It’s Friday, do something to celebrate! I read that somewhere today. Fridays are the best, so full of promise, especially when it’s sunny and beautiful out. A while back promised myself i’d spend my Friday nights at the café penning my roman à clef That was a long time ago, these days I just hang [...]

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This week's book was what I just needed to up my reading momentum, after an hectic summer of competing demands. The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr puts forward the argument that the internet is changing us in ways we may not have realised before. Nicholas Carr is convinced that despite the wide benefits the internet has brought, it is also having a fundamental impact on the physiology of our brains, altering not only the way we perceive reality but how we actually take in information and process it.

It is a quite shocking assessment, and one that he backs up with a range of evidence. As a non-expert in this area, I was left somewhat convinced by the cumulative force of the evidence presented, though I retained deep scepticism on the individual bits. The evidence also at times appeared ...

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We've gotten permission to share an excellent recent post by Lane Hartill of Catholic Relief Services. He offers a unique perspective on the conflict minerals trade, writing as though through the eyes of a porter involved in the tin trade in eastern Congo. Here's an excerpt and a link to the original:

Jules had been hiking all day, slipping his way down the trail to Ndjingala. He pushed leaves as big as dinner plates out of his eyes and shifted the 115 pounds of rocks in the mesh sack on his head. For long stretches of time, all Jules heard was the soft panting of the group of 15 men and the sucking sound of the mud underfoot.

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Somalia's faltering transitional government seemed to be crying out for help this week, issuing an usually large number of press releases about assaults, attacks, and security woes. But among the more intriguing notes to come out of the government press shop was one from Aug. 28 proclaiming: "Al Shabab Developing Own Media Capability."

Al-Shabab, the Islamist group that today controls much of southern Somalia, has taken to looting private media stations and using their equipment for its own broadcasts, the release explained. And in addition, "Al Shabab is currently undertaking a lot of propaganda in some parts of south and central Somalia using traditional means of communication such as madarassas, mosque lectures, and workshops."

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Bruce Jentleson and Steven Weber's November/December 2008 cover story for FP, "America's Hard Sell," described the collapse of 50 years of U.S. foreign policy assumptions -- that democracy, capitalism, and Western  values were key to peace and prosperity worldwide -- and argued, presciently, that America had to learn to compete in the marketplace of ideas against many other forceful and skeptical players. Now the authors -- Jentleson is a professor of political science at Duke University and Weber the director of the Institute of International Studies at Berkeley -- have expanded their piece into a book for Harvard University Press, due out next week. The End of Arrogance makes a strong case for the end of the hegemony of American ideas in the foreign-policy sphere, examines what a more ...

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"The mines were privatized on certain binding agreements and from the time the government introduced the illegal tax regime new jobs are not being created because major expansion projects have been suspended....In order to retain and attract investors we must honour our agreements and also establish a stable, predictable and unambiguous tax regime"

Michael Sata officially announcing the PF U-Turn on its mining policies. We have been dicussing this isssue extensively here. It now appears that what The Post reported was indeed the new PF position. The argument appears to be "jobs" and "illegality of existing taxation". These are very poor reasons and we deal with them under Eight reasons for rejecting higher mining taxes.

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The masquerade of death, Doma, Nasarawa State, originally uploaded by nobodaddy69.

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I promised a series of post to summarise some of the horrors contained in the latest Report of the Auditor General on Accounts for 2008 on Parastatal Bodies. There are 21 parastatals covered in the report, not sure how many exists, so expect short 21 random posts, and at times less coherent, in the next few weeks.

We start with Chambeshi Water and Sewerage Company Limited, a company allegedly owned by various northern councils. Its principal activity is allegedly "to provide high quality water and improved sewerage services for high standard of living for the population of the districts of Northern Province". Don't laugh! The only problem according to the Auditor General (AG) is that the company is dire financial position :

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By Dibussi Tande Who was the founder of Black Styl, the greatest Makossa group of all time; Emil Kangue or Nkotti Francois? How did Makossa maestro Ben Decca look and sound like when he released Nyonga Mulema, his debut 12...

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As I am sure you have seen, the UN High Commission for Human Rights has decided to postpone the publication of the UN mapping report for another month, so as to allow the countries concerned to formulate their responses and publish them at the same time.

In the meantime I have uploaded the leaked draft of the mapping report along with the responses of the Congolese government and the Rwandan government.

[view whole blog post ]

This week's book was what I just needed to up my reading momentum, after an hectic summer of competing demands. The Shallows, by Nicholas Carr puts forward the argument that the internet is changing us in ways we may not have realised before. Nicholas Carr is convinced that despite the wide benefits the internet has brought, it is also having a fundamental impact on the physiology of our brains, altering not only the way we perceive reality but how we actually take in information and process it.

It is a quite shocking assessment, and one that he backs up with a range of evidence. As a non-expert in this area, I was left somewhat convinced by the cumulative force of the evidence presented, though I retained deep scepticism on the individual bits. The evidence also at times appeared ...

[view whole blog post ]

Somalia's faltering transitional government seemed to be crying out for help this week, issuing an usually large number of press releases about assaults, attacks, and security woes. But among the more intriguing notes to come out of the government press shop was one from Aug. 28 proclaiming: "Al Shabab Developing Own Media Capability."

Al-Shabab, the Islamist group that today controls much of southern Somalia, has taken to looting private media stations and using their equipment for its own broadcasts, the release explained. And in addition, "Al Shabab is currently undertaking a lot of propaganda in some parts of south and central Somalia using traditional means of communication such as madarassas, mosque lectures, and workshops."

[view whole blog post ]

Bruce Jentleson and Steven Weber's November/December 2008 cover story for FP, "America's Hard Sell," described the collapse of 50 years of U.S. foreign policy assumptions -- that democracy, capitalism, and Western  values were key to peace and prosperity worldwide -- and argued, presciently, that America had to learn to compete in the marketplace of ideas against many other forceful and skeptical players. Now the authors -- Jentleson is a professor of political science at Duke University and Weber the director of the Institute of International Studies at Berkeley -- have expanded their piece into a book for Harvard University Press, due out next week. The End of Arrogance makes a strong case for the end of the hegemony of American ideas in the foreign-policy sphere, examines what a more ...

[view whole blog post ]

"The mines were privatized on certain binding agreements and from the time the government introduced the illegal tax regime new jobs are not being created because major expansion projects have been suspended....In order to retain and attract investors we must honour our agreements and also establish a stable, predictable and unambiguous tax regime"

Michael Sata officially announcing the PF U-Turn on its mining policies. We have been dicussing this isssue extensively here. It now appears that what The Post reported was indeed the new PF position. The argument appears to be "jobs" and "illegality of existing taxation". These are very poor reasons and we deal with them under Eight reasons for rejecting higher mining taxes.

[view whole blog post ]

I promised a series of post to summarise some of the horrors contained in the latest Report of the Auditor General on Accounts for 2008 on Parastatal Bodies. There are 21 parastatals covered in the report, not sure how many exists, so expect short 21 random posts, and at times less coherent, in the next few weeks.

We start with Chambeshi Water and Sewerage Company Limited, a company allegedly owned by various northern councils. Its principal activity is allegedly "to provide high quality water and improved sewerage services for high standard of living for the population of the districts of Northern Province". Don't laugh! The only problem according to the Auditor General (AG) is that the company is dire financial position :

[view whole blog post ]

As I am sure you have seen, the UN High Commission for Human Rights has decided to postpone the publication of the UN mapping report for another month, so as to allow the countries concerned to formulate their responses and publish them at the same time.

In the meantime I have uploaded the leaked draft of the mapping report along with the responses of the Congolese government and the Rwandan government.

[view whole blog post ]

Zambia Weekly - Week 35, Volume 1, 3 September 2010

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Thoughts to ponder for those in Africa who believe in mimicry rather than adaptation and self-generation, Kishore Mahbubani wrote in the FT:

...the strengths of Asian capitalism are greater than the weaknesses. Within a decade Asians will have some of the largest free trade areas, including those between China and the Association of South East Asian Nations, the Japan-Asean FTA, and the Indian-Asean FTA that is likely to be set up. Recent history has taught Asians a valuable lesson: more trade leads to greater prosperity. In the Asian way – two steps forward, one step back – trade barriers will gradually come down. By the middle of the 21st century, intra-Asian trade will far surpass that of any other region.

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In a speech delivered in 2008, Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Carole Lewis implicitly questioned the appointment of some black and female judges to the various courts in South Africa since 1994. She argued in a speech  that the JSC has become dominated by politicians after the adoption of the final Constitution in 1996 and that [...]

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South Africa's Mining Ministry will soon approach the Cabinet with its proposal for a state-owned mining company, which could be formed before the end of this year.

Zambia Sugar, a unit of South Africa's Illovo Sugar, last month achieved energy independence as it started generating all of its own power needs, ending its reliance on shaky ZESCO.

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