Development Blogs.com

“Hulk. Smash! …Smash Hulk’s USP. What Hulk smash most? Hulk smash all hope of interesting time in cinema.” Peter Bradshaw neatly sums up the desperation of the would-be film-goer as blockbuster season settles in for the summer. Take your pick: The Incredible Hulk (see above) Iron Man, “a mixture of Robocop and Darth Vader… a franchise that is already beginning to rust” Indiana Jones “One tries hard not to be distracted from any available pleasure by the plot—thickly woven gibberish” Sex & The City “There are four of them—banded together, like hormonal hobbits, and all obsessed with a ring“, or The Happening “Basically an awful clunker of whose essential clunkerishness you become aware slowly but...

Against the backdrop of the upcoming local elections on April 8 and the arrest of over 300 members of the country’s biggest opposition group, Egypt is at a critical juncture along its path towards political and economic development with contradictions that are pulling this most populous country in the region in critically opposite directions. With 40 percent of its population living below the poverty line, the Egyptian economy is witnessing consistent growth and is attracting billions of dollars in foreign direct investment. This remarkable dichotomy is dangerously pushing the country along a perilous tight rope between either becoming the success story of economic reform in the region or driving the country into failure and instability. At a time when the global economy is teetering...

Zimbabwe continues to supply entries for record books - unfortunately, not of a good kind.  This time its the news that the central bank will be printing 10,000,000 dollar bills.  Sounds like a lot.  Well, its not.  Its not even enough to buy a hamburger in a cafe.  And, with the way things are going in the country, you may be lucky if you find anything to buy - especially, since goods are disappering from the store shelves into the black market as police are attempting to prosecute entrepreneurs for raising prices.  I wonder, why, unlike many others, Zimbabwe hasn’t been able to benefit from high global prices on natural resources (of which it has plenty)?  Some think corruption is one of the major......