ARTICLES

UON DEMO N MEDIA

The UoN demo of 10/3/09 was a very peaceful, mature an successful demonstration-a good example to kenyans. However it made us learn and be aware that the kenyan media is all about evil reports.No single media was there to commend how we conducted ourselves maturely in the busy Nairobi CBD without no reportable bad incident-no property touched from the campus to Uhuru park to kenya poly to KICC to vigilance house to Harambee house to the judiciary and finally to central police station after visiting media houses to address our grievances to top govt officials such as Mutua.wako and Hussein Ali.These were never reported by the media but all they could see was the few civilians who took the advantage of the commotion to have some loaves and milk for their hungry stomach-just a coincidental minute incident! shame on citizen and Ntv. Big Kudos to K 24 and Ktn who covered the whole story and made our plea reach a wanjiku or otieno somewhere>Were it not for the tear gases that came from the police later in the day, no stone could have been thrown but bcoz these condemned impunity activists will always agitate peaceful kenyans some bad incidences will always occur.Ali should control his Boys otherwise no peaceful demo wll ever happen in Kenya.Big kudos to agwambo who defended our right of expression!Kenya it is high time you be a feeling nation and the top security organ shold cease to be the top security threat to citizens.
Take a look at the picture above and tell us where exactly we went wrong.If weeping and morning to quench anger is a synonym for looting and stoning motorists!





2.Food shortage catastrophe invading the world:

EVEN THOUGH the world has quite rightly been consumed by the issues on credit markets, an insidious problem is creeping up on us that could affect the world for decades if serious and appropriate measures are not put into use.
There could be ongoing food shortages that go well beyond current concerns on food security, and which will result in regional unrest and conflict as some may put it “ a hungry man is an angry man”. Take for instance the underlying issue of wheat, which shows that world stocks of wheat have been on a downward trend for 4 decades. This trend has continued in the past three years even though we have had two of the largest wheat crops in history during that time. arse grains (corn/maize, sorghum, oats, barley and triticale) and rice over the past 10 years, which means that it covers all of the key grains in the human food supply chain. This is only the surface
The same general trend has occurred in the co problem — we must delve deeper to get a true picture.
The shortage in grain supply and demand has led to significant price rises over the past 18 months. The price of maize for instance doubled in Kenya hardly two months ago. This prompted the government to bar the maize export and instead import maize and sell the same at subsidized prices to the local citizens, which is a big threat to the economic achievement in the country. The big question is “What is wrong with our agricultural practice?” Any Tom, Dick and Harry will rush into pegging the problem on the poor climatic conditions of our land without considering ways in which alternatives can be cropped out to enhance agricultural production. The blame game must therefore be terminated and proper focus made on efficient modern and scientific methods of doing agriculture to curb the crisis. Science, engineering and technology innovations must therefore be welcomed in Agricultural sector to end the problem of unreliable climatic conditions as in the case of agriculturally developed countries such as Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
World population is projected to grow significantly over the next 30-40 years, with the United Nations medium population forecast predicting that world population will be more than 9 billion in 2050, an increase of more than 2.6 billion since 2005.
Despite of the highlighted number of problems but not limited to those, there is light at the end of the tunnel. However, this is no reason for complacency because compared with historical demand, we have a different picture ahead that could fundamentally change the relationship between supply and demand. It is possible that the world agricultural system could cope with this increase through normal productivity improvements, but two other large demand factors are coming into play just as we appear to be approaching limits on arable land and water.
The first of these is that we are seeing exponential growth in world affluence, which means a lot more people will have a lot more money. This sounds great, but it will have a significant effect on food supply because history shows us that as people become more affluent they move from subsistence living on tubers and vegetables, to eating more cereals, and then to eating far more animal protein.
Due to limitations on available land and our depletion of wild fish stocks, any significant increase in animal protein production will have to come from feeding grain and plant protein to animals and fish.
Consequently grain demand will rise even further because it takes a lot more grain to feed an animal than it does for us to survive on the cereals.
The second major new demand factor is the significant push for biofuels in response to climate change and fears of peak oil. As an example, the US ethanol industry alone will use 104 million tonnes of corn next year to produce ethanol. That is 100% of average annual world coarse grain trade and 6.4% of global cereal grain production.
The factors we have described have been discussed by many people, but what will happen has not been fully grasped by anybody. What this means is that demand for cereals is accelerating away from us in a different way — so the global food supply will be significantly different.
Where we differ on our forecasts is that we believe we will be living on the edge of massive food shortages for the foreseeable future. The logic behind this is that we believe global tightness in grain stocks will remain for a long time, albeit it with some volatility.
This means the world will be exposed to the risk of a poor harvest for a large part of the foreseeable future. The way the market is likely to play out is as follows If farmers produce more grain, then the price will fall back in the short term. This in turn will encourage more people to push cereals into biofuels and into animals. At the same time, grain farmers will get reduced price signals so grain production growth will slow. In time this means that global stocks will fall again, prices will rise and the cycle will repeat itself.
In essence, supply and demand will roughly track each other with periodic widening and narrowing of the gap.
This leads us to the main problem. The world food supply chain is a less than perfect market where signals and responses are separated in time due to the biological nature of the system and significant impacts of climatic conditions...
If global supply and demand remain very close over the long term and climate change increases climatic variability, it is highly likely we will get several years in the next 25 years where there will be a catastrophic tightness in world cereal stocks. The tightness in global stocks will be exacerbated by trade restrictions and hoarding by countries with surplus cereals.



3.Energy crisis catastrophe invading the world:

EVEN THOUGH the world has quite rightly been consumed by the issues on credit markets, an insidious problem is creeping up on us that could affect the world for decades if serious and appropriate measures are not put into use. There could be ongoing energy crisis that go well beyond current concerns on food security, and which will result in regional unrest and conflict as energy forms the basis of a country’s economic advancement.
Energy crisis is a situation in which the nation suffers from a disruption of energy supplies (in our case, oil) accompanied by rapidly increasing energy prices that threaten economic and national security. The threat to economic security is represented by the possibility of declining economic growth, increasing inflation, rising unemployment, and losing billions of dollars in investment. The threat to national security is represented by the inability of the government to exercise various foreign policy options, especially in regard to countries with substantial oil reserves. For example, the recent disruption of Venezuelan oil supplies may limit the US policy options toward Iraq.
Kenya, for example, has documented the vision 2030 which without proper concerns on the environmental management and energy conservation will all be in vain. The energy crisis is pegged on the socio-economic variables in the region due to reversed roles of men and women in developing countries. The damage of the environment is a chronic devastating activity on the efforts to conserve the worsening situation of our environment.
A glance at the global energy situation reveals that various measures of US energy security indicate that the US is heading for an energy crisis. Many of the warning signs that existed before the energy crises of 1973 and 1979 exist today and they indicate that the current situation could be even worse. US dependence on petroleum imports has grown steadily for over a decade and has been at record levels for several years. Petroleum inventories are low and the ability of Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) and commercial petroleum stocks to cope with an interruption in imports matches the historic lows preceding the 1973 and 1979 energy crises.
The potential for an energy crisis has never been higher. Oil prices have recently exceeded $80 per barrel and they may continue to increase. The disruption of Venezuelan oil supplies has increased the US dependence on Middle Eastern oil and made the US more susceptible to supply interruption. With the crisis in Venezuela, the capacity of OPEC to meet any additional supply interruption is limited and a war with Iraq would put OPEC at its limit. Any energy crisis in the near future will hinder President Obama’s efforts to improve the economy of the US. An energy crisis could cause a recession, inflation, and higher unemployment as in the case of Kenya where petrol goes for above kshs 70.00 per litre. This has lead to much higher increase in food prices and thus higher living standards.
Looking at the two energy crises of 1973 and 1979, we find some common elements between the two. Both events:
1. Started with political turmoil in some of the oil producing countries. 2. were associated with low oil stocks. 3. were associated with high import concentration from a small number of suppliers. 4. were associated with declining US petroleum production. 5. were associated with high dependency on oil imports. 6. were associated with low level of oil industry spending 7. Led to speculation 8. Caused an economic downturn 9. Limited US policy options in the Middle East

The same indicators and warning signs that existed prior to the energy crises of 1973 and 1979 exist today: a political crisis in Venezuela that halted most of the Venezuelan oil exports, the threat of war with Iraq, stocks at their lowest level in twenty six years, imports nearly record high, more concentrated imports than ever, and low upstream expenditures. However, the current problem is even worse than the previous two energy crises because, unlike the 1970s, we are starting from a case of low economic growth.
The big question that outcrops is,” what can we put in place to curb this chronic problem?” A lot of measures need to be taken by first encouraging the use of renewable sources of energy such as the solar energy and the wind power. Simultaneously energy sources that lead to encroachment and destruction of our environment must be eliminated at all costs and the government must take the lead in homing in on this issue. This is involve the use of chacoal

SONU X-RAY

When asked to give a view of the SONU body most will lay deaf ears to this because the views are obviously not sweet to the ears, “Why” is not a question in this issue but the truth of the matter is that the University of Nairobi doesn’t have a student body or if it has then something is missing some where. Or should I say imperfections and flaws are rampant in it.

Now that the sonu politics is dawning and every willing aspirant is gathering slogans, quotes, crummed speeches, philosophical statements,… name them from books and well off speakers like Obama, Lumumba- just to mention the few and not limited to those. Along side these they have to solicit for finance from their relatives, Mps and sponsors for those who are lucky enough-the likes of those who were born on Sunday. With these, they shall have armed themselves enough to attack the very SONU and put it on the wrong promising to positively “change it” when they get to power. These are the times they confer with the other comrades that for real SONU is dead and that they are going to raise it-Oh NO our esteemed chosen few, You cant be God or do you people want to be small gods in the world ?If yes dial 666.

The worrying quiz will be then why do “our” sonu leaders fail to lead and instead mislead and turn into shameless thieves- robbing from their fellow comrades with impunity in broad day light in the name of representing the university students just because they want to raise their economic power and enhance their political influence so as to gain favor in days to come in the national matters where avenues for amassing wealth shall be how much is your influence and how well can you play your ball given the court and time under standard temperature and pressure. Another comrade Samuel Otieno in Kabete pesa describe them as “These SONU officials are just shameless conmen trotting the globe in mere teenage excitement!!” he adds by a quiz “Do SONU people think they can hoodwink us, or bambozal us.....we are not gonna let them play the ok dokey on us”. God condemn, No am sorry I wanted to say God have mercy, No, God forbid! Did you get the quiz?

The answer is very simple: the fact that sonu has become a political forum and not a student organization is the most triggering mechanism to this condemned unethical act. It has become a give and take kind of business where aspirant confuse fellow comrades with Muratz,chang’aa and few notes of bribery in the name of ‘goonship’ fee-these monies they have to recover within the eleven months of their presence in the offices of “duties” not to consider how well they are, in terms of free accommodation and monthly appreciation of their unworthy service in form of cash. But how do they effect this?

It takes them nothing but to guess and come up with white elephant projects in the name of considering the welfare of students and to hire excellent proposal writers in the vicinity-some even pay for a course on proposal writing to ensure success in their selfish request. The monument of this is always a good package, and they have decided to brand it a name JACK POT-a term used to denote the big cash they receive as reward to their good for nothing projects-Just to ask what have the soon outgoing sonu officials achieved worth classifying in nation building and economy improvement? The obvious un debatable genuine answer is NOTHING and this is the reason we call them officials and not leaders.In order for them to amass more they collude with the administration, for instance after a good talk, they decided to add more tax on the students by increasing the student union fee- an act that created a lot of confusion during the start of this 08/09 academic year. Sorry if am over judging them but the cat must be let out of the basket for a better tomorrow. What can we do now?

As many will confer with me, the campaign rallies are one thing that must be stooped at all cost. These are the areas they get the podia to infiltrate the ears of our democracy loving comrades with propaganda in the name of gaining fame and searching for votes. Out of this confusion following their perfectly memorized speeches, fellow students are lured to vote on the basis of where an aspirant is originating and how well he/ she has funded his/her campaigns. So long as comrades will still be swayed to vote by their stomach and not their heads, then these hyenas in sheep wool will still continue misleading them. Others even are too disillusioned to vote on how beautiful or handsome an aspirant is appearing in the poster-very absurd!In this era an university should not be a place to train shameless robbers at the expense of practicing politics.A better way of having the leaders in the student union should be invented. Or if possible do away with the sonu thing-after all it is not for students.

Faculty associations should therefore be given more mandate and better funds allocated to them since as at now they seem to be reflecting what a student would wish an association to offer for him/ her. The saddening thing is that even the faculty associations are also influenced in one way or the other by the so called sonu.

FELLOW ENGINEERING COMRADES it takes more than a hand to harvest the honey-kidole kimoja hakivunji chawa. Lets join hands in good spirits to build ESA together as it has always been a good avenue for more knowledge and adventure. ACES is another gainful association for civil engineering students. i.e Association of Civil Engineering Students. Lets sign up!However, watch out as the sonu politics descend and let your sober mind advise you on what to do.I having been involved in the sonu politics I have come to know the several flaws in it and I promised myself that unless comrades change their mind and start reasoning as change initiators then I would let sonu be thrown to the dogs.And if the system cant change, then our beloved Nation will still be regarded as a place where it is a crime to be good!Change is no change when the mindset is not changed-mark my words!