BadPolitix101

(The following post is a work in progress) : In attempting to understand the sporadic manifestation of Xenophobic flareups in South Africa's townships and in light of certain comments made by the ruling party's politicians, the effects of over proliferation of foreign owned Spazas in S.A. townships must be investigated. Although much of the background to this post is extremely well articulated in the groundbreaking study by the "Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation" study entitled " The Informal Economy of Township Spaza Shops " whose findings I wholeheartedly concur with on the basis of my 10 year long interaction with Spaza entrepreneurs on the Cape Flats, my conclusions differ somewhat. It's analysis resonates well with the  previous post on the global micro finance fiasco in that many of the ills resulting from foreigner dominated spazas are articulated in the Bateman expose of the micro-finance model namely that "...As new microenterprises ...

There is nothing new about the exploitation of the weak and vulnerable by the wealthy and the powerful, but the sheer scale of destruction wrought by microfinance institutions modelled on Grameen Bank of Dr Mohammed Yunus in what was originally hailed as a development masterpiece - was staggering. Commercialised copycat banks provided microloans at mega interest rates to the poor and destitute with the intention of starting businesses. The Grameen Bank founder received the Nobel prize in 2006 and in "development circles", the project was hailed as a success, but nothing could be further from the truth. Grameen Bank has an apparently extremely relaxed approach to the no-interest loans they disburse and it apparently has extremely low default rates - or so it says. The problem is, that in Bangladesh, where Grameen covers 98% of villages in that country, the plight of the desperate rural poor have become worse, many have poor mortgaged land and limb, and lost. Yunus' loa...

by Sharif Loghdey Does the road to Jerusalem run through Tehran? Netanyahu certainly thinks so. For that most hawkish of Israel's criminal leadership circle, accustomed to neighbourly genocidal warfare against defenceless civilians and the cause of regional mayhem without compunction, that certainly seems so, judging by his apparent recent desperate tantrum reported in this telltale article at Zerohedge here , another  here and once again,  here  - wherein Bibi goes from threatening a bombing run on Assad's palace, to "acting" on Iran's presence in Syria if Russia fails to heed his request to send the Iranians packing, to threatening a major air war, all within the space of 1 month. For a nation that regards routinely bombing it's neighbours' capital cities as normal as a friendly pat on the back, what is Netanyahu waiting for? Now really, since the early 2000's, Netanyahu has been warning that Iran was on the brink of being nuclear armed and threat...