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Wednesday May 8, 2013
- Sir Alex Fergusson, the captain
at the wheel of a football battleship called Manchester
United Football Club announces that he will be leaving
at the end of this season. At 71 and with some 26 years
at the helm, getting a successor will be the next great
task as players and team management as well as the
billions of fans of the club come to grips with today's
announcement. 
The speculations are now
over. Sir Alex Fergusson the hard, uncompromising and
always ready for challenges Manchester United team
manager is going into retirement after twenty six (26)
years at the helm. Sir Alex is leaving on a high never
mind the fact that this season they could not make it to
the finals of European competitions but he would take
heart in the fact that this season he has won the
country's top football league, the Premiership, well
ahead of the end of the season.
Many will miss his face
on TV screens as he takes his wrath to any referee whom
he believes could have misinterpreted the rules against
his beloved Manchester United and no matter how many
times he is sent packing to the stands because of this,
he would always remonstrate, most forcefully using
appropriate and some would say inappropriate verbal
missiles to make known his feelings when he is allowed
back along those hallowed lines reserved for team
managers on the edge of the pitch.
The next big task is
getting a successor to man the affairs on and out of the
field of play and that is not going to be easy. Pundits
talk of the special one Jose Mourinho as being in the
frame, while others pick the Everton manager David Moyes
as the most likely but are also quick to warn that when
it comes to managing a team like Manchester United you
need to have the authority and respect that goes with
the job. Respect and authority that will make you as a
manager being in charge and deciding that David Beckham
has to go and that other players who believe they could
get away with acts Sir Alex considers disrespectful soon
find themselves in other clubs either on transfers,
loans or just sold away.
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Tuesday April
16, 2013
- Terror strikes in the United States again as double
bomb blasts at the end of the famous Boston Marathon
claim at least three lives, leaving many wounded and
traumatised. US President Barack Obama vows that
perpetrators would be brought to justice.
Update:
Eight year old boy killed as he waited for his dad to
finish the marathon.
Residents in Boston and
indeed the entire United States of America as well as
the world are waking up this morning to the stark
realisation that while the good go about their daily
chores and trying to make life a meaningful experience,
there still lurks within them the messengers of evil,
the praise singers of evil who would do any and
everything to create chaos, unbridled mayhem within
communities that give them succour, a chance to build
and grow and the opportunity to develop talents and work
on dreams in all spheres of human endeavour. As US
citizens stood up as one and condemned the evils of 9/11
so have they vowed in the words of President Obama, that
the hands, brains and minds behind the terror attacks
would be caught and brought to justice. The timing and
size of the blasts show that the perpetrators were bent
on causing maximum chaos, death and injury close to the
site of the finishing line where many would be gathered
to cheer in those crossing that line as well as
participants from all over the world who see the Boston
Marathon as the place to be.
The Boston Herald
carries this banner headline in its online edition -
Blasts kill 3, injure at least 144
at marathon
Two suspects
identified. Police manhunt kills one while other on the
run captured late Friday night, Saturday morning hours.
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Thursday April 11, 2013
- "Preventing Sexual Violence in
Conflict" - that was one of the
main items on the menu of the
G-8 ministers meeting in London
where other issues like the
conflict in Syria and the
madness spewing forth from North
Korea were discussed. And there
to make a point, asking that the
international community do more
were two key women. 
Our very own
Zainab
Hawa Bangura, the
UN Special Representative on
Sexual Violence in Conflict was
in London together with US film
star and Special Envoy for the
UN Human Rights Council Angelina
Jolie and host UK Foreign
Secretary William Hague. The
Commonwealth and Foreign Office
noted that - all Foreign
Ministers endorsed the
Declaration on Preventing Sexual
Violence in Conflict.
They called for urgent action to
address comprehensively the
culture of impunity and to hold
perpetrators to account for acts
of sexual violence committed in
armed conflict. Ministers
emphasised the need to promote
justice and accountability for
sexual violence in armed
conflict by strengthening the
existing framework for
prosecution, and to provide more
long-term support to prevent and
respond to sexual violence in
armed conflict, as part of
broader development and
humanitarian efforts.
In
her appeal to the G-8 ministers
and the international community
to do more Angelina Jolie noted
"...hundreds of thousands of women and children have been sexually assaulted, tortured, or forced into sexual slavery in the wars of our generation. Time and again the world has failed to prevent this abuse, or to hold attackers accountable. Rape has been treated as something that simply happens in war; perpetrators have learnt that they can get away with it; and victims have been denied justice. But wartime rape is not inevitable. This violence can be prevented, and it must be confronted. There is no choice between peace and justice: peace requires justice.
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Monday April 8,
2013
-
Britain's first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
passes on. Her death at age 87 was announced today after
a period of ill health finally succumbing to the most
recent attack of a stroke. 
The UK leader who was
dubbed the Iron Lady by friends and foes alike, the one
and only Baroness Margaret Thatcher has departed to the
great beyond at the age of 87 leaving behind a legacy
that still has to be defined, but truly a legacy
unequalled in British and world politics. There are
those who insist that the first woman to occupy 10
Downing Street was too strong-willed, too stubborn in
her determination at getting to a goal once she had made
up her mind on issues she sees as raising the profile of
the United Kingdom and by extension her reputation as
"this lady's not for turning" refusing to back down. And
she would not back down even if the results of her
action were deemed unreasonable and unpopular as was
demonstrated in her demolition of the trade unions more
especially the mining communities dotted across the
United Kingdom. She is reported to have destroyed many
lives and families as mining activities came to a
standstill and communities wrecked.
Margaret Thatcher will
also be remembered for her decision to commit Britain to
fight a war eight thousand miles away in the Falklands,
a venture won by UK forces and which saw her re-elected
to Number 10 after that momentous event.
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Thursday March
28, 2013
- Common sense at last as the UN approves the deployment
of an intervention brigade in the Democratic Republic of
Congo. More needed however on the role of MONUSCO, the
UN peace keeping force and the notorious and unreliable
national army. 
Common sense appears to
have hit the guardians of international peace and
security as represented by the United Nations Security
Council with that body's approval of a special brigade
that would target, and hopefully, render ineffective all
those warlords and mini demigods terrorising the unarmed
and vulnerable civilian population of the DRC, the rape
capital of the world. According to the
UN Security Council
- The objectives of the new force – which will be based
in North Kivu province in eastern DRC and total 3,069
peacekeepers – are to neutralize armed groups, reduce
the threat they posed to State authority and civilian
security and make space for stabilization activities.
The brigade is established within the UN Organization
Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO)
for an initial period of one year, as set out in the
resolution adopted unanimously today by the Council,
which also extended the mission until 31 March 2014.
We are still at a loss
as to why it took the UN Security Council all this long
to make this long yearned-for decision given all those
reports the UN system has of massive human rights
violations against the unarmed and vulnerable civilian
population especially women and children as well as the
aged and infirm. Indeed the DRC case and the mandate of
peace keeping troops all over the world have shown that
the Security Council never ever gets it right first time
round until after the deaths of so many - deaths that
could have been prevented had the peace keepers been
given the right and appropriate mandate and not wait
until they are fired upon. This is a part of the
mandate of MONUSCO
- "Emphasizing that the protection of civilians must be
given priority, the Council authorized MONUSCO to use
all necessary means to carry out its protection mandate,
including the effective protection of civilians,
humanitarian personnel and human rights defenders under
imminent threat of physical violence, as well as the
protection of United Nations personnel, facilities,
installations and equipment. The Mission would also
support Government efforts to fight impunity and ensure
the protection of civilians from violations of
international human rights and humanitarian law,
including all forms of sexual and gender-based
violence."
And yet the violations
continued with impunity and it took the public
pronouncement of
our very own Zainab Hawa Bangura,
the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in
Conflict and others for the Security Council to come to
its senses and realise that the victims of the massive
violations are human beings whose only crime it would
seem, is that the world just does not care.
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Thursday March
28, 2013
- US President Obama meets with four African leaders
including Sierra Leone's very own Ernest Bai Koroma and
he is full of praise for all of them. However President
Obama's remarks indicating that Ernest Bai Koroma is a
paragon of democracy and good governance ring hollow,
dangerously hollow.
Who prepared President Obama's briefing notes?
US President Barack Obama
has been playing host to four African leaders from
Sierra Leone, Malawi, Cape Verde and Senegal and in an
address to the press after that meeting was full of
praise for each of the leaders in what he sees as the
good points that should be strengthened and consolidated
by these leaders.
"The reason that I'm
meeting with these four is they exemplify the progress
that we're seeing in Africa. All of them have had to
deal with some extraordinary challenges. Sierra Leone
just 10 years ago was in the midst of a brutal civil war
as we've ever seen. And yet, now we've seen consecutive
fair and free elections. And under President Koroma's
leadership, we've seen not only good governance, but
also significant economic growth."
Oh yes, it was
President Barack Obama singing praises from the hymn
sheet of good governance in honour of Ernest Bai Koroma
- a clear indication that whoever prepared the briefing
notes for President Barack Obama must have just landed
from another planet, in time to give a false picture to
President Obama. Let us repeat President Obama's
statement - "...under President Koroma's leadership,
we've seen not only good governance, but also
significant economic growth." Are we to interpret
President Obama's statement as meaning that despite the
massive display of intolerance to those viewed as being
in opposition to the government, the murderous
suppression of protests, the vicious and murderous
attacks on women and other citizens, the massive looting
of state coffers and the lack of accountability and
transparency in the affairs of governance just what
President Obama would like to see continued in Sierra
Leone?
We hope not and we
think not but for the President of the United States of
America to make such remarks in the face of what goes on
in Sierra Leone shows only too clearly that this time
round, our man Barack Obama has really not done his
homework - and we expected much from someone we believe
should be smart enough to know what message his remarks
is sending to the people of Sierra Leone.
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Wednesday
October 12, 2011
- The truth is finally out. Now we know why the high
priest at the altar of falsehood, profanities and
indecency dedicated to the smoke and mirrors President
expunged those articles from his web site reaffirming
once more that for a few dollars more he would be
willing to lie on oath in order to earn his supper. And
this from a so-called man of the cloth who has been
caught out more often than not - lying to his face and
feeling good about it.
We now know why those articles were
expunged from the web site of the high priest who thinks
nothing of lying through his teeth to please his masters
at State House in Freetown. Remember what he wrote about
the Bo incident in which one man was reported killed by
the police, some structures belonging to the APC ruling
party torched and the flag bearer of the main opposition
SLPP Brigadier (Rtd) Julius Maada Bio got hurt? The pro-APC,
pro_Ernest Bai Koroma publications had a field day with
each tabloid trying to outdo the other in presenting a
feel-good article that would be pleasing to their
paymaster/s at State House. It was a time to write
articles pleasing to their handlers at State House. And
please recall too that when the President ordered an
investigation, we pleaded that no comment be made that
would somehow appear to blame anyone? This piece of
advice given in good faith was ignored and just to
please his master, his mammon at State House the high
priest at the altar of lies, falsehood and profanities
dedicated to his god ernest bai koroma published
articles blaming people left, right and centre as well
as here, there and everywhere and even going as far as
to suggest that there was no one at the APC party office
in Bo on that day? Well we now have a copy of that
report and we can state here that the reason why those
articles were expunged was because the report showed
that what had been published, as usual was a big and
deliberate lie aimed at keeping his master happy. And
pleasing his master we doubt very much because we know
that there are good and honest people at State House,
real professional journalists and civil servants who
would always frown on anyone who on one hand gloats
about a diplomatic appointment while on the other
becoming the chief fabricator and purveyor of lies, more
lies and damned lies.
Below are some of the headlines, the
articles of which were expunged and for which action we
demanded an explanation. None was forthcoming, none was
expected. That is what happens when you, as we say
"broke congosah" on the gossiping liar's head.
Reports
: SLPP rally in Bo was unlawful and unauthorized and was recipe for chaos
orchestrated by Maada Bio, John Benjamin and Abbass Bundu
Journalist says the chaos in Bo was well-planned by the SLPP
Where
is the blood ? The biggest hoax since ‘Janet Bundle’ ?
Exclusive : How Maada Bio got hurt in Bo
EXCLUSIVE : More ringleaders of the Bo disturbances named, as SLPP forms
clandestine organization to drive out all APC supporters
Among the key findings
of the report after investigating the Bo incident was
1. The SLPP thank
you rally was legal.
2. That Rtd
Brigadier Julius Maada Bio was indeed wounded during the
attack.
3. That the APC
Office was occupied by APC supporters on the day of the
attack and that even before then preparations had been
made to attack the Maada Bio march in Bo with
instructions given to women allied to the APC to collect
stones.
4. Stoning was
started by APC supporters from their party office.
5. The SLPP
supporters attacked and torched structures of the APC.
6. One bike rider
was shot and killed by a named policeman who still
remains free.
We will now bring you
most of the expunged articles so that you can see
further proof of the devious methods of a compulsive
liar and we daresay the typical "kongosah bench"
carrier.
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