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WHY KENYA MUST PUT TO REST THE DARK AGES OF UNTOUCHABLES

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From: ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2011

Being a Police Spokesman in Kenya today is one of the most difficult responsibilities. Eric Kiraithe spoke on behalf of Commissioner of Police Mathew Iteere to react to a report by KTN and The East African Standard that detailed how Sh6.4 billion-cocaine haul was seized, stored, investigated and disposed in 2004, the drama that revealed how General Service Unit (GSU) senior officer Erastus Chemorei was brutally killed by security officers.

Kiraithe was there to convince Kenyans that Iteere was innocent and at no time did Chemorei get access to the key to a room where the cocaine was kept and even if he did, he could not have gone with the keys to his home while on leave. This sentiment leaves a lot to be desired.

The big question that remains unanswered is that if Iteere has been falsely accused, who then planned for the killing of Chemorei and why? Will the opinion of the Attorney General on what action he intends to take against anyone who has made false accusations about the drugs help solve the brutal death?

The Police Commissioner intends to sue the Standard and KTN if Attorney General advises so. He wants to sue them not only because he claims he is innocent, but because the publicity on this haul has caused a huge damage on him. What about the trauma children and the widow Chemorei left behind are undergoing? Which is more damaging?

And if it is not true that as Iteere claims there was no way Chemorei would have gone with the key at home, to whom did he leave with the key with, and why was he given un usual leaves against his wish from time to time- which according to documents, he was told to proceed on leave in December 10, 2004, February 1, 2005, February 8, and February 17, a move which according to his family members and other people close to him at his Kitalale home made Chemorei to be disturbed man.

One fact remains for sure, that Chemorei was keeping custody of the key to the store where the Sh6.4-billion cocaine haul that was seized by police in a private villa in Malindi was kept. This fact according to the report was known in top security circles, including Iteere himself.

Thanks to Standard and KTN that shed the light that as Kenyans were made to believe Erastus Kirui Chemorei was killed because he was in the police most wanted list of the criminals and that he had been the architect of robberies and killings in Kitale can no longer be convincing.

What was not very clear and the Police Commissioner did not answer is why the death of Chemorei came just at the time when by then GSU commandant Lawrence Mwadime and Assistant commandant and current Police Commissioner, Mathew Iteere, were mandated to keep safe custody of the cocaine – the biggest ever netted locally in history of Kenya.

If Chemorei was among the most listed police criminals and that is why he was inhumanly killed, how come that he was not only entrusted with the key of such huge asset money wise but also an adjutant at the GSU Training School, Ruaraka. Simple logic is that he was picked because he was seen as honest, secretive, and trustworthy.

But even so, if Chemorei was a criminal as earlier alleged, why had the whole battalion of 70 police officers led by then area DCIO, Julius Sunkuli, OCPD Augustine Kimantheria, and DC Christopher Musumbu surround his house on February 19, and instead of arresting him he was to be killed like a dog as his son Elijah traumatically wondered.

Why again did they force Abubakar Latama who says he had just concluded a deal to buy a cow from Chemorei when they heard vehicles roaring near the gate of the deceased to drink his brain? According to Latama they had just finished taking tea and after h handed him Sh8,500 for the cow h had bought from him (he needed the money as his son had been sent home from school because he had not cleared his fees), he led him outside to where the cow was, when the police vehicles pulled up outside his gate.

This is not the first time police is killed in connection with drugs. The lead police officer investigating drug trafficking through the Port of Mombasa died mysteriously. Kenya Ports Authority District Criminal Investigations Officer (DCIO) Hassan Abdillahi was murdered on December 31, 2004.

Abdillahi was perceived by a number of Embassy personnel as being deeply committed to tackling fraud and drug trafficking at the Port of Mombasa. Although a number of suspects have been arrested for questioning about Abdillahi’s death, among them Juja MP William Kabogo, who is also owner of a port container transshipment company, how come no conviction has been made?

Internal Security Minister George Saitoti named former assistant minister and Kilome MP Harun Mwau, Kisauni MP Hassan Joho, Makadara MP Gidion Mbuvi, Juja MP William Kabogo and prominent businessman Ali Punjani as those under investigation for alleged drug trafficking.

The sad story however, is that when such containers are seized by police or customs officials, the traffickers allegedly pay millions of shillings in bribes to have them released or silence the officials. One such incident is cited as having occurred in October 2008. The dossier says that one of the two containers of used clothes was held, but the importer paid a Sh1 million bribe to have the customs officer who had taken action replaced.

In July 2008, one of the suspected drug kingpins allegedly received “unspecified narcotics from Pakistan, Dubai and Tanzania which he stored in Gikomba, Mathare and Githurai.” The dossier alleges that the crew of his public transport vehicle fleet was used to distribute the drugs in Nairobi’s Buruburu estate and the CBD. The same suspect is said to have previously used a location near the Eastleigh Air Force base in Nairobi as a processing and packaging facility.

Heroin, the dossier claims, was brought into the base by couriers where it was packaged and shipped out in military vehicles to other distribution sites. Although Sources close to the Internal Security ministry say the United States wants Kenya to start the prosecution of drugs barons right away, this cannot be possible in Kenya as yet since the deal involve people who matter in this country called Kenya.

The largest ever haul of cocaine weighing 1.5 tonnes and worth Sh6.4 billion arrived at Kilindini, Mombasa, from Venezuela in December 2004. The documents on the drug network in Kenya show that those involved have been shipping in drugs hidden in containers said to carry used clothes or shoes.

For instance, they indicate that one of the key members of the drug syndicate shipped in cocaine from Latin America in December 2007 disguised as used computers. Another member of the cartel brought in heroin and cannabis from Pakistan, Dubai and Tanzania in July 2008.The dossier also says the suspected drug lords distribute the narcotics to several city estates.

When the Jicho Pevu and Inside Story expose titled ‘Paruwanja la Mihadarati’ and ‘The Untouchables’, it gave in inspiration that any officer who push for further investigation and arrest is at risk. That is why officers linked to drug cartels may have conspired to eliminate Erastus Chemorei after he allegedly refused to hand over keys to a store at the GSU headquarters where the Sh6.4 billion cocaine haul had been stored.

These were similar tactics used by Moi. He used it to say his government did not involved in Dr Robert Ouko’s assassination, even though according to Scotland Yard’s Superintendent John Troon who led a team of detectives to unravel the murder of Ouko revealed that Moi’s government was fully responsible.

Initial investigations zeroed in on two key suspects; the late Internal Security PS Hezekiah Oyugi and former Energy minister Nicholas Biwott. Ten government officials, including Biwott, were held in police custody for questioning for two weeks in November 1991 but a Kenyan Police investigation concluded that there was no ‘evidence to support the allegations that Biwott was involved in the disappearance and subsequent death of the late minister Dr. Robert John Ouko’.

Instead a Nairobi court in November 2000 awarded Mr Biwott record damages of Sh30 million arising from a case in which he sued the British forensic expert Dr Ian West and others for linking him to the Ouko murder. Earlier Biwott won Sh10 million from Bookpoint, a popular Nairobi bookshop, for stocking copies of the book Dr Ian West’s Casebook.

Troon traced the circumstances leading to the murder to a Presidential trip to the United States in January 1990, where Moi led a strong delegation of government officials. During the Washington trip, according to Press reports, the American media “launched an ambush” on Moi by accusing him of running a dictatorship rife with human rights abuses.

Ouko, who was then the Foreign Affairs minister, was reportedly cast in positive light. Troon’s investigations centred on the alleged massive corruption at the Kisumu Molasses plant, and efforts to conceal the alleged perpetrators-It is claimed that Ouko had conducted thorough investigations into the malpractice at the plant, which allegedly touched on key Government officials close to Moi and who were opposed to the revitalisation of the plant.

On November 26, 1991, Moi disbanded the Ouko Commission of Inquiry, which was chaired by Justice Evan Gicheru, now Chief Justice. Moi later said the discontinuation of the commission was to enable further investigations to be carried out into the minister’s death and also into alleged obstruction and interference in Troon’s work.

Practically all those who knew about the death of Ouko also died mysteriously. Oyugi died in the United Kingdom where he was being treated.Two weeks later, Mr Obati also died. He was a former Interpol chief in Kenya, he died at the Nairobi Hospital where he had been hospitalised for three weeks. He allegedly developed liver complications.

Some of the people who knew the death and still alive include Mr Jonah Anguka, a former Nakuru District Commissioner who was charged with Ouko’s murder. He is in exile in USA. Anguka, who was a friend of the murdered minister, is alleged to have been spotted in a white saloon vehicle believed to have been central to the murder.

Former Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi who rejected calls to appear before the committee investigating the death of Foreign Minister Robert Ouko is also still alive. His lawyer, Mr Mutula Kilonzo, said the attempt by the team of Gor Sunguh’s commission to question the retired head of state was malicious because he (Moi) had nothing to reveal to the committee.

Mr Troon was among the experts Moi invited to examine the death. Report was vigorously disputed by the Moi government when it was ultimately handed in to the authorities.

When the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNHCR), an independent body set up by an act of Parliament, said it had evidence that almost 500 suspects were shot and their bodies dumped during the past five months, the story was the same. A police spokesman dismissed the allegations as nothing more than “rumors,” even though according to then director of the KNHCR, Maina Kiai police were involved.

Maina challenged the police to explain how hundreds of bodies had been delivered by police vehicle to mortuaries, yet the force had denied any involvement in the deaths. Researchers had spent three months collecting the data from mortuaries as relatives came forward claiming that their loved ones had disappeared.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya

Online Security in the Middle East and North Africa: A Survey of Perceptions, Knowledge and Practice

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from Yona Maro

Digital communication has become a more perilous activity, particularly for activists, political dissidents, and independent media. The recent surge in digital activism that has helped to shape the Arab spring has been met with stiff resistance by governments in the region intent on reducing the impact of digital organizing and independent media. No longer content with Internet filtering, many governments in the Middle East and around the world are using a variety of technological and offline strategies to go after online media and digital activists.

In this report we describe the results of a survey of 98 bloggers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) carried out in May 2011 in order to study bloggers’ perceptions of online risk and the actions they take to address digital communications security, including both Internet and cell phone use. The survey was implemented in the wake of the Arab spring and documents a proliferation of online security problems among the respondents. In the survey, we address the respondents’ perceptions of online risk, their knowledge of digital security practices, and their reported online security practices. The survey results indicate that there is much room for improving online security practices, even among this sample of respondents who are likely to have relatively high technical knowledge and experience.
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files/OnlineSecurityintheMiddleEastandNorthAfrica_August2011.pdf

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http://worldngojobs.blogspot.com/ Nafasi za Kazi Kimataifa

WORLD: TERRORISTS AND THE INTERNET

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Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
from ouko joachim omolo

BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
LIKONI-MOMBASA
MONDAY, AUGUST 8, 2011
TAKE-2

Our take one on the danger of online services looked at how your personal information could be hacked online. Today is exactly 13 years since the terrorists attacked the American embassy in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam Tanzania. I am reporting from Likoni-Mombasa where I am for special assignment.

Likoni is one of the insecure regions in the coast-it is where in 1997, many people were killed and hundred others displaced during the Moi dictatorial regime that saw many innocent Kenyans killed since 1991.The Mombasa-Likoni clashes were believed to have been started by the governing party Kanu. In Tanzania, 11 people died and 85 were injured.

Just like some experts online could hack your personal information online, terrorists increasingly are using the Internet as a means of communication both with each other and the rest of the world. By now, nearly everyone has seen at least some images from propaganda videos published on terrorist sites and rebroadcast on the world’s news networks.

One fact remains that the Internet is a powerful tool for terrorists, who use online message boards and chat rooms to share information, coordinate attacks, spread propaganda and raise funds. Terrorist websites can also serve as virtual training grounds, offering tutorials on building bombs, firing surface-to-air missiles.

Another fact is that terrorists have developed sophisticated encryption tools and creative techniques that make the Internet an efficient and relatively secure means of correspondence. These include steganography, a technique used to hide messages in graphic files, and “dead dropping”: transmitting information through saved email drafts in an online email account accessible to anyone with the password.

Terrorists attacking British bases in Basra for example were using aerial footage displayed by the Google Earth internet tool to pinpoint their attacks. The satellite photographs showed in detail the buildings inside the bases and vulnerable areas such as tented accommodation, lavatory blocks and where lightly armoured Land Rovers were parked.

Google Earth allows users to zoom in on almost any location in the world to such close range that cars can be recognised. The site even provides latitude and longitude co-ordinates for buildings.

It explains why shortly before the Norway attack, in which at least 87 people died, Anders Behring Breivik, posted a manifesto on the Internet that includes his lengthy operational diary.

According to the document he was a lone wolf attacker who conducted his assault specifically against the Labor Party’s current and future leadership. Breivik targeted the Labor Party because of his belief that the party is Marxist-oriented and is responsible for encouraging multiculturalism, Muslim immigration into Norway and, acting with other similar European governments, the coming destruction of European culture.

Anders Behring Breivik sent his manifesto to recipients he addressed as “West European patriots” shortly before carrying out his double terrorist attack in Norway on July 22, and requested them to distribute the document to others. The Czech server ekonom.cz obtained a list of the email addresses from the Belgian far-right MP, Tanguy Veys — one of the few people who has admitted receiving the manifesto from Breivik.

Breivik’s manifesto also includes digressions on George Orwell, John Stuart Mill, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, and William James. Toward the end of his manifesto, Breivik argues that “democratic change” is an illusion and that the only answer is “armed resistance.” He predicts that “more moderate” political efforts will be “persecuted” and that attempts at “peaceful reform will be crushed,” leaving violence as the only alternative.

These technological tools terrorists use can help turn the tables on unknown plotters because they are designed to focus on the how. Even though they will likely never replace human observation and experience, but they can serve as valuable aids to human perception.

It explains why an Indian Court has been called to ban Google Earth amid suggestions the online satellite imaging was used to help plan the terror attacks that killed more than 170 people in Mumbai.

Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a company acquired by Google in 2004. It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photogrpphy and GIS globe.

Google Earth can also be used to view areas subjected to widespread disasters if Google supplies up-to-date images. For example after the January 12 20 10 Haiti earthquake images were made available.

Google Earth can also function as a “hub” of knowledge, pertaining to your location. By enabling certain options, one can see the location of gas stations, restaurants, museums, and other public establishments in their area. Google Earth can also dot the map with links to images, You Tube videos, and Wikipedia articles relevant to the area being viewed.

Yet there is no way we can do away with online services given that they have become one of the most significant global transformations in the world within multiple spheres: the social, the cultural, and the economical.

In today’s flat world messages are sent and received via email in a fraction of a second, search engines fetch unbounded resources, businesses use outsourcing and off-shoring services from distant countries.

Yet still, since the inception of the Internet to public mass consumption in 1994, it gradually turned into a facilitator of traditional forms of terror, the militant ones, those shedding blood, of guns, bombs and suicide attacks, with hundredths of innocent civilians dead for no reason.

People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya

Tel 254-20-4441372
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org

World: NATIONAL SECURITY: Enter the Cyber-dragon

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from Yona Maro

“RSA and defense-contractor hacks are among the latest battles in a decade-long spy war. Hackers from many countries have been exfiltrating—that is, stealing—intellectual property from American corporations and the U.S. government on a massive scale, and Chinese hackers are among the main culprits……..it is impossible to know how much Chinese hacking is done on explicit orders from the government. In some cases, the evidence suggests that government and military groups are executing the attacks themselves. In others, Chinese authorities are merely turning a blind eye to illegal activities that are good for China’s economy and bad for America’s.”

Other companies that reportedly have been attacked include Google, Lockheed, “Baker Hughes, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Conoco Phillips, Marathon Oil, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, Symantec, Juniper, Disney, Sony, Johnson & Johnson, General Electric, General Dynamics, the law firm King & Spalding, and DuPont.” Other firms include Yahoo and Symantec, “Adobe, Juniper Networks, and Rackspace” and Intel

The office computer of U.S. Defense Secretary Gates was hacked. “German chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly confronted Chinese premier Wen Jiabao after hackers from his country gained access to the computers in her office, as well as those in the German foreign, economic, and research ministries. In December, M.I.5 sent a letter to 300 British C.E.O.’s and security chiefs warning them that state-sponsored Chinese organizations may have been spying on their computer systems.”

“Among the other countries targeted are Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Germany, and the U.K. In 2007, the year before the Beijing Olympics, one international athletics organization and the Olympic committees of three different countries were breached.”

Read More www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/09/chinese-hacking-201109

A senior U.S. State Department official elaborates: “One of the core things we’re trying to do diplomatically is to build a consensus internationally to build norms of behavior, rules of the road,” as described in the president’s “International Strategy for Cyberspace.”

Michael Joseph Gross, Vanity Fair, September 2011
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/09/chinese-hacking-201109?printable=true

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http://worldngojobs.blogspot.com/ Nafasi za Kazi Kimataifa

ICT4D and the Human Development and Capability Approach: The Potentials of Information and Communication Technology

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from Yona Maro

This study frames a review of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) within the human development and capabilities approach. Looking at the basic dimensions of human development, which make up the core measurement of its achievements: health, education and a income, and additionally at the dimensions of participation and empowerment, a survey of research and evidence seeks to evaluate whether or not ICTs have demonstrated positive outcomes for these dimensions of human development and more broadly to the practice of its approach. The paper reviews the literature and research conducted in these dimensions in order to establish a sense of the scope and potential that ICTs have for human development.

By doing so, the paper seeks to assess whether or not the use of ICTs is pertinent to the human development of the poor, and if so, which are documented cases and outcomes that can perhaps be replicated in differing development contexts. The paper also seeks to answer questions on the role of government policy and investment in ICTs as keys to their success in development and whether or not ICTs should be emphasized at all in poor countries.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/papers/HDRP_2010_37.pdf

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http://worldngojobs.blogspot.com/ Nafasi za Kazi Kimataifa

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Freedom on the Net 2011

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from Yona Maro

In order to illuminate the emerging threats to internet freedom and identify areas of opportunity, Freedom House created a unique methodology to assess the full range of elements that comprise digital media freedom. This report examines internet freedom in 37 countries around the globe, including Australia, China, Malaysia and Vietnam. The study’s findings indicate that the threats to internet freedom are growing and have become more diverse. Cyber attacks, politically-motivated censorship, and government control over internet infrastructure have emerged as especially prominent threats.

http://www.freedomhouse.org/images/File/FotN/FOTN2011.pdf

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India: Is free speech on the way out?

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from Yona Maro

In recent months, India drafted new rules for the web that will allow anyone to demand that internet sites and service providers remove supposedly objectionable content based on a sweeping list of criteria. Even before the rules for internet speech were notified under the IT act in April, the Department of Information Technology had quietly blocked 11 websites, the Center for Internet and Society discovered through a recent Right to Information (RTI) request.

Early this year, the information and broadcasting ministry urged print publications to write more positive stories, even as it proposed amendments to the Press and Publications Act giving the state greater control over content. Among other measures, the amended law would allow local officials to suspend publication and bar anybody convicted of terrorist acts or any other act that endangers the security of the state from printing a newspaper or magazine.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/india/110628/india-free-speech-internet-laws

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Document on Technology and Skills Development in National Education and Training Systems in Africa

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from Yona Maro

GESCI has developed a new report presented at the ELA Ministerial Round Table. “Re-engineering Education and Training for Economic and Social Development in the 21st Century: A Focus on Technology and Skills Development in National Education and Training Systems in Africa”.

This paper argues for the re-engineering of education and training systems for sustainable socio-economic development. Africa has the largest percentage of young people in the world, with over sixty per cent of the population aged between 15 and 25 years old. African youth face very high unemployment rates, while also constituting a vast reservoir of talent, skills and opportunity. Such potential could be harnessed through smart interventions to create a productive workforce. Research in Sub-Saharan Africa shows that improved access to and quality of, skills development, is critical to addressing youth unemployment

Nevertheless, traditional educational practice fails to support the use of these technologies for addressing the challenges of youth training and skills development. Policy-makers need to respond by creating their own transformational initiatives to harness the technological revolution for the benefit of education and training.This paper seeks to look at national education and training systems in Sub-Saharan Africa and tease out key issues related to ICT and their integration to these systems. The paper also presents three case studies based on GESCI’s work within the Education and Training Sector of Kenya and Ghana. It is expected that these will provide practical examples that can complement the Roundtable participants’ own experiences within their respective countries.

http://www.gesci.org/new-publication-re-engineering-education-and-training-for-economic-and-social-development-in-the-21st-century-a-focus-on-technology-and-skills-development-in-national-education-and-training-systems-in-africa.html

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http://worldngojobs.blogspot.com/ Nafasi za Kazi Kimataifa

USA & World: USA Africa Dialogue Series – The Techy Story Of The Bin Laden Operation

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Forwarded by Yona Maro

Monday, May 2, 2011 4:04:00 AM EDT

Man unknowingly liveblogs Bin Laden operation

CAIRO (AP) — A computer programmer, startled by a helicopter clattering above his quiet Pakistani town in the early hours of the morning Monday, did what any social-media addict would do: he began sending messages to the social networking site Twitter.

With his tweets, 33-year-old Sohaib Athar, who moved to the sleepy town of Abbottabad to escape the big city, became in his own words “the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it.”

Soon the sole helicopter multiplied into several and gunfire and explosions rocked the air above the town, and Athar’s tweets quickly garnered 14,000 followers as he unwittingly described the U.S. operation to kill one of the world’s most wanted militants.

His first tweet was innocuous: “Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event).”

The noise alarmed Athar, who had moved to the upscale area of Abbottabad to get away from city life after his wife and child were badly injured in a car accident in the sprawling city of Lahore, according to his blog in July.

Nestled in the mountains around 60 miles (95 kilometers) northeast of the capital, Abbottabad is a quiet, leafy town featuring a military academy, the barracks for three army regiments and even its own golf course.

As the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden unfolded, Athar “liveblogged” what he was hearing in real time, describing windows rattling as bombs exploded.

He questioned whose helicopters might be flying overhead. “The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani,” he tweeted.

Athar then said one of the aircraft appeared to have been shot down. Two more helicopters rushed in, he reported.

Throughout the battle, he related the rumors swirling through town: it was a training accident. Somebody was killed. The aircraft might be a drone. The army was conducting door-to-door searches in the surrounding area. The sound of an airplane could be heard overhead.

Athar did not respond to media requests for comment — he explained in another tweet that a filter he set up to stop his e-mail box from flooding could be culling out requests for interviews.

Soon, however, the rumbling of international events far beyond the confines of this quiet upscale suburb began to dawn on Athar, and he realized what he might be witnessing.

“I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected,” he tweeted.

Eight hours and about 35 tweets later, the confirmation came: “Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan,” Athar reported. “There goes the neighborhood.”

Kenya: A young mother is sentenced to death by court martial for killing her husband

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Reports Leo Odera Omolo.

AS the court martial handed the death sentence to Judith Koriang on Wednesday afternoon, the mother stood still with teary eyes.

She bowed down as her eyes swept across the courtroom, from chairman Lt. Col. Eugene Sebugwawo to the other members of the 3rd Division army court.

Koriang, a 20-year-old widow with a young son, heard her fate sealed by the court martial sitting in Moroto. She was advised by the court to appeal against the death sentence within 14 days.

Koriang with her child after being sentenced to death by the court martial in Moroto

Koriang shot dead her husband, Pte. Nelson Okello, on May 1, 2009, at Nakiloro army detachment in Moroto district, a few kilometres to the Uganda-Kenya border, following a domestic fracas.

The discordant couple was residing in a makeshift hut, popularly known as mama ingia pole.

After Koriang tested HIV-positive and her husband negative, it triggered endless insults from the husband.

Koriang told the court that Okello was the only man she had known in life; and his persistent demand that she goes to the man who infected her, sent her mad.

On the fateful day, the husband went back home but refused to eat supper and asked her to leave. She narrated that she played it cool until midnight when she woke up to execute her mission.

She picked her husband’s gun stealthily and tiptoed out. She then sprayed bullets on the makeshift structure, knowing that by the time the gun went silent, her son and husband would be dead.

Miraculously, the son survived but the husband was hit by a few bullets out of the 30 she sprayed and died instantly.

“After all the mistreatment, the only answer was to kill my son and husband and then turn the gun on myself. Unfortunately, the gun ran shot of bullets,” Koriang told court.

She said after the shooting, she entered the hut and carried out the baby and started walking to Moroto Central Police Station, over 30km away, to hand herself in.

However, she got tired on the way and decided to rest at Rupa sub-county headquarters after walking for 20km in the night.

Koriang has been on remand in Moroto prison for 14 months. Pte. Francis Masereka said after the shooting, a search was mounted along the main road to Moroto and Koriang was found seated with her one-year-old baby and taken back to the detachment.

Pte. Ariama Okello, the immediate neighbour, said the quarrels started after a UPDF team of doctors tested soldiers for HIV and found that Koriang was positive yet the husband was negative.

After reading the judgement, the court chairman said a number of soldiers’ wives had killed their husbands.

“To cut the rising trend, Judith Koriang, I am sentencing you to suffer death as a deterrent to others planning the same act,” Ssebugwawo said.

After the ruling, Lt. Dan Madaba, her defence lawyer, allowed her to talk to her relatives briefly before she boarded a military truck to prison.

The 3rd Division army spokesperson, Capt. Deo Akiiki, yesterday explained that Koriang, a civilian, was tried in the military court because the UPDF Act allows anybody in the company of the armed forces, who uses firearms to commit a crime, to be tried by the court.

Koriang is the second woman to be sentenced to death by the court martial. The first was Grace Ichakuna from Bukedea, who participated in killing her husband in 2008.

There are about 500 inmates in Luzira and Kirinya prisons on death row. Some were sentenced by the army court and others by the civil courts.

End

India: Indian researcher shows faults in EVMs, gets arrested

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fromYona F Maro

Bangalore: Hari Prasad, the Managing Director of Netindia an Indian
research and development firm, on his refusal to disclose an anonymous
source who provided an electronic voting machine to a team of security
researchers was arrested. He and other researchers have long
questioned the security of India’s paperless electronic voting
machines. Despite repeated reports of election irregularities and
concerns about fraud, the Election Commission of India insists that
the machines are tamper-proof.

As per the reports Prasad was questioned Saturday morning at his home
in Hyderabad by authorities who wanted to know the identity of the
source who gave the voting machine to the research team. Prasad was
ultimately arrested and taken to Mumbai, though reportedly hadn’t been
charged with a crime.

In 2009, the commission publicly challenged Prasad to show that
India’s voting machines could be compromised, but refused to give him
access to the machines to perform a review. Earlier this year, an
anonymous source provided an Indian voting machine to a research team
led by Prasad, The team exposed security flaws that could allow an
attacker to change election results and compromise ballot secrecy.
They published a paper detailing their findings.

The Election Commission of India should have given researchers access
to the voting machines in the first place. Prasad is a respected
researcher who helped to discover a critical flaw in India’s voting
system. He and his fellow researchers would never have been able to
document the weaknesses in India’s voting machines without the help of
their anonymous source. This is precisely why anonymity is important:
it allows people to make important contributions to the public
dialogue without fear of retribution.

By http://www.siliconindia.com

Blogosphere: Sony PS3 stops supporting Linux

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from: PowerBeamSpacer

Mid May 2010 I came across a notable info-tech news item. Recall that Play Station 3, by Sony, has in recent times supported a feature whereby another operating system could be run on that hardware / software environment. Linux versions are notable examples.

Current news is that the vendor has now moved to stop supporting the ability for system owners to employ Linux operating system and associated open source applications. It is the most recent downloadable firmware update which implements this action. Unless data accessed via Linux, residing in that respective hard drive partition, such data would be lost upon update.

See link, (http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Hacks-Counter-Hacks-and-the-Linux-Free-PS3-69687.html?wlc=1274034674), and further links contained therein, for further info.

I agree with that article’s writer that Sony’s action in this matter is a bad move. It is one which would likely discourage me from considering an option to purchase that system. In general, I stand In Favor of open source software apps.

– – pbs – –

Beware a Computer attack…… “Black in the White House”

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Folks,

Just sharing this new alledge computer threat so you beware…….

PLEASE CIRCULATE to your friends, family and contacts.

In the coming days, Do not open any message With an attachment called: Black in the White House, Regardless of who sent you … It is a virus that opens an Olympic torch that burns the whole hard disk C of your computer.
This virus comes from a known person who you had in your list
Directions….. That’s why you should send this message to all your
Contacts.

It is better to receive this email 25 times to receive the virus and
Open .. If you receive a message called: black in the white house, even
Sent by a friend, do not open and shut down your machine immediately. It is the worst virus announced by CNN. A new virus has been discovered recently. It has been classified by Microsoft as the virus most Destructive ever. This virus was discovered yesterday afternoon By Mc Afee. And there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus Simply destroys the Zero Sector of the hard disk, where information Vital function is stored.

Thanks,

Judy Miriga
Diaspora Spokesperson
Executive Director
Confederation Council Foundation for Africa Inc.,
USA
http://socioeconomicforum50.blogspot.com

Kwa Matishio Haya Kampuni za Antivirus Zishirikiane

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Unakumbuka wakati ulikuwa unahitaji antivirus kwa ajili ya kutafuta virus ndani ya komputa ikishawapata itawaondoa kwa kuwafuta na pengine kufuta files ambazo zimeathirika na virus hao ? huo ulikuwa ni wakati wa kale kidogo kwa sasa mambo ni tofauti .

Kwa miaka 20 iliyopita watu wengi zaidi wamepata nafasi ya kutumia vifaa vya mawasiliano kama komputa na simu na aina zingine za mawasiliano hii ikalazimisha kampuni nyingi za ulinzi wa mitandao kuja na bidhaa za kupambana na uhalifu wa mitandao ndio hapo tukaanza kusikia Internet Security

Sasa kuna matishio kama spyware ambazo ni programu zinazoingia kwenye komputa kwa ajili ya kutafuta taarifa na kumtumia Yule anayehitaji au kulazimisha komputa yako na programu zake zifuate kile ambacho programu hiyo inataka kama kukupeleka kwenye tovuti fulani kwa lazima , wakati huo kupambana na spyware ulihitaji antispyware ambapo antispyware bora uliyokwepo mpaka sasa hivi ni adaware

Kuna keylogger ambazo ni programu zinazoweza kuhifadhi yale yote unayofanya kutumia keyboard ya komputa yako , kuna nyingine zinauwezo wa kuhifadhi jinsi unavyozungusha mouse ya kompyuta husika na vile unavyobonyeza au unavyofanya mabadiliko Fulani kwenye komputa hizo zamani kidogo vilikuwa ni vifaa vinavyofungwa kwenye komputa sasa imekuja kwenye programu .

Hata firewalls ambazo ni ukuta kati ya komputa na mitandao mengine duniani , firewalls zimekuwa na bahati mbaya kwa baadhi ya watu haswa wale wasiojua wanafanya nini kwa kulazimika kuruhusu vitu wasivyovijua au kutokuwa na taarifa nazo za kutosha .

Pamoja na hayo yote kuna Malware ambayo ni aina ya programu inayotengenezwa kwa ajili ya kuharibu utaratibu wa ufanyaji kazi wa komputa bila ya mtumiaji wa kompuya hiyo kujua tofauti na virus ambapo inaweza kuishi ndani ya komputa bila kuharibu kitu malware inauwezo wa kufanya uharibifu .

Ukaja wakati ambapo kampuni zinazotengeneza antivirus zikalazimika kubadilika kutoka kwenye programu inayofanya kazi moja peke yake yaani kupambana na virus tu , ikabidi sasa antivirus hizo kuunganisha programu zingine ambazo zingeweza kupambana na matishio mengine yanayoendelea haswa kwenye mitandao kwa njia ya mtandao .

Hapo ndipo tulipokuja kuona viongezeo mbalimbali kwenye programu nyingi za antivirus mfano kwenye mcafee kukawa na kiongezeo cha Advisor , Avg kuna Link Scanner , Symantec pamoja na Norton kuna viongezeo vipya kwa ajili ya matishio mengine ya usalama wa komputa na watumiaji wake kwa ujumla .

Pamoja na viongezeo vyote hivyo hali imezidi kuwa tete mpaka sasa hivi kwa sababu aina ya mashambulizi kwenye komputa yanabadilika kila siku na aina ya tekinologia za mashambulizi hayo zinabadilika mara kwa mara kampuni nyingi za kutengeneza antivirus zimeshindwa kwa kiasi kikubwa kuendana na mabadiliko haya kwa kiasi Fulani .

Nasema hivyo kwa sababu zile kampuni zilizokuwa zinashugulika na bidhaa ya aina moja kama LavaSoft iliyokuwa imewekeza sana kwenye Antispyware sasa imekuja na bidhaa mpya yenye uwezo wa kupambana na spyware pamoja na Antivirus kwa pamoja hii inaonyesha kwamba mtu anaweza kupenda zaidi Bidhaa za aina hii kuliko antivirus kama ilivyo zamani .

Kampuni kama ZoneAlarm ambayo ilikuwa imejikita sana katika kutengeneza programu za firewall sasa imeingiza firewall yenye antivirus maana yake ukiwa na zone alarm huhitaji tena antivirus labda kama hiyo antivirus haitoingiliana na ZoneAlarm katika utendaji wake wa kazi .

Kwahiyo tumekuja kuona sasa kwa kipindi cha sasa inabidi kampuni zinazohusika na utengenezaji wa programu hizi kushirikiana kwa kiasi kikubwa haswa kwenye database zao zinazohifadhi updates za programu zao kadhaa ili kuepuka hali ilivyosasa hivi .

Mfano unaweza kusoma toleo jipya la Virus Asubuhi ya leo kwenye tovuti ya AVG baada ya muda AVG wakawa na Dawa yake lakini itachukuwa muda kidogo kwa Symantec au Mcafee kuwa na dawa yake lakini hizo update zingekuwa zinaweza kutumika kwenye antivirus zote naamini tungefika mbali tishio jipya likija ni rahisi kushugulikia .

Ngoja tuone kwa kipindi cha Mwaka mmoja ujao hali inavyozidi kubadilika na matisho mapya yanavyozidi kutokea katika ulimwengu wa mitandao Mpaka sasa hivi hali imezidi kuwa ngumu kwa kampuni nyingi kutokana na jinsi wanavyotakiwa kushugulika na matishio mapya kila mara kuliko ilivyokuwa miaka 10 iliyopita .

—
Yona Fares Maro
I.T. Specialist and Digital Security Consultant

PRODUCTS THAT DIDN’T SURVIVE IN THE LAST DECADE

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PRODUCTS THAT DIDN’T SURVIVE IN THE LAST DECADE
Yona Fares Maro
Sun, Dec 20, 2009

Several of the best-funded and most-publicized tech launches of the last ten years have ended in failure. Many large technology companies which had significant market share and product advantages in large industries lost those advantages.

I looked at both start-ups and products introduced by companies that did not survive to create a list of the most colossal tech failures of the last decade. To make the list, a product had to be widely recognized and widely available to customers. It had to be aimed at a large global market. It had to be technologically equal to or superior to its competition. It had to be a product or new company that had the possibility of bringing in billions of dollars in revenue based on the sales of similar or competing products. Finally, it had to clearly miss the mark of living up to the potential that its creators expected, and that the public and press were lead to believe was possible.

1) Microsoft (MSFT) Vista was released worldwide on January 30, 2007. It was the most recent generation of the flagship product of the world’s largest software company. Vista was created to improve the security of the most widely used PC operating system in the world. The securities features were not much better than the previous versions of Windows based on most reviews of the software. Vista was also not compatible with a number of older PCs which limited the number of users who were likely to upgrade from the earlier version of Windows, known as XP. Many analysts claim that Vista also ran more slowly on PCs than XP. All of these factors prevented Vista from being viewed as clearly better than its predecessors. According to research site Net Applications, as of last month Vista’s global share of PC operating systems was less than 24%. Windows XP had 62% of the market and Apple’s (AAPL) OS X product had over 9%. When Vista was launched, PC Magazine said, “Call it a nice-to-have product rather than a must-have.” Microsoft recently announced its first quarterly revenue drop in 23 years. The day of the earnings release CNNMoney observed, “Microsoft’s Vista operating system, which was released in early 2007, never took off like the company had hoped. Sales in the division that produces Vista fell 16% in the previous quarter. User satisfaction has been underwhelming, and IT departments have largely opted to stick with Vista’s predecessor, Windows XP.” The company is rushing Vista’s replacement, Windows 7, to market and hopes to have it out by the end of the year.

2) Gateway was founded in 1985 and was one of the most successful PC companies in the US. Its sales quadrupled in 1990. By 2004, it was No. 3 in US market share behind Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Dell (DELL) and had 25% of the retail PC business. But, by 2007 Gateway was in such poor shape that Acer was able to buy it for $710 million. Gateway’s failure has been blamed on several things, primarily its reluctance to enter the laptop business. Its share of the desktop business was strong through the early part of the decade, but it did not shift to portable computers as fast as its major competitors did. Gateway was also slow in entering the business of selling PCs to enterprises, a formula which drove most of the growth at Dell for many years. Gateway tried to diversify by moving into consumer electronics, but the profits were poor and this decision only hurt the firm’s margins. GigaOm wrote when Gateway was sold, “The $710 million price tag is quite a comedown from the mid-1990s, when Gateway and Dell (DELL) were spoken of in the same breath and commanded mega-billion dollars in market capitalization.”

3) HD DVD was one of two formats for high definition DVDs. The other format was Blu-ray. HD DVD specifications were put in place in 2002. Negotiations among consumer electronics companies to have only one product for playing high definition discs ended when there was no consensus about royalties. HD DVD was primarily funded and marketed by Toshiba and NEC and was first released as a consumer product in 2006. When HD DVD was first launched, it had a sales lead over Blu-ray. Industry analysts say that Toshiba lost almost $1 billion supporting the format before abandoning it in 2008. There are a number of reasons that the HD-DVD format lost out to Blu-ray, which was championed by Sony (SNE). The most commonly cited explanation is that Sony did a better job convincing major film studios to release high definition editions of movies for Blu-ray. Sony may have had an advantage because it owns one of the largest studios. Analysts believe that when Sony got Warner Brothers to adopt Blu-ray exclusively, it won the battle against HD DVD. Toshiba had several explanations for the failure of its product. One of those that it mentioned most often was that the digital video download business hurt sales of physical DVD players. That argument does not carry much weight because downloads should have hurt Blu-ray just as much. The final blow to HD DVD was probably when Wal-Mart (WMT) decided to stop offering the format in favor of Blu-ray. There has been no compelling analysis as to why Blu-ray survived and HD DVD did not. One thing is certain. Sony was willing to continue to spend money even though the future of high definition disks was not assured, and that risk is not over. Blu-ray is still not a staple in most consumer entertainment systems.

4) Vonage (VG) was the grandfather of voice-over-IP (VoIP). It is now hardly a footnote in the growth of the industry which is currently dominated by products from cable companies and free services, primarily from Skype, which had 405 million registered users at the end of 2008 and produced $551 million in revenue. eBay (EBAY), Skype’s parent, plans to take the VoIP company public next year. In the first quarter of this year, Vonage did little better than breakeven on revenue of $224 million, which was flat compared with the same period a year earlier. The predecessor company to Vonage began operating in 2000. The company faced early legal challenges, but cleared a hurdle when a federal judge ruled that it could not be regulated as a traditional telecom company. Using venture capital, Vonage aggressively marketed its services as an inexpensive alternative to standard dial up phones. The firm was successful enough that it raised $531 million through an IPO in May 2006. The offering price was $17. By December, it was trading at $1 a share due to pressure from cable competitors and poor earnings. Vonage also faced lawsuits over some of its intellectual property. Settlements cost the company tens of millions of dollars. Vonage is no longer growing. In contrast, cable giant Comcast (CMCSA) now has 6.8 million VoIP customers and added almost 300,000 in the last quarter.

5) YouTube is the largest video sharing site in the world. According to comScore, 99.7 million viewers watched 5.9 billion videos on YouTube.com in the US during March 2009. In November 2006, Google (GOOG) bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. There is a fairly good chance that the search company will never get a return on that investment. YouTube has not come up with a model to make money by either selling advertising or charging for premium content, even though it has an a enormous audience and library of content. Most of the video content placed on YouTube is of such low quality that marketers are reluctant to marry it with their messages. Google has said, in regulatory filings, that YouTube revenue is “not material.” Forbes estimated that the site’s 2008 sales were $200 million. Bear Stearns put YouTube’s 2008 domestic revenue at $90 million. Recently, Credit Suisse estimated that YouTube will lose $470 million this year primarily due to the costs of the storage and bandwidth required to run the website. The same analyst said that YouTube will bring in $240 million this year, but that is only up 20% from 2008. If this analysis is even close to correct, YouTube would have to triple its revenue to breakeven. The New York TimesYour browser may not support display of this image. recently wrote that “while YouTube, along with other new media properties like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, is seen as leading the challenge against traditional media companies, the company itself is struggling to profit from its digital popularity.” YouTube is big, but that has not made it a success.

6) Sirius XM (SIRI) satellite radio was supposed to be one of the most successful consumer electronics devices of all time. A subscriber would be able to listen to more than 100 stations coast-to-coast in either a moving vehicle, or using a portable version of the device. Initially, the service planned to run no commercials. One of the two companies that would eventually be the merged Sirius XM was XM Satellite Radio which launched its service in September 2001. At the end of the year, the company had almost 28,000 subscribers, a figure that jumped to about 350,000 by the end of the 2002 and 5.9 million by the end of 2005. Over this period, the company accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars of debt in order to cover capital expenses, operating deficits, and sales and marketing costs. Analysts expected the company to be extremely profitable once it reached subscriber levels of more than 10 million. The business was growing so quickly that this goal seemed a foregone conclusion. Rival Sirius launched its service in July 2002. Over the next five years, it would have fewer subscribers than XM but would grow nearly as fast. Sirius also took on tremendous amounts of debt to support its operations. As both companies ran low on money, they announced a merger on February 17, 2007. The FCC reviewed the request for thirteen months while the companies were bleeding cash. Subscriber growth had slowed, most likely because of new and more popular consumer electronics devices like the Apple iPod and multimedia cellular handsets. Shares in Sirius, which had traded at $63 in 2000, dropped to $.05 earlier this year. In the first quarter of 2009, the number of subscribers for the combined service declined by 400,000 from the previous quarter to 18.6 million. Neither Sirius nor XM ever made a dime.

7) Microsoft’s (MSFT) Zune was launched in November 2006. The world’s largest software company believed that it could compete with the Apple (AAPL) iPod, which had been in the market since 2001 and dominated the multimedia player and music download business around the world. Apple had sold well over 100 million iPods, when the Zune was launched. Microsoft was able to get the four largest music labels to sign licensing agreements with the company. Sales were dreadful during the first several months after the launch. Bloomberg Television said that between the launch date and mid-2007 only 1.2 million Zune players were sold. In May 2008, Microsoft said that it had sold two million players since its launch. The Wall Street Journal reported that revenue from the Zune player was $85 million during the 2008 holiday season compared to $185 million in the same period in 2007. Apple’s iPod revenue during the last quarter of 2008 was $3.37 billion. Microsoft, which had access to as much hardware development expertise as any company in the world and the capital to support a massive marketing budget for new products failed completely in its attempt to get a large part of the iPod market.

8) Palm (PALM) produced both a portable wireless device and an operating system for portable hardware devices and desktops. Palm launched its Palm Pilot hardware device in 1996 as a personal organizer. In 1999, it released its Palm V. The Palm Treo smartphone was developed by Handspring which Palm acquired. In the quarter that ended in September 2005, Palm sold 470,000 Treo units, up 160% from the same quarter the year before. At that point, three companies dominated the smartphone market: Palm, Research-In-Motion, maker of the Blackberry, and cell phone giant Nokia (NOK). By the September 2007 quarter, Treo sales had only moved up to 689,000, but sales of the Blackberry hit almost 3.2 million and the newly launched Apple (AAPL) iPhone sold more than a million units during the same period after it debuted on June 29 of that year. Palm, one of the earliest makers of smartphones, was unable to follow up its success in the personal organizer business. Analysts pointed to the fact that the company was slow to realize that consumers wanted wireless voice and data from the same device. According to ZDNet, “Palm just couldn’t find the formula for over-the-air synchronization with Microsoft Outlook, which business users demand and RIM nailed with its BlackBerry device.” Palm also suffered from multiple product delays. The company will launch the next versions of its hardware, the Pre, later this year. Palm’s stock traded for $669 late in 2000. Today, the shares trade for $11. Shares in Apple and RIMM are up between 200% and 300% over the same period. Palm could not translate its lead in one form of consumer electronics device to another.

9) Iridium, the global satellite phone company backed by Motorola (MOT), filed for bankruptcy in 1999, after the company had spent $5 billion to build and launch its infrastructure of satellites to provide worldwide wireless phone service. At the time, it was one of the 20 largest bankruptcies in US history. To work properly, the system needed 66 satellites. The creation of this enormous system forced the company to default on $1.5 billion of debt. The service had been such a failure that it only had 10,000 subscribers. This was, in part, due to technical difficulties with Iridium’s first handsets. According to a Dartmouth Tuck Business School case study on the history of Iridium in 1998, the company forecast that it would have 500,000 subscribers by the following year. But, the service was expensive for customers, and the cellular phone business had started to take hold as its infrastructure was built out in most of the large developed countries. An Iridium handset cost $3,000 and talk time was as much as $5 a minute. Cellular service was not as broadly available, but it was far less expensive.Technology difficulties also made the service unpopular. Because Iridium’s technology depended on line-of-sight between the phone antenna and the orbiting satellite, subscribers were unable to use the phone inside moving cars, inside buildings, and in many urban areas.

10) The Segway two-wheel personal transportation vehicle was launched in 2002. When the product was launched, the head of Segway said it “will be to the car what the car was to the horse and buggy”. Famous venture capitalist John Doerr said that Segway sales might hit $1 billion as fast as any company in history. The company spent about $100 million developing the product. Segway did not understand that its price point, well above $3,000 for most models and $7,000 for some, was too high to draw a mass consumer base. The other major unforeseen problem is that the Segway was classified as a road vehicle in some countries requiring licensing, while it was illegal to use on roads in other nations. From 2001 to the end of 2007, the company only sold 30,000 units of its two-wheeled scooter.