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Our brothers and sisters of the Republic of Kenya go to the polls in three months’ time on August 9, which coincides with the birthday of the mother of my son Matthew Acemah. In anticipation of the victory of my preferred presidential candidate in Kenya’s elections, I have purchased t two bottles of vintage champagne to celebrate two events on that momentous day.

Upon initiating debates about Swedish NATO membership, skepticism spread. In Sweden, we had just got a new government and a new Prime Minister, and the omicron variant of COVID-19 threatened Christmas celebrations. Four weeks later on January 1^st, 2022, Foreign Minister Ann Linde responded in a parliamentary debate by reiterating previous positions on dialogue with the population within the Social Democrats party. She also talked about opportunities for in-depth cooperation with NATO debates. Well, the NATO issue is now being debated extensively within the Swedish Social Democratic Party, at dinner tables and intensively throughout the country.

A couple of months ago, there was much fury about the demise of the late Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament, Jacob Oulanyah. It began when it was discovered that he was flown to Seattle, Washington, USA, for treatment. Some people demonstrated against him for wasting government money instead of spending it on improving the national health services. And when he died, some people celebrated his demise because they accused him of being one of the enablers of the autocratic rule. They attribute the regular violation of human rights: extrajudicial killings, disappearance of government critics, torture, etc. in Uganda when he presided over the amendment that removed the age limit which allows President Museveni to rule indefinitely. Some of the most vulgar poems were even written in celebration of the Speaker’s demise.

In 2017 the office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) released a report which for the first time explicitly named US military forces in the field and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives in secret prisons as possible war crimes culprits for their alleged use of torture and rape. Because the American soldiers were based in Afghanistan, which is an ICC member, the ICC in theory has broad jurisdiction over crimes committed by combatants on Afghan soil.