SOLAR FOR CHILDREN

It's christmas time and it's a moment we all see the year coming to an end and christians celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ:It is also a moment that instills hope and opens the heart of many.I decided to publish this post as a medium to reopen the hearts of many of us,to do do important acts of kindness in favour of underpreviledged children and also to forster development.

The problem:
The majority of Tanzania's electricity supply is generated by hydropower. This is highly vulnerable to drought, which is occurring more frequently with climate change. In 2006, a severe drought resulted in countrywide power cuts and blackouts.

Currently, the electrical grid reaches a small proportion of the country's population. In rural areas, families rely on firewood for cooking, kerosene for lanterns and disposable batteries to power small electric appliances such as radios. Rural schools often have no access to electricity at all, which makes study difficult. Many children never receive the education that could help them build lives free from poverty.

Hydropower is already under immense strain and cannot be extended. There is an urgent need for Tanzania to use alternative sources of energy to improve access to electricity.

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The solution:
Tanzania benefits from some of the highest levels of sun exposure in the world. This makes it ideal for establishing solar-power as a major source of electricity, which can be done in three ways:

Micro-solar enterprise
We urgently need to train poor people in rural Tanzania to build solar-powered radios, mobiles and lamps. With your help, we can teach them finance and marketing skills, so they can set up their own business selling their products to local people, at an affordable price.

Solar education
To fight global warming, we must work with school children and teachers to raise awareness of the need for renewable energy sources. With funding, we can teach them to assemble solar lanterns, so children can study at home.

Solar school installation
This project aims to install 300W systems in 100 schools over four years. This will give pupils and teachers access to the Internet, as well as lighting for evening study and extracurricular activities. A reliable electricity supply will help increase literacy, school attendance and teacher retention.

Outcomes:
By supporting this project you will help us to:


1. Alleviate poverty by providing poor rural people with a valuable income.

2. Raise awareness of solar energy as a clean and renewable source of power, which can replace polluting fossil fuels.

3. Make solar power technology readily available to school children and their respective families, enabling students to study during the evenings.


What your gift will buy:
We urgently need funds to pay for materials and training:


* Micro-solar materials: Solar glass, diodes, wood, wires, crocodile clips, rechargeable batteries, battery holders, battery connectors and fold-back clips, frames.

* Support funds and training for SolarAid Project /Training coordinators.

* Volunteer expenses and accommodation.

* Solar materials for schools.

* Travel and insurance costs for volunteers and staff.

To meet the people involved, watch videos and read updates from Tanzania, go to the blog
Light up the developing world
Categories: Education and Livelihoods
Project Name: Solar for children
Country: Tanzania
About: This project will create jobs for the poorest people, and bring solar power to local communities and school children.
Regions: Mtwara/Lindi, Kagera and Dodoma
Duration: Four years and three months
Cost: £999,038.95

"MAMA AFRICA" -MIRIAM MAKEBA IS NO MORE!

Rome - South African singer Miriam Makeba has died aged 76 after being taken ill following a concert near the southern Italian town of Caserta, Ansa news agency reported on Monday.

Makeba was the legendary voice of the African continent, who became a symbol of the fight against apartheid in her home country.

She died overnight after taking part in a concert for Roberto Saviano, a writer threatened with death by the Mafia, the Italian agency said.

She sang for half an hour for the young author of Gomorrah at Castel Volturno near Naples along with other singers and artistes.

She was taken ill and was quickly taken to a clinic in Castel Volturno where she died of a heart attack, Ansa said.

Career

Makeba was born in Johannesburg on March 4, 1932. She made an international farewell tour in 2005.

Born from a Swazi mother and Xhosa father, Makeba captured international attention as vocalist for the South African group, The Manhattan Brothers, while they toured the United States in 1959.

The following year, when she wanted to return home to bury her mother, the apartheid state revoked her citizenship and later also banned her music. As a result she spent 31 years in exile, living in the United States and later in Guinea.

She became the first black African woman to receive a Grammy Award, which she shared with folk singer Harry Belafonte in 1965.

Two years later her fame sky-rocketed with the recording of the all-time hit Pata Pata (Xhosa for "touch, touch" describing a township dance) although she unknowingly signed away all royalties on the song.

She hit an all-time low in 1985 when her only daughter, Bongi, died aged 36 from complications from a miscarriage. Makeba did not have money to buy a coffin for Bongi, and buried her alone barring a handful of journalists covering the funeral.

But she picked herself up again, as she did many times before, like when her father died at a young age, or when she recovered from cervix cancer, or her many unhappy relationships, or unfounded rumours of alcoholism, according to her biography.

She returned to South Africa in the 1990s after Mandela was released from prison but it took a cash-strapped Makeba six years to find someone in the local recording industry to produce a record with her.

She since released Homeland which contains a song describing her joy to be back home after the many years in exile in which she spoke out against apartheid and testified twice before the United Nations.

"I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa and the people without even realising," she said in her biography.

BARACK OBAMA--God No Di Sleep!!

It's a wonderful day for me and i obviously believe for more than many of you.The weekend began so well with Joe Wilfred Tsonga winning his first tournament in the Paris Tennis Open and subsequently the stunning victory of lewis Hamilton in the Formula 1 world championships,after a drammatic show down in Brasile to become the first black and youngest winner of this competition.And that's where i affirmed the fact that"GOD NO DI SLEEP" and i knew the miracle was on the way.
It was 5AM in the morning here in Cameroon and we kept vigil all night long waiting for this HISTORIC MOMENT.In Africa we say "GOD NO DI SLEEP" meaning that God doesn't sleep.Infact,God's time is the best and he sent us this man BARACK OBAMA to enable MARTIN LUTHER KING's famous "i have a dream" to become reality,at a moment when the world needed this dream at the most,the whole world i mean.
Barack Obama made history early today by becoming America’s first black president.
'It's been a long time coming, but tonight... change has come to America,' the president-elect told jubilant supporters in Chicago."The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America -- I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you -- we as a people will get there," Obama said in Chicago, Illinois, before an estimated crowd of up to 240,000 people.
Americans emphatically elected Democrat Barack Obama as their first black president Tuesday, in a transformational election, which will reshape US politics and the US role on the world stage.

Obama, 47, will be inaugurated the 44th US president on January 20, 2009, and inherit an economy mired in the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and a nuclear showdown with Iran.

His presidency also marks a stunning social shift, with Obama, the son of Kenyan father and white mother from Kansas, the first African American president of a nation still riven by racial divides.

African free trade zone is agreed

The leaders of three African trading blocs on Wednesday agreed to create a free trade zone of 26 countries with a GDP of an estimated $624bn (£382.9bn).

It is hoped the deal will ease access to markets within the region and end problems arising from the fact several countries belong to multiple groups.

The deal also aims to strengthen the bloc's bargaining power when negotiating international deals.

Analysts say the agreement will help intra-regional trade and boost growth.

The three blocs which struck the deal were the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC) and the the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).

"The greatest enemy of Africa, the greatest source of weakness has been disunity and a low level of political and economic integration," said Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at a meeting with the heads of state who chair the three trade blocs.

The agreement will also lend its backing to joint infrastructure and energy projects in the zone.

Redressing imbalance

Six heads of state from 26 countries in Comesa, SADC and the EAC attended the meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, to sign the agreement.



Many of the leaders and representatives consider the new pact a way of giving Africa a greater voice on the world stage.

"By coming together, the member states will have a strong voice in advancing our interests on the international scene," said South African President Kgalema Motlanthe.

Meanwhile, President Museveni said that it was a step in the right direction for a continent that suffered unfairly when it came to global trade.

President Motlanthe also called for developing countries to have positions within global institutions.

""While Africa and other developing countries had marginal influence over the decisions that have brought the international finance systems to the brink of collapse, unjustifiably, African countries will bear the brunt," he said.

"Development countries must be included in the governance of all international financing institutions to mitigate adverse effects on them," Mr Motlanthe added.

Groupings

The three blocs are already well-established in their own right but cover varying swathes of land and numbers of people.

The SADC was first established as the Southern African Development Coordination Conference in 1980 in order to reduce independence on apartheid South Africa.

It was reincarnated as the SADC in 1992. It covers a population of some 248 million people and a zone whose cumulative GDP is $379bn in 2006.

The SADC's members include South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Comesa was established in 1994 and replaced the Preferential Trade Area. It includes 398 million people and the area has a combined GDP of $286.7bn in 2006. Among its members are Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda and Sudan.

EAC is the smallest of the group in terms of GDP, and had a GDP of $46.6bn in 2006. Set up in 1967, disagreements between founding members Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania led to its collapse.

A treaty was signed for its re-establishment in 1999 and the new EAC was formed in 2000.

Johann Hari: How we fuel Africa's bloodiest war

What is rarely mentioned is the great global heist of Congo's resources

The deadliest war since Adolf Hitler marched across Europe is starting again – and you are almost certainly carrying a blood-soaked chunk of the slaughter in your pocket.


When we glance at the holocaust in Congo, with 5.4 million dead, the clichés of Africa reporting tumble out: this is a "tribal conflict" in "the Heart of Darkness". It isn't. The United Nations investigation found it was a war led by "armies of business" to seize the metals that make our 21st-century society zing and bling. The war in Congo is a war about you.



Every day I think about the people I met in the war zones of eastern Congo when I reported from there. The wards were filled with women who had been gang-raped by the militias and shot in the vagina. The battalions of child soldiers – drugged, dazed 13-year-olds who had been made to kill members of their own families so they couldn't try to escape and go home. But oddly, as I watch the war starting again on CNN, I find myself thinking about a woman I met who had, by Congolese standards, not suffered in extremis.
I gave her a lift, and it was only after a few hours of chat along on cratered roads that I noticed there was something strange about Marie-Jean's children. They were slumped forward, their gazes fixed in front of them. They didn't look around, or speak, or smile. "I haven't ever been able to feed them," she said. "Because of the war."


Their brains hadn't developed; they never would now. "Will they get better?" she asked. I left her in a village on the outskirts of Goma, and her kids stumbled after her, expressionless.


There are two stories about how this war began – the official story, and the true story. The official story is that after the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu mass murderers fled across the border into Congo. The Rwandan government chased after them. But it's a lie. How do we know? The Rwandan government didn't go to where the Hutu genocidaires were, at least not at first. They went to where Congo's natural resources were – and began to pillage them. They even told their troops to work with any Hutus they came across. Congo is the richest country in the world for gold, diamonds, coltan, cassiterite, and more. Everybody wanted a slice – so six other countries invaded.


These resources were not being stolen to for use in Africa. They were seized so they could be sold on to us. The more we bought, the more the invaders stole – and slaughtered. The rise of mobile phones caused a surge in deaths, because the coltan they contain is found primarily in Congo. The UN named the international corporations it believed were involved: Anglo-America, Standard Chartered Bank, De Beers and more than 100 others. (They all deny the charges.) But instead of stopping these corporations, our governments demanded that the UN stop criticising them.


There were times when the fighting flagged. In 2003, a peace deal was finally brokered by the UN and the international armies withdrew. Many continued to work via proxy militias – but the carnage waned somewhat. Until now. As with the first war, there is a cover-story, and the truth. A Congolese militia leader called Laurent Nkunda – backed by Rwanda – claims he needs to protect the local Tutsi population from the same Hutu genocidaires who have been hiding out in the jungles of eastern Congo since 1994. That's why he is seizing Congolese military bases and is poised to march on Goma.


It is a lie. François Grignon, Africa Director of the International Crisis Group, tells me the truth: "Nkunda is being funded by Rwandan businessmen so they can retain control of the mines in North Kivu. This is the absolute core of the conflict. What we are seeing now is beneficiaries of the illegal war economy fighting to maintain their right to exploit."


At the moment, Rwandan business interests make a fortune from the mines they illegally seized during the war. The global coltan price has collapsed, so now they focus hungrily on cassiterite, which is used to make tin cans and other consumer disposables. As the war began to wane, they faced losing their control to the elected Congolese government – so they have given it another bloody kick-start.


Yet the debate about Congo in the West – when it exists at all – focuses on our inability to provide a decent bandage, without mentioning that we are causing the wound. It's true the 17,000 UN forces in the country are abysmally failing to protect the civilian population, and urgently need to be super-charged. But it is even more important to stop fuelling the war in the first place by buying blood-soaked natural resources. Nkunda only has enough guns and grenades to take on the Congolese army and the UN because we buy his loot. We need to prosecute the corporations buying them for abetting crimes against humanity, and introduce a global coltan-tax to pay for a substantial peacekeeping force. To get there, we need to build an international system that values the lives of black people more than it values profit.


Somewhere out there – lost in the great global heist of Congo's resources – are Marie-Jean and her children, limping along the road once more, carrying everything they own on their backs. They will probably never use a coltan-filled mobile phone, a cassiterite-smelted can of beans, or a gold necklace – but they may yet die for one.

LIBERIA; A DAWN OF A NEW ERA

For the first time in the history of fiscal probity in Africa's oldest republic, the supreme audit outfit in Liberia, the General Auditing Commission-GAC, has presented its first special Forensic Audit report of the Auditor General to parliament. It is mandated by law to report to the Legislature.
liberian president
In 2005, an Act of Legislature amended section 53 of the Executive Law of 1972 creating the GAC; making the entity independent of the executive branch of government. This led to the recruitment of the current head of the institution, John S. Morlu II, 2006 by the European Union in alliance with the Liberian government. This was done through a conventional vetting process that saw the participation of other nationals having advertised the job in 150 countries the world over.

The presentation of the audit report on Wednesday to the Lawmakers at the Capitol Building-home of the Lawmakers- in Monrovia, signals a dawn of a new era in the fight against fraud and abuse of public fund in Liberia. Till now, this is the inaugural presentation of an audit report to parliament in the history of the continent’s oldest republic.

The Special Forensic Audit Report of the Auditor General on the Bong Mines Community Escrow Account was received by Genevee Massaquoi, Assistant Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Clerk of the House of Representative, Atty. James Karbah on behalf of the lawmakers.

Thirty one copies of the report were given to the Senate, while the Representative received 65 copies. The Liberia National Legislature, the first branch of government, comprises 96 Legislators, 64 Representatives making up the lower House and 30 Senators.

Making the presentation on behalf of the Auditor General, in separate remarks, GAC head of communication, James Jensen, said “GAC’s unbending commitment in making sure that public monies are truly accounted for the general goods of the public”.

“The proper management and application of public resources, is a cardinal platform of directing more donors funding for Liberia and a truest means for Liberia’s post war economic recovery,” Jensen noted.

He praised international partners like the European Commission, American government plus other partners that have been backbones of support to GAC’s quest to cleanse Liberia from the chain of fiscal improprieties, wastes, corruption and abuse of resources.


He assured the lawmakers that the Auditor General (AG), John S. Morlu II, will in a short period present additional audit reports to members of the legislature.

Both Massaquoi and Chief Clerk Karbah expressed appreciation for the report and promised to present them to the lawmakers. The Special Forensic Audit report of the Bong Mines Community escrow account covers the fiscal year ended 2006/2007.

The former mining town, Bong Mines is situated in Bong County, central Liberia. The audit commissioned by the Auditor General included the audits of financial and related records pertaining to three projects in Fuamah District in Bong County. They included Handii road, rehabilitation of the annex to Handii Clinic and seven classroom school construction and clinic renovation all totaling US$236,693.9.

In a related development: a GAC source said the entity has “completed the audits of several government institutions, including, the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP); National Housing Authority (NPA), National Lotteries, Independent Human Rights Commission (IHRC); and the Ministry of Finance”.