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All star Shawn kemp was arrested after being connected in a drive by at the Tacoma mall , there was at least one man who was injured. There was a witness that recorded what happened in the parking lot which shows Shawn Kemp getting into his car and driving away which the other suspects that were there , the situation escalated when the group started arguing with each other . Later the cops found Shawn and arrested him and was booked to the Pierce County Jail .

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Shawn Kemp: Retired NBA legend detained after a drive-by shooting

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An argument in a parking lot led to gunfire by one man believed to be Shawn Kemp, police say.

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Marijuana, also known as weed or cannabis, has been used for medicinal and recreational purposes for centuries. While its effects can vary from person to person, there are several reasons why people believe that weed can be beneficial for their physical and mental health.

One of the main reasons why weed is thought to help is its ability to relieve pain. Marijuana contains compounds called cannabinoids, which can interact with receptors in the body's endocannabinoid system to reduce inflammation and alleviate pain. This makes it a potential treatment option for chronic pain conditions like arthritis, neuropathy, and multiple sclerosis.

Another potential benefit of weed is its ability to reduce anxiety and stress. THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana, can produce feelings of relaxation and euphoria that may help alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression. Additionally, some studies have suggested that CBD, another compound found in cannabis, may have anti-anxiety properties.

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https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/medical-marijuana-2018011513085

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There are few subjects that can stir up stronger emotions among doctors, scientists, researchers, policy makers, and the public than medical marijuana. Is it safe? Should it be legal? Decriminalized? Has its effectiveness been proven? What conditions is it useful for? Is it addictive? How do we keep it out of the hands of teenagers? Is it really the "wonder drug" that people claim it is? Is medical marijuana just a ploy to legalize marijuana in general?

These are just a few of the excellent questions around this subject, questions that I am going to studiously avoid so we can focus on two specific areas: why do patients find it useful, and how can they discuss it with their doctor?

Marijuana is currently legal, on the state level, in 29 states, and in Washington, DC. It is still illegal from the federal government's perspective. The Obama administration did not make prosecuting medical marijuana even a minor priority. President Donald Trump promised not to interfere with people who use medical marijuana, though his administration is currently threatening to reverse this policy. About 85% of Americans support legalizing medical marijuana, and it is estimated that at least several million Americans currently use it.

Marijuana without the high

Least controversial is the extract from the hemp plant known as CBD (which stands for cannabidiol) because this component of marijuana has little, if any, intoxicating properties. Marijuana itself has more than 100 active components. THC (which stands for tetrahydrocannabinol) is the chemical that causes the "high" that goes along with marijuana consumption. CBD-dominant strains have little or no THC, so patients report very little if any alteration in consciousness.

Patients do, however, report many benefits of CBD, from relieving insomnia, anxiety, spasticity, and pain to treating potentially life-threatening conditions such as epilepsy. One particular form of childhood epilepsy called Dravet syndrome is almost impossible to control but responds dramatically to a CBD-dominant strain of marijuana called Charlotte's Web. The videos of this are dramatic.

Uses of medical marijuana

The most common use for medical marijuana in the United States is for pain control. While marijuana isn't strong enough for severe pain (for example, post-surgical pain or a broken bone), it is quite effective for the chronic pain that plagues millions of Americans, especially as they age. Part of its allure is that it is clearly safer than opiates (it is impossible to overdose on and far less addictive) and it can take the place of NSAIDs such as Advil or Aleve, if people can't take them due to problems with their kidneys or ulcers or GERD.

In particular, marijuana appears to ease the pain of multiple sclerosis, and nerve pain in general. This is an area where few other options exist, and those that do, such as Neurontin, Lyrica, or opiates are highly sedating. Patients claim that marijuana allows them to resume their previous activities without feeling completely out of it and disengaged.

Along these lines, marijuana is said to be a fantastic muscle relaxant, and people swear by its ability to lessen tremors in Parkinson's disease. I have also heard of its use quite successfully for fibromyalgia, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, and most other conditions where the final common pathway is chronic pain.

Marijuana is also used to manage nausea and weight loss and can be used to treat glaucoma. A highly promising area of research is its use for PTSD in veterans who are returning from combat zones. Many veterans and their therapists report drastic improvement and clamor for more studies, and for a loosening of governmental restrictions on its study. Medical marijuana is also reported to help patients suffering from pain and wasting syndrome associated with HIV, as well as irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn's disease.

This is not intended to be an inclusive list, but rather to give a brief survey of the types of conditions for which medical marijuana can provide relief. As with all remedies, claims of effectiveness should be critically evaluated and treated with caution.

Talking with your doctor

Many patients find themselves in the situation of wanting to learn more about medical marijuana, but feel embarrassed to bring this up with their doctor. This is in part because the medical community has been, as a whole, overly dismissive of this issue. Doctors are now playing catch-up and trying to keep ahead of their patients' knowledge on this issue. Other patients are already using medical marijuana, but don't know how to tell their doctors about this for fear of being chided or criticized.

My advice for patients is to be entirely open and honest with your physicians and to have high expectations of them. Tell them that you consider this to be part of your care and that you expect them to be educated about it, and to be able to at least point you in the direction of the information you need.

My advice for doctors is that whether you are pro, neutral, or against medical marijuana, patients are embracing it, and although we don't have rigorous studies and "gold standard" proof of the benefits and risks of medical marijuana, we need to learn about it, be open-minded, and above all, be non-judgmental. Otherwise, our patients will seek out other, less reliable sources of information; they will continue to use it, they just won't tell us, and there will be that much less trust and strength in our doctor-patient relationship. I often hear complaints from other doctors that there isn't adequate evidence to recommend medical marijuana, but there is even less scientific evidence for sticking our heads in the sand.

Image: robotboot/Getty Images

About the Author

Peter Grinspoon, MD, Contributor

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https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/mexicos-long-war-drugs-crime-and-cartels
The cartel in mexico are a big threat to the country, basically running the country with no government control and only violence and drugs. The country has seen more than 360,000 homicides since 2006, when the government declared war on the cartels. The USA partnered with Mexico in funding them with money to up their security against the cartel. But that isn’t enough to stop horrible violence and drugs in Mexico.

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Introduction

Mexican authorities have been waging a deadly battle against drug cartels for more than a decade, but with limited success. Thousands of Mexicans-including politicians, students, and journalists-die in the conflict every year. The country has seen more than 360,000 homicides since 2006, when the government declared war on the cartels.

The United States has partnered closely with its southern neighbor in this fight, providing Mexico with billions of dollars to modernize its security forces, reform its judicial system, and fund development projects aimed at curbing migration at Mexico's southern border. Washington has also sought to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States by bolstering security and monitoring operations along its border with Mexico.

What drugs do the cartels traffic?

Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs)-sometimes referred to as transnational criminal organizations-dominate the import and distribution of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine in the United States. Mexican suppliers are responsible for most heroin and methamphetamine production, while cocaine is largely produced in Colombia and then transported to the United States by Mexican criminal organizations. Mexico, along with China, is also a leading source of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to fifty times more potent than heroin. The amount of fentanyl seized by Mexican authorities nearly quintupled between 2019 and 2020.

The amount of fentanyl seized by Mexican authorities nearly quintupled between 2019 and 2020.

At the same time, the cartels smuggle vast quantities of marijuana into the United States, even though some U.S. jurisdictions have legalized it. Conversely, California's booming cannabis industry has prompted traffickers to smuggle U.S.-grown marijuana across the border to Mexico, where lawmakers have yet to fully legalize the drug.

Which are the largest cartels?

Mexico's drug cartels are in a constant state of flux. Over the decades, they have grown, splintered, forged new alliances, and battled one another for territory. The cartels that pose the most significant drug trafficking threats [PDF] to the United States, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), are:

Sinaloa Cartel. Formerly led by Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, Sinaloa is one of Mexico's oldest and most influential drug trafficking groups. With strongholds in nearly half of Mexico's states-particularly those along the Pacific coast in the northwest and near the country's southern and northern borders-and operations in as many as fifty countries, it has a larger international footprint than any of its Mexican rivals. In 2017, Mexican authorities extradited Guzmán to the United States, where he is serving a life sentence for multiple drug-related charges. In 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden imposed sanctions on eight members of the group, which is now led by Ismael Zambada García and El Chapo's sons, known as "Los Chapitos."

Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Jalisco splintered from Sinaloa in 2010 and is among Mexico's fastest-growing cartels, with operations in more than two-thirds of the country. According to the DEA, the "rapid expansion of its drug trafficking activities is characterized by the group's willingness to engage in violent confrontations" with authorities and rival cartels. U.S. officials estimate that CJNG supplies more than one-third of the U.S. drug market.

Beltrán-Leyva Organization (BLO). The group formed when the Beltrán-Leyva brothers split from Sinaloa in 2008. Since then, all four brothers have been arrested or killed, but their loyalists continue to operate throughout Mexico. The organization's splinter groups have become more autonomous and powerful, maintaining ties to Jalisco, Juárez, and Los Zetas.

Los Zetas. Originally a paramilitary enforcement arm for the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas was singled out by the DEA in 2007 as the country's most " technologically advanced, sophisticated, and violent " group of its kind. It splintered from the Gulf Cartel in 2010 and held sway over swaths of eastern, central, and southern Mexico. However, it has lost power in recent years and fractured into rival wings, the most prominent being the Northeast Cartel.

Guerreros Unidos (GU). Based in southwestern Mexico, Guerreros Unidos (United Warriors) broke away from the BLO in 2009 and became involved in the heroin trade. The group is known to have a partnership with the CJNG, using the same transportation networks to move drug shipments to and from the United States.

Gulf Cartel. Its base of power is in northeast Mexico, especially the states of Tamaulipas and Zacatecas, and it is thought to be working with CJNG members in those areas. In the past decade, the group has splintered into various factions, diluting its strength as it battles for territory with Los Zetas. In 2021, three warring Gulf factions announced they had reached a truce, insisting that they wanted to maintain peace in Tamaulipas.

Juárez Cartel. A long-standing rival of Sinaloa, Juárez has its stronghold in the north-central state of Chihuahua, across the border from New Mexico and Texas. In recent years, the group has splintered into several factions, including La Línea, which controls street-level enforcement.

La Familia Michoacána (LFM). Formed in the 1980s, LFM has its base in western Mexico's Michoacán State. In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama designated the group's members as " significant foreign narcotics traffickers " and imposed financial sanctions on it under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. While still active, LFM has weakened and fragmented in recent years.

Los Rojos. Another splinter group of the BLO, Los Rojos operates in central and southwestern Mexico and relies largely on kidnapping and extortion. Although several of its leaders were arrested between 2019 and 2020, the group remains active, and along with Guerreros Unidos, has been linked to the 2014 disappearance and murder of forty-three students from a university in Guerrero State.

What led to the cartels' growth?

Experts point to both domestic and international forces. In Mexico, the cartels use a portion of their vast profits to pay off judges, officers, and politicians. They also coerce officials into cooperating; assassinations of journalists and public servants by the cartels are relatively common. Dozens of politicians were killed ahead of the country's midterm elections in 2021, with many of the deaths attributed to the cartels.

The cartels flourished during the seven decades that Mexico was ruled by a single party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). Within this centralized political structure, drug trafficking groups cultivated a wide network of corrupt officials through which they were able to gain distribution rights, market access, and protection.

The PRI's unbroken reign finally ended in 2000 with the election of President Vicente Fox of the conservative National Action Party (PAN). With new politicians in power, cartels ramped up violence against the government in an effort to reestablish their hold [PDF] on the state.

Cartels use a portion of their vast profits to pay off judges, officers, and politicians.

At the international level, Mexican cartels began to take on a much larger role in the late 1980s, after U.S. government agencies broke up Caribbean networks used by Colombian cartels to smuggle cocaine. Mexican gangs eventually shifted from being couriers for Colombian criminal organizations, including the infamous Cali and Medellín cartels, to being wholesalers. By 2007, Mexican cartels controlled an estimated 90 percent [PDF] of the cocaine entering the United States.

The U.S. government, despite waging a "war on drugs" and conducting other counternarcotics efforts abroad, has made little progress in reducing demand. In 2017, Americans spent $153 billion [PDF] on illegal drugs, including cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine. The growing use of synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, has contributed to a public health crisis.

How are drugs smuggled into the United States?

Most of the illicit drugs entering the United States that are seized by authorities are discovered at official ports of entry, of which there are more than three hundred.

Traffickers employ various tactics to evade detection by U.S. authorities at the border. These include hiding or disguising drugs in vehicles or maritime vessels, smuggling them into the United States through underground tunnels, and flying them over border barriers using drones or other aircraft. After Mexican traffickers smuggle wholesale shipments of drugs into the United States, local groups and street gangs manage retail-level distribution in cities throughout the country.

What measures has Mexico taken to stem the drug trade?

Recent Mexican administrations have responded to cartels primarily by deploying security forces, often spurring more violence:

Felipe Calderón (2006-2012). President Calderón declared war on the cartels shortly after taking office. Over the course of his six-year term, he deployed tens of thousands of military personnel to supplement and, in many cases, replace local police forces he viewed as corrupt. With U.S. assistance, the Mexican military captured or killed twenty-five of the top thirty-seven drug kingpins in Mexico. The militarized crackdown was a centerpiece of Calderón's tenure.

However, some critics say Calderón's decapitation strategy created dozens of smaller, more violent drug gangs. Many also argue that Mexico's military is ill-prepared to perform police functions. The government registered more than 120,000 homicides [PDF] over the course of Calderón's term, nearly twice as many as during his predecessor's time in office. ( Experts estimate that between one-third and one-half of the homicides in Mexico are linked to cartels.)

Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018). Calderón's successor said he would focus more on reducing violence against civilians and businesses than on removing the leaders of cartels. Still, President Peña Nieto relied heavily [PDF] on the military, in combination with the federal police, to battle the cartels. He also created a new national police force, or gendarmerie, of several thousand officers.

Homicides declined in the first years of Peña Nieto's presidency. But 2015 saw an uptick, and by the end of his term, the number of homicides had risen to the highest level in modern Mexican history. Experts attribute this to the continued fallout from the kingpin strategy, territorial feuds, and cartel fragmentation.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-present). Shortly after taking office, President López Obrador, also known as AMLO, announced that his government would move away from militarized attempts to apprehend cartel leaders and instead focus on improving regional security cooperation and reducing homicide rates. His " hugs not bullets " approach seeks to address the socioeconomic drivers of organized crime by creating job opportunities. Since 2018, his administration has launched an anticorruption drive and disrupted cartel finances; it has also proposed decriminalizing all illegal drugs and offering amnesty to low-level cartel members.

Though AMLO has framed his strategy as a novel approach, some experts say his actions-including deploying a new military-led national guard to boost security-echo his predecessors' tactics and are unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the homicide rate continues to hover around record levels.

What has been the toll on human rights?

Civil liberties groups, journalists, and foreign officials have criticized the Mexican government's war with the cartels for years, accusing the military, police, and cartels of widespread human rights violations, including torture, extrajudicial killings, and forced disappearances. More than seventy-nine thousand people have disappeared since 2006, primarily at the hands of criminal organizations such as the cartels, though government forces also play a role. Local search efforts to find the missing and prosecute those responsible have often been stymied by cartel-related violence, government incompetence and corruption, and other factors.

One of the most chilling examples of these abuses occurred in the southern state of Guerrero in 2014, when forty-three student protesters were abducted and presumably killed, though remains of only three students have been definitively identified. The incident prompted mass demonstrations, with protesters demanding answers about the abductions and expressing their exhaustion with Mexico's endemic corruption, violence, and other crime. Investigations into the students' disappearances have purportedly found evidence that authorities, including the police and military, conspired with cartel members in the crimes; the government launched a new inquiry after the students' families, human rights groups, and independent experts questioned the handling of the previous investigation. In August 2022, a judge ordered the former attorney general who oversaw the original investigation to stand trial on charges of forced disappearance, failure to report torture, and misconduct.

In recent years, vigilante groups known as autodefensas have sought to fill in where security forces have failed to protect communities from criminal groups. They have become a formidable force against the cartels in states including Guerrero and Michoacán. However, some vigilantes have committed rights abuses, including the recruitment of child fighters; allegedly maintained ties to cartels in exchange for weapons and protection; and even turned to organized crime themselves.

What assistance has the U.S. government provided?

The United States has cooperated with Mexico on security and counternarcotics to varying degrees over the past several decades. Recent efforts have centered on the Mérida Initiative; since Presidents George W. Bush and Calderón launched the partnership [PDF] in 2007, the United States has appropriated more than $3 billion for it. This assistance has gone toward purchases of military aircraft, surveillance software, and other equipment.

The initiative has evolved to reflect the priorities of national leaders. The Bush administration focused heavily on providing Mexico with security-related assistance, including counternarcotics and counterterrorism support. President Obama widened the scope of aid to target fundamental reforms to Mexico's justice system and to develop crime-prevention programs at the community level, among other efforts, in what became known as "Mérida 2.0" [PDF].

President Donald Trump shifted U.S. priorities for Mérida to issues including border security and combating drug production and money laundering. In a highly controversial move in February 2019, Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border and ordered the deployment of thousands of active-duty military troops there, citing an influx of illicit drugs, criminals, and undocumented immigrants. Mexico later deployed twenty-five thousand National Guard members to secure its borders, which some experts say increased violence and diminished the country's cartel-fighting capacity.

The U.S.-Mexico relationship took a major hit in October 2020, when U.S. authorities arrested General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, a former Mexican defense minister, in Los Angeles for drug trafficking and money laundering. Though the United States later dropped the charges and allowed Cienfuegos to return to Mexico, the Mexican government responded by restricting U.S. law enforcement agents' power to operate in the country.

President Biden inherited a tense security relationship with Mexico, with bilateral cooperation focused mostly on migration, COVID-19, and trade. In October 2021, Presidents Biden and López Obrador announced the creation of a bilateral framework to replace the Mérida Initiative that will seek to address both insecurity in Mexico and the opioid crisis in the United States. But just six months later, the AMLO administration drew outcry from U.S. officials by disbanding a DEA-trained anti-narcotics force that had worked closely with U.S. law enforcement for decades.

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Mexico's Long War: Drugs, Crime, and the Cartels

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Violence continues to rage more than a decade after the Mexican government launched a war against drug cartels.

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On November 5, 2021, a fatal crowd crush occurred during the first night of the 2021 Astroworld Festival, a music event founded by American rapper Travis Scott that was held at NRG Park in Houston, Texas. Eight people died on the night of the concert, and two more died in the hospital over the following days. After the incident Travis Scott went on to post a apology video and was giving free therapy session for 2 weeks for the family hurt by this cause.

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Superb Chelsea into Champions League last eight - reaction

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On Tuesday, March 7th Chelsea and B Dortmund played the champions league round of 16 match. The game was concluded with a score of 2-0 and overall aggregate of 2-1 respectively. With all the pressure of the tournament both teams played outstanding and deserve the credit. Moreover, with Chelsea now passing on to the quarter finals, we hope to see some exciting results.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-64811310

there’s an exodus happing in cuba, meaning tons of people are leaving and arriving to the  U.S but are leaving there children, these parents hope to get U.S citizenship but they work to provide for themself and children they can’t not be with. this article continues to talk about the loss these kids feel and the hardships they now have to face without their parents.

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The exploitation of Africa's resources and the murders of African leaders who tried to change it is a long-standing issue with deep roots in colonialism and neocolonialism. Many African leaders who attempted to nationalize their country's resources and reduce foreign influence were assassinated or overthrown in coups orchestrated by foreign governments and corporations. This continues to be a major challenge for African countries today, as they try to balance economic development with environmental sustainability and political stability.

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(CNN) Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo is blessed with enormous natural wealth, including vast deposits of precious minerals such as diamonds, gold, and tantalum.

Katanga saw a spectacular mining boom around the turn of the century, when President Laurent-Desire Kabila and then his son Joseph licensed international mining companies to tap its treasures.

This arrangement generated riches for the Congolese elite, and vastly more for the prospectors, but offered little to the poverty-ravaged population. From 1999 to 2002, the Kabila regime "transferred ownership of at least $5 billion of assets from the state-mining sector to private companies under its control... with no compensation or benefit for the State treasury," a United Nations investigation found.

The bonanza coincided with a ruthless crackdown on dissent. In 2004, a small, mostly civilian group took over a mine operated by the Australian firm Anvil Mining in Kilwa village, protesting that the company was making huge profits without rewarding the local workforce.

According to a UN report, the Congolese army crushed the uprising and killed around 100 people, many by summary execution.

Modern colonialism

The combination of staggering wealth, rampant violence, and abject poverty in DR Congo is no coincidence, but part of a pattern causing devastation across Africa, according to Financial Times investigative journalist Tom Burgis.

In a new edition of his book The Looting Machine, the author probes the paradox of "the continent that is at once the world's poorest and, arguably, its richest."

Burgis, a former correspondent in Lagos and Johannesburg, finds a wide variety of kleptocrats and rackets over his travels through dozens of resource-rich countries. But a common thread is that the wholesale expropriation of resources during colonial times has barely slowed through the post-independence era, albeit with new beneficiaries.

"Western governments are not supposed to wield commercial and political power at the same time, and certainly not to use one to benefit the other," says Burgis. "In colonial states...The British or Portugese would cultivate a small group of local people who would fuse political and commercial power to control the economy."

"When the foreign power leaves, you are left with an elite that has no division between political and commercial power. The only source of wealth is mines or oilfields, and that is a recipe for ultra-corrupt states. Somewhere like Nigeria, an 'extractor elite'...wanted to draw to itself the rent that oil and mining resources generate."

Burgis cites another colonial hangover in the continued presence and power of oil and mining firms.

"The multinational companies hold enormous economic and political power in post-independence African countries," he says. "In this way, there is a pretty straight line from colonial exploitation to modern exploitation."

Fueling oppression

The ability of governments to rely on resource revenue leads to corruption and oppression, Burgis argues, as they are not accountable to their people through a social contract based on taxation and representation.

He cites Angola, which earns almost half of its GDP from oil, as an example of government as "a service for the elite." A 2011 IMF audit revealed that $32 billion disappeared from official accounts between 2007 and 2010, a quarter of the state's income.

The Angolan elite rejects accountability and does not tolerate any challenge from the public, Burgis adds, recalling the recent case of activists being jailed for a public reading of a pro-democracy book.

"Government can behave that way if it doesn't need the consent of its people," the author says.

Angola has taken steps to address such criticism in recent years, with the 2012 election deemed "generally free and fair" by neutral observers. But human rights groups attest that oppression remains a fact of life.

Secret deals

The growth of offshore banking in the late 20th century created new opportunities for resource tycoons to cover their tracks, a practice laid bare in the Panama Papers.

Israeli businessman Dan Gertler was an early pioneer. After forging a close friendship with DR Congo President Joseph Kabila, he was granted a near monopoly on exporting the nation's diamonds, and quickly became a billionaire. Gertler routed the cash through an elaborate network of offshore accounts in tax havens, keeping the details of controversial deals secret.

"In the case of African resource deals, offshore funds have been shown to conceal questionable transactions," says Burgis. "In the 1980s, bribes were literally cars full of cash and you handed the key to the official you were trying to bribe."

"Bribery now is much more sophisticated, and has become harder to define as bribery if it's (through) offshore transactions or people being given equity shares in offshore companies...You have to crack open a lot of offshore secrecy to see the conflict of interest that lies at the heart of them."

The era of global finance has opened African markets to a new generation of mysterious traders. Burgis spent years on the trail of elusive Chinese businessman Sam Pa, who has cycled through multiple aliases while making deals across the continent from Angolan oil to Zimbabwean diamonds. Pa is believed to lead the secretive Queensway investor group, and Burgis claims he has represented the Chinese state, although the government denies this.

Breaking the chain

Burgis is skeptical that resource industries can ever be reformed.

"There is a troubling possibility that it's not possible to put natural resources in these countries to work for the common good," says Burgess. "(Almost) everywhere that receives a significant share of its income from oil or mining is badly run and often violent -- it's in the nature of these industries to cause these problems."

Botswana and South Africa have befitted from moving up the value chain -- developing high-skilled industries from natural resources rather than just exporting raw materials, such as diamond polishing or manufacturing metallic goods. Burgis believes that diversifying economies away from a single resource -- as President Buhari's government in Nigeria is attempting to do -- can mitigate the effects of dependency.

He suggests another option is to keep resources in the country and implement high tariffs to protect domestic industries, but African leaders have been reluctant to adopt such measures.

"We have a world trading architecture with strict rules on imposing tariffs," says Burgis. "African countries have adopted the market orthodoxy that led them to pare down states and embrace global economic competition -- in which they are overwhelmingly the losers."

Collective complicity

Responsibility for the plight of resource-dependent nations goes beyond traders and dictators. The global economy still requires a huge supply of raw materials that originate in Africa, creating an imperative to maintain the existing, destructive model.

Burgis applauds steps such as the Kimberley Process for preventing 'blood diamond' trade, but feels that developed nations could go much further.

"The lesson for those in the West who want to address the damage from oil and mining industries, and the corruption that goes with them, is 'put your own house in order,'" he says. "There has been a tendency to lecture African rulers (but) the problems are in the world financial system."

The author suggests a global public registry of companies and trusts to counter the use of shell companies in illicit deals.

"That financial secrecy is available is not Africa's fault," says Burgis. "Address the part that sits within the global system, which can be regulated from Western capitals."

The nature of the global supply chain means that complicity with the crimes around resource extraction extends from African dictators all the way to a European mobile phone buyer.

At every level, delusion is a powerful barrier to change. Burgis recalls a meeting with a leading figure of Angola's kleptocratic regime, who argued passionately that he was protecting his people from even worse abuses.

"It's human nature," says Burgis. "Nobody thinks they are the bad guy."

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Why the richest continent is the poorest

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(CNN) Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo is blessed with enormous natural wealth, including vast deposits of precious minerals such as diamonds, gold, and tantalum. Katanga saw a spectacular mining boom around the turn of the century, when President Laurent-Desire Kabila and then his son Joseph licensed international mining companies to tap its treasures.

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The celebrity GoRilla, in her concert two fans died, so she feel so sad with heartbroken after that. That tragedy is bad for the families of the people who died and some people are injured too. Police did good job.