With energy demand spiking, China looks for answers in Africa. But Western investment and influence still dominate the continent’s oil market.
As global demand for energy continues to rise, major players like the United States, European Union (EU), and Japan are facing a new competitor in the race to secure long-term energy supplies: China. As its [...]

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WILL the world lose another miracle cure? Fifty years ago chloroquine seemed to be an unbeatable malaria remedy. But as the popularity spread of this synthetic form of quinine (a tree extract), the biological backlash began in the form of drug resistance. Today it is not recommended even for use in Africa, which suffers most [...]

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Poverty and weak health systems contribute hugely to the problem, but another, largely overlooked, factor is responsible for nearly 30% of all malaria deaths in Africa - conflict.
In 2007, 26 million people were driven from their homes by conflict. The effects of climate change - and conflict over limited resources like water, food and land [...]

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Russians take their place alongside the Chinese in a battle for resources to fuel their growing empires.
Late on a Friday night at the Simba Saloon in downtown Nairobi, music by the Kenyan pop sensation the Boomba Clan is playing, and the ties are coming off. At the bar, banker types in expensive suits swap news [...]

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Nonetheless so far out of all the African countries only Liberia has offered to host the headquarters, and some are vehemently opposed to a US troop presence on the ground.
Zambia’s chief government spokesman Mike Mulongoti said recently that allowing America in would be “like allowing a giant to settle in your home”.
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Pentagon launches Africa command
BBC News, UK - 14 hours ago
By Rob Watson The US has launched a new command centre for military operations in Africa, in a sign of a clear increase in American interest in Africa. …
US Africa Command: Aid crusader or meddling giant? Mail & Guardian Online
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Newly declassified U.S. government documents confirm the U.S. government suspected China was helping Algeria build a secret facility in 1991 for developing nuclear weapons.
The 15-megawatt reactor is now a research center about 80 miles south of the Algerian capital of Algiers, and has been brought under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) controls.
However, the once-classified reports [...]

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Today, few appear to have noticed that a second “scramble for Africa” is under way. This time, only one giant country is involved, but its ambitions are every bit as momentous as those of Rhodes and company. With every day that passes, China’s economic tentacles extend deeper into Africa. While Europe sought direct political control, [...]

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Recent photographs purportedly showing Sudanese soldiers in the Darfur region moving containers from a Russian-made Antonov cargo plane onto military trucks reinforce suspicions that Sudan continues to violate a U.N.-imposed arms embargo, the London-based human rights group Amnesty International said.
The photographs, taken in July and released today by the rights group, also purportedly show Russian-supplied [...]

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You may not have noticed it, but Africa is booming. Yet just when the world’s poorest continent is finally starting to see real economic growth, the resource curse threatens to snatch it all away.
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But the blessing of oil might turn out to be a curse in disguise. In a study published earlier this year, Paul [...]

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With the world’s attention focused on the Iranian nuclear program, little heed is being paid to a new wave of nuclear development plans on Europe’s doorstep, exemplified in moves to expand Algeria’s nuclear program, which many believe is intended to create a nuclear weapons capacity.
As Algeria emerges from over a decade of internecine bloodshed, prospects [...]

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Despite boasting Africa’s largest oil reserves, Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua thinks his country should be looking to other forms of power, including nuclear energy.
The new Nigerian leader who came into office in late May has called for the country to “develop the capacity to utilize nuclear power for power generation” in hopes of [...]

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As China and India increasingly prospect for resources here, terrorism concerns rise and the U.S. military seeks a permanent military presence in Africa, the continent has its greatest international influence in decades. Whether Africa can use its newfound might to end its longtime blight is a separate issue.
“There’s a new dynamic in play” for African [...]

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However, while the focus has largely been on what China has extracted from Africa, what Beijing brings to the regimes of the continent. It appears that the PRC has progressively found that arms transfers can serve a wide array of Chinese foreign and even domestic policy purposes, including improving relations with particular countries, securing access [...]

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ABECHE, Chad — A prime minister’s office scarred by a recent al-Qaeda bomb attack. Families separated while fleeing from genocidal murderers in their hometowns. And employees of an international company kidnapped from a heavily guarded oil-rich area.
No, this isn’t Iraq or the Middle East — it’s an impoverished region of Africa where chaos is breeding [...]

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WASHINGTON [MENL] — Saudi Arabia has been funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to establish Wahabi mosques and schools in North Africa.
Officials said Saudi princes and those close to the ruling family have been pouring money into the construction of mosques, schools and charities in such countries as Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. They said the [...]

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JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - AIDS may be killing elected officials in some Southern African countries faster than they can be replaced, creating a new threat to democracy and governance in the region, a new study said.
The Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA) said a study of mortality patterns in South Africa, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania [...]

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China is conquering Africa as it becomes the preferred trading partner of the continent’s dictators. Beijing is buying up Africa’s abundant natural resources and providing it with needed cash and cheaply produced consumer goods in return.
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Germany, the current G8 president, said Friday it wanted the world’s richest nations to stop China from freely lending money to Africa without checking where it was going or if it could be repaid.
In an action plan for good financial governance in Africa being presented to its Group of Eight partners at a meeting of [...]

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China yielded last week to international pressure and appointed an envoy for African Affairs. The hope in Western capitals is that Liu Guijin, a former ambassador to Zimbabwe, will persuade the Sudanese government to end the crisis in its Darfur region. Why are we looking toward China to solve a crisis thousands of miles from [...]

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Destroying other Blocks
However, the problem with accepting everybody who comes knocking is that, European countries that want to join the political body are given all sorts of conditions to meet. Meanwhile, the Union is proposing special status to African countries such as Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and even Mauritania. The only links binding these [...]

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