Medical migration

Worldwide, an estimated 4.3 million doctors are needed, according to the WHO.

Dr Kassahun Desalegn serves as department head and assistant professor of dermatovenereology at the University of Gondar, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, in northern Ethiopia. He explains “I practice in a university hospital where I am the only dermatologist for 6 million people. Ethiopia as a whole has a population of 80 million, but only one doctor for every 40,000 people. The United States, where many African health workers end up practicing, has one doctor for every 500 people...Where are all the doctors? When I started practicing medicine in 2004, there were 200 newly graduated doctors all over the country. Only a third of them are now in practice. A third work in international organisations in the country and a third have moved to practice abroad...This shortage of doctors and other health professionals has led many people to turn to alternative medicine as a treatment option. As a result, 80 percent of Ethiopians prefer traditional healing, which can often be harmful when used as the only treatment. Most of my patients have used spiritual healing such as drinking holy water, for diseases they believe to be caused by evil spirits, or applied traditional herbs before coming to me.”

Nearly 30 percent of African doctors leave to work abroad after graduation. Dr Lee Jong-Wook, the past director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), has said that brain drain from Africa is severely hobbling the continent’s fight against HIV/AIDS. Africa loses billions of dollars and countless lives because of doctor migration. Poor countries have attempted to tackle this problem through task-shifting - training middle- and lower-level healthcare providers to do higher-level tasks - developed nations insist on high-skilled and specialised care, which continues and accelerates the medical brain drain from developing to developed countries. Destination countries should  avoid recruiting doctors from countries with critical health manpower shortage. In May 2010, the WHO developed the Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel to mitigate damage to low-income countries struggling to meet the basic health needs of their populations. Unfortunately, its implementation, both by developed and developing countries, has faced enormous challenges. Only Norway has formally adopted this code.

“African governments should provide much better compensation for doctors. Improved wages, pension, housing, tax benefits, childcare, and medical insurance will bring immediate and dramatic results. My colleagues earn monthly wages ranging from $150 in Ethiopia to $2,000 in Botswana, though many employers can pay more. The same doctor can earn up to 50 times more in a Western country...

African Elites' Neocolonial Servitude To The West

I am always amazed at how much time and energy is spent by those of European decent discussing “Africa’s development”. Birgit Brock-Utne, an astute European educator of Norwegian origin, wrote the following in her book about those who insist on preaching to Africa about development:

 “… when Europeans came to Africa toward the turn of the fifteenth century, they found a prosperous civilization and enormous wealth. Agriculture and cattle rearing, iron-work, pottery, fishery, salt-mining, gold refining and ornament making, weaving, hunting, and long-distance trading were well advanced at a time and Europe was still relatively backward…From the fifteenth century on, however, the fate of the two continents reversed….Africa stagnated for over three centuries as a direct result of slavery and colonial conquests. This part of global history, for the sake of maintaining a correct historical perspective on Africa and Europe, must always be kept in mind when looking at the contemporary African situation…The bulk of the African people fought heroically against the imposition of slavery and colonialism, though there were some Africans who collaborated with the white slave-hunters and colonialists as well…”

History of post-colonial Africa is replete with shameful stories of African collaborators who worked to undermine the progress and development of their own peoples. The West’s “divide and rule” tactics resulted in intractable conflicts, destruction and devastation of Africa, leaving its people at the mercy of the neo-cons and their political and economic systems that have sustained poverty through poverty perpetuating programs. The Structural Adjustment Programs of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are an example.

So it comes as no surprise when modern day collaborators such as Mo Ibrahim, the British Sudanese entrepreneur, undermine Africa and its leadership, for no other reason than to force African leaders to submit to Western economic and political ideology. Today, Mo Ibrahim tells us that in 2012 and 2013, there was no African leader that qualified for the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership.
Mo Ibrahim’s views regarding Africans and their leadership is evident in this report from the BBC[2], which said:

  “…Mr Ibrahim says the good governance prize is needed because many leaders of sub-Saharan African countries come from poor backgrounds and are tempted to hang on to power for fear that poverty awaits them when they leave office…”

Afraid of being poor…do European and American presidents also share that fear? 

Dr Salim Ahmed Salim, Chairman of the Mo Ibrahim selection committee tried to explain why no African leaders was chosen for the prize in 2012 and 2013 when African economies were obviously on the rise and much progress was seen in the development arena. This is what he had to say:

“…The economy has been moving forward relentlessly. However, economic progress does not give us a reason to be a little complacent about participation and the human rights of people…”

For example, western agencies have gone to great lengths to tout Ethiopia’s “economic growth”, but most economists agree that Ethiopia’s economic growth, subsidized by billions of donor funds, is not sustainable, and most importantly, does not translate into the betterment in the lives of the Ethiopian people. Yes, opening up its markets has filled the pockets of the corrupt and lawless minority regime’s cadres and “investors” (private and state), but has been of little or no benefit to the majority of the Ethiopian people, who continue to suffer from disease, hunger and extreme poverty. 

The Mo Ibrahim prize seems to be awarded only to those who toe the western line, stick to IMF and WB prescriptions for the development of their nations and most importantly, open up their markets to predatory multi-national corporations and leadership considered to be amenable to the west-systematic emasculation of Africa’s leadership.
Speaking of emasculation…Here is a man, a Moslem man… given the name Mohamed…presumably after the great Prophet Mohamed, but in trying to fit into his British image…he prefers to call himself Mo… I have never heard anyone referring to Jesus as Jessie or Jess…

For today, let us look at how awards, grants and prizes are used to emasculate Africans…

 By Sophia Tesfamariam from here

What follows is a history lesson of sorts. Example after example of crude self-interest of individuals (African and western), regimes and western puppet masters all intent on taking care of number one to the enormous detriment of the populations of many African countries. Neocolonialism still rules.
JS
 

The Blooming of the Sahel

Climate change is expected to hit Africa hardest.  It is increasingly likely that scientific warnings that the world could warm by 2°C in the next 20 or 30 years will come true.  In such a case, pastoralism will be imperiled.  The effects on the African continent will be dramatically more devastating under a warming scenario of 4°C.

Over the centuries, some 16 million pastoralists have perfected the art of survival in the Sahel, raising sheep and livestock in some of the most harsh and unforgiving environments anywhere on the planet.  Meat yields from the Sahel rival those from some of the best ranches in Australia and the United States.  Currently, half of the meat and two-thirds of the milk produced and consumed in the countries of West Africa originates in the Sahel.

Farming is  the dominant industry in the region, which accounts for one-third and more of all economic output in the Sahel. This in turn empowers the women of the Sahel, as women account for the majority of Africa’s farmers. Supporting pastoralism with more climate smart-policies; reducing vulnerability to drought, flooding and other disasters; and raising more healthy livestock through timely vaccines, are all necessary to help communities adapt to the ecological harshness of the Sahel.

However pastoralism is facing multiple threats. Rapid population growth, conflict, volatile food prices, animal diseases, and shrinking grazing areas and water resources are steadily jeopardizing the survival of the pastoralists of the Sahel.  

Sahel’s vast water resources are largely untapped.  In a region where farming is the predominant economic activity, sadly, only 20 percent of the Sahel’s irrigation potential has been developed.  Worse still, one quarter of the area equipped with irrigation lies in a state of disrepair.

Bringing more water to parched lands in the Sahel will not only improve food production but place more food on family dinner tables...Climate-smart agriculture can increase yields... help protect biodiversity, improve soil fertility, and conserve the environment.

Makhtar Diop,
World Bank Group’s Vice President for Africa

The sweet bitter truth

Halloween is nearing, a time for trick or treat. Many Western children will be given chocolate candy for the treat. Chocolate’s billion-dollar industry starts with workers like Abdul, a 10 years old, a three-year veteran of the job. He has never tasted chocolate. Children such as Abdul don’t know anything about protocols or certification, prohibiting his exploitation. All they know is work.

At present, nearly 75 percent of the world’s cocoa is supplied by the West African countries of Ghana and the Ivory Coast, where nearly two million children work on cocoa farms.  40% children working in cocoa fields of Ivory Coast are not enrolled in schools and that only 5% of Ivorian children are paid for their work. According to UNICEF, hundreds of thousands of these children are engaged in the worst forms of child labor. UNICEF further estimates nearly 35,000* Ivorian children working on cocoa farms as victims of trafficking.

Many of the child-'slaves’ are physically and sexually exploited. Handling of chemicals and prolonged exposure to pesticides make these children prone to incorrigible respiratory and dermatological diseases. Negligent and unassisted working with heavy farm equipments and sharp tools leave many children crippled for life. 

Dying for a new life

The crossing of the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe to find a hoped-for better life has resulted in many hundreds of drownings. But let us not forget those who die even before they reach that leg of their tortuous journey.

Dozens of people traversing the Sahara desert on their way to Europe are feared to have died of thirst in Niger, officials say. Five bodies have been found, while a further 35 are missing after their vehicle broke down.  They consisted of entire families, including very many children and women. The bodies found are of two women and three girls aged 9-11.

The Real Libya Story

Well worth a read is this article .

We can although take issue with some of the claims made in it such as  "as Gaddafi’s goal of creating a single, gold-based, African currency called the “gold dinar” with which he planned to trade African oil for. This would have conflicted directly with western corporate and banking interests and their international fiat monetary system upon which the IMF and their “casino economy” is built. " This a frequent assertion of challenging the oil dollar was also made about Saddam's Iraq, Iran and Venezuala's Chavez and fails to stand up to any serious scrutiny except wishful hopes of another economic reality.

We can accept the articles conclusion (but perhaps not their terminology) . "While the globalists attempt to sell their wars as moral and for the betterment of the world, they are at heart driven only by a desire to spread hegemony and consolidate control, with the ultimate goal being global hegemony."

The Bushmen People's Plight Continues

Socialist Banner blog has carried a number of stories about the plight of the Bushmen people.
Here is another

Wilderness Safaris offers guided walks “where guests gain life-changing insights into the unique culture of this fascinating people”. The Botswana government gave Wilderness Safaris permission to dig boreholes for water, which supply a pleasant swimming-pool. As holiday-makers sip their poolside gins and tonic, some might ask why the Bushmen, who are such a part of Botswana’s enduring attraction, should not be allowed even water to drink. But the government prevents the Bushmen of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve from digging for water. It wants to drive them out, and it is using thirst as a weapon. The Bushmen’s main borehole was concreted up by the Botswana army some years ago. In January 2011, the Court of Appeal ruled that the Bushmen could once more use the blocked-up borehole, and sink new ones. The judges described the Bushmen’s experience as “a harrowing story of human suffering and despair”. But the government stopped it happening. The Bushmen lawyer has been  barred from returning to Botswana.

Most of the Bushmen have now been moved out of the Reserve – often forcibly. They were transported to camps outside the game reserve: places like New Xade, awash with disease, prostitution and the cheapest and deadliest booze. Their character as a people is being relentlessly destroyed there. Those who are left are threatened, abused.

The basic problem is that the Bushmen traditional lands lie in the middle of the world’s richest diamond field.

 Survival International calls for a tourism boycott of Botswana. 

Ethiopia's Land Grabs - Again and Again and Again

Ethiopia’s remote Gambela region and Lower Omo valley are being rapidly converted to commercial agricultural investment centres. To encourage widespread industrialized agriculture in these areas, the Ethiopian government is depriving small-scale farmers, pastoralists and indigenous people of arable farmland, access to water points, grazing land, fishing and hunting grounds. It has also has been moving people off the land into government villages to allow investors to take over the land. Wealthy nations and multinational corporations are taking over lands that are home to hundreds of thousands of ethnically, linguistically, geographically and culturally distinct pastoralists and indigenous communities.

Anywaa Survival Organisation (ASO) recently had an opportunity to interview affected community representatives and leaders who fled these regions because of these government land grabs. A few of these “development refugees” gave in-depth accounts of violent tactics used against them (including rapes, intimidation, murder, harassment) as well as lack of consultation, compensation, legal redress and derogation of national and international laws intended to protect indigenous and pastoralists communities’ rights to own and use resources. These exclusive interviews, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya, offer insights into the human costs of Ethiopia’s development policies.


There is a deep-rooted understanding among the lowland communities that land belongs to the community rather than to the government. During the interviews, the land-grab affected people dismissed the government justification that all land in Ethiopia belongs to the state, and strongly argued that the land grabbing policy was intended to deprive communities of their land-use rights, destroy traditional farming methods and knowledge, and displace them from their ancestral lands and natural environment.

Land grabs are happening in many parts of Africa, and the topic has received much attention and criticism worldwide. In Ethiopia, land grabbing undermines affected communities’ active participation in decisions about their lives, denies them access to key information about land deals, and abrogates their constitutional rights to free prior, informed consent, compensation, and legal redress. Land grab projects benefit newcomers migrating into the land grabs target areas. According to one refugee from the lower Omo valley; “Since land grabs started, no single local person has been employed even at security guard level. But thousands of migrants from other parts of the country have moved in and are benefiting from the project. The project forces local communities into exile where they will remain as refugees.”

Read more of this article here Or read the full interviews here

This is an ongoing problem not just in Ethiopia but in many different countries around the world. Millions of people are forced or cajoled off their agricultural land in the name of progress and then are left totally disenfranchised, often with no alternative dwelling, no employment or livelihood and little or no compensation. JS

There is a deep-rooted understanding among the lowland communities that land belongs to the community rather than to the government. During the interviews, the land-grab affected people dismissed the government justification that all land in Ethiopia belongs to the state, and strongly argued that the land grabbing policy was intended to deprive communities of their land-use rights, destroy traditional farming methods and knowledge, and displace them from their ancestral lands and natural environment.
Land grabs are happening in many parts of Africa, and the topic has received much attention and criticism worldwide. In Ethiopia, land grabbing undermines affected communities’ active participation in decisions about their lives, denies them access to key information about land deals, and abrogates their constitutional rights to free prior, informed consent, compensation, and legal redress. Land grab projects benefit newcomers migrating into the land grabs target areas. According to one refugee from the lower Omo valley; “Since land grabs started, no single local person has been employed even at security guard level. But thousands of migrants from other parts of the country have moved in and are benefiting from the project. The project forces local communities into exile where they will remain as refugees.”
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22690#sthash.PXNGztuY.dpuf

There is a deep-rooted understanding among the lowland communities that land belongs to the community rather than to the government. During the interviews, the land-grab affected people dismissed the government justification that all land in Ethiopia belongs to the state, and strongly argued that the land grabbing policy was intended to deprive communities of their land-use rights, destroy traditional farming methods and knowledge, and displace them from their ancestral lands and natural environment.
Land grabs are happening in many parts of Africa, and the topic has received much attention and criticism worldwide. In Ethiopia, land grabbing undermines affected communities’ active participation in decisions about their lives, denies them access to key information about land deals, and abrogates their constitutional rights to free prior, informed consent, compensation, and legal redress. Land grab projects benefit newcomers migrating into the land grabs target areas. According to one refugee from the lower Omo valley; “Since land grabs started, no single local person has been employed even at security guard level. But thousands of migrants from other parts of the country have moved in and are benefiting from the project. The project forces local communities into exile where they will remain as refugees.”
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22690#sthash.PXNGztuY.dpuf

There is a deep-rooted understanding among the lowland communities that land belongs to the community rather than to the government. During the interviews, the land-grab affected people dismissed the government justification that all land in Ethiopia belongs to the state, and strongly argued that the land grabbing policy was intended to deprive communities of their land-use rights, destroy traditional farming methods and knowledge, and displace them from their ancestral lands and natural environment.
Land grabs are happening in many parts of Africa, and the topic has received much attention and criticism worldwide. In Ethiopia, land grabbing undermines affected communities’ active participation in decisions about their lives, denies them access to key information about land deals, and abrogates their constitutional rights to free prior, informed consent, compensation, and legal redress. Land grab projects benefit newcomers migrating into the land grabs target areas. According to one refugee from the lower Omo valley; “Since land grabs started, no single local person has been employed even at security guard level. But thousands of migrants from other parts of the country have moved in and are benefiting from the project. The project forces local communities into exile where they will remain as refugees.”
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22690#sthash.PXNGztuY.dpuf

There is a deep-rooted understanding among the lowland communities that land belongs to the community rather than to the government. During the interviews, the land-grab affected people dismissed the government justification that all land in Ethiopia belongs to the state, and strongly argued that the land grabbing policy was intended to deprive communities of their land-use rights, destroy traditional farming methods and knowledge, and displace them from their ancestral lands and natural environment.
Land grabs are happening in many parts of Africa, and the topic has received much attention and criticism worldwide. In Ethiopia, land grabbing undermines affected communities’ active participation in decisions about their lives, denies them access to key information about land deals, and abrogates their constitutional rights to free prior, informed consent, compensation, and legal redress. Land grab projects benefit newcomers migrating into the land grabs target areas. According to one refugee from the lower Omo valley; “Since land grabs started, no single local person has been employed even at security guard level. But thousands of migrants from other parts of the country have moved in and are benefiting from the project. The project forces local communities into exile where they will remain as refugees.”
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22690#sthash.PXNGztuY.dpuf

There is a deep-rooted understanding among the lowland communities that land belongs to the community rather than to the government. During the interviews, the land-grab affected people dismissed the government justification that all land in Ethiopia belongs to the state, and strongly argued that the land grabbing policy was intended to deprive communities of their land-use rights, destroy traditional farming methods and knowledge, and displace them from their ancestral lands and natural environment.
Land grabs are happening in many parts of Africa, and the topic has received much attention and criticism worldwide. In Ethiopia, land grabbing undermines affected communities’ active participation in decisions about their lives, denies them access to key information about land deals, and abrogates their constitutional rights to free prior, informed consent, compensation, and legal redress. Land grab projects benefit newcomers migrating into the land grabs target areas. According to one refugee from the lower Omo valley; “Since land grabs started, no single local person has been employed even at security guard level. But thousands of migrants from other parts of the country have moved in and are benefiting from the project. The project forces local communities into exile where they will remain as refugees.”
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22690#sthash.PXNGztuY.dpuf

There is a deep-rooted understanding among the lowland communities that land belongs to the community rather than to the government. During the interviews, the land-grab affected people dismissed the government justification that all land in Ethiopia belongs to the state, and strongly argued that the land grabbing policy was intended to deprive communities of their land-use rights, destroy traditional farming methods and knowledge, and displace them from their ancestral lands and natural environment.
Land grabs are happening in many parts of Africa, and the topic has received much attention and criticism worldwide. In Ethiopia, land grabbing undermines affected communities’ active participation in decisions about their lives, denies them access to key information about land deals, and abrogates their constitutional rights to free prior, informed consent, compensation, and legal redress. Land grab projects benefit newcomers migrating into the land grabs target areas. According to one refugee from the lower Omo valley; “Since land grabs started, no single local person has been employed even at security guard level. But thousands of migrants from other parts of the country have moved in and are benefiting from the project. The project forces local communities into exile where they will remain as refugees.”
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22690#sthash.PXNGztuY.dpuf

Ethiopia’s remote Gambela region and Lower Omo valley are being rapidly converted to commercial agricultural investment centres. To encourage widespread industrialized agriculture in these areas, the Ethiopian government is depriving small-scale farmers, pastoralists and indigenous people of arable farmland, access to water points, grazing land, fishing and hunting grounds. It has also has been moving people off the land into government villages to allow investors to take over the land. Wealthy nations and multinational corporations are taking over lands that are home to hundreds of thousands of ethnically, linguistically, geographically and culturally distinct pastoralists and indigenous communities. Anywaa Survival Organisation (ASO) recently had an opportunity to interview affected community representatives and leaders who fled these regions because of these government land grabs. A few of these “development refugees” gave in-depth accounts of violent tactics used against them (including rapes, intimidation, murder, harassment) as well as lack of consultation, compensation, legal redress and derogation of national and international laws intended to protect indigenous and pastoralists communities’ rights to own and use resources. These exclusive interviews, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya, offer insights into the human costs of Ethiopia’s development policies.
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22690#sthash.PXNGztuY.dpuf

Ethiopia’s remote Gambela region and Lower Omo valley are being rapidly converted to commercial agricultural investment centres. To encourage widespread industrialized agriculture in these areas, the Ethiopian government is depriving small-scale farmers, pastoralists and indigenous people of arable farmland, access to water points, grazing land, fishing and hunting grounds. It has also has been moving people off the land into government villages to allow investors to take over the land. Wealthy nations and multinational corporations are taking over lands that are home to hundreds of thousands of ethnically, linguistically, geographically and culturally distinct pastoralists and indigenous communities. Anywaa Survival Organisation (ASO) recently had an opportunity to interview affected community representatives and leaders who fled these regions because of these government land grabs. A few of these “development refugees” gave in-depth accounts of violent tactics used against them (including rapes, intimidation, murder, harassment) as well as lack of consultation, compensation, legal redress and derogation of national and international laws intended to protect indigenous and pastoralists communities’ rights to own and use resources. These exclusive interviews, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya, offer insights into the human costs of Ethiopia’s development policies.
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22690#sthash.PXNGztuY.dpuf

2030 - Poverty, Disaster and Climate Extremes

Hazards and vulnerability to poverty in 2030
Source: Overseas Development Institute

Wambui Karunyu, 72, and her seven-year-old grandson are the only surviving members of their immediate family.  Karunyu's husband and five children all succumbed to the hardships of living in the semi-arid area of lower Mukurweini district in central Kenya.

In 2009, a drought struck parts of central and southeast Kenya , leaving 3.8 million people in need of food aid. Four years later, conditions in the area remain dire. According to the regional Drought Management Authority, while the upper parts of Mukurweini receive an annual rainfall of 1,500 mm, lower Mukurweini only receives 200mm.

A new report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a U.K. based think tank, identifies Kenya as one of 11 countries most at risk for disaster-induced poverty. The report, entitled “The geography of poverty, disasters and climate extremes in 2030”, warns that the international community has yet to properly address the threats disasters pose to the poorest parts of the world.

The report includes locations where both poverty and natural disasters will likely be concentrated in 2030; and in many instances, these locations overlap.

However, the severity of disasters – such as drought, floods and hurricanes – depends on what “disaster risk management” policies the government has put in place, according to ODI.

In 2010, for example, the magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti killed 11 percent of people who felt its tremors, while the Chilean earthquake – of an even higher magnitude, 8.8 – killed 0.1 percent; and in 2008, Cyclone Nargis killed 138,000 people in Myanmar , while Hurricane Gustav of similar strength killed 153 when it struck the Caribbean and the U.S.

“Slow-onset” disasters – such as the drought afflicting Karunyu and her grandson in Kenya – are often the harshest setbacks for development, especially in poor, rural areas that lack social safety nets, according to ODI.

“I plant maize and beans every season, but I harvest nothing. I never stop planting because I hope that this time will be better than the last time. But it's always the same, loss and hunger,” Karunyu tells IPS.

Simon Mwangi, a resident of Mukurweini and a service provider with the Dairy Goats Association of Kenya, an association of small-scale goat farmers, tells IPS that Karunyu's story is not unique.

“Life here is characterized by poverty and hunger. A great majority live in rural areas, and they are farmers. Due to prolonged dry spells, the situation is alarming, since they have no other livelihoods,” he says.

Mwangi notes that unreliable rainfall, frequent droughts and the inability of residents to adapt to harsh climatic changes has affected the growth of a variety of crops, such as maize and beans, which used to grow successfully.

“ Lower Mukurweini is no longer a corn zone, but farmers continue to plant maize with no success. There are drought-resistant crops that can do well here, including fruits, such as pineapples and indigenous mangoes. But the lack of extension officers has made it difficult for people here to adapt to the dry climate,” he says.

There is also a lack of NGOs and aid workers in Mukurweini to address the residents' plight. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) operated in Mukurweini for nine years, but left in 2011. “Things were much better when [IFAD] ran irrigation and trainings for farmers. Some sub-locations were doing much better, and there was food. But many parts of lower Mukurweini are now at risk of starvation,” says Mwangi.

Ten Worst Natural Disasters Reported in Kenya from 1980 to 2010. Source: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction

In Kenya , each child born in a drought year is 50 percent more likely to become malnourished, according to the report. And from 1997 to 2007, less than 10 percent of Kenya 's poor escaped poverty, while 30 percent of Kenya 's non-poor entered poverty, partly due to the multiple natural disasters affecting the country.

In July 2012, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon assembled a team of 27 advisers to help him achieve the lofty goal of ending world poverty. Ten months later, the team – known as the High Level Panel of eminent persons (HLP) – produced a report that advised Ban, among other things, to “build resilience and reduce deaths from natural disasters” by a percentage to be agreed.

The HLP recommended this target on disaster-mitigation to be included in the post-2015 development agenda, a list that would replace the eight current Millennium Development Goals –which do not include the word “disaster” once.

The intensity of natural disasters is expected to increase with climate change. ODI predicts that up to 325 million impoverished people in 49 countries will be exposed to extreme weather conditions by 2030.

The regional Drought Management Authority says that Nyeri County , where Mukurweini is located, should expect more prolonged dry spells moving forward.

“During the day, you barely see anyone outside, it's too hot. Even the earth becomes too hot, you cannot walk barefoot,” says Mwangi.

“Without food or access to water, the elderly starve and fade away quietly,” he says.

When Poverty Quietly Morphs Into Catastrophe

By Miriam Gathigah & George Gao from here

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Of Zambia’s president Sata left office today who is the likely man to succeed him? The succession gossip that lingers within the MMD coincides with mass demonstrations in Lusaka on 14 September by PF cadres calling for the resignation of Wynter Kabimba.

It is a sign that after having been in power for barely three years, the PF has started to break at the seams. Manoeuvres for a political succession arise from the knowledge that political statesmen in Zambia have become prone to a short life span. Age and health are the limiting factors. President Sata has surrounded himself with hero worshippers and close relatives. It is barely a week when vice-president told the press that Wynter Kamimba was his real boss.

What he meant was that as vice-president he had no political authority to overrule those ministers below him.

The top brass of the PF is made up of Wynter Kabimba, the justice minister and general secretary of the PF. Alexander Chikwanda, the Minister of Finance. Miles Sampa, the deputy minister of finance. Geoffrey Mwamba, the defence minister, and Mutembo Nchito, the public prosecutor. I have deliberately left out Vice-President Guy Scott because his parents’ nationality bars him from acting as a president. Miles Sampa and Alexander Chikwanda are close relatives of President Sata. There are political skirmishes between Mwamba and Kabimba.

The appointment of Nchito as public prosecutor in February this year gave rise to the suspension of the three High Court judges in April. Indeed, after wallowing in the political wilderness for twenty years – Post Newspapers managing director Nchito was at last awarded for his labours. A political critic and prudent lawyer, Nchito is a controversial personality who had been subjected to selective justice under the MMD.

Thus the suspension of the three judges was a premeditated political affair in the sense that during the previous MMD government under Rupiah Banda –  the three High Court judges had overplayed their hands by nullifying a court order that had awarded damages to Nchito. This was in a court case in which Nchito had applied for a loan from the Bank of Zambia in order to bail out Zambia Airways that was currently in liquidation.

Both Rajan Matan, chairman of Finance Bank and Nchito were only rescued from pending court cases in matters to do with money laundering when the PF came to power in 2011.

During the leadership of the MMD the Zambia Police Service was cited as the most corrupt public institution. The period witnessed an increase in copper and copper-related thefts on the Copper Belt. A copper crime syndicate known as Jalabos stole copper cathodes and concentrates in broad daylight and sold to well-established businessmen. The Jalabos were composed of unemployed youth on the Copperbelt who had taken advantage of the lax security situation prevailing in the copper mines police unit. When the PF came to power, President Sata appointed Stella Libongani as inspector-general of police – to succeed Ephraim Mateyo, who had heavy-handedly stamped out the Jalabos.

Putting more money in people’s pockets seems to be working now, just because of the booming copper prices in south-east Asia. More overseas mining investors are flocking to Zambia and setting up new mines in various parts of the country.

When Dr. Kenneth Kaunda was president of Zambia many people had written books about him, extolling his political and humanitarian attributes. Indeed, many sophisticated intellectuals and statesmen marvelled at his profound philosophical and intellectual capabilities. Kaunda was mere a primary school teacher and had never entered university as a student. He had an imposing personality, charm or charismatic status. He initiated the political ideology of humanism as a guiding political philosophy in national development, in which man was placed at the centre. Kaunda wavered between “state socialism” and capitalism – under his leadership Zambia was described as mixed economy.

When the MMD defeated UNIP in 1991 Fredrick Chiluba became the second Republican president. Kaunda was given a state pension complete with police guards. In 1994 Kaunda started to campaign for president and was nearly killed by a police stray bullet. UNIP declared a zero tolerance attitude and Kaunda was arrested and imprisoned in Lusaka Remand Prison. It only took the now-deceased former Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere to persuade the old man to give up politics. This made the MMD amend the Constitution in 1993 – which barred people whose parents are not indigenous Zambians to stand as presidential candidates. In actual fact Dr. Kaunda’s father originated from nearby Malawi. The MMD went on to remove the statues from city squares and public buildings. Even the political syllabus that laid so much stress on socialism and humanism was removed from learning institutions. Deep political animosities existed between MMD and Dr. Kaunda – both Mwanawasa and Rupiah Banda helped to restore Dr. Kaunda the political prestige he had lost. When Mwanawasa was president of the MMD, the MMD had become discredited in Luapula and Northern provinces.

Thus when Mwanawasa died and was succeeded by Banda in 2010 the MMD had lost its former political stronghold among the Bemba-speaking people. Mwanawasa saw an economic potential in Chinese investors. Arguably Chinese economic relations are less tied to political packages. When in opposition Sata had forged political relations with Hong Kong – most Chinese investors left the country when the pF won the general election in 2011. Sensing the ruptured political relations with mainland China, President Sata sent Dr. Kaunda as ambassador extraordinary to China in 2012 to ameliorate political relations between Zambia and China.

The Chinese investors came to Zambia with the came to Zambia with their own labour force – mostly manual workers. The Chinese workforce exhibits an addiction to long and arduous hours of work. The Chinese investors pay less regard to labour regulations and western norms, and are apt to employ less white collar workers.

It is a fact that when President Sata completes his second term in office there shall develop a power vacuum with the PF that in due course will wreck the PF.

The fugitive priest Father Frank Bwalya may have foreseen this political development and he resigned from the PF this year. Indeed Bwalya may win a political following on the Copperbelt should the PF fall apart.

The recent demise of former MMD defence minister Ben Mwila has robbed Zambia of an illustrious politician. Benjamin Mwila it must remembered was the one who funded Fredrick Chiluba’s political rallies across the country. Chiluba was then a mere employee of  Copco and president of ZCTV. During the privatisation of parasitical companies, Benjamin Mwila bought a large chunk of Indeco formed by Andrew Sardinis during the UNIP era. The late Mwila was a brusque political gentleman who still retained his motorcade, complete with bodyguards wherever he went. Let it be remembered that Mwila resigned from the MMD during the political fracas surrounding Chiluba’s third bid for the presidency and went on to form the Republican Party that did well in the 2001 general elections.

There is complete breakdown of discipline in the PF and things are completely out of control. Well known and high-ranking politicians are going around masquerading as supporters and defenders of President Sata and harassing innocent people. Political cliques and factions have emerged within the party structure – personal loyalties motivated by tribalism and hero worship are destroying the PF. It is clear that Sata has not shown any readiness to stem the tide.

The issue dividing the PF revolves around access to financial and material resources – corruption.

Capitalism is said to be a dynamic and democratic society in which the voters have the privilege to decide who shall govern them. That underplays the fact that capitalism is a society in which the majority – the workers, students and peasants believe that there are certain people who are born to be leaders no matter what. We lack the freedom to question the way we have lived and how we might live.

The very word ‘socialism’ is a political scare. It calls to mind the brutal and inhuman excesses of the single party political regimes in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Cuba and elsewhere.

It is our duty to explain the differences between state capitalism and socialism or dialectical Marxism.

Socialism in the true sense of the word has not existed in any part of the world. We advocate a classless, stateless, moneyless society as the only political alternative to capitalism.
KEPHAS MULENGA, 
Kitwe, Zambia

US army re-deploying to Africa

The first-of-its-kind program is drawing on troops from a 3,500-member brigade in the US Army’s First Infantry Division, known as the Big Red One, to conduct more than 100 missions in Africa over the next year. The missions range from a two-man sniper team in Burundi to 350 soldiers conducting airborne exercises in South Africa. The brigade has also sent a 150-member rapid-response force to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa to protect embassies. Teams from the brigade here have already helped train forces in Kenya and Tanzania, which are battling fighters from the Shabab militant group in Somalia.

“Our goal is to help Africans solve African problems, without having a big American presence,” said Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee Magee.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, said in an interview that the goal was to field an Army that could be “engaged regionally in all the combatant commands to help them shape their theaters, set their theaters, in order to sustain and execute our national security strategy.”

With the United States military out of Iraq and pulling out of Afghanistan, the Army is looking for new missions around the world. “As we reduce the rotational requirement to combat areas, we can use these forces to great effect in Africa,” Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the head of the Africa Command

Angola's land divide

Luanda is jammed with more than 6 million residents today.  More than two-thirds live in shantytowns known as musseques, according to Development Workshop, an aid group in Luanda. The elite steer their Porsches and Range Rovers past slums like Sambizanga, where much of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, according to the United Nations.

Downtown Luanda is another world, with a giant mall being constructed in the center, gleaming office towers, and residential buildings where two-bedroom apartments rent to expatriate oil workers for as much as $6,500 a month. Undeveloped land in central Luanda is selling at about $1,000 per square meter, and office space is going for between $7,500 and $10,000 per square meter.

Ugandan health facts

Recent statistics indicate that 353 new HIV infections take place every day while 60,000 Ugandans die every year of HIV/Aids.

 Each day 16 women will have died unnecessarily during pregnancy and child birth.

Poverty Eradication

SILENT WARS

Today is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

Poverty does not explode like bombs or boom like gunfire.

We know everything about poor people: what they don't work at, what they don't eat, how much they don't weigh, how much they don't grow, what they don't think, how often they don't vote, and what they don't believe in.

The only thing left to learn is why poor people are poor.

Could it be because we are clothed by their nakedness and nourished by their hunger?

by Eduardo Galeano from 'Children of the Days'


Eradicating capitalism is the major step to eradicating poverty. Let's work together to that end.
JS

African Migrants Not Welcome In Africa

Entering Botswana from South Africa Wame Molefhe gets into conversation with a fellow Botswanian also on his way back home. The remaining narration is hers, taken from 'Letter from Botswana' in October's New Internationalist.

'I'm going home.' He would never live anywhere else, he adds. He is a true patriot, fiercely proud of the country he calls hom, he tells me. Like him, I am happy to be able to call Botswana my home, but I believe I would feel at home anywhere on African soil. But I have begun to question this idea of patriotism, when the phrase 'my people' is spoken in order to exclude. I belong to this nation not because of any achievement. I was simply born in Botswana. I know no other country as intimately. I do not feel foreign, but I know that there are those who visit Botswana who are made to feel foreign - from the minute they enter this country.
During the days of apartheid, Botswana provided a sanctuary for those fleeing the oppressive racist regime in South Africa. After the South African Defence Force raided Gaberone and killed 13 people in 1985, Botswana became somewhere to run through, rather than to. It was clear that it was no longer a place of safety, but Botswana was still lauded for having done her bit to stand up against apartheid.

Back in Gaberone city I take a walk down the road. There is a police vehicle rounding up foreigners. They are all black . . .African, I assume. And I think of the story I recently read in the newspapers, of a 96 year old man who arrived in Botswana in 1945 and has lived here since. The circumstances of his arrival I do not know. I see a picture of an old man, being wheeled out of hospital in a wheelchair. Another shows him being loaded into the back of a pick-up van, surrounded by men and women in nursing uniforms . . . the old man is being deported. I feel much shame in admitting that I am from Botswana.

(- - - - ) We continue to describe ourselves as a caring and compassionate people  but at the same time we are pulling the noose tighter around the necks of immigrants. We are smoking them out - some of them. In the same breath we call for foreign investors. I do not know who Botswana wants to embrace. It does not seem to be my fellow Africans.

A few days after the old man was expelled I learn from a news report that an ambulance was despatched to fetch him back from Zimbabwe. The reasons for this change are not known. Perhaps someone, somewhere, remembered that we are supposed to be a caring and compassionate people.

Africa, Europe, North America, Australia - what's the difference? It seems that no one wants them - except when they need them and then how are they treated?
Nationality is simply an accident of birth and patriotism a tool of ruling elites to keep sections of the populations divided in order to enhance control.
JS

No Person Is Illegal - Break Down Borders And End Capitalism

Club Dead: EU immigration laws turning Mediterranean into Graveyard- Malta PM

Posted on 10/13/2013 by Juan Cole here

Malta’s prime minister Joseph Muscat said Saturday that the European Union’s inaction on immigration reform is turning the Mediterranean into a graveyard.
UPI quotes him as saying:

“I don’t know how many more people need to die at sea before something gets done … rules need to change, whether they are tighter or looser is not the issue, the fact is that this thing is broken and it needs to be fixed… As things stand we are building a cemetery within our Mediterranean Sea.”

On October 11, a ship carrying migrants capsized off Malta, spilling 200 persons into the water. Some 33 drowned but the Italian coastguard rescued the others.


The week before, 319 migrants died when their vessel capsized near Italy.
In the past 15 years, some 14,000 migrants have died in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe. That is nearly 1000 a year
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says that 32,000 migrants have reached southern Italy and Malta so far in 2013, and about two thirds of them have applied for asylum.
Many are from Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia, though Syrians have joined the risky trek in some numbers recently.
CSM quotes sources saying Europe needs to attack human trafficking networks to stop the carnage.

 A solution requires a thorough understanding of the cause of the problem. The EU is more interested in diverting attention away from the situation in the Mediterranean Sea than from preventing any more deaths. Tougher laws on asylum seekers? Track down and prosecute the traffickers who benefit monetarily? Open more 'off-shore' detention centres?
These are not solutions. While ever goods and services, outsourcing and capital can flow freely across borders around the world but people remain restricted by the self-same borders this migration of 'illegals' will continue by land, sea and air whatever the cost to the vulnerable.

One world. One people. No borders. No capitalism. 
There IS an alternative - and that is socialism.
JS

Another Of Capitalism's Tragedies

Following reports of a second ship capsizing off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today called on the international community to protect the rights of migrants and take action to prevent such tragic incidents.
"The Secretary-General is deeply saddened to hear reports of the loss of lives as another boat carrying migrants capsized yesterday off the coast of Italy, only a few days after the tragic incident near Lampedusa which had already claimed more than 300 lives," Mr. Ban's spokesperson said in a statement.
According to media reports, at least 27 people died and 221 were saved on Friday after their boat capsized near Lampedusa.
The incident occurred just over a week after more than 300 migrants, mostly Ethiopian, lost their lives when their boat caught fire half a mile from the coast, leading the vessel to capsize in the same area.
"The Secretary-General calls on the international community as a whole to take action to prevent such tragedies in the future, including measures that address their root causes and that places the vulnerability and human rights of migrants at the centre of the response," the statement said.

from here

Global Capitalism, of which Ban Ki-moon is an ardent supporter, is guilty of causing the conditions forcing thousands upon thousands of people to flee their homelands each and every year. Most of the migrants travelling by boat are from the African continent, from lands whose leaders' strings are pulled by the west. Some are desperate to leave because conditions on the ground are insufferable as a result of ongoing conflict inflamed by outside interference; others leave in the hope of reaching a hospitable land where they will find work in order to provide for themselves and their families. The action the international community is interested in enforcing is preventing the would-be migrants leaving their homelands, not in assisting them to improve their condition. This is how capitalism works.
JS

To learn more about world socialism click on the links.
 

Education For Self-Determination And Emancipation

From Good Governance Africa some statistics revealing the paucity of possibilities for millions of Africans, especially those of Sub-Saharan Africa. Without doubt education is an absolute prerequisite enabling individuals to have access to the tools and information they require for developing their lives on their chosen path. Education matters, as the writer says, for emancipation and self-determination. Socialists would add that this education, for Africans and the world, should be stripped of its capitalist based monetary principles in order to assure real emancipation.
JS

Africa’s education on shaky foundations

In sub-Saharan Africa, one in every three adults is illiterate, according to the
World Bank. African governments have improved the next generation’s literacy by getting more children into schools. Their efforts have shown results: primary school enrolment has increased from 59% in 1999 to 77% in 2010 in sub-Saharan Africa, according to UNESCO, the UN agency responsible for promoting education. This progress is part of a global campaign to ensure that all children are able to complete primary school by 2015, one of the Millennium Development Goals defined in Dakar in 2000.

With the exception of the Arab states and sub-Saharan Africa, all regions of the world are close to achieving the target, with enrolment rates above 93%
throughout. Although more African children are entering school, too many leave before finishing. In three-quarters of sub-Saharan African countries for which data are available, more than 30% of primary students who start school are expected to drop out before they reach the last grade of elementary school, and less than 10% make it through the education system to university, according to UNESCO. Nor are children learning as much as they should.

The Brookings Institution, a US think-tank, estimates that 61m African children of primary school age—one out of every two—will reach their adolescent years unable to read, write, or perform basic numeracy tasks. In Tanzania this means that 28% of Tanzanian sixth-grade pupils are able to read at the appropriate level; in Kenya only 19%; and less than 10% in Uganda, according to the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational
Quality, a group of 15 African education ministries.
This matters because modern states and economies cannot function without
well-informed and educated citizens. Poor education limits a nation’s economic
productivity and prevents citizens from interacting fully with their state and society.

The need for education is made even more pressing by Africa’s growing
population, expected to balloon from 1 billion in 2010 to 1.6 billion in 2030, according to the African Development Bank. To reap the demographic dividend—an economic bonanza resulting from having many working-age people and few dependents—the continent will need many more educated young people who are able to create jobs and compete with the rest of the world.

For as long as Africans neglect good education, they will depend on outsiders.
Chinese engineers will continue to build their roads and railways. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund will develop their economic policies. They will remain exporters of raw materials rather than manufacturers of industrial goods. Education matters not only for economic development and democratic progress, but also for emancipation and self-determination.

John Endres CEO of Good Governance Africa (www.gga.org)

Somalia's Constant State Of War

‘Does al Shabab Pose a Threat on American Soil?’ So read a headline in the New York Times’ blog, Room for Debate. Despite its name, Room for Debate rarely shows any true differences of opinion on whatever issue of the day is considered significant to the Times’ editors. None of the supposed debaters on this topic actually addressed the central issue of al-Shabaab’s existence and what it says about the United States behavior around the world. A better question would be why the United States turned Somalia into a ruin and why does it keep killing people there.

Sometimes we get the opportunity to see violence up close as in the recent al-Shabaab attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. But in the absence of good reporting, scenes of carnage tell us nothing. Thanks to liar presidents and their partners in the corporate media, Americans know nothing about Kenya or its role as American partner in keeping Somalia in a constant state of war.

Americans don’t know that their government instigated an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006 which destroyed that nation and prevented it from emerging from turmoil and humanitarian disaster. They don’t know that Kenya was enlisted in this occupation in 2011 and also gained the enmity of the al-Shabaab resistance. They don’t know that the United States government prevented food from reaching starving people. They don’t know that the so-called pirates [8] in Somalia are fighting in vain to keep European nations from stealing even the fish they need to survive.

Al-Shabaab is dedicated to resisting American aggression and to punishing anyone who assists in that process. There is nothing mysterious about this group’s motives. They are fighting their oppressors be they in the United States or Kenya.

Of course we are shown pictures of murder victims at the Westgate mall in Kenya and hear the word al-Shabaab linked to their deaths. It is justifiable to show that suffering but the media never show the victims of American violence. They remain unseen and therefore unknown.

Various forms of media are now accessible to every person at any time of day or night, but we must hunt to see images of Iraqi, Afghan, Somali, Yemeni, Libyan, Palestinian, Haitian, and Syrian victims of American and American sponsored violence. Because they have been disappeared the American public are kept in a bubble of ignorance without knowing the role that their government plays in creating bloodshed.

When we do see the victims lying bloody in a Nairobi shopping mall we obviously feel sadness about their fates and perhaps anger at the perpetrators. Seeing people killed who were merely engaged in the mundane activities of life is terribly tragic. It would be enlightening and no less tragic to see the images and hear the stories of people who were going about their daily business when suddenly death struck them because of the American empire.

The consequence of propaganda and omissions in reporting mean that al-Shabaab are labeled as fanatical Muslims and evil terrorists and not people who have reason to be angry with Kenya for joining in the evisceration of their country. Their legitimate grievances aren’t addressed by killing weekend shoppers but unless all these facts are acknowledged the cycle of violence can only continue.

Al-Shabaab exists because of the terror the United States brought to Somalia. In 2011 more than 250,000 people died in that nation because of a drought, and an American policy of starving civilians in order to starve al-Shabaab fighters.

“Al-Shabaab are labeled as fanatical Muslims and evil terrorists and not people who have reason to be angry with Kenya for joining in the evisceration of their country.”

So the question isn’t whether al-Shabaab threatens America. The question is how Americans think they can be held harmless when their government goes on killing sprees and creates hatred and a desire for revenge.

When we need hard facts we get propaganda instead. Hollywood is using Somalia again as its backdrop for grotesque stories of exceptionalism and supremacy. A new film, Captain Phillips, tells the story of one brave American who with the help of overwhelming fire power and Navy SEALS overcame three Somalians in a life boat. It is doubtful that the Somalian side of the story will be told. One unlucky Somalian young man, Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, received a 33 year prison sentence when he chose to surrender instead of fighting the world’s only super power.

The truth is that our government bears responsibility for the loss of life at the Kenyan mall and for attacks on American vessels. Americans may live in ignorance but the rest of the world knows better. The United States first brought death to Somalia and is responsible for creating even more of it.

By Margaret Kimberley from here 
 

Too Little, too late - again

Almost one million people out of Namibia’s 2.3 million population face moderate to serious levels of food insecurity. One-third of the population lives on less than $1 a day, and Namibia ranked 120 out of 187 countries on the 2012 UNDP Human Development Index. Malnutrition is the second-most common cause of death recorded for children under five, even in non-drought years. And with the onset of this year’s drought, an estimated 109,000 children under five are at risk of acute malnutrition.

The Namibian government in May estimated this year's harvest would yield 42 percent less than 2012. "Namibia still does not feed itself, and the middle-income classification comes from livestock, mining and fisheries industries - [this] does not provide an accurate situation on the ground," Cousins Gwanama, head of the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Namibia in Windhoek, told Al Jazeera. 

Japhet Iitenge, director of the Disaster Risk Management office, said "Our needs start with food to feed the people. It is the ultimate goal to provide food and water for both animals and people, but there are other needs to avert the suffering of our population."

Farmers across the country wait for food rations and for the international community to take the situation more seriously. In May, Namibian President Hifikepunye Pohamba was forced to declare a state of emergency and requested $33.7 million in international support to avert a crisis.  Algeria donated $1m in food aid but the reaction from the rest of the international community has been poor. Without people dying en masse and absent images of decaying cattle skeletons across the sand, the world is unlikely to respond Namibia's desperation anytime soon.

Mukaokondunga Tjikundi says the family have no expectations of receiving help from anyone. "We are just collecting wood, selling them, trying (to survive). We have no expectations of government, of anyone, because you can never know when the help will end."

"Given that we are human beings, we wait for that moment when people start dying," said International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ Jack Ndemena, water and sanitation officer. "But this is a situation that can be arrested. We can try to help now in order not to go to that extreme situation when people start dying."

Millions Of Ethiopians Flee Brutal Ruling Regime

Every year for a decade or more a million Ethiopians, 10 million and counting, have left, or fled, their homeland. While the television screens of the world have been flooded with images of North African migrants drowning off the Italian island of Lampedusa, the bones of tens of thousands of Ethiopian refugees lay in unmarked graves along Yemeni shores or at the bottom of the Indian Ocean or Red Sea.

How is it you might ask, that this 10 million human tsunami remains almost unknown to the world? And why, why would ten million Ethiopians, one in every 8 people in the country, risking their lives in many cases, seek refuge in foreign, mostly unwelcoming, lands?

The answer lies in the policies of the Ethiopian regime which have been described by UN investigators in reports long suppressed with words such as “food and medical aid blockades”, “scorched earth counterinsurgency tactics”, “mass murder” and even “genocide”.

Most of the Ethiopians refugees are from the Oromo nationality, at 40 million strong half of Ethiopia, or the ethnic Somalis of the Ogaden. Both of these regions in southern Ethiopia have long been victims of some of the most inhumane, brutal treatment any peoples of the world have ever known (it has been estimated that a full half of all Oromos were wiped out during the western supported Abyssinian Imperialist colonialization during the late 1800’s by the forefathers of “Emperor” Haile Sellasie).

These past few years saw the worst drought and famine in the Horn of Africa in 60 years yet almost all of Oromia and the Ogaden affected by this catastrophe were prevented from receiving food and medical aid by the Ethiopian regime.

What country in the world is allowed to expel both the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders during such a humanitarian crisis and not be roundly condemned by the international community? Only Ethiopia.

In Somalia alone the UN has admitted at least 250,000 starved to death during this famine with estimates for the victims in Oromia and the Ogaden running at least this high.

500,000 people starving to death in a couple of years and no outcry from the world? At one point up to 1,000 people a day, mostly women, children and the elderly, were dying of hunger and all we got was a New York Times best seller on the CIA’s “dirty wars” in the Horn of Africa which somehow failed to condemn this enormous crime.

Ethiopia remains the largest recipient of international, mainly western aid, in the world. Recently sources in Addis Ababa from within the offices of the IMF have sent word that Ethiopia’s import bill has reached almost 12 billion dollars a year while exports are only $2 billion. $10 billion a year in “aid”, “loans” or “investment” make Ethiopia entirely dependent on foreign good will to survive yet the world is helpless to prevent the enforced starvation of hundreds of thousand or over 10 million Ethiopians fleeing their country?

In the past ten years we have seen many reports on over two million Iraqi refugees and now another more than 2 million Syrian refugees. Yet more than twice this number of Ethiopian have become refugees and this fact remains unknown to the world?

When speaking of these crimes I am not speaking in the past tense for every day some 3,000 Ethiopians flee their homeland, almost 100,000 a month, another million or more this year. Many flee by boat from the shores of Somalia, heading for Yemeni shores and hopefully on to safer lands. How many boats sink with the loss of almost all onboard, or worse yet, have their passengers thrown overboard while still offshore will never be known. The international navies that patrol this region seem to care little for preventing the human trafficking mafias from carrying out their ghoulish trade, far to busy protecting the interests of the major shipping lines through these very same waters. Have you ever heard of a drone strike or commando raid on a human trafficking headquarters? Are any of these vermin trading in human misery ever listed on international “Most Wanted” bulletins?

Why should they, for the criminals ruling Ethiopia not only are allowed to continue business as usual but actually see their cash flow in the form of “foreign aid and investment” increased by a third since 2010 while at the same time hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians starve to death.

So next time you are confronted by images of lines of corpses along the shores of Italy remember that this is something that goes on almost everyday in the Horn of Africa but doesn't merit comment, let alone disgust and outrage by those most pious of commentators in the international media.

By Thomas C. Mountain from here

Rich Africa?

Ventures magazine African billionaire roll, published a list of 55 people with fortunes of more than $1bn, up from previous estimates of 16-25 billionaires. Most of the super-rich live in Nigeria and South Africa.

The richest person in Africa is Aliko Dangote, a Nigerian businessman involved in cement, food, oil and other sectors with an estimated personal fortune of more than $20bn. Allan Gray, the publicity-shy South African financier, is the second richest, with assets worth at least $8.5bn. Mike Adenuga, a Nigerian involved in the oil and telecoms industries, has an estimated fortune of $8bn, according to Ventures.

Pan-Africa Survey Shows Little Sign Of Reduced Poverty

Johannesburg — African leaders, foreign investors and formal indicators of economic growth may say that "Africa is rising" - but most ordinary Africans don't agree.

A pioneering new survey of public opinion in 34 countries across the continent suggests that the relatively high average growth in gross domestic product (GDP) reported in recent years is not reflected in the experiences of most citizens. An average of one in five Africans still often goes without food, clean water or medical care. Only one in three think economic conditions in their country are good. Fifty-three percent say they are "fairly bad" or "very bad".
The survey suggests that either the benefits of growth are being disproportionately channelled to a wealthy elite or that official statistics are overstating average growth rates (or possibly a combination of both).

The survey was directed by Afrobarometer, a research project coordinated by independent institutions in Ghana, Benin, Kenya and South Africa, with partners in 31 other countries. Afrobarometer says the margin of error in its face-to-face public opinion surveys is around two percent. It has been surveying public opinion in 12 countries since 1999, but has grown to include 35 countries for the period 2011 to 2013.

The results of the latest survey - released in Johannesburg on Tuesday - are the first to reflect public opinion across such a wide swathe of the continent. Interviews for the survey were carried out between October 2011 and June this year.
Speaking at the release of the results, Boniface Dulani of the University of Malawi, the project's operational field manager, said they indicated that three-quarters of Africans thought their governments were doing badly in closing the gap between rich and poor. Nevertheless, most remained optimistic about the future - with west and north Africans more optimistic than east Africans, and southern Africans "somewhere in the middle".

 In the 16 countries surveyed over a period of a decade, there was little evidence for systematic reduction of the poverty experienced by ordinary citizens, despite average GDP growth rates of 4.8 percent, the brief added.

 Countries included in the 2013 results are: Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Results from Ethiopia, the 35th country to be surveyed, are still being compiled.

More here

Food Is A Weapon - Ghanaians Fight Against GMOs

Food Sovereignty Ghana is calling for an open debate on the issue of GMOs to set the record straight as well as to generate answers and questions in order to inform the Ghanaian public, instead of attempting to impose GMOs on people without their knowledge or consent
 
Our attention at Food Sovereignty Ghana has been drawn to an article in the online edition of the Daily Graphic of 20 September, 2013, ‘GM crop production making progress’, by Jojo Sam. In the said article, the objections of Food Sovereignty Ghana to the GM technology were summarized as follows:

‘But there are some in the country, including Food Sovereignty Ghana, an advocacy movement, who see the introduction of GM crops as a risky venture for the country considering that a majority of farmers who are illiterates would find it difficult if not impossible to cultivate modified crops.’ This is a complete distortion and an unconscionable misrepresentation of our movement in its objections to the imposition of GMOs on Ghanaians by some civil servants at the Ministry of Environment, Science, and Technology.

FALSE CLAIMS BY MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

First of all, FSG wishes to address the false claim that our objection to GMOs is that farmers are ignorant. Nothing could be further from the truth. We rely on our farmers for nutrition and sustenance. They are key to our health and happiness. Some farmers may not be literate, but they are not ignorant, and they do know farming. Farmers are not asking for GMOs or patented seeds. The FSG objection is that the GMO lobby is trying to fool farmers and consumers into thinking that this dangerous and outdated technology is safe and benign. The GMO lobby's overarching interest in ‘farmer education’ is to intimidate them not to save seeds for replanting! The GMO lobby is trying to push through legislation and pollute the land with GMOs with no information and debate, and before Ghanaians know what is going on. There is nothing that indicates GMOs are safe, and mounting evidence points to serious dangers.

Food Sovereignty Ghana has called for a ‘moratorium on the cultivation, importation and consumption of genetically modified foods.’ Our group also called ‘for the need for Ghanaians to clearly understand the full implications associated with the cultivation of genetically modified foods before embracing the technology.’

We also sounded ‘the warning that if Africans fail to get our act together, GM patent domination of our agriculture could be far worse than the combined effects of Apartheid, Colonialism and Slavery! Remember the words of Kissinger, 'Food is a weapon!’

The food-as-weapon policy continues unabated, demonstrated by Monsanto, Syngenta, and allied multi-national corporations’ unrestrained hunger to control Africa and what and whether Africans eat.

OPEN DEBATE ON GMOS IS NEEDED

We further reiterated that ‘Ghana is a democratic and a sovereign state, and the issue of what we eat and grow affects the well-being of each and every Ghanaian. Hence there is a need for a broad consensus after a thorough, open and transparent debate before embarking on a process of gene contamination in our food chain that is absolutely irreversible. We believe that a decision of such far-reaching implications is a matter that cannot be left solely in the hands of trade negotiators, investment experts, or agricultural engineers. It is essentially a matter of political economy, public health, national security, biodiversity, and environmental sanity, in which we are all stake-holders.’

Taken from here

No Trickle Down

Despite sustained economic growth in Africa over the past decade, most governments across the continent have failed to reduce poverty levels among their poorest citizens, a report has revealed. Africa has been home to some of the fastest and highest economic growth rates in the world over the past 10 years, with many countries posting annual gross domestic product figures in excess of five percent.

“While economic data suggests that African countries may be making important strides in achieving and sustaining high growth rates, survey data from 34 countries shows there is a disconnect between reported growth and the persistence, in both frequency and severity, of poverty among ordinary citizens.

The data reveals that bout 50 per cent of all the respondents reported they occasionally lacked access to food, clean water and medicine in 2012. But more worryingly, one in five Africans surveyed still experience extreme deprivation with respect to these basic necessities over the same period.

“Either economic growth is not trickling down to average citizens and translating into poverty reduction... or there is reason to question whether reported growth rates are actually being realised,” the researchers found.

Foreign Investment Fuelling Discontent

Seeds of Discontent

The documentary film by director Geoff Arbourne looks at the community of Licole, located in the region where the company Chikweti Forests of Niassa has set up large tree plantations. Chikweti Forests of Niassa is a subsidiary of Global Solidarity Forest Fund (GSFF), a Sweden-based investment fund, co-owned by Dutch pension fund ABP, the Diocese of Västerås (Sweden), and the Norwegian church endowment, OVF.

The documentary film was launched just five days before the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) meets for its 40th round of talks. CFS is an international and intergovernmental platform that seeks to ensure food security and nutrition for all. Transnational Institute (TNI) and FIAN as part of the "Hands off the Land Alliance" are campaigning for effective measures to stop land and resource grabbing, such as the implementation of the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, which were adopted by the CFS in 2012. "Seeds of discontent" is a case study of how investors in agriculture that claim to be well-meaning and to apply "responsible" practices can end up fueling land grabs and sowing deep divisions in rural communities such as Licole.

"Cases like this one [in Mozambique] are happening every day, all over the globe" argues Philip Seufert of FIAN International, member of the Hands off the Land Alliance. "Communities are confronted with investors who arrive and promise a lot to them: jobs, 'development', money, a bright future. But what really happens, then, is that communities find their valuable land no longer available for farming, people have to work under bad conditions for the investors, communities get divided against each other, and all nice promises turn out to be empty. The people of Niassa have to be able to realize their right to adequate food and to live a life in dignity. While the Mozambican state has the main responsibility to ensure this, European home states of foreign investors carry responsibilities as well."

"The beautiful and uncommon intimacy of the footage provided a powerful palette for the film", Geoff  Arbourne says about the film. "In just a few weeks we witnessed the dangers and disappointments of these kinds of investment deals and saw how the experience of one forestry company affected people's attitudes, hopes and dreams".

See video and more here

'a case study of how investors in agriculture that claim to be well-meaning and to apply "responsible" practices can end up fueling land grabs and sowing deep divisions' - this quote demonstrates the futility of chasing after 'benevolent' capitalism. There may well be benevolent capitalists to be found here and there, however the system as a whole is based on the division between those who must work and those who simply live from the exploitation of those workers. Only the total abolition of this system in favour of the egalitarian system of socialism can bring about the end of such practices described above.

JS

The documentary film by director Geoff Arbourne looks at the community of Licole, located in the region where the company Chikweti Forests of Niassa has set up large tree plantations. Chikweti Forests of Niassa is a subsidiary of Global Solidarity Forest Fund (GSFF), a Sweden-based investment fund, co-owned by Dutch pension fund ABP, the Diocese of Västerås (Sweden), and the Norwegian church endowment, OVF.

The documentary film was launched just five days before the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) meets for its 40th round of talks. CFS is an international and intergovernmental platform that seeks to ensure food security and nutrition for all. Transnational Institute (TNI) and FIAN as part of the "Hands off the Land Alliance" are campaigning for effective measures to stop land and resource grabbing, such as the implementation of the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, which were adopted by the CFS in 2012. "Seeds of discontent" is a case study of how investors in agriculture that claim to be well-meaning and to apply "responsible" practices can end up fueling land grabs and sowing deep divisions in rural communities such as Licole.

"Cases like this one [in Mozambique] are happening every day, all over the globe" argues Philip Seufert of FIAN International, member of the Hands off the Land Alliance. "Communities are confronted with investors who arrive and promise a lot to them: jobs, 'development', money, a bright future. But what really happens, then, is that communities find their valuable land no longer available for farming, people have to work under bad conditions for the investors, communities get divided against each other, and all nice promises turn out to be empty. The people of Niassa have to be able to realize their right to adequate food and to live a life in dignity. While the Mozambican state has the main responsibility to ensure this, European home states of foreign investors carry responsibilities as well."

"The beautiful and uncommon intimacy of the footage provided a powerful palette for the film", Geoff  Arbourne says about the film. "In just a few weeks we witnessed the dangers and disappointments of these kinds of investment deals and saw how the experience of one forestry company affected people's attitudes, hopes and dreams".
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22644#sthash.zWqAq6Nt.dpuf

The documentary film by director Geoff Arbourne looks at the community of Licole, located in the region where the company Chikweti Forests of Niassa has set up large tree plantations. Chikweti Forests of Niassa is a subsidiary of Global Solidarity Forest Fund (GSFF), a Sweden-based investment fund, co-owned by Dutch pension fund ABP, the Diocese of Västerås (Sweden), and the Norwegian church endowment, OVF.

The documentary film was launched just five days before the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) meets for its 40th round of talks. CFS is an international and intergovernmental platform that seeks to ensure food security and nutrition for all. Transnational Institute (TNI) and FIAN as part of the "Hands off the Land Alliance" are campaigning for effective measures to stop land and resource grabbing, such as the implementation of the Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests, which were adopted by the CFS in 2012. "Seeds of discontent" is a case study of how investors in agriculture that claim to be well-meaning and to apply "responsible" practices can end up fueling land grabs and sowing deep divisions in rural communities such as Licole.

"Cases like this one [in Mozambique] are happening every day, all over the globe" argues Philip Seufert of FIAN International, member of the Hands off the Land Alliance. "Communities are confronted with investors who arrive and promise a lot to them: jobs, 'development', money, a bright future. But what really happens, then, is that communities find their valuable land no longer available for farming, people have to work under bad conditions for the investors, communities get divided against each other, and all nice promises turn out to be empty. The people of Niassa have to be able to realize their right to adequate food and to live a life in dignity. While the Mozambican state has the main responsibility to ensure this, European home states of foreign investors carry responsibilities as well."

"The beautiful and uncommon intimacy of the footage provided a powerful palette for the film", Geoff  Arbourne says about the film. "In just a few weeks we witnessed the dangers and disappointments of these kinds of investment deals and saw how the experience of one forestry company affected people's attitudes, hopes and dreams".
- See more at: http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/22644#sthash.zWqAq6Nt.dpuf