The good news this month is that South Africa marks the twentieth year of the end of its nuclear weapons program this July. That may have removed a significant threat but elsewhere in the impoverished and war-ravaged continent the increasing quantities of conventional weapons make any observer of African politics nervous. According to some reports, in 2010, Africa imported arms worth nearly one billion dollars from Ukraine alone.

Once in a while a nectarous, readable volume arrives from the academic press. Impressively matched by the rigorous research that went into it, Lisa Richey and Stefano Ponte’s Brand Aid: Shopping Well to Save the World presents a titillating account of the star-studded RED campaign that whets the appetites of all kinds of readers.

Pssst! Want to get rich quick and never worry about money again? No worries. Click reply on your email and send your personal information to the “good Samaritan” prince from West Africa, who would like to do business with you. If you are one of those credulous people among millions who receive exactly the same polite, formally written, and seductive letters, there is a new one for you.

During a Fall 2008 episode of the continuing Somali pirate saga, Sugale Ali, a representative of the band of pirates that hijacked the Ukrainian cargo ship MV Faina, was repeating his group’s demand for twenty million dollars. The American Navy kept a close watch, as were others; this entanglement played on a much larger scale than previous instances of coastal piracy.