flickering pictures

When all this first started with Tunisia, I didn’t think there was any way the people could oust their president after some 24 years in power. I’d spent just a couple of weeks there in 2008, and people seemed more or less willing to accept the corruption of a government that was at least […]

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As it was in Tunisia and Iran, Twitter is a major organizing tool for dissidents in Egypt, and it was certainly one of the sites the government was most concerned about when it took the unprecedented step of shutting down all Internet access across the country a few days ago.
Back on Saturday, I posted a […]

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So it isn’t news anymore that Egypt has followed in Tunisia’s footsteps, in taking to the streets to overthrow a multi-decade dictator. You’ve probably also heard that to prevent protesters from organizing, Egypt has cut off broadband and mobile Internet access to its 80 million residents in the biggest Web blackout the world […]

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At least in South Africa.
Frustrated with Telkom, South Africa’s biggest ISP, the cheeky staff at a South African IT company devised a race to see what would be faster: e-mailing a large file from their Pietermaritzburg offices to the city of Durban, 77 km away, or strapping a data stick to a pigeon’s leg and […]

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The constant hijackings off the Somali coast aren’t really news — or rather, they’re news that everyone else is already reporting, and I don’t usually go into that sort of thing here.
But every time I hear about one of these hijackings, I wonder why people keep sailing their tankers and transport ships into the most […]

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In case you’re not an automotive engineer, that translates to the strength of about 104 trained athletes at peak output, or 2.4 Hyundai Accents. Take that, Spock.
I’m not inclined to put much stock in this one, and I can’t find any independent verification of this anywhere, but according to this video report from Egypt’s […]

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It’s only sleeping.
A few days ago, B sent me a link to an excellent article by Stephanie Nolen, a Canadian Globe and Mail reporter who — in my opinion at least — does some of the finest journalism out there, and has for years. She opened the Globe’s South Africa bureau back in 2003, […]

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From Harper’s Weekly

A six-year-old boy and a five-year-old-girl were detained in Germany, on a train to the airport; they explained to police that they planned to fly to Africa to be married. The couple, disguised in sunglasses, had brought along several suitcases, a pink blow-up doll, swim fins, and the boy’s seven-year-old sister, who planned […]

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The BBC reports:

On Thursday, [Zimbabwe president Robert] Mugabe said a deadly cholera outbreak had been stopped, as aid workers warned it was worsening.
He said Western powers were plotting to use cholera as an excuse to invade and overthrow him.
The World Health Organization says the outbreak has not been contained and the death toll has […]

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CNN reports:

In 1993, Romeo Dallaire was full of hope for the future of Rwanda.
The Canadian lieutenant general and son of a soldier was about to take up the biggest command of his career — leading United Nations peacekeepers in the central African nation.
A year later he left Rwanda a broken man, having watched helplessly as […]

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