by Patrick Bond counterpunch.org
Pretoria Chooses Subimperialism
The first week of July witnessed two important markers of Africa’s geopolitical trajectory. In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at the African Union (AU) summit, the South African government took major steps to influence the organization, by winning contests to host its parliament and to dominate its peace/security division (the AU’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development is already located near Pretoria). Meanwhile, in Washington, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) publicly launched a U.S.-Africa policy blueprint, requested by Colin Powell and the Congress.

The main controversy in Addis was a two-year old report on the Zimbabwean government’s systemic human rights abuses, which Robert Mugabe’s government dubiously denied having seen, although it had been circulating for four months. Harare’s delaying tactics won support from Pretoria’s foreign affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who a year earlier had pronounced, “We will never criticize Zimbabwe.” As the disappointed Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo, Pious Ncube, concluded of the AU delegates, “All they do is back each other up and drink tea.”

The CSIS report on “Rising US Interests in Africa” emphasizes seven interventions: Sudan, whose oil is craved by Washington; Africa’s decrepit capital markets, which could “jump start” Bush’s gimmicky Millennium Challenge Account; energy, especially the “massive future earnings by Nigeria and Angola, among other key West African oil producers;” wildlife conservation; “counter-terrorism” efforts, which include “a Muslim outreach initiative;” peace operations, which can be transferred to African troops thanks to new G8 funding; and AIDS, whose treatment is feared by pharmaceutical corporations because it will require generic drugs.1 In all but Sudan, South African cooperation will be crucial for the new U.S. imperial agenda. full article

Chidi Achebe & Paul EpsteinVanguard (Lagos)
Fuel Price Discourse: Oil: Prize Or Curse? an International Quagmire

A nightmare of an unending stream of mediocre leaders turned this once burgeoning nation into a ‘basket case.’ The presence of eager and equally scheming multinational oil company executives, and easy access to petro-dollars, helped fan skyrocketing corruption, particularly in the public sector. This created a suitable milieu for a culture of “kickbacks,” government sanctioned bunkering of oil, and the emergence of a corrupt and politically inept leadership desperate to cash in on the bonanza.

Devoid of the moral, ethical, intellectual, or ideological discipline and preparation for leadership, some of these individuals stashed away millions and in a few exceptionally offensive cases, placed billions of dollars in foreign bank accounts. All this as the country burned. “Nero would approve!”

Social historians remind us that corruption in Nigeria wasn’t always as bad as it is today. Before the advent of the “oil era,” Nigeria’s economy was principally driven by agriculture. She was one of the three largest exporters of cocoa, and one of the world’s leading palm oil, palm kernel as well as groundnut producers. Legend has it that the Malaysians came to Nigeria to learn how to produce palm oil during this period. Malaysia is now the largest producer and exporter of palm oil in the world. Palm oil provides about 10 per cent of the Malaysian Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Today, sadly, Nigeria imports most of her food, and ironically, also purchases palm oil from Malaysia!
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Western Sahara, Equitorial Guinea, Niger Delta, Angola…Huge oil and gas investments and explorations by Spanish and American corporations…I shudder to think…Gee, think this explains relentless US intervention in Angola for the past 30 years? What appals is that nothing has changed since colonial days, except that the former colonial powers take MORE out of Africa now than they did then…

Angola Press Service
Chevron/Texaco Invests About Usd 9 Billion in Oil
Luanda
US oil company Chevron/Texaco has invested since 2003 about Usd 9 billion in the implementation of three petroleum exploration projects and routine burning of gas on the Angolan coast.

The projects are “Sanha Condensados”, “Tômbwa-Lândana” and “Belize-Lobito-Tomboco”, located in the provinces of Cabinda, Zaire, (north), Namibe (southweat) and Benguela (centre), which are to be concluded in the year 2005.

Speaking to ANGOP, at the Luanda International Trade Fair (Filda/2004), the deputy chairman of the company, Peter Robertsom, said that “Sanha Condensados” is of an environmental character and permits the elimination of burning of gas at sea.

Until its completion in 2005, he stated, it will remove around 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.

This project will also produce 100.000 barrels of oil per day, in a condensed (a light hydrocarbon – a liquid similar to petrol). The development of the Belize-Lobito-Tomboco fields, located in Cabinda, Benguela and Zaire, will produce oil in a first phase, through pipelines, starting from 2005.

With three drilling centres, connected to a platform, the project expects to produce 200.000 barrels of oil a day, as from July 2008, while Tômbwa-Lândana project, in Namibe and Cabinda, will explore 100.000 tons of crude oil until 2006.full article

by Victor Ahiuma-Young Vanguard (Lagos)
Nigerian Ports Will Be Shut Down July 29 If… Comrade Irabor

MARITIME Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) has vowed that come July 29, the entire maritime industry in Nigeria will be shut down should government fail to positively address any of the issues both the union and its Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) Senior Staff counterpart raised in the ultimatum handed down to government last week.

President-General of MWUN, Comrade Onikoalese Irabor told Vanguard that the workers never wanted the situation to degenerate into this level, but for the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) which decided to do things its own way irrespective of feelings and contribution of other stakeholders.

Comrade Irabor did not hid his anger when he asked: “Can you imagine a government that is talking about creating seven million jobs through NEEDS also planning to sack 75 per cent of the workers (about 9,750 out of 13,000) in the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) through the World Bank financed ports reform programme? We are not a party to that. It is not only that.

The NPA, going by the reforms agenda, would be scrapped and in its place, there would be Lagos Ports, Warri Ports, Calabar Ports and stuffs like that”. According to him, all activities in the nation’s ports would be paralysed should the authorities fail to address the concerns of the workers in the sector in the planned ports concessioning programme scheduled to commence in September.full article

by Willy Eya Daily Champion(Lagos)
Delta Crisis Cripples Warri Port

DESPITE efforts to reform the nation’s maritime sector, not much seems to have been achieved in ports within the Niger Delta region of the country.

This is because of the unending youth restiveness in the area formerly reputed to be a beehive of maritime activities.

In the region, the most affected is the Warri Port located within the battle fronts of the warring communities – Ijaw, Itsekri and Urhobo.

Business Champion reports that most cottage industries within the area have either relocated to Port Harcourt or closed shop for lack of business.

Reacting on the situation, Executive Director, Engineering and Technical Services of the Nigerian Port Harcourt (NPA), Mr. Desmond Akawor called on traditional rulers and community leaders in the Delta region to help government realise potentials of the Delta port.

He stressed the need for them to prevail on restive youths so that the ports would be fully utilised for the benefit of its catchment area.full article

by Charles Arthur Independent UK
Young male prisoners were filmed being sodomized by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to the journalist who first revealed the abuses there.

Seymour Hersh, who reported on the torture of the prisoners in New Yorker magazine in May, told an audience in San Francisco that “it’s worse”. But he added that he would reveal the extent of the abuses: “I’m not done reporting on all this,” he told a meeting of the American Civil Liberties Union.

He said: “The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war.”

He accused the US administration, and all but accused President George Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney of complicity in covering up what he called “war crimes”.full article

Time
Next week’s much anticipated final report by a bipartisan commission on the origins of the 9/11 attacks will contain new evidence of contacts between al-Qaeda and Iran—just weeks after the Administration has come under fire for overstating its claims of contacts between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

A senior U.S. official told TIME that the Commission has uncovered evidence suggesting that between eight and ten of the 14 “muscle” hijackers—that is, those involved in gaining control of the four 9/11 aircraft and subduing the crew and passengers—passed through Iran in the period from October 2000 to February 2001. Sources also tell TIME that Commission investigators found that Iran had a history of allowing al-Qaeda members to enter and exit Iran across the Afghan border. This practice dated back to October 2000, with Iranian officials issuing specific instructions to their border guards—in some cases not to put stamps in the passports of al-Qaeda personnel—and otherwise not harass them and to facilitate their travel across the frontier. The report does not, however, offer evidence that Iran was aware of the plans for the 9/11 attacks.full article
If they can’t pin anything on Iraq, there is always Iran. Which is no doubt next on the list.

BBC: Intra-Africa Trade is ‘too low’
Trade among African countries accounts for only about 10% of their total exports and imports, according to a report.

The study by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) blames the continuing low level of trade on poor transport links among African countries.

Instead it suggests that colonial-era patterns remain, with most trade still to and from the former colonial powers.

It says Africa has a long way to go before reaching EU-style integration.full article

CBS: Africa Lags in UN Wealth Ranking
CBS/AP) The U.N.’s annual ranking of the global rich and poor showed stark differences Thursday as AIDS pushes African nations further into misery while the most of the rest of the world creeps toward higher development.

“The picture that emerges is increasingly one of two very different groups of countries: those that have benefited from development and those that have been left behind,” the report said.

The report also finds problems extending beyond Africa: 1.1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, and 2.7 billion without access to proper sanitation. full article

Medical News Today: Life Expectanacy in Some Countries in Africa Has Fallen Below 33 Years
Life expectancy in some parts of Africa has dropped to below 33 years as the AIDS epidemic takes its toll in the region, says the Human Development Report, 2004 (United Nations).

The report looks at 177 countries and ranks them according to quality of life. Such factors as health, health care services, education, life expectancy and standard of living are taken into account.

For the fourth year running Norway is number 1. Sierra Leone is number 177. full article

Environmental Network News:U.S. military talks to Nigeria over Gulf of Guinea
ABUJA, Nigeria — A top U.S. general has held talks with Nigerian military chiefs on security in West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, set to become one of the world’s top oil supply hubs within a decade, officials said Tuesday.

The world’s largest energy consumer is keen to protect a series of huge oil discoveries in the gulf, controlled by several politically unstable states including Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome, and Angola.

“We talked over lunch about having a way we could cooperate together in monitoring the waters of the Gulf of Guinea,” said Gen. Charles Wald, deputy commander of U.S. European Command, which also covers Africa.

“Terrorism is an international problem and a threat to all peace-loving and democratic countries, so we share a common interest to tackle the problem,” he was quoted as saying by a U.S. embassy official. “They have been to the U.S., Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. They could certainly come here.” full article

This last article provides the context for all the others. ‘Terrorism’ my eye. What Africa is about for the West is only her resources to be expolited, and her ‘underdevelopment’ is hypocritically portrayed as a baffling mystery. As Ayinde says in the article below, the answer lies in reparations, and not ‘charity’.

by Ayinde AfricaSpeaks
Why is the West suddenly concerned about the racist Arab drive to kill off dark-skinned Africans in Sudan? This should be the question at the forefront of the minds of thinking people. The UN and the U.S. (both partners in crime) are aware that the entire White World policies today were built on the foundation of racism. It is the same racism that allows the U.S. to lie to the world and invade Iraq without the fear that they will be charged as war criminals. Who will charge the U.S. criminals? Certainly not their European counterparts. full article

yahoo news

Kerry fleshes out blueprint for troop withdrawal from Iraq

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said he would set three conditions for withdrawing US troops from Iraq if he were elected, and warned that President George W. Bush might cut troop numbers ahead of the November 2 vote.

In an interview with the The Wall Street Journal, Kerry said the conditions were “to measure the level of stability” in Iraq, “to measure the outlook for the stability to hold” and “to measure the ability … of their security forces” to defend Iraq.

Until each condition is satisfied, Kerry said, “I will provide for the world’s need not to have a failed state in Iraq.”full article

‘I will provide…’ Now he thinks he’s Jesus or something. And those three conditions he lists? Just translate those to ‘the United States will be in Iraq forever.’ Democrats, are you SURE you want this guy? This careless and cynical ‘Anyone But Bush’ nonsense has really backfired.

Austrailian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
Broadcast: 16/07/2004
Reporter: Maxine McKew

MAXINE MCKEW: Let’s go straight to the allegations that Iyad Allawi executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station at the end of June.

The explosive claims in tomorrow’s Sydney Morning Herald and Age newspapers allege that the prisoners were handcuffed and blindfolded, lined up against a courtyard wall and shot by the Iraqi Prime Minister.

Dr Allawi is alleged to have told those around him that he wanted to send a clear message to the police on how to deal with insurgents.

Two people allege they witnessed the killings and there are also claims the Iraqi Interior Minister was present as well as four American security men in civilian dress.

Well, the journalist reporting the story is Paul McGeough, awarded a Walkley Award for his coverage of the Iraq war last year.

He’s also a former editor of the Herald and is now the paper’s chief correspondent.
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