Navy crew teaches skills to Equatorial Guineans

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Navy crew teaches skills to Equatorial Guineans
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The world should take notice of up-and-coming Equatorial Guinea, a West African nation that has made huge developmental strides and partnered with the U.S. Navy to better its security, U.S. officials said.

"The country really has utilized its revenue from oil and gas to help benefit its development in ways that are not being recognized," Anton Smith, the U.S. charge d’affaires, said in a telephone interview Friday as he sailed aboard the frigate USS Robert G. Bradley in the Gulf of Guinea.

On Thursday, the Bradley became the first U.S. Navy ship to anchor off the mainland city of Bata as part of the Navy’s Africa Partnership Station initiative.

Equatorial Guinea’s government has pumped oil revenue into building up hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, electrical grids, sidewalks, ports and airports — improvements "across the board," Smith said.

Private U.S. companies have invested more than $15 billion in the gas and oil sector of the nation roughly the size of Maryland, Smith said.


Rest of Africom article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60125