Infotambeblog

इ जुस्त हप्पेनेद तो बे इन थे कॉन्टिनेंट अत थे Time

2012-02-01T07:29:00.000-08:00

Africa on the Move
There seems to be a lot going on in the continent right now.I was wondering whether it has always been this way or is it just because I am in the continent now, so I get to witness first hand the news events that are taking place in the continent right now.

Sudan.
The southern Sudanese voting an overwhelming 99.9 percent to secede from their northern brothers. It was not even close. Talk about living with the enemy as a brother. The good news is that the Muslim north had come in grips with what is going on and instead of fighting the inevitable, they decide the accept the change. The referendum has taking place and come July of this year there will be a new republic in the continent.

Ivory Coast.
This one is complicated, just as I thought it would be. Incumbent Laurent Gbagho who I was surprised lose the elections in his country but decided not to step down. The momentum to remove him from power has come to a halt. It might be temporary but for the moment the African Unity and Ecowas are still looking for ways to persuade the defeated leader to step down.It is going to take some time though to get it done.

Tunisia.
This one started in the streets and next you know, the President of the country for the past 24 years was gone. He had accepted not to run for reelection as part of the way to appeal to the masses,but is seems as if that was not enough for the populations. Next you know he was boarding a plane that was heading for France and finally Saudi Arabia. That is where he is now based, though his countrymen have gotten an international arrest warrant on his head.

Egypt.
The Egyptians took to the street in the manner of their Tunisian brothers and today the first of February 2011, Hosni Mubarak 30 year hold on this Arab nations is about to come to an end. Despite his many concessions that included putting aside plans for his son to be the future leader of the country, his countrymen will stop nothing short of getting him out of the country. The population got a major backing went the military decided not to side with the President. They say that so long as the demonstration stay peaceful, the would not opened fire on the population demonstrating on the streets.

हाउ गाबोन एंड क़ुअतोरिअल ग़ुइनेअ २०१२ प्लेएड आउट.

2012-01-24T04:41:00.000-08:00

The actual Competition.
On match day one in group A co-host Equatorial Guinea defeated Libya by one goal to nil.On the second match of the group,Zambia was the surprise winner over favorite Senegal by two goals to one.
In group B,Ivory Coast escaped with a one nil victor over Sudan,while Angola defeated Burkina Faso by two goals to one.
In group C,co-host Gabon got an impressive two nil victory over Niger.In the second match in this group a hard fought match between Tunisia and Morocco ended with Tunisia on top by two goals to one.
In group D,Ghana opened the competition with a one goal to zero defeat of Botswana.Mali helped themselves to a one goal to zero defeat of Guinea.
Match day two went into high gear on Wednesday with Senegal putting in a disappointing effort against co-host nation Equatorial Guinea.They lost by two goals to one and became the first nation to be eliminated from this years African cup of nations.What a great disappointment for the Teranga Lions who came into this competition with such high hopes.Equatorial Guinea became the first nation to qualify for the knockout stages of the competition with this,their second victory in a row in this African cup of nations.In the other game in this group Libya and Zambia played to a 2-2 draw.
In group b, Ivory Coast beat a tough Burkina Faso side 2-0.This gave them qualification into the knockout stages of the competition.In the second match in this group Sudan and Angola played to an exciting 2-2 draw.
In group C,it was Tunisia beating Niger by two goals to one to move closer to qualification.The qualification came later at night when co-host Gabon beat Morocco in a three goals to two thriller.So from this group, Tunisia and Gabon moved on to the knockout stages to the competition while Morocco and Niger are out of the competition.
In group D,the record for the worse defeat of an opponent set back in 1970 was matched when Guinea beat debutant Botswana by 6-1 in a one sided encounter.Video replayed confirm a refused goal by Feindouno of Guinea that could have made the final score 7-1.In the second encounter of the group Ghana defeated Mali 2-0 to move closer to qualification.There was a beautiful set piece goal from Ghana ace player Asamoah Gyan.
In match day three,group A matches that were played simultaneously saw Senegal go down to Libya by 2 goals to 1.Zambia beat co-host nation Guinea Equatorial by 1 goal to o to move on as head of group A.Equatorial Guinea who had already qualified move on as runners up to Zambia in this group.Senegal, the big disappointment of the competition goes home with 0 points from three matches played.So in the quarterfinals Zambia would be playing against Sudan while Equatorial Guinea would play against Ivory Coast.
In group C,Gabon ended up as head of group by beating Tunisia 1-0.The other match of this group saw Morocco pick up three points by beating Niger by 1-0.
In group D,Ghana had a 1-1 draw with Guinea,while Mali beat Botswana by 1-0.So Ghana and Mali move on to the knockout stages of the competition.Ghana will be playing the runners-up of group C,which is Tunisia,While Mali will go against co-host Gabon during the quarterfinals.
In the first quarterfinals of the competition,Zambia beat Sudan by 3 goals to 0.Captain Katongo, scored the second goal for his team on on penalty rebound that the Sudanese goalkeeper had stopped.They will move on to play against Ghana in the semi-finals.
The the second quarter finals,Ivory Coast beat co-host Equatorial Guinea by 3 goals to 0.Didier Drogba missed a penalty kick in the encounter but made amends by scoring two goals for his side to take his total for the tournament to 3 goals.Yaya Toure got the third goal for his side through a beautiful spot kick.Ivory Coast moves on to play Mali in the semi-finals.
The third quarter finals of the competition matched Mali and co-host Gabon.The matched ended in a 1-1 tie before prolongation and penalty shootout. Mali survived the penalty shootout,winning by 5 made penalties to 4 for the Gabonese.So at this point both of the co-host nations were eliminated in the quarter finals of the competition.
The last of the quarterfinals matched Ghana and Tunisia.A very hard fought match ended at 1-1 during regulation.The Tunisian goalkeeper committed a big blunder in extra time,giving Andre Ayew the chance to fire his team into the semi-finals of the competition.So Ghana moves on and will play against Zambia in the other semi-finals of the competition.
In the first semi-finals match,Zambia pulled out a surprise by beating Ghana,my favorite to win it all by 1 goal to zero.Asomaoh Gyan,missed a penalty in the 7th minute of play and the Ghanians never recovered after the missed penalty.Zambia got its goal in the 79th minute of play through Emmanuel Muyuka who came into the game as a second half substitute.So the Ghana team will have to look for next year in South African to win its fifth African cup of Nations,the first one since 1982.Yes, it has been that far back since the black stars of Ghana last won this trophy.
Ivory Coast took on Mali in the other semi-finals of the competition and Gervinho got his first goal of the Competition.A beautiful run from the center of the field took him all the way to the Mali six meter box,before he slide in the winner for his side.That was all the scoring in a match that the Malians fail to show up.So the finals of the 2012 edition of the African cup of nations has been set with Ivory Coast going against a surprising Zambian side.
The match for who gets the third place in this years competition was won by 2 goals to 0 by Mali over Ghana.The Ghana side was still mourning from their semi-finals lost to Zambia.
The finals of this years competition took place in Iibreville and surprise,surprise,it was the Zambian national team,known as the chipolopolo that were crowned champions of Africa.The match itself was entertaining despite the fact that it ended in a goalless draw through regulation and extra time.It was during the penalty shootouts that Zambia got their first continental trophy in the history of the nation.They outlast Ivory Coast by 8 shots to 7 to emerge as champions.Once again Ivory Coast came up short on the big stage.Didier Drogba missed a penalty kick about 13 minutes to the end of the game that could have given his side the trophy.Congratulations to the Chipolopolo of Zambia for not going 0 and 3 in finals competition.They came up shot in 1974 and 1994 but not this time around,pulling out a huge upset in the finals.

अफ्कों २०१२ Preview

2011-10-10T04:26:00.000-07:00

2012 African Cup of Nations Preview.
One of the big news going into the tournament is that some of the big names in the continent would be missing out.The list includes seven time champions and three times defending champion Egypt.Four times champions Cameroon,two times champions the Super Eagles of Nigeria,Algeria and lastly world cup hosting nation, the Republic of South Africa.That is a total of 14 African Cup of Nations winners that would not be in the competition that is scheduled for Gabon and Equatorial Guinea from the 21st of January to the 12th of February 2012.
For those that would be making the tournament, the list starts with co-hosting nations Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.The rest of the field is as follows;Sudan,Guinea,Botswana,Angola,Zambia,Morocco,Ghana,Ivory Coast,Senegal,Burkina Faso,Niger Republic,Tunisia,Libya and Mali.
The sixteen teams are divided into four groups of four teams.The first group-A that would be based in Malabo has Equatorial Guinea,Libya,Zambia and Senegal.Group B that would be based in Bata has Ivory Coast,Sudan,Angola and Burkina Faso.Group C that would be based in Libreville is made up of Tunisia,Morocco,Niger and co-host Gabon.And lastly group D that would be based in Franceville has Ghana,Mali,Guinea and Botswana.This is how I think that the competition is going to play out.
Starting with group A, Equatorial Guinea would be playing in their first ever African Cup of nations.So they are in this competition because they are one of the two host countries.According to the Fifa rankings Equatorial Guinea is the weakest of the 16 teams that are present in this competition.Some of the keys players of the Equatorial Guinea national team include midfielder Samuel Itondo of Deportivo Mongomo and midfielder Juvenal of CE Sabadell.
Libya has participated in an African cup of Nations before,they hosted in 1982.The nation recently underwent a transition from a one man rule to some form of a democratic type rule.Despite the political situation in the country,they still manage to pick up a qualification ticket for the 2012 African cup of nations.Libya did not lose a game during their qualifiers.They finished second to Zambia to qualify as runners.In the head to head showdown with their main rivals in the qualifiers, they drew away 0-0 with their main rival in this group and beat them at home by one goal to nil.With three victories and three draws they got a total of 12 points that saw them through qualification.Some of their keys players to watch for during this competition include forward Ahmed Sa'ad and defense man Younes al Shibani.
Zambia had been a recent consistent customer to the African cup of nations making it to the finals once.A tragic plane accident once wipe out the entire national team but they have been back since then.They qualify as winners of their group with a total of 13 points.They could cause some problems in this group.I look for them to pick up the slack if Senegal decides to go to sleep.Some of the key players in the Zambia squad include forwards players Christopher Kotango and Collins Mbesuma.Also watch out for midfielder Rainford Kalaba.
Senegal qualified first from a group that included the Republic of Cameroon.They beat the Lions 1-0 in Dakar and had a 0-0 tie in the return leg match in Yaounde.They pick up am impressive 16 points out of a total of 18 in their way to qualifying for this years African cup of nations.They also netted in a total of 16 goals while conceding just two goals on an away 4-2 defeat of the Democratic Republic of Congo.They should form the next group of favorite nations to lift the trophy should Ghana or the Ivory Coast fail to do so.The Lions of Senegal are one of three African teams to ever make it to the quarterfinals of a world cup event. So they have some history of achieving on their side.I like them to get the order ticket out of group A in this competition.Some of the key players to watch on this Senegalese team include Mama Diouf,a striker from Manchester United,Souleymane Camara of Montpellier in France and Mamadou Niang of Al Sadd.So from group A I am looking at Senegal and Zambia to advance to the knockout stages of the competition.
Group B has one of the super favorites to lift the trophy in the name of Ivory Coast.Ivory Coast breeze through qualifiers picking up all 18 points following six victories in their group matches.They also scored an impressive nineteen goals while conceding just four in the process.When it comes to the Ivory Coast,being a super favorite might be more of a problem than a blessing.They have been a favorite to lift the trophy in the past three competition and they have gone home empty handed.Didier Drogba would be playing in his last Cup of nations and if the Ivory Coast team do not win this time around they would have nothing to show for their golden age in African football.Key players for the Ivorian team would start with recently crown African player of the year Yaya Toure of Manchester city.The hardworking mid fielder would be getting help form other Ivorian star players Didier Drogba of Chelsea,Gervinho from Arsenal,young sensation striker Souleymane Coulebaly,Solomon Kalou of Chelsea,Kolo Toure of Manchester city and Adbul Keita of Al Saad in the Qatar league.So as you can see the Elephants as the Ivory Coast national team is know is loaded with talent.All they have to do is to express that talent in the football pitch and everybody would be happy.
Sudan last won the African cup of nations in 1970 and the country just went through a political split the saw the birth of the Republic of South Sudan as the newest nation in the African continent.They finished the qualifiers as runners up to Ghana with 13points.That was enough to see them through as one of best second place teams to qualify.Some of their key players include forward players Alaa El-Deen Babikir and Bakri Almadina.
Angola was the last host of the African nations cup and they fail to make it out of the round of 16.They qualified with a total of 12 points from a group that included Uganda and Kenya.Their main rival though in the qualifiers was Uganda who they beat out with a single point on the classification table.On the head to head competition with their main rival they beat Uganda 2 nil at home and lost to them by 3 goals to nil away.Some of the key players to watch in this Angola squad include Manucho of Real Villadolid,Flavio of Lierse S.K. and Gilberto also of Lierse S.K.
Burkina Faso hosted the African nations cup in 1998 and made it all the way to the semi-finals.This time around they would be fighting to make it out of this group to the knockout stage together with Ivory Coast.They qualified with a total of ten points from four matches played, dropping just a point in their qualifiers.They were never really threatened by opponents Gambia and Namibia who manage just 4 points and 3 points respectively.They had to deal with the controversy of playing with Herve Zengue, a Cameroonian with a parent from Burkina Faso.Some of the key players of the Burkina Faso squad include forward Moumouni Dagano of Al-Khor and mid fielder Alain Troare of Auxerre,France.So from this group b,you should be looking at Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso to advance to the next stage of the competition.
Group C is an intriguing group.Tunisia last won the African cup of nations in 2004 when they hosted and had a naturalized born Brazilian striker to help them.I like them to be one of the teams that come out of this group.Tunisia finished their qualifiers with a total of 14 points which was three points off the pace set by Botswana in their group.Some of the players to watch in the Tunisian team include forward Issam Jemâa of Auxerre in France, midfielder Oussama Darragi of Experance of Tunisia and forward Amine Chermiti of FC Zurich in Switzerland.
Morocco won their only African cup of nations I believe in 1976 and they have been having problems with their form of late.They won their group in the qualifiers with a total of 11 points and trash main rival Algeria by four goals to nil in their match-up at home.This group though has Niger and Gabon as the other teams to compete for the two qualifying spots and Morocco could easily slide in as the second team out of the group.The key players for the Moroccan national team are forward Youssouf Hadji of Rennes in France,forward Marouane Chamakh of Arsenal in England and mid fielder and captain of the squad Houssine Kharja of Florentina of Italy.So from this group C, l like Morocco and Tunisia to move on to the knockout stage of the competition.
Niger is a surprise qualifier,they have never won the African cup of nations.You have to give Niger some credit though for qualifying in a group that included Egypt and the Republic of South Africa.With a total of nine points they made it through on goal differences despite a three way tie with South Africa and Sierra Leone.Key players for the Niger national team include strikers Ouwo Moussa Maazou of Zulte Waregem and Daounda Kamilou of CS Sfaxien.
Gabon is in the competition because of their co-host status and their recent friendly results have not been encouraging.A 2 nil defeat to Brazil followed by another 2 nil defeat to Ghana.Key players for the Gabonese team include forward Daniel cousin of Sapins,forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of St Etienne in France and forward Roguy Méyé of Zalaegerszeg.
From group D Ghana has won the African cup of nations four times.Their last victory though came way back in 1982 so they are due for a victory pretty soon.This team had a relatively easy time qualifying for this years edition of the African cup of Nations.They finish with a total of 16 points from a possible 18 with five victories and a draw against Sudan.Their goals difference was equally impressive with 16 goals netted in while conceding dust a goal to Sudan.The team from Ghana is one of the super favorites in this tournament together with Ivory Coast.So anything short of a finals appearance would be a disappointment for the team.The team has suffered a little bit in the fifa ranking where they sit at around the 29-th ranked team in the world.Key players to watch from the Ghanian national team included African player of the year runners-up Andre Ayew of Olympique of Marseille.Asamoah Gyan is on a loan transfer to Al Ain in United Arab Emerates after failing to settle well in Sunderland.Although he did not have a sensational season with Sunderland he is still king when it comes to the Ghana national team.He will always be remembered as the player who missed the penalty kick that could have seen Ghana become the first African team to make it to a world cup semi-finals.There is also Captain John Mensah to anchor the defense of the black stars as the Ghana national team is known.Another key player to watch for in this team will be Sulley Muntari of internationale.
Mali disappointed their fans in the last edition of the African cup of nations and they have never won this cup.Mali finished their group tied with 10points with Cape Verde who was their main rivals in the qualifiers.They thus qualified due to a superior goals differences over the Cape Verde Island.They beat the Cape Verde by 3goals to nil at home and lost to them 1 nil away.They have some talent in this squad and I look for them to make it to the knockout stages of the competition.Some of their key players include Seydou Keita of Barcelone who came up third in the African player of the year voting and Federick Kanoute of Sevilla in Spain.Also watch out for defense man Adama Tamboura of Metz in France.
Guinea always starts out very well in this competition but usually end up been humbled.Guinea qualified into this competition by beating the super Eagles of Nigeria by 1-0 in Conakry and holding the Eagles to a 2-2 tie in Nigeria on the last day of play of the qualifiers in this group.They ended up with 14 points as oppose to 11 points that the Super Eagles manage to pick up.They did not lose any of the six matches that that played in the qualifiers,winning four and drawing two games.Their key players will be defense man Fodé Mansaré of Manisaspor,midfielder Fodé Mansaré of Toulouse,France and forward Ismaël Bangoura of Al Nasr.
Botswana will be making their first appearance at the African cup of nations.Botswana did surprisingly well in the qualifiers finishing first in a group that they had to play 8 matches to qualify.They finish ahead of main rival Tunisia picking up a total of 17 points.Botswana also because of their surprising accomplishments during the course of the year were named African team of the year by the Confederation of African football.The key players that would attempt to get this team into the knockout stages of the competition include forward Dipsy Selolwane of Supersport United,forward Jerome Ramatlhakwane of Vasco da Gama and defenseman Mogogi Gabonamong of Supersport United.In this group though I like Mali to come out together with Ghana.
When things get to the knockout stages of the competition I would think that Ivory Coast,Ghana,Senegal and Tunisia would still be around.I would be looking at a finals between Ivory Coast and Ghana with the team from Ghana emerging as champions of Africa for the 5th team in the history of the competition.

दस माक्स INTERNATIONAL

2011-09-19T05:36:00.000-07:00

It is all false Advertising.
I am in the market looking for a job and I happened to see posted an ad for a company called DS Max International.They claim to be an international company from the United States and they would train you for a period of three to six months and later on offer you employment.I had nothing doing at the time and decided to give it a go.The first thing that you find out when you join the company is that they do not train you for the items that they claim to do in their advertisement.If you see one of their ads,normally posted like on an electric pool, it would claim that they train people in the field of Accounting,Marketing,Advertising,Management,Commercial Communication and Music.That is all false advertising.DS MAX international stands for Direct Sales Maximum International.They are actually a door to door sales company and they have nothing to do with training people to be Accountants,Marketers or any thing in the field of music.I happen to hang around with them for a period of one full week plus one day.I was given a trainer who had joined the company before me and she was pretty good.The first week of sales we did pretty well and she was spending some money that I though was money coming from the company.It turned out that money that she was spending was her personal money.What made me to actually leave the company so early thought is that there were some contest that the manager made available to us and at the end of the contest we were suppose to pick up some cash prizes.The day of the cash prizes,he came in and changed the rules and negated on all the promises that he had made.
My reason for writing this column is that if you come across an ad from this company promising you training and employment just know that it is false advertising.They do not have the facilities to provide you training in any of the above courses.This company is just a front for some dishonest individuals to be pushing products that might turn out to be false.I did not stay long enough to find out.But I bet you that the products that they are pushing might not be the real thing.

प्लांटिंग थे Corn

2011-08-24T03:30:00.000-07:00

Planting the Corn.We started the process of planting the corn,today the 24th of August 2011.It looks like the original information that I got about when corn is to be planted was wrong.I was told that the corn has to be on the ground by the 16th of August.But there was a lot of rain during this period.That was bad for the seedlings.I did about a third of the planting today and I will continue in the days to come.My plan is to get everything on the ground by the end of this month.
We had to go to the market to purchase some seedlings for the planting.It looks like the ones that were lying around in the house had gone bad.I paid one hundred and fifty francs CFA for the seedlings to continue the planting.
The seedlings that I purchased in town were planted on the twenty six of August 2011.So the area in front of the house is all taking care of.All I have to do is take care of the piece of land that is close to the stream.Everything should be done before the last day of the month of August.
Yesterday the 29th of August 2011 I put down 40 of the seedlings that I had bought from the market.This is after I saw a seedling that I had planted a couple of days before popping out of the drown.I had to go to Buea today August 30th to purchase some medications.Before I went though I put down another 40 seedlings on the ground.That would make it a total of eighty seedlings in a period of two days.I am hoping that the first of September would be the last day that I put anymore seedlings into the ground.
My plans to make the first of September the last day that I put any more seedlings into the ground did not work.The corn is beginning to shoot out of the ground.That is the good news.The bad news is that the rain is interfering quite a bit.Planting corn in August-September is quite different from planting in the early months of the year.During the early part of the year,you are praying for rain to fall,while at the later part of the year you are praying to get some sunshine.

ब्राज़ील वीनस उ-२० थ्रिलर फिनाल्स.

2011-08-21T02:09:00.000-07:00

In an entertaining encounter in Bogota,Columbia the Brazil under twenty team defeated Portugal by three goals to two to be crown world champions.Brazil opened the scoring just five minutes into the game from forward player Oscar.That was the first goal that Portugal conceded in this seventh game in a row trying to maintain a clean sheet.Portugal responded four minutes though with an equalizer in the 9th minute of play.The goal came through Alex.The teams went on break with the score tied at 1-1.
Forward man Nelson Oliveira untied the scoreline though in the 59th minute and it seems as if the Portuguese were going to head home with the trophy.Brazil responded though in the 78 minute of play through Oscar to send the game into extra-time.It was there that you guess right Oscar came up with a masterpiece of a goal to give Brazil the trophy.The goal came in the 111th minute of play to break the hearts of the Portuguese fans throughout the world.Oscar of Brazil becomes the first player to score a hat trick in a world cup finals match.
The Awards.
Best goalkeeper of the competition.Mika of Portugal
Golden boots of the competition.Henrique of Brazil.
Bronze boots of the competition.Lacazette of France.
Best player of the competition.Henrique of Brazil.

पोर्तुगल एंड ब्राज़ील मके फिनाल्स.

2011-08-18T03:37:00.000-07:00

Portugal versus Brazil-The under 20 world cup finals in Columbia is going to be an all latina affair between two time winner Portugal versus four time winner Brazil.In semi-final match ups yesterday both teams made it by beating their opponents by 2 goals to zero.Portugal got first half goals from Danilo and Nelson Oliveira for their victory over France.The Portuguese team frustrated the French team who despite their brilliant play could not find the back of the net.In fact the Portuguese team was playing their sixth match in a row without conceding a goal.The only goals that have gone through the net of their goal keeper is during penalty shootouts with Argentina. That is the team that came close to knocking them out of the competition.

Brazil has been brilliant throughout the competition and yesterday was no exception.They toyed with the Mexicans for eighty minutes before the goals started to come.Henrique connected with two brilliant goals,the first a beautiful header and the second a brilliant finish with his right leg for the final margin of victory. The first goal was at the 80th minute and the second was at the 84th minute of play.With two teams that are tactically sound we should be looking forward to an excellent finals come Sunday the 21st of August 2011.If I have to make a prediction,I would say go with Brazil.They seem to have the ability to come up with goals when needed.

Processing my Winnings.

2011-08-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

I got a notification from Microsoft Corporation that I have won a total of seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds last week and right now I am in the process of trying to claim the money. The letter came to my email box from a British Bank that has a branch in Scotland. The initial email that came to me requested some personal information like name, address, occupation, date of birth, country of birth and country of residence. It also required me to be very careful as to the keeping of the information that is being sent to me over the internet. I send the initial information and got a response right away from the contact person in the
Scottish bank. Since I live overseas, it was explained to me that the best way for me to get my money would be through an electronic money transfer. So that would require me to provide information from my bank. I went ahead and send that information, together with my contact information again that included a telephone number from which I could be reached. I went ahead and send that information and then I got a message that everything seems to be okay except that I have to send in some money for a processing fee: The processing fee was about close to 800 pounds. Where I come from that is not a little bit of money. It translates into about five hundred thousand francs in my currency. I do not have that type of money and I send an email that they should deduct the amount from my winnings. The last email had suggested that due to some legal issues, the bank does not operate in such a manner. That they can not deduct their fees from my winnings before sending me the rest of the money. I still went ahead and send a reply to the email explaining my situation. So right now I am waiting to hear from the bank as to their final decision. One thing is clear though. I do not have a processing fee of close to five hundred thousand in my currency to ship overseas. I have been using Microsoft software now for close to a little bit more that two decades. Since my days in college. So I am waiting to see how all to these would play out.
I seem to have come to a standstill hear and the reason is that the processing fee for me to collect my winnings to not something that I can afford right now. I have been corresponding with my contact person overseas and they wanted to know how much I could come up with so that they can put up the rest of the money. The problem is that I have been out of work for so long now that money is a real issue. That might be bound to change though because I just called on a job lead that is in need of an accountant and they said that I should come down to the office on Saturday or on Monday . What I would do is show up to the place on Monday and make sure that I get the job. The money itself is not going to be an issue. Because just to get back into the job market, I would be willing to take a very big pay cut. My feeling is that once I start working the job offers would flow in and hopefully I would not be having money issue problems anymore. Back to the Microsoft winning .There is a suggestion that I should let a charitable organization get the money if I can not collect it. What I am going right now is looking up some charitable organizations and attempt to contact them and see whether they could come up with the amount needed for the processing fee.

थे NBA

2011-08-17T05:15:00.000-07:00

The NBA in the 2000s
Trying to compare the NBA as it is now with say the 1980s and the 1990s. In the 1980s the league was struggling and in came two superstars from the college rank. Magic Erving Johnson from Michigan state and Larry Bird from Indiana state. After going head to head in the 1983 NCAA championship they both headed for the pros and they would be responsible for carrying the league to a new height. In fact lifting it out of a possible bankruptcy. They were two great teams, the Boston Celtics from the East and the Los Angeles Lakers from the West. You could make a case for teams such as the Philadelphia 76ers and the Milwaukee Bucks from the East and the Houston Rockets and the San Antonio Spurs from the West. But basically it was Boston in the East and Los Angeles Lakers from the West.
In the 1990s there was sort if the changing of the guard with the Chicago Bulls emerging from the East. In the West, a number of teams emerge that included the Phoenics Suns, the Utah Jazz and to a lesser extend, the San Antonio Spurs began to make their move. In the East you could make a case for Detroit who won back to back championships before the Chicago Bulls would make their run that would include six championships. Teams that made runs at a championship falling just short at the finals included Philly and the New York Knicks.
In the year 2000s the West seems to be the place where all the teams with championships aspirations were coming from. There were the Spurs, and then the Los Angeles Lakers who won the championship rings, with teams like Dallas, Sacramento, Seattle and Portland making runs at a championship.

थे सेकंड हलफ ऑफ़ अगस्त 2011

2011-08-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

Paul Biya gets sworn in as President of the Republic of Cameroon for another 7 year term.
The CPDM still rules in this country as it ran away with the past October elections.The opposition was defeated handily and their current display was worse than their showing 7 yrs ago.The current President's party got 79.2 percent of the votes.The closest competition came from SDF who get a mere 10.2 percent of the votes.That is down form the 17.8 percent that they got seven years ago.
This is the seventh time that Paul Biya is been sworned in as President of this country that is located in the Central part of Africa.His first sworn in was in 1982,the next one in 1984,then 1988,then 1992,then 1997,then 2004 and lastly 2011.There was not much noise generated from this particular swearing in ceremony.
According to Radio France International no sitting head of state showed up for the swearing in ceremony.No opposition candidate was around especially the runner-up Ni John Fru NDI.My guess would be that the people of Cameroon are just tired of the guy and would allow him to rule and die in office.A lot of noise has been made in terms of promises and everybody in the nation would be waiting for the country to be transformed into a work in progress as the President has promised.

अगस्त 2011

2011-08-10T08:59:00.000-07:00

I went to Buea to purchase some medication that I have been taking.There are three of them altogether including one of them that is very had to find called Artane.I started to take the medications in the month of July.So this August will be the second month that I will be taking the medication.Started clearing the farm around the house to plant some corn.I started on the 10th day of the month of August.Hopefully I will finish doing it in a day or two.
I guy came to the house on the tenth of August.His purpose was to distribute free of charge some medications that are suppose to be of help to us.One of them was a medication that included four tablets and the order one was a medication that included just one drug.For food, I had some bread that I purchased in mile 17 while I was in Buea.That was for breakfast.For the rest of the day,porridge coco-yams was prepared.That is what I am going to consume for the rest of the day and into the night.I had the chance to watch the Cameroon under 20 junior lions play their matches right up till the point when they were eliminated.They registered the following results.1-1 with New-Zealand.0-1 defeat to Portugal and a 1-0 victory over Uruguay.In the knockout stages they went down 0-3 on penalty shootouts after the game had ended 1-1 on regular time and prolongation.
Entered day two of preparing the farm for planting maize.I worked on it this morning and I will be completing the work sometime today the 11th of August 2011.Last night and earlier this morning I stayed up to watch the under-20 world cup that is taking place in Columbia. A 52nd minute goal from Egbedi from Nigeria got them past England to the quarterfinals.Brazil got second half goals from Henrique,Gabriel Silva and DUDU for a convincing 3-0 victory over Saudi Arabia.France got a late goal from Griezeman to make it a 1 nil victory over Ecuador.The fourth game that featured Spain versus Korea Republic was the one with all the suspense.The game was 0-0 in regular and extra time and it went to penalty shootouts.After the first round of kicks both teams were tied at 4-4.Sudden death in the penalty shootout kicked in and it is there that Spain ended up winning by a final margin of 7-6.I eat garri in the morning to help me take my medication.After that I ate some corn that was in the house.
The farm where we plan on planting corn is now completed.I finished the job today the 11th of August but not without some incident.I ran into a very small snake at the very last area where there was some grass to be taken care of.Luckily I was using a machete in this part of the farm.I used the machete to get rid of the snake.Killed it on the spot and left it in the farm.As I earlier mentioned it was a very small snake.I also today bought some chin-chin for the household.This is the fourth one that I have bought within the past two weeks.This is what we use in the household as our snack.
Today the 12 of August had me going out to replenish the chin-chin that was consumed last night.I wanted to start planting the corn since the farm is been cleared but my mother advised that it was not yet time for the planting of corn.It look like I cleared the farm a little bit too early.I just have to wait and see.Hopefully by the time it comes to planting the corn,I would not have to do any more clearing of the farm.We watched some preseason National Football League highlights.Everybody is claiming that the Philly Eagles have assembled a dream time.So it is an understatement to say that the Eagles are loaded and they will be soaring this coming season.They beat the Baltimore Ravens 13-6 for their first victory of the preseason.The other score that I got for a preseason game was the Dallas Cowboys 24-23 over the Denver Broncos.
The preseason continues in the National Football League with the Washington Redskins beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 16-7.In an exciting encounter the Miami Dolphins defeated the Atlanta Falcons 28-23.

कैमेरून जुनिओर लिओंस एलिमिनातेद

2011-08-10T02:12:00.000-07:00

Cameroon Junior Lions-The junior lions of Cameroon actually had a chance to advance to the quarter finals of the world cup being held in Columbia.They scored what I thought would be the winning goal with ten minutes left to play through a powerful shot by center forward man Frank Ohandza.But poor marking in the defensive area allowed Mexico to equalize just two minutes later.They now have to park their bags and start heading back home.The equalizer push the game into extra time that the team from Mexico dominated.After 30 minutes of extra time play the game went into the dreaded penalty kicks.It was here that the lions failed miserably converting none of the three penalty kicks that they took.Mexico scored on all three of the penalty shots that they took given them a deserved three goals to nil penalty shoot-out victory.

थे कैमेरून जुनिओर Lions

2011-08-06T00:43:00.001-07:00

How far can they go.-That is the question that everybody is asking as the junior lions of Cameroon yesterday night made it to the round of 16 teams in the on going fifa junior world cup in Columbia.The competition did not start out too well for them.They draw 1-1 with a New Zealand team that everybody taught they could easily defeat.They got their goal in that match through a penalty kick.A defensive error though cost them two vital points in that game as their defense panicked and let in an own goal through a miscommunication between the defense man and the goalkeeper.
In match day two things got worse.They made another crucial defensive error that allow Nelson Oliveira of Portugal to find the back of their net just 20 minutes into the game for the score of the match 1-0 in favor of Portugal.So after two matches the junior lions of Cameroon had just one little point to show for their effort.
Going into the last game of their group play,they absolutely had to come out with a victory to advance to the knockout stages of the competition.That is exactly what they did by beating Uruguay by one goal to nil.The goal came in the 28 minute of play through a nice combination of passes,capped by a beautiful finish by number 8 shirt man Emmanuel Mbongo,who was making his first appearance in the competition.The junior lions of Cameroon thus picked up three points from their last group match and automatically qualified as the second placed team from this group.As the runners up with a total of four points they would play the runners-up from group F which is Mexico.

थे Rain

2011-08-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

What does it bring-The rain brings in the mud in the Tiko town municipality.To combat the mud you need to get a pair of shoes that is adaptable to it.They are called rain boots.That is a name that has been around so long as I can remember.The boots allow to venture out with ease into road conditions that would ruin any other type of shoes that you decide to go out with.You would also need to purchase an umbrella that you would need throughout the period that the rain is around.Do not be fooled by the occasional sunshine that you would see appear once in a while during the rain.The sun is really deceptive because the whether changes in a heart bit.For example two days ago heading into town,I left the umbrella behind because the weather looked okay getting out of the house.It changes drastically and I had to make a u-turn to go get the umbrella.
Some of the advantages of the rain-It does give people around the area an opportunity to do some farming.In our house,we used the side and back side of the house to grow some crops.Corn was the main cash crop that we grew.The one that we planted in March has already been consume by the household.We are looking forward to plant some more just before the 16th of this month hits.
Another advantage that the rain brings in the area is that it drives away the mosquitoes that show up once places are dried up.Part of the problem with the mosquitoes is that people throw away their trash in an area close to were we live.So the trash accumulated into a very big rubbish.There were times when it was disgusting just to get close to the area.I decided to do something and started to clean away some of the rubbish before the rains came. What happened is that once the rubbish was pushed into the little stream the rains came and carried away all of the mess.Now you come to the area and you would not recognize it if you were around during the mess. The rainy season brought some powerful doze of water that practically carried away all of the rubbish.People now come and take a bath in the area.The stream if you can call it that flows nicely and the area is very habitable this time of the year.What I need to figure out is what to do once the rains are gone and there is nothing to carry the dirt away.We have talked to the neighbours about the situation,trying to get them to stop throwing trash in the area to no avail.We might need to go to the area council and get some type of permission from them to get the neigbours to toe the line .
Opportunity to make some cash-I got some help in the house and what we did is remove a lot of the stones that were inside the stream,part of the reason that people could even come and take a bath in the area.The stones that we removed,I managed to sell it to one of our neigbours who is planning to erect a wall on one side of a building that is under construction.The money was not too much, but it is better than sitting around and waiting for manner to come from heaven.
I get to plant corn twice a year.The first planting was already done in the month of March and harvested in the month of June.I am planning on doing the second planting some time in the middle of this month,which is around the 18 of August 2011.
Merchants make some money-With the rain constantly fall merchants have the opportunity to make some money.That is merchants that are in the business of selling umbrellas,rain boots and rain coats.Umbrellas and rain boots are a very popular buy during this time of the year.Rain coats used to be very popular back in the days when I was still growing up.That seem to have changed nowadays.You do not get to see them a lot around now.The people that you see wearing them are the workers of a company called CDC and another corporation called Demonte.
The Mosquitoes disappear with the coming of rain.-When the rain comes,the mosquitoes tend to disappear.This is because first of all the is not much standing water for them to breed on.Secondly the dirt that used to lie around has been carried away by the flowing water.So with the rain been around you can start having some sound sleep.

कैमेरून इलेक्शन Update

2011-08-05T01:47:00.000-07:00

Elecam which is the election body in Cameroon is currently doing registration for people who are in the diaspora.This is in addition of registering people here in the country.The registration process will be on going till the 31th of August 2011.The elections would be held in October of this year.The favorite to win the election is the current president of the republic of Cameroon who is His Excellency Paul Biya but he is yet to accept all the request that have been extended to him to stand for reelection.The president just visited the Republic of China and right now there is speculation as to his whereabouts.He might be in Switzerland where his kids currently live.

Election कामरूं Update

2011-08-04T03:19:00.001-07:00

I went to the Elecam office at Tiko to find out how the voter registration process is proceeding. I had already registered for the election last September.I walk into the office and chatted with one of the representation.I was trying to find out when the voter registration cards were going to be available.The Elecam office had a display of how the cards would look in one if their door posters.The rep told me that once the cards are available,they would come to the quarters and distribute them.I figured out that you could also stop by their offices and pick up the card once they are available.The information that I got suggested that they are stilled been manufactured in the factory.

थे जुनिओर लिओंस ऑफ़ कैमेरून हवे दुग अ होले.

2011-08-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

For the second match in a row a defensive mistake cost the junior lions of Cameroon some points.This time around though,they were not ahead in the score card.So to had to fight late at night to try and get an equalizer that never came their way.Oliveira of Portugal capitilise on the soft header by defense man Mvom and got his side the lone goal of the match at the 19th minute of play.The scoreline could have been worse but for some good saves by the Cameroonian goalkeeper.The junior lions now occupy the last position of their group of four.To advance to the next round of the competition,the would have to beat Uruguay on friday and with four points,the could sneak in as one of the four third place teams to advance to the field of sixteen.The first two teams of the group of six atomatically advance together with the best four third place teams.

तुएस्दय थे २न्द ऑफ़ अगस्त.

2011-08-02T05:34:00.000-07:00

The raining season is still around.What we have now is called the August rain.That is the one that keeps falling and falling with no set pattern.If you plan on going out you have to possess an umbrella.Very essential this time of year.The rain that fell starting from last night was not the sticking type,thank God for that.It would have made the whole area too muddy for anybody to venture out.It kind of clear some of the mud that had accumulated over the days.

थे डे after

2011-08-01T01:09:00.000-07:00

This is the day after the GCE advanced and ordinary results had been published.In addition to getting the results over the radio and on the news papers the next day you can also go to one of the internet places and get the results.The rain is not as bad today as it has been for the pass seven days or so.The rain protector that I bought is good but not large enough.I paid about two dollars for it.I guessed that I got what I paid for.I am looking to replace it in the few days or so.The one that I am using now will be passed over to the kids in the house.They can always use another umbrella considering the fact that right now they are three of them sharing but one.

सोच्सर न्यूज़.

2011-07-31T07:39:00.000-07:00

Cameroon junior lions are currently involve in the junior world cup 2011 in Columbia,South America.They ended up in a 1-1 draw with new zealland in a match in which the dominated in my opinion.They a difficult group to qualify from.The group includes in addition to the above mention team,Uruguay and Portugal with the top two teams advancing to the next stage of the competition.In my opinion I thinks they played last night the less challenging of the three other teams in their group.I wish them nothing but good luck with the rest of their games in this group stage.

गसे Results

2011-07-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

The GCE ordinary level and advanced level results were officially out the 29th of Juliet but most people had to wait another day to get the results of their love ones.A lot of changes have taken place from back in my 1980s days. Now you get student easily sitting in for 11 ordinary subjects and passing them.For the advance levels which are suppose to be more challenging,they are sitting for five subjects.This year according to statistics from the GCE board the results were down especially with the ordinary levels were only about 43 percent of the candidates took and passed the exam.The advance levels were down to 64percent from 68 percent.so the drop was not as bad there.By the way you need to be successful in 4 ordinary levels to get the passing grade to move to the next level of your education.For advance levels you need to be successful in 2 subjects to get the passing grade. The result were out in the locals newspapers and from last the the radio stations were reading out the names of successful candidates. Students could also go to their respective schools to get their results.The weather is still terrible this time of the year with rain and mud combining to make areas look nasty.

GCE RESULTS ARE OUT

2011-07-29T04:06:00.000-07:00

The news of the day here is the country has to be the publications of the results of both the GCE o levels and advance levels results today the 29th of july 2011.it seems to be coming out a little bit earlier than anticipated. But at the time that I got the news I was in a cyber cafe in Molyko buea which is now the main center of attraction in the Buea municipality.

अगस्त Rain

2011-07-25T03:19:00.000-07:00

August Rain.]
This year the rain seems to have come a little bit earlier than anticipated.For the past 48 hours it has been raining like crazy in the province. The south west part of the country. The little gutter that I have be the side of my house is unrecognizable for it has changed into a lake.Nice view for somebody that is looking for a lakeside view home.If I was in the West the value of my property could have gone up by also 200 percent.

Presidential Elections 2011 in the Republic of Cameroon

2011-07-19T03:17:00.000-07:00

ELECTIONS IN CAMEROON.

The Republic of Cameroon is located in the Central part of Africa and it is due to have crucial Presidential elections in 2011. The elections are going to be crucial because the current President will be going for a third term in office in an election in which he was not supposes to take part. The rules were changed in his favor sometime during the course of his second term in office, a term that was to be his last. There was some out cry in some areas of the population. But the outcry did not change a thing. The current President has been in power since 1982 and he has his supporters who encouraged him to change the rules so that he could run for a third term.
The President should be in his late 70s now and you should think that would be a factor against him. That is not the case though because the main opposition in the country which is called the SDF party also has its own problems. It had its golden age in the late 1980s and peaked in a 1992 Presidential election that it supposedly won, but the elections were stolen from it, so goes the story.

.Going into this particular election the current President, barring some miracle in my opinion would get a resounding victory in the polls. Part of the reason would be that the opposition is currently a big underdog, with very few members in the current government and in the current house of parliamentarians. The elections by the way are to take place in October of the current year.

Sudan

2011-04-30T07:58:00.002-07:00

South Sudan is now a republic which is good news. The bad news is that there a lot that needs to be done in the country in terms of development. One of the shocking news that I got when i was doing some work is that the new republic has a total of 60 kilometers of tarred road in the whole country

Lybia

2011-04-30T07:58:00.001-07:00

This is the country where the Arab revolution took a nasty turn with the country deteriorating into a civil war state.

Tunisia

2011-04-30T07:57:00.003-07:00

Tunisia started the Arabian revolution.For the moment there seems to be a call for change without any clear indication as to when it would be over

Nigeria

2011-04-30T07:57:00.001-07:00

Goodluck Jonathan won the presidential elections which for a change foreign observers declare was fair and transparent. The problem with our next door brother is that there are sectarians in the north of the country calling change in their own terms.

मेस्सी गेट्स फ्फिया प्लयेर ऑफ़ थे इयर Award

2011-01-11T00:37:00.000-08:00

Argentine's Lionel Messi is World's best
On Monday the 10 of January 2011 Fifa voted on who was the best soccer player in the world in the year 2010 and that honor went to Argentine's ace forward Lionel Messi. He was in contention for the award with Barcelona teammates Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez. For this year going forward Europe decided to combine its ballon d'or award with the Fifa player of the year honor. So there will be no more European player of the year award. Lionel Messi is the biggest of the star players at his Barcelona team that is full of them. He won the award last year but there were some doubts going into this year's voting whether one of his team mates might beat him to the award. That is because both Iniesta and Hernandez had a better record with their world cup team Spain at the 2010 world cup. Argentina had a great run but they were eliminated in the quarterfinals in a rout by Germany.
Lionel Messi is considered to be the best player in this generation and he wants to claim a place in the all time greatest list along the likes of King Pele and fellow countryman Diego Maradona. To do that though, he would have to get a world cup victory under his name. He would get two chances to accomplish the fit. The first opportunity would come in 2014 when he would be 26 years of age and the next one would come in 2018 in Russia when if he is still good enough to make the Argentine's national team would be held when he is 30 years old. His best bet would be to try and carry his team to victory in 2014 in Brazil. The competition would be held in the South American continent and at 26 he would be at the peak of his game I think.

आईटी इस अ फिघ्त फॉर Sirvival

2010-12-22T04:45:00.000-08:00

The political Crisis in Ivory Coast.
Why do these leaders try to hand on to power for such a long time?
First there was Kenyan, then Zimbabwe and now the Republic of Ivory Coast.In each of these countries we are seeing former leaders that have lost elections in the polls and do not want to relinquish power. In Zimbabwe and Kenya both of the former presidents, who clearly lost elections to their opponents succeeded in hanging on by relinquishing a little bit of their power. In the case of Zimbabwe, President Mugabe who was defeated in the elections is now complaining that the power sharing deal with Morgan Tsvangirai is not working out. He should step down, he lost the presidential elections there. The current political crisis is now the one in Ivory coast, where Laurent Gbagho who had been president for ten years lost a run off election to opposition candidate Allassane Ouattarra. The UN elections committee in place in Ivory Copast says that the election which to them was fair and transparent was won by the opposition leader. He got about 54 percent of the votes compared to 46 percent for the incumbent ruler. The question to be asked now is why do these leaders hang on to power after being around for such a long time?
To me the main reason has to be the fact that true democracy is not yet established in the continent. Before the Presidential elections in Ivory coast, President Laurent Gbagho was making promises to the military that if he wins they would benefit from his stay in office. Also that if he goes down, they go down with him. Thus victory for the individual is the focal point of the elections and the welfare of the country is secondary. In a truly democratic system, leaders come into power with a clear agenda and promises are made to the population in general and not to a special branch of the society.
The presence of a powerful military is also a major factor. Military coups are still taking place in the continent and the ruler who succeeds in getting the military behind him usually gets to stay around for a while.
The African Union seems to have learn from its mistake of backing the power sharing deals in both Kenya and Zimbabwe.In the current situation they have lined up with the rest of the world in agreement that Laurent Gbagho should go.The United Nations,the Europeans Union and other regional bodies such as ECOWAS are all bent on seeing the defeated leader step down from power. He though does not want to step down because in my opinion he is afraid of payback. That is what happens in a system in which leaders go into power for their personal benefit. While in power, those people that support him benefit to the detriment of the rest of the population. For him to step down means that his backers would go through a period of economic hardship. What is tricky in this Ivorian situation is that it is an internal issue. Elections are rigged in different parts of the world and all external bodies can do is call for the defeated person to step down. In other words whether the UN,AU,or Europeans forces go in to try and get Laurent Gbagho out of Ivory Coast would depend on his hold on the country. He has the military backing and that is a key strength for him. Does the rest of the world want to see Ivory Coast go back into another civil war?.It is a complicated issue. The Nigerian government has come out and say that they would provide the incumbent president with an exile home in their country .I doubt whether he would accept such a deal . Charles Taylor stepped down as President in a deal that included a safe haven for him in Nigeria. He is now in the Hague fighting charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
History suggest that President Gbagho is going to stay and fight for power because being President of Ivory Coast has become his livelihood. He does not intent to go live anywhere else after being in charge of Ivory Coast for ten years.

हाउ जापान इस देअलिंग विथ थे इकनॉमिक Crisis

2010-07-19T02:36:00.000-07:00

Japan has not been witnessing any major economic growth for a while now so when news come out last week that their economy shrunk by 12.70 percent for the last three quarters it took a lot of people by surprise. The nikkei is at around 7500 compare to its heyday when it hit 40000 in the late 1980s.The Japanese economy relies heavily on its export and with the global economic crisis a lot of countries are just not buying what is coming out of the Japanese factory. Their current crisis is like the worse since the second world war.From their auto industry to their electronic corporations the slowdown here is all over the place.This economy has witness a 12 percent shrink in the past two years which is amazing for an economy which is ranked second in the world.The prime minister of Japan was the first to visit President Barack Obama in the white house and both leaders vowed to avoid protectionism as a means to solve their economic problems.The Japanese economy shrank by 12.1 in the fourth quarter of the year 2008.The Japanese are taking the US approach to try and save some companies by bailing them out instead of letting the market decides who stays on in the playing field.Their bailout package was about 158trillion yen if I am not mistaking.

Some solutions

2010-07-13T01:40:00.000-07:00

The technology for road construction is already out there and there is a lot of local companies that can get the job done. Give the local guys the chance to get the work done.One of the things that I find out once I got back is that there are people that are trained with all the knowledge to get things done, they are just not given the chance to get it done.

The Problems

2010-07-13T01:39:00.000-07:00

The first one has to be the one of road infrastructure. There is a saying that build a good road and development would follow and that applies to the society here also. The roads would help to transport a lot of the raw materials that the country produces, getting them into the markets. The transportation problem gets serious especially during the periods when there is rainfall.

Corruption. This one is present in all societies and that is not any different in this one. I seems to be more pronounce here though. Personally I am going by just stories that I have heard. I have not personally being involved in any grand scale corruption activity. But from what people are saying it is the other of the day here. People get arrested after the act and some get thrown into jail but the money is never recovered. Just one example a lot of projects that are to be executed never get off the ground because somebody has ran away with the money or the projects are poorly executed because the funds that are allocated to the project are never used for the project at all.
Looking Outside for Solutions.
Third world countries have to start being less dependent on foreign aid. One of the saddening things to me is each time that I look on TV and see some third World leading happily shaking arms shaking hands after coming into an agreement to receive foreign aid. Technologically the third world is lagging behind but their are things that third world countries know how to do and they should concentrate on doing just that. If they are good in agriculture then they should concentrate to be the best in agriculture and move forward from there. If they are good in planting producing raw materials then that is what they should be doing. Raw materials might include things like oil, gas,copper and other mineral resources.

Bureaucracy is another of the problems facing meaning that to get a simple thing like getting paid once the government hires you, you have to go through a lot of ministries and wait for periods that run about a year before you receive your first paycheck. Also pensioners, people who have retired from work have to wait at times for periods of up to five years before that can start receiving their pensions. There is something called chasing your documents. It involves you actually going from one office to another to get work done that should have been done without your presence.

स्पेन अरे वर्ल्ड Champions

2010-06-26T00:53:00.000-07:00

How the 2010 South Africa World Cup played out.

The first round of the competition started with a few complains about the ball and the Vuvuzelas. The Vuvuzelas is an instrument that is blown as part of the entertainment during soccer matches in South Africa. Both the field players and the goal-keepers complained about the ball and we saw a few very strange ball bounces. For the Vuvuzelas, they were said to be very noisy by the players and they disturb during the game. Fifa though made a decision to keep the Vuvuzelas. It was part of the South African tradition and they were the people who were hosting the world cup.
When the preliminary round was over, one of the major news was that only one of the six African teams made it out of the first round. Major disappointment indeed, considering the fact that this was suppose to be their world cup. The other major news was that the defending world cup champions, Italy did not make it out of the first round. The South Americans did very well in the first round with all five teams from the continent advancing from the group stages. Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay advanced as group leaders.

From group A , Uruguay turned out to be the better of the four teams with their major victory coming when they defeated home side South Africa by 3 goals to nil in their second outing. The rest of their match results were 0-0 tie with France and a one nil victory over Mexico.
Mexico was the second qualifier from this group after securing a two nil victory over France in match day two. They tie their first game against South Africa, one nil and lost their last game to Uruguay.
France was the major disappointment from this group. They had a lot of problems before and during their brief stay in the competition. The first problem was with their coach, Raymond Domenech. The players complained about his team selection when he did not call up players like Benzema into the squad. There was talk about his lack of class in how he deals with the players in general. This came from some reputable past players in the French national team. There was distraction from the Sports Minister who complained about the choice of Hotel selected by the French team. Her complain was that whereas teams like Spain and the Dutch were staying in University dormitories, the French team selected a five star hotel. Personally, I did not see any problem with their hotel selection. The players make and generate a lot of money and a five star hotel is not out of their affordable range. I thought the French though could have made a coaching change after Euro 2008.This is the reasoning behind that decision. There was a time when the French national team was not a major force in world soccer and you could make an excuse about continuity in the coaching staff. That time had passed though. France won Euro 1984 and recently the 1998 world cup and Euro 2000. They thus stand as one of the favorite nations going into any major competition. What nations that have this status do when they fail to get out of the first round as the French did in Euro 2008 is make a coaching change. Raymond Domenech himself could have offered to resign in my opinion. He had taken the team as far as he could in making the world cup finals in 2006 in Germany. The team played poorly despite a number of talented players that they had in their squad. A 0-0 outing against Uruguay was followed by a two nil defeat by Mexico and a last match two to one defeat to host nation South Africa. They ended up scoring a total of one goal in their three matches in a group that they were suppose to come out of with ease.
Host nation South Africa, I thought was going to have a hard time coming out of this group and after a 1-1 tie with Mexico in their first game, they went down 3-0 to Uruguay and beat France by 2 goals to nil to save honor. They thus became the first host nation of a World cup to fail to get out of the preliminary round.

from group B, Argentina advanced with ease as I thought they would. They got all nine points in the round, beating Nigeria 1-0, South Korea 4-1 and Greece 2-0 in their last match of the round. They did all of this without getting a goal from their ace Fifa player of the year, Messi. They thus quickly got their status back as one of the favorites to win the competition.
South Korea emerged as the second qualifier of this group. They opened up with an impressive 2-0 victory over Greece and despite losing their next match by 4-1 to favorite Argentina; they bounced back with a 2-2 tie with Nigeria to advance with a total to four points.
Greece got a third place finish in the group, bouncing back from a 2-0 defeat to South Korea to surprise the Super Eagles with a 2-1 defeat. Despite losing their last match, the got rid of the tag of never winning a world cup game in the history of participating in the competition.
Nigeria was a disappointment to me in this group. I thought they should have advance just behind the South Americans. But this was the Super-Eagles and after a heroic 1-0 defeat to Argentina, they fail to beat Greece in a match in which they were the favorites. Their last match ended in a 2-2 tie with South Korea that left them with just one point out of a total of nine. The team, I thought lacked a play maker in the mid-field and they squandered a lot of scoring chances. They got rid of their local coach that got them qualification into the world cup after easing out Tunisia. The guy they choose to replace him though was a strange choice. They got a Norwegian coach that had not done a lot with his home team, thinking a foreign coach would get them far into the competition. I am always surprise when the African nations always go out and spend a lot of money on a foreign coach and dump their local coaches when it comes to major competitions. I strongly believe that the players are the ones that would win the African nations cup or the World cup for you. There are a lot of coaches out there in all the major sporting events. But very few of them are what you can call difference makers. That is having the ability to turn a team around in a hurry. Of all the six African teams that made it to this world cup, only Algeria stayed with a local coach and they got better results than the team from Cameroon. Ghana so far in the competition seems to be the exception.

From group C, England and the USA advanced. Those were my picks to get out of this group. There were some surprises though.
The USA ended up as head of the group. That was a surprise to me. I figured them as the runners-up team. They played great though and got their campaign into great gear with a 1-1 tie with group favorite England. They drew 2-2 with Slovenia in their next match in which they came from down 2-0 to tie the game and even won it with a third goal that the referee strangely refused with an outside call. Their third match was a tough one against a resilient Algerian side in which Donovan got an extra time lone goal to get the USA its qualification into the knockout stages and first place in the group.
England advanced as runners-up, which had to be a surprise to a lot of people. On paper they looked very impressive and a lot of people picked them as one of the teams with a great chance of winning this world cup. A 1-1 tie with the USA which they blamed on a goalkeeping error was followed by a 0-0 sleeper with Algeria. They had to beat Slovenia in their last match to advance, which they did 1-0.In finishing second from this group though, the English created a lot of problems for themselves. They got a knockout game date with the Germans in a show down which I thought was going to happen in the semi-finals stage of the competition. The English team in this competition reminds me of the Dutch team during the 1990 world cup. They got into the competition as one of the clear favorites and a slow start also got them a date with the Germans in the 8th finals.
Slovenia got knock out of the preliminary stage of the competition with a third place finish.
Algeria got a point out of the competition. Their team showed a lot of fighting spirit but lack ideas going up front.

From group D, Germany and Ghana advanced as I thought they would.
The Germans started with an impressive 4-0 thrashing of Australia. Then they surprise a lot of people by losing one nil to Serbia. Klose got a strange sending off in this match and they played a major part of the game with just ten men. They then had to beat Ghana to advance, which they did and ended up topping the group with six points. The Germans looked impressive and despite dropping three points to Serbia, is still one of the favorites to go deep into the competition.
Ghana got second place in this group but made tough work out of the event. They got a great opening game victory over Serbia in a game which I thought could have gone either way. Their second match against Australia though was the strange one. They went in as favorite and got a lucky break when one of the Australians was sends off. They failed to take advantage though, and ended up with a come from behind 1-1 tie. So instead of booking their qualification in the second game, the Ghanaians had to look for help from the Australian team and hope that they do not concede a lot of goals against the Germans. That is exactly what happened. Australia surprised Serbia and Ghana conceded just one goal in its defeat against the Germans. They become the lone African team to make it out of the group stages in this world cup. Looking forward, the Ghanaian team plays very organized, but they have a problem scoring goals.
Serbia, I think was the unlucky team in this group. They did the tough part of the work in the group by beating the mighty Germans,then unexpectedly fell 1-2 to Australia in a game in which a victory could have given them qualification.
Australia has their opening defeat to the Germans to blame for their early exit in the competition. They bounced back well to pick up four points that was not enough to see them through into the knock out stages of the competition.

From group E, it was Holland and Japan that qualified.
Holland was the class of the group as expected and they breeze through without dropping a point, beating Denmark 2-0, Japan 1-0 and Cameroon 2-1.
Japan was a surprise second in the group because of report of their poor form leading into the competition.They got their qualification though with an opening 1-0 victory over Cameroon,a one to zero setback to Holland and a convincing 3 to 1 victory over Denmark in their last outing.
Denmark, I thought would be the team competing with Cameroon for the second spot. They started with a 2-0 loss to Holland. Bounced back with a 2-1 victory over Cameroon and then surprising fell to Japan in the last match to get knocked out of the competition.
Cameroon was one of the African teams that were supposed to go far into the competition. I picked them to finish second in this group just behind Holland. The team had problems qualifying for the world cup in the first place picking up just one point out of a possible four to start their qualifying campaign. Coach Paul Le Guen was brought in from France and he did a wonderful job to get the team to qualify for the world cup. That did not solve the problems that the team had though. The African nation’s cup saw them go out in the quarter finals stage but there was high hopes going into the world cup. Those hopes were shattered though as the team fell 0-1 to Japan, 1-2 to Denmark and then 1-2 to Holland to exit the competition with a total of zero points. They became the first team to be eliminated in this world cup. French sports television channel “Infosport” must have repeated “le Cameroun est le premier pays a etre éliminé de ce mondiale” about a hundred times. The lions failed to pick up a point for the first time in their six world cup appearances. Who to blame? Back home people were blaming the coach. There was an awesome news conference just after the Lions lose their first game of the competition against Japan. One of the journalists asked Paul Le Guen what they Cameroonian people have to do to get a victory for his team. They said that he has secured a huge salary for himself, big bonuses for his players and excellent working conditions for his team. It was quite fun seeing the replay later on TV. I do not think that the coach is the problem though. The team needs some talented players. You look at the mid field position and there was no play maker there. The entire team consisted of players that are based overseas and there in lies some of the problem. Soome of the African players that play in teams overseas are forced to play out of their original positions. You have a talented offensive midfielder like Mbia who has been forced first to play as a holding midfielder and later on as a defense man. The team needs to grow some local talent but there is also a draw back in that because the local league is poorly run. No infrastructure, poorly paid players and an eroding fan base.

From group F, Paraguay and Slovakia advanced into the knock out stages of the competition.
Paraguay qualified well from the South American zone and after holding Italy in their opening match to a one all tie, went on to defeat Slovakia by 2 goals to nil and played a goalless tie with New Zealand to finish head of group.
Slovakia was the surprise second team to qualify. After an opening 1-1 draw with underdog New Zealand, they went on to draw one all with New Zealand and then pull the shocker of the competition by beating Italy 3-2 in a thriller that saw the defending world champions out of the competition.
New Zealand finish third in this group and that to me is a good overall result from this team. They picked up points against all three teams in their group and finished ahead of the Italians in a group in which people expected them to finish dead last.
The Italians got a lot of negative press at home before heading to South Africa and the press turned out to be right.The Italian press put it this way."You are going into a world cup final with no Del Piero, no Francesco Toti,and no Luca Toni".In their thinking those were too many nos. I thought the Italians were not going to repeat as world champions, but never in my wildest dreams did I see them being knocked out of the opening rounds and to finish dead last in their group. They started out slowly with a one all tie with Paraguay, then got another one all tie with New Zealand and then came the 2-3 shock lost to Slovakia. After the first two draws, I was not worried because the Italians are traditional slow starters in some of their world cup competitions,picking up steam as the competition rolls along. It was a shame to see them exist so soon though because they bring a lot of excitement into the world cup with their large fan base and combative style of play.

From group G, Brazil and Portugal advanced to the group stages.
The Brazilians are one of the favorites to carry home the main prize and everybody expected them to finish head of group which they did. An opening 2-1 victory over North Korea was followed by a 3-1 defeat of Ivory Coast and later on a goalless tie against Portugal,giving them 7 out of a possible 9 points. Their victory over Ivory Coast though was tainted with a controversial second goal that saw Luis Fabiano controlled the ball twice with his hands before hitting it to the back of the net. Play maker Kaka also got a red card in a very tensely contested match.
The Portuguese finished second in this group with an opening 0-0 tie with Ivory Coast. They put a lot of their problems behind them with a 7-0 thrashing of North Korea that saw Cristiano Ronaldo scored for the first time in two year for his country. They then pulled out a goalless tie with Brazil for their last match in this group of death.
Ivory Coast carried some of the African hopes going into the competition, but I thought they got a tough break being pulled into this group. A goalless tie with Portugal, a 1-3 defeat to Brazil and 3 goals to zero defeat of North Korea saw them exiting the competition with their heads held high but still falling short of expectations.
North Korea ended up last in this group falling 1-2 to Brazil, 0-7 to Portugal and then 0-3 to Ivory Coast.

From group H, Spain and Chili advanced into the next stage of the competition.
Spain headed the group with six points. The surprise here was that they drop three points to Switzerland in their opening game of the competition. A 2-0 victory over Honduras and a 2-1 victory over Chili saw them through.
Chili to me was the surprise of this group. They opened with two victories to head the group before falling to Spain in their last match to finish second. I thought that they lose a little bit of their cool in that game and that is what cost them first place in this group.
Switzerland pulled the big upset over Spain and raised all types of hope about qualifying. They then went on to lose 1-0 to Chili and finish their last game with a 0-0 tie with Honduras to finish third in this group.
Honduras had a decent competition despite their last place finish. Their high point was holding Switzerland to a goalless tie thus preventing them from advancing into the group stages.

Round of Sixteen
The break down of the teams that made it to the quarterfinals looked like this. Five teams out of a total of 13 from Europe, one team out of six from Africa, two teams out of three from the North American zone, a perfect five out of five teams from South America and two teams out of five teams from the Asian zone.
For this knockout stage of the competition,the results were as follows; Uruguay –South Korea:2-1,Ghana-USA:2-1,Germany-England:4-1,Argentina-Mexico:3-1,Holland-Slovakia2-1,Spain-Portugal:1-0,Brazil-Chili:3-0,Paraguay-Japan:0-0:5-3 penalty kicks,.

Uruguay got both of its goals from Suarez to see it through to the quarterfinals of the competition. South Korea gave them a tough battle, with a tie of the game in the second half at one all before the late Uruguay winner.

The Ghana-USA match-up was a much anticipated one especially in the African Continent were the Ghanaians happened to be the lone African team to make it into this stage of the competition. Boateng opened the scoring in the tenth minute in a beautiful goal that held up through the first half until late in the second half. Loudon Donovan equalized for the US and the match ended up in a one all tie during regulation. Thirty minutes of extra time was added and it is during the first 15 minutes that star player Gyan scored with a left foot strike to give the Ghanaians the victory. They thus became the third African team to advance into the quarterfinals of the World cup after Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal in 2002.
The Germany-England showdown turned out to be a thrashing by the Germans. England’s slow start in the preliminary rounds got them this match up that I though was going to happen maybe in the semi-finals stage of the competition. The Germans started fast with goals from Klose and Podolski in the early first half to put them up two nil. The English team came back though with a good header from Mathew Upson to cut the lead to 2-1. Then controversy set into the match. A great long distance strike from Frank Lampard hit the cross bar, then cross the line for what was to be the equalizer. Both the referee and the linesmen did not see the ball which television replay showed clearly crossed the line. The English would argue that with a 2-2 tie they could have return from the locker room with more confidence. There has been talk about introducing video replay into the game but for the next world cup, Fifa has opted to go with extra-linesmen instead. That to me would not solve the problem.
Anyway the Germans came into the second half and got two goals from Thomas Muller to put the game out of reach of the English. Final score 4-1.Overall, controversy aside the Germans were the better side. England with all their star players never did get into this world cup that they were favored to win. Disappointed, yes I am pretty sure that the England fans are disappointed.

Argentina got two goals from Carlos Tevez, the second one a long distance beauty to get up two nil in the first half. Higuan Gonzalez added a third in the second half to make it 3-0 before Mexico reduced the score-line to 3-1. Mexico put up a good show but I think they just got beat by a better team.

The Dutch got their goals from Ajen Robben in the first half and Wesley Sneijder in the second to go up two nil. A late Vittek penalty kick made it final score 2-1.I listened to this one over the radio. Going into the match, I thought that the Dutch were going to win it.

Spain got a lone goal from David Villa to give them a deserving one nil victory over Portugal. This game was dominated by Spain who monopolized possession of the ball. The Spaniards are going to be difficult to beat because of their style of play and this game was a clear example. The Portuguese did not see a lot of the ball and they had few scoring chances. The Portuguese team still has the same problem that it had going into Euro-2008 and that is their star player plays the role of a striker. The problem with this is that he needs other players to supply him with the ball and without seeing a lot of balls, the Portuguese were dead in this match. You look at the last generation of Portuguese players and their main star man was Luis Figo who played in the mid-field position. He thus could create goals for himself as well as create for his teammates which he did with all the attention that he was getting in the mid-field. Just look at the Spanish team and though David Villa has been the star player for the Spaniards, you cannot concentrate on him. Xavi Hernandez and Iniesta are the ones doing all of the damage from the mid-field position.

Brazil continued their world cup run with goals from Guan, Robinho and Luis Fabiano to beat Chili 3-0 in a match that they completely dominated. They showed speed, great ball possession and organization in advancing to the quarterfinals stage of the competition. After this display a lot of people were thinking about handing over the trophy to them. I happened to be one of those supporters.

The Paraguay-Chili game, I listened to this one over the radio. The game ended up in a 0-0 tie during regulation and extra-time still did not produce a goal. The dreaded penalty shoot-out separated the teams with Paraguay netting all their penalty kicks and Japan missing one out of the four that they took. 5 goals to 3 was the final score of the game after penalty shoot outs

Round of Eight

The teams that met for the quarterfinals were as follows, Holland versus Brazil, Uruguay versus Ghana, Argentina versus Germany and Spain versus Paraguay. So far into the competition we still have Ghana from Africa, Holland, Germany and Spain from Europe, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina from South America. The advantage has so far in the competition stayed with the South Americans with four teams, Europe has three remaining and Africa has one.

The first match up fitted the Dutch against Brazil.Going into this game I did not think that the Dutch team was going to be a problem for Brazil. Brazil was one of the super favorites and they had defeated the Dutch the last two times that they met in the knock out stages of the world cup. The Dutch got the victory though by 2 goals to one. They would move on to play Uruguay in a winnable semi-finals game on Tuesday the 7th of July that could see them make the finals of the competition for the first time since 1978.The best soccer playing nation never to have won the world cup. That might just be about to change. Getting into the game itself, for some reason the Brazilians seemed agitated during the start of the match. Robinho was angry at the referee during the early part of the first half and that continued during the second half. The Brazilians got an early goal ruled out for offside and then a Robinho opening goal in the 10 minute that beat the offside trap. Score line was one goal to nil in favor of Brazil. They continued to dominate the Dutch but there was something missing from the Brazilians. They were missing a lot of combination passes that they easily put together against Chili. They went into the break though still leading by a goal to nil. In the second half though, the Dutch woke up big time. Wesley Sneijder got in their first goal from a free kick which the Brazilians were giving away a lot. Bastos was very guilty in this department and even picked up a yellow card and Dunga their coach wisely substituted him though late into the second half before he could pick up a red card. This first goal by the Dutch saw the usually cool Julio Ceasar come out of his line and totally missed the in coming ball with a defender up his face. Things were to get worse. Sneijder added a second in the 63 minute of play and the Brazilian team started to panic, I think. In their past two world cup match ups in 1994 and 1998, it was the Dutch that had to play from behind to tie the game. In 1994 they came down from 2-0 to tie before losing 2-3 after a Branco winner. In 1998, Brazil went up 1-0 early in the first half and the Dutch did not get their equalizer until in the late 80 minutes of play in that game. The match went into a goal less extra time and then penalty shootout that the Brazilians won.
In this 2010 world cup game, after the Dutch went up 2-1, the Brazilians just seem to run out of ideas. Felipo Lopez made things worse for his side by committing a bad foul that got him thrown out of the game with 15 minutes left in regular play. Each time the Brazilians got the ball into the Dutch side of the field, there were at least five Dutch players surrounding the attacking player. During the dying minutes of this game, it even looked like the Dutch did not want to add on to their score-line. The place that I was watching the game had for some strange reason turned into a Dutch crowd. People complained that the Brazilians had already painted their streets ready for the winning parade.So did the Brazilians deserved their tag going into this competition as superfavorites.On paper yes,but they failed to show that during the match in which they were eliminated.If you are wondering how then should a superfavorite exict a world cup final look at the teams upset defeat to Italy in 1982 and to France in 1986.It took something extraordinary from the opposing team to get the Samba boys out of those world cup competitions.

For the Ghana versus Uruguay match up,the Ghanaians got the game going with a tenth minute goal from their Inter-Milan player, Mountari. The teams took turns dominating the match that went into the break with Ghana up 1-0.Uruguay equalized through a Diego Forlan beauty of a free kick. That got his tally to three goals in the competition. Play ended though at 1-1 after 90 minutes. The Ghanaians were headed for their second extra-time play to try and advance into the next stage of this world cup competition. The first part of the extra-time came and went with few scoring chances from both teams,but it was during the second part of the extra-time that the Ghanaians took control of the game. It was as if somebody had told them to avoid penalty shootouts. They dominated possession by a wide margin during this half and got the break that they needed to become the first African team to advance to the semi-finals of a world cup. It all happened during the last minute of the additional two minutes of added time. During a goal mouth struggle a Ghanaian header from close range was heading to the back of the net for what could have been their victory goal when star forward Luis Suarez from Uruguay used both of his hands to play the role of goalkeeper. Good new for the Ghanaians, right? WRONG. They were a number of ways in which Suarez action could have been good news for the Ghanaians. The first was if the game was in its earlier stages and the referee’s action of sending him off and awarding a penalty kick could have been great. Also I wonder whether earlier on in the game, Suarez does not let that ball go in. He gets to miss the semi-finals of the game and he could possibly get more suspension from Fifa. It could also have been good news for the Ghanaians if the penalty kick was converted. Star player Gyan, who had during earlier games converted twice from the penalty spot, step into this one and despite having the goal-keeper heading the wrong way, hit the crossbar with his kick. A lot of people thought that he hurried his kick. The game thus went into penalty shootouts. The out come of the penalty shootout justified why Ghana fought so had to win the game in extra time. They converted only two of the four penalty kicks that they took, while Uruguay converted on four out of the five kicks that they took. The final score was four goals to two in a game that would be remembered for a long time. Uruguay thus advances to the semi-finals stage of the world cup for the first time, I believe since 1970 in Mexico where they were eliminated by Brazil. Star man Gyan because of his youthful age of 24 I think does not for the moment realize what a great chance that he was presented with. There is a feeling when you are young to think that there would be more opportunities in the future but life does not work out that way. Moments like the one presented to this young man do not come often and I kind of feel bad for him. You look at the performances of Africans teams in the world cup and history is not on his side. Nigeria for example made it out of the world cup preliminary rounds in their first two outings in the finals but have struggled during their last two. Senegal, the second African team to make it to the quarterfinals stage of the competition, has not been to the world cup since. Cameroon, has been to the world cup finals,now for the six time. Their best performances though, came in their first two outings. Picking up three draws in 1982 and making the quarterfinals in their second outing in 1990. Since then, in their last four outings in the world cup, the lions have failed to advance past the group stages.
Ghana was making their second outing, a great one,after also making it out of the group stages in their first outing in 2006. It remains to be seen whether they ever get to repeat their performances in the past in another world cup final.

Germany beat Argentina by four goals to nil to advance to the semifinals and the Germans were one of my picks to make it this far. They got first half goals from klose and Muller and added two additional goals in the second half to complete the rout of Argentina. This score line is a little bit surprising to me considering the way that Argentina has been playing so far in the competition. Anyway the Germans completely dominated the match and they seem to be moving towards their fourth world cup title. In this match, I kind of felt bad for Argentina,with their proud legendary coach and admired the way that they held themselves throughout the match during the defeat. They did not resort to bad play or picking up silly red cards to try and disrupt the match.

Spain beat Paraguay one nil to advance to the semi finals where they would face Germany in what would be a rematch of their Euro-2008 meeting. The match itself was tough due to the manner in which the Paraguay team plays. Their philosophy seems to be to defend first and try to surprise the opponent on a counterattack. The match got some drama during the second period when Paraguay got a penalty kick in what could have given them the lead. Iker Casillas pull off a beauty of a save to keep the scores at 0-0. Moments later, it was Spain’s turn to get a penalty kick that Alonso converted initially but the penalty kick was refused because he came to a complete stop before converting it. His second attempt was stopped by the keeper. David Villa settled things though for Spain in the 83 minute of play, slotting in a rebound from an Iniesta attempt that had hit the goal post.

Semi-finals stage of the Competition.
The four teams that made it to the semi-finals were Germany, Holland, Uruguay and Spain.So for the break down into the various continents, Europe had three teams remaining while the South Americans had one left.The Europeans had thus turned around what in the quarterfinals stage of the competition seems like a South American show into a European show. For the South Americans, though they still had Uruguay left in the competition, the last round had to be a disaster to them. Favorites Brazil and Argentina had been humbled together with sleeper Paraguay.

The first semi-finals saw tournament surprise run team Uruguay going against a confident Dutch team. The Dutch open scoring early through Van Bronckhorst after 18 minutes of play through a long distance beauty of a goal that held until the 43rd minute when Uruguay star man Diego Forlan stroke in an equalizer from around 25 meters away from the goals post to tie the scoring. The Dutch stepped up pressure in the second half and got goals from Wesley Sneijder and Ajen Robben to go up 3 goals to one and put them in a good position to make it to the finals. Things got interesting though when Uruguay pull one back in extra-time to make the score 3 to 2. That is where it ended and the Dutch are heading to their third finals in the history of the world cup and their first since they were there in 1978 in Argentina.
The second semi-finals was a rematch of Europe 2008 finals that saw Germany play against the Republic of Spain. The score in that game was one goal to nil in favor of Spain and the score of the rematch ended in the same manner,one goal to nil also in favor of Spain. For some reason,it seems as if Spain does not bring out the best in the German national team.In this particular world cup semi-finals the German team did not come out firing as they did against Argentina in the quarterfinals. They created few scoring chances, like zero in the first half of play. Spain dominated possession of the ball as they have been doing throughout this competition and got their winning goal in the second half of play through a Puyol header in around the seventy minutes of play. They could have gotten a second, but Pedro opted to go for glory by himself instead of passing the ball to a wide open Fernando Torres. Fernando Torres has not been having a great time in this world cup and the coach brought him in later in the game as a sub. Anyway it is all set for an all European final between Holland and Spain. Both teams would be trying to get their first world cup triumph. This would be Hollands third final and Spains first in world cup play. So with Spain meeting Holland in the final a trend has been broken that was in place since 1966 when the winner of the world cup has alternated between a European and a South American team. This was suppose to be the year of the South Americans,but things did not work out quite well for them.Good thing that they get to host the next competition in four years time in Brazil.

Third place match
The third place game is the small finals and it fitted Germany against Uruguay. With the pressure of winning the world cup out of the way the teams produce some attractive play and the game ended in a 3 to 2 victory for Germany. Germany got goals from this world cup new find, Thomas Muller in the first half and from Jansen and Ghedira in the second half.Uruguay got its goals from Diego Forlan and Giovanni for their 2 goal scoreline.

The Final Match
The final turned out to be a tense affair. Part of that was due to the fact that the game went into extra time before a winner could be decided. Spain ended up winning the game in extra time, through a 116 minute strike from man of the match Andres Iniesta. Holland had to adjust their style of play in this match, because the Spaniard refuse you access to the ball. They resorted to some hard fouls and they paid for that when John Heitinga was sent off in the second period of extra time. Holland,I think, had some chances to win the game in regulation. Two misses from Arjen Robben, one of them really unbelievable that could have given the Dutch the lead. They thus returned home as runners up for the third time in the history of the competition.
Spain are world champions and rightly so in this competition. They too had chances to win the game in regulation and missed them. They did step up their game though during the extra period of play and they deserve the goal that they got to win the match.
How do the Spaniards compare though to recent world cup champions?I would put them in the same category like the Italians four years earlier in 2006.They were very solid in defense, conceding just two goals through the course of the competition.They won though without scoring a lot of goals or doing something extraordinary for which they would be remembered,managing just 8 goals in winning the competition. So their shortcoming has to be lack of explosiveness. The team though plays very attractive soccer, moving forward all the time. They did not resort to any type of negative play throughout all their matches and totally dominated possession of the ball. That was their trademark.

The Awards
Best young player of the tournament went to German forward, Thomas Muller. He also got the golden boots award for his five goals scored. He was tied in this category with Diego Forlan, David Villa and Wesley Sneijder, but he had a better assist rate compared to his rivals. Diego Forlan got best player of the tournament. I for one think that Iniesta of Spain should have gotten it for delivering the trophy for his country. Forlan had a wonderful tournament, taking his underdog team all the way to the semi-finals. But he missed out of the finals though, and except in a case were somebody has an extraordinary tournament; I think that the best player of the competition should go to a player who participates in the final match of the competition.

South Africa 2010

2010-05-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

The competition runs from the 11 of June 2010 through the 11 of July 2010 and it is the first time that it is being hosted on the African continent, in the Republic of South Africa. There are 32 teams in total and they are divided into eight groups made up of four teams each,group A through H.

Group A is made up of host country South Africa,Mexico,France and Uruguay.
France is one of my favorite teams.Everybody that follows the game would remember the controversial way in which they got into the final 32 with the infamous hand assist pass by star player Thierry Henry,but they got in anyway after a tough playoff against the Republic of Ireland.France had their break through year in the World cup in 1998 when they won the cup though they have been a good side for a long period of time. They won the European Cup of Nations in grand style in 1984 and twice made it to the semi finals of the World cup in 1982 and 1986.If you are looking for a great soccer video to purchase, head to a soccer store and demand their 1982 classic match with West Germany.The French team is in a transitional period right now in my opinion and I would be surprise if they make a great run deep into the competition. Their most current major trophy was the 2000 European Nations cup,known as the "Euro" which they won away in the Netherlands.

Mexico qualified just behind the USA.If you looking for some attractive soccer, watch the team from Mexico. They have never won the world cup, but they are a fun team to watch with a lot of passionate fans from this Latin American Nation.They usually are a safe bet to make it out of the preliminary rounds.

South Africa first hosted a major competition in 1996 and won it ,but that was the African Cup of nations. As host country they got an automatic bid and the International Football Federation,generally referred to as "Fifa" made them head of Group A. They are not particularly in great form of late, having failed to qualify for the African cup of nations that was played in Angola early this year. But with the home crowd behind them,they could pull out a couple of surprises.

Uruguay were the fifth team from the South American confederation to qualify for the world cup after a playoff win over Costa Rica. They have been World champions at two different occasions,first in 1930 and later on in 1950. Since then they have been a force in the South American continent,but not so strong at the World cup stage. It would be hard press for them to get out of this group.

So my picks to get out of this group are France and Mexico.

Group B has as head of group Argentina,then Nigeria,Greece and South Korea.
Argentina are two times world champions, first when they hosted the competition in 1978 winning it with players like Mario Kempes, Daniel Passarella and then they won the trophy again in 1986 with Diego Maradona carrying the team.So their most recent World cup triumph came when the tournament was hosted in Mexico.Argentina for some unknown reason struggled through qualification in a zone which they normally go through with relative ease. Diego Maradona is their coach and though a legend, a lot of people think that he was part of the problem in the qualification run.The team never had a steady set of players and some veterans who had retired from the national team had to be called in to help in the qualification process. The team has a lot of talent including world 2010 player of the year Lionel Messi.They play very attractive soccer and I am looking for them to pick up the slack of winning this world cup should their South American brother, the "Samba boys" from Brazil fail to do so.

Greece had that magical run in Euro-2004 during which they won it as a very long shot. Though they have not been able to match that magical performance, they are a tough out in any major competition. Their style of play does not attract a lot of fans, but they do get the results with some great defensive effort.

Nigeria is the African nation that I think would be the first to win a World cup if an African nation gets to win one.They have the character and the talent to do it. They have had great success in winning world championships at the under 20 age group, though the success has not translated into the senior team in the World cup stage. They won the soccer Olympic gold medal in Atlanta in 1996 and their best team to ever play in the world cup in my opinion was the Super Eagles that arrived the US in 1994.Two times champions of Africa,this would be their fourth World cup appearance and only once have they fail to make it out of the group stages. That was in 2002 when they were pulled in a very tough group that included Argentina,England and Sweden.The most recent outing of the Super-Eagles was during the African Cup of nations in January and they ended up third in a competition in which they were picked as one of the favorites to win the trophy. The fact that they failed to measure up well against eventual African Cup of nations winner, Egypt means that the super-eagles need to do a lot of work if they are going to make a great run at the first World cup to be hosted in the continent.

South Korea had their best run in the 2002 competition which they co-hosted with the Japanese,making it all the way to the semi-finals. My greatest memory of them is when they had a memorable game in Chicago stadium with the German side in the 1994 World cup competition. Down three goals to nil, they made a great comeback falling just short at 2goals to three.But they showed a lot of fight in that game and left the competition with a lot of respect from the soccer viewing world.

My picks to get out of this evenly matched teams are the Super-Eagles and Argentina.

Group C has England,USA,Algeria and Slovenia.
England is the nation that invented the game.I take that back,I believe it is Scots that invented the game. The English team last won a major trophy in 1966 which is a very long time ago. They made it to the world cup semi-finals in 1990 and recently it has been the quarterfinals at World cup competitions and home they go. Their most recent team that I like was the one in 1998 that lost to Argentina in penalty shootouts. That team I believe was unlucky and very talented. The recent team is very good in my opinion and they are going to be very dangerous in this world cup. Their Italian coach Fabio Capello brings in a lot of winning tradition from a European brother.The depth of this team is what I believe would take them a long way in this championship. They eased through qualifications and only lost to Croatia when they had their place in South Africa already booked.A lot of opinion both within the English community and outside of England belief that the current generation of players in this team have a chance of achieving what their counterparts in 1966 did and that if they fail to do so in this World cup final, it would be a very long time before they get such a great opportunity. This is how talented the current squad is.

Algeria would be making an appearance for the first time since 1982 in which they had that memorable victory over super favorite West Germany. They did not make it to the next round but they were only one of two African nations at the time that qualify for the world cup. The country went through a period of internal unrest and it is good to see them back on the international football scene. The internal unrest is behind them now and it seems as if they are getting their talent pool back together.We recently saw the Algerian team in the African cup of nations that took place in January in Angola and though they got a passing grade in the competition, finishing in fourth place, they have a lot of work to do. They are a disciplined side in the way they play, except when they are playing the Egyptian side against whom they completely unravel during that competition. The team needs some strike force up front in my opinion and would have to play very hard to get out of the preliminary stages of the world cup.

In the USA, soccer is not the primary sporting event but they have learn very well how to play the game. They qualified easily from the "Concacaf" zone in which Mexico seem to be their only real challenge.Their recent great run in a world cup final came in 2002 when they beat a talented Portuguese side on their way to making it out of the preliminary rounds.They play great when they have their backs to the wall. Look at their performance during the 2009 Confederations cup, when they came from losing their first two games to making it all the way to the semi-finals of that competition.

Slovenia got in after winning a tough home and away playoff with the Russians in which they were two goals down in the first leg and manage an away goal. All they needed to do then was to secure a one nil victory at home to qualify and that is exactly what they did.

From this group I would say that the USA and England would be making it out of the preliminary rounds.

Group D has Germany,Australia,Ghana and Serbia.
Germany are three times world champions in 1954,1974 and 1990.They also have been champions of Europe at three different occasion,1972,1980 and most recently in Euro-1996.That is six major competition triumph. You throw in their world cup runners-up in 1982,1986 and 2002 and "voila", you get quite an impressive resume. They come into most major competitions as one of the favorites to win it all and this one is no different. They have continuity in their coaching staff and the right blend of players to lift the trophy. Their main problem could be in the defensive area.

Australia made it out of the preliminary round in the last world cup competition, so they are not a light weight by any standard.They qualify from the Oceanic Zone.

Ghana made it out of the preliminary round in their World cup debut in 2006 and they are four times African Champions. I look for them to make it out of the preliminary rounds this time around also. They could even make a lot of noise if their key players can stay healthy going into the competition.They are current under twenty world champions and they have won at the under 17 level also, so it is a matter of transferring that talent to the senior level. Their current side is made up of quite a few players from the under 20 side that lifted the trophy that they hosted.In their most recent outing in a major competition, in January this year, they made it all the way to the finals with the youngest team in the competition. They fall just short of lifting the African Cup of nations for the fifth time in the history of that competition and their run in that competition would help them in this world cup final competition.

Serbia qualified in a group that had France in it,as head of the group.So unlike the French they did not have to go through a two game playoff to make it into the competition.

I like the Ghana team and the Germans to get out of this group.

Group E has the Netherlands, Denmark,the Republic of Cameroon and Japan.Apart from Holland, the group looks pretty balanced.
Holland are the best soccer playing nation in my opinion in the world never to have won the world cup. They came close in 1974 and 1978 as runners-up to the Republic of Germany and Argentina respectively. They also get to about the semi finals or quarterfinals before being knocked out in the years that they are in form. Look for them to be there around the semi finals nations.They have won a major trophy though, in 1988 with Van Basten, Raud Gaulit and co,that was hosted by the Germans.They are an attractive side to watch and have a lot of talented players. Their main problem going into major competitions has been infighting.When that is absent, the team is scary good. They breezed through qualifications without dropping a single point. Only the Spanish team matched that record in qualification.

Denmark won "Euro" 1992 when they did not even qualify for the competition.They came in as a replacement for then Yugoslavia that was going through sanctions from the international body.In the years that the Danes are in the World cup finals they seem to do pretty well. One of their most exciting teams showed up in Mexico in 1986 and dazzled a lot of fans before being knock out in the quarterfinals by Spain.

Cameroon is making their African record sixth appearance in the world cup stage and their best performance came in 1990 when they had that great run into the quarterfinals stage of the competition and they were responsible for Fifa increasing the number of teams from the continent to five teams from the start of the 1994 world cup competition. Their star man is current Inter forward Samuel Eto'o Fils.Though the team has made the most appearance from the African continent into the World cup finals, they have only once made it out of the group stages.The problems lie in different areas ranging from arguments over the payment of bonuses to not having the organization skill to match their talent on the playing field. Their current outing was in Angola during the African cup of nations this past January and they get out in the quarterfinals. A lot of fans back home were disappointed and the team seems to me to be still in transition right now. They have quite a few veteran players that the public had been screaming for the coaches to replace. The public got its wish in their recent outing with mixed results.They team show some improvement in the energy
department but some of the errors that the veteran players were committing, were duplicated by the younger replacements, whom the African Cup of nations showed needed some games under their belt to be able to fill in well for the veteran players. The coach, Paul Le Guen did some explanations after the African Cup of nations, and his ambition is to take this current set of lions to at least the quarterfinals of the competition. The indomitable lions are in a tough group and though they have some talented players in their team, it is going to be a tough world cup outing come June.

Japan was one of the first teams that qualified for the current world cup finals and they did well in 2002 when they co-hosted the World cup finals with South Korea. They have the ability to stay around with most teams and that is what makes them a very difficult opponent to deal with.

From this evenly matched group I like Holland and the Lions(with all their problems)to get out of the preliminary stage of the competition.

Group F has Italy,New-Zealand,Paraguay and Slovakia.
Italy are the defending world champions and they are four times winners of the World cup trophy.Their first three triumphs came in 1934,1938 and 1982 respectively.Though they won it the last time around, I think their most memorable side has to be the one in 1982.They came in as outsiders to super-favorites Brazil and Germany and won the trophy in grand style,getting better as the competition moved from one stage to the other.That has been the tradition of the Italian side. Get out of the preliminary rounds with a bit of a struggle and then turn into one of the tougher outs of the event. If you are looking for a classic video tape from their 1982 triumphant, there are two that you can get, the first one would be their final victory game over Germany. The second one though, their victory over Brazil that got them into the semi finals of the competition, is the real classic soccer video of the competition. One of the best of all times. This current Italian side,in my opinion is in transition.Their break though could come in the fact they got a very good draw from Fifa and though they might lack some attacking punch up front, their defense is good to see them through deep into the competition.

Slovakia would be making their first appearance in a major soccer tournament.They did qualify from a tough European qualification group.

Paraguay does not have any problem qualifying for the world cup competition. Their problem has been once they get into the World stage, they just do not perform as well as their other South American counterparts.This time around though they qualified well from their South American group and they have a very good chance in group F.

New Zealand are making a comeback into world cup play since their last appearance in the year 1982.I remember that team because they had quite an exciting head coach.

My picks to get out of this group would be Italy and Paraguay.

Group G is the group of death and it is made up of Brazil,Portugal,Ivory Coast and North Korea.
Brazil are five times world champions and for the moment I think this year they would make it their six world cup victory.This is my logic as to why they would be the winners this time around. The world cup is coming to Africa for the first time and each time that the competition has moved to a completely new venue this South American nation has won it. They did that in 1994 when the competition was played in the US for the fist time and they did it again in 2002 when the competition moved to South Korea and Japan. Also since 1966 the winner of this trophy has rotated between a South American team and a European team. England in 1966,Brazil in 1970,West Germany in 1974,Argentina in 1978,Italy in 1982,Argentina in 1986,Germany in 1990,Brazil in 1994,France in 1998,Brazil in 2002 and Italy in 2006.So look for a South American team this time around. Uruguay is the third South American team that has won the competition but they did it way back in 1930 and 1950. Recently it has been Brazil and Argentina doing it for the South Americans.I would say go with Brazil first and if they fail Argentina would pick up the slack.The Brazilian team won the 2009 Confederations cup in South Africa and though one might have a few complains about the talent pull not being as deep as some of their great teams in the pass,I think they have enough players and the right mental strength to get it done. They did not breeze through qualifications as say Spain or the Netherlands, but they got the
job done and that is the kind of the them that this current set of Samba boys is. Their coach is Dunga and he won the competition as team captain in 1994 and I think there is enough talent and fight in this side to see them all the way through. They also have a lot of fans in the African continent. Their fan base in the continent eclipse even that of the popular English and Spanish sides with leagues that are watch weekly through out the continent.

North Korea qualified from the oceanic zone and it is remarkable that they did considering all the problems that the country in going through both internally and with the international community. I think that they are the weaker team is this otherwise all around top to bottom tough group. I am not looking for them to get out of this group.

Ivory Coast is making their second straight world cup appearance and it is too bad that they had to be drawn into such a tough group.This happened to them in their last world cup appearance in 2006 in Germany in which they were grouped with Holland and Argentina and they failed to make it out of the group stages.The team with the most talent of the six African teams in the competition, their problem has been the right mental strength during major competitions. Champions of Africa in 1992,they have just come of age during this decade and they would have a lot of fight in their hands to get out of this group.In their most recent outing in a major competition, this January, they failed to live up to expectation, falling short of their second African cup of nations triumph in a 3-2 defeat to under-dog side Algeria. They have the talent on paper but would the current disappointments and being drawn in a tough world cup group,it could be a tough June 2010 for the team from Ivory Coast. If they needed motivation, they have it going into this competition, because they are not going in as favorites to win it and also because their disappointing outing at the African cup of nations outing this past January should be enough motivation for them.

Portugal started their world cup qualifying campaign really slow and had to go through a playoff to make the final 32.They are a very talented team with 2008 Fifa player of the year Cristiano Ronaldo in the squad.They would be battling in out
with Ivory Coast in my opinion for that second qualification spot behind Brazil.

When it is all played out, I would say that Portugal and Brazil would be getting out of this group of death.

Group H has Spain,Honduras, Switzerland and Chile.
Spain are the defending European champions and the team that they used to lift the European trophy in 2008 is pretty much intact. Look for them to make a pretty big run into the competition. I would not say they are going to lift the trophy just because they have not done so in the past. But they have to be one of the favorites. They would get support from the African continent where they have a lot of people tracking their star players.They breezed through qualification, picking up all the available points and they happen to be in the bottom half of the pairing with the other super-favorite of this competition, Brazil. Currently placed second on the Fifa world ranking, they are the most creative of all the teams present in this competition. That creativity is in their mid-fielders. The Spanish team is loaded with forward moving mid-fielders and those are the type of players that you need to win big competitions. The only problem that I have with the side is that if they get behind like they did in the Confederations cup against the US, a game they ended up losing, they tend to get down on themselves. They said, anything short of a semi-finals place would be a major disappointment for this talented side.

Switzerland are a crafty team, their last outing was in Euro 2008 when they co-hosted and failed to get out of the preliminary rounds, but this is the world cup,so look for some positive results from them.

Chile can play some attractive soccer. They qualified third out of the tough South American qualifying zone.

Honduras qualified third in the North American group behind the USA and Mexico.They have been in the world cup before though they did not make it out of the preliminary rounds.

My teams to get out of this group would be defending European Champions Spain and Chile.

Conclusion
The competition is a little bit loaded with more talented teams in the bottom half of the draw which is from group E through group H in my opinion.The reason I say that is because in this pairing you have top rank powerhouse Holland,defending world champions Italy,five times world champions Brazil and defending European champions Spain.You throw in Ivory Coast,Cameroon,Denmark and Portugal and you get a collection of teams from which this world cup winner would be coming from.The competition is being played in the African continent for the first time and people would be wondering how far an African team can progress into this world cup.Cameroon and Ivory are pretty good teams but they happen to be in the tougher part of the draw,so a quarterfinals place would be the extend of their run. Teams Nigeria,Ghana,South African and Algeria might not be the the top ranking teams from the continent,but they pulled a good break on the draw. So I would be looking for one of these teams to break through the quarterfinals stage of the competition. I am not so sure whether one of these teams would take the trophy, but a semi-finals or a finals place in the competition is possible.

So from the tough bottom part of the draw, when it is all played out, I would be looking at Spain and Brazil battling it out for a spot in the finals on July 11 2010.

In the top half of the draw, England and the Germany should be the teams standing
when it is all played out. If England wanted to make a great run into a world cup competition, this would be the one.The draw is favorable, the team is talented, they have a great coach and they have a great fan base in the African continent, where all eyes are glued each weekend on the television sets to watch the English premier league competition.

My winner though when it is all played out would be the Samba Boys from Brazil who would be crowned as World Champions for the Sixth time.

थे फर्स्ट १०० days

2010-02-04T02:22:00.000-08:00

Once he was sworn in on the 20th of January 2009,the very next day he signed into law a bill for the closing down of the Guantanamo Bay,Cuba prison center. I would have to say that was a positive achievement. There was a problem with getting some of the newly appointed members into the government confirmed by the Senate.About three of them had to withdraw during the process mainly due to minor tax problems. This should go down under the negative column. The President himself admitted that some mistakes were made.
The economic stimulus package was passed despite great opposition from the republicans in both houses of congress. The bill with a price tag of 787 billion dollars though was signed into law and despite the opposition this for the moment has to go as a positive. The president is working on the 75 billion dollar rescue package for home owners. This has to go on the positive column.
Troops totally initially about 17000 were order to go to Afghanistan to continue the war on terror. The number would be increase to about 30000 troops which is the target. War has been on going in Afghanistan for about the past 30years.The Soviets were there in 1979 and started the nightmare.They did not leave until after about ten years of continuous fighting.
More American troops will help bring some stability into the area but the fact remains that the Afghan people have not seen peace since the Soviet Union invaded the area in 1979.
President Obama announced plans to cut by half the federal deficit which will be at 1.3trillion dollars by the end of his first term of office.He plans on doing it by getting rid of tax cuts that were giving to the rich in the previous administration and on cutting back on health care.Also money will be saved by ending the war in Iraq.
On the 27 of February the President gave a timetable for the troops to be pull out of Iraq.It is going to take 18months instead of the 16 promised during the presidential campaign and the reduction is going to be from 140000 troops down to 50000 troops. The remaining troops are to provide some stability in the region. Some critics are saying that this is a partial keeping of his campaign promise.
The President is taking a different approach to some countries that were considered by the former administration as very evil and not to be negotiated with at all.There is some type of friendship extension towards Cuba, a country that has been under US embargo since 1962.The current administration is also taking with Iran despite the fact that the former is going ahead with its nuclear built up.

Overall a passing grade for the first 100days in office.

2010-01-28T01:55:00.000-08:00

African Cup of Nations Round-up

The competition started with tragedy as the Togolese team traveling from the Republic of Congo was attacked by gunmen, leaving a couple of players injured and three members from the delegation dead. There were a lot of questions asked, including why the Angolan host were not informed before the Togolese team started the bus trip. Togo ended up pulling out of the competition, which was understandable considering the shock that some of the individuals involved must have gone through.

The Group stages started with what turned out to be an exciting encounter between host nation Angola and Mali in group A. Down 4 goals to nil, the Malian team used the last quarter hour of the game to make their comeback and tied the game at 4-4 just after regular time. The was another surprise game from this group A where World cup bound Algeria were shocked 3-0 by Malawi. Angola next beat Malawi by 2-0 and tied Algeria in a controversial last match that both team just needed a draw to advance.Algeria made a nice come back in their next match beating Mali 1-0 and finished the group as runners-up to Angola. Mali was the disappointment in this group with a star packed line-up that saw them fail to rise to the occasion against Algeria in their second outing.They ended up beating Malawi 3-1 in their last match but headed home third in their group just ahead of Malawi. Final group standings Angola-7points,Algeria-4points,Mali-4points and Malawi-3points.Algeria advanced over Mali because of their head to head victory over the Malian team.

In Group B, the first encounter saw a dull encounter between tournament favorite Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso that ended in a goalless tie.Ghana had to sit out the first day in this group play because the Togolese delegation had pulled out of the competition. The Ivory Coast team bunched back well in match day two, beating Ghana by 3goals to one to become the first team to qualify for the quarter finals. The had to wait for Ghana to beat Burkina Faso by 1-0 to know that they qualify as head of the group. The team from Ghana,though missing quite a few of their star players including Micheal Essien still made it through as second of this group. Standings. Ivory Coast-4points, Ghana-3points and Burkina Faso-1 point.

In Group C, the Egyptians came in as back to back champions and somehow did not get a much press as the Ivorian national team as one of the super-favorites. Their opening match was against the Super Eagles of Nigeria and after a three to one victory over the Super-Eagles, you just knew that the Egyptians run in the past three African cup of nations is far from over. Boy, did they look good taking down the super-eagles. They would go on to beat Benin and Mozambique by a like 2goals to nil score to finish as head of this group and they were the second team to qualify for the quarter finals. The super-eagles bound back beating Benin one goal to nil and Mozambique by three goals to nil to book their place in the quarterfinals as runners-up to Egypt.The final standings on this group were Egypt-9points, Nigeria-6points-Benin-1 point and Mozambique-1 point.

Group D turned out to be the most wide opened of the groups. A couple of thriller encounters took place here, including a three to two Cameroon victory over Zambia and a 2-2 tie between Tunisia and Cameroon.The final standings on this group were Zambia-4points,Cameroon-4points,Gabon-4poinnts,Tunisia-three points. As you can see the first three teams ended up with 4points each. Zambia and Cameroon both scored and conceded five goals each. Gabon scored 2 goals and conceded 2 goals and ended up third in the group because of scoring fewer goals.
The big controversy though was who ends up as head of this group between Cameroon and Zambia. Immediately after the encounter the stations carrying the game announced that Cameroon is head of group and would play Nigeria in their quarter-finals clash. Zambia as runners-up would then get to play against Egypt. About two hours later though news started filtering that Zambia is the head of group and not Cameroon as earlier announced. The reason for the change did not become clear until the next day and this is how the error came about. According to Fifa regulations, Cameroon would have been head of group because with similar goals statistics, they beat Zambia in head to head play. It turned out though that CAF, the confederations of African football has their own rules in this situation and only the goals scored between the three teams involved in the tie are considered. So you through out the two goals that Cameroon scored against Tunisia and Zambia's lone goal against Tunisia and you get Zambia with 4goals to Cameroons 3.Zambia thus went through as head of group and Cameroon as runners-up.Cameroon would then take on Egypt in the quarterfinals, while Zambia would play against the Super-Eagles of Nigeria.

The Quarterfinals of the competition kicked off with Angola playing against a very young Ghana side. The final score was one goal to nil in a match that I would say was okay.

The next quarterfinals was between world cup bound Ivory Coast and Algeria. Ivory Coast was the super-favorite to life the trophy and Algeria had a not so convincing first round of play. The match was a thriller though that ended at 2-2 a piece after 90 minutes of regulation play. Ivory Coast scored what everybody thought was the winning goal with a minute left in regulation only to watch a resilient Algerian team pull even in added-time when the celebrations had started in the Ivorian camp. Extra time saw a fresh looking Algeria side scoring in the first part of extra time to win the game by 3-2. Disappointment for the Ivory Coast team. oh yes, with all their star players, this is the third African Cup of Nations that they have failed to win , coming in as one of the favorite teams. If you ask me I would say this talented set of Elephants from the Ivory Coast are running out of time to pick up a nations cup victory. The team from Algeria though is beginning to leave their mark. A lot of people were wondering whether their victory over Egypt to qualify for the world cup in South Africa was for real. After this encounter, the was no more doubting the desert fox from the north of Africa. They are back as a force in African football.

The next quarterfinals saw Egypt beat Cameroon 3-1 in extra time to advance and the super-eagles needing penalty shootout to beat Zambia 5-4 after a goalless 120 minutes. Cameroon put up a good fight against Egypt, but the Lions are still a team in transition. The Semi-finals were thus set. Egypt-Algerian and Ghana-Nigeria. It looks like the football powers of the continent are now found in West and North Africa.

The first semi-finals of the competition saw the black stars of Ghana beat the super-eagles of Nigeria by one goal to nil. The Ghana team got their goal in around the 21 minute of play through veteran forward A.Gyan and spend the rest of the game defending the lone goal. Once again the super-eagles failed to live up to expectation. The game itself was exciting, but nothing close to what you got in the next semi-finals.
This second semi-finals had the Egyptians beat Algeria but 4 goals to nil. The Algerians totally unravel in this game.The first goal from Egypt came in the first half of play through a penalty kick that was controversially transformed. The complain is that Egyptian mid-fielder Hosny totally came to a stop before proceeding to transform the penalty kick. In the second half thought, the Egyptians totally took control of the match, scoring a second goal through forward player Mohammed Zidane and adding two more goals, one coming in additional time to complete the rout. I would say that in this game we saw a completely different Algerian team. Maybe because they were playing against fierce rival Egypt, they came completely apart, reduced to 8 men on the field before the end of the game. There was a lot of complaining after the game for the officiating which I thought was stiff but right on the money. The Algerians of cause did most of the complaining, from their head coach all the way down to the players.

The small final of the game is usually the play for who ends up in the third and fourth position in the classifications. The game is usually a tough one for the teams because of the fact that they are coming off disappointing loses in the semi-finals of the competition. The Super-Eagles won by a goal to nil in a match that was not bad at all for a third place game. There was good sportsmanship from both of the teams and for the day, I think that the better team won.

The finals started at 5pm local time here in Cameroon, were I was for the day and going into it, most people said that the Egyptians are going to carrying the day. The case for the Egyptians was not a very tough one considering the fact that they had so far in the competition conceded just 1 goal while scoring 11 goals. The Ghana team on the order hand is a relatively young team with most of their star players missing because of injury. In the competition, they have conceded 3 goals so far before the finals while scoring 4 goals in total.

The final game itself was exciting with the team from Ghana having a little bit of an edge in terms of ball possession.The Egyptians ended up winning by a 1 goal to 0 and they scored their goal in the only clear scoring chance that they had in the game.A.Gyan has carried the Ghana team throughout the competition and he had a clear scoring chance in the game in around the 75 minute of play and hit the ball over the cross bar. Gedo had the only clear chance for the Egyptians in the 84th minute of play and buried the ball in the back of the net to give his team the third African cup of nations trophy in three years running.
That has been the difference between the Egyptian team and the rest of the teams in this African cup of Nations. They, the Egyptians have not wasted many scoring chances and it seems as if each time that they had a scoring opportunity in their games, they have gone ahead and scored. They thus become the first team to win three African cup of nations in a row,making it their 7th championship in the African continental competition.

Can २०१० Preview

2010-01-01T11:33:00.000-08:00

African Cup of Nations 2010

Group A
The host nation is Angola and they are grouped with the Republic of Mali,Algeria and Malawi. I like Angola as the host nation and Algeria to come out of the group. Angola has a couple of talented players up front that should see them through into the knock out stages of the competition.
Algeria is making a comeback into a major competition after being involved in a lot of internal conflict that saw the country drift into a civil war. They had their heydays in the early eighties, when they won this competition and qualified for the 1982 world cup in Spain. They took everybody by surprise in edging
out Egypt in the combined 2010 World cup-African cup of nations qualifiers. In case you missed it they had to play a third game, a tie-breaker against their north African foe in Sudan which they won by one goal to nil. The diplomatic relationship between the two countries went downhill after the game. Having being out of the big stage for a long time, the cup of nations would be a place for the team to show the rest of the continent if they are really good.

Group B has tournament favorites Ivory Coast, Ghana, then Togo and Burkina Faso. Ivory Coast has the most talented team in the continent and they top the list of favorites to win it all. That said, they have a habit of falling just short of the trophy and it would not come as a surprise if they end up losing in the finals or semi-finals of the competition.Runners up in the competition in 2006, that host nation
Egypt won, they started out great in the 2008 campaign in Ghana, but just flat out disappeared against Egypt in the semi-finals. They bring back just about all of their players from the 2008 competition and they should be looking at winning it all this time around.
Ghana is four times African champions and they also qualified for their second world cup campaign in a row.Their most recent continental trophy though last came in
1982, so it has been a long time since they won the competition. They had a great chance to win the last one that they hosted but fall short to Cameroon in the semi-finals. They should come out of the group stages though I do not see them going pass the semi-finals.

Group C has Egypt, Nigeria,Benin and Mozambique. Egypt and Nigeria should get out of the group stages in group C. Egypt are coming out of a disappointment on losing out to Algeria in the world cup qualifiers.They have won the last two trophies of this competition though and they adapt very well in playing throughout the continent, having won away in Burkina Faso in 1998 and in Ghana in 2008. Winning a third African Cup of nations in a row would be asking a little bit too much from them, especially with the fact that they have a couple of key injuries.
Nigeria did not have any problems qualifying for the Cup of Nations.Their problem was in qualifying for the World cup, which they did with some help from Tunisia. The country with the most talent over the years in the continent, they have two trophies to show for it. The team is deep, but judging on their current form,semi-finals is where I see them maxing out.

Group D has Tunisia,Cameroon, Gabon and Zambia.
Gabon started out their world cup qualifiers in style by beating out Morocco in Rabat and Togo in their home soil and a
lot of people though they would qualify ahead of the Republic of Cameroon. They never
did though and Cameroon ended up picking up the qualifying ticket ahead of them.Their coach is looking for some revenge against Cameroon in this group, though I do not see them going much. Cameroon and Tunisia should get out of the group.
Tunisia won the trophy in 2004 when they hosted and they have themselves to blame for losing out to Nigeria in the world cup qualifiers. They would be looking to make amends in the competition, though apart from Egypt, the countries from North Africa do not have a history of winning this competition out of their home soil. I see them making it to the quarterfinals stage of the competition.
Cameroon started out slow in their world cup qualifiers and they had to make some changes in the middle of the qualifying campaign to get themselves going. They brought in French man Paul Le Guen who worked some miracles and the team did not miss out on a second world cup. This is the African cup of nations thought and Cameroon has a very good record in the competition, having won four times and being runners-up twice. The team has some talent up front, plays good defense. They have a good goalkeeper, though not in the tradition of some great ones that they have hard in the past. In the years that the team has won this competition , they have had great talent in defense, midfield, and attack. Creativity in the midfield is missing in this team and the defense goes into lapse at times that cost them goals.It would not come as a surprise if they win the competition,but I do not feel going in that they have the current form and confidence to win their fifth trophy.Semi-finals or finals would not be out of the question.

So for the semi-finals, I am looking at Ivory Coast, Angola, Cameroon and Nigeria. And for the champions, my money is on Ivory Coast.

घाना अंडर २० अरे वर्ल्ड champions

2009-10-18T05:05:00.004-07:00

Ghana U-20 are world champions.

Ghana won on Friday the 17 of October the world under 20 championship that was held in Egypt. The match itself saw little drama during regulation time and thirty minutes of extra time. The drama in regular came when a defended from Ghana was send off for a fowl during the first half. Replays of the offense showed that the referee might have been a little bit stiff in his decision. The team from Ghana had to make some adjustments and they pretty much defended the rest of the 120 minutes, waiting to take their chances in penalty shoot outs.
Brazil dominated must of the encounter and they would be kicking themselves for not winning the game in regulation or extra time. Penalty shoot outs came and Brazil had the chance to win the game, up 3-2 in the penalty shootouts. They missed their next penalty kick though and gave Ghana the chance to tie the shoot outs are 3 a piece. The next round of the penalty kicks are sudden death and Brazil took their next penalty kick and missed it, while Ghana converted to lift the trophy for the first team for an African team.
Adiyiah from Ghana was the revelation of the tournament, winning both the golden boots and the best player trophy.

क्रिसिस इन गुइना Conakry

2009-10-14T06:58:00.000-07:00

Crisis in Guinea Conakry.
The situation in Guinea Conakry is created by a military government that took over power last year and promised to be in as a caretaker and not stand for any future elections. Captain Dadis Camara though changed his mind once he got into power and plans to be one of the candidates for the the upcoming elections that are now in doubt due to the recent complications. Demonstrators from the opposition party were opened fire upon while in a soccer stadium and 157 people ended up dead. So there is now a crisis of who ordered the military to open fire on civilians. The Captain has denied given out any such orders but he is having a hard time convincing people in the international community. He also beliefs that the situation in Guinea is now in a state that only a tough military guy like himself can keep the country in peace. You ask my opinion about the military ruling countries, I would say no way. They are good for keeping the peace and the ruling the the country should be left in the hands of the civilians.

Great Music

2009-09-24T02:02:00.000-07:00

If you want some great music you have to forget about cultural bias and listen to the music and draw your own conclusion.I love music a lot and I get to listen to it quite a bit. My musical taste goes from pop,rock,reggae,rap,soul,r and b,religions.As you can see I have just listed just about all of the musical categories. While I am channel surfing looking for something interesting to watch, I would stumble on a musical video. For some reason, the video itself does not interest me much.The music is what gets my attention and I would stick with the program until they start to play something that I do not like and I would stop listening to the music.
Great music to me is easy to discover.As soon as I listen to it I just know that this is good. There is going to be a list of favorite world know artist at the end of this article but do not by any means limit yourself to those artists.What I have found out is that just about all the cultures have some great artist. Some cultures just happen to have a lot of them. Whether you find yourself in Europe, North America,Africa, just keep an open mind and you would find the good music. In Africa I think that the people from the Congo region play the best music in the continent. In North America, the US by a wide margin, in Europe it has to be the English,followed by the French.

The list below includes some of the great songs and artist in the musical industry. You have to listen to some of the music and then draw your own conclusion.The way to detect good music is to listen to all types of music a lot. After you do that over a long period of time, you would start to pick out the good ones right away.

The dark side of the Moon by Pink Floyd(1973),The Joshua Tree by U2(1987).Wish you were here by Pink Floyd(1975),What's going on by Marvin Gaye(1971),Hotel California by The Eagles(1976),The Wall by Pink Floyd(1979),Thriller by Michael Jackson(1982),Exodus by Bob Marley and the Wailers(1977),Legend by Bob Marley and the Wailers(1984).Graceland by Paul Simon(1986),Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen(1984),Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits-1985.Saturday Night Fever by Bee Gees(1976),The Diary of Alicia Keys by Alicia Keys. Rattle and Hum by U2(1988),Kind of Blue by Miles Davis(1959),Songs in the key of Life by Stevie Wonder,Star Time by James Brown,Lady Soul by Aretha Franklin,Let it Be by the Beatles,Sign 'o' the times by Prince,Greatest Hits by James Brown,Blueprint by Jay-Z,Life after Death by The Notorious B.I.G,Illmatic by Nas,Nebraska by Spruce Springsteen,Run-DMC by Run-DMC,The Genius of Ray Charles by Ray Charles,The Slim Shady LP by Eminem,My Life by Mary J.Blige,The Chronic by Dr.Dre,So by Peter Gabriel,Elvis:30 No.1 Hits by Elvis Presley,The College Dropout by Kanye West,Star Time by James Brown,Like a Prayer by Madonna,It takes a nation of millions to hold us down by Public Enemy(1988),Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson,Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones,The Harder they come by Jimmy Cliff and Various Artists,Coat of many colors by Dolly Parton,The Beatles('The white Album') by the Beatles,Blonde on Blonde by Bob Dylan,Here's Little Richard by Little Richard,Abbey Road by the Beatles,Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen,Purple Rain by Prince,Sunrise by Elvis Presley,The Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem,Highway 61 Revisited by Bob Dylan(1965),Sticky fingers by The Rolling Stone(1971),Who's Next by The Who(1971),Aaliyah by Aaliyah(2001),Tender Lover by Babyface,Share my World by Mary J.Blige,FutureSex by Justin Timberlake,

Gabonese Elect a New President

2009-09-04T01:42:00.000-07:00

The official presidential elections results were out yesterday in Gabon and the son of former president Omar Bongo was elected the second president of the country since independence in 1960.
He is Ali Bongo and was prior to his being elected president,the defense minister in the country. The French news media was the area where you could get most of the information about the election.
Ali Bongo got close to 42 percent of the votes, beating the next person by about 17 percent. There was report of civil disturbances both in Gabon and in some of the country's embassy overseas.
The embassy in Senegal I believe was light up and so was the French embassy in Libreville, Gabon.
The country thus voted for continuity and if the son gets to be in office as long as his father did, then it would be as if the Gabonese are in a monarchy.

Reaction from around the area
Most people expected the elder son of the former president to win and that he won did not come as a surprise to many people. The opposition at one time entertain the idea of forming a single front but negotiations broke down before the elections could take place. That would have been the best bet to get somebody else in office. Ali Bongo himself is preaching reconciliation, promising to be the president of all the Gabonese, not just a section of the population. The opposition though is crying fowl and for the moment I would say that things would not get settled down for some time.
The fact that another Bongo is getting into office after a 42 year period during which a portion of the population characterize as a period of suffering, the just ended election provided an opportunity for someone else to bring change into country. That has not happened though and for the moment it is just going to be a period of wait and see.

सेनेटर एडवर्ड केन्नेद्य लैड तो Rest

2009-08-31T08:03:00.000-07:00

The long term Senator from the state of Massachusetts was laid to rest yesterday in the Arlington Memorial burial grounds in Virginia. This was after a church service in Boston that was attended by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and his wife,George Walker Bush and his wife and Bill Clinton and the present US secretary of state. The current president and his wife also attended the ceremony.
What I remember about the long term serving senator from Massachusetts is that he was the third part of the famous brothers, two of which lost their lives in the 1960s. John F Kennedy killed in office and Senator Robert Kennedy assassinated while running for the presidency of the United States. Edward Kennedy was then left with the burden of carrying on with the legacy of the family. He did run for presidency of the US and lost to Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential elections. He was a champion of world peace and justice and fought for the end of apartheid in South Africa. He did get to visit South Africa in the 1970s and his picture was flashed all over the local and national newspapers.

Though he lost the race for the US presidency, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because there after he focused his attention on the senate in which he would be greatly remembered. Champion of issues such as human rights, minority rights and justice across the nation in particular and the world in general, the "Lion" as he came to be known in the senate would be greatly missed by the Democrats in general and the current president whom he helped in his race for the top job in the nation.
There was a lot in his personal life and if you want to read about it try a book titled "Senatorial Privilege" that chronicles his early life as a senator from Massachusetts.

I believe he is the last in the line of the famous Kennedy. The person that I thought would have carried on with the legacy was J F Kennedy Jr. The son of the former president, JFK, but he passed away in a tragic plane accident in 1999 and Edward Kennedy was there with the rest of the family again to mourn another lost in the great family.

अबिलिटी तो स्लीप फॉर एइघ्त एंड हाफ hour

2009-08-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

It read an article today on USA today about the fact that we as individuals need about 8 and a half hour of sleep a day to function properly and it got me thinking about how much sleep I have been getting of late. Lately I have been sleeping in stretches of periods that I do not believe come close to the required 8 and half hour of sleeping. What usually happens is that at around 6pm I would fall asleep and be gone for about 3 hours. The sleep would totally then disappear from my eyes. I know right away from experience that there is no way that I am going to fall asleep again. What I then do is to head to where the television set is and start to flip through the channels. I would watch a few news items about world events, local news, local and international sporting news,some music and lastly a movie if I could catch a good one. Catching a good movie depends on the characters in the movies. I would be flipping through the channels and bingo I would see an actor that I recognize and know that they have made some good movies in the past and I would stick to that channel through the movie. There are no commercial breaks in the movie channels that I watch so the flow of the movie is uninterrupted. The time sorts of passes quickly when I am watching a movie and by the time that I looked at the clock if would be around 4.30 to 5.00am and I would be ready to go back to sleep. I then get about two to three hours of additional sleep and that would be it for the day. The routine continues the next day.

Solutions.
It the past what I used to do it go get some exercise. That helps a lot.I used to play soccer,jog or go to the gym and work myself out. What it did was it made me so tired that once I get home I just kind of crash out to sleep. I did try some sleeping aids in the past through the recommendations of a doctor. What happened though is that when you start taking the pills, they work very well in the beginning. After some time though you do get deep sleep but the period of rest starts to run short. Your body adjust to the amount of drugs that you take and starts to resist. The drug that I took was called Stresstabs and they are an over the counter medication.

The second approach is to take some alcohol.
Alcohol would help get you to sleep also and this is like the approach that a lot of people take to get to sleep. The approach is good for people that do not get sick. Personally there are periods during which I take alcohol and it does not seem to have any negative effect on me. But what I have realized is that over a period of continuous intake,I get sick. Some type of stomach complication arises and If I touch a drop of alcohol I would feel so much pain to the extend that I would not only not get any sleep at all, I would feel pain throughout the night. So that is why there are periods of time that I just flat out stay away from alcohol

Music
What I do sometime if I want to fall asleep is to put about three good musical cds in my mini-system and just lie in bed. The music would be playing and by the time that I realize I would be fast asleep.You have to select a cd though that has some continuous good tracks in them. You listen to one good track after another and by the time you realize,you would be fast asleep.

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2009-08-26T03:02:00.000-07:00

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हिव-टेस्ट रिजल्ट इस NEGATIVE

2009-08-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

I woke up late today because I was up catching up on a Nollywood movie that had two parts to it. Either the movies are getting better or I am just getting used to them. The only complain that I have now about the movies is that they always have at least a part one and a part two on a movie that can be compressed into a single unit.I then decided to take a walk down towards Likomba round-about. For people that are not familiar with where the place is, it is at the intersection that takes people to Douala, Tiko,Limbe or Buea depending on your destination. I did stop by the computer cafe at long street and bought a ticket for 500 francs CFA which allows you to get about 2 and a half hour of internet time, good for a period of 8 days.Meaning if you do not use up the minutes before the eight days expire then you lose them. I used up about 2 minutes checking on a website and continued my journey towards the roundabout. Once I got there I saw a sign about a test going on for hypertension and diabetes for free and decided to take the test,afterall I had some free time on my hands. I went and stood on the line, got a ticket number 079 after showing them my ID card and answering a few personal questions, then I was pointed to another area in which the test was to take place.

Once I got to the test area, it turned out that there were testing for HIV aids. I have never done one before and I decided to go for it. What they did is they took blood samples using a needle and told me to show back in about half an hours time for the result.I then took a cab and headed to a place called Mutengene. I was just passing the time. I reached Mutengene, check on something and decided to make the returned trip on foot to get some exercise.I have been eating too much of late. Has to be the fact that the gastric pain that I occasionally suffer from has gotten better.
I made it back to the testing area and met some friends from the past that had also taken the test. I was not worried at all. I am usually careful once it gets to getting off my pants. So what they did is they call your number then send you to the back of a four wheel vechicle with a counselor in it.
The counselor then hands you your result and you open it and it says negative. They then explain in the message what I negative test result means. It means even if you have the disease it has not developed to the stage of showing up on the test. Or better yet, you do not have the disease at all which is good news.

Is the World Recession Coming to an End

2009-08-19T03:20:00.000-07:00

Most of the news articles that I have been reading or seeing recently contained good news about the economy of the leading nations in the world.From the US to the nations in the Far East there are signs pointing towards a pickup in activities that are leading indications in nations economy.This would be good news for the nations in general and individuals in particular. Recessions are bad news for everybody and this one was not any different. There is something though that can be said about recessions. It looked like it does not hit the people that are already at the bottom of the ladder in terms of economic success. The reason in my opinion is that these individuals have adjusted very well to living with the little that they have. They may be farmers, small businessmen, traders and hawkers. They have the fighting spirit in them and the recession seems to be an everyday thing to them. They just ride along with it.
The big guys though feel it the most. The adjustment that you have to make especially if a job lost is involved is pretty drastic. You can find yourself going from owning a car,renting your own apartment to losing all of that and finding yourself in the street somewhere. It happens and you have to be a very strong individual to be able to survive it. Some people do not make it and some that do are never the same after the recession is over.
I am currently living in the Republic of Cameroon and the country according to their present minister of public works, went through a recession that started in the late 1980s and lasted for a period of about 15 years. This current world recession did not seem to affect a lot of people here in my opinion. Things such as foodstuffs, gasoline prices went up a little but that was about it. There was one mass strike during the current recession period in the country and it had to do with gasoline prices that where due to go up. The strike was staged primarily in the economic capital of the country, which is Douala,though various other smaller cities were involved.
If the current world recession is really coming to an end what are the lessons that we would have learn from the current crisis. Greed drove this recession and a little bit of moderation in our lifestyles might help prevent future severe recessions. The minor ones are always going to be around due to the law of economics. You can not continue to have good times all of the time. There is always bound to be a downturn. The idea is not to make it a man made downturn as the great depression of the 1920s and this current one were.

Grandptc.com

2009-08-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

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Working for AT&T Wireless

2009-08-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

I joined AT$T Wireless in the second half of 2000.The transition to AT&T wireless was made easy by a guy named Don Johnson.He used to call me Doctor Tambe all the time and I always wondered why.I had worked with him at Circuit City and during the period that employees were leaving Circuit City to join Sprint Spectrum,he left and joined AT&T wireless instead.While I was at Sprint PCS I was always in contact with him and he said that anytime that I felt as to join At&t Wireless I should let him know.I did let him know when the time came that I wanted to leave Sprint PCS and he was the one that told me of an interview that was being conducted in the Beltsville area to hire new employees for AT&T wireless.He even told me what store to insist on going to.At the time he was the Assistant Manager of the AT&T store in Rockville but he pushed to get me hired in the location in downtown Washington DC in which a friend of his was the manager.
I started working there, in the Connecticut and L street store located in NW Washington DC.I worked with them for a period that lasted for four years.My employment with them ended sometime around October of 2003.

The Training
As soon as I was hired,I was placed on the sales floor.Shortly after, a training schedule was made for those of us that were hired into the company.Training took place at the branch headquarters in Beltsville,Maryland and it was done for a period of one week.The trainer came from Atlanta and she was pretty good in looks and knowledge.I won a umbrella in training that I ended up using for an extended period of time before it was giving away by somebody that thought the umbrella was outdated.

The Original Staff
When I got hired, the store manager was Paul and Nathan was the Assistant Manager.The lead sales person was Robert.There was Dwee,a guy about my age originally from Vietnam.He would tell us some horror stories about his family's move to the US.He ended up taking a vacation to his home country during the period that I worked with him.
There was me,Eric Tambe,there was Maya Martin,the lone female member in the staff at the time.There was Darrell,there was a Lebanese fellow called Gilbert Maaloff that I had known back in my days at Circuit City.There was another fellow with a military background named Gary, divorced with a beautiful daughter that he talked a lot about.The staff composition would change after some time.
Robert was the first to leave.He was replaced by Dion Wiggins who had attended Norfork State University in his college days.He like to talk trash about how Norfork state had a better football team to my Howard University.
Then Paul would also leave for a store in the Virginia area.Dwee went along with him.Nathan also left for his own store in the Georgetown area of the city.He was replaced by John.A guy called Dwayne Freeman came in with very little cellphone knowledge but did well for himself with time.He spend a lot of time talking about his ex-wife and his son who lived with him in Washington DC.
A new store manager named Robert came along,an African-American.
A young lady named Shantee Haynes came in just about the time that Maya Martin left.Shantee Haynes was about twenty five and good looking although we did not get along on the first day at the job.She came in from within the company,the store located in the Ronald Reagan building in DC.There was another Robert who came in in sales and lastly there was Ike Wardley who came in from the West Coast.He like to talk about his California Angels and the Williams sisters who play tennis.

The pay structure.
The pay structure consisted of an hourly rate of just under 11 dollars an hour.This was less than what I was used to while working for Sprint PCS but the money was going to be in addition to a sales commission.The sales commission was broken down into different categories that included pay for all the phone accessories that you sold.The company paid you also for upgrading customers telephone.This was unlike the case in Sprint PCS where they did not pay you for selling the equipment.
There was pay for selling the services.These were the rate plans.The rate plans ran from the $29.99 range to $199.99 rate plan.AT&T wireless did not have an accelerator rate for going past your target amount of cellphone sales.I believe this is where the major difference is between the two companies in terms of potential earnings.For the close to four years that I worked with AT@T my gross salary was around 50,000k a year.That was good money and I did not have any complain with the company in that area.There were other benefits like health care that the company took care of.AT&T wireless had bonus performance plan which if reached, the company pays money to the employees.About twice we got checks that was close to 2500 dollars.On the down year it was about 1450 dollars.

I missed this one.
This one took place before I joined AT&T Wireless.What happen is that when AT&T Wireless was lunched, the company wanted to keep track of its performance,so it lunched a tracking stock that is different from that of the parent company, AT&T. This happened during the period of the dot-com boom so the idea was very appealing to a lot of employees.Stocks were issued for a price of thirty dollars per share and you were required to purchase at least one hundred shares in order to participate.So a lot of employees including managers went for the offer.The employees that I talked to said they put in about 6 grand into the stock.
AT&T wireless stock was suppose to fly like its Sprint PCS and Nextel counterparts but it never did.The stock stayed around the 29 dollar mark for a long period of time before heading downwards.By the time that AT&T Wireless announced its merger with Cingular Wireless the asking price was just under 15 dollars a share.This caused a lot of stress to a lot of employees in the company at the time.If you have ever bought stock with the hope of seeing the price go up and see the reverse happen,you would know what I am talking about.The employees that stayed with the company got some relieve though in the form of performance bonuses that were issued each year that AT&T Wireless produced some good earnings.That helped eased some of the stock pain.

The Coverage area.
For a change with AT&T wireless there was no issue in terms of coverage.The company had its own digital TDMA network and an agreement with Cingular wireless for its customers to roam while out of the AT&T network.We hardly had any complains about drop calls and lack of coverage in some areas.Some of the popular plans that we offered included something called the digital one rate plan.There were price plans for for $59.99,$89.99,$149.99 and I believe another for $199.99 each.What the price plans did was give the customer nationwide coverage no matter where they were in the country.They only get to pay the single rate.The rest of the plans, ranging from 29.99 to 199.99 dollars were plans for local and regional coverage.The local plan covers mainly the DC metropolitan area while the regional plan gives you coverage for the whole of the North East US region.Long distance calling and at times nights and weekend promotions were included in the plan.Roaming within your coverage areas came free of charge.
What the long distance calling allows you to do is to be able to make a call say from Washington DC to somebody that is based in say Denver.
While working for Sprint PCS and now for AT&T wireless, what you realize is how far the cellphone was replacing the traditional land line telephone system.Because both services had long distance included in the service plan,you could basically make all of your calls using your cellphone.For the employees,we were provided with both a free cellphone and a free monthly service plan that included nationwide usage and long distance calling.AT&T wireless later on gave us free data capability.So we could surf the net from our cellphones.I believe that before I left Sprint PCS they gave us free data capability phones also.I used mine mostly for keeping track of stocks that I owned at the time.

A typical week during my time at AT&T Wireless

A typical week for me would include getting up in the morning earliest at 6am if I am schedule to work the 9am shift or getting up around 9am if they have me coming to work around 11am in the morning.I would get up,take a shower.At times I would get something to eat or I would head to work and buy lunch in one of the many restaurants that are present in the work area.
Once I got to work though, it was all business on the days that I was scheduled.We had a sales quota and I always try to beat it before the month comes to an end.We had some down time at work and that is when you get to check out the news.World news,local news, sporting news,those are the favorite areas that I check on the website.In addition to working Monday through Friday,the stores were opened on Saturdays.On Sundays we were closed.On the Saturdays that I was scheduled to work I would drive to downtown early to try and get free parking.The Saturdays were usually slow days because most of the people that we sell to in Washington DC were employees of the Federal government.On weekends you would hardly catch them around town.So the Saturdays you hard to will yourself through the day,spending quite a few hours at times just looking at the clock.
The days that I was not scheduled to work I try to get in some excercise,playing soccer mainly to keep in shape.I used to love it when I was not schedule to work during the weekend.That is because I loved to go to the club during this period of time.If they had me off on Saturdays,you know that I would be heading to a club called Dream Night Club,located in SE Washington DC.That would not be the end of it.On Saturday nights it would be time to head to NW Washington DC, this time to a night club called DC Live.Both clubs were great and you had like the most beautiful people in the world attending week-in,week-out.So during this period of time the weekend nights were never a period that you were going to catch me at home.A typical time for me to get home at times during the weeknights would be sometime in the 4am time period.I was just having fun with the night life.This would continue until the period that I left the company.

Why I left AT&T Wireless.
I had a total of two sales managers while working for AT&T Wireless.The first one we got along pretty well,the second one the relationship was just indifferent and later degenerated to a point that I had to leave the company.There was harassment and threats of we are going to fire you which is something that I am not used to in my professional working life.It got to the point that I just had to leave the company.Something that I did in October 2003.It was bye bye AT&T wireless after about four years of service with them.

Arbitration
About I year after leaving the company, we had to come face to face again in arbitration. This was because I collected unemployment benefits that were funded partly by the state and partly by my former employer that was AT&T Wireless. After about four payments the company filed a complain with the state that they are not going to continue the payments. The controversy was whether I left the company without any legitimate reasons. In the arbitration, the company claimed that they had offered me a higher position within the company and I turned it down. I do not recollect at all when the offer was made. We met at arbitration and the company won.They had a lawyer to lay their case and I was not to familiar with the arbitration process and I went there to defend myself.
Anyway that was the end of the relationship with AT&T Wireless. The company had since merged with Cingular Wireless who were a long time rival and the Wireless part of the company is no longer independent. There is just one giant company now called AT&T like it used to be in the past. They sell land line, wireless and internet services to individuals and businesses.

रेफेर्रल Link

2009-08-13T07:14:00.000-07:00

http://perfectptr.com/pages/index.php?refid=etambe01

मुएया-कुम्बा Road

2009-08-09T05:30:00.000-07:00

Muea-Kumba Road
The road was to be the second part of Mutengene-Kumba road that is sponsored by 80 percent from funds from the European Union and about 20 percent from the Cameroonian government. The first part of the road from Mutengene to Muea was completed back in 2007 and the second part was to begin immediately thereafter. But something happened and the construction of the Muea-Kumba part of the road got delayed. No reason was given for the delay despite the fact that the then Prime and some other high ranking officials in the South West Province had come to Muea where the first part of the construction ended and lunched the go ahead for the second part of the project. The company that is responsible for carrying out the road construction is called Soger Satom and they had all the materials that they needed to complete the work in their chantier in a place called Ekona.

I had been at the chantier while I was leaving in Molyko and the chantier is pretty impressive. Heavy equipment and gravel was in place. The construction company gets the gravel that they used for the road construction in a part of the Mount Cameroon. Anyway I believe the funding for the second part of the project came in and work resumed and the construction of the road is now up to the beginning of a part of the town called Buea road in Kumba. If you are similar with Kumba, the road has reached the part of Buea road just after the Cameroon college of Art and Science.

There is a big contrast now between getting into the town and trying to move around the town. The first part is now pretty easy. It took me back in 2006 when I first visited Kumba about 4 hours from the mile 17 park to Kumba town. Now from Mutengene to Kumba town can be done in just under 1 and a half hour of driving. Good time for a journey that used to be strenuous. The construction company did a decent job also. There is a bridge that used to lead you into Muyuka town that was in a pretty bad state and they fixed it. There is also a place called Ediki that had a terrible hill and the hill is now something in the past. The hill in Ediki claimed a few lives including that of one of my elder brothers who was a driver. That happened way back in the 1970s.

रेसस्सिओं मय्बे किंग तो अन End

2009-08-08T04:36:00.000-07:00

Turnaround in the Economic
For the first time in 15 months the figure for the number of people losing jobs in the US fell instead of increasing and experts are saying that this is a clear indicator that the current recession is coming to an end. The recession started around 2007 and if it is true that this recession is almost over, then it would not be as bad as the great depression that started in the late 1920s. The unemployment figure itself is still high at about close to 10 percent. The worst figure of unemployment that I can remember in my years was when it hit 6.4 percent in the early 1990s.

If the recession is almost over then we have to give some credit to some individuals such as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve for his early intervention to save some of the financial institutions that started the mess in the first place. Also the President has to get some created for pushing and getting the 789billion stimulus package passed as soon as he got into office. There were rumors just about one month ago for the need for a second stimulus package and thank god that is not going to happen. The government has pumped enough money into the economy and it is time the private sector takes control as it is usually the case in a free market economic.

This current economic crisis was widely publicized because it hit the rest of the world. But it looks like the US has learnt how to deal with economic crisis by interfering in a very timely manner. Talk of a great depression never did materialize due to a number of reasons that included drop in the price of oil and how the people in charge had learned from the past. Individually, it is still going to take some time for the effects to be removed from people’s memory. I remember the situation in the early nineties when there was a little recession and some of the actions that I took to go through it set me back for about 7 years. Things like personal bankruptcy, lost homes, repossessed cars take some time to get out of the credit bureau system. Fixing your credit and trying to get a better job with a bad credit is going to be difficult and that is how though a recession may be coming to and end as a whole, individually the pain takes a much longer period of time.

Something happened in this recession though that was strange to me in that the stock market held up pretty nicely. At one point the Dow Jones industrial were down to the upper 7000s and now it sits at 9300 which is pretty good for a recession period. The NASDAQ is at 2000 which is a good figure even during periods when the economy is booming. The market has a mind of its own and just when everybody is telling you not to put money into it that is when it is taking off. When the recession would be over and people will start having disposable income to put back into it that would be the period when it would be very difficult to make some money in it.

The recession did leave its mark though. Just look at the number of companies that had to go through reorganization. The list includes GM, Chrysler and a few others.

Making the Move back Home

2009-08-07T06:46:00.000-07:00

There is always the tendency for people to want to migrate to a better life somewhere else. You have people that are moving from Africa to go to Europe, North America and Asia. You also have people that are making the reverse move from North America, Europe and Asia to Africa looking for opportunities to a better livelihood.

If you are planning to make a move to relocate back to your homeland and you have been away for a very long time it is not a good idea to just pack your bag and head back home as they say. The best manner is for you to at the very least visit your homeland first and get to relearn the ways of the society that you left behind some time ago. Societies change and that is true whether you are making the move from North America back to Africa that you used to call home. Forget about all the information that you see in the media and also forget about information that people give you. You have to come and make the assessment by yourself and then decide whether it would be a good idea to come back.

It is amazing how society changes people and that is true of all societies.
If you are coming as a result of not having any other option but to come then your situation is different. You have no alternative and you are about to be thrown into an unknown situation and you have to survive. If you have a choice, the idea is to approach your new society as if you are almost like a kid. You are coming to learn new ways and it is going to take some time.
If you are going to start a business, it is going to take some time for you to be successful. When people leave from Africa and migrate to Europe or North America they do not just become overnight success stories. It takes time for them to learn the ways of the new society and then the knowledge that they had acquired from their old society would kick in. It is the same way with trying to come from overseas and succeed here. You come in and the best way is to maintain a low profile.
Forget about all the luxurious cars that you used to drive. In fact you might want to sell your cars and come here and buy one that would make you blend into the society. If you come in here with your fancy cars and try to maintain the lifestyle that you had overseas you would get into trouble and start looking for an exit strategy.

It is at times very hard for people coming from overseas to not standout in the new society. But try as hard as possible not to do that. This means if you come in here and see that the majority of the people are taking taxi cabs to work then the is what you would want to do .If you find out that the majority of the people are taking bikes to their different destinations then that is what you would want to do. If you find out that the majority of the people walk to go to the market then that is what you would want to do also. If the majority of the people are going to church then that is what you would want to do on Sundays also.

There is going to be a time when you would know that you have succeeded and that is when you would want to start bringing out your fancy cars and clothing if that is the lifestyle that you choose to live. People are going to be criticizing you a lot especially if you are coming from industrialized countries to the homeland and you are acting like just one of them. They are going to be saying that you did not bring anything with you coming from Europe. That you came empty handed. Accept all of that and if possible keep the knowledge that you have acquired to yourself. It would come out eventually. The simplicity that made you successful once you hit Europe is the same that is going to make you successful once you make the move back to Africa.

थे अफ्रीकन कोन्तिनेंत हस अल थे इंग्रेदिएंट्स तो कोम्पेते विथ थे रेस्ट ऑफ़ थे World

2009-08-06T03:43:00.000-07:00

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Kenya.
Hillary Clinton is making a tour of some African states and she is presently in Kenya. She would be leaving Kenya today to continue her trip that would include a stop in South Africa, Cape Verde, the Republic of Nigeria and some other African states.
South Africa and Nigeria are included in this trip to show that the US considers them strong allies in Africa despite the fact that US President choose to visit Ghana as the flagship of African democracy and I am sure that this did not sit too well in Pretoria and Abuja.
Anyway she struck on the same point that President Obama did when he visited Ghana. That is that all the ingredients are in place in Africa for the continent to take off and start competing with the rest of the world. She made that statement yesterday in Kenya which was her first stop. Kenya was the closest of the African countries to the US until they had their election trouble a couple of years back that backtrack their democracy. They would have been the logical choice for the President to visit as the first African state. That reason together with the fact that his father was born in Kenyan.

I like that fact that she would be making a stop on Nigeria. Nigeria is the most populated state in the continent with one of every four Africans being a Nigeria. So they do have an influence in the continent. They are the country that provided the most troops during the peace keeping mission in Sudan in the days when Obasanjo was President of the country. I would like to see the reaction of the people when she gets there.

Internet Connection

2009-08-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

What to do with the internet connection.
Most of the cyber cafés are just having a lot of problems with their connection. I used to think that is was just certain areas that have problems but I would try in this article to share my experience with you on the internet connection in the nation. I have used the internet in the cities of Tiko, Douala, Buea, Limbe, Molyko and lastly at Mutengene.

The first place that I used the internet once I got into the country in the year 2005 was in long street Tiko. I went to the place to try and get some copies made on resumes that I planned on sending out to employers. The copying part of the transaction went very well. It was the internet that was moving very slowly to me at the time. I thought that it had to do with this particular location and left the place planning on testing different internet locations. The next area that I tested the internet connection was in an area in Mutengene and it work surprisingly well. At the time the internet places that I visited did not get as much traffic as they do now. I did talk to my uncle in Buea and he told me that the University campus in Buea does have internet connection and it was relatively inexpensive also. I believe you get two hours of internet connection for four hundred francs CFA. That is one hundred francs cheaper than in the rest of the other areas.

The University of Buea does have by far the best connection in all the places that I have visited. At the time that I started to go there, my visits were about two times a month. I mainly used the internet for reading news items.

Next stop was in Douala. In Douala there were so many internet cafes and you could make your choice of many. There was one that I used in an area called Bonaberi. When it was on, it worked very well despite the fact that there were many people using it at the time. Two other places that I used the internet in the Bonaberi area worked pretty well. There is a place just at the entrance of the ancient route and the connection there was pretty good. There was no interruption of the service also. The one at the end of the ancient route entrance was pretty good also. It was not as large as the first one but it worked pretty well. I did spend some time at Bonamoussadi and there the connections were very unsteady. A lot of interruptions. That was also the case in Akwa at an office that I worked at. You would be doing some work and the connection would just go off. Also there were some days that you did not get any connections at all.

Mutengene has a good connection on a place called Buea road. There are about three other places in the small town but the one on Buea road is the better one. There is connection in Molyko and Buea town .They work most of the time but there are also problems that might include interruption of electricity.

There has been talk of bringing better connection to the nation like the use of fiber optic cables instead of the phone line. The company in the country that deals with electricity had suggested that the future might include bringing the internet connection through the electrical lines. That might improve things a bit since there is electricity in a lot of areas.

There is also the question of how many people put the internet into use in the country. I believe that is one of the problems. A lot of individuals still do not use the internet and for the moment that might be the reason why investing a lot of money into it would not be such a great investment. The internet places are run by individuals with their own personal money and they have to make a profit before they could invest more money into getting a much faster connection for the customers.

त्रौब्ले इन साउथ अफ्रीका एंड Nigeria

2009-08-01T03:47:00.001-07:00

Trouble in the Top Two African Nations.
South Africa is the richest of the African nations and they are due to host the World Cup next year. The Republic of Nigeria is Africa’s top populated country and it is also the continents top producer and exported of oil. Both nations are suppose to be the flag bearers of the continent but they are now both involved in social unrest with disturbing images being flashed across the world’s media about what is going on in both nations.

South Africa.
The first troubling sign was when workers involved in the construction of the world cup 2010 stadiums went on strike temporary demanding higher wages. That problem was taken care of in a hurry as not just South Africa but the world at large had something at stake in the world cup. The strike moved on to other areas of the work force though and it is this current strike that is having the most negative of images of the South African nation. The images are disturbing to say the least partly due to the history of the nation of South Africa. People are on the streets harassing government vehicles and littering the streets and some of the pictures look like they are going back to the days of apartheid.

Jacob Zuma got elected as President of South Africa last year amid a lot of controversy about his role in bribery and corruption that took place during his term as vice President of South Africa under the then government of President Thabo Mbeki. Jacob Zuma’s charges were dropped in the court of law and he went on to become the president of South Africa amid a lot of expectation from the masses that he was going to change their lives. Well so far that has not happened and it seems as if the same people that went to the polls to vote for him are now beginning to demand for real changes to their livelihoods in this nation in which the people have sacrifice a lot. The President has appeared on TV and he is questioning whether people have the right to be littering the streets in a move towards taking strong action against them. What I think he should be going is focusing on trying to find out what exactly the people are angry about and work towards finding a solution to the problem.

Nigeria.

Nigeria’s recent problem involves militants that are fighting to get their own nation in the northern state of Bauchi. They are of the Muslim faith and they are looking for a place in which they control and can practice a rigid form of the Islamic law. Some of their demands include no type of western education for their children, restriction on some of the rights for women and the large one is for them to have their own state. That would not happen though.
Nigeria went through a civil war in the 1960s and their leadership are quick to strike down on any actions that could lead the nation towards the path of war. The sect leader has recently been killed and some human rights groups are crying fowl. The reason that human rights organization are complaining is that the initial police report claimed that the sect leader was killed in combat. But later on a police chief said that the sect chief was in their custody when he died. So there is bound to be some investigation before the rest of the world can get a clear picture as to what really happened. The President of Nigeria, Umaru Yar’ Adua though is less concern about the group and has ordered a major crack down on them with close to about 600 people now reported dead. The President of Nigeria got elected in a democratic process but there were allegations of election violations once he got into office. He has been a very quite leader of the heavily populated nation compared to Nigerian leaders of the past. He has been working hard though. He has brought the situation in the Delta Region under some sort of control by granting amnesty to their leader and negotiating with the group. Some of their demands are being met as major constructions are ongoing in this part of the country to trickle down some of the oil revenue that is being exploited in the region.

The latest in सोशल Interfacing

2009-07-31T02:12:00.000-07:00

Twitter

Twitter is a social network in which young people and adults interact with each other. It is relatively new and it is just like Face book. You can register on it and try and find friends and love ones that have been missing for some time. The signing process is relatively easy. All you have to do is provide your email address, full names, and a username that would enable you to lock on into the website and of cause a password. You can write a blog on the site and you can interact with other individuals.

The most popular of the features to me right now has to be to see just how popular some people are in the US or the world at large. To find out how popular somebody is, once you register you can go to the section- find person, type the person’s name and voila you get their popularity rating .I was just playing on the site today and it was surprising to me looking at some of the numbers.

Michael Jordan who is now retired from professional basketball as a player had about 25000 followers. He follows four people on twitter. The list of people that he follows includes Oprah.
Kobe Bryant, I was surprise had just close to 2513 followers, he tracks 16 of his friends on the website.
Lebron James has 6483 followers; he keeps track of 100 people, busy for a popular guy.
Golfer Tiger Woods had about 13000 followers, his number of followers to close to that of Michael Jordan.

I kept looking and then I hit on the people that are really popular in the US.
Shaq, who did his college education at LSU and still plays professional basketball, has just under 1.9million followers. He keeps track of 555 of his friends on the website. This is a huge following for the soon to be retired basketball player. He has openly express his desire to be a sheriff once he retires from the game of basketball. Maybe he should be looking at a higher position like running for Governor in the state of Louisiana and why not maybe run for the top job of the nation, president of the United States.

President Barrack Obama’s followers where close to that of Shaq at just under 1.9 million followers. The President though had everybody beat by a huge margin in terms of people that he keeps track of on the site. His number stands at 800,000. Nobody came anywhere close to that number in terms people that you keep track of on the website. For somebody who is the Chief executive officer of the nation, where does he get the time to keep in touch with all these people, just amazing?

Oprah tops the list with the most followers with just under 2million people keeping track of her on the website. She keeps track of four people on the site and the people that she follows include, you guess it Shaq.

Former President George Walker Bush has 23 followers. Bill Clinton has 1803 followers and he keeps track of nine individuals on the website.
Out of the US, I put in Nelson Mandela’s name and he had 1108 individuals that are his followers. He keeps track of six people.

अ ट्रिप तो लागोस,Nigeria

2009-07-29T07:56:00.000-07:00

This journey begins in a small town called Tiko, located in the South West Province of the Republic of Cameroon. The purpose of the visit was to travel to Lagos, Nigeria to see a man called T. B Joshua who is really popular in this part of the world. The guy is noted for performing miracles like Jesus Christ did in his days and the idea was to go check it out. We traveled the three of us from where I live but there were a lot of people also traveling that I would get to meet during the course of the journey.

The means of transportation is a ship called "Asuka".It carries about 500 passengers at a time and it has a lower and an upper section. The lower section is the first class. We were in the second class and the cost of this part of the journey was about 50,000 francs CFA.In dollars that is about 100 dollars for a round trip ticket. This part of the journey would take us from Tiko to Calabar, Nigeria. The ship was loaded with both passengers and cargo, with some people lying on the floor through the whole journey. The journey started at around 11pm and we were told that by around 8am in the next day we should be at the port in Calabar. What you do once you get into the ship is to look for a place to seat and place your hand luggage. There is enough space in the ship for the rest of the merchandise that people are transporting to Nigeria. Most of it is foodstuff; a lot is merchandise that is going to be sold over there. There is a separate attachment to the ship that is quite huge and the crew of the ship loads and off load the cargo that goes into this area.

To make the journey convenience, there is a sales counter where you can get soft drinks, sandwiches and other foodstuffs. The counter stays open until about between 1 to 2 am in the morning. It reopens early at about 7am in the morning when breakfast is served. On the upper level in which we were located there were two 35 inches television monitors that showed movies through the journey. The movies alternated between western movies and movies from "Nollywood" that is the name of the Nigerian film industry. There are decks also that you can go out of the sitting area to relax outside. You could stand out there and get to see the ocean. That is my favorite part of the ship. I always love to look out at the sea. The time of year that we traveled, the sea was quite calm, at least during the first part of the journey. Also it looks like at night the sea is calm. The ship itself does not move very fast but there is enough distraction around to keep you busy so that the journey does not get boring at all.

The Immigration Officers

You have to go through some immigration formalities while you are inside the ship. The crew members collected 3000 francs, about 6 dollars from those of us of Cameroonian nationality. We would also get to pay about the same amount to get out of the ports once you reach Calabar, Nigeria. You would be required to show proof of vaccination at the Calabar port also before you can continue your journey. The vaccination was for yellow fever. On your way back to the Republic of Cameroon, you would repeat this immigration procedure. The Nigerian immigration would require you to pay 4000 francs CFA, about 8dollars before you can board the ship out of this country and once you get into the ship, there would be another 4000 francs charge, this time the fee is for Cameroonian immigration authorities and this is collected sometime before you arrive at the destination in Tiko.

Arriving Calabar.

We arrived at Calabar about 8am in the morning after being at sea for about 9 hours. That is the time it takes to complete the journey by ship. You get to pass quite a few people that are making the journey with speedboats and at times local canoes that are powered by engines. They are wide open at the sea making the journey with no type of protection at all. A lot of people have lost their lives traveling with these boats but the journeys are still going on. The method that we used is by no means the safest . There are no border patrols through the course of the journey and I get the feeling that if something happens in the open sea we were all on our own.

From Calabar to Lagos.

Once you got to Calabar, the next part of the journey is to travel by bus to your Lagos destination. There is a make shift motor park that is located right at the Calabar port and there you can board buses that take about 15 to 20 passengers for the trip to Lagos. Though we arrived at Calabar at around 8am in the morning, we did not get to leave from there until about 11am in the morning. There are a numbers of things that needed to be done, like getting the rest of our luggage off loaded off the ship. Also we had to convert our currency from CFA to Naira. Naira is the Nigerian currency and there is quite a market flourishing in the currency conversion business at the Calabar port. At the time that we traveled the rate of CFA to Naira was about 3CFA francs for I Naira. The advice that you get is to convert only the amount of money that you feel that you are going to need while in Nigeria. So that is what we did. We converted enough money that would cover us for transportation, hotel stay and feeding while we were in Nigeria.

The cost of the journey from Calabar to Lagos at the time we traveled was 5000 Naira.15, 000cfa or about 30 dollars. The journey itself by bus runs for about 11 to 12 hours depending on the skill of your driver. We did not make it to Lagos on the same day because it got dark at about the time that we arrived at Onitsha. The advice of the driver was that we spend the night there and continue the journey in the morning. He said it is not safe to travel at night in the country because of armed robbers. So we spend the night at a small hotel and continue the journey at about 7am in the morning. By about noon we had made it to the outskirt of Lagos.

The journey form Calabar to Lagos is not a smooth one at all. The roads in Nigeria are good in some areas but there are also some bad areas that make the journey much longer. That is the case in the country that we were coming from. So if you have heard stories that the Republic of Nigeria is full of paved superhighways everywhere, forget it, that is a myth. Armed security men are all over the highways. They would stop the vehicles occasionally, but most of the time they just wave you along. They are there to safeguard your free passage from one part of the country to another. The country is quite large though and there are stretches of land that is uninhabited. The Delta Niger area is on the news a lot because of the struggle that is ongoing between the rebels and the government for oil revenue sharing and we passed through this area. I kind of like the area a lot. The Nigerian government has started to do something about the problems of the people in this part of the country and you could see that in the highways that were being constructed in the region. An international airport was being built also and you could see part of it from the major highway.

Once we arrived at Lagos, the next step was to find out where the Synagogue, Church of All Nations is located because that is where we were heading. From all the talk about the Man of God that we got before leaving Cameroon, I thought that the first person that we talk to would know where the place is. The driver that took us had said that he knows where the place is but that was not the case. We had to spend about close to two hours driving through traffic in Lagos before we could finally get the right directions to reach the area. So arriving the outskirts of Lagos at around 12noon, we did not get to reach the church area until around close to 3pm.

We are in Lagos

We arrived at the church area and looking at the church building from outside, it is quite an impressive building. A lot of money and time was spent putting up the building, I would say. The place was also jammed pack with people from both within Nigeria and other neighboring countries. Word has sure got around that the Man of God is performing miracles here in Nigeria and people are flooding the area. As you move around you would see people that had just arrived and have no place to stay and they are sleeping on the streets underneath large Lorries. Some areas looked like make shift refugee camps. Hotel Accommodation could be gotten for about 8500 francs cfa a night that is about 16 dollars a night. A lot of people do not border to stay in a hotel which at 16 dollars a night is stiff to a lot of people here. So what they do is look for somebody that lives in the area and pay them 500 Naira, about 3 dollars a night and they are provided with a mat on which they could spend the night on.

So we arrived at Lagos on a Tuesday and on Wednesday we visited the area where the man of God is. The aim of the visit was to inquire as to how you get to see him in the first place. We were told that appointments have to be made on Thursdays and Fridays and then you get to meet the man at church service on a Saturday and Sunday. Saturdays and Sundays are the days in which the actual healing takes place. The area that we had to go for the appointment is a building that is opened at the sides. It is like an unfinished building, one that is under construction. There are enough seats for just about everybody that cares to take a seat. Just adjacent to this building is the built in restaurant of the church. They serve food at discounted prices. What you have to do is go to one of the counters and you purchase a meal ticket for about 50 to about 200 Naira, let's just say that for a little more than a dollar you can get the higher end ticket and then you proceed to the area that the various foodstuffs are being served. The Wednesday that we went to the open area for inquiry the Pastor happened to pass by with a little entourage. He want to the restaurant area briefly and then just left.

On Thursday at about noon we headed to the appointment hall to get a talk with one of the representatives of the Synagogue, Church of all Nations. There are many of them, of various nationalities also. They came from South Africa, some from England and also from the local area. The ones from overseas were said to be volunteers. What is done in the appointment area is to divide all of the visitors into various areas according to the purpose of your visit to the church. Announcement is made for people with mental disease to go to a certain area, people with HIV/AIDS to go to their own area, people with physical disabilities to go to their own area and then the rest of the group is placed in their own area. The reps are then assigned to the various groups. What they do is they talk to everybody that is in the hall to narrow down their problem. Those that can not be attended to on Thursday are attended to on Friday. They would ask you for an appointment during this period. It gets tricky here because when we visited we did not have an appointment. What saved us is that we had a recent medical report from a doctor. What the reps would explain to you is that you should not come if you do not have an appointment, which is understandable once you actually visit and see the amount of people that arrive daily to visit the church. At the very least you should get a medical report if your case warrants one. If you are just looking for a break-through in life as some of the cases might be, then it is a good idea to get an appointment. Quite a few people visit the church from far away countries and they do not get attended to at all. Some of them take a chance and extend their stay for another week in the area and hope that they would get attended to in the following week. There is an elderly man who came with his son and spend the whole week and returned without any attention. The man explained to me that he had to sell his farm that he had cultivated for a period of about twenty five years to raise the funds to make the trip from the Kumba area in the Republic of Cameroon to Lagos, Nigeria. He could not walk and he left the area without attending the healing service. He came without an appointment and had to be calling back home to raise some funds for transportation back home. So you might get lucky and get attended to without an appointment but to be on the safe side, it is a good idea to get an appointment before making the trip especially if you are coming from a foreign country.

So you get attended to by one of the representatives and what they do is talk to you, get some feed back and assign you to show up for church service on Saturday for the healing service. You have to go get a personal sign-board on which your problems are written on. If you have watched the program on television you would know what I am talking about. The signs are written up on the same day that you get assigned for church service. There is a different area that takes care of these and it is in this area that we met the Pastors wife who was helping with the writing up of the sign-boards. From this area you get to go inside the church and there is a video camera session inside the church itself during which everybody is video-taped with you displaying your sign. This is the last part of the appointment session and we left the area after this to be back on Saturday for the healing church service. The appointment time is written on a little piece of paper and indicates for you to show up at around 8am in the morning for the healing service. The note is your proof that you have gone through the screening process and you are ready for the healing service on Saturday.

What you do on your downtime.

When you visit the Synagogue, Church of all nations, the whole visit is supposed to take about a week. In our case we arrived at Lagos, on a Tuesday and left the following Monday for Calabar, Nigeria. We did not leave Nigeria until Wednesday morning when the ship bound for Tiko; the Republic of Cameroon left the Calabar port. So there is going to be a lot of downtime while you are in Nigeria. What I do during my visit to large cities is to walk a lot to see places that are in the vicinity of where I live. A did a lot of this while at Lagos to get a feel of what it is like to live in a city like this. I would get up in the morning and start my journey on foot around 9am in the morning. I would visit places like shops and market areas, computer centers and get home sometime before it gets dark. You really get a feel of what city life is like this way. Lagos, Nigeria is a busy city. By the time you get up, the streets are already crowded with people heading to various destinations. There are a lot of bikes in the city and three legs mini-vehicles. The mini-vehicles look like something right out of an Indian movie. There are also mid-size buses that is the primary means of transportation, second to the bikes. I found the mini-buses quite old and there were all painted yellow. As you walk on the streets of Lagos, there are hawkers everywhere. Mostly children and women hawking all types of items from cool drinking water to home-made bread and various soft drinks. We visited when the weather was quite hot and I spend a lot of money buying the drinking water to keep myself cool. I visited a few cyber-cafes and there was usually parked with young men and women, mostly university students. The cost was okay though the connection speed was quite slow. The service people would speak to you in English but amongst themselves they speak in their native language. This is true in all the places that we visited starting from Calabar.Each area that you go to the individuals speak in their native language amongst themselves. I found this rather interested. I believe the Federal Republic of Nigeria is made up of three mains tribes, Yoruba, Ibo and the Hausa which makes it possible for the people to be able to communicate easily in their native languages. This is in a country with close to 170 million people. You contrast that with a country like the Republic of Cameroon which is making up of about 16 million people but has close to 200 native languages and you see clearly the advantage that the Nigerians have in this category. I learn while in Nigeria that they do not have a national identity card. I guess it is easy for them to tell wether you are a foreigner or not. You have to know how to speak the local language. So once you open your mouth to speak they know right away that you are from a different country.

The Church or healing service.

On your appointment slip they say that you should come to church on Saturday around 8am in the morning. This is true for both individuals that got their appointments either on Thursday or on Friday. So the healing service is the one that takes place on Saturday. Sunday is a regular church service, though some healing still goes on during that church service. We arrived at Church service at around 8am in the morning and the place is already packed with people. You are assigned seats into the Church with some people sitting downstairs, those that would be attended to first and rest of the people moving upstairs from where you can still get a clear view of what is going on. The healing area is located on the floor and it is clear of chairs. What you would find there are video cameras that are taking pictures during a large part of the service. The floor area would be surrounded with people and what the Pastor would do is to move around and touch each and every one of these individuals. That is part of how the healing process is. For some people he would spend more time actually preaching to you and depending on the case, he would yell to try and drive away the devil. Pastor T.B Joshua did not get into the church until about 2pm in the afternoon. So between the time that we arrived at the healing service time was spend between getting everybody seated and allowing some people during lunch time to go get something to eat and come back to church. The rest of the time is spend watching a large screen monitor on which past healing services are shown. There are a lot of sick people that visit the church and some of the video footage is quite gruesome. So you have to have a stomach for some of the stuff that would be displayed on the screen from disable people with individuals with terrible sores. People with HIV-AIDS, leprosy, mental illnesses, nothing was left without display. On the day that we attended the healing session, there were close to about 10.000 people present.

Arrival of T.B Joshua

The man of God arrived about 3pm in the afternoon and the place just got real electrifying. Everybody got on their feet and he began be given a little speech then proceeded with the healing process. What happens is that people are taken from their seats to the floor level and it is from there that they are placed in a circle. The man of God then goes around and touches everybody. In some of the case, you are literally pushed onto the floor. This process goes on until everybody in the church is touched. This is really something because we are taking here about close to 10,000 people that have to be attended to. Once this part of the work is over, the next part is that of giving out the anointed water. This process takes some time because TB Joshua has to leave the church to go bless the water before coming back into the church. He left that Saturday for about an hour and thirty minutes before returning. His workers accompanied him and upon his return there were the famous little plastic bottles with the water in them. There is a lot of ceremony that goes on before he starts throwing the water bottles into the crowd. You are advised to only take one bottle. That would be enough for each individual. There is the ability for you to refill the bottles once you return, so it is something that is supposes to last you a long time. There is a general prayer by the whole church to bless the water and you get to get about three drinks of it in the church before the whole process is done with. After the anointed water is distributed we get into testimonies. This is the part that people actually come up to the healing floor and say how they have been affected by the man of God. There are people that testify that their pains are all gone. Some that come on crutches claim that they can now walk and actually do a demonstration on the floor. It is quite something to watch. You would see some elderly people actually run on the floor and do some kind of dancing. The healing service did not end until sometime close to 10pm. That is quite a lot of church service for one day. I had no idea that I could attend church service for that long a period of time. There was announcement as to when the Sunday service will take place. This service is to cap your visit to the Synagogue, Church of All Nations.

There were going to be an early service and a late one. I believed that I made it to the later part of the early service and just continued throw the late service. There is voluntary thanksgiving during this service. This is one way that the church supports itself. The other way is through the sales of prophesy books, audio cassettes and video compact disc. You can also choose to be a member of the church and get admitted while there at the church. There is a fee for that, which they get to tell you once you are at the church service. There is testimonies that goes on during this service and a lot of experience sharing. Some people are exposed. There is a guy that used to be a gang member and came in for healing. He told us that all of his friends are all dead from gang related activities. There was a gentleman from the Republic of Gabon who had been claiming to be the personal representative of the man of God in Gabon. People had to pass through him to come to Lagos and he was collecting some money. He came to repent and he was forgiven.

The Sunday service ended around 7pm and that was the end of the visit. Everybody went home to start making arrangements for the trip back to their place of origin. Our delegation that traveled to Lagos, Nigeria were close to fifteen individuals. We did not all travel back to Calabar due to that fact that we did not get to stay in the same place. I left for Calabar early Monday morning, thinking that our ship would be returning to Cameroon on Monday night. It turned out that the ship would not depart from Calabar until early on Wednesday. The actual driving from Lagos to Calabar took place during the day. We had a very good and experience driver and he got us to Calabar in about 11 hours. The guy knew all of the back roads and used that knowledge to help us escape a lot of the traffic. We made some brief stops on our way back but overall the drive back was pretty quite. The armed police officers were still around. I guess that is just the reality of traveling in Nigeria by road. You get to pass through a lot of security. Most of the time, they just waved you through. The drivers also ignore them at times and get away with it. Our driver knew exactly when to stop and when to just keep going. I rested a bit on Monday and spend the whole of Tuesday sight seeing in Calabar. It turned out that Calabar is not a bad place at all. The area is quite good for residential purpose.

The Trip Back home.

Because I made a miscalculation on when the ship was to depart from Calabar, I had to spend the night at the port in Calabar and wait for the ship to arrive on Wednesday morning. There are a lot of workers that stay at the port in Calabar and you just look for a place and spend the night. The ship arrived on Wednesday morning and it was quite a relive to see it. After the passengers got out you could go in and place you luggage and look for a place to rest inside the ship. Departure was not due until some time early in the morning on Thursday. There was news that ships do not travel at night to return to Cameroon due to one reason or the other. My guess was one of safety. Before boarding back to Cameroon you had to check in one last time with the Nigeria immigration and pay a fee of 4000 CFA francs, about 8 dollars I would say. You are then provided with a pass that you would show to the authorities while in the ship. There would also be one more payment of about the same amount to the Cameroonian immigration authority while inside the ship and sometime before you reach Cameroon. We left Calabar about close to 6am on Thursday morning and did the whole trip on broad daylight. I had my Camera with me through the course of the journey but I did not have any films with me. I left Cameroon, thinking that I would get films while in Nigeria but it turned that they have completely move into the digital age over there. While in Cameroon you could walk into any electronic store and get films that was not the case in Nigeria. I looked all over Lagos and could not find a single store that sell films for Cameras. That was the case on my way to Lagos from Calabar and during the period that I stayed in Calabar.I look everywhere but could not find any films. It was really disappointing to me. Anyway it turned out that traveling during the day in the seas is a bit turbulent than at night. The sea was not really rough but it was not as smooth as during the day. The waves had arrived and you could actually feel or go outside and see the ship did a side by side wave on the open sea. I do not get scared at all but I guess to somebody that is not used to the open sea it could be quite a trip. I did get to check out areas on the ship and they had life jackets, although this was no mention of what to do in case of an emergency as they do on air fights. The open sea is always fascinating to me and I did like the fact that I got to go outside and take a look at the water. Oil drilling is going on and that is part of the landmark that takes you to and back from Nigeria in the open sea.

Conclusion.

Quite a trip if you asked me, I had been staying at home for quite a while and the call for adventure made me not to hesitate on making the trip. Going out in the open sea is always risky especially when you get to listen to stories of armed men boarding some of the ships to look for money. The stories that I got is that they come in and look for money and once that get the money the head out. They would only course trouble if their demands are not met. There was another story that one of the ships actually sank during one of those trips and a backup ship had to be sent in to move the passengers in open sea. Trying to rescue the cargo was out of the question.

This journey begins in a small town called Tiko, located in the south west Province of the Republic of Cameroon. The purpose of the visit was to travel to Lagos, Nigeria to see a man called T B Joshua who is really popular in this part of the world. The guy is noted for performing miracles like Jesus Christ did in his days and the idea was to go check it out. We travel the three of us from where I live but there were a lot of people also traveling that I would get to meet during the course of the journey.

The means of transportation is a ship called "Asuka".It carries about 500 passengers at a time and it has a lower and an upper section. The lower section is the first class. We were in the second class and the cost of this part of the journey was about 50,000 francs CFA.In dollars that is about 100 dollars. This part of the journey would take us from Tiko to Calabar, Nigeria. The ship was loaded with both passengers and cargo, with some people lying on the floor through the whole journey. The journey started at around 11pm at night and we were told that by around 8am in the morning we should be at the port in Calabar. What you do once you get into the ship is to look for a place to seat and place your hand luggage. There is enough space in the ship for the rest of the merchandise that people are transporting to Nigeria. Most of it is foodstuff; a lot is merchandise that is going to be sold over there. There is a separate attachment to the ship that is quite huge and the crew of the ship loads and off load the cargo that goes into this area.

To make the journey convenience, there is a sales counter where you can get soft drinks, sandwiches and other foodstuffs. The counter stays open until about between 1 to 2 am in the morning. It reopens early at about 7am in the morning when breakfast is served. On the upper level in which we were located there were two 35 inches television monitors that showed movies through the journey. The movies alternated between western movies and movies from "Nollywood" that is the name of the Nigerian film industry. There are decks also that you can go out of the sitting area to go relax outside. You could stand out there and get to see the ocean. That is my favorite part of the ship. I always love to look out at the sea. The time of year that we traveled, the sea was quite calm, at least during the first part of the journey. Also it looks like at night the sea is calm. The ship itself does not move very fast but there is enough distraction around to keep you busy so that the journey does not get boring at all.

The Immigration Officers
You have to go through some immigration formalities while you are inside the ship. The crew members collected about 3000 francs, about 6 dollars from those of us of Cameroonian nationality. We would also get to pay about the same among to get out of the ports once you reach Calabar, Nigeria. You would be required to show proof of vaccinations at the Calabar port also before you can continue your journey. The vaccinations were for yellow fever. On your way back to the Republic of Cameroon, you would repeat this immigration procedure. The Nigerian immigration would require you to pay about 4000 francs CFA, about 8dollars before you can board the ship out of this country and once you get into the ship, there would be another 4000 francs charge, this time the fee is for Cameroonian immigration authorities and this is collected sometime before you arrive at the destination in Tiko.

Arriving Calabar.
We arrived at Calabar about 8am in the morning after being at sea for about 9 hours. That is the time that takes to complete the journey by ship. You get to pass quite a few people that are making the journey with speedboats and at times local canoes that are powered by engines. They are wide open at the sea making the journey with no type of protection at all. A lot of people have lost their lives traveling with these boats but the journeys are still going on. The method that we used is by no means the safest was idea. There are no boarder guides through the course of the journey and I get the feeling that if something happens in the open sea we were all on our own.

From Calabar to Lagos.
Once you got to Calabar, the next part of the journey is to travel by bus to your Lagos destination. There is a made shift motor park that is located right at the Calabar port and there you can board buses that take about 15 to 20 passengers for the trip to Lagos. Though we arrived at Calabar at around 8am in the morning we did not get to leave from there until about 11am in the morning. There are a numbers of things that needed to be done, like getting the rest of our luggage off loaded from the ship. Also we had to convert our currency from CFA to Naira. Naira is the Nigerian currency and there is quite a market flourishing in the currency conversion business at the Calabar port. At the time that we traveled the rate of CFA to Naira was about 3CFA francs for I Naira. The advice that you get is to convert only the amount of money that you feel that you are going to need while in Nigeria. So that is what we did. We converted enough money that would cover us for transportation, hotel stay and feeding while we were in Nigeria.

The cost of the journey from Calabar to Lagos at the time we traveled was 5000 Naira.15, 000cfa or about 30 dollars. The journey itself by bus runs for about 11 to 12 hours depending on the skill of your driver. We did not make it to Lagos on the same day because it got dark at about the time that we arrived at Onitsha. The advice of the driver was that we spend the night there and continue the journey in the morning. He said it is not safe to travel at night in the country because of armed robbers. So we spend the night at a small hotel and continue the journey at about 7am in the morning. By about noon we had made it to the outskirt of Lagos.

The journey form Calabar to Lagos is not a smooth one at all. The roads in Nigeria are good in some areas but there are also some bad areas that make the journey much longer. That is the case in the country that we were coming from. So if you have heard stories that the Republic of Nigeria is full of paved superhighways everywhere, forget it that is a myth. Armed security men are all over the highways. They would stop the vehicles occasionally, but most of the time they just wave you along. They are there to safeguard your free passage from one part of the country to another. The country is quite large though and there stretches of land that is uninhabited. The Delta Niger area is on the news a lot because of the struggle that is ongoing between the rebels and the government for oil revenue sharing and when passed through this area. I kind of like the area a lot. The Nigerian government has started to do something about the problems of the people in this part of the country and you could see that in the highways that were being constructed in this part of the country. An international airport was being built also and you could see part of it from the major highway.

Once we arrived at Lagos, the next step was to find out where the Synagogue Church of All Nations is located because that is where we were heading. From all the talk about the Man of God that we got before leaving Cameroon, I thought that the first person that we talk to would know where the place is. The driver that took us had said that he knows where the place is but that was not the case. We had to spend about close to two hours driving through traffic in Lagos before we could finally get the right directions to reach the area. So arriving the outskirts of Lagos at around 12noon, we did not get to reach the church area until around close to 3pm.

We are in Lagos

We arrived at the church area and looking at the church building from outside it is quite an impressive building. A lot of money and time was spent putting up the building, I would say that. The place was also jammed pack with people from both within Nigeria and other neighboring countries. Word has sure got around that the Man of God is performing miracles here in Nigeria and people are flooding the area. As you move around you would see people that had just arrived the area and have no place to stay and they are sleeping on the streets underneath large Lorries. Some areas almost looked like make shift refugee camps. Hotel Accommodation could be gotten for about 8500 francs cfa a night that is about 16 dollars a night. A lot of people do not border to stay in a hotel which at about 16 dollars a night is stiff to a lot of people here. So what they do is look for somebody that lives in the area and pay them 500 Naira, about 3 dollars a night and they are provided with a mat on which they could spend the night on.

So we arrived at Lagos on a Tuesday and on Wednesday we visiting the area where the man of God is. The aim of the visit was to inquire as to how you get to see him in the first place. We were told that appointments have to be made on Thursdays and Fridays and then you get to meet the man at church service on a Saturday and Sunday. Saturdays and Sundays are the days in which the actual healing takes place. The area that we had to go for the appointment is a building that is opened at the sides. It is like an unfinished building, one that is under construction. There are enough seats for just about everybody that cares to take a seat. Just adjacent to this building is the built in restaurant of the church. They serve food at discounted prices. What you have to do is go to one of the counters and you purchase a meal ticket for about 50 to about 200 Naira, let’s just say that for a little more than a dollar you can get the higher end ticket and then you proceed to the area that the various foodstuffs are being served. The Wednesday that we went to the open area for inquiry the Pastor happened to pass by with a little entourage. He want to the restaurant area briefly and then just left the area.

On Thursday at about noon we headed to the appointment hall to get a talk with one of the representatives of the Synagogue, Church of all Nations. There are many of them, of various nationalities also. They came from South Africa, some from England and also from the local area. The ones from overseas were said to be volunteers. What is done in the appointment area is to divide all of the visitors into various areas according to the purpose of your visit to the church. Announcement is made for people with mental disease to do to a certain area, people with HIV/AIDS to go to their own area, people with physical disabilities to go to their own area and then the rest of the group is placed in their own area. The reps are then assigned to the various groups. What they do is they talk to everybody that in hall to narrow down their problem. Those that can not be attended to on Thursday are attended to on Friday. They would ask you for an appointment during this period. It gets tricky here because when we visited we did not have an appointment. What saved us is that we had a recent medical report from a doctor. What the reps would explain to you is that do not come if you do not have an appointment, which is understandable once you actually visit and see the amount of people that arrive daily to visit the church. At the very least you should get a medical report if you case warrants one. If you are just looking for a break-through in life as some of the cases might be then it is a good idea to get an appointment. Quite a few people visit the church from far away countries and they do not get attended to at all. Some of them take a chance and extend their stay for another week in the area and hope that they would get attended to in the following week. There is an elderly man who came with his son and spends the whole week and returned without any attention. The man explained to me that he had to sell his farm that he had cultivated for a period of about twenty five years to raise the funds to make the trip from the Kumba area in the Republic of Cameroon to Lagos, Nigeria. He could not walk and he left the area without attending the healing service. He came without an appointment and had to be calling back home to raise some funds for transportation back home. So you might get lucky and get attended to without an appointment but to be on the safe side, it is a good idea to get an appointment before making the trip especially if you are coming from a foreign country.

So you get attended to by one of the representatives and what they do is talk to you, get some feed back and assign you to show up for church service on Saturday for the Thursday appointments and Sunday service for the Friday appointments. You have to go get a personal sign-board on which your problems are written on. If you have watched the program on television you would know what I am talking about. The signs are written up on the same day that you get assigned for church service. There is a different area that takes care of these and it is in this area that we met the Pastors wife who was helping with the writing up of the sign-boards. From this area you get to go inside the church and there is a video camera session inside the church itself during which everybody is video-taped with you displaying your sign. This is the last part of the appointment session and we left the area after this to be back on Saturday for the healing or church service. The appointment time indicates for you to show up at around 8am in the morning for the healing service with a little note that they advise you not to loose. This is the proof that you have gone through the screening process and you are ready for the healing service on Saturday or Sunday.

What you do on your downtime.
When you visit the Synagogue, Church of all nations, the whole visit is supposed to take about a week. In our case we arrived at Lagos, on a Tuesday and left on a Monday for Calabar, Nigeria. We did not leave Nigeria until Wednesday morning when the ship bound for Tiko; the Republic of Cameroon left the Calabar port. So there is going to be a lot of downtime while you are in Nigeria. What I do during me visit to large cities is to walk a lot a see places that are in the vicinity of where I live. A did a lot of this while at Lagos to get a feel of what it is like to live in a city like this. I would get up in the morning and start my journey on foot around 9am in the morning. I would visit places like shops and market areas, computer centers and get home sometime before it gets dark. You really get a feel of what city life is like this way. Lagos, Nigeria is a busy city. By the time you get up, the streets are already crowded with people heading to various destinations. There are a lot of bikes in the city and three legs min-vehicles. The mini-vehicles look like something right out of an Indian movie. There also mid-size buses that is the primary means of transportation, second to the bikes. I found the mini-buses quite old and there were all painted yellow. As you walk on the streets of Lagos, there are hawkers everywhere. Mostly children and women hawking all types of items from cool drinking water to home-made bread and various soft drinks. We visited when the weather was quite hot and I spend a lot of money buying the drinking water to keep myself cool. I visited a few cyber cafes and there was usually parked with young men and women, mostly university students. The cost was okay though the connection speed was quite slow. The service people would spend in English but amongst themselves they speak in their native language. This true in all the places that we visited starting from Calabar.Each area that you go to the individuals speak in their native language amongst themselves. I found this rather interested. I believe the Federal Republic of Nigeria is made up of three mains tribes, Yoruba, Ibo and the Hausa which makes it possible for the people to be able to communicate easily in their native languages. This is in a country with close to 200 million people. You contrast that with a country like the Republic of Cameroon which is making up of about 16 million people but close to 200 native languages and you see clearly the advantage that the Nigerians have in this category. I learn while in Nigeria that they do not have a national identity card. I guess it is easy for them to tell weather you are a foreigner or not. You have to know how to speak the local language. So once you open your mouth to speak they know right away that you are from a different country.

The Church or healing service.
On your appointment slip they say that you should come to church on Saturday around 8am in the morning. This is true for both individuals that got their appointments either on Thursday or on Friday. So the healing service is the one that takes place on Saturday, Sunday is a regular church service, though some healing still goes on during that church service. So we arrived at Church service at around 8am in the morning and the place is already packed with people. You are assigned seats into the Church with some people sitting downstairs, those that would be attended to first and rest of the people moving upstairs from where you can still get a clear view of what is going on. The healing area is located on the floor and it is clear of chairs. What you would find there are video cameras that are taking pictures during a large part of the service. The floor area would be surrounded with people and what the Pastor would do is to move around and touch each and every one of these individuals. That is part of how the healing process is. For some people he would spend more time actually preaching to you and depending on the case, he would yell to try and drive away the devil. Pastor T.B Joshua did not get into the church until about 2pm in the afternoon. So between the time that we arrived at the healing service time was spend between getting everybody seated and allowing some people during lunch time to go get something to eat and come back to church. The rest of the time is spending watching a large screen monitor on which past healing services are shown. There are a lot of sick people that visit the church and some of the video footage is quite gruesome. So you have to have a stomach for some of the stuff that would be displayed on the screen from disable people with individuals with terrible sores. People with HIV-AIDS, leprosy, mental illnesses, nothing was left without display. By the way on the day that we attended the healing session, there were close to about 10.000 people that were present.

Arrival of T.B Joshua

The man of God arrived about 3pm in the afternoon and the place just got real electrifying. Everybody got on their feet and he began be given a little speech then proceeded with the healing process. What happens is that people are taken from their seats to the floor level and it is from there that they are placed in a circle. The man of God then goes around and touches everybody. In some the case you are literally pushed onto the floor. This process goes on until everybody in the church is touched. This is really something because we are taking here about close to 10,000 people that have to be attended to. Once this part of the work is over, the next part is that of given out the anointed water. This process takes some time because TB Joshua has to leave the church to go bless the water before coming back into the church. He left that Saturday for about an hour and thirty minutes before returning. His workers accompanied him and upon his return there were the famous little plastic bottles with the water in them. There is a lot of ceremony that goes on before he starts throwing the water bottles into the crowd. You are advised to only take one bottle. That would be enough for each individual. There is the ability for you to refill the bottles once you return, so it is something that is supposes to last you a long time. There is a general prayer by the whole church to bless the water and you get to get about three drinks of it in the church before the whole process are done with. After the anointed water is distributed we get into testimonies. This is the part that people actually come up to the healing floor and say how they have been affected by the man of God. There are people that testify that their pains are all gone. Some that come on crutches claim that they can now walk and actually do a demonstration on the floor. It is quite something to watch. You would say some elderly people actually run on the floor and do some kind of dancing. The healing service did not end until sometime close to 10pm. That is quite a lot of church service for one day. I had no idea that I could attend church service for that long a period of time. There was announcement as to go the Sunday service will take place. This service is to cap your visit to the Synagogue, Church of All Nations. There were going to be an early service and a late one. I believed that I made it to the later part of the early service and just continued throw the late service. There is voluntary thanksgiving during this service. This was one way that the church supports itself. The other way is through the sales of prophesy books, audio cassettes and video compact disc. You can also choose to be a member of the church and get admitted while there at the church. There is a fee for that, which they get to tell you once you are at the church service. There is testimonies that goes on during this service and a lot of experience sharing. Some people are exposed. There is a guy that used to be a gang member and came in for healing. He told us that all of his friends are all dead from gang related activities. There was a gentleman from the Republic of Gabon who had been claiming to be the personal representative of the man of God in Gabon. People had to pass through him to come to Lagos and he was collected some money. He came to repent and he was forgiven.

The Sunday service ended around 7pm and that was the end of the visit. Everybody went home to start making arrangements for the trip back to their place of origin. Our delegations that traveled to Lagos, Nigeria were close to fifteen individuals. We did not all travel back to Calabar due to that fact that we did not get to stay in the same place. I left for Calabar early Monday morning, thinking that our ship would be returning to Cameroon on Monday night. It turned out that the ship would not depart from Calabar until early on Wednesday. The actual driving from Lagos to Calabar took place during the day. We had a very good and experience driver and he got us to Calabar in about 11 hours. The guy knew all of the back roads and used that knowledge to help us escape a lot of the traffic. We made some brief stops on our way back but overall the drive back was pretty quite. The armed police officers were still around. I guess that is just the reality of traveling in Nigeria by road. You get to pass through a lot of security. Most of the time, they just waved you through. The drivers also ignore them at times and gets away with it. Our driver knew exactly when to stop and when to just keep going. I rested a bit on Monday and spend the whole of Tuesday sight seeing in Calamari turned out that Calabar is not a bad place at all. The area is quite good for residential purpose.

The Trip Back home.
Because I made a miscalculation on when the ship was to depart from Calabar, I had to spend me night at the port in Calabar and wait for the ship to arrive on Wednesday morning. There are a lot of workers that stay at the port in Calabar and you just look for a place and spend the night. The ship arrived on Wednesday morning and it was quite a relive to see it. After the passengers got out you could go in and place you luggage and look for a place to rest inside the ship. Departure was not due until some time early in the morning on Thursday. There was news that ships do not travel at night to return to Cameroon due to one reason or the other. My guess was one of safety. Before boarding back to Cameroon you had to check in one last time with the Nigeria immigration and pay a fee of about 4000 CFA francs, about 8 dollars I would say. You are then provided with a pass that you would show to the authorities while in the ship. There would also be one more payment of about the same amount to the Cameroonian immigration authority while inside the ship and sometime before you reach Cameroon. We left Calabar about close to 6am on Thursday morning and did the returned trip on broad daylight. I had my Camera with me through the course of the journey but I did not have any films with me. I left Cameroon, thinking that I would get films while in Nigeria but it turned that they have completely move into the digital age over there. While in Cameroon you could walk into any electronic store and get films that were not the case in Nigeria. I look all over Lagos and could not find a single store and sell films for Cameras. That was the case on my way to Lagos from Calabar and during the period that I stayed in Calabar.I look everywhere but could not find any films. I was really disappointing to me. Anyway it turned out that traveling during the day in the seas is a bit turbulent during the day that at night. The sea was not really rough but it was not as smooth at during the day. The waves had arrived and you could actually feel or go outside and see and the ship did a side by side wave on the open sea. I do not get scared at all but I guess to somebody that is not used to the open sea it could be quite a trip. I did get check out areas on the ship and they had life jackets, although theirs was no mention of what to do in case of an emergency as they do on air fights. The open sea is always fascinating to me and I did like the fact that I got to go outside and take a look at the water. Oil drilling is going on and that is part of the landmark that takes you to and back from Nigeria in the open sea.

Conclusion.
Quite a trip if you asked me, I had been staying at home for quite a while and the call for adventure made me not to hesitate on making the trip. Going out in the open sea is always risky especially when you get to listen to stories of armed men boarding some of the ships to look for money. The stories that I got is that they come in a look for money and once that get the money the head out. They would only course trouble if their demands are not met. There was another story that one of the ships actually was sinking during one of those trips and a backup ship had to be sent in to move the passengers in open sea. Trying to rescue the cargo was out of the question.

2009-07-29T04:36:00.000-07:00

Breaking Down the Samuel Eto’o- Zlatan Ibrahimovic Trade.

It’s official now as both Eto’o Fils and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have signed for their respective new clubs. Eto’o Fils moves to Inter Milan of Italy while Ibrahimovic moves to the Nou Camp of Barcelona, Spain. Inter Milan got another player in the trade in addition to some cash of close to 25 million euros. Eto’o has been unsettled in the Nou Camp in the past few seasons with constant rumors about a possible trade or move to a different club. Even after winning the prestigious champions league with the club in 2005 there was some tension in 2007 when a new coach was brought in. Eto’o did stay with the club and had his usual productive goal scoring season. This time around after winning another champions league, Barca and Eto’o agreed to split ways.

Barcelona has been making some very shrewd moves of late and none had backfired so far. They got rid of Brazilian star forward Ronaldinho two seasons ago despite the fact that he was the driving force of their 2005 champions league victory. The move did not backfire as Argentina ace Lionel Messi stepped in and carried well the play making role of the team. Ronaldinho has not been the same since leaving Barca. To his credit, he had been at the top of his game for such a long period of time before his move to AC Milan. This time FC Barcelona is getting rid of somebody that has been their top goal getter for the past four seasons. Eto’o did like to stay in Barcelona but the relationship with the current coach had gotten to the stage that the later has openly express the view that he has no future plans for the former in the club.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is 27 years of age and so is Samuel Eto’o Fils and a straight up swap of the players would have been an even trade in my opinion. Just looking at the trade now before the players take to the field, I would have to say that Barcelona gave up much to get rid of Eto’o Fils.
Ibrahimovic can carry a club by himself partly due to his physical attributes, but he is going to a club that is full of play makers and his role in the new club would not be like the one in Inter Milan in which he was their motor. He is going into a good club though and his chances of getting a champions league ring has increased a bit. The timing is a little off as Barca is coming off a champion’s league victory last season and back to back champions’ league trophies are not easy to come by. Just ask Manchester United in their quest to repeat as champions last season. So he might have to wait a few years before getting the converted trophy.

Samuel Eto’o Fils has already gotten two of those trophies and good for him because although he is going to be making more money than he did with Barcelona, the last time an Italian team won the Champions league was when AC of Milan did it in the year 2006. I do not even remember the last time Inter of Milan won the champions league. They have been champions of the Italian league for the past two seasons.

Samuel Eto’o Fils is noted for his goal scoring ability but the Italian league is not a very friendly one for goal scorers. Defensive play is the order of the day in the league and he would not be getting as many goals as he did playing in the La Liga. The last big name that I can remember who scored goals with flair at the serie A is Marco Van Basten of AC Milan and the leading goal scorers of Europe have not been coming out of the serie A. He would have a great coach in Jose Mourinho and together they can make a move towards getting a champions league trophy for Inter Milan. It is not going to be easy at all because if I have to make a prediction now as to the favorites for that trophy next season, I would be looking at Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, the ever present Liverpool and then maybe Inter of Milan.

थे न्यू फस ऑफ़ वार्फर-UMV

2009-07-28T03:34:00.000-07:00

Unmanned Vehicles

The Changing Face of War.

UMV is how they are called and it stands for unmanned vehicles meaning the aircraft is capable of performing its combat duty without a pilot being in it. This is a technology that is already being used in the war in Afghanistan and in the next war there would not be any pilots flying planes into war zones anymore.

The first advantage of this has to be the fact that a pilot can fight from the safety of his base say in the US and accomplish his mission in a war zone in say Iraq. Talk about awesome technology. No more fear about a plane being shot down and the pilot trying to eject from the cockpit. The pilots are going to be so safe that the greatest risks to their lives would be their ability to drive their cars to and from work. This is really good news for families that have been serving the nation in the capacity of fighter pilots from one generation to another.
The military is training young men that are going to be controlling the UMV of the future right now and it is believed that playing video games could give you a head start over your competitors if are planning on a future as a fighter pilot. The video games in question involved those with remote controls and in which you could do precision aiming and shooting. The idea of bombing faraway locations is not new at all. There had been for some time now missiles that could be lunched to far away locations and they are totally unmanned. But the missiles are designed to cause damage to a large area. This was the case during the early days of the Iraq invasion. Shock and awe was how it was called and a lot of work damage was done from the air by precision bombing before any allied soldier touch the ground in Iraq.

The UMV are capable of targeting much smaller areas like people coming in and out of a building. This way a pilot can be in a base in Nevada and target and take out two or three individuals as far away as Afghanistan. It is believe that this is the manner in which some of the leaders of Al-Qaeda are being targeted and killed. With the public increasingly demanding that soldiers be pulled out of combat zones this is going to be a real good way for wars to be fought without a lot of casualties and terrorist could also be targeted and eliminated from far away locations without the lost of human life.

Some of the disadvantageous of UMV are that once they are lunched and reach their location the mission cannot be aborted. With a manned aircraft the pilot can make a decision once he reaches his destination as to whether he should carry out the strike or not. This is good in case there is a mistake and the target areas happen to include a lot of civilians. The UMV would not be capable of doing that, at least the ones that are being produced now. That might change in the future. Another disadvantage would be that there would be one less excuse not to go to war. The outcry about lost life would be lessened and those in charge would have an easy excuse to go to war.
The war on the ground still needs to be fought and the UMV are not going to replace the soldiers on the ground. The infantry has been an integral part of warfare since the early ages of war and that is not going to change in the future. The soldiers on the ground though are going to be getting more assistance from the guys with remote controls in far away locations.

The US had gotten the head start on UMV but they are not the only nation that is producing these vehicles. All of the big guys in terms of military strength like China, Russia, France, Great Britain, India just to name a few are all in the race to revolutionized how wars are going to be fought in the future.

थे मोवे तोवार्द्स मकिंग वीड लेगल इन थे स्टेट ऑफ़ California

2009-07-27T03:58:00.000-07:00

The State of California is moving towards legalizing Weed.

The State of California has been debating for some time now whether to make the use of marijuana legal. There have been discussions ongoing for sometime now but their legislative body is now seriously moving towards voting on a bill that would make the drug legal in the state. The State of California is known for its forward thinking and if they go ahead and okay the legalization, they would be the first state to do so in the US. Other states would follow naturally. When I was living in Maryland, there was talk of trying to legalize marijuana for medical purpose but the movement never gathered enough steam for it to move into the local Congress. The fear at the time was that a lot of people that use the drug for recreational purposes would be flooding doctor’s offices to get prescription for illnesses that are invincible.

There are medical purposes for marijuana use like the easing up of pain. But once the drug gets legalized people that use it for recreational purposes would not need to be hiding from the police anymore. The drug is still considered illegal in the US, but it is not by any means the main cause of worry for law enforcement officers. That would be crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Some sports organization do not even at the moment test for marijuana use when they are conducting their mandatory drug test. If you openly claim that you are using weed as the drug is popularly known, then the authorities would be embarrassed not to do something about it. But they do not go out of their way to look for persons that use marijuana for recreational purposes.

Employers do test for it though. Most companies would put you through a drug test before they hire you and if you come out with a marijuana positive test, they would not hire you. The fear is that if you are doing weed, then you are capable of much more. That is the main criticism that is going to come out, if the state of California does go ahead and legalize the use of marijuana. There are going to be complains that once people get tired of using the drug, they would start looking for something stronger. Getting a stronger fix after the intrigue has been taking out of the use of weed.

The State of California has a huge budget deficit that is now at about 25billion dollars and there is little doubt that part of the drive to get the drug legalized now is to raise some funds in a move towards bringing down that deficit. Once the drug is made legal then the state can tax the sale of the drug and thus raise additional revenue.

The use of marijuana is by no means going to be without its drawbacks whether it is made legal or not. Like any drug there would be people that would abuse it. It is just like cigarette or alcohol. There is nothing like a safe limit to it. If you drink alcohol or smoke cigarette even at a small level, it kills you gently. Marijuana is that way also. I know people that have been taking marijuana since they were in their teens and they still have their entire faculty together in their forties. I also do know a lot of people that have gone totally mad from taking the drug over an extended period of time. So either way, legal or not, the drug would still kill you or make you go mad if you abuse over a period of time.

The State of The Presbyterian Church

2009-07-26T05:57:00.000-07:00

I attend a church here in town and I have been doing so now for about the last two months. The last two weeks though I did not attend service at all and that are because of a number of reasons. There are two mains churches in this country which are the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church. I am a member of the Presbyterian Church and I have been since I was a little child. Church service in my childhood used to last for a maximum of two hours. That was the case throughout the year except when there were special occasions like thanksgiving and other special ceremonies such as church marriages and the service would then be extended.

The Catholic Church though for the few instances that I have attended is always constant in that their service runs between one hour to one hour and a half. They never go over one hour and the half despite the fact that they take communion each and every Sunday.
Part of the reason that the Presbyterian Church takes longer is that people come to the church to try and raise money for one project or the other. For example, the Christian Youth Fellowship of the said Presbyterian Church in the past two weeks lunched a CD in church that they have been working on for some time. There is nothing wrong in lunching a CD and raising money in church but the money raising aspect of the business just dominated the whole church service of that day. The service started at about 9am and did not finish until about 1.30pm, that is about 4.30 hours of church service. Too long in my opinion especially if you are trying to recruit more members into your service.

The Catholic Church has the advantage in that they raise money to run their church services from a central location and they have been around much longer than the Presbyterian Church. So they have more funds in their bank accounts. The Presbyterian Church can also raise money from private service out of church service time. In the case of the CD lunch that happened in my church, what I think they could have done is announced that a CD has been released and get people to purchase the CD and make other donations when the main church service is over. That way people who came to church service to worship would do that and leave if they are not interested in purchasing the CD. There are a lot of people with money in the area and they would donate money to the Church if you contact them privately. The church has elders and part of the duties of the elders in my opinion should be to try and raise money for various projects of the church. They can do that during the course of the week.

People come to church and take pride in announcing large donations that they are making to the church. I do not know whether they actually do give the money to the Church, but God knows how much you contribute to his course and you do not need to make a grand announcement of it. There is some sort of a competition going on in my opinion and it seems as if some people are using the church to show off the financial success that they have achieved somewhere else. I think there are a lot of ways in which you could let the world know that you have money and the church is not a place for that. What the Church can do if people that make donations to it need to make the rest of the world know, is to create like a balance sheet at the end of each 6 months or a year and make the announcement during the year end service. That way people would come to church and do what the church service is intended for, which is a place for people to come and worship. This is one aspect that the church has to work on.

Attending church is good because each and every one of us has to have a faith in which they believe in. The Presbyterian Church is also lively in that they have various groups that light up the service with singing and makes the place more human.

देअलिंग विथ थे Police

2009-07-25T04:16:00.000-07:00

Dealing with the Police.
Do not make a bad situation worse.
Most of the time, the police would not stop you for any unjust reason. The majority of the cases in which the situation gets to the stage in which you find yourself in handcuffs could be avoided if you have gotten an education as to how to deal with the police. I have being stopped a lot of times and I have had the police call on me a few times for one reason or the other. In the majority of the cases the situation did not get to the point of you being arrested if you have been educated. The Police force goes through a training program in which they are told on how to react on various situations. They are doing their job and they would get nasty at times if they demand for something simple as for you to show them your ID card and you start making smart comments to them.
I read an article on the Washington Post about an African American that was arrested and had to spend the night in jail because of a twenty five dollar traffic ticket that he had forgotten to pay due to one reason or the other.

Harvard professor Louise Gates got arrested at his own home recently and this has brought out the issue of how African Americans and Hispanics are dealt with in various communities throughout the nation by the police. There are my tips on how to deal with the police if you ever happen to find yourself in a situation involving them.

1-Stay calm.
This is like the number one way to get away easily when dealing with them. If you are nervous while talking to them or you are acting funny, then they know that you are trying to hide something from them and they would react according.

2-Do what they demand you to do.
If they are asking you for your driver license and car registration, provide it to them. What they do is they go to their computer and check to make sure that you are not a wanted person or you do no have any outstanding traffic tickets. If you know that you are clean, give them the document and they would come back in a couple of minutes after checking their computers and explained to you why you got stopped the first place. A few of them might asked you to do something ridiculous like saying the alphabet and you do it and they would explained to you why you are being pulled over and you would be out of the situation. The details about the Professors case are still coming out and it would be nice to wait for some time to get all the facts before trying to go prosecute all the police men.

3-If they decide to put you under arrest do not get nasty with them.
The police might decide to arrest you after pulling you over for one reason or the order. What they do at this time is they call for backup. Once you find yourself is this type of a situation, you know you are screwed and there is nothing you can do about it. This is not the end of the world. The US has a great judiciary system and you would get your day in court. Spending a night in jail is bad, but if you decide to fight them and resist arrest, you only aggravate the situation.

The police are not above the law and if you think that you were not treated fairly during a traffic stop or the police harassed you for one reason or the other you can report them to the right authority in your county. There are authorities that deal with police brutality and if you lay a legitimate complain, somebody would look into it. Remember, they are the ones that are there to uphold the law and they have been giving guidelines to follow. They are also armed and you do not want to get yourself in a situation in which you are being shot at. Some innocent individuals have being killed for trying to proof tough and the law would give the police officer the benefit of doubt in a court of law. If you have nothing to hide, that would come out in court. I personally had a situation in which the police officer acted out of hand but the charges against me were all thrown out once we got to court. As I walk out of the courtroom you could see the embarrassment at the officer’s face in the courthouse.

प्रेजिडेंट पॉल बिया ओं ओफ्फिसिअल विसित तो France

2009-07-25T04:12:00.000-07:00

The President of the Republic of Cameroon is currently on an official visit to France with his wife Chantal Biya. This is from an invitation from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The French were the main colonial masters of this central African nation that gained independence in 1960 and the relationship between the two nations have stayed cordial ever since. In the two major cities in the Republic of Cameroon, which are Douala and Yaoundé, a lot of the major infrastructures are all built by the French. They are also the main source of external support to this nation.

The relationship though between the citizens is a little bit strained in my opinion. Part of the reason being that quite a few individuals that need visas to go to France for one reason or another have to go through a rigorous process in order to obtain one. In a lot of cases they are flat out refused one. The individuals from this nation thought still fight hard to try and get to France in hope of bettering their economic situation. Economics is the primary reason for most of the individuals here trying to migrate to France, thought there are also cases of people going for medical and business purposes.

In the long term, the individuals of this nation and all of Africa as a whole have to seriously start to look for solutions for their own problems. That would be the way for them to get out of the situation in which most of the nations find themselves in. Foreign aid comes with a lot of baggage attach to it and after years and years of continues borrowing from industrialized nations and organizations such as the World bank and the International Monetary Fund, the nations in this part of the world are still lacking in terms of development. A couple of years ago, before the economic crisis hit the world, the World Bank and a few industrialized nations started a program of debt forgiveness. The program was called HIPC.HIPC stands for heavily indebted Poor nations. There was a lot of noise when the announcement was made and this nation was amongst those selected for their debts to be forgiven. Some of the nations that miss the cut complained that they were being punished for paying back their debts on time and that the nations that were selected would just go back to their old ways of borrowing and spending. I have been around this nation now since 2005 and I am yet to see that mark that the program left. I do not see any good use that the money was put into. There is very little talk now about HPIC funds and I am afraid that the funds from the program have probably just disappeared.

People of these nations have to start looking for other alternatives to solve their problems. There is a little bit of this going on now as individuals have been flooding other foreign embassies such as the US and Great Britain. They are looking for a place to migrate to or to go further their education. Financial aid is also provided by these two countries. The Italians, the Dutch and the Chinese are also present in the country providing one some of assistance or the other.

Not all the foreign nationals that are in the country are for aid. Quite a few are there for investment. Something that the government encourages as the investment would provide employment of one form or the other to the inhabitants in this nation.
The Chinese are in Douala, the economic capital of this nation and they are the most recent of the arrivals. They came in around the early 1990s and they are now involved in activities ranging from shop owners to fishermen in the seas around the area. It is funny how some individuals here are struggling to get out this nation to go overseas and yet you get people like the Chinese coming in and going what the locals here are involved in. Some of them come and get Cameroonian nationality.

थे २००९ टूर दे France

2009-07-24T05:51:00.000-07:00

The 2009 edition of the Tour the France will come to and end this coming Sunday and it looks like Spaniard Alberto Contador will be the winner. He won the race in 2007 and he is one of only few riders in history to have won all three of the grand races. That is the tour of Italy, the tour of Spain and the tour de France. This will be his second tour the France victory and he is just 24 years of age. There is enough time for him to reach the magical number of winning five tours the France races that would put him in the legend category.

Contador had to content with teammate Lance Armstrong of the US who early in the race had a two seconds lead over him. That was before the race got into the mountain stages. The mountains are where the tour is won and Alberto showed his strength by winner the crucial stage 15 mountain stages in the Alps. He followed that victory with an individual time trial victory on stage 18 yesterday that all but sealed the victory for him. So barring any catastrophic injury in the rest of the stages, he should keep the yellow jersey that he is wearing come Sunday when the race ends in Paris France.

Alberto Contador rides for team Astana and there was talk of a possible friction when last summer Lance Armstrong decided to come out of retirement and set as one of his goals, winning the tour de France. So going into the event Armstrong and Contador were almost like co-leaders of the team. After Contador made that great breakaway move on the 15th stage and won the stage, he had a comfortable enough lead over Armstrong for the later to concede that Contador is indeed the better rider.

If you have been watching past tour de France races like I have, there is always a stage when the winner takes total command of the race and that moment occurred on stage 15. Contador made his move on the last of the mountain climbs and finish close to two minutes ahead of the other race contenders.

न्यू हेड कोच फॉर थे इन्दोमिताब्ले Lions

2009-07-21T02:25:00.000-07:00

The indomitable Lions started the second part of the African Nations Cup/World cup 2010 qualifiers by losing their first game to Togo by 1-0 on a neutral ground. They followed that performance with a 0-0 draw with Morocco at home in Yaoundé, giving them just 1 point out of a possible six in a group in which just one team is to qualify for the 2010 world cup competition in South Africa.

They just hired a new coach in Frenchman Paul Le Guen but that would be reacting a little bit too late in my opinion. The team has been good for a very long time but it has also been plague by constant problems. The best example has to be when the team qualified for the 2002 world cup that was held in Japan and South Korea. The team was at its peak at that time, just coming off back to back African nations cup victories in 2000 and early 2002. The main problem that they had at that time was one of money. It looked like at the time the authorities in charge were very slow in making payments to the players and the team got held up in France on their way to the Far East.

Their first match in that competition was against the Republic of Ireland. They showed up just 24 hours before kickoff in that game and ended up pulling a one all tie on their way to crashing out of the competition in the first round. You could just see the fatigue in the players during the second half of play in that match against the Republic of Ireland.
After that competition, tragedy struck when Marc Vivien Foe collapse and died on the pitch during the confederation cup in 2003 and the team has never been the same since then.

The current coach is coming in with the ambition of taking the team to the World cup in South Africa but he is coming in a little bit too late. For some time now the public has been screaming that the players are getting old and change needs to be made but nobody in the Football authorities was listening. The team made it to the finals of the 2006 African Cup of nations in Ghana, but they played a totally different type of football to make it that far into the competition. If you watched the team during their 2000 and 2002 run they were dominating teams during the African cup of Nations competition. That was not the case though in the 2006 competition held in Ghana. Egypt exposed the team greatly and coach Otto Pfizer had to go very defensive in the later part of the competition for the team to make it that far.

The team did qualify for the second round of the current qualifiers, but they had some close calls with some very weak teams. They pulled a tie with Cape Verde away from home and had to be rescued by a late Samuel Eto-o goal to beat Cape Verde by two goals to one in the returned leg match at their home field.

The team started making changes recently but that was after their poor result during the first two games. Now they would have to win the remainder of their games to get a chance at qualifying. That is going to be very difficult considering the fact that the team is having problems both defensively and offensively. During the games against Togo and Morocco, very few goal scoring chances were created and this is not something that a new coach is going to fix right away. Also the new players that are going to be brought in would need some time to blend as a unit. The new coach would be lucky if the team qualifies for the African Cup of Nations competition in Angola next year. They need to finish third out of four teams to make it into that competition.

Working for Sprint Pcs

2009-07-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

I joined Sprint Pcs in the early part of the month of January 1999 and I worked for them for a period of about a year and a half.Getting into Sprint Pcs was not very difficult for me because I had some connections there.They do have a very strict background check procedure though that takes some time before you can begin working with them.I knew a few people at Sprint Pcs who had worked with me at Circuit City and some had important positions at the company.Jay Freshchi(I hope I got the name right was a district manager at the company).The interview that I did before being hired was conducted an the store in Baltimore inner harbor.That location was fully staffed so I could not be hired there.There was going to be a new location in a place called Columbia,Maryland.The store would be located in an old shopping center called Dobbin shopping center.I was interviewed by Brian Pierce who was the assistant manager at the Baltimore store and he was going to maintain the same position at the Columbia Dobbin Shopping center store.
The interview procedure was quite lengthy but it was not unpleasant.The only surprise for me during the interview process was that the person who was going to be the manager at the Baltimore store during my interview but choose not to take to me at the time.He just had one question and that was whether I planned on staying with Sprint Pcs for a while.
After the initial interview a background check is conducted and later on the company send me a kit to go to a lab in Wheaton to conduct a drug test.Once I got to this level I knew that I would get the job because that was the final huddle before you are send an offer letter.I did get the offer letter sometime in December and it was a pretty good offer and I was schedule to start work in the early part of January 1999

The initial staff
The initial staff at the Columbia store consisted of me,Eric Tambe,a Nigerian called Clement Oshin was going to be the manager of the store.Brian Pierce was going to be the Assistant manager.Pierce had the most knowledge about Sprint Pcs at the time.He had been with the company since its inception as Sprint Spectrum.I was surprised that he was not going to be the manager,that they were going to put an African-American in front of him in the store.He did not complain though and he spend most of the time training all of us.There was also Danny Chou who was from South Korea,a 19 year old with a big mouth.There was Heather Moore and Jason.So in total there was seven of us in the store.A manager,an assistant manager,a technician/warehouse guy and four sales persons to begin with.
The first few weeks at work consisted of on the job training and selling to make some money for myself.The training was done mainly by Brian Pierce and Jason who was the lead sales person.The role of the lead sales person is to make money for himself to begin with and assist the rest of the sales staff when the manager and assistant manager are not around.Jason had been around with the company during its early days as Sprint Spectrum.

How we got paid
The pay structure consisted of an hourly rated of 12 dollars.This is when you put in the regular 40hours of work.We got paid overtime for hours worked in the week over 40.The overtime pay was time and the half.On holidays if you were scheduled to work the rate goes to double.The hourly rated itself was so good that in some two weeks of work my regular salary which is the hourly rate came to around 1200 dollars after taxes.This was better than my two weeks of commission pay at Circuit City during most of the year.The next part of the pay structure was the commission.We got paid a commission for selling rate plans and accessories for the cellphones.The rate plans ranged from 29.99 to 199.99.The most popular rate plan that we sold was the 49.99 rate plan.Each month we were given a number of telephones as our target to sell.If you go past that number something called an accelerator kicks in.What the accelerator does is that it automatically starts paying you at a much higher rate for each telephone that you sell pass your target.A typical good month for me consisted of a gross pay of close to 6500 dollars a month.For the first year that I worked for Sprint Pcs my gross salary came to 65,000 dollars which is the most money that I have made in a year period.The next year I was on pace to make around 50,000 before I left the company to join AT@T wireless.

Other benefits.
We got a health plan benefit that the company paid for.This was for the basic service.If you wanted more then you got to pay additional for it.I did get to use the health benefit while at Sprint Pcs because I had to remove a growth on the back of my head.The doctors had to do it twice and the company paid for everything.We were also offered dental health care.You could go get your teeth clean and get some surgical work done on the expense of the company.I believed that I had some work done on my teeth during this period and the company paid for the part that was non-cosmetic.
There was also a stock purchase plan that you could take advantage of.The company allowed you to purchase stock at a discount during each quarter and brokerage house Charles Schwab was responsible for taking care of the stock transactions.I believe that I made quite a bit of money buying Sprint Pcs stock and selling it quarterly.

Training.
The official training that I got while at Sprint Pcs took consisted of about a week of classes.The training involved the learning of a new software that the company used to sell,program and set up services for the customers.I had gotten a head start on this in the store but the training went into more details and by the time that the classes were over the minor details that you were missing in the store all fell into place.During the course of the year there were other training sessions organized by the company during periods when new products were introduced.

The Merger with Mci WorldCom.
Towards the second part of the year 1999 Sprint Pcs and Mci Worldcom made a joined announcement that both companies are going to merge.The news of the merger was hailed by wall street as the stocks of both companies headed upwards in a hurry.I believe Sprint Pcs stock when from about 65 to like 130 and there was a stock split.Personally the news about the merger did not mean a lot to me at the time it was announced.That was because I had not been with a company that when through a merger and so the consequences like job loss and closing down of some stores did not register at the time.The merger did not go through though because of anti-trust regulations from the security and exchange commission.The merger of the two giants was deemed to be a threat to free competition.

Dealing with the customers.
For the most part the customers that we got in the Columbia part of town were pretty educated and nice people.They came into the store,we explained to them what we offered and they pretty much made a buying decision on the spot.Selling the phones and services was relatively straightforward because of our sales experience and the tools that the company provided us to carry on with our job.One of the problems that we faced came from the coverage area that Sprint Pcs offered.If you listen to the advertisements that the company ran Sprint Pcs was hailed as a nationwide digital coverage service.This was true to an extend.All of the major cities had coverage.The problem was when you ventured into rural areas.There,the coverage was light to put it mildly.The company tried to tackle the problem by selling dual band phones that allowed you to automatically switch into Cingular wireless coverage area and you pay a roaming charge.For the most part though the customers did not want to pay anything extra so you took your chances that they would stay within the coverage area of the company.We did get complains also about drop calls.This one was major.You are in the middle of a conversation in the Beltway or any other highway and your signals just goes off.The call drops.The company also worked had to fix the problem.At the time that I worked for Sprint Pcs,if I had to rate the wireless companies in terms of coverage I would say the first was Verizon Wireless,next AT@T wireless and then Sprint Pcs.Our marketing strategy was working though because the service was popular and we were selling a ton of telephones.

The Migration Period
Sprint Pcs started out as Sprint Spectrum around the 1995 period and they were mainly based in the East Coast of the United States.They used a technology called GSM for their services.GSM service is popular in the rest of the World but at the time that Sprint introduced it the technology was not used by most of the cellular telephone companies.After about three years of playing around with GSM Sprint the mother company of Sprint Spectrum decided to built an all digital nationwide network based on TDMA technology.The company was going to be called Sprint Pcs and it would be run as a separate entity.It would sell mainly wireless services and it would have its own tracking stock.So when I joined the new company they had customers who were using the GSM network and some that were using the new TDMA network.The companies vision was clear though,push the new TDMA technology but do not send away customers that insisted on buying a GSM telephone.This all changed about the mid-point of 1999 when the company decided to do away with the GSM network and moved everybody to the TDMA network.The process of transferring customers to the new network was called migration.
The company anticipated and rightly that there was going to be a huge rush of traffic into the stores and they took some steps to take care of the rush.The first step was to hire some temporary help.We got about a total of ten temporary workers during this period.The next was to get security into the stores.In our location we got Maryland police officers who were putting in the extra hours as part of a part time job.The officers were lively people and we had a lot of fun during the period that they were in the store.From sports stories telling to jokes,the officers were up to the task.They were also armed, although we did not get the type of trouble that needed them to use their firearms.

Why I left Sprint Pcs.
Looking back now I wonder why I left Sprint Pcs to join AT@T wireless.Both companies sell the same type of products and the pay scale is about the same.I believe one of the reasons that I left is that the amount of money that I made during the first year working for Sprint Pcs could not be duplicated in the second year.The very good first year made us the employees think that what we made in that initial year could be duplicated year in year out.When reality set in we started looking for alternate places to work.Most of us ended up working for AT@T wireless at one point or the other.At the time that I left though I was happy to be joining a new company.The year and the half that I spent with Sprint Pcs turned out to be so much fun in terms of what I did on the job and how much fun I was having out of work with all the money that Sprint Pcs was paying me.

The incidents
The first one involved me and co-worker Danny Chou.The district manager had set a budget for both of us to sell 35 cellphones during our initial month of hire.This seemed like a lot for a new hire but as they would find out Danny and I had sold cellphones in our prior companies and we just destroyed the target.We ended up selling about 60 cellphone each and the accelerated that the company had in place was going to give us paychecks of about 6000k for our first month of work.The District manager came and said that because we were both new employees the accelerator did not apply to us.Our paychecks were cut down to the 3000k range.We were both bitter about the whole affair but there was nothing that we could do about it.
The second one occurred during the period that we were migrating customers from the GSM to the TDMA system.A couple,male and female worked into the store and after some discussion with them,I convinced them to switch to the new system.A gave them two telephones for free.I believe that they were the qualcomm dual band telephones.The next day they showed up in the store and complained to my store manager that they were somehow misled into making the buying decision.The matter did not end there.A report was made to the district manager at the time,a guy that I can only name as Charles.Somehow he discussed with my store manager and they came to the conclusion that both phones that I sold should be returned.Also they said that I should write a letter explaining what really happen.That was not the end of the matter.They wanted the letter to include an apology to the couple.When my store manager was explaining this to me I thought that he was joking.A letter of apology to customers for selling them cellphones.That is what we are paid to do.I did write a letter but I told my store manager that I letter of apology was out of the question.I knew that I did not do anything wrong, so I was not afraid of any consequences.That is how the matter ended.
The next incident took place also during the period of migration.This one did not involve me but it did involve a co-worker who latter came on board.Name was Jeff and he ended up going out with a customers daughter who was real young.The girl was hired I believe as part of the extra staff that we needed during the period of conversion.Jeff did not see anything wrong in what he did and at the time the rest of us just looked at it as a minor distraction by the young man.I do not think that the matter got to the high level management of the company because Jeff was never reprimanded for his deed.The fun part was that he had a beautiful fiance at the time and they did end up getting married.I did get to meet the young lady after the incident in the Columbia shopping center after the incident and she seemed quite fine.
The other incident occurred at the job site but the origin of everything took place out of work.What happened is I was heading to work and while on I-95,I got a call from my manager saying that I should stay home and not show up for work.That sounded real strange so I just continued heading to work.I reached the parking lot,parked my car and just before I got into the entrance of the store I was stopped by two men,one of them flashed an official police batch and motioned me into a car.They said that they are just being nice and did not want to create a scene.I followed their instructions and accompanied them into their car and they proceeded to lay some handcuffs on me.We drove to one of the police stations in Columbia where I got the chance to talked to one of the officers who started given me some information.I would later on be transferred to the police station in Rockville during a Friday and would spend the weekend lock-up before I could talk to the people in Rockville Civil court.The tough part was spending time in jail.It is not pleasant at all and you really get to value your liberty.The cause of the problem is that I have been issued a traffic violation ticket about two years earlier and in the course of moving from one apartment to another I did not get a court notice to appear before a judge.A bench warrant was thus issued for my arrest and somehow they located me at the Columbia store.The whole incident was an embarrassment because all my co-workers knew about it and some high level management.I do not think that my relationship with my store manager was the same after this incident.When I ended up leaving the company this incident, I would say was one of the reasons for my looking for a new work environment.

Some of the characters.
In each company that you work at there has to be some characters and Jeff was definitely one of them.The guy was in his early thirties but still trap in a youthful mentality.His love affair with cars was just amazing.He got hired from Circuit city where he was a sales manager and he came to the company with his red flashy car.It was a sports car with the doors removed so that you needed a remote control to get into the vehicle.At one time he was trying to sell the car and I believed he ended up test driving during a period of about a month close to 12 different cars before he settled on one.Then there was Jessie.Jessie worked in the customer service section of the company and she was a good story teller.She was married at the time to a pastor and she had four boys that she talked about all the time.
There was Danny Chou.Danny Chou was around 18 years old when he got hired and he had a habit of recking his automobiles.You had to get into a car with this guy to see how he drives around I-95.Danny would end up quitting before the year was over and returned to South Korea shortly after.That is the story that we got from the sisters who usually came into the store.Danny was fun though if you needed to get good food.He knew where all the good restaurants were around the Columbia,Maryland area and during launch break all you had to do is grap him and he was willing to go.
There was a guy called Dave that transferred from the store in Laurel.Dave could sell very well and had been with the company since its inception as Sprint Spectrum.I had a minor argument with him the first time that he step foot on the sales floor.He was trying to seize one of my customers right in-front of me.We got into a shouting match and I believe that was the first time that I ever got into a shouting match with one of my co-workers.Dave though was noted for something else.Hitting on female customers.Originally from one of the Islands,he would sell you a telephone,then on hit on you.He would hit on all races of women.African-American,White,mixed,you name it.Some of the women were already in relationship and a few of them let him know about it.The complains started coming in,gradually at first and escalated latter on to the point that the company gave him the option to resign which he accepted.

A typical week during my time at Sprint Pcs

A typical week for me would include showing up for work during days that I was scheduled to work.We had a morning shift and a night shift and the days that I was schedule to work during the morning shift I would try and get in some exercise after work.The exercise consist of playing pick-up soccer.After playing I would come home, take a shower and I would just be full of energy.Then it would be time to get cruise in town for some fun.I did meet somebody that we had a relationship for a while and we used to meet at least once week.The periods that my energy level was real high I would add in a Wednesdays meeting and this is probably the most fun that I have ever had in a relationship period.I used to go to the nightclub while working for Sprint Pcs.The club was the old DC live that was located on 9th street in NW Washington DC.The club life was okay especially after we had received those big bonus paychecks.The club life though included just once a week.The work itself in the store consisted of selling phones and services to customer and I knew how to do this.We sold a lot of cellphones and services.There were times though that you just had a bad day and things moved pretty slow.Or at times is just seems as if nobody wants to buy a cellphone.There were days like that and what you had to do is just stay we stick in there with the tough times and the day would be over before you notice it.
Some other benefits.
The company did give a sky-box ticket at one time to the Assistant sales manager who was going to take her daughter to watch the Baltimore Ravens play the Titans from Tennessee on a regular season game.She came in on a Sunday and decided to give up the ticket.I opted for it and called up a female friend of mine and we headed to downtown Baltimore.The Sky-box area is quite fun.There is everything available for you.As much shrimps as you can eat.All type of drinks and various kinds of foodstuff.You get to see the game from the best part of the stadium.
We got free breakfast each time that there was a staff meeting on early Saturday.We would just assembly in one of the restaurants around the area and hold the meeting right there while we eat.There were gift certificates that the company distributed to us for meeting certain sales targets.The certificates range from about 25 dollars to 50 dollars.There were usually distributed during the sales staff meetings.

New Prime Minister for the Republic of Cameroon

2009-07-02T02:22:00.001-07:00

The Republic of Cameroon has a new Prime Minister and head of government.This happened with the President of the Republic signing a decree on June the 30 2009, making some changes in the government.The main news was that of making Yang Philemon the new Prime Minister and head of government of the Republic of Cameroon.

Some of the changes made in the recent Cabinet Reshuffle.
These are some of the changes made in the composition of the Cameroon government on June the 30 following a Presidential decree.
Peter Agbor Tabi who had been out of the government for close to 12 years was brought back in and given the post of State Minister,Assistant Secretary General at the Presidency.He at one time was the Minister of Higher Education and was prior to this nomination the Pro-Chancellor of the University of Buea.At one point before leaving the government, he was even rumored to be the next Prime Minister of the Country before the post was given to the then General Manager of CDC corporation,Peter Mafany.
Mr. Agbor Tabi is from the Manyu division and his recent nomination puts him back on track for the Prime Minister and head of government position some time in the future if he still wants the position.
There is a new guy occupying the post of Minister of Sports and Physical Education.His name is Zoah Michel and he replaces a certain Augustine Edjoa.The poor performance of the Indomitable lions in the combined 2010 World cup-African nations cup qualify played a big part in the change.Augustine Edjoa was constantly fighting with the main football body of the country which is known as "FECAFOOT".That is a problem with "FIFA" which does not like the government of nations interfering in the affairs of football.The football governing body is in charge of this sector and hopefully the new guy coming in gets the point.The Minister of Sports and Physical Education is in charge of all the sporting and physical education events in the country not just football.
Bello Bouba Maigiri stays with the government but he gets a job as Minister in charge of Transport.He is one of the long standing leaders of the North part of the country and has been working with the government for some decades now.There is a new guy also in the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication in the name of Biyiti BI-Essam Jean-Pierre.His name suggest he is from the same tribe as the President of the Republic.

The Main Change.
The President stayed with the tradition of letting an Anglophone head the government with the title of Prime Minister.Yang Philemon replaces Inoni Ephraim who had held the position for about five years now.The other anglophone Prime Ministers had been Peter Mafany and before him a certain Achidi Achu.
The nomination took a lot of people by surprise because usually in this country before the cabinet is reshuffle,you get some street rumors.This time is was quietly done and the President went to the North West Province of the Anglophone part of the country to pick the new Prime Minister.The past two PM have been from the South West Province,from the Bakweri tribe in particular and people were beginning to wonder if the position belongs to them.
In the past year or so in the country, there was noise that the people from the North part of the country,the "nordist" is how they are known here would like to get this position.The highest position that they occupy in the country is the post of the head of the National Assembly.
By staying with an Anglophone,the President of the Republic keeps this part of the country happy to a certain extend.
Yang Philemon has been working in the Cameroonian government for quite a long time now.I remember him from my days as a student in the University of Yaounde in the early 1980s.At the time, Ahmadou Ahidjo was the President of the Republic and Yang Philemon,then only 28 years old was the youngest of the ministers in the then President's administration.He should now be in his early sixties.He comes from a tribe called Oku, in the north west Province and he is taking over a strategic position in the country.The post is one of nomination, so although he is the head of the government, he does not get to form a cabinet of his choice.That job here is the responsibility of the President of the Republic,his excellency Paul Biya.So the Presidency is where real power lies in this nation.That said,the position of that of Prime Minister is a big deal.You get name recognition right away in different parts of the world and you can influence a lot of decisions that are made in terms of hiring people that control major corporations in the country.This is true because quite a few individuals have lost jobs as head of some large corporations because of standing in the path of the Prime Minister in the past.
By also going with somebody from the north west province of the country, the President is making a strong move towards winning re-election come 2011 if he chooses to stay as President of the Republic.The main opposition party in this country is called SDF and its leader is from the North West Province.The nomination of Yang Philemon should win the President some votes come 2011.
The nominations also eliminates Yang Philemon from contending for the position of presidency of the republic come the 2011 elections because that would be standing on the way of his boss.Amongst the names of people that are said to take over the Republic of Cameroon,in case President Biya decides to step down,Yang Philemon's was high on a list that included some "Nordist".

Reactions.
People from this part of the country are not out in the street celebrating that an Anglophone has been made Prime Minister and head of Government,at least not yet.There are a lot of problems going on in peoples personal life's throughout the world and this is true in the Republic of Cameroon.The new Prime Minister did thank the President for the nomination and stressed the fact that he would be learning on his current job.The rest of the individuals given ministerial nomination also expressed gratitude to the President of the Republic for the confidence that he has showed in them by given them their new positions.

Conclusion.
I am from the Anglophone part of the country and I express some happiness in the President's decision to stay with an anglophone in this important governmental position in the country.My greatest wish though would be to have an individual from the Bayangi tribe of this part of the country occupy this position sometime in the future.There are quite a few capable individuals from this tribe and hopefully one on them will get the position come 2014.The country has made some steps towards true democracy in terms of allowing for more than one party but in would also be nice to see the head of the government to get some real power in terms of forming a government of his choice.That is still a long way off but hopefully we get to see it sometime in the future.

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2009-06-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

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2009-06-19T05:21:00.000-07:00

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The Samba Boys are Mtn elite One Champions in Cameroon

2009-05-24T10:10:00.000-07:00

They moved into the Mtn Elite one just last season and had a very positive rookie campaign.They took everybody by surprise during the first part of the championship by coming up second to Cotonsports of Garoua.They ran out of steam though during the second part of the campaign and finished the season just a number of teams above the relegations zone.
When the current championship season began a lot of people placed their money on Cotonsport of Garoua who had been champions for the last six seasons running to continue their championship run.
The Samba boys though had their own ideas,edging out Union Sportive of Douala at the break with 26 points on goal differences.A key decision was handed down by Fecafoot(Cameroon's football governing body) that met behind closed doors and reversed a one nil defeat of the club in Menoua by Aigle.Aigle had fielded an ineligible player during the encounter and end up losing the three points to Tiko United.They lost just one game during the first half of the campaign to Panthere of Bangante by one goal to nil, a lost that they revenge on the fifth day of play during the second half of the competition by one goal to nil.There were some key victories including a one nil defeat of Astre of Douala in the newly renovated reunification stadium on the fourth day during the second half of the championship.On day 19 they went to Bafang and beat Unisport by one goal to nil.

I watched the team play a number of games during the first part of the campaign at their local ground,a place call the towngreen.They defeated Danay FC of Yagoua by two goals to one and Canon of Younde by a come from behind three goals to two thriller.The team is built on a very solid defense and most of their victories are in the one nil-category.By winning the MTN elite one championship they become the first team from the Anglophone part of the country to do so in the history of Cameroonian football.So this is indeed a very big deal.On match day 20 they tied 0-0 with Aigle of Dschang.On match day 21 they beat first half rival Union Sportive of Douala by 3goals to one moving them 10 points clear of rival Cotonsport of Garoua with just five more games to go to the end of the championship.
They had to wait until the second to last day of the campaign to tie University Club of Ngaoundere by one nil though to be official declared champions of the elite league in Cameroon.

बैंकिंग विथ यूनियन बैंक ऑफ़ Cameroon

2009-05-07T10:37:00.000-07:00

I have an account with Union Bank of Cameroon that I opened sometime in early 2006.I had put some money there while I was working in Douala and just left it as a savings.In case you are thinking about trying to get to it,it is not a lot of money so go try your luck somewhere else.When I opened the account the rep that I dealt with in the Douala branch was quite professional and the account was opened without any problems.All they needed from me was a copy of my national ID card which I always carry along with me.I had made just one withdrawal from the account since I opened it and that was sometime in June 2008.
Just today the 7th of May 2009 I left home in the morning to go do some work in the cybercafe and after about 30minutes or so of working the internet just went off.This is a constant problem with the internet cafes in some areas,the network seems to be down all the time and I just wonder how the people that are operating the place get to make any money at all.The attitude of the service people is that of "I don't care",the networks are down,tough luck to the customers.They do not seem to care at all is what I have come to conclude.For some reason that got me mad and I decided to go to the Union bank in Limbe to close out my account for no particular reason.I had called the branch in Douala about two days earlier where I opened the account and they said that it was okay for me to close the account in the Limbe branch.

This is what happened though once I got to the branch in Limbe.
I told the first rep that I met that I wanted to get my account closed and she said that I have to write an application letter to do so.That was strange but I decided to oblige and write the letter with a borrowed pen and paper from the bank.After writing the letter I handed it over and was called into one of the offices.The person I talked to told me that I cannot close the account in the Limbe branch,it has to be done in the original bank that I opened the account at.They did hand me a form though and said that I could withdraw some money from the account.I just thought to myself that I was going to just withdraw the whole amount from the account.I filled out the form,handed it over and then came a twist that I have to leave a certain amount in the account in Douala to keep it opened until I could close it from there.That is what I ended up doing.

The good points about the bank.
Overall, in the two branches that I have dealt with the representatives are friendly and they would listen to you and always try to help.They do finally give you the help they could provide in the branches,it just might take you some time to get everything done.I was in the bank for a total of about two hours for a transaction that I think should be done in maximum 30 minutes.

The bad points.
How come in this days of technology,you cannot just go to one of the branches and your account could be accessed using the computer.The complain that I got was that the program that would get that going is still in the making.

Conclusion.
Each time that I go to the bank there is also somebody that comes in with a whole lot of money to deposit and it is in cash.I always wonder what it is that I am doing wrong in life to not to able to be that guy with the large deposit.It happened a lot while I was in Douala and while I was in the bank today this two guys walk in,casually dressed and they had three huge envelopes filled with 10,000 francs CFA notes.I have to find out what this people do for a living.The branches in the various banks have to be linked by computers.There is always the bailout reason that this is Africa and things are not at that stage yet.I do not think that holds anymore.There is the internet and all types of communications devices available in this country and the banks have to be able to take advantage of that.

हप पविल्लों ड्व६ लैपटॉप-१६ Inch

2009-04-30T01:53:00.000-07:00

असुस ईईसी पीसी NETBOOK

2009-04-29T01:52:00.000-07:00

सैमसंग क्ष-३६० १३.३ इंच Laptop

2009-04-28T01:48:00.000-07:00

असुस एई NETBOOK

2009-04-27T01:45:00.000-07:00

असुस ईईसी NETBOOK

2009-04-26T01:43:00.000-07:00

अनोठेर असर अस्पिरे ८.९ इंच Deal

2009-04-25T01:42:00.000-07:00

इम्पोर्तंत पेड पैर क्लिक अड़ साइट्स एंड links

2009-04-24T02:35:00.000-07:00

एप्पल मक्बूक १३.३ इंच Laptop

2009-04-24T01:46:00.000-07:00

अनोठेर ८.९ इंच असर अस्पिरे Notebook

2009-04-23T01:40:00.000-07:00

हप पविल्लों १६ इंच Laptop

2009-04-22T01:38:00.000-07:00

मसी विंड Notebook

2009-04-21T01:35:00.000-07:00

एप्पल मक्बूक १५.४ इंकह Laptop

2009-04-20T01:34:00.000-07:00

असर अस्पिरे ८.९ इंच Netbook

2009-04-19T01:32:00.000-07:00

असर अस्पिरे ८.९ इंच Notebook

2009-04-18T01:29:00.000-07:00

असर अस्पिरे १०.१ इंच Notebook

2009-04-16T01:25:00.000-07:00

मसी १० इंच Netbook

2009-04-15T01:27:00.000-07:00

असुस नेत्बूक ८.९ Inch

2009-04-14T01:24:00.000-07:00

एप्पल मक्बूक Laptop

2009-04-13T01:22:00.000-07:00

असर असौरे ८.९ इंच Notebook

2009-04-12T01:21:00.000-07:00

एप्पल मक्बूक Laptop

2009-04-11T01:20:00.000-07:00