Archive for April, 2008
Arms for Zimbabwe May Turn Around
April 22, 2008 4:10 pmI’m hoping against hope that the Chinese ship carrying over 77 tons of weapons worth more than $1.245 million will soon be heading back to China. The New York Times reported today that Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa called on other countries in the region to not let the ship dock in their ports. Mr. Mwanawasa also heads the Southern African Development Community – a bloc of fourteen southern African countries – that has come under sharp criticism for not censuring Zimbabwe’s failure to release the results of its presidential election three weeks ago. The Times said that Mr. Mwanawasa’s statements were remarkable because so few African heads of state have been openly critical of Mugabe’s regime.
Why are the other African leaders so quiet?
Meanwhile, also on the front page of the NY Times today: “U.S. Identifies Tainted Heparin in Eleven Countries.”
“A contaminated blood thinner from China has been found in drug supplies in 11 countries, and federal officials said Monday they had discovered a clear link between the contaminant and severe reactions now associated with 81 deaths in the United States.”
But don’t worry – I’m sure the Chinese government will soon be executing the managers of the offending drug companies.
Ruth
David Returns from Visit to the United States
April 21, 2008 9:53 amI’m loaning him my copy of French Women Don’t Get Fat …
Ruth
Where is the Chinese Arms Shipment?
April 20, 2008 9:05 amChinese Ship Carries Arms Cargo to Mugabe Regime
April 18, 2008 11:49 amThis is the lead story in today’s issue of the Guardian, a London daily:
“A Chinese cargo ship believed to be carrying 77 tonnes of small arms, including more than 3 million rounds of ammunition, AK47 assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, has docked in the South African port of Durban for transportation of the weapons to Zimbabwe, the South African government confirmed yesterday. It claimed it was powerless to intervene as long as the ship’s papers were in order.
Copies of the documentation for the Chinese ship, the An Yue Jiang, show that the weapons were sent from Beijing to the ministry of defence in Harare. Headed ‘Dangerous goods description and container packing certificate’, the document was issued on April 1, three days after Zimbabwe’s election. It lists the consignment as including 3.5 million rounds of ammunition for AK47 assault rifles and for small arms, 1,500 40mm rockets, 2,500 mortar shells of 60mm and 81mm calibre, as well as 93 cases of mortar tubes.”
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Travel writer Mike McRae’s long-awaited article on our month-long river-rafting adventure down Ethiopia’s Omo River in the autumn of 2006 has just been published in this month’s issue of Outside Magazine. The article is really a feature story on Pasquale Scaturro, aka “PV,” our intrepid adventure-travel friend who led us on this exhibition, as well as several others in Africa. Mike was one of our crew of 19, and all his note-taking and writing on the trip was certainly worth it: he has captured PV’s larger-than-life personality to a T.
But before I introduce you to the article, which also appears on-line, here’s an aside I’m dying to share. (We all want our 15 nano-seconds of fame, right?) By email today Mike said, “Outside held the piece over to run in its annual adventure travel issue, after a difficult birthing that required amputating several thousand words. But it’s a better read at a svelte 5,200 words than in its earlier, bloated incarnations.” Much of that “bloat” included descriptions of all our crew’s members. For Kevin’s and my enjoyment, though, Mike sent along the following bit of fat that ended up on the cutting room floor:
“The rest of us looked like boomers on an adventure holiday, as if we’d walked out of an Ex-Officio catalog. But Scaturro had chosen deliberately. Ruth, a defense lawyer with strawberry blonde hair and porcelain skin, looked as prim and delicate as Katherine Hepburn’s character in “The African Queen,” but Scaturro told me that she was as tough as Lady Florence Baker and a tireless worker in camp. Ruth’s English husband, Kevin, a brainy computer scientist, didn’t look the part of an intrepid explorer either, but he had been a communications and satellite-uplink specialist on expeditions around the world, including a difficult first descent of Ethiopia’s Tekeze River with Scaturro in 1996. The couple, who live in Provence, had summited Kilimanjaro with Scaturro as well. ‘When he phoned us at home to ask if we’d like to come on the Omo, we said yes immediately,’ said Ruth. ‘Every trip with Pasquale is an adventure of a lifetime.'” Wow! Ok, I admit “porcelain skin” is stretching it, but I accept the rest as supreme compliments. Thank you, Mike, and pah! to you, Outside Magazine.
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