The Cannibal Planetarchy: The Dictatorship of Opacity

(PHOTO: "People walk past a banner supporting Edward Snowden in Hong Kong's business district. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP"--Photo caption from The Guardian) *** A fiction would have us believe that a kind of a sudden mutation in the body of "stateness" had occurred on September 11, 2001. According to that myth, it was Mohamed Atta and his 18 al Qaeda compadres who'd suddenly transmogrified the United States into what it has now become: a...

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Meet Dr. Benjamin Kabwe, freelance digital archivist of Kinshasa roadworks

(PHOTO 1: Dr. Benjamin Kabwe takes photos of workers painting pedestrian crosswalk marks on the newly-Chinese-repaired Oshwe Avenue in Matonge, Kinshasa. The three-storied building under construction in the background belongs to soukous star Koffi Olomide)  (PHOTO 2: Dr. Kabwe poses for my iPhone at the same location. He's just put back in the bag he's zipping up a Samsung tablet containing some of the hundreds of thousands of photos and videos  of...

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DRC: Re-enter Monsieur l'Abbé Apollinaire Malumalu

(PHOTO: Monsieur l'Abbé Apollinaire Malumalu, 52, at an impromptupresser in Kinshasa, June 4, 2013)***The designation earlier last week by the "religious groups" componentof the DRC civil society of Monsieur l'Abbé Apollinaire Malumalu aschairman of the revamped Independent National Electoral Commisson(CENI) was confirmed Friday, June 7, by the National Assembly.(I couldn't think of or find a satisfactory English equivalent for"Monsieur l'Abbé,"...

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The DRC between two powerful American women & a hard place

PHOTO: "Samantha Power, left, and Susan E. Rice (Mark Von Holden, left, and  Evaristo  Sa/Getty Images)" [Washington Post photo legend] *** I just read on Washington Post the story about Samantha Power being Prez Barack Obama's nominee as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Susan Rice moving from New York to Washington to be Obama's National Security Advisor. (http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/national-security-team-shuffle-may-signal-more-activist-stance-at-white-house/2013/06/05/485cf4e4-cdf2-11e2-8845-d970ccb04497_story.html)...

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A Cautionary Tale: Mobbed for snapping Congolese women

(PHOTOS 1 & 2: An unidentified photographer puts up a brave face and gives a thumbs up as she's being mobbed and jeered for snapping Congolese female hawkers at Maluku wharf on The Channel of the Congo River) *** Don't be fooled by the light, mischievous grin this unidentified woman was flashing at me or the thumbs up she's  giving to me when, as she was being copiously jeered by a small crowd, she noticed that I had quickly...

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