Tag: Africa

India, Mauritius upgrade strategic ties with eye on China

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NEW DELHI —  India and Mauritius have upgraded their ties, say leaders of both countries — a move analysts say is aimed at increasing New Delhi’s influence in the Indian Ocean as it seeks to counter China’s expanding footprint in the region. The announcement of upgraded ties came during a two-day visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Mauritius, an island nation that sits along vital seaways in the western Indian Ocean. Modi, who was chief guest at Mauritius’s National Day celebrations on Wednesday, said that the countries had…

New Study Reports Widespread Forced Labor Abuses

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Forced labor generates $236 billion a year in illegal profits, a dramatic increase of $64 billion since 2014, a new study by the International Labor Organization reported on Tuesday. The study said the increase is due to a growing population of people forced into labor and the correlation between higher levels of exploitation and higher profits. Traffickers and criminals who use forced labor can generate around $10,000 per victim. The most prevalent use of forced labor is commercial sexual exploitation, the study found. While accounting for 27% of the total…

Number of Chinese Workers in Africa Drops Substantially

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Johannesburg, South Africa —  The number of Chinese workers across Africa has hit its lowest level in more than a decade, new data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics show. From a record high of 263,696 workers on the continent in 2015, only 88,371 were recorded in 2022, the most recent year on record. The China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, which analyzed data from 2009 to 2022, attributed the drop in numbers partially to the pandemic as Chinese workers left during that period and the country only…

John Kerry: ‘I Feel Deeply Frustrated’

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When former Secretary of State John Kerry stepped into a newly created post as America’s top climate diplomat in 2021, the reputation of the United States abroad was, in his words, “in the crapper,” and the pathway to meeting the world’s climate goals looked, to most, very narrow. Kerry, now 80, is stepping down this week to take a role on the Biden re-election campaign. In the last three years, the climate landscape has changed in two big and contradictory ways: The goal the world set in Paris in 2015…

Africa’s Donkeys Are Coveted by China. Can the Continent Protect Them?

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For years, Chinese companies and their contractors have been slaughtering millions of donkeys across Africa, coveting gelatin from the animals’ hides that is processed into traditional medicines, popular sweets and beauty products in China. But a growing demand for the gelatin has decimated donkey populations at such alarming rates in African countries that governments are now moving to put a brake on the mostly unregulated trade. The African Union, a body that encompasses the continent’s 55 states, adopted a continentwide ban on donkey skin exports this month in the hope…

Year of the Dragon Not So Fiery for South Africa’s Taiwanese and Chinese

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With wars raging in Europe and the Middle East, the specter of a clash between China and Taiwan — which could draw the U.S. into a new conflict — is of global concern. But an ocean away in South Africa, which has seen waves of immigration by ethnic Chinese over centuries, there’s unity, not division. Kate Bartlett reports from Chinese New Year celebrations near Johannesburg. Video: Zaheer Cassim. Voice of America

China Circumspect After International Court Ruling on Israel

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Johannesburg, South Africa —  In a carefully worded response this week, China voiced its support of the U.N.’s International Court of Justice, or ICJ, ruling that orders Israel to desist from the killing of Palestinians in Gaza. Experts tell VOA that privately China has reservations about the use of such courts to deal with allegations of genocide, which could have awkward implications for Beijing. “We hope that the ICJ’s provisional measures can be effectively implemented,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin when asked about the issue at a regular press…