Geography Archives: Africa

  Whatever your point of view, it would be difficult to deny that the referendum on South Sudan — unity or independence — was a historic moment.  Self‐determination marks the founding of a new political order. Nationalists may try to convince us that the outcome of the referendum, independence, is the natural destiny of the […]

I’ll be talking about the relationship between food and the uprisings.  I call them uprisings, I don’t call them revolutions, for a multitude of reasons that I will address. . . .  One of the most common assertions is that these uprisings were triggered, at least partly, by high food prices.  I would like to […]

  Occupied Palestine, 4 May 2011 — In commemoration of the first of May — a day of workers’ struggle and international solidarity — the first Palestinian trade union conference for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel (BDS) was held in Ramallah on 30 April 2011, organized by almost the entirety of the Palestinian trade […]

Statement of Cuban Ambassador Rodolfo Reyes, at the Special Session of the Human Rights Council, on the human rights situation in Syria, Geneva, 29 April 2011 Mr. President: Cuba condemns the hypocrisy and double standards on which the convocation of this special session is based.  Human rights are not its genuine motive.  The motive is […]

Norman Gottwald belongs to a rare breed — an American Marxist biblical scholar.  More than one jarring juxtaposition in that epithet!  Unfortunately, he is less well known outside the relative small circle of biblical scholars than he should be.  In order to introduce him to a wider audience, let me say a little about his […]

You may agree or not with Gaddafi’s political ideas, but no one has the right to question the existence of Libya as an independent state and member of the United Nations. The world has not yet reached the point which, in my view, is an essential condition for the survival of our human species: access by all the peoples to the material resources of this planet. There is no other in the Solar System that we know that has the most elemental conditions for life.

  Firing for Media Effect: Setting the “African” Agenda “We left behind our friends from Chad.  We left behind their bodies.  We had 70 or 80 people from Chad working for our company.  They cut them dead with pruning shears and axes, attacking them, saying you’re providing troops for Gadhafi.  The Sudanese, the Chadians were […]

The notion that Asian Americans are model minorities originated in the 1960s, mainly in reference to the socioeconomic gains of Japanese and Chinese Americans in particular.  It did not take long, however, for that very idea to be applied to Asian Americans as a whole, especially as it continues to be perpetuated by the mainstream […]

Executive Summary: This paper is the third installment in a series (the first and second editions were in 2001 and 2005) that traces a long-term growth failure in most of the world’s countries.  For the vast majority of the world’s low- and middle-income countries, there was a sharp slowdown in economic growth for the two […]

COSATU Mpumalanga memorandum directed to King Mswati III delivered during the protest march held on 12 April 2011 at the Oshoek border gate 12 April 2011 His Majesty King Mswati III Today, the 12 April 2011 members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, together with the Alliance partners are gathered here at the […]

The South African Communist Party greets the people’s determination and their actions in the epoch of Swaziland’s revolutionary crisis. Our party supports the victory of Swazi popular forces as a victory that will place the political struggle in the region on a new advanced footing.  It will mark a sea of change and intensify the […]

  Roshan Muhammed Salih: Angered by the NATO bombing of Libya, this delegation made up of British academics, lawyers, and journalists set off from London’s Heathrow Airport on a peace mission to Tripoli.  Their intention is to emphasize that the Western intervention isn’t altruistic and has made the situation there worse. Dave Roberts: It’s really […]

Gilbert Achcar defends the recently “UN-authorized” imperialist intervention in Libya on the ground that general principles may require exceptions in concrete cases.  “Every general rule admits of exceptions.  This includes the general rule that UN-authorized military interventions by imperialist powers are purely reactionary ones, and can never achieve a humanitarian or positive purpose.”1  This kind […]

  A twenty-five person peace delegation made up of academics, lawyers, journalists and professionals will be departing for Libya on 9th April, to call for an immediate ceasefire in Libya and an end to all hostilities.  This is the first half of a two stage process that will involve reconciliation talks with tribal leaders, government […]

  Jon Stewart: Jon Stewart: Oh, people, we are now into our third week of a military bombing campaign in Libya, Operation Odyssey Dawn.  The operation cleverly named for the Odyssey, a 20-year harrowing journey through a hellscape where nearly everyone is killed.  Adding “dawn” . . . so it’s the earliest part of that […]

Paul Jay: The title of your upcoming book, Syria’s Democratic Experiment, first of all, what is the experiment?  And then talk a little about how we got there. Joshua Landis: Well, the book really deals with a period at the time of independence — 1946, ’45, ’46 — in Syria, when the French left and […]

This just in from Bloomberg: The West African nation’s 2032 bonds issued a year ago jumped 7.7 percent to 55.438 cents on the dollar, the highest since Dec. 2, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.  The debt has rallied 14 percent in the past two days after Gbagbo troops surrendered. . . .  The country’s […]

With respect to international law, in what ways does this intervention in Libya differ from those carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq? The intervention in Afghanistan, despite protestations to the contrary, was not authorized by the Security Council, whose relevant resolutions did not even mention Afghanistan, let alone authorize “all necessary means.”  That was because […]

Yesterday, for reasons of space and time, I didn’t say one word about the speech on the Libyan War given by Barack Obama on Monday the 28th. I had a copy of the official version, supplied to the press by the U.S. government. I had underlined some of the things that he asserted. I reviewed […]

You didn´t have to be clairvoyant to foresee what I wrote with great detail in three Reflection Articles I published on the CubaDebate website between February 21 and March 3: “The NATO Plan Is to Occupy Libya,” “The Cynical Danse Macabre,” and “NATO´s Inevitable War.” Not even the fascist leaders of Germany and Italy were […]