Random links

Here are a few links that I liked during the last days. Enjoy!

1
People who want to give me money, a great blog collecting emails of advance-fee scams. While not only African, this type of fraud is typically known as Nigerian scams or 419 fraud and a great deal in the blog are Africa-related.

2
Speaking of Nigerian scammers, apparently there are a few websites that like to take revenge on them by getting them to perform all sorts of tasks in order to get those bank details and ridiculing them. Such as 419 Eater, which recently saw one poster known as Nurse Nasty persuading all manner of scammers to dress up as superheroes of her design. Brilliant. (via A Bombastic Element & Bleeding Cool)

3
‘In Africa they won’t feel lonesome tonight’, an article about Africa’s communalism that ensures that no one is left alone (I can assure you of that).

4
A video portrait of Raki, a Michael Jackson impersonator from Goma in Eastern DRC (by the way, the bit where he sings Billy Jean making up the words because he doesn’t speak English reminded me of this old Italian video).

5
Speaking of the DRC, the trial of former Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga resumed today in The Hague. Lubanga is accused of enlisting and conscripting child soldiers and using them to fight for the Congolese militia group Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) during 2002 and 2003, and if you’re interested in his trial you should follow this blog by the Open Society Justice Initiative.

6
‘Desert Flower‘, the autobiographical fairy tale-esque book by Somali super model Waris Dirie was one of the first African books I read as a teenager, if not the first one. So I’m really looking forward to watching the German movie adaptation (although shot in English) that came out in October. Here’s the trailer (via Africa.Visual_Media)

7
Everybody’s wondering if Nigeria’s president is still alive, since he hasn’t been seen in over 6 weeks.

8
Extremely useful fire mosquito catcher by Johannes Vogl (via Ryan Briggs), the perfect weapon to fight malaria in Africa.

9
Awesome new photoblog by Andrew Jones focused on Chantal Biya’s, Cameroon’s First Lady, crazy hairdos. Oh, and if you have any pictures of that work of art of a woman, email them to chantalbiyahair[at]gmail[dot]com