Image Bank: infographics

E-waste sources and destinations

Image Bank: infographics

an infographic on China's production in comparison to world's. (for example China produces 75% of toys in the whole world)

yellow part is production, green one- export

The Scramble for Vinyl

By Chief Boima
Spurred on by the rise of sampling in Hip Hop and electronic music and despite a downturn in vinyl production, in the 80′s and 90′s a rich vinyl collecting culture exploded in places like the U.S., Europe, and Japan. For years young hip DJs from the city, travelled to forgotten about record shops in backwater towns, the dusty basements of aging record collectors, or the back rows of an inner-city record shop looking for rarities that seemed to pop out of thin air. Collectors scoured their neighbors backyards for rare jazz, rock, and funk, motivated by unnamed sample sources, hoping to find that illusive breakbeat. The best DJs were the ones with the deepest crates. Around the early 00′s, Hip Hop stopped using samples and turned back towards synthesizers, the Internet started a deeper collective crate, and a vital source of inspiration dried up. For collectors, all the stones seemed to be overturned, the market had too many buyers, and people, starting to realize the value of what they had, turned to E-bay to make money off of their collections. With much of the rare vinyl being plundered locally, a few intrepid explorers decided to try their luck in uncharted territory. Of course, they made their way to Africa.
The above map and scenario may both be a little hyperbolic, but it does seem that the current mad-dash for rare African vinyl could be analogous to Europe’s 19th Century Scramble for Africa, a mad-dash for rare African minerals. There is a trend among rare-groove DJs to “find fortune” in the (re)discovery of musical gems in places where the value of vinyl and recorded music from the past has diminished. Just go to your local record shop (if one still exists) and peruse the display shelves to encounter dozens of new releases celebrating the recently uncovered recordings of Africa’s unknown musical heritage. The image of these guys as plundering opportunists isn’t helped by their reception in “The West”. As one music writer puts it,”Frank Gossner’s DJ sets burst with exclusive tracks that are so rare that they can’t be heard anywhere else on this planet” (from ChoiceCuts.com.) Rare music from planet Africa!?! Who wouldn’t want to get a piece of that?
Full article here.

Soros Explains The Credit Crisis

The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 And What It Means by George Soros ($23, Public Affairs, 2008).

[George Soros is the Founder and Chairman Open Society Institute. See biography here]

With his near real-time critique of the credit crisis, George Soros has saved financial historians a lot of work. If he's right, the summer of 2007 and all of 2008 will be the topic of many an academic paper, much like how Ben Bernanke made a career out of studying the Great Depression. Soros sees this as a monumental time. It's not just a bursting housing bubble, he says. It's the end of a quarter-century of credit-driven economic expansion. We're in a whole new world.

Up until August 2007, Soros had mostly farmed out management of his hedge fund to outsiders so that he could devote his time to philanthropy, philosophy and politics. The first troubles in subprime spurred Soros back into the markets. This time his goal wasn't so much to find the next billion-dollar trade but to preserve the wealth of his foundations.

This market has been so tough that it's vexed even Soros. His book offers a broad trading diary from January 2008 through the end of March, when The New Paradigm went to the printer. Soros' investment plan was to "short U.S. and European stocks, U.S. 10-year government bonds and the U.S. dollar; long Chinese, Indian and Gulf States stocks and non-U.S. currencies."

On March 10, he noted that commodities were stronger than he thought they'd be, that the Federal Reserve acted more aggressively than he'd anticipated and that the Indian and Chinese stock markets, not quite decoupled from the U.S. economy, took major hits. On March 16, he observed that "The panic is palpable," and bought into ailing Bear Stearns (nyse: BSC - news - people ), expecting some return on a Federal Reserve brokered auction of the company. He got burned admitting that, "We forgot to take into account that Bear is disliked by the establishment, and the Fed would use the occasion to deal with a moral hazard by punishing shareholders."

For those who might be confused by Soros' analysis there, Bill Miller, manager of the Legg Mason Value Trust explains: "Bear had been very aggressive in seizing the capital of Askin Capital in 1994 and precipitating its failure. In 1998 it opted out of rescuing Long Term Capital Management. That's the kind of thing where, if you're Merrill, Citigroup or the Fed, you remember." Miller also bought shares in Bear, for the same reasons Soros did.

The trading diary ends with Soros losing money. While he wishes he could have reached a more triumphant ending, he notes that the result "may be more appropriate for the purposes of the book."

Indeed, it is. While Soros is investing actively again, he's really using the market as a laboratory where he can test his philosophical ideas, especially the notion of reflexivity--that no market participant can ever have perfect knowledge because their beliefs, and the beliefs of others, effect and distort the markets. Because investors tend to herd--they buy things that are going up and sell things that are going down--markets are constantly beset by bubbles. Irrationality reigns supreme.

Soros was once a student of the philosopher Karl Popper, who spent most of his time studying science. Popper came to the conclusion that all scientific statements must be falsifiable and that no scientific theory is ever absolutely true. They are just able to withstand people's attempts to prove them wrong. So long as a theory isn't falsified, it's as good as true. But we're 100% certain about nothing.

The turmoils we see in the markets reflect the turmoils of human thought. The implications of this go far beyond investing. It means that market fundamentalism, the idea that markets are always self-correcting and don't need regulation, is just wrong. Markets are flawed because they reflect human delusions of certainty. Banks make money by issuing loans. If they want to make more money, they need to issue more loans. Absent regulation to stop them, the banks will issue new loans in new ways. They rationalize the risk away by building models based on past experience. The risk models say that the loans are safe. The flaw? All of these new loans fuel an unprecedented housing bubble that the risk models, which are backward looking, can't account for. All of these new loans also create new levels of debt, also unprecedented in history. So the risk models, once again, miss them.

It's time, says Soros, to bring back some of the regulations that were put in place after the Great Depression and then eroded in the decades that followed. Leverage and credit creation, he says, need to be reigned in. Regulators need to start looking to control asset bubbles as they manage the economy for the more usual goals of full employment and price stability.

Soros sees a new economy, indeed a new world order emerging. If the U.S. leaves its fate to the whims of flawed markets, it will lose much of its worldwide influence. Without the dollar as the reserve currency of first choice, the U.S. really has nothing but military supremacy in order to defend its position in the world, and even that, says Soros, has been undermined by the debacle in Iraq.

Soros' message for citizens, investors, politicians and regulators is to approach this new economy and new political order with humility. Be flexible and never dogmatic. Strive to find truth while realizing it's unattainable. It's false certainty that trips us up, in both investing and life.

First published here.

Islam Versus Global Capitalism

Below a Islamic reaction to the global economic crisis, a plan to replace paper money with gold dinars, also of interest, theestablishment of Murabitun outposts in England, Indonesia, Germany, South Africa, and Mexico, where missionaries found willing converts among Mayans caught up in the Zapatista rebellion. (They now number more than three hundred there and run a pizza restaurant, carpentry workshop, and Islamic school in San Cristóbal de las Casas.)

Also see Robert Fisk on the Gulf ditching the dollar in oil trade. (see video below)

And Islam, the Mediterranean and the Rise of Capitalism - a look at how Islam shaped the tradition of early capitalism

The Golden Compass

On the morning of July 10, 2003, Umar Ibrahim Vadillo stood beside the whitewashed brick facade of the Mosque of Granada and looked out over the Darro River. Before him lay the ramparts of the Alhambra, where five hundred years earlier the legions of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had completed the Reconquista of Moorish Spain. Beyond the Alhambra, Vadillo saw the shores of the eurozone, and beyond them the citadels of world finance: Brussels, Paris, Frankfurt, London; the marble-floored temples where hedgefund managers, central bankers, and currency speculators paced and traded and plotted. Vadillo had been invited to Granada to celebrate the opening of the mosque, the first to be built in the city since the fall of Al-Andalus; the occasion was being marked by an ecumenical conference on the theme of “Islam in Europe.” Rather than invite some wizened imam promising to build bridges, or a conciliatory local politician, the organizers had invited Vadillo, a forty-sixyear- old convert and a bookish interpreter of the relationship between Islam and paper money, to deliver the keynote.

Inside the mosque’s prayer hall, an audience of two thousand local converts, Moroccan and Syrian immigrants, and North African students had gathered. When it was his turn to speak, Vadillo ambled to the center of the stage and hunched over the lectern, his hair slicked back and his ferret-like face wreathed by a trim beard. After putting his notes in order, he began a measured disputation on the origins of debt, the commodification of currency, and the proper Islamic medium of exchange. The members of the crowd sat rapt as Vadillo outlined the history of currency and its role in the subjugation of peripheral economies. Eventually he revealed how Muslims could undermine Western capitalism. “The end to the enslavement of the Muslim masses does not require a jihad in the traditional sense,” but a struggle to quit the dollar, the pound, and the euro and return to a single, gold-backed currency: the Islamic dinar. The fortresses of fiat money standing beyond the sylvan hills of Granada could be besieged by prudent investments, their walls breached by the revival of the caravan, and their treasure usurped — if only Muslims would “stop being naive about the banks and the financial institutions.”

The conference was a uniquely high-profile event, and many in the audience were new to the gospel of the gold dinar. But Vadillo had been honing his message for years. It was in Granada, in 1991, that he had first delivered his “Fatwa Concerning the Islamic Prohibition on Using Paper- Money as a Medium of Exchange.” Communism had fallen, Francis Fukayama had declared the end of history, stock markets were bustling, and the New Economy was ascendant. Where many saw the promise of a new, benevolent world order, Vadillo saw magical thinking. “The enormous debt of the countries and the even bigger debt of the individual persons to the banks DOES NOT EXIST on paper,” he wrote. “It is pure computer data.” National economies were financing growth by borrowing vast sums and manipulating their currencies. The financial system, he argued, would only exist for as long as people believed in it; once they realized it was an illusion, the global economy would collapse.

Although the Granada speech provoked controversy in the West (“The Corrosive Hagiography of Muslim Spain,” one headline read), it also buoyed the popularity of the Murabitun, the modern Sufi sect that counts Vadillo as a lieutenant. Named after an eleventh-century Spanish Islamic revival movement, the Murabitun is devoted to restoring the world to the economic and political system established by the prophet Mohammed when he governed Medina. Though militant, the Murabitun eschew violence; shortly after 9/11 they issued a statement announcing that “capitalism will not be abolished on the battlefield, but in the marketplace where it is practiced.” They consider the obsession with sexuality among Islamic fundamentalists to itself be a sign of decadence. And as discontent with globalization has peaked, the Murabitun have established outposts in England, Indonesia, Germany, South Africa, and Mexico, where missionaries found willing converts among Mayans caught up in the Zapatista rebellion. (They now number more than three hundred there and run a pizza restaurant, carpentry workshop, and Islamic school in San Cristóbal de las Casas.)

Vadillo, who declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this article, is a peripatetic finance guru, part Ali Shariati and part Joseph Schumpeter, traveling far and wide to lecture on the “mutation in social values” caused by a half-century of American imperialism underwritten by the dollar. In the past decade he has barnstormed halls of government, corporate boardrooms, and academic conferences from Kazakhstan to the Philippines, armed with PowerPoint presentations featuring outstretched hands cupping piles of glimmering currency stamped with the Dome of the Rock (his own design). The West’s prosperity is illusory, he insists, an empire of rot concealed by the veneer of the middle-class lifestyle its citizens have enjoyed. If Muslims would just turn away from the West and adopt the dinar — if Indonesian rice farmers would stop accepting paper money, if the Saudis would price oil in gold, if Iran would demand dinars for dates — it would induce a cataclysm on par with the Wall Street crash of 1929, and a golden age of Islamic trade would ensue.

Full article here.


Robert Fisk on the Gulf ditching the dollar

Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World

Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xii + 214 pp. $101.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-85868-7

In Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World, Adam Silverstein examines the development and evolution of networks transporting material objects, and in some cases important personalities, over long distances via stations “posted at convenient intervals along a route” (p. 1). These postal networks were (theoretically) restricted to official government usage, and were vital to the state as a means of gathering intelligence.

The book is divided chronologically into three sections. The first of these (chapter 1), covers the pre-Islamic postal systems of the Sasanians, Byzantium, and central Arabia. The purpose here is to identify the formative influences on the Arab barid (post) and offer a corrective to the widely held view that the Muslims simply appropriated the Roman/Byzantine postal system. Silverstein counters that the Arabs adopted Sasanian postal traditions when they inherited Sasanian territories. This is demonstrated by the continuing use of terms such as awwana for way-station, and by Muslim literary sources that explicitly recognize Sasanian influence. Furthermore, the Byzantine postal service (known as the Cursus Publicus) was already in severe decline by the time of the Arab conquests. While the early Umayyad caliphs may still have been acquainted with some of its features, it “was not something with which the Arabs or the populations they came to rule would have had any meaningful experience” (p. 42). Silverstein concludes that the conquering Arabs built upon their own very basic postal system by gradually integrating local structures (from Byzantine in the case of Syria and Egypt, from the Sasanians in Iraq and Iran), while drawing primarily on the Sasanian model.

In chapters 2 and 3, Silverstein focuses on the creation of a global caliphal “postal system, controlled by a bureaucratically sophisticated capital” (p. 51). Beginning with the Umayyad and stretching into the middle ‘Abbasid periods (roughly 661 through 847), chapter 2 documents the rise of the caliphal barid. Initially created through a piecemeal integration of local networks, the post was expanded and centralized under the Marwanid Umayyads (684-750). This process included the expansion and maintenance of roads, the appointment of postal chiefs, the general (empire-wide) adoption of Sasanian administrative practices, and the transformation from a public- to a government-funded institution. The latter was a particular Arab innovation that set the caliphal barid apart from both its predecessors and most of its successors (which relied on the local population for supplies and mounts). Following the collapse of the Umayyad dynasty, an event many scholars ascribed to the postal system’s failure to deliver timely and accurate intelligence, the early ‘Abbasid caliphs transformed its basic elements into a highly malleable network. The period from 750 to 847 witnessed a considerable variation in the efficiency, upkeep, reliability, and general effectiveness of the barid from caliph to caliph.

In chapter 3, Silverstein discusses the central features and eventual fragmentation of a formal centralized governmental barid led by a specific administrator, during the reign of al-Mutawakkil (847-61). In this period, the post filled a myriad of administrative functions. For instance its employees served as a secondary check on the potential abuses of local tax officials, and informed the central government of “uprisings in the provinces” and “the spread of detrimental rumours” (p. 105). The system was consolidated into an independent governmental department (diwan al-barid) and placed under the direct supervision of a high-ranking official in Baghdad. This centralization spawned similar postal diwans in the smaller political states that arose in the aftermath of ‘Abbasid decentralization. The second half of the chapter surveys a number of these successor regimes including the Fatimids in Egypt and Syria, the Samanids and Ghaznavids in eastern Iran and Afghanistan, and the Buyids and Seljuks in western Iran and Iraq.

The third and final section of the book consists of two chapters that examine the later postal systems of the Mongols and the Mamluks. Silverstein affirms the Mongol Yam’s debt to the Chinese Yi while also emphasizing its uniqueness as a largely land-based and predominantly steppe-dominated institution. He also traces its steady fragmentation and localization, which mirrored the decentralization of the Mongol empire as a whole. As for the Mamluk barid, Silverstein contests the claim that it was modeled after the Mongol system, arguing for a more interdependent relationship between the postal networks of the two empires. He emphasizes the modest territorial extent, the governmental financing, and the primarily military nature of the Mamluk system. While the Mamluks drew on aspects of both the ‘Abbasid caliphal and Mongol post, they created “an unprecedented institution” (p. 185) that withered away after the collapse of the Mongol threat.

The most impressive aspects of Silverstein’s work consist of his efforts to contextualize and compare the postal systems of pre-Islamic and early Islamic empires, specifically routes, administration, financing, and mounts. What emerges is a revealing set of patterns that distinguish individual postal networks and--in many cases--explain their eventual decline. Financing, for example, was a persistent problem, with many states placing the burden for postal supplies such as mounts on local populations. This invariably (a) led to local resentments and (b) encouraged wide-scale corruption that undermined the system’s efficacy. In this regard, the government financing of the post instituted by the ‘Abbasids is of particular interest as a unique and valuable innovation. Silverstein also highlights the corrosive effects associated with allowing civilian access to the post, as merchants abused and overtaxed the system’s resources to the point of collapse. The contrast with those systems that severely restricted civilian use through the spacing and placement of stations (e.g., the Fatimids, the Mamluks) is striking. Finally, Silverstein offers a fascinating survey of the different modes of transport utilized by each empire, ranging from human runners and homing pigeons to mules, horses, and racing camels. He presents reasoned evaluations of their speed and connects the use of certain types of transportation to the financial strains associated with maintaining an effective empire-wide postal network.

In his attention to detail, Silverstein sometimes plunges into long discussions of technical terms and the provenance of words that leave the reader a little confused. More problematic are his attempts to establish connections between postal systems on the basis of their utilization of common terms. Although he states clearly that such correlations do not necessarily imply a borrowing from one empire to another, there are instances where he seems to fall into this very trap.

The biggest questions surrounding Silverstein’s work, however, concern his widespread use of literary sources, especially with respect to the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods. While he acknowledges the problematic provenance of these sources and cautions against assuming their historical veracity, it is virtually impossible to offer a detailed discussion of early postal systems without them. When possible, Silverstein supplements literary sources with archaeological or other corroborating evidence but there still remains considerable doubt about the conclusions of the first three chapters. These should be treated with a degree of caution.

Postal Systems in the Pre-Modern Islamic World is a valuable contribution on a subject that has not been systematically studied across time periods or comparatively analyzed across empires. In this regard, Silverstein’s work is an important step towards a broader understanding of a premodern institution central to the commercial health and military efficacy of most--if not all--premodern empires.

Africa in China

Most of the debates on China in Africa has followed the flow from China to Africa but its not all one way traffic. Areas like "Chocolate City" in Guangzhou, China attracts thousands of African traders seeking business opportunities in the East. What the view like from this perspective?

Artists Bill Kouélany & Goddy Leye recently visited "Chocolate City" as part of their Sparck residency and produced "Chocolate Banana"

Also see Farhad A.K. Sulliman KHOYRATTY (fiction writer, editor, translator; Mauritius) Journey to the West published at 2010 IWP:

"I was in Hubei province, having boarded the ship a week earlier at Shanghai, a good
few provinces east. I was heading upstream towards East Tibet. It wasn’t a ship really, more
a low‐cost transport craft, a riverboat.
This is how I describe myself: 43, elegant, an adventurer at heart. My name’s Marco,
one of the most common names among Mauritian Christians my age. I am of Black African
origin spiked with some French here and there. I was brought up a Catholic but am now as
lapsed as can be. My wife, Lakshmi, is Mauritian Hindu...." More here

Weed on Wall Street

This story is from 2009 but we could explore the lead-up

Medical Marijuana Inc. and others start pushing green on the stock exchange

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- The former Club Vivanet Inc. said it plans to use prepaid cards to manage tax collection and payment processes for marijuana dispensaries in states that allow the drug to be used for medicinal purposes, according to a release sent by Market Wire. The company, trading under the ticker MJNA, will also split its shares 10-for-1, the statement said.

States including Oregon and California allow residents to use marijuana for diseases ranging from cancer to epilepsy and glaucoma. More than 20,000 Oregon residents are registered to use the drug, based on statistics from the state’s Web site.

“This is a sizzle product,” Bruce Perlowin, Medical Marijuana’s chief executive officer, said in a telephone interview from El Paso, Texas. “We eventually want to be the McDonald’s of marijuana.”

 Via Bloomberg

Rebranding Marijuana: How weed could save the economy, end Mexican drug wars, and heal the world

Mexico: 


"We have believed for some time that Mexico should legalize marijuana and perhaps other drugs. But until now, most discussion of this possibility has foundered because our country's drug problem and the U.S. drug problem are so inextricably linked: What our country produces, Americans consume. As a result, the debate over legalization has inevitably gotten hung up over whether Mexico should wait until the United States is willing and able to do the same.

Proposition 19 changes this calculation. For Mexico, California is almost the whole enchilada: Our overall trade with the largest state of the union is huge, an immense number of Californians are of Mexican origin, and an enormous proportion of American visitors to Mexico come from California. Passage of Prop 19 would therefore flip the terms of the debate about drug policy: If California legalizes marijuana, will it be viable for our country to continue hunting down drug lords in Tijuana? Will Wild West-style shootouts to stop Mexican cannabis from crossing the border make any sense when, just over that border, the local 7-Eleven sells pot?"

Héctor Aguilar Camín and Jorge G. Castañeda, The Washington Post

The Economy:

While California struggles to address the state's swelling budget deficit, the legalization of marijuana looms as an attractive way of raising revenue for the state.

The benefits of legalization include:

* An excise tax of $50 per ounce of marijuana would raise about $770 - 900 million per year.

* Retail sales on the legal market would range from $3 - $4.5 billion, generating
another $240 - 360 million in sales taxes.

* Legalization would save over $200 million in law enforcement costs for arrest, prosecution, trial and imprisonment of marijuana offenders. Need for CAMP helicopter surveillance would also be eliminated.

* Based on experience with the cigarette tax, total revenues of $1.5 - $2.5 billion might ultiimately be realized.

* Industrial hemp could also become a major business, comparable to the $3.4 billion cotton industry in California.

Source


The World:

“Hemps prohibition has led to untold suffering around the globe. If we— the global human population — had been able to grow the miracle plant hemp (Cannabis genus) locally and to use it for local industries and businesses, including and especially for fuel, we would never have needed to be addicted to oil...

“None of this oil-related...degradation of the environment would have occurred if hemp had not been prohibited but had been used wisely and intelligently as a major foundation of human society. Indeed, hemp-based economies could still save the human world, while hemp planting could go a massively long way in rescuing the natural world as well.”

Source

The Royal Bafokeng Nation

- independent, self-sufficient community
- How do they manage their money?
- Economic model
- Can it be replicated?

History

Diamond mining in South Africa started in the 1860s. Thousands of fortune seekers from around the world flocked to Cape Town, the capital of the British-governed Cape colony, before undertaking the 1,500 km trek north of the arid western and Northern Cape to the mining town of Kimberley.

At the same time Afrikaner farmers (Boers), who wanted to escape British rule, started to settle in Rustenburg valley. They ignored the traditional rights of ownership enjoyed by the Bafokeng and started to survey and register farms. Kgosi Mokgatle, great, great, great, great grand father of the current king, realized that ownership of traditional Bafokeng land was likely to be seized. In a remarkable act of foresight and collective sacrifice, he ordered units of young RBN men to walk to Kimberly to work and earn money that was accumulated in a central community fund. As funds were generated, Kgosi sought out the help of Lutheran missionaries to front the Bafokeng and buy up farms in the area. Some 900 hectares, or two thirds of the land currently owned by the Bafokeng, was acquired in this way over a twenty year period. Today, the Bafokeng continue to acquire land in the area.

In the 1920s, geologist Hans Merensky discovered in the Rustenburg valley the surface outcrop of arguably the world's greatest ore body, a geological wonder known as the Bushveld Igneous Complex. In particular, substantial reserves of Platinum Group Metals (PGMSs) such as platinum, ferrochrome, rhodium and palladium were discovered on land owned by RBN. And thus began the pursuit of platinum.

Over the next 70 years, various attempts were made by the governments of the day, aided and assisted by the major mining companies, to dispossess RBN of their land rights. All were ultimately unsuccessful and the mining companies thereafter agreed to pay royalties to the RBN in exchange for the right to mine on RBN land.

For many years, RBN leadership was in conflict with the national and regional governments. The authorities retaliated by neglecting the development of the region. RBN therefore spends practically all of the royalty income it receives on infrastructure. During the past two decades, over R2 billion of communal wealth has been invested in regional infrastructure such as roads, and bridges, water reticulation and reservoirs, electricity supply extensions, schools, clinics, civic buildings and sports facilities.

Today, the Bafokeng Nation numbers roughly 300 000 people. About 160 000 live in an area some 150 km North West of Johannesburg, South Africa, with the balance scattered primarily throughout South Africa. The Royal Bafokeng Nation (RBN) has retained its unique cultural identity and traditional leadership structures and is led by a hereditary Kgosi (king), currently Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi.

Economy

The Royal Bafokeng Nation comprises a number of entities, each of which has a crucial role to play in reaching the Nation’s goal of a sustainable and self-sufficient community, where people have the skills and the support to reach their highest potential:

* Royal Bafokeng Holdings (RBH), an investment entity in Johannesburg, which is responsible for overseeing the growth and maintenance of the community’s income streams.

* Royal Bafokeng Sports, is an entity within the Royal Bafokeng Holdings and it is in charge of the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace, an official venue for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

* Royal Bafokeng Administration (RBA) is principally a town planning unit charged with service delivery and monitoring the progress of the Master Plan across all the regions. It looks after the various wards (kgotla) within the Nation to ensure that infrastructure and services are in line with the long-term vision.

* Royal Bafokeng Institute (RBI) is aimed at uplifting the quality of education and learning in the Royal Bafokeng Nation.

Vision 2020

Even before his enthronement as King of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, Kgosi Leruo Molotlegi set in motion the vital next phase in the development of his people. His brother, Kgosi Mollwane Lebone Boikanyo Molotlegi, paved the way for the initiative by proclaiming Vision 2020. This boldly challenges the Bafokeng people to reduce their dependency on their diminishing mineral assets and to become a self-sufficient community within the first 20 years of this century. Kgosi Leruo's challenge is to devise a workable plan to realize Vision 2020.

Thus, the time has come for the Royal Bafokeng Nation, like the oil-rich Middle East, to reduce its dependency on natural resources and develop new sources of wealth. The Bafokeng, Kgosi Leruo has concluded, must diversify by securing interests in other sectors of the economy and develop a more balanced portfolio, as it were.

The main areas of emphasis of Vision 2020 fall into the following areas:

* Investment diversification
* Economic Development
* Education Planning
* Infrastructure Development/Master Plan
* Health and Social Planning
* Crime Free Environment

source

The Somali Pirate Business Model

A piracy operation begins, as with any other start-up business, with venture capital. Each team requires a minimum of two attack skiffs, weapons, equipment, provisions, fuel and preferably a supply boat. The costs of the operation are usually borne by investors. The crew is responsible for organizing staff, finding a suitable ‘client’, negotiating the deal, and determining salaries based on duration of assignment and risk.

Inflation (2008)

2 min. Short feature

Inflation traces the birth, life and death of a Zimbabwean $10,000 note as the economy goes up in smoke.

Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)

Released 2007, International Festivals 2008

Mandala Bala is about the ubiquity of kidnapping and corruption in Brazil. It profiles such subjects as a businessman who bullet-proofs cars, a plastic surgeon who reconstructs the ears of kidnap victims, former Governor and Senator Jáder Barbalho, a powerful and corrupt politician, and a frog farm owner whose business is a money laundering front.

[larger story: the economics of kidnapping]

The Ghost of Dollarization in Zimbabwe

Dollarization, the holding by residents of a significant share of their assets in the form of foreign currency-denominated assets, is a common feature of developing countries and some transitional economies. This phenomenon is also typical of many countries that have IMF-supported adjustment programmes. But as Zimbabwe’s dollarization experience has shown, dollarization can, and does occur, when the "flight from domestic currency" gets under way. Such broad conversion into hard currency actually can accelerate inflation, as people jettison their money at ever-faster rates.

Chronic inflation does not necessarily degenerate into hyperinflation. But in the five countries, preceding Zimbabwe, it did ensue, triggered by an uncontrolled expansion in the money supply that was fueled by endemic fiscal imbalances.

China in Africa

Books:

AFRICA IN CHINA'S GLOBAL STRATEGY
Kitissou, Marcel (Ed.)
ADONIS & ABBEY.
2007 9781905068883 Paperback

AFRICAN PERSPECTIVES ON CHINA IN AFRICA
Manji, Firoze & Marks, Stephen (Eds.)
FAHAMU & SOLIDARITY FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS.
2007 9780954563738 Paperback

AFRICA'S SILK ROAD: China and India's New Economic Frontier
Broadman, Harry G.
WORLD BANK PUBLICATIONS.
2006 9780821368350 Paperback

CHINA, AFRICA AND SOUTH AFRICA: South-South co-operation in a global era
le Pere, Garth & Shelton, Garth
SOUTH AFRICA. INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL DIALOGUE.
2007 9781920216009 Paperback

CHINA IN AFRICA
Waldron, Arthur (Ed.)
USA. THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION.
2008 9780981690506 Paperback

CHINA IN AFRICA
Melber, Henning (Ed.)
SWEDEN. NORDIC AFRICA INSTITUTE.
2007 9789171065896 Pamphlet
CHINA IN AFRICA

CHINA AND AFRICA: Engagement and Compromise
Taylor, Ian
UK. ROUTLEDGE.
2006 9780415397407 Hardback

CHINA IN AFRICA: Mercantilist predator, or partner in development?
le Pere, Garth (Ed.)
SOUTH AFRICA. INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL DIALOGUE.
2007 9781919697963 Paperback LIMITED AVAILABILITY

CHINA IN AFRICA: Partner, Competitor or Hegemon?
Alden, Chris
ZED BOOKS.
2007 9781842778647 Paperback

CHINA INTO AFRICA: Trade, Aid, and Influence
Rotberg, Robert I. (Ed.)
USA. BROOKINGS.
2008 9780815775614 Paperback

CHINA RETURNS TO AFRICA: A Rising Power and a Continent Embrace
Alden, Chris, Large, D. & De Oliveira, Ricardo Soares (Eds.)
UK. HURST.
2008 9781850658863 Paperback

CHINA'S NEW ROLE IN AFRICA AND THE SOUTH: A search for a new perspective
Guerrero, Dorothy-Grace & Manji, Firoze (Eds.)
UK. FAHAMU.
2008 9781906387266 Paperback

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON? Africa and China
Naidu, Sanusha & Ampiah, Kweku (Eds.)
SOUTH AFRICA. UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU-NATAL PRESS.
2008 9781869141509 Paperback

ENTER THE DRAGON: Towards a Free Trade Agreement Between China and the Southern African Customs Union
Draper, Peter & le Pere, Garth (Eds.)
SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS.
2005 1919697802 Paperback

THE NEW SINOSPHERE: China in Africa
Wild, Leni & Mepham, David (Eds.)
UK. IPPR.
2006 1860303021 Paperback

TOWARDS CHINA INC? Assessing the Implications for Africa
Mills, Greg & Skidmore, Natasha (Eds.)
SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS.
2004 1919969268 Paperback

Video Halls

Video halls that cater largely to the Nollywood Film audience are springing up in Nigeria.

In Uganda: With only two mainstream cinemas in the whole country, video dens have sprung up to take care of the country’s growing appetite for African films— especially Nigerian...Referred to as Bibanda in Uganda, the video shacks easily attract over 120,000 viewers each day at a cost of 7 US cents (about five Kenya shillings) per ticket. The conventional theatres ask for $7 per ticket.So far, it is estimated that there are over 2,000 video halls in Uganda. In the video dens (simple makeshift cinemas that are poorly lit and mostly in the overpopulated estates), you will find VJs who narrate the films in local languages.

US $50 million farm programme launched

A major new partnership has been launched to provide smallholder farmers and small agricultural enterprises with the financing they need to break out of poverty and build viable businesses. The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), in partnership with Equity Bank Limited, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Kenya Ministry of Agriculture signed an agreement for a loan facility of US$50 million (3 billion Kenyan shillings) to accelerate access to affordable financing for 2.5 million farmers and 15,000 agricultural value chain members such as rural input shops, fertilizers and seed wholesalers and importers, grain traders and food processors.

2008-05-12
http://www.agra-alliance.org/news/pr050608.html

April 10th edition of the New York Times: editorial entitled The World Food Crisis

Critical look at world bank’s genetically-engineered Green Revolution as “a political strategy designed to gain and keep control over the Global South’s food systems firmly in the hands of northern corporations and institutions.”

*Raj Patel is the author of "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World
Food System" and Eric Holt-Gimenez is the Executive Director of Food First (www.foodfirst.org).

*Henry Saragih is the International Coordinator for La Via Campesina.

Food security

Legalize it

In April of 2008, one of Brazil’s main ayahuasca centers submitted paperwork to Brazil’s Culture Minister, Gilberto Gil, requesting that the Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage; IPHAN) recognize the use of ayahuasca in religious ceremonies as an element of Brazilian national cultural heritage.More significantly, the paperwork was filed with the full support of the government authorities of the Brazilian
state of Acre. Ayahuasca religious groups apparently hope that this registry will reinforce their as yet uncertain social legitimacy. If IPHAN approves the request, it would be a major victory for these groups whose practices, which have been historically marginalized and discriminated,might ultimately be enshrined as part of the country’s national heritage.

The registry also raises difficult questions, since preserving a cultural practice and traditional knowledge can mean fossilizing it as if it were a pure and timeless form, when in fact the religious and therapeutic practices that involve partaking of ayahuasca are dynamic, syncretic, and at times even contradictory. As Ayahuasca is a psychoactive substance used by diverse indigenous populations of the Amazon.

On the Current Censorship Crisis in Kano, Nigeria

By Carmen McCain, Director, Hausa Home Video Resource Center, Bayero University; Nazir Ahmed Hausawa, Manager, Golden Goose Studio; and Ahmed Alkanawy, Director, Center for Hausa Cultural Studies
Link: Chimurenga Online http://www.chimurenga.co.za/page-118.html

Hamisu Lamido Iyan-Tama, one of the pioneers of the Hausa film industry, was arrested in May 2008 after his film Tsintisya, sponsored by the U.S. embassy, won an award for best "Social Issue" film at the Zuma Film Festival in Abuja. The actor, director, producer, and 2007 gubanatorial candidate was accused of not registering his company with the Kano State censorship board and for releasing the film Tsintsiya in Kano without passing it through the state censorship board. Iyan-Tama has receipts for his registration with the board (now uploaded to http://freeiyantama.blogspot.com) and had publically stated that the film was not for sale in Kano State, although a copy of the film, which an actor claimed was a personal copy, was confiscated from a desk drawer in a video shop during a police raid...

- “The War Against Film-making” by Nasir Gwangwazo, Leadership, March 2008.

- “Press Release: Brief report on the state of film industry in Kano State, Nigeria”
by Ahmad M. Sarari (National Vice President MOPPAN) , 28 February 2008.

- “Taking on Nigeria’s Islamic Censors” by Andrew Walker, BBC. October 2007.

- “Censoring movies and books in Kano: text of press release by Abubakar Rabo
Abdulkarim” 25 September, 2007