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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    I watched one of these Timeline documentaries on Africa and it was really good. Gonna watch this one tonight:

    There's a bunch of them on different African countries. In the one I watched earlier he traveled with a caravan, crossed a desert and reached a small oasis which supported a village which made its profit off of a salt mine.
    Today is victory over yourself of yesterday. Tomorrow is your victory over lesser men.

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    I have seen many documentaries about the Ark and it being in Ethiopia.
    This is indeed such a beautifully done work and really heart-warming and educational in showing how it is the wealth of spirit that makes these people smile regardless the hardships of life.

    Heh, is seems like the disclosure of the Ark which has been kept secret for thousands of years and that of UFOs are just too similar. In our materialistic view, we seek evidence to feel the expenditure of spiritual focus justified.
    Also the warning of the Ark is similar to that of the truth of UFOs in that the "truth" is too powerful and I guess can only be digested slowly through time.

    Still, these Ethiopian people are beautiful in every sense of the word.

    One other parallel: In Sekret Machines (book 1,2) there is this "revelation" of powerful tablets that can be used by some to gain incredible powers, such as the ability to control material objects but in the "wrong" hands can be devastating.
    Is this what the Ark contains?
    If true, how would disclosure help anyone?
    Those seeking even more power will stop at nothing.

    Anyway, back to Africa.

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    Ancient news from SA!

    Quote Posted by Star Tsar (here)
    Ancient Architects

    8,000-Year-Old Petroglyphs Found Inside the World’s Largest Meteorite Crater

    Published 15th June 2019



    The Vredefort Structure in South Africa is the largest, and second oldest meteorite Impact Crater on Earth, 190 miles wide and created by a 10-mile wide asteroid that struck the earth approximately 2 billion years ago.

    Scientists estimate is was travelling at almost 43,500 miles per hour when it struck the Earth and although today the crater is greatly eroded, you can still see the shape of the crater in satellite imagery.

    It is largest than the Chicxulub site in Mexico that was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs approximately 65 million years ago and today, it is a UNSECO World Heritage Site because of its geological interest.

    But now the crater is also of archaeological interest because whilst geologists were working on the site, they stumbled across a number of ancient engravings also known as petroglyphs, finds that will help experts learn about ancient human civilisation in Southern Africa. Watch the video to find out more about these amazing discoveries.

    All images are taken from Google Images for educational purposes only.

    Read all about it here: :https://www.ancient-origins.net/news...crater-0012142 & https://www.newsweek.com/ancient-car...crater-1443822

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa







    Here are some pictures I took on a site near the Guelb er Richat in Mauritania. The locals had started to highlight the lines to make them better visible for visitors.

    I don‘t know what to make of it. Maybe it is a mix of ancient petroglyphs and more recent graffiti in Arabic script? Tifinagh letters / Berber language (5000 years old)? Proto-Saharan script (5000 - 7000 years old)? The kind of depictions in the first image, I think I‘ve seen them before, but can‘t remember.

    My French was too basic to collect further information, but I‘ll return there anyway.
    Last edited by Iloveyou; 19th June 2019 at 19:00.

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa












    My heart is aching and longing to return. To life, just simple life. The way my financial
    endeavors progress it seems I‘ll have to get used to reduce my baggage to a minimum,
    walk a lot, sleep in a tent (and carry it) and be happy to wash myself once a week.


    A British woman who lives in West Africa told me about a friend back in London. He worked
    for big companies, had burnt himself out, suffered from depression and chronic health issues.
    It took a long time to convince him of visiting her. Then, back in London after several weeks,
    he wrote: You know, at Heathrow airport I was the only person smiling and I just can‘t
    stop it anymore (the smile). I‘ve gone back to the essential like sharing a meal . . .

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa








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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    Rothschilds accused of preying on South Africa's state-owned enterprises

    RT
    Published time: 20 Jun, 2019 10:09
    Get short URL


    © Facebook / FlySAA

    South African unions have joined forces to take on the Rothschild family, which they have accused of being involved in attempts to 'capture' the country’s State Owned Enterprises (SOEs).

    According to the Citizen tabloid, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa and the South African Cabin Crew Association released a joint statement, claiming that the Rothschilds were “interfering” in SOEs for “selfish and greedy purposes.” The statement alleged that the wealthy family intended to collapse South African Airways (SAA) so it could be privatized.

    Quote
    NUMSA @Numsa_Media

    NUMSA and SACCA are united in their demands. We want Vuyani Jarana to be reinstated.#SAAPicket#SAVESAA#SAVEOurSOEs@SAFTU_media@IOL@News24

    11:54 AM - Jun 11, 2019
    The Rothschild family is the most famous of all European banking dynasties; for some 200 years, it has had great influence on the economic and, indirectly, the political history of Europe. It also holds stakes in many businesses internationally.

    The South African unions said that the Rothschilds were using an alleged link to SAA board member Mark Kingston, who is also the executive chair of Rothschild & Co. in South Africa and was previously its CEO. The unions want the removal of various SAA board members, including Kingston, as well as another board member who actually carries the Rothschild name – former Johannesburg Stock Exchange chairperson Geoff Rothschild.

    The unions have called the Rothschilds the new Guptas – linking the controversial South African family accused of various corrupt acts. The Gupta family has been the focus of widespread scrutiny because of its close ties to former president Jacob Zuma.

    South Africa’s Finance Minister Tito Mboweni has been also accused of acting recklessly, when he previously expressed a lack of faith in the airline's future.

    The unions held a protest last week calling for the reinstatement of South African Airways former CEO Vuyani Jarana, whose ‘turnaround strategy’ they want to be implemented.

    Jarana, who was appointed chief executive of South Africa’s embattled national carrier in August 2017, has assured that SAA would not be privatized. He had proposed a plan to make the airline financially self-sustainable by 2021. The CEO resigned early this month due to uncertainty about the airline’s government funding.


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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    At the risk of introducing some levity here (for a moment!), this African Women's Cricket news just hit me like a bombshell.

    For those who don't understand cricket, this ridiculous record defeat is like the equivalent of a football (soccer) match when one side won 100-0.
    Mali women sink to record 304-run defeat in T20I

    Mali women's miserable run in the Kwibuka Women's Twenty20 Tournament 2019 continued for a third straight day, as they sank to a record 304-run defeat against Uganda women on Thursday.

    Mali had already set a world record for the lowest ever total on Tuesday, having been bowled out for 6 against Rwanda.
    Their 10 all out came after Uganda had racked up a massive 314 for 2 after choosing to bat first - the highest total in all T20Is - men or women.

    Here are two of the triumphant Ugandan women. (Presumably, the Mali women didn't want to be photographed. )



    My apologies, if apologies are needed. (But Mali, wow. A little more work may be needed. I just hope they're laughing — they probably are! — and aren't too dejected.)


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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    CNN Report: Protests growing in Sudan against the military council

    The euphoria that erupted following the fall of Omar al-Bashir has faded as a harsh new reality sinks in - one military strongman has replaced another. After the June 3 massacre, Sudan's pro-democracy movement has had to hunker down. But as CNN's Ben Wedeman reports, they are keeping up the fight



    London protests

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    Important development - agreement of an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

    I’m not sure if this is positive news or not. Certainly, it might help some African interests overcome very high costs of doing business across Africa. But it also creates a mechanism for furthering the interests of those with money rather than addressing the cares and concerns of ordinary people. It also may act as a necessary step in the path for those in Europe who are pushing their “Eurafrica” idea (more in the next post).


    https://www.dw.com/en/african-leader...one/a-49503393
    Quote African leaders launch landmark 55-nation trade zone
    It took African countries four years to agree to a free-trade deal in March. The trade zone will unite 1.3 billion people, create a $3.4 trillion economic bloc and usher in a new era of development across the continent.


    African Union summit in Niger on July 7, 2019

    Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and Benin's President Patrice Talon on Sunday signed a landmark trade agreement ahead of the accord's official launch at the African Union (AU) summit in Niger.

    AU commission chairman Moussa Faki dubbed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) deal a "historic" moment.

    Fifty-four out of 55 AU member states agreed to the deal in March, with only Eritrea holding out. It took African leaders four years to reach an agreement on the continental free-trade zone, which is expected to usher in a new era of development in Africa.

    The AfCFTA is the largest trade bloc since the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994.

    Focus on Africa

    "The eyes of the world are turned to Africa," Egyptian President and AU chairman Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said at the summit's opening ceremony on Sunday.

    "AfCFTA will reinforce our negotiating position on the international stage. It will represent an important step," he added.


    'AfCFTA will represent an important step,' says AU chairman el-Sissi (L)

    The African free-trade bloc will help boost the continent's long-stymied economy by strengthening interregional trade and supply chains.

    The free-trade zone should be operational from July 2020, AU trade and industry commissioner Albert Muchanga told the AFP news agency.

    Major obstacles

    Economic experts say the AU still faces significant challenges in implementing the deal. Poor roads and railway lines, violence-hit areas, strict border controls and rampant corruption are some of the obstacles to an effective continental free-trade zone.

    AU member countries agreed to eliminate tariffs on most goods, which would boost regional trade by 15-25% in the medium term. It could be doubled in the long term if other issues were dealt with, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

    "Reducing tariffs alone is not sufficient," it said.

    "It will be important to address those disparities to ensure that special and differential treatments for the least developed countries are adopted and successfully implemented," said Landry Signe, a fellow at the Brookings Institution's Africa Growth Initiative.

    The IMF said in a May report that the AfCFTA could be an "economic game changer" for Africa – of a similar kind to the one that boosted growth in Europe and North America.

    Amaka Anku, Africa analyst at Eurasia group, said the deal was a positive step but AfCFTA was still "a long way from taking off."

    African nations currently trade only about 16% of their goods and services among one another, compared with 65% for the European Union member states.

    shs/ng (AFP, Reuters)
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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    The idea of Eurafrica seems to have been “waiting in the wings” for some time alongside plans for European integration.

    Here, for example, is a 2014 book tracing the idea back to the period between the world wars and also to the development of the EU.

    Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism

    https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/eurafrica-9781780930008/

    This is a book review from an Open University academic that outlines the main ideas in the book: http://critcom.councilforeuropeanstu...-colonialism/#

    Quote Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism

    Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson’s Eurafrica is a bold book. Taking aim at what it regards as the “whiggish” field of European Union (EU) history, this work challenges the myth that postwar European integration marked a clean break with Europe’s dark past (26). While Eurafrica is not the first text to offer such a critical perspective on the growth of the EU, it is one of the first to bring together the history of European colonialism and the history of European integration.[1] These fields can seem like two quite remote islands that have drifted far apart: the history of colonialism describes what seems like Europe’s increasingly remote racist past, whereas EU history surveys Europe’s onward march to a democratic and multicultural present and future. By focusing on plans for European integration between the 1920s and the 1950s, Hansen and Jonsson are, instead, able to show how entangled these two histories actually are.

    The authors have, therefore, performed a very valuable service: they have not only closed the gap between histories of the EU and mainstream social and political histories of Europe but they have also connected European integration history to broader global and transnational histories of colonialism. They are also able to critique notions of a Zero Hour, the idea that everything changed once Germany was defeated in 1945, from a new angle, revealing previously neglected continuities of colonialist outlook. Parallels and continuities with Nazi plans for European or Eurafrican integration are not explored in any detail, which may seem like a lost opportunity. Hansen and Jonsson’s interests lie elsewhere though: in exposing the links between the integrationist ideas of the post-1945 democracies and their interwar predecessors. Such an approach arguably does more to subvert whiggish accounts of the EU, suggesting a colonialist genealogy to the European project that goes beyond the obviously racist and exploitative National Socialist regime and connects to the interwar democracies. Interestingly, this critical history is based on archival work conducted in the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU), housed at the EU’s intellectual center, the European University Institute. Much of the archival work conducted by the authors is not featured in this work but will appear in a fuller, follow-up volume. As a result, the current book offers a provocative (although scholarly) taste of what readers can expect from Hansen and Jonsson.

    What was Eurafrica during the period studied by the authors? The first full chapter focuses on the interwar period and uses a discourse analysis method to flesh out the meanings of the term. Hansen and Jonsson show that a wide variety of politicians, Pan-Europeanists, and intellectuals sought union with the African continent as a way of reviving and saving Europe. Already concerned with the growing power of the United States and the Soviet Union, these Europeans believed that a Balkanized Europe would not only have to unite internally but also integrate itself with Africa in order to become a third economic and political power in the world. Such an interwar context is necessary for the authors’ major argument, but it does suggest that Eurafrica was many different things to many different groups. As a result, it is a little difficult to gauge just how influential the various schemes were. As the authors recognize, some plans were utopian, while others seemed designed to help colonial nations maintain control of their empires. Nevertheless, this chapter does reveal fascinating details about high-level negotiations between European politicians, which suggests African colonies were regarded as a common currency that Europeans could exchange. For instance, African colonies played a role in Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement agenda: he was willing to “return” parts of the German empire in Africa as compensation should Germany be persuaded not to pursue their claims in Austria and Czechoslovakia too aggressively (70).

    Chapters Three and Four get into the details of the postwar political history of European integration, focusing particularly on the negotiations from 1955 to 1957 that preceded the Treaty of Rome. One result of such negotiations was that “overseas countries and territories (OCTs)” were “associated” with the European Economic Community (EEC). This meant that French and Belgian OCTs received EEC funding, while EEC members gained duty-free access to new African markets. Whereas other historians have largely seen this provision as a footnote in the history of the EU, Hansen and Jonsson argue that it indicates a more ambitiously neocolonial agenda among the architects of European integration. As they put it, this association agreement was prompted by a Eurafrican agenda that was “anti-independence yet non-colonial” (227). In other words, EEC leaders wanted to dissociate themselves from the tarnished colonial pasts of European empires but nevertheless exploit African resources, regarding them as a shared European patrimony.

    There is much that is interesting in Hansen and Jonsson’s account of the Eurafrican dimension to the Treaty of Rome. Their presentation of the various schemes for Eurafrica and the negotiations around African colonies powerfully conveys how in flux ideas about the complexion and geographical extent of Europe were during what could be regarded as the Sattelzeit of the 1950s. The account also sheds light on the way Europe’s OCTs were (often inelegantly) fitted into an emerging Cold War that left European nations themselves torn between Western alignment and neutrality. Such insights feature prominently in Eurafrica’s very strong Chapter Four, which is based on extensive archival research in the HEAU. Revealing the degree of improvisation used by European statesmen during this decade serves to demystify the process behind the EEC Treaty and challenge more heroic accounts of the ‘path to Europe.’ The account of the negotiations also effectively shows that at least some Europeanists envisaged colonialism as part of Europe’s future rather than its past, suggesting that they might not have been so unambiguously on ‘the right side of history.’ Readers may still doubt that most European leaders believed they had a common Eurafrican destiny in the mid-1950s, rather than simply seeking to accommodate French colonial interests. (Belgium and its colonies feature in the text but only somewhat briefly.) Yet the authors are keen to stress, for instance, that Germany had an economic rationale for supporting some kind of Eurafrican arrangement. Focusing on German interests in Africa adds a new perspective on the French-German axis that has been so important for the construction of the EU.

    The focus on Germany and France nevertheless suggests that the major actors in this story were still national actors. If this is true, then Africa is significant to the history of European integration not because radical Eurafrican schemes were important in and of themselves, but because the issue of African colonies adds another dimension to how the EEC became an intergovernmental rather than federal union. In other words, if we follow Alan Milward in thinking of the European treaties of the 1950s as the “European rescue of the nation-state,” then we might wonder if European integration was anything more than the (short-lived) European rescue of the French and Belgian empires.[2] It is clear that Hansen and Jonsson think that the Eurafrican dimension to the EEC was more profound than that. But when they “drilled deeply” into the negotiations between 1955 and 1957, they suggested that various nations were doing national cost-and-benefit analyses rather than representing a common European colonial mindset (222). Thus, while the French were very eager to incorporate Algeria into the EEC, the Italians worried about the competition their agricultural sector would face from agricultural products produced in this part of the French Empire. If Hansen and Jonsson had been able to present more detailed accounts of how many EEC employees were assigned to work on EEC relations with African colonies or of how much of the EEC budget went to ‘developing’ the colonies, then they may have been even more effective in showing the existence of a common European approach. A more detailed examination of the concept of ‘development’ may also have been productive: the issue of how an integrated European development agenda related to earlier forms of colonial mission is addressed but not examined in depth (231).

    One other way in which Hansen and Jonsson might have explored a common European approach to Eurafrica would have been to look again at the Christian dimension to the European project. As Wolfram Kaiser, among others, has shown, much of the enthusiasm for an at least somewhat federal European Community developed out of Christian (particularly Catholic) conceptions of politics.[3] Politicians such as Konrad Adenauer turned to European integration because they believed that a federal Europe, based on personalist Christian principles, would turn Europeans away from nationalism and worship of the state.[4] How these Christian perspectives affected the way European statesmen regarded nationalist movements in colonial Africa is a fascinating topic but one that is not explored in this volume. Had Hansen and Jonsson paid attention to this religious dimension, they may have discovered more than simple economic exploitation at work in the Eurafrican project. This is not to say that European statesmen would have necessarily appeared in a more favorable light. These statesmen may rather have appeared as one more type of European missionary, carrying a self-imposed “white man’s burden” (28). But their attitude towards national liberation movements in Africa may also have been revealed in a more nuanced light. Given how problematic the process of nation-building in Europe in 1918 had turned out to be, it is certainly possible to imagine more benevolent reasons for Christian democratic architects of European integration regarding the process of nation-building in Africa with some wariness.

    While these comments may suggest there is scope for further explanation and exploration of the idea of Eurafrica, they do not invalidate the major arguments developed by Hansen and Jonsson. For the authors do convincingly show that European leaders, including much-feted architects of the postwar integration project, could imagine a united Europe playing a greater, rather than lesser, role in the affairs of the African continent. These leaders wanted to strengthen and extend colonial networks to more intensively use and develop the resources of the African continent in order to strengthen Europe as a Third World power. As the authors suggest, Eurafrica therefore served as a “vanishing mediator” between European colonialism and European integration (231). While European integration offered a new model of political community achieved through the pooling of sovereignty between nation-states, European colonialism was supposedly designed to raise African peoples to statehood, even if the process seemed destined for indefinite postponement. Ideas of Eurafrica bridged the conceptual divide between these two models of political community as well as conveniently allowing European nations to retain control of their colonies. Hansen and Jonsson’s book therefore shows the immense potential for historians to rewrite the history of European integration if they pay attention to postwar European nations’ colonial commitments and abiding colonial aspirations. Scholars and students of European integration and of colonialism alike can eagerly look forward to the more detailed empirical work that the authors of the present volume are ideally placed to provide.

    Reviewed by Christian Bailey, The Open University
    Eurafrica: The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism
    by Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson
    Bloomsbury
    Hardback / 344 pages / 2014
    ISBN: 9781780930008
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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    This is a remarkable map of the river basins of Africa. It’s from the site grasshoppergeography (https://www.grasshoppergeography.com...ps/i-HsBLdcT/A), which has similar maps of the whole world, individual continents and some countries.

    Click image for larger version

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    Wow, that‘s beautiful. Looks like a pulsating, living organism (which in fact it is)

    Here‘s an African-American connection.





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    Last edited by Iloveyou; 13th July 2019 at 09:27.

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    UK Avalon Founder Bill Ryan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    An enhanced map of the river basins of Africa: (larger and brighter)



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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    xxxxx
    Dirty Diesel: Dirty business with toxic fuels

    Public Eye’s Dirty Diesel report, published in 2016, reveals that Swiss commodities companies knowingly exploit lax African standards: they supply and sell highly sulphurous fuels in Africa – fuels that they produce themselves and that have long been banned in Europe. In doing so, companies significantly exacerbate the problem of increasing air pollution in African cities and endanger the health of millions of people.

    How Swiss traders flood Africa with toxic fuels

    Air pollution is already a serious problem in African cities. Car exhaust fumes are largely responsible for the harmful particulate matter in the air. Although there are fewer cars on the roads in Africa than in Europe, the emissions are higher because fuel contains far higher levels of sulphur, which leads to higher levels of particulate matter.

    Sulphur content nearly 400 times higher than levels permitted in Europe

    Fuel standards in most of Africa are far lower than in Europe. Public Eye investigated the true sulphur content of diesel sold in eight countries. The shocking result: the sulphur content was up to 378 times higher than levels permitted in Europe. They found other harmful substances present at levels banned in Europe – for instance benzene or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

    Swiss commodities trading companies – above all Trafigura – dominate the dirty business of filthy fuel in Africa. The company supplies the fuel, sells it via its own networks of petrol stations and also produces the toxic blend itself. It has no interest in seeing standards change given that it systematically takes advantages of weak African standards to optimise its profit margins.

    https://www.publiceye.ch/en/topics/c...g/dirty-diesel

    https://www.publiceye.ch/fileadmin/d...sel_Report.pdf







    New blue leather shoes corroded and eaten away
    by acid and poisonous dust on the ground in African cities
    after walking around neighbourhoods for a few weeks.

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    xxxxxxxxx
    Everybody knows BP, Shell and probably Glencore. But who knows Vitol or Trafigura?





    In fact, these Swiss commodity trading companies have become giants. Vitol, for example, generated sales of $ 168 billion in 2015 and operates significantly more oil tankers than BP or Shell. For Trafigura, the largest foreign company in Africa in 2013, the continent is the most important market after Europe. Over the last five years, these two companies have been buying up entire gas station networks in numerous African countries on a large scale. That is hardly known because they do their jobs with the utmost discretion and do not sell their fuel under their real name.

    Source: https://netzfrauen.org/2016/09/16/rohstoffe-2/ (German)

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    A fascinating video was posted by Greybeard here about ancient archeological finds in The Sudan:

    Quote Posted by greybeard (here)
    Sudan Underwater Pyramids and Chambers Still Hold Many Secrets!

    Here’s a map for some orientation:
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa



    Above the law . . .

    Rüschlikon is a village in Switzerland with a very low tax rate and very wealthy residents. But it receives more tax revenue than it can use. This is largely thanks to one resident - Ivan Glasenberg, CEO of Glencore, whose copper mines in Zambia are not generating a large bounty tax revenue for the Zambians. Zambia has the 3rd largest copper reserves in the world, but 60% of the population live on less than $1 a day and 80% are unemployed. Based on original research into public documents, the film describes the tax system employed by multinational companies in Africa (2012)


    38:45 . . . unfortunately a president dies of a stroke, incidentally . . .
    Last edited by Iloveyou; 10th August 2019 at 18:51.

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    I came across an old series on Africa from 1984 on Youtube today. It's called AFRICA: A Voyage in Discovery. The series was written and presented by Basil Davidson (quite an interesting person) and shown in the UK on Channel 4 television.

    There seem to be eight episodes that I can find.

    Episode 1:


    Episode 2:


    Episode 3:


    Episode 4:


    Episode 5:


    Episode 6:


    Episode 7:


    Episode 8:
    Last edited by Cara; 18th August 2019 at 14:21.
    *I have loved the stars too dearly to be fearful of the night*

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    Default Re: Keeping an eye on Africa

    Wildfires scorch Africa but world’s media stay focused on Brazil’s blazes

    RT
    Published time: 24 Aug, 2019 19:24
    Edited time: 25 Aug, 2019 09:27
    Get short URL


    A tract of burnt jungle in Boca Do Acre, Brazil © Reuters / Bruno Kelly

    Forest fires are tearing through the Amazon rainforest, prompting worldwide protests and demands for action to protect the “lungs of the world.” But, away from the spotlight, the Brazilian fires are dwarfed by blazes in Africa.

    Fires visible from space are currently burning up the Amazon rainforest at a rate of three football fields per minute, according to Brazilian satellite data. Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research reported an 83 percent increase in wildfires on last year, with more than 72,000 fires spotted, 9,000 last week alone.

    With the forest burning, protesters around the world have gathered outside Brazilian embassies, demanding Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro take stronger action against the blazes. The demonstrators, many affiliated with eco-warriors Extinction Rebellion, blame Bolsonaro’s pro-logging, pro-mining development policies for the fires, and accuse him of condoning the deliberate razing of forest for grassland.

    As protesters in London chanted “Hey hey, ho ho, Bolsonaro’s got to go!” two even bigger blazes burned unnoticed in Africa. Over Thursday and Friday, more fires were recorded in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo than in Brazil, Bloomberg reported, citing NASA satellite data. In those two days alone, 6,902 fires were recorded in Angola and 3,395 in the DRC. 2,127 were spotted in Brazil in the same period.

    Quote
    Caneta #ReformaSemPrivilegios @Desesquerdizada

    Replying to @EmmanuelMacron
    You're so "worried" about climate and biodiversity that you don't care about the thousand fires in Angola, DR Congo, Madagascar and Zambia. Maybe because they don't compete with the inneficient farmers that your government has to subsidize.

    8:16 PM - Aug 24, 2019
    However, nobody marched in London chanting “Félix Tshisekedi’s got to go!” Nor did Extinction Rebellion – a well organized group of activists that brought London’s traffic to a standstill in April – take the tube one stop west from the Brazilian Embassy to picket the Angolan consulate.

    Blanket media coverage has been successful in forcing the burning of the Amazon into the public consciousness. Protest campaigns have been guided by pleas from social media influencers, while French President Emmanuel Macron declared “our house is burning,” and promised to put the Brazilian blazes at the top of the agenda as he hosts this weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz.

    While wildfires in Central Africa are a common occurrence this time of year, Bolsonaro insists that the Amazonian inferno is also part of the natural rhythm of life in the rainforest. “I used to be called Captain Chainsaw. Now I am Nero, setting the Amazon aflame. But it is the season of the queimada,” he told reporters, referring to the long-established practice of burning away overgrown farmland before replanting
    NASA also reported earlier this week that the number and severity of fires were average for the last 15 years.

    “Forest fires exist in the whole world,” Bolsonaro said on Friday, after EU leaders threatened economic sanctions on Brazil. Still, the Brazilian leader has evidently deemed the problem serious enough to send in the army, deploying troops to prevent more deliberate blazes and combat further outbreaks.

    In Africa, it’s more difficult to know what’s happening, as next to no news reports on the fires in Angola and the DRC have surfaced in the west. No hashtag campaigns or mass demonstrations have broken out, and the issue has not been placed on the G7 leaders’ agenda.


    Related:
    "La réalité est un rêve que l'on fait atterrir" San Antonio AKA F. Dard

    Troll-hood motto: Never, ever, however, whatsoever, to anyone, a point concede.

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