Essential The Africa the Media Doesn't Tell You About

[Yehuda]

Algeria partners China for construction of 6,000km railway lines​

Railway line - Copyright © africanews Africanews

By Rédaction Africanews

China and Algeria have joined forces in a significant partnership to construct an expansive 6,000 kilometers of railway lines within the North African nation, a move lauded by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune as pivotal in advancing his country's socio-economic progress.

Earlier this month, Tebboune said in a regular interview with representatives of the national media that strengthening the railway sector is the "best guarantee of development", stressing that "our Chinese friends have agreed to this project, which will cover a distance of around 6,000 km." The aim is to facilitate the exploitation of mines, promote trade and create economic vitality in Algeria.

The ambitious railway project is part of the two countries' broader cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the massive China-proposed project to boost global trade and commerce by improving infrastructure and connectivity.

A member of the Algerian parliament said the project, which is to be supported by Chinese technical know-how and construction expertise, will connect all cities and regions in Algeria, and also pave the way for economic development in several African countries.

"China views Algeria as a gateway to Africa. It's a win-win partnership for both sides. This is the spirit of the Belt and Road Initiative and Algeria's development plan. Algeria views China as a trusted partner," said Said Hamsi, an Algerian MP, in an interview with China Global Television Network (CGTN) on Saturday.

Algerian economist Karim Allam also said he believes that the mega railway project will provide significant opportunities for economic growth and job creation in the country.

"The Algerian President expressed his intention to entrust this mega project to the Chinese partners who have the experience and the expertise in this field. China is the second largest economic power in the world. Developing 6,000 kilometers of railway will allow Algeria to achieve a phenomenal economic growth," he said.

Algerians have welcomed the announcement made by President Tebboune.

"As an Algerian student, I'm very optimistic about this project that will create endless opportunities," said Riyadh, an Algerian student.

"This railway project between Algeria and the People's Republic of China will be very important for all Algerian citizens. It will make life easier for everyone," echoed Abdel Kader, another Algerian citizen.

President Tebboune's announcement came after his state visit to China last month. During his trip, the two countries signed more than a dozen cooperation agreements in various sectors including aerospace, agriculture, energy, railway transportation, science and technology.

Algeria partners China for construction of 6,000km railway lines

 

[loyola llothta]

 

[loyola llothta]

 

[loyola llothta]

 

[loyola llothta]

 

[Secure Da Bag]

They better make sure those seeds aren't GMO. But I'm glad this is happening.

 

[loyola llothta]

 

[Secure Da Bag]

Something about this guy screams "Colonial Encroachment".

 

[loyola llothta]

Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong


20 Sep 2023

Rasmus Sonderriis's book is a thorough exposé of the West's destructively deceitful narrative about Ethiopia's two-year Tigray War.

Danish journalist Rasmus Sonderriis has spent seven of the last nineteen years living in Ethiopia, beginning in 2004. He just published “Getting Ethiopia Dead Wrong ,” a free Substack e-book, in which he gets it dead right.
This is his account of Western media and officialdom’s disgraceful and deeply damaging deceptions and distortions about the November 2020 to November 2022 Ethiopian civil war, which is now commonly known as the Tigray War.
Cutting straight to the chase, he notes that the war began when the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) attacked the Northern Command base of the Ethiopian National Defense Force on November 3, 2020, and the government responded, as any government would, by sending in troops to reestablish its legitimate monopoly on the use of force.
However, as Sonderriis notes, the dominant international press, including all those outlets he had long revered, began reporting that the war began when Prime Minister Abiy responded to an attack or even “an alleged attack.”
Even more recently, on September 12, 2023, nearly three years after the outset of the war, a new Amnesty Internationalreport states, “The armed conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which later extended into neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions, began on 4 November 2020 when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a ‘law enforcement operation’ against TPLF-led security forces in the Tigray region, following an attack on the Ethiopian National Defense Force’s Northern Command based there.”
Was Prime Minister Abiy supposed to stand down to avert a war? By that logic he should have let the TPLF march on Addis to reclaim the tight grip on power that they’d held for 27 years before being removed by a popular uprising in 2018.
“At the time,” Sonderriis says , “the opinion of the EU, US and all the major media was that Ethiopia should refrain from any military mobilization, thus not opposing the march on Addis. Even though Biden's special envoy, Jeffrey Feltman, called the potential fall of Addis ‘a bloodbath situation’.”
Never once did the West call on the TPLF to stop fighting and disarm.
Why did the world’s rich and powerful liberal democracies and their press turn on a promising, liberalizing, fledgling democracy like Ethiopia? That is a mystery that Sonderriis tries to unravel as he painstakingly recounts every unverified allegation of genocide, rape, extrajudicial execution, and starvation that Western press, officialdom, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International launched at Ethiopia and its ally Eritrea throughout the two-year war. He points to the collaborative effort of legacy Western press and Western governments as the source of a massive disinformation campaign that has shaken his worldview to its foundation.
“But,” he writes, “is it really so delusional to think that the West would support an elected leader with a liberal reform agenda against an armed assault by the dictatorial old guard? The answer turns out to be: yes, totally delusional!”

#Tigray Genocide
Sonderriis points to the many times justification was handed to the TPLF with the #TigrayGenocide hashtag and allegation. This placed them not in a battle to seize power illegally but in a battle for their very survival, a battle against extermination, a battle they had no choice but to wage:
“Equating anti-TPLF with anti-Tigrayan, anti-party with anti-people, must be the oldest trick in the book of authoritarian scoundrels. The TPLF, however, refined the concept by framing political adversaries as nothing less than genocidal as early as 2005, when its strongman, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, faced with complaints of ethnic favoritism, called the opposition “Interahamwe” (after the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide).
“The hashtag #TigrayGenocide was launched exactly as the first shots were fired on the Northern Command bases. Clearly, the accusation that this was about a genocide was prepared before any Ethiopian act of war.”
Again and again, as he goes through every step of the misinformation war, he returns to this description that became a mantra in the Western press, and in the mouths of Western pundits, who repeated that the TPLF had no choice but to fight for their very survival.
However, as he writes, the TPLF ultimately had to face military defeat—not extermination—two years later. In fact, the TPLF are firmly back in power in Tigray Region, despite starting and waging a war that cost tens of thousands of lives, displaced millions of people, and did enormous property and infrastructural damage in Tigray, Amhara, and Afar Regions. The war was devastating, as most wars are, but it didn’t end in genocide, as had been so urgently warned. It ended in a negotiated peace that even allowed the TPLF to survive and thrive.

Has anyone apologized for promoting the genocide narrative used to justify so much death and destruction? Not that Rasmus Sonderriis or I know of. Not Samantha Power , Alex de Waal , Martin Plaut , Kjetl Tronvoll , Mirjam Van Reisen , or Paul Kagame . Not The Guardian , the BBC , Aljazeera , the New York Times , the Washington Post , CNN , the Globe and Mail , The Nation , Democracy Now , or the United States Holocaust Museum .
And not Getachaw Reda , the new Chief Administrator of the Interim Regional Administration of Tigray, or Debretsion Gebremichael , who remains as head of the TPLF, and the President of the Tigray Regional State. Despite their claims that they had no choice but to fight to the death, they’re still standing, right back in power in Tigray.

 

[loyola llothta]

The Single Story about Africa

Throughout his book Sonderriis warns of the West’s single story about Africa, the story of tribal rage and genocide that obliterated the realities of a legitimate, duly constituted state fighting an illegitimate attempt to seize power by force. As he writes this says more about us than it says about Africa:

“I continue to believe that a home-grown democracy along with the old-school definitions of human rights and equality are universal values. Violence against the state can be justified only as a very last resort to achieve these ends. My ideals have not changed. But my worldview has been shattered. Putting it back together remains a work-in-progress, though one conclusion is clear: the Western narrative about the war in Ethiopia says a lot more about the West than it does about the war in Ethiopia.”

 

[Secure Da Bag]

African contribution in very ancient history

 

[CopiousX]

What kind of joke tax rate is 3.5%?

 

[loyola llothta]

 

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[the next guy]