For all its criticisms, when a tourist site springs up, it requires a solid infrastructure, a wide-variety of services being rendered and a certain number of experiences made available to tourists. Inadvertently, local jobs are created, new opportunities for both and formal and informal labor engagements promoted. The development of the Arusha region, and the Serengeti National Park in particular has been rising exponentially, though at a lower rate than the tourist market demands. The recently announced investment made by the Tudor Investment Corporation in building a new airport has the potential to bring revenue, business and development to a region that is in dire need of it. Should the Tanzanian government take a direct interest in mediating local demands/resources with the desires and business goals of the investor, then this endevor might finally be the financial and social catalyst required for northern Tanzania to develop.

Last week a Chinese manager was killed by an angry group of Zambian protesters. The protesters gathered peacefully (at least initially!) in an attempt to fight back against the meager paychecks received from their Chinese employers. This is one of the few (but not as isolated as one might think) dramatic events in Sino-African relations.

So why did this happen and in what context?

Africa has a long history of convoluted affairs, with the United States, Britain, France and Russia constantly interfering in local affairs. The entire Cold War was an ideological battle between the two blocks with both the US and Russia competing for African leaders’ allegiance to them. As such, if China is backing one candidate over another, it does so by following, once again, the pattern that emerged back in the ‘60s and one which unfortunately continues to date.

A 13 year old lesbian girl was raped in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, last week. Corrective rapes have become somewhat of a common practice is Africa’s most progressive country. In South Africa, the rights of homosexuals are guaranteed by the 1994 constitution, but many fear that the police and the judicial system are not doing enough to [...]

A hydro power plant financed and built by the China National Machinery & Equipment Import & Export Corporation (CMEC) was inaugurated in the Republic of Congo over the weekend. The Chinese state offered soft loans at a nominal interest rate to defray approximately 85 percent of the costs for the power plant. The hydro power [...]

Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, the youngest son of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed by a NATO air strike, along with three of the grandsons of the infamous Libyan dictator. The news broke out of Tripoli where government representatives told Western journalists of the latest development in Libya. The information has not yet been confirmed by [...]

The challenge for a country like Tanzania boils down to a simple decision that involves assessing the opportunities versus the costs that might come back to haunt the administration in the long term. When poverty is as rampant and devastating as it is in Tanzania, when there is constant and urgent need for new jobs, and when the government is under pressure to encourage the economic activities of the private sector, there seems no other way but to accept that the environment will take the hit.

Giraffe poaching is becoming a very lucrative business in Tanzania and a factor that might drive the local population of giraffes extinct.

Whereas it is true that only time will tell if this change in power was for the better, one might look at history and hope that President Ouattara will choose to defy it, that he will be the politician to do the right things. For everyone’s sake.

As Colonel Gaddafi is fighting for political survival, with the help of the constantly shrinking loyalist groups and the paid mercenaries brought from abroad, most of the world leaders are looking somewhat confused at the impromptu civil war that is affecting their oil prices. Journalists all over the world, along with social activists, diplomats and [...]