Africa

Russian-African Network University Established at V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University

August 29, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Africa, Education, General updates, Healthcare, Russia

Russian-African Network University Established at V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University–

Aug. 27, 2022 (EIRNS)–The V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University, which was established on the basis of the Tauride University, set up in Simferopol, Crimea by Vladimir Vernadsky in 1920, will host the Russia-African Network University (RAFU), holding classes from Aug. 29-Sept. 9. Crimean Federal University was one of the initiators in the creation of this network, so they were given the opportunity to coordinate the summer university project with the participation of African students.

RAFU Summer University is implemented on the platforms of 10 universities located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Republic of Crimea, Rostov-on-Don, and Astrakhan. In total, the international educational project will bring together more than a hundred African students.

According to the press service of the university, students of the RAFU Summer University project will be trained in two additional educational programs of medical direction: reproductive medicine and laparoscopic surgery. “The endoscopic surgery program will include training on the equipment of our simulation center. The work on special simulators—endoscopic workstations—fully simulates the course of laparoscopic surgery.” They will also visit leading clinics in Crimea and will have the opportunity to visit Crimea’s sights as part of a cultural leisure program.

China’s Overview of the Program of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation

August 19, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Africa, Agriculture, China, COVID-19, Economic development updates, General updates, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Power & Energy, Railway projects, So. Africa

China’s Overview of the Program of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation—

Aug. 18, 2022 (EIRNS)–The FOCAC (Forum on China-Africa Cooperation) Coordinators’ meeting to follow up on FOCAC program implementation, took place Aug. 18. In anticipation of the meeting, Li Zhigang, Chargé d’ Affaires of the Chinese Embassy in South Africa, wrote an overview of these programs, which appeared in the Independent Online (IOL) Aug. 17.

One project of especial interest: “The two sides have set up a China-Africa RMB [renminbi] center to explore RMB settlement for China-Africa trade, logistics, and industrial cooperation.”

The nine broad points are presented here in brief:

The medical and health program: China has provided more than 250 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Africa, covering almost all African countries, and launched joint production of COVID-19 vaccine in Egypt, Algeria and Morocco. China has made constant efforts to pair up Chinese and African hospitals for cooperation, and the African CDC headquarters project (Phase I) is expected to be completed in early 2023. China has also been helping with control of malaria, schistosomiasis and AIDS.

Poverty reduction and agricultural development program: China has provided emergency food aid and other humanitarian assistance to the Horn of Africa and other regions. China has offered locust control insecticides, irrigation equipment, and technical assistance. The first four “China-Africa joint centers for modern agrotechnology exchange, demonstration and training” have been set up to train professionals in the fields of tropical crops, aquaculture, biomass energy and dry farming.

Trade promotion: From January to June this year, China-Africa trade volume registered U.S. $137.38 billion, up by 16.6% year-on-year, of which China’s exports to and imports from Africa increased by 14.7% and 19.1% respectively. China has opened “green lanes” for faster export of African agricultural products to China. As a result, products such as Rwandan stevia, South African fresh pears and soybeans, and Zimbabwean citrus have gained access to the Chinese market. China has signed agreements with Togo, Eritrea, Djibouti, Guinea, Rwanda, Mozambique, Sudan, Chad and Central Africa, among other LDCs, on expanding the scope of zero-tariff treatment to 98% for products exported to China, covering 350 kinds of African products.

Investment promotion program: From January to June this year, China’s industry-wide direct investment in Africa amounted to U.S. $1.74 billion, growing by 1.5% against all the odds. The turnover of Chinese enterprises’ contracted projects in Africa amounted to U.S. $18.32 billion, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year. The two sides have set up a China-Africa RMB center to explore RMB settlement for China-Africa trade, logistics and industrial cooperation. China has continued to provide aid in the form of grants, interest-free loans and concessional loans to help African countries achieve independent and sustainable development.

Digital innovation program: To expand Silk Road e-commerce cooperation, China and Africa have jointly made a success out of the “Quality African Products Online Shopping Festival” to market African products in China. Fifteen China-Africa science and technology cooperation projects have been initiated.

Green development program: China has completed the construction of hydroelectric power stations, photo-voltaic power stations, and water supply projects. China participates in the “Great Green Wall of Africa” initiative, and strengthens cooperation with Africa in desertification control.

Capacity-building program: China provides vocational skills training for local youths where there are Chinese enterprises in Africa, and give the graduates jobs in these enterprises. China helps African students who have completed study courses in China to find jobs in Chinese enterprises in Africa.

People-to-people exchange program: The first Conference on Dialogue Between Chinese and African Civilizations and the 11th Meeting of the China-Africa Think Tanks Forum were successfully held, contributing to the building of a China-Africa community with a shared future.

The African Film Festival project: It has introduced well-made African films and TV shows to the Chinese audience. The “2022 China Culture and Tourism Month” has served as a window for African friends to learn and understand more about China.

The peace and security program: At the second China-Africa Peace and Security Forum, the two sides agreed to maintain strategic communication, strengthen cooperation in equipment and technology, expand maritime exercises and training, and enhance exchanges in professional fields. Chinese peacekeeping troops to Africa have performed to satisfaction, and the 25th batch of Chinese peacekeeping troops sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo was awarded the United Nations “Peace Medal.”

The full text of Li Zhigang’s article is here.

African Nations Plan To Develop Their Fossil Fuel Resources, Climate Change Be Damned

August 7, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Africa, Britain, Economic development updates, Environmentalism updates, General updates, Power & Energy

Aug. 6, 2022 (EIRNS)–The folks at London’s fanatically Malthusian the Guardian are besides themselves, having been leaked a document revealing that African nations are discussing going into next November’s COP27 UN climate summit with a common position asserting their right to develop their fossil fuel resources, in order to develop.

In an Aug. 1 “exclusive,” the Guardian reports that someone passed them a five-page “technical document” with an accompanying 25-page explanation revealing the plan, which was prepared by the African Union for a June 14-16 meeting of AU energy ministers. That document asserts that “in the short to medium term, fossil fuels, especially natural gas, will have to play a crucial role in expanding modern energy access in addition to accelerating the uptake of renewables.”

The Guardian warned that if Africa dares to proceed on “new exploration for gas, and the exploitation of Africa’s vast reserves of oil,” the entire climate scheme might collapse.

Africa must not advance past unreliable “sun and wind,” the head of the green “Power Shift Africa” thinktank, Mohamad Adow insists! Africa Coal Network coordinator Lorraine Chiponda denounced African leaders discussing such an idea as “reckless,” even as she admitted that 600 million people in Africa “live in energy poverty.” That is, they have no access to electricity.

The British Royal Family is on the case. On July 6, a fellow at Chatham House/Royal Institute of International Relations issued a so-called “expert opinion,” warning that this year’s UN COP27 summit being hosted by Egypt, an African nation, is a problem. Egypt has not set any quantifiable emission reduction targets, has no economy-wide carbon reduction target, and never published a long-term strategy for decarbonization. It is also the second-largest producer of natural gas in Africa, and is becoming a fossil gas hub for the Eastern Mediterranean, it notes. Furthermore, Egypt has “voiced support for other African countries to extract and deploy fossil gas and oil resources, making it one of the protagonists of the ‘great fossil gas pushback’. These advocates defend the right of developing countries to deploy fossil gas as a ‘transition fuel’ and champion its necessity to solve energy poverty,” the author complained.

With typical imperial arrogance, however, the author assures that Egypt will be “malleable,” if attention is paid to change its stance.

Lavrov’s In-Depth Briefing on the Strategic Situation to African Union Members

July 29, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Africa, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Russia, Sanctions, World war danger updates

July 28 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov culminated his four-nation African tour on July 27 in Addis Ababa with a thorough, broad-ranging briefing at the Russian embassy to the permanent representatives of the member countries of the 55-nation African Union and to the accredited diplomatic corps in Ethiopia. As he did in similar briefings in the three other nations he visited—Egypt, Uganda and the Republic of Congo—Lavrov cut through Western lies about how Russia had caused the global food and fertilizer shortage, explaining the role that sanctions played, but also hitting the “reckless policy of the Western countries on the so-called Green Transition, and all this has brought the price of fertilizers high, which of course affected the price of food.” Problems in the world food market actually started at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, he noted.

The Foreign Minister also went through a detailed history of the 2014 Maidan coup, the years-long assault by Kiev Nazis on the populations of the Donbas and the “red lines” that Russia had established, the crossing of which would force to respond.

Lavrov made clear that a new paradigm is emerging to replace the old “rules based order” –an order in which there is “no single criteria, no single principle except one. If I want something, you have to obey. If you don’t obey you will be punished.” He expressed the certainty that the overwhelming majority of the world’s countries don’t want to live “as if the colonial times came back.” They prefer to be independent, to rely on their own tradition, their history, and their old friends. They don’t wish to betray their old friends. That is clear, he said, in the fact that except for two or three developing countries, “no one else in Africa, Asia or Latin America joined the illegal American and European sanctions” against Russia.

Most normal countries, Lavrov said, want to be independent, want to choose their own development model, based on the will of their people. “Nobody wants to have enemies.”
Contrast this to NATO, he said, which as it just did at its Madrid meeting, “appoints enemies, they appoint the order in which they handle these enemies. Now Russia is the first, China is earmarked as the existential challenge for the long term.” Now, the West is trying to figure out how to confiscate Russian money, but “if they become irritated by somebody else tomorrow or the day after, they might do the same.” There is no rationality in the way the West operates, Lavrov emphasizes.

This is the context in which Lavrov suggested that reliance on the dollar as the instrument supporting the world economy “is not very promising,” and it’s not by accident that more and more countries are shifting to using alternative currencies, shifting to use national currencies more and more “and this process will be gaining momentum.” He cautioned that Russia isn’t proposing a revolution against the dollar and the U.S., but the point is that the U.S. has tossed out all principles of the free market, fair competition, sanctity of private property, presumption of innocence. “All these principles have been thrown down the drain.” They are now punishing Russia, he said, but warned that any other country that “irritates” them will be punished likewise. This is a full transcript of Minister Lavrov’s remarks and questions to him.

New UN Report Calls for Urgent Aid to 20 ‘Hunger Hotpots’

June 9, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Africa, Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Green New Deal, Sanctions

June 8, 2022 (EIRNS)–The UN report “Hunger Hotspots FAO-WFP Early Warnings on Acute Food Insecurity June to September 2022 Outlook” was issued June 6, sounding the alarm on the scale of the world hunger crisis today. The joint authors of this periodical report are the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Among the 20 nations listed as in need for “urgent aid,” the WFP press release on the report stated that “Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen remain at ‘highest alert’ as hotspots with catastrophic conditions, and Afghanistan and Somalia are new entries to this worrisome category since the last hotspots report in January 2022. These six countries all have parts of the population facing the IPC (5-point scale of severity of hunger–ed.) phase 5 `Catastrophe’… with up to 750,000 people facing starvation and death. 400,000 of these are in Ethiopia’s Tigray region….The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, the Sahel, the Sudan and Syria remain ‘of very high concern,’ with deteriorating critical conditions.”

The report gives country-specific information on the food requirements to save millions of lives.

Africa Faces an ‘Unprecedented Crisis,’ UN Warns

May 11, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Africa, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Nigeria, Sanctions, World war danger updates

Africa Faces an ‘Unprecedented Crisis,’ UN Warns —

May 9, 2022 (EIRNS)—Representatives of the United Nations warned of major crises emerging in the continent of Africa due to the Western sanctions against Russia, in a press conference on May 6 in Geneva. Al Jazeera reported the UN officials said that the ongoing conflict has not only led to shortages of wheat, fertilizer and other goods, but also zooming inflation has impacted many nations, pointing out that already, commodity prices have soared—with the price of sunflower and colza oil shooting up 40%. “This is an unprecedented crisis for the continent,” UNDP Africa chief economist Raymond Gilpin said on May 6. “We are seeing a reduction of GDP growth on the continent.”

“With the disruptions that now happen, you see an urgent situation materialize because where do these countries turn overnight for commodities?” UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Africa regional director Ahunna Eziakonwa said. “Tensions, particularly in urban areas, low-income communities, could spill over and lead to violent protests and violent riots,” he said, noting that countries holding elections this year and next year were particularly vulnerable.

In a signal development, domestic air travel in Nigeria is stopping completely. The Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) announced that starting on Monday, May 9, all domestic flights will be grounded, due to the soaring price of jet fuel, which has increased from 190 to 700 Nigerian naira per liter (from $0.45/liter to almost $1.70—attributed to the economic effects of the sanctions). This means that even a one-hour flight would cost about 120,000 naira ($289), a sum unaffordable for Nigerians “already experiencing a lot of difficulties,” said AON.