The Africa Thread

[Borachio]

If you can have a thread devoted to East Asia, why not one for Africa?

Still, if you don't want one, don't use it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26034078

Once known for its billion dollar notes and hyper-inflation, Zimbabwe must be the only place in the world to have eight currencies as legal tender - none of them its own.

For the last five years most people have been using US dollars or South African rand, but pula from Botswana and British pound sterling have also been changing hands.

Now the central bank is also allowing the use of Australian dollars, Chinese yuan, Indian rupees and Japanese yen.

For the moment, customers can open bank accounts in these currencies but the hard cash is not yet in circulation.

"I definitely think there is going to be confusion being caused by so many currencies - for a cashier to be handling so many currencies at the same time," says Denford Mutashu, general manager of Food World, a nationwide supermarket chain.

Currently most shops in the capital, Harare, mark prices in US dollars. The rand is more commonly used in Bulawayo, closer to the South African border - and cashiers check daily exchange rate for conversions.

 

[Kyriakos]

Apart from other issues, Zimbabwe is also landlocked, which in most continents is a very serious handicap.

A very nasty situation there...

 

[luiz]

How about some optimism in a thread about Africa?

Here's a proposal: guess which continent had the highest growth rate in the decade 2001-2010? If you thought Asia, home to China and India and many other booming economies, you were wrong. It was Africa.

It's a still a miserable place. To be perfectly honest it's a horrible place. But it's improving, and things aren't as bleak as the early 90's anymore, when Africa hit rock bottom. Here's an interesting chart with some selected African economies:

http://www.google.com/publicdata/ex...end=1328508000000&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false

 

[bugwar]

From the article:

Ghana is currently ranked among the 10 largest contributors to United Nations peace-keeping efforts, says the country's Defence Minister Mark Owen Wayongo.
...
Speaking at a ceremony earlier this week to mark the 10th anniversary celebration of the partnership between the GAF and the state of North Dakota in the United States, he said leadership across the world needed to integrate efforts and commitment to deal with the threat of global peace and security and make the world a better place for all.
...
Major-General David A. Spryncznatyk, the Adjutant-General of the North Dakota National Guard, said North Dakotans shared many of the values and ideals of Ghanaians and that their outfits were committed to building better lives for citizens.

He said the partnership between Ghana and US had provided opportunities for the GAF to train in a foreign country to be equipped with the needed professional expertise.

Source: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/387/107304.html

 

[Kyriakos]

Don't know about Ghana, but Africa has a bad history of using native troops for 'transnational' organizations (Free state of Congo is the worst there, i suppose)..

 

[Borachio]

http://www.ibtimes.com/nigerian-gdp-will-be-higher-south-africas-gdp-numbers-arent-everything-1553043

“Perhaps the upside for Nigeria is that it will become too important to ignore,” said Samir Gadio, an emerging markets strategist at Standard Bank, from Lagos. But the country is still “significantly underdeveloped,” thanks to problems with basic infrastructure such as roads and electricity, plus high rates of income inequality."

An interesting thing about Nigeria is that despite having a very poor power infrastructure its growth rate is still quite good.

Also, any day now I'm expecting to "inherit" a fortune from a Nigerian Princess.

 

[SouthernKing]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/afric...-atrocities-priority-2014126124325498176.html

The conflict in the Central African Republic seems to finally be winding down, since there's a new PM who legitimately seems interested in restoring normalcy instead of consolidating personal power.

 

[Borachio]

I didn't get the impression things are winding down at all, from that link. There seems to be plenty of tension there still.

But perhaps things are in fact just beginning to be calmer. I remain to be convinced.

Violence continued on Sunday in the capital, Bangui, where gunshots rang out as looters tried to raid the central business district. Looters and anti-balaka fighters have been regularly pillaging the neighbourhood, whose shops are mostly Muslim-owned.

A Muslim former minister was hacked to death by machete-wielding militiamen in Bangui on Friday.

In gruesome attack, two Muslim men were lynched in Bangui by Christian mob last week.

Aid organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, has said more than 50 people have been killed in the past two weeks.

The violence has killed more than 2,000 since December, and forced about a million people - nearly a quarter of the population - to flee their homes.

 

[SouthernKing]

I didn't get the impression things are winding down at all, from that link. There seems to be plenty of tension there still.

But perhaps things are beginning to be calmer.

It's less unstable (although that's not saying much) now that it was a year ago, or even six months ago, but there seems to be a clear end in sight now.

 

[bugwar]

France and the UN are confident that the Mali peacekeeping force will be at full strength (12,000 personnel) by July.
Most of these troops are African, but thousands will be from elsewhere, including China.
...
This new arrangement is meant to be flexible enough to deal with whatever the Islamic terrorists might do in the region.
To that end the American AFRICOM is cooperating with the French to provide specialized capabilities like aerial tankers or additional airlift as well as intelligence collecting (satellites and UAVs) and American Special Forces in the region.
...
The Mali government was upset that MNLA men controlled most of the rural (and very thinly populated) areas in the north for over a year after yet another Tuareg rebellion broke out up there in early 2012.
The French point out that the Tuareg rebels have been defeating black African troops from the south for generations and there’s no quick fix for that.
...
A recent study concluded that Islamic terrorist activity in North Africa and the Sahel (the semi-desert region below the Sahara Desert and north of the forests of Central Africa) increased 60 percent in 2013.
This was a result of the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings that overthrew the governments of Libya and Tunisia.
...
Economic disruptions caused by Islamic terrorist activity in northern Mali over the last two years have caused persistent food shortages.
This has been aggravated by similar problems throughout the region (northern Nigeria, Sudan and Central African Republic/CAR) that have made it difficult to buy food locally.

Source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/mali/articles/20140205.aspx

 

[Phrossack]

France and the UN are confident that the Mali peacekeeping force will be at full strength (12,000 personnel) by July.
Most of these troops are African, but thousands will be from elsewhere, including China.
...
This new arrangement is meant to be flexible enough to deal with whatever the Islamic terrorists might do in the region.
To that end the American AFRICOM is cooperating with the French to provide specialized capabilities like aerial tankers or additional airlift as well as intelligence collecting (satellites and UAVs) and American Special Forces in the region.
...
The Mali government was upset that MNLA men controlled most of the rural (and very thinly populated) areas in the north for over a year after yet another Tuareg rebellion broke out up there in early 2012.
The French point out that the Tuareg rebels have been defeating black African troops from the south for generations and there’s no quick fix for that.
...
A recent study concluded that Islamic terrorist activity in North Africa and the Sahel (the semi-desert region below the Sahara Desert and north of the forests of Central Africa) increased 60 percent in 2013.
This was a result of the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings that overthrew the governments of Libya and Tunisia.
...
Economic disruptions caused by Islamic terrorist activity in northern Mali over the last two years have caused persistent food shortages.
This has been aggravated by similar problems throughout the region (northern Nigeria, Sudan and Central African Republic/CAR) that have made it difficult to buy food locally.

Source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/mali/articles/20140205.aspx

What exactly is the situation with Mali? The MNLA seem to be Tuareg separatists who fought Ansar Dine, al-Mourabitoun, and the Malian government all at once. Now they're still fighting the government for independence. Why doesn't the Malian government just let them leave? Is there anything of value in the Sahara?

 

[gay_Aleks]

What exactly is the situation with Mali? The MNLA seem to be Tuareg separatists who fought Ansar Dine, al-Mourabitoun, and the Malian government all at once. Now they're still fighting the government for independence. Why doesn't the Malian government just let them leave? Is there anything of value in the Sahara?

In places like Algeria and Libya, in the Saharan part of the respective countries there's oil.

So I presume that they're holding into it, just in case, that maybe this is the case there, in Mali too.

 

[Snorrius]

Zimbabwe was unlucky to get universal suffrage too early. It became a curse of many post-colonial countries.

 

[Borachio]

I'm not sure that universal suffrage is the problem. Certainly not by itself, it isn't.

Isn't the larger problem one of the cultural ethos of the traditional African leader? Where it's almost institutional nepotism which is the accepted norm?

I can see this doesn't square well with universal suffrage. But, again, I don't think universal suffrage is to blame. Mostly people seem eager and willing to vote.

 

[classical_hero]

http://old.richarddawkins.net/articles/3502-matthew-parris-as-an-atheist-i-truly-believe-africa-needs-god

Before Christmas I returned, after 45 years, to the country that as a boy I knew as Nyasaland. Today it's Malawi, and The Times Christmas Appeal includes a small British charity working there. Pump Aid helps rural communities to install a simple pump, letting people keep their village wells sealed and clean. I went to see this work.

It inspired me, renewing my flagging faith in development charities. But travelling in Malawi refreshed another belief, too: one I've been trying to banish all my life, but an observation I've been unable to avoid since my African childhood. It confounds my ideological beliefs, stubbornly refuses to fit my world view, and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no God.

Now a confirmed atheist, I've become convinced of the enormous contribution that Christian evangelism makes in Africa: sharply distinct from the work of secular NGOs, government projects and international aid efforts. These alone will not do. Education and training alone will not do. In Africa Christianity changes people's hearts. It brings a spiritual transformation. The rebirth is real. The change is good.

I used to avoid this truth by applauding - as you can - the practical work of mission churches in Africa. It's a pity, I would say, that salvation is part of the package, but Christians black and white, working in Africa, do heal the sick, do teach people to read and write; and only the severest kind of secularist could see a mission hospital or school and say the world would be better without it. I would allow that if faith was needed to motivate missionaries to help, then, fine: but what counted was the help, not the faith.

It is interesting to hear an atheist say that. After all it is what made the West so great and why now we are starting to see the decline of the West.

 

[luiz]

I'm not sure that universal suffrage is the problem. Certainly not by itself, it isn't.

Isn't the larger problem one of the cultural ethos of the traditional African leader? Where it's almost institutional nepotism which is the accepted norm?

I can see this doesn't square well with universal suffrage. But, again, I don't think universal suffrage is to blame. Mostly people seem eager and willing to vote.

Well it's kind of messed up and certainly very provocative and controversial, but black Zimbabweans probably would be better-off under Smith's racist white-rule regime than under Mugabe, specially because there would be a (slow) transition to majority rule

 

[Phrossack]

Zimbabwe was unlucky to get universal suffrage too early. It became a curse of many post-colonial countries.

More like too late. If Ian Heath hadn't made the Unilateral Declaration of Independence and then fought a drawn-out, brutal war against universal suffrage and instead realized that minority rule was untenable and gone quietly, the country would probably be much better off.

 

[bugwar]

From the article:

A group of soldiers in Central African Republic's capital lynched a man on Wednesday whom they suspected of having been a rebel, minutes after hearing the new president promise to restore security at a ceremony to reinstate the divided country's armed forces.
...
Ten minutes earlier, about 20 meters (yards) away, the new interim president, Catherine Samba-Panza, had addressed the crowd of at least 1,000 soldiers at a ceremony meant to re-introduce the army to the nation after it effectively disappeared from view during Seleka's rule.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/05/us-centralafrican-killings-idUSBREA141V920140205

Remind me not to vacation in the CAR.

 

[Kyriakos]

..............

A Reuters witness saw about 20 uniformed soldiers accuse a member of the crowd at a training center in the capital Bangui of having belonged to Seleka, the mostly Muslim rebel group that seized power in a coup last March.

They then stabbed him repeatedly until he was dead. A soldier stamped on the lifeless body, which was then dragged through the streets, dismembered and set alight as residents looked on and took photographs.

Well, maybe they even accused him due to entirely other reasons (eg personal). Nice.

Pretty disgusting, actually.

 

[bugwar]

From the article:

The US is dramatically increasing the tempo of its military operations in the Horn of Africa in an effort to counter violent extremism, in the wake of last year's Westgate attack in Nairobi.
Missile strikes by US drones against al-Shabab and al-Qaeda leaders are "vital" and will continue, according to the government of Djibouti, from where the controversial drone strikes are launched.
Washington has been building up a large military base in Djibouti and training regional armies to fight al-Shabab in Somalia.
...
But the biggest presence by far is American - there are more than 4,000 people on the base at Camp Lemonnier.
Housed in a compound within a compound are hundreds of highly secretive Special Forces operatives from JSOC - US Joint Special Operations Command.
...
One controversial tool in JSOC's arsenal is the use of missile strikes by unmanned Reaper drones.
Until last September they took off from this base but after a number of crashes and near misses the Djibouti government asked the Americans to move them out to a desert runway.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-26078149