Biden fulfilling promise to visit Africa as US looks to counter China’s deepening influence in region
CNN
President Joe Biden will fulfill a two-year promise to visit Africa as he departs Sunday night for Angola, a trip aimed at highlighting US investment in the continent under his watch in the face of China’s deepening inroads in the region.
President Joe Biden will fulfill a two-year promise to visit Africa as he departs Sunday night for Angola, a trip aimed at highlighting US investment in the continent under his watch in the face of China’s deepening inroads in the region. Biden’s three-day visit to oil-rich Angola comes at the tail end of his presidency, as he’ll hand over power to President-elect Donald Trump in January. The trip provides Biden with another chance to cement relations with a key US partner in Africa even as the continent prepares for the return of Trump, who made disparaging comments about African countries in his first term. When Biden lands in the capital of Luanda on Monday, it will mark the first time a sitting president has visited sub-Saharan Africa since 2015, when then-President Barack Obama visited Kenya and Ethiopia. It will also be the first time a US president has visited Angola, with which Biden has sought to shore up relations in recent years. As he hosted African leaders in Washington for a 2022 summit, Biden vowed to visit the continent the following year but ultimately missed that deadline. He scheduled a trip to Angola for this October, which was postponed due to a pair of devastating hurricanes hitting the US. Biden’s trip will highlight investments in the Lobito Corridor, an 800-mile railway project backed by the United States and Europe aiming to facilitate the transport of critical minerals from interior Africa to Angola’s western port for exporting. The initiative is at the center of the Biden administration’s efforts to boost investment in Africa to blunt China’s growing influence in the region, which has outpaced that of the US. Beijing has poured billions of dollars into infrastructure projects across the continent over the last decade through its Belt and Road Initiative. In September, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $50 billion in financial support for the continent as well as military aid.
The state of Maryland is set to gain control of the DC Air National Guard fighter squadron as part of a major deal that will see the nation’s capital take over the site of RFK stadium.
Brazilian authorities are investigating after a bridge collapsed Sunday, killing at least four people and sending trucks loaded with sulfuric acid and pesticides plunging into a river, raising concerns about water contamination.
The killer whale who swam with her dead calf for 17 days in an apparent act of grieving recently gave birth to a new baby, according to Michael Weiss, research director of the Center for Whale Research.
Brazilian authorities are investigating after a bridge collapsed Sunday, killing at least four people and sending trucks loaded with sulfuric acid and pesticides plunging into a river, raising concerns about water contamination.
Haiti’s online media association said two reporters were killed and several others were wounded in a gang attack on Tuesday on the reopening of Port-au-Prince’s biggest public hospital.
CNN’s 5 Things PM brings you the stories you might have missed during your busy day.
The state of Maryland is set to gain control of the DC Air National Guard fighter squadron as part of a major deal that will see the nation’s capital take over the site of RFK stadium.
President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he will direct the Department of Justice to “vigorously pursue the death penalty” after President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death sentences of 37 federal inmates to life in prison.
Former President Bill Clinton was discharged from a hospital on Tuesday one day after being admitted for the flu, his office said.
While public anxieties have loomed over the Northeast amid possible drone sightings, one sighting will soon bring holiday cheer across the country: Santa Claus.
Prosecutors on Monday charged 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta-Calil with first- and second-degree murder and first-degree arson in connection with the death of a woman who died after being set on fire in a New York City subway train a day earlier.