6 ms·

Sudan, Africa's most misunderstood country

90 points by hwayern 10y ago

Diederich 10y ago
Very nice presentation.
jibbit 10y ago
Ugh can't view from the uk
- dmix 10y ago
  You can't view a BBC article from the UK? Don't your taxes pay for this content?
  - vidarh 10y ago
    No. This is published by BBC's commercial arm. They're not allowed to use TV license money on it. But on the other hand, the BBC is not allowed to operate commercially in the UK, with some very few exceptions, and so they block their ad funded content from the UK to avoid having to sort out how to provide it without breaking the rules.
  - ForHackernews 10y ago
    Apparently not: > We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com. Ridiculous.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    No. BBC International is not funded through British taxes but through ads - and as there is a law in the UK that prohibits BBC from showing ads here, they cannot show this content in UK. It sucks, but a simple VPN solves the issue.
    - jogjayr 10y ago
      Why can't they just turn off ads for UK visitors?
      - gambiting 10y ago
        I guess it's because then they would be getting visits which are not paid for in any way(they can't use the money off the licence fee, and they can't show ads).
        jogjayr 10y ago
        That would be justified and consistent if they blocked visitors with adblockers, which they do not.
  - harel 10y ago
    We "prefer" to call that a "TV License" because if we called it "tax" it would have negative connotations. It is also paid separately to "tax".
    - ilugaslifg 10y ago
      The term "TV License" is 1000% more offensive and outrageous, to my Canadian ears, than "TV Tax" would be. A "license" is a permit from the government to do or use something, and carries the implication that it's something that can be denied. I know it 100% functions as a tax and not in any sense as a license. And the idea of requiring government permission to have a TV carries less weight in the internet age than it would have in the past. But the wording alone still makes my blood boil. It sounds like something you'd find in North Korea.
      - noir_lord 10y ago
        I'm from the UK and it's not something that has ever bothered me so possibly a cultural thing. That said I don't have a TV License anyway since I have no requirement for one, the few bits of TV I do watch are handily covered by Netflix. Broadcast TV is horrible the few times I watch it when I'm at the GF's, after 4 years without it you forget just how bad. Ironically I consume vastly more content from the BBC via their radio content (BBC Radio 4 is heroin) which is all free without a license anyway.
      - Udik 10y ago
        > I know it 100% functions as a tax You wish. Taxes are mostly proportional to the payer's income, or wealth, or to the value of some owned good. Instead, so called "tv licenses" are fixed, such that the poorest citizen, owner of a 10inch tv found in the trash bin, is bound to pay as much as the richest taxpayer, with his multi wall-sized home cinema devices. In this respect it works exactly as the annual subscription to a TV service (it's actually called "subscription" in some countries) and it's clearly a remnant of the times when TVs were rare, expensive objects that were in themselves a proof of the wealth of their owners.
        10y ago
- tim333 10y ago
  try https://www.hotspotshield.com/ https://www.hotspotshield.com/ at least that's what I use to see this stuff
panic 10y ago
Saved you a click: the country is Sudan. (Maybe a title like "Sudan: Africa's most misunderstood country" would be better)
- Cyph0n 10y ago
  But then you'd get the obligatory "title is not the same as original!1!" complaint. It's the HN way of life I guess.
JPLeRouzic 10y ago
I am really happy to see some nice information about Sudan. Some years ago I got a bit angry at racism in myself and around me, and I did a little research on Africa History. I was deeply disturbed to understand that concepts that were deeply engraved in me as Africa as a "terra nulla", without history, without writing systems or even buildings, were huge lies. Sudan, Ethiopia and Erythrea have a rich history which goes thousands years back linking Egypt, the middle east to India. Later it was a milestone on the road from the Roman empire to India. Most of what we call as Egyptian history is in fact a mix of Lybian, Assyrian, Egyptian and Nubian (Sudanese) history. One thing that is not mentioned is that Sudan and Ethiopia have their own writing system [0]. I suggest also to have a look at Jos Plateau (Nigeria) prehistory which goes back hundred of thousand years. Jos Plateau is also probably one of the areas at the origin of the great Bantu migration. And how those people mastered Iron metallurgy and also to the rice invention in the mega lake Chad area where was found the most ancient boat in the world. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroitic_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroitic_alphabet (edited)
- budu3 10y ago
  I just wanted to add a few more African civilizations, namely: Great Zimbabwe[0], Axum[1], Asante Kingdom [2] Swahili Kingdoms[3] etc. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axum [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire [3]http://richard-hooker.com/sites/worldcultures/CIVAFRCA/SWAHILI.HTM http://richard-hooker.com/sites/worldcultures/CIVAFRCA/SWAHI...
  - bassislife 10y ago
    Adding to the list the very important Kanem-Bornou Empire and Bagirmi Kingdom.
  - halflings 10y ago
    And for North Africa, the Amazigh (called "Berbers"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers
crypt1d 10y ago
I was unable to view a few slides in the presentation. I imagine its probably because they are flash videos and Firefox on Linux has been a pain about it so far. Anyone else experiencing this or knows how to fix it?
- khedoros1 10y ago
  I'm using Firefox on Linux, and I don't have Flash installed. The animated backgrounds are using the video tag, and provides "video/mp4", "video/webm", and "video/ogg" files for each of the slides that include video (slides 3, 7, and 9). Slides 4, 6, 8, 11, and 13 looks like they're doing some kind of more protected video, but I've never done any kind of web development, so I don't know how to track down how it works. I'll note that I've got an h.264 plugin from Cisco and a Widevine DRM module installed, and that might have something to do with how it works for me. Firefox 50.1.0 on Mint 18, if that makes a difference.
oli5679 10y ago
Really confused by the following error message: "We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com." Surely blocking UK citizens like me from seeing the page leaves both the BBC and me strictly worse off vs letting me browse the page and see the same adverts as international viewers?
- didgeoridoo 10y ago
  Seems like the logical (but irrational) consequence of a few different UK broadcasting laws colliding: http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/bbc-future-is-blockingitself http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/bbc-future-is-blockingitself
more_corn 10y ago
WTF slideshow.
AnimalMuppet 10y ago
Sudan is "misunderstood"? I personally know several refugees from there. Certainly their stories are their own experience, and certainly they were on the receiving end of a religious and racial civil war. Still, I have a hard time seeing the government as anything but a bunch of murderous thugs who, rather than trying to deal with the grievances of those unlike them, instead tried to bomb them into submission or non-existence. I've seen the effects of that approach on the bodies of people I know. And beautiful scenery and history don't make up for that, in my mind.
samirillian 10y ago
Africa, mostly misunderstood as a country.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

90 points by hwayern 10y ago

Diederich 10y ago

Very nice presentation.

jibbit 10y ago

Ugh can't view from the uk

dmix 10y ago
You can't view a BBC article from the UK? Don't your taxes pay for this content?
- vidarh 10y ago
  No. This is published by BBC's commercial arm. They're not allowed to use TV license money on it. But on the other hand, the BBC is not allowed to operate commercially in the UK, with some very few exceptions, and so they block their ad funded content from the UK to avoid having to sort out how to provide it without breaking the rules.
- ForHackernews 10y ago
  Apparently not: > We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com. Ridiculous.
- gambiting 10y ago
  No. BBC International is not funded through British taxes but through ads - and as there is a law in the UK that prohibits BBC from showing ads here, they cannot show this content in UK. It sucks, but a simple VPN solves the issue.
  - jogjayr 10y ago
    Why can't they just turn off ads for UK visitors?
    - gambiting 10y ago
      I guess it's because then they would be getting visits which are not paid for in any way(they can't use the money off the licence fee, and they can't show ads).
      - jogjayr 10y ago
        That would be justified and consistent if they blocked visitors with adblockers, which they do not.
- harel 10y ago
  We "prefer" to call that a "TV License" because if we called it "tax" it would have negative connotations. It is also paid separately to "tax".
  - ilugaslifg 10y ago
    The term "TV License" is 1000% more offensive and outrageous, to my Canadian ears, than "TV Tax" would be. A "license" is a permit from the government to do or use something, and carries the implication that it's something that can be denied. I know it 100% functions as a tax and not in any sense as a license. And the idea of requiring government permission to have a TV carries less weight in the internet age than it would have in the past. But the wording alone still makes my blood boil. It sounds like something you'd find in North Korea.
    - noir_lord 10y ago
      I'm from the UK and it's not something that has ever bothered me so possibly a cultural thing. That said I don't have a TV License anyway since I have no requirement for one, the few bits of TV I do watch are handily covered by Netflix. Broadcast TV is horrible the few times I watch it when I'm at the GF's, after 4 years without it you forget just how bad. Ironically I consume vastly more content from the BBC via their radio content (BBC Radio 4 is heroin) which is all free without a license anyway.
    - Udik 10y ago
      > I know it 100% functions as a tax You wish. Taxes are mostly proportional to the payer's income, or wealth, or to the value of some owned good. Instead, so called "tv licenses" are fixed, such that the poorest citizen, owner of a 10inch tv found in the trash bin, is bound to pay as much as the richest taxpayer, with his multi wall-sized home cinema devices. In this respect it works exactly as the annual subscription to a TV service (it's actually called "subscription" in some countries) and it's clearly a remnant of the times when TVs were rare, expensive objects that were in themselves a proof of the wealth of their owners.
      - 10y ago
tim333 10y ago
try https://www.hotspotshield.com/ https://www.hotspotshield.com/ at least that's what I use to see this stuff

panic 10y ago

Saved you a click: the country is Sudan. (Maybe a title like "Sudan: Africa's most misunderstood country" would be better)

Cyph0n 10y ago
But then you'd get the obligatory "title is not the same as original!1!" complaint. It's the HN way of life I guess.

JPLeRouzic 10y ago

I am really happy to see some nice information about Sudan. Some years ago I got a bit angry at racism in myself and around me, and I did a little research on Africa History. I was deeply disturbed to understand that concepts that were deeply engraved in me as Africa as a "terra nulla", without history, without writing systems or even buildings, were huge lies. Sudan, Ethiopia and Erythrea have a rich history which goes thousands years back linking Egypt, the middle east to India. Later it was a milestone on the road from the Roman empire to India. Most of what we call as Egyptian history is in fact a mix of Lybian, Assyrian, Egyptian and Nubian (Sudanese) history. One thing that is not mentioned is that Sudan and Ethiopia have their own writing system [0]. I suggest also to have a look at Jos Plateau (Nigeria) prehistory which goes back hundred of thousand years. Jos Plateau is also probably one of the areas at the origin of the great Bantu migration. And how those people mastered Iron metallurgy and also to the rice invention in the mega lake Chad area where was found the most ancient boat in the world. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroitic_alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroitic_alphabet (edited)

budu3 10y ago
I just wanted to add a few more African civilizations, namely: Great Zimbabwe[0], Axum[1], Asante Kingdom [2] Swahili Kingdoms[3] etc. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Zimbabwe [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axum [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashanti_Empire [3]http://richard-hooker.com/sites/worldcultures/CIVAFRCA/SWAHILI.HTM http://richard-hooker.com/sites/worldcultures/CIVAFRCA/SWAHI...
- bassislife 10y ago
  Adding to the list the very important Kanem-Bornou Empire and Bagirmi Kingdom.
- halflings 10y ago
  And for North Africa, the Amazigh (called "Berbers"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers

crypt1d 10y ago

I was unable to view a few slides in the presentation. I imagine its probably because they are flash videos and Firefox on Linux has been a pain about it so far. Anyone else experiencing this or knows how to fix it?

khedoros1 10y ago
I'm using Firefox on Linux, and I don't have Flash installed. The animated backgrounds are using the video tag, and provides "video/mp4", "video/webm", and "video/ogg" files for each of the slides that include video (slides 3, 7, and 9). Slides 4, 6, 8, 11, and 13 looks like they're doing some kind of more protected video, but I've never done any kind of web development, so I don't know how to track down how it works. I'll note that I've got an h.264 plugin from Cisco and a Widevine DRM module installed, and that might have something to do with how it works for me. Firefox 50.1.0 on Mint 18, if that makes a difference.

oli5679 10y ago

Really confused by the following error message: "We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com." Surely blocking UK citizens like me from seeing the page leaves both the BBC and me strictly worse off vs letting me browse the page and see the same adverts as international viewers?

didgeoridoo 10y ago
Seems like the logical (but irrational) consequence of a few different UK broadcasting laws colliding: http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/bbc-future-is-blockingitself http://www.baekdal.com/opinion/bbc-future-is-blockingitself

more_corn 10y ago

WTF slideshow.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago

Sudan is "misunderstood"? I personally know several refugees from there. Certainly their stories are their own experience, and certainly they were on the receiving end of a religious and racial civil war. Still, I have a hard time seeing the government as anything but a bunch of murderous thugs who, rather than trying to deal with the grievances of those unlike them, instead tried to bomb them into submission or non-existence. I've seen the effects of that approach on the bodies of people I know. And beautiful scenery and history don't make up for that, in my mind.

samirillian 10y ago

Africa, mostly misunderstood as a country.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]