US energy and environmental policies must help Africa improve the lives of its people - “I see Africa as a … partner with America on behalf of the future we want for all of our children,” President Obama declared in Ghana last July.

However, three months later, the President signed an executive order requiring that the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and other federal agencies reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with their projects by 30% over the next ten years. The order undermines the ability of Sub-Saharan African nations to achieve energy, economic and human rights progress.

Ghana is trying to build a 130-MW gas-fired power plant, to bring electricity’s blessings to more of its people, schools, hospitals and businesses. Today, almost half of Ghanaians never have access to electricity, or get it only a few hours a week, leaving their futures bleak.
 

“The insane notion that Julius Malema could be the heir apparent to the ANC throne, as suggested by Jacob Zuma and the latest report that he is not a factory fault, but the representative of a new generation of ANC leaders, should cause a chill to run down the spine of every sane South African and more especially the whites. 

His public statements that he, apparently single-handedly, conquered the apartheid regime and the colonialists and that he will conquer the children of their children, bears this out.” So says Rev Theunis Botha leader of the Christian Democratic Party (CDP) and acting chairman of the Christian Democratic Alliance (CDA).

“African history shows us what happens when power-hungry despots rise to become rulers. These self-opinionated men do not tolerate opposition, but rather mercilessly act against anyone who would question them. Theirs is the only opinion that counts and not even those that bow and scrape before them and stroke their egos are safe from there unpredictable fits of fancy.

“Is this what we in South Africa have to look forward to? If it is then should we not act now and do all we can to warn the people, instead of cracking jokes and making light of so serious a matter?”