Mali declared a ban this week on the activities of non-governmental organizations within the country that receive funding from France. The move came in the wake of France’s decision to withdraw development aid to the country as its final troops pull out of the Sahel region, marking the end of the eight-year Operation Barkhane.
What started as a counterterrorism operation in Mali had until recently begun to take the shape of a showcase for French President Emmanuel Macron’s vision of an integrated European defense. Now that dream seems to be falling apart due to an overstayed welcome and less-than-stellar performance. Whose fault is that? Russia’s, according to Macron.
The fact that there were three coups in Mali in the space of a decade is pretty much all one needs to know about the “success” of France’s ongoing security and stability operation. Play around with a revolving door long enough and you’ll get smacked right in the face. This is exactly what happened when France was ultimately kicked out earlier this year by the most recent interim government.
Macron then said that the French troop drawdown would happen gradually, as though he was still calling the shots on a former French colony. The message from Mali was clear: You’ll get out now. So then Macron said that French troops would just redeploy elsewhere to the Sahel region. But on November 7, he announced that the Sahel mission was ending as well, despite French troops still remaining in Chad and Niger. Nonetheless, Macron said that within six months there would be a new French military strategy for Africa. No doubt geared primarily towards finding a way to stick around as an eventual pretext for getting Western hands on the African natural resources that Europe desperately needs. Because that’s what it has always been about. Just consider the darkly hilarious spectacle of Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of France’s multinational, Total Energies, asking the EU to send him military assistance in Mozambique a couple of years ago, citing the growing presence of Daesh (ISIS). Which is an indication that once Western industry has successfully planted its feet inside a country and secured its resources, fighting terrorism doesn’t really matter so much anymore.
African political experts here in Paris have been saying for the past few years that the French operation in the Sahel had worn out its welcome and that its anti-jihadism effectiveness was highly doubtful, if not disastrous. You’d think that would have led to some soul-searching on Paris’ part, particularly when anti-French sentiment is multiplying on the continent, with protests in Burkina Faso also sparking debate over troop presence there.
But, before any introspection even had a chance, Macron found a scapegoat for Paris and Europe’s African failures: Russia.
“A number of powers, who want to spread their influence in Africa, are doing this to hurt France, hurt its language, sow doubts, but above all pursue certain interests,”Macron said this week at a Francophone conference in Tunisia, citing a “predatory project” by Russia to push “disinformation.” Macron still seems sore about the fact that, when the Malian government kicked French troops out, they opted instead for more security cooperation with Russia, with the latest of such agreements signed just this week during Mali Interior Minister Daoud Aly Mohammedine’s visit to the Kremlin.
There’s no way that Macron is naive enough to think that global competition doesn’t exist. Nor is he oblivious to the fact that countries are constantly selling themselves as partners to other nations. That’s what a nation’s entire diplomatic corps is for. They’re glorified sales and PR people. And, if amid France’s security cooperation in Mali, jihadists are running rampant and coups d’état are happening, then why shouldn’t that country exercise its sovereign right to choose a different security provider? Rather than assume responsibility, it’s easier for Macron to blame Russia for France’s failures and it fits with the current dominant Western narrative.
Two years ago, Facebook said it had put its finger on what it claimed to be duelling online influence efforts in the Central African Republic by “individuals associated with the French military” squaring off against others they linked to Russia. The incident underscores that Paris is neck-deep in efforts to save its footprint in Africa using all of the tools at its disposal, including influence operations in which Macron publicly pretends France and its allies would never engage.
Mali apparently begs to differ. Of all the possible efforts by various countries attempting to compete for partnerships in Africa, Mali has just singled out France by banning its ability to use in-country NGOs as proxies in support of Paris’ agenda. So, despite Macron’s accusations that Russia is gaining a foothold in Africa through “disinformation,” it’s France’s own influence operations that African countries like Mali are actually denouncing.
It gets worse. The largely ineffectual EU Parliament now wants to stop the construction of the 1,445 km-long East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) from Uganda to Tanzania, invoking hazy human rights violations, environmental threats, and “advising” member countries to simply drop out of the project.
YALI is the soft, Instagrammed face of AFRICOM. The US has participated in the overthrow of several African governments over the past two decades, with troops trained under secrecy-obsessed AFRICOM. There has been no serious Pentagon audit on the weaponizing of AFRICOM’s local “partners.” For all we know – as in Syria and Libya – the US military could be arming even more terrorists.
In a rational environment, the 77th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) would discuss alleviating the trials and tribulations of the Global South, especially Africa.
That won’t be the case. Like a deer caught in the geopolitical headlights, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued platitudes about a gloomy “winter of global discontent,” even as the proverbial imperial doomsayers criticized the UN’s “crisis of faith” and blasted the “unprovoked war” started by Russia.
Of course, the slow-motion genocide of Donbass russophone residents for eight years would never be recognized as a provocation.
Guterres spoke of Afghanistan, “where the economy is in ruins and human rights are being trampled” – but he did not dare to offer context. In Libya, “divisions continue to jeopardize the country” – once again, no context. Not to mention Iraq, where “ongoing tensions threaten ongoing stability.”
Africa has 54 nations as UN members. Any truly representative UNGA meeting should place Africa’s problems at the forefront. Once again, that’s not the case. So it is left to African leaders to offer that much-needed context outside of the UN building in New York.
As the only African member of the G20, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa recently urged the US not to “punish” the whole continent by forcing nations to demonize or sanction Russia. Washington’s introduction of legislation dubbed the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, he says, “will harm Africa and marginalize the continent.”
South Africa is a BRICS member – a concept that is anathema in the Beltway – and embraces a policy of non-alignment among world powers. An emerging 21st-century version of the 1960s Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is strengthening across the Global South – and especially Africa – much to the revulsion of the US and its minions.
Back at the UNGA, Guterres invoked the global fertilizer crisis – again, with no context. Russian diplomacy has repeatedly stressed that Moscow is ready to export 30 million tons of grain and over 20 million tons of fertilizer by the end of 2022. What is left unsaid in the west, is that only the importation of fertilizers to the EU is “allowed,” while transit to Africa is not.
Guterres said he was trying to persuade EU leaders to lift sanctions on Russian fertilizer exports, which directly affect cargo payments and shipping insurance. Russia’s Uralchem, for instance, even offered to supply fertilizers to Africa for free.
Yet from the point of view of the US and its EU vassals, the only thing that matters is to counter Russia and China in Africa. Senegal’s President Macky Sall has remarked how this policy is leaving “a bitter taste.”
‘We forbid you to build your pipeline’
It gets worse. The largely ineffectual EU Parliament now wants to stop the construction of the 1,445 km-long East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) from Uganda to Tanzania, invoking hazy human rights violations, environmental threats, and “advising” member countries to simply drop out of the project.
Uganda is counting on more than 6 billion barrels of oil to sustain an employment boom and finally move the nation to middle-income status. It was up to Ugandan Parliament Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa to offer much-needed context:
“It is imprudent to say that Uganda’s oil projects will exacerbate climate change, yet it is a fact that the EU block with only 10 percent of the world’s population is responsible for 25 percent of global emissions, and Africa with 20 percent of the world’s population is responsible for 3 percent of emissions. The EU and other western countries are historically responsible for climate change. Who then should stop or slow down the development of natural resources? Certainly not Africa or Uganda.”
The EU Parliament, moreover, is a staunch puppet of the biofuel lobby. It has refused to amend a law that would have stopped the use of food crops for fuel production, actually contributing to what the UN Food Program has described as “a global emergency of unprecedented magnitude.” No less than 350 million people are on the brink of starvation across Africa.
Instead, the G7’s notion of “helping” Africa is crystallized in the US-led Build Back Better World (B3W) – Washington’s anaemic attempt to counter Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – which focuses on “climate, health, and health security, digital technology, and gender equity and equality,” according to the White House. Practical issues of infrastructure and sustainable development, which are at the heart of China’s plan, are simply ignored by the B3W.
Initially, a few “promising” projects were identified by a traveling US delegation in Senegal and Ghana. Senegalese diplomatic sources have since confirmed that these projects have nothing whatsoever to do with building infrastructure.
B3W, predictably, fizzled out. After all, the US-led project was little more than a public relations gimmick to undermine the Chinese, with negligible effect on narrowing the $40-plus trillion worth of infrastructure needed to be built across the Global South by 2035.
Have YALI, will travel
Imperial initiatives in Africa – apart from the US military’s Africa Command (AFRICOM), which amounts to raw militarization of the continent – brings us to the curious case of YALI (Young African Leaders Initiative), widely touted in the Washington-New York axis as “the most innovative” policy of the Obama years.
Launched in 2010, YALI was framed as “empowering the new generation of Africa leadership” – a euphemism for educating (or brainwashing) them the American way. The mechanism is simple: investing in and bringing hundreds of young African potential leaders to US universities for a short, six-week “training” on “business, civil leadership, entrepreneurship, and public management.” Then, four days in Washington to meet “leaders in the administration,” and a photo op with Obama.
The project was coordinated by US embassies in Africa, and targeted young men and women from sub-Saharan Africa’s 49 nations – including those under US sanctions, like Sudan, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe – proficient in English, with a “commitment” to return to Africa. Roughly 80 percent during the initial years had never been to the US, and more than 50 percent grew up outside of big cities.
Then, in a speech in 2013 in South Africa, Obama announced the establishment of the Washington Fellowship, later renamed the Mandela-Washington Fellowship (MWF).
That’s still ongoing. In 2022, MWF should be granted to 700 “outstanding young leaders from sub-Saharan Africa,” who follow “Leadership Institutes” at nearly 40 US universities, before their short stint in Washington. After which, they are ready for “long-term engagement between the United States and Africa.”
And all that for literally peanuts, as MWF was enthusiastically billed by the Democrat establishment as cost-efficient: $24,000 per fellow, paid by participant US universities as well as Coca-Cola, IBM, MasterCard Foundation, Microsoft, Intel, McKinsey, GE, and Procter & Gamble.
And that didn’t stop with MWF. USAID went a step further, and invested over $38 million – plus $10 million from the MasterCard Foundation – to set up four Regional Leadership Centers (RLCs) in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Senegal. These were training, long distance, and in-class, at least 3,500 ‘future leaders’ a year.
It’s no wonder the Brookings Institution was drooling over so much “cost-efficiency” when it comes to investing “in Africa’s future” and for the US to “stay competitive” in Africa. YALI certainly looks prettier than AFRICOM.
A few success stories though don’t seem to rival the steady stream of African footballers making a splash in Europe – and then reinvesting most of their profits back home. The Trump years did see a reduction of YALI’s funding – from $19 million in 2017 to roughly $5 million.
So many leaders to ‘train’
Predictably, the Joe Biden White House YALI-ed all over again with a vengeance. Take this US press attache in Nigeria neatly outlining the current emphasis on “media and information literacy,” badly needed to tackle the “spreading of disinformation” including “in the months leading up to the national presidential election.”
So the US, under YALI, “trained 1,000 young Nigerians to recognize the signs of online and media misinformation and disinformation.” And now the follow-up is “Train the Trainer” workshops, “teaching 40 journalists, content creators, and activists (half of whom will be women) from Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, Zamfara, and Katsina how to identify, investigate, and report misinformation.” Facebook, being ordered by the FBI to censor “inconvenient,” potentially election-altering facts is not part of the curriculum.
YALI is the soft, Instagrammed face of AFRICOM. The US has participated in the overthrow of several African governments over the past two decades, with troops trained under secrecy-obsessed AFRICOM. There has been no serious Pentagon audit on the weaponizing of AFRICOM’s local “partners.” For all we know – as in Syria and Libya – the US military could be arming even more terrorists.
And predictably, it’s all bipartisan. Rabid neo-con and former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, in December 2018, at the Heritage Foundation, made it crystal clear: the US in Africa has nothing to do with supporting democracy and sustainable development. It’s all about countering Russia and China.
When it learned that Beijing was considering building a naval base in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, the Biden White House sent power envoys to the capital Malabo to convince the government to cease and desist. To no avail.
In contrast, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was received like a superstar in his recent extensive tour of Africa, where it’s widely perceived that global food prices and the fertilizer drama are a direct consequence of western sanctions on Russia. Uganda leader Yoweri Museveni went straight to the point when he said, “How can we be against somebody who has never harmed us?”
On 13-15 December, the White House plans a major US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington to discuss mostly food security and climate change – alongside the perennial lectures on democracy and human rights. Most leaders won’t be exactly impressed with this new showing of “the United States’ enduring commitment to Africa.” Well, there’s always YALI. So many young leaders to indoctrinate, so little time.
For the fifth time in recorded history, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global health emergency, this time in response to an Ebola outbreak that continues to ravage the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
According to official data, some 2,500 people have already been infected this time around – and some of these infected individuals may have entered the United States, as the government has been importing Congolese “refugees” through San Antonio, Texas, and distributing them across the country.
A known testing ground for bioweapons experimentation, Africa is where Ebola outbreaks often start. But they usually stay contained within Africa, which is why health officials are now starting to panic over the prospect that a global pandemic could be in the works.
Despite declaring this Ebola outbreak as a global emergency, WHO’s general director Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stopped short of classifying it as an “international” emergency – the implication being that the disease is still contained within the Congo, despite still being a threat to the rest of the world.
Where Ebola is spreading is still anyone’s guess, however, as Congolese migrants continue to make their way into the United States via Texas, threatening the lives and liberty of American citizens who never voted to allow such an invasion in the first place.
What we do know is that at least 1,700 people have died thus far as a result of this latest Ebola outbreak, which was recently detected in the city of Goma, which has a population of roughly two million people.
“This is still a regional emergency and by no way a global threat,” insists WHO’s emergency committee chairman from the University of Zurich in Switzerland.
Don’t be fooled: disease outbreaks in Africa are practice efforts for a real global pandemic
The other four global health emergencies declared by WHO include one in 2016 for the Zika virus epidemic; another in 2014 for Ebola in West Africa; another that same year for polio resurgence in a handful of countries; and the infamous one in 2009 for influenza.
This latest declaration comes roughly a year after Ebola first struck the Congo and began to spread rapidly, despite efforts to stop it. Ghebreyesus says it’s the worst possible disease to impact one of the world’s most dangerous areas, and that it could continue well into 2020.
It’s currently the second-largest Ebola outbreak in history next to the one from 2014-2015, which is said to have infected nearly 29,000 people, resulting in more than 11,000 deaths.
What’s interesting about these outbreaks is that they often appear in conjunction with calls by the “elite” for better “population control,” which is exactly what happened a few years back when a plague outbreak started not long after Prince William publicly stated that “urgent depopulation efforts” were necessary to save the world.
As Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, warned at the time, deep state globalists are actually creating, and then weaponizing, these deadly diseases as an act of medical genocide against the world’s “useless eaters,” which apparently include black people in Africa.
You see, the “elite” don’t actually think that black lives matter, at least beyond their votes. And since black people in Africa can’t vote in elections where the “elite” hold power, they’re easy targets for elimination.
“These vaccines, notably, contain chemicals that are administered without the informed consent of the women being injected. In fact, the women are deliberately lied to and told the injections are meant to ‘protect your health.’ But the real reason for the shots is to exterminate blacks in the name of ‘science’ and ‘medicine.’”
“The Liberals and Conservatives are essentially opposite sides of the same coin, both supporters of the global status quo as envisioned by the corporate powers.”
In spite of the “writ” not having been “dropped” Canada is already in full election mode. Of course, politicians are always electioneering as their main purpose once in power is to stay in power in order to reap its rewards and benefits. Otherwise, instead of politicians running the country we could simply let the bureaucrats do their uncelebrated mundane work of the daily running of the country. Unfortunately, it is not that simple as the rules and policies the bureaucracy follows are put out by various political parties – massaged and manipulated over time – and not put out on the basis of “universal values” or “constitutional values” whatever they may be. In the meantime, electioneering has started with the many policies, plans, promises, platitudes, and homilies being announced for consumption by the incumbents and wannabes.
Within domestic affairs and identity politics are many topics used to shape and steer discussions in attempts to sway the popular will. What is seldom discussed – and very little understood, are the actions and belief systems that really underlie our society. In a broad perspective Canada’s position as a neoliberal, austerity imposing, capitalist member of the western elite, the western U.S. sponsored empire, is seldom if ever questioned.
It is seldom discussed because the true powers that be – the elite powers of those within the Washington consensus group of institutions – the bankers, financial officers, and corporate managers of the large private and public businesses and institutions – do not want it discussed. They do not want ‘democracy’ to be more than a superficial status. Their control of monetary policy, their centralized control of the media steers the world the way they want it to operate and be perceived, making our democratic institutions essentially a rubber stamp for their economic dominance.
Our institutions operate within the parameters acceptable to the corporate greed towards ever-increasing profits at the expense of the global environment, and at the expense of the global citizenry. While science has long warned about climate change and environmental pollution of all kinds – a very real occurrence – even those who pay attention to it are so entwined within societies’ structures that very little is done about these scientific concerns. Along with that, part of the same underlying paradigm are increasingly vast disparities in income and wealth levels both domestically and in other countries. A small group of super elites control vast amounts of wealth and thus power, generally working together to secure their realm.
If this broad if somewhat short generalized view is used as the lens through which to view Canada’s political parties, there are rather few underlying differences between the parties as seldom if ever are the underlying factors questioned..
Essentially it all comes down to maintaining the status quo of western financial dominance of the world, its resources, and people. The Liberals and Conservatives both actively support the military industrial complex that is the not so hidden fist keeping – or trying to – control of the world’s governments. Perhaps they present it differently, the Conservatives wanting to put the military out to “punch above its weight” while the Liberals soften the blow with “rule of law” and “peacekeeping forces,” both serving the empire well. Few question it – from Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria to Ukraine, Canada willingly supports the empire. Venezuela reveals the ultimate ugliness of it all as Canada has for decades – with notables such as Ben Rowswell and Allan Culham (former ambassadors), and Chrystia Freeland (current Foreign Minister) – openly advocating the overthrow of a duly elected government. How democratic!
Israel serves as another example of an empire under non-democratic control. A government that denies twenty percent of its population the same civic status as the ethnic religious majority, that guards 1.8 million people in an open air prison on survival rations only, and that has created a series of militarily ruled or controlled bantustans is not democratic. Yet there is no Canadian political party that decries this situation, all fearful of the domestic religious vote (Christian and Jewish) and the repercussions of not supporting the empire’s outpost in the Middle East. For the latter, it is truly not so much fear of what might happen but an overwhelming blind willingness to support the dominant power of the west.
All major parties – Liberals, Conservatives, New Democrats, and Greens – support the fully outdated position of wanting a two-state position, while Israel continues to ignore all those dead positions and continues building illegal settlements on occupied territory while the rest of the world turns away. Israel is not the only place where Canadians uphold the status of the West’s military control of wealth and resources.
Throughout Africa, through much of the Middle East, Canada’s military-business connections help maintain the extraction of wealth through current supra-national corporate models of governance. So-called “free trade” agreements, onerous World Bank predatory lending, and IMF “structural adjustment programs” (debt and more debt) maintains control of many governments and many supposedly sovereign economies. In essence, globalization is about controlling the world’s wealth while guarding the people – the workers, labourers – behind sovereign borders. Canada is in full partnership with all this.
Obviously, all is not well with globalization as millions of people attempt to escape the worst of its violent dangers and impositions. The large displacement of people in the Middle East and Africa is placing pressure on Europe as refugees continue to arrive en masse when escaping domestic mayhem. The same holds true in the Americas as thousands of Hispanic/indigenous people attempt to travel to the U.S. in order to escape the violence and corruption and despotism at home. Most of that violence is caused by the economic impositions of globalization combined with the history of U.S. interventions to control governments that objected to U.S.corporate dominance.
Blowback from globalization also has an impact on the Canadian domestic scene. Hyped up fears of terrorism have increased the powers of the security state (with much learned from Israel’s control of its Palestinian population) and increased the unjustified glorification of the Canadian military both through the media and with a larger budget. Canada is a member of the “five eyes”, the family members inheriting the British empire and who now share information and security methodologies. Another form of blowback are the heightened fear of terrorism ad “other” – mainly focussed on refugees with a Muslim background but extending out to the created fears generated by identity politics. These fears and prejudices are used in different ways to control the domestic electorate, a diversion from the reality of the overall non-democratic governance of the military-financial- corporate powers.
Two other perspectives can view this same phenomenon – income disparity/poverty and global environmental change.
Most everyone pays lip service to poverty. Many offer solutions on a small scale through NGOs acting on small targeted goals in specific areas – actions that certainly aid a small number of people but in no way address the source of poverty. Musicians sing about it, politicians talk about it, the media keeps us focused on these feel-good/do-good attempts without addressing the underlying causes (and note, poverty does not equate to terrorism). Until the base structures of western globalization are deconstructed or contained (or collapse) poverty will continue its destructive pathways – malnutrition, starvation, poor health, serfdom, wage slave labour, exploitation et al. Poverty, other than small domestic pockets, many of indigenous people, does not register on Canada’s domestic political scene. However, climate change and global warming do have an impact.
At this point, it is mainly different parties and different jurisdictions arguing about how to control carbon output using some form of establishment acceptable monetary initiatives (cap and trade, carbon tax). Extrapolating from current trends all that money manoeuvering will have little impact due to the nature of our profit-oriented consumer culture. As one small but important factor consider Canada’s export of garbage, plastic waste, and e-waste to poorer less developed countries in Southeast Asia. Those outlets now are closed and very little of our waste/garbage is actually recycled or reused. Most is incinerated at 1400 degrees Celsius with the subsequent volatile gases dispersing through the atmosphere.
Canadian consumer culture continues its money habits of purchasing stuff, and “planned obsolescence stuff” continuing the degradation of the environment both from chemical pollution and carbon-induced warming. Global warming, while obviously important and becoming more and more a political and media talking point hides the dangers of thousands of chemical products behind a smokescreen (quite literally).
Canadians who think they are “green” and want to eliminate poverty, need to consider the following. Are you really willing to accept the huge changes necessary in order to achieve a clean sustainable world – i.e., far less consumption, less travel, less stuff, no more debt purchases? The latter is very difficult because while the wealth of the top elites has risen dramatically, wages have stagnated over the past several decades. Simply using the “3 Rs” will not do it unless the reduce aspect is taken to its necessary full extension.
Consider also Canada’s military. Can you recognize our actions in Libya, Syria, Ukraine and maybe soon Venezuela and Iran as being part of U.S. corporate elites striving for full control? Do you support Canada’s role within the globalization paradigm of controlling other countries economies through predatory financial practices, up to and including the use of mercenaries to protect corporations against indigenous protests?
Do you support the U.S. military actions – overt and covert – used to maintain the economic dominance of the super elites and their global corporations? Do you support the many western interventions in the Middle East considering the terrorists we are supposedly fighting have been used, supplied, and trained in part by the western military and political establishments? More broadly, ask what role the 800+ military bases, the dozen or so carrier groups, play in attempting to subordinate the rest of the world to our non-sustainable demands. The U.S. military is the largest institutional user of oil in the world. In 2007 it ranked as the 35th largest sovereign user, and ranks 3rd globally on a per capita basis. Canada is a large part of the U.S. empire and plays a large role in creating poverty, terror, and environmental disasters around the world through our support of their military adventurism.
In other words, if you support the military as it is currently used, you achieve nothing against poverty and your green colour is a veneer over the actual economic lifestyle choices you make.
The veneer is readily maintained by mainstream media, the vast majority of which is owned and financially controlled by the military-financial-corporate elites. It combines a willful ignorance of our predations with massive amounts of diversions. One of the main diversions includes all the propaganda associated with the various wars of control and the manipulation of the terrorist “threat”. The diversions extend well beyond through all aspects of consumerism – the entertainment of movies, film, television, the internet in all its aspects through to major sports activities, and on to leisure and holiday consumption. As corporate profits rise and wages stagnate, consumers rely heavily on debt to achieve the advertised/propagandized ideals of the good life. All the debt, trillions of dollars, simply feeds more money and power to the controllers of a corporate financialized economy.
Back to Canadian political parties
In Canada, these issues present a serious problem as to which party or candidate to support. The Liberals and Conservatives are essentially opposite sides of the same coin, both supporters of the global status quo as envisioned by the corporate powers. The supposedly “left” New Democrats similarly follow this status quo, are not very green, and tend to move to the right once the political dollars become a more central interest. That leaves the actual Greens, although they are not as green as they would like to be perceived – support for U.S. actions, support for Israeli actions, with no real action plan regarding environmental changes addressing our military supported consumer society lowers their credentials as a truly ‘green‘ party.
The Liberals quashed their election reform agenda after realizing it could negatively affect their majority control in parliament. In opposing moves they announce a climate “emergency” then a day later approve a 12-14 billion dollar pipeline project to move tar sands – diluted bitumen or dilbit, but not oil – to an ecologically sensitive coastline. Given Canada’s current economic-political fight with China, it is a bit ridiculous to think China will buy more of our dirty oil. Economic health as determined by a high energy consumer economy does not go together with a good environment.
The Conservatives acquiesced on the lack of electoral reform for the same reason. They are pro big oil, frequent climate change deniers although a recent policy statement recognized that, yes, after all these years of working against the idea, global warming is happening. They offer no real solutions other than a variant on the inefficient cap and trade idea, but with no stated costs or implementation factors.
The two smaller parties offer little. The NDP has failed to truly distinguish themselves from the two larger parties, creating policy positions frequently accepted and adopted (if not implemented) by the Liberals and for which the Conservatives cry “socialism” over. The Greens have some initiatives in the right direction but with their support of the military and of government attempts to change foreign governments, they have yet to create a policy that will change the momentum/inertia of a debt-ridden, consumer-based, media biased, military/corporate society.
Other than perhaps voting for the lesser evil of the group, a spoiled ballot or no vote at all are the better options.
Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The original source of this article is Global Research
More than 1,400 people have died and more than 2,000 have been infected in latest outbreak of Ebola in central Africa, the World Health Organization has said.
The international health body has declared it “very much an emergency” in the region, but says it is not a global threat.
The outbreak is the second-largest in the history of the virus. It follows the 2013-16 epidemic in West Africa that killed more than 11,300 people.
1. Ebola cases are on the rise
So far, more than 1,400 people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo and two in neighbouring Uganda in the latest outbreak, which began in August last year.
A 50-year-old woman died in western Uganda on Thursday, a day after the virus killed her five-year-old grandson. They are the first two cases reported outside DR Congo.
Doctors have confirmed another relative – a three-year-old child who was repatriated to DR Congo from Uganda – has also died.
The current 10-month epidemic began in the eastern region of Kivu in the DR Congo and cases have recently been reported across the border in Uganda.
The two victims who died in Uganda had travelled across the border from DR Congo after caring for an elderly male relative before his death from Ebola. They sought medical attention after falling ill themselves.
Members of their family have been placed in isolation.
Although the current outbreak has not yet spread to Uganda, thousands of people cross the border to and from DR Congo every day and health officials are screening travellers to check their temperature and disinfect their hands.
Uganda’s Health Minister, Jane Ruth Aceng, said the challenge was to stop people crossing at “unofficial entry points” between the two countries.
There are normally fewer than 500 cases reported each year, and no cases were reported at all between 1979 and 1994.
The current outbreak is the worst on record after an epidemic that struck Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone between 2013-16, leaving more than 11,300 people dead.
It killed five times more than all other known Ebola outbreaks combined.
Ebola infects humans through close contact with infected animals, including chimpanzees, fruit bats and forest antelope.
It can then spread rapidly, through contact with even small amounts of bodily fluid of those infected – or indirectly through contact with contaminated environments.
Even funerals of Ebola victims can be a risk, if mourners have direct contact with the body of the deceased.
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) grew by 8 cases today, putting the total at 1,100, and in research developments, new findings from Guinea’s outbreak shed light on the role of Ebola treatment units in preventing secondary spread.
In addition, another research team described how blood from vaccine trial participants might lead to new antibody treatments.
The new DRC cases are reflected in the World Health Organization (WHO) online Ebola dashboard, which notes that 277 suspected cases are still under investigation. The number of deaths held steady, at 683.
Treatment units tied to fewer infections
To help sift out which risk factors are linked to secondary Ebola spread, a research team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and their collaborators in Guinea analyzed 860 cases in 129 transmission during the last half of Guinea’s Ebola outbreak. They described their findings today in an early online edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Ring vaccination was under way during the trial, and, to adjust for it as a confounder, the investigators removed participants from the study analysis.
Focusing on characteristics that led to secondary transmission, they found that admission to an Ebola treatment unit was associated with a 38% decrease in secondary cases in people who did not survive their infections. Another key factor was unsafe burial, which was associated with a nearly doubled transmission rate.
Health officials have raised alarm over the high number of children infected.
The second-largest, second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in history has claimed the lives of nearly 100 children.
At least 97 children, 65 of whom were younger than 5 years old, have died from Ebola virus disease in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo since the outbreak was declared there Aug. 1, according to a press release from Save the Children, a charity supporting the fight against the current epidemic.
“We are at a crossroads,” Heather Kerr, Save the Children’s country director in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said in a statement Sunday. “If we don’t take urgent steps to contain this, the outbreak might last another six months, if not the whole year.”
(John Wessels/MSF via AP) A caretaker already cured of Ebola is seen carrying a four day old baby suspected of having Ebola into a Medecins Sans Frontieres supported Ebola treatment center in Butembo, Congo, Nov. 4, 2018.
A total of 811 people have reported symptoms of hemorrhagic fever in the country’s northeastern provinces of North Kivu and Ituri. Among those cases, 750 have tested positive for Ebola, which causes an often-fatal type of hemorrhagic fever, according to Sunday night’s bulletin from the country’s health ministry.
The growing outbreak has a case fatality rate of nearly 63 percent. There have been 510 deaths thus far, including 449 people who died from confirmed cases of Ebola. The other deaths are from probable cases, the ministry said.
The number of new cases spiked in January, from about 20 a week to more than 40, according to Save the Children, which expressed concern about misinformation in the local community and mistrust of the medical response.
The Italian deputy prime minister has blamed France for the European migrant crisis, accusing it of impoverishing African nations with “colonialist” policies. He promised to take the issue to the EU and other international bodies.
The Italian deputy prime minister has blamed France for the European migrant crisis, accusing it of impoverishing African nations with “colonialist” policies. He promised to take the issue to the EU and other international bodies.
Luigi Di Maio, leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and Italy’s Deputy PM, launched a scathing attack on France, which he argued is to blame for the inherent causes of the ongoing migrant crisis at EU borders.
Di Maio was speaking at a rally on Sunday, when he touched on recent mass migrant drownings in the Mediterranean. It is believed that up to 170 migrants who left Libya and Morocco on ramshackle dinghies may have drowned in the sea last week. Three migrants were saved by the Italian Navy on Friday off the cost of Lampedusa. The survivors said they were a part of a group of 120 people that sailed from Libya on Thursday. Their boat started to sink after they were at sea for about 10 hours. The victims, according to migrant organizations, include a two-month-old child and at least 10 women. Separately, another boat carrying 53 migrants capsized in the western Mediterranean, according to sole survivor of the incident.
The tragedies have reignited the debate on the hardline migration policy championed by Italy’s right-wing government.
“We would be hypocrites if we just continued to talk about the effects without looking for the causes. If today we have people coming from Africa it’s because some European countries like France never stopped colonizing Africa in their heads,” Di Maio told the crowd.
The politician, who also serves as the minister of economic development, referred to the CFA franc, a currency which is used in 14 former French colonies in West and Central Africa. The currency is guaranteed by the French Treasury and has a fixed rate of exchange with the euro. While it is credited for providing African countries with financial stability, it has often been criticized as a relic of colonial times by proponents of Africa’s full independence from France. They argue that the CFA franc, created in 1945, impedes their economic development as they have no say in French or European monetary policy.
“There are dozens of African states in which France prints its own currency, the franc of the colonies, and with that, it finances the French public debt,” Di Maio said, adding that France should be subjected to sanctions by the EU, and potentially the UN, for “impoverishing those states and triggering those people.”
“The place of Africans is in Africa and not at the bottom of the sea,” he stated. Di Maio further argued that France would fall far back in the international economic rankings if not for its leverage over its former colonies.
“If France did not have the African colonies, which it is impoverishing, it would be the 15th international economic power and instead it is among the first for what it is doing in Africa,” he said. France is currently the world’s seventh-largest economy, according to World Bank data for 2017, and the third-biggest economy in Europe after Germany and the UK.
Di Maio said that his party would submit a proposal to parliament to punish France in the coming weeks.
In a swipe at French President Emmanuel Macron, Di Maio said that he should stop lecturing Italy on morals while his government continue to exploit African nations. Last summer, Macron chastized the Italian government for its refusal to pick up migrants stranded at sea, with his spokesman calling the policy “sickening” and “unacceptable.”
Italy brushed off the criticism, accusing the French government of hypocrisy. Relations between the French and Italian governments were already strained, with Di Maio – along with anti-immigrant Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini – voicing their support for Yellow Vest protests that have plagued Macron’s government since November.
Overrun by African criminal gangs, its streets filled with violence, terror and menace – that’s how some local media and politicians are depicting the Australian city of Melbourne.
For more than two years, there have been reports that Melbourne is in the grip of a crime wave, with the finger of blame pointed directly at African street gangs.
“We need to call it for what it is. Of course, this is African gang violence … people are scared to go out to restaurants of a night-time because they’re followed home by these gangs,” said Peter Dutton, Federal Home Affairs Minister.
Images of brawling Sudanese teens and hooded armed robbers have spread terror and stoked a growing anger towards those “of African appearance”.
“They do all these criminal acts and you see on the news that they get away with it. Why do they get away with it?” says one resident.
It’s generating heated debate and social tensions – police are being accused of political correctness and inaction while the Sudanese community feels under siege.
“You get stared at. Imagine someone’s looking through you or looking … someone’s eyes are just burning into the side of your head. That’s what it feels like,” says a young Sudanese man.
But how accurate is the so-called “threat”?
101 East investigates the claims and counterclaims to unearth the truth behind the headlines of Australia‘s African crime wave.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo, DRC) increased to 560, while 368 people have been reported dead, the country’s Ministry of Public Health said on Wednesday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The number of confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo, DRC) increased to 560, while 368 people have been reported dead, the country’s Ministry of Public Health said on Wednesday.
The death toll from the virus in the DRC previously stood at 360, while the number of confirmed Ebola cases amounted to 545, according to the ministry.
“Ebola — the situation on Wednesday, January 2, 2019: a total of 608 cases (560 confirmed and 48 possible), 368 [people] died and 207 have recovered,” the DRC Ministry of Public Health wrote on Twitter.The Ebola virus is transmitted to humans from wild animals and is estimated by the World Health Organization to have a 50-percent fatality rate. Ebola is named after the DRC’s Ebola River, near which the virus was discovered by Belgian microbiologist Peter Piot and his team in 1976.
The most recent Ebola outbreak spreading through the Democratic Republic of Congo is now the worst in the country’s history, with 209 dead and 333 confirmed or probable cases, according to the DRC’s health ministry.
According to The Express, efforts to contain the disease have been hampered by localized armed conflict and community resistance to health officials.
The outbreak, the second this year, began in North Kivu before spreading east to Ituri. Oly Ilunga Kalenga, the DRC’s minister of public health, said efforts to contain the deadly outbreak have been thwarted by violence against health officials and civilians as militant groups battle for control in the affected region. –Express
Two health workers were killed during the militant attack according to the minister, while 11 civilians and a soldier were killed last month in the city of Beni – the outbreak’s epicenter.
And on Thursday, the United Nations announced that at least seven UN peacekeepers were killed by militants in at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak.
“Our peacekeeping colleagues tell us that six peacekeepers from Malawi and one from Tanzania who are part of the U.N. peacekeeping operation in the DRC … were killed yesterday, in Beni territory, in North Kivu,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Meanwhile, a USAID worker speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity said “We are absolutely concerned about the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is occurring in an area of active conflict, so physical insecurity is a persistent challenge and complication to the ongoing response efforts.”
“No other epidemic in the world has been as complex as the one we are currently experiencing,” said Kalenga.
As the rate of new cases has accelerated in recent weeks, neighboring Uganda began vaccinating at-risk health workers on Wednesday in case the virus crosses the border.
Now neighboring Uganda is bracing for the virus to cross the 545-mile boundary it shares with DRC. The border is porous and heavily trafficked, with large numbers of local farmers, merchants, traders, and refugees constantly moving through the area. A checkpoint in the region receives 5,000 people on an average day, with the busiest ones swelling to 20,000 twice a week on market days. –Wired
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The Ugandan Health Ministry says it has 2,100 doses of vaccine available for doctors and nurses across five border districts, while four specialized Ebola treatment facilities have been constructed at hospitals near the border.
“The risk of cross-border transmission was assessed to be very high at a national level,” said Jane Ruth Acent, Uganda’s Health Minister at a press conference last week. “Hence the need to protect our health workers.”
Meanwhile, officials in Uganda have been screening anyone crossing in from the Congo since the outbreak began.
a series of questions and no-contact infrared thermometers aimed at the side of the head that read out body temperatures like a highway patrolman’s radar gun. Fever is one of the first red flags for an Ebola infection. The process isn’t foolproof; symptoms can take up to three weeks to appear, and lots of other tropical diseases in that part of Africa can also cause soaring temperatures. –Wired
And as Wired‘s Megan Molteninotes, Ebola has never broken out in a war zone, while Billions of dollars in Chinese infrastructure investments have created greater connectivity throughout Africa that can encourage the rapid spread of Ebola and other diseases.
“It’s a cruel irony that better roads and improved connectivity of people also make it easier for the disease to travel, particularly when the public health systems are still lagging behind,” said Boston Medical Center’s Nahid Bhadelia, medical director of the facility’s Special Pathogens Unit. Bhadelia was on the front lines during the 2014 Sierra Leone Ebola outbreak.
Similar to the DRC, armed conflict in Uganda between rebel groups may also hobble containment efforts.
“We can’t afford for it to go deep in the red security zones where we have no access,” says Mike Ryan, Assistant Director-General of Emergency Preparedness and Response at the World Health Organization. “Ebola exploits the cracks, so the more we can keep it out in the open, the better.” –Wired
That said, the DRC outbreak appears to be turning a corner, according to Ryan, as transmission of the disease has been relegated to healthcare facilities, as opposed to out in the community.
But only in the last few weeks have health workers realized the extent to which Ebola was spreading through Beni’s network of more than 300 healthcare facilities, many of which keep poor patient records. Even as workers vaccinated victims’ close friends and family, new cases would show up seemingly out of thin air. Last week the Washington Postreported that between 60 and 80 percent of new confirmed cases had no known epidemiological link to prior cases. –Wired
“Fears of this thing becoming endemic are real, and rational, but we also need to see that as a worst-case scenario,” Ryan said. “We still have plenty of opportunities to put this virus back in the box, we just need to get behind the people risking their lives on the front line and push hard for the next three to six weeks. It’s going to be a long march, but I don’t think we should be raising the white flag just yet.”
The cementing of relations between Moscow and Beijing means a new multipolar world with more bilateral trade and different centers of currency concentration and power, according to RT host Max Keiser.
He says that the new Russia-China alliance could not be taken on by the US militarily which means that “the US dollar is in grave jeopardy of losing its status as the world’s reserve currency.”
Washington is “very aggressive in defending its currency, it tends to bomb anybody who tries to ignore the dollar,” Keiser said, adding that if Russia and China pull off the alliance then the greenback will start crumbling.
“So, this is a totally new century, we’ve got a new multipolar world, the US really has to start tap dancing to a different tune if they want to participate or be left out.”
Keiser explained that the dollar is benefiting from the chaos in emerging markets in Argentina, Venezuela, and South Africa.
“There’s a flight of the dollar as a safe haven currency but once that trend has peaked, then you’ll be looking at this broader geopolitical picture in terms of the currency market and you’ll see Russia and China coming together and they will be able to ignore the dollar.”
Keiser stressed that it would be a “net negative for the US in terms of its current ability to govern much of the world economy. It may force Washington to change some of its behavior when it comes to dealing with other countries around the world and scale back its militaristic policies.”
Keiser used China’s activities in places like the African Union as an example where Beijing has been going in with “development dollars for years now” while the US was installing military bases.
“So, the US has lost in Africa in a lot of ways while China has gained a lot friends there because they are going there with trade, infrastructure projects, and they are building a huge new Silk Road across all of Eurasia with the help of Russia,” he said.
The election engineering merchants of George Soros and other “one-size-fits-all” democracy templates may have been vanquished in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Myanmar, but they are, by no means, down and out. International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have simply borrowed a page from international consultancies and gone quasi-private, racking up lucrative contracts as political advisers to pro-capitalist candidates around the world.
With the US Foreign Service largely neutered under President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, there is virtually no one left at various US embassies in far-flung diplomatic posts to warn host governments about the modern version of American “snake oil salesmen” pitching their election assistance wares to unsuspecting candidates for office.
Take Vanguard Africa, a Washington, DC-based election campaign consultancy that seeks public contributions under the aegis of the Democratic Party’s fundraising organization, ActBlue. During a time when there are complaints in the United States of foreign interference in American elections, why is an outfit like Vanguard America involved in elections in The Gambia and Niger? What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.
If someone donates to ActBlue to elect more Democrats to the US Congress, state legislatures, and mayors’ offices, why is ActBlue, working with Vanguard Africa, involved in helping to elect in January 2017, Adama Barrow as president of The Gambia in West Africa? Vanguard Africa’s US leadership includes Joe Trippi, former Vermont Democratic Governor Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign chairman, and former Democratic US Representative Al Wynn of Maryland.
Vanguard Africa unabashedly admits on its website that it mixes election engineering with lobbying in Washington: “Access to Influential Leaders – Opening lines of communication and building trusted, long-term relationships with key pro-democracy groups, civic leaders, elected officials and policymakers – in Washington, DC and internationally.” While such a service helps line the pockets of Washington lobbyists and increases the profiles of certain African leaders, such as Barrow in The Gambia, it does little to alleviate the extreme poverty of Africans in The Gambia or anywhere else on the continent.
It is not merely the connections of outfits like Vanguard Africa to the Central Intelligence Agency-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) that should ring alarm bells, but also its connection to the Washington lobbying organization Sanitas International, whose partner, Christopher Harvin, is a co-founder of Vanguard Africa. Sanitas has a contract with Tzvika Brot, of Delaware-incorporated BSI Public Affairs, Brot ran the 2016 get-out-the-vote campaign targeting US voters in Israel on behalf of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. Washington deal-making does not get any “swampier” than this. And Mr. Trump, who rants and raves about “draining the swamp,” is one of its chief scaly denizens.
Perhaps it is time for an international convention, either through the auspices of the United Nations or regional supranational organizations, like the African Union, European Union, and others, to prohibit all foreign government or corporate interference in elections in other countries. If narcotics and human trafficking, as well as weapons smuggling, can be banned internationally, why not foreign election interference?
Such a regime would stop Vanguard Africa from providing advice to clients like Daher Ahmed Farah, the president of the of the Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development opposition in the militarily-strategic country of Djibouti on the Red Sea, or Ibrahim Yacouba, a 2021 presidential candidate in Niger and Biram Dah Abeid, a failed 2014 presidential candidate in Mauritania. Questions have been raised about how Abeid became one of the richest men in Mauritania after receiving huge “human rights” grants from foreign NGOs. Apparently, promoting “democracy” on behalf of foreign masters can be a very lucrative business.
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Vanguard receives funding from Tony O. Elumelu, one of Nigeria’s richest men and chairman of Heirs Holdings, the United Bank for Africa, Transcorp, as well as the founder of the Africacapitalism Institute. While Barack Obama may have supported the “entrepreneurship” notions of “Africacapitalism,” the quasi-libertarian gobbledygook of a “rising tide lifts all boats” espoused as part of such policies represents a slap in the face of the pan-African socialism of the founders of modern independent Africa. These include Kwame Nkrumah, Sekou Toure, Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, and Patrice Lumumba, and later, Muammar Qaddafi and Thomas Sankara.
The Guardian newspaper spelled out the problems associated with the “do-gooder capitalism” of those like Elumelu in a July 12, 2013 piece. The article quotes University of British Columbia law professor Joel Bakan as asserting that schemes like that of Elumelu parrot the rhetoric often used as a “smokescreen for big business to push towards deregulation.” Bakan believes that such “shared value” business models distort the public’s relationship with mega-businesses. In Africa and Latin America, where state ownership of key industries and foreign government economic assistance programs helped advance national economies from Third World to Second and First World status, the arrival of snake oil salesmen selling “beneficial capitalism” led to crippling austerity imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Another snake oil merchant, Avenue Strategies Global – co-founded by Trump 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and Barry Bennett, manager of current Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s presidential run – is also selling political advice abroad. The firm, which is situated on a corner across from the White House, recently signed a lucrative contract with former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko. It is obvious that Avenue Strategies is helping Tymosheno position herself for a future presidential run in Ukraine. And it is quite convenient that the firm, which Lewandowski has departed, is close, both geographically and politically, to the offices of Trump administration key officials, including National Security Adviser John Bolton.
Lewandowski is associated with another political advice consultancy, Turnberry Solutions, LLC of Washington, DC. Perhaps not coincidentally, Trump Turnberry is the name of Trump’s Scottish golf resort. Yet another Lewandowski-linked firm, Washington East West Political Strategies LLC, which dissolved in 2017, had been advising political candidates in Albania and Kosovo, as well as others in the Middle East, Canada, and Central America. Lewandowski’s links with the Amsterdam Group, another Washington lobbying firm, puts him in the same orbit as former YUKOS oil head, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a client of Amsterdam Group and someone who has been working from the United States, Europe, and Israel to oust Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government.
Of more concern is Lewandowski’s links to the Boston, Massachusetts-based social media analytics firm, Crimson Hexagon, which stands accused of manipulating Facebook data to affect election outcomes. The threat posed by the intersection of political advisory firms, “big data” manipulators, and NGOs cannot be underestimated.
Big Brother is now a reality and he does not want your vote, he wants to cast your vote. One of the most sinister buildings on Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC is the inaptly-named US Institute of Peace. Its election manipulation activities, conducted in concert with consultancies, data analytics firms, and NGOs, often result in wars and civil strife.
As the weeping over the death of Senator John McCain subsides, it should be remembered that his pride and joy, the election-meddling International Republican Institute, and his former campaign manager, Rick Davis, had longstanding organizational ties to Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager. Manafort now sits in a jail cell in Alexandria, Virginia, convicted on eight counts of fraud, and awaiting trial in Washington, DC on additional criminal counts. The Trump administration wasted no time in immersing itself deep into this political swamp and help market American political snake oil to unsuspecting countries around the world.
(MPN) — Chinese President Xi Jinping has offered a $60 billion aid package to African countries over the next three years, in response to the continent’s increasing debt distress — with no strings attached.
China’s investment plans include $5 billion in African exports, $10 billion for development, and $15 billion grants and interest-free loans. A $20 billion credit line will also be included, as well as emergency food aid, scholarships and vocational training, and increased agricultural development.
“China will extend $60 billion of financing to Africa in the form of government assistance as well as investment and financing by financial institutions and companies,” China’s president said during the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), a triennial meeting between Chinese leaders and leaders from across Africa. Leaders of 53 African nations were present during the two-day summit in Beijing.
The $60 billion aid package is the same amount Beijing previously pledged at the last FOCAC summit in South Africa in 2015. While aid pledged during FOCAC summits in the past has a history of increasing from year to year, such pledges have remained consistent more recently.
Jeremy Stevens, international economist for the Standard Bank Group, said it would not be “politically appropriate” to offer larger loans at a time that the continent is already overloaded with debt. Stevens contended that the lack of increase is not a step back in relations, rather it is “a maturation and a natural evolution of the relationship.”
Since 2000, Africa has borrowed around $130 billion from China. The International Monetary Fund warned this year that, thanks to 40 percent of Africa’s low-income countries being at risk or in debt distress, the continent is facing a debt crisis — though researchers at the China-Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University have concluded that Chinese loans are not a major contributor to debt distress in most African nations.
SAIS China Africa Research Initiative
Beijing’s planned investments in developing nations are coming under increased scrutiny. In response to accusations of encouraging “debt trap” diplomacy in Africa, Xi said the aid package is not “a scheme to form an exclusive club or bloc against others. Rather it is about greater openness, sharing and mutual benefit.” He added:
“China does not interfere in Africa’s internal affairs and does not impose its own will on Africa. What we value is the sharing of development experience and the support we can offer to Africa’s national rejuvenation and prosperity.”
Xu Jinghu, the special envoy for Africa, said in response to the accusations:
“It’s senseless and baseless to shift the blame on to China for debt problems.”
Jinghu added that China would conduct studies in order to avoid causing additional debt problems on the African continent, specifying:
“These projects will take into account their development prospects so as to help African countries achieve sustainable development and avoid debt or financial problems.”
“Our citizens should know the urgent facts…but they don’t because our media serves imperial, not popular interests. They lie, deceive, connive and suppress what everyone needs to know, substituting managed news misinformation and rubbish for hard truths…”—Oliver Stone
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Tales from the Conspiratum 
