South Africa P.I.G.: AFRICA

Showing posts with label AFRICA. Show all posts

Brutal Truth about Black People

My guess is that had the following been written by a white journalist, he would have been sacked from the newspaper. As it is, this is a black reader's letter that appeared in 'The Namibian' on 08 April 2011. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5613475384207795650" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGtSVpCTHZi9aLQOPd1__VZBcRB36XX1UPIO7JeWIbv8yfA6ZTOC47tDzTIKk-ckTFXCpsE1t6KVTxXjY_fWpdKTCfN5mebeIUuCuTNFvCyJjvX-8A8gPWQ9LETuCuMTOSnWQtmxSTOp72/s400/africa-sense-demotivational-poster-1250212646_large.jpg" style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 302px; CURSOR: hand" />"ALTHOUGH hard to swallow, us black people despise everything that looks like us. To prove my point, not so long ago fellow blacks who had run away from atrocities in their own African countries were beaten, burned and some even killed by fellow blacks in South Africa. In Namibia, black supporters of the ruling party Swapo and the opposition parties clashed in 2009 and we still hear of such quarrels or violence just in the name of politics. Through studying history, I have come to learn that we actually disliked one another before colonialism, hence fierce tribal fights during those years. Colonialism united us all in the fight against a common enemy and after colonialism, we saw the rebirth of things we thought were buried a long time ago, like tribalism, regionalism, favouritism, etc. Although we do not like others from other tribes, we all love things that we do not produce. We love fine branded clothes from Europe, we love American and German-made cars, we love expensive wines and whiskeys, yet no African person brews any of them. All we own, unfortunately, are thousands of shebeens where we drink ourselves to death, stab each other with knives/bottles, infect each other with the HIV virus, make lots of unwanted babies and then blame others for our miseries. We love all sorts of expensive foreign made items and show them off yet we look down at our indigenous products that we fail to commercialise. As blacks, we know very little about investments, whether in stocks, or in properties. All we know is how to invest our money in things that depreciate or evaporate the fastest like clothes, cars, alcohol and when we are at it, we want the whole world to see us. I know some brothers driving BMWs, yet they sleep on the floors and don’t have beds because nobody will see them anyway. This is what we love doing and this is the black life, a life of showing off for those who have. A black millionaire tenderpreneur living in Ludwigsdorf or Klein Kuppe in Windhoek will drive to the notorious Eveline Street in Katutura where he will show off his expensive car and look down on others. We sell our natural resources to Europe for processing, and then buy them back in finished products. What makes us so inferior in our thinking that we only pride ourselves when we have something made by others? What compels us to show off things that we don’t manufacture? Is it the poverty that we allow ourselves to be in? Is it our navigated consciousness, our culture, or just a low self esteem possessing us? For how long are we going to be consumers or users of things we do not produce? Do we like the easy way out, such that we only use and consume things made by others? Do designer clothes, expensive wines or changing our names to sound more European make us more confident in ourselves? Our leaders scream at us how bad the Europeans are yet they steal our public money and hide it in European banks. We know how Europeans ransacked Africa but we are scandalously quiet when our own leaders loot our countries and run with briefcases under their arms full of our riches to Europe. The Europeans took our riches to Europe but our African leaders are doing this too. Mubarak of Egypt, Gadaffi of Libya, Mobutu Sese Seko of the then Zaire, all had their assets allegedly frozen in Europe. Why do our African leaders who claim to love us run to invest ‘their’ money in Europe? Again when they get sick they are quick to be flown to Europe for treatment, yet our relatives die in hospital queues. Don’t our leaders trust the health systems they have created for us all? Why are we so subservient, so obedient to corruption when committed by our very own people? Nobody can disagree with me that in this country that we are like pets trained to obey the instructions of their masters. I am sure we look down when we think of our broken lives but what do we see then? I wonder if we realise how we sell our dreams to our leaders for corruption, misery, poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment and all other social evils affecting us. How long are we going to let our manipulated minds mislead us, from womb to tomb?"

Brutal Truth about Black People

My guess is that had the following been written by a white journalist, he would have been sacked from the newspaper. As it is, this is a bla...

4:58 PM

Developing nations rush to jump on Haiti bandwagon

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw0-sHtyb1SFSXP2nVzva1mnZYMd_JkI6Wg9bRvFm7Yp-_GegRBwndRU4RH0Db8ibtP0pYK5SRBG3mzlIutprU3MtYcBWBijsL_xdDFCuQ5ySI_-MSkE1lneujtiHej1nutSZ06_rrTYmy/s1600-h/parody.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435923106861262530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw0-sHtyb1SFSXP2nVzva1mnZYMd_JkI6Wg9bRvFm7Yp-_GegRBwndRU4RH0Db8ibtP0pYK5SRBG3mzlIutprU3MtYcBWBijsL_xdDFCuQ5ySI_-MSkE1lneujtiHej1nutSZ06_rrTYmy/s400/parody.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 56px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 53px" /></a>Developing countries say the catastrophe in Haiti has taught them some important lessons on how to get noticed by the international community. "We're hoping for a volcano, or at least a mud-slide," said the Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo. "Clearly it's a natural disaster or nothing." <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9_AE52zoY71BhfD2wVUhT5BEYaUE7qPG_CoNi8ir1D6KyPA2WvCN7Pox-YgU-iDSqKnoZEJ-aQ6YSKAdbVdMrzn7s3brFTL-U16sVOw_8oSA0UJ2oXAwx6WsGKe_jOIw7Dx7uytIJZO83/s1600-h/haiti_UN_oil.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430812314729433410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9_AE52zoY71BhfD2wVUhT5BEYaUE7qPG_CoNi8ir1D6KyPA2WvCN7Pox-YgU-iDSqKnoZEJ-aQ6YSKAdbVdMrzn7s3brFTL-U16sVOw_8oSA0UJ2oXAwx6WsGKe_jOIw7Dx7uytIJZO83/s400/haiti_UN_oil.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 246px" /></a>According to the DRC official, Jean-Luc Propakanda, Haiti had gone "overnight from being one of the most horrific places on earth where people eat mud flavoured with cooking oil, to the world's darling. "We want in on that action," he said. The DRC leapt to contribute $2.5 million in aid, a move questioned by DRC citizens who currently survive on a diet of diesel fumes and boiled artillery shells. However Propakanda defended the move. "It's not so much a donation as a consultancy fee for advice on how to replicate Haiti's tremendous publicity coup and maybe voodoo up an earthquake of our own." He said that the DRC was doing everything it could to gain the world's sympathy. "We've got child soldiers, a rape pandemic, we blow away gorillas on sight. Hell, we've even resorted to cannibalism. We've killed 5 million people in the last 14 years. And what do we get? Nothing. Not even a whiff of a CNN correspondent." Other "worst places on earth" including Afghanistan and Sudan, have expressed an interest in following Haiti's formula for getting attention and aid. "If we had any water we'd organise a tsunami," said Sudan's Deputy Minister for Closet Genocide. "But somehow spraying people with a hose isn't quite the same." A spokesman for CNN, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed that Sudan would not be appearing on television for some time, as "drought and pestilence just aren't sexy any more". Haiti spokespeople were too busy pulling dead bodies from the rubble to comment. hayibo.com

Developing nations rush to jump on Haiti bandwagon

Developing countries say the catastrophe in Haiti has taught them some important lessons on how to get noticed by the international communit...

11:03 AM

'Hunt for honest African leaders a waste of time'

By: David Bullard - 5 November 2009Did you read that this year's Mo Ibrahim Award for good governance in Africa won't be awarded because the committee couldn't find anyone who deserved it? Probably not, because the dead tree media was full of salacious gossip about South Africa's very own Posh and Becks (God help us), Joost and Amor. Amor apparently farts like a horse when she is nervous according to a recently published book about her. She also doesn't like rugby. I also fart like a horse and am ambivalent towards the game of rugby as I explained recently. The difference is that Amor is suing the author of the book for R1m for mentioning this flatulent failing, coincidentally just before the launch of a book about her husband's amnesia about snorting coke and receiving sexual favours from an obliging young lass of 24. When this story first broke, Joost denied that it was him in the video saying the guy in the video was better endowed. That set the alarm bells ringing for me. When has an Afrikaner, and a rugby player to boot, ever admitted that another guy is better endowed? Hopefully this sordid little publicity stunt will push sales of the book. Where was I? Oh yes, I was explaining why you probably wouldn't have read anything sensible about the Mo Ibrahim award in the dead tree media because of their obsession with Julius Malema and mindless trivia (some would argue it's the same thing). Below: Former president of Botswana Festus Mogae during a last rally before the general elections. Mr Mogae was named the recipient of the 2008 Mo Ibrahim prize in London. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyH0y_H9sZBxRBFd-xntQ1kLJfKG24wBTZsyuibtkXxAy0P4bmylP2QKhQCe7SJj89kxrt3NDRXTlNSZNtQ-W6efjB3a1h2RPuhXp__Gwo-hrqaj-eLPR3vAsjeNYtIHtfjweqO-9g6mZM/s1600/botswana-festus-mogae.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407403540954970098" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyH0y_H9sZBxRBFd-xntQ1kLJfKG24wBTZsyuibtkXxAy0P4bmylP2QKhQCe7SJj89kxrt3NDRXTlNSZNtQ-W6efjB3a1h2RPuhXp__Gwo-hrqaj-eLPR3vAsjeNYtIHtfjweqO-9g6mZM/s400/botswana-festus-mogae.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 363px" /></a>Mr Ibrahim, in an attempt to encourage outdated qualities like honesty, good governance, a willingness to bugger off when you've had your turn as president and showing a commendable restraint when it comes to getting your goons to smash your political enemy's head in with a machete, hands out £3m a year to the African political leader who best demonstrates these qualities. It's a wonderful gesture on Mr Ibrahim's part even if it does show him as something of a misty eyed optimist. Anyone who encourages good governance on the continent of Africa has my vote but very few do. Corporates like to pretend that they support transparency and above board dealing but they are the first to slip a large bribe into the right political hands. Just consider some of the blue chip names who are "alleged" to have persuaded our own politicians to buy this jet or that submarine. Small wonder that none of our senior politicians in the ruling party seem keen to open up the debate on the arms deal. It might spoil things for the next lot. And what about the ANC Yoof league's cosy relationship with the late Brett Kebble? Was that condemned by senior party members? Was it hell. If memory serves I remember the presidential rottweiller, Essop Pahad, almost leaping on the man's coffin at his funeral to warn against telling tales about the dead. The yoof league are merely the nursery slopes for the real thing. If you can learn to acquire wealth in unusual ways there then you are likely to be elevated to the grand trough of arms deals. One story I would love to read in the dead tree media is how Julius and the boys fund their lavish lifestyles. After all, a Mercedes C63 AMG is not a cheap car to buy or run. Who is the new Brett Kebble? <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNp1QAmFcuNZGZydhU9Bh_aoUjhPVtXRVRyCSjI5gb1Km_Q5MSiDNE5p_Dn3PhxSUO3ggshSEjh-noN1v3-IAo04v604vXypL9s0gllnHf2xAyQqU7LHfFQ3DMQFczYMCXxEPHJzYflR-/s1600/africa-leaders_252742s.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407405228698783954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNp1QAmFcuNZGZydhU9Bh_aoUjhPVtXRVRyCSjI5gb1Km_Q5MSiDNE5p_Dn3PhxSUO3ggshSEjh-noN1v3-IAo04v604vXypL9s0gllnHf2xAyQqU7LHfFQ3DMQFczYMCXxEPHJzYflR-/s400/africa-leaders_252742s.jpg" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 273px" /></a>It's tragedy enough that nobody on the entire continent of Africa was deemed worthy of the Mo Ibrahim award. It's even more of a tragedy that this country seems to be sliding inexorably towards a system that favours dodgy dealing. These days you don't even have to be openly dishonest to be a beneficiary. Even public servants are given telephone number amounts of cash as a thank you for not being too much of a thorn in the side to the government in the job they have just vacated. In this country we splash the cash to all sorts of deserving causes. If you're really lucky you can cock up the running of an entire parastatal and walk away as rich as a rock star. Maybe that's the problem. Perhaps Mo needs to up the amount. Who really gives a damn about winning the Mo Ibrahim award (with sniggers from other African leaders and talk of being a goody goody just an added deterrent) and a cash prize of just under R40m to blow? You can get multiples of that just by buying aircraft we don't need from the Brits. Since Mo Ibrahim is never going to be able to afford to pay more than what a smallish arms deal yields maybe he should consider dumping the project and give up on the fruitless search for a credible African politician. The money would be better spent on people who are not politicians. There are plenty of remarkable South Africans of all races who do much more to create a better world than do the politicians. They don't drive around in fancy BMWs paid for by the taxpayer or have lunches costing R100 000. They just get on with difficult tasks in very difficult circumstances. They are the people who deserve an award and a pile of cash. Or preferably, just the cash. *After 24 years as a trader in the global financial markets David Bullard decided to opt for an easy life and became a journalist. His iconic "Out to Lunch" column has been running for 15 years and is as offensive as ever. Not that he gives a damn...

'Hunt for honest African leaders a waste of time'

By: David Bullard - 5 November 2009 Did you read that this year's Mo Ibrahim Award for good governance in Africa won't be awarded be...

12:14 PM

Ah, Africa - satirists' worst nightmare

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8vY0287LHOUpD7UgaTAstgwALHwYU6oyioSs1bXmhzUthdWKsYtqjg9Bx4ul9kZR4fJQmKpWbZ44_p8ZUNJ_HHwuZ0wd7wsS3Gt5jtp-KGUueRyLChb_cFHQ-C2tnq_z1VXZb-9JhNM/s1600-h/Filipinos-First-Bath.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401744631600934594" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf8vY0287LHOUpD7UgaTAstgwALHwYU6oyioSs1bXmhzUthdWKsYtqjg9Bx4ul9kZR4fJQmKpWbZ44_p8ZUNJ_HHwuZ0wd7wsS3Gt5jtp-KGUueRyLChb_cFHQ-C2tnq_z1VXZb-9JhNM/s400/Filipinos-First-Bath.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 250px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 387px" /></a>Karen Bliksem Have to hand it to The Peacemaker of Zimbabwe... no, scratch that. The Peacemaker of Ivory Coast? Uh, no. That one didn't fly, either. Peacemaker of the Great Lakes? Like, man, splat. Try this for size: The Peacemaker of - drum roll - Darfur! Former president Thabo Mbeki was lauded this week for his work as chairman in the report of the African Union high-level panel on Darfur. This, you will recall, unleashed (cliche warning) a major paradigm shift away from the oh, so passe attitude that the genocide in Sudan had something to do with the Arab ruling class bossing the mainly Christian southerners. Or - perish the thought - that it was about who got their sweaty paws on all the oil under those sands. (Chinese, of course: they'll get the oil, so it's more a case of who gets the bribes.) No, The Peacemaker of - drum roll again - Darfur revealed in his report that it was a "manifestation of Sudan's historic problem", for at "independence in 1956, the Sudanese nation inherited a gross disparity from colonial days". Sure, most things can be blamed on the Brits. As I've noted before: "Why didn't the sun ever set on the British Empire? Because God didn't trust the thieving imperialist so-and-sos in the dark." But to suggest that today's behaviour is all the fault of something that ended - if indeed it had happened at all - some 53 years ago, is deeply demeaning to Africa as a whole. It suggests that 50 years isn't enough to cure the ills of the past. That it's always someone else's fault, and that we Africans are perpetual victims. Germany can be bombed until the rubble jumps, but rebuilds itself into Europe's wealthiest nation. Japan can be nuked and fares similarly. But poor old Mother Africa, cradle of humanity and all that, stays traumatised by those pith-helmeted, chinless-wonder Poms who quit half a century ago? In the same week that Thabo the Peacemaker was being so praised, the former colonial power, aka the devil, announced that survivors of the Darfur conflict would no longer be deported from Britain. Reason? London was concerned about a deterioration in conditions in the Sudanese capital and said asylum seekers could stick around in chilly Britain for up to five years, or until the situation improves. Sounds like permanent residence to me. Once upon a time, a columnist wrote in the London Torygraph (sorry, Telegraph) under the byline of Peter Simple. For 50 years he fought what he called "an infamous war on reality". You and I, dear readers, know that reality is for people with no imagination. Comic creations peopling Simple's Way of the World column included a local and lethargic soccer team, Stretchford United, which regularly failed to gain any home advantage from their subsidence-pitted ground down Effluent Road. Sounds rather like one of our local teams as 2010 looms closer. He would sometimes include among his tri-weekly snippets weird and truly wonderful imaginary "events" from this part of the world. And yet, somehow they never seemed to work, perhaps because, as he confessed, Africa could always be depended upon to come up with something even more absurd and bizarre than the most outrageous of satirists could conjure up. Reality, in other words, always outbid fiction. Which brings me to darling Rian Malan. Once a crime reporter for our little daily Stellar sidekick, this delicious hunk of hottie muso/ journo/news-ou moved to the US to avoid conscription. Twenty years ago he returned to acclaim for his My Traitor's Heart. That sold almost entirely on word of mouth, as regular reviewers either dissed or dismissed it, or - in one unpleasant case - campaigned to ensure that it didn't receive media notice. Now I see that he's come up with a collection of articles called Resident Alien, a title that sums up his questing personality. But what links him to the late Simple is the way Malan laments that Seffrica can be depended on to offer up weekly scandals, each equivalent in import to, say, the Watergate affair that sank then-US president Richard "Tricky Dick" Nixon. We get exercised and upset by them... only to realise a week later that the revelatory media has since been wrapped around the fish 'n' chips, and thence consigned to the dustbin of history. Nothing, but absolutely nothing, sticks. <ul><li>The Brooklyn Bliksems - our US emigré branch - have kept schtum in the nine months since the Obamessiah's inauguration, but this week's little flurry of congressional, state and city elections finally spurred them to e-mailed comment. They suggest that the disappointing results (in other words, Republican wins) had a lot to do with the candidates campaigning heavily on local issues, rather than national ones. </li></ul>Once again a reminder that with our party list system, there are no such things as "local" issues. Politicians and "deployees" are accountable to parties, not voters. Which leads to the observation that the only effective local-level "campaigning" appears to be by discontented residents of places like Sakhile, in the form of blocking roads, razing libraries and deployees' homes alike. It gets the ANC's attention, which nothing else seems to. <ul><li>I thought for a moment that Higher Authority had confirmed it: the ANC will indeed rule "until kingdom come", as "Vader Jacob" Zuma promised. Why? Because when Allan "Flip-flop" Boesak got out of Cope just before being shoved (all the while indicating that he was hoping for a welcome from his former friends in the ANC), dear Desmond Tutu greeted the wandering prodigal with the words: "Welcome to God's party." Turns out "Toots" was thinking of "Flip-flop's" alleged pastoral calling, rather than any sanctified ANC. Whatever, he's still getting it wrong, as "Flip-flop" has shown a remarkable attraction to earthly, not spiritual, comforts (and here I'm not referring to Elna, either). Someone ought to remind the refulgent reverend of that New Testament injunction: "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on Earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal." Thieves? Let's not go down that route. </li></ul>

Ah, Africa - satirists' worst nightmare

Karen Bliksem Have to hand it to The Peacemaker of Zimbabwe... no, scratch that. The Peacemaker of Ivory Coast? Uh, no. That one didn't ...

5:29 AM

How many years of HIV treatment can your presidential jet buy?

229,524, <a href="http://www.arasa.info/" target="_blank">according </a>to the AIDS & Rights Alliance for Southern Africa in a PR video calling out the African Union and African leaders for not spending enough on health. One year of corruption in Africa = 704 million years of HIV treatment See the rest in this video set to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWebzEbHCJI" s_oid="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWebzEbHCJI" s_oidt="0" target="_blank">Akon's</a> - "I'm So Paid": <object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MkWoKgLhDVs&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MkWoKgLhDVs&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>And for more fun, add all those numbers up at the end for a grand total of lives that could’ve been saved. Then visit the <a href="http://arasa.info/" target="_blank">AIDS and Rights Alliance of Southern Africa</a> (ARASA), a network of local NGOs who describe themselves as pursuing a human rights approach to HIV and TB treatment. <blockquote>“Africa South of the Sahara still faces a grim scenario with respect to the health of its people. The region –which is home to 12 percent of the world’s population –accounts for 22 percent of the total global disease burden and more than 68 percent of the people living with HIV/AIDS. The region’s poor health status is mirrored by crises in health financing and human resources for health.With only 2 percent of the global health workforce and only 1 percent of the world’s health expenditures Sub-Saharan African countries are ill-equipped to adequately address their health problems.”</blockquote>- AU Paper (CAMH/EXP/13a(IV))presented to AU Ministers of Health Conference in Ethiopia, May 2009<a href="http://www.arasa.info/healthmoney" title="Show Us the Money for Health: An Open Appeal to African Heads of State">Show Us the Money for Health: An Open Appeal to African Heads of State</a> Sign the petition Calling on African Heads of State to Allocate More Money to Health!We need not rehash the masses of data that demonstrate in no uncertain terms that <a href="http://www.arasa.info/node/48"></a>health in Sub-Saharan Africa is in absolute crisis – child health, maternal health, HIV, TB, malaria… the list of our health woes is miserably endless.We do not need to point out, once again, the <a href="http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/11/08-054932/en/index.html">skewed priorities</a> that govern how money in this region is spent or mis-spent: by now these are obvious, painful and embarrassing.This correspondence is not about technicalities. It is, fundamentally, a moral challenge.A status quo has been established in much of the African region whereby money – a lot of which comes from the labour of civilians whose votes and/or fear keep you in power – is used <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4723572.stm">without transparency</a>, and without humanity.Decisions on health are among the most critical decisions that our leaders can make, and are invariably some of the most disappointing.Our money bleeds into places we cannot see, while our health care workers sacrifice their right to decent wages and working conditions and our people sacrifice their right to health and life. In the meantime, we knock on the door of the international community to cushion the altar – and certainly, the international community has a responsibility to fulfil their commitments to health funding – but, so do we.What happened to the <a href="http://rbm.who.int/docs/abuja_declaration.pdf">Abuja Declaration</a> of 2001? Do you remember stating that “We are fully convinced that containing and reversing the HIV/AIDS epidemic, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases should constitute our top priority for the first quarter of the 21st Century”?With close to 2 million people dying of HIV and TB in Africa every year, and governments across the region putting the brakes on scaling up access to prevention, treatment and care – are you still convinced?What about the commitment to allocating at least 15% of national budgets to health?<a href="http://www.arasa.info/www.africa-union.org/.../2009/.../CAMH-EXP-13a(iv)%20Paper%20Health%20Financing%20in%20Africa.doc">Where is the money?</a>You may have forgotten, but we have not and cannot. Your broken promises translate into broken lives.Worse still, the economic recession threatens to push health even further down the agenda. The tragic irony is that, as history has shown and much <a href="http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2007/08/01/000158349_20070801103922/Rendered/PDF/wps4295.pdf">expert analysis</a> has reiterated, this will cost us far more down the line. There is no bright future in ill health.We acknowledge that our dismay does not apply evenly across the board. Some countries are doing better than others, because political commitment to health is real and present. We urge these leaders to stand up and challenge their peers.We call on African governments to scrutinize their country-level prioritization of health and to develop clear roadmaps for meeting the Abuja 15% target for expenditure on this basic human right.We are watching, and organizing, and will hold our governments accountable for the promises that they have made.Please sign the <a href="http://www.arasa.info/taxonomy/term/121">Petition</a>. ADDRESS AND CONTACT DETAILS WILL NOT BE SHARED.Related - <a alt="Africa: Backsliding On Aids Funding" href="http://www.arasa.info/node/115" title="Africa: Backsliding On Aids Funding">Africa: Backsliding On Aids Funding</a>

How many years of HIV treatment can your presidential jet buy?

229,524, according to the AIDS & Rights Alliance for Southern Africa in a PR video calling out the African Union and African leaders for...

12:08 PM

How China's taking over Africa.

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2u4xqSVgR8AIbEk0hqIP33rTddsGRshpMMK1Z8cNyvU_OkkVLEADYkqE_V3D9T_UXGRqwzzA7QNYyI20A-TgLjdeqZkiyk1nbMWXaUpG00EJMTp5DnstDLW5lwSl2UDN8lA0LpmoufLY/s1600-h/Zuma_ivisit_to_China.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352700756020814050" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2u4xqSVgR8AIbEk0hqIP33rTddsGRshpMMK1Z8cNyvU_OkkVLEADYkqE_V3D9T_UXGRqwzzA7QNYyI20A-TgLjdeqZkiyk1nbMWXaUpG00EJMTp5DnstDLW5lwSl2UDN8lA0LpmoufLY/s400/Zuma_ivisit_to_China.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 287px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" /></a> On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own right, outlined a daring new method to 'tame' and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent. <blockquote>'My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,' wrote Galton. 'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.' </blockquote><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352702187990744690" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3DZWtDvK9tL-eGZ-oTut2zYw8MmrjtuGlHFGtIiIlVyJnRYbX7o9pWXnUrF7UUbTTocUTETCJFGWMqvDsfrtkVeLF__MQG-yMfOoumCNL4TeKV6dWWhCRCY0V5QzeTp_UvBIjksHRQSQ/s400/chinaafrica372.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 372px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 192px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" /> Despite an outcry in Parliament and heated debate in the august salons of the Royal Geographic Society, <blockquote>Galton insisted that 'the history of the world tells the tale of the continual displacement of populations, each by a worthier successor, and humanity gains thereby'.</blockquote>A controversial figure, Galton was also the pioneer of eugenics, the theory that was used by Hitler to try to fulfil his mad dreams of a German Master Race. Eventually, Galton's grand resettlement plans fizzled out because there were much more exciting things going on in Africa. But that was more than 100 years ago, and with legendary explorers such as Livingstone, Speke and Burton still battling to find the source of the Nile - and new discoveries of exotic species of birds and animals featuring regularly on newspaper front pages - vast swathes of the continent had not even been 'discovered'. Yet Sir Francis Galton, it now appears, was ahead of his time. His vision is coming true - if not in the way he imagined. An astonishing invasion of Africa is now under way. In the greatest movement of people the world has ever seen, China is secretly working to turn the entire continent into a new colony. Reminiscent of the West's imperial push in the 18th and 19th centuries - but on a much more dramatic, determined scale - China's rulers believe Africa can become a 'satellite' state, solving its own problems of over-population and shortage of natural resources at a stroke. With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAHXaXnNglPtUzMHuBL-EnP9HjI9cG6CJtrHbVtGME0TUh2q9KZknm6v5u3NLq99OOukE5IsSFO3Dp7N-L1T-sxckTPc2DvB-NuDy3CwHRrRRTArwYI3sSzqF20WvCkzzqdFVXYppcE0/s1600-h/china-zimbabwe.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266427632530234978" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiAHXaXnNglPtUzMHuBL-EnP9HjI9cG6CJtrHbVtGME0TUh2q9KZknm6v5u3NLq99OOukE5IsSFO3Dp7N-L1T-sxckTPc2DvB-NuDy3CwHRrRRTArwYI3sSzqF20WvCkzzqdFVXYppcE0/s400/china-zimbabwe.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" /></a>The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve China's problems of over-population and pollution. New horizons? Mugabe has said: 'We must turn from the West and face the East' The plans appear on track. Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New embassies and air routes are opening up. The continent's new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools. The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.The trains are linked to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing after unloading cargoes of cheap toys made in China. Confucius Institutes (state-funded Chinese 'cultural centres') have sprung up throughout Africa, as far afield as the tiny land-locked countries of Burundi and Rwanda, teaching baffled local people how to do business in Mandarin and Cantonese. Massive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with 'slave' labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals. Pristine forests are being destroyed, with China taking up to 70 per cent of all timber from Africa. All over this great continent, the Chinese presence is swelling into a flood. Angola has its own 'Chinatown', as do great African cities such as Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent. 'African cloths' sold in markets on the continent are now almost always imported, bearing the legend: 'Made in China'. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKdijKK-hoib7JksG9MwaOCXTViIaA4d0OxA_YZRAE9kfynVKcCjlUa4Mgs-OYR_oUxL39up_i8LmDJGxTd-7aMwxeZyA1d-zAu-3CXsAclJlwgDfpVbvn0sjr0RrWkeblu4PhDd9e-6M/s1600-h/china-africa_LGVtzKoCEqsw.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266047673566844130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKdijKK-hoib7JksG9MwaOCXTViIaA4d0OxA_YZRAE9kfynVKcCjlUa4Mgs-OYR_oUxL39up_i8LmDJGxTd-7aMwxeZyA1d-zAu-3CXsAclJlwgDfpVbvn0sjr0RrWkeblu4PhDd9e-6M/s400/china-africa_LGVtzKoCEqsw.jpg" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 372px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 283px" /></a>From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower's long-term survival. 'The Chinese are all over the place,' says Trevor Ncube, a prominent African businessman with publishing interests around the continent. 'If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have taken their place.' Likened to one race deciding to adopt a new home on another planet, Beijing has launched its so-called 'One China In Africa' policy because of crippling pressure on its own natural resources in a country where the population has almost trebled from 500 million to 1.3 billion in 50 years. China is hungry - for land, food and energy. While accounting for a fifth of the world's population, its oil consumption has risen 35-fold in the past decade and Africa is now providing a third of it; imports of steel, copper and aluminium have also shot up, with Beijing devouring 80 per cent of world supplies. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi93SyZ3T8mzO5BjmYvJ2NNAuyVasaVQVmuoKYfM013V4euJ8Hoblt6ZramLaYdafSG9m_RsLJIeUdxussR3TRFxwZK4oE5yuiyexRd-7AF4W_6dAo9cq16Jc70yaI3VE_wCzzD-v7vt1Q/s1600-h/article-0-01EF328B00000578.jpg"></a>Fuelling its own boom at home, China is also desperate for new markets to sell goods. And Africa, with non-existent health and safety rules to protect against shoddy and dangerous goods, is the perfect destination.The result of China's demand for raw materials and its sales of products to Africa is that turnover in trade between Africa and China has risen from £5million annually a decade ago to £6billion today. However, there is a lethal price to pay. There is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made assault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars, often over the materials the Chinese are desperate to buy.<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352698808240982786" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAr3ZAk8j4VEpnqlKt4aRyXN4u6gCaDmmoaRsbiOd6zm1tz4KjOZT8qtTHnh48mthuGfMXUU-YTWAtBuaQFsuEvZB6wyl9phfTrjc0MUMs8pGfNxFD9j0HUOeOWj8om7JaGIoaD_yuJaw/s400/china-africa02.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 227px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Take, for example, Zimbabwe. Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe's regime. After an international outcry, the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, was forced to return to China, despite Beijing's insistence that the arms consignment was a 'normal commercial deal'. Indeed, the 77-ton arms shipment would have been small beer - a fraction of China's help to Mugabe. He already has high-tech, Chinese-built helicopter gunships and fighter jets to use against his people.Ever since the U.S. and Britain imposed sanctions in 2003, Mugabe has courted the Chinese, offering mining concessions for arms and currency. While flying regularly to Beijing as a high-ranking guest, the 84-year-old dictator rants at 'small dots' such as Britain and America. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266422820235483202" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv4zJekjTpcCZLYfkNL1YLrQlhr7sF8Zhqnc2IYKTEsCYorcAaPpCJWRFX4S920bR0T_QqGyenz-UWlj3klQyzldvcgCcWgGGp-Fvnfuf-UNj8nEfe-CjwXCcUDA6IDvoM8TWXNamLdac/s400/china-anyuf-jiang.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 280px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" /> He can afford to. Mugabe is orchestrating his campaign of terror from a 25-bedroom, pagoda-style mansion built by the Chinese. Much of his estimated £1billion fortune is believed to have been siphoned off from Chinese 'loans'. The imposing grey building of ZANU-PF, his ruling party, was paid for and built by the Chinese. Mugabe received £200 million last year alone from China, enabling him to buy loyalty from the army. See also <a href="http://www.fin24.com/articles/default/display_article.aspx?ArticleId=1518-1783_2534618">Zimbabwe gets $950m from China</a> In another disturbing illustration of the warm relations between China and the ageing dictator, a platoon of the China People's Liberation Army has been out on the streets of Mutare, a city near the border with Mozambique, which voted against the president in the recent, disputed election. Almost 30 years ago, Britain pulled out of Zimbabwe - as it had done already out of the rest of Africa, in the wake of Harold Macmillan's 'wind of change' speech. Today, Mugabe says: 'We have turned East, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the West, where the sun sets.' Despite Britain's commendable colonial legacy of a network of roads, railways and schools, the British are now being shunned. According to one veteran diplomat: 'China is easier to do business with because it doesn't care about human rights in Africa - just as it doesn't care about them in its own country. All the Chinese care about is money.' <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5266206986971799170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ9qsJDV5XGczng8IM932bRfUlkSn5GGEW9xS-R0Jv0NYCq_qMqy8nKePlyAvfJ7QvYiJe8ibUwFipC-EJs3UNEU3C17kPdsuUAcPRP8MK83JQr5pGlQGKd0fnO4OUKhe5SYcLnFSrFOM/s400/china_sudan_big.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 224px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Nowhere is that more true than Sudan. Branded 'Africa's Killing Fields', the massive oil-rich East African state is in the throes of the genocide and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of black, non-Arab peasants in southern Sudan. In effect, through its supplies of arms and support, China has been accused of underwriting a humanitarian scandal. The atrocities in Sudan have been described by the U.S. as 'the worst human rights crisis in the world today'. The government in Khartoum has helped the feared Janjaweed militia to rape, murder and burn to death more than 350,000 people. The Chinese - who now buy half of all Sudan's oil - have happily provided armoured vehicles, aircraft and millions of bullets and grenades in return for lucrative deals. Indeed, an estimated £1billion of Chinese cash has been spent on weapons. According to Human Rights First, a leading human rights advocacy organisation, Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles, grenade launchers and ammunition for rifles and heavy machine guns are continuing to flow into Darfur, which is dotted with giant refugee camps, each containing hundreds of thousands of people. Between 2003 and 2006, China sold Sudan $55 million worth of small arms, flouting a United Nations weapons embargo. With new warnings that the cycle of killing is intensifying, an estimated two thirds of the non-Arab population has lost at least one member of their families in Darfur. Although two million people have been uprooted from their homes in the conflict, China has repeatedly thwarted United Nations denunciations of the Sudanese regime. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3BO_lIpQR2IOOJvkrrPvcPlFYMD5zeA2Tw3suXQYUAqSLnS44KKe2fwFDZ_ONw-h-ZcObHZYTl6yRkzvZ0ppHrsAZd6gORE4f3axD8a_bZIXR2L5c7J_MRLLbHtOFxdSOmuSd4C0wm_8/s1600-h/china-angola-oil.jpg"></a>While the Sudanese slaughter has attracted worldwide condemnation, prompting Hollywood film-maker Steven Spielberg to quit as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics, few parts of Africa are now untouched by China.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz-kbhb6kpm8ICw-cwh6iYx6Nhm390WtZ0-TggJDPoIkCMGPZp2UMZe3WfJr-QlkUYgCTxYFCYHoDLwMIi11tdfyJPyNZZl0wGAWJBW1h41ic06RPytrof6EIRXZacnK3niYLPPLCk8YY/s1600-h/china-africa-oil.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0SPAWmdYZr90tiL8C9QdjYf7ycskUrsfcUejKYCOSxnsaDT_BsuL_WpAZvtLQuqVKCr_NLEDVATuVGIoq7iOQpXI_UuIZ8Is0WCiIj5ey5Bee8ClhRBB7xCnTtIFD8atQoxm3Y6Vber0/s1600-h/china-africa2LG.jpg"></a>In Congo, more than £2billion has been 'loaned' to the government. In Angola, £3 billion has been paid in exchange for oil. In Nigeria, more than £5billion has been handed over. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhev_gfL3RCY8vfjWPnrzGQpLz172UQ8d40Y9yX52iX3srH529u7eb8SyuFdsxil0xKQjxxL8X69nm0_HPE19yv-EFdRvi44cr6ef6TOILn3XJCmkouwP0V5Y3cXkys9dqJsOD9CSWJJSk/s1600-h/china-equatorial-guinea.jpg"></a>In Equatorial Guinea, where the president publicly hung his predecessor from a cage suspended in a theatre before having him shot, Chinese firms are helping the dictator build an entirely new capital, full of gleaming skyscrapers and, of course, Chinese restaurants.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguLXdoRE7l-VOeIg34mdjM9fhtRQ-Cft3LEgPBXiPwUWiHVo7Bc3Wj_8lBuAo-PmqTwkYu90RhvSqSW1mpfll3ET4Wf1WOosKRTrry4veFC8yUyFV83RAUaOaq8L8nag1EEon2N4lnwLM/s1600-h/china-equatorial-guinea.jpg"></a><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352699315606139186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvkTOkmYr-z6nvCdROVX2FZ5cMj0-3oF1Z-N9qXL3AqD2eR4ou9o-u5x0LuiHdt2yWq2Qtazk4DFx2o6QPKfFmf2pIs5nz8kfFca___u-NiiKmJP_EDlzNB_5R0C17zZT5HrfUdL7Mb-I/s400/china-africa01.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 276px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />After battling for years against the white colonial powers of Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, post-independence African leaders are happy to do business with China for a straightforward reason: cash. With western loans linked to an insistence on democratic reforms and the need for 'transparency' in using the money (diplomatic language for rules to ensure dictators do not pocket millions), the Chinese have proved much more relaxed about what their billions are used for. Certainly, little of it reaches the continent's impoverished 800 million people. Much of it goes straight into the pockets of dictators. In Africa, corruption is a multi-billion pound industry and many experts believe that China is fuelling the cancer. The Chinese are contemptuous of such criticism. To them, Africa is about pragmatism, not human rights. 'Business is business,' says Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong, adding that Beijing should not interfere in 'internal' affairs. 'We try to separate politics from business.' While the bounty has, not surprisingly, been welcomed by African dictators, the people of Africa are less impressed. At a market in Zimbabwe recently, where Chinese goods were on sale at nearly every stall, one woman told me she would not waste her money on 'Zing-Zong' products. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-29eXs3rYusCA6nhpOSQzZGThLjgxELC-yXOXUwnmESt8Lr8dSTBC69_5J6owWeItKDJmRecaFzR8LlaLQ8j7D4KKlIDiGB_HGvD-pfEPBp1TWNKNo3s-J0EkU3aAnv4wHF-6exe1-YM/s1600-h/chinadeals1102.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5352704809551290386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-29eXs3rYusCA6nhpOSQzZGThLjgxELC-yXOXUwnmESt8Lr8dSTBC69_5J6owWeItKDJmRecaFzR8LlaLQ8j7D4KKlIDiGB_HGvD-pfEPBp1TWNKNo3s-J0EkU3aAnv4wHF-6exe1-YM/s400/chinadeals1102.gif" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 272px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 230px" /></a>'They go Zing when they work, and then they quickly go Zong and break,' she said. 'They are a waste of money. But there's nothing else. China is the only country that will do business with us.' There have also been riots in Zambia, Angola and Congo over the flood of Chinese immigrant workers. The Chinese do not use African labour where possible, saying black Africans are lazy and unskilled. In Angola, the government has agreed that 70 per cent of tendered public works must go to Chinese firms, most of which do not employ Angolans. As well as enticing hundreds of thousands to settle in Africa, they have even shipped Chinese prisoners to produce the goods cheaply. In Kenya, for example, only ten textile factories are still producing, compared with 200 factories five years ago, as China undercuts locals in the production of 'African' souvenirs. Where will it all end? As far as Beijing is concerned, it will stop only when Africa no longer has any minerals or oil to be extracted from the continent. A century after Sir Francis Galton outlined his vision for Africa, the Chinese are here to stay. More will come. The people of this bewitching, beautiful continent, where humankind first emerged from the Great Rift Valley, desperately need progress. The Chinese are not here for that. They are here for plunder. After centuries of pain and war, Africa deserves better.Here is a rundown of all the agreements signed so far:-<a href="http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/economy/artikel.php?ID=106028">Ghana, China sign agreements to boost economic cooperation</a> <a href="http://za.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-06-19T144055Z_01_BAN952832_RTRIDST_0_OZABS-GHANA-CHINA-DAM-20060619.XML">Ghana confident China to finance $600 million dam</a> <a href="http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-06-19-voa35.cfm">VOA: China, Ghana Boost Trade Agreement</a> <a href="http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2006/june/06_21_4.html">China Egypt Sign Energy Accord</a> <a href="http://www2.chinaknowledge.com/news/news-detail.aspx?id=3429">China Gives Egypt $50 Million Loan</a> <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jun2006/gb20060607_581473.htm?campaign_id=nws_insdr_jun9&link_position=link10" target="new">A Bidding Frenzy for Angola's Oil</a>. <a href="http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=qw1150884001300B255">Chinese PM wraps up Angola agreements</a> <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,,1798605,00.html">Guardian: China deal gives Zimbabwe ÃÂ£700m boost </a> <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/200606120054.html">Zimbabwe: Govt, China in $1.3 Billion Power Deal</a> <a href="http://english.people.com.cn/200606/20/eng20060620_275432.html">Huge potentials for China-Congo cooperation: communique</a> <a href="http://www2.chinaknowledge.com/news/news-detail.aspx?id=3454">Premier Wen visits Republic of Congo to enhance economic ties</a> <a href="http://za.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2006-06-21T170450Z_01_ALL161477_RTRIDST_0_OZABS-TRADE-CHINA-SAFRICA-20060621.XML">China to cap textile exports to S.Africa</a> <a href="http://www.sabcnews.com/politics/government/0,2172,129784,00.html">14 bilateral agreements signed between SA,China</a> <a href="http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/eng/news/today/?show=88434">China Gives Angola Fresh $2bn credit</a>

How China's taking over Africa.

On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own...

4:13 AM

Gaddafi Circus Comes to Italy

<a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/cities/rome" rel="tag" target="_blank">Rome</a> has had its fair share of triumphant parades by bizarre tyrants in its long history. And the ageing Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's arrival on Monday ranked alongside any grotesque ceremony staged by Caligula or Nero. It is easy to see why <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/countries/italy" rel="tag" target="_blank">Italy</a>'s Left-wing opposition denounced the dictator's reception by Italian premier <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/berlusconi_silvio" rel="tag" target="_blank">Silvio Berlusconi</a> as a 'rock star welcome'. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351383838260879522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBZxlfx38OU_drgUyPA8JDub-mqVHLg2rNehf-V4YZLCs5_G-GHqROaIx2nbxq5zniizslgKJNfN-ektRdiMeItOXc-X0QkYLLt6kxIMU2NtXiTJ64B5Z3SRpVRx0aUPWmOLDIxcSq9Tw/s400/Gaddafi-italy-omer-muhtar1.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 268px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" /> When Muammar Gaddafi arrived in Italy on Wednesday with 300 delegates and 40 female bodyguards aboard three planes, he was accorded a royal welcome befitting the "king of kings of Africa."Gaddafi's arrived in Rome with a 300-strong retinue on three Airbuses. As ever, he brought with him a giant Bedouin tent, which was erected in a park in the centre of the city and where he was to stay and conduct business. There was no immediate sign of the camel he took on a visit to <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/cities/paris" rel="tag" target="_blank">Paris</a> in 2007 when he pitched his tent in the grounds of a five-star hotel. With gelled and carefully dyed hair, the Colonel was made up to look like a cross between <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/jackson_michael" rel="tag" target="_blank">Michael Jackson</a> and the deranged music mogul murderer <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/spector_phil" rel="tag" target="_blank">Phil Spector</a>. Pinned to his chest was a large photograph of a Libyan resistance leader being hanged by Italian colonialists in 1931. Although with his peaked cap, red flashes, gold braid epaulettes and an array of military decorations that resembled a Dulux colour chart, he turned out in a uniform that Italy's last tyrant, fascist leader Benito Mussolini, would have killed for. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351383832243197938" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5g5MUfFLtvbPNjYXep13sHP-eBQlHKHNU_Rrv7QS8pzCb0wWKUOUkeRm0VtLurB8s_L1BeFwx_DhfL_Srk4tXAGy3CbwM7zxNFr7B_UV4T3P-2qNJgwSoHzwAismEtTxooyKfTm0HL0s/s400/gaddafi-mukhtar-2.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 236px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Bizarre: Gaddafi set the tone from the word go when he flew in adorned wearing a black and white picture depicting Libyan anti-colonial hero Omar Al-Mukhtar, whom the Italians executed in 1931. If Gaddafi wanted to remind his hosts of their repressive colonial past - Italy ruled Libya from 1911 to 1943 - then the picture of Omar al-Mukhtar in chains alongside his Italian captors was a particularly provocative way of doing it.<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351383842082192722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizS0ejIoKFCAmgB6XXf8gYZFPcllYeN-4aRujv5V8kcc3JpPq-DKpYp55RXT1rrkpTZh26rwrP-mFqr7m_TjPwKzycfqpcBVR5FepOc9ff-hu9v0prwK9hhauH8NqIspl6eiIGLeThhMo/s400/gaddafi-italy-omer-muhtar3.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 275px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />He did not help matters in an overwhelmingly Catholic country when he remarked: "For us, that image [of Al-Mukhtar] is like the cross some of you wear," likening it to the Christian crucifix <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351385751801951538" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0hyphenhyphen0sB0S5Qg4GfX8woLBMqCjPdrj38TkYo8p8yxD5I2prNCpbx6hKBNxJg-PunPhiplmMTwvAeofhyqE8IO8P65AnOnWWJvObrsUvdNYwi9NqUxL1UsYjUMkCF4sMMRP6kaG4DPOh_oA/s400/gaddafi-italy-omer-muhtar4.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 255px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />And just for good measure, Gaddafi brought along Al-Mukhtar's son, now an elderly man, who had to be helped off the plane by aides and who later sat in a wheelchair on the tarmac while national anthems were played.<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351383846800683554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYzr7X20alIgokzYft4TS2i51Gzo79BnugBEw4cCyS7wafepY5hykVSfk0U6Wobgd7iapip0S2aeOc7IvVo4A9i0ZHaGuy9Hnyvjq2VRJXC4UDQu62k-QTg6pIAZ3YeIJU0FoTJD6kduM/s400/gaddafi-italy-omer-muhtar2.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 306px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />The Italians even went further to allow the broadcasting on Italian TV, for the first time ever, of a documentary on Al-Mukhtar titled Lion of the Desert.But it was the gun-toting female bodyguards in their khaki uniforms and red berets in the 67-year old dictator's entourage, girls who wear Kalashnikovs like Gucci fashion accessories, who stole the show. Gaddafi is one of the maddest dictators on Earth and he doesn't like being upstaged - unless it's by this 40-strong troupe of well-equipped, allvirgin minders. He may have conducted his 1969 military coup against Lybia's last monarch, King Idris, under an Islamic revolutionary banner. He may have proclaimed himself a pioneer of 'Islamic socialism'. But Gaddafi's female security detail don't hide their charms under a burqa. Bizarrely, he claims them to be a symbol of his belief in female emancipation. 'Women should be trained for combat, so that they do not become easy prey for their enemies,' he says. All of his girls are said to swear an oath that they will give their lives for him and it is claimed they never leave his side, night or day, and he insists they remain virgins. There is no shortage of volunteers for what is seen as a prestigious job.A special training college puts recruits through a tough physical programme and girls who don't drop out emerge as trained killers, experts in firearms and martial arts. Gaddafi makes the final selection and, despite his insistence that his guards are chaste, rumours abound that he demands their sexual favours. The girls wear lipstick, jewellery, polished nails, even high heels - but their armed combat training has been tested more than once. <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351392670186843970" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7XMEbTcVCM_goD6U9_cbiGsK19finyw6I1JHtzGh2pjWmT5jxJJ6AgqN21C5WkVGkmDUjZNq0zHcic9ji2G0vLAppDevmbtzyff_G4CMZikQh5NGtDpgnbUicdoyNW0vYwSGv-9zwZc/s400/Gadaffi-bodyguards.bmp" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 335px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Prestigious job: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's 'all-female, all-virgin' bodyguards who must wear lipstick, nail varnish and be masters of combat and who some say he demands their sexual favoursIn 1998 one of them was killed and seven others wounded when Islamic fundamentalists in Libya ambushed the Colonel's motorcade. The dead girl, Aisha, rumoured to be his favourite, threw herself across Gaddafi's body to stop the bullets. But how is it that Gaddafi, once regarded by the West as the father of terrorism and the man behind the Lockerbie bombing in 1988, is now welcomed in Rome with open arms by Berlusconi - a leader famously equally bewitched by female charms? The truth is that, despite his often ludicrous appearance and behaviour, Gaddafi is one of the great survivors, a despot who has led his country for 40 years despite worldwide vilification - brutal in crushing domestic dissent and who changes his tune on the world stage as it suits him. Like other monstrous leaders, he has written works of literature to enlighten mankind - his Green Book which, over three rambling volumes, sets out his views on political and social theories. But another offering - Escape To Hell And Other Stories - predicts a German Fourth Reich lording it over Britain and <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/continents/america" rel="tag" target="_blank">America</a>, and which tells you of his loathing for cities, <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/thatcher_margaret" rel="tag" target="_blank">Margaret Thatcher</a> and humidity. (He loves the countryside and artichokes.) When he seized power in 1969 under a Marxist banner, few thought his regime would last. But he had a ruthless cunning and an instinct for when to strike his rivals. In the 1970s, Gaddafi personally ordered public executions. In 1977, he was present at hangings of students who had protested against his regime. He spat defiance against the West, proclaiming his belief in Arab nationalism - yet he loathed Islamic fundamentalism. So while he happily tortured fundamentalists at home, he became the No 1 state sponsor of terrorism against the West. In 1980, a Libyan journalist from the BBC's Arabic Service, Mohammed Ramadan, was shot outside the Regent's Park mosque. It was four years later that Britain and the world was stunned with horror by the cold-blooded murder of unarmed WPC Yvonne Fletcher in <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/cities/london" rel="tag" target="_blank">London</a>, gunned down outside Libya's Embassy by a member of its staff. Gaddafi's oil wealth funded the IRA as well as Palestinian guerillas. This was one reason why Margaret Thatcher's government gave permission for U.S. bombers to use British airfields in April, 1986, to launch a surprise attack on his home in Tripoli. They missed Gaddafi but killed his infant daughter, Hannah. Gaddafi has always been able to parade this loss as proof that he is a victim of 'U.S. terrorism' . But despite sounding defiant, that U.S. raid marked a shift in Gaddafi's behaviour. Although he remained vocally as radical as ever, he began to drop support for foreign terrorists - although, as the downing of Pan-Am flight 303 over Lockerbie with the loss of 270 lives in showed, Gaddafi's secret service could still be deadly. Now Gaddafi has put up billions of dollars in compensation for the relatives of his victims. But it is his loathing of Muslim fundamentalists that has brought him into alliance with the West. After all, back in the 1970s, Gadaffi was hanging members of the fundamentalist Hizb-ut Tahrir organisation, since banned in many European countries. So he had no difficulty backing the Bush-Blair war against Al Qaeda types threatening his regime. Ever since, relations have thawed. In 2004, <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/people/blair_tony" rel="tag" target="_blank">Tony Blair</a> lifted lifted the West's fatwa on him for sponsoring outrages. Then, as oil prices soared after the George W Bush's invasion of <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/countries/iraq" rel="tag" target="_blank">Iraq</a>, Gaddafi's untold billions of energy reserves in the Libyan desert gave his regime an ace card. Years of UN sanctions for his regime's sponsorship of terrorism mean that Gaddafi's oil and gas had not been exploited nearly as much as other Mid-East states. Libya's old colonial master, Italy, sits across the <a class="inline-link" href="http://explore.dailymail.co.uk/locations/regions/mediterranean" rel="tag" target="_blank">Mediterranean</a> without any energy resources of its own. Which is why Silvio Berlusconi has been more than happy to deal with Gaddafi. Anyone thinking that Colonel Gaddafi is becoming a cosy ally should think again. Only a few weeks ago, Gaddafi stormed out of an Arab League conference, calling the King of Saudi Arabia a 'liar' and a 'British product and American ally'. Gaddafi remains mercurial, menacing and murderous. Getting wobbly on his pins and wearing almost more makeup and hair dye than his 40 virgin bodyguards put together, Colonel Gaddafi looks set to carry on wrong-footing friend and foe alike. Mellow with age he won't.

Gaddafi Circus Comes to Italy

Rome has had its fair share of triumphant parades by bizarre tyrants in its long history. And the ageing Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gadd...

1:32 PM

Malawi government blows £3M on Luxury cars

<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336923375559906530" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAdV5_z5kjDxZXUVMgc3xIZBLod9Aa7J4LfMOfjLOmVIXgGq3aFsJnlhN4KUcVCpYYL3R7oTs2nAne8wrgYZrMqaUHlAwSvraoQSEyPtmhKTZWLFXBPjqXYOuChHPYdLwmD_9kkeEG0CPW/s320/pigs_trough.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 178px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" /> HEADS of one of the world’s poorest countries have blown £3million on a fleet of Mercedes Benz cars from Britain. Malawi’s rulers ordered 22 motor cars to help them campaign for Tuesday’s general election — as millions of citizens live in poverty. Papers seen by The Sun show Malawi’s finance ministry paid a British dealer to despatch the £140,000 cars to the south-east African nation. London-based Crown Agents Bank Ltd, is said to have brokered the deal. A Malawian political source yesterday said: “If you guys in Britain think you’ve got it bad with your MPs’ noses in the trough, check out our lot. “Thousands are starving but our government just wants to drive around in style.” <img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5336923375390500402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj8PNPlBZ25Vkx49mkD78gyG2i6LpDrvOMfVa6IbA7banIshsKYZvJ6idfFosl53smom3-ZM-9eljATDab6Xux6MbAgFclnnkwdW3XIzekdxw5iAHOaDP51uOfEPKQrLymZGM0gXQpYPjJ/s320/mercedes-22+sent+to+Malawi+chiefs.jpg" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 188px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" />Merc ... 22 sent to Malawi chiefsHEADS of one of the world’s poorest countries have blown £3million on a fleet of Mercedes Benz cars from Britain. Malawi’s rulers ordered 22 motors to help them campaign for Tuesday’s general election — as millions of citizens live in poverty. Papers seen by The Sun show Malawi’s finance ministry paid a British dealer to despatch the £140,000 cars to the south-east African nation. London-based Crown Agents Bank Ltd, is said to have brokered the deal. A Malawian political source yesterday said: “If you guys in Britain think you’ve got it bad with your MPs’ noses in the trough, check out our lot. “Thousands are starving but our government just wants to drive around in style."thesun <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2430075.ece#comment-rig">http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2430075.ece#comment-rig</a>

Malawi government blows £3M on Luxury cars

HEADS of one of the world’s poorest countries have blown £3million on a fleet of Mercedes Benz cars from Britain. Malawi’s rulers ordered 22...

8:35 AM

Africa Politicians: The New Slave Masters

<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319466419434632002" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5iAq5gHXjUu_mCmfPSXfKpUzgb3ZskoTdg4Tb6ym6lwSnVNbSZQXV2khQrF3_kFolDAuyeMcNm3cQdqH7W7ir5CS4aophiLGs4qwDsfoKKfgMMT69gJvO5THzPXawQI0QHU5EN2m58hw6/s400/African-Pirate.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 318px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" />They like to talk like sheep with humility but they act like wolves and lions devouring their victims without mercy. Such are Africa politicians. When they want power they would promise or say anything to get elected but when they get the power then they forget about the electorate and the people. Today in Africa people are so poor that they cannot even provide food for their families. But the politicians in Zimbabwe, Egypt, Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Chad, Ghana, South Africa, Guinea, Angola, DRC, Gabon, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Togo and Ivory Coast do not know what poverty is. Together they have hijacked and exercise full control over all the resources including land, labour, capital and revenues from all economic activities such as oil, gas, cocoa, coffee, tobacco, gold, diamond, coltan, tourism and timber exports. Omar Bongo of Gabon and his circle of friends control all the oil money in Gabon. Obiang Nguema and his cronies exercise full control over the hundreds of millions of dollars of oil money that flow into the country annually. Denis Sassou Nguessou of Congo does the same with his friends and so are Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Joseph Kabila of DRC. Like the Slave Masters of the slave trade, the politicians, their cronies, the business elite and the well connected determine and control everything in Africa. They determine which roads should be constructed or resurfaced and which one should not. They determine which village or town gets connected to the national electricity grid; they determine which region or district receives funding for projects; they determine which community receives water infrastructure. They determine which town or community gets access to hospitals and sanitation facilities. They determine who should get a job and who should get sacked. Have you heard that 420 army recruits in Ghana have been asked to go home by the politicians who recently took over power? The slave masters decide who gets a place to sell in the market, shopping malls and all the major markets in the continent. The slave masters decide who should own a business and who should have a share in that business. They decide who should get a contract and whose certificate as contractor should be withdrawn. Contractors do substandard works, collect hundreds of millions of dollars, give politicians their share and that is all. So a road whose live span is twenty years has to be resurfaced after just two years. For the past fifteen years Accra-Kumasi road in Ghana has been resurfaced more than five times after paying contractors hundreds of millions of dollars. This explains why school buildings collapse and children are killed. It also explains why communities are flooded anytime it rains as poor quality drainage networks are built. Projects costs and costs of major public procurement contracts are inflated three or four times normal cost by the Slave Masters and the poor people are made to pay for it. You cannot get a certificate to operate a business unless you grease the palm of a politician. You cannot get contract unless you know a politician in the ruling government. You are treated differently if you know the regional minister, the district commissioner, governor or the district chief executive (DCE). A French investigation into corruption at the former oil giant Elf Aquitaine, an executive testified that Elf paid £40m a year to Bongo via Swiss bank accounts in exchange for permission to exploit his country's reserves. Source: The Sunday Times, 2008. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYsEtByul5Mi9p98A9E3iFU5WigTHkGmZ8JyJ_oR_YO4aY0jr9WLvpGRLitHd5Ybde0jC2t-DwYLW3C1PVQFTCV-LwF2tAC7X8zh1rhmt17QdOyjAOyfXcgv63do-88oGQMslWb4y0WjB8/s1600-h/Justice-dead.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319470925813989794" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYsEtByul5Mi9p98A9E3iFU5WigTHkGmZ8JyJ_oR_YO4aY0jr9WLvpGRLitHd5Ybde0jC2t-DwYLW3C1PVQFTCV-LwF2tAC7X8zh1rhmt17QdOyjAOyfXcgv63do-88oGQMslWb4y0WjB8/s400/Justice-dead.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 312px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" /></a>As far as one knows a cabinet minister he can do whatever he likes and nobody dares question him. It is always the poor and the have nots who get prosecuted and jailed while the politicians and their cronies who commit atrocious crimes against their states live in their mansions to enjoy their booty and ill gotten wealth. If Mr. Bernard L. Madoff had come from any country in Africa he would have been a free man by now as his political friends would have made sure he did not go to jail. Corruption case against Jacob Zuma is being dropped to allow him to become president of South Africa. Big loans are contracted to build projects like presidential palaces enjoyed only by the politicians and the poor are made to pay for it. Like the slavery of old, the politicians, their families, the businessmen and the well connected are not hurt by the storm of poverty in Africa. Despite receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in loans and grants from Europe, Japan, US, IMF and World Bank there is nothing to show for it as poverty continue to swallow the people. The reason is that these loans and grants do not see the light, they are stolen the very day they are released and the poor people are paying for it. This explains why many countries have applied for the HIPC (Highly Indebted Poor Countries) initiative. These corrupt Slave Masters and their associates are holding the people captive with their short sighted, ill-conceived, vote buying, and cosmetic economic policies and programmes thereby giving the people no chance to develop. The politicians in Africa have titles like Junior Jesus, Servants of the Poor, Friend of the Poor, King of Africa but they are all lies. None of them cares for the poor but their own stomach. Because they care only for their interests, that is why the people have no jobs, no incomes, no savings and have no place to lay their heads. That is why farmers continue to farm using hoes and cutlasses, rely on nature to plant their crops; and have no access to improved seeds, irrigation facilities and credit. That is why children go to school barefooted, on an empty stomach and attend classes under trees while the politicians' children receive education in Europe and America. That is why Omar Bongo has at least 33 luxury properties in France alone and spends $100 million a year while majority of Gabonese live on a dollar a day. Dos Santos, Paul Biya, Obiang Nguema, Blaise Campore, Arap Moi, Jerry Rawlings, Joseph Kabila and most of the sitting and past presidents and their families live a lavish lifestyle while majority of the people live in abject poverty. That is why people have no access to water, food, health care, education and electricity while Citibank, UBS, Barclays Bank, Crédit Lyonnais, BNP, Credit Suisse, are full of stolen money from the continent. That is why there are power blackouts in Accra, Dar es Salaam, Abidjan, Cape Town, Monrovia, Free Town, Lome, Lagos, Kampala, Cairo, Conakry and most of our cities not to mention the rural areas. But the lights in Aso Rock in Nigeria, Osu Castle in Ghana, El Mouradia in Algeria, Abdeen Palace in Egypt, Zimbabwe House in Zimbabwe, Futungo dos Belas in Angola, Mahlambandlovu of South Africa, States House in Kenya and Uganda, will not go off even if there is no water in the Kanji, Akosombo, the Aswam, Kariba, or the Mulunguzi dams. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97tPKUD-Kn3BK0BvPpu1kLUenOSmXeBzY7Hb0e6Scp4aYPAZL_NQqnv5ZTMgzGRkvF4k6h_-ef5NxbfNPr6TPIl6Ep-gpxXJpcxszSyWqO_dutmWX1uyfwXxE5_ROwe3J8kp-fQIkrkda/s1600-h/africa_hopless.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319470933867595506" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh97tPKUD-Kn3BK0BvPpu1kLUenOSmXeBzY7Hb0e6Scp4aYPAZL_NQqnv5ZTMgzGRkvF4k6h_-ef5NxbfNPr6TPIl6Ep-gpxXJpcxszSyWqO_dutmWX1uyfwXxE5_ROwe3J8kp-fQIkrkda/s400/africa_hopless.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 303px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 279px" /></a>Because they care only for their interests that is why majority of the people live in slumps, sprawl, shanty towns and in deplorable conditions in Nairobi, Accra, Cairo, Lagos, Soweto, Kampala with little or no access to water, electricity, schools, hospitals, roads, toilet and sanitation facilities. That is why teachers, nurses, and other public workers are poorly paid, have few rights and have little or no entitlement when they go on retirement. But when the Slave Masters leave office after looting the treasuries, they are given several hundreds of thousands of dollars and properties as retirement packages. The Slave Masters have more and are given more. The poor have none and they are denied even the little. Because they care only for their stomach that is why they allow mining and oil companies to destroy the environment and the livelihoods of the people. Shell, BP and other oil companies have polluted rivers, wells, streams, lakes, creeks and the soil in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria rendering millions of fishermen and farmers jobless. The people of Arlit in Niger and Mounana in Gabon are still suffering after exposure to high radioactive contamination from uranium. The Slave Masters in Ghana, DRC, Liberia, and Zambia look on in agreement while mining companies like AngloAshanti and Mittal pollute the environment. In the 50 years since oil was discovered in Nigeria, over $400 billion have been realised as revenue but the money has been stolen by the politicians and the corrupt civil servants leaving Nigerians to fend for themselves. The evil genius Abacha and his family were able to bank $4 billion of these monies in Switzerland, Jersey Island, New York, Australia, France and Britain. The story is no different in Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, DRC, Guinea, Chad, Zambia, Sudan, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Algeria, Sierra Leone and Gabon where oil, gas, gold, diamond, copper and other valuable minerals have brought in billions of dollars yet most the people live in abject poverty. The people are poor because the Slave Masters have decided they should remain so, as monies meant for their development have been stolen and are sitting in UBS, Credit Suisse, Barclays bank, BNP, Crédit Lyonnais and Citibank. Through their grip on power, the Slave Masters have amassed wealth and enriched themselves at the expense of the poor. And in order to perpetuate their rule and enslavement of the people they turn one tribe and one religion against the other as is seen in Kenya, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Ghana, Niger, Mali, Algeria, Egypt, Togo, Liberia and Congo. They install their children as successors instead of allowing democracy to work. Faure Gnassingbe of Togo was installed as his father's successor and so did Joseph Kabila of DR. Congo who replaced Laurent Kabila, his father as president. There are clear signs that Gamal Mubarak and Major Muhoozi Kainerugaba will respectively replace their fathers as presidents of Egypt and Uganda. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi17toSKtlKxUHAx9mJ3RHff6PwQZZJ_djsgtReJy_mVSiFbZSqjEukmOqBZuxHjiMV82RD1b7yaQ0Ukbws6ahHFSZnwgZjb8YgDYIopFUrWzxmP_TpArCuzlXR4jdZR6AP2nT9FvjBXIU5/s1600-h/hr_rights_article_0.jpg"></a>How is the following 2008 US Human Rights report on Gabon different from the treatment of slaves by their owners in the 18th Century? <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtb4Gt8DvoD7B7Co0hVe6m9wjCCmbqkt3E8ZPa8lIYOneRQOExNR9U3e3qO-D6APpZnhcPKIp0rDVPKlzr9IrA49BMpLs_UaQqbjGME00nc_nr40LZoHDV86afp8Vs3jDfC-npKkRRwBdh/s1600-h/COLONIAL_SPOILS.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319475144423942370" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtb4Gt8DvoD7B7Co0hVe6m9wjCCmbqkt3E8ZPa8lIYOneRQOExNR9U3e3qO-D6APpZnhcPKIp0rDVPKlzr9IrA49BMpLs_UaQqbjGME00nc_nr40LZoHDV86afp8Vs3jDfC-npKkRRwBdh/s400/COLONIAL_SPOILS.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 353px" /></a>“The following human rights problems were reported: limited ability of citizens to change their government; use of excessive force, including torture toward prisoners and detainees; harsh prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; an inefficient judiciary susceptible to government influence; restrictions on the right to privacy; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, association, and movement; harassment of refugees; widespread government corruption; violence and societal discrimination against women, persons with HIV/AIDS, and noncitizen Africans; trafficking in persons, particularly children; and forced labour and child labour.” Source: US Human Rights Report on Gabon 2008. Similar abuses are found in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Egypt, Mauritania and Guinea. Pathetically, Africans demanded independence from colonialism only to be recolonised and enslaved by our own leaders. A US Senate investigation in 1997 established that Bongo and his family spend fifty-five million pounds every year. Like Omar Bongo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Blaise Campore, Dos Santos, and their friends in Chad, DRC, have all enriched themselves at the expense of their poor countries often in collusion and connivance with the French political and the business elite and the banking and property institutions. Robert Mugabe was seen having a lavish birthday party with his family and friends while millions of his people face starvation and cholera continues to threaten tens of thousands of them. Africa is poor because of the incompetence of her leaders. The people are poor because they have been denied the opportunity to develop. There are no efficient transportation system; no major infrastructural development, no viable manufacturing sector; no major breakthrough in the universities because monies meant for all that have been stolen by the Slave Masters in full agreement with Switzerland, France, Britain, USA, Luxembourg, Jersey Island, Austria and Liechtenstein. What will you say when people have no access to food, water, electricity, education, health facilities; cannot pay their rents and fees for their kids; have no jobs and no savings; have no access to toilet and sanitation facilities and cannot democratically change their leaders? If these corrupt, power hungry and heartless men and women are not slave masters, vampires, parasites, blood suckers and draculars then who are they? By Lord Aikins Adusei (Consultant, Political Activist and Anti Corruption Campaigner) Link - <a class="a_bodymainheadlinesmall" href="http://article.wn.com/view/2009/03/30/Africa_Politicians_The_New_Slave_Masters/" target="_blank">Africa Politicians: The New Slave Masters</a>

Africa Politicians: The New Slave Masters

They like to talk like sheep with humility but they act like wolves and lions devouring their victims without mercy. Such are Africa politic...

12:27 PM

Africa scores 7 of 'Top 10' Crises Spots in the World.

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSVk-8J4khzL1yrJJpCTmduUjL_koJjz2m0fxXa3tqem_u_jzqDckYmuzlIQfyb16PH9Rn8hzF1OX9NWnzDKbgSLcVErOlzLBZCUpBzyrbsL-HtI4PCqNlMIyN5ggyTy9-YSP9CVxjNOc/s1600-h/africa-chains.bmp"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307945893992266242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSVk-8J4khzL1yrJJpCTmduUjL_koJjz2m0fxXa3tqem_u_jzqDckYmuzlIQfyb16PH9Rn8hzF1OX9NWnzDKbgSLcVErOlzLBZCUpBzyrbsL-HtI4PCqNlMIyN5ggyTy9-YSP9CVxjNOc/s400/africa-chains.bmp" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 198px" /></a>Corrupt African politicians, their cronies, the business elite and the well connected, have hijacked and exercise full control over all resources including land, labour, capital and revenues from all economic activities in Africa today. In this alarming 'top 10' crisis spots in the world, alongside Iraq and Pakistan, Of the 'Top 10' list of most needy countries judged by violence, poverty and medical needs, Africa holds 5 out of 8 on the list, plus a further 2 for 'out of control situations', thanks to these corrupt African politicians and their associates who are holding the people captive with their ill-conceived economic policies and programmes. Poverty in Africa today is the modern version of the slavery that took place five centuries ago. See also <a href="http://southafrica-pig.blogspot.com/2009/02/poverty-africas-modern-day-slavery.html">Slavery in Africa today</a> The annual ranking from Doctors Without Borders of the world's Top 10 Humanitarian Crises. They've looked at violence, grinding poverty and unmet medical needs in 70-plus countries -- more than a third of the global total -- where desperate conditions prevail, and they've come up with a list of eight, plus two out-of-control situations that are as bad as it gets. They are: - Somalia: With more than a million people forced from their homes, many in the face of extreme danger, this country has "seemingly limitless humanitarian needs," says the Doctors Without Borders website. Yet targeted attacks, including assassinations and kidnappings, against aid workers "make it an almost impossible place to administer aid." So unmet needs continue to multiply, as does the death toll while people take greater and greater risks to try to flee. - Myanmar: Maybe Cyclone Nargis did one good thing when it devastated the country last May. It finally put Myanmar into the international spotlight. With a government that annually spends just 70 cents per capita on health care, and with foreign aid totalling just $3 a head, it's about time. But with a suspicious government interfering with aid delivery, problems -- especially health problems -- abound. In particular, HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria -- all treatable, and often preventable -- run rampant. - Zimbabwe: Rampant HIV/AIDS and other killer diseases, a dysfunctional economy with inflation running at 231 million per cent, a population desperate to flee the country, repression of political opposition and outside humanitarian groups -- the bottom line is reflected in one horrifying statistic: Life expectancy in the country that was once Africa's bread basket has plummeted to just 34 years. - DR Congo: Failure of yet another ceasefire in North Kivu region means more of the fighting that has gone on for years, more violence directed at civilians, and hundreds of thousands more refugees. They flee in all directions, but most don't even find a place to provide clean water, food or basic health care. The International Rescue Committee estimates that, throughout the Congo, violence and deprivation have killed 5.4 million since 1988. - Ethiopia: Caught between warring rebels and government troops, and beset by drought, the nomadic people of Ethiopia's Somali region are losing their livelihoods, if not their lives. Treatable diseases run rampant in the absence of medical help. They are worsened by malnutrition, especially in children. Meanwhile, too few aid workers are further hampered by bureaucratic hurdles. - Pakistan: Fighting between government and anti-government forces combined with U.S. bombing of suspected terrorist strongholds have resulted in massive displacement of refugees. "In just a few days, hundreds of thousands of people fled fighting that broke out in the tribal area of Bajuar Agency," said Fabien Schneider, the Doctors Without Borders head of mission in the region. "In the camps we visited, we were told about bombings and people who died." - Sudan: "Media attention and political involvement in Darfur means that everyone knows about conflict here," says Banu Altunbas, the agency's head of mission in South Darfur. "But in the last four years, the situation has not improved. In fact, for most people, things are worse." There's also a continuing, decades-old civil war in the south of the sprawling country. - Iraq: Since the U.S. invasion in 2003, Doctors Without Borders maintains, "Various military and political actors have sought to use and abuse humanitarian action for political purposes and in so doing have made humanitarian organizations a target for violent attacks." This has complicated the always-difficult task of addressing acute civilian needs in the country. It got so bad that Doctors Without Borders withdrew from violence-affected regions of the country, but it is now cautiously starting to return. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiejQg5IfewNSAHI2_cQNRIOwxBExoB1FsKfyxQ847FXvKR0Sbe73TYIzhHQk7-_nuhqbI_vl88FgnVlC5vYuyxPQZv-6fS9ZRkDR3RQrp24KTlsfT9IZjjcs1zEcBCvsIO4f2PDiu_Kc0/s1600-h/poverty_Food_riots_farm_bill_2008.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGceyGitDNFJfGcbp6ha1AtpT4EnOTZdgK5j7O9UN0h2fTVxmjIUaG56DC91XJkIIywDLP74ZGXzQfl2qPwz9eV9Diw0OzJxsvDaYkzTO5Hn6hIPKtD7YgumZHYPII27YO3RYrXPCm7DE/s1600-h/poverty_Food_riots_farm_bill_2008.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguFEbpZWh_NEziYT-xYgpYTZkUmyBzSxO8o6khaAFVQJYwiZJeeu_0NRuvc9ci-fhL5CBtIQCQjN_NWJZ0OYMxYNfFevErdidE-Jttimi2s9IukZOYKIiAdvSC6u1N6oINFzR1EIsgkys/s1600-h/poverty_Starved_girl.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHzNP6XF6EFUqed1iBab_b3AfSnpw9SuykRV7WW8FNH6RYTWMY0dG7s_yHcNKiHRQqlFhOfSxjAPUK5fYWMQfAQ5pZOsVTG_a7BbbCiKSPqZ-ZulNJZUsG47CcsqwUTLK_hqznSojVhFw/s1600-h/child_starving.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-3dmMBhBVRCHqlsmZc-ChXqHB9O_iVEuJWpQGrfJwbKnDuorEIKE4d-JjsoReQoPcJ071lFIDtysxgc-IKHnhl2i6MsLUYvzc1e7G6chrhy1MWbmBQdC1xMQ2fmv1IIpaTBINL7hFq5E/s1600-h/AFRICA04.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRDWyPVLhqK_johQmSqMJ3KMuTawuHNAqTJE1cOONGnhA2g08c9A5Yh7Qy0WE-q8t82nX0zqwANhkk3hWAds5sexW6wm5RgvyPvXF1p12odCESJJe4PiIyf2qiD5ERX54-dTu9VVrPy3g/s1600-h/africa2.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ8oGbT3NraGnb8EvNnkoe6RwY-ou-u_Xpyp4ZNloPYAL1NxGW3Ace4_fTwF8BzQQqL0tUBxz6cNKXpkCHrPgNuUUK6-319TBlq897XU0v16bkrDcK7zcsKTBjx-l6evlYflvJXInOIpc/s1600-h/Africa1.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307985520942834258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ8oGbT3NraGnb8EvNnkoe6RwY-ou-u_Xpyp4ZNloPYAL1NxGW3Ace4_fTwF8BzQQqL0tUBxz6cNKXpkCHrPgNuUUK6-319TBlq897XU0v16bkrDcK7zcsKTBjx-l6evlYflvJXInOIpc/s200/Africa1.gif" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 188px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-3dmMBhBVRCHqlsmZc-ChXqHB9O_iVEuJWpQGrfJwbKnDuorEIKE4d-JjsoReQoPcJ071lFIDtysxgc-IKHnhl2i6MsLUYvzc1e7G6chrhy1MWbmBQdC1xMQ2fmv1IIpaTBINL7hFq5E/s1600-h/AFRICA04.jpg"></a>- Childhood malnutrition: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLKO4abZMKwowGGZKxkBukaz7xUfGnL2rtT23arOAQlUcLDgYvQjOXZdEu2XspeNSGPmkxkVPB1haxBMM7pkuK7wqtGJCVd7QG42pHvlXQkFPrKzhS5rNdp82V3yljIOAOB0r4CiQrpJY/s1600-h/poverty-starving-boy.jpg"></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcUDeYJORd-Qo0h2or5U7gT0EkagFLOudBIN34lRqYEtNQm7MdF_683znSRzZH7etssMgWZGFU_WZAIFQElzsAPHg-kfIyDng2SFlFa2bURncD9g5QtXrqV9du4vOzVJIfJVXorKQ5eyg/s1600-h/AFRICA04.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzl3hn_QxKsfpJNCN0wDBdRyqIZQyvjVjP4sN7vIuY0JCTRbmx1lCHTcaD_1hJE1R0VCXajNrsuPTLIFawPhUk89M6ym7E_ziyv4i2ROHwTnq2OTQ65dNZUc4pudefoJqqSNeuWwFRf-g/s1600-h/POVERTY-hunger01.jpg"></a> Food riots early in 2008 put a spotlight on the impact of price increases on the world's poor. But a less visible disaster -- 178 million malnourished children worldwide -- continues largely under the radar. The World Health Organization estimates that malnutrition contributes to the deaths of 3.5 million-5 million children a year. UNICEF also reports that child hunger is getting worse in 16 countries around the globe. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif_mfas0KBvqJdV7B11SlZRpUqHg6h7B7Eu1S4yscbzdfik8WusTmTAlhEbNLyUHYcgsitgdIMAZlenkUG1bzEeKgX-a1uSb4DtcdLq4TUm8dBgzvnG8jKVnYC3W8QysbPl4jGgKnhMX4/s1600-h/Aids_orphans_front.gif"></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8bPzWPWJNhEu2o6OeHPfx_TB2PayUUfoH2oah9Gkm72Ql3SPiVNzT185KoO0-wstmMiiDclWaH-jBooWrOrGj4swyzrUuERRrn3srZ5egHxGnNiV-zKZ1z1zX_5aIu8CD3zjH55CW66Y/s1600-h/africa-disease.jpg"></a>- HIV/AIDS and TB: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNY8HYAx6l_89Qe7jfyEgYtKy2oLKPiG0BzAUJyXyxpCT5B6hU3pcHLCIM6TwfgMIL-EglpSFiZz6JO_x0E4KXcov_lJguw_Gk3RUwNOzsk7_DacKWYUVyG-uQYqGqcKpkQbhlxrK7Gb4/s1600-h/africa-disease.jpg"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9vdJqB3oxNgfYkiXPXUl6hNrg6JNZf127Y0oi4kieQRVqeZaxix11zBeJhb6fVNOGgMqdZl-ZqhaYB6tNkNxg0eXK-natny4daiFpJhg6yaTIGPxGgUlnT6wbEoyxikBol5tBIuFp14I/s1600-h/Aids_orphans_front.gif"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307970635511166802" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9vdJqB3oxNgfYkiXPXUl6hNrg6JNZf127Y0oi4kieQRVqeZaxix11zBeJhb6fVNOGgMqdZl-ZqhaYB6tNkNxg0eXK-natny4daiFpJhg6yaTIGPxGgUlnT6wbEoyxikBol5tBIuFp14I/s200/Aids_orphans_front.gif" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 129px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" /></a> TB is on the rise -- nine million new cases and 1.7 million deaths a year. Most of the new cases and the deaths are in the regions and among the populations that are hardest hit by HIV/AIDS. TB can kill an AIDS patient in just a few short weeks, and people with suppressed immune systems are 50 times more likely to develop TB. Yet less than one per cent of the people living with HIV/AIDS are tested for TB. So there you have it -- a distressing Top 10 list, if ever there was one. Ref; <a href="http://www.unaids.org/en/KnowledgeCentre/HIVData/GlobalReport/2008/2008_Global_report.asp" target="_blank">UNAIDS 2008 Report of the global AIDS epidemic</a> 'Nigeria 3rd Highest Infested Country' ... after South Africa and India,<a class="l" href="http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1014-hunger.html" onmousedown="return clk(this.href,'','','res','1','&sig2=hp5m9nKESq74RUqo3LzxaA')">33 countries face "alarming" levels of hunger</a> The index measures global hunger by ranking countries on prevalence of child malnutrition, rates of child mortality, and the proportion of people who are calorie deficient. The Democratic Republic of Congo scored the worst on the Index, followed by Eritrea, Burundi, Niger, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Ethiopia.<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/section/article/2009-02-28-zims-horror-on-film">Zim's horror on film</a> .....millions of impoverished, half-starved Zimbabweans fearing their own drinking water...... what Zimbabwe's autocratic leader does not want seen: the stark reality of life and death.......

Africa scores 7 of 'Top 10' Crises Spots in the World.

Corrupt African politicians, their cronies, the business elite and the well connected, have hijacked and exercise full control over all reso...

11:22 AM

South Africa P.I.G.