The following post concerns China and its rapidly expanding influence throughout the Third World. It was a bit of a suprise, however, to learn in today's Christian Science Monitor that the Pentagon is about the create "Africa Command":
"The creation of the new command will be more than an exercise in shuffling bureaucratic boxes, experts say. The US government's motives include countering Al Qaeda's known presence in Africa, safeguarding future oil supplies, and competing with China, which has been courting African governments in its own quest for petroleum, they suggest.
"The expected new command 'speaks to the fact that Africa now matters to the US government as it never has in the past,' says Melvin Foote, chief executive officer of Constituency for Africa, a nonprofit group devoted to strengthening US relations with African governments.
"The idea of an Africa Command has been discussed for years, but Mr. Foote says it has taken on new urgency in light of recent events.
• Islamists took over Somalia last June and ruled until this week, when Ethiopian troops drove them out of power.
• China hosted a conference of African presidents in Beijing last year - and made about $5 billion in deals to build infrastructure in Africa for oil.
"The US gets about 10 percent of its oil from Africa, notes Foote. Some experts say it may need to rely on the continent for as much as 25 percent by 2010. 'With all the instability in the Middle East, there's some thought that we had better build partnerships in Africa,' he says."
Some 3-million people have died in the Congo in recent years and hundreds of thousands more in Darfur and the West did virtually nothing. Is it simply coincidence that this sudden interest in Africa coincides with China's growing and powerful influence in that continent?
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