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In a devastatingly interconnected world, there is no escaping the spread of COVID-19 into all of Africa, with reverberating consequences for its 1.3 billion inhabitants – and for the rest of us. At the end of March, Africa had fewer than 5,000 cases and a smattering of deaths across almost all its 54 countries. … Continue reading
Unceasing civil war, pestilence, drought, floods, HIV/AIDS, drug-resistant TB, and now – blotting out the sky and eating all of their crops – a horde of locusts. Swarms of relentless desert locusts in their buzzing billions are eating their way across all of eastern Africa. At least 20 million people, and potentially 13 million … Continue reading
A dangerous water war was averted last week. But predicted droughts from global warming threaten the peace negotiated in northeastern Africa. In a breakthrough, Ethiopia promised Egypt that it would only impound life-giving waters behind Africa’s largest edifice – the US$4.2-billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam – gradually, and during future rainy seasons – not throughout … Continue reading
Africa’s massive deforestation, a dangerous result caused by population pressure and China’s increasing demand for lumber, is helping to accelerate the harmful effects of climate change, flooding, and drought. Timber, mostly un-processed whole logs, is Africa’s third largest export to China, after oil and minerals. To save Africa from wanton impoverishment, China will need to … Continue reading
Asian demand for African wild mammals, as we saw in Parts One and Two, is strong. Asians covet African ivory and rhinoceroses’ horns, lion claws, pangolin scales, and many other animal parts so that they can be used to make traditional medicinal remedies – supposed cures for a range of maladies. Ivory is also desired … Continue reading
China and Vietnam are the world’s largest active consumers of elephant tusks and rhinoceros horn for prestige carvings and for medicinal purposes, as discussed in Part One of this series of articles about the enormous poaching of African animals. There is also a Chinese and Vietnamese market for lion and leopard claws, for jewelry and … Continue reading
China has banned the import of ivory and barred the trading of ivory, but still the poaching of elephants for their tusks and the trafficking of other mammal parts continues, with Chinese entrepreneurs paying African people to kill iconic big species. More can surely be done by the authorities in China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam … Continue reading
Given the controversial attempt by the Trump administration to prevent European and other nations from allowing Huawei to build their much anticipated 5G networks, it is notable that 70 percent of Africa’s 4G networks have been built by that Chinese telecommunications giant. Huawei has also constructed compact cell towers wherever it has built out networks. … Continue reading
Africa in 2019 will continue to cope with a number of difficult and debilitating challenges: Terror, civil conflict, climate warming and drought, corruption, poor governance, weak rules of law and inconsistent and lacklustre leadership . For all of those reasons, sub- Saharan African migrants will still at- tempt, in great numbers, to enter Europe by … Continue reading
Terrorism, civil conflict, global warming, population growth, urb- anization, education, economic sustainability, managing China, strengthening leadership and improving governance are Africa’s 10 most pressing problems as 2018 unfolds None of these acute challenges is new, but 2018 will see each of them become more central to Africa’s ability to improve the standards of living and … Continue reading
Africa and Asia: The Key Issues 