Saturday, December 31, 2011
Kenyans to celebrate New Year’s Eve in style despite Al-Shabaab terror threats
File | Nation Nameless is among the musicians expected to perform at the Easy FM’s Noons Reloaded beach party at the Nyali International Beach Hotel in the new year eve.
By JOHN MUCHIRI jmuchiri@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Friday, December 30 2011 at 22:00
Posted Friday, December 30 2011 at 22:00
IN SUMMARY
- Although some of the most anticipated parties and fireworks displays were cancelled by the police, other functions to usher in 2012 will go on as planned
Even as the Kenya Police cancelled some of the most anticipated New Year’s Eve parties early last week, citing terror threats, Kenyans are still ready to usher in 2012 in style.
In Mombasa, beach parties will go on as scheduled. The Easy FM’s Noons Reloaded beach party will be held at the Nyali International Beach Hotel on Saturday night.
Hosted by Easy FM presenter Edward Kwach, the artistes expected to perform include Jaguar, Sauti Sol, Nameless, Size 8 and Ally B.
Nation Broadcasting Division brand manager Githinji Njogu said that the police will boost security in all crowded areas.
“We have had long talks with the police and they assured us that security will be beefed up at our party at the Nyali beach,” said Mr Njogu.
In the North Coast, II Covo Beach will be hosting some of Kenya’s top DJs in a New Year’s Eve party titled ‘Stereo Love’.
Among those who will perform are DJ Hipnotiq, DJ Dru, DJ Protege and DJ Creme. There will be a special performance by the musical group Camp Mullah.
Further north in Mtwapa, Club Lambada is set to host gospel musician Jimmy Gait of the ‘Furi Furi Dance’ song fame and the popular Sarakasi dancers.
In the South Coast, the Alliance Safari Beach Hotel will be hosting the Beach Life New Year’s Eve party, with other top Kenyan DJs like DJ Drazen, DJ John and DJ Space performing all night.
In Nairobi, most churches and other entertainment joints will be house full.
At the Carnivore, the Seven Wonders of Carnivore New Year’s Eve party will be on Saturday night.
Performing will be DJ Joe Mfalme, DJ Mobi, DJ Ricky and DJ Klash.
At K1 Klub House in Parklands, there will be a crossover party tonight with DJ Adrian and the US-based Kenyan disc jockey, VJ One.
Safari Park will usher in the New Year in style too, with musician Wahu and top comedian Eric Omondi entertaining the audience.
Sports View Kasarani will have artistes like Ben Githae performing tonight while the King of Mugithi, Mike Rua, will be entertaining fans at Fine Breeze Club, Dagoretti Corner.
Jubilee Christian Church Parklands will hold its New Year’s Eve celebrations tonight, hosted by Bishop Allan Kiuna and Rev Cathy Kiuna.
According to some sources, it will be a special celebration because they will do a normal church service instead of the usual performances by gospel musicians all night.
At the Louis Leakey Auditorium, Museum Hill, there will be a Prison Break Festival, hosted by the City of Refuge Church, with popular gospel musicians like DK and Mr Seed performing.
However, some churches will have only evening services and not the usual overnight prayers.
Most clubs in Nairobi, Nakuru, Thika, Eldoret and Kisumu will be operating as usual.
Florida Group, which runs clubs in Nairobi and Mombasa, will be operating as usual.
“We will just beef up the security,” said Mr Graham Katana, Florida’s entertainment manager.
The events that were cancelled by the police include the Groove Party, which was supposed to be held tonight at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre, and The Exit Strategy that was supposed to take place at the same venue.
In Kisumu, a street party organised by The Main Event company was called off by the organisers.Nairobi police boss Anthony Kibuchi cancelled the two events early last week due to terrorism threats by Al-Shabaab.
“We decided to cancel our annual street party because we were not sure of the security situation in the country. It is better to prevent a situation than be sorry,” said Mr Ted ‘Big Ted’ Kwaka, the managing director of the firm.
Fireworks displays were also banned by the police.
Did your father ruin you for other men?
By Joan Thatiah
Posted Friday, December 30 2011 at 18:19
Posted Friday, December 30 2011 at 18:19
IN SUMMARY
- How you relate with your male parent forever influences your interactions with persons of the opposite sex.
The mother-daughter relationship is one that is prized the world over. Conversely, fathers back off and become less emotionally intimate with their daughters when they reach adolescence. The unflattering truth is that close father-daughter relationships are a hard thing to come by and are considered less significant.
Experts, however, believe that the father-daughter relationship is equally, if not more, important than the mother-daughter one.
The quality of the father-daughter bond significantly influences her dating preferences and determines the quality of her future romantic relationships. The early relationship a woman had with her father could be the answer to why she seems to attract only a certain kind of man and repeats the same relationship patterns.
Nairobi-based psychologist Andrew Kiuna says this is because a father is the first man in a woman’s life. Her relationship with him is usually her primary and most enduring male love relationship.
Regardless of whether he is a good man or not, he becomes the earliest standard against which every prospect will be judged. A growing woman looks up to her father as a leader and a protector. In her father’s eyes, she learns her worth to the opposite sex. She gets from him her first impression of herself as a female, which determines whether she feels valued or rejected by the opposite sex. Self-worth for girls depends heavily on their relationship with their father.
If a woman had a good relationship with her father, she will be attracted to men who are just like him. One who had a negative relationship with her father is likely to fancy men who are different in an effort to cushion herself from hurt or make up for an unhappy childhood.
Studies suggest that women who experienced a positive relationship with their fathers subconsciously tend to be attracted to men with strong physical similarities to their father. Similarly, girls with good communication with their fathers will have significantly better communication with their love interest.
Abusive
One would assume that a woman who had an abusive father as a child will steer clear of men with abusive tendencies, but not quite. Women with abusive fathers are attracted to partners who abuse or abandon them.
Diana Gisuka, 29, can attest to this. Her earliest memories of her father are those of an abusive alcoholic. She had a turbulent childhood and a preadolescence riddled with both physical and verbal abuse. “All the men I have been romantically involved with have either physically or emotionally abused me. Each time I manage to end a relationship with an abusive personality, I end up with someone else who is just like him,” says Diana, who is in between relationships at the moment.
This destructive dating pattern stems from the fact that a woman’s view of the opposite sex comes from her early memories of her father and how he treated her and the women around her. Abuse erodes a growing woman’s self-esteem, lowers her expectations in a romantic partner and interferes with her ability to identify character or real love.
Author Shari Jonas, in her book Father Effects: How Your Father Influenced Who You Are and Who You Love, writes that a woman’s self-esteem is directly linked to her relationship with her father. This relationship also influences her personality, and the men that she is attracted to.
Women who were sexually abused by their father play out the pain and anger in different ways. A big number of them fall into prostitution. According to Dr Kiuna this gives them a false sense of control over men.
Financially unreliable
A daughter of a man who despite his ability failed to meet her financial needs is more than likely to compensate by becoming very financially independent. She is likely to become successful in a subconscious attempt to make up for his failure.
Chris, a legal practitioner in Mombasa, says that he has dated such a woman. Their relationship was functional, he says, but her quest for financial independence is what finally drove them apart.
“She couldn’t let me take care of her. She seemed to have everything figured out and she spent every waking moment thinking about how she could make that extra shilling. Her self-sufficiency deprived me of the chance to play that primal role of the provider and at times she threatened my masculinity,” he confesses.
Absent
A father need not be physically unavailable to be considered absent. A physically present father who ignores his daughter’s achievements and accomplishments raises a woman with a thirst for masculine approval.
These women will seek this validation in sex before marriage. They will unsuccessfully look for love and attention they should have gotten from their father from other men, often resulting in a downward spiral of unrewarding relationships.
Young women commonly interpret a father’s abandonment as personal rejection. She may attempt to find that missing link in other men, resulting in her making wrong relationship choices.
Cheater
Girls learn how they should be treated by watching how their fathers treat their mothers. If a father is a faithful and honourable husband, his daughter will expect and seek these positive qualities in her potential romantic matches. Daughters of cheaters enter relationships expecting unfaithfulness and it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Take Cynthia Dache for instance. This 30-year-old nurse witnessed her father’s infidelity from a very young age. Throughout her parents’ marriage her father always had someone else on the side, a fact he made little effort to hide.While most daughters of cheaters tend to be clingy and smothering in a bid to prevent their partners from wandering, there are those who turn out to be distant and emotionally cold.
“I have met men who would have made great partners in the past but I have this destructive tendency of sabotaging good relationships. I want to get married and raise a family in the foreseeable future but I don’t know how to get there. It is hard for me to love intimately,” she says.
Pampering
A man who gives his daughter everything and anything she asks for might assume that he is a good father.
But according to Dr Kiuna, an overly pampering father raises a woman who is manipulative and controlling. She will enter romantic relationships feeling that she is entitled to special treatment. She is bound to feel deprived if her romantic partners don’t treat her in the same manner and attitude her father did, which will have her going from one disappointment to the other.
In the psychologist’s view, a daughter ought to learn from her father from an early age that some things should be earned. He should not to shield her from his hardworking side. If she shares in this part of his life, she is likely to grow into a productive adult.
New Year gift for a million Kenyans
Minister for Public Service Dalmas Otieno (right) with his Permanent Secretary Titus Ndambuki during a past press conference at the Minister's office at Harambee House. PHOTO/ FILE
By SAMUEL SIRINGI ssiringi@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted Friday, December 30 2011 at 22:00
Posted Friday, December 30 2011 at 22:00
IN SUMMARY
- Government announces the much-awaited Sh6 billion medical insurance scheme for hundreds of thousands of civil servants, regular police, AP and NYS along with their families
- Police, prisons staff, civil servants and employees of the National Youth Service benefit from comprehensive cover starting new year
New Year came early for a million public servants, the disciplined forces and their families after the government announced a Sh6 billion medical insurance deal.
According to the policy, there will be no limits on inpatient treatment in the health facilities for officials and their dependants.The facilities listed will be government, mission or private hospitals.
The cover will be provided by the National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF).
Each patient will only be required to fork out Sh100 as co-payment in public hospitals, including Kenyatta and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, for a range of medical services.
But those visiting high cost private hospitals will be required to pay Sh200 in the arrangement that will also cover staff from the National Youth Service and Kenya Prisons.
Each of the 220,00-plus staff under the scheme will be allowed to register four dependants — a spouse and three children.
The children must be under 18 but those still in full time school or college qualify until they are 25.
In a circular dated December 21, Public Service Permanent Secretary Titus Ndambuki said the NHIF will administer the cover starting on Sunday.
He said the scheme will bring relief to civil servants and members of the disciplined services who have been meeting the high costs of medical bills from their own resources.
The targeted staff will, however, forfeit their medial allowances that have been included in their salaries.
Mr Richard Kerich, the chief executive of NHIF, confirmed on Friday that the institution was ready to serve civil servants.
“We will provide the cover as agreed from January 1 as long as they visit hospitals that are on an agreed list. It is massive but we must deliver on our promises,” he said.
Ex-gratia payments
The circular, titled Introduction of a Medical Insurance Cover for Civil Servants and Disciplines Services, said the scheme will be partly funded by pooling the current monthly medical allowances payable to staff and funds allocated for medical ex-gratia and in-patient refunds.
Currently, medical allowances paid to staff add up to about Sh4.3 billion per year.
Additionally, the government allocates about Sh1.6 billion as ex-gratia payments to take care of medical bills for staff that exceed NHIF cover ceilings.
Currently, each civil servant pays a standard Sh320 to NHIF for health insurance.
“This is to ensure that the quality of cover for the government employees is comparable to that of other public servants,” Mr Ndambuki said.
He said refunds of inpatient medical bills will be stopped immediately.
“You are required to stop payment of monthly medical allowances to all staff with effect from January 1, 2012. Stop further processing of any medical ex-gratia claims and inpatient refunds which will not have been committed in the vote-book by December 31,” Mr Ndambuki said.
The scheme is similar to one unveiled by the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) early this month, the difference being that teachers staff will only forfeit half their medical allowances.
However, NHIF will also allow officers to cover additional members. In that case, they will pay extra premiums directly to the fund.
The scheme will cover both outpatient and inpatient medical services.
“On commencement, offices will be expected to choose their preferred hospitals as per a list to be provided by NHIF,” Mr Ndambuki said.
According to the policy, there will be no limits on inpatient treatment in the health facilities for officials and their dependants.The facilities listed will be government, mission or private hospitals.
But there will be specified ceilings in high cost private hospitals for officers in specified job groups.
Outpatient costs that will be covered include doctors’ consultation, laboratory tests and X-ray charges.
Others are prescriptions and dressings and pharmacy services.
The cover also makes provision for life insurance for principal members at graduated rates based on their job groups.
Mr Ndambuki said details on the new scheme will be sent to staff to enable them understand how the new policy works.
Early this month, teachers agreed to pay up to Sh2,000 toward the planned scheme.
Currently, the lowest paid teacher receives a monthly medical allowance of Sh767.
The highest paid teacher, a chief principal, earns Sh4,412 per month.
The changes will increase the total contribution by teachers to NHIF from the current Sh1 billion to Sh3.4 billion.
Earlier, Public Service minister Dalmas Otieno had planned that the new scheme for teachers and civil servants be ran by private insurance companies.
Mr Otieno advertised for the tenders to provide the medical cover to public servants, a move that had been opposed by his Medical Services colleague Anyang’ Nyong’o and the teachers.
The staff will be legible for an annual mandatory general medical check-up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
