Thousands Of Recently Discovered Photographs Document Life In Uganda During Idi Amin’s Rartieign

Idi Amin playing an accordion on Buvuma Island in October 1971. Courtesy of the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation, Author provided

BY DEREK R. PETERSON, RICHARD VOKES

In 2015, researchers working in the storeroom at the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation forced open the lock on an unremarkable filing cabinet.

Inside were thousands of small wax envelopes, neatly arranged in rows, each containing a number of medium-format photographic negatives. In all there were 70,000 images. The vast majority of them date to the 1970s and the presidency of Idi Amin.

Amin is one of the 20th century’s most notorious dictators. In a recent PBS television series, he features alongside Kim Il Sung, Mussolini and other “Profiles in Tyranny.” In Uganda, the memory of the Amin years has been suppressed by a government keen to promote political amnesia. There are no memorials to the dead; neither are there monuments or other institutions that encourage deliberation over the Amin years.

These photographs offer one of the first opportunities for public reflection, and a small selection of them – about 150 images – are now on display at the Uganda Museum in Kampala. The exhibition, which we helped curate, is titled “The Unseen Archive of Idi Amin” and will be open until the end of 2019. For Ugandans and other visitors it is a place where a traumatic and divisive history can be assessed.

Amin’s aggressive populism
Idi Amin came to power in 1971 after overthrowing the government of Milton Obote, the president who had presided over Uganda’s independence from British colonial rule.

Obote had relied on state-run media to amplify his political power, and Amin inherited a powerful network of radio stations. The extensive reach of official media encouraged Amin and his officials to think of themselves as spokesmen for Ugandan commoners. Issues that had formerly been decided behind closed doors were discussed openly; matters that had once been determined by experts were made subject to the popular will. For some people it was hugely empowering. For others – especially for civil servants and other professionals – the Amin government’s aggressive populism was a mortal threat.

Photographers were a constant presence on the occasions when Amin and his officials addressed the public. For the whole period of his presidency, a dedicated team of photographers from Uganda’s Ministry of Information followed Amin around the country, snapping photos at press conferences, rallies, parties and other events.

As far as we know, very few of the photos they took were ever printed or published. The film was developed, and then the negatives were placed in envelopes, labeled and placed in a cabinet.

This had been, until now, an unseen archive.

Making a show of criminality

So why were these photos taken?

It seems that they served, primarily, as documentation.

Amin’s administration governed Uganda with the fervor and energy of a military campaign. It targeted otherwise obscure social issues – smuggling, overcharging consumers, the dominance of Asian business interests in the economy, the cleanliness of city streets – and transformed them into urgent political problems that demanded action.

For example, in 1972, tens of thousands of South Asians were obliged, by presidential decree, to leave Uganda. The Amin government labeled them as usurpers of black Ugandans’ economic power, a foreign minority whose usurious self-interest ran against the majority.

The cameras made the evils of usury, stealing and smuggling visible. People accused of criminal acts were paraded before the cameras, with crowds often gathered to witness the occasion. There, the evidence was laid out for all to see. Here are jerrycans full of smuggled paraffin, arranged in long rows; there are neat piles of hoarded cash, signifying the evil of South Asians’ dominance of the economy; there are bottles of gin, stacked up around an accused smuggler.

The camera brought the judgment of the Ugandan commonwealth to bear in specific times and in specific places. In the presence of photographers, campaigners could show themselves to be acting in the interest of the majority. In the presence of a camera, the struggles and exertions of the decade could be seen as historically consequential.

The Amin government’s photographers were part of a media ensemble that helped craft a narrative of meaning, direction and national purpose to the age. That’s why so many Ugandans found reason to support the Amin government. The presence of cameras at public events transformed mundane and forgettable occasions into moments in a chronicle of national struggle. Many people felt as if they were acting in the light of history.

What the cameras didn’t capture

While there’s a richness to the documentary nature of the photographs, there are very few that capture the harsh realities of daily life in Uganda in the 1970s, such as unaccountable violence, a collapsing infrastructure and shortages of the most basic commodities.

As many as 300,000 people died at the hands of men serving Amin’s government. This violence – the torture and murder of dissidents, criminals and others who fell afoul of the state – largely took place out of public view, and there’s no trace of it the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation archive.

In 1979, the Amin regime was overthrown by a force of Ugandan exiles and Tanzanian troops. Since then, there have been scant opportunities for Ugandans to learn about Amin’s presidency. After a decades-long exile in Saudi Arabia, Amin died in 2003. His remains are still buried there, awaiting repatriation to Uganda.

Debate around his legacy is only now finding a place in Uganda’s public life. So the thousands of recently discovered negatives – which were digitized as part of a preservation project organized by the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation, the University of Michigan and the University of Western Australia – are significant historical documents.

But when designing the Uganda Museum exhibition, we agonized over the absence of images that reveal suffering and death as facts of life in the 1970s. So we made an effort to present the photos in a way that acknowledges their status as instruments of Amin’s political self-interest.

In one part of the exhibition, we juxtaposed photos of the momentous events of public life with portraits of deceased people. In another part of the show, we highlighted particular episodes – the expulsion of the Asian community, the Economic Crimes Tribunal, the crackdown on smuggling – during which innocent people became victims of the regime. At the end of the exhibition, we put on display images of government torture chambers.

The exhibition opened in mid-May this year with a series of panels featuring people whose lives were intertwined with the Amin regime. The opening panel featured politicians who served in Amin’s cabinet; on another night, journalists who covered his governmentdiscussed their work; on a third evening, we heard from people who had lost loved ones in the hands of his thugs.

We had intended to convene a fourth panel where Idi Amin’s family members would discuss their memories of their father. But 15 minutes before we were to go on the air, they announced that they would no longer participate. They thought the exhibition didn’t adequately acknowledge their father’s achievements.

Their reluctance to speak highlights the tensions that undergird public discussion around the Amin regime today.

READ ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

Reducing The Number Of Out-Of-School Children In Nigeria

Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children. Image: Reuters

BY GABRIEL CHY ALONTA
The alarming increase in the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria needs urgent attention by the government and other education stakeholders. A recent report by the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) revealed that Nigeria has a surprising 13.2 million out-of-schoolchildren, the highest figure the world over. Gabriel Chy Alonta examines this shocking development in the acclaimed giant of Africa and the way out of the trend.

It is a sad development that, over the course of just five years, the number of out-of-school children has risen from 10.5 million to 13.2 million. Nigeria, ranked as having the highest such figure in the world, needs to make concerted effort to deal with this embarrassing statistic and get our children back to school for their intellectual development and the ultimate good of this society.

Tackling this issue should, ordinarily, be the major focus of discussions in the nation, especially at such occasions like Children’s Day celebration in Nigeria and similar ones like the International Day of Families and Global Day of Parents. The Nigerian Children’s Day celebration would have been more fruitfully celebrated with such discussions instead of the vainglory of march pasts and other exhibitions for the few privileged children in school.

Recall that Section 15 (1) of the Child’s Rights Act as captured in Cap. C50, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, bestows on every Nigerian child the right to free and compulsory basic education.

According to the provisions of the Act, every child has the right to free, compulsory and universal basic education the provision of which shall be the duty of the government of Nigeria. Every parent or guardian shall ensure that his child or ward attends and completes his/her primary school education and junior secondary education.

The Act also provides that every parent, guardian or person who has the care and custody of a child who has completed basic education, shall (read ‘must’) endeavour to send that child to senior secondary school except, as provided for in subsection 4 of the section; the child shall be encouraged to learn an appropriate trade and the employer of the child shall provide the necessities for learning the trade.

It is, therefore, obvious that Nigeria has laws that protect the interests of the child, especially their right to free and compulsory education as indicated in the Act. This law also implies that there should never be any circumstance under which a child is not enrolled in school to acquire basic education.

To what extent do Nigerian governments at the various levels, parents and guardians comply with the provisions of that Child’s Right Act? Have the governments and parents done enough to implement this Act? Why are there an outrageous 13.2 million of out-of-school children in Nigeria?

The Education Chief, UNICEF, Terry Durnnian, was quoted as saying that the world would not help Nigeria to solve the problem of out-of-school children if it does not solve it by itself.

“The number of out-of-school children calls for serious concern. Nigeria should take on the challenge of reducing out of school children. UNICEF will only lead and support the process of reducing out of school children”, he said. He said Nigeria accounts for more than one in five out-of-school children and 45 per cent of out-of-school children in West Africa.

Available statistics from United Nations show that about eight million children in 10 of Nigeria’s states do not go to school. The UN children’s fund also revealed that the average school enrolment rate in these areas was just 50 per cent and that the majority of those out of school are girls; the states most affected are in northern Nigeria.

Most fingers are pointing to northern Nigeria, particularly the North-East, as having the highest number of out-of-school children and critics have attributed this unfortunate scenario to the terrorist attacks in the north.

UNICEF said that more than 10 million children were unable to access safe education, largely due to an Islamist insurgency in the northern part of the country where hundreds of girls and boys have been abducted from their schools by Boko Haram jihadists.

Experts have also noted that over the last few years, Nigeria has been besieged by Boko Haram and lots of children have been put out of school, thus impeding the socio-economic progress of the country. They emphasised on the importance of engaging traditional rulers, who are custodians of culture to help in tackling the high incidence of out-of-school children.

According to the chairman, House Committee on Education, Anambra State House of Assembly, Hon. Timothy Ifedioramma, there is need for increased enlightenment on the dangers of school dropout. He regretted that, despite the efforts of the state government to reduce the number of out-of-school children, the situation keeps worsening.

Ifedioramma said that the rise in cases of school dropout in the state was usually eclipsed by the high performance of the state in external examinations, revealing that Anambra, indeed, had a significant number of out-of-school children parading the streets.

“Until we identify that this problem exists in our state, we will not get it right. We are always quick to look at the North to say that they are mostly affected, but we need to tackle our own problem to reduce the percentage in the long run. Education is not all about the government. It has to do with parents, society and other stakeholders; we all should contribute to the solution”, he said.

He recalled that despite the federal government’s School Feeding Programme, aimed at attracting out-of-the-school children back to school, the number kept increasing.

The house committee chairman harped on the need to re-engineer the society and increase the value of education, adding that “we are losing the value for education and encouragement that should be given to the younger ones to see education as really the foundation for success”.

Similarly, many of those who thought that the school feeding programme initiated by the Buhariadministration would lure out-of-school children back to school may have been proven wrong due to failure of the programme to yield the desired goal. Critics also argued that the programme was compromised. According to them, many of those who were assigned to manage the programme across the states of the federation failed to utilise the funds provided them for the project, and rather channelled it to their selfish interests.

Others were of the opinion that the failure of the school feeding project was a result of the lackadaisical attitude adopted by government towards supervising the implementation of the programme. They averred that the government did not do much to ensure that the project was optimally implemented.

It would also be recalled that the outgoing minister of education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, had during his valedictory press conference, admitted that the federal government failed in the last four years to fulfil its promise of reducing the population of out-of-school children by half, and regretted the worsening situation of the education sector which, instead of improving significantly, has deteriorated, to the dismay of watchers and stakeholders of the sector.

Also, reports in many rural communities in the Federal Capital Territory, revealed that most parents refuse to send their children to school despite the fact of the free basic education available to them The major but curious reason given by these parents was that their children were not born to go to school but to help them on their farms. They also attributed their decision to abject poverty and lack of basic life’s necessities.

It won’t be out of context to attribute government’s failure to tackle the teeming number of out-of-school children to outright negligence of the education sector. This given the lack of the much-needed attention, especially in terms of funding. The incessant industrial actions embarked upon by academic unions at different levels of education are ready proofs of this assertion.

Also, the United Nations’ recommendation that 26 per cent of the annual national budget of a country be assigned to education, has been grossly neglected by the Nigeria government, who only allocates a little above 7 per cent of the country’s budget.

There is the need to increase the budgetary allocation for the education sector, at least, to 15 per cent to better fight infrastructural deficiencies and other rots in the sector. There is also need to re-emphasise that universal basic education is free, requiring the little contribution of parents through the Parents Teachers Association scheme.

Just last week, President Muhammadu Buhari, at the inauguration of the National Economic Council (NEC) for the year 2019-2023, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, declared that “it is now (a) crime for parents to keep children out of school or deny them basic education.”

He also stressed the need to take very seriously and enforce very rigorously the statutory provisions on free and compulsory basic education. He noted that the first nine years of basic education were crucial for the development of any child and thus could not be toyed with.

The president urged state governors to make a firm commitment to be personally involved in ensuring that every child of school age actually went to school throughout the crucial nine years of basic education.

The extent to which federal government will implement this resolution remains unknown as there are fears already that it will end up as one of the several lip-service projects associated to the regime. The need to curb the number of out-of-school children certainly requires a concerted effort from all the relevant educational stakeholders. All hands must, therefore be on deck.

SOURCE: ORIENT DAILY

Mackenzie Lueck Killing: Cell Phone Photos And Rideshare Helped Lead To Arrest

Mackenzie Lueck/Facebook

 BY MADELINE HOLCOMBE, SCOTT MCLEAN

SALT LAKE CITY (CNN) -- Cell phones and social media were at the heart of the investigation that led to an arrest in the case of a University of Utah student who vanished two weeks ago.

Investigators tracking her cell phone discovered that 23-year-old Mackenzie Lueck and the man expected to be charged with her murder were both in the park where she was last seen on June 17 within a minute of one another.

That was around the time Lueck's phone stopped receiving data or location services, police said

Ayoola Ajayi, 31, was arrested Friday and is expected to be charged with aggravated murder. He also faces charges of aggravated kidnapping, obstruction of justice and desecration of a body, according to Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown.

Police find her pictures on his phone

After Lueck disappeared, the suspect originally denied knowing what she looked like, Brown said. But several pictures of her were found on his phone, and the "digital footprint" has continued even after the arrest, police said.

An Instagram account that Lueck's sorority sister confirmed belongs to the missing student followed another user on or about Wednesday, CNN verified.

Brown confirmed that investigators are looking into the activity on the account.

"This is a digital forensic investigation," he said. "This is covering computers, cell phones, IP addresses, URLs, texting apps."

Forensic evidence is also discovered

But the investigation is not just limited to digital footprints.

Investigators also found forensic evidence after they searched Ajayi's home and property Wednesday, police said. As they did, his neighbors told police they saw him using gasoline to burn something in his backyard on June 17 and 18, Brown said.

Police said the search yielded multiple items of evidence.

"A forensic excavation of the burn area was conducted, which resulted in the finding of several charred items that were consistent with personal items of Mackenzie Lueck," Brown told reporters.

Police also discovered charred material that was determined to be female human tissue consistent with Lueck's DNA profile, he said. A mattress investigators have been trying to find has been located, police tweeted Friday night, without providing additional details.

She stopped communicating about 3 a.m.

Lueck texted her parents at 1 a.m. on June 17 when she landed at Salt Lake City International Airport, police said. She was seen on airport surveillance walking through baggage claim before taking Lyft to Hatch Park.

The Lyft driver said she did not appear to be in distress, according to Salt Lake City police assistant chief Tim Doubt.

Police said Friday that all communications with Lueck's phone ceased around 3 a.m. that morning -- the same time they said she left the park with the suspect.

Phone records showed her last communication was with the suspect, Brown said. Her family and friends did not see or hear from her after that morning. Her sorority sister told CNN affiliate KSL that Lueck had also missed exams.

"She's extremely dedicated," Ashley Fine told the TV station. "She would never miss her midterms or anything like that. She hasn't been home. She didn't show up to work, or anything."

A suspect is arrested

After the suspect's arrest Friday, Brown contacted her parents to tell them the news. They were "devastated and heartbroken by this news," he said.

"This is one of the most difficult phone calls I've ever made," he said.

The suspect lived about five miles from the park where Lueck was last seen.

According to his LinkedIn page, he is a former information technology specialist for the US Army and recently worked for Dell and Goldman Sachs. CNN has reached out to the US Army and Dell for comment.

Police Arrest Ayoola Ajayi, Man Suspected Of Killing Utah College Student

ADDS ID OF SUSPECT AND CHARGES - Salt Lake City police take Ayoola A. Ajayi into custody in connection with missing University of Utah student MacKenzie Lueck in Salt Lake City on Friday, June 28, 2019. Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown said, Friday that Ajayi was being charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping and desecration of a body in the death of 23-year-old student. (Kristin Murphy/The Deseret News via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT

BY LINDSAY WHITEHURST

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah college student missing 11 days was abducted and killed and her remains burned in the yard of a man now facing aggravated murder and other charges, authorities said Friday.

Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown, who became emotional at times during a morning press conference, said Ayoola A. Ajayi will be charged with aggravated murder, kidnapping, obstruction of justice and desecration of a body in the death of 23-year-old Mackenzie Lueck.

He was arrested without incident Friday morning by a SWAT team.

Ajayi, 31, is an information technology worker who attended college on and off but never earned a degree and was briefly in the Army National Guard but didn’t complete basic training.

He doesn’t have a criminal record, according to online court information, but a northern Utah police department said he was accused of a rape in 2014. Police investigated but the alleged victim, an adult woman, declined to pursue charges, North Park police said in a news release.

Brown said telling the missing woman’s parents in Southern California was “one of the most difficult phone calls I’ve ever made.” Her parents are “devastated and heartbroken by this news.”

Lueck disappeared on June 17, after she returned from a trip home for her grandmother’s funeral and took a Lyft ride from the airport to a park north of Salt Lake City. She was last seen apparently willingly meeting someone there at about 3 a.m.

Her text conversation with Ajayi was her last communication and phone location data shows them both at the park within a minute of each other, Brown said.

“This was the same time as Mackenzie’s phone stopped receiving any further data or location services,” he said.

He declined to say whether or how exactly they knew each other. Ajayi has acknowledged texting with Lueck around 6 p.m. on June 16, but denied talking to her later, knowing what she looked like or having seen any online profile for her — despite having several photos, including a profile picture, Brown said.

The police chief said investigators were seeking to determine if others were involved. A second person was questioned at the time of his arrest and later released, Brown said.

Police have not discussed a motive for the killing, or specified a cause of death. A judge ordered Ajayi held without bail. It was not known if he has an attorney to speak on his behalf. He had not returned previous messages from The Associated Press prior to his arrest.

After discovering that Ajayi was the last person Lueck communicated with, police searched his home on Wednesday and Thursday. Police Thursday described him as a “person of interest.”

In his backyard, they said they found a “fresh dig area,” and charred items that belonged to Lueck. They also found burned human remains that matched her DNA profile, Brown said.

Ajayi has worked in information technology for several companies including Dell and Goldman Sachs, according to his LinkedIn page. Goldman Sachs confirmed he worked as a contract employee for less than a year at the Salt Lake City office ending in August 2018. Dell said Ajayi had worked there but didn’t provide his dates of employment.

Ajayi also appeared to have pursued employment in modeling with a bio page on a website called modelmanagement.com. Court records show he is divorced.

Lueck was a part-time senior at the University of Utah studying kinesiology and pre-nursing, and was expected to graduate in Spring 2020. She had been a student since 2014 and had an off-campus apartment. The university offered counseling services to any students or staffers affected by her death.

She is from El Segundo in the Los Angeles area and flew to California for a funeral before returning to Salt Lake City, police said. Her family reported her missing on June 20 and became more concerned after she missed a planned flight back to Los Angeles last weekend.

Lueck’s uncle, who did not provide his name at the police press conference, held back tears as he read a statement from her family thanking the investigators for their work.

“They’re also grateful to her community, her friends and others around the nation who have supported this investigation,” he said.

She was a bubbly, nurturing person who helped others and took care of animals like guinea pigs, hedgehogs and cats, friends have said. They did not respond to requests for comment after the arrest was announced.

Lueck’s sorority, Alpha Chi Omega, said in a statement the group is grieving her loss and hoping the members closest to her can find comfort as they remember her lasting impact on her loved ones.

Associated Press writers Brady McCombs and Morgan Smith contributed to this report.

China’s Engagement With Africa: Where Does It Stand? – Analysis

A Chinese engineer and a local construction worker build a section of the Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway in Emali, Kenya on Oct. 10, 2015. Photo by Noor Khamis/Reuters via Council on Foreign Relations.

BY ANAND BENEGAL
China’s engagement with the Africa continent has been analysed to examine a variety of aspects and a substantial portion of those analyses focus on the dept trap and resource curse concerns. However, an analysis of Beijing’s multidimensional relational policy comprising economics and culture and a comparison of China’s presence in Africa with those of the US and the EU shows that China is the continent’s most favoured partner.

China’s Multidimensional Partnership with Africa

For some time now, China has consistently been Africa’s largest single trading partner, having surpassed the US in 2009. In terms of trade volume, only the EU-Africa partnership is far greater, at US$ 314 billion compared to China’s US$ 170 billion in 2017. Similarly, Chinese FDI has shown dramatic growth, from US$ 74.8 million in 2003 to US$ 4.1 billion in 2017. According to McKinsey, thousands of Chinese firms employ and train millions of African workers, across diverse sectors including energy, infrastructure and manufacturing. Chinese commerce holds a diversified portfolio and is in Africa for the long-term, suggesting that profits from demographic dividend-driven growth is Beijing’s primary goal.

More controversially, the speed and secrecy in Chinese One Belt One Road project related investments have escalated China into becoming Africa’s largest creditor. These investments are typically long-term commitments in sectors such as transport, energy, mining, and communications. However, in Africa, China is viewed as a benevolent trustee. This is largely due to how Beijing has forged a thriving cultural partnership. Sino-African cultural relations range from research and education to language and culture. The Communist Party of China also provides diplomatic training to African politicians and entrepreneurs, which contribute to this favourable image among emerging African leaders. Sino-African research partnerships have garnered positive media reception for increasing employment and knowledge opportunities. Local telecommunications and agri-technology are among the most notable successes. A recent article in Nature goes so far as to state that “on the technological front, China is unmatched in Africa.”

Meanwhile, 59 Confucius Institutes (CIs) are involved in teaching Mandarin Chinese along with Chinese culture in over 30 African countries, second only to France’s 115 Alliance Françaises in 35 African countries. CIs supplement diplomacy and promote cultural and educational outreach programmes. The stringency of China’s visa policy also means African countries do not fear brain drain. Despite some harboring fears over the one-sidedness of this cultural relationship, the wider African populace has welcomed these educational opportunities.

China, US and EU in Africa

The conspicuous contrast is in military presence: the US has thousands of troops stationed across Africa, conducting counterterrorism and training operations. Precise force estimates are unclear, but the footprint is substantial—34 military outposts were observed in 2018. Likewise, the EU too holds military programmes. EU countries with sizeable military presence include Germany (in Mali, Somalia and Niger) and France (in Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, and Gabon). These external forces are often resented by the locals as the former tend to entangle themselves in regional conflicts. For instance, France launched airstrikes against political rebels in Chad in February 2019, and their siding with President Idriss Deby’s regime was heavily criticised.

China has only recently shifted from its non-intervention policy. Aside from establishing a military base in Djibouti, China has increased contributions to UN peacekeeping missions, offering to contribute 8000 troops and to train regional peacekeeping forces in 2015. While Western countries have a long history of continental military intervention, China has hitherto benefited from a lack of equivalent history. Beijing is trying to smoothen its growing military ambitions in Africa through diplomacy: the first China-Africa Defense and Security Forum took place in Beijing in June 2018. However, the nature of China’s response if/when embroiled in local/regional conflicts will be a factor that sculpts the trajectory of this relationship. Insofar, not having faced this issue has helped Beijing’s popularity with African leaders, whereas poor handling of a regional conflict could affect Beijing’s popularity.

Popularity surveys by Afrobarometer (2014) and Pew Research Center (2016) show that regional African populations view China warmly. 51 African leaders were present at the Forum on Africa-China Cooperation in Beijing compared to 27 at the UN General Assembly held in October 2018. Although historically, the US has been Africa’s preferred ally, a 2017 Pew survey shows China overtaking the US in terms of popular favourability, in at least three out of six African countries surveyed, with a tie in one (Kenya). Consolidating the decline of the US’ popularity is the ongoing US-China trade war which adversely impacts African economies, bringing the continent closer to China.

China’s multidimensional African policy has been a diplomatic victory compared to the US’s and the EU’s policies, which are heavily focused on regional security. Reacting to China, the EU unveiled a set of economic proposals towards Africa in September 2018, and the US’ National Security Advisor John Bolton announced a US-Africa strategy that December. These new proposals are similar to the multidimensional partnerships which currently underpin Sino-African relations.
Looking Ahead

The quick and emphatic marriage of economic and cultural diplomacy has been central to China’s rise in Africa. However, efforts to expand its military presence in conflict-ridden regions in the continent could affect this popularity among people and elites alike. How China navigates its security interests whilst evading the fallouts of regional conflicts could determine how its standing—as Africa’s most valued partner—progresses.

Anand Benegal is a Research Intern at IPCS’ China Research Programme.

SOURCE: EURASIA REVIEW

G-20 Leaders Clash Over Values, Face Calls To Protect Growth

President Donald Trump talks with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during a group photo at the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Friday, June 28, 2019. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

BY ELAINE KURTENBACH, FOSTER KLUG

OSAKA, JAPAN (AP) — World leaders attending a Group of 20 summit in Japan that began Friday are clashing over values that have served for decades as the foundation of their cooperation as they face calls to fend off threats to economic growth.

“A free and open economy is the basis for peace and prosperity,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told his counterparts in opening the two-day G-20 meeting, which comes as leaders grapple with profound tensions over trade, globalization and the collapsing nuclear deal with Iran.

While groups like the G-20 endeavor to forge consensus on broad policy approaches and geopolitical issues, they also are divided on an array of issues.

Defying Chinese warnings not to bring up the issue of recent protests in Hong Kong, Abe told Chinese President Xi Jinping it was important for “a free and open Hong Kong to prosper under ‘one country, two systems’ policy,” Japanese officials said, referring to the arrangement for the former British colony’s autonomy when China took control in 1997.

They said Abe reminded Xi of the importance of guaranteeing freedom, human rights, the “rule of law” and other universal values in raising concern over proposed Hong Kong legislation that would allow some criminal suspects to be extradited for trial in mainland China. The bill, now shelved, prompted protests by hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents and minor demonstrations elsewhere in Asia, including Osaka.

Xi is not the only leader facing a pushback from his Western counterparts.

European Union Council President Donald Tusk blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin for saying in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper that liberalism was “obsolete” and conflicts with the “overwhelming majority” in many countries.

“We are here as Europeans also to firmly and unequivocally defend and promote liberal democracy,” Tusk told reporters. “What I find really obsolete are: authoritarianism, personality cults, the rule of oligarchs. Even if sometimes they may seem effective.”

In the interview, Putin praised President Donald Trump for his efforts to try to stop the flow of migrants and drugs from Mexico and said that liberalism “presupposes that nothing needs to be done. That migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be protected.”

Trump has at times found himself at odds with other leaders in such international events, particularly on issues such as Iran, climate change and trade.

The schisms can vary.

Putin, Xi and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met and agreed on the need to rely on international law, respect national sovereignty and refrain from interference in the internal affairs of other nations, Putin said.

Such statements are a swipe at Trump’s “America First” approach in rejecting multilateral initiatives, but also draw a line against criticism of authoritarian governments like China’s and Russia’s.

China has often sought support for defending global trade agreements against Trump’s “America First” stance in gatherings like the G-20.

A planned meeting between Trump and Xi on Saturday has raised hopes the world’s two largest economies could attain a rapprochement in their festering dispute over technology and China’s chronic trade surplus.

The two sides have levied billions of dollars’ worth of tariffs on each other’s products. In Beijing, officials urged the U.S. side to meet China halfway in resolving the standoff.

In a meeting with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Trump said he had not promised to hold back on imposing new tariffs on China.

“I think it’ll be productive,” Trump said of his meeting with Xi. “We’ll see what happens tomorrow. It’ll be a very exciting day I’m sure,” he said. “It’s going to come out hopefully well for both countries.”

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross accompanied Trump to Osaka, suggesting potential for some movement after 11 rounds of talks with China stalled in May.

But while prospects for detente in the trade war are in the spotlight, many participants prefer a broader approach to tackling global crises.

“I am deeply concerned over the current global economic situation. The world is paying attention to the direction we, the G-20 leaders, are moving toward,” Abe said. “We need to send a strong message, which is to support and strengthen a free, fair and indiscriminating trade system.”

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission, told the G-20 leaders their work was essential for building confidence to keep the world economy growing.

Abe has sought to make the Osaka summit a landmark for progress on environmental issues, including climate change, on cooperation in developing new rules for the “digital economy,” such as devising fair ways to tax companies like Google and Facebook, and on strengthening precautions against abuse of technologies such as cybercurrencies to fund terrorism and other types of internet-related crimes.

On the rising tensions between Iran and the U.S., U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world can’t afford the conflict and it is “essential to deescalate the situation” and avoid confrontation. Iran is poised to soon surpass a key uranium stockpile threshold, threatening the nuclear accord it reached with world powers in 2015.

Iran’s moves come after Trump announced in May 2018 that he was pulling the U.S. out of the deal and re-imposing economic sanctions on Tehran.

The leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, in a meeting on the G-20 sidelines, called for joint efforts to stabilize international trade and oppose protectionism.

Putin, whose country faces an array of U.S. and EU sanctions, said at the meeting that “international trade has suffered from protectionism, politically motivated restrictions and barriers.” He also emphasized the need for the BRICS nations to take coordinated action to help block sources of funding for terrorist groups.

___

AP journalists Kaori Hitomi and Vladimir Isachenkov contributed to this story.

Trump Plans To Roll Back Deportation Protections For Families Of US Troops, Immigration Lawyers Say

President Donald Trump salutes a U.S. Marine while stepping off of Marine One after arriving back at the White House. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

BY AUSTIN WILLIAMS

WASHINGTON (FOX-10-PHPENIX) - - President Donald Trump, who has long been outspoken regarding his respect for the U.S. military and its personnel, is now looking to roll back a program that protects undocumented family members of active-duty troops from being deported, according to immigration attorneys.

According to NPR, attorneys who work with family members and loved ones of deployed soldiers are racing against the clock to submit applications for what is known as parole in place, after hearing that the program is "being terminated."

The parole in place program extends immigration protections to family members of all active-duty troops, selected and ready reserve individuals, and those who previously served and were not dishonorably discharged.

According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, parole in place is only available to military family members on a case-by-case basis, in one-year increments and under “urgent humanitarian reasons.”

The purpose of this program is to give military members peace of mind while serving, knowing that their undocumented families will be safe from deportation.

“What I’ve learned in the last week or so from multiple military and government attorneys is that the Trump administration plans to roll back the remaining military-related immigration benefits,” said Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney who represents recruits and veterans in deportation proceedings.

She said that various government lawyers have been notified that in the next 30 days “they’re going to remove these benefits and they won’t be available anymore.”

According to Stock, the NPR story only mentioned the benefits for active-duty personnel, but she says there is going to be a rollback of all of the immigration benefits available to active duty, National Guard, reserve and military veterans and their families as well.

For her and many others, not only does the change in policy not make any sense, it would negatively affect thousands of U.S. soldiers and their families, some of whom she represents.

“I have a client who’s a soldier in the Army, who’s about to be deployed to Africa, with Africa command, and she has a husband in the United States and a child, and her husband would’ve been eligible for benefits under the Obama administration’s policies,” said Stock.

“But under these new policies he’s not going to be eligible for benefits so he’s going to be facing deportation, while she’s deployed in Africa, and he’s supposed to be the one taking care of their baby.”

An email Stock said she obtained from a government lawyer who she knows personally read, “I am urging all attorneys who have clients eligible for PIP [parole in place] to do just that ASAP.”

It went on to say, “Time is no longer your client’s friend.”

Another email she obtained from a civilian attorney who she says works at the Pentagon said, “Yesterday the Baltimore Field Office told a young Marine’s wife that PIP was ‘being terminated’ in 30 days.”

Another government lawyer has urged immigration lawyers to “act quickly before the program is officially terminated next month,” according to NPR.

"I would advise clients that if they are eligible for [parole in place] to submit it ASAP," the government lawyer warned in a message obtained by NPR. "Wish there was better news to share. Big take-away is that no group is 'safe' any longer," the lawyer added.

So far, there has been no statement from the White House regarding the Trump administration’s interest in deprecating the parole in place program.

A spokesperson from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in an email that “there is no new information to release at this time.”

Stock said the White House is fully aware of the “firestorm of criticism” that they’re going to get from implementing the rollbacks.

“They know they’re going to have to deal with the chaos, obviously someone is telling them to implement a policy that doesn’t make any sense other than it plays to the anti-immigrant crowd,” said Stock.

“They’re saying they’re not going to confirm it, kind of is confirmation that they’re doing it because they’re not denying it,” she added.

This story was reported from Los Angeles.

The Forgotten Crisis That Has Displaced 1.2 Million People

People living in the Bria camp collect rations. Image via CNN

BY SEBASTIAN SHUKLA, TIM LISTER AND CLARISSA WARD

BRIA, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC (CNN) -- From the air, the camp at Bria looks like a small town, with warrens of metal shacks glinting amid the dusty red clay. And in many ways it is, an enforced sanctuary for 65,000 people desperate to escape the militias that roam this part of the Central African Republic (CAR).

People have fled to this camp from surrounding villages to escape an epidemic of murder and rape fueled by sectarian and ethnic hatred. They represent just a fraction of a humanitarian crisis that threatens to overwhelm the country.

Six years of fighting, involving a bewildering array of rebel groups, have left 1.2 million people displaced, nearly a quarter of the national population. Just under half of CAR's people are food insecure, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). The latest UN Development Index ranked CAR 188 out of 189 countries, above only Niger.

This African crisis is on a par with those in Yemen and Syria but gets much less attention than either -- perhaps because CAR, a landlocked country of abject poverty, has never seemed as geopolitically significant as those other cases.

Bria is a two-hour flight from the capital, Bangui, over an endless canopy of rain forest and snaking rivers. CNN visited the camp on what the WFP's country director, Gian Carlo Cirri, described as "a good day." An aid convoy had just arrived, ensuring that for the next week at least people would have enough to eat. It had taken five weeks to reach Bria from the capital.

Hundreds queued in the broiling midday heat for their ration of rice and oil, watched over by a handful of Zambian soldiers who are in CAR as part of the UN peacekeeping presence known as MINUSCA.

"We rely on armed escorts to bring in our food," said Cirri. More than half the tracks across CAR (there are only a handful of metaled roads) are unsafe; there were 396 attacks on aid workers in 2018. In a country that has just a few hundred trained soldiers and where the government controls about a quarter of the territory, aid convoys must be protected by the UN peacekeepers. But they too are overstretched -- there are 13,000 UN "blue helmets," as the troops are known, in a country the size of Texas.

"There is an additional difficulty with the terrain," Cirri said. "We are entering the rainy season. So some parts of the country won't be accessible with our trucks."

The majority of people in the Bria camp are women and children. Many of the men in this part of the country have been killed; some have joined one or another rebel faction just to earn a pittance.
Lavender Clemence appears to be in her late 30s. Surrounded by her children, she produces a photograph of her husband. He was beaten to death by one of the rebel groups, for whom arbitrary killing is a stock-in-trade.

Lavender says the camp is more like a prison than a refuge. "I am always suffering. I even had to sell some of my peas and rice to have some spending money," she told CNN.

"As soon as I can go home I will," she said. "I cannot suffer here any longer."

But many thousands of the camp's residents have been hoping to return home for three years. And they know it's unlikely anytime soon. Just a few weeks previously, a woman who had gone just over a mile from the camp was raped and murdered.

The conditions may be a notch above destitute, but beyond the berms that surround the camp lies the very real prospect of being killed.

The lack of security and accessibility, inadequate funding and the proliferation of weapons are just a few of the overlapping crises in CAR, making the delivery of aid a constant headache for aid agencies. This is a life support mission; development seems like a pipe dream.

In some ways the country seems as if in the grip of a collective psychosis. Violence can erupt out of the smallest disputes. The armed groups roaming the countryside are fighting for power and resources; they are not driven by ideology.

Atrocities are so frequent that they rarely get reported beyond CAR's borders. While CNN was there, 50 villagers were corralled and shot to death in attacks by one of the rebel factions in the remote north-west. One villager told the NGO Medecins Sans Frontieres: "They piled us on top of each other, then started shooting. It felt like it was raining bullets."

The killing is yet to ebb despite a peace agreement signed in Bangui in February between 14 rebel groups and the government. One problem is that the group leaders often have little communication with or control over followers.

Another is that, thanks to the peace agreement, rebel leaders have been given government positions. There's widespread resentment that instead of being held accountable, they are being rewarded.
President Faustin Archange Touadera, a former math professor who was elected in 2016, has made security his overriding priority. "On the last 30 years we have endured cyclical crises which every time destroy the base of our economy and increase the difficulty for our population," he told CNN.
"We have to find peace again, security ... The armed groups that are the authors of this conflict are still armed, so we have to disarm them. We have to rebuild the national army," Touadera added.
This is slowly happening, with European Union and Russian training missions. But few units of the army or gendarmerie security forces are yet able to stand on their own feet.

The history of CAR gives little ground for optimism. The latest peace deal is the eighth since the country collapsed into chaos in 2012. It might sound as though CAR is beyond help, but the resilience of its people and their deep yearning for peace offer a glimpse of hope.

On a journey through the southwest of the country, one of the few regions not ravaged by fighting, we saw fields being planted, new village clinics and small aid groups getting into rural areas to tackle problems like maternal mortality. The town of Boda, where hundreds were killed in Muslim-Christian violence in 2014, is now at peace.

Touadera sees the potential of his country. It is rich in minerals and has huge tracts of fertile land. He says he has hope, "as long as we start working, we get engaged and united, rather than staying stuck in divisions and hatred and being vengeful."

Much will depend on whether the rest of the world cares enough to help.

SOURCE

Can The US And Africa Prosper Together?

Figure 1: Two-way trade in goods with Africa

Source: United State Census Bureau Via Brookings Institution

BY WITNEY SCNEIDMAN, JAY IRELAND

Prosper Africa, the core of the Trump administration’s policy, is a state of mind.

This is not a criticism.

The program is an ambitious effort to get every American political appointee, diplomat, and civil servant engaged on African issues to be on the lookout for commercial opportunities for American businesses and to help American companies take advantage of those opportunities. Prosper Africa wants nothing less than to change the culture of American diplomacy in Africa so that the success of American business on the continent is as much of a priority as American security and Africa’s economic development.

This message was repeated last week at the Corporate Council on Africa’s U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Maputo, Mozambique, by Deputy Commerce Secretary Karen Dunn Kelley, USAID Administrator Mark Green, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy, and Commerce Under Secretary for International Trade Administration Gilbert Kaplan, among others. To those present, it appeared to be well received by the presidents, vice presidents, ministers, and other senior African officials who came from more than 20 countries on the continent, and the more than 1,000 U.S. and African business leaders who participated in the summit.

IMPLEMENTING PROSPER AFRICA
The implementation of this new mindset will be challenging, to say the least.

A Prosper Africa website went live during the conference but, at best, it is a placeholder for things to come. Administration officials at the summit talked about creating “deal teams” in the U.S. and at U.S. embassies, yet few details were given about the make-up of the “teams” or how American businesses can engage them. One senior official mentioned that the Trade and Investment Hubs will be transformed into “multi-agency platforms” but little information was provided on what form that will take.

There is a Prosper Africa secretariat co-led by USAID and the Commerce Department but, again, information on that was scarce. And then there is the money, of which not much has been allocated to the initiative. USAID has budgeted $50 million for Prosper Africa, less than that devoted to Power Africa, and far less than one-half of one percent of the $8 billion that USAID invests in Africa annually in its other programs.

Indeed, the success of Prosper Africa will be judged by its ability to increase the volume of commercial flows between the U.S. and Africa. Right now, though, some U.S officials say that they want to double U.S. trade and investment while others speak more cautiously about “substantially” increasing the volumes.

Despite the lack of detail, the Trump administration has generated momentum for its commercial policy in Africa. One welcome development was the announcement that a fourth Trade and Investment Hub will be established in North Africa, hopefully in Morocco. The passage of the BUILD Act and the creation of the $60 billion U.S. Development Finance Corporation (USDFC) set to open its doors on October 1, is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The USDFC can make American companies competitive in Africa in a way they have never been before. Finally, at the summit, Commerce announced a reconstituted President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa, a creation of the Obama administration, that has played an important role in identifying challenges for U.S. business on the continent. In May, the U.S. Senate voted to restore the full financing authority of the U.S. Export-Import Bank, with the confirmation of three new board members. These are all important tools for boosting U.S. business in Africa.

COMPETITION ON ALL SIDES

When it comes to U.S. investment in Africa, the trend line has been positive. Not only does the U.S. have the largest stock of investment in Africa of any of the continent’s commercial partners, but that number has been steadily increasing. In 2017, U.S. investment was $50 billion up from $9 billion in 2001. During the Maputo summit, oil and gas company Anadarko announced a $20 billion investment for the construction of a liquified natural gas plant in Mozambique’s Offshore Area 1. According to Standard Bank, this is the largest investment ever in Africa. ExxonMobil is expected to soon announce an even larger investment to develop Mozambique’s natural gas resources.

It will be more challenging for the Trump administration to have success on the trade front. For one, the level of two-way trade was $61.8 billion last year. This was 57 percent less than its 10-year high of $142 billion in 2008 (Figure 1).

Several factors explain the dramatic decrease. First, with the emergence of U.S. energy self-sufficiency, our historically high need for African oil is now zero. On the other hand, the long-term competitive issue for U.S. trade in Africa is the proliferation of the European Union’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). These agreements provide EU goods, services, and companies with tariff advantages with more than 40 African countries. As the United States Trade Representative (USTR) noted in its March 2019 National Trade Competitiveness report, the EPAs have “eroded” U.S. trade competitiveness with South Africa and the countries of the Southern African Development Community. This erosion will only intensify across the continent as the EPAs come into force, and as Africa implements the new Continental Free Trade Agreement.

Another challenge for the American trade position in Africa is China’s tied-aid commercial policy that leverages debt onto African governments in return for their obligation to use Chinese goods, services, and labor for much-needed infrastructure projects. It is also worth noting that the U.S.-Africa Trade and Investment Summit coincided with the annual meeting of the African Export-Import Bank that was being held in Moscow and was opened by Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. Clearly, competition for market share in Africa is rapidly intensifying, and not just from China and Russia.

It is difficult to see how the Trump administration’s desire to find a willing African partner with which to negotiate a “model” free trade agreement will be sufficient in scale and time of implementation to prevent a further erosion of U.S. trade competitiveness in Africa.

THE MAPUTO BOUNCE
U.S.-African commercial relations were energized by the U.S.-Africa Trade and Investment Summit in Maputo, but the administration needs to keep that momentum going. The AGOA Forum in Côte d’Ivoire in August will be another opportunity for U.S. officials to show their commitment to the African continent and Prosper Africa. The Trump administration should also consider convening a third high-level U.S.-Africa Business Forum on the margins of the U.N. General Assembly in September. The previous forums, in 2014 and again in 2016, proved to be major catalysts to U.S. business success in Africa.

SOURCE: BROOKINGS

T.Y Danjuma Worth $1.2bn, Owns International Hotels – Bloomberg

Theophilus Danjuma

BY ENIOLA AKINKUOTU

ABUJA (PUNCH) -- United States-based financial data media house, Bloomberg, says a former Minister of Defence, Lt.Gen Theophilus Danjuma (retd.), is worth an estimated $1.2bn (N432bn).

This is the first time Danjuma’s net worth would be made public.

Danjuma was mentioned in the Panama Papers in 2017 among prominent Nigerians that operated foreign accounts and had foreign companies while holding public office.

The retired general was also among global personalities found to maintain secret accounts, operated with codes, with the Swiss branch of banking giant, HSBC.

According to Bloomberg’s latest report, Danjuma owns not less than 30 properties worldwide some of which include hotels, luxury apartments and others.

Bloomberg said in a report that Danjuma had also acquired the ‘Kings Arms Hotel’, a 300-year-old inn next to London’s Hampton Court Palace, once the home of King Henry VIII.

It’s set to open soon after refurbishment, with rooms costing about 250 pounds ($318) a night.

The report read in part, “In this most English of settings, it’s fitting the owner is a retired military man still referred to as “General.” But for Theophilus Danjuma, this is just one investment in a network of assets that span at least three continents.

“The 80-year-old Nigerian is worth $1.2bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with his family office managing a portion of that wealth, often through low-key holdings such as the 14-room hotel.”

Hannatu Gentles, the second daughter of the retired general, confirmed to Bloomberg in an interview that the property was indeed bought by the family and would bear the ‘Danjuma’ name.

She said they paid 2.4m pounds (N1.09bn) for the hotel.

Gentles said redevelopment work was expected to end in March, filings show, but the inn’s age and protected status resulted in higher costs and delays.


“This is the first, and will possibly be the last, listed building we’ve worked on,” Gentles said. “It’s taken longer than we wanted, but our name is attached to the building and we want to be proud of our work. It’s been a hard slog.”

Danjuma’s new venture is far removed from civil war and deepwater oil fields, the spheres where he amassed his power and fortune.

In 2006, his South Atlantic Petroleum Ltd. sold almost half its contractor rights for a section off Nigeria’s coast to a state-backed Chinese firm for $1.8bn.

The ex-minister was awarded the block in 1998 by the regime of former dictator and fellow army officer Sani Abacha, making him one of a handful of Nigerians made extraordinarily wealthy from the country’s energy reserves.

“Basically, these people got winning lottery tickets,” said Antony Goldman, founder of West Africa-focused ProMedia Consulting. “At the time, you had a government desperate for credibility that was isolated internationally.” Danjuma was “someone who’s not really a politician, who is respected in business and in the army.”

Danjuma was born in 1938, the year Royal Dutch Shell received its first oil exploration license for the country and more than two decades before it gained independence from Britain.

He dropped out of college in 1960 to join the army, according to “Nigerian Politics in the Age of Yar’Adua” by Bayode Ogunmupe. He gained prominence after participating in the 1966 counter-coup against Nigeria’s first military dictator.

A decade later, he was stepping out of a Rolls-Royce in central London to meet British military officials in his role as chief of staff for Nigeria’s army. He left the military in 1979 and founded his oil firm and a shipping company, NAL-Comet, which now has more than 2,000 employees in Nigeria. Danjuma paid $25m in 1998 for the oil field exploration license that made him a billionaire. A year later, he became Nigeria’s defence minister as the country returned to democracy.

He originally teamed up with Total SA and Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA on the block. The minority stake that Danjuma’s company now owns is worth $450m, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index.

“Beyond the UK, they own real estate in California and have bought and sold property in Singapore. Their family office also oversees private equity investments, trust funds and a venture capital arm that backs family-run art and film companies. The Danjumas own more than 30 properties worldwide, filings show,” the report stated.

Confirming this, Danjuma’s daughter added, “We invest in real estate in other jurisdictions, but in the UK we always thought let’s stick to areas that we know.”

She noted that her father bought a residence in Singapore years ago, “and it made sense then to buy some more,” she said, adding they’ve since sold the properties because of tax law changes.

In addition to the Kings Arms Hotel, the Danjumas have developed residential properties this year in Esher and Wimbledon. They also own a boutique hotel in Lagos, serving beef carpaccio and lobster bisque in one of three dining areas and displaying works from the family’s art firm.

NIGERIA: Beyond Boko Haram, Civilians Are Suffering

In this informal camp in Maiduguri, north-east Nigeria, nearly 2,000 people live in tiny makeshift shelters made up of plastic and bed sheets. Their living conditions are well below international humanitarian standards, but they have nowhere else to go. None of the children in this camp attend school. Photo: Hajer Naili/NRC

BY HAJER NAILI

Boko Haram has dominated the international media coverage of Nigeria in recent years. But beyond the high-profile attacks and kidnappings, civilians are suffering in their millions. NRC media adviser Hajer Naili meets some of the families affected by the ongoing humanitarian crisis and tells their stories of hunger, overcrowded camps and emotional trauma.

Suweba, a mother of five, gave birth to a daughter just 13 days after arriving at a makeshift camp in Maiduguri, in north-east Nigeria. Her baby girl is sleeping on the piece of fabric and plastic that serves as a floor. She lies next to plastic bags and cooking pots, the sole belongings of the family.

“I still have not eaten today. We eat either in the morning or in the evening, depending on where there will be food,” says Suweba wearily. To be able to eat at least once a day, she has to send two of her children out to beg so they can buy food.

Suweba’s baby was about three weeks old when we met. It was heart-wrenching to realise that her first days in this world were spent in a tiny tent, deprived of comfort, and breastfed by a mother who barely eats enough to produce milk.

Suweba is one of about 1.7 million people suffering from food insecurity in north-east Nigeria, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Ten years of terror
The Boko Haram-led insurgency in north-east Nigeria will mark its ten-year anniversary in July 2019. However, most of us heard about it for the first time in April 2014 following the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in the town of Chibok. This event drew international attention and resulted in the #BringBackOurGirls movement.

Yet, for five years prior to this, women, men and children had been suffering from attacks and the tyranny of an armed group, without any international alarms being raised.

International attention from political leaders and the media often takes place in a selective fashion – either to serve a political agenda or to shape a narrative that sells. Humanitarian stories, especially those in Africa, rarely catch the interest of news editors, much to the frustration of freelance journalists who are keen to spread the word.

The suffering in Nigeria tends only to attract international attention when members of Boko Haram launch spectacular attacks or on special occasions such as the recent presidential elections. Yet, the mere fact that more than 7 million people – twice the population of Berlin – still need humanitarian assistance should be enough to warrant the world’s attention. Stories like Suweba’s have been overlooked for too long.

Squeezed into five square metres

When we met, Suweba was living in a makeshift tent no more than five square metres in size, made out of plastic and bed sheets. This tiny space served as a living, cooking and resting place for her and her five children.

Currently, more than 600,000 people are staying in highly congested displacement camps across north-east Nigeria, according to recent Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) estimates. Of these, 160,000 have as little as five square metres per person to live in. This is well below the international humanitarian standard for displacement camps of 45 square metres of usable surface area per person.

When displaced people are forced to live on top of each other because of a lack of available land, the risks of disease, fire, community tensions, and domestic and sexual violence increase. As thousands of people continue to be displaced, relieving overcrowding should be a high priority for the government and the international community.

Fire in camp: families left to fend for themselves

The following week, while driving, my colleagues and I witnessed a fire at a displacement site in the town of Tungunshe. Women and children were trying to save everything they could from their straw-made shelters, while men, young and old, were fighting the flames with water-filled pots and sand.

A tiny spark from a cooking stove had set ablaze several tents, burning to the ground the temporary homes of several dozen displaced families. More distressing than seeing the shelters being destroyed was the sight of residents trying to put out the fire by themselves because no help would come.

In fact, no-one came to help these families all day. A few hours after the fire, large swathes of grey and black ashes covered the soil – a painful reminder of what used to be a refuge for over 50 displaced families.

Emotional trauma: the hidden impact of displacement

Aisha* was carrying her little brother and standing next to a half-built hut that served as a shelter for the whole family. Her mother was not around so I waited for her to come so I could ask permission to use her daughter’s photograph and hear their story.

While waiting, I chatted with the girl. After a few minutes of exchange, she burst into tears and walked away. I felt terrible when I saw the fear and panic on Aisha’s face. When her mother came, I explained what had happened. The mother told me that the whole family had been displaced and that the violence they had witnessed as well as their life of displacement had been traumatic experiences.

Children and adults who live in the middle of a prolonged conflict are damaged both emotionally and psychologically. Some are affected for a limited period of time, others for the rest of their lives.

Conflicts and wars do not just result in the loss of lives or the destruction of buildings and infrastructures. They result, more often than reported, in the slow destruction of human beings from inside – as women, men and children carry within themselves fear, anxiety and painful memories.

Their stories must be told

Over the last ten years, several million people in north-east Nigeria have seen their lives shattered, their livelihoods destroyed, their freedom of movement taken away and their future hopes dashed.

Many of them have been shunned, unwanted by their own communities because they had the misfortune to live in an area controlled by Boko Haram.

It is time to bring the world’s attention to the plight of these people. Their stories must be told, independently of any insurgency or counter-insurgency news. And their stories must be heard with compassion and understanding, at both a political and a personal level. It is too easy to forget about the millions of people in need when we don’t know them and don’t know their stories.

SOURCE: NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL

Mueller To Testify Publicly Before House Committees July 17

The letter from House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff to special counsel Robert Mueller that was sent with subpoenas to compel Mueller's testimony to the committees on July 17, is photographed in Washington, Tuesday, June 25, 2019. Mueller has agreed to testify publicly before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees after both panels issued subpoenas to him Tuesday evening. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)

BY MARY CLARE JALONICK, ERIC TUCKER AND LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Robert Mueller has agreed to testify publicly before Congress on July 17 after Democrats issued subpoenas to compel him to appear, the chairmen of two House committees announced Tuesday.

Mueller’s unusual back-to-back testimony in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees is likely to be the most highly anticipated congressional hearing in years, particularly given Mueller’s resolute silence throughout his two-year investigation into Russian contacts with President Donald Trump’s campaign. Mueller never responded to angry, public attacks from Trump, nor did he ever personally join his prosecutors in court or make announcements of criminal charges from the team.

His sole public statement came from the Justice Department podium last month as he announced his departure, when he sought to explain his decision to not indict Trump or to accuse him of criminal conduct. He also put lawmakers on notice that he did not ever intend to say more than what he put in the 448-page report.

“We chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself,” Mueller said May 29. “I would not provide information beyond what is already public in any appearance before Congress.”

Those remarks did little to settle the demands for his testimony. The two committees continued negotiations that had already been going on for weeks, saying they still wanted to hear from Mueller no matter how reluctant he was.

“When you accept the role of special counsel in one of the most significant investigations in modern history you’re going to have to expect that you’re going to be asked to come and testify before Congress,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters shortly after the announcement.

Trump himself simply tweeted, “Presidential Harassment!”

In the report issued in April, Mueller concluded there was not enough evidence to establish a conspiracy between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, which was the original question that started the investigation. But he also said he could not exonerate Trump on obstruction of justice. The report examined several episodes in which Trump attempted to influence the investigation.

Democrats say it is now the job of Congress to assess the report’s findings. Lawmakers are likely to confront Mueller on why he did not come to a firm conclusion on obstruction of justice. They are also likely to seek his reaction to a drumbeat of incessant criticism from the president and ask for his personal opinion about whether Trump would have been charged were he not the commander-in-chief.

Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said they issued the subpoenas Tuesday, and Mueller agreed to testify pursuant to those subpoenas. In a letter to Mueller accompanying the subpoenas, the committee chairmen said “the American public deserves to hear directly from you about your investigation and conclusions.”

Schiff said there will be two hearings “back to back,” one for each committee, and they will also meet with Mueller’s staff in closed session afterward.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Republicans have criticized Democrats for their continuing investigations of the president. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., questioned why they would still want to hear from Mueller after the lengthy report was issued. “He said he didn’t want to talk to us anymore, didn’t he?”

But Georgia Rep. Doug Collins, the top Republican on the Judiciary panel, has said he has no objections to Mueller’s testimony.

“May this testimony bring to House Democrats the closure that the rest of America has enjoyed for months, and may it enable them to return to the business of legislating,” Collins said.

____

Associated Press writer Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.

Growing Through Education In Nigeria

Image: Chris Martin/Newscom via IMF

BY VIVIAN MALTA, MONIQUE NEWIAK
Our chart of the week, drawn from the IMF’s 2019 economic health check for Nigeria, highlights substantial inequality in access to education between girls and boys, and between rich and poor.

It is widely accepted that addressing educational gaps results in rapid and large benefits for children, their families, communities, and the country more broadly.

Limited schooling for girls

According to a survey conducted by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, a girl born into a Nigerian family in the poorest fifth of society spends about 1 year in school—approximately a third of the already limited schooling enjoyed by, say, her brother.

Access to education improves as a family gets richer, but gender inequality in education is entrenched and barely disappears for the richest 20 percent of households.

We believe that closing gender gaps in education across all income groups could boost GDP by 5 percent in one generation. It would lower income inequality by 2¼ points as measured by the Gini coefficient—a reduction that many countries strive to achieve over decades.

Spending beyond education

The government and development partners all recognize that more resources and structural changes are needed to improve access to education and make it more equitable.

Adequate funding for teachers and schools can help raise the quality of education. But spending beyond the classroom can also yield educational benefits. For example, investments in safe access to water and sanitation facilities will improve health and therefore learning opportunities for all kids, while giving an extra boost to school attendance. Mobilizing revenue through, for instance, comprehensive VAT reform and improved tax administration will be critical to fund these efforts.

Other reforms require few additional resources and are important in shaping priorities. Passing into law the Gender and Equal Opportunities Billand implementing a Children’s Rights Act are examples of legal changes that would put equality of opportunity on the statute books—a move which would have a positive impact for generations to come.

SOURCE: IMF

Report: Hackers Using Telecoms Like 'Global Spy System'

Cellular site equipment in London, Tuesday, June 25, 2019. According to Boston-based Cybereason, a group of state-backed hackers has been burrowing into all kinds of telecommunications companies in order to spy on high-profile targets across the world, the U.S. cybersecurity firm said in a report published Tuesday June 25, 2019.(AP Photo/Raphael Satter)

BY RAPHAEL SATTER

LONDON (AP) — An ambitious group of state-backed hackers has been burrowing into telecommunications companies in order to spy on high-profile targets across the world, a U.S. cybersecurity firm said in a report published Tuesday.

Boston-based Cybereason said the tactic gave hackers sweeping access to VIPs’ call records, location data and device information — effectively turning the targets’ cellular providers against them.

Cybereason Chief Executive Lior Div said that because customers weren’t directly targeted, they might never discover their every movement was being monitored by a hostile power.

The hackers had turned the affected telecoms into “a global surveillance system,” Div said in a telephone interview ahead of the report’s launch.

“Those individuals don’t know they were hacked — because they weren’t.”

Div, who is presenting his findings at the Cyber Week conference in Tel Aviv, provided scant details about who was targeted in the hack, saying that Cybereason had been called in to help an unidentified cellular provider last year and discovered that the hackers had broken into the firm’s billing server, where call records are logged.

The hackers were using their access to extract the call data of “around 20” customers, Div said.

Who those people were he declined to say, describing them as mainly coming from the world of politics and the military. He said the information was so sensitive he would not provide even the vaguest idea of where they or the telecom were located.

“I’m not even going to share the continent,” he said.

Cybereason said the compromise of its customer eventually led it to about 10 other firms that had been hit in a similar way, with hackers stealing data in 100 gigabyte chunks. Div said that, in some cases, the hackers appeared to be tracking non-phone devices, such as cars or smartwatches.

The GSMA, which represents mobile operators worldwide, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Who might be behind such hacking campaigns is often a fraught question in a world full of digital false flags. Cybereason said that all the signs pointed to APT10 — the nickname often applied to a notorious China-linked cyberespionage group.

But Div said the clues they found were so obvious he and his team sometimes wondered whether they might have been left on purpose.

“I thought: ‘Hey, just a second, maybe it’s somebody who wants to blame APT10,’” he said.

Chinese authorities have routinely denied responsibility for hacking operations. The Chinese Embassy in London did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Div said that it was unclear whether the ultimate targets of the espionage operation were warned, saying Cybereason had left it to the telecom firms to notify their customers. Div added that he had been in touch with “a handful” of law enforcement agency about the matter, although he did not say which ones.

The FBI in Washington did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

US Gov't Moves Migrant Kids After AP Exposes Bad Treatment

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

This June 20, 2019, file frame from video shows the entrance of a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has told a Texas congresswoman Monday, June 24, that the agency is quickly removing children from the patrol station following reports that children locked inside were in a perilous situation. (AP Photo/Cedar Attanasio, File)

BY MARTHA MENDOZA, GARANCE BURKE

The U.S. government has removed most children from a remote Border Patrol station in Texas near the border with Mexico following reports that more than 300 children were detained there and caring for each other with inadequate food, water and sanitation.

Only about 30 children remained at the station outside El Paso on Monday, Rep. Veronica Escobar said after her office was briefed on the situation by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection official.

Most of the infants, toddlers and teens who were held at the Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, were scheduled to be transferred by Tuesday to shelters and other facilities run by a separate federal agency, the Office of Refugee Resettlement said.

Attorneys involved in monitoring care for migrant children who visited Clint last week said older children were trying to take care of toddlers, The Associated Press reported Thursday. They described a 4-year-old with matted hair who had gone without a shower for days, and hungry, inconsolable children struggling to soothe one another. Some had been locked for three weeks inside the facility, where 15 children were sick with the flu and another 10 were in medical quarantine.

“How is it possible that you both were unaware of the inhumane conditions for children, especially tender-age children at the Clint Station?” Escobar, a Democrat, said in a letter sent Friday to U.S. Customs and Border Protection acting commissioner John Sanders and U.S. Border Patrol chief Carla Provost.

Escobar asked to be informed by the end of this week what steps the officials are taking to end what she called “these humanitarian abuses.”

Lawmakers from both parties decried the situation last week.

Border Patrol officials have not responded to AP’s questions about the conditions at the Clint facility, but emailed a statement Monday that said: “Our short-term holding facilities were not designed to hold vulnerable populations and we urgently need additional humanitarian funding to manage this crisis.”

Although it’s unclear where all the children held at Clint were moved, Escobar said some were sent to another facility on the north side of El Paso called Border Patrol Station 1. Escobar said it’s a temporary site with roll-out mattresses, showers, medical facilities and air conditioning.

But Clara Long, an attorney who interviewed children at Border Patrol Station 1 last week, said conditions were not necessarily better there.

“One boy I spoke with said his family didn’t get mattresses or blankets for the first two nights, and he and his mom came down with a fever,” said Long, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch. “He said there were no toothbrushes, and it was very, very cold.”


Vice President Mike Pence, asked about the unsafe, unsanitary conditions for the children on “Face the Nation” on Sunday, said “it’s totally unacceptable” and added that he hopes Congress will allocate more resources to border security.

Long and a group of lawyers inspected the facilities because they are involved in the Flores settlement, a Clinton-era legal agreement that governs detention conditions for migrant children and families. The lawyers negotiated access to the Clint facility with officials and say Border Patrol knew the dates of their visit three weeks in advance.

Many children interviewed had arrived alone at the U.S.-Mexico border, but some had been separated from their parents or other adult caregivers including aunts and uncles, the attorneys said.

Government facilities are overcrowded and five immigrant children have died since late last year after being detained by Customs and Border Protection. Two weeks ago, a teenage mother with a premature baby was found in a Border Patrol processing center in McAllen, Texas after being held for nine days by the government.

Government rules call for children to be held by the Border Patrol in their short-term stations for no longer than 72 hours before they are transferred to the custody of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which houses migrant youth in facilities around the country through its Office of Refugee Resettlement while authorities determine if they can be released to relatives or family friends.

Customs and Border Protection referred AP’s questions about the Clint Facility to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which said Monday that 249 children previously held in Clint would be moved to the agency’s network of shelters and other facilities by Tuesday.

″(Unaccompanied children) are waiting too long in CBP facilities that are not designed to care for children,” ORR spokeswoman Evelyn Stauffer said. “These children should now all be in HHS care as of Tuesday.”

This story has been corrected to show Pence was on “Face the Nation,” not “Meet the Press.”