Word: africa
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...Gabon begins a month of mourning and condolences pour in for President Omar Bongo, the world's longest serving President, who died on Monday at 73 in his 42nd year in power, it's worth remembering that Bongo was precisely the kind of leader Gabon, and Africa, could have done without. Gabon has a tiny population (1.4 million) and vast oil reserves, and after four decades of exporting hundreds of billions of dollars of crude, the biggest testament to the corruption and ineptitude of Bongo's rule is that he somehow contrived not to turn his country into an African...
...government has made no effort to build alternative industries that might replace oil when it runs out. Yet at the time of his death from cancer, in a clinic in Barcelona, Bongo was facing French allegations of embezzling hundreds of millions of dollars in public funds. (See pictures of Africa...
...hypermarket, feeding themselves on the food thrown out for being past its sell-by date. Bongo, meanwhile, could be seen overhead twice a day, flying the few kilometers in the presidential helicopter from his presidential mansion to his office, then back again in the evening. (Read "The Enrichment of Africa's French Allies...
...Bongo set the paradigm for Africa in other ways too. What money he did spend on Gabon went on white-elephant prestige construction projects - a raft of new government buildings and a $2 billion transnational railway - which, when oil prices dipped, were funded by debt that spiraled out of control and threatened to bankrupt the country. And in politics, Bongo fixed elections for himself and bought off political opposition with money or power - despite its small size, Gabon has more than 40 Cabinet Ministers - or worse. Several opposition members were killed in the 1970s. In 1990, the mysterious death...
Based in Edmonds, Wash., Steves spends four months a year on the road. He has spurned offers to expand his business beyond Europe to include Asia, Africa or Latin America. He thinks of Europe as a good "wading pool" for U.S. citizens to try before they jump into deeper waters elsewhere on the globe. Meanwhile, just keeping his guides current, he says, "requires focus rather than mission creep...