US losing African advantage. Many Americans might indeed be tempted to dismiss the recent television images of Nairobi’s bleeding slums and flaming roadblocks as just one more baffling example of Africa’s flirtation with chaos. But alarmed U.S. diplomats and analysts know better. The unprecedented political violence that has rocked this once orderly country, pitting the supporters of re-elected President Mwai Kibaki against an enraged opposition that claims the vote was rigged, threatens to upend years of carefully erected American foreign policy across a vast, strategic and deeply troubled swath of Africa. Chicago Tribune via Military Quotes forum

Can the egg be unscrambled? I’m writing this late Sunday night. I’m exhausted. If I thought liveblogging the elections and the aftermath was exhausting, rehashing what is going on in Kenya in every conversation is getting to me. But as a Kenyan there is nothing else to talk about is there? And I’m one of the lucky ones who has the luxury of talking about things and not living in actual terror…Today we were talking about friends who moved back to Kenya from the diaspora and were so optimistic, we were wondering whether to begin to mourn about the loss of our “next plan”, we were wondering where our children would fit in in this Kenya that is being defined for us, we were dreading going back to work to tomorrow after many of us had spent the last year lobbying hard for substantial investments in Kenya (I’m seriously not looking forward to dealing with “what the hell happened” questions tomorrow). Kenyan Pundit

Crisis of international journalism? There is no doubt that CNN has been lopsided in its coverage of Africa, giving prominence to stories of hopelessness and desperation. Such stories have been devoid of depth, often said to be because of lack of time and the number of stories they have to cover in the world news segment. But I have never felt that CNN needs to tell a balanced story like I did during the current unrest. I needed Paula Newton, reporting from Nairobi, to interview and bring stories from both sides of the political divide. The election was 50-50 and CNN had a duty to interview the people who voted Raila Odinga, those who feel he should be president as well as the other half who feel that Mwai Kibaki should continue. Changing Journalism……

Born to fail. Government of national unity or not, let us not forget the underlying concern. We find ourselves in this situation due to weak public institutions. Kivuitu should never have been given so much power to decide so many people’s fate. And the president should never have overwhelming power over the judiciary. Kenya has law abiding Citizens that have lived peacefully with very low policing, even though, adequate policing would have prevented all the chaos. Instead the ruling class or/and the Rogue administrations have taken advantage of this weak institutions to raid, thieve and rape the country through Corruption. African Path

Irregularities, violence, progress. Even as we look to find a solution to the post-election imbroglio and try to look to get some solutions, it is important that we examine a few key issues on the events of the past few days…Even had President Kibaki won the election fairly or by a larger margin, there would certainly still have been riots. The ODM did not prepare its following for the possibility of losing the election. In fact they primed them towards an outright rejection of a Kibaki win, preaching that any such result would be indicative of electoral fraud. Andrew K, Kenya Imagine