In Case You Missed It 9/28/15 — 10/4/15

The Chi­na-Africa Project

Chi­na in Africa

The most impor­tant in this week’s head­lines out of and con­cern­ing Africa, for those who need help catch­ing up.

In this week’s news, Chi­na con­tin­ues its soft pow­er cam­paign in Africa, a war of words between two East African nations, and the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) makes a pre­dic­tion about the future of AIDS.

1. Chi­na con­tin­ues a soft pow­er cam­paign in Africa 

Wash­ing­ton, DC-based Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion brings us a sto­ry about the intrigues of China’s soft pow­er pol­i­tics in Africa after more than 100 African as well as Chi­nese Think Tanks met in Pre­to­ria, South Africa for the Fourth Chi­na-Africa Think Tank Forum.

Accord­ing to Brook­ings fel­low, Yun Sun, the dis­cus­sion which focused heav­i­ly on the future of Sino-Africa rela­tions “is a good exam­ple of China’s height­ened efforts to strength­en its soft pow­er in Africa and to seek influ­ence at an intel­lec­tu­al lev­el on top of its already expand­ing eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal footprint.”

Sun goes on to list the many avenues the Chi­nese have used to boost their pres­ence in the con­ti­nent, such as with the famous Bei­jing Con­sen­sus, the cre­ation of 42 Con­fu­cius Insti­tutes in 29 African coun­tries and the pro­vi­sion of thou­sands of fel­low­ship oppor­tu­ni­ties for African youth.

2. A tense back and forth between Rwan­da and Burundi

From the British Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (BBC) comes this sto­ry about Rwan­da and Burun­du, who are engaged in a war of words about the desta­bi­liz­ing effects of rebel activ­i­ties with­in the con­fines of their respec­tive borders.

Rwan­da, said to be host­ing the leader of a failed coup in Burun­di, is being accused by the Burun­di gov­ern­ment for train­ing rebels who are seek­ing to desta­bi­lize their coun­try. Rwan­da on the oth­er hand denies the accu­sa­tion, say­ing that Burun­di wants to deflect atten­tion from its own inter­nal problems.

Burun­di is fac­ing civ­il unrest after protests and assas­si­na­tions fol­low­ing a bid for a third-term in office by cur­rent pres­i­dent Pierre Nku­run­z­iza. The deci­sion to seek a third-term inspired the failed coup in the country.

“The two gov­ern­ments have a tense rela­tion­ship, with both coun­tries shar­ing a sim­i­lar eth­nic make-up,” the BBC report says. “Both Rwan­da and Burun­di have long expe­ri­enced eth­nic con­flict between a Hutu major­i­ty and a Tut­si minor­i­ty which has tra­di­tion­al­ly been dominant.”

Mean­while anoth­er report states that the Euro­pean Union(EU) has imposed a trav­el ban and freeze on the assets of aides asso­ci­at­ed with Nku­run­z­iza, as well as the lead­ers of the failed coup.

3. WHO work­ing to elim­i­nate HIV by 2030

From Vox comes this sto­ry about plans by the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion (WHO) to end the AIDS epi­dem­ic by 2030. That would be in just anoth­er 15 years.

How they plan to do this is what makes the Vox sto­ry an inter­est­ing read.

Based on new WHO guide­lines, there are no more restric­tions on who gets treat­ment after they are infect­ed. Also, those con­sid­ered vul­ner­a­ble, or at “sub­stan­tial” risk of HIV will be offered pre­ven­tive treat­ment based on the guide­lines, the Vox reports states.

“The rad­i­cal expan­sion on pre­ven­tion and treat­ment ther­a­pies for HIV is part of a push to end the AIDS epi­dem­ic over the next 15 years.”

Accord­ing to AIDS.gov, a U.S. gov­ern­ment web­site man­aged by the Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices, 35 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide are liv­ing with HIV/AIDS. The web­site states that the vast major­i­ty of peo­ple with the dis­ease are in low-and mid­dle-income coun­tries, par­tic­u­lar­ly in sub-Saha­ran Africa.