How Africa 419s itself

David Seaton's News Links
Nigeria could be one of the richest, most advanced countries in the world: floating in oil with a large, lively, hardworking and intelligent population (as all the people all over the world who have fallen for a "419" can testify), however they live in the most miserable, chaotic squalor. The article below gives the full flavor of the contradictions involved.

Why, with all the resources, natural and human is Africa a metaphor for misery? The best analysis of Africa's maladies that I know of was that of a recent documentary, "Darwin's Nightmare", which I strongly urge all of my readers to locate, rent or purchase and view. I would even suggest pooling together to buy the DVD and to showing it to groups of friends, in schools or even church basements, whatever.

"Darwin's Nightmare" is a must see for anyone concerned, distressed and horrified by the misery of Africa. It gives the beginning of a deeper understanding than facts and figures can transmit. The film takes place on the other side of Africa in Kenya, but it contains allegories and insights that illuminate the entire "dark" continent. DS

Lights out in Nigeria, African oil giant - Business Week
Abstract:(...) With corruption and mismanagement leaving Africa's oil giant chronically short of electricity, businesses and walled residential compounds run diesel generators that clatter around the clock, spewing dirty fumes skyward.For the vast majority of Nigeria's 140 million people who don't have the means to provide their own juice, that means added din and filth and lives in near-perpetual gloom, illuminated only when the power grid flickers on.(...) In the markets of Lagos, Africa's biggest city with a population of 14 million, people are getting along as well as they can.Tailors hunch over foot-pedaled sewing machines, their knees pistoning as their fingers ease fabric beneath a flashing needle. Knives are sharpened on hand-spun grinding stones. Children study near open windows, while inside concrete hovels, wicks smoke in pots of kerosene. The power failures -- called "lights out" -- come frequently and unpredictably. Even jobs that don't need electricity can be onerous, without fans or air conditioners in noontime temperatures nearing 100 degrees. Despite low labor costs, Nigeria has little manufacturing due to the high price of energy, among other factors. Across Lagos, Nigerians blame their notoriously corrupt government for the electricity problems, saying their leaders steal funds earmarked for the country's generators.(...) In 1979, Nigeria had 79 generating stations. Twenty years later, after a series of ruinous military governments, only 15 were working, producing 1,500 megawatts of power. The government hopes to increase that nearly 100-fold within 25 years.(...) Across the energy sector in Nigeria, which produces some 2 million barrels of crude oil per day, shortages are common. Nigerians say this is emblematic of their country's defining paradox: Such great potential riches, such extensive poverty. After years of neglect, many Nigerian oil refineries are rusting hulks, with little refining capacity. One of the world's biggest oil producers must import most of its gasoline, which is sold at a deeply subsidized price. But demand frequently outstrips supply, leaving motorists parked in fuel lines that can last all day. Unscrupulous gas station owners buy subsidized gasoline and ship it to other countries, where it's sold for huge profits. Attempts to end the subsidies -- which Nigerians view as one of the only benefits derived from a government that fails to provide clean water, decent health care, streetlights and many other public services -- have caused riots. Nigerians, in the end, are forced fend for themselves. And the lack of electricity is particularly rankling for many, for without it they say they're living a preindustrial existence. "Light is a general thing. It makes jobs and when it's not there, we're useless," says Alfred Elegbe, a television repairman in a Lagos slum. The 35-year-old father of three estimates he could earn about $200 per month fixing televisions and DVD players if there was reliable electricity. He now clears only about $30. At night, Nigerians say, their children must study by candle or kerosene-lamp light. The heat and motionless air makes it difficult to sleep. Without electricity, water can't be pumped through taps. Meat spoils in refrigerators. There's little entertainment. "When the lights go, everything becomes so quiet," says Elegbe. "It's so boring." READ IT ALL

Somalia: reopening the wound

David Seaton's News Links
The slowly healing wounds of Somalia are being torn open again. Obviously Al Qaeda is the excuse for America's intervening anywhere it likes. What is the connection between Al Qaeda and Somalia? Like an opportunistic infection in a weakened organism, Al Qaeda merely takes the opportunity that failed states present. What makes states fail? Many think that globalization, where even major states lose much of their sovereign control, plays an important role in the total destruction of marginal state's authority. The "Islamic Courts" movement of Somalia was a totally homegrown solution to its endless anarchy, much or all of that anarchy brought on by longstanding foreign intervention. The center of the question is making Somalia habitable. The Courts created sufficient order for international aid agencies to function. If engaged and supported in their efforts to organize Somalia into some sort of livable, workable reality, would the Courts have jeopardized that aid by collaborating with Al Qaeda? Were they even given the chance to make that decision? DS
Analysis: Somalia May Fall Back to Chaos - AP
Abstract: Militiamen haunt Somalia's streets again, warlords have moved back into their mansions and the internationally backed government doesn't have the police or troops to maintain the peace. The call has gone out for an African cavalry to ride into town and save the day. But will it arrive in time? Diplomats from around the world are scrambling.(...) Jendayi Frazer, America's top diplomat for Africa, set out for the region to see what could be done to shore up the government.(...) she knew two simple truths about Somalia. First, the people badly need help. Almost one in four Somalis require outside assistance to survive and the Islamic militants who imposed security, while demanding piety, are gone. The warlords are ascendant and aid workers are afraid to go back in. Second, the United States can do little by itself. (...) American boots on the ground is not an option. "An African peacekeeping force is a good start to bring about stability," said Frazer, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa. She took that message to the presidents of Somalia, Uganda, Djibouti and Yemen, as well as Ethiopia's prime minister and the African Union's deputy chairman.(...) Willpower, though, may not be enough. All of those countries already provide peacekeepers to operations around the world, and South Africa and Nigeria are especially spread thin at the moment. And no country will send peacekeepers into Somalia if there is fighting.(...) "I think it's important to talk to the Islamic courts, or whoever are the moderates within the group," Frazer said. "They did bring a certain degree of order to Mogadishu. They have experience."(...) Yemen has tried to broker numerous peace deals between dozens of factions in Somalia over the years. Over a seafood feast for Frazer on Saturday, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr Al-Qirbi offered some advice. "We have many Somalis in Yemen and a long experience with them and there is one thing we have learned," he said. "If they have a fight, you don't get between them." READ IT ALL

LA Times gets the goods on Gates

David Seaton's News Links

If you have spent the last ten years or more of your precious life struggling with Microsoft products, trying to earn your living despite their glitches, "blue screens of death" and their huge security holes. If you have been angered by the way you were manipulated and "driven" from version to version; upgrade to upgrade and pray for the day when Google and Linux finally free you from this monster, nothing in the LA Times' exposé of the Gates Foundation will surprise you all that very much. If however, you worship the wealthy on general principle as so many Americans are prone to do, you may be shocked and disappointed by what you find. Relax, nothing is more fun than the unmasking of a pharisee: enjoy. DS

Dark cloud over good works of Gates Foundation - Los Angeles Times
Abstract: An ink spot certified that he had been immunized against polio and measles, thanks to a vaccination drive supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But polio is not the only threat Justice faces. Almost since birth, he has had respiratory trouble. His neighbors call it "the cough." People blame fumes and soot spewing from flames that tower 300 feet into the air over a nearby oil plant. It is owned by the Italian petroleum giant Eni, whose investors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.(...) In Ebocha, where Justice lives, Dr. Elekwachi Okey, a local physician, says hundreds of flares at oil plants in the Niger Delta have caused an epidemic of bronchitis in adults, and asthma and blurred vision in children. (...) "We're all smokers here," Okey said, "but not with cigarettes."(...) The Gates Foundation has poured $218 million into polio and measles immunization and research worldwide, including in the Niger Delta. At the same time that the foundation is funding inoculations to protect health, The Times found, it has invested $423 million in Eni, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Total of France — the companies responsible for most of the flares blanketing the delta with pollution, beyond anything permitted in the United States or Europe. (...) At the end of 2005, the Gates Foundation endowment stood at $35 billion, making it the largest in the world. (...) Warren E. Buffett, the world's second-richest man after Bill Gates, pledged to add about $31 billion in installments from his personal fortune. (...) the total is higher than the gross domestic products of 70% of the world's nations. Like most philanthropies, the Gates Foundation gives away at least 5% of its worth every year, to avoid paying most taxes. In 2005, it granted nearly $1.4 billion. It awards grants mainly in support of global health initiatives(...) It invests the other 95% of its worth. This endowment is managed by Bill Gates Investments, which handles Gates' personal fortune.(...) By comparing these investments with information from for-profit services that analyze corporate behavior for mutual funds, pension managers, government agencies and other foundations, The Times found that the Gates Foundation has holdings in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices.(...) Some critics say the foundation's failure to use its own investments "to promote ... public benefit in developing countries at reasonable cost" might trace back to the source of most of its money — Microsoft — which Bill Gates serves as chairman. Microsoft monopolies in computer operating systems and business software depend upon the same intellectual-property and trade-law approaches favored by drug companies. READ IT ALL

Making Mercedes in Ghana - BBC News

David Seaton's News Links

This article about African ingenuity is the one of the most interesting and human globalization stories I've ever read. BTW, did you know that Africans are emigrating to China and that Chinese are emigrating to Romania to fill a labor shortage caused by all the Romanians emigrating to Spain.... Things are getting strange, no? DS

Ghanaian mechanic Frank Darko boasts that he can make any car.

Any car?

"I can make any car. Ask me," he said.

A Mercedes Benz?

"I need the engine but the body I can build it. It would take me two or three weeks to complete it, if you bring the engine and chassis," he said.

Few of Mr Darko's customers want Mercedes Benz and few want their cars built from scratch.

But many bring cars, trucks, buses and trailers so badly damaged that in any other country they would be a write-off.

In the hands of Mr Darko and others like him, life is breathed back into hulks of scrap metal and fashioned with heat and hammers into something, well almost new.

Artisans

Mr Darko is a "straighter" - so-called because he can straighten crooked vehicles.

He is one of an estimated 80,000 mechanics, engineers and artisans who work in Suame Magazine, an industrial slum, possibly one of Africa's biggest.

On the outskirts of the Ghana's second city, Kumasi, the Magazine's origins lie in the city's long history of working gold and other metals.

Over time, more and more of these artisans turned their hands to vehicle repairs and engineering, eventually moving to Kumasi's Suame suburb after World War II.

In a continent and a country where buying new can stretch already overburdened pockets, the Magazine's artisans show how far you can get with ingenuity, skill and a few mechanical tools.

Shoppers from afar

The casual shopper in Suame can choose from a wide range of tyres, windscreens, hub caps and vehicle parts.

Abandoned carcasses of vehicles are scattered on the mud and tar streets.

With neighbouring Ivory Coast cut in two by a civil conflict, more and more trucks cross Ghana to get to the landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali - and the Magazine is their first port of call for repairs.

Mercedes Benz mechanic Kingsley Mensah has been in the business for nearly 30 years.

His customers come from all over Ghana, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast to buy spare parts and for repairs.

Not far from where he works, Atta Samuel stands within the wrecked frame of a bus.

Two weeks is all he needs to rebuild it and deliver it as new to his customer.

Most of those who work in the Magazine made their way in the trade through its apprenticeship system.

For welder Mohammed Adams, busy making the trailer of a truck, his life in the Magazine began as an apprentice aged 11.

Now 21, he has been a master for five years.

Workshop of broken dreams

More and more of the Ashanti region's unemployed youth are making their way to the city and find work in the city's vast workshop.

Its artisans and engineers once dreamed - and some still do - of government backing to set up a factory in Kumasi, where its numerous craftsmen could work together.

But some Ghanaians do not give the artisans the respect they deserve, assuming products from the Magazine are poorer quality than imports, said George Yaw Obeng, research fellow at the city's Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

The craftsmen - many of whom make food processing equipment and other engineering goods - also face tough competition from cheaper imports, he added.

More and more people in the Magazine are selling spare parts as well as doing repairs.

"Fewer people do manufacturing, it does not pay well, they are not able to face competition for products... It is not dying but it is not growing the way we thought it was going to grow," said Mr Obeng.

Creating a factory where all the Magazine's workers could work together is certainly what Frank Darko would like to see.

"We need something like that, we want all the mechanics, straighters, fitters and sprayers, everybody together under one roof." LINK