Destination X
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Showing posts tagged africa
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Lack of unified opposition helping Gadhafi
Libya has a “very weak” sense of national identity, one analyst says.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Moammar Gadhafi has clung to power partly by creating obstacles to a unified opposition.
- Libya is dominated by tribal politics — a tradition that hampers opponents.
- Gadhafi has repeatedly purged the military, the institution most likely to bring about change.
- Europe is very dependent on Libyan oil, not prepared to deal with extended instability there.
— CNN
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The Glenn Beck Lesson: How the Media Falsely Glorifies and Destroys Personalities
“Fox News is said to be prepared to dump its conspiracy theorist-in-chief Glenn Beck from its line-up of commentators …
Beck has more to lose than Fox News, even if he does have his lucrative radio show to fall back upon. But without the Fox News seal of approval and the oxygen of publicity that comes from an hour a day on the channel, Beck would sink into the media morass alongside the likes of Michael Savage, shouting ever louder to be heard but signifying nothing.
In any case, if Fox News does dump Glenn Beck, then look forward to Beck outlining the mother of all conspiracy theories. He’s going to need a bigger blackboard.” —Guardian
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Ethiopia is where you should spend your next vacation, according to CNN and me. :) If you are already there for your current vacation, then you must be the luckiest one.
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The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) - How Sincere?
The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) masquerades as a boost for Africa’s development, but the reality is that it’s nothing less that a new scramble for Africa, writes Jason Hickel. —Pambazuka News
AGOA could be used to make trade work for everyday Africans. First, the economic liberalization condition should be dropped. Rich countries like the United States, Britain, Japan, and China initially used tariff protections and subsidies to promote their industries in the early stages of development; it’s cruel to deny those basic strategies to African countries desperately in need of development. Second, the political reform conditions should be taken seriously, and used to leverage best practices in human rights and labour law. Third, local content rules should require that all US investments in Africa should tier up over a set period to at least 80 per cent local labour and local contracts - characterised by genuine registration - and should require investment in local capacity where it proves too poor to meet the necessary standards. Finally, targeted quotas should be used to channel foreign investment to where it’s needed most, rather than to where the regulations are most relaxed. But changes of this order are not on the horizon, for - as I have demonstrated - the United States is concerned less about the well-being of Africans than about meeting its own energy needs and promoting the interests of American corporations. We need to cut through the deceptive rhetoric of US trade policy and ask the tough questions: Who really benefits from AGOA? Does AGOA enhance welfare and development, or facilitate extraction and exploitation? The present trade arrangement between the United States and Africa is eerily reminiscent of the era of colonial conquest. In 1875, as Europe set its sights on Africa’s vast riches, King Leopold II of Belgium wrote to his ambassador in London, ‘I do not want to miss a good chance of getting us a slice of this magnificent African cake.’ It’s America’s turn now, and it appears that the Obama administration - like Bush before him - is driven by a similarly disturbing vision: a new scramble for Africa. —Jason Hickel
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”I do not want to miss a good chance of getting us a slice of this magnificent African cake.
King Leopold II of Belgium to his ambassador in London during Europe’s scramble for Africa, 1875
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Phenomenal Woman ...
There are so many phenomenal women out there, including our mothers, and the following Ethiopian blogger talks about the phenomenal woman she greatly admires: http://ethiopianfeminist.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/phenomenal-woman/ … Enjoyed the writing, and the very insightful content!
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Israel Belema, young Ethiopian inventor, speaking in Amharic about his several inventions.
“Israel was born in the rural town of Ginchi, 90 km west of Addis Ababa in 1988. As a kid, he was fascinated with the way electrical things worked and by the age of 6 had already understood the basic mechanics of machines he found at home. It was at this tender age that he heard about a machine that let people in distant places talk to each other and his curious mind was fired up about the concept of telephones. He began with his quest, asking the adults around him to explain how it worked and going to the Telecommunication Center in his town to find out how voice can be transmitted across distance.
By the age of 13, he had built his own telephone network and had began to provide telephone service to his small town. As a service provider, he soon caught the attention of the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) and was ‘discovered.’ Israel soon began his training as a student studying telecommunication basic transmission with the support of ETC and pursued his degree in Computer Engineering at Microlink Information Technology College. Israel currently works as a researcher and has contributed many innovations such as video camera editing machines, voice recording systems, conferencing ystems and has two patents for developing an independent telecommunication network and another for inventing a unique international car security system.”
Listen to the rest of the story from himself. He is quite a genius.
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Hateta Zär’a Ya’eqob
Hatata is a 1667 ethical philosophical treatise by Ethiopian philosopher Zera Yacob, written at the request of his patron’s son Walda Heywat. The philosophy is theistic in nature and came during a period when African philosophical literature was significantly oral in character. It has often been compared by scholars to Descartes‘ Discours de la methode (1637).
Yacob wrote Hatata as an investigation of the light of reason. Yacob is most noted for this philosophy surrounding the principle of harmony. He asserted that an action’s morality is decided by whether it advances or degrades overall harmony in the world. While he did believe in a deity, whom he referred to as God, he rejected any set of religious beliefs. Rather than deriving beliefs from any organized religion, Yacob sought the truth in observing the natural world. He believed in following one’s natural reasoning instead of believing in what one is told by others.
In Hatata, Yacob applied the idea of the first cause to his proof for the existence of God. “If I say that my father and my mother created me, then I must search for the creator of my parents and of the parents of my parents until they arrive at the first who were not created as we [are] but who came into this world in some other way without being generated.”
However, the knowability of God does not depend on human intellect, but “Our soul has the power of having the concept of God and of seeing him mentally. God did not give this power purposelessly; as he gave the power, so did he give the reality.”
Upon Yacob’s death in 1692 his pupil Walda Heywat updated the work to include his death. — Wiki
Behold, I have begun an inquiry such as has not been attempted before. You can complete what I have begun so that the people of our country will become wise with the help of God and arrive at the science of truth, lest they believe in falsehood, trust in depravity, go from vanity to vanity, that they know the truth and love their brother, lest they quarrel about their empty faith as they have been doing till now. — from The Treatise of Zara Yacob, English translation by Claude Sumner)
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Now on view at Copro Gallery in Santa Monica is a three person show featuring...
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Laughing in Mongolia
