Please note: The following news items are presented here for informational purposes. The views expressed within them are those of the authors and/or individuals quoted, not those of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the National Defense University, or the Department of Defense.
Will Obama’s “New Africa” Deliver on Its Promises?
US-Africa summit: much fanfare, but measuring its success will take time
President Obama Holds a Press Conference at the U.S.-African Leaders Summit
African Journalists Leave U.S. Summit Disappointed
As Meeting With African Leaders Winds Down, Policy Issues Take the Stage
Here’s How African Nations Are Making Progress With Democracy, Human Rights, More
China, the US, and Africa: A New Foreign Aid Triangle?
In Training Partner Militaries, U.S. Should Not Rush to ‘Do Something’ in Africa
WHO: Ebola ‘an international emergency’
DOD puts priority on tests for experimental Ebola drug
Saudi Arabia Blocks Visas From West African Countries Amid Ebola Crisis
Ebola’s spread to US is ‘inevitable’ says CDC chief
Ivory Coast struggles with reconciliation
Mali jihadi leader reappears to threaten France
Seal illicit finance loopholes to save Africa’s billions
Boko Haram raises its flag over another Nigerian town
U.S., Morocco bolster counterterror ties
Suspected Ebola patient isolated in Entebbe hospital
Africans Face Long Wait For Unproven Ebola Drug
Mali’s mercurial jihadist leader targets France in rare video
Trans-Sahel ‘new frontier’ in global counter-terrorism operations
War and peace in northern Mali
Nigeria’s Power Problem
Israeli billionaire finds 3-bln-barrel oil reserve in Congo
Angola, Brazil to Reinforce Military Cooperation
Today’s News
Will Obama’s “New Africa” Deliver on Its Promises?
Speaking Tuesday regarding the 17 billion dollars pledged toward African business development, U.S President Obama declared his determination to be a “good,” “equal” and “long term” partner for Africa’s success. “We cannot lose sight of the new Africa that’s emerging,” Obama said Tuesday, announcing new private partnerships, as well as a reaffirmed commitment to improving infrastructure, expanding trade, and providing educational opportunities for young entrepreneurs. While such business advances most directly benefit actors in the U.S. private sector, non-profits expressed similarly qualified enthusiasm about the summit’s promise of increased economic engagement with Africa. “What the summit has offered is an opportunity for the United States is to see Africa as a land of opportunity,” Gregory Adams, director of aid effectiveness at Oxfam America, a development organisation here, told IPS. IPS
US-Africa summit: much fanfare, but measuring its success will take time
President Obama’s unprecedented US-Africa Leaders Summit wrapped up Wednesday night with pledges of $34 billion in US trade and investment initiatives – including new commitments to the critical push to expand electricity access. The participants also reached agreements on security cooperation and fostering good governance. The three-day event, which drew the leaders of more than 40 African nations to Washington with the idea of transforming the way Americans – and American business in particular – think of Africa, even managed to overcome the Ebola fixation of US news channels. CS Monitor
President Obama Holds a Press Conference at the U.S.-African Leaders Summit
President Obama holds a press conference where he answers questions and gives an update on the U.S.-African Leaders Summit. The White House
African Journalists Leave U.S. Summit Disappointed
The closing press conference of the US-Africa Leaders Summit with United States President Barack Obama was dominated by questions about local policy issues, sparking indignation from African journalists on Wednesday. Obama rushed onto the stage an hour and 14 minutes late and launched into his closing speech on the summit, which saw more than 40 heads of states or representatives from African countries converge on the US capital. [...] Members of The White House press corp dominated the question and answer session, focusing on local policy issues, such as immigration, and the crisis in the Middle East and Ukraine. The press core was given front row seats to the press conference while African journalists scrabbled for space behind the cameras at the United States Department of State. Some waved their arms hoping to get a chance to ask Obama a question or two about the summit, but the chance never came. allAfrica
As Meeting With African Leaders Winds Down, Policy Issues Take the Stage
President Obama, ending a landmark summit meeting with African leaders, said Wednesday that the United States was dispatching teams of health workers to West Africa to help contain an outbreak of the Ebola virus, but stopped short of pledging to send experimental drugs because he said he did not know enough about them. “I don’t think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful,” Mr. Obama said at a news conference, referring to experimental treatments for the virus, which has claimed nearly 1,000 lives and cast a shadow over this gathering of African leaders. “What we do know is the Ebola virus, both currently and in the past, is controllable if you have a strong public health network in place,” the president said, adding that in the hardest-hit countries, “their public health systems have been overwhelmed.” The New York Times
Here’s How African Nations Are Making Progress With Democracy, Human Rights, More
In an unprecedented move this week, President Obama played host to nearly 50 leaders from Africa — a continent which is home to six of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world, according to the Washington Post. Analysts claim the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, which took place in Washington, D.C., from Monday through Wednesday, was an important step by the president to prioritize relations with an increasingly influential region, as Reuters reported. But among talks of GDPs and business bottom lines, another vital angle of development was on the agenda: Human progress. Here are six issues brought into the spotlight as a result of the summit this week, reminding the world that things are improving for the people of Africa. The Huffington Post
China, the US, and Africa: A New Foreign Aid Triangle?
As American government and business leaders welcome their African counterparts to Washington this week, business and economic development are at the top of the agenda. The U.S.–Africa Summit and more than 100 side events are expected to cover opportunities for greater trade and investment between the regions, in a follow-up to President Obama’s trip to Africa last summer. Left unspoken, however, is the fact that Africa increasingly seems to be a theater for competition for economic and political influence between the two great powers of the 21st century, China and the United States. The recent release of China’s second white paper detailing its foreign aid activities has sparked renewed debate over the country’s aid policies. Like most countries, China has linked its foreign aid programs to its broader political and economic strategies. Asia Society
In Training Partner Militaries, U.S. Should Not Rush to ‘Do Something’ in Africa
As African heads of state gather in Washington this week for the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the continent looks relatively peaceful, at least in comparison to other regions. Even the agenda of the summit, which according to its website “will advance the Administration’s focus on trade and investment in Africa,” reflects Africa’s relative stability. Though peace and security issues are admittedly included in the agenda, they seem more like a footnote than a priority. It is irrefutable that conflict in Africa has declined significantly over the past two decades and that African economies and the continent’s burgeoning middle classes represent a lucrative market for U.S. companies and investors. And yet, the recognition of Africa’s overall security, political and economic progress shouldn’t obscure its ongoing challenges. One that casts a particularly long shadow has also plagued large swaths of the Middle East and South Asia: violent Islamist extremism. World Politis Review
WHO: Ebola ‘an international emergency’
The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the spread of Ebola in West Africa an international health emergency. WHO officials said a coordinated international response was essential to stop and reverse the spread of the virus. The announcement came after experts convened a two-day emergency meeting in Switzerland. So far more than 930 people have died from Ebola in West Africa this year. The United Nations health agency said the outbreak was an “extraordinary event”. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote This is not a mysterious disease. This is an infectious disease that can be contained” Keiji Fukuda WHO. BBC
DOD puts priority on tests for experimental Ebola drug
U.S. government researchers are working hard to get an experimental flu drug from Japan’s Fujifilm Holdings Corp. quickly approved to treat Ebola, as the death toll rises in West Africa. Fujifilm’s U.S. partner MediVector Inc. in Boston is in talks with the Food and Drug Administration to submit an application to use the drug in humans for Ebola, according to Department of Defense spokeswoman Amy Derrick-Frost. If successful, the treatment drug would be one of the first allowed by U.S. regulators to fight the disease in humans. The Department of Defense has prioritized the completion of a study that tests the drug called favipiravir in Ebola-infected monkeys, Derrick-Frost said. The drug can be fast-tracked through the regulatory review process after the studies are complete, she said. Preliminary monkey data are expected in mid- September, she said. The advantage of using favipiravir in an Ebola outbreak is that it has already been extensively tested for use as an anti- viral in human trials for influenza. The drug is now in a U.S. final-stage trial for treating influenza. Stars and Stripes
Saudi Arabia Blocks Visas From West African Countries Amid Ebola Crisis
Saudi Arabia is blocking Hajj pilgrims from three West African countries suffering large Ebola virus outbreaks from making the iconic Muslim visit to Mecca, while a Saudi man is being tested for the hemorrhagic fever after traveling to Sierra Leone. The Saudi Ministry of Health (MOH) announced Monday it would block any Hajj or Umrah visas for anyone traveling from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. “We have communicated the instructions to the officials of all ports of entry. We have trained our personnel on how to identify and deal with Ebola cases and control virus infection, should it happen,” Dr. Khalid Marghalani, MOH spokesman says. International Business Times
Ebola’s spread to US is ‘inevitable’ says CDC chief
Ebola’s spread to the United States is “inevitable” due to the nature of global airline travel, but any outbreak is not likely to be large, US health authorities said Thursday. Already one man with dual US-Liberian citizenship has died from Ebola, after becoming sick on a plane from Monrovia to Lagos and exposing as many as seven other people in Nigeria. More cases of Ebola moving across borders via air travel are expected, as West Africa faces the largest outbreak of the hemorrhagic virus in history, said Tom Frieden, the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. AFP on Yahoo News
Ivory Coast struggles with reconciliation
Three years ago, Ivory Coast was in the grip of a civil war that claimed 3,000 lives and left more than 300,000 homeless, according to the United Nations. The world body now says the country is recovering fast from the conflict: Huge infrastructure projects in the transport, communications, water and energy sectors are under way and are hoped to improve living conditions. But fears are growing that the reconstruction efforts could turn futile without true reconciliation between former warring parties. “The world is saluting Ivory Coast’s post-war reconstruction without pausing for a minute to think that all that is being done is on a sandy foundation, and that the slightest outbreak of a new crisis could tear down recent achievements,” says Sebastien Dano Djedje, spokesman for the main opposition party FPI. Al Jazeera
Mali jihadi leader reappears to threaten France
The leader of a jihadist group driven from northern Mali by French troops has reappeared for the first time in 18 months with a video message calling for Muslims to rise up against France, “which detests Islam”. Iyad Ag Ghaly, who led a Tuareg rebellion in the Sahara before setting up the armed group Ansar Dine (”Defenders of the Faith”), disappeared in January 2013 soon after France intervened to stop a column of Islamist insurgents taking Mali’s capital Bamako and toppling the government. In a 23-minute video in Arabic put online on Tuesday, he signalled a return to combat, saying his group was “ready to unite with our brothers on the ground to face up to the crusaders and infidels who have united to fight Islam in our land”. AFP on Yahoo News
Seal illicit finance loopholes to save Africa’s billions
Efforts to combat the outflow of illicit finance from Africa risk failing if loopholes that facilitate the haemorrhage are not sealed. Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington-DC based research and advocacy organization, said the establishment of a bilateral US – Africa Partnership to Combat Illicit Finance might be a move in futility if deficiencies that facilitate the illegal flows are not addressed. The bilateral partnership was established during the US – Africa Leaders Summit in Washington-DC and is aimed to tackle the flow of illicit finance through which a staggering $55.6 billion is drained from the African continent annually. AfricaBusiness
Boko Haram raises its flag over another Nigerian town
Over the past few days, the al Qaeda-linked terror group Boko Haram has taken over another town in Borno state, slaughtering at least 50 residents, and stormed a town in neighboring Cameroon, killing 10 and kidnapping a child. The Nigerian military claims to be conducting operations against the group in Borno but appears to have little to show for its efforts, and was recently accused of committing atrocities in its battle against Boko Haram. Suspected Boko Haram fighters seized a village in Borno state in northeastern Nigeria yesterday. According to a local vigilante leader, the attackers came from “all corners” of the town, killing at least 50 people. In the attack, the gunmen reportedly opened fire on residents, and burned a police station, churches, and other buildings. Locals said that there were no soldiers to defend the town when the attack began at dawn. By late morning, the gunmen held the town, hoisting several flags across the area. Long War Journal
U.S., Morocco bolster counterterror ties
The United States and Morocco are boosting counterterrorism cooperation to train intelligence workers as North Africa fights threats from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Under the agreement signed following the U.S.-Africa Summit this week, Washington and Rabat will begin joint training sessions in September, the U.S. State Department said. The U.S.-Morocco Framework for Cooperation aims to develop Moroccan training experts, as well as jointly train civilian security and counterterrorism forces across allies in the Maghreb and Sahel regions. It hopes to “develop mutual expertise in the areas of crisis management, border security and terrorism investigations to strengthen regional counterterrorism capabilities and to deny space to terrorists and terrorist networks,” the State Department said. Al Arabiya
Suspected Ebola patient isolated in Entebbe hospital
Health ministry officials have placed a man suspected of suffering from the deadly haemorrhagic fever—Ebola—in isolation at Entebbe Grade B Hospital isolation wing. The Director General of Health Services at the ministry, Dr Jane Aceng, said the suspect, who is a Sudanese clinical officer, was identified during a screening exercise on Wednesday at Entebbe Airport where he had arrived aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight. The suspect has been working with the International Organisation for Migrants in South Sudan and had been referred to Kampala for treatment after he exhibited symptoms of Hepatitis B disease. But according to Dr Aceng, when the man was screened, his symptoms pointed more towards Ebola. “He had a fever, headache, red eyes and general weakness – all symptoms that qualify one as an Ebola suspect,” she said. Daily Monitor
Africans Face Long Wait For Unproven Ebola Drug
Africans seeking a drug to help contain the Ebola virus will have to wait months before a potentially life-saving experimental treatment used on two infected Americans is produced even in small amounts, officials said. And there are no guarantees that the medication known as ZMapp would help curb the spread of the dreaded disease, which starts with a fever and body aches and sometimes progresses to serious bleeding. Supplies of the drug are limited. It has never been tested for safety or effectiveness in humans. The health minister of Nigeria, one of the four countries where Ebola has broken out, told a news conference in his country that he had asked the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about access to the drug. A CDC spokesman said Wednesday “there are virtually no doses available.” AP on The Huffington Post
Mali’s mercurial jihadist leader targets France in rare video
Flanked by the requisite Kalashnikov and black Salafist flag, reclusive Malian diplomat-turned jihadist leader Iyad Ag Ghali targets France and French interests in the region in a rare video statement this week. In a 24-minute clip posted on YouTube on August 5, Ag Ghali sets his sights on France as well as “collaborators” working with “the Crusaders” – particularly “Muslims who help France”. “We will get rid of the Crusaders, led by France,” said the reclusive leader of Ansar Dine, a militant Islamist group that came to the world’s attention following the 2012 jihadist takeover of northern Mali. France 24
Trans-Sahel ‘new frontier’ in global counter-terrorism operations
The Sahel-Sahara region is the ‘new frontier’ in global counter-terrorism operations, prompting major transitions in US and French military positioning, according to a new report. Commissioned by the Remote Control Project, Oxford Research Group’s report, From New Frontier to New Normal: Counter-terrorism operation in the Sahel-Sahara, finds that 2014 is a critical year for militarisation of the Sahel-Sahara and the entrenchment of foreign powers there. “With the drawdown of foreign forces from Afghanistan, 2014 is the year when the Global War on Terror really comes to northwest Africa,” said Richard Reeve, lead author of the report. “The remote Sahel-Sahara is the laboratory for experiments in 21st century counter-terrorism operations. These are defined by their open-ended length, “light-touch” approach – with limited boots on the ground and a reliance on special forces, drones and private military companies – and an increased capacity and willingness to intervene militarily to protect US interests. DefenseWeb
War and peace in northern Mali
Continued violence in northern Mali which saw three separatist rebel groups retake control of much of the north, has put peace talks set for August, and the July roadmap to peace signed by rebel groups and the Malian government, on shaky ground. After fighting broke out between rebel groups and government troops in Kidal town in May, Malian forces withdrew, paving the way for the three separatist groups to gain control of much of Kidal Region and parts of Gao and Timbuktu regions in the north, including from Kidal town to Ménaka close to the border with Niger in the southeast. IRIN
Nigeria’s Power Problem
They come about once a month, a van containing a crew of four or five guys, going from house to house, ready to cut off your power if you lack proof that your payments are up to date — and turn it back on for an $8 reconnection fee, or any reasonable under-the-table amount. Alas, I was in arrears. I owed several months for the electricity they had barely been providing. Even though about 85 percent of Nigeria’s urban areas and 30 percent of rural areas are on the power grid — the result of years of government monopoly and its attendant corruption — the supply is intermittent at best. I’ve been getting about three hours a day, if lucky, and even then rarely at a stretch. Sometimes you don’t get any power for three or four days. Like many people here, I rely on a private generator to bridge the gaps. Things were supposed to get better since the government announced with great fanfare (almost a year ago now) that it had privatized the power-distribution network. But one didn’t need to be an engineer to understand that decades of neglect, in this as in other areas of national life, can hardly be fixed in a few months. The New York Times
Israeli billionaire finds 3-bln-barrel oil reserve in Congo
An oil company owned by Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler said on Thursday it had discovered reserves of around 3 billion barrels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, an amount similar to the proven reserves of oil producers Britain and South Sudan. The crude was discovered around Lake Albert on Congo’s eastern border with Uganda, Oil of DRCongo said in a statement. An analysis of seismic survey data “indicates around 3 billion barrels of oil in place”, it said. “These are very positive results from our extensive seismic campaign,” said Giuseppe Ciccarelli, Oil of DRCongo’s CEO. “We continue to believe the project has the potential to provide significant revenues and multiple other benefits to the people of (Congo).” The nearby Ugandan blocks are estimated to hold a similar amount of oil and are being developed by British company Tullow, France’s Total and China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC). Reuters
Angola, Brazil to Reinforce Military Cooperation
Angola and Brazil reaffirmed their commitment to reinforcing continuously the defence cooperation between the two countries, under the bilateral strategic partnership. This fact was reiterated in a joint declaration signed on Tuesday [August 5] in Brasilia at the end of the talks between Angolan and Brazilian delegation, led by their defence minister, João Lourenço and Celso Amorim, respectively. Both parties assessed positively the existing cooperation between the two countries and also welcomed the creation of the Interim Joint Commit for Defence, which met in Luanda last May and discussed issues related to the training of staff, special operation, peace-keeping mission and military health, among others. African Defense