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The African News and Politics Thread

andruid

Well-known member
A land with 54 nations, over 1 billion people, thousands of languages and cultures, but oh so under reported and misunderstood. This thread is dedicated to the sharong of news and politics from all over the continent, for discussion, debate and hopefully a little enlightenment
 

Athlai

Not Terrible
Yeah I'm surprised that the cyclone hasn't been hitting our news more than it is. Absolutely horrific.
 

smalishah84

The Tiger King
A land with 54 nations, over 1 billion people, thousands of languages and cultures, but oh so under reported and misunderstood. This thread is dedicated to the sharong of news and politics from all over the continent, for discussion, debate and hopefully a little enlightenment
About time
 

harsh.ag

Well-known member
From Reddit (user scrappymoe):
______________________________________________________________________
Botswana.

Land is free, university is free.

We don't have great universities in the country. Up until a few years ago when you finished school you'd go and sign up for university at the Ministry of Education. They'd get back to you a few months later telling you where you'd go and what you'd study. Like, "Congratulations, you'll be an Electrical Engineer and you'll spend four years studying in Adelaide, Australia." Thousands of village kids have interesting careers all over the world because of this. To few were coming back so they've started phasing it out and educating in-house.


When you turn 21 you are entitled to apply for 4 different kinds of plots - residantial, commercial, subsistence agriculture, ranch. Waiting lists are long, but you will eventually be allocated one on which to do what you want.


It's quite quick to get a ranch plot - just drive out in the kalahari and peg it, like the US homesteaders. You can peg a circle up to 8km in diameter.


Oh, also up until the early 2000's you were entitled to 100 goats when you turned 21.


EDIT: Remembered another one. Botswana is the size of Texas and has 2 million people. That's the population of Houston.

_______________________________________________________________________

Low corruption goes a long way. Botswana has corruption index ranking comparable to rich countries.
 

StephenZA

Well-known member
theconversation_masire-the-president-who-left-botswana-and-the-world-an-enduring-legacy

However, Botswana is not quite as well off as it seems. It has greatly improved from a very low base and unlike most African countries it is very stable economically, politically and has low crime. However Botswana still has high poverty and inequality, the claiming of land for farming has had some abuse problems, forced displacement, and also affects the environment big time. And as mentioned previously they have a huge HIV/Aids crisis.
 

vcs

Well-known member
Up until a few years ago when you finished school you'd go and sign up for university at the Ministry of Education. They'd get back to you a few months later telling you where you'd go and what you'd study. Like, "Congratulations, you'll be an Electrical Engineer and you'll spend four years studying in Adelaide, Australia." Thousands of village kids have interesting careers all over the world because of this.
Damn.. :( Wish I'd grown up in Botswana instead of putting myself through the IIT-JEE bollocks here.
 

andmark

Well-known member
First up a few updates on the biggest stories out of Africa at the moment.

The ongoing Ethiopian Airlines crashprobe is pointing in the direction of a flaw in the Boeing 737's safety features

The Mozambique-Zimbabwe-Malawi cyclone might end up going down as the biggest disaster in the southern hemisphere

and in Algeria, the army generals seem to think the protesters demands are noble
I didn't realise the FLN were still going. Just assumed they disbanded or something after the French left Algeria.
 

andmark

Well-known member
They've been running the show all along
I looked up the history, and yeah, they didn't exactly bow out after the French left. There's probably some theory out there arguing that when a revolutionary party doesn't disband after the revolution, then it increases the risk of instability. If it's not an established theory, some BA student will steal this post.
 
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StephenZA

Well-known member
For those who are interested, SA has been doing load/power shedding for a number of years.... sadly it is only getting worse and not better.

Economy/analysis-load-shedding-worse-than-we-thought-and-here-to-stay


Eskom/sunday-read-load-shedding-through-the-years-and-how-eskom-has-struggled-to-keep-the-lights-on

I can say that this has cost my little physics department close to R2 Million (~$140 000) in the last 4 years in damaged equipment (or at least the insurance companies). Personally it has cost me an extra 12 months on my PhD.

I have heard that it possibly costing SA up to 10% of its GDP everyday you have the power interruptions (GDP for that day!, just to be clear). But that is purely speculative because if true it will bankrupt the country pretty damn quickly.
 
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andruid

Well-known member
For those who are interested, SA has been doing load/power shedding for a number of years.... sadly it is only getting worse and not better.

Economy/analysis-load-shedding-worse-than-we-thought-and-here-to-stay


Eskom/sunday-read-load-shedding-through-the-years-and-how-eskom-has-struggled-to-keep-the-lights-on

I can say that this has cost my little physics department close to R2 Million (~$140 000) in the last 4 years in damaged equipment (or at least the insurance companies). Personally it has cost me an extra 12 months on my PhD.

I have heard that it possibly costing SA up to 10% of its GDP everyday you have the power interruptions (GDP for that day!, just to be clear). But that is purely speculative because if true it will bankrupt the country pretty damn quickly.
That sucks.
 

smalishah84

The Tiger King
For those who are interested, SA has been doing load/power shedding for a number of years.... sadly it is only getting worse and not better.

Economy/analysis-load-shedding-worse-than-we-thought-and-here-to-stay


Eskom/sunday-read-load-shedding-through-the-years-and-how-eskom-has-struggled-to-keep-the-lights-on

I can say that this has cost my little physics department close to R2 Million (~$140 000) in the last 4 years in damaged equipment (or at least the insurance companies). Personally it has cost me an extra 12 months on my PhD.

I have heard that it possibly costing SA up to 10% of its GDP everyday you have the power interruptions (GDP for that day!, just to be clear). But that is purely speculative because if true it will bankrupt the country pretty damn quickly.
I don't think it would cost that high of an amount of GDP. Pakistan had massive load shedding in the late 00s and up to mid 2010s and it did shave off up to 3% of GDP growth IIRC correctly.
 

MrPrez

Well-known member
I don't think it would cost that high of an amount of GDP. Pakistan had massive load shedding in the late 00s and up to mid 2010s and it did shave off up to 3% of GDP growth IIRC correctly.
What constitutes massive? We've had 4-8 hours daily for quite a while now (although we got told yesterday that it may be easing up in the coming week).
 
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