Wednesday, August 12, 2009

I had to read this twice

"Clinton acknowledged the need to diversify Angola's economy, which is overly dependent on oil, as she participated in the August 9 signing of an initial agreement in Luanda between the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Chevron Corporation and the Cooperative League of the United States of America (an agriculture-related nongovernmental organization [NGO]) to help develop Angola's agricultural sector.
...
With the partnership agreement, she said, "we are making a down payment on the future, the revitalization of small and medium holder farming in Angola. This $6 million investment will help raise the income of Angolans, turn back hunger and drive sustainable development. It will bolster Angola's efforts to rebuild a once vital agricultural sector destroyed by war, which again can be a source of broad-based prosperity."
...
Clinton also touched on the importance of the Chevron Corporation to Angola's development, saying, "Let me especially thank Chevron for recognizing that it is important to give back to the countries where the natural resources come from.""

$ 6 millions?????????? to turn back hunger and drive sustainable development??? In a country that exports half a million barrels of oil a day?????? where "a good part of the population still lives in a countryside devastated by a 27-year-long civil war that killed 500,000 people and wrecked the agricultural sector, on which many are still dependent." What kind of a cruel joke is that?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You might also compare the US's $17M to combat sexual violence in the Congo with the $17M Duke Energy revealed on or about the same day to be its annual research budget for renewables.