The first to initiate this unique programme in the market, Medha Sampat, Country Manager – India, South African Tourism says: “We are extremely delighted to introduce the Learn South Africa programme in India.”

More than 700 travel agents from different parts of the country have registered for the day-long sessions that are aimed at highlighting various aspects of South Africa, from history & cultural heritage, culinary delights, world-class wines, award-winning wildlife game reserves, stunning city attractions and outstanding tourism offerings among others.

“We have received tremendous response for the workshops from our Indian trade partners. Training sessions such as these give us an opportunity to build new contacts in the travel industry, strengthen existing ones and also tap smaller markets to widen our footprint across the country. South Africa is everyone’s dream destination – those that have visited keep coming back for more, whilst others aspire to get there,” Sampat says.

“With more friends in the travel industry, we are confident to meet this growing demand.”

The Learn South Africa workshops give an opportunity to travel professionals to add onto their product understanding. Moreover, the workshops enhance their knowledge about all that destination South Africa offers. This assists Indian trade with planning, endorsing and packaging custom holidays.

The most fascinating part of the programme has been the use of audio-video tools by specially trained staff. To propel interest levels of participants, interactive methods of communication like Q&A sessions, trivia and worksheets have been incorporated to help get better knowledge and understanding about South Africa as a destination and its varied tourist attractions.

The first phase of the training session is being held in 12 Indian cities. Due to a huge response from the agents, South African Tourism had to announce additional sessions in all the 12 cities. Additional sessions will be held in September this year.

By Muzi Mohale: www.travelwires.com July 15, 2010

It has indeed been incredible. It has been a unifying factor, with people beginning to appreciate the importance of their national symbols such as flags.

As a photographer for an institution such as Reuters, one can say that I have been privileged to be a part of this historic occasion. It was indeed a privilege to be among hordes of international media covering the event. I was here during the Confederations Cup, but the feeling of covering the World Cup is enormous – it is part of history.

This has changed the perception of those who doubted that South Africa, or Africa as a whole, could stage such a magnificent tournament. Everywhere, people have been consumed by the World Cup. Cars have been decorated with flags, houses and shops – many with the South African flag.

For me, the opening ceremony will forever be etched in my mind and engraved in my heart. The feeling inside the full-packed Soccer City Stadium was awesome. It was incredible seeing people shedding a tear during the national anthem. They were moved and all I could think of was the sacrifices made by the Class of ’76, those who sacrificed their lives so that we have a united, non-racial, non-sexist South Africa. As the ceremony unfolded, I said to myself: “We are reaping the fruits of June 16, 1976.”

It was indeed a moving ceremony. It was amazing to see all South Africans and those from the African diaspora united in their diversity. I realized that the hour had arrived, there was no turning back. Africa’s time had arrived and South Africa was ready.

Being among the masses of photographers, mainly sports photographers, who came for the tournament, has been a great learning curve as most of them are specialists in their field. Some had a different perception of South Africa and we had a lot to prove and we proved them wrong.

Despite being branded a noise maker, which it most certainly is, the vuvuzela added some spice to the World Cup. Despite calls for it to be banned, I bet that this gadget will characterize soccer throughout the world. This piece of plastic has been exported from South Africa to the world.

We could not be more proud to host this fantastic tournament, meeting people from different cultures and background from us.

Borrowing from FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s words:

‘It was Nelson “Madiba” Mandela’s dream to see the World Cup final in South Africa. That dream has now come true. It was done in honor of this great man who has done so much for his country since he was released from jail in 1992. It was Madiba who brought the World Cup to Africa and South Africa and I was delighted when he was able to attend the final. It was a fitting climax to the World Cup.’

Reuters – photographer: 12^th Jul 2010

President Jacob Zuma of South Africa is leading calls for the creation of a new global financial architecture that will have the capacity to insulate more vulnerable countries in the developing world in the future from the maelstrom caused by the present financial crisis.

In his address at the XV Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheik, the President said that ‘the worldwide financial and economic crisis have affected all of us and have placed all economies under tremendous strain’.

Amidst calls for a fair and more equitable financial system, as well as a restructured UN Security Council that will reflect the true demographic of member states; pundits have equally lined up to question the relevance of this organisation in a globalised world and the new international system.

At this critical conjuncture of international politics and global financial crisis, the calls for ‘die or reform’ with respect to NAM cannot be more urgent.

Also, with the election of Barack Obama as the first black president of the US on a platform of change in domestic and international politics, and the unprecedented global financial crisis in one hundred years; some experts of international politics consider this period as a propitious moment for a re-launch of NAM as a potent force for third world development.

However, NAM as an organisation that was created to represent a rejection of the prognostic nostrums of the Free Market West and the Socialist East during the cold war, has struggle to find its locus since the end of that existential threat and bipolarity.

It must now conjure up a new trajectory and recalibrate itself to fit into the new international political architecture of unipolarity on the one hand, and the emergence of China as the new economic super power.

Some experts also of international politics have even argued that the global architecture is increasingly gravitating towards multi-polarity due to the recent phenomenal economic and technological development of the New Developed Countries (NDC) – led by China, India and Brazil.  In fact China is the second biggest economy in the world based on purchasing power and India the fourth. Britain and France are battling for sixth.

It is against this background that Zuma, a scion of the progenitors of NAM – Nehru of India, Nkrumah of Ghana, Tito of the now defunct Yugoslavia and Sukomo of Indonesia – when it was formed at the conference of Belgrade in 1961 is now calling for a revamped NAM that needs to redefine itself.

It must be reconfigured and revitalised so that it can step up a rung or two in the new international system in order to face up to the challenges of globalisation and its impact on developing countries.

The president rightly inveighs at the weaknesses of the UN system and its undemocratic structure. He said that ‘during our two year tenure as an elected member to the United Nations Security Council, we experienced firsthand its inability to protect the weak and the vulnerable’.

A pertinent observation this, ardent followers of the forty eight years history of NAM will however argue – with a greater degree of justification – that the archives of the organisation is littered with such vacuous pronouncements and observations. It is now time for NAM to extricate itself from the platform of cold war rhetoric and the outdated declarations and condemnations that are trotted out every three years to no effect.

At a time when the world is convulsed by the worst economic disaster, NAM should now transmute itself into a proactive organisation that is capable of challenging and reforming bodies like the reactionary Bretton Woods institutions – the IMF and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development aka World Bank – and the impotent UN Security Council.

Leaders like Zuma of South Africa and Manmohan Singh of India must now lead the way for the re-creation of a new organisation that will move away from the fetters of super-power politics that reduced NAM into a pointless fandangle during the Cold War. There is no gainsaying that NAM during the Cold War was a huge paradox with most of its leaders comprehensively suborned by the USSR and USA.

Few, if not none, could claim a total non-alignment to the super-powers during that period. Without dwelling too much into ancient history, it is now time for NAM to come up with tangible policies that could change the fortunes of countries in the developed world that have been so comprehensively pinioned by a myopic free market ideology that has been allowed to run amok unchallenged in the so called third world.

NAM should now come up with economic policies that could challenge the basic assumption of neo-classical economics i.e. that everyone is driven by self interest and nothing else.

After eight years of the world been bullied and fed with the soi-disant realism of the neo-conservatives in the White House based on the ancient Manichean mendacity of the state of evil versus the state of good; NAM should now be rekindled as a potent force for development and not a podium for reading the obsequies for the ‘death’ of western capitalism.

This organisation of 119 members with more than half of the world population, and eighty five percent of oil resources, should now convert its demographic advantage over other organisations to pursue some of the noble ideals on which it was founded and also face up to the current global challenges like the international action against poverty, environmental destruction, nuclear proliferation, international terrorism, untrammelled economic profligacy and the spread of small arms.

As an organisation that was formed to counter the proselytizing of the two super powers in the Cold War, NAM must now re-define itself pronto or continue in a state of perpetual funk.

‘The key message for us is to ask the G8 to live up to their commitments,’ Meles said, looking relaxed in his Addis Ababa office as he prepared to fly off to Rome. ‘The promise (from the G20 summit) was that something like $50 billion dollars would be made available to poorer countries. Slightly more than $20 billion of that is on hand. The rest needs to be fulfilled.’

The Ethiopian leader also said Africa’s myriad problems were being compounded by global warming and it was essential that the continent be compensated by the rich world at environment talks due for Denmark in December.

‘Many institutions have tried to quantify (the amount of compensation) and they have come up with different figures,’ Meles said. “The sort of median figure would be in the range of $40 billion a year.”

But some analysts think that figure is very ambitious, especially bearing in mind that only $20 billion of the $50 billion promised at G20 has so far made it into the hands of those to whom it’s been promised.

Meles certainly sounded like he was heading off to the G8 with a full plate of issues and ideas for the world’s richest nations. The problem is that fewer big initiatives are expected to be agreed in Rome as there were at the G20.So what’s the best he, and Africa, can really hope for?

Is the developed world to blame for the economic difficulties the world’s poorest are facing? If so, what should it do? And should Africa be compensated for climate change?

Posted by Barry Malone Wed 8th July.

Most of the investment in the country’s multi-billion dollar oil industry comes from the United States. ExxonMobil, Hess and Marathon are all there. Right now, the U.S. imports up to 100,000 barrels of oil a day from Equatorial Guinea, or about a quarter of the country’s oil production.

Oil money gives the country the means to be a model for development and human rights. The economy is nearly 130 times as big as it was when oil was discovered in 1995. But as a report released by Human Rights Watch today details, the government has squandered or stolen much of the money at the expense of its people.

It is a sad contrast, since the country has a per capita income comparable to Spain’s or Italy’s and development indicators more like Afghanistan’s. For just one sad example, infant and child mortality actually has increased — from an already-dismal 103 deaths per thousand in 1990 to 124 per thousand in 2007. Similarly, under-5 mortality rates increased from 170 per thousand in 1990 to 206 per thousand in 2007.

The president and his family are doing just fine, though. They lead lavish lifestyles while most people live in crushing poverty.

A series of corruption scandals involving government officials and their families will give you some idea of how bad it is.

In 2004, a U.S. Senate investigation into the country’s dealings with the now-defunct Riggs Bank detailed how President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo used the country’s oil wealth to finance numerous personal transactions, including spending $3.8 million to buy two mansions in a suburb of Washington, D.C. That investigation led to one of the largest fines against a bank in U.S. history, and ultimately the bank’s takeover.

Obiang’s eldest son, Teodorin, bought a $35 million property in California in 2006. In 2004, he spent about $8.45 million for mansions and luxury cars in South Africa. His only known income was a $4,000 monthly salary as a government minister. His $43.45 million in spending on his lavish lifestyle from 2004 to 2006 was more than the $43 million the government spent on education in 2005.

The people of Equatorial Guinea have no way to hold their government accountable. Obiang has been in power since 1979, when he deposed his uncle in a coup. The government severely curtails press freedom and independent civil society, and the political opposition is weak and faces constant government harassment, intimidation, and arrests. In the most recent parliamentary elections in May 2008, Obiang and his allies won 99 out of 100 seats.

Unless the Obama administration makes it clear to Equatorial Guinea’s leaders that they must share the oil wealth with the country’s people , the human cost of the oil that the US imports from that country will continue to be staggering.

‘You have the power to hold your leaders accountable, and to build institutions that serve the people. You can serve in your communities, and harness your energy and education to create new wealth and build new connections to the world. You can conquer disease, end conflicts, and make change from the bottom up. You can do that. Yes you can. Because in this moment, history is on the move,’ Obama said.

‘Freedom is your inheritance. Now, it is your responsibility to build upon freedom’s foundation. And if you do, we will look back years from now to places like Accra and say that this was the time when the promise was realized — this was the moment when prosperity was forged; pain was overcome; and a new era of progress began. This can be the time when we witness the triumph of justice once more.’

As Obama put it: ‘Make no mistake: history is on the side of these brave Africans, and not with those who use coups or change constitutions to stay in power. Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.’

There was no doubt they were strong words from the son of a Kenyan immigrant, who through elections has become the leader of the world’s most powerful country. Obama’s background may also give his message a better chance of being heard than those of past American leaders lecturing Africa on what it needs to do.

But when all is said and done and Obama flies off to deal with more urgent U.S. priorities, will the message be heeded? Will Africa live up to that promise?

Posted by Matthew Tostevin, Saturday 11th July.