King Mswati III of Swaziland (above, in traditional dress) is Africa's last absolute monarch, and, not surprisingly, has a huge amount of wealth at his disposal. Using it to send his wives on multimillion dollar shopping sprees has, shockingly, not gone over well, despite the inherent dangers in criticizing the king's life:

Reports from the kingdom said that the king had dispatched at least five of his 13 wives and dozens of retainers to France, Italy, Dubai and Taiwan on a secret tour last week, using £4 million from the state budget. In Swaziland it is a criminal offence to criticise the king’s private life. 

Both the king's profligacy and his large number of wives have been points of controversy in the past. In April, Mswati bought 20 armored Mercedes cars for £150,000 each, and once attempted to buy a $45 million jet (more than twice the country's health care budget). Meanwhile, the tradition of the king marrying multiple wives has been under fire in the past decade, twinned with a push for more women's rights.

PABALLO THEKISO/AFP/Getty Images

It seems the most comment-worthy aspect of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Cape Verde last Friday was neither her meeting with Prime Minister José Maria Neves nor the praise she heaped on the government as a "model of democracy and economic progress in Africa." It was her headband.

In a rare nod to her stylings as first lady, Clinton sported a beloved accessory that's been missing on the political scene for more than a decade -- with good reason. Please, please send it back to wherever it came from. Headbands don't suit anyone over the age of eight, least of all a secretary of state who's trying desperately to be taken seriously.

I'm sure she was fighting some frizz after her grueling, 11-day, seven-nation tour of Africa last week, but that's really no excuse.

STR/AFP/Getty Images

Political expression has grown up in Madagascar. After a coup deposed the government in March, previously dormant bloggers who once had little to talk about fired up their computers to comment on the instability. The BBC has the story:

Facebook, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter have become popular forums for debate, and video and picture sharing.

"The crisis has triggered something like social-media activism here in Madagascar," says Tahina.

Lova Rakotomalala, who analyses Malagasy bloggers for Global Voices, a project promoting citizen media across the world, believes the political crisis has helped inspire political expression among young Malagasies.

He says he wants to see the Malagasy blogosphere evolve into an internet forum similar to Kenya's Mzalendo.

Mzalendo, meaning "patriot" in Swahili, is a volunteer-run website whose self-declared mission is to "keep and eye on the Kenyan parliament".

The emerging trend seems to be that social media can help legitimize public unrest in politically unstable countries. Recent protests in Iran and Moldova appear to prove the point. Does Madagascar's experience with Web 2.0 confirm anything?

AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Carne Ross, director of Independent Diplomat, has responded to my post yesterday about his organization's work for places like Northern Cyprus and Southern Sudan. The response is printed here in full:

This article is a discredit to FP.  The writer could at a minimum have checked with Independent Diplomat before writing the blog. We are available for inquiries, even from web bloggers.  Relaying false facts is in some countries illegal; it is in all countries irresponsible.
 
The facts are that Independent Diplomat does not lobby for its clients.  We advise our clients on how to represent themselves diplomatically. We are required by US law to submit certain of our contracts under FARA legislation.  But these do not give a complete picture of our finances or, in all cases, our contractual relationships with clients.  It is highly misleading to draw conclusions from such public filings.  Finally, we do not only advise “semi-autonomous regions” which is itself a misleading and ignorant way of describing some of our clients.  Many of Independent Diplomat’s clients, not listed in the AP article from which the author lifts his piece, are “normal” states.
 
This FP blog draws extensively from a recent AP article about Independent Diplomat.  The AP article itself is not a complete picture of Independent Diplomat’s work and contains some inaccuracies.  The writer of this piece has added his own misinterpretations to that article.  Independent Diplomat will raise these concerns directly with the editors of FP.

Ross is right about this: We should have called him before posting. That's FP's policy and it makes good sense.

And I understand Ross's concern that his firm be correctly represented, so let me address his points one at a time:

"The facts are that Independent Diplomat does not lobby for its clients.  We advise our clients on how to represent themselves diplomatically. 

Here is the definition used in the United States Lobbying Disclosure Act:

"The term ”lobbyist” means any individual who is employed or retained by a client for financial or other compensation for services that include more than one lobbying contact."

The definition of a lobbying contact includes any communication with a government official regarding "the formulation, modification, or adoption of a Federal rule, regulation, Executive order, or any other program, policy,or position of the United States Government."

Here is what Independent Diplomat's contract with Southern Sudan pledges:

"Staff members will solicit the views of the US Government by meeting with key officials and desk officers in the State Department and other US agencies to gather their views." 

ID is accepting money to arrange consultations with government officials its clients cannot arrange on their own and advising them on how to follow up themselves. Because it is representing foreign entitites in the United States, it is required to register with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agent Registration Act [FARA]. The term "lobbying" does not seem wrong or unfair to describe ID's activities.

Ross writes:  

We are required by US law to submit certain of our contracts under FARA legislation. It is highly misleading to draw conclusions from such public filings." 

The only "conclusions" drawn from public filings were the amounts and terms of some of ID's contracts, reproduced word for word.

"Finally, we do not only advise “semi-autonomous regions” which is itself a misleading and ignorant way of describing some of our clients.  Many of Independent Diplomat’s clients, not listed in the AP article from which the author lifts his piece, are “normal” states." 

The post does not state that Independent Diplomat only advises "semi-autonomous regions." The list of clients was not taken simply from the AP story, but checked with (and linked to) ID's own client list on its Web site. Southern Sudan is not on that list, despite the filing I found, but it, as well as Somaliland, Western Sahara, and Northern Cyprus (which are listed) are all commonly referred to as "semi-autonomous regions," though I do understand why the term is controversial.

Moreover, one of ID's other clients, again featured on their own client list, is Kosovo, which recently gained statehood -- after signing up for ID's assistance. Aside from Kosovo, which ID represented before it was internationally recognized, the only "normal" states mentioned on ID's client list are: "a group of North Pacific small island states." 

This FP blog draws extensively from a recent AP article about Independent Diplomat.  The AP article itself is not a complete picture of Independent Diplomat’s work and contains some inaccuracies.  The writer of this piece has added his own misinterpretations to that article."

The AP article was assumed to be credible not only because it was published and vetted by that organization, but because Independent Diplomat prominently displayed links to it on its own home page. In linking to the piece, ID does not in any way dispute its content.

Finally, the original post was not mean to be particularly critical of Independent Diplomat. In fact the AP story referenced and the Al Jazeera video attached to the post are both quite positive about the organization.

While the Nigerian President has been enjoying his jaunt to Brazil (where he has picked up some lovely soccer paraphernalia), bad news keeps coming from home. The death toll from violence in Northern Nigeria is pretty staggering: between 700 and 800 gone, with hundreds more injured. That's not to speak of the displaced, who are no doubt far more numerous. Clashes between police and Islamist group Boko Haram took place in cities; and Nigeria's cities -- even in the sprawling, dust-covered North -- are dense. And the military's tactics are blunt. The toll was bound to be big.

But bigger still for Nigeria is the danger that this bout of violence will be seen as the "latest front" in the war on Islamic extremism. As I blogged last week, and as Jean Herskovits writes on our site today, that perception is a mistake. Newsweek agrees for the same reasons: it's poor governance, not religious extremism, that is the heart of the matter.

Why does the distinction matter so much? Religious extremism is easy to write off -- and indeed, that's precisely what the Nigerian state looks inclined to do.  A meeting of governors in the Northern region yesterday condemned the sectarian clashes... saying nothing about the frustration that sparked them. (Exhibit B: Yar'Adua in Brazil; an excellent place from which to show his concern for good, attentive governance.)

Pointing all this out would be a good subject for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to call attention to when she visits Nigeria as part of her African tour this week. Here's hoping that Clinton's staff understands what's to blame for the violence better that the State Department Travel Bulletins seem to.

Photo: JOEDSON ALVES/AFP/Getty Images

 

 

West Africa's SAT-3 broadband cable connection to Europe was severely disrupted this week, temporarily crippling many industries like Nigeria's banking sector, as that country lost 70% of its bandwidth. It could take up to two weeks to fix the offshore cable, which runs from Portugal all the way to South Africa. 

Meanwhile, East Africa has been awash in coverage and excitement about SEACOM, the coast's first broadband hookup, since its launch last week.

Along with excitement, the Internet boom raises some policy questions for African governments and companies. On the governmental side, Nigeria is now being lobbied by business groups to declare SAT-3 "critical infrastructure" and help avoid future breakdowns. East African governments should take note: the downside of increased Internet connectivity is increased vulnerability when one of your only connections goes down.

As far as the private sector, Steve Song, creator of that awesome broadband cable map, has an interesting series: "What Google Should do in Africa." Song's biggset priorities are that the company should 1) Support open spectrum; 2) Launch Google Voice in Africa; and 3) Lobby for cheaper SMS (text messaging) rates.

Of particular interest to me is the SMS suggestion, as mobile phones and SMS are frequently cited as a potentially powerful tool for poverty reduction. A Stanford classmate of mine, for example, helped found FrontlineSMS: Medic to reduce costs of rural healthcare using mass texting technology.

As Song notes, Google is interested, and recently rolled out a partnership in Uganda with the Grameen Foundation and MTN, a wireless company, to increase information availability, particularly for rural farmers. Though applauding the initiative, Song is skeptical of the choice to make the new technology available with only one company. 

There is a desperate need for organisations like Google who have a vested interest in seeing more data traffic to help lobby for more competition, for lower barriers to entrepreneurship in the telecom sector, and for cheaper access for all.

So when I see the company that wagered billions in the 700MHz spectrum auction in the U.S. to effectively arm-wrestle Verizon into OpenAccess conditions, the company that has made countless submissions to the FCC to lobby for unlicensed access to television white spaces spectrum, announce that they have “partnered” with a single mobile operator in Uganda to deliver SMS services, you will understand me if I seem a little let down.

I agree with the sentiment, but for what it is worth MTN Uganda is the largest provider, with over half of the market share. And as desirable as it may be for Google to work with everyone, logisitcally, you have to start somewhere. 

Brent Stirton/Getty Images

The mid-to-late 20th century was difficult time for linguists: globalization meant languages were going extinct ever more rapidly, there was little interest in reviving or preserving those languages, and the process of catching a few parts of these decaying tongues was very difficult. 

In the past few decades, though, as intellectuals recognized the social importance of language, the field's fortunes have turned somewhat: although globalization continues to encourage standardization of languages, some are being revived (for example: Manx, Hawaiian, and, contrary to the photo above, Cornish), and more universities and foundations are interested in supporting research. Now, perhaps most importantly from an academic perspective, the tools for recording these dying languages have now gone digital. 

The New York Times reports on Dr. Tucker Childs's work in Sierra Leone, where he is using a digital recorder and language-recognition software to record the Kim language. Rather than having to lug back boxes of casettes and then record and decipher the language's structure manually, Dr. Childs is able to both record more words and analyze languages far more thoroughly. And the research, archived at the University of London, will be more accessible to amateur linguists and other professors doing similar work.

While most of these languages will not be saved, as the article puts it, "the aim is not just to salvage, but to revive." The ideal outcome? The comeback that Hebrew has experienced: since the 19th century, it has shifted from liturgical use to being spoken by millions of people. 

Maybe it was bound to happen. The Save Darfur Coalition says its mission is "inspiring action, raising awareness and speaking truth to power on behalf of the people of Darfur."

You'll be relieved to find out that this $12.00 thong is not an official product of the Coalition, but the sales description promises that it can be used to do all of these things:

"Toss these message panties onstage at your favorite rock star or share a surprise message with someone special ... later."  

Admittedly, this description is the same for the thong regardless of which logo is chosen. But I'm still cringing.

The dealer, CafePress, gurantees that "100% of the profits will be dontated directly to the Save Darfur Coalition (www.savedarfur.org)." And the deal goes beyond just thongs. Save Darfur pet bowls and beer steins are among the other items on offer. 

Judging by some early reactions, raising funds or awareness like this might not exactly help mend divisions among Darfur activists or get policymakers to take them seriously.

In fact, even though they didn't make it, I'll be surprised if the Save Darfur Coalition doesn't distance themselves, given that they are featured as the recipient. On the other hand, if the Save Darfur Coalition's "millions of everyday citizens" all sent a thong to the White House, someone would have to pay attention. 

One of the biggest mysteries of former Liberian president Charles Taylor's career is how, exactly, he managed to escape from a Massachusetts county jail in 1985. With Taylor now on trial for war crimes at the Hague, many hoped that his testimony might shed light on this mystery. Taylor addressed the matter today but his recollection of the events may have raised more questions than it answered:

On the night of Sept. 15, 1985, he recounted Wednesday, a guard unlocked his cell at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility - where he was awaiting extradition to Liberia on embezzlement charges - and escorted him to a less-secure unit of the jail. Taylor then tied sheets together, climbed out an open window, and clambered over a fence before meeting two men he assumed were US agents, who whisked him to New York by car.

“I am calling it my release be cause I didn’t break out,’’ Taylor, 61, told his special war crimes court. “I did not pay any money. I did not know the guys who picked me up. I was not hiding’’ afterward.

The jail guard, he added, “had to be working with someone else.’’ 

The most popular conspiracy theory is that the C.I.A. helped him escape, a charge the agency vehemently denies. Liberian senator (and fellow war criminal) Prince Johnson repeated the theory in an interview with journalist Glenna Gordon for FP.

With Taylor revealing few specifics, it seems like the mystery will continue. 

As promised, Barack Obama recorded a video response to several questions from Africans submitted by text message about his administration's policy towards Africa.

That only three were answered is probably a let down to the more than 5,000 people who submitted questions. However, the White House tried to reiterate its interest in African concerns by allowing three African journalists from Senegal, Kenya and South Africa to each select a question. The video is below and to summarize the three questions were:

1. How can Africa reverse its brain drain and lure skilled Africans back to the continent?
2. What did the administration intend to signal by choosing Ghana
3. How can Africa promote international trade? 

These aren't exactly the hardest questions ever, and Obama had time to prepare, but the video, which was released to African radio and tv stations, shows a president who in his own words, is "probably as knowledgeable about African history as anybody who's occupied my office."

This is a good thing. Now let's see how the policy measures up. 

In a fascinating feature in the new issue of the Boston Review, Oxford economist (and recent FP contributor) Paul Collier makes a radical proposal: What if instead of trying to find ways to promote economic development politely from afar, international actors considered full scale "interventions" to help poor countries jumpstart their development? 

Collier, author of The Bottom Billion and the more recent Wars, Guns and Votes, argues that the two main obstacles for development in the 60 or so poorest countries are institutional inabilities to provide security or government accountability. Rather than keep trying to build these institutions first, Collier proposes that outside actors should supply them for an interim period:

Recall what the United States did last time it got serious about developing another insecure region. Its agenda was radically more ambitious then. The time was 60 years ago, and the insecure region was post-war Europe. The United States got serious because the consequences of Europe falling apart, given the neighboring nuclear Soviet Union, were so alarming. Washington brought the full range of pertinent policies to bear. There was a large aid program, the Marshall Plan. But aid was only a part of the solution. A massive security program, NATO, complemented the aid; more than one hundred thousand American soldiers were stationed in Europe for more than 40 years.

Along with Collier's admittedly provocative piece, the BR has shorter reactions from a host of aid experts: Stephen Krasner, William Easterly, Larry Diamond, Edward Miguel, Mike McGovern, and Nancy Birdsall. Collier then responds.

In contrast to Collier, Obama told allAfrica in an interview that with foreign aid he thinks "what [the U.S.] should be doing is trying to minimize our footprint and maximize the degree to which we're training people to do for themselves."

There is a lot to be said for reforming a system in which billions of U.S. foreign aid dollars go straight to contractors in Washington, but I think Collier has a point. Some countries like Somalia and the DRC are unlikely to put the pieces back together on their own. But while the idea of providing institutional strength for the bottom billion is attractive, it is still difficult to imagine how this could be implemented anytime soon. 

Wathiq Khuzaie / Getty Images

It was bound to happen: President Barack Obama's innocuous little trip to Ghana was apt to annoy someone or another. One might have exptected Kenya, where Obama still has family, to feel slighted. But the visit did even more damage the ego of another African power: Nigeria.

As soon as the news of Obama's trip was announced, the editorials began. Nigeria is the largest country in Africa by population. It has oil reserves that head, by and large, to the United States for consumption. It is a regional leader in economic and political terms. So why, the country wondered, would Obama pick its relatively smaller neighbor to the South? 

The answer, many in civil society concluded, is pretty clear: Nigeria must get its house in order before it will be honored with such a visit. Notorious for corruption, flawed elections, and an ongoing insurgency in the oil-producing region, Nigeria is in many ways everything Ghana is not. One Nigerian commentor on the BBC site proclaimed, "Snubbing Nigeria is okay. It is a wake up call for those who drag Nigeria by the nose." Even Wole Soyinka, one of the country's most esteemed intellectuals, said that he agreed with Obama's decision; Nigeria didn't merit the honor, he told a gathering in the capital, Abuja.

How has the Nigerian government reacted? If the Daily Trust newspaper has it pegged, "the honey pot of the 'big men' has turned paranoid." The head of the Foreign Relations Committee in Nigeria told the BBC that Obama should express any concerns he had about Nigeria in Abuja -- in person -- rather than by sending cryptic foreign policy signs. Criticism of the foreign service abounds, as well, as many claim that it was poor Nigerian diplomacy that failed to win the visit. 

So if Obama has been trying to send a message by visiting the relatively democratic and peaceful Ghana, it appears to at least be causing a stir. Of course, there are those who favor other theories for Nigeria's being slighted of the visit:

Come to think of it, you know Obama likes to play basketball. Suppose he invites President Yar'Adua while visiting to a game of basketball, one on one, and the man out of politeness agrees. And you know President Yar'Adua doesn't play basketball, he only plays squash.

PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP/Getty Images

The world's largest accountancy firm has been appointed to allocate international aid in Somalia in an effort to demonstrate to donors that contributions will be spent on national development. PwC will set up money tracking systems to ensure that relief assistance, including $67 million pledged by international donors in April, will be spent on security, health and education instead of being siphoned into officials' pockets. The firm has undertaken similar work in Afghanistan and Sudan, and will receive a commission of between two and four percent on all funds that reach their intended destinations.

Embroiled in an 18-year civil war, efforts to combat Islamic insurgents and recent piracy attacks are compromised by the slow delivery of funds from donors who are hesitant to invest in a country without a formal banking system. Somalia's first Deputy Prime Minister Abdulrahman Adan Ibrahim said:

We want to be different from other African countries. We want to show the world that the money given to us will be going to where they want it, to be used in a transparent way.

Clearly, outsourcing is the answer.

Swiatoslaw Wojtkowiak/Flickr

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe labeled US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson an "idiot" following the first meeting between the president an a US official in many years. The two statesmen were introduced during the recent African Union meeting in Libya, after which President Mugabe told Zimbabwean paper The Herald:

You would not speak to an idiot of that nature. I was very angry with him, and he thinks he could dictate to us what to do and what not to do. We have the whole of [the South African Development Community] working with us, and you have the likes of little fellows like Carson, you see, wanting to say: 'You do this, you do that.' Who is he? I hope he was not speaking for Obama.

Mugabe's appraisals of US envoys in the past is little better, calling Carson's predecessor Jendayi Frazer:

A little American girl trotting around the globe like a prostitute.

AFP/Getty images