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I read a story today that filled me with joy inside, but towards the end of it, I kinda felt a little disappointed: KBR pleaded guilty to bribing Naija officials $180 million! HALLELUJAAAAHHH!!!!! They were caught bribing officials so they could win a $6 billion contract for the construction of a natural gas liquefaction plant in Bonny Island, Nigeria… Najia officials n your families, my condolences go out to you… yea right… I hope at least some of that money made its way to people that really need it.

Anyway, KBR will pay a $402 million penalty and go under the watch of a court-appointed monitor for 3 years… but get this, Halliburton will pay $382 million of the total amount and let KBR pay the rest. In addition, Halliburton will also pay $177 million to settle civil complaints against both companies by the Securities and Exchange Commission, for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, without admitting or denying wrongdoing… I don’t get it, did you do it or not do it? who came up with that freakin legal clause? Halliburton is doing all this because Halliburton is responsible for covering, and I quote “certain contingent liabilities” related to any fines that come out of the case, according to filings by both companies… and this is after KBR was spun-off from Halliburton in April 2007… I get it… KBR is the street soldier that does the dirty work, while Halliburton shows up when necessary… gotta keep the money flowin in, any means necessary right?

Kellogg Brown & Root! WHY/HOW are you STILL in business?! you definitely must be doing something right… I mean c’mon, you’ve tried to over-charge the US gov’t (a math error? y’all make all them millions and y’all can’t freakin add shyt up? get a mathematician!), you gave un-tested water to US troops, you’ve had several rape charges, you’ve had a US soldier electricuted to death, and you’re still somehow in business…. impressive.

And only $20 million in penalty charges? At a recent conference call, KBR’s CEO William Utt said that “the payments will reduce earnings by 12 cents per share for the fourth quarter of 2008, but otherwise won’t significantly affect the company’s financial performance” …12 cents… KBR is expected to make an estimated $1.68 per share for FY2008, so that penalty is less than 10% of their annual earnings! Man, even when the economy is good a company’s annual earnings can go down 10%, in other words, that penalty amounts to nothing. Also, the 3-year monitor may cost the company $3 million to $5 million per year… Utt alone made almost $3 million in FY2007. Utt also said that the settlement should not hurt KBR’s ability to contract with state or federal governments… but of course Utt… please forgive me for expecting anything less than that.

The guy taking the actual charge, Albert “Jack” Stanley, is scheduled for sentencing on May 6th… I’m really curious to see what happens to him.

African children on a hustle at a local e-waste dump site

With the latest corporate fashion trend of going “green” and being all about “sustainability” springing up across thousands of offices, you would think that it’s about time we take such initiatives as recycling seriously. But, and you know there was a “but” coming… do you know where that old PC or laptop that you begged IT to replace goes?

I can speak for my company, well only for the 2 events over the last 4 years in which our IT department gave us “old” (still Pentium 4) working PCs and laptops for free… but still though, what happens to the stuff that doesn’t work, or the stuff that is too old to find a nice, warm, cozy, happy home on a wooden table in someone’s basement or apartment? Well, given the theme and issues discussed in this blog, it should come as no surprise to you that the junk ends up in Africa… West Africa… Lagos, Nigeria and Accra, Ghana, among other places I’m sure (Guiyu, Guangdong Province, China was featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes as one of the places).

The 60 Minutes piece above did well illustrating how hundreds of people in the U.S. drove up to recycling centers with their electronic trash thinking they were doing good for the environment, while in reality some of their stuff ended up at toxic dump sites in poor areas of the world. Poor men, women, and children struggling to make a living break down these computers, burn the circuit boards and try to extract chips and various other components for re-sale, while directly poisoning themselves with lead, mercury, and other hazardous materials, and weakening their communities in the process. Here we are thinking we’re helping the developing world by giving them old electronics that they can use at schools, etc, while in reality, it’s estimated that less than 25% of the electronics we recycle actually work, meaning that the rest ends at dumps for the poor to scavenge through. Local governments at these dump sites get rewarded for looking the other way while gangs  run the operations, even though there are explicit regulations and initiatives from as far back as the early 90s (check out BAN for more), prohibiting the dumping of toxic components in “someone else’s backyard.”

This type of stuff makes me feel paranoid about playing “Captain Planet” and dropping off my old cell phones or batteries at recycling bins at my local electronics or hardware store. Companies use the whole “green” movement to improve on their corporate image, while their motives are anything but altruistic. This e-waste is sold and re-sold in a process that can be easily interpreted as the childish action of brushing something under a carpet and calling it clean.

By no means do I want to appear like I got the solutions to all the world’s problems, but I think we can do so much better. Organizations like e-Stewards are already creating ways to identify ethical recyclers, so let’s continue to push for more transparency in the recycling industry. Don’t tell me your old Gateway or Dell is going to be crunching away numbers at a village in Kenya or Tanzania unless you are 100% certain about its destination and its intended use. There are also better avenues to bring technology to the poor corners of the world. Initiatives like One Laptop Per Child are a prime example of organizations getting together to bring laptops to the under-privileged.  Other recycling alternatives can include the use of old electronics in our schools to teach kids about science and technology. Sites like Instructables have tons of cool projects that can help kids geek it up early by learning how to turn old PCs/electronics into servers, firewalls, widget frames, or even non-techy things like fish tanks, handbags, and jewlery.

Manufacturers and municipalities, from Panasonic and JVC to B-More’s finest, should try harder to make sure their stuff is recycled safely. Let’s not put people in situations where they have to choose between poverty and poison.

Some additional info: Known and suspected routes of e-waste dumping, Wiki on e-Waste

BAN’s The Digital Dump: Official Trailer also below:

According to Wordle this is all I rambled about, enjoy:

This is a composition of the thoughts and feelings that went through my head on Nov. 4th and Nov. 5th 2008. I was too excited to login on here and write about all this, but it had to occur at some point, so here it is:

Going to sleep on the eve of November 4th was kind of hard, I felt really anxious, uneasy, even if I cannot participate in the elections, the importance of the upcoming day gloomed upon me hard. The start of the new day was really quiet, until I passed an elementary school with a huge voting line, on my way to work. The whole day at work was relatively quiet, nobody mentioned anything about either candidate, or the election in general. Some people were faithfully sporting the “I voted” stickers, but that’s about it.

I rushed home after work and sat there in front of my TV, waiting for every poll to close. We’ve been through surprises in this country’s elections before, so there was no way in hell that I was gonna believe all the projected polls, early of the final results… all of a sudden they say Pennsylvania is for Obama, and people start talking about how McCain is done… still I sat there w/my Pilsner in my hand, saying to myself what if someone asks for a recount in Pennsylvania? people haven’t really started talking about the notorious voting machine errors that occur during every election, etc… I was just sitting there saying I’m not jumping w/joy until I see the proof right in front of me… and sure enough, there it was, about an hour later, a golden background image appears on CNN, with Obama’s big smile photo on it, and the words “Barack Obama – 44th President of the United States of America.”

My mom was crying w/joy, I was sitting there mesmerized, every sound around me became very subtle… people blowin up my phone, nothing caught my attention, I just sat there basking in the moment. I can honestly tell you that as a 1st generation immigrant, if there ever was a moment in my life where I felt so happy, so ecstatic, so proud about being in the United States of America, that moment was it. That moment even surpassed the feelings I had the day we first set foot on this land. I was sitting there with joy, asking myself why the hell am I here at home? why am I not out there running to the White House, to celebrate with the rest of the people. I was so close to emailing my boss and letting him know that I was not going to come to work the next day.

Again, going to sleep that night was hard, but nature takes its course, and when I woke up in the morning I immediately felt the power of this new day, this new era of socio-economic change. Amazingly, everyone at my job was extremely quiet that day, almost as if these people where showing their true colors. Nobody seemed to be happy in my building… I was sitting in my office with a huge smile on my face, I felt like I was the only one.. I was literally jumping with joy in my office when I looked through the slideshows of people celebrating all over the world… but people at my job were still quiet, it just didn’t seem right, I couldn’t wait to leave that place, and surround myself with people that are as happy and excited as I was.

Reflecting on the future, Mr. Obama has sold several dreams to millions of people. These people (including me) have to leave room for errors and disappointments over the course of his presidency. We cannot expect Barak to move into the White House and start walking on water at the Reflecting Pool nearby. After all, he is human, he will have many obstacles ahead of him, and we should expect these obstacles to disappoint us as well, because he cannot be expected to solve every issue.

I’d like to thank everyone that participated in getting that man into the White House. I truly wish I was blessed enough to take part in such a monumental blip of history’s tapestry. We have a tough road ahead of us, let’s just stick to the script, and work towards making each day a little better than the one before it.

.. or $5.72, I don’t have the receipt on me to double-check, but it really doesn’t matter… the question is, what did you spend on your lunch today? did you work for that lunch? how hard exactly did you work for it? would you be willing to search for pieces of copper or cobalt by scraping through mountains of mining waste, and then washing your findings in cholera-infested waters, all for your lunch? would you be willing to kill for it? all this to earn some food… all this to earn $3.00 (on a good day)… even less than the $5.71 or $5.72.. whatever.

You think ppl in the last commodities bubble got it bad, when they lost their investments, think again. Some Congolese and Zambian men, women, and children, are working til they drop, sacrificing safe working conditions, so that they could take the few ounces of metal and sell them to their local Chinaman (We all know how hungry China is… see my posts below). What’s worse is the fact that these poor victims were somehow convinced by their overseers to block roads to their mining camps and stop any journalists that would report on their dire conditions, at all costs, even death. Because whoever convinced them, told them that if the world finds out about their plight for survival under such dire conditions, then the mining operations will be closed, and they would not get their $3.00 (and that’s on a good day).

It hurt me deep inside when I thought about my Subway lunch today… shameless exploitation for $3.00/day so that the Congolese and Zambian government officials (among others) can keep their political and economic commitments in this abusive relationship with China… cuz if they don’t there will be no cash for their countries (or their fat pockets).

Across the pond, we can print billions of dollars to bailout the greedy that bit a little more than they could chew, but we cannot improve on our aid commitments (the US ranks in the bottom 3 out of 21 countries). We easily turn our backs at such exploitations, because Africa has nothing to offer for us. Where is the human conscience and its dignity? I think it also needs a bailout.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been debating on the benefits and setbacks of China’s involvement in Africa with a good Chinese friend of mine, and we finally agreed on one thing: right now, as in today, African people are suffering by getting the short end of the stick (big surprise there!).

He thinks that the future for Africa will be brighter, while I feel like by the time the light shines on us, we will have little to no natural resources to use for our people’s benefit, cuz by then, every single hand around us would have taken its share from the cookie jar, to leave us nothing else but crumbs… at least I hope they’re the good kind of crumbs, maybe with a chocolate chip or two left in there somewhere (now you know my favorite cookie type).

But all jokes aside, I asked Dr. George Ayittey (see previous post) for his view regarding China’s involvement in Africa, and he referred me to an excellent piece he calls Chopsticks Mercantilism:

Chopsticks Mercantilism

Throughout its history, Africa has been a playground where all sorts of foreign entities competed to advance their interests, not those of the African people. They came in all sorts of colors. The Brits, the French, the Portuguese, the Belgians, the Americans, the Soviets, the Arabs, the Chinese, etc. In my view, the most stubborn and dogmatic were the Portuguese. They had no intention – none whatsoever — of granting their African colonies independence. The Belgians were probably the most contemptuous of their colonial subjects and imposed the most stringent conditions on them. The African could not travel in the Congo without a permit, possess firearms, or drink anything stronger than beer. He could become a carpenter or a mechanic, but not an engineer. He could be a bishop, a journalist, an accountant, a medical assistant, a teacher, a civil servant, or a druggist, but not an architect or an attorney. By the 1930s there were several lawyers in British and French West Africa, but not a single one in the Congo. To the Belgians, lawyers meant politics, and politics would instigate demands for political rights outlawed for the Africans.

The Brits were more pragmatic and flexible, seeing the eventual grant of independence to their African colonies. In fact, in 1843 the African Committee of the British House of Commons passed a resolution expressing Britain’s reluctance to further engage in colonial affairs. According to Boahen and Webster (1970), the British resolved that their future policy in Africa “should be to encourage in the natives the exercise of those qualities which may render it possible for us more and more to transfer to the natives the administration of all Governments, with a view to our ultimate withdrawal from all, except probably Sierra Leone” (p. 210). Of course, all that changed when intense commercial competition among Europeans led to the Berlin Conference in 1888.

When it came to defending its interests in Africa, the French were the most ferocious. And Frech economic interests in Africa are vast. Twenty percent of France’s oil came from West Africa. The Ivory Coast, for example, buys 40 percent of its imports from France and the French own a third of the country’s manufacturing industries.

In 2002, when Ivorian government planes accidentally dropped bombs on rebel positions, killing three French peacekeepers, France reacted swiftly and viciously. It sent in war planes to destroy Ivory Coast’s entire air force! The French would aggressively defend their language and culture. They never equated decolonization with retreat. Charles de Gaulle, assisted by a handful of competent and ruthless men, managed an incredible sleight of hand: not a termination of France’s control over its former African colonies, but a transformation of its control into something quite original — a community of nations, sharing one currency, that was tied to France economically, politically, culturally and, of course, militarily. African children were taught that their ancestors were Gauls and that the deserving among them would gain French citizenship.

France left hundreds of officials in Africa as advisers. Behind the doors of many key ministries in the Ivory Coast and Senegal or Gabon, discreet but powerful French officials kept a close eye on policy.[i] The French also sent teachers to Africa and brought African students and civil servants to France for training. France’s primacy as an external actor in central and western Africa thus continued largely unabated after colonialism. In fact, in 1993, there were more French citizens — about 100,000 — in post-colonial Africa than at independence.

The French did not hesitate to remove or install African despots who did not serve or to serve their interests. After 1960, the French intervened on many occasions to prop up unpopular African regimes against internal dissatisfaction and disorders. The most notorious such occasion was in Gabon in 1964, when French troops were used to reinstate President Mba after a coup. Noting that the French did not intervene to save President Youlou in Brazzaville in 1963, critics charged that intervention was predicated on mineral wealth. (Gabon is rich in oil.)

Another instance was in May 1991, when 9 million rounds of ammunition arrived in Cameroon on a ship from France, destined for the authoritarian government of President Paul Biya. The ammunition helped Biya brutally suppress political opponents, enabling him to win the October 1992 presidential election in a vote that observers said was fraudulent. Two months later France gave Cameroon FF600 million [$110 million] in new loans. In May 1993, Mr. Biya was welcomed in Paris by both Mr. Mitterand and the new French prime minister, Edouard Balladur.

The French were also singularly culpable in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The Hutu-dominated government of Juvenal Habyarimana was French-speaking. Paul Kagame and his Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) trained in Uganda, an English-speaking country, and were closing in. Miffed that Rwanda would become an English-speaking country, panicky French officials provided aid and ammunition to the Hutu government. In fact, it was claimed that Habyarimana’s plane was piloted by French officers. And after 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered, the French provided a “safe passage” to the genocidaires to escape to the then Zaire, another French-speaking country. Afraid that the current commission of enquiry would expose French involvement, a panicky French judge seeks to indict President Kagame on “war crimes.”

Disguised by bombastic gushing of “cooperation,” France’s real intention, however, was to protect its economic interests and gain access to Africa’s minerals. For centuries, the French have always had this thing against “Anglo-Saxons.” Driven by a chimerical belief in their cultural superiority, the French had always wanted to create a “La Grande France” globally – a comity of French-speaking nations with a French culture that can flex its power at the United Nations. France has always regarded its francophone “commonwealth” in Africa as part of its ticket to world-power status. Since General de Gaulle’s time, French presidents have maintained direct personal links with African heads of state, appointing a Mr. Africa as personal fixer and emissary (President Mitterrand sent his son). French officials, sometimes seconded from Paris ministries, sit behind the thrones of many African leaders. French political parties receive donations from African leaders; French companies, especially oil ones, are given extraordinary privileges in African states; French arms protect African allies. And aid has flowed freely. In 1993, France’s budget for overseas aid was $7.9 billion. The French did everything they could to thwart “Anglo-Saxon” designs in Africa.

China too has been an active player in Africa in the post-colonial period. It sought to win adherents to the Chinese brand of socialism. Zhao Ziyang, China’s foreign minister in the early 1960s, reminded African leaders of the presence of Chinese coolies in Africa. (Britain had rounded up more than 60,000 coolies at the beginning of the century to work in South African mines. Ten years later, when their labor was no longer needed, they were deported with little or nothing to show for their suffering.) As members of the Third World, united in poverty, China and Africa were identical, Ziyang once declared.

China’s conception of the world was tripolar: the United States, the Soviet Union, and the Third World. In the postcolonial era China viewed the Third World as an adjunct of the West. China competed with the Soviet Union to recruit the allegiance of the African nations by supporting their liberation movements. In the early phases, China was the more aggressive, revolutionary force. The Chinese trained and armed liberation movements in both colonial and independent African countries. At the same time, denouncing Moscow as reactionary and revisionist, China also strove to provide Africa with more nonmilitary aid than the Soviet Union offered. Like the emerging states of Africa, China was a Third World country, and its revolution was a model for all Third World revolution, Ziyang claimed.

Lin Biao, Mao’s designated successor, noted that China’s revolution was won when the Communist Party mobilized the peasants of the rural areas to encircle the cities of China. Similarly, he viewed the Third World as rural areas, and the West, to which it was attached, as the cities. The Chinese global revolutionary strategy was to mobilize these rural areas to encircle the cities. In reality, however, the driving forces behind China’s engagements in Africa had little to do with Africa.

Like Moscow’s, Peking’s interests in Africa were primarily extraneous to Africa. The first of these concerns was to seek international recognition for Mao’s communist regime and, more specifically, votes at the United Nations which would be cast in favor of the transfer of the permanent Chinese seat in the Security Council from Taiwan to China proper.

A second concern, which arose when Sino-Soviet friendship turned into Sino-Soviet rivalry, was to make trouble for the Russians. The conflict between Peking and Moscow, unlike the [ideological] alliance between them, could be furthered in Africa.

China’s perception was that Moscow, not Washington, was its principal enemy. Its strategy was therefore to weaken social imperialism at the expense of monopolistic capitalism. West Africa observed that “in Africa, China increased assistance to old friends such as Tanzania and Zambia. The 2000km Tan-Zam railroad was meant to overshadow the Soviet-built Aswan High Dam in Egypt. China also made friends with old enemies such as Mobutu, helping him during the Shaba uprising in 1978-79; in 1980 they helped him build a naval base at Kinkuzu in southern Zaire to threaten Angola” (Aug 15, 1988; p. 1473).

China’s fortunes in Africa quickly turned into mirages, however. At first, China’s anti-colonial stance was welcomed by African liberation movements. But as independence was gained, China’s emphasis on subversion and its intense enmity toward the Soviet Union became less and less appealing or relevant to Africans. In fact, as early as 1963 Julius Nyerere of Tanzania complained of a new scramble for Africa between the Soviet Union and China. Because their actions were anti-Soviet rather than pro-African, the Chinese themselves did not achieve much by way of influence.

Furthermore, China was no less immune to blunders than the Soviets. Less wisely than the Soviets, China meddled in Burundi ethnic feuds. In 1963 China backed the Tutsi expedition by training a number of Tutsi in guerrilla warfare in China. The subsequent massacres in Burundi earned China much opprobrium. China also supported the Biafran secessionists in Nigeria’s civil war (1967 to 1970) simply because Moscow backed the Federal Government of Nigeria. Similarly, in Angola, China supported the FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola) because Moscow was backing the ruling MPLA.

In Mali and Congo-Brazzaville, China made some headway. But a spate of military coups brought to power new rulers distrustful of China. Only in Tanzania did China achieve some diplomatic and ideological success. China agreed to fund and build the 1,200-mile Tan-Zam railway line at a cost of 166 million pounds sterling, free of interest. The railway was both an engineering and a political achievement. It was completed two years ahead of schedule and was much touted as a model of what foreign aid could do for Africa. But it was one thing to build the railway and quite another to run it efficiently. Maintenance was poor, services degenerated, and the Dar es Salaam terminal became chronically clogged to the point of immobility. Although the Chinese had nothing to do with these shortcomings, their reputation suffered.

Fast forward to 2006: China’s increasing involvement in Africa should be viewed against this backdrop. Despite the euphonious verbiage about “cooperation”, “equal terms,” and “altruism,” the real intentions of China are threefold. The first is to gain access to Africa’s resources by signing with a bow sweetheart deals with African despots. The second is to canvass for African votes at the United Nations in its quest for global hegemony. In this sense, the Chinese are no different from the French. The third is to seek African land to dump its surplus population. Chinese communes are springing up in Namibia, Zambia, Nigeria and other African countries. The Chinese have succeeded in getting African states to accept large numbers of Chinese experts and workers as part of their investment packages: 28 “Baoding villages” have been established, each housing up to 2,000 Chinese workers, in various parts of Africa. But the Chinese are not the problem.

The real problem was the retinue of clueless African clods, who attended Chopsticks Conference at Beijing in October. “Clueless” because that was no Berlin Conference for sure. No European powers were present; only one Asian power, China. And no Maxim gun was needed. But lying prostrate at China’s feet were 40 African heads of state, offering themselves for voluntary economic enslavement. Disgusting.

Elementary principles of demand and supply suggest that that was a buyer’s market. When 40 desperate suppliers are competing for one buyer’s attention, the buyer calls the shots. With chopsticks dexterity, China can pick platinum from Zimbabwe; oil from Angola, Nigeria and Sudan; cocoa from Ghana; diamonds from Sierra Leone; etc. – all on its own terms because of its strong bargaining position. Few radical intellectuals and African heads of state see nothing wrong with this huge imbalance because China is perceived to be a “friend of Africa” since it is “anti-West.”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend” has been the seductive fallacy. Those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it.

Dr. Ayittey also added the following to his email, to update on the article above:

The real intentions of China in Africa are four-fold. The first is to gain access to Africa’s resources by signing with a bow sweetheart deals with dysfunctional African governments. How the people of these governments fare or benefit is of no significance. The second is to canvass for African votes at the United Nations in its quest for global hegemony. In this sense, the Chinese are no different from the French, who used francophone Africa to project “la grande France.” The third is to seek new markets for Chinese manufactures as European markets become saturated with Chinese goods. The fourth is to seek African land to dump its surplus population. Chinese communes are springing up in Namibia, Zambia, Nigeria and other African countries. The Chinese have succeeded in getting African states to accept large numbers of Chinese experts and workers as part of their investment packages: 28 “Baoding villages” have been established, each housing up to 2,000 Chinese workers, in various parts of Africa. In Namibia, the number of Chinese expatriates has reached 40,000, 100,000 in Zambia and 120,000 in Nigeria.

Already, anti-Chinese sentiments have began rising in many parts of Africa. African business groups complain about poor treatment by Chinese companies and competition from a flood of low-cost imports. Unable to compete with Chinese imports, textile factories in Lesotho closed in 2003 and 2004, throwing over 5,000 workers out of their jobs. In the run-up to Zambia’s general election in September 2006, the losing opposition leader Michael Sata made China’s investment in the country a campaign issue. The campaign proved effective, and resulted in a win for Sata in Lusaka and Copperbelt, the two most prosperous provinces, where the Chinese presence is very strong.

According to Sata, Chinese businesses employ relatively few Zambians. “Our Chinese don’t bring in any equipment or create any sensible employment. In fact, to every Zambian in a Chinese company, there are about 15 Chinese. I have done my intelligence research and it is devastating to know that all Chinese companies are paying an average of $50 per month to Zambian employees” (The Washington Post, Sept 25, 2006; p.A16).

Sata called the Chinese profiteers, not investors, in a country where unemployment is about 50 percent and more than 73 percent of people live in poverty. He lambasted Chinese-run businesses, accusing them of neglecting the safety of Zambian workers, and threatened to run “bogus” Chinese investors out of the country. “Chinese investment has not added any value to the people of Zambia,” he charged (The Washington Post, Sept 25, 2006; p.A16). Though dismissed as a demagogue, his campaign struck a chord with many, drawing cheers from many lower-paid Zambians, including taxi drivers, shop workers and security guards, and sparking debate even among Sata’s more middle-class detractors.

I know it was long, but it was a wonderful read. It opened my eyes to so many other factors I did not consider. Recent interviews with Africans from various parts of the continent however yield mixed results. Some believe the involvement of China is very good for the infrastructure, and it creates better opportunities for Africans, while others believe their own government has managed to back-stab them yet once again. Sigh.

I can certainly see the benefits of new roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, and what not, but it all comes down to cost. At what cost is this all happening? It’s great that China is doing something that Europeans/Americans have recently been dormant in, by funding so many new construction, redevelopment, and modernization initiatives, at such a fast pace. I also understand that all societies have been victims of a predator before they got to where they are today. Prime examples are India, China, and many others. They have suffered their share in the not too distant history of natural resource exploitation by others, and now they are at the forefront of global economic development. The question is, can the same faith await Africa? Or is this simply a case of when a good deal is too good to be true, it more than likely isn’t a good deal at all?

As a fellow African, I’ve always been disappointed and saddened by the contemporary state of the African continent. You have civil unrest popping up in once place, which finally gets some attention, and eventually gets subdued. Then a couple of months go by, and we see the same repetition again elsewhere within the same continent.

I’ve always wondered WHY? Why do we end up being the ones that are always behind, as the rest of the world goes by flying? People always talk about how much aid nations are giving and they simply leave it at that. But seldom do they talk about WHO that aid goes to. No, not who as in the poor farmers, or the displaced people from war-torn regions, but WHO as in who manages this allocation of funds, and HOW MUCH of the funds actually reach their intended, or better yet advertised individuals?

I’ve always seen the corruption in the African state while growing up. A state where you need to bribe this guy and that guy and the other guy to just simply let you get by with your life. And yes, one could argue that there’s simply no better way for the people asking for bribes to get by on their own right. However, the corrupt people in my discussion are not the poor policemen that stopped you for supposedly not staying in your lane while you were driving, or the poor paper pushers that need to fix an error in some document for you. No, the people of this discussion are a lot more powerful than that, and I recently came across this excellent talk which I think gives one of the best discussions on the main characters that I am referring to. Enjoy.

With the noticeable rise in grass-roots movements in which groups of people decide to take matters into their own hands to make a difference, one could argue that a strong impact can be made. A lot of grass-roots based organizations are indeed leading the charge in empowering the victims that George Ayittey is referring to. There is indeed plenty of hope in some parts. However, let’s make sure the hope we bring as caring citizens becomes sustainable.

From my observations, these victims lead their lives worrying about how they will get by TODAY. We worry about how we will do when we get out of school years from now, or when we move up in our careers later down the road. When we manage to change and sustain their scope on life to a TOMORROW, that’s when we’ll all truly succeed.

It was 1974 when Ethiopia’s Afar region (pictured in red) unfolded the oldest hominid fossil known to humanity (until the 2002 find of the “Toumai” skull in Chad). The discovery of this nearly 40% intact, 3.2 million year old female skeleton was celebrated by the paleontologists at the dig site with a song from the Beatles called “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” thus dubbing the skeleton Lucy.

Let’s fast forward to August 2007, and now we are witnessing one of the most well-orchestrated (define it as u please) arrangements for this old traveler of time: Lucy is coming to the Houston Museum of Natural Science… not the replica, the real shyt! I don’t know if I should be feeling happy by realizing that there is a good chance I could get a glimpse, if the exhibit comes nearby during the planned six-year tour, or if I should be sad by the fact that this trip may very well damage this priceless set of bones, and hurt many others in the process.

Where do I begin… since her find in 1974, the real bones were displayed only TWICE to the Ethiopian public. Under all other conditions, the bones were kept locked in a vault somewhere, and a replica was exhibited to the public. And here we are witnessing some kind of arrangement by the Houston museum and the Ethiopian government (for an undisclosed sum might I add, big surprise!). The list of organizations opposed to this is long, we can start with the Smithsonian Institution here, and go all the way down to the poor citizens that LITERALLY woke up one morning to find out that Lucy was swept in the dark of night and placed on a plane out of the country, without notice. Shame is the word that caused the sadness I felt when I learned of this. You have world-renowned paleontologists like Dr. Richard Leaky using the word “prostitution” to describe the tour featuring the fragile remains of this 3′6″ 62 lbs. female of the past.

This is an irreplaceable part of Ethiopian treasure, humanity’s treasure… while so many museums proudly display the replicas of rare finds, why do we drag the original Lucy half-way around the world? why risk it? how much are we making from this? how much of this money is going to trickle down to the people that really need it? Why were people not entitled to learning about this plan ahead of time? Haven’t we learned anything from the 1700 year old Axum obelisk that was finally returned to Ethiopia after being looted 70 years ago? If so much energy and effort is placed into returning an ancient 24 meter tall obelisk, how exactly do we justify the silent taking of a 3.2 million year old fragile resident?

As far as the chance for me to take a glimpse at Lucy is concerned, I yet have to decide if I am going to fund this mockery in the name of science… let’s not get it twisted, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity isn’t it? On a lighter note, enjoy the LSD song… oh I meant “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”

That is the question for now, at least until the official agreement is signed this May. After several attempts to control the price of its coffee, Ethiopia’s government seems to be in promising discussions to sign a licensing agreement with Starbucks. Even though the details of the agreement will not be disclosed until it’s signed, it does appear to be one huge step forward for Ethiopia and its coffee farmers.

The signing of this licensing, distribution, and marketing agreement will benefit about 15 million individuals that depend on the trade of this commodity, by allowing them to capture an estimated total gain of $100 million. But that’s not all, Starbucks has also agreed to double the purchase of coffee from East Africa, increase the number of Farm Support Centers, and expand its micro-credit facilities.

Oxfam America started an international itiative to let the country trademark the names of Sidamo, Harar, and Yirgachefe back in October 2006, and after an estimated 93,000 voices to Starbucks, Oxfam is happy to see the relationship go in a positive direction.