Muammar Gaddafi's Ghost In Mali?

The West African country of Mali just had a coup d' tat, and their democratically elected president was overthrown. This unfortunate incident was undertaken by the army. One of the reasons they gave for their action was that, the government was not handling the Tuareg insurrection in the northern part of the country very well. Most of the northern towns have been taken over by the Tuareg rebells and the soldiers were being killed and disgraced by the well equiped  Tuareg rebells. Just ask yourself, where did these rebells get the weapons and how come their numbers have swelled all of a sudden. The condemnation of the coup have come from all angles, first from the regional bloc, ECOWAS, the AU, UN and other countries who tout themselves as adhering to the tenets of democracy. The ECOWAS bloc is even thinking of sending troops into Mali to reinstate the democratic government which was overthrown. I see some hypocrisy at play here. Have the world forgotten that Gaddafi's murder is now having a disastrous effect on the African continent. Most of the remnants of Gaddafi's forces have now joined the Tuareg insurrection in the northern part of Mali and they are well armed with sophisticated weapons. We are being told that the former Libyan leader had about 10,000 elite troops who would have staged a last stand in the Libyan desert to restore their leader back to power, but only God knows why that did not happen. Why did the AU sit down and close their eyes for NATO to interfere in the Libyan conflict under the guise of protecting civilians?  Now the coup leaders in Mali have got the support of the masses in the country, and no amount of threats and sanctions imposed on them would coerce them to restore the former government. One would have the impression that, i support this coup in Mali, but i would be the last person on this earth to do so. Before a decision is taken against the junta by all those condemning their action, a critical look and assessment must be done to find out the remote and immediate causes of the overthrow of the democratic government in Mali. Muammar Gaddafi's ghost would continue to haunt the African continent for not standing by him at the time he needed his brothers most. But, hey, ghosts do exist, go to Mali and you will find Gaddafi's ghost there. 

Ernesto Che Guevara.

 This is one of the revolutionaries of our time, His images can be found  almost all over the world. Read about him.

Ernesto (Che) Guevara was born in Rosario in Argentine in 1928. After studying medicine at the University of Buenos Aires he worked as a doctor. While in Guatemala in 1954 he witnessed the socialist government of President Jacobo Arbenz overthrown by an American backed military coup. Disgusted by what he saw, Guevara decided to join the Cuban revolutionary, Fidel Castro, in Mexico.

In 1956 Guevara, Castro and eighty other men and women arrived in Cuba in an attempt to overthrow the government of General Fulgencio Batista. This group became known as the July 26 Movement. The plan was to set up their base in the Sierra Maestra mountains. On the way to the mountains they were attacked by government troops. By the time they reached the Sierra Maestra there were only sixteen men left with twelve weapons between them. For the next few months Castro's guerrilla army raided isolated army garrisons and were gradually able to build-up their stock of weapons.

When the guerrillas took control of territory they redistributed the land amongst the peasants. In return, the peasants helped the guerrillas against Batista's soldiers. In some cases the peasants also joined Castro's army, as did students from the cities and occasionally Catholic priests.

In an effort to find out information about the rebels people were pulled in for questioning. Many innocent people were tortured. Suspects, including children, were publicly executed and then left hanging in the streets for several days as a warning to others who were considering joining the revolutionaries. The behaviour of Batista's forces increased support for the guerrillas. In 1958 forty-five organizations signed an open letter supporting the July 26 Movement. National bodies representing lawyers, architects, dentists, accountants and social workers were amongst those who signed. Castro, who had originally relied on the support of the poor, was now gaining the backing of the influential middle classes.

General Fulgencio Batista responded to this by sending more troops to the Sierra Maestra. He now had 10,000 men hunting for Castro and his 300-strong army. Although outnumbered, Castro's guerrillas were able to inflict defeat after defeat on the government's troops. In the summer of 1958 over a thousand of Batista's soldiers were killed or wounded and many more were captured. Unlike Batista's soldiers, Castro's troops had developed a reputation for behaving well towards prisoners. This encouraged Batista's troops to surrender to Castro when things went badly in battle. Complete military units began to join the guerrillas.

The United States supplied Batista with planes, ships and tanks, but the advantage of using the latest technology such as napalm failed to win them victory against the guerrillas. In March 1958, President Dwight Eisenhower, disillusioned with Batista's performance, suggested he held elections. This he did, but the people showed their dissatisfaction with his government by refusing to vote. Over 75 per cent of the voters in the capital Havana boycotted the polls. In some areas, such as Santiago, it was as high as 98 per cent.

Fidel Castro was now confident he could beat Batista in a head-on battle. Leaving the Sierra Maestra mountains, Castro's troops began to march on the main towns. After consultations with the United States government, Batista decided to flee the country. Senior Generals left behind attempted to set up another military government. Castro's reaction was to call for a general strike. The workers came out on strike and the military were forced to accept the people's desire for change. Castro marched into Havana on January 9,1959, and became Cuba's new leader.

In its first hundred days in office Castro's government passed several new laws. Rents were cut by up to 50 per cent for low wage earners; property owned by Fulgencio Batista and his ministers was confiscated; the telephone company was nationalized and the rates were reduced by 50 per cent; land was redistributed amongst the peasants (including the land owned by the Castro family); separate facilities for blacks and whites (swimming pools, beaches, hotels, cemeteries etc.) were abolished.

In 1960 Guevara visited China and the Soviet Union. On his return he wrote two books Guerrilla Warfare and Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War. In these books he argued that it was possible to export Cuba's revolution to other South American countries. Guevara served as Minister for Industries (1961-65) but in April 1965 he resigned and become a guerrilla leader in Bolivia.

In 1967 David Morales recruited Félix Rodríguez to train and head a team that would attempt to catch Che Guevara. Guevara was attempting to persuade the tin-miners living in poverty to join his revolutionary army. When Guevara was captured, it was Rodriguez who interrogated him before he ordered his execution in October, 1967. Rodriguez still possesses Guevara’s Rolex watch that he took as a trophy.

Macky Sall, President Elect of Senegal.

There have been  a change in the reigns of power in Senegal, and a new man has been put in charge by the people who have spoken loudly. Here is a profile of the new president of Senegal.

Macky Sall (born December 11, 1961 is a Senegalese politician. He is the president-elect of Senegal and will be inaugurated to the position on 1 April 2012. He was the Prime Minister of Senegal from April 2004 to June 2007 and was President of the National Assembly of Senegal from June 2007 to November 2008. He was the Mayor of Fatick from 2002 to 2008 and has held that post again since April 2009.

Sall was a long-time member of the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS). After coming into conflict with President Abdoulaye Wade, he was removed from his post as President of the National Assembly in November 2008; he consequently founded his own party and joined the opposition. He emerged as the President of Senegal on 25 March 2012 after defeating the incumbent in a run-off election.

Sall, a geological engineer by profession, was born in Fatick. He became Secretary-General of the PDS Regional Convention in Fatick in 1998 and served as the PDS National Secretary in charge of Mines and Industry. He was Special Advisor for Energy and Mines to President Abdoulaye Wade from April 6, 2000 to May 12, 2001, as well as Director-General of the Petroleum Company of Senegal (Société des Pétroles du Sénégal, PETROSEN) from December 13, 2000 to July 5, 2001. He became Minister of Mines, Energy and Hydraulics on May 12, 2001, and he was promoted to the rank of Minister of State, while retaining his portfolio, on November 6, 2002. He additionally became the Mayor of Fatick on June 1, 2002.

On August 27, 2003, Sall was moved from his position as Minister of State for Mines, Energy and Hydraulics to that of Minister of State for the Interior and Local Communities, while also becoming Government Spokesman.  He was then appointed as Prime Minister by President Wade on April 21, 2004, when his predecessor, Idrissa Seck, was dismissed. On April 25, 2004, Seck became Vice-President of the PDS Steering Committee. Sall served as the director of Wade's re-election campaign for the February 2007 presidential election, in which Wade was victorious, obtaining a majority in the first round. After Wade was sworn in, Sall submitted his resignation on April 10 and was immediately reappointed, with the government unchanged.

In the June 2007 parliamentary election, Sall was elected to the National Assembly as a candidate on the national list of the Sopi Coalition. After the election, Wade appointed Minister Delegate for the Budget Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré as Prime Minister on June 19, replacing Sall, who had resigned along with his government shortly beforehand. Sall said that he was proud of what he had accomplished as Prime Minister.

Sall was elected as President of the National Assembly one day later, on June 20, 2007; he was the only candidate and received 143 votes from the 146 deputies present. Sall and Wade came into conflict later in 2007 when Sall called Wade's son Karim, the President of the National Agency of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), for a hearing in the National Assembly regarding construction sites in Dakar for the OIC Summit planned to take place there in March 2008. This was perceived as an attempt by Sall to weaken Karim's position and possibly influence the eventual presidential succession in favor of himself, provoking the enmity of Wade and his loyalists within the PDS.^[11] In November 2007, the PDS Steering Committee abolished Sall's position of Deputy Secretary-General, which had been the second most powerful position in the party, and it decided to submit a bill to the National Assembly that would reduce the term of the President of the National Assembly from five years to one year. Following the death of Mourides religious leader Serigne Saliou Mbacké in late December 2007, his successor, Serigne Mouhamadou Lamine Bara Mbacké, asked Wade to forgive Sall; Wade then met with Sall and the two were said to have made peace in early January 2008.

Sall nevertheless remained at odds with the PDS leadership in 2008. In September 2008, a PDS deputy presented the bill to reduce the term of the President of the National Assembly to one year, and later in the month, Sall was called before the PDS Disciplinary Committee, although he did not appear. On this occasion, Sall was accused of divisive personal initiatives within the party; he also allegedly committed "acts aimed at undermining the image of the party and country", referring in particular to Sall's visits to the Senate of France and the United States Democratic Party's 2008 Convention. A statement released by Sall's political adviser condemned the move to discipline Sall as an "attempt at political liquidation".On October 13, 2008, the National Assembly voted to reduce the term of the President of the National Assembly to one year; this was approved by President Wade on October 21. Despite Sall's determined efforts to maintain his position, the National Assembly voted to dismiss him as President of the National Assembly on November 9, 2008. There were 111 votes in favor of his removal and 22 against it. Sall promptly announced that he was resigning from the PDS; this decision meant that he would lose his seat in the National Assembly, as well as his seat on Fatick's municipal council and his post as Mayor of Fatick. He also said that he would create a new party. Mamadou Seck was elected to replace Sall as President of the National Assembly on November 16, 2008.

Sall founded his own party, the Alliance for the Republic–Yaakaar, in early December 2008. The Interior Ministry accused Sall of money laundering on January 26, 2009; Sall denied this and said that the accusation was politically motivated. In late February 2009 it was decided not to prosecute Sall due to lack of evidence.

Following the March 2009 local election in Fatick, Sall was re-elected to his former post as Mayor in April 2009. He received 44 votes from the 45 municipal councillors present; the Sopi Coalition's five councillors were not present for the vote.

The initial result of the 26 February, 2012 election saw Sall obtaining 26.5% of the vote against Wade's 34.8%, forcing a runoff. On 25 March, the presidential run-off was held, and Wade phoned Sall at 21:30 GMT to concede the race with congratulations. Sall will be inaugurated as the 4th president of Senegal on 1 April.

Sall is in favor of reverting to the previous term limits and lengths of office. For the second round of the presidential election, Sall called on all other losing candidates and disqualified candidate Youssou N'Dour to support him on the promise of returning to five-year terms from the previous seven-year term that Wade controversially restored; he also said he would ensure that no leader could hold more than two terms.

Is Ghana Really Independent?

Once again,Ghanaians would be celebrating another independence anniversary. This would be the 55th celebration and the question that comes to mind is, are we really independent? What are we celebrating at all? Is it the politics of insult or vilifications currently going on? Or is it going to be another political party event where party colors would be hung at the main venue just to show who really is in power? As a nation, we are not economically independent since we continue to take loans from the IMF, World Bank and other major world financial institutions to shore up our economy. The powerful western nations continue to dictate to us what we have to do in our own country. They have imposed their system of rule on us, what a shame. They take our raw materials and natural resources and they even determine the prices to be paid for our resources. Their culture is virtually taking over our country. We bow to their whims and caprices. Now these western countries such as the UK and USA are trying to force the practice of homosexuality down our throats. They have even threatened to make it a conditionality for the giving of aid to the country. They see we not accepting the practice in our country as a human right abuse. We seem not to be fully independent when we can not even trade with our neighbouring African countries but take delight in trading with countries outside the African continent. As we celebrate our 55th independence anniversary, lets ask ourselves if we have been able to better the lot of our people socially, economically and politically? Are our schools up to the standards that we promised? Do we have better healthcare and is it accessible and affordable to all Ghanaians? Can people afford three square meals a day? Do we have better roads? Are workers being paid well? Have we been able to provide good drinking water and stable electricity for our people? Have we thrown out our values and traditions and embraced the foreign ones which have caused more harm than good? Why do we still import food that we could produce in this country i.e. what is the state of our agricultural sector? As we reflect on all these important questions, lets all come together and help put Ghana first devoid of political interests. But hey, ayeekoo to Ghana on her 55th independence anniversary and may God bless our homeland Ghana.

The Syrian Conflict.

According to the United Nations, more than 7,500 people have died in Syria since the regime of President Bashar Assad launched a brutal crackdown against protesters last March.

As Syrian activists improve their techniques for transmitting photos and videos of the violence to the outside world, accounts and footage of torture, displaced families, and horrifying deaths have flooded the mainstream media. International condemnation continues to grow, yet Syria's future remains uncertain.

As Syria marks the one-year anniversary of the country's uprising, HuffPost World details some of the key players and events in Syria over the past 12 months.

THE BEGINNING
Syria was a relative latecomer to the Arab Spring. On March 18, 2011, protesters gathered in the southern city of Daraa after Friday prayers. Angered by the arrest and torture of children who had spray-painted anti-government slogans on a wall in the city the month before, demonstrators voiced demands for greater freedoms and political participation.

The protests did not initially demand the resignation of President Bashar Assad. Instead, they focused on the lack of basic freedoms in the country, the monopoly of the Baath party, Syria's security state apparatus and abuses by the elite, Patrick Seale, author of the book The Struggle For Syria, explains in Foreign Policy. Yet security forces responded brutally, firing live ammunition and tear gas at the crowds and killing several protesters.

As anger over civilian deaths grew and protests spread to other cities, Assad offered a series of concessions -- officials implicated in the violence would be fired, a number of political prisoners would be released, and the country's state of emergency would be lifted. The regime maintained its innocence, however, and claimed that foreign agents were to blame for the unrest.

PROTESTS AND VIOLENCE SPREAD
The spring and summer of 2011 were characterized by a steady stream of protests -- often on Fridays after prayers -- and the Syrian government's subsequent violent response to the gatherings. Security forces cracked down hard in the cities of Homs, Hama, and Latakia.

The violence reached new heights toward the end of 2011 as the conflict appeared to militarize. "You now have on average as many as forty people being killed a day. That's one dynamic; the killing has increased, particularly since the Arab League monitors arrived at the end of December," Council on Foreign Relations Middle East expert Robert M. Damin explained in January 2012.

A growing number of defectors -- loosely organized in the Free Syrian Army -- staged guerrilla attacks against security forces. In December and January, two separate bombs targeting security forces killed dozens in the Syrian capital Damascus. While the regime blamed al Qaeda, opposition forces suggested that the government may have staged the explosions in an effort to increase public support of the regime's crackdown on the opposition.

'MASSACRE' IN HOMS

In February 2012, regime forces launched a brutal assault on the city of Homs and the rebel-held neighborhood of Baba Amr in particular. Bombs and rockets rained down on the city for weeks, killing hundreds of people -- many of them civilians. Government forces eventually retook control of the city, driving the Free Syrian army out. British photographer Paul Conroy described the siege of Homs as a "massacre." Talking to Sky News, Conroy said Syrian forces were "systematic in moving through neighborhoods with munitions that are used for battlefields." He added that "men, women and children" were "cowering in houses" and "beyond shellshock."

The regime's strategic victory in Homs was followed by attacks on the rebel strongholds of Idlib and Daraa. "Shelter is hard to find when mortars take out entire sides of buildings," Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reported from Idlib. "Syrian army tanks and army personel carriers fire randomly and indiscriminately into the streets," she wrote.

SECTARIANISM IN SYRIA
The events in Homs illustrate the rise of sectarian conflict in Syria. Commentators have observed that the country may be headed for civil war.

The majority of Syrians belong to the Sunni Muslim community, but the country also has significant Christian, Shiia and Alawi groups. President Bashar Assad belongs to the Alawi community, a sect that split from Shia Islam and makes up about 12 percent of the population in Syria. Alawites hold many key positions in the Syrian government.

THE REGIME'S TAKE
"We don't kill our people... no government in the world kills its people, unless it's led by a crazy person," Bashar Assad told ABC's Barbara Walters in an interview. Assad defiantly denied ordering a crackdown against protesters and claimed that most of the people killed were either regime supporters or security forces. Instead, Syria blames Israel and the West for the conflict, accusing "armed gangs," "terrorists" and "saboteurs" of instigating violence.

THE OPPOSITION
"As long as Bashar al-Assad is in power in Syria, the future of Syria is going to be unfortunately a very bloody one," former U.S. diplomat Dennis Ross told Reuters.

It is unclear who would fill the void in the event of the fall of the Assad regime. "Syria's opposition is divided," Robert M. Damin writes for the Council on Foreign Relations. "You have the Syrian National Council. You have another group called the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, which represents many of the opposition groups inside Syria. And there is a very strong division between them. They have tried to come together and overcome their differences but they have not succeeded; Syria is a very heterogeneous country."

Similarly, reports suggest the Free Syrian Army is far from a unified organization with a single command structure. According to the BBC, the FSA was formed in August 2011 by former members of the Syrian army and led by former air force colonel Riyad al-Assaad. "Col Asaad claims to have 15,000 men under his command and that soldiers are defecting every day and being assigned tasks by the FSA. However, analysts believe there may be no more than 7,000," the BBC writes in its 'Guide To The Opposition.' "It is now an umbrella group for civilians who have taken up arms and militant groups."

Al Jazeera's Nir Rosen describes the FSA as "a name endorsed and signed on to by diverse armed opposition actors throughout the country, who each operate in a similar manner and towards a similar goal, but each with local leadership."

INFORMATION DISSEMINATION
While the U.N. estimates that 7,500 people have been killed in Syria's uprising, activists estimate that hundreds more have died.

Media access has been severely limited in Syria, Internet access is restricted, and local journalists have been suppressed as the opposition and regime present competing narratives of the state of the country.

Activists and citizen journalists have distributed hundreds of photos and videos online that often show dead or injured children and civilians, mutilated bodies, or destroyed neighborhoods. Yet verifying the content of these reports remains nearly impossible. "Plenty of information is coming out from Syria, but the difficulty we find is in verifying the information," said Soazig Dollet, head of the Middle East and North Africa desk of Reporters Without Borders to Al Akhbar. "Because of the state’s strict control of traditional media in the country, social media has become our main source of information. However, the question of who is sending out this information remains unanswered," he told the newspaper.

Reporting from Syria has proved extremely dangerous. AP photographer Rodrigo Abd recounted his time in Syria: "Explosions illuminated the night as we ran, hoping to escape Syria after nearly three weeks of covering a conflict that the government seems determined to keep the world from seeing. Tank shells slammed into the city streets behind us, snipers' bullets whizzed by our heads and the rebels escorting us were nearly out of ammunition. It seemed like a good time to get out of Syria."

While Abd safely reached Turkey, several foreign reporters did not make it out of the country alive. French TV journalist Gilles Jacquier died in January 2011 in Homs. A sniper killed activist and online journalist Rami al-Sayyed on February 22. One day later, American war correspondent Marie Colvin and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik were killed by shelling in Homs.

INTERNATIONAL REACTION
Most of international community's response to the bloodshed in Syria has been harsh. Barack Obama repeatedly has called on Assad to step down. U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon has described the violence in Homs as "unacceptable before humanity." French President Nicholas Sarkozy called Assad a murderer. Turkey, once Syria's ally, has upbraided Assad, and both the U.S. and the European Union have imposed sanctions on his regime.

The first significant international attempt to end the bloodshed in Syria came from the Arab League. In November 2011, the organization of Arab states negotiated a peace plan with the Assad regime that called for an immediate end to the violence. The agreement also stipulated that monitors from the League's member states would observe the regime's compliance from inside the country. The associated monitor mission, and the Arab League peace plan, failed as the Assad regime intensified its crackdown during the observers' presence and the death toll rose dramatically.

As international pressure on the Assad regime increased and the failure of the League's monitor mission became clear, the organization presented a U.N. Security Council resolution that proposed to end the conflict through the resignation of the president. The resolution was approved by 13 of the Security Council's 15 members, but was vetoed by China and Russia. Moscow has stepped up as Syria's main supporter diplomatically, blocking any possible international action in the United Nations Security Council. The Kremlin also upheld arms deliveries to the country, arguing that Damascus needs the weapons for national defense and national security purposes.