Talk:Africa/Archive 2

message: There is a neutrality tag on the economy section. Why? There is no mention I can find in any of the talk page. Does it need ot be there? L.A.F.
The section could be seen as having an anti-globalisation slant.  The comment about Botswana being the only country not to submit to the World Bank and IMF is simply farcical.  Zimbabwe certainly isn't listening to them and Somalia and alike aren't in any position to. 
The statements about foreign aid being focussed on cash crops and, in the next para, that income "goes right out again" are probably more poorly informed generalisations than biased. micronaut
Insert non-formatted text here</nowiki>  Hi. I'm not a registered wikipedia user, so I wouldn't presume to change anything here myself but I've got some suggestions that might help to deal with this issue. I think that the main reason this article might appear biased is that it only deals with two issues: poverty, and Africa's relationship to the West (both in its imitation of western economic forms and in western aid to it). Though certainly, both of these elements are important, if Africa were truly as poor as it is said to be, there would be no one left alive. Famines in Africa are common, but they are by no means the status quo. In response, perhaps the section on economics should deal more with how Africans make ends meet in their daily lives. True, most African countries don't have stock exchanges or sophisicated fiscal policies, but economic activity does occur. For instance, household labor in Africa accounts for a large percentage of all work done, but is not generally included in GDP. Highlighting this discrepancy would go a long ways to explaining how people manage to reproduce in Africa creating growing familes without strong economies. More discussion on the nature of wage and migrant labor in Africa would also be a great boon to the page. In general, instead of speculating on highly political issues, such as the nature of corruption and foregin aid, a wikipedia page should deal with the concrete economic realites at play in Africa, and describe the lives of African people. Paul Zeleza's forthcoming "Economic History of Africa: Volume II" or the UNESCO History of Africa Volumes 7 and 8, might be useful 
My email is june16_1904 AT hotmail DOT com</nowiki></nowiki></nowiki>
:June, I've changed your email address up just slightly so that it's human-readable but a machine probably won't notice it. Wikipedia is mirrored endlessly throughout the web, so the chances of unwanted spam can be pretty high for anyone who gives an email address in plain text. BrianSmithson 17:14, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why is there a tag on Economy 

message: Why does this page indicate that there are 54 countries in Africa instead of 55?
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Home_Page/Country.html lists 55.
:I haven't done a side-by-side comparison, but my first guess is that U Penn is counting Western Sahara as an independent country, and we're not because of the dispute. - BanyanTree 14:19, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The UPenn list counts Reunion (a département of France) as an independent state, thus making the number 55. However, the number on the Wikipedia Africa page is now 53. I presume that excludes Western Sahara, although I don't necessarily agree with that decision. --Mikehillman 15:51, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Geography of Africa article says 56 countries... --TwilightBat 05:31, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Encarta says 53. Gflores Talk 20:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If one includes only territories recognised as independent nation-states/member states by the UN (which is just as good a standard here as any), there are 53 countries.  If one includes all/other jurisdictions (as per the table, itself rather based on UN categorisations) – i.e., including Western Sahara (claimed by Morocco), French territories (Reunion and Mayotte), Spanish territories (Canary Islands, Ceuta/Melilla), and extraterritories (Madeira, Saint Helena) – there are 61 territories that comprise Africa.  Whichever value is used, there should be consistency throughout. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 21:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

text: For consistency, I've made editions to this article reflecting the above (and, similarly, to the mentions and area figures in the geography of Africa article). E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 21:24, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: How many countries?

message: A while back I created a resource for news sources which attempts to organise world news media in terms representative of population size (as opposed to number of news agencies or some other western bias).  Although a fair amount of work has been done there is still much work to do.  For instance we having practically no links to african broadcasting or newsprint sites.  I would be very much obliged for any help filling in this gap.  Barnaby dawson 12:38, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Newspapers and broadcasting in africa

message: I've reshuffled the list of countries by region a bit. Specifically, I've moved Gabon and Equatorial Guinea to the Central Africa section, I've put Cameroon under Central Africa while leaving it's name under West Africa as well, and I've changed the notation after Sao Tome and Principe (forgive the lack of accents, as I'm not on my Mac) to say it's part of Central Africa.
Hopefully this isn't controversial. I've never heard Gabon and EG called parts of West Africa, and it's been my understanding that Cameroon has traditionally been the dividing line between the two regions (thus the dual designation). Sao Tome and Principe are well into the Central African region, too. Please let me know what you think. BrianSmithson 14:24, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I checked another encyclopedia and noted where they mentioned ambiguity as far as which countries belong to which region. The current list denotes this. There may be a prettier way to express this than what I did; if so, let's implement it. However, an anonymous user today reverted back to the list that existed before I started tinkering with it. I hope that anyone who disagrees with the way I organized things will bring it up here, since dogmatically declaring ambiguous countries to be one region at the exclusion of another violates NPOV . . . . BrianSmithson 04:44, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

text: Unfortunately, the question is not so cut and dried. Colonial powers may be one way to look at what is "Central" and what is "West", but then so is geography. Or fauna. Or politics. I was the one who reshuffled the current list, and I've tried to represent all ambiguity I could find. This is the only way I can think of to represent the issue without advocating one point of view over any other. For example, if Cameroon is West African as you say, then why is it the seat of the Bank of Central African States? And why is it on the Central African Franc? (Also: don't forget to sign your name after making comments -- you just type four ~ symbols in a row after your comments.) BrianSmithson 03:21, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

text: We can always take this to Wikipedia:Requests for comment. But continually reverting to your point of view, which goes against consensus (I'm not the only one reverting your edits) is not how Wikipedia is supposed to work. By the way, try to place your Talk comments under the relevant section head. BrianSmithson 04:28, 13 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Countries by region

message: Please contribute. Revolución 03:32, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: African COTW

message: I was quite surprised that there was virtually no mention of the extensive human rights abuses that are common in many African countries.  While I agree that many parts of Africa seem to be moving in the right direction, the fact remains that there are still large regions (particularly in the Congo and in West Africa) that are practically lawless and prone to massive human rights violations, including cannibalism.  I added a small paragraph to the politcs section regarding this, though I would suggest that human rights gets its own subsection with more details.  Also, under the Politics section the subsection entitled "Modern Africa" seems superfluous, as the section before goes all the way to modern times.  This should be changed. The Way 05:22, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human Rights 

message: Could you please anon user/s explain to us here why the section is being blanked on a daily basis? Cheers -- Svest 21:52, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: The economy section