It's Refugee Week In England...

...and this fellow has a song to sing about 'foreigners':



... oh and 'muslamic rape gangs'?

Does it get any worse that this fellow right here? So sad and wrong you just want to laugh.


ht: roving bandit

Herpy likes to keep the media at bay

Web traffic

As Jake, a colleague/friend of mine, said:

"Al Jazeera is the only good news channel left."

Yet it's not broadcasted in the States.

Beauty Implies Life?: Experience in the World's more gorgeous cities

Over the holiday I was fortunate enough to travel to two of the top five "World's most livable cities", according to the Economist and Mercer rankings.

What, you might ask, is so livable about these two cities? Well, I'm going to let you find that out by clicking on those two links above, and only say that they are both absolutely gorgeous cities. I know, I know, beautiful shmeautiful, but check these out (and these are just snaps I took leisurely walking around, with no intention of finding beautiful scenes):

If you haven't been as fortunate and have never visited either city, you might be convinced simply by these two pictures that they must, indeed, live up to their rankings. If that is the case then you would be mistaken. I think, despite the complex and vast calculations the two publications have done to tally every aspect of liveability, both have been hoodwinked by beauty. 

Of course, what should constitute 'livability' is invariably a subjective proposition and fans of these two beauts would argue for their rank to the death. For me, a city needs to have something going on. Here, I can use many other buzz words, how about pulse, vibe, heartbeat, or life. While these two certainly have their own tenor, their own character or atmosphere, it certainly is not very lively in either case. 

Perhaps I'm being to hard on city number two (as denoted by picture placement). It's core does have some activity, but it surely cannot rival any European capital.

For me to live in a city, and truly be comfortable, there needs to be something to discover all the time. There needs to be connectivity, energy and diversity. These, to me, are the inner attributes of a liveable city.  Beauty, as they say, is only skin deep; and for these two lookers, the beauty is only in the skin.

Oh, and can you guess which are the two cities?

From Mercer:

From The Economist:

Mozambique is a Mystery

About 6 days ago Maputo erupted into a riot. 13 people were killed, 600 people were injured and 148 were arrested. Over the next few days as 280 more people were arrested on suspicion of instigating the riots, the Mozambique government lowered the price of bread, and the riots ceased.

"Why did this happen?" is a good question, but it is always answered poorly. "Why only in Mozambique?" is a better one, but it is never even considered.

Yes, global wheat prices spiked. Is this cause to lambast the global market place? It is easy to stand up and point the finger are the global market. Those damn speculators and free marketeers, they're ruining the world, right? Possibly. But even after reading Mr. Patel's well-intentioned piece (the link above) we still have our question: "Why only Mozambique?".

Reuters

Here's one answer: Wheat prices spiked by 5%, bread in Maputo rose by 30%. Is this mentioned in a single international news article? Not that I can see.

We must look at the details of the Mozambique bread market to understand why. But, no one is doing this. Of the 10 or so articles I have read about this riots, not one went into any detail about the inefficiencies of the Mozambique marketplace. No one mentioned domestic producer collusion, or tarriffs or quotas or taxes, or even transportation inefficiencies. Most pieces were stuck on Russian fires. These, in my opinion, are barely worth a mention. They skirt around the issue here. The problem is not that wheat prices can jump around, its the multiplier effect of domestic inefficiencies (from up 5% to up 30%).

During the food crisis of late 2007/2008 riots were widespread the security of the global food production system was legitimately called into question. This situation is different, as is each instance of localized rioting (be in in India or the DR), but it is not treated as so by the international media.

This is detrimental our understanding of global resource systems.

One article does mention that the Mozambique Metical fell 33% against the South African Rand this year. How could this have an effect on the price of bread in Maputo?

(read the comments for an answer)

Most Failed Index

 Foreign Policy magazine published the 2010 Failed State Index this week. Somalia topped the list and can still be referred to as the most failed state in the world. Ignoring the awkward grammar of that title, what can be said about the functionality of the index and the sensibility of the concept?

Over at Aidwatchers, the concept is not well recieved:

One can only speculate about the political motives for inventing an incoherent concept like “state failure.” It gave Western states (most notably the US superpower) much more flexibility to intervene where they wanted to (for other reasons): you don’t have to respect state sovereignty if there is no state. After the end of the Cold War, there was less hesitation to intervene because of the disappearance of the threat of Soviet retaliation. “State failure” was even more useful as justification for the US to operate with a free hand internationally in the “War on Terror” after 9/11.

While the 'failed state' label may have its glaringly biased implications, the index itself is telling. It measures twelve signifiant variables including demographic pressure, refugees, human flight, uneven development, human rights, and public services. In doing so it thankfully does not label one state or another 'failed'. What can we glean from the index then?

Well, lets take for example the fact that Kenya is in the red but Eritrea is in the orange. I would argue that in Kenya people have more political freedom, more freedom of expression, more opportunity for advancement, more access to loanable funds, more mobility, and a freer press than in Eritrea. This index as you can see, does not count these factors. In Eritrea they have fewer refugees, less group grievance and more even development. So, Eritrea makes its way to a higher ranking despite having a dictatorial government that controls mobility and the economy.

The factors that make Kenya a more comfortable place to live have more to do with civil society and less with government than the factors taken into consideration for this index. Which factors are most important for understanding the socio-political situation in a country? As always, there is never one index that can please everyone.

Wavin' Ads

I am completely caught up in the World Cup Fever. One unavoidable fact when this happens is that advertisements are bombarded at you. One in particular that caught my attention immediatly was this K'Naan "Wavin' Flag" music video.

I first saw K'Naan on a tiny stange at UBC in Vancouver, Canada. He was honest, fluid and a fantastic performer. I have been fortunate enough to have seen K'Naan in concert three times in Western Canada and he has never let the crown down. Well, until Coke bought this K'Naan's song.

I heard this song several months ago and thought is was a nice tune, but it didn't catch me like his live shows did. Now its just making me sick. So to embrace the sickness, and to forward the repetition I face on a daily basis I have four five videos to look at today.

The first is the arabic mix with Nancy Ajran. Notice how the back up dancers are not exactly modest looking. Do you ever see arab youth dressed in the way?


I love the one arm punch.


The next one is the spanish version, compare these backup dancers to the arab ones:



The Chinese version:



Here's how I first heard it:



Here's the US pop version:




Whew, survived it? Damn that gets annoying! What would you say K'naan got paid to have Coke rewrite his song?

Here is the full list of versions (some are probably not official):
The Arab World: "Wavin' Flag/Shagga' Bi Alamak Da" by K'naan and Nancy Ajram
Brazil: "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan and Skank
China: "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan Jacky Cheung and Jane Zhang
France: "Wavin' Flag " by K'naan and Féfé
Greece: "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan and Professional Sinnerz feat. Komis X
Indonesia: "Wavin' Flag/Semangat Berkibar" by K'naan and Ipang
Japan: "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan and Ai
Nigeria: "Wavin' Flag (Naija Remix)" by K'naan and Banky W. & M.I.
Spain: "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan and David Bisbal
Thailand: "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan and Tattoo Colour
Vietnam: "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan and Phuong Vy

Advertising, Extortion and World Cup Revenues

Free things that are advertised are never free. Powerful companies will give away something free only to rake in subscription revenue later. The psychological effect of receiving the free item is often powerful enough to coat the bitter pill you swallow every month thereafter. You'd rather not waste that freebie's value (or hurt the environment) by throwing it away, right?

That free printer that you got with your new computer? Well, be sure that you will be buying ridiculously overpriced (unicorn) ink cartridges very soon. The profit on these will make up for it, and then some!

The free razor you were handed at the supermarket? Same deal; just try finding new blades (cost~10 cents) for less than ten dollars. How about TV subscriptions (free hookup!) Cell phones (free mp3 phone!)... this list goes on.

Far worse that this, though, is when the poor bear the brunt of these tactics:

Nestle's 'free' campaign for breast milk replacement formula that, no doubt, hurt the chances of survival for 1.3 million babies.

Ooh, how about Microsoft's campaign to give away computers to get poor people hooked on Windows, instead of letting people use the free-to-update, open source Linux alternative.

And finally to the World cup. The worlds biggest sporting event ought to bring in some revenue for the host nation, but no, South African's were duped into being the hosts. FIFA has moved aggressively against anyone who is using the FIFA World Cup name, or anything referring to it. Establishments have to pay FIFA, or lose out on the flood of football mania spending. This tips the playing field towards establishments who are well off already, and siphons off revenues from small businesses (read:bars). There is little in this event that I can imagine helping the poor (besides the obvious entertainment value.)



This whole 'restricted areas' idea just smacks of apartheid doesn't it?!