<div dir="auto">The #sittingducks really we are. #NoFreeLunch. Colonization 3.0. Africa shall be colonized by all other nations because of lack of leadership and integrity. We are owned. Sold. African leaders should have a little pride in themselves. Just a little. And for starters Africa should bring down that edifice from Beijing. His excellency Paul Kagame, the assembly chair has shown a lot of independent in his thinking. He should champion the demolition, and look for other African bred solution for a new building. From Carthage to Maseru, Nouakchott to Mogadishu, we must have competence to stamp our feet on the ground. Show we mean business. There is no way we can achieve vision 2063 while we are slaves. $200m is a tinny sum that cannot even get into the balance sheet of some African countries.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 30, 2018 3:16 AM, "Ali Hussein via kictanet" <<a href="mailto:kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke" target="_blank">kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke</a><wbr>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">Listers</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">Something most of us suspected is happening seems to be happening at the Apex of African Government.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><b><font face="georgia, serif">John Aglionby, East Africa Correspondent, and Emily Feng and Yuan Yang in Beijing </font></b></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">African Union officials have accused China of hacking its headquarters’ computer systems every night for five years and downloading confidential data. Beijing funded the AU’s $200m building in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, while a Chinese state-owned company built it. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">Analysts said the fact that the hack remained secret for a year after being discovered and that the AU was not commenting publicly demonstrated China’s dominant relationships with African states. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">The data theft was exposed by French newspaper Le Monde Afrique and confirmed to the Financial Times on Monday. China denied the accusation. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">The hack underscores the risk African nations take in allowing Chinese technology companies such prominent roles in developing their telecoms backbones, despite the US placing restrictions on investment by Huawei and ZTE. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">The two companies have “built most of Africa’s telecoms infrastructure”, according to a McKinsey report on Chinese investment in Africa published last year titled <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/global%20themes/middle%20east%20and%20africa/the%20closest%20look%20yet%20at%20chinese%20economic%20engagement%20in%20africa/dance-of-the-lions-and-dragons.ashx" target="_blank">Dance of the Lions and Dragons. </a></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">Le Monde reported that data transfer activity was at a peak every night between midnight and 2am from January 2012, when the building was inaugurated, to January 2017. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">AU technicians discovered the organisation’s secrets were being copied on to servers in Shanghai, according to the article. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">The AU has now acquired its own servers and all electronic communication is now encrypted and no longer passes through Ethio Telecom, Ethiopia’s state-run operator. Other enhanced security features have also been installed. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">Aly-Khan Satchu, an investment analyst in Nairobi, said the hack was “really alarming”, partly because it exposed that “African countries have no leverage over China”. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">He added: “There’s this theory in Africa that China is Santa Claus. It isn’t. Our leaders need to be disavowed of that notion.” </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">China’s ministry of foreign affairs denied the hacking allegations, calling the reports “baseless” and “complete nonsense”. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">“China would in no way interfere with the internal policies of African countries or do anything that would hurt their interests,” it said in a statement on Monday. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">AU spokespeople declined to comment but an African diplomat attending the AU’s annual heads of government summit on Monday said there “would be a lot of anger over this”. “This is not the sort of thing Africans will entertain and take lightly,” he said. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">However, a western diplomat based in the region said the AU should not have been surprised considering China built and fitted out the 19-storey building that dominates the Addis Ababa skyline. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">“When you let them build the whole system, of course they are listening in,” the diplomat said. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">One AU official said there were “many issues with the building that are still being resolved with the Chinese. It’s not just cyber security.” </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">China State Construction Engineering Corporation, the state-owned company that built the headquarters, could not be reached for comment. Anhui Foreign Economic Construction Company, the developer of another building on the AU headquarters site, said it had not seen the report and declined to comment. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, promised $60bn in investment and aid to African countries at his last summit with African leaders, in South Africa two years ago. Chinese companies have built much of the road and rail infrastructure across the continent and more than 10,000 Chinese companies are active in the region, according to the McKinsey report. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">“There is no other country with such depth and breadth of engagement in Africa across the dimensions of trade, investment, infrastructure financing, and aid,” the consultancy’s report said. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">However, concerns about technological backdoors in Chinese tech hardware led US policymakers in 2012 to recommend blocking acquisition attempts from ZTE and Huawei. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">Huawei has repeatedly been barred from making acquisitions in the US over national security concerns. This month, American carrier AT&T dropped its deal with Huawei to distribute Chinese-made handsets in the US. </font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">Le Monde also reported that GCHQ, the British government listening agency, had intercepted communications between AU and UN officials in 2009 and 2010, citing documents released by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.<br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/c26a9214-04f2-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5" target="_blank">China hacks AU HQ</a></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif">#SittingDucks..That's what we are.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div><div class="m_-5078775219242113622gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><font face="georgia, serif" size="2">Ali
Hussein</font></b></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><b><font face="georgia, serif" size="2">Principal</font></b></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font face="georgia, serif" size="2"><b>Hussein & Associates</b></font></p><font size="2" face="georgia, serif">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="2" face="georgia, serif"> </font></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="2" face="georgia, serif"><span>T<font size="2">el: +254 713 60<font size="2">1113</font></font><br></span></font></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="2" face="georgia, serif"><span>Twitter: @AliHKassim</span><span></span></font></p><font size="2" face="georgia, serif">
</font><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="2" face="georgia, serif"><span>Skype: abu-jomo</span></font></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="2" face="georgia, serif"><span>LinkedIn: <a href="http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim" target="_blank">http://ke.linkedin.com/in/<wbr>alihkassim</a></span><a href="http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim" target="_blank"><span style="color:windowtext;text-decoration:none"></span></a></font></p><p style="margin:0in 0in 0pt"><font size="2" face="georgia, serif"><br></font></p><p style="font-size:small;margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial"><font face="georgia, serif"><span style="font-size:9pt;color:black">13th Floor , Delta Towers, Oracle Wing,</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt"></span></font></p><p style="font-size:small;margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial"><font face="georgia, serif"><span style="font-size:9pt;color:black">Chiromo Road, Westlands,</span><span style="font-size:9.5pt"></span></font></p><p style="font-size:small;margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-repeat:initial"><span style="font-size:9pt;color:black"><font face="georgia, serif">Nairobi, Kenya.</font></span></p><font size="2"><span style="font-family:georgia,serif"><span><br><font size="1">Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the organizations that I work with.</font></span></span></font><span style="font-family:"Baskerville Old Face",serif;font-size:11pt"></span><span style="font-size:11pt"></span>
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