Around the World I

I like to stay informed... Not so much about hip-hop music as I should (visit my site: ThaHipHop.Com), but really about the goings-on around the planet. I don’t devour newspapers and news sites as I would like to, but I’m getting there.

I thought I’d share excerpts of the worthier stories, especially those you might not have heard of. I had saved some articles for this, I never got around to it until today. I’ll start you off with a couple...

Nigeria
“Africa’s New Kind of Money Laundering”
Simon Robinson April 27, 2006 TIME

African money is among the dirtiest in the world — literally. Many African
central banks simply don't replace notes until they fall apart. In countries
torn by war, like the Democratic Republic of Congo or Sierra Leone, years can
pass before new notes are printed. In Somalia a few years back, bank notes
became so scarce that warlords started printing their own money, causing
inflation, predictably, to skyrocket.

Now the continent's most populous country is trying to clean up its
currency's act. In recent weeks, the Central Bank of Nigeria has launched a
campaign urging citizens to take better care of their money. Advertisements in
newspapers, magazines and on television ask Nigerians to "Stop the Abuse of the
Naira" and "Handle the Naira With Pride," referring to the Nigerian currency
that was introduced in 1973 and originally worth just over $1.50.

The public service campaign may seem unusual, but in many ways it simply
reflects the country's desperate economic situation. During the oil crisis
of the early 1980s — when Nigeria was awash with petro dollars and its president
boasted to his neighbors that his country's problem was not poverty but how to
spend all its money — the Naira was almost worth $2. Since then, though,
military rule, corruption and mismanagement have crippled the country's economy
and its currency. One U.S dollar is now worth around 140 Naira.

(Read the whole story)

Iraq
“Compassionate Colonialism”
Michael Hirsh April 19, 2006 Newsweek

How does compassionate colonialism work? First, you create an
Iraqi army that will never be able to stand on its own (the postwar Japan and
Germany model)—an army as addicted to U.S. logistical support and know how as
any junkie on heroin. Washington just recently awarded humvees to the Iraqi Army
as its "heavy armor." But forget about tanks ("[The Iraqis] shoot at everything
and anything," says a frustrated Sgt. Diaz). American helicopters and planes
rule the skies here, and that's not going to change for many years. Then, you
insist on a friendly government, while letting the Iraqis think it is they who
are deciding to be friendly (though this "good will" is driven by the always
hovering threat of a withdrawal of support). And finally, you give your
companies an inside track on long term oil contracts—again by noting that their
presence in Iraq guarantees U.S. support—without actually expropriating the
oil.

It is an interesting, but too little noted, fact that Iraq's
borders were always defined by oil—today more than ever. (Some geologists now
say the biggest potential fields may not lie in the oil producing south and
north but in the Sunni middle). After World War I, the British, French and
Russians were all scrambling to grab the land where the stuff was thought to
exist. Kurdistan, especially, was on the verge of being granted independence by
the British after World War I. But as historian William R. Polk writes in his
fine 2005 primer, "Understanding Iraq," "What would ultimately decide the fate
of Kurdistan had little to do with Kurds; it would be decided by the fact that a
huge deposit of oil was known to exist in what might have become a separate
Kurdish state." As a result, the British at the last minute simply lumped
Kurdistan into British controlled Iraq. "Oil made Kurdistan Iraqi," Polk writes.
And oil, while it was not the reason for this latest war (or perhaps only a
small part of the reason), may end up being the reason we too decide to stay and
force Iraq to remain Iraq. That's OK with me, I guess, as long as it's OK with
Spc. Lucero and Staff Sgt. Diaz and the others who are putting their lives on
the line for this cause.

(Read the whole story)