Africa News Headlines for 12 July 2014

Tobacco giant 'tried blackmail' to block Ugandan anti-smoking law
Source: The Guardian

GMO Bananas Must Pass Their First Test
Source: NPR/Here & Now

Oil hopes high for Sierra Leone
Source: UPI

Mbabane: Africa’s cheapest city
Source: Swazi Observer

Big Brother Africa contestants warned
Source: Nehanda Radio

Governments commit to fight malaria
Source: KBC

African Cities Ranked World’s Most Expensive
Source: Ventures Africa

Spread Of Palm Oil Production Into Africa Threatens Great Apes
Source: NPR

South Sudanese rebel leader in Djibouti on diplomatic tour
Source: Sudan Tribune

The Evolution of Foreign Aid Research: Measuring the Strengths and Weaknesses of Donors
Source: Brookings Now

Abingdon man claims African land to make good on promise to daughter
Source: Bristol Herald-Courier

Kenya issues terror alert over travel to UK airports
Source: The Independent

Equatorial Guinea: One man's fight for rights in Africa’s most repressive dictatorship
Source: Daily Maverick

US Foreign Aid: Washington Gives Billions, But Is It Money Well Spent?
Source: International Business Times

No one-on-one meeting for Obama, Uhuru
Source: The Star

Quakers have ‘underground railroad’ to help gay Ugandans escape the country
Source: Pink News

UD program nurtures civics skills for young African leaders
Source: Delaware Public Media

Uganda anti-gay ruling criticized as 'flawed'
Source: Billings Gazette

Misogyny not limited to ‘backward’ Africa
Source: Cape Argus

The Extinction of Bananas? Global Banana Industry at Risk Due to Deadly Pathogen
Source: Latin Post

Democratic Congressional Candidate Offers $100K For Nude Pics Of Teen Hunter
Source: Daily Caller

Texas teen hunter Kendall Jones: Without hunting, 'no infrastructure for wildlife management'
Source: Politifact

Somali delegation completes course on election management
Source: Mareeg

New Africa Book of the Day - 1 May 2014

The Trans-Oceanic Marketing Channel: A New Tool for Understanding Tropical Africa's Export Agriculture by H. Laurens van der Laan

Release Date: May 1, 2014
Publisher: Routledge [Kindle Edition]

If you feel you have a disjointed, or unbalanced, view of the global system of demand and supply, you are probably correct. Most studies leave out a very important part of the system--the marketing channel. That is why Laurens van der Laan developed and wrote this book, The Trans-Oceanic Marketing Channel. To help you understand what happens to export crops, such as cocoa, coffee, cotton, groundnuts, tea, and tobacco, between their country of origin and consumer markets, this book analyzes the roles of different actors in trans-oceanic trade, inherent differences between world markets, export diversification policies, and the commercial and institutional forces at play.

The Trans-Oceanic Marketing Channel will give you a strong background in marketing channel concepts, and because of its focus on the exporter rather than on the government, it will provide you with an excellent model for microanalysis. As you read about the special features of trans-oceanic trade, you will also learn about:

- trade associations and their role in shaping world markets for trans-oceanic crops
- the uneasy relationship between exporters and shipping companies
- the selling conduct of agricultural exporters in Africa
- the tendency of actors in Africa to accelerate the trans-oceanic product flow
- the effectiveness of export marketing boards as channel leaders
- private enterprise, the chief agent of development
- the theory of “exporter preference”

The Trans-Oceanic Marketing Channel invites policymakers, international businessmen, professors, and students to examine the opportunities, problems, and policies that confront the various players in trans-oceanic trade, especially the exporters. As the book discusses the divergent institutional arrangements in the world markets for agricultural products and their differential effect on African exports, you will become keenly aware of how vertical marketing systems differ from conventional marketing channels. No other book brings together the three fundamental sections of export agriculture, the country of production, the channel through which the products flow, and the country of destination, to provide you with a complete understanding of trans-oceanic marketing.

H. Laurens van der Laan is author of Dutch Enterprise in Colonial Africa: Some Notes and Comments (2003) and The Ambivalent Relationship Between Agricultural Cooperatives and the Marketing Board ONCPB (1988).