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• February 27, 2009
• 19:41

  Running Scared?

   » ‎ You Missed This
  Remember Joseph Kamau, former head of the CID who had a problem coping with police commissioner Major General Hussein Ali and ended up being fired?
  
  Well the man has made a dramatic resurfacing act and is now President Kibaki’s new special advisor on security affairs. As usual the man raffled feathers the minute he landed on the job by calling for the immediate sacking of the head of the president’s security detail. I was unable to establish the reason why Mr Kamau wanted the man gotten rid of but am still doing some digging.
  
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  Kumekucha titbits: Did you know that corporate team building programmes have been known to turn around previously loss-making companies the world over?
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  Kamau’s appointment at a time when the security of the two principals has been drastically increased poses some interesting questions that beg for answers. The current political situation in the country not withstanding, why did somebody feel it necessary to increase the security detail to unprecedented levels a few months ago? This was long before the so-called terror threat on the Prime Minister. Does the intelligence community have information suggesting that the executive would be under some sort of threat? What do they know that the rest of us do not know about this matter?
  
  Meanwhile recent surveys by various organizations have confirmed what I have reported in this blog as the general feelings of Kenyans on the ground at the moment. For instance the popularity of the principals has sunk to an all-time low with most Kenyans firm in the belief that the coalition government has achieved absolutely nothing since coming to power about a year ago. Kenyans would also like to return to the polls as soon as possible (as impractical as that may seem at the moment.)Kumekucha

  

  

• 17:48

  PediaPress | Print Your Favorite Wikipedia Articles As Books

   » ‎ citizen.africa
  Techcruch carried an interesting note on how you can create a book by importing wikipedia pages. What is great is that you can create a book on any topic, sort information by chapters and PediaPress takes care of typesetting, printing and shipping. PediaPress allows you to download the PDF or OpenDocument format free of charge. This [...]

• 13:19

  Bob Mathews: Obituary of a Reincarnated Broker

   » ‎ KA-INVESTOR
  
  Bob Mathews Stockbrokers seems to have failed to learn from its past and has once again been suspended from trading at the NSE for 10 working days. A limited liability company, Bob was incorporated on 6th April 1994 and licensed by the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) on 1st July 1994 and become a full member of the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) and Central Depository Agent (CDA) of the Central Depository and Settlement Corporation (CDSC). Due to liquidity problems Bob only managed to operate for one year before closing down (suspended) in 1995.
  
  13 years later, in 2007, Bob Mathews (surprisingly) reopened its doors to the public in the middle of a bull-run. As tradition would have it the broker (among other five) was once again faced with liquidity problems a year later after failing to fulfill some very basic requirements for license renewal by the CMA. Bob was let off the suspension hook at the last minute. Fate has finally had its way and now the broker faces a threat of being permanently suspended from the NSE once again.
  
  
  

• 12:37

  Tortoise and Rabbit: Truth at The Speed of Night

   » ‎ Kenya Imagine

  Martha is now an ordinary politician.

  
  Martha was telling porkies: Eric Ng'eno makes the case, and predicts dire reputational consequences.
• 12:34

  A plea for partisans

   » ‎ Kenya Imagine
  Partisans of the right kind are necessary for robust and principled debate. Kenya badly needs robust and principled debate. Therefore Kenya needs partisans. Stephen Wanyama fleshes out the argument.
• 12:31

  Unsung Peace Heroes of the PEV

   » ‎ Kenya Imagine

  Violent demonstrations and clashes between various ethnic groups broke out across the city. Images of policemen firing at protestors dominated both the local and international media for weeks but stories like Esther's went mostly untold.

  
  Dipesh attempts to change that.

• 12:27

  SEACOM: Connecting Africa To The World

   » ‎ Kenyanentrepreneur.com

  Tags:  Kenyan PoliticsBusiness  

  So, it looks like this under-sea cable is finally going to get to Kenya and people are excited about it.  According to the SEACOM site, it will own 65% of the company while a local partner (who might that be?) will own 35% of the company. Everyone thinks this cable line is going to drastically [...]

• 11:20

  Lift09: Vint Cerf

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Ideas  

  To say that I feel so lucky is an understatement. Let me just get this out of the way “omg omg omg I am listening to Vint Cerf speak!’
  Predictions
  There will be millions of devices plugged into the internet. For example a sensor for his wine cellar, E.gArch Rock - Actuator’s needed to make the sensor turn it back on.
  DNSSEC will have increased importance in the security of the web.

  Vint loves sensors. He goes through a list of sensors he could add to his wine cellar, even the wine bottles.

  IPV6
  It is my fault that we ran out of IP address space - Laughter from the audience.

  cloud computing introduces the internet problem all over again. How can clouds talk to each other?

  well, just watch this for yourself? I am seriously in awe. InterPlaNet sounds fantastically cool. In watching his talk, i am reminded to be curious, keep your mind expanding just like the universe is. I hope to see Interstellar internet at some point. If he’s not losing packets with InterPlanet, my guess is Insterstellar internet would be just as successful.

  Watch:

   

• 10:09

  Exhibition, Concert, Performance Poetry and Documentary at Alliance Francaise in March,09

   » ‎ Kenyanpoet
  Exhibition
  7 – 15 March
  An exhibition of artworks (two dimensional, three dimensional, video and performance art) by women artists who are stretching the boundaries of imagination and using their art to vehicle social messages.
  
  Concert
  Sat. 7 March, 7pm
  Alliance Française gardens, Entrance Free
  A music concert showcasing some of the Spotlight on Kenyan music women finalists: Benta Ageng’a, Bismilahi Gargar, Cheptab, Zippy Okoth, who will be joined by their role models in the afro-fusion genre including Achien’g Abura, Iddi Achien’g, Nina Ogot, Sally Oyugi and Suzanne Gachukia.
  
  Cinemalliance
  Mon. 9th March, 6pm,
  Alliance Française auditorium, Entrance free
  ‘Subira’ by Ravneet Chadha (Winner of 8 International awards), is the story of a young rebellious girl who struggles against conformity in search of freedom. Ravneet worked as a financial adviser and only took to film making in her early 40s, breaking away from set traditions expected of an Indian woman, in order to fulfill her need for creative freedom.
  
  ‘Killer Necklace’ by Judy Kibinge (MNET New Directions film) is a twisted tale of desire and deceit set in a modern African city where a lover will risk anything in an effort to win his woman’s heart. Judy Kibinge was Creative Director of one of East Africa’s largest agencies before starting her filmmaking career. Her other fictional films include ‘The Aftermath’, ‘Dangerous Affair’ and ‘Project Daddy’ besides several documentaries on human rights, wildlife and environmental issues.
  
  Dramatized performance poetry
  Tue. 10th March, 7.30pm, 1000/-
  ‘Cut off my tongue’ is based on poetry by Sitawa Namwalie and is a dramatized poetry show that incorporates spoken narrative, music, dance and movement. Performed by eight versatile women from different professional backgrounds, whose love for the Arts has brought them together; the show critiques today’s society for a better tomorrow.
  
  The poet, also known as Betty Wamalwa Muragori, is a mother, a wife, an environmentalist in her daily existence and is the brain behind the programme ‘Building Bridges of Understanding’ that is reaching out across ethnic groups who were in conflict, one of the causes of the post election violence of 2008.
  For tickets to this poetry event, write to me kenyanpoet(at)gmail.(dot)com
  
  Documentary
  Wed. 11 March, 7pm,
  Alliance Française gardens, Entrance free
  ‘Umoja, a Village forbidden to men’, is a documentary by Jean-Marc Sainclair and Jean Crouisllac.
  (Winner of the 2009 Silver FIPA award in the “Grands Reportages” category at the International Festival of Audiovisual programmes – Festival International des Programmes Audiovisuel)
  
  The film tells the story of brave Samburu women who were allegedly raped by British soldiers based in Northern Kenya between 1970 and 2003. Dishonored, the women were beaten by their husbands and renounced. A group of them built, Umoja, which becomes the refuge of Samburu women. Jealous men regularly attack their village.
  
  The founder of the village, Rebecca Lolosoli, will introduce the film.
• 10:02

  Performance: Dance Works - Fernado Anuang'a & Jaya Pachauri @ Alliance, 4th March

   » ‎ Kenyanpoet
  DANCE WORKS
  Wed. 4th March,
  Alliance Française gardens, 7pm,
  Entrance 400/-
  
  Following the very successful Indo-Masai fusion dance show at Alliance Française on Wed. 18th Feb, Fernando Anuang’a and Jaya Pachauri get together with 8 Kenyan contemporary dancers, to present their dance works following a cross-cultural dance workshop.
• 10:01

  Visual & Performing Arts: Unity Through Diversity - A Kenyan Perspective, Alliance Francaise, 2-8th March

   » ‎ Kenyanpoet
  UNITY THROUGH DIVERSITY – A KENYAN PERSPECTIVE
  an exhibition of artworks
  Presented by the Embassy of the United States of America
  2 – 8 March
  Alliance Française ground floor gallery
  
  The United States celebrates its many cultures - native and immigrant - throughout the year. On 20 January, America highlighted this diversity in a unique way with the inauguration of its first bi-racial president on the day after Martin Luther King, Jr Day. To mark US-Kenya mutual respect for diversity, the US Embassy invited artists to submit representations on the theme in song, poetry, visual arts and dance. This exhibition is a display of the winning artworks.
• 9:58

  Cinema: The Black Candle- Alliance Francaise, 2nd March 6pm

   » ‎ Kenyanpoet
  The Black Candle
  by M.K Asante Jr., (1h11min)
  a Pamoja Film inititive
  Alliance Francaise
  Monday 2 March, 6pm
  in English, Entrance Free
  
  The Black Candle is an extraordinary, inspirational story about the struggle and triumph of African-American family, community, and culture. It is the first feature film on Kwanzaa (the week long cultural holiday honoring Africa heritage observed from 26 Dec. to 1 Jan. and dedicated to the seven principles of Kwanzaa: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), Imani (Faith).

• 8:33

  Cactus eating bull saves Kenyan drylands

   » ‎ AfriGadget

  Tags:  Community  

  Cows are playing an important role in land restoration in Baringo by eating up the invasive prickly pear cactus a nasty invasive plant that is destroying the drylands. It’s not obvious at all for cows to eat this thorny cactus, but Murry Roberts and his wife Elizabeth Meyerhoff told me about an amazing project that their organization, RAE (Rehabilitation of Arid Environments) has been working on. A few years ago they discovered that a local farmer had a bull that not only ate the nasty exotic thorny ugly, plant, but also taught other cows to go for it too.

  

  Mwalimu cow eating prickly pear

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  This is very surprising because any self respecting cow, a sheep or a goat will not touch the nasty prickly pear. The farmer had aptly named his cow Mwalimu (Mwa-lee-moo  means Teacher in Kiswahili) because it taught other cows to eat the prickly pear .

  

  Prickly pear

  

  Prickly pear Tunas for sale in Morocco

  Prickly pear (Opuntia ficus indica) is origninally from Mexico and is an economically important species of cactus – the red/purple fruit known as tuna’s are much sought after in many parts of the world. It has been cultivated in many parts of Africa as a hedge, but has become a serious pest because it spreads rapidly degrading ranch lands, and is very difficult to control. As a result, Opuntia eating cows are hugely important in the drylands of Kenya.

  How did this farmer get his cow to eat Opuntia? During the drought of 1999 - 2000 grassy fields were reduced to bare earth and cows had nothing left to eat were dying of starvation leading to widespread famine. The story goes that one farmer persuaded his bull to eat the leaves after he had burned off the thorns. Opuntia are 80% water and if one can get past the thorns, the plant is quite nutritious . The other starving cows watched the bull and then followed suit thus saving the herd and the farmer who has never looked back. The thorns are burnt off using wood from another nasty invasive species, Prosopis juliflora - making this an eco-friendly project all round.

  As part of RAE’s rehabilitation of Baringo’s drylands, and to make multiply the value of mwalimu bull to other farmers RAE bought the bull and during droughts, Mwalimu goes from one homestead to another teaching herds of cattle how to eat Opuntia, thereby saving hundreds of cattle and people from starvation. For Mwalimu it’s a job that saved his life - he is too valuable to be turned into beef burgers!

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  The cutting and use of Opuntia and Prosopis is also important in controlling these invasive species which have been planted as live fences, but which are fast becoming weeds in the degraded Baringo lowlands. Apart from prickly pear eating cows RAE also restore grasslands and eliminate soil erosion in an innovative project that has huge application across the drylands of Africa. We met women who were doubling their money by buying and fattening cows on restored grasslands in a 3 month period!

  For more information, check it out here RAE Trust
  

  You can also contribute to the good work of RAE by helping us spread the word and share this great innovation through your blog, facebook, twitter, digg, or stumble. Thanks!

• 4:09

  Selling Income

   » ‎ Startups in Kenya

  Tags:  entrepreneur challenges  

  One of the greatest challenges I have faced in my time as an entrepreneur is what to do after a large paycheck. Surprised? I was too at first , and it's even worse if you have been waiting for that payment for some time. With money in the bank, you rationalise with yourself of the 1001 things that need to be purchased, and they all demand high priority allocation.
  
  Of course, this is a psychological condition that can easily be averted by careful planning beforehand. When it happened to me I tried to avoid the extravagance that accompanies large income inflows by investing the money as quickly as I could.
  
  When SoftLaw sold the laws of Kenya to the judiciary I discovered why having the government as a customer can be very rewarding. Relatively prompt payment, many zeroes in the payment, and a very appreciative customer.
  
  With our newly expanded bank account, we knew that we had to quickly invest the funds or we would be sucked into a vicious and wasteful consumption given our still University of Nairobi residential address and crushing social expectation to bling. Genius Executive Centre (www.geniuscentre.com) helped to mop up these excess funds and assured that in future we would have a relatively stable and recurrent income.
  
  My only regret is that in our rush to dispose ourselves of excess funds we also made several investing faux pas: like putting up several quarter page ads in the media when classifieds would have done the trick; importing sophisticated PABX machinery from Europe when locally available equipment was sufficient and leasing furniture instead of buying. Fortunately we were able to correct most of these as we went on.
  
  One thing we have not yet done but have always wanted to do is expand to other locations. Setting up a business centre however is a costly affair, and to finance our expansion we have decided to sell the future rights of income for two-thirds of Genius Executive Centre.
  
  Here is the ad as it appears in today's Daily Nation back page
  
  
  By leveraging the future income of the offices at GEC we intend to expand to Nakuru by mid this year and Eldoret before the end of the year. Admittedly this is a new concept in Kenya but that is what SoftLaw is all about, pioneering.

• 4:08

  Lift09: Natalie Jeremijenko

   » ‎ Afromusing

  Tags:  Architecture  

  

  Natalie would like imagine a future where environmental matters are not framed as something ‘other’ something far away. When a storm hits and a city is flooded, the act of nature can be framed as something that is part of climate change, yet it could be a failure of infrastructure.

  There was a time when there were 350 industrial chemicals in breast milk, because of industrial pollution.

  Children in America now have increased rates of Asthma, developmental delays, childhood diabetes and cancer. All these diseases can be traced to environmental contaminants yet peadiatricians are not trained to deal with these diseases, they were trained to deal with mumps and the like.

  The environmental health clinic ‘office’ was set up using left over plastic bottles with a polyresin-like ‘floor’. she had it floating on the Hudson river.

  She uses performance art to make a point about environmental issues. Case in point, she came up with a name-a-tadpole project where she assigned names of local EPA(Environmental Protection Agency) reps to the tadpoles. She then made a plastic container to ‘walk’ the tadpole. so when someone asks her “Why are you walking a tadpole?” or “what is your tadpole’s name?’ She can initiate a conversation about the environment, that could even lead to the discussion on why there is a 2 1/2 year drop in the age of puberty in young girls. All these things can be tied to environmental contaminants.

  Mice are great biosamples. Your urine sample may not really give you much info about your contaminants, but if you had a mouse in your house, checking its bio-profile would give you information about lead levels and other environmental counters.
  She set up a mouse trap and set up sections for mice to have a choice for drinking water with zoloft, plain water, vodka or gin. The mice drank the vodka. (please check her site for a better description of this project)

  The greenlight is a solar awning powered suspended domestic lighting fixture that uses vegetation to diffuse light and reduce indoor house pollutants.

  

  In the past when nuclear threats were a big issue, there were designs for bomb shelters, which were then included in building plans. What would a bomb shelter for the climate crisis look like?

  

  *If you have the Best of Technology Writing 2007, there is a good piece about her. Fascinating work.