The Concoction: Can the aid industry be reformed?: "Poverty is when I lose all my limbs and my sight and I become totally dependant on others, and development is when my neighbour helps me up when I fall"

Banned African airlines...: "In the UK, all aircraft operated by airlines from Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Liberia and Tajikistan have been banned, as well as Sierra Leone's Star Air and Air Universal, Cameroon Airlines, Albanian Airlines and Central Air Express, from DR Congo.

France has publicly blacklisted Air Koryo (North Korea), Air Saint Thomas (US), International Air Services (Liberia), Lineas Aer de Mozambique, and Phuket Airlines (Thailand).

The Belgian list of unsafe airlines includes companies from Ukraine, Republic of Central Africa, Egypt, Armenia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Nigeria, Ghana and Rwanda.

And finally, Switzerland joined the three countries later last year, publishing a list of five companies from Azerbaijan, Egypt, Bulgaria, Lebanon and Nigeria."

Africa's New Ocean: A Continent Splits Apart - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News: "A Continent Splits Apart

By Axel Bojanowski

Normally new rivers, seas and mountains are born in slow motion. The Afar Triangle near the Horn of Africa is another story. A new ocean is forming there with staggering speed -- at least by geological standards. Africa will eventually lose its horn.

Geologist Dereje Ayalew and his colleagues from Addis Ababa University were amazed -- and frightened. They had only just stepped out of their helicopter onto the desert plains of central Ethiopia when the ground began to shake under their feet. The pilot shouted for the scientists to get back to the helicopter. And then it happened: the Earth split open. Crevices began racing toward the researchers like a zipper opening up. After a few seconds, the ground stopped moving, and after they had recovered from their shock, Ayalew and his colleagues realized they had just witnessed history. For the first time ever, human beings were able to witness the first stages in the birth of an ocean."

tHiNkEr?S rOoM: "Apparently Kenyan bloggers, including yours truly, have made it to a Daily Nation feature. Recongition from the mainstream media? My one gripe ? a very healthy imagination on the party of the author. I?m not 29. At no time did I divulge my age, or indeed anything personal about myself. Check your facts, ladies and gentlemen, check your facts!"

Poll: What or who is an aid worker?

UNHCR - Multimedia: "Somalia: People-smuggling
Despite the risks desperate people are willing to pay smugglers to help them escape violence or poverty. (3:46).
Posted 20 Feb 2006"

How to write about Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

The Concoction on corruption "Instead of milking the cow while they give it the best feed so it can multiply and fill the place with lots of grade cows so that if they steal one or two they go unnoticed, they try to drink the milk and eat the beef from the same cow, at the same time. They are then surprised when they are caught with the blood of the one and only cow on their hands."

Reuters AlertNet - Voodoo priests at risk as bird flu hits Africa: "Officials in the tiny West African country which is the home of the ancient religion say spreading the word about bird flu may help save the lives of Voodoo devotees.
'We have identified the groups at risk, including fetishists and followers of the Voodoo cult who sometimes kill animals with their teeth,' Guillaume Hounsou-ve, director of livestock at Benin's Agriculture Ministry, told Reuters in an interview."

MiamiHerald.com | 02/12/2006 | A global event for everybody . . . in some parts: "THE LUGE: Competitors wearing Spider-Man costumes lie on their backs on tiny sleds and go down the bobsled run. The ones who survive (about 8 percent) are tested for drugs. If they don't contain any, they are declared legally insane."

ODI WebLog : Have I Got Old News for you? The 'leaked' DEC evaluation of the tsunami response: "The recent special report on the 'leaked' DEC (Disasters Emergency Committee: http://www.dec.org.uk/) evaluation report that appeared on the BBC television's Newsnight (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm), was not good news for public confidence in humanitarian agencies. Anyone who saw the programme was probably left with three main impressions. First, agencies had been greedy and had accepted much more money than they could spend properly. Second, in spite of the extra cash the job had not been done well and thousands of needy people were still living in temporary shelters. And third, and perhaps of most concern, agencies were not open to admitting their mistakes." [Question: Should aid agencies publish their evaluations and then get kicked by the media?]

Currently reading: Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers

AgInfo News from IAALD: Web market place tested for rural agricultural information providers in Uganda: "A recent article in New Agriculturist On-line describes how a Market Place for Agricultural Information Services (MPAIS) is being used in Uganda to link farmers with providers of advice and information.

Access to MPAIS in the rural areas is by personal computers, and through Internet Cafes in rural towns for those without a PC. According to the project coordinator, 'We have learnt that this is a viable market for information services.' Further, there is a willingness by farmers to pay for information services."

New Scientist News - Doomsday vault to avert world famine: "WITHIN a large concrete room, hewn out of a mountain on a freezing-cold island just 1000 kilometres from the North Pole, could lie the future of humanity.
The room is a 'doomsday vault' designed to hold around 2 million seeds, representing all known varieties of the world's crops."

Trying a new map hit counting thingy...