African Center for Strategic Studies | Peter "Just Loves Flying"

The fight against dirty money goes global | North Africa

July 2, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, corruption, Development, Gambia, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

The fight against dirty money goes global | North Africa.

A s heads of state meet Malabo on 1 July for the African Union (AU) summit, a substantial bombshell is due to drop at the gathering.

It will take the form of a no- holds-barred investigation into the multibillion-dollar losses that state treasuries are suffering across Africa due to what are euphemistically called ‘illicit financial flows.’

A detailed research dossier on how these losses are engineered and the damage they do to Africa’s development chances, along with some hard-hitting recommendations, will be released at the summit.

The report’s authors hope the scale of the losses to African treasuries – $50-100bn a year at a time when the continent is scrabbling for development capital – will prompt serious and practical action from the assembled leaders.

These losses are the ill-gotten gains of grand corruption, criminal fixing of trade prices, tax evasion and money laundering…

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Corruption: The Unrecognized Threat to International Security – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

June 26, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Causes of Conflict, corruption, International Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

Corruption: The Unrecognized Threat to International Security – Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Systemic corruption has an unrecognized bearing on international security. Policymakers and private companies often pay insufficient attention to corruption when deciding what foreign and defense policies to pursue or where to invest. Greater understanding of the nature of acute corruption and its impact on global security would contribute to a better assessment of costs and benefits and therefore to improved policy and practice.

Security Implications of Severe Corruption

Acute corruption should be understood not as a failure or distortion of government but as a functioning system in which ruling networks use selected levers of power to capture specific revenue streams. This effort often overshadows activities connected with running a state.

Such systematic corruption evokes indignation in populations, making it a factor in social unrest and insurgency…

17 aid workers abducted in Sudans Darfur region

June 24, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Conflict, Darfur, International Security, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

17 aid workers abducted in Sudans Darfur region.

Seventeen aid workers have been abducted in the Sudanese troubled Darfur region, sources said.

Irish NGO GOAL and local SAK reported that the abduction took place on Thursday.

They said three GOAL employees and 14 members of the Sudanese SAK were abducted in Kutum, North Darfur.

The sources said the three Goal employees included the country director.

The SAK members included the head of the Kutum branch and an engineer.

“Militiamen in three Land Cruisers stopped the GOAL country director and two staff members who were on their way to Kutum airport. They pulled them from their vehicle at gunpoint and took them to an unknown destination,” the sources, who asked not to be named because they are not authorised to talk to the media, told the Africa Review.

“At about the same time, gunmen in Land Cruisers abducted 14 employees of the Sudanese SAK organisation, in the Um Lyon in Kutum locality,” they added…

Boko Haram Members Are Criminals, Not Muslims — OIC | Sahara Reporters

June 4, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Boko Haram, Gambia, Nigeria, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

Boko Haram Members Are Criminals, Not Muslims — OIC | Sahara Reporters.

The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) on Monday publicly expressed its support for Nigeria’s fight against terrorism, saying members of the Boko Haram Islamist sect are criminals and outlaws that should not be considered as Muslims. OIC Secretary-General, Eyad Ameen Madani said this on Monday at the Presidential Villa when he led a delegation to meet with President Goodluck Jonathan. According to Madani, the 57-member organization would continue supporting Nigeria’s efforts to address its terrorism challenge. “We are here to express our solidarity with Nigeria in facing up to this terrorist organisation and to condemn the terrorist acts they have been committing, and to show our condolences to the Nigerian people, to the families of those who were affected”, he said. “The OIC has issued statements that are very clear, that these people are outlaws, what they do is criminal act; it has absolutely nothing to do with Islam, Islamic teachings, the religion of Islam, the history, the culture, the civilization of Islam and we should identify them for what they are as a terrorist group”. Sahara Reporters..

Terrorism and transnational organised crime in West Africa

May 14, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Conflict, Gambia, peter singhateh, Transnational Crime Leave a comment

Terrorism and transnational organised crime in West Africa.

West Africa is a highly complex region caught between affluence and affliction. The region is made up of 16 states: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. Apart from Mauritania, the remaining states are members of the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) formed in 1975. The region’s states vary in territorial size, colonial history, economic strength, internal cohesion, and external linkages. They also differ in terms of population size, levels of development, stages of state building, and nature of resource endowments. They are confronted with different levels of security, governance and development challenges that have made them poor despite being greatly endowed with natural resources.

Although West African states gained political independence before any other region in colonial Africa, they have failed to achieve a high degree of political stability due to corruption, weak or failed governance institutions, conflicts and porous borders among others. Overall, they all share a common feature of multiple layers of insecurity, associated with conflicts and crime at community and national levels, often across borders and with regional ramifications. Threats like terrorism, drug trafficking, illegal oil bunkering, piracy, and arms trafficking have acquired worrisome transnational dimension in recent times. Consequently, terrorism and TOC have emerged as formidable threats to human security and is now taking on a singular importance in terms of national, regional and international engagements…

How Illicit Financial Flows Drain African Economies | Open Society Foundations (OSF)

April 22, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, corruption, Development, Gambia, Money Laundery, People & Society, peter singhateh Leave a comment

How Illicit Financial Flows Drain African Economies | Open Society Foundations (OSF).

“African economies have lost between $597 billion and $1.4 trillion in illicit financial flows in the past three decades. That’s nearly equal to the entire continent’s current gross domestic product. This plunder results in missed development opportunities, increased poverty, and continued injustice.

While many African nations are experiencing unprecedented economic growth, illicit financial flows (IFFs) prevent this growth from translating into better overall living conditions for Africans…”

Tragic reality exposed: Rhinos ‘will be extinct by year 2020’ | Nature | News | Daily Express

April 15, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Gambia, peter singhateh, Rhinos Leave a comment

Tragic reality exposed: Rhinos ‘will be extinct by year 2020’ | Nature | News | Daily Express.

[

The slaughter of both white and black rhinos has soared in six years. In 2007, 13 rhinos were poached, but last year that number rose to 1,004.

Criminal gangs, and even terror groups like Al Qaeda, are making millions of pounds a year by hacking the animals to death for their horns.

Many of the horns are ground into powder and used as traditional medicine in the Far East to treat ailments such as hangovers.

Will Travers, chief executive of the Born Free Foundation, warned last night: “There are now just 20,000 white rhino and 5,000 black rhino left in the wild. If poaching carries on at the rate it is now for six more years it will devastate the numbers.

“There will probably be no free-living rhinos as the remaining numbers will be fenced off in military-style compounds which are alarmed and heavily guarded by armed patrols.”]

How Nigeria Became Africa’s Largest Economy Overnight – Uri Friedman – The Atlantic

April 8, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Economy, Nigeria, peter singhateh Leave a comment

How Nigeria Became Africa’s Largest Economy Overnight – Uri Friedman – The Atlantic.

“Something strange happened in Nigeria on Sunday: The economy nearly doubled, racking up hundreds of billions of dollars, ballooning to the size of the Polish and Belgian economies, and breezing by the South African economy to become Africa’s largest. As days go, it was a good one.

It was, in fact, a miracle borne of statistics: It had been 24 years since Nigerian authorities last updated their approach to calculating gross domestic product (GDP), a process known as “rebasing” that wealthy countries typically carry out every five years. When the Nigerian government finally did it this week, the country’s GDP—the market value of all finished goods and services produced in a country—soared to $510 billion.

To celebrate the occasion, Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics released a pretty entertaining PowerPoint presentation—an admixture of sober economic pronouncements and clip art. It includes this depiction of the long road to $510 billion:…”