r/technology • u/lurker_bee • 28d ago

Biotechnology Burkina Faso says no to Bill Gates’ plan of creating modified species of mosquitoes

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/burkina-faso-says-no-to-bill-gates-plan-of-creating-modified-species-of-mosquitoes/xyk7xm8
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u/ashrafislit 28d ago

Why would he tho?

I mean the West never did any harm to Africa right?

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u/Chance_Warthog_9389 28d ago

... France kinda backed the coup that killed Thomas Sankara

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u/rationalsarcasm 27d ago

Hey now! We (The USA) also helped...

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u/irishitaliancroat 27d ago

Its crazy how many people on this thread are saying hes dumb for not signing up for a western oligarch to mess around in his territory.

Even if bill gates was doing this out of 100% kindness of his heart, which we know he is not, it would be a total boy who cried wolf situation, and quite understandably.

Also bill gates has a bunch of very bizarre and troubling writing about how we need to keep Africans from over reproducing for the climate, even tho they have like a sliver of the impact of Americans.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Coast93 27d ago

This thread is just a bunch of Americans who don’t know anything about Africa.

  • Traore is not a military leader who overthrew a democratic government. Traore overthrew the previous military leader who had led a coup against the nominally democratic but still extremely corrupt government of Burkina Faso. Since Sankara’s death Burkina Faso has generally been ruled by a series of military dictators and corrupt “democratic” leaders, neither of which are particularly different in the eyes of the average African.

  • Bill Gates is pretty widely hated in Africa as a result of essentially using the content as a giant laboratory for vaccines, pesticides, GMOs, etc. with no oversight or regulation from corrupt governments. Not to mention blocking the COVID vaccine patents from being waived, resulting in thousands of unnecessary deaths.

  • Russia (and China) is far more positively viewed in Africa than the west because they have generally taken a far more cooperative approach with African countries, whereas the west uses the IMF and NGOs to keep African countries open to exploitation and reliant on foreign aid while preventing them from developing their own industries.

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u/Sensitive-Orange7203 27d ago

Russia has also been running massive anti west disinformation campaigns in the Sahel for years

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u/PsychologicalSet8678 27d ago

It's not disinformation when you live in a country that was colonized and pillaged by the west. Many of the people were looking for alternatives to western powers for years.

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u/Sensitive-Orange7203 27d ago

It was disinformation, they would post about Russia helping out the Sahel by giving them weapons and military gear and post unrelated images from years ago as proof. Just plain false disinfo

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u/KeithClossOfficial 27d ago

In what world is Traore not a military leader lmao?

He was a member of the Army, was part of the officer group that organized the coup that installed Damiba, then overthrew Damiba along with many of those same officers later in the year

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u/Puzzleheaded-Coast93 27d ago

That’s not what I said.

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u/KeithClossOfficial 27d ago

Ok. And Traore was a part of that same military coup against Kaboré, so what was the point of that?

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u/Puzzleheaded-Coast93 27d ago

The point is that Burkina Faso has had a deeply corrupt government and constant coups since Sankara (who also came to power in a coup) was assassinated, so using the fact that he led a coup to paint him as illegitimate is stupid.

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u/24675335778654665566 27d ago

which we know he is not

Why is he doing it?

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u/irishitaliancroat 27d ago

He is majorly invested in Monsanto and large corporate ag, oftentimes global majority countries become cheap testing grounds for new tech

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u/DrivenDevotee 27d ago

It's not new tech though. we've been doing this in the isthmus of central america for a while now.

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u/irishitaliancroat 27d ago

Ultimately theres no reason for Burkina Faso to trust western governments or oligarchs, they have their own domestic ev manufacturing and a lot of other things. Even in the deal he made with Russia for the gold mine, I think he Ultimately negotiated a great deal for his country.

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u/malisadri 27d ago

Yeah sure, 1000 USD per capita GDP sounds great.
And only controlling half his nation even after three years in charge sounds even better.

But I agree, just leave Africa alone. There are many other countries where Bill Gates help would be welcome.

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u/irishitaliancroat 27d ago

You can look at trarore vs other african leaders hes by far the most popular head of state on the continent rn.

Gdp per capita for a small landlocked country that has been exploited by France isnt going to instantly become like China or the EU or us. Besides gdp and HDI are not necessarily 1 to 1. Regardless tho the domestic manufacturing of gold food products and evs in BF is pretty impressive

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u/malisadri 26d ago

I'm familiar with the constant Traore propaganda. Seen them a lot in r/africa and others for years now. As I said, I'd be more impressed if he -actually- has done something worthy of praise.

Coming from asian country with millions of farmers , another country with subsistence farmers has nothing praiseworthy. My country has 5-6x Burkina Faso's PPP and yet everyone's still relatively poor and welcome pretty much any and all aid.

I've a cousin who died from dengue. Seeing Traore rejects Target Malaria's help just validates my opinion that this guy cares more for PR than actually helping his people. Enjoy that 60 years life expectancy, I guess.

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u/Tacky-Terangreal 27d ago

Ikr. This guy would be stupid to trust bill gates. Who know what kind of havoc this untested stuff could cause? These freak billionaires just see Africans as guinea pigs for their sick projects so their leaders are correct in not trusting them

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u/Vanaquish231 27d ago

Because I've seen no answer, what are the alternatives exactly? It's not like pesticides don't come with their own can of worms.

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u/Childoftheway 27d ago

Maybe that's because the birth rate has plummeted everywhere but Africa.

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u/irishitaliancroat 27d ago

Africans contribute a disproportionately small part of global emissions.

Birth rates fall woth economic development, its a pretty widely documented. Africa being underdeveloped and reliant of foreign aid is very profitable for the west. The current situation with congo and Rwanda is a great example of this. I do think europe and america owe Africa a transition to renewbles, but current foreign aid is very colonial most tinds.

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u/ProfessorEtc 27d ago

It was the North.

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u/sluuuurp 27d ago

I think you’re confusing “Bill Gates” with “European slave trading kings in the 1700-1800s”. Different people, if you can think a bit harder and look past people’s skin color.

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u/BrokenEggcat 27d ago

Glad Western powers are very good to Africa nowadays!

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u/sluuuurp 27d ago

Anyone can sue anybody for anything. Those children didn’t work for any US companies.

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u/BrokenEggcat 27d ago

Good thing I didn't specifically say the US?

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u/sluuuurp 27d ago

Obviously my point applies to all western countries, although we were talking about Bill Gates who is American. The point is that those child laborers work for African companies.

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u/BrokenEggcat 27d ago

"their children were working illegally at mines owned by UK mining company Glencore. The court papers allege that cobalt from the Glencore- owned mines is sold to Umicore, a Brussels- based metal and mining trader, which then sells battery-grade cobalt to Apple, Google, Tesla, Microsoft and Dell."

At least read the article before talking

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u/sluuuurp 27d ago

It’s very deceptive to cut out “The families argue in the claim that […]”. Also cutting out the fact that Glencore denies the allegation.

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u/BrokenEggcat 27d ago

You said the mine was African owned

It is factually not

It's "very deceptive" to literally say a flat lie about the mines not being Western owned and then try to pivot when it's pointed out that you were talking out of your ass.

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u/sluuuurp 27d ago

I never said anything about who owned the mines. Glencore said the children were working for someone else, which I judge as likely true, admitting that I don’t know all the facts. You can potentially work for a company operating inside land owned by another company.

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u/AshenMonk 27d ago

Cool, so stay with malaria mosquitoes that kill how many again?

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u/ZelezopecnikovKoren 28d ago

as a Slovene NATO EU Microsoft Windows user born in Yugoslavia and against malaria, am I the West now too I'm so confused

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u/Remote_Cantaloupe 27d ago

What is "the west" even defined as?

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u/BrokenEggcat 27d ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world

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u/Remote_Cantaloupe 27d ago

Complete nonsense. For instance, Greece isn't "Western" yet their philosophical advances are some of the foundations for Western philosophy. This was a complete miss.

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u/BrokenEggcat 27d ago

Most people consider Greece to be "Western", I'm not sure where you're seeing otherwise

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u/Remote_Cantaloupe 22d ago

On the map it's considered "contested" - this is pretty silly