Not all gold glitters

There is no refuge from the blistering heat at this artisanal gold mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Any trees that might have provided shade have been consumed by the mine, which covers an area the size of five or six football fields. About a thousand people - men, women and some children - swarm across the open-cast mine near Iga-Barrière, about 25km east of Bunia, the administrative town of the Ituri Region. Local NGOs put the numbers of artisanal gold miners in Ituri between 130,000 and 150,000. Women, some with babies strapped to their backs, form human chains to pass plastic basins of mud from men excavating the shafts. They all work 13 hour days, six days a week. Some earn as little as US$0.21 a day.

It can take up to three weeks to dig, by hand, an 8m-deep shaft to where the gold-bearing sands lie at Iga-Barrière. Narrower shafts requiring less work carry greater risks.

A stake at the artisanal gold mine costs about $250, or five grams of gold, and is paid to the Société des Mines d'Or de Kilo Moto (SOKIMO), a public company. SOKIMO is a relic from Belgium, the former colonial power. Created in 1926, the company enjoyed boom years during the 1960s and 1970s, employing about 6,000 people and providing housing, clinics and schools for its employees. However, its nationalization in 1966 by then-Zaire's President Mobuto Sese-Seko, who used the company to support his lavish lifestyle, eventually took a toll. By the late 1980s, the company's only source of revenue was the taxing of artisanal and small-scale miners. Makuza Boniface, SOKIMO director at Iga-Barrière, told IRIN the company imposes a 30 percent tax on all gold produced at the site by the artisanal miners. Gold is being smuggled across the borders by gold dealers exploiting a tax loophole, Kitene said, to maximise profits.

Lobho Faustin, 30, cannot afford his own claim. He is part of a group of eight diggers, earning a wage to support his three children. "It's a job to live and survive on. How much money you make depends on how lucky you are. Sometimes I get $50 in a week and sometimes nothing. You can work for weeks and not get paid. I work for someone else. But it all depends. If we find gold then we get paid. There is nothing else to do," he said.

Artisanal miners face an array of occupational hazards, including: mercury inhalation while extracting gold from ore; tunnel and open-shaft mine collapses; women experiencing spontaneous abortions due to heavy labour; and the complete absence of water and sanitation facilities. "Health and safety is set down in the Mining Code, but most miners don't seem to care. It is very difficult to prosecute people as most are not educated and many were in militias during the war," Toto Bosingaka, the chief of the Service d'Assistance et d'Encadrement d'Artisanal (SAESSCAM), told IRIN.

As elsewhere in the eastern DRC, Ituri encountered a succession of international and local conflicts, and a variety of militias and foreign national armies imposed their own taxation system on the artisanal gold miners. Ndele Tanzi, coordinator for the Bunia-based NGO Honesty and Peace, told IRIN gold mining was a major threat to peace and stability. "The Ituri war was cast as an ethnic war, but if you look carefully it was about resources."
Although Ituri has returned to relative peace, gaining access to Iga-Barrière requires passing through numerous roadblocks staffed by security forces and government officials, who impose random "road taxes" on vehicles and pedestrians alike. The peace dividend has not provided any respite from a culture of backhander payments.

"While the exploitation of artisanal and small-scale miners continues, the identity of those responsible has now changed. They are no longer warlords and militia leaders but government administrators, members of the government's military and security organizations, and many regional traders," A November 2012 report, Conflict Gold to Criminal Gold, published by Southern Africa Resource Watch, said.

Louis Bedidj Fuarwingo, coordinator of the artisanal miner organization the Association Exploit dans Mineur Artisnal pur le pacification et reconstruction Ituri (AEMAPRI), told IRIN, "Sometimes authorities harass miners and make them pay for small things to let them work. They can make people very angry and demand as much as $750. "They ask for non-existent certificates, like 'scientific training' and 'expertise in mining'. They just create such lists to pick money from the miners. Police come to the mining camp and go to the mine boss and then all the miners have to contribute."

From here

Why Mali

At issue in Western interventions in Africa's wars is the scramble for Africa's resources. They're vast. They're some of the world's largest and richest. They include oil, gas, gold, silver, diamonds, uranium, iron, copper, tin, lead, nickel, coal, cobalt, bauxite, wood, coltan, manganese, chromium, vanadium-bearing titanium, agricultural lands, and offshore fishing.  

Mali is strategically located. It's West Africa's largest country. It's more than double the size of France. It borders on seven nations. They include Algeria, Niger, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea, and Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). Its northwestern area is largely arid desert or semi-desert. The Sahel runs through its central region. Rainfall and rivers make southwestern territory marginally more lush than the rest of the country.The Niger River is its most important geographic feature. It traverses the Sahel and southeastern region. It's a major transportation artery. 

 Mali's resources comprise of gold, diamonds, phosphates, bauxite, lignite, kaolin, salt, limestone, gypsum, granite, marble, diatomite, hydropower, iron ore, manganese, tin, lead, zinc, copper, oil, gas, and uranium. Mali is Africa's third largest gold producer after South Africa and Ghana. It's rich in uranium. It has an estimated 5,000 tons or more. It's neighbor Niger is the world's fourth largest producer. In 2007, Algeria's state oil company Sonatrach and Canada's Selier Energy signed oil and gas exploration deals. In mid-2012, drilling began.

Pretexts are easy to invent and the war on terror is just another piece of camoflage for  serving French, British and American business interests.

Hunger - the death sentence for many

More than 12million South Africans will go to bed hungry tonight.  The hungriest people are in Cape Town (80%) and Msunduzi, in KwaZulu-Natal (87%). It found that, in Johannesburg, 43% of the poor faced starvation and malnutrition. Researchers believe the figure could be higher.
A five-year study by the University of Cape Town's African Food Security Unit Network has exposed a food crisis that constitutes a "death sentence" for many

 Dr Jane Battersby-Lennard said the University of Cape Town study explained  the problem was access to adequate nutrition, not the availability of food.

"This is because of poverty. People are simply too poor to buy food."

The Princess of Angola

Eldest daughter of Angola's president Isabel dos Santos, dubbed 'princess', has been named Africa's first female billionaire. President José Eduardo dos Santos, the continent's second longest-serving leader at 33 years and an autocrat accused of enriching his family at the expense of ordinary Angolans. Forbes found that Isabel dos Santos's shares in several Portuguese firms, including a cable television company and an Angolan bank. According to Forbes, Dos Santos is the biggest shareholder in Zon, a Portuguese media conglomerate, with 28.8% of the stock, worth $385m; she also owns 19.5% of the Portuguese bank Banco BPI, worth $465m; and 25% of Angola's Banco BIC, worth an estimated $160m. In addition, she is said to be a 25% shareholder in the Angolan telecoms company Unitel. Most of her businesses in Angola are approved and transferred by her father. The investments in Portugal, De Morais added, were made first by the state firm Sonangol, which manages Angola's oil and gas reserves, with Dos Santos receiving shares. Dos Santos married Sindika Dokolo, Congolese art collector the son of the tycoon Sanu Dokolo, founder of Bank of Kinshasa. The couple, who have three children, divide their time between Luanda, London, Lisbon and Johannesburg,

When someone shows up with a billion dollars you have to ask what is the origin of the wealth? This is not explained. Peter Lewis, an African studies professor at Johns Hopkins University in the US, told Forbes: "The source of funds and corporate governance are very murky. When you tease out the ownership and controlling interests in Angola it reads like a Who's Who of family members and party and military chiefs."

The anti-corruption organisation Transparency International recently ranked Angola 168th out of 178 countries in its corruption perception index.

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The farm workers fight

Unions and charities supporting the Western Cape's 500,000 farmworkers say pay and conditions are so bad that South African wines, grapes and Granny Smith apples have called for a boycott of them. Of the Western Cape's fruit production, 58% is exported and, in Britain, one of the main importers is Tesco. For world socialists those calls to boycott South African produce is deja vu of the earlier anti-apartheid campaigns. This may help in this particular case but will not lessen the class struggle in South Africa.

The farmers' "vindictive" response to the latest two-week strike in the £850m-a-year fruit and wine sector is sacking workers by the truck-load.

South African farmworkers  called off the latest round of a strike for a daily wage of 150 rands (£10.65), their union said but warned of a new flare-up in the Western Cape.  Portia Adams, a spokeswoman for the employers' organisation Agri SA, said many farms had continued to operate using non-unionised labour from outside the farming areas.

 "The government should be forcing the farmers to the table but it is not," said Nosey Pieterse, secretary general of the Black Workers' Agricultural Sector Union, (Bawusa). "Our only weapon left is for the foreign retailers to pledge that unless the conditions are addressed, they will no longer import South African products." The government has been silent on the issue, tacitly pointing to ongoing annual minimum wage talks. Pieterse, a lifelong activist for farmworkers' rights, said: "The farmers are intransigent, vengeful and arrogant. Yet they are the beneficiaries of post-apartheid South Africa. In the first 10 years of democracy, the wine industry grew tenfold, from 20m litres output before 1994 to 220m litres. The farmworkers' conditions went the other way. Tenure rights laws were not accepted by the farmers. More than 1  million farmworkers were evicted. They remain slaves on the land of their birth."

 Most farmworkers are not unionised, many are illiterate and face the risk of eviction because they live on their employers' properties.Poorly enforced labour rights and tenancy laws as well as the pitifully low statutory minimum daily wage in the sector – 69.39 rands (£4.92) – perpetuate a culture of paternalism. To go on strike, workers have to stand up to employer.  A 2011 report by Human Rights Watch found widespread exposure to pesticides, lack of access to drinking water or sanitation, and failure to pay sick leave. While the system of dop – payment in alcohol – has largely been abolished, the Western Cape still has the highest rates in the world of foetal alcohol syndrome.

The haves, the have-lots and the have-nots

When Apartheid ended in 1994, South Africa moved from an era of institutionalized racial separation to what many believed was an equal society. But today, the rich-poor divide is starker than ever before. What has been happening is that as businesses have pushed down wages, profit margins have been increasing. The World Bank showed the country to have a Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality) of 63.1 –  which is among the worst globally.

 South Africa is now ‘‘the most unequal country on earth and significantly more unequal than at the end of apartheid,’’ said a Oxfam report released just ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Oxfam predicts that if nothing is done at both government and the international level to address the situation, in South Africa alone one-million more people could be pushed into poverty by 2020.

The Liberian Land grab

Liberian farmers who survived a 15-year civil war are now fighting lucrative property deals with Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil companies that threaten the land they live on, if not their sacred burial sites. Thirty hours by car from the capital Monrovia, the green and yellow flag of Golden Veroleum Liberia, an Indonesian palm oil giant, floats over deforested hills in Sinoe County, southern Liberia. In 2010, GVL acquired a 63-year lease on 220,000 hectares of land to produce palm oil. It pays annual rent of US$1.50 per hectare for virgin forest land and US$5 per hectare for cleared terrain in the lease, renewable for 30 more years. Palm oil is used for cooking in parts of Africa, Brazil and Southeast Asia, and is an ingredient in soaps and washing powders.

“The Indonesians came here for the first time in September 2010,'' resident Benedict Manewah explained. “They said: ‘We have a concession agreement, your president has sold it to us.’ Three months later they came back... and they started to destroy the properties, farmlands, crops, livestock and houses.’’ Manewah listed the crops he had planted. “I had rubber trees, cassavas, breadfruits, orange trees, cocoas, coconuts and palm trees,’’ for his family. GVL workers uprooted his crops to produce palm oil exclusively, and “they ship everything to their people, at home,’’ in Indonesia, he said.

Saydee Monboe pointed out that farmers now had no choice but to work under contract for GVL, charging: “This is not development, it's modern slavery.’’

Alfred Brownell, a lawyer who founded the organization Green Advocates, added:“The way they operate is almost as mob gangsters; threats, intimidation, illegal arrests,''

Fact of the Day

South Africa more unequal than in 1993.
 http://business.iafrica.com/news/838087.html

Namibia child poverty

One in three children in Namibia still grows up in households that are poor.

 Long-term impacts on children, especially if poverty starts at an early age or persists over several years. These impacts include a higher risk of low birth weight and child mortality, stunting and poor educational outcomes. Poverty can also impact on children's emotional and psychosocial wellbeing as the daily struggle to make ends meet can increase stress and tension within a household.

The struggle to live in Mali

While world media attention is focused on the French military intervention to thwart militant Islamist rebels, it is easy to overlook that for most Malians, to just stay alive is, in itself, an everyday struggle.

The country’s birthrate and infant mortality rate are the second highest in the world. Infant mortality exceeds 10 percent. Life expectancy at birth is among the shortest in the world.

With climate change and the Sahara desert creeping ever southward, life for rural and nomadic populations in the north is getting worse; even at the best of times. Drought is now a common reality. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, about a quarter of the population faces severe food insecurity.

The current conflict makes the misery worse. Very often the popular response is flight–to anywhere else. Oxfam estimates that 30,000 so far have fled since the French began their campaign last week. They join some 345,000 previously internally and externally displaced persons due to the ongoing unrest. The Catholic Information Service for Africa estimates that the number of displaced persons could reach 700,000. Already it estimates that about a third of Mali’s population of more than fifteen million is affected by the interrelated crises involving food availability, nutrition, and military conflict. This extreme privation plays a major, if often hidden, role in refugee flows and the availability of children to fight as soldiers as the only means of obtaining a meal.

Poverty Facts

Most people in the world are poor.  There is no part of the world where traces of poverty do not exist. Poverty is a situation where a person lacks basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter as well as access to healthcare and education or where the access to these basic needs is unsustainable. Relative poverty is more of a social definition which tends to measure inequality, social exclusion and dependency.  Poverty is indicated by economic and human development indices such as GDP per capital income, life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy rate, employment, gender inequality as well as level of democracy or political participation. Other indicators of poverty by the World Bank  include precarious Livelihood, physical limitations, lack of security, misuse of power by those in authority by creating dis-empowering policies, institutions and structures as well as weak community self help organizations. The World Bank recent quantification of extreme poverty defines poverty as one living on less than $1.25 (PPP) per day and moderate poverty as one living on less than $2 per day. Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) simply refers to the equivalent of local currency needed to obtain what $1.25 can purchase in the United States. The United Nations regards poverty as a violation of human dignity.

 The greatest negative outcome of poverty is hunger and disease. Hunger results from under nutrition as well as malnutrition which increase the incidence of diseases such as malaria, headaches and a general decrease in body immunity and susceptibility to disease. In both humans and animals, hunger leads to anger, aggression, hatred and even violence. Food insecurity, another expression for hunger as a manifestation of poverty is a situation where persons lack adequate food of the right quality (balanced diet) quantity as well as at the desired time.

In 2008 about 1.345billion people mostly in developing countries lived on less than $1.25 a day and 1 .02 billion people where under nourished.  World Bank reports also show that out of the world population of 6.8 billion, 925 million or 13.6% are hungry most of who live in developing countries especially Asia, the pacific and sub - Saharan Africa. Children are the most unfortunate victims of under nutrition as evidence has shown that children who are under-nourished encounter about f60 days of illness within the 365 days of the year and accounts for six million deaths every year or 17000 deaths per day. Malnutrition affects 33% of children in developing countries. Africa accounts for 26% of the world’s malnourished children which stems from their, mothers during pregnancy. It is estimated that undernourished mothers deliver one out of every six under weight babies with high incidence of neonatal death as well as other health problems leading to disabilities, mental retardation, blindness and poor life time health conditions.

The poverty situation in Nigeria has been described as a paradox — poverty in the midst of plenty. The high poverty level in Nigeria which stood at 74.2% in year 2000 was unjustifiable as the country is endowed with rich natural resources. Poverty level in Nigeria rose from the minimal of 15% in 1960 to 28% in 1980, 66% in 1996 giving 76.6 million poor persons while the United Nations Human Development Poverty Index rated Nigeria among the 25 poorest countries in the comity of nation. In 2004, the poverty rate for Nigeria however declined to 54.4% compared to the figures for Malaysia with 12.3% and Kenya 40% during the same year. Life expectancy is 48 years, infant mortality rate per 1000 is 90.4 and literacy rate 65.3%, though the poverty is said to be estimated at 34.1%, this still gives a poor population of about 55 million persons in absolute figures. In Nigeria, less than 40% have access to good drinking water while less than 30% have access to good toilet facilities.

Over $300 billion oil and gas wealth which is in abundance in Nigeria is controlled by about 0.1% of the population.

the Mali mess

Only last month, asked about intervention in the strife-torn Central African Republic, the French President François Hollande replied: “Those days are over”. But apparently not. France (and Britain) appear to be embroiled in yet another war. French planes attacked targets,  The mayor of Konna, says the dead included children who drowned after they threw themselves into a river in an effort to escape the bombs. Britain has provided transport planes. Americans provides intelligence and logistical support, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Nigeria agreed to send soldiers to join hundreds of French troops. France, the only European country still to have a permanent military presence in Africa with several major military bases. French involvement in Mali dates back more than a hundred years. The current unrest erupted in Mali after President Amadou Toumani Toure was toppled in a military coup on March 22, 2012. The coup leaders said they had mounted the coup in response to the government's failure to contain the Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country, which had been going on for two months.

A secular separatist Tuareg, National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad,  wants an independent state in northern Mali called Azawad. National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. The group which once controlled the cities of Gao and Kidal has largely melted back into the population awaiting its next chance. The MNLA is generally disregarded and underestimated because it has receded and allowed al-Qaeda-linked groups to take over the field. But it's important to remember the genesis of this crisis was an action by the MNLA to take over northern Mali, and all that is happening can be seen as a kind of reaction. The aspirations of the MNLA are deep-rooted going back to the first Tuareg rebellion in 1963. Their demands are not going to go away and those demands will continue to be the deep root of the northern Mali crisis.

National Front for the Liberation of Azawad is an Arab group loosely allied to the MNLA which wants the people of northern Mali to have the right to self-determination. They want northern Malians to be able to decide whether they want to be autonomous, independent or to be a part of Mali, possibly through a referendum similar to what happened when Southern Sudan voted for independence. The FLNA is not asking for the implementation of Sharia law.

Ganda Koy (Masters of the Earth) is a Songhai ethnic self-protection militia which has been around since the second Tuareg rebellion in the 1990s. Ganda Koy has in the past fought alongside the Malian Army against Tuareg rebels. They have allegedly committed massacres against Tuareg civilians. Human Rights Watch recently put out a report warning that ethnic self-protection militias like Ganda Koy and Ganda Izo are compiling kill lists of members of MNLA, Ansar al Din, other groups and their collaborators.

Ganda Izo is a Fulani ethnic militia that was formed in 2008 to perform a similar function to Ganda Koy—providing self-protection to the local Fulani populace and countering Tuareg rebellion.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is a mostly Algerian and Mauritanian group that has been present in northern Mali since 2003 and which has kidnapped and held more than 50 European and Canadian hostages for ransom in the last ten years earning what is estimated to be well over $100m. Niger's foreign minister Mohamed Bazoum recently said that AQIM's presence in northern Mali was part of a deal between the group and the deposed President of Mali Amadou Toumani Toure. Hostage ransom money from European governments was allegedly spread around to Malian officials while AQIM was given free rein in Tuareg areas, with a wink and a nod from the Malian Army. AQIM is currently holding at least nine European hostages in northern Mali. Over the last decade a few local Ifoghas, Tuaregs and Arabs joined AQIM in Mali, and their members also inter-married with the community. However now that AQIM are openly circulating in the main cities of northern Mali, and thanks to its association with local groups like Ansar al Din, the group has become more mainstream. Now youths from southern Mali, Senegal, Niger and other countries have come to join them under the rubric of the Islamic Police which AQIM has a direct hand in running.

Ansar al Din is a group of local Ifoghas Tuaregs, Berabiche Arabs and other local ethnic groups who want Sharia law implemented everywhere in Mali and across the Muslim world. The founder and head of Ansar al Din is Iyad Ag Ghali, a Tuareg former leader from the 1990s. Over the past ten years Iyad worked closely with the former president to try and put an end to simmering Tuareg rebellions and to negotiate hostage ransom deals with AQIM. Ansar al Din's spokesman is an Arab from the Timbuktu area named Sanda Ould Boumana who was incarcerated in Mauritania in 2005 for being an alleged member of al-Qaeda. The majority of Ansar al Din fighters are Tuaregs from Iyad Ag Ghali’s Ifoghas tribe and Berabiche Arabs from the Timbuktu area. Ansar al Din avoids fights with the MNLA and FLNA so as not to shed blood of relatives and tribal cohorts which would be de-legitimising. They tend to leave that job to MUJAO and AQIM. Although Ansar al Din denies any links with al-Qaeda, it effectively functions as a local umbrella under which members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) can operate. The relationship between the two groups is analogous to the association between the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghainstan, with Ansar al Din playing host. The two groups work together running the religious police, for example. Ansar al Din keeps its membership Malian, thus keeping their future options open within Mali. Ansar al Din can be found in all three main cities of the north: Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal.

Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa is the most opaque of the al-Qaeda-linked groups in northern Mali. It is supposedly a dissident group which split off from AQIM, but they told Al Jazeera that they're proud of working with AQIM in Gao to fend-off mutual enemies. MUJAO says like Ansar al Din that they want Sharia law everywhere in the world. Unlike Ansar al Din the group incorporates both locals and foreigners from the Sahel region and North Africa.  MUJAO has been the most aggressive in attacking MNLA elements as well as Arab groups who want self-determination for northern Mali. When the MNLA gain a foothold in a region, MUJAO are known to harrass them until they leave. Tilemsi Arab drug lords from the Gao area are alleged to be involved in funding MUJAO and some of their young people have joined.

The trade routes of the Sahara once made the region now called Mali among the world’s richest. But for the past century, it has been marred by instability and conflict.

Source

Ethiopian Migrants

In the last six years around 250,000 Ethiopians have made the dangerous journey into Yemen, gateway to the Gulf, a very poor, deeply divided country besieged with internal problems, which has limited resources, the second highest rate of chronic child malnutrition in the world and where 45% of the population live in poverty.

Djibouti city is the first major stage in the harrowing journey to Yemen, here or at sea all possessions, including mobile phones, cash and clothes are stolen, by smugglers, corrupt police or border guards. The journey to Djibouti’s capital is harsh and dangerous, in which many Ethiopian migrants die of starvation, dehydration or are killed by bandits. The Danish Refugee Council report, ‘Desperate Choices’, states, and wait for days or weeks for favourable conditions to cross the perilous waters of the Gulf of Aden, in flimsy boats manned by vicious criminal gangs. The ordeal of women begins in Djibouti, DRC report an Ethiopian man recounting the sea passage when “four Yemeni smugglers were on board the boat. They raped the girls in front of us, we were not able to move or to speak, and those girls were already sold to Yemeni traffickers.” Many are abducted and held captive, sometimes for months on end, their experiences are harrowing in the extreme.

On arrival in Yemen men and women are separated, wives taken from husbands, daughters from Fathers brothers from sisters. Trafficking and multiple rape of women is widespread, IRIN 12/03/12 state “the majority of the approximately 3,000 women held by smugglers in Haradh [on the border with Saudi Arabia] over the past year were raped, many of them repeatedly.”

 Corruption is endemic, with security officials coordinating with smugglers on the border with Saudi Arabia, “a climate of collusion and low political will to apprehend and prosecute smugglers is allowing the trade and abuse of migrants to flourish” (Reuters). The country is run, a military officer on the payroll of the smugglers to the tune of $2,000 a month says, “by tribes not policemen: these people are my friends.” ‘These people’ are turning a bind eye to the murder, rape and trafficking of innocent migrants seeking work to feed their families.

The innocent men women and children from Ethiopia making an impossible choice, with they see no alternatives, are not the villains in this ongoing human tragedy they are the victims trapped in a terrifying nightmare.

Full article here

The World Bank

At the World Bank, we have made the world’s most pressing development issue—to reduce global poverty—our mission,” the bank proclaims. Why, then, did the IFC give a Saudi prince’s company an attractively priced $26 million loan to help build the Mövenpick hotel in Accra, Ghana. The five-star Mövenpick hotel opened in 2011, fits the model of a modern international luxury hotel, with 260 rooms, seven floors, and 13,500 square feet of retail space displaying $2,000 Italian handbags and other wares. It was financed by a combination of a multibillion-dollar investment company largely controlled by a Saudi prince, and the poverty-fighting World Bank.

The investment company, Kingdom Holding Company, has a market value of $12 billion, and Forbes ranks its principal owner, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, as the world’s 29th-richest person, estimating his net worth at $18 billion. The World Bank contributed its part through its International Finance Corporation (IFC), set up back in 1956 to muster cheap loans and other financial support for private businesses that contribute to its planet-improving mandate.

The IFC likes to work with huge corporations, funding projects these companies could finance themselves. Its partners are billionaires and massive multinationals, from oil giants like ExxonMobil to Grupo Arcor, the huge Argentine candy-maker. Its projects include not only glitzy hotels and high-end shopping malls, but also gritty gold and copper mines and oil pipelines, some of which end up benefiting the very corrupt, authoritarian regimes that the rest of the World Bank is urging to change. Nearly a quarter of the IFC’s paid-in capital from member governments—now standing at $2.4 billion—came from U.S., and every president in the World Bank’s 69-year history has been an American.
The World Bank’s internal watchdog sharply criticized the IFC’s approach, saying it gives little more than lip service to the bank’s poverty-fighting mission. The report, a major 2011 review by the bank’s Independent Evaluation Group, found that fewer than half the IFC investments it studied involved fighting poverty. “Most IFC investment projects generate satisfactory returns but do not provide evidence of identifiable opportunities for the poor to participate in, contribute to, or benefit from the economic activities that the project supports,” the report concluded. In fact, it said, only 13 percent of 500 projects studied “had objectives with an explicit focus on poor people,” and even those that did, the report found, had a “limited” impact. The IFC did not dispute the conclusions.

Ghana's per capita GDP ranks in the bottom third of the world, with life expectancy in the bottom 15 percent and infant mortality in the bottom fourth. The IFC committed about $145 million in loans and equity in Ghana just in fiscal year 2012. Yet Takyiwaa Manuh, who advises the Ghanaian government on economic development as a member of the National Development Planning Commission, told me she doesn’t think of the IFC’s investments “as fighting poverty. Just because some people are employed, it is hard to say that is poverty reduction.”

In Accra, Mary-Jean Moyo, the IFC’s in-country manager for Ghana, told me the new hotel fights poverty by creating jobs. To illustrate, she recalled how the Mövenpick’s manager “noticed that a few boys roller-skate on Sundays outside the hotel. The manager decided to hire them to work at the pool. That is development and helping local people.” How many were hired? Six, Moyo responded. There is no hotel school and no vocational training in the country. As a result, all the top staff members among his 300 employees are foreign.
The IFC’s booming list of business partners reads like a who’s who of giant multinational corporations: Dow Chemical, DuPont, Mitsubishi, Vodafone, and many more. It has funded fast-food chains like Domino’s Pizza in South Africa and Kentucky Fried Chicken in Jamaica. It invests in upscale shopping malls in Egypt, Ghana, the former Soviet republics, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. It backs candy-shop chains in Argentina and Bangladesh; breweries with global beer behemoths like SABMiller and with other breweries in the Czech Republic, Laos, Romania, Russia, and Tanzania; and soft-drink distribution for the likes of Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and their competitors in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Mali, Russia, South Sudan, Uzbekistan, and more.

But the IFC’s money-generating strategy has at least one benefit: It sustains the jobs of the people who work for it. The “more money the IFC makes, the more the bank has available to invest,” says Griffiths, the director of Eurodad. “Staff is incentivized to make money.” The IFC sets annual targets for the number, size, and types of deals employees should complete, and it awards performance bonuses for reaching these targets, according to several current and former IFC staffers. “If you don’t reach the target, you don’t get a bonus,” says Alan Moody, a former IFC manager

Francis Kalitsi, a former IFC employee recalls of his time at the IFC. “The IFC is very profit-focused. The IFC does not address poverty, and its investments rarely touch the poor.”

R. Yofi Grant, executive director of Databank, one of Ghana’s largest banks, told me that the IFC’s practice of providing loans at attractive terms to multinational companies “crowds out local banks and private-equity firms by taking the juiciest investments and walking away with a healthy return.” The IFC recently organized a $115 million financing package for global telecom giantVodafone to expand its operations in Ghana, even though six telecom companies already operate in the country. Despite such robust private investment, the IFC’s loan package for Vodafone was its second in two years. “That is not poverty reduction, and these are not frontier investments,” Grant says, referring to the IFC’s refrain that it invests where other financiers might not. “The IFC says all the right things and does all the wrong things.”

The example of Chad and Cameroon, however, offers a more complicated picture. In 2000, the IFC invested roughly $200 million with ExxonMobil, Chevron, and others, along with the governments of Chad and Cameroon, to support the construction of a nearly $4 billion oil-pipeline project that experts estimate will generate more than $5 billion in revenue over the 25-year life of the project from wells mainly in landlocked Chad to a port in Cameroon.

The two countries are even poorer than Ghana to the west. Per capita income in Chad ranks 193rd in the world, compared with 185th place for Cameroon and 172nd for Ghana. Life expectancy at birth in Chad, at 48.7 years, is the world’s absolute worst, and the country has been ruled for the last two decades by heavy-handed dictator Idriss Déby.  The bulk of the oil revenue was supposed to be set aside for food, education, health care, and infrastructure. But in the face of attacks from rebel groups supported by neighboring Sudan, and asserting a need to defend the pipeline, Déby instead channeled substantial chunks into arms purchases.

Just in 2012, the IFC announced investments in mining projects for gold, copper, and diamonds in places like Mongolia, Liberia, and South Africa, as well as investments in oil and gas projects in Colombia, Ivory Coast, the Middle East, and North Africa.

In Accra, not far from the new Mövenpick, the IFC’s posh offices—sporting a lawn, flowers, and private parking—sit amid a slum, surrounded by an imposing concrete wall topped by coils of barbed wire. The only paved part of the road to the IFC is directly in front of the guarded complex, which has no sign announcing its identity. The rest of the road is a winding, dusty dirt path filled with potholes and surrounded by hovels erected out of battered metal or wood. Barefoot children sit amid goats and roving chickens, on ground dotted by garbage and litter. Women cook tiny fish strung onto sticks over an open fire, ignoring the near-100-degree temperatures. Some of them said they had lived there for 15 years. When asked whether they knew what the World Bank is, they said no. When told that it fights poverty, many of them laughed.

Congo and Cobalt

Many of the fastest-growing countries in the world are in Africa, the poorest continent on the planet. World Bank statistics indicate that the world's heaviest concentration of malnutrition remains in Africa, afflicting as many as 15 percent of all children under 5 in some countries in the southern and eastern regions. And in June, the U.N. Children's Fund reported that 1.5 million children were at imminent risk of starvation in the western half of the continent. Nevertheless, some African countries preparing to cash in on mineral wealth in East Africa include Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique and Ethiopia, based on recent discoveries of oil and gas.

"I don't believe that African nations are even close to understanding the enormous wealth that is their natural resource endowment," David Doepel, chair of the Africa Research Group at Australia's Murdoch University.

In 2010, Guinea alone represented over eight percent of total world bauxite production, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo have a combined share of 6.7 percent of the total world copper production, and Ghana and Mali together account for 5.8 percent of the total world gold production, while Ethiopia also accounts for one-sixth of the world's tantalum production.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) holds two major distinctions. First, it is the richest country in the world in terms of mineral wealth, at an estimated $24 trillion, and it is the country in which the highest number of people – estimates go as high as ten million -  have died due to war since World War II. The wars in that country have claimed nearly the same number of lives as having a 9/11 every single day for 360 days, the genocide that struck Rwanda in 1994, the ethnic cleansing that overwhelmed Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the genocide that took place in Darfur, the number of people killed in the great tsunami that struck Asia in 2004, and the number of people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- all combined and then doubled. The Congo’s staggering economic potential. The DRC contains 5% of the world’s copper and 50% of its cobalt.

Cobalt holds a critical role in the future green energy economy for its use in solar panels and in the blades and magnets for wind turbines and for its use in the rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles and consumer electronics. Cobalt is also used in the high-speed, high-strength wear-resistant alloys that are used in aerospace and military technologies. Cobalt also has many industrial uses such as a catalyst in desulfurizing crude oil and in hydrogen generation oxidation. It is used in natural gas-to-liquid technology, orthopedics and life sciences. Even though cobalt is one of the thirty most abundant elements in the earth's crust, it has an extremely low concentration, just 0.002 percent so it is rare to find it in economical standalone deposits. Identified world cobalt resources are about 15 million tons. The vast majority of these resources are in nickel-bearing laterite deposits, with most of the rest occurring in nickel-copper sulfide deposits hosted in mafic and ultramafic rocks in Australia, Canada, and Russia, and in the sedimentary copper deposits of Congo (Kinshasa) and Zambia. 48% of the world's 2007 mined cobalt was a byproduct of nickel mining from sulfide and laterite deposits. An additional 37% was produced as a byproduct of copper operations, mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Zambia. The copper deposits in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo are the world’s top producers of cobalt and the political situation in the Congo influences the price of cobalt significantly.

Life expectancy in the Democratic Republic of Congo is less than 48 years, one of five children will die before age five and almost 60% of the country’s 71 million people live on less than $1.25 per day. The DRC ranks as one of the least equitable countries in the 2011 Gender Inequality Index (GII), which shows rankings of gender equality based on a composite index of reproductive health, years of schooling, parliamentary representation, and participation in the labour market. Transparency International’s 2011 corruption perception index ranked the DRC 168th. The UN believes over 50% of the region’s 200 mines are controlled by armed forces which employ illegal taxation, extortion, forced labor, and violence to ensure the flow of mineral wealth. According to one CNN report eastern Congo’s armed groups generate some $180 million through the illicit trade of tin, coltan, tungsten, and gold which are easily traded across the porous eastern frontier and funneled into the international market.

Africom to expand

 US planned military expansion in Africa will see deployment of US soldiers and drones in as many as 35 nations dotted across the continent in the coming year under the familiar guise of 'fighting terrorism'. AFRICOM commander US General Carter Ham announced the US military would begin or expand operations in Mali, Sudan, Algeria, Somalia, and more than two dozen other countries.

 According to some, the US Africa Command has merely served to increase resource exploitation and imperial expansion, instigate more violence in Africa, and intensified regional conflicts.

South Africa's Inequality

10 percent of earners in South Africa take away 101 times the earnings of the bottom 10 percent of the population. The gap between the rich and poor people in South Africa is fast increasing and poor people are fed up that they live in deep poverty yet the bosses for whom they work live in luxury. Recent reports have shown that Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of most of these large mining firms like Anglo Platinum and Goldfields earn in the excess of R20million a year yet their workers receive meagre wages and the social conditions that they live in resemble a squatter camp.

 Unemployment rate is currently at 25 percent

Fact of the Day

A report indicates that more than 30 percent of Namibia's children live in poverty.

Time to bury the ghost of Nkrumah and abolish capitalism

The need for African Socialism and a Socialist Party of Ghana

Elections in Ghana- December 2012
'Ghana's election a close contest despite boom' -  Xan Rice writes in The Financial Times, 6th December 2012: “The presidential election in Ghana, west Africa's second-largest economy is fiercely contested; the prize is control over billions of dollars in oil and gas revenues expected to flow in the next four years, giving the victorious party the potential means not only to transform the economy but also to stay in power for a long time. With Ghana's economy booming – the International Monetary Fund predicts 8.2% growth this year, thanks to oil, cocoa and gold production and a strong building and service sector – the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) might appear to have a strong advantage.
But perhaps uniquely in Africa, Ghana has developed a recent tradition of tight elections, with power changing hands from the nominally centre-left NDC to the centre-right New Patriotic Party (NPP) and back again. The peaceful handovers have helped to attract foreign investment. “Ghanaians are divided around two main parties just like the Democrats and Republicans in the US” said Bossman Asare, a political science lecturer at the University of Ghana.
Oil production began in 2010, the fiscal deficit has been cut and the country achieved lower middle-income status last year. Incumbent president Mr Mahama is targeting 8% growth until 2016. The NPP is regarded as the more pro-business, pro-western party. The NPP presidential candidate Mr Akufo-Addo describes himself as “the man to trust with Ghana's money”.

  'Ghana election: John Mahama declared winner' – BBC News Africa, 10th December 2012:
 “Ghana's presidential election has been won by incumbent John Mahama, the electoral commission has announced. It said Mr Mahama had secured 50.7% of votes, with opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo on 47.74%. However, the opposition NPP says it will contest the result, accusing the governing NDC party of conspiring with commission staff to fix Friday's poll. Ghana, one of the world's fastest-growing economies, is regarded as one of Africa's most stable democracies. Police in the capital Accra fired tear gas to disperse opposition protesters from outside the commission's offices on Sunday evening. Tanks guarded the electoral commission and roads around the offices were barricaded by police as the results were announced”.

The NDC can be seen as akin to the Labour Party, and the NPP is similar to the Tories but essentially their differences are wafer thin and both parties administer capitalism in Ghana on behalf of the capitalist class. Other political parties in Ghana are the Nkrumahist Convention People's Party (CPP) and the Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP). But the NDD and NPP have a stranglehold over the electoral process in the same way as the Republicans and Democrats in the USA.

Adongo Aidan Avugma wrote in the Socialist Standard in April 2000: “The interests of the Ghanaian ruling class since independence is just the same as those of the old colonial regime; and it works with the forces of neo-colonialism and international capital to negate the consciousness of the masses, using its unlimited access to the economic surplus to attain this objective”. Like the liberal democracies in the West, Ghana has adopted a neo-liberal approach to capitalism, and has moved away from the state capitalism of the Nkrumah period;  Avugma writes of Ghana; “The worship and devotion to free enterprise is therefore total. The impression that private investment of capital is essential for economic growth relegates labour to a secondary position in industry and prepares the minds of the people to accept the dominance of capital over labour in the process both of production and distribution. It also seeks to imprint in the minds of the recipients of education the idea that the profit motive is both essential and intrinsic to increased productivity; and the belief that free-for-all competition at the market place is the only way to realise the overall interest of society”.

The Great Consolidated Popular Party (GCPP) is a political party splintered from the CPP,  founded by the late Daniel Lartey who was described as a “Nkrumahist adherent”. The party political philosophy is Pan-Africanist but also advocates autarky known as “domestication” which is “growing Ghana from Ghana rather than depending on foreign aid and investments”.

The Convention People's Party (CPP) candidate for Ghana president in December 2012 was agronomist Dr.  Michael Abu Sakara Foster who received only 0.18% of the vote. The CPP is described as a left wing party advocating “Nkrumaism, Pan-Africanism, Socialism”, and is chaired by Samia Yaba Nkrumah. 

This paltry vote does not reflect that this party governed Ghana from 1951 to 1966. The CPP website does not mention the word 'socialism' but talks of “Self-determination, Social Justice, Pan Africanism”. On Social Justice the CPP say “The state has a moral and constitutional duty to promote equal opportunities and equitable rewards for all Ghanaians”. The CPP believe that “fundamental reforms are needed” and Ghana “needs bold and visionary leadership”. The following statement is 'socialism' but omits the word:

“The principle of social justice is derived from the CPP’s understanding and acknowledgement of the obvious inequalities and imbalances inherent in the availability of natural and institutional resources and its distribution in Ghanaian society. To this end, the CPP is resolved to the application of social justice to reduce poverty through the fair distribution of the state’s natural resources, provide basic education, provide basic health care, and provide judicial service and other social facilities to enhance the stability and cohesion of the state without discrimination regarding gender, religion, social standing or tribal origins”.

Kwame Nkrumah (1909-72) spent 1935-45 in the USA where he became a socialist, he knew CLR James and Raya Dunayevskaya.  Nkrumah's 'socialism'  is the state capitalist 'marxist-leninist' style that held sway in the USSR.  In 1963 the USSR awarded Nkrumah the Lenin Peace Prize.  The current CPP  is still in thrall to Leninist vanguardism:  “Democratic centralism:  The authority of the party is derived, sustained and emanates from the centre to all its organs, functionaries and structures”.

Nkrumah founded the CPP in 1949 and campaigned for the independence of the Gold Coast from British imperial rule. In 1951 Nkrumah became prime minister of the autonomous British colony of the Gold Coast, and from 1957-66 was prime minister/president of the independent Ghana.

In 1957 Ghana had $481 million in foreign reserves. Nkrumah wanted Ghana to escape the colonial trading system by reducing economic dependency on foreign capital, technology, and goods, and in this way Ghana could achieve real independence. The state capitalism of the Nkrumah period saw rapid industrialisation, large public investment in capital projects, a welfare system was established, and  free healthcare and education.  Production of cocoa, Ghana's chief export doubled, and bauxite and gold mining expanded.  The major achievements of Nkrumah's rule were the hydro-electric project of the Akosombo Dam on the Volta river in Eastern Ghana, and the Volta Aluminum Company (VALCO).

Nkrumah met with the US President John F. Kennedy in March 1961.  Following this meeting Ghana borrowed finance from the USA, UK, and the World Bank to fund the construction of the Akosombo Dam which was built by Kaiser Aluminium. The hydro-electric power plant would provide water for irrigation in Ghana's agricultural sector and power for the towns, and for the new Volta Aluminum Company plant. Later the aluminium exports from VALCO would be a major source of foreign exchange for Ghana. The Akosombo Dam was opened amid much publicity on 22nd January 1966.

Nkrumah and the CPP were not noted for their belief in pluralist bourgeois democracy. The 1958 Trade Union Act made industrial action (strikes) illegal, and 'preventive detention'  legislation imprisoned opposition politicians. A 1961 railway strike led to the imprisonment of strike leaders and opposition politicians. A 1964 plebiscite gave  99% approval to changing the Ghana constitution to make the CPP the only legal party in Ghana.

By 1966 with overspending on capital projects, cocoa prices falling, Ghana was in debt to the tune of $1 billion, the foreign reserves had gone, and repayments to the international capitalists were not being met. While Nkrumah was on a state visit to China and North Vietnam in February 1966, the Army and Police with CIA support  staged a bloody coup d'etat and overthrew the CPP. The CPP was banned and did not reform again until 1996.

Adongo Aidan Avugma on Ghana's state capitalism:

“The alternative to the free market policy is normally presented as the state ownership of the means of production. What is not discussed or is not known is that the state ownership of the means of production prescribed and fixed in law does not preclude the exploitation of labour by capital. Capitalism is not only characterised by the legal form that class possession of the means of production takes. That is the superficial aspect of it. The essential aspect is the social fact that those who "possess" the means of production exploit wage labour and accumulate surplus value thus obtained as capital. The immediate post-independent West African economics would suffice to illustrate this point. Workers sold their labour power to various state enterprises; and the products of their labour were sold in the market place with a view to profit. The difference between the wages of the producers and the value of what they produced was used for capital accumulation and the consumption of the privileged classes. Under the guise of socialism that state was employed by the ruling classes to appropriate economic surpluses from the masses. State ownership sought to hide the monstrosity of capitalist exploitation by confusing socialism with state property and presenting it to the producers of wealth as the best”.

Nkrumah wrote 'African Socialism Revisited' in 1967. Nkrumah's philosophical socialism has much to be recommended but its practical application in Ghana in the 1960's was Leninist political leadership, authoritarianism, and state capitalism.

Nkrumah's socialism:

“the recognition that the restoration of Africa’s humanist and egalitarian principles of society calls for socialism”.

“ We postulate each man to be an end in himself, not merely a means; and we accept the necessity of guaranteeing each man equal opportunities for his development”.

“Socialism in Africa introduces a new social synthesis in which modern technology is reconciled with human values, in which the advanced technical society is realised without the staggering social malefactions and deep schisms of capitalist industrial society. For true economic and social development cannot be promoted without the real socialisation of productive and distributive processes”.

“Socialism depends on dialectical and historical materialism, upon the view that there is only one nature, subject in all its manifestations to natural laws and that human society is, in this sense, part of nature and subject to its own laws of development”.

Ghana needs the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.  The world is a "global village". Each region may have its own particular and distinct customs, but they are part of a greater system of society that is world-wide. This system of society is capitalism and every region and nation operates within this system of society in one way or another. Socialism is not a cooperative island in the middle of capitalism, but a global system of society that will replace capitalism.

There is an immediate need for the establishment of a  Socialist Party of Ghana  to enter the field of political action determined to wage war against all other political parties, whether alleged labour or avowedly capitalist, and calls upon the members of the working class of Ghana to muster under its banner to the end that a speedy termination may be wrought to the system which deprives them of the fruits of their labour, and that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom.

The World Socialist Movement of which a Socialist Party of Ghana would be part is a global socialist movement that believes capitalism cannot meet the needs of the majority of the people in the world. It does not today, and it never can.

Steve Clayton

The Game of Life

Nigeria became the first African country to launch its own version of Monopoly, which officials hope will teach "financial literacy."  Monopoly is a game that teaches the lessons of capitalism quite well: One person always becomes a super landlord and everyone else goes bankrupt and homeless. What does not reflect real world capitalism is that in Monopoly every capitalist can end up in jail every now-and-then.

The  capitalism-loving board game began life as a way to teach the radical philosophy of Henry George, a 19th-century writer who argued that "private property is robbery". It was originally called The Landlord's Game, with cards that said not "Go!" but “Labor Upon Mother Earth Produces Wages” alongside quotes from Thomas Jefferson and John Ruskin.

 As the United Labor's candidate for mayor of New York, George offered government-run social services, public-owned utilities, free transportation - supported by slogans like "Honest Labor Against Thieving Landlords" and "Hi! Ho! The leeches must go!" He lost.

Africa's anti-atheism

Botswana

The constitution and other laws mandate a secular state and protect freedom of religion or belief. However, there are widespread state privileges for Christianity and routine bias against the nonreligious. Government meetings often begin with a Christian prayer. Even though the constitution prohibits forced religious instruction, forced participation in religious ceremonies, or taking oaths that run counter to an individual's religious beliefs, religious education is part of the curriculum in public schools. This public education emphasizes Christianity but also addresses other religious groups in the country, while excluding humanists and other non-theists. Additionally, the constitution provides that every religious community may establish places for religious instruction at the community's expense.

Cameroon

The constitution mandates a secular state, and the constitution and other laws and policies protect freedom of religion or belief. However, there are widespread government privileges for religion, especially Christianity and Islam, and routine bias against the nonreligious. The government gives an annual subsidy to all private primary and secondary education institutions, including those operated by religious denominations. State-sponsored television station and radio stations broadcast Christian and Islamic religious services on a regular basis, as well as religious ceremonies on national holidays and during national events.

Chad

The constitution provides that the country shall be a secular state. However, some policies favor Islam in practice. A committee composed of members of the High Council for Islamic Affairs (HCIA) and the Directorate of Religious and Traditional Affairs in the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) organized trips to Mecca for the Hajj (pilgrimage during the 12th month of the Islamic calendar) and Umrah (pilgrimage). The Director of Religious and Traditional Affairs oversees religious matters. The HCIA oversees Islamic religious activities, including the supervision of some Arabic-language schools and higher institutions of learning, and the representation of the country in international Islamic meetings. The HCIA, in coordination with the president, appoints the grand imam, a spiritual leader for Muslims, who oversees each region's high imam and serves as head of the council. In principle, although not consistently in practice, the grand imam has the authority to restrict proselytizing by Islamic groups, regulate the content of mosque sermons, and exert control over activities of Islamic charities. Religious leaders are involved in managing the country's wealth. A representative of the religious community sits on the Revenue Management College, the body that oversees use of Chad’s oil revenues. The seat rotates between Muslim and Christian leaders every four years. While the government is legally obligated to treat all religious groups or denominations equally, some non-Muslims allege that Muslims receive preferential status, particularly concerning use of public lands for building places of worship.

Djibouti

Although the constitution and other laws and policies protect freedom of religion or belief, Islam is the state religion and the president and other government employees, including magistrates, are required to take religious oaths. More than 99% of the population identifies as Sunni Muslim. Citizens officially are considered Muslims if they do not specifically identify with a faith; there are no figures available on the number of atheists in the country. Muslims are required to marry in an Islamic ceremony. Non-Muslims—who are known to include Roman Catholics, Protestants, Copts, and Bahá'ís—must marry in accordance with the rites of the religion with which they are registered. The government allows civil marriage only for non-Muslim foreign residents; so if there were atheist Djibouti who wanted to marry, they would not be able to do so (unless they hid their atheism and registered with a religion). A non-Muslim man may marry a Muslim woman only after converting to Islam. According to the family code, "impediment to a marriage occurs when a Muslim woman marries a non-Muslim." The president is required to take a religious oath at inauguration; other government employees are also required to do so, such as magistrates, the presidents of Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, Chamber of Accounts, and the inspector general of state. While there is no penalty established by law, it remains an official custom written in the Constitution for the president of the country and required by law for others. No legal provision exists for opposite practice.

Equatorial Guinea

While the constitution and other laws and policies protect freedom of religion or belief, a 1992 presidential decree regulates the exercise of freedom of religion or belief. This decree provides official preference for the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformed Church of Equatorial Guinea. While the decree does not hinder the practice of other religions or beliefs, its preferential effects can be observed in some circumstances; for example, Catholic masses are a normal part of any major ceremonial function, such as the October 12 National Day and June 5 President’s Birthday. In addition, Catholic and Reform church officials are exempt from airport entry and exit taxes.

Eritrea

The 1997 constitution protects freedom of religion or belief. However, the government has yet to implement the constitution, and in practice it does not respect freedom of belief. In the past few years, there has been an increase in serious government violations of religious freedom, including mass arrests, torture and death for members of minority belief groups. In 2002 the government decreed that all religious groups must either register or cease all religious activities. Four religious groups are now registered: the Eritrean Orthodox Church, the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church of Eritrea, Islam, and the Roman Catholic Church. Religious facilities that did not belong to the four officially recognized religious groups were forced to close. The government retains significant control over the four registered religious groups, in most cases controlling their leadership and finances. Many places of worship have closed because of government intimidation and the mass conscription of religious workers and parishioners. The government routinely harasses and detains members of registered and unregistered religious groups, some of whom reportedly died as a result of torture and lack of medical treatment while in detention. By the end of 2011, many estimated that the population of religious prisoners remained at 2,000 to 3,000. Some arrestees reported that they were only released after they signed statements recanting their religious beliefs and agreeing to join an officially registered religion as a condition of their release. The application for an exit visa requires a designation of religious affiliation, and members of unregistered religions or no religion require additional permission from the Office of Religious Affairs, which has been reported to grant permission, deny permission, or arrest applicants on the spot for practicing an unrecognized faith or being non-religious.

Ethiopia
:
The constitution requires the separation of state and religion; however, under a 2008 law it is a crime to defame religious groups.

The Gambia

Article 25 of the Constitution protects the rights of citizens to follow any religion or belief that they choose. The government has not established a state religion, although the constitution establishes Qadi (Muslim judge trained in the Islamic legal tradition) courts in such places as the chief justice determines. Their jurisdiction applies only to marriage, divorce, and inheritance questions for Muslims where they apply traditional Islamic law. The Supreme Islamic Council (SIC) is an independent body that advises the government on religious issues. Although the government does not have representation on the council, it provided the council with substantial funding. The minister of religious affairs maintains a formal relationship with the council. Government meetings and events typically commenced with two prayers, one Islamic and one Christian. The government funds religious instruction in schools. Public and private schools throughout the country provide Biblical and Qur'anic studies with government support.

Mauritania

The constitution and other laws and policies restrict freedom of religion or belief and the 1991 constitution defines the country as an Islamic republic and recognizes Islam as the sole religion of its citizens and the state. Due to this stance, all non-Muslims are restricted from being citizens of the country, and Mauritanians who leave Islam for another religion or no religion lose their citizenship. In addition, Article 306 of the penal code outlaws apostasy: anyone found guilty of converting from Islam will be given the opportunity to repent within three days and if the person does not repent, the individual will be sentenced to death and the person’s property will be confiscated by the Treasury. Sharia (Islamic law) provides legal principles upon which the law and legal procedures are based. The government and citizenry consider Islam to be the essential cohesive element unifying the country's various ethnic groups. There is a cabinet-level Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Traditional Education. The High Council of Islam, consisting of six imams, advised the government on conformance of legislation to Islamic precepts. The judiciary consists of a single system of courts that uses principles of Sharia in matters concerning the family and modern legal principles in all other matters. The government requires members of the Constitutional Council and the High Council of Magistrates to take an oath of office that includes a promise to God to uphold the law of the land in conformity with Islamic precepts. Both public schools and private Islamic schools include classes on Islam, and attendance at these religious classes is required.

Nigeria

The constitution and other laws and policies protect freedom of religion or belief. The constitution mandates that local, state and federal government “shall not adopt any religion as State Religion.” However, some state governments have a record of abusing freedom of religion or belief. There is significant hostility and violence between religious communities, especially Christians and Muslims, in many parts of the country. Some outbreaks of communal violence have resulted in hundreds of deaths. Yet, a climate of impunity exists, as authorities rarely prosecute and punish those responsible for violent attacks. The constitution provides that states may establish courts based on the common law or customary law systems. Twelve northern states Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Kano, Katsina, Kaduna, Jigawa, Yobe, Bauchi, Borno, Zamfara, and Gombe—maintained Sharia courts, which adjudicated both criminal and civil matters, along with common law and customary law courts. Non-Muslims had the option to try their cases in the Sharia courts if involved in disputes with Muslims. If non-Muslims did not agree to go to Sharia courts, common law courts would hear their cases. Although the constitution does not explicitly allow Sharia courts to hear criminal cases, they have done so in the past. In Zamfara State, the first state to adopt Sharia, a Sharia court must hear all criminal cases involving Muslims. No laws barred women or any groups from testifying in common law courts or gave less weight to their testimony; however, Sharia courts usually accorded less weight to the testimony of women and non-Muslims. Both federal and state governments regulate mandatory religious instruction in public schools; however, the constitution mandates that students do not receive religious instruction in any religion other than their own. In theory students can request a teacher of their own beliefs to provide alternative instruction, but in practice many schools lack teachers capable of doing so. Although the jurisdiction of Sharia technically does not apply to non-Muslims in civil and criminal proceedings, certain social mores inspired by Sharia, such as the separation of the sexes, affected non- Muslim minorities in the north. Many non-Muslims perceive that they lived under the rule of a Muslim government and often feared reprisals for their religious affiliation. The Hisbah—Sharia enforcement
groups funded by state governments in Bauchi, Zamfara, Niger, Kaduna, and Kano—enforce, sometimes violently, some Sharia statutes.

Sudan

The interim constitution and other laws and policies provide for some freedom of religion or belief. However, there are Islamic prohibitions against apostasy, blasphemy, and interfaith marriages. The Interim National Constitution enshrines Islamic law as a source of legislation in the country, and theofficial laws and policies of the government and the ruling National Congress Party favour Islam. Although there is no legal penalty for converting from another religion to Islam, converting from Islam to another religion or belief is punishable by imprisonment or death. Persons convicted of conversion are given the opportunity to recant their conversion before execution. A Muslim man may marry a Christian
or Jewish women, but a Muslim woman cannot marry a non-Muslim unless he converts to Islam. The penalty for blasphemy and “defamation” of Islam is up to six months in prison, whipping, and/or a fine.

Zambia

The constitution and other laws and policies protect freedom of religion or belief. However, the government requires Christian instruction in public schools. The classes are conducted in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions and are mandatory for all students through grade seven.

Traditional is not always the best

Malnutrition remains a key cause of numerous diseases that have led to death of children under the age of five in Rwanda and herbalists have been blamed for this. Most rural residents in Eastern Province, particularly in Kirehe and Ngoma districts, prefer herbs from traditional healers to drugs prescribed at health centres.

Alice Muhongerwa, the provincial coordinator National Women Council (CNF), the persistence of malnutrition in the area was mainly due to traditional healers. "In Kirehe, it is a sad reality...malnutrition has prevailed because of herbalists. Parents keep on feeding their children on herbs instead of recommended foods like beans and milk, which they do not lack by the way. A typical example is that of Gahara Sector which is the richest in food production and has the highest cases of malnutrition. Ignorance is still a problem,"

Source

Gertler's Congo

Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler has been accused of making most of his $2.5bn fortune from "looting Congo at the expense of its people" which remains at the foot of the UN's development index. Most of Congo's 68m population do not have access to electricity or running water, and one in five children die before their fifth birthday. The nation's per capita income is $280 – below the level it was at when the country, formerly known as Zaire, gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

Gertler, who normally avoids the public eye, declared in an interview "I should get a Nobel prize. They need people like us, who come and put billions in the ground. Without this, the resources are worth nothing."

Mining company Eurasian Natural Resources Company (ENRC) has spent $550m (£340m) buying itself out of a Congo copper-mining partnership with Gertler. ENRC ended its relationship with Gertler this weekend after mounting pressure from politicians, investors and campaign groups demanding that it clean up its reputation and be more transparent in demonstrating how local people benefit from its activities. Gertler used his close relationship with the government to secure preferential treatment, and the Serious Fraud Office has been called on to investigate. British MPs are also demanding that the UK slash aid spending to Congo because the country has failed to show that profits from its mines are benefiting local people. The International Monetary Fund froze loans to Congo because the government refused to publish details of a deal between a state-owned mining firm and companies said to be linked to Gertler.

The transparency campaign group Global Witness, which has criticised ENRC for using Congo partners that work with offshore companies which they claim could be benefiting corrupt local politicians, said: "Instead of the Congolese state benefiting from the sales of the country's most valuable mines, the bulk of the money is going to secretive companies in offshore countries, mainly in the British Virgin Islands. "Mr Gertler and the FTSE 100 companies partnering up with him should publish full details of their dealings in the Congo, including the names of the offshore companies' beneficiaries. The public should be assured that these beneficiaries do not include corrupt Congolese officials".

Gertler said it was the Congolese government's role to disclose the deals, not his. "We're a private company. Why should we announce?"

Back to the Dark Ages

The American Family Research Council deserves its hate-group designation.

Many who have followed the human rights crisis for LGBT people in Uganda know that, in 2009, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was introduced into the Ugandan Parliament to supplement laws that already banned homosexuality. The bill, quickly dubbed the “Kill the Gays” bill because of its provision of a death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” also includes severe penalties for other actions and non-actions, including the “failure to disclose the offense” by anyone who might be aware of another person’s same-sex sexuality. Although the bill has not been yet passed, it has attracted harsh international condemnation, and many attacks on LGBT people and activists have been attributed to the public debates surrounding it.

Last month Uganda’s pious President Museveni delivered a speech in which he dedicated his country to God and renounced “the Satanic influence” of “the last 50 years of history.” Museveni called upon the deity to forgive the nation. Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga has taken up the challenge of national repentance by promising passage of the “Kill the Gays” legislation as a “Christmas gift” to the people of Uganda.

 Christian conservative leaders in the U.S. are thrilled with what FRC has called an “inspirational moment for the [Ugandan] nation.” FRC President Tony Perkins tweeted a big, warm hug to President Museveni for “leading his nation in repentance” and thus helping to create a “nation prospered by God.” The FRC lavishes praise on Museveni and his government for proclaiming the kind of “faithfulness...that will raise Uganda’s status as a new power in Africa.” Museveni, dictator of Uganda, and aspiring president-for-life, obviously is a favorite of U.S.-based Christian Right leaders. Rick Warren, pastor of California’s Saddleback Church and the author of the bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life , who, in 2008, conferred on Uganda the label of  “purpose-driven nation.” In 2009, after first refusing to condemn the proposed anti-gay legislation, Warren capitulated, after initially saying that he didn’t want to interfere in Ugandan politics.

Apologists for the Christian Right often scold political opponents for misunderstanding the goals of Christian conservatives and especially for misrepresenting the movement as having theocratic ambitions in the U.S. However, messages such as the one sent by FRC, lauding Museveni as he dedicates his nation to their idea of God, illuminate Christian conservative leaders’ intense yearning for theocracy in America and, failing that, in states where American Christian conservatives wield some influence. It seems to clarify where America’s foremost Christian public policy and lobbying organization stands: firmly on the side of punishing lesbians, gay men, men who have sex with men, and women who have sex with women, even at the cost of their very lives.

This is certainly bad news for the people of Uganda. The Family Research Council are heaping approval on Museveni’s bid to defy “the West” on “traditional values,” eliminate “sexual immorality,” and rule Uganda according to biblical law.

Source

Mining for Blood Mobile Phones

Mining for Blood Mobile Phones

Financial Times 22 November and 26 November 2012  Democratic Republic of Congo: “M23 Rebel Group capture Goma, the minerals and trading capital of Eastern Congo, “the mineral-rich East”  near the Rwandan border. The east of the country is home to vast mineral resources such as gold, tungsten and tantalum, the latter essential for computers and mobile phones. The DRC is Africa's largest producer of tin ore, the second largest copper producer after Zambia, and produces about half the world's cobalt. The east of the country is also an important source of columbite-tantalite, known as coltan, which is used in mobile phones and other electronic devices. Shares in Banro, which operates a gold mine south of Goma fell 3.6% on 21 November 2012 after sinking 13% the day before. Rwanda is allegedly backing the M23 rebels. Rwanda have extensive economic and security interests in Eastern Congo”.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is the world's largest producer of cobalt ore, a major producer of copper and industrial diamonds. 30% of the world's diamond reserves are in the Congo. Tin was discovered in 2002 in Eastern Congo.  70% of the world's reserves of coltan is also in the Congo. Coltan is the major source of tantalum which is used in the fabrication of electronic components in computers and mobile phones.  Coltan smuggling is the “blood mobile phones” which is the leading cause of conflict in Eastern Congo.

African Business magazine February 2009: estimates the total mineral wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo as $24 trillion ! Potentially it is the richest country in the world.

In 2011, at least twenty-five international mining companies were active in the Congo. These include Anglo Gold Ashanti, BHP Billiton, Xstrata,  Anvil Mining, First Quantum Minerals, Katanga Mining (owned by Glencore) ,and Lundin Mining. In August 2012 the Chinese firm Changfa Mineral Resources acquired the Mokambo Copper mine project. Tony Blair was recently involved as a mediator in the proposed merger of Xstrata and Glencore.

The civil war in the Congo 1998-2003 is known as the Great War of Africa, it directly involved eight African nations as well as twenty five armed groups. An estimated 5.4 million people in the Congo died. Conflict in the DRC continues to this day.

The people of the Congo need world socialism now to halt the wars of capitalism over economic resources, minerals, strategic territories, and  populations. Socialism will be the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community. Socialism will end the exploitation of the Congolese people, the killing, the disease, child labour, child soldiers, and the sexual violence to women inflicted in the Congo.

Steve Clayton

Land grab once again

Major farmland investors such as banks and pension funds must stop facilitating and engaging in large-scale land grabs with extremely damaging consequences for local populations.

Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth International Food Sovereignty programme co-ordinator, said: "Unfortunately private investment in farmland may be seen by many as low risk and positive for developing countries. Yet they are often a disaster for local communities and the environment."

In Liberia, farmland investments have facilitated land grabbing. A quarter of the country - including vast swathes of fertile land- has been handed to palm oil, rubber and logging companies, preventing its use for food production. These large plantations are promoted as a means to create jobs, bring development, and increase the government's budget. In reality they are jeopardizing the land rights of local populations, threatening local livelihoods and putting the future of one of the world's most significant biodiversity hotspots into doubt. Between 2009 and 2010 the government of Liberia allocated more than a million acres of land to transnational palm oil producers Sime Darby and Golden Veroleum Liberia without consulting or securing the consent of those living on and using the land.

 Ethiopia has allocated huge areas of fertile arable farmland to foreign investors with little consultations with the affected communities. Since 2008 more than 3.6 million hectares of land has been allocated to foreign investors. For instance, in Gambela region, an Indian company -Karuturi Global- has been allocated staggering 300,000 hectares of land depriving indigenous people of access to water, fishing and grazing grounds, traditional construction materials, and food. Like in many other cases there has been a lack of prior consent and consultation with the local people and affected communities were not consulted and did not give their prior consent these farmland investments. "In Ethiopia and elsewhere farmland investments for instance in plantations are jeopardizing the land rights of local people, and threatening local livelihoods ," said Nyikaw Ochalla from Anywaa Survival Organisation-ASO.

In Madagascar, landgrabbing is caused by foreign and domestic investors implementing agribusiness projects and setting up biodiversity conservation areas, but also developing tourism and extractive industry infrastructure. "We are currently supporting pastoralists communities' claims against the Italian company Tozzi Green which aims to lease 100 000 hectars in the Ihorombe region to mainly cultivate jatropha for agrofuel production"  says Mamy Rakotondrainibe, from the Collectif pour la défense des terres malgaches -TANY

A report released earlier this year by Friends of the Earth Uganda revealed widespread violations of people's rights and environmental destruction from a land grab in Uganda.

Source

Africom widens its grasp

The U.S AFRICOM command relies on Uganda and Rwanda for carrying out its missions in East and Central Africa. The US gives them arms, equipment and training. The UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, once Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, now defends the two with a passion at the UN. Jason Stearns of the International Crisis Group, who also has been a member of the UN Panel of Experts, said Susan Rice delayed the publication of UN Group of Experts' interim report, insisting that Rwanda be given a chance to see the report first and respond. Her latest step was to block the explicit naming of Rwanda and Uganda in the UN Security Council resolution, condemning the M23 occupation of Goma. As in previous statements, the body demanded that ‘any and all outside support to the M23 cease immediately.’ Other Council members had wanted to name Rwanda explicitly, but Rice argued against  that this.

 Britain has been blocking European sanctions against Rwanda -- in fact shamelessly went back on its word. The former British Secretary for International Development Andrew Mitchell told MPs that he had decided to resume Britain’s £16m aid package to Rwanda after two out of three conditions set by the UK - a ceasefire in the Kivus region and an end to practical support from Rwanda to militias - were met. The Congolese people, in fact the whole world, aren’t aware of such a ceasefire. The biggest donors to both Rwanda and Uganda are Britain and America. Britain contributes over £30 million a year to Rwanda's budget. Tony Blair now acts as personal adviser to Mr Kagame, while one of his charities, the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), employs about 10 people inside the Rwandan government, helping it to run more effectively

America has been fighting wars in Africa since the 1950s – in Angola, the DRC, Somalia, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Morocco, Libya, Djibouti to name but a few counties. In some countries they used US troops, but in most cases the US financed, armed and supervised the support of indigenous forces. In its support of the anti- MPLA forces in Angola it sent arms and equipment to the UNITA opposition. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Larry Devlin of the CIA was an unofficial Minister of Mobutu’s government.

 The record shows the US armed forces intervened in Africa forty-seven times prior to the current Lord’s Resistance Army endeavour. The countries suffering one or more US military interventions include the Congo, Zaire, Libya, Chad, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia, Central African Republic, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea. Under the Clinton regime, US militarized intervention in Africa took off. Between 1992 and 2000, seventeen armed incursions took place, including a large scale invasion of Somalia and military backing for the Rwandan regime. Clinton intervened in Liberia, Gabon, Congo and Sierra Leone to prop up a long standing troubled regimes. He bombed the Sudan and dispatched military personnel to Kenya and Ethiopia to back proxy clients assaulting Somalia. Under Bush Jr. fifteen US military interventions took place, mainly in Central and East Africa.  The Bush Administration announced in 2002 that Africa was a ‘strategic priority in fighting terrorism’.

The Pentagon has military ties with fifty-three African countries. US foreign policy strategists moved to centralize and coordinate a military policy on a continent wide basis forming the African Command (AFRICOM). The latter organizes African armies, euphemistically called ‘co-operative partnerships,’ to conduct neo-colonial wars based on bilateral agreements (Uganda, Burundi, etc.) as well as ‘multi-lateral’ links with the Organization of African Unity.

 In the midst of a major drive to increase security in Africa’s Saharan and Sahel nations, American, African and European military forces combine to engage in a version of Operation Flintlock; a series of multinational military exercises designed to foster and development international security cooperation in North and West Africa. The latest exercises were part of the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership (TSCTP).

1200 soldiers participated in the latest manoeuvres, including 600 US Marines and Special Forces, units from France and Britain and smaller European contingents from Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. African countries with military representation included Mali, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauritania, Nigeria, Chad, Senegal, Tunisia and Morocco. The exercises were headquartered out of a Multinational Coordination Centre set up at Camp Baangre in the Burkina Faso capital of Ouagadougou. Malian Special Forces received training in responding to hostage-taking operations (as carried out by AQIM). Many of the Malian participants were veterans of fighting Tuareg rebels in northern Mali.

 These ‘Flintlocks’ are the model replicated in Central Africa.

Taken from here

Congo's pain

What is happening in eastern DR Congo is not a civil war, but continuation of a 16-year aggression by the country’s two neighbours. 

The African region which includes Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo has been in virtually a state of war since 1995; that is at war with each other. This has engaged the national armies, foreign armies, militias, ‘civil defence’ groups, looters, pillagers, child abductors and abusers, rapists, arsonists and murderers. One can add to this list of villains and plunderers the United Nations so-called Peacekeepers. 5 million Congolese have died. Many of these deaths were due to starvation or disease that resulted from the war, as well as from summary executions and capture by one or more of a group of irregular marauding bands. Millions more had become internally displaced or had sought asylum in neighbouring countries.These wars, centred mainly in eastern Congo (North and South Kivu and Maniema) have involved nine African nations and directly affected the lives of 50 million Congolese.

Initially these wars and the pillaging associated with them derived from the efforts to profit from the valuable mineral resources of the Eastern Congo, coltan and diamonds. Now the current targets of their looting – the oil and gas industries. In 2009 Heritage Oil discovered oil in Uganda. The oil and gas industries in East and Central Africa have been the world’s most important area of exploration in the last nine years. Africa is the main continent in the world with frequent and substantial new findings of oil and gas. A joint report by the African Development Bank, African Union and the African Development Fund observed that oil reserves in Africa grew by over 25 per cent, while gas has grown by over 100 per cent since the late 1980s. There have been major finds in Kenya and has become the latest African country to join the great African oil boom. In May 2012 Kenya announced its second profitable oil discovery in two months; and large oil deposit in the remote northern Turkana region.

Unfortunately the good fortune has only brought war and destruction in its wake. The Uganda finds in the Albert Graven were located in the seabed of Lake Albert. The border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (‘DRC’) runs down the middle of the lake. Uganda wants all the oil and has been funding the various insurgencies to control all the oil and gas of the lake. Perhaps the most contentious and conflicted result of the oil and gas finds in the region has been the Vanoil of Canada’s success in finding oil beneath Lake Kivu. Vanoil holds exclusive exploration rights to the 1,631 sq. km oil and gas concession in the north-western part of Rwanda better known as the East Kivu Graben. The Kivu Graben area is part of the great East African Rift System and is approximately 90 kilometres wide and 200 kilometres long. The Graben straddles both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is the Southern extension of the Albertine Graben in Uganda where major oil discoveries have been made by Tullow Oil and Heritage Oil.

In March 2007, when the governments of the DRC and Rwanda met with the assembled lake experts and developers at Gisenyi on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, an initiative commenced to define the rules and regulations of safe and environmentally sound exploitation of Lake Kivu's gas reserves. Rwanda seeks to alter this by taking control of the other side of the lake. It has recently taken over Goma through its M23 surrogates and plans to exploit the oil reserves with Vanoil and to seek a competent gas partner for the buried methane. The M23 rebels have announced that they were going to take over the entire DRC. The root of much of the difficulties lies with the fact that the current DRC President, Joseph Kabila is weak, vacillating and bereft of the support of a united nation. That weakness has alienated many in the national army. The countries which supported the DRC in its last war against the Ugandan and Rwandan invaders may well intervene again. The citizens of the DRC have suffered grievously. Their future looks no better.

From here