Free Republic

Lake Chad, one of the largest boddies of water in Sub-Saharan Africa, is on the verge of drying up, as only 1,500 square kilometres,  of the original 25,000 square kilometres size of the lake still remain. The figure represents 10 percent of the initial size of the lake, which traverses Nigeria and three other neighboring countries -- Chad , Niger , and the Republic of Cameroon. The lake, which banks in Nigeria , in the north-astern state of Borno, with Maiduguri as its administrative capital, is said to share similar hydrological basin with four other countries: Central African Republic, Algeria...

Colonel Gaddafi, having foolishly agreed not to arm himself with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons*, a lesson other dictators may heed, has set upon a more surreal but perhaps more effective weapon against the West – refugees. According to this newspaper: Libya is unleashing a wave of migrants against Europe as retaliation for the coalition’s military strikes against the country.…Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s regime is alleged to have been actively encouraging boatloads of migrants to leave the country’s shores since March 22, when the first vessel sailed from Tajoura, a suburb of Tripoli.Libyan armed forces and militias are reportedly turning...

New Deals in the Developing World ECONOMIC ACTIVITY between Africa and Asia is booming like never before. Business between the two continents is not new: India's trade with Africa's eastern and southern regions dates back to at least the days of the Silk Road, and China has been involved on the continent since it started investing there, mostly in infrastructure, during the postcolonial era. But today, partly as a result of accelerating commerce between developing countries throughout the world, the scale and pace of trade and investment flows between Africa and India and China are exceptional. (Throughout, Africa is used...

Sub-Saharan Africa: The Population Emergency ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2008) — Sub-Saharan Africa has been experiencing phenomenal population growth since the beginning of the XXth Century, following several centuries of population stagnation attributable to the slave trade and colonization. The region's population in fact increased from 100 million in 1900 to 770 million in 2005. The latest United Nations projections, published in March 2007, envisaged a figure of 1.5 to 2 billion inhabitants being reached between the present and 2050. The report of a demographic study, coordinated by the Centre Population et Développement (CEPED), commissioned by the Agence Française de Développement...