US President Joe Biden on Tuesday used his third and final day in Angola to showcase the Lobito Corridor railway, where the US and key allies are investing heavily to refurbish 1,300km of train lines in Zambia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) and Angola.
The project aims to advance the US’ presence in a region rich in cobalt, copper and other critical minerals used in batteries for electric vehicles, electronic devices and clean energy technologies. By the end of the decade, the rail line could even go a long way toward linking southern Africa’s western coast with the continent’s eastern edge.
“I’m probably the most pro-rail guy in America,” Biden said during a speech.
Photo: AP
He said that the Lobito Corridor constituted the largest US investment in a rail project outside the US.
Biden yesterday was to fly from the capital, Luanda, to Lobito on Africa’s western coast to tour port facilities with Angolan President Joao Lourenco, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and Tanzanian Vice President Philip Mpango.
The leaders also plan to meet with representatives from firms that stand to benefit from the corridor project, including a telecommunications firm expanding cell service in the region, a food production firm and Acrow Bridge, a Pennsylvania company that makes prefabricated steel bridges and has a contract to deliver nearly 200 to Angola.
The Biden administration said that the corridor would help business interests and counter China’s growing influence in Africa.
In Lobito, Biden was to announce US$600 million in new US investment for projects associated with the corridor, which has also drawn financing from the EU, the G7 leading industrialized nations, a Western-led private consortium and African banks.
The US administration said that it can take cargo about 45 days to get from eastern DR Congo or Zambia to the market, and usually involves going by truck to South Africa.
Test loads run using the new rail corridor made the same journey in 40 to 50 hours.
Meanwhile, China already has heavy investments in mining and processing African minerals, and has used its Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure strategy to promote its economic and political influence around the world.
In September, China said it had signed a deal with Tanzania and Zambia to revamp a separate railway line going east from Zambia to Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam on the east coast of Africa.
The countries had previously worked together to build the railway line in the 1970s, but it fell into disrepair. China’s move to renovate it — announced on the sidelines of this year’s China-Africa forum — is seen by some analysts as the Chinese response to the Lobito Corridor.
A senior US administration official called the Lobito Corridor the heart of competing with China, not as a political adversary, but from a business standpoint.
The idea is, rather than pumping in simple aid, Washington would attempt to grow US influence by promoting projects that can spark investment, and therefore help communities and countries over the long haul.
The Lobito Corridor has become a model approach that the US is looking to replicate in other parts of the world, said the official, who briefed reporters during Biden’s Angola visit on condition of anonymity to offer project details that have not yet been made public.
The corridor would not be completed for years, meaning much of the continued work would come during the administration of US president-elect Donald Trump, who is to take office on Jan. 20.
The Biden White House says that Republicans in the US Congress and elsewhere have supported past efforts to promote African business interests through targeted investments, and that such initiatives have appealed to Trump and his advisers.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
RSS