It is metastasizing in Portland, Maine, too. https://tinyurl.com/yb6bl6dt

It is metastasizing to Minnesota.

Africa’s instability problem is unlikely to be properly accounted for in internal terms alone. Nor are satisfactory solutions likely, ‘leaving it to Africa’ – even in a relatively ‘constructive’ Africa.

The U.S.S.R, and now China, and sometimes Cuba, e.g., have seen opportunities to make headaches for their opponents there, by proxy. Elements in the Middle East see the possible forms of an emerging Africa as including cases that would be averse to their positions & goals.

The involvement of Prince Harry and his father Charles in things-Africa is not mainly a dalliance. It’s about the Commonwealth. A small crowd of African nations have been actively working the Commonwealth-track, for quite awhile now, in concert with Britain. In addition, as part of the same phenomenon, several key Asian nations are also doing the same thing … some of this impinging upon China’s current claims & developments.

The Commonwealth was originally restricted to former British colonies, so most or all of these prospective members-in-waiting need a Rules-change … but several major & deliberated changes are already a matter of history, for the very much evolving institution.

And of course various internal improvements need to be made, before some of these places will be ready. But they’re interested … they see it as the right course.

The Commonwealth current consists of 53 nations, covers 20% of the land area of the planet, and contains 2.4 billion citizens.

Actually, the expression is “WAWA — West Africa Wins Again.” The expression that came out of East Africa was MMBA: “miles and miles of bloody Africa.” I heard it frequently from expatriates.

I was stationed to our embassy in Nairobi for five years, leaving not long before the embassy was bombed. My secretary and driver, as well as several of the employees in the Admin Section where my wife worked, were killed in that blast. That blast, BTW (and the simultaneous attack in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), were al Qaeda’s first major action in sub-Saharan Africa — not related to this latest attack in Nairobi.

Kenya always struck me as a country that might be able to evolve from colonialism into modernity successfully. Now, almost a quarter century later, one can say that evolution has been painfully slow. Yet on a continental scale, all the other countries we had hope for at the end of the last century — South Africa, Cote d’Ivoire, maybe Senegal — have fared worse than Kenya.

Kenya was less troubled by tribalism, had a diversified economy (tea, coffee, cut flowers and tourism), and a relatively enlightened ruling elite. But it was also surrounded by really shaky countries: Somalia, Sudan, and Rwanda, just to top the list. Daniel arap Moi was president when I left, and he seemed to have kept the lid on the kettle that was nascent multiparty democracy. IOW, things were looking up.

The cancer that is Somalia was a problem in the northeast of the country, but we always estimated Somalia would implode completely before affecting any of its neighbors very much. That was a bad estimation: Somalia has managed to spread its poison into the neighborhood. In truth, a few men with a bag of grenades and a handful of guns can create a major splash, as they have demonstrated several times in Nairobi. The bad guys in Somalia have managed to spread their cancer for nearly half a century.

I’m sorry to hear about Jason Spindler’s death. His story bears some similarity to that of Rick Rescorla, a Brit who fought in central Africa and Vietnam before dying in the twin towers bombing when he ran back into the building to save more people.

It’s definitely not coincidence. Trump represents a threat to the international left the way a “Preference Cascade” is a threat to totalitarian governments. The definition of a Preference Cascade is what happens when a lot of people discover that they are not alone and there are thousands or millions who agree that the present circumstance is intolerable and they will all change it. The Fall of the Berlin Wall was one example.

In the movie business, there’s something called the “cheer moment,” when the long-suffering hero finally decks his tormentor with a satisfying right cross. What the Beltway Republicans fail to understand is that their conservative base — which gave them stunning congressional victories in 2010 and 2014 and has nothing to show for it — has been longing for precisely that moment since Reagan crushed Mondale 49-1 in 1984.

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but there’s too much overlap here with statements coming out of the American and European far left all the time for it to be coincidence.

Two UN agencies – UN-Habitat and the UN Environment Programme – have their headquarters in the Kenyan capital. Several international companies like General Electric, Nestle, Heineken and Mastercard also have a strong presence in the country.

“Nairobi hosts international high-value targets that the group can target to send a signal to western countries. Countries like Burundi are less strategic but also you will have to cross multiple borders to reach and hence risky,” Abullahi Boru, a Horn of Africa security analyst, told Al Jazeera.

Nairobi is also the African city of choice for international media houses to base their operations. Last year, the BBC opened its largest office outside the UK in Nairobi. China’s CGTN also has its African headquarters there.

Analysts say the group knows targetting Kenya will bring big media coverage which it can in turn use to bolster its ranks.

Totally agree; if Israel did not exist they would find some other excuse – but, we all know that is stating the obvious to all but Israel haters.