Julius Malema hadn’t risen to prominence when I decided to leave South Africa.  That kick-back came after he used the not inconsiderable power of the ANC Youth League to get Jacob Zuma made president of South Africa.

To give you a flavour of Malema’s oratory, consider this official statement made during soon-to-be President Zuma’s rape trial of women who are raped:  “when a woman didn’t enjoy it, she leaves early in the morning. Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast and ask for taxi money.” Full Story »

The pledged cuts to carbon dioxide (CO₂) and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) won’t be enough to hit the targeted 450 ppm of CO₂ thought to be necessary to keep the Earth’s mean temperature from rising more than 2 °C. This isn’t news to anyone who’s followed climate closely for a few months. What’s news, however, is that the UN knew this as well and yet they’re still saying that 2 °C is possible. Earlier today an early draft of an internal UN analysis of GHG cuts leaked, and the document shows that the UN Secretariat knew in advance of the Copenhagen meeting that the cuts wouldn’t be enough.

According to the 2009WEO [World Energy Outlook], global emissions in 2020 are projected to be about 5 Gt for the reference scenario. According to the 450 ppm scenario, global emissions peak around 2015 at the level of 43.7 Gt and remain broadly stable at that level before starting to decline in 2020.

The UN Secretariat’s “reference scenario” puts the global emissions peak at or above 550 ppm, occurring after 2020, and at least 3 °C. Full Story »

One of the things we have done in Christmases past is to check out the Good Gifts catalog here in the UK. And it turns out that you can do this online as well. Good Gifts basically is a clearing house for good deeds—the give you all sorts of worthy groups and charities to donate to at the holidays, and they’re all worthwhile. These range from the local—helping out Cumbria flood victims—to the global—a year of schooling for an African child, for example, or a project to clear cluster bombs from recent war zones, or bicycles for midwives in developing countries. All are worthy goals, and you get to send an attractive card (or e-card) on your behalf. And you can order on-line.
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Before I sat down to write this post, I wrote two letters. In many respects the recipients could not be more different from me: George is 14 and Monica is 10. They live in rural villages in Tanzania. They have never left their region, while I’ve traveled all over the world. But the biggest difference is the fact that their families live on less than $1 a day. In fact, a billion of the world’s people are in a similar plight, and fully half the planet subsists on less than $2 a day. I, on the other hand, reside in one of the wealthier communities in the wealthiest nation in the world. But my plenty is making a major difference in the lives of George and Monica, and so can yours this holiday season, for children in similar situations.

While our family sponsors George and Monica on an ongoing monthly basis through Compassion International, organizations that care for the world’s poorest children also benefit from single donations that aid children without sponsors or which support community projects where they live. It can be a delight to give your own holiday gift recipients the chance to choose a gift in their name for a child in desperate need.

World Vision’s online gift catalog is a great portal. This relief, development and advocacy organization works with the world’s most vulnerable children, families and communities in more than 100 countries, to overcome poverty and injustice. Full Story »

The first human-like creature to pick up a pointed stick and use it as a tool to slay another creature changed everything.  Instead of waiting for the accumulation of random genetic variations to impart gradually improving biological tools our creature could create tools itself.

The advantage to humans of being able to organise, teach and use weapons to catch food may initially have been slight.  That marginal advantage has allowed a single species to migrate, settle and dominate their entire planet; something unprecedented in all of Earth history.

The study of human evolution covers a period of six million years, during which a semi-upright-walking woodland ape eventually developed tools, learning, and culture, and survived ice-ages, earthquakes and climate disruption.  Adding to the complexity of this epic tale is that there appears to have been overlap between at least two intelligent species of human-like creatures in the last 50,000 years. Full Story »

After a similar attempt resulted in civil war in Madagascar, the South Korean government bought 1,000 sq km of land in Tanzania for use in agriculture.  Mindful of the politics involved, the South Koreans are setting aside half of that land for local development.

To quote from a recent BBC article:

Lee Ki-Churl, a corporation official, said he expected Tanzanians to benefit from the deal. “Some African countries export fruit and import fruit juice, or export olives and import olive oil, simply because their past colonialists did not teach them how to process food,” he told the AFP news agency. “We plan to set up an education centre for Tanzanian farmers in the food-processing zone in order to transfer agricultural know-how and irrigation expertise to them.”

I think it is both patronising and ignorant to assume that Africans don’t farm the way modern western farms operate because they are uneducated.  This almost seems to imply that Africans are too stupid to help themselves. Full Story »

“I keep telling you guys my aim is to become a legend,” said Usain Bolt, after smashing the world 200 metres record and becoming the first man to hold the 100 and 200 metres sprints in both the Olympics and the Athletics World Championships.

Competition at international sporting events is fierce and the pursuit of an edge, sometimes measured in hundredths of a second, leads some to cheat.  Steroid abuse aims to increase the strength, speed and endurance of what is natural.  But the androgens created by the body are not set to any standard.  Some people do genuinely produce more than others.  Figuring out what is normal and what is not is difficult.

And, sometimes, something else is going on. Full Story »

These are from the weekend paper.  Actual quotes from South Africa’s minister of foreign affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (Jacob Zuma’s ex-wife, and the ex-ex-minister of health who introduced the idea that AIDS is simply a disease of poverty, easily cured with garlic and African potatoes)…

“A judge is not supposed to do that. It’s not for judges to decide on foreign policy. They don’t run government and they don’t run foreign policy. There is separation of powers. They run the judiciary. I don’t comment on the judiciary.” (This after a judge in SA’s constitutional court sided with the current minister of health that it was unadvised to prevent the Dalai Lama from visiting).

“Tutu does not run government. Remember, he said he was not going to vote. If it were up to him, there would be no elections next month.” (In response to Archbishop Desmond Tutu declaring that he would now boycott the conference.) Full Story »

Got a hot atrocity? Bring it on and I’ll try to wrap my mind around it. For example, I read four books on the Rwanda massacres starting with We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. Philip Gourevitch’s book may have been single-handedly responsible for positioning the tragedy front and center before American intelligentsia. Full Story »

Once known as “The Dark Continent,” Africa boasted a romantic reputation to Westerners as an unknown place of mystery and intrigue. The moniker still holds true today, although for a different reason: Most Americans know so little about current affairs on the continent that news from African countries might as well be struggling to escape a black hole.

Fortunately, Immaculée Ilibagiza’s memoir, Left To Tell, serves as a light in the darkness—even if the darkness it illuminates is among the darkest in modern history. Full Story »

With the bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the Reagan revolution has at last realized the robber barons’ dream: privatize the profits and socialize the debt. Nicely done, fellas.

— a letter to the editor of The New York Times from Candida Pugh of Oakland, Calif.; Sept. 10; emphasis added.

We now see the compensation wasn’t deserved. I don’t think taxpayers want their money to go to the C.E.O.’s of these very large institutions.

— Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on the exit pay packages of Daniel H. Mudd of Fannie Mae and Richard F. Syron of Freddie Mac who, The Times’ Eric Dash reports, are eligible for as much as $24 million in severance, retirement benefits and deferred compensation; Sept. 10.
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In China, size matters. People want to have a car that shows off their status in society. No one wants to buy small.

— Zhang Linsen, the 44-year-old founder of a media and graphic design company in Songjiang, China; he owns a black Hummer H2; July 28; emphasis added.

It’s a cultural thing. When the kids are hungry, they go to their mother, not their father. And when there is less food, women are the first to eat less.

— Herve Kone, director of a group that promotes development, social justice and human rights in Burkina Faso, quoted in the Washington Post Foreign Service’s Kevin Sullivan story about the impacts of the African food crisis on women and children; July 20.
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I’ll approach Obama with fearless honesty. He’s a liberal. I oppose liberals. That’s all that’s involved here.

— Rush Limbaugh on presidential candidate Barack Obama; Mr. Limbaugh has renewed his contract with Premiere Radio Networks and Clear Channel Radio, which will pay him more than $400 million; Mr. Limbaugh once referred to Sen Obama and actor Halle Berry as “Halfrican American” on the Jan. 24, 2007, broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show; July 6.

We have sort of become a nation of whiners. You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline.

— former senator Phil Gramm, one of presidential candidate John McCain’s top economic advisers, likening the nation’s economic problems to a “mental recession“; July 10.
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In 2004, Yahoo turned over user information to the Chinese government that was used to track down a dissident journalist, Shi Tao, and send him to a labour camp. It was the moment that the Internet knew sin.

Now, Judge Louis Stanton has decided to force Google/YouTube to disclose a complete set of data on all YouTube users. As TechCrunch reports: “That data includes every YouTube username, the associated IP address and the videos that user has watched on YouTube. Google will also be required to hand over copies of every video removed from Youtube for any reason (DMCA notices or user-initiated deletions). Stanton dismissed Google’s argument that the order will violate user privacy, saying such privacy concerns are merely “speculative.”” Full Story »

One Life, by Johnny Clegg, first released 2006, 16 tracks, ASIN B000I5YROM

We’re on our way home to find our freedom
and I’m on my way home to find you my friend
where we can stand in the light of the people
and breathe life into the land again.

“When the System Has Fallen,” Johnny Clegg

“If you have a patch of ground the size of a door, you can feed a family of four,” rhymes my friend, John Broom. John is well over 80 and has been involved in teaching gardening and feeding schemes in Africa for the Quaker Peace Foundation for decades. I believe him.

Africa itself is a vast and fertile land. Full Story »

You want a dark, Goth version of Tweety Bird? Have at it.

— Lisa Gregorian, executive vice president for worldwide marketing at Warner Brothers Television, in a story about “[a]n unusually large number of classic characters for children … being freshened up and reintroduced — on store shelves, on the Internet and on television screens — as their corporate owners try to cater to parents’ nostalgia and children’s YouTube-era sensibilities”; June 11.

Your eminence, you’re looking good.

— President Bush, addressing Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican; June 13.
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Exxon Mobil is acting like a dinosaur now, not adopting to a changing environment.

— Stephen Viederman, a New York shareholder, after “Exxon Mobil’s chairman and chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, defeated a shareholder effort … to take away one of his jobs at an annual meeting punctuated by a debate of the company’s policy toward renewable energy and global warming”; May 28.

Despite significant challenges in the U.S. market, we continue to reshape our business for long-term success. This attrition program gives us an opportunity to restructure our U.S. work force through the entry-level wage and benefit structure for new hourly employees.

— from a statement by Troy A. Clarke, the president of G.M.’s North American operations, announcing that “19,000 hourly workers — a quarter of a unionized work force that already has been drastically pared down — have accepted buyouts“; up to 16,000 of these $28-an-hour workers may be replaced by “entry-level” non-assembly workers making $14 an hour; May 30; emphasis added.
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“Who killed her?” asked the five-year-old daughter of an acquaintance upon being told that her granny had died. That she could have died of old age and natural causes never occurred to the little girl. It is a chilling reminder of the type of society that South Africa has become.

The last few days, the world’s murder capital has cemented its place as the country where you are most likely to die in a violent attack. 22 foreign African economic migrants have been murdered by rampaging mobs around Johannesburg. Full Story »

Elections in Africa are always precarious affairs. If there is the least sense that, perhaps, the current dictator-for-life will somehow be deprived of power then the citizens will expect change.

If, despite this overwhelming demand for change, the election still goes the way of the incumbent then … well, you get events like Kenya. Previously seemingly stable countries erupt into genocide and horror.

Then we get Zimbabwe. A place that has been unstable and unpleasant almost since independence. Current president-for-life, Robert Mugabe, is responsible for massacres in Matabeleland and causing untold suffering to his people. He has rigged every election since independence. But he is gradually losing control as the economy falls apart (inflation is now 100,000% – everyone is a billionaire).

So, here we stand. The elections took place on the 29th of March. The results were due out this morning. They are not yet out. The opposition parties expect to win. So do the people. If Mugabe still wins, then the chances are that there will be outrage.

However, if Mugabe rigs it outrageously, and his well-paid army takes to the streets … well, things will go on much as they have for the past decade. Unpleasantly.

More news as it happens.