Bullying Africa to accept the gender agenda of the UN

 LINK article from Nov 2023

Holdouts cast shadow over new EU pact with African, Caribbean and Pacific states

The EU this week finally sealed an agreement on a new treaty that will govern relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) community, but the refusal of 35 of the 79 ACP states to sign it has cast a shadow over its merits. ....

so 45 percent of those supposed to sign the agreement refused to go along with it. 

The new treaty is designed to serve as a legal framework guiding relations between the EU’s 27 nations and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries for the next two decades.

However, at the formal signing ceremony in Samoa on Wednesday (15 November), 35 ACP countries refused to sign the agreement which will provisionally enter into force in January 2024.

The holdouts include 20 African countries, 9 Caribbean states and six in the Pacific.

The repeated delays have been a growing source of frustration for EU officials, with many worrying that the bloc’s failure to ratify the treaty would be viewed as bad faith by its partners.,,...

Obey the EU or else? who died and made them king? 

The article says they won't sign because these countries are mad at the EU's position on the Ukraine and Gaza, but you know, those two wars post date the writing of the treaty.

So maybe it's about something else. 

Warsaw had withheld its signature in protest at the treaty’s language promoting non-discrimination, LGBT+ rights and gender equality, while a handful of African states had previously indicated their reluctance to ratify the treaty over its provisions on non-discrimination which, they say, promote homosexuality....

.

so the problem is that these countries just won't agree to being bullied into the EU's gender agenda, which they hide by using the language of human rights. 

it establishes “common principles” in key areas such as human rights, climate change and migration...

“Now it’s imperative that both the EU and ACP states translate their commitments into concrete actions, involving youth and civil society organisations in working towards the achievement of shared goals,” Goerlitz said.

 shared goals? No, the goals of the EU.

Pope Francis once called this cultural imperialism.

But one Trad Catholic source pointed out that maybe Pope Francis arranged his brand new dogma chief who has only had the job for a couple months to quickly put out a pro gay blessing to impose this on the African church.

From the Remanant

...Fiducia Supplicans – the Vatican Declaration approving blessings for same-sex couples. This has nothing to do with pastoral sensitivity, and everything to do with politics, Agenda 2030, the SDGs of the United Nations, and the EU-ACO Treaty between the European Union and seventy-nine poorer countries...

So why are the African Catholic Bishops resisting Pope Francis to his face? Because forty-seven African countries will be most negatively impacted by the EU-ACP Treaty, which will force African nations to embrace the ... European Union position on human sexuality.

With the Vatican signaling change to the Church’s teaching on sexual morality, African bishops will be cut off at the knees.

the African bishops are of course refusing to sign off on the Pope's so called blessing of gay couples, (and divorced people living with another spouse, and polygamous couples). But no one in the west is listening to them.

So will the prophecy that Africa, who nurtured the Christ child when Herod persecuted him, also nurture the Catholic church faithful when the world decides to persecute them by destroying the faith?

Don't ask me. I'm a doctor, not a prophet.

Death in Dafur

No, not Gaza: Dafur. Video from Democracy Now

,,,,BBC REPORT:

,,,,,,,,

article from WSJ via MSN from two weeks ago:

The Sudanese-Arab militia worked its way systematically through the tents, shacks and mud houses of the Ardamata camp, shooting male residents. The settlement in western Darfur was home to about 30,000 non-Arab Sudanese people who had fled earlier bouts of fighting in the country’s civil war, which started nearly seven months ago. The United Nations Refugee Agency said Friday that around 800 people were killed in the camp and the surrounding community between Nov. 4 and 6. Local activists said the number of victims could be above 1,000. The killings, these activists and international officials say, raise the specter of a repeat of the bloodshed inflicted on Darfur two decades ago, when Sudanese-Arab militias killed an estimated 300,000 people, most of them members of the region’s non-Arab minority.

follow the money: The area is full of gold reserves.

And the govt is supported by the Russian mercs, aka Wagner group who want the gold.

CNN Article 2022: They were plundering gold to pay for the war in the Ukraine.

Human rights watch report from this November: 

“The Rapid Support Forces’ latest episode of ethnically targeted killings in West Darfur, has the hallmarks of an organized campaign of atrocities against Massalit civilians,” said Mohamed Osman, Sudan researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The UN Security Council needs to stop ignoring the desperate need to protect Darfur civilians.”

This CNN report notes how the Wagner group is backing the RSF

“What is not in doubt is Wagner’s role in this, it has been supplying the RSF with arms and supplies through Darfur,” one Western intelligence official told CNN.

“It follows Wagner’s modus operandi. Create chaos and seize power,” another intelligence source active in the region 

just a reminder to the left in the USA who blame the CIA and Israel for all the problems in the world: Lots of bad guys out there oding their thing. And the UN, alas, is pretty helpless to stop it.

Sigh.

informal banks in Zimbabwe

"At the banks, I can’t get loans because they are very strict and require you to be formally employed and to have collateral."

How a hawker in Zimbabwe joined an informal savings club for financial support ⤵️ https://t.co/7Nkmtyy6Tb

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) October 8, 2023

................full article at AlJ:---------

The Collapse of the French ex colonies?

 Not my area of expertise, but these reports are about several recent coups in the southern Sahel which used to be French colonies, and where the French usually kept the peace, but now we see the Wagner group manipulating the local military and of course the Muslim charity money that is diverted into jihadi groups.

=======

.........

Strategypage has an article on what is going on in Mali:

apparantly the Wagner group, is now considered as formally Russian troops, and the government will have to deal with the Russian Government

Backstory is the head of the Wagner group attempted a coup against Putin and died in an accident (/s).

so what is important about Mali?

Gold

Mali is a major producer of gold and the Russians have always been willing accept payments in gold. Russia maintains a huge gold stockpile (about 2,300 tons), the fifth largest in the world. The Russian gold is an emergency fund that is now being tapped to pay for military operations in Ukraine. 

backstory:

 The military government in Mali had hoped that hiring Russian Wagner Group mercenaries would enable Mali to maintain control of northern and central Mali. ...

The problems began when the military government ordered the independent French Barkhane counter-terrorism force out of Mali and it was gone by the end of 2021. Since then, Mali forced the 15,000 UN peacekeepers to start withdrawing. The government forced the French and G5 peacekeepers out by the end of 2021.

lots of details at the link. cated article on what is going on in Central Africa.

again not my area of expertise.

But this part is about refugees in Malawi:

August 10, 2023: Malawi is seeking emergency funds and donations to feed more than 50,000 refugees who are crammed into the Dzaleka Camp. This is the only refugee camp in the country. Most of the refugees in Dzaleka are from Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Ethiopia and Somalia. The government says the camp will run out of food by December 2023. Foreign aid groups have already cut food supplies because of funding shortages. The government says it needs an additional $6.3 million in order to feed the refugees through June 2024. There are also about 8,000 refugees living outside the camp and are regarded as illegal migrants by the government that they are trying to relocate.

sigh 

Refugees are a world wide problem.

I wonder how many of those the fleeing to Europe is due to such disorder. 

Zimbabwe election: disputes as usual

 a new elected government, opposition yells fraud, counter story is that the USA/West is trying to manipulate the opposition, and the elephant in the room: What did China do behind the scenes?

I congratulate President Emmerson Mnangagwa on his re-election. I wish him and the people of Zimbabwe well for the upcoming term.

— Cyril Ramaphosa 🇿🇦 (@CyrilRamaphosa) August 28, 2023

🟡Dear @ZECzim,

You have consistently denied summoning polling officers to the command center for the signing of new V.11 forms. However, to expose your dishonesty, our team was deployed this afternoon to Nyika, where they witnessed the opening of ballot boxes in the absence of… pic.twitter.com/yGpCOhSX6s

— Citizens' Coalition for Change (@CCCZimbabwe) August 28, 2023

China's official news story LINK

and they say in other articles that China is willing to help the government, (but not so much the west who are suspicious and cautious about helping).

Background: Article from the Economist 12 22 about China building a surveillence state in Zimbabwe.

most of the article is behind a paywall, but here is how it starts:

Registering to vote in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, isn’t easy. The only registration centre is two bus journeys from the most populous suburbs. Nationwide there are just 71 voter-registration centres, or one for every 216,000 people (though some mobile ones are operating ahead of a general election next year). And this is not the only worry. Since 2018 Zimbabwe has collected fingerprints, photos, addresses and phone numbers to clean up the voters’ roll, which was reportedly full of “ghost voters”. This frightens many Zimbabweans, especially those belonging to the minority Ndebele ethnic group, much of which is concentrated near Bulawayo. In 1983 some 20,000 mostly Ndebele people were massacred by the army. Emmerson Mnangagwa, now the president, was head of the security services at the time. Now, people fear data collection “is a way to re-identify and target us,” says Rodwin Sibanda of the Habakkuk Trust, an ngo in Bulawayo.

China Projects blog has an article about Chinese projects in Zimbabwe: it's the mines, stupid.

China is Zimbabwe’s biggest foreign investor and kept the nation afloat amid Western sanctions, but is now estimated to control 90% of Zimbabwe’s mining industry (with the largest lithium reserves in Africa) and helps keep the economically disastrous Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) in government.

Over the years, Chinese interests have been a power behind the throne — once again, ZANU-PF triumphed in national elections last week; once again, amid accusations of rigging the system — with a hand in making and breaking its leaders.

Corruption is why military coups don't work

Strategypage has a long essay on the implications of the coup in Niger and points out that often military coups are to fight corruption in civilian governments, but that it leads to a loss of western aid until they restore democracy.

But the bad news is that the problem is corruption and that corruption is so widespread that the military reforming government doesn't work.

part of the essay is about the Amreican and French military in the area trying to fight Islamic terrorism.

This is mainly a technical article outside my area of expertise, so if you are interested read the whole thing.

Election news from Zimbabwe

Emmerson Mnangagwa has won his second and final term as President of Zimbabwe, securing 52.6% of the vote against challenger Nelson Chamisa's 44% https://t.co/ozRk763LDj pic.twitter.com/tQhxk7AzXH

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 27, 2023

wagner group in Africa: what next

 Al J has an article discussing the Wagner group in Africa, and what will happen since their leader just was killed and Putin is insisting that these mercenaries pledge loyalty to Russia.

African governments had also been caught in a delicate balancing act between the shadowy mercenary group and the Russian government. The Malian coup-makers continue to refer to the armed group as “Russian instructors”, though CAR authorities are more forthcoming. “CAR authorities have always been uncomfortable,” Charles Bouessel, senior analyst on CAR for International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera. “They did not know who to praise for Wagner’s assistance. Sometimes, they are thanking the Russian authorities and sometimes, they are thanking Prigozhin. But what they want is that the Russian assistance continues, and they would be cautious in expressing their opinion [on Prigozhin’s death] intimately.”

 

Election time

 

Voting is under way in Zimbabwe’s second general elections since a 2017 coup deposed the late ruler Robert Mugabe.

🔴 Follow our LIVE coverage: https://t.co/o8eUaqg0rI pic.twitter.com/0isoviOOZT

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 23, 2023

What's wrong with this picture?

 

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has accused the World Bank of seeking “to coerce” his country over its anti-LGBT legislation.

The bank had said that it was suspending new loans to the country due to its law against same-sex relations. https://t.co/pVTegu0KPZ pic.twitter.com/mrtcBlJoTe

— BBC News Africa (@BBCAfrica) August 10, 2023

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,and this is similar to what I have posted on several blogs about the pushing of the sexual agenda on small countries:

About a decade ago, the US had laws like "Don't ask, don't tell" in their military. In the US, LGBTQ is not accepted by everyone. Why do the US and the west think they can force Africa to accept LGBTQ? Let the west keep pushing us like slaves. We will embrace Russia and China.

— Edo DNA (@EdoDNA) August 10, 2023

UN against human trafficking

from a Japanese paper:

 Globally, there is a growing need to address the sexual abuse of children. Taylor said that there has been an explosion of sexual violence in the digital space. This includes an increase in the number of sexual images of children.

Main factors behind this were changes imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased use of the internet by children. In some cases, sexual violence against children takes place via live streaming.

Currently, one in eight adults worldwide experienced sexual abuse as a child, according to one statistic. That rate is increasing in the digital age. Already one in five children has experienced sexual abuse in the digital space in a country, a survey funded by GPeVAC found. The survey was conducted in 13 countries in Africa and Southeast Asia.

Human trafficking in Zimbabwe

 from the Herald: 

Police, Interpol in human trafficking, smuggling joint op

wikipedia page

also a post on lithium mining

the wars that are ignored in the western press

in central Africa the wars go on:

>

then you have the attacks on Christian villagers in Nigeria, which the western MSM pretends is poor cattle herders burning down farmers villages so they can feed their cattle, but in reality it is a persecution of the Christians.

and here is a more up to date report from EWTN News:

Mali, Gold and the Wagner Group

No, I don't know much about Mali, but StrategyPage notes they produce gold, and are using gold to pay for things that foreign aid used to pay for. But of course the common folk aren't getting much benefit. And they note that ordinary folk are doing what we call mom and pop gold mining (They do this in the Philippines, and it is more dangerous and more polluting than professional companies, but, again, I don't know much about this).

But they note the Wagner group, a mercenary group of Russians who are notorious for their work in the Ukraine, are there and trained local soldier to keep the government in place.

and they are paying them in gold.

The article explains that Mali threw out the French and UN peacekeepers partly because they reported on atrocities by the Govt troops and the Wagner group

But the peacekeepers are there to stop Islamic groups who are terrorists and also who threaten the government.

it's the corruption of course

The Mali peacekeeping operation costs about half a billion dollars a month and that is about the only foreign aid Mali gets now that the military government is in control. Most foreign aid was halted because the government was stealing so much of the aid. It is difficult to steal any of the money spent on peacekeepers but the government seems to be trying to do just that.

and of course the problem is that the Islamic terrorists are growing and threatening nearby states

this report from DW last week discusses the good and bad points of the Wagner group

in the past Timbuktu and Mali were a major source of gold. Lecture here discusses.

in other words, it was a civilized area when western Europe was undeveloped.

Religion in Africa: Pentecostal influences

 GetReligion discusses the Islamic vs Christian meme in Africa, as reported in the behind the paywall WSJ.

For later reading.

it notes the charismatic movement in Christian churches is now influencing Islam.

well, nothing new here: Sufi Islam stressed a personal relationship with God, and this was partly due to Hindu (Gita) influence I believe. So a pentecostal revival in Islam might pressure the more rule oriented/terrorist inspiring version of Islam pushed by the Saudis to be less influential. 

I don't know how accurate this report is, since it is by western reporters who believe polls (uh, people will tell pollsters what they want to hear, out of politeness guys, but never mind).... and these reporters seem to think that the Islamic vs Christian wars can be blamed on local Christians (or even local Muslims) whereas it was actually inspired by Saudi/ISIS etc. snf is something new: Islamic slave traders of the Sahel decimated these tribes for centuries (heck, the slave trade goes back to the days of ancient Egypt and is more about cuture than religion per se). 

But I am not an expert here.

Also missing: How African churches are pushing back against the gay agenda in the large Anglican church, and it is local Evangelicals (not the western bigots as the western press always seems to accuse) that is pushing against the US push toward so called gay rights/ birthcontrol/ sex education that approves of premarital sex.

Nigeria has problems

StrategyPage report on Nigeria's many problems.

During the last ten years, over 78,000 Nigerians were killed by Islamic terrorists, bandits, fighting between farmers and herders, and local unrest...

They note the deaths went down after 2014 but are now again rising.

they also many economic problems including problems that stop the oil wealth from being used by locals to improve their lives.

mercenaries: Follow the money

In #Africa, #Wagner is more #China’s tool than #Russia’s. It appears #Beijing is supplying the bulk of the cash to the mercenaries, not a broke #Moscow. https://t.co/ygIXWapVmC

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) June 26, 2023

Russian mercenaries in Africa

Right now there are confusing stories about the Wagner group turning against the Russian military.

 

BBC stories LINK LINK2 and a lot of people are following it on Twitter.

A lot of the civilian atrocities in the Ukraine are blamed on the Wagner group. I have no idea how much is true because the propaganda from that war is so confusing.

However, the Wagner group has worked as mercenaries in Africa, and were suspected to be responsible for atrocities there.

AlJ article from April 2022:

When abuses were reported in recent weeks in Mali – fake graves designed to discredit French forces; a massacre of some 300 people, mostly civilians – all evidence pointed to the shadowy mercenaries of Russia’s Wagner Group. 

 Even before these feared professional soldiers joined the assault on Ukraine, Russia had deployed them to under-the-radar military operations across at least half a dozen African countries. Their aim: to further President Vladimir Putin’s global ambitions, and to undermine democracy.

 Analysts estimate Wagner operates with only a few hundred to 2,000 mercenaries in a country. Many are ex-Russian military intelligence, Siegle said, but because it is a private force the Kremlin can deny responsibility for Wagner’s actions. The real price is paid by ordinary people.

 the Wagner Group has been active in the Sudan and is suspected to be meddling in the military coup there, but without neutral observers on the ground it is hard to verify this.LINK LINK2

a 

lots of folk in the west are aghast at claims of CIA interference in foreign countries, but they ignore that there are other folks doing this too.

sigh

This is cross posted from my main.

Cassava bread

 

so who is complaining about an eleven year old post?

 I just got notified that an essay I posted in 2012 has not met community standards.

Sorry about that. 

as usual, there is no way I can easily find a post that old, and since no one complained about it or commented on it in the last 11 years, my opinion is forgtaboutit.

So who went back 11 years to find something and complain about it? 

Heh. Wait til they start scanning my medical blog where I posted graphic illustrations of FGM....