Climate Change will change Africa

At least 23 percent of deaths in Africa are linked to the environment, the highest of any region worldwide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

This figure is expected to rise as global warming disrupts food supply, water sources and weather patterns, said Magaran Bagayoko, WHO's director of communicable diseases in Africa.

"There is a very direct link between the impact of climate change and the cost of healthcare," said Jean Paul Adam, health minister of Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean.

A disruption in rainfall patterns over the last ten years has raised the costs of preventing dengue fever, a mosquito-borne virus endemic to Seychelles, he said.

Dengue outbreaks used to happen only during the rainy season, which lasted a few months a year. But now rain is unpredictable and comes year round, as does the disease, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "With the disruption of rainfall, dengue is now persistent and continuous," Adam said. "Resources are being diverted towards having to be in a constant state of readiness."

Mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and zika are expected to become more common, since the mosquitoes that spread them thrive in warmer climates, scientists say.

But mosquitoes are not the only problem.

Climate change causes floods and storms, which can lead to water-borne diseases such as cholera, and diet-related problems through drought and declining food stocks, experts said.

Cape Verde, a group of islands off the west coast of Africa, has struggled with severe drought in recent years and has worked hard to stave off hunger, said health minister Arlindo Rosario. As local agriculture suffers, people are eating more imported food, which brings a variety of other health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease, he said.

"Climate change hits small countries in a lot of ways," Rosario explained. "I think that when we talk about the impacts of climate change, there should be an international fund for health."

Mauritania's slavery endures

Slavery is a word spoken in whispers in Mauritania. But no one will admit to owning slaves anymore, and no slave will admit to being one.

Day after day, Aminetou Mint Yarg and her fellow villagers in southern Mauritania haul water from the river and tend to their crops under a burning desert sun. In good years, they grow fields of corn, millet and beans. But the profits are not theirs to reap.

"The land belongs to our masters," says Yarg, referring to members of the light-skinned elite, known as white Moors. When the harvest is good, they come from the city to take their part.

Yarg is descended from a family of slaves that have for decades served a family of masters. This is the predominant structure of society in Mauritania, an Islamic republic on the Sahara's western edge that straddles Arab and black Africa.

Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981, the last country to do so, and criminalised it in 2007. There have been just four prosecutions of slave-owners. The government rejects international figures, saying cases of slavery exist, but the practice is not widespread.

Most are hidden in plain sight, rights groups say. While some are housemaids who pass as employees, many live without their masters, bound by a lack of options and a belief that slavery is their fate, activists say.

"Of course if you're expecting to see people in chains then you won't see that," said Karine Penrose-Theis, Africa programme coordinator for British-based group Anti-Slavery International. "The dependency relationship can be much more subtle, much more invisible than that."

The distinction between slave and former slave is blurred here, as it is rarely more than a generation past, said Brahim Bilal Ramdhane, who was born into slavery and is now a leading activist. Today many descendants of slaves live freely because their labour is not needed, he said. But they or their children will be sent for when the master's family wants a herder or a maid.

"Everyone knows who has a master that still comes often, or who has a daughter with the master in the city," Ramdhane said.

http://news.trust.org/item/20181107005752-xp585/

Remedying colonialism

In 1911, the Belgian colonial administration unilaterally awarded Lord Leverhulme of Britain a massive one-million-hectare land concession covering the territories of these communities and many others. Leverhulme, with the support of the Belgian army, used forced labour and violent repression to extract palm oil from the forests for his Sunlight soap factories in the UK and eventually erected several oil palm plantations within the concession area that would come to be owned and operated by the multinational food giant Unilever. In 2009, Unilever sold its DRC oil palm plantation subsidiary, Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC), along with a set of contested concession contracts totalling over 100,000 hectares, to a Canadian company with no previous experience with plantations-- Feronia Inc.

Nine communities from the DR Congo took a historic step this week by filing a complaintwith the complaints mechanism* of the German development bank (Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft – DEG). The communities of the DR Congo want a resolution to a land conflict that dates back to the Belgian colonial period with a palm oil company that is currently being financed by a consortium of European development banks led by DEG. The nine communities filed their complaint with the DEG's complaints mechanism on Monday, November 5, 2018. They say that the illegal theft of their traditional lands and forests has deprived them of the means to feed and house their families and earn their livelihoods. Some of the people from the communities work on the plantations, but the vast majority of jobs are as day labourers where wages are below the costs of living. Poverty and malnutrition within the communities are rampant and severe, and the communities say that conditions have worsened since Feronia took over the plantations from Unilever.

Over the years, the communities within the concessions claimed by PHC have sought to regain control over their lands and have called for negotiations with the company and government authorities to determine the conditions under which the company may be allowed to continue to operate. These communities have issued multiple letters, memos and declarations that have been addressed to or have been sent to government authorities, company representatives and the development banks financing Feronia and PHC.

In full knowledge of this on-going legacy land issue, the DEG and other development banks from the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and the US have, since 2013, provided Feronia Inc and its subsidiary PHC with upwards of US$180 million in financial assistance. The development funds of the UK, Spain, France and the US directly or indirectly hold shares of Feronia Inc while PHC has received US$ 49 million in loans from a consortium of lenders led by DEG that includes the development banks of Belgium and the Netherlands. Considering their significant involvement and the direct link between denied access to land and hunger and poverty in the communities, development banks have a responsibility for ongoing abuses of human rights and the failure to resolve the conflicts that the two companies are embroiled in.

The nine communities have filed this complaint with the DEG's complaints mechanism in the hopes that the consortium of lenders led by DEG, will finally force the company into a dispute resolution and mediation process with the communities that resolves the land conflict by defining the area of land on which PHC can operate and the conditions under which it may do so. All development banks have justified their investment in Feronia or PHC with their mandate to support development in Africa, which, in this case, cannot be achieved without a resolution of the land conflict.

https://www.grain.org/article/entries/6063-drc-communities-file-complaint-with-german-development-bank-to-resolve-century-old-land-conflict-with-palm-oil-company

FGM - Figures down

The number of girls undergoing female genital mutilation has fallen dramatically in east Africa over the past two decades, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal.

The study, which looked at rates of FGM among girls aged 14 and under, suggests that prevalence in east Africa has dropped from 71.4% in 1995, to 8% in 2016.

According to the study in the BMJ, the rates of FGM practised on children have fallen in north Africa, from 57.7% in 1990 to 14.1% in 2015. In west Africa, prevalence is also reported to have decreased from 73.6% in 1996 to 25.4% in 2017.

UN analysis suggests that rates of FGM among girls aged 15-19 have fallen from 46% in 2000 to 35% in 2015, according to statistics across 30 countries with nationally representative data. The report did not examine the reasons why FGM rates had fallen, but said it was likely to have been driven by policy changes, national and international investment. 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/nov/07/fgm-rates-in-east-africa-drop-20-years-study-shows

Lessons for the Misguided. (1914)

From the February 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

South Africa is in strike turmoil that has set the Union Government in such a panic that, in addition to the most elaborate military precautions, it is described as a revolution more than a labour quarrel. Yet the demand of the strikers is for the reinstatement of the men displaced by the economies effected in the railway service by a policy of retrenchment!

The Capitalists’ Risks

Making full allowance for the fact that any will do to hang a quarrel on when a quarrel is brewing, it is difficult to imagine a revolution in any way connected with what the red flag, that decorated the streets of Johannesburg, is supposed to indicate, being dependent upon a question of capitalist administration.

On the other hand, the Government in South Africa have expressed the opinion that the present trouble arises from the presence of “agitators,” and that when these are successfully deported the trouble will cease. This is flattering to the agitators, but very doubtfully true to facts.

The most successful labour agitator must have the conditions for his success present, and the discontent must arise from something material in addition to the appeals of the agitator. The following figures from an article which appeared in the "Daily Telegraph” (Jan. 15th, 1914) may help to explain the economic conditions on which the “agitator” had to work:

  In 1912 the Rand, as it, is colloquially known, produced in round figures, £37,000,000 of gold. Over £13,500,000 of that vast sum was paid in wages, £7,865,000 going to Europeans of whom 23,518 were employed on the mines, and £5,691,000 to South African natives, of whom 193,351 were employed. Stores and supplies consumed on the Rand cost nearly ten millions sterling; £5,800,000 was spent in development work, leaving a balance of about £8,000,000 to be distributed as dividends to investors who had furnished the necessary capital for the mining enterprises.

Why Safety cannot be Afforded

It is interesting to note that the “investors who had furnished the necessary capital” had already had that capital returned to them in dividends up to forty-four times over, drawing 12 per dividend.

The “Daily Telegraph” says further:

   Some of the Rand mining companies have made enormous returns to their shareholders. There are 115 companies on the Rand from which returns were received, and it is impossible to give details of all of them, but a few typical instances of high dividends may be mentioned. The Ferreira Company, since its flotation has paid 4,415 per cent, on its capital, and has distributed nearly four millions sterling in dividends. The Crown Reed has paid 2,404 per cent. ; the Johannesburg Pioneer 2,107½ per cent. ; the Emmer, 1,237 per cent. ; the Meyer and Charlton, 1,105 per cent, ; the Durban Roodeport, 1,100 per cent. ; the Crown Mines, 1,067½ per cent. ; the New Hereto, 992½ per cent. ; the New Primrose 817 ½ per cent. ; and there have been many distributions amounting in the aggregate to 200, 300, and 400 per cent, and upwards. The total sum paid in dividends by the Rand mines amounts to £88,159,489. If the whole of the Transvaal gold mines be included, the payments to shareholders reach the colossal total of £91,462,773 distributed between 1887 and 1912.

Then if we recall the articles that went the rounds of the Press last July on the occasion of the former strike on the Rand, which showed how short-lived the miner was on account of the mortality from a form of phthisis resulting from breathing the dust-laden atmosphere, we shall get a further glimpse of the motive force behind the agitator.

The Answers to Industrialists

Apart, however, from the actual conditions of labour for white workers in South Africa, which on the showing of the above figures represent a degree of exploitation seldom to be met with – and leaving out the industrial position occupied by the native blacks and the imported Indians, which is infinitely worse – the attitude of the Government is enlightening. There is a growing body of labour opinion in this country and elsewhere, that contemns and belittles the political forces which we Socialists pronounce of the very first importance. In South Africa, a big strike is on, and a general strike is threatened, and the answer of the capitalist Government is the mailed fist—the mobilisation of all forms of the weaponed arm of the law. With it the capitalist Government can batter the working class into submission, whether it, be in Johannesburg or Dublin.

The same lesson was taught by the strike of French railway workers that was scotched in a similar way—by calling up the military reserve, many of whom were of the strikers.

That lesson was quite lost upon the Industrialists. They argue that a general strike will bring society to a standstill. Which may be true, but the working class are at a hungry standstill easily first. The workers cannot hope to starve the masters into surrender. In the starvation handicap the workers are half way along the course to start with. Nor can they fight the masters, while the latter control the fighting machinery. Nor can they lock the master out while he holds the keys. If and when they are ready to stop capitalist exploitation, and expropriate the master class, granting they will instinctively turn to direct and immediate force to express such a conviction, we ask as—How will they use the vote they already possess?

The Weapon of the Vote.

According to the attitude of the Syndicalist, he would not use it at all. To tell him that the vote is —or should be—the modern, civilised methods of registering the opinions of citizens leaves him cold. Historical explanations of the growth and significance of the vote merely cause his lips to curl. But the majority of votes controls the policy of government, and if you refuse the social expression of your opinion you leave the majority with the enemy; your case is lost by default.

To be ready to right against capitalism and to refuse to vote against it is to us sheer folly—folly in its own account, and rank madness when the voting is an essential preliminary to successful fighting, and may even render the lighting unnecessary. The “agitators,” therefore, in South Africa may be arch-Larkins, but they are not Socialists. For the Socialist always emphasises the importance of the political weapon. It is this very emphasis that has enabled the Labour members here to steal our thunder, and substitute the form for the substance. While we insist on the necessity of political representation for Socialism, they insist upon political representation only, with themselves as the representatives.

The colour or creed of the capitalist government does not matter in the least. When Larkin brought his fiery cross across the Irish Sea, in his first speech here, at the Albert Hall, he said it was important that the Dublin strike should be won, but it was a thousand times more important that the Home Rule Bill should go through. Which shows that Larkin doesn’t understand the working-class position. For does not the situation in South Africa show the Boer generals— Delarey, Botha, and the rest who were prepared to fight for independence for South Africa, hand in glove, shoulder to shoulder, with their erstwhile opponents against the working class?

The incident in South Africa is a glaring instance of the fundamental nature of the class struggle, and a standing example of how it overshadows any sectional difference between the masters, which all Socialists know.

The authorities are inclined to blame the “agitators,” and made the mistake South Africa is copying of imprisoning them. The forces of law and order ran amok and battered people not wisely but too well. The official investigation that was to follow has provided an illuminating spectacle. The process of white-washing is so flagrant that a Liberal member of Parliament who saw the battering and was going to throw light on the investigation has been badly snubbed and is disgusted. It is to be hoped he makes a noise when Parliament meets, but it is to be feared he is too loyal a Liberal to have the heart to inconvenience an administration that is already up against difficulties enough. After his timely rescue of the Government last session when they were threatened with a minority on a snap division, surely he will not round on them now! They must explain things to him.

The conduct of the police, however, can only be considered from their point of view as indiscreetly over-zealous, and one can quite understand the displeasure of the legal luminaries engaged upon the difficult task of glossing over so rough a case, at an English M.P. “poking his nose in,” as they expressed it.

But the present writer is strongly of the opinion that if the working class do not want the police force, and the army, and the navy, and the bench, and the rest of the present social machinery, used against them, the only way is to grasp the power that wields these forces, which is to be had by the casting of a vote in the right way, with the consciousness and the intentions of the Socialist behind it. You must get behind the gun; you must guide the policeman’s baton from the centre of government. The capture of the political machinery is still the essential preliminary to a successful working-class revolution.

Dick Kent

Computer miracle

When Artificial Intelligence works as intended, Silicon Valley types often say it's "like magic".

But it isn't magic. It's Brenda, a 26-year-old single mother who lives Kibera, Africa's largest slum, and perhaps the toughest neighbourhood on earth, where hundreds of thousands of people live in a space not too much bigger than London's Hyde Park.

Each day, Brenda leaves her home here to catch a bus to the east side of Nairobi where she, along with more than 1,000 colleagues in the same building, work hard on a side of artificial intelligence we hear little about - and see even less.

In her eight-hour shift, she creates training data. Information - images, most often - prepared in a way that computers can understand. Brenda loads up an image, and then uses the mouse to trace around just about everything. People, cars, road signs, lane markings - even the sky, specifying whether it's cloudy or bright. Ingesting millions of these images into an artificial intelligence system means a self-driving car, to use one example, can begin to "recognise" those objects in the real world. The more data, the supposedly smarter the machine. She and her colleagues sit close - often too close - to their monitors, zooming in on the images to make sure not a single pixel is tagged incorrectly. Their work will be checked by a superior, who will send it back if it's not up to scratch. For the fastest, most accurate trainers, the honour of having your name up on one of the many TV screens around the office. And the most popular perk of all: shopping vouchers.

Brenda does this work for Samasource, a San Francisco-based company that counts Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and Yahoo among its clients. Most of these firms don't like to discuss the exact nature of their work with Samasource - as it is often for future projects - but it can be said that the information prepared here forms a crucial part of some of Silicon Valley's biggest and most famous efforts in AI. Being a data training expert is boring, repetitive, never-ending work. And when not in front of our cameras, some staff talked about how they faced pressure to work quickly in order to hit company targets, leading to fewer breaks. Some Samasource workers are freelancers who can work anywhere, but with a webcam watching them as they work.

 Samasource provides a living wage of around $9 a day. That's an improvement, but still a pittance for Silicon Valley.

"Yes, it's cost effective," Janah said. "But one thing that's critical in our line of work is to not pay wages that would distort local labour markets. If we were to pay people substantially more than that, we would throw everything off. That would have a potentially negative impact on the cost of housing, the cost of food in the communities in which our workers thrive"

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46055595

Making Vaccines in Africa

Almost 17 percent of the world's population live on the continent — but it produces less than 1 percent of all the world's vaccines. 

And every year African governments spend millions on importing them. 

 In East Africa alone, we speak about 178 million people, and they're importing not only vaccines but also every kind of pharmaceutical product.

In 2014 alone, Africa governments purchased almost $900 million (€790.7 million) worth of vaccines for basic child immunization.

Manuel Batz, the director of Africa sales at the German pharmaceutical giant Merck,  estimates that, new manufacturing plants in Africa from a technical point of view, could start producing within two years. But before that they would need clarification on some central questions. 

"The issue is profit," he says in a DW interview. "Anyone who invests in a manufacturing plant with fill and finish vaccines needs to have the assurance that the vaccines will be bought at a certain price for a certain time to have a safe investment environment. Here the local government will be the main customer, but will only source if the cost of the locally filled vaccines is not much higher than the cost of vaccines sourced from India."

A hotter Africa is a hungrier Africa

OXFAM International has warned that the rising temperatures as a result of climate change could plunge millions of Africans into hunger and poverty.

Oxfam International Pan-Africa director, Apollos Nwafor, said, "Millions are already feeling the impacts, and the IPCC just showed that things can get much worse. Settling for two degrees would be a death sentence for people in many parts of Africa."

He continued, “A hotter Africa is a hungrier Africa. Today at only 1.1 degrees of warming globally, crops and livestock across the region are being hit and hunger is rising, with poor small-scale women farmers, living in rural areas suffering the most. It only gets worse from here. To do nothing more and simply follow the commitments made in the Paris Agreement condemns the world to three degrees of warming. The damage to our planet and humanity would be exponentially worse and irreparable.”

 For example, in this year, it was projected that Africa would likely have registered its hottest reliable record temperature in Ouargla, northern Algeria, of 51.3C (124.3F).

According to Oxfam the 2016 El-Niño phenomenon, which was super charged by the effects of climate change, has also crippled rain-fed agricultural production and left over 40 million people food insecure in Africa. Oxfam has said there is mounting evidence that higher temperatures linked to climate change have worsened drought and humanitarian disaster in East Africa, including last year’s drought, which left over 13 million people dangerously hungry. Even at 1,5 degrees of warming, there are fears that climate impacts in West Africa would be devastating while wheat yields could fall by up to 25 percent. In sub-Saharan Africa 1,5 degrees warming by the 2030s could lead to about 40 percent of present maize cropping areas being no longer suitable for current cultivars, and significant negative impacts on sorghum suitability are projected. Under warming of less than 2 degrees by the 2050s, total crop production could be reduced by 10 percent, said Oxfam.

“Without urgent action to reduce global emissions, the occurrence of climate shocks and stresses in the Africa region are expected to get much worse,” said Oxfam. “While time is short, there is still a chance of keeping to 1,5 degrees of warming. We must reject any false solution like large scale land based investments that means kicking small-scale farmers off their land to make way for carbon farming and focus instead on stopping our use of fossil fuels, starting with an end to building new coal power stations worldwide.” 

https://www.chronicle.co.zw/climate-change-will-push-millions-of-africans-into-poverty-oxfam/

CAR chaos continues

 Following the latest outbreak of violence between armed groups on Wednesday 31 October 2018 in the north and centre of the Central African Republic, more than 10,000 people have sought refuge in the compound of a hospital supported by Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

In Batangafo, in northern Central African Republic, violent clashes between armed groups led to the burning of three IDP camps, numerous homes and a marketplace. More than 10,000 people sought refuge in the compound of the MSF-supported hospital, while several hundred others fled to the bush.

https://reliefweb.int/report/central-african-republic/car-more-10000-seek-refuge-msf-supported-hospital-batangafo

New technology - Old slavery

Demand for electric vehicles is fuelling a rise in child labour in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, experts said.

Cobalt is a key component in batteries for electric cars, phones and laptops, and Congo provides more than half of global supply. The majority of Congo's cobalt comes from industrial mines, while about one fifth is mined informally, according to rights group Amnesty International.

Tens of thousands of children as young as six dig for the toxic substance in artisanal mines in the country's southeast, without protective clothing, rights groups say.

Rising demand in the last several years has already led to increases in cobalt production, drawing more people - including children - into the sector, said Siddharth Kara, an author on modern slavery who visited Congo this year.

"Based on what I saw on the ground, right now there is absolutely no way any company in the world could assure its consumers that the cobalt in its products is not tainted by child labour," Kara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

http://news.trust.org/item/20181102144515-pvelt/

Biafra Tragedy (1969)

The pitiful victims of Nigeria’s civil war are the latest in a long line, preceded by such as Palestine, Algeria, Korea, Vietnam . . .

One estimate is that about one million children alone will die each month in Biafra unless they are evacuated or given proper food and medical attention.

The civil war has roused compassion all over the world and to many people, concerned at the death and suffering, the situation is full of perplexing questions.

Why won’t the Nigerian Federal government, as an act of simple humanity, allow food and medical supplies into the surrounded and shrinking Ibo land?

Why does the Labour government, which assured us that moral grounds caused them to prevent the sale of arms to South Africa, not take a similar stand over Nigeria, and stop sending weapons to the Federal forces?

Why can’t both sides simply call off the war?

These questions, and many others, are valid enough, except that they all assume capitalist states are guided by concern for human welfare.

When we realise that this is not so— that capitalist governments act as the property interests of their ruling class demand—the questions are not so perplexing.

The civil war in Nigeria, for example, is partly a struggle to flatten the tribal structure which was a part of the old society and to replace it with a national unity which is so essential for a modern developing capitalist state.

This is a ruthless struggle. Everyone is in the firing line; the Nigerian government are deliberately starving children because such tactics are an accepted and necessary part of modern war. The British government, for example, did it in both world wars.

It is futile, then, to wring our hands over Biafra. War is an inescapable part of capitalism and it cannot be removed by charity, no matter how sincere. The killing will not stop and Biafra will not be the last great tragedy.

The Nigerian Army and Trump's Approval

The Nigerian Army has used Trump’s own words about the use of force against migrants throwing stones to justify shooting at Shia Muslim protesters.

The army posted a  tweet featuring a video of  Trump encouraging armed troops to shoot at any Central American refugees and migrants who throw rocks at authorities when crossing the US border.  “Please watch and make your deductions,” the tweet read. 

Trump said armed troops should consider equating rock-throwing with shooting from a rifle. He also said the US military is trained to fight back against anyone in the migrant caravan who throw rocks at soldiers. “We’re not going to put with that,” the president said in the video. “They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back.”

Nigerian Military Spokesman John Agim said the video was tweeted in response to criticism from Amnesty International that the army used “unconscionable use of deadly force by soldiers and police” by shooting at about 1,000 Shia Muslims. 
“We released that video to say if President Trump can say that rocks are as good as a rifle, who is Amnesty International?”  Agim told The New York Times. “What are they then saying? What did David use to kill Goliath? So a stone is a weapon.”

deadly clashes between the protesters and Nigerian security forces began when the authorities prohibited them from passing through a checkpoint during their march. Heavily armed soldiers opened fire after protestors hurled rocks at them. The Nigerian military claims six people were killed. The IMN said that the military killed at least 49 people with their live bullets. Amnesty International put the death toll at 45 said there is evidence of police and soldiers using automatic weapons to kill the protesters.

The Nigerian army’s justification for killing protesters highlights a growing concern that Trump’s hostile rhetoric incites violent repression. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/nigerian-army-donald-trump-shia-muslim-islamic-movement-migrant-caravan-shooting-a8615281.html

Fish stocks off West Africa disappear

Foreign trawlers and an expanding fishmeal industry are increasingly threatening the livelihood of Senegalese fishermen, forcing many to migrate to Europe.

Mor Ndiaye, 34, has lived all his life in St Louis, a bustling fishing town in northern Senegal.
"The fish just vanished, what can we do? We used to catch enough fish in a day or two. Now we need to go out at sea for weeks to catch the same amount. It's terrifying, we can only rely on God," he says.

St Louis lies at the heart of one of the world's richest fishing areas. Fish caught here - mainly sardinella and other so-called pelagic or open sea fish migrating up and down the coast - have provided up to 75% of the protein consumed by millions of people in Senegal and across Africa's interior in countries like Burkina Faso and Mali.But decades of mainly European and Asian trawlers scouring its coastline have meant that its waters have been overfished. As fish run out, artisanal fishermen are building larger boats to go further out to sea, making overfishing even worse.

Others have decided to migrate to Europe. They include Amadou Dieye, 28, who tried to get to Spain last August but gave up after spending several days drifting at sea when the boat's engine broke down.

"There were more than 100 people in the boat. Everyone was getting ill. It was terrible," he explains, while standing near the beach. "Every year there are less and less fish. Many young fishermen like me who don't have families want to migrate, but I won't try it again. I saw things I never want to experience again."

Less fish has also meant that the price of this once-cheap staple has increased. At the local fish market, dozens of women are busily selling sardinella amid the searing heat, but the frantic activity belies a different reality.

"A few years ago you used to buy three sardinellas for 100 CFA francs ($0.20; £0.16), but now it costs 400 or 500 CFA francs," buyer Hadi Khadiata Diop, 30, says. "Our national dish is thieboudienne: rice with fish. We cannot live without fish. I don't know what we're going to do."

As it became harder to catch fish in Senegalese waters, fishermen increasingly depended on catching fish in Mauritanian waters. But two years ago, the Mauritanians put a stop to this, causing the catches of fishermen from St Louis to plummet by 80%. Still, many fishermen keep crossing into Mauritania illegally, even if it means risking their lives. Earlier this year, Fallou Diakhaté, 19, was killed by the Mauritanian coastguard, sparking riots and the looting of shops owned by Mauritanian immigrants.

There are reports of dozens of fishermen having been killed, although no-one knows the exact number. If they are caught, the Mauritanian coastguard confiscate their boats and equipment, dropping them off on shore to make their way back to Senegal on foot. Mauritania says it is trying to protect its own fish but it recently agreed to let the Senegalese catch 50,000 tonnes with 400 boats every year, in a quest to improve relations with its neighbour. However, this agreement is yet to be implemented, and it represents only a small number as there are thousands of boats in St Louis alone.

 At Nouadhibou, Mauritania's only fishing port thousands of fish are being turned into dust to create fishmeal - a kind of powdered protein used for animal feed, exported mainly to China to feed other fish and livestock. Last year, almost half of Mauritania's fish catch was processed into fishmeal, according to the government. 5kg (11lb) of fish required to produce just 1kg of fishmeal. There are already some 20 plants in Nouadhibou alone. But critics say this industry is creating very few jobs.

"The Senegalese were replaced with mainly Chinese and Turks who now catch the fish being processed by fishmeal plants, mostly owned by the Chinese and Russians," Alassane Samba, a former director of Senegal's oceanic research institute, explains."Mauritania is protecting its waters not for its people, but for foreigners."

Making matters worse, some foreign trawlers feeding these fishmeal plants are accused of fishing illegally.

"Chinese and other foreign trawlers sometimes catch small prohibited fish or operate in protected areas," Henoune Ould Hamada, a former fisheries inspector, says. "We even found evidence of them using dynamite to catch fish," he adds, referring to the practice of using explosives to blast thousands of fish to the surface.

Mr Hamada says he and many other inspectors lost their jobs and were replaced by a quasi-military inspection team. He believes this is because they refused to turn a blind eye to illegal activities.This is despite Mauritania priding itself as a leading campaigner against corruption in the fisheries sector globally. Mr Hamada says that when trawlers were fined for illegal fishing, the upper echelons of the now-disbanded inspectorate took a percentage. This happened between 2005 and 2010, when the inspectorate was led by Cheikh Ould Baya, he adds. Mr Baya, now the president of the National Assembly and one of the richest men in Mauritania, said five years ago that 48% of all fines was kept for the benefit of the whole team, and said that this was legal. This is disputed by Mr Hamada, who says he and other inspectors never received anything.

traditional Mauritanian fishermen, who are supposed to benefit from the restrictions imposed on Senegalese fishermen, are also complaining about the lack of fish.

"Before you used to catch lots of fish in a single day, but now it's very hard to find anything because the large trawlers are catching everything," says fisherman Abdullahi Bahry, standing in the beach, with endless rows of fishmeal factories stretching behind him. "Things are terrible. Unless we do something, the blue sea will turn black, we will run out of fish."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46017359

Nigerian Poverty on the Rise

The latest report according to The Cable, has brought the number of Nigerians living in extreme poverty – or below $1.90 per day, to 88 million.

Over 1.1 million Nigerians have slipped into extreme poverty in just four months.

Nigeria overtook India as the world poverty capital, despite being six times smaller in population.

The World Bank estimates that almost 1.6 billion people in the world live in extreme poverty and subsist on an average of $1.25 or less a day, and 29% of that number live in sub-Saharan Africa.

http://www.konbini.com/ng/lifestyle/1-1-million-nigerians-slipped-extreme-poverty-last-four-months/

Protect Gay Fellow-Workers

Homosexuality is illegal in Tanzania and punishable by up to 30 years in prison.

Tanzanian authorities have already been handed thousands of names as officials declared a desire to “educate” gay people.

Paul Makonda, the regional commissioner of Dar es Salaam, announced that a 17-strong committee consisting of police, lawyers and doctors had been formed to identify homosexuals.

Makonda said authorities had already been handed 18,000 messages of support for the policy from people “disturbed by moral erosion”, many of which also named individuals believed to be homosexual.

“These homosexuals boast on social networks,” the commissioner declared, “Give me their names. My ad hoc team will begin to get their hands on them.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/tanzania-gay-report-names-arrests-government-lgbt-rights-discrimination-a8612706.html

Nigerian Army Slaughters Protesters

At least 45 members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) were killed in thecapital, Abuja, and the neighbouring state of Nasarawa on Saturday and Monday, Amnesty International said.

Soldiers used automatic weapons on the protesters in a “horrific use of excessive force by soldiers and police”, according to Amnesty. On Saturday, at least six people were killed. On Monday, the death toll was at least 39, with another 122 sustaining gunshot wounds.

Osai Ojigho of Amnesty said: “It seems the Nigerian military are deliberately using tactics designed to kill when dealing with IMN gatherings. Many of these shootings clearly amount to extrajudicial executions.

“This violent crackdown on IMN protesters is unjustified and unacceptable. They were perfectly within their rights to hold a religious procession and protest and there was no evidence they posed an imminent threat to life.”

The Nigerian military said its troops were acting in self-defence, although there were no reports of casualties among the security forces.

Defence spokesman, John Agim, said: “They met the soldiers in the call of their duty and the soldiers tried to defend themselves.”

British money is spent on training Nigerian soldiers in a long-term arrangement, which was bolstered by the security agreement Theresa May signed with the country’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, on her trip to Africa in August.

The US president, Donald Trump, approved the sale of $600m (£462m) worth of military jets to Nigeria in May, a deal that Barack Obama had frozen after a Nigerian fighter plane bombed a refugee camp, killing 100 people.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/01/nigerian-soldiers-shoot-dozens-of-peaceful-shia-protesters