Thirsty Rock

Trade between Africa and China has grown exponentially in the last decade breaching USD 40 billion in 2004. Most of this growth is fueled by commodity exports to China including oil and minerals. It helps that the Chinese government throws in the odd gift; a huge football stadium in Tanzania and a USD 150 million office complex for the African Union in Ethiopia are some of the recent signs of the benevolence of the People's Republic of China. Unlike financial aid from the West which is often laden with strings and is increasingly considered intrusive by most African governments, Chinese investments are unconditional. These investments are almost always targeted at infrastructure development. Compared with the seemingly endless workshops, seminars and consultancy services preferred by donors from the West, Chinese help brings meaningful relief to local communities and could be the reason why Chinese engagement is highly sought after in Africa. As a bonus, the Chinese do not tag ...

Investopedia defines money as "A commodity or asset, such as gold, an officially issued currency, coin or paper note, that can be legally exchanged for something equivalent, such as goods or services". Joe Plummer offers a more interesting definition: Fiat money is inherently worthless paper, backed by absolutely nothing, and because so, government must force people to accept it via legal tender laws. The last twelve months has seen the world's favourite fiat money, the United States Dollar, resemble more closely Joe Plummer's description of money. Oil exporters have taken note. Kuwait has quietly removed the dollar peg. It is rumored (and one-year forward contracts support this rumour) that Saudi Arabia is on course to unhinge the Riyal from the dollar hook. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad couldn't agree more with Plummer. "They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper... the dollar has no economic value" complained the Iranian leader at th...

In the ten months to October 2007, China Mobile added 55 million new subscribers to its mobile phone network. The company hosts 356 million users, over three times the subscription at the closest competitor, China Unicom . Equipment providers, from handset suppliers to switch manufacturers are clamoring for a piece of the action. In a move seen as discriminatory against foreign suppliers, the Chinese government adopted a home grown standard for third generation (3G) mobile systems despite downward pressure from European (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) and US (CDMA 2000)) lobby groups. Beijing is one of ten test cities for the government sponsored time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA) standard. Excessive royalties to foreign companies and costly litigations arising from Intellectual Property rights violations are citied by Beijing as some of the reasons for pushing the Chinese 3G standard. Others argue that China is simply asserting its positi...

Bluetooth technology is widely used to connect mobile phones with headsets, laptops, cameras, printers and other bluetooth enabled devices. For wireless local area networking Wi-Fi rules, OK? Not quite. Bluetooth may be the answer to small networks for which data transmission speed and coverage area are of no consequence. This technology consumes far less power at much lower cost than Wi-Fi. We set up a bluetooth network of three computers using Class 1 devices in under an hour. Class 1 devices can communicate up to 100m - coverage similar to a typical Wi-Fi installation at a fraction of the cost. Communication across solid walls was a breeze. Although Bluetooth networks are limited to eight devices per cluster (called a piconet), they can be extended by connecting two or more piconets to form a scatternet . Version 3.0 promises transmission speeds of around 480 Mbit/s.

Yesterday saw markets tumble across the globe on renewed sentiment that the credit squeeze which shrunk third quarter profits at major banks is still at play. Despite a Federal Reserve Bank rate drop from 4.75% to 4.5% which would normally favor stock, fear of the credit crisis still looms. In fact, by lowering rates Ben Bernanke may have fallen on his own sword. Investors are increasingly concerned about the return of their investment thus perpetuating seizure in the credit market. One must wonder at the effectiveness on the markets of a monetary policy based largely on interest rate administration. The evidence so far suggests that the credit markets have paid scant attention to central banks' attempts to encourage interbank lending at moderate rates. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan's largest bank, is rumored to be short of capital and the bank was punished by the markets. Bloomberg reports that this morning UFJ stock fell the most for three months. With No...