It’s about time. Germany is finally ready to dedicate a major memorial to the victims of the Nazi regime: the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe today joins Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Museum and many other places of remembrance. In plain view of the Reichstag building, where the German parliament deliberates […]

When I left Germany 11 years ago I spent the last night at my Grandfather’s. He lived near Frankfurt and my flight left early in the morning, so he was going to drive me to the airport. My grandfather was of old Prussian stock, stubborn, proud and very conservative. I had never heard him talk […]

S&P downgraded to “junk” status two of the largest automakers in the world, Ford and General Motors, because these companies have been thoroughly mismanaged: … decades of management miscues … led Standard & Poor’s yesterday to cut the credit ratings of both the world’s largest car maker and Ford Motor Co. to junk-bond status for […]

A few reports have emerged that paint a dire picture of the escalating violence in south-west Togo. Particularly the mountainous area known as the Plateaux, roughly between Kpalimé, 80 miles/120KM north of Lomé, to Atakpamé, 110 miles/170KM north of Lomé. Thomas Hofnung at the French Libération spoke by phone with a reporter in the regional […]

As painful as it is … remember! The hollow wail of the traditional Jewish shofar cut through the air of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp in southern Poland on Thursday, signaling the start of a huge march in memory of the Holocaust. Some 20,000 people from around the world, Jews and non-Jews, set off under […]

[NOTE: this was originally posted on Global Voices Online, a project at the Berkman Center at Harvard. Check out their daily roundups of blogs across the globe. Global Voices is a fantastic resource, if you’re interested in world wide blogging.] By Jurgen and Agbessi . It’s official: Faure Gnassingbe has inherited the family business from […]

Hardly surprising: Togo’s constitutional court, anointed by the the ruling RPT, announced that the the RPT’s “candidate” Faure Gnassingbe will be Togo’s new ruler: The opposition, desperate for change after 38 years of rule by Gnassingbe’s father, refused to concede defeat on Tuesday. “The results are unacceptable, we are going to mobilise the population because […]

The military is brutally terrorizing the civilian population in Togo and thousands are fleeing to Benin and Ghana. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said that more than 9,000 refugees had been registered in Benin and around 7,500 in Ghana. Many of the most recent arrivals were from Be, said Rafik Saidi, the agency’s regional representative. […]

Most of the day I was busy translating Agbessi’s recent posts, but here is some miscellaneous stuff I recently discovered and found interesting: KONONO No1 – wow, these guys rock! L’Ambience! Technorati Watch Lists as RSS feed in Mozilla Thunderbird! The Google Toolbar 3 Beta (IE-only) has a spellcheck feature that checks web forms for […]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a troublemaker, but torching a Goethe Institute goes too far: A German cultural centre has been gutted in an arson attack in the Togo capital, Lome, in the latest outbreak of violence after disputed elections. The early morning attack by masked men wearing black comes after Togo’s interior minister accused […]

This AP photo illustrates the RPT-style democracy in Togo of the last 38 years. Agbessi, over at Au Village has a first hand account of what it was like to be at the receiving end of the soldier’s boots. What this picture does not show clearly is that the two men are most likely from […]

With the glaciers melting and the barrel of crude headed to new heights (in April!) the idea of using renewable, lower-emissions fuels has even penetrated the Lifestyles section of our local “paper of record:” With the average price for a gallon of gas hovering around $2.22 — you could indulge in a vanilla chai for […]

Looks like the opposition in Togo has decided to seek a showdown with the ruling RPT. The unity candidate Bob Akitani announced that, in fact, he won Sunday’s election. Based on information from opposition observers at the polling stations, the opposition claims that it won all districts, except Kara, the home and stronghold of Eyadema’s […]

Reuters spoke to Olympio: “Lome is burning,” main opposition leader Gilchrist Olympio told Reuters by telephone from Ghana, where he lives in exile. “But the only solution is to come to a political settlement … otherwise we are going right into the abyss.” Reuters – Apr 26, 2005 Shortly after the RPT announced its victory, […]

The ruling RPT announces what it calls “provisional election results” declaring victory for its candidate, Faure Gnassingbé, a son of Gnassingbé Eyadema, who ran Togo for 38 years. The candidate of Togo’s ruling RPT party and son of the former leader has provisionally won Sunday’s presidential election, an election official says. Faure Gnassingbe got 60% […]

A bit late, but hopefully not too late: Leaders of Togo’s two main parties have agreed to form a government of national unity following presidential elections marred by violence and claims of fraud. BBC NEWS – Togo leaders ‘to form coalition’ Presuming that Faure Gnassingbé will assume power, based on yesterday’s tainted election, he will […]

Plasmodium Falciparum is an ancient, accomplished killer on a global scale. It is one of the parasites that cause malaria, the disease that brought the Roman Empire to its knees, killed peasants and popes, and continues to ravage the population of many tropical regions of the world. Only massive use of DDT in the 1950s […]

This looks like a last-ditch effort of the African Union to pull Togo away from the abyss of civil war: The Nigerian president and AU president Olusegun Obasanjo met individually with Faure Gnasignbé and Togolese opposition leader Gilchrist Olympio in Abuja today, reports republicoftogo.com (offical Togolese government site). [UPDATE: the BBC also mentions the meetings […]

Not good: Armed men have raided the headquarters of Togo’s opposition, shortly before presidential election polls closed. The attackers, some in military uniform, took computers which the opposition was planning to use to collate results from the day’s polling. Raid overshadows Togo elections, BBC, 24 April, 2005 I guess the RPT is worried about the […]

Voters in Togo are flocking to the polling stations today for a stark choice under difficult conditions. The unity candidate for the opposition, Bob Akitani, is facing off against the frontman of the ruling RPT, Faure Gnassingbé, the son of the late strongman of Togo, Gnassingbe Eyadema. After weeks of turmoil and violent clashes between […]