Wednesday, December 30, 2009

KENYAN EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES AREN'T USING THE MINISTRY OF LABOURS" SERVICES ANYMORE

KENYAN EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYEES AREN

T USING THE MINISTRY OF LABOURS SERVICES ANY MORE



It is now over twenty years since I left secondary at O level and handed over my name to the ministry of labour as a job seeker immediately I had received my national identity card .I had a third division certificate and therefore I didn\t expect much in the world of careers and so I felt satisfied with the kind of jobs and salaries that awaited me in my future life.I was contented with the kinds of jobs for very low class people . The jobs included ,night guarding ,house help,general construction works and others .The kinds of jobs that you would not expect someone to spend a lifetime waiting for them on the lsits of jobseekers in ministrys offices of employment.BVut believe it or not ,but I have spent all my working lifetime with my name on that list ,but I have never seen even the dirtiest or the worst in every language that you can think off .



Immidiatley that I let school and got my identity card ,I went and registered with the ministry in their Kisumu city offices where I stayed with them for almost niseven years .I then later moved on to Kericho town where again I went and registered with them in their kericho offices and I have been on their list of job seekers since then and i\m now forty years and ,I have never seen even the wost jobs for t6hat whole period .And believe it or not ,when this jobs come ,they are usually too few for the number of job seekers on the waiting list and this ,I witnessed it only in the Kisumu offices .Here ,the jobs are advertised on the notice board yes ,but they are usually not more than ten and they last for about two weeks on the notice board ,it is only ones in a while that you can find the number of jobs exceeding ten .



The thing is that it looks like the Kenyan employers and employees have stopped using the ministrys services of working between the two sides Because ,judging from the quantity of economic activities in the country ,you can not expect the number of manual jobs in one month to be only ten in a Place like Kisumu city or Kericho town with all it\s tea farms and factories ,shops and offices and all the construction works that goes on in the cities .The offices are some times empty despite all the activities that need a lot of labour that we see around us every day in this country .



This means that jobseekers will have to wake every morning and stroll around the whole city hunting for jobs ,asking from one door to another ,a thing that we used to find gathered and organized in one place by the ministry of labour.This method of walking allover the cities in search of jobs will also come with its own side effects .One of this side effects which is the most obvious ones is the suffering and exploitation that tboth sides will be going through though ,the weakest ones will suffer most and in this case the weak ones are the employees who will have skipped the normal procedures that were set down by the ministry of labour to control all this problems that do arise when a misunderstanding between the two sides occurs.People will be roaming the streets of the cities inseach of work to do ,in the end it will lead to the many abuses that the government has been trying to save it\s people from.



It looks like job seekers have come to look down upon the ministry and it soffices plus its services because were it not that way ,the wouldn\t have turned away and gone to do their own thing on the cirddors or verandahs of the work places .The people seem to have despaired completely and it seems like they think that they can not be listene to or they can not be assited with their problems if they reported them to the concerned staff in the ministry .Sincertely speaking ,there have been very many reports of abuses in the press and just on the streets .People have been complaining of mistreatment or exploitation by their employees and bad working conditions and the many abuses but not even ones have we seen the ministrys officials in such an action .The last time that I saw a labour inspector come to a work place was very many years ago during my youth in Kisumu city when we were construction the present swan millers .Otherwisae ,they are rarely seen in action.



The thing is that ,the current trend of things isn\t the right one because everyone will be treating the other whichever way they will like .And going to roam from door to door asking for employment isn\t good either .It would have been good if we gathered all this things in one central place and carried them out in that place .Roaming all over the country in search of a job is too degrading ,we would rather go back to previous method of things and then overhaul the whole ministry if there are any problems with its efficiency and the insert new programs instead of looking like mentally un fit people .Just imagin people like me have spent a whole life time on the ministrys jobseekers lsit without a job even ones and then jus t imagin again a mason or plumber or even university graduates wandering randomly all over the country asking from door to ddoor for employment .



There are empleoyment bureaus yes , but the ministry of labour is supreme because it is the governemnets arm in those matters and there fore ,neglecting its services or evne the lazyness of the ministrys staff shouldn not be entertained .Another thing is that this employment bureaus ,most of them deal in bigger jobs like aacounting ,teachers and nurses and so on .But for jobs like watchmen and house helps who neeed the protection of the government most it wold be better if they went to the ministry for help.Thetre cxould be those that take care of their client elsewhere in the country but believ it or not ,we have been always hearing of misunderstandings between the two sides being reported in the slums of our cities .

IT looks like the people hav sidestepped the ministry of labour and decided to do their own thing on the streets .May the governemet ,through the ministry that is concerned , look at it self well and try to improve the situation ,there could be a problem

Sunday, November 29, 2009

HEALTH-MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS '"BLOOD BLOCKAGE THEORY"TESTED

Multiple sclerosis 'blood blockage theory' tested


By Michelle Roberts

Health reporter, BBC News









The answer may lie with blood flow

US scientists are testing a radical new theory that multiple sclerosis (MS) is caused by blockages in the veins that drain the brain.



The University of Buffalo team were intrigued by the work of Italian researcher Dr Paolo Zamboni who claims 90% of MS is caused by narrowed veins.



He says the restricted drainage, visible on scans, injures the brain leading to MS.



He has already widened the blockages in a handful of patients.



The US team want to replicate his earlier work before treating patients.



Experts welcomed the research saying it was important to confirm the basic science before evaluating any therapy.



MS is a long-term inflammatory condition of the central nervous system which affects the transfer of messages from the nervous system to the rest of the body.



This is not something patients can expect as a treatment now. This is experimental work and is being tested



A spokeswoman for the MS Society

The Buffalo team, led by Dr Robert Zivadinov, plan to recruit 1,100 patients with MS and 600 other volunteers as controls who are either healthy or have neurological diseases other than MS.



Using Doppler ultrasound, they will scan the patients to see if they can find any blockages within the veins of the neck and brain.



If they can prove Dr Zamboni's theory of "chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency", they say it will change our understanding of MS.



Rewriting science



Margaret Paroski, who is chief medical officer at Kaleida Health, where the Buffalo researchers are based, said the work could overturn prevailing wisdom that the damage in MS is predominantly the result of abnormal immune responses.



"When I was in medical school, we thought peptic ulcer disease was due to stress. We now know that 80% of cases are due to a bacterial infection.



I found the evidence of narrowing - narrowing of the veins just in MS patients



Dr Zamboni

"Dr Zivadinov's work may lead to a whole different way of thinking about MS."



Dr Zamboni, of the University of Ferrara, believes the blockages are the cause rather than the consequence of MS and that they allow iron from the blood to leak into the brain tissue, where it causes damage.



He has performed procedures similar to angioplasty to unblock the veins and get the blood flowing normally again.



He claims this "liberation procedure" can alleviate many of the symptoms of MS and is due to publish his findings in the Journal of Vascular Surgery.



In an interview with CTV News in Canada he said: "I found the evidence of narrowing - narrowing of the veins just in MS patients.



"I'm fully convinced that this is very, very important for people."



Early days



Kevin Lipp, an MS patient from the US, has been symptom-free since being treated by Dr Zamboni.



He said: "It's only been 10 months. If nothing happens in the next two to three years, we'll know it's working."



The BBC has heard anecdotally of other surgeons in Europe testing out the same treatment.



The MS Society said more research was needed to see if this was an avenue that should be explored further.



"This is not something patients can expect as a treatment now. This is experimental work and is being tested. We need to know more about its safety and effectiveness."



Helen Yates, of the MS Resource Centre, said: "There is no doubt that this area warrants a great deal more study.



"This could represent a completely novel approach to MS research which, if proven to be relevant, could be a "sea change" in the understanding of the mechanisms involved in the condition."

HEALTH--CELL DISCOVERY CLUES TO BODY CLOCK AND BRATING JET LAG

Cell discovery clues to body clock and beating jet lag


By Dave Lee

Health Check, BBC World Service







The discovery could hold the key to solving body clock mysteries

New discoveries into how the body clock works could provide clues to help combat jet lag, research suggests.



A University of Manchester team studied special cells which they say play an important role in regulating a person's body clock.



The cells had been thought to be inactive during the day - but their research found the opposite is true.



It is hoped the findings may also pave the way to combating sleep disorders triggered by body clock malfunctions.



Professor Hugh Piggins, an expert in neuroscience at the university, said the research will allow a new approach to being able to tune our daily clock.



Two cells



The Manchester research turns on its head the idea that the brain keeps the body clock on track by firing more cells during daylight and very few during the night.





There's a lot of interest in the pharmaceutical industry, obviously, to try to develop chemical treatments to reset your daily clock



Professor Hugh Piggins

"The traditional model said the clock and the brain communicated to the rest of the brain via the number of electrical impulses that the brain cells were producing," Prof Piggins told the BBC World Service's Health Check programme.



"These impulses would travel around the brain, telling it what time of day it is.



"What we've found is in fact that there are at least two types of cells in this part of the brain."



These brain cells behave unlike any other cell seen so far, and contain a key gene - per1 - which allows them to sustain unusually high levels of "excitability".



The cells becoming so "excited" that they seem quiet or even dead; but then later they calm down, recover and become normally active again.



It is this activity which tells the human body when to be awake.



Sleep dysfunction





HEALTH CHECK



Health Check is the weekly health programme broadcast from the BBC World Service

It is broadcast on Monday at 1032GMT and repeated at 1532GMT, 2032GMT and on Tuesday at 0132GMT

It is also available as a podcast

Prof Piggins added: "There's a lot of interest in the pharmaceutical industry, obviously, to try to develop chemical treatments to reset your daily clock to help counteract things like jetlag.



"Or, perhaps more importantly, different kind of sleep disorders for which dysfunctions in this clock are often involved."



This study marks the first time these "quiet" cells have been studied.



"This may mean that elsewhere in the brain there are cells like this that can also survive these very unusual conditions."

HEALTH-

HEALTH



Jump in number of global swine flu deaths



The virus was first recorded in Mexico

The global number of swine flu deaths has jumped by more than 1,000 in a week, latest figures from the World Health Organization (WHO) show.

At least 7,826 people are now known to have died following infection with the H1N1 virus since it first emerged in Mexico in April.

Europe saw an 85% increase in the week, with the total number of deaths rising from at least 350 to at least 650.

However, in most cases the virus continues to produce mild symptoms.



If every mutation is reported out there it would be like reporting changes in the weather



Keiji Fukuda

WHO special adviser on pandemic influenza

An overwhelming majority of patients usually recover, even without medical treatment, within a week.

The biggest rise in deaths was recorded in the Americas, where the death toll rose to 5,360 - a rise of 554 cases in one week.

Health authorities in Norway and France have each recorded two fatalities from a mutated strain of H1N1.

China, Japan, Norway, Ukraine and the US have also recorded cases of people being infected with a mutated strain.

Uncertainty

French health officials confirmed that two patients infected by a mutation that was also recently detected in Norway had died in two different cities in France.



SWINE FLU SYMPTOMS



1. High temperature, tiredness and lowered immunity

2. Headache, runny nose and sneezing

3. Sore throat

4. Shortness of breath

5. Loss of appetite, vomiting and diarrhoea

6. Aching muscles, limb and joint pain

Source: NHS

Fergus on Flu

Q&A: Advice about swine flu


"This mutation could increase the ability of the virus to affect the respiratory tracts and, in particular, the lung tissue," said a statement from the government's Health Surveillance Institute.

The French institute added that, in the case of one of the patients who died, the mutation was accompanied by another mutation known to confer resistance to the main drug being used to treat swine flu, which is sold under the brand name Tamiflu.

It was the first drug-resistant strain found in France among the 1,200 strains experts have analysed here, it said.

Speaking on Thursday, Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's special adviser on pandemic influenza, said that conclusions had still to be drawn about the reported mutations.

"The question is whether these mutations suggest that there is a fundamental change going on in viruses out there - whether there's a turn for the worse in terms of severity," he said.

"The answer right now is that we are not sure."

Dr Fukuda noted that mutations were common in influenza viruses.

"If every mutation is reported out there it would be like reporting changes in the weather," he said.

"What we're trying to do when we see reports of mutations is to identify if these mutations are leading to any kinds of changes in the clinical picture - do they cause more severe or less severe disease?

"Also we're trying to see if these viruses are increasing out there as that would suggest a change in epidemiology."

In his latest survey of swine flu developments, the WHO notes that many countries have stopped counting individual cases of swine flu, particularly of milder illness, and the case count is likely to be significantly lower than the actual number of cases that have occurred.

Monday, November 16, 2009

SCHOOLBOY WINS A FREE RECORDING DEAL AT TALENT SEARCH AND NURTURING SHOW _YALA

SCHOOLBOY WINS A FREE RECORDING DEAL AT TALENT SEARCH AND NURTURING SHOW _YALA








A School boy from the Saint Mary’s school in Yala had a luck beginning in his talent as a musician when he won a free recoding deal from the hosts of the talent search and nurturing show,

VILLAGES COULD BE CARRYING MORE ORPHANS THAN EXPECTYED

An expert in orphaned children care in Yala town, Mrs Jane Pila, has said that the villages, especially in the area where she serves could be carrying more orphaned children than expected .The expert said this when we visited her in her office at the Yala C.D.C church where she operates from .The church provides for the needy children in the community .It feeds and educates them and sometimes even clothes them.







Such problems of street children or orphaned children, widowed women and homeless aged people were in the past seen as a problem of the cities and urban areas only but recently discoveries stunned the experts when they learned that the situation is almost the same in the villages.







The expert sent a word to those people with the power in our country and institutions, including the Odera Akang’o campus of the Moi University in Yala, to build more facilities to help the increasing numbers of these kinds of people in our country.

HATRED BETWEEN THE TEACHERS AND THE PUPILS

There was this mother whose son came back home weeping .The mother could not hold herself at the sight of her crying son .The son said that the reason for his weeping was that his teacher had punished him in school for wrongs that he never committed. It wasn’t canning though but it looked like it must have been something more severe to the young boy than canning .So the mother had to do the best that she could for her son to show him her love for him. So, she set out to go and solve it out with the boys head teacher.







From the look of things ,or judging from what the boy said ,it looks like there were some kinds of hatred underground happenings between the young boy ,a boy of fifteen years or less ,and his head teacher .And ,the boy only defense ,his mother had to take action to find out whatever was happening to her son in school .







Believe it or not ,this illiterate mothers have there own ways o solving this things .She went and stormed the headmasters office and demanded to know why the headmasters hated her son .She spoke at the top oh her voice and demanded for justice for her son and demanded for respect from the headmaster as the parent of her son irrespective of whatever was going on in this world or whatever the procedures of solving this kinds of problems were in the school .What the mother wanted was that evil happenings that were being directed towards her son secretly be stooped or action be taken against the teacher who was involved or she be issued with a transfer letter for her to take her son to a different school where he could appreciated better than his former school.







What troubled we their neighbors minds was what really could cause such feelings between a fifteen year old boy and his head teacher .What really could be the cause?Women ,scramble for power at the place of work or what .A fifteen year old boy can not be a threat to a grown up man in any way in life unless ,perhaps if the boy caught him red handed hiding some secrets otherwise there is really nothing big to worry about in this case .The boy can not eve know how to snatch a lady from his head teacher neither can he snatch his position in the school as the head teacher, so ,what really is the cause .Do this things really exist by the way?







Believe it or not but that is what is going on in the slums and soon we will have to betaking the teachers or head teachers to court to answer why they hated our offspring, but what really should be the right response during such cases ,i.e. when kids complain that there was hatred in their teachers or head teachers? We thought that the teachers were like parents to the kids or if not so, up to some extend but this kind of thing is really mind boggling.