{"id":17695,"date":"2009-09-09T06:45:34","date_gmt":"2009-09-09T11:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=17695"},"modified":"2009-09-06T09:15:18","modified_gmt":"2009-09-06T14:15:18","slug":"cape-to-cairo-railway-a-dream-come-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/cape-to-cairo-railway-a-dream-come-true\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape to Cairo Railway: a Dream Come True"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Carol Van Sturm<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Nairobi, AU: Officials in Capetown, Cairo, and other African cities simultaneously cut ribbons opening the Cape to Cairo Railway yesterday, completing a project begun more than 150 years ago.<\/p>\n

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Originally the imperial wet dream of Cecil Rhodes and 19th Century British colonists, the Cape-to-Cairo rail project foundered repeatedly for more than a century, interrupted and fragmented by world wars, competing colonial interests, engineering nightmares, and the economic and social collapse of African states in the early 21st Century.<\/p>\n

Completion of the railway required retooling and reconstruction of three different track gauges and rolling stock, as well as new railbed and bridge construction through previously unserved regions of Uganda, the Sudan, and Somalia.\u0412\u00a0 The entire project would have been inconceivable prior to reorganization of the African Union (AU) through the now famous Treaty of Civilized Unions, which united the continent\u0432\u0402\u2122s previously warring nations and failed states twenty years ago.<\/p>\n

The new AU, modeled loosely on successful elements of the European Union, definitively freed the continent and its member states from historic political and commercial exploitation by off-continent states such as Britain, France, China, and the U.S. The AU\u0432\u0402\u2122s most dramatic departure from the European model was its assumption of collective ownership and control of all natural resources on the continent, with particularly stringent regulations on resource extraction practices and distribution of profits to all member states.<\/p>\n

Professor Lawrence Hamilton of the AmerAfrican Institute in Wilmington, Delaware, extolls the results of AU resource control in his popular book, \u0432\u0402\u045aAfrica On Its Own.\u0432\u0402\u045c With its wealth no longer exported to off-shore corporations, he says, the AU was able to tackle immediate crises of AIDS, malaria, famine, civil war, overpopulation, desertification, and shrinking water supplies.\u0412\u00a0 The AU triumphed over these disasters through encouragement of labor unions, nationalization of energy production, continent-wide education programs, and massive, labor-intensive public works projects .<\/p>\n

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\u0432\u0402\u045aThe Cape to Cairo project is but a first link in a network that will reach the length and breadth of Africa,\u0432\u0402\u045c said AU President Aurora Mongella at a ribbon-cutting in Nairobi.\u0412\u00a0\u0412\u00a0 \u0432\u0402\u045aLinked by rail, our interior resources and coastal ports will together ensure Africa\u0432\u0402\u2122s place in the global economy.\u0432\u0402\u045c The AU\u0432\u0402\u2122s vision, Mongella said, is an interlocked system of compatible railroads circumnavigating the continent, with feeder lines to the interior and to landlocked areas.\u0412\u00a0 Competition for the Sustainable Africa status required for rail-route cities, Mogella noted proudly, has already drawn international ecotourist trade and accolades to previously dangerous areas like Mogadishu.<\/p>\n

\u0432\u0402\u045aThis is more than an economic achievement,\u0432\u0402\u045c said Chabuk Sawai, cultural coordinator of the AU Technology Mission.\u0412\u00a0 \u0432\u0402\u045aThe phenomenal human effort and ingenuity of this project shows what can happen when people are drawn together by common cause and interest instead of torn apart by fear, hatred, poverty, and greed.\u0432\u0402\u045c<\/p>\n

\u0432\u0402\u045aAnd the pizza\u0432\u0402\u2122s the best in the world,\u0432\u0402\u045c adds 8-year-old Piet Agos, of the Cape to Cairo Children\u0432\u0402\u2122s Choir, which accompanies global dignitaries and celebrities on the grand opening passenger run.\u0412\u00a0 The choir, popularly dubbed 4C, attracts huge crowds at each stop; its drum-rap version of \u0432\u0402\u045aThe Wabash Cannonball\u0432\u0402\u045c topped world-wide charts last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carol Van Sturm Nairobi, AU: Officials in Capetown, Cairo, and other African cities simultaneously cut ribbons opening the Cape to Cairo Railway yesterday, completing a project begun more than 150 years ago. Originally the imperial wet dream of Cecil Rhodes and 19th Century British colonists, the Cape-to-Cairo rail project foundered repeatedly for more than … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17695\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}