Your video, Ghana's dancing pallbearers: life after becoming THE meme..., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Money that China is pumping into African countries is making it down to tangible things that average people can see and benefit from. People are finding it easier to secure loans in South Africa, Ghana, and Nigeria financed by Chinese banks then via british or american banks.

I do give a nod to Bill Gates and his initiatives, but even his project fail when it comes to the one thing the average person needs most, capital investment.

Have you ever heard of Anton Wilhelm Amo? No? Me neither, until last week.

I only bring this up, because he seems to have been a hell of a human being. Let me just mention some bullet points:
- enslaved as a child by the Dutch West India Company
- handed over to the Duke of Brunswick as a present
- freed, baptised and educated by the Duke
- first black man ever at a European university (Halle, later Wittenberg)
- acquired Magister degrees in philosphy and natural sciences
- fluent in six languages
- went back to Ghana after his patron died and the overall climate in Germany become considerably more reactionary than before
- died in a Dutch slave camp in Ghana

Amo was mentioned in a French documentary about the history of capitalism. Apparently, he was (one of) the first to publicly recognise the dangers of separating the economic logic from the reality of a society and human behaviour.

The fact that I had never heard his name even once prior to this documentary frustrates me to no end. The major consensus narrative all but erased him from history...

I don't know if I can support a Portugal win by 5. That would be bad for the US... depending on how the US does of course. A win or draw by the US and the US advances. I'm not sure how it works out for Germany if the US manages a win (we both advance in the event of a draw). A likely US loss means that the US wants a draw between Portugal and Ghana, but if somebody needs to win we'll want it to be Portugal, but certainly not by 5. We want our loss to Germany to be small and the Portugal win over Ghana to be small... Sucks to be at work that day at that time...So much is on the line and both games happen at the same time.

I had to do a paper on them. Gold is a huge export as well as diamonds (although I don't see gold mentioned that much anymore; maybe it died out as the report is ten years old). It's chief exports are cocoa, iron, petroleum, copper, and cobalt (plus fish as they are coastal).

The French have a direct involvement with their past and I believe they still have ties presently. We do have reasons to be there "resource wise" as others were asking; like I said the French are there already. The "strange" name of Ivory Coast compared to other African countries is a dead giveaway that it was a colony (like South Africa--an extremely simplistic choice for a country's name).

I know someone from Ghana (next to Ivory Coast) and the situation there is bad (I believe he left in the early 90's; it was during a lot of bloodshed--I know another from Bulgaria, actually he was in the army for them; he left literally because his life and his mother's life were in grave danger--they got into the U.S. via political asylum). Ghana I think is the main exporter of gold and is next door. It wouldn't surprise me if the U.N. or a country does something soon if the situation spreads. To me it seems highly likely that this could spread to Ghana and a bit in every direction around those two.

Do yourself a favor and make it through the second video (the one about bulletproof fashion) and watch the report on recycled computers in ghana, it's pretty crazy what they're doing with cybercrime.

*sarcasm-switch-on* Well that was informative, I've learned that weapons get traded, that Chinese aren't open towards free press, that some people want to shoot other people so the latter people wear nice-looking armor, that African people scam people on the Internet, and that there are two crazy individuals in Black Metal.

*sarcasm-switch-off* Well that was superficial, I've not learned why the USA is dominated by the military industrial complex, why weapons are sold to anyone who can pay for them, why the very high gun-ownership around the world is a danger to even Steven Seagal, whom we all love, why it is allowed for a tailor to shoot someone, even in armor, why Ghana is so poor its children poison themselves on the "first world's" garbage, why the "first world" just dumps it there and finally why a report about Black Metal focusses on two extreme and/or crazy individuals only.

Man, that is hilarious. And the tune is perfect.

During the US/Ghana game, America's speedy stiker was racing up the left wing, and literally tripped over his own feet. No contact from the Ghana guy whatsoever. And he turned his fall into a beautiful swan dive, with double roll, drawing not just a free kick but a yellow card. Unfortunately the Ghanan player was already on a yellow, so he missed the next game. I was aghast.

Here's my solution:

Adopt the tennis approach. Each team in the World Cup gets two appeals per game. If the opposition takes a dive, and a free kick or worse is awarded, you get to call for the video umpire to review the incident. If it can be shown that there was no contact, the player who took the dive gets a yellow or red, and the appeal doesn't count as one of your two appeals. If it is unclear, it gets returned to the on-ground umpire.

Thus, there is finally a realistic disincentive to dive, knowing you could get sent off yourself by the video ref.

Hah, awesome. My favorites (in order of appearance): Lesotho, Afghanistan, Norway, Panama, and Belarus. WTF awards to Denmark and Ghana.

Here are the groups:

Group A
South Africa
Mexico
Uruguay
France

Group B
Argentina
Nigeria
South Korea
Greece

Group C
England
USA
Algeria
Slovenia

Group D
Germany
Australia
Serbia
Ghana

Group E
Holland
Denmark
Japan
Cameroon

Group F
Italy
Paraguay
New Zealand
Slovakia

Group G
Brazil
North Korea
Ivory Coast
Portugal

Group H
Spain
Switzerland
Honduras
Chile

Evened that up for you legacy0100... such lucid observations don't deserve to be in the negative.

Singapore and Korea have greatly benefited from Western imperialism (English and American). They inherited our knowledge to build sustainable economies around our economic theory and sound legislative backgrounds. As for Saudi-Arabia, US geologists first discovered the oil under their feet in the 1930s but Americans waited at least 20 years to really start pumping it out.

It is not to say that Westeners are totally responsible for these success stories, but we sure as hell had a hand in getting them started. As for Africa, what most upsets me is that many people fell guilty at their failure. Africa has been offered a multitude of opportunities for growth and stability but have wasted them all away.

Ultimately, their fate lies in their hands. We should stop all aid to Africa.


>> ^legacy0100:
Africa needs to start from basic agricultural and clothing/household item manufacturing environment.
Why don't they have these industries? Singapore started out from Malaria ridden jungle to one of the richest, highest GNP economy in the world, without Africa's natural resources.
South Korea was a war torn, bombed down wasteland and within 50 years it is now top 10 economic powerhouse of the world.
Saudi Arabia was a bumblefuck nowheresville desert with fiefdoms and petty tribes dotted randomly in the sand, until they found out their natural resource pitched a high price to the westerners. And now their kingdom is the richest and most politically influential nation in the world.
Did anybody ORDER them to learn new technology from the westerners? Did anybody TEACH them to strive for better quality in life?
No, they fucking decided that for themselves!!!
So what the fuck is up with Africa, seriously? Is it seriously lack of information and education? Seriously? They just don't know where to start? But then how the hell would they know you can get precious metals from burning them?
ANd like Pprt said, why wouldn't they simply just ply out the parts? They're too impatient to do that? Smashing it is more 'efficient?'
Africa pisses me off beyond belief. Why the hell would they do this to themselves? Why would they be contempt? Why can't they rise up, demand something better, start waging war for the purpose of 'CONQUERING' more resources and not petty politics like 'your daughter is a witch' or something?

hey kulmpims, thanks a bunch! if you're interested the story done by 60 minutes is really interesting as well.

cheers!

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

Well, I lived in Maine, which is right next to Canada and on the east coast. So I'm an expert in Relations with Canada, England Ireland, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Iceland, Greenland, Finland, Italy, Greece, Bosnia, Croatia, Haiti, Cuba, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and OH, what do you know? Russia is on the Atlantic too, so count that one in there. Then add Morocco, Mauritania, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra-Leone, Liberia, Cameroon, Togo, Benin, Ghana, Guyana, Suriname, Guyane, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize.

And that's just the Northern Atlantic.

Well, and Of course I was in Japan, Korea, Iraq and Kuwait, so add those and all surrounding countries.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to use my new-found skills to disssolve the DMZ and instill peace in the Koreas, Stop the mini wars in Africa, get the Columbian government to stop all drug trafficking into the U.S., convince Israel to calm down, get the Kurds, Sunnis and shiites to stop fighting and work together, Convince Iraq, Saudia Arabia and Kuwait to give half their oil to the U.S. for free, and Iran to stop all the "naughty business" with nuclear research.

You would think after all that, and with all my foreign relations skills I could convince MINK to stop being a douche. Well, I'm not God, you know.

It'll be a busy day.

Hi alien_concept, thanks for your comment! To some degree I also don't know where I'm going with my comments, but (in)certainty is what drives us:)

I'm not just playing devil's advocate - I also wrote down I personally would consider this clip too controversial (& not air it) as I also think this is touching the nerves of people, especially victims. This is to some degree an angry/emotional response too.

I'd rather not be steering towards an entrenched debate, but instead have a discussion that reflects both rational and emotional responses to this clip.

BTW
Have you seen this case in Ghana that I posted?
http://www.videosift.com/video/Trokosi-women-talking-about-their-sex-slave-experiences

Well this eclipses all the other Nierian Ghana STD puns I've heard... really, this is just that much better.