Africa
Gabon
Gabon is run by Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba: The President of Poverty
The president of this poverty-ravaged African state spent £85million on a lavish townhouse in Paris, he bought a sprawling 48,000 sq ft mansion on an acre of land in the heart of the French capital.
The average wage in Gabon is $12 a day, although the country's oil wealth makes it one the richest places on Earth.
According to the President of Poverty he needed his new home to save money on hotel bills whilst he's enjoying himself in Paris.
Nigeria Exposed
Our investigators in Africa have been working undercover in Nigeria and we can reveal that the whole of that country's GNP is based on scamming.
Today we can reveal that every man, woman and child is engaged in the production of letters and emails telling the rest of world's citizens that they have won a fortune in prize draws that they never entered in the first place. For a small admin fee they can claim their winnings.
A key player in the scamming enterprise told one of our people:
" You can't catch antelope for dinner unless you get out of bed first, poor people are born knowing this. You rich people want your antelope brought to you in bed. So, that's what we offer you - antelope in bed. Nice idea but all you get from us is the bones of the carcass, while we feast on your greed."
Very Eric Cantona, thanks.
And more, we can reveal, that these Nigerian entrepreneurs derive your personal details from so-called bona fides companies that you shop with day to day. Yes, your addresses, phone numbers, email addresses are being sold like body parts across the Internet. So the next time some shop operative asks for your details for 'the warranty' say no thanks, I'll forward the details to Nigeria myself.
Eritrea
Introduction: 2011 witnessed a spate of popular uprisings across the Middle East. The people had finally had enough of their dictators. There was some suggestion that Eritrea might be a prime candidate for another citizen uprising.
Recent history: Eritrea finally freed itself from Ethiopia in 2000 at the conclusion of a thirty year war. It freed itself in order to install the kind of despotism that Ethiopia could only dream of.
Economy: Well it certainly is economic, with a GDP of $4 billion. For the sake of comparison, miserable little Liechtenstein, with its population of 35,000 has the same size GDP with 5 million less citizens. Another comparison: Roman Abramovich has personal wealth of £7.8 billion and Carlos Slim, the world's richest citizen, has £31 billion.
The Eritrean economy might to be described as an old style Soviet Command Economy - not that there's much to command. 80% of the poplulation are engaged on subsistence farming and struggling to feed themsevles. In 2007 a Canadian mining company signed a contract with the government but very few multinationals have any interest in doing business with Africa's second-rate answer to North Korea.
President Issaias Afewerki, his pals, and army generals own all the companies. Dynamism is not a feature of the Eritrean economy.
Trivia: Eritrea is the only African country without any privately owned news media. Dissenting voices are stoned. Also, the opportunities for spreading dissent are diminished, if not impossible. It is estimated that mobile phone subscriptions are as low 3 per 100 citizens. 'Reporters Without Borders' put Eritrea at the top of a poll as the worst country for press freedom.
Politics: The country is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice. Deep irony resonates; Eritrea is not a democracy, Eritrea has no justice, and whatever a Front is, the people have bugger all to do with it.
The country has been run by the same provisional clique that took control in 1993, following a referendum to split with Ethiopia. Although the constitution states that elections will take place every five years, none have ever taken place.
The main problem for Eritrea is its insistence on warring with all its neighbours. The country seems to have some kind of dispute rota system in place, one week it's Djibouti, the next it's Sudan and then it's Ethiopia - then the process starts all over again. The UN walked away from all this nonsense in 2008.
Bottom Line: The probability of Eritrea being the next pro-democracy flashpoint is very low. Only the army have the means to remove Afewerki's clique but have no incentive to do so since they drink from the same trough.