East Africa: Kenya

This weekend I read an article titled “KPA, Trademark East Africa partner to improve port efficiency”. I found this article at the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation online and it was published on February 2, 2014. This article is about Kenya using the 53 million dollars it received from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands for infrastructure and facilities improvement(about 451 million in shillings which are the Kenyan currency) to enhance the Mombasa Port, Kenya’s largest.

Before going into more depth on the article I would like to give a little more background on Kenya. Kenya is a country in East Africa along with Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania. Kenya has average temperatures ranging from 50 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Kenya usually has cool at night and early morning; it has warm days. Kenya also has one of the biggest and most advanced economies in Eastern Africa. However, it is still retains a large amount people in poverty. Kenya is also a part of the EAC, or the East African Community, which also includes Uganda and Tanzania.     

                In more specific terms, KPA and other businesses that showed interest in the Mombasa Port developed a Mombasa Port Community Charter to guide trade through and these businesses also hope to improve the infrastructure of the port (cargo clearance speed and customs clearance efficiency). The President of Kenya, Mr. Kenyatta, is planning to launch the charter later in the month. The goals set by the charter include: the Mombasa Port becoming a high performance landlord port by 2016; all of the workers become members of the Kenya National Electronic single window system by December, 2014; and  the community coming together to complement the individual institutional service charters to address issues and improve efficiency.

                I sincerely hope that all goes well at the Mombasa Port in Kenya. The success of the Mombasa port should help to lessen poverty in Kenya and benefit the overall economy.  I am glad that President Kenyatta has remained committed to the Mombasa Port’s success and I hope it will have great success. I am very proud of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands for their support of Kenya. The motto of Kenya is “Harambee” which when translated into English means “Let us all pull together” or “Let us all pool together” depending on how it’s said/translated, but I think that if we all follow that motto to its truest intent then we can make everyone’s lives just a little bit better.

Russia problems of America

This weekend I read an article titled “U.S. Says Russia Tested Missile, Despite Treaty” by Michael R. Gordon. This article was published on January 29^th in the New York Times (online). Unfortunately, the title ruins any suspense I could have created about the situation. The story goes that Russia made a treaty with Ronald Reagan which states that Russia is not to fire any more medium range missiles and, well… they did.

 This article stuck out at me most because it supplied the terror of imminent death that everyone needs on a Saturday morning before their first cup of coffee. There are two reasons that Americans should be concerned about this:

1.       This treaty was what basically finalized the end of the Cold War and Russia has now ignored it, leaving them with more military freedom to be used for some greatly unimportant reason like using the missiles to exterminate all mosquitoes somewhere near North Korea.

2.        Russia is pushing their luck with ignorance of a treaty dating back to the Cold War, conflict with us on how to end fighting in Syria, harboring an American fugitive, and Putin’s presidency.

Oh, and I forgot something else, this is a country with so much power, it gave America the cold shoulder. There has been persistent military buildup in Russia while in America, the land of the free and home of many delicious foods, we were doing military cuts on nuclear weapons. To compensate, we have to stop our cuts on nuclear weapons to solve this problem.

Now Republicans are angry that nobody is taking any action against Russia. So of course, they wrote a letter telling the White House to do something, which is flat-out ridiculous because houses can’t solve problems. Democrats, I assume (because I have and will only read one article), are trying to come to some kind of compromise with Russia. Americans are waiting to hear what the President has to say, unless they didn’t know about this article until I spoiled their breakfast burrito at McDonald’s. If the latter is the case, “Guess what! World War 3 is coming early this year and our government is too ____________________(please insert descriptive word of choice) to do anything about it.

On the upside, the weather is getting a little cooler with no chance of nuclear radiation until half past four, but that is what the politicians told me and they are always wrong about these kinds of things.