Lim Kok Wing Proclaims Himself King of Africa

I don't know about you but Lim Kok Wing on a billboard is already an eyesore. And his latest attempt at self-promotion is sickening because it inflicts raw pain. 

I'm reminded of an insult I once came across and it describes him to a T. “You’re like the sun, not because you light up our world but because it hurts to look at you!"

Proclaiming himself King of Africa is an audacious act of impudent cockiness of the highest order. 

I cannot even begin to fathom where Lim (left)  is coming from, no matter how hard I tried – unless he is portraying himself as the “demi-god savior” of the continent because he offers young Africans tertiary education opportunities in his branch campuses in Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini and Sierra Leone?! If that is the case, he is guilty of preserving a “negative stereotype of Africans not having access to education. 

I can only conclude Lim’s ego is the boss. This clod earnestly wants us to believe he is larger than life. This cacafuego desperately hopes the public will put him on a pedestal and maybe, even worship and deify him. This coccydynia has sadly, lost his marbles.

Nobody minds if he keeps his derangement to himself – but to make public his self-delusion is distastefully despicable. Besides, nobody gives a shit. 

In fact, somebody correctly initiated a petition “LIM KOK WING UNIVERSITY'S CONDESCENDING BILLBOARD NEEDS TO BE TAKEN DOWN” on Change.org on June 07, 2020, saying that portraying Lim as a “saviour” is condescending and robs African students of their agency to pave their own way in the world. 

“The use of a jungle animal and reference to ‘king’ perpetuates ideas of Africa as one big jungle and adds to the (wrongful) animalistic characterisation of the students. This perpetuates the notion that black people need saving, taking away their power and psychologically placing them in an inferior role”, this person wrote on the petition page. 

Worse, I'm told the photo of Lim being surrounded by Limkokwing University students in Freetown, Sierra Leone had been edited to make the crowd appear larger and more packed than it actually was. 

What a joke! Nothing more than a wretched exaggeration for the mere sake of self-glorifying himself.

Enough said. Suffice to say, my senses are already benumbed.  

I find this whole self-aggrandizing thingy disagreeable, debasing and demeaning.  It not only insults me but worse, it disrespects Africans. God knows what they've done to deserve this! 

As far as I am concerned, the billboard spews a racist message – and we mustn't tolerate it. Not in Malaysia, not anywhere else.

It is sad that Lim consistently sets low expectations for himself and stll fails to achieve them.

The Covid-19 Situation in Africa

More than three months have lapsed since Egypt became the first country in Africa to confirm a coronavirus case. Since then, the outbreak has reached every nation on the continent of 1.2 billion people – with 100,666 confirmed cases and 3,105 deaths on Friday, according to Africa CDC. 

No doubt Africa recorded just a wee fraction of the world's coronavirus cases – a mere 1.9%. 

Also WHO modelling has predicted that Covid-19 would move more slowly through Africa than elsewhere. It's very comforting to know, that’s for sure.

Still, the fact remains that the virus is raging in pockets of the continent. 

And it has been hit hard by the economic fallout from global trade disruptions, falling oil and commodities prices and the lockdowns deployed to fight the disease's spread. That can be just as hurting. 

I read that the presidents of Ivory Coast, Kenya, Niger, Senegal and Sierra Leone on Tuesday are already complaining that wealthy countries are failing Africa, with pledges of financial support and debt relief falling well short of the continent's needs as it battles the coronavirus pandemic. 

But it’s not only Africa that is affected – but everywhere too.

Already, the global economy is shrinking by around 5%. According to World Bank estimates, up to 60 million people could be pushed below the poverty line in their latest apocalyptic prediction. 

World Bank president David Malpass (right) said they have so far loaned money for emergency programs in 100 countries, accounting for about 70% of the world’s population, in response to the coronavirus crisis. 

He said the money would “reinforce healthcare systems” as well as pay for medical equipment and supplies.

Many countries' economies are already in dire straits.

WSD 2020 Reaches 20 Registrations

Registrations for Word Speech Day 2020 is going along at a steady, albeit slow pace but that's kinda normal. Malaysians love to do things last minute and besides, group registrations will take awhile to organize.

Anyway, 20 registrations across 2 locations in 17 days is not too bad:

And we have 43 more days before the Public Speaking Event of the Year makes an appearance on our shores:

#unexpectedvoices #worldspeechday

It is a laudable gesture when the Malaysian Rubber Export Promotion Council and Malaysian glove manufacturers came together and arrived at the decision to donate 18 million gloves to Wuhan, China that is facing an outbreak of the novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV. 

According to Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok on Friday, the first batch of three million gloves are already on the way there and the rest are to be shipped in batches. 

This is not the first time we extend help to countries facing medical emergencies. In 2014, we sent more than 20 million medical rubber gloves to the African nations of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Nigeria and Congo during the Ebola outbreak then. 

Malaysians care!

Teenage Pregnancies in Sierra Leone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Teenage mothers in Sierra Leone. Image credit: http://www.mishahussain.com/ebola-casts-a-shadow-over-maternal-health-in-sierra-leone/

Health workers in Sierra Leone are battling a teenage pregnancy epidemic and they say it shows no sign of slowing.

 

After the west African country announced its first Ebola cases in May 2014, schools were closed and movement severely restricted, leaving girls more vulnerable to abuse. During the helter-skelter chaos of the Ebola crisis many teenagers were raped or forced to have sex for money to contribute to household expenses, according to research by children’s charities and UN agencies.

 

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has counted more than 18,000 teenage pregnancies, with the number of pregnant girls up by 65 percent in some districts.

 

But the Ebola outbreak meant that resources and staff were diverted away from maternal health. The result is thousands of girls who will never live to become women, as UNFPA estimates that 40 percent of all maternal deaths occur among those under 18.

 

A lack of birth control and conservative abortion laws mean that many girls, upon realizing they are pregnant and fearing they will be forced to drop out of school, attempt to abort with drugs or seek out backstreet providers who employ methods such as bicycle spokes to terminate pregnancies.

 

In fact, Sierra Leone is internationally recognized as the country with the world’s highest maternal mortality rate, at 1,360 deaths per 100,000 live births.

 

On Wednesday evening, I was in KL’s Brickfields to attend the MIA Toastmasters meeting. I volunteered for the role of Toastmaster-of-the-Evening. 

I also delivered an Advanced speech “Bringing History to Life” from the Storytelling manual – titled “Marilyn”.

The setting was a séance where Marilyn Monroe’s spirit took control over me and then spoke through me. She had wanted to tell her side of the story about JFK and her. And hey, I was voted Best Project Speaker!

After Ebola, Now Zika

The world can heave a big sigh of relief now that the two-year Ebola epidemic is “officially” over because the three worst-hit countries had been given the all-clear by the World Health Organization: Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia were declared Ebola-free on November 07, 2015; December 29, 2015; and January 14, 2016 respectively.

 

The tropical virus not only killed more than 11,300 and triggered a global health alert, but it wrecked the economies and health systems of the three above-mentioned countries. At its peak, it devastated the West African countries, with bodies piling up in the streets and overwhelmed hospitals recording hundreds of new cases a week.

 

Rick Brennan, WHO’s chief of emergency risk management, however, cautioned that "the job is still not done" – the disease can still re-emerge because of persistence of the virus in a proportion of survivors. Part of the challenge in combating outbreaks stems from the fact that the Ebola virus rapidly evolves.

 

In fact, Libera was first declared free of the disease last May, but new cases emerged two times – forcing officials there to restart the clock. And Sierra Leone had two cases in January 2016, after the World Health Organisation declared an end to the Ebola epidemic – reinforcing WHO’s reminder that risks remain.

 

The ravages of disease are not going to be over any time soon. Already, the World Health Organization declared on February 01, 2016 that the Zika virus has reached the status of a global emergency.

 

By deciding to declare that the mosquito-borne virus is a "public health emergency of international concern," it allows more money, resources and scientific research to be dedicated to addressing the growing disease.

 

The current viral outbreak was first reported in May 2015 in Brazil when the first confirmed cases were disclosed. But the cases quickly multiplied and now government officials believe that more than 1 million people have been infected in that country. WHO officials said that one reason for the rapid spread is that both people and mosquitoes have no immunity to the virus that is new to the region.

 

Zika has now affected 25 countries but for now, the WHO “found no public health justification for restrictions on travel or trade to restrict the spread of the Zika virus.”

 

Margaret Chan, the director-general of the WHO said the connection between the Zika virus and other neurological disorders is “strongly suspected, though not yet scientifically proven” – referring to both the microcephaly birth defects and the rare cases of paralysis known as Guillain-Barre syndrome.

 

On Tuesday, Jamie Vardy's stunning double strike gave EPL leaders Leicester City a 2-0 win over Liverpool to maintain their title charge. The Foxes fully deserved their victory and that speaks a lot about the Reds’ performance.

 

On the same day too, I was in Menara Allianz Sentral (Nu Tower 1) in KL’s Jalan Tun Sambanthan – where I was the General Evaluator as well as a speaker. I delivered an Advanced speech from the Storytelling manual titled “A Father’s Lies”.

 

9,004 Ebola Deaths

Image credit: http://malawi24.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CONGO-DEMOCRATIC-EBOLA1.jpg

Image credit: http://english.cntv.cn/2014/07/03/VIDE1404349452575619.shtml

In the wake of West Africa's Ebola outbreak, the International Monetary Fund executive board on February 05, 2015 established the Catastrophe Containment and Relief (CCR) trust to help developing countries respond to epidemics and natural disasters, with the three hardest-hit countries (i.e. Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone) poised to receive $100 million in grants to lower their debt burden from battling the virus.

 

The IMF said in a statement that the fund, called the Catastrophe Containment and Relief (CCR) trust, would be used to help countries meet future debt-service payments, which will reduce the debt burden and free up resources for relief and recovery actions.

 

The newly approved assistance comes in addition to $130 million in loan assistance the IMF approved in September 2014. The concept for the CCR trust came out of the November G-20 meeting, which called on countries to continue their support of Ebola-affected countries through loans, debt relief, and grants, and to explore an additional mechanism to address the economic impact of future emergencies, e.g. a public health crisis, besides just dealing with natural disaster events.

 

The IMF said the CCR trust replaces one set up in 2010 to help Haiti recover from its earthquake.

 

The World Health Organization's (WHO's) epidemiologic update published on February 06, 2015 put the Ebola casualty at 9,004 deaths.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celtic cruised into the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup with a 2-0 win over Dundee. The goals came from Leigh Griffiths (7) and Stefan Johansen (47).

More than 8,000 Dead from Ebola

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image credit: http://a.abcnews.com/images/Health/HT_ebola_outbreak_2_sk_140728_16x9_992.jpg

Ebola has dropped out of the headlines but in West Africa, the death toll keeps growing. At least 8,235 people have died, according to WHO figures as at January 04, 2015. And it is believed that six out of the ten patients currently hospitalized with the virus will die.

The disease is still on the loose and it is not going to be extinguished even if public interest outside of West Africa is waning.

Check out this six-pack of Coke that I received on Thursday!

And that was because I was the General Evaluator for the Satu Hati Toastmasters meeting in Bandar Baru Sri Petaling in KL that I attended on that day. I was overjoyed by the nice gesture and for those who didn't know, it was here that I actually presented a speech to tell my audience what a healthy beverage Coca-Cola is!

I also had a second role, i.e. Evaluator for CC speech #9 delivered by Division P Governor, Andrew Tan. A good evening was had by all and although we didn't quite start on time, the Toastmaster-of-the-Evening dispensed with the Table Topics session so that we could catch up with the runaway time and finished our meeting on schedule – which was certainly commendable! And I wholeheartedly give this meeting an 8 over 10 score!