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▌INTRODUCTION. According to the ‘Office of the United States Trade Representative’: “Since its enactment in 2000, the African
Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has been at the core of U.S. economic
policy and commercial engagement with Africa. AGOA provides eligible
sub-Saharan African countries with duty-free access to the U.S. market for
over 1800 products, in addition to the more than 5 000 products that are
eligible for duty-free access under the Generalized System of Preferences
program … by providing new market opportunities, AGOA has helped bolster
economic growth, promoted economic and political reform, and improved U.S.
economic relations in the region.” ▌RIGOROUS
ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR PARTICIPATING IN AGOA. Still quoting the
abovementioned source, the requirements for participating in AGOA are as
follows: ►A
market-based economy. To qualify for participating in AGOA, countries must establish or make continual proress toward establishing a market-based economy. You decide whether the policy excerpt below (from the official website of the Tripartite Alliance’s partner, the SACP) de-monstrates a move toward a market-based economy: Bear in mind that this SACP policy statement was adopted during the 13th ANC National Congress in 2012 despite the fact that AGOA was enacted by the U.S. in 2000, 12 years earlier. Does this prove to us (i) an ANC commitment to a move toward a ‘market-based’ economy’ and a sincere commitment to the African Growth and Opportunity Act? Is there no ‘my word is my bond’ honour in the ANC’s pledge to move to a market-based economy when, after 12 years, it formally reaffirms its allegiance to ‘socialism’ at the 13th ANC National Congress? ►The Rule of Law. Looking back over the last 23 years, has the situation with the ‘Rule
of Law’ in South Africa in the meantime improved or worsened? The answer is
obvious; think about such ‘milestone’ events as the Guptas’ Waterkloof
landings, the Nkandla and Saxonwold sagas, the demise of our SOEs and
critical state infrastructure, the R1000million Zondo Inquiry into State
Capture, the 2022 KZN lootings, the Phala Phala dollars saga etc. ►Political Pluralism. Does the reader think that the ANC’s practice of cadre deployment and
the reservation of the most lucrative positions in government and in SOEs for
members and pals of its Tripartite Alliance a genuine commitment to
‘political pluralism’ when, as recently as 2017, the SACP has written:
“The SACP must have Deployment and
Accountability Committees at national, provincial and district levels whose
role is to ensure maximum possible deployment and accountability of our
cadres in various responsibilities in both the state and outside the state.
These structures must aim to also strengthen the capacity of SACP cadres to
perform well in the widest range of their deployments, while at the same time
ensuring accountability and answerability to the Party.” [‘The South African Road to Socialism’. SACP, 13th Congress, 2017. Online] ►The Right to Due Process. The former president’s repeated appeals to
higher courts ever since the Arms-deal (Thales) case and Saxonwold sagas can,
I suppose, be used as proof of ‘the right to due process’. ►Eliminate Barriers to U.S. Trade & Investment. Are the high crime figures in SA and the ANC’s pathological obsession and flirtation with Putin’s Russia not serious barriers to U.S. investment and trade? Could the estabishment of a Minimum Wage Law, a law that discourages matriculants, all school leavers and the unemployed in general to ev er find jobs, especially at the entry-level ppositions, ever be cited as an effort by government to remove barriers to employemt and consequently, to investment? ►Poicies to Reduce Poverty. Are they seriously going to invoke the ‘Social Grants’ as their claim to fame for combating poverty in the face of dysfunctional job-inhibiting Minimum Wage (and other) laws? ►Policies to Combat Corruption. The Zondo
Inquiry has cost citizens close to R1000million; is the ANC really committed
to combating corruption considering the slow pace of addressing the Zondo Report recommendations (for state capture) reform
in ANC ranks? ►Policies to Protect Human Rights. The
‘SA Constituition’ could be possibly be cited as a case in point; however, how doe sit pan out in daily life. Are human rights being protected in SA? ▌CONCLUSION. Technically speaking, South Africa has been in breach of both the letter and the spirit of the AGOA contract already since 2012 when it reiterated its polilicy of a recommitment to 'SOCIALISM', and not to the required 'MARKET-BASED ECONOMY', with the following statement: “ The South African Road to Socialism" (SARS 2012) was adopted at the SACP`s 13th National Congress in July 2012. It builds on the programmatic perspectives of the 2007 SARS programme from our 12th National Congress.” In other words, the current government wants its bread buttered both sides: It wants all the privileges, perks and dignity associated with a Constitution founded on a Constitutional Democracy, i.e., like the support and cooperation from MARKET-BASED ECONOMIES of the West but, at the same time, refuses to renounce the dysfunctional, dystopian ideology and policy commitment to the SOCIALISM of its colonial masters and ideologues Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Leon Trotsky as personified today by Russia and China (as in 'BRICS'). AGOA must be protected because governments do not create jobs; the private sector does. The more a government lapses into the paying of social grants and civic projects to 'employ the unemployed' (in other words, burden the taxpayer with more taxes) the bigger trouble it is in and the more the private sector should be freed and unleashed to create the jobs so badly needed. Protecting AGOA will help do just that. The best that SOCIALISM has ever been successful at was to spend the wealth that a only market-based economy could create. ✋ (click) |
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Saturday, 19 August 2023
Why Citizens Should Protect AGOA (African Growth & Opportunity Act)
Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Nuremberg Ten-Point Code for Ethical Research with Quick Ten-Point Checklist
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Monday, 14 August 2023
Are They Hurting Your Feelings? Welcome to the Club!
All Rights Reserved.
▌BACKGROUND.
In 1962, when I was 14, we were living in the remote mining town of Virginia, South Africa, that part of the country called the ‘Free State Goldfields’, with my father working on the mines in the vicinity ('Merriespruit Gold Mining Co.') and with my siblings and I attending the local schools nearby.
I was the eldest, the only one in high-school and in Grade 10 (Standard 8) at the time. We were relatively poor in those days and my school uniform quite threadbare and skimpy. The bitter Free State winter, often as low as 5°C, had to be taken head-on with me dressed in a short-sleeve khaki shirt, a brown school jersey, khaki shorts and (fortunately) with some NEW brown shoes sporting threadbare shoelaces and new socks.
On top of it all my mother was pregnant with our youngest brother and my second eldest brother of 10 has had to stay at home doing the laundry and keeping house for the rest of us. Virginia at the time was a dusty, sweltering hot town in summer and bitterly cold in winter; whenever the school-bus happened to be full the day I had to walk three kilometres to school (and back).
▌MY FEELINGS GET HURT. One day at school, during a break, this guy in my class called ‘JohanS.’, who was sitting in front of me in class, came to me and hurt my feelings by having the gall to ask me whether I was ‘saved’. He then proceeded to, very diplomatically and genteel mind you, to hurt my feelings even further by asking if I had ever considered accepting Jesus Christ as my Saviour, to which I, no stranger to Sunday School but hopelessly divorced from faith and church at the time, have had to reply with an emphatical and embarrassing “No”.
He then did the unthinkable; he went ahead and hurt my feelings even more by explaining the Gospel of Jesus Christ to me in painstaking detail, and also by inviting me to ‘church’. In church the pastor, unbelievably, then also had the audacity to hurt my feelings really badly by daring all those who did not know Christ to come forward and accept Jesus of Nazareth as LORD and Saviour of the world.
So, after some serious thought, I eventually got up in March 1962 and did just that; I kneeled at the altar and accepted Jesus Christ as LORD of the Universe and Saviour of the world.
▌NEVER A DULL MOMENT. Today I am an old man going on 76 (at the time of writing) with two great kids, the eldest a qualified industrial engineer and project manager for a multinational mining corporation, a devout Christian and an accomplished musician for his church; my youngest an accomplished missionary and former executive pastor who speaks three languages fluently and will soon add a fourth; who has served her church in places like Marseille (France) and Belgium with some distinction and is currently fully (secularly) employed in Belgium, another remarkable feat all of its own.
▌FAMILY. Two younger brothers, already deceased, have accepted Christ before they died. Another brother in Australia is a devout Christian and my youngest brother and my sister both honour Jesus as LORD. My mother was also a keen Bible reader all her life and a Christian. In our family, however, my father was the proverbial ‘hard nut to crack’. He never went to church accept for funerals and weddings and stood skeptic about God, the Bible and the Gospel. His main gripe against me (so I was told) apparently was my nagging persistence that he should (also) ‘repent’.
In the year 2010, on 1 October and a Saturday morning and after many years of intercessory prayer for him, my father (then 86) phoned to inform me that he had made his peace with God; I was so surprised that I held my cell-phone against the television monitor so that he could hear the song that was at that moment fortuitously playing on my television, i.e., Andre Rieu's version of ‘Amazing Grace’. What a nice birthday present for my sister-in-law in Oz (1 Oct) and myself (also an October baby).
Life is short, very short ... as short as the little hyphen between a man’s date-of-birth and
date-of-death on his tombstone. For instance, my parents once, on the way to Cape Town, first stopped over to visit an uncle of mine in a city nearby to say ‘hello’ and shoot some film of him with his family. Later, they were abruptly recalled to my uncle’s home for his funeral; he had, in the meantime, been murdered by an intruder in his home, with his funeral’s film-footage added to the same earlier film about the family.
Life is short and can be over in the twinkling of an eye. The moral of my story: I accepted Christ in 1962 (despite all the adversity, struggles and indiscretions of my headstrong youth) and ever since never a dull moment, all because one guy has had the audacity and courage to hurt my feelings when it mattered.
✋
Saturday, 5 August 2023
Waarom Ik Mijn Tijd Niet Verspil Met 'New Age'-Spiritualiteit [DUTCH / NEDERLANDS]
1. New Age Spiritualiteitsprofiel (NAS). NAS richt zich op Mind, Body & Spirit. Beïnvloed door stromingen als Spiritualisme, New Thought & Theosophy; voorbeelden van bkende 'mantra's' uit de NAS-hoek kunnen zijn:
Friday, 4 August 2023
Redenen Waarom Atheïsten Niet Van God Houden [DUTCH/NEDERLANDS]
1. Inleiding. De meeste van degenen die we kennen als 'atheïsten' zijn eigenlijk 'agnosten', aangezien echt atheïsme zeer zeldzaam is. De meeste atheïsten geloven waarschijnlijk alleen (of hebben de verkeerde indruk) dat ze atheïsten zijn ... een echte atheïst is iemand die op zijn sterfbed niet tot God om genade zal roepen, en dus tot dat beslissende moment nooit echt zal weten of hij echt atheïst was of niet.
"En zult de waarheid verstaan, en de waarheid zal u vrijmaken." [John8:32].
"Maar zonder geloof is het onmogelijk Gode te behagen. Want die tot God komt, moet geloven, dat Hij is, en een Beloner is dergenen, die Hem zoeken." [Hebreeën11:6].
Tuesday, 1 August 2023
Redenen Waarom Atheïsten God Niet Zullen Zien [DUTCH/NEDERLANDS]
1. Zonder GELOOF is het onmogelijk om God te behagen. God beloont alleen degenen die geloven dat Hij IS (bestaat) en Hem ijverig zoeken.
ONEINDIGoneindig
Monday, 31 July 2023
Overleven in Afrika's Tabernakels van Omkopen [DUTCH/NEDERLANDS]
1. Mijn tijd is bijna om. In dit zonsondergangseizoen van mijn leven kijk ik naar spelende kinderen en jonge mensen die dartelen op grasvelden in parken en in huizen, zich afvragend wat voor wereld ik voor hen zal achterlaten als ik ga, namelijk in deze chaotische samenleving waar een de voormalige charismatische bevrijdingsbeweging is gekomen om onze burgers te bevrijden van de koekenpan van de 'apartheid', rechtstreeks in het vuur van ongebreidelde 'staatsovername' en door de overheid gesteunde fraude en corruptie op een schaal van zo'n omvang dat het de verbeelding tart.
Sunday, 30 July 2023
Nobelprijswinnaars (100 jaar) [DUTCH/NEDERLANDS]
1. De Nobelprijswinnaars. Schrijft Oxford Professor (Emiritus) John Lennox (johnlennox.org):
"De statistieken zijn ontleend aan Baruch Shalev's 100 Years of Nobel Prizes (Los Angeles, 2005) en, verre van overdreven, het aantal theïsten zou zelfs nog hoger kunnen zijn geweest, aangezien hij vaststelt dat iets meer dan 65% van de totale winnaars geïdentificeerd als christen, terwijl meer dan 20% joods was en iets minder dan 1% moslim. Hoewel de methode van de auteur niet in detail wordt uitgelegd, is het zeker belangrijk of de Nobelprijswinnaars zich als zodanig identificeerden, ook al associeerden sommigen zichzelf met een religie meer in nominale of culturele zin.”
2. Samenvatting van de winnaars (100 jaar Nobelprijzen). Statistieken zijn als volgt:
2.1 65% van de algemene winnaars is christen; 20% was joods en <1% moslim (rekening houdend met het feit dat moslims 20% van de wereldbevolking uitmaken en de joden slechts 0,02%).
2.2 Christenen vormen 74% van de winnaars in de chemie, 64% in de natuurkunde en 65% in de geneeskunde.
2.3 Christenen vormen 78% van de winnaars van de vredesprijs, met joden (11%), niet-gelovigen (4%), boeddhisten (2%), moslims (2%), quakers (een tak van het christendom, 1%), Shinto (1%).
2.4 Atheïsten en agnosten maken <11% ('Bijna 11%') uit van de algemene winnaars, hoewel ze op het gebied van literatuur ongeveer 35% van de winnaars uitmaken, 7% in scheikunde, 9% in geneeskunde en 5% in natuurkunde.
Mythen Die Mensen Nog Steeds Verwarren (DUTCH/NEDERLANDS)
1. Mythe #1. “God was totaal overrompeld toen Adam en Eva in Eden zondigden!”
ONEINDIGoneindig

