The pressure is on you feel it
But you got all, believe it

When you fall
Get up oh, oh
If you fall
Get up eh, eh
Tsamina mina Zangalewa
Cuz this is Africa

Tsamina mina eh eh
Waka waka eh eh
Tsamina mina Zangalewa
Anawa aa
This time for Africa

Listen to your God
This is our motto
Your time to shine
Don’t wait in line
Y vamos por todo

People are raising
Their expectations
Go on and feed them
This ir your moment
No hesitations

To day’s your day
I feel it
You paved the may
Believe it

If you get down
Get up oh, oh
When you get down
Get up eh, eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
This time for Africa

Tsamina mina eh, eh
Waka waka eh, eh
Tsamina mina zangalewa
Anawa aa

This time for Africa
This time for Africa
We are all Africa

Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader of the West African nation Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987, was killed in the belief that it could extinguish the example he set for African youth and progressive forces across the continent. This idea could not have been more wrong.

One week before his October 15, 1987 assassination, in a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Argentinean-born revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Sankara declared: “Ideas cannot be killed, ideas never die.”

History is replete with martyrs whose ideas and actions have survived the passage time to inspire future generations. That is why 22 years after his death, Sankara continues to guide those who are struggling to end the domination of their continent and the enslavement of its people.

Sankara’s great popularity is in part a reflection of Africans’ disillusionment with corrupt leaders incapable of meeting the basic needs of their people, and who take their marching orders from Western capital and institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

His popularity is rooted in the profound sincerity of his commitment to serving his people and devotion to the cause of the emancipation of all African people.

Visionary

Above all, Sankara’s ongoing popularity is due to the ideas and values he embodied. If Sankara arouses as much fervour today as he did more than two decades ago, it is because he embodied and defended causes that resonate today among the world’s oppressed.

Most of the causes he defended are still at the heart of the struggle for the economic, social and political emancipation of the world’s oppressed.

Sankara was an environmentalist ahead of his time in a so-called “poor” country that was supposed to have other more pressing priorities.

Sankara was one of the first heads of state to condemn female genital mutilation, a position that reflected his unwavering commitment to the struggle against all forms of discrimination against women.

In his famous October 2, 1983 speech, he said: “We cannot transform society while maintaining domination and discrimination against women who constitute over half of the population.”

Sankara’s unrelenting struggle against corruption, long before the World Bank and IMF picked up the issue, made him an enemy of all corrupt presidents on the continent and of the international capitalist mafia — for whom corruption is a tool for conquering markets and pillaging the resources of the global South.

Sankara rejected the inevitability of “poverty”, and was one of the first proponents of food security. He achieved the spectacular feat of making his country food self-sufficient within four years, through sensible agricultural policy and, above all, the mobilisation of the Burkinabe peasantry.

He understood that a country that could not feed itself ran the risk of losing its independence.

In July 1987, Sankara called on African countries to form a powerful front against their continent’s illegitimate and immoral debt and to collectively refuse to pay it.

He understood before others that debt was a form of modern enslavement for Africa; a big cause of poverty.

Sankara famously said: “If we do not pay the debt, our lenders will not die. However, if we do pay it, we will die …”

Sankara was the first African head of state to denounce the United Nations Security Council’s right of veto over all UN decisions and to condemn the hypocrisy that characterised international relations.

Today, all of these ideas have become self-evident truths and are at the heart of popular resistance movements.

Supporting popular struggles

Among the great causes championed by Sankara was his unwavering support for all popular revolutionary struggles and resistance movements against imperialist domination and colonial oppression.

In his October 4, 1984 speech to the UN General Assembly, Sankara said: “Our revolution in Burkina Faso is open to the suffering of all peoples. It also draws its inspiration from the experiences of peoples since the dawn of humanity.”

These struggles inspired Sankara in his desire to profoundly transform the economic and social structures in his country, as well as the mentalities forged over centuries of foreign domination and oppression.

Sankara was one of the first heads of state to support the struggle of the Saharawi people of Western Sahara against Moroccan occupation. He expressed the solidarity of the Burkinabes with the struggle of the Kanak people of Kanaky, or New Caledonia, in the South Pacific against French colonialism.

During a trip to New York, he went to Harlem to express his support for the anti-racist struggle of African-Americans.

The Burkinabe Revolution Sankara led showed its unwavering support and solidarity for all people resisting US policies of imperialist aggression. At the UN General Assembly — in the belly of the beast — Sankara forcefully condemned the United States’ illegal blockade and permanent aggression against the Cuban people.

In this same forum, he condemned Washington’s unconditional support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

Burkinabe Revolution’s successes

Sankara came to power in a military coup d’etat on August 4, 1983, but his revolution was nonetheless a profoundly popular one.

For Sankara, political power was a tool for liberating his country from foreign domination, and above all liberating his people from the multiple forms of economic, social, political and cultural domination.

In a October 2, 1983 speech, he explained that these goals would be achieved through the destruction of the neocolonial state and the transformation of all socioeconomic structures and institutions inherited from colonialism, including the army.

These transformations should lead to the transfer of power to the people, he said. “The goal of this revolution is to exercise power by the people.”

This fundamental objective could be achieved only by mobilising the people.

Sankara said: “I think the most important thing is to bring the people to a point where they have self-confidence, and understand that they can, at last … be the authors of their own wellbeing.”

To a great extent, the Burkinabe Revolution was an original experiment in profound social, economic, political and ideological transformation. It was a bold attempt at endogenous (internal) development through popular mobilisation.

This required extraordinary efforts to raise consciousness and mobilise the masses in the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDR) and other revolutionary structures.

Despite some of the excesses of the CDRs and the other revolutionary structures, there is no doubt that one of the main objectives of the revolution under Sankara was to create the possibility for the people to speak and express themselves freely, and in so doing build their self-confidence.

Weaknesses and mistakes

As in all human endeavours, the Burkinabe Revolution had its ups and downs. Despite its incontestable achievements, the revolution also had its weaknesses that ultimately undermined the cohesion of the leadership.

These stoked opposition among segments of the population that initially supported it, such as the intellectual middle classes.

One of the weaknesses related to the fact that the social forces that had a stake in its success — peasants and workers — may not have had the ideological tools to enable them to better understand and support the pace of revolutionary change.

Another weakness lay in the difficulty of building a solid and durable coalition between Sankara and his comrades on the one ha
nd, and the political parties representing the intellectual middle classes on the other.

This undoubtedly explains some of the mistakes made by the revolution’s leadership that alienated portions of the population and worsened the contradictions within the leadership when difficulties accumulated.

Perhaps, to some extent, activism took the place of the more patient work required to educate the masses so that social and ideological obstacles to popular mobilisation could be overcome.

Sabotage by enemies working in the shadows and the country’s relative isolation in the sub-region put the final nail in the coffin.

Sankara’s revolutionary government was overthrown, and Sankara killed, in an October 15, 1987 military coup.

Lessons

The Burkinabe Revolution was the last big push for popular and democratic emancipation on the African continent. Neither the end of apartheid in South Africa, nor SWAPO’s victory in Namibia, brought the same kind of significant economic and social transformation.

The revolution was a bold experiment in endogenous development, with the construction of infrastructure (such as dams, railways, schools and roads) through the intense mobilisation of the masses powered by the principle of self-reliance.

Sankara denounced so-called foreign “aid”, which he said “produced nothing more than disorganisation and enslavement”.

He refused to listen to the World Bank and IMF, “charlatans trying to sell development models that have all failed”.

Sankara showed that “poverty” did not have to translate into a loss of dignity or sovereignty.

The Burkinabe Revolution can also teach some negative lessons, such as the difficulty of building a sustainable relationship between the army and progressive intellectuals.

Another lesson relates to the destiny of military coups: can a coup d’etat truly serve as the basis for sustainable revolutionary change or is it condemned to be a flash in the pan?

African revolutionary forces must study the lessons from this experience to better pursue future struggles.

The ideas and principles that guided the Burkinabe Revolution did not vanish with Sankara’s assassination. They will continue to guide African popular struggles and resistance movements until foreign domination has been vanquished and Africans have recovered their sovereignty.

The best way to honour Sankara’s memory is to continue his fight and promote the values he embodied.

Just as Che’s blood has fed the sacred ground of the Americas where worthy successors of the legendary revolutionary are now taking root and pursuing the dreams of Simon Bolivar and other South American heroes, the sacrifice of Sankara and his predecessors will produce other Sankaras who will one day realise the dream of an independent, united and prosperous Africa that is the master of its own destiny.

Demba Moussa Dembele is the director of the African Forum on Alternatives based in Dakar. This article is abridged from Links, international journal of socialist renewal, www.links.org.au.]

And apparently a search warrant affidavit was unsealed today in Houston, Texas, according to which Jackson’s doctor admits to treating Jackson for about six weeks with 50mg of propofol, an emulsion which has a milky consistency, at night via an intravenous line.

The report goes on:

But Murray told detectives that he feared Jackson was forming an addiction and began trying to wean the pop star off the drugs. He lowered the dosage to 25 milligrams and mixed it with two other sedatives, lorazepam and midazolam. On June 23, two days before Jackson’s death, he administered those two medications and withheld the propofol.

On the morning Jackson died, Murray tried to induce sleep without using propofol, according to the affidavit. He said he gave Jackson Valium at 1.30 am. When that didn’t work, he said, he injected lorazepam intravenously at 2 am. At 3 am, when Jackson was still awake, Murray administered midazolam.

Over the next few hours, Murray said he gave Jackson various drugs. Then at 10.40 am, Murray administered 25 milligrams of propofol after Jackson repeatedly demanded the drug, according to the court records.

Now, if this account is reliable, it means Jackson had taken three powerful benzodiazepines on his final morning on earth. These were diazepam (also known as Valium), lorazepam (Ativan) and midazolam (Hypnovel). In Britain Hypnovel, which when injected intravenously causes very deep sedation, is almost exclusively used for heavy sedation in intensive care and induction of anaesthesia. It is not used as a sleeping medication in this country, as a rule. Lorazepam and midazolam are both short acting benzos but still they are Central Nervous System depressants, they may well have been swimming around in his system, plus the Valium, when he took the propofol, so it raises the possibility that there was an additive effect from multiple “downers” or CNS depressants – sometimes called polypharmacy.

An update adds:

Although Murray acknowledged to police that he administered propofol, authorities said they could find no evidence that he had purchased, ordered or obtained the medication under his medical license or Drug Enforcement Administration tracking number. However, police detectives saw about eight bottles of propofol in the house along with other vials and pills.

The report mentions a number of other benzodiazepine drugs having been found. Again, it must be said these drugs are not normally lethal when used on their own, but when mixed with other CNS depressants like alcohol or something like propofol, they can be. Also, a number of other doctors are mentioned as having administered propofol. We’ll have to await developments on that, but what can be said for sure is that any doctor who prescribed propofol to Jackson will have some explaining to do.

On the whole I am not inclined to blame doctors in these cases. Patients must take some responsibility. Propofol is dangerous but it is not, yet, a scheduled and controlled drug in the US. (Possible this will change.) Still, people are entitled to ask: was there reasonable justification for administering a powerful hospital anaesthetic, in the home, to this patient – even if the patient was by all accounts exceedingly demanding?

The scene as described above is horrendous: it is dark, the early hours of the morning, a spoilt and drug-dependent pop star, desperate to sleep, whines, cajoles and bullies his personal doctor for repeated doses of sedatives. If the first benzo did not work, it suggests he was habituated, with a significant tolerance (which is why he can’t sleep anymore), so giving more of the same class of drug is not going to help much. As for the propofol: Dr Murray must have known the risks, or why would he have held out so long before giving it?

Internet Advancement, which also goes by 4GreatBuys.com, must refund
customers, pay $24,432 to the state for costs incurred and a civil penalty of
$25,000.

The company had promised to get its customers ranked in the top 10 to 20
results on the search engines for $980 to $1,500 in set-up fees and monthly fees
of $79.80 to $89.95.

The case involved “search engine optimization” services, which attempt to get
businesses high placement in search-engine results.

“Internet Advancement misrepresented its success rate, promised more than it
could deliver, then refused to provide refunds to customers who didn’t get what
they paid for,” said Attorney General Christine Gregoire.

She said the Attorney General’s Office, the Federal Trade Commission and the
Better Business Bureau received more than 100 complaints from customers around
the country.

Microsoft MSN

New deals for movie lovers

Microsoft’s MSN division said yesterday it has signed new deals with Blockbuster, CinemaNow and MovieTickets.com to partner on its MSN Movies site, at movies.msn.com.

People will be able to rent DVDs, download movies and buy tickets online at the site, Microsoft said. Blockbuster launched its own DVD rental service this week, and the additional placement on MSN’s site will likely give it more exposure to Internet users.

Online movie-download company CinemaNow will use the site to offer a subscription service to MSN users for $9.95 a month or $49.95 a year. 

Nike

Discount brands acquired

Nike, the world’s largest athletic-footwear maker, acquired Official Starter Properties and Official Starter for about $43 million to gain brands that sell in discount stores.

Nike said the businesses, which own and license the Starter, Team Starter and Asphalt brands, will be operated by Exeter Brands Group, a new operating unit. Nike also gains the Shaq and Dunkman brands of apparel, footwear and accessories.

Enron

Lay won’t get trial in Sept.

HOUSTON — Enron founder Kenneth Lay will not get the September trial he wanted on charges stemming from the collapse of the scandal-ridden company.

Lay had asked for a Sept. 14 trial, and told U.S. District Judge Sim Lake he would give up his right to face a jury and leave his fate in the judge’s hands if that would result in a speedy prosecution.

Lake yesterday declined to set a trial date. The judge indicated he could decide by early October on whether the former Enron chairman will get a separate trial or face a judge or jury alongside his one-time protégé, former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, and the company’s former top accountant, Richard Causey.

All three have pleaded not guilty.

Federated Department Stores

Profit dives while sales rise

CINCINNATI — Second-quarter profit tumbled 35 percent at Federated Department Stores, largely because of the expense of buying back debt, while sales rose 3 percent, the retailer reported yesterday.

The results fell short of analysts’ expectations. Federated’s stock price slipped 3 percent, even though the retailer, parent company of Bon-Macy’s, slightly raised its earnings guidance for 2004.

Shares of Federated fell $1.52 to $44.50. They have declined 5.6 percent this year.

Compiled from Times staff, Bloomberg News and The Associated Press

step 2Suck the WiFi USB!
Suck it up on the 1.25″ PVC pipe!

step 3The hardest part...
Get the 3″ PVC. Count the focal point. Make a mark in the focal point. Then put aluminum foil EXCEPT for the focal point. Then make a hole around 5.3cm from the edge for the USB wifi. Insert than USB Wifi in.


step 4 Almost done!
Close the 3″ PVC pipe (the one with the 1.25″ doff).

step 5 Drilling!
Drill the wok and screw it with the another 3″ doff.

step 6 Secure it together!
Secure it (picture)

How I can collaborate:
You can collaborate donate what you could, we are optimistic that between all we can achieve that by the ends of 2009 the inhabitants of Biba have his well of drinkable water.
It is great to ask, treats itself about the water of his lives?

Contacts:
En Europe:
Moussa ki
+34 677 673 405
Email: pozobiba@europegoodbye.com

1. Save your MP3 file to the same directory where you will be playing the sound from, or a sound directory which you know the URL for already,

2. Open up a notepad by clicking Start => Programs => Accessories => Notepad

3. Type in only the exact Address or URL of your MP3 file.

    * Type it in as simple as this:

    http://www.domain.com/sound/music.mp3

    where the domain is your domain, the sound folder is where you placed your MP3, and the music.mp3 is your mp3 file.

    *

      Save this file as music.m3u . Upload this file into the directory where you will place your sound.

4. Open your page up in an editor such as Notepad that will allow you to edit the code on the page.

5. Insert the following code into the HTML code of your page for a clickable link to stream by using this:

Clickable player and doawnload this file by right clicking it and save to yur directory:

<a href=”music.m3u”><img border=”0″ src= “mp3.gif” width=”41″ height=”25″></a>

Or you can embed with this:

<EMBED src=”music.m3u” autostart=true hidden=true>

Or you can embed for both IE and Netscape with this:

<!This code for IE>
<EMBED SRC=”http://yourdomian.com/sound/music.m3u” HIDDEN=”true” AUTOSTART=”true” width=”128″ height=”128″>
<!This code for Netscape>
<OBJECT ID=”MediaPlayer”
classid=”CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95″
CODEBASE=”http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=6,4,5,715″
standby=”Loading Microsoft Windows Media Player components…”
TYPE=”application/x-oleobject” width=”239″ height=”179″>

<PARAM NAME=”FileName” VALUE=”http://server/path/your-file.asx”>
<PARAM NAME=”AnimationatStart” VALUE=”false”>
<PARAM NAME=”TransparentatStart” VALUE=”true”>
<PARAM NAME=”AutoStart” VALUE=”true”>
<PARAM NAME=”ShowControls” VALUE=”0″>

<Embed TYPE=”application/x-mplayer2″
pluginspage=”http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/redir.dll?prd=windows&sbp=mediaplayer&ar=Media&sba=Plugin&”
SRC=”http://Yourdomain.com/sound/music.m3u”
Name=MediaPlayer
ShowControls=0
Width=2
Height=2
</embed>
</OBJECT>