This is opulence!

Today the King of Saudia landed in London in style

• His entourage came in 3 planes
• It took 3 hours to unload the luggage
• It took a convey of 89 limos to transport everything from the airport
• He came with 23 personal advisers
• He also came with 400 aides

He definitely is making a statement...

Politcs and familial ties

Yesterday it was announced that the new president (Cristina Fernández de Kirchner) is actually the immediate former First lady. In other words, the husband (Néstor Kirchner) has "democractically" handed over the seat to the wife.

Of course, when one things of political families, the immediate nation that comes to mind is the US with its list of families including the Bush family, the Kennedys, the Rockefeller family, and the Roosevelts, as well as the less well known Lee family. Of course there are many more less known families.

One of the most hard-to-believe familial power blocks in recent times has been in Poland where, for a period of about 15 months, twin brothers have held the highest offices in the land (President and Prime Minister). The latest elections show that the Prime Minister will have to step down having lost in the elections.

In South Africa, two couples hold office in Cabinet. Minister for Home Affairs married to Minister for Saftey and Security. Minister for Public Service Administration married to Deputy Minister of Finance. Of course, at one point, two ex-spouses held office. The former Deputy President had been husband to the current Foreign Minister.

Other countries have their own list. Barbados has the Adams family , in Burundi the Bagaza-Buyoya family, in the Democratic Republic of Congo has the Kabilas, in Gabon the Sassou-Ngueso and Bongo families, in Kenya the top four families being Kenyatta, Moi, Odinga and Nyagah... The list is endless.

Fifa and Trinidadian Politics

A certain Mr. Austin Jack Warner ,a very influential individual in the football arena, is standing for public office in Trinidad and Tobago.

Twenty years ago, he was a poorly paid teacher but is now a successful businessman, made rich by football.

However, his success is tainted. In football, he has been accused of unethical behaviour. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/5076282.stm Yesterday, a publication in South Africa exposed more dirt see http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/News/Article.aspx?id=598437

One wonders what the future holds for him...

News alert

Currie Cup finals - 27th October

In SA national rugby terms, Saturday evening was the absolute pinnacle. Sport fanatical town of Bloemfontein hosted the Currie Cup with their team, the Free State Cheetahs faced the Golden Lions (from Johannesburg).

No one could have anticipated the excitement generated by those 80minutes.
*6 minutes - Cheetahs 3 - Lions 0
*50 minutes - Cheetahs 6 - Lions 3
*60 minutes - Cheetahs 6 - Lions 15
*65 minutes - Cheetahs 6 - Lions 18
*68 minutes - Cheetahs 13 - Lions 18
*75 minutes - Cheetahs 18 - Lions 18
*77 minutes - Cheetahs 20 - Lions 18

With this win the Cheetahs become the 3rd time champion of the Currie Cup, this time not having to share it like last year.

To catch a glimpse

World rugby champions - South African Springboks

A humorous way of "supporting" the springbok!

Death of Lucky Dube

Thursday's are usually reggae/dancehall nights for the youth of Joburg with the formidable team of Oscar "Appleseed" (of the Bongo Maffin fame) and Andy "The Admiral" Kasrils (the son of SA's intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils) at the Horror Cafe.

This Thursday afternoon, while the two where spinning away old and new tunes, a few kilometres away from the venue, police had cordoned off a botched hijacking where one of the greatest reggae artists of all time had just been shot.

Lucky Dube, it is reported, had taken his young son and daughter to their uncle's house when he was accosted by a gang of men. In the fracas that ensued, he was shot and died from his wounds.
The country is in a state of shock and there's no doubt that in the coming days more will be revealed as investigations are underway. http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=lucky+dube&btnG=Search+News

Rugby world cup - England vs France

I woke up this morning to the news that Les Bleus lost the game. Again, it was Jonny Wilkinson that made everything happen. Before this game commentators mentioned how weird it would be to have the two teams that opened the world cup meeting in the final (Argentina vs France) but now the talk is about a possible South Africa vs England. However, that is not guaranteed yet. Let's wait and see whether the Pumas will devour the Boks.

Opinion polls

There is some amount of discussion political arena, in the last week or two, over opinion polls. In the US, President Bush's polls are the lowest of his presidency. In the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown apparently called off the worst kept election secret because of a sudden plummeting of his polls. On the contrary, in Australia, Prime Minister John Howard is believed to be on the verge of calling a snap election precisely because his poll ratings are lower that those of the opposition there.

In Kenya, it seems that this relatively "new" way of monitoring political pulse is subject of vigorous discussion. I believe that in an emerging economy setting, opinion polls are just that, polls on opinions. Nothing is absolute. The fact that, for practical reasons, polls only get opinions from a section of society means that they will almost always be controversial. It's about guestimating perspectives or views on an issue and therefore those with differing opinions will always oppose results. As one Oscar Obonyo has eloquently demonstrates, those who view polls favorably are those whose ratings are highest and the song may change when their ratings plummet

NTV - Bull's eye - political satire

Richest person in China

I heard this morning on 702 that the richest person in China is a certain 26 year property developer! I consider that an amazing achievement.

I decided to do a little research and this is part of what Forbes reports

"BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - A 26-year-old female property developer tops this year's Forbes list of the richest people in China, grabbing the number one spot with a net worth of 16 bln usd, the US magazine said.

That amount also makes Yang Huiyan the richest woman in Asia, according to a statement from Forbes.

All the 40 people on Forbes Asia's 2007 China Rich List are billionaires, compared with only 15 last year, it said, attributing the rise to a boom in the nation's stock and property markets.

Their combined net worth is 120 bln usd, up more than three times from last year's 38 bln usd, it said.

Yang is one of more than a dozen property developers to make this year's list of the 40 richest, reflecting roaring demand for homes and real estate investments, according to Forbes...."

Of course some of my work colleagues were not too impressed... "The money must have come from her parents"

Well, her dad is in the property business as well so maybe there's some truth in that.

Am currently reading "Poor no more" by Tracey Davenport so am sure I could learn one or two things about how others make it. Not that I desire to be on any of Forbes' lists...;)

Rugby world cup 2007 - quarter final matches

I watched the England Aussie game. I don't think England won, I think it's Australia that lost.

As for the French, their script for this world cup couldn't have been more perfect. Start by losing the first game so that every other win is truly appreciated.

Worst team to be part of now? The All Blacks. I saw a documentary the other day of an All Black who was part of a losing team in a big match in the 60s. He was too embarrassed and never went back to his country.

I watched the Blacks play the French and between the 10th and 20th minute, it looked like they were going to cruise through that game like all the previous ones. The French were there to ensure the Blacks scrum, mauls, line-outs etc were tested to the maximum. As one commentator said near the end of the 1st half "Finally, a team the begins to test the All Blacks" Of course there'll be the usual controversy...were they denied a try just before their first try? That aside, that first All Black try was pure brilliance! It's sad to see them leave....

As for the Boks, they actually lost the plot 20 minutes from the end of that Fiji match. How does a team that is one man less actually score 2 tries in the space of two minutes?

Predictions? Of the big test playing nations, the Pumas have never beaten the Boks or the Kiwis. However, the Boks have a cleaner record (since the Kiwis have drawn with the Pumas once). I suspect the Pumas will walk into that semi-final wanting to turn the records for more
reasons than just wanting to be at the finals.

If the Boks play closed, set-piece based formations they could win. However, Pumas will want to open up things (am sure they have been studying those critical minutes in the 2nd half when Fiji almost won the game) and if that happens, they are guaranteed to win. Am sure the Boks will want to replicate the clinical performance they had against England....what a game!

PS I bet you Jake White had waited 4 years to either meet the Aussies or the Kiwis and probably hired Eddie Jones for that purpose. Meeting any other team is almost an anti-climax.

ANC succession

This information has been gleaned from William Gumede's book titled "T. Mbeki and the soul of the ANC", Anthony Simpson's biography on Mr. Mandela. Other sources one could use include http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/lists/politics-labour-al.htm and http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/lists/politics-labour-mz.htm as well as http://www.anc.org.za/

In this diagram, the green flags are male candidates and blue female candidates.

Elections - lessons from Belgium and South Korea

This is a very brief outline of some things I have learnt in the last couple of days about political activities elsewhere. Of course like in most things in life, political similarity trends only exist to a
certain extent (nature is hardly ever comfortable with exact copies)

South Korea
* The current President is a man that has been self made (including being a human rights lawyer who initially sat for bar exams as a private candidate), who fought against corruption during a time when the country was undergoing immense political turmoil
* He ran for presidency and lost one election but was able to mobilize grassroot institutions into supporting him for the 2002 elections.
* Just before the elections, a political ally defected, a plan that backfired and he was elected president on a "narrow margin".
* Because he was new to governing the country, it meant that he could come in on a clean slate (no baggage).
* However it also meant that he was vulnerable to sabotage from, among others, some existing civil servants that served the previous government.
* Grassroot institutions that supported him were elated he won and had high expectations. These were unmanageable considering that government bureaucracy couldn't move as fast as people expected.
* 2 years into his term, his opponents tried to and failed to impeach him.
* Because of the constitution, he is only going to serve one term that ends December this year (2007),
* It's been a tough term for him including trying to deal with regionalism (equivalent to Kenya's ethnic tensions) which has meant that his country has been very polarized country


Belgium
*In terms of "ethnic tensions" this country probably is the worst in Western Europe. The Dutch (aka Flemish) and French societal extractions have made it very difficult for the country to make cohesive strides.
*Infact sometimes Brussels is fought over to a similar extent Jerusalem is (Jews vs Muslims).
*Then there are the (statistically insignificant 70,000) Germans who have ensured that German is a 3rd official language, in a country that has 10million people! Writing every government law and regulation in Dutch and French is bad enough, having to do it in German so that either one of the small number of Germans can read it in their home language is distressing to even think about!
* Of course they also have a ghostly past with King Leopold who committed some of the worst atrocities in human history and got away with it.
*Many countries have coalition situations but the Belgian situation is truly mind-boggling. There were elections in June this year. The rules on how to win the elections combined with the coalition makeup meant that the narrow margin win made it impossible to have a government.
*What happened? The winning coalitions started negotiating on the makeup of the future government, meanwhile the previous government "remained in power" under extra-ordinary provisions.
* This is the October and there is still no new government!

The language factor in Rome

It's pretty apparent I cannot speak a word in Italian... Tried to learn a few words this morning and it was quite embarrassing...

It's interesting how, when one is not familiar with something, one tends to associate it with "other" less familiar things even if not related. For example, can't speak a word in Italian...I start thinking maybe my 10 word vocabulary in French might help!

Is it that outrageous? Well, I decided to do a little research and one of the most dependable sources on languages around the world tells me that Italian has 89% lexical similarity with French! see http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=ita

But then again, speaking with people (e.g. asking for directions or trying to find out the price of something) doesn't depend on lexical similarity!

This thing of "feeling" mono-lingual is not good...

Walking around Rome

This city is totally amazing. While I know that Mombasa and surrounding areas have all sorts of heritage sites, Rome is simply a city in it's own class.

• I went to the Pantheon and that structure is simply mind-blowing. With all the Kings of Rome buried there, it needed more than the hour of just walking around. Am told places like Mexico and others have tried to emulate the architecture built around 30BC
  
• The Colosseum! My goodness! That is yet another wonder! No words
• Walking around the Borghese gardens was very reinvigorating.
• On the northern side of Via del Corso are the twin churches of Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria in Montesanto, both of which looked very empty and un-used but splendid on the outside.
  
• I went to see Circus Maximus and after the little bit that I had heard, I felt a little let down since there's very little left. To think that the place is now used for "recreation" including watching football on a big screen! But I guess that is life.
• It's amazing how many people just sit around the Trevi fountains watching other people seating there watching others! (I took photos but they are nothing compared to what others took and hope to borrow a few photos)
• The Spanish steps look like the only place that could rival the Trevi fountains with the number of people sitting around looking at other people. If not by numbers, at least here people can also watch other people use the immaculate horse carriages waiting to be hired.

Am tired of walking, am sure there's a lot more to see...that's for another day.