It is unclear what impact this will have on South Africa. My guess is that Ramaphosa will double down with his racism and fascism as that is all any of the major South African parties seem capable of offering. The one part of this that is deadly serious is the invitation for Afrikaners to emigrate. If a large number of them start looking for the exits, and I'm not enough of an authority on that country to hazard a guess because the Afrikaners have been in southern South Africa longer than the current Black population, the economic impact will be extreme. Rhodesia was a major food exporter. However, Zimbabwe, after land confiscation much like that envisioned by South Africa, is an economic and agricultural basket case.

Quite honestly, it is really about time the West started treating South Africa like the Third World s*** hole that it is. It has dined out on the legend of Nelson Mandela for thirty years while engaging in behavior much more oppressive than that of the government it replaced. Moral cowardice by the West has allowed brutality and corruption to flourish. Hopefully, those days are over for the United States. //

Galatians 5:22
3 days ago
Former South African here (I am not white and I grew up under apartheid). I am about the same age as Elon Musk and I came to the United States for college (when I was 18). Your article is very accurate. After the euphoria of Mandela being released and having elections where all people could vote, the country just went downhill. The corruption is insane ... and it is open and blatant. And the rate of violent crime skyrocketed. Everyone knew someone who had been murdered. And rapes also increased. The government scapegoated the white racists, of course. Those who could leave the country did so. But a lot of people could not afford to leave. And everyone lives in a state of fear. Add to that, there are massive power shortages largely due to mismanagement and corruption. The country has something called "load shedding" where they have scheduled blackouts just about every week. As to the point of Afrikaner migration ... a lot of Afrikaners work on American farms under the farm guest worker program. The Afrikaners used to be the vilified group because of apartheid. But, just like in America, things went too far and the white oppressors were replaced by the black oppressors (as South Africans like to say). The Afrikaners have been vilified and persecuted for the last 30 years. And I am sure Elon Musk knows all about this and has shared his insights with DJT.

Three things could produce an African Renaissance: liberty, capitalism, and energy. The Western world can't do much about the first two; that's something the people of the various nations of Africa will have to work out for themselves. The one thing the West could help with is energy development. But American and European climate scolds seem determined to prevent any energy development. It is, in effect, a re-colonizing of Africa.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/10/17/climate-colonialisms-stranglehold-on-africas-energy-starved/

In 2024, it is unconscionable that over 600 million Africans still lack access to electricity. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 28% of healthcare facilities have reliable electricity. More than 900 million people cook with traditional biomass like wood and animal dung, inhaling toxic fumes that claim over 600,000 African lives each year. Clean water remains a luxury for vast swaths of the population.

Since China's so-called Peace Ark arrived last week, more than 2,000 South Africans have been treated on board - ranging from maternity check-ups and cataract surgeries to cupping therapy.

China enjoys a strong political partnership with South Africa, and this is Beijing's latest show of soft power. //

The African National Congress (ANC) says its National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme will be a huge improvement as all services at both public and private facilities will be free at the point of care – paid out of a central fund.

Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has insisted it will still be implemented despite the party losing its parliamentary majority in May, and going into coalition with parties like the Democratic Alliance (DA) that oppose some aspects of the scheme.

It will cause a massive shake-up of the health sector, but critics fear it could prompt an exodus of health professionals to find employment abroad.

The scheme is being vociferously opposed by private health companies as it bars people from taking out private health insurance for treatment. //

The floating hospital leaves Cape Town on Thursday for Angola before moving on to several other countries. It has already visited the Seychelles, Tanzania, Madagascar and Mozambique - on this its 10th excursion since being commissioned in 2008.

The initiative is seen as a further step in China’s efforts to increase its influence on the African continent.

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In more than 20 countries, with 40 Powerships, Karpowership has with more than 6,000 MW installed capacity. With our fleet composed of Powerships, FSRUs, LNG Carriers, Support Ships we provide universal access to power for people and communities on 4 continents around the world.

in 2020 a third addendum was signed to increase the capacity to 65 MW. Karpowership is operational in the country since 2018 and has been supplying 80% of Sierra Leone’s total electricity needs. ///

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Some hippos are a little smaller — and lighter — than others, including the endangered West African Pygmy Hippopotamus, which is found mostly in Liberia. The status of that animal makes it all the more interesting that the Attica Zoological Park in Athens, Greece, has recently had a pygmy hippo born in captivity.

Parts of Africa were already seeing web disruptions from damaged Red Sea cables.

Light, electricity, or current is necessary for the growth and development of any economy, especially the poor economies of Africa. Most people in these African countries do not have access to electricity. In 1996, the people of Sub-Saharan African countries had 28.4% access to electricity, and this access increased to 40.6% by 2021. In Liberia, this access increased from 3% in 1996 to 29.8% by 2021 (WB, 2023).

This access to electricity in Liberia is associated with costs, as no choice is without cost in any country or in any decision-making situation. High costs are associated with national decision-making in most African countries, with their respective money-driven decision-making situations. These situations are at once bad and very costly. They are bad because they are in the realm of bad governance. They are very costly because less costly choices could have been made. Less costly choices were not made and are not being made because the bad governance of state management remains corrupt. In the absence of electricity, most persons do not have access to schooling, health, food, and other basic needs.

Liberia is faced with three options in terms of access to electricity: two short to medium-term options and one long-term option. The first set of options come from the United States of America (USA) based company High Power Explanation (HPX) and the Turkish based company Karpowership. The long term option is from the CLSG Group of countries. HPX has a problem of access to the use of the railroad for transporting from ore from the Mifergui Mines from the Liberia-Guinea border to Liberia when the railroad is controlled by Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel production company. All of the companies are profit-oriented. State management is Liberia is at once money-seeking and corrupt. The situation in Liberia forces State management to engage the first two companies because Liberia is seeking finance, even budgetary assistance. Yet, the State management is Liberia announces its preference for the CLSG option. What an irony!

Liberia is Africa's oldest republic, but it became known in the 1990s for its long-running, ruinous civil wars and its role in a rebellion in neighbouring Sierra Leone.

Although founded by freed American and Caribbean slaves, Liberia is mostly inhabited by indigenous Africans, with the slaves' descendants comprising 5% of the population.

Around 250,000 people were killed in Liberia's civil wars, and many thousands more fled the fighting as the economy collapsed.

Big programmes are under way to address the shortage of electricity and running water.

“No White Saviors” is a far-left group that specializes in tarring white missionaries to Africa as irredeemably racist. The group is shown in the docuseries as developing its audience and donor network after it began to exploit internal strife at Bach’s Ugandan clinic. //

when the clinic suffered a brief closure over a licensing issue, during which time several children died, Bach’s mother pulled together the clinic’s data and reported that of the 940 children treated by Serving His Children over a six-year period, 105 total children did not survive their severe acute malnutrition — a mortality rate of 11 percent. Meanwhile, a study of patients with the same condition at Uganda’s largest children’s hospital revealed the hospital’s mortality rate was 14 percent. Opponents of the Christian mission, however, were more fixated on Bach’s skin color than her efforts to save starving kids. //

Bach also announced the same month that Serving His Children would be dissolved, with services no longer available to sick children desperate for treatment.

No White Saviors no doubt counts Serving His Children as a feather in its cap, a white-run nonprofit demonized as a neocolonialist organization that served no other purpose than to assuage some form of white guilt. But Bach was just a Christian missionary who was answering a spiritual call, even if she made mistakes and couldn’t restore every child she served. At the end of the day, Bach will go on living with her family in Virginia. It will be the sick kids in Uganda who suffer from the woke-led destruction of her mission.

A sub-Saharan African nation has been declared malaria-free for the first time in 50 years.

Cape Verde was given the status by the World Health Organization (WHO) as it has not reported a single case of local transmission in three years.

Experts have described this as a major achievement.

Malaria is a huge killer on the continent. In 2022, 580,000 people in Africa died from the disease, amounting to 95% of fatalities worldwide.

The disease is caused by a complex parasite which is spread by mosquito bites.

Vaccines are now being used in some places but monitoring the disease and avoiding mosquito bites are the most effective ways to prevent malaria.

Cape Verde, a small island nation off the coast of West Africa, has taken years to reach this point by strengthening its health systems and increasing access to diagnosis and treatment of all cases.

Surveillance officers have been detecting cases early, as well as controlling mosquitoes. //

On an island, it is easier to map out the areas most affected by the disease and see how it is being transferred from one island to another, compared to a continuous land mass.

In badly affected countries such as Nigeria, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, there is a highly mobile population regularly crossing borders, making it difficult for one country to eradicate the disease on its own.

Cape Verde's success "gives us hope that with existing tools, as well as new ones including vaccines, we can dare to dream of a malaria-free world", WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

The last country in sub-Saharan Africa to be declared malaria-free was the island nation of Mauritius in 1973. Algeria, in North Africa, achieved this status in 2019.

One of our AIS-receiving station operators in South Africa shares his true story of captivity and talks about his experience with MarineTraffic //

I noticed, to my surprise, that there are clearly-defined shipping lanes, and the lane heading up and down the east coast of Africa converged with the shipping lane from the Malacca Straits just offshore from my house. I realised my location is perfect to monitor shipping movements.

I’m also possibly one of the few station owners who had misfortune in their sailing experience. Back in 1990, my yacht ran aground during the hours of darkness. My family and I were captured and held hostage for 49 days by a then terrorist group, called Renamo, in Mozambique.

Apart from all the trauma of becoming embroiled in a very active civil war, the trauma of knowing we had disappeared and no one knew where we were, was profoundly disturbing. That happened in pre-GPS and fledgling-sat nav days.

Services such as AIS ensure this would not happen today, and therefore I applied to become a station owner to add to the security of all ships, but especially yachts, as they round the southern tip of Africa. //

I had to write a book to cover all the takeaways from our time of captivity but let me highlight just two:

Few emotions are more disabling than hopelessness. We had our two children, aged 5 and 8, with us, so we resolved early on that we had to do all we could to protect them from the reality of the war. We did this by assuming a nonchalant air that these weird happenings and people were all just a rather strange and exciting deviation in our holiday plans, and nothing to worry about.

This was not easy to sustain as deep feelings of guilt, hopelessness and despair often overcame us. We spent seven weeks living in a bush camp with the Renamo boy soldiers (aged 10 to ~20) before we were rescued. //

The second takeaway is related. It was frightening to witness how fragile social order can become. At that time, Mozambique was the poorest nation on Earth and a country in ruins due to unwise political policies, destabilization from neighbours resulting in the civil war, and the country becoming a theatre for the fighting of a proxy war between the east and the west. //

Our release required a cease-fire to come into place between Frelimo and Renamo. It did. I’ve since returned to Mozambique five times with a mission group from my local church. We attempted to help local communities with economic development and medical aid. These visits were emotionally exhausting for me, but I was amazed to discover how quickly the local people had placed the war behind them.

So the second takeaway is, people are extraordinarily resilient, and it’s vital for our mental and physical health to do all we can to place harmful events behind us and avoid giving or feeling blame. //

And, as a footnote, because you are probably wondering; our children grew up as happy kids and teenagers. Both are now young adults, both married and both with jobs that contribute directly to society. If asked, they would tell you they only have good memories of the time spent as hostages.

With all the technological advances humans have made, it may seem like we’ve lost touch with nature—but not all of us have. People in some parts of Africa use a guide more effective than any GPS system when it comes to finding beeswax and honey. This is not a gizmo, but a bird.

The Greater Honeyguide (highly appropriate name), Indicator indicator (even more appropriate scientific name), knows where all the beehives are because it eats beeswax. The Hadza people of Tanzania and Yao people of Mozambique realized this long ago. Hadza and Yao honey hunters have formed a unique relationship with this bird species by making distinct calls, and the honeyguide reciprocates with its own calls, leading them to a hive.

Because the Hadza and Yao calls differ, zoologist Claire Spottiswoode of the University of Cambridge and anthropologist Brian Wood of UCLA wanted to find out if the birds respond generically to human calls, or are attuned to their local humans. They found that the birds are much more likely to respond to a local call, meaning that they have learned to recognize that call. //

How did this interspecies communication evolve? Other African cultures besides the Hadza and Yao have their own calls to summon a honeyguide. Why do the types of calls differ? The researchers do not think these calls came about randomly. //

HiggsForce Ars Praetorian
9y
501
Subscriptor
The article describes the calls honey-seeking humans use to get the attention of a honeyguide.

But the reverse also often happens. A hungry honeyguide who's located a beehive will seek out nearby humans and tweet at them to prod them to follow the honey guide to the beehive and safely (for the honeyguide) extract tasty food for themselves and the honeyguide. Do the honeyguides' own calls differ regionally?

Of all the people in the world who you'd expect to draw controversy, Mr. Beast would probably be near the bottom of the list. We live in incredibly stupid times, though, and that's why the YouTuber is currently caught in a scandal over his building of 100 wells in Africa. No, I'm not kidding.

So what's the problem? Well, Mr. Beast is white, and we can't have white guys going to Africa to help people lest they violate the principles of left-wing identity politics. //

We all know what this is really about. These pathetic complaints are an extension of the insane "white savior" smear that the left has long been used by progressives worldwide. Do you know how many actual African villagers who now have drinking water are offended by the fact that a white guy paid for their wells? The answer is zero. It's a made-up scandal by left-wing ideologues who subscribe to the most ridiculous notions of intersectionality.

In the end, Mr. Beast building wells for Africans is embarrassing to those who would rather capitalize on the suffering of the continent than see problems fixed. That's why these people are lashing out. For example, the CEO quoted above works for a non-profit that has raised $131,000. Of that, $83,000 went to internal operating expenses. Given how much it costs to drill a well, I'd be surprised if that organization has drilled even a single one. Mr. Beast doing their job for them means less graft for them to siphon off for base salaries, though, so they are angry about it.

If you've ever heard someone describe liberalism as a mental disorder, this is as good of an example as you'll find. For his part, Mr. Beast isn't taking the criticism lying down.

MrBeast @MrBeast
·
I already know I’m gonna get canceled because I uploaded a video helping people, and to be 100% clear, I don’t care. I’m always going to use my channel to help people and try to inspire my audience to do the same 😅❤️
12:30 PM · Nov 4, 2023 //

Sactomike 4 hours ago
Take up the White Man's burden --
The savage wars of peace --
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hope to nought

Historian Bruce Gilley’s provocative book, ‘In Defense of German Colonialism,’ makes a compelling case that many historical narratives surrounding Africa are motivated by politics, not facts. //

Our anti-Western conceptions of colonial Africa are equally misinformed. In 1904, a policy in German East Africa decreed that all children born to slaves beginning in 1906 were free. Moreover, between 1891 and 1912, more than 50,000 slaves in the colony were freed by legal, social, and financial means. By 1920, slavery had virtually been eradicated from the region.

German East Africa was also environmentally conscious, codifying laws prohibiting unlicensed elephant hunting and creating the first game reserves. It promoted education by natives: By 1910, there were more than 4,000 students in state schools. “The Germans have accomplished marvels,” noted a 1924 British report on local education initiatives. The education system in German colonies provided instruction in local histories, cultures, and geographies, as well as technical subjects common in German curricula. Because of this, local language media prospered. “German transformed Swahili from a coastal language of Muslim elites to the lingua franca for the future country of Tanzania,” writes Gilley.