I finally get to see North Africa. When I lived in south Portugal back in 2002, I had always contemplated hopping on the ferry from Spain to say that I had been to "Africa" - well Morocco, that is. Now being a little more knowledgeable (less naive) about the continent, my "hop-over" will now be an 11pm flight tonight to Dubai (another new airport), then connecting to Casablanca, and then Fez, Morocco at around 5pm on April 14. Map is courtesy of US CIA. Ah, the joys of long flights and airport interiors. I have also been informed that about some most-wanted local suicide bombers with 9lbs of explosives were taken down by police in the slum areas of Casablanca. Apparently it should not affect travel in anyway. For me, it sounds like a re-visit of when I passed through Bilbao, north of Spain, winter 2001, when the day before, the police had to block off some street for an expected bombing by the ETA. No one was hurt, but full-on threat to citizens living in these cities that they experience everyday.
What have I been reading: The reason why I love the New Yorker is because of its eloquent way of getting the reader to see multiple sides to a person or event that the mainstream media, in most cases, fails to cover. I noticed that Cassidy's article on Paul Wolfowitz, president of the World Bank, has become their most read article. The article allows the read to try to determine themselves whether Mr. Wolfowitz could be using his presidency as a move to push his agenda on Iraq which failed to surface with the US government because of his "silent diplomacy". I got in major debate with an American and Canadian volunteer while in Mombasa on the World Bank especially on the quote that Mr. Wolfowitz was a "bleeding heart". I like the lead-on that the World Bank president needs to project more clearly his plans for the future of World Bank as McNamara did... decide for yourself. Good read.
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