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U.S. builds military base in the Sahara desert for armed drones
Wednesday, 25 April 2018 01:15 Written by face2faceafricaThe United States is building a drone base in Niger’s Sahara desert to help in the battle against extremists in the Sahel region.
The Niger Air Base 201 under construction a few miles outside Agadez already has three hangars and the first layers of a runway, reports VOA.
Built at the request of Niger’s government, the air and drone base will host fighter jets and MQ-9 drones which will be transferred from the capital Niamey.
The drones can survey and strike several West and North African countries with their wider range. The project cost $110 million and according to Air Force officials, it is the largest troop labour construction project in U.S. history, reports VOA.
The report added that it will cost $15 million annually to operate the base which is the second largest U.S. military presence in Africa behind the only U.S. base in Djibouti.
Niger hosts about 800 U.S. military personnel with 500 of them working at the new base against Djibouti’s 4,000 personnel.
Last year, four U.S. soldiers and five Nigeriens were ambushed and killed by extremists linked to the Islamic State group. This brought to light the unknown military presence in the country which is in the middle of an Islamist insurgency war.
The U.S. said the drones at the base will target the several affiliated al-Qaeda and Islamic State groups in the Sahel countries including the Lake Chad region which is battling with the spread of Nigeria’s Boko Haram insurgency.
Local Nigerian officials and civil society have expressed concern about the increased U.S. military presence in their country.
“We are afraid of falling back into the same situation as in Afghanistan, with many mistakes made by American soldiers who did not always know the difference between a wedding ceremony and a training of terrorist groups,” said Amadou Roufai, a Nigerien administration official.
For civic leader Nouhou Mahamadou who spoke to the VOA: “The presence of foreign bases in general and American in particular is a serious surrender of our sovereignty and a serious attack on the morale of the Nigerien military.”
Commander Brad Harbaugh, who is in charge of the new base assured that the drones will gather intelligence that can be used by Niger and other U.S. partners to prosecute extremists.
US Authorities Capture Tennessee Shooting Suspect
Tuesday, 24 April 2018 05:49 Written by AFPTennessee police captured Monday the man suspected of gunning down four people at a restaurant in Nashville, America’s country music capital.
Travis Reinking — who exhibited “mental instability” and was arrested last year for trying to enter the White House grounds — was captured in the early afternoon after a more than 24-hour manhunt.
“A tip from the community is what led to the arrest,” Nashville Mayor David Briley told a news conference.
The 29-year-old was to face four counts of criminal homicide charges for Sunday’s pre-dawn shooting that also wounded two people.
He was captured without incident at a wooded area near his home, refused to speak with authorities and asked for a lawyer, police said, adding that they found a semi-automatic weapon and ammunition in a backpack he was carrying.
After his arrest, police posted photos of Reinking in the back of a police car, looking disheveled and wearing a ripped maroon shirt and jeans.
“He looked like he was tired,” said Nashville police lieutenant Carlos Lara.
Reinking is accused of using an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle to rain bullets at the Waffle House restaurant while wearing nothing but a jacket.
He was stopped by James Shaw, 29, a restaurant patron hailed as a hero for wrestling away the rifle.
Reinking then shed his jacket, returned to his nearby apartment home, put on clothes and fled, according to police.
The Nashville metropolitan area of 1.8 million people was on edge for more than a day as armed federal, state and local police looked for the suspect.
Gunman’s past
As the manhunt ended, the actions of Reinking’s father came into sharper scrutiny.
Reinking was arrested at the White House in July 2017, when he entered a restricted area of the presidential grounds.
He demanded to see Donald Trump and declared himself a “sovereign citizen,” a designation used by anti-government extremists, according to The Tennessean newspaper.
Police rescinded Reinking’s firearms ownership authorization in the Midwestern state of Illinois, where he lived at the time.
They seized his four weapons and handed them to his father. But his father returned the weapons to his son, according to police.
“From our perspective, after the incident at the White House… we were able to effectively neutralize what we felt was the threat at the time by ensuring that he did not have the ability to purchase or own weapons,” said FBI Special Agent Matt Espenshade.
Reinking’s father could face charges for his actions, said Marcus Watson of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“If you transfer weapons to a person that is knowingly prohibited, that could be a violation of federal law,” Watson said.
Reinking’s mental health was also under scrutiny.
Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron confirmed that Reinking “exhibited mental instability over many months,” but said investigators did not have a motive for the attack.
Reinking recently had been fired from a job at a construction crane company for exhibiting signs of paranoia, according to The Tennessean.
Family members had told police he believed singer Taylor Swift was stalking him, according to The New York Times.
Authorities confirmed that Taurean Sanderlin, 29, Joe Perez, 20, and DeEbony Groves, 21, were killed at the restaurant.
A fourth victim, 23-year-old Akilah Dasilva, died at a hospital.
AFP
Several Feared Dead As Van Runs Over Toronto Pedestrians
Tuesday, 24 April 2018 05:39 Written by channelstvA man plowed a white rental van into a crowd of pedestrians in the center of Canada’s biggest city Toronto on Monday, police said, with several people feared dead.
Police said up to 10 people were struck, adding they could not confirm any deaths, but local media reported at least four fatalities in the incident.
Television images showed the man and a police officer facing off, their guns drawn. The suspect eventually surrendered his weapon and was taken into custody.
Vehicle attacks have been carried out to deadly effect by extremists in a number of capitals and major cities, including London, Paris, New York and Nice, but the motive for Monday’s incident was not yet clear.
“Update: unknown of extent of injuries, possible 8 – 10 pedestrians struck,” Toronto police wrote on Twitter.
Police then said it was “too early to confirm the number of pedestrians struck or their injuries.”
At least one body was seen covered at the scene. At least seven patients were being treated at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, the facility said on Twitter.
‘Really fast’
Officers were called to the scene — on Yonge Street at the corner with Finch Avenue — at 1:27 pm (1727 GMT), police said.
A white rental van with a dented front bumper was stopped on the sidewalk of a major intersection, surrounded by police vehicles.
“He was going really fast,” witness Alex Shaker told CTV television.
“All I could see was just people one by one getting knocked out, knocked out, one by one,” Shaker said. “There are so many people lying down on the streets.”
Another witness, Jamie Eopni, told local Toronto television station CP24: “It was crashing into everything. It destroyed a bench. If anybody was on that street, they would have been hit on the sidewalk.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the House of Commons: “Our hearts go to anyone affected.”
“We are going to have more to learn and more to say in the coming hours,” he added.
‘It’s frightening’
The incident occurred as Toronto was hosting foreign and public security ministers from the G7 leading industrialized nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States.
Authorities have not yet stated what the driver’s motives may have been.
“We have no information on that point and we need to wait until there’s information before we comment… I will respect the expertise of the security officials,” Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne told reporters when asked if the incident was terror-related.
“We are all unsettled and very disturbed by a situation like this, it’s impossible not to be — it’s frightening.”
Canada has only rarely been the scene of terror attacks.
In October, a man stabbed a police officer in the western city of Edmonton before slamming his van into a group of pedestrians, injuring four people.
And in Quebec in October 2014, a Canadian man ran over two soldiers in a parking lot with his car, killing one of them. The driver was shot dead by police when he attacked them with a knife.
In March 2016, a Canadian who claimed to have radical Islamist sympathies attacked two soldiers at a military recruitment center in Toronto.
AFP
America’s petty policy on used clothes for Africa
Saturday, 21 April 2018 04:11 Written by theconversationFostering international development has long been viewed as central to the moral, humanitarian, strategic and security interests of the United States.
In particular, there is one area where the United States has been a leader in development assistance — providing trade preferences to African countries, most of which are low-income countries.
This has been achieved through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which was initially passed by U.S. Congress in 2000 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The legislation was deliberately renewed by both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
AGOA demonstrates the power of U.S. trade policy to bring about significant change in Africa through measures that, while trivial from the American perspective, can have a sizeable impact in Africa. Specifically, AGOA allows for eligible African countries to export a long list of goods to the United States without paying the import tariffs that most countries must pay and without being subject to import quota restrictions.
The beauty of AGOA lies in the fact that it costs the U.S. very little to implement in terms of lost tariff revenue and lost market share. In fact, it’s fair to say that the implementation of AGOA has had zero impact on the U.S. economy, and close to zero in terms of American tariff revenues.
At the same time, however, AGOA has resulted in an increase in exports in some key products that have been massive when measured by African standards.
For example, apparel exports, which have historically been an important stepping stone in the process of development for virtually all countries, increased on average by 42 per cent under AGOA.
As soon as one considers the short-term and long-term good will, as well as trading relationships, that AGOA has nurtured between the U.S. and Africa, it has undoubtedly been an example of a win-win scenario for both the United States and Africa.
Shift away from human rights concerns
Importantly, not all African countries have been eligible for AGOA trade preferences. Practically speaking, countries found lacking in basic protection of human rights and countries that have moved away from democracy have either not been granted AGOA eligibility or have been removed from AGOA eligibility.
Specifically, five countries have been removed, either temporarily or as of now, after military coups or coups d’état: Mauritania, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali and Guinea-Bissau.
Côte d’Ivoire was once removed following the failure to reach a peace agreement and the failure to hold elections. Other countries, none of which are paragons of good government, have been removed for different periods related to human rights abuses of varying kinds (Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Gambia, South Sudan, Swaziland and Burundi).
These actions have been consistent with the promotion of U.S. values of human rights and democracy worldwide, and consistent with historic aspirations of American foreign policy. In a single exception to the above pattern, suspension of agricultural benefits — not removal — was threatened for South Africa in 2015 in a dispute over chickens, but this suspension wasn’t implemented.
Under the current U.S. administration of President Donald Trump, however, this philosophy and approach has shifted.
The United States is currently in the process of suspending Rwanda from its current status under AGOA not because of military coups, but because Rwanda wants to restrict the importation of second-hand clothes that come from the United States.
Cheap clothes for African consumers
Currently, a significant fraction of the used clothing disposed of by Americans through their donations to thrift shops and parking lot boxes are not sold in the U.S., but are shipped to Africa. Since these clothes are sourced for free, they serve as incredibly cheap sources of clothing in these countries.
This serves to benefit African consumers, although it historically had a negative impact on African apparel production that was serving the domestic market.
Some countries, such as South Africa, have implemented near bans on used-clothing imports as a result. Whether restriction of used-clothing imports is a good policy for African countries, therefore, is open to debate. The reduced used-clothing imports may well be replaced in the future by new clothing imports from Asia.
However, what is deeply concerning is that when the members of the East African Community (EAC), a regional trade agreement similar to NAFTA, decided to increase the restrictions on used-clothing imports, the current U.S. administration responded by threatening to remove AGOA access for them.
As a result of this threat, Kenya quickly reversed its decision. Then, in February, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania decided to end their proposed ban on used-clothing imports too. However, because Rwanda is maintaining significant tariffs on used-clothing imports, the U.S. has decided to suspend Rwanda’s AGOA access for apparel exports.
Used-clothing exports from the U.S. to all EAC countries combined had an all-time peak of US$43 million in 2012, which is 0.003 per cent of American exports. This is a truly negligible industry from the American perspective. Its trifling economic value is not surprising as this industry essentially takes items that might otherwise go to the garbage and ships them to Africa.
However, the United States is indicating that a major foreign policy goal on the African continent is the defence of its ability to dispose of second-hand clothing there.
The top U.S. foreign policy goals in Africa apparently no longer relate to human rights or democratic freedoms, but to protecting tiny, marginal American industries.
In contrast, China is building its influence on the African continent. While the Chinese are not promoting human rights or democratic freedoms, they’re also not punishing African countries for their trade policies for the purpose of defending tiny Chinese industries.
It is absolutely clear which superpower is willing to allow African countries to make their own policy decisions. It will be interesting to see which superpower is dominant in Africa in the long term.
Author: Garth Frazer Associate Professor of Economic Analysis and Public Policy, University of Toronto
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Popular News
US ex-First Lady, Barbara Bush, dies at 92
Wednesday, 18 April 2018 04:10 Written by oasesnewsFormer First Lady Barbara Bush has died. Aged 92 years, Bush died in Houston. Mrs. Bush served as First Lady of the United States during the tenure of President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1993.
The office of George H.W. Bush released a statement announcing her death. She has been battling congestive heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and had recently decided not to seek any further treatment.
She was born in New York City on June 8, 1925. She met her husband, George H.W. Bush, at a dance in Massachusetts in 1941 when she was 16 years old. After dating for a year and a half, the couple got engaged before he went off to World War II to serve as a Navy torpedo bomber pilot. When he returned on leave, Barbara dropped out of Smith College in Northampton, Mass. They got married two weeks later on Jan. 6, 1945, in Rye, N.Y.
Why I was ‘very direct’ in criticising Nigerian govt
Tuesday, 17 April 2018 01:26 Written by premiumtimesng.American billionaire and businessman, Bill Gates, has said that his criticism of the Nigerian government’s Economic Recovery & Growth Plan was to stir leaders to wake up to their responsibility and focus on human capital development.
Mr. Gates said Nigeria needs to act to save the country’s large youth population.
During his visit to Nigeria, the co-chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, addressed an expanded National Economic Council meeting in Abuja where he criticised the government for “prioritising physical capital over human capital” in its economic development plans.
Present at the meeting was Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, state governors, and ministers.
Mr. Gates’ comments attracted a huge debate among Nigerians across all political divides, with many backing his call.
The federal government claimed Mr. Gates’ remarks was misunderstood by the media, and tried to counter the message by highlighting its effort to develop human capital.
But, in an interview with the CNN on Tuesday, Mr. Gates said his intention in criticising the country was not to be impolite, but to point out to Nigerian politicians the need to focus more on human capital development to save the horde of Nigerian youth population facing poverty and other social malaise.
“While it may be easier to be polite, it’s more important to face facts so that you can make progress,” Mr. Gates said.
Mr. Gates said he was “very direct” in his criticism of the federal government to stress the need for more to be done to raise the level of its investment in education and health.
“The current quality and quantity of investment in this young generation in health and education just isn’t good enough. So, I was very direct,” he told CNN.
In his Abuja speech, Mr. Gates faulted the decision to anchor the country’s long term economic growth on investments in infrastructure, pointing out that investments in people must go hand in hand.
“People without roads ports and factories can’t flourish. And roads, ports and factories without skilled workers to build and manage them can’t sustain an economy,” he argued.
“Wind Blew Cocaine Into My Handbag” – Lady tells Police
Sunday, 08 April 2018 19:17 Written by gossipmillnigeria A Florida dancer who was busted with cocaine last month told officers the wind must have blown it into her purse, ABC 10 reports.
Kennecia Posey, 26, was one of two passengers in a car that was stopped by Fort Pierce police after it was seen swerving in the roadway on March 21.
When officers approached the vehicle, they detected the smell of marijuana coming from inside the car. Officers later found cocaine and marijuana inside Posey’s purse.
According to police, Posey admitted the marijuana was hers, but denied having any cocaine. “I don’t know anything about any cocaine. .
It’s a windy day, it must have flown through the window and into my purse,” Posey said, according to police. She was arrested and booked into the county jail.
Shock! Woman Tries To Cut Off Son’s Head With A Saw
Wednesday, 04 April 2018 21:48 Written by timeofgistAn American mother from Maryland is accused of attempting to cut off the head of her autistic 11-year-old son.
Kristina Petrie, 46, of Aspen Hill, Maryland, was charged with attempted first-degree murder and first- and second-degree child abuse after her son told police that she held a bow saw against his neck and cut him with it.
On March 12, 2018, after the boy arrived home from school, he told police that he entered his home and saw his brother crying on the couch. He said his mother, Kristina, was crying and laughing. He said he then went upstairs to play a game.
At this point, his mother, holding a bow saw, approached him and asked why he wasn’t doing his homework yet. The boy said that he would start his homework at 4.45pm.
But Kristina raised the bow saw and blocked him from leaving the room. He said he wound up in a kneeling position and Kristina “jammed” the bow saw against his neck, dragging it back and forth several times.
He told police that Kristina tried to kill him and that he screamed. He said that Kristina was screaming and crying as well. He was able to get the saw away from his mother, then he escaped from the room.
His mother didn’t get to attack him again as his neighbour came over to the house after which his father, Andrew Petrie, returned home. Andrew then took Kristina to the hospital.
Andrew told police on March 15 that Kristina had called him and confessed that she had “attacked” their son with a saw. That same day, a medical exam and photographs of the 11-year-old revealed that the boy’s injuries were still clearly evident, even though three days had passed since the alleged attempted beheading. Police said that there were “several thin lines with the skin broken and scabbing” on his neck. The boy also had cuts on his shoulder and hand, as well as red marks on his back.
Staff at the hospital where Andrew took Kristina after the incident said that she told them that she felt “overwhelmed and that she was not doing enough to help her children with their autism.”
A hospital staff member said that Kristina also told them that she worried that her sons would “grow up to be a burden to society” and that they “needed to die.” The staff member claimed that Kristina admitted she wanted to cut off her son’s head with the bow saw.
When the staff member asked why Kristina had been brought to the hospital, she said that she had “tried to kill her kids again,” according to the court document.
A judge decided that Kristina should be held without bond on Tuesday. Kristina’s next court date is set for April 20. If found guilty, she could be sentenced to up to life in prison for the first-degree attempted murder charge, plus a combined 40 years maximum for the two child abuse charges.
