Interview of special representative for African affairs Liu Yuxi

 Interview of special representative for African affairs Liu Yuxi

China has been Africa’s largest trading partner for 13 consecutive years.

 

In Summary

•China has been actively providing emergency food assistance and COVID-19 vaccines for African countries in need to help.

•We have been actively promoting the Outlook on Peace and Development in the Horn of Africa to resolve the root causes of conflicts.

Special Representative of the Chinese Government on African Affairs Liu Yuxi

 

We noticed that this is your first visit to Africa after you assumed the post of Special Representative of the Chinese Government on African Affairs and Kenya is your first stop. What is your comment on the present China-Kenya relations?

I am invited to attend the inauguration ceremony of the new president of Kenya on behalf of China. I met with President Ruto to convey the Chinese leader’s warm congratulations and best wishes and exchanged opinions on bilateral relations and issues of mutual interest.

China and Kenya both believe that the two sides need to continue to deepen political mutual trust and work as each other’s trustworthy and sincere friends in politics as well as reliable and close partners in development.

The two countries should enhance the synergy of development strategies in Belt and Road cooperation and under the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation to make China-Kenya cooperation a leading and demonstrative example, and strengthen multilateral coordination and cooperation to jointly address global challenges.

PT -- Manlio Dinucci -- A Arte da Guerra -- Parlamento «coeso» sobre as missões neocoloniais

A Arte da Guerra

Parlamento «coeso» sobre as missões neocoloniais

Manlio Dinucci

FRANÇAIS  ITALIANO  PORTUGUÊS

O Ministro da Defesa, Lorenzo Guerini (Partido Democrático) manifestou grande satisfação pelo voto “coeso” do Parlamento, sobre as missões internacionais. Excepto alguma divergência no apoio à Guarda Costeira de Trípoli, a maioria e a oposição aprovaram, de maneira compacta, sem voto contra e foram prorrogadas as principais “missões de manutenção da paz” em curso, há décadas, na peugada das guerras USA/NATO(nas quais a Itália participou) nos Balcãs, no Afeganistão e na Líbia, e na de Israel no Líbano, que fazem parte da mesma estratégia.

A estas foram acrescentadas algumas novas: a operação militar da União Europeia no Mediterrâneo, formalmente para “impedir o tráfico de armas na Líbia”; a missão da União Europeia de “apoio ao aparelho de segurança no Iraque”; a Missão da NATO para o fortalecimento do apoio aos países localizados no Lado Sul da Aliança.

Aumentou fortemente o compromisso militar italiano na África Subsaariana. As forças especiais italianas participam na Task Force Takuba, enviada ao Mali sob comando francês. Também opera no Níger, no Chade e em Burkina Faso, no âmbito da operação de Barkhane, ma qual estão envolvidos 4.500 soldados franceses, com veículos blindados e bombardeiros, oficialmente apenas contra as milícias jihadistas.

No Mali, a Itália também participa na Missão da União Europeia, EUTM, que fornece treino militar e “aconselhamento” às forças armadas deste e de outros países limítrofes. No Níger, a Itália tem a sua própria missão bilateral de apoio às forças armadas e, ao mesmo tempo, participa da missão da União Europeia EuCAP Sahel Níger, numa área geográfica que também inclui a Nigéria, o Mali, a Mauritânia, o Chade, Burkina Faso e o Benin.

O Parlamento italiano também aprovou o uso de “um dispositivo aéreo e naval nacional para actividades de presença, de vigilância e de segurança no Golfo da Guiné”. O objectivo declarado é "proteger os interesses estratégicos nacionais nesta área (leia os interesses da ENI - "Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi"), apoiando o navio mercante nacional em trânsito”.

Não é por acaso que as áreas africanas, nas quais se concentram as  “missões de manutenção da paz”, são as mais ricas em matérias-primas estratégicas - petróleo, gás natural, urânio, coltan, ouro, diamantes, manganês, fosfatos e outros - exploradas por multinacionais americanas e europeias. No entanto, o seu oligopólio está agora ameaçado pela crescente presença económica da China.Não conseguindo combatê-la só através de meios económicos e vendo,  ao mesmo tempo, diminuir a sua influência no interior dos países africanos, os Estados Unidos e as potências europeias recorrem à antiga, mas ainda eficaz, estratégia colonial: garantir os seus interesses económicos através de meios militares, incluindo o apoio às elites locais que baseiam o seu poder nas forças armadas.

A oposição às milícias jihadistas, a motivação oficial para operações como a da Task Force Takuba, é a cortina de fumo atrás da qual se escondem os verdadeiros objectivos estratégicos.

O governo italiano declara que as missões internacionais servem para “garantir a paz e a segurança destas zonas, para a protecção e para a tutela das populações”. Na realidade, as intervenções militares expõem as populações a riscos posteriores e, ao reforçar os mecanismos de exploração, agravam o seu empobrecimento, com o consequente aumento de fluxos migratórios para a Europa.

Para manter milhares de homens e veículos envolvidos em missões militares, a Itália utiliza mais de um bilião de euros, directamente, num ano, fornecidos (com dinheiro público) não só pelo Ministério da Defesa, mas também pelos Ministérios do Interior, da Economia das Finanças e pela Presidência do Conselho.

No entanto, esta soma é apenas a ponta do iceberg da crescente despesa militar (mais de 25 biliões por ano), devido ao ajuste de todas as forças armadas a essa estratégia. Aprovada pelo Parlamento com consentimento bipartidário unânime.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 21 de Julho de 2020

DECLARAÇÃO DE FLORENÇA

Para uma frente internacional NATO EXIT, em todos os países europeus da NATO

DANSK DEUTSCH ENGLISH ESPAÑOL  FRANÇAIS ITALIANO  NEDERLANDS

PORTUGUÊS ROMÎNA SLOVENSKÝ SVENSKA TÜRKÇE РУССКИЙ 

Manlio Dinucci

Geógrafo e geopolitólogo. Livros mais recentes: Laboratorio di geografia, Zanichelli 2014 ; Diario di viaggio, Zanichelli 2017 ; L’arte della guerra / Annali della strategia Usa/Nato 1990-2016, Zambon 2016, Guerra Nucleare. Il Giorno Prima 2017; Diario di guerra Asterios Editores 2018; Premio internazionale per l'analisi geostrategica assegnato il 7 giugno 2019 dal Club dei giornalisti del Messico, A.C.

ASTOUNDING! -- Global Bootprints

Global Bootprints

Posted on January 4, 2019

The remarkable Costs of War project at Brown has just released this map of US military deployments in pursuit of counterterrorism operations overseas in 2017-18.  You can download the pdf here.

VIEW FULL MAP

As the lead author Stephanie Savell explains, even though the contours and calibrations are conservative, the results show that the US military is actively engaged in 80 nations on six continents:

Less than a month after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, U.S. troops—with support from British, Canadian, French, German and Australian forces—invaded Afghanistan to fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban. More than 17 years later, the Global War on Terrorism initiated by President George W. Bush is truly global, with Americans actively engaged in countering terrorism in 80 nations on six continents.

This map is the most comprehensive depiction in civilian circles of U.S. military and government antiterrorist actions overseas in the past two years. To develop it, my colleagues and I at Brown University’s Costs of War Project at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, along with Smithsonian magazine, combed through U.S. and foreign government sources, published and unpublished reports, military websites and geographical databases; we contacted foreign embassies in the U.S. and the military’s United States Africa Command; and we conducted interviews with journalists, academics and others. We found that, contrary to what most Americans believe, the war on terror is not winding down—it has spread to more than 40 percent of the world’s countries. The war isn’t being waged by the military alone, which has spent $1.9 trillion fighting terrorism since 2001. The State Department has spent $127 billion in the last 17 years to train police, military and border patrol agents in many countries and to develop antiterrorism education programs, among other activities.

This map can usefully be compared with David Vine‘s heroic cartography of US military bases (from 2015) which I discuss in detail here.

If you want more detail on US deployments in Africa, then the indefatigable Nick Turse has an excellent survey at the Intercept here.

As Nick notes, the ‘light footprint’ claimed for US Africa Command (AFRICOM) in briefing documents (above) resolves into a vast network of bases across the continent.

You can find more in Adam Moore and James Walker‘s “Tracing the US military’s presence in Africa” in Geopolitics 21 (2016) 686-716 (also via ssrn here)  The essay includes this map of drone bases and operational ranges which usefully makes the point that the US military presence is scarcely confined to the pinprick presence of those bases but radiates from each of them:

On which note, I also recommend Jolle Demmers and Lauren Gold, ‘An assemblage approach to liquid warfare: AFRICOM and the ‘hunt’ for Joseph Kony’, Security Dialogue 49 (5) (2018) 364-81.

Prof Michel Chossudovsky -- Pre-emptive Nuclear War: The Role of Israel in Triggering an Attack on Iran

Pre-emptive Nuclear War: The Role of Israel in Triggering an Attack on Iran

Chapter III of The Globalization of War

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, June 14, 2019

Region: Middle East & North Africa

Theme: US NATO War Agenda

In-depth Report: IRAN: THE NEXT WAR?

The text below is Chapter III of Michel Chossudovsky book entitled:  The Globalization of War. America’s Long War against Humanity,Global Research Publishers, Montreal, 2015.  To order the book directly from Global Research click here

This chapter provides a historical perspective of US war plans directed against Iran, including the use of a preemptive nuclear attack, using low yield, “more usable” tactical nuclear weapons.  Emphasis added

***

While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using “new technologies” and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality. The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of world peace. “Making the world safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.”

The stockpiling and deployment of advanced weapons systems directed against Iran started in the immediate wake of the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq. From the outset, these war plans were led by the U.S. in liaison with NATO and Israel.

Main constraint on the influence of Chinese news/propaganda is that it's boring

China is broadening its efforts to win over African audiences

China’s state-run news outlets are struggling to win African audiences

EVER SINCE the Kenyan government signed a deal in 2014 for a state-owned Chinese company to build a railway between Nairobi and Kenya’s main port in Mombasa, the project has attracted controversy. Its price per km was three times the international benchmark and four times the original estimate. Many Kenyans suspect corruption inflated its cost.

Unsurprisingly, such issues have received little airtime on CGTN Africa, a branch of China’s state television company, which opened its headquarters on the continent in Nairobi in 2012. When CGTN aired a package on the railway in July, the network praised it as “a case study” of China-Africa relations. In the Africa of CGTN’s imagination, every deal is “win-win” and, of course, “harmonious”.