Why is the IMF meeting in Africa important?

African countries have been badly affected by the global financial crisis. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) held a two-day conference in Dar es Salaam to look for solutions.

The task at hand is not an easy one. Bloomberg reports that Twenty-two poor countries, most of them in Africa, may need $25 billion and possibly as much as $140 billion in emergency aid to weather the global crisis, the fund estimates.

Countries like Zambia and Nigeria have suffered. Investments in areas like mining have dried up in recent months.

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned yesterday that the threat of political conflict and even war has increased on the continent as incomes decline and job losses increase.

Source: Bloomberg, BBC World Service
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What is Dakar?

Dakar is the capital city of Senegal and also its largest. It's based on the Cape Verde Peninsula, on the country's Atlantic coast. It buildings, of late, have been reaching for the Senegalese sky with a boom in construction.

Dakar's position, on the western edge of Africa (it is the westernmost African city), is an advantageous departure point for trans-Atlantic and European trade. This has helped Dakar become a major regional port.

According to December 31, 2005 official estimates, the city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 2.45 million people.

Dakar is a major administrative centre, home to the National Assembly of Senegal and Senegal Presidential Palace.

Construction in and around the city has been booming of late. Much of the 300 million dollars per year that expatriates send home is funnelled towards the construction business.

Sources: Wikipedia, BBC World Service

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I poppy the question

Q: Which country is the largest producer of Poppies in the world?

Answer: Afghanistan



Q: Which country is the largest consumer of opium in the world?
Answer: Russia
Source: BBC World Service




Good, now go back to work


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what is: SINN FEIN?

• It is a political party in Ireland which stands for Irish republicanism
• Sinn Fein takes its name from the Irish Gaelic expression for ``We Ourselves''
• It is led by Gerry Adams and is the second-largest party in the Northern Ireland assembly
• It is believed to have had strong links with the provisional IRA in the past
• It has condemned the recent attacks on police and military personnel in Ireland

Source: BBC, Wikipedia, Sinn Fein Website

What is the Good Friday agreement?

• Signed on 10 April 1998, put into force in on 2 December 1999.
• It is a major political development in the Northern Ireland Peace Process
• It is also called the Belfast agreement. Among many other provisions it ensures that political parties will use peaceful and democratic means.
• In a nutshell the Northern Ireland problem is this: many Protestant Unionists believe that Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK. Many Catholic Nationalists think it should join the Republic of Ireland.
• ‘The Troubles’ was a period of violence that began in 1969 when the two opposing groups marched in protest. The agreement is largely seen as the endpoint of The Troubles.
• On 10 March 2009, the BBC reported that a policeman was shot dead just 48 hours after the murders of two soldiers.
• A Dublin-based newspaper received a call from a group calling itself the "Real IRA". It claimed to have carried out the attacks on the Army soldiers.
  
  Sources:
  BBC news, Reuters and Wikipedia