Some photos from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

at sunrise yesterday morning, i walked to the zambezi river gorge overlook... i wasn't prepared for the sheer ruggedness and vertical drop, particularly after walking through the almost flat surrounding vegetation... and, of course, the photo doesn't begin to do it justice... i didn't have time to make it all the way to the falls but i plan to do that tomorrow morning when we have a half day free before an early afternoon departure...

i didn't realize until coming here that, in order to combat the stratospheric inflation, zimbabwe shifted to the u.s. dollar as currency in 2009... that tamed things down considerably but they're still nicking folks for $30 to see the falls... ah, well... how many times am i going to get the chance to see victoria falls anyway, eh...?


African sunrise
6:45 a.m., 21 February 2011
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe


Zambezi River Gorge
21 February 2011
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe


Children's crocodile warning
Kingdom Hotel
21 February 2011
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

p.s. i'm particularly fond of that last photo... ;)

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Hello from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

i arrived yesterday and took this photo as i was leaving the airplane... it's an amazing place...! stay tuned for more pics...!

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A documentary from Africa

sent by a good friend and colleague in buenos aires... very well worth watching...

Uphill

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A military coup in Guinea that exposes the truth and opts for exposing a drug-dealing government...? Wow...!

who woulda thunk it...?

For years, the drug trade was an open secret in Guinea. The inner circle of former dictator Lansana Conte, who ruled Guinea for 24 years until his death, was deeply corrupt, with officials driving opulent SUVs in a capital where most people live without electricity.

Conte died in December. A day later, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, a junior army officer, grabbed power in a coup and promised to crack down on corruption, including on the flagrant drug trade. So far, more than a dozen people have been arrested, but Dadis has failed to arrest well-known members of his own military junta who are believed to deal in drugs.

The confessions began two weeks ago on state television in what is now known in Guinea as "The Dadis Show," broadcasts that have caused a spike in TV viewership and are the constant topic at lunch and over coffee.

First up was Ousmane Conte, the feared eldest son of the deceased dictator, who was untouchable under the previous regime. He admitted what everyone in Guinea knew but did not dare say.

"I acknowledge that I was in the drug business — and I regret it," said Conte, whose confession was taped inside his detention cell.

[...]

As the cocaine market in the United States matured, drug traffickers turned to Europe instead, according to a U.N. report released in October. Over the past decade, cocaine use in Spain and the United Kingdom has grown three and four-fold. One kilogram of cocaine in Europe now sells for twice as much as in the United States, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

To get the cocaine to Europe, traffickers first smuggle it to Africa's west coast, located directly across the ocean from Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, home to the world's entire crop of coca leaves. They bring it in freighter ships and in small, two-engine planes that land at night on deserted air strips. Once ashore, it is parceled out to hundreds of drug dealers, who smuggle it north on boats, in planes and in their own intestines.

In a report earlier this month, the U.S. State Department said cocaine smuggling through Venezuela alone has shot up fivefold since 2002, from 50 metric tons to an estimated 250 metric tons in 2007. It said a rapidly increasing percentage of the flow has begun to be shipped and flown to West Africa, notably to Guinea and Guinea Bissau, and then on toward Europe.

now, when will the u.s. government's involvement in drug trafficking be similarly exposed...?

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George, why the hell do you THINK nobody in Africa wants to host AFRICOM?

oh, golly, and we're SO-O-O-O-OOO surprised...

U.S. diplomats said they were disappointed by the depth of opposition, given that the Bush administration has bolstered ties with both countries [Algeria and Libya] on security matters in recent years.

didn't anybody tell Muammar al-Gaddafi that part of the price for reconciliation with the u.s. was allowing u.s. military to be stationed on his soil...? tsk, tsk, tsk...

Algeria and Libya separately ruled out hosting the Defense Department's planned Africa Command, known as AFRICOM, and said they were firmly against any of their neighbors doing so either.

[...]

Morocco, which has been mentioned as a possible site for the new command and is one of the strongest U.S. allies in the region, didn't roll out the welcome mat, either. After the U.S. delegation visited Rabat, the capital, on June 11, the Moroccan foreign ministry strongly denied a claim by an opposition political party that the kingdom had already offered to host AFRICOM.

goodness gracious...! now, WHY do you suppose they're being so cranky...?

Rachid Tlemcani, a professor of political science at the University of Algiers, said the stern response from North African governments was a reflection of public opposition to U.S. policies in the predominantly Muslim region.

"People on the street assume their governments have already had too many dealings with the U.S. in the war on terror at the expense of the rule of law," said Tlemcani, who is also a scholar with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The regimes realize the whole idea is very unpopular."

and our poor u.s. officials just DON'T UNDERSTAND why all the opposition... after all, we'd just be there for HUMANITARIAN purposes...

As they search for a place to put a headquarters for the new command, U.S. officials have tried to allay concerns in Africa that the Pentagon has warlike designs in the region.

Ryan Henry, leader of the U.S. delegation and principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, said the main mission for the command would be to stabilize weak or poor countries by training local security forces and doling out humanitarian aid.

"It's mostly a headquarters and planning focus," he said after meeting with Moroccan officials. "AFRICOM doesn't mean that there would be additional U.S. forces put on the continent."

do you suppose that bit about TRAINING LOCAL SECURITY FORCES like we've done in latin america, you know, in places like el salvador, nicaragua, argentina, chile, etc, might have touched a nerve...?

but, WAIT...! HOLD THE PHONE...! 12 paragraphs in, we get THIS...!

Defense officials acknowledge that one reason they are paying more attention to Africa is because the continent provides an increasingly large share of the U.S. supply of imported oil and natural gas.

Bush administration officials have also touted the new command as a key part of their strategy for countering terrorism threats on the continent. Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have experienced a resurgence in North and East Africa in recent years.

well, shit, if we're talking about AL QAEDA, that explains EVERYTHING...! or is it really about hydrocarbons...? hmmmm... lemme think on it...

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Why Venezuela's pull-out of the IMF and The World Bank is a good thing

....

until i started working in the balkans with the emerging economies of former socialist countries, i confess to knowing little about the world bank and the international monetary fund and their enormous impact on their client countries... my learning curve was steep, let me tell you, and i was also stunned to realize just how little my fellow countrymen in the u.s. understood how these two enormously powerful institutions affect the global economy...

i posted earlier this week on ecuador's decision to expel their world bank country director, and have been following off and on venezuela's decision to pull out of both the world bank and the imf... i wasn't moved to make a post on venezuela until i read this on huffpo by mark weisbrot...

Venezuela's decision this week to pull out of the IMF and the World Bank will be seen in the United States as just another example of the ongoing feud between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Bush Administration. But it is likely to be viewed differently in the rest of the world, and could have an impact on both institutions, whose power and legitimacy in developing countries has been waning steadily in recent years.

[...]

[T]he resentment against the IMF and World Bank, and demands for change, are worldwide. The scandal over Paul Wolfowitz's leadership at the World Bank, which is about to topple the Bank's most unwanted president ever, is just the tip of the iceberg. Last month the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office stated that since 1999, nearly three-quarters of aid to the poor countries of Sub-Saharan Africa are not being spent. Rather, at the IMF's request, it is being used to pay off debt and accumulate reserves. This is a terrible thing to do to some of the poorest countries in the world, who desperately need to spend this money on such pressing needs as the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Venezuela's decision is likely to strengthen the hand of developing nations within the IMF and World Bank who are demanding serious reforms. Right now the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world's population, has more votes in the IMF than countries representing the majority of the planet. The world's developing countries, which bear the brunt of these institutions' mistakes, have little or no voice in their decision-making. Venezuela's move - and any other countries that follow - will show the IMF and World Bank that the option of quitting these institutions altogether is a real one.

i am delighted that these two enormously powerful institutions are finally getting some exposure for their generations-long exploitation of the world's underdeveloped and emerging economies... it's about goddam time...

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