Grandiose Parlor

• Life Cycle Analysis: Niger River Ecological Problems

• Bazungu Bucks: Stop Cyberbullying Day

• Timesonline: Black protester disrupts slavery service

• Tololy’s Box: The One Advantage of a Patriarchal Society

• BBC: Mugabe rival ‘asked for beating’

• BBC: Bloggers turn up heat on Zimbabwe

• FPIF Discussion Paper: China in Africa: It’s (Still) the Governance, Stupid

• Carpe Diem Ethiopia: Engineer Hailu Shawel Needs Urgent Medical Attention

• Benn Loxo Du Taccu: Groovy Naija

• African Shirts: Plaut and Hearing - Embattled Nigerian Vice President’s interview on World Today

• NYT: Egypt: Blogger Gets 4 Years- An Alexandria court sentenced a blogger, Abdel Kareem Nabil, to four years in prison for insulting Islam and Egypt’s president through his Internet writings.

• BBC: Oil worker shot dead in Nigeria

• Via TechCruch: Tree-Nation is a Barcelona-based entity that wants to plant 8 million trees in Niger, in the shape of a giant heart. Their hope is that this re-forestation campaign will help the environment and the people of the country.Tree Nation

• Meskel Square: Where have all the bloggers gone?

• African Unchained: Investing in emerging markets

Some Happenings in my Neck of the Woods:

What is America agenda in Somalia? Peace? Fight terrorism? Strategic relevance?

“Washington backed the warlords in their losing battle against the Islamists. And it tacitly approved Ethiopia’s military intervention to support the TFG. It has even been passing aerial surveillance reports to Addis Ababa, according to US news reports. Preoccupied with the spectre of Islamic terrorism, the White House is thus party to an attempt by a repressive regime in Ethiopia to replace a popular de facto government in Somalia with a widely reviled official one. It is a dangerous gamble.”

Check Ethan Zuckerman’s …My heart’s in Accra for some insight.

Is Uganda Africa’s Newest Investment Darling?

“In the African context, if we are talking about recent economic growth amidst large hurdles, it is difficult to disregard Uganda. This is a country that has endured some major trials and has slowly over time edged it’s way back into a period of sustained economic growth. Does this make Uganda a role model for other developing economies wishing to grow foreign direct investment?”

Benin “Mwangi” on Business News from Africa has the facts

Continue reading…

Still grumpy from the sour taste the Blood Diamonds movie left in my mouth last night, I woke up to read about the war between Somalia and Ethiopia. What a way to celebrate theYuletide!

The hand-writings of the war mongers have been very clear on the wall, and events in the last couple of weeks have strongly suggested the region is going to explode; however, I had hopes that somehow, a reasonable and peaceful resolution would be achieved well before the rivers of tears and blood begin to flow, yet again on another African battlefront.

From Sudan/Darfur, then Chad, now to Somalia/Ethiopia.

Nuts!

Check the facts and more stories here:

Wikipedia: Ethiopian Involvement in Somalia

EthioBlog: Ethiopia Hits Somali Targets, Declaring War

Global Voices Online: Somali-Ethiopia Conflict Looms Over Ethiopian Blogosphere