Carlos Lopes. Africa boasts of an abundance of natural resources, in particular aquatic and marine resources, with a potential that has not yet been fully tapped in the context of economic growth and sustainable development. The African Great Lakes constitute the largest proportion of surface freshwater in the world (27%). This becomes therefore a globally important strategic resource as reserves of freshwater are dwindling in most parts of the world. In fact, Lake Victoria is the third largest fresh water lake in the world by area, and Lake Tanganyika is the second largest in volume and depth in the world.…
Author: CASADE
Kevin Sieff. Ramaphosa was elected by Parliament as South Africa’s president Thursday, marking a turning point for the country after the slow-motion collapse of the once-legendary ruling party under Jacob Zuma. Zuma resigned on Wednesday night under mounting pressure from the party, the African National Congress, leaving both the leadership of the ANC and the continent’s second-biggest economy in the hands of Ramaphosa. After the parliamentary vote, Ramaphosa addressed the nation, declaring, “Our intent is to continue to improve the lives of our people.” The businessman was later sworn in as South Africa’s fifth post-apartheid president. The South African stock…
In his excellent piece on the exit of Jacob Zuma from the political landscape of South Africa, Ambassador Campbell, once again, gives unimpeacheable and compelling reasons for his forced departure. The removal of Zuma by his fellow ANC leaders is as comforting as the dethronment of yet another African unrepentant mammal who single-handedly destroyed Zimbabwe. Africans can now breath a bit easier, and hope that these developments would usher in new and brave men and women in the ranks of the continent’s appalling leadership. Below is Campbell’s piece: Finally, Jacob Zuma Resigns a President of South Africa. John Campbell. Faced…
Ambassador John Campbell. President Donald Trump’s January 11 comments denigrating African countries has produced a fierce, continent-wide reaction. The concern must be that Africans will take the president’s comments as reflecting the views of most Americans, rather than merely his own and that of his small political base. In the aftermath of the president’s comments, the Department of State’s Africa bureau tweeted that “the United States will continue to robustly, enthusiastically and forcefully engage” with Africa, a weak response to African anger that reflects the reality that it is a part of the Trump administration, not independent of it. It…
John Campbell. American media is reporting that, during a bipartisan meeting with members of Congress on immigration matters on January 11, President Donald Trump asked why the United States should accept immigrants from Haiti and African states, which he characterized as “shithole countries.” Instead, he said he wanted more immigrants from countries such as Norway (he met with the Norwegian prime minister the previous day). As the New York Times pointed out, this presidential discourse was similar to that in 2016, when he allegedly said that Haitian immigrants all had AIDS and that Nigerians in the United States would never…
Comparative Economic Systems by H. Stephen Gardner This undergraduate/graduate course compares the economic systems of regions on the spectrum from free market to communism. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the movement toward capitalism in the remaining communist countries, this field of study has changed dramatically. This book concentrates on these movements and their implications and for the first time expands its scope to include more coverage of developing countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Thoroughly revised in response to the dramatic changes in the former-Soviet Union, this text has been reorganised along geographical lines rather than…
Connections by James Burke. Connections explores an Alternative View of Change (the subtitle of the series) that rejects the conventional linear and teleological view of historical progress. Burke contends that one cannot consider the development of any particular piece of the modern world in isolation. Rather, the entire gestalt of the modern world is the result of a web of interconnected events, each one consisting of a person or group acting for reasons of their own (e.g., profit, curiosity, religious) motivations with no concept of the final, modern result of what either their or their contemporaries’ actions finally led to.…
Casey Quackenbush A video of men appearing to be sold at auction in Libya for $400 has shocked the world and focused international attention on the exploitation of migrants and refugees the north African country. The footage and subsequent investigation conducted by CNN last month has rallied European and African leaders to take action to stop the abuses. On Wednesday, the leaders of Libya, France, Germany, Chad and Niger and four other countries agreed on a plan to evacuate thousands of migrants stuck in Libyan detention camps. The grainy undercover video appears to show smugglers selling off a dozen men…
John O. Ifediora. Introduction. Simon Wiesenthal’s seminal narrative of his experiences as a Nazi concentration camp inmate is, at its core, an inquiry into the nature of human capacity to make decisions under conditions of extreme trauma. Conditioned by the daily assault on his physical and psychological well-being by his captors, he was unwittingly placed in a position that required him to make a decision with moral and ethical implications – grant or not grant the request for forgiveness by a dying Nazi SS soldier who had confessed to a most depraved act of inhumanity against innocent Jews. The inability…
Editorial. The events of this month mark another milestone in African leadership structure, and the gradual embrace of “real Democracy” in a continent that was stillborn by colonialists and step-mothered by dictators. The people of Zimbabwe, after decades of malignant kleptocracy disguised as liberation realpolitik, had enough of the imbecility of Mugabe. The 93-year old dictator who mismanaged the country’s economy to the point extinction, oversaw the exile and brutal murder of political rivals was forcibly asked to relinquish power this month. And he did, but not without the usual protest. The question the world and Africans in particular should…