Francis Lays Out Case For Mercy In 1st Book As Pope

 BY NICOLE WINFIELD

 Pope Francis kisses during statue of baby Jesus a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, to mark Epiphany, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016. The Epiphany day is a joyous day for Catholics in which they recall the journey of… Image: Gregorio Borgia, AP

VATICAN CITY (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Pope Francis lays out his case for emphasizing the merciful face of the Catholic Church in his first book as pontiff, saying God never tires of forgiving and actually prefers the sinners who repent over self-righteous moralizers who don't.

"The Name of God Is Mercy," a 100-page conversation with Italian journalist Andrea Tornielli, is being published this week in 86 countries to help kick-start Francis' Holy Year of Mercy. A copy was provided in advance to The Associated Press on Sunday.

In the book, Francis condemns what he calls the "scholars of law" — the doctrinaire-minded rigorists who throughout the history of the church have challenged Jesus' message of unconditional love and mercy for even the most wretched of sinners. He says often these self-righteous Christians are hypocrites themselves, using the law to hide their own "deep wounds."

"These are men who live attached to the letter of the law but who neglect love; men who only know how to close doors and draw boundaries," Francis is quoted as saying.

Francis has rankled many conservatives with his frequent dismissals of theological and legalistic arguments stressing doctrine over his more pastoral message of welcome and mercy for society's most marginal. The clash in approaches has been particularly evident in recent church debates over marriage and divorce.

"We must avoid the attitude of someone who judges and condemns from the lofty heights of his own certainty, looking for the splinter in his brother's eye while remaining unaware of the beam in his own," Francis says. "Let us always remember that God rejoices more when one sinner returns to the fold than when 99 righteous people have no need of repentance."

The Vatican is officially launching the book Tuesday with a high-level panel discussion featuring Francis' secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and 'Life Is Beautiful' actor Roberto Benigni, signaling the importance Francis places on getting the message out.

In the book, Francis insists that his now-infamous "Who am I to judge" comment about gays was merely a repetition of the church's teaching on homosexuality. Francis won praise from gays with the comment, uttered during his first press conference in 2013. But many conservatives have criticized the remark as vague and incomplete since church teaching also holds that gay acts are "intrinsically disordered."

Francis says the church has long held that gays should be treated with dignity and respect and seen as individuals. And he goes to some length throughout the text to cite scripture and previous popes to make clear that his radical agenda is fully rooted in the church's basic teachings.

"People should not be defined only by their sexual tendancies: Let us not forget that God loves all his creatures and we are destined to receive his infinite love," he says. "I prefer that homosexuals come to confession, that they stay close to the Lord, and that we pray all together. You can advise them to pray, show goodwill, show them the way, and accompany them along it."

Francis has made clear from the start of his pontificate that his would be a papacy focused on mercy, and he called a jubilee year to emphasize it. Throughout the book, Francis refers repeatedly to his own ministry to prostitutes and prisoners in Argentina, showing how his own personal encounters with society's outcasts have shaped his view about the faith and formed the bedrock of his papacy.

As a confessor, Francis is quoted as saying, "I have always tried to find a crack, just a tiny opening so that I can pry open that door and grant forgiveness and mercy."

But Francis' opening isn't a free-for-all: He says of course prisons can't throw their doors open and let violent criminals out onto the streets. But he says once a debt is paid, prisoners must be reintegrated back into society and welcomed. And he distinguishes between ordinary and even repeat sinners and those who are corrupt, saying corruption is a condition, a state of life and often a hypocritical one incompatible with Christianity.

"The corrupt man often doesn't realize his own condition, much as a person with bad breath doesn't know they have it," he says.

Some conservatives have balked at Francis' mercy-over-morals priorities, saying it has sent confusing messages to the faithful especially after two previous popes spent so much time stressing doctrine. Even some cardinals have called on Francis to make clear-cut policy statements on certain hot-button issues, especially on the divisive question of whether divorced and civilly remarried Catholics can receive Communion.

Church teaching holds that, if these Catholics are living in sin, they cannot receive the sacraments.

Francis launched a two-year study on the issue and other matters related to Catholic family life, and is expected to weigh in this year with a document on whether any accommodation can be found.

In the book, Francis doesn't commit himself one way or the other, but he indicated that his ultimate decision may draw on a personal experience.

Francis recounts that one of his nieces wanted to marry a man who had children from a previous marriage but hadn't yet obtained an annulment, a church decree that his first marriage was null.

The couple got married in a civil ceremony and went on to have three children. Francis recalls that every Sunday when they went to Mass the man went to confession and told the priest that he knew he couldn't be absolved from the sin of adultery, but he asked for a blessing.

"This is a religiously mature man," Francis said.

Progressives, led by the German bishops, have said such religiously mature Catholics should be allowed to participate fully in the life of the church, including receiving the sacraments.

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

France Pays Tribute To 2015 Terrorism Victims In Silent Ceremony

BY GEERT DE CLERCQ

REUTERS, JANUARY 10, 2016

People attend a ceremony at Place de la Republique square to pay tribute to the victims of last year's shooting at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, in Paris, France, January 10, 2016. Image: Charles Platiau



France honored the victims of Islamist militant attacks last year in a thinly attended silent ceremony on Sunday, almost a year to the day when more than a million people marched in Paris to protest killings at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

President Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo laid a wreath by the statue of Marianne, symbol of the French republic, in central Paris. The statue has become a shrine to the 17 victims of the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish deli, and to the 130 people shot dead by militants on Nov. 13 at a concert, and in bars and restaurants in Paris.



"To the victims of the terrorist attacks in January and November ... In this place, the people of France pay their respect," read a metal plaque unveiled by Hollande and Hidalgo under a newly planted memorial oak tree on Place de la Republique in eastern Paris.

Neither Hollande or Hidalgo spoke at the ceremony, but veteran French rock star Johnny Hallyday, accompanied only by a guitar, sang a song about the march on Jan. 11 last year, which brought out the biggest crowds in Paris since the liberation of Paris from Nazi Germany in 1944.

The French army choir sang late Belgian singer Jacques Brel's "Les Prenoms de Paris" (the First Names of Paris) and "Le temps des cerises", a song associated with the socialist Paris commune movement in 1871, while two young actors read a speech by 19th century writer Victor Hugo.

The huge square in eastern Paris, the focal point of the January 2015 march attended by dozens of world leaders walking arm in arm, was relatively empty during the ceremony.

Hidalgo invited Parisians to come to the square with candles from 1700 Paris time (1600 GMT) and said the Marianne statue - covered with flowers, candles and pictures of the victims - will be permanently lit from now on.

"Paris is scarred, but we are still standing," she told French television after the ceremony.

Hollande, who stood stony-faced through the ceremony, later met with the families of the victims on the square.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said security forces remain on high alert as there is a real threat of more attacks.

"We are facing an extremely high level of threat, higher than it has ever been," Cazeneuve said on iTELE television.





(Additional reporting by Marine Pennetier; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

Health Minister: Lassa Fever Kills 35 In 10 Nigerian States

By HILARY UGURU

AP JANUARY 8, 2016

WARRI, NIGERIA (ASSOCIATED PRESS)  — Nigeria’s health minister is urging Nigerians not to panic over an outbreak of an organ-attacking fever that has killed 35 people, nearly half of suspected cases, in the past six weeks.

Dr. Isaac Adewole said in a statement Friday night that the government was containing the outbreak of Lassa fever, a hemorrhage-inducing fever caused by a virus commonly borne by vermin. Lassa fever is confined to West Africa, where the affliction thrives amid poor sanitation and crowded living conditions.

Adewole said doctors had identified 81 suspected cases since mid-November, with lab results confirming 17 cases as definitely Lassa fever.

The disease is named after a Nigerian town where it was first identified in 1969. It manifests similar symptoms to Ebola, ranging from headaches and sore throats to vomiting, diarrhea and bleeding from all orifices. Like Ebola, suspected Lassa cases require health workers to wear protective clothing and patients to be isolated.

While the World Health Organization estimates that only about about 1 percent of people who contract Lassa die from the pathogen, Adewole’s figures put Nigeria’s recent fatality rate at 43 percent.

Adewole said the government has deployed rapid response teams to 10 Nigerian states hit by the outbreak, distributed the ribavirin antiviral drug used to treat Lassa, and advised the public to ensure they store food in containers that rats cannot access.

Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

More African And Asian Migrants Are Arriving In Mexico After Long Latin American Journeys

BY CONRAD FOX

VICE NEWS JANUARY 08, 2016

George left Cameroon on a Cargo ship. Photo by Conrad Fox

Sitting in a small cafe in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula, Gorjit recalled the harrowing experiences that led him there as he outlined his hopes and fears for the future.

The young man with chiseled features said he left his home in northern India after political strife took the life of his father and uncle. He sold his house and escaped first to Qatar, then to Brazil and on to Argentina where he worked for six months. Then he headed north with one destination in mind.

"Some guys told me there is a better life in the United States," he said in broken Spanish. "And that's where I'm going."

The cafe where Gorjit sat, that bears a sign in Bengali, lies across the street from the Hotel Palafox which is one of the main places where migrants from Africa and Asia who have made it to Mexico hang out, swapping stories from their odysseys and listening to music on mobile phones.

One of them, a Somali refugee called Ismael, said he was living in South Africa when a wave of xenophobic attacks swept the country last year.

"Every day they threatened us," he recalled. Going back to his war-torn homeland, he added, would have been tantamount to "just go and kill yourself."

Ismael paid a man in Kenya $5,000 dollars for a fake passport, a plane ticket to Brazil and introductions to a spidery network of human smugglers that eventually got him to Tapachula and the Hotel Palafox.

A few blocks away in the city's central plaza George smiled as he made a video on a tablet of a traditional Mexican dance troupe — all brassy music and swirling colors. He said he left his native Cameroon without a passport on board a cargo ship. He traveled from port to port until the ship docked in Colombia.

"I thought: Wow, this is the American continent, I used to think you could get a bus to America."

He slipped ashore and was immediately mugged. With what little he had left he began asking directions to the US. He laughs a little at his own naivete.

Tapachula has long been a temporary resting place for Central American migrants heading through Mexico on an effort to get to the United States. In recent years the small, sleepy and hot city has also become a hub for migrants from further afield, many of whom plan to seek asylum if they reach US soil.

Mexican migration authorities detained 1,300 African and Asian migrants in 2014, three times more than the previous year. The numbers were on track to at least double again in 2015.

Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and Colombia have all reported similarly dramatic increases in migrants from countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, China, India, Pakistan, Tibet, Cameroon, Somalia, Eritrea, Ghana, and Sudan.

The rise of African and Asian migrants in Latin America reflects both the tightening of border restrictions in Europe and their loosening in some Latin American countries, such as Ecuador.

Migrants who would never be granted a visa to fly directly to the US, find Latin America an easier point of entry into the continent. And even where visas are required, corruption has made borders porous. In Tapachula, migrants reported that bribery is almost standard procedure along the route.

The journey is not only long and arduous. At some points it is outright dangerous as well.

In the grimy port town of Turbo, on Colombia's Caribbean coast, migrants mill about the wharves looking for clandestine boat operators to take them to Panama. The port is a bottleneck on the route north, and all migrants pass through here at some point.

"I couldn't sleep that night," George said of his first day in Turbo. The only way the Cameroonian made it out of the town was by handing over about $750 dollars in exchange for a night-long ride in a skiff packed to double capacity through waters controlled by paramilitary groups and the feared Clan Usaga drug trafficking gang.



With no life jackets, dozens of migrants have drowned on this leg of the route every year since 2013. According to locals,the smugglers robbed and then threw the migrants into the water.

"Two weeks ago we found 15 migrants just drifting alone in a boat," Rear Admiral Ricardo Hurtado of the Colombian Navy told VICE News in November. Hurtado's anti-drug patrols also interdict migrant traffic. "When the engine died, the smugglers just swam away and left them there."

Hurtado said that in the first 10 months of 2015 his patrols detained 538 migrants compared to 138 in the same period of the year before. "We're overwhelmed," he said.

For those who can't afford to take a boat all the way to Panama, the cheaper option is to get off on the Colombian coast and then hike through the famously in-hospital jungle of the Darien Gap that separates both countries, and through which no road has ever been built.

Some in Tapachula shuddered as they recalled the journey.

"If I had known there was jungle, I would never have left the ship," George, the Cameroonian said. "There are a lot of dead bodies in the jungle, you see their skeletons."

With his own strength waning, and food and water running out, he spent much of the journey assisting a pregnant woman who was traveling with him as they climbed muddy slopes and crossed fetid swampland. It took them two days to get out.

"I was seven days without food," says Gorjit, the young Indian whose feet were so badly damaged he still has difficulty walking. "I thought I was going to die."

Once they get to Panama the Asian and African migrants often turn themselves into the authorities looking for help, and hoping to get a visa that will enable them to travel legally through the country. They are held in military camps while their identity is checked by authorities.

"In the first camp, we sleep like dogs, outside on the stone. The food is the same, two times a day. For twenty-five days, dry rice. That is all they can afford to give us." said Ismael, the Somali. "But we say thank you. If we are still alive until now, we just say thank you to God."

Ismael, like most migrants on this route, was eventually granted a temporary exit visa and released. This is a pattern that becomes routine as the migrants move from country to country through Central America. For most governments in the region, establishing the nationality of undocumented migrants from half the world away — let alone deporting them home — is simply too slow and costly.

And then there are the smuggling rings that help move the migrants through the region in ways that avoid the authorities altogether — at a price.

When Guatemala's recently created human trafficking unit raided a small hotel in downtown Guatemala City in June of 2015, they found a diverse collection of foreign currency, as well as false passports, lists of flights and arrival times, and signs with people's names on for picking up clients at the airport. They also found a parrot that Asian asylum seekers at the US border had told Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that their Guatemalan smugglers kept in an office upstairs.

"These guys are so organized. They've got contacts in Africa... in South America," said Mynor Pinto, the Guatemalan officer who led the raid triggered by an ICE tip. "We're talking about a kind of confederation of criminal structures all working towards the same goal. Everyone has their fee and no one moves the migrants until they get their cut."

After Guatemala comes Mexico. They typically cross the border over the Suchiate river on the small flotilla of rafts made of inner tubes that are punted leisurely from bank to bank. They carry goods and livestock in a thriving cross border trade, as well as migrants nearing the end of their odyssey.

Wilson, one of the raftsmen at a popular crossing point, said he ferries about ten African and Asian migrants per week.

"Like four days ago there was a big group of them," he recalled. "And when we get to the other side, one of them says, 'Where am I?' I said 'you're in Mexico, man.' He said 'I don't believe it.' He jumped so high and so happy, like a kangaroo."

Tapachula in Mexico's southern border may not be their final destination, but it is the next best thing for many. After the trip throughout South and Central America they can finally easily find facilities for wire transfers and long-distance calls.

Migrants go relatively unmolested by police and gangs. Transit visas are relatively easy to get and a generous 21 days. Even the migration detention center — notorious for abuse and extortion of Latin American migrants — is considered relatively cushy.

When migrants are released from the immigration center and with their visa in hand, many hang around waiting for money to be sent by friends and family back home. A thriving business has built up around them here: the Hotel Palafox offers credit in exchange for exit visas.

For some, however, the road ahead is still daunting.

Having cross the world to get to Mexico from northern India Gorjit had no money for a flight, or even to take the long-haul busses that trundle up to the US border. He said he was planning to continue his journey via the clandestine routes taken by Central American migrants but was worried about Mexico's drug cartels. In 2010, an Indian was found dead among 72 migrants massacred by the Zetas drug gang in Tamaulipas state.

"I'm afraid, really afraid," he said. "At night sometimes I start crying thinking about my life. I have heard there are gangs up ahead that kill. All I've got is my life."

This story was produced in association with Round Earth Media. Manuel Ureste and Francisco Rodríguez contributed to the reporting.

What Obama Still Owes Africa -- A Visit To Nigeria For One Thing

BY JOHNNIE CARSON

ALL AFRICA JANUARY 4, 2016

Washington, DC —After seven years in office, President Barack Obama has already engaged more broadly on Africa than any previous American president, but with one year remaining in the White House, there are still a few things he should do before he leaves, writes Johnnie Carson, the United States' top policy-maker on Africa in the first Obama administration.

President Obama has significantly elevated and transformed America's engagement with Africa, traveling widely across the continent, championing the renewal of several old programs and launching a series of highly focused new initiatives that could help speed-up Africa's economic development.

He has been particularly active in promoting economic and development issues.

He fought successfully for the renewal and extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), America's most important trade legislation with Africa; he hosted the first U.S.-Africa Leadership Summit, attended by 37 heads of state; and he has established several important new economic programs, including "Power Africa" - to expand significantly electrical access across the continent; "Feed the Future" - to increase household food production and to generate a green revolution throughout Africa, and "Trade Africa" - to expand substantially trade between Africa and the United States.

Recognizing the growing role of the continent's next generation of young leaders, President Obama established YALI - the Young African Leaders Initiative, a program that will bring 500 young African entrepreneurs, professionals and community organizers to the U.S. each year for the next several years for five weeks of leadership, organization and management training.

But what next?

Despite his rather impressive list of accomplishments, here are ten things the president should do before he leaves office in January 2017:

Visit Nigeria: President Obama has traveled to Africa five times during his presidency - but he has not visited Nigeria, the continent's economic, political, communications and petroleum giant, and its most important state. It is the continent's largest economy - almost twice the size of South Africa's and a third larger than that of Egypt.

It is also the continent's most populous state, with 180 million people, its largest Muslim country, and its largest democracy.

The president has visited every major country on the continent except Nigeria, and it would be a mistake for him to leave the White House without a stop in Lagos or Abuja.

Some have suggested that security may be a concern because of Boko Haram, but if the president can travel safely to Nairobi, where al Shabaab has carried out high profile attacks in the center of the city, he should be able to travel safely to Abuja or Lagos. He is bound to make one more trip to Europe, and a stop in Nigeria - similar to his 2009 visit to Ghana - would not be a major diversion.

Co-host a regional summit on democracy in west Africa:Strengthening democracy institutions, promoting good governance and supporting free and fair elections has been a major priority for the Obama administration in Africa.

During his first official visit to the continent as president in July 2009, President Obama spoke eloquently before the Ghanaian Parliament about the importance of democracy and good governance and the need to create "more strong institutions, not more strong men." With a growing number of African leaders attempting to extend their terms of office, democracy remains fragile across the continent. The president could give democracy in Africa a boost and reaffirm America's strong commitment to Africa's political progress by hosting a conference in West Africa with the democratically-elected leaders of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Support Nigeria's permanent membership in the G20: President Obama has said that he wants to ensure that Africa has a place at the table to participate in the deliberations concerning major global political and economic issues. One way to accomplish that is to expand or reorganize the G20 group of nations to include Nigeria as a permanent member of this important global organization.

Nigeria is already more important than several of the current G20 members, notably Argentina and South Africa, and over the next two decades it will become one of the world's mega states, eclipsing several other G20 members in the size of its economy, population and regional influence. It would also be one of the G20's largest democracies. The administration should make the inclusion of Nigeria a priority over the next 12 months.

Press for the passage of the Electrify Africa legislation: Power Africa is one of President Obama's most important signature initiatives. In the world's most energy deficient and starved continent, it is intended to increase Africa's power output by 30,000 megawatts over the next decade or two.

But like a number of recent White House initiatives, Power Africa is not backed by any legislative mandate and could be easily brushed aside after the Obama administration leaves office. The program enjoys bi-partisan support in the Congress and the administration needs to work with congressional leaders to prioritize the passage of the Electrify Africa legislation. At the same time, the administration needs to create a senior level "Power Africa czar" to manage the program and consider moving interagency responsibility for oversight from USAID to a cabinet level department.

Instruct USAID to establish a permanent democracy fund: If democracy promotion is an important priority, it should be funded adequately and on a long-term basis. Today that is not the case. Funding for democracy has declined sharply during Obama's second term despite the president's recent speeches in Nairobi and Addis Ababa, and at the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Dedicated and hard-to-reprogram funds should be allocated to strengthen African judiciaries and legislatures, to promote civil society groups and the media, to assist women's organizations and youth groups and to support domestic and international election monitoring. Funds should also be made available to assist local organizations to undertake parallel vote counts, to aid local election commissions and to prevent pre- and post-election violence.

Invite Tanzania's newly elected President John Magufuli to the White House:

Tanzania is the most populous state and the largest democracy in East Africa. It is also one of the largest recipients of U.S. development assistance and a participant in all of Washington's major economic initiatives.

In late October, Tanzania held presidential and parliamentary elections.The elections on the mainland went well, but those on the island of Zanzibar were disputed. President John Pombe Magufuli, a reform-minded academic-turned-politician, was elected without dispute, making him Tanzania's fifth democratically-elected president in a row. Although the Zanzibar election remains unresolved, it is important to reach out to Tanzania's new president early in his tenure to continue to foster the strong relationship between Dar es Salaam and Washington.

This is particularly important since President Magufuli does not have any major ties with the United States.Tanzania also has a critical role to play in East African peace-building issues, particularly in Burundi and the eastern Congo. Early political consultations with President Magufuli and his new foreign minister, Dr. Augustine Mahiga, could prove valuable in promoting stability in the Great Lakes region.

Send Secretary of State John Kerry to Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda and the Republic of the Congo: The Great Lakes Region of Central Africa is one of the most volatile and unstable regions in Africa, with daily political and ethnic violence in Burundi, and with the leaders of Rwanda, the DRC and the Congo threatening to extend themselves in office in violation of their constitutions.

Although time is running out, there is still an opportunity to prevent further democratic backsliding and the serious instability and violence that will almost certainly be unleashed - as we are already seeing in Burundi. High level engagement with the leaders in the region is required.

An extended visit by Secretary Kerry to the DRC, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi would be a strong signal of Washington's deep concern and interest in the region's negative political and security trajectory. Without serious engagement with the leaders on the ground, there will be no meaningful progress.

Open a U.S. consulate in northern Nigeria and a full embassy in Mogadishu: The establishment of a consulate in northern Nigeria is long overdue. More than half of Nigeria's 180 million people live in the northern part of the country, an area of serious political and security concern. It is also the largest Muslim region in Africa and the largest Muslim region in the world where there is no full-time U.S. diplomatic presence.

A U.S. diplomatic mission would advance long-term political, economic and security interests in the region and help Nigeria to deal with the economic, social and security challenges it faces there. A consulate in Kaduna, which once had one, or Kano would convey a strong signal to the Muslim community that Washington genuinely cares about the people in the region.

Once the global poster child of a failed state, Somalia has made significant progress over the past seven years. In recognition of the progress, the U.S. re-established formal diplomatic relations with the Somali government in Mogadishu in January 2013.

Before he leaves office, President Obama should take one more step. He should reaffirm Washington's commitment to Somalia and recognize the country's continuing progress by appointing a Senate-approved ambassador and opening a small, secure diplomatic embassy compound in downtown Mogadishu.

Elevate U.S. diplomatic relations with Sudan: Relations between Washington and Khartoum have been prickly and frequently difficult for over two decades and the U.S. has not had a fully accredited, Senate-approved ambassador in Sudan since 1997.

The Khartoum government has not been a good international actor. (Nor have Cuba, Myanmar or Iran.) The regime in Sudan has carried out mass atrocities in Darfur, prevented UN organizations from delivering food aid and humanitarian assistance to those in need and meddled in the affairs of several of its neighbors.

But U.S.-imposed comprehensive sanctions on Khartoum have not isolated the country nor weakened its government. The U.S. should review its current policies toward Khartoum, and consider elevating its diplomatic relationship to full ambassadorial status in order to expand America's dialogue and probe for new openings to resolve some of the country's domestic and regional issues. The U.S. can do this while maintaining its sanctions regime on the government and its demands that President Omar al-Bashir address the serious human rights charges against him.

Provide a status report on the results of the U.S.-Africa Leadership Summit: The U.S. Africa Leadership Summit has been one of the high points in the Obama administration's engagements in Africa.

Leaders from 50 different countries participated in this first-of-a-kind gathering in Washington. A number of new programs were announced and a major business conference associated with the summit brought dozens of senior American business leaders into direct contact - many for the very first time - with African heads of state and prominent business leaders from the continent.

The administration has never released a comprehensive report on the summit or a one-year progress report on the implementation of summit agreements. The issuance of some type of status report would be a useful vehicle for identifying summit objectives and initiatives as well as tracking the progress of the administration's efforts. The administration should do everything it can to sustain the goodwill and policy initiatives that emerged from the summit to help ensure that it does not become a one-off event.

The administration should be applauded for its continuing efforts to promote greater American trade and commerce with Africa. The president has already announced that he plans to host another U.S.-Africa Business Summit similar to the day-long event his administration hosted during the 2014 Leadership Summit. The Business Summit is important, but it should not be the only thing on President Obama's Africa agenda for 2016. He has time to do more, and he should. Twelve months is a long time in the life of an administration and his foreign policy team should be building a more robust African agenda for his last year in office.

Ambassador Carson was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs from 2009 to 2012. He is currently a Senior Advisor at the United States Institute of Peace.

How Uganda Came To Earn High Marks For Quality Of Death

BY RAE ELLEN BICHELL

NPR, JANUARY 3, 2016

A elderly patient with chronic debilitating back pain receives a bottle of liquid morphine during a home visit from a representative of Hospice Africa Uganda. (Morgana Wingard/African Palliative Care Association)

Food coloring, water, a preservative and a pound of morphine powder. These are the ingredients in Dr. Anne Merriman's recipe for liquid morphine.

"It's easier than making a cake," says Merriman, a British palliative care specialist who founded Hospice Africa in Uganda in 1993 and helped design the formula that hospice workers in Uganda have used for 22 years to craft liquid morphine. The lightest dose, dyed green to indicate the strength and to make sure people don't confuse it with water, costs about $2 per bottle to make. Stronger doses are dyed pink and blue. A 16-ounce bottle is about a week's supply for most patients.

Those cheap bottles of green, pink and blue liquid morphine have changed the way people die in Uganda — and are a key reason why Uganda has the best quality of death among low-income countries, according to global Quality of Death Index published by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Back in the 1990s, two of the biggest barriers to good death in Uganda were simple: not enough doctors and not enough morphine. Largely through Merriman's drive, Hospice Africa Uganda developed professional education in palliative care that would spread the responsibility to nurses, rather than relying on doctors. They helped make it mandatory for medical students in Uganda to study pain management – before Germany did. And Hospice Africa Uganda made liquid morphine.

"I had been one of the doctors who had said to people, 'Sorry, there is no more we can do. You have to go home,'" says Merriman, of the time she spent working with cancer patients in Singapore starting in the 1960s. There, she says, "I found that patients with cancer were getting every treatment possible with chemotherapy, and then when it didn't work they were sent home and they were dying in agony."

So she sat down with a couple pharmacists from the National University Hospital and came up with a formula to make a liquid from pure morphine powder.

Merriman would eventually be invited to Kenya to set up a hospice care program in Nairobi before founding her ownorganization in 1993, based in Uganda. At that time, palliative care in Africa only existed in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and the services, she says, were "started out by whites for whites." Medication was prohibitively expensive for most patients. "The strongest they had there was codeine — if you had money. But if you didn't have money, you only had aspirin and sometimes nothing at all," says Merriman.

Today, the organization's three hospice centers serve some 2,100 outpatients. "It's not always the pain that's their greatest worry," she says. "It's often 'What's going to happen to my children when I die?' It may be spiritual problems, it may be cultural — things they have to carry out before they die. We try to help with all those kinds of things."

Relieving pain is step one — and it has many benefits. Patients eat better, sleep better and live higher quality lives, even in their last days, says Merriman.

Cost was one obstacle to pain management that Merriman had to address. Another, which persists in many countries, was a deep-rooted fear of opioid painkillers.

Though morphine is considered the gold standard in palliative care for pain management, in many parts of the world fear of opioid addiction and misuse is so rampant it has a name: opiophobia.

Merriman ran up against opiophobia in Singapore and Uganda, where she says, people thought she was providing morphine so that patients could kill themselves. "And morphine can kill," she says. But with the right regulations in place, and the right explanation to the patient and their relatives, she says, "it's very safe."

For over a decade, the Ugandan government has provided morphine free to the patients of prescribers who are members of a special registry, all trained through Hospice Africa Uganda.

"You've got to be careful, everything has to be signed for and we have to follow the regulations," she says. "But for the last three years, we've been making morphine for the whole country."

Merriman says of the 24,000 patients in total that they have prescribed oral morphine to, "we've had no addiction, no diversions. And the patients keep the bottle at home."

In Uganda, she had to work hard to surmount the fear of opioids. For example, Hospice Africa Uganda worked with narcotics police, teaching them what morphine is and that it's a legal medication.

"They need to understand that patients can take morphine and that they are not addicted, that it is handed to patients after careful assessment, and that it is a safe medication," says Dr. Eddie Mwebesa, clinical director at Hospice Africa Uganda. Without police cooperation, he says, "there will be a lot of trouble with patients having their morphine in the home" and in transporting the drug between hospices or patient homes.

Clinicians prescribe the morphine and instruct patients to sip a dose from a marked cup. For adults, it's usually about a teaspoon every 4 hours. Merriman says hospice workers frequently have to warn people about morphine — not because of the risk of addiction but to explain that it will not wipe out their illness. She says they feel so good after it, they often feel normal again. "They think we've cured them," she says.

Even with the innovations in Uganda, there are still challenges. The organizationestimates that only 10 percent of Ugandan patients in need of palliative care can access it.

"The biggest challenge we have right now is the sheer number of patients who need palliative care," says Mwebesa — he puts the number at 250,000 to 300,000. But there is about one doctor for every 20,000 Ugandans, he says.

Mwebesa says palliative care can cost about $25 each week for one patient. "It doesn't sound like a lot," he says, "But actually most people can't afford it." Only 2 percent of Ugandans have health insurance, so many families have to pay out-of-pocket to care for sick relatives.

Even though Uganda is far from perfect, it remains in many respects a model country for its neighbors. "We had the minister of Swaziland visit Uganda to see how Uganda reconstitutes oral morphine and then when we went back, they started doing the same," says Dr. Emmanuel Luyirika, executive director of the African Palliative Care Association. He says the same happened with Rwanda and Malawi.

Merriman is now turning her attention to French-speaking countries in Africa. She says some countries in the region remind her a lot of Uganda back in the '90s. "They've got a fear of morphine. Doctors don't want to prescribe it because they think if they prescribe it, they'll be accused of being addicts themselves," she says. World Bank data shows the region has the world's highest maternal mortality and lowest national health budgets. And people there largely pay for health care out-of-pocket.

"If you haven't got money," says Merriman, "you can't even get an aspirin." At age 80, she's still determined to see that the dying don't have to face such dilemmas when they seek relief from pain.

Out Of Africa: Local Woman Saves A School

WELLINGTON TIMES

JANUARY 3, 2016

Chelsea Ostini's volunteer work in the slums of Uganda is making a big difference to little lives. 

It has been a life-changing experience for the Mullion Creek school teacher.

"Through my work I will have a lifelong connection to them and children there are so eager to learn and listen,'' she said.

Ms Ostini has been visiting Uganda to volunteer as a school teacher for nearly three years and most of her work has been at the Parent's Care Infant slum school.

"The Twekembe project has been set up by a group of Ugandans who are in the Makindye district in Kampala. Their vision is to help lift people from poverty and improve the standards of sanitation and overall welfare of people living in the slums of Kampala," she said.

"The project allows orphans and children from poor families to go to school and gain an education. Out of the 304 children who attend the school, 216 of them are orphans."

The school mentor, who also helps at Mumbil Public School near Wellington, said the experience was challenging but had moved her to do more.

The city council visited the school earlier this year and explained they needed to work towards replacing the wooden buildings with brick structures otherwise the school would be closed.

When the school teacher returned to Australia she made a goal to raise enough money to build a new classroom for the slum school. She conducted various fundraising events at Mullion Creek and Mumbil Public School, where she works as a casual teacher. 

She taught the Australian students facts about Uganda, introduced cultural craft activities and games common in the African country and organised barbeques to raise funds for the school. 

Ms Ostini was amazed at the generosity shown within the Mullion Creek and Mumbil communities.

Through these events, Chelsea was able to raise $1270, the equivalent of three million Ugandan shillings.

"I returned to Uganda in September this year and used the money to organise and purchase materials to build two brand new classrooms and an office for the headmaster," she said.

"The materials were purchased locally and men from the Twekembe community who volunteered to help with the construction. This also allowed the school to continue operating without the pressure of the city council."

A local company made a steel five-seater round swing and see-saw for the school.

"It was my last day there and it was a complete surprise for the children and teachers," she said.

"The students were absolutely ecstatic when they saw the truck coming towards their school with the colourful equipment on the back. They jumped and danced for joy and were so excited when the equipment was lifted off the truck that they all piled on the swing at the same time."

The children in the infants classroom at Mullion Creek also donated their coloured classroom pencils to the children in Uganda.

"I took the bag of pencils to the slum school, there was only enough to give one pencil to each child. The children were so delighted to take their pencil home, they held it in the air and sang a special thank you song to me," she said.

South Africa Has The Most New High Net Worth Individuals On The Continent In 2015

BY JANE FLOWERS

UK BLASTING NEWS, JANUARY 3, 2016

The 2015 Africa Wealth Report shows thatSouth Africa has the highest number of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) on the continent of Africa.  Following in a close second, is Egypt, with exciting forecasts for Mozambique and Zambia.

African HNWI has increased by 145% over the past fourteen years.  In South Africa, the Black Economic Empowerment Program has accounted for a number of the newly wealthy.  The BEE was launched in South Africa as a way to address the inequality between black individuals and the wealthy whites in post –apartheid South Africa.

The combined wealth of the African HNWI’s is estimated to be in excess of US$660 billion.  The Sunday Times reported in May this year, that there are vast discrepancies in South Africa.  The super wealthy have a net worth of around $184 billion.  There are about forty-six thousand millionaires in the country and they are living the high life.

Professor Dilip Garach told the Sunday Times that most of the newly rich have acquired their fortunes since the beginning of the Rainbow Nation in 1994.  The divide between the wealthy whites and the wealthy blacks is becoming blurred.

At grass roots levels, however, the greater population of the country is struggling with rising costs of basic foodstuffs, loss of employment and downturn in the economy.  Race is no longer a guarantee of wealth in South Africa.  Many middle-income earners are facing hard times.  More and more whites are working at laboring or minimal income jobs.  Equality in poverty, one must suppose is, at least, better than no equality.

The Mozambique wealthy are projected to increase over the next ten years, and according to the World Bank, recent discoveries of oil and gas in Mozambique will pave the way for investment and wealth generation if the natural resources are correctly managed.

Zambia has long been defined as a country stricken by poverty.  Fifty-eight percent of the rural community lives in extreme poverty.  The disparity of wealth in the country is huge but the economic outlook is encouraging.  Zambia has been performing well in recent years and the economy is expected to grow by a further six percent in 2016.  Zambian super-wealthy individuals are projected to emerge from the tourism, business and mining sectors over the next ten years

Time To Revisit The Issue Of Poor African Leadership

BY PATIENCE ZONGE

SABC NEWS, JANUARY 3, 2016

With many in South Africa and elsewhere asking questions about governance and politicians it is useful to reflect on the state of leadership across our African continent.

In 1986, the year he came to power, the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, published a book titled “What is wrong with Africa?”, in which he said poor and corrupt leadership was the problem, pointedly referring to the misrule of his predecessors — General Idi Amin and Milton Obote — as the cause of many of Uganda’s problems.

Ironically, Museveni, whom many in Uganda now consider to have been in office too long and who is criticised for his autocratic rule, wrote: “The problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power.”

Twenty-two years later, in 2008, delivering the sixth Nelson Mandela annual lecture in Kliptown, Johannesburg, the president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, remarked: “It is our firm conviction that Africa … is not poor, but rather poorly managed. Corruption, exploitation and the misuse of Africa’s resources are central to the inability of African governments to ably and sufficiently respond to the needs of the African people.”

The deficit of leadership in Africa is hardly a new or a ground-breaking observation; it has been well documented. But this doesn’t mean that the issue should not be regularly revisited and interrogated.

The urgent need to confront and address the leadership deficit on the continent is pressing given the complexity of the myriad challenges that confront Africa, including terrorism, climate change, seemingly intractable conflicts such as those in South Sudan and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the mass outbreak of epidemics like Ebola among others.

Protest movements that swept across the continent four years ago and led to the toppling of so-called “strongmen” in countries such as Tunisia (the ousting of longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011), Egypt (Hosni Mubarak overthrown in the same month), Burkina Faso (Blaise Compaoré forced to resign in November 2014) and Libya (the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in September 2011) are a clear sign that citizens across Africa are tired of being governed with impunity.

The maturing aspiration of Africa’s citizens for better lives means they have become increasingly intolerant of poor and corrupt leadership.

Burundi was thrown into turmoil earlier this year because President Pierre Nkurunziza, who had been in power since 2005, insisted on running for a third term, despite a constitutional limitation of two terms.

However, despite the recognition by some African leaders that there has been a failure of leadership on the continent, there is a strong reluctance by many of them to step down to make way for fresh blood or to allow free and fair elections that would see them being replaced.

Burundi was thrown into turmoil earlier this year because President Pierre Nkurunziza, who had been in power since 2005, insisted on running for a third term, despite a constitutional limitation of two terms. In the wake of his announcement that he would seek re-election, there was a short-lived, unsuccessful coup and least 100 people were killed in the protests that erupted.

Thousands fled their homes in fear of a civil war and these refugees have been thrust into an uncertain future and a precarious existence.

The future of the already fragile country is at stake, its gains reversed, its potential curtailed, and the aspirations of its people bleak.

Recent third-term bids couched in manipulated constitutional reforms, as we have recently seen in Togo, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of Congo are hardly a sign of principled leadership.

It is a travesty that Nkurunziza and other leaders in Africa are unashamedly willing to sacrifice the lives of their country’s citizens for their continued stranglehold on power; that they are content to hold back their countries’ potential and growth due to their limited vision and poor strategic direction; that they appear to see nothing wrong in presiding over crumbling economies and decaying public institutions that offer hopelessly poor services; that they are content to exploit and benefit from the largesse of the state, carelessly exploiting its resources for personal gain without thinking of future generations; that they are, in the main, unwilling to shoulder the responsibility of what has gone wrong — and is going wrong — on the continent and choose to defend their poor decisions while vehemently laying the blame for their shortcomings elsewhere.

This is all arguably a sign that, although we have leaders aplenty on our continent, there is little in the exercise of true, solid
governance to show for it.

The essence of true leadership lies in improving the lives of the people you rule over, and leaving them better off than they were when you took office.

It means governing with a conscience, knowing that it’s not about you as the leader, but about the citizens who are the collective soul and lifeblood of a nation.

It means having a strong and compelling vision of the future where you want to take your nation, and ensuring that that vision is a collective one, shared and supported by citizens.

It is not surprising to hear from Africa’s citizens that they have no idea what their governments’ long-term vision is and where exactly their countries are headed. Leadership is about the ability to mobilise the civic energies of people towards solving their common problems.

It is about self-sacrifice, and requires true stewardship.

To be entrusted with the hopes and aspirations of your people, the lives and well-being of society, is a great responsibility and a great honour — and one that needs to be discharged with integrity.

Leadership requires wisdom, compassion, empathy, and staying in touch with the realities on the ground. Leadership requires the courage to act.

As the citizens of Africa, we need to realise the anticipated dividends that should ideally accrue from a solid leadership.

We do not want to have to be compelled to settle for less, nor accept tokens from our leaders as if they are doing us a favour by governing us.

Relying on a heavily flawed notion of leadership that focuses all attention on the leaders while we passively look on has done little to serve us.

We need to move beyond this paradigm. We equally have a responsibility outside of protests in ensuring that we get to enjoy those much anticipated leadership dividends.

Rather than abdicating our role and leaving it up to our leaders to “save us”, we need to realize the importance of our collective
capacity and agency to self-lead and work together in solving our common problems.

This opinion piece was first published on www.democracyworks.org.za

Patience Zonge is a skilled trainer, researcher and material developer and an accredited trainer to the Building Resources in Democracy, Governance and Elections (BRIDGE) programme, with particular focus on the socio-economic and political development of the African region. Her areas of speciality and interest centre on working with youth, women and political parties in leadership development and democratic governance issues. She has worked in Lesotho, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, where she has been championing the roll out of the Initiative for Leadership and Democracy in Africa (ILEDA).

Her research interests are in gender, conflict, social capital and civic agency. She holds a Masters’ degree in Public and Development Management from the University of Witwatersrand, a Masters degree in Monitoring and Evaluation from Stellenbosch University and an Honours degree in Psychology from the University of Zimbabwe.