Africabeat

Laphto (Addis Ababa)

Shawel Hailu stands in front of Laphto, a new multi-purpose entertainment center which will feature luxury apartments, an art gallery, bowling alley, pool hall, arcade, night club, cafe, fusion restaurant, shopping, swimming pool, health club, running track, movie theatre (for indy/art house films), VIP center, rentable shopping/office space, Wifi hotspots, a Montessori school and, eventually, a world-class pediatrics hospital. He's part of the wave of returned Diaspora Ethiopians driving the current building boom.

His materials?  Sourced from China, of course, via Guangzhou.  The foreman on his work site are also Chinese.

Gottera Junction (Addis Ababa)

Artistic rendering of the new Gottera Junction, a project by a Shanghai-based construction group.  Pretty, isn't it? 

Without roads, there is no development

The (now former) Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Lin Lin, sits with Mr. Wen, the head of CRBC in Ethiopia at opening of a new road linking a Chinese glass factory to a main thoroughfare.  CRBC, a state-owned Chinese roads and bridge construction company, has broke ground on dozens of new roads in Addis Ababa since it launched its first Ethiopian project in 1998 known simply as "the ring road," a name and a concept which ought to make residents of Beijing smile.  The mayor of Addis Ababa and the head of the Addis Ababa Roads Authority also officiated.  The mayor thanked the Chinese and compared Ethiopia to the US and China saying, "if there are no roads, there is no development."  The Chinese officials praised the EPRDF for their wisdom and for bringing development to the Ethiopian people.  (No comment.)

Greetings from Ethiopia

Uganda: Andrew Mwenda arrested (again)

Controversial Ugandan journalist (and TEDster), Andrew Mwenda has been arrested along with two other staffers at the Independent, where Mwenda is managing editor.

According to the newspaper spokesman quoted in the Reuters story, Bob Kasango, "We think the government is not happy with a story The Independence published in a recent issue exposing atrocities committed by government forces during the war."

From The Independent's website:

In a two-pronged operation, police and operatives from the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), Joint Anti-Terrorism Taskforce (JATT) and the Black Mamba squad raided The Independent again, exactly a month after the first raid.    

 

 

It is 9.30am on Saturday April 26 and The Independent’s Managing Editor Andrew Mwenda is driving from his home along Golf Course Road in Kololo for the Capital Gang programme on Capital FM radio. As he climbs up Coral Crescent Rise towards Lower Kololo Terrace, two suspicious cars come from in front of him, the front one towards him at breakneck speed. Thinking that perhaps the driver had lost control, he stops and tries to reverse when suddenly three other cars appear from behind, one knocking his rear bumper.

Read more at the TED blog

(Thanks for alerting me to this, Juliana)

Congo: 'Fifth plane crash in five years, rising food prices the real disaster'

I received an email a few hours ago from a friend in Goma who told me the sky was literally falling.  Did my little futile bit, and translated a post by Cabiau, a Belgian aid worker living in Kinshasa, who has had a lot in the past about Congo's proclivity for plane crashes.  This is the fifth fatal crash since June 2007.

He says--and rightly so--that it takes a photogenic disaster to attract the attention of the Western media; the coverage of this accident is a flash of light on a place that otherwise exists in darkness.  I don't use the word "darkness" in the Joseph Conrad sense, but rather in the sense that if you were to ask most relatively well-educated Westerners what the deadliest conflict was since World War II, I think many (or at least the Americans) would answer, "the Vietnam War."  The International Rescue Committee estimates the death toll of the Second Congo War (1998-2003ish) is 5.4 million.

But it's not the plane crashes we should worry about.  Cabiau writes that skyrocketing food prices are the real disaster looming.

Read the post at Global Voices

The New World

When I was a little girl growing up in Queens, NY, I played house like any other girl, but my house was almost never in America.   I’d pretend I was a Russian peasant woman burrowing for seedlings during the Polvolzhye famine; a little girl in Sudan, washing clothes at the bank of the Nile; a Qing Dynasty Empress; an Egyptian Queen commanding vast armies.

Read more

Africabeat is not dead, merely on a very long holiday

Africabeat is not dead, merely on a very long holiday.  I've been frantically visiting graduate schools and am trying to finish up field research for a book I am writing on China and Africa.  The conversations on this blog were very much a part of its genesis, so thank you to everyone who participated. 

I've also just started writing a column for EbonyJet called The New World.  The first column is autobiographical, and by consequence, not that interesting!  But I hope that I can use it to explore topics dear to my heart--migration, identity, change, politics, globalization, and global Black culture--using the particular lens through which I see the world. 

Finally, and this is very exciting for me since it means the political scientist part of my tag line is about to become a little less "aspirational," I will be starting doctoral studies in the Department of Government at Harvard University this fall.  In the US, master's degrees and Ph.D's generally form a continuous course of study, which means it should take me anywhere from five to seven years to finish!  I'm aiming for six.

I hope to be back in a real way in September, but I might just send a few dispatches into the ether in the intervening months.  After all, there's like seven African countries I hope to visit in the weeks to come, and the Olympics in Beijing.  These are exciting times!

Derrick Ashong on Barack Obama

The difference between Senegal and China

Also originally appearing on Global Voices:

Blog politique au Senegal explains the difference between Senegal and China [Fr]: “Aside from the obvious differences like the color of their skin, the enormous disparity in the size of their populations, their respective demographic differences, I also know that there exists another fundamental difference…Us, we play football, we dream of footballs, we talk about football, we worship the professional football players, we beg in order to pay for this time-wasting game that brings the country to a halt whenever there is a match. All the while the Chinese also dream of footballs: those that they will manufacture and sell to us in cash!”

(I love Blog Politique au Senegal by the way.  One of the most incisive and prolific political blogs in all of French-speaking Africa.)

Louis Michel Heckled by Congolese Protestors at the London School of Economics

A recent French translation post on GV:

Le renouveau congolais posted [Fr] a YouTube video which shows Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid and formerly Belgian's foreign minister, as he was confronted by Congolese protesters during a talk given earlier this month on the EU and Africa at the London School of Economics.

Keep on readin'

Mamamikes and how you can help Kenyans in Distress

Mamamikes, an internet startup business in Nairobi that helps Kenyans in the Diaspora and others send gifts to friends and family back home, has set up an initiative for Kenyans affected by the recent violence.  Well wishers can buy Vouchers for Kenyans in Distress which the Mamamikes team uses to purchase food, water, blankets, clothes, sanitary products, and toys for children. As of January 14th, they have raised $2405.  If you're abroad and want a way to help, Mamamikes are good people.

Mamamikes also has a blog where the crew's been writing about their relief work in partnership with local businesses:

Last Friday we paid a visit to Jamuhuri Show Grounds were groups of families had camped out, a haven from the chaos they had left. We went there, with Juliana from afromusing .com - who is helping us in the Support Kenyans in Distress campaign - to get a better insight on the situation. (Keep reading)

 

And here's more information about the Vouchers for Kenyans in Distress project:

Help Kenyans in Crisis: You watch the news; you have seen the Red Cross volunteers trying to feed the multitudes of Kenyans displaced by the post-election violence. Only Jesus could feed 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish. The Kenya Red cross, however are only human, that is why they need your help to pull off this miracle. You can log on to www.mamamikes.com and buy a voucher for Kenyans in Distress. These vouchers will be used to buy much needed supplies for distribution by the  Kenya Red cross. The vouchers come in various denominations from $10 to $75. No service fee will be charged for these vouchers.