Light Seeking Light: Tunisia Trip -- Part Eight

Some great architectural vacation pics from Tunisia by this blogger!

Light Seeking Light: Tunisia Trip -- Part Eight

Ethiopia: Chinese fund to embark on multi billion dollar investment - Afrik.com : Africa news, Maghreb news - The african daily newspaper

Definitely a story to watch. There could be a need for Mandarin speaking FAOs in Africa in the future!

Ethiopia: Chinese fund to embark on multi billion dollar investment - Afrik.com : Africa news, Maghreb news - The african daily newspaper

China Africa Development Fund (CADFund), which officially opened its Addis Ababa Representative Office a week a go, is considering investing in three projects in Ethiopia.

The three new projects under appraisal, according to Yong Wang, Chief Representative of CADFund’s Addis Ababa Office, include: Investing in a Chinese industrial zone, establishing a huge food processing company, and expanding LIFAN Motors Company.

“The industrial zone project has three phases: one is the infrastructure project, the second is a steel factory, and the other is attracting other Chinese factories to join this industrial zone,” Wang explained.

If the new projects are approved, the fund’s investments in Ethiopia will total seven.

The Government of Ethiopia has awarded five thousand square kilometres of land to one Chinese company for the construction of a five billion dollar industrial zone.

The CADFund joint investment bid, if successful, is expected to ease the financing and help realise the zone’s intention of hosting 80 Chinese textile, leather and metal companies, according to information obtained from the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Ethiopia.

“We are now making a feasibility study, then we will request a plot from the government,” says Wang.

The food processing company is the second biggest project.

YANGFAN Motors, better known as Lifan, which split a year ago from its local partner, Holland Car Assembly, is the third project.

“LIFAN has got an expansion area from the government and we are now pondering whether to invest three million dollars in it,” the chief representative revealed.

Chinese car manufacturer, LIFAN Motors showcased its first production LIFAN520 in a ceremony on Wednesday, February 24 a year after terminating its partnership with Holland Car Plc.

LIFAN Motors and the Ethiopian vehicle assembling firm had for three years been putting together a car known as Abay, which is named after the Amharic name for the Blue Nile.

LIFAN, in collaboration with CADFund, is planning a 10 million dollar expansion aiming to upgrade its stores, factory and service stations, and achieve its objective of 1,000 automobiles per year as well as employing 106 people in its first year of operation. Its second target is to assemble 2,000 cars per year by 2012.

The Crux of FAO-dom

      I want to comment early on in this blog on RADM Lemmon's statement from the 4th Annual FAO Conference: "Trust and cooperation cannot be surged."
     This statement directly addresses the dichotomy between the role of the warfighters (the guys with guns on the ground-GWGOG) and the FAOs.  Using Iraq as an example, we had the capability to surge our GWGOGs to much success.  However, the roles of FAOs, specifically the successful role of FAOs as advisers to  the GWGOGs requires that each FAO has put in the requisite time within that country/region, that each FAO has forged the relationships needed to be effective. 
      And it is in this respect that RADM Lemmons statement must truly become the mantra for FAOs worldwide.  In whatever position each FAO finds themselves in (whether stateside or overseas) they must seek ways to build that trust and cooperation within their ROI (region of influence) throughout their career.

 (In future postings I will discuss the nature of trust and cooperation and what is required to create them)

Questions for discussion:

1.  Had a robust FAO program been established 20 years earlier, how might the conflict in Iraq have played out differently?  What should their role be (ideally) in Iraq today?

2.  Are there currently the correct number of FAO billets on each regional staff world-wide to advise/influence in future conflicts?  Are these billets correctly placed and distributed amongst the branches of the armed forces? 

3.  What are ways that FAOs can build that trust and cooperation within their region while they are stateside?

   

Lawful Magic: Why I will have a poem of the week

Lawful Magic:  Why I will have a Poet of the week
Poet of the Week from Morocco: Hassan El Ouazzani

There is no reason each regional specialist should not be reading a regional poem each week.  The study of a country's  history and government, yes all that is necessary, but the poetry, the poetry cuts to the heart of its countrymen.

"No people in the world manifest such enthusiastic admiration for literary expression and are so moved by the word, spoken or written, as the Arabs. Modern audiences in Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo can be stirred to the highest degree by the recital of poems, only vaguely comprehended, and by the delivery of orations in the classical tongue, though it be only partially understood. The rhythm, the rhyme, the music, produce on them the effect of what they call "lawful magic" (sihr halal). "
Philip K Hitti, History of the Arabs


ELEGY FOR LOVE
by Hassan El Ouazzani

The cloud
did not regain its nest. Amazement
did not depart from its shadow. The star
did not enjoy its evening.
The master
did not abandon his death.

They all opened wide
a gate to death, a gate to the night
and a thousand gates to war

O
friends, drinking
companions, stop this desolation.

Besides,
I do not like women
who paint my steps with the wind

I like
all women.

I don’t like the mountains
that reach closer to the sky of speech. I like the paths
that lead secretly to the heart, pull
the soul back to its retraced steps, and take me
to the limits of the earth.

I don’t mean
the earth
I mean a woman’s lips, or a bunch of grapes
or a glass, or a moon, or a lap that shelters me
from August’s sun, or from rain pouring on my hands.

I don’t mean
the night, I mean the following morning.

And
I don’t remember anything.
I remember that his face was calm,
his body cold. I remember
my own amazement. When I die, where will
the women hiding inside my heart go?

Will Leila keep to her silence?
Butaynah might appear in the hall.
Jocelyn might embrace Elsa.
They might gather around me,
for a little chat.

He was a friend of war,
says Leila.
A pal to the air,
adds Jocelyn.
He didn’t depart from his shadow,
he was a wise man,
and a Friend
to all
this
void.
-Hassan El Ouazzani

Some of my favorite poetry books: