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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
 Posted - 14 Jul 2008 : 20:59:31
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If you can get BBC 1 or Channel 4 there are 2 very interesting programmes.
On BBC1 it is about China and Sudan.
On Channel 4 it is about The Qur'an. A 2 hour programme.
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black orchid
United Kingdom
74 Posts |
Posted - 15 Jul 2008 : 14:51:30
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If anyone wants to watch the programme called "The Qur'an, which was aired yesterday, you can watch it on http://www.channel4.com/video/the-quran/catchup.html
Duration 101 minutes
You may have to install windows media player 11.
it would be nice to here people's views who are of the Muslim faith.
It certainly gave me a greater understanding of the islamic religion. |
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 15 Jul 2008 : 17:40:08
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I have to confess that after about half an hour I fell asleep. No reflection on the programme. Just that I am totally exhausted and need my holidays.
I hope they will repeat it sometime. |
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jambo
3300 Posts |
Posted - 15 Jul 2008 : 18:19:54
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i watched some of the qua'ran programme last night, it was a bit disturbing, I caught the part about FGM, and they showed a girl being FGM by her family she was about 12 and dark skinned african descent, they said it was an african traditional very distresing they said it had become part of the Islamic faith and then they gave statistics, 93% egyptian women have FGM!!!, then they showed an IMA, who approved of it because it kept the women chaste.  .
they also showed how the holy book is misinterpreted by different readers and is inlfuenced by cultural believes. |
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Momodou
Denmark
11729 Posts |
Posted - 15 Jul 2008 : 19:09:53
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quote:
Originally posted by black orchid
If anyone wants to watch the programme called "The Qur'an, which was aired yesterday, you can watch it on http://www.channel4.com/video/the-quran/catchup.html
You need to be within the UK or the Republic of Ireland to watch Channel 4 programmes |
A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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ricgrey
United Kingdom
12 Posts |
Posted - 18 Jul 2008 : 23:03:22
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You missed the more intereting one..
China have been supplying Sudan with Trucks, Tanks and Major Guns, Plus Fighter and Traing Aircraft.
They have been supplying since the Embargo of 2005.
So much for China is trying to Help Africa, with no Armaments Problems...!!!
Rich... |
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jul 2008 : 07:56:56
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I hate to say I TOLD YOU SO!    
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Bodwick
United Kingdom
60 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jul 2008 : 13:05:31
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Reading the general anti West attitude and new pro-China bias on site I thought I'd post this article.
I've seen the seized lorries full of logs heading to the port.
How long will it be before Gambia and the rest of Africa is stripped of everything in exchange for plastic toys and tv's?
How China's taking over Africa - MAIL 18/7/08
On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own right, outlined a daring (if by today's standards utterly offensive) new method to 'tame' and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent.
'My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,' wrote Galton.
'I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.'
Despite an outcry in Parliament and heated debate in the august salons of the Royal Geographic Society, Galton insisted that 'the history of the world tells the tale of the continual displacement of populations, each by a worthier successor, and humanity gains thereby'.
A controversial figure, Galton was also the pioneer of eugenics, the theory that was used by Hitler to try to fulfil his mad dreams of a German Master Race.
Eventually, Galton's grand resettlement plans fizzled out because there were much more exciting things going on in Africa.
But that was more than 100 years ago, and with legendary explorers such as Livingstone, Speke and Burton still battling to find the source of the Nile - and new discoveries of exotic species of birds and animals featuring regularly on newspaper front pages - vast swathes of the continent had not even been 'discovered'.
Yet Sir Francis Galton, it now appears, was ahead of his time. His vision is coming true - if not in the way he imagined. An astonishing invasion of Africa is now under way.
In the greatest movement of people the world has ever seen, China is secretly working to turn the entire continent into a new colony.
Reminiscent of the West's imperial push in the 18th and 19th centuries - but on a much more dramatic, determined scale - China's rulers believe Africa can become a 'satellite' state, solving its own problems of over-population and shortage of natural resources at a stroke.
With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way.
The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution.
The plans appear on track. Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities - oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New embassies and air routes are opening up. The continent's new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools.
The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.
New horizons? Mugabe has said: 'We must turn from the West and face the East'
The trains are linked to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing after unloading cargoes of cheap toys made in China.
Confucius Institutes (state-funded Chinese 'cultural centres') have sprung up throughout Africa, as far afield as the tiny land-locked countries of Burundi and Rwanda, teaching baffled local people how to do business in Mandarin and Cantonese.
Massive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with 'slave' labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals.
Pristine forests are being destroyed, with China taking up to 70 per cent of all timber from Africa.
All over this great continent, the Chinese presence is swelling into a flood. Angola has its own 'Chinatown', as do great African cities such as Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.
Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent. 'African cloths' sold in markets on the continent are now almost always imported, bearing the legend: 'Made in China'.
From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower's long-term survival.
'The Chinese are all over the place,' says Trevor Ncube, a prominent African businessman with publishing interests around the continent. 'If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have taken their place.'
Likened to one race deciding to adopt a new home on another planet, Beijing has launched its so-called 'One China In Africa' policy because of crippling pressure on its own natural resources in a country where the population has almost trebled from 500 million to 1.3 billion in 50 years.
China is hungry - for land, food and energy. While accounting for a fifth of the world's population, its oil consumption has risen 35-fold in the past decade and Africa is now providing a third of it; imports of steel, copper and aluminium have also shot up, with Beijing devouring 80 per cent of world supplies.
Enlarge President Robert Mugabe leaving the eleventh ordinary session of the assembly of the African Union heads of State and government in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt
Fuelling its own boom at home, China is also desperate for new markets to sell goods. And Africa, with non-existent health and safety rules to protect against shoddy and dangerous goods, is the perfect destination.
The result of China's demand for raw materials and its sales of products to Africa is that turnover in trade between Africa and China has risen from £5million annually a decade ago to £6billion today.
However, there is a lethal price to pay. There is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made assault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars, often over the materials the Chinese are desperate to buy.
Take, for example, Zimbabwe. Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe's regime.
After an international outcry, the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, was forced to return to China, despite Beijing's insistence that the arms consignment was a 'normal commercial deal'.
Indeed, the 77-ton arms shipment would have been small beer - a fraction of China's help to Mugabe. He already has high-tech, Chinese-built helicopter gunships and fighter jets to use against his people.
Ever since the U.S. and Britain imposed sanctions in 2003, Mugabe has courted the Chinese, offering mining concessions for arms and currency.
While flying regularly to Beijing as a high-ranking guest, the 84-year-old dictator rants at 'small dots' such as Britain and America.
He can afford to. Mugabe is orchestrating his campaign of terror from a 25-bedroom, pagoda-style mansion built by the Chinese. Much of his estimated £1billion fortune is believed to have been siphoned off from Chinese 'loans'.
The imposing grey building of ZANU-PF, his ruling party, was paid for and built by the Chinese. Mugabe received £200 million last year alone from China, enabling him to buy loyalty from the army.
In another disturbing illustration of the warm relations between China and the ageing dictator, a platoon of the China People's Liberation Army has been out on the streets of Mutare, a city near the border with Mozambique, which voted against the president in the recent, disputed election.
Almost 30 years ago, Britain pulled out of Zimbabwe - as it had done already out of the rest of Africa, in the wake of Harold Macmillan's 'wind of change' speech. Today, Mugabe says: 'We have turned East, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the West, where the sun sets.'
Despite Britain's commendable colonial legacy of a network of roads, railways and schools, the British are now being shunned.
According to one veteran diplomat: 'China is easier to do business with because it doesn't care about human rights in Africa - just as it doesn't care about them in its own country. All the Chinese care about is money.'
Nowhere is that more true than Sudan. Branded 'Africa's Killing Fields', the massive oil-rich East African state is in the throes of the genocide and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of black, non-Arab peasants in southern Sudan.
In effect, through its supplies of arms and support, China has been accused of underwriting a humanitarian scandal. The atrocities in Sudan have been described by the U.S. as 'the worst human rights crisis in the world today'.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1036105/How-Chinas-taking-Africa-West-VERY-worried.html
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
-- Robert A. Heinlein The Notebooks of Lazarus Long |
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jul 2008 : 16:27:38
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Chilling isn't it.
China isnot belevant to it's own people, so it won't be in Africa! MONEY and TRADE is what it's about. PLUS migration of people.
If you don't care at all about human rights then trade is cheap and easy. |
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turk
USA
3356 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jul 2008 : 17:30:31
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So bev
Are you against your country trading with africa? I mean african human rights not any better than china. Based on your principles, Europe is the only country can trade with Europe and USA. Are you against UK to trade with china? Are you against UK to trade with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrein, Umman? Just checking.
Tell me which country in this planet cares about human rights when trading with china? Just give me one country as an example. |
diaspora! Too many Chiefs and Very Few Indians.
Halifa Salah: PDOIS is however realistic. It is fully aware that the Gambian voters are yet to reach a level of political consciousness that they rely on to vote on the basis of Principles, policies and programmes and practices. |
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gambiabev
United Kingdom
3091 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jul 2008 : 18:38:50
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Turk you misunderstand me. I care deeply about human rights. I care about Africa countries and them being used by China for China's own ends.
Yes I am against the UK trading with countries with poor human rights records. But then I am not the Prime Minister. If I was the world would be a much better place!
Conditions of trading should be no imprisonment for politic reasons. No torture. No death penalty etc etc..No child labour. A fair wage for a fair days pay. I could go on and on.........
China getting the olymics was SUPPOSED to be to encourage better human rights. I dont think that has happened. www.amnesty.org.uk |
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Bodwick
United Kingdom
60 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jul 2008 : 20:41:19
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So turk
Why would anyone be against trading with Africa? You can’t just throw every country in Africa into the same category as say, Somalia or Zimbabwe to name just two. I guess you may be correct in your assessment that Africa is no better than China in respect of human rights but I hope not.
There is a difference between the UK trading with China and say Zimbabwe. If Brown had made a personal fortune of 1 billion by selling the New Forest and our oil while borrowing money from China we would be in the same boat as the starving of Zimbabwe. You may have noticed we’re not all living in mud huts eating straw in the UK.
Roll on the day I can set up a roadblock and charge my Countrymen money to drive through my town.
We get on just fine with Saudi, Qatar, Bahrain and even Oman. No problem there my Turkish friend.
Suggesting nobody cares about human rights when trading with China is total, unadulterated crap.
Bod.
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
-- Robert A. Heinlein The Notebooks of Lazarus Long |
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turk
USA
3356 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jul 2008 : 16:06:17
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Bodwick
If the criteria for trade is human rights as Bev pointed, than noone should trade with africa because africa is NOT better in respect of human rights than China.
But so what. There are trades between nations. These principles never applied on practise. Unless there is a UN sanctions (that may still be unfair) the point is Africa have right to trade with China, including Sudan as much right UK has right to trade with China.
It is ridicoulus, saying that UK cares about human rights when trading with nations. No. Not at all. It is a BS. It is so unfair to expect Africa not to trade with China. It is just bigo hypocracy. UK had continued to trade with south africa during racist dicta regime.
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diaspora! Too many Chiefs and Very Few Indians.
Halifa Salah: PDOIS is however realistic. It is fully aware that the Gambian voters are yet to reach a level of political consciousness that they rely on to vote on the basis of Principles, policies and programmes and practices. |
Edited by - turk on 20 Jul 2008 16:44:35 |
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Bodwick
United Kingdom
60 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jul 2008 : 18:54:09
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Turk
I use the ‘The Ibrahim Index of African Governance' http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org/the-index.asp as a more accurate guide to what’s going on rather than to just sum up the entire continent as being the same.
Did you even read the article? Africa can go right ahead with selling everything including the fish in the sea to China if it wants. Africa needs to carry out tough negotiations unless it wants a few rich keeping all the cash and leaving the population with nothing for the future or you could say even less than they have now.
You sound like a supporter of Sudan http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6595333.stm. I guess you’ll be following closely the al-Bashir case. A simple war crimes and genocide trial. I hope it’s better than the great teddy bear trial. You should be able to tell the difference between Khartoum buying weapons and vehicles to mount them on and buying solar power systems. I’ve no problem with the latter but object to the weapons.
How about Turkey calling for sanctions against Iraq? Just because the PKK seem to be causing trouble there is no need for sanctions. Or is this different in some way?
Playing the South Africa card does not cut any ice with me. I was there working down the mines in the eighties. Been there, seen it and lived the life….
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
-- Robert A. Heinlein The Notebooks of Lazarus Long |
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turk
USA
3356 Posts |
Posted - 20 Jul 2008 : 21:56:18
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quote:
Did you even read the article? Africa can go right ahead with selling everything including the fish in the sea to China if it wants. Africa needs to carry out tough negotiations unless it wants a few rich keeping all the cash and leaving the population with nothing for the future or you could say even less than they have now.
Bodwick. I am confused about what you are debating. Are we debating if africa needs to be smart about the negotiations with china? Or we are debating if while brits are trading with china and saudi regardless of human rights issue and africa should not trade with them because of chinese human rights track. Just clarification about my perspective on this issue. Africa can trade with China and calling Africa not to trade with China because of human rights is UNFAIR and HYPOCRACY.
quote:
You sound like a supporter of Sudan http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6595333.stm. I guess you’ll be following closely the al-Bashir case. A simple war crimes and genocide trial. I hope it’s better than the great teddy bear trial. You should be able to tell the difference between Khartoum buying weapons and vehicles to mount them on and buying solar power systems. I’ve no problem with the latter but object to the weapons.
I am no supporter of Sudan. However, I am gonna wait until the al-bashir case is decided. Let me remind you one thing, everyone is innocent until they are proven guilty. But I am very sceptical about ICC is being used for western nations on 'selected countries' who happened to be against western interests. Correct me if I am wrong, most international organizations are very powerfull when it comes somebody against them i.e. iraq, iran, n.korea but these organizations not effective when it comes to former south africa, israel, saudi arabia, united states of america (guantanamo, abu garib tortures, illegal attack on iraq) etc.. I wonder why.
So what if Sudan is getting weapons. Last time I checked west's biggest export item is selling weapons. Last time I checked Sudan is soverign country and they can buy weapons. Last time I checked UK and USA was selling weapons to regimes like iraq, saudi arabia, egypt, osama bin ladin when he was hero, who are not very 'democratic regimes'. I guess hypocracy countinues. Bodwick, there is no ideal in foreign diplomacy. There are interests. Certainly when UK and USA violate all the international law when they attack despite UN condemnation, they were serving their interest. Sudan too have interest and they are soverign government they can trade with China and they can buy weapons. If UK wants to put sanction on Sudan, fine, UK is soverign country and they have freedom in terms of their foreign policy.
Just quick question, who sold the weapons before sudan buy weapons from China? Did west sell any weapons to any regime that commit civilian killings. Did west sell chemical weapons to saddam against iran than saddam used these weapons on kurds? So suddenly, west, the biggest producers of weapons and destruction toys so concern about chinese weapons to sudan.
quote:
How about Turkey calling for sanctions against Iraq? Just because the PKK seem to be causing trouble there is no need for sanctions. Or is this different in some way?
Oh yeah. Only uk and usa act against terrorism. Almost 40,000 people have died by terrorist acts by PKK. Your country can act against terrorism but we can't defend ourselves?
Turkey, sanctions. Iraq is the one of the biggest trading country for turkey. Turkish companies are making killings with the export/constructions for oil. What are you talking about. Besides, turkey would have sanction on iraq with his own will. Again, Turkey is not forcing noone to put sanctions on iraq. It is complete different story.
I don't really care if it does not cut any ice with you. It is fact. It is the mother of hypocracy of all foreign policies and use of international organizations by western block when it comes appreheid/sionist regime and when it comes to africa and middleeast.
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diaspora! Too many Chiefs and Very Few Indians.
Halifa Salah: PDOIS is however realistic. It is fully aware that the Gambian voters are yet to reach a level of political consciousness that they rely on to vote on the basis of Principles, policies and programmes and practices. |
Edited by - turk on 21 Jul 2008 17:31:32 |
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turk
USA
3356 Posts |
Posted - 21 Jul 2008 : 11:10:03
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Bodwick
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080721/wl_nm/palestinians_israel_shooting_dc
Why do you think UN or ICC has done nothing for Israel after its war crimes against Palestinians? Forget about ICC, israel can't be even condemned. Or playing Palestine and Israel does not cut any ice with you either. You mention you object Sudan buying the weapons. I was wondering what do you think Israel having NUKE and nothing there is no ICC or UN resolution but when it comes to Iran, there are all kind of resolutions. Do you think it is fair? |
diaspora! Too many Chiefs and Very Few Indians.
Halifa Salah: PDOIS is however realistic. It is fully aware that the Gambian voters are yet to reach a level of political consciousness that they rely on to vote on the basis of Principles, policies and programmes and practices. |
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