According to this video, without Africa, France is nothing. I did not realise just how much France had rigged its trade with Africa. But, Africa has awakened.
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Africa. Show all posts
October 08, 2025
March 27, 2025
Sentebale Resignations
Sentebale, the charity in southern Africa that Prince Harry established along with the prince of Lesotho, is in turmoil as every trustee resigns. Its chairperson has issued a damning statement, strongly implying irregularities in the way it has been run.
Has this got anything to do with the USAID shutdown? I do notice that the High Court in England and Wales agreed to hear the matter, effectively preventing the removal of the board chair.
Sentebale chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka has issued a statement:
'I chose to join Sentebale first and foremost as a proud African who understands that, in the spirit of ubuntu: to whom much is given, much is expected. Everything I do at Sentebale is in pursuit of the integrity of the organisation, its mission, and the young people we serve.
'My actions are guided by the principles of fairness and equitable treatment for all, regardless of social status or financial means. There are people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people, and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct.
'Discerning readers will ask themselves: why would the Chair of the Board report her own Trustees to the Charity Commission? Why would the High Court of England and Wales accept her application to hear the matter at all if the case had no merit?
'Well, because beneath all the victim narrative and fiction that has been syndicated to press is the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir – and the coverup that ensued. I could be anyone.
'I just happen to be an educated woman who understands that the law will guide and protect me. I will say nothing further on this matter at this time. I have one job. I must focus on fundraising for the very important work of the young people who inspire the incredible team at Sentebale who make sacrifices daily at a time when geopolitics is severely impacting funding for development work in Africa.
'For me, this is not a vanity project from which I can resign when I am called to account. I am an African who has had the privilege of a worldclass education and career. I will not be intimidated. I must stand for something. I stand for those other women who do not have the ways and means.
'I am indebted to those who have stood by me and picked up my urgent call for help so that we can continue the mission at Sentebale. I will continue to faithfully perform my role as Chair of the Board, and I look forward to the opportunity to work with others who are interested in issues of health, wealth and climate resilience for young people in Africa.'
March 30, 2024
Global Population Decline
Park this one under; will someone tell the Green movement to 'shut the hell up'. If the worldwide population is set to decline, why are we chasing our tails with their Eco nonsense? Won't emissions reduce as the fewer consumers belch less emissions (heh...too many cows - get it)?
New Zealand is an interesting case. The replacement level of the population is 2.10 births per woman. The last time NZ was at that level was 2012. Yes, the rate of births has declined significantly over time, from 1960 when each woman had 4.10 children, on average, through to today where women have about 1.60 children. Within this long term trend, the birth rate has fluctuated; NZ dropped off in the 1990's, then built it back to 2012's level, and now things have dropped off again.
Below I embed an Al Jazeera video looking at the topic, but I disagree with a lot of the rationale used. I think the cost of living is directly to blame. Where families are supported and where incomes are sufficient, people still have babies.
Right now, we are faced with governments trying to kill us, destroy us, tax us into oblivion and offer no support whatsoever, so what do you think is not going to happen? That's right, they're not having kids is what is not going to happen.
What I am saying is that New Zealand's record proves that despite having a high standard of living and an educated workforce, that given the right conditions, the birth rate can be maintained at no less than replacement levels.
But, hang on, Africa has a fast growing population, the average age of sub-Saharan Africa is about 18. They're poor right? Right, but the cost of living is not so bad and they have resources coming on stream. Off the back of those resources and the related employment it creates, plus the lower cost of living, they can have large families. There is a strong incentive to get out there and earn, to make the family richer.
People look at poorer countries and assume they'll have large families, but when you look closely, you'll find their pace of development is high. Their cost of living is low, and barriers to entry for business and professionals are not insurmountable. Larger families can grab a greater share of this wealth being created. Think of this as a fairer distribution of wealth.
Meanwhile, in the West there are many barriers to entry. It takes too long to become qualified when entering the workforce. By the time people are fully up to speed, they're in their thirties and for women, they have a far narrower window through which to make babies.
If you want to see birth rates rise; support families, remove barriers to entry, exploit resources and lower the cost of living.
July 20, 2023
Nuclear Industry in Africa
Russia is planning on mining uranium in Namibia, and mining and processing uranium in Tanzania. Nuclear energy is the way to go.
https://www.rt.com/africa/579959-russia-uranium-mining-africa/
January 05, 2023
Madonna in Africa
It's good to see popstar Madonna doing something with her money. Keep supporting Malawi, Ms Ciccone.
January 02, 2021
Predictions 2021
What lies ahead for 2021? Some ideas from me:
1. Second US Civil War or the beginning of certain states seceding from the United Sates of America
2. The Great Crash and eventual widespread economic collapse
3. War between China and the US and its allies
4. Jacinda Ardern leaves New Zealand to take up a job with Big Tech or the United Nations
5. Meghan Markle finally dumps that twit Prince Harry
6. CANZUK goes beyond talk to actually being considered a real thing
7. NZ may join Australia after its economic meltdown
8. Italy starts discussions around leaving the EU
9. Australia cuts off China from its iron ore and rescinds the lease for port of Darwin
10. Britain booms after leaving the EU and many Remainer heads explode.
Please add your predictions in the comments below.
February 22, 2019
Tourism: New Zealand needs good myths
It was the bridge of lies, err, bridge of sighs in Venice which got me thinking about this: Venice has woven an intricate set of myths around its romance. It's complete bollocks of course, often knowingly so (my wife thinks many locals actually now believe the lies, but I demur).
New Zealand has to get in on the act. Scenery alone doesn't cut it, there are a lot of places in the world that are stunningly beautiful (I'm committing heresy saying it). And when I say get in on the act, I mean relentlessly go on about it, rather like Australia promotes its better climate when in fact it is nothing of the sort, it's either burning, in drought, or a mosquito infested swamp.
The idea of running a 24 hours TV channel in Europe comes to mind. We noticed in Italy that countries in Africa even promote themselves this way in Europe. Nothing about NZ, why not?
New Zealand has to get in on the act. Scenery alone doesn't cut it, there are a lot of places in the world that are stunningly beautiful (I'm committing heresy saying it). And when I say get in on the act, I mean relentlessly go on about it, rather like Australia promotes its better climate when in fact it is nothing of the sort, it's either burning, in drought, or a mosquito infested swamp.
The idea of running a 24 hours TV channel in Europe comes to mind. We noticed in Italy that countries in Africa even promote themselves this way in Europe. Nothing about NZ, why not?
August 22, 2018
ARM Cement
Something I learnt from Twitter; ARM Cement has gone into administration. They're Kenya's second largest cement producer, and have operations in Tanzania and Rwanda as well, on top of minority holdings in South Africa.
November 22, 2017
Zimbabwe 2017
Zimbabwe's leadership squabbles are dominating the news at the moment. It seems everyone at the top is jockeying to take over from Robert Mugabe who has been Zimbabwe's leader for the last 37 years.
What I have noticed is commentators repeatedly saying Zimbabwe is wrecked, or words to that effect. Really? I'd call wrecked a city like Hamburg in 1945. Is Harare in that condition? The news footage seems to show the opposite, people appear well dressed, the streets clean and tidy, the buildings are all standing straight and the cars are relatively late model. Has no-one noticed this? How can a country with 90% unemployment have people so well nourished and apparently quite well off by African standards.
What I think is going on is that Zimbabwe functions satisfactorily. Most must be in some kind of employment. What I suspect is employers are hiring people on a purely cash basis for a few hours a day and not paying tax. The employees for their part may say the're not in full time employment which is essentially true but disguises what is really going on. Zimbabwe in these circumstances has an empty exchequer, but life goes on for everyone else.
As for political power; the army may be divided into factions while Zanu-PF may also be divided. Things could go downhill very fast, let's hope not as this country looks to have all the makings of great prosperity.
Update: Robert Mugabe has now resigned and in a move that looks dodgy, Emmerson Mnangagwa will serve out the rest of Mugabe's term. But wait, is that constitutional? The Vice-President position is held by two people appointed by the President. Mnangagwa has been dismissed and removed from office, which leaves Phelekezela Mphoko to take over from Mugabe. Correct? I think that's right, so if Mnangagwa takes over that looks illegitimate to my eyes, not a good start.
For a more objective view of what got us here check out my Fixing Zimbabwe post a while back. No-one read it at the time, but I nailed it JICYDK.
Update: Robert Mugabe has now resigned and in a move that looks dodgy, Emmerson Mnangagwa will serve out the rest of Mugabe's term. But wait, is that constitutional? The Vice-President position is held by two people appointed by the President. Mnangagwa has been dismissed and removed from office, which leaves Phelekezela Mphoko to take over from Mugabe. Correct? I think that's right, so if Mnangagwa takes over that looks illegitimate to my eyes, not a good start.
For a more objective view of what got us here check out my Fixing Zimbabwe post a while back. No-one read it at the time, but I nailed it JICYDK.
December 03, 2016
Fixing Zimbabwe
You may have seen that Zimbabwe has introduced a new currency. Back in 2008 they abandoned their worthless currency and adopted the US Dollar instead. Most transactions in Zimbabwe are now in US Dollars or the South African Rand.
In the west we don't get a fair picture of the reasons for the predicament Zimbabwe finds itself in, nor is there any reasonable debate about how to fix things. What we get instead, is a picture created by the British, that Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, is a fool and that white Zimbaweans are superior to everyone else. Neither picture is accurate.
Mugabe has done some remarkable things in Zimbabwe, when he took office the country was run to serve the white masters and the black community were third class citizens. He built a modern infrastructure which became the envy of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, he educated soundly and the country still has the highest literacy rate in sub-Saharan Africa, and he kept his word in fighting the Lord's Resistance Army and his word with the British.
Let's look at those last two matters. When the illegal white supremacist government of Southern Rhodesia was finally defeated, a meeting was held between the freedom fighting leaders which included Robert Mugabe, and the British. It was pointed out at this meeting that old Cecil Rhodes had carved up the territory, giving the whites huge tracts of fertile land in the high rainfall areas to the north, while blacks had been pushed to the infertile and low rainfall areas to the south (I'm generalising but this is the nub of it).
It was agreed that the British would fund land reform. This would effectively buy out the white farmers, and return those farms to black ownership. Something needs pointing out here, something missed by all western media; those farms are often as big as small European countries. The white owners did not work the land themselves, their farm managers and labourers, who were mostly black, did all the work.
What followed is clearly the fault of, firstly, the white farmers and then, secondly, the British. Mugabe can carry no blame at all, not one ounce of it. Those white farmers refused to sell up, they dug their heels in and became intransigent. Some might say fair enough, but consider this was stolen land to begin with.
These white farmers are prize bigots who talk to their staff like they're six years old. I can tell you now, talk to any farm labourer like that in New Zealand and they'd kill you. So I can safely say that Zimbabweans are a very reasonable bunch, given they've put up with being treated like children for so long.
So we had a situation of the white farmers sitting on valuable land and refusing to budge, Mugabe, quite reasonably, started applying pressure after waiting fifteen long years. When white farmers did budge, the British reneged, informing Mugabe they couldn't afford it. This is a country that could afford to pay back Lend Lease to the USA but not a poor country whose land they stole.
So Mugabe lost the plot and went berserk. Not excusable conduct but understandable. He made a huge mistake in then dividing up these farms amongst his cronies, instead of sensibly distributing the land amongst the farm managers. Smaller holdings of manageable size that one man and a labourer can work. Say, about 400 acres give or take.
The farm managers and labourers became displaced, and moved to the cities and raised shanty towns on the outskirts. They hated Mugabe and joined the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), which became the opposition to Mugabe's Zanu-PF. Thing is, the MDC are an even bigger bunch of criminals than Zanu-PF and everyone in Zimbabwe knows it.
So everything starts going downhill, but had the British not reneged, everything would be different.
Then we often see the sight of the African Union honouring Mugabe, like why would they honour such a criminal (this is the slant western media take). What they don't mention is that, firstly, they're all aware of what Mugabe has done for his country, it is obvious he loves his country very much, and they all know as they hang their heads, that he's the one and only man there who kept his word with them.
The Lord's Resistance Army are the most vile and evil sick bastards on the planet. They make ISIL look like choir boys. Well, the big talking and big noting African Union talked up how they were going to deal with the Lord's Resistance Army, and bla de bla. Then when push came to shove, they all vanished, leaving Zimbabwe holding the door handle alone. Mugabe then broke his own country while keeping his word. That's why the hyper inflation and the destroyed currency.
Mugabe isn't a bad guy, he's a man of honour and principle, he's a good man, he fights evil and teaches children how to read and to do arithmetic (he's a former teacher after all). The way western media portray this great man is a travesty.
Okay so that said, how to fix this broken country? Answer, you could see this coming I know it, let New Zealand do it.
Zimbabwe doesn't trust its neighbours or they don't have the experience. The most untrustworthy is South Africa.
New Zealand gave Garfield Todd to Southern Rhodesia, their first liberal Prime Minister who came to oppose white minority rule. Mugabe would trust New Zealanders to do a decent job as he worked with Todd in his early years as a teacher.
New Zealand shares common history in overcoming land trouble with Britain, and they share a common interest in the game of cricket. Kiwis love playing cricket in Zimbabwe too, which is a plus.
The deal is this, let NZ's Reserve Bank and Treasury take over the running of the Zimbabwe economy under a management contract. NZ could even promise to have Zimbabwe qualify for a Cricket World Cup Semi-Final.
What NZ would do is have the fertile land properly surveyed and come up with a ballot system to allocate the newly created farms of manageable size. NZ would broker the deal whereby Britain fronts up with the cash to manage the process, they broke it, they can pay for it.
Then fiscal policy would need to be managed with the right commercial partners. This business of looking to North Korea would have to stop, but not involve relying on South Africa either. The Kiwis are best to do this negotiation as they've had Australia to get the better of, something it has been doing for nearly 200 years.
In the west we don't get a fair picture of the reasons for the predicament Zimbabwe finds itself in, nor is there any reasonable debate about how to fix things. What we get instead, is a picture created by the British, that Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe, is a fool and that white Zimbaweans are superior to everyone else. Neither picture is accurate.
Mugabe has done some remarkable things in Zimbabwe, when he took office the country was run to serve the white masters and the black community were third class citizens. He built a modern infrastructure which became the envy of the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, he educated soundly and the country still has the highest literacy rate in sub-Saharan Africa, and he kept his word in fighting the Lord's Resistance Army and his word with the British.
Let's look at those last two matters. When the illegal white supremacist government of Southern Rhodesia was finally defeated, a meeting was held between the freedom fighting leaders which included Robert Mugabe, and the British. It was pointed out at this meeting that old Cecil Rhodes had carved up the territory, giving the whites huge tracts of fertile land in the high rainfall areas to the north, while blacks had been pushed to the infertile and low rainfall areas to the south (I'm generalising but this is the nub of it).
It was agreed that the British would fund land reform. This would effectively buy out the white farmers, and return those farms to black ownership. Something needs pointing out here, something missed by all western media; those farms are often as big as small European countries. The white owners did not work the land themselves, their farm managers and labourers, who were mostly black, did all the work.
What followed is clearly the fault of, firstly, the white farmers and then, secondly, the British. Mugabe can carry no blame at all, not one ounce of it. Those white farmers refused to sell up, they dug their heels in and became intransigent. Some might say fair enough, but consider this was stolen land to begin with.
These white farmers are prize bigots who talk to their staff like they're six years old. I can tell you now, talk to any farm labourer like that in New Zealand and they'd kill you. So I can safely say that Zimbabweans are a very reasonable bunch, given they've put up with being treated like children for so long.
So we had a situation of the white farmers sitting on valuable land and refusing to budge, Mugabe, quite reasonably, started applying pressure after waiting fifteen long years. When white farmers did budge, the British reneged, informing Mugabe they couldn't afford it. This is a country that could afford to pay back Lend Lease to the USA but not a poor country whose land they stole.
So Mugabe lost the plot and went berserk. Not excusable conduct but understandable. He made a huge mistake in then dividing up these farms amongst his cronies, instead of sensibly distributing the land amongst the farm managers. Smaller holdings of manageable size that one man and a labourer can work. Say, about 400 acres give or take.
The farm managers and labourers became displaced, and moved to the cities and raised shanty towns on the outskirts. They hated Mugabe and joined the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), which became the opposition to Mugabe's Zanu-PF. Thing is, the MDC are an even bigger bunch of criminals than Zanu-PF and everyone in Zimbabwe knows it.
So everything starts going downhill, but had the British not reneged, everything would be different.
Then we often see the sight of the African Union honouring Mugabe, like why would they honour such a criminal (this is the slant western media take). What they don't mention is that, firstly, they're all aware of what Mugabe has done for his country, it is obvious he loves his country very much, and they all know as they hang their heads, that he's the one and only man there who kept his word with them.
The Lord's Resistance Army are the most vile and evil sick bastards on the planet. They make ISIL look like choir boys. Well, the big talking and big noting African Union talked up how they were going to deal with the Lord's Resistance Army, and bla de bla. Then when push came to shove, they all vanished, leaving Zimbabwe holding the door handle alone. Mugabe then broke his own country while keeping his word. That's why the hyper inflation and the destroyed currency.
Mugabe isn't a bad guy, he's a man of honour and principle, he's a good man, he fights evil and teaches children how to read and to do arithmetic (he's a former teacher after all). The way western media portray this great man is a travesty.
Okay so that said, how to fix this broken country? Answer, you could see this coming I know it, let New Zealand do it.
Zimbabwe doesn't trust its neighbours or they don't have the experience. The most untrustworthy is South Africa.
New Zealand gave Garfield Todd to Southern Rhodesia, their first liberal Prime Minister who came to oppose white minority rule. Mugabe would trust New Zealanders to do a decent job as he worked with Todd in his early years as a teacher.
New Zealand shares common history in overcoming land trouble with Britain, and they share a common interest in the game of cricket. Kiwis love playing cricket in Zimbabwe too, which is a plus.
The deal is this, let NZ's Reserve Bank and Treasury take over the running of the Zimbabwe economy under a management contract. NZ could even promise to have Zimbabwe qualify for a Cricket World Cup Semi-Final.
What NZ would do is have the fertile land properly surveyed and come up with a ballot system to allocate the newly created farms of manageable size. NZ would broker the deal whereby Britain fronts up with the cash to manage the process, they broke it, they can pay for it.
Then fiscal policy would need to be managed with the right commercial partners. This business of looking to North Korea would have to stop, but not involve relying on South Africa either. The Kiwis are best to do this negotiation as they've had Australia to get the better of, something it has been doing for nearly 200 years.