Archive for June, 2012
Dipolar Biplomat
Obama fires few, but he just fired our ambassador to Kenya, Scott Gration. Was it over the Mombasa warning last week? The news is that Ambassador Gration “abruptly resigned.” But we all know what that means. Several weeks ago, his boss, Kenya’s former ambassador Johnnie Carson, arrived to discuss the future of this high profile [...]
All Sparrows Are Weavers
Posted by jimheck in "Modern" Africa, Culture, South Africa on June 28, 2012
Saturday South African flags will fly at half mast as a bushman of the Kalahari receives a state funeral, a fitting tribute to a noble but conflicted lifeway in an increasingly modern world. Did you laugh hilariously at the beautiful movies, “The Gods Must be Crazy”? The star and the cultural consultant for several of [...]
Ethiopia Journey
Dear EM, First of all, read carefully the British travel advice to the country at this site: http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/sub-saharan-africa/ethiopia Then, note that Ethiopia is one of the strictest dictatorships in Africa. Police and military are all-powerful. Tourists who have failed to comply with local laws and police directives have been jailed. The above two cautions understood, [...]
Tourist Killed Dot Com
Posted by jimheck in Safety, Terrorism, Tourism Trends on June 26, 2012
Saturday the U.S. and French governments issued special advisories warning their citizens about an imminent terrorist attack in the beach resort of Mombasa. Sunday the bomb went off; three died. A few days earlier in neighboring Tanzania, bandits held at gunpoint all 40 tourists in a downmarket camp just outside the Serengeti, robbed them then [...]
Jack Daniels not Withstanding
So far, so good. The outstanding question about Egypt remains how extremely Islam doctrine will be woven into the new society. And we aren’t going to know that for a very long time. When my wife guided a group of intrepid Americans to Egypt at the start of this year, she heard first hand presumptions [...]
Africa Bails Out Europe
Posted by jimheck in "Modern" Africa, Economy, Global Relations, South Africa on June 22, 2012
How do you feel during the Holiday Season when you see a homeless person drop a coin in the Salvation Army’s tin? A deepening world economic downturn, caused mostly by Europe, is having violent effects in Africa even as poor Africa helps to bail out Europe. It was hardly two years ago that the American [...]
The Discriminate Marketing of Death
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Economy, Environment, Poaching on June 21, 2012
Today Tanzanian officials confirmed that a pesticide banned in the US but still produced by an US agrochemical giant is killing elephants and people in East Africa. The pesticide Aldicarb, responsible for a wave of child deaths in California in 1985, is banned from use in the U.S. and 60 other countries, but the EPA [...]
How The Hayes is Pitted
Exclusion and redundancy are today’s evil culprits, not exploitation, says South African Richard Pithouse. And American Chris Hayes thinks this dollhouse is ready to collapse. Two extraordinary thinkers both a generation younger than society’s current overlords, a half world apart, portend the end of capitalism … in my life time? Pithouse almost says so, Hayes [...]
Tusks For Terrorists
Posted by jimheck in Corruption, Poaching, Politics on June 18, 2012
Until recently Republican obstructionism in Congress hurt few but us Americans. Now, it’s seriously hurting Kenya and harming Somali peace while supporting al-Shabaab! This is a no brainer. Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) director, Julius Kipng’etich, told the Senate foreign relations committee last week that Senate Bill 1483 (if it became law) would drastically reduce elephant [...]
Whose Creation of the World?
Posted by jimheck in Culture, Foreign Aid, Global Relations, History, Racism on June 15, 2012
A Congolese ballet currently moving through Europe’s summer festivals strikes a remarkable difference between American and European compassion to Africa. Maybe compassion per se. Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula is currently restaging a near century’s old ballet called “The Creation of the World” that was first produced in France between the world wars. At that time [...]
Rhino RipOffs
Posted by jimheck in Big Game, Corruption, Poaching on June 14, 2012
Despite my better reasoning I can sympathize with poachers just trying to survive. But when rangers and other paid officials participate in the crimes, my blood boils. Several weeks ago Serengeti officials admitted that two of the Moru area’s 31 black rhinos had been killed by poachers… in April! We probably wouldn’t even have learned [...]
Weeding the World
Posted by jimheck in Environment, Evolution, Wildlife Management on June 12, 2012
The loss of wilderness critically impacts our lives. African compromises known as “same species intervention” and “protected wilderness” may be bitter sweet solutions. I just returned from a visit to the Amazon where I saw first hand the destruction of the planet’s jungles, the transformation of its rivers into commercial pathways for man’s insatiable consumables, [...]
Wants to volunteer and travel in Africa
Stacy Candaria writes: Hello, I am looking to travel to Africa in the next couple of months. I would like to start in South Africa where I am keen on a volunteer program working with lion cubs. After that i would like to find a volunteer program that has the most “hands on” with Gorillas [...]
Just A Little Misunderstanding?
By Conor Godfrey Jim has often written about the unpredictability and downright irrationality of U.S. State Department’s travel warnings. But that’s hardly the end of our State Department’s equivocating. Much more than travel advice, the State Department’s “Foreign Terrorist Organization” designations significantly impact world trade and local development in particular, and I find those designations [...]
Peaceful Somalia or Warring Kenya?
Has Kenya accomplished what the world’s great powers have been unable to do for the last generation: Is Somalia really headed towards peace? Last week, Kenya successfully routed the insurgents from Afmadow, the last insurgent front before the rebel coastal capital of Kismayo. Today, Kenya’s major newspaper reported that “Al-Shabaab leaders are reported to be [...]