Forward Travellers

Forward Travellers is a Matatu Sacco that offers public transport in Kenya,Nairobi in the eastern side which is know in the local slang as Eastlando.Over the years this company has offered public transport along Jo goo and Juja Roads and have won the trust of many people who love to travel by them.Recently some of this vehicles were introduced to ply from town all the way to Kayole junction famously know as kwa Waititu(the place is refer with a name of a politician know as Waititu)and they were a big relief to those who leaved in these areas as the had an express vehicle at a resonable price. Lemme give you a little history on the transport in this areas.Initially one had to connect from town to Kariobangi Round About where they had to get another car going to Kayole or Ruai so as to get to their respective home.This process was expesive and hectic especially if one has luggage Forward Travellers came with a solution to the suffering commuter who could now sit comfortbly to their destiny,because they offer both Convenience and comfort.But like Kenya Politician who come to save Kenyans from bad leaders only for them to be Worse or do nothing to improve the situation,forward brought this kind of hope to its customers.Its was all good and well but recently it is not travell as usual as one has to move all over river road looking for where to catch the next Forward,passengers have had to board them while they are on the move on some stage near OTC, Initially they had a permanent place where passengers could board them with no hustle and then city council decided to construct more Pedestrian space and that's when the running began.They got a place near Mumbi house Che misty at Down Town,then they began fighting the guy Who rented them the parking lot.The entered into a contract with him to charge 250 shillings per car that picked passengers from that point,and those that helped load passengers were given 20-30 shillings per car.Some one from the main office had a problem with the 30 shillings for he wanted it in his own pocket.First the company secret ally one Mr wachira resigned from his post and started another company by the name Forward traveler Prestige shuttle went and registered the colors since the initial company hard not registered the colors and now the court battles began. Many members of the company had been given a lease of hope because now the hard good management by Mr Wachira who is educated and also current on affairs who uses his prowess to get new routs and connections for the vehicles to ply.Many of the members prefer the new SACCO,with the original one having fewer members and uneducated management.The court will decide the fate of the organization,they have two cases one in high court and another one in Makadara law. It so happens that the guy known as Munaaa was formerly.Employed by the company and they paid him,he even owns a company ID.The original forwered management threatened the guy who rented them the parking that if he wanted the case to end he should give up the boarding point to them ,on refusing they started to pursue him.It is rumoured that there is someone in the company by the name Baite as I nickname who owns handcuffs and has major connections with police with whom they intimidate young guys lives stay reading for more facts

MASTIFF

A Mastiff is a breed of dog which many say is English,many agree that it was created by the British, They are a descendants of the ancient Alaunt and Molassers.There are evidences of mastiffs in documents found on Egyptian Monuments dating back 3000BC.Greek art has shown evidence of Mastiffs. Babylonian wall shows existence of Mastiff.Giant-like Mastiffs dating back to 2500BC were found in Asia Bas_relief from Babylonian Palace of Ashurbanipal(now found in museum in Britain). There were Mastiff-like-dogs hunting lions in a desert near Tigris river. T

Skin Bleaching

We have been complain that Vera made her skin whiter I can understand where we come from most of us grew up hearing that those that bleach their skin were bad and how bad it is to bleach our skin Anyway this link will be a reason for you to think twice before you apply. That cream on your face

Am sure when you read this you will either curse me or embrace my view. Every thing as one head wheather an animal or a human being,to date have never had the chance to encounter a two headed man or animal though I have had stories of their existence.If I come accross one am sure it would scare my heart to missing a few beats till I get composer or I would thing an becoming hallucid probably wet my pants,I have know that anything with two heads is a beast and beast are scary thing the can kill,disable or eat you.There now you see my reason for wetting my pant,I dont want to die young have along way to go"am waiting to see if I will be the President". Well am sure you want to read a beast tale but unfortunately I don't have one,but I have Something that you have never viewed as a beast and you live with it every day,marriage!yes I Said marriage.From the very beginning a man was the head of the house,even before the coming of the white man in Africa,traditional Americans also had the same set up.The man provided Made sure that his family never lack and so the wife was submissive and whatever the man Said was final.He made decision for the family and to every angle he had a right to do so. Men,father.were highly respected and the did their best to earn that respect they made sure Nothing happened to lower their post. Back to my beast.Just like night happens and day light comesfamily turned to be a den not Of alcohol but it was slowly rearing a new animal.Men would neglect their wives and since these women did not have financial support the hanged on for the sake of the children,men knew what they had and the held it dearly.Women became frastrated and had to provide for their children they couldn't watch as they went hungry,they started with what they produced in their farm.It became a routine and as men used their cash in other business women realised the freedom of money,they no longer needed their husband for money and now they could even do more than their men.When men came home they were no longer adored nothing was asked from them life went on without them and the submissive wife was long gone she had hersay and nolonger felt the need to be loyal. Whatever was needed in the family she could provide and was a better home manager than her husband.You know the concept that women can do better what a man can,Yep she take the responsibility of a wife and a provider.While the man is away the wife is compesaating his abscense to the kids and making sure they never feel the gap left. As much as men wanna sit and say women changed and no longer treat them with respect here is the truth over the years men have been digging their own graves and now when its deep enough and they can no longer get out they shout for help

Mercedez

"Das Beste Oder nichts"(English:The best for nothing)this is the slogan for Mercedes which declares the core value"perfection,fascination and responsibility",it is elaborated to fulfill consumers"expectation in every possible aspect.Mercedes being the best customers expect a lot from it So part of the slogan"the best" Mercedes Benz is part of the German Big 3 luxury Automakers along with Audi and BMW which is the most known and also best selling cars in the world In Kenya it defines class,whether the car is old model or new it is viewed With wide opened eyes and mouth.For the gold digger it is a sigh of mula(money)as it is called with some local slang. Mercedes benz intially used the names of the brains behind it"Benz and Daimler"which vouched for origin and quality of the engines and vehicles. The name Benz and Daimler remained unchanged but in 1909 the log_wheel symbol which had been used since 1903 was replaced by Laurel wreath surrounding the name Benz. Mercedes-a spanish girl's name meaning "Grace" was a name of the daughter to 1889 to Austrian businessman,Emil Jellinek who had homes in Baden near Vienna and Nice.He did really gud business with This company that he turned out to be one of their best buyers.He used the name Mercedes which he borrowed from his daughter in his racing,the name Became well known and he had an agreement with DMG to use the name The name Mercedes was lodged as a trade mark and this was legally registered on September 26,1902. It is a car with pride and you can have any girl of your choice,if you a girl and you drive this be rest assured you will only attract the best men

opium wars

Tea lovers here is a connection of tea to opium:China was the only country that produced tea and Britain was craving for it.Despite many efforts by the British to please the China Leader he did not burg and tea exporting restrictions by the Chinise were put in place. Britain got a plan to introduce Opium in china and whatever profits they got from these sales they bought tea Opium was not available in China but was commercially produced by Britain in India.Opium was not illegal in Britain and was compared to things like brandy or wine.However in China it was illegal and at the same time many chinise were addicted to it and the Britons took full advantage of this.Many Chinese became addicts and a time came when the Chinese leader had enough of this Trade and ordered tonnes of Britain opium to be destroyed this infurated the British and they responded by attacking the Chinise leader vessels.It was a war Of the modern society against ancient one,Britaain had power mortared vessels and China could not measure to this.They had no option but to surrender. Britain took over Hongkong and they did there trade from there.It is only in 1997 that Hongkong was returned to Chinese.After this ordeal you may think that China have truely forgotten but how do you forger a person that turns a huge part of population into Drug Addicts at gun point? For that lovely sip of tea Britain Sacrificed sobre brains.

Worlds most expensive cars

Everytime I see a great car I get goosebums,apparently am not alone most guys will do anything to drive a world class car.Like beautiful women, so are great cars. To me a great car is like the guy with a 6pack,the screaming when he removes the shirt danm!its exiting. A friend told he compares cars to beautiful bikini dorning babes. Here are some cars you would be proud to drive: Probably you thought you had a cool drive or you permanently dented your account when you bought the car.Your car might be scared if it meets with one of this great cars and tuck its tail between its legs,and dash for its life,ooooh!my bad it will draw the exhaust between its tyres and silently whoosh to your dark garage. Hennesy Venom GT,it goes for $1.2 million.The Hennesy says its 1,244hp and sets a world record time 13.36 seconds it accerates from 0 to 300 kilometres per hour or 186mp Do not gasp yet,Hennesy is just a drop,you want class then find a Lamborghini V, Roadster which retails at $4,5$million.Only nine were build In 2014. Let's go to something you see everyday Bugatti and Ferrari,the Britain once like Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Porshe and Mercedez-benz have their highest end model,Maybach Mercedez Baby is one of the most expensive Model. You may not be familiar with these brands Texas based high perfomance tuner Hennessey or akoenigsegg of Sweden.If you get a chance to own one of this then next buy a pimped Heli, There are other great brands but probably there are not available Or they are out of stock,so sorry put you money in another box: Ferrari La Ferrari goes for $1,1-2million Mc Larren P1 goes for $1,15million, has 903hp hit 62mph in less than 3 Seconds runs an electronic wall 217mp Lamborghini Aventador Coupe/Roadster goes for 242,280 pounds maximum speed 350KM/h,it goes from 0 to 100Km/h in only 3 seconds and you will get respect. Phantom Extended Wheelbase it is a Rolls-Royce a UK brand goes for 357,850 pounds an engine cubic capacity 6749cc,transmission of 8(automatic) .it has a saloon car body type and five seats Enjoy your purchase or better your fantasy

MATAMBElE(Zambezi river)

Elephants are blind for forty metre this is something I discovered on my study of the Zambezi River if they freeze you freeze if they charge you charge andrun as first as you can,don't climb a tree Because they can easly take you off A tree.Crocodiles according to locals are after every 100 metres. It tradition in this land that once you bring goats in the compound you have to slaughter them,since goat meat is rare almost the whole village Participates in the goat eating ceremony. The smoke that thunders,is one of the 7 wonders of the world in Zambezi.The hippos in the river is something to watch out for,they can easly cut you in half,they knocked livingstones boat and it toppled over,the crocodiles attacked him and ate one of his men. Victoria falls is the largest natural water fall in the world and livingstone made sure he discovered it.the thrill of standing aside and watching it as it folllowed,I can almost feel what he felt

Justice

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://fidakenya.org/%3Fpage_id%3D25&sa=U&ei=-KCRU737Me_B7Abc1YDQBg&ved=0CBMQFjAD&sig2=mfdgp76hmg3VFV-ySxCGLw&usg=AFQjCNH-5Ydwx9BN7FNdk7zg9tt-pPl8owDemocracy means justice for all,a free judicial system and corrupt free police force,equqlity to all and other aspects that define it. Like Juliani sings "sitasimama maovu yakitawala"(I will not stand and watch as evil rules),I listed these three because they define the class between richness and poverty.Kenya has two kinds of justice one for the poor and the other one for the rich which is really flexible depending on how deep your pockets are. Delamare killed a man on his farm(self-defense according to his words)he was sentensed and jailed for a short period during which he lived like a king!!Really!was it justice to the victim,he killed didn't he?His kind of justice was delivered.Sonko and Shebesh most recently exchanged fire in a restaurant and endangered Lives yet to date no arrests,they just recorded statements,in the same line the CID officer who is claimed To have spoken last to Embu speaker was arrested and sentensed before Even proper "investigations"could be Done and shortly after,Walaaaa!the speaker appeared unconscious and was taken to Gigiri Police Station and later to Aga Khan Hospital for treatment. In kenya it is really common for a poor guy to be arrested and jailed Longer and quickly than a rich one. A chicken thief is jailed longer than a billion thief gets away with it bt tactically paying "bail"in form of bribe and draging the case.A recent case is where a matatu driver plying Thika Road was arrested with other crew after their car had a grenade attack.Had it been a range rover sports would the driver had been arrested for carelessness? Mr Tobiko astonishes me,whenever who's who in society are on the wrong Side of the law he asks for their files so as to look into them.Does it mean Tobiko works for the rich?He Should let all be tried fairly regardless of their status. The rich have a way of making sure they will never see the walls of jail And if they do,it is short and five star experience. The physically disabled people are having it worse,I wonder where those Human Right Groups that fight for their rights are?no facilities in our courts and jails to fit their needs. Sitasimama maovu yakitawala

STD'S

The first time I heard this word the obvious came to my mind,"sexually Transmitted Diseases.The question was,what has got to do with grades?I found it amusing that such a serious case can be use to explain how some of college and university students get their grades and later degrees.
     Students in many institutions_mostly female,male are also catch up to the habits,barter trade their bodies. In exchange of marks.In effect this inventive habits of a well known short hand which is spreading like a bush fire on a windy day is creating  very weird social trends
    Students bribing their way to degrees. They bring out another method of it by using their bodies.
     Walk into many organization and find great doctors,professors who do not qualify to be in this positions because their degrees are gotten in the most indecent ways ever.
    We have had people who have degrees yet cannot perform on the same thing they claim to have learned and acquired skills on example of doctor who misdiagnose to the expense of the patients life or lifetime complications.These people taint the name of education and the institution they schooled in not only in Kenya but many other countries in the world.
It is a pity to those that will not lower themselves to such levels for anything,they believe in hard work and getting what they deserve
        While studying not only in higher education but also in some some secondary and primary school,there is always those teacher/lectures who exploit students/pupils sexually or ask them to give them a certain amount of money if they wanted to get good grades.The dimension and the angle,this habit is taking is astonishing to many.
  The amazing fact is that some students will prefer giving money or sex instead of sitting for a lecture.
     For business to be profitable it must involve two parties but in this particular kind the lecture benefits more than the student.The lecture being the seller,he prices them in accordance with the level of desperation because the commodity is scarce yet the demand is high so he holds the carrot and dangles it and if you afford the price then you can have a bite,he can change his mind along the way and not give you the grades you wanted yet you have slept with him a thousand and one times or given him a lot of money.The time wasted and the resources.
     It pains to know that some people,training us to be professionals and they do not qualify to be professionals themselves,they do not pass on the knowledge rather on improvised ways which stain the system itself.
  It is a pity that we compromise and lower the level of education making it unacceptable yet it is one of the best systems,if we corrupt every institution we have,what is the essence of even going to school?

security in kenya

 It is a pity that we are going through a tough time with security in our country.We have been doing every thing to make sure that everyone is safe by making sure we do not harbor illegal aliens who are up to no good,but it saddens me to know that as this efforts are being made am taken aback by how the police are doing the operations.I went through two road blocks today and if i had a bomb and a gun i would have gone anywhere with it.First the police stopped me then they checked my details and then asked me to open my boot which i did without hesitation.The police man just tap tapped on the boot and that was it, if i had a false boot with a bomb or guns i would have just gone through,if i had a gun strapped under my car i would have gone through.The rate of reluctance in police departments is pretty high,they do not deal with issues when need be,they postpone till something great happen then they cause war at every ones back yard .A  friend told me a story on how a person killed the wife and put her in the boot of his car the drove the body to BuruBuru police station, parked his car at the stations parking and left,the car was only noticed after a few days when the body started decomposing and there were flies all over the car.If it was a spy car with cameras they would have know everything about the station, if it was a bomb car it would have exploded and killed everyone who was around.After few incidences with police and their messing up I think Ole Lenku should resign, he knows nothing about security.How do you tell a thief that you will be going to arrest him in the night and expect to find him home?He knows nothing on intelligence,he is fast to speak on matters that require a lot of caution.The police should style up so that we can move forward in the war on terror and insecurity.
      I wonder why the Matatus have these guys that frisk passengers as they board them.If this frisk er finds a bomb on a passenger,how will he handle it?He does not have any police training,he knows nothing on bombs apart from what he hears on news.It is like sending a boy to do a mans job.The number of police in this country is high,why cant each PSV boarding area have police men to do this job?It makes sense, because if he finds a device he will know what to do.Let each person do there job, instead of traffic police concentrating on taking bribes let them catch a bad guy and prevent mass destruction that way they will get the much wanted credit.
  Matatus should be made to carry express passenger and no make stop,because these stops contribute to crime rise because criminals will not be at the actual bus stops but rather will wait for the vehicles along the way and fulfill their mission,they should have learned a lesson when a Githurai matatu was hijacked and lives were lost,if the driver did not stop to carry passengers along the way it would have been preventable.    

SCENES THAT KILL

It might be dangerous to act in some scenes because the might actually kill you.John Wayne acted till he was killed by the same thing that gave him bread.you will act in some scene with hills that you are not even able to walk in,imagine if you fell and the shoe goes through your heart you will definitely die.There are some stance that need to be acted with lots of caution in 1958 Tyrone power was stricken with a heart attack while film a dueling with co-star George Sanders.He died on his way to hospital some critics say the heart attack was due to overworking,in 1955 another actor also died of heart attack one John candy while filming.The crops use in acting can easily kill you when one Vic set his day in 1983 he never thought it will be his last but as he was acting an action scene with his children ,the production HELICOPTER above the crashed and killed him along with his two children.Another actor that was killed was one Merle Oberon who died in a car crash during filming and the film was never produced.
Fast and furious Paul Walker died while on a fast car.Ironically he died on the same speed he use to act.He loved speed.
Brandon Lee was killed in a stunt accident gone wrong.His character was supposed to be shot in one scene but the gun used during taping contained a fragment of a real bullet.He was hit in the abdomen and died later at the hospital.
68 years old Fox x died of a massive and fatal heart in 1991 while on set of television "THE ROYAL FAMILY".In Sanford and son he often acted faking a heart attack who knew he die of one.

why sometimes you can act to death

John Wayne at his best

I'm horrified to have to report this, John, but your girlfriend's claim is only slightly exaggerated. Of the 220 persons who worked on The Conqueror on location in Utah in 1955, 91 had contracted cancer as of the early 1980s and 46 died of it, including stars John Wayne, Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. Experts say under ordinary circumstances only 30 people out of a group of that size should have gotten cancer. The cause? No one can say for sure, but many attribute the cancers to radioactive fallout from U.S. atom bomb tests in nearby Nevada. The whole ghastly story is told in The Hollywood Hall of Shame by Harry and Michael Medved. But let's start at the beginning.

The Conqueror, a putative love story involving Genghis Khan's lust for the beautiful princess Bortai (Hayward), was a classic Hollywood big budget fiasco, one of many financed by would-be movie mogul Howard Hughes. Originally director Powell wanted to get Marlon Brando for the lead, but John Wayne, then at the height of his popularity, happened to see the script one day and decided he and Genghis were meant for each other. Unfortunately, the script was written in a cornball style that was made even more ludicrous by the Duke's wooden line readings. In the following sample, Wayne/Genghis has just been urged by his sidekick Jamuga not to attack the caravan carrying Princess Bortai: "There are moments fer wisdom, Juh-mooga, then I listen to you--and there are moments fer action — then I listen to my blood. I feel this Tartar wuh-man is fer me, and my blood says, 'TAKE HER!'" In the words of one writer, it was the world's "most improbable piece of casting unless Mickey Rooney were to play Jesus in The King of Kings."

The movie was shot in the canyonlands around the Utah town of St. George. Filming was chaotic. The actors suffered in 120 degree heat, a black panther attempted to take a bite out of Susan Hayward, and a flash flood at one point just missed wiping out everybody. But the worst didn't become apparent until long afterward. In 1953, the military had tested 11 atomic bombs at Yucca Flats, Nevada, which resulted in immense clouds of fallout floating downwind. Much of the deadly dust funneled into Snow Canyon, Utah, where a lot of The Conqueror was shot. The actors and crew were exposed to the stuff for 13 weeks, no doubt inhaling a fair amount of it in the process, and Hughes later shipped 60 tons of hot dirt back to Hollywood to use on a set for retakes, thus making things even worse.

Many people involved in the production knew about the radiation (there's a picture of Wayne himself operating a Geiger counter during the filming), but no one took the threat seriously at the time. Thirty years later, however, half the residents of St. George had contracted cancer, and veterans of the production began to realize they were in trouble. Actor Pedro Armendariz developed cancer of the kidney only four years after the movie was completed, and later shot himself when he learned his condition was terminal.

Howard Hughes was said to have felt "guilty as hell" about the whole affair, although as far as I can tell it never occurred to anyone to sue him. For various reasons he withdrew The Conqueror from circulation, and for years thereafter the only person who saw it was Hughes himself, who screened it night after night during his paranoid last years.

The original chest of the Ark of the Covenant is in Kenya, we can now authoritatively confirm. The chest said to contain the ten commandments that God handed over to Moses as stipulated in the book of Exodus 25; 6 - 10 as been in Kenya since the year 1210 AD.
In a paid up advertisement appearing in THE PEOPLE DAILY, dated 9th Nov 2007, the Chief Seer's messenger has explained in detail how the Ark Of The Covenant was transported from its original location of king Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. Solomon had a son with a foreign wife, Prince Menelik 1. At 19 years of age, he went to Sheba(Ethiopia) to attend his coronation and with consent of Levites carried with him the Chest. After years of temporary location in Ethiopia, the ark was put to rest in Axum.
In Axum, tunyaga (the people of the cross) or Nguo Ndune (the red costume) had conspired to steal Managi and Ikunjo (The Ark of the Covenant and Scrolls).This prompted the Kabiru (Hebrew) or the present day Gikuyu community to act. In the escape to hide the treasure, war erupted and had to be fought through to Thagana (Tana Island). From Tana Island the war entered the Somalia coast, Kaya forests in Kwale along the Kenyan coast. To divert attention, a replica of the Ark was made and broken into pieces in Digo, still on the Kenyan coast.
But that did not help as the war intensified pushing the Kabiru towards the mainland. They hurriedly buried the Managi and scrolls in secret locations in Mt Kenya. The writer continues to say that the location where the Ark Of The Covenant is, renamed by scholars as Tripple S, TSC shrine will never be subject to research. However, the scrolls which are of equal importance and which are concealed in sites renamed IKB and IKC, could be excavated and sited responsibly.
This revelation is likely to spark off renewed interest in the great search of the Ark Of The Covenant. In the article, the writer reveals that the Mt Kenya is regarded as a God's Mountain. The shrines therein are held in trust by a college of 12 seers who operate in secrecy to guard their wisdom. People who pray with their hands raised and facing the mountain will always have their prayers answered by God. That mode of prayer was prophesied by David when he said "the Ethiopians will raise their hands in prayer to God".
It was adopted as the Kikuyu mode of prayer when the Ark was put in their custody.
The revelation, and the events in the coming week, when the Kikuyu communities have been called upon to pray in unison to God, should be of great interest to religious scholars and historians.
      how true is it?

WHAT IS THE WORST JOB YOU HAVE EVER DONE?

Every minute of every hour, somebody, somewhere, is being stripped of their dignity, wondering what happened to the glittering career they hoped for. Unfortunately, we've not yet been able to substitute technology for human labor in jobs that largely rely on hand-eye co-ordination.
      We have all at one time done something we hated but because of circumstance we are forced to put up with these job.What is the worst job you have ever done?

kenyatta

Am happy that for the first time in Kenya we have a first lady who is active in making the lives of women much easy.At her age she is campaigning for women through running i just hope that people will recognize what she is doing  for our nation.We should join hands with her give her strength to continue fighting for the same things we have been asking for.Hail to you first lady.She has realized that it takes more to bring forth a life and due to the delicacy of the moment if not well taken care of it can lead to loss of  both life (mother and child)or loss of one life.She got me thinking how i was born,my mum had to have the best care so that i could be born safe,she had to go for medical check up to make sure nothing went wrong.
  There should be a guarantee to every unborn that everything will be done ts save their lives and that of Mummy.Mrs Kenyatta understand that life is precious and it needs to be saved by all means

The Jubilee Alliance government over the weekend came under sharp scrutiny of our development partners. Ambassadors from 18 leading missions stationed in Nairobi, including the United States, Britain and Japan all appealed to the government to end rampant corruption.
“At the moment when Kenya is restructuring government through the devolution process, attracting investment, expanding trade, creating jobs, and fighting terrorism, corruption is holding the country back. It is an unwelcome companion, and has no place in Kenya’s bright future,” reads the statement and calls for “strong commitment,” said the diplomats.
But in swift rejoinder, uncalled for and highly boisterous, Munyori Buku, long term president Uhuru Kenyatta’s spokesperson and currently Director of Public Communications at State House told off the diplomats, referring to  them as “junior officers”.

“They must start to learn that the world has shifte
d and nobody really cares about what they think. They can neither take us to heaven nor deliver us from hell,” said Mr Buku.
This is what got me thinking: why then did Mrs Kenyatta have run in the marked lanes of the city of London, where one of the signatories to the Nairobi statement, High Commissioner Dr Christian Turner, hails?
If the world has really shifted, where is the equivalent Gatundu Marathon or Kirinyaga Marathon which can attract Kenya’s first lady to go run helter skelter and fund-raise for 47 ‘mobile clinics’ to be erected in Kenya?
The coincidence of the statements of the ambassadors cannot be gainsaid. Both President Uhuru and his wife were holed up in London, invariably taking part in an elite athletes marathon.
For all Buku’s ludicrous posturing, Kenya is still very much beholden to the global world – especially the western world.But Buku has that sort of temerity because he serves a government whose foreign policy priorities is run at the behest of an indicted president suffering silently from global isolation.
People like Munyori Buku do not feel the pinch of the common man. He works in State House. He speaks for the President. However, the brazen exuberance of petty and aggressive arrogance only aggravates  Kenya’s sad and situation in the global sphere.
For Kenya to meet its 21st century challenges, it needs a foreign policy that is more relevant, and which appreciates relative decline of the role of the national government, or the ‘state’ as the sole traditional actor in the world stage.
Today, governments, or states, are facing stern competition from other actors in the international stage. These actors are exerting more subtle pressure, and are demanding that governments that governments take their interests into consideration when implementing foreign policy.
This is not difficult to understand. People want to travel freely, to conduct business abroad or to be involved in various types of national interactions and exchanges. For instance, nowadays, international decisions are more often shaped according to the opinions of the non-governmental organizations, or international persons, be they religious voices or politicians, lawyers or sportsmen.
Gradually, these non-state actors are expanding the sphere of their influence. The parliamentarians of the world have successfully set up a structure of global and regional interaction and are now claiming a role in diplomatic meetings – a role which traditionally was reserved for the executive branch.
Further, with decentralization of the state to more autonomous entity, foreign policy of a country is being shaped by these new entities greatly. International economy is becoming more and more competitive. Governments everywhere are primarily concerned with maintaining the competitiveness of their economies. Accordingly, private economic decisions are now largely controlling political choices of governments.
In countries like Kenya where domestic resources alone cannot uplift millions from penury, international partners become extremely important players. Diplomats in our country, therefore, have good reasons, and intentions, when they call the attention of President Uhuru on runaway government corruption.
To call ambassadors ‘junior officer’ brings into disrepute the integrity and reputation of the appointing authority and people of those countries. But it is even more contradictory, disgusting even,  when your boss, and his wife, still runs in the capitals where these ‘junior officers’ come from.

The Jubilee Alliance government’s “enduring anger” towards our western development partners often shows in the most uncouth manner, and, in many occasions, by the most garbage-spewing crackers stuck in the pre-2013 campaign ‘choices have consequences’ dishwater.

It is a shame that we are still humiliating women at this error,making them loose the one gift that God gave us for free,the pleasure of enjoying sex,women are human too and they deserve to enjoy marriage.Sex was meant for recreation and also to spice up the marriage.When you are intimate with your partner you should make sue that both of you enjoy the moment.It is not fair that some cultures allow women to be used only as a vessel,the guy enjoys himself while the woman's needs are not taken care of,removing a woman's clitoris is like telling someone to eat a sweet and not to feel the sweetness.God was not stupid when he placed it there,he wanted all the partners to enjoy the fruits he gave us.You should not mutilate women they deserve to enjoy every aspect of life. Ever wondered why you would give a Woman every material thing there could be on earth and she still cheats on you?Do not be shocked she wants something more"rock her Sex life"you might view the guy she is cheating with as a low life because maybe you are financially stable than him and maybe even good Looking than him but well he passed The test where you failed or maybe never attempted.He rocked you girl's Sex life,he was attentive enough to make sure she enjoyed it and gave It her all,he didn't view her as a vessel buh a human who needs an orgasm or two if possible as much as she can have,she will cry in your Limo yes because she loves the fine things in life but be rest assured The low life will wipe them and will Make sure she will not wet her eyes,rather will quench the burning Urge between her legs and makes sure She loves every minute of it. A satisfied woman can bow to a man,you do not tame a woman by Cutting off her gate way to fun she Will be recentful and will always look for something more out there. Woman who is financially stable will use. Her money to better her sex life either with gargets or with a great guy,as much as men (not all) are looking for ways to tame women You will never achieve it till She is sexually taken care of.

Tears of pain,he does not know what happened to him or even why it surely did,his innocence has been broken though in a few years this will be a tale that the father and the brother will only narrate to him,although psychologically he will be shattered.HE NEED TO CANCELLED BUT AM YET TO UNDERSTAND HOW.Who will give him back the mother he had,the breast milk he will miss,someone to call a mother who will give him all this.He suffered from the mistakes of others,people who are heartless,he could be the future president,how will he deal with terrorist if he became president,he will have so much hatred that he will not pardon any mistake such a child should not have to feel the wrath and the pains of life on some he does not understand.MAY GOD WHO IS THE CREATOR OF ALL BE THE JUDGE

IN God we trust

God hid himself in heaven for a reason imagine if he lived on earth with all the evils that we do,he would have stricken us to death but he sure do have mercy on us

he watches us from the heavens above

Weeping and grimacing, dozens of spectators at the Rwandan genocide memorial in Kigali have had to be carried from the stands as the emotional turmoil of the ceremony left many overcome with grief.
In disturbing scenes, performers at the Amahoro stadium in Kigal re-enacted events of the 2004 genocide, which resulted in almost a million deaths.
Actors dressed in grey and white played dead on the football field, while sorrowful wails and uncontrollable sobs resounded.
Thousands of Rwandans were in the country's main sports stadium on Monday to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the devastating 100-day genocide.
Global leaders, past and present, were also in attendance to remember the tragedy in which more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutus were slaughtered over an 100 day period, mostly with machetes.
President Paul Kagame and Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, lit a flame at the Kigali genocide memorial centre.
As one survivor began recounting his story, several in the crowd began to scream with despair. Counsellors had been stationed in the crowd to attend anyone overcome with emotion by the day.
The day's events were marred by a diplomatic spat with France over the country's role in the genocide.
President Kagame told Jeune Afrique on Monday that France and Belgium had done too little to save lives.
In response, France's justice minister announced he would not come to Kigali as planned. The Rwandan ambassador to France later announced that the French minister would have been banned from the memorial in any event.

• 1
  AP Photo/Ben Curtis
  Performers re-enact the events at a public ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, at Amahoro stadium in Kigali, Rwanda.
• 2
  Getty Images
  An emotionally distraught woman is carried out of Amahoro Stadium during the 20th anniversary commemoration
• 3
  
  Sorrowful wails and uncontrollable sobs resounded Monday as thousands of Rwandans packed the country's main sports stadium to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of a devastating 100-day genocide.
• 4
  Getty Images
  Performers enter Amahoro Stadium during the commemoration
• 5
  Getty Images
  A woman consoles Bizimana Emmanuel, 22, during the 20th anniversary commemoration
• 6
  Getty Images
  Thousands of Rwandans and global leaders, past and present, joined together at the stadium to remember the country's 1994 genocide
• 7
  Getty Images
  More than 800,000 ethnic Tutsi and moderate Hutus were slaughtered over a 100 day period.
• 8
  Getty Images
  Dozens of people had to be carried from the stands after becoming hysterical over the disturbing scenes
• 9
  Getty Images
  Ushers carry a screaming and emotionally distraught woman out of Amahoro Stadium during the 20th anniversary commemoration of the 1994 genocide
• 10
  Getty Images
  A woman is helped out of the the Amahoro stadium, in Kigali
• 11
  Getty Images
  The anniversary has been marked by reminders of festering anger with a major diplomatic row breaking out over renewed allegations of French complicity in the genocide.
• 12
  Getty Images
  A woman is helped out of the Amahoro stadium
• 13
  Getty Images
  Men help carry a crying woman at the Amahoro stadium, with many survivors overcome with grief as they relived the trauma of the massacres that left nearly a million dead
• 14
  Getty Images
  Rwandans gather under a banner, with writing in Kinyarwanda reading 'Remember 20', at the Amahoro stadium in Kigali 

No offence to 64-year-old Sibusiso Mthembu, but hearing his story just made me laugh out loud. Of course, the South African from KwaZulu-Natal tells it in all seriousness. And who knows, he may even be telling the truth about having visited heaven four times, so far. The first time was in 1998, and subsequent visits were made in 2004, 2006 and 2008. It all started in 1993, when a white man (an angel, apparently) paid him a visit and told him he was needed in heaven. And now, after several visits, he’s drawing a map to make sure the rest of us ‘unlucky’ ones get what he’s talking about.
But it’s not the fact that he took a few vacations to heaven or even that he’s drawing a map that amuses me. It’s more to do with the stuff he says he’s seen and done there. According to Mthembu, there are 11 heavens in all, and he was taken to the fifth one, Crista, first. It was there, in a city called Sharmoy, that he claims to have met Jesus. The main heaven is Salem, he says, where God’s temple is located. God is apparently in his youth, and of a Grayish complexion. Jesus is white. He saw God for the first time during his second trip, on a planet called Jadalem that’s mostly covered in water and ice.

Kenyans should embrace change,the change in security and all the road  rules it is the only way that out future can be better.Who would not be happy if they did not have to pay high fares because of the rain,a day when being a driver will be as cool as having a government job.Change is great because the future is made now

what is with the old look Chris .You are not cute here

 we have great talent our runners make our country known by the whole world.
Let us nature it

Am not happy with lack of matatus to get us to our daily activities but if you look at it from another angle it is great.Just think about it the overweight shall loose some of it,the lazy shall arise early and the drunk drivers will have a chance to sober up.We should not morn rather be happy because we a walking nation that is walking toward healthier looks and positively getting in shape,we will achieve two things at a go be healthy and get to work.Last but not least we shall save money we use on the exorbitant fares this is how desperate we are to get home or work.We should embrace walking because we cant die from it but such habits can kill us all

the waiting danger on our railway transport

Somalis in Eastleigh in Nairobi are under siege by stone throwing and machete wielding mobs angered by the recent bus bombing that has killed many people and injured others. Some of the mobs have called  themselves “Kenyans” as though their Kenyan identity is in danger, labeling Somalis as “terrorists” in their midst who are threatening their national security and their way of life. Indeed, a sense of growing xenophobia against Somalis - refugees or even Kenyan Somalis - has been reported.

On a personal level, having lived in Eastleigh in peaceful times in late 1980s and knowing how it was enough to be a Somali to be picked on by the security services to extort money from you, or to be robbed by machete wielding and gun-trotting Kenyan gangs, I can only feel sorry for any Somali who lives in Nairobi right now. Somalis must be feeling a sense of insecurity and helplessness during these stressful times. My heart goes out to them, as it equally goes out to the relatives and families of those killed in the bus bombing.

Although there was ongoing tension between Somalis and Kenyans in Eastleigh caused by Kenyans resentful of Somalis’ business success, I cannot help but to situate these disturbances in the context of the Kenyan invasion of Somalia in 2011. It was not that long when I asked the above questions in my article “Why the international community should not support the Kenyan invasion of Somalia?” published in Hiiraan.com. These and other hard nosed questions seem to be imposing themselves as recent developments have shown, and no one knows the answer.

A year has elapsed since the Kenyan invasion of Somalia, and anyone who examines the current situation on the ground can see three things becoming obvious as days go by.  

First, if the incursion was meant to protect Kenyan citizens and Kenya’s tourism industry from bombings and kidnappings by terrorists, it has failed to do so. Leave aside the tourism resorts of Mombasa or Malindi, bombings are becoming normal features in Nairobi as evidenced by the recent Eastleigh bombing. A year ago, who would have imagined bombs would explode on a bus in Nairobi, equating this beautiful metropolitan city to the war-torn Mogadishu in terms of insecurity?

Second, if the military adventure was aimed at securing Kenya borders with Somalia, insecurity along the Somali-Kenyan border is worsen than ever, as remnants of Al-Shabaab and the Kenyan security forces hunt-down each other alongside this porous border. A classic example is the killing of three Kenyan soldiers by masked gunmen in a town that borders Somalia, where Islamist militants are based. This has led to one of the worst crackdowns in Garissa town in the Somali region in Kenya carried out not by the police but by the military, which shows the gravity of the situation. Garissa, 350km north-east of the capital Nairobi, has been reported to be a “ghost” town where the military is entering schools and is shooting students. At least 8 people have been killed, and over 50 people injured since the start of the crackdown. The Kenyan Defense Minister, Mohammed Yusuf Haji, said he did not authorize the army action. This might indicate that the situation is getting out of control and  some sections of Kenya’s security apparatus are executing military operations without the knowledge and the approval of senior politicians.

Third, Somali nationalism/irreverent in the Somali region in Kenya, which was caused by the annexation of the region to Kenya by Britain although Somalis overwhelmingly voted to be united with their brethren in Somalia, seems to have been awakened and invigorated. Some underground liberation movements, such as the NFD liberation movement, have launched armed struggle against Kenyan authorities. The revival of Somali nationalism in the region is the most dangerous outcome of Kenya’s ill planned, ill-thought and myopic invasion of Somalia.

In conclusion, although the Kenyan forces have helped the Somali government to remove Al-Shabaab from some regions in south-western regions of Somalia, including the strategic port town of Kismayo, it seems thought the problem has shifted to the Kenyan-Somali border and to the Somali region in Kenya where insecurity has increased compared to the situation prior the invasion. The fact of the matter is that the longer the Kenyan forces remain in Somalia, the more likely they will be perceived as occupiers determined to annex Kismayo to Kenya. It is very likely that this will create more Somali nationalist movements determined to liberate Somali regions including the Somali region in Kenya from the clutches of Kenya.

In short, Kenya, please come out of Somalia quickly before it is too late. This happened almost a year ago after that so much more has happened it hurt that now we are still facing the same problem,am not racist but some times am scared to travel in the same car with a Somali especially if its really full,not all of them are bad but a few elements are making them to be stigmatized,i wish they would no how much harm they are doing to the community

* KENYAN INSECURITY* Reberating Somalia from the control of AL-SHABAB by the Kenyan Defense forces in ally with the AU forces is a grate step to making Africa a peaceful continent. However the countries which that have played the role have been stroke several times by the terror group. Uganda was bombed and several innocent life were lost. KENYA has been the receiving end when it come to terror attack. starting from West gate Mall attack to recent Likoni church shooting and still the fresh Eastleigh grenade attack. they have done it again this time at a police station,the same people who are suppose  to  us,how safe are we?

born of incest

No one gets a chance to choose their parents, when to be born, the economic stature of his family or even which part of the world to be born in. When a child is born regardless of the color of the mother, disabilities and the harshness of the environment and lifestyle, they smile, as a sigh of acceptance. We never choose to be born the way we are. A child is a sign of love and so they expect the world to love them back. The parents of the child make the decision to have it or not.

 A mother is raped by a relative and out of it a child is born; her live is torn between being a good mother and having to face the world with the shame that shall never go away, they bear the ridicule of the family and the pain of shuttered dreams. All over a sudden an uncle has now turned to be the father of the unborn child.

 In many cases incest is mainly a relative defiling an underage or raping an adult, but few cases the relation is consanguineous; that is they agree to the affair and even have children. Children born out of such a relation get confused of their linage, if it is a father and a daughter the child no longer have a grandfather and they get even more confused when they learn that they share a father with their mother. Two Germany siblings have four children and want the government to do away with laws that prohibit it so that they can lead a normal life as husband and wife. Patrick Stubbing met his sister at their mother’s funeral and they fell in love and out of it they have four children. ‘If they hadn't taken the first born the other three would have not been born’ claims stubbing. Some countries like America and France have legalized it. In many cultures, however, it is a taboo and children born out of incest are stigmatized and sometimes murdered.

 As much as we would want to argue that these children were born out of love, it is hard for them to have a normal child hood because even the society cannot allow them. A law in America protects such children and they have the right to inherit wealth from their fathers and they get an equal share as the legitimate children. They are children born out of unfair circumstances but they have a right just like any other child

wanjiku

One version of the “reverse discrimination” argument holds that it’s unfair to men to suggest that they are incapable of representing women’s interests. Another version of this argument is that it’s insulting to women to suggest that women are somehow so essentially different from men that they have to represent themselves — from which it follows that they are no more capable of representing men than men are capable of representing women. This “critique of essentialism” is one that defenders of measures to enhance women’s representation must take seriously.

On average, women do perform certain social functions that men, on average, perform less frequently or intensively. But there is nothing in this social fact to suggest that such differences are ordained by nature — the view that has been used for millennia to try to justify women’s social and political subordination to men. Instead, we can say that because of historically inherited patterns of gendered difference, including the gender division of labour, women by and large occupy a different social position from that of men. People from different cultural groups experience social life differently because of (or through the medium of) differences in language, forms of economy, beliefs about human relationships to nature and to the cosmos, and so on.

These differences in social perspective, as political theorist Iris Marion Young puts it, make sense of our intuition that it is important to have people from every sizeable cultural group in political life. Representatives who are themselves members of culturally or geographically distinctive communities — some of the very “communities of interest” that the new Constitution has in mind — will do a better job of advocating the interests of their constituencies than representatives from other communities because they have a better understanding of the real-life impact of laws and policies on their constituents. Someone from a drought-prone region will have a different perspective on water policy, for example, than someone from a region with heavy rainfall. These differences in perspective matter for the quality of public policy.

For the same reason, because women’s social positions are different in patterned and well-documented ways from those of men, even across regional, cultural and other forms of difference, they are more likely to be keenly attuned to the impact of legislation on women than are their male counterparts. This line of reasoning does not suppose that men are incapable of understanding women’s perspectives. Indeed, if they were incapable it would do little good to have more women in parliament; it would be as if men and women were speaking different languages. Instead, the point is that while men are capable of understanding, they frequently do not possess as sound an understanding of policies’ impact on women because they lack the social experience that would make this impact obvious to them.

This bias — call it an epistemic bias, or a bias in the kind of knowledge that people possess because of their social positions — affects not only the crafting of individual pieces of legislation, but also the legislative agenda itself. Because men are less likely to be attuned to the challenges women face in their daily lives, they are less likely to give priority to the kinds of legislation that have the greatest potential to improve the conditions that have the greatest impact on women’s well-being.

Take, for example, the widespread problem of sexual and domestic violence. Since men are seldom subject to these forms of violence, it is relatively unlikely that most men will take active measures to prevent it and to criminalise it. As a result, women continue to be far more vulnerable to violence than men. This generates a deep inequality between men and women in the extent to which they enjoy one of the most fundamental human rights, the security of their own bodies from violent harm. It is no accident that, around the world, study after study shows that women legislators are much more active advocates for legislation to protect against sexual and domestic violence than are their male counterparts.

The example of gender-based differences in vulnerability to violence is just one among many important policy issues in which studies demonstrate a strong connection between what political theorists call the “descriptive representation” as contrasted with the “substantive representation” of women. “Descriptive” representation is about whether or not a legislature accurately “describes” or expresses the diversity of the society it claims to represent. Some people refer to this as “mirror” representation: Is the legislature a true mirror of the people?
The metaphor of the mirror is useful in capturing the common experience of women or other segments of society when they look at a parliament and see no one who looks like them. They cannot recognise themselves in the body that is supposedly making laws on their behalf. The critique of parliaments as being insufficiently reflective of important segments of society played an important role in the movements for women’s suffrage and in the Civil Rights Movement for the enfranchisement of African-Americans in the United States in the 1960s. Mirror representation is an intuition that has deep roots in the very idea of representative democracy.

In contrast, “substantive” representation concerns the degree of fit between citizens’ interests and concerns and the actions of their elected representatives. If the majority of citizens in a given constituency are very much in favour of community development, for example, and their representative nonetheless votes against it or fails to deliver it, they are not getting very good substantive representation on that issue.

What, then, is the connection between women’s “descriptive representation” — the presence of women in parliament — and the substantive representation of women citizens’ concerns and interests? The first step in answering this question is to note the obvious fact that there are many differences among women. Women do not all share the same interests; they disagree deeply across a wide range of policy issues, including issues that don’t appear to have a lot to do with sex (say, foreign policy) and those that are all about sex (say, abortion). But study after study reveals that there is a real and persistent gender gap around a range of policy issues.

In general, and with some variations across different countries and regions, women are more supportive of affirmative action than are men. They are more concerned about violence, especially sexual violence. Family law matters are much higher on their political agendas than on men’s. In many African countries, there is a further gender gap around issues of water and energy, which is unsurprising in rural areas where women do most of the hauling of water and cutting of firewood. There have been dozens of empirical studies over recent years on the question whether better descriptive representation translates into better substantive representation for women.

The evidence is affirmative and clear, from study to study, from country to country. On average, women representatives do a better job of advocating the issues that matter to women than do their male counterparts. In a recent study on women’s representation in Tanzania, for example, Mi Yung Yoon shows that women MPs do more than male MPs to bring issues such as poverty, child labour, energy, HIV/Aids, water, agriculture, marriage, maternal health, energy and community development to the legislative agenda. Moreover, they frequently lead the debates on these issues. Noting these dynamics, Tanzanian House Speaker Samuel Sitta remarked, “Female MPs improve not only our awareness but also the national awareness on women’s issues. It is a national awakening.”

In short, presence matters. Having women in parliament makes a real and measurable difference to the quality of political representation received by the 50 per cent of the voting citizens who are women. In measuring the impact of women’s legislative presence on substantive representation, empirical research shows equally clearly that numbers matter. While even a small contingent of female representatives can make some difference in policy, significant changes in legislation and in policy agendas occur only when women have reached a “critical mass,” which most studies indicate is at about 30 per cent of the legislature. This is why Kenya’s constitutional provision guaranteeing that, in this case, women should hold 33 per cent of the seats is well targeted, even if it is only slightly above the threshold where descriptive representation brings a significant improvement in substantive representation.

Numbers matter for a number of reasons beyond the advocacy of women’s interests by women representatives. First, a larger number of women representatives increases the chances that they will be able to form strategic coalitions with male legislators around key issues. In other words, the power of numbers gives women more clout to advance the legislative agendas that matter most. Numbers matter, as well, because having more women in parliament disciplines male legislators to desist from the rhetorical tactics that they have so often used to silence their female colleagues.

In Kenya, as former parliamentarian Joe Khamisi notes in his recent book, The Politics of Betrayal, “During debates, women legislators had to endure sneers and snippets of degrading comments from their male colleagues, sometimes making their comments inaudible.” Having more women in parliament makes it less likely that sexist views have a place in the halls of the national legislature (where surely they do not belong). Instead of silencing women’s voices, sexist male representatives find that the rules of civility require them to silence themselves — a species of what Norwegian social and political theorist Jon Elster calls “the civilising effects of hypocrisy.”

Both presence and numbers matter for another critically important reason: Having significant numbers of women in parliament sends a loud and clear signal to all citizens that women have a proper place in the halls of power. This is particularly important when battling historically entrenched ideas. As democratic theorist Jane Mansbridge points out, this signalling effect goes far beyond mere symbolism. In societies where women have been historically excluded from the franchise (as in Kenya during colonial times), and then excluded from positions of responsibility (as in Kenya today), bringing women’s representation above the “critical mass” threshold makes it unambiguous that women can no longer be treated as second-class citize

One version of the “reverse discrimination” argument holds that it’s unfair to men to suggest that they are incapable of representing women’s interests. Another version of this argument is that it’s insulting to women to suggest that women are somehow so essentially different from men that they have to represent themselves — from which it follows that they are no more capable of representing men than men are capable of representing women. This “critique of essentialism” is one that defenders of measures to enhance women’s representation must take seriously.
 

On average, women do perform certain social functions that men, on average, perform less frequently or intensively. But there is nothing in this social fact to suggest that such differences are ordained by nature — the view that has been used for millennium to try to justify women’s social and political subordination to men. Instead, we can say that because of historically inherited patterns of gendered difference, including the gender division of labour, women by and large occupy a different social position from that of men. People from different cultural groups experience social life differently because of (or through the medium of) differences in language, forms of economy, beliefs about human relationships to nature and to the cosmos, and so on.
 

These differences in social perspective, as political theorist Iris Marion Young puts it, make sense of our intuition that it is important to have people from every sizeable cultural group in political life. Representatives who are themselves members of culturally or geographically distinctive communities — some of the very “communities of interest” that the new Constitution has in mind — will do a better job of advocating the interests of their constituencies than representatives from other communities because they have a better understanding of the real-life impact of laws and policies on their constituents. Someone from a drought-prone region will have a different perspective on water policy, for example, than someone from a region with heavy rainfall. These differences in perspective matter for the quality of public policy.
 

For the same reason, because women’s social positions are different in patterned and well-documented ways from those of men, even across regional, cultural and other forms of difference, they are more likely to be keenly attuned to the impact of legislation on women than are their male counterparts. This line of reasoning does not suppose that men are incapable of understanding women’s perspectives. Indeed, if they were incapable it would do little good to have more women in parliament; it would be as if men and women were speaking different languages. Instead, the point is that while men are capable of understanding, they frequently do not possess as sound an understanding of policies’ impact on women because they lack the social experience that would make this impact obvious to them.
 

This bias — call it an epistemic bias, or a bias in the kind of knowledge that people possess because of their social positions — affects not only the crafting of individual pieces of legislation, but also the legislative agenda itself. Because men are less likely to be attuned to the challenges women face in their daily lives, they are less likely to give priority to the kinds of legislation that have the greatest potential to improve the conditions that have the greatest impact on women’s well-being.
 

Take, for example, the widespread problem of sexual and domestic violence. Since men are seldom subject to these forms of violence, it is relatively unlikely that most men will take active measures to prevent it and to criminalize it. As a result, women continue to be far more vulnerable to violence than men. This generates a deep inequality between men and women in the extent to which they enjoy one of the most fundamental human rights, the security of their own bodies from violent harm. It is no accident that, around the world, study after study shows that women legislators are much more active advocates for legislation to protect against sexual and domestic violence than are their male counterparts.
 

The example of gender-based differences in vulnerability to violence is just one among many important policy issues in which studies demonstrate a strong connection between what political theorists call the “descriptive representation” as contrasted with the “substantive representation” of women. “Descriptive” representation is about whether or not a legislature accurately “describes” or expresses the diversity of the society it claims to represent. Some people refer to this as “mirror” representation: Is the legislature a true mirror of the people?
The metaphor of the mirror is useful in capturing the common experience of women or other segments of society when they look at a parliament and see no one who looks like them. They cannot recognize themselves in the body that is supposedly making laws on their behalf. The critique of parliaments as being insufficiently reflective of important segments of society played an important role in the movements for women’s suffrage and in the Civil Rights Movement for the enfranchisement of African-Americans in the United States in the 1960s. Mirror representation is an intuition that has deep roots in the very idea of representative democracy.
 

In contrast, “substantive” representation concerns the degree of fit between citizens’ interests and concerns and the actions of their elected representatives. If the majority of citizens in a given constituency are very much in favour of community development, for example, and their representative nonetheless votes against it or fails to deliver it, they are not getting very good substantive representation on that issue.
 

What, then, is the connection between women’s “descriptive representation” — the presence of women in parliament — and the substantive representation of women citizens’ concerns and interests? The first step in answering this question is to note the obvious fact that there are many differences among women. Women do not all share the same interests; they disagree deeply across a wide range of policy issues, including issues that don’t appear to have a lot to do with sex (say, foreign policy) and those that are all about sex (say, abortion). But study after study reveals that there is a real and persistent gender gap around a range of policy issues.
 

In general, and with some variations across different countries and regions, women are more supportive of affirmative action than are men. They are more concerned about violence, especially sexual violence. Family law matters are much higher on their political agendas than on men’s. In many African countries, there is a further gender gap around issues of water and energy, which is unsurprising in rural areas where women do most of the hauling of water and cutting of firewood. There have been dozens of empirical studies over recent years on the question whether better descriptive representation translates into better substantive representation for women.
 

The evidence is affirmative and clear, from study to study, from country to country. On average, women representatives do a better job of advocating the issues that matter to women than do their male counterparts. In a recent study on women’s representation in Tanzania, for example, Mi Yung Yoon shows that women MPs do more than male MPs to bring issues such as poverty, child labour, energy, HIV/Aids, water, agriculture, marriage, maternal health, energy and community development to the legislative agenda. Moreover, they frequently lead the debates on these issues. Noting these dynamics, Tanzanian House Speaker Samuel Sitta remarked, “Female MPs improve not only our awareness but also the national awareness on women’s issues. It is a national awakening.”
 

In short, presence matters. Having women in parliament makes a real and measurable difference to the quality of political representation received by the 50 per cent of the voting citizens who are women. In measuring the impact of women’s legislative presence on substantive representation, empirical research shows equally clearly that numbers matter. While even a small contingent of female representatives can make some difference in policy, significant changes in legislation and in policy agendas occur only when women have reached a “critical mass,” which most studies indicate is at about 30 per cent of the legislature. This is why Kenya’s constitutional provision guaranteeing that, in this case, women should hold 33 per cent of the seats is well targeted, even if it is only slightly above the threshold where descriptive representation brings a significant improvement in substantive representation.
 

Numbers matter for a number of reasons beyond the advocacy of women’s interests by women representatives. First, a larger number of women representatives increases the chances that they will be able to form strategic coalitions with male legislators around key issues. In other words, the power of numbers gives women more clout to advance the legislative agendas that matter most. Numbers matter, as well, because having more women in parliament disciplines male legislators to desist from the rhetorical tactics that they have so often used to silence their female colleagues.
 

In Kenya, as former parliamentarian Joe Khamisi notes in his recent book, The Politics of Betrayal, “During debates, women legislators had to endure sneers and snippets of degrading comments from their male colleagues, sometimes making their comments inaudible.” Having more women in parliament makes it less likely that sexist views have a place in the halls of the national legislature (where surely they do not belong). Instead of silencing women’s voices, sexist male representatives find that the rules of civility require them to silence themselves — a species of what Norwegian social and political theorist Jon Elster calls “the civilising effects of hypocrisy.”
 

Both presence and numbers matter for another critically important reason: Having significant numbers of women in parliament sends a loud and clear signal to all citizens that women have a proper place in the halls of power. This is particularly important when battling historically entrenched ideas. As democratic theorist Jane Mansbridge points out, this signalling effect goes far beyond mere symbolism. In societies where women have been historically excluded from the franchise (as in Kenya during colonial times), and then excluded from positions of responsibility (as in Kenya today), bringing women’s representation above the “critical mass” threshold makes it unambiguous that women can no longer be treated as second-class citizens
ns