when will the farce end?

The main reason why african nations do not seem to progress is mainly because of one person's greed. laurent gbagbo is refusing to handover power, if truly he had been the politician he was meant to be and had his country's best interest at heart, he will willingly surrender power to the winning party. with protest, hunger and threats of civil war, Ivory Coast is fast becoming not only a ticking bomb but a source of ridicule on the international stage for african nations as a whole.what africa needs is a reform, moving from dictatorship finally into democracy!

wikileaks

a few dates back, i addressed the possible political consequences to the US on the international stage of all the information being leaked through wikileaks. It was a theory, which today has become concrete. Australia is blaming the US for wikileaks. this is just the first to start, diplomatic international relations are at the forefront of the US economy and most of their policies. In politics, allies are a necessity, without them no government can survive. zzzwhy then is the US not stopping wikileaks, how far do they want it to reach before they finally breach their precious freedom of expression and finally do something? it may be too late when action is finally taken.Why not step up now and kill it at the root? i wonder. I am beginning to think that they're just some rights that should be imposed some restrictions, because we as humans are prone to use and abuse when we are given too much power. freedom is good, but without any control it becomes more of a weapon against humanity than actually freedom

Ivory Coast

As my blog focuses more on the world than the US particularly, i thought it interesting to comment on the recent situation in Ivory Coast. It is worldwide and very common knowledge that African countries rarely swap their presidents, are corrupted, do not have transparent economies and most of them are headed by dictators but for once one of these countries is trying to get out of the block, mainly thanks to the media. With the recent media attention given to this country, it brought foreign aid and intervention in their recent political struggle to conduct a free and fair election. The outgoing president Laurent Gbagbo as many of his other counterparts is refusing to hand over power. The recent elections have shown that his biggest contestant Allasane Ouattare has actually won the election. This is a first, and hopefully the start of the end of the reign of African dictators. Gbagbo has been delaying the announcements of the results, mainly because he is trying to figure out ways to change results that have already been leaked to the public thanks to the media. It is amazing  just how much the media can affect a country's political situation, in turn affecting the economy. With the leak of the results, it makes it doubly difficult for him to cheat, and in the eventuality he does it becomes an international public crime. It is my wish and hope that just as the media in Ivory Coast put aside fear and pushed their country towards a democracy and the 21st century, that other African nations will follow suit and their respective media will forget the threats hanging over their heads and focus solely on doing a reporters job which is bringing information to the public.Until then all  we can do is hope and forecast that change is definitely on the way.

freedom of expression in the US; case study wikileaks

It is amazing to realize the degree of freedom currently enjoyed by civilians within the US. The disparity between freedom in the US and other countries is quite amazing. Wikileaks, website run by civilians, has the freedom to post confidential documents, without being prosecuted for their origin or sources. It is pretty amazing! In most countries with very democracies which are in fact more of dictatorships will have had these individuals executed or something similar, all this "legally" of course.
In one of their most recent post, they accused Vladimir Putin of being  batman over the current president. It is amazing that individuals are let to make such comments and post that can bring about extreme diplomatic ramifications between foreign countries and the US and nothing is done to stop them in the name of freedom of expression. The US government has it's such comings, but when it comes to rights, especially freedom, it is applied to the letter, up to an including total disregard of diplomatic consequences.

jobs and politics

Been going through the CNN and BBC websites today and i can't stop myself from laughing! On one side obama is fighting to create jobs and maintain the economy afloat, and on the other side nicholas sarkozy is begging people to remain on the pay roll! Two different countries within the same economic realm, but with two very differently focused population! About 5years ago in France it was the battle over the number of hours they have to work a week if i'm very right is barely 36 hours! French nationals focus on the government and social to take care of their old days, and even their young days! Americans work themselves to the ground and are seeking ways to work past the retirement age! While the french people are striking for their jobs to be reduced, americans are striking for job increases! It seems to me humans are never satisfied when it comes not only to monetary issues, but issues on which they know they can influence the government at large! Economy is an issue at large, but more so people are reacting to what they see in the media and the reports being given to them!

the media and it's sometimes negative influence

Throughout our discussions, the main topic that comes up is the fact that the media is our main source of information, our main influence on our outside view of the world, have we ever thought of them in the context that they may be the road to our downfall too? perhaps the rwandanese people at some point thought like you, but desillusion was quick to catch up! Have we ever wondered what happened there 16years ago? why it's but now we are getting actual counts of the number of victims? how it all began? pretty easy, the media! Media was the main tool used by the hutus to ensure propaganda and extinction of the tutsis. Have we ever reflected on how the media affects us psychologically, our trains of thoughts, our voting polls, our consumer choices? If then they have all this power, how do we ensure that it is used for the right purpose and not to transform us into killing machines or shopaholics? the media is our main influence and our eyes to the world!! But in this we need to remain objective, keeping our eyes open to those sometimes invisible traps, because we do not know when we may become victims and not masters of the media!!