₦airaland Forum

solomon111: Luanda is the most expensive city in the world.
The cost of living there is through the roof.
Yes the place looks nice but that's it.
Hnw many angolans can afford those houses?
African nations should stop all these superficial devt.
Invest in the education and standard of living of your people FIRST and not all these gigantic,and ultimately useless structures meant for first world countries.

I don't know the actual figure for education in the Angolan budget but this one truth I know, all the Angolan students I met in the UK (and there's quite a lot of them studying petroleum related courses in Aberdeen) were on full scholarship with a generous personal allowance of not less than £1000 per month. One, friend to my gf then, told us they had jobs waiting back at home, with pecks such as official cars and drivers. Reminiscence of Nigeria in the 70s, don't you think?

johnwizey: Check well, dose mechanics are ibo

Now that's uncalled for

Suffrage (the right to vote), in my opinion, is equal to the freedom of speech. This makes it an inalienable right that cannot be transferred to another or surrendered except willingly by the individual who owns the right.
These women have been disenfranchised. Their right to freedom to express their anger, disappointment and consternation or approval, acceptance and joy, as the case may be, has been violated. It is only fair that they be entitled to redress.

German PM, Angela Merkel's phone has been tapped, what's to prevent the almighty US from watching us 16,000 feet in the sky?
Besides, drones are becoming common, to be honest. Even private citizens in the US and UK play around with different kinds of limited capability drones and quadcopters mounted with Go-pro cameras.

I read somewhere how a quadcopter caused palaver when it was spotted outside a sky scraper with a camera monitoring an official meeting.
Commercial interests are already beginning to start deploying these kinds of drones to deliver goods ordered online and through phone.
The US FAA is going crazy, trying to prevent unlicensed use of drones for commercial purposes. Just check drones on Youtube and you'll appreciate the possibilities. I'm thinking of getting one for myself.

That reminds me, I have a picture of Willy Willy scaling the fence in my backyard ... where I even put am sef?

Supported.
Like a 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down' button. Too many kids spewing gibberish these days

It's a cardinal unspoken rule of the internet, 'no speech' is sacrificed on the alter of 'free speech'.
The ills of excessive speech, in the long run, is better than a censure of the right to free speech.

Youtube recently changed the workings of its comments section and this has resulted in massive protests online, some protest videos even going viral.

We must be careful to ensure that free speech will always trump censured speech.

Harbosede02: *yawns on hez face*cum o,is it true u stand lyk panla??na kweshion o,abeg no yab me

You asking him to 'cum'? Guess it must've been real bad sex

Nope I'm not Roman, same way all Europeans are neither Greeks, Phoenicians nor subjects of Europa.
The etymology of the names of nations, ethnicity, tribes e.t.c. will reveal that people have always been named by others in history. Usually, it's a way of describing the people of a certain land.

Present day Jews are originally known as Hebrews. Jew - Judaism - Judah. But remember that Judah is only one tribe in Israel and that the whole of Israel divided into kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

Yoruba was not the original name of Yorubas but it's a name used to describe them by their northern Hausa neighbours (Ya'riba). This doesn't make Yorubas become Hausas.

Scotland and Scots derive from Scoti the Latin name for the Gaels. Gaelic speaking people make up Ireland and parts of Scotland.
Scotia "Land of the Gaels" was initially used to refer to Ireland but by the 11th century, it was used to refer to Scotland. This does not in any way make the Scottish nor the Irish Italic speaking.

It seems guys don't wanna post pictures here but they're quickly uploading new profile pictures

I don't fancy interference in private family issues. Nevertheless, for the sake of fairness, I was hoping the team investigating this issue would include medical doctors (sorry I didn't read the press release) not just the human rights commission.

If she was looking docile in the video, it could be the effect of the medication she's being given. She needs to be observed when she's sober in order to confirm her sanity or not.

Liverpool tapping soccer ... ! Now that's more like it

harmbhrosz: Thanks boss! been to pixel-peeper several times *GREAT place for sample images* while most of their images are cats #lol.

Thanks for the little light you threw on the 50mm f/1.4, i'm always inlove with the wonders of prime lenses, can't wait to have mine.

Pleasure's all mine

sixbon2000: Ur right. I use a nikon d5100

Thought as much, felt I could detect the Nikon colour signature.

sixbon2000: This shot was taken @ eko bridge

Nice!

VillageBoi: Oh @ nrd geek... I dropped my 50 f1.8 and it died... the nifty-fifty served me well for 3yrs

Oh no ... did you? It's a shame such a pretty lens is not as strong as the f1.4. Scared to drop mine now

Nice job mate.
For those who don't know, Akure is the capital of Ondo state but this thread is about Ondo town/city. I'm trying to collate pictures of Akure, problem is, I dont know exactly where to go.
I'll open a thread soon but it'll only be a road trip

Dibiachukwu: Africa never and would never exist. It is a lie to deceive idi.ot.s.

How does Africa not exist?

When the CIA said Nigeria might break up in 2015, we all sniffed at them.
Una go fear oyinbo. Military planning executed with clinical precision.

But what meaning did Africa ever have? Apart from the geographical expression, we have always been a people deeply rooted in our cultures. We mostly had our tradition, religion, medicine and superstition all married together in one big pack. These, at best, have been relegated by the coming of the Europeans.

If, in the writers opinion, Europe exists just because it's countries are so close together that you don't need a passport to get around and its people share experiences together, then I must say in that sense, West Africa exists.

West Africa exists so much so that it defeats Dambisa Moyo's Anglophone, Francophone, Lusophone divide. Trade between West African nations is growing and her people share a healthy relationship between themselves. The Nigeria- Benin- Togo- Ghana corridor is a case in point.

However, since not all European countries share this ease of movement or shared experiences, then it might be safe to say Europe only exists in the same way that West Africa does.

Onlytruth: Of course Africa exists.

What doesn't exist anymore in real sense is Pan Africanism. It existed in the rest of Africa up to 1991 or so.

South Africans never had real Pan Africanism; what they had (and still have) is Pan BLACK South Africanism misconstrued as Pan Africanism.
When they sing "Nkosi sikeleli Africa" what they mean is God bless Black South African nation.
A lot of other Africans misunderstood them and gave help in their time of need. Of course this was never understood and reciprocated by the South Africans.

Anyway back to the topic.

Julius Nyerere set up an African economic system in Tanzania. It still endures.

Other African countries are pulled in different directions by foreign countries dominating their local economies.
Some are still openly being run by their ex-colonial masters (the francophones for ex).

Until a Nyerere rises in a powerful African country like Nigeria, Africa will remain disunited and pulled in directions that make the continent appear disparate.

I truly do understand some of his points but then him saying "to fly between two African countries, the easiest way is often through London, Paris or Dubai", that I don't get.

A lot of gibberish speckled with tiny bits of sense.

The word ‘Africa’ has lost what meaning it ever had and should be binned

Sometimes a politician’s accidental phrase can reveal a world view. The other night in Johannesburg, South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma was arguing for toll roads. They were a global standard, he said, and then added: “We can’t think like Africans in Africa generally. [Laughter from the audience.] We are in Johannesburg. This is Johannesburg. It is not some national road in Malawi. [Laughter.]” Zuma’s party calls itself the African National Congress but his implicit contempt for the rest of the continent signalled a truth: the word “Africa” has lost what meaning it ever had and should be binned.

When I was born in Uganda in 1969, it still just about made sense to talk of “Africa”. True, the continent was impossibly diverse, but most African countries above the white-run southern tip shared some basic experiences: recently decolonised, largely agrarian, poor and heading for dictatorship. For that generation, the fall of colonialism provided a real continent-wide bond. However, since about 2000 the experiences of African countries have diverged so starkly that it makes almost no sense to speak of “Africa” any more.

The very idea of “Africa” came from outside Africa, starting with Herodotus. The most influential African pan-Africanist, Kwame Nkrumah, was inspired by black American and Caribbean thinkers such as W E B Du Bois and Marcus Garvey.
“Africa” stuck as a tag, because the continent rarely gets enough global attention to be discussed in more subtle terms. Typically the whole continent is labelled with a single phrase, supplied by Anglophone outsiders: Harold MacMillan’s “wind of change” in 1960, Bob Geldof’s “Do they know it’s Christmas?” in 1984, and The Economist’s “Hopeless Continent” in 2000. The global ruling class increasingly derives its conversation from The Economist and, in December 2011, the magazine’s cover proclaimed: “Africa Rising”.

But for many actual Africans the notion of a shared continent has little reality. Travelling to the next village is often hard enough, let alone to the next country. To fly between two African countries, the easiest way is often through London, Paris or Dubai. I’m told the Rwanda-Burundi border can now be crossed in 10 minutes, but that’s rare in Africa. No wonder almost all African countries do most of their foreign trade outside the continent.

Europe exists: its countries are crammed relatively close together, and you often don’t need a passport to travel between them. There is a European central government of sorts, and because of all this interlinking, the experiences of Poles and Spaniards, say, are becoming increasingly alike.
Africa, by contrast, is full of cavernous divides like the one spotted by Zuma. Dambisa Moyo, the Zambian economist, told me: “Francophone Africa versus Anglophone Africa versus Lusophone Africa – these are very different places.” Moyo says she uses the phrase “Africa” less and less: “I’ve moved away from that. I think it’s folly to put these countries in the same basket.” Nigeria’s economy, she notes, resembles other big oil exporters like Mexico and Indonesia more than it does Ghana or Zambia.

Indeed, African countries have been going off in different directions since about 2000, says Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, political scientist of Africa at Oxford university. Despite certain shared drivers – Chinese investment, cheap mobile phones, the end of the cold war – these countries have diverged sharply. Africa now has fast-growing democracies like Ghana and Botswana; repressive mini-Chinas like Rwanda and Ethiopia; corrupt oil states like Angola and Gabon; failed states like Chad and Somalia; and north Africa post-Arab spring. Not much connects these experiences.
. . .
One-liners about “Africa” shroud this diverse reality. Morten Jerven, economist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, told a recent Oxford Analytica conference that instead of asking, “Is Africa rising?” we should be asking things like, “Is Lusaka rising?” Some capital cities are booming, but anybody who goes around saying “Africa is rising” should be forced to read Michael Deibert’s new book, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair.

True, the word “Africa” still expresses an emotional reality. Since the 1940s, many Africans have come to feel African. It’s one of the identities they have, beside a local and national and perhaps global identity. “African” can be a positive identity. Often, though, it is simply used to mean a victim, a member of the lowest economic category. If that’s the identity, then nobody wants to be African.

Some African countries may soon leave that category behind. The continent’s share of the global economy has risen in recent years to perhaps 3 per cent. Next the $40 smartphone may come along to boost this share further. If the continent remains a rare place where investors can find yield, then “Africa” will eventually get slightly more nuanced attention. That will allow us to ditch weak-minded generalisations such as constantly using a single Ethiopian shoe company, SoleRebels, to stand for Africa’s supposed manufacturing rise. Some geopolitical phrases obscure reality rather than reveal it. Like “the Islamic world” or “the international community”, “Africa” doesn’t exist.

simon.kuper@ft.com

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/c7e5e492-40ec-11e3-ae19-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2jizDQu5C

Eclipse of the skull

greatdave: my pipo...reducing the size of the converted cv pdf is becoming an herculean task for me o(its above 300kb after conversion)...i wuld appreciate any assistance. 2ndly, is it the d total of all documents that shld nt exceed 300kb or the individual documents?

Each individual document should not exceed 300kb. The total size for my document was 440.4kb.
When I mistakenly uploaded my scanned documents as pdf files, I got a red alert on each individual large document saying that it should not exceed 300kb.

Kenyatta most likely. Looks like Kenyan Air Forces just bombed Al-Shabaab camps in Somalia.

Hmmm .. fingers crossed.

Nice guys finish last ... been there done that. What women want is a cocky and funny guy. Someone who's confident in himself and has a good sense of humour. Better to save all that niceness and sweetness for your mum and sisters.

What do women want? It's like learning to drive a car and then switching the gear into reverse - when you turn the steering wheel right, the car moves left and when you steer left, the car moves right. Women speak in opposites. A woman might tell a guy she wants someone who's nice and sweet and while he's at it, the law of attraction draws her towards some cocky and funny jerk who is busy boning the living daylights outta her.

So, who finishes last? It's just the way attraction works.

sixbon2000: Ur right. i used a 55-200mm lens for the shots

Nice lens for getting up close, great for wildlife. I like the closeness telephoto lens gives to pictures.

Do you shoot Nikon?