Category Archives: Africa

FCDO minister Wendy Morton in Evidence Session 13 July

Foreign and Commonwealth Office ( and international development) minister, Wendy Morton, (who is undersecretary of state for foreign affairs), is expected to give evidence on Tuesday 13 July (13:30 GMT) to the Foreign Affairs Committee, as the final evidence session in the committee inquiry into global health security.

The session is the final one a series of sessions that started in March this year and was followed on 30 April and 22 June as part of the committee inquiry into global health security.

Those participants are:  

  • Wendy Morton – Minister for European Neighbourhood and the Americas, FCDO
  • Darren Welch – Director of Global Health, FCDO
  • Robert Tinline – Director for Covid-19, FCDO

The Committee is expected to discuss the lessons learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic, and the prospects of reform to the World Health Organisation (WHO) following criticism of its handling of the pandemic. The session will likely cover the impact of the merger between the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), and recent aid cuts. Additionally, the Committee is likely to explore concerns over disinformation and vaccine diplomacy, particularly in relation to Russia and China. The Committee will hear from Minister Wendy Morton, and officials Rob Tinline and Darren Welch.

Wendy Morton is the Minister for European Neighbourhood and the Americas at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). Her responsibilities include health, global health security, multilateral health organisations including the WHO, and international organisations such as the Global Fund and GAVI. Wendy was appointed as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the FCO and DFID in February 2020. She was elected as an MP in 2015.

Tom Tugendhat (Chair) (Tonbridge and Malling), Conservative; Chris Bryant (Rhondda), Labour; Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark), Labour; Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton), Conservative; Stewart Malcolm McDonald (Glasgow South), Scottish National Party; Andrew Rosindell (Romford), Conservative; Bob Seely (Isle of Wight), Conservative; Henry Smith (Crawley), Conservative; Royston Smith (Southampton, Itchen), Conservative; Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton), Labour; Claudia Webbe (Leicester East), Independent.

Egypt’s Mubarak left a mixed legacy, mostly negative.

Hosny Mubarak who was fourth president of Egypt for thirty years left a mixed legacy. He opened the door for changing the personality cult of a president and improved economy; regionally he played a major role in 1990 in building Egypt lead regional coalition forces to liberate Kuwait and was one of several architects who helped the Palestinians and Israelis to reach a peace agreement in 1993.

Interviewing President Mubarak, Qubbah Palace, Cairo 1988. But he was responsible for wide corruption and ending 160 years of modernity paving the way for the islamisation of Egypt and ending secular liberalism. I met him several times and this is my personal view as a historian .

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Analysis in 2011 of Western attitude to Islamist Terroroism still valid; lessons weren’t learned.

Lessons of 9/10 Ten Years On Ten years passed since  the tragedy of 9/11, during which lesson learned have been learned and lessons missed. The same errors are repeated, especially in not understanding that trying to accommodate Muslims in western societies, various government – and leftist liberal organisations hell bent on political correctness, managed to reach the opposite effect by further alienating them.

Authorities, national and local, fail to understand that multiculturalism deepens division and help isolate Muslims – especially from the Indian subcontinent and the Horn of Africa- into cultural ghettos instead of assimilating into British society. Continue reading

The Sheikh who Perfected TV Evangelism To Islamise Egyptian Society

First Published in JUne 1998, when I wrote it then, it was three years before 9/11 and seven years before Islamists terrorist bombed London Transport System, 14 years before Muslim Brotherhood took control of Egypt and 15 years before the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant ISIL was declared a caliphate. But when I revisited this Obituary of Egypt Best known Islamic TV Evangelist, it was events foretold. The seeds of jihadism were sown by intellectual means, by changing the way of thinking and the collective mind. It was and still going on, the Islamisation of a Society by stealth.
Egypt best Known Islamic  cleric Mohammed Metawali Sharawi, who died at the age of 87 on 17th June 1998, got his chance of stardom at the age of 59, in the last year of the late autocratic President Nasser’s rule, when he took part in the country’s first ever televised Islamic religious discussion programme , nour ala nour ” Light upon Light” presented by Ahmed Farrag  a handsome news-anchor but a failed cinema actor who had gone to make a career in television religious programme.
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How the Bicycle Helps Foreign Leaders Remember Boris’s Full Name?

The Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta forgot Boris Johnson’s name, during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Theresa May, Then remembered it by the bicycle image saying ” the bicycle guy ” ; let us hope in future he remember’s Jeremy Hunt’s name and doesn’t say .. the  Today Programme c*** guy  !!!

Answering a question about  his country’s long and historic relation with UK, the Kenyan leader wanted to express gratitude by recalling a British gift of fleet of ambulance delivered during a visit to Kenya last year by the then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson

But President Kenyatta forgot the full name of Mr Johnson by, saying ” when last year the former foreign secretary…Boris….Boris… ah… Boris Johnson…. the bicycle guy ” ….

It was, to the amusement of hacks, a  highlight moment during a  press conference  marked by long-winded questions from local journalists …One Question lasted a full three minutes.

It seems that Mr Kenyatta was given training on memory management by specialists who train intelligence agents and spies. The trick is to visualise information you need to recall from your brain storage. So associate a person, a name or a place with an image, like Churchill’s  cigar, or Lady Thatcher’s handbag; or with sound, a music, a meal or even a big event.  And then in future you can recall the image, or other events or sounds  and it will then process the memory recall of the fill information or event.

Boris’ on a bicycle mage, it seems, was the visual tag which president Kenyatta put on the information related to the former foreign secretary and stored in his brain.

The Question many ask today, was , if Boris’ bicycle has now been the visual memory-file tag used by foreign leaders to remember him in years to come.. what  is the tag to be added to his successor for foreigners to remember?
Say in two years time or so, or may be less .. what Image, sound, big event information  would the forgetful Kenyan leader might associate with  Jeremy Hunt to remember  his full name  ? Let us hope he doesn’t then recall the famous Today Programme featuring Mr Hunt’s interview with James Naughtie ?

** Thanks to RT TV for the press conference clip

Managing the Mediterranean Migrants Mayhem

London August, August 5, 2018

Migrants exploited by human-traffickers drown at sea by the thousands; the crisis threatens the European Union’s “ ever closer union” aim of federalism as the leaders failed in last month’s summit to find a solution.  Adel Darwish suggests a long term strategy to solve the migrant crisis, which would not only save lives, but will also reduce the number of migrants by 90% and lead to economic prosperity in sub saharan African nations. The strategy depends on cooperation and coordination between the EU, the UN migration and refugee agencies, North African members of the Arab League and The African Union. ©

“Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime,” the contested origin, thought to be Chinese, saying come to mind as why migrants in their thousands take the dangerous journey to try to reach the promised land in Europe. But another saying also comes to mind, “Turkeys won’t vote for for an early Christmas “, which perhaps explains why very few, if any, thinking of a long term strategy to deal with this crisis rather than managing it, which seems to have become an industry or a taxpayer funded job-creation-scheme for middle class liberals or both.

“Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime,” the contested origin, thought to be Chinese, saying come to mind as why migrants in their thousands take the dangerous journey to try to reach the promised land in Europe. But another saying also comes to mind, “Turkeys won’t vote for for an early Christmas “, which perhaps explains why very few, if any, thinking of a long term strategy to deal with this crisis rather than managing it, which seems to have become an industry or a taxpayer funded job-creation-scheme for middle class liberals or both. Continue reading

Egypt’s Iconic Songstress and Actress Shadia Dies

Egypt iconic golden age of entertainment songstress and actress Shadia died aged 86 in Cairo hospital Tuesday 28 November closing a chapter of an unmatched history of culture, art, music, theatre and film that the Nile banks are unlikely to witness in our life time, Adel Darwish writes.

The star, once a pinup girl for Egypt post-war years (until the late 1970s) school boys, acted in over 100 films at a time when Egypt film industry was not only on par with world great cinema product   churning  centres like India, Soviet Cinema and Hollywood, but also secured Egyptian cultural dominance all over the Arabic speaking nations, making Egyptian language (although rich with Arabic words, it is a distinctively different from Arabic with rich mixed vocabulary from her  old pharaonic, Coptic-which is Afro-Asiatic Nilotic-, Greek and later many Mediterranean words from Latin, French, Turkish and Jewish-ladino) the dominant language of popular entertainment, popular culture and performing arts of the area extending between the Atlas Mountains in North West Africa to the straits of Hormuz.

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The Hysteria on US “ Muslim Ban” What are the Facts?

By Kate Burrows-Jones, World Media North America Editor

President Trump Executive order is but sharpening existing laws set by his predecessor President Obama restricting entry to nationals of seven nations. ( below also include links to the full text of the order and related subjects)

Fake news indeed. There is no Executive order banning Muslims. President Donald Trump’s, perhaps ill-founded, ill-fated 90 day ban is based on President Barack Obama’s restrictions on Seven nations. Nobody cared when he did it, so was it a Muslim ban then? The law was written to address security concerns after the Paris Attacks, passing with overwhelming agreement. Voting was bipartisan, it passed the House 407-19.  What Trump did was apply a sharp force, a halt on movement, and cruelly with no notice to let people prepare. Let the people decide if it is wrong, but to call it “Muslim” in nature, is also wrong without reading the full executive order.

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BBC Professionalism? A Case in Point

Here is an example of either amateurish lazy below standard journalism, or a blatant bias by producers editors and a below standard under trained hacks who make up their minds before reporting a story.I am citing a radio report, broadcast on bbc radio four 13:00 (12:00 GMT) on Saturday 16 May 2015 reporting on sentencing former president Morsi of Egypt alongside other defendants. ..

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