...lets go back to ARCHAEOLOGY....

'Human' Remains Found in Ethiopia Said to Be Up to Four Million Years Old

Ethiopian and American scientists have recently discovered the remains of an early hominid, a primitive ancestor of humans, they say lived up to four million years ago. Scientists are hoping the discovery will help them to understand more about the human evolutionary process.
The team of scientists from the Cleveland, Ohio Museum of Natural History returned from their research trip to Ethiopia's Afar region at the beginning of this week with the news of their discovery.
The scientists found a lower leg bone, pelvis, femur fragments, several ribs, a collarbone, and a complete shoulder blade belonging to an early hominid believed to have lived between 3.8 and four million years ago.
The remains are even older than those of the famous hominid dubbed "Lucy," who is 3.2 million years old. Lucy, discovered in 1974 some 60 kilometers from the current find, is famous primarily because scientists found almost half of her skeleton, which is very rare and which has yielded vital clues about human evolution.
Scientists are hoping the latest find will increase their knowledge of evolution, as many as one million years before Lucy's life.
"Given its age, it's going to be very significant in terms of connecting the dots between the earlier Ardipithecus ramidus at 4.4 [million years ago] and the younger species Australopithecus afarensis, which is Lucy's species," explained team member and curator of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History's department of physical anthropology, Yohannes Haile-Selassie. "So it's going to be very critical when we finish the study. It's going to give us a lot of information and I'm sure a lot of scientists involved in this research would be interested to know what this species was."
But, unlike in Lucy's case, the excavation did not yield a skull, jawbone or teeth. Mr. Haile-Selassie says, without these, it will be difficult to determine the hominid's exact species, but much can still be learned from the remains.
"When you have isolated teeth, you can't really say much, but when we have the leg bone, the arm bone, the head, then you can look at proportions of the body. You can also look at how long the arm was compared to the leg, and this has to do with locomotion and how things evolved," he said.
Mr. Haile-Selassie says he and his team will return to the site next year to see if they can find the hominid's skull and jaw.
The hominid could be a member of Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, or Australopithecus anamensis, a species that lived up to 4.2 million years ago.
What Mr. Haile-Selassie and his colleagues do know from the remains they just found is that the hominid was bipedal, or walked on two legs, and was larger than Lucy.
There have been other remains discovered in eastern Africa from the same time period and earlier, all pointing to bipedalism.
A professor of anthropology at the University of Nairobi, Simiyu Wandibba, explains that the oldest hominid fossil, found in Chad, dates back seven million years. He says six million-year-old remains were located in the Kenyan areas of Lake Turkana, Baringo District and Tugen Hills.
Mr. Wandibba says hominids living between 3.4 million to 4.2 million years ago were likely to have created some form of crude technology.
"Our ancestors at that time will have relied on wood, and wood doesn't preserve in the archaeological record," he said. "So they probably made wooden tools for digging up roots, for breaking hard fruits or nuts in order to make them more easily edible, and so on. We can assume that these people made tools out of wood, and that these tools have not preserved."
Mr. Wandibba says stone tools first appeared some 2.5 million years ago.
The "homo" species line producing modern human beings occurred a little more than two million years ago with the emergence of Homo habilis. Homo erectus then came on the scene, followed by Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens neandertalensis, and humankind's present species, Homo sapiens sapiens.
Those in the homo line have a greater cranial capacity than their earlier hominid ancestors, suggesting increased intelligence, and an opposable thumb, which Mr. Wandibba says aided greatly in the evolutionary process.
He says hominids living between 3.5 million to 4.2 million years ago were not as sophisticated as members of the Homo species.
"They must have invented things, otherwise they will not have survived. These people utilized ready-made objects as tools. So you find a stone, you pick it up, and you use it, and then abandon it. The difference between them and homo is that homo sat down and said, 'I want to make a tool that looks like this,' and then made it. And, if need be, if the material is not available, then you look for that material," he said.

Scientists are unsure of the origins of the Homo species line. Some argue that Lucy's species, which died out about a million years ago, gave rise to the homo line. Findings at Lake Turkana in Kenya indicate that the Homo and Lucy's species, Australopithecus, actually co-existed

OPPOSITION LEADER DOES THE UNEXPECTED.

Politics...politics...politics.....the most unpredictable and interesting game of all.You wouldn't want to miss out on the latest gist in the opposition party.The opposition leader just did the unexpected by asking the deputy president, who is also the Jubilee coalition flag bearer, to back him up in his bid to secure the presidential seat come 2017 elections.Yes you got that right....

This comes as a shock for most political fans since as it is well known by most the support of deputy president William Ruto undoubtedly goes to the president Uhuru Kenyatta.However,it remains to be  Raila's stand as he maintains that he would like to have a talk with William Ruto concerning the issue.

Jubilee coalition flag bearer, however,maintains that his full support remains with president Uhuru Kenyatta.Ruto's stand concerning having a talk with opposition leader Raila Odinga is not clear since he has issued no statement concerning it.

Raila stated in a gathering that he would like to have Ruto's support in the coming 2017 elections promising that he would fully support deputy president William Ruto in 2022 elections after having served one term.This move was prompted by the overwhelming support that Raila received in the 2007 elections from the then Rift Valley province.

Well.....let's just wait and see how it all unfolds in the near future because with how things are going we can't really predict or give any speculation. 

Uganda Election Exposed: This Is What Might Happen In Uganda After Museveni’s Victory

“The commission declares Yoweri Kaguta Museveni elected President of the Republic of Uganda,” commission chairman Badru Kiggundu said.
According to the commission Museveni won 60.8 percent of the vote, while opposition candidate Kizza Besigye secured 35.4 percent.
But Besigye who had been detained three times this week has questioned the credibility of the results, strongly accused the commission for “Rigging” elections and now he is calling for an independent audit of the results.
“We have just witnessed what must be the most fraudulent electoral process in Uganda,” Besigye said in a statement.
His home was encircled by police in riot gear and media were barred from approaching it. USA yesterday urged one of the Africa’s longest serving president to stop the security services harassing his opponents.
Museveni’s another rival, former Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi has also complained about act, he was put under house arrest but was later released, his spokeswoman said.

“This election was fundamentally flawed and … results were not a reflection of the will of the Ugandan people,” Mbabazi said in a statement.

YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS

PRESIDENT UHURU STORMS INTO PARLIAMENT
Wow....this is interesting and happens to be one of the trending topics in the world of Kenyan politics. I am sure the question running through most people's minds is 'what in the world would prompt such an act by our very own President....well here's why.

Apparently, a furious President Uhuru Kenyatta stormed a meeting of Jubilee MPs and ordered them to abandon a scheme by members of the National Assembly to block passage of the Budget. The dramatic intervention at lunchtime in a Nairobi hotel Thursday by the President and his deputy, William Ruto, averted a looming shutdown of government operations after the House in the afternoon approved the report on the Budget estimates. Sources said the dressing-down lasted less than 10 minutes, during which the President declared he would not tolerate actions meant to sabotage his government, and then drove back to State House together with Ruto. The Head of State is reported to have warned the legislators of unspecified consequences if they failed to pass the crucial agenda.



And to signal his seriousness, the President is understood to have told the MPs he would demand a list should the matter end up in a physical vote to establish those who had not voted for it. President Uhuru is said to have challenged his troops to explain the relationship between the Budget and a court case challenging the legality of the Sh35 billion National Government Constituency Development Fund that has infuriated MPs. He asked the MPs to leave the court to do its work, before asking them to go back to Parliament and ensure the Budget was passed. “He asked us why we wanted to place hurdles in the way of his government. Some of our colleagues who tried to argue out the case were also asked to explain their interest in the court case,” an MP confided in The Standard. “The boss was so furious that he even refused to talk to us further and stormed out of the meeting, together with Ruto, ignoring calls by my colleagues urging them to stay,” added a Jubilee MP from Central. He went on: “The two even declined to take lunch at the invitation of the House leadership.” Another legislator said the President took issue with their demands on the fund, warning that his administration’s projects would not be put in jeopardy. “The President expressed his displeasure with the MPs for trying to undermine his government for their selfish interests," he said.


Well...there you have it the reason as to why the President stormed into parliament furious. You'd really expect Jubilee MPs to be more supportive but well known to most of us politics is quite unpredictable.

THE DIPLOMATIC WAY

CORD coalition has reached an agreement with the Jubilee coalition on the way forward regarding dialogue on IEBC stalemate. CORD and Jubilee will establish a joint committee to steer the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) reforms. Seven members to represent CORD in the select committee include Senator James Orengo and Johnstone Muthama. Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD)and the Jubilee coalition have finally reached an agreement on the way forward regarding the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) reforms.The two coalitions have established a 14-member joint select committee to investigate the electoral commissioners.The motion will be presented to the two houses in parliament by next week to kick off the dialogue processCORD has added two more legislators from its previous list of five. The seven are Johnson Muthama, Mutula Kilonzo and James Orengo, Eseli Simiyu, Junet Mohamed, Hellen Sambili and Mishi Mboko.

Jubilee coalition had 11 of its members but the number later dropped after four legislators including Moses Kuria,   Cecily Mbarire , Soipan Tuya and Fatuma Dullo were dropped from the list.The seven representatives from Jubilee are Kiraitu Murungi, Kipchumba Murkomen, Beatrice Elachi, Jimmy Angwenyi , Benjamin Washiali, Naomi Shaban and Mohammud Mohammed.

The select committee will draft a report to table to the parliament within a span of 30 days.