Great quotes in World history

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“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”

Epicurus quotes (Greek philosopher, BC 341-270)


"Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty”

Socrates quotes (Ancient Greek Philosopher, 470 BC-399 BC)


"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, "Mother, what was war?"

Eve Merriam (American poet, 1916-1992)


“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”

John C. Maxwell (International speaker)


“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.”

Jesse Jackson (Civil rights activist)


"Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French philosopher, 1712-1778)

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Malcolm X defending justice of the innocent

Malcolm X appears on a television show in Chicago called "City Desk" on March 17, 1963.

Former 'Child soldier' at Camp Delta on trial

In the second of his dispatches from the US prison camp, Robert Verkaik witnesses Guantanamo's legal process in action

The full-bearded man, tall and well-built, who shuffled into a military court in Guantanamo Bay yesterday hardly lived up to the description of "child soldier".

Omar Khadr was just 15 when he was captured by US forces on the battlefields of Afghanistan in July 2002.

He has matured from a vulnerable adolescent to a grown man while serving a third of his life at the US naval base in Cuba, in conditions which have been universally condemned by the outside world.

Yesterday Mr Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was taken from his cell at Guantanamo's Camp 4 and driven across the peninsula to a converted Second World War control tower which is being used for his trial – the first Guantanamo trial under President Barack Obama.

The case is being seen as a test of Mr Obama's commitment to ending the injustices and abuses carried out in the name of America's "war on terror", but the very fact that the discredited military commissions are still in business is prima facie evidence that Mr Obama lacks the political will to honour his post- election human rights pledge. Escorted by US navy guards, Mr Khadr was taken past the barbed wire fences and watch towers of Camp Justice. Shortly after 9am local time he emerged, arm-in-arm with two soldiers, from a side door of the court chamber. The steel chain fixtures poking through the red carpet were the only physical clue that this was not an ordinary American civil courtroom.

Mr Khadr, unshackled, and wearing a baggy white T-shirt and billowing white trousers, lumbered down the far side of the court until he was placed in his seat by three guards, next to his family lawyer, the Scottish-Canadian barrister Dennis Edney, and two seats down from his military commission- appointed advocate, Lieutenant-Colonel Jon Jackson. Mr Khadr's white US-issue uniform conferred a status of "highly compliant" detainee. He sat quietly crouched over his paperwork carefully following all the arguments and developments in the case. Guards were posted throughout the courtroom, including the spectators' gallery. Lt-Col Jackson told the court that, eight years ago, shortly after his capture in Afghanistan, it was men in American uniforms who tortured a confession out of Mr Khadr.

Mr Khadr alleges that he was hung up on a door frame, threatened with rape, urinated on and used by one soldier as a human mop to clean the floor. Yesterday Lt-Col Jackson told the judge, Colonel Pat Parish, that any confession Mr Khadr may have made cannot be relied upon.

At a press conference before the start of the trial, Lt-Col Jackson said the whole process was tainted with unfairness. "When Barak Obama became President we thought he was going to close the book on Guantanamo... but President Obama has decided to write the next sad, pathetic chapter of the military commissions," he told a group of journalists gathered in a former Guantanamo airfield hanger.

This view is supported by the US government's decision to press ahead with a second "war on terror" case, a few hundred yards from the Khadr courtroom, another military commission was hearing the case against Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, a Sudanese detainee who pleaded guilty last month to one count each of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Qosi, who appeared unshackled in the courtroom built to try the 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was accused of acting as accountant, paymaster, supply chief and cook for al-Qai'da during the 1990s, when the terror network was centred in Sudan and Afghanistan. He allegedly worked later as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.

The 50-year-old from Sudan faced a potential life sentence if convicted at trial. Terms of the plea deal, including any limits on his sentence, have not been disclosed. The judge ruled yesterday that any sentence will be served in the more relaxed communal environment of Camp 4.

But it is the case of the child soldier Omar Khadr that has grabbed the attention of the world. He is youngest detainee in Guantanamo Bay, where he is charged with terrorist acts for al-Qai'da and the killing of a US Special Forces soldier. If he is convicted he will be only the fifth of nearly 800 suspects held at the infamous detention centre to be successfully prosecuted under the controversial US military commission system begun under former president George Bush six years ago. Mr Khadr, now 23, is accused of throwing a grenade that killed the US army Sergeant Christopher Speer of Albuquerque, New Mexico, during a 2002 firefight in Afghanistan. He faces a maximum life sentence if convicted of charges including murder and terrorist conspiracy.

Navy Captain David Iglesias, a former federal prosecutor and also part of the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps, told journalists that, if Mr Khadr is convicted of serious charges, "the government will ask for [a] life" term in prison.

But the Canadian's lawyers deny that he threw the grenade and argue that Mr Khadr should be treated as a victim rather than a combatant, as all child soldiers from the numerous conflicts in Africa are treated under international law today. Mr Khadr was badly injured after his capture, sustaining bullet wounds in his back and further injuries from an exploding grenade.

And it was while he was still fully recovering from his wounds at the Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan that he claims he was subjected to torture. Mr Jackson told the judge yesterday: "Without question Omar Khadr was subjected to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment... By the time he left Bagram he was broken... Broken because of the actions of people wearing uniform, like you or me." He added: "This case goes to who we are as soldiers – [what] we have learned about what is right and wrong."

Mr Jackson then pleaded with the judge to "stand up for the rule of law". Whatever the outcome of the case, Mr Khadr feels he has been deserted by his own country. The Canadian government has steadfastly refused to intervene in his detention and bring him home, leaving him to face the full weight of the US military law.
In May Omar Khadr wrote a letter to one of his Canadian lawyers, Dennis Edney, to say he was resigned to a harsh sentence from a system that he sees as unfair. Mr Khadr wrote: "It might work if the world sees the US sentencing a child to life in prison, it might show the world how unfair and sham this process is."

Guantanamo trials: Obama's reforms still leave concerns

The controversial system for trying Guantanamo detainees was first devised under the presidency of George W Bush. It was set up in 2006 to try terror suspects under separate rules from established civilian or military courts. Originally, they comprised between five and 12 US serving military officers. A conviction required agreement between two-thirds of the commission. For a death sentence there had to be the unanimity all 12 commission members. Hearsay evidence and evidence obtained under coercion was allowed if it were deemed to have "probative value". At this time "waterboarding" or simulated drowning was not classified as torture by the Bush administration.

The most famous defendant to face the tribunal is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man who admitted being the architect of the September 11 attacks. But his case has been suspended.

The courts were finally struck down by the US Supreme Court, which found them to be unconstitutional. When Barack Obama was elected President in 2009 he suspended all military commissions as part of his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay. But in a shock move last year the US Government decided to resume hearings under a modified format.

Under the new Obama tribunals, statements that have been obtained from detainees using "cruel, inhuman and degrading interrogation methods" will no longer be admitted as evidence at trial. The use of hearsay evidence is limited and the accused will have "greater latitude" in selecting his counsel.

But despite these changes, Mr Obama's reforms have failed to satisfy human rights groups that they can be relied upon to secure safe and reliable convictions. The federal courts are seen as the best way to proceed to justice in the few remaining cases ready for trial.

Source; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/on-trial-child-soldier-who-grew-up-in-camp-delta-2048115.html?action=Popup

The principle of Self-determination

SPEECH (EXCERPTS) OF THE PRESIDENT ADEN ABDULLE OSMAN GIVEN AT A STATE DINNER IN HONOUR OF MR. JOMO KENYATTA OF KANU PARTY.

MOGADISHU, 28 JULY 1962.

“…The principle of self-determination, when used properly to unify and enlarge an existing state with a view towards its absorption in a federal system of government is neither balkanization nor fragmentation. It is a major contribution to unity and stability, and totally consistent with the concept of Pan-Africanism”.

“A desire for unity must be matched by a willingness to sacrifice a measure of sovereignty, and to remold the machinery of government to absorb new political and administrative methods. I say that, not to alarm or discourage, but because I think it is time that our continent of Africa took a more practical and realistic view of the problems that have been created by the after effects of colonialism and their relations to a closer political association of African States”.

There are some lessons to be learned from the short but nonetheless profitable experiences of this Republic; because we can claim with justice that we have made a unique, practical contribution to African unity by merging two independent African states into one-even against the established prejudices of interested powers. I do not have to enumerate the colonial-made problems that we have encountered in the field of fiscal, judicial, linguistic and administrative integration because they still preoccupy us and are too well known. But I would like to underline three lessons”.

“First--as a prerequisite to either a federal system or a total union of states, it is necessary to accept, as we have done in Article Six of our constitution, limitations of sovereignty on conditions of parity with other states.

“Second—we have learned that the outmoded concept of territorial integrity must vanish from our habitual thinking because its roots are embedded in colonialism, and it is incompatible with Pan-Africanism”.

“Third—we have learned of a cardinal principle underlying the effectiveness or otherwise of a political union between two independent states. It is this: the ordinary person must be able to identify himself and his interests with the new order, on economic, ethnic and cultural grounds”.

“It is this last lesson that is perhaps the hardest to learn but, if we Africans are proud to take our place as a democratic people in the comity of nations, we must do more than pay lip-service to the feelings of the ordinary man and woman in our society. We claim, many of us, to be African leaders and socialists. This implies that, through our wisdom and understanding, men will follow us, and, by the equity of our laws, our people will have equal rights and opportunities”.

“Regrettably, it is becoming commonplace in Africa today to accept the development of a privileged class of rulers, with the instincts of colonialists, as a substitute from government by the people. This is one of the after effects of colonial rule. But it is my duty to give this warning to my colleagues in Africa: it will be the unwillingness of African rulers to curb their powers and to lift their artificial colonial boundaries, that will frustrate the hopes and desires of the ordinary people of Africa to be led out of isolation and ignorance into the greater union of African States”.

“I am sorry to have had to end on a not of caution, but there is too much at stake, in the prevention of the kind of tragedies that beset our brothers in the Congo, for me to refrain from bringing unpalatable facts to your notice. Of course, I hope these forebodings will not materialize, but they exist for those who have the eyes to see and the care to understand”.

President: Aden Abdulle Osman

Source; http://www.jstor.org/pss/159750

Che Guevara on Imperialism

The story of Abu Dahdah

Barack Obama's policy on Somalia

9/11 Conspiracy theory in a nutshell

Imam Ahmed ibn Ibrahim Al Ghazi - The legendary hero of East Africa

Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (Arabic: أحمد بن إبراهيم ال غازي‎) (c. 1507 – February 21, 1543) ("the Conqueror") was an Imam and General of Adal who invaded Ethiopia and defeated several Ethiopian Emperors, wreaking much damage on that kingdom. With the help of an army mainly composed of East Africans, Imam Ahmad (nicknamed Gurey in Somali and Gragn in Amharic (Graññ), both meaning "the left-handed"), embarked on a conquest which brought three-quarters of Ethiopia under the power of the Muslim Sultanate of Adal during the Ethiopian-Adal War from 1529-43.

The chronicle of Imam Ahmad's invasion of Ethiopia is depicted in various Somali, Ethiopian and other foreign sources. Imam Ahmad campaigned in Ethiopia in 1531, breaking Emperor Lebna Dengel's ability to resist in the Battle of Amba Sel on October 28. The Muslim army of Imam Ahmad then marched northward to loot the island monastery of Lake Hayq and the stone churches of Lalibela. When the Imam entered the province of Tigray, he defeated an Ethiopian army that confronted him there. On reaching Axum, he destroyed the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, in which the Ethiopian emperors had for centuries been crowned.

The Ethiopians were forced to ask for help from the Portuguese, who landed at the port of Massawa on February 10, 1541, during the reign of the emperor Gelawdewos. The force was led by Cristóvão da Gama and included 400 musketeers as well as a number of artisans and other non-combatants. Da Gama and Imam Ahmad met on April 1, 1542 at Jarte, which Trimingham has identified with Anasa, between Amba Alagi and Lake Ashenge. Here the Portuguese had their first glimpse of Ahmad, as recorded by Castanhoso:

"While his camp was being pitched, the king of Zeila [Imam Ahmad] ascended a hill with several horse and some foot to examine us: he halted on the top with three hundred horse and three large banners, two white with red moons, and one red with a white moon, which always accompanied him, and by which he was recognized."

On April 4, after the two unfamiliar armies had exchanged messages and stared at each other for a few days, da Gama formed his troops into an infantry square and marched against the Imam's lines, repelling successive waves of Muslim attacks with musket and cannon. This battle ended when Imam Ahmad was wounded in the leg by a chance shot; seeing his banners signal retreat, the Portuguese and their Ethiopian allies fell upon the disorganized Muslims, who suffered losses but managed to reform next to the river on the distant side.

Over the next several days, Imam Ahmad's forces were reinforced by arrivals of fresh troops. Understanding the need to act swiftly, da Gama on April 16 again formed a square which he led against Imam Ahmad's camp. Although the Muslims fought with more determination than two weeks earlier—their horse almost broke the Portuguese square—an opportune explosion of some gunpowder traumatized the horses on the Imam's side, and his army fled in disorder. Castanhoso laments that "the victory would have been complete this day had we only one hundred horses to finish it: for the King was carried on men's shoulders in a bed, accompanied by horsemen, and they fled in no order."

Reinforced by the arrival of the Bahr negus Yeshaq, da Gama marched southward after Imam Ahmad's force, coming within sight of him ten days later. However, the onset of the rainy season prevented da Gama from engaging Ahmad a third time. On the advice of Queen Sabla Wengel, da Gama made winter camp at Wofla near Lake Ashenge, still within sight of his opponent, while the Imam made his winter camp on Mount Zobil.

Knowing that victory lay in the number of firearms an army had, the Imam sent to his fellow Muslims for help. According to Abbé Joachim le Grand, Imam Ahmad received 2000 musketeers from Arabia, and artillery and 900 picked men from the Ottomans to assist him. Meanwhile, due to casualties and other duties, da Gama's force was reduced to 300 musketeers. After the rains ended, Imam Ahmad attacked the Portuguese camp and through weight of numbers killed all but 140 of da Gama's troops. Da Gama himself, badly wounded, was captured with ten of his men and after refusing an offer to spare his life if he would convert to Islam, was executed.

The survivors and Emperor Gelawdewos were afterward able to join forces and, drawing on the Portuguese supplies, attacked Ahmad on February 21, 1543 in the Battle of Wayna Daga, where their 9,000 troops managed to defeat the 15,000 soldiers under Imam Ahmad. The Imam was killed by a Portuguese musketeer, who was mortally wounded in avenging da Gama's death.

Source; http://www.ethiopiantreasures.toucansurf.com/pages/rel-war.htm

Generating new sources of Energy from the Oceans?

ScienceDaily (Aug. 4, 2010) — Researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa say that the Leeward side of Hawaiian Islands may be ideal for future ocean-based renewable energy plants that would use seawater from the oceans' depths to drive massive heat engines and produce steady amounts of renewable energy.

The technology, referred to as Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), is described in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, which is published by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

It involves placing a heat engine between warm water collected at the ocean's surface and cold water pumped from the deep ocean. Like a ball rolling downhill, heat flows from the warm reservoir to the cool one. The greater the temperature difference, the stronger the flow of heat that can be used to do useful work such as spinning a turbine and generating electricity.

The history of OTEC dates back more than a half century. However, the technology has never taken off -- largely because of the relatively low cost of oil and other fossil fuels. But if there are any places on Earth where large OTEC facilities would be most cost competitive, it is where the ocean temperature differentials are the greatest.

Analyzing data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Oceanographic Data Center, the University of Hawaii's Gérard Nihous says that the warm-cold temperature differential is about one degree Celsius greater on the leeward (western) side of the Hawaiian Islands than that on the windward (eastern) side.

This small difference translates to 15 percent more power for an OTEC plant, says Nihous, whose theoretical work focuses on driving down cost and increasing efficiency of future facilities, the biggest hurdles to bringing the technology to the mainstream.

"Testing that was done in the 1980s clearly demonstrates the feasibility of this technology," he says. "Now it's just a matter of paying for it."

More information in the project, see: http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/ongoing-projects/otec-thermal-resource/

Source; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100803175019.htm

Should more foreign troops be sent to Somalia?

The African Union (AU) will add 4,000 troops to its peacekeepers in Somalia.

AU officials at the group's summit on Tuesday said a cap of 8,100 on troop levels for the force, known as AMISOM, had been lifted and they were mulling whether to give it powers to combat fighters, despite misgivings of some AU members.

Leaders at the meeting, convened in Kampala close to where the suicide bombers struck, sanctioned reinforcements for the currently deployed 6,200 AU peacekeepers who are barely managing to keep Somalia's besieged government in office.

"We are committed to deliver an additional four thousand troops ... From Guinea, we will have one battalion, from IGAD we will have 2,000 troops and Djibouti will send troops immediately," said AU commission chairman Jean Ping.

IGAD is a bloc of East African nations.

"There was a request to move the ceiling of (8,100 troops) up and many other countries are now ready to send troops. Changing the mandate (to allow AMISOM to attack al Shabaab) is still under consideration," Ping said at the summit's close.

Summit diplomats earlier told Reuters the meeting of more than 30 African heads of state might ask the United Nations, which oversees AU peacekeeping missions, to allow AMISOM to chase down al Shabaab after the Uganda attacks tha killed 76 people.

Troops from Uganda and Burundi make up AMISOM. Al Shabaab blamed what it called AMISOM attacks on civilians for its suicide bomb attacks on two Kampala bars packed with hundreds of people watching the World Cup final on July 11.

Source; http://worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=61896

Disaster in Pakistan

Up to 2.5 million people have been affected by devastating floods in north-west Pakistan, the International Red Cross has said.

Rescuers are struggling to reach 27,000 people still cut off by the floods, which are the worst in 80 years.

At least 1,100 people have died and thousands have lost everything.

"In the worst-affected areas, entire villages were washed away without warning by walls of flood water," the Red Cross said in a statement.

There are fears diarrhoea and cholera will spread among the homeless. Food is scarce and water supplies have been contaminated by the floods.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the Information Minister of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa (formerly North West Frontier Province), one of the worst-hit regions, said rescue teams were trying to reach 27,000 stranded people, including 1,500 tourists in the Swat Valley, the scene of a major military offensive against the Taliban last year.

"We are also getting confirmation of reports about an outbreak of cholera in some areas of Swat," he added.

The Pakistani military says it has committed 30,000 troops and dozens of helicopters to the relief effort, but winching individuals to safety is a slow process.

The army - which says it has rescued 28,000 people in recent days - predicts the initial search and rescue operation will take up to 10 days, says the BBC's Orla Guerin, who has been on board a military helicopter over the Swat Valley.

But the army says rebuilding the damaged areas could take six months or more.

A spokesman for the UK-based charity Save the Children told the BBC that the infrastructure damage in Swat may be worse than in the earthquake which devastated the region in 2005.

"We fear that in places that have not been accessed as yet there are people that were trapped, and there is a possibility of more deaths taking place," the spokesman said.

As well as the more 1,000 deaths in Pakistan, at least 60 people have died across the border in Afghanistan, where floods have affected four provinces.

Source; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-10834414

Ramadan: Service to the community - Sh. Abdulbary Yahya