Africa: "I Ain't a Business Man. I'm a Business, Man" - Discussing Africa's Billionaires

Vox Africa parses the list of Africa's 11 top billionaires, according to Forbes. List - here.



Henry Bonsu quizzes Geetha Tharmaratam (Head of Global, Environmental, Social and Government issues at Aureos Capital), Karima Ola (Fund Manager for Africa at Chayton Capital) and Michael Eboda (Chief Executive of Powerful Media) and Herman- Chinery-Hesse, business entrepreneur and founder of software company, on the power list.

H/T: Shadow and Act

South Africa: Three Looks at Athol Fugard

First, for Times Live, Refiloe Lepere looks at current adaptation of Athol Fugard's 1982 play, Master Harold and the Boys, on stage at the Old Mutual Theatre on the Square, Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton. She talks to dir. James Ngcobo and actors Daniel Buckland (Harold), Pakamisa Zwedala and Nat Ramabulana.



From Times Live Zingi Mafeka's review:

The ever-wise playwright in Fugard ensures that we walk away with much more than just a dismissive, critical and condescending stance towards '50s white South Africa. Regardless of your race, as with most Fugard plays, it is the complexity of a character's humanity that we are asked to truly reckon with. It's as if Fugard were holding a mirror to our faces, daring us to stop and realise that, under the same circumstances, we, too, might act in as humanly flawed a manner as his characters. After all, this story tells of how he did the very same thing.

Starting off the Fugard Chicago 2010 (Jan 20 - June 15), below, a look behind the scenes at Johnathan Wilson's adaptation of Harold and the Boys (Jan 23 to Mar 21), starring Daniel Bryant, Alfred H. Wilson, Nate Burger, Jonathan Wilson.



This month saw the premier at the SA's Winelands film fest a new feature film adaptation of Master Harold and the Boys dir. by Lonny Price and adpt for screen by Nicky Rebello, starring Freddie Highmore, Ving Rhames, Patrick Mofokeng, Michael Maxwell, Jennifer Steyn, Nicky Rebelo.

Kenya: Bandwidth and Social Media

ABND talks to blogger and business practitioner Moses Kemibaro and others about East Africa's Kenya's wholehearted embrace of social media:



In the meantime, everyone is anticipating the landing of the Eassy cable in June:

South Africa: "Poverty Doesn't Know Color"

Africa is a Country recently featured the poor white problem here (and here), highlighting the fact that poor whites make up only 5% of SA -- and I'm imagining that's not a lot of ANC votes. So it's a revelation to see part of this 5% when cameras followed president Zuma to the Afrikaner community at Bethlehem informal settlement in Pretoria West.



Like the guy said, "poverty may not know color," however a lot of endemic and systemic problems continues to predispose more black, than white, paint to poverty's agnostic brush.

Africa: Capital Flight and Tax Havens, Cont'd

Illicit Financial Flows From Africa GFI Report

Not all capital flight are via tax havens. Author Xavier Harel, in the same IPS interview we were blabbing about yesterday, also pointed to the problem of "mispricing of trade":

I came across research by Simon Peck, an academic who researches capital flight and the mispricing of trade between Africa and the U.S. (for purposes of corporate tax evasion), and he lists a number of interesting cases. He went through U.S. customs registries and found records for hairdryers being sold to Nigeria for 3,800 dollars apiece or cassette players for 1,400 dollars. He also found consignments of tires exported to Ghana for 3,300 dollars each.

Coincidentally, Washington D.C. based Global Financial Integrity (GIF) just released its study on capital flight from Africa - Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Hidden Resource for Development, claiming "this report breaks new ground in the fight to end global poverty with analyses and measurements of illicit financial outflows never before undertaken [and] as long as these countries are losing massive

South Africa: Soapies and Homosexuality

Zanele Sabela talks to Times' TV critic Bongiwe Khumalo about the representation of homosexuality in South Africa's soap operas. She comments on recent same-sex storylines from Rhythm City, butch masculinity, performing other masculinities and the character of Stone, played by Zenzo Ngqobe.



Still on male same-sex relationships in SA soaps, below Deborah Posel in a 2002/3 paper raises an interesting point, which may or may not still be the case:

Lesbian and gay relationships are frequently depicted in mainstream television soap operas, aired during maximum viewing times. In this genre, homosexuality has become positively suburban: unthreatening in its portrayal (even if the story dramatises – by way of catharsis – the social stigmas and anxieties attached to ‘coming out’ and being gay), suitable for ‘ordinary’ family consumption. Unexpectedly, at a time when the manner of male heterosexuality has come under the critical spotlight in many public quarters, some of the most public representations of homosexuality have tamed it to the point of domestication. Of course, neither the visibility of sexuality nor the manner of its representations are uncontested. On the contrary, the resistances are intense, as is to be expected from a society long accustomed to the secretion of sex to the margins of public debate and exposure, banished by a potent mix of moral /cultural taboos and politico-legal prohibitions. The post-apartheid constitution has created the spaces for moral and cultural alternatives. Whether accidentally or by design, the same-sex relationships depicted in these television dramas are usually between men in the midst of – rather than by displacing - the taboos of old, as well as provoking new sources of anger and discomfort. The new visibility of sexuality coexists with a combination of angry outbursts and stern objections on one hand, and resistant silences, denials and refusals, on the other. 

-- from "Getting the Nation Talking about Sex": Reflections on the Politics of Sexuality and ‘Nation-Building’ in Post-Apartheid South Africa, 2002/2003.

Senegal: The Wade Blitz

The statue is ready and all systems are go for April 4th's 50th independence anniversary celebrations, which we think also sets the perfect stage for Senegal's president 82 year old James Carville Abdoulaye Wade to launch a 5th presidential bid.

Also spotted over at Jeune Afrique is some awesome 1960  footage (in French) from when French president Charles De Gaulle was the colonial king and Senegal was still part of something called the Republic of Mali. Contains interviews with Modibo Keita, prime Minister of Mali, and Mamadou Dia, vice president of Mali, and claims to "raise the question of relations of the Federation of Mali with France to Leopold Sedar Senghor, President of the Party and chairman of the Federal Assembly." Click on pic below:

VOA's TV2Africa also recently featured a preview of Travel channel Presidential Tour documentary on Senegal and Wade narrated by former NY Giants running back and Today Show announcer, Tiki Barber:

Africa: Responses to the "Africa's Cyber WMD" Argument

Finally, some responses by cooler and wiser heads than mine to the Fran-Stefan Gady article over at FP. In a nutshell, the article jumps off the assumption that with the arrival of undersea cables and faster internet connections, all the symantec-less, vulnerable computers on the African continent are about to be taken over by hackers--or al-Shabaab, or hackers working for al-Shabaab--and morphed into the virus equivalent of Godzilla, which will then be told to wreak havoc on the developed world's financial systems. Yep. I checked. It was written in Foreign Policy, not The Hollywood Reporter.

Miquel over at Subsaharska takes on Gady's fear of arrival of broadband speed in virus plagued Africa:

I think that the biggest and most glaring issue with this article is that if one is to assume that there are unpatched, susceptible machines in Africa, won't access to faster internet allow them to download the patches needed to fix the issue? Won't faster access to information allow people to find out more about the threats to their machines? Won't faster access allow Africans to most likely undercut the inflated web development rates earned by those in places like Silicon Valley which means that scare tactics will need to be used in sloppy journalism pieces to keep them from being part of this economy. Oh, wait.

Over at Blurring Borders, Kevin Donovan takes on the al-Shabaab turn cyber-terrorists version of the argument:

As far as I know, there is no evidence that Al-Qaeda has established offensive cyber capabilities, despite having operatives in broadband-saturated locations. There are some hints that affiliated people have considered hacking as a means to their end – manuals, for example – but terrorists rely on shock factor to, umm, terrorize. When effective cyberwar is as theoretical as it [is], risk-averse groups are likely to stick to IEDs and suicide bombers. Furthermore, the view of the Somali pirates and “terrorists” is ahistorical. It misses the reprehensible waste dumping and illegal fishing that have decimated the Somali economy (of course enabled by the absence of a functioning government). Writing frantic articles about cyber WMDs arising from this position is reckless.

Gady is right though about the need for African governments to get their act together in putting in place the necessary cyber-security standards and legislation to make the fight easier. But to then assume that in the absence of such official frameworks, the entire continent's firms, banks, internet providers, cellphone companies, or even some kid with a mac in the middle of nowhere all lack agency and are all completely helpless, is simply insane.

H/T: onafrica

Kenya: The Making of...

... Just a Band's Ha-He music video otherwise known as Makmende kills the internet:



Keeping the meme going, below is an excerpt from Steve Bloomfield's article at the Monocle on how the interactive marketing push came about :

No one is more surprised about the sudden popularity of Kenya’s newest fictional hero than the men who invented him. Just-a-Band, whose second album, “82″, was one of the most popular releases in Kenya this year, had not planned any sort of online campaign for the video short of putting it on their Facebook page. “I honestly don’t know how we ended up here,” said band member Jim Chuchu, who also co-directed the video. “As soon as I saw Makmende jokes from fans online I said let’s do a Twitter and Facebook page for him. Everyone said ‘really?’ They thought it was overkill.”
 Chuchu was keen to buy makmende.com but “all of us were broke so we couldn’t do it.” Someone else has though and is planning to sell T-shirts with some of the most popular slogans. Just-a-Band can do little to stop them.
 Not that they are short of opportunities to cash in. The video is a fake trailer for Makmende the Movie. The Nation Media Group has now asked them to turn it into a television series while the band has received offers from businesses wanting to use Makmende as a marketing tool.


And to answer Kemibaro's fears about who owns Makmende, Just a Band's official statement.

H/T: My Hearts in.../ Kenya Christian

Sudan: Waltz with Dafur

Love David Polonsky [Waltz with Bashir (2008)] poster for Winter Miller's play, In Dafur:

Africa: Capital Flight and Tax Havens

 Recall a while back that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was warning the Ghanaian government against the emergence of tax havens and asking Ghana to sign on to the OECD standard for banking information exchange for tax purposes all the G20 members had signed on to.

IPS interviews French journalist with the financial daily La Tribune, Xavier Harel, author of Africa, Looting in Private , whose new book, The Great Escape: the Real Scandal of Tax Havens, talks a lot about capital flight out of Africa via tax havens or other means. IPS asks him about the new agreements being signed with regards to banking information exchange:

There's two ways of looking at it. One could say that the coordinated onslaught on tax havens by the 20 richest economies in the world was indeed unprecedented. Momentum was built by scandals affecting Switzerland and Lichtenstein (where many European and American taxpayers were accused of hiding personal wealth), as well as public deficits ballooning with the global economic crisis. Suddenly, tax evasion became politically unbearable for many governments,

Sudan: A Primer

In anticipation of Sudan's upcoming elections, The Economist has whipped up one of their videographs to impress on you the gravity of what's about to happen:

Nigeria: Cooking for Turai

Nigeria's information minister Dora Akunyili broke ranks with president Yaradua's cabal over their attempt to hold the country hostage. Funny excerpt from Adetutu Folasade-Koyi' report in the Daily Independent on her senate screening yesterday:

....of the only three persons screened, that of former Information and Communications Minister, Dora Akunyili, produced all the fireworks - as well as uproar. Everything went smoothly when Fidelia Njeze and Adetokunbo Kayode were interviewed. But the Chamber became rowdy after Senate Whip Kanti Bello asked Akunyili to clarify why she parted ways with the "cabal" of President Umaru Yar'Adua after he fell ill in last November. "I was made to understand that you were very close to the cabal which is against Section 21 of the Constitution which preaches unity. I also learnt that you were very close to the wife of the President (Turai) to the extent that

Africa/Cuba: Ship Looks Familiar

From AFP:

A ship modelled after the famous slave trading vessel La Amistad -- on which 53 African slaves revolted in 1839 -- has made landfall in Cuba, on a tour of ports linked to the history of slavery in the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean. The mutineers aboard the Amistad -- the subject of a Hollywood film -- were eventually recaptured in the United States, became a cause celebre for abolitionists and won their freedom following a landmark Supreme Court case ruling.

Nigeria: The Versatility of Pidgin English

Reuters African journal takes a look at Nigerian pidgin English as the ligua franca for the presenters and listeners of the Nigerian radio station, Wazobia FM 95.1:



According to Nigerian Pidgin Language Bible (NPLB) translators, there are 29 letters in the pidgin English alphabet and though the versatility of the language or diversity among its speakers comes as no surprise to anyone, still, translating the bible into pidgin comes off as a mindblowin' feat. For example, any English speaker should just stare for while at the first 6 verses of John Chapter 1 and it should begin to make sense:

1. Fọ stat ọf ẹvritin di Wọn wee bi di Wọd bin dee. Di Wọd bin dee togẹda wit Gọd, an di Wọd na Gọd. 2. Di Wọd bin dee togẹda wit Gọd fọ stat ọf ẹvritin. 3. Gọd yuz di Wọd fọ mek ọl tins. An Gọd no mek enitin witaut di Wọd. 4. Laif bin kọm frọm di Wọd, an dis laif bi lait fọ pipul.5. Di lait de shain insaid daknẹs, an daknẹs no fit kwẹnch am. 6. Wọn man dee, wee Gọd sẹnd. Di man nem na Jọn.

Or

1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

Algeria: Inspired by the Battle of Algiers

Taking its name a little too seriously, New York fashion house Nom de Guerre decides to draw inspiration from Gillo Pontercovo's landmark film/treatise on the Algerian civil war for its spring/summer 2010 collection:



In response to their pitch claiming some pretense or academic exercise that apes French new wave montage as well Chris Marker's La jetee , a commenter at The Arabist wrote:

The only point they succeed in making here is that when fashion attempts to 'engage' in political expression, the result is simply a thinly veiled narcissistic self-promotion. Please - stop taking yourself so seriously! Fashion is not some renegade subversive art - fashion is ephemeral, commercial, and low-quality design. I hate to even compare fashion to other forms of expression - it would be insulting - but no fashion passes the only objective test of quality - it does not stand the test of time in the way that music, literature, painting, sculpture, etc can - and do. I wish I could ignore these people - they are so exasperating - and I feel ashamed that I can't help myself and ultimately give them the thing that they really desire - attention.

DRC: The Three Bulldogs from Kinshasa

Mississippi State's Chanel Mokango, left, and Rima Kalonda (Mokango, Kalonda along with Armelie Lumanu [not shown] make up the 3 players from the Congo on the Mississippi State Bulldogs' roster) watch from the bench late in the second half of an NCAA Dayton Regional semifinal college basketball game Sunday, March 28, 2010, in Dayton, Ohio. Mississippi State lost to Florida State 74-71. (ESPN/AP Photo/Al Behrman)

Adam Minichino recently wrote  about Mokango, Kalonda and Lumanu in The Dispatch:

That MSU has earned back-to-back bids to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2002-03 is a credit to Kalonda, Lumanu, and Mokango, who have played integral roles in helping the program have two of its most successful seasons in its history. "They have changed Mississippi State’s program,” LSU coach Van Chancellor said. “They came in the with the mind-set that they were going to make Mississippi State one of the best defensive teams in the country. I am glad they’re graduating." (more)

Nigeria/ United Kingdom: Blood and Oil and Television

Shadow and Act points us to details for the BBC 2 Nigerian Niger Delta drama, Blood and Oil (Dir. David Attwood and Wrt. Guy Hibbert), which aired today:

Gambia: Some Economics of Female Sex Tourism

Charlotte Rampling and Karen Young play tourists visiting Haiti in Laurent Cantet's Vers le sud/ Heading South (2005).

Delphine Barrais article in JeuneAfrique looks at female sex tourism in Banjul. The dodgy translation below is from the excerpt on how the economics work out for all involved:

It's not only tourism professionals who take advantage of this new clientele. The marabout, who are consulted by the gigolos to bewitch the toubabs (wealthy traveler), rub their hands. "We have a spike in traffic towards the tourist season," says one of the makers of charms. The gigolo's wife and especially mother has nothing to fear, noting the Older European is not a competitor since she's past childbearing age. "Even if he frequents toubabs, Ndiaye I know ...will return sooner or later," says Codou, a 22 year old Gambian, speaking of her fiance.

The gigolos do not always get money in exchange for their service, but receive gifts. Sometimes the relationship lasts only over the vacation time, but may be prolonged and last up to several years. The lucky ones are offered a home, a motorcycle or a small business. This applies to 25 year old Ebrima. His "bride", a Hollandaise of 49 years, gave him enough to open an internet cafe.

DRC/ Uganda: HRW Report Versus LRA and UPDF - He Said, She Said

This Human Rights Watch report released yesterday has caused a shit storm of sorts. Basically HRW tells CNN that if the LRA could kill 321 civilians and abduct 250 others, including at least 80 children, under the nose of the Congolese and Uganda armies in December 2009, it proves Kony's ragtag LRA is still a force to be reckoned with:



The UPDF fighting the LRA disputes HRW findings, saying:

The population in DRC is not concentrated. So, for the LRA to get time to collect 300 people and kill them, they need days not hours to do so," he said, adding: "In Barlonyo, they were able to kill about 200 because people were in an IDP camp. What about people settled in their villages in a forested region?" Col. Kulayigye wondered whether the Congo army would not have got wind of LRA activities within those four days and gone to rescue its people. He said the UPDF intelligence indicates that the LRA has less than 200 fighters who have no capacity to kill with impunity.

But others are pointing out that Col. Kulayigye just stuck his army boot in his mouth because:

...As the report continues, it’s clear the massacre did not take place in one concentrated area. It was carried out in at least 10 villages along the LRA’s path. Col. Kulayigye’s logic is correct—the LRA would need days to cover this area and kill so many people. And, as the report says, they had just that—days.

However, LRA spokesman (dream job!) says the 100 to 200 fighters the LRA have left can't cause such mayhem and posits the theory that the killings were done by Museveni and the UPDF to discredit the LRA and derail the ceasefire talks (what ceasefire talks?):



All that said, you will then recall former Ugandan minister Betty Bigombe saying this about the LRA back in '08...

Guerilla warfare is not easy to fight. They [Guerillas] are always ahead. Whatever the government troops do is in reaction to what they have done. So, they are spotted in a particular area... and LRA has always been extremely mobile. They cover an average of 60 km a day, I've seen them move. You'll see them, like a tornado, over there and in minutes they have surrounded you and this is not exaggeration. So it's the complexity. By the time you mobilize your foot soldiers, logistics, to go and fight them, they have already moved to another area. Plus the fact that people were in IDCs, Southern Sudan was at war, so in the whole vast area--2 hrs if you travel by air--there are no people to pass on information. Because usually [to engage in warfare] you rely on technical form of intelligence [...] and human, but the human aspect was totally lacking in providing this information that was so vital in fighting the rebels.

... and again you wonder.

Liberia: Fed Up With Impunity

Ruthie Ackerman writes a postmortem in the Daily Beast on the violence that broke out in Liberia between the Lormas, who are mostly Christian, and the Mandingos, who are mostly Muslim, after a missing 14 year old girl (who was Lorma) was found dead near a mosque in the town of Konia, 55 miles from Voinjama, capital of Lofa County.

She notes these towns that felt the brunt of this recent violence were also some of the hardest-hit areas during Liberia’s 14-year civil war, but then goes on to note that their pent up anger goes further than all the knee jerk finger pointing at Muslims vs. Christians, use of cellphones in spreading rumors, and the blaming Guineans or foreigners. Rather:

...in Liberia, as in many post-conflict nations, the justice system has failed the people. While much money has been poured into security-sector reform, very little has been focused on reforming the judicial sector. A lack of qualified personnel, and unpaid salaries for judges, prosecutors, and court staff, hampers the judicial process. To make matters worse, the police are poorly equipped, questionably staffed, and certainly ill-prepared to deal with the lack of rule of law. One insidious result is that a majority of Liberians distrust the justice system, which leads to a complete breakdown of law and order. That is why, when the young girl of our story was found dead, vigilante justice took over. Witnesses said the girl’s parents became angry when the owners of the mosque claimed to know nothing about the incident. In a country where citizens are confident that justice will be done, communities don’t need to take the law into their own hands (more)

Apparently, Liberia's judicial system is starting from scratch and there was a time it metaphorically had a gun pointed to its head and was being held for ransom - here.

Africa: The Zombies are Back. But Who Cares?

Like Resident Evil 5, Gameloft's Zombie Infection first third person shooter game relocates to Africa for its release on the Iphone platform. According to Know Your Mobile, "...the game's iPhone version is modeled after Resident Evil 5 [...] – even to the point of relocating the living dead action to South Africa and changing the characters to hardened army personnel." And with "the camera ... constantly perched over your shoulder,"  Levi Buchanan over at IGN Wireless remarked at blasting "through the slum, using the red sights on [the] pistol to sever zombie body parts and score face-popping headshots."

For those who weren't around these parts of the blogosphere in 07, there was a major snafu over the depiction of Africans as zombies and video game fodder when the trailer for Resident Evil 5 dropped. Ethan Zuckerman has a nice round up of the fracas. LA Times' take here. Even though Zombie Infection is said by all reviwers to be aping RE5's gameplay, if not notoriety, I won't be as quick to jump on it on the basis of one sceen cap. Anyway, I can see why the designers of RE5 picked Africa though:

The Resident Evil series has been around since 1996. It was first set in the American Midwest, and since then, it's gone to South America, Antarctica and Spain. For Resident Evil 5, our developers wanted to focus on pushing 'the current generation console's capabilities for rendering light. They wanted to see if they could make light as fearful as shadows. They wanted the players to go from a dark environment to a bright setting, when they're momentarily blinded. As their pupils adjust, they become vulnerable to attack. They wanted a location that would have hot, bright, flat light. And they chose Africa.

Africa: World Bank on "Quiet Corruption"

The pic is from the 48 page Silent and Lethal: How Quiet Corruption Undermines Africa's Development Efforts report, from the World bank's Africa Development Indicators 2010. The quite corruption-iceberg analogy, according to the report, works on a number of levels: 

In addition capturing the notion that quiet corruption is not very visible, the iceberg analogy provides 2 additional insights. First, quiet corruption occurs across a much wider set of beneficiaries directly. Quiet corruption is arguably present in a large share of doctor-patient or

Friday

Sexy Chick by David Guetta, featuring Akon. EMI Music.

Hence forth the Akon Buddha video.

Morocco: The 20th Edition of Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles 13-27th March 2010

Videos from the ongoing Rallye Aïcha des Gazelles - a grueling off road race for women drivers and navigators in the desert outside Morocco:



The Gazelles have to reach the predefined check points along their course in the least number of kilometers, rather than in the least amount of time - that's where navigation comes in and they are given only historical maps and a compass, no GPS.

Zambia: Church Hoppers in Lusaka

Metropolis TV reporter, Cleopatra, checks out the single and desperate scene in Lusaka:

Africa: Enter the UN's 1950s Time Warp

A rare look inside the bowels of the United Nations Head quarters in New York:

Madagascar: This Revolution Will Be Embedded

Ny Alantsika by Razia Said. Album: Zebu Nation. Performed at St.Johns the Divine NYC New Years Eve Concert for Peace 31/12/09

Interview (February 24, 2010):

Senegal: DJ/ Rupture on Dakar

"Thoughtful pipeline for music from countless distant and obscure outposts," DJ / Rupture, says his next musical stop is Dakar:



NYT concurs.

Nigeria: AlJazeera Pulls a 180 Degree "Drive by" on Lagos

This was Al Jazeera in Feb 2009...:



... a year later thanks to the Economist's Global Liveability Report...



Talk about changing your mind. AlJazeera's 180 degree shift on Lagos raises the question about  the importance of not only a story's angle but of the freshness of that angle. A fresh angle makes anything a story. A new EIU report or vote on the world's cities is definitely a fresh angle and to push what that angle says about Lagos--and a lot of it is true--the report leaves out a lot that has changed.

Nigerian Curiosity's take - here.

North Africa: A World War II Game Tackles the North African Campaign

Some game reviewers were already getting tired of every World War 2 game being set in Europe; bemoaning the fact (here and here) that the war stretched across the planet from North Africa to the Pacific theater. Well, it seems the gods of fair representation in gaming have heard and have replied with Theater of War 2: Africa for the PC:



Seems no Africans fought in the Northern Campaign though.

Friday

Aardman Animations school of animation heads to Khayelitsha, South Africa.

Africa: Welcome To Zamunda

Pitchfork and The Clipse coming from the same stoop prince Akeem in Coming to America spent time in Queens--but we we've been warned not to get it twisted, it was shot in Brooklyn. The Clipse shed some insight on picking samples for mixtapes. They spill on a track from The Very Best.

Senegal/ France: Immigration Debate - The Djibril Bodian's "Baguettes Response"

According to The Independent:

Immigration, it was claimed by many participants in the debate, threatens to destroy French identity and the French way of life. Not according to Djibril Bodian. And not according to the jury of gastronomes, minor celebrities and ordinary people who voted that his baguettes were the best in the French capital. "This prize is the best response there could be to some of the remarks that were made [in the national identity debate]," Mr Bodian told The Independent. "All of that was just politics and blah blah. Personally, I consider myself to be completely French, as French as my own bread." As part of his prize, Mr Bodian will supply all the bread for 12 months to President Sarkozy's official residence.

Burkina Faso: The Architecture of Francis Kéré

pic: BBC/ Francis Kere

Bukinabe architect Diebedo Francis Kéré, who is in London to take part in lectures on climate change and design, speaks with the BBC's Mark Coles about sustainable buildings. Click below:

Yep, they talk about the primary school he built in his home village of Gando, Burkina Faso, which won him the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture and The Global Award For Sustainable Architecture. The Global Award Doc on his work below:



Another look, this time in German:

Africa: Dance (R)evolution

Showing at the Free African Film fest at Washington University this week: Movement(R)evolution Africa, dir.Joan Frosch:



Reaction from the continent to the evolution of African dance - here - and African Journal recently spoke to dancer, Andreya Ouamba from Congo Brazzaville:



And then there is Guinean dancer, Ismail Kouyate, recently featured on CNN:

Africa: Adopt a Clitoris...

...here!  Serious.

Ghana: Nurse's Homecoming

Lydia Kwashie, a nurse in the United Kingdom, graduated from the best nursing school in Ghana. Out of class of 71 graduates, more than half have migrated to the United States and other greener pastures to be nurses:



H/T: Shadow and Act

Africa: Some Films Showing at the Helsinki African Film Fest - 7-9 May 2010

Clouds Over Conakry (2008), dir. Cheick Fantamady Camara (Guinea)



Waiting for Men (2007), dir. Katy Lena Ndiaye,  (Senegal, Mauritania, Belgium)

Bab'Aziz - The Prince Who Contemplated His Soul (2005), dir. Nacer Khemir (Tunisia)



Africa Paradis (2006), dir. Sylvestre Amoussou (Benin)



fest prog - here.

Uganda: Muzzling the Media

Justin Dralaze and Mujo Masinde report for Reuters Africa Journal on the ongoing rift between president Museveni and the Buganda kingdom, which Museveni thinks is just the opposition in disguise.

To block their access to garnering support, the govt clamps down on the media and because everything that sounds political can be interpreted by the govt as incitement journalists in turn muzzle themselves.



Background to the Buganda fracas + Libyan connection - here. And to think one of the reasons Museveni gave for restoring Uganda's monarchies and monarchs was so they could help discourage Uganda's youth from homosexuality.And don't forget the other bill.

Sudan: Futuristic Humanitarian Design?

Emily Pillton - here - explaining what humanitarian design is. I don't know if the conceptual art below counts as humanitarian design, but according to this gallery of pics over at Inhabitat:

Darfur has long been plagued by significant droughts, however in 2007 scientists at Boston University discovered the region has one of the biggest underwater lakes in the world. Putting these two facts together, Polish firm H3AR designed an incredible water-harvesting skyscraper that would draw H20 from underground and create an artificial lake!

These pumps take the water from the aquifer, pump it throughout the building to heat it and cool it, and store it within the core of the building itself.

One word - awesome. The only problem though is they remind us of those bird killing "black out" towers revealed in this episode of Flashforward:



More on the episode - here

H/T: I09

Somalia: The Politics of Food Aid

Even the UN projects a record bumper harvest (best in 7 yrs) in Southern Somalia this year and I'm thinking what the Al-Shabaab guy has to say here...



... ties in with what William Easterly talks about here:



surreal.

West Africa: Symmetry and Doubling: Photographing Twins and Twinness

 pic by Ibrahim Sanle Sory/ Foto Wooin (1977) Bob Dioulasso

Still on the subject of photography in Africa and the whole issue of depicting twinness, apparently the Angelo Micheli article, Doubles and Twins: A New Approach to Contemporary Studio Photography in West Africa, I was going on about here is in the public domain and available online - PDF here. or in kindle and other formats - here. An excerpt:

...observe that the idea of twinship transcends the field of twins themselves in West Africa. For Cartry, even a person born single participates in a twin-type structure. The structure of social institutions (trade, some relationships, initiations) and the world structure are themselves based on this model. For Peek, twinness is often the intended representation in images termed couples, pairs, doubles, or dyads in African arts... As for photographers, they produce images providing a plastic counterpart to the relation between the two individuals. By organizing the figures according to symmetric composition and rhetorics of poses which juxtapose or combine them, leading to fusion or even confusion, they archive disturbing likenesses. The construction of these doubles involves all the conventions and techniques of studio photography...

 pic by Koda C. Labara/ Untitled (2002) Lome.

Kenya/ United States: "He Comes from a Nation of Long Distance Runners"...

...was  Newsweek's Howard Fineman's tip of the hat (cue the clip to 3:28) to the president's persistence and success in passing health care reform:

Africa/ China: Sino-Africa Relations - Bruce Lee Meets N!xau

With China merging with Africa more and more each day, I'm thinking the scene below from The God's Must Be Crazy III (1991)--the unofficial Chinese 1991 sequel to the infamous coke bottle wakabout cringe-fest series--gives...



.... new resonance to the title of Deborah's Brautigam's book:

China-African co-operation using any and all means possible (even kung fu) to administer a can of ass whupping on forces holding back infrastructural development.

Sudan: This Revoltion Will Be Embedded

Kullu Wahid by Amira Kheir with Anna Wright (kora) @ Bush House, BBC Network Africa.

playing - "Manesha" and interview.

South Africa: Rose of Rhodesia

The Rose of Rhodesia (1918), directed by the American Harold M. Shaw and shot in Cape Town and on location in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, is not only said to be one of South Africa's earliest silent films, but for the better part of the century it was also thought to be lost. No copy was known to exist in any archive in South Africa, Britain, or the United States, until an intact print with German intertitles was donated to Nederlands Filmmuseum in 1985 as part of a Dutch private collection. But the film remained undiscovered till 2005 and wasn't fully restored till 2006.  

The Rose of Rhodesia  depicts the story of a diamond thief whose actions set in motion a chain of, um, events. The film is still streaming - here - as part of the Screening the Past  special issue (fall 2009) dedicated to it. This post over at Bioscope stresses the progressive interracial dynamics of the film:

The Rose of Rhodesia is distinguished in particular by its portrayal of Africans. The African parts were taken by members of the M’fengu people, with Ushakapilla played by ‘Chief’ Kentani (probably a local headman) and Mofti by ‘Prince’ Yumi (possibly a migrant worker or student). The portrayals are sympathetic and convincing, and the friendship between Mofti and Jack Morel affecting and unforced. The theme of African discontent over loss of lands reflects genuine feelings of the time, and the potential for uprising was one that greatly

Zimbabwe/ Nigeria: An Old Television Rumor

When South Africa's president Jacob Zuma was in Britain a few days ago to ask that Zimbabwe's sanctions be lifted, he might have been more successful if he included in the bargain the return of some lost episodes of Dr. Who (season one) that originally aired in the 60s and which the BBC are desperate to find. The rumor from last year was:

The BBC destroyed early episodes of the sci-fi series in the late Sixties and Seventies to make room in its film library for new programmes. But Zimbabwe is understood to have bought the first season of the show when it was still a British colony known as Rhodesia. It starred William Hartnell and ran from 1963 to 1964. The Beeb suspects the historic series, together with later episodes not held anywhere else in the world, may still be locked away.Despite years of searching, the broadcaster is missing 108 of 752 episodes of the television classic.

Over the decades some previously lost episodes have been uncovered by archivists in places as far flung as Hong Kong and New Zealand. Others have been unearthed from early home-made tapes. Collector Gordon Hendry discovered the second and third episodes of the first series selling for £8 each at a car boot sale in 1983. Another four episodes featuring Hartnell, the first actor to play the Time Lord, were recently retrieved from Nigeria. That led to corporation chiefs setting up a new task force to scour the rest of Africa for missing episodes. But they have been unable to get permission to visit Zimbabwe - where Mugabe still blames former colonial ruler Britain for its economic chaos.

LoL. Yep, state TV stations in Nigeria back in the day played those early seasons of Tom Baker as Dr. Who over and over again all through the late 80s and probably into the 90s. Ask many Nigerian, Tom Baker (Dr. Who from '74 - '81) is the one and only Dr. Who.



Our colonial baggage runs deep.

Rwanda: Silencing Dissent

Want a study in slant? Compare Rwanda's New Times report on opposition leader Victoire Ingabire, which uses words like "interception" and "attempted escape" to pile on her "guilt," to the AFP report which insists Ingabire "was not arrested but required to remain in Rwanda for further questioning," according to police spokesman, Eric Kayiranga. This comes as no surprise since New Times editor managing director already, point blank, told everyone  in that Geoffrey York's Globe and Mail piece that:

The managing director of the New Times, Joseph Bideri, confirmed that the newspaper refuses to give any “space” to Ms. Ingabire's responses. He wrote a personal letter to her on Jan. 22, vowing she would never get a “platform” in the newspaper because she is a “genocide denier.” In an interview, however, Mr. Bideri was unable to provide any evidence that Ms. Ingabire denies the genocide. In fact, in her public speeches and in a lengthy interview with The Globe and Mail, she repeatedly acknowledged and condemned the 1994 genocide. She draws a distinction between the slaughter of the Tutsis – which she calls a genocide – and the killings of many Hutus, which she describes as a "crime against humanity."

TiA thinks the Tutsi suppression is a blockhead strategy:

I hope (but doubt) that the donor governments will have the good sense to call Kagame out on these abuses of his power. The fight over whether any of Ingabire's comments constitute "genocide ideology" or genocide denial will serve as a front for what this is really about: the fact that Kagame doesn't want to allow a significant challenge to his power. I think this is an irrational stance. The RPF could stand on its record of re-establishing security and rebuilding the economy against an opposition that has no accomplishments to speak of. This strategy might actually overcome the problem of ethnically-based voting in which citizens vote on the basis of ethnicity along. But by continuing to silence dissent and pretend that ethnicity doesn't matter to most Rwandans, Kagame lets resentment of the RPF's rule fester.

AllAfrica puts all the pieces together - here.

Egypt: How to Build a Pyramid

The Arabist points us to some great footage compiled to chronicle the rise, rise rise and now crumbling pyramid-like state of president Hosni Mubarak. To enjoy it even more, ignore the fawning voice over :)

Malawi/ Kenya: Arguing Farm Subsidies

At the food summit in Rome in June 2008, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf noted that the percentage of official development assistance devoted to agriculture in Africa dropped from 17% to 3% between 1980 and 2005. By now, everyone knows why that is.

Under the pro-market, trade liberalization policies pushed on loan seeking African countries in 80s, the World Bank, IMF and bilateral donor agencies argued that African government subsidies to their subsistence farmers was too costly, impeded private business involvement, are prone to mismanagement and corruption. Below, libertarian blogger and editor at the Atlantic magazine, Megan McArdle, in this 2008 bloggin heads talk with Raj Patal about the food crisis, espouses the same anti-government agriculture subsidy line of reasoning:



As we saw with this winter's maize scandal (or here) in Kenya that almost brought the power sharing goverment to a halt a few weeks ago, McArdle's concern about subsidies is dead on. However, the Citizen report below compares Malawi's agriculture miracle to Kenya's corruption plagued system and vividly illustrates, in the case of Kenya, what McArdle (and all those IMF and World Bank pro-free market economists) are afraid of when it comes to subsidies, but then the report also shows why, in the case of Malawi under Bingu wa Mutharika, the same anti-government agriculture subsidy shpeel is so dead wrong:



Another reason why the effects of subsidies might fail to impact the larger economy is, perhaps, due to a deeper private sector disincentive screwed in place by the same anti-subsidy libertarian economics combined with cheap imports from the developed world. The logic espoused in the 80s was if African governments withdrew from subsidizing agriculture, the private sector will move in. But how can the private sector move into commercial or subsistence agriculture when it can take less risks and make more money repackaging and distributing cheaper food imported from the developed world's massively subsidized farmers?

Cited here, journalist and activist Martin Khor quotes that US Agriculture Secretary John Block actually told a world trade conference in 1986 that "the idea that developing countries should feed themselves is an anachronism from a bygone era. They could better ensure their food security by relying on US agricultural products, which are available in most cases at lower cost." Brutal, yes, but also true for any profit maximizing, common sense entity. With such a disincentive in place, the investment therefore needed from Africa's banking and private sector to put in place the food preservation, agro-allied industry and overall agriculture sub-economy to build on the success of the government food subsidies remains a vital yet missing piece of the puzzle.

Angola/China: "The Chinese Takeout"

We finally got round to seeing Mariana Van Zeller's excellent Vanguard documentary, Chinatown, Africa, which tracks China's infrastructure development in Angola.

As of March 1, AfricaRailway reports that the Chinese company rebuilding the Benguela line estimates "rails will be in place as far as Luena (990km from [the once great iron ore port of] Lobito) by May 2010, when the first train is expected to arrive." Below, Zeller explains China is planning to rebuild the line all the way from Angola through the DRC and ultimately to the east coast of Tanzania, and offers a glimpse into how and what the payoff is:



But the funniest part of her doc is this:

Ghana: Salt of the Earth Women

Pic: Peter Williams

The Salt Harvesters of Ghana, a 2008 documentary film by Marcia Rock, comes upon the Songoh lagoon, a natural forming salt lagoon, which has provided income for the local women of Ada for over 300 years. During the six weeks salt harvest, the women don't need a licence to harvest the salt, provided they gather it by hand - more.

Nigeria: Ikeja, Lagos in 2059

Nollywood kitsch meets sci-fi aspirations. Pumzi it ain't, but why should it be? It's Nollywood, baby. Cringe away while you applaud the effort.



Interview with director Niyi Akinmolayan  - here.

Ethiopia/ Ghana: Sound of Music

Over the last few weeks at Boing Boing, one of the guest contributors, sound designer and writer for Make magazine, Meara O'Reilly, has dug up some African music gems.

First is this ethnographic curiosity from the University of Ghana post office recorded by James Koetting in 1975. What you will hear below is the sound of four postal workers using music to make the work of canceling stamps less boring. Their song appears in the book/CD-Rom Worlds of Music: An Introduction to the Music of the World's Peoples:



Or the music of Ethiopian nun and pianist, Yewubdar Gebru, otherwise known as Emahoy Tsege Mariam after she became a num. Sent to Switzerland at 6 to study the violin and gave her first recital at 10, prisoner of Mussolini along with her family, fled to a monastry at 19... frankly, her story should be a movie.

Rwanda: Women and Business 101

A move to Nigeria offers a life enriching experience and ideas being applied in Rwanda: