Energie
Comparez les prix avant d’agir
Uccle
La ministre bruxelloise de
l’Energie, Evelyne Huytebroeck,
a invité les consommateurs
bruxellois à ne pas se précipiter
dans le choix de leur fournisseur
de gaz et d’électricité,
deux secteurs dont la libéralisation
interviendra, pour l’ensemble
des particuliers, le 1r janvier
prochain.
As liberalisation takes off 1 January 2007, the Minister of Energy has at least set the stage such that Belgians have a fair idea of what they are getting their heads into. Liberalization will enable them to choose a gas or electricity provider, and there is a website (http://www.brugel.be) which enables Belgians to choose provider.
There is even a free brochure being worked on and a free number for those who have queries…
Undoubtedly, not to forget countervailing measures and pressures against liberalization, our Ghanaian counterparts could learn some serious lessons from micromanaging an already-bad situation!
From: http://www.tbx.be/fr/07.02/Archives/app.rvb?date=2006-11-02
"We'll go ahead with the liberalisation of the energy market anyway. If the utility companies don't want to supply domestic customers they won't be able to carry on supplying firms. The licence to supply energy applies to both domestic and commercial customers"
nice, aerial view of the Tetteh-Quarshie interchange (right)
Yes. I do believe that if you're a regular visitor, you have already seen this picture, or something like it here. Trumpets blow, pls. It's the so-called "Ghana-India Kofi Annan ICT Centre of Excellence". A cumbersome title indeed, and a cumbersome URL, to boot!: http://www.aiti-kace.com.gh Truth be told, however, it is the sub-region of West Africa's quintessential ICT Centre, with state-of-the-art computers, and a place, where there is regular ICT hub-bub-ing, of sorts;-)
Here is the entrance into the building. You first have to go through a narrow gate (I guess to register your presence, 'cos when you don't, a man hisses at you (classic call to strangers in Ghana) motioning you to pass through). I took this picture yesterday as I made the intrepid step to attend the open "seminar" on "e-media". On the panel were reputed journalists from Ghana's local scene (you can check out the names here) in radio, newspaper editting, including the Africa correspondent for the BBC Kwaku Sakyi-Addo, and former editor of Ghana's premier Saturday paper Daily Mirror...who is also my former boss at work!;-)
Here's a snapshot of the audience who appeared to be listening intently to ideas on whether the new tools for the media (mini-disc; Cool-Edit software; video camera with laser backup discs(!); etc) will as much as hinder us as they will help journalists improve news-writing...and the journalist!! (given how blogging is threatening to take over the qualified jorunalists)
To the right is Dorothy Gordon, DIrector-General of the ICT Centre, and to the left is Kwaku Sakyi-Addo. His brief profile is enviable: Kwaku Sakyi-Addo is a freelance journalist working part-time for BBC World service as a television correspondent. An experienced journalist and television presenter in Ghana, Sakyi-Addo has conducted many roundtables for the media in his country. Sakyi-Addo is interested in using journalism as a means for improving the lives of persons involved in the urban agriculture food production chain. from: http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-93818-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html 
With the hype of Jay-Z coming to
Can I get an "encore", pls?;-)
From: E.K.Bensah II (TWN-Africa) [mailto:webjournalist@twnafrica.org]
Sent: mercredi 16 ao�t 2006 11:36
To: Subject: On US rappers, and water privatisation!!
UNITED NATIONS, August 9 -- Kofi Annan and two UN agencies appeared Wednesday with rapper Jay-Z to talk about access to water. The news, such as it was, is that water is good. Inner City Press asked Shawn Jay-Z Carter two questions, about water privatization and about the Associated Press charges, unrebutted in the public record, that his clothing line Rocawear used sweatshop Southwest Textiles S.A. in
On the water privatization question, Jay-Z said, "that's just bureaucracy, I don't have any expertise in that," adding that he's about raising awareness. Later he praised Coca-Cola for giving money for play pumps; Coke is under fire for overuse of water in India as well as in
Privatization? Never heard of it.
On the request that he address Rocawear's reported use of sweatshops, and whether the company still uses Southwest Textiles,
_____________________________________________________
The outside of the World Bank office in Accra, in a rather plush compound, replete with the characteristic Ghanaian greenery of palm trees, coconut trees, et al.
Finally, just to prove I was at the summit, here's a picture of yours truly...doing something;-)Stretching a cheesy grin, I do believe;-))
The week opened with a lot of speculation on who would be the next coach of Ghana, after they survived an “ordeal” of a nine-man-committee. Would it be Claude Le Roy, former coach of DRC; Cecil Jones Attuquayefio, or the elusive Troussier? It turned out that Troussier would fail to turn up, citing family problems. This would be the second time he would do a non-show since 2004, prompting speculation by some sports journalists on CITI97.3FM, and elsewhere that he was probably expecting to be handed the job on a silver platter.
Rain, and More Rain
"Kasapa Telecom, operators of Kasapa, ranked as the best service provider while Millicom Ghana Limited, operators of tiGo, came second, with Ghana Telecom's Onetouch coming third and Scancom's Areeba came last."
I was tracking my organisation's website the other day, and came across google.sn, or a google based in Senegal.
I know for a fact that the average Ghanaian has at least ONE yahoo account. I am therefore wondering why GOOGLE has not considered setting up a google.gh. Is it on the cards any time soon?
Yes! There I was tracking my organisation’s website only to see that google has a
If Google ever chances upon this page, could it let me know why it’s been so difficult to obtain a “google.gh”, considering the number of Ghanaians who have a Yahoo.com account!
Tags: http://technorati.com/tag/googleghana ; http://technorati.com/tag/ghana ; http://technorati.com/tag/google+ghana
It is part and parcel of the Protocol for free movement of people and goods. The ECOWAS Treaty provides for community citizenship and proof of that is for an individual to own a community passport to enable them travel within the region. It is an effort to promote in a general sense of African integration through regional integration. The ECOWAS passport is a supra-national instrument for travel, which all the ECOWAS States have recognised and are asking the international community to recommend. Consequently, it is more important than any of the national passports within the West African region. The holder is not considered a foreigner, and is free to pass easily through international borders without the rigour faced by non-ECOWAS citizens. It is meant to enhance regional integration.
"There is no way that West African countries can compete divided. But the policies at the ECOWAS level must be boldly translated on the ground by the private sector. What the V{olta} R{egional} A{uthority}, Government, Databank, Cal bank, Tropical Cable, etc, have shown is that a combination of the public and private sector can make Ghana ruthlessly competitive in West Africa and beyond."
"Israel was longing to have a go at Nasser anyway because of Palestinian fedayeen attacks and the Egyptian blockade of the Straits of Tiran.
The ruse was that Israel would invade Egypt across the Sinai peninsula.
Britain and France would then give an ultimatum to the parties to stop fighting or they would intervene to 'protect' the canal.
And so it played out. The Israelis even had to moderate their attack in case they won before the 'intervention' forces could arrive. But the British and French went in to 'save' the canal.
There was only one thing wrong. Eden had not told the Americans.
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5199392.stm
...an international trade agreement that came into effect in 1995 and operates under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The aim of the GATS is to gradually remove all barriers to trade in services. The agreement covers services as diverse as banking, education, healthcare, rubbish collection, tourism or transport.
The idea is to open up these services to international competition, allowing the way for huge, for-profit, multinational firms.
"The GATS is not just something that exists between Governments. It is first and foremost an instrument for the benefit of business"
European Commission, 1999
Since February 2000, negotiations are underway in the WTO to expand and 'fine-tune' the GATS. These negotiations have aroused concern world-wide. A growing number of local governments, trade unions, NGOs, parliaments and developing country governments are criticising the GATS negotiations and call for a halt on the negotiations.
It is an article of irony that the very week that my organisation is discussing the liberalisation of services under the World Trade Organisation, and the adverse impacts it will have on gender, development, and community rights at our Pan-African meeting is the same time that the government allows so-called Oil Marketing companies, which I wrote about back in 2005 when I attended a meeting in which the then-Minister of Energy Professor Mike Ocquaye extolled the virtues of liberalising the downstream sector of Ghana's petroleum sector, to raise petroleum prices from 10-15%.
...called on the media to offer analysis of the law governing the provision of services and generate debate that would enhance major transformations of the service sector
from: TWN discusses challenges of service liberalisation.
The middle class (or middle classes) comprises a social group once defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the nobility and working class folk.
Since the working classes constituted the vast majority of the population, the middle classes actually lay near the top of the social pyramid.
Modern political economy considers a large middle class to be a beneficial, stabilizing influence on society, because it has neither the explosive revolutionary tendencies of the lower class, nor the stultifying greedy tendencies of the upper class.
www.encyclopedia4u.com/m/middle-class.html (239 words
I am in a small village called Kwamoso in the Akuapem Hills Region. The village is extremely rural with no electricity or running water. Compared to middle class America these people are dirt poor but they are Ghana's middle class. They live in houses literally made out of mud with tin roofs. In many the mud walls are coated with a layer of cement but not all. The poor live in houses with straw roofs and the mud walls look like they are crumbling...--from:http://aroundtheworldblog.blogspot.com/2006/06/total-immersion-six-weeks-in-ghana.html
Achievement of tertiary education, including all financiers, lawyers, doctors and clergymen regardless of their leisure or wealth. Belief in bourgeois values, such as high rates of house or long-term lease ownership and jobs which are perceived to be "secure." In the United States and in the United Kingdom, politicians typically target the votes of the middle classes. Lifestyle. In the United Kingdom, social status has been less directly linked to wealth than in the United States, and has also been judged by pointers such as accent, manners, place of education and the class of a person's circle of friends and acquaintances. Often in the United States, the middle class are the most eager participants in pop culture. The second generation of new immigrants will often enthusiastically forsake their traditional folk culture as a sign of having arrived in the middle class. A net worth, what a person's total material assets are worth, minus their debt. Most economists define "middle-class" citizens as those with net worths of between $125,000 and $250,000. Those with net worths between $250,000 and $500,000 typically are categorized as upper middle class. Those with net worths below $125,000 can be further broken down into working class to lower class.[1]
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_class
