Link Africa

 

From a gallery of images shot by Fred Bunde from the ‘The War is Over’ Campaign.

 

• “We don’t know you, but we know that we can help you.”
• “From humble beginnings in 1991 in Lusaka, where the business started as an abattoir and two butcher shops, Zambeef is now a $200-million-a-year company”
• “Safety is relative. And, I and my partner are gay in a country where we are considered demon possessed sell-outs. No, I love this little nation state of ours. Wont exchange it for any other. Not voluntarily, and even then, I would make anyone forcing me to pay. I guess we are as safe as we can be”
• “What better evidence can there be of Africa’s burgeoning potential as a consumer market than Walmart’s desire for a foothold on the continent?”
• Alternately: “Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), which claims to represent nearly 2 million workers, referred to Wal-Mart as “one of the worst and stubbornly anti-union companies in the world.” “
• Forcing those who would rather not to recognize you is the ultimate in revolution, a revolution from non-existence to being. And that’s just what the residents of Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa, have done. Under a project they’ve called Map Kibera, they’ve publicly mapped a home the government previously depicted as wild forest (the meaning of the slum’s name) and put it online.

If you find something online that would be of interest to Vuga! readers and contributors, email tips to vugaafrica@gmail.com

Link Africa

Now I look like an African (minus the whole white skin thing)!

• “Ghana has reduced the proportion of under-nourished people by over 75 percent since 1992. Currently, only 8 percent of its population remains under-nourished – roughly on par with many industrialized countries. In Ethiopia, primary education completion rates have increased by nearly 300 percent — meaning that millions of kids are now finishing at least eight years of schooling. Beyond that, Ethiopia is aggressively expanding access to secondary and tertiary education as well. In Burkina Faso, access to safe drinking water has increased by nearly 60 percent. Uganda has reduced its HIV/AIDS prevalence rate by over 60 percent.”
• “Africa has a new cheerleader, with even more financial clout. Bob Diamond, the new head of Barclays, is calling the continent an “incredible” opportunity.”
• “Africa is rich in untapped natural oil and gas reserves. With recent finds in Uganda and Ghana, the continent is certain to experience a flurry of exploration activity. Furthermore, Africa is expected to pass North America in 2011 and become the third largest producing area after the Middle East and Central/Eastern Europe.“
• “Anywhere along the maize belt, from Ethiopia down to South Africa and up to the Ivory Coast, a traveler can find a standard dish: maize flour boiled into a stiff porridge known as sadza in Zimbabwe, ugali in Kenya, and in the Bariba regions of Benin, dibu.”
• “You go to one of those fabulously elitist schools where everyone talks about privilege, classism, racism, sexism, etc. as if they don’t practice it in real life. But in order to really see the world, they decide to go somewhere where they can understand what their privilege looks like. So they choose AFRICA! Yay! A whole continent dedicated to helping white people understand what it means to be poor and undeveloped.”
• “Starting in December, Marvel’s king of the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda, otherwise known as T’Challa or the black panther, will be the mysterious super hero filling in Matt Murdock’s crime fighting shoes in New York city”
• “Africa has been seen as something more than a curio in global investment terms since 2007, when the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China bought up a 20 percent share in Mr. Maree’s bank for $5.5 billion. Suddenly, The Economist writes, Africa had the financial world’s attention.”

If you find something online that would be of interest to Vuga! readers and contributors, email tips to vugaafrica@gmail.com

link Africa

Image via Wikipedia

“without the lips, the teeth feel the cold” sums up exactly the relationship between Africa and China. Africa provides China with the market and the natural resources that China needs to keep its economy going, while China provides Africa with the legitimacy to keep its rulers in power, as well as investment and a development model alternative to that of the West.

“Investing in Africa’s women is a smart investment … Yet investing in Africa’s women scientists is the best bet,”

“Using their vast credibility, resources and media influence, donors project onto the public imagination an unbroken stream of corrosively negative information, images and emotions about the recipient country and its population, in order to prove that no cause is more heart-rending, more urgent, and more (nearly) hopeless. By the time their programme has moved on to the next deserving cause, the country’s image may have been blighted for generations, leaving a powerful psychological and emotional disincentive to trade, investment, tourism and growth”.

“Every day, a workforce of 1,000 locals pick, pack and load hundreds of tons of fresh produce onto waiting trucks, including 30 tons of tomatoes alone. After reaching the capital, Addis Ababa, the produce is flown to a handful of Middle Eastern cities, entirely bypassing Ethiopia, one of the hungriest places on the planet.”

“Football fans will perhaps be unsurprised to learn that the vuvuzela, whose apian drone soundtracked yet another summer of hurt, has blared its way into the dictionary’s pages. By being ushered into the dictionary, which is based on how language is really used, the metre-long plastic horn has cemented its immortality as well as its ubiquity”