Language is Everything

10 things you didn't know about the African Union

The tenth summit of the African Union begins in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, tomorrow. The theme of the three-day meeting is the "industrial development of Africa". Here are ten things you didn't know about the African Union (AU)...

1. A declaration calling for the establishment of an African Union (the Sirte Declaration) was made by the Organisation of African Unity (the AU's predecessor) on 9.9.1999.
2. The AU has 53 member states; the only African country not a member is Morocco (which is opposed to the membership of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, also known as Western Sahara).
3. The working languages of the AU are Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Swahili.
4. One of the visions of the AU is "a partnership between governments and all segments of civil society, in particular women, youth and the private sector, in order to strengthen solidarity and cohesion amongst the peoples of Africa."
5. The AU has a number of similarities with the European Union: one of its objectives is the creation of an African Economic Community with a single currency.
6. The AU's main decision-making body is its Assembly, which comprises the heads of state of member countries, and meets at least once a year.
7. The current chairman of the AU is the Ghanaian president, John Kufuor.
8. The AU's headquarters are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
9. The first military intervention by the AU came in 2003, when peacekeeping soldiers from South Africa, Ethiopia and Mozambique were deployed to Burundi.
10. The emblem of the African Union (pictured) features five elements: palm leaves (peace); a gold circle (wealth and a bright future); a green circle (hopes and aspirations); a plain map of Africa, without boundaries (unity) and small interlocking red rings (solidarity and "the blood shed for Liberation of Africa").

One World One Dream

With the Chinese New Year fast approaching - and the Beijing Olympics on the horizon - we're running a Chinese writing competition for local children.

The objective is to write the slogan for the 2008 Olympics — One World One Dream — using Chinese characters, and to decorate the page in a colourful and imaginative way.

The competition is open to all primary school children in the Hull & Humber region, and the winners will be chosen by Coco Zhao, one of our senior Mandarin and Cantonese linguists.

In a letter to local schools, Carolyn Burgess, our Chief Exec, said:

"Writing Chinese characters is not difficult — and it's fun! It's also a great way to get children interested in language, culture and the big wide world."

The full letter can be downloaded below. You can also download a template of the slogan written in Chinese, as well as some general notes about writing Chinese characters (which teachers are welcome to use in the classroom).

Download Letter_to_schools.pdf

Download One_World_One_Dream.pdf

Download Writing_Chinese_characters.pdf

Is bigger always better?

We have published our provisional financial results for the year-ended 31st December 2007. Our overall sales were £1,578,475, an increase of around 10% from 2006, and a continuation of our long-term organic growth (click on the chart for details).

A statement from our board of directors said:

"Our strategic plans have always favoured stability over growth. The cornerstones of our business are (a) high quality interpreting and translation services, and (b) outstanding customer service. We do not compete on price.

"The interpreting and translation industry has undergone significant upheaval in the past few years, particularly with the entry of two big US corporations into the UK market. Traditionally, language companies grow through merger and acquisition. But we are committed to remaining an independently-owned, UK-based company.

"When it comes to customer service, we firmly believe that there are no economies of scale: bigger is not better. At the size of business that we are, we know our customers, we know their background and history, and we know their individual requirements. This is what we're focussed on."

We will be publishing our audited accounts next month. (Our auditors are Smailes Goldie Chartered Accountants in Hull.)