Today is Friday, March the 31st, 2023. Welcome to the Daily Article podcast. I'm Chris Elkins with the

Denison Forum, narrating today's article written by Dr. Ryan Denison. Note, last night, news broke that

former president Donald Trump has been indicted by a New York City jury.

We will respond to this news as more is known, but for more on the historic nature of the

charges and how Christians should respond, see Dr. Jim Denison's previous article on the subject.

A link to this article is in the episode notes of today's podcast.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been much of this week in Africa, attempting to forge

better relationships with key governments across the continent. She has announced that more

than $1 billion in funding for initiatives ranging from fighting against extremist groups like al-Qaeda,

to building up infrastructure, agriculture, and the economies of partner nations.

And though American officials are quick to state that their primary motivation for the new

policies is a genuine desire to help, China's uptick in involvement across Africa in recent years

has likely played an important role as well. As the dispatch notes, quote, while the U.S. financed

about $14 billion of projects in Africa from 2007 to 2020, comparable institutions in China financed a whopping $120 billion worth.

In addition, China's developmental bank lent more than twice as much for public private infrastructure

projects in sub-Saharan Africa as the U.S., Germany, Japan, and France combined."

The nature of that help also plays an important role in the relationship between African countries and the West.

As Umbhimba Dizolele, the director of the African program at the Center for Strategic and

International Studies notes, when the Chinese go to Africa, they talk about Africa's needs

and they try to bridge that gap.

By contrast, Western nations have often spent their time focusing on humanitarian aid

and promoting democracy. And while many have benefited

...