"The US ignores Africa at its own peril" by Jason Warner | June 25, 2013
PRESIDENT OBAMA’S first major trip to sub-Saharan Africa on Wednesday is expected to cost from $60 million to $100 million, prompting many calls for the president to cancel his trip. Yet, such opposition is shortsighted: Now, more than ever, the United States cannot afford to ignore Africa.
I call on it to be cancelled because of the global-warming ramifications.
Geopolitically, Africa is an emerging force to be reckoned with.
Translation: it is rich in underdeveloped and untapped resources.
Economically, it hosts several of the world’s fastest growing economies — including Rwanda, Zambia, and Mozambique — while the continent as a whole is expected to outstrip global growth for at least the next three years.
Related: Zambia’s former president arrested
Must come with the fast-growing economy.
Also see: Zambian Bush Crash
Must come with the casinos.
Simultaneously, the rise of fundamentalist actors hostile to US interests — especially in Somalia and Nigeria — means that the continent presents unprecedented exigencies in the security realm as well.
Related:
Kerry Nags Nigeria
Hungering For This Post About Somalia
And it just so happens Nigeria is loaded with oil and a major U.S. supplier while Somalia is strategically located near vital shipping lanes.
Nevertheless, global power shifts since 9/11 have led to a deterioration in US-African relations. The United States’ hyper-hegemonic, unipolar global presence from 1991 to 2001 led to a nominal “democratization-for-aid” strategy that — “Black Hawk Down” and Rwanda notwithstanding — engendered mostly positive relations.
Did it, or is this agenda-pushing opinion in delusion or denial?
However, thanks to the political, economic, and military ascendance of both African and non-African states, as well as a tarnished US image on the continent, Washington’s sway has been lessened in potentially harmful ways.
What could ever tarnish our image of emancipators and liberators?
One reason the United States can no longer afford to take Africa for granted is the growing interest and arrival of new global players. Topping the list of alternative partners for Africa is China, whose meteoric rise on the continent since the mid-2000s has been highlighted by such grandiose gestures as the financing of the new African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Uh-oh!
See: Africa Chooses China
Yeah, amazing how nations and their people prefer those that build things rather than those that destroy them.
Other lesser powers also interpret potential Western neglect of Africa as a boon. Turkey has leveraged its Islamic credibility by focusing attention on post-conflict reconstruction in Somalia, and in so doing has managed to win over a population that has long been a strategic worry for the United States.
Turkey is doing great, yeah. It's the most dangerous place in the world for a child (that's saying a lot), and famine is epidemic. But let's not spoil the s***-shoveling narrative.
Iran, too, has made inroads: while African leaders are cognizant of Tehran’s desperate (and often duplicitous) search for both uranium and geopolitical allies, some of the continent’s pariah states — Eritrea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe among them — have shown a willingness to engage Iran.
I'm kinda tired of pot-hollering-kettle media, sorry.
Not to be overlooked is Japan, which recently unveiled a new, more aggressive Africa strategy based on mutual energy concerns, and Brazil, which recently cancelled a whopping $900 million in African debt.
I'm all for that, but Brazilians are in the street because of looting, wealth inequality, and austerity.
As for Japan, with their nuclear program basically still grounded they need resources.
Apart from new players, Obama must contend with historical legacies. While the Bush administration left a battered US image elsewhere, it tripled health aid to the continent, and Bush left office widely popular in sub-Saharan Africa. (Some in Darfur, Sudan, reportedly named newborns after him.)
And Kanye West called Bush a racist!
This pro-American sentiment, coupled with Obama’s Kenyan lineage as “a son of Africa,” meant that the continent was more or less enamored of both him and the United States during his brief July 2009 visit to Ghana.
We ALL were!
Today, attitudes are less enthusiastic. Bush-era fervor is all but dead, and African “Obamania” is in decline thanks to the administration’s security-focused, anti-terrorist continental agenda, which has been accompanied by a deepening US military footprint.
Translation: Bush got out while the getting out was good. Left the Africans wanting more!
Opposition to the five-year-old US Africa Command remains prevalent, and civil societies are raising new concerns about Washington’s array of clandestine operations — including the deeply unpopular unmanned drone operations — that are purported to exist from the Seychelles to Kenya, and from Uganda to Niger.
In short, US relations with Africa are increasingly strained at a moment when the rest of the world is determined to court the ever-important continent. Historically a “last-on-the-list” foreign policy consideration for most global states, Africa is now proving itself to be a must-have partner.
Trim the Obama travel budget. But recognize that the costs of skipping the trip will ultimately far outweigh the alternative.
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Related: Western Sahara: Why Africa’s last colony can’t break free
Interesting map when you consider the national intelligence interests active in those states today. Colonialists always leave something behind.
"Infant deaths at birth are highest in Africa" by Jason Straziuso | Associated Press, May 08, 2013
NAIROBI — More than 1 million babies die the day they are born every year, and the 14 countries with the highest rates of first-day deaths are all in Africa, according to a new report released Tuesday.
I had to take a second look, but THAT is a REAL HOLOCAUST!!
Somalia, Congo, Mali, Sierra Leone, and Central African Republic are the five countries with the highest rates of such deaths, according to the report ‘‘Surviving the First Day’’ from the group Save the Children.
Related: Do You Care About the Coup in the CAR?
Not as much as I care about the kids!
‘‘Health care for mothers in sub-Saharan Africa is woefully insufficient. On average, only half the women in the region receive skilled care during birth,’’ the report said. ‘‘The region as a whole has only 11 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 10,000 people, less than half the critical threshold of 23 generally considered necessary to deliver essential health services.’’
Are they blaming the women, is that what I see there?
The numbers in Somalia — a country racked by 20 years of violence with little established government and few health services — are particularly grim. Eighteen out of 1,000 babies in Somalia die the day they are born, the report said. Five percent of newborns die within the first month of life and one in six will not live to age 5, it said.
:-(
‘‘What’s worse, Somalia has seen absolutely no improvement in newborn or child survival in at least two decades,’’ it said. Somali women have on average more than six children.
You know, it's time for the globalist and elite class to step aside and let someone else run the show because they have failed miserably -- if they ever meant to succeed and not serve their own $elfi$h intere$t$ as their monied pre$$ tells us how good-hearted are our masters.
Prebirth care to expectant mothers is largely not available in Somalia, said Dr. Omar Saleh, a World Health Organization official.
Well, at least the rapes are down.
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I didn't see Obama say anything about that.
Related: Obama arrives in S. Africa with gratitude for Mandela
The US president’s visit was not the biggest story of the day.
I guess that's why it the article had to be totally rewritten from what was in my paper, but why?
"After an eight-hour flight, Air Force One landed at Waterkloof Air Base, just a few miles from the Pretoria hospital where Mr. Mandela has been under intensive care with a serious lung infection for nearly three weeks, as concerns about his health have intensified in recent days despite government assurances that Mr. Mandela’s condition had stabilized.
Mr. Obama’s plane left from Dakar, Senegal, the first stop on his Africa trip, where Mr. Obama met with farmers and entrepreneurs seeking enhanced food security through new agricultural practices and technology....
And that's all my printed Globe had of it, as well as the complete NYT piece that is otherwise verbatim up to that point.
Yeah, Globe lost something, all right. Obama's sales pitch for Monsanto.
Then THIS find:
Obama’s stay in South Africa is likely to be overshadowed by expressions of disappointment and even anger over his conduct in office.
While South African government officials promise an appropriately warm welcome, a coalition of trade union groups and left-wing political organizations is planning a “national day of action” on the first day of his visit, including a march on the American Embassy in Pretoria. The next day, student groups intend to protest outside the Soweto campus of the University of Johannesburg, where Mr. Obama is to receive an honorary degree.
(What is there to say?)
Meanwhile, two national groups, including the Muslim Lawyers Association of South Africa, have urged the South African government to arrest Mr. Obama when he lands, accusing him of “war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide” for the American drone attacks in Pakistan and elsewhere and for keeping the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba running.
(Your blog editor is nearly in tears; just the joy of reading such a thing, and then the realization of where it is from. Can't divide and holler racism here, mouthpiece media)
“When President Obama was ushered into the world, there was a promise for change of policy, like the closure of Guantánamo Bay, and how he is going to respond to the dispute between Israel and Palestine,” Phutas Tseki, the regional chairman of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, said in announcing his group’s participation in Friday’s protests. “Now he is on his second term, and he continues to be arrogant, and his policies continue to entrench American power to the whole globe without any change.”
Asked to comment on the planned protests, Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser, said only that South Africa “is a vibrant democracy.”
The scope of the protests indicates that the country’s longstanding skittishness about American foreign and trade policies has overridden its brief elation over the election of the first black president in the United States.
The South Africans are no different than us Americans.
“The excitement that accompanied his historic 2008 election has given way to widespread cynicism on the continent,” Mwangi S. Kimenyi, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in a blog post at ForeignPolicy.com.
As he walked across campus on way to yet another meeting, Masete Levy, president of the University of Johannesburg’s student council, echoed that sentiment, saying that the students he represents are deeply disappointed by the gap between Mr. Obama’s promises as a presidential candidate and his actual policies in office.
“There is now among the students a feeling that Obama has done nothing to the advantage of South Africa, and has only continued the American policies around the world that we thought he was going to end,” Mr. Levy said. “He is a visitor of our government, and we do not object to that, but we do object to his being honored by our university and we want to make sure he hears our calls that he follow through on the promises he made.”
The South African government says it is welcoming the protests but will not allow them to derail the president’s visit. The protests “might have a positive effect,” said Clayson Monyela, a spokesman for the Ministry of International Relations. “It is a tangible demonstration of the healthy democracy we enjoy.”
Then why is my free pre$$ censoring it?
Related (looks like I was right):
Obama is there now and look at what he is talking about, as "many Africans have expressed disappointment over Obama’s lack of direct engagement with affairs on their continent — yet he was still enthusiastically welcomed. Thousands of people gathered on the roadways near the presidential palace as Obama’s motorcade sped through the coastal city, many in the crowds wearing white to symbolize peace."
Given his track record on the continent (Libyan overthrow, more drone strikes) that doesn't look like that enthusiastic an endorsement.
Oh, yeah, I'm I'm just a little offended that he put out the agenda-pu$hing, guilt-tripping, global-warming power plant dictate just before he jetted off to Africa, and is now barreling around in the "beast." I'm sure that gas-guzzling thing is doing great for greenhouse gases and African air while creating more desert for them (or so I am told).
Also see: Obama yet to have African legacy like predecessors
In fact, he's done worse. He's cut back on Bush's signature aids program and introduced more drones to the continent as well as laying the groundwork for AfriKom.
Obama hopes Chicago Bulls draft Senegalese player
Also see: Mandela is Dying
So is the empire.
