Unknown to the general public, both the United Nations (General Assembly in New York) and the World Economic Forum (in Davos – Kloisters, Switzerland) are planned five years ahead. Consequently, the programme for 2020 is already being finalized. This is notwithstanding the fact that we are still in the first quarter of 2015! It only confirms the old maxim: “Those who fail to plan plan to fail!”
However, what is most intriguing is that both organizations have adopted the same theme, “TRUST ME”, for their respective events. Indeed, the two events might well be merged in order to save costs, time and energy. Wait for further announcements. For now, let us share the vignettes from the streaming joint video by the United Nations and the World Economic Forum. BREAKING NEWS:
(i) Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (president of Nigeria):
“When I went back to the United Nations the following trip (after we had conquered the Ebola epidemic), the director-general of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, was so elated that she wanted to physically lift me up. But here in Nigeria, I am just like refuse to be dumped in the trash can. The way Chan was speaking, if it was her duty to appoint the next president of Nigeria, she would just have appointed Jonathan that day without election. She was impressed with Nigeria’s effort.”
(ii) Mugabe: “Nigerian witch doctors planned to kill me”:
Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, has alleged that his former vice-president and other top officials in his ruling Zanu-PF sought the services of Nigerian witchdoctors in a bid to kill him.
The Africa Review reported that President Mugabe made the bizarre claims as he celebrated his 91st birthday at a lavish party hosted by the party’s communist-styled 21st February movement.
The veteran ruler, in power since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, claims he was ordained by God to rule forever, according to the report.
He told party supporters at the celebrations held at a top hotel in the resort town of Victoria Falls that sacked Vice-President Joice Mujuru used two Nigerian witchdoctors in her alleged plot to have him killed.
Mujuru was sacked together with more than 10 cabinet ministers for allegedly plotting to assassinate President Mugabe and being involved in corrupt activities.
President Mugabe said Mujuru was now too desperate to push him out of power even after he won an election in 2013.
“We managed to know what Mujuru was doing at her house, even consulting witchdoctors,” he claimed. “Recently she invited two Nigerian witchdoctors. We heard that they were specialists in the field of witchcraft. They were specialists, yes, but specialists in robbing people, foolish people,” he said.
He said the Nigerians ordered Mujuru to buy chickens that were named after herself, the president, his wife and Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa. The president claimed that the former vice-president, who was his deputy for 10 years, performed the rituals naked.
“Where do these Nigerians get the powers to entrap the soul of a human being into a chicken or sheep and then kill him? God is for us all. I also go to church, I do not believe in superstition. We were taught God’s teachings,” Mugabe said.
Last year, Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Ministry summoned Zimbabwean envoy in Abuja, Stanley Kunjeku, to protest after President Mugabe said Nigerians were corrupt. The Nigerian government at the time said it had lodged ‘the strongest protest’ against the veteran ruler’s statements.
(iii) “Most humble president in the world steps down”
Extract from the valedictory speech of Jose “Pepe” Mujica, president of Uruguay:
“A president is a high-level official who is elected to carry out a function. He is not a king. He is not a god. He is a civil servant. I think the ideal way of living is to live like the vast majority of the people whom we attempt to serve and represent.”
Uruguay’s President Jose Mujica: No palace, no motorcade, no frills:
“If anyone could claim to be leading by example in an age of austerity, it is Jose Mujica, Uruguay’s president, who has forsworn a state palace in favour of a farmhouse, donates the vast bulk of his salary to social projects, flies economy class and drives an old Volkswagen Beetle. But the former guerrilla fighter is clearly disgruntled by those who tag him ‘the world’s poorest president’ and – much as he would like others to adopt a more sober lifestyle – the 78-year-old has been in politics long enough to recognize the folly of claiming to be a model for anyone.”
(iv) Ailing Zambian president to seek treatment abroad
“Zambia’s President Edgar Lungu has to undergo throat surgery abroad, his doctors say, after earlier reporting that he had malaria.”
(v) Eric Holder (US attorney-general) on CNN: “It is not true that some banks are too big to fail. With reference to the US 2008 financial meltdown that triggered a global crisis, the problems for the prosecutors range from possible advice-of-counsel defences; the adequacy or inadequacy of written disclosures; the difficulty to establish materially and intent. And in some instances, it is simply not possible to establish knowledge of a particular scheme on the part of a high-ranking executive who is far removed from a firm’s day-to-day operations. Responsibility remains so diffuse and top executives so insulated, that any misconduct could again be considered more a symptom of the institution’s culture than a result of willful actions of any single individual.”
(vi) Al Jazeera (quoting the website of Dubai-based global investor, Safanad): “The way to make money investing is to identify a storm system that is powerful enough, to serve as an energy engine for revaluing a portfolio. Then you move capital into position to take advantage of the impending price changes driven by the arbitrage activities of other investors.”
J.K Randle
