It takes two to Togo

Togo is just a little country in West Africa, sandwiched between Ghana and Benin. The president, Faure Gnassingbé took over from his father, Gnassingbé Eyadéma, in 2005 after the latter's 38-year rule. So nothing too unusual there! In the news recently was Emile Edouwodzi N'Bouke, also know as The Boss (no connection with Bruce Springsteen). He was detained after a chunky 700kg of ivory was discovered in his shop in Lomé, Togo's port capital. Apparently there are only 60 elephants left in Togo so people are rightly indignant about ivory smuggling. Here in SA barely a week goes by without another sad tale about rhino poaching, which has become endemic. It seems the market for both ivory and rhino horn is mainly in Asia: ivory for jewellery and chopsticks, rhino horn for medicine to control fever and convulsions. Across the world in Japan is another Togo, the Togo Seisakusyo Corp., a company that dates back more than 150 years. It has survived earthquakes, typhoons, wars and asset bubbles but now sees itself under threat from Abenomics, which aims to restore inflation, in turn triggering a sharp decline in the yen. This small maker of springs for the giant Toyota motor corporation is struggling in an environment of a falling exchange rate and rising costs. While many are rejoicing at the commitment of Abe to pushing up Japan's nominal GDP growth rate, a host of small companies, which provide loads of jobs, are much less sanguine. The QSL is from Radio Togo, heard in Cape Town on 60mb way back in 1968. Many of the Francophone stations produced these attactive cards.