Tag: Africa

Elephant Walk

According to the World Wildlife Fund, the elephant is the largest animal walking the earth wandering 37 countries in Africa. Their presence help maintain suitable habitats for numerous other species but due to the illegal poaching for their ivory, over hunting for sport and the loss of their habitat the number of elephants are dwindling. Not yet considered endangered, they are vulnerable.

The illegal demand for ivory is the biggest driver of elephant poaching. Despite a global CITES ban on international sales of ivory since 1990, tens of thousands of elephants are killed to meet a growing demand for ivory products in the Far East. Asia stands behind a steadily increasing trend in illegal ivory and there are still thriving domestic ivory markets in Africa. Limited resources combined with remote and inaccessible elephant habitats make it difficult for governments to monitor and protect elephant herds. The impacts of war and over-exploitation of natural resources often lead to increased poaching as elephants are also regarded as source of wild meat. 2011 saw the highest volume of illegal ivory seized since global records began in 1989.

The punishment for poaching is very lenient as law professor and animal lover, Jonathan Turley notes in this report at his blog:

The reason why elephants are going extinct may have something to do with a trial in Cameroon against twin brothers accused of killing more than 100 elephants in Central Africa. What is most striking about this story is that these brothers – Symphorien Sangha and Rene Sangha – have been arrested before and never served a day in jail. Now, with over 100 dead elephants to their credit, they are only looking at a maximum of three years in jail. Indeed, Symphorien Sangha was found guilty of killing elephants and wounding a forest ranger. He will receive 10 years for wounding the ranger but no more than three years for killing a huge number of elephants and a long record of poaching. With a deterrent level of that kind, it is astonishing that any elephants remain alive.

If that isn’t outrageous enough, in a second article by Prof Turley, an NBC Sports Network show featured an NRA lobbyist, Tony Makris, shooting an elephant in the face and then celebrating while the animal lingered in pain before it is finally put down. I’m with Prof. Turley on this outrageous act:

I am also confused why this is so impressive. The elephant is standing there and you shoot it at close quarters in the face with a powerful weapon. The elephant however does not die after two shots but lingers in pain before it is finally put down. The episode ends with celebration with what appears to be champagne. [..]

The episode is filmed in the Botswana wilderness where he is led to around 20 feet from an elephant. While the number of elephants continue to fall in the country, a ban on trophy hunting will not kick in until 2014. That leaves people like Makris rushing to kill elephants while they still can.

We are not alone in our disgust:

NRA lobbyist Tony Makris sparks outrage by killing elephant on NBC show Under Wild Skies

by Bernard Humphries, The Australian

NBC Sports sparks outrage for airing an NRA-sponsored show in which the host kills an elephant by shooting it in the face

from the DailyMail.co.uk

   ‘Under Wild Skies’ is hosted by Tony Makris, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association

   In a highlighted reel from this week’s episode, Makris travels to Botswana and hunts an elephant, shooting it several times before it dies

   Makris laughs as the animal lets out one last groan after the final shot and then he jokes about wanting to hunt for birds

   Makris celebrates the hunt by drinking champagne

   Some NBC Sports viewers are now calling on the network to cancel the show

I won’t post the video since it’s very graphic and disturbing. You can view it at Prof Turley’s site.

As one commenter put it, “We’re an awful species.”

Lions Set To Roar

There is not so much good news around today but here is some great news:

There has been much made of the idea of African ‘lion’ countries, mimicking Asia’s famous ‘tigers’. There is no reason Africa shouldn’t start behaving like Asia – hordes of international businessmen should travel to air-conditioned offices and lavishly appointed bars in cities like Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam well within my lifetime. There are many thorns that need to be removed from the paws of these lions. But I do propose that renewable energy, in particular geothermal energy with its formidable baseload potential, can help provide both the energy and cultural electrification that sub-Saharan Africa needs, bringing international partnerships and healthy and competitive economies with it.

http://www.renewableenergyworl…

While Nigeria to Libya struggle with the corruption and warfare involved in fossil fuels – and truth be told in the infernal solar and wind sometime power – a real revolution is occurring in some of the poorest and most blighted lands of the planet with earth power.

Kenya is established in the geothermal sector, and the next hot markets are likely Djibouti, Ethiopia, and especially Tanzania.

In fact Kenya is only beginning to exploit its geothermal resources while even Rwanda is getting into the act.

Unlike extractive industries, there are only rarely any manner of terrorist attacks on geothermal power plants though initial resistance to exploiting the abundance of power offered by Mother Earth is often ferocious.  Hard to top the wild celebration in Hawaii when a geothermal power development was stopped cold over such reasons as the insult to Pele, the Goddess of Fire.  The revered Sen. Inouye was there to brag on getting a federal grant to aid in ending the project.  An also-ran was an environmentalist parade and celebration in San Jose when the reputed most promising project area of the time was halted after a couple decades of struggle.

May the Lions roar.

Obama, a boy ought to keep in contact with his grandmother.  Your Kenyan grandmother could probably explain to you what your advisers can’t.

Best,  Terry

US Military Expansion: Mali Intervention

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Photobucket

The United States may be withdrawing troops from Afghanistan but what is being ignored by the US traditional MSM is increases US military presence in Africa. The latest action involved the use of drone strikes  assistance to the French against Islamist groups in Northern Mali. While the focus in the news are these armed militant groups, they fail to mention that the area is rich oil and uranium. The Guardian has a a guide to the conflict.

U.S. weighs military support for France’s campaign against Mali militants

by  Anne Gearan, Karen DeYoung and Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post

The Obama administration is considering significant military backing for France’s drive against al-Qaeda-linked militants in Mali, but its support for a major ally could test U.S. legal boundaries and stretch counterterrorism resources in a murky new conflict.

The United States is already providing surveillance and other intelligence help to France and may soon offer military support such as transport or refueling planes, according to U.S. officials, who stressed that any assistance would stop short of sending American combat forces to the volatile West African nation.

At the same time, the administration is navigating a thicket of questions about military support and how far it could go in aiding the French without violating U.S. law or undermining policy objectives.

Direct military aid to Mali is forbidden under U.S. law because the weak rump government there seized power in a coup. U.S. moves are further complicated by uncertainty about which militants would be targeted in an assault.

The loosely affiliated web of Malian militants in the country’s north includes members of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). But other fighters are longtime foes of the Malian government and pose no direct threat to U.S. interests.

From Democracy Now!: Admin Aids French Bombing of Mali After U.S.-Trained Forces Join Rebels in Uranium-Rich Region

France is in its fifth day of an offensive to oust rebels that have held much of Mali’s northern region since March, an area larger than Afghanistan. The strikes have reportedly killed 11 civilians, including three children fleeing the bombardment of a camp near the central town of Konna. The United Nations estimates as many as 30,000 may have been displaced since fighting began last week. The United States has backed the offensive by helping transport French troops and making plans to send drones or other surveillance aircraft. It is aiding a fight against Malian forces that it once helped train, only to see them defect and join the Islamist rebellion. We discuss the latest in Mali with Al Jazeera correspondent May Ying Welsh, who has reported from Mali’s north, and with freelance journalist Hannah Armstrong, a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, who joins us from the Malian capital of Bamako.

Who said Pres. Barack Obama wasn’t a war hawk?

h/t TPM for the map. Click on image ot enlarge

News from Africa

 Zimbabwe

Rotting food scraps picked out of the dirt and the bins of the backstreets of Harare are piled together in a slimy heap on the ground with torn cardboard as a serving plate. Elias, 15, squats and pushes both hands into the pile, scooping out a chunk of something pink. He gnaws on it, then shouts: “Dinner! Come and eat.”

At the Makumbi children’s home, half an hour’s drive from the city, Sister Alois is upset to report she has had to turn away three abandoned babies brought in by social workers in the last week. “More and more children abandoned, it’s not the African way. There are so many now. They are being left in the bush, some are eaten by the ants.”

Niger

“When you walk through the markets, you can see that there is food here. The problem is that the ability to buy it has disappeared. People here depend on livestock to support themselves, but animals are being killed on the edge of exhaustion, and that means they are being sold for far less money. And on top of that, the cost of food basics has risen,” explained Gluck.

“Yesterday I saw women sifting through gravel at the side of the road, trying to find some grains that may have been blown from aid trucks.”

World Refugee Day: 20 June 2010

Angelina Jolie Speaks Out for World Refugee Day

There are times when all you can say is ahhhh!

This is so wonderful and amazing — all I can say is AHHHH!

The Orangutan and the Hound

Would that WE . . . . . . . !  L O V E!

World Refugee Day, 20 June 2009

Remember on this day, We as a Nation are Directly Responsible for the plight of millions of recent refugee’s through our failed foreign policies of Wars/Occupations of Choice in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and now in Pakistan.

We have many, supporters of our occupations mostly, who rail against any illegal immigrants crossing our borders for the jobs companies will give them, while at the same time forcing millions to flee to their neighbors countries, leaving those countries to absorb and support them.

We Are Directly Responsible!

Eden? Maybe. But Where’s the Apple Tree

NICHOLAS WADE

New York Times 5-3-09

More and more scientific evidence is surfacing which supports the theory that modern human life did originate in Africa.  

Locations for the Garden of Eden have been offered many times before, but seldom in the somewhat inhospitable borderland where Angola and Namibia meet.

A new genetic survey of people in Africa, the largest of its kind, suggests, however, that the region in southwest Africa seems, on the present evidence, to be the origin of modern humans. The authors have also identified some 14 ancestral populations.

readmore

Zimbabwe Imploding, South Africa Moving in

Zimbabwe is in a condition of complete collapse. Cholera is spreading because the government is out of money to pay for water purification. Over 500 people have died. Troops went on a rampage in Harare yesterday when they couldn’t get funds out of banks. People are starving.

Today, South Africa’s president is announcing a plan for South Africa to go into Zimbabwe to deal with the crisis.

President Kgalema Motlanthe’s cabinet will today unveil a plan for rescuing the country, which is buckling under the weight of a shattered economy, food shortages, a cholera outbreak and rioting soldiers.

also in Orange.

Kenya

When future historioranters analyze the data from this past election, at least one thing will be abundantly clear: of all the nations in Africa, Kenya played the largest role in America’s 2008 electoral process.  It hadn’t been expected to be so – the odds were on perennial favorites like Egypt, South Africa, the still un-interdicted Sudanese Genocide, or that nutjob in Zimbabwe – but there Kenya was, looming like Kilimanjaro over the Serengeti.  And I mean over all the Serengeti: not only does the President-Elect have a close connection with the nation – Sarah Palin’s Witch Doctor is Kenyan by birth.

Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we’ll contemplate a land that’s seen everything from the Dawn of Humanity to becostumed imperialists to a sad-but-all-too-typical history of governance since the Era of Decolonization.  Maybe along the way, we’ll come to know a little more about the most famous Kenyan-American of all – a guy who even now seems to be operating by that old African proverb, “Just because he harmed your goat, do not go out and kill his bull.”  

Updated – Okay, China, So What Else Shouldn’t Be “Politicized”?

It’s not like there’s nothing happening on the Olympic torch front. There are already protests in Australia as the torch heads toward that country: http://www.news.com.au/heralds…

Lin Hatfield Dobbs, a social justice campaigner, has pulled out of the Olympic torch relay in Australia, saying of the torch, “For a lot of people it still carries the meaning of harmony but for an increasing number of the global community watching it’s carrying a lot of meaning around human rights.” link: http://afp.google.com/article/…

And the International Herald-Tribune reports that in Japan, instead of the torch relay starting at the enigmatic Zenkoji Temple, it will begin in a parking lot: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap…

But all of that really pales in comparison to an event happening right now, involving multiple countries, including the United States and China. It includes an act of non-cooperation by trade union workers. A political party has spoken out, expressing fears that its members would become the victims of violence.

And yet we are treated to the same response by the Chinese government, that this event shouldn’t be “politicized”.  

Mugabe Negotiating Resignation

Voters in Zimbabwe, sick of struggling to get food and water under his reckless regime, have rejected Robert Mugabwe.

PRESIDENTIAL RESULTS (very incomplete)

Morgan Tsvangirai 1000, 000   51%

Robert Mugabe        844, 000   42%

Simba Makoni         148, 000   7%

He is reported to be negotiating a transition of power with the leading opposition candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai. Inside sources say he has decided against participation in a run off election.

The negotiations about a possible transfer of power away from Mr. Mugabe began after he apparently concluded that a runoff election would be demeaning, a diplomat said.

(also in orange)

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