CHALLENGED: Majority Kingmakers of Kumawu Take Otumfuor On

Osei Tutu II

Nana Sarfo Agyekum, Aduanahene of Kumawu has said emphatically that he and his colleagues “shall never be frightened or intimidated and are determined to fight for what we believe in, what is right and what is just.”

The Aduanahene claimed to be speaking for the “majority king makers of Kumawu.”

In a rebuttal to a newspaper story headlined “Otumfuor Is Overlord of Asante Kingdom” Nana Agyekum said “… the Asantehene by Asante custom cannot remove any chiefs of the “Aman’ within the confederacy.”

The full text of the rebuttal is published below;

RE- OTUMFUO IS OVERLORD OF ASANTE KINGDOM - ANKAASE ADUANA ROYAL

Our attention has been drawn to a publication in the December 3 edition of the
Chronicle, headlined "Otumfuo is overlord of Asante Kingdom - Ankaase Aduana
Royal" and attributed to Dr. James Charles London and re-act as follows:

That, the said publication, is full of inaccuracies and factual errors.

We are constrained to believe that these are either deliberate or might be due
to crass ignorance.

The claim by Dr London that the queen mother has the prerogative to
nominate and install a chief for a vacant stool is totally false and betrays his lack of
understanding of Asante custom.

This assertion is not only outrageous but completely alien to Asante
customary practices.

The queen mother’s role is limited to the nomination of the candidate and it
is up to the kingmakers to either go with it or reject the nominee.

It is instructive to note that Kumawu has nine kingmakers - Krontihene,
Akwamuhene, Nifahene, Benkumhene, Kyidomhene, Ankobeahene,
Akyempimhene and Gyaasehene.

Of the nine, four are deceased and for anybody to be deemed properly
elected and installed as Kumawuhene, he should receive majority approval of the
five kingmakers left.

In the case of the purported installation of Dr. Yaw Sarfo, the Krontihene,
Akwamuhene and Akyempimhene decided not to be part of it.

What this means is that his claimed installation simply cannot stand. He
lacks legitimacy.

From Dr. London's own narrative, it is clear that Dr Sarfo is an arbitrary
imposition on Kumawuman by the Asantehene.

He makes reference to a meeting at which the Asantehene reportedly
directed all kingmakers of Kumawu to be present at the installation of Dr Sarfo
with an edict that any kingmaker who absented himself from the event was to
consider himself removed.

This clearly confirms our position that there was arbitrariness and arm-
twisting by the Asantehene and this is what we are not going to and shall never
accept.

One would like to ask, what the motivation was for the Asantehene's
insistence that all kingmakers should be present to give the seal of endorsement to
Dr Sarfo.

Was it not a case of putting pressure and intimidating the kingmakers to
accept his preferred candidate, Dr Sarfo?

Let us reiterate unequivocally that we shall never be frightened or
intimidated and are determined to fight for what we believe in, what is right and
what is just.

Again we repeat that the Asantehene by Asante custom cannot remove any
chiefs of the "Aman" within the confederacy.

Dr London's references to the 1774 episode are only meant to twist history
to suit his reasoning. War situations could not be equated to peaceful times in
Ashanti.

Indeed descendants of Tweneboa Kodua have acceded to the Kumawu Stool
after Katre Fenin and the records are there for anybody to check. We are amazed at
Dr London's attempt to re-write history.

Signed on behalf of the Majority Kingmakers of Kumawu

Nana Sarfo Agyekum II

Aduanahene

Editorial

REMOVE THIS NOW!

It is difficult to explain how the Ghana Airforce allowed a private company to store ammonium nitrate in its aircraft hangar at the Takoradi base.

Whatever the reason, the storage of ammonium nitrate at the base is most dangerous for personnel, equipment and the community.

The Insight calls on the military authorities to immediately order the removal of the ammonium nitrate from the airforce base.

We hope that in future, special care will be taken to avoid endangering soldiers and the communities in which they live.

We are watching for appropriate action.

DANGER: AMMONIUM NITRATE IN AIRFORCE HANGAR

Defence Minister, Benjamin Kunbour

It is strange but it has happened. The Ghana Air force has allowed a private company to store ammonium nitrate in its aircraft hangars at the air force base in Takoradi.

Under wrong conditions ammonium nitrate can explode like a nuclear bomb and cause thousands of death.

One of the biggest industrial accidents in the United States of America was caused by ammonium nitrate explosion in a fertilizer plant in Texas.

A local state trooper who witnessed that explosion, D.L. Wilson said “I can tell you I was there, I walked through the blast area, I searched some house earlier tonight. It was massive, just like Iraq, just like Murrah building in Oklahoma city.”

On 16^th April, 1947, a small fire aboard a French shipping vessel docked at the port city of Texas triggered the detonation of 2, 300 tons of anhydrous ammonia, the same substance used in Adrair Grain West Fertilizer Plant.

Poor mixing of ammonium sulfate and fertilizer in a plant in Oppau, Germany also caused an explosion that claimed 450 lives and destroyed 700 houses in 1921.

In 2001, 29 people were killed at a chemical plant in Southwest France, which injured hundreds and damaged nearby schools, hospitals and homes.

Ammonium nitrate is a potentially explosive substance because it comprises the oxidizing nitrate ion in intimate contact with the fuel element, the ammonium ion.

Only small amounts of contaminants are required to act as catalyst, explaining the unpredictability of ammonium nitrate under fire conditions.

A manual on the storage of ammonium nitrate available to “The Insight” says that “As a result of the decomposition reactions of ammonium nitrate, the risk of an explosion is increased by heating it in combination with contaminants, confinement or both.”

In all countries, the importation, transportation and storage of ammonium nitrate is of grave national security concern.

Ammonium nitrate in the right quantities and in the hands of terrorists is a lethal weapon.

In spite of this history and scientific facts, ammonium nitrate is being stored in the hangars of the air force station at Takoradi posing a great danger to personnel, the community and aircraft.

 It is our hope that the authorities will act immediately to remove this danger before we are compelled to reveal more details.

The Climate Wars Are Already Here

By David Michel, FP

In the Niger River Basin, climate change, an exploding population, and paltry infrastructure have formed a perfect storm for a new era of conflict.

West Africa’s Niger River Basin, home to some of the poorest countries in the world, might be the bleeding edge of a new kind of conflict. Along Africa’s third-largest river, climate change and ballooning populations in Mali, Niger, and Nigeria — the three largest countries that rely on the waters of the Niger River — are driving a looming resource shortage, exacerbated by strained infrastructure, that risks pushing them past the breaking point. And research shows economic deprivation and environmental degradation may have already begun to take their toll, contributing to destabilizing much of the region and potentially threatening global security.

From sharpening confrontations between farmers and herders over access to pastures and wells, to spurring the emergence of Boko Haram, the absence of water and electricity, and the depletion of scarce natural resources have already fostered swaths of poverty where extremist groups have taken hold. And in the next 15 years, the population across Mali, Niger, and Nigeria is projected to grow 75 percent, soaring to 337 million. More than half of these people will live in cities; three in every five will be under 25 years old. Crafting resilient approaches now to manage the vital resources that these people will demand — especially water and sanitation — could promote sustainable ways to absorb this boom, and help calm the unrest that has been simmering. Ignoring the rising challenge, however, is as good as courting disaster.

Delivering basic public goods and services is already a struggle for the governments of Mali, Niger, and Nigeria. Less than half the rural populations in these countries have access to clean water, and sanitation facilities are nearly non-existent. Many urban areas, too, lack formal infrastructure: Two-thirds of city dwellers have no electricity and fewer still are connected to sewer systems. Mounting demographic and environmental pressures, however, are threatening to make it even harder for these nations to meet their people’s needs, or for citizens to take care of themselves.

At the moment, the region relies mostly on its own agricultural sectors to feed and employ its expanding populations. Farming and livestock account for 21 percent of GDP, and supply 23 percent of all jobs in Nigeria, while providing 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of jobs in Mali and Niger. But water supplies — farming’s lifeblood — are increasingly stretched; half of all water withdrawals in Nigeria, two-thirds in Niger, and 98 percent in Mali go to agriculture.

Important as agriculture is, it’s also very fragile. Rainfall in the Niger Basin is highly erratic, and river levels can correspondingly vary substantially from place to place, season to season, and year to year, yet these nations lack adequate infrastructure to effectively manage this vital resource. The basin’s few dams and reservoirs furnish only limited water storage capacity to cushion this volatility: All of Niger’s dams combined, for example, hold less than one-tenth that country’s annual water needs.

Where irrigation systems deliver reliable water supplies, farmers can realize higher output and reap more valuable harvests, using less water to greater effect. In Nigeria, irrigation has boosted rice and tomato yields by 60 percent, on average, and quadrupled sugarcane production per hectare. But across the basin, barely 6 percent of cultivated land is equipped for irrigation, leaving the vast majority of farmers dependent on the vagaries of the weather to water their fields.

Because of this lack of infrastructure, vulnerable populations across the region increasingly find themselves on a resource treadmill, pushed like Alice and the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass to run faster and faster to remain in the same place. Without irrigation systems, small-holder and subsistence farmers struggling to keep up with demand are planting on more land more often, no longer letting the earth lie fallow to recover between harvests, and plowing under forests to sow new fields. But these remedies only serve to exhaust the soil and exacerbate deforestation and desertification, driving farmers and herders further onto ever more marginal lands.

Environmentally, this race is unsustainable.
Environmentally, this race is unsustainable. A new study by researchers at Sweden’s Lund University concludes that, on present course, the region is failing to grow enough food, feed (for livestock), and fuel (wood and charcoal are major energy sources) to keep pace with burgeoning populations, with demand more than double available supply over much of the basin says the study. Right now, the Niger Basin countries are far from closing this gap.

Climate change will all but inevitably make the situation worse. Even as water demand among the riparian countries tripled during the past 30 years, long-term precipitation trends show a 30 percent reduction in rainfall since the 1970s, and the Niger River’s flows, gauged at multiple locations along its course, have fallen by some 20 to 50 percent. Looking forward, current climate projections disagree whether annual rainfall will increase or decrease in the basin over the coming decades, but they do concur that average temperatures around the region will warm significantly. This means more crops may be lost to heat stress. Precipitation patterns will also likely grow yet more variable, threatening both deeper droughts and stronger floods.

Economically, the costs of environmental degradation are debilitating. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have calculated that the annual losses from water scarcity, water-related illnesses, pollution, waste, deforestation, and desertification approach a staggering 20 percent of GDP for Mali alone. Similarly, the World Bank figures the annual costs of environmental degradation in Nigeria at 5 to 10 percent of GDP.

This pattern becomes problematic as long-established methods for adapting to natural variability stop being viable. Rural populations throughout the region have traditionally responded to changing resource availabilities by migrating — farmers move to find new fields, herders driving their livestock to greener grasslands. But rising populations and environmental stresses are coming to constrain such adaptive strategies. In recent decades, rainfall patterns across the Niger Basin have shifted southward, pushing nomadic and semi-nomadic herders southward too, into agricultural lands cultivated by sedentary farmers. As crowding around wells, watering holes, and riverbanks has intensified, clashes over access to land and water often overwhelm the traditional agreements — such as the practice in which herders grazed their animals on fields after the harvest — that previously prevailed. Although such frictions remain localized in scale, they have become increasingly widespread. One survey of northern Nigeria found that resource competition, principally over land and water, figured as the primary cause in 54 percent of conflicts between households or communities. The confrontations have become more violent as well.

In central Nigeria alone, according to Human Rights Watch, farmer-herder conflicts killed more than 1,000 people just in the opening months of 2014.

Environmental pressures and resource scarcity also seem to be playing a part in more widespread insecurity. The causes of civil conflict and violent radicalism are multiple and complex, but militancy can more readily take root among disaffected communities laboring against dwindling resources and a dearth of economic opportunities.

Thus, in 2013, crisis gripped Mali as Islamic terrorist groups associated with al Qaeda took over the north of the country. These radical Islamist factions were able to seize control of much of the nation’s territory by exploiting a pre-existing revolt among the region’s Tuareg peoples, first absorbing and then displacing the Tuareg insurgent forces. Crucially, this long-standing Tuareg rebellion first arose in part from the perceived indifference or inability of distant central government to provide relief to Tuareg regions plagued by sustained drought in the 1970s and 1980s. Bamako eventually dampened this initial rebellion with formal peace negotiations and promises of development, but assistance proved slow and the north remained marginalized, while Tuareg grievances continued and the insurgency ultimately returned.

In neighboring Nigeria, many observers such as the International Crisis Group link the rise of Boko Haram to the decline of the once-dominant agricultural sector in Nigeria’s impoverished northern states and popular frustrations at government failures to deliver water, energy, roads, and other services. With faltering agriculture and feeble infrastructure hobbling the northern economy, poverty and unemployment have rendered the region’s youth more vulnerable to Islamic radicalization and Boko Haram recruitment. Worse, the instability in Nigeria has now come full circle, threatening to deepen the cycle of insecurity as violence in the northern states further depresses agricultural production, disrupting harvests and displacing farmers fleeing the fighting.

Further south, Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta has also witnessed significant environmental conflict. Ethnic rebel groups such as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta long cited the chronic pollution of their communities’ land and water among the grievances motivating their attacks on petroleum operations and guerrilla warfare against the Nigerian state.

So what can the Niger Basin nations do? Better water management would make a good place to start. Drip irrigation schemes that deliver water directly to crop roots would slash agricultural water requirements while enhancing yields. Increased access to safe water supplies and improved sanitation would decrease water-borne diseases and reduce the time spent gathering water — time taken away from school or work. Small-scale hydropower installations could provide electricity to unserved populations. Such projects would boost local economies directly, creating jobs laying irrigation canals and power lines.

Building better infrastructure also lays a foundation for future growth. Given dependable power, businesses can stay open at night. Given consistent water supplies, farmers can plant new fields. According to the World Bank, for instance, irrigation projects in Niger and Nigeria could generate $20 to $40 in benefits for every dollar invested. As importantly, building better infrastructure could help build stronger societies, demonstrating engagement and commitment in communities where governments have been viewed as ineffective, absent, or even adversarial.

Governments and local communities, international aid agencies, and the private sector all have roles to play and must work together to deploy such development strategies. National authorities and local stakeholders will have to cooperate to identify local needs and implement responsive planning. Past infrastructure programs have often been frustrated by failures to coordinate, as when Nigeria embarked on a wave of dam construction in the 1990s, but built many with no accompanying irrigation works or sited away from adequate irrigable land.

To be sure, the infrastructure needs are substantial in all of the states along the Niger River and the funding gaps are sizable. Nevertheless, a lot can be accomplished through local and small-scale initiatives. Farmer or community-owned and operated projects are often better accepted (and better maintained) by the beneficiaries than large-scale schemes. They are also often less expensive, and amenable to alternate sources of financing and lower-cost technologies. Indeed, a World Bank analysis of Niger reckons the country’s infrastructure funding gap could be cut in half by relying on alternative financing from the private sector and low-tech solutions to water supply like installing public taps and wells, even while expanding irrigation by 11,000 square kilometers.

Beyond the Niger Basin, many other basins similarly confront increasing environmental pressures and political conflicts, from the Indus to the Tigris-Euphrates, where the murderous Islamic State expressly vaunts bringing improved water and power to Raqqa, its self-proclaimed capital in Syria. Forging resilient infrastructure and resource strategies in West Africa could offer insights that could be applied in other unstable regions.

These countries recognize that they face pressing challenges in the form of socioeconomic change, resource stress, and violent extremism. Indeed, the Plan for the Sustainable Recovery of Mali put forward by the government and the international community after the 2013 crisis explicitly targets these interwoven concerns. But the basin states can no longer afford only to react once disaster strikes. They must plan ahead to ensure the future.

As a Tuareg proverb teaches, “One must sink wells today to quench tomorrow’s thirst.” It’s time to start digging.

Source:Ocnus.net 2014

Trade in illegal timber to end soon

Trade in and the use of illegal timber and products in the country would soon become a thing of the past as government puts in place measures to tighten its grips on controlling the sector.

To show its commitment and leadership in addressing illegal logging and trade in timber, as well as support the development of sustainable forest management, government has developed a Public Procurement Policy on timber and timber products for the domestic market.

The government is currently developing Implementation Guidelines to enhance the effective implementation of the Public Procurement Policy on timber and timber products in the country.

In view of this, a day’s stakeholder consultation workshop was held in Tamale on Thursday to seek inputs into the draft Implementation Guidelines of the Public Procurement Policy on timber and timber products as well as share knowledge on restructuring of the domestic timber market supply chain to improve availability of timber.

It was organised by the Nature and Development Foundation, a non-governmental organisation, in collaboration with the Timber Industry Development Division of the Forestry Commission of Ghana, the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources and with support from the Food and Agricultural Organisation.

The participants, which included procurement officers, were drawn from Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.

In an address read on his behalf, Mr Samuel Afari Dartey, Chief Executive Officer of the Forestry Commission said: “The issue about supply of timber and sustainable forest management have become a global concern and Ghana cannot afford to be left out in the fight against forest degradation.”

Mr Dartey said the government under the Voluntary Partnership Agreement signed with the European Union, is committed to ensure that legal timber is not only traded on the export market but also on the domestic market.

He said the government is promoting an alternative livelihood programme and social protection mechanism for chainsaw endemic communities to take their eyes off the forest.

Mr Sebastian Jerry Ackotia, Project Consultant on the Implementation of Guidelines for the Public Procurement Policy on timber and timber products, who made a presentation, impressed on MMDA’s to always verify to ensure that timber and timber products they bought are legal.

GNA

Cuba blasts a hole in the blockade

Raul Castro and Che Guevara

The dramatic shift in Cuban-US relations has caused joy both in Cuba and amongst those of us who backed the independent island for decades, but confusion elsewhere.

I have seen writers, apparently sympathetic to the Cuban Revolution, claiming that Raul Castro has 'betrayed' the Revolution, or that an avalanche of US capital is about to arrive and take over the island. Such statements are alarmist and misleading. Let us take a more sober and better informed look at what is happening and why it is happening.

By Tim Anderson

The US economic blockade of Cuba, in place since the early 1960s, was part of a US strategy to isolate Revolutionary Cuba, incite desperation and bring the country to its knees. While that plan failed, it also caused tremendous damage to the Cuban economy, especially since the tightening under two US laws of the 1990s, which impose sanctions on third parties. Just this month it emerged that the German Commerzbank faces US fines of one billion dollars for carrying out transactions with Cuba, Iran and some other countries subject to US unilateral sanctions. All this has hurt Cuba. The blockade is said to have caused Cuba more than one trillion dollars in damages.

The Cuban Revolution never broke diplomatic and commercial relations with the USA, rather the reverse. After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and after Cuba nationalised all US companies, the Cuban proposal for compensation was long-term payment in revenue from sugar sales to the US. The US rejected this and ordered an economic blockade (Washington calls this an 'embargo'), thus closing all US-linked refineries and forcing Cuba into its 'sugar for oil' deal with the Soviet Union.

Thirty years later, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba was forced to revise its economy, opening to tourism, building a medical services industry and providing much needed support to infrastructure and industry through a foreign investment law (1995), which mainly provides for joint ventures. There have been some revisions to that foreign investment law, under recent economic reforms, but nothing of this sort is linked to relations with the US.

People concerned about Cuba should understand this point: in the re-opening of relations with Washington, Cuba has made precisely no concessions in terms of its own social and economic policy. The only quid pro quo so far has been the exchange of two US spies (Alan Gross and another unnamed person) for Cuba's five national heroes, who were jailed in 1998 for attempting to stop Miami based terrorist attacks on the island. Cubans are overjoyed that the Five are home.

The recent breakthrough in relations is yet go through a longer process in the US, as there will be much political heat and noise, because important parts of the sanctions on and freeze in relations with Cuba is embedded in law. Obama has announced he has amendments ready for Congress. But the US media will be a very poor source of information on why the changes are taking place. They will say, as they did during a similar 'Cuban spring' in the 1970s, that the 'embargo' has failed but we will change Cuba with our commerce, our democracy and our freedom. Anyone who believes this should go back to Politics 101.

Why then did the US agree to the Cuban demand for normalisation, without conditions, especially as Washington is currently engaged in aggressive measures against Venezuela, Syria and Russia? The answer lies in the powerful unification processes underway in Latin America and the Caribbean. The late Hugo Chavez, with his 'political father' Fidel Castro, knew that the Latin American nations had to unite to be able to stand up to a big power. That is why Chavez initiated the ALBA, UNASUR and the CELAC (the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States), the latter representing all the peoples of the Americas (600 million) except the USA and Canada (330 million).

Last year Cuba had the Presidency of the CELAC, causing alarm in Washington. Where it had isolated Cuba in the 1960s, now the USA was isolated. The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is long dead, even if neoliberal projects remain. US-backed conflicts in Latin America were being resolved by UNASUR. Meantime, CELAC was dealing directly with the Europeans. The Washington-dominated Organization of American States (OAS) was and is sidelined.

Powerful US lobbies have been addressing this problem for the last few years, mainly because of fear of isolation in the Americas and of being frozen out of new markets and fields of investment (see: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-29/cuba-embargo-under-pressure-as-obama-urged-to-ease-it.html). The New York Times, clearly with investor group backing, ran a series of articles over October-December, urging an end to the 'embargo' (see:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/opinion/sunday/end-the-us-embargo-on-cuba.html?_r=0 ). Perhaps most telling was the May letter from a group of Washington establishment figures, including John Negroponte, former death squad organiser. They couched their argument in the usual rhetoric of 'freedom and civil society', and opportunities for the US to change Cuba, but importantly added their fear: 'the U.S. is finding itself increasingly isolated internationally in its Cuba policy' (http://media.bloomberg.com/bb/avfile/rqfvUFFN8vl8).

The key driver of change has been Cuban resistance, combined with Latin American unity. The US economic blockade was opposed successfully by Cuban motions at the United Nations for more than 20 years, every year. In recent years the US has only counted on the support of Israel and one or two tiny, dependent pacific islands. Abstention since the 1990s has almost disappeared, giving Cuba the support of 188 to 189 countries each year. I say this to demonstrate that Cuba has consistently wanted to 'normalise' its relations with a power it considers a huge imperial threat, but nevertheless a neighbour with which it has to coexist.

Fidel Castro and Raul Castro have made the same point for decades: Cuba wants relations with the US, but on conditions of formal equality, with respect for independence and without any pressure or blackmail. It has always been the US that has attempted to impose conditions, for example, demanding that Cuba get out of Africa in the 1980s, or that Cuba changes its political and economic system, or that Fidel resigns, or that Cuba releases imprisoned US agents. In the end the US surrendered its failed policy, without conditions.

Making use of US news sources, some commentators have claimed that Cuba mainly depends on remittances from the US, or that there is no foreign investment in Cuba. Both statements are quite false. While remittances are important for many families, Cuba's two biggest foreign income earners for the past two decades have been medical services and tourism. Since the mid-1990s there have been several large foreign investors in Cuba: Venezuela, China, Brazil and Spain. If people want to understand anything about Cuba they will have to wean themselves off US news sources. Try reading Cubadebate or watching Telesur.

After the breakthrough the NYT sums it up pretty well: 'Castro Thanks U.S. in Speech But Reaffirms Communism'. Perhaps a little more respect is due for the resistance and modest achievements of little peoples, rather than imagining that the logic of the empire always prevails. The history of Cuba should have given us cause to reflect on that.

source:pravda.ru

Africa 2014 in review

By Abayomi Azikiwe

During the course of 2014 there was much discussion about the phenomenal economic growth of various African nation-states. The Federal Republic of Nigeria was proclaimed by western financial publications to have attained the status of the largest economy on the continent.

Inside the Republic of South Africa, where two decades earlier the masses of workers, farmers and youth had overthrown the dreaded apartheid system instituting a parliamentary structure with the African National Congress (ANC) being the dominant political force, the voters granted the ruling party another five years of governmental control. South Africa, according to these same financial pundits, is no longer the number one economic powerhouse in the region.

These assessments and efforts by the imperialist-based financial institutions are not only designed to signal to Wall Street and the Pentagon what the new avenues of interests should be but to also cause divisions within the African Union (AU) member-states. Europe and the United States held conferences during 2014 where they decided who the invited guests would be as opposed to the successor of the continental organization that was formed in 1963, the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

The April 2-4 European Union (EU)-Africa Summit excluded key leaders within Africa from Western Sahara, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Egypt and others. As a result of these actions other heads-of-state, such as President Jacob Zuma of the Republic of South Africa, refused to attend. Zuma noted that the time was over for Europeans deciding who should attend a conference and those that will not be invited.

Although the uprisings in Burkina Faso and the industrial strikes that impacted Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and other West African states provided clear indicators that the African working class is challenging the contemporary neo-liberal approach to development and foreign policy, which we will examine in a later report, the impact of the challenges to Africa in 2014 provides ideas that can lead to programs aimed at the eradication of the post-colonial socio-economic quagmires plaguing the region in the 21st century.

Ebola: Its Continental and Global Impact

Overshadowing all other crises and triumphs, the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) pandemic has dominated the news about Africa. The disease is one of the lethal Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers (VHF) that has infected humans for centuries. Nonetheless, in this period such outbreaks have immediate international implications.

EVD has been present through various strains since 1976 in the former Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Named after a river in the DRC, the disease has become a profound illustration of the challenges facing the continent during the current period.

The lack of medical, educational, transportation and communications infrastructures can be attributed to the rapid spread of EVD in three West African states: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. In the three most affected states there is the legacy of neo-colonialism, militarism and civil war.

Liberia as a nation-state has origins in the repatriation of Africans in the U.S. during the antebellum slave period of the 19th century. Sierra Leone was founded as a similar home for Africans who fought alongside the British during the so-called American Revolutionary War since London promised freedom to the enslaved Africans for their cooperation during the late 18th century.

Guinea, of course, is a former French colony whose people resisted colonialism and slavery during the 19th century. The Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG) was one of the liberation movements that demanded immediate independence from foreign rule and struck out as a sovereign state in 1958 under President Ahmed Sekou Toure.

After President Toure’s death in March 1984 and a subsequent military coup, Guinea has suffered periodic rebellions and unconstitutional changes of government. Over the last thirty years, Conakry has seen instability and deepening underdevelopment.

The western imperialist approach to the EVD pandemic has been highly militarized. The Pentagon through the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has deployed several thousand more troops to Liberia. AFRICOM already has projects in Sierra Leone as well.

Despite the sluggish response by the U.S., Britain and France, the Republic of Cuba has stepped up to the task sending physicians and other healthcare workers to assist in eradicating the outbreak. Cuba views the intervention in West Africa around the EVD crisis as a continuation of their decades-long solidarity with the peoples of the continent, who share a common bond with the region through heritage, politics and national culture.

There has been much criticism surrounding the response by the Western imperialist states to the EVD outbreak. The tabulation and projections related to the spread of the disease have been a source of disagreement but it is clear that this outbreak poses a monumental challenge to not only West Africa but the entire continent.

A report published by Time.com on Dec. 29 says “Cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea have reached over 20,000. New numbers released from the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday show Ebola has infected 20,081 people and killed 7,842. That’s nearly 400 new cases of the disease in just four days.

This same article goes on to note that “Despite missions launched by countries and international groups like the United States and United Nations in the last few months, the disease continues to spread. Sierra Leone has passed Liberia in number of cases. Many are anxiously awaiting a vaccine that’s been estimated to become available in the early part of the new year and researchers are also working on developing drugs to treat Ebola.” 

Although other infectious diseases such as measles, polio, malaria, HIV-AIDs account for far more cases of sickness and death than EVD, the rapidity with which this form of VHF has struck the West Africa region is a cause for grave concern. In addition, the way in which the discussion around Ebola entered into the U.S. political framework is also instructive in regard to how the outbreak is perceived.

Due to the infection and eventual death of Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas, Texas during October and the spreading of the disease to two nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, EVD became a major news story leading up to the 2014 mid-term elections. Calls by politicians and news commentators for the banning of people from the most severely impacted West African states served as a mechanism to stigmatize not only those countries and their people but the continent as a whole.

However, the successful treatment of Pham and Vinson, along with other healthcare workers brought into the U.S. for specialized care after spending time in West Africa, resulted in the near disappearance of the issue from the corporate media radar. Nevertheless, the plight of the people of the affected West Africa states remains and must be addressed by both people on the continent and the international community.

Internal Strife and Militarism: The Republic of South Sudan and the Central African Republic

Even though the EVD pandemic became a cause for concern in the western industrialized and imperialist states, the situations in both the Republic of South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) also stems from the crises of post-colonial Africa. South Sudan came into being after decades of civil unrest and war within the Republic of Sudan based in Khartoum in the north.

In 2011, the U.S., Britain and other states hailed the partition of Sudan, once the largest geographic nation-state in Africa. Today, the government led by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-Army (SPLM/A) in Juba is split between one faction aligned with President Salva Kiir against another headed by ousted Vice-President Riek Machar.

There have been hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese displaced since the fighting began in Dec. 2013. The presence of Ugandan troops in South Sudan has been a major factor in the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) negotiations aimed at a viable ceasefire needed to halt the fighting.

The now SPLM-In Opposition headed by Machar wants the withdrawal of Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) from the country. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni says that the military presence in South Sudan is designed to ensure that the instability will not worsen.

Since 2013, the Central African Republic government has changed regimes three times. Ousted President Francois Bozize was forced to resign in April 2013 paving the way for the rebel Muslim-dominated Seleka Coalition headed by Michel Djotodia, who assumed the presidency.

Violence continued under the Seleka Coalition prompting the rise of the Anti-Balaka group consisting of Christian-based militias carrying out reprisals for the brutality inflicted on the population by the Djotodia regime. The minority Muslim population was targeted through the destruction of their businesses and the forcing of thousands of families from homes in the capital of Bangui and other areas of the country.

Up to 20,000 foreign troops from Africa, the EU and former colonial France were slated to occupy the CAR during 2014. The fighting has shifted to border areas near Chad where Muslim fighting groups are seeking to regroup for both self-defense and survival under such dire circumstances.

Both the Republic of South Sudan and the CAR are examples of the challenges facing the continent wracked by neo-colonialism and imperialist intrigue. Both South Sudan and the CAR contain natural resources such as oil, diamonds, gold and uranium among other strategic minerals making these countries a cause of concern for transnational corporations and banks which are still profiting from the world capitalist system and its overall international division of labor and economic power. 

African Sovereignty and Genuine Independence Must Take Priority in the Coming Year

The AU and other regional alliances combined with the popular organizations and labor unions should seriously address the implications of developments during 2014. With the inability of present-day African states to effectively address the internal conflicts inside these countries will only provide a rationale for the former colonial powers and the U.S. to militarily intervene to ostensibly resolve these security crises.

This same scenario is clearly related to the response to the EVD pandemic. Infrastructural development has to be a major agenda item for all governments and mass organizations throughout the continent.

AFRICOM has already spread and deepened its involvement throughout the region. This also holds true for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department based in Washington. The U.S. response to the EVD outbreak has been largely militaristic and has lacked effectiveness in regard to building field hospitals, clinics, fostering technology transfers, research capacity and access to protective gear as well as medicines.

These same shortcomings apply to both Britain and France as it relates to the response to the EVD crisis. The imperialist states have their own economic and political interests which guides western foreign policy imperatives in regard to Africa.

Consequently, Africa and its people must rise to the occasion and break its dependency on the West. Only when the eradication of neo-colonial relations take center stage will the prospects for real growth and development be realized on the continent.

Source:www.presstv.com

Libya: rewiring a country's brain

Muammar Al Gaddafi

By Linda Housman

Just prior to the NATO invasion in Libya, an international delegation of medical professionals reported that few nations lived in the comfort that the Libyan people enjoyed. Meanwhile the United Nations was preparing to bestow an award on Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan Jamahiriya for their achievements in the area of human rights.

As we all know, things have changed since then. After the Western "humanitarian war" replaced the Jamahiriya leadership that was responsible for the country's prosperity with a puppet regime, Libya more and more has become a Somali-like failed state and a safe haven for terrorists. Currently human rights organizations around the world are sounding the alarm over rampant human rights abuses and war crimes in Libya. One of them is Dignity, the Danish Institute against Torture, which ironically carries the same name as the military operation led by Libyan General Khalifa Haftar - a CIA stooge jointly responsible for the ongoing chaos in the country, as well as for the 2012 war on the heroic city of Bani Walid whose people refused to bow to the Western invaders and their "rebels". Dignity included 2,692 household interviews in its survey and completed its research in October 2013. The 38 page report called "Consequences of Torture and Organized Violence - Libya Needs Assessment Survey", which was made public only recently, summarizes on page 5:

Every fifth household responded to having a family member disappeared, 11% reported having a household member arrested and 5% reported one killed. Of those arrested, 46% reported beatings, 20% positional torture or suspensions, 16% suffocation and from 3 to 5% reported having suffered sexual, thermal or electrical torture. In short our data support the allegations that widespread human rights violations and gross human rights violations have taken place in Libya.

Source:www.english.pravda.ru

Can Obama outwit Putin indeed? 

President Barack Obama

In a recent interview with CNN, U.S. President Barack Obama refused to acknowledge that the Russian President Vladimir Putin outwitted him. "I'm not being "rolled" by Putin, look at the rouble", Obama said. President of the American University in Moscow Eduard Lozanskiy agreed to comment the Obama's statement in an interview to Pravda.Ru.

"I believe it is irresponsible and foolish to speculate who outwitted whom in the world where there are lots of problems, where cooperation between Russia and USA is needed so much, and to stoop to the level of such cheap statements... We need to talk not about the fact who outwitted whom but what each of presidents has done to increase stability, security and economic development throughout the world. That is where we need to compete," Eduard Lozanskiy said.

A Pravda.Ru correspondent asked the expert if it was a valid question and why Putin did not ask that very question?

"In this regard, Putin has a more respectable position, since in all his speeches and statements, even criticizing America for some of its illegal actions, he nevertheless reached out to solve and overcome various problems. He never refuses a possibility of cooperation with America. And there are no offers made by the U.S. Now there is a perfect moment to be a wise leader to resolve conflict in Ukraine, since there is a truce there now, though a fragile one. And this moment needs to be used for a more profound process. To stop all military actions completely and begin reconstruction and recovery of Ukraine after a horrendous civil war. But Barack Obama signs an act that allows him to supply arms. Instead of offering Russia to sit down for the talks and discuss ways to overcome this crisis as fast as possible," Eduard Lozanskiy concluded.

Obama should stop acting like a boy in a sandbox

The expert also pointed out that the president of a great country should stop pretending to be a macho and talk about who outwitted whom. Because one must not be credited for destroying economy of another country and suffering of another nation. According to Lozanskiy, we need to focus on resolving common problems, and not on damaging our partners.

The Pravda.Ru correspondent asked the expert what the current public sentiment was in America?

"Since the US economy functions rather smoothly, around half of Americans think that internal policy is correct. As for the foreign policy, only a third of Americans support their president. As for the Congress that pushed for such an absurd and dangerous act, it is supported by only 8% of Americans. These are the results we have now," Eduard Lozanskiy summarized.

President of the Institute of Strategic Studies and Analysis (ISSA), professor of Faculty of Politics at the Higher School of Economics, MGIMO's professor Aleksandr Konovalov agreed to comment Obama's statement in an interview to Pravda.Ru.

"Of course, President Obama managed to complicate our life by his sanctions. However, it is absolutely wrong to consider something that was made as part of the Russian-American relations as a victory of the American president in some game, and it is difficult to say what long-term consequences of such policy will be. But Americans have failed and will fail to isolate Russia as planned," Aleksandr Konovalov said.

The Pravda.Ru correspondent asked the expert why Putin didn't think in such terms of the game as Obama?

"Because it is wrong to build a policy on negative motivations. This situation must not be considered a game one. Because after all a policy must be founded on positive goals and tasks, it is not a constructive way for the economy of Russia," Aleksandr Konovalov summarized.

Putin's recent press conference puzzled the West

Meanwhile, analyzing Vladimir Putin's recent press conference, Western media note that the Russian president tried to convey his confidence to the society that "everything is going to be fine". Political analyst Igor Shatrov commented publications of foreign media exclusively for Pravda.Ru.

"The main message was closer to what the West is talking about. In other words, he showed that despite economic problems there is political stability in the country, so, guys, don't worry. There won't be any revolutions, moreover, palace coup d'etat for you," the expert said.

The expert was surprised by the question, why the West was puzzled with the fact that Putin did not lay blame for the situation with the rouble on himself, but answered that he understood the hint made by the western media. "These actions are the consequence of our stance on Ukraine, but our stance on Ukraine was and remains to be the right one. This peace in Ukraine is in Russia's interests. Why should we lay blame for these processes on ourselves?" Igor Shatrov wondered.

"It is the consequence of an external aggression that comes in various areas - economy, global financial world, etc. We depend on each other and if we somehow redistribute the flows it will cause instability in other states which is happening right now," the political analyst told Pravda.Ru.

Igor Shatrov briefly commented the Businessinsider's publication saying that Putin is not afraid of making forecasts as to easing of the situation, that he refuses to call the rouble's collapse a crisis, as well as comparing Russia's invasion in Crimea to annexation of Texas from Mexico and mentioning a metaphor of a bear that the West wants to make a stuffed animal of: "they are judging by themselves".

"They do not understand specifics of the Russian mentality, they do not understand the Russian humor. We have quite substantial distinctive features, hence very often the West does not understand us. Not because they are stupid, in the words of Zadornov, they are just different. That's why they are absolutely unable to understand these things," the expert believes.

According to him, all these processes were aimed at a palace coup d'etat, rather than a revolution in Russia, which possibly even the most naive of the European politicians do not believe in now. "It was stated for a reason at the press conference. Putin made it clear that there was a consensus among the elite, and that those people suffering very much even now as a result of sanctions were not willing to betray interests of the country and Putin as a leader, elected by all people, for their own personal reasons," Igor Shatrov said.

"This is the evidence of the difference in our mentality and the western one, when the common interest prevails a personal one. It is very weird for western politicians and businesspersons, but it prevails even for large Russian businesspersons who seemed to have completely sold out and become collaborators, integrated in the global system. When this happened, they rallied around the nation's leader; everything happening in 2014 is very indicative," the expert noted.

To the question what he liked most in Putin's speech, he answered that the love theme was a big surprise.

"It is wonderful, I liked it very much, it was a very vivid speech, and it showed that nothing human is alien to the president. It added the necessary human aspect to the conference that in fact was very complicated," Igor Shatrov concluded.

Source: Pravda.Ru