"Roots of violence lie in colonial past"

Roots of violence lie in colonial past
While immigrants from former colonies helped rebuild post-World War II France, many of their children and grandchildren are setting fire to its buildings and cars in what appears to be a blind explosion of rage - against the schools that failed them, the cars they can't afford to own, the government offices they say treat them like foreigners. The legacy of France's African colonies weighs heavily over the riots that first exploded in this decaying, largely immigrant suburb of Paris two weeks ago.

Riots are a class act - and often they're the only alternative
'If there is no struggle, there is no progress," said the African American abolitionist Frederick Douglass. "Those who profess to favour freedom and yet depreciate agitation are men who want crops without ploughing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters ... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."

With two Black children dead, is sentence fair?

French uprising demands change in society and political scalps
In 1991, after violent riots between youths and police scarred the suburbs of Lyon, French sociologist Alain Tourraine predicted that "it will only be a few years before we face the kind of massive urban explosion of the American experience".

Two deny black student's axe murder
Two men have pleaded not guilty to the murder of black teenager Anthony Walker. Paul Taylor and Michael Barton, aged 20 and 17, are accused of killing the 18-year-old A-level student by bludgeoning him with an axe in Huyton, Merseyside, in July.

Zim opposition dissidents expelled from party
Twenty-six members of Zimbabwe's beleaguered opposition party who refused to withdraw as candidates for this month's Senate elections have been expelled, a spokesperson said on Sunday in a move likely to lead to a final split in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Garang’s widow has doubts on his helicopter crash

Rwandan ex-minister pleads not guilty to genocide
A man who served as Rwanda's interior minister during the slaughter of more than half-a-million people in 1994 pleaded not guilty on Monday to three counts of genocide and crimes against humanity.

France Extends State of Emergency
The French government has approved a bill extending the country's state of emergency for three more months, despite signs riots that have swept the country are now subsiding.

2 Schools Ablaze As French Unrest Persists
France's national police chief said Sunday that the country's worst rioting since the 1960s seemed to be nearing an end, but violence persisted into the night, with at least two schools set on fire and dozens of cars torched.

ican heritage sites to go digital
Scientists in South Africa are digitizing Africa's rich cultural heritage sites to provide a virtual tour to those who cannot visit in person, while benefiting preservation of the sites.

Race and colonialism
Condoleezza Rice was perfectly right: she would not be Secretary of State today if tired Rosa Parks hadn't refused to give up her seat to a white man that December 1955 day in Montgomery, Alabama. What is always referred to nowadays as "that act of defiance" led to Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, and to the easing-though not, alas, the end-of racial discrimination in America.

Bush's latest scandals of leaks and torture are turning him into a modern McCarthy
WASHINGTON -- Whoever advised U.S. President George Bush to escape the storm of criticism over Hurricane Katrina, Iraq, and the Libby CIA case by flying to Argentina for a free trade summit should be sent to Guantanamo. Bush's venture was an embarrassing diplomatic failure and the most humiliating fiasco faced by a U.S. president in Latin America since Richard Nixon got mobbed in 1958. He was left looking confused, while his nemesis, Venezuela's boisterous merengue-marxist leader, Hugo Chavez, mocked him.

Africa needs own government, say leaders

White Phosphorous, Daisy Cutters, Depleted Uranium, Thermobaric bombs, Clusterbombs, Napalm...The US uses WMD against civilians.

EU and US battle for control of the internet

U.S.-led operation kills 37 insurgents in Iraq

One Year after Arafat, Peace Remains Elusive

The vice that dooms Bush
The president's allegiance to Dick Cheney consigns him to irrelevance and his country to chaos.

NAM recognizes Iran's right to civilian N-plan

Iran, Cuba review expansion of mutual relations, int'l developments

France and the Muslim myth

The American Body Politic Laid Low

The Rise of America's New Enemy

France Writhes, America Backslides