz’s handling of the 2005 promotion and pay package of bank employee Riza, issued a statement late Tuesday saying it is “very concerned about the impact on the work” of the poverty-fighting institution.

For the past two days, the special panel has heard from Wolfowitz, Riza and other present and former bank officials about her promotion and pay raises that lifted her compensation from about US$133,000 to $193,590.

The board said the next step is for that panel to “draw its conclusions from the information obtained from the documents and during the course of the interviews” and submit a report to the directors expeditiously. The panel met Wednesday to work on its report.

Ultimately, the directors will decide what action should be taken, if any. The board could ask Wolfowitz to resign, signal it lacks confidence in his leadership, reprimand him, or take no action. There might also be a compromise under which Wolfowitz would be found to have acted in good faith and he would resign later.

The board promised to make a decision soon.

Wolfowitz dodged questions about his fate, saying, “The board is considering this issue.”

Riza had worked at the bank for eight years when Wolfowitz arrived in 2005. She was moved to the State Department to avoid a conflict of interest but stayed on the bank’s payroll. Her pay increases spurred allegations among staff that Wolfowitz showed favouritism to her.

Wolfowitz has maintained he acted in good faith in helping to secure the compensation package. He said the package’s details were not dictated by him but rather “flowed from the back-and-forth negotiating process” between the bank’s human resources chief and Riza, who had her own counsel in the matter.

He said he had received guidance from the bank’s ethics officials and that they had access to all of the details of the package “if they wanted it.”

The bank’s former top ethics official, Ad Melkert, however, disputed that, saying the bank’s ethics committee wasn’t consulted and didn’t approve Riza’s compensation package. The bank’s former general counsel, Robert Danino, also said he believed Wolfowitz acted “incorrectly” in helping arrange Riza’s compensation package.

© The Canadian Press 2007

Do you like Japan? Japan doesn’t like foreigners

The Apocrypha

Apocrypha (from the Greek word απόκρυφα meaning “those having been hidden away”[1]) are texts of uncertain authenticity or writings where the authorship is questioned.

In Judeo-Christian theology, the term apocrypha refers to any collection of scriptural texts that falls outside the canon. Given that different denominations have different ideas about what constitutes valid scripture, there are several different versions of the apocrypha.

During sixteenth-century controversies over the biblical canon the word “apocrypha” acquired a negative connotation, and it has become a synonym for “spurious” or “false”. This usage usually involves fictitious or legendary accounts that are plausible enough to commonly be considered as truth. For example, the Parson Weems account of George Washington and the cherry tree is considered apocryphal.

The term “apocrypha” has evolved in meaning somewhat, and its associated implications have ranged from positive to pejorative.

[edit] Esoteric writings

The word “apocryphal” (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied, in a positive sense, to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered too profound or too sacred to be disclosed to anyone other than the initiated.

It is used in this sense to describe A Holy and Secret Book of Moses, called Eighth, or Holy (Μωυσέως ἱερὰ βίβλος ἀπόκρυφος ἐπικαλούμενη ὀγδόη ἢ ἁγία), a text taken from a Leiden papyrus of the third or fourth century AD, but which may be as old as the first century. In a similar vein, the disciples of the Gnostic Prodicus boasted that they possessed the secret (ἀπόκρυφα) books of Zoroaster. The term in general enjoyed high consideration among the Gnostics (see Acts of Thomas, 10, 27, 44)[1].

4 Ezra is, in its author’s view, a secret work whose value was greater than that of the canonical scriptures because of its transcendent revelations of the future. Gregory of Nyssa, in Oratio in suam ordinationem, labels the words of St. John in the New Testament Book of Revelation as ἐν ἀποκρύφοις [2].

[edit] Questionable writings

“Apocrypha” was also applied to writings that were hidden not because of their divinity but because of their questionable value to the church.

Origen, in Commentaries on Matthew, X. 18, XIII. 57, distinguishes between writings which were read by the churches and apocryphal writings: γραφη μη φερομενη μεν εν τοις κοινοις και δεδημοσιευμενοις βιβλιοις εικος δ ὁτι εν αποκρυφοις φερομενη. The meaning of αποκρυφος is here practically equivalent to “excluded from the public use of the church”, and prepares the way for an even less favourable use of the word[3].

[edit] Spurious writings

The word “apocrypha” came finally to mean “false, spurious, bad, or heretical.”

This meaning also appears in Origen’s prologue to his commentary on the Song of Songs: De scripturis his, quae appellantur apocryphae, pro eo quod multa in iis corrupta et contra fidem veram inveniuntur a majoribus tradita non placuit iis dari locum nec admitti ad auctoritatem. [4] “Concerning these scriptures, which are called apocryphal, for the reason that many things are found in them corrupt and against the true faith handed down by the elders, it has pleased them that they not be given a place nor be admitted to authority.” (Translation by a Wikipedia editor.)

[edit] Other meanings

In addition to the above, other uses of “apocrypha” developed over the history of Western Christianity.

The Gelasian Decree refers to religious works by church fathers Eusebius, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria as “apocrypha.” Augustine defined the word as meaning simply “obscurity of origin,” implying that any book of unknown authorship or questionable authenticity would be considered as apocrypha. On the other hand, Jerome (in Protogus Galeatus) declared that all books outside the Hebrew canon were apocryphal [5]. In practice, however, Jerome treated some books outside the Hebrew canon as if they were canonical, and the Western Church did not accept Jerome’s definition of apocrypha, instead retaining the word’s prior meaning (see: Deuterocanon). As a result, various church authorities labeled different books as apocrypha, and treated apocryphal books with varying levels of regard.

Many of the Greek fathers included some apocryphal books in the Septuagint with little distinction made between them and the rest of the Old Testament. Origen, Clement and others cited some apocryphal books as “scripture”, “divine scripture”, “inspired”, and the like. On the other hand, teachers connected with Palestine and familiar with the Hebrew canon excluded from the canon all of the Old Testament not found there. This view is reflected in the canon of Melito of Sardis, and in the prefaces and letters of Jerome [6].

A third view was that the books were not as valuable as the canonical scriptures of the Hebrew collection, but were of value for moral uses and to be read in congregations. They were referred to as “ecclesiastical” works by Rufinus [7].

These three opinions regarding the apocryphal books prevailed until the Protestant Reformation, when the idea of what constitutes canon became a matter of primary concern for Roman Catholics and Protestants alike.

In 1546 the Catholic Council of Trent adopted the canon of Augustine, declaring “He is also to be anathema who does not receive these entire books, with all their parts, as they have been accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church, and are found in the ancient editions of the Latin Vulgate, as sacred and canonical.” The whole of the books in question, with the exception of 1st and 2nd Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses, were declared canonical at Trent[8].

The Protestants, in comparison, universally held the belief that only the books in the Hebrew collection were canonical. John Wycliffe, a 14th century reformer, had declared in his Biblical translation that “whatever book is in the Old Testament besides these twenty-five shall be set among the apocrypha, that is, without authority or belief” [9]. Nevertheless, his translation of the Bible included the apocrypha.[2]

The respect accorded to apocryphal books varied between Protestant denominations. In both the German (1537) and English (1535) translations of the Bible, the apocrypha are published in a separate section from the other books. In some editions, (like the Westminster), readers were warned that these books were not “to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings.” A milder distinction was expressed elsewhere, such as in the “argument” introducing them in the Geneva Bible, and in the Sixth Article of the Church of England, where it is said that “the other books the church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners,” though not to establish doctrine [10].

Apocryphal Texts by Denomination
Jewish apocrypha

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