#Kampala vs Nairobi

[delusionalbubble]

Kampala vs Nairobi for Visiting

[rupertdixon-tda-blog]

Tour d'Afrique 2017 - Nairobi (18th Feb) to Maun (18th Apr) - Distance - A long way!

Last year TdA felt like an epic one off challenge, this year it feels more like a way of life! Initially I was concerned about turning up half way through the tour with so many friendships and bonds already formed, last year we had a very small group which rarely got over 30 people with sectional riders, this year the group is rarely under 50 including staff. My starting point, Wildebeest camp in Nairobi was familiar and a great place to meet all the riders, new and old, I was made to feel very welcome straight away, it was also interesting to hear that many of this years riders had been reading my blog from last year! The setup has changed this year, we now have a massive articulated lorry as the main support truck and our trusty little dinner truck from last year has now been demoted to a supporting lunch truck, everything is on a bigger scale this year, it feels more like a moving circus than a bike tour! Having written lots last year (some say too much!), It's taken me two months to write anything this time around so I won't bore you with a detailed description of our day to day life but here are some of my initial highlights, firstly in Kenya. Dinner at Talisman in Nairobi with the not so thin Chris Daubney and friends, Beers with Beiber on Lake Naivasha after our first day's cycling on TdA 2017, cycling through the Kenyan highlands and the endless tea plantations, crossing the Equator and the punch party that followed! We then crossed into Uganda where we lazed about in Jinja (source of the Blue Nile), went clubbing (of sorts!) in Kampala before a 5am start the next day! Caught a ferry on lake Victoria to the beautiful Sesse Island and relaxed and recovered at the picturesque and tranquil Lake Bunyonyi. We then crossed into Rwanda, wow, what an amazing country, it was one of my favourite countries the first time I visited, It was even better this time. Very friendly people, unbelievably clean, stunning scenery and ridiculously good roads for cycling on, Rwanda has to be a must visit country for all cyclists and non cyclists alike. Unfortunately we were only there for a few days, just enough time to allow riders to visit the Mountain Gorillas, having seen them 10 years ago I opted to save the $750 permit cost and spend a few days exploring the wonderful bars and restaurants that Kigali has to offer! We then spent the next 19 days in Tanzania, the first section took in roads less travelled south of Lake Victoria from where we entered the Serengeti from the East Gate and then travelled on to the Ngorongoro Crater. Once again the vast plains did not disappoint, my favourite sightings were Elephants playing and bathing around us, watching a pride of Lions hunt and two rare daytime sightings of the Serval cats. We were also visited by a inquisitive Elephant at one of our two overnight bush camps who then cleaned out the bins before leaving us a few presents! So that brought us to Arusha which connected me back to the half way point on last years route, one month in East Africa circumnavigating Lake Victoria on a bicycle, you really can't beat it! The last 5 weeks have taken us along the same route I cycled last year but it's not felt at all repetitive, the dirt roads of Tanzania were not quite as "dirty" as last year, no trucks got stuck and most people made it to camp most evenings. Days that had been wild and wet last year had perfect weather conditions this year, most notably the decent from Mbeya down to the Malawi border, last year we couldn't see a thing, this year we had 60kms of simply stunning descending. That day alone justified my decision to repeat these sections again. To be honest I would do it all again for the bush camping alone...TdA - we need more bush camps! Having endured one of its wettest years on record Botswana looks a completely different country, dry savannah replaced by wetlands and green grass, it has been so wet than we had to get a flat bed truck across a 1.5km stretch of road which has been 3 feet under water for the last few months! The water hasn't kept the wildlife away, we have seen numerous bull Elephants on the road, often too close for comfort bringing back memories of being mocked charged last year! Other than a few stages I've not raced and as a result I've been pretty comfortable with the cycling this year however it has not all been plain sailing. After a night at "death camp" where I projectile vomited inside and outside my tent numerous times I took a day off the bike and spent my first ever day in the dog box (the small cabin on the dinner truck) which we renamed the "vomit comet". Along with 12 other riders we squeezed into a cabin designed for a maximum of 8 over the bumpy Tanzanian roads stopping with alarming frequency for emergency "relief breaks"! It was an all together traumatising experience and my efforts to cheer everyone up with a game of charades were not well received! In hindsight I actually wished I had ridden my bike that day, it certainly couldn't have been any worse! The weather has certainly been more challenging this year, Africa is stereotypically a hot continent and avoiding sunburn and heatstroke were my primary concerns last year, 2017 has proved different, it rained nearly everyday for first 6 weeks, something I should have been prepared for having known we would be cycling through East Africa during the rainy season. We have endured some absolutely torrential downpours and numerous flooded tents and it's been a daily challenge to get to camp early enough to dry out my tent before it pours with rain again! In Malawi half the riders had to be picked up on the road after showing the early signs of hypothermia having cycled through epic rain, wind and near zero visibility at nearly 2,000m altitude, in a slightly sadistic way that was actually one of my favourite riding days, in England we are used to these riding conditions! I may have found the cycling easier than last year but I'm still struggling to stay on my bike on a consistent basis! In Uganda I fell off going up a ridiculously muddy hill as 3kms an hour and then 2 hours later summersaulted over my handlebars into a bush after I lost control on a downhill stretch. In Tanzania I tried to plough through a large puddle only to sink straight into the mud below! I had a very lucky escape riding out of Lusaka when a car pulled out in front of me whilst riding on the highway at 35kms an hour, I managed to break slightly to reduce the impact but I still ended up going over the car bonnet with my bike still attached to my feet. It's the first time I've seen a car come off worse in a cyclist vs vehicle incident! I managed to brace for impact with my elbow which went through the car windscreen completely shattering and putting a hole in the screen but luckily I got away with a just a few bruises and glass cuts, thankfully I was wearing my crash bibshorts so I ruined an already ruined pair of shorts! The driver was more shaken up than me, I don't think he knew what had happened! He initially tried to claim it was my fault and asked for compensation but having been put straight by 15 local witnesses he backed down and after straightening out my handlebars I got back on my bike as quickly as possible before any confrontation could occur! Luckily I didn't hit my head so I was signed off to continue riding... So now I've made it to Maun, just two days from the scene of my first of last years crashes, these last two months have yet again been an amazing experience with many more highs than lows, I really don't think I would regret doing it again next year but I think it's probably time to try something new! West Africa is calling in 2018! Having approached TdA 2017 very differently to last year I feel so much fresher than 12 months ago and I'm really looking forward to finally cycling through Namibia and South Africa and hopefully making it to Cape Town in one piece!

[insideismailism]

Recently there has been some feeble propaganda attempts by Ismailis to convince Muslims living the in the West and the ‘liberal’ Muslims living in Muslim lands about how ‘philanthropic’ is Aga Khan and how humanitarian are his projects for everyone and not just Ismailis.

Nothing can be further from the truth. All of Aga Khan’s attempts at establishing institutions are strictly, compulsorily and firmly, for-profit institutions. The poster child of Aga Khan’s public welfare institutions is Aga Khan Hospital and the Aga Khan Hospital is also a testimony to the ‘for-profit’ claim which I mentioned above. The Aga Khan Hospital is not just one of the expensive, but the most expensive healthcare institutions in the cities where it is present. In Kenya, the cost of delivering a baby at Aga Khan Hospital is a whopping KSh 400,000. Together with that, it has had an outstanding number of malpractice and medical negligence cases in Karachi, Pakistan and Nairobi, Kenya. These are not mere claims of medical malpractice, but are civil cases against the hospital and it’s trustees and are publicly available for viewing on the internet. Click here for an example.

The newly opened Serena Hotel in Kabul offers rooms starting at $250-a-night, that’s what an average Afghan makes in a year – including the ones employed at the Serena Hotel in Kabul. These Serena Hotels also openly sell alcohol contradictory to what Islam teaches, but that’s another topic and already addressed in the Inside Ismailism blog previously.

The above is a photo of the bar at Kampala Serena Hotel serving a variety of whiskeys, wines and spirits is courtesy of TripAdvisor.

The above is a photo of a promotional campaign from Serena Hotels, sent from their official Twitter account.

An acknowledgement by General Manager of Serena Hotels, of the review posted on TripAdvisor for the Johnny Walker Black Tie Dinner. Courtesy of TripAdvisor.

Aga Khan’s institutions do focus on poverty alleviation, but these programs are only inward-facing – strictly focused towards the Ismaili community. The aim is to get as many family ‘on their feet’ as possible, for each family which is able to feed itself is required to pay 12.5% of it’s monthly income to Aga Khan.

This 12.5% paid by Ismaili families is called ‘dasond’ which means ‘tenth-part’. Modern day Ismaili missionaries claim that this is a combination of zakat (2.5%) and ushr (10%). However, that’s simply not true because zakat is never ever paid on income and is paid on excess and unconsumed wealth which lies with a Muslim for more than a year. The history of dasond is revealed in Ismaili ‘ginans’ or hymns which are written by their ‘pirs’ or saints in gujrati language.

Ismailis at that time were required to pay their dasond (tenth part) to the then present-day Imam (spiritual father), and were required to pay 2.5% to the pir (spiritual mother) – both from their monthly earnings, completely contradictory to Islamic teachings. However, when Aga Khan came into power, he claimed both positions, Imam and Pir, for himself and asked to be paid both of these shares to himself. This is also a reason why Ismaili missionaries, such as Kamaluddin Alimohammad and Abu Aly A. Aziz can be heard calling the Aga Khan as ‘ruhani ma baap’ or spiritual father and mother in their sermons. All of these historical facts are completely hidden from the present-day Ismailis and the dasond is just equated to zakat and ushr.

It’s not just the issue of dasond vs. zakat. It’s also the issue of the Islamic prayer vs. The Ismaili prayer and the issue of Hajj vs. The Glimpse of Aga Khan and the issue of Ramadhan fasting vs. Shukarvari Beej which distance Ismailism from Islam. All Muslims, including Shia and Sunni adhere to the five basic pillars of Islam of the testimony of faith, prayer, zakat, hajj and fasting whereas Ismailis come in and claim that prayer means not praying as the Prophet (pbuh) did, fasting does not mean abstaining from food and drink, zakat is not paid yearly on excess wealth to the poor but monthly on the income to the Imam (Aga Khan), and Hajj is just getting a glimpse of Aga Khan with your very own eyes.

The Ismaili version of Hajj.

Obviously on a religious ground, Ismailis have not feet to stand on, as all their claims of following Islam just do not make any sense whatsoever, and they then cite the Aga Khan Hospital and other highly profitable institutions which are just businesses run by Aga Khan. The list of these business is not small, it’s a HUGE list.

Aga Khan has cleverly banded all of these institutions under AKFED (Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development) which on the face of it, sounds very philanthropic, but it’s not. AKFED is nothing but a private holding company under which all of Aga Khan’s highly profitable institutions including banks, insurance companies, telecommunication companies, airlines and hotels operate such as:

Banks and Insurance Companies: Habib Bank Limited Development Credit Bank Kyrgyz Investment and Credit Bank Jubilee Insurance Diamond Trust Bank

Airlines: Air Mali Meridiana Fly Air Uganda

Telecommunication: Roshan Telecommunications Mwananchi Communications Tcell Tajikistan

Hotels: Kabul Serena Hotel Faisalabad Serena Hotel Islamabad Serena Hotel Quetta Serena Hotel Swat Serena Hotel Nairobi Serena Hotel Amboseli Serena Safari Lodge Mara Serena Safari Lodge Kilaguni Serena Safari Lodge Serena Mountain Lodge Polana Serena Hotel Kampala Serena Hotel Lake Victoria Serena Resort Mivumo River Lodge Selous Wildlife Lodge Lake Manyara Safari Lodge Serengeti Serena Safari Lodge Ngorongoro Serena Safari Lodge Arusha Mountain Village Zanzibar Serena Inn

Energy: Azito Energie Pamir Energy

Auction Houses: Arqana – One of the world’s largest racehorse auctioning and breeding houses

The Aga Khan Foundation in Canada (AKFC) was recently under investigation and did not reveal it’s audited financial statements to the public. It received $41.9 government funding in 2013 and did not spend that money. In fact, it was found that the AKFC had “enough cash-in-hand to operate for 8 years without even raising even a single penny”. This was reported in Toronto Star and Bloomberg.

Aga Khan’s relationship with the current prime minister was also recently questioned, and is currently under investigation for calling Justin Trudeau’s family to a vacation. Canada has given AKFC $310 million since 2004 and Aga Khan’s vacation call to Trudeau seemed more like a ‘generous cut’ than a generous gift.

Investigation into the Trudeau-Aga Khan relationship resulted in the striking discovery that the island at which Aga Khan hosted Justin Trudeau was owned by an off-shore company.  The Panama Leaks database contained the name of this company through which it was found that this company is owned by two other companies. Even the helicopter which was used for transport was owned by an off-shore company. This is the modern way of weaving private property ownership into layers and layers of companies registered in off-shore tax havens. It is impossible for anyone to determine wealth of individuals who use these off-shore companies.

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Above: Ismaili priest Nasiruddin Hunzai performing a Ismaili religious ritual with Ismaili women. Nasiruddin Hunzai was the leader of Ismailis in Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan areas and frequently toured globally. He passed away in 2017.

A few weeks into this and the Paradise Papers were revealed in which Aga Khan’s name was prominently featured. Aga Khan was found to hide the ownership of his expensive multi-million dollar yachts under an off-shore company called Bravo Romeo. Just one of the yacht he owns was valued at 200,000,000 British Pounds in 2014.

Aga Khan was also highly criticized when he milked the Canadian government to grant him $30 million dollars from the tax payers money to establish the Global Center for Pluralism. Moreover, Aga Khan got the premises for the Global center for Pluralism against just $1 for a 99-year lease and later got permission for sub-lease half of the property at market rate to other tenants. This prime piece of real estate was formerly the Canadian War Museum.

Aga Khan and his Ismaili community were also under investigation, this time by the FBI for money laundering when Ismaili community members were found smuggling dasond money (yes, the same 12.5%) across the US-Canadian border. Fortunately for Aga Khan, the Ismailis involved took the blame and the prison sentence upon themselves. The entire saga was covered by CBC’s Fifth Estate documentary called “God’s Money”.

Aga Khan was also revealed to have funded Tajik separatist terrorists against the current Tajik government and the story was published as ‘West plans new country for Ismaelites’ [sic] in Press TV.

The Aga Khan also owns a $100 million island in the Bahamas, a superyacht with which he breaks speed records, racehorses which win him derby money and settles record million-dollar divorces with Western supermodels who go back to Christianity after ‘accepting Islam’ while married to Aga Khan. But that’s a another bunch of topics.

Above: Aga Khan enjoys a vacation on one of his yachts in the Summer of 2017. Just one of his yachts was valued at 200 million pounds in 2014. 

Whether you are a Ismaili or a Muslim, whenever you are giving your ‘time and money’ to anything owned and operated by Aga Khan, know where you time and money is going, as the money trail always leads to the truth behind the façade.

What Aga Khan does for the Muslim World Recently there has been some feeble propaganda attempts by Ismailis to convince Muslims living the in the West and the ‘liberal’ Muslims living in Muslim lands about how ‘philanthropic’ is Aga Khan and how humanitarian are his projects for everyone and not just Ismailis.

[kalachand97-blog]

New Post has been published on Globeinfrom

New Post has been published on https://globeinform.com/the-front-row-augusta-country-wide-beckons-with-beauty/

The Front Row: Augusta Country wide beckons with beauty

The solar is expected to be shining these days in Augusta, Ga., wherein television will be bringing us glorious photographs from the second one round of the Masters.

Escape from our dreary nearby weather by means of tuning into the scenes from the Augusta Countrywide Golfing Membership, wherein the colorful azaleas and blooming dogwoods on the impossibly inexperienced route lie beneath majestic pine trees and blue sky.

3-time Masters winner Gary Participant once said if there’s a Golfing path in heaven, it’ll be Augusta Countrywide, and he hopes to be the pro.

Even regarded from afar on a Tv or cell phone, the slice of horticultural heaven can warm the coronary heart on a nasty April day, plenty as perspectives of the Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, Ca. Momentarily thaw the Midwest wintry weather on New Year’s Day.

Augusta Countrywide is, in reality, the megastar of the Masters, Golfing’s simplest foremost championship performed within the identical region at the identical direction each Year, allowing us to experience as though we realize the holes even if we’ve never been there in person.

The narrative of this Masters has already been approximately who isn’t gambling, and who struggled in the first spherical Thursday as swirling winds, gusting near 40 miles per hour, made it tough to break par.

Tiger Woods didn’t occasion input the event due to issues together with his surgically repaired again. It’s now been nine years considering the fact that he gained his 14th principal. He’s a ghost.

Dustin Johnson, the No. 1-ranked Player of the arena and winner of his past 3 PGA Excursion starts of evolved, pulled out of the event Thursday because of his personal returned damage, suffered an afternoon earlier while he slipped and fell on wooden stairs.

Young gun Jordan Spieth is already 10 pictures off the lead after shooting 3-over par 75 in a gap round marred by using a hideous quadruple bogey 9 on the 15th hollow.

Rory McIlroy changed into a little higher at even 72, but he hasn’t been in competition on the Masters considering the fact that blowing a 4-shot Sunday lead in 2011. In five of the past seven years at Augusta, the Northern Irishman has had a spherical of at the least 77.

A bunch of other massive names stumbled around Augusta on Thursday. Rickie Fowler shot seventy-three, Jason Day and Bubba Watson carded 74s, and Adam Scott signed off on a seventy-five.

Does An African Us of an Or Some different Needy Nation Beckon You?

A colleague, Andrew Strom, has just despatched me a bit on his go to Nigeria and permission is granted to reproduce a part of it. Why do I do this and why do I want you to examine it? Well, it so jogged my memory of my times in Uganda and Kenya, speak at Pastors Seminars inside the slums and out within the jungles.

We currently were given returned from our journey to Nigeria – and had a terrific time. The warmth and the never ending cloud of dirt, smog and diesel fumes have been ever-gift, however spiritually it was a wonderful journey.

3 times God arranged it that we appeared on nationwide Tv – once whilst we had been preaching and praying for the Governor of Ogun Nation (a piece just like the Governor of California). best God ought to set up the sort of thing on the last minute, and we made sure He got all the glory. Thank you for your prayers, my friends!

I understand a number of humans in this Listing have had invitations to Third international locations to minister. They want overseas preachers because they understand many human beings will come to pay attention a “white man” preach!

I want to inspire you to take these possibilities, my friends, even if you have to pay your own way and this is quite probably due to the fact they may be so terrible.

I’ve come across many Repentance preachers in the America and the West who’ve been frustrated and discouraged right here with the lack of response and/or openings. We need to comprehend that there is a wide global out there that is hungry and determined for sound preaching and biblical truth.

I recall as soon as listening to David Servant make an analogy of a fisherman with two fishing holes to choose from. In one fishing hollow, he stuck without a doubt no fish in any respect, and the only he did trap jumped up and spat water in his face! within the different fishing hole, the fish have been so desperate to be caught that they were clinging to the line and he was hauling them in as rapid as he could get his pole again inside the water! Which fishing hole ought to he pick out? Of path, it changed into the second one -equating to the Third international.

plenty of us think it is the “non-secular” factor to do, to wait and wait and wait right in which we are, but as David Servant factors out, Jesus simply told his disciples that if they have been no longer received In a single metropolis, to go away that area and move on till they discover a receptive region. That is really a commandment of God. In any other case, all of God’s servants are left wasting their time in unresponsive environments. Jesus commands us to “move!”

In my view, for decades now I’ve focused my interest almost absolutely at the West. but God is changing that. In truth, it would no longer marvel me in any respect if God calls our own family to be based within the 1/3 international sometime inside the following couple of years. Such is the want and the hunger there. Unluckily it’s far the complete opposite of what we so regularly find in the secure apathetic West.

I strongly encourage each preacher who is on this List to don’t forget the Third international – and shortly. It is able to be time to suppose “out of doors the container”, my friends. You may not regret it.

Thank you once more for your first rate players at some point of our experience. We saw many breakthroughs in the lives of both leaders and those as we spoke on deep repentance and the real message of the Move vs. The selfish gospel of gain, and many others. a number of humans appeared very surprised and impacted via the messages. So your prayers made a big distinction. Thanks. I hope to go back to Africa again in May.

Yours for the Third international Harvest, expensive buddies.

there’s so much written above with which I’m able to discover. around 70 to one hundred twenty Pastors could walk or cycle 10 to 17 miles to wait the Three days Seminars, dozing on the ground of the church building every night. I might be teaching three one and a 1/2 hour classes every day with time for questions. those guys of God were so hungry.

Strong nice biblical management and teaching is so liked!

It turned into really worth all of the ‘trouble’ of the journey and all of the ‘inconvenience’. How regularly I have determined over time that once we’re inconvenienced, this is when Almighty God makes use of our maximum of all.

Sandy Shaw

Sandy Shaw is Pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship, Chaplain at Inverness Jail, and Nairn Academy, and serves on the Children’s Panel in Scotland, and has travelled considerably over those beyond years teaching, speaking, in The us, Canada, South Africa, Australia, making 12 visits to Israel conducting Tours and Pilgrimages, and most currently in Uganda and Kenya, ministering at Pastors and Leaders Seminars, in the bad regions surrounding Kampala, Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.