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Clay continues to pick at the subscription numbers behind Second Life. Would be interesting to hear a Wagner James Au response, or an official statement on numbers from the Lindens
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Lyrics for Kamini’s “Marly Gomont” in French
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Pretty good English translation of Kamini’s “Marly Gomont”
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A love letter from Black River Eagle to his readers, the read write web in general, and the global voices team specifically…
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One of the best pieces of travel journalism this year – an overview of Russian airports in the spirit of Calvino’s “Invisible Cities”: “It is weirdly cold inside. Feral cats have been sighted. The floor has not been cleaned since perestroika; the toilets
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Excellent list of stories that you probably didn’t read enough about in 2006. The sort of long “trend” stories that are hard to get covered in MSM, but which are very much worth knowing about. Especially interesting notes on China and African debt
Don’t know if you saw it, but Wagner James Au did do a first cut at a response to Clay’s first post.
Thanks Ethan, I meant every word of it. GVO deserves a deep bow of appreciation from many of us out here.
Foreign Policy rated the “China in Africa” story as Nr. 2 on their list of 10 Top Stories You Missed in 2006. I wonder who they mean by You? It sure wasn’t us because bloggers have been all over this story for months.
Here is another Red Flag that has not received enough attention in the blogosphere dialogues. Excerpt from the FP short article “China Runs Up African Debt”:
The World Bank estimates that Chinese loans for African infrastructure already total more than $12.5 billion. In November, Chinese President Hu Jintao promised to provide another $5 billion in loans to Africa by 2009. Many of these deals are believed to be similar to commercial loans rather than the low-interest, long-term credits extended by multilateral development banks. It’s hard to know the full extent of the risk because China usually refuses to divulge the terms of the deals. Development experts now fear that aggressive lending by Chinese banks will land Africa back where it started—in the red.
I wonder how the Chinese government (excuse me, banks) are going to collect when some African governments cannot or will not pay back the loans? My guess is that those minor details have been worked out way ahead of the “please sign on the dotted line” ceremonies held in Beijing last November.
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