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Friday 25th of October 2019 |
Brexit's Catch 22: London Awaits EU Move as EU May Wait for U.K @bpolitics Africa |
Boris Johnson’s abrupt push for snap elections, and Jeremy Corbyn’s response that he will only agree if the European Union decides on Friday to grant a comfortable Brexit extension, has put an obscure group of Brussels-based diplomats into an awkward position. The group of EU ambassadors, known as Coreper II, is due to meet Friday morning, to discuss the length of the third extension due to be granted to the U.K. The plan was to reach a consensus, allowing the bloc’s governments to sign off on the recommendation via a written procedure, without convening a second leaders’ summit in less than two weeks. That was before the British Prime Minister announced on Thursday his push for an election on Dec. 12 in order to end the Brexit gridlock. Corbyn, whose backing Johnson needs in order to get the two-thirds majority required for a national vote, said his decision depends on the EU’s response. Both may have to wait, as the EU itself was also seeking clarity from the U.K. before making a decision. Four diplomats familiar with the deliberations in Brussels said it’s unlikely the Coreper -- which stands for Committee of Permanent Representatives -- will reach a concrete conclusion. One of the diplomats said that the envoys and their governments are being dragged into British politics, as any decision puts them at risk of being blamed for either favoring the opposition or the government’s view in London. “Let’s wait and see if there will be an election before we do fiction politics,” Amelie de Montchalin, France’s junior minister for European affairs said in an interview with RTL. “If there are elections, not just called for, but announced and scheduled, then we can take a decision.” At a meeting on Wednesday, all EU27 ambassadors agreed that an extension should be granted, thus removing the risk of a cliff-edge exit next week. But France resisted the majority view of granting a three month extension, insisting instead on a short delay only to allow the ratification of the proposed Brexit deal. The meetings of the Coreper are meant to be preparatory. They aren’t public, there are no press opportunities and - usually - no communiques of their conclusion. They occasionally take place in a secure room, without phones or aides allowed. While the gatherings have recently drawn the spotlight, with journalists getting detailed readouts of the discussions on Brexit, never before have the eyes of an entire country debating snap elections been so focused on a group barely known to anyone outside the Brussels bubble. The final decision on whether to grant an extension -- and if so for how long -- still lies in the hands of European Council President Donald Tusk and the unanimous blessing of 27 EU leaders.
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OCT 15 :: Putin is a GeoPolitical GrandMaster Law & Politics |
Let us return to UNGA, where Putin set out his stall and I quote: ‘’I cannot help asking those who have caused the situation, do you realise now what you’ve done?’’ Putin fancies himself the fly-catcher and syria the fly-trap. The speed of execution confirms that Russia is once again a geopolitical actor that will have to be considered. It is a breath-taking rebound.
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China's Biggest Meeting of Year Gives Leaders Opportunity to Talk Hong Kong Protests @markets Law & Politics |
China’s ruling Communist Party will hold its most important gathering of the year from October 28 to 31, state-run Xinhua News Agency said, giving its leadership an opportunity to discuss issues such the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The plenum -- a full meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee -- is a venue to pass decisions on major topics and involves more than 200 party leaders from the government, military and state-owned enterprises. The committee will discuss key issues related to maintaining and improving China’s socialist system and national governance, Xinhua reported in August. While the meeting comes at a point in the party’s five-year political cycle that’s usually reserved for setting economic policies, the earlier Xinhua report suggested an agenda that was more political. On Tuesday, a front page commentary on the People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece, reviewed the progress in judicial reform and the law-based governance since the last Fourth Plenum of The Central Committee in 2014 during Xi Jinping’s first term. Such long format commentary is usually seen ahead of the the party’s major political events. The plenum will be the fourth Central Committee conclave since Xi secured a second term as the party’s general secretary in October 2017. The committee hasn’t convened since recommending an end to the constitutional limits on Xi’s tenure in February 2018. The party hasn’t gone so long without such a meeting since late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping launched his “Reform and Opening Up” campaign more than 40 years ago. Policy makers are also grappling with a trade war with the U.S., which has exacerbated an economic slowdown as both sides levy tariffs on each other’s goods. Data released last week showed an economy expanding at just 6%, the slowest in almost three decades, though there were also signs things could be stabilizing, including corporate demand for long-term credit picking up and growth in auto sales contracting less. The two sides are also moving closer toward a partial deal that could alleviate tensions. The early hints of stabilization give the authorities a chance to debate some long-term issues at the meeting, such as a graying population and the merits of freer internal migration of labor. These reforms could be more important than imminent policy loosening in ensuring a steady performance of the economy in the longer term.
Conclusions
In many respects this is more important than
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21-OCT-2019 :: "The New Economy of Anger". Law & Politics |
The real time Feed is a c21st Netflix and is both unputdownable and incendiary. From Chile where Protestors burned down the headquarters of ENEL [The Electricity Generating Co] after a proposed Price increase and a state of Emergency has been imposed. All over Latin America from Peru to Ecuador to Haiti to Honduras, Demonstrators have taken to the Streets. The IMF cut the projected economic growth rate for Latin America from 1.4 percent to 0.6 percent, citing domestic policies and the U.S.-China trade war and clearly nose-diving economic opportunity is creating tinder-dry conditions. Of course, no country is as extreme as Venezuela where GDP is down from $350bn in 2012 to an estimated $60bn in 2019. People have been pushed to the Edge and are taking to the Streets. Paul Virilio pronounced in his book Speed and Politics, “The revolutionary contingent attains its ideal form not in the place of production, but in the street, where for a moment it stops being a cog in the technical machine and itself becomes a motor (machine of attack), in other words a producer of speed.’’ This Phenomenon about which I am speaking is not limited to Latin America. We have recently witnessed the ''WhatsApp'' Revolution in Lebanon, where a proposed Tax on WhatsApp calls sent up to 17% of the Lebanese Population into the street. Iraq is on a Knife Edge. Millions of Algerians sent the wheelchair bound Bouteflika home not too long ago. Hong Kong remains in open rebellion and trying to shake off the ''Crusher of Bones'' Xi Jinping and his Algorithmic Control. The Phenomenon is spreading like wildfire in large part because of the tinder dry conditions underfoot. Prolonged Stand-Offs eviscerate economies, reducing opportunities and accelerate the negative Feedback Loop. Antonio Gramsci wrote “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear....now is the time of monsters.” This level of unhappiness is unprecedented in a time of ''Peace'' and in a time when our august Financial Institutions keep touting about how it has never been so good for the Human Race. Dr. Célestin Monga in a recent piece characterised the situation thus The Great Discordance ''the planet is filled with rage and anger'' The New Economy of Anger ''Anger and discontent levels around the world are high, despite the fact that most available indicators of political and economic progress are better than they have even been'' Leadership in the c21st has become nationalistic and jingoistic, horizons have been narrowed. President Trump is not John F Kennedy. Xi Jinping is all about Han China. Narendra Modi is all about the Hindutva. Boris is all about Brexit. In Africa, other than the Nobel Prize Winner Abiy, who else is sketching out a horizon? Todays leadership does not appreciate the humanity of all of its Citizens, how can they appreciate the humanity of the World or as Marshall McLuhan once put it “There are no passengers on the Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” Ryszard Kapuściński wrote “Revolution must be distinguished from revolt, coup d’état, palace takeover. A coup or a palace takeover may be planned, but a revolution—never. Its outbreak, the hour of that outbreak, takes everyone, even those who have been striving for it, unawares. They stand amazed at the spontaneity that appears suddenly and destroys everything in its path. It demolishes so ruthlessly that in the end it may annihilate the ideals that called it into being.” This is a Revolution and it is a Global Phenomenon. Ryszard Kapucinski also said: "If the crowd disperses, goes home, does not reassemble, we say the revolution is over." It is not over. More and more People are gathering in the Streets. Unless we are now going to Xinjiang the Whole World [A Million People Are Jailed at China's Gulags. I Managed to Escape. Here's What Really Goes on Inside @haaretzcom “Children are being taken from their parents, who are confined in concentration camps, and being put in Chinese orphanages,” he says. “Women in the camps are receiving inoculations that make them infertile''], the current modus operandi is running on empty.
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@facebook is a publishing platform. It must accept some responsibility for the quality of information it feeds its users @esquire Law & Politics |
It's a Silicon Valley behemoth that has seized on the refusal—or incapability—of lawmakers from both parties to regulate it and stretched its tentacles every which way while accepting little of the responsibility that comes with growing so large and so powerful.
That came to a head in the 2016 election, when the platform became a prime source of political information in America. Outlets and sources that abide by journalistic standards leaned on it to reach customers, which made them dependent on Facebook for web traffic and the advertising revenue that comes with it. (This did not end well.) But actual Fake News sources—like the infamous kids in Macedonia or the Russian disinformation campaign—also saw potential in the platform. One of the top stories of the entire 2016 campaign had the headline, "Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president." Obviously, this did not happen.
Facebook (along with Google) has assumed the role of informational gatekeeper in our society, one formerly held by major news networks and newspapers. Except it has assumed none of the responsibility that comes with that, refusing, in any consistent way, to filter the information served to great masses of people based on quality and accuracy. The result is that the Facebook-using public has been exposed to a firehose of misinformation, including some served up by people trying to undermine our democracy. It is poisoning us.
The basic fact is that Facebook is a publisher pretending not to be so that it can set whatever standards it wants for the quality of information on its platform without consequence. It just so happens these standards happen to value engagement and ad revenue over accuracy. We as a people will have to decide if we enjoy having the body politic poisoned day after day in the interests of Facebook shareholders. We should also decide whether a company as big and monopolistic as Facebook—or Google, or Amazon, or Apple—should be allowed to exist at all.
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26-MAR-2018 :: Sell @Facebook @TheStarKenya Law & Politics |
“We just put information into the bloodstream to the internet and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again over time to watch it take shape. And so this stuff infiltrates the online community and expands but with no branding – so it’s unattributable, untraceable.” “It’s no use fighting elections on the facts; it’s all about emotions.” “So the candidate is the puppet?” the undercover reporter asked. “Always,” replied Nix. In an extraordinary boomerang, The US’ adversaries have turned social media on its head and used it as a ‘’Tro- jan Horse’’ via psychographic profiling and micro-targeting at a mass scale. The fundamental challenge for Facebook is this: It has represented itself as an ‘’Infomediary’’ An infomediary works as a personal agent on behalf of consumers to help them take control over information gathered about them. The concept of the infomediary was first suggested by John Hagel III in the book Net Worth. However, Facebook has been hawking this information as if it were an intermediary. This is its ‘’trust gap’’. That gap is set to widen further. Facebook is facing an existentialist crisis.
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Since his death 44 years ago, Franco's body has reposed inside a vast, imposing basilica in the Valley of the Fallen, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Madrid Law & Politics |
Since his death 44 years ago, Franco's body has reposed inside a vast, imposing basilica in the Valley of the Fallen, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of Madrid, which has long attracted both tourists and rightwing sympathisers. Ahead of the operation, 22 members of the late dictator's family arrived at the site carrying wreathes to witness the exhumation, which began shortly before 11 am (0900 GMT). Justice Minister Dolores Delgado was also on hand to represent the government, but no journalists were allowed in.
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16-SEP-2019: "There's always more to it. This is what history consists of. It is the sum total of the things they aren't telling us." Law & Politics |
Last week was the Anniversary of 9/11 and it is increasingly apparent that More Americans are questioning the Official 9/11 Story As New Evidence contradicts the Official Narrative [MintPress News] The overwhelming evidence presented now demonstrates beyond any doubt that pre-planted explosives and/or incendiaries — not just airplanes and the ensuing fires — caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings, killing the vast majority of the victims who perished that day. The Official Narrative around the assassination of JFK has been similarly debunked. Two great American Writers have touched on this Don DeLillo in his book Libra "There is a world inside the world." "There's always more to it. This is what history consists of. It is the sum total of the things they aren't telling us." Thomas Pynchon in Bleeding Edge “No matter how the official narrative of this turns out," it seemed to Heidi, "these are the places we should be looking, not in newspapers or television but at the margins, graffiti, uncontrolled utterances, bad dreamers who sleep in public and scream in their sleep.”
International Markets
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The Crypto Avocado Millenial Economy World Currencies |
The ''Zeitgeist'' of a time is its defining spirit or its mood. Capturing the ''zeitgeist'' of the Now is not an easy thing because we are living in a dizzyingly fluid moment. Gladwell stated: "Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread like viruses do". My Point is that the Millenials discovered the virtues of Avocado, the behaviour spread like a 'virus' and Boom prices sky-rocketed. The Avocado Price surge is an example of the new c21st Millennial Economy but there are many other examples.
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Tunisia's new president: how memes and viral videos led to a "Robocop" revolution @1843mag Africa |
As the exit polls from the first round of the Tunisian presidential election emerged, a video from 2013 went viral. It showed the inside of a radio studio, its walls shaking as if hit by an earthquake. A journalist clutches the table before backing against the wall to steady himself. There is screaming. But the guest, the newly elected president of Tunisia, Kais Saied, barely flinches. He sits there, stony faced. Then he checks his watch. Such composure when faced with this fake disaster, a hidden camera prank played on a number of Tunisian public figures during Ramadan, made an impression. “They could do that with a thousand politicians and no one would react like Kais,” says Khayreddine Debaya, a 30-year-old engineer and Saied evangelist. The reaction of many viewers was less “you got punked” and more, as Debaya put it, that this was “someone intelligent who reacts quickly and analyses situations”. The cult of “Robocop”, as this charmless populist has become known, grew stronger.
In a prophetic viral video that has 137,000 views, shared on Facebook two days before the second round of voting, Saied’s head is superimposed onto the body of the classic computer-game character Super Mario as he charges his way to victory, jumping on the heads of his rivals and powering up thanks to a magic mushroom captioned “les jeunes” (the young). It wasn't a surprise that in the final round of voting he won 90% of the votes from 18 to 25-year-olds. Taking 73% overall, Saied – not long ago a political outsider – trounced his opponent, Nabil Karoui, a media mogul. He owes a portion of his success to viral videos such as these. Despite his awkwardness and digital illiteracy, or perhaps because of it, Saied has been catapulted to power by a youth movement fuelled by an anarchic grassroots social-media campaign.
Songs from the revolution echoed through the capital when the results dropped. The landslide result was a rejection of Tunisia’s ruling elite and a rebuke to the governments that have led the country since Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the dictator who ruled from 1987 to 2011, was ousted. Since then, governments have failed to deliver meaningful change: corruption is endemic and the economy has faltered. Karoui, who spent much of his election campaign in jail waiting for a verdict in his trial for money laundering and tax evasion, is seen as corrupt and linked to the old regime. Saied, who has no political party, is outside the system. Tunisian flags adorned the main avenue. Fireworks went off and car horns honked. In front of the municipal theatre leftists, Islamists and first-time voters belted out slogans from the 2011 uprising, football chants and the national anthem. The euphoria on the street made up for the lack of joy in Saied’s glassy grey eyes.The 61-year-old, non-partisan, socially conservative law lecturer has become a cult figure among young people in Tunisia. He stands straight as an arrow and speaks his own version of classical Arabic, instead of the usual Tunisian dialect. Though Saied never completed his doctoral thesis, fans refer to him as “the professor”. His frugal campaign and painfully monotonous demeanour add to his aura of incorruptibility. Saied first engaged with politics at the Casbah sit-ins, a mass protest after the revolution which ousted the interim government made up of ministers from the old regime. In the years that followed, he quietly travelled around the country to join protests and youth gatherings, and to chat to people in cafés about his vision of a decentralised Tunisian state. People would often suggest that he run for president.
Even before his electoral success, “Kais Saied” had become online shorthand for moral authority, thanks to his TV interviews about the post-revolution constitution. “You might have a debate between two people and someone will post a picture of Saied to stop the debate and say that he is right,” says Nader Mathlouthi, a blogger in Tunis. Another recent meme consists of photos of Said’s face each labelled with with a different emotion: “happy”, “sad”, “angry” and “high”. Hecham Khabouba, a 19-year-old student, loves him. “Weird people are sometimes cool,” he said.
But the keyboard activists were also serious and organised. Many Facebook groups both secret and open to the public encouraged support for Saied, who doesn’t even have a Facebook account himself (though he says he uses Google sometimes). Kooora Tunisie, which has 229,000 followers, started out as a page for football fans (koora means football in Arabic). The group became politicised at the time of the revolution before being mobilised in support of Saied. Members of The People’s Campaign to Support Kais Saied group, which boasts 34,000 followers, share motivational messages, clips that denigrate his opponents and earnestly Photoshopped images. One shows Kais Saied floating above the Tunis skyline surrounded by a heart drawn in the sky by an aeroplane. The groups also serve a practical function. In one, a post organising car shares to take young people back to the towns where they are registered to vote was shared over 7,000 times by the eve of the election. The scale and power of this online army was demonstrated when a boycott campaign resulted in the Elhiwar Ettounsi TV channel losing 1m followers from its Facebook page in a matter of hours after the owner insulted Saied.
The same digital groups that helped overthrow Ben Ali gave Saied a hand too, says Bader Ben Mansour, a scholar of political communications at the University of Laval. Digital social movements have bolstered radical leaders elsewhere. Online communities and groups set up around Occupy Wall Street have supported one of the candidates for the Democrat presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders. In Spain there was an organic link between the Indignados (anti-austerity) movement online and left-wing Podemos campaign. Though politically they differ greatly, the memes that affectionately mock Saied are evocative of the fandom that developed around the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn among young people in Britain.
Some of Saied’s young supporters are concerned about his socially conservative views. He has opposed the legalisation of homosexuality and equal inheritance rights for women. Debaya, who is also active in human-rights organisations, acknowledges this is a concern. “Kais isn’t perfect and no one represents you 100%,” he says. “It will be our role after the election as activists [to fight for individual rights].” LGBT groups have voiced stronger criticism. Mounir Baatour, who campaigned as Tunisia’s first openly gay presidential candidate and is the founder of the LGBT organisation Shams, has described Saied as a “dangerous person for our community”.
Once in office Saied will have constitutionally limited powers. Most decisions regarding domestic affairs are taken by parliament where he has no party and could easily become isolated. For his detractors and voters for whom the new president was simply the lesser of two evils, this comes as a relief. But his supporters fed up with the establishment are hoping for a revolution.
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January 15, 2011 Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution CS Monitor Africa |
"We are not afraid, we are not afraid, we are afraid only of God," the crowds chanted on Tuesday in Tunis. “In too many places, in too many ways, the region’s foundations are sinking into the sand,” said Secretary Hillary Clinton. “Those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of their countries’ problems for a little while, but not forever, If leaders don’t offer a positive vision and give young people meaningful ways to contribute, others will fill the vacuum.” I recall a friend and an ambassador telling me, "Aly-Khan, the revolution is coming. The question is, can it be managed?" And this Jasmine Revolution will amplify two ways: through the Maghreb and towards the holy cities of Saudi Arabia. The question remains the degree of the amplification. And it would be naive to expect that it might not cross the Sahara and head south. Change is never incremental, it tips and surges John Donne wrote:
"...Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee..."
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Thousands in Guinea march against president's possible third term bid @ReutersAfrica Africa |
Protesters chanted “Amoulanfe” - “It will not happen” in the local Susu language - and “Free the prisoners” on their way to the capital Conakry’s largest stadium. The march was organised by the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC), a coalition of politicians and activists opposed to a constitutional change that could let Conde seek a third term. The peaceful, albeit heavily policed, protests were held in number of cities across the West African country. Guinea, with a population of nearly 13 million, is Africa’s biggest bauxite producer and is host to international mining companies. On Tuesday, twelve FNDC leaders were sentenced to up to a year in prison for organising previous rallies in which nine people were killed. Last week, police opened fire on protesters as they ransacked military posts and blocked roads. “We want him (Conde) to free the jailed leaders before any negotiation happens. Then Alpha needs to say he will not be a candidate,” Algassimou Diallo, who marched in Conakry wearing the rally’s official red colour, told Reuters.
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10 NOV 14 ::Ouagadougou's Signal to Sub-Sahara Africa Africa |
What’s clear is that a very young, very informed and very connected African youth demographic [many characterise this as a ‘demographic dividend’] – which for Beautiful Blaise turned into a demographic terminator – is set to alter the existing equilibrium between the rulers and the subjects, and a re-balancing has begun.
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Frelimo takes no chances Despite claims that the election was won through fraud and violence, the results will stand and strengthen the President's hand @Africa_Conf Africa |
President Filipe Nyusi has won a second and final term of office with the second-largest majority since multi-party elections began in 1994. The election win – which included parliamentary and municipal polls – is tainted by widespread accusations of fraud and unprecedented intimidation prompting fears that the fragile peace accord between the ruling Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo)and opposition Resistencia Nacional Moçambicana (Renamo) could break down. Despite acknowledgement among observers, donors and diplomats that Frelimo's election win is corrupt, there is little prospect that Renamo's appeal for the polls to be annulled will succeed.The final results will be published on 28 October and are expected to confirm President Nyusi won about 70% of the total votes. The figure was only previously topped by his predecessor, Armando Guebuza, who gained 75% in 2005, but it comes against a background of growing anti-Frelimo sentiment among the electorate, especially in the wake of the US$2 billion hidden loans scandal of 2016, a growing violent insurgency in the north, mishandling of the Cyclone Idai emergency and state corruption scandals across the board. The leader of Renamo, Ossufo Momade, came a distant second in the presidential contest with a projected 21% of the vote, and Daviz Simango of the Movimento Democrático de Moçambique (MDM) may gain only 7%, according to preliminary results.
Manipulation on this scale was not necessary in order for Frelimo to win, but the party was leaving nothing to chance and no expense was spared. Disillusioned party members came under heavy pressure to vote. Insiders say more than $40 million was spent on the campaign – far more than the $15m at play during the 2014 campaign. Voters were given cash for their votes all over the country. This was thanks, at least in part, to the completion of the sale of US oil company Anadarko to Occidental Petroleum, which in turn sold on Anadarko's African assets to France's Total, which was announced on 27 September by Nyusi. It brought with it the prospect of an $880m capital gains tax windfall. Frelimo is believed to have used the promise of this new cash to allocate more of the funds of the state to its campaign – a fact Nyusi all but admitted at a rally two days later, when he said the extra funds would boost the election budget because 'democracy costs money'. In reality, the beneficiary was Frelimo.
Nyusi is stronger now too. Internally, he is already seen as having significantly strengthened his grip over the party, and his victory convinced many party members who previously doubted his leadership. He has escaped from the shadow of Guebuza, who was conspicuously absent during the campaign, and has asserted his own control. Such is his transformation from inexperienced managerial figure to shrewd statesman that observers are beginning to see him as now one of the strongest leaders in the Southern African Development Community region. He is driving international deals that he believes are in the country's interests and his own, notably a growing alliance with Russia. Russian mercenaries last month began operations against Islamist insurgents in the north. Nyusi can be expected to return from the Russia-Africa summit in Sochi with more deals and a powerful ally in President Vladimir Putin.
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Zimbabwe Declares Holiday to Protest Against U.S. Sanctions @bpolitics Africa |
Zimbabweans will stay home Friday after their government declared a public holiday, saying people should demonstrate against U.S. sanctions rather than work. Sanctions against some individuals in the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front and businesses associated with them were imposed back in 2003. The U.S. has made periodic amendments to include people the State Department believes are responsible for human-rights abuses or enriching themselves at the country’s expense. The sanctions are “an act of terrorism against Zimbabwe,” said Zanu-PF’s spokesman, Simon Khaya Moyo. Zimbabwe has received more than $3 billion in U.S. aid since 1980 and at least $300 million this year alone, the U.S. Ambassador to Zimbabwe Brian Nichols said in an interview with newspaper publisher Trevor Ncube that was posted on the U.S. embassy’s Twitter page. The U.S. is Zimbabwe’s single-biggest donor. Despite diplomatic tension between the two countries, American aid kept Zimbabweans from starvation after former president Robert Mugabe authorized the often violent seizure of about 90% of all white-owned farms between 2000 and 2012. That cost the country millions of jobs and saw farm exports almost disappear. “Our targeted sanctions are not responsible for Zimbabwe falling tragically short of its potential. The fault lies in the catastrophic mismanagement by those in power and the government’s own abuse of its citizens,” Nichols tweeted Thursday.
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Kenya's Mombasa port to upgrade four berths at 20 bln shillings @ReutersAfrica Africa |
MOMBASA, Kenya, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Kenya’s port of Mombasa will spend 20 billion shillings ($193 million) to modernise four berths to handle both container cargo and goods not packed in containers, the head of the state port operator said. The port, built in 1895, is the main trade gateway for the Eastern Africa region, serving Kenya and seven neighbours, including Uganda, Somalia, Rwanda and South Sudan. The investment is driven by growing demand for imported cargo in the region, where most economies are growing by at least 5% per year, said Daniel Manduku, the managing director of the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA). Exports make up just 15% of the cargo that goes through Mombasa every year, with a third of the total belonging to neighbouring countries, while Kenya, the region’s biggest economy, takes up the lion’s share. Annual cargo traffic through the port is projected to jump to 47 million tonnes in 2025 from 32 million tonnes last year, Manduku said in an interview at the port. “We are currently undertaking major expansion programmes... We are trying to be ahead of the game.” The volume of cargo handled is expected to rise to 34 million tonnes this year, including 1.4 million 20-foot containers. Popular imports include clinker for cement manufacturing, steel, fertiliser and grains. The European Investment Bank and French development agency AFD have offered to finance the modernisation of the berths at commercial rates, Manduku said. “We think it is something we should consider, as opposed to normal commercial bank loans,” he said, adding that work will start in mid-2020. Mombasa port, ranked Africa’s fifth busiest according to the KPA after Morocco’s Tangier Med, Egypt’s Port Said, South Africa’s Durban and Nigeria’s Lagos, wants to rise to number three, Manduku said, without giving a timeframe. KPA is spending an additional 39 billion shillings to build a new oil terminal, to replace its existing facility that dates back to 1968. China Communication Construction Co. is the contractor for the project, which will triple the port’s annual capacity for oil and liquid gas to 1 million tonnes. “The demand for liquid oil is high,” Manduku said, adding the facility could also help with Kenya’s crude oil exports. Britain’s Tullow Oil and partners, including the Kenyan government, are expected to make a final investment decision on crude oil production from fields in the far northern county of Turkana next year. Current investments by KPA are part of a 310 billion shilling ports investment program, aimed at boosting annual capacity to 110 million tonnes by 2040, Manduku said. This includes 55 billion shillings for building three berths at a new port in Lamu on Kenya’s northernmost coastline, close to the Somalia border. Construction is expected to be completed in the next year and 10 foreign firms, including from Singapore and China, have expressed interest in running the new port by leasing it from the government, Manduku said. “We are thinking of giving it to a private sector player on a concession model,” he said.
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06-AUG-2018 :: The Indian Ocean Economy and a Port Race Africa |
Today from Massawa, Eritrea [admittedly on the Red Sea] to Djibouti, from Berbera to Mogadishu, from Lamu to Mombasa to Tanga to Bagamoyo to Dar Es Salaam, through Beira and Maputo all the way to Durban and all points in between we are witnessing a Port race of sorts as everyone seeks to get a piece of the Indian Ocean Port action. China [The BRI initiative], the Gulf Countries [who now appear to see the Horn of Africa as their hinter- land], Japan and India [to a lesser degree] are all jostling for optimal ‘’geo-economic’’ positioning.
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From hotbed of crime to joggers' paradise: Nairobi forest thrives @AFP @YahooNews Africa |
"We would collect dead, dumped bodies. Some were decomposing... others were fresh," said John Chege of his early days policing Nairobi's Karura Forest, back when thieves and murderers outnumbered joggers and dog walkers in the woods. Karura then was the stuff of urban legend, a fearsome place invoked to scare misbehaving children. Chege and his scouts, stumbling on corpses by day, kept white-knuckled vigils by night as they scanned the darkness for intruders. "It was hell," Chege told AFP of his hair-raising first months as Karura's inaugural chief scout, back in 2009 when efforts began to reclaim the forest. "But today we celebrate, because there is nothing of the sort." In the space of 10 years, Karura has gone from a dangerous no man's land to one of Nairobi's safest and most popular destinations, a verdant refuge in a city that has long carried the unfortunate moniker "Nairobbery". Karura is also a symbol against land-grabbing, having been saved from developers to become the world's second-largest forest that is fully within city limits, conservationists say. Kenya's forests are cleared at a rate of 5,000 hectares (12,300 acres) a year, the environment ministry said in 2018. But Karura has survived, even as green spaces are being swallowed by concrete in one of Africa's fastest-growing cities. From zero visitors in 2009, today Karura attracts up to 30,000 nature lovers a month, with 10-year commemorative events planned in October to mark its striking transformation and storied history. For many years, hardly anyone came, said Karanja Njoroge, who chaired Friends of Karura Forest, a community group that co-manages the reserve, from 2011 to 2018. Shaking its reputation was a challenge, even after an electric fence was raised around the perimeter. "Karura Forest in 2009 was a place where no one would even want to be threatened to be taken. It meant either you were going to be killed, or that you were going to be punished," Njoroge said. Chege and his scouts, who were trained by the British army, could not convince nervous joggers they would be safe, and so ran alongside them in khaki fatigues. "Perhaps a visitor wanted to run 10 kilometres? My guy was to run 10 kilometres," he said. Slowly, visitor numbers grew as the criminals were flushed out. A clubhouse, long abandoned because patrons kept getting mugged, reopened its doors. Women felt safe enough to run on their own, Chege said. Local communities were vital in bolstering security. Chege, a former illegal logger, was recruited from Huruma, a slum on Karura's northern fringe. The community used the forest for firewood, and as a rubbish tip and open toilet. Today, they are its custodians, planting saplings, clearing weeds and policing its borders. Karura narrowly escaped destruction in the late 1990s when, crawling with bandits and ravaged by logging, developers gifted parcels of forest to politically connected elites. The upland forest is a developers dream: 1,000 hectares of prime land, straddled by Nairobi's most exclusive suburbs. Wangari Maathai, the late founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement, and the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, rallied church leaders, lawyers and students to Karura's defence. In January 1999, armed thugs attacked Maathai as she tried to plant seedlings in an act of protest, landing her in hospital. The violence made international headlines and outraged a public tired of corrupt elites grabbing state land. The protesters won the day: development was halted. - Green icon - The forest still bears the scars of this violent past. Bald tracts of forest cleared for mansions abut thriving black wattle -- a tree whose growth was spurred by fires from the days protesters burned tractors in defiance, Chege said. But its tranquility is not assured. Other forests, such as Oloolua in Nairobi's south, have suffered from rampant encroachment. Even the city's iconic national wildlife park is being sliced through with a railway whose construction began last year in defiance of a court order. Though Chege worries more about dogs off leashes these days than dealing with dead bodies, a road being widened on Karura's eastern border has raised concerns. Land grabs are not a distant threat. In July, a court ruled against a private company trying to claim 4.3 hectares of Karura. "If everybody who wants to build keeps chipping away, there will be very little left," Njoroge said. Karura persists as a conservation triumph. Native trees are taking back the forest from species introduced by the British to fuel their railway to Uganda, notably eucalyptus trees. Before conservation efforts began, non-native trees, many of them invasive, made up 60 percent of the forest. Eucalyptus in particular inhibit the growth of other plants and monopolise the water supply with their voracious thirst. The forest contains rivers, waterfalls and caves used by anti-colonial rebels. Joggers encounter bushbucks, hornbills and Syke's monkeys. Maathai's daughter, Wanjira Mathai, said her mother would be proud of what Karura has become, "and maybe even surprised at just how much people love it". "She had hoped her children's children -- my generation and our children -- would enjoy this forest, and that's what has come to pass," Mathai told AFP.
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One of north Kenya's largest tuskers, a celebrated African savanna elephant called Matt, has sadly died. @ste_kenya Africa |
One of north Kenya’s largest tuskers, a celebrated African savanna elephant called Matt, has sadly died. Matt, who was aged 52 and one of Kenya’s well-known elephant elders, apparently died from natural causes. During his lifetime he roamed further than any other Kenya elephant tracked by Save the Elephants, nearly circumventing Mount Kenya from Meru all the way to Laikipa, a continuous east to west loop of approximately 245 km. His travels also took him northward across Samburu for a stretch of 220 km. His body was found by the Northern Rangelands Trust 9-1 anti-poaching unit on Monday October 7, and reported to the Kenya Wildlife Service. Measuring 10 feet tall at the shoulder and weighing over 6 tons, Save the Elephants first collared Matt with a GPS tracking collar in 2002 so researchers could monitor and study his behaviour and rangers could protect him from poachers. Matt’s range turned out to span all the way from Meru National Park on the Tana River, through three national reserves including Samburu, and half a dozen community conservancies to the west of the elephants’ range. With his large size and spectacular tusks, Matt survived and thrived during the high risk poaching epidemic a decade ago – a testament to his adaptation and local knowledge. The crisis killed an estimated 100,000 elephants across Africa in just three years, between 2010 and 2012. Matt was no ordinary bull. His curiosity always kept researchers on their toes and he was a master at shredding tracking collars that kept him in the spotlight. Matt’s last collar was fitted in March 2016, and for the next three years (until last week) his position was recorded every hour for his protection and for the collection of important data.
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