BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE WORLD'S MAGAZINE. WHY should you advertise here? We'll tell you. KATRINA & THE LOST CITY OF NEW ORLEANS by Rod Amis New Orleans is the Lost City of America. Rod Amis, publisher of G21: The World's Magazine, once believed one of the best bartenders in New Orleans, tells the story like no one else could. A portion of the proceeds of this book will go to the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Fund. The cooks, servers and restaurant workers of New Orleans have provided fabulous times and memories for millions. Now we must remember them in their time of need. Buy the book or get a downloadable PDF Copy now! To order on Amazon.com, go here! AFRICA FRESH! New Voices from the First Continent An anthology of African writing only featured on the Internet until now, this book features the collected works of writers for the G21 AFRICA section of G21.net. The eight writers represented here are from around the continent and present an exciting look at cutting-edge fiction and reporting from the first continent today. Buy the book or get a downloadable PDF copy now! Buy the Book at Amazon.com

by X.N. Iraki

Special to G21

To read this article in Deutsch, Francaise, Italiano, Portuguese, Espanol, Korean, Japanese, Dutch, Greek, Chinese and Russian, copy and paste the complete URL ("http://www.g21.net/africa138.html") and enter it in the box after you click through.

where discerning people congregate

G21.net Established on the WWW 1996 Issue #461: ELEVEN YEARS OF EDGE G21 AFRICA STEVE OGAH, Nigeria G21 AFRICA X.N. IRAKI, United States JOIN OUR MAILING LIST. It contains more jokes than not. G21 E-MAIL NEWSLETTER G21 MIDEAST AJ, Kenya RECOMMENDED DAILY REQUIREMENT DANIEL PATRICK WELCH, United States SMOKE & MIRRORS ROD AMIS, G21 World HQ TABLOID HART THOMAS HART, United States VOX POPULI YOU, The World THE PREVIOUS EDITION MEET THE G-CREW! These are the people behind this jam-band every week. HOME TABLE OF CONTENTS & BACK ISSUES BECOME A SPONSOR OF THE WORLD'S MAGAZINE. WHY should you advertise here? We'll tell you. Send Page To a Friend We know you're lazy. Here's a button for a quick translation of this page. Just click on the flag for your country. You're welcome! OR TRY THIS GOOGLE TRANSLATION SERVICE.

G21 AFRICA - UN ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMME TO LEAVE KENYA: Contributor X.N. IRAKI reports on a turn of events that challenges the credibility of new Kenyan government.

X.N. Iraki

Frankfort, KY, USA - Pay close attention to our politicians and it becomes clear that our foreign policy has no place in their agenda. Peruse the manifestos of the self-declared presidential candidates and you find strategic issues lacking. We are local in our perspective; we are insular in our thought, as the world becomes global.

Our political leaders have no time for global or strategic issues. They are so preoccupied with the local issues from who will marry who to which reforms should favor them as individuals. The popular line, Kenya is a sovereign state, is empty; it is neither supported by patriotism nor by a nexus of nations that can stand by us in times of need.

After feeding from the bottles of donors for so long, we have forgotten that we need to grow up politically and economically to take care of our own needs. We spend all the time quarreling among ourselves; one may think some tribes will leave Kenya the next day.

Look at UNEP headquarters. As you drive from the Airport to that place, you go through potholes and narrow roads. You fear attack from robbers or extortion from police. We seem not to understand the economic importance of UNEP headquarters.

If we did, the roads to that place would be better, and security better. Other countries see UNEP as a jewel. They would love to have it in their country. Maybe we do not know the value of something till we lose it.

The threat to shift UNEP headquarters from Kenya and our muted response ?portrays our failure to define, articulate and defend our strategic interests. Nobody has time to defend our interests; we do not even know them. Ask your MP what are Kenya's strategic interests and you will be surprised. ?Our MPs spend all their time arguing over trivia. If they knew our strategic interests, they would close ranks when they are threatened.

What are some of these strategic interests and resources?

UNEP is one of them. UNEP brings in hard cash to us .The UNEP staff eats our food; visit our hotels, game parks and rent our houses and employ us. ?It gives us prestige too. One strategic interest would be maintaining and attracting more of such headquarters.

Another strategic interest should be ensuring our neighbors are stable from Somalia to Congo. These countries may be chaotic, but they are a market! We much reach out to them and -i f possible - stabilize them so that they can buy more from us. How else do we create jobs??

The other strategic interest is to have well-educated human resources that are marketable worldwide. Too many Kenyans are working for other countries, which see them as a strategic resource as we complain about brain drain. Kenyans workers wherever they are should now starting becoming employers not just employees.

?

Another strategic interest is ensuring that our natural resources are preserved.? The natural resources include our lakes and their forest catchment areas. ?The Aberdare /Mt Kenya/ Mau are the critical water sources for our urban areas and semi-arid North. They must be protected at all costs.

Lake Victoria and its catchment area have strategic value beyond Kenya, into Uganda Sudan and Egypt. River Nile does not rise from Lake Victoria, but from Mau Ranges!

The coastline is another strategic resource. We also have our tourist sites from Masai Mara to the Arid North.

What of our indigenous knowledge, cultures and wisdom that is unique to us, that we can sell that to the world? How much money does US, UK or France make from selling their languages?? Strengthening, and exporting Swahili and other indigenous languages should be another strategic interest.

Our greatest strategic interest is ensuring that we all pull together, seeing Kenya as?a melting pot of cultures that is welcoming to new people and their ideas. Why are Kenyans minorities like Indians not represented in parliament despite their economic clout? If we do not identify and define our interests, other countries will take advantage of us, as we seek their sympathy. This will be easier in an election years, when we let loose our emotions.