State Department to Host Google+ Hangout on July 15 for Young African Leaders

From the U.S. Department of State in Washington:

In preparation for the July 28-30 Washington Fellows for Young African Leaders Presidential Summit, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Evan Ryan will participate in a Google+ Hangout with Washington Fellows on July 15. The discussion will be moderated by ABC News Digital Correspondent Dana Hughes and will include five young African leaders currently studying at U.S. institutions through the Washington Fellowship.

The Hangout will be broadcast live at 2:00 p.m. EDT on the U.S. Department of State’s YouTube channel and Google+ page. Questions can be submitted in advance on the Google+ page and via Twitter by using #USAfrica. Following the event, video will be available on-demand via the Google+ page. Washington Fellowship participants and young leaders are encouraged to tune in and participate by submitting questions in advance.

The summit will bring together 500 of Africa’s most talented and inspiring young people to Washington, DC. These 500 Washington Fellows, already leaders in their communities in the fields of business, civil society, and public administration, are receiving six weeks of academic coursework and training at 20 of America’s top universities.

The news advisory also recommends that people follow the Twitter handles @StateDept, @StateAfrica, and @ECAatState, and to track the hashtags #USAfrica and #YALI2014 to receive more information on the Summit and related topics.

Africa News Headlines for 14 July 2014

Nadine Gordimer, South African author, dies at 90
Source: BBC News

U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit Approaches, Website Goes Live
Source: The White House

Cape Town carves out new African art museum
Source: eNCA

Are These New Rules A Lift For Uranium?
Source: OilPrice.com

Malala meets parents of abducted girls
Source: IOL News

Africa battles to get games on phones
Source: IT Web

Africa looks to youth for future development
Source: African Brains

Swaziland: Africa's last absolute monarchy
Source: Deutsche Welle

Dartmouth College welcomes fellows from Africa
Source: WCAX

Maputo regains its place as a trade hub for Southern Africa
Source: Macauhub

Power grid will be set up in West Africa – Mahama
Source: CitiFMOnline

CPJ urges respect for media freedom in South Africa
Source: Committee to Protect Journalists

Globeleq completes 138MW Jeffreys Bay wind farm in South Africa
Source: Energy Business Review

Cold Nights in Africa: How Temperature Threatens Birds
Source: NatGeo Newswatch

US father takes unclaimed African kingdom so his daughter can be a princess
Source: The Telegraph

Chinese firms indulging in corrupt practices in Africa: Envoy
Source: Business Standard

US offers Egypt late invite to Africa summit
Source: Channel NewsAsia

Lack of equity: A cause of many conflicts in Africa
Source: Sudan Tribune

China bemoans its people’s behavior in Africa—including undergarment ivory smuggling
Source: Quartz

External forces responsible for Africa’s instability – Wynter Kabimba
Source: Lusaka Times

Wealthy Somalis Flout Kenyan Law to Have Daughters Circumcised
Source: Bloomberg

Kenya begins potentially painful civil service shake-up
Source: Standard Digital

China Touts $14.4 Billion in Foreign Aid, Half of Which Went to Africa
Source: The Wall Street Journal

President Uhuru says role of women in Government to grow
Source: Standard Digital

New Africa Book of the Day - 14 July 2014

Different Shades of Green: African Literature, Environmental Justice, and Political Ecology, by Byron Caminero-Santangelo

Release Date: July 16, 2014
Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Engaging important discussions about social conflict, environmental change, and imperialism in Africa, Different Shades of Green points to legacies of African environmental writing, often neglected as a result of critical perspectives shaped by dominant Western conceptions of nature and environmentalism. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework employing postcolonial studies, political ecology, environmental history, and writing by African environmental activists, Byron Caminero-Santangelo emphasizes connections within African environmental literature, highlighting how African writers have challenged unjust, ecologically destructive forms of imperial development and resource extraction.

Different Shades of Green also brings into dialogue a wide range of African creative writing—including works by Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Bessie Head, Nadine Gordimer, Zakes Mda, Nuruddin Farah, Wangari Maathai, and Ken Saro-Wiwa—in order to explore vexing questions for those involved in the struggle for environmental justice, in the study of political ecology, and in the environmental humanities, urging continued imaginative thinking in effecting a more equitable, sustain¬able future in Africa.

Byron Caminero-Santangelo teaches English at the University of Kansas. He is co-editor (with Garth Myers) of Environment at the Margins: Literary and Environmental Studies in Africa (2011) and author of African Fiction And Joseph Conrad: Reading Postcolonial Intertextuality (2004).

Africa News Headlines for 13 July 2014

Captain Phillips strikes back: Off Horn of Africa, pirates go bye-bye
Source: Christian Science Monitor

Uganda Sugar Exports Stymied by Wars, Regional Trade Barriers
Source: Bloomberg

Kagame’s ambitious challenge
Source: The Independent

Intra‐Regional Trading In Africa
Source: Ventures Africa

Farmers challenged by Africa
Source: Pune Mirror

Trade, not aid, key to helping Africa
Source: The National

Digital battle for African phones
Source: IOL Business Report

Bahrain team helping spread Islam in Africa
Source: Gulf Daily News

Which way for railway transport in East Africa?
Source: The Observer

How Ramadan Impacts Online Shopping Patterns
Source: Ventures Africa

How your old pants and shirts pick pockets of the world’s poorest
Source: Sunday Express

Rich Vietnamese snorting rhino horns are causing a poaching explosion in South Africa
Source: Quartz

African Union Summit endorses Seychelles’ proposals to make tourism a transformative force for Africa
Source: eTurboNews

Parliament to be stripped of powers to deploy KDF
Source: Standard Digital

Libya investment fund names new chief
Source: Arab News

Conflict Alert: Halting South Sudan's Spreading Civil War
Source: International Crisis Group

Mbabazi: My Speeches are Examined with Political Lenses
Source: Chimp Reports

Nigerians among top property buyers in South Africa
Source: Business Day

Multirole Combat Jets Propagate Across Sub-Saharan Africa
Source: Defense News

Marc Faber: Africa is Not Going to Be Another Southeast Asia
Source: The Market Oracle

Bad apples in Africa: Chinese traders' and companies' behaviour worries envoy
Source: South China Morning Post

Investors use Casablanca Finance City to tap Africa’s potential
Source: Financial Times

Central African Republic: killings in the time of transition
Source: Daily News Egypt

New Africa Book of the Day - 13 July 2014

The African Garrison State: Human Rights and Political Development in Eritrea, by Kjetil Tronvoll and Daniel R. Mekonnen

Release Date: July 17, 2014
Publisher: James Currey

When Eritrea gained independence in 1991, hopes were high for its transformation. In two decades, however, it became one of the most repressive in the world, effectively a militarised "garrison state". This comprehensive and detailed analysis examines how the prospects for democracy in the new state turned to ashes, reviewing its development, and in particular the loss of human rights and the state's political organisation. Beginning with judicial development in independent Eritrea, subsequent chapters scrutinise the rule of law and the court system; the hobbled process of democratisation, and the curtailment of civil society; the Eritrean prison system and everyday life of detention and disappearances; and the situation of minorities in the country, first in general terms and then through exploration of a case study of the Kunama ethnic group. While the situation is bleak, it is not without hope, however: the conclusion focuses on opposition to the current regime, and offers scenarios of regime change and how the coming of a second republic may yet reconfigure Eritrea politically.

Kjetil Tronvoll is professor of peace and conflict studies at Bjoerknes College and author of War and the Politics of Identity in Ethiopia (2009) and Mai Weini: A Highland Village in Eritrea : A Study of the People, Their Livelihood, and Land Tenure During Times of Turbulence (1998). 

His coauthor, Daniel R. Mekonnen, is senior legal advisor at the International Law and Policy Institute in Oslo. He cowrote (with Mirjam van Reisen) a chapter entitled "EU Development Cooperation: The Contours of Global and National Engagement" in Human Rights and Development in the new Millennium: Towards a Theory of Change (edited by Paul Gready and Wouter Vandenhole,2013). He also translated Gene Sharp's From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation into Tigrigna for the Albert Einstein Institution.

Africa News Headlines for 12 July 2014

Tobacco giant 'tried blackmail' to block Ugandan anti-smoking law
Source: The Guardian

GMO Bananas Must Pass Their First Test
Source: NPR/Here & Now

Oil hopes high for Sierra Leone
Source: UPI

Mbabane: Africa’s cheapest city
Source: Swazi Observer

Big Brother Africa contestants warned
Source: Nehanda Radio

Governments commit to fight malaria
Source: KBC

African Cities Ranked World’s Most Expensive
Source: Ventures Africa

Spread Of Palm Oil Production Into Africa Threatens Great Apes
Source: NPR

South Sudanese rebel leader in Djibouti on diplomatic tour
Source: Sudan Tribune

The Evolution of Foreign Aid Research: Measuring the Strengths and Weaknesses of Donors
Source: Brookings Now

Abingdon man claims African land to make good on promise to daughter
Source: Bristol Herald-Courier

Kenya issues terror alert over travel to UK airports
Source: The Independent

Equatorial Guinea: One man's fight for rights in Africa’s most repressive dictatorship
Source: Daily Maverick

US Foreign Aid: Washington Gives Billions, But Is It Money Well Spent?
Source: International Business Times

No one-on-one meeting for Obama, Uhuru
Source: The Star

Quakers have ‘underground railroad’ to help gay Ugandans escape the country
Source: Pink News

UD program nurtures civics skills for young African leaders
Source: Delaware Public Media

Uganda anti-gay ruling criticized as 'flawed'
Source: Billings Gazette

Misogyny not limited to ‘backward’ Africa
Source: Cape Argus

The Extinction of Bananas? Global Banana Industry at Risk Due to Deadly Pathogen
Source: Latin Post

Democratic Congressional Candidate Offers $100K For Nude Pics Of Teen Hunter
Source: Daily Caller

Texas teen hunter Kendall Jones: Without hunting, 'no infrastructure for wildlife management'
Source: Politifact

Somali delegation completes course on election management
Source: Mareeg

Pre-summit Africa Forum focuses on trade and development - Part I

Africa Forum at Gallup Organization HQ in Washington

Starting with the Nigerian ambassador's prediction that by the “last few days of July, you will know the Africans have arrived” in Washington, a forum in anticipation of the first U.S.-Africa leaders summit convened in the U.S. capital on July 10 to discuss trade, development, and governance.

Sponsored by several organizations – FEEEDS Advocacy Initiative, Gallup Poll, The Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa, AllAfrica.com, and Operation Hope – the forum was held in the headquarters of the Gallup Organization and featured three panel discussions, three shorter presentations, and remarks by five African ambassadors to the United States.

The first panel, on U.S. and African perspectives on African trade, was moderated by Ambassador Robin Sanders, CEO of the FEEEDS Advocacy Initiative, and featured remarks by Florie Liser, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Africa; Jean-Louis Ekra, president of the Africa Export-Import Bank, and Ambassador Tebelelo Mazile Seretse of Botswana.

The stage had been set for the discussion on trade issues by Nigerian Ambassador Adebowale Adefuye in his welcoming remarks, when he said that Africans “don't want aid anymore. We want trade; we want access to the market” in Europe and North America.

Ambassador Sanders had pointed out that the U.S.-Africa leaders summit had been authorized in the original AGOA (Africa Growth and Opportunity Act) legislation nearly 15 years ago, so the summit itself is deeply connected to trade.

Ekra offered some general points to begin the discussion, such as how 70 percent of African trade is in commodities. For example, he said, virtually every country on the west coast of Africa exports oil, and more than 70 percent of all the cocoa in the world is produced in four West African countries. Trade in the southern part of the continent is dominated by minerals, while East Africa is producing natural gas and tea.

Ekra's larger point was that all these products are mostly unprocessed and that processing commodities adds value to them, and value-added, in turn, creates jobs.

One barrier to developing value-adding industries, he said, was the lack of infrastructure, starting with unreliable sources of electrical power – despite huge deposits of energy such as oil, gas, and coal – but also including a deficit in roads within and between countries.

The lack of infrastructure means a lack of intra-African trade, a point taken up by Liser, who explained that African regional trade is the smallest in the world. Only 11 percent of trade is among people on the continent, compared to 30 percent of trade in Latin America and 60 percent in Europe.

Despite this, she noted, six of the world's ten fastest-growing economies are in Africa. The barriers to regional trade have an effect on the competitiveness of African businesses. It's difficult, she said, to become competitive globally if you are not first competitive locally or regionally.

That is one reason that African countries have set a goal of continent-wide free trade, so that “if you invest in one country, you have access to an entire continent.”

For her part, Ambassador Seretse agreed on the importance of infrastructure development, something particularly significant for landlocked countries like Botswana. One of the top priorities of SADCC – the southern African customs union and trade area – is to improve infrastructure, transportation, and clearance systems in order to facilitate trade across the subcontinental region.

Liser also pointed out that the U.S. policy emphasis on trade and investment over the past few years is a “change in paradigm” that acknowledges how “Africa is the place to go to if you want a high return on investment” (ROI).

American policymakers have come to realize, she said, that AGOA's focus on reducing tariffs was not sufficient to make African businesses competitive. The problem was not asking, what do Africans have to sell to Americans? The United States would import African oil even in the absence of AGOA, and probably most other commodities, as well. But finished or semi-finished goods need a boost. “Unless you have the capacity to produce competitively,” she said, “duty-free [status] doesn't matter.”

She also noted that utilization of AGOA remains low even after more than a decade since its initial implementation. Forty countries, she said, “exported $4.9 billion in non-oil” products. The focus has to be on more productivity to sell more value-added goods to Europe, the United States, “and each other.”

Every AGOA-eligible country, she added, should have a national export strategy, identifying the top three products it would like to export and then develop public-private partnerships to make that sector more competitive.

As for recommendations for changes in policy, Ekra said that countries have to stop being afraid of the trade treaties they sign but don't implement.

He gave the example of ECOWAS, one of the earliest such treaties. The other countries in the ECOWAS zone were afraid of being overwhelmed by Nigeria. They feared an influx of immigrants from Nigeria if the borders were opened. What happened was the opposite, however. Ghanaians, for instance, who had gone looking for work in Nigeria had a reason to return home once the barriers were lifted and new opportunities became available within ECOWAS but outside Nigeria.

Ekra said there is a need to foster entrepreneurship and to support the building of a regional value-chain. He reiterated the necessity of building infrastructure and said “Power Africa has to be non-stop.”

He also said there has to be a reduction of non-tariff trade barriers in agriculture because, when it is fully developed, “Africa can feed the world.”

Sanders then posed the question: What about China?

Liser replied that the “essence of the U.S. government position on Africa” is that the continent needs “many partners.” Different partners bring different facets to the mix, she said.

“We are not in competition with China in Africa,” Liser said. “We hope Africans are establishing the best deals for themselves” with Chinese partners, because if Africa is benefiting from relationships with China, “it's good.”

Africa News Headlines for 9 July 2014

Americans Think Africa Is One Big Wild Animal Reserve
Source: The New Republic

US: African Leaders Should Honor Constitutional Term Limits
Source: Voice of America

Boko Haram: Terror’s Insidious New Face
Source: Newsweek

Canal+ launches new channel for Africa
Source: Digital TV Europe

Sasol begins study for gas-to-liquids plant in Mozambique
Source: SouthAfrica.info

Gabon signs Global Tax Convention
Source: Business Ghana

Sudanese president hold talks with Qatar’s Emir in Doha
Source: Sudan Tribune

Museveni era and the killing of the civil service
Source: The Observer

SABMiller to reduce water use by 14% in sustainability pledge
Source: Moneyweb

Big Beer: How Does SABMiller Stack Up?
Source: Guru Focus

Facebook Officially Doesn't Approve of Dead Animals or Baby Butts
Source: The Wire

Global effort needed to stem elephant slaughter: CITES
Source: Business Recorder

Djibouti In Legal Dispute With DP World Over Port Concession
Source: Gulf Business

Africa's Challenges Are Tech Startups' Opportunities
Source: The Wall Street Journal

Vatican, exorcism and witch hunting in Africa
Source: Sierra Express Media

Why Is Namibia Killing Its Rare Desert Elephants?
Source: Scientific American

Ugandan gay activist John Abdallah Wambere, unable to return home, visits Portland to screen "Call Me Kuchu"
Source: The Oregonian

Immunity for African Leaders?
Source: Africa in Transition

President Uhuru Kenyatta banks on reform agenda to create more jobs
Source: Standard Digital

Now Small Farmers In East Africa Can Sell On The World Market
Source: Huffington Post

UNSC concern over Ebola, terror threats in West Africa
Source: Firstpost

W’Africa gets innovative cancer care facility
Source: The Guardian Nigeria

New Africa Book of the Day - 9 July 2014

African Brew: Exploring the Craft of South African Beer, by Lucy Corne and Ryno Reyneke

Release Date: July 8, 2014
Publisher: Random House Struik

Join a pint-studded journey through seven provinces to meet the brewers, taste their beers and learn exactly what goes into that beverage you wouldn't dream of braaiing (South Africa's barbecuing tradition) without. There is also a section that covers up-and-coming breweries.

Delve deeper into food and beer pairing with delectable recipes from top South African chefs, each dish paired with a local lager or ale. And for those who don't know the difference between the two, African Brew hopes to turn the beer novice into a connoisseur with tasting notes and troubleshooting tips showing you what to look for in your preferred pint.

- Features 38 of South Africa's microbreweries plus the cradle of beer brewing in South Africa, SAB

- Includes recipes and beer pairings

- Insights on home-brewing, beer recipes and step-by-step brewing guides

- Contains sections on South Africa's craft cider movement as well as mead-making

- Covers the history of brewing in South Africa

- Includes a look at sorghum beer brewing both in a traditional setting and large-scale production

Ryno Reyneke provided photographs for Portrait of Singapore (2004, written by Sean Sheehan) and for Franschoek Food (2013, written by Myrna Robins). Cape Town-based travel writer Lucy Corne has contributed articles to Reader's Digest Asia, Getaway Magazine, and Beer & Brewer Magazine.