The Great Debate UK
from Africa News blog:
100 years and going strong; But has the ANC-led government done enough for its people?
By Isaac Esipisu
Although the role of political parties in Africa has changed dramatically since the sweeping reintroduction of multi-party politics in the early 1990s, Africa’s political parties remain deficient in many ways, particularly their organizational capacity, programmatic profiles and inner-party democracy.
The third wave of democratization that hit the shores of Africa 20 years ago has undoubtedly produced mixed results as regards to the democratic quality of the over 48 countries south of the Sahara. However, one finding can hardly be denied: the role of political parties has evidently changed dramatically.
Notwithstanding few exceptions such as Eritrea , Swaziland and Somalia , in almost all sub-Saharan countries, governments legally allow multi-party politics. This is in stark contrast to the single-party regimes and military oligarchies that prevailed before 1990.
After years of marginalization during autocratic rule, many African political parties have regained their key role in democratic politics by mediating between politics and society. Multi-partyism paved the way for genuine parliamentary opposition and the strengthening of parliaments in decision-making. However, several shortcomings still remain: many African political parties suffer from low organizational capacity and a lack of internal democracy.
Dominated by individual leaders, often times lifelong chairpersons and “Big Men”, youth and women remain marginalized within party structures.
from Africa News blog:
Was South Africa right to deny Dalai Lama a visa?
By Isaac Esipisu
Given that China is South Africa’s biggest trading partner and given the close relationship between Beijing and the ruling African National Congress, it didn’t come as a huge surprise that South Africa was in no hurry to issue a visa to the Dalai Lama.
Tibet’s spiritual leader will end up missing the 80th birthday party of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a fellow Nobel peace prize winner. He said his application for a visa had not come through on time despite having been made to Pretoria several weeks earlier. (Although South Africa’s government said a visa hadn’t actually been denied, the Dalai Lama’s office said it appeared to find the prospect inconvenient). Desmond Tutu said the government’s action was a national disgrace and warned the President and ruling party that one day he will start praying for the defeat of the ANC government.
It’s the second time the Dalai Lama has been unable to honour an invitation to South Africa by Tutu after failing to make it to a meeting in 2010.
South Africa will certainly win more plaudits in Beijing, which last week agreed to $2.5 billion in investment projects with during a visit by South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.
But pro-Tibet activists say South Africa is undermining its credentials as a country of freedom and democracy, established after the end of white minority rule a generation ago.
So what if the world community had ignored apartheid for all those years? Now what country has the guts to stand up for some principles or is that no longer important to them?
from Davos Notebook:
Will Goldman’s new BRICwork stand up?
Jim O'Neill, the Goldman Sachs economist who coined the term BRICs back in 2001, is adding four new countries to the elite club of emerging market economies. But does his new edifice have the same solid foundations?
In future, the BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, China and India will be merged with those of Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey and South Korea under the banner “growth markets,” O'Neill told the Financial Times.
Hmmm. Doesn't quite grab you like BRICs, does it? The Guardian helpfully offers an amended branding banner of "Bric 'n Mitsk" (geddit?). But which ever way you cut it, it's hard to see a flood of investment conferences and funds floating off under the new moniker.
Ten years ago, Goldman had this field to itself. Now more and more acronyms are being bandied around by banks seeking to pique investors' appetite for higher returns.
Goldman has already launched the N-11, or Next Eleven countries, and other contenders include the VISTA economies (Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey and Argentina), the CIVETS (Colombia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Turkey and South Africa) and the EAGLES (Emerging and Growth-Leading Economies).
So far, none of them have really caught on. One thing you can bank on: the term BRIC will still score highly in any tally of the millions of words that will issue forth from Davos next week.
from Reuters Soccer Blog:
Losing team’s national stock markets at risk
Two national market indexes that may not shine on Monday are those of Spain and the Netherlands, whose soccer teams are scheduled to meet in the World Cup's championship game on Sunday.
Whichever country's team loses can expect a drag on its market index of 49 basis points, said Wharton business school professor Alex Edmans. That is the amount that national stock indexes tend to be held back on average on the day after their country is eliminated from the World Cup, according to a paper he published in 2007 with two co-authors, Diego Garcia of the University of North Carolina and Oyvind Norli of the Norwegian School of Management.
In an interview with Reuters, Edmans said his predictions seem to be playing out this year as well, based at least on anecdotal observations. For instance, as an English citizen, Edmans noted ruefully that the FTSE 100 index fell in late June as England's team played below expectations before being tossed out of the tournament by Germany on June 27 by a score of 4-1.
"As an England fan and an English shareholder I've been suffering both ways!" Edmans said.
Edmans' paper made a splash when an early version was circulated before the 2006 World Cup tournament. It is part of a growing body of academic literature in the field of ‘behavioral economics”. Begun partly in reaction to the extremely theoretical research that had dominated much academic discussion, its practitioners aim for a greater understanding of how human psychology affects their economic decisions.
In the soccer case, for instance, one of Edmans’ conclusions is that sour investor sentiment tied to a team's misfortune spills over into general negativity about their economic outlook.
All the World Cup 2010 Games in South Africa will be streamed live at http://www.WorldCupTV.org 23:26
The business of sport – predictions for 2010
VIRAL OUTBREAKS, DRIVING PROBLEMS AND 1980s FASHION SET TO DOMINATE SPORT IN 2010
Sport in 2009 proved to be as enthralling off-the-field of play as it was exhilarating on it, with high profile cases of cheating, corruption and player transgression affecting a number of sports, accompanied by some crowd-pleasing, record-breaking performances.
At the same time, the business, organisation and politics of sport continued to excite and baffle many of us in equal measure, with talk of sports brands, “fit and proper people” and legacy constantly simmering in the background of the collective sporting psyche.
With the fragrance of CR9 still in our nostrils, and the taste of fake blood still in our mouths, what has gone before in 2009 therefore provides us with some isotonic sustenance for looking forward to ‘five things we might see in 2010’.
Marketing Mania at FIFA World Cup 2010
Independent buys a month’s reprieve
– Neil Collins is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –
Tony O’Reilly has managed to retire from the company he built before the edifice crumbles, but it has been a close run thing.
Two weeks after he stepped down after 36 years, Dublin-based Independent News and Media has scrambled a standstill agreement with the holders of a 200 million euro bond which was due for repayment on Monday.
The bankers are putting up 15 million euros, and the bondholders have agreed to hold off until June 26, in the hope that enough bits of the empire can be sold to save it.
Here’s Verivox, described on its website as “one of Europe’s largest independent consumer portals for energy and telecoms products”. Then there is Cashcade, “a leading force in the rapidly expanding interactive gaming market”, and Independent’s outdoor advertising business in South Africa. There may not be a queue of eager buyers for these little treasures, at least not at prices which make a serious impact on its 1.4 billion euro debt pile.
There is also the heavily listing flagship of The Independent, the loss-making UK newspaper which is available to any buyer who can find a pound coin. He would also have to take on the contingent liabilities in the form of future losses and redundancy agreements, which change the arithmetic somewhat.
Since the London Evening Standard bagged the last oligarch, the potential purchasers of trophy newspaper assets are as rare as buyers of the Independent on Sunday.
