Billionaires and Mega-Corporations Behind Immense Land Grab in Africa

Africans deserve a break from the victimization... the slave trade has gone wholesale.

these people want a BMW..an iMac...a sony flat screen..coke..playboy...hollywood movies...etc etc etc just like those "anti-corporate" activists..

i think these africans would prefer to see the likes of bill gates transforming thier land into something that would produce money that what they have now...

a bunch of liberals and religious organizations milking the planet on thier behalf AND NOT SEE SHIT FOR IT..

(and please dont tell me its not true...................compare the life AND ATTITUDE of these people before all of this "save africa" Aid bullshit and what they have OR WHAT THEY ARE now)

Bush's enduring legacy in Africa

WHEN PRESIDENT BUSH traveled to sub-Sahara Africa in February he was greeted by large and tumultuous crowds of admirers - which mystified many of his critics, who believe that the animosity toward his administration abroad is universal. But polling data from the Pew Foundation shows something different: Approval ratings for the United States exceed 80 percent in many African countries, some with large Muslim populations. In Darfur, many families name their newborn sons George Bush.

What is it that the Bush administration did differently in Africa than it did elsewhere?

Certainly one factor is that Africa is not the Middle East or central Asia where America is fighting two unpopular wars and where polls show America at an all-time low in public esteem. In Sudan, the United States played a central role as peacemaker in ending a 20-year civil war between the Arab north and African south, which killed 2 million people.

It was the Bush administration that first raised the alarm about the atrocities in Darfur, organized a massive humanitarian relief effort to save people in the displaced camps, and rallied an international coalition to send peacekeeping troops to restore order through the United Nations and the African Union.

While the civil war continues, casualties have declined and people are being fed by aid agencies, thanks to US government generosity, which may explain why Bush is so popular among the Africans in the camps. America has played an important role as mediator in Burundi, Liberia, Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo after civil wars devastated all five countries. Administration policy in Africa has not been without its failures: its military campaign in Somalia has been an embarrassment, putting vulnerable people at risk.

However important these diplomatic efforts may be, Bush's enduring legacy in Africa rests on humanitarian and economic, not political, foundations. More than anything else it has been the revolution in the US government's development assistance that is responsible for Bush's popularity.

The Bush administration doubled foreign aid worldwide over the past eight years, the largest increase since the Truman administration, and used it to encourage poor countries to undertake political and economic reform. Total US government development aid to Africa alone has quadrupled from $1.3 billion in 2001 to more than $5 billion in 2008, and is scheduled to go to $8.7 billion in 2010, principally for education (primary school enrollment in Africa is up 36 percent since 1999), healthcare, building civil society, and protecting fragile environments.

Africa has received $3.5 billion in additional funds from Bush's Millennium Challenge Corporation initiative, which rewards poor countries that encourage economic growth, govern well, and provide social services for their people. The president's HIV/AIDS program, principally focused on providing Africans with anti-retroviral drugs to treat the disease (1.7 million people are on the therapy), has been such a success that the program has been extended to 2015 at $48 billion. His five-year, $1.2 billion effort to combat malaria has provided 4 million insecticide-treated bed nets and 7 million drug therapies to vulnerable people.

The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, approved in 2000 and reauthorized in expanded form in 2004, provides trade benefits with the United States for 40 African countries that have implemented reforms to encourage economic growth. Since 2001, US exports to Africa have more than doubled to $14 billion a year, while African exports to the United States more than tripled to $67 billion, of which $3.4 billion has been in goods other than oil. USAID has provided more than $500 million in trade capacity building for poor countries to access international markets, which is the only way Africa will escape the poverty that has for too long oppressed the continent.

While Bush's critics have given him little credit for his African initiatives, they will be among his most enduring legacies in a region of the world neglected by policymakers from both parties for too long. Africans will long remember what Bush' critics have ignored.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/09/04/bus...

But Bush did alot to help Africa

The world has always been messed up to africa, but that doesnt excuse corruption in the african governments.

well the people of africa are more commited to cutting each other heads off and giving each other aids. Maybe we should have a little bit of eminent domain to help fix a horrid spot on the earth.

Smells like capitalism.

This is how the whole thing starts.

Total privatization of land and destruction of old tribal and agricultural traditions.

Then, either through unfair practices or at the barrel of a gun you get people out of the countryside and off their farms and into cities where they'll enjoy 30% unemployment and wages so low that that they insult the very concept of work.

These people then make useless goods which are then shipped off somewhere where there's actually money so that they can be bought by clueless people how have no idea what's going on. The purchase of this product allows the process to expand, attract more investment and start all over again because without this growth process they would not exist to begin with.

The Corporation, it has overwhelmingly been a tool of indescribable evil through the last several centuries comparable only to Monarchies and the Communist party.

someone should do something with the land all these centuries and africa is still a sad joke
They still kill albinoes for there MAGIC parts.and sadly somehow the glory of islam has also infected them.

capitalism and colonialism at its best... or do i mean worst.
best for the few, worse for everyone else.

The holy free market in action. Let AIDS kill them off, then take their land.

Explore and support the "Free Africa Foundation". Help to empower them if you want to help Africa.

The truth is, the situation in Africa is such a mess that this is the least of most peoples' worries. It all began when the Europeans got tired of playing chess and decided to grab as much land as they could -- cutting tribes into pieces, and grouping them all together with hated rivals. The colonialists had no clue what they were tampering with, and Africans are still paying the price for their ignorance in the form of civil war and genocide.

If any of the countries that house these corporations have any sense at all, they'll start ripping the deeds up, and forcing them stay out of Africa's business. It may sound cold blooded, but all this wholesale meddling that is going on is only making matters worse.

This is sad and FUCKED UP!! Why isn't America fighting and doing something about it???

is it because there's no oil for them to claim? or because Israel is not in need of help??

Corporations are propped up by governments. Think about it, governments give corporations their power, in fact, the government is like a big corporation itself! These entities work together to build protectionist efforts, they corner the market, build barriers to entry, and perform corporate welfare left and right. Corporatism IS statism, we need to end statism! Stop telling everyone else how to live and start allowing market pressures on the rich. If you want to defeat corporatism, you need to shrink it's twin and partner government advantages. The red tape built up around us is astronomical and our economy is losing viability everyday. The only answer is TRUE freedom, even our currency is enslaved to the Federal Reserve's corporate welfare, future inflationary taxation powers.

Peace

i would like to buy some of that fertile land and build a free farm for the people :D

Its called neo-colonism. And it may not be directly through the government but definetly got their blessing and encourgement.

This is a lot like what happened in Ireland under colonial rule, only with multinational corporations taking the place of the English empire.

stop trying to save africa....it can run itself...STEP OFF!!!!!!!!!!

well to be honest..they are better leasing it off its a source of income..its not those liberal charities who had been milking the rest of the planet to feed these africans but in reality they are WORSE OFF NOW before they started these charities..

what africa needs to do is to get rid of those liberals who are cashing in "on Aid gimmicks and scams" like Bono and Geldof...its to thier best interest to keep this continent poor and dependent..

humans are worthless. that's why i follow the Misanthropic G Code.

here we go again...

This is a terrible cycle we're in: creating enormous monocrop cultures that will only be able to grow because of chemical and fossil fuel fertilizers, further depleting what little top soil we have left and at the same time creating huge wealth gaps. I'm somewhat sorry to say this, but the human species overshot itself long ago. Fuck GM foods and massive grain operations. Over half of us need to go.

This greed thing is getting way out of control.