Chirac warns of 'African flood'

I was under the impression the population of Africa was declining (Bob
Geldof), but JC thinks its increasing. Who is correct ??

Chirac warns of 'African flood'

French President Jacques Chirac has warned that Africans "will flood
the world" unless more is done to develop the continent's economy.

In a TV interview, Mr Chirac said nearly 50% of Africa's 950m
population was under 17 and that by 2050 there would be two billion
Africans.

He said the necessary resources had to be made available to help
Africa.

"We have an immense problem [in Africa] ... which is that of
development," he said in the Bastille Day interview.

'Back to basics'

"If we do not develop... Africa... if we do not make available the
necessary resources to bring about this development, these people will
flood the world," he said.

Click to see map of main routes into Europe

Mr Chirac stressed the need to go back "go back to the basic issues
with regard to immigration".

"One cannot solve a problem entirely outside its context, and the
context here is north-south [divide]," he said.

Earlier this week, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said Europe
had to be careful not to turn itself into a fortress just to keep out
immigrants.

Addressing a European-African migration conference in Morocco, Mr
Sarkozy said the so-called zero immigration concept was a dangerous
myth.

Search for solutions

Delegates at the conference were trying to develop a common approach
between Europe and Africa.

Proposals included tougher policing and action against human
trafficking but also measures to deal with the poverty and conflict
which drive would-be migrants to seek a better life elsewhere.

Last month, Spain announced a three-year diplomatic drive in West
Africa to try to halt the flow of African migrants to Europe.

Nearly 8,000 Africans aiming to enter the EU have arrived in Spain's
Canary Islands alone in 2006.

About 1,000 more are believed to have died attempting dangerous voyages
in the Atlantic to reach the Canary Islands.

Hooverphonic wrote:
I was under the impression the population of Africa was declining (Bob
Geldof), but JC thinks its increasing. Who is correct ??

At present it is believed to be increasing rapidly.

Also, most experts believe that the rapid growth rates are likely to
continue in the near future. However, some forecasts do project that
the growth will slow or even that the population will decline.
Africa's population is rapidly urbanizing, which in other parts of the
world has led to much smaller family sizes and slower or even zero or
negative population growth. Another unknown is AIDS - no one really
knows how widespread it is or how many people will eventually die from
it.

Iceman wrote:
Hooverphonic wrote:
I was under the impression the population of Africa was declining (Bob
Geldof), but JC thinks its increasing. Who is correct ??

At present it is believed to be increasing rapidly.

Also, most experts believe that the rapid growth rates are likely to
continue in the near future. However, some forecasts do project that
the growth will slow or even that the population will decline.
Africa's population is rapidly urbanizing, which in other parts of the
world has led to much smaller family sizes and slower or even zero or
negative population growth. Another unknown is AIDS - no one really
knows how widespread it is or how many people will eventually die from
it.

.......all I ever hear about Africa is, AIDS, war, famine and disease

On 14 Jul 2006 12:01:22 -0700, "Hooverphonic"
wrote:

I was under the impression the population of Africa was declining (Bob
Geldof), but JC thinks its increasing. Who is correct ??

You must have misunderstood. The population of Africa is certainly not
declining. The birth rate is declining, but it's still well above
replacement level. Maybe you heard birth rate and thought population?

--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 23:39:57 +0200, Dave Frightens Me
wrote:

On 14 Jul 2006 13:49:42 -0700, "Hooverphonic"
wrote:

......all I ever hear about Africa is, AIDS, war, famine and disease

There's more to it than that, but I've had no urge to go there.

My husband and I were in Zambia a few years ago (my daughter was
working there at the time). We loved it.
--
Barbara Vaughan
My email address is my first initial followed by my surname at libero dot it
I answer travel questions only in the newsgroup

On 14/07/06 21:51, in article
, "Iceman"
wrote:

At present it is believed to be increasing rapidly.

Also, most experts believe that the rapid growth rates are likely to
continue in the near future. However, some forecasts do project that
the growth will slow or even that the population will decline.
Africa's population is rapidly urbanizing, which in other parts of the
world has led to much smaller family sizes and slower or even zero or
negative population growth. Another unknown is AIDS - no one really
knows how widespread it is or how many people will eventually die from
it.


The growth statistics are widely available. For each country
the CIA web page.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...k/geos/ml.html

Take Mali as an example

Population is 11,716,829 and growing at 2.63%/yr

The birth rate is 50/1000 per year, death rate 17. `

Over all infant mortality rats is 108/1,000 which
is 20 times the European rate. Fertility rate
7.4 born/woman.

About 10% of the population is nomadic and some 80% of the labor force is
engaged in farming and fishing. Industrial activity is concentrated on
processing farm commodities.

The infant mortality rate is very high but these are coming down
world wide. At the beginning of the 20th century, the rate
in the New Jersey was 200/1,000, 10% of the US new born were dead
by the age of 5. But vaccines, and other medicines brought infant
mortality rates under control in the developed countries and that
has spread to the under developed. Other better developed
African states have infant mortality rates of 50-60 and
fertility rates around 4.

The main problem is to generate economic growth which encourages
people to stay where they are. Most don't want to leave their
friends and families to venture into the unknown, the inhospitable
and cold north. But with no jobs, even at $2/day, they have
to leave.

On 15/07/06 1:31, in article , "B
Vaughan" wrote:

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006 23:39:57 +0200, Dave Frightens Me
wrote:

On 14 Jul 2006 13:49:42 -0700, "Hooverphonic"
wrote:

......all I ever hear about Africa is, AIDS, war, famine and disease

There's more to it than that, but I've had no urge to go there.

My husband and I were in Zambia a few years ago (my daughter was
working there at the time). We loved it.


As I have mentioned we were in Ghana recently and did not find
the experience bad at all. It is a different world.

I have a number of photos on our site, one sequence is

http://homepage.mac.com/evleth/PhotoAlbum24.html

Ghanaians have the reputation of being a friendly people, our
reception was very much warm. Next Google images allows
yàu to visit a number of countries on the web via amateur
photographs by Westerners. The photos tend to concentrate
on the quaint so you get no idea if any "progress" is being made
in the western sense. For instance, there is a massive building
of new housing near Accra in Ghana. This is due to money coming
back in from overseas Ghanaians. If you go to the google images
and ask for ghana accra housing you get some nice looking housing

some of it is inexpensive by European standards (below 100,000 euros).`

So everybody does not live in poverty and mud huts. Nor is everyone
suffering from AIDS.

B Vaughan wrote:
On 14 Jul 2006 12:01:22 -0700, "Hooverphonic"
wrote:

I was under the impression the population of Africa was declining (Bob
Geldof), but JC thinks its increasing. Who is correct ??

You must have misunderstood. The population of Africa is certainly not
declining. The birth rate is declining, but it's still well above
replacement level. Maybe you heard birth rate and thought population?


You must have misunderstood.
always possible

but if I look at what is on the news about Africa its always doom and
gloom from a people / wildlife / environment perspective.

if the population is going up there will only be less to go round and
they will remain in poverty, with wildlife and environment suffering
the consequences.

On 15/07/06 9:59, in article
, "Hooverphonic"
wrote:

if the population is going up there will only be less to go round and
they will remain in poverty, with wildlife and environment suffering
the consequences.



The problem is world wide. The industrial world is currently
over exploiting the world's fisheries.

This was recently in the news with regard to tuna fishing in
the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Ecotourism is on the rise in Africa, it remains to be seen
if it works but nobody is trying to control pirate fishing.
One is almost tempted to equip a group of ecoterrorists
with submarines and sent them out to sink large fishing
boats.


*****

llegal fishing threatens survival of Europe's tuna

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Illegal fishing has devastated Europe's stocks of the
highly prized bluefin tuna and threatens the species' survival in the
eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, environmental campaign group WWF said on
Wednesday.

International quotas that aim to keep fish stocks viable were exceeded in
both 2004 and 2005 for bluefin tuna, it said.

"Fleets from the EU -- mainly France -- Libya and Turkey are the main
offenders," WWF said in a report. "These countries are greatly exceeding
their fishing quotas and deliberately failing to report much of their
massive catches."

Demand for bluefin tuna, one of the fastest fish in the sea, is always high
since it is particularly popular in sushi and sashimi dishes. Unlike most
tunas, bluefin grow slowly and mature late, making them more vulnerable to
intensive trawling.

"Unreported tuna catches are increasingly slaughtered and processed at sea
before being shipped out on board enormous vessels destined for the
lucrative Japanese market," WWF said.

WWF estimated that around 44,900 metric tons of bluefin tuna were caught in
2004, well beyond the 32,000-metric ton quota allowed by the International
Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). The catch was
even higher in 2005, it said.

The group demanded that trawling for the fish should stop immediately in
both Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic waters and said it would lobby EU
Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg for the 25-nation European Union for make
sure this happened.

Environmental groups, particularly WWF, have long complained that bluefin
tuna fishing is out of control in Europe and repeatedly point to the
Mediterranean as the worst problem area.

With Atlantic fish numbers at dangerously low levels, fleets were moving to
Mediterranean waters to catch the fish there too, the report's author
Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi said.

"In the race to catch shrinking tuna stocks, industrial fleets are
switching from traditional grounds to the last breeding grounds in the
eastern Mediterranean and Libyan waters," he said in a statement.

Greenpeace warned in a recent report that bluefin tuna was nearing
commercial and ecological extinction in the Mediterranean.

Hooverphonic writes:

I was under the impression the population of Africa was declining (Bob
Geldof), but JC thinks its increasing. Who is correct ??

The fastest-reproducing countries in the world are in Africa, and
overpopulation is a serious long- and short-term problem for the
continent.

French President Jacques Chirac has warned that Africans "will flood
the world" unless more is done to develop the continent's economy.

They need to get their population under control first.

He said the necessary resources had to be made available to help
Africa.

Africa is a continent filled to the brim with resources, but lacking
anyone who knows how to manage them. The continent's specialty is
human reproduction (with violent and bloody conflict as a sideline).

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.