What's going on in the African blogosphere

Some snippets from the African blogosphere.

- Gatwiri takes issue with the July/August edition of Foreign Policy magazine which classifies Kenya as a failed state. He points out that, “The source of the research material is also incredulous. They say they used software to analyse data from tens of thousands of international and local media sources. If international media houses portray Africa in a negative light (as they always do), and their stories are used as sources, then the results drawn from this research are already skewed to show countries like Kenya are “failed states”. We all know that international media houses have nothing positive to write about Africa.”

- Along the lines of negative coverage of Africa, The Keeper of Her Thoughts would like to know what exactly “the darkest part of Africa” means. Her curiousity leads her to conduct some research on Google with the following results, I conducted a democratic google search for the phrase “Darkest part of…” as applied to various continents with the following (quite easily verifiable) results: “Darkest Part of Asia” – 1 result. “Darkest Part of America” – 7 results, most of which are followed by the word past as in ‘the darkest part of America’s past..’ and are in reference to the era of slavery. “Darkest Part of Europe” – 8 results, 1 used sarcastically in reference to Norway by a disgruntled American and the rest in reference to lack of sun.
“Darkest Part of Africa” -679 results, a whopping, record breaking result!

- Looking for pictures capturing daily life in the Democratic Republic of Congo? Then check out Tangawizi.

- Chippla recently spent 3 months in Nigeria Nigeria. His Notes from Abuja series of posts conveys a sense of what is going on in Abuja. For instance, part 1 gives insight into the recently launched Abuja taxi scheme. And part 2 highlights the ongoing power struggle within the ruling People's Democratic Party (or People's Deceiving Party as the locals call it).

- Meanwhile, if you are in London and you are jonesing for some Nigerian food, Aderemi has compiled a list of Nigerian restaurants in London.

- Some Among Us, who is blogging from South Africa, contrasts Thabo Mbeki's views on disengagement during the struggle against apartheid with Mbeki's current view on disengagement when it comes to dealing with Mugabe.

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