South Africa is the most networked economy in sub-Saharan Africa, followed by Mauritius and Botswana, according to the latest edition of “The Global Information Technology Report” by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
In North Africa, Tunisia has overtaken Egypt as the most network-ready, while Morocco is ranked third.
The report focuses on the role of networked readiness in spurring innovation and economic growth. The report is in its seventh year and covers 127 economies worldwide. Africa was represented by 27 countries.
The report, which saw Nordic countries taking the lead and Africa holding the last positions, is considered the authoritative international assessment of the impact of ICT on the development process and the competitiveness of nations.
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“The successful experience of the Nordic countries, Singapore, the United States or Korea shows that a coherent government vision on the importance of ICT, coupled with an early focus on education and innovation, are key not only for spurring networked readiness, but also to lay the foundations for sustainable growth,” said Irene Mia, senior economist of the Global Competitiveness Network at the WEF and co-editor of the report.
To compile the index, the WEF used a combination of data from publicly available sources, as well as the results of the “Executive Opinion Survey,” a comprehensive annual survey conducted by the WEF with its network of partner research institutes and business organizations in the countries included in the report.
Tunisia was the highest placed country in Africa at 35. South Africa was 51, Mauritius 54, Egypt 63, Morocco 74, Botswana 78, Senegal 85, Algeria 88, Kenya 92, Namibia 93, Nigeria 94, Mauritania 97, Tanzania 100, The Gambia 101, Burkina Faso 103, Madagascar 104, Libya 105, Uganda 109, Zambia 112, Benin 113, Cameroon 118, Mozambique 121, Lesotho 122, Ethiopia 123, Zimbabwe 125, Burundi 126 and Chad 127.
In a separate study, “The Global Competitiveness Index,” South Africa, Botswana and Mauritius fall in the top half of the rankings. Featuring 134 global economies, the competitiveness index is the most comprehensive study from the WEF. This year, the report was expanded to include Brunei Darussalam, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Malawi.
“The ‘Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009’ offers policy-makers and business leaders an important tool in the formulation of improved economic policies and institutional reforms,” said Klaus Schwab, WEF founder and executive chairman.
The index is based on 12 pillars of competitiveness: institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, higher education and training, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market sophistication, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation.
TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA – Quincy Police say an arrest could be coming soon in this week’s robbery and shooting of a convenience store owner Wondwessen Gizaw.
As business continues at the BP at the corner of Highway 90 and Ward Street in Quincy, the police chief says he’s close to getting a warrant in hand.
Three men are wanted for robbing and shooting the store owner Wondwossen Gizaw early Tuesday morning.
Gizaw, a native of Ethiopia, is still recovering from three gunshot wounds.
Tanesha Hall is one of Gizaw’s regular customers. She said, “It’s a disappointment how someone would try to rob him. Basically we know it’s young people and they know how he is. Why would you want to take from somebody like that?”
The chief says the men were black, wearing black clothes, red gloves and masks. He also says they may have a person of interest.
BOSASSO, Somalia (Reuters) – A ship laden with cement was hijacked in the pirate-ridden waters between Somalia and Yemen, a government official said on Friday.
The panama-flagged Wail was en route to Bosasso from Oman and was attacked between the Yemeni Island of Socotra and Bosasso just hours after Somali pirates received a $1.6 million ransom to release the MT Irene, a Japanese chemical tanker.
“A Panama-flagged ship, Wail, was hijacked on Thursday night between Socotra Island and Bosasso,” said Ali Abdi Aware, state minister for northern Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region.
He told Reuters the crew of 11 consisted of nine Syrians and two Somalis.
Piracy is rife off Somalia, which has been mired in anarchy since warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre in 1991.
The vital sealane in the Arabian Sea between Yemen and Somalia links the Middle East Gulf and Asia to Europe and beyond via the Suez Canal and is critical to Gulf oil shipments.
Gunmen have boarded more than 30 vessels this year and received ransoms totalling between $18-30 million, according to British think-tank Chatham House.
The NATO military alliance decided on Thursday to join anti-piracy operations along Somalia’s 3,300 km (2,060 mile) coastline.
One of the highest-profile pirate attacks off Somalia this year involves the MV Faina, which has been held since the end of September with 20 crew members on board. Its cargo includes 33 T-72 tanks which were en route to Kenya’s Mombasa port.
(Reporting by Abdiqani Hassan; writing by Abdi Sheikh; Editing by Matthew Jones)
SINGAPORE (AP) – Oil prices plummeted to a one-year low below $83 a barrel Friday in Asia as investor fears of a severe global economic downturn sparked a panicked sell-off of equities and crude.
Light, sweet crude for November delivery was down $4.35 to $82.24 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Singapore, the lowest since October 2007. The contract overnight fell $1.81 to settle at $86.62.
“The whole market has lost confidence in everything,” said Mark Pervan, senior commodity strategist with ANZ Bank in Melbourne. “Everyone is worried about global growth, and oil is the front line commodity for that. There’s just a lot of panic and fear in the market.”
Investors have been unimpressed by interest rate cuts by the U.S. and other leading central banks this week to help unclog the credit markets and promote lending. A credit crisis that began last year in U.S. sub-prime mortgages has spread across the globe, forcing governments to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out banks, brokerages and insurance companies.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index plunged more than 10 percent Friday while the Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 7 percent Thursday to its lowest level in five years.
“The problem is no one really knows how far and deep this will go,” Pervan said. “But we can see from the size of the rescue packages, this is a really serious deal. This isn’t a normal bear market.”
Oil investors even ignored signs that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may cut production. OPEC said Thursday it will hold an extraordinary meeting Nov. 18 to discuss how the widening global financial crisis is affecting oil prices.
On Thursday, the head of Libya’s national oil company, Shukri Ghanem, called on oil producing nations to cut output.
“OPEC is trying to jaw-bone the price up, but they’ll have to come into the market because no one is going to be believe just jaw-boning with the market sliding so quickly,” Pervan said. “The market is so demand focused, it doesn’t even care what happens to supply.”
OPEC’s decision last month to cut production by 520,000 barrels a day failed to halt the losses, which have accelerated in recent days.
Oil prices have fallen about 44 percent since soaring to a record $147.27 on July 11.
“We haven’t seen the bottom of this yet,” Pervan said. “We thought $75 would be a floor but if the market mood doesn’t change, $50 to $60 a barrel is not out of the question.”
In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell 9.46 cents to $2.32 a gallon, while gasoline prices dropped 8.68 cents to $1.94 a gallon. Natural gas for November delivery rose 6.69 cents to $6.69 per 1,000 cubic feet.
In London, November Brent crude fell $3.66 to $79.00 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Does Obama have it all locked up? My colleague at Thomas Jefferson Street, Robert Schlesinger, thinks so. And he may very well prove to be right. When we look back over the course of the campaign some time after November 4, we may very well conclude that Barack Obama sprinted to a lead during the two weeks following the coagulation of credit on September 18. Obama’s coolness during the financial crisis, combined with John McCain’s impulsiveness, convinced many voters that Obama was the safer choice, the story line will go. And Obama’s big advantage in television advertising contributed to his advance in target states, as Republican blogger Patrick Ruffini argues. As Robert notes, Obama’s current leads in several Bush ’04 states means that McCain must change the basic tenor of the campaign in order to win; eking out a narrow margin in one or two states won’t do it in the current state of opinion. And no one has a clear idea of how McCain can change the dynamic. So, the argument goes, Obama has this thing locked up.
But maybe not.
When I was in the political polling business, I once wrote an optimistic report on a poll. My boss, Peter Hart, took me aside and said, “Whenever you put something on paper, keep in mind how it will read after the election and your client has lost.” This election has been compared to 1980, when, just about all analysts agree, voters were prepared to get rid of Jimmy Carter and only waited to see whether Ronald Reagan was an acceptable alternative. Reagan’s performance in the only debate convinced voters he was, and he went on to win by a 50 percent to 41 percent margin, carrying 44 states. Similarly, some say, Obama’s performance in the two presidential debates so far (and Joe Biden’s performance in the vice presidential debate) has resolved voters’ doubts and led a majority of them to conclude that Obama is an acceptable alternative to the candidate of George W. Bush’s party.
Karl Rove begs to differ. He thinks voters haven’t really decided yet and are still waiting for more evidence. The Carter-Reagan debate, after all, took place on the Thursday before the election. Voters had only five days left to make up their minds. Today, as I write, voters have 26 days left to decide. Maybe they’ll wait and see how things go before they make their final decisions.
One reason to doubt this is that early voting is much more common than it was in 1980. The Obama campaign has spent much time and effort on organizing registration, early voting, and turnout efforts. Marc Ambinder of theatlantic.com, usually a cool observer, is in awe of their efforts. But as Jim Geraghty of nationalreview.com notes, very few votes were cast during the one-week period of early voting in the crucial state of Ohio—far fewer than Geraghty (or I) expected. The most successful recent turnout drive was that of the Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign, which relied on peer-to-peer volunteers, local people who made connections with neighbors with whom they had something in common (fellow members of a particular church, fellow accountants, nearby neighbors). The Obama campaign, in contrast, seems to be depending on youthful volunteers who seem unlikely to have such connections. Ambinder notes that, over the summer, the Obama organization concentrated on attracting more volunteers and only in September started concentrating on metrics of voter contacts.
A disciplined approach, certainly. But how effective are all those volunteers? Are they as effective as those stocking-capped Perfect Stormers of the Howard Dean campaign in Iowa in January 2004? You saw those orange stocking caps swarming all over Des Moines, but they didn’t end up producing many caucus votes. And that was in an early stage of the contest. As a supporter of George McGovern in 1972, I remember that it seemed relatively easy to knock on a strange voter’s door and get a commitment to vote for a then little-known candidate who stood near the left of the political spectrum. “Hey, if this nice young kid is willing to come over on a cold day, why not give this guy a vote?” But when you knocked on people’s doors in September and October, the response was more like: “Hey, kid, it’s nice that you’re motivated and I’d like to give you some milk and cookies, but big things are at stake, and I’m gonna vote for Nixon.”
The Obama candidacy is obviously in far better shape today than McGovern’s was in fall 1972, and there are surely more voters today who are persuadable. And there are surely a lot of marginally involved young and black Obama supporters susceptible to organization efforts—people who would not vote if not contacted but who will if urged and helped to do so. But as Sean Oxendine of thenextright.com argues, the one-week Ohio early voting numbers suggest that the Obama organizational efforts may not be producing as many votes as the Obama campaign hopes. We simply don’t know. There will be other metrics in the weeks ahead on which to base judgments. But I think we’ll have to wait until the actual election results start coming in to make a judgment on the effectiveness of these tactics. Which was the case in 2004. Journalists then provided good accounts of the easy-to-cover Democratic organizational efforts in black neighborhoods and university towns. They provided very little on the harder-to-cover Bush-Cheney ’04 organizational story. My working hypothesis is that peer-to-peer is a lot more productive than young, stocking-capped volunteers. The Obama campaign’s organizational efforts are obviously far superior to the McCain campaign’s. But I think it’s an open question whether they will produce the kind of turnout increase that the Obama campaign wants and, if the balance of opinion changes a bit, will need.
