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In a move that surprised few, President Jammeh has relieved Lt. Peter Singhateh, brother of the former Secretary of State for the Forest and Environment Edward Singhateh, of his commanding position in the army also discharged from the Gambian National Army. Peter Singhateh was the Deputy Commander of the Defense Staff. The Gambia Journal has learnt that Peter Singhateh left the country only a week for a-one year training in an unnamed foreign country. ...the Gambiajournal

Another unconfirmed report say the recently dismissed Secretary of State for Forestry and the Environment, Mr. Edward Singhateh has been arrested and detained. The yet to be confirmed report did not say when and why Mr. Singhateh was arrested. He was the only remaining one of the three men who together formed the post-coup military junta that ruled The Gambia between 1994 to 1996...

According to unassailable sources from State House, the most powerful man in Yahya Jammeh’s government, 39 year old Edward David Singhateh, a callous man masked in a fake image who has killed more Gambians than any other person has been sacked. His Permanent Secretary, Mr. Kotu Cham of Sanchaba Sulay Jobe village is the new Secretary of State for Forestry and the Environment.... Gambia echo

The Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh will today, September 14th, name a new cabinet, a report monitored over GRTS yesterday announced. According to the announcement, President Jammeh, acting on relevant provisions of the Gambian Constitution, yesterday effected a cabinet reshuffle. Meanwhile Mr. Kebba Sanyang, who hitherto served as Attorney- General and Secretary of state for Justice, has been reassigned to the Department of State for Works, Construction and Infrastructure as the Secretary of State of that Department. Mrs. Marie Saine Firdaus, Technical Adviser Office of the President, has been appointed as Anthony-General and Secretary of State for Justice. The rest of the Cabinet is expected to be announced today.... The Point

Update:

Omar Faye and Bala Jahumpa are out of the Jammeh cabinet. The former replaced by Mass Axi Gaye and the later by Crispin Grey Johnson. Mr abdoulai Sallah formerly of Health has been brought back to replace Grey Johnson at the Higher education portfolio, while Ousman Jammeh is entrusted with the newly created petroleum ministry. Petroleum hmmm...

All other secretaries of state remain intact. Bala Jahumpa and Omar Faye will be assign diplomatic duties.

Professor Ba Banutu-Gomez, the proprietor of the newly built Bantu Business College, has called on all Gambians outside The Gambia to stop focusing on politics, and instead focus on developing the country regardless of any political ideology one may have, adding that if the country is the centre of our hearts and thinking, we can work together even though we may have different political ideologies.

The unspoken truth here, I suspect, is that Obama has struck on the central folly of our post-9/11 counter-terrorism defense policy -- strike hard where they aren't and go easy where they are. I think everyone can see this. But Obama got there first. So they need to attack him for saying it..

I'm always interested to try to tease apart and find the meta-debates operating beneath the surface of campaign debates. As I wrote a few years ago in what I called the bitch-slap theory of GOP electoral politics, the whole swift-boat saga was less about the specifics of Kerry's injuries forty years ago than whether he could defend himself from the charges today. Someone who can't defend himself is weak; and if a guy can't defend himself he can't defend you.

that's what that whole song-and-dance was about.
So what is this back and forth about Obama and Pakistan about?
What this has boiled down to -- and this became even more clear after Tuesday night's labor-hosted debate, when Biden and Dodd acted as Hillary's proxies -- is Hillary, in league with the party's foreign policy establishment, trying to make Obama, implicitly or explicitly, concede an error, that he misspoke.
Precisely what he misspoke about is largely beside the point. The key is that they get him to concede that in the complex and serious world of foreign policy big-think, where words have consequences, he made an error. Of course, it's almost good enough if most observers decide that Obama screwed up. But once he concedes it himself, if he does, he stipulates from now through the end of the Democratic primary campaign that his inexperience in foreign policy is a basic premise of the campaign upon which the battle between him and Hillary will be waged. He can learn, improve, make progress, whatever, but his inexperience compared to Hillary will continue to be the reference point throughout... ..tpm

August 3, 2007
To: Interested Parties
From: Samantha Power -- Founding Executive Director, Harvard University Carr Center for Human Rights Policy

Re: Conventional Washington versus the Change We Need
It was Washington’s conventional wisdom that led us into the worst strategic blunder in the history of US foreign policy. The rush to invade Iraq was a position advocated by not only the Bush Administration, but also by editorial pages, the foreign policy establishment of both parties, and majorities in both houses of Congress. Those who opposed the war were often labeled weak, inexperienced, and even naïve.
Barack Obama defied conventional wisdom and opposed invading Iraq. He did so at a time when some told him that doing so would doom his political future. He took that risk because he thought it essential that the United States “finish the fight with bin Laden and al Qaeda.” He warned that a “dumb war, a rash war” in Iraq would result in an “occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences.”
Barack Obama was right; the conventional wisdom was wrong. And today, we see the consequences. Iraq is in chaos. According to the National Intelligence Estimate, the threat to our homeland from terrorist groups is “persistent and evolving.” Al-Qaeda has a safe-haven in Pakistan. Iran has only grown stronger and bolder. The American people are less safe because of a rash war.
Over the last few weeks, Barack Obama has once again taken positions that challenge Washington’s conventional wisdom on foreign policy. And once again, pundits and politicians have leveled charges that are now bankrupt of credibility and devoid of the new ideas that the American people desperately want.

On each point in the last few weeks, Barack Obama has called for a break from a broken way of doing things. On each point, he has brought fresh strategic thinking and common sense that break with the very conventional wisdom that has led us into Iraq.
Diplomacy: For years, conventional wisdom in Washington has said that the United States cannot talk to its adversaries because it would reward them. Here is the result:
* The United States has not talked directly to Iran at a high level, and they have continued to build their nuclear weapons program, wreak havoc in Iraq, and support terror.
* The United States has not talked directly to Syria at a high level, and they have continued to meddle in Lebanon and support terror.
* The United States did not talk to North Korea for years, and they were able to produce enough material for 6 to 8 more nuclear bombs.
By any measure, not talking has not worked. Conventional wisdom would have us continue this policy; Barack Obama would turn the page. He knows that not talking has made us look weak and stubborn in the world; that skillful diplomacy can drive wedges between your adversaries; that the only way to know your enemy is to take his measure; and that tough talk is of little use if you’re not willing to do it directly to your adversary. Barack Obama is not afraid of losing a PR battle to a dictator – he’s ready to tell them what they don’t want to hear because that’s how tough, smart diplomacy works, and that’s how American leaders have scored some of the greatest strategic successes in US history.
Barack Obama’s judgment is right; the conventional wisdom is wrong. We need a new era of tough, principled and engaged American diplomacy to deal with 21st century challenges.
Terrorist Sanctuaries: For years, we have given President Musharraf hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid, while deferring to his cautious judgment on how to take out high-level al Qaeda targets – including, most likely, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Here is the result:
* Bin Laden and Zawahiri – two men with direct responsibility for 9/11– remain at large.
* Al Qaeda has trained and deployed hundreds of fighters worldwide from its sanctuary in northwest Pakistan.
* Afghanistan is far less secure because the Taliban can strike across the border, and then return to safety in Pakistan.
By any measure, this strategy has not worked. Conventional wisdom would have us defer to Musharraf in perpetuity. Barack Obama wants to turn the page. If Musharraf is willing to go after the terrorists and stop the Taliban from using Pakistan as a base of operations, Obama would give him all of the support he needs. But Obama made clear that as President, if he had actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan – and the Pakistanis continued to refuse to act against terrorists known to be behind attacks on American civilians – then he will use highly targeted force to do so.
Barack Obama’s judgment is right; the conventional wisdom is wrong. We need a new era that moves beyond the conventional wisdom that has brought us over-reliance on an unreliable dictator in Pakistan and an occupation of Iraq.

Nuclear Attacks on Terrorist Targets: For years, Washington’s conventional wisdom has held that candidates for President are judged not by their wisdom, but rather by their adherence to hackneyed rhetoric that make little sense beyond the Beltway. When asked whether he would use nuclear weapons to take out terrorist targets in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Barack Obama gave the sensible answer that nuclear force was not necessary, and would kill too many civilians. Conventional wisdom held this up as a sign of inexperience. But if experience leads you to make gratuitous threats about nuclear use – inflaming fears at home and abroad, and signaling nuclear powers and nuclear aspirants that using nuclear weapons is acceptable behavior, it is experience that should not be relied upon.
Barack Obama’s judgment is right. Conventional wisdom is wrong. It is wrong to propose that we would drop nuclear bombs on terrorist training camps in Pakistan, potentially killing tens of thousands of people and sending America’s prestige in the world to a level that not even George Bush could take it. We should judge presidential candidates on their judgment and their plans, not on their ability to recite platitudes.
Vision: American foreign policy is broken. It has been broken by people who supported the Iraq War, opposed talking to our adversaries, failed to finish the job with al Qaeda, and alienated the world with our belligerence. Yet conventional wisdom holds that people whose experience includes taking these positions are held up as examples of what America needs in times of trouble.
Barack Obama says we have to turn the page. We cannot afford any more of this kind of bankrupt conventional wisdom. He has laid out a foreign policy that is bold, clear, principled, and tailored for the 21st century. End a war we should never have fought, concentrate our resources against terrorists who threaten America. End the counter-productive policy of lumping together our adversaries and avoiding talking to our foes. End the era of politics that is all sound-bites and no substance, and offer the American people the change that they need. Barack Obama’s judgment is right. It is conventional wisdom that has to change.

I'm going to be taking many pictures with all of you and I don't really spend too much time looking at the signs and the t-shirts and the buttons. So I don't have anything particularly to say about a sign somebody else was holding...mydd.com

I call on the government to release Chief Ebrima Manneh, Kanyiba Kanyi and Rambo Jatta if they are in their custody and if not in their custody to do all it takes to know who is holding these guys. After all they are not important. And it is only going to give the country a bad name.

Magistrate Jawo therefore expressed the view that the court that has the jurisdiction to try the accused is the Banjul Magistrates' Court, invoking section 61, subsection 1 and 62 subsection 21 of the Criminal Procedure Code to back his ruling of transferring the case to Banjul Magistrates' Court.

“Jeff wanted to have a photo from me and I had made the mistake to tell him that I had an enlarged beautiful and very stylish one of me showing me ‘naked’.

"Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton," by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., reports that during her husband's 1992 campaign, a team she oversaw hired a private investigator to undermine Gennifer Flowers "until she is destroyed." Flowers had said publicly that she had an affair with Bill Clinton while he was governor of Arkansas.

The book also suggests that Hillary Clinton did not read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in 2002 before voting to authorize war. And it includes a thirdhand report that the Clintons had a secret plan after the 1992 election in which he would have eight years as president and then she would have eight years, although last night a key source disavowed the story.

Presidential Office to Sponsor Gambians to Universities Abroad
Friday 18th May 2007

By Osman Kargbo

The Office of the President, through the efforts of H.E. President Yahya Jammeh, will be providing close to 300 scholarships to young talented Gambians to study in universities and colleges abroad, a press release from the President’s office has stated.

According to the release faxed yesterday to this paper, the sponsorship, which will commence in September 2007, will cover various disciplines with special emphasis in the Sciences such as Medicines, Engineering and Agriculture.

The release stated further: “The Office of the President is pleased to inform the general public that through the untiring efforts of His Excellency The President Alhaji Dr Yahya A.J.J Jammeh, training opportunities will be made available, commencing in the next academic year (September, 2007) for young talented Gambians to study in Universities and Colleges abroad.

“Nearly 300 scholarships will be available for study in various disciplines but with emphasis in the Sciences such as Medicines, Engineering, Agriculture among other disciplines.” It also said the scholarships would be made available to students from across the country. “Interested applicants should apply to the Office of The President and provide proof of citizenship and authentic academic results to back their application,” the release concluded.

"For years, while foreign competitors were investing in more fuel-efficient technology for their vehicles, American automakers were spending their time
investing in bigger, faster cars," he said, according to a text of his remarks.
"And whenever an attempt was made to raise our fuel efficiency standards, the
auto companies would lobby furiously against it, spending millions to prevent
the very reform that could’ve saved their industry." In his speech, Mr.
Obama proposed stricter fuel economy standards, greater availability of tax
credits to consumers who buy hybrids or other ultra-efficient vehicles and
subsidies to help automakers pay health care expenses in return for greater
investment in advanced technology...Nytimes