Kony update

Strategypage reports he is hiding out in the disputed area between Sudan and South Sudan.

April 27, 2013: New reports claim that LRA commander Joseph Kony is hiding out in the Kafia Kingi region of Sudan. Kafia Kingi is a territory claimed by both Sudan and South Sudan. The enclave is (from South Sudan’s perspective) at the very western edge of South Sudan’s Western Bahr al-Ghazal state. Sudan currently occupies the enclave. Human rights organizations and the Ugandan government have frequently claimed that Sudanese military has provided the LRA with weapons, equipment, and money. The new reports (based on statements made by LRA defectors) claim that the Sudanese Army has given Kony safe haven. Kony may have used Kafia Kingi as a hideout in 2010. There are reports that he returned to the area briefly in 2011 and 2012.

speaking English

From the African Executive:

The fact that we still shun that which is clearly local and homegrown is a manifestation of the low regard we have for ourselves and one another.  We prefer to use firms with English sounding names rather than vernacular ones and we associate Western or “white” tastes and ideas with superior quality. In what other country would a Shona-speaking mother and a Shona-speaking father produce an English-speaking child? Where does this low self image come from?  Is it a result of being disappointed one too many times by some of our own? Is it a product of our early experiences which inform our foundational beliefs about ourselves?

Yes, it is a problem here in the Philippines too. Which is why Filipino ("tagalog") is the official langauge.

But if you speak English, it opens you to the world of ideas (and jobs in other countries where you can live in comfort and send money home to support the family). In grade schools, local books will be available, but if you want to get more information, you need English.

This is similar to Latin in  the Middle Ages: it was the language of scholarship that enabled educated men to talk to each other.

The polyglot of western Europe started with Dante, and was accelerated with the Protestant revolt against the Catholic church, when Protestants decided to translate their version of the bible into the venacular for ordinary folks to read (and alas interpret wrongly due to lack of scholarship, but that's another argument altogether).

I don't think wanting to learn English is the problem. The real problem is that local goods tend to be shoddy, mainly due to corruption. I am aghast at how things here in the Philippines stop working quickly, because they are made locally, or more commonly, in China . So a Filipino can work in a Korean factory and make high quality goods, but here the same item is poor quality, and everyone knows it.

My husband even refused to buy a cheaper European make car (BMW) that was made in the Philippines, even though the Germans kept an eye on the place for quality control.

Prefering "european" (or here, Korean or Japanese or American) goods may not be from low self esteem, but because they usually are better.

Africa to pass the Middle East in prosperity?

TPMBarnett's blog keeps an eye on globalization, and in an article about the Middle East he includes this comment:

 The Arab world has an enormous amount of catching up to do WRT globalization, and it will be awful in execution (and with Africa leaping ahead on many fronts, the Middle East and North Africa - or large portions of it - risk becoming globalization's long-term basket case).

Referenced from: http://thomaspmbarnett.com/#ixzz2ObUPLvwO

he has several other African and South African analyses on his blog, many about North Africa's war on terror, but in this article about cellphones, he has this comment:

Biggest analytic mistake I've ever made was overestimating how slowly (yes, my original post had me mis-stating this) Africa would embrace globalization and succeed with it.  Totally blew it.

Referenced from: http://thomaspmbarnett.com/globlogization/2013/2/13/get-yourself-some-chinese-part-ii-and-conquer-the-botp.html#ixzz2ObV4c9w2

Police seizing radios in Zim

also from the BBC:

She and two other villagers were made to identify their neighbours who had radios, capable of picking up FM, AM and shortwave signals, which had recently been handed out by a small non-government youth organisation that had been in the area building a road and some community toilets.

"They took my cell phones and demanded to know the identity of people in my phone," she said, explaining how bedrooms and kitchens were thoroughly inspected.
"A lot of people were taken to the police station and we were warned that those that would be found with the radios [in future] will disappear."
The confiscations have left some people fearing that in the run-up to elections, the free media guarantees in the newly approved constitution will not be respected.

Eu suspends sanctions against most Zim officials

BBC article HERE.

Guess who got arrested?

From AlJazeerah: Zimbabwe police arrest PM's aides Top lawyer and four officials from prime minister Tsvangirai's party detained, a day after constitutional referendum.

Pushing drugs on Africans

From the African Executive:
Musician Chris Brown from the US got lots of money to give a concert, and praised smoking marijuana to the youth there.

As part of Ghana’s Independence celebration, Chris Brown who was billed to entertain the Ghanaian youth, took the entire nation by surprise as the American artist was rather busy smoking “wee” live on stage to the admiration of the security services and the crowd, mostly children below 16 years of age. Meanwhile the act of smoking marijuana in Ghana is a serious crime punishable by severe prison sentence. This is because marijuana has destroyed the lives of many of the youth, a challenge which has prompted the government of Ghana to declare a war on drugs.

The “Hope City Concert” was meant to be a once-in-a-life-time concert, an event specially designed to mark Ghana's Independence Day: a day which Ghanaians ought to have observed in honour of their forefathers who shed their blood in the struggle to rescue the motherland from a brutal and barbaric British colonial rule.

Referendum set for March

BBC report at link

Smart phones in Africa

For later reading: MS and Huawei link up to provide cheap (150 dollar) smart phones for Africa.

For later reading because our router is kaput and I only can use the office computer to blog, which limits my time.

Rinderpest

CIC is a list of trivia at Strategypage and includes this:

Rinderpest, an ancient animal virus that swept across sub-Saharan Africa in the late nineteenth century, devastating cattle, and thus facilitating European imperial expansion in many areas, was accidentally introduced to that continent in 1887, when infected cattle from India were landed at Massua in Eritrea to feed Italian troops on colonial service.

Of course, the reason for this was that, by decimating the wild beasts that allowed the tsetse fly to live, it allowed European cattle to thrive and allowed people to live without the worry of sleeping sickeness.

Wooden "bikes"

LA times article on wooden bikes used in Goma, not to carry people but to carry loads.

Except for termites, muddy roads, and wasting people's energy that could better be used for something else, what's wrong with this picture?