Canada is now a superpower in the African mining sector. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada , only the Republic of South Africa, with over 35% of assets and investments, is just ahead of Canada in the African mining industry. But with South Africa’s assets concentrated on its own territory, Canada dominates the rest of the continent. In 2001, Canadian companies have operations in 35 countries. 91% of Canadian investments were concentrated in eight countries, with the order of countries’ importance being the following: South Africa (25.6%), DR Congo (17.8%), Madagascar (13.8%), Zambia (9.9%), Tanzania (9.5%), Ghana...
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South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics this week announced it had negotiated a 99-year lease on some 3.2 million acres of farmland on Madagascar ,about half the size of Belgium , That’s nearly half of Madagascar’s arable land, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization, and Daewoo plans to put about three quarters of it under corn. The remainder will be used to produce palm oil — a key commodity for the global biofuels market. In Madagascar, where about 70% of the country’s 20 million people live below the poverty line. The island’s residents also rely on WFP emergency food...
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The World Socialist Party has always explained war as having its root cause within the capitalist system . It is our contention that war has always been fundamentally economic . The blood-bath that has been taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo is no exception . Our case is supported by this article . “The conflict in eastern Congo is being fueled and funded by a tussle for mineral resources that end up in cell phones, laptops and other electronics… Rebel militias and Congolese army troops are fighting each other for control of mineral-rich land. “In some ways...
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“…Nigeria. Rwanda. Uganda. Ethiopia. Gabon. Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe has plenty of competitors for the title of “least democratic in Africa.” But while he has been singled out for condemnation by the West, leaders of other autocratic states in Africa have largely been able to avoid sanctions and isolation. Many have friends in Western capitals. Or play a strategic role in the war against terrorist groups. Or sit on oil…How many African leaders can point a clean finger at him? How many held a better election than his one-man runoff that followed a campaign of violence against his...
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We have posted before here about the harrassment and oppression of the indigenous peoples of southern Africa , the Bushmen . We sadly report that this is continuing . The Bushmen of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve have been forced from their ancestral lands in a wave of evictions by the Botswana government. In 2006 they won an historic legal victory when Botswana’s High Court ruled that their eviction was ‘unlawful and unconstitutional’. Yet , since then the government has arrested more than 50 Bushmen for hunting to feed their families, and banned the Bushmen from using their water...
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Zambians from different walks of life went to vote in another presidential and general election on 28 September. But to go and vote after every five years is a nasty thing to every person who lives in a society where this political freedom is an appendage to unexplained political and social forces beyond their control. And to those who lack political vision, nationalism conceived under state capitalism (self-reliance) seems to be the revolutionary way to arrest economic underdevelopment. Economic development minus a rise in people’s living standards shall keep on haunting many an African country. It is an...
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The average Nigerian still survives on less than $2 a day, despite the country’s $20 billion rise in oil exports to the United States over the past five years. This report reveals how the ordinary Nigerian endeavours to resist The oil-pipeline fire burned strong for 45 days and 45 nights . It wasn’t that no one could put the fire out. It was that no one would — not the oil company that owned the pipeline, not the government and not the villagers . Kegbara Dere villagers saw the fire less as an environmental crisis than as a negotiating...
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First came “blood diamonds” from Sierra Leone. Then came “blood timber” from Liberia. Now another West African conflict is being funded by yet another commodity beloved in the West: ” blood chocolate.” from Ivory Coast Government and rebel leaders of the world’s leading cocoa exporter, Ivory Coast, both siphoned off millions of dollars from the cocoa industry to finance the 2002-03 civil war that divided the once-stable and prosperous country in two, according to a recent report from Global Witness, a London-based group that focuses on resource-fueled corruption. The government received more than $58 million from institutions and cocoa...
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It is true that there is a problem of “Street Kids” in Zambia and it is a problem that cannot be resolved within the divisive and oppressive political and economic structures of capitalist society . The Zambian government believes that the main factor behind the incidence of Street Kids in urban areas of Zambia originates from the increasing rates of HIV/AIDS pandemic . It is inferred that most of those kids are orphans . But this is a blatant political misconception parroted by those who are benefiting from tax-payers money being wasted on the recently created Youth Rehabilitation Centres...
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The recent African Union summit has once again raised the prospect of a United States of Africa . Whether this is ever going to be likely , Socialist Banner serious doubts , since there are often too many inter-capitalist rivalries for such an entity to exist . Not too mention the overblown giant egos of some of the African nation’s leaders We reprint an article from African Socialist No. 5 THE AFRICAN UNION – An “Old Boys’ Association”? At the 2nd AU summit in Maputo the BBC asked the new AU chairman, President Chissano of Mozambique to sum up...
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