Eritrea is endowed with enormous potential. Boasting a 1,200-kilometer coastline and a fair share of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — an important strategic connection in the maritime commerce route, pristine beaches and dozens of secluded islands that make it a one-of-a-kind tourist destination, it also has a young, vibrant population, and, importantly, enjoys a semblance of peace in a turbulent region. The list could go on and on. All of these things were supposed to have led to Eritrea’s prosperity. But after 18 years of independence, the once-promising country was isolated and sanctioned for nearly a decade. According to Yemane…
Author: NLM Team
By Gilbert Muyumbu *Setting the context: This is the first of a two-part instalment in this continuing serious Perhaps nothing sums up the promise of the NARC administration better than the memory of then newly appointed Tourism minister Raphael Tuju throwing officials of then just defeated ruling party, KANU, out of the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC). Tuju’s show was one of the first acts of reclaiming public property from misappropriation under President Daniel Moi’s KANU government, which had turned the publicly-funded KICC into its party headquarters. Through Tuju’s symbolic act, NARC, which campaigned on a platform of reclaiming public…
In a country where clannism, intimidation, and money hold a central place in the electioneering process, the International Community seems to have been co-opted in a likely sham process The prime minister of the Federal Republic of Somalia, Mohamed Hussein Roble, has played an important role in the country’s political stability. Somalia now has a Federal Electoral Commission, and the long-delayed election is expected to take place in the next three to four months. Unlike the previous indirect election in 2016, held in single towns in each state, this year’s election will be held in two major cities in each…
In the Kenyatta and Moi regimes, it was unimaginable for a High Court judge to indict the President for constitutional and/or legal transgressions. The confidence and the audacity of the Judiciary to hold accountable the Executive in general, and the Presidency in particular, has incrementally grown in line with the political growth and democratic development of the country. By Franklin Mbogori The question of whether a sitting President can be sued in civil courts for violating the Constitution and the law was revisited by the High Court in the recently delivered judgment in ‘David Ndii & others v Attorney General…
The world is full of opportunities, but, often, certain barriers prevent us from traveling freely to countries we might like to visit. As a result, we cannot access alternative healthcare systems in other countries, offer our children more diverse educational prospects, or even just live in another country for any length of time. But what if there was a way to break down those barriers quickly and easily – a way of opening up access to those global opportunities for you and your family? Windsor Capital Management, a specialist in Citizenship/Residency by Investment, has the experience and know-how to help…
By Prof John Harbeson There is something problematic about presuming to quantify the quality of democracy. Democracy is too fundamentally important, too vital to our existence to subject it to such reductionism, too noble an ideal to be treated in this fashion. Yet, with the arrival of what the late Samuel Huntington memorably termed democracy’s “third wave” in the wake of the Cold War’s end in the late 1980s, democratization, at some level, has spread throughout the globe, and there has seemed to be no other way than through quantifiable indicators systematically and comparatively to gauge the quality of democracy.…
The international community’s unproductive game in Somalia By Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamad and Fuad Abdirahman A UN official described the UN operation in Somalia in the early 90s as “the worst failure of the UN in our generation.” This claim was made 30 years ago, depicting the United Nations’ incompetence during the conflict that let the country descend into civil war. Three decades, and billions of dollars later, spent on ostensibly reversing the country’s dire situation, little has changed; there has been far greater destruction, death, and starvation since the UN intervened. When Somalia’s central government collapsed, and the UN was…
By Antony Mutunga Tatu City, Kenya’s 5,000-acre mixed-use Special Economic Zone (SEZ), has recently been appointed by the World Free Zones Organization (World FZO) as Kenya’s representative to its 700+ global member body. In this role, Tatu City will be responsible for administering the regional office of World FZO in Kenya which will act as a center for thought leadership and knowledge exchange for free zones and governmental organizations to access and training, networking, and business development. “We are delighted to welcome Tatu City as a member and the first Regional Office in Kenya. As the first operational Special Economic…
By Newton Arori The nomination and subsequent appointment of Justice Martha Koome as Kenya’s Chief Justice has been lauded as the judge makes history as the country’s first woman head of the Judiciary. Almost propitiously, her appointment ends the controversy around the gender composition of Kenya’s apex court. In 2011, shortly after the Supreme Court was first constituted, The Federation of women lawyers Kenya (FIDA) and other petitioners moved to court with a petition touching on the court’s composition. FIDA claimed that the court’s composition violated the constitutional requirement that no gender should exceed two-thirds (in this case 4.66) in…
By Nathaniel Allen Across the African continent, the relentless spread of networks, sensors, artificial intelligence, and automation is driving a revolution to an unknown destination. Emerging technologies such as CCTV cameras with facial recognition systems, drones, robots, and “smart cities” are proliferating. Digitization is improving government revenue collection and curbing corruption. Cameras and facial recognition technologies are helping authorities respond to terrorist attacks. Drones are delivering life-saving medical supplies. Yet with each advance there is a cost. Sophisticated malware enables novel forms of criminality, surveillance technology powers new tactics of repression, drones unleash the prospect of an autonomous weapons arms…
