How Can South Africa End the Robberies and Hijackings that Ravage the Country?

New York City, the world’s financial center, prior to Rudy Giuliani becoming the mayor, was the center place where one would be scared of walking at night simply for a short stroll or going through the subway system. The city was the hub and cesspool of all kinds of robberies and personal attacks.

However, when Rudy Giuliani became mayor of the City on January 1, 1994 through December 31, 2001, he filled the streets, on every street corner, with high trained and well paid security officers and cops. He also installed CC cameras on every street corner.

His primary and focus mission was to clean up New York City, and it worked. Even prior to 9-11, New York City became one of the most safest cities in the world, where you could get up any time of the day and walk down the street, without the fear of being worried about some schmuck snatching your wallet or purse, or robbing you at gun or knife point.

Mayor Bloomberg has continued on Rudy Giuliani’s vision, to keep New York City safe, and to date, it has continued that momentum. Today, you can literally walk down the street, and not have to worry about keeping your eyes on your wallet or pulse, and simply worry about seeing all the great excitement stuff around the city.

On the other side, South Africa, obviously not a city but a country, in most of its metropolitan areas, such as Johannesburg, has nearly been the safe haven for all kinds of ruthless pick-pocketing, car hijackings, and at gun point robberies, some of them are usually deadly.

Most people would tell you not to be downtown Johannesburg after 5:00PM, that’s when most offices are closed for business. And that’s when most robberies and car hijacking take place, as they try to catch the rush hours, people going back home and well-uninformed tourists.

Thus, the question is; what can the government of Zuma do to help stop the car hijackings, robberies and attacks on civilians and tourists?

One possible economic cause of these types of acts, it’s because of the high rate of unemployment. South Africa has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the world, at one point years back, the rate of unemployment in South Africa was at about 35%. However, according to the Voice of America, “despite a recent spate of bad economic news, the latest unemployment rate for South Africa has actually declined. The Labor Force Survey reports a drop from 23.2 percent in the third quarter of 2008 to 21.9 percent in the fourth quarter. The improvement is largely due to an increase in construction industry jobs”.

But despite an improvement in unemployment in South Africa, still, the majority of those who are employed still earn less than what they need for buying basic necessities. The GDP per capita in South Africa is $10,100 (CIA World Factbook), and that’s good compare to the rest of Africa.

Then why the rate of robberies and hijacking still high in South Africa? Partly, because the majority of the unemployed are those who didn’t finish their secondary school education during the apartheid era. And, post independence, they found themselves having to compete for low paying jobs, which compare to their uneducated counterparts in America, they refused to work 9 to 5 jobs with low paying salaries. Thus, in the US, the selling of drugs and in South Africa, the life of robberies and hijacking, has become the only way of making a decent living, for the short-term of course, because soon o r later, the culprit either goes to jail for his or her actions or gets killed by the law enforcement officers or co-rivalries.

Giuliani turned around New York City by trusting his law enforcement officers he has placed on every street corner to carry on their mission, to protect and serve, keeping the city safe and secure. On the other hand, in South Africa, with the recent reported bad news of South African Police Officers shooting and killing a two-year old boy, whom they thought was carrying a knife or gun, and their unofficially authorized code of shoot to kill, how can Zuma trust his law enforcement officers to carry out their mission, to serve and protect, but shoot first, and ask questions later?

Another underlying issue; South African Police Officers are low paid government officials, and when they are low paid, they have no motivation or moral authority to work even harder as required, which also puts their safety in danger from those ruthless and merciless criminals.

In America, law enforcement officers (cops) are some of the best paid workers. They have great benefits, and they never have to worry about what to eat at home or where to sleep. Unlike in South Africa, where cops are some of the lowest paid employees.

The first thing that Zuma needs to do is to ask the South African Parliament to vote and pass a bill, authorizing a high increase of wages and salaries plus great benefits for all law enforcement officers, at least doubling their current salary and wages. And then deploy them at full force on every street corner. If they are well paid, then their families are well-kept and fed, and if their families are well fed and kept, then they don’t have to worry about receiving bribes from the robbers and thieves, and for that, they will be more motivated to do their jobs, keeping the streets safe and secure.

With the 2010 World Cup coming to South Africa, certainly strict security measures are being put in place. However, either pre-or-post the 2010 World Cup, South Africa needs to act fast, and make it its highest priority to end these kinds of acts, for the sake of its citizens and most importantly, the unsuspecting tourists from around the world who travel to South Africa, everyday.

Yes, You Certainly Can, Always

Whether you think you can and you believe you can, then you certainly can, but the opposite simply results in failure. Always believe that you can…!

Mark Ndesandjo Obama, President Obama’s Unknown Half Brother?

Mark Ndesandjo Obama (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

During President Obama’s visit to China this week, he stopped between his meetings to meet up and have lunch with his half-brother, Mark Ndesandjo Obama, who lives in China, so reports Yahoo News and CNN.

During the 2008 presidential election campaign, there was little mentioned of Mark Obama. In fact, there is not much information on the Internet about Mark Obama. Is it because he lives in China and China was Internet censored in the past?

There is however a Twitter account; @MarkObama, but I am not sure if that’s actually his real account. Another Twitter account I found is @Ndesandjo, and also I am not sure if that’s his account. It would be interesting if either one of those are his.

Just like their father who studied Economics at Harvard University, and President Obama who studied at Columbia University and then Law at Harvard Law School, Mark Obama studied Physics at Brown University and Stanford University and an eMBA at Emory University (Yahoo! News). I think most of President Obama’s siblings have also studied at some of the finest universities in the world.

That’s pretty good for a guy (the father) from Kenya. It’s amazing how determination, dedication, hard work, and a good education can help transform someone, change a family, and the community.

When Mr. Obama came from Kenya to study at Harvard, he probably never realized what he was about to do, transforming his family into a powerful dynasty, and even though he was not present in raising his kids, that’s exactly what happened after his son got elected to the most powerful office in the world, the Office of the Presidency of the United States.

Work and Play in Developing Countries vs. Developed Countries

In most developing countries, where the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita is about $1,600, such as Kenya, the majority of the people still live of off their land in rural areas, where they generally have to work long hours almost every day without the comfort of resting. And only a few work in urban areas, which still requires them to work long hours for meager wages and salaries, in most cases, with no benefits.

Most of them work from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon, for almost eleven months out of the whole year, and they only get one vacation in the month of December for the Christmas and New Year’s holiday. That may sound rather exhausting, working long hours either farming or in some manufacturing jobs, which is generally normal for most of them, but with a low salary, and no medical or retirement plans. But because their overall livelihood depends on maintaining the same work routines, they are forced to work in that kind of environment without any motivational incentives but to make a living any way they can.

Due to a high rate of unemployment in most developing countries, most people, especially those with no high school education, let alone college education, have no luxury of changing jobs anytime they want in order to get paid an exuberant amount of wages, because finding a job, any kind of job, may be due to luck for most, and thus leaving or changing a job to find a better paying job may be harder, if not nearly impossible.

They have to work long hours, nearly 48 weeks out of the whole year, just to earn enough to send their kids to school and buy a few necessities, such as loaf of breads, sugar, rice, salt and butter. Taking a vacation and go on a family trip for them may be something that’s unheard off, due to the fact that their wages barely enables them to afford paying for their living expenses.

On the other hand, in developed countries such as the United States, where the GDP per capita income is around $47,500, with nearly 90 percent of the workforce are enjoying full employment, more and more people have more options of what kind of employment they want or where to work. During the high performance of economic activities, unlike the current Great Recession, most Americans enjoy the best of what they do for living. They are able to select what work shifts they want to work and also chose what companies they want to work for, and still enjoy the benefits of a good resting, plenty of vacation days, and still earn a good living.

In general, most people when looking for work, not only that the salary becomes the main factor for choosing the work place, but also the time off; in terms of the number of vacation days, paid sick leaves and holidays have become the determinant factors of choosing where and when to work.

“However, in recent years, since around the early 1990’s, with the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), most of the US companies have started outsourcing manufacturing jobs to low wage countries such as Mexico, and most of South East Asia, such as China and India” (Simon Kapenda).

This has caused a major problem for blue-collar workers in the US, because as their jobs are being shifted overseas, they are becoming more and more unemployed and they are forced to work for certain low paying jobs with low vacation days and benefits.

In return, as more and more jobs are outsourced overseas, the manufactured goods, made by overseas’ low paid workers, are then returned for sale to the US consumers. And then the very same companies end up recruiting a more experienced and college educated workforce to handle the selling and marketing of those goods that were manufactured in overseas countries. Those who get employed as a result of outsourced jobs, still end up earning high salaries and great paid vacations and sick leaves.

As a result, high productive and well paid employees have more money left after paying their household expenses to take special family trips and vacations to different areas of the world. Some travel to as far as to developing countries as tourists, which again, helps boost tourism activities in those countries.

The majority of the people in countries with a high GDP income per capita, have more residual income to spend on different life entertaining activities such as going out to movie theaters, fine dining, special holiday shopping sprees, video gaming systems, and home entertainment systems, such as extra flat TV screens in each room, DVD and Blu Ray systems, plus lots of food to choose what to eat at any given moment.

Unlike in most developing economies, the majority of the people don’t have the luxury of chosing what to eat on any given day, or what to wear, where to go on a vacation, or let alone; having more than one TV set at home.

Work and play as the main focus for this article may not necessarily mean for someone to simply go to work and play afterwards. It means more than just that, and the personal income for anyone, anywhere, determines one’s ability to enjoy the full benefits of working and playing; and that is, how and when to spend time with the family, going out to grocery stores, and pay household bills, all without being stressed. Everything else becomes an icing on the cake.

Therefore, in today’s globalized economy, developing countries must look to integrate their monetary economies in order to vastly compete with the world’s fast expanding markets. Europe has integrated their monetary economy, the US, Canada and Mexico have tabled the same issue to combine their monetary economies, and Africa needs to look at doing so right about now.

Furthermore, developing countries also need to move and shift away, right now, from agricultural based economy to industrial economy in order to help improve the quality of the lives of their citizens. Some of the redundant things that prevent attracting industrial investments in developing countries, is the business setup processes.

It takes as much as less than an hour to register and incorporate a business in the US and start with the business activities at the very same time, while it may take up to six months to register and organize to set up a business, of course after paying briberies and kick backs, in some of the developing countries.

Thus, streamlining business setup processes and dig out corruption in these countries are the first major steps to moving from agrarian economies to industrial economies.

Personal Endorsements and Connections for Sale or Exchange on LinkedIn?

Last week, I wrote and posted a blog article, titled “Real or Fake; How Reliable Are LinkedIn Professional Recommendations?“, and since then, I have received notes from different users, claiming that this kind of thing has been going on for a while on LinkedIn.

And it’s not just some users that are exchanging personal endorsements on LinkedIn, according to the Entrepreneur.com Blog, some LinkedIn users such as Steven Burda, have been exchanging personal connections in exchange for personal endorsements.

“It has been happening for quite some time. I have had people write their own endorsement and send it to me within minutes of connecting asking me to post it. I delete them instead. I would love to see this behavior stop.” Says Sheila Etheridge, Owner of SME Management.

Usually, when I browse through personal profiles for business contacts on LinkedIn, and I look at recommendations posted on any user’s profile, I generally regard that person as someone reliable and trustworthy as illustrated by the recommendations displayed on his or her profile.

But, I only now realize that, not all of the personal recommendations that are displayed on many of the LinkedIn users’ profiles are actually posted by users whom they have known or done business with or have worked with, but they might simply be a shrew of people selling, buying, trading and or exchanging personal endorsements for personal favoritism, and that simply means that these professional networking sites may not be as reliable as they seem to profess.

Now the question I have for LinkedIn is this: What are you going to do about this shrew of some of your registered users scamming, selling or buying, trading, and or exchanging personal connections and endorsements for personal favoritism or gain on your site?

Real or Fake; How Reliable Are LinkedIn Professional Recommendations?

Are there certain people selling or trading LinkedIn’s professional recommendations or endorsements for their own self promotion on LinkedIn? If yes, then how can you actually determine whether a professional recommendation posted on someone’s profile on LinkedIn is actually genuine? Are there any issues which may be deemed questionable or unethical when coming to some recommendations posted on LinkedIn users’ profiles?

As it’s generally known, most employers and business partners around the world are making use of checking LinkedIn and most other social network sites for professional references and employment history and information for anyone they may consider hiring or appointing to a new project or employment position within their companies.

LinkedIn Logo

As such, LinkedIn (linkedin.com) and other professional networking sites such as Xing (xing.com) have become the point of employment information and it’s predicated that within the next 5 to 10 years, paper resumes and CV may become a thing of the past. As more and more employers use such as these professional networking sites for prior employment information.

Some of the useful tools on these professional networking sites are the ability for anyone to create and post a recommendation summary on anybody’s profile for any prior type of professional relationship, such as someone who has directly or indirectly worked with anyone on any project and that someone may find it beneficial to write a recommendation summary, describing the qualifications, experience, skills, strength, and or the abilities of that individual.

These tools, compared to the traditional references usually attached to employment resumes and CV may be considered more effective due to the fact that one can have as many recommendations on a profile as possible, without wasting papers with names and addresses.

Whereas, for the paper resume and CV references, one usually list only 3 or 4 persons as deemed appropriate to provide professional recommendation for that individual. And, these usually include former supervisors, business acquaintances, or academia references. The good thing with paper resume and CV references is that you can actually call them directly at the provided phone numbers and speak directly to them in regard to the referenced individual.

For online personal or professional recommendations posted by whomever on most people’s profiles on these sites such as LinkedIn, are simply summaries written by people, almost anyone, and then are posted on LinkedIn profiles. Providing a recommendation on LinkedIn doesn’t generally require any type of implicit verification criteria, because you simply follow easy steps and then post your recommendation summary on anyone’s profile.

And once the other party has received and accepted your recommendation, then that’s it, your recommendation is instantly visibly displayed for anyone to see. But, the tools allow you to control who views any recommendation summary posted on your profile.

Generally, the more recommendation one’s profile has the more trustworthy and reliable that individual may appear. As it is rather appealing for someone with gazillions of personal or professional recommendations to be more trustworthy and reliable when you consider doing business with him or her; after all, he or she has a LinkedIn profile with lots of personal and or professional recommendations from and posted by many different individuals as displayed on his or her LinkedIn profile.

In the last few months, I have been flooded by some users on LinkedIn, asking me to write-up recommendation summaries for them in exchange that they do the same for me. These are people I have never dealt with, people I have never talked to or exchanged email messages with, people I have never done business with, and just people who simply are out there harvesting recommendations.

Here is an example of an inbox request that I received today on LinkedIn from someone in Jordan;

RE: Exchange recommendation:

Dear Simon,

Modar Suleiman has referred me to you. He is one of the employees working at my company and he said that you accepted to exchange recommendation with him.

My name is Hesham Zreik and I’m CEO of ZGroup Mobile where Modar works. You can see that Modar Suleiman recommends me highly. I hope we can exchange recommendation together.

I hope you stress on my leadership/management skills as well as my technical ability to lead a big team in a startup and bring it up to the high level.

Thanks a lot in advance. I will recommend you back if you want. If you are perplexed on what you can write, then I can write it out for you.

Regards,
Hesham

I have no idea who this person is; I checked out his LinkedIn profile, I mean we are connected on LinkedIn, and I have checked out his company’s web site, but I’ve never worked with him on any project or assignment. And for him to ask me to amplify his leadership and management skills, what should I say? I have never worked with him, he’s based in Jordan and I am in the U.S., so how can I recommend his leadership and management skills?

Okay, I have to admit, that Modar and 3 other employes of ZGroup Mobile have inboxed me on LinkedIn, asking me to write them recommendations, and I thought it was just an innocent thing to do, and so I did it for Modar and another guy and then in return, Modar posted a recommendation on my profile, but after I looked at the recommendations he has posted on other people’s profiles on LinkedIn, they were the exact same recommendations as the one he posted on my profile.

And that just didn’t make me feel good. A recommendation posted on my profile by someone I have never done business with just didn’t feel right. As the time went by, I continue to receive more requests of the same type, from different people on LinkedIn, people asking me to exchange recommendations. So, I went back and retracted my recommendation for him, because it was not real. I just don’t feel right and comfortable to recommend anyone that I have never dealt, worked or done business with.

So, if this is what is going on at LinkedIn, or on any other professional networking sites, people asking to exchange professional recommendations, then how effective are these professional networking sites and how reliable are their professional recommendation tools?

If you are the type of individual who depends on doing business with some people you meet on LinkedIn, and you base your business dealing and relationship with them based on those recommendations, then how do you actually know that the recommendations listed on that individual profile is genuine?

These issues raise some ethical and trustworthiness questions about LinkedIn professional recommendations, and this calls for LinkedIn to instantly look into this. Good business should be based on an actual event that has actually transpired, not on infrared and made up, fake activities.

Oh yeah, rumor has it that someone is actually developing an online marketplace for buying and selling professional recommendations for LinkedIn and Xing. Now, how cool is that?

Be sure to check out a blog article on Entrepreneur.com titled “Can LinkedIn’s Connection Limit Hurt Entrepreneurs?” That blog article further illustrates more cool stuff how some people on LinkedIn are harvesting recommendations and connections for their own selfish needs.

The site Craigslist.org was once one of the finest places on the Internet where you could find all kind of useful stuff, but recently, it has become a slum place for all weird sorts of things; prostitution, and the heavily reported, the Craigslist Murder case.

Could a similar thing happen to the professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, with people harvesting and collecting personal connections; trade and or exchange personal endorsements and recommendations for their personal gain? If so, then what does it mean for the future of online personal recommendations, and let alone; the professional networking sites?

Updates:

A LinkedIn inbox message from Modal Suliman

On November 19, 2009, Modal Suliman posted a comment below stating that I am the one who initiated, asking him to recommend me and in return he  recommends me?

That’s not true, on the left side is the copy of the screen image of the LinkedIn inbox message that Modal Suliman had initially sent me on LinkedIn, asking me to recommend him.

Lou Dobbs Resigning is Good for CNN

FILE - In this 2005 file photo by CNN, news anchor Lou Dobbs sits on the set of his show, "Lou Dobs Tonight," in New York (AP Photo/CNN, Mark Hill, File)

For years, Geraldo Rivera was one of America’s admired and respected TV talk show hosts, for The Geraldo Rivera Show.

However, during the O.J. Simpson Trial, Geraldo went ballistic, he turned the obsessed Geraldo, fixated with the O.J. Simpson case.

And then in November 2001, Rivera joined The Fox New Channel, as a war reporter, reporting from Afghanistan. Since then, the once clean image and respected TV show host, Geraldo, has become one of the slums in TV news reporting.

That’s what Lou Dobbs has become in his later years at CNN, just like the current Geraldo Rivera. In the early years, I used to admire Dobbs. He was the guy I would always look forward to watching on TV business news.  Especially when he launched his then CNN signature business news magazine, CNN Moneyline with Lou Dobbs.

Those were the good old days for Lou Dobbs. And that was before he turned the now sharp visible and loud mouth, independent and anti-immigration Lou Dobbs.

He did a brief hiatus stunt from CNN to found Space.com, but when he returned to CNN to host The Lou Dobbs Tonight, he was different. I always wonder and keep asking myself about whatever happened to Lou Dobbs while he was at Space.com.

Since his return from Space.com, he’s become the loud anti-immigration and nearly anything good about the U.S. government, and I had since stopped watching his show, and probably so as most other Americans. That was evidenced by the July TV Ratings, which ranked CNN to the bottom of the ranking in the evening news, behind all other major news networks such as MSNBC, HLN, and even the Fox News Channel. Also, check out a recent TV news ranking article at Yahoo! News.

The Lou Dobb Tonight came on at 7:00pm EST, which is the time for most people settling in from work. And sitting there trying to catch up on what’s the latest news, and then turn to CNN and hear all that Lou Dobbs’ never-ending bickering about immigrants, most people would change the channel.

For Lou Dobbs to resign from CNN (read more at CNN), this is the best thing that has recently happened to CNN. I just hope they place a better and more objective news program at Lou Dobbs’ spot.

I however feel bad about what has recently happened to his wife; the shooting incident near his house. That shooting was uncalled for. In America, we agree to disagree, no matter what one says, it doesn’t call for any gun shooting.

We all have the rights to say whatever we want, well, as long as it’s believed to be fair and balanced, and Lou Dobbs has the same right to say whatever he wants, even if I don’t agree with him, but that doesn’t warrant anyone to shoot at him, to hurt him and his family.

Gorbachev Concurs With My Advice for Obama on Afghanistan?

On October 2, 2009, I wrote and published a blog analysis titled “What is Not Happening Inside the White House’s Situation Room for the War in Afghanistan?” detailing what President Obama should do in order to end the war in Afghanistan.

On October 7, 2009, CBS Evening News followed up with a special report titled; CBS Evening News: Afghanistan, the Road Ahead, which simply and precisely summarized everything I had written in my October 2nd analysis.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said Sunday that he does not think President Obama should send additional troops to Afghanistan. Photo courtesy of CNN.com Politics Ticker.

Today, November 8, 2009, through his translator, former Soviet Union President, Mikhail Gorbachev, issued a brief statement, giving advice for President Obama on Afghanistan. Mr Gorbachev’s statement basically exemplifies almost everything that I had written in my October 2nd analysis.

Mr. Gorbachev too claims that Obama should not increase the US troops in Afghanistan, but should instead start uniting the Afghanis clans, hereby referring to the Afghani government and members of the Taliban movement. In other words, Mr. Obama should instead work to politicize the Taliban movement into a non-armed political organization.

Here is a short list of excerpts taken from Mr. Gorbachev’s statement:

“I think that what’s needed is not additional forces,” the former Soviet leader said through a translator, “this is something that we discussed, too, years ago but we decided not to do it. And I think our experience deserves attention.”

Instead of more troops, Gorbachev said the Soviets decided to emphasize domestic development in Afghanistan and promoting national reconciliation between the various clans in the country. In deciding how to proceed in Afghanistan, Gorbachev said the Soviet Union also consulted with other countries including the United States, Iran, Pakistan, and India.

Read it more at CNN.com Ticker Politics.

I hope Mr. Obama, as he nears his decision on what to do next in Afghanistan, that he will make the right move, that’s; not to increase the US troops in Afghanistan, but instead, use the current available resources and assets in Afghanistan and the area, and work with all the involved groups; Karzai, the Taliban, EU, India, Russia, China, and Pakistan, to bring these two groups, Karzai and the Taliban, together and talk, and eventually form a unity government in Afghanistan.

That’s the only way that will end the war in Afghanistan, and eventually help flush out Osama bin Laden and his members of Al Qaeda.

A Change of Politics Coming to Namibia; SWAPO or the Rally for Democracy?

As the general election is coming near, in Namibia, and all of you are looking and deciding who to elect as the new President, please do so with an open mind.

I am assuming that most of you that are reading this blog, or on social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace, are mostly those of you, who were born around the late 1980’s and or early 1990’s.

So, the stories about the apartheid system and oppression may only be known to you because of what you have been told or read in school. And now, you look at certain issues and then you think that everything is going so wrong. That SWAPO as the ruling party has done this wrong or hasn’t done enough. But from an outside point of view, Namibia is one of the best countries in the world, and only four of the best in Africa, Botswana, Ghana, and South Africa being the other, with great political stability, economic fast growth, and steady rising per capita income.

Some of those things that you feel your current leaders may not be doing fast enough are just minor politics, which happen everywhere. It’s not always the ministers or government officials that must hold those elected in power accountable, but the people themselves. And you, the people, must hold those you elect responsible and accountable, and you can surely do so through your writings and speaking up. Complete transparency is only achieved through people, but only when everyone is involved in the process.

As US President Kennedy once said; “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. In short, that simply means that don’t just sit back and wait for the government to do everything for you. You have to initiate and do whatever it is that you want to achieve in your life, without solely waiting for the government to do it for you.

And regardless, Namibia is a great place to live; one of only a few places where you guys, since after independence in 1990 have grown up and are still growing up without war (the Caprivi case was just a little ditch compared to what could have happened to the whole country). So, Pohamba and Company, must be doing something good because they have continued to make Namibia a great place to live.

There are many things in regard to economically and politically growth that must happen in order to help make a country an even better place for all, and it won’t happen over night not even after 20 years; it has taken the US nearly 200 years, so give your current leaders your utmost support; create and write blogs; or news columns, and speak up.

They are listening, even when you think they are not. If you see or experience that something is wrong, call them up, ask to speak to them and tell them what you think. They will pick up the phone and speak to you. Or write to them. You just have to stop standing on the side line, complaining about issues, but are not doing anything to help effect good governance.

For a Namibian born living in the States, I’m very happy with how the government of Namibia is running. The only bad thing that could happen from here is, if someone else comes to power and starts acting like some of other African leaders, who may cause discomfort, and interrupt the current flow of peace and stability in the country.

Look back and think; since 1990, you have enjoyed nothing but complete tranquility, peace, and prosperity, and then decide, go out, and vote with a clear mind whether you want to keep the same process of peace, economic growth and progress going forward strong.

Can Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace Ruin Your Personality?

So, you created an account and have a profile on Facebook, Twitter, RentersQ, hi5, Bebo, Laatie, YouTube, Welated, MySpace, LinkedIn or wherever else online, and now what happens?

What is that you generally post on your profile? What kind of stuff do you post on your status update? What kind of groups and fan pages do you select to join? How do you behave online and what else do you do on any of these sites, the social media that you wouldn’t want people to know about you offline?

One thing for sure, and this is for everyone, everywhere, is that you should learn and know how to use social media to advance your career and make your life better; learn how to create and promote yourself by knowing what to, and not post on your profile, so you can one day get your dream job, or get into the college that you’ve always wanted.

In 5 – 10 years, it’s predicted that paper resumes and CVs will be a thing of the past; your online profile will become your real life resume when you apply for any job or to any college. So, remember that anything you post online, whether it’s your status update or those pictures from last night’s clubbing or pool party, the kind of pictures you wouldn’t want your parents, wife, husband, or kids to see, are automatically indexed and archived for search by anyone, anywhere, anytime.

Be aware that your next employer and or college admission officer will certainly research you online; and your status updates data, including your posted photos maybe the things that may prevent you from getting whatever it is that you want.

When you go out, there are always those who randomly snap pictures with their camera phones and the next day you log onto your Facebook account, someone has tagged you in a photo, in which you appear in a compromising position, which you had no idea was being taken. So, be accountable for your social behavior online as you do offline.

Just because you hit the delete key on your keyboard doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve actually deleted your previously posted status updates or photos. They are never deleted permanently. Once you post them online, they are instantly streamed over the Internet and Internet search engines automatically index them for future search by anyone, anywhere.

So, be smart, stay informed. Completely fill out your online profile on any social networking site with your employment history as you would do in your resume, just the employer name, your job title, and a brief summary of your job responsibilities. This information will be crucial when you apply for a new job anywhere, because your next employer will likely do a search on you and that would help him or her make a fast informed decision on hiring you.

Use the social media for fun, but at the same time, use it to help advance yourself, your career, and your life; so that you may get what you want one day.

Life is all about competition, and everyone is out for him or herself.

Disclosure: I’m the creator of Welated, RentersQ and Laatie.