₦airaland Forum

US President Barack Obama wasted no time in courting China's new President Xi Jinping, calling him within hours of his elevation and then pressing him on cybercrime and North Korea.
Obama, beginning his second term as Xi embarks on his first,
congratulated his new opposite number in the crucial US-China relationship, and announced the dispatch of two senior cabinet lieutenants to Beijing shortly.
The US president had a cordial yet sometimes frustratingly
formal relationship with Xi's predecessor Hu Jintao, and his
decision to reach out quickly to the new Chinese leadership may be a sign of intent.
The White House said Obama promised regular high-level
engagement on economic and security challenges on which
Beijing and Washington have been increasingly at odds in recent months.
"The president highlighted the threat to the United States, its
allies, and the region from North Korea's nuclear and missile
programs," and sought close coordination with China on the
issue, a statement said.
Earlier this week, Obama said he detected increasing frustration in Beijing with its troublesome ally, following Pyongyang's third nuclear test and inflammatory rhetoric towards Washington and Seoul. Obama raised with Xi the importance of addressing cybersecurity threats which he said, diplomatically, represent "a shared challenge."
In an ABC News interview this week, Obama was more blunt,
saying some Internet-borne attacks on US corporations,
infrastructure and government from China were state-sponsored, and pledged to raise them at the highest levels.
Shortly after Obama spoke to Xi, officials said Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew would travel to Beijing next week to discuss the vast and complicated relationship between the world's two largest economies.
US Secretary of State John Kerry will follow Lew to Beijing in mid- April, on a trip also including South Korea and Japan, as he seeks to lock in gains from an Obama administration first-term diplomatic and military pivot to Asia.
China's state Xinhua news agency said that Xi told Obama that
"China and the United States have enormous common interests, but also differences".
"He emphasised that as long as the two sides follow the spirit of mutual respect, openness and tolerance, China and the United States will be able to achieve more" and turn "the Pacific into an ocean of peace and cooperation."

His ambition, he's indicated in speeches in recent weeks, is to lead a Chinese renaissance so China can resume its rightful place in the world.
Confirmed as China's new head of state, Mr Xi is now one of the most powerful leaders on the planet. He can, if he wishes,
influence the destiny of hundreds of millions of people, inside and outside China. He can try to shape history. So will he? And if so, how? What does his dream mean?
China isn't a democracy, it's a one-party, authoritarian state. Three thousand delegates at the National People's Congress voted to approve Xi Jinping as president. But that means that for roughly every 460,000 Chinese, just one person got to vote for their new leader.
And Mr Xi's real power comes not from the job he began today, as China's president but from the two roles he was appointed to last November, as general secretary of the Communist Party and commander-in-chief of China's armed forces. So Mr Xi has not had to campaign publicly for the job of president, he's not set out a manifesto, he's not had to put his character and policies on display. But he has indicated his dream is to make China prosperous, powerful and proud once again.
To reinforce that message, he has been making high-profile visits to carefully chosen locations around China in recent weeks. State television has given prominent coverage to his trips.
The first was to the "Special Economic Zone" of Shenzhen in the south, the cradle of China's economic revolution. The message of that visit was that Mr Xi wants to be seen as a reformer in the mould of Deng Xiaoping, the man who set China's economy free but kept its political system under tight control.
Then Xi Jinping visited two very poor areas - a village in the
mountains in Hebei near Beijing, and the arid lands of Gansu in the west.
He was filmed meeting peasants, tasting their food, chatting with them in their homes. This time the message was that Mr Xi wants to be seen as a "man of the people", in touch with the concerns of poor Chinese.
The Communist Party is aware that its image and authority have been eroded as people have seen corruption and inequality soar along with China's growing wealth.
The party risks becoming viewed as the defender of privilege. So Mr Xi is promising more action to tackle corruption, to spread China's wealth, to create a fairer society.
Finally he's also paid visits to high-profile military units. Part of Xi Jinping's dream is also to make China a major military power.
His message to the armed forces was that they must continue to pledge allegiance to the Communist Party. China's military is expressly political, controlled by the party not by the state. Its duty is to uphold the rule of the party.

'Critical Mistakes'
Mr Xi is a "princeling", the son of one of the men who led China's communist revolution. He's from a powerful and privileged background. Alongside him in China's new leadership are many other princelings. Their patrimony imbues them with a sense of entitlement. They are the inheritors and the guardians of China's communist revolution.
But Mr Xi's relatives and many other powerful families have also become rich in recent years. According to an investigation by the Bloomberg news agency, Mr Xi's family has accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars worth of assets. Tackling inequality and corruption may become problematic if it starts to affect the wealth of the party elite.
So perhaps the most significant indication of Mr Xi's intentions as China's new leader was not his public talk of his dream, but a private speech he gave to Communist Party members during his visit to Shenzhen. The writer Gao Yu, who follows the politics of China's leaders, was passed quotes from the speech. She says Xi Jinping "knows exactly where the party's critical mistakes are".
First there's the fact that China must reform the way its economy is developing to make growth more sustainable, more equitable, less damaging to the environment.
Then there is the "wealth gap" that has opened up in China. "The benefits of reform have basically been taken by government officials. Money has flowed to them and to the rich, not into protecting our environment, or into social security, medical insurance or education," Ms Gao says.
"The whole world sees how corrupt our government officials are and how angry our people are. In their hearts people no longer believe in the legality of the party's rule. That is the most important thing that Xi has to solve."
And she says that when Xi Jinping speaks of reform, he does not mean political reform. In his private speech, Gao Yu says, Mr Xi was explicit, telling party members: "Some people define reform as changes towards the universal values of the West, the Western political system. This is a stealthy tampering with the concept and a misunderstanding of our reform. Our reform is reform that keeps us moving forward on the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics."
So, she believes, Mr Xi has his a different vision. "His political blueprint is to build a highly efficient and clean government. But whether this goal can be realised without democracy, constitutional rule, multiple parties or press freedom is the question," she says.
And Xi Jinping also posed a question to his private audience of party members. "Why must we stand firm on the party's
leadership over the military?" he asked.
The answer he gave was "because that's the lesson from the
collapse of the Soviet Union. In the USSR, where the military was depoliticised, separated from the party and nationalised, the party was disarmed." And Mr Xi warned, when the Soviet Union came to crisis point "a big party was gone just like that. Proportionally, the Soviet Communist Party had more members than we do, but nobody was man enough to stand up and resist."
So for all that Mr Xi is being portrayed as a reformer, a man with a dream, Gao Yu believes he won't do anything that will destabilise China's current system. "The army is the foundation of our country, that's the way Xi thinks," says Gao Yu. "After all he's not elected by the votes of the people, he thinks the army is the ultimate guarantee of the party's rule. The party has to control the military. It doesn't belong to the country or the people." And she adds, Xi Jinping's vision of making China richer and stronger matters not as a goal in itself, but because it will strengthen the rule of the Communist Party.

The "sugar daddy" phenomenon of older men paying younger women for sex is to blame for a 28 percent rate of HIV infection in schoolgirls said the health minister.

South Africa's health minister said on Thursday that 28 percent of schoolgirls in the country were HIV positive.
Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi's explanation for the
depressing figure: sugar daddies.
According to the Telegraph, Motsoaledi said: "It is clear that it is not young boys who are sleeping with these girls."
"It is old men. We must take a stand against sugar daddies
because they are destroying our children."
The Mail and Guardian has previously reported that the "sugar daddy" phenomenon is a big problem in the country with older men effectively paying young girls to sleep with them. It also refers to the acceptance of multiple partners as many of the older men are married.
Only four percent of school-age boys are infected.

The minister said that on top of that, 94,000 schoolgirls became pregnant in 2011.
More than 77,000 of them had abortions.
Motsoaledi has been widely praised for his efforts to curb HIV in South Africa,reported the BBC, having run the world's largest anti-retroviral (ARV) program since 2009.
About one in ten South Africans are HIV positive.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/south-africa/130314/sugar-daddies-are-destroying-our-children-south-afr

"If you marry any man who cannot take care of your financial burden, then what is the essence of marrying that person?"
The above statement was said recently by the highly endowed Nollywood actress, Foluke Daramola who recently got married to another man's husband, Kayode Salako.
People in the know, having heard such utterances coming from the mother of two, they criticised her and said she is not qualified to be a role model to the emerging generation.
She gave this as a warning, according to her, to the ladies out
there who are yet to pick their spouse. "Don't marry a man that can not take care of your financial needs," Foluke concluded.
http://www.naij.com/news/26894.html

Four persons were killed in drive-by shooting Sunday morning by suspected Boko Haram militants driving around on a tricycle in a Kano suburb.
Eyewitnesses told Saharareporters that the gunmen first struck at Dakata bus stop and then drove down and fatally shot two more people at Dakata Kawaji area opposite a graveyard near the Custom's barrack in the
area.
One of the gunmen carrying an AK 47 assault rifle wore a dark blue kaftan according to one our sources.
Policemen and Nigerian troops of JTF eventually arrived the scene about ten minutes after the gunmen had left to evacuate the people shot from the scene of the latest
attack.
Security remains tight in the city as Vice President Namadi Sambo is expected to visit the ancient city during the week.
http://www.saharareporters.com/news-page/boko-haram-militants-kill-four-people-kano-drive-shooting

pendo89: 4. His refusal to give handouts.the rural folks will appreciate even a loaf.-It's part of the campaign.

panafrican: He lost due to the disdain his brother Obama, president of the United states demonstrated towards Africa. He never visited Kenya, he does not care about this country.

braine: Guys I just got approved to relocate from Imo to Oyo due to 'medical' reasons. Please what's the faith of my allawee??

This is good to hear.





[size=16pt]#When would Seun sell Nairaland IPO or PP share out now??#[/size]