India-Africa News and Discussion

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ramana
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by ramana »

Link to African Studies Journal back issues.

Added to promote some awareness about Africa.

Will add to top of the page.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by gunjur »

Egypt’s top court criticizes constitutional panel, says draft charter curbs court’s powers
Egypt’s highest court lashed out Tuesday at an Islamist-led panel tasked with writing the country’s new constitution, saying that some of the proposed provisions undercut the court’s mandate and keep it under the president’s power.

The work — and the composition — of the 100-member constitutional assembly has been the subject of a fierce debate in Egypt, and the country is still haggling over disputed articles in the charter, some of which will determine the role of religion in the nation’s affairs and the independence of the judiciary.
One new article introduced by the panel would strip the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) of the authority to rule on the constitutionality of laws after they are passed by parliament, leaving it only the power to rule on them beforehand.
Most of the debate has centered on the wording of the role of Islamic Shariah law, the role of unelected religious scholars in reviewing laws as well as the protection of the rights of women and religious minorities.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by sooraj »

Congo rebels seize eastern city as UN forces look on

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/11/2 ... HS20121120
Rebels widely believed to be backed by Rwanda seized the eastern Congolese town of Goma on Tuesday, parading past United Nations peacekeepers who gave up the battle for the frontier city of one million people.
A senior U.N. source told Reuters that international peacekeepers gave up defending Goma after the Congolese troops evacuated under pressure from the advancing rebels
France called for a review of the local U.N. mandate, saying it was "absurd" that a substantial force, made up of troops from India, South Africa and Uruguay, had failed to hold off a few hundred rebels.
U.N. experts say Rwanda, a small but militarily capable neighbour that has intervened in Congo repeatedly over the past 18 years, is behind the revolt. Congo's mineral wealth, including diamonds, gold, copper and coltan - used in mobile phones - has inflamed the conflict and little has been spent on developing a country the size of Western Europe.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

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SSridhar
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Re: Growing Protests in Egypt

Post by SSridhar »

Egypt is sliding into chaos. One can expect even anarchy there in a few months if the Muslim Brotherhood toughens its stand as Morsy's latest defiant speech seems to indicate they will. When the protests against Hosni Mubarak broke out in c. 2010, it was obvious that the Muslim Brotherhood was controlling it from behind the scenes very cleverly. They called out from blaring speakers in the mosques to protest as 'it was their right'. Now, the same MB is characterizing the protests against the draft constitution and sweeping powers assumed by Morsy as Zionist-conspiracy. MB might have presented the colours of a moderate, democracy-loving, constitution-abiding organization just to hoodwink everyone. The real nature of MB is slowly emerging as they want to impose a shariah-compliant constitution and as they violently oppose protests etc.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Johann »

SS,

The MB was slow to get involved with the protests of 2011 that brought down Mubarak, only showing up near the end when it was already clear that the regime was losing.

The liberal and left activists success in the early stages with twitter and facebook was bringing out the generally apolitical and even apathetic educated middle and even upper classes out. That change in political consciousness was a first.

A lot of those people went home after Mubarak came down because they had to make a living, sit for exams, etc. That left the MB with the largest organised street presence.

The MB's model is the AKP in Turkey - use democratic means to consolidate power, and then start to dismantle the ladder that would allow any other party - Islamist OR non-Islamist to challenge you. Morissey's problem is that Egypt's activist class is larger than Turkey's, and less shackled after the revolution. The Army isn't committed to the MB, and there's no external invasion that would allow them to have the opposition shot for treason.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Agnimitra »

Islamists Clash with Military, Take Key Mali Town
BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — The Islamists who rule northern Mali clashed with government forces for the first time in nearly a year, seizing a strategic city Thursday as the al-Qaida-linked militants pushed toward the government line of control in the center of the troubled country.

The capture of the city of Konna marks a dangerous escalation in the Islamists’ confrontation with the Malian government, which is based hundreds of miles (kilometers) to the south in the capital, Bamako.

The fighting in central Mali also comes amid speculation that a regional military intervention to oust the extremists may not come until September at the earliest.

The Islamists seized the town of Douentza four months ago after brief standoff with a local militia, but pushed no further until clashes broke out late Wednesday in Konna, a town of 50,000 people, where fearful residents cowered inside their homes.

[...]

The United Nations said it was concerned about the reported military movements by rebel groups along the front line in Mali, and urged them to adhere to a Dec. 4 cease-fire, U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

[...]

In their quest to implement their strict version of Islamic law, known as Shariah, Ansar Dine has been carrying out public amputations and whippings, and even stoned to death a couple who were accused of adultery.

The Islamists insist they want to impose Shariah only in northern Mali, though there long have been fears they could push further south. While the capture of Konna is likely to exacerbate those concerns, Bamako remains 435 miles (700 kilometers) away.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Agnimitra »

Good to see a significant presence of African leaders at NaMo's Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit 2013 now in progress.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by gunjur »

Kenyatta Leads in Kenyan Election as Opponent Urges Recount
Uhuru Kenyatta, who is accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court, led Kenya’s presidential election as the party of his main rival Raila Odinga said the vote count “lacks integrity” and should be stopped.
Accusations by Odinga that he was robbed of victory in the last presidential election in December 2007 sparked two months of clashes that left more than 1,100 people dead and another 350,000 homeless. The unrest curbed growth in East Africa’s largest economy to 1.5 percent in 2008 from 7 percent a year earlier and disrupted key trade routes for landlocked neighbors including Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

The election is seen as a test of stability for Kenya, which is the regional hub for companies including General Electric Co. (GE), Pfizer Inc. and Huawei Technology Co. Kenya may become an oil producer after Tullow Oil Plc discovered the first crude deposits in the nation’s northwest a year ago.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Gerard »

South Africa: 'Over 25% of schoolgirls HIV positive'
At least 28% of South African schoolgirls are HIV positive compared with 4% of boys because "sugar daddies" are exploiting them, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has said.

He said 94,000 schoolgirls also fell pregnant in 2011, and 77,000 had abortions at state facilities, The Sowetan newspaper reports.

About 10% of South Africans are living with HIV, official statistics show.
:eek:
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Vipul »

Reviving India-Egypt Defence Cooperation.

At the joint press appearance with the visiting Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the two countries have agreed to initiate military exchanges and defence cooperation.

In an interview to an Indian newspaper on the eve of his visit, Morsy expressed his interest in establishing security cooperation with India. Morsy told 'The Hindu' newspaper that he is keen to build a special relationship with India that will include defence cooperation.

He identified military navigation, electronics and maintenance as some priority areas of interest. Although no further details were given out, defence engagement between Delhi and Cairo is welcome and long overdue.

Although both countries are distracted by domestic political concerns, establishing a strong institutional links between the two military establishments will benefit both countries.

After extraordinary bonhomie in the 1950s, the two countries drifted apart since the 1970s. Morsy's visit to India, the first by an elected Egyptian President, will hopefully set the stage for a comprehensive partnership in the coming years.

Egypt was among the few countries in the developing world that India sought to cooperation in the defence sector in the years after India's independence. The close friendship between Jawaharlal Nehru and the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser provided the basis for ambitious bilateral defence cooperation.

India participated in the development of a jet fighter and jet engine in Egypt from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. Nehru saw cooperation with Egypt as being complementary to India's own efforts at developing an indigenous aerospace industry.

According to one account, Nehru's India "participated in Egypt's 'Helena' HA-300 jet fighter program and sent various professionals from its aeronautics industry and the Indian Air Force on detached service to Egypt, where they joined the local aircraft project.

India also participated – with contributions of money, experts and equipment – in Egypt's attempt to produce an indigenous jet turbine engine, the 'Brandner E-300'.

Critically, Nehru hoped that this engine would have a viable market by pledging to power India's own indigenous jet fighter, the HAL HF-24 "Marut," with the Egyptian engine.

Although the projects did not succeed, they underlined Nehru's deep interest in defence collaboration with friends and political partners, notwithstanding his opposition to military alliances.

Unlike in the 1950s, future defence collaboration between Delhi and Cairo might have better future in the coming years, thanks to the advances in India's capabilities over the last few decades.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by ramana »

First of all the Nehru era cooperation with Egypt was because Egypt had those Nazi Germans running their military factories (Recall Odessa Files!).
Kurt Tank the HF-24 designer wanted to power it with the Brandner engine being developed by his cohort. The latter didnt work out.

Soon after Nasser died and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat who didn't want any India links as he wanted to move beyond Nasser's non alignment mantra and move closer to the US. So that contributed to the chill in the 70s.

Right now Egypt is bankrupt and has no money to pay its food and electric power let alone military hardware.

This visit is to wean India away from Israel.

Egypt hasn't done anything for India in last thrity years. True it kept neutral during OIC conferences!

As ususal the spinners in Delhi are telling tale tales to part with money and influence via complacent media.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by sanjaykumar »

First of all the Nehru era cooperation with Egypt was because Egypt had those Nazi Germans running their military factories


I have been asking for years-Egypt, what is Egypt? Thanks for the insight.
ramana
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by ramana »

sanjaykumar, Have you seen/read "Odessa File" by Fredrick Forsythe! It gives a short account of the 50s era Egypt.

I agree it has changed but the fruit doesnt fall far from the tree.

Whether Nasser or Qutb the hatred for Israel was constant.
Egypt got into wars in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 with Israel.

The Camp David peace accords they got back the Sinai and lots of annual baksheesh from US ~$3B.
Mind you they still get this despite the pain in US!

Now they got rid of Mubarak and have Muslim Brotherhood in direct rule.

How can/will they change?

Its only rosy(could be green or red) eyed Indians who have nostalgia for Egypt.
True Egpyt was the first to decolonize in Arab world but its natural tendency will be to gravitate towards the OIC which supports TSP.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Agnimitra »

X-posting from Islamism and Islamophobia thread:

AFRICA: RISE OF ISLAM FUELS CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION
In the wake of the “Arab Spring” across northern Africa, Islam has been on the rise throughout the continent, and with it, violent persecution against Christians.

Christians in Tanzania, for example, are on alert after an Assemblies of God pastor was killed while attempting to stop Muslim youth from killing two Christian meat cutters. Pastor Mathayo Kachili died on the scene from injuries sustained during the brutal beating by the Muslim teenagers.

International Christian Concern says that this attack set off a two-week string of violent anti-Christian attacks in Tanzania’s northwestern Geita region.

Only days after the pastor was killed, Muslim militants on the island of Zanzibar killed a Father Evarist Mushi, a Catholic priest.

International Christian Concern’s Africa analyst William Stark told WND in an interview that the priest’s murder links violence in Africa to terrorist activity throughout the region.

...Stark adds that the Muslims in Tanzania are radicalizing at a rapid rate.

“I would agree that the latest series of attacks is likely the beginning of a trend,” Stark said. “Radicalized Muslim youths are being used to commit terrible acts of violence in both Kenya and Tanzania.
Eritrea

Earlier this month, the Christian advocacy and aid group Open Doors reported to Worthy News that in Eritrea – an African nation that borders Ethiopia and the Red Sea on the Horn of Africa – authorities arrested, detained and publicly beat 125 Christians.
Nigeria

Last week, a bomb attack in the mostly Christian Sabon Gari district of Kano, Nigeria, killed 25 and wounded 60 others.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but in a statement to the press, World Watch Monitor says the attack bears the marks of Islamic terror: “The manner of attack is, however, similar to previous ones by the Islamist Boko Haram group. Its scale prompted Christian, Muslim and political leaders to urge the federal government to take urgent measures to avert a major crisis.”

The attack comes at the same time a Nigerian Catholic priest lashed out against Boko Haram’s attacks that have destroyed 50 churches in his diocese.
Libya

In Libya, there are reports from earlier this month that four more Egyptian Christians have been detained for allegedly proselytizing. The arrests came only days after a report that an Egyptian Christian died in prison from wounds receiving while being tortured.

The four were allegedly arrested at a security checkpoint outside the Libyan city of Misrata.
Sudan

In the East African nation of Sudan, meanwhile, Christians are fleeing in droves.

The Christian human rights group Barnabas Aid reported this past week that another 1,500 Christians have been safely airlifted from Khartoum to the recently formed nation of South Sudan.

The airlift is part of Barnabas Aid’s Exodus Project, which has taken over 3,500 Christians to safety.

In a statement for the press, International Director for Barnabas Fund President Patrick Sookhdeao says he’s pleased with the progress, but asks for help.

“It has been a great privilege for us to be able to help suffering Christians … begin a new life in a place where they can be free to practice their faith in peace and have opportunities to improve their circumstances,” Sookhdeo said. “There are thousands of others who need rescuing, so please do support our Exodus campaign and help us to change many more lives.”
Murder of Christian Pastors Evidence of a Broader Issue in East Africa
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Haresh »

Africans complain of discrimination in Mumbai, India

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-21826366
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Agnimitra »

An interesting example of a specifically anti-Islamic non-state actor terrorist group:

X-posting from Islamism & Islamophobia thread:

Nigeria: MEND Threatens Anti-Islam Attack
MEND, operating from Nigeria's south, says it will attack Muslims to protect Christians in Nigeria.

Starting May 31, Nigeria's oil militant group, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said it will target mosques and Islamic institutions, in a new terror campaign, "in defence of Christianity."

Operating from oil rich Niger Delta creeks, MEND is Nigeria's foremost collection of terror gangs united by a struggle to control the region's oil wealth, and criminality.

The group issued its newest threat just a week after it claimed responsibility for the killing of 12 police officers in the southern Bayelsa state.

"The bombings of mosques, haj camps, Islamic institutions, large congregations in Islamic events and assassinations of clerics that propagate doctrines of hate will form the core mission of this crusade," MEND spokesman Jomo Gbomo said in an e-mailed statement on Sunday.

The campaign is codenamed "Operation Barbarossa," Mr Gbomo, thought to be pseudonym, said.

MEND says Barbarossa will not in any way interfere with the ongoing "Hurricane Exodus" - which killed the police officers and "on Saturday, April 13, 2013, at about 01:00 Hrs, swept through the Ewellesuo community, Nembe, Bayelsa State, leaving the destruction of Well 62, belonging to Shell Petroleum in its wake."

Precious Okolobo, a Lagos-based spokesman for Shell's Nigerian unit, told Bloomberg he couldn't confirm the Saturday attack Well 62.

MEND announced early this month it resumed attacks in Nigeria after Henry Okah, its leader, was sentenced last month to 24 years in prison in South Africa. Mr. Okah was found guilty of 13 counts of terrorism, including a bombing claimed by MEND in which 12 people died in Abuja on Oct. 1, 2010.

Ceasefire

MEND agrees with Boko Haram's attacks targeted at Nigerian security agents - "including the prisons, for their role in extrajudicial killings, torture, deceit and corruption" - but said Boko Haram's attacks on Christians are not acceptable.

MEND says it will consider abandoning the operation if the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the Catholic Church and Henry Okah, "one of the few leaders in the Niger Delta region we respect for his integrity", intervenes.

"Also the assurance for a cessation of hostilities targeted at Christians in their places of worship, made privately or publicly by the real Boko Haram leadership will make us call off this crusade," Mr. Gbomo added.

While MEND operates as the major terror gang in Nigeria's south - especially oil rich Niger Delta areas, including Lagos - Boko Haram operates largely in NIgeria's north, targeting security agencies, Christians, opposition Islamic clerics, foreigners and other perceived enemies.

Both groups are Nigeria's largest terror gangs. While MEND - triggered by fight for economic justice - partially accepted amnesty in 2009, the government is currently persuading Boko Haram - a terror gang whose self-professed motive is the islamization of northern Nigeria, to do same.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Agnimitra »

Someone has this blog:

China in Africa - The Real Story
So far, President Obama's visit to Africa has produced no comments as sensational as the "new colonialist" remarks directed at China by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she visited Senegal and Zambia in previous years.

Yet during a town hall with young African leaders, the President invoked a similar sentiment in his remark that "I want to make sure that as countries come to Africa, that it’s benefiting Africans. ... If there’s going to be manufacturing taking place of raw materials, locate some of those plants here in Africa."

Well ... I wish whoever prepped him for this trip had at least tried to get an accurate picture. Two chapters of my book cover China's many manufacturing investments across Africa. I've since followed up with fieldwork on Chinese factories in the (raw material) leather processing sector in Ethiopia and several articles about the special economic zones -- focused on manufacturing -- being built by Chinese companies in Africa.

A recent guest post by SAIS student Yuan Li on this blog provides another example. In South Africa, the country where President Obama made this comment, the China Africa Development Fund has seven projects: two are in mining, and five are in manufacturing.

The Chinese state that as of the end of 2011, 15.6% of their Africa investment is in manufacturing and 30.6% in mining, with finance (purchase of 20% of Standard Bank) at 19.5% and construction at 16.4%.* From what I can see, there is far more manufacturing investment from China than from the United States. This includes raw materials processing: oil refineries in Chad and Niger, copper smelters in Zambia. According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US total stock of investment in Africa as of end-2011 was $56.6 billion. Mining made up $33.3 billion (59%) and manufacturing only $3.6 billion (six percent).

Yes, despite concerns about costs and competitiveness, manufacturing is going to be vital for Africa's future employmet generation. So, President Obama: what is the US going to do to catch up to China here?
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by ramana »

Nightwatch 8 July 2013....

Nigeria: Boko Haram Islamic militants attacked a boarding school in northeast Nigeria before dawn Saturday, killing 29 students and one teacher. Some of the pupils were burned alive when militants set the school on fire.


The governor of Nigeria's northeast Yobe State ordered all schools closed as a precaution against more attacks. The U.N. children's agency, meanwhile, said Monday that 48 boys and girls and seven teachers have been slain since June in northeast Nigeria.


Comment: A large task group of Nigerian Army soldiers supposedly suppressed Boko Haram in the northeast during the past two months. One of the obvious purposes of this attack was to demonstrate that the Army offensive failed.

-------
Even though Nigeria belongs to Africa proper, these attacks by Islamist puts int into the WANA thread....

Need to mull over where to track Islamist attacks on Nigeria?
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by vinod »

Corporate Carve-Up
One of the stated purposes of the Conference of Berlin in 1884 was to save the people of Africa from the slave trade. To discharge this grave responsibility, the European powers discovered, to their undoubted distress, that they would have to extend their control and ownership of large parts of Africa.

In doing so, they accidentally encountered the vast riches of that continent, which had not in any way figured in their calculations, and found themselves in astonished possession of land, gold, diamonds and ivory. They also discovered that they were able to enlist the labour of a large number of Africans, who, for humanitarian reasons, were best treated as slaves.

One of the stated purposes of the G8 conference, hosted by David Cameron next week, is to save the people of Africa from starvation. To discharge this grave responsibility, the global powers have discovered, to their undoubted distress, that their corporations must extend their control and ownership of large parts of Africa. As a result, they will find themselves in astonished possession of Africa’s land, seed and markets.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Prem »

Elephants and Tigers

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-ea ... re-not-far
ABHIJIT SANYAL is sitting on a beach-chair watching frothy waves roll in from the Indian Ocean. He arrived in Tanzania a year ago after a career in his native India with Unilever, an Anglo-Dutch consumer-goods giant. ChemiCotex, an industrial company in Dar es Salaam, hired him as chief executive to oversee the expansion of its “tooth-and-nail business”, which dominates the Tanzanian market for dental care and metal goods.“A lot of the challenges here are familiar to someone like me from India,” he says. “And so are the solutions.” Distribution is hampered by poor infrastructure, as is the electricity supply. Ancient and modern manufacturing processes co-exist uneasily. Most customers are middle- and upper-class; the rest are too poor.
What surprised Mr Sanyal when he arrived was how often people in Tanzania mistook him for a local. “On a new continent you expect residents to recognise you instantly as an outsider—but not here.” East and southern Africa host large populations of people from the subcontinent, mainly India. Most distributors of Samsung goods in Kenya are Indian. Many of their ancestors came as railway-workers and traders in the early 20th century. The rupee was then east Africa’s main currency. Mahatma Gandhi spent two decades in South Africa and Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first prime minister, backed African nationalist movements in the 1950s. Until 1999 India’s trade with Africa exceeded China’s. “It’s not called the Indian Ocean for nothing,” says Mr Sanyal.
The Chinese have arrived en masse since the turn of this century and have quickly come to be seen as dominant investors. But Indians are far from cowed. A new wave is crossing the ocean, some coming alone or as salarymen, working for or with locals, even managing them. Cities such as Dar have fast-growing Indian expatriate communities. The charge is led by Indian private-sector behemoths such as Bharti Enterprises, Essar and Tata. Rather than focusing on trading goods, they increasingly invest in the continent. Bharti Airtel bought an Africa-wide mobile phone network in 2010 for $10.7 billion.Private firms are joined by India’s state energy companies. Oil and Natural Gas Corp, India’s biggest oil explorer, bought a 10% stake in a Mozambican offshore gasfield for $2.6 billion in August. The company said the field has the “potential to become one of the world’s largest”. In June, Indian firms spent $2.5 billion on a share in a Mozambican oilfield. India is keen to ensure access to fuel supplies and raw materials for its fast-growing economy.Agriculture is another focus. Indians have invested more than $1 billion in farms in Ethiopia. Karuturi Global from Bangalore, the world’s biggest producer of cut flowers, employs 5,000 people at a rose farm on the shores of Lake Naivasha in Kenya. They send more than 1m stems a day to Europe, which is easier to reach from Africa, especially thanks to favourable EU trade arrangements.
Nigeria is emerging as another popular stamping-ground. Its population of 170m, Africa’s biggest by far, has growing consumer demand and sits in the same time zone as Europe, which is useful for Indian call centres. Indian energy firms are bidding for parts of Nigeria’s electricity grid that are being privatised for billions of dollars. Indian drug companies are the biggest supplier of pharmaceuticals in Nigeria, with revenues growing by 35% a year.Most Indian firms come to Africa under their own steam, but they can increasingly count on their government’s political and diplomatic heft. India’s navy takes an increasing part in international efforts to stamp out piracy in the Indian Ocean. America is supportive, not least to counter Chinese influence in Asian waters.In many ways Africa is a test of how India intends to behave as a rising power. Unlike other continents, particularly Asia, where India is expanding its presence, Africa is a relatively open space: a new power has more freedom to chart its own course. One question often asked in Beijing and Washington, for different reasons, is how much additional legitimacy India enjoys in Africa for being a democracy.
As it strives to do business there, will it also seek to liberate politics? Tellingly, India is copying a Chinese model of investment: the provision of oodles of trade financing, the opening of lots of embassies, frequent talks with African leaders, elaborate regional summits and friendly rhetoric about the virtues of “south-south co-operation”. The Indian government has offered more than $10 billion in loan programmes to finance trade and investment by Indian companies, still far behind the financing on offer from Chinese state banks. But India’s cumbersome bureaucracy keeps tripping up its businesses. Indian financing for the Katende hydroelectric project in Congo took three years to come through, whereas China provided funding for a similar project in three months.India has held two summits with African governments, in 2008 and 2011, and plans another next year. It is also negotiating a mechanism with South Africa for settling much of the $14 billion-a-year trade between the two countries in local currencies. India’s commerce minister, Anand Sharma, says he expects trade with Africa as a whole to rise to $100 billion in 2015, up from $70 billion today and less than $5 billion a decade ago. China’s African annual trade with Africa is worth $200 billion.Competition between India and China in Africa is played down by both sides. Indians like to point out that Chinese historical links to the continent are much weaker than their own. Mao Zedong tried hard in the 1960s, but his descendants “stick out like a sore hand”, says a Mumbai native.The two Asian giants certainly compete for the same energy resources and infrastructure deals, with China a pip or more ahead when it comes to the biggest contracts. But that comes at a cost for the winner. India benefits from being somewhat less prominent. The Chinese are derided by some Africans as new colonialists, propping up brutal rulers and corrupting democratic ones. Indian businesses have encountered fewer suspicions, even though they support many of the same dictators, including those in Angola, Sudan and Zimbabwe.Indian businesses have been better at invading Chinese turf than vice versa. When selling turbines or mining ore, the Asian behemoths compete head on, yet in running hospitals or telecoms the private Indian operators have little to fear from China’s firms, which are still state-owned. They thus prove wrong a doyen of Indo-African relations, Mahatma Gandhi, who observed in the early 20th century, “The commerce between India and Africa will be of ideas and services, not of manufactured goods against raw materials after the fashion of Western exploiters.”
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Victor »

How 50 Nigerians held the Goa police to ranson


Nigeria likely to throw out Indians after Goa's crackdown on Africans
No doubt these Nigerian thugs should be punished. However, it's one thing to fight crime, check foreigners' documents and deport those in violation but evicting only Nigerians without reason is against our laws. Besides, don't Pakistanis and Bangladeshis consider it their right to stay in India illegally with a wink and nod? This unfortunately also stinks of naked racism and if indulged in by officals, it is truly shameful. Nigeria is completely within its rights to retaliate with full force.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by disha »

Victor wrote: Nigeria likely to throw out Indians after Goa's crackdown on Africans
No doubt these Nigerian thugs should be punished. However, it's one thing to fight crime, check foreigners' documents and deport those in violation but evicting only Nigerians without reason is against our laws. Besides, don't Pakistanis and Bangladeshis consider it their right to stay in India illegally with a wink and nod? This unfortunately also stinks of naked racism and if indulged in by officals, it is truly shameful. Nigeria is completely within its rights to retaliate with full force.
First their diplomat should be kicked out and then this goons should be kicked out. Yes, all illegal bakis and beedis of course need to be kicked out, but there is no need to correlate one with other and no need to be held at "higher morals".

The guys in the video did behave like drug-addicted goons and need to be kicked out with impunity.

Indians get attacked in Nigeria, S. A, Kenya, Zimbabwe and there is a reverse-racism there too. No need to get our undies' in twist over "moral fibre".
Last edited by Raja Bose on 08 Nov 2013 06:59, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Edited out terms which may be perceived as being racist
sanjaykumar
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by sanjaykumar »

Unacceptable. Indians' double standards are appalling.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Haresh »

disha wrote:The guys in the video did behave like drug-addicted <redacted> and need to be kicked out with impunity.
How can you write something as racist and appalling as that??
Do you not have any shame?

The interaction between Black people whether from the west Indies or Africa always reveals the total hypocracy of Indians.
disha wrote:First their diplomat should be kicked out and then this goons should be kicked out
Why should the diplomat be kicked out?? What is the logic behind that?

I can fully understand deporting people who break the law and have no valid visa, but would you support the mass deportation of Indians from the UK for the same reason??

These things are not complicated.
ALWAYS TREAT OTHERS THE WAY YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED YOURSELF!!
Last edited by Raja Bose on 08 Nov 2013 07:06, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Removed terms which might be perceived as racist
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by anjan »

Haresh wrote:How can you write something as racist and appalling as that??
Do you not have any shame?
I have no idea whether the original intent was racist but if you see the video and the dude jumping up and down, it's hard not to make that comparison. [youtube]brZez-V1120#t=145[/youtube]

If Indians had been caught indulging in that kind of property destruction anywhere in the world there is little doubt of the retaliation they would have received. And it would have been well deserved. Would you like to try breaking up roads dividers and squatting in massa-land? For that matter would they have taken it lying down in Nigeria?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-24835058
He(Nigeria's high commissioner Ndubuisi Vitus Amaku) criticised the Goan authorities for plans to deport those living illegally in India.

"If Nigerians are living illegally you don't wait till their compatriot is murdered before you go around picking them up and threatening them with deportation - that is like rubbing salt on their wounds."

Earlier in the week, another Nigerian diplomat had warned of repercussions against Indians living in Nigeria if Goa did not stop "evicting Nigerians" from the state and failed to arrest the killers.
I call BS on racism. This is pure entitlement culture. India is everyone's pissing pot. The only valid question is to ask when we're getting around to kicking out the assorted Eastern European and Israeli druggies.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by sanjaykumar »

Maybe that is the point, the Israeli druggies have raves in Goa where Indians are not alowed but the stupid Indians are beating up Blacks. Disgusting.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by anjan »

sanjaykumar wrote:Maybe that is the point, the Israeli druggies have raves in Goa where Indians are not alowed but the stupid Indians are beating up Blacks. Disgusting.
Bhai everything has a tipping point and everything has to start somewhere. I'm certain if they'd beaten up an israeli first there would be folks here wrinkling their noses and saying we're anti-semetic. Either way chor shouldn't be dictating how kotwal does his job. Now that is truly disgusting. And an extraordinarily dumb precedent to set. Inconsistency of application is not a valid argument. Tomorrow illegal Bangladeshi will say look you let the Nigerians stay. Then what? You and the other poster will probably turn up and say we only hate the brown people surrounding us.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Haresh »

Anjan,

The Nigerians and others who are there illegally should be removed if they have no vailid documents. No one is disputing that.
However I think a crack down on illegal Nigerians could have been better timed. One of their number has just been murdered and after a protest, granted public property and traffic was disrupted, a crackdown is announced.

If their are people overstaying their visas then what was being done to find and remove them before this incident?
Were policemen, politicians etc being payed off? If so will they be prosecuted?

India may be
anjan wrote:India is everyone's pissing pot.
but that seems to be because the powers that be (politicians,businessmen, corrupt officials/police) allow it to be.

When the european visa overstayers and drug dealers are dealt with then India will cease to be a "pissing pot". This looks like the classic case of going after the easy targets, because it is weak.

I know a few Nigerians and they are by and large well educated and law abiding, some of the comments I have read in Indian online newspapers sound appalling racist. They have been referred to as monkey's and a "cancer".

I would rather have a third world Nigerian next to me than an arrogant European/Israeli.

If they are involved in drugs, then questions need to be asked about local corruption and action taken, where do they get the drugs from? how do they get the stuff out of the country? and most of all who do they pay off?
anjan wrote:If Indians had been caught indulging in that kind of property destruction anywhere in the world there is little doubt of the retaliation they would have received. And it would have been well deserved. Would you like to try breaking up roads dividers and squatting in massa-land? For that matter would they have taken it lying down in Nigeria?


THis sort of thing is a regular occurance in India, I am not condoning it and condemn it whole heartedly, but it seems to be behaviour brought about when people have no faith in officialdom.

Is Goa a well governed state/area????
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Rony »

So now even Nigeria also threatening India ? Depot these drug addicted Nigerians asap and show a middle finger to these arrogant idiots.
Tokunbo Falohun, Minister-Press in the Nigerian High Commission had demanded that the guilty should be immediately apprehended and brought to justice and that Simon’s family should be compensated.

However, what has complicated the matter is a threat issued by a Nigerain diplomat that Indians living in Nigeria could be targeted if those responsible for the Goa murder were not arrested and the Goa Police's campaign to evict the Nigerians did not stop.

"There are only 50,000 Nigerians living in India but there are over a million Indians living in Nigeria. Thousands of Indians living there will be thrown out on the streets if the forcible eviction of Nigerians in Goa does not stop," Jacob Nwadadia, Nigeria's consular attaché, was quoted as saying.

By opposing the action being taken by the Goa government against all foreign nationals, who are staying in the state without valid documents, the Nigerian government has clearly crossed the line.

What has made the situation worse is that it is trying to arm twist the Indian government into submission on the matter.

Reacting to the statement by the diplomat, Falohun said if the matter was "justifiably" dealt with, then there will not be any repercussion. "There is a large Indian community working in Nigeria. There are two temples in Lagos and all Indians have freedom to worship and for their other activities. We also are demanding the same," he said.

On the other hand, New Delhi appears keen to solve the matter amiably and has assured Abuja that all issues will be addressed in a cooperative manner.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Rony »

Image
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by anjan »

Haresh wrote:The Nigerians and others who are there illegally should be removed if they have no vailid documents. No one is disputing that.
However I think a crack down on illegal Nigerians could have been better timed. One of their number has just been murdered and after a protest, granted public property and traffic was disrupted, a crackdown is announced.
No, as a basic principal, criminals are not allowed to decide on what the best time to prosecute them. Do people not get arrested if they have a death in the family? And in general crackdowns do happen after egregious violations.
If their are people overstaying their visas then what was being done to find and remove them before this incident?
Were policemen, politicians etc being payed off? If so will they be prosecuted?
That's a different subject and really an internal administrative issue for Goans. Those are great questions though. The ones we should really be asking. That's not what the general outrage seems to be about though.
When the european visa overstayers and drug dealers are dealt with then India will cease to be a "pissing pot". This looks like the classic case of going after the easy targets, because it is weak.
Either as you suggest earlier, it was an arrangement with the local administrators(which seems pretty egalitarian. Colour-blind corruption) disrupted by violence or it was racism all along. Can't really be both. And in any case it's tangential to the angst here, which is over deportation of illegal immigrants and drug traders from Nigeria.
I know a few Nigerians and they are by and large well educated and law abiding, some of the comments I have read in Indian online newspapers sound appalling racist. They have been referred to as monkey's and a "cancer".
Comments? Have you read the comments section from any country's newspaper in an article on any other country. People are racist. Pick a random article on India in any Western news site and tell me you don't see racist comments. I'd bet a good sum that the Nigerians have nice racist stuff to say about us in their newspapers.
I would rather have a third world Nigerian next to me than an arrogant European/Israeli.
This too is a racist opinion, no? Personally I think the whole lot in the drug trade needs to be brought under control, white, black, green whatever. I'm not about to quibble on the order however and demand my racial preferences be taken into account.
THis sort of thing is a regular occurance in India, I am not condoning it and condemn it whole heartedly, but it seems to be behaviour brought about when people have no faith in officialdom.
Yes and if the Nigerians did it in their own country I wound't have a problem either. I only object to them doing it in my country. I'm certain if I jumped up and down in Piccadilly Square I'd be treated differently than a goon from the English supremacy party(whatever it is called) doing the same. I would probably be... deported.
Is Goa a well governed state/area????
In general, Yes.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by anjan »

Only 1 Nigerian out of 52 arrested last month had passport: Goa police
Panaji: Goa police today said that of the 52 Nigerians who were arrested for staging a violent protest on the national highway in the state last month, only one could produce a valid passport. As many as 38 had no passports at all. Of the rest, some did not have original passports but produced photocopies, police said.One of them had a “permit” to stay in India (but no passport). All of them were arrested on September 31 after they staged a blockade on the highway to protest murder of a fellow Nigerian. The arrests sparked off a diplomatic row between and India and Nigeria. In the aftermath, Goa government formed a special cell to crack down on the foreigners living illegally in the state.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by SwamyG »

Nigerians drug lords break the law and order in India, then use diplomacy to threaten India. Not only the police and aam admi of India were beaten and disturbed, now the 1 million diaspora is under watch.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by vishvak »

This issue is about India-Nigeria relations so not just about image of Indians in this. If I remember correctly, some police official or may be local politician was talking about filing a report and then investigation.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by ramana »

There was an NPR story/report on Boku Haram of Nigeria and its ideology. The report also outlined the steps taken by Nigerian military to drive BH from the cities.
Shocking was the US diplomat cautioning about humna rights for the terrorists whose unique idenitifer is execution in Koranic ritual style.

Makes you wonder if all these rascals are helped indirectly.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Lilo »

Sorry to be sounding crude, but about the nigerian gangs rampaging in Goa ... Are they tracing their roots to the jihadist northern nigeria or the relatively benign xtian and other minority dominated southern(or coastal) nigeria ??
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by ramana »

Lilo wrote:Sorry to be sounding crude, but about the nigerian gangs rampaging in Goa ... Are they tracing their roots to the jihadist northern nigeria or the relatively benign xtian and other minority dominated southern(or coastal) nigeria ??
The dead Nigerian's name is Paul. So he is not from the jihadi north Nigeria.
The death was a result of local and Nigerian gang fight for rights to sell stuff during the tourist season.
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Re: India-Africa News and Discussion

Post by Agnimitra »

Africa is becoming a battleground.

X-post from Islamism & Islamophobia thread:

Angola 'Bans Islam', Dismantles Mosques, According To News Reports
A number of news outlets have reported that Angola has "banned" Islam and started to dismantle mosques in a bold effort to stem the spread of Muslim extremism.

Weekly French-language Moroccan newspaper La Nouvelle Tribune published an article on Friday sourcing "several" Angolan officials, including the Southwest African nation's minister of culture, Rosa Cruz, who reportedly offered the following remarks, which have been translated from French: "The process of legalization of Islam has not been approved by the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. Their mosques would be closed until further notice."

The media reports have not described why Islam would need to be legalized, considering its presence in the country for many years.

OnIslam.net reports that the African economic news agency Agence Ecofin wrote that Cruz made the statement at an appearance last week before the 6th Commission of the National Assembly. The website goes on to note that, "According to several Angolan newspapers, Angola has become the first country in the world to ban Islam and Muslims, taking first measures by destroying mosques in the country."

Even Angola President José Eduardo dos Santos has weighed in on the controversy, as he was quoted in Nigeria's Osun Defender newspaper on Sunday as saying, "This is the final end of Islamic influence in our country," according to the OnIslam.net report.

The reported comments by Cruz and Santos echo the stance of the governor of the country's Luanda province, Bento Francisco Bento, who reportedly maintains that "radical Muslims were not welcome in Angola and that the government was not ready to legalize the presence of mosques in the country," according to a La Nouvelle Tribune summary of Bento's take on the issue.

In a physical extension of the officials' sentiments about Islam's place in Angola, La Nouvelle Tribune said that a minaret of an Angolan mosque was dismantled last October, and that the city of Zango "has gone further by destroying the only mosque in the city."

The emerging reports about Angola "banning" Islam and dismantling mosques point to the anti-Islam sentiments held by many in the nation's citizens, but they could not immediately be independently verified by International Business Times.

Angola is a majority-Christian nation of about 16 million people, of whom an estimated 55 percent are Catholic, 25 percent belong to African Christian denominations, 10 percent follow major Protestant traditions, and 5 percent belong to Brazilian Evangelical churches. Only 80,000 to 90,000 Angolans are Muslim, according to the U.S. State Department.
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