Ken Opalo has an excellent article on drug trafficking in Africa: The problem of drug trafficking in Africa is not merely a law enforcement concern. Firstly, it is a threat to the development and consolidation of important state institutions, especially the region’s judiciaries and security agencies. In many of the African states that have been… Read More »
Manan Ahmed in The National: Both Stewart and Mortenson illustrate one particular configuration of the relationship between knowledge and the American empire – the “non-expert” insider who can traverse that unknown terrain and, hence, become an “expert”. Even a cursory examination of the archive dealing with the American efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan demonstrates… Read More »
From the BBC: A team of observers from Commonwealth countries has arrived in the UK to watch how the election is conducted and suggest how it could be improved. It will be the first time a Commonwealth team has observed elections in a developed country. They will observe candidates’ campaigns, polling stations and the count,… Read More »
1. Is China a developing country? 2. Swedish think tank wants to clean up relief deliveries with a new ethical aid tool 3. Why cycling in Berlin is a dream 4. The corrupt reign of Emperor Silvio 5. Don’t cry for Wall Street 6. Towards a new world economy 7. Why some Egyptians are becoming… Read More »
Ms Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s former minister for finance, and currently a managing director of the World Bank: intra regional trade in Africa remains low and accounts for less than 10% of total trade . Between 1999 and 2006, for example, intra-African trade increased by an average of just 14 per cent per year, while trade… Read More »
The clothes are being produced in a “green” factory in Sri Lanka – the first in the world to be awarded a gold rating for environmental responsiblity by LEED, the international green building certification system. And they are: made from end of line Tesco stock which would otherwise end up in landfill…. Full article.
is the title of a Reuters report on Africa. Read this excerpt: The International Monetary Fund believes growth in sub-Saharan Africa will be 1 percentage point above the global average, and puts eight African countries in its top 20 fastest-expanding economies in 2010. Oil-rich Angola and Congo Republic will lead the charge with growth rates… Read More »
From NYTimes: TRUNG SON, Vietnam — It seemed as if this village in northern Vietnam had struck gold when a Chinese and a Japanese company arrived to jointly build a coal-fired power plant. Thousands of jobs would start flowing in, or so the residents hoped. Four years later, the Haiphong Thermal Power Plant is nearing… Read More »
I decided this morning to quit Facebook. I agree that it has its uses, but it recently struck me that there are probably more people – my facebook ‘friends’ – who have access to information about me than I would normally want. So yesterday I started restricting access to my profile information. But then I… Read More »