Abdullahi Hussein Ali, Ph.D. in zoology and physiology, student has been awarded by the University Of Wyoming (UW) for his outstanding Dissertation.
Ali, who hails from Garissa, Kenya, focuses on the range collapse, demography and conservation of the critically endangered hirola antelope in Kenya.
According to the University of Wyoming, while honoring Ali for his exploit(s), Department of Zoology and Physiology Department Head Donal Skinner noted:
“I am simply not aware of a more deserving candidate for this prestigious award, certainly in my past four years but possibly ever. A student who has raised over $1.25 million for their research on his own, started an NGO, received numerous international accolades AND published/submitted six papers from his dissertation.”
A report from the university website states that between 2012-15, the researchers used GPS collars to track more than 50 hirola from seven herds, and found that the antelope prefer grassland habitats. Using a time series of satellite imagery, the authors showed a 250 percent increase in tree cover since the mid-1980s in the hirola’s native range. This “tree encroachment” occurred at the expense of grassland habitats.
Ali and his group also looked at dozens of kill sites made by lions, cheetahs and other predators of hirola. These kill sites were found in open areas — the very areas where hirola typically spend their time foraging on grasses — and not forested areas. The researchers concluded that habitat was the major reason why hirola have declined and remain rare for the past 40 years.
Hirola numbers dwindled to fewer than 500 by the mid-1980s, and their populations have remained precariously low since. The reasons for their low numbers have puzzled wildlife biologists and conservationists. The Abdallah and Abduwaq — Somali clans that live alongside hirola — treat hirola as near-mythical beasts, indicators of good grass.
“Fortunately, solutions for hirola recovery are at hand, and it all starts with people,” Ali says. “Because hirola are indicators of healthy rangelands, local communities welcome them. We are working with these communities to find solutions that benefit hirola, other wildlife and people.”
Goheen, Ali’s former Ph.D. supervisor at UW, commends his former student for his persistence.
“Hirola don’t live anywhere that’s convenient for outsiders to work,” Goheen explains. “This region has seldom been visited by western scientists due, in part, to political uncertainty. The fact that Ali pulled off this study under such challenging conditions is just what the hirola will need if they are to survive — a friend in hard times.”
These challenges haven’t stopped Ali, who is forging ahead with hirola projection and community engagement. In the second year of his Ph.D., Ali founded the Hirola Conservation Programme and is currently its director. Through this organization, Ali and his team are active in restoring grasslands throughout eastern Kenya through elephant conservation, clearing of trees and grass reseeding — solutions that will provide benefits to both people and wildlife.
The study was supported through generous contributions from many institutions, including UW’s Biodiversity Institute, the British Ecological Society, the Saint Louis Zoo, UW Department of Zoology and Physiology, and the Zoological Society of London.
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Public bodies in the UK had too often ignored or condoned divisive or harmful religious practices for fear of being called racist, the Casey Review said.
Immigrants should take an "integration oath" and there should be more emphasis on British values in schools, it said.
Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said he would study the findings "closely".
Dame Louise Casey's review into the integration of minorities was commissioned by former prime minister David Cameron as part of the government's efforts to tackle extremism.
Susan Wamucii holds her first-ever published book. PHOTO | NATION
In Summary
Susan Wamucii had dreamed of travelling to Africa since she was a teenager and her dream turned into love for Kenya, especially after she met a Kenyan student on a train in London. She came back with him here in 1975 and was charmed by the local culture.
Susan Wamucii has been living in the country since 1975 and has written about the love that led her to Africa, the romance that made her stay and the passion that has kept her going. Susan tells her remarkable story in a new book.
Titled Life is a Gift, the book is poised to place Susan in the league of the late Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye, a Southampton-born woman who travelled to Kenya as a missionary in 1954, became a Kenyan citizen in 1960, then later married a Luo man, learnt Dholuo and penned a number of literary works.
Kenya is among 37 African countries that have fallen under the second phase of British control, a new report has indicated.In The New Colonialism: Britain’s Scramble for Africa’s Energy and Mineral Resources (Reference), the authors of the report found that the UK government had...
According to Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) Managing Director, the contractor, Zakhem International, is working on final bits, installation of the eight mainline pumps that have arrived in the country. The KPC boss also noted that pipeline’s four stations would have two mainline pumps each. Once complete, the new line expected to adequately serve the country’s demand with a projected supply of 6.8 billion litres in 2020.
...we fail to forget why they were created in the first place and also fail to notice how African nationalism is pro colonialism. Take for instance Namibia and Angola, two neighbors with different natural resources. While Namibia and Angola have zero trade ties, Namibia imports most of it's food stuff and other necessities like electronics, chemicals etc from Europe mainly Netherlands and UK, the other chunk of Namibia's imports are through SA, but from european corporations which are based in SA. So Angola has oil which it exports out of Africa, but it's immediate neighbor Namibia, imports oil from overseas through South Africa. It's a huge mess.
Europeans often whitewash the history of colonialism under the guise of wanting to “spread their culture” or “promote progress” when in reality, they inflicted torture on natives for the sake of economic gain. Much of the collective Black conscious centers itself around the atrocities of slavery in the Americas by the British, French, and Spanish. But on the continent, Belgian colonizers took delight in the mutilation of slaves on conquered land in ways unimaginable. In hopes to introduce the continent to civilization, King Leopold II thought it best to use brute force. The picture above displays, “A Congolese man looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter who was killed, and allegedly cannibalized, by the members of Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company militia.” Does this seem civilized to anyone?
There is an eatery off Mombasa Road, Nairobi, that is just a spectacle of contrast. It is an old, rickety structure made of iron-sheet. Its walls and roof are black with soot. It is one of those eateries you would expect to find grease-laden unskilled workers from Industrial Area, silently wolfing a frugal meal of chapati and beans.
Instead, there are sharply dressed customers. Men and women in crisp attire and suave mannerisms helping themselves to a sumptuous dish of chicken and ugali as they catch up on office politics. Besides the plate of ugali and chicken in front of one of the patrons is an expensive smartphone. And dangling on the index finger of his left hand is a car key, a symbol of his economic status.
Most *sexy looking girls* do not have someone to tell them the truth.
The following conversation took place between a grandmother and her grand-daughter .
*Grandma:* Mutoni, where are you going?
*Mutoni:* Grandma, I am going to Church.
*Grandma*: Really? Please come and sit down and let's talk for a minute before you go. I think we still have ample time before the Church Service begins? Don't we?
*Mutoni*: Yes, about an hour.
*Grandma*: The way you are dressed, in fact, you look very sexy.
*Mutoni*: (Smiling) Thank you very much ma.
*Grandma*: Hmmmm, Mutoni, I can see you love that compliment. Please tell me, do you need someone to have sex with you?
Jubilee Secretary-General Raphael Tuju addresses journalists at the party’s headquarters in Nairobi on May 16, 2017. He told the Opposition to stop panicking. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NATION MEDIA GROUP.
In Summary
Jubilee Secretary-General Raphael Tuju said Mr Odinga’s ODM party was responsible for the hard-line position taken by the Opposition.
Mr Odinga said the IEBC should obey the High Court ruling and the law.
Mr Tuju claimed that ODM has a history of attempting to derail elections, citing street protests that led to the ouster of former IEBC commissioners.
Mathira parliamentary aspirant Rigathi Gachagua’s campaign vehicles drive through Karatina town on April 19, 2017. The Campaign Financing Act will come into force in 2022. PHOTO | JOSEPH KANYI | NATION MEDIA GROUP
In Summary
The Central Bank of Kenya has also put in place stringent rules on the deposit and withdrawal of funds.
Jubilee accused the United States of indirectly trying to help the opposition win the presidential
The government is tightening the noose on all monies coming in from abroad to support political campaigns with the opposition Nasa crying foul that its efforts to mobilise funds were being targeted.
The Sunday Nation has learnt that a multi-agency meeting chaired by the Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua on Thursday at Harambee House resolved to closely monitor the interactions between the political parties and foreign donors, with more focus inevitably on Nasa.
Coincidentally, it happened while Nasa presidential flag-bearer Raila Odinga was scheduled to meet some of the potential financiers on the sidelines of his tour of Jerusalem.
MAGUFULI'S ROLE The committee led by Mr Kinyua comprises officials from the Treasury, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, and representatives from the Kenya Revenue Authority among others.
After Jerusalem, Mr Odinga travelled to Dubai. He returned to the country yesterday ahead of a Nasa rally in Nakuru today.
Sources familiar with the deliberations at the Harambee House meeting said Tanzania is one such country on the government’s radar.
During the endorsement of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President Uhuru Kenyatta as the Jubilee candidates, Majority Leader in the National Assembly Aden Duale claimed that President John Magufuli’s government had offered to host the opposition’s parallel presidential vote-tallying centre.
He, however, did not provide any evidence.
CAMPAIGN BUDGETS The foreign fundraising efforts, according to an individual with first-hand knowledge of Nasa’s presidential campaign budget, is meant to supplement what has been raised locally to facilitate what is expected to be one of the most expensive elections in Kenya’s history.
ODM treasurer and Kitutu Masaba MP Timothy Bosire, who sits in the coalition’s resource mobilisation team, said their projection may see external support account for up to 30 per cent of the campaign budget, which he declined to disclose.
“We will accept help from our friends abroad as long as it is done within the law. Whether such help comes or not, we are sure to mount one of the best-financed and organised campaigns in this part of the world,” he said.
Mr Kenyatta’s administration has reportedly given stern instructions to all financial institutions, including all the banks, to be on the lookout for any suspicious money that finds its way into the country.
FINANCE ACT The central role of the Financial Reporting Centre (FRC), a government institution created by the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act, means that activities of Nasa are monitored round the clock.
Yesterday, Government Spokesman Eric Kiraithe told the Sunday Nation that they were closely following contacts between any Kenyan and foreign powers as well as individuals ahead of the polls.
However, he denied that any particular political side was under more scrutiny than the other.
“We are keen to ensure that the Elections Finance Act is adhered to,” he said.
However, Parliament suspended the application of the Election Laws (Amendment) Act number 1 of 2017.
The Campaign Financing Act will come into force in 2022.
FINANCIAL REGULATIONS Yesterday, the IEBC Chief Executive officer Ezra Chiloba said the implication of Parliament’s move was that the financing arena was now free-for-all.
Better endowed candidates will, therefore, have an upper hand.
“There will be no limits in terms of campaign budgets and expenditure,” he said.
The Campaign Financing Act had banned foreigners from making cash contributions to a political party but allows parties to get “technical assistance” from a “foreign agency, or a “foreign political party, which shares an ideology” with a Kenyan-registered party.
The Central Bank of Kenya has also put in place stringent rules on the deposit and withdrawal of funds, with those making transactions of Sh1 million and above required to provide details on the source or use of the money.
ODINGA'S ALLIES Siaya Senator James Orengo said they were not worried about the stringent financial regulations even as they reach out for external support.
“We are well aware of the realities of the law that we must live with. But don’t be mistaken, the overriding goodwill among Kenyans who are choking under Jubilee’s misrule is a more potent weapon for us,” he said.
Talk has been rife that Jubilee had outsmarted Mr Odinga and took over some of his wealthy friends from west Africa, especially Nigeria, since 2013.
This was given credence by a visit by then Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to Kenya in 2013 accompanied by some of the country’s wealthy investors.
Subsequently, Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, said he was keen to set up a cement manufacturing factory. But the plans were later shelved.
Some of Mr Odinga’s close Nigerian friends are former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Enugu State Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuany.
He is also closely associated with South African vice-president Cyril Ramaphosa.
ICC FIASCO Mr Odinga is said to be re-activating contacts that hoisted him in the 2007 campaigns to match or near that scale.
Jubilee has never hidden its unease over the prospects of the opposition getting any foreign assistance in the campaigns.
Late last year, Deputy President William Ruto castigated Mr Odinga for reaching out to Western powers to assist the Opposition in the developing world.
“In 2013, these people got their friends in the West to try and influence our elections by filing cases against the President and I at the International Criminal Court, but Kenyans saw right through that plan and rejected it.
"Kenyans made it clear that they are the ones to choose their leaders.
"Similarly, in 2017, it is for Kenyans to decide their own elected leaders; it will not be the West or the money from the West,” he said.
FOOD RIOTS The DP was responding to Mr Odinga’s plea for foreign funding of Opposition political parties in a London Political Summit last October.
On Wednesday, Jubilee accused the United States of indirectly trying to help the opposition win the presidential elections.
The government was reacting to the scaling back of support for programmes in the ministry of Health worth Sh2.1 billion by the US Ambassador Robert Godec due to graft.
Jubilee Party vice-chairman David Murathe argues that the timing of the announcement was suspect.
“Clearly, we see an agenda in this. Why didn’t the US do this last year when reports of loss of funds at the Health ministry first came out?
"We have heard talk about food riots or Unga (flour) revolution but this will just remain that, talk,” he said.
Conservative estimates suggest that Mr Kenyatta and Mr Odinga, running against each other in the same formations, used in excess of Sh10 billion each in 2013.
VEHICLE AND PLANES A close ally of Mr Odinga’s told the Sunday Nation that no penny will be spared in their attempt to win the elections.
“This will be the best resourced campaign ever. It will be intensive and extensive,” the source said.
But even as they solicit more funds, Nasa, just like Jubilee, is raring to go.
There has, for example, been an initial procurement of 47 off-road vehicles for use in each of the counties.
This will come to about 200 as the country gets to the homestretch.
Additionally, each of the principals will have a helicopter at his disposal at any given time, supplemented by at least three fixed wing planes.
EXTERNAL AID They are also dividing the country into 14 distinct regions according to the Bomas Draft Constitution of 2005 defeated in a referendum that year for ease of coordination in what will be further divided into five clusters to be manned by each of the principals.
Both Jubilee and Nasa are receiving support from foreign firms.
Vanguard Africa, an American NGO, says it will support opposition candidates while Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported President Trump’s election, has been retained by Jubilee.
If you were born in the month of December, your sex life might actually be one of the most enjoyable ones there is. You are very creative when you are interested in the person you like, you love to try out new things especially when it comes to role-playing, and more importantly you are a lot of fun in bed. People truly have a good time with you when you're both under the sheets together
4. November
If you were born in the month of November, your sex life is actually pretty kinky. In a good way, of course! You like being possessed by your significant other almost as if they owned your body, you're more than willing to try anything for the first time, and you can actually be pretty possessive yourself depending on the person. You can't help but be a little adventurous!
5. October
If you were born in the month of October, you expect the sex you have to be some of the greatest sex in the world. You never like to rush things and are extremely good at seducing the person you're enamored with. You are one of the most enjoyable people to have sex with and the person you're with knows this to be the truth and nothing but the truth.
If you were born in the month of September, your sex life might be one of the most amazing things on the planet. You are a very passionate person when it comes to love, sex, and romance. You are up to try anything for the first time and you can only perform if you feel an emotional connection to that person. You are a very caring and mindful being that anyone would be lucky enough to spend the night with.
7. August
If you were born in the month of August, your sex life might be a little bit of a mess. You are either extremely generous to the person you are with or you are extremely selfish. You really despise being told what to do in bed and you show off as much as you possible can in order to impress, not only the person you're with, but to anyone else that might be looking at you.
8. July
If you were born in the month of July, your sex life is pretty satisfying. You crave the emotional connection to a person when you are in bed with them, you are extremely loyal to the person you are with, and you love giving others the same satisfaction that you are experiencing as well.
If you were born in the month of June, your sex life is very experimental. You like to try new sex positions, are very intense in bed, and you really like phone sex. Nothing is taboo with you when it comes to trying out new things in the bedroom, especially if the person you are with is just as amazing as the sex you both have together.
10. May
If you were born in the month of May, then you are a sex god. You are pretty particular about the people you have sex with, you like to make sure that it's comfortable for the both of you, you're a crazed sex machine that simply can't get enough, and you prefer to make love in the most proper of settings or you don't have sex at all. Everything must be just right.
11. April
If you were born in the month of April, you may be one of the most intimidating people to have sex with. You are entirely unstoppable when you become interested in a person you want to take by storm, you give nothing but one hundred percent of your performance in bed, and as soon as the heat of the moment begins to fade, so do you. People love to have sex with you but it can be pretty competitive sometimes.
If you were born in the month of march, your sex life tends to be some of the most mind opening experiences you've ever had. You are an extremely spiritual person that feels a special bond to the person you are with which makes you want to spend as much time in bed with them as you possibly can. You are astonishing in so many ways that you are able to take sex to an entirely new level of intimacy.
13. February
If you were born in the month of February, then your sex life is pretty adventurous as well. You are extremely passionate with the person that you are with at the time, except sometimes you can become emotionally distant from the people you want to be with most. Regardless, you are a person who likes to explore new things and claim the things you so desire.
14. January
If you were born in the month of January, your sex life is pretty kinky for the most part. You are very persistent when you become enamored with the person you crave. You often suggest taboo ideas that normally wouldn't come into question but somehow manage to convince them of trying something they never had before for the first time in their lives. You are an adventurous person that anyone would be lucky enough to stumble across.
