The NEWS Watch.., And Life Stories As I See It Fits..

Oh Love Why?

2012-01-20T20:55:00.001-05:00

Don't forget me, I begged, I remember you said
Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead
Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead: By Adele.

*This is an older blog I let seats in my drafts for over two years now. And here it is:

Yes I am not loud or perfect I just wants a quite life styles and peaceful. Despite I don’t go out to parties or popular but I am happy with my life style.

TM, you did make a huge different in my life despite you’ve told me that you don’t belief or look at life as anything happy about it. But this blog is for you and all those words are coming from my mind. I know you’re moving on now and you have someone new or old one you’re going back to. But just take a minutes and read this and this is all I’ve to say.

Love is sweet despite we might twist it around to hurt others, you’re always unhappy as you said that’s how you’re. But you’re burning me deep down.

I am going to counts on the happy days no negative things here. I likes when you just wants us to stay home and cooks and watch TV and pray together after you became a Muslim. Words can’t express that feelings of you been a Muslims after you was a free thinker, I likes the times we always hold hands and you looks at me way up and says “Sayed” so and so… do you know my biggest turn on and closeness TM? Is when you calls my name and hold me and smile and lean on me and hold me so close and says, you can’t go anywhere without me, Oh GOD, I likes that so much.

Remember when I want us to go out for dinner and you says, NO? You prefer to eat at home and sleep on my laps? Yes TM You was a God sent till you walked out of my life, I think I shouldn't I ‘ve told you that I don’t have large or strong family connections and despite you accepts me as single father, but it was eating you up and I realized it late. But guess what? I’ve kids and I can’t change that and it’s my responsibilities. I am not going to apologize for that.

Yes, a dream comes true was what I taught with you till you walked out of my life.

But this is me and this is Life. Tears done and gone, I am who I am, God makes us all different and sometimes we live to learn and surge.

I likes an easy going lady, a lady who don’t takes the World before me, a lady who puts God first, family's and me or kids if we’ll have one or some, that was what I saw first in you. Awwh TM, you was so cool and calm with me. Your smile and the way I makes you laugh hard and our jokes and body moves. Oh yes you’re a real clean lady, very precious and smooth TM.

I never sees myself as man who wants to stay home while my life time partner is out and about. Oh God I likes a real woman who calls my name and real and no fighting or shouting or dogging me out.

TM, I’ll never judge you and no one have the right to judge others we can only judge ourselves. But let me say this, you have all the really quality of a good person, you’re real. you talks to me about life, you talks about your feelings, you don’t likes to fight with me, instead you ask me things and listen more despite you talks and talks more, and I likes that. I can see in your heart always.

True love don’t ask for much, true loves don’t push us off the cliff but shelter us and makes us one. Yes, we used to be one despite the distance sometimes, but we both conquer that and we made it work for awhile.

Enough of this. Do I’ve to right all this? Oh well, one of my co-workers says I blow my mind more on my blogs than talking in person. I hope not so.

Today I watched and wake up…

2012-01-20T19:31:00.001-05:00

"Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly." - Leo Tolstoy

As my little girl always tells me that watching TV is good sometimes, I don’t like the Tele (TV) much. I thinks it’s waste of time always and I can always use those hours doing something much better and fruitful.

But, I was off work last week and drop off my daughter and home alone, I turn on the Tele and I was watch the “Current TV channel”, the show was “World Deadliest Journeys” .

I watched both episodes: Miners in Java, Indonesia digging Sulfur in an active Volcano mines and the second episode is frights trip on the Congo river in Congo (Africa).

I know this might be so simple and someone might just ask: So what? Why writing about such thing? Hey, I get the answer why. Are you ready?

Let’s starts with the first episode with the Sulfur miners in Java, Indonesia, if you or anyone knows how toxic and dangerous a Volcano can be, think about the lava or the waste products that the Volcano gave out, it produces Sulfur, just one of the waste products, but the miners have to go deep down to the crater sides of the Volcano and digs up the sulfur very early in the morning while the temperature is cool and the toxic smokes from the volcano is less, those miners will then carry the sulfur rocks on there shoulder for about three miles and sell it to a special company. The company will then turn that sulfur to soap, sugar and even explosions after heavy processes.

The miners can only carry about 180 lbs. and the amounts they will earn is equivalents to $20 a day, while they’re down on those volcanoes craters, they’re breathing the sulfur smoke which is burning they’re lungs and sometimes, some miners will fall off the cliff and dies. These miners never visited the hospital while the sulfur is eating up there lungs.

The next episode is about the river Congo, despite I am from Africa and very proud to be, I am not trying to make this dramatic. But conditions are hard and only GOD will help. Since Congo is one of the largest countries in Africa, it always have one of the largest water ways, from Kisangani to Kinshasa. It’s a thousand mile long, since road conditions are worst and flight on planes is for the richest people, the rest of the population depends on ships or ferries for the long ride between those cities. Now imagine those ships or ferries are not well kept or maintains also thinks about one in the middle of the deep river and the ships just break down or collides and starts to sinks and no life boats or life jackets, also thinks about no navy ships around or rescue planes or helicopter to rescue those stranded people. Just think and look at yourself and see how bless or lucky or the wonders of life.

My points here is simple and clear We’ve to be thankful daily for the abundant opportunity God is giving us here in the advance World. Let’s don’t make life hard for others let’s help anyone we can and do so with all our heaths and guts.

Yes, the World is round and morrow can be better than today always.

GOD Have Mercy On Us All....

2012-01-15T21:04:00.001-05:00

"Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today." - Groucho Marx

A Saturday morning I pray not to repeat or imagine or even accepts. But who's me to say all that? I am at work, as I always works on weekends.

"Hajj is me, I always know all my main Muslim's friends calls me Hajj as I always called them Hajj too (I likes calling everyone with a name, it makes people knows that you cares for them and you're genuine too). It's Mohamed, one of my friend and co-worker, he just went back home (Freetown) to see his mother, after 18 years of not seeing his relatives.

Few days ago, we talked and he told me his younger brother is sick and admitted at one of the main hospital in Freetown , but he prefer to transfer him to Bo town, there own province in the Country side, I was a bit shocked, but I can understand.

He passed away this morning, as a Muslim, they're washing the body as I talk to my friend and getting ready for burial. My mouth was full and heart heavy, I said a prayer too as I hold on to the phone, I told him I'll call him after the burial and God will make things easy and God knows best.

As I was about to hanged up the phone, there's another call on the other line, this one is from my other friend Clifford Smith, some of us call him "The Boss", I've took Clifford and his wife on many road trips and his wife always tells me that is because of me, they travel lot now.

I was a bit busy now by this time at work when Clifford calls me, I was about to tell him about Mohamed Suliaman brother passing, when Clifford said to me that he's in trouble and his burned down, I said what are you talking about Clifford?

He said, his daughter, and his daughter two children (Clifford Grand Kids) and his niece just died by road accident by Okra Hill as they're travelling to Freetown.

Oh GOD, I screamed, I am in state of shock and words can't come out right, I hold on to the phone for some minutes and I promised to call back in few minutes. As I pray for God mercy and pardon for all of us.

God, only you knows best and only you can do things or anything and no one can ask you why. I know we all going to pass on and life moves on one day, I know that non of us knows morrow or what's ahead of us. But God please help us and makes life easy for us and sympathize with the ones that are going through the pain of losing there love ones and show mercy on us all. I know that the World, this whole World that we're living in right now is not perfect and it will never be, but help us God to live and guide us on the right path, as you're the only One who can do so. God drives Satan far away from us all and make us a good believers

Happy New Year 2012.....

2012-01-01T22:51:00.000-05:00

It's a new beginning as the words always goes when we starts a new year. I see it as a continuation of life.

But I know that few things are going to change in my life, God willing. I try not to make those new year resolutions anymore, most time it's just waste of time and derailments. As such, I'm looking at things as a commitments and most do from now on.

I know that I'm human just like anyone else, but I'm gong to do better now and I'm asking for God help and protections always.

First, I've o go See my MOTHER and starts from there God willing.

Lot to write and I'm looking forwards to anyone critics and suggestions. I'll try to keep my emotions aside and just be a simple blogger or want to be. So help my GOD....

My Daughter Was In Grief.

2011-10-29T14:52:00.000-04:00

"Ya see, in life I know there's lots of grief" Bob Marley.

As I always picked up my little girl on Wednesday's evening from the babysitter and she'll stays with me till Friday's evening. We talks about school, work and things in general. I always encourage my kids to have an open chat with me and I likes when we talks about things, I now thinks that she always looks up to that moments with me when I let her talks and I listen to her with all my being. I realized she like that more since she can't get that attentions from anyone else but from her father.

This evening was a bit different, I can feels some stress on her and as I always asked her: Sally, how's school today? How many homework's do you have to turn in morrow morning? Do you needs help with them? What are we eating for dinner?

But this Wednesday evening, she says, dad, my best friend at school lost her mom and the funeral is on Thursday and it will take place in Pennsylvania, I wish I can go, but I can't. If the funeral was taking place here, I'll attend it if you can take me there. I took a deep breath and says, what happened with her? And do you know her?

Yes dad, I know her and I've been to there house before, she's one of the nice person I've seen. I get more concerns now. So what happened with her? She died from her sleep, She went to bed and never wakes up. How old was her? She's just 34 years. Oh yes, I repeats, 34 years old?

Her name Diron, she's survives by two girls, 15 and 13 years old, the 13 years old is in the same grade as my daughter Sally, they're best friends at school and on the phone.

So, I told my girl, If this was here, I'll go with you to the funeral service so you'll pay respects and sympathize with your friend and her family's.

The next day, which was Friday, after Jummah prayers, I picked up my girl from school, as we're driving to the public library, she received a text message from one of the friends who attended the funeral, I heard my little girls says: Oh, she don't looks the same, I asked who? She say's the lady who passed. Despite I was driving and I don't need no distraction on the road, I asked to take a look at the photo. There she was in her coffin, resting in peace, despite I don't know her, she looks calm, relax and beautiful. And then Sally showed me her photo when she was alive. Oh God, a beautiful and warm smile, she looks so friendly and her classes sparkles. I can't help it, but choked up a bit. I took a deep breath and say May God rest her Soul in peace.

Life lessons: No one knows tomorrow. No one can be guarantee anything. No one wants to dies, no one wants to abandon there child in this World all by themselves and pass away without knowing who will be there for them. I am an emotional person, I know how deep it hits me by looking at the lady photos: Dead or Alive. But now she's gone.

Now her two girls going to lives in California with family members, who knows what can happens in there future? Yes the good LORD will surely takes care of them and see them through life ups and downs.

I ask God to help them and help us all. I ask God to make life simple and make us succeeds in whatever good we plans or going after. I ask God to pardon Diron and grant her Heaven. May her Soul rest in perfect peace...

Wedding And Family's:

2011-10-15T21:05:00.001-04:00

There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage. ~Martin Luther

I received a call this morning from my Aunt's who lives in New Jersey: It goes like this: "Hi Saidu, it's Hajja, We came down to Maryland for the wedding, please don't be mad at me for coming. I'll talks to you later. O kay, I came to take the bad name away from me. this is Hajja."

The wedding? It's the wedding of my daughter mother, the lady I thinks I wasted my time behind and never loves me. But no complaining here. Today she's married in an open ceremony, lot of my family member's are invited, it's a bit crazy for her to invites all my family's. I thinks she's trying to send me some message. But I didn't get it yet.
So all my family's are in the wedding and they're saying it's the wedding of the year for them. I am still lost here.

O Kay, let's me be serious again. Marriage is a blessings and I always wishes for all to be in it for the good or the bad, I loves my daughter mom and have great respect for her. I wish her the best in this union and I wish her nothing less than total happiness, she's married to my Aunt cousin-in-law. My Aunt and husband are super happy and see there wishes comes true.

I've a great and large family here and back home, despite we're not that united or functions well, but we're always there sometimes for each other, I am the only black sheep, maybe I am just one of the black sheep. I loves my family and cares deeply for them. I am not the social kind of man or the man who jumps on every parties just to fit in. I likes fun or good times, but I likes to stay home and just be calm.

Marriage is a duty on me as a Muslim and as a human, we all needs someone special in our life, despite we might not always have our dreams or heart desires, but we try to make things work some how.

I might not know the reasons for the invitations of all my family member's to the wedding of the year, but they're my family's and I supports them some how. I don't know how things will turn out morrow, but I am sure if I am getting marry, I don't know if any of my family members will come there except one, my uncle Sallu, he cares and supports my efforts, no matter how life bangs me, he always stand by me, no one in my family is like that for now,but no bad blood, I have to realized that "It is what it is".

Before I get marry, I've to let my life time partner knows this: I don't have a strong or supportive family's likes I wish I'll have, I don't have a large family to come to our wedding, I don't have much to show for my family. But this is me and I've ALLAH and me to show to my fiancee, may be she will take that offer,but if not, Love is there forever.

We all wants happy life styles or comfy one, we all wants the best for ourselves, we all wants to be up top. God help us all, God help us make it. I loves my life and the love of my life, despite I don't know what's she's up, but love is real always. Help us GOD.

A Letter To Life (Part 2)

2011-09-11T12:21:00.000-04:00

"The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want." - Ben Stein

In my last letter to you, I didn't get out all what I've to say, as such I've to write you another one. I promised to keep it simple and no need to reply my letters, I just want someone to talk to, since no one else cares or can give me the real attentions I'm always longing for, I realized you'll be the better option for now or always.

For the past weeks towards the end of Ramadan, I've made up my mind and I know what I wants in terms of mate, God willing, I'm settling down. The time is now, I can't fool myself always that I'm doomed and no love out there for me, even if that's the case, I've to wake up and smell the coffee burning. I've to give love a try and put all I can in it, whatever comes out of it is up to God, but I am going for it.

Oh, by the way Life, few things have been going on lately, I recieved several mails from my former partner's, some are sad, some are breath taking, some are just cold cuts. But such is life right? I just wish we all can see how life worth the best of us and how we might have change each other or make each other happier or better, but sometimes it is what it is...

We all don't know morrow, for now, no one knows morrow. But we all are responsible for our morrow may be. So help us God. Help us uplift ourselves and make us stronger in our faith and courage.

Oh, I've also realized that no one can waste your time if you don't allow them, looking back to my past, I'm sure I'll not do things as I used to, sometimes ladies will call you and asking for rides, they want to go places and they needs ride or just to hangouts, by the time all that said and done, it's late at night and nothing else to do, what a waste of time?

I think this way now: I'll prefer to stay home, spend time with families and love one, stay home and cook if I can, and I do like eating good food, I pray my life time partner will cook good, Pls,GOD help her to cook good, take a walk at the park or looking at natures or other things that's matters. I am sure that's not making me mean or hard, just change of life or styles now. After all those running around, pushing and pulling, what else? Nothing good but sometimes regrets and nothing to show for.

O kay Life, this all for now, I'll send you another letter in few days time. This week started a bit hectic, but I'll be fine and I'm sure things will be in order. I don't likes to be lazy always, I have to beat myself harder in the gym for this week and months to come.

Be cool Life, it worth living it always.

The Maze..

2011-08-28T10:47:00.001-04:00

A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways,

I'm sure someone will ask me why I call this page the above name, as such I place the answer at the top too. I know I am not a good writer, but I just like to voice my views or taught sometimes, despite they might not be right for others always. But writing is good for us all.

During this month of Ramada, I've always learn and feels the pain of hardship or let me say hard skin of Fasting and disciplines and courage, I am a discipline person with or without Ramadan, but going without food, drink and odd taught is a special feelings that one will always feels with him or her self and God only.

The maze in me right now is about life again, nothing bad, nothing to worry about, love is not easy, love is not to be taking for granted and just neglects. I wish loves means more to others and let others see life as a blessings and give there best to there love ones and devout there attentions and beings, but for many of us, we just say love is love and others things are not matters and we only use lips services and no actions.

I get confused sometimes when we just can't appreciates each other or just make love ones feels that they're special and very important in our daily life. I have families here in the States, some I get along with well, others just ignores you and think nothing good of you, but you'll give them the World because we're families, that's how it should be if it goes right.

One of my friends says to me sometime ago, give your best to your love ones and families always and make them feel special even if they don't appreciates you or realize your worth, do it for love, do it for humanity, just do it because you owed them love and your Soul. That was hard to understand at the time, but growing up and looking at life, I now realize why my friends says that then.

Love, Oh yea, that thing each and everyone of us always says so fast, it can cut us deeply and it takes times to heal, love, uhmm, it's always good to give and give back in returns, love,can move mountains if it have steps to stand on. Love, it's a wonderful feelings and a good medications sometimes when it's real and clear and simple.

Oh Love, what a wonderful feelings to love and be loved?

A Letter To .....

2011-08-13T09:57:00.000-04:00

Dear Life Lessons,

I hope by the time I finished this blog, I'll drive most of the points to the right core of my letter. This letter will not be in order or details as I wish, but it's real and I hope you can understand.

This letter is about me and love or settling down. I've come to the that sign on the road that says, go right or left, but both ways might be the same destination.

I've to settle done for reasons so many that I can't give all by the time I close this letter to you.

Yes, I'm in my 40's, so what? Oh yea it means lot. I wish I could have settle down while I was in my 30's. But Life is not always giving us what we all wants.

Let's move on. I know I've hurt few ladies on my way, others have hurts me as well, but I've to learn to forgives and I hope and pray that the ones I've hurts will pardon me too. I never intends to hurts no one in love, but my past can't be changed or fix, that's why it called "The Past".

But I do have few things in heart to say about few wonderful lovers that I wish things could have gone right. I Will not use there full name. *Let's me talk about T, you was one of the people I just can't forget, you was open and bold towards me, you talks to me, you tell me your heart, you talks to me and talks more to me, I likes that about you, despite you was not in love with me, but I fall for you because you was open and clear with me. The big problem we have is the way you see or perceives life, you don't thinks life is good and you don't believes in happiness and you thinks everything in life is bad. That's hurts me lot, despite you don't care about how I feels at the time or my fears and concerns, but I stocked with you because I loves you and I cares deeply for your state of mind. I don't know why you was always unhappy about life, but it was pushing me off the cliff so fast. T, I wish you was in love with me then, you was like a dream came true for me when we started dating and talking and doing things and all that, you're a beautiful Soul T, I pray that you change your mind about life and see it for all the blessings and wonders in it.

I am sure you're good to your partner now and making him feels warm and happy, I envy that, I wish you've done that to me T. Oh well, the lady I am talking to now is 100% different from you, she is dark to me, meaning that: I don't know anything about her, she hides everything from me. She travels and do things and she don't wants me to know a single thing,I've never meet anyone like her. She told me nothing in life is serious and she's not serious with me. I am confused and not sure what next, despite she looks happy always and friendly, she is always a stranger to me, she never opens up to me.

T, do you remember when you always calls my name: Saidu, Sayed or Yusuf? Well this lady never called my name, that's a huge surprise to me. I likes when a woman calls my name, it means they're real and nothing to hides, but I thinks one reasons she don't calls my name, she don't want to call me another guy name, that's sad, but yes, she have it all. T, I likes how you call my name in every conversations we have. I calls your name too in every words we exchanged, that's was so lovely and open and caring.

Wait a minutes, I just realized I can't mentions all the ones I wants to talks about now, so let's move on.

I want to settle down and that's the fact. Yes, it will be done by Allah wish. Listening to the Imam sermon last Jummah, he says who knows what's next year Ramadan will bring us? Who will be healthy and living for it? Life never give us any promises, we know of right now, no one knows morrow, no one including me.

Now, I've to go see my mother (Insha Allah). Marriage is not easy, I've seen many of my friends and family's gone in and out, some faster while others slowly. But it always worth going for.

I am going into it for the better and the worst and I pray for the better. But who loves me? Who's open to me? Who's serious about me? Who can take a single father? So many questions and I am not looking for answers, I am going to try and try. Oh God help me. I pray that the blessings of Ramadan will be on me and all others who are looking for a settle life styles.

Yes, morrow is not promising, but today is reality.

Looking Towards RAMADAN

2011-07-24T09:12:00.001-04:00

"Prayer carries us half way to God, fasting brings us to the door of His palace, and alms-giving procures us admission."--Muslim proverb

Ramadan is here and it's going to be a hot Summer of Fasting. But it's a duty on all able Muslims to observe and respect this holy month of ours.

I started observing Ramadan since I was 13 years of age, now I'm in my 40's. It takes lot of disciplines and courage. But I've learned lot during Ramadan about Life, Societies, and Faith. Is not only the abstains from food, drink, or sexual acts. But Ramadan get deep in us in ways beyond our imaginations

Been in the United States for awhile now, I can reports that Ramadan feels a lot different here. Back home in Africa, Iftar (Breaking of Fast) is a big deal, we came together as families or communities and eat together and prays together. It always gives one that special feelings of bonding and heart felts supports from each other.

Ramadan: As a Muslim and a practising Muslims (Five daily Prayers, Fasting during Ramadan), I always planed things during Ramadan for the rest of the year, somethings I've planed never works, while some of the plans does. But I never stop making plans.But I thinks that how life is, We all plans and we all try our best and sometimes our best is not enough. But we still keep on trying and pushing. With God help all will be well.

Couple of months now, I've plans. Marriage, Seeing my Mother more. I don't know how real she might be with me. But I thinks I've meet a girl who I can settle down with. Loves can not be staple always or guarantee, but sometimes we meet people who just get your heart and capture it and can't let go, yes it's funny to say, but loves do comes in different sizes and styles and ways.

Despite I am a single father, I've been loved and hurts and all sort of stuffs, I've learned not to give up and say its the end of the lines. It's never the end or the beginning.

People are all different, Life is not always smooth, but we've to do what we can to make it.

As Ramadan coming so fast, I am now looking back to the past year, some friends and family members that are not with us anymore, Oh Life, it's bite on both sides sometimes and no where to turns but to God.

No one knows what morrow will bring us, no one knows what's next, no one can promise all, no one can say they get it all, no one can laugh forever, no one can cry forever. God help us to observes Ramadan right, accepts our Fasting and prayers and requests as we all have tons of request or demands. God help us to be aware of YOUR grace and Might.

Pardon us and heal us and guide us all. God spread peace on Earth.

Happy Birthday To Me....

2011-06-05T11:53:00.002-04:00

My birthday: Nothing big about it, nothing small about it too.

Starts well in the morning and yes, I’ve to say thanks to GOD for all HIS blessings and kindness in my Life and family’s and all love ones and everyday people I meets and greets and workout with and just share simple stories.

Despite my shoulder was paining me, I managed to workout and my co-workers sang me “Happy Birthday”, a bit nicer and calm way, making me feels like I’m special.

I received two lovely gifts basket from two wonderful people who thinks I am a good Soul, (lol). They moved me a bit and I am very thankful to have good people who cares for me despite I don’t worth that much in there daily life’s.

The sad part of things is when I heard from a special one the worst excuses any reasonable person will gives, never wishes me a happy birthday until later in the evening when I mentioned it. Wow. That’s cold. And the worst excuses I can get is: I was waiting to talk to you first, O Kay, We’ve been chatting the whole day. It really gets me a bit shaken. But I always prefer when people say the truth and it’s much simple. Life is always like that sometimes. Keep it simple and open and no need to make up stuffs.

Oh, I forget “Face Book”, I tried to hide my birthday on face book, reasons best known to me, but is just me and I tried to just be me. Finally when I get home late at night I decided to put it on and in few minutes, I already received twenty two birthday wishes. That was very nice and I am very thankful for all those who send me best wishes. I mean it. I likes when people are natural and real and just say it as it is. Thanks to each and everyone who send me messages without me reminding them. You all mean the World to me. May God help us all always and give us good health.

My Cousin’s have her graduations party last night too. I didn’t attend it. I am sure I’ll be the sacrificial lamb for the family’s to chew me alive with all bad mouthing. But hey, such is Life. I am bless with a family that sees me as the worst the World can produce. Nothing good comes from them about me. Life is Life, I like that song.

Anyway, it’s my birthday and I pray for all the best and to see many, many more to come. My Mother prays for me. I like the way she was saying her prayers for me. I am sure God will always answer her. My Mother wishes for my next birthday that I have a life long partner and settle down. I want to settle down God knows I want to. Please God help. No man is an Island, no matter what one thinks they’re.

For The Love Of Mother's

2011-05-08T21:21:00.002-04:00

It's Mother's day here and all around the World. I called my Mom a bit late but she always understand. I told her everyday is mother's day for me and her.

As my daily routines goes in the morning, today was a bit funny but serious. I normally runs two (2) miles in the morning, (Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday), While I'll runs one and half miles on Saturday and Sunday, and that's due to the hours of the Vida gym, of which I can say I am deeply addicted to that place.

Today, while I was getting myself fresh up for work, a young guy came into the locker room and I realized he was looking at me, despite that happens many time, but this young guy was a bit confused, I says hello and I continue doing what I was doing and get myself down to work.

Later on I saw him again downstairs and this time he was walking towards me and he stopped and asked me if I was the guy in the gym locker room this morning, I says yes and I said I saw you too. He went on to ask me if I am using any form of chemicals or steroids on my body building missions, I laughed and says NO, I mean NO. I've never used any drugs or chemicals or anything of the sort. And then that's when I realized that he was looking at my msucles this morning in the locker room.

This young guy went on and says to me and my co-worker that he's using STEROIDS for body building and he want to get bigger and built. I laugh first, but then I stopped and say's: Why do you want to use drugs to get built or bigger? I have a long talks with him and I warn him that drugs is not the right way to go, He asked me how did I do it with out drugs, I simply says, work harder and harder and don't back off.

So, he walked away and came back and still want to chat with me, I offer to train with him, but he lives out of town. He said he likes my advice and he will try to do without drugs. But the scary things about this all is the aftermath of drugs to build muscles.

I've heard lot of things about the harmful use of drugs and supplements of any kinds. I sometimes take "One a day for men" as a form of Multi-Vitamins, but I don't do it each and everyday. I am not an expert on this topics, but I prefer to keep things simple.

Few weeks ago, I realized I am gaining few more weights ( Muscles), I then start checking what's going on, I realized I've start eating Cereals, I don't use regular milk, I am using Soy Milk, I am sure that's the cause of gaining more muscles. I am not too sure, so I am going slow on the Soy Milk for now.

God help us please.

The Way It Seems

2011-01-23T12:12:00.001-05:00

Beginning of a new year 2011. Few days ago I was talking to a friend at work and he said to me, "Wow, Life surely moves faster".

As confusing I was at the time, I asked him, "What do you mean?" He said 2010 just finished and most of his plans are not completed for the past year and now a new year and he have new plans despite last year plans are uncompleted.

Well, that seems true for almost all of us that work day and night to make ends meets, Life it self is not easy for anyone. I imagine myself with all my sweet dreams, I planned to go see my Mom last year and I planned it twice, but I can't make it. My wonderful uncle who lives in Stafford, Virginia told me that I've to go see my Mom, after I've planned to traveled with him last year, I felt so sad and down. Now that's my favourite uncle who cares much about me and always wishes me well.

As I talks to my Mom each and everyday, I realized that my Mom missing me, but she's fine when she hears my voice on the phone and when she receives her monthly supports and she's always loaded with all her needs: rice, provisions, kerosene, food and as she calls it: her pocket money.

I am very thankful to God that I can provides for my families, My Mom is always my responsibilities and God will always make me do it to the fullest.

One day my younger brother Yussufu was telling me that many people who lives here and abroad don't even cares to send money or take care of there parents, and he said he's proud and happy that I can do my best for them. I said wow, I didn't know that someone will be so proud of me. After all I am just doing a duty that I owed for life.

As the Africa or Islamic beliefs says that one have to take care of there families for life. I am doing it and it doesn't makes me any different.

Life, as my friend's will say: Sucks sometimes. And oh yes that's true.Looking back at few family problems I have and few hard times I've been in, I am always thankful to God for everything, the good and the bad.

But this is a new year now, I plans few things, God help me to do them and help me to be happy and help me God to do my blogging daily or more.

So, for now let's starts this new year well. I'll listen to my friend's words and plan things and make sure I try to do what's right and be happy. Life is stressful and it comes with lot of push.

Let the ball roll. God help us all.

Life Is Life

2010-12-04T10:05:00.001-05:00

Sometimes is just good to starts writing and let things flow.

The Thanksgiving holiday came and gone, despite each and everyday is a Thanksgiving for most of us. Life is still here. I drove to my Uncle house in Stafford, Virginia to starts the holiday and I ends up in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Couple of years ago, I used to spend Thanksgiving in New Jersey at my Cousin house, all my immediate family members will be there, but time has changed and now Life has giving us all lot of reasons to look out for other things. But I do missed it lot. I remember one time I took my former lover Mrs. Tity Deen to New Jersey for Thanksgiving and my Uncle told me that Tity will be the best partner in my Life, my Uncle was right, but I screwed up and I let Tity go and I've never meet any good lady like Tity. It hurts when I even think about it. Sometimes we kicked our blessing with our left foot as the saying goes. She was a great lady and full of grace, her beauty, respect and cares for me and my family was above expectations.

I always wish I can go back to those old good days, it was a blessings and I missed her sometimes when I encounters someone who's the complete opposites. But Life moves on so do we all.

Back to my Thanksgiving joy ride: I did have a great time and lot to eat, despite I don't do the Turkey well. I felt relaxed and invigorated, I felt some quite moments in Chapel Hill with Sultan, driving around the City and going to places that I used to visit some seven years ago, I always likes driving lot.

Heading back home on Friday morning in time for me to go for Jummah prayers was a whole lot different story. I was pulled over by a Virginia State trooper for speeding. God, I was not speeding. I've an older 1999 Truck and I am a careful driver on the road. I was a bit upsets and I obey all his request and I told him thanks after he gave me the ticket.

I know that in the Southern States, a black guy like me don't have any chance to say much to a police officer, due to the racial stuffs and all the negative mess.

Thanks to God I get home safe and the state trooper didn't shoot me as an accident.(Just kidding).

Sometimes Life don't needs all the over load or high tensions we puts on it. We can learn and try to keep things simple and easy. We build up stress for simple things and by the end, those things don't even matters to us.

Ramadan

2010-08-16T12:03:00.000-04:00

Ramadan, translated

Ramadan is not only the beginning of a month-long fast but of a special spiritual cycle of months within which those who participate have the opportunity to draw closer to God, family and community.

No food, no drink, no smoking, and no sex -- from dawn to dusk for a whole month? For some in our secular, materialistic world such religious abstinence is extreme or even harmful, in our society grueling marathons and triathlons or 12-to-18-hour professional workdays are often lauded and justified with the mantra of "No pain, no gain" and rigorous dieting and exercise for beauty or health are multibillion-pound industries.

Ramadan, which is just beginning, is a special time set aside to reflect on human frailty and dependence on God to draw closer to God through physical and spiritual discipline: abstinence, devoting more time than usual to prayer, and performing good deeds.

It might seem curious in the context of fasting to speak of celebration and joy rather than suffering and endurance, but many Muslims look forward to Ramadan. Even many who are not particularly religiously observant in the rest of the year choose to observe this communal fast. It is a time for family and communal gathering, a time when many go "home" to share the experience.

At sunset each night, family, friends and neighbors come together to break their fast, traditionally the first thing eaten is a date. I can still remember vividly my first trip to Cairo when a former classmate, after dropping me off at my hotel, told me he would meet me for breakfast. I went out that night. When he did not show up for breakfast the next day, I called only to be told that he had come the night before to bring me to "breakfast," breaking his fast with his family!

Family, friends and neighbors then enjoy a festive meal (iftar) that includes desserts that are made especially in Ramadan and socialize late into the night. Many also go to a mosque to participate in the discipline of reciting the Koran, read in its entirety during this special month.
When my wife and I first travelled in the Muslim world in the early 1970s I was struck by a scroll or wall hanging that I purchased in Damascus, depicting the chapters of the entire Koran divided into 30 sections. I was surprised to learn that it reflected the Ramadan practice of reciting a different Koranic section each night. Koranic recitation (the word Koran means recitation) is meant to transform the person reciting -- just as it transformed Muhammad from a Meccan businessman to the Prophet of a major world faith. As the Koran says, "This Koran has been sent down by the Lord of the Worlds: The trusted Spirit brought it down upon your heart" (26: 194).

The month of Ramadan is also the time when Muslims fulfill another pillar of Islam, almsgiving (zakat), the pillar that, as the popular saying goes, gains Muslims entrance to heaven.

Social justice, a concern for the poor, orphans and widows, and family members is a major Koranic theme. The Koran specifically condemns those who say people are meant to be poor and should be left to their own fate because God wills it.

Like tithing in Christianity, Islam requires its followers to help less fortunate members of the community, but unlike tithing, which is based upon a percentage of one's income, zakat is a wealth tax, requiring one to give 2.5 per cent of all liquid assets each year. It is not viewed as voluntary or as charity. In Islam, the true owner of things is not man but God; zakat is a required sharing of the wealth that one has received as a trust from God.

But how does zakat play out practically? Many give their zakat to less fortunate family members or those in their community. Others, often those with considerable wealth, distribute their zakat more broadly for philanthropic projects like the building of mosques, libraries, clinics, locally and internationally, scholarships for students, assistance for medical care and social services.

Ramadan ends with one of the two major Islamic feasts (Eids), the Festival of Breaking the Fast, Eid al-Fitr. Relatives often come from far and wide to visit and celebrate together for several days or even weeks. The celebration resembles Christmas or Chanukah in its religious joyfulness, special celebrations and gift-giving.

For many Muslims, the religious experience and joy of Ramadan continues with the opportunity during the following month of pilgrimage, the pilgrimage or Hajj to Mecca. At least once, every adult Muslim who is physically and financially able is required to make to make this pilgrimage, becoming a pilgrim totally at God's service.

Just as Muslims are united five times each day as they face Mecca in worship, each year believers make the physical journey to this spiritual centre of Islam, where they again experience the unity, breadth and diversity of the Islamic community.

In the 21st century almost 2 million Muslims gather annually from every part of the globe in Saudi Arabia for the hajj. The pilgrimage ends with the celebration of the Feast of Sacrifice (Eid al-Adha). The "great feast" commemorates God's testing of Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son Ismail (in the Jewish and Christian traditions it is Isaac who is put at risk) and final permission to Abraham to substitute a ram for his son.

By: Mr. John Esposito. Washington Post.

My Friend Moodu Pea Real Life Stories. Part #1

2010-08-08T09:03:00.001-04:00

I've meet many good friends in my Life, I've seen many friends comes and goes, I've seen friends who stands with you and fall with you and you can always counts on them.

I've seen friends who are just vulnerable and always seek helps and knowledge and they'll be there for you no matter what the tides is. One friend I've seen with the biggest differences is a friend that's so dear to me and his name is Moodu Pea.

I asked Moodu if I can write or just blog about some of his encounters in life, he said yes, and I promised I'll keep it simple and less graphic (There's nothing big about it).

Life is a journey, and it depends how one starts the journey. Some choices we made in the beginning can lead us astray if we don't shape up and change course fast.

Moodu, my best friend came from Africa and he was helped by his some of his relatives here, his late Uncle in Africa(May His Soul Rest In Peace) helps more and his Aunt's here in the States helps him and try to stand by him, but it was not for long before things starts to fall apart, reasons unknown. But no finger pointing here. His Aunt's thinks Moodu is the worst human being on Earth, but Moodu likes his Aunt and respect her lot.

Moodu, is a caring and very friendly guy, he will always goes the extra miles for anyone, especially for his family members, despite his family always looking for faults on him. I laughed when he told me that his family always try's to make him as the lost cause, I asked him what he means by that, he said in life, everyone want to point finger or find someone they can laugh at. It makes me remember what my grand-ma used to say: "Everyone wants to laugh at a mad person, but no one wants to give birth to a man person", and I find that to be 100% true, I know that about me and my family too.

Moodu have children and his a wonderful father to them, he will go the extra miles just to make sure they feels good and yes, I am a living wittiness to that.

My friend Moodu is a single man and lives a kind of lonely life styles sometimes, despite he workout hard and try to do what makes him happy and eat right, I never saw my friend upsets about life or about how things are, he seems to take things as they're and he always have that hope that tomorrow will be better than today. I admires anyone who always have that drives.

As I starts this project about Moodu Pea, I realized I've to write lot of stuffs, so I decided to break it down to as many parts that I can, so I'll move to part 2.

2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa Comes To An End Today.

2010-07-11T09:35:00.001-04:00

FIFA World Cup South Africa 2010 Come To An End Today..

"Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back." By Harvey Mackay.

In the beginning there are 32 teams from 32 Countries, with hopes to get to the final. Lot of predictions, Many of the favourable teams get knocked out, Brazil for one and Germany and Ghana from my Continent, Africa.

I saw tears from the players and fans and even people who don't understand the true meaning and feelings of football (Soccer as it's called here in the USA).

Today is the final between Netherlands and Spain. The hopes are higher again one last time and we all football fans will relax for the next four years again, as the FIFA World Cup is every four years.

I've asked myself and I know many others have asked this question: Why is the World Cup played every four years? Is too long and despite all the pre-requisites and qualifications and myths about it all, Four years is too long and I think it need to be shorter or at least every three years,

Yes, I know that others will say, well the Olympics is every four years too,, and so on, but Life moves so fast and the FIFA World cup is millions of people dreams, to watch it or take parts in it, so making it shorter is a good thing and a dream come true for many fans around the World.

At the same time, the beginning and ending of the FIFA World Cup let me reflect myself and look at Life in a two way dimension as I always do when things comes and go in my Life.

Despite all the excitements and loud noises, today is the final and I might not know the winner yet, but I might assume it will be Spain, who knows?

But this is my point: Life is funny, I know I say this always to my buddies, but yes it is. We look forward to big things that are coming to us, we procrastinate, we assumed, we prepared and we spend all our time and energy towards it, it comes and gone and sometimes, we don't even missed it, despite I will always missed the FIFA World cup when all said and done, but many things we kill ourselves for really don't make huge differences in our Life.

But time is for us to use wisely, we spend most of time on things that don't matter to us, but just caused us harm and regrets. I've few friends with family or just like a single parents just like me, I sometime fight with them when I realized that they prefer to hang out while there children or family in need of them, Giving your time to you love ones and family is a call to duty for each and everyone of us,

One funny thing I realized, we all have so many excuses for TIME. Let us make time for Life..

Everyone Have A Story To Tell..

2010-07-08T21:56:00.001-04:00

Thinking back, it was last October, during the end of Ramadan that I pen down a serious blog, since then I’ve been in and out or drifted away from my blog. Despite many readers of my blogs have sent me e-mails and notes and requesting me to starts blogging again, I still drag my feet. Until few weeks ago,Kerollyne wrote me an e-mail and asking me to get back on my writings. As she finds my blogs interesting and simple. And now I am writing and I will write from now on.

I don’t know what’s my blogs means to others or what it might inspired or say to anyone. But we all have a story and we’ve to share it in some form or shape. And that’s why this blog is entitled: Everyone Have A Story.

I don’t blog for living, despite I do have few ads. that are placed on my blog home page by an advertising company, but I make less than $10 a month from those ads.

I might make money doing my second hobby: PHOTOS. I likes taking pictures and it’s a good pass time for me too.

Since my last serious blog last year, I’ve seen lot in Life, that’s includes laughs and sorrows, pains and confusions, miscommunications and all sorts of Life events. Some I learned from and some are just same old stories again.

But I’ll try to jump on them in my blogs as days and weeks and months and years goes by. As we all knows, that Life is something like that.

I think if I want to starts a confusions for my readers, I’ve to talk about Politics and Sports, those are always hot buttons all around the World. But there are even more pressing and important stories out there. Starvation, oppressed people and the list goes on.

As a Sierra Leonean, I know a bit about war and starvation and conflict and disease and poor governments and sorrows.

But yes again, we all have a story to tell, I am doing mine in my blogs, let’s everyone try to tell some of there’s too. I know we all can’t do this much writing, but is always good to starts some where always.

As this blogs goes to Kerollyne for giving me the push and kick to starts my blogs again, I think God is a good God for giving each and everyone some people who can see goodness in you despite you might not worth anything to them or have it all.

So my readers, I am kindly asking each and everyone who might stumble to my blogs, please send me feed back, my grammars might be wrong or miss-spelt words sometimes, I want to hear from you and correct me and give me ideas.

As I am cross checking this blog now before posting it, I am down with cold, running nose and coughing and sneezing, but I’ve to get it done. No excuses.

Let’s read on..

SAIDU YUSUF would like to connect with you on Yahoo!

2010-07-05T10:06:00.001-04:00


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Dr. Jeffry Life believes he's the picture of health - latimes.com

2010-06-27T08:27:00.000-04:00

Dr. Jeffry Life believes he's the picture of health - latimes.com

Astronomer gives firm date to Ramadan - The National Newspaper

2010-06-21T19:31:00.000-04:00

Astronomer gives firm date to Ramadan - The National Newspaper

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2010-03-05T09:43:00.000-05:00

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The New Mortgage Revolution: Walk Away

2010-01-26T07:55:00.000-05:00

The New Mortgage Revolution: Walk Away

How Safe Is Our First Black President?

2010-01-02T19:04:00.000-05:00

I am not jumping on this band wagon about Party crasher or unwelcome guests to the White House.

I am a Washingtonian as many of us who have been living here for over fifteen years thinks.

I've seen three President occupied (President Obama) that great house called the White House.

But no one of those guys have more attentions than the current occupants and it's nothing funny about this.

I used to be a Tour Guide's and I've few runs with Secret Services Officers. Nothing bad with them, but some of them are just not real.

I bet anyone who wants to try me that 88 % of those Secret Service don't really understand the roads in Washington DC. Yes, they don't know around town. Despite they will always says that they go around with the MPD (Local Police Officers) But even them too don't know all the majors escapes route in this great City.

Well, someone will say so what? I think is important for them to know the City first and I'm sure that they know the game plan with security and protection is changing everyday.

The World is getting more troubled with those fanatics who thinks that they are better and the rest of World is wrong.

Security for the President and his family must be priority number one for the Secret Services and all major law enforcement's around the Nation Capital and every where the President travels. As far I've seen here in Washington DC, The Park Police and MPD work side by side with the President motorcades and foreign dignitaries when there're in town, they messed up traffic and sometimes towed vehicles as they see it fits. Sometimes the Secret Service will get into parked Buses and check them when the President is about to pass by, all that is good. But what next?

God forbidden if there's any major attacks in the Nation Capital while the President and his family are asleep or just hanging around in the White House, and there's no clear way how to fly the first family out of town or let's take them to Maryland or Virginia? How can the Secret Services keep the President around town safe? I bet you again, there will be more problems due to most of the Officers don't know there way around town, I mean the best route or how to run around the City for safety. Despite they will say they have safe houses. I bet you again if push comes to push, those safe houses are of no good. Or even how to get to them when the target is so high?

Do I think the Secret Services needs more better plans to escape from the City, Yes they do need more plans and it can be done.

Washington DC is a small City with less than 600,000 populations, that's includes majority of public workers who comes to the City for work, and if there will be any major attacks in the City, it will be during working days or public gathering, as we've learned now that those tugs or so called fanatics likes to make a huge impacts as there trade marks.

One funny things I've been seeing on the news lately is those so-called Experts, Experts on what? Where are all those so-called Experts when thousands of innocent people are killed each and everyday around the World?

The last time I gave up totally on those so-called Experts is during the Sniper crisis here in the Nation Capital. I pray that never repeats it self again. But there are hundreds of them on the Tele each day and giving there stories and all of them where lies and at the end, an older man ends up finding the snipers taking a naps, So I am not in the same line as others about Experts, I came from a Civil War Country, it was one of the saddest things in my Life.

Thousands of my people killed for no just reasons but Politics and greed.

Now, i am in the most powerful Country in the World and I'm very thankful to be. As such, I will always voice my observations and ideas as we go along.

Next, I will talk about the safety of Hotels and other public places in this great Nation Capital. Yes, Washington DC is a great place to visit and protects.

I am convinced that those tugs will try to do some mess in this place, no one can predicts everything in Life, but this is one is 87% sure of, Washington DC and New York are always big target, not to forget Los Angeles and Boston, Michigan and Washington States.

Also, they might try small towns America by doing other things that I might try not to mentions, security has to be all of us concerns and all of us have to.

The Salahi Family Party Crasher is major, but we have to learn from that few lessons. What is so special for the Salahi to get to the party without an invitations and how else can get more closer without notice? It will be more troubling.

The security for our President have to be beefed up as we learn how to let him be closer to the people, but safer.

Yes, we've to watch Al' Qaida or Talaban. But don't forget the White supremacist picking up speed just because the President is African American. They're getting stronger with all those so-called right wings Radio Talk show host who are fueling those people so much hates and propaganda. There's nothing wrong to voice one feelings or disagreements. But preaching hates and chaos is not human and it's a shame.

Let's take a look at what happened last month in Italy, Prime Minister Sylvia Berlusconi was attacked and was hurt and the Pope was dragged down by a mad lady.I know our agencies here are much more better and faster than the rest. Let's think about former Pakistani Prime Minister Bhutto. Security is of major concerns for us all and our President.

Reverend Kemoh Sulimani: Is That Him?

2009-12-23T14:10:00.002-05:00

****DHS counselor accused of theft

A state employee who lives in Cordova has been indicted in the theft of more than $150,000 in federal and state public assistance benefits.

Kemoh Sulimani, 44, a Department of Human Services eligibility counselor, is accused of creating dozens of fake cases to embezzle from the food-stamp and Families First programs.

Sulimani, who was hired at DHS in September 2004, worked in the Jackson Avenue office. He's a native of Sierra Leone who holds dual U.S. citizenship.

"Any time a government employee is accused of these types of crimes, it shakes the public's confidence," said DHS Commissioner Gina Lodge in a statement. "It angers us when one of our own may be involved in cheating the system."

Internal reviews discovered the fraud, DHS said.

Sulimani is being held in the Shelby County Jail on $500,000 bond.

The Shelby County Sheriff's Department is assisting DHS as the investigation continues, and anyone who suspects DHS fraud or abuse should call the agency's Investigations Unit at (800) 241-2629.

-- Hank Dudding

****State Worker Indicted on Numerous Fraud and Theft Counts
Released on Mon, Jun 29, 2009 - 12:19 pm under Human Services MEMPHIS – A 44-year old Cordova man was indicted last week and arrested on Saturday, June 27 in connection with an alleged scheme to defraud the federal and state government out of more than $150,000 in public assistance benefits. Internal reviews at the Department of Human Services revealed that Kemoh Sulimani, an eligibility counselor in Shelby County, may have created dozens of fictitious cases that enabled him to embezzle from two government assistance programs—Food Stamps and Families First, the state’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program.

“Any time a government employee is accused of these types of crimes, it shakes the public’s confidence,” said DHS Commissioner Gina Lodge. “We work diligently to assure the integrity of our programs and assure the public trust. It angers us when one of our own may be involved in cheating the system.”

Sulimani, a native of Sierra Leone who holds dual citizenship, became employed with DHS in September, 2004. He worked in the Jackson Avenue DHS office. Irregularities in Sulimani’s caseload were discovered last month.

“We are extremely pleased with the work our Systems and Investigations units did in uncovering and building this case,” said DHS Inspector General Alan Hall. “We are also very grateful for the hard work of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Department in pursuing and apprehending the suspect.”

Sulimani was arrested at his home on Hardwood Cove on Saturday evening. He was booked into the Shelby County jail just after midnight, and is being held on a $500,000 bond.

http://injail.shelby-sheriff.org/kiosk_detail.php?z=6bao2at95n0a1t89l1q8m1tkq0&x=07BE9B0D20E0-AC78-CF54-C023-A637A49A&d

The Shelby County Sheriff’s Department is assisting in the ongoing investigation, along with investigators from the Department of Human Services. If anyone suspects fraud or abuse of DHS programs, please call the DHS Investigations Unit at 1-800-241-2629.

Any accused person is always presumed not guilty until proven otherwise in a court of law.

ISLAM: The Religion Of Peace. Despite All Odds By Fanatics

2009-11-14T12:32:00.001-05:00

Few weeks ago I starts thinking about this article and I find myself going way past what I really wants to write about.

But I think I know exactly what's in my mind and I'll spread it as simply as it can be about the misconceptions and black mailing of Islam.

For the past few weeks, I've seen on television lot of car bombing in the so-called Muslim World. Especially on Fridays (JUMMAH), which is the Muslim Holy day of the week.

Those Car bombs or suicides takes lot of Innocent Life's and hurts thousands of Peace Loving People of all Faith.

Let me just say this before moving on: Is WRONG and UN-ISLAMIC to kill innocent and peace loving People of any Faith. Islam forbid all aspect of killings innocent People.

" Do not take life, which Allah has made sacred, except through justice and the law. He orders this so that you may acquire wisdom" (6:151).

Looking at Islam and what this Faith represent has been totally washed asides by few so-called Muslims who thinks they know more or feels that they're practising the true Faith. Islam is a decent religion and very passionate and caring and devout.

When one hears the preaching of killing so-calls unbelievers. Now How can anyone tells another persons that they're unbelievers?

"Say : O ye that reject Faith! I worship not that which ye worship, Nor will ye worship that which I worship. And I will not worship that which ye have been won't to worship, Nor will ye worship that which I worship. To you be your Way, and to me mine. (The Noble Quran, 109:1-6)".

I'm sure that many Muslims are all peace loving and helpful individuals. They're very supportive of each other and to non-Muslims. They're hard working people and they take care of their families and loves ones. They Fast during the Holy month of Ramadan and gives there money to the needy or sick ones and they really try to make Life easy.

The burning things here is the way Life is now for many Muslims. Many Muslims are under Constance pressure from the Federal Authorities just because few Muslims has caused a bad image about this peaceful religion.

There's no magic one to correct things or nice way to make it looks. But Islam is going the way that a true Muslim will not want to see it.

Now, how can Muslims turn this around? God can not change the States of a Nation until the People themselves are ready and making a positive moves. Instead of defending the so-called Jihads or perfect ones. Let Muslims practice peace and respect for others Faith. Let Muslim realized that Only GOD can pass judgements on us. No one is perfect, but we can try to do better.

The Muslim population is growing at a faster pace than any other Faith. There are many genuine difference between Islam and other Faiths. Despite Islam talks about the One and true GOD, Islam also shows lot of disciplines and purity amongst each other.

And yes, Islam is a religion of Peace, Kindness and Understand.

Is This What A Military Government Can Do?

2009-10-06T11:38:00.001-04:00

In a Guinea Seized by Violence, Women Are Prey

By ADAM NOSSITER

CONAKRY, Guinea — Cellphone snapshots, ugly and hard to refute, are circulating here and feeding rage: they show that women were the particular targets of the Guinean soldiers who suppressed a political demonstration at a stadium here last week, with victims and witnesses describing rapes, beatings and acts of intentional humiliation.

"I can't sleep at night, after what I saw," said one middle-aged woman from an established family here, who said she had been beaten and sexually molested. "And I am afraid. I saw lots of women raped, and lots of dead."

One photograph shows a naked woman lying on muddy ground, her legs up in the air, a man in military fatigues in front of her. In a second picture a soldier in a red beret is pulling the clothes off a distraught-looking woman half-lying, half-sitting on muddy ground. In a third a mostly nude woman lying on the ground is pulling on her trousers.

The cellphone pictures are circulating anonymously, but multiple witnesses corroborated the events depicted.

The attacks were part of a violent outburst on Sept. 28 in which soldiers shot and killed dozens of unarmed demonstrators at the main stadium here, where perhaps 50,000 had assembled. Local human rights organizations say at least 157 were killed; the government puts the figure at 56.

But even more than the shootings, the attacks on women — horrific anywhere, but viewed with particular revulsion in Muslim countries like this one — appear to have traumatized the citizenry and hardened the opposition's determination to force out the leader of the military junta, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara.

Diplomats said the violence had irreversibly undermined Mr. Camara's standing with other countries.

If internal opposition continues to grow, Captain Camara may be forced either to leave power or to tighten his grip with an even more authoritarian government.

Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France, the former colonial power here, said his country could no longer work with Captain Camara, and urged "international intervention."

The exact number of women who were abused is not known. Because of the shame associated with sexual violence in this West African country, victims are reluctant to speak, and local doctors refuse to do so. Victims who told of the attacks would not provide their names because they were afraid of retribution.

But the witnesses were adamant. "I affirm, in categorical fashion, that women were raped, not just one woman," said Mamadou Mouctar Diallo, 34, an opposition leader who said he had been severely beaten himself. "I saw many rapes."

Three women who said they had been attacked described their ordeal in an interview this past weekend. "We didn't know the soldiers were going to harm us," said the middle-aged woman who said she could not sleep at night. She spoke slowly in a darkened room, seated on a bed with two other women. They were in a villa in a district at the edge of the capital here.

"We heard gunfire," she said. "I tried to flee." With weapons going off, suddenly "it was like a henhouse."

She ran, but a soldier barred the way.

"He hit me," she said. "And he tore my clothes off. He ripped my clothes off with his hands."

Then, she said, "he put his hand inside me." The soldier hit her on the head with his rifle, requiring stitches, she said. She also had large welts from the beating.

"We are traumatized," she said slowly, looking down.

Mr. Diallo said he saw at least 10 women raped at the stadium.

Describing one such assault, he said: "I saw a woman who was stripped naked. They ripped off, they tore off her clothes. They surrounded her. They made her lie down. They lifted up her feet, and one of the soldiers advanced. They took turns."

One woman interviewed at the suburban villa here described how a soldier had ripped her robe off with a knife. She had a large cut on her backside, where a soldier had stabbed her with his knife, and deep bruises on her shoulders.

The third woman said she had been whipped by a soldier. "When I went out, I saw one of the soldiers lying on top of a woman," she said. "A lot of women were raped."

Corroboration of the attacks came from at least one foreign aid organization in the Guinean capital. Jerome Basset of the Conakry mission for Doctors Without Borders said his team had treated three rape victims and three other victims of sexual violence in the hours after the demonstration.

Brutal repression of antigovernment demonstrators has occurred in Guinea before, notably in 2007, when security forces shot several hundred people demonstrating against the repressive regime of Lansana Conté, who preceded Captain Camara.

Rape is a fairly common tool of military repression in Africa, but large-scale violence against women has not been a previous government tactic here. "This time, a new stage has been reached," said Sidya Touré, a former prime minister who was also beaten at the stadium and said he had witnessed brutalities there. "Women as battlefield targets. We could never have imagined that."

"Where could people get the idea to start raping women in broad daylight?" Mr. Touré asked, in an interview at his home here. "It's so contrary to our culture. To molest women using rifle barrels. ... "

Captain Camara, asked in his office at the sprawling military camp here last week whether rapes had occurred, responded: "I wasn't at the stadium. These are things people have told me." He has repeatedly disclaimed responsibility for the killings at the stadium, blaming opposition figures instead.

He reiterated these disclaimers in an interview broadcast Sunday on Radio France Internationale, even as Mr. Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said in a radio interview that "group massacres aren't internal matters."

Opposition figures here said that they were discussing further ways of countering the government, and that they would not be stopped by last week's bloody repression.

A diplomat here, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the subject, said Saturday that "the writing is on the wall for the junta, certainly vis-à-vis the international community, and I hope vis-à-vis the local community."

Meanwhile, the sexual violence, along with the number of people unaccounted for after last week's crackdown, continues to trouble many here.

"They especially tore into the women," said another former prime minister, François Lonsény Fall, who was also at the stadium. "They were seeking to humiliate them."

"We want a force of intervention to protect us from the ferocity of the Guinean Army," Mr. Fall said.

***NYTimes

Eid Mubarak To All.

2009-09-22T20:26:00.002-04:00

Fasting twenty nine or thirty days of the Holy month of Ramadan is not always easy and no one expecting it to be so.

But the courage and determinations that all Muslims undergoes to get to the end of it all is amazing and very personal.

Ramadan is the time when Muslims don’t eat, drink, smoke, have sexual intercourse with there wife or even use profanity, and also one have to control there way of looking at beautiful women.

Despite is one of the fifth pillars of the Islamic faith and it’s compulsory to all Muslims who are in good health and capable to withstand the moments, one has to be really strong in one belief to uphold that great commitments of Fasting. I remember growing up in Koidu town, my Mualeem (teacher) will always says,'” if Fasting is for a human or a governments, he will not do it, because it’s hard, but is for GOD only and that’s why he’s doing it.”

Now is over and done with for this year, all the faithful went to the Mosque or community centers or even large halls to perform the Eid prayers, which in turn marks the final chapter of this glorious month for 2009.

This year Ramadan was a bit harder, long days and short nights, a bit hot too. But next year will be even harder, when it falls in the mid of Summer. For some of us who work outside or long hours at work or working two jobs to make ends meet and even if one don’t hard.

But I’ve to take my hat off to all the Muslims who tried and did there best to performed and completes this great deal of Fasting.Despite the Muslim population is growing larger and more advanced, there are many Muslims who bragged about been Muslims, but they don’t Fast, they’ll make up so much fancy excuses and brings up points why they can’t perform one of there religion requirements. But no one can judge anyone, excepts GOD.

I know lot of Muslims who went above and beyond to help the needy and there families during this Holy month, as requires by the faith. May GOD bless them all and there families and loved ones.

Now that Blessed month of Ramadan is done and gone. So is our LIFE, Life don’t have no guarantee for morrow or what next. But most of us deals with each other as if there’s guarantee for morrow and hurts others or just waste our time doing odds or evil against each other. Yes, many will say is good to enjoy today as if there’s' no morrow. But wait a minutes here; What will you do if there’s no morrow?

It will be better to help others that you’re a bit above, and that’s the truth about Life, there’s always someone you’re better than or making more than, while there’s always one who is better than you or making more than you. Life is not always a plain field and it will never be. Despite we’re all equal to GOD.

I asked myself many questions towards the end of Ramadan, and some of the questions I asked myself are important while some are not so important, but they have answers.

Now I’ve to starts working on few of the important one and by GOD willing, I’ll make it and solves most.

Peace on Earth. Eid Mubarak

Happy Father's Day To All My Readers.

2009-06-21T08:11:00.002-04:00

It takes more than just a man to be Father, It takes the guts, determinations and devotion to be one.

Despite many fathers are dogging there responsibilities, but many good dad's are facing the daily beating just to make it up to there children.

The children are the future. Give them the best and not less.

Be a dad and God will take care of the rest.

Are Secret Service Agents Above The Law?

2009-04-13T09:02:00.002-04:00

Last night here in the Nation Capital, the Royal Trolley was packed along 15Th. street NW, which is located on the south west side of the White House (South Lawn).
The Royal Trolley is a Tour company here in D.C., The spot the Trolley was packed is the usual spots for all Buses, Trolleys, Vans and even Cabs. But what makes last evening different was when one of the Secret Services vehicle which was coming out of the White House south side exits in full speed and damaged the Royal Trolley driver side view mirrors and the Secret Services driver didn't even stop or check what he hits or missed.

Now, there was no emergency going on, the President was not going anywhere, no security convoy, just this one Secret Service guy drive a Secret Service Vehicle, and only him and God knows where he's heading.

Tourism in Washington, D.C is a bright business and those Trolley companies are taking a lot of hustles from both the park police and some government agencies.

Sometimes the park police will issues $500.00 parking tickets to Tours drivers when they park to let there guests off to see the sites. And oh, if you looking for some of the most arrogant and disrespectful offices in D.C, look for the Park police, they are not helpful and they can be so rude to Tourists and Tour drivers.

At this hard times in our Country history, I see no use to make life more difficulties for the common person who's trying to make ends meet.

I don't think anyone is above the law or special that much to hit someone vehicle and don't stop. That's a hit and run and that's a crime Mr. Secret Service. This is America sir,one Nation and everyone have to obey the laws of this land, that's what made us great.

What you did last night makes me to remember what life is in third World countries, that's where the powerful do as they wants and no one checks them out.

You owed that poor Tour driver his side view mirrors, he can't fights you or make a La-Di-DA about it. But do you have a soul or concerns for this Nation? Respect the law and fellow humans please sir.

I can see if thee was an emergency or the President is going somewhere, but non of that last evening.

Mr. Secret Service sir, whatever you believes or imagine is above you will judge you one day for this poor Tour driver Trolley you messed up and God don't like people who takes advantage on others.

Is Charles Taylor Team Mad?

2009-03-23T08:15:00.000-04:00

Taylor Defence Team to Make No Case Submission (Rule 98 Submission) on April 6, 2009
Posted: 20 Mar 2009 12:59 PM PDT

On April 6, 2009, defence team for Mr. Taylor will make a Rule 98 submission before the Trial Chamber judges. This submission, called a “No Case Submission” or a “Motion for Judgement of Acquital” will take the form of an oral submission by the defence that the prosecution has not proved it’s case or has not rendered sufficient evidence on one or more of the counts in the indictment. The defence will have four hours to make it’s submission. The prosecution response to the defence submission will be made few days later. No date has yet been set for the prosecution response.
The decision to have this hearing on April 6, 2009 was made at the Status Conference of the parties held on February 27, 2009. No date has yet been set for the commencement of the defence case.

A Sierra Leonean: A Life Of Twists, Turns And Finally Tragedy By Washington Post

2009-02-21T09:26:00.002-05:00

Bowie State Graduate Moved To Sierra Leone, Married Quietly, And Died in Collision There

By Jenna Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 21, 2009; B01

After the fateful phone call and the long flight from Washington to West Africa, Sulaiman Jalloh arrived at the funeral home in Sierra Leone to claim the body of his only daughter, Kadija.

It was too late, he was told that day in December. Another man had already claimed her.

"They said this man, this Michel Sho-Sawyer, was her husband," said Sulaiman Jalloh, 57. He had known of his daughter's engagement but not her wedding. "I just kept saying, 'What is going on? Where is Kadija?' "

It was then that Jalloh learned about the surprising life that his 22-year-old daughter, a graduate of Bowie State University, had built for herself in Sierra Leone starting last summer. She had revealed select details to a few close friends and to her mother, who was divorced from her father years ago. But Jalloh knew nothing of his daughter's conversion from Islam to evangelical Christianity, or her ascension to Sierra Leone's highest social circles as the girlfriend and later wife of a prominent government official.

In 2005, the father learned, Kadija Jalloh met the man she would marry on a Web site about Sierra Leone -- Sho-Sawyer's native country, and that of her parents. She was a student at Bowie State; he was eight years her senior and living in Atlanta.

Late last year, they married in a small ceremony in a chapel in Prince George's County. And less than two weeks later, on a highway in Sierra Leone, a truck hit the couple's vehicle head-on.

Jalloh, 22, was killed.

Even now, Sulaiman Jalloh becomes emotional as he describes how he and his wife moved to the United States in the 1980s in search of greater opportunity for the children they hoped to have. From an early age, Kadija was fascinated with Sierra Leone, and her father encouraged her; he never dreamed she would move there.

"Sierra Leone is a good place to like," he said, "but it's a difficult place to stay."

Last month, more than 200 people -- including her parents and husband -- gathered at Bowie State to share memories and announce the creation of a foundation in her honor to build orphanages in Sierra Leone.

"She loved Sierra Leone," Sulaiman Jalloh said at the service. "And she went to Sierra Leone. And she died in Sierra Leone."

Kadija Jalloh visited Sierra Leone for the first time in 2005. During the two-week trip with her mother, Jalloh was enamored by the nightlife, music and fashion. Later that year, she started a Maryland chapter of the national organization Youth for Sierra Leone Improvement. At the time, Sho-Sawyer was the national president of the group.

Sho-Sawyer, 30, was born in Sierra Leone and lived there until his family fled to the United States in 1999 during a bloody civil war -- the same conflict featured in the 2006 movie "Blood Diamond," about the human cost of trafficking in gems from conflict areas. Sho-Sawyer and his family lived mostly in New York until 2003. He graduated from Lehman College in the Bronx and then moved to Atlanta.

Sho-Sawyer and Jalloh first crossed paths late in 2005 on the Web site Salone Connection, where Sierra Leoneans the world over post photos, share news stories and talk politics. They met in person at a conference for young Sierra Leoneans several months later.

"Kadija and I fell in love the first time we set eyes on each other," Sho-Sawyer said. "But we refused to give in."

The friendship, however, deepened. Jalloh soon visited an evangelical Christian church. She did not tell her father when she converted, an omission he struggles to understand.

Last year, as a senior at Bowie State, Jalloh keenly missed Sho-Sawyer, he said. By then he was an adviser to the president of Sierra Leone, tasked with helping expatriates return home or invest in the country.

As a graduation present, Jalloh's father bought her a plane ticket to Sierra Leone, where he expected her to visit family. Instead, she spent much of the summer with Sho-Sawyer. According to her blog, she received VIP treatment everywhere she went, meeting top government officials and wealthy businessmen.

"My life in Sierra Leone, seemed so unreal compared to my normal, mundane, type of lifestyle in the states," she wrote. "There is just something about that little country on the west coast of Africa!"

She briefly returned to Maryland, and on Nov. 4 she called Sho-Sawyer, gleeful about the presidential election results. As Sho-Sawyer recalled, she told him: "Are you watching? Obama has won!"

Jalloh commented on how beautiful and strong Michelle Obama looked. "I am your Michelle Obama," she told him.

He said: "Since you are already my Michelle Obama, will you marry me?"

"No! No!" she said. "I am asking you! Will you marry me?"

The couple planned to have a large wedding this year but decided to quietly marry so as to not live together in sin. Two weeks after the proposal, Sho-Sawyer traveled to Maryland. The couple bought rings and met with Jalloh's pastor. The pastor told them their marriage had been "written before they were born," Sho-Sawyer recalled.

Sho-Sawyer called Jalloh's father, telling him he wanted to start the long process of winning approval for marriage. And on Nov. 24, the couple married in the presence of only a handful of relatives.

Early the next morning, Sho-Sawyer returned to Sierra Leone. Less than two weeks later, his new wife joined him.

The next day, Dec. 6, Jalloh and her husband were on the highway, driving to an event where he was to make an appearance. Sho-Sawyer's uncle was behind the wheel. The truck hit their vehicle, and Jalloh was killed, as was the uncle, Sho-Sawyer said.

"I wanted to take my life," said Sho-Sawyer. "I didn't want to be here alone. I was so angry that she left me. Why didn't she take me with her?"

Her funeral was in Freetown on Dec. 15. The president's wife attended, as did other dignitaries. In an ornate carved casket, in her husband's family's plot, Jalloh was buried in her adopted country.

***WASHINGTON POST

Cocorioko Newspaper, Where is Thou Mercy? Part # 3

2009-02-11T18:37:00.005-05:00

Due to my previous two blogs: Cocorioko Newspaper,Where Is Thou Mercy"?, I've heard some few comments or shakes. I want to get one simple thing straight first: I have no problems with anyone or I'm not opposing anyone writings, but I'm blogging about what's interest me and what I saw as shameful journalism, and above all, I just want the Lovely people of the Motherland to be able to say or express there ideas or views without any one in the media shutting them down.

With that said: Let's go to part # 3.

I think someone forwarded or pasted one of my blogs at the Cocorioko forum and I was told Cocorioko deletes it right out. I'm not too surprised, but is that fair journalism or a total dictatorship? Anyway, it's Cocorioko websites, they have all the right to do what's important to them.

Again, let me say this one more time: I do not belong to any political party, nor a supporter of anyone, but a Sierra Leonean like anyone of you reading this blog right now.

There's no perfect society, nor a perfect human, but let's learn to listen and disagrees with each other in a human way. Using the media to blast someone who you disagrees with is wrong,childish, low blows and backward.

I read few Sierra Leone Newspapers daily and I will express my view about each and everyone if they jumps the line, not all of us have the time or means to do so, but for us who can, let's raise up and say something.

I am not Alpha Saidu Bangura, despite we might all disagrees with him on the way he sees life's or think, but the time we put in to abuses each other on the media, we can use it for better and productive things. Sierra Leone needs new ideas and she need us in the diaspora to show some sort of leadership or maturity for GOD sake.

Many wonderful Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora are facing hard times right now due to the economy crisis:Houses, Cars and even there day to day living is hard. Can we bring in people who knows more about how to turn the economy around and get advices. Help the people to know what can be done for them or there rights or places of help.

No one can tell any media what to write or say, but where is common sense here? Where is the News or Information's that might be beneficial to the World wide readers?

Where are the people of GOD? Well, may be who claim they are the people of GOD.

It's always wonderful to read about news from home, whither good or bad, but is not good when we're tearing up each other here just because of our political parties or because one makes more than the other or just a simple show-off. And going so low as telling someone how they looks, Wow, where is the Mirror? I will watch myself first before I tell you how ugly one looks.

Yes, we lives in a different World as many will say, but that's not the key to mislead others or be arrogant to others because you can write and publish News to the World. And yes, some of us needs to be fixed-up in some way, but again, too many beating on your weak opponents is total Human abuse.

Let our journalists grows up, this tribal or society differences is one of the major mess that put our country backward.

There are lot of talented Sierra Leoneans here, we need there positive contributions to our society, the jib jab of one opponents is crazy and sooner or later we will be blind with the Moses law.

2009-02-10T13:52:00.000-05:00

Cocorioko Newspaper, Where is Thou Mercy? Part 2

2009-02-10T08:19:00.008-05:00

One don't have to be partisan's to disagrees or express one views, Freedom of expression or speech is a GOD giving rights to all Mankind, whither poor or rich, colored or fade, APC or SLPP. At the same time, respect to each other is a must to all regardless of WHAT.

As I stated in one of my previous blogs, I'm still a big fan of all Sierra Leone Newspapers, Cocorioko is one of them.

I am a Blogger or I might be a News addicts or whatever someone might calls me. As such, I don't criticizes or pass judgments on anyone views, but if there are things that's going way too far on the negative side, one have to make some points across, may be it might makes one wake up or just a fair shake.

Cocorioko article's: "That Dream Team Hoax". 02/02/2009.

It's a wonderful thing and a blessing for all Sierra Leoneans in the diaspora and well wishers of our Mother land to read, see and engaged about the day to day events in the Country.

Cocorioko Newspaper is doing the job of journalism's or lip services for whatever political party it may supports, great thing to do until insults and partiality becomes the norm of the paper.

The article quoted above: Was a bit childish and mimicking of this great Newspaper:The names calling, the stone throwing, laughing at an opponent looks,so on, using the words: twists mouth.

One thing I wants to get across on the quick before writing further is: GOD creates us all in different forms and shapes. Cocorioko don't have to laugh at others looks, they just have to look at Cocorioko,(If you live in a glass house, you don't throw a stone). Lot to laugh there, don't they?

Well, let's move from there: Cocorioko might be right to be the APC flag bearer. I am not affiliated to any party or society. But I am a proud Sierra Leonean like each and everyone of you reading this article now. We can talk about how SLPP destroy our Mother land, but truth be told: How long did SLPP rules Sierra Leone since her Independents from our Colonial Masters?

I grew up under Siaka Steven regimes, was Siaka Steven head of SLPP? Ops, I think I'm wrong. I talked to few real people about our Home land politics, I came out with the ideas that: APC has ruled the country much longer than SLPP(Correct me pls. if I'm wrong).

But that's not the big story here,if we wants to point a finger at others mess, what about the remain four fingers that's pointing back at you?

Like the song goes"Sarra Lone Na We All Yone,Na We Sef Go Make Sarra Lone".

Cocorioko and all other Sierra Leone Newspapers on the Internet can do much more better for it's readers: The whole World is going through one of the great financial crisis and the light at the end of the tunnel is not so clear, many Sierra Leoneans are losing there houses, cars, some can't even have the means to sustain there family here, nor back at home, times are hard.

I recommends that all those who are going after each other and say things about how they looks or what they learn or have, to put that in good use. Let's writes about how we can survive this current condition, where to turn for help, banks that can help us, investments that can turn things around, how we can protect our children from drugs, jail and abuse in any forms or sizes.

Let's change the negative tunes to a semi-positive or productive melodies. Yes we can do it Sierra Leone Newspapers.
"A house divided amongst itself can not stand" A.Lincoln.

Sierra Leoneans are well talented people, we can use our talents to help each other, not to break us down or make us looks like fools.
Each and everyone of us have lot to learn from life and this great nation we find ourselves.

I'm not opposing the little rumbles we encounters between each other, but can we just do something better than using the Newspapers to go after someone you disagrees with?

I don't thing the Moses law will be a good thing to do, because in the end, we all will be blind.

Let's have an open debates and use our ideas to help, not to bully the powerless Sir. Long Live Sierra Leone.

Cocorioko Newspaper, Where is Thou Mercy?

2009-01-27T09:02:00.007-05:00

Cocorioko, Thanks for taking back the article you posted last evening about Alpha Saidu Bangura, I was fortunate enough to read it and forward it to myself.
I am a daily reader of your World renowned newspaper(Cocorioko.net) and I think you and your staffs are doing the best job to educates and inform us about the day to day affairs of our Mother land: Sierra Leone.

Your article last evening about Alpha Saidu Bangura was a bit on the negative and unwise side of what I was and always expects from your newspaper, I am not a relatives or friend or supporter of Alpha Saidu Bangura, I know that he's a bit troublesome guy, I know that he can push his luck more than he needs to,I also know that he can bites more than he can chew, he can talk as if he owns the World, but your article about him is untrue, unfair and lot of pork on it.

To say that he's a CON-ARTIST, A FRAUD STAR, A CRIMINAL, A SCAM-MAN and so on, those words are untrue and you or whoever wrote that article knew well that's big lies.

I'm not saying that Alpha Saidu Bangura is 100% clean of a guy (morals,etc), he might have his bad sides with him, but just like everyone of us, we have some skeleton in our closets. Every man or woman have something negatives in there life's or family life's, but your newspaper have no right to make false allegation against someone because he opposed your political party. Both political parties has done more harm than good for Sierra Leone, we've seen the worst from APC and SLPP, But since our country independents to Siaka Steven era, things has gone down the drain till now, I'm not saying say it is good now, But APC is under the spots light and the whole World is looking. During President Kabba era, there is no accountability's, now there is about 5% accountability, during Kabbaa era there are no electricity, now there is 11% of lights, despite the water is also another big crisis, but things are now looking promising than before.

95% of Africa governments are all corrupts and mismanaged. But if we as Sierra Loeneans comes together and put more pressures for good governments, we might see some major changes before the next general elections.

"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." Abraham Lincoln***

Yes, it's true that Alpha Saidu is a so-called SLPP supporters or stewards, but we've learned to accepts each other as human and not for the party you belongs to.

Cocorioko, if we have to use our Newspaper's to blaspheme someone you disagrees with or have a Miss-understanding with, then we're putting the media to the lowest standard. And with the current information technology World we live in now(Blogs,Forums,etc), we can be nasty to each other, but the end of it all is craziness. I pray we don't go that far and that low.

"I believe it is an established maxim in morals that he who makes an assertion
without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the
accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him." Abraham Lincoln**

Mr. Rev. Kabs-Kanu, you're a man of GOD as I heard, you're a respectable man and a good model for Sierra Leoneans. But when the only way your most respectable newspaper is used to propaganda lies about a fellow Sierra Leonean, one have to call you into account and brings the truth into lights. The truth might be hard to accepts or recognized, but everyone have there right to accept what the truth means to them because no one have the right to judge or condemned anyone because they dislikes each other or can't see eye to eye.

Cocorioko, I remembered last year when you and Awarenesstimes newspaper(One of the most respectful Newspaper) puts on your boxing gloves for weeks, exchanging insults upon insults, abusing Moms and going way down the line of nastiness, and all of a sudden, you both realized that this is simple non-sense and you guys make it up again. What a way to learn and realized that we can be human despite we disagrees on our politics, faith, tribes, intellectual, opinion and so on.

As a Sierra Leonean, we have more pressing needs or demands from each other than insulting each other, our Country has came out of the most brutal war in Africa history, our country is under-developed and we have to help our country in order for Sierra Leone to succeed again. Going after each other on the negative tunes will not build us or produce any good fruits. We owed it to each and everyone to help improves Sierra Leone in a a positive ways. With this I hope we can learn to accept each other. I'm not taking anyone side here, I'm just been real. Let's be civil.

"With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds." Abraham Lincoln.***

Nigerian 419 Scams Getting WorstThan You Think

2009-01-16T09:58:00.002-05:00

A postman told today how he sank into depression and debt after losing £130,000 in an internet scam involving Nigerian fraudsters.

Shane Symington described how an apparently innocent friendship that he formed with an American woman through the MySpace website turned into a 'nightmare' as he started handing over money.

The 32-year-old said he was friends with 'Angela Gates' for several weeks in the spring of 2007 before she suddenly started asking for money to pay for her mother's funeral and medical expenses.

He said the requests then carried on for money to pay for legal fees so that the woman, who called herself Angela Gates, could free up land that she had inherited apparently worth $2million.

Shane Symington

Duped: Shane Symington with the MySpace page of 'Angela Gates', who was really a Nigerian man

The requests continued throughout the year and, by last year, Mr Symington had handed over his bank details and more than £100,000.

He said that he became suspicious when the woman stopped communicating with him and contacted what he thought was a website run by the FBI in America but which turned out to be another scam.

Mr Symington, of Portsmouth, Hampshire, said he then got a text message from his 'friend' Angela who revealed that it was all a fraud.
Symington

Exotic beauty: Mr Symington was led to believe that this model was his friend

'It said that it was all false and that Angela was actually a man from Nigeria', Mr Symington said.

'I guess he came clean because he thought he had taken all the money he could.'

But his problems did not end there as he was then contacted by another woman, again from America, claiming she had also been caught in the scam.

He said that he then helped pay her legal expenses and the cost of hiring two ex-FBI agents in an attempt to regain the lost money for both of them.

Mr Symington said that he now believes that these people are also involved in the scam. He said that he had paid out more than £30,000 to them, bringing his total losses to more than £130,000.
Shane Symington
'Angela Gates'

Warning: Mr Symington wants others to be extremely careful before handing money over to people, like he did for 'Angela Gates' (right)

He said: 'I feel sick from it all, I feel disillusioned, they have just played on my good nature. I've lost my life-savings, I have two loans and credit card debts, I'm in huge debts because of all of this.

'Before this happened, I used to go out every night, now I just stay in because I've lost all the self-confidence in my life and I don't have the money to go out any more. I've also had five weeks off with depression from work.'

Warning others to be extremely careful before handing any money over to people they have met through the internet, he said: 'It's just wicked people getting everything they can get out of people.

'You just can't trust anyone on the internet. I want to warn people but I know I won't be the last to fall for something like this.'

Detective Constable Jon Knox, of Hampshire Police, added: 'This is a very sad situation, and this man has now parted with a huge sums of money through his own good nature - in trying to help others and then to recover some of what he had lost.

'We do not want anyone else to fall foul of this kind of shocking activity and I would warn anyone who is asked for money over the internet by people they do not know to refuse and not put yourself at risk.'

A police spokeswoman added that there was little police could do to help Mr Symington get his money back.

She said: 'The money cannot be recovered due to the current political situation in Nigeria, resulting in a lack of co-operation from the police in the country.'

***THE DAILY MAIL ONLINE.

Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-01T20:48:00.004-05:00

May GOD grants us the help and power to do what's right and always protect us all.

Blogging is the way of showing the World what's real and what's fake. So let the year role on with the truth.

Long live Bloggers.

PRAY FOR UNCLE OSMAN GEORGE

2008-09-06T14:13:00.001-04:00

Everyone will taste death, then to US you will be ultimately returned.(29:57)

If life is the way we all want it, Uncle Osman will be here by now. But ALLAH knows best and no one can question HIS decisions.

In our large family (HURATU LOUISA COLE AND ABU S. COLE), we are very special in many ways and we stand firm for each other on many levels.

But one man who will always stand for all of us in all levels is Uncle Osman.

Uncle Osman was a gifted man; he mastered his trade and went far and above expectations. In the 80's and 90's, he was the king of electronics repairing and he introduced satellites receiver systems in Freetown, Sierra Leone.The man who will fixed any mechanical items if he wants to.

For everyone who ever came acrossed him or work for him or with him, knows that he is the man of the time. Uncle Osman was blessed.

In life, you will meet people who will helps you but mock at you, In life you will have family members or friends or people who will never wish you well in life, not Uncle Osman, he always wishes everyone well and he will help you without saying anything to anyone.

Growing up, I encountered life in various ways; May ALLAH blessed my grand parents (ALHAJI BILLOH & HAJJA HASSANATU WARITAY)and my family as a whole. I did go through life with few shakes, despite all, I will never forget the great help that Uncle Osman gave me and many of his nephews and cousins and the family in general.

He helped me at the hardest time in my life. He never let me down; He helped me pave my own way.

In our family, we will never get anyone to replace him and no one can fill his shoes. We all get selfish in life sometimes, that's not Uncle Osman, he thinks about all of us.

Words sometimes can't express one feelings about each other or your loved ones, but Uncle Osman went the distance for all of us and he never asked anyone of us to pay him for anything.

Our family can not stop the pain we feels now and the pain after, but I wish we can have someone who can look at life and think twice and try to help there family and others and make life easy for all. But that's a dream world I am talking about.Uncle Osman don't care who you're or what you have or you can do, if he have to do things for you, he will do it and don't look back for a reward or medals.

Only ALLAH knows best, but I learned a bit from Uncle Osman during his short illness and his sudden death, some people might call it Life lessons, I call it Life Realities:

*I've learned to do the best one can and don't wait for approval from the masses, no one cares.

*Have no fear for the unknown, Trust everyone, Don't make life worst for anyone, everyone and all.

*Never stop learning and always try to know more and educates anyone that needs your ideas or infos.

*Travel the World if you can. Take some short trips around town, around the states, around the country, go somewhere, just do something.

*Volunteering. Do things for others without asking for anything or expecting anything in returns. Help the elders, help in community services, give the things that you need so that others can use it.

*Never stop helping anyone if you can, do it and let ALLAH give you the rewards.

*Don't look low or down on anyone, no matter what that someone is going through right now in life, think highly of others and know that ALLAH can make the begger a millionaire and the millionaire a begger. It's the truth.

*Take great care of your healths and don't put your health second place.

*Tell your love ones how much you love them and how much they are important to you.

*Make peace with anyone who have problems with you and try your best to forgive yourself and anyone that might do you wrong.

*Exercise and eat right, watch your weight, do your regular check ups.

*Prayers are a most, no compromised. There is GOD and no other way out without GOD. No matter how hard things are, always have that faith in GOD alone.

*Do not go to bed with hates in your heart, whatever happened today might not mean anything in about five years from now.

*Don't sweat the small stuffs, and all small stuffs.

*Don't be ashamed to beg or ask for pardon if you wrong anyone, small or big ones, ask for pardon, it will not make you look small or bad. It make you a real human.

*Kill the pride. We are not perfect and we do mistakes.

*Call your family or love ones and just say hi, even for a minute or two.

*Smile more and get upset less.

*Say hello to strangers, to co-workers, friends and anyone who comes your way.

*Don't bad mouth anyone.

*Hold your kids; tell them how much you love them.

*Tell your family how special they are to you.

*Make everyday special for you and others.

*Get a hobby, plant a garden, take pictures or try to learn somethings for fun. Join a gym, swimming team or something.

Uncle Osman did a lot of good things and he never turns his back on anyone who asked for help.
He was the huge Cotton Tree in the center of our family. He never insults anyone and he never ignores his responsibilities to his families, friends and the world.

Uncle Osman, have strong faith in GOD, he was a true muslim's and a respectful guy.

We all get hurts in life games sometimes, but we all have to learn from life and death, there is no promise for morrow.

Uncle Osman was the ROCK, the builder, the iron man, the fighter for a good course, the mover, the shaker of good fortunes, the brain, the kind man, the thinker, volunteer, the real deal.

Uncle Osman was a hard working man; he will be the first at his water factory and the last guy to get off. He never knew what a day off is.

It is not easy with every day life, the world will look at you as a loser sometimes, the World will look or put you down,the World will say you're a loser because certain things in life have or didn't goes right, people will make you feels unworthy of life and humiliates you, Uncle Osman never say any of that to anyone or think of any one that way. He always stay positive and think good about each and everyone.

He was a good man, a good family man, a good friend to thousands.

He feeds the poor and make sure his family are fine.

"On no soul doth ALLAH place a burden greater than it can bear. It gets every good that it earns and it suffers every ill that it earns.(Pray): "Our ALLAH! condemn us not if we forget or fall into error; ALLAH! Lay not on us a burden like that which Thou didst lay on those before us; Our Lord! lay not on us a burden greater than we have strength to bear. Blot out our sins and grant us forgiveness. Have mercy on us. Thou art our Protector; help us against those who stand against faith." (2:286).

May ALLAH grant him Heaven and protects our family. We will miss you Uncle Osman.

MORTGAGE CRISIS: Did The FBI Saw It Coming?

2008-08-25T09:56:00.000-04:00

A top official warned of widening loan fraud in 2004, but the agency focused its resources elsewhere.
By Richard B. Schmitt
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

August 25, 2008

WASHINGTON — Long before the mortgage crisis began rocking Main Street and Wall Street, a top FBI official made a chilling, if little-noticed, prediction: The booming mortgage business, fueled by low interest rates and soaring home values, was starting to attract shady operators and billions in losses were possible.

"It has the potential to be an epidemic," Chris Swecker, the FBI official in charge of criminal investigations, told reporters in September 2004. But, he added reassuringly, the FBI was on the case. "We think we can prevent a problem that could have as much impact as the S&L crisis," he said.

Today, the damage from the global mortgage meltdown has more than matched that of the savings-and-loan bailouts of the 1980s and early 1990s. By some estimates, it has made that costly debacle look like chump change. But it's also clear that the FBI failed to avert a problem it had accurately forecast.

Banks and brokerages have written down more than $300 billion of mortgage-backed securities and other risky investments in the last year or so as homeowner defaults leaped and weakness in the real estate market spread.

In California alone, lenders have foreclosed on $100 billion worth of homes over the last two years and are foreclosing at a rate of 1,300 houses every business day, according to a recent report from ForeclosureRadar.com.

Most observers have declared the mess a gross failure of regulation. To be sure, in the run-up to the crisis, market-oriented federal regulators bragged about their hands-off treatment of banks and other savings institutions and their executives. But it wasn't just regulators who were looking the other way. The FBI and its parent agency, the Justice Department, are supposed to act as the cops on the beat for potentially illegal activities by bankers and others. But they were focused on national security and other priorities, and paid scant attention to white-collar crimes that may have contributed to the lending and securities debacle.

Now that the problems are out in the open, the government's response strikes some veteran regulators as too little, too late.

Swecker, who retired from the FBI in 2006, declined to comment for this article.

But sources familiar with the FBI budget process, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the growing fraud problem, say that he and other FBI criminal investigators sought additional assistance to take on the mortgage scoundrels.

They ended up with fewer resources, rather than more.

In 2007, the number of agents pursuing mortgage fraud shrank to around 100. By comparison, the FBI had about 1,000 agents deployed on banking fraud during the S&L bust of the 1980s and '90s, said Anthony Adamski, who oversaw financial crime investigations for the FBI at the time.

The FBI says it now has about 200 agents working on mortgage fraud, but critics say the agency might have averted much of the problem had it heeded its own warning.

"The FBI correctly diagnosed that mortgage fraud was epidemic, but it did not come close to meeting its announced goal," said William K. Black, who was a federal regulator during the S&L crisis and now teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

"It used everyday procedures and woefully inadequate resources to deal with an epidemic," he said. "The approach was certain to bring symbolic prosecutions and strategic defeat."

The mortgage debacle has laid bare a system marked by dubious practices at every stage of the process. Lenders often made loans to borrowers who had limited ability to repay them but little desire to pass up the dream of homeownership. Many loans lacked basic documentation, such as information about borrowers' incomes.

Still, mortgage companies could hardly sell them fast enough, packaging the loans as investment securities and peddling them to eager buyers on Wall Street.

The FBI defends its handling of the crisis, with officials contending that as home prices were rising several years ago, the trouble brewing in the mortgage market -- and the potential crimes behind it -- was not immediately apparent.

Officials said they began approaching mortgage companies and others in an attempt to raise awareness about the growing fraud problem. But the lenders had little incentive to cooperate because they were continuing to make money. Black says that in many cases, they were part of the fraud.

"Nobody wanted to listen," Sharon Ormsby, the chief of the FBI's financial crimes section, said in an interview. "We were dealing with the issue as best we could back then."

Over the last three years, the FBI and other agencies have brought dozens of mortgage-fraud cases. The bureau has rooted out foreclosure rescue schemes in which homeowners are tricked into signing over the deeds to their homes to operators who buried the properties even deeper in debt. Agents have disrupted cases of identity theft in which criminals open -- and exhaust -- home equity lines of credit and leave homeowners stuck with the bill.

Many of the cases have been relatively small, however, with about half the investigations involving losses of less than $1 million -- the size of two or three loans.

But the tepid response also reflects a broad realignment of law-enforcement priorities at the Justice Department in which mortgage fraud and other white-collar crimes have been subordinated to other Bush administration priorities.

That has reflected, in part, the ramp-up in national security and terrorism investigations after the Sept. 11 attacks. But the administration has also put more support behind efforts against illegal immigration and child pornography.

In a way, the mortgage debacle could not have come onto the FBI radar screen at a worse time. Just as Swecker was making his doomsday forecast, the FBI, under pressure from Congress and the White House, was creating a crime-fighting brain drain, transferring hundreds of agents from its criminal investigations unit into its anti-terrorism program. About 2,500 agents doing criminal work -- 20% or so of the entire force -- were affected.

Even as the number of new white-collar cases started declining, the Justice Department did pursue some high-profile corporate prosecutions, such as those arising from the collapse of Enron Corp. But some former prosecutors question the administration's current commitment to pursuing complex, high-stakes cases.

"I think most sitting U.S. attorneys now staring at the subprime crisis find scant resources available to pursue sophisticated financial crimes," said John C. Hueston, a Los Angeles lawyer who was a lead federal prosecutor in the trials of Enron executives Kenneth L. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling.

Absent a major shift in priorities and resources, he said, it is likely that the Justice Department and the FBI will continue on their current path of focusing on simple cases "that don't go to the heart of the problem."

The FBI says it has 21 open investigations into possible large-scale fraud related to the subprime meltdown. The Times reported last month that a federal grand jury in Los Angeles had subpoenaed records from three large California lenders: Countrywide Financial Corp. (now part of Bank of America Corp.), New Century Financial Corp. and IndyMac Federal Bank.

Among other possible targets, the FBI has said, are investment firms that sold billions in securities backed by shaky subprime mortgages and credit rating agencies that gave high marks to the now-worthless securities and failed to protect investors.

But it may be hard to jump-start such probes. Trying to prove that a major mortgage company intended to defraud buyers of its securities, for example, could take years of digging into records and testimony.

Moreover, some of those involved may have special legal protection: Credit rating firms have in other cases successfully asserted that their opinions about the values of securities are protected by the 1st Amendment.

"I am happy to have investigations going on, but these investigations should have taken place years ago," said Blair A. Nicholas, a San Diego lawyer representing investors who lost money in the collapse of several subprime mortgage lenders. "They seem to always get involved after the horse has left the barn. It is always cleaning up the mess rather than being proactive."

Could the crisis have been averted, or at least mitigated, if the FBI had intervened more forcefully?

"Until there is a catastrophic loss, there is no incentive to investigate criminal conduct," said Cynthia Monaco, a former federal prosecutor in New York. "Nor are there people coming forward with evidence" such as angry investors or whistle-blowing corporate employees, she said.

Even now, Monaco added, it is far from clear whether the damage -- suffered by investors and homeowners alike -- was the product of clear-cut fraud.

Ormsby says the FBI is more actively working with other federal investigative agencies in the hope they will pick up the slack. The Secret Service, for example, in a departure from its traditional missions of protecting presidents and heads of state and investigating counterfeiting, has assigned more than 100 agents to examine mortgage fraud, said spokesman Edwin Donovan.

The Justice Department is also starting to mobilize. The department offered what it described as a "basic seminar" on mortgage fraud cases to about 100 prosecutors last week at its national training academy in South Carolina.

***LATIMES

MORTGAGE Crisis Melt-Down In Washington D.C., (The Nations Capital)

2008-05-04T17:38:00.001-04:00

"The supply and affordability problem affects more than those at the bottom of the income pyramid. In Washington D.C and elsewhere, it's increasingly difficult for middle-income households to find, buy and keep a home" WASHINGTONPOST 02/16/2008.

A good friend of mine for many years called me few days ago and the first thing he said was: The Mortgage crisis has hit me hard. I knew that he lives in a one bedroom Condo right off of 14th and Clifton Street. So I decided to stop by his Condo after work and chat with him, This is a sad story and I want to share it and seek advices from everyone on how to help my dear friend before things get to hell without any return.

This building on Clifton street nw, has been a Co-op property for over fourteen years, few years ago the management company decided to turn it over to Condos, the Co-op's can buy as it is for an inside prices, while the outsiders will pay full prices, which sounds great. But not everyone in the Co-op's have good credits despite they might have a good job with good pay and benefits etc. So the Property managements hired a consulting firm and the consulting firms hired Chevy chase bank Mortgage company for mortgages for the Co-op's. But the bank refused all the Co-op's with poor credits, as such the Consulting company with the backing of the Property managements refers all the poor credit to a firm Called V. Mortgage(PRIME LOAN) of Greenbelt, Maryland. Since the few Co-op's with poor credits needs the deals, the deal went through with the V. Mortgage company. That was two years ago now. Since then my Friend has been paying on time both the Condo's fee to the property managements and the Mortgage to the V. Mortgage Company of Greenbelt, Maryland.

Well, the V. Mortgage company has not been cashing the payments my friend has been sending in for the past year, my friend has been to there office in Greenbelt and make several calls and E-mails to find out what is going on. No one to reached, the Property management company too who are collecting the Condo's fees said they have no idea of what's happening with the V. Mortgage Company.

But this is what the game was all about with the Vanguard Mortgage Company: THEY SOLD THE MORTGAGE LOAN TO ANOTHER PRIME LOAN COMPANY IN FLORIDA without the notice of my friend.

Now, the PRIME LOAN company has jacked up the interest rate so high and they are after my friend to kick him out of the Condo. My friend is a single father with two lovely kids, him and the kids don't have no where to go, no family members can accommodates them or help them. he works two jobs just to make ends meet and he's also taking college classes. He's confused and just wondering what next.

Today he called me and said that the D.C Tax office has sent him a tax due bill, after they have granted him a five year tax break due to his income, and he called the property managements about it since they are the one who said they filed for him. But they told him they have no idea of what's going on.

There is no where my friend can take his case to, because the Mortgage melt-down seems to be above anyone and those PRIME LOANERS are kings or gods as they assumed to be.

Please advice what my friend can do. All ideas or comments are welcome. Help him before he goes down fast.

A Sierra Leonean Endangered And Abused In Philly.

2008-04-07T10:50:00.000-04:00

AS THE CARGO ship docked at a port near New York City, 16-year-old Mohamed Fornah sat hidden inside a shipping container, alone and scared.
He had fled Sierra Leone with no money, clothes or possessions.

All he carried was the guilt of fleeing his homeland without his three sisters who were kidnapped by diamond-hungry rebels.

Life had not been kind to him. When he was little, rebels killed his parents. When he was a teen, they raped his sisters, then stabbed him, leaving him for dead.

Mindful of his illegal entry into America, Fornah, who now has a green card, crept out of the shipping container on a summer night in 2002. He made his way to Philadelphia where a childhood friend from Sierra Leone had moved.

He hoped he'd be safe here.

But Philadelphia, it turned out, offered little refuge from the terror and torture he left behind.

At 19, Fornah was jailed on a robbery charge and a series of misdemeanors in December 2005 after a dispute with his girlfriend in which he took her car keys. Unable to post bail, he was locked up at the city's Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.

The night of March 24, 2006, just two weeks before prosecutors dropped all charges against him, his mentally deranged cell mate savagely beat and raped him in a dark, isolated cell while top prison officials debated how to rescue him, according to internal prison documents obtained by the Daily News.

The stand-off lasted two hours.

"I don't think anyone knew how to handle the situation and meantime, Mohamed [Fornah] is going through his own private hell in there," said Fornah's attorney, James D. Famiglio. "It was awful. He was just a mess when they finally pulled him out."

By the time a rescue team finally busted into the steel cell, Fornah was barely conscious. His eyes were bloodshot from his being repeatedly strangled with a towel. His entire body was covered in feces, documents show.

Fornah was rushed to Frankford-Torresdale Hospital, where he spent five days fighting a fever and viral infection caused by ingesting his own feces that his cell mate, Antwone Williams, had crammed down his throat.

Williams admitted he attacked Fornah, but denied raping him, though prosecutors believe otherwise. Williams was sentenced last month to a maximum of five years in prison for aggravated assault.

That same day, Fornah filed a civil suit in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, arguing that the city and prison officials failed to protect him and took too long to rescue him. Prison spokesman Bob Eskind declined comment, citing the pending litigation.

Fornah, who speaks in halting English with a heavy accent, said his manhood and psyche have been irrevocably damaged.

"The memory is never going to be gone," said Fornah, now 21.

Trim, handsome and quiet, Fornah said that in his native country, male rape victims are abhorred, shunned and sometimes even killed.

"They know you are not a man no more. People are always going to look at you like you are a female," said Fornah during a recent interview in his attorney's Broomall office, with Famiglio and co-counsel Stuart A. Carpey by his side.

"Now I don't feel like a man."

Trapped in 'the hole'

A1, Pod 4, Cell 5. To those on the outside, they're just numbers. To inmates, the numbers are code for "the hole," - the Punitive Segregation Unit. Fornah landed there after a tussle with a cantankerous, older inmate who repeatedly struck Fornah with his cane.

Cell 5 is bare-bones, with a set of metal bunk beds, a toilet, a sink and a desk fastened to the wall. A steel door with a small, thick-plated window is the entry and exit.

When Antwone Williams first entered the cell, Fornah regarded him with caution. Williams boasted that he liked to fight. Fornah noticed he had streaks of blood on his prison jumpsuit, he said.

At first, things were calm. Both practicing Muslims, they prayed together. Williams, 23, a high school dropout who lived not far from Cobbs Creek Park, talked about his baby and family.

Williams struggled with "severe" drug addiction and had been in and out of jail for mostly nonviolent offenses, including drug possession and theft, according to records and prosecutors. He also had a history of mental health problems, according to an internal prison memo.

Those problems soon played out in Cell 5. The second day in the hole, Williams suddenly just "wild up," as Fornah put it.

"C.O.! C.O.!, take me outta here," Williams yelled out to corrections officers. "I'm going to hurt somebody. I'm gonna hurt myself."

Fornah worried for his own safety. He asked to be moved to a different cell but guards thought Williams' tirade was just an act, he said.

As the evening wore on, however, Williams screamed louder, warning guards he'd get violent.

In the middle of the night, officers put Williams in the so-called "rubber room," a special behavioral unit where inmates are stripped naked so they don't use their clothes to hang themselves.

When officers returned Williams to Cell 5 the next morning, he seemed more enraged than before, but eventually grew quiet, Fornah said.

Peace didn't last.

It was early evening on March 24, 2006. Fornah was asleep on the top bunk, clad in boxer shorts and a T-shirt. He awoke to feel something tighten around his neck. He tried to jump up but couldn't. Williams was on top of him, kneeling on his back.

"Don't move. I'm about to rape you. I'm going to kill you," Fornah recalled Williams telling him.

Fornah couldn't breathe. His eyes and neck veins bulged. His tongue swelled. His cries for help grew weaker until mere rasps. Williams used his feet to force apart Fornah's legs, according to Fornah.

Once penetrated, Fornah said his limbs went numb. Fornah pressed his foot into the wall with such force that he flipped himself off the bunk bed. His head slammed into the concrete cell floor.

Two hellish hours

Fornah lay motionless when Officer Shawn Jay took a routine patrol of the unit. Loud voices and bangs drew his attention to Cell 5.

Jay peered inside. The cell was completely dark. He shined a flashlight through the window. Williams was on top of Fornah on the floor. He had him in a headlock. Williams had something that looked like a sheet wrapped around Fornah's head, according to prison documents and court testimony.

Williams threatened to kill Fornah. Jay feared he had a weapon so he alerted superiors.

A few seconds later, at about 6:25 p.m., two lieutenants and two sergeants stood outside the cell door and tried to talk Williams down.

"I have my [cell mate] tied up. If anyone comes in, I'll kill him," Williams shouted, prison memos show.

Williams ranted that Fornah was related to people who had kidnapped his daughter, and he needed to use the phone.

Not knowing what to do next, the officers went to speak with their shift commander, Capt. Eugene Thompson, who alerted the warden.

Then-warden Louis Giorla activated the prison's Correctional Emergency Response Team (CERT).

Giorla, whom Mayor Nutter named last month to become prisons commissioner, stood near the cell and waited for the CERT team.

"Some of the supervisors wanted to go in there, but I guess somebody overruled them and said, 'Wait,' " recalled Officer Lorenzo North, who was on duty that night.

It took nearly an hour for the specialized cell-extraction team to arrive, prison documents show. Even then, the team didn't take immediate action.

Instead, prison officials sent a staff "behavioral health" doctor to talk to Williams, who reacted by further choking Fornah.

CERT leaders blasted pepper spray under the cell door using an "MK-46 canister," or so-called riot extinguisher. They burst into the cell with "stun shields," a riot shield that emits an electric shock when touched. One officer pressed his shield against Williams for eight seconds, prison documents show.

At 8:20 p.m. - nearly two hours after Officer Jay first heard the commotion - team members carried Fornah to safety.

"I feel lucky to come out of there alive," Fornah said recently.

Officer North, who is also president of the corrections officers union, said prison brass should have isolated Williams from other inmates.

"That inmate [Williams] was in the rubber room before," North said. "He should have been housed by himself. He shouldn't have been in that cell [with Fornah] in the first place."

"I thought that the crime was very brutal, just in the physical assault," said Assistant District Attorney Bill Davis, who prosecuted Williams and had asked the judge to jail him for seven to 14 years.

Fornah said he often wonders why violence and cruelty seem to follow him.

"Is this God's way of telling me that I got to go through pain to be a man?" Fornah asked.

Trauma begins early

Fornah was born to politically active middle-class parents in Sierra Leone's capital, Freetown, where he played on beaches rimmed with mangrove trees.

More than once, rebels took over Freetown, slaughtering people and cutting off their limbs. Fornah often saw wild dogs and buzzards devouring bodies left on streets.

When he was about 4 years old, rebels stormed into his house and shot his parents dead in front of him.

Fornah and his three sisters went to live with their uncle, Sembu Fornah, a widely known politician who served as the country's deputy minister of mines.

A "house boy," who lived with the family mopped floors and greeted visitors. His uncle had a driver who ferried Fornah and his friends to the beach.

Then, on a spring night in 2002 - four days before his 16th birthday - rebels, some as young as teenagers, broke into his house through the garage. The gunmen, who wore masks and desert combat gear, came for his uncle, according to immigration-related paperwork filed with the U.S. government.

"They told me, 'We need the diamonds. We need your uncle. Otherwise we gonna kill you. We always see you with your uncle. We always see you around here, always looking good. We out there, suffering. So this is our time,' " Fornah recalled.

Fornah told them his uncle mainly resided in government housing and only came home occasionally.

A rebel grabbed his older sister, put a gun to her head, and ordered her to take off her pants. His youngest sister, about age 5, sobbed loudly and a rebel locked her in the bathroom, according to documents.

They tied Fornah's hands behind his back with strips of animal hide. He watched them rape two of his sisters.

Then one rebel stabbed him with a bayonet, leaving a long gash along the left side of his abdomen.

A neighbor called police. Nigerian-led armed forces, established to fight the rebels, arrived, but rebels fled with Fornah's three sisters. Fornah was taken to a hospital, where a Red Cross nurse helped sneak him onto a ship. She introduced Fornah to a man he only knew as "Mr. John."

"She said, 'We gonna put you on this ship and anywhere he drops you, you just make your way,' " Fornah said.

For weeks, he hid in a room under the ship's deck with four or five other refugees. Mr. John brought him meals three times a day and warned him to stay hidden.

When the ship docked at port, Fornah said he had no idea he was in America. In fact, he's still not sure which port he arrived in - New York or Newark, N.J.

A taxi driver, a Muslim like him, helped Fornah call his friend in Philadelphia and paid for a one-way bus ticket here.

"I told him, 'I don't know where I'm at and I'm scared. I'm afraid,' " Fornah said. "He said, 'You are in the U.S. You better find a way to support yourself. If not, they are going to arrest you.' "

Fornah soon reunited with an uncle who had fled Sierra Leone and settled in Philadelphia years earlier. Fornah moved into his uncle's Southwest Philly rowhouse.

"I was shocked - shocked when I saw him," said his uncle, Edward Abu, who works as a taxi driver. "I said, 'Oh my, I thought you were dead. How did you get here?' "

It took Fornah nearly four years to get his green card. The government granted him "special immigrant juvenile status," said his immigration attorney, Judith Bernstein-Baker, executive director of HIAS, an international migration and refugee resettlement agency.

"He had a very tough time in Sierra Leone and a very tough time in the United States," Bernstein-Baker said. "The system was not kind to him, but in the end, the system in the United States did right by him and now I hope he can become whole and live out his potential."

Fornah is applying for trade jobs and plans to go to school to become an electrician.

In December, he traveled back to Sierra Leone and spent a month searching for his sisters, in vain. "I was asking people who can't even find their own peoples," Fornah said.

He returned to the United States where despite it all, he still feels blessed to call this country home.

"I think this is the last world where everyone wants to live," Fornah said. "You have medication. You have human rights. You have privacy.

"You have freedom." *

***Philadelphia Daily News

The World First Islamic Museum To Open In Dubai.

2008-03-12T08:18:00.000-04:00

Is about time ISLAM trys to show the other side of reality.Showing the World the beauty and grace of peace.

**Dubai announced yesterday it will build the world’s first museum dedicated to the life of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH).

Dubai’s ruler, H H Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed Al Maktoum, has authorised construction of the museum to examine the legacy and message of Islam’s prophet, state media reported. “The project aims to shed light on the life and legacy of the Holy Prophet and the divine message he lived for, thus introducing the message of eternal love and peace Islam gave the entire mankind,” the official WAM news agency said.

The museum will also inform visitors on the history and practices of Islam, including the Haj pilgrimage.

Dubai is home to over 150 nationalities and observes a relatively liberal version of Islam compared to elsewhere in the region.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi are both positioning themselves as global cultural centres.

Dubai runs a successful international film festival, while Abu Dhabi has agreed to pay 400m euros to France to create the “desert Louvre”, borrowing artworks from the Paris museum for extended periods.**
**The Peninsular News.

Unknown, Forgotton, Monuments, Statues And Building In WASHINGTON, D.C., part # 1

2008-02-20T17:34:00.002-05:00

Picasa Content

I always assumed that Italy or other European Countries have more Monuments and Statues than Washington, DC.

I was wrong when I starts to explore the greatness of Washington DC. I came to realized that, there might be more than 320 Statues and Monuments combine In Washington DC.

I will bring them into my blog on several parts, so come back more often as I will line them up for the world to see. Have fun and send me any comments as you explores with me:

The Unknown, Forgetten Monuments, Statues And Historic Places In Washington D.C., PART # 1

2008-02-20T16:42:00.000-05:00

David Beckham the footballing ambassador begs the world to save the children of Africa | the Daily Mail

2008-01-23T07:51:00.001-05:00

David Beckham the footballing ambassador begs the world to save the children of Africa | the Daily Mail

Blogged with Flock

I Like The FBI Way Of Doing Things This Days.

2008-01-01T22:14:00.000-05:00

This is an old case that the FBI trying to crack and they need the world to help them do that, good idea.
But what about all those modern day crimes going on like the 419 scams? I will always like to be an FBI Agent's, that's my long day dreams. I think and I'm sure that I can much better than many FBI Agents. The methods of the Agency is messed up.
It seems as if they have no head or long time goals.
But anyway, this is there ad's:

"D.B. COOPER REDUX
Help Us Solve the Enduring Mystery
12/31/07

Artist rendering of D.B. Cooper
Have any information on D.B. Cooper? Then e-mail us at fbise@leo.gov.
On a cold November night 36 years ago, in the driving wind and rain, somewhere between southern Washington state and just north of Portland, Oregon, a man calling himself Dan Cooper parachuted out of a plane he’d just hijacked clutching a bag filled with $200,000 in stolen cash.

Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? And what happened to the loot, only a small part of which has ever surfaced?

It’s a mystery, frankly. We’ve run down thousands of leads and considered all sorts of scenarios. And amateur sleuths have put forward plenty of their own theories. Yet the case remains unsolved.

Would we still like to get our man? Absolutely. And we have reignited the case—thanks to a Seattle case agent named Larry Carr and new technologies like DNA testing.

You can help. We’re providing here, for the first time, a series of pictures and information on the case. Please look it all over carefully to see if it triggers a memory or if you can provide any useful information."

To All SIERRA LEONEANS, Help If You Can

2007-12-27T21:17:00.000-05:00

** I found this very important for all Sierra Leoneans, Pls. read and pass along.
Thanks.

Appeal to buy ambulance for Sierra Leone village.

A FORMER 'frontline angel' turned landlady is aiming to buy an ambulance for a war-torn town with the help of festive pub goers.

Aly-Joy Haworth hopes to raise £5,000 to send to Makeni in Sierra Leone, where she was deployed at a community hospital during her time as an army paramedic.

The 23-year-old, from Great Harwood, returned from the African country in October 2006. She had been serving as a Lance Corporal in the Royal Army Medical Corps, working as part of an international medical team helping to rebuild the shattered country following years of destructive civil war.

While waiting to start a civilian paramedic course she has been helping to run the family pub, the Tavern, Church Street, Great Harwood.

She is now holding two fundraising events over the festive period to help pay for a dedicated ambulance for the Magbenteh Hospital in Makeni.

Aly-Joy said: "I have been back for over a year now but I still think about the horrendous conditions that the people over there had to endure.

"Many villagers walk hundreds of miles to get to the hospital and when they arrive their baby will die and then they have to treat the mothers for exhaustion.

"I have so much admiration for the staff. They go through hell to try and save those kids."

The pub was tonight staging a Christmas bash on, with raffle ticket money going to the fund. It will also be holding a fundraising Hogmanay-style New Year's Eve event. Customers will be served by a kilt-clad Sgt Gordon Brown - Aly-Joy's partner and a fellow army medic.

The money will also be collected in memory of Aly-Joy's grandfather Denis Dunn, who died in September at the age of 82. The ambulance will carry his name once it has been purchased.

"We hope to send £2,000 out in the New Year, which will help buy the vehicle and an initial supply of medicine," said Aly-Joy. "Our target is £5,000 which then get the ambulance up and running."

Aly-Joy and her family have previously collected children's clothing and stationary to send to the hospital, along with cash raised through various events held in Great Harwood.

Before leaving the forces, army bosses nominated Aly-Joy for an MBE which was awarded to her by the Queen in a ceremony in June.

***THE CITIZENS

Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto Killed

2007-12-27T08:53:00.000-05:00

Benazir Bhutto 'killed in blast'

Pakistani former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a presumed suicide attack, a spokesman for the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) says.
Other reports said Ms Bhutto had only been injured and taken to hospital.

Ms Bhutto had just addressed a rally of PPP supporters in the town of Rawalpindi when the rally was hit by a blast.

At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack.

Ms Bhutto has twice been the country's prime minister and was campaigning ahead of elections due in January.

***BBC NEWS

Questions Time For AL-QAEDA. How Fair Will This Be?

2007-12-20T06:53:00.000-05:00

***I don't know what free press might mean to some, but if Al-Qaeda wants to try, Let listen to them.

Al-Qaeda's media arm, al-Sahab, has invited individuals, organisations and journalists to submit questions for an open interview with Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Advertisements posted on Jihadist websites said questions sent to them over the next month would be passed to al-Qaeda's deputy leader for his reply.

It said the questions would be sent "without alteration, whether it comes from someone who agrees or disagrees".

The offer also came at the end of an interview by Zawahiri posted on Sunday.

In the video, also produced by al-Sahab, Zawahiri said the US-led coalition in Iraq was "defeated and looking for a way out" and said the decision of UK forces to "flee" Basra showed insurgents were gaining strength.

Iraq took formal responsibility for security in Basra province on Sunday, four-and-a-half years after the invasion.

'Brief and focused'

The adverts published by al-Sahab invited "individuals, organisations and media establishments" to submit questions for an "open interview" with Zawahiri by sending them by 16 January to the websites where it usually posts its messages.

It shows how this group with 7th Century ideology is exploiting 21st Century media capabilities
Bruce Hoffman
Georgetown University

"Care should be taken in making the questions brief and focused," the advert asked.

"We also ask the brothers, the supervisors [of the websites] to collect the questions and transmit them without alteration, whether it is comes from someone who agrees or disagrees," it added.

The advert finished with al-Sahab saying that "with God's help and support" it will try to publish Zawahiri's answers to the questions "as soon as possible".

Egyptian-born Zawahiri has emerged as al-Qaeda's most prominent spokesman in recent years, appearing in at least 16 videos and audiotapes this year - four times as many as its leader, Osama Bin Laden.

The two have evaded capture since US-led forces overthrew the Taleban in Afghanistan following the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US. They are thought to be hiding on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

IntelCenter, an organisation which monitors Jihadist websites, said the invitation was the first to have been issued by a high-ranking al-Qaeda leader.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University in Washington DC, said al-Qaeda wanted to "look more cutting-edge and give the perception of greater legitimacy".

"It shows how this group with 7th Century ideology is exploiting 21st Century media capabilities," he told the Associated Press.

Mr Hoffman said it also revealed that Zawahiri was trying to portray himself more like a true leader than a "homicidal thug" by opening himself up to questioning in a similar fashion to televised political debates.

***BBC NEWS.

How can A human be so evil to an other Human?

2007-12-18T09:31:00.000-05:00

A jury on Monday convicted a millionaire couple of enslaving two Indonesian women they brought to their mansion to work as housekeepers.

Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment that included forced labor, conspiracy, involuntary servitude, and harboring aliens.

Prosecutors said the women were subjected to repeated psychological and physical abuse and were forced to work 18 hours or more a day.

The Sabhnanis, who have four children and operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Muttontown home on Long Island's Gold Coast, could face up to 40 years in prison, although attorneys predicted the punishment would be considerably less. He is from India, and she is from Indonesia, but both are naturalized U.S. citizens

One of the couple's daughters collapsed in the front row as the verdict was read, prompting the judge to clear the courtroom while medical personnel attended to her.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Hoffman said he would appeal. "Apparently, the jury was taken by the histrionics ..." of the Indonesian women, he said.

Prosecutors called it a case of "modern-day slavery." Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko said in closing arguments the poorly educated women worked as housekeepers for $100 or $150 a month — all of which was sent to their relatives back home.

Lesko said the women, known only as Samirah and Enung, were subjected to "punishment that escalated into a cruel form of torture" that ended when one of the women fled on Mother's Day.

Allegations of abuse included beatings with brooms and umbrellas, slashings with knives, being made to repeatedly climb stairs and take freezing cold showers as punishment for misdeeds that included sleeping late or stealing food from trash bins because they were poorly fed.

Samirah, the woman who fled the house in May, said she was forced to eat dozens of chili peppers and then was forced to eat her own vomit when she failed to digest the peppers, prosecutors said.

"This did not happen in the 1800s," Lesko said. "This happened in the 21st century."

Enung testified that Samirah's nude body once was covered in plastic wrapping tape on orders from Varsha Sabhnani, who then instructed Enung to rip it off. "When I pulled it off, she was screaming," the housekeeper said through an interpreter before breaking down in tears on the witness stand.

The Sabhnanis' defense attorneys contended the two women concocted the story of abuse as a way of escaping the house for more lucrative opportunities. They argued the housekeepers practiced witchcraft and may have abused themselves as part of an Indonesian self-mutilation ritual. They also said the couple went on frequent vacations that would have given the two women ample opportunity to flee.

The Sabhnanis spent nearly three months in jail until a judge approved a bail package that required them to post $4.5 million and pay an estimated $10,000 a day for security monitoring while they were kept under house arrest.

***CRIME NEWS

Pardoning The Sufferer.

2007-12-18T07:38:00.000-05:00

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has pardoned the victim of a gang rape, whose sentencing of six months in prison and 200 lashes sparked international condemnation.

Justice minister Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Ibrahim al-Sheikh hailed the king's decision to grant the pardon in a statement carried by the official Saudi press agency, SPA.

The pardon represents a rare instance in which Saudi rulers have publicly challenged Saudi Arabia's conservative clerics.

In Washington, the White House welcomed word of the Saudi pardon, saying it was the "right decision."

The victim, who was 18 years old when raped, was attacked at knifepoint by seven men after she was found in a car with a male companion who was not a relative.

Under Saudi Arabia's strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, women are not allowed in public in the company of men other than their male relatives.

She was initially sentenced to several months in prison and 90 lashes, but her sentence was toughened after she appealed.

The seven men convicted of raping her were sentenced from two to nine years in prison.

A rape conviction typically carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, but justices did not apply it to this case, citing a "lack of witnesses" and the "absence of confessions."

***VOA

HAJJ Is For Forgiveness, But What's Going On Now?

2007-12-14T19:55:00.000-05:00

Many Nigerian pilgrims are falling victims to suspected fraudsters impersonating as hajj officials in Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, Daily Trust can reveal.

Daily Trust learnt that the fraudsters have swindled unsuspecting pilgrims of their basic traveling allowances. The suspected fraudsters promised to exchange the basic traveling allowances on behalf of pilgrims in Saudi banks.

It was also learnt that the development has led to several pilgrims losing their entire allowances and other foreign currencies to the fraudsters.

It was learnt that some pilgrims from Jigawa State were on Wednesday duped of over 12,000 Riyals, equivalent to N1, 800, 000 by the fraudsters who impersonated the state hajj officials.

According to one of the victims, Mallam Musa Taura, a suspected fraudster came to inform them that he was asked to collect their travelers' cheques for conversion by their centre officer. Mallam Musa said they collected their monies and warned them not to trust anyone except officials from the state.

"We trusted him and gave him up to twelve thousand Riyals including two hundred dollars in cash but we were later told by our centre officer that he did not send anybody," he said. Another victim, Hajiya Tani Taura said she lost about N300,000 to the suspected fraudsters and now had resorted to begging.

Many of the duped pilgrims now reside at the Glass House in Mecca belonging to the Jigawa State government where they are being catered for. The pilgrims called on Governor Sule Lamido to come to their aid, saying that Hajj officials from the state had absconded since their arrival at the holy land. State officials could not be reached for comments, our correspondent said.

***ALLAFRICA.COM

ISLAM: A Muslim View, May be.

2007-11-29T23:26:00.001-05:00

The other day I listen to a speaker gave a good talk about the world and Muslims view about it.

There was lot to learn and take with me, but not all MUSLIMS see's it that way.

Islam is not a bad religion, Infact it is one of the best FAITH in the world, It is peaceful and simple to live with.

The Prophet MOHAMMED never preach hates or violent's against anyone, the whole faith of ISLAM was built around forgiveness and care and help one an other. The Prophet was a man of kindness and respects towards mankind and even animals. He respect his wives and all women, The Prophet of ISLAM never raised his voice on anyone, and in ISLAM it's wrong to talk like an ASS. ISLAM is complete and direct, despite some few people might look confused or try to make the faith looks bad or that hard, it is not.

On the other hand, Muslims has to change the way most of them looks at life and the world, there is not everyone out there who is just trying to get MUSLIMS and make them look bad. MUSLIMS themselves has to change and starts putting there acts together. Amongst MUSLIM themselves, they don't have to look others and tell them to change things while themselves has lot to change. In the HOLY QURAN: ALLAH said that HE can not change a nation until the people themselves are ready to change themselves. There are lot of criticisms today in ISLAM, but most of the people who are doing the criticisms are not doing the right thing themselves. I think before someone find on others what's wrong, they need to find out what wrong with themselves first. Finger pointing in any organizations just don't work.

Despite the world looks on MUSLIMS as troubling, It is the duty on every MUSLIMS to educates non-Muslims about ISLAM. Many people are mislead by non-Muslims about ISLAM. MUSLIMS has to make it a duty to explain the simplicity and clear view about ISLAM. The majority of the world learn or hear about ISLAM via the media, and the media has nothing good to talk about ISLAM but trouble, terrorism and total disgrace. Let MUSLIMS never be offended or ashamed to educate anyone about there faith. MUSLIMS has to do the educating of the media or else, it is looking bad for MUSLIMS.

Despite ISLAM is the #1 fastest growing religion in the world and in the United States today, but the negatives and cloud is very strong against ISLAM.

Let every good MUSLIM go out there and educates the people about ISLAM, it is a duty upon the MUSLIM world. Hates and innocent killing is not part of ISLAM, The world might think so, but is not true.

Let's look at the developed world that used to be under ISLAM rule. i.e: SPAIN, INDIA, ETC, Can the world see how much ISLAM has done or came from?

MUSLIMS, look at all the non-Muslims who are fighting for ISLAM? i.e: the lawyers for the detained MUSLIMS in Guantanamo prisons, those lawyers are Christians, but they are fighting for the freedom of MUSLIMS in jails. The MUSLIMS world have to see and learn and realized that ISLAM can not be miss-represented by people who don't know what's real.

Equal Right To All Religion.

2007-10-28T07:32:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time, prison in Britain was regarded as a punishment where certain rights, such as the right to freedom, were curtailed. Nowadays - prisoners have learned that they can sue the Prison Service and win. Take the case of a prisoner at Northallerton Young Offenders' Institute in North Yorkshire who tried to kill himself. Prison officers revived him, but he went on to sue the Prison Service, gaining $1.15 million in an out of court settlement in January this year.

In November last year, 197 prisoners who had been drug addicts when jailed sued the Prison Service in the High Court. Their claim? They complained that they were forced to stop taking drugs in jail. These prisoners were awarded payments totaling $1.5 million.

With these precedents already made, it is little wonder that a group of Muslim prisoners are now threatening to sue the Prison Service because they were offered a choice of ham sandwiches during Ramadan.

The news is carried by yesterday's Bradford Telegraph & Argus, the Daily Mail and today's Daily Telegraph.

The 200 Muslim prisoners were at Her Majesty's Prison Leeds, which has a total population of 1,200 criminals. HMP Leeds is a category B prison. The problem involved a menu (pictured) which was issued during the month of Ramadan which gave them the choice of a ham sandwich as part of their evening meal.

A spokesman at the Prison Service said: "An inappropriate menu card was printed during this Ramadan (September 13 to October 12). This mistake was rectified immediately. Appropriate menu options for the Iftaar evening meal were available throughout Ramadan. Prison Service guidelines state that prisoners must have a diet which meets the requirements of their religion."

***WESTERNRESISTANCE

SIERRA LEONE: Where Are The People Needs?

2007-10-21T11:20:00.000-04:00

BUMBUNA, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's new president, Ernest Bai Koroma, has pledged to complete a massive hydroelectric dam delayed for decades by war, corruption and a lack of cash in the power-starved West African country.

In his first official visit outside the capital Freetown since winning power last month, Koroma pledged late on Saturday to make good on his campaign promises to end the former British colony's crippling reliance on small, private generators.

Work began on the Bumbuna dam, nestled among lush hills some 200 km (120 miles) northeast of Freetown, in the 1970s but a 1991-2002 civil war, looting of vital equipment and a lack of funding have hampered the project.

The dam will provide the country with 50 megawatts of power, enough once fully up and running to light up Freetown and other towns across the country which currently have no power or rely on expensive, noisy and polluting small diesel generators.

"This project has been going on for close to 30 years, we have spent over $200 million, and we're still not sure when it will be completed," Koroma told Reuters as he toured the site. "I am determined to ensure it will be completed."

Wearing a baseball cap, trainers and short-sleeved blue tie-dye shirt, the 54-year-old former insurance executive walked along the top of the 88 metre-high dam and donned a hard hat to inspect the engineering works.

"I made meself come see for meself the devil that holds this project. We go kill am (him)," Koroma said in an address in the Krio dialect to cheering locals gathered nearby.

FUNDING SHORTFALL

The World Bank has said the absence of power reduces Sierra Leone's economic growth, currently at 7.5 percent, by 1 to 2 percent. More than 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line in a country struggling to rebuild.

Begun as an Italian aid project, the Italian government has already spent more than $150 million on Bumbuna. No commercial banks have been ready to offer loans and costs have spiralled.

Contractors hired mercenaries to defend the near-completed works during the war, but were eventually forced to evacuate. When the conflict ended, looters stole 207 km (130 miles) of transmission cables and many of the pylons that link the project to Freetown to sell for scrap.

Work has now stalled once again because of a funding shortfall of 30 million euros.

Salcost, the Italian contractors, say they have not been paid for two years and are owed 18 million euros. They estimate the project will cost a further 12 million euros.

An Italian government delegation says it is ready to put in 12 million euros and hopes the African Development Bank and DfID, the UK development agency which is Sierra Leone's largest bilateral donor, will contribute the rest.

After so much investment, the engineers are reluctant to abandon the project.

The Italians have become so settled in Sierra Leone that their canteen boasts sun-dried tomatoes, prosciutto ham and one of the country's few cappuccino machines, which froths up lattes beneath the palm-tree covered hills.

But despite the home comforts, so long in such a remote location has led to some cabin fever.

"Everybody is fed up with Bumbuna. They want to complete

***REUTERS

LUCKY G. DUBE: You Are One Of Africa Greatest

2007-10-19T09:04:00.000-04:00

Gauteng police commissioner Perumal Naidoo has hand-picked a team of investigators to track down reggae star Lucky Dube’s killers.

"Commissioner Naidoo has expressed his abhorrence at this murder and has appointed an investigation team," said spokesman Superintendent Eugene Opperman. "He’s got a a lot of confidence in this team, who will do everything possible to identify and arrest those responsible for this.

"Director Charles Johnson, a very experienced senior detective in Gauteng, will now oversee every step of the investigation."

He described the seven-member squad as "rather experienced".

Anyone with information about Dube’s murder is asked to contact Crime Stop on 08600-10111 or the police’s Crime Line on 32211.

Johannesburg police are on the hunt for three men driving a blue VW Polo believed to have been involved in the botched hijacking and murder of Dube, 43.

He was shot dead in Rosettenville, around 8.20pm on Thursday night, said police spokeswoman Captain Cheryl Engelbrecht.

The singer was travelling in a grey Chrysler with his two teenage children at the time.

Engelbrecht said Dube had dropped off his son and daughter, aged 15 and 16, when he was attacked. The killers fled the scene, leaving the musician’s car behind. The children were unhurt.

"His son was already out of the car. When he saw what was happening, he ran to ask for help."

The boy is too traumatised to provide police with any information.

Sir Roger Moore: James Bond, 007. One Of The Best.

2007-10-13T12:47:00.000-04:00

The house was an unpretentious rented property in North London. It was about two in the morning on a still summer night in 1962.

In the bedroom, television's new Simon Templar in The Saint - the hero with a halo - lay asleep in bed with the Italian mistress for whom he had recently left his wife.

Suddenly the silence, and their slumber, was shattered by the sound of breaking glass, as a brick smashed through the bay window in the living room.

As a saintly hand reached for the telephone to call the police, a steel stiletto heel stamped its way violently through the glass front-door.

It belonged to a glamorous 47-year-old blonde, only 5ft 2in tall, who had driven straight from a West End nightclub where she was starring in cabaret.

By the time the police arrived, she was back at the broken window and trying to climb through, her elegant beige cocktail dress, pink suede shoes and expensive mink stole liberally flecked with blood.

"You're just in time, Sarge," she told one of the three officers.

"Give me a leg up. I'm going to kill an Italian!"

As the police dragged her away, the smashed front door was thrown open, and the estranged husband of the feisty Welsh singing star Dorothy Squires stood there surveying her in silence.

Tearing herself free of the police, Squires hurled herself at the man she had loved and lost, pulled up his sweater, and wiped her blood on his chest.

"Here's my blood!" she screamed. "Take it! You've taken everything else".

Glaring at the woman of whom a celebrated columnist once wrote: "When stirred, she is a fiend from the pit, spitting hot lava", her husband yelled back: "Take her to the nearest nut-house and put her in a straitjacket!" And with that, he slammed the door.

This is just one of many episodes in his haunting and traumatic second marriage that Sir Roger Moore, knight of the realm, UNICEF goodwill ambassador, and the screen's erstwhile 007 in seven James Bond movies, has tried to expunge from his memory.

Tomorrow he celebrates his 80th birthday in Los Angeles where, this week, he has been honoured with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame - appropriately enough, outside 7007 Hollywood Boulevard.

Standing beside him was his Swedish-born fourth consort, Christina Tholstrup, who, to those with observant eyes, bears an uncanny resemblance to his second wife, Dorothy Squires, the passionate, temperamental and explosive woman who was arguably the love of his life, even though at times that love turned into a nightmare of hatred and acrimony.

For Moore, known to his friends as a gentle, easy-going, peace-loving man, had an extraordinary capacity for bringing out the virago in his three former wives.

Each one of them resented his infidelity, and the fact that he left them without a word of warning or explanation. Moore was the classic male "bolter".

Roger George Moore, the son of a London policeman, was born in Stockwell, South London, and went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the age of 17.

There were those who, on account of his baby-faced looks, and the fact that his RADA fees were funded by the notorious homosexual film director Brian Desmond Hurst, suspected that young Roger might be gay.

He was anything but. He had a healthy interest in the opposite sex, and the first object of his affection was a fellow RADA student, the actress and ice skater Doorn Van Steyn, whose real name was Lucy Woodard, the daughter of a Streatham taxi driver.

She was six years his senior, and already once divorced, but they married on December 9, 1946, when Moore was a 19-year-old 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Army Service Corps. The marriage was a short-lived disaster, largely due to lack of money.

After he was demobbed, Moore earned a mere pittance as a film extra and knitwear model, and their home was one room in the Streatham house that Doorn shared with her parents, brother, two sisters and brother-in-law.

Moore was later to describe Doorn as "a stunningly beautiful girl", and he even learned to ice-skate in order to be near her.

But she told him: "You'll never be an actor. Your face is too weak. Your jaw's too big, and your mouth's too small".

"All we did was row about it," he recalled later. On one occasion, she emptied a pot of tea over his head.

On another, he found that she had dumped all his clothes in the bath, with the tap running.

While Moore was understudying David Tomlinson in The Little Hut, he emerged one evening from the stage door of the Lyric Theatre, and found Doorn waiting to confront him. "She bit me," he recalled. "She bit me on the hand.

"Mind you, my hand may have been raised to strike her, but I let out one almighty yell, which added to the mirth of David Tomlinson and fellow actor Robert Morley, who seemed to react to this black domestic comedy with schoolboy glee".

In 1952, Moore received a chance invitation to a party at the Bexley mansion of Dorothy Squires, then one of Britain's top singers and recording stars.

Squires, who was then 37 - 13 years Moore's senior - had been born in the back of a travelling van parked in a field at Pontyberem, Carmarthenshire.

Her parents sold fish and vegetables from the van throughout Wales.

She had begun life working in a local tinplate factory for about £2 a week, and when Moore met her, she still had the scars on her arms that she got doing that first job.

She had come to fame through her partnership, both on- stage and off, with the bandleader Billy Reid, who was 13 years her senior, ironically the same age difference as between herself and Moore.

When Reid abandoned his wife and two small daughters in 1938 to live with Squires, his family were left homeless and virtually destitute.

Reid composed a series of lush and highly dramatic song hits specially for Squires - Coming Home, The Gypsy, I'll Close My Eyes, Mother's Day and A Tree In The Meadow - all of which went into the charts and turned Squires into Britain's most popular female vocalist, earning £350 a week, which was a gigantic salary in the mid-Forties.

But their relationship was based on heavy drinking, appalling language and what the comedienne Beryl Reid (no relation) was to describe as "most wonderful rows with broken chairs and flying records - something I'd never witnessed before in my life".

Reid was pathologically jealous. Squires claimed that he used to put ladders up to her bedroom window to check that she was alone in bed.

After one shouting match and punch-up too many, Squires left Reid in January 1951, and their partnership was dissolved.

Into the vacuum created by this split walked the young and unknown Roger Moore, then earning about £8 a week.

At the end of the party at Bexley in 1952, Moore, in Dorothy Squires' own account, "put the light out, leaving only the glow of the fire to light the room. He sat down on the floor beside me, leaned over and kissed me.

"He gathered me in his arms and carried me upstairs. We made love.

"Sex hadn't bothered me since I had left Billy Reid, and I certainly didn't want to get involved with another married man, even one who had been apart from his wife for seven months."

But in no time at all, Moore had moved into Squires's Bexley mansion. Doorn Van Steyn, returning from yet another ice-skating tour, had to learn this from others.

She divorced Moore in March 1953 and later had to sue him for nonpayment of alimony.

Her account of their marriage - The Saint That Ain't - remains unpublished.

Billy Reid, heartbroken that Squires now intended to marry another man, wrote two further hits for her in a gesture of farewell: I'm Walking Behind You (on your wedding day) and I Still Believe (we were meant for each other).

When Squires went to New York to promote the first of these, Moore went with her, and they were married in Jersey City "before a drunken Justice of the Peace", according to Moore, on July 6, 1953.

With Squires's support and influence as a star behind him, Moore's career began to flourish.

In 1954, he won a contract with MGM, making his American screen debut with Elizabeth Taylor in The Last Time I Saw Paris.

The Moores moved to Hollywood, the most age-conscious place in the world, where the yawning gulf in years between the rapidly ageing Squires and her baby-faced husband was a subject of constant comment.

"Don't forget to invite Roger Moore and his mother," was one of the crueller film colony jokes.

Rows between the couple were frequent and often public, and in 1959, the first serious rift appeared in the marriage when Moore became infatuated with Dorothy Provine, his blonde co-star in the television series, The Alaskans.

When Moore began calling for "Dorothy" in his sleep, Squires knew that it wasn't her. Moore only ever called her Dot.

In 1961, they moved back to Britain where Squires had kept her Bexley mansion, and she returned to the charts with her own composition, Say It With Flowers, but discovered that during her long absence, her position as the Welsh belter of ballads had been usurped by a Cardiff girl 22 years her junior, Shirley Bassey.

Moore flew to Rome to film a lowbudget French-Italian film, The Rape Of The Sabine Women.

Playing a supporting role was a dark and beautiful 28-year-old Italian actress, Luisa Mattioli, who was 18 years Squires's junior.

Squires, who was already 38 when Moore married her, had suffered a series of miscarriages and was never able to carry a pregnancy beyond three months.

Moore was later to say that had he and Squires had children, he might have made a different decision over their marriage.

As it was, it was left to the Moores' Bexley GP, Dr Plunkett, to break the news to Dorothy that there was another woman and that her marriage was over. Moore had confided in him but did not dare tell Dorothy.

This was further confirmed when Squires intercepted some letters addressed to Roger from Italy.

They were from Luisa. Squires had them translated from Italian by the doorman of a Mayfair nightclub.

One allegedly described Luisa's wish to lick Moore all over.

She added: "You say Dorothy does not believe in our love. Show her this letter."

Squires's later comment on this was: "What kind of a cow was that?"

Squires, in a move that appalled even her closest friends, sued Moore for restitution of conjugal rights.

Moore, predictably, ignored the judge's order to return to her. The announcement that he was to play the Saint further inflamed Squires.

It seemed to her that a halo was being conferred upon him for deserting his wife.

Squires was to refuse Moore a divorce for seven years, during which time two of his children by Luisa were born out of wedlock.

When Moore at last married Luisa on April 11, 1969, Squires was back in the headlines on a drink-driving charge.

A year later, in an act of personal and professional defiance, she spent £5,000 to hire the London Palladium for a comeback concert, and sold out the theatre in a matter of hours.

In 1977, there was further bitterness between Moore - now the screen's James Bond - and his second wife when Squires proposed to include in her autobiography not only Moore's intimate love letters to her, but also the letters to him from Luisa, which Squires had illegally intercepted.

There was also a graphic account of Moore performing oral sex on Squires under the bedclothes.

Horrified, Moore and Luisa both won injunctions and the book was never published. Squires sued them both for loss of earnings but lost the case.

At one point, she stormed into the offices of Moore's solicitors, Harbottle and Lewis, and hurled objects at cowering members of the staff.

Her obsession with litigation was to ruin her utterly. She lost 30 of the 33 law cases she launched. She was made bankrupt in 1986.

A year later, she was declared a vexatious litigant and barred from launching further legal actions, and in 1988, she was evicted by bailiffs from her 17-room Thamesside-mansion at Bray, and her possessions were sold at public auction.

For the last ten years of her life, Squires was an obsessive, paranoid recluse, homeless, often penniless, and living on the charity of friends.

Ironically, her successor, Luisa, also became increasingly dominant and fiery in her relations with Moore, and the rows between them were numerous.

When, in 1994, following treatment for suspected prostate cancer, Moore left Luisa for a friend of hers, the Swedish socialite, Christina "Kiki" Tholstrup, Luisa reacted much as Dorothy had before her.

"He dead to me," she said of Moore. "He seriously mad. Now he is nobody. He does not exist. He has killed everything. Unfortunately."

And for Kiki, she had the darkest allegations, implying that she had plotted to steal Roger away from his family, and might even have resorted to witchcraft in order to do it.

As Luisa disappeared from his life, Moore made his first telephone call to Squires in two decades.

Speaking of Kiki, she asked him: "Have you found the right one at last Roger? Is this the one for you?" Moore replied: "This is the one."

Squires wished him happiness and they spoke at length of the many years they had spent together.

"We had a ball, didn't we?" she said. "That we did," replied Roger. I

n March 1996, when Squires underwent surgery for bladder cancer at the BUPA Hospital in Cardiff, Moore picked up the £6,000 bill.

When, in April 1998, Squires lay dying from cancer in hospital at the age of 83, Moore told her niece, Emily: "Take hold of her hand, give it a little squeeze, and tell her Rog is thinking of her."

At her funeral, a bouquet of purple tulips, lilies of the valley and orange flowers arrived with a card with the words: "I've said it with flowers. Roger."

Time brings a mysterious evanescence even to the greatest of fame.

Despite his knighthood and his admirable work as a UNICEF ambassador, Moore's career on the big screen, 22 years after his last appearance as Bond, has fallen into oblivion.

His close friend, Sir Michael Caine, discussing Roger in a recent television interview, observed: "Now he can't get a job."

Yet ironically, the reputation of Dorothy Squires, which lay in ruins during the last disastrous decade of her turbulent life, is undergoing a revival.

Next April, two plaques are to be unveiled in her native Wales to commemorate the tenth anniversary of her death.

And EMI has just released a 49-song double-CD of her major hits, spanning the years from 1938 to 1973.

The passion and power of her delivery confirms that she is, without doubt, one of the great popular singers of the 20th century.

Perhaps the last words on this extraordinary love-hate saga ought to be those of two Welsh Squires fans who placed a moving In Memoriam notice in The Stage newspaper.

"There are no more shows or curtain calls," they wrote. "We thank God for your voice and songs that still echo through the valleys we love."

***DAILY MAIL.

The First Muslim To Visit Space.,

2007-10-10T21:30:00.000-04:00

A Malaysian doctor who will spend the last days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in space has vowed to follow the rituals of his faith even as he hurtles around Earth at 17,000 mph.

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor lifted off Wednesday in a Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan, en route to the international space station where he will spend about 10 days.

The spacecraft — which also carried an American and a Russian — will take two days to reach the station, a period coinciding with the last days of Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk. Sheikh Muszaphar has said he will fast and pray in space, even though clerics said he could delay the fast.

"I am not sure how it would be done but I will share my experiences (with) all the Muslims all over the world when I get back," the 35-year-old Sheikh Muszaphar wrote in his Web journal. "After all, Islam is a way of life and I am quite sure I would not face much difficulties."

Sheikh Muszaphar is taking vacuum-packed Malaysian food, including skewered chicken, banana rolls, fermented soybean cakes and ginger jelly to mark the end of Ramadan.

A bachelor who has become a national heartthrob, the orthopedic surgeon will not be the first Muslim in space — Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman joined the crew of the shuttle Discovery in 1985 and there have been several others since.

Still, the mission initially presented a dilemma about fulfilling religious duties such as fasting, kneeling for prayers in zero gravity or facing Mecca to pray.

After all, praying five times daily on a craft that goes around Earth 16 times a day would have meant praying 80 times in 24 hours. Also, it is virtually impossible to face Mecca continuously in a craft traveling at such high speed.

Muslims are required to wash their hands, feet, face and hair before prayers — a luxury on the Soyuz where water is so precious that even sweat and urine are recycled.

To get around these problems, 150 Malaysian scholars, scientists, and astronauts brainstormed and published an 18-page booklet of guidelines for Muslim astronauts.

If he follows the guidelines, Sheikh Muszaphar can forgo fasting in space and make up for it when he returns to Earth. He can pray three times a day instead of five, facing any direction, and he can do without the ritual washing.

On Tuesday, Sheikh Muszaphar told reporters his trip will be an inspiration for his Southeast Asian homeland as well as to other Muslims worldwide.

"It's a small step for me, but a great leap for the Malaysian people," he said, rephrasing Neil Armstrong's words after the 1969 moon landing.

***AP

Employee Credit Union: How True Are They?

2007-10-09T21:25:00.001-04:00

One of my friend by the name of Mullah works for one of the 500 major company in the world "Marriott International".

Mullah has been with this company for the past ten years and he's been with the company Credit Union (MEFCU DIRECT) for as long as he's been with the company. But Mullah has some few credit issues and he's been working on getting his acts together.

As part of the American dreams, Mullah purchased a Condo in Washington D.c at a higher interest rate about a year and half ago now. The mortgage is high and the mortgage company is not helping to lower the interest rate, so the only option is for Mullah Credit union backing by approving him a refinance package which he badly need now.

Mullah has applied to his Credit Union ten times now, and today made it eleven times he's applied for refinance on his higher mortgage. Mullah has called and talked in person to his Credit union and begged like a little boy for help. Instead the Credit Union told Mullah that they can't help him that much and besides, Mullah has to come up with some extra fees.

Well, the part that interesting to me more when I escorted Mullah to the Credit Union for the eleventh Mortgage application: The loan officer was so hashed and unhelpful to my friend, she looked at his past applications and everything goes banana, she was trying to get us off her cubical and told Mullah only about higher fees that he might need to come up with first before anything can be done with his applications. I was ashamed for a huge and customer oriented company MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL to be so unhelpful to it's workers who are facing foreclosures or higher interest rates on there homes or condo's.

I've always looked at CREDIT UNION'S as some sort of life savers or Considerate's banking for there employees. I see no reasons why the Credit Union can not make a room for Mullah, he owned the Condo and a Car, those are points for him to make the loan, it's an investments. I strongly believes that second chances are needed for a struggling employee who is trying to make it out alive. Equal privileges for even the less fortunate one's. I wish I can help my friend Mullah and give him some money, but since I can't, I can blog it here and try to get some ideas for Mullah survival.

So readers, please send your comments or ideas on how I can help my friend get his Condo refinance before he fall flat on his face.

I personally think that Credit Unions are not what they say they are, In this harder days of the Mortgage crunch, that's the time to help your members Mr. Credit Union. Don't let your members drown in the big ocean of credit fever.

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2007-10-09T20:28:00.001-04:00

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RAMADAN:A Good Example Of Islam Again.

2007-10-04T21:05:00.000-04:00

Going beyond the usual occasional relief campaigns, an Austrian Muslim charity is launching a new worldwide drive to help meet the long-term needs of underprivileged communities in world countries via waqf-based projects.
"Our aid campaign is based on comprehensive studies from major institutions to know the needs of target communities," Ergon Blejec, president of the charity Motherhood and Childhood Society, told IslamOnline.net.

The aim of the project, the first of its kind to be undertaken by a Muslim charity in Europe, is to provide a sustainable support for the underprivileged, especially in South East Asian countries.

"As of early next year, we will be inviting donations for a project to build housing units and shops for needy families in small villages in Thailand and Sri Lanka," he said.

"The shops would help as a sustainable source of income."

Blejec said they were inspired by the tragic, destructive tsunami that devastated areas in several Asian countries nearly three years ago.

"Many Austrian Muslims who wanted to help people in hard-hit areas like Indonesia failed to find Muslim channels for their donations," he recalled.

"At that time, we realized that many charities give priority for people in Iraq and Palestine, while no aid was being provided for communities in other parts of the world."

Besides countries of Southeast Asia, the program will help Muslims in poverty-stricken African countries, such as Tanzania and Niger.

Non-Muslims

Blejec pointed out that while initially targeting Muslims, the services offered would be all-inclusive.

They will offer support for any disadvantaged group, particularly women and children, in any place in the world regardless religious or ethnic backgrounds.

Blejec believes that the waqf-based initiative has the potential to help in many low-income areas of the world.

"In countries like Myanmar or Thailand…building a compound to shelter 10 families would only cost nearly 50.000 euros," he explained.

"A well that can provide water for an entire village can be drilled for a merger of 500 euros," added, asserting that Muslims in Europe can easily foot such bills.

Blejec asserted that the waqf-based projects will go hand in hand with other charity activities like iftar packages during Ramadan and orphans aid.

Austrian Muslims, estimated at nearly half a million, make up some 6 percent of the European country's eight-million population.

Officially acknowledged under the "Islam Law" issued by Emperor Franz Joseph in 1912, Islam is considered the second religion in the country after Catholic Christianity.

***ISLAMONLINE.COM

EID-UL-FITR Holiday: Montgomery County Respecting The Muslim Holy Month.

2007-10-03T10:55:00.000-04:00

There will be three religious holidays for which Montgomery County Public Schools will cancel classes this year: Rosh Hashanah, Christmas and Easter. Yom Kippur, which many MCPS students celebrated this week, began a half hour before sundown on Friday, thus forcing the rescheduling of several athletic and after-school events.

Yom Kippur calls for, among other things, a 12-hour fast to end on the following night. Jews believe it is a day of atonement for sin. When it falls on a school day, it is also a holiday for which MCPS will cancel classes.

But some community members are asking MCPS to recognize a similar religious holiday practiced by Muslims, though it's perhaps lesser known. It is Eid ul-Fitr, the end of the month-long period of fasting called Ramadan, which this year began at sunset on Sept. 12 and will continue until sunset on Oct 12.

During Ramadan, Muslims cannot have food during the daytime, so most wake up before dawn to eat and pray. Eid ul-Fitr, or Eid, is the celebration the day after Ramadan ends, commemorated by food, prayer and time at home with family.

"I know there is a large percentage of Muslims in school, and I know for a fact a lot of Muslims, especially kids who take AP classes, don't want to miss class," said Harris Akhtar, a senior at Seneca Valley High School who is Muslim. "At the same time they have this obligation to celebrate this day."

On Thursday, Akhtar and other members of the Muslim community, dressed in traditional Kufi (headwear) and Shalwar-Kameez (shirts), came to Quince Orchard High School for the first of two MCPS community forums this year to explain to the County Board of Education members what an important day Eid was for them.

"First of all not a lot of people know what Eid ul-Fitr is," Akhtar said. "Students know all about Jewish and Christian holidays, so if we get Eid off people will first be like, 'Woo-hoo!' But then they'll ask what the holiday is for."

Kate Harrison, a spokeswoman for MCPS, said that technically the County did not recognize religious holidays by canceling school for them.

"School is cancelled in recognition that there is a high rate of absenteeism among students and staff around a particular holiday," Harrison wrote via e-mail. "For example, Montgomery County Public Schools does not have school on Yom Kippur because so many staff members and students would be observing the holiday and thus be absent from school - in numbers that it would be difficult to carry on school operations ... The reason is not to observe the religious holiday."

But along those lines, Harrison said school systems could cancel class for many reasons if they wanted to.

"Sometimes school systems in Maryland cancel a school day for other occasions that result in high absenteeism," Harrison wrote. "For example, Alleghany County extends the Thanksgiving holiday through Monday, November 26, to include the start of deer hunting season due to high absenteeism."

Board member Christopher S. Barclay said he didn't feel comfortable commenting on Eid or requests to make it a school day off without further researching the matter.

"I don't think I can really have a comment on the issue," Barclay said. "I understand the issue on the surface but I can't say, 'Here's why I think this.' I think that's why you didn't see many Board members comment on it [on Thursday]."

Barclay added: "There are a lot of cultures in our school system, and we have to come up to speed and learn those religious practices. But I don't think its fair for us to make a comment on something like this."

Akhtar said school is stressful enough without having to fast for a month, and then miss class for religious purposes.

"A lot of kids begin the year and go straight into Ramadan," Akhtar said. "The beginning of school is always the most stressful time, and now you're not eating on top of it. It's really tough."

***THE SENTINEL

ISLAM: Ramadan Meal For Everyone, Peace On Us All.

2007-10-02T22:29:00.000-04:00

An Islamic humanitarian group held a nationwide campaign this weekend to assist tens of thousands of homeless people.

The effort to serve at least 25,000 homeless in as many as 19 major cities was carried out by the nonprofit group Islamic Relief-USA based in Buena Park, California.

The group's Humanitarian Day, which was observed on both Saturday and Sunday this year, brought Muslim volunteers into the streets to provide food, clothing, and medicines to America's poorest, even as the volunteers themselves continued to fast in observation of the holy month of Ramadan.

This is the third consecutive year that Islamic Relief activists have organized humanitarian efforts during Ramadan. Last year, while fasting during the daytime, the volunteers reached out to an estimated 18,000 people in a number of cities.

As they did in 2006, this month, many activists are taking essentials to the homeless in local neighborhoods, such as a warm meal or gift package including hygiene and emergency kits, bath towels, clothing, blankets, ponchos, and toys for children.

With some help from government entities and religious organizations, they are also providing free HIV/AIDS screenings, flu vaccinations, educational materials, and referral information to those in dire need of such assistance.

Last year the organization worked with more than 100 partners to organize volunteer efforts across the country, according to Clareen Menzies, Islamic Relief's domestic projects manager.

"It was something I will probably carry for the rest of my life," said one of the group's first-time volunteers. "Physically helping people less fortunate than I am was something different from giving zakah (mandatory almsgiving for Muslims)."

According to a Census Bureau report released last month, nationwide, more than 36 million people -- or nearly 13 percent of the total U.S. population -- lived in poverty in 2006.

Among those officially considered "poor," over one third are children, most of them nonwhite minorities such as African Americans, Latinos, and Asians.

The data reveals continued inequality and concentration of wealth in the United States, with the top 20 percent of households receiving over 50 percent of the nation's income, while the lowest 20 percent got just over 3 percent.

According to the data, more than 8 percent of non-Hispanic whites, about 10 percent of Asians, over 20 percent of Hispanics, and some 24 percent of African Americans are "poor."

Recent studies point out that more than 23 million Americans need to look for emergency food assistance every year, about 13 million of whom are children whose parents do not earn enough to pay for food, rent, heat, health care, and transportation.

Reacting to the Census Bureau's findings last month, many antipoverty groups reiterated their demand for a raise in the minimum wage and called for congressional action to make the minimum wage "a true living wage."

"Reducing poverty is not rocket science," said Roberta Spivek of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization involved in numerous campaigns for economic and social rights.

"We can go a long way by investing in education, health care, job training, and housing," she added in a statement that also raised critical questions about Washington's continuation of the war in Iraq, which, according to the group's calculations, is costing U.S. taxpayers over $700 million every day.

By contrast, Islamic Relief's Ramadan efforts appeared driven more by moral and religious concerns than by larger political motives.

"My main goal wasn't to hand out shirts or supplies," the first-time volunteer said of her experience helping the homeless. "It was just to bring a smile to their faces and bring a little hope to their lives. The people were so polite, thankful, and humorous that I couldn't help but smile to myself."

This year's Islamic Relief activities served communities in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Detroit; Elizabeth, New Jersey; Fort Thompson, South Dakota; Houston; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Las Vegas; Minneapolis; New Orleans; New York; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Seattle; and Washington, DC.

***ONE WORLD U.S.A

Sierra Leone: Open To All Tourists And Well Wishers

2007-10-01T22:47:00.000-04:00

rs later, long stretches of sandy beach are still mostly bare, and government officials say reviving this important source of revenue is a top concern.

Major hotels in what was once the tourist area of Freetown are mostly empty. The government has helped to reconstruct some, but without the tourists, the industry is at a standstill.

Tourism, along with diamond mining, were major sources of revenue before the war engulfed this African nation in the 1990s.

Jewelry seller Joseph Bangura says he waits on the beach, hoping tourists will return. "I am making nice necklaces for those people who are coming to know our culture and our land," he says. "At least they won't forget about us."

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest nations in the world. The war destroyed much of the country's infrastructure. Thousands of former combatants still struggle to survive.

Despite these problems, Director of Tourism Alfred Navo says he wants people to know that Sierra Leone is at peace now and there is no reason to be afraid.

"Sierra Leone is no longer at war. We are now fighting against poverty, [for] poverty alleviation," he explains. "We want people to come. Sierra Leone for now is like a virgin land."

Navo says Sierra Leone is relying heavily on international aid to help revitalize the tourist industry. "We are handicapped financially in the process because for now we are more dependent on donor funds. Of course they have also their own areas of priority."

Navo says funding hospitals and schools comes first for most donors, before tourism. He says a number of smaller, independently owned guest houses are opening up.

Raymond Jones has just opened a guesthouse in the center of Freetown. Jones is from Sierra Leone, but has been living in London. He returned to start this business. It is not quite finished, but he says he is confidant people will come. "It helps me; also it helps my country to have good revenue," he said.

The government hopes others will follow Jones' lead and invest in tourism. For now, Sierra Leone will continue to prepare its beaches in hopes that one day they will be again be bustling with foreigners and their dispensable incomes.

***VOA.

A World Wide Sims Card, Not That Low Cost.

2007-10-01T08:17:00.000-04:00

It’s amazing the way the Internet keeps toppling traditional businesses. Telegrams have gone away. Music CD sales are tanking. Newspapers are hurting.

One especially lucrative business, however, has somehow escaped the Internet’s notice so far: international cellphone calls.

That’s about to change. Early next month, a small company called Cubic Telecom will release what it’s calling the first global mobile phone.

But first, some background. Cellphones from T-Mobile and AT&T rely on the same type of network (called GSM) that most of the rest of the world uses. In theory, then, you can take these phones to other countries and make calls as usual. (Most Verizon and Sprint phones work only in the United States.)

Unfortunately, international roaming runs from $1 to $5 a minute. A 20-minute call home from the Bahamas on a T-Mobile phone will set you back $60. The same call home from Russia on an AT&T cellphone will cost a cool $100.

Sure, you could always rent a phone or use a phone card when you travel — but then nobody knows how to reach you.

It costs a lot to dial overseas from here, too. Verizon charges $1.50 a minute for calls to most countries. AT&T’s rates can be truly Dr. Seussian — like $2.52 to Greece, $2.80 to Iraq and $3.65 to Australia. That’s per minute. Make one 20-minute call to New Zealand, and you owe $75 to AT&T.

Now, most carriers offer special international plans: you pay more a month, you get slightly lower roaming rates. But even they can’t touch the appeal of Cubic’s cellphone. It makes calls to or from any of 214 countries — for 50 to 90 percent off what the big carriers would charge.

On this phone, a 20-minute call from the Bahamas costs $5.80 (that’s 90 percent off T-Mobile’s rate). The Cubic price from Russia is 49 cents a minute (90 percent lower than AT&T).

And there’s no monthly fee and no commitment for any of this. It works like a prepaid phone, where you put some money in your account and use it up as you talk.

At this point, the appropriate world traveler’s response ought to be involuntary drooling, but there’s more to the story. Most of it is more good news, but also more complexity.

For example, consider this: at the MaxRoam.com site from Cubic, you can request local phone numbers in up to 50 cities at no charge. Now you can have a Paris number, a London number and a Mexico City number that your friends overseas can use to call your cellphone.

No longer must you hand out a series of international phone numbers for each trip you make, or expect your colleagues in the United States to pay $50 a pop to reach you.

Cubic points out that this feature alone is a life-changer for people who have moved, for example, to the United States from overseas. Their family back home can keep in touch for the price of a local call.

I signed up for numbers in Paris, London and Barcelona, and then asked friends in those cities to call me. They dialed local numbers, and my phone rang in New York — very slick. Voice quality was typical of Internet calls: perfectly understandable, but slightly muffled, with a quarter-second to one-second voice delay.

Even that’s not the end of this phone’s possibilities. For a flat $42 a month, you can turn on its unlimited Wi-Fi calling option. It lets you receive unlimited unmetered calls to any numbers in the world from Internet hot spots, or make them for a penny a minute. Either way, you have little fear of racking up your bill.

This works on hot spots that require a password, but not ones that require a Web-page login. And in contrast to the new HotSpot@Home phones from T-Mobile, which seamlessly hand off calls between Wi-Fi and the cellular network as you move, the Cubic phone drops the call when you leave the hot spot.

Still, if you make a lot of international calls, this option could save even more money. The voice quality is excellent, although these Wi-Fi calls are sometimes marred by random beeps, clicks or dropped connections.

In some ways, the Cubic phone isn’t just different; it’s actually eccentric. As a phone without a country, it requires a country code and area code for every call, even next door.

The bigger weirdness: when you dial a number and press send, your phone rings a few seconds later. When you answer, you hear a voice saying, “Connecting your call,” and then you hear the other person answer.

That’s the Cubic’s big trick at work: It carries your call over the Internet. Therefore, placing a call just sets off Cubic’s own system to call you back, avoiding the big carriers’ expensive cellular networks.

This, too, takes getting used to, and it also adds about 25 seconds of waiting to every call. It helps if you keep chanting: “90 percent savings, 90 percent savings.”

That’s one reason you won’t want to use the Cubic as your main cellphone. Here’s another: everyday domestic calling rates haven’t been determined yet, but will probably be a steep 15 cents a minute. Because there’s no monthly fee, though, there’s no reason you can’t just keep the Cubic in a drawer until you travel (or place international calls). When you travel abroad, you can either forward your regular cellphone number to the Cubic, or change your voice mail greeting, instructing people to use your Cubic’s number while you’re away.

The Cubic phone itself isn’t much to look at. It’s a slab-style camera phone made by Pirelli — yes, the tire company — with clunky menus, a very slow start-up and a tendency to freeze.

But here’s the other dizzying news: Cubic’s cheap global dialing has nothing to do with the phone. The real magic is in the SIM card, the memory card that determines your account information.

So get this: For $40, you can buy this card without the phone. Cubic says that you can slip it into any GSM phone — even your regular T-Mobile or AT&T phone, as long as it’s an “unlocked” phone (one that works with other companies’ SIM cards). Then your own cellphone behaves exactly like the Cubic phone described up to this point, minus the Wi-Fi calling, of course.

This is a lot to absorb, and it’s going to be tough for Cubic to explain all of it to the masses in a short tag line. (So far, it’s going with “All Global Calls Are Local Calls.” Not bad.) Maybe it would have done better to introduce one feature at a time.

You should know going in, too, that the company responsible for tearing down this bastion of outrageous roaming rates is a little group of 13 people in Ireland, with vast experience in calling cards but none in cellphone sales. Its plans are ambitious, disruptive — and incomplete. Several pieces of its system have yet to be slipped into place, including tech support, customer service, documentation, Internet data plans and domestic calling rates. But what the heck—here’s a $140 phone, or a $40 SIM card, that can save you thousands of dollars a year. Depending on how many international calls you make, it could pay for itself in a week or a month.

If nothing else, this ingenious melding of the cellphone and the Internet should strike fear into the hearts of the giant corporations that are currently bleeding travelers dry. This is how the last great overpriced pre-Internet racket will end: not with a bang, but with a SIM card.

***THE NEW YORK TIMES

SIERRA LEONE: Cholera Is Killing Our People. Please Help..

2007-09-30T07:39:00.000-04:00

Freetown, Sierra Leone - The director of disease prevention and control at the ministry of health in Sierra Leone, Dr. Alhassan Sesay has confirmed the death of 20 persons as a result of cholera.

He said Sunday that the deaths occurred in the country's northern Kambia District this month during a period of two weeks.

Cholera, caused by the consumption of contaminated food or water with the cholera bacteria, also killed 12 persons at the main referral Connaught Hospital in Freetown, according to a senior nurse.

Senior ward officer Osman-tolo Kamara at the Connaught Hospital, confirmed the death of 12 patients from severe "diarrhoea" from several parts of Freetown, citing hospital records.

Kamara said severe diarrhoea and cholera usually erupt in Sierra Leone during the rainy season due to poor drainage and damaged water pipeline.

SIERRA LEONE: Slowly Coming Back.

2007-09-29T08:53:00.000-04:00

Most schools and school districts that Americans are familiar with are comfortable in their buildings, awash in books and loaded with state-of-the-art electronics, including computers and printers.

One of Saffa Koroma’s greatest dreams for the 300 schools he runs is an old-fashioned mimeograph machine.

Koroma, 59, is education secretary and associate director of Operation Classroom, a school system run by the United Methodist Church in the western African country of Sierra Leone.

The nation is only beginning to recover from a decade-long - 1991 to 2002 - war that some call a civil war and others call a war caused by rebels. In any case, tens of thousands died and about a third of the nation’s 6 million citizens were displaced.

Elementary and secondary schools in Sierra Leone, in which nearly seven out of 10 people live in poverty, are not run by the government, but by nongovernmental organizations and religious groups - most of them Christian of varying brands, but some Muslim, too.

Koroma indicates that there are few if any boundaries separating the educational efforts of the churches: “Everyone cooperates and gets along, and there isn’t any real competition. The young people need education and the various religious groups always have lived in friendship and harmony in Sierra Leone - even working ecumenically often.”

He noted that in addition to the UMC-run schools, other Christians sponsoring schools include Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists and Wesleyans. A member of that latter evangelical denomination, Ernest Bai Koroma (no relation), this month was elected president of the country.

Said school-administrator Koroma: “We are society-based, caring for each other cooperatively.

“We have six government colleges that are available for teachers, and tuition is $250 to $300 a year, well out of the affordability range of almost any potential student,” Koroma said.

Yet it’s among his duties to recruit teachers who, when their education is complete, will earn only $30 a month to start. Even an experienced principal of a high-school-level institution will earn only between $150 to $200.

And so, for a school district that covets a mimeograph machine to reproduce and proliferate reading materials, outside help in terms of cash and donations of supplies is imperative.

Among the U.S. Operation Classroom project members are Puebloans John and Elaine Blinn and Les and Hope Law from Golden. Like all members of the team, the Blinns and Laws have secured the most basic of supplies for the school rooms - computers, books donated by schools, paper, pencils and pens. And they have raised funds, too, to buy materials or pay the shipping costs from gathering points in the United States to Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital.

The American UMC-Sierra Leone link has been in place since 1987, even though the war disturbed the process.

Saffa Koroma

The couples have traveled, at their own expense, to that African country to offer whatever help they can, including workshops and additional training for teachers.

Blinn, a retired Methodist minister and former district superintendent of the denomination in Southern Colorado, said that, “during the war, the schools, along with most other economic and social systems in the country, ground to a halt and it’s only since 2002 that we’ve been able to start making a comeback.”

Koroma added: "During the war, education was at best an ad hoc thing, taught wherever we could spirit the students away to a safe place for a few days.”

His role now, in addition to being an administrator, is to be a liaison between the schools and the government.

“I wind up explaining what the government needs to the schools, and what the schools need to the government,” he said.

In a school system in which classroom size is often 80 to 100 students, and supplies are limited, the participation of the Rocky Mountain District of the UMC in Operation Classroom is crucial.

Hope Law seems pleased when she reports that “we visited with teachers and students from Littleton’s Heritage High School and came away with $14,000 in funds and 2,000 books. Jefferson County schools also have been generous with supplies and books and a Littleton charter school donated 32 used computers that will begin to make a difference in the Makeni UMC schools.”

Makeni is a city about the size of Pueblo, located about 100 miles northeast of Freetown.

Les Law smiled broadly when he told about the response that was made by the elementary school in tiny Haxtun.

“There are only 1,000 people there, but after one of the Methodists in town told fellow teachers about the need, the students and teachers both responded with amazing generosity with books and many children’s books for our libraries.”

English is the official language in Sierra Leone, but is not all that much used in day-to-day life. Yet it is the language in which classes are taught and business is conducted, so the books in English are important, Law said.

Hope Law said that, while the youngsters are only beginning to be exposed to computers and the Internet, “they are excited to see what’s out there in the rest of the world and what’s possible for them and their country.”

Koroma and his wife, Agnes, a UMC minister, have five children of their own, “but I have taken in 10 others whom I regard as my children,” he said.

Koroma explained the purpose of his two-month trip throughout a wide variety of American cities: “I’ve come to thank Americans for their 20 years of support and, of course, to ask them to do even more.”

Koroma does not seem intimidated by the presence of American prosperity, but he pointedly asks whether, for the education of children, “we can allow a trickle of this wealth to fall to these people whose ancestors were once your slaves.”

The educator-administrator talked at two UMC congregations last weekend, and will continue his transcontinental trek on behalf of kids. And there are a lot of them: According to the Central Intelligence Agency, 45 percent of the population is younger than 14.

For anyone wanting more information or wanting to help, the Blinns may be contacted at 253-0400.

***THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

BURMA: Is Military Coup On The Move Right Now?

2007-09-28T21:57:00.000-04:00

Reports from Rangoon suggest soldiers are mutinying. It is unclear the numbers involved. Reports cite heavy shooting in the former Burmese capital.

The organisation Helfen ohne Grenzen (Help without Frontiers) is reporting that "Soldiers from the 66th LID (Light Infantry Divison) have turned their weapons against other government troops and possibly police in North Okkalappa township in Rangoon and are defending the protesters. At present unsure how many soldiers involved."

Soldiers in Mandalay, where unrest has spread to as we reported this morning, are also reported to have refused orders to act against protesters.

Some reports claim that many soldiers remained in their barracks. More recent reports now maintain that soldiers from the 99th LID now being sent there to confront them.

Growing numbers of protestors are gathering in Rangoon, with 10,000 reported at the Traders Hotel and 50,000 at the Thein Gyi market. The police are reported to have turned water cannons against crowds at Sule Pagoda.

Many phone lines into the Burmese state have now been cut, mobile networks have been disabled and the national internet service provider has been taken off-line.

***THE FIRST POST

CHINA: Fighting Poverty, Can That Be Real?

2007-09-25T23:02:00.001-04:00

As the forward march of economic growth raises per capita incomes from the levels enjoyed in poor nations to those available in moderately well-off countries, it becomes necessary to redefine poverty so that it suits the new economic reality.

A group of Chinese economists suggested in a recently released anti-poverty report that the government should raise the official poverty line to include basic expenditures on education and medical service.

Policymakers should pay close attention to this argument if the country is to cement and build upon China's achievements in alleviating poverty.

One of the overwhelmingly positive characteristics of China's robust economic growth over the past three decades has been the progress the country has made in lifting millions of people out of poverty. The government launched a large-scale poverty-eradication program in 1986, shrinking the number of people living in absolute poverty - those earning less than 683 yuan ($91) a year - to 21.5 million at the end of last year, from 125 million in 1985.

It will take a sustained, long-term effort to totally get rid of poverty. The government must do more to improve living conditions in underdeveloped regions.

Only when the fruits of the rapid development we have seen are more equally shared by all people will the country be able to build itself into a well-off and harmonious society.

The government has vowed to lift 148,000 villages out of poverty by 2010. The plan would benefit 23.6 million rural people.

However, as they focus on the traditional task of increasing incomes, policymakers must also take into account people's basic education and healthcare needs to ensure a decent standard of living for the rural poor.

The new anti-poverty report found that the current official poverty benchmark of 683 yuan would only cover the minimal costs of food and clothing for a year. When education and healthcare are factored in, the poverty line rises to 1,100 yuan a year.

One consequence of raising the line would be an increase in the official number of people living in poverty.

Such a change would not eclipse the country's achievements in the war against poverty. Rather, it would only mark a new starting point in a long-term fight.

As China carves out a place for itself among middle-income nations, the country must be prepared to ensure that poor people of all ages have access to education and healthcare. It is becoming increasingly important to offer these services to ensure that the needy have the capacity to develop their own opportunities.

***CHINADAILY.COM

SIERRA LEONE:The Shore Is Our Gifts From GOD Too.

2007-09-25T05:16:00.000-04:00

Sierra Leone arrested eight Guineans, including military personnel and fisheries inspectors, whom it accused of carrying out a pirate attack on two locally licensed fishing vessels, officials said on Monday.

But Guinean authorities rejected the piracy charge, saying the men were on a legitimate fisheries protection patrol.

British-trained Sierra Leone naval officers interrupted what they portrayed as a high-seas hold-up by armed men in two launches on Sunday, 18 nautical miles off Freetown inside the West African state's 200-mile (320-km) economic exclusion zone.

They said one of the attacking speedboats escaped north towards Guinea, while the other was seized. The eight men arrested were found with AK-47 automatic rifles and bags of fish, including high-value snapper, taken off the Sierra Leone-licensed vessels.

"They are all Guinean pirates," said Daniel Mansaray, commander of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces Maritime Wing.

He said the men arrested included two lieutenants of the Guinean armed forces -- one from the navy, another from the army -- and two fisheries inspectors.

Guinea's navy said the military personnel were accompanying inspectors from the country's National Fisheries Surveillance Centre (CNSP) on an official patrol.

"You can't talk about piracy," Guinean navy operations commander Mohamed Camara said. But he did not explain what the Guineans were doing in Sierra Leone's economic exclusion zone.

Sean Brady, a British Royal Navy commander who advises the Sierra Leone Maritime Wing as part of a UK training mission for the country's armed forces, confirmed the arrests.

"There was one boat with the pirates and one boat to take away all the bounty to Conakry. ... It's embarrassing for Guinea," he told Reuters.

LAWLESS SHORES

International law enforcement officials say Guinea's port capital of Conakry on the former French colony's Atlantic coast is a major staging post and jump-off point for criminal gangs trafficking illegal migrants and drugs bound for Europe.

Piracy and illegal fishing are also rife off the West African coastline, a jigsaw of deltas, swamps, mangrove creeks and islands which are poorly patrolled by regional states.

"Sierra Leone waters are pirated all the time and usually they (the pirates) commandeer the catch (of fishing vessels) and take it to Guinea. The fisherman are scared," Mansaray said.

"They are getting too bold -- coming right down the coast to pirate and loot these vessels and stealing millions. If it continues, it will discourage people from licensing their vessels here in Sierra Leone," he added.

The high-seas incident followed a brief visit to Conakry on Friday by newly elected Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma, who was making his first foreign trip as head of state.

Aides said Koroma had asked Guinean President Lansana Conte and the leaders of Liberia and Burkina Faso for more cooperation to preserve security in a volatile, crime-ridden region that was racked by civil wars for more than a decade.

Sierra Leone has only four maritime patrol vessels and two are out of service due to missing parts. The country's single ocean-going patrol vessel was donated by China.

***REUTERS

Sierra Leone Doctor Also Needs Healing Hands

2007-09-24T05:10:00.000-04:00

It was tough enough for Olabisi Claudius-Cole to be one of just a handful of doctors in Sierra Leone. On top of that, she had to contend with her ailing joints.
Her knees were shot, her hips were bad, and she faced the prospect of life in a wheelchair with no one to take over her clinic in Sierra Leone. The locals there depend on her for much, if not all, of their health care needs.

But Claudius-Cole returned to her homeland Friday with renewed hope after the last of four surgeries in the USA over the past year that gave her artificial hips and knees.

She had the final surgery, for a new left hip, on Aug. 23, after which she recovered at her sister's home in a Chicago suburb.

Usually, four replacement surgeries carry a total price tag close to $100,000. But Claudius-Cole, 49, got the operations for a fraction of the price, thanks to her sister's negotiating skills and Wayne Goldstein, an orthopedic surgeon dubbed "the god of knees."

Goldstein did all four surgeries free and persuaded the other doctors involved and DePuy Orthopaedics (which provided the artificial hips and knees) to waive their fees.

Claudius-Cole's sister, Olufemi Davies, then negotiated with hospital representatives for a 90% discount on hospital fees.

"When I met (Claudius-Cole), I knew she was something special," says Goldstein, who names U2 frontman and philanthropist Bono as an inspiration. "Now she is my proxy, my hand, to save everyone in Sierra Leone.

"To save one person is to save the world," Goldstein says.

At her clinic, Claudius-Cole treats dozens of patients a day, often giving deep discounts for those who cannot afford it. She is a jack-of-all-trades doctor. She can deliver a baby, diagnose a heart attack using just a stethoscope, take out a gallbladder and make house calls all in one day. The clinic employs one junior doctor and a small staff, but they are unable to perform most operations without her.

"You grit your teeth and get on with it," Claudius-Cole says of the pain. "When you're under stress and doing surgery, you don't feel it … afterward you say, 'Ooh, ahh, my hips, my back, my knees.' " She had hip and knee pains because of joint abnormalities that she has had since birth.

She says she could never have gotten the surgeries in Sierra Leone because of the lack of resources and expertise. In 2005, the USA recorded nearly 500,000 knees replacements and nearly 240,000 hip replacements, according to the most recent statistics from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. In Sierra Leone, such surgeries are practically unheard of.

The number of doctors leaving Sierra Leone has increased dramatically in the past few years, and medical resources at clinics are slim — both consequences of a 10-year civil war that ended in 2002. Electricity is spotty, laboratories are not reliable, medicine is hard to get, and medical training is subpar.

Davies, a registered nurse who moved to Evanston, Ill., in 1997, worked tirelessly to get her sister's joints replaced. When she talked to patients and researched surgeons, Goldstein, of Rush North Shore Medical Center in Skokie, Ill., came highly recommended.

"It was an amazing gift, a dream," Davies says. Claudius-Cole says she planned to see patients on the day she returned to Sierra Leone.

Goldstein says he gave her the most technologically advanced replacement knees and hips on the market. They should last her a lifetime, even under her high-stress conditions, he says. When she settles back home, she shouldn't feel any residual pain or need physical therapy, he says.

"When I'm not there (at the clinic), my patients turn around and go home," Claudius-Cole says. "They tell me I just have to touch them for them to get well."

***USATODAY

Is Al-Qaeda For Real? I'm Not Too Sure.

2007-09-23T05:38:00.000-04:00

Al-Qaeda’s branch in North Africa has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Algeria that wounded two French people and one Italian, Al-Arabiya television reported.

In an "audio statement" posted on the Internet and received by Al-Arabiya’s office in Algiers, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said one of its militants with the nom de guerre of Othman Abu Jaafar carried out the attack with a car laden with "more than 250 kilograms of explosives."

Yesterday’s bombing in Lakhdaria, about 75 kilometres southeast of Algiers, "killed three foreigners" and wounded others, Al-Arabiya quoted the group as claiming.

The television aired part of the audio recording, in which the "press spokesman" of the group said "the heroic martyrdom-seeker Othman Abu Jaafar" rammed a Mazda car into a convoy in which "French crusaders working on building the biggest dam" in the area were travelling.

Al-Arabiya showed a picture of a militant carrying a machinegun, with the inscription "martyrdom-seeker Othman Abu Jaafar" written on it, which accompanied the statement.

The targeted Frenchmen were escorted by Algerian army and police vehicles, the recording said.

"The explosion resulted in the destruction of the Toyota vehicle which carried the Frenchmen and the death of those who were in it, thank be to God," the spokesman added.

There were no immediate reports of fatalities in the attack from security sources in Algeria.

The bombing, which wounded six Algerians in addition to two French engineers and an Italian, came just hours after Al-Qaeda called for an offensive against French and Spanish targets in the Maghreb.

France said it takes "very seriously" threats from Al-Qaeda against its nationals in North Africa and has stepped up security measures.

"We take these new threats very seriously," foreign ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux said in Paris. "We have instructed the diplomatic stations concerned to reinforce security."

Scores of people have been killed in bomb attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda across Algeria this year.

***THE TIMES

President Bush, Mr. Nelson Mandela Is Still Alive And Kicking.

2007-09-22T07:37:00.000-04:00

Nelson Mandela is still very much alive despite an embarrassing gaffe by U.S. President George W. Bush, who alluded to the former South African leader's death in an attempt to explain sectarian violence in Iraq.

"It's out there. All we can do is reassure people, especially South Africans, that President Mandela is alive," Achmat Dangor, chief executive officer of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said as Bush's comments received worldwide coverage.

In a speech defending his administration's Iraq policy, Bush said former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's brutality had made it impossible for a unifying leader to emerge and stop the sectarian violence that has engulfed the Middle Eastern nation.

"I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas," Mr. Bush, who has a reputation for verbal faux pas, said in a press conference in Washington on Thursday.

Jailed for 27 years for fighting white minority rule, Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for preaching racial harmony and guiding the nation peacefully into the post-apartheid era.

References to his death -- Mr. Mandela is now 89 and increasingly frail -- are seen as insensitive in South Africa.

***CANADA.COM

SIERRA LEONE: PRESIDENT ERNEST BAI KOROMA

2007-09-18T00:26:00.000-04:00

Opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma won Sierra Leone's presidential election after a run-off vote marked by tensions and some ballot fraud in the war-scarred West African state, electoral officials said on Monday.

The National Electoral Commission (NEC) declared the 53-year-old candidate of the All People's Congress (APC) the winner of the September 8 poll despite a threat by the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) to challenge the result in court.

Koroma, a former insurance executive turned politician who was runner-up in a previous 2002 presidential election, was due to be sworn in as head of state later on Monday.

This year's election was seen as a test of the former British colony's recovery from a 1991-2002 civil war, one of modern Africa's most brutal in which 50,000 people were killed and children were kidnapped, drugged and forced to fight.

Cheering supporters of Koroma, wearing the APC's red colours, celebrated in the streets of the coastal capital Freetown, blowing whistles, honking car horns and dancing.

But some later hurled stones and bottles at the SLPP party headquarters, smashing windows and forcing police to fire tear gas. At least one person was injured, eyewitnesses said.

The NEC said Koroma had won with 54.6 percent of valid votes, defeating his SLPP rival, Vice-President Solomon Berewa, who had 45.4 percent.

"Ernest Bai Koroma has been duly elected president of the Republic of Sierra Leone," NEC chairperson Christiana Thorpe told a news conference in Freetown.

APC spokesman Alpha Kanu said both Berewa and outgoing President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who had backed his SLPP vice-president, had called to congratulate Koroma on his win.

"It is a complete victory for all Sierra Leoneans," Kanu told Reuters.

Disgruntled SLPP officials criticised the result, but it was not immediately clear whether they would formally contest it in the Supreme Court.

"The vote is incredible. It is fraud and part of an international conspiracy to effect regime change. I would not be surprised if we contest the result. People have a right to resist," SLPP National Secretary General Jacob Jusu Saffa said.

The run-off poll followed an inconclusive first-round ballot on August 11, in which the APC won a parliamentary majority. Some clashes between rival supporters marred campaigning for the decisive presidential vote.

The polls were the first since United Nations peacekeepers left two years ago, and many Sierra Leoneans hoped the election would help erase the bitter memories and divisions of a civil war financed by illegal "blood diamonds."

"Sierra Leone is coming from one of the most brutal wars in the world ... It's coming back to the world as a nation that can make good democratic changes," college lecturer Amos Turay said.

Some militant SLPP supporters were less conciliatory.

"We will never accept the result," said a former civil war combatant, who gave his name as Black Jesus.

The NEC's Thorpe said some instances of attempted fraud, including the stuffing and swapping of ballot boxes, had been discovered which led to the invalidation of some results. But these flaws were not sufficient to affect the final result.

Voter turnout was around 68 percent.

International observers had described the polls as generally transparent but had also reported some fraud. The official election results can be challenged by petition to the Supreme Court within seven days of their announcement.

***REUTERS

VICTOR BOUT and CHARLES TAYLOR

2007-09-17T05:08:00.000-04:00

The name Victor Bout first came on my radar in the late 1990s when, in my job as a BBC reporter in Africa, I found myself spending an inordinate amount of time with soldiers.

The region had more than its share of wars and armed men.

I spent time with scruffy rebels in the Guinean bush and smart Indian UN peacekeepers; I sought out a United Nations commander at a golf club in Liberia one Sunday morning and met a Nigerian general later the same day in a hotel bar; I counted British majors, Nigerian colonels and South African mercenaries as my friends.

Almost all of them had heard about a (to me) mysterious man called Victor Bout, a Russian businessman who apparently traded in Africa and beyond.

To me it seemed rather odd that so many soldiers knew this Russian. Odd, that is, until 2003, when Mr Bout's name was included in a UN Security Council resolution travel ban list.

Victor Bout appeared on the list - along with the then Liberian President Charles Taylor and some of his ministers - as "Victor Anatoljevitch Bout alias Butt, Bont, Buttee, Boutov, Sergitov Vitali", and was described thus:

"Businessman, dealer and transporter of weapons and minerals. Arms dealer in contravention of UNSC resolution 1343. Supported former President Charles Taylor's regime in efforts to destabilise Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds."

For Sale

A new book on Victor Bout by American journalists Doug Farah and Stephen Braun contains allegations that the Russian had a much wider remit than just Africa.

The UN says Mr Bout supported the then Liberian President Charles Taylor

The authors describe a hydra-headed network of companies which emerged from the ashes of the former Soviet Union in the early 1990s - all of them associated in some way, the book says, with Mr Bout.

The business allegedly started from the large number of former Soviet army and air force planes that were sitting on airfields more or less redundant. In the chaos of the collapsing state, these Antonovs and Illyushins - along with their crews - were up for sale.

More robust and easier to maintain than American aircraft, the former Soviet air fleet was perfect for delivering goods to bumpy wartime airstrips around the world.

The range of countries Mr Bout has allegedly dealt with is breathtaking.

UN documents, many fed with information by a tenacious Belgian arms researcher, Johan Peleman, have named him in connection with wars in Angola, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The new book also details his activities in Afghanistan, Iraq and Colombia. It explains how, at one point, the man had a palatial residence in South Africa - only to have it attacked in an apparent gangland fallout.

On the Run

But the most extraordinary thing about Mr Bout is that he is still at large despite

* having been sought by senior officials in the former Clinton administration (the Bush administration appears to have taken its eye off the ball)
* having an arrest warrant issued against him in Belgium
* being named frequently by the UN in connection with illegal arms deals
* being publicly condemned as a "Merchant of Death" by the British MP Peter Hain while he was a Foreign Office minister

The book explains Mr Bout's success by his undoubted vision and ambition as a businessman, but also by two broad strokes of luck. The first was that he emerged as a serious business player, with military connections, at a time when a lot of hardware was available for sale from the former Soviet bloc.

Washington now had different interests, given its greater emphasis on Iraq

The second stroke of luck was that Mr Bout came to be best known to - and named by - UN investigators at a time when the only remaining superpower, the US, was concentrating on its own "war on terror" rather than on countering arms trails which terrorised Africans, Asians and others.

Indeed, one of the most surprising sections of the new book details how the US military used planes allegedly subcontracted to companies associated with Mr Bout to deliver supplies to the American war effort in Iraq.

By this time, the informal cell of US officials working on tracking Mr Bout, set up under the Clinton era, had lost clout.

It wasn't that the US overtly wanted to deal with Bout-associated companies but that Washington now had different interests, given its greater emphasis on Iraq.

***NIGERIA VILLAGE NEWS

SIERRA LEONE: S.L.P.P, Why You Want To Punish The Country Again?

2007-09-16T23:10:00.000-04:00

Sierra Leone’s Supreme Court is expected to today (Monday) hear an injunction to effectively stop the National Electoral Commission (NEC) from publishing any more results.

The ruling Sierra Leone’s People’s Party (SLPP) which brought the case, contends that there were massive irregularities in the September 8 presidential run-off election. But the electoral commission dismissed the ruling party’s claim and said it would continue to publish results as they come it.

Late Sunday night, the NEC announced it would give its latest results today (Monday) at 10 a.m. local time instead of the usual six p.m local time. In the most recent results, opposition candidate Ernest Bai Koroma continues to maintain his lead over Vice President and SLPP candidate Solomon Berewa.

Meanwhile, international and local observers have described the elections as free, fair and credible.

Ibrahim Abdallah is a Sierra political analyst. From the capital, Freetown he tells reporter Peter Clottey the SLPP has a right to challenge the irregularities it claims exist.

“If I understand it correctly, the (Sierra Leone) People’s Party is actually concerned with discrepancy between certain figures that were published and the figures that appeared on the Internet. If that is correct, the issue that they are raising substantively cannot stop Madam Thorpe from doing what she wants to do today (Monday) i.e. announce the rest of the results because constitutionally, you can go ahead and challenge the results, but you cannot stop or halt the process i.e. stop announcing the results for the nation,” Abdallah noted.

He said the right to challenge any irregularities in court is part of the process that would nurture the country’s young democracy.

“I think they have a right to challenge the results, I mean that is part of the democratic process. The process has to be credible; it has to be transparent… as far as I’m concerned that is in accordance with the democratic process. But then people have the right to say well the issues that you are raising are not substantive issues, these are minor issues, and then that is when the court comes in,” he said.

Abdallah said there are more substantive issues that the SLPP can contest about the elections.

“The way I see this is that if they want to raise issues like that. I mean there are some substantive issues, i.e. if you look at what happened in Kailahun and Kenema there were cases of over voting. I mean that goes against the people’s party. If you look at the results in Kailahun and Pujehun, there was over voting too. So those two areas have always been susceptible to that kind of thing, so if the people are raising that against the People’s Party, I don’t think that is going to auger well for them. But now they are the ones that are raising those issues not the opposition, which in my view has won the elections,” Abdallah pointed out.

***VOA

SIERRA LEONE: President Ernest Bai Koroma

2007-09-13T19:08:00.000-04:00

Results from Sierra Leone’s presidential run-off showed Ernest Bai Koroma, the opposition challenger, heading for almost certain victory, setting the stage for the country’s first peaceful transfer of power since independence.

The electoral commission said in its daily briefing on Thursday that Mr Koroma had won 859,144 votes, compared to 567,449 for Solomon Berewa, the ruling party candidate, with 76.1 per cent of ballots from Saturday’s poll counted.

The remaining results are due to be released on Monday.

While a last-minute upset may still be theoretically possible, it would take a major shift in the voting trend to deny Mr Koroma and his All People’s Congress victory.

”We have an unassailable lead,” said Alpha Kanu, APC spokesman. ”We are waiting for Mr Berewa to concede.”

Officials of Mr Berewa’s ruling Sierra Leone People’s party (SLPP) were not immediately available for comment.

The largely peaceful conduct of Saturday’s poll, which followed an initial round of voting on August 11, has been seen as an important step in Sierra Leone’s recovery from a decade of civil war that ended five years ago. The ballot is the first to be held since one of the world’s largest peacekeeping forces withdrew in 2005.

Britain, which sent commandoes to help end the war in its former colony, has taken the lead in international efforts to rebuild. Renewed stability has led to an increase in diamond production and the revival of one of the world’s largest natural rutile mines, used to produce titanium ore.

But Mr Koroma’s lead has been widely interpreted in Freetown, the capital, as an indictment of the ruling SLPP’s party’s failure to deliver jobs and stamp out corruption.

Clashes between party activists marred the run-up to the second round vote in the capital and some other parts of the country. The electoral commission says it is investigating reports of irregularities from both parties.

www.ft.com

Osama Bin Laden: An Other New Video

2007-09-10T07:58:00.001-04:00

In a new video released ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden made no overt threats but lectured Americans on the Iraq war and criticized global capitalism, calling its leaders the real terrorists.

His emergence Friday comes at a time when terrorism experts believe bin Laden's terror network is regrouping in the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border region _ and it underlines the U.S. failure to catch him.

The 30-minute video was obtained by the SITE Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors terrorist messages, and provided to the Associated Press.

American officials said the U.S. government had obtained a copy even though the video had not been posted yet by al-Qaida _ and intelligence agencies were studying the video to determine whether it was authentic and to look for clues about bin Laden's health.

In the video, a short excerpt of which was broadcast to the Arab world by Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden attacked capitalism, multinational corporations and globalization.

'This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system,' he said.

Several current and former government officials said they believed an American _ 28-year-old Adam Gadahn _ may have written at least part of the speech.

Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and supporting terrorism for serving as an al-Qaida propagandist, has appeared in several past al-Qaida-produced videos, lecturing against capitalism and globalization and making insider references to American culture.

'It has Adam Gadahn written all over it,' one former senior intelligence official said of bin Laden's tape, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

In the new video, bin Laden derided President Bush, saying events in Iraq have gotten 'out of control' and the American leader 'is like the one who plows and sows the sea: He harvests nothing but failure.'

Bush made the rare move of speaking about an al-Qaida video. The tape is 'a reminder about the dangerous world in which we live, he told reporters on the sidelines of a summit of Pacific Rim nations in Sydney, Australia.

'It's important that we show resolve and determination to protect ourselves, deny al-Qaida safe haven and support young democracies,' Bush said.

Bin Laden said there were two solutions to stopping the Iraq war. 'One is from our side, and it is to escalate the fighting and killing against you. This is our duty, and our brothers are carrying it out,' bin Laden said.

'The second solution is from your side. ... I invite you to embrace Islam,' he said.

One result of that, bin Laden said, would be an end to the Iraq war. He said 'warmongering owners of the major corporations' would rush to appease voters who showed they are looking for an alternative, 'and this alternative is Islam.'

Bin Laden wears a white robe, a white circular cap and a beige cloak seated behind a table while reading an address to the American people from papers in front of him.

His trimmed beard is shorter than in his last video, in 2004, and is fully black _ apparently dyed, since in past videos it was mostly gray. He speaks softly, as he usually does, and has dark bags under his eyes, but his appearance dispelled rumors that he had died.

The video appeared to have been recently made. At one point, bin Laden mentions that 'several days ago' Japan marked the 62nd anniversary of the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. He also refers to the Democratic Party's congressional victory in last fall's election and to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected in May.

He also shows a grasp of current events, dropping mentions of global warming and saying Americans are 'reeling under the burdens' of a mortgage crisis.

And he praises author Noam Chomsky, an early critic of the Iraq war, as well as Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, who has said poor U.S. leadership was losing the war against terrorist groups.

Bin Laden 'knows Bush has low approval ratings, knows the significance of a growing awareness of global warming,' said Thomas Sanderson, deputy director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 'He's trying to capitalize on what he sees as a shift back to the middle in American politics.'

Al-Qaida annually uses the anniversary of the Sept. 11 suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as a propaganda opportunity, issuing videotapes to rally supporters and mock the United States.

But the appearance of bin Laden this year makes a bigger splash. The al-Qaida leader had not appeared in new video footage since October 2004, and he had not put out an audiotape in more than a year, his longest period without a message.

His deputy, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri, has issued numerous videos and audiotapes in the meantime as al-Qaida has increased the sophistication and speed of its media operations.

Seth Jones, a terrorism expert at the RAND think tank, said that while the anniversary gives the pretext for the tape, it also comes at a time when the main al-Qaida leadership has managed to regroup.

'There clearly has been a resurgence of core al-Qaida in the tribal areas of Pakistan' along the frontier with Afghanistan since 2005, Jones said.

He said sympathy in that region for the Taliban has made it more receptive to militant Sunni groups, including al-Qaida. 'It's really created a sanctuary,' Jones said.

Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, said she believes 'strongly that al-Qaida has regrouped' but that its core bases are more scattered than previously, comprising several training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She said it was likely bin Laden is hidden in a more secure location, away from any of those sites.

During the video, bin Laden's image moves for only a total of about 3 1/2 minutes in two segments, staying frozen the rest of the time while his remarks continue.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it might have resulted from a technical glitch while al-Qaida passed the video through a variety of computer sites to mask its cyber trail.

The United States intercepted the video before it was released on Islamic Web sites where al-Qaida usually posts its messages, a U.S. counterterrorism official said in Washington. U.S. officials had analyzed the video for hours before transcripts and videos were leaked, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The official said analysts were studying bin Laden's physical characteristics _ for clues about his health after unconfirmed rumors earlier this year that he had died of kidney disease.

***TOPIX

419 Scammer's (Nigeria Crimes). Dump This E-mail When You See It

2007-09-09T12:25:00.000-04:00

****The 419 Scamers are coming in full swing, so keep your guards up.

FROM Miss Titi cherif ples help me
Dearest one

Thank you so much , I hope you are fine, Pls i really gave this issue a second thought before i decided to contact you and relate this matter before you as to seek for your kindhearted help and assistance as i have no other alternative considering my present condition as an orphan Pls i pray that God will grant you the heart to fully understand my problems and my uncomfortable situations

Really i want to use this means to contact you in respect of my late father's consignment deposited with a private security company, Firstly I am Miss Titi as i have previously indicated, My father was the director of cocoa farmers assocation in my country and he was into cocoa business as well, My Father deposited some amount of money ($4.5million) inside a box and deposited it as a consignment with a private security company as there was no possible means he could safe keep this money, This was because of the war in my country and this was the only means and way which my father could possibly move out this money from our country because of the political war,

My father used his posiion to move out this consignment through a diplomatic means to the security company's affiliated vault outside my country because of the war, My father had the intention to travel over to the security company's vault outside our country to claim and retrive back this consignment and use the money for an overseas investment, Before he was killed, as a result of the political war in my country which i believe that you must have heared about it over the news media, Pls since i am left alone as an orphan having lost my father and other members of my family that is why i have decided to contact you to seek for your total hlp and assistance in retriving this consignment since due to my age as a girl and coupled with my present situation and my inablity to travel out of my country to the vault of the security company, i want you to help me to claim and retrive this conignment and have the money invested in your country and as well help me to relocate to your country to start my life again and as well to conclude my education My Greatest problem is that the only person who is surposed to care for me (My Uncle) has refused to care for me as he is only interested in my late father's left properties which he has totally taking over without making any provision for me well being, My uncle decided out of his wicked heart drove me away from his compound because of my unhappy actions against him.

Presently i am staying alone and i find it hard to survive and to sustain myself, Of cause i decided not to let him know about this consignment because if you by any means know about it, He will look for a way to take it away from me if possible he might wanbt to kill me considering the amount on money that my father left, Pls i seek for your assistance, I seek your advise, I seek your suggestion and unreserved help in this matter, My intention to have my life scured and conclude my education and have this inheritance invested in a proper business venture is my Hope, It is my life and my entire future depends on it, Pls Advice me and Help Me. cheriftiti@yahoo.fr

Pls i am willing to offer you 20% of the money inside the consignment as soon as it is claimed and retrived from the vault of the security company, Most Especially a lasting relationship is what i will so much cherish and appreciate from you as i am left alone, I will like to become a part of your family i will cherish to be seriously closer to you and have you as my Guardian, My Companion My Partner and Dearest One, Pls i am willing to detail you more and more about this matter i want you to know that this is the only inheriance which my father left which is presently within my possesion as my wicked uncle has totally taken over all that my loving father left, It is the only hope that i have to start my life again therefore i will higly need your total consent in this matter.

I am waiting for your soonest reply and i will tell you more about this matter May God bless you as you consider to help and assist me an orphan towards this matter

Yours orphan in need email me cheriftiti@yahoo.fr
Miss Titi

SIERRA LEONE: Second Rounds, May Be A Charm.

2007-09-08T10:19:00.000-04:00

Voters in Sierra Leone are choosing a president Saturday in a run-off election.

In the first round of voting last month in the West African nation, opposition leader Ernest Koroma led Vice President Solomon Berewa 44 to 38 percent, but fell short of the 55 percent needed to avoid the run-off.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for a peaceful election. A statement by Mr. Ban said he is deeply concerned about reports of intimidation and violence involving supporters of Sierra Leone's two main political parties.

Supporters of the two candidates have clashed in several districts in the last two weeks.

The two candidates had agreed to take part in a peace march Friday as a symbol of unity, but neither candidate appeared.

Koroma said he boycotted the rally because of what he called violent attacks against his party. He said the ruling People's Party has not done enough to stop the violence.

The first round of voting on August 11 passed peacefully and was deemed free and fair by international observers.

***VOA

AFRICA: Tuareg Rebel Looking For Peace.

2007-09-03T11:25:00.000-04:00

A truce between Mali’s army and Tuareg rebels who kidnapped dozens of troops in the north of the country has been extended as the mediator seeks a hostage release, a source close to the talks said today.

Iyad Ag Ghaly, an ex-Tuareg rebel in the west African nation whose group has signed a peace deal with the government, on Saturday began mediating talks with dissidents led by Ibrahim Ag Bahanga aimed at freeing the soldiers.

"Negotiations are continuing," a source close to Ag Ghaly told AFP, reached in the sub-Saharan region from the capital Bamako. "We cannot give details, but the mediator has obtained an extension of the truce."

Ag Ghaly was able to negotiate the truce itself before leaving Bamako for the north on August 30. He then directly contacted the desert raiders who carried out their surprise attacks on August 26 and 27.

Mali’s government believes the group led by Ag Bahanga, who has refused to go along with the peace deal agreed by the majority of former rebels from the Tuareg tribes, is co-operating with Niger-based militants to launch attacks.

Ag Bahanga warned last week, when he captured about 40 soldiers, that such attacks would go on until the Tuareg leader was guaranteed freedom of movement and from pursuit in the northern Kidal region.

Some 30 soldiers remain in the kidnappers’ hands, after nine were freed by the army and three escaped. "Some (of the hostages) have been wounded, but not seriously," the source said.

Ag Ghaly initially went to "the sector where Ibrahim Ag Bahanga is", said the source, without details, then to "Tinzaoutene, near the Algerian border, where the regular army troops are stationed."

He was due today to meet with the rebel group again to try to free the hostages.

The latest uprising in Mali comes in the wake of a serious Tuareg insurgency that erupted last February in neighbouring Niger’s highland Agadez region and is still under way.

The Tuareg tribes are an indigenous Berber people who for centuries lived a nomadic life roaming the southern Sahara desert in landlocked present-day Mali and Niger and their north African neighbours Libya and Algeria.

Since independence, governments have been keen to extend their authority over the Tuaregs, but terms set by militant leaders from such tribes stretch the resources of nations that are among the poorest on the planet.

After an uprising in May 2006, many of Mali’s Tuaregs cut a deal with the government the following July, with Algerian help and in exchange for aid to develop their territory.

In Niger, they want a share in the country’s revenue from uranium.

***THE TIMES.

D.C: DMV Mess My Truck up For Good

2007-09-02T09:43:00.000-04:00

Annual vehicle check-up's is a MOST in Washington dc, and I think is a good and healthy way for the vehicle and Global warming.

But it was not so good for me when I went through with this process. My truck, (LANDROVER DISC.), It was running good, no sounds of concern(NO ENGINE NOISE OR UNDER THE HUD NOISE), But within twenty minutes at the DMV, everything changed with my truck for the worst.

One of the Inspector or Examiner asked me to turn on my lights, I did, he said step on the breaks, I did, no noise, everything was smooth, the regular stuffs and I do enjoy doing it for the Examiner.
He asked me to step off the truck, I did and he moved the truck to the examination line.

At this time I was standing at the wait area looking at the process, I always watch my truck when ever they are doing something on it. I was looking at the Examiner going back and front with my truck and stepping on the breaks as hard as he could, for at list six times, and I mean six good beating on my truck. I was a bit concerned at this time, but not that much, I want to asked why he's doing this, but I calmed myself down and waiting for the results.
The Examiner saw my looks and he turned the other way so he can not look at me.

The next thing I saw he was stepping on the gas while the truck is not even moving and I can hear the crying voice of my truck, this goes on for quite sometimes, and now I'm totally concern and I just want to jump out there and say enough, I know that something is just not right here, I saw all the other cars and trucks going through inspection without all this beating on there Vehicle.

I did passed the inspections, 100% good result. As I drove out of the DMV compound to the main road, my truck was shaking and my breaks was grinding. I was scared and I stop to see what's the matter here, I couldn't believed this, noise was coming from the engine, I pause and said to myself, is this real? but I said let me drive home, maybe the noise will go away, it didn't go away and the shaking continues.

The following day my truck was a mess, all my breaks and drums are damaged, It cost me $980.00 to get the breaks back. Two days later, my water bump and alternator are gone, It cost me another $800.00. And still yet my truck is not driving well.

I tried to talk to someone at the DMV, but guess what? no one seems to understand anything and they are so hard to reached.

I've been living here in Washington D.C for the past thirteen years now and I love D.C, But I will like to know if there are step by step rules on how to get vehicle inspection done, are those Examiner well trained? I think I just have to spend more money to get my truck back in good shape after the DC DMV Mess.

Let me know if anyone encounter this same mess.

BURUNDI: Refugee To Own Homeland Returns With Fear

2007-09-01T08:52:00.000-04:00

After more than a decade in refugee camps, Jean Kayobera was ready to come home.

He longed to see his house, although he heard it had been taken over by another family during the Central African nation's 12-year civil war. He wanted to see his family, his friends, his coffee farm _ all lost to him during the fighting.

But when he arrived in Burundi this month, he already was having second thoughts.

'I hear there is misunderstanding within the political leadership,' Kayobera told The Associated Press in the border town of Muyinga, just after he crossed into the country. 'I am worried that the country might go back at war.'

Burundi's war erupted in 1993 after paratroopers from the Tutsi ethnic minority _ which had long dominated politics and the military _ assassinated the country's first democratically elected president, a member of the Hutu majority.

Though the country has been relatively peaceful since 2005 elections brought a Hutu-dominated government to power, ethnic tensions remain and a power struggle has broken out within the government.

Kayobera is among 150,000 Burundian Hutus who are coming home after spending more than a decade in Tanzanian camps. In June, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete said Burundi's war is over and the refugees must leave by December.

But many in this country of 8 million aren't so sure their homeland is safe, even after months of fragile peace.

Leaders of the rebel National Liberation Force, a Hutu faction, abruptly left peace talks with the government in July and disappeared into the bush, sparking fears of renewed fighting with government troops.

The National Liberation force, known by its French acronym FNL, was the last rebel group to sign a peace deal last year, but disagreements have dragged on over the rebels' political future and prisoner releases.

'My hope for peace in this country has only been a dream,' said Claver Bizoba, a 39-year-old father of four who works as a watchman in the capital, Bujumbura.

There are some signs of hope. A spokesman for the rebels, Pasteur Habimana, said in a radio broadcast this week that they are open to restarting talks _ 'if we receive and invitation and money' to pay for transportation.

Burundi has long been riven by tension between the majority Hutus and minority Tutsis, who dominated the government after independence from Belgium in 1962.

Like neighboring Rwanda, which has the same Hutu-Tutsi divide, Burundi became a slaughterhouse: More than 250,000 Burundians were killed during the country's 12-year civil war.

The returning refugees _ 7,000 came back in August alone, according to the United Nations' refugee agency _ now face an uncertain future. About 80 percent of this Maryland-sized country's citizens are subsistence farmers, and nearly half its adults are illiterate. The economy, based on coffee exports, has been ravaged.

Burundi's security minister, Evariste Ndayishimiye, said the country has taken 'the needed measures to safeguard people's protection' now that the FNL has vanished into the bush.

But many local officials acknowledge that if the rebels reassemble, the mortar and grenade attacks that were so common last year could return.

Recent grenade attacks on the homes of five prominent Burundian opposition politicians wounded two bystanders but did not injure their intended target, a police official said. It was not clear who carried out the attacks.

Zenon Ndaruvukane, Bujumbura's governor, said rebel sympathizers appear to be helping the combatants.

'Since the news surfaced that the FNL combatants had fled Bujumbura, some of their men have assembled ... some of their positions have been supplied with great quantities of food,' he said.

Jean Marie Vianney Kavumbagu, chairman of the human-rights group Iteka, said civilians are the most at risk.

'Burundians had hoped that war was over to give way to development, economic integration and national reconciliation, but they will be on the receiving end of violence once again should hostilities resume,' he said.

Still, Burundi's Human Rights Minister Immaculee Nahayo said the refugees were living in deplorable conditions in Tanzania and were forbidden to travel more than 3 miles from the camps. They should be happy to be home, she said.

'They were living like prisoners,' Nahayo said. 'Today is a happy day for them and for us.'

The U.N.'s refugee agency has offered Burundians going home a cash grant of $50 each, four months of food rations, free health care for six months and two years of free schooling for children.

'The cash they are given will help them to boost their economic hardship and a package of food to make a humble beginning,' said the UNHCR representative to Tanzania, Yacoub El Hillo.

Marie Niyondiko, a 42-year-old mother of four who fled Burundi in 1995, said anything is better than being a refugee _ even living once again in an unstable country.

***TOPIX

'Life was unbearable in the camp,' she said. 'I am happy to be back to my home land.'

Saudi Arabia, Stands Against HIV, Good Way To Go?

2007-08-30T13:57:00.000-04:00

Saudi Arabia starting next year plans to require couples wishing to be married to be screened for HIV, Khaled al-Zahrani, the Ministry of Health's assistant undersecretary for preventive medicine, said on Wednesday, AFP/Yahoo! News reports.

Couples will be required to receive tests for both HIV and hepatitis at one of more than 20 centers to be established nationwide, according to al-Zahrani.

If either partner tests HIV-positive and the couple still wishes to marry, the case will be considered in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice, al-Zahrani said.

About 11,000 HIV/AIDS cases were reported in the country between 1984, when the first case was recorded, and the end of 2005, according to a health ministry official

***MAXHEALTH.COM

SIERRA LEONE: Declearing A State Of Emergency?

2007-08-28T07:30:00.000-04:00

Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has threatened to impose a state of emergency if election violence between rival parties does not stop.
Two days of clashes have marred campaigning for the second round of Sierra Leone's presidential elections.

In a TV address, Mr Kabbah said the country - which endured a brutal civil war - had suffered too much to allow chaos and civil unrest again.

He urged the two rival candidates to call for calm among their supporters.

"All those responsible for the violence and lawlessness should be prepared for the consequences," President Kabbah warned.

"The government shall not hesitate for one moment to declare a state of public emergency if the current state of intimidation, molestation and violent acts is not stopped immediately."

Tension grows

Police have stepped up their patrols around the capital, Freetown, after firing tear gas to disperse rival supporters who clashed in the streets on Sunday and Monday.

They have also declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the diamond-rich eastern district of Kono after several people were injured when hundreds of rival supporters clashed.

BBC West Africa correspondent Will Ross says that should a state of emergency be declared it is possible that the presidential run-off election could be postponed or all campaigning banned.

The first round of landmark elections on 11 August was judged free and fair by observers.

The opposition APC candidate, Ernest Bai Koroma, took 44% of the vote in the first round, and the ruling SLPP candidate and Vice-President Solomon Berewa, polled 38%.

But tensions are high ahead of the 8 September second round, with opposition supporters confident of winning.

The APC won control of the national parliament and Mr Koroma has also secured the key support backing of the third placed candidate in the first round presidential poll, Charles Margai, who polled 14%.

Our reporter says that after a lengthy civil war it is vital that these elections pass off smoothly.

The violence is worrying not just for Sierra Leonians but also for the neighbouring countries in this fragile region, he says.

***BBC WORLD NEWS

SIERRA LEONE: A.P.C Party Wins Majority In Parliament.

2007-08-27T07:23:00.000-04:00

Sierra Leone's opposition All People's Congress (APC) has won a parliamentary majority with 59 of the 112 seats, but the presidential race will go to a run-off, the National Electoral Commission said on Thursday.

The party ruled the West African country for two decades until a 1991-2002 civil war, which was sparked in part by widespread official corruption and funded by gems plucked from the country's rich alluvial diamond fields.

The Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) of outgoing president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, which dominated the last parliament, won 43 seats in the August 11 election, while the PMDC, a breakaway from the SLPP, took the remaining 10.

"The people have rejected the SLPP massively," said Alpha Kanu, spokesman for APC presidential candidate Ernest Bai Koroma, who will now face Deputy President Solomon Berewa in a presidential run-off next month.

"We had only 27 seats in the last parliament, against the SLPP's 85. To turn that around as we have shows the government has failed to deliver," Kanu said.

First elected in the midst of the war, Tejan Kabbah was re-elected five years ago on a wave of peacetime euphoria. But many Sierra Leoneans have been disappointed since then with continuing corruption and the slow pace of reconstruction.

Results from the presidential election showed Koroma had won 44.3 percent of votes, Berewa 38.3 percent and Charles Margai of the PMDC 13.9 percent. The remaining votes were shared between four other candidates. The fact that no candidate reached 50 percent meant there would be a run-off.

"These are official results, but still preliminary. We will be conducting our final checks today and tomorrow and will announce the certified results on Saturday," NEC Chairman Christiana Thorpe said.

She said at least one case of electoral fraud had been identified, but not significant enough to compromise the result.

RUN-OFF

Margai, a veteran SLPP figure who turned his back on the party when it selected Berewa as candidate, and founded the People's Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), has already indicated he will support the APC's Koroma in a second round.

Under the former British colony's electoral rules, the run-off should be held within two weeks of the publication of certified results. Officials have said informally it will probably be held on September 6 or 8.

But Koroma's camp called on Berewa to concede.

"If I were in the vice-president's shoes, I would not be fighting for a second round run-off. He has lost parliament. Where is the moral right to compete now for the presidency?" Kanu said.

"We will defeat him. The noble thing to do is to concede defeat now because otherwise he's going to be defeated again. The international community should bring reason to the candidate. It's a waste of time to hold a presidential run-off. The country is too poor for that," he said.

Sierra Leone, once a haven for freed and rescued slaves, became a byword for brutality during the civil war as drug-crazed rebel fighters -- many just children chopped off the hands and feet of civilians.

SIERRA LEONE: Run-Off Might Be Good For All.

2007-08-26T07:33:00.000-04:00

Sierra Leone will hold a run-off vote in its presidential election on September 8 after the first round of voting failed to produce an outright winner, elections chief Christiana Thorpe said on Saturday.

"As none of the two leading candidates in the presidential polls on August 11 did not reach the constitutional requirement of 55 percent to be declared the winner, I formally declare Saturday, September 8, as the date for the presidential runoff," she said.

The opposition All People's Congress (APC) leader Ernest Koroma, and the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) candidate Solomon Berewa will go head to head in the second-round poll.

Berewa, 69, who is the country's incumbent vice president, faces an uphill battle after third-placed candidate Charles Margai threw his weight behind Koroma, 53.

Thorpe, who heads the National Electoral Commission (NEC), confirmed the provisional results published on Thursday which gave Koroma 44.3 percent of the ballots cast and Berewa 38.3 percent.

Margai of the People's Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), a year-old party that splintered from the ruling SLPP, garnered 13.9 percent of the votes.

Four other parties contested the election but made poor showing, polling together just 3.5 percent of the votes.

Koroma's APC also swept aside the ruling party in winning a majority of seats in the new parliament, officials said Thursday.

Turnout was a record 75.8 percent of the 2.6 million eligible voters in the second election the country has held since the end of a brutal civil war.

The elections were closely watched to see whether the former British colony has put behind the violence of its 1991-2001 conflict and embraced lasting democracy.

Most of the 5,000 international and local observers who watched the elections declared that the voting as generally free and transparent.

The war, funded by blood diamonds, left around 120,000 people dead and many more mutilated and traumatised.

Thorpe said campaigning for the run-off would officially kick off on Saturday and run until September 6.

***AP NEWS

Government New Grants Plan, It Doesn't Work For All.

2007-08-25T09:07:00.000-04:00

"*I find this very interesting about the Federal Government Grant programes.
I've investigated before in the past, and I found out is not all real as the say.
You have to be known by someone big before you can even come close.
They need to stop fooling people about this grants stuffs.
The Federal Government can do better than promising what they can't do."

Business is becoming more complex everyday, and the tools needed to run today's companies are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Add to that the need to cut overhead and save money, and that spells a tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurs in the business support industry.

The entrepreneur can choose the type of business support service you want to start. You can specialize in one or two services or offer a wide range of services from basic word processing to database management to desktop publishing. You can earn a comfortable income working from home as a solo operator, or you can set up in a commercial location with employees. You can work successfully with a basic computer and printer, or you can invest in an array of high-tech equipment.

Regardless of the type of business you want to start, this program shows you how to do it according to Mike Greene researcher for Government Publications. Let The Governmwent Start Your Business any type plus funding to go with it "! according to Greene just look at the services offered and then go through the step-by-step process of setting up and running your new venture with government help".

To learn more about SMALL BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES government grants applications sources on the net you should visit http://www.kazzoom.com/grants http://www.government-grants-applications.org http://www.govpub.org PRESS RELEASE New Toll-Free 888 384 9608 Work-at-Home Jobs,Government Grants, Export-Import and Home-Based Business Seekers Hotline

NEW Expedited Grant Service:(888) 384-9608 FREE! Government Auctions Info Line: (888) 691-0041 FREE! Government Grants Info Line: (800) 306-0990 FREE! Government Jobs Info Line: (800) 209-5007 FREE! http://www.governmentgrants-us.com Reference Links SMALL BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES http://www.government-grants-applications.com http://www.government-grants-applications.net http://www.government-grants-applications.info.

***FASTPITCH

SIERRA LEONE: Madam Commissioner.

2007-08-21T08:36:00.000-04:00

When Christiana Thorpe was appointed Sierra Leone's chief electoral commissioner two years ago, many doubted whether this petite woman could rise to a mammoth challenge.

She was after all the third choice for the unenviable job, but so far it appears she has, with the first round of elections passing off smoothly as the country chooses a new president.

Ms Thorpe, who celebrated her 49th birthday this week, was born a teacher, bred a disciplinarian, groomed an administrator and perhaps by divine intervention became a nun.

Her 20 years at a convent, she says, accounts for her extra energy in these challenging times.

She was born and grew up in Freetown's most deprived community, Kroo Bay and Kroo Town Road.

The area, known as the angle of poverty, inspired her to fight deprivation.

For this, she is grateful to her maternal grandmother who imbibed godliness in her, instilled discipline in her and preached compassion to her.

SIERRA LEONE KEY FACTS
1787: Set up as a freed slaves' settlement which became a British colony
1991: 10-year civil war began
50,000 people killed in the conflict
Thousands more had limbs chopped off
2002: Post-war elections organised by United Nations
2005: 17,000 UN peacekeepers left
This poll run by new electoral commission
2.6m voters
566 parliamentary candidates
112 parliamentary seats
Seven presidential contenders
Front-runners:
- APC's Ernest Bai Koroma
- PMDC's Charles Margai
- SLPP's Solomon Berewa

"Grandma deprived me from playing so that I would not be deprived of a good life later on in life," she told me.

At age 12, she persuaded her peers at Kroo Town Road to join her for studies where she would teach them what she had learned in school.

Unsurprisingly she later became a headmistress, running St Joseph's Secondary School in Makeni, northern Sierra Leone, and later minister of education in the mid 1990s.

She also founded the Forum for African Women Educationalists and still sees teaching not only as her passion, but her first love.

In fact, she cannot wait for the election process to be over so she can return to teaching, she says.

"I have no political ambition and do not wish to become a minister again," she told me.

Integrity

Ms Thorpe left the convent after 20 years as she puts it "quite regretfully, to be able to achieve more".

She has no biological children but is proud of the many she has looked after over the years.

Her partner is an outgoing member of parliament for the ruling party though she insists he has never sought to influence her.

In fact, when the ruling party raised objections over constituency boundaries, she refused their overtures.

When the main opposition All People's Congress's radio station started broadcasting what many referred to as reckless propaganda, Christiana Thorpe hit them hard.

No wonder all the political parties respect her neutrality and integrity.

What is less known about her is an athletic prowess.

For three years running, she held the national record in the 300 metres.

A pace and energy she will need as the elections look set for a run-off.

***BBCNEWS.COM

Mexico: Running Of The Bull Can Be Deadly

2007-08-20T09:14:00.000-04:00

One man was gored to death by a bull's horn and 24 people were injured in a weekend running of the bulls in central Mexico, a less well-known cousin of Spain's famous Pamplona festival.

The 60-year-old man was gored in the abdomen by a bull and died on the way to hospital on Saturday in Huamantla, a town 105 miles from Mexico City, said local health official Ulises Bello.

Among the injured, one woman and two men were in a critical condition.

Thousands of people lined the streets of Huamantla as 23 bulls were let loose in five streets in a festival held since 1953 in Tlaxcala state, the cradle of Mexican bull fighting.

The festival has yet to achieve the status of Spain's San Fermin bull running, which was made famous by Ernest Hemingway's novel "The Sun also Rises," a semi-autobiographical account of an alcohol-fueled visit to the event by a group of squabbling British and American friends in the 1920s.

**REUTERS

U. S Navy In The Muslim World Get Brifing About RAMADAN

2007-08-19T14:06:00.000-04:00

NAVAL SUPPORT ACTIVITY, Bahrain – A series of briefs designed to educate service members about the upcoming Islamic holy month of Ramadan began at U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT)/Fifth Fleet headquarters Aug. 12.

Ali Hassan, an intercultural relations specialist with Navy’s Fleet and Family Support Center, spoke to NAVCENT service members to increase awareness of Islam’s approaching holy month and to help those unfamiliar with the observance know what behaviors are expected and appropriate.

Ramadan is a month in the Islamic lunar calendar, or Hijra, and is celebrated as the time when the Quran was revealed to the prophet Mohammed. This year, Ramadan is expected to begin at sunrise Sept. 13 and last through sunset Oct. 12. Because Hijra is a lunar calendar, which is shorter than the 365-day Gregorian calendar by 10 to 11 days, the holy month occurs 10 to 11 days earlier every year.

During Ramadan, Muslims fast for 29 or 30 consecutive days. Fasting is the fourth of five pillars of Islam, and is central to the observance of the holiday.

Muslims abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and other designated activities while fasting. It is believed that suspending these behaviors will help them to purify themselves of their sins.

Hassan said he and other Muslims see the beginning of Ramadan as a chance to embark on a new beginning. “It’s just like the new year,” he said. “I’m going to work to improve on certain points to become a better person.”

Starting from puberty, fasting is required of Muslims during Ramadan. However, some children are encouraged to start even earlier. “My wife and I were fasting, and my son asked me, ‘Hey, Dad, what are you doing?’” Hassan recalled. “He asked a lot of questions. I told him we were abstaining from bad deeds first and from food second. He asked, ‘Can I fast, too?’”

Hassan allowed his son to fast for one hour at first to practice what would be expected of him once he reached puberty. “Then he fasted for two hours, then three hours,” Hassan said. “So, by the time he reaches puberty, he’s fully prepared.”

Hassan asserted the key to fasting was not the abstention from eating, drinking and other indulgences, but that it was the overall improvement in one’s attitude. “Otherwise, you’re just starving yourself,” he said.

“Fasting does not mean to stop eating or drinking or smoking cigarettes—the best degree of fasting involves, along with your stomach, improving thoughts and attitudes and deeds. That’s a fast.”

Deliberately breaking the fast between sunrise and sunset requires Muslims to atone by fasting for 60 consecutive days.

A day during Ramadan begins with the Muslim making a renewed dedication to that day’s fast, followed by a pre-dawn meal, and ends by breaking the fast following the call for prayer and the firing of the Ramadan cannons after the last daylight. The hours after sundown are filled with prayer and festivity.

The 27th night of Ramadan is regarded as especially holy. It is believed that on this night, any prayer or good that is accomplished is greater than the spiritual efforts of a thousand months. Most Muslims will spend the entire night in prayer. The speakers in Mosque minarets throughout Bahrain and all of Islam will be continuously loud with prayer on this “Night of the Power.”

Non-Muslim service members are asked to avoid Shiite neighborhoods during Ramadan to show respect for the worshippers. It is also asked that no photos be taken of any religious activities during the holy month.

The last night of Ramadan, or Eid, marks the end of the period of fasting. Restaurants will reopen, and businesses in Bahrain will return to normal working hours.

Also, to show respect for the customs and practices of Ramadan, service members are asked not to smoke, eat, drink or chew gum while in the community during fasting hours – either while driving our walking about.

This is the second year Hassan has given Ramadan briefs to service members at the Navy base. He says the briefs have been greatly received. “Last year, people were thinking twice, especially when it came to invitations [to attend Ramadan feasts]. They had a lot of questions,” Hassan said. “They realized the sensitivity.”

NAVCENT’s Command Master Chief Christopher R. Angstead said it is important to understand cultural and religious differences while stationed in another country. “The brief gave me and the other Sailors I talked to a greater insight into Ramadan,” he said. “The more we all know about the culture, the better prepared we are to show the utmost respect for the people and traditions of Bahrain.”

***U.S. ARMY WEBSITES.

The Chinese Are Coming To Africa, Part 2

2007-08-18T09:01:00.000-04:00

When Yang Jie left home at 18, he was doing what people from China’s hardscrabble Fujian Province have done for generations: emigrating in search of a better living overseas.

What set him apart was his destination. Instead of the traditional adopted homelands like the United States and Europe, where Fujian people have settled by the hundreds of thousands, he chose this small, landlocked country in southern Africa.

“Before I left China,” said Mr. Yang, now 25, “I thought Africa was all one big desert.” So he figured that ice cream would be in high demand, and with money pooled from relatives and friends, he created his own factory at the edge of Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital. The climate is in fact subtropical, but that has not stopped his ice cream company from becoming the country’s biggest.

Stories like this have become legion across Africa in the past five years or so, as hundreds of thousands of Chinese have discovered the continent, setting off to do business in a part of the world that had been terra incognita. The Xinhua News Agency recently estimated that at least 750,000 Chinese were working or living for extended periods on the continent, a reflection of deepening economic ties between China and Africa that reached $55 billion in trade in 2006, compared with less than $10 million a generation earlier.

Even when Mr. Yang arrived here in 2001, he said, he could go weeks without encountering another traveler from his homeland. But as surely as his investments in the country have prospered, he said, an increasingly large community of Chinese migrants has taken root, and now runs everything from small factories to health care clinics and trading companies.

During the previous wave of Chinese interest in Africa in the 1960s and ’70s, an era of radical socialism and proclaimed third-world solidarity, European and American companies held sway over economies in most of the continent. Here and there, though, the Chinese made their presence felt, often in drably dressed, state-run work brigades that built stadiums, railroads and highways, crushing rocks and doing other labor by hand.

Today, in many of the countries where the new Chinese emigrants have settled, like Chad, Chinese-owned pharmacies, massage parlors and restaurants serving a variety of regional Chinese cuisines can be found; the Western presence, once dominant, has steadily dwindled, and essentially consists nowadays of relief experts working international agencies or oil workers, living behind high walls in heavily guarded enclaves.

At first, this new Chinese exodus was driven largely by word of mouth, as pioneers like Mr. Yang relayed news back home of abundant opportunities in a part of the world where many economies lie undeveloped or in ruins, and where even in the richer countries many things taken for granted in the developed world await builders and investors.

Conditions like these often deter Western investors, but for many budding Chinese entrepreneurs, Africa’s emerging economies are inviting precisely because they seem small and accessible. Competition is often weak or nonexistent, and for African customers, the low price of many Chinese goods and services make them more affordable than their Western counterparts.

Chinese Expansion

You Xianwen sold his pipe-laying business in Chengdu, in southwest China, this year to move to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, to join a startup company with a Chinese partner he had met only online. “Back where I come from we are pretty independent people,” Mr. You, 55, said. “My brothers and sisters all supported my decision to come here. In fact, they say that if things really work out for me, they would like to move to Africa, too.”

Mr. You said he had considered other African countries before settling on Ethiopia, including Zambia. “Luckily I didn’t decide to go there,” he said, explaining that he had been frightened by the recent anti-Chinese protests in that country.

His new business, ABC Bioenergy, builds devices that generate combustible gas from ordinary refuse, providing what Mr. You said would be an affordable alternative source of energy in a country where electricity supplies are erratic and prices high.

Mr. You’s partner here, Mei Haijun, first came to Ethiopia a decade ago to work at a Chinese-built textile factory and has since married an Ethiopian woman, with whom he has a child. “When I first came here you could go two months without seeing another Chinese person,” he said. “But it is a different era now. There’s a flight to China every day.”

The pickup in air traffic between China and countries like Ethiopia now has Chinese companies scrambling to add new routes, as the Chinese government and big Chinese companies increase their stake in Africa.

Much of that activity reflects an intense appetite for African oil and mineral resources needed to fuel China’s manufacturing sector, but big Chinese companies have quickly become formidable competitors in other sectors as well, particularly for big-ticket public works contracts. China is building major new railroad lines in Nigeria and Angola, large dams in Sudan, airports in several countries and new roads, it seems, almost everywhere.

One of the largest road builders, China Road and Bridge Construction, has picked up where the solidarity brigades of an earlier generation left off. The company, which is owned by the Chinese government, has 29 projects in Africa, many financed by the World Bank or other lenders, and it maintains offices in 22 African countries.

On a recent Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Beijing brimming with Chinese contractors, workers from Road and Bridge and other companies swapped notes on the grab bag of countries they work in, and debated about the difficulties of learning Portuguese and French in places like Mozambique and Ivory Coast.

Africans view the influx of Chinese with a mix of anticipation and dread. Business leaders in Chad, a central African nation with deepening oil ties to China, are bracing for what they suspect will be an army of Chinese workers and investors.

“We expect a large influx of at least 40,000 Chinese in the coming years,” said Renaud Dinguemnaial, director of Chad’s Chamber of Commerce. “This massive arrival could be a plus for the economy, but we are also worried. When they arrive, will they bring their own workers, stay in their own houses, send all their money home?”

In Zambia, where anti-Chinese sentiment has been building for several years, merchants at the central market in Lusaka, the capital, said that if Chinese people wanted to come to Africa, they should come as investors, building factories, not as petty traders who compete for already scarce customers for bottom-dollar items like flip-flops and T-shirts.

“The Chinese claim to come here as investors, but they are trading just like us,” said Dorothy Mainga, who sells knockoff Puma sneakers and Harley Davidson T-shirts in the Kamwala Market in Lusaka. “They are selling the same things we are selling at cheap prices. We pay duty and tax, but they use their connections to avoid paying tax.”

Although Chinese oil workers have been kidnapped in Nigeria and in Ethiopia, where nine were killed by an armed separatist movement in May, the growing Chinese presence around the continent has produced few serious incidents.

Misunderstandings are common, however, and resentments inevitably arise. Africans in many countries complain that Chinese workers occupy jobs that locals are either qualified for or could be easily trained to do. “We are happy to have the Chinese here,” said Dennis Phiri, 21, a Malawian university student who is studying to become an engineer. “The problem with the Chinese companies is that they reserve all the good jobs for their own people. Africans are only hired in menial roles.”

Another frequent criticism is that the Chinese are clannish, sticking among themselves day and night.

In Addis Ababa, in what is a typical arrangement for most large companies, the 200 Chinese workers for the Road and Bridge Corporation live in a communal compound, eating food prepared by cooks brought from China and receiving basic health care from a Chinese doctor.

“After a day off you wonder what you’re doing here, so we like to keep working,” said Cheng Qian, the country manager for the road-building company in Ethiopia. He added that his family had never visited him during several years of work here.

African Ambivalence

Sometimes, the Chinese approach has created serious frictions with African workers. At a leading hotel here in Lilongwe, breakfast guests stared as an agitated Chinese traveling salesman, sweating profusely, screamed at his staff minutes before his pitch on nutritional supplements was set to begin.

“You say it is not your fault, but the way you are doing things is just stupid, stupid,” the man sputtered before a clutch of African assistants, who looked humiliated. “You people are unbelievable.”

When the salesman finally left the room, members of the restaurant staff gathered near the door and vented their disgust. “We don’t need people like that to come here and colonize us again,” one said.

After nearly seven years in Malawi, Yang Jie, the ice cream maker, seems to have learned better. Greeting his workers at the ice cream factory, he begins the day by asking, “How did you sleep last night?”

One quickly replied, “Very well,” sounding a bit formal.

“Don’t tell me a lie,” Mr. Yang answered with a sly, friendly smile. “It’s O.K. to tell me your worries.”

***BLUERIDGENOW.COM

SIERRA LEONE: A Run-Off Is UnLikely?

2007-08-16T10:04:00.000-04:00

Landslide victory: the redundant cliché of the disgruntled membership of the incumbent government seems to have been knocked-off the political diction of Sierra Leone. August 11 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections have come and gone but the political predictions that were postulated by particularly “Solocrats” seems far fetched.

Prior to the elections, there was the belief amongst sympathizers, supporters and the international community (may be) that the positive bench- marks of President Kabbah’s out-going government would earn SLPP’s flag bearer an overwhelming victory in the elections. This optimism was never properly evaluated by the galaxy of political technocrats that were always seen enveloping the presence of “Solo B” in his places of campaign before the elections.

In fact, it is no exaggeration that he vigilantly toured every corner of the jurisdiction of Sierra Leone to be double sure of victory in the elections. It is even needless to account for the exorbitant amount of money he invisibly gave out to individuals that posed to be supporters of the SLPP. The overwhelming presence and participation of the inhabitants of the communities visited by Solo B gave him a false sense of security and confidence.

From the reports and data so far collected on the elections results it is unequivocal that there would not be any run-off election. Voting even ended before 5pm in most polling stations because of the low number of electorates that registered for the elections and this was followed by the counting of the ballot papers, in the presence of the Domestic and International Observers and some parties’ agent. Though there were insignificant violent clashes within and outside handful polling stations, in particularly the Eastern part of Freetown, they never influenced the outcome of the elections.

The results so far declared by the National Electoral Commission on the performance of the political parties in the Western Rural and Urban Areas are suggestive of the fact that the APC’s Ernest Koroma and parliamentary contestants are on the lead. The SLPP’s Solo B is distantly creeping behind the APC, whilst PMDC’s Margai is third in the row. The four remaining political parties cannot easily occupy the political scale of NEC. Their performance levels in those areas are disproportionately low and should not be carefully looked into. NEC’s declaration of the Western Area’s Presidential and Parliamentary Elections result have opened a Pandora’s Box amongst scholars and grassroots in this nation. Those results have been interpreted to mean that the outgoing SLPP government has done little or nothing for the people of Freetown. It has also negative the issue of landslide victory in this first round of elections.

Fortunately for the APC, the results declared by NEC for some of the polling stations in the Northern Province are likely in their favour. Simply put, the APC is leading the political contest and there is a gulf between them and the SLPP. As usual, the PMDC is the third in the leadership hierarchy. Some of the parties that are said to have originated from the Northern Region have hardly made any impact in those communities. Again, the outcome of the elections is not supportive of the ruling party’s winning a landslide victory over the opposition parties.

Apart from some parts of the Western Area, the Northern Region and the South- Eastern Regions NEC has not officially declared much of the elections result. The good thing however, is that the independent radio network which is commonly called IRN has reported on the outcome of almost every region in Sierra Leone. Most of those reports seem to be in favour of the leadership of the APC with regards the presidential results.

Despite NEC’s advise to the people of this nation not to accept the results broadcast, by independent institutions, media houses and supporters of all the contesting political parties have mostly relied on those broadcasts. If those results so far aired by the IRN should be undoubted then landslide victory for the SLPP’s Solocrats was a figment of their imagination. The view now held by even sympathizers of the SLPP is that the APC has won the elections. The question that would obviously come to mind is what are the variables considered in arriving at this point?

For the political gurus of the APC, the registered voters in Southern and Eastern Regions put together would not exceed the number of registered voters in the Northern Region. As far as they are concerned, the Northern Region has the highest number of registered voters in the whole country. The Northern Region has always been the traditional strong hold of the APC. This does not mean that other parties have not secured votes in this area. In fact the SLPP made a laudable effort in the Northern Region. The fact still remains that the leadership of the APC has won an overwhelming victory in the area that has the highest number of registered voters. It simply implies that winning in that area would deny Solo B the victory, let alone a landslide victory he had always anticipated in the outcome of the election.

In the Southern Region, the SLPP seems to have triumphed over the APC and the PMDC from a wholistic point of view. Interestingly or rather surprisingly PMDC’s Charles Margai, now called “the Destroyer” has successfully swayed the high expectations of his biological party (SLPP). What this mean is that the sweeping victory Margai’s supporters are claiming to have won over particularly the “Solocrats” in significant proportions of the Southern Region cannot make real the SLPP’s dream of a landslide victory. In the 2002 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, the SLPP had an exceptional victory over the main opposition in this same area which now is being divided amongst them. Where is the landslide victory coming from now?

Fortunately, the wise patriotic, seemingly rich and fanatic supporters of the SLPP in the Eastern Region have been very unequivocal in expressing their undivided loyalty for the party. Results so far broadcast by both NEC and the IRN confirm the marathon lead of Solo B and the SLPP over the APC and PMDC. Those votes won by the two opposition parties multiplied by one hundred would still not amount to the success of the “SLPP.” But more importantly, this is the only area in which the SLPP has received such support from the electorates to date.

Earning a hundred percent victory in the Eastern Region, which is unrealistic, is in itself insufficient to confirm the SLPP’s utopian view of landslide victory that was almost a sing- song in this nation.

Without bias and from the analysis so far posited by the political conscious class of Sierra Leone, one would expressly state that the lullaby song in Sierra Leone with regards hosting a run-off election is premature, unrealistic and against the prophetic statements of the realm of the spirit.

***AFRICAN PATH

Marine Corps Marathon Might Change Course

2007-08-15T12:55:00.000-04:00

Construction on the Rock Creek Parkway will force runners in this year’s Marine Corps Marathon onto a new course through Northwest Washington.

Instead of racing along parkway, as they have in the past, the 30,000 marathoners in the Oct. 28 event will follow Foxhall Road, MacArthur Boulevard, Reservoir Road and Canal Road around Georgetown Reservoir and “on a scenic tour of the Georgetown Canal,” organizers said Tuesday.

It will also put runners at the 14th Street Bridge at mile 19, one mile earlier than previous years.

“These course changes are sure to give participants a fresh and exciting experience at the MCM,” Rick Nealis, race director, said in a statement.

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Alma Gates, a Ward 3 advisory neighborhood commissioner who lives a block off MacArthur, said her ANC was briefed and generally approved of the new course.

“Our concern, as it is with all races, is that some areas will be landlocked when the race is under way,” Gates said. “So our concern is that people living within that area are really notified by the race coordinators that this is gong to happen and they need to plan accordingly.”

Nancy Wood, a resident of Elliott Place smack between MacArthur and Canal, feared the day would be “pretty rough.”

But better to find out now, she said, than in October.

“I haven’t heard and I don’t know if anybody else has around here, either,” Wood said.

The race, as usual, starts in Arlington and makes its way to the George Washington Memorial Parkway before crossing into the District.

Along the way, and before ending at the Marine Corps War Memorial, runners will cruise through the National Mall, past the U.S. Capitol and by Hains Point, home to “The Awakening.”

Roughly 100,000 spectators usually line the course of the so-called “People’s Marathon,” the largest marathon in the world not to offer prize money.

***THE EXAMNINER

SIERRA LEONE: Women Right Too.

2007-08-14T11:56:00.000-04:00

Women in Sierra Leone stand to enjoy unprecedented rights under new laws making wife-beating a criminal offence, allowing women to inherit property, and protecting young women against forced marriage.

One human rights coalition said the three laws, enacted by Sierra Leone’s parliament 14 June, will “help to radically improve the legal position of women in Sierra Leone.” In a communique the Taskforce on Gender Bills said, “Until now the issue of redress for injustices committed against women especially in the domestic realm has been an uphill task because of the inadequacies of the law.”

In the past women had no chance of justice if their husbands abused them, experts said. Generally, such matters have been kept in the family or at most presented to a local traditional leader.

“The new law gives tools to police and family support units to take the necessary steps [to go after offenders],” said Tania Bernath, a researcher with Amnesty International. “If women know they have these tools they are more likely to bring domestic violence cases.”

A women’s rights expert in Sierra Leone said given the stigma attached to bringing attention to domestic violence, grassroots organisations are prepared to support women in seeking protection under the law.

Defining abuse

“People have this idea that domestic violence is a private, family matter that should not be taken into the public domain,” said Jebbeh Forster of the UN development fund for women, UNIFEM. Local women’s groups can provide the backing women need as these laws are implemented, she said.

The definition of domestic violence in the new law is broad. It includes “physical or sexual abuse, economic abuse, emotional, verbal or psychological abuse, harassment, conduct that harms, endangers the safety, health or well-being of another person or undermines the privacy and dignity of another person.”

A member of the Sierra Leonean group ‘50/50,’ which works to increase women’s influence in public policy, said the laws are likely to encourage women to be active in the political domain.

Confidence building

“These laws will give women confidence,” 50/50 programme coordinator Christiana Wilson told IRIN. “If women are not confident enough, they will not come out for political positions. Women can now say, ‘I’m somebody. My husband cannot just beat me up. I am somebody - and why don’t I go for even more?’”

Wilson said the act giving women inheritance rights in marriage are crucial to women’s empowerment. “Women here are generally poor,” she said. The law “will bring women access to wealth which is a very important factor in getting political positions.”

Amnesty International said in a statement, “The inheritance law ensures that throughout Sierra Leone women have access to the property they are rightfully entitled to when their husband dies, without interference from extended family members.”

The third act, calling for the registration of customary marriages, introduces a minimum age of 18 years for such marriages and calls for the consent of both parties.

***IRIN AFRICA.