shut down economies from virus could lead to massive starvation

on my main blog, I have written about the increase in poverty and need for food aid here in the Philippines: my latest report HERE.


but not much is being written about how it might affect Africa.

There are some reports that genetics makes Africans less likely to get the virus, but that hasn't been the case in the USA. And in Africa, one wonders if the climate//sunshine might lower the spread (i.e. when it is warm, you don't have people indoors as much, but in todays' world of buses, factories, schools, etc that might not be true).

Virtueonline, an Anglican website, has posted an article about the virus in Africa: not a lot of numbers next to the many thousands who die from malaria or other common diseases, but the pressure to use western style prevention methods might make things worse.

and yes, many of these countries will stop planting the next crop for prevention of virus spread: but I wonder if this is overdoing it: Here in the Philippines after some mix ups about food and rice delivery trucks being allowed to go though check points, things have improved. And our farmers are harvesting here, even though we have a strict lockdown of our town (although one suspects family members won't be able to come back from Manila to help with the harvest, our people here in town can drive out to the farm in cars to help with the harvest... I don't know if this is true in other areas.

but this report of strict urban style lockdowns in rural areas is disturbing: If true, more will die of starvation than any virus.

Pastor Campos Afonso's report from churches in Angola is repeated throughout the continent where most states are in lockdown. The President of Angola declared a quarantine and State of Emergency from 27 March-11 April. All church meetings are closed. Pastors, leaders and members are observing the measures in their homes to combat the virus from spreading.
If the lockdown situation of COVID-19 continues it will affect the 2020 harvest because people will not be able to work in the fields. The lockdown means a shortage of work, tools and transport to take products from the countryside to the cities.
Lack of transport also means people cannot get from the cities to work on their family land to gather the harvest. Products collected this year will rot in the fields. New seeds will be in short supply for cultivation in the next year.
People are consuming the products that were being reserved as seeds for planting in 20202021 after having sold the December and January production. Most have nothing to eat in this period of isolation. Many could die of hunger instead of being killed by COVID-19. Locals say that church intervention is needed to help the most vulnerable people and poor Christians.

DRC response to coronavirus

globalvoices has a report on the cases in DRC, which were imported from Europe.

 DR Congo has banned large gatherings, ordered school and university closures for four weeks and closed its border with Rwanda, all measures taken to stem the spread of the virus. The government also suspended all international flights from countries with a high number of cases of COVID-19.

Genetic puzzle on coronavirus

I had read a couple articles that mentioned Africans having fewer Corona virus cases and deaths, and I assumed that this was because of the sunlight/living outdoors instead of inside houses in the winter as in China and the USA/Europe, or maybe because a lot of Africans take anti malarial medicine to prevent getting that disease, or maybe just that they haven't done enough tests and people are sick without going to hospitals and getting counted.

But StrategyPage notes:

...Chinese researchers found that Africans are less likely to catch covid19 because they have one fifth as many cellular receptors in their lungs than Chinese. That difference enables covid19 to cause breathing problems more, or less, readily. ...

  Lung damage is the most frequent cause of death among covid19 victims. So far Africa, with 18 percent of the world population has only suffered about 0.3 percent of the covid19 infections. Africans are not immune, just less likely to get in infected or suffer the breathing problems that cause most covid10 related death

this doesn't mean they can't get sick or die, but merely that the disease might be less fatal in certain populations.

One wonders if this observation is seen in the African diaspora on other continents.

the chaos in the DRC

LINK

stategypage discusses ebola and other disease, locusts, and war.


You think you have it bad?

the Congo and other central African areas are fighting disease, war, and locusts.

Disease: unlike Liberia, the WHO has fought the Ebola epidemic with local health care workers, and is now using vaccines.

the churches are doing a lot of the developmental work, but  are not mentioned in most of the lay press reports, but when I was in Africa, most of the rural hospitals and clinics were either church sponsored or run by medical personnel trained in church hospitals. I suspect it is the same in Central Africa, but of course the secular "doctors without borders" get most of the publicity in the news reports, probably because they are European/American (i.e. white).

the bad news: Corona virus is expected to hit (maybe via China, since China has a lot of their people doing work on various projects in Africa). But since there is now a medical infrastructure in place (to fight ebola), it mwans maybe they will be able to handle this better than more African countries.

SP latest news is that cases are down:

The number of new Ebola “cases per day” has dropped. From February 18 to 23, there was only one new confirmed case in North Kivu Province. As of February 23, there have been 3,444 total cases,

but ebola is not the only killer here. From SP:

February 14, 2020: The UN issued a report examining malaria in Burundi during 2019. From January through December 2019 Burundi had 8,892,300 malaria cases. The disease killed 3,294 people or 37 per 100,000 infected.

and measles has killed at least 6000 in the area:

Under the leadership of the DRC Ministry of Health, WHO, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and other partner aid agencies vaccinated more than 18 million children under five across the country in 2019. '

However, in some areas, routine vaccination coverage remains low and 25% of the reported measles cases are in children over the age of five. ....

Since the start of 2019, around 310 000 suspected measles cases have been reported. The epidemic has been aggravated by low vaccination coverage among vulnerable communities, malnutrition, weak public health systems, outbreaks of other epidemic-prone diseases, difficult access by vulnerable populations to health care and insecurity that has hampered response in some areas.

see that comment about "insecurity?

This is from gangs/ irregular tribal insurgencies and wars.

when I was in Africa, our main danger was not from government soldiers, or even the regular insurgents, but from deserters or rogue groups from both sides who had guns and who used them to rob/rape/kill.

Again the SP article includes reports of various groups who killed people.








But note that these are being fought. China got into the news saying they will export 100 thousand ducks to eat the locusts, but I wonder if that will work: I suspect most will die during transport, and those that survive the trip might not adjust to the climate. More likely the locals and the dogs will eat the ducks.

but the dirty little secret is that pesticides are being used (don't tell western greenies). Again from SP:

On February 11 the Ugandan government deployed around 2,000 Ugandan Army soldiers to fight the locusts. Here’s how an army counter-locust operation works. When locals detect a swarm they report it. Uganda is also employing drone aircraft to monitor locust swarms and their movements.

When a swarm is identified, several dozen soldiers armed with manual and motorized pesticide spray pumps move to the infested area. Ugandan military officers report that locust swarms don’t move at night, which means the pre-dawn hours are the optimal time to spray pesticide on an infested field to insure killing adult locusts. 

Speaking of "greenies":  one of the reasons I dislike "animal conservation" is that they take the side of animals against the locals.

Usually this means stopping locals from killing predators or elephants who eat them or their crops, but SP notes:

February 6, 2020: European media are citing a draft report that alleges “ecoguards” in the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) are physically assaulting and intimidating Baka pygmy tribesmen who live near a national park the guards patrol. Ecoguard is shorthand for “ecological guard.” The ecoguard program is partially funded by international conservation groups. According to reports, the ecoguards carry firearms. For thousands of years, pygmies have been persecuted by the majority of Africans of normal height. As a result, the pygmies lived reclusive lives, often deep in forests away from majority populations.

Sigh.

voter biometrics in Zimbabwe (China link)

from Global voices:

In previous elections, citizens could visit any polling station and vote just by showing their conventional ID cards, which contained their name, ID number, date and place of birth and date of issue. After voting, one's finger would be smeared with indelible ink to avoid double voting. Now, citizens suddenly had to submit their photos, fingerprints, national identity numbers and home addresses into one integrated and digitized system. If they did not do this, they were told, they might be barred from voting. This increased public fears of monitoring and intimidation, already a common theme for elections in Zimbabwe. The system was touted both by ruling party and opposition voices as a strong guard against “ghost” voters and other types of election fraud.

But its underlying technology was not built with these issues in mind. Nor was it built in Zimbabwe. China’s ‘AI foray’ into southern Africa

The government of Zimbabwe signed a strategic partnership with CloudWalk Technology, a Chinese company that has become a leader in the field of facial recognition, in March 2018. The objective of the partnership was to commence a large-scale facial recognition program in Zimbabwe, which government officials said would be used to preserve “law and order,” and then expanded to other public sector programs.

oh, by the way, the UKGuardian calls the famine "man made". Duh.

South Africa following Zimbabwe into chaos

Blood cobalt

Slashdot reports: Apple and google were named in a lawsuit over the death of children mining cobalt in the DRC (DRCongo).

(Headsup Instapundit)

Original report is in the UKGuardian.

The extraction of cobalt from DRC has been linked to human rights abuses, corruption, environmental destruction and child labour. The lawsuit argues that Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla all aided and abetted the mining companies that profited from the labour of children who were forced to work in dangerous conditions – conditions that ultimately led to death and serious injury.

the children were not physically "forced to work there: They work there because of extreme poverty forces them to work if they want to eat.

The families argue in the claim that their children were working illegally at mines owned by UK mining company Glencore. The court papers allege that cobalt from the Glencore-owned mines is sold to Umicore, a Brussels-based metal and mining trader, which then sells battery-grade cobalt to Apple, Google, Tesla, Microsoft and Dell.

Other plaintiffs in the court documents say they worked at mines owned by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, a major Chinese cobalt firm, which the lawsuit claims supplies Apple, Dell, and Microsoft and is likely to supply the other defendants.

so the tech giants who are going around the US and the world funding "progressive" causes are getting rich on the blood of children. So what else is new?

But one of the substories in here is that China is trying to get a monopoly on Cobalt and other rare earth metals used in high tech.


Bloomberg report from Dec 2018: not only are 8 of the 14 largest cobalt mines in the DRC owned by China, but they essentially own the supply chain to companies that use the mineral in their batteries, metal alloys, etc.

essentially they own most of the cobalt refineries, and many of the factories that make batteries for Tesla and electric cars.

Here, LimacharlieWord discusses the importance of cobalt to the Chinese economy.

They also note European and Chinese corporations and governments are "lobbying" to stop the country from taxing the metal in order to keep the price down. They also note China is not only investing in the country, but sending in a lot of Chinese to do the work.

and they note half the money for infrastructure sent there by China is "unaccounted for" (duh), and the political instablity partly caused by a president who refuses to leave and wars going on in the area.

Chinese investments in Africa

,,,,,,,,,,

one advantage: China doesn't worry about supporting corrupt and murderous politicians.

Another advantage: The US MSM hasn't noticed what is going on.

A third advantage: Unlike the US State Department, they aren't going to push African countries to accept homosexuality, which translates to letting pedophiles (both local and sex tourists) to abuse their youth.

Dictator RIP

best tweet:

Kill the elephants

from the WAPO

Nderiki and her husband had been married 65 years before he was killed by an elephant in 2014. Like nearly everyone else in this cluster of villages, it has been years since her fields weren’t trampled and eaten up by what she calls “the giants.”

She used to grow more than 100 bags of sorghum in a season. Last harvest, she salvaged three.

Growing resentment toward the animals among farmers here and around Botswana is upending the country’s politics and prompting the reversal of policies that turned tourism into Botswana’s second-biggest earner after diamonds.

The furor has also spilled into a larger debate over race in a country where white foreigners and the descendants of colonialists control much of the conservation and tourism sectors while many who live outside the national parks eke out a living on government subsidies....

The country’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi... said that in his view, the numbers of elephants are now “far more than Botswana’s fragile environment, already stressed by drought and other effects of climate change, can safely accommodate,” leading to a “sharp increase” in conflict between humans and elephants. He believes a limited, permit-based return to hunting can solve the crisis.....

headsup AnnAltnouse.

I was going to make the headline "kill the F....." but this is a G rated blog.

You see, all those "national geographic" etc. specials in Africa love wild animals and lament the "loss of habitat.  (translation: Those dang locals keep plating crops to feed their kids) and poachers (translation: Those dang locals kill animals to make a living),

Ah but wait a bit: You will start seeing elephants dying of starvation after the eat everything in the area, When food disappears either from overgrazing or the periodic droughts in that part of Africa, they then travel to people's farms and eat the food of the locals, and/or they starve to death.

NYTimes article from 1992:

Zimbabwe kills starving elephants for food.

Faced with the worst drought in southern Africa this century, the wildlife authorities at a national park here are proceeding with what they call the grim but essential step of killing thousands of elephants and impalas so other animals as well as starving people can survive.

While animal kills are common here and elsewhere as a form of habitat management -- wildlife officials prefer the term "culling" -- rarely if ever has a drought forced the authorities to act on such a scale and with such human urgency as in the program under way at the Gonarezhou National Park.

In the coming weeks, the park authorities plan to shoot 2,000 elephants and give the meat to farmers and their families. In addition, an operation to kill 5,000 impalas and distribute the meat from them has begun. Also under way is the large-scale relocation of rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses and other exotic animals that are in danger of dying from hunger. Unlike other African nations, Zimbabwe does not have a major elephant-poaching problem, so the authorities have long resorted to such kills to control the growth of its large elephant population.

nor is this the first time this happened:

Mr. Wright of the World Wildlife Fund said a situation comparable to the one here developed in Kenya in the early 1970's. The wildlife authorities decided then not to kill elephants during a drought in Tsavo National Park, even though they were deemed too numerous and many people living in the area of the park were in need of food. In the end, thousands of elephants died of thirst and hunger, and that in turned stirred resentment among the peasants living nearby, Mr. Wright said. When the good weather came, the elephant population in Tsavo never recovered because the angry peasants cooperated in poaching.

Periodic famines due to drought are not unknown in that area:

This article notes that it appeared to be rainer in the 19th than in the 20th century, although droughts did occur.

Article on the "great famine" of the 1870s.

The Great Drought actually was several droughts, Singh found, beginning with a failure of India's 1875 monsoon season. East Asia's drought started in the spring of 1876, followed by droughts in parts of South Africa, northern Africa and northeastern Brazil. There were also droughts in western Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia. The length and severity of the droughts prompted the Global Famine, aided in no small part by one of the strongest known El Niños, the irregular but recurring periods of warm water in the tropical Pacific Ocean. That triggered the warmest known temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean and the strongest known Indian Ocean dipole -- an extreme temperature difference between warm waters in the west and cool waters in the east. These in turn triggered one of the worst droughts across Brazil and Australia. Because the drought was induced by natural variations in sea-surface temperatures, says Singh, a similar global-scale event could happen again. Moreover, rising greenhouse gas concentrations and global warming are projected to intensify El Niño events, in which case "such widespread droughts could become even more severe."

The socio-political factors that led to the famine no long exist, she notes. Still, she writes, "such extreme events would still lead to severe shocks to the global food system with local food insecurity in vulnerable countries potentially amplified by today's highly connected global food network."

and then there was the drought 4200 years ago. 

article on the desertification of Africa.

article about Chinese project to fight desertification in Namibia.

Under instruction from Chinese technicians, Nakanyala dug grooves into the ground and filled them with grass, skillfully using a spade to build a stretch of grass pane sand fence, a proven method to alleviate shifting sands and conserve water. "Nearly a quarter of Namibia is covered by sand. It's a matter of primary importance to learn effective techniques against desertification so that we can solve food problems," said Nakanyala. The training program has been held in Gansu for almost 30 years, with nearly 1,000 technical workers and government officials from 87 countries trained, including those in Africa. The government-sponsored training courses combine in-class learning and field practice, focusing on theories and techniques of desertification control as well as ecological restoration....China has reversed the expansion of its deserts. An average of 4,400 square kilometers of desertified land has been restored each year since 2000, according to statistics. "China is at the forefront of sand prevention and control," Liu said. "It is urgent to share our methods with other parts of the world."

iMusic from Zimbabwe

this is Library of Congress, but there are lots of Youtube videos of music from Zimbabwe. ........

Troubles all over

The floods in Zimbabwe and Mozambique have affected many.

Mozambique also reports out break of cholera and malaria.

There is a drought in Kenya that could cause starvation there.

Ebola has spread to a new city in the DRC.

Sigh. No links, sorry.

But these are natural disasters.

the USNIblog refers to a new website about political violence/protests in all parts of Africa.

ACLED data website.

here is an example of their data:

Mine collapse: 8 rescued

Al J has the story. 8 rescued, 24 dead, and many other missing.


it was a closed mine where men were working on their own.

Too many Africans: Now Bill Gate's money is pushing the meme

Interview with a Nigerian Human Rights activist about how the west wants to depopulate Africa, now with oodles of money via Bill Gates, whose wife has decided there are too many Africans around.

LINK

My grandfather had seven children, and they were poor — but not due to the size of their family. During the colonial era, he had no education or training. He couldn’t speak English and get into the proper employment pool. My parents have six children, almost the same as my grandfather. Yet my father got an education and rose out of poverty. The difference from father to son was education.
Our values are to protect human life and family. Faith is also very important. We cannot do without it, because we know that we are not God. There is always someone higher than us and in control of things. If you have that, then everything else is added on to it.
Mobilizing in Africa
Over the past six years, has the Gates Foundation responded to your concerns or shifted in their policies?Ekeocha: No, the Gates Foundation and similar groups have not responded. But they do know about our projects. They have branches in Nigeria and Ghana. Through the grapevine, we hear that they lament and complain about the work we do. Perhaps it’s undermining some of their work. But they have not responded to me directly and have never tried to reach out.
We have traveled to ten African countries to raise awareness. Definitely there is always room for more. We wish that mainstream media would cover these things, but they don’t. Thank goodness, we have social media where we are putting out information. Working with many African Bishops, I find sometimes they did not get specifics quick enough or have a full picture of what’s going on. Culture of Life Africa gets information to people who should know.
Before I started this group, we were moving in the dark. I have seen a lot of difference and change in that we have managed to get the word out. Now when the Gates go to Africa and throw a few million dollars in for this or that project, several leaders like me have more than critical thoughts about it. We have evidence and confidence to speak out.
Positive changes have happened since the Trump administration. President Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which was amazing. Yet other countries have responded negatively. The Canadian government has given even more to sexual and reproductive rights which includes abortion. The British government funds one of the biggest abortion organizations in the world, Marie Stopes International. Australia has funded that group as well.

actually nothing new here.

When I worked in Zimbabwe 35 years ago, every village had a "pill lady" to give out birth control pills (which by the way increased malnutrition because the pill lowers the amount of breast milk).

but there was no clean water in the villages so kids continued to die of diarrhea.

But I must confess: We did give DepoProvera to our lactating moms to increase breast milk. So was this birth control (since breast feeding does stop ovulation, and in traditional Africa where we worked, vaginal intercourse was taboo during the period of breast feeding). So maybe we were guilty too.

But our idea was to space babies, consistant with African culture, not to stop babies from being born.

Fuel problems in Zimbabwe

BBC article:

the price of petro has gone up: and it is hurting people

The reason for the hike, the government said, was to avert fuel shortages that have created national angst. The hike means petrol prices rose from $1.24 (£0.97) a litre to $3.31 , with diesel up from $1.36 a litre to $3.11. Zimbabweans were not pleased by these changes, hundreds of them went to the streets of the capital, Harare and the southern city of Bulawayo, to protest against the new prices.

and it has to do with the problem of the Zim currancy:

The sudden increase is symptomatic of price distortions Zimbabweans have to deal with on a daily basis. The price of fuel is fixed by the authorities. Unlike other businesses, fuel stations have to sell petrol at the same price in US dollars and the surrogate currency - bond notes - introduced more than two years ago to address a cash crisis. Thriving black market The government maintains that bond notes, which is only traded in Zimbabwe, is pegged to the US dollar. But the reality of the ground is different. There is a thriving black market where three bond notes fetch one US dollar....

The principal is "bad money drives out good", in other words, one currency will become more desired than the other. In the case of Zimbabwe and the US dollar, the desired currency disappeared as many withdrew their US dollar cash from the bank, and kept the notes under their mattresses. Most banks ran out of it, worsening a biting cash crisis.

Sigh.

And what worried me more it that my friend hasn't written/emailed me for three months: And hasn't picked up the money that I sent her via western union for three months either. Is she sick? Is there a problem in the bank?

Sigh.

Albino pride

AlJ has an interesting article about Albino beauty contests in East Africa.

Organized by the Albinism Society of Kenya with partners in Uganda and Tanzania, the contest aims to demystify the condition of people living with albinism and affirm their inherent dignity while challenging myths, misconceptions and negative beliefs around the disorder. The main event was a culmination of auditions held in several countries and a 10-day boot camp where the 30 final participants trained to improve their modeling skills. The contest was aimed at facilitating positive interaction between people with albinism and the society.

Wikipedia article.  describes how they are persecuted and discriminated against in Central Africa. including the recent newspaer reports on the use of body parts of Albinos for ritual healing etc. by shamans.  BBC article.

witchdoctors "diagnose" witchcraft and advise treatment, but one aspect is that some of these people go bad and use human body parts in rituals (hence I use the word Shaman, because murder of anyone means you are a witch, casting a spell, not a witchdoctor).

I ran across a lecture where they said there are 100 thousand Albinos in centra Africa, and many flee to colonies because of prejudice.



When I worked in Liberia, there would be scattered reports about children, usually streetkids, going missing, and one 12 year old escaped and got the police to arrest the guy who was killing street kids for body parts. You put the body parts under the store you are building so that the spirits will give you success.

(even in the west, we frequently put holy medals or memorabelia in the foundations of houses etc. as a blessing, and many places use animal sacrifice for the same reason, e.g. in Santeria etc.).

but I worked in Africa before the HIV epidemic hit, and my friends tell me a lot of men sought witchcraft to cure their disease

(HIV epidemic wiped out much of the middle class in some African countries).

but with the HIV epidemic, a lot of shamans use criminal means to cure the disease, from rape of virgins to killing albinos for medicine.



the BBC article notes that most albinos die before the age of 40, and the photos of the AlJ site suggest why: Skin cancer.

Skin cancer is rarely fatal, but albinos might have dozens of large untreated lesions on their bodies.

Sigh.

When I worked in Zimbabe we had several in our area. One lady had a baby, a beautiful perfect black baby. I was surprised that she found a husband, and asked who would marry her, and was told: Her husband was a blind man.

Apparantly , he lost his sight in a mining accident and had a pension.

They seemed quite happy.


related article: Albino village in Indonesia.

HIV in Zimbabwe

AlJ reports the economic crisis is making treatment of HIV difficult for patients.

Pharmacies and hospitals are not able to keep consistent stocks and, even when they do have the medicine, some will only accept payment in US dollars because the local currency loses value daily. Doctors in Zimbabwe worry that if patients are unable to take or stop taking their medication, they will develop drug-resistant strains of HIV that are harder and even more expensive to treat.

radical islam in Africa

Nigeria news

Electricity in rural Africa

this article is about providing electricity to rural and urban areas.