By David Ochami & Philip Mwakio (The Standard, Kenya)

Kenya is fast becoming a key hub for trafficking of drugs from Afghanistan to the rest of the world.

According to reports by the United Nations, “30 to 35 metric tonnes” of Afghan heroin pass through East Africa each year.

This is two-thirds the volume going through West Africa. The largest ever drug haul in Kenya, in December 2004, was 1.1 metric tonnes with a street value of over Sh13 billion.

The proceeds from the drugs are used to finance terrorism activities in Northern Africa and some other sub-Saharan states. It is also suspected that the illicit drug trade supports the unending conflict in neighbouring Somalia.

The Taliban, among whom the world’s most notorious terrorist Osama bin Laden hides, are reported to earn $100 million (Sh8 billion) a year from protecting the drug trade. Drug barons are rumoured to sit in Afghan government positions raking in billions more. The UN puts the potential export value of Afghan narcotics at about $3.4 billion (Sh270 billion) a year. So much is grown that destroying it all is impossible: With stockpiles of 10,000 metric tonnes awaiting export, the UN this year proposed creating a “flood of drugs” in the country to destroy the value of opium.

Experts say the availability of drugs in Kenyan cities is fueling addiction and spread of HIV and Aids in towns like Mombasa and Nairobi.

The UN says that countries in East and West Africa, including Kenya, are no longer only consumers of drugs but are turning into processing hubs for hard drugs. Some states are “threatened” by the increasing clout of drug cartels.

Last evening, Judith Odhiambo who heads the Anti-Narcotics Unit of the Kenya Police acknowledged a surge in seizures of drug hauls but it was not clear whether that is a result of better law enforcement or an increase in trafficking through Kenya.

“Seizures are rising now,” she said in a brief interview. She did not, however, have definite figures of trends and added she needs to read the UN report first.

The UN says heroin is replacing cocaine whose supply has been going down. Last year 80 per cent of the world’s opium (used to make heroin) came from Afghanistan. Production is up over 239 per cent since 2003, according to US government estimates. Most states preferred by traffickers lack money to implement anti-narcotics strategies.

On November 24, a ministerial declaration supporting UN efforts against drugs and organised crime was signed in Kenya. Dated December 8, the report quotes Antonio Maria Costa, the Executive Director on the UN Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) as saying: “Drugs are enriching not only organized crime but also terrorists and other anti-Government forces,”

He describes the situation as a worrisome development.

“In East Africa…30 to 35 tonnes of Afghan heroin [are] trafficked each year causing a dramatic increase in heroin addiction and spreading of HIV and Aids in the slums of Nairobi and Mombasa.”

The official said the rise is also connected to state failure in Somalia.

“Mainly because of the drastic situation in Somalia, he said, East Africa was becoming a free economic zone for all sorts of trafficking — drugs, migrants, guns, hazardous wastes and natural resources.”

West Africa has traditionally been associated with the international drug trade but Kenya now leads states in East Africa that have emerged as favourites for drug traffickers.

A UN Security Council meeting on global cooperation in fighting international drug trafficking was told that narcotic laboratories are increasingly finding homes in Africa.

The UN bulletin, which reported on the meeting, says that such laboratories have already been found in countries such as Guinea-Bissau. The country’s Cabinet is so compromised, it is referred to as the world’s first “narco-state.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon told the meeting that international drug trade is fuelling brutal conflicts, corruption and other crimes besides undermining the rule of law.

The UN chief said in some poor nations proceeds of drug trade distort Gross Domestic Product and disclosed that global co-operation to fight the narcotics menace lags behind cooperation between or among criminal groups.

The CEO of the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (Nacada) Jennifer Kimani says there is a rising consumption of heroin in Kenya owing to its availability and affordability on the market.

“There is a rise in demand for heroin because it is cheap and available,” she says and adds supply and abuse of the drug has risen lately beyond the traditional Coast province to Kenya’s hinterland.

The Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya According to the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) lack of goodwill from the government was derailing efforts to contain the menace.

“A good example is the Kenyan Coast which has seen the number of youths hooked to illegal drugs on the increase. It is religious leaders and to some extent provincial administration officials who are trying to eradicate drug use here,” Sheikh Mohamed Khalifa, CIPK organising secretary said.

He added that certain individuals known to be involved in drug trade are in good books with senior Government officials who act to protect them arrest.

But Sheikh Juma Ngao, a Nacada director, points an accusing finger at western nations which have reneged on their role to help stop supply of drugs to developing countries.

“There is need to have stiffer international laws in place that could deter transfer and or transportation of drugs to countries like Kenya in the first place,” Sheikh Ngao said.

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   Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni Supports The Bill
   Note: Museveni Wears Body & Head (The Hat!) Armor 24/7
The draft anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009 tabled by legislator David Bahati seeks to impose strict sanctions on homosexuality and proposes long jail terms and/or death for anyone who engages in it or who aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage in it.

Uganda is largely evangelical and very Bible-based — with American evangelists in the country claiming that homosexuality is evil and sinful.

One such leader is the US-based Rick Warren who allegedly told Ugandans that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. [ READ MORE ]

George Bush’s 2003 $15 billion to fight AIDS in developing countries — provided an opening for evangelical Christians who previously did little to nothing about aids — to invade these third world nations, with their message of hate and intolerance — while hiding behind Bush’s “AID.”

Helen Epstein wrote in April 2008: While Catholic and Protestant churches have been running AIDS programs since the 1980s, few evangelical Christian groups have done so. Indeed, as the deadly virus spread around the world, many evangelical Christians were silent or worse. Jerry Falwell called AIDS God’s judgment on promiscuity, and former Senator Jesse Helms, a longtime congressional ally of the evangelicals, told The New York Times in 1995 that AIDS funding should be reduced because homosexuals contract the disease through their “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.” [ READ MORE ]

U.S. Ties To Anti-Gay Bill in Uganda

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill Analyzed

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

References:

1. Kill all gays! Jammeh issues new threats. Iran supports Jammeh’s threats!!
2. Bush using Darfur, Aids to salvage failed Presidency
3. Christian Cowards: Why Don’t Evangelical Leaders Condemn the Hate Spouted by Right-Wingers?

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Prostitution has been around forever, and it continues to thrive even in countries with draconian punishment for prostitutes and their clients. Prostitution will never be wiped out, all governmental efforts to get rid of it are doomed to fail. There will always be guys who are too horny, and girls who are desperate for money to make ends meet.

The world’s oldest profession is here to stay, and it’s time that we accepted this reality. If the sex trade is legalized, taxed and regulated, it will benefit society it many ways.

Working girls not only stimulate their customers, but they also stimulate the economy. Unfortunately, when prostitution is illegal it’s the underground economy that benefits. Right now it’s only pimps and other scum who profit from the sex industry. But if sex for money is legalized and taxed society would benefit. The legalization of prostitution is the right tonic for our ailing economy.

Fighting prostitution is a very expensive endeavor that we can no longer afford at a time when our economy is in a crisis mode. Instead of wasting the taxpayer’s money on police manpower and defense attorneys, revenue should be used to create jobs and in other ways that will stimulate the economy.

In Nevada where prostitution is legal is some municipalities, the rates of STD’s have gone down because in legal brothels the hardworking ladies and their customers are forced to practice safe sex. Legalizing prostitution will results in fewer cases of STD’s, and we will save millions in fighting AIDS and other STDs.

It’s not only our economy that’s in a bad fix, our criminal justice system is in a shambles. Our constitution promises a speedy trial to a defendant, but sometimes defendants languish in jails for weeks and even months waiting for trial. If prostitution is legalized there won’t be thousands of prostitutes and Johns tying up the criminal justice system.

Arresting and prosecuting prostitutes is an exercise in futility, the working girls pay their fines and immediately return to the streets. Arresting streetwalkers doesn’t work as a deterrent, the girls view arrest as an unavoidable nuisance of their profession.

I hope that this article convinces rational people that legalized, regulated and taxed prostitution benefits the working girls in particular and society in general.

Money for sex transactions between consenting adults should be allowed to occur in a controlled, clean and safe environment. Both prostitutes and their customers would benefit from legalized prostitution.

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“Sub-Saharan Africa is more heavily affected by HIV and AIDS than any other region of the world. An estimated 22 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2007 and approximately 1.9 million additional people were infected with HIV during that year. In just the past year, the AIDS epidemic in Africa has claimed the lives of an estimated 1.5 million people in this region. More than eleven million children have been orphaned by AIDS.” http://www.avert.org/aafrica.htm

The economy isn’t the only seemingly insurmountable problem that our nation and the world faces. AIDS has devastated many countries in Africa, and Washington DC is suffering an epidemic of HIV/AIDS worse than some African countries, with 3% over over-12-year-old persons infected.

When a religious or political leader visits Africa it’s incumbent upon him to address the AIDS epidemic and offer words of hope and promises of help.

On his first trip to Africa the pontiff exacerbated the AIDS crisis by declaring that condoms were not a solution to the AIDS epidemic – but were instead part of the problem.

There is no cure for AIDS and there is no fail-safe protection (other than abstinence) against the deadly disease. But physicians and scientists agree that condoms offer reliable protection from AIDS and other STD’s.

According to the Associated Press Pope Benedict said the following during his Africa trip:

“AIDS is a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, and that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems”.

The Vatican bans the use of condoms and touts abstinence as the only way to fight AIDS. Abstaining from sex is not an option, sex is a moral and spiritual imperative for normal and healthy persons – regardless if they are single or married.

The Pope has witnessed firsthand the impossibility of maintaining a celibate lifestyle. Priests are forbidden to have normal heterosexual or homosexual relationships, and their pent-up sexuality manifests itself in horrific crimes against young boys.

The Pope has failed miserably as a religious and political leader, his words if taken to heart will result in thousands more Africans dying of AIDS. The Pope will remain true to his Neanderthal dogma, even if it results in the deaths of multitudes.

The peoples of Africa and the world should listen to physicians for advice on how to fight epidemics, they should certainly not pay heed to a religious leader with a penchant for wearing a dunce cap.

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   Columnist – John Sammon
The controversy over Reverend Wright and his torpedoing of the campaign of his parishioner Barack Obama proves how childish and paranoid the American people have become.

If this happened in Europe, Europeans being more sophisticated and somewhat more intelligent on average than Americans, there would be no controversy. Europeans wouldn’t hold Obama accountable for the statements of his pastor.

We’re operating under the allusion that if Wright says it, Obama believes it too. Guilt by association. It’s amusing to hear McCain call Wright’s remarks extremist, a few months after he sang a Beach Boys song, “bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran (sung to the tune of Barbara Ann).

Nobody called McCain’s sick joke extremist.

What has Wright said? Wright has the right to say it. He said instead of God bless America, God should damn America. In fairness. If the truth be known. Some of America should be damned. Such as the below.

1. America annihilated its Indian population and stole their land.

2. Americans kept others in slavery and then after a war to end it, kept African Americans in virtual servitude for the next hundred years with racist segregation.

3. Other crimes including Agent Orange for which there is not space here.

Wright called America an “imperialist” power. Well. We are. At times. We have a tendency to invade poor little countries much smaller than ours in an attempt to make them see it our way. We’ve invaded Nicaragua a half dozen times. Maybe instead of calling it “imperialist,” we should call it “concern” for Nicaraguan affairs.

President Bush wants the right to torture prisoners, and that’s not called “extremist.”

Wright’s statement that AIDS is a government plot to get rid of black Americans is a little bit far fetched and I can’t go along with that one.

That Obama’s campaign will go down the tubes because of statements made by someone over whom he (Obama) has no control is an abject lesson that to play the political game, you have to be foolishly optimistic and upbeat and never tell Americans very much of the unpleasant truths about their country. Thus, we can always feel superior, that we’re better people.

God only blesses America. God must be American and Republican.

Clearly, there is a price to be paid when you’re too candid.

It’s also another example of how the American people want to fixate on personality rather than issues. It has a long history from the Willie Horton episode that sank Michael Dukakis’s presidential hopes, to Thomas Eagleton, the vice presidential candidate who had prior mental problems, was replaced, but helped to terminate George McGovern’s campaign, or the Swift Boat right wing smear campaign against John Kerry.

You simply can’t be too truthful with the American people, if the truth is unpleasant. This is not new either. They forced Socrates to take poison.

I don’t believe America has sole ownership of morality, that we’re above reproach, that we’re God’s chosen people (especially white Republicans). Does that make me unpatriotic?

Wright is voicing frustration with a system that he thinks (with good reason) has treated he and his flock unfairly. He doesn’t speak for Obama just because Obama attends his church any more than commentator Bill O’Reilly speaks for McCain because McCain appears on his TV show.

The lesson here is clear. If you want to win office, don’t associate with big-mouth preachers, and don’t be too honest with the American people.

Copyright 2008 Sammonsays.