Monthly Archives: November 2017

Sudan Is Indispensable To China’s Silk Road Vision For Africa

Current African News, The Sudan

re posted from                                     Africa and the World

Sudan Is Indispensable To China’s Silk Road Vision For Africa

Sudan Is Indispensable To China’s Silk Road Vision For Africa

Written by Andrew KORYBKO on 

OrientalReview.org

The News China will build a railway from the Red Sea city of Port Sudan to the Chadian capital of N’Djamena proves just how serious Beijing is about pioneering a transcontinental Sahelian-Saharan Silk Road to more easily connect Africa’s largest country of Nigeria to the Eurasian landmass, bringing with it plenty of multipolar opportunities for China’s Pakistani and Turkish partners and showcasing the indispensable position that Sudan is poised to play in making this grand vision possible.

The Sudan Tribute [sic Tribune] recently reported that its eponymous country signed a deal with China to explore the viability of constructing a railway from Port Sudan to N’Djamena, with an eye on completing a long-awaited connectivity project that had hitherto been held up due to various degrees of regional instability. According to the publication, the original plan was to link up the Chadian and even nearby Central African Republic capitals with the Red Sea in order to provide these resource-rich landlocked states with an outlet to the global marketplace, which is increasingly becoming Asia-centric ergo the Eastern vector of this initiative. In terms of the bigger picture, however, the successful completion of the Port Sudan-N’Djamena Railway would constitute a crucial component of China’s unstated intentions to construct what the author had previously referred to as the “Sahelian-Saharan Silk Road”, the relevant portion of which (the Chad-Sudan Corridor) is a slight improvisation of Trans-African Highway 6.

Per the hyperlinked analysis above, the following custom map illustrates the full cross-continental vision that China has in mind:

 

Red: CCS (Cameroon-Chad-Sudan) Silk Road
Gold: Trans-African Highway 5
Lavender: Ethiopia-Nigeria Silk Road (the most direct route through resource-rich territory)
Pink: West African Rail Loop
Blue: Lagos-Calabar Silk Road
Green: Lagos-Kano Silk Road
Yellow: Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Silk Road

Each of the aforementioned tracks are described in a bit more detail in the cited article about the Sahelian-Saharan Silk Road and the author’s extensive Hybrid War study on Nigeria, but the two pertinent points to focus on in this piece are the CCS Silk Road (outlined in red on the map) and its larger purpose in possibly connecting Africa’s two largest countries and future Great Powers of Nigeria and Ethiopia. One of China’s grand strategic objectives in the emerging Multipolar World Order is to lay the infrastructural groundwork for facilitating the robust full-spectrum integration between these two giants, understanding that their Beijing-built bicoastal connectivity would bestow the People’s Republic with significant influence in the continent by streamlining an unprecedented corridor between them, thereby giving China the potential to more directly shape Africa’s overall development across the 21st century.

It goes without saying that Sudan is poised to play an indispensable role in making this happen by virtue of its advantageous geography in allowing China to circumnavigate the “Failed State Belt” of South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and increasingly, maybe even Cameroon, as well by charting an overland Silk Road connectivity corridor between Ethiopia and Nigeria via Sudan and Chad. Moreover, the potential linkage of the planned Ethiopia-Sudan railwayto the prospective Port Sudan-N’Djamena railroad would enable Sudan to provide China with alternative access to these two landlocked states. Regional military leader and energy exporter Chad is already in physical touch with the outside world through Cameroon, just as the world’s fastest-growing economy and rising African hegemon Ethiopia utilizes the newly built Djibouti-Addis Ababa railway for this purpose, but the shrewd and far-sighted Chinese always feel more comfortable if they’re not dependent on a single route, hence the strategic importance of supplementary access to Chad and Ethiopia through Port Sudan.

While Sudan’s financial standing was left reeling ever since the American-backed separation of oil-rich South Sudan in 2011, Khartoum might fortuitously find itself wheeling and dealing along the New Silk Road if it’s successful in providing China with alternative market access to Chad and Ethiopia in the future, and especially if it can do the same with Nigeria in saving China the time in having to sail all the way around the Cape of Good Hope in order to trade with it. For as easy as all of this may sound, however, the premier challenge that China will have to confront is to ensure the security of this traditionally unstable transit space, specifically in the context of maintaining peace in the former hotspot of Darfur and dealing with the plethora of destabilization scenarios emanating from the Lake Chad region (Boko Haram, Nigeria’s possible fragmentation, etc.).

In view of this herculean task, China could be lent a helping hand by its Pakistani and Turkish partners who each have a self-interested desire to this end, with Islamabad slated to patrol CPEC’s Sea Lines Of Communication (SLOC) with East Africa while Ankara is already a heavy hitter in Africa because of its recent embassy and airline expansion in the continent. Moreover, both of these countries are leaders of the international Muslim community (“Ummah”) in their own way and accordingly have soft power advantages over China in the majority-Muslim states of sub-Saharan Africa through which Beijing’s grand Silk Road projects will traverse. Seeing as how Pakistan and Turkey are also on very close relations with China, the scenario arises whereby these Great Powers enter into a trilateral working group with one another for effectively promoting their African policies through joint investments, socio-cultural initiatives, and the collective strengthening of Nigeria, Chad, and Sudan’s military capacities in countering their respective Hybrid War threats.

This is especially relevant when considering that all three transit states aren’t exactly on positive footing with the US. Washington initially refused to provide anti-terrorist assistance to Abuja when it first requested such against Boko Haram in 2014, and the Trump Administration has inexplicably placed N’Djamena on its travel ban list. As for Khartoum, it’s been under US sanctions for over two decades now, even though the State Department partially lifted some of them last month as part of its “carrots-and-sticks diplomacy” towards the country. Therefore, the case can convincingly be argued that these three African countries would be receptive to Chinese, Pakistani, and Turkish military assistance because their prospective Eurasian security partners are perceived of as being much more reliable and trusted than the Americans or French who always attach some sort of strings to their support. The only expectation that those three extra-regional states would have is that their counterparts’ collective stability would be enduring enough to facilitate win-win trade for everyone.

There’s a certain logic to the comprehensive strategy behind this Hexagonal Afro-Eurasian Partnership between Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Turkey, Pakistan, and China. Nigeria, as the West African anchor state, could help expeditiously funnel the region’s overland trade to the Red Sea via the landlocked Chadian transit state and the maritime Sudanese one, thus making Khartoum the continental “gatekeeper” of West African-Chinese trade. Turkey’s hefty investments and newfound presence in Africa could help to “lubricate” this corridor by making it more efficient, with President Erdogan trumpeting his country’s version of a moderate “Muslim Democracy” at home in order to score significant soft power points with these three majority-Muslim African states and their elites. Pakistan would assist in this vision by providing security between Port Sudan and what might by that point be its twinned sister port of Gwadar in essentially enabling the flow of West Africa trade to China by means of CPEC.

Altogether, maritime threats are kept to a minimum because of the shortened SLOC between Sudan and Pakistan (as opposed to Nigeria and China) while the mainland ones are manageable due to the military-security dimensions of the proposed Hexagonal Afro-Eurasian Partnership, but it nevertheless shouldn’t be forgotten that Sudan and Pakistan are the crucial mainland-maritime interfaces for this transcontinental and pan-hemispheric Silk Road strategy which is expected to form the basis of China’s “South-South” integration in the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Source:https://lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com/2017/11/25/sudan-is-indispensable-to-chinas-silk-road-vision-for-africa/

Abahlali Women’s Choral Society to Launch its First Album

Current African News, Health, South Africa

re posted from                                    Abahlali baseMjondolo

Abahlali Women’s Choral Society to Launch its First Album

Abahlali Women’s Choral Society to Launch its First Album

Friday, 6 October 2017Abahlali Women Choral Society
Abahlali baseMjondolo press statement

Abahlali Women’s Choral Society to Launch its First Album

Women’s power is the foundation of our movement. Abahlali women have always been in the for-front of our struggle for land, decent housing and dignity. Women have always been in forefront of defending our struggle and facing serious attacks from the state. They have been beaten, tortured, arrested and some have been killed in the hands of the police, gangster politicians and izinkabi. Our movement is committed to building women’s power in struggle. 

The history of the Abahlali Women’s Choral Society begins with the Marikana Land Occupation in Cato Crest. In 2013 Abahlali resisted serious repression from the eThekwini Municipality and the ANC in the Marikana Land Occupation. Several comrades were arrested, several comrades were injured and several comrades were murdered. Thembinkosi Qumbela was first assassinated in March 2013. Nkululeko Gwala was assassinated in June 2013. It was the same year and same community where Nqobile Nzuza was murdered by a police officer during a road blockade in September 2013.

Despite all this repression the community held the occupied land. They rebuilt again and again and refused to give up. Many women were courageous and stood firm in defence of the occupied land.

In the Marikana Land Occupation the settlement was destroyed by the state and rebuilt by the occupiers 12 times. In Sisonke Village, where women’s power was also the foundation of a brave struggle, the comrades rebuilt 24 times. This is what it takes to win land in South Africa in 2017.

The struggle in the Marikana Land Occupation was very hard. One of the ways in which women in the occupation expressed their sorrow and how they transformed it into power was by forming a choir. The choir enabled them to draw strength from each other and to share that strength with the movement as a whole. The choir was used to build inkani. The members of the choir say that the movement became a warm home for them and that the choir became a way to express their gratitude to Abahlali for being a home in a time of great repression.

Their songs are mainly about the struggle, and praising Abahlali and ubuhlali. They promote ubuhlali and salute Abahlali. Today Cato Crest is one of the most organised and strongest branches of Abahlali.

Their struggle was waged in on the land, in the streets and in the courts. A high price was paid. Along with the three deaths some comrades remain permanently disabled. But they have held the land.

Today the City has recognised the settlement. The ward councillor who was a warlord has changed and he cooperates with Abahlali. There are no more evictions. Water and sanitation has been installed and today there is peace and stability.

On Sunday the first album of the Abahlali Women’s Choral Society will be launched at the Cato Crest sports ground. Abahlali will once again use this opportunity to demonstrate that shack dwellers can think, that we can be creative, innovative and reasonable. We will show that we are able to use arts and music to build our strength and communicate our politic.

Our message is that it is time we reclaim ubuhlali. We hope to promote ubuhlalism as an idea that is grounded in deepen human values that informs the society we are struggling to build. Our message seeks to promote our living politic’ which is a politic that is grounded in real day to day lives of ordinary people of our society.

Music and creativity have been vital to how we have sustained our struggle even in times of state repression. We hope that the choir could get some support so that we can take this choir on National Tour.

The songs on the album dedicated to all shack dwellers, and all impoverished and marginalised people. We hope that all struggling communities throughout the globe can draw strength from our experience. We hope that the can use that strength courageously and wisely to destroy all forms of oppression to any human being anywhere in the world.

We have invited all progressive people’s movements, comrades, activists, church leaders, friends, families and and individuals to join us on Sunday. We are very pleased that Bishop Rubin Phillip will be with us on Sunday. We have also invited artists, poets and other talented people from among the impoverished and oppressed. We hope to use this launch also to build solidarity between movements and within movements.

While we celebrate the launch of this album we note that we will meet during another time of repression. The eThekwini Municipality is waging a brutal, illegal and violent war, day after day, against the new land occupation in Cato Manor.
We stand firm in the struggle for land and dignity. We will defend every occupation. Women’s power is the foundation of our politic and we affirm to the world that we respect women’s power and that we are committed to build women’s power in every occupation, in the movement and in society.

Source: Abahlali baseMjondolo

BRICS to form own gold trading system

Current African News, South Africa,

re posted from                              PressTV

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2017/11/26/543546/BRICS-to-form-own-gold-trading-system

BRICS to form own gold trading system

Sun Nov 26, 2017 11:46AM
Russia has unveiled a plan that envisages the creation of a separate gold trading system by BRICS countries.
Russia has unveiled a plan that envisages the creation of a separate gold trading system by BRICS countries.

Russia has unveiled a plan based on which the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – will create a single gold trading system.  The move is already seen as part of a campaign led by Russia and China to move away from the US dollar in international trade. 

The plan would be applied “both within BRICS and at the level of bilateral contacts,” according to Sergey Shvetsov, the first deputy chairman of Russia’s Central Bank.

Shvetsov was quoted by Sputnik news agency as saying that the idea – which he said was still under study by the bloc – had been devised because the traditional trade system based in London had become less relevant.

“The traditional [trade] system based in London and partially in Swiss cities is becoming less relevant as new trade hubs are emerging, first of all in India, China, and South Africa,” he was quoted as saying by the Russian news service.

According to the Russian Central Bank official, on the basis of this unified system, it is possible to create new benchmarks in the future.

Shvetsov also revealed Moscow’s plans aiming to continue the increase in the absolute value of gold in the country’s reserves.

There had earlier been reports that Russia was expediting its purchases of gold in a campaign which could be meant to phase in a gold-backed standard of trade with little reliance – or no reliance in the eventual phase – on the US dollar.

Reports said the country had purchased 6 million ounces (almost 187 tons) of gold within 10 months of 2017.

Over the last three years, the Russian Central Bank has been pursuing gold purchases, with last year Russia buying 6.4 million ounces (about 199 tons), added Sputnik.

China is also believed to have started an aggressive campaign to purchase the bullion and reduce its reliance on the dollar.

Both countries have already created mechanisms to for their traders to conduct transactions using gold as a means of marginalizing the power of the dollar in bilateral trade.

Source: PressTV

South Africa`s GMO Maize-Based Staple Diet

British Financial Empire, Current African News, Health, New World Order, South Africa

Recently a report was released that showed the extremely adverse affects of maize-based diets on the wildlife of France.

https://www.rt.com/news/375370-corn-hamsters-cannibals-france/

In that RT.com  article it states that : “ Improperly cooked maize-based diets have been associated with higher rates of homicide, suicide and cannibalism in humans.”

Poverty rates in South Africa are extreme and on the rise.  Very low income people in South Africa are financially forced to rely on a daily meal of pap, also known as maize meal, also known as iputu. Unlike in Italy where maize meal is widely eaten, South Africa refines the maize, it is white not yellow. Over 80% of the maize grown in South Africa is GMO.

The effects of GMO food are described here and here. It is detrimental to health and designed for population reduction.

The following is an article originally published in 2015 on this website. Very poor people in South Africa are at risk of ingesting a lethal diet that could be the cause of much of the violence that is taking place in areas where there is no employment, no future and no hope.

AIDS – South Africa`s MKUltra ?

edited on the 22/11/2017

by PD Lawton africanagenda.net 10/12/15

According to recent media headlines South Africans are now asking to be supplied by their government with ARVs to prevent HIV. That tragic state of affairs is the result of a pharmaceutical-media propaganda campaign, a New World Order success for depopulation and the profits of Big Pharma. The public`s fear of contracting AIDS is now at such an extreme level that they are demanding the State provide precautionary antiretroviral to be given to `at risk` sectors of society.

Who benefits from HIV ?

HIV status is a public relations program run for the benefit of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. HIV has yet to be proven to cause AIDS. HIV is a concept and AIDS in Africa is an umbrella name for a multitude of already existing diseases, some of which have been exacerbated by either environmental conditions or vaccines. In the case of South Africa it has reached the level of a national psyop and indirectly resulted in the resignation of a former president, Thabo Mbeki and his replacement by Jacob Zuma.

The largest HIV lobby group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), funded by US pharmaceutical companies, has been the effective tool in what is part of a colour revolution in South Africa. This colour revolution is to over-throw the ANC government and derail the country`s membership of the BRICS nations.The BRICS is Africa`s only alternative to IMF/World Bank debt-inducing policy and is the political intention of creating a new paradigm of development and prosperity for the continent. Through public pressure organized by TAC, who are responsible for the red T shirt campaign promoting the idea of HIV status as `Proud to be HIV Positive`, the ANC were brought under pressure to sign agreements with pharmaceuticals such as Glaxo Smithkline and Pfizer to supply AZT to the public. Former President Thabo Mbeki had been insistent that his government was being targeted by subversive forces through the AIDS lobby due to the stance his government was taking in re-negotiating unfavourable terms with the WTO and the first steps that would later lead to the country`s joining of the BRICS in 2010. He went as far as to point at the CIA [1]

He maintained his view that HIV had not been proven to be the cause of AIDS under advice from scientists including Dr Peter Duesberg and South African advocate, Anthony Brink who published a book in 1999 – `Debating AZT`. Due to Brink`s research Mbeki`s government and chief health advisor, Prof Sam Mhlongo condemned the use of AZT.Prof Mhlongo stated that AZT was in his opinion a highly toxic drug and that there were multiple reasons for the epidemic of sickness in South Africa but that the main cause was poverty-related malnutrition. Prof Mhlongo later died in a car crash which was likely an assassination. Prof Mhlongo and the ANC under Thabo Mbeki openly accused drug companies of obscuring the facts as to the link between HIV and AIDS. Prof Mhlongo said :

“ The drug companies found that other parts of Africa do not have the logistics or capital, no chance of making massive profits. South Africa has the infrastructure to enable them to make the massive profits that they do. All the drug companies are here. South Africa is the epicentre for drug companies to supply the rest of Africa. So if you dismiss the question of HIV causes AIDS, then the drug companies will loose out.” [2]

In 2007, Anthony Brink filed an indictment with the ICC against TAC leader, Zackie Achmat for the genocide of thousands of South Africans from ARV poisoning. Included in the Pariculars of the Charge :

“Achmat directs Treatment Action Campaign (‘TAC’), a professional lobby group that he founded in South Africa to shill on behalf of the multinational pharmaceutical industry by promoting the patented chemicals that it markets as so-called antiretroviral drugs (‘ARVs’) for the treatment of AIDS. Although the TAC has criticized the pharmaceutical industry on the pricing of ARVs (thereby burnishing their commercial reputation brightly), and makes a show of being financially independent from it (but collaborates with organizations openly funded by it), to all practical effect the TAC functions in South Africa as its marketing agent.” [3]

Today, the tenders for producing antiretrovirals in South Africa are worth well over R5.9 billion for competing pharmaceutical companies, 70% of which are South African based. [4] With millions of dollars pouring into the country from the USA,UK and Europe in the form of grants to support ARV treatment, HIV counselling, community and social awareness, educational programs and medical training and research, a single virus has now become one of the strongest economic growth sectors with tens of thousands of citizens employed in its ranks. An industry in itself, the AIDS Industry, clearly proving that institutions like UNAIDS have little to do with science or health and everything to do with political advocacy; in the case of South Africa, a soft-power tool to manipulate the government of Africa`s mining giant.

“The vested interests in South Africa are enormous. There are all these people who are doing research in relation to Wellcome and Glaxo. And they have research grants via the MRC, the Medical Research Council, and if they`re wrong- and in my view they are wrong- if they`re proved to be wrong then the research funding will stop and their careers are at stake and the `orthodox` view is extremely worried about the `non-orthodox ` view – that is the question that we are putting forward about the existence of HIV.” Prof Sam Mhlongo [5]

The higher the figures, the higher the funding

6.3 million South Africans were recorded as having HIV/AIDS in 2013 according to WHO statistics , with 200 000 deaths per year attributed to the disease. That is the highest rate world-wide. A national survey in 2014 found an astronomical increase of people testing positive for HIV, 400 000 new cases, up from 2012. As of 2014 statistics there are now 6.8 million South Africans who are HIV positive. That is approaching one fifth of the population. In KwaZulu Natal which is an eastern province, nearly half the population (40%) have AIDS.

The HSRC (Human Sciences Research Council of SA) national survey results showing the dramatic increase in affected people has resulted in the implementation of a World Health Organization program to administer precautionary antiretroviral treatment to sectors in society considered most at risk. The WHO guidelines recommend that ” Oral PrEP…should be offered as an additional prevention choice for people at substantial risk of HIV infection as part of combination HIV prevention approaches.”[6] This is the largest ever roll out program of ARVs ever under taken.

UNAIDS reported that one of the highest risk sectors of society are adolescent girls between the ages of 15 and 24, with 7000 new HIV cases each week, a 30% increase in sub-Saharan Africa. As part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals for empowering women, organizations such as DREAMS will be working with this age group to ensure they have access to the new combination pre-exposure prophylaxis ARVs. DREAMS stands for `determined, resilient, AIDS-free, mentored and safe women`. It is a public-private partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.[7] Their mantra is that focussing on adolescent girls is key to ending AIDS. Or is it sterility?

The WHO is also funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, both infamous proponents of eugenics and depopulation.

Given the scale of AIDS in South Africa and the fact that antiretrovirals are mind and mood altering are we looking at South Africa`s version of MKUltra? Project MKUltra was/is a covert CIA mind control program using drugs like LSD and other techniques to control the behaviour of individuals by manipulating mental states and altering brain function.

MKUltra

Apart from the highest AIDS rate, South Africa holds another global record and that is for violent homicides. It is one of the most violent countries in the world and since 1994 rape and homicide have spiralled. [8] With an increase of 4.6 % in the last year, 49 South Africans are murdered each day in what are often horrifically violent homicides. 17 805 murders each year for a population of 54 million is a world record breaker. An example of what homicide in South Africa means can be seen on the Afrikaner Genocide Museum (ajkraad.wix.com) which is documenting the slow, controlled eradication of a White race of people that has been African for the last 600 years. We can only hope that such torture is conducted by men who have been mentally debilitated. The country`s child homicide rate was reported by the WHO in 2013 as more than double the global average. What the WHO did not report were the numbers of children murdered with knives, knobkerries (batons), machetes and by sexual abuse.[9]

In 2008, a paper was published by a leading South African psychiatrist, Prof. Matshepo Matoane after she had conducted extensive research into AIDS and psychiatric behavioural traits of patients on medication, that revealed the increase in violent tendencies of patients who were on a combination of drugs for TB and AIDS. The study revealed that the combination of these two medical treatments changed the patients natural behaviour making them violent and sadistic. Her warning to the government of the real danger was based on the fact that 40% of the military force are on the AIDS/TB medical combination. Prof Matoane gave her report in 2008 in an address to the South African military academy in Cape Town. Except for one source there was a total media blackout. [10]

TB is on the increase world-wide but yet again South Africa scores 3rd highest for rate of TB with an estimated 490 000 cases. 63% of whom are on AVRs. Silicosis induced TB is common among the mining work force due to silica dust exposure. TB is a disease in partnership with poverty.History and logic declare that to true.

Big Drug Lords and little drug lords

Developed by Merck , Efavirenz is an antiretroviral known by its brand names Sustiva, Stocrin and Efavir. Efavirenz is a psychoactive drug that has been proven to have the same effect on the mind as LSD.[11]The side effects taken under normal conditions are insomnia, depression, anxiety, confusion with more extreme psychiatric side-effects being aggression and psychosis. Using ARVs as hallucinogens is common practice in South Africa where it is the street drug known as Nyope or Whoonga. A mix of tobacco, marijuana and ground up ARV with a dash of rat poison gives a huge high and is also one of the most addictive of substances. Drug addicts in KwaZulu Natal on Whoonga are a major part of the spiralling crime and gang culture associated with extremely violent robberies involving rape, torture and murder all committed to get a daily supply of ARVs. With 73% of South Africans under the age of 35 unemployed (source: COSATU,2011) it is not surprising that the official CDA statistics for heavy drug users is 15%. South African society is being undermined by the level of crime and much of this crime is AIDS drugs related.

VESTED INTERESTS IN AIDS

The mining labour force of South Africa is among the cheapest world-wide and has continued to be since 1994.The platinum, gold, diamond and coal mines are some of the deepest. Inadequate health measures can almost guarantee that a miner will after 10 years in such conditions develop some form of lung disease either related to asbestos or silicosis induced TB. AIDS has been an umbrella condition for mining corporations. To this day the extremely high rate of AIDS among miners is attributed to sexual promiscuity with references common in the media such as this :”AIDS is a particular problem in the mining industry because many employees are migrant workers living in hostels often hundreds of miles from their families.”[12]

A case is currently in the South African courts against 32 mining companies .Thousands of former miners are suing for what they estimate are 780 000 cases of occupational lung disease. If the case goes forward it will be the single largest class action suit in the history of the country.[13] ( This court case is now closed – AngloAmerican and DeBeers are `settling out of court` which means many more 1000s of miners will die in the future)

Dr Nancy Turner Banks has written extensively on the vested interests of corporations in promoting a new disease called AIDS in her award winning book `AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire`. The convenience of a disease that is contracted by sexual promiscuity as oppose to working conditions is undeniable. By the time, if ever, this deception is realized by the majority South Africa`s mine labour will have been replaced by a fully automated robotic technology.

A stranger case then for KwaZulu Natal where 1 in 3 people have AIDS because the province`s economy apart from coal is agricultural with a staggering 70% of people unemployed. However the main agriculture is sugarcane and one company has a monopoly over it, Huletts-Tongaat. Anglo American is the main share holder. Much of the cane harvesting is still done by hand and the one guaranteed condition that is prevalent among cane croppers is malnutrition due to the wages. Rio Tinto operates KwaZulu Natal`s coal mining. Two of the main investors in Rio Tinto are The Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation who also fund the majority of the region`s clinics and hospitals which are where a person will be screened and treated for HIV. The Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies has its headquarters in KwaZulu Natal. It is one of the three largest sources of employment in the region where 70% of people are unemployed. Its primary aim is to combat HIV. The Africa Centre for Health and Population studies is funded by The Wellcome Trust and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. [14] You cannot get your head around the scale of this psyop.

The Tentacles of Empire

Since 2002 Anglo American, South Africa`s largest private company and employer have issued free ARVs to their 135 000 staff. Miners in Botswana working for Debswana also receive free ARVs, as do their families. Debswana is a joint venture 50% owned by the Botswanan government and DeBeers (now Anglo American.) Debswana is the largest employer in the country which has the 2nd highest rate of HIV globally.

Other companies in South Africa that issue free ARVs are AngloGold, a subsidiary of DeBeers, DaimlerChrysler and London listed drinks group – South African Breweries.

REAL DISEASES

Whatever you perceive AIDS to be the stark reality of South Africa is that if you are jobless; you will be unable to afford basic nutrition. At least 50% of South Africans live below the poverty line. The highest percent of poverty in any ethnic group is among the Afrikaners, one third of whom now live destitute in squatter camps.[16]

15% of children are born underweight, 5% of whom are so underweight they are diagnosed wasted at birth. 21.4 % of pre-school children have anaemia as do 50% of pregnant mothers. 13.2% of children have abnormally low calcium levels and vitamin B deficiency is endemic among the lower income majority who also live on the only grain that is deficient without nixtamalization in vitamin B, maize. Low levels of vitamin B have been proven to contribute to immune deficiency. [15] In a logical world : you are what you eat and health is a direct consequence of nutrition.

AZT was first produced as a treatment for cancer. It is a chemotherapy drug and therefore like all chemotherapy practices it damages your immune system. The following is a quote from AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire by Dr Nancy Banks:

“Chemoantibiotics (anti[against], bio[life]), liberally given to both humans and domesticated animals,destroy the normal gut flora that aid in digestion and assimilation of our food and make it impossible to utilize the nutrition that is taken in. Many antibiotics and environmental toxins also damage a cellular organelle known as the mitochondria. It is in the mitochondria that our energy is produced in the form of a molecule of ATP (adenosine triphosphate). These fascinating organelles that at one time were ancient bacteria have their own DNA separate from nuclear DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited through the maternal germline. Because of the intentional industrial attack of these organelles with drugs and toxins, not only is permanent genetic damage being passed on to future generations but this practice is also creating a significant rise in current chronic diseases, such as Alzheimer`s, cancer and acquired immune deficiency.”

Upto 80% of SA`s maize harvest is genetically modified.The staple diet of the nation is maize ground into maizemeal and cooked as a porridge. South Africa is the only country in the world that has a GM staple diet and has had for the past 3 decades.

Maizemeal is South Africa`s most affordable meal. It is cheap, traditional and filling. It is the only substance that the very poor can afford given that food prices in South Africa are no different to food prices in Britain and Europe.

40% of the genetically modified maize grown in South Africa is a Monsanto special – RoundUp Ready NK603 which is banned in Russia and proven in France to result in cancerous growths i.e immune suppression. Contrary to mainstream media coverage, the Seralini Study conducted in France has not been discredited.[17]

You do not need a man in a white coat to conduct research into the link between genetically modified food and damaged immune systems. It is a logical conclusion.

Mozambique neighbours South Africa with a high amount of interaction and trade between the two countries. 11.5% of Mozambican adults between the ages of 15 -49 years are HIV positive giving a total figure of 1.6 million cases of HIV as oppose to 6.3 million in neighbouring South Africa. Is this because Mozambicans are less promiscuous? Or is it because they have a staple diet of rice and a lack of Anglo American enterprises?

Positive or negative – a definitive science ?

Screening tests for HIV antibodies in South Africa are done primarily through mobile clinics. This quick and cheap method of detecting the presence of antibodies instead of the virus is not permitted in Germany due to its unreliability.

Conclusion

One of Prof Sam Mhlongo`s many questions about HIV was why it affected Black Africans more than any other race. If he were still alive today he would now have his answer. HIV is not a disease or a virus. It is a gene expression of a gene commonly carried by Africans. If Prof Mhlongo had the opportunity of reading German virologist, Christl Meyer`s research and the extensive research of Dr Nancy Turner Banks, he would have welcomed to learn that it is not surprising pregnant women in South Africa have a high chance of testing positive because their condition naturally creates antibodies. He would also have his worst fears confirmed about ARVs and administering them to 92% of HIV pregnant women in South Africa. As Christl Meyer answered to the question: So it sounds to me like this is some kind of genocide against Africa, against pregnant women who are producing the next generation and against homosexuals. Would you agree with this?

“I agree that this is a genocide.”[18]

recommended

www.naturalnews.com

www.duesberg.com

www.nancybanksmd.com

House of Numbers by Brent Leung

Sources:

[1]http://www.shirleys-wellness-cafe.com/Aids/AidsPart2#cia

[2]ANC Aids Denial – South Africa by Journeyman Pictures

[3]http://documents.aidswiki.net/AchmatComplaint.pdf

[4]https://nolstuijt.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/who-benefits-from-r46-b-in-aids-drugs/

Click to access PCB31_presentation_SouthAfricaInvestment_en.pdf

[5]http://www.virusmyth.com/aids/hiv/jsinterviewsm.htm

[6]http://mg.co.za/article/2015-11-27-give-us-the-2-in-1-hiv-prophylaxis

[7]http://www.pepfar.gov/partnerships/ppp/dreams/

[8]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/29/south-africa-a-country-at-war-as-rate-soars-to-nearly-49-a-day

[9]http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.fr/2014/08/child-murders-soar-even-more-in-south.html

[10]http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.fr/2009/03/aidstb-infected-soldiers-lethal-and.html

[11]http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v38/n12/full/npp2013135a.html

[12]http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/07/aids.terrymacalister

[13]http://mg.co.za/article/2015-10-12-mining-houses-embroiled-in-potentially-massive-tb-and-silicosis-case?

[14]http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/26/dust-tb-hiv-ugly-face-mining-south-Africa

[15]http://www.vitaminb17.org/

[16]http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.fr/2014/04/boers-are-dying-in-camps-again.html

[17]http://www.activistpost.com/2015/12/study-linking-gmos-and-tumors-vindicated-yet-again-msm-stays-silent.html

[18]https://birdflu666.wordpress.com/?s=christl+meyer

 

Refugees sold into slavery in Libya

British Financial Empire, Conversations from Calais, Current African News

re posted from                                       PressTV

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2017/11/22/543112/Libya-Refugees-Slavery

Refugees sold into slavery in Libya

Wed Nov 22, 2017 02:12PM
Ivorian migrants returning from Libya to be repatriated in their country arrive at the airport of Abidjan on November 20, 2017. (Photo by AFP)
Ivorian migrants returning from Libya to be repatriated in their country arrive at the airport of Abidjan on November 20, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Survivors of slave auctions in Libya have described a “total hell” that they wouldn’t wish on their “worst enemy” as global outrage grows over footage showing refugees being sold off in the war-torn country.

“We were slaves,” said Moussa Sanogo, a refugee who flew back to Ivory Coast from Libya this week after surviving regular beatings and forced labor in the fields.

“For the Arabs (Libyan jailers), black-skinned men are nothing but animals — animals were treated better,” said Sanogo, who spent more than four months in Libya trying to get to Italy by boat.

The North African country has long been a major transit hub for refugees trying to reach Europe.

He was just one of those who returned home with stories similar to those aired last week by US TV network CNN, which showed an apparent slave auction where black men were presented to North African buyers as potential farmhands and sold off for as little as $400 (340 euros).

“It was total hell in Libya,” said Maxime Ndong, one of 250 refugees flown back to Cameroon on Tuesday night.

The Cameroonians flew back to Yaounde on Tuesday aboard a plane charted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) as part of a project to return and reintegrate some 850 people.

The United Nations said the slavery auctions should be investigated as possible crimes against humanity, and the issue will be on agenda at an African Union-EU summit on November 29 to 30 in Abidjan.

(Source: AFP)

Source: PressTV

Zimbabwe’s Mugabe finally resigns: Parliament chief

Current African News, Zimbabwe

re posted from                                        PressTV

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2017/11/21/543002/Zimbabwe-Mugabe-resignation

 

Zimbabwe’s Mugabe finally resigns: Parliament chief

Tue Nov 21, 2017 04:00PM
This file photo shows Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe.
This file photo shows Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe.

Robert Mugabe, the aging president of Zimbabwe, who had resisted a military coup and calls for his resignation for almost two weeks, has finally declared his resignation in a letter sent to the country’s parliament speaker.

Jacob Mubenda said Tuesday that he had received a letter from Mugabe in which the long-time leader had declared his resignation from office.

The parliament erupted in cheers after Mubenda stopped an ongoing impeachment debate against Mugabe and said that the resignation letter received from president was “effective immediately”.

Mugabe, a long-time icon of Zimbabwe’s independence, ruled the country for 37 years.

The 93-year-old had been under house arrest by the army for nearly two weeks, but he resisted increasing domestic and regional calls for him to step down.

The Tuesday announcement effectively ends the concerns that Zimbabwe could be pushed into a civil strife between the camp supporting Mugabe and the followers of Emmerson Mnangagwa, Mugabe’s former deputy whose sacking prompted the army to interfere in the political standoff.

Many feared that Mugabe fired Mnangagwa to position his wife, Grace, to replace him after death.

The Tuesday motion of impeachment against Mugabe was also based on accusations that Grace Mugabe had usurped constitutional power.

Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party said right after the Tuesday resignation announcement that Mnangagwa will take over as the leader of the party within 48 hours. The Zanu-PF had fired Mugabe, calling on him to announce his resignation from presidency until Monday although the embattled leader initially resisted the call.

The photo taken on January 7, 2017 shows former Zimbabwean Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa (C).

Mnangagwa had a reputation of being ruthless against dissent when he served under Mugabe. He is commonly known as “Crocodile” and his followers are called Team Lacoste for the brand’s crocodile logo. The 75-year-old became vice president in 2014 and was a key figure in Mugabe’s government before that.

Source: PressTV

one comment:

REALIST8 hours ago
BBC IS CELEBRATING THE MUGABE’S FALL MORE THAN THE PEOPLE OF ZIMBABWE!! I BET MI6 AGENTS ARE GIVING AWAY SANDWICHES ON THE STREETS OF ZIMBABWE TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO MARCH ON ANTI MUGABE RALLIES!! I HOPE THAT THE PEOPLE OF ZIMBABWE ARE NOT GOING TO FALL FOR THE PHONEY PROMISES GIVEN TO THEM BY THE ANTI MUGABE FOREIGN AGENTS, AND KEEP THEIR COUNTRY FREE, THAT ROBERT MUGABE WORKED HARD TO FREE FROM THE BRITISH COLONISERS!!

The Fall of Robert Mugabe — How Ruling Elite Betray Africa

Current African News, History Modern, Rwanda, Zimbabwe

re posted from                         Black Star News

http://www.blackstarnews.com/global-politics/africa/the-fall-of-robert-mugabe-how-ruling-elite-betray-africa.html

The Fall of Robert Mugabe — How Ruling Elite Betray Africa

 by Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa

November 17,2017

This is not Nkrumah’s vision for Africa.

In 2009, while on a working trip to Harare, I remember ordering breakfast that cost me trillions of then Zimbabwe Dollars (100 U.S. dollars were worth many trillions of Zimbabwe dollars), witnessing mothers delivering babies in a rural clinic that had neither water nor electricity, looking at a pile of decomposing and smelly rubbish at the entrance of the Ministry of Health, and meeting among many others, Emmerson Mnangagwa, currently at the center of the political drama in Zimbabwe.

I also remember feeling sad because I knew Zimbabwe before, and then. There was a time when Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Southern Africa, a stellar performer in education and literacy, and had a robust public health system.

Moreover, Robert Mugabe’s was among the several pictures of towering leaders from the emerging nations that graced my room while I attended Medical School in Uganda in the 1980s. As a medical student who was both an atheist and Marxist at the time, and who had read Frantz Fanon’s the Wretched of the Earth, and Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, I felt a pervasive sense of denial and despair about the African condition.

As one of the senior leaders in Rwanda during the tragic years of civil war and genocide, and a student of Africa’s liberation movements, I knew how initially well-intentioned leaders in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Angola, South Africa, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and in many other places have been progressively corrupted by power and lost direction. Was there something inherently wrong with us Africans? I asked myself.

The current African condition has a history. When European powers converged in Berlin for the Berlin Conference (also called the Congo Conference) of 1884-1885 to divide the African continent among themselves, the ensuing Scramble for Africa would ultimately culminate in 54 independent states. Africa, a huge continent of 30.22 million square km, a diverse current population of about 1.2 billion people, and tremendous natural resources was seen by foreigners, then and now, as a lucrative business to supply cheap raw materials and a market for expensive finished products. Before and since then, slave traders, colonialists, cold war spies, foreign powers, and corporate entities have crisscrossed Africa in search of treasure through covert or overt means, directly or indirectly. Often in collusion with the local ruling elite.

Looking back, there are grounds to celebrate some of Africa’s political, economic and social achievements since 1957, when Ghana blazed the trail to become the first to gain political independence from British colonial rule, all the way to South Sudan which gained independence by seceding from Sudan in 2011.

Africa’s struggle for independence and self-determination did not come cheap. Nor was it a kind donation, or an act of benevolence from a change of heart from European powers. Self-rule was a product of sacrifice. Robert Mugabe is among many African leaders who rose to the occasion to lead their people in the hour of need.

Unfortunately, since, 1957, Africa’s post-colonial experience in general, as exemplified by the rise and fall of Robert Mugabe and by the protracted crisis in Zimbabwe that has now reached a climax, is not something to be proud of.

Depending on who you are talking to, Africa’s dominant narrative from the ruling elite and their international collaborators is that Africa is on the ascendancy, destined to become a powerhouse within the next few decades. To them, the glass is half-full.

On the other hand, there are those who point to Africa’s sore spots and open wounds since gaining independence: poverty, HIV/AIDS, illiteracy, poor infrastructure, famines, poor governance, human rights abuses, violent conflicts, terrorism, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, failed or failing states, and environmental degradation.

Most African states are poor, fragile, conflict-prone, and poorly-governed societies, where weak institutions , absence of the rule of law, and rule by big men is the rule rather than an exception. These big men are largely dependent on narrow bands of elite normally recruited from their ethnic group, aid from the West and its financial institutions, or from other foreign backers. In crisis, the ruling elite who have presided, and still preside, over this sorry adopt the language of the anti-colonial, Pan-African, democratic, national, pro-people vanguard that is reminiscent of the olden days. To those who critique the ruling elite, Africa is a half-empty glass.

The real Africa is both half full and half empty.

Robert Mugabe belongs to the generation of Africans who fought for Africa’s self-determination, only to finally succumb to the selfish pursuit of power that has left a country with tremendous opportunity on its knees. In this regard, Robert Mugabe is the big man of Africa par excellence, having ruled Zimbabwe since 1980. Mugabe is not the only big man who has betrayed the aspirations of African peoples for authentic peace, prosperity, unity and healing from gross abuse that stretches far back to slavery, colonialism and modern-day Africa. Big men are the general rule, rather than an exception.

Hence, an indictment against Mugabe must be extended to the ruling party, ZANU-PF, and to Africa’s ruling elite who are totally oblivious to the megatrends that are shaping their societies, among them; Africa’s youth aged 14-25 years who constitute a growing majority of a jobless population, and prone to be recruited into violent conflicts and terrorism because they have nothing to lose; immigration, migration and refugees movements that are generating pressures worldwide; the ascendancy of Christianity and Islam with deadly potential for being exploited by local and global elites; China’s ascendancy in Africa; science, technology, and globalization creating opportunities and challenges at levels never experienced before; and , non-state actors taking advantage of fragile states to impose new security threats that extend beyond Africa.

After five decades of political independence, thousands of reports on human development, tons of advice from mainly Western consultants, and trillions of aid dollars that hardly reach ordinary people, the condition of most African people remains precarious. Africa remains the continent of poor peasants, and increasingly of poor urbanized populations living on the margins of squalid slums bursting at the seams.

Africa’s ruling elite must admit that they are now primarily to blame for Africa’s problems. They must recognize that the interests of African people are sovereign and therefore, a priority. Of these interests, nothing is more important than the right to life, security, health, education livelihoods, civil and political participation.

African ruling elite must prevent and cure the recurrent epidemics of self-inflicted conflicts. The current fire-fighting demonstrated in international peacekeeping, drones, special forces, and ad hoc security arrangements for U.S and Western armies to intervene in Africa can be temporary relief but are not sufficient to ensure lasting security, peace and development.

Conflicts within African countries remain matters of unresolved problems because of the cut-throat competition for power among the elite. It is a life-and-death struggle to capture state power and in turn use it to access resources and dispense a victor’s justice to the losers. The winner takes it all and often the losers must accept their losses or otherwise organize for the next round of bloody conflict since the status quo rarely yields power peacefully.

The antidote to all this is to democratize and enlarge the circle of people’s participation in governance, strengthen the rule of law, nurture a culture of dialogue, power-sharing and peaceful resolution of conflicts.

Africa’s ruling elite must have a clear and robust strategy to exit from being dependent on foreign aid. Africa’s natural wealth must beget value for Africans. Africa’s export of natural resources, national revenues, foreign investments and aid money while it lasts must be deployed and recycled into developing capital, knowledge and skills to create value-added products and services for Africans. This is the trajectory of wealth creation that the rich aid-givers of today followed in the past, and still do. Africa is not an exception.

Last, but not least, African rulers must heed the wisdom from all cultures of the world. Human progress is not solely about building material abundance and registering GDP growth, important as they are for human survival. Creative imagination, innovation, science, technology and entrepreneurship proceed from people’s quest to improve their lot in both material and spiritual domains. To do this, they discover that co-operation is both a pre-condition for survival, and an opportunity to demonstrate what Bantu-speaking peoples of Africa call Ubuntu (or human-ness). Africans must learn from their own achievements and flaws and those of other societies to nurture the sustainability, wellbeing and resilience of individuals, families, communities and nations.

A mind rich on Ubuntu peels away clan, gender, race, ethnicity, class, religion and nation identities to see the brother and sister in all other humans. Such a mind is not quick to kill and plunder. Such a mind does not cling to power for its own sake, but to serve others. It does not commit genocide or other crimes, or easily go to war. It is a mind that shares and weeps when others suffer. It is a mind that sees dialogue, respect of others and humility as strengths. It is a mind that is happy because it fosters happiness in others.

I believe that Robert Mugabe, a man familiar with personal and societal suffering, at one time identified with the suffering of Zimbabweans and Africans. Being an African, he initially had Ubuntu which must have helped him win the hearts and minds of Zimbabweans, Africans, and many in the world. As a Christian, he must have come across the teachings of Jesus Christ, when he asks, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). Along the way power corrupted him and then he lost his soul. By losing his soul, he lost the umbilical cord that connected him to his people, and his nation.

Robert Mugabe gained Zimbabwe and then lost it long before the current end game drama and final act. This is teachable moment for Africa’s ruling elite and Africans

Dr. Theogene Rudasingwa

Former Ambassador of Rwanda to the United States

Author, Healing a Nation, Urgent Call and Voices from Exile.

E-mail: ngombwa@gmail.com

Source: http://www.blackstarnews.com/global-politics/africa/the-fall-of-robert-mugabe-how-ruling-elite-betray-africa.html

Nigerian Water Minister, Suleiman Adamu, Announces Conference to Replenish Lake Chad and Several Hydro-Electric Projects

Cameroon, Central African Republic, Current African News, DRC, Health, Nigeria, Transaqua,

re posted from                              Africa and the World

Nigerian Water Minister, Suleiman Adamu, Announces Conference to Replenish Lake Chad and Several Hydro-Electric Projects

Nigerian Water Minister, Suleiman Adamu, Announces Conference to Replenish Lake Chad and Several Hydro-Electric Projects

13 Nov 2017

UNESCO Backs Campaign to Save Lake Chad

November 11, 2017 Nigeria’s Water Minister Suleiman Adamu announced that UNESCO is backing an international campaign to save Lake Chad from drying up. UNESCO is sponsoring an international conference in February in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, where the solution advocated by Nigeria and by the Lake Chad Basin Committee will be presented.

Adamu said that the commission had proposed inter-basin water transfer from Congo Basin to the evaporating lake as a measure of saving it from total extinction. “This is a huge infrastructure project that will change the dynamics of the region and it is a long- term project with a lot of consensus to build on, as well as diplomatic issues having to do with different countries,” Adamu said according to PM News Nigeria media outlet.

“We therefore need to do a lot of advocacy to make the members of the Congo Basin understand that we are not taking away their water but taking only 5% of the natural resource to keep the Lake Chad alive,” he said. “We hope that at the end of the conference in February next year, we will have an international consensus on what to do, leverage on and how to get a lot of resources and funding.”

Adamu, who was attending a UNESCO General Conference in Paris, said that they considered the inter-basin water transfer as the most suitable option, but that they would not, however, insist on it, and “allow the UNESCO experts to advise on any cheaper available alternatives, if any,” as PM News reported. Adamu told PM News that the initial study on the project costed the water transfer project at $14 billion.

“We have a 60,000 hectares irrigation scheme under the South-Chad Irrigation scheme, which was designed to depend on intake of water from the Lake Chad to irrigate the 60,000 hectares for the production of wheat. That irrigation scheme is not working now because the water is not available. We need the water to revive that investment. All the efforts the administration had been making to boost food production and reduce food imports stands to benefit if the Lake Chad is revived,” he said.

Adamu said that a lot of other economic activities would be revived and the general livelihood of the people in the area would improve with the revival of the lake.  The lake, on which the lives of 30 million people depend, is bordered by Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Niger; it has shrunk by 90%. “Clearly, the major factor of the Boko Haram insurgency is that there are lots of young people that are living in that area without any opportunity whatsoever because of the shrinking lake. Herdsmen had been forced to move southward and eastward and you can see that crises are getting increased between farmers and herdsmen,” he said.

Federal Government of Nigeria to complete 21 other dams, irrigation projects by 2019

Grace Obike, The Nation, Abuja, November 11, 2017

Apart from the Gurara hydropower plant, Kashimbila hydropower plant, Gurara II, Lokoja and Dasin hausa, which has either been completed, about to be completed or in talks with potential investors. The Federal Government is poised to complete seven other ongoing water supply projects and twenty one dams and irrigation projects between 2018 and 2019.

FG is also in advanced discussions with potential investors for the Gurara II, Lokoja and Dasin hausa hydropower projects, which when completed will produce a combined 1,250MW electricity to the national grid. Minister of Water Resources, Engr. Suleiman Adamu made this disclosure in Abuja, while presenting the two years score card of his ministry. He added that at his resumption of office, his ministry agreed to prioritize the 116 uncompleted or abandoned major projects he had met and deploy resources towards completing and commissioning all high and medium priority projects from 2016 to 2019.

His words.” We have concluded a Technical Audit and prioritized. the hitherto uncompleted or abandoned 116 major projects that I met in the Ministry. We are deploying most of our resources towards completing and commissioning all the high and medium priority projects from 2016 – 2019. It is in this regard that we have completed and commissioned Central Ogbia Regional Water Supply Project in Bayelsa State. It is also my pleasure to inform this gathering that the following projects have also been completed and are ready for commissioning: “Northern Ishan Regional Water Supply Project, Edo State.

We have concluded a Technical Audit and prioritized. the hitherto uncompleted or abandoned 116 major projects that I met in the Ministry. We are deploying most of our resources towards completing and commissioning all the high and medium priority projects from 2016 – 2019. It is in this regard that we have completed and commissioned Central Ogbia Regional Water Supply Project in Bayelsa State. It is also my pleasure to inform this gathering that the following projects have also been completed and are ready for commissioning: “Northern Ishan Regional Water Supply Project, Edo State rehabilitation of Ojirami Dam Water Supply Project, Edo State. Kashimbiia Dam, Taraba State. Ogwashi-Uku Dam, Delta State. “Two (2) other projects: Shagari and Barikin Ladi Irrigation Projects will be completed in early 2018.

Our plan is to complete 7 other ongoing Water Supply Projects and 21 Dam and Irrigation Projects between 2018 and 2019, including the following: Water Supply Projects, Inyishi Water Supply Project, Ekeremor Water Supply Project, Sabke/Dutsi/Mashi Water Supply Projects, Zobe Water Supply Project, Mangu Water Supply Project. “Dam & Irritation Projects. Middle Ogun Irrigation Project, Middle Rima Valley Irrigation Project, Gari Irrigation Project, Kontagora Auna Dam Project, Bagwai Irrigation Project,Tada Shonga Irrigation Project, Adani Rice Irrigation Project, Ekuku Dam Project, Lower Anambra Irrigation Project, Ile-Ife Dam Project, Zauro Polder Irrigation Project and Otukpo Multipurpose Dam Project. ” Our Roadmap identified Dams with Hydro Power potential for Development and we have been in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Works, Power and Housing (FMWPH) to that effect. “We are currently making progress for the concessioning of the 30MW Gurara Hydropower plant which is planned to come into full operation by mid 2018. We are also progressing on our collaboration with FMWPH to concession the 40MW Kashimbila Hydropower Plant recently completed. In addition, we are in advanced discussions with potential investors for other hydropower projects including Gurara II (350MW), Lokoja (750MW) and Basin Hausa (150MW).

“With 1,800m3/Capita/year of available renewable water resources, Nigeria is not a water poor country.

“The Ministry has also championed the signing of an MOU between the Lake Chad Basin Commission and a Chinese company, who are presently undertaking further feasibility study on the proposed Interbasin Water Transfer Project from the Congo River into the Lake Chad. Furthermore, in an effort to arrive at the best solution in saving the Lake Chad, an International Conference on the Lake is now scheduled to hold in Abuja from 26th -28tln February, 2018 in collaboration with LCBC and UNESCO. “In addition, the Ministry has completed the engineering design and is set to commence in 2018 the Hawal InterBasin Transfer from River Hawal to River Ngadda. Phase 1 of the project is to augment water supply to Alau Dam so as to provide more sustainable source of water supply to Maiduguri and environs. Phase 2 of the project aims to resuscitate the 60,000Ha South Chad Irrigation Scheme, which became moribund following continuous drying up of Lake Chad over the years.”

Source: https://lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com/2017/11/13/nigerian-water-minister-suleiman-adamu-announces-conference-to-replenish-lake-chad-and-several-hydro-electric-projects/

British Tax Havens and Congo`s Missing Billions

British Financial Empire, Current African News, DRC,

re posted from                          Global Witness

https://www.globalwitness.org/en-gb/campaigns/conflict-minerals/out-of-africa/

originally published 4 May 2016

Out of Africa

British tax havens and Congo’s missing $1.5 billion

Democratic Republic of Congo should be one of the richest countries in the world, thanks to the trillions[i] of dollars’ worth of gold, diamonds, copper, cobalt and other natural resources in its soil.  The demand for those minerals – used to make smartphones, computers, batteries and countless other popular consumer goods – is incredibly high, yet rampant corruption and mismanagement has kept Congo’s citizens in poverty while the illicit trade in minerals has funded violence and armed conflict for decades. Congo consistently ranks at or near the bottom of the United Nations Human Development Index.[ii] One in seven children is dead before the age of five[iii] and nine per cent of the population is considered in need of humanitarian assistance.[iv]

While the vast majority of Congo’s population suffers from a lack of basic services, the state has sold off valuable mining assets at suspiciously low prices, losing the Congolese treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in crucial revenue in the process. This money has instead gone to a handful of anonymous companies, whose real owners are hidden under layers of paper companies, located in an offshore tax haven in the British Overseas Territories. The secrecy of the offshore business world which facilitated these deals allows corrupt politicians and businessmen and women to launder money, dodge taxes and strike suspect deals while keeping their identities secret.

This exploitation of Congo’s natural resources reached a peak around Congo’s presidential elections five years ago; it is particularly relevant today as Congo is due to go to the polls again in November 2016. Journalists and Global Witness researchers have previously revealed how, in the period around the disputed 2011 elections, a series of suspicious mining deals was struck with anonymous offshore companies that cost Congo $1.36 billion in potential revenues. Reports at the time suggested that proceeds from at least one of these questionable sales were used to contribute to an election fund.

Each deal took advantage of the secrecy regime in the British Virgin Islands – a UK Overseas Territory and tax haven – to help disguise the real people involved; major mining companies and Israeli businessman Dan Gertler were also central to the transactions. Gertler, a billionaire, is a close friend of Congo’s President Joseph Kabila, who eventually won the contested polls amid claims of ballot stuffing and intimidation. [v]

The astonishing revelations in the ‘Panama Papers’ data leak – a slew of 11.5m files from the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca – gave the public an unprecedented glimpse into the murky world of anonymous offshore tax havens used by politicians, wealthy businessmen and criminals.[vi] It was this offshore world that was exploited to facilitate these huge natural resources deals that drained so much money out of Congo. According to reports, Gertler is mentioned more than 200 times in the Mossack Fonseca documents.[vii] The law firm also set up two of Gertler’s companies that obtained oil blocks in eastern Congo under controversial circumstances.[viii] Mossack Fonseca’s dealings with the companies ceased soon after they were set up in 2010.

Now in 2016, Kabila is reported to be seeking a way to stay in power despite being obliged by the constitution to step down at the end of his second mandate in December 2016. As elections loom, Global Witness has seen evidence of mining deals being struck without public announcement, with no clarity on where the cash is going. History appears to be repeating itself, with Congo’s valuable natural resources at risk of being stolen to fund an election campaign instead of the basic services that the country’s population needs so urgently.

2016 is not only a watershed moment in Congolese electoral politics; it is also a critical year in the global fight to end the offshore secrecy that facilitated these deals. UK Prime Minister David Cameron is hosting an anti-corruption summit in May where company ownership transparency will be on the table.  It is difficult to see how the summit can be a success unless Cameron clears up the financial secrecy for sale in the UK’s own constitutional backyard. In the wake of the Panama Papers, Cameron has said that UK law enforcement will have fast access to beneficial ownership information of companies incorporated in UK tax havens,[ix] but this is not enough. A central registry of ownership information must be made publicly available if it is to be effective. It is essential for the people of Congo that these secrecy laws change, so that the identities of all of the owners of the companies who benefitted from these deals can be revealed and if any were involved in any wrongdoing, brought to justice.

Above all, it is essential that Congo’s mineral wealth starts to benefit the Congolese population. Congo has recently suffered from the temporary downturn in world metals prices but has enjoyed a mining boom over recent years, producing a record one million tonnes of copper in 2014.[x] However this has failed to translate into improvements for the vast majority of Congolese. Conflict and instability persist: in late 2012 an armed rebellion erupted in Congo’s war-torn North Kivu province and lasted for 20 months.[xi] Basic services like roads, hospitals and schools are still largely absent. The $1.36 billion lost to the suspicious mining deals around the elections translates into twice the country’s annual spending on health and education[xii] – a spectacular loss to the public purse.

Congo’s government announced in March 2016 that a revision of its mining law would be suspended until metal prices improve.[xiii] This suspension is particularly worrying as the revision would have offered a chance to introduce robust transparency and accountability measures in Congo’s mining sector. Global Witness is warning that unless Congo strengthens and enforces its mining law, the country could once again see its natural resource wealth siphoned away from the Treasury and used to help fund an election that will likely be brutally contested and possibly even unconstitutional.

Fighting an election campaign is not cheap. If dodgy deals like these secret sales helped in part to finance contested polls marred by violence in the past, then now is the time for change. In particular Global Witness is calling for:

  •  Congo’s government and state-owned mining companies to be pressured – from within the country as well externally – to adhere to domestic laws and international obligations by publishing the details of new mining, oil and gas contracts, especially in the lead up to the 2016 elections.
  •   Congo’s new mining law to ensure that there is an open and public tendering process for new mining rights, that new contracts are published promptly and are freely accessible, that the identities of the ultimate beneficial owners of companies are made public, and that state-owned mining companies are monitored, audited, well-governed and held to account.
  •   Congo’s government to introduce a public register of the beneficial owners of all the companies who bid, invest and operate in extractive industries.
  •   The UK and other developed economies to insist on public registers of beneficial owners and put an end to tax haven secrecy jurisdictions.
  •  The companies and individuals involved in the secret sales scandal to be fully investigated by the relevant Congolese and foreign authorities and, where wrongdoing is revealed, prosecuted.

What follows is the story of these secret mining sales, from Congo via Caribbean tax havens to the heart of London’s financial district. It will look at the fallout from the exposé of the deals, show how the loopholes that allowed them to happen remain in place, and examine what needs to be done to prevent Congo’s 2016 elections being beset by the same turmoil as in 2011.

Source: Global Witness

https://www.globalwitness.org/en-gb/campaigns/conflict-minerals/out-of-africa/

 

 

ISIS of Central Africa a new cover for plundering Congo

British Financial Empire, Current African News, DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, , ,

re posted from                                  San Francisco Bay Review

ISIS of Central Africa a new cover for plundering Congo

ISIS of Central Africa a new cover for plundering Congo

November 5, 2017

by Ann Garrison

A video calling for an Islamic State jihad in the Democratic Republic of the Congo appeared online and in a few news reports last week. It was purportedly made in Beni Territory, within Congo’s North Kivu Province, where a phantom so-called Islamist militia, the Allied Democratic Forces, has been blamed for massacres of the indigenous population that began in October 2014.

The footage features a bearded, camo-clad North African or Middle Eastern man draped in ammunition belts and holding a Kalashnikov rifle, while calling on Islamic State jihadists to come to Congo – in Arabic. Camo clad Black African militia men stand behind him.

Trouble is the Congo is somewhere between 80 and 95 percent Christian and only 2 percent Muslim, and the Roman Catholic Church is its most influential nongovernmental institution. Arabic is neither the international language, nor any of the national languages or indigenous languages. So this might even seem comical if the indigenous people of Beni weren’t being massacred by the illegal resource trafficking militias already operating there and the proposed caliphate weren’t a new cover for that.

I asked Boniface Musavuli, a native of Beni and author of “The Massacres of Beni: Kabila, Rwanda, and the Fake Islamists” to help contextualize the so-called news.

Ann Garrison: Boniface, what’s your first response to this video? Do you think these ISIS jihadis have any real existence or any real interest in a holy war in your country?

Boniface Musavuli: This video appears mainly as an attempt to manipulate international opinion, to make people believe that eastern Congo is becoming a bastion of international Islamist terrorism. The reality is that only 2 percent of Congo’s population are Muslims, and there is no radical imam to lead a holy war.

Congolese Muslims have never fought against the government or even organized a political demonstration against the authorities. There is therefore no sociological basis for the establishment of a caliphate in Beni.

A jihad in the Congo makes no sense whatsoever. Congo has never been claimed as a “land of Islam,” and the Congolese government does not send soldiers to Muslim countries.

This video appears mainly as an attempt to manipulate international opinion, to make people believe that eastern Congo is becoming a bastion of international Islamist terrorism. A jihad in the Congo makes no sense whatsoever.

AG: The Arab guerrilla fighter – or actor – in the video is not “white” according to the Western construction of that idea, but he is most certainly not a Black African, and the image of him at the head of a band of Black Africans has an unpleasant, racially supremacist implication. What do you think of that?

BM: I think that this image is making believe that the massacres that started in Beni in 2014 were from the very beginning sponsored by evil Arab Islamist organizations and that the time has finally come for them to appear alongside their Black performers.

AG: “Islamic State” seems to have become a franchise business like McDonald’s, but it’s not clear that IS headquarters, wherever that may be, has granted a franchise to this highly unlikely “Islamic State of Central Africa.” According to “ISIS calls for jihad in eastern Congo,” someone posted the video to a few “pro-ISIS” websites, but I haven’t been able to find any of them. Have you?

BM: No, but that article with the video that was supposed to be on the “pro-ISIS websites” appeared on the online news outlet “politico.cd.” It did not appear on YouTube as we might have expected, and it did not appear on any other news websites either, so it seemed as if politico.cd was the only one that received it.

AG: Some of the video was included with a version of the politico.cd report in the Daily Mail, a sensational British news outlet. The only other Western site that seems to have reproduced the story is PJ Media, but last week the New York Times and AP both ran stories about the Ugandan Muslim Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) that this Arabic ISIS militia has allegedly been working with all along – even though the ADF story has been proven fraudulent by U.N. investigators.

And Radio Okapi, a U.N. Peacekeeping Mission outlet, seemed to take it seriously when they interviewed Nicaise Kibel’bel, a Congolese journalist who just published a book, “The Advent of Jihad in Eastern Congo, the Islamic Terrorism of the ADF.”

BM: Nicaise Kibel’bel won a CNN African Press Freedom Award in 2009 before starting to write his book on Beni. He published this book in December 2016. He is very close to Gen. Mbangu Mashita, who directs the military operations in Beni, which are, in reality, operations to traffic resources and kill the local people. It is therefore possible that he has an interest in conveying a story that serves as Islamist cover for the crimes of the army and the regime of Kabila.

AG: Do the people of Beni believe that Islamists are killing them?

BM: The people of Beni knew from the beginning that the Congolese soldiers who are part of the resource-trafficking networks are killing them. The people lived for a long time with the ADF Muslims in the forest – almost 20 years – and the ADF trafficked timber but it never massacred them.

The killers are the units commanded by Gen. Mundos, a close friend and collaborator of Kabila; they have been killing the people since October 2014. This video will not change what they know to be true.

AG: Politico.cd links to its source for the ISIS video, the “SEARCHING FOR INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST ENTITIES (SITE) website: SITE Intelligence Group, breaking news, articles, and analysis on the jihadist threat, which is led by private Israeli intelligence professional Rita Katz in Bethesda, Maryland. SITE Intelligence Group released the video of ISIS beheading American journalist Steven Sotloff before ISIS itself released it in 2014, after which President Obama said the U.S. would “degrade and destroy ISIS,” which the U.S. is still bombing – or funding – in Syria today. Which depends on whom you ask, of course, and there are also people who say the U.S. is doing both.

I can’t imagine President Trump using this “ISIS of Central Africa” as an excuse to drop Cruise missiles on eastern Congo, but this certainly makes it look as though U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies are for some reason investing in the idea that this group exists. ISIS always seems like a serviceable cause for militarization or military intervention of one sort of another.

And regardless of who’s actually producing politico.cd, they obviously favor U.S. policymakers’ viewpoints. On Monday, Oct. 23, one of its three most recent posts was about U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s trip to Congo’s capital Kinshasa to meet with President Kabila. The other two were about New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, whom they identified as a “rising star of the Democratic Party, the first Black senator from New Jersey.”

The Booker reports varied only slightly, and both included a letter that he and six other senators had written to President Trump and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley asking them to compel Kabila to hold an election in 2017 by imposing harsher sanctions, and threatening the murky international financial networks that Kabila and his circle use to stash all the wealth they’ve stolen from their own people.

I can’t imagine President Trump using this “ISIS of Central Africa” as an excuse to drop Cruise missiles on eastern Congo, but this certainly makes it look as though U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies are for some reason investing in the idea that this group exists.

I can’t help asking why they’re willing to let the loot sit in its overseas vaults, election or no, instead of returning it to the people, since they claim to know where it is and how to seize it as they did Qaddafi’s.

BM: That wouldn’t be in their interest. They say they’re concerned that we have an election and that we be able to freely express ourselves, and they want Moise Katumbi to win, but they’ve never said that the Congolese people should benefit from Congo’s resource wealth. Their big mining corporations are here too, most of all in Katanga, where they take as much ore as they can for a little as they can and exploit Congolese labor miserably.

AG: You say they want Moise Katumbi to win? The mining billionaire who was governor of Katanga? I’ve been told he’s the West’s new horse to ride.

BM: Yes, they want Moise Katumbi to be the next president. This is obvious if you read the policy and security journals published in Arlington and Washington, D.C.

AG: Another piece prominently featured in politico.cd summarizes “A Worsening Crisis in Congo,” a recent essay by Enough Project founder and executive director John Prendergast and Sasha Lezhnev in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations. Both are leading ideologues of the humanitarian war crusades led by former U.N. ambassador now Harvard professor Samantha Power, but, writing for the CFR audience, they’re frank about how essential Congolese minerals, most of all copper and cobalt, are to U.S. national security.

Both are absolutely key to both weapons and consumer commodity manufacture. Congo contains 60 percent of the world’s known cobalt reserves, and the U.S. has no cobalt ore worth mining. Congo also has the world’s second largest copper reserves.

Prendergast and Lezhnev warn that if instability keeps escalating as Kabila clings to power, it could endanger the security of roads leading out of the Kolwezi and Kasumbalesa copper and cobalt mines. Like Cory Booker, they want Trump to manipulate Kabila and his criminal cronies by threatening their overseas assets if they don’t behave.

But getting back to ISIS, whatever interest the U.S. may have in promoting the ISIS of Central Africa story, it also benefits Kabila and his circle by enhancing their cover for the army’s crimes in Beni, doesn’t it?

BM: Absolutely. I’m sure he’s hoping this Islamic State video and Nicaise Kibel’bel’s delirious new book about Congo jihad will create an even thicker smokescreen to hide behind.

AG: OK, let’s talk about the indigenous people of Beni, the ones suffering because of all this. If I understand correctly, the majority are indigenous in that their families are rooted there – Beni is their homeland – and they survive by farming and/or artisanal, pre-industrial mining. Is that more or less accurate?

BM: The majority of Beni’s population live by subsistence agriculture. The mining sector remains small and artisanal. Beni is mainly a transit zone for eastern Congo’s minerals and other resources to be exported to the markets of East Africa and Asia.

AG: Not to the West?

BM: Yes, but indirectly. First the minerals go to the East, to China, Malaysia, Korea, Japan, India, but we are in a globalized economy. The factories in these Asian countries, such as China, process Congolese minerals more cheaply than they could be processed in the West, but they operate with capital from Western investors.

AG: And if Beni is a transit zone, where are the minerals and other resources coming from?

BM: Some of course come from Beni, most of all timber, but others come from Ituri District and other territories of eastern Congo. Beni is the border territory where the resources are transported into Uganda.

AG: The Ituri District borders Uganda too, but the smuggling routes have been developed from points in Beni to points in Uganda?

BM: Yes.

AG: And what else can you say about the timber trade? I know that most of Beni is rainforest, the earth’s lungs, and cutting it down is hastening climate catastrophe, but who’s doing it and where do they trade it, to what markets?

BM: Beni’s precious rainforest timber is illegally logged and smuggled out by the Congolese army, then sold on the world timber market, as U.N. reports have shown. It’s first stored in Uganda, then shipped to overseas markets.

Beni’s timber exploitation zones were occupied by the ADF until 2013, but they’ve broken up and dispersed. Since then, the forests have been occupied by traffickers pretending to be ADF, most of all by the Congolese army. U.N. experts revealed that Gen. Mundos, Joseph Kabila’s henchman, was logging Beni’s rainforest timber and exporting it, but we don’t know what part of it is controlled by Mundos and Kabila behind him.

AG: What about the Ugandans and Rwandans that you’ve said are among the aggressors and traffickers?

BM: Regarding the role of Rwanda and Uganda, it should be noted that at the time when the ADF occupied the forest and controlled the timber sector, they were working for the benefit of Uganda, even though, officially, they presented themselves as “Ugandan rebels hostile to the government of Museveni.” That lie masked their mafia trafficking.

When the ADF were driven out of the Beni forest, thousands of Rwandans arrived in areas they’d formerly occupied, where timber is exploited, but the timber still continues to transit through Uganda. The only victims of this illegal economy are, of course, the indigenous people, who are driven off their land and replaced by hordes of Congolese soldiers and Rwandans.

AG: So they kill indigenous people and terrorize them till they flee just to get them out of the way?

BM: Yes.

AG: And what about foreign, industrial mining corporations. Has AngloGold Ashanti set up operations in Beni yet?

BM: There are gold-buying comptoirs – middlemen –  in Beni and Butembo, who buy from artisanal miners, but there are no big industrial mining companies. The firm AngloGold Ashanti, which merged with Sokimo to form Kibali Gold, has operations more than 300 km from Beni, near Watsa in the province of Haut-Uele.

AG: Is there anything else you’d like to say about this?

BM: Yes. I don’t believe this new ISIS jihadi terror story, but I’m very worried that the gangsters in power may bring real jihadi killers to Beni to terrorize the people more and make the international community believe their cover story. I believe they are quite capable of bringing killers from Arab countries to eastern Congo, and this could make things even worse, even though that’s hard to imagine.

Today the United Nations activated its Level 3 humanitarian emergency designation for the entire Democratic Republic of the Congo. That puts it on par with the three other crises currently recognized as L3 emergencies: Iraq, Syria and Yemen. They said that North Kivu Province, which includes Beni, hosts the largest number of internally displaced people in the country – close to a million. And it’s not even one of the most urgently targeted areas yet, though they say it’s very fragile and its conflicts could suddenly intensify again at any time.

Boniface Musavuli is a native of Beni Territory, North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo, now living in exile in France. He is the author of the book “The Massacres of Beni: Kabila, Rwanda, and the Fake Islamists,” published in July 2017. The book is currently available only in French but will hopefully become available in English.

Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann@kpfa.org.

Source: http://sfbayview.com/2017/11/isis-of-central-africa-a-new-cover-for-plundering-congo/