19/02/2020
- US secretary of state is eager to promote US investment as an alternative to China, which holds the lion’s share of Angola’s foreign debt
- Isabel dos Santos, the former president’s daughter, became Africa’s richest woman but now stands accused of massive fraud
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Luanda, Angola. Photo: Reuters
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced corruption and touted American business on Monday during the second leg of an African tour in Angola, where the government is seeking to claw back billions of dollars looted from state coffers.
Pompeo is aiming to promote US investment as an alternative to Chinese loans while assuaging concerns over a planned US military withdrawal and the expansion of visa restrictions targeting four African countries.
In Angola’s capital Luanda, Pompeo met with President Joao Lourenco, who took office in 2017 promising wide-ranging economic reforms and a crackdown on the endemic corruption that marked his predecessor Jose Eduardo dos Santos’ four-decade rule.
“Here in Angola, damage from corruption is pretty clear,” he told a group of businessmen following that meeting. “This reform agenda that the president put in place has to stick.”
Here in Angola, damage from corruption is pretty clear Mike Pompeo
Portugal’s public prosecutor has ordered the seizure of bank accounts belonging to
, the former president’s billionaire daughter, who is a suspect in an Angolan fraud investigation. Reputedly the richest woman in Africa, she has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Angola, with Sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest economy and its second-largest oil producer is ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt nations, in 165th place on a list of 180 countries, according to anti-corruption group Transparency International.
US oil majors ExxonMobil and Chevron have significant stakes in Angolan oilfields.
Last year, Chevron signed onto a consortium to develop Angola’s natural gas assets alongside Italy’s Eni, France’s Total, BP and Angolan state oil company Sonangol.
Mike Pompeo and his wife Susan greet Angola Foreign Minister Manuel Domingos Augusto in Luanda on Monday. Pool photo: AFP
“We’ve got a group of energy companies that have put more than US$2 billion in a natural gas project. That will rebound to the benefit of the American businesses for sure, but to the Angolan people for sure as well,” Pompeo said.
With a revamped International Development Finance Corporation and its new Prosper Africa trade and investment strategy, the administration is seeking to combat Chinese influence on the continent.
But the push comes as some governments are questioning US President Donald Trump’s commitment to Africa.
Do Africa’s emerging nations know the secret of China’s economic miracle?
The White House last month tightened visa restrictions on nationals from Sudan, Tanzania, Eritrea and Nigeria.
West African governments are also worried about a proposed US troop withdrawal from the region just as Islamist groups with links to Islamic State and al-Qaeda are gaining ground.
During the first leg of his African trip in Senegal on Sunday, Pompeo sought to put some of those fears to rest.
“We have an obligation to get security right here, in the region. It’s what will permit economic growth, and we’re determined to do that,” he told reporters.
Source: SCMP
Posted in Al-Qaeda, alternative, Angola, Angola Foreign, Angolan oilfields, belt and road projects, BP, Chevron, Chinese, corruption, eager, Eritrea, ExxonMobil Corp, France’s Total, International Development Finance Corporation, Investment, Islamic state, Italy’s Eni, Luanda, Mike Pompeo, natural gas project, Nigeria, Portugal’s public prosecutor, Prosper Africa trade and investment strategy, Sonangol, Sudan, Tanzania, Transparency International, Trump administration, Uncategorized, US Secretary of State, West African governments, White House |
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15/10/2019
- Beijing joins global condemnation of attack launched by Ankara on Kurdish fighters after US President Donald Trump decided to pull out troops
- Foreign ministry spokesman says issue should be resolved with ‘political solutions’ and the operation may result in a revival of Islamic State
Turkey launched the attack on Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria last week. Photo: Xinhua
China has urged Turkey to stop the military offensive it began in northeastern Syria last week and “return to the right track”.
Beijing is the latest to join global condemnation of the cross-border attack launched by Ankara on Kurdish fighters last Wednesday following US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from the region.
Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang on Tuesday called for a ceasefire.
“The Chinese side has always opposed the use of force in international relations and has advocated for adherence to the Charter of the United Nations, and to resolve problems through political and diplomatic channels,” Geng said during a regular press briefing, when asked about Beijing’s position on the situation.
“Sovereignty, independence, unification and territorial integrity should be respected and protected,” he said. “We urge Turkey to halt military action and to return to the right track, resolving the issue with political solutions.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang called on Turkey to “work with the international community in fighting against terrorism”. Photo: AP
Geng also said the “anti-terrorism situation in Syria is still severe”, and the military operation could result in a comeback by Islamic State.
“We urge Turkey to take responsibility and work with the international community in fighting against terrorism,” he said.
Explained: why are Syria’s Kurds accusing the US of betrayal?
Trump’s move has drawn sharp criticism from around the world. Critics say he has abandoned the allies that helped fight against Isis, and that withdrawing troops could pave the way for a resurgence of the jihadist group whose violent takeover of Syrian and Iraqi land five years ago was the reason US forces went in.
The US president said about 1,000 US troops who had been partnering with local Kurdish fighters to battle Islamic State in northern Syria were leaving the country. He said they would remain in the Middle East to “monitor the situation” and to prevent a revival of Isis – a goal that even Trump’s allies say has become much more difficult as a result of the US pull-out.
Turkey says the offensive aims to remove the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces from the border area and create what it calls a “safe zone” to relocate 1 million Syrian refugees.
Facing mounting criticism, Trump on Monday announced sanctions would be imposed
on Turkey, halted bilateral trade negotiations and called for an immediate ceasefire.
Vice-President Mike Pence also said Trump was sending him to the Middle East because the president was concerned about instability in the region.
Beijing has long worried that conflict in the region could spill over to Chinese soil after thousands of Uygurs – the Turkic-speaking Muslim minority from far western China – travelled to Syria to train and fight as jihadists.
Posted in Ankara, Beijing, calls on, Charter of the United Nations, China alert, independence, Islamic state, jihadist group, Kurdish fighters, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Kurds, Middle East, military incursion, pull out, sovereignty, Syria, territorial integrity, to halt, troops, Turkey, Uncategorized, unification, US President Donald Trump, Uygurs, Vice-President Mike Pence |
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11/05/2019
NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) – Islamic State (IS) claimed for the first time that it has established a “province” in India, after a clash between militants and security forces in the contested Kashmir region killed a militant with alleged ties to the group.
IS’s Amaq News Agency late on Friday announced the new province, that it called “Wilayah of Hind”, in a statement that also claimed IS inflicted casualties on Indian army soldiers in the town of Amshipora in the Shopian district of Kashmir.
The IS statement corresponds with an Indian police statement on Friday that a militant called Ishfaq Ahmad Sofi was killed in an encounter in Shopian.
IS’s statement establishing the new province appears to be designed to bolster its standing after the group was driven from its self-styled “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in April, where at one point it controlled thousands of miles of territory.
IS has stepped up hit-and-run raids and suicide attacks, including taking responsibility for the Easter Sunday bombing in Sri Lanka that killed at least 253 people.
“The establishment of a ‘province’ in a region where it has nothing resembling actual governance is absurd, but it should not be written off,” said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intel Group that tracks Islamic extremists.
“The world may roll its eyes at these developments, but to jihadists in these vulnerable regions, these are significant gestures to help lay the groundwork in rebuilding the map of the IS ‘caliphate’.”
Sofi had been involved in several militant groups in Kashmir for more than a decade before pledging allegiance to Islamic State, according to a military official on Saturday and an interview given by Sofi to a Srinagar-based magazine sympathetic to IS.
He was suspected of several grenade attacks on security forces in the region, police and military sources said.
“It was a clean operation and no collateral damage took place during the exchange of fire,” a police spokesman said in the statement on Friday’s encounter.
The military official said it was possible that Sofi had been the only militant left in Kashmir associated with IS.
Separatists have for decades fought an armed conflict against Indian rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir. The majority of these groups want independence for Kashmir or to join India’s arch-rival Pakistan. They have not, like Islamic State, sought to establish an empire across the Muslim world.
Nuclear powers India and Pakistan have fought two wars over Kashmir, and came to the brink of a third earlier this year after a suicide attack by a Pakistan-based militant group killed at least 40 paramilitary police in the Indian-controlled portion of the region.
A spokesman for India’s home ministry, which is responsible for security in Kashmir, did not respond to a request for comment.
Source: Reuters
Posted in Amaq News Agency, Amshipora, claims, clash, director of the SITE Intel Group, Easter Sunday bombing, India alert, Ishfaq Ahmad Sofi, Islamic state, Kashmir, nuclear powers, province, Rita Katz, separatists, Shopian district, Sri Lanka, Srinagar-based magazine, Uncategorized, Wilayah of Hind |
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CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 