Up Station Mountain Club

Bolloré in Cameroon: another fox in charge of the hen-house?

I’ve just seen a totally good rant by Ekoko Mandengue here. I’ve just got to quote you the first paragraph, then I’ll get down to what I wanted to write.

Today, unskilled Chinese laborers are building our sports stadiums, shadowy Corsican Mafia interests run our national lottery -PMUC, SNEC has been sold to Moroccans and the Bolloré cartel brazenly fights- off Portuguese business interests as it seeks total control of all critical transportation infrastructure inside Cameroon(Bolloré already has controlling stakes in CAMRAIL and major logistics companies operating in Cameroon). Our children will not look kindly on us: the Indians will soon be growing our cassava in Nanga-Eboko, and Chinese immigrants are already frying our puff-puff. At this rate , the kuli-kuli and adakwa sold on our street corners will soon be flavored with Shanghai spit …

Bolivia: the lithium battle

Originally published on Enanga's POV

I hear Cameroon has a new prime minister. I also hear hat there is a law to legalise homosexuality and abortion in Cameroon. The first bit of news is largely insignificant in that nothing will change. The second bit is more important and I want to register my support for that initiative, whatever the motives a number of commentators have ascribed to those who tabled the bill (one hears of the homosexual lobby in the corridors of Cameroonian power). Na dem mbanga, na dem oya. In English, none of my business.

What I really want to talk about is lithium. Lithium as in the element on the periodic table. Lithium as in the drug that is given to manic depressives.

Review - From Colonization to Globalization: Difference or Repetition?

Paper by Martial Frindethie

Note: the full text of the paper is available at the link provided at the end of this posting, which is only a review of the paper.

This paper is quite possibly one of the most startling I have read in a while. That so much information is available, and that people may not be privy to it, is one of the tragedies of humanity. We have the wherewithal to save ourselves and yet we do not.

Frindethie’s paper is largely about his reading of the recent history of Côte d’Ivoire. The tone is one of someone in a towering rage at the French government and French interest groups. For this reason, it will be of particular interest to Francophone Africa. And although Frindethie comes across as a very, very angry man, his tone shifting from sardonic to downright bitter, this is a well-researched philippic.

Taxing Bananas

By Rosemary Ekosso (Originally posted on www.ekosso.com

In the first few years of my life, I was surrounded by bananas. Their smell permeated everything. I grew to hate them. I eat them these days, and each time I eat one, I am reminded of the plantation workers who grew the bananas. The first playing balls we had were made from the tubular blue plastic covers that were used to protect the bunches of bananas as they grew larger.

Recently, I came across an article on the Tax Justice Network site detailing how those poor plantation workers are cheated of a decent living by multinationals. It’s all in the taxation, you see.

The Tax Justice Network refers to an article in The Guardian  which details how this is done. How? By tax weighting. How does this work?