What is happening in Europe and Africa, and the people and culture thereof?
It's not always possible to easily divide news into exclusive groupings of good or bad. Often the news is an admixture.
Fortunately, the West has moved away from religiously inspired killing, but in Africa and Indonesia the same is not the case.
Boko Haram says its aim is to impose a stricter enforcement of Sharia law across Africa's most populous nation, which is split between a majority Muslim north and a mostly Christian south.
After the predominantly Muslim Seleka militia took control of the Central African Republic under President Michel Djotodia in 2013, a period of lawlessness and sectarian violence continued. Following warnings of "genocide" by the UN and a controversial intervention force by MISCA, Djotodia resigned. Despite neutral Catherine Samba-Panza being made president, the Anti-balaka Christian militants continued sectarian violence, including reported targeted killings, against Muslim civilians.
INDONESIANS are reeling from one of their country's most awful incidents of religious violence in years. It happened on February 6th, in a village in Banten, the western end of Java, not far from Jakarta, a district where strictly Islamist parties poll well. Out of keeping with the more usual pattern of Muslim-versus-Christian attacks, this was a mob attack by Muslims against men who claimed to be their own fellows: members of a Islamic sect called the Ahmadiyah.
Remember Rodney King?
"People, I just want to say, can't we all get along? Can't we all get along?"
Demographically Africa is becoming a major continent.
(Though a graph to 2100 is highly speculative.)
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bitsofscience.org%2Fwordpress-3.0.1%2Fwordpress%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F%2Fpopulation_growth_africa_asia.gif&hash=d87c2f2f8194bef16676095e7ab69ac8" rel="cached" data-hash="d87c2f2f8194bef16676095e7ab69ac8" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.bitsofscience.org/wordpress-3.0.1/wordpress/wp-content/uploads//population_growth_africa_asia.gif)
Demographically Africa is becoming a major continent.
Yeah! :right:.
Till the Big British Isle hasn't sunk trampled by those Africans, huh?
Egypt court sentences 683 people to death (http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/04/egypt-court-sentences-683-people-death-201442873249787688.html)
An Egyptian court has sentenced 683 people, including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie to death.
In a separate case, the same court also upheld the death penalty for 37 defendants, reversing 492 death sentences out of 529 it passed in March, the AFP news agency reported. Most of the death sentences were commuted to life in prison.
Monday's hearing in the southern province of Minya comes amid a brutal crackdown on supporters of President Mohamed Morsi and the Brotherhood since the military overthrew him last July.
The court has come under the spotlight after the same judge in March sentenced the 529 defendants to death in just two sessions.
The second batch, including Badie, had faced charges of the murder and attempted murder of several policemen during rioting by Morsi supporters in Minya on August 14.
Those Egyptian judges don't play at service...
"40 maps that explain the Roman Empire (http://www.vox.com/2014/8/19/5942585/40-maps-that-explain-the-roman-empire)"
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn1.vox-cdn.com%2Fassets%2F4816980%2Ffirst_punic_war_results.jpg&hash=418b2964495dfa46da72d1a5d4c42fe5" rel="cached" data-hash="418b2964495dfa46da72d1a5d4c42fe5" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/assets/4816980/first_punic_war_results.jpg)
As soon as I saw map #2 I was inclined to think "to Americans" at the end of that title.
Nah, nice maps. ;)
What happens between Europe and Africa is that everyday people drown by the hundreds trying to get into Europe.
They are human beings, by the way, and there's no such a thing as illegal human beings.
Words matters.
America is opening up bases there on the quiet and probably a little miffed that China is well in their on trade.
Boko Haram crisis: Why it is hard to know the truth in Nigeria (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30794829)
It is not easy to find out the truth in Nigeria.
The Baga killings last week are a case in point, with politicians and government officials offering vastly different information - from 150 dead to 2,000.
News of another attack by Islamist militants from Boko Haram often starts as a vague one-liner as was the case on 3 January: "Attack on Baga. Loud gunfire heard."
This first bit of information often comes via social media. The challenge now is to find out the details and there are plenty of obstacles in the way of getting to the truth.
First up there has been no mobile phone connection in Baga for many months after the jihadists attacked mobile phone masts in the north-east.
There are of course the officials whose job it is to tell the world what is going on.
But for the first few days of the Baga crisis both the military spokesmen and government officials were silent or not picking up calls.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbcimg.co.uk%2Fmedia%2Fimages%2F80241000%2Fgif%2F_80241077_boko_haram_civilian_death_624.gif&hash=b54d7513f40316527fb34f536f3aa497" rel="cached" data-hash="b54d7513f40316527fb34f536f3aa497" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/80241000/gif/_80241077_boko_haram_civilian_death_624.gif)
Nigeria has been a mess economically, politically corrupt and an army that needs better training than by a local Boy Scout Leader. Talk about hopeless and I thought the French were militarily a groan.
Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat. This is big. Now, if some point in the future Muhammadu Buhari, who doesn't have the best of democratic credentials, will do the same, Nigeria will have a real electoral democracy.
There has been a great deal of concern over possible election violence as both sides were so hell-bent on winning this contest.
The man who has been voted out, Goodluck Jonathan, has played a huge part today in helping to prevent unrest.
He made the phone call to concede victory and to congratulate Muhammadu Buhari when a disputed outcome would have sent the country on a dangerous road.
"I promised the country free and fair elections. I have kept my word," he said later in a statement.
"I have also expanded the space for Nigerians to participate in the democratic process. That is one legacy I will like to see endure," he added, urging people with complaints to follow due process and not to go to the streets.
No doubt some in his camp would have preferred to dig their heels in.
My requirement for a functional electoral democracy is one where governing has passed to the opposition twice in fair elections with no intervening coups or similar power grabs. By this requirement many democracies are not, like e.g. Russia or Ukraine.
The government still opposes rescue missions in the Mediterranean despite 950 migrants drowning in one day (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-government-still-opposes-rescue-missions-in-the-mediterranean-despite-950-migrants-drowning-in-one-day-10188689.html)
Last year the Government theorised that letting people drown would end the crossings
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.independent.co.uk%2Fincoming%2Farticle10188712.ece%2Falternates%2Fw620%2Fmigrants-v3.jpg&hash=2b1f2a1f29e9882abdb02de6b91ca976" rel="cached" data-hash="2b1f2a1f29e9882abdb02de6b91ca976" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article10188712.ece/alternates/w620/migrants-v3.jpg)
The Government has ignored calls to back restored search and rescue missions in the Mediterranean after 950 people drowned on a boat crossing to Europe.
Reinstating the rescue missions, which the UK government has previously said it opposes, pointedly does not feature in the Foreign Secretary’s response to the latest mass deaths.
In a statement released on Sunday Philip Hammond blamed ‘traffickers’ for encouraging people to flee conflicts and come to Europe but was silent on helping families who might drown in future.
“We must target the traffickers who are responsible for so many people dying at sea and prevent their innocent victims from being tricked or forced into making these perilous journeys,” he said, calling for a “comprehensive, co-ordinated response” to the regular deaths.
Mr Hammond said he was “horrified at the appalling loss of life” at the crossing and accused groups assisting the migrants to make the crossing of “cynicism”.
When the rescue missions were ended in October last year the Government said it believed the prospect of being saved from drowning in the event of an accident encouraged people to make the journey.
“Ministers across Europe have expressed concerns that search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean have acted as a pull factor for illegal migration, encouraging people to make dangerous crossings in the expectation of rescue,” a Downing Street spokesperson said in October.
“This has led to more deaths as traffickers have exploited the situation using boats that are unfit to make the crossing.”
Migrants have continued to make the journey despite the Government’s theorising, however. Well over 1000 people had died crossing the sea so far this year.
Well it has always been a big player size-wise but it's modern progress is a bit of a splutter and questionable status. Dictator attitudes, corruptions, getting money always pumped into it and much of it bagged. At the same time on a very big scale widened HIV disease. So it is still a bit of a pick and mix as a Continent.
[video]https://youtu.be/YO0IRsfrPQ4[/video]
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fs.tf1.fr%2Fmmdia%2Fi%2F53%2F9%2Fdrame-de-l-immigration-le-monde-entier-appelle-l-europe-a-agir-11398539piveo.jpg%3Fv%3D1&hash=50c04b2f1aed3ba33c64773efe315a9b" rel="cached" data-hash="50c04b2f1aed3ba33c64773efe315a9b" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://s.tf1.fr/mmdia/i/53/9/drame-de-l-immigration-le-monde-entier-appelle-l-europe-a-agir-11398539piveo.jpg?v=1)
The reason why so many refugees drowns in the Mediterranean its the northern european pseudo morality that thinks refugees are a problem of the South and how they value human life. Cockroaches they call again to human beings, just like Nazis did before.
To some degree I agree with you. These deaths were completely predictable and completely avoidable. Not because they haven't cared about the plight of the south, but because they haven't cared about the plight of the boat refugees.
John Derbyshire (over at TakiMag) has a different take… A taste:
The mass drowning (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32399433) of eight or nine hundred—nobody knows precisely—illegal immigrants in the Mediterranean last Sunday triggered a lot of commentary about these boat people, most of it stupid. Here are some of the grosser stupidities.
They’re just seeking a better life.
Who isn’t? I guess there are some Lotus eaters among us who are perfectly happy with their lives and seek nothing better, but I doubt they’re a majority. Most of us, most of the time, want something we don’t currently have, in hopes it will make our lives better.
It’s a matter of methods. Al Capone rose from Brooklyn street urchin to be the boss of a major crime syndicate, presumably because he sought a better life. Should we admire him for that?
These boat people are self-selected as the bravest and most enterprising (https://twitter.com/delong/status/590119660214833153) of their stock.
Then their home countries need them more than Europe does.
They are the poorest (https://twitter.com/Ed_Miliband/status/589785522324672512) of the poor.
No they’re not. (http://theconversation.com/europes-war-on-migrants-while-we-argue-thousands-perish-in-the-mediterranean-40330)For economic migrants, the decision to leave is generally a conscious choice by relatively well-off individuals and households to enhance their livelihoods … Clandestine travel costs anywhere from US$5,000-$35,000. Many of these migrants are petty entrepreneurs who sold their businesses or property in order to pay for the expensive trip.
I think even that writer may have put some lipstick on the pig. Petty entrepreneurs, sure; but in sinkhole Third World countries like Niger or Eritrea there are other classes of people who can get their hands on a few thousand dollars. There are minor government functionaries—cops, for example—with jobs that allow them to squeeze bribes out of their fellow citizens. There are also, of course, criminals.
A thing you notice about these illegals from the news photos is that they look well-dressed and well-fed (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/eus-handling-mediterranean-migrant-influx-30338954). Some are positively chubby (http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50054#.VTe4Gbq73s1).
Sure, their countries are crappy places, but these are people who haven’t been doing too badly in them.
(the rest is here (http://takimag.com/article/camp_of_the_stupids_john_derbyshire/print#ixzz3YNlUS1jG))
I post this only because I doubt anyone else would…
You're welcome!
Thank you for closing that door, allowing me to bash it in (though not to be churlish, I really would have wished for a much less rickety one).
The article accurately self-describes as Camp of the Stupids (http://takimag.com/article/camp_of_the_stupids_john_derbyshire), managing to completely miss both the complexities and the simplicity of the issues. It is a classic example of the less you know, the more you're willing to pontificate, and out of place in a web site that purports to be libertarian. (Libertarians, like the followers of any ideology or religion, come in two groups. Those that believe in what they are saying, and those who use it to justify their own interests, and as a vehicle for being offended when those interests seem threatened.)
His most cogent argument, and I am not being ironic, is the one the site chose to highlight,
“To permit mass settlement by blacks who are also Muslims is to pass beyond the bounds of mere folly into homicidal insanity.”
It is the only point where he may be a little ahead of the curve. European xenophobia, just like American or Asia xenophobia, will change with migration patterns. The fear of today is Muslims, the fear of tomorrow will be Africans, and yes they will be black. A majority of them will not be Muslim though (more are likely to be Christians), but a large minority will, probably enough to keep up the "Clash of Civilisations" narrative a while longer.
Some of them will pick Asia or America as their destination, but most will pick Europe as it is geographically and culturally closer. I think they deserve better than Europe which has been poor at turning migrants into enterprise.
His lesser points are really
lesser points, but as you mentioned them: OK, he's a naturalised American (Glaswegian?), but what happened to "pursuit of happiness"? Of course they are not starving. Starving people are pliable, fairly stationary, and generally geldorfable. He should grow up (as should Geldorf, not carrying much hope for either). The reason we can expect a rapid rise in African migrants isn't because Africa is getting poorer, but because Africa is getting richer. With growth of wealth comes a growth of ambition, ambitions that generally can't be fulfilled at home, and as mentioned I am not sure Europe is up to it either.
It is necessary to separate the boat people as people from them as symptoms, the article viewed them as symbols ("we are being invaded, they are crossing our moat", "we" in solidarity with those left behind in the old country). They are a symptom of things to come, things that have been like that for a while actually.
Boat people the people are being decimated, quite literally, the current fatality rate for a crossing seems around 10%. That may be an overestimate, and a steep jump from earlier. They are dying needlessly. People are dying needlessly all over the world, but this is significant, and much more importantly, avoidable. By avoiding the avoidance we Europeans are passively complicit in their death.
Foremost in European thinking on Libya hasn't been the hackneyed "it's all about the oil and gas", though that would be nice of course, nor on the erratic behaviour of Gaddafi, but on migration. Not from Libya itself of course, the country has a population the size of Norway, but as a point of transit, a point that is currently broken. Blowback, European style.
They are dying needlessly. People are dying needlessly all over the world, but this is significant, and much more importantly, avoidable. By avoiding the avoidance we Europeans are passively complicit in their death.
European politicians are actively complicit with their death. We, European citizens, are passively complicit by having such politicians.
What is Europe supposed to do then> Keep just taking these hordes in?
I remember a few years back the Royal Australian navy sent a warship out to send a loaded ship back to the east as they were trying to get into the country on the north coast and body-swerve Australia's allowed immigration quta. Now this thin in the Med is getting out of hand and some if it was caused by our involvement in Libya and resulting in a country melt down. And anyway many are not even Libyans but travelling from other places in North Africa and the Middle East to Libya. Europe cannot just let an open door policy and things are getting ridiculous and although it is a strain on Italy there are places in Europe where full up situations are emerging. Naval ships should get these immigrant and sail them back to Libya and maybe some help there but Europe should in general be a time to shut doors.
European politicians are actively complicit with their death. We, European citizens, are passively complicit by having such politicians.
Perhaps
someone could part the waters for them… ?
@
jax: Is your home, your house, open to all and any, at any hour? But perhaps you've never had one…
I'd appreciate it if you'd resume your Charity vs. Government Subsidy thread! It would be enlightening.
These are as mentioned two different issues.
The US has (had?) a thriving underground economy with their migration flow from the south, not so, or not any longer Europe. A likely fate is unemployment or severe underemployment. Additionally the EU four freedoms (including free movement of workers), together with the crisis half a decade ago, still ongoing for some countries, has resulted in internal immigration from other EU countries overshadowing immigration from outside EU. The huddled masses yearning to breathe free should have a better alternative.
While the huddled masses yearning to breathe free may be out of reach for Europe, drowning people yearning to breathe are not. Fortress Europe is now organised such that the Mediterranean moat is the most open and most deadly entrance. The Libyan moat guards may have been capricious, but at least they were there and now they are not, while the Italian guard ran out of support last December.
What should be done? What has been done would be an improvement. For the rescued ones: food, shelter, processing. Those who are at risk of losing their lives if they were returned get through the gate to live a hopefully productive European life. Those who are merely at risk of wasting their lives will be returned.
Mending fences. For well over a decade North African states have been bribed compensated to do the European border patrols for them. It may not have been perfect, it involved some frequent and fervent away-looking for abuses, but it mostly worked. Now there is a huge Libyan hole in that fence.
Now this stops the gap, but leaving people down and out in Morocco, or high and dry in the Atlas, is no real solution. One part of the solution I believe could be this, Africa is urbanising faster than any other place on the planet:
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSHBma0Ithk[/video]
Boko Haram: Abducted Nigerian girl, 15, reunited with family (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32594732)
The Nigerian military say they have freed 700 women and children from Boko Haram in the last week. This latest operation is part of advances by the army in the group's last stronghold, the vast Sambisa forest. But there is still no sign of any of the girls abducted from Chibok in April 2014, which caused an international outcry.
Boko Haram abducted an estimated 2,000 women and girls last year.
This looks like a job for the EU! :jester:
There's more:
The governments of Europe are confronting an epochal choice in the Mediterranean. Do they allow Europe to remain on course toward inundation by the African population explosion, inevitably turning Florence into Ferguson and Barcelona into Baltimore?
The conventional wisdom is that it’s unthinkable to stop the African tsunami. Veteran public radio correspondent Sylvia Poggioli assured gullible NPR listeners on Monday:
This is a human tide that cannot be stopped,” she says. … Europeans have to start providing legal channels that will allow them to seek asylum here. This is a humanitarian crisis, says Mascena, that cannot be solved by use of force — or by leaving these desperate human beings bottled up in Africa and the Middle East.
Or will Europeans adopt the sensible policies of Australia and Israel that have succeeded at turning back Camp of the Saints-style invasions by boat?
(source (http://takimag.com/article/africa_on_the_brink_steve_sailer/print#axzz3ZQuSPkgx))
I especially liked the erudite mentions of elephants…!
Tusks are not -to us or the Europeans- very valuable. Can we say the same about Africans? No. They have an ancient grudge! :)
Erudite? You seem to have a knack for picking writers who clearly have no idea what they are talking about. This one marginally better than the previous, I see they are both from the same magazine/blog collection. There are discussions to be had, but this would be like discussing web standards with Oprah.
As soon as I saw map #2 I was inclined to think "to Americans" at the end of that title.
Happily, it didn't include my home state of Michigan. Romans on the border, though.
I especially liked the erudite mentions of elephants…!
Like this one?
These African traditions of quantity over quality in raising children are now obsolete in a world where elephants are no longer rivals. Africans now have AK-47s, so it’s more likely that four billion Africans will kill off all the wild game than that the elephants will get the upper hand again.
Please share this article by using the link below. When you cut and paste an article, Taki's Magazine misses out on traffic, and our writers don't get paid for their work. Email editors@takimag.com to buy additional rights.
http://takimag.com/article/africa_on_the_brink_steve_sailer/print#ixzz3ZRZ8dJvI (http://takimag.com/article/africa_on_the_brink_steve_sailer/print#ixzz3ZRZ8dJvI)
The way so many African countries are run I much pref the elephants.
As soon as I saw map #2 I was inclined to think "to Americans" at the end of that title.
Happily, it didn't include my home state of Michigan. Romans on the border, though.
I never said that, I suppose it was Frenzie, a much more American condescending European than myself.
Notice the following difference in style:
To me Americans can't even read a map, that's why they need so much those irritating and useless GPS devices.
They are always lost anyway, maps, gps, whatever. :)
@jax: Is your home, your house, open to all and any, at any hour? But perhaps you've never had one…
I'd appreciate it if you'd resume your Charity vs. Government Subsidy thread! It would be enlightening.
I have several homes. Here is a curio from my latest, Södertälje: Drowning for Hope -- On Their Way to Sweden, Södertälje for Any Price (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nuri-kino/drowning-for-hope-on-thei_b_7206838.html)
It is April 26. One hundred years and two days have passed since the leaders of the Ottoman Empire decided that all Christians would be exterminated. My family originates from Midyat in Turabdin (Mountain of Worshippers), known for the world's densest concentration of church and monasteries. My ancestors were butchered during extremely dramatic circumstances and only a few children survived -- they were my grandparents. Stories of rape, abduction and eradication attempts abound.
My mom and I are in the car on the way to the Syriac Orthodox Church to attend a memorial service for those victims of the genocide in 1915. In the same church there are also other activities going on. Some relatives are there to pray for and remember their uncles, who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea as they were heading to Sweden.
"Stop, she looks lost, she must be heading for the church." Mom has caught sight of a woman who is dressed in black, just as we are. I wind down the car window. It is true, she was heading for the church as well.
She says she came to Sweden -- and freedom -- just three weeks ago. She paid smugglers 13,000 Euro for the trip. She coughs and looks rough. She caught chronic bronchitis during the boat trip between Turkey and Greece. She was also suffocated in a truck packed with refugees. Two women in the truck died.
"Sweden should take the money, get paid to pick us up, and let us in. Then we would avoid paying cynical smugglers, criminals who do not care about human life."
If you are feeling nostalgic, the original thread on charity is here (https://web.archive.org/web/20131113081436/http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=701882).
Raw capitalism essentially functions on the principle that "the consumer is always right", by prioritising consumer choice over supplier convenience. This means that resources will naturally flow to where the price is highest.
State capitalism and regulation is based on the principle of common good, that there are resources that can be better governed by dedicated people than by consumer choice alone, in the communist form "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs".
Of course there is a lot more to be said about the two than the above, but that should be the gist of it, and that there have never been a pure capitalist system that has lasted long without governance, and no state system that has lasted long without reintroducing some measure of capitalism. The shortcomings and weaknesses of either system should also be well enough known.
Charity has none of the benefit and most of the shortcomings of both, and adding peculiar some maladies of their own. Its reason for existence is that there are needs that neither the private nor the public sector has been able to cover, making charity "economic activity of the gaps". The natural approach then would be to find ways to fill those gaps rather than praise charity.
Let's imagine you were narcoleptically destitute, that Frenzie decided to start a charity to alleviate the destruction wrecked by this overlooked ailment, and I were the major donor.
I became dedicated to this cause after my beloved grand-aunt destroyed herself and her family in a freak narcoleptic attack. Just before that she had thrown away the
green trousers she always wore, and I have become convinced that this very action was the cause of this calamity. Thus my one requirement for Frenzie giving you sorely needed aid is that you always will wear
green trousers, as a prophylactic mind you.
Frenzie, being a rational fellow, will know that this is nonsense, but it is something he will have to put up with, as he can do narcoleptic good with my money, and after all, wearing
green trousers doesn't
hurt (much).
If he managed to secure funding without having to cater the vagaries of us donors, he would operate pretty much like a government agency. It would still be no guarantee that what he did would benefit the sufferers, let alone optimise those benefits, but at least his focus would no longer be the donors, but the sufferers.
Americans and maps? They usually haven't a clue about where places are that their military expensive juggernaut starts wars!
Americans and maps? They usually haven't a clue about where places are that their military expensive juggernaut starts wars!
Sez the ex-colonist. Falklands now, Falklands forever!
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Ffiles.qrz.com%2Fk%2Fvr2zlk%2FBritish_Animated_Flag_Waving_2_.gif&hash=ce1580f7b01f11a8c29eac91ee95b5b5" rel="cached" data-hash="ce1580f7b01f11a8c29eac91ee95b5b5" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://files.qrz.com/k/vr2zlk/British_Animated_Flag_Waving_2_.gif)
Cannot disagree with that!
Eritrean Authorities Must Clarify Fate of Dawit Isaak, Detained Without Trial for 5,000 Days (http://allafrica.com/stories/201506030655.html)
Egypt wanted to spy via Egypt's Free Basics shenanigans.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-egypt-idUSKCN0WY3JZ
Egypt blocked Facebook Inc's (FB.O) Free Basics Internet service at the end of last year after the U.S. company refused to give the Egyptian government the ability to spy on users, two people familiar with the matter said.
[...]
Any move to shut down Facebook completely in Egypt would likely bring a harsh popular backlash, said Ramy Raoof, a digital security researcher and consultant. But blocking Free Basics can crimp Facebook's growth among lower income people, without alienating middle-class Internet users and businesses.
"Shutting down Facebook completely is an idea that is far-fetched and would lead to great consequences," Raoof said.
I used to think that blocking Facebook and Twitter in China was a mistake. These social media are perfect for spying on the populace. Even if somebody suspicious were to stay away from them, she certainly would have family and friends that wouldn't. However, fastforward a few years and they are back in a Chinese tapping, in the process creating a couple more Chinese IT behemoths.
I wouldn't think Egypt would be able to pull off something like that, and WeChat (http://memeburn.com/2016/03/could-wechat-beat-whatsapp-in-its-own-backyard/) is probably too Chinese for Egyptian tastes, but they certainly would look to China.
Letting the gay lobby infect another formerly fine thread:
https://youtu.be/3gaDAeWKTjU
Since this is about Eurafrica, I have a plan.
Get a few English ladies living from UK's unemployment subside here in Algarve, take them to Morroco, trade them for camels and cross the Sahara. :)
You would get more with Scots ladies maybe.
The world as it ought to be shown.
(https://dndsanctuary.eu/imagecache.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Famerica.aljazeera.com%2Fcontent%2Fajam%2Fopinions%2F2014%2F2%2Fmaps-cartographycolonialismnortheurocentricglobe%2Fjcr%3Acontent%2Fmainpar%2Fadaptiveimage%2Fsrc.adapt.960.high.corrective_map.1411593200653.jpg&hash=f74ff678e39bd44b0b290309f14ff613" rel="cached" data-hash="f74ff678e39bd44b0b290309f14ff613" data-warn="External image, click here to view original" data-url="http://america.aljazeera.com/content/ajam/opinions/2014/2/maps-cartographycolonialismnortheurocentricglobe/jcr:content/mainpar/adaptiveimage/src.adapt.960.high.corrective_map.1411593200653.jpg)
And...
http://www.destsetters.com/destination/KzjNgbLZk6/gay-algarve-portugal (http://www.destsetters.com/destination/KzjNgbLZk6/gay-algarve-portugal)
We are selling renewable energy to Morocco.
Making a lot of trade agreements with the Moors.
Ain't history ironic... or not. The Reconquest was basically about trade and culture and a few fights so each part could honor his side...
By the way, just to inform my American friends, I remember them that the Sultan of Morocco was the first to recognize the USA as a nation. :lol:
What an enlightened Sultan they had at the time.
By the way, just to inform my American friends, I remember them that the Sultan of Morocco was the first to recognize the USA as a nation. :lol:
What an enlightened Sultan they had at the time.
And, yet, within a decade we had to go to war against them — because piracy in the name of Islam was "by the book"…
That line from the Marine Corps hymn "to the shores of Tripoli" has a historical basis. (Europeans wouldn't know this: They've forgotten more history than there's ever been; nowadays, there's only "critical theory" and its progenitors.)
That line from the Marine Corps hymn "to the shores of Tripoli" has a historical basis. (Europeans wouldn't know this: They've forgotten more history than there's ever been; nowadays, there's only "critical theory" and its progenitors.)
Tripoli is Libya, the capital of Morocco is Rabat.
And you pretend to give geography and history lessons to Europeans...
United States of Africa? African Union launches all-Africa passport (http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/05/africa/african-union-passport/)
Cool. Africans have a lot going for them nowadays, unlike in the previous century. :)
Where hope goes to die.
https://www.facebook.com/AfricanUnionCommission/ (https://www.facebook.com/AfricanUnionCommission/)
You would have to tell the average ex-colonist where Morocco is as geography outside the country is a no-no.
Portugal Dominated Angola for Centuries. Now the Roles Are Reversed. (https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/europe/angola-portugal-money-laundering.html)
(https://cdn1.nyt.com/images/2017/08/22/world/xxAngola-portugal1/xxAngola-portugal1-articleLarge.jpg)
LISBON — How the roles have reversed: The colonizer, some Portuguese contend, has been colonized.
On the Portuguese coast of Cascais, where the nation’s royal court used to summer, a new 14-story condominium building looms (https://vimeo.com/20173381)confidently (https://vimeo.com/20173381) by the sea. So many of its apartments have been bought by Angola’s ruling class — sometimes a handful at a time — that the development has a nickname: the “Angolans’ building.”
Along the grandest shopping boulevard in the capital, Lisbon, Angola’s elite buy designer suits and handbags by the armful. And on one corner, above Louis Vuitton, sits the local office of Africa’s richest woman (https://www.forbes.com/profile/isabel-dos-santos/), Isabel dos Santos, a billionaire from Angola who has become one of Portugal’s most powerful figures by buying large chunks of the country’s banking, media and energy industries.
The money flowing into Portugal comes from the colony it dominated, often brutally, for hundreds of years, Angola. Now, the African nation is a major oil producer that has been led for the last 38 years by Ms. dos Santos’s father, President José Eduardo dos Santos.
Angola’s ruling class has profited so much during his tenure — and channeled so much of that money into Portugal — that when Angola threatened to cut off ties (http://www.france24.com/en/20131031-angola-portugal-row-investigation-fortune-business-trade) in recent years in response to reports that Angolan officials were being investigated for corruption in Portugal, Portugal’s foreign minister promptly apologized, setting off an intercontinental debate about the changing power dynamics between the nations.
It seems Neto dos Santos and his kleptomaniac klan has fallen in disgrace, Being substituted by whom'? His Vice of course.
Portugal remais silent, as well as the rest of the world. So much oil to profit from there.
Hey maybe if Angola can have a Head of State that long maybe Portugal should get it's king back........
New elections in Zimbabwe, this time without Mugabe, only his comrade-in-arms.
(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/31/zimbabwe-opposition-leader-claims-he-is-on-course-for-election-win)
Zimbabwe election: tensions rise amid vote rigging fears (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/31/zimbabwe-opposition-leader-claims-he-is-on-course-for-election-win)
Zimbabwe election: tensions rise amid vote rigging fears
Will Putin rig the election in Zimbabwe too? :o
What propaganda mind swallowing is that comment about Putin. The US is world champion on interference.
Peace might break out in South Sudan. Then again, it might not.
What are the prospects for South Sudan’s new peace agreement? Here are the critical next steps. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/10/29/what-are-the-prospects-for-south-sudans-new-peace-agreement-here-are-the-critical-next-steps/?utm_term=.75c58b549619)
What propaganda mind swallowing is that comment about Putin. The US is world champion on interference.
He was being sarcastic. ;)
The visitors to read the content of this genus have not fully make up for the lack of explanation as to take part in.
Armistice day. It has been a wild century.
(https://infographics.economist.com/2014/1914-19Swiper/img/20140802_1914.png)
Nobody cares...
Hardly anyone, rather. The three wars, First and Second World Wars, and the Cold War, ended empires and colonies.
Started with the US a great colonial power, ended with it the hegemon. It started with China an Afghanistan, ended with it a great power. The fall, rise and fall of the Russian Empire.
The First World War gave us the Spanish Flu and modernity, at a non-negligible cost. We got Communism, Fascism, and Libertarianism. We got peace in Europe and strife in North Africa and the Middle East.
Things probably happened in Portugal too. :P
Things in Portugal are beyond your capacity of comprehension,
I'd never suggest otherwise. :)
Likewise the EU is taking over the G5 Sahel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G5_Sahel) as a European issue will have long term consequences.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/G5_Sahel_map.svg)
What does the coup mean for Mali's spiralling security crisis? (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/coup-mali-spiralling-security-crisis-200830123003087.html)In the weeks leading up to the coup, tens of thousands of opposition supporters had taken to the streets to protest against a disputed parliamentary election, persistent economic woes and a spiralling security crisis that erupted in 2012, when a previous coup allowed northern Tuareg separatists, allied with an al-Qaeda offshoot, to take advantage of the political instability and briefly seize large swaths of land in the north.
That loss of territory precipitated the currently devolving situation, with armed groups linked to ISIL (ISIS) and al-Qaeda capitalising on intercommunal tensions as they jockey for control of Mali's semi-arid centre.
But along with the hope of the social and political reforms demanded during the mass anti-Keita protests, the reality of the continuing conflicts in the country's vast north and central regions remains. And while the coup has cast into uncertainty Mali's political future, it has also raised fears the effects of the upheaval could further spill beyond the country's borders and threaten the wider region.
...as an Amer-ee-can, I'm expected to be a little slow on the uptake, no? :)
Thank for all the info, jax. I agree the area and its united front organization is important and worthwhile. Which makes the latest coup in Mali problematical...
(Imagine Algeria opposing the organization! The country that taught France its hard-won expertise in COIN... :( )
Even this old paleoconservative is glad that the U.S. overcame its reticence, to offer funding. A good use of "foreign aid" and certainly better than any U.S. military involvement!
Thanks to Google Translate, I read the French article (https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2017/06/20/2597413-onu-accord-entre-paris-washington-force-anti-jihadistes-sahel.html)... Is it just me, or just French, or has Google Translate really got better? (Serious question, folks!)
Thanks to Google Translate, I read the French article (https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2017/06/20/2597413-onu-accord-entre-paris-washington-force-anti-jihadistes-sahel.html)... Is it just me, or just French, or has Google Translate really got better? (Serious question, folks!)
It has greatly improved, but you should go to DeepL for even better machine translation.
...as an Amer-ee-can, I'm expected to be a little slow on the uptake, no? :)
Thank for all the info, jax. I agree the area and its united front organization is important and worthwhile. Which makes the latest coup in Mali problematical...
To me Sahel looks set to be the Central Asia of the twenty-twenties (and if unlucky, as likely as not, the twenty-thirties as well). Everyone has to be there, nobody knows why, nor how to get out of there. But much like Afghanistan back in the good old days, looking the other way, and forgetting about it, will lead to more trouble in the long run.
I don't know how long the US will have the stamina to continue the War on Terror, but Sahel is the happening place to be, and it is going to be worse before it gets better. It is also likely to export trouble to coastal West Africa, which would worry the EU, particularly as one of the goals is to stem immigration.
If the US goal instead is to counter China, this G5 is not the place to be. China has for natural geographical reasons more interests in East Africa, particularly with the Belt and Road Initiative.
Among UNDP's 189 countries on the
Human Development Index (2018) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index), non-landlocked Mauritania is ranked 162, Burkina Faso 182, Mali 184, Chad 187, and Niger 189.
I don't know how long the US will have the stamina to continue the War on Terror
Or the requisite understanding...
For your consideration: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/fighting-terrorism-focus-on-extremists-radicalizing-next-generation/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-09-03&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
Not surprised at a coup. The African Continent is a groan and much is a farce.
Now, now, Howie! Don't over-complicate things. Keep your analysis clear and to the point! :)
The cables that link up Europe and Africa are very limited at the moment.
The power cables between Spain and Morocco are expected to nearly double to 1500 MW. The Malta–Sicily interconnector is at a mere 200 MW (supplying power to Malta), and there is no Malta-Tunisia cable.
The biggest project under construction is EuroAfrica, a HVDC connecting Egypt with Cyprus then Crete (then eventually the Greek mainland).
EuroAfrica at a glance (https://www.euroafrica-interconnector.com/at-glance/)The EuroAfrica Interconnector is the official project developer of the 2,000MW electricity interconnector between Egypt, Cyprus, Greece and Europe. The EuroAfrica Interconnector is an “electricity highway” connecting the national electricity grids of Egypt, Cyprus and Greece through a 1396 km subsea HVDC cable.
Shows how much you don't know about the mess of a place Africa is on progress Oakdale. As so much of you place is in a groan of a state can understand how you can be head banged!
I know there's some English words there, Howie, but I can't for the life of me figure out what you mean... I think I get "groan of a state," but "head banged"? What is that? Dizzy, woozy or unsteady -- as if one had been hit on the head?
Oh dear poor limited man! It means when one says head-banged when people are brained rather simply and seem incapable of doing anything about it. That especially is a States thing as you have to be rich to be noted! :D
"Brained"!? Another colloquialism peculiar to the Scots dialect, I presume?
I have a time or two been cold-cocked, punched from behind and left reeling. And I've been bamboozled a few times, led astray and put-on and put upon... But I still don't quite get your meaning.
I've learned over the years to accept and accommodate my limits, boy-o! But you seem utterly unaware of yours.
Shall we return to the topic?
(Though I confess, I have more fun with this particular sort of digression! :) To the rest of you here: My thanks for your indulgence. And to the inimitable Howie himself, my congratulations and condolences: Lord knows, the boy can't he'p hisself! )
Oh dear I have always been inherently a brain user you unlucky man over in nutjobland! :up:
Perhaps. But if only it connected to your mouth, your eyes and fingers, and to your curiosity! :)
Gentlemen offending each other. How amusing! :)
How quaint.
I do note what is a scant knowledge from you Barulheira but live on hope dear person!
Gentlemen offending each other. How amusing!
Pay the
Howie no mind,
Barulheira! Your understanding is more than adequate! You've described it perfectly....
@
jax: Quite! :) Don't let anyone tell you different: It can be fun to get old.
We all got more experience with that. It's now 19 years since the Opera web forum opened. That's a significant chunk of a lifetime.
(In Norwegian penal code 21 years is a lifetime; we're getting there soon.)
We all got more experience with that. It's now 19 years since the Opera web forum opened.
Nobody has changed. We're the same ones.
OI don't mind OakdaleFTL's comment re me as I make allowances for where he lives!
Deadly flooding spreads across Africa’s Sahel region (https://www.france24.com/en/20200910-deadly-flooding-spreads-across-africa-s-sahel-region)
Record floods have inflicted severe damage across the Sahel region in recent weeks, leaving dozens dead and tens of thousands homeless from Sudan to Senegal.
OI don't mind OakdaleFTL's comment re me as I make allowances for where he lives!
And knowing that vice is worse, sir, I don't reprove you. The others should know by now (as I do!) that as a babe in arms can be quite fetching -when it's sleeping, you can be quite reasonable -when you've been drinking! :)
(Too bad California can't trade some of its excess fire for some of their water,
jax...)
Just passing this on,
(https://i.redd.it/wj16uhyjmch61.jpg)
Yes, that's more or less correct.
I know because I'm an even less poor Moor speaking proper Portuguese with V sound. :)
Good news and bad news: ISWAP militant group says Nigeria’s Boko Haram leader is dead (https://www.reuters.com/world/islamic-state-west-african-province-says-nigerias-boko-haram-leader-is-dead-2021-06-06/)
Bad news: At least 160 killed in deadliest attack in Burkina Faso since 2015 (https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210605-dozens-of-civilians-killed-in-attack-on-northern-burkina-faso-village)
Ongoing news: Mali junta boss to be sworn in as interim president (https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210607-mali-junta-boss-to-be-sworn-in-as-interim-president)
The Islamic State West African Province branch is doing well at the moment.
Today I discovered that Norwegian TV's Brennpunkt is (globally?) available without obstacles. So I took a look at how Norwegian recycling works. Namely, e-waste, tyres, and cars get dumped to Africa, where locals process it to something monetisable as best as they can. The journey of the waste to Africa is illegal every step of the way, but no authority takes any responsibility to check up on anything https://tv.nrk.no/serie/brennpunkt/2019/MDDP11000819/avspiller
Søppelsmuglerne (The Garbage Smugglers) is a nice documentary, unfortunately I couldn't find subtitles except in Norwegian (3/4 of the documentary is in Norwegian, 1/4 in English).
It's more intriguing than what you said. Among others Italian mafias have been paid to dispose of hazardous waste, and they have done so by digging it down somewhere nobody wants to ask questions, or exported it to countries where not too many questions have been asked. This is not that story. And most steps on the way are actually perfectly legal, as long as questions aren't asked. It's the business model that is surprising.
First, the cars. In Norway (and Sweden) you have
vrakpant, a small fee paid to you by the government when you wreck the car, at 3000 NOK ($340). It's not a lot, but it is enough that car owners no longer drive their worthless wrecks into the forest or a lake to rust, but take it to be disposed of properly.
Second, the electronic waste. While there is no fee to be gained here, in the EU retailers of electric and electronic equipment have to take returns on such waste, and it is illegal to dump it. Since the retailers have to pass the e-waste on they do lose some money on their part of the recycling infrastructure, storage and transport, but not a lot.
And here it gets interesting. This business plan is not to relieve the retailers of their e-waste. Instead they steal the e-waste. This could be bog-standard dumpster diving, but it is heavily implied it's more organised than that. Employees complain about threats if they try to stop it. And considered as theft who are they stealing from? The consumer who returned the e-waste, the retailer, or the recycling system itself? In any case you only steal something of positive value.
Likewise with the cars. The documentary makes a calculation for one of the actors (who according to records own 95 vehicles without licence plates). The cars are bought above-board and legally, paying an average of 12k NOK for them. Since cars have an implicit minimum value of 3k, which he foregoes, and it costs 9k to ship a car to Nigeria, where is the profit?
Next surprise: the cars are filled with up with e-waste and other low-value products like worn out car tyres. The windows spray-painted black. In other words the cars are used as containers. But even a van is a small container compared with a real shipping container, and more expensive.
That reason isn't so hard to guess. They are smuggling, and it is harder for customs officers to look into a shipped locked cars than a shipping container that is built to be opened. And e-waste can't be exported from EU, nor imported into the countries in question.
Now we get to the business model. Many of the cars are usable, but they don't fulfil EU requirements, and can't be driven on EU roads. Others are non-usable, but they are essentially car spare parts on wheels. Neither can be legally imported into the countries in question, but there is a demand. According to their calculation the car bought in Norway for average 12k NOK can be sold in Nigeria for 48k NOK, giving them a pretty nice profit margin even with that 9k NOK transport.
The e-waste doesn't seem that profitable. Some can be reused, most goes for scrap. Hard to see how they could make more than 5k NOK on that, probably way less. But it adds to the marginal profit.
It isn't quite like the cocaine trade, but the beauty is that it is mostly legal. The people who steal the e-waste may break the law, but stealing garbage is not very high risk. Buying old cars is legal. Stuffing old cars with e-waste is legal. Transporting cars is legal. Shipping cars to Nigeria is legal. The freight forwarder would be breaking the law as what is written on the manifest is untrue. However exporting electronics is not illegal, neither is exporting old functioning cars. Prosecutors have to show that the electronics are actually waste, and that the cars can't drive. Possible, but time-consuming.
It's more intriguing than what you said.
Yes, it's intriguing, but now you totally spoiled it so that nobody will watch it.
And most steps on the way are actually perfectly legal, as long as questions aren't asked.
For the authorities in question (police, customs, motor vehicle registry, tax office, etc.) I'd say it is illegal to not ask the relevant questions. I blame the authorities the most. It should be embarrassing for them - and incriminating - that the journalists have to ask the questions.
This business plan is not to relieve the retailers of their e-waste. Instead they steal the e-waste. This could be bog-standard dumpster diving, but it is heavily implied it's more organised than that. Employees complain about threats if they try to stop it. And considered as theft who are they stealing from? The consumer who returned the e-waste, the retailer, or the recycling system itself?
This is a point which should raise questions: Theft of waste along with violent threats? If the police does nothing here, hickuped by the problem of who is the theft from, we have identified a loophole in law and its enforcement. Violent threats should be illegal and counteractionable no matter what.
Likewise with the cars. The documentary makes a calculation for one of the actors (who according to records own 95 vehicles without licence plates). The cars are bought above-board and legally, paying an average of 12k NOK for them. Since cars have an implicit minimum value of 3k, which he foregoes, and it costs 9k to ship a car to Nigeria, where is the profit?
Why can anyone own/buy/sell 95 cars within a few years? How is this not noticed? Shouldn't it be considered a business and isn't there a tax problem here, as a minimum?
Later in the programme the shadow owners also say they receive some money to their accounts for this car laundering after the cars are gone. This is evidently also unnoticed and unprosecuted by the authorities.
They are smuggling, and it is harder for customs officers to look into a shipped locked cars than a shipping container that is built to be opened.
Locked doors, missing plates, sprayed windows - should these not give a reason to confiscate the car, examine it thoroughly and prosecute whoever is connected to it? Since when are opaque car/van windows legal? How is it hard to stop an obviously suspicious shipment that could contain anything?
The e-waste doesn't seem that profitable. Some can be reused, most goes for scrap.
The programme shows how the less presentable scrap is taken apart in Africa and melted down to get the last bit of valuable metals and whatnot out of it. Only completely unusable waste goes to waste in Africa. Africans are the real recyclers. The first world is only faking it and failing miserably.
Most cars stolen in Portugal go to Africa. Cars are dismantled in illegal car workshops, exported by ship and mounted at the destiny. The legal owners never recover their cars. That's why you see so many luxury cars at most African capitals.
I suppose the same happens at other european countries.
Most cars stolen in Portugal go to Africa. Cars are dismantled in illegal car workshops, exported by ship and mounted at the destiny. The legal owners never recover their cars. That's why you see so many luxury cars at most African capitals.
Luxury cars? Shouldn't it be the same barely moving scrap that got stolen?
I suppose the same happens at other european countries.
For me it was a bit surprising to see (in the Brennpunkt documentary) that the destination of Scandinavian scrap was Africa. I thought the destination was (still) the Baltics and Poland.
Clearly the business model is export of old cars from Europe to African countries. The smuggling angle is that the export rules of Europe are different from the import rules of these countries. There is no age rule, we do after all have antique cars, but there is a vehicle inspection every one or two years to see if they are roadworthy. If they fail they cannot be driven on public roads, which obviously reduces their value. There is an annual fee, in Norway around 3000 NOK, for registered cars. If a car fails the inspection, and it is too expensive to fix it, the incentive would be to de-register and wreck. The traders/smugglers have found a more profitable way.
Vehicle controls in the EU are strict, stricter than many or most other places on the planet. Cars that fail the controls might have a second life elsewhere as cars or spare parts. Even if they fail the controls they can be exported as long as they are not bundles of scrap metals (that many of these cars clearly are). Are the African countries wrong to ban cars older than 10 or 15 years? No, they are absolutely right, it's better for them, and better for the environment. But there is a more elegant solution: Cars can be exported from EU (or in case of Norway EEA) contingent on an export licence to that country, based on report from an EU export vehicle control and the importing country's vehicle rules, and cannot be shipped to a third country.
E-waste is a different story. This is clearly not dumpster diving, but people reselling e-waste to a middleman. According to comments this is a downstreaming process. E-waste that is usable and resellable in Norway is resold. Most are passed through to market places in West Africa. By volume and value more can likely be resold than reduced to raw material.
Burning wires and products for metal value is an ancient and simple method that used to be common in Europe as well as the rest of the world, but it is inefficient, unhealthy, and polluting, and thus eventually prohibited.
New and future EU regulation on repairability and recyclability will greatly reduce this problem. For now, as mentioned in the documentary, cars with spray-painted windows will no longer be shipped.
Burning wires and products for metal value is an ancient and simple method that used to be common in Europe as well as the rest of the world, but it is inefficient, unhealthy, and polluting, and thus eventually prohibited.
At construction sites here some workers pick up all the wires and cables (and other stuff) they can, because evidently they know how to make money on it as a side-business. They extract the metal by some fine handicraftiness, if not by burning. Burning is crude indeed, but to not recycle such heavy industrial waste at all means that recycling as a whole is not working.
As you say, "inefficient, unhealthy, and polluting, and thus eventually prohibited." Under a properly working recycling regime, production of unrecyclable stuff would be prohibited, because such stuff is inefficient, unhealthy, and polluting.
New and future EU regulation on repairability and recyclability will greatly reduce this problem. For now, as mentioned in the documentary, cars with spray-painted windows will no longer be shipped.
False hope. The situation will remain the same for this entire century, likely longer.
A full circular economy is a much bigger project, like you said unlikely to complete this century. OTOH unlikely not to be the state of the next.
An ever-growing number of products and processes are designed with their destruction/disassembly in mind. Nuts and bolts were pretty reversible, but we are unlikely to return to them. A lot of ingenuity goes into laminates. Delamination is highly undesirable in a product's lifetime, but very desirable afterwards.
Metals were our first reusable objects, and metal alloys can be reverted to their elemental origins. However both the making of and the reuse of metals is very energy expensive, and especially now that we depend on fossil fuels for energy metals metals are the least attractive option for most purposes.
Algeria’s move to English signals erosion of France’s sway...when the sign on Emmanuel Macron’s lectern at the Algerian presidential palace last week read “Presidency of the Republic” instead of “Présidence de la République” in French (after all, Algeria was part of the French colonial empire for well over a century), diplomats and casual observers in Paris took note.
“I wasn’t surprised but I was shocked [Algeria] would do such a thing during the visit of a French president,” said France’s former ambassador to Algeria, Xavier Driencourt.
Evidently there had been much macroning in Algeria long before Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron's statements in Le Monde caused a diplomatic crisis between the two states. Macron accused Algeria's "political-military system" of still using colonialism to excuse its own failures. "Since 1962, the Algerian nation has been feeding off a memory that says France is the problem," Macron was quoted as saying in the French newspaper. Moreover – and this caused an outcry in Algiers – he questioned whether Algeria had ever been a nation before the colonial era.
[...]
Consequently, the government in Algiers recalled its ambassador last autumn and stopped overflight rights for French military jets over the Sahel. Macron let it be known shortly afterwards – through an advisor – that he regretted the "polemic" and the "misunderstandings". At the beginning of December last year, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian travelled to Algeria. After three months, the diplomatic crisis was over. But not a single official representative of the Algerian government took part in the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the ceasefire in the Algerian war held at the end of March. Macron called for further reconciliation between France and the former French colony.
Those EU biggies mess things up badly even in areas where they really should know better. They cannot be trusted with any geopolitics whatsoever.
Basically, the colonial macroning of the EU biggies has gambled Africa away to Russia, probably for good.
This week, Niger’s military — the same one the EU pledged to train — took the country’s democratically elected president hostage and proclaimed it was now in charge. As the coup unfolded, the Kremlin-linked Wagner mercenary group was quick to take (dubious) credit for helping and Russian propagandists gladly spread the message widely.
For Europe, it’s a major setback. The Continent has lost significant sway in the region after similar military coups in nearby countries like Mali and Burkina Faso. Those events forced France, once a local colonial power, to pull out and shift its strategy. It will now have to do so again, alongside its EU allies.
Here's Prigozhin on the summit with African invitees in Russia two days ago. Apparently Wagner's focus is back in Africa https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-66333403
(https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/16F7B/production/_130557049_microsoftteams-image.png.webp)
Over the decades I have had to correct my perception on EU biggies. In 00's I used to think they were getting some things on geopolitics unfortunately wrong, but the principle of doing it, the diplomatic strategy, was correct. In 10's I have corrected it to: The EU has no spine and it gets nothing right, literally nothing, neither geopolitics, diplomacy, strategy, or tactics, as measured both by trends of progress and final results.
Prove me wrong.
French media is worried that France's colonial grip in Africa is slipping to Russia's gain. An enthusiast priest even made his church Russian Orthodox.
Les cheveux sculptés en deux tresses verticales, Elisabeth Valérienne Akékabou, fidèle de l’église, tempère : « La Russie est en Centrafrique depuis longtemps. Au lycée, ma seconde langue était le russe. Dans les années 1990, ils étaient moins présents à cause de la situation là-bas, mais les temps changent et les intérêts renaissent. Aujourd’hui, Wagner nous protège contre les rebelles. Tout ce qu’on veut, c’est vivre en paix. »
Russomania in Africa may not last long or run very deep, but I suspect Francomania will never return.
Dutch royal couple paid a visit to "listen and learn" in Slave Lodge in Cape Town, South Africa.
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As they entered the two-story building with creaky floors, they were confronted by members of another royal house: a small group of leaders of the Khoi and the San, the Indigenous groups who were first displaced 350 years ago by Dutch colonists in what is today Cape Town.
[...]
The king struck an apologetic tone on his three-day visit to the country, but made no apology or restitution, instead stressing that he was there to listen and learn.
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“We wanted them to compensate us with projects, like hospitals, education and especially our mines, which were taken away from us,” [Khoi San Princess Dondelaya Damons] told a television news channel.
The Dutch royals listened to their grievances, in keeping with their pledge to make this an educational tour. It included a trip to the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg and a visit to Freedom Park, an open-air museum in Pretoria, which traces South Africa’s history of oppression. They mingled with L.G.B.T. activists and inspected a green energy project. The couple also met with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.
I'm not sure to what extent the king can put things on the political agenda.
Indeed, probably he cannot do much. He is merely the king.