First in a series because my exhaustion has kept me from Africa, not my concern.
"Clinton presses Angola to democratize; Corruption and poverty are rife in oil-rich nation" by Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times | August 10, 2009
LUANDA, Angola - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a gentle nudge to Angola yesterday, urging the nation, a major oil producer that has drawn close to China, to push harder to democratize.
Clinton said.... the country needs to.... [investigate] human rights abuses, sooner than later.
She doesn't say this with a straight face, does she?
“We know opportunity and prosperity for the Angolan people depend on good governance and democracy,’’ Clinton said, emphasizing what has become the dominant theme of her seven-nation Africa tour.
So WHY is AmeriKa SO EFFED UP, 'eh, "lady?"
I gotta tell you, world, her diplomatic skills suck!
I can't believe it, but I think her tact is worse than Condi!
For years, Angola was a no-go zone, the scene of one of the fiercest battles of the Cold War, in which American-backed rebels squared off against tens of thousands of Cuban troops in a jungle war that dragged on for more than two decades and killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Yeah, and that is ONE of the SOURCES of FRICTION between the U.S. and Cuba still U.S. government doesn't forget that Cuba sent its soldiers to help a nationalist (yes, Marxist communist but its their country) movement while DISOBEYING its SOVIET MASTERS at the time. Soviets had already decided they were out of the African wars in the '70s because thy were going bankrupt.
The guns are quiet now, and a beat of life is returning....
Ah, you can SEE WHAT PLEASES ME MOST!
Sort of become the first and foremost goal of the blog -- stop the killing (then the looting).
But once again Angola is a crucial battleground. This time, it is the contest for influence in Africa, largely fought between the United States and an increasingly powerful, resource-hungry China.
So WHY MUST the AFRICANS PAY!?
Besides, the CHINESE JUST GET IN THERE!
They aren't looking to PUSH AROUND MILITARY and BASES like WE ARE, 'murkn!
CHEW on THAT for a while as you gather in the -- what I view as -- one-sided, racist bias of that loaded sentence. Yes, the U.S. ISN'T "powerful" or "resource hungry." I mean COME ON!!! That's WHY WE OCCUPY IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN and are GOING AFTER IRAN (oh, right, that's for Israel)!
As if to underscore that, a Chinese forklift crew whizzed past Clinton’s motorcade just as she pulled up to the hilltop presidential palace yesterday afternoon to meet Angolan officials.
Yup, CHINESE DEVELOP YOU, we just rape you of resources.
Roads, bridges, schools, railways, phone lines - the Chinese are working on them all, lifting this country out of the ruins of war and hoping in return to secure the inside track on Angola’s crude oil reserves, which now have it tied with Nigeria for the title of Africa’s biggest oil producer.
Uh-huh!
CHINA REBUILDS what WE HELPED DESTROY?
And you SEE the MAJOR CONCERN, right?
Let me SPELL IT OUT for you: O-I-L! And CONTROL OF IT!
But Clinton did not bite when asked to comment on American efforts to check the rising Chinese influence. “I’m not looking at what anyone else does in Angola,’’ she said at a news conference. “I’m looking at what the United States can do.’’
The United States has had a sad history with Angola, the third stop on Clinton’s Africa trip. In the 18th century, Angola was a major slave market, with countless Angolans shipped to the United States in chains. After Angola won independence from Portugal in 1975, the United States bankrolled what turned out to be a brutal rebel movement.
Ooooh, BAD ALL the WAY AROUND, huh?
The rebels lost; the Communist, Cuban-backed movement won; and though the Angolan government today says that it has outgrown Marxism, the nation’s flag still looks much like the Soviet hammer-and-sickle....
American diplomats here said Clinton would be the first secretary of state to spend the night in the country. With the nation recovering, the American government does not want to miss out on Angola’s oil bonanza. ExxonMobil and Chevron are already here, competing against Chinese firms for new deals. Last year, imports from Angola to the United States surged by more than 50 percent.
But the oil money has cleaved Angolan society into the haves and the have-nots, a situation true in many African countries. Clinton saw this firsthand. As she sat down for a luncheon buffet at the hilltop palace, the tables heaped with lobster and cakes, the rusty roofs of the teeming slums shimmered below.
Related: Slow Saturday Special: Food Wars
Yeah, the globalists are going to save the hungry of Africa.
Tell me another.
Though Angola’s per capita gross domestic product is more than $4,000, a huge sum by African standards, the country remains at the bottom of United Nations development indexes measuring quality of life. The average life span for an Angolan man is 37 years.
Part of the reason millions of Angolans remain so poor is corruption. According to Human Rights Watch, billions of dollars of oil money have simply disappeared. Opposition politicians told Clinton that the Angolan government needed to be investigated and that there was no free press in the country.
But they are PUMPING OIL TO US so I DOUBT it will be of much concern.
Clinton seemed quite aware of many of these issues, but again, her tone toward Angolan officials seemed more friendly than pushy.
“Corruption is a problem everywhere,’’ Clinton said at the news conference, with the country’s foreign minister standing beside her. “It’s only fair to add that Angola has begun taking steps to increase transparency.’’Translation: WE NEED THEIR OIL so WE WILL IGNORE THOSE ABUSES!
--more--"
Just wondering why the Globe went with the NYT scrub job.....
"Clinton presses Angola to fight corruption" by Sue Pleming and Henrique Almeida | August 9, 2009
LUANDA (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Angola on Sunday to do more to fight corruption during a two-day visit to the oil-producing country aimed at bolstering ties between the two nations.
Angola rivals Nigeria as Africa's biggest oil producer but about two-thirds of the population live on less than $2 a day. It ranks 158th on Transparency International's 180-nation corruption list.
OOOOOPS! I guess they HAD NOW WHERE ELSE TO GO, huh, Hil?
"Corruption is a problem everywhere and where it exists it undermines people's faith in democracy, it distorts governance," Clinton said at a news conference alongside Angolan Foreign Minister Assuncao dos Anjos....
No, IT IS GOVERNANCE no matter WHERE YOU ARE!
That's what I HAVE COME TO LEARN!
A senior U.S. official said Clinton had been very direct in her discussions with the foreign minister regarding Angola's record on corruption and also urged the African nation to play a bigger role in the region. "They are moving in the right direction, so its better to encourage them," the U.S. official said....
But she was "friendly, not pushy!"
Btw, don't you love double standards?
I guess this is why Angola is a one-day wonder.
Here's something the Globe or Times overlooked:
Angola broke off talks with the International Monetary Fund in 2004 and turned to resource-hungry China for over $5 billion in loans to rebuild the country. It restarted talks with the IMF this week. Angola is China's largest oil supplier but only the sixth biggest supplier of oil to the United States.
Hey, WE'LL TAKE EVERY DROP we can get our grubby little, war-killing paws on!!!! WE AIN'T "resource-hungry" like CHINA -- despite PNAC!
Major U.S. oil companies like Chevron and
Oh, we NEED NOT WORRY about ANGOLA!
Clinton urged Angola to diversify into agriculture and said the United States would continue to invest in its oil and gas sector while eyeing a larger role in the once-prosperous farming sector. Angola was once a major food exporter but now imports over half of its food.
GLOBALISTS at it AGAIN! And WHO BENEFITS? ADM, Monsanto, and BIG AG?!
After meeting Angola's oil minister, Clinton witnessed the signing of an accord between Chevron Corp and the U.S. Agency of International Development to expand its agricultural program in Angola.
--more--"And, as promised, all the way to Z.
This was the LAST TIME I read ANYTHING or SAW ANYTHING in the Globe about Zimbabwe (and I LOOK, readers, so IF IT WERE THERE I WOULD have FOUND IT!):
"Zimbabwe"
Hmmmmmmm!!!!!! (Blog editor grinds teeth)
Memory Hole:
Zimbabwe: Coup or Cholera?
And remember, readers, follow my follow my links (clap, clap), follow my links (clap, clap), follow my links (clap, clap), follow my links (clap, clap), follow my links (clap)!
Seeing as Mugabe stayed entrenched in power, the agenda-pushing to remove him has abated while the covert ops continue; he's thrown back in with the West and is helping run weapons into the region again, thus the press dogs have been called off; and both of the above reasons true -- still seeking to remove while using.
