In which the symbolic fifth billion child and the symbolic sixth billion child misunderstand the meaning of symbolism.

The seven billionth baby has been born, welcome to the world little one, whoever you are. That baby is not Danica May Camacho, the little cutie from The Phillippines who is one of several symbolic seventh billion babies. Danica is not the actual seventh billion baby to be born - she merely represents the idea that we are now 7 billion.

Perhaps someone should have explained the largely symbolic nature of this to the fifth billion child and the sixth billion child, because they are not very happy.

According to the Guardian:

Previous children picked out at birth by the UN to mark world population milestones have complained that the international body forgot about them later in life. Both 12-year-old Adnan Nevic of Bosnia Herzogovina, the sixth billionth baby, and Matej Gaspar from Croatia, who was number five billion, have complained that the UN chose them at birth then largely ignored them. "We saw Kofi Annan as almost like a godfather to him," Adnan's father, Jasminko, told the Guardian. Adnan said: "He held me up when I was two days old but since then we have heard nothing from them."

Read the full story here.

Mr. Annan, if you are reading this, please call Adnan and tell him that when you held him up at the age of two days old, you were not making a lifetime commitment that the UN would always be there in his life, but really only just using him for PR purposes. Please also explain to Adnan the meaning of the following words: this exploitation of cute little babies for purely symbolic reasons? Enough already.

As sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti.

I am back in Arusha. Yesterday morning in Harare, as I left my apartment, I heard Toto’s Africa, one of my favourite songs ever. This was the second time in twelve hours: I had heard it the night before, on Friday, in The Lounge, my neighbourhood bar in Newlands. It sounds very, very good on a double gin and tonic. Three hours ago, I looked out of my window on the flight from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro Airport and there, imperial, majestic, rising like Olympus above the Serengeti and framed by clouds as white as the snow cresting it, was Mount Kilimanjaro. I have seen Kili dozens of times from the air, but it never, ever gets old. Next year, I am going all the way to the top. And Toto will give me wings. Here’s Toto ...

The TWAG Quote of the Week: George Charamba on the nefarious plot by the Swiss to untie what God has tied together.

Last week, the Swiss denied visas to members of President Mugabe’s entourage who wanted to go to Geneva for an ITU meeting. Among those denied visas was the President’s wife, Grace Mugabe. The President rarely misses an opportunity to attend the ITU annual meeting - he was to have been on a panel with Swiss and Rwandan Presidents Micheline Calmy-Rey and Paul Kagame.

Paul Kagame was to speak by video-phone from Kigali.

Our President, never one to turn away from a lectern if he can lambast Western powers from it, was to be there in person … along with a 62-member entourage.

The Swiss issued visas to the President and a significant number of the entourage, but felt, reasonably enough in my view, that not all 62 were on UN business, and that some were in fact using the UN mission to avoid the sanctions that have been imposed on their travel to Switzerland.

This seems entirely reasonable to me, but then I am not entirely unbiased: my view is grounded in the fact that the last time the President went on a UN mission, he is said to have spent more than 5 million dollars – his entourage on that occasion included his young children who undoubtedly had pressing UN business in New York. My view is also influenced by the fact that government owes the City of Harare about 80 million dollars, which explains the smell of rubbish that is piling uncollected outside my apartment complex and the nasty pothole on Arden Drive that I almost drove into last week. Most of all, I am exercised by the fact that the Harare City Library, whose board I chair, and which is the biggest and most popular library in Zimbabwe, has a leaking roof. If you knocked off about 20 intelligence agents and associated aides from the 62, that would be enough money for a new roof.

But back to the Swiss. They refused to issue all the requested visas. Cue vociferous objections from all sorts of people including the African Union. The Swiss eventually issued all the visas, including the First Lady’s, but by then, the President had had something of a hissy fit and decided not to go.

This is the context in which I introduce to you our TWAG quote of the week, from the always entertaining, Shakespeare and Bible quoting presidential spokesman George Charamba.

"By denying the First Lady the visa, the Swiss were trying to put apart what God had tied," Charamba told AFP.

Let's have that again:

"By denying the First Lady the visa, the Swiss were trying to put apart what God had tied."

There you have it. Mrs Grace Mugabe has nothing on Ruth, whose beautiful words of loyalty to her mother-in-law Naomi you all know so well: where you go, I will go also, your people shall be my people, and your God shall be my God.

Where the President goes, the First Lady goes. And the Godless Swiss tried to break them up for the whole three days that the President would have been away! As it is so clear that the First Couple cannot bear to be apart even for a few days, I want, at this point to dedicate to the First Couple the famous song by The Police that is meant to be a love song but that, because of the menacing obsession that it implies, is more suited to be the anthem of all stalkers everywhere:

Every breath you take,

Every move you make,

Every bond you break,

Every step you make,

I’ll be watching you.

Mr. Charamba, let's have it once more, loud and clear for the cheap seats:

"By denying the First Lady the visa, the Swiss were trying to put apart what God had tied."

Yes people, the blog is back!!