Oct 11 2014
Every once in awhile the stories pile up and in trying to remain current, I publish a compendium of transgender news stories. I know that makes for a long read, but if I didn’t do this, some storries wouldn’t get any overage at all.
I hope you’ll at least scan the stories. A better educated public is a fairer public.
Sep 28 2013
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
Three days of mourning were declared in the aftermath of the attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya that has left at least 72 dead including six soldiers and five of the attackers.
The attack was perpetrated by the militant youth group, al-Shabaab, associated with Islamic extremists in Somalia and is regarde by the US and other nations as a terrorist group. The groups is targeting Kenya for providing troop that supported the Somali Transitional Federal Government.
While al-Shabab has turned into a largely violent organization, for a time it was run as a counter force to criminal gangs operating in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. Al-Shabab was once the military wing of the deposed Islamic Court Union (ICU), which controlled much of central and southern Somalia in late 2006.
But Al-Shabab’s fighters were eventually forced out of Somalia by Ethiopian troops in support of the largely powerless U.N.-backed interim government.
Though the group has carried out attacks in other countries, it has mostly focused on attacks within Somalia, using suicide bombs to kill dozens over the years. Its members have also assassinated international aid workers and others perceived to be friendly to Somalia’s transitional government.
Author and national security correspondent for The Nation, Jeremy Scahill joined Democracy Now!‘s Amy Goodman and Nareem Shaihk to discuss how the US meddling in the region is tied to the “rampage” at the Nairobi mall.
Scahill says the Bush administration’s decision to back Ethiopia’s overthrow of Somalia’s Islamic Courts Union in 2006 helped fuel al-Shabab’s growth into the dominant militant group that it is today: “Al-Shabab was largely a non-player in Somalia and al-Qaeda had almost no presence there. The U.S., by backing [Somali] warlords and overthrowing the Islamic Courts Union, made the very force they claimed to be trying to fight.”
Jeremy also appeared on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes further explaining the history of the region and al-Shabaab.
>>> at this hour, kenyan security forces claim to be in control of the west gate premier shopping mall in nairobi, kenya, the site of one of the most horrifying terror attacks in recent memory. kenyan interior ministry saying “our forces are combing the mall floor by floor looking for anyone left behind. we believe all hostages have been released.” this hour, the kenyan government hasn’t yet made a full accounting. midday saturday, nairobi, kenya, a mall that could easily be mistaken for any major mall in the u.s. or anywhere in the world, fell under attack by 10 to 15 gunmen, reportedly from the islamist al shabaab militia. one eyewitness was an american who had recently moved to nairobi from north carolina.
>> you could hear while we were back there them methodically kind of going from store to store, talking to people, asking questions, shooting, screams, and then it would stop for a while. then they would go to another store.
>> another eyewitness, a software engineer who was in the parking lot with his two daughters said they were throwing grenades like maize to chickens. he and his daughter survived. at last count, at least 62 people have died in the attack, mostly kenyans along with foreigners from britain, france, australia, canada and india. at one point, terrorists started a fire in the mall, which according to security forces, was meant as a diversion. a reported 175 people were wounded in a siege that entered its third day today. at least three assailants have been killed by security forces with at least ten suspects arrested. the attackers also took hostages as the standoff proceeded.
>> we have done search of the building and we can confirm that the hostages, almost all of them have been evacuated.
>> the kenyan foreign minister has since told al jazeera the mall attack was the work of al qaeda, not al shabaab. more on that in a second. president kenyatta said one of his nephews was in the mall and killed in the attack. the chief of the kenyan defense forces said the terrorists are clearly a multinational collection from all over the world. the fbi is looking into reports that americans were among the attackers. “the new york times” photographer tyler hicks happened to be nearby the mall when the siege began. he entered the mall along with police officers and captured these stunning images.
>> once i got inside the mall, i could see how tense everyone was, the army and police, how carefully they were moving. they were dashing across open areas, taking extreme care with their cover. it seemed kind of like anywhere you looked there would be another body. people were still hiding in shops. and as the police and the army were moving through, they would either discover people or they would sense that help had arrived and then they would flood out. so, you get kind of moments of silence and then other moments of big streams of people who they were trying to get out as quickly as possible. it really seemed like everywhere we went, more people came out of the woodwork. at one sense it seemed very abandoned. for example, the music that plays in the shopping mall, the typical kind of music, was still playing on the intercom. so, it was kind of this eerie silence with this music interrupted occasionally by gunfire. terrified people were crying, screaming, just running for their lives, really. i never thought that i would encounter this kind of tragedy in a public place like this, where completely innocent civilians were just gunned down and murdered. it’s not like a conventional war, where you expect combatants to get hurt or expect there to be collateral damage in those kinds of situations. this is just a suicide mission and murder.
>> joining me now is jeremy ask a hill, my colleague at “the nation” magazine, where he’s national security correspondent. he is also author of “dirty wars,” producer and writing of the film by the same name. jerry, you were in somalia. there’s footage of you being on a rooftop with incoming fire from al shabaab fighters, basically. what do you make of the conflicting reports about whether al shabaab or al qaeda did it, and who is al shabaab and how are they different from al qaeda?
>> right, well, first of all, al shabaab was a group of relative nobodies in 2006 during the bush administration. they were a sort of outlier in a group called the islamic courts union, which was largely made up of, almost exclusively made up of somali actors. and these actors meaning players on the scene in somalia. and al shabaab was the sort of group among those that sort of had the most allegiance to al qaeda or affinity for osama bin laden’s message, but they had no political sway whatsoever domestically within somalia. the u.s. partnered with the ethiopian military in 2006- 2007 and staged an invasion of somalia, and they dismantled this government of the islamic courts union, which was the only government that brought stability in somalia since the blackhawk down episode. so, what happened as a result of that is that the shabab became the vanguard of what was viewed as a movement to fight off a crusading force backed by the united states. so, al shabaab started to get street credibility within somalia because they were the only ones fighting. the rest of the networks had been disrupted, co-yopted, killed or imprisoned by the americans or ethiopians. so, what happened at the end of the day is that al qaeda was able to get a foothold in somalia and it had never been able to before. bin laden desperately wanted to get into somalia and somalis rejected him. the u.s. invasion with ethiopia opened the door and al shabaab has gotten more militant as the years have gone on.
>> and they clearly seem to have an agenda if, in fact, this is somali al shabaab fighters behind this. why would they attack a kenyan mall?
>> well, there’s a long history of al qaeda in east africa and eventually al shabaab staging attacks in kenya and elsewhere in africa.
>> of course the embassy bombings.
>> yes, in ’98 in tanzania and kenya, but there was also a 2002 attempt to shoot down israeli aircraft in mombasa. then you had the bombing at the world cup in 2010 in uganda, an american citizen was killed in that as well as a number of ugandans. and i think that, you know, if you look at the past two years, kenya has been deeply involved with somali politics, funding warlords. i traveled with a kenyan-backed warlord who had brand new military equipment given to him in the summer of 2011, and then kenya staged an invasion of parts of southern somalia. and i think al shabaab has seized on this idea that kenya is a puppet or a proxy for the u.s., and that’s really the message that they’ve propagandized.
>> what does it say about the state of al qaeda or global ji jihadis in 2013 that this attack happened, that it’s coming from possibly somalia? it seems to me like it’s the situation which we smash one or disrupt one network and they seem to pop up somewhere else.
>> right. something interesting is that when i was last in somalia in the summer of 2011, the head of al qaeda in east africa was killed in mogadishu, fazul mohammed. and among the documents seized, and i reported on this in my book, were letters from fazul to ayman al zawahiri, number two in al qaeda. and what fazul said is shabaab is making a mistake trying to hold territory in somalia and you need to go back to managing savagery. there is a famous al qaeda paper called “the management of savagery,” and data is make it impossible for anyone else to govern. make people feel fear and that the government cannot protect them.
>> chaos.
>> and i think that’s part of what we’re seeing. but there’s no one al shabaab right now, which is why the kenyans —
>> being splintered, and it’s ann clear who is exactly krogh the organization. journalist jerry scahill,
Jun 22 2013
Recently I wrote about Audrey Mbugua of Kenya in my Transgender Heroes series.
Audrey has been busy. Not content to sit on her laurels, Audrey has formed a lobby group, called Transgender Education and Advocacy, to advocate for the rights of transgender Kenyans. It is said to be “at an advanced stage of registration” with the NGO board.
We currently have over 40 members across the country. Our mission is to reduce the stigma and tell the transgender victims that we are stronger together.
–Audrey Mbugua
And low and behold, her group has already paid dividends. Alexander Ngungu Nthungi (legal name) won a case in Kenyan High Court against police, who were declared to have violated her rights and dignity by stripping her naked in public to determine her gender.
Jun 03 2013
Audrey Mbugua is a 26-year-old Kenyan transwoman. She is currently suing both the Kenya National Examinations Council and the Attorney General for failing to recognizing her gender identity.
Audrey is seeking to have her name changed on the certificates she earned and her identity cards and to have those reflect her new gender. She says she has suffered prejudice and discrimination because of the reactions of potential employers to the disparity between her appearance and the data on her identification.
We realise that the matter is tricky… We may have to liaise with the registrar of births and deaths for the necessary procedures to be followed before we can put in a proper reply.
–lawyer for the State
Judge Weldon Korir refused to grant a 30-day period sought by the state, saying the case was of urgent nature. Then he gave he respondents three weeks to reply instead.
The parties are to meet again in court on August 6.
Dec 17 2012
http://thinkgeoenergy.com/arch…
The son of a Kenyan father prefers fossil fuels or nukes for light and heat like most all Americans.
I don’t know how much heat is needed to grow roses in Kenya. It wouldn’t seem to be much, not as much as a greenhouse in Iceland growing bananas but it is cheap either way.
They also grow roses with geothermal heat in New Mexico. Lots of roses and other things. And now they will have power too.
New Mexico utility plans with 10 MW geothermal PPA
http://thinkgeoenergy.com/arch…
TenMW may not sound like much to today’s megathinkers but this is low temperature, distributed geothermal power that is available most anywhere and never quits on you like wind and solar do.
The wind and solar worshipers deny it even exists.
When will they ever learn?
– Never, probably.
Mother Earth will probably have start afresh like she did 250 million years ago after the Great Dying.
Then maybe Mother can evolve an intelligent species.
Best, Terry
Dec 12 2010
I hope many of you are around to view this vid documentary on Sunday, 12/13, because supposedly it’s only up for one day. I am going out of town for the day and won’t be around to do anything on this, so I hope someone else can/will. And if anyone has time to burn and save it, please do, and let me know. Thanks.
This is a Swedish made film with much behind the scenes stuff on Wiki and Julian and more:
“What we have here is a new breed of rebels, IT guerrillas without a national base.”
Finally, in response to globalized eco-destruction, globalized wars, and globalized banking that robs national and personal wealth, we now have globalized resistance so profound, so effective, that global elites are waging a massive censorship campaign to silence the group, WikiLeaks, and smear its figurehead, Julian Assange.
Read it and view it at global research
Enjoy, learn, and act…
And remember I/We are all Julian Assange.
Nov 24 2008
When future historioranters analyze the data from this past election, at least one thing will be abundantly clear: of all the nations in Africa, Kenya played the largest role in America’s 2008 electoral process. It hadn’t been expected to be so – the odds were on perennial favorites like Egypt, South Africa, the still un-interdicted Sudanese Genocide, or that nutjob in Zimbabwe – but there Kenya was, looming like Kilimanjaro over the Serengeti. And I mean over all the Serengeti: not only does the President-Elect have a close connection with the nation – Sarah Palin’s Witch Doctor is Kenyan by birth.
Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we’ll contemplate a land that’s seen everything from the Dawn of Humanity to becostumed imperialists to a sad-but-all-too-typical history of governance since the Era of Decolonization. Maybe along the way, we’ll come to know a little more about the most famous Kenyan-American of all – a guy who even now seems to be operating by that old African proverb, “Just because he harmed your goat, do not go out and kill his bull.”
Oct 27 2008
Here you go. Something to move you this Monday. Something to revivify you. Something to get you to shake it. Something to lift you up. We’re counting down. One week. From Kenya:
Play it over and over. Go ahead.
Apr 21 2008
Cross-posted from EENR Blog
The Kyoto Treaty is not the only treating affecting human survival that Bush prefers let languish without the participation of the United States. He also unsigned us from the Rome Treaty that established the International Criminal Court.
.
.
ROME STATUTE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
PREAMBLE
The States Parties to this Statute,
Conscious that all peoples are united by common bonds, their cultures pieced together in a
shared heritage, and concerned that this delicate mosaic may be shattered at any time,Mindful that during this century millions of children, women and men have been victims of
unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity,Recognizing that such grave crimes threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world,
Affirming that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole
must not go unpunished and that their effective prosecution must be ensured by taking measures at
the national level and by enhancing international cooperation,Determined to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to
contribute to the prevention of such crimes,
. . .
Feb 28 2008
As a measure of the political rollercoaster in Kenya, I will include what I wrote last night, and would have posted this morning. Instead, it’s just wonderful news, as reported by the BBC:
Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga have reached a deal to end Kenya’s post-poll crisis, ex UN head Kofi Annan says.
“We have come to an agreement of a form of coalition government,” Mr Annan said after a four-hour meeting with them.
He said he could not give any further details as the men were going to consult with their political parties.
Annan says he hopes the agreement will be signed by the end of the day!
As I’ve previously written, Annan’s efforts may have been the final possible preventative against genocide. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is the only ever two-time winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; if this agreement holds, and if the rules allow, Annan deserves consideration to be the second.
Here’s what I would have posted:
Feb 15 2008
The rough beast that is George W. Bush–gaze blank and pitiless as the sun–is today slouching towards the continent of Africa, pronouncing “paternalism [] a thing of the past,” and decreeing that henceforth the peoples of Africa must, for the greater good of global capital, be pitchforked into The New World Order. For Africa, so sayeth the beast, “joint venturing with good, capable people is what the future is all about.”
Fantastically, the people who put the words into George II’s mouth have, with the text of his African address, admitted that the interests of the people of Africa must be subsumed in those of global capital (headquartered, natch, in the USA). They are echoing, in Bushspeak, what the exiled Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o so artfully expressed two years ago in his work The Wizard of the Crow.
Side-by-side comparisons of the words of the wizard, and of the beast, below the divide.
Jan 30 2008
Agence France-Presse had these hopeful words:
Amid the chaos, a mediating team led by Kofi Annan, which has been in Kenya for a week, said it would launch formal dialogue between President Mwai Kibaki and his opposition rival Raila Odinga at 4:00 p.m. (1300 GMT) in Nairobi.
If Annan’s mission fails, however, it might be time for the international community to step in. With force. Because this was the real story, in that story:
The slaying of a Kenyan opposition lawmaker sparked riots Tuesday across the east African nation already reeling from weeks of deadly clashes set off by disputed elections.
Police fired tear gas and hundreds took to the streets of opposition strongholds in western Kenya and Nairobi’s slums to protest the murder of opposition MP Mugabe Were from Nairobi’s Embakasai constituency.
Heavily-armed police patrolled two recent western Rift Valley flashpoints of violence, the lakeside towns of Nakuru and Naivasha, where scores have died in gruesome attacks in recent days, pushing the overall death toll since the December 27 election to more than 900.
Plumes of smoke rose from Naivasha’s slums and machete-wielding youths burned houses and roamed the streets, an AFP correspondent said.
The machetes should chill the blood of anyone who remembers the genocide in Rwanda. Both sides have charged the other with committing or approaching genocide, Genocide Watch has called a Stage 6 alert, and the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide is sending staff. It does not get more serious.