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Moussa Clarke - She wants him (Blake Jarrell remix) Click the link to youtube. Black Jarrell will be mixing alongside Armin Van Buuren this Friday at the Roseland Ballroom (for Halloween). Should be a crazy gig...enjoy.

The Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC) and the the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) have united to create an even larger Free Trade Zone across Africa! Read more about the zone here . The photo map is from the same BBC article. -- updated: 11.44pm -- I had a conversation about the zone with two friends, and we decided there were two things at play here: (1) Foreign business, ie: business done with territories outside Africa, is likely to decline because of cheaper inter-African trade; (2) At the same time, African countries become less dependent on financial support from foreign governments and institutions. What is needed is a balance between successfully reducing inter-African trade restrictions and a healthy injection of investment capital from abroad. Let's see how this plays out. I'm hoping Tanzania keeps it up when working with the EAC.

So Bill Gates is starting something new up... read here (thanks, Neechi). And here's the website .

So Grimes wanted me to DJ for one of his concerts back at Lafayette. Along with the plan came 3 other artists, 2 of whom are also Lafayette alums. Should be a great time! November 1...

This article sites that there are still nearly a dozen ships off the coast of Somalia that are under the control of pirates. This includes the MV Faina, a Ukranian ship with tanks and other arms on board. The United States, Russia and NATO have become increasingly involved in the MV Faina hijacking, and it seems (at least to me) that piracy in Somalia has been gaining much attention over the last couple of weeks. Since code of international law is murkier on water than on land, it seems these pirates have found an effective source of income. There's a couple of things to think about here. 1) What incentive do the pirates have in hijacking ships and demanding random? Can anything be done to assist their households in gaining self-sufficiency through legitimate work or education? 2) Who do the pirates work for? If they are working for themselves, then point number 1 is appropriate. If they work for conglemorates, what is being done about the source, ie: the leaders, of these pira...

Democratic Senator Barrack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain had their last debate last night... a fairly accurate summary can be found here . Man, I hope Obama wins.

Life in my world hasn't been too harsh, but the world outside my life's been changing fast. I guess this is a good time to be thankful. It's been sunny lately, and a lot warmer. It's good to have a three day weekend ahead of you.

" Pirates from the failed African state of Somalia have attacked at least 61 ships in and around the Gulf of Aden this year, 17 of them in the first two weeks of September alone, according to the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center in Malaysia." So reads a sentence in a report posted on http://www.mareeg.com/ ( read the full report here ). "Failed African State"... and since when has there been a Book of Rules Defining a Successful State and a Failed State? Since when do we have standards by which every country must prosper? Since when do we define "failed" as being in a situation of flux, or political or economic instability? Since when does having borders, a capital and a functioning government still mean that you may be a "failed state"? Since when? I'm serious. I'd like to know, because apparently, I missed that boat. If you claim to be a journalist on the internet, or if you claim to be a journalist anywhere ...

So, the US Senate approved a revised version of the financial "bail out" plan , involving some $700 billion. Simply put, that is a lot of money. I find it puzzling how the United States government can pledge that much to a private sector financial crisis. There are controversies surrounding why the crisis originally came about, but let's put these moral issues aside. Let's instead try to assume that this is truly a life-threatening crisis (and in some ways, it might be), and that the Fed is doing what it can to protect its civilians. National security, is what they are calling it. $700 billions dollars... Just to put things in context: The richest country in Africa by Gross National Product (using Purchasing Power Parity) is South Africa, and their GDP in 2006 was just under $600 billion. Compare this to Tanzania, which had just under $30 billion as their GDP in 2006 ( click to view source ). Word. So the Fed is pledging a "rescue" with a cost that adds up t...

Was shown this in freshman year (4 years ago) and have been frantically searching for it since. Thanks Hannah for reminding me! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZMwKPmsbWE

Now the Somali Gov't is asking Russian ships to intervene with the pirates if necessary. And the US Navy apparently has a USS Howard set up (amongst other vessels) to "monitor" the situation. Hmm... http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/10/01/Russia.Somalipirates/?iref=mpstoryview

"[A spokeman, Ali Sugule, for the "pirates" that have seized a Ukrainian ship off of Somalia] said that so far the pirates had been misunderstood by the world. "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits," he said. "We consider sea bandits those who illegally fish in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas. We are simply patrolling our seas. Think of us like a coast guard." " There's more here: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/30/africa/pirates.php