CFAS

The Zambian economist, Dambisa Moyo, graduate of Oxford and Harvard universities, has inspired a fervent debate with her book “Dead Aid” which protests to the policies of the western countries of providing aid to the African continent.

She argues that for the past 50 years, the mechanisms of granting aid have been destroying Africa.

Her book proposes other policies based on microfinance, an increase in direct foreign investments (DFI), partnerships with emerging countries, the development of the civil society and accountability

In its resolution 1887, the United Nations Security Council of September 24, 2009, chaired by Barak Obama on September 24, 2009, called for the creation of a world without nuclear weapons.

Let us not forget that in as early as 1989, at the dawn of the democratic transition process, South Africa, which formally joined the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1991, dismantled the six atomic bombs developed by the apartheid regime.

For the second time in one year, negotiations were interrupted on September 30th between the South African MTN Company and the Indian Company Bharti which were to come together to form a powerful group of 23 billion dollars in the domain of fixed and mobile telephones.

One of the difficulties encountered is the existence of opposing stock market regulations.

South Africa authorizes the listing of companies on the stock exchanges of several countries.

Thus, Anglo American and Old Mutual are listed on the Johannesburg and London stock exchanges.

In this instance, a double listing was proposed in Johannesburg and Bombay, which is not authorized under Indian regulations.

Whatever the outcome, this episode testifies to the efforts being made to promote industrial relations between southern nations. Other initiatives will certainly be taken.

The South African Mark Shuttleworth, who was the second "space tourist", has launched an ubuntu software program based on the African concept developed after the fall of the apartheid regime to define the humanist philosophy of the new South Africa and which means: " I am what I am because of what we all are ".

In France, the Ubuntu computer has been available since August 2007.

The French administration appears to be very interested in this new software.

The tribute to Miriam Makeba on September 25 and 26 at Paris Cirque d'Hiver highlighted the song by Solomon Linda "Mbube", recorded in Johannesburg in 1939 with his group The Evening Birds.

For years, the universal success of Mbube (or Winoweh), the lion sleeps tonight overshadowed its author, Solomon Linda, a Zulu shepherd who came to work in the mines of the Johannesburg region, whose rights were disregarded and who finally died, poverty-stricken, in 1962.

Miriam Makeba is precisely associated with one of the most beautiful musical rhythms of the African continent, traditionally sung acappella, and the rehabilitation of the work of Solomon Linda.

- The Magic Flute of Mozart by the South African actors and singers of the Isango Portobello Company (8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 October 2009)

Mozart played in a township with an orchestration including marimbas, percussion and African choirs. Exceptional.