₦airaland Forum

Congo-Kinshasa: DRC Cholera Death Toll Rising

http://allafrica.com/stories/201709160047.html

The death toll of 528 is from 24 200 cases reported in the Central African country. More than half of Africa's second-biggest country by size has been affected by cholera since the end of last July. Some 20 out of 26 provinces are affected.

Almost all major cities have reported an outbreak which coincided with the deteriorating security situation. The World Health Organisation expressed alarm the outbreak had spread to the capital Kinshasa despite authorities disputing this. The risk of spreading remains significantly high towards the Greater Kasai region, where sanitary and security conditions remain precarious.

Congo Opposition Calls for Coalition to Force Kabila's Exit

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-05/congo-opposition-calls-for-coalition-to-force-kabila-s-departure

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s main opposition leader said parties should unite to force President Joseph Kabila to leave as plans to set a new date for elections are delayed.

“Joseph Kabila is the sole obstacle on the way to the organization of elections in our country,” Felix Tshisekedi, leader of the Rassemblement coalition, told reporters Tuesday in the capital, Kinshasa. “I launch an appeal to all anti-Kabila parties to mobilize themselves together to obtain his departure.”

Over 500 dead as Congo cholera epidemic spreads

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-4870358/Over-500-dead-Congo-cholera-epidemic-spreads-WHO.html

More than 500 people have died so far in a cholera epidemic that is sweeping the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

Outbreaks of the water-borne disease occur regularly in Congo, mainly due to poor sanitation and a lack of access to clean drinking water.

But this year's epidemic, which has already hit at least 10 urban areas including the capital Kinshasa, is particularly worrying as it comes as about 1.4 million people have been displaced by violence in the central Kasai region.

The East-West divide in the EU is reaching a critical point

http://www.businessinsider.com/east-west-divide-eu-reaching-critical-point-2017-9

As the European Union has expanded its membership, more seats at the table have meant more diverging opinions on how the EU should operate.

These divisions have widened in the wake of the refugee crisis and exacerbated existing gaps between the West and the East, between “core” Europe and newer members, between the more affluent nations and the less well-off.

Congo-Kinshasa: Army General Profits From Illegally Mining Conflict Gold

http://allafrica.com/stories/201709020101.html

General is a player in gold industry

The report by the group of experts on the Democratic Republic of the Congo also finds that a high-ranking Congolese army commander, Major General Gabriel Amisi Kumba, is running a gold mining operation.

According to the report, mine workers and agents said Amisi owned dredges through a local company that is extracting gold from the Awimi River in the country's northeastern Tshopo province.

DRC's mining code forbids senior military personnel from owning mining rights.

The UN report also found that management of the company, which is allegedly owned by Amisi, were being protected by Congolese army forces (FARDC).

Leofab that's true.

Check out the story on Gabriel Amisi Kumba.

Family of DR Congo’s first PM robbed, daughter attacked

https://www.independent.co.ug/family-dr-congos-first-pm-robbed-daughter-attacked/

The family of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s late independence hero, Patrice Lumumba, said their Kinshasa home was burgled by soldiers on Friday and his daughter Juliana attacked and injured.

“Five soldiers managed to get through the barrier” at the Lumumba family residence at 1:00 am (2300 GMT Thursday), said Francois Lumumba, eldest son of the first Congolese prime minister.

During the robbery Juliana, his younger sister, tried to resist the intruders and was “hit on the head and sides with a rifle butt,” he said in a statement, adding that the attackers fled with “personal effects and a sum of money.”

With Congo finances collapsing, desperate government has few options

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo-finances-idUSKCN1AX1TF

As Congo's government was soliciting urgent help from Western donors and the IMF last month to contain an economic crisis, the chairman of the state mining company brought an unusual guest to the prime minister's office. It was Raymond O'Leary, a vice president from Russia's second largest bank, state-owned VTB, to discuss a Eurobond aiming to raise funds for the cash-strapped government, Congolese and VTB officials confirmed.

The choice of lead manager was striking, given that VTB is under U.S. sanctions any deal would have shut the door on IMF and pretty much all Western funding owing to donor objections.

France's Macron, on Eastern Europe trip, to raise issue of cheap labor

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-easteurope-macron-idUSKBN1AN1G9

French President Emmanuel Macron will press for rules to better protect French workers from what they see as unfair labor competition from eastern Europe during a visit to the region later this month, an official said on Monday.

Macron has pledged to take steps to counter "social dumping" in France in which companies employ cheaper labor from the poorer eastern European states, threatening French workers' jobs.

DR Congo opposition leader Tshisekedi's body to be repatriated

http://www.newvision.co.ug/new_vision/news/1459707/dr-congo-opposition-leader-tshisekedis-body-repatriated-family

An agreement has been struck with Kinshasa for the repatriation of the body of veteran Congolese opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi, who died aged 84 in Belgium in February, his family and political party told AFP Friday.

The long delay in the return of Tshisekedi's remains was due to concerns it could touch off massive demonstrations as the Democratic Republic of Congo is mired in a political crisis over President Joseph Kabila holding onto power beyond his mandate.

Tshisekedi was a key political rival who lost to Kabila in disputed presidential polls in 2011.

Before his death, Tshisekedi had headed the opposition coalition that negotiated a transitional deal which allowed Kabila to remain in office until elections in late 2017.

Journalists detained, harassed, beaten covering Congo protests

https://cpj.org/2017/08/journalists-detained-harassed-beaten-covering-cong.php

Security forces harassed, detained, or beat at least 18 journalists across the country on July 31 as they covered anti-government protests, according to media reports and Congolese press freedom advocates. Security forces released all of the journalists by the end of the day, but deleted many of the journalists' photographs and recordings first. Security forces arrested more than 100 people in the nationwide protests demanding that President Joseph Kabila leave office by the end of the year, according to media reports.

‘I’m a Civilian. I’m Innocent’: Who’s in Congo’s Mass Graves?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/world/africa/congo-kasai-kabila-militia-graves.html

“It’s the worst humanitarian and human rights crisis in a decade, when both sides have committed serious crimes,” said Jose Maria Aranaz, who leads the human rights division of the United Nations mission in Congo, called Monusco. There is a pattern of prosecuting rank-and-file individuals but not commanders, he said. Unless military and political leaders are held to account, he said, “the cycle of impunity will continue.”

Congo civil servants call strike over wages as crisis bites

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/07/21/congo-civil-servants-call-strike-over-wages-as-crisis-bites_c1601860

Civil service leaders called a strike in DRC on Friday, demanding pay rises to help workers cope with a mounting economic crisis.

The franc has lost 40 per cent of its value in the past year, with a particularly sharp decline over the past week, amid political turmoil and persistently low prices for Congo's key commodity exports.

Inflation is expected to top 30 per cent this year, but wages remain unchanged.

The government had agreed to raise wages but not delivered, the Collective of Syndicates of the Public Administration said at a meeting in the capital Kinshasa.he body "asks all its comrades from all ministries to close their offices and to no longer go to work until payment for the month of July is executed at the budgetary rate," the union's vice president, Francois Tshimanga, told the assembly.

The government has requested financial support from the International Monetary Fund and other donors to help it restore its reserves and stabilize the franc.

Congo's forgotten war

http://theweek.com/articles/711748/congos-forgotten-war

What is happening?

A political crisis that has simmered for decades has exploded into a new civil war, engulfing south-central Congo in mass butchery and chaos. Since October, at least 3,400 people have been killed in the Kasai region, and in such gruesome ways that more than 1.3 million people have fled their homes in terror. "My team saw children as young as 2 whose limbs had been chopped off," said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein. "Many babies had machete wounds and severe burns." The government of President Joseph Kabila appears to be behind some of the atrocities. After the rebel faction Kamuina Nsapu rose up last fall against Kabila's government, both the Congolese army and the rebels engaged in atrocities. But the most horrific attacks in recent months have been the work of a new militia, Bana Mura, which the U.N. says was created and armed by Kabila's government. Bana Mura militants, of a different ethnic group than the Kamwina Nsapu, have slaughtered whole villages, going door-to-door and killing everyone they found — babies, parents, grandparents.

Eastern Europeans are being pigeonholed mates

Why central and eastern European children lag behind in British schools

https://www.economist.com/news/britain/21725019-their-status-new-arrivals-only-part-explanation-why-central-and-eastern-european

Poverty makes things harder. Parents who work every available shift have little energy to chase after work-shy children. Some 68% of Lithuanian-speaking children and 63% of Polish-speakers live in poor areas, where schools tend to be worse. They have settled across the country, following work rather than existing communities, so many end up in areas with little experience of immigration. As Elzbieta Kardynal, a Polish educationalist, says: “If schools don’t have the knowledge and capacity, these children are put in the lowest sets…with all the naughty kids.”
When GCSE results are adjusted for factors such as the uptake of free school meals (a proxy for poverty), geography and date of arrival, Polish pupils outperform white Britons, according to Steve Strand of Oxford University. Yet, even accounting for these factors, children from other countries are still behind: Romanians, Lithuanians and Latvians by the equivalent of three GCSE grades; Slovaks by ten.
The difference may be partly cultural. The first wave of Polish pupils had a reputation for being particularly diligent. One head teacher says that, in her experience, Lithuanians are more likely than others to do paid work alongside their studies—partly because they are poorer and partly because their parents tend to place less emphasis on education. The problem is biggest among the Roma population. Having escaped terrible prejudice, many are reluctant to come into contact with local authorities. Some parents are unwilling to send their children—particularly girls—to secondary school to mix with non-Roma.

Ngo40:
Wow....and she really cried out with much sincerity & passion for her country
Much food for thought.....
Thanks for sharing this.

Yep, welcome

AAinEqGuinea:
Poor girl. Sounds like her Africanness expired. Quit notice served.

She should dry her tears and look at the bright side I mean she could be Oprah after all

This young African lady knows exactly who she is, now Oprah on the other hand isn't so fortunate I mean just look at some of the things they're saying about her

Oprah Winfrey was surprised to learn (from a mitochondrial DNA test of her female line) that she is probably not descended from the Zulu tribe as she had thought; instead, it appears that her tribal ancestry is more likely linked to the Kpelle people (who cluster in the Guinea Highlands of what is now central Liberia and Guinea), the Bamileke people (who cluster in modern-day Cameroon), and the Nkoya people of modern-day Zambia

There was never really a fighting chance for poor oprah rarely do her kind ever match a single ethnic group.

Kabila should step outside of the hut for a minute and see the image he's helping to paint for the black collective

US threatens sanctions on anyone delaying DR Congo vote

The United States on Tuesday threatened to impose further targeted unilateral sanctions on anyone who hinders Democratic Republic of Congo's already delayed preparations for an election to replace President Joseph Kabila.

The country's election commission president said on Sunday that the vote, originally due in November 2016, was unlikely to take place in 2017, because of delays in registering millions of voters.

Further delays could trigger additional unrest following anti-government street protests last year in which security forces killed dozens of demonstrators. The opposition quickly denounced Sunday's announcement as a declaration of "war".

"We are ready to take additional action to sanction those who stand in the way of DRC's first democratic transition of power," US Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Michele Sison told the UN Security Council.

Jeez... I wonder what happened to all these micro nations

https://www.mappery.com/maps/African-distrust-and-slave-trade-Map.mediumthumb.jpg

I'd have to say there's nothing inherently wrong with the concept of micro nations but from my political observations this is a route Africa should avoid, not to mention Africa was always a force when the larger empires thrived. I guess one of the underlying questions is what does a micro nation do when a large empire wants to obtain something you have by force? What do you do about the geographic advantage if you're landlocked or isolated? What about geoeconomics and the terms of trade?

I think you could take what happened in Gambia with Ecowas and apply that to any wealthy micro nation in Africa, if you don't have the means to secure the resources or have competitive products to leverage someone more powerful may try to exploit the situation. The codification of human capital en masse provides a better chance to innovate and outperform competition and it's one of the reasons the USA has absorbed so many immigrants from all corners of the world.

Definitely needs further analysis but from that viewpoint alone I think these micro nations in Africa would need to at minimum function as a conglomerate just to guarantee the prosperity of their very own micro interest

Fulaman198:
African Americans for instance can't return to Africa because where would they go within the continent?

Fulaman could you elaborate on ^that^ a bit more?


Ngo40 check this out.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxycSHD92-g

Hmm... if you don't even do right by other 'purebred' Africans how will it be possible to receive African Americans properly...? If you don't even love yourself how is it possible to love anyone else...?

Congolese citizens should divide the wealth up equally amongst themselves screw the cheap talk

DR Congo: Opposition blasts prospect of delayed polls

http://aa.com.tr/en/africa/dr-congo-opposition-blasts-prospect-of-delayed-polls/858120

Democratic Republic of Congo opposition parties and human rights activists on Monday blasted the country’s elections chief saying that polls to elect a new president are unlikely this year.

"The parameters at our disposal give us, more or less, reason to think that, in December, it will probably not be possible to stick to that date," Corneille Nangaa told France's TV5Monde on Sunday, referring to a December deadline set under an agreement reached late last year.

Nangaa cited security concerns in the central African country's Kasai region and a lack of resources as the main factors holding back elections this year.

But Francis Kale, a chief mobilizer in the opposition coalition, told Anadolu Agency on Monday: ''The deadline must be respected. Elections must be held before the end of this year. We will cause chaos if they are not held. We will hold demonstrations''.

Andre Claudel Lubaya, leader of the opposition UDA party, Sunday called on Nangaa to resign, along with President Joseph Kabila as he failed to hold elections within the deadline.

Hubert Tshiswaka, director of the Human Rights Research Institute, in a statement Monday condemned Nangaa’s announcement, saying he expects an electoral program instead.

When Kabila failed to leave office after his term expired last December, the opposition held riots in which dozens of people died. In peace talks brokered by Catholic bishops, it was agreed that new elections would be held by the end of 2017.

AAinEqGuinea:
Well said, especially your last paragraph. There is a bigger purpose out there to be more concerned with, but there's this indulgence I have to address.

You learn a lot about a country from talking, helping, but ultimately observing and what I'm seeing happen in Nigeria and Africa as a whole is that despite all non-African attributes AA's possess, young Africans still love and in many cases mimic everything about what AAs establish or are allowed to establish. If not AAs, then without question most Africans chase European social norms. Proficiency in English rather than a native language on JAMB exams, and then theres capitalism, democracy, religions, colonial names, modern architecture, etc, etc all foreign assimilations in which the only distinguishing factor that one has left is name and lingua.

Again I couldnt agree more that its petty but there seems to be a granular element that I'm interested in. It's like asking why Jesus is always depicted as a white man, and the retort is almost always "it doesnt matter what color he is", and I'd further prod with "if it doesnt matter what color he is, why does he always have to be white?". Petty on the surface but at its core lies more interesting psychology that I'd wish to validate.

Haiti is an Associate Member of the African Union, likely destined to be apart of the AU in the near future. They've retained what most would consider to be African culture. But some African culture in its purest form has many dark elements that I'd rather not remind anyone of as we see remnants of it everyday on FP with disclaimers. Charmers/herbalists (which I like), ritualism, jungle justice, polygamy are all apart of, but not mutually exclusive to, African culture. Many Africans remain true while many Africans have abandoned it especially once foreign religions like Christianity made a sacrilege of these norms. African culture doesnt seem to be static after all, so hate it or love it I'd argue who's the authority to claim that AA culture isnt an evolved form of Africa?

Thanks again. Best of the luck in this world.

That'd definitely be some interesting research for sure, the jesus analogy reminds me of the doll test from the 1940s, the psychology behind the children picking white dolls over black dolls that looked like them was due to an inferiority complex caused by “prejudice, discrimination, and segregation” so it's not surprising to me in the current global racial hierarchy that most non whites would prefer a white jesus. They rationalize it with an intrinsic confirmation that in this reality of white domination non whites are not of the same value as whites. If they can't save themselves and other non whites aren't able to do the same what then is the value of a non white jesus to them? It's funny and sad at the same time.

Also good point you made with that last sentence, AA's are the children of many African ethnicities we were forced to intermingle in order to survive and from there we've evolved to create our own authentic African culture.

All the best.

What and who defines the expiration of one's Africanness I'd say the events and conditions that led to the present customs and beliefs of the particular group of people in question. There's a lot of variety within African culture itself but there's still those dominant traits that are shared from within that identify and distinguish them from non African cultures.

I think it also could depend on the context in which Africanness is measured since there's a white man Africa and a black man Africa, there's a significant contrast between the culture of black man Africa and what African Americans practice. The social values and family dynamics between the two are set apart considerably which may explain why some Africans may use that against AA's to point out how American they are. Most second and third generation Africans in the US might also still speak an African language and have an African name that connects them to a specific locale.

Ironically, if we use the white man Africa viewpoint AA's could argue continental Africans are quite American themselves with their kfc, smartphones, fords, airplanes, general electric products etc.

In my opinion we blacks just need to scale back the pettiness and semantics a bit, AAs had a very unique experience let's all recognize that and move on, whites from America to Australia sure as hell know they're european so I would hope we're capable of doing the same at some point plus the perception of who's African or not between a diasporan African and a continental African is trivial to dominant culture.

DR Congo’s economy loses over $1 billion to child undernutrition, finds UN-backed study

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57136#.WWJq5ojyvIU

The economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is losing as much as 4.5 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) to the effects of child undernutrition, according to a United Nations-backed study released today.

The social and economic costs of undernutrition are estimated at 1.637 billion Congolese francs, or more than $1 billion a year.

China's 16+1 foray into Central and Eastern Europe

https://euobserver.com/eu-china/138347

The focus on infrastructure shows that China considers Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) a full part of the One Belt-One Road initiative – an investment and infrastructure plan, spanning from China to the Middle-East and Africa through to Central Asia.

"Southern and Eastern Europe are a testing ground for the Belt and Road," Anastas Vangeli, from the Polish Academy of Sciences, told EUobserver.

He said that 16+1 was more an "experiment" than a "Chinese plan", and that Beijing tries "to see whether this type of diplomacy can help them boost economic relations."

"To put it very simply, the whole idea is to find ways to boost the economy outside China, to generate demand for Chinese goods," Vangeli said, adding: "And these are not cheap goods: high speed railways, satellites systems or nuclear technology."

Agatha Kratz, from the European Council on Foreign Relations, a London-based think-tank, told EUobserver that: "The first idea was to treat CEE as Asia and Africa."

Militia violence shutters Banro gold mine in east Congo

https://www.reuters.com/article/banro-congo-violence-idUSL3N1JU48L

Fighting between the Congolese army and a local militia in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo has forced Banro Corp's Namoya gold mine to suspend all operations and temporarily evacuate its staff, the company said on Monday.

Twenty-three trucks belonging to a contractor of the mine were caught in cross-fire between soldiers and a local self-defense militia - identified by the army as Mai-Mai Yakutumba - near the town of Lulimba, Banro said in a statement.

Congo Skips Independence Day Parade For Security Reasons

http://ewn.co.za/2017/06/29/congo-skips-independence-day-parade-for-security-reasons

KINSHASA - Democratic Republic of Congo will not hold its annual independence day military parade on Friday because of security concerns, an adviser to President Joseph Kabila said on Thursday.

Congo's independence day parades, held each of the last three years, are usually festive events that mark the end of Belgian colonial rule in 1960 and have been used to show off the Central African country's latest arms acquisitions.

But rising militia violence, a growing humanitarian crisis and a spate of prison breaks have unsettled Africa's largest copper producer in recent months, adding to an already tense political climate.

Kabila refused to step down at the end of his mandate in December, increasing instability and raising fears of a backslide to the civil wars of the turn of the century that killed millions.

ezeagu:
The same happens when a white person claps twice in rhythm, it's like a miracle has happened.

Agreed from New York City to Timbuktu.

Ngo40:
But there's just absolutely no way I can hold on to bitterness...and be healthy emotionally, mentally, physically or spiritually.

Hosea 7:2 And they do not consider in their hearts That I remember all their wickedness Now their deeds are all around them; They are before My face.

If Jesus Christ was bitter I don't see why us marginalized blacks can't be

Fears surge of a fresh war in Congo's Nord-Kivu

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4647502/Fears-surge-fresh-war-Congos-Nord-Kivu.html

The governor of Congo's restive eastern province of Nord-Kivu urged the army Wednesday to beef up operations against a spate of militia attacks there, saying all-out war may be imminent.

"I am alerting in particular the army chief of staff to refocus its strategy after these new incursions. There is a looming threat of a fresh war," Julien Paluku told a press conference.

An unprecedented string of attacks in the last few days against border posts and army positions in DR Congo's troubled east have been attributed to the Mai-Mai, a "self-defence" militia comprising members of several ethnic groups in the region.