Africa

Your morning global affairs speed-read

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on her way to Uganda for the second stop of her 10-day tour of Africa. She's scheduled to talk democracy with President Yoweri Museveni, who has been in power for 26 years, and is also expected to visit a military base for an update on the U.S. contribution to the hunt for Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army. [The Washington Post]

Clinton will also discuss the situation in Somalia and the terror threat in Africa, and address the AIDS epidemic and the recent Ebola outbreak. You can track her Africa travels here. 

Egypt's choice: President Mohammed Morsi offers further clues about which direction Egypt is going when he names his Cabinet today. Last week, Prime Minister Hisham Kandil promised the main criterion for selection to the technocratic government would be efficiency. [allAfrica.com]

Anti-terror tool: The House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Terrorism holds a hearing on the State Department’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications and its mission, operations and impact. The center's coordinator, Alberto Fernandez, is slated to testify. 

The House is back on track to passing legislation this week that would extend trade benefits for African countries — which expire in September — for another three years.

The House was scheduled to take up the legislation last week, but it was never considered. Late Monday, Republicans put the legislation back on the list of suspension bills to be considered this week; the bill, H.R. 5986, will likely be taken up Wednesday.

The State Department's latest travel warning for the Democratic Republic of Congo warns that Rwandan rebels are contributing to violence in the eastern part of the country, the latest sign of growing U.S. concern about the actions of a crucial ally.

The Obama administration announced over the weekend that it was suspending $200,000 in military aid to Rwanda because of United Nations accusations that the country is involved in the conflict in next-door Congo. And this week, the head of the U.S. Office of Global Criminal Justice, Stephen Rapp, told England's Guardian newspaper that Rwandan President Paul Kagame risks an international criminal indictment for "aiding and abetting" crimes against humanity.

“Renewed violence amongst foreign and Congolese rebel groups present in the northern part of North Kivu and former Rwandan militants in the southern part of the province and throughout South Kivu pose a serious and significant risk to travelers in the region,” the new travel warning states.

Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) argued on the floor Thursday about how to pay for a bill to assistant African economies.

The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) provides aid to economies of sub-Saharan Africa and trade incentives.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday unanimously approved nine of President Obama's nominees for ambassadorships, setting up their possible approval by the full Senate before the August recess.

The posts being filled are in Ghana, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Guinea, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Serbia, the Marshall Islands and Oman.

The nominee to be ambassador to Harare, Bruce Wharton, laid out a path forward for the lifting of the sanctions against Robert Mugabe's regime at a hearing last week.

The full list is below: 

The State Department's war crimes chief has warned President Paul Kagame and other Rwandan leaders they may end up being charged with aiding in war crimes over their country's interference in the conflict in next-door Congo, England's Guardian newspaper reports. Read more...

President Obama marked the death of Ghana's president Tuesday with a statement applauding John Evans Atta Mills' for strengthening the west African country's “strong tradition of democracy.”

The English-speaking country has long been held up in the United States as a model of democratic stability and economic growth in a part of the world often riven with coups. Obama visited in July 2009 in his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa, during which he delivered a speech to lawmakers and visited an oceanfront fort once used to ship slaves to the Americas.

“Under his leadership, the United States and Ghana deepened our partnership in the promotion of good governance and economic development. He was also a strong advocate for human rights and for the fair treatment of all Ghanaians.”

Atta Mills, 68, died of throat cancer just months before running for a second term.

Obama's full statement is below:

The U.S. announced Sunday it would suspend military assistance to Rwanda because of "deep concerns" it may be supporting anti-government rebels in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The United States might consider lifting financial and travel sanctions on Zimbabwe if the South African nation makes political reforms and allows foreigners to monitor next year's presidential elections, President Obama's nominee to be ambassador to Harare told Congress.

Bruce Wharton's testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee late last week comes as international investors are eyeing the resource-rich country with new-found interest ahead of next year's elections. The United States and the European Union are both considering relaxing their sanctions regimes, imposed after President Robert Mugabe's crackdown on political opponents and the seizure of white-owned farms in the former British colony a decade ago.

“I believe though that we do need to make it clear that our policies are flexible, they are not static, and we should be able to adjust them in response to democratic progress, progress on the rule of law on the ground in Zimbabwe,” Wharton said. “Some of the benchmarks that I think would be important ... [include] continued progress on the global political agreement, clear progress towards setting a roadmap on elections and ... an express commitment from the government of Zimbabwe to welcome international as well as national election monitoring groups. Those are some of the benchmarks that I think would be critical as we look to adjusting our own policy.”

President Obama on Thursday authorized the release of up to $10 million in emergency aid to help deal with the worsening refugee crisis in the West African nation of Mali.

Almost 400,000 people from the northern half of the country have been internally displaced or sought refuge in neighboring countries following an insurgency by Islamists and semi-nomadic Tuareg tribesmen that has cleaved the country in two. In a statement Thursday, the White House said it was authorizing the release of the funds to help respond to “the unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs resulting from the conflict in northern Mali."

“The emergency funds will be used to support the efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to provide lifesaving protection and assistance to those fleeing the conflict,” National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement. “Currently, almost 230,000 Malian refugees have fled to Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger, while an additional 155,000 Malians are internally displaced.”