A Drop in Fertility? Some observations

from TPMBarnett's website:

this is not a map of actual fertility, but of the drop in fertility rates since 1970.

Zimbabwe's drop is huge: under the white gov't they had an active family planning program, but it was run by an outside funding that used "pill ladies" in every village: usually they were the wives of local school teachers who could talk "woman to woman". Because if the gov't had run it, it would have allowed the Marxist insurgents to claim that family planning was a form of genocide.

I worked at a Catholic hospital, so we were not allowed to give out birth control.
But we did have an active nutrition program that stressed food/eggs/veggies and that moms should breast feed for two years.

Breast feeding is nature's way of spacing children, and in past days, wives who got pregnant too quickly would often lose their newly weaned child from kwashiorkor, since there was not enough protein in the child's diet.

In the past, continence, R rated methods and polygamy would help the woman space their children, but as all the men started working in the mines and cities, they expected sex when they came home on their leave, especially the men who came home to plow the fields and stayed for a few weeks. (Men plowed with oxen, a dangerous animal, for the main crop; women had smaller fields and used hoes to cultivate their own garden, which they controlled).

So we gave out Depo Provera in baby clinic: Depo Provera has a lot of problems in ordinary women (i.e. non nursing women) such as constant bleeding or no period at all. But when given after a delivery, it would prolong the infertility/non ovulation phase that is normal after a pregnancy (i.e. no periods). It also made one put on weight, and did not decrease the amount of breast milk for the baby: indeed, it probably increased it a bit.

So we only to nursing mothers, to increase their breast milk, and prolong post partum amenorrhea (no periods after you give birth). In other words, we gave it out to keep the children fed, and if it stopped pregnancy as a side effect, well, the bishop and nuns looked the other way.

If you didn't have a baby on the bosom, well, there were pill ladies in every village if all you wanted was to stop from getting pregnant.

But anyway,the birth control was not pushed by the government clinics, because no one trusted the government.

The pill ladies were women, usually schoolteacher's wives or shopkeepers who were respected by the ladies. Since most Educated Zimbabweans were also known to be against the Smith government, they were trusted to give you facts to help you, not the hated white run government.

They would talk to you and instruct you how to take the pill. No pap smear or exam: if you had a history of problems, they would send you to us for a checkup, or to the local gov't hospital for a tubal ligation or IUD, and answer your questions about side effects etc.

We didn't have HIV back, and no one had pap smears, so no problem.

African woman, even village women, are fairly independent in these things, so it was ideal. And the husbands? Well, traditional husbands living at home could be reminded of the alternative: No hanky panky until the child was weaned. And those visiting three times a year from their work in cities? Well what they don't know won't hurt them...

There was not a big taboo against birth control in Africa, but there was a desire to have children. Pointing out that spacing children meant healthier, better educated children than losing kids because they came too quickly was the way to encourage smaller families.

There is a course on Population at Yale that discusses how thie "pill lady" approach worked in what the experts thought was the hardest population to reach: pious illiterate Muslim ladies in the villages of Bangladesh. These ladies were subservient to their husband and family, and could not even see the doctor without the husband's permission.

But what mother in law would say "no" to a visit from an esteemed lady teacher or businesswoman?

The pill lady would talk to the woman (with her bossy mother in law sitting in on the session). But the mother in law's presence actually turned out to be a help because (woman to woman, and when the men aren't around), even the most pious women will admits having 12 kids is just too much... so often the result will be that the mother in law would become a partner with the woman and support her choice to limit children even  if her husband objected.

Similarly, when the Mullahs took over Iran, they faced a population boom, and decided to slow it down until the wealth was spread around a bit better. So they encouraged the idea to space children to protect the mother's health and have fewer babies so they could be cared for and educated, as the way a responsible Muslim should act. They even cited the holy writings that insisted a man should care for the health of his wife and family as saying family planning is not just allowed but encouraged in Islam.

Do the mosques with Sunni preachers from Saudi agree with this? I don't know (haven't worked with many Muslims recently).

Maybe those Muslim countries who are having problems convincing the local governments to allow family planning need to import family planning experts from countries that have had successful programs.

However, I do agree with Barnett that in Subsahara Africa and Islamic countries, the appoach to fertility will change as urbanization occurs and globalization changes culture.

I have to laugh at StrategyPage pointing out how the simple cellphone is changing culture in Afghanistan:

the Taliban is hostile to education and cell phones (especially the ones that can access the Internet, and most can). Any Afghan who becomes literate and gets a cell phone soon discovers there is a huge world out there and it is different

or as Spengler of the Asian Times quipped: As soon as Muslim women become literate, they learn to read the instrutions on the birth control pills.

Indeed, if you look at the map, the countries in sub Saharan Africa without drops in fertility tend to be those who have few people per square mile (Namibia), little development (Mali), or chronic problems with civil wars and.or the post civil war lack of civil society (Nigeria, Mozambique, DRC).

But again, the family planning folks will have to work with the culture.

Ann Coulter once quipped the way to get rid of Islamic terrorism was kill the terrorists and convert them all to Christiantiy. Uh, she went a bit far, but her point, that changing culture is needed, is actually the idea behind Bush's war in Iraq and Obama's support of the Arab Spring: to encourage a moderate secular Muslim government, where the "secular" governments tended to be plutocracies or worse.

Now, globalization will change people at the village level in many ways, not just cellphones, TV and the internet. (even Sister Eurphrasia now has a cellphone and Email in her small town in Zimbabwe).

But a lot of the real problem of globalization is culture change, and culture shock: and this often happens when folks leave the clan and villages to go to the city, where they are lost.

Europe went through this a century ago, and see all the wars/revolutions and terrorism it spawned. Yet some Americans, with their limited attention span, think the Middle East/Africa/Asia can do it is a generation, not a century, and not have problems.

This is where religion can help: the problem is which religion? The religion of communism? The religion of Fascism? the religion of Islamic fundamentalism?

Yes, but the dirty little secret is that most Americans don't see that there are other answers.

Why not a religion that fits the culture, strengthens what is lacking, and helps people to live productive lives?
The Sufi version of Islam, with it's emphasis on personal holiness, not rules and dogma, is one answer. The bad news is that no one is spending millions of petrodollars building mosques and madrasses that promote a modern Islam. 

Here is where Christian countries have an advantage.

I used to get mad at all the American protestants "converting" poorly educated Pinoys to become Protestant, until I realized the alternatives was communism...or maybe drugs.


In the "Catholic" Philippines and South America, many city folks tend to be attracted to "born again" churches, which become the replacement for the extended family of the villages, which support people in need with material but also emotional support. Before, if you needed a job or a handout in an emergency, you went to a relative, now you go to a fellow church member...and the preacher also promotes the values of honesty thrift, and hard work along with their theology.
the Philippines,  learning from your protestant neighbor that you don't have to have a lot of babies, and indeed God expects you to only have the children you afford, may be a new idea, but it is one that individual women will welcome. The result will be a lower population in the Philippines no matter how many "RH bills" pass or don't pass the Senate.
Indeed, fertility has dropped from the average of 6 to less than three kids per woman in the Philippines. And one doubts the days of 6 kids per family will come back, even among pious Filipinas,  no matter how often Father preaches about the wonderfulness of children and the evilness of the pill on Sunday.

One small problem that could cause a setback: I fear that Hillary and her PC friends from America will muck up the RH bill passage by linking it with abortion on demand, which is abhored by all and sundry. Nor does the idea of teaching promiscuity in high schools under the guise of HIV prevention, and promoting gay rights, when gays here are accepted if they are quiet about what they do. In other words, if you promote family planning, not as a population measure or as part of a larger American agenda of destroying the countries morals, there would be a better chance of passing the RH bill...

But what about Muslims in  the Middle East ad Sub Sahara Africa?

 Again, I don't know the culture of these various lands, but I suggest instead of importing American or British style "population control", that instead they Iran to send good Muslim Family planning workers to instruct them in the Muslim tradition of limiting fertility for health reasons.

Obama okays child soldiers

the "it's nice to be king" article of the day:

The Washington Post October 27, 2010 headline read, "Obama waiver allows U.S. aid to 4 countries using child soldiers." The ABC news October 5, 2011 headline read, "Obama waives child soldier ban in Yemen and Congo." The Cable, from Foreign Policy.com October 1, 2012 headline read, "Obama waives sanctions on countries that use child soldiers"

isn't the president supposed to enforce the law?

This is about sending aid to the Congo and Yemen to prop up governments that are probably the least worse choices, but it also sends a message that they don't have to change their ways.

China arms Zimbabwe

From StrategyPage:

September 14, 2012:  The African dictatorship of Zimbabwe opened a Chinese built and run military training center. China loaned Zimbabwe $98 million for the construction of the center and the loan will be repaid with diamonds from Chinese operated mines in Zimbabwe. China has supplied the dictatorship in Zimbabwe with weapons and military training in return for economic opportunities. The Zimbabwean government has ruined their economy and the Chinese provide help, with no questions asked. This has been a successful Chinese tactic in Africa, at least with the remaining dictatorships there.

Marriage and custom marriage?

From the BBC:

Poor PM Tsvangirai...one of his girlfriends (who is part of ZANU PF of course) is claiming she is his wife under a "customary marriage" act.

But customary marriage requires family agreement and a payment of lobola (bride price). So what it means is that she slept with him, period, and is now claiming a "common law" marriage.

Ms Tembo, 39, a commodity trader and sister of a Zanu-PF MP, had demanded $15,000 (£9,310) a month in maintenance expenses from the prime minister.
In November, Ms Tembo and Mr Tsvangirai reportedly held a traditional wedding, and Mr Tsvangirai had paid a bride price of several hundred thousand dollars.
Shortly thereafter, Mr Tsvangirai said their relationship had been "irretrievably damaged" after it was "hijacked" by his opponents, including state security agents.

Ah, but if it was a traditional marriage, you don't need a paper to dissolve the marriage, and if she hasn't had a baby, that would be one reason to demand back the bride price....

Miner strike in SA continues

from aljazeerah:

The killing of strikers and the aftermath has gotten zero attention in the US press/TV.

The leader of a major protest by South African platinum miners has called for a national strike in the sector, deepening an industrial crisis that has escalated over the past few months, and spurred violence that left 45 people killed at the Lonmin operated Marikana mine.
Miners from the Anglo American platinum mine (Amplats), joined forces with their colleagues from Marikana at the Blesbok stadium in the heart of the platinum belt near Rustenburg, 100km northwest of Johannesburg on Thursday in a show of solidarity against low wages.

Environmentalists killing Africans since Rachel Carson

Article on the Greatest Man you never heard of:

In 1999, the Atlantic Monthly estimated that Borlaug's efforts, combined with those he trained and equipped, saved the lives of 1 billion human beings.
Shockingly, the Green Revolution was almost entirely funded by developing countries and private charities (notably the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations), rather than by the governments of prosperous nations. At the time, the overwhelming view of academic and political elites in the wealthy countries was that it was already too late.
Biologist Paul Ehrlich's 1968 bestseller "The Population Bomb" typified this attitude. Ehrlich wrote, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over ... Required reading at many colleges, Ehrlich's book stated that it was "a fantasy" that India would "ever" feed itself...
In spite of Ehrlich's claims, Borlaug had India feeding itself within a mere five years of his book release. .... Towards the end of his life, Borlaug was working to institute his agricultural revolution in Africa.
No good deed goes unpunished, so we shouldn't be surprised that Borlaug was attacked by proponents of the trendy new faith of radical environmentalism because Green Revolution farming requires some pesticide and lots of fertilizer. Gregg Easterbrook quotes Borlaug saying the following in the 1990s:
"(Most Western environmentalists) have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists in wealthy nations were trying to deny them these things."
Borlaug was correct: "Environmentalists" and their allies pressured the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, the World Bank and Western governments to drop funding and support for the great humanitarian as he was trying to expand his efforts into Africa. As a result, it is no surprise that the continent is doing the poorest at feeding its people.

---------------------------------------
related item: Greenpeace's Crime Against Humanity.

Greenpeace has openly and aggressively spread misinformation about Golden Rice since it was first invented and has continued to do so at every opportunity. They claim that there are better ways to alleviate vitamin A deficiency, such as vitamin pills and “home gardening”. Yet Greenpeace is doing nothing to implement alternative programs for the millions of victims, claiming the cause of vitamin A deficiency is “poverty”. One might ask if purposefully condemning millions of children to blindness and early death perpetuates poverty rather than alleviating it. Academies of Science around the world endorse the use of biotechnology, including genetic modification, to improve the nutrition and productivity of our food crops. There is zero evidence of any possible harm from these improvements.

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African Union Vs UN Peacekeepers

The UN might give up their ineffective peacekeeping in the Congo and let the African Union do the work.

From StategyPage, whose article is cynically called "we want to help ourselves to your stuff"... 
(referring to Zimbabwe's history of plundering the minerals when they were in the force).

if the AU takes over, it could have long term geopolitical effects...maybe toward a lose African confederation similar to that once proposed by Ghadaffi (but unlike his suggestion, not run by white Arabs of the north)...

but this part of the article is about Zimbabwe:

August 21, 2012: The government responded to critics who argue the Zimbabwe should not be allowed to deploy peacekeeping troops in the Congo. 
The government said that Zimbabwean troops contributed to stability when they deployed into the Congo during the Great Congo War. 
Others remember Zimbabwean participation quite differently. 

The Zimbabwean forces reportedly committed many atrocities and plundered Congolese mineral resources. Zimbabwe sent troops to the Congo in 1998 and only withdrew them in 2001. A UN study found evidence that Zimbabwean Army officers and senior members of Zimbabwe’s governing ZANU-PF party made money by selling and smuggling Congolese resources...

At the time Zimbabwe’s dictator, Robert Mugabe, justified sending troops because he contended the Uganda and Rwanda had invaded the Congo. In 2009, the Angolan government stated that SADC’s Standby Brigade was ready to intervene in the Congo, if asked. SADC has 15 members, Malawi, Angola, Congo, The Republic of Congo, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mauritius, Lesotho, Mozambique, Madagascar, Swaziland, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the Seychelles. (Austin Bay)

Chinese gangsters in Africa

a couple days ago there was an article about Angola deporting Chinese criminals from that country, but I didn't post it for obvious reasons (not Zimbabwe related).

But StrategyPage has this in one of their articles on China: Three problems: spreading guns that encourage violence/crime, chinese criminals, and cheap imports that fall apart or kill locals (while undermining local manufacturing jobs)...

China is also having more problems keeping its arms exports secret. This is not a problem when the weapons go to some dictatorship and stay there. But in Africa, the secret Chinese weapons shipments tend to spread around. The UN has noted that Chinese weapons are increasingly showing up in trouble spots. When captured, the owners of these weapons simply say they got the weapons from some local arms dealers. The dealers are hard to capture, or even identify, but the weapons are obviously of Chinese origin. China denies everything, but that approach is getting old and there are growing demands for international cooperation to investigate and measure this underground Chinese weapons market. 
 
Africa has become a new land of opportunity for adventurous and ambitious Chinese. But this has also attracted Chinese criminal gangs. The Chinese gangsters mainly prey on the growing Chinese populations in Africa, using kidnapping, extortion and robbery to get a share of the new wealth being created by the hard working Chinese migrants. Local governments have a hard time coping with this sort of thing, and in the past year China has offered to send police investigators to find out who the bad guys are and, in cooperation with the local police, arrest and deport these crooks back to China for prosecution. Angola recently arrested and deported 37 Chinese under this program. 
 
Meanwhile, the temptation remains for Chinese gangsters. Goods from China are cheap, if shoddy compared to European or American items. But in Africa low prices are king, and the Chinese know how to play that way. The Chinese also don’t mind the nasty remarks from the locals. Chinese traders have been going abroad, often into hostile environments, for thousands of years. For the Chinese government, these “overseas Chinese” are an economic, diplomatic, and sometimes military, bridgehead into foreign lands. The “overseas Chinese” can be a source of military intelligence, and local knowledge for espionage and other missions. Most Western nations have pulled their diplomatic and intelligence people out rural areas in Africa, losing touch with what’s going on out there. Not so the Chinese, where the Chinese entrepreneurs will go anywhere that appears capable of providing some profit. There are over a million Chinese in Africa now, most of them recent migrants.

Southern Accord

There has been a slow but quiet movement of US special forces into Africa, mostly to help the African Union to fight terror groups in the Somali area, but also to help Uganda to get Kony's group.

But this is the first I've heard them moving in Southern Africa,

Photo from StrategyPage:

U.S. Army and Botswana Defense Force engineers improve an existing pond used for watering livestock and some agricultural needs in a small village near Mkankake Range in Botswana, Aug. 20, 2012. The engineers are participating in Southern Acord 2012, an annual joint exercise to enhance military capabilities and interoperability. The U.S. engineers are assigned to engineers the 631st Engineers Company. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. James D. Sims

and here is an article about the Illinois National Guard's part of these exercizes:

Illinois Army National Guard from Streator, Ill., and their counterparts from the Botswana Defense Force, have been running both static and mobile re-fueling operations at Thebephatswha Air Base, Botswana.

Southern Accord 2012, or SA 12, is an annual combined, joint exercise which brings together U.S. military and Botswana Defense Force, or BDF, personnel to conduct humanitarian assistance/disaster relief operations, peacekeeping operations and aeromedical evacuation to enhance military capabilities and interoperability.

With more than 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel and 2,000 gallons of aviation fuel on the ground, the combined team is responsible for providing fuel for both ground and air assets during the exercise.

and yes, the docs are there too:

THEBEPHATSHWA AIR BASE, Botswana (Aug. 10, 2012) -- Soldiers from the 909th Forward Surgical Team out of Fort Sheridan, Ill., provided medical training to soldiers of the Botswana Defense Force Aug. 2, in The Republic of Botswana, Africa.

 and the Hawaii National Guard are there too, helping teach about helicopters.

these things always make me a bit nervous: no, I don't think anyone is expecting Zimbabwe to attack Botswana, but contingency plans like this allow fast response for mass emergencies, as the presence of a US and Austrailian navy units helped local response after the tsunami (and in several Filipino diseasters)

when you train together, it means you know each other and someone has hands on experience in the area.

and "The area" would,  of course, include South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe....such as the floods two years ago in South Africa.

Kony update

Austin Bay at Strategypage has an update on the search for Kony.

The immense LRA dispersal area is roughly comparable to the state of Texas in size. It slices through five desperately poor nations — the Congo, South Sudan (Juba government), Sudan (Khartoum government), the Central African Republic (CAR) and Uganda. Among these five nations, only Uganda's security forces can reasonably assert that they control their national territory.
Kony maintains hideouts in the territory's most remote regions and uses its size and political divisions to his advantage. He crosses international borders to cover his tracks and create diplomatic complications for pursuing enemies. Remote certainly applies to the southeastern CAR's Chinko River area and Sudan's western Darfur region, the two areas where Ugandan security officials say they believe he is likely hiding....

EU proposes suspending Sanctions

from AlJezeerah:

A credible referendum on Zimbabwe's new constitution will be "an important milestone" toward the suspension of sanctions targeting many leaders and businesses linked to long-time ruler Robert Mugabe, the European Union said.

EU ambassador to Zimbabwe Aldo Dell Ariccia said on Monday in Harare that the 27-nation bloc was encouraged by reforms in Zimbabwe after years of violence and economic turmoil.

Zimbabwe needs to be rewarded to maintain the pace of reforms, but individual travel, banking and business bans imposed in reaction to violations of human and democratic rights will stay in effect at least until after a referendum, he said.

A draft of the new constitution was completed on Friday. It must be put to a vote months before parliamentary and presidential elections proposed for mid-2013.

Single men's hostels in Zim

from the Herald....

One of the ignored reasons for the HIV epidemic in Africa: single men's hostels because they were forbidden to bring their families with them to work in the mines etc.


Of course, since there were no old age pensions, and the land was owned communally, unless a man left his wife to farm the fields, the tribe would take back the fields for another, and leave him high and dry when he retired or was injured.



Now this report says that the hostels are slums with families renting a corner of the room and the gov't is trying to figure out how to make things better.
but of course, Mugabe destroyed 70 thousand homes in his "operation clean out the garbage", including destroying Sister Patricia's HIV clinic, a mosque, and the convent of Sister Winfreda in Queque... under the guise of "slum clearance"..the article doesn't mention this because the Herald is run by the government...

Africa's coming religious wars

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Africa investing in Africa

TPMBarnett links to a WSJ article about the decrease in overseas investments due to the recession, but notes the increase in the number of Africans investing in their own continent.

But the good news of the piece: Africans themselves have picked up a decent portion of the slack, which is quite encouraging.
Total self-sustainable liftoff?  Hardly.  Africa's great hope of the past few years is that rising Asia (and other developing risers) might provide a sustained demand for materials that the West, in its more isolated boom-and-bust cycles of the Cold War, ever could.

key illustration:

Kristof and "ain't it awful" awful reporting

Global Voices on line has an article on Kristof's editorials that stress the bad things about Iran and Africa, without putting these problems into perspective. And of course, it's not just Kristoff.

Kristof's writing about Africa has previously been criticized by several writers and journalists, from Teju Cole–who says that Kristof's activism-journalism and “good heart” do not always allow him to “think constellationally”–to Elliott Prasse-Freeman, who writes eloquently of Kristof's “anti-politics.” More recently, Hamid Dabashi wrote a biting critique of Kristof in Al Jazeera, claiming Kristof relies too heavily on outdated and orientalist clichés.
Now, in response to Kristof's recent article, bloggers from Africa and all over the world are weighing in.
First, Ugandan entrepreneur Teddy Ruge tweeted in response to Kristof's column, sparking Atlantic journalist Max Fisher to ask: “how should the media cover Africa”? Ruge first tweeted:

Those at the microphone telling Africa's story, too vested in their stayed narrative to adapt to a changing continent, risk being obsolete

He adds:

What's really rising in Africa is a bigger chorus of voices set to obfuscate the need for a singularly-focused Western narrator

Africans rescue fellow Africans

I found this interesting factoid while reading about the Somali pirates (since many of those sailors kidnapped are Filipinos, and we have a relative who is a sailor, I keep an eye on the news there).

from StrategyPage:

Soldiers from the TNG (Transitional National Government) raided a pirate base in central Somalia and freed a South African couple who were kidnapped 18 months ago when their sailboat was seized off the Kenyan coast. Pirates have been trying to obtain a high ransom for the couple ever since.

The Mail (SA) has a photo of this couple, which is a SA white woman and her (younger looking) Italian boyfriend.

The article says they don't know if ransom was paid, but here in the Philippines, the Italians alway pay huge amounts of ransom and deny it. (The joke is that the MILF always kidnaps Italian priests because they like Pizza).

On the other hand, the MAIL article doesn't mention the TNG troops.

On the other hand, European and American reporters rarely notice when Africans are doing something like this...

China in Africa investing in land etc.

TPM Barnett also has an essay about a new book and a NYTimes editorial onChina inAfrica.


the book he reviews defends China against charges of neoImperialism, using it's own people instead of local employees, and of course, supporting dictators and corrupt leaders.

Yes, folks someone is shilling for China.

He then adds his opinion:

My take: the more China gets into Africa, the more it enmeshes its interests with the locals, who, in turn, become more demanding of better deals - just like Chinese labor back home. Will it be a nice process? Hardly ever is, judging by history. But an unsurmountable process? Not if China is as highly incentivized regarding back-home stability as Moyo argues here (and I agree).

After ripping African leaders a new one, Moyo ends powerfully with this: With approximately 60 percent of Africa’s population under age 24, foreign investment and job creation are the only forces that can reduce poverty and stave off the sort of political upheaval that has swept the Arab world.

And China’s rush for resources has spawned much-needed trade and investment and created a large market for African exports — a huge benefit for a continent seeking rapid economic growth. No argument from me on that. China is creating connectivity and opportunity - more so than the West right now. The West is still a far bigger player in Africa, but China is the most dynamic agent right now.

Africa's Cheetah generation

From ThomasPMBarrett's(Wikistrat) blog: 
he sites an article in the Economist (UK)

Nifty Economist story on what economist George Ayitteh likes to dub the "cheetah generation" of Africa's business community ...  
Article contrasts serial entrpreneurs (who start company after company in sequence over their lives) with parallel entrepreneurs (who start mini-conglomerates of companies and seek to grow them all synergistically over time). The Economist argues that this is really the way things are unfolding in successful African economies.

 he then adds:

Speaking from experience, I couldn't agree more.  Virtually every deal I'm currently structuring or pursuing in Africa involves these parallel entrepreneurs.  They all seem about 35 and they're all running this cluster of companies that involve them in all manner of adjacent opportunities and economies (most of these clusters extend over several African states).

he links to this TED video:

Human rights abuses continue

From Fides:

Harare (Agenzia Fides) - Rigged elections, limited freedom of speech and press, media censorship or intimidation and attempts to control the activities of civil society and NGOs continue to violate human rights in many countries of the world. In Zimbabwe the situation is particularly serious.  ...


Groups of criminals under the flag ZANU-PF have invaded private property, demolished homes and small markets. For the good of the nation, it is essential that all political protagonists and the security sector follow the directives of the President and immediately suspend such violence, as well as being equally important that President Mugabe insists that the government imposes its guidelines....

Report from Zimbabwe

Sister E writes that the poor rains resulted in a poor harvest, so folks are only eating one meal a day in her area.

From the DallasNews:

AIDS was an inferno burning through sub-Saharan Africa. The American people, led by Bush, checked that fire and saved millions of lives.
People with immune systems badly weakened by HIV were given anti-retroviral drugs that stopped the progression of the disease. Mothers and newborns were given drugs that stopped the transmission of the virus from one generation to the next. Clinics were built. Doctors and nurses and lay workers were trained. A wrenching cultural conversation about sexual practices broadened, fueled by American money promoting abstinence, fidelity and the use of condoms.
“We kept this country from falling off the edge of a cliff,” said Mark Storella, the U.S. ambassador to Zambia. “We’ve saved hundreds of thousands of lives. We’ve assisted over a million orphans. We’ve created a partnership with Zambia that gives us the possibility of walking the path to an AIDS-free generation. This is an enormous achievement.”
Bush remains active in African health. Last September, he launched a new program — dubbed Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon — to tackle cervical and breast cancer among African women. The program has 14 co-sponsors, including the Obama administration.

Falling death rates

Nyankombe sells colorful batiks, purses and other crafts to benefit Mothers without Borders, a charity that looks after orphans. When AIDS tore unchecked through southern Africa, millions of children lost their parents. Nearly one in five children in countries like Malawi and Lesotho were orphaned. In Zambia, it was one in four.
A decade ago, AIDS was killing 630 of every 100,000 Zambians, according to the World Health Organization. That was 100 times the AIDS death rate in the United States.
In neighboring Botswana, the toll was 750 of every 100,000 people. That was four times the rate for the leading cause of death among Texans (heart disease).
In 2001, four in 10 adults in Botswana were infected with HIV. President Mogae went before the United Nations to plead for the life of his country.
“We are threatened with extinction,” he said. “People are dying in chillingly high numbers. It is a crisis of the first magnitude.”
Bush, with bipartisan support from Congress and $15 billion, mobilized the U.S. government with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. In 2008, Congress agreed to provide $38 billion more.
By the time Bush left office, the death rate from AIDS had fallen more than 60 percent in Botswana. There are now 330,000 taking anti-retroviral drugs.
The death rate fell by nearly half in Zambia. There are 418,000 Zambians taking the drugs.

Drought resistant rice

from Oryza:

A Japanese company will develop new nitrogen and water-efficient, and salt resistant, rice varieties for small scale farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) under a new deal with the Nairobi-based African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF).

The joint effort aims to boost rice production in the SSA region, including countries such as Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Ghana and Uganda, where a majority of rice farmers are smallholders of rice fields. According to ATTF executive director nitrogen deficiency and drought are major hurdles in improving rice yields in upland SSA, while salinity is affecting several rice producing regions in Africa.

why Africa is booming

From the Atlantic.

...

Africa, with a population expected to roughly double by mid-century, has become recognized as the world's fastest growing continent. But the less-told story is of Africa's economic rise. In the last decade Africa's overall growth rates have quietly approached those of Asia, and according to projections by the IMF, on average Africa will have the world's fastest growing economy of any continent over the next five years.

Seven of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies are African. The continent is famously resource rich, which has surely helped, but some recent studies suggest that the biggest drivers are far less customary for Africa, and far more encouraging for its future: wholesale and retail commerce, transportation, telecommunications, and manufacturing.

A recent report by the African Development Bank projected that, by 2030, much of Africa will attain lower-middle- and middle-class majorities, and that consumer spending will explode from $680 billion in 2008 to $2.2 trillion. According to McKinsey and Co., Africa already has more middle class consumers than India, which has a larger population. Goldman Sachs recently put out a report, "Africa's Turn," making similar points.

American media have largely failed to pick up on these trends, hewing instead to their long-running traditional narratives of African violence and suffering to the exclusion of most other news....

(headsup Instapundit)

South Africa's Army has problems

StrategyPage has an article discussing the reasons that South Africa's once formidable army has gone weak.

After the 1994 elections, the first to feature participation by all South Africans (not just the whites), the military quickly turned into another form of patronage. The word came down that the military was there to provide jobs for political loyalists of the party in power. These men could be dismissed only if they committed a serious crime (rape, murder, kidnapping) and were otherwise untouchable and increasingly undisciplined. Eventually most of the troops are too old, too sick or too undisciplined to be effective soldiers. The government gets away with this because South African has no neighbors that pose a military threat.

They also have an article on Nigeria's problem with corruption 

On the other  hand, they discuss the good work of Uganda, Kenya, and Burundi troops who work with the African Union peacekeepers HERE.

More trouble in central Africa

from Fides

invia articolo printable version preferiti

Kinshasa (Agenzia Fides) - "The social fabric of the people who lived so far in peace and mutual solidarity is compromised: its members have become enemies to each other, just because a Canadian company in search of gold has come to settle on their land." This is the complaint made by a Congolese citizen Néhémie Bahizire in the document entitled "The curse of gold in Kivu," on the exploitation of gold mines in Twangiza / Luhwinja, about 90 km south of Bukavu, capital of the province of South Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

full article at link

ZANU PF pastors don't want Joshua to visit

from the Zim mail

HARARE - Churches loyal to President Mugabe's Zanu-PF have expressed concern over the planned visit this May by a Nigeria-based prophet, Temitope Balogun Joshua, saying men of God are non-partisan.

HARARE - Churches loyal to President Mugabe's Zanu-PF have expressed concern over the planned visit this May by a Nigeria-based prophet, Temitope Balogun Joshua, saying men of God are non-partisan. The world-acclaimed prophet is supposedly due in Harare this month for prayer meetings at the invitation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Heads of different church denominations affiliated to the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ) are in agreement that the church does not have immigration powers and as such it will not determine whether TB Joshua should visit Zimbabwe or not. They however highlighted that as a church they can only raise concern. The church leaders were speaking at a meeting in Harare to review the constitutional process as well as decide on the church’s role in the process.

more from various bloggers at Global voices on line.

B Joshua's popularity seemed to rise in Zimbabwe after after his prediction that an “aging African leader” would die, with critics of long time ruler President Robert Mugabe concluding that the prophecy was referring to Mugabe. Malawian President Bingu wa Mutarika died shortly afterwards, apparently confirming that indeed TB Joshua is a “prophet.”
Now, social media sites and blogs are on fire ahead of his May 25 Day of Prayer visit.

 the gov't newspaper explains why....

Rev Chimbambo said they would not allow any political party or foreigner to interfere with their operations.
"We were surprised to hear that Prime Minister (Morgan) Tsvangirai wanted him to be the guest speaker on the day of prayer yet the day is for praying and no one should address the crowd," he said.
He said their programme had no link with the prayer rallies PM Tsvangirai and some local pastors had been holding countrywide.

this is ata time when Mnangagwa is trying to take over ZANU PF

China invests in South Sudan

From the BBC:

Officials in South Sudan say China has agreed to loan it $8bn (£4.9bn) for major development projects. A government spokesman said funds would be used to build roads, bridges and telecom networks, and to develop agriculture and hydro-electric power. However, there was no mention of plans to build a new pipeline to export oil from the newly independent state.

China has been a big supporter of Sudan, which has been trying to wrest the oil producing areas from the South, and has gotten away with a lot of various genocides because China stops the UN from interfering too much. This sounds like China is now hedging it's bets...

South Sudan in the news

Strategypage discusses the oil issue in Sudan's war against the now independent Southern Sudan

Arab vs Black African, Muslim vs Christian complications, but it's essntially over who gets the oil revenues, which are badly needed by South Sudan...

musical interlude of the day

Evil

The Kony campaign is a day late and a dollar short, as the saying goes...and a lot of folks are annoyed that these do gooders just noticed the fight, and some think they are cashing in on it (while libeling the good things going on in Uganda). LINK

Yes, charities are good, but the old suggestion not to sound a trumpet to attract attention to your good deeds is still important today...

-----------------------------
the good part of the Kony campaign, however, is that many westerners will become aware of the plight of child soldiers.

Rehabilitating children who learned to fight at a young age is difficult (they learn that they can do anything or steal anything because they have a gun; they now have to be retrained to obey the basic laws of society: no stealing, no raping, no killing).

Another part of the rehabilitation is training them for a new job, so that they can support themselves. This includes the young women, who often got pregnant. Having a baby out of wedlock is not a big thing in Bantu society, but in Somalia and other strict Muslim societies, they are at risk for being ostracized.

This, however, assumes young teenagers recruited who agree to fight (often for food, or for adventure, or maybe even because they believe in the cause).

The real problem is when


The activists who are pushing gay rights on Africa (including the Obama adminstration), assumes this would occur in culture with a western style of individualism and freedom...

But the activists not only misunderstand the extended culture of African society, the destruction of the African family by colonialism, and the high rate of abuse, especially in lands which have been affected by civil wars......hint: it's not your hairdresser or the gay bar down the street they are worried about...check UKGuardian report.

It's not just child soldiers: remember the street kids are vulnerable to such things too...and not just in Africa...link

when I was considering adoption, we were cautioned to assume that all older girls and half of older boys probably had been sexually abused, and to remember that when they became teenagers and started acting out.
---------------------------

Zimbabwe

bbc series on the lost Kingdoms of Africa.

This one is Zimbabwe, but the series includes Nubia, Ethiopia and other medieval/precolonial kingdoms of Africa.

Africa's quiet revolution

From the Atlantic:

The poverty mafia once controlled the development debate in Africa. No longer.

The old approach was about how to prevent Africa from getting poorer. All development goals were essentially negative, as experts wallowed in risk-aversion and promoted various doomsday scenarios of an Africa with a rapidly growing population.

The new thinking on development is to share Africa's wealth more equitably. That's right: Africa's wealth...In the ten years from 2000 to 2010, six of the world's ten fastest-growing countries were in sub-Saharan Africa: Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique, and Rwanda. In eight of the past ten years, sub-Saharan Africa has grown faster than Asia, according to The Economist. In 2012, the International Monetary Fund expects Africa to grow at a rate of 6%, about the same as Asia..

.

one of the reasons for the change: Cellphones...

Eden shmeden

Lolo likes nature films and there were several recently on Madagascar.

PBS MADAGASCAR EDEN

yes, but when there is a high rate of childhood malnutrition, how can one say it is "eden"?

Right now, there has been a little reported cyclone that has devestated much of that Island.

(49 news articles on the cyclone, 118 on the "world's smartest chameleon").

Congratulations Zambia

sometimes the underdogs DO win

Guess who owns Zim's diamond mines

from the UKTelegraph

A Zimbabwean diamond field said to be the largest in the world is being mined by companies staffed by Robert Mugabe's police and military chiefs who may use the proceeds to crack down on opposition supporters, Global Witness has warned.

..

"There is a real risk of these revenues being used to finance violence during a future election."

Military chiefs, many of whom fought under Robert Mugabe in the independence war, have already made clear that they will not allow an MDC victory.

Global Witness is appealing to the Southern African Development Community, charged with keeping the peace in Zimbabwe, to push for the cancellation of the mining contracts and greater transparency in future.

"Zimbabwe desperately needs these diamond revenues for health, education and the refinancing of its banks," said Nick Donovan, the Global Witness researcher who compiled the report. "It does not need it to be spent on AK47s or the repression of its people."

When anti African bigotry is okay

when is it okay to present Africans as ignorant sexually promiscuous cynics? When the PC want to bash the religion of a pious person seeking the US presidency.

From Zenit news:

The story is ostensibly about two young Mormon missionaries sent to Uganda to share their scripture. The villagers are uninterested as their lives are consumed by poverty, famine and AIDS. When the local warlord plots to mutilate the women of the village, however, the villagers decide to feign conversion so as to flee. When they go for instruction from the Mormons they encounter an especially ignorant missionary who makes up his own revelation from snippets of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. When the ruse is discovered, all conclude that religion is better when taken as a metaphor instead of literally.

My first red flag went up with the portrayal of the Ugandans, seen as virtually illiterate, and enslaved by their sexual instincts. I don't know what a Ugandan would make of being presented as almost bestial in his desires and with a vocabulary limited to profanity. (In the show, all but one of the 75 instances of foul language are uttered by the Ugandans.)

Furthermore, the story presumes that female genital mutilation is a normal practice despite the fact that Uganda outlawed the practice in 2009, blazing the trail for other African nations. And although the plot supposes that the overwhelming majority of Ugandans are infected with the AIDS virus, Uganda has been the most successful battleground against AIDS with its "ABC" policy, of Abstinence, "Be faithful," and Condoms, with the latter seen as a last resort. Thanks to this program HIV has declined dramatically in Uganda, and between 1991 and 2007, HIV infection rates dropped by more than 50%.

Uganda's rate of Female genital mutilation is less than ten percent, and it's HIV rate is 6 percent of the adult population.
Uganda is, of course, a majority Christian land,

Nigerian wars

Long report on what's really going on there at Strategypage

Typhoid cases surge in Zimbabwe

from AlJezeerah

video

Zimbabwean health officials have called for an overhaul of the country's water and sanitation systems amid an outbreak of typhoid that has affected more than 1,500 people.

Henry Madzorera, Zimbabwe's health minister, said the country is reporting up to 50 cases of typhoid a day.

"By the end of December 2011, more than 1,500 cases had been seen and treated," Madzorera told a news conference in the capital, Harare, on Tuesday....

Madzorera appealed to his government for funds to "refurbish the water, sanitation and sewerage infrastructure as a matter of urgency", after years of neglect during the country's recent economic crisis.

Last week, Tendai Biti, Zimbabwe's foreign minister, announced the country would use $40m from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to refurbish water and sanitation facilities.

Some suburbs go for weeks without running water, as Zimbabwean municipalities battle to keep up services.

Harare city authorities say they cannot supply water to all the city's residents.

China and Africa

A snip from a longer article on Strategypage about China's Sudan dilemma.

The savvy 21st century Chinese oil and ore buyers, taking a trick from Mao Zedong's Cold War appeal to Third World nations, portray themselves as being different from 19th century European imperialists who colonized Africa.

Beijing's empire builders are hands-off fellows, and their doctrine is "non-interference." Local politics aren't their problem. They are pure customers.

Oh, Beijing will help the sovereigns and independents build infrastructure to mine and ship the resources, though (to ensure quality of course) they want Chinese companies to do the work, not locals. That's the gist of a $10 billion deal China cut with the Democratic Republic of Congo, to the chagrin of many Congolese workers. China will also sell the sovereigns weapons, to deal with rebels who threaten resources, even if the sovereigns are genocidal thugs.

BBC report on the Mujuru fire

LINK

An inquest into Zimbabwean ex-military chief Solomon Mujuru's death has been told an on-duty policeman was asleep when the fire that killed him started.

After waking, the policeman said he was unable get help as his phone had run out of credit and his radio was faulty.

The inquest also heard that when the fire-brigade arrived at the farm, it had no water to extinguish the blaze.

Gen Mujuru was one of Zimbabwe's most senior politicians and married to Vice-President Joice Mujuru.

and then there is this:

At the time of his death, he was believed to have been pushing for leadership renewal within Zanu-PF.

He was the only person believed to have had the stature to challenge Mr Mugabe during party meetings, our correspondent says.

Media freedom in Zimbabwe

article at the African Executive

compares media freedom in Ghana to the lack of it in Zimbabwe

Witchcraft

A good article on witchcraft in Africa at the African executive

In this African witchcraft universe, every existential challenge – death, hunger, accidents, disease, conflict and poverty, among others, are attributed to witchcraft. There is no human agency responsible for glitches. Witchcraft is responsible for all problems. Witchcraft beliefs are so dominant that they decide the African’s fortune, asphyxiate him and renders him helpless. How bizarre and troubling! ...

,

the African is nurtured into such inexplicable witchcraft beliefs by certain parts of the African culture. It feeds into the African’s strong believes in evil spirits, demons, witches, juju and other malevolent forces as responsible for life’s difficulties. The African isn’t accountable for his or her actions.

Such predicaments reveal the battle between rationality/human agency and irrationality in the soul of the African. The African appears helpless under this bizarre battle. There are two possibilities: 1. The believer in witchcraft does not question why witchcraft is responsible for life’s tribulations. 2. The witchcraft believer acts under not only the cultural circumstances but also his or her human agency. In such frame of mind, the witchcraft believer is guilty of atrocities committed against victims of witchcraft accusation and not witches influencing circumstances.

OF course, western societies who killed millions shouldn't point fingers.

The "victims" of communism (Kulaks, Ukrainians, "hoarders", "Old thought people") or those exploited and left to starve (e.g. Ireland) because Malthus said they were overbreeding and inefficient, or those "inferior gene pool" (the Jews, the Gypsies, the Slavs, the retarded) types killed by the Nazis were also victims of a secular type of witchcraft....

Africa Unleashed

I don't remember if I posted this awhile back. It's from Foreign policy magazine.

What is less well known is that Africa's prospects have changed radically over the past decade or so. Across the continent, economic growth rates (in per capita terms) have been positive since the late 1990s. And it is not just the economy that has seen rapid improvement: in the 1990s, the majority of African countries held multiparty elections for the first time since the heady postindependence 1960s, and the extent of civic and media freedom on the continent today is unprecedented. Even though Africa's economic growth rates still fall far short of Asia's stratospheric levels, the steady progress that most African countries have experienced has come as welcome news after decades of despair. But that progress raises a critical question: what happened?...

long article explains what happened.

In Radelet's view, five main factors have conspired to turn Africa around. Expanding democratization has opened up governments, bolstering popular accountability. Improved economic policies have curbed the worst tax and regulatory policies that had plagued African households and investors. Debt reduction has freed up resources for education and health care. New technologies (most notably the ubiquitous cell phone) have boosted Africans' access to markets. And the rise of a new generation of energetic leaders, the so-called cheetah generation (in the evocative terminology of the Ghanaian scholar George Ayittey), has brought new ideas and attitudes to the fore.

and presumably China has a role in the upswing of capitalism..

from "Making it" magazine: the investments are small but growing.

but so far, China is importing raw material and exporting manufactured goods....

Stystem D: Entrepeneurs in Africa

ForeignPolicy magazine has an interesting article about how small entrepeneurs get around a lot of regulations and improve the lot of people.

The growth of System D presents a series of challenges to the norms of economics, business, and governance -- for it has traditionally existed outside the framework of trade agreements, labor laws, copyright protections, product safety regulations, antipollution legislation, and a host of other political, social, and environmental policies. Yet there's plenty that's positive, too. In Africa, many cities -- Lagos, Nigeria, is a good example -- have been propelled into the modern era through System D, because legal businesses don't find enough profit in bringing cutting- edge products to the third world. China has, in part, become the world's manufacturing and trading center because it has been willing to engage System D trade.

In the US, this used to be the way to make jobs, but the government, in it's search to regulate everything, is busy destroying the small business owner.

Volcano photos from the Congo

check Wired blog for photos and report.

Islamicists undermining African prosperity

a long article in Reuters explaining why the terrorists are trying to destroy Africa to set up religious dictatorships.

however, they link Kenya and Nigeria as examples, even though their problems are different.

In Nigeria, the failure of the northern tribes to get an education means they are poorer, and their terrorists oppose modern education. Since Christians educate, they are the ones being killed (and when they retaliate the press says "sectarian conflict to minimize the one sided war, similar to how the press ignores the attacks and fleeing of Christian villagers here in the Philippines when they are attacked).

But it goes beyond religion: it is tribal and also a conflict between the agricultural tribes of the south and the herders of the north, of the Sahel.

in Kenya, it is a blowback from the Somalian civil war. (Kenya's tribal problems are not part of this, since the terror is from Somalian tribes). I don't see Luo terrorists, for example, complaining they are kept out of the gov't.

peacekeeping in Africa

long article about what the US will do and why at Strategypage.

AFRICOM sees its mission as aiding African armed forces with training, advice and small grants of weapons and equipment. But Congress is aware that, in the past, small numbers of professional troops have gone in and quickly eliminated outfits like LRA. For example, in 2005, Britain sent in a few hundred commandos to shut down some holdout rebel groups in Sierra Leone. That worked. But the U.S. Army is reluctant to divert any of its counter-terrorism forces for an African pacification mission. Such an operation would require a lot of aircraft support, and other troops to establish bases. Instead, the hunt for Kony will be assisted, not carried out, by AFRICOM.

Long term strategy for Africa

from Time argues that the long term plan of President Obama sending troops in to get the LPA is to stablize an unstable Africa

No direct threat to cite here, and no linkages to transnational terrorism, so this is a pure humanitarian/regional stability play - exactly what Africom was initially sold as doing. Lately, Africom's focus has shifted dramatically to killing bad actors as part of the long war against violent extremism, so this is a good image-enhancing move already being applauded by human rights groups. Nobody likes the LRA. They're essentially an insurgency that outlived the civil war and they've been doing their crimes for so long that they don't know how to stop, so the key here will be crafting some exit strategy for the rank and file while separating the leadership for prosecution. The longtime leader, Joseph Kony, is a true nutcase.

The nice upside of this move: it has Africom working with militaries and governments in Uganda, the D.R. Congo, Central African Republic, and fledgling state South Sudan - all states in real need of military mentoring. So this is the right subject, right sort of states, and helping in the way Africom was designed to work. It's a nice move by the Obama administration that speaks to the reality that a lot of this work still needs to be done across Africa. China won't do it, so it's us or nobody

.

US troops to Uganda: backstory

strategypage summarizes who is the LRA and who is supporting them. LINK

Some of this I didn't know (e.g. Sudan's use of them to stop Uganda from helping Southern Sudan).

In 1999, Sudan and Uganda agreed to end support for rebel organizations (ie, the LRA in Sudan's case, the southern Sudanese rebels in Uganda's case). Khartoum let Ugandan forces pursue the LRA into its territory.

Since 2003, the LRA has diminished in size, shrinking from several thousand fighters to a remnant band of some 200. Its ferocity, however, has not diminished, nor its capacity for bloodshed, nor its potential usefulness to Khartoum.

The Ugandan government has accused Khartoum of continuing to secretly provide support for Kony, though no one has publicly produced hard evidence of Sudanese complicity. Yet Kony has shown an uncanny ability to evade capture. That suggests he has high-level intelligence sources. Khartoum is a terrorist facilitator waging a genocidal war in its own Darfur region. South Sudan has repeatedly accused Sudan of inciting tribal wars with the goal of making South Sudan a failed state. The LRA's continuing existence contributes to South Sudan's instability.

Uganda may possibly have new intelligence regarding Kony's precise whereabouts. This would make an American-supported effort to end Kony's career quite timely. Removing the LRA scourge will improve security conditions in Congo's northeastern provinces and South Sudan. It will also remind Khartoum's leaders that fomenting chaos has consequences. Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, faces International Criminal Court war crimes charges for atrocities committed in Darfur. Kony's arrest might provide Bashir with a sudden dose of sobriety.

US sends soldiers to fight the LRA in Uganda

a lot of Republicans in the US are rolling their eyes up in mockery at the report that President Obama plans to send in US troops to fight the so called "Lord's Resistance army" in Uganda.

I'm pleased that he plans to do so.

This group is a very nasty violence filled cult (can you say "demonic" cult in today's world? that would describe their violent actions, rape, murder and turning kidnapped children into soldiers).

BBC report here.

what is being sent in is not "combat troops" but soldiers with expertise in finding the bad guys.

The force will use hi-tech equipment to assist in what analysts say is a "kill or capture" policy, the BBC's Marcus George in Washington reports

.

That is the same way that the US is helping us here in the Philippines to help the Abus and other terrorist offshoots of the MILF (who are fighting for their own land and ironically have cooperated with the US and AFP to catch these guys, whose tactics often kill fellow Muslims).

Lots of new techniques to find the bad guys were used in Afghanistan and Iraq: but in Afghanistan, it is easier to send in a drone and kill them. In the Philippines, they send in the local troops to find and catch them. (Local law forbids Americans from firing weapons, although there are rumors by human rights groups that in a few cases that they have pulled out guns to protect themselves).

So I am happy.

But, as Senator McCain pointed out, the president again bypassed congress in this decision, and it will not please congress, who is after all the only ones allowed to okay a war and holds the purse strings.

One reason the President is in trouble in the US is similar one sided arrogant actions in the past, which he could get away with when he had his own party in charge of congress, but will not help him with the present divided congress, who may ask nasty questions.

What kind of nasty questions?

well, I figure that there are three reasons that the president decided at this time to send in the help.

ONE: To help an ally. After all, Uganda has sent troops to Somalia (and in this interesting article, as private security guards to Iraq...hmmm...wonder how many Pinoys are there too)...

Showing a "quid pro quo" here isn't a problem for most folks, although saying it that way is not very diplomatic.

Two: To be able to say we fight ALL terrorists, not just Islamicists inspired ones.

and the real reason a lot of folks will be sceptical:

Three: it's election year, and every war helps the one in office.

Rowan hand Mugabe a nasty letter

from the BBC:

Abuses detailed in the dossier given to Mr Mugabe included:

• Zimbabwean bishops had received death threats by phone, in person and at gun point
• Access to to churches, schools, clinics and mission stations had been denied
• Police had tear-gassed and beaten congregations
• An Anglican Church member had been murdered after refusing to join Dr Kunonga's Church
• Clinics had been told they could not accept donated drugs - leading to deaths when drugs were rejected
• Priests had been evicted from their rectories

Anglicans accuse Mr Mugabe of helping Nolbert Kunonga, the former bishop of Harare dismissed by Dr Williams, to carry out assaults on them.

Liberia

Two African women from Liberia won the Nobel peace prize.

I was in Liberia before the first civil war broke out. It was a corrupt oligarchy, where the American-Liberians ran the place, and locals had little power or money.

I left/was thrown out just before the first civil war started there. (visa problems, and it was easier to return to the US and get a new visa than try to bribe folks to update it there). Two days later, they started an uprising, killed the president, and were shooting looters in front of the Hilton, where I used to disco dance. So I stayed safe at home, and wasn't there several months later when the US Marines had to evacuate all US citizens in August.

There was a terrible civil war, followed by "peace" when Charles Taylor "won" the election. This was followed by a second civil war, which is where the women played an active role in establishing peace.

Film: Pray the Devil Back to Hell.
Plot

A group of ordinary women in Liberia, led by Leymah Gbowee, came together to pray for peace. Armed only with white T-shirts and the courage of their convictions, they demanded a resolution to the country’s civil war.^[5]

Under Leymah Gbowee's leadership, the women managed to force a meeting with President Charles Taylor and extract a promise from him to attend peace talks in Ghana. Gbowee then led a delegation of Liberian women to Ghana to continue to apply pressure on the warring factions during the peace process.^[6] They staged a silent protest outside of the Presidential Palace, Accra, bringing about an agreement during the stalled peace talks.

Asatu Bah Kenneth is featured in the film. She is currently Assistant Minister for Administration and Public Safety of the Liberian Ministry of Justice.^[7] At the time, she was president of the Liberia Female Law Enforcement Association, and inspired by the work of the Christian women's peace initiative, she formed the Liberian Muslim Women's Organization to work for peace.^[8]

Working together, over 3,000 Christian and Muslim women mobilized their efforts, and as a result, the women were able to achieve peace in Liberia after a 14-year civil war and helped bring to power the country's first female head of state.

of course, it was a bit more complicated than that. God got a little help from the US Marines:

From Wikipedia:

On August 14, Rebels lifted their siege of Liberia's capital and 200 American troops landed to support a West African peace force. Thousands of people danced and sang as American Marines and ECOMIL, the Nigerian-led West African troops, took over the port and bridges which had split the capital into government and rebel-held zones.[1]

more information HERE. The US troops were the pathfinders, helping with logistics to stablize the country with the help of African peacekeepers.

So Blame Bush for ending the war, because without the Marines and US logistics and support, the local peacekeepers would not have succeeded.

The real role of the women was that they established the infrastructure for a civilian resumption of the government. But that job is a lot harder and messier than the summaries suggest.

So the women do deserve their peace prize.

Whether or not it will help Mrs. Johnson to win reelection however is another story. More on her HERE and HERE.

she is running against a Tubman, which means a grandson of a previous AmeriLiberian president.

She herself is both, since both her indigneous father and mother were adopted and raised by AmeriLiberian family she is would have links with both the patricians and the hoipolloi....and she worked for the Tolbert government (the AmeriLiberian one that was thrown out by Sargent Doe). After that, she worked a lot for think tanks. So she has ties with the elites of the world.

AlJezeerah's report here.

"A win for Johnson-Sirleaf will come as no surprise," he says. "It would be a win for the West, a win for many Liberians and a win for the international investor community. Only time will tell if it turns out to be a win for the poor, the disillusioned and the hungry."

Gberie suggests that it is ultimately these distinct economic and ethnic fault lines that will dictate the course of the election. "The key issue in Liberia, I think, is the gap between Monrovia and the rest of the country. Educated Liberians tend to play this down, but most educated Liberians don't make an effort to understand rural Liberia - the anxieties, hardships, struggles of the rural poor," he says. "Even so-called natives who grew up in Monrovia and are educated hardly speak the native languages. It is the only country in West Africa where you find this kind of thing. [It is] rather bewildering and this cannot help [with closing] the gap between Monrovia and rural Liberia."

a lot of this sounds like the Philippines, where the elites and clan leaders run the place, but we can chose between the clan leaders.

Despite the drawbacks of poor institutions, rampant corruption and divisions along social and ethnic lines, upon being elected six years ago, Johnson-Sirleaf invited rival political parties and civil society into her cabinet and pushed for social cohesion. She has been credited with diversifying her cabinet and appointing women to key ministerial positions, including finance, foreign affairs and commerce and industry, as well as ambassadors to postings like Germany, South Africa and Scandinavia.

Moreover, she is seen to have advanced greater transparency and freedom of speech, while reducing political persecution and, through the support of the US, arranging the cancellation of billions of dollars of foreign debt.

Ajiyi says that even her critics have lauded her attempts to establish stability, whether through infrastructural development or regular salaries.

"She seems to have laid the foundations of governance to build on. Liberia needs foreign direct investment from the rich West, and if they, the rich West have already expressed that they would rather do business with Johnson-Sirleaf then technically, in a strange but real way, it is in Liberia's interest that she wins," Ayo Johnson says.

African peace prize

I worked in Liberia and left in a hurry when it fell apart (I was actually deported but that's another story).

But I haven't followed the war there, mainly because until the internet got going and was available in the rural US clinics where I worked (which was about 1998) I rarely had access to decent news, and such things are not followed by the US newspapers/TV. Yes, I did have shortwave for the BBC but not the time to listen every day.

So the news of the Nobel peace prize being given to two Liberian women including their president is good news.

But GetReligion Blog has a backstory ignored by the clueless press, about their religious inspiration.

(GetReligion gets it's name from the quip that the US reporters don't "get" religion, i.e. understand how religion is seen and practiced by ordinary folks in the US. It is part of our press bias against the ordinary American by the elites who run our institutions).

Their report HERE.

BBC report on witchcraft

LINK

if an African witchdoctor arranged to kill a child so a rich businessman could be successful, or be cured from HIV, it is terrible.

But the west doesn't think it's wrong if a woman goes to an abortionist and kills her child so she can be successful (e.g. not drop out of school, not be burdened with a child) or if a man pressures his lover to abort (because he is too greedy to pay child support) so he too can be richer.

The Devil is behind both types of killing.

Dambisa Moyo has a new book

via Booker Rising:

. However, Penguin Books has announced her next book, Winner Take All: The Race For The World's Resources: "Winner Take All represents the penetrating research Dambisa Moyo has conducted to uncover the realities behind the numbers. By looking at the developing trends in our commodities markets, and recent geo-political shifts, she has revealed the true state of the contemporary world and the shape it will take over the coming decades. This is not just about oil. Commodities permeate virtually every aspect of the modern world: from the energy complexes that power transport and the electricity grid, to the water needed for all life. From land for food production to the long list of minerals without which technology ceases to exist. What Moyo shows is we are in the middle of unprecedented times. She details how China has embarked on one of the greatest commodity rushes in history and examines the effects this is having on us all. Where is China taking control of land and water? Who is giving up their title to these precious resources? What will be the financial and geopolitical effect of all this? And is large-scale resource conflict inevitable or avoidable?"

Remembering Wangari Maathai of the Greenbelt movement

NYTimes obituary

Dr. Maathai, one of the most widely respected women on the continent, played many roles — environmentalist, feminist, politician, professor, rabble-rouser, human rights advocate and head of the Green Belt Movement, which she founded in 1977. Its mission was to plant trees across Kenya to fight erosion and to create firewood for fuel and jobs for women.

GetReligionBlog notes the religious inspiration behind her work:

And Dr.E at PersianParadox discusses meeting her (Dr. E also works on ecological preservation)

Learning to grow Rice

I have neglected this blog since I haven't had the time or energy to keep up on the news in Zimbabwe.

But I will keep posting various news items that have to do with development.

For example, this is from Oryza, a website for the rice industry:

Twenty-five African agriculture extension workers have been training in the Philippines for the duration of the rice season. It's left them with the confidence to help increase the rice yields in their countries two-three times over. The head of the extension group says the group will return home to teach farmers there about technologies and practical experience gained in the Philippines. The participants were given training on the “PalayCheck” and “Palayamanan” systems at PhilRice farms and lecture areas and in six rain-fed areas. PalayCheck is an integrated crop management system for rice while Palayamanan is a diversified rice-based farming system. At least 75 agronomists, researchers and agriculture technicians from 10 more African countries are scheduled to train on rice farming in the Philippines in the next two years, PhilRice officials said. In Uganda, for example, rice farmers yield 1.5-2.5 tons per hectare. With a production area of only 95,000 hectares and increasing demand, Uganda imports an average of 45,000 tons of rice yearly. Most Ugandan farmers are using the New Rice for Africa (Nerica) in favor of traditional varieties that yield lower harvests.

yes, I know: Zimbabwe doesn't have the rain to grow rice...however, with irrigation they could do it.

Libya's New Racism

via Migrant Rights org.

...black African migrants have been the target of attacks by anti-Gaddafi forces on suspicion of being mercenaries for the regime since the conflict in Libya began. recent reports suggest that the danger for migrants from Subsaharan African countries has intensified since the Gaddafi regime lost control of Tripoli, with rebels turning their wrath against those suspected of being mercenaries. Dozens of migrants are being held in a prison in the Suq al Jouma neighbourhood of Tripoli, according to the New York Times and Time magazine... but the line between regime soldier and dark-skinned southerner or migrant worker has become blurred in the midst of the conflict, writes Time‘s Abigail Hauslohner in Tripoli.

Hauslohner visits a camp outside Tripoli and examines the background in depth:

The displaced mostly hail from countries across West Africa, like Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone. Many have lived in Libya for years — even decades — and carry the legal papers to prove it. Their presence is rooted in Gaddafi’s legacy of fostering close relationships with fellow African regimes and recruiting loyalists from among their citizens. But for a man who often sought to portray himself as a leader of the continent, Gaddafi may have done more to divide his country’s future than to encourage tolerance and respect.

It’s popular knowledge among the predominantly Arab and Berber rebel ranks here that Gaddafi funded questionable African warlords and armies, even as his own population struggled. And at his home in Tripoli’s Bab al-Aziziyah compound, rebels hold up old pictures of Gaddafi posing with African children dressed in fatigues as further evidence of their former ruler’s betrayal.

His alleged mercenaries — particularly the men who populated the fearsome Khamis Brigade, which was used to assault the rebels over the course of their six-month revolt — often came from the southern town of Sabha or the neighboring countries of Mali, Niger and Chad. The foreigners were alleged to receive benefits and even fast-track residency in exchange for their services as loyalists and fighters — a practice, whether real or exaggerated, that has fueled deep tribal, ethnic and geographic mistrust.

China scooping up Congo's minerals

From StrategyPage

August 16, 2011: Complaints from the Congo are growing about the U.S. legislation intended to stop illegal mineral sales. The Dodd-Frank bill (also called the Obama Law) has a clause that prohibits the sale of so-called conflict minerals may have been well-intentioned but it was not well-thought out. Rather than run the risk of buying any minerals that might have been smuggled from the Congo, many major mining companies are simply refusing to buy minerals from central Africa. The result is a de facto embargo. There are few buyers for Congo’s valuable minerals, especially tantalum and tungsten which have many hi-tech uses. This has damaged the Congo’s economy, because the nation relies on mineral exports. According to some sources, China, which does not have to meet Dodd-Frank standards, is snapping up many minerals at very cheap prices.

FAO report on African land grabs

link

Large-scale acquisitions of farmland in Africa, Latin America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia have made headlines in a flurry of media reports across the world. Yet international land deals and their impacts still remain little understood. This report is a step towards filling this gap. The outcome of a collaboration between IIED, FAO and IFAD, the report discusses key trends and drivers in land acquisitions, the contractual arrangements underpinning them and the way these are negotiated, and the early impacts on land access for rural people in recipient countries – with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa.

India to invest in African land

From Oryza:

Africa’s “land grab” continues with India agribusiness set to spend $2.5 billion to buy or rent land for decades in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda to grow palm oil, maize, cotton, rice, and vegetables, mostly for the domestic Indian market and global markets under several deals being discussed. Some land is being offered for decade-long leases at just $1.50 per hectare or about 60 cents per acre. Investors point out that east Africa has as much arable land as all of India...

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), a division of the UN, notes that “new international players, including the governments and some companies of the Gulf States, China, Libya, India and South Korea, have begun to acquire land, partly in response to the 2007-08 price spike in commodities.” FAO reports that at least 60 million hectares of land in Africa has been bought or leased for up to 100 years. There are also large land deals taking place in South America.

Many of these land purchase and lease agreements have been criticized for their lack of transparency and further consolidation of food production and processing.