A deep dive in what the Tigray vs Ethopian central government fight is about. People in the DRC President’s entourage keep dying unexpectedly. Some of them caught COVID-19 but at least one was definitely assassinated and another had both a heart attack and multiple blows to the head. What’s happening? A group of Kenyans wanted…
Read More Four links from a consistently strong blogAfricanArguments.org is a hell of a blog. How people in southern Sudan get to be Dinka, or Nuer, or whatever. You can be either, and which you pick depends on political expediency, but it helps to be posh. How’s Morgan Tsvangirai getting on in Zimbabwe? Not so well, and it may be for the best…
Read More Stuff to read: AfricaSean McFate has an interesting piece about organising the army of post-Charles Taylor Liberia in Foreign Policy. Here’s a quote: We formed investigative teams composed of one international and one Liberian investigator. Together they handled individual cases, traveling to a recruit’s home village to verify data and garner character references. We compiled and assessed existing…
Read More you may turn your papers over now!Back in September, 2006, we were talking illegal immigrants and artisanal shipbuilding in West Africa, over at the Fistful. one of the curious economic details you could notice was how the process was in fact exhibiting an increasing returns type feature, in that the increased demand for boats increasingly meant that a number of would-be…
Read More a questionA quick UR-CAK update. The owners are vigorously protesting, but it still isn’t clear who they are. The crew apparently claimed that the arms belonged to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, and the handling agent and the Equatorial Guinea government say they are for Equatorial Guinea. But it seems that the plane came from Zagreb,…
Read More Kano seizure updateI’m getting reports that the UAE authorities have revoked permission to fly for all Antonov-12s, and the substantial fleet based on Dubai and Sharjah has been given notice to quit last night. Apparently the proximate cause was a spate of embarrassing and perilous runway excursions, as well as the recent loss of an Antonov-12 with…
Read More when you feel the heat you’ve got to move your fleet (2)Meanwhile, this is good news. As more and more ships from various parts of the world – like China and Iran – arrive in pirate country, somebody’s made vaguely sensible arrangements to put them on trial in Kenya, which is what has been done with the ones captured by Northumberland. This is a much better…
Read More business in great watersWhile I’m on the topic of Giustozzi, here’s something else which is important. One of the biggest motivators for a village to support a Taliban presence is a dispute that the official authorities, in so far as they exist, or the tribal authorities have failed to solve, or have solved in a manner that seems…
Read More Laura Norder Goes to AfghanistanHe imagined that satellite broadcasting might help a hundred Indian villages save two cows a year and understood what an impact that might have. Says a commenter at PZ Myers’ place, on the occasion of Arthur C. Clarke’s death. Two cows a year; now that’s genius. I can’t presume to say whether this came true;…
Read More Two cowsWhen Pakistan Telecom tried to kill the Internet in an effort to stop the public seeing evil things on YouTube the other week, there was instant media-reaction and a fairly swift fix by the organisations involved. Things are different when you’re a small Kenyan ISP, though; for about a day now, Africa Online (AS36915) has…
Read More On the African Internet, no-one can hear you scream