Breaking News RIP OFF- Foreign Ministry Studies Report On STL

Breaking News

RIP OFF- Foreign Ministry Studies Report On STL

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has began a comprehensive study of all reports on the operations of Superlock Technologies Limited (STL) an Israeli company which was awarded a contract for the renovation of three of Ghana's missions abroad.

The contract of US$16,746,682.00 was for the renovation of Ghana's missions in New York, Washington DC and Ottawa.

Interestingly, Superlock Technologies Limited has no construction experience.
Sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Insight that the Don Arthur report on the renovation of the missions as well as all media reports are being studied for serious action.

A report prepared by a Ghanaian team headed by Dr Adu Arthur of the office of the President says the contract was awarded without regard to the Public Procurement Law (ACT 663).

There were no consultants engaged for the procurement of the works and no applicable contractor-selection procedure was adopted. The report claims that statutory processes and procedures were completely ignored and basic documents normally submitted for building works are not available.

Conspicuously absent from the contract documents are offer and acceptance correspondence, technical specifications, bill of quantities and activity schedules.
The scope of works for each contract was given only in narrative form without any Bills of Quantities specifying the exact quantum and quality of each item of work to be executed.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs under President Kufuor and by extension the state was pushed into contracts the limits of which were not clearly defined.
The lump-sum quotations submitted by STL were accepted by the Ministry without any negotiations.

Payment schedules were exclusively time bound and did not take into account, quantum and quality of work done. Superluck Technologies Limited was incorporated in Ghana over 20 years ago to sell security locks and doors.
In 2003, the company was re-lunched with two Ghanaians, a man and wife listed as owners with Mr. Yaron Tal as Managing Director.

In June 2008, the Company's ownership changed. The Ghanaian couple sold their shares to a Swiss Company whose directorship remains undisclosed. An important event marked the change in the fortunes of STL. On Wednesday, November 11, 2003, Hajia Alima Mahama, then Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and PSI publicly announced that “Superlock Technologies Limited would serve as good ambassadors for Ghana and attract foreign investments from Israel and other developing countries.”

A strategic partnership had been established between the Kufuor administration and STL which has since reflected in the fortunes and influence of the Israeli company. Since then STL through a system of political patronage has become the largest single provider of Data Communication services and surveillance systems to public institutions in Ghana.

The institutions include, the Ghana Commercial Bank, Agricultural Development Bank, National Health Insurance Authority, the Electoral Commission and the National Security Council Secretariat. STL has carefully cultivated strategic relations with influential members of the dominant political parties in Ghana including the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

Source:  

The Insight Newspaper http://www.insightnewspaper.com/

Kwesi Pratt Causes Fear And Panic In The NPP! Part One

Kwesi Pratt Causes Fear And Panic In The NPP!

Part One: What Exactly Did Kwesi Say?
Feature Article | by Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.

Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro,




Introduction.

I wish to raise the following: US Military Bases In Ghana: Any Secret Deal Between The NPP And The Americans? Gabriel Asare Ochere-Darko, Executive Director of the Danquah Institute,  Says So! This also includes, quite naturally, a special treatment of the NPP-USA.
The latest twaddle of the NPP USA concerns three main issues:

1. The link between our oil and the US Military Bases in Africa
2. The GNPC-KOSMOS Dispute Over Violations Of the Laws Of Ghana.
3. Socialism and Capitalism

These are not subjects that one can treat exhaustively under one article unless one is full of wine, or beer, as it might be in the case of the scribes of the NPP USA. I am thus compelled to take them one after the other in subsequent feature articles. This permits me to deal effectively and fairly comprehensively.

Thus for now, our focus is on the first point:

The link between Africa's Oil and the US Africom: What Does The NPP Say About This?

What Exactly Did Kwesi Say About This Link? 
A lot of people have heard of the strange and monumentally ignominious call by the USA-NPP for the arrest of Kwesi Pratt, Jnr. Whilst this marks a very extremely low point for our precious infant democracy. It is obvious from their press releases that the NPP USA are very adamant not to bite the finger that feeds them. This however should not prevent us to defend our own country, Ghana. What many people are unaware of is the question of what did Kwesi say exactly whilst contributing to a panel discussion on Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji political programme, to incur the wrath of this group who now accuse Mr. Pratt for causing needless "fear and panic" in their hearts and are therefore calling for his arrest?

It is amazing the speed with which they are seeking refuge behind meaningless ideological debates instead of discussing real and present dangers facing our continent today, which could be worse than slavery and colonialism combined! It is the exposure of the NPP's involvement once again in a brutal mischief against the people of Ghana and Africa which is the source of the fear and the panic they are complaining of! By the time I am through with this article, I would have given enough hints to alert Ghanaians as to why they should be extremely careful about every single move of the dubious clique of treacherous elites and traitors of their own people who dare to call themselves "patriotic"!

 "USA Is Ready To Kill And Destroy For Ghana's Oil... NPP Is Supporting Them!"

A Transcription of the Statement by Mr. Kwesi Pratt, Jnr., by the courtesy of the Office of the Odikro.


BEGIN QUOTE
The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation has said that it is interested in buying the 23 per cent stake of Kosmos in the Jubilee Field. It is not, as it were, extracting that stake from Kosmos. Kosmos itself says, "We want out, we want to sell."

The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation says, "We want to buy it."


Kosmos says, "We will not sell to Ghana. We will only sell it to another American company."

The whole of the US establishment is mounting monumental pressure on our government to cave in to US demands. Christian Council is quiet, Bar Association is quiet. New Patriotic Party is supporting Kosmos against Ghana. I mean, this is incredible! You cannot believe it my brother, it's incredible!

Kosmos has violated the laws of Ghana with impunity. They have made data, that we have paid more than 300 million dollars collecting - the GNPC expenditure on collecting seismic data and so on, cost the Ghanaian tax payer, more than 300 million dollars - Kosmos takes the data and distributes it free of charge in order to promote its interests, in order to ensure that it gets more money for its shares.

This matter is raised, and the very people who are making noises about our oil revenue, K.T. Hammond, New Patriotic Party, all these World-Bank-and-IMF-funded so-called NGOs! They are supporting Kosmos in this, against the people of Ghana. And they are the same people making noises about oil revenue. I mean, it is incredible!

I don't know how many people have read "The Cheney Report", the Cheney Report on America's strategic interests in West African Oil? I don't know how many people have read it. Now, if you have read the Cheney Report..., you know, when George Bush became President in 2001, one of his first acts was to establish a committee which would determine the US strategic energy interests and so on.

That committee was chaired by Dick Cheney, his Vice President, and they've written a very interesting Report. The Report says that, given all the turmoil, the social, political and economic turmoil in the Middle East and  the Persian Gulf and other places, The Report said  at the time that the US was importing around 11 per cent of its total oil requirements from West Africa.  Eleven to twenty five per cent in ten years!

So let us open our eyes. Let us listen to the world - what is happening what is happening in the world! The major threat to us is the conspiracy by some of the Western powers, especially the United States of America, to control our oil resources. And don't you make a mistake, military bases are not established for picnics! Military bases are established for the purposes of killing and destruction, and not for organising picnics!

So what the US is saying is that they are ready to kill, to maim, and destroy, in order to control our oil resources. And our churches, our Bar Association, and the so-called elders in society are quibbling about whether we should put our money in the bank or spend it! They are not thinking about how to control the resource. The are thinking about what to do with the crumbs which fall from the table of the big powers. That is what they are thinking about!

I think that the first  and most important thing that any citizen of Ghana who loves his country has to do is to ensure that the oil belongs to us, and we control it, and we exploit and utilize it on behalf of our people, especially the disadvantaged.

END QUOTE.
 
Click her to listen: Audio Attachment: Listen to Kwesi Pratt in his own voice, on why he thinks the USA is ready to kill for Ghana's oil; and the NPP's alleged support for KOSMOS


De-linking Oil From US Military Bases In Africa

It is very strange that the NPP-USA puts up such brave face with evident Dutch courage to make the fatuous claim that there is no link between US Militarisation of diplomacy and desire to establish military bases here in Africa has nothing to do with Oil!

Just listen to them:

"What makes this claim infantile is that in reality, Ghana’s proven oil reserves of 1.8 billion barrels, while contextually significant and greatly appreciated, constitute 0.17% of proven oil reserves on the African continent. Pratt would have us believe that the United States would spend $10 billion (the minimum spent on even the smallest of military bases) for that amount of oil? It is true that the United States does not build military bases for charity purposes, and that it does so to protect its interest. That said, a cost/benefit analysis does not support the puerile claims made by this third rate debater. What’s more, plans to establish a United States Military base in Ghana surfaced at least four years before the oil discovery, and it had more to do with the war on terrorism." See PRESS STATEMENT FROM NPP-USA – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, KWESI PRATT’S LIES ARE NOT RADIO WORTHY, Ghanaweb.com, Diasporian News of Thursday, 18 November 2010, Source: NPP-USA

Kwesi quite rightly reacts:

"The USA branch of the NPP does not deny that the United States of America intended or wished to establish a military base in Ghana. It stated inter alia that “….plans to establish a United States military base in the country surfaced at least four years before the oil discovery and that it has more to do with the war on terrorism than the control of oil resources in Ghana”. Clearly what this branch of the NPP seeks to do is to admit the intent to establish a US military base in Ghana but to delink it from the control of the country's oil. Unfortunately, the United States itself coupled its intention to establish a military base in Ghana with its control of the oil resources of West Africa.

When President George W. Bush became the President of the United States of America in 2001, he set up what has come to be known as the Cheney Committee, chaired by his Vice President good old Dick Cheney with a mandate to review US strategic energy requirements. The report of the Cheney Committee predicted that US oil imports from West Africa will rise from 11 per cent in 2001 to 25 per cent in 2015 as a result of several factors. The report recommended that as a measure to protect US interest in West African oil, military bases needed to established in West Africa. Following this recommendation the late president of Nigeria, Omaru Yardua stated that Nigeria will not allow the establishment of foreign military bases on its soil and will use all of her influence to prevent the establishment of US military bases in West Africa. See: NPP - USA: Attack dogs of Imperialism And Ignorant Noise Makers!

Other people, including scholars and US officials, including  Donald Norland, former U.S. Ambassador to Chad told a Congressional subcommittee virtually the same thing:

"In May 2001 the Cheney report warned that the U.S. would grow increasingly dependent upon foreign oil in the years to come and recommended that as a matter of policy the Bush Administration work to increase production and export of oil from regions other than the Middle East, noting that Latin America and West Africa were likely to be the fasting growing sources of future U.S. oil imports.[48] Africa supplies about 15% of U.S. oil imports, but with African production growing at twice the global rate, it could be supplying the U.S. with as much energy as the Middle East within a decade.[49] Three months later, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner declared that African oil "has become a national strategic interest.[50] " This statement is particularly noteworthy in that it uses the language of the Carter Doctrine in the Middle East, in which President Carter went on to declare that the U.S. would intervene by any means necessary to protect its national interest in Middle Eastern oil. In April 2002, Donald Norland, former U.S. Ambassador to Chad told a Congressional subcommittee: "It's been reliably reported that, for the first time, the two concepts—'Africa' and 'U.S. national security'—have been used in the same sentence in Pentagon documents."[51] Having declared African oil to be of strategic interest to the United States, the Bush Administration has not taken the second step to actually apply the Carter Doctrine to Africa. This has left U.S. policy open to criticism from both sides. The Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S. policy in Africa has criticized it for failing "to make a geopolitical shift to pay sufficient attention to West Africa's energy rich Gulf of Guinea,"[52] while others see a neo-imperial push unfolding in the sub-region.[53] " - Letitia Lawson, U.S. Africa Policy Since the Cold War, Strategic Insights, Volume VI, Issue 1 (January 2007) US Naval Postgraduate School.

When Kwesi Pratt Jnr., first broke the news in 2007 of the US intentions to establish its Africom headquarters in Accra with the connivance of the ruling NPP, my first reaction was "how are they going to pull that off? We were virtually in an electoral year and an overwhelming majority of Ghanaians would not approve of a party that brings in a foreign power to establish a military base on our territory!" Reading later on from an article written by Mr. Akufo-Addo's right-hand man, Gabby Asare Ochere-Darko, the Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, all the denials and assurances given by Presidents Kufour and Bush in Accra during the latter's visit was nothing but the "Baloney!" itself!

Indeed, I suspected it as it was happening, that the NPP, particularly Nana Akufo-Addo must have prevailed with George Bush to defer public manifestation until after the elections, since the NPP was bound to lose the elections if this issue came up before the December 2008 elections. Ochere-Darko's article, "Obama's Visit, What Is In It For Us And The US?" confirmed my worst of fears! Both our own President, Mr. John Agyekum Kufour and Mr. George Bush lied publicly to the people of Ghana and the world at large, when Mr Bush declared to the media that the US was not interested in establishing military bases in Ghana. They were both aware that they were deceiving the public. Needless to say, that these lies must have been carefully discussed and rehearsed! In the next part we shall discuss a very closely related subject: "Bush And Kufour Working In Secret And Throwing Dust Into Our Eyes!" after the famous "Baloney!" Declaration. Please don't miss it! Give me a follow on twitter and I shall show you where I am coming from!

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

The Odikro, Nana Akyea Mensah II,
 

E-Mail: nanaakyeamensah@gmail.com
Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro,
Friendfeed: /friendfeed.com/theodikro
 

Blogs: 

Feature Articles: nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com,
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NPP - USA: Attack dogs of Imperialism And Ignorant Noise Makers

By Kwesi Pratt Jnr.

The United States of America (USA) branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) does the electoral fortunes of the party no favours by its brazen defense of imperialism especially from the stand point of absolute ignorance.

This branch of a party which believes in “Property Owning Democracy” feels offended by my calling for the defence of the national interest in the exploitation of the natural resources of Ghana. It ignorantly tries to decouple the establishment of US military bases in Africa from US attempts to control West African oil resources and it claims that Ghana did not spend any resources to acquire valuable data which KOSMOS Energy distributed illegally to oil companies.

The USA branch of the NPP demands that the Ghana Police Service should pick me up and put me before court for daring to speak out against US interference in the management of our oil resources. Interestingly this is the same branch of the NPP which screamed loudly against the arrest and prosecution of Nana Darkwa for claiming that former President Rawlings burnt his own house. They claimed that the arrest of Nana Darkwa was a violation of his right of free speech. However their commitment to the right of free speech evaporates into thin air when the subject of criticism happens to be the Almighty United States of America.

Many of the claims of the USA branch of the NPP are completely false. It claimed that “The actual amount spent to collect 3D seismic data was just over $30 million and all that cost was borne by KOSMOS, not Ghana. “This is obviously meant to debunk my statement that Ghana has spent in excess of $300 million to collect relevant data which KOSMOS illegally made available to oil companies without the consent of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC). Perhaps the USA branch of the NPP needs to be reminded of the fact that data acquisition on Ghana's oil fields have a more than 100 year history. Indeed at the time that data acquisition began KOSMOS did not even exist. The Geological Survey Department, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, the erstwhile Soviet Union, Romania under communist rule and several other entities have all contributed in varying degrees to the acquisition of data on Ghana's oil resources. As a fact between 1984 and 1994, Ghana spent in excess of $300 million on data acquisition and related projects. KOSMOS           was itself attracted to Ghana after the data had been made available to it.

The USA branch of the NPP does not deny that the United States of America intended or wished to establish a military base in Ghana. It stated inter alia that “….plans to establish a United States military base in the country surfaced at least four years before the oil discovery and that it has more to do with the war on terrorism than the control of oil resources in Ghana”. Clearly what this branch of the NPP seeks to do is to admit the intent to establish a US military base in Ghana but to delink it from the control of the country's oil. Unfortunately, the United States itself coupled its intention to establish a military base in Ghana with its control of the oil resources of West Africa.

When President George W. Bush became the President of the United States of America in 2001, he set up what has come to be known as the Chenney Committee, chaired by his Vice President good old Dick Chenney with a mandate to review US strategic energy requirements. The report of the Chenny Committee predicted that US oil imports from West Africa will rise from 11 per cent in 2001 to 25 per cent in 2015 as a result of several factors. The report recommended that as a measure to protect US interest in West African oil, military bases needed to established in West Africa. Following this recommendation the late president of Nigeria, Omaru Yardua stated that Nigeria will not allow the establishment of foreign military bases on its soil and will use all of her influence to prevent the establishment of US military bases in West Africa.

The USA branch of the NPP states that ….”Ghana's proven oil reserves of 1.8 million barrels, whiles contextually significant and greatly appreciated, constitute only 0.17 per cent of proven oil reserves on the entire African continent” and therefore the US will not spend more than $10 billion to establish a military base in Ghana. The ignorance of the USA branch of the NPP is more than apparent. The US military base in Ghana was to serve the strategic interest of the US in the entire West African sub-region and beyond. Secondly, it is only the Jubilee Oil Field in Ghana which has been assessed to have reserves of up to 1.8 billion. There are several other fields with huge potentials and the US unlike the NPP branch knows this.

In attempting to refute my claim that the NPP has supported the KOSMOS – EXXON – MOBIL deal, the branch wrote “certain individuals who may be sympathetic to the NPP have expressed support for the deal, but the party itself has not made any declaration in support of it”. What a pity and who are these individuals who support the deal?

The loudest supporter of the KOSMOS – EXXON deal has been Mr. K.T. Hammond, former NPP Deputy Minister of Energy who has acted as the party spokesperson on Energy in many instances. Other persons with substantial influence in the NPP have also spoken out in favour of this rather dubious deal which frowns on the laws of Ghana. In any case the USA branch of the NPP leaves no doubt about what the party's position is, when it asks “…why would Pratt be so vehemently opposed to an American company buying out another American company, but demonstrates tacit support for the Chinese Company's purchase? Although it was supposedly a GNPC/CNOOC offer, with the Chinese putting up the entire $5 billion, who do you think would control the stake when purchased? Do not forget that when the opportunity presented itself for the Chinese to invest money to explore for oil in Ghana, they laughed at what they called the “oil graveyard”. Can the NPP's position on the KOSMOS-EXXON deal be more clearer?

Statements by the USA branch of the NPP which tend to glorify gold exploitation in Ghana are at best misinformed. As at today, Ghana gets only five per cent of the total value of gold it exports. Is the USA branch of the NPP happy with this situation too?

I am sick and tired of these imperialist attack dogs and their anti-national machinations and if these types get anywhere near power we might as well begin to sing the requiem mass for Nkrumah's Ghana.

Source: The insight Newspaper

Why Kofi Annan's "Green Wash" In Africa Does Not Wash! Part One

Introduction:

"Father of GM Food" Receives a TKO on BBC's "One Planet"?


LISTEN BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!
"The father of GM foods, bolivian seeds and wildebeest
Dr Roger Beachy, the father of GM foods on scientific ignorance and our moral obligations
Read full summary, ListenDuration: 28 minutes"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00b2rgn

By way of introduction, I would like very much to hurriedly draw your attention to this programme, and pray, you make it a point not to miss it, while it is available.The accuracy or otherwise of the following transcription is still verifiable. Currently running on the website of the BBC is an important humiliation of the arrogant "Monsanto scientists" President Obama seems to rely upon to take charge of US Department of Food and Agriculture. You may want to call it the most up-to-date public debate (last broadcast, Sun 10 Oct 2010, available to listen online for a few more days) on allowing genetically modified organisms into our food chain. Another claim one can successfully make about this debate is the fact that it brought together, some of the best brains on the opposing sides of the issue in a broadcast that was beamed to millions of people across the globe. I have decided to write about this as an introduction to a special focus on the threat of GMO invasion on the African continent. The reason why I urgently want to bring this out is because even though I have improvised a transcription, owing to the importance of the issue the debate covers, it is still possible to listen to the discussion online. It goes off forever after a few days!

On "One Planet", a BBC World Service "Factual and Science and Nature Programme", Dr. Roger Beachy, the man reputed to have made the first genetically food crop, also described by the presenter as "the father of GM Food", "the man appointed by Barack Obama to head the National Institute of Food and Agriculture" (www.csrees.usda.gov), answers the following question from BBC's Mike Williams. I like very much the style of the presenter. He takes his time to let his listeners know the experience and qualifications of the people he is interviewing. To Dr. Beachy he asks:

"You have been called 'the father of GM food' how does that feel like?", Dr. Beachy confirms with admirable humility, "But then so have a number of other people, I am one of the members of the club, I guess, of those of us who adopted the science nearly twenty five years ago. And I was privileged enough to be at the right place at the right time with the right idea."

"And with the help of the company, Monsanto, you made the first genetically modified food crop?" Mike wants us to know whom he is talking to,

"We did, successfully,"  Dr. Beachy's answer is in the affirmative, "and then had the first field trial of genetically engineered food plant, that was a tomato that was resistant to a virus disease. The field trial was held in 1987."

Then comes the long-awaited question:

"Does it bother you that there is resistance, people are scared, some people, are scared of this technology, concerned about it?"

Here is Dr. Beachy's answer:

"You know, there is a recent article that was published about why people make decisions about accepting cell-phone technology, or driving a fast car,, or GM crops, or having a vaccine for measles. And there are always some who will choose against all facts, against all knowledge, simply not to participate for some other reason, reason in their hearts, in their heads, in their souls, they choose not based on science. so, maybe you want to turn the question around. How have they taken those attitudes, where do those attitudes come from?

"If they hold those attitudes strongly and honestly," an obviously surprised Mike Williams would only mildly ask, "It's, I'm sure, you would accept that it's not your job, not trying to change that?"

"Exactly right," Dr. Beachy responds, "the job of the scientist is to discover new solutions. What we would hope is that decisions that are made by the public are based upon their knowledge and understanding of the science. And, clearly, we know that that is not happening in many cases. We know in the case of vaccines, that some people simply wont take vaccines for reasons that are not based on science but for something else."

"Forgive me, if I..." Mike tries to intervene without success.

"Then on the other hand, we know that people will not take new food, who will not accept a new food variety because they believe that it should be grown in a certain way. And I think those decision-making process is often in the absence of science. Now, one could say that, perhaps, we should have started fifty years ago, and maintained our level of science education, so that when new facts come along, it would be more understood and so forth, but we haven't done that."

At this stage, I simply can't wait to bring you with me to Mike, back in London, inside the laboratory of Dr. Michael Antoniou, as a molecular geneticist, surely a man no one can call a "scientific illiterate", whose opposition to GM food is not only "based on science", but also has a ring of credibility completely absent in Dr. Beachy's hocus pocus on the reasons why there is resistance to the attempts to impose GM crops on the world. What makes the rebuttal of Dr. Antoniou so sweet is not simply because he happens to be an expert in the field, but also the manner in which he tears the arguments of Dr. Roger Beachy and Mr. Jack Bobo, "Senior Advisor for Bio-Technology in the US Department of State.". So, I continue with the interview in Washington before we come back to London.

"Can I just bring you back to that reference to vaccines which the science shows to be beneficial to them? what you can then do is to put the vaccine in the water and I think one of those arguments people make about GM crops is that there are concerns that those genes would spread and end up ingesting genetically modified material. That is what they are concerned about."

"You know," Dr. Beachy replies, "I gave a talk in Dublin a number of years ago, and a young man was really, really concerned about potatoes. And we said we were mostly talking about corn and cotton. He said the corn pollen would contaminate the potato. He didn't know that the corn pollen couldn't pollinate potato. Which gets us back the issue of illiteracy about science. It is very easy to promote fear and distrust when there is lack of knowledge in those who are reading or listening. So in the case of cross-pollination as issue, if you had a guy who was exporting organic weet corn, and somebody next door is producing commercial corn for cows and other uses, the sweet corn has a different pollination time than does the commercial corn. So, the chances for contamination in that example are non-existent or can be managed very nicely. If the farmer, that is, one or the other, says I am going to plant my crop a little bit later, then, yes, there is no cross-pollination. My point is by knowing about the biology of organisms and how they are grown, one can find ways that side-by-side, we can have a safe organic production or commercial production and bio-tech,. It is straight science knowledge and the inability not to  vilify but to get along with each other."

"Joining us here is Jack Bobo, Senior Advisor for Bio-Technology, US Department of State," Mike turns his attention to Jack Bobo, "Erm, Mr. Bobo," Mike asks, "can I just ask you about United States policy? I mean, it seems clear that the United States is interested in promoting genetically modified food world-wide, tell me why?"

"Actually, I would say that the United States is interested in promoting agriculture world-wide, and bio-technology just happens to be one of those. We promote organic agriculture, and bio-technology. But as an export issue and as a development issue, I think there is a particular importance though, trying to address the issue of acceptance of bio-technology both from a farmer perspective, and consumer perspective."

"I wonder whether you would agree", Mike fires, "that, we are, in the West, exporting Western consumerism to the rest of the world, and the GM crops is, perhaps, an attempt to export a solution to that particular problem?"

"The fact is, we need a double food production between now and 2050. that is a huge challenge." Mr. Bobo confidently explains, "Climate change means there is going to be a 27% decline in productivity. We need to double production and we have declining productivity. How are we going to do about that? And so we need all the technology that are available in order to do that, and so the developing world desperate need of technologies that are going to reduce the variability of yields, and that would allow them to produce their own food. this is not about exporting consumerism. This is about production and self-sufficiency."

"I would like to add," Dr. Beachy interjects, "that I think this is an area that the developed nations must collaborate on. This partnership in knowledge sharing  and in building the ability of countries to feed themselves is our responsibility, it's your responsibility, and should be based on science. It should not be based on a demonization of technology per se. It should be based on the best science that meets the needs of the world. And I think that is a responsibility that goes beyond philosophy, whether it is GM, organic, or conventional. It becomes a moral obligation of not feeding people but educating them so that they can feed themselves."

"Do yo think that the technology has been demonized?" Mike asks.

"I think it has been, largely." Dr. Beachy replied. "In our country, it has been demonized because it is a way to value something else more. An organic product costs more than conventional product. That 20, 25, maybe even in a hundred per cent premium on an organic banana compared to conventional, allows somebody to make more money. It is about finances in that case. And I would like to see this come down to what is safer for the environment, safer for people, and more economic so that those who don't have as much as you and I have, sitting here around this table, with a biscuit and a cup of tea, can say that the woman who has less, has the same capabilities of feeding herself and her kids, as we do sitting around the table. And I think that's only going to come when we adopt the safest and best technologies of whatever type, to help to make things happen. And then we can put that responsibility behind."

"Some of the problems you are fighting to overcome through genetically modified food seem to many, to have come about because of monoculture and that monoculture has caused the problem and that GM monoculture isn't going to provide the solution."

"Modern agriculture is by definition a monoculture." Dr. Beachy would surrender no grounds, "You can drive around through - I love driving through - the southern parts of England and watching the fields of wheat. That is monoculture. Don't pretend it's not. But don't blame that on GM, blame it on modern, high output agriculture. The wheat is cheap because we grew them in the wheat fields. Our beef isn't expensive because they grow a lot of corn in large monoculture so that we can feed at lower cost than if we had it in small plots. So, it is agriculture that you are talking about. You are not talking about GMOs or conventional agriculture."

Thus it was that my hopes that this could be an opportunity to hear what I needed to know to understand the best and the most current argument making the case for GM food passed by in vain. Unfortunately, instead of squarely confronting the real issues surrounding the biology, politics, and the economics of GM technology the advocates only insult our intelligence. If I was looking for any insight or argument that would have effectively addressed my own apprehensions about GM crops, I was alarmingly disappointed. Dr. Beachy is no doubt a brilliant geneticist, but as an advocate of his wares, he is certainly not the best in town. The fundamental choice of ignoring the highly informed and science-based opposition to the current push to promote genetically modified organisms into our food chain with lower and lower restrictions, and the erosion of the precautionary measures installed to safeguard against possible hazards must be rightly considered a crime against humanity.

I call on all the people's of the world to uphold the precautionary approach contained in Principle 15 of the "Rio Declaration on environment and Development" as relates to the current uncertainties surrounding GMOs. The principle states:

"Lack of scientific certainty due to insufficient relevant scientific information and knowledge regarding the extent of the potential adverse effects of an LMO on biodiversity, taking into account risks to human health, shall not prevent a Party of import from taking a decision, as appropriate, with regard to the import of the LMO in question, in order to avoid or minimize such potential adverse effects." Annex III on risk assessment, which notes that "Lack of scientific knowledge or scientific consensus should not necessarily be interpreted as indicating a particular level of risk, an absence of risk, or an acceptable risk." (Article 10.6 and 11.8).

I was expecting answers that go beyond questions raised by advocates of GMO particularly in Africa, such as summarized in the following abstract: "Even after more than 15 years of the emergence of modern biotechnology in agriculture, much of Africa remains reluctant if not hostile to it. Some view modern biotechnology as the new messiah to lift Africa from starvation and food insecurity while others hold the contrary view and advise Africa to stay away from the technology for reasons ranging from health and environmental concerns to economic considerations. They fear that the unfolding ‘gene revolution’ is destined to fail on its promises because of the existing complex economic, social, and political circumstances in Africa as was the case in the green revolution." (Presented at the SIEL 2010 Conference in Barcelona., Birhanu, Fikremarkos Merso, Biotechnology and the Future of Africa’s Agriculture (June 30, 2010). Society of International Economic Law (SIEL), Second Biennial Global Conference, University of Barcelona, July 8-10, 2010. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1633009)

In his response to the question, "Does it not bother you that there is resistance, people are scared, some people, are scared of this technology, concerned about it?" Dr. Beachy chose to blame the resistance to what he calls "scientific illiteracy". Said Dr. Beachy:

"You know, there is a recent article that was published about why people make decisions about accepting cell phone technology, or driving a fast car, or GM crops,or having a vaccine for measles, and there are some who wil choose against all facts, against all knowledge, simply not to participate for some other reasons, reason in their hearts, in their heads, in their souls, they choose, not based on science. So maybe, you want to turn the question around. How have they taken those attitudes? Where do they come from?"

It is a pity that Dr. Beachy had clearly not read Crossed Crocodiles, "Why Is Kofi Annan Fronting For Monsanto? GMO Assault On Africa". If he had done that, he would have been ably to give a more intelligent response, or at least one that is not as stupid and insultingly arrogant, as as this one. I am not a geneticist, and I do not cease to be amazed by the brilliant contributions to knowledge particularly in fighting disease, but I bet I know where my concerns about GM food are coming from! These have nothing to do with "scientific illiteracy"! They are coming from the bitter experiences of over twenty five thousand farmers in India who committed suicide with Monsanto''s pesticides after being misled into the believing that genetically modified cotton was the key to higher yields and bigger profits.

They are coming from reports that scientists working for Monsanto refused to drink the milk that they themselves had helped to invent. As Jeffrey M. Smith puts it, "former Monsanto scientist said that after company scientists conducted safety studies on bovine growth hormone, all three refused to drink any more milk, unless it was organic and therefore not treated with the drug. They feared the substantial increase of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) in the drugged milk. IGF-1 is a significant risk factor for cancer." - Monsanto: The world's poster child for corporate manipulation and deceit, Friday, July 30, 2010. http://www.naturalnews.com/029325_Monsanto_deception.html.

Our fears also come from the fact that GMOs remain inside of us. "The only published human feeding study revealed that even after we stop eating GMOs, harmful GM proteins may be produced continuously inside of us; genes inserted into Monsanto's GM soy transfer into bacteria inside our intestines and continue to function.(64) If Bt genes also transfer, eating corn chips might transform our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories."

"Un-recallable contamination: In spite of the enormous health dangers, the environmental impacts may be worse still. That is because we don't have a technology to fully clean up the contaminated gene pool. The self-propagating genetic pollution released into the environment from Monsanto's crops can outlast the effects of climate change and nuclear waste."

For Dr. Beachy to simply brush all these legitimate, and many more science-based concerns aside, with the ridiculous claim that opposition to the acceptance of GM crops in our food chain is largely based upon our ignorance is the cheapest way to avoid the hard questions which tip the debate against GMOs. What makes this particular programme very interesting is the fact that the "One Planet" also interviewed a molecular geneticist, Dr Michael Antoniou, Kings College London (www.kcl.ac.uk). The beauty of this lies in the fact that Dr. Antoniou is himself a genetic engineer and as such can not be deemed to be "scientifically illiterate".

"Dr. Antoniou, what is it do you do here?" The question was asked whilst inside a laboratory of King's College, where Dr. Antoniou works.

"What we do in my research group", Dr. Antoniou responds, "is to investigate fundamental mechanisms of how human gene systems are controlled, and then we exploit those discoveries to design safe and efficacious gene units to be used within a therapeutic context, within a human gene therapy context, for treating for example, inherited diseases such as immune deficiencies, thalassemia, sickle disease, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, and so on."

"The people who create GM crops use very similar techniques to yours, different applications though, are you comfortable with that?"

"I am not comfortable at all with the way that GM is being used in agriculture". Dr. Antoniou answer categorically, "because compared to what we do in a clinical context, where not only research is done under contained genes, they are non-replicated. They can't reproduce and spread and cause harm. In agriculture the same technique is used in open fields, the organism can spread in an uncontrolled way and we suffer with the consequences of that forever."

"You use this technology to device medical therapy to help people to live longer and healthier lives, to keep more of us on the planet for longer, what is wrong with other scientists using these same techniques to fed those extra millions and billions? They say  -  you heard the argument  - that there was a need, a moral moral obligation?", Dr. Antoniou responds:

"Indeed, the world has a moral obligation to feed itself. What is invariably ignored by advocates of GM crops in explaining why almost a billion of people in the world go to bed, each day, hungry, is that actually, we have  more than enough food to feed everybody now. In fact, we have have doubled the amount of food to feed everybody in the world now, but people don't have access to food. And in terms of meeting future food needs, specifically in the face of climate change, then the latest United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation sponsored report clearly pointed that the future in meeting future food needs lie in applying agro-ecological methods. They said that genetic engineering would play little or no role in meeting immediate food needs of the world and future food needs of the world. Which is why the Americans were not signatory. But 62 other nations, actually signed up, including the UK, signed up to that report. We have to take on board, the report compiled by 400 independent scientists from around the world, in all manner of expertise and discipline, which said go forward with low-input, agro-ecological, sustainable agriculture, not GM, because GM simply does not fit the bill."

We shall be focusing on Bolivai and the GMO debate soon.

This is what I call, a "technical knock-out"!

And the winner is...

Bravo! Dr. Michael Antoniou!!!

Thanks, Mike, and the BBC for this eye-opener!



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Why is Kofi Annan Fronting For Monsanto? The GMO Assault On Africa

 Why is Kofi Annan Fronting For Monsanto? The GMO Assault On Africa http://crossedcrocodiles.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/why-is-kofi-annan-fronting-for-monsanto-the-gmo-assault-on-africa/

Why do you bring your mistakes here?

Kofi Annan has joined with President Obama, Monsanto, AGRA, and the Gates foundation to promote and execute food aid that replaces bags of wheat, rice and corn (agricultural dumping) with bags of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and genetically engineered seeds. The end result will be to starve people in Africa and feed corporations in the US and Europe.

Kofi Annan and farmers

Under the guise of “sustainability” the [Gates] Foundation has been spearheading a multi-billion dollar effort to transform Africa into a GMO-friendly continent. The public relations flagship for this effort is the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), a massive Green Revolution project. Up to now AGRA spokespeople have been slippery, and frankly, contradictory about their stance on GMOs.
…
If you had any doubts about where the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is really placing its bets, AGRA Watch’s recent announcement of the Foundation’s investment of $23.1 million in 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock should put them to rest. Genetic engineering: full speed ahead. (Eric Holt-Gimenez)

If you have questions about Monsanto’s agenda, here it is in brief:

At a biotech industry conference in January 1999, a representative from Arthur Anderson, LLP explained how they had helped Monsanto design their strategic plan. First, his team asked Monsanto executives what their ideal future looked like in 15 to 20 years. The executives described a world with 100 percent of all commercial seeds genetically modified and patented. Anderson consultants then worked backwards from that goal, and developed the strategy and tactics to achieve it. They presented Monsanto with the steps and procedures needed to obtain a place of industry dominance in a world in which natural seeds were virtually extinct. (Jeffrey M. Smith)

Kofi Annan is Chairman of the Board of Directors for AGRA. He is convening a conference in Ghana in the first week of September. As detailed in this blog, and by others, both AGRA and USAID top positions are filled with people that come from Monsanto and Dupont.
Kofi Annan Calls For United Effort To Accelerate African Green Revolution

African heads of state, industry representatives, the international donor community and farmers will meet in Ghana at the African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in the first week of September. Delegates will create an action plan on the acceleration of a Green Revolution in Africa.

Samuel Amoako has reported on this as well: Kofi Annan Hosts Forum On Africa’s Food Security in the Ghanaian Times on August 11.
It is worrisome that Kofi Annan is connected with AGRA. Maybe he believes that US mechanized and chemical agriculture work well. Most people in the US do, aside from family farmers who see the effects first hand. I have a good friend who works for the US Dept. of Agriculture and thinks this kind of big agriculture really is the best and that Monsanto is a boon to mankind. We have had several heated discussions. In fact Monsanto is destroying land, causing chemically induced human diseases, creating super weeds, super insect pests, and economic havoc in many parts of the US farming areas, particularly in the midwest and the south. There have been countless protests all over India and Brazil. I’ve read many heartbreaking stories, including this comment from Pearl on this blog:

The farmers of southern Kentucky have been enslaved by Monsanto. The previous generation fell for an ad campaign called “Hi-bred” or “High-Bred”, and the current generation is stuck with fulfilling the contracts their fathers signed. The chemicals that Monsanto has contractually required be applied to those fields have so damaged the soil that the only way to get anything to grow in the fields now is to keep applying more of those blasted chemicals. So even if a person who inherited a contract WANTS to discontinue the agreement with Monsanto when the contract expires, they are unable to do so unless they want to leave the land fallow for many, many, many years. Most farmers cannot afford to do this, as this would mean little to no income for their families for somewhere between 5 to 20 years, depending on how long it would take for the soil to renew itself.

I’ve always had enormous respect for Kofi Annan, I do not understand his participation in this and it bothers me a great deal. Even though I admire and respect him there are no free passes with a subject like this.
Genetically modified crops produce less, not more, than conventional crops.
Alexis Baden-Mayer points out in Dupont, Monsanto, and Obama Versus the World’s Family Farmers that AGRA is basing its programs on myth:

Most of the world’s food is not produced on industrial mega-farms. 1.5 billion family farmers produce 75 percent of the world’s food.
The hunger problem is not caused by low yields. The world has 6 billion people and produces enough food for 9 billion people.

And as I’ve discussed before, the smaller the farm the greater the yield.

There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield.
In some cases, the difference is enormous. A recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are twenty times as productive as farms of over ten hectares(3). Sen’s observation has been tested in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Java, the Phillippines, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. It appears to hold almost everywhere. (Monbiot)

The key to true food security is food sovereignty, and the key to food sovereignty lies in who controls the land. The problems of both starvation and obesity stem from injustice in the way farmland and food are distributed. AGRA policies will poison the land and water, destroy local seeds and seed gene pools that provide the true hope for food sustainability. Local agriculture in most parts of the world has developed seeds that are tough and resistant to local pests, weeds, and local environmental dangers such as droughts or floods. AGRA wishes to replace these seeds with ones that need expensive, continuous, and ever expanding chemical coddling. These chemicals will poison the land, the water, and the people.
Additionally the Gates Foundation, Monsanto, and other corporate interests are investing in a doomsday seed bank, in which they will own the world’s agricultural gene pool. They are storing seeds from all over the world. In the event of genetic disaster, they will own the surviving gene pool.
Jonathan Weiner, in The Beak of the Finch describes how chemicals drive the destruction of land and the creation of super weeds and super insect pests:

Some of the greatest opposition to evolution comes from the farmers of the Cotton Belt, and that is where Taylor is seeing one of the most dramatic cases of evolution in action on this planet.
… in the year 1940, cotton farmers began spraying their fields with the chemical compound dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, better known as DDT. These first insecticidal sprays killed so many insects, and killed so many of the birds that ate the insects, that in biological terms the cotton fields were left standing virtually vacant, like an archipelago of newborn islands – and out of the woods and hedgerows fluttered [the cotton destroying moth] Heliothis virescens.
In the next few optimistic years, pesticide manufacturers assaulted Heliothis with bigger and bigger doses of DDT. They also brought out more poisons from the same chemical family: aldrin, chlordane. The aim was nothing less than the control of nature, and pesticide manufacturers believed that control was within their grasp. The annual introduction of new pesticides rose from the very first product, DDT, in 1940, to great waves of chemical invention in the 1960s and 1970s. In those decades, dozens of new herbicides and insecticides were brought to market each year. Heliothis became on of the most heavily sprayed species in what amounted to a biological world war. Through it all, the moths clung to the cotton.
… The moths have become almost absolutely resistant to all pesticides, from your cyclodienes to your organophosphates to your carbamates, and most of your pyrethroids. …
“Its an extraordinarily potent example of evolution going on under our eyes,” Taylor says. “Visible evolution.”
A pesticide applies selection pressure as surely as a drought or a flood. The poison selects against traits that make a species vulnerable to it, because the individuals that are most vulnerable are the ones that die first. The poison selects for any trait that makes the species less vulnerable, because the least vulnerable are the ones that survive longest and leave the most offspring. In this way the invention of pesticides in the twentieth century has driven waves of evolution in insects all over the planet. Heliothis is only one case in hundreds. (from pp 251-255)

In short, pesticides and herbicides destroy most of the insects, plants, and often other animals in those fields where they are used. But nature fights back. Those insects and weeds that can resist the chemicals initially, breed and grow stronger. They have no competition except from the chemicals, and they quickly evolve immunity, even as the chemicals become stronger and more toxic. Stronger and more toxic chemicals are needed to fight the new insects and weeds, and the destructive cycle continues. The chemicals wind up in the food, and run off into the land and the water, creating an ever increasingly toxic environment for humans and many other plants and animals.
For the growth of super weeds world wide, see the following charts:

The vertical axis shows the number of species of weeds that have become chemical resistant, the horizontal axis shows the years. You can see the exponential increase starting about 1970 when Monsanto introduced Roundup, and continuing into 2010. (click to enlarge)

You can see the distribution, North America, Western Europe, and Australia have already been severely impacted. Africa is a huge new market that has not yet been ruined. You can see why it is so desirable, it is a huge wide open opportunity to Monsanto and other greedy chemical corporations. Most countries in Africa have not yet been touched or biologically recolonized by GMOs and agricultural chemicals. South Africa, which has allowed GMOs, is the most severely impacted to date. (click to enlarge)

Genetically modified seeds, GMOs, are designed to be used as part of a program involving chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Their effect on farmers is usually to lock them into a cycle of debt, as described by Pearl above, and as experienced and protested in many countries including India and Brazil, as mentioned above. Terminator seeds, also known as suicide seeds or homicide seeds, will not regenerate, so instead of saving seeds, farmers have to buy new seeds each year, as well as investing in more, and more toxic chemicals each year that are necessary to make the GMO seeds grow. This cycle has created death and destruction in many places, including hundreds of farmer suicides in India. More...


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Who is/are this/these “New Patriot(s)”?

Feature Article, by Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.

A Rejoinder to: "Some Thoughts On Akufo-Addo's Acceptance Speech",
Feature Article of Sunday, 22 August 2010, Columnist: Okoampa-Ahoofe,
Kwame


HELLO MY DEAR GRANDSON!

You ask:

"The question now, therefore, becomes: Who is/are this/these “New
Patriot(s)”?" (See: Some Thoughts On Akufo-Addo's Acceptance Speech",
Feature Article of Sunday, 22 August 2010, Columnist: Okoampa-Ahoofe,
Kwame)

My Answer:

I do not even want to go into the merits and demerits of your
ridiculous answer to that question. You have such a back-log of
questions to answer and until you give the appropriate answers or
apologies, you are not going anywhere! Perhaps the last time I wrote
on this subject, it was too long so your attention span could be
blamed for this obvious lapse. This time, I shall try to make it short
to avoid such a situation next time! Are you trying to suggest that
you are now a patriot because Akufo Addo won the NPP primaries?
Whether you like it or not, you shall be going on earlier retirement
because your contributions extract rather than add votes to Mr. Nana
Akufo Addo.

I have already told you what a famous Roman general once said “I more
fear a stupid ally than I fear a clever enemy”. How right he was. I
have always considered Kwame Okoampa as the weakest chain in the NPP
propaganda machine as a result of his special skills in writing
prodigiously without thinking about the import of what he writes. If
you are not being haunted by your own unpatriotic and evil-meaning
writings, then you have probably changed tact just to pretend to be a
good Ghanaian for the sake of your cousin! But it is too late! We know
who you are!


OKOAMPA, PATRIOTISM AND OUR PRECIOUS OIL!

I shall continue to raise this issue until you come out to retract
those unguarded and extremely revealing comments! Okoampa begins an
article surreptitiously titled "Who Are These “Parliamentarian
Drivers”? with a shocker: "I am glad that, finally, the Ivorians are
beginning to assert their right of access and enjoyment of Ghana’s
purportedly new-found oil wealth... It also didn’t quite make a lot of
sense to me that an oil find that lay so dangerously close to Ghana’s
border with Côte d’Ivoire would also have been so [godlessly]
uncharitable as to neatly parcel itself out for the exclusive benefit
and enjoyment of Ghanaians while the war-seasoned Ivorians continued
to languish in penury." - "Who Are These “Parliamentarian Drivers”? By
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., Feature Article of Tuesday, 16 March
2010.

Okoampa continues:

"What is also wickedly fascinating is the sudden fit of alarm that
seems to have gripped the hitherto light-headed Ghanaians. All of an
auspicious sudden, it is beginning to home-in to these soft-headed,
happy-go-lucky and good-natured “Niggers” that premature gloating over
a pure gift of nature may yet turn out to be too good to be true. It
was also rather fitfully amusing that some Ghanaians should already
begin to be angrily chary of the Ivorians; and, indeed, the irony of
it all is that these “Angernistas” are largely what one may aptly term
as diehard “Nkrumacrats,” the fanatical disciples of modern Ghana’s
first postcolonial premier. Dear reader, by now, it ought to be
obvious to you what “Sremu Sei Nana” (The King of the Savannah’s
Grandson) is getting at. And, of course, it is the stark fact that
where “Black Gold” is concerned, pan-Africanism is only the dream of a
hopeless lunatic."

As I wrote in a previous article, "Okoampa continues by making
demeaning remarks about his fellow countrymen. To use such language
indicates comtempt for Ghanaian men and women. Why would any Ghanaian
who consider his country's vital interests so dispensable, still
present himself as a member of a "Think Tank" and expect respect from
his fellow Ghanaians? What does it mean if this man presents Nana
Akufo Addo as his favourite candidate, and Akufo Addo approves of this
association with him? Is Akuffo Addo telling us that the Danquah
Institute "think tank" is fast becoming nothing but a nest of
politically virulent and toxic ideas contempt for the Ghanaian
people?" (See: Is It Not Time For Akuffo Addo To Distance Himself From
The Danquah Institute Altogether?).


OKOAMPA, PATRIOTISM, AND THE US AFRICOM

It is very important that Ghanaians do not forget so soon the kind of
role played by people like Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., vis-a-vis the
establishment of US military bases in Ghana, and judge for themselves
whether or not such a guy is a Ghanaian patriot or an American
patriot! "Kwesi Pratt was one of the first to raise the alarm about
oil and US military bases in Africa." Crossedcrocodiles writes in
"Ghanaians Discuss AFRICOM & Obama’s Visit." He continues:

"In a 2007 interview he said:

*Kwesi Pratt: I am very alarmed after reading what is called the
Cheney Report. When Bush came to power, he set up a committee chaired
by Dick Cheney his Vice President to assess America’s energy
requirements up to the year 2015. TheCheney Report actually says that
by the year 2015, twenty percent of American oil requirements will be
supplied by West Africa and therefore it is important to maintain a
foothold in West Africa in order to ensure that oil supplies from West
Africa to the United States of America will not be interr**upted*."
(See: Ghanaians Discuss AFRICOM & Obama’s Visit, by xcroc, June 3,
2009, crossedcrocodiles.wordpress.com)

It must be noted that even though Mr Kwesi Pratt, Jnr., was the first
to raise the alarm in Ghana, the US desire to capture the control and
use of the hydrocarbon materials from particularly our sub-region, if
need be, by the means of military action, has been beyond dispute:

'*In May 2001 the Cheney report warned that the U.S. would grow
increasingly dependent upon foreign oil in the years to come and
recommended that as a matter of policy the Bush Administration work to
increase production and export of oil from regions other than
theMiddle East, noting that Latin America and West Africa were likely
to be the fastest growing sources of future U.S. oil imports. ...
Three months later, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs
Walter Kansteiner declared that African oil "has become a national
strategic interest." This statement is particularly noteworthy in that
it uses the language of the Carter Doctrine in the Middle East, in
which President Carter went on to declare that the U.S. would
intervene by any means necessary to protect its national interest in
Middle Eastern oil. In April 2002, Donald Norland, former U.S.
Ambassador to Chad told a Congressional subcommittee: "It's been
reliably reported that, for the first time, the two concepts --
'Africa' and 'U.S. national security' have been used in the same
sentence in Pentagon documents.*" ('Understanding AFRICOM: A
Contextual Reading of Empire’s New Combatant Command, b real, February
2007,.moonofalabama.org,

Thus, not only were the denials by the US Embassy in Accra very
cynical, but sinister. It would not have bothered me too much if any
other person within the NPP had responded to Quashigah, other than
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr.! After all, are we not talking about
patriotism now? If so, then what is the basis of the repugnant
histrionics by this famous political sell-out before he is allowed to
further throw dust into our very vigilant eyes? If the NPP really
needs someone to defend it from the unassailable truth of being a
neocolonialism entity, and by definition, an unpatriotic and
pro-Imperialist party established to see to the business interests of
their imperialist owners, Okoampa should be the last person to do so!
The very fact that none other than Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., should
respond to this issue of patriotism is not only significant, it is
also a sign that he requires an immediate psychiatric treatment for
thinking he can take Ghanaians for fools! If he does not get a
psychiatric examination, he shall continue to pile trouble after
trouble on his favourite candidate, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo.

Mr. Kwesi Pratt's patriotism in the interview is clear:

Kwesi Pratt *: *Consequently, the United States is planning to
establish military bases across West Africa including Ghana. And I am
very worried that at a time when we are celebrating our national
independence we are going to tolerate the establishment of foreign
military bases, especially American military bases on our soil. The
great Osageyfo Dr. Nkrumah, Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, and all of them
emphasized that Africa ought to be free from foreign military bases
and weapons of mass destruction. We cannot allow that dream to die.
That is why, it is important for us to resist all attempts to
establish foreign military bases on African soil especially forces of
the United States, must be prevented from establishing on African
soil. Clearly because they are not on African soil to protect our
interests, they are on African soil to facilitate the exploitation of
our resources for the benefit of the tiny minority that controls the
wealth of the American people and who are sitting on top of this world
exploiting the Chicanos, exploiting the African Americans and
exploiting all of the other independent and healthy forces in the
Un**ited States of America. We have to resist all attempts to build
U.S. military bases in Ghana and elsewhere in Africa.*" (See: Ron
Wilkins' Interview With Kwesi Pratt on the 50th Anniversary of Ghana
Independence,Pan-African News Wire, May 07, 2007,
panafricannews.blogspot.com.)

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., on the contrary, enters into this debate
like the goat recently nominated by Nana Akufo Addo to represent him
in the Upper East Region. Even the planners of US Africom have since
acknowledged that the initial approach was a mistake!Okoampa did not
mind whatever the Americans were willing to ram down our throats!
There he goes:

*In the lead-up to President George W. Bush's five-nation African
tour-of-duty," Okoampa laments, "the Director of Public Affairs at the
United States' Embassy in Accra was prompted to vehemently deny
widespread rumors and allegations regarding Mr. Bush's official visit
to Ghana, from February 19-21, climaxing with the bilateral
ratification of an agreement between the American leader and Ghana's
President John Agyekum-Kufuor allowing the establishment of an
American military base in the country.*" (See: U. S. Embassy has
Absolutely Nothing to Deny!!!, by Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.,
Feature Article | Mon, 18 Feb 2008)

It must carefully be noted that even though Okoampa himself accepts
and welcomes "Mr. Bush's official visit to Ghana, from February
19-21", as "climaxing with the bilateral ratification of an agreement
between the American leader and Ghana's President John Agyekum-Kufuor
allowing the establishment of an American military base in the
country," for some very strange reasons he still manages to refer to
the opposition to these bases as being based upon "vicious rumors and
allegations"! "Allegations" that are more or less his own! In U. S.
Embassy has Absolutely Nothing to Deny!!!, he writes:

"Indeed, one does not have to look far to conclude that such political
mischief is the incontrovertible brainchild of the so-called National
Democratic Congress (NDC), the pseudo-political party that militarily
occupied Ghana for nearly twenty years. Then also, this is not the
first time that the bugbear, or specter, of the establishment of a U.
S. military base is being bandied about. It is also significant to
observe that the NDC's ideological twin-sister, the so-called
Convention People's Party (CPP), has been in the thick of such vicious
rumors and allegations.*" (See: U. S. Embassy has Absolutely Nothing
to Deny!!!, by Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., Feature Article |
Mon, 18 Feb 2008)

Okoampa concludes that nothing could be dumber than patriotism when
the USwants to be your master! For Okoampa, our country is not even
worth anything to die for! We can only develop in freedom when there
are US guns pointed on our heads! Listen to him:

*And so pretending to play dumb, in the dubious name of patriotism, is
absolutely no perspicuous demonstration of Ideological advancement as
these political nincompoops and outright charlatans would have
unsuspecting compatriots believe. And if these charlatans and
cognitively challenged rumor-mongers cared to know, they would have
since long discovered to their rude awakening, the fact that the
hitherto self-proclaimed inveterate enemy of U. S. “imperialism,”
Chairman Rawlings, educated all his three officially known children
right here in the United States, and not Cuba, Libya or
Russia."**...Indeed, it comes as great news to learn of the United
States having emplaced heavy military equipment in the country in
apparent, and auspicious, readiness for any barbaric, or troglodytic,
attempt by the enemies of constitutional democracy to reverse the
onward march of Ghana towards the Danquahist ideal of “Development in
Freedom.*” (See: U. S. Embassy has Absolutely Nothing to Deny!!!, by
Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D., Feature Article | Mon, 18 Feb 2008)

In the concluding paragraph to a recent article, "Okoampa Requires
Immediate Psychiatric Examination!*, Feature Article | By Nana Akyea
Mensah, The Odikro. A rejoinder to: "Quashigah Requires Immediate
Psychiatric I wrote:

"The reason why my grandson needs to see a psychiatrist is therefore,
also because it is very important for the Akufo-Addo busy-bodies like
him not to give the game away so soon! If he does not see a
psychiatrist, Okoampa would open the eyes of Ghanaians so wide to what
the Akufo Addo camp has been up to, ever since Bush said "Baloney!" to
the US Africom Headquarters rumour in Accra. Right now, my own real
fear in all this, is that considering the unprecedented leverage that
the Danquah Institute now wields within the the NPP, particularly the
current Akufo Addo-led National Executive Committee, as exemplified
with the speed by which the NPP has proved to be effectively and
extremely susceptible to the very negative influence of the Danquah
Institute, the question that every concerned Ghanaian ought to be
asking must be: "Are we safe?" Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr. and Gabriel
Asare Ochere-Darko and co, are just a tip of the iceberg! My real
worry is now about Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo, and why he has chosen
to be surrounded by the birds of the same feathers! These are clearly
people with doubtful intentions and abilities. Thanks for opening my
eyes to what Mr. Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo really represents! Is it
by accident or just a co-incidence that these two of the Danquah
Institute happen to be the only known Ghanaians campaigning for the
establishment of US military bases on our soil? The New Patriotic
Party seems to have a new concept of patriotism which is surely
bizarre!

Give me the old time patriotism any time, anywhere, any day!"

That's good enough for me! So good enough for me!

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!
–
Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro

Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro,
Blogs: Feature Articles: nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com,
Comments: theodikro.blogspot.com)

*(The original version of this and all other articles by me often
contain important links to the references made within. For further
information and follow-ups, I invite the interested reader to my blog.
I tweet some of my comments on facebookand on twitter. I am interested
in the political grammar of Pan-Africanism and its manners of
articulation. If you agree or disagree with me, you may follow my
thinking and reactions in a more comprehensive manner by coming to
theodikro.blogspot.com. I keep most of my comments in one place. You
may give me a follow on Twitter if you want to know "where I am coming
from": /twitter.com/TheOdikro, or check out my blogs: 1. Feature
Articles nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com, 2. Comments:
theodikro.blogspot.com) Thanks!

By Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro


A Rejoinder to: "Gizelle Yajzi/Yadzi Is An Arrogant, Glorified ****",
Feature Article of Monday, 23 August 2010, Columnist: Okoampa-Ahoofe,
Kwame.


Hi grandson,

Your last article was pathetic! You like big words, eh?! I could not
help noticing that after my exposure of your unpatriotic and nefarious
activities, you have started using the words "patriotic" and
"progressive"! Do you understand what they mean at all? "Patriotic",
"Progressive"! Hmn! I can't help chuckling! Reading athese from a
quisling like you, using these words appear a bit Kafkasque! Are we
safe? Why have you all of a sudden, felt the need to prove your
patriotic credentials? We know you very, very well enough!

The only thing that is news-worthy in your article is the fact that
you now think Kofi Diawuo has anything resembling professional and
personal intergrity! That is new. What you ought to know is that you
put your own intergrity at stake in so doing! Yes, you cannot have
your cake and eat it! "Let Your Yea Be Yea; and Your Nay, Nay."
(Matthew 5:33). For someone who has done more than any member of the
NPP to help us understand how repugnant this president has been, we
are a bit taken aback by this sudden and absolutely meaningless
defence of a person you would also like to ! Have you seen something
that we might not be privvy to? This is certainly what, you yourself
would call 'a paradoxical oddity'. What happened?

What has happened since you wrote your last article on Kufour, "Kufuor
Continues to Campaign for Atta-Mills and NDC," (See: Feature Article
of Monday, 9 August 2010, Columnist: Okoampa-Ahoofe, Kwame) It is
laughable that you could be "glad that the Ivory Cost is claiming our
oil" as a Ghanaian and remain less dangerous that a lonely foreigner
who may be "in the pursuit of happiness"? What makes you change tact
even to defend the indefensible? I remember, not so long ago, someone
wrote a whole feature article addressed to you to tone down your
attacks on ex-President Kufour and your response was:

"My friend, you are lucky you are spewing such guff tens of miles away;
else, I would strangle you and face execution by lethal injection!" -
Author: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Date: 2010-08-12 23:48:31 (See
Comment to: "RE: “Kufuor continues to campaign for Atta-Mills" Feature
Article of Friday, 13 August 2010, by Columnist: Boahene, Peter
Owusu,)

Are we now seeing in full display the long-awaited problem of THE
CONGNITIVE DISSONANCE OF THE AKYEM MAFIA? I know Kufuor is now like
"Asantrofi Anoma" to you people, and you people are yet to make up
your minds whether to like him or hate him! The problem is you would
want to use his records to win votes, but at the same time you want to
distance yourselves from the numerous scandals! Now, all of a sudden
you appear to put a brave face on it because of the obvious
repercussions on the intergrity of Mr. Akufo-Addo, who may have to
position himself on this scandal if it continues to grow. An
uncomfortable situation indeed, so by all means Kufour has to be
innocent!

What kind of political opportunism is this? It is good that,
apparently, your attention has now been drawn to "moderate" your
criticism of the former president, but that in itself must not make
you swing to the other extreme end of the pendulum and begin to defend
even what he did when he was naked and alone with a woman and you were
nowhere around!! You are going too far, grandson, were you there in
the room with him? We all know you are a propaganda robot, but think
before you write, and for Heaven's sake be consistent. Which of the
Kufours you have been presenting do you want us to take?

Listen to your ridiculous self:

"In other words, our convicted contention here is that Ms. Yajzi is a
very dangerous woman who needs not be entertained by a progressive and
patriotic media."

Do you want me to laugh or cry? One never knows with you! By the way,
I choose to laugh! I have no choice! You are compelling! How sweet of
you for being a comic relief in these murky waters ahead of us!By the
way, what is your point? The fact that journalist are unable to
identify her nationality or spell her name differently, does not mean
that she did not have a vagina available for former President John
Agyekum Kufuor's penis! Most women, irrespective of nationality or the
spelling of their first names, have their genitals intact! Try a bit
harder, Monsieur Okoampa! You can do better than this! You write:

"She is, indeed, quite an interesting character, if also because she
does not appear to be even passably intelligent."

And the reason you give for this is because she fell in love with a
married man! Even if she is foolish as you want to suggest, what has
that got to do with falling in love? Since when did falling in love
become the exclusive preserve of the intelligent people only? You
write:

"there is absolutely no reason for anybody to believe that Ms. Yajzi,
when she decided to fall “madly” in love with Mr. Kufuor, did not know
that by getting sexually involved with a married Catholic, Christian
man and, perhaps, one who was old enough to be her own father, she
reserved the great negative potentiality of wrecking her lover’s
marriage. What with the grim and unsavory possibility of causing a
scandal of national proportions?"

You must be a shameless chauvinist! Why should it only be the woman
who must answer that and not Kufuor? Don't you know that for people
like Uncle Kofi Diawuo, the Akan-Latin "Prikus soribus non conscientum
habet", is the rule? (MEANING: translates roughly as "prikus" means
the prick or the penis, and "soribus" means "wake up" or "rise up" as
in a rebellion, insurrection or an errection, including presidential
ones! Thus it literaly means: "an errect penis has no conscience") All
the president needs is an errect penis! Damn the consequences! Never
blame the woman! She was lucky she was not raped by this bastard!

What makes you blame the woman instead of the "married Catholic,
Christian man and, perhaps, one who was old enough to be her own
father"? Did Kofi Diawuo give any hoots about what you call the "great
negative potentiality of wrecking [his own] marriage" or "the grim and
unsavory possibility of causing a scandal of national proportions?" If
the owner of the penis who is the president does not care, why should
the owner of the vagina who is a foreigner care? Is she the President
of Ghana?

And as though it were not enough, I know a thing or two which
collaborate the moral decadence of Kofi Diawuo; I know his morals at
close range through close associates. I was not in Washington with him
when george Bush organized a Banquet for Diawuo at the White House. To
the distaste of the "highly selected" presidential press corps that
was in his entourage including journalists like Mr. Malik Kwaku Baako
Jnr., I was reliably informed that the president came out of his
quarters to fratenize with the journalists, and the only thing that
came to his mind is to ask the press who felt they were on duty, "What
are you doing here? Mo mpe se mo be ko krom muo akope etwe bi ndie
anaa?" Meaning, "Don't you people want to go to town and get some
vagina to 'eat'?" My friend who was an admirer of the President was
horrified!

This was when I realised that probably most of the rumours of his
ecapades could be true! A real case of "Prikus Kufuorus Non
Conscientum Habet!" For those of you sensible to the classical Latin,
please beware, nominative "Kufourus" remains the same in the genitive
case in the Akan-Latin, and not 'Kufuori', the motive is to impress
the unsuspecting reader, just like Kwame Okoampa! And just in case
this is all about a competition of high-sounding words, I do not miss
out with my simple English! Hence the Akan-Latin: "Prikus Kufuorus Non
Conscientum Habet!"

Forward Ever! Backwards Never!!!

Cheers!
--
Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/people/Nana-Akyea-Mensah
Blog: /nanaakyeamensah.blogspot.com/
Twitter: /twitter.com/TheOdikro
E-mail: nanaakyeamensah at gmail dot com

Gizelle Yajzi/Yadzi: Prikus Kufuorus Non Conscientum Habet!

Feature Article of Wednesday, 25 August 2010

Columnist: Mensah, Nana Akyea