Egypt: The World is Proud of You.

That aint right!

Okay so in 2011's first edition of "That aint Right" the protests in Egypt called for social and economic reform. However, the Egyptian government felt entitled and security forces behaved brutally against the protesters who then asked Hosni Mubarak, who's been leader for over 30 years, to step down. They've been asking for this for almost one week. Now after the government ignored the protesters and then blocked all communication going out of Egypt, Mubarak came on television stating that he fired his cabinet but that he'll remain leader. Nooo Mubarak "That aint right." That's not what they ordered and it needs to be changed they are asking for you to step aside not remain in power and it needs to be done Effective Immediately.
Very interesting video of the day's happenings in Egypt. Check it out!

Day of Anger Video.

Hello and Good Morning to those of you reading this in the US. I was and still am very excited in anticipation of today's "Day of Anger" in Egypt. Throughout the country, people have taken to the streets in protest of President Mubarak's administration. The world is watching, but, as many of you may know, forms of communication have been blocked, as they normally are whenever there's a coup taking place or about to take place. This made it impossible to find live video feed. I have, however, been able to get a clip of today's protest through social media like youtube courtesy of Associated Press.

Dominoes....Who's Next?

Well this is the follow up, to protests in the MENA region, because what I and other political scientists have predicted is coming to pass. Quite frankly, I'm glad that it is. I know how this sounds. I know that it sounds like Western democratic paraphenila, but you know what? This has nothing to do with pushing democracy. This is about recognizing what's right and acting on it. If you remember, last year in Volume 1 of Zee Affairs, I wrote about Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak grooming his son for the Egyptian leadership when his son was, in fact, incompetent for the position. El Baradei, former director for the IAEA was planning to run for Presidency and we can only imagine why we haven't heard about his activities for office. That's okay though, he's coming back to Egypt to help protesters tomorrow.

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Background info:Political corruption over many years, because of leaders who have been in office for over 30 years have sparked protests in Tunisia, Egypt, and (not to be out done) Yemen. Police brutality, such as that seen in the video above are taking place to subdue the protests. Such brutality has proven futile in Tunisia where protesters were killed by government officials as an intimidation tactic, but government eventually gave in to the protesters' demands. Such may be the case with Egypt. Tomorrow, 28, January, there are plans for a massive protest after the Friday prayers in Cairo, Egypt. Plans for these protests are organized via facebook and other social networking utilities like BB mobile.
The dominoes are falling and I just can't wait to see the "New Day" of Arab politics, because people this will be interesting.

White House hosts Chinese President, Hu Jintao

So Hu Jintao is in town and journalists have scratched their head to the bone trying to figure out exactly what kind of conversation would be happening between him and the American Government. If anyone thought today's press conference would provide any light to scandalous material they were woefully disappointed. I mean really people. What other scandal could we have happen on American soil that hasn't within the past two weeks. I actually feel like today was a good day for Sino-American relations. China agreed to keep a watch on human rights activity in Sudan. America "agreed to disagree" about certain diplomatic issue in order to forge a lighter road ahead and everyone was happy right? Well you know there's always one. The translators had too many snafus during the simultanious translation that caused one reporter to request that his wordings were "correctly and accurately" translating. That's how he said it too "correctly and accurately." That's okay. no party poopers please, because the White House has the State Dinner to host Chinese President Hu Jintao. Please view the video below to watch the procession of guests.

A Very Special Thank you: Zee Affairs is One!

Hello Everyone I hope you're all having a great day or, if in the East Coast USA, staying out of the ice today. For me today is really special as Zee Affairs has turned one. Yes. It has already been a whole year since I put the first post on zeeaffairs.blogspot.com. For all of you that have been on this journey with me I am honored. I am really really honored, humbled and so very appreciative. You've come from different social networking sites such as Facebook, Black Planet, Allvoices.com, and Twitter. Many of you, I've met individually in my professional life or have even been with me before I even graduated from high school and you're getting this message via email. You've been able to see that Zee Affairs is not just a blog. It's an experience. Foreign Affairs with YOUR PRINT on it came to me as the motto, because I wanted people to know that news didn't have to be boring. It didn't have to be stuffy or as my room mate at Rutgers used to say "boogie" lol. News is information for and about us and if it's about us then we have the right to interpret it in ways that can be fun or analyze things about it that seem interesting and that we normally wouldn't get in main stream news. That's what made me start Zee Affairs. I've loved journalism for a very long time. Even before I was a teenager and I feel the same about Foreign Affairs. So yes, this is my passion and you have no idea how I feel to see everyone's reactions when I post pictures on facebook, when I send out the weekly digests, when I even see the numbers of people coming to the page! It really really makes me happy. I thank God first and foremost and as I thank all of you, I have to mention names.
I would like to thank my Mom for letting me keep this going even at times when I felt discouraged and sometims being the only one who commented in the very beginning or (as the teacher she is) giving me advice on conferences and places I could go to advertise Zee Affairs.
International Association of Women Journalists, I'd like to thank your organization for pointing me in the right direction when it came to publishing and publicizing and for introducing me to allvoices.com
I'd like to thank my lil sis Telima for responding with her emails and phone calls for following the blog.
Meleny Thank you for your spiritual advice and your motivations. You may not have known it helped me with this, but it did and I appreciate it.
Lamech, I really appreciate you for giving me story ideas expressing how you feel about Zee Affairs and motivating me to keep writing. Thank you.
To my cuz Rasheed thank you for putting this blog on your blog's site www.guaransheed.com as a link for Foreign Affairs and for following it.
Jay Mr. Hicks!! I appreciate you. I really love your participation and being a loyal member from the beginning. It inspires me it motivates me and it makes me happy to have a friend like you.
My good friend Nikki. Our international escapade in London definately brought us close and you've shown how much of a great friend you are with your support. Thank you so much.
Thank you very much to Enrico Labriola for your comments, for following, for joining this blog when no one knew absolutely nothing about it.
I'd like to give a very big Thank You to Femi aka the GFem for having me on his show last year and helping me publicize Zee Affairs to his community of listeners.
Singleton!!! my OG (lol) thank you thank you thank you. Having a sister friend like you gets no better and I appreciate you. I really do and yes we are gonna party this up.
Obioma Okoye and Miss Espinoza!! Thank you for accepting the invite from me when you had no idea what this group was about and became loyal supporters.
To all the readers around the world, thanks to all of you. Thank you thank you thank you to all of you.
As I always say, this is only the beginning. There are amazing things planned for this year. Some I've already told you about like Zee Beat the human rights crime beat, Zee's affair (OP EDS and exclusives), Zee Affairs spottings around the world and much much more!
I appreciate all of you as readers and as always I love you for reading.

Peace and Love,
Zainab
Zee Affairs: Foreign Affairs with YOUR PRINT on it.

Obama Speech at Memorial for Tuscon shooting victims.

Baby steps...Sudan making progress.

You are looking at the picture of Rebecca Kadi, a 115 year old woman who went to cast her vote on Tuesday the 11th of January. On the 11th, Sudan held elections for a referendum for Southern Sudanese secesseion. Amongst those to monitor the elections was former American President Jimmy Carter. Sudan has faced much turmoil, because of the conflicts between the Arabs and black Sudanese that has continued for years causing a 2005 peace treaty which asked for self determination of the southern Sudaneese. Self determination, also a part of the diplomatically followed Geneva Convention, is the back bone for any human rights legislation. Failure to follow it can only create scenarios such as the ones we have seen in Sudan for many years.

It is said that it will take over a week to count all of the votes. There are issues, however, that would need to be resolved before southern Sudan can declare independence in June. Those issues include how to share oil amongst the two nations and where the border line will be drawn. Mm mm mm. This is obviously not going to be pretty, but as always I will keep my ear on the ground for all of you.

Water water Everywhere.. Australia and Brazil become engulfed in floods.

A woman in anguish after the houses in Brasil become engulfed in the flood


Homes in flooding in Australia

Kangaroo jumping in flood waters in Australia

Torment in Tunisia

So it has started. The riots have begun. I can only say that unfortunately, I believe this is the beginning. You see in the MENA(Middle East and North African) region there is a large youth population. The problem has always been predicting how the youth will find employment. Now in Tunisia, the same youth has been protesting, because of lack of employment. Insane? Yes. Surprising? No. So what has the President done? He ran to Saudi Arabia. Oh how the mighty have fallen. How can someone be the President of a nation since 1987 and when a crisis comes he runs. How cowardly. How incompetent. How foolish.
So now, the public has been complaining about fear to leave the household and the anarchy that has now begun to plague the region. My opinion? Unless Tunis, Tunisia wants to see crime become a part of the city for decades to come, find those kids jobs. Find them jobs. Don't cling to your job at 80 years old find those kids jobs. This is just sad. For once I'm speechless. I have nothing else to say about this.

The First Independent Black Nation: Haiti One Year later

It's been a year. A whole year since the most devastating disaster imaginable to us as human beings has hit the first independent black nation, Haiti. What's even more devastating is the condition of the country since the disastrous earthquake one year ago. A receding condition has plagued the country which still inhabits thousands of hatians that are not living in homes but camps.
If you remember, when the earthquake hit last year, the impact, or aftershocks, were not as strong as those that hit other nations. However, the impact was far worse than other nations, because of the infrastructure of buildings in Haiti. They crumbled on top of adults children and animals. It made us wonder, if Haiti is a country in the western hemisphere how could it have endured for hundreds of years with out buildings being rebuilt to withstand natural disasters such as the one that happened a year ago?

You must admit, the attack raised eyebrows. It put a focus on organizations such as yelehaiti which have been begging for assistance from a public which had no idea how bad the conditions were in Haiti.

For those of you who don't remember let me provide some background information:

12, Jan 2010- an earthquake happened in Haiti crushing schools, homes, businesses and allowing the world's most ruthless thugs to escape from prisons in Port au Prince. Aftershocks occured the days following the earthquake and people took to the streets. Many of these people were praying, thanking God for sparing their lives, and others were searching for their relatives. A lot of those who searched for their relatives live in the United States and put up pictures using news organizations like CNN as tools to find their relatives. Many of these people were successful, some were not. Relief like food and medication were not able to reach the people of Haiti, because of the deteriorated infrastructure of the city making it impossible to navigate the streets. The wounded needed surgery and though there were many medical forces on the ground their time was limited. Many of us remember the news clip of Sanjay Gupta operating on three people at one time by himself, because doctors from other nations decided to leave in fear of their safety.


Some wanted to adopt children who were orphans in Haiti and were publicly arrested for kidnapping. It is rumored that some of the children were not orphans (we can deduce why their parents would want them to be adopted...It's obvious and in some cases understandable).

American missionaries arrested for Kidnapping in Haiti. Courtesy: Reuters.

Public figures like Wyclef Jean tried to run for office amidst the criticisms of many individuals. His good intentions were not equal to the stressful situation in his home country and he later had to be hospitalized for exhaustion. As if this wasn't enough, many Hatians suffered from Cholera, an obvious consequence for living conditions such as camps which allowed for open sewage unhygienic surroundings, and diseases which were allowed to travel openly throughout the population. As other diseases began to plague the nation, there was still a shortage of nurses to treat them causing further deterioration of the health of patients and communities. All the while, crime remained at an all time high. Theft mostly. People started rumors of another earthquake occuring and when people ran for their lives thinking it was true, their belongings were stolen. Police complained about the inability to catch theives, because of the set up of the relief camps, which is still happening today.


Now that you're all caught up you can see that, unfortunately, not much has changed in a year. In fact it has gotten a lot worse. According to The Guardian, most of the displaced Hatian population still live in the camps and only 5% of the rubble has been cleared from the streets. There has not been a lot of news coverage about Haiti and this has caused individuals to forget about the condition of people there. Hopefully, the count of things that have happened within the last year will show what happens when people forget about their fellow human beings due to lack of media coverage. Government is one thing, grass roots is another. Please, lets make this year different and lets remember the people who are helpless at the moment and who have been for a whole year. Yele Haiti is a great organization that provides help. Many of you know that Wyclef Jean is the Founder and CEO and has been trying to help his people even before this disaster happened. All proceeds are donated at yelehaiti.org. If you would rather donate clothes or other belongings instead of monetary goods you can go to redcross.org. If you would rather donate your time. you can go to reliefweb.int. Either way please give, because remember when you open your hand to give, you open it to receive. Peace

Congresswoman Gifford attacked

In the first week back to America's new Congress, safety was tested when Congress Woman Gabrielle Gifford was brutally shot outside of a strip mall in Tuscon, Arizona where she was meeting with her constituents. She is presently in critical condition. Wounded, Congresswoman Gifford is fighting for her life in an Arizona hospital her at the moment. The 22 year old shooter was a college dropout with a prior criminal history. He also shot 13 people and killed 9. Amongst those killed was a Judge, a member of Congresswoman Gifford's staff who was engaged to be married, and a 9 year old girl. Prayes for those killed: May they Rest In Peace and may their families be given the strength and privacy for their grief. Many blame the attacks on groups like the Tea Party and Media's over sensational coverage of the healthcare legislation for which the Congresswoman voted in March. Many of you may remember that her office was later vandalized because of this vote. Many in Congress are pleading with media and politicians with extreme views to tone down the propaganda in politics for the safety of politicians and their families. Many politicians are recounting having to use secret service for their families or actually wear bullet proof vests for their own safety. I agree that we should put propaganda aside when pushing for the benefit of the people. However, I also believe there is no excuse for the evil that caused yesterday's attacks.
We can only hope the incidents don't repeat themselves

What is Happening?

It looks like its fresh out of Alfred Hitchcock's film "Birds." Massive amount of dead birds have surfaced in cities around the world.


Above: Massive dead birds in Sweden...yes Sweden


Above: Massive dead birds in Louisiana


Above: Massive dead birds in Arkansas.

Dead fish have also surfaced in these cities and port cities like Baltimore, MD.
So it begs the question...what is happening? The first explanation that came out of Arkansas was that the birds were startled, because of the fireworks on New Years eve...but that couldn't be it right? So what is it? hmmm...I'll keep you posted.

Man with the Golden Voice. A Homeless Man given the chance of a lifetime.

Simply Wonderful

This morning Secretary Clinton shook hands with Venezuelan leader, Chavez; at the inauguration of Dilma Rousseff, Veneuzuela's first female president. Pics soon