The final battle in the continent
Alex B. Hill, scoutbanana.blogspot.com/
February 10,2007

The noise will make all else inaudible, not even the whisper of, “here they come,” will be understood. The noise will be unbearable. TICK TOCK, time is running out to stop and realize the impending doom. CHING, money is flowing so fast and smoothly for anyone to truly care and take notice. RATTA-TATTA, RATTA-TATTA, anti-terrorism gunships will tear through the sky and open fire marking holes on the cratered dirt roads, the cargo shipments will crash and the cheap goods will burn as the bombs fall, KABOOM, refugees will run …

Contesting the Rhetoric and Reality of Resubordination in Southern Africa and Beyond - by John S. Saul
November 17, 2006

Discussion of the last chapter: Regrounding Resistance to the Empire of Capital

Introduction - The premise of this book is straightforward. As noted in an earlier book for Three Essays Collective, the world is a horribly unequal and exploitative place.(1) Capitalism, serving as the chief engine of empire, has been, in its global expansion outward from the North Atlantic, a - even the - key force in making it so. At the turn of the twentieth century, driving home the apparent logic of …

The other African genocide.
by James Kirchick, TNR Online
March 8, 2007

Less than ten miles from Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s mansion in Harare–the largest private residence on the African continent–Cleophus Masxigora digs for mice. On a good day, he told me, he can find 100 to 200. To capture the vermin, he burns brush to immobilize them, then kills them with several thumps of a shovel. This practice has become so widespread in Zimbabwe that, as a Zimbabwean journalist informed me, state-run television has broadcast warnings against citizens setting brush fires. Masxigora began hunting mice to support (and feed) his wife …

Zambia loses ‘vulture fund’ case
http://news.bbc.co.uk
February 15, 2007

A High Court judge has ruled that Zambia must pay a substantial sum to a so-called “vulture fund”.

British Virgin Islands-based Donegal International paid less than $4m (£2m) for a debt the African nation owed, but sued Zambia for a $42m repayment.

It said its bill was the result of interest and costs, but the judge has indicated that Zambia should pay less.

The ruling has angered anti-debt campaigners, who say it will undermine Zambia’s plans for poverty reduction.

The judge ruled against Zambia’s application to dismiss Donegal’s claim, but at the same time proposed to end …

By Firoze Manji
www.pambazuka.org
(2007-01-26)

The World Social Forum, which took place in Nairobi, Kenya for the first time in Africa, was supposed to be a forum for the voices of the grassroots. But Firoze Manji writes that, despite the diversity of voices at the event, not everyone was equally represented.

As one would expect, WSF was highly heterogeneous. There was a lot going on. At one level no one can deny the diversity of people from all parts of the world. WSF seemingly reflected the heterogeneity of civil society internationally: there were initiatives from grassroots women’s organisations, from feminists, social movements, …

We must realize that we are infected by a widely spreading virus which requires one shot to cure–that shot is our UNITY - By Obang Metho, January 27, 2007

What lessons have we Ethiopians learned in 2006? Perhaps more than we realize! I will start with myself.

As you all know, I, Obang Metho, am not a member of any political party. As I have said it many times, party membership is not my intention, neither is it the intention of our organization, the Anuak Justice Council. However, some people may wonder why the AJC speaks regularly about the political situation in …

Here’s a website where you can watch the WSF, currently taking place in Nairobi http://www.worldsocialforum.tv/ (January 20-25)

And, here’s another with regularly updated video material from this WSF and other events http://www.cs-tv.tv/

Wangari Maathai on World Social Forum
By Teresa Abeja + Agency, Jan 24, 2007
The seventh annual World Social Forum continues in Nairobi, Kenya. Delegates from both the developing and developed world are discussing the problems affecting the world poorest, from trade, poverty, to war, and the environment. The Forum is the first to be held on the African continent.

Kenyan Nobel Peace Prize winner and …

The audio on this page was part of a special 12-hour New Year’s Day broadcast on CKUT 90.3FM in Montreal. The shows combined are a look back at the resistance of local and global social justice movements in 2006, and a look ahead to the struggles to come in 2007.

In the audio player to the right you can listen to 16 of the 28 shows. If you want to listen to the rest, please head over to this page on the CKUT blog

Thanks to Jaggi for sending this out.

A …

From Desertification, to Migration, to Conflict
Fulgence Zamblé, www.ipsnews.net
January 4, 2007

TABOU — It has been three years since Brahima Ouédraogo, a small-scale farmer from Burkina Faso, arrived in a little village in the Tabou region of south-western Côte d`Ivoire with his family, in search of arable land.

Initially residents of Klotou gave the newcomers a warm welcome. But, this warmth has since died away; in fact, some would even like to see the Ouédraogo family leave.

“When you enter our forests, they are all being used by the immigrants with no concern for preservation of the environment,” says Marc Kallé, who lives …

By Richard Seymour. Rwanda’s Genocide and the Myth of Western Non-Intervention

The officially sanctioned gesture, when reminded of Rwanda, is to shake one’s head and say “Never Again”. What do you mean “Never Again”? The murder hasn’t stopped – it has slowed down and moved to another country. The murder of up to one million people in 100 days stands out and understandably rivets the attention to that horrendous period in April 1994. What is more, we have a confession from the Hutu leader Kambanda, currently being held in Mali, that there was a plan to exterminate the Tutsis, and that …