Monthly Archives: February 2018

Suspected Uganda rebels kill five civilians in DR Congo

Current African News, DRC, Uganda

re posted from                                        PressTV

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/02/17/552707/DR-Congo-Uganda-rebels-

Suspected Uganda rebels kill five civilians in DR Congo

Sat Feb 17, 2018 04:55PM
A South African armored personnel carrier belonging to the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) patrols in the streets of Munzambayi, near Beni, on January 15, 2018. (Photo by AFP)
A South African armored personnel carrier belonging to the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) patrols in the streets of Munzambayi, near Beni, on January 15, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

At least five people have been killed in an ambush by suspected Ugandan rebels in the restive Beni region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), local officials say.

Local official Leon Bahungako said the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) attacked a civilian vehicle on the road between the towns of Eringeti and Oisha in North Kivu province on Saturday.

Bahungako said that eight others sustained injuries in the assault.

An officer told AFP that the army intervened quickly to rescue the other passengers.

Michel Kalombo, the head of the hospital in the town of Eringeti, said they had “received five bodies riddled with bullets”.

“We are caring for four wounded people and four more are being transferred to Oicha hospital,” said Kalombo.

Last month, government forces launched an offensive in Beni against the ADF, one of a number of armed groups that hold territory in the eastern DR Congo and are fighting for control of the region’s rich mineral resources.

Congolese authorities and the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also known as MONUSCO, accuse the ADF of killing more than 700 civilians as well as combatants in the Beni region since 2014.

Earlier this month, the United Nations imposed sanctions on Congolese general Muhindo Akili for supporting the massacre of at least 400 civilians by the ADF in Beni in 2014 and 2015.

Dozens of armed groups have been active in the eastern DRC, long after the official end of a 1998-2003 war during which millions of people died, mostly of hunger and disease.

The United Nations has warned that the Democratic Republic of the Congo was at a “breaking point,” saying this year it will seek more than $1.5 billion to respond to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the country.

The escalating violence in the Congo’s center and east this year comes amid a political crisis in the country due to President Joseph Kabila’s refusal to leave office after his term expired in December 2016.

Source: PressTV

Libya rescues 441 refugees off western coast

Conversations from Calais, Current African News

re posted from                                        PressTV

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/02/20/553035/Libya-Refugees-Rescue-Operation-

Libya rescues 441 refugees off western coast

Tue Feb 20, 2018 04:31PM
Migrants arrive at a naval base in Tripoli late on January 31, 2018, after they were rescued off Libya's coast. (Photo by AFP)
Migrants arrive at a naval base in Tripoli late on January 31, 2018, after they were rescued off Libya’s coast. (Photo by AFP)

Libya’s coastguard rescued 441 refugees in two separate operations as their boats drifted off the western coast, the navy and a doctor said on Tuesday.

Thirty-five women and 16 children were among 324 illegal refugees rescued in one of the operations on Monday with help from a fishing boat, a navy statement said.

The refugees, from countries including Chad, Nigeria, Mali and Libya, were drifting in two inflatable boats about seven nautical miles from Zuwara near the Tunisian border after the engines failed, it said.

The coastguard also rescued 117 refugees, including five women and two babies, off the coast of Zawiya, west of the capital Tripoli, on Monday, doctor Abdel Aziz al-Misrati of the charity International Medical Corps told AFP.

Rocked by lawlessness since the NATO-backed 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has become a key transit country for illegal migration across the Mediterranean Sea.

The refugees often try to make the treacherous crossing on unseaworthy boats, hoping to reach Italy and make their way further inland in Europe and start a new life.

(Source: AFP)

Source: PressTV

Bill Gates talks about ‘vaccines to reduce population’

British Financial Empire, Current African News, Health

The following is by F William  Engdahl – for more information please visit:

http://www.williamengdahl.com/

F William  Engdhal is the author of  these highly informative books

https://www.amazon.com/F.-William-Engdahl/e/B00J4PGE4S

 

Bill Gates talks about ‘vaccines to reduce population’

By F. William Engdahl, 4 March 2010

Microsoft founder and one of the world’s wealthiest men, Bill Gates, projects an image of a benign philanthropist using his billions via his (tax exempt) Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to tackle diseases, solve food shortages in Africa and alleviate poverty. In a recent conference in California, Gates reveals a less public agenda of his philanthropy―population reduction, otherwise known as eugenics.

Gates made his remarks to the invitation-only Long Beach, California TED 2010 Conference, in a speech titled, “Innovating to Zero!.” Along with the scientifically absurd proposition of reducing manmade CO2 emissions worldwide to zero by 2050, approximately four and a half minutes into the talk, Gates declares, “First we got population. The world today has 6.8 billion people. That’s headed up to about 9 billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent.”
1 (author’s emphasis).

In plain English, one of the most powerful men in the world states clearly that he expects vaccines to be used to reduce population growth. When Bill Gates speaks about vaccines, he speaks with authority. In January 2010 at the elite Davos World Economic Forum, Gates announced his foundation would give $10 billion (circa €7.5 billion) over the next decade to develop and deliver new vaccines to children in the developing world.

The primary focus of his multi-billion dollar Gates Foundation is vaccinations, especially in Africa and other underdeveloped countries. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a founding member of the GAVI Alliance (Global Alliance for Vaccinations and Immunization) in partnership with the World Bank, WHO and the vaccine industry. The goal of GAVI is to vaccinate every newborn child in the developing world.
2

Now that sounds like noble philanthropic work. The problem is that the vaccine industry has been repeatedly caught dumping dangerous―meaning unsafe because untested or proven harmful―vaccines onto unwitting Third World populations when they cannot get rid of the vaccines in the West.
3 Some organizations have suggested that the true aim of the vaccinations is to make people sicker and even more susceptible to disease and premature death.
4

Dumping toxins on the Third World

In the aftermath of the most recent unnecessary Pandemic declaration of a global H1N1 swine flu emergency, industrial countries were left sitting on hundreds of millions of doses of untested vaccines. They decided to get rid of the embarrassing leftover drugs by handing them over to the WHO which in turn plans to dump them for free on select poor countries. France has given 91 million of the 94 million doses the Sarkozy government bought from the pharma giants; Britain gave 55 million of its 60 million doses. The story for Germany and Norway is similar.
5

As Dr. Thomas Jefferson, an epidemiologist with the Cochrane Research Center in Rome noted, “Why do they give the vaccines to the developing countries at all? The pandemic has been called off in most parts of the world. The greatest threat in poor countries right now is heart and circulatory diseases while the virus figures at the bottom of the list. What is the medical reason for donating 180 million doses?”
6 As well, flu is a minor problem in countries with abundant sunshine, and it turned out that the feared H1N1 Pandemic “new great plague” was the mildest flu on record.

The pharmaceutical vaccine makers do not speak about the enormous health damage from infant vaccination including autism and numerous neuro-muscular deformities that have been traced back to the toxic adjuvants and preservatives used in most vaccines. Many vaccines, especially multi-dose vaccines that are made more cheaply for sale to the Third World, contain something called Thimerosal (Thiomersol in the EU), a compound (sodium ethylmercurithiosalicylate), containing some 50% mercury, used as a preservative.

In July 1999 the US’ National Vaccine Information Center declared in a press release that, “The cumulative effects of ingesting mercury can cause brain damage.” The same month, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) alerted the public about the possible health effects associated with thimerosal-containing vaccines. They strongly recommended that thimerosal be removed from vaccines as soon as possible. Under the directive of the FDA Modernization Act of 1997, the Food and Drug Administration also determined that infants who received several thimerosal-containing vaccines may be receiving mercury exposure over and above the recommended federal guidelines.
7

A new form of eugenics?

Gates’ interest in inducing population reduction among black and other minority populations is not new unfortunately. As I document in my book, Seeds of Destruction
8, since the 1920’s the Rockefeller Foundation had funded the eugenics research in Germany through the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institutes in Berlin and Munich, including well into the Third Reich. They praised the forced sterilization of people by Hirtler Germany, and the Nazi ideas on race “purity.” It was John D. Rockefeller III, a life-long advocate of eugenics, who used his “tax free” foundation money to initiate the population reduction neo-Malthusian movement through his private Population Council in New York beginning in the 1950’s.

The idea of using vaccines to covertly reduce births in the Third World is also not new. Bill Gates’ good friend, David Rockefeller and his Rockefeller Foundation were involved as early as 1972 in a major project together with WHO and others to perfect another “new vaccine.”

The results of the WHO-Rockefeller project were put into mass application on human guinea pigs in the early 1990’s. The WHO oversaw massive vaccination campaigns against tetanus in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines. Comite Pro Vida de Mexico, a Roman Catholic lay organization, became suspicious of the motives behind the WHO program and decided to test numerous vials of the vaccine and found them to contain human Chorionic Gonadotrophin, or hCG. That was a curious component for a vaccine designed to protect people against lock-jaw arising from infection with rusty nail wounds or other contact with certain bacteria found in soil. The tetanus disease was indeed, also rather rare. It was also curious because hCG was a natural hormone needed to maintain a pregnancy. However, when combined with a tetanus toxoid carrier, it stimulated formation of antibodies against hCG, rendering a woman incapable of maintaining a pregnancy, a form of concealed abortion. Similar reports of vaccines laced with hCG hormones came from the Philippines and Nicaragua.
9

Gates’ ‘Gene Revolution in Africa’

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with David Rockefeller’s Rockefeller Foundation, the creators of the GMO biotechnology, are also financing a project called The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) headed by former UN chief, Kofi Annan. Accepting the role as AGRA head in June 2007 Annan expressed his “gratitude to the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and all others who support our African campaign.” The AGRA board is dominated by people from both the Gates’ and Rockefeller foundations.
10

Monsanto, DuPont, Dow, Syngenta and other major GMO agribusiness giants are reported at the heart of AGRA, using it as a back-door to spread their patented GMO seeds across Africa under the deceptive label, ‘bio-technology,’ a euphemism for genetically engineered patented seeds. The person from the Gates Foundation responsible for its work with AGRA is Dr. Robert Horsch, a 25-year Monsanto GMO veteran who was on the team that developed Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready GMO technologies. His job is reportedly to use Gates’ money to introduce GMO into Africa.
11

To date South Africa is the only African country permitting legal planting of GMO crops. In 2003 Burkina Faso authorized GMO trials. In 2005 Kofi Annan’s Ghana drafted bio-safety legislation and key officials expressed their intentions to pursue research into GMO crops. AGRA is being used to create networks of “agro-dealers” across Africa, at first with no mention of GMO seeds or herbicides, in order to have the infrastructure in place to massively introduce GMO.
12

GMO, glyphosate and population reduction

GMO crops have never been proven safe for human or animal consumption. Moreover, they are inherently genetically ‘unstable’ as they are an unnatural product of introducing a foreign bacteria such as Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt) or other material into the DNA of a given seed to change its traits. Perhaps equally dangerous are the ‘paired’ chemical herbicides sold as a mandatory part of a GMO contract, such as Monsanto’s Roundup, the most widely used such herbicide in the world. It contains highly toxic glyphosate compounds that have been independently tested and proven to exist in toxic concentrations in GMO applications far above that safe for humans or animals. Tests show that tiny amounts of glyphosate compounds would do damage to a human umbilical, embryonic and placental cells in a pregnant woman drinking the ground water near a GMO field.
13

One long-standing project of the US Government has been to perfect a genetically-modified variety of corn, the diet staple in Mexico and many other Latin American countries. The corn has been field tested in tests financed by the US Department of Agriculture along with a small California bio-tech company named Epicyte. Announcing his success at a 2001 press conference, the president of Epicyte, Mitch Hein, pointing to his GMO corn plants, announced, “We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies.”
14

Hein explained that they had taken antibodies from women with a rare condition known as immune infertility, isolated the genes that regulated the manufacture of those infertility antibodies, and, using genetic engineering techniques, had inserted the genes into ordinary corn seeds used to produce corn plants. In this manner, in reality they produced a concealed contraceptive embedded in corn meant for human consumption. “Essentially, the antibodies are attracted to surface receptors on the sperm,” said Hein. “They latch on and make each sperm so heavy it cannot move forward. It just shakes about as if it was doing the lambada.”
15 Hein claimed it was a possible solution to world “over-population.” The moral and ethical issues of feeding it to humans in Third World poor countries without their knowing it countries he left out of his remarks.

Spermicides hidden in GMO corn provided to starving Third World populations through the generosity of the Gates’ foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Kofi Annan’s AGRA or vaccines that contain undisclosed sterilization agents are just two documented cases of using vaccines or GMO seeds to “reduce population.”

And the ‘Good Club’

Gates’ TED2010 speech on zero emissions and population reduction is consistent with a report that appeared in New York City’s ethnic media, Irish.Central.com in May 2009. According to the report, a secret meeting took place on May 5, 2009 at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, President of Rockefeller University, among some of the wealthiest people in America. Investment guru Warren Buffett who in 2006 decided to pool his $30 billion Buffett Foundation into the Gates foundation to create the world’s largest private foundation with some $60 billions of tax-free dollars was present. Banker David Rockefeller was the host.

The exclusive letter of invitation was signed by Gates, Rockefeller and Buffett. They decided to call themselves the “Good Club.” Also present was media czar Ted Turner, billionaire founder of CNN who stated in a 1996 interview for the Audubon nature magazine, where he said that a 95% reduction of world population to between 225-300 million would be “ideal.” In a 2008 interview at Philadelphia’s Temple University, Turner fine-tuned the number to 2 billion, a cut of more than 70% from today’s population. Even less elegantly than Gates, Turner stated, “we have too many people. That’s why we have global warming. We need less people using less stuff (sic).”
16

Others attending this first meeting of the Good Club reportedly were: Eli Broad real estate billionaire, New York’s billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Wall Street billionaire and Council on Foreign Relations former head, Peter G. Peterson.

In addition, Julian H. Robertson, Jr., hedge-fund billionaire who worked with Soros attacking the currencies of Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and the Asian Tigen economies, precipitating the 1997-98 Asia Crisis. Also present at the first session of the Good Club was Patty Stonesifer, former chief executive of the Gates foundation, and John Morgridge of Cisco Systems. The group represented a combined fortune of more than $125 billion.
17

​​​​​​​

According to reports apparently leaked by one of the attendees, the meeting was held in response to the global economic downturn and the numerous health and environmental crises that are plaguing the globe.

But the central theme and purpose of the secret Good Club meeting of the plutocrats was the priority concern posed by Bill Gates, namely, how to advance more effectively their agenda of birth control and global population reduction. In the talks a consensus reportedly emerged that they would “back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.”
18

Global Eugenics agenda

Gates and Buffett are major funders of global population reduction programs, as is Turner, whose UN Foundation was created to funnel $1 billion of his tax-free stock option earnings in AOL-Time-Warner into various birth reduction programs in the developing world.
19 The programs in Africa and elsewhere are masked as philanthropy and providing health services for poor Africans. In reality they involve involuntary population sterilization via vaccination and other medicines that make women of child-bearing age infertile. The Gates Foundation, where Buffett deposited the bulk of his wealth two years ago, is also backing introduction of GMO seeds into Africa under the cloak of the Kofi Annan-led ‘Second Green Revolution’ in Africa. The introduction of GMO patented seeds in Africa to date has met with enormous indigenous resistance.

Health experts point out that were the intent of Gates really to improve the health and well-being of black Africans, the same hundreds of millions of dollars the Gates Foundation has invested in untested and unsafe vaccines could be used in providing minimal sanitary water and sewage systems. Vaccinating a child who then goes to drink feces-polluted river water is hardly healthy in any respect. But of course cleaning up the water and sewage systems of Africa would revolutionize the health conditions of the Continent.

Gates’ TED2010 comments about having new vaccines to reduce global population were obviously no off-the-cuff remark. For those who doubt, the presentation Gates made at the TED2009 annual gathering said almost exactly the same thing about reducing population to cut global warming. For the mighty and powerful of the Good Club, human beings seem to be a form of pollution equal to CO2.

1 Bill Gates, “Innovating to Zero!, speech to the TED2010 annual conference, Long Beach, California, February 18, 2010, accessed here
2 Telegraph.co.uk, Bill Gates makes $10 billion vaccine pledge, London Telegraph, January 29, 2010, accessed here
3 Louise Voller, Kristian Villesen, WHO Donates Millions of Doses of Surplus Medical Supplies to Developing countries, Danish Information, 22 December 2009, accessed here
4 One is the Population Research Institute in Washington
5 Louise Voller et al, op. cit.
6 Ibid.
7 Noted in Vaccinations and Autism, accessed here
8 F. William Engdahl, Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation, Global Research, Montreal, 2007, pp. 79-84.
9 James A. Miller, Are New Vaccines Laced With Birth-Control Drugs?, HLI Reports, Human Life International, Gaithersburg, Maryland; June-July 1995.
10 Cited in F. William Engdahl, “Doomsday Seed Vault” in the Arctic: Bill Gates, Rockefeller and the GMO giants know something we don’t, Global Research, December 4, 2007, accessed here
11 Mariam Mayet, Africa’s Green Revolution rolls out the Gene Revolution, African Centre for Biosafety, ACB Briefing Paper No. 6/2009, Melville, South Africa, April 2009.
12 Ibid.
13 Nora Benachour and Gilles-Eric Seralini, Glyphosate Formulations Induce Apoptosis and Necrosis in Human Umbilical Embryonic, and Placental Cells, Chemical Research in Toxicology Journal, American Chemical Society, , (1), pp 97–105.
14 Robin McKie, GMO Corn Set to Stop Man Spreading His Seed, London, The Observer, 9 September 2001.
15 Ibid. McKie writes, “The pregnancy prevention plants are the handiwork of the San Diego biotechnology company Epicyte, where researchers have discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack sperm…the company has created tiny horticultural factories that make contraceptives…Essentially, the antibodies are attracted to surface receptors on the sperm,” said Hein. “They latch on and make each sperm so heavy it cannot move forward. It just shakes about as if it was doing the lambada.”
16 Ted Turner, cited along with youTube video of Turner in Aaron Dykes, Ted Turner: World Needs a ‘Voluntary’ One-Child Policy for the Next Hundred Years, Jones Report.com, April 29, 2008.
Accessed here
17 John Harlow, Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation, London, The Sunday Times May 24, 2009. Accessed here
18 Ibid.
19 United Nations Foundation, Women and Population Program, accessed here

Source: F William Engdhal

Playing with South Africa`s Presidents

British Financial Empire, Current African News, South Africa

Playing with South Africa`s Presidents

by PD Lawton, 15 February 2018

Thabo Mbeki resigned from office in 2008 after the decision by the ANC National Executive Committee that he was no longer fit to lead South Africa and that he would no longer be supported in parliament.

This was a result of Mbeki`s dismissal of Jacob Zuma in 2005 as Deputy President because of his implication in a corruption scandal. Zuma was later aquitted in court of all charges. Mbeki was accused of misuse of office and involvement in a conspiracy to remove Zuma for his own political gain.

Mbeki responded to the corruption in the Zuma court case and its use against his presidency by saying:

“It was improper for the court to make such far-reaching ‘vexatious, scandalous and prejudicial’ findings concerning me, to be judged and condemned on the basis of the findings in the Zuma matter. The interests of justice, in my respectful submission would demand that the matter be rectified. These adverse findings have led to my being recalled by my political party, the ANC—a request I have acceded to as a committed and loyal member of the ANC for the past 52 years. I fear that if not rectified, I might suffer further prejudice.” Source Wikipedia (Thabo Mbeki)

The allegations against Zuma were possibly well founded but the case used to remove Mbeki from office and besmirch his character. Willem Heath a South African judge publically denounced Mbeki at the time :

“If the behaviour…. is not addressed, the application of the principle of the separation of powers will remove at the whim of those who have seemingly been using it most effectively for personal gain.” Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/sep/20/southafrica1

The skeletons have been kept in the closet and aired when it has become necessary to remove Zuma. The same judicial system that accused Mbeki of corruption , today accuse Zuma of anything they like.

The media played Zuma as the victim of Mbeki and denounced him as an aloof, intransigent leader.The media created a situation that led to the polarizing of public opinion between Mbeki and Zuma in what was portrayed as a power struggle.

Today the same game has been played by the media and polarized South Africans between Zuma and Ramaphosa.

Both Mbeki and Zuma have come under heavy fire by the media and South African institutions for the same crime which is the crime of economic progress – development.

Thabo Mbeki was the economic architect of NEPAD ( New Partnership for Africa`s Development). He was instrumental in this program to industrialize African economies. He also laid down the framework for South Africa to become a member of the BRICS alliance.

“Since his election as President in 1999, he has had the temerity to act not only on behalf of South Africa, but for the security, peace, and prosperity of Africa at-large. His government is at work on the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor to bring nuclear power to Africa. He has defended Zimbabwe’s sovereignty against the mayhem of the British and their American dupes. His defense minister, Mosiuoa Lekota, refused even to meet with U.S. military leaders to discuss the insidious new U.S. Africa Command, a control operation posing as the Boy Scouts. In his broader foreign policy, Mbeki strongly opposed the war against Iraq and supported the sovereignty of Iran. Even while making serious mistakes in HIV/AIDS policy, he was right to refuse to be bulldozed by the big pharmaceutical companies and their political catspaws, such as Al Gore, who demanded full price for U.S.-made drugs, which South Africa cannot afford. Mbeki’s strategic thinking often put him at odds with the Anglo-Dutch oligarchs.”

Source: A Slow-Motion British Coup in South Africa by David Cherry, EIR July 11, 2008

https://www.larouchepub.com/eiw/public/2008/eirv35n27-20080711/eirv35n27-20080711_052-a_slow_motion_british_coup_in_so.pdf

Jacob Zuma is responsible for South Africa becoming a leading African trade partner with China as well as taking its seat in the BRICS alliance. Under Zuma and as part of the BRICS economic reform process, South Africa established its National Development Bank.Under Zuma, the ANC began what is called Radical Economic Transformation to create an all inclusive economy. Zuma has remained a staunch supporter of the building of a second Nuclear Power plant to meet the country`s energy requirements as the process of industrializing the economy progresses.

https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/why-we-need-radical-economic-transformation-20171027

In a discussion in 2017 President Zuma said the following which was like a dagger to the heart of the imperialist`s central banking system. What he said in this discussion is precisely what is needed for not just South Africa but all of Africa, if we are to transcend current stagnant economic thinking and view each member of the population as the real value of the economy.

” As you know we have a monopoly of capital in this country. Very few , (white , male) are in control, have the key to the ….money.If you take the mines for instance, there are a very few huge companies that deal with the money, that`s where the origins of the riches of this country are……….Those that are in power, there are very few who have made it because the situation does not allow it. If at the heart of the economy is finance, if the banks, the critical affairs that dominate everything are 4…but if the banks control everything, they take everything and they don`t want you to do anything with it. In other words what makes the economy tick is not in your hands…..it is a skewed kind of economic control. We say we must be part of owning, managing and controlling the economy….The majority of the people must participate in this form.And that`s how an economy should flow. We actually frustrate our economy deliberately by leaving a few people controlling the economy.”Source : Africa News Network 7 TV , `4 Banks Controlling SA Economy:Zuma`

https://youtu.be/DJQdSSCljLo

The attack is not on Mbeki or Zuma or as will certainly be the case in the future , Ramaphosa. The attack is on the ANC. Successive hits are increasing the divisions within the party, and successive corruption scandals slowly smearing the whole party in dirt, a propaganda campaign run for the benefit of brainwashing the South African public and turning them from their loyalty to the ANC. The ANC is the only political vehicle that has the power and will to continue removing the feudal structure of South Africa`s economy which remains dominated by a handful of mining-related old South African dynasties. The ANC is being attacked from the outside and from within.

South Africa became a democracy in 1994 but recent events show that it has yet to free itself from the grip of its old imperial master who hates nothing more than the idea of any African nation becoming a global economic power with a fully industrialized economy and a socially compassionate outlook.

 

Steel Industry in DRC

Current African News, DRC,

The Steel Industry in DRC

Maluku Steel Plant , image from Mining Technology.com

The Democratic Republic of Congo has the world`s largest deposits of natural rescources, with such potential it can become the economic giant of Africa. Given this nation`s troubled history and given our ability to learn from the past, the people of Congo are presented with the opportunity to establish a new standard of human dignity and progress that can issue into the Great Lakes Region the genuine spirit of the African Renaissance in a world that is entering a new paradigm centered on the upliftment of mankind.

China is offering the world a new paradigm based on development .China is offering a win-win partnership to all those who choose to take part in the Belt and Road Initiative , a resurrection of a once magnificent trading route that encompassed the globe and known as the Silk Road. For African states this is the light at the end of the tunnel, it is the offer of technological assistance and the colossus of China`s ability to build engineering projects that unite not divide that deliver not exclude and that are a basis of their increasingly prosperous economy. This investment by China in its physical economy has resulted in the upliftment out of dire poverty of 700 million Chinese people. The government intend to completely erradicate low living standards for its entire population within the next few years.

If China`s economic miracle can achieve this, then why can`t 700 million Africans be lifted out of poverty and poverty eradicated in an even shorter time.With the geo-political theatre coming to a close and the old colonial mindset no longer successfully wielding its weapons of war, we stand on the brink of a new era that no longer encompasses identity politics, oil wars and resources wars, austerity and hopelessness. We stand on the brink of a better world where the dignity of mankind is paramount.

Steel Production

The DRC currently exports all of its mineral resources which account for 90% of revenue. That is an economic crime! The vast majority of the value is lost in exporting as a raw material .The profit goes elsewhere and the benefits of the country`s resources are lost to the nation. The DRC needs to process and manufacture instead of mining and exporting its wealth.For this to come about, focus needs to be on developing a world-class steel industry. Steel production is a true indicator of economic health because it is an indicator of productivity.China is the world`s largest steel producer; 50.3% of global steel production (2015) because China has chosen to differ from the West and base its economy on sound economic principles such as the investment in the physical economy (infrastructure) . A successful economy is a productive economy, an economy that is based on manufacturing,an industrialized economy .

Steel is the essential component of manufacturing.Steel is made from iron ore. The processing requires vast amounts of water and electricity.Good infrastructure is a key component.

Maluku Steel Plant is currently the only steel plant in the country and it is not in full use.Maluku needs reviving and other plants need building. Given the size of the DRC, each province should have a steel plant that will enable the country to meet its own steel requirements in industry and infrastructure.At present Maluku is 375,000 square foot of wasted opportunity.

Maluku steel production needs can be met by the Congo River and the hydro-electric from the Inga Dams. Inga III is also under construction. At present the DRC also exports most of its electricity derived from hydro power.

There are iron ore deposits in Oriental Province and Katanga and Kasai districts. Neighbouring Central African Republic, Republic of Congo and Uganda all have known iron ore deposits.Elsewhere in Africa, Sierra Leone has at least 2 iron ore mines and is a region known to have vast deposits as does neighbouring Guinea where the world`s largest deposit ( at least 25%) of a particularly high grade ore have been found in the Nzérékoré Region of Simandou mountains.

Currently Guinea exports all of its iron ore and like most of Africa functions as a raw materials market. Guinea`s iron reserves should become the epi-center of a thriving West African steel industry. At present Nigeria has the most potential to be the local driver for this.In 1971 General Yakubu Gowon created the National Steel Development Authority with the economic vision back then of making Nigeria a global steel producer with an industrialized economy which by now should be world class. However it has been allowed to stagnate with no technological progress .It should be producing high-tech goods as well as supplying all West Africa`s steel requirements. The reason it has been allowed to stagnate is the over-reliance on revenue from oil. At present steel production only accounts for 0.3% of GDP. Nigeria has massive mineral wealth but imports processed minerals that could be processed locally. Pres. Buhari has committed to reversing this trend and re-invigorating Nigeria`s steel production.Dr Kayode Fayemi , Minister of Solid Minerals Development, has pointed out that Nigeria will be needing vast amounts of iron and steel to build infrastructure.

With the continued industrialization of the economy in mind he said:” a steady increase in domestic demand for steel in Nigeria in the next decade, which would be driven by ever-widening demand for steel from both local and international investors who wished to participate in the expansion of Africa’s largest economy.” Source:

http://africanbusinessmagazine.com/sectors/infrastructure/nigerias-ajaokuta-steel-plant-better-late-never/

Africa is at a pivotal point in history. With China`s African development plans including massive infrastructure projects, the demand for steel in the continent will soon be at an historic high.

“Chinese infrastructure commitments grew at an average annual rate of 16 percent from 2012 to 2015 and supported many of Africa’s most ambitious infrastructure developments.9 For example, China EXIM Bank financed more than 90 percent of the $3.8 billion Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway in Kenya, while Chinese institutions also financed most of the $1.7 billion Karuma Hydroelectric Power Station in Uganda.10

Chinese contractors today account for nearly half of Africa’s international engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) market.11 Six of the ten largest international EPC contractors operating in Africa are Chinese: China Communications Construction, China Railway Group, Sinohydro Group, China State Construction Engineering Corporation, China Railway Construction Corporation, and Citic Construction Company.12 A recent large-scale public opinion survey found that infrastructure development is African citizens’ most appreciated aspect of Chinese involvement in Africa. “Source:

https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/middle-east-and-africa/the-closest-look-yet-at-chinese-economic-engagement-in-africa

Egypt is the 27th biggest global steel producer. Egypt is in the process of building its first nuclear power plant with technical assistance from Russia. The el- Sisi government is taking Egypt into the new paradigm by developing the physical economy. The construction of the second Suez Canal was a revolutionary event, a cornerstone of the new paradigm in Africa. It was constructed on credit , by the sale of bonds to Egyptian citizens. At present 90 million people live on 5% of the land. Egypt will be able to support a much larger population than it can at present with advancement in infrastructure and agriculture which will open opportunities for the remaining 95% of Egypt.

Ethiopia is taking the lead in East Africa:

“the government has followed a deliberate policy of industrialization since 2010. This strategy has been underpinned by close cooperation with China and has drawn lessons from China’s own success at driving manufacturing-led growth. As a result, Ethiopia has increased its manufacturing value added by an average of more than 10 percent a year since 2004 and become one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies……………Ethiopia has drawn on Chinese investment and expertise in several major aspects of its industrialization and broader economic development. It has engaged the Chinese government to finance key infrastructure, helping to add 66,000 kilometers of new roads since 2000 and increase power supply by 15 percent between 2010 and 2014.36 Chinese firms built, and now co-manage, the 750-kilometer Ethiopia-Djibouti Railway, a $3.4 billion project opened in late 2016. ” Source:

https://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/middle-east-and-africa/the-closest-look-yet-at-chinese-economic-engagement-in-africa#0

Last year Pres Nkurunziza opened a $32 million steel plant in Musumba which will employ more than 1500 people. The steel mill was built by a Burundian investor and will operate 24/7. A very proud moment for the nation and Pres Nkurunziza!

http://glpost.com/while-kagame-was-spending-20k-per-night-in-ny-president-nkurunziza-was-opening-a-32m-complex-steel-mill-in-musumba/

Mineral revenue is doing to the DRC what oil ( Royal Dutch Shell) did to Nigeria until the welcome administration of Pres Buhari.

In terms of steel, the DRC has been exporting scrap iron to a South Korean company in a bid to bring in quick revenue. Katanga province has been opposed to this and for a time prohibitted the sale of scrap metal on the grounds that it deprives local industry from raw materials and encourages the theft of electric cable . Sotrafer SARL, a privately-owned company in Lubumbashi, Katanga has been using scrap metal to produce high quality TMT steel bars.

New innovations at the cutting edge of technological advance are expanding all possibilities:

http://www.micindustries.com/solutions.htm

The DRC government have shown interest and apparently have bought one of these “mobile steel factories” which can go anywhere and construct anything from dairy sheds to storage units and factory buildings.This state of the art steel construction process can contruct a 1000 square meters in a single day!

With advances in technology the economy is an ever evolving science and what was seen yesterday as impossible and costly soon changes into limitless potential.

The DRC has reserves of every known mineral including uranium.If instead of exporting all of its natural resources, the DRC developed a world class steel industry it could then follow the example of Egypt and develop a nuclear facility. If the steel industry was powered with home produced uranium nuclear energy then this breakthrough in technology would put Congolese steel production on the global cutting edge of competition.

South Africa`s steel industry is currently suffering, unable to compete with Chinese prices. The government has increased import tariffs but this has not stopped the recent loss of thousands of jobs such as those at Evraz Highveld Steel and Vanadium Limited.

South Africa is an extremely innovative culture and has an excellent history of technological advancement in many fields. South Africa was the first country to produce oil from coal! Rather than viewing China`s low steel prices as the downfall of its own steel industry, South Africa could rise to the challenge of being the first in the next step of technological advancement for the production of steel to make its steel more efficient to produce than Chinese steel.

State-owned or PPI ?

What is at stake here is the question of who and what for, is the development of the DRCs industrial capacity? The answer is the development of the economy. But what is` the economy`? The country at present has one of the fastest growing economies world wide and yet the nation remains one of the poorest. GDP does not reflect on the lives of the vast majority of its 84 million citizens most of whom are young and unemployed.

Current economic thinking relies on the “trickle down effect” that foreign investment in a under-developed country is catered for with a relaxed, liberal economic climate that attracts foreign investment to build industry. This approach continues to be the focus of development in much of Africa.Its track record is disastrous and any in -depth look at countries like Mozambique (Mozal) , Zambia (Glencore), South Africa (AngloAmerican) and many others is concrete proof that the economic norm does not benefit the population in general.There is no trickle down effect.

Public-Private Partnerships pay for development but the social benefits are regarded as a spin-off, the local population get the crumbs. Africa must follow in China`s footsteps and revolutionize its current economic thinking.

Modernizing and industrializing the economy of DRC relies on electricity. Current (Western ) economic thinking focusses on the cost of projects. But the reality is that the economic benefits of industrialing the economy will so dramatically change the economy`s development that the initial cost will in a few years, look like a very insignificant amount. Investing in the future is priceless when that investment is in the development of the nation`s economy and when the economy is regarded not as a `stockmarket game` but the nation`s future and well-being.

Maluku Steel Plant and developing the DRC`s steel industry cannot be regarded as a private sector opportunity for future-profit investment. This is a national investment for the nation.Likewise providing the entire country and much of southern Africa with electricity is a national investment in the nation, future generations and the future energy requirements of much of southern Africa. Such a critically important role cannot be fulfilled by a privately owned corporation that is answereable to its shareholders and not to the future generations of Congolese.

If there is public-private partnership investment for steel production or utility services like electricity then it is based on a profit making/monetarist system. Is the value of that steel or the value of electricity measured in how much can be charged to the consumer/customer?

What is the value of a state owned steel plant or the value of the state investing in supplying all areas of the DRC with electricity? That value can`t be quantified, it can`t be measusured in terms of what it would cost today.The economic progress that would result has a qualitative value not a measurable quantitative value. Improving the lives of the Congolese nation is the best investment its government could ever make.

 

 

Gunmen stab 12 hospitalized patients in DR Congo

Current African News, DRC

re posted from                                     PressTV

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/02/06/551466/DR-Congo-Uganda-Gunmen

Gunmen stab 12 hospitalized patients in DR Congo

Tue Feb 6, 2018 02:22PM
A file photo of patients of Panzi hospital in Lemera, in DR Congo
A file photo of patients of Panzi hospital in Lemera, in DR Congo

Unidentified assailants stabbed 12 patients in their hospital beds in the restive DR Congo city of Goma, with fears it was the work of Ugandan extremist rebels, officials said on Tuesday.

Three of the victims were seriously hurt in the knife rampage overnight Sunday-Monday in two health centers in the Goma district of Mbosho, provincial health minister Martial Kambumbu told AFP.

“It is the first time we have seen patients being stabbed in health facilities in Goma,” said Etienne Kambale, civil society rapporteur in North Kivu province, of which Goma is the capital.

“It is surprising. We are wondering if it was the ADF who have turned up in Goma, because this is the way they killed people in Beni.”

Government forces last month launched an offensive in Beni against the extremist Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), one of a number of armed groups that hold territory in the eastern DR Congo and are battling for control of the region’s rich mineral resources.

Beni lies about 250 kilometers (150 miles) north of Goma.

Congolese authorities and the UN mission in DR Congo, MONUSCO, accuse the ADF of killing more than 700 civilians as well as combatants in the Beni region since 2014.

The group is also blamed for the killing of 14 UN peacekeepers last month, the biggest single such loss in 25 years.

(Source: AFP)

Source: http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/02/06/551466/DR-Congo-Uganda-Gunmen

7,000 flee Congo to Burundi in just three days

Burundi, Current African News, DRC

re posted from                                      PressTV

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/01/26/550279/Congo-Burundi-Lake-Tanganyika-South-Kivu

7,000 flee Congo to Burundi in just three days

Fri Jan 26, 2018 06:01PM
Congolese people carry their belongings after they crossed the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo to be refugees at Nteko village in western Uganda on January 24, 2018. (Photo by AFP)
Congolese people carry their belongings after they crossed the border from the Democratic Republic of Congo to be refugees at Nteko village in western Uganda on January 24, 2018. (Photo by AFP)

Thousands of asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of the Congo have fled to Burundi in the past three days over fierce fighting in the eastern parts of the country, Burundi police say.

Nearly 7,000 Congolese have crossed Lake Tanganyika and taken refuge in Burundi since Wednesday as clashes raged between DR Congo government forces and rebels in the troubled eastern province of South Kivu.

Burundi police said on Friday a total of 6,692 refugees had registered in just three days to escape fighting between the army and the Yakutumba militia, although the flow appeared to have since slowed.

“Yesterday, Lake Tanganyika seemed to be completely covered by hundreds of boats of all sizes, packed with refugees and their property, it was quite sight,” one rights activist told AFP.

Congo’s President Joseph Kabila told a press conference that the security situation in the east, much of which is in the hands of rival militias, was “worrying.”

The UN refugee agency or the Burundian authorities have not made any immediate comment about the situation yet.

The Congolese government said last week it was waging “war” against two militias in the east, the Yakutumba and the Allied Democratic Force (ADF) rebel groups.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo had one of the most brutal colonial rules before undergoing decades of corrupt dictatorship and back-to-back civil wars that left the mineral-rich country poor and politically unstable.

Dozens of armed groups have been active in the eastern DR Congo, long after the official end of a 1998-2003 war during which millions of people died, mostly of hunger and disease.

The United Nations in January warned that the Democratic Republic of the Congo was at a “breaking point,” saying this year it will seek more than $1.5 billion to respond to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the country.

“The size of the crisis in the Congo is really challenging our collective ability to respond”, said the UN migration agency’s chief envoy to the country, Jean-Philippe Chauzy.

The escalating violence in Congo’s center and east this year comes amid a political crisis in the country due to President Kabila’s refusal to leave office after his term expired in December 2016.

In 2006, the UN mission helped carry out Congo’s first free and fair elections in 46 years, paving the way for President Joseph Kabila to be elected for a five-year term.

His second term in office ended in 2016. Under the DR Congo’s constitution, Kabila is banned from seeking a third term. However, Kabila is authorized to stay in office until his successor is elected but he decided to remain in power. This prompted the UN to urge the Congolese authorities “to respect the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Congolese Constitution.”

The delay in holding an election has flared up violence in the country.

Source: http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2018/01/26/550279/Congo-Burundi-Lake-Tanganyika-South-Kivu