Our Columnists
SO YOU THOUGHT ALL VULTURES FLEW?
Tuesday March 09, 2010
This weekend, the London weekly magazine, New Statesman devoted a full page to an interview with Dambisa Moyo, author and “economist”, in which she was at it again, going on about how “aid” is useless to African countries and makes them dependent. http://www.newstatesman.com/africa/2010/03/interview-aid-zambia-jobs Why the Western media...read more
DOES GHANA HAVE GREATNESS THRUST UPON IT FOR NOTHING?
Tuesday February 09, 2010
In Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, one of the characters, Malvolio, says to another: …Be not afraid of greatness: ‘twas well writ. Some are born great, Some achieve greatness, And some have greatness thrust upon them. Ilike that last line particularly well — “some have greatness thrust upon...read more
THANK YOU BLACK STARS
Tuesday January 26, 2010
I had a funny email from a friend the another day. It said simply, “Wope football!” (You like football) It was funny because the guy was not an Akan and I didn’t expect him to be addressing me in Akan. And word-perfect Akan at that. For “wope football!” does not merely acknowledge the fact that you...read more
THE COPENHAGEN TALKS ON CLIMATE CHANGE MUST SUCCEED
Tuesday December 15, 2009
The news from Copenhagen, Denmark is not good. As I write this, it is being reported that African countries had, “in a dramatic move”, threatened to walk out of the ongoing United nations Framework Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC) taking place in Copenhagen, having discovered that the developed countries were planning to...read more
ADIEU ‘PRINKROOMKAN’
Tuesday November 17, 2009
A smile has been wiped off the face of the earth. Kofi Akumanyi, a man of whom it could be said, “This is someone whom you never see without seeing a smile”, is no more. Cruel death has snatched him away from us. At a mere 63 years of age. My first meeting with Kofi was not under auspicious circumstances. I had left my...read more
AN AGE IN WHICH NOTHING CAN BE FORGIVEN
Wednesday November 11, 2009
I’ve just become aware of a book which discusses one of the curses of our age: our inability, because of the Internet, to prevent people from reading things written about us which are not true. The book is entitled “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age”. It is by a man called Viktor Mayer-Schönberger...read more
The Trouble With Bribery
Wednesday September 30, 2009
No-one who knows how business is conducted in the world will be surprised to hear that a leading manufacturer of bridge-building equipment, Mabey and Johnson Limited of the United Kingdom, has pleaded guilty, at the Southwark Crown Court in London, to charges of bribing government officials in Ghana, Jamaica, Madagascar, Angola and Mozambique,...read more
How The Love Of Money Can Turn A Company Into A Vampire
Tuesday September 22, 2009
They didn’t understand why they were falling ill unexpectedly. They didn’t realise some of them were going to die just like that. But die they did. At least sixteen of them. 95,000 others sought medical attention. All they knew was that a terrible stench had filled the air near where they lived, in Abidjan, commercial capital...read more
A Common European Home, United And Free?
Friday September 11, 2009
The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall will be marked in November this year. For many, it symbolises the end of the Cold War, at least in Europe. The subsequent break-up of the Soviet Union was greeted with optimism-the hope that East-West confrontation and proxy wars, engineered by Cold War patrons, would be a thing of the...read more
The Sheltered Maiden Often Cannot Recognise Abuse
Thursday September 10, 2009
While adults who grew up in an abusive environment face a higher risk of perpetrating the mistreatment experienced, very often those with no prior exposure often end up as victims of domestic abuse.
Many who grew up in homes where mother and father fought constantly tend to gravitate towards the chaos found in dysfunctional homes when...read more
