Saturday, July 31st
Nigerian State Resumes Polio Vaccinations
TAKAI, Nigeria (AP) - Health workers took a polio vaccination campaign Saturday to villages in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, ending a ban on inoculations that had caused a regional outbreak and threatened global eradication efforts. Nigeria's Kano state - where a recent epidemic of the crippling disease started and spread to 10 other African nations - allowed vaccinations to resume Saturday after an 11-month boycott. The ban was imposed after religious leaders alleged that foreign powers were spreading AIDS and infertility among Muslims with the vaccine. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
UK on 07.31.04 @ 04:29 PM CST [ link]
Sudan reluctantly accepts UN resolution on Darfur
KHARTOUM : The Sudanese government reluctantly accepted a UN Security Council resolution on its troubled Darfur region, reversing an earlier position, a minister said. "Although we don't like the resolution, we are already committed to the implementation of its measures on the basis of the agreement that was concluded with (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan," the minister of state for foreign affairs, Neguib al-Kheir Abdul Wahab, told AFP. Abul Wahab was referring to an agreement between the government and the United Nations earlier in July under which Sudan agreed to implement a series of measures regarding the war-torn region. Full Article : channelnewsasia.com
Africa on 07.31.04 @ 04:23 PM CST [ link]
A fight over a frontier town
The descendant of a free slave says researchers have distorted historyST. LOUIS - A black history scholar has accused an archaeological team of distorting racial history in its study of a once-promising Illinois frontier town. Walker, a great-great granddaughter of McWorter, said the archaeology team distorted that history — exaggerating the significance of New Philadelphia's "racial harmony" — in an effort to get federal funding for the dig. Full Article : chron.com
USA on 07.31.04 @ 04:17 PM CST [ link]
Explorers Search for Slave Shipwreck Off Florida
In a few weeks researchers will begin scouring the Florida seafloor for a 177-year-old shipwreck—and the resting place of dozens of slaves who drowned in chains. Despite its drama, the story of the Guerrero remains little-known. Full Article : nationalgeographic.com
Africa on 07.31.04 @ 03:04 PM CST [ link]
Mbeki's plan for land redistribution angers whites
The South African government is considering new regulations to limit foreign ownership of property in South Africa, in a move that would directly affect British investors. The proposed measures, which are still being worked out by the government, are an attempt to deal with soaring property prices caused by rich foreigners buying properties in South Africa, pushing local people out of the market. A large number of Britons, have bought homes in Cape Town, taking advantage of the strong pound against the South African rand. The main opposition Democratic Alliance yesterday attacked the proposed move on the ground that limiting foreign property ownership would discourage investment. Full Article : independent.co.uk
Africa on 07.31.04 @ 02:27 PM CST [ link]
More AU troops for Darfur
Accra - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current head of the African Union (AU), said on Friday that more African troops than planned should go to the strife-torn western Sudan region of Darfur. "I sent a fact-finding mission to Darfur and they came back just three days ago... (having) found a formal deterioration from when we met in Addis Ababa at the beginning of this month," Obasanjo said in the Ghanaian capital. Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.31.04 @ 10:27 AM CST [ link]
African leaders upbeat over Ivory Coast talks
Accra - Nigeria's leader was optimistic that advances would be made at Ivory Coast peace talks on Friday but there were few signs of a breakthrough to end a crisis which has split the West African nation in two. Representatives from all sides held informal meetings with some of the 12 African leaders in Ghana's capital Accra who are seeking ways to reunite the world's top cocoa grower and restore stability to the region. Full Article : iol.co.za
Africa on 07.31.04 @ 10:24 AM CST [ link]
Nations eye Africa's oil supply
JOHANNESBURG -- The world's growing demand for oil and the fears of supply interruption is expected to force the United States and other nations to increasingly rely on another volatile region -- central and western Africa Full Article : boston.com
Africa on 07.31.04 @ 10:16 AM CST [ link]
Friday, July 30th
Developing nations rally against subsidies at WTO
Delegates from developing countries are again raising the issue of farm subsidies at this week's World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Geneva. Mandisi Mpahlwa, the South African trade and industry minister, says there is still a large gap between farmers in the developed and developing countries. The subsidies enjoyed by farmers in the developed countries gives them an added advantage in competing for world markets. The minister says that he and other delegates from the developing countries are fighting the system at the WTO talks. Full Article : sabcnews.comWhy are African Nations still fighting this issue while these Western powers peddle the words Free Trade? It is obvious that Free Trade has nothing to do with Fair Trade, and is only about developing more markets for European/American products.
Africa on 07.30.04 @ 05:25 PM CST [ link]
'African Holocaust' comes to Copper
COPPER MOUNTAIN - The beat of Steel Pulse thrives on positivity and spirituality, mostly based in the Rastafarian tradition. "From our standpoint, we're all about God in this day and age and liberating Africa - the betterment of mankind, in particular the African people," said lead singer and founder David Hinds. "We strongly believe the human race will never be at its heights unless every human being is elevated to the same level." The band's latest album, "African Holocaust," throbs with an evocative and inspiring tribute to the struggles of African descendants in the past 700 years. "We search the past, because if you don't know how something happened, you can't fix it," Hinds said. "Black history is not just some tale told by the victors because there are still too many victims, and you can't re-invent what's still going on." Full Article : summitdaily.com
USA on 07.30.04 @ 06:02 AM CST [ link]
West Oakland rallies against massive gentrification project
Africans arriving in the cities by the Bay 450,000 strong willing, ready and able to get down for one's daily bread, Sat Nan (truth and identity) But now, again I must ask, Where's my 40 acres and a mule? The planned development, dubbed "Central Station," would produce up to 1,500 new housing units mostly for sale starting at $300,000 per unit. This kind of gentrification is in keeping with what Poor Magazine dubbed "Gerrification" in its 1999 Media Action on Oakland City Hall Plaza, opposing the master plan by so-called "strong" Mayor Jerry Brown to bring rich folks by the hundreds of thousands into Oakland to get rid of Oakland's "blight," which is another euphemism for poor folks, mostly of color. What the corporate media and policy makers never mention is that rather than "cleaning up" an area, massive redevelopment of very poor neighborhoods that isn't rooted in the communities themselves leads to more homelessness. As Po Poet Laureate A. Faye Hicks said in her piece on the colonization of San Francisco's Fillmore District, "When we (poor folks) are evicted and gentrified out of our homes and neighborhoods, we don't leave, we just go live in the sidewalk hotels." Full Article : sfbayview.com
USA on 07.30.04 @ 05:54 AM CST [ link]
Does Africa care about its women?
The African Union (AU) adopted a Protocol on Women's Rights last July but it has still not been ratified. The protocol is designed to guarantee women's rights to health, education and justice, to protection against violence and harmful traditional practices and against all forms of discrimination. Full Article : bbc.co.uk
Africa on 07.30.04 @ 03:15 AM CST [ link]
Zimbabwe in talks with SA intellegence on 'mercenaries'
A Zimbabwe magistrate yesterday postponed until August 18 the trial of 70 suspected mercenaries accused of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea. The lawyer for the men says the state asked for more time to liaise with the National Intelligence of SA to get agents to testify against the men. Alwyn Griebenauw says he was surprised by this because the authorities in South Africa have said they have no evidence regarding conspiracy. Griebenauw says at the moment he does not know who will be asked to be witnesses on the South African side. He hopes they will be given the necessary information before the trial date. Full Article : sabcnews.com
Africa on 07.30.04 @ 02:36 AM CST [ link]
SA security firm bids to guard Mugabe
A Cape Town company which has already secured a R200-million contract to supply staff for a security mission to Angola is bidding for a contract to protect Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Derek Davids, of International Intelligence Risk Management, the company contracted in a joint venture to protect strategic installations and personnel in Angola, admitted his firm had been in touch with the Zimbabwean government. "I can confirm that (we) have officially communicated with the Zimbabwe government in connection with a contract to secure the principal (Mugabe) and to protect strategic properties and installations in that country." Full Article : iol.co.za
Africa on 07.30.04 @ 02:32 AM CST [ link]
Muslim countries consider sending troops to Iraq
CAIRO, Egypt – Arab governments say they want to help restore calm in Iraq and Pakistan is discussing the possibility of sending several hundred troops. But a militant group warned Thursday that they would attack any country that provided troops. Full Article : signonsandiego.com
Arab on 07.30.04 @ 02:27 AM CST [ link]
Thursday, July 29th
30,000 Civilians Displaced by Fighting in Congo's East
U-N aid workers say that up to 30-thousand civilians have been driven out of their homes and are in need of food and shelter following fighting between rebel and government forces in Congo's lawless east. Returning from an assessment mission in and around the town of Kalehe, about 35-kilometers north of the town of Bukavu, aid workers have said that up to 30-thousand civilians have fled their homes and are in need of food and shelter following recent fighting in eastern Congo. Full Article : politinfo.com
Africa on 07.29.04 @ 04:43 PM CST [ link]
Africa's Leaders Start Ivory Coast Talks
ACCRA (Reuters) - Africa's most influential leaders began talks in Ghana's capital Thursday to revive a moribund peace process in Ivory Coast, where civil war has split the West African economic powerhouse in two. The conflict mushroomed out of a coup attempt in September 2002 and although a peace deal was struck in January 2003, and hostilities declared over in July that year, the world's largest cocoa grower remains mired in an uneasy stalemate. Full Article : reuters.com
Africa on 07.29.04 @ 04:37 PM CST [ link]
Britain should stay out of Sudan
There is a humanitarian crisis of immense proportions taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan, described by the United Nations as "the world's worst". The Sudanese government needs urgent help from the international community to resolve it but rejects all suggestions of intervention by foreign forces. Last Thursday, Congress passed a resolution labelling the crisis "genocide" while urging the United States administration to take the same view. Both the US and the EU are mulling over whether or not to impose sanctions on Khartoum after a US-led resolution threatening the oil-producing country with sanctions was vetoed by Russia and China. Full Article : aljazeerah.info
Arab on 07.29.04 @ 02:13 PM CST [ link]
India ranks second only to South Africa in AIDS
"Children affected by HIV/AIDS are being discriminated against in education and health services, denied care by orphanages, and pushed onto the streets and into the worst forms of child labor," said Zama Coursen-Neff, the author of the report. When a parent is infected, children drop out of school to care for them, or go to work to replace the lost income, until they become orphans, she said. "Many doctors refuse to treat or even touch HIV-positive children," Human Rights Watch said. "Some schools expel or segregate children because they or their parents are HIV-positive." Full Article : chron.com
India on 07.29.04 @ 10:03 AM CST [ link]
South Africa Says Has Fewer HIV/AIDS Cases
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa has one million fewer HIV/AIDS cases than previous estimates, officials said Wednesday, although the death toll remains alarming in the country battling the world's largest AIDS epidemic. Government statistics agency Stats SA said an estimated 3.83 million South Africans were HIV positive, compared with the five million cases estimated by bodies such as the United Nations. AIDS has killed around 1.49 million South Africans, the agency said. The U.S. Bureau for Census's estimate is 3 million deaths. Full Article : reuters.com
USA on 07.29.04 @ 05:59 AM CST [ link]
Baquba blast toll climbs
The toll in Wednesday's car bomb blast in the Iraqi town of Baquba has climbed to 70 dead and 90 injured. The attack was the deadliest since the interim government was installed late last month. Full Article : aljazeera.net
USA on 07.29.04 @ 05:56 AM CST [ link]
Wednesday, July 28th
68 dead in Iraq blast
A suicide car bomb exploded outside a police recruiting centre in central Baquba today, killing 68 Iraqis. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
USA on 07.28.04 @ 09:27 PM CST [ link]
Report of the Haiti Accompaniment Project
From our discussions with human rights workers, there was widespread agreement that the repercussions from this coup are even worse than what took place after the brutal 1991-1994 coup. There are many similarities between the two periods. In both instances military force, backed by Haitian elites, overthrew a democratically elected government. In both cases, there were large-scale, politically-motivated murders and assassinations. In both cases, paramilitary groups allied with the de facto authorities controlled areas, exercised police, judicial and administrative powers, and brutally repressed dissent. In both periods, people associated with the overthrown government lost jobs, had their homes burned, and were forced to leave their communities and families. In both periods, the de facto government routinely arrested democracy activists and held them without charge and without respect for their legal rights. Yet there are some important differences. Full Article : americas.org
Africa on 07.28.04 @ 09:24 PM CST [ link]
African leaders discuss Sudan
Pretoria - The heads of African states meeting in Akkra, Ghana, on Thursday, which President Thabo Mbeki will be attending, has been expanded to include discussion on the trouble in the Ivory Coast as well as in Darfur, Sudan, the French foreign minister has said in Pretoria on Wednesday. Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.28.04 @ 08:52 PM CST [ link]
Africa intervenes to stop Darfur's slaughter
As its observers report further atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan, the African Union says it may send troops to disarm the Arab militiamen there, in what would be the AU’s first military intervention in a member state. The United Nations is expected shortly to discuss possible sanctions against Sudan. Full Article : economist.com
Africa on 07.28.04 @ 02:26 PM CST [ link]
What would John Kerry do as president?
The Democratic presidential convention in Boston is more an infomercial than a political contest, but a key piece of information is missing. A majority of the Americans who plan to vote for John Kerry in November assume that he will pull U.S. troops out of Iraq quickly if he becomes president, and is only refusing to say so now to avoid being vilified by the Republican machine for failing to support American soldiers in action overseas. But it is possible that he actually means what he says -- and what he says is that he would stay in Iraq indefinitely. "Extremists appear to be gaining confidence and have vowed to drive our troops from the country," Kerry said in the midst of the April uprising in Iraq. "We cannot and will not let that happen. It would be unthinkable for us to retreat in disarray and leave behind a society deep in strife and dominated by radicals." Full Article : thejakartapost.com
UK on 07.28.04 @ 02:22 PM CST [ link]
Why Americans Believe Only American Deaths Count in Iraq
Nationalism can be a vicious disease, and an infectious one, too. It can take all sorts of forms, and its most destructive strains can surely sneak up on any country. Just think of the tens of thousands of German Jews--German nationals--who refused to believe what was happening, even after Kristallnacht and the ghettos, until the trains arrived at Dachau. We know well from this past century what sentiments intense nationalist fervor can ignite among a country's people, but we have yet to learn deeply those lessons after two "great" wars, hundreds of so-called conflicts and countless millions of young men, women, and children dead. It's striking how rarely we talk about the most recent abuses of nationalism as well as the genocides--attempted eliminations of groups considered impure or unwelcome in a society--they engendered, in Bosnia or Rwanda, for example. Shouldn't the ones we read about firsthand logically instill the most compassion, the most closeness? We say never again while it happens under our knowing gaze. And yet Americans are not fully immune. Think of the violent attacks on, and illegal detainment of, thousands of Arabs and Muslims after September 11, 2001. Never again? Full Article : informationclearinghouse.info
USA on 07.28.04 @ 07:10 AM CST [ link]
America used Islamists to arm the Bosnian Muslims
The Srebrenica report reveals the Pentagon's role in a dirty war Richard J Aldrich
Monday April 22, 2002
The GuardianThe official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, released last week, contains one of the most sensational reports on western intelligence ever published. Officials have been staggered by its findings and the Dutch government has resigned. One of its many volumes is devoted to clandestine activities during the Bosnian war of the early 1990s. For five years, Professor Cees Wiebes of Amsterdam University has had unrestricted access to Dutch intelligence files and has stalked the corridors of secret service headquarters in western capitals, as well as in Bosnia, asking questions. His findings are set out in "Intelligence and the war in Bosnia, 1992-1995". It includes remarkable material on covert operations, signals interception, human agents and double-crossing by dozens of agencies in one of dirtiest wars of the new world disorder. Now we have the full story of the secret alliance between the Pentagon and radical Islamist groups from the Middle East designed to assist the Bosnian Muslims - some of the same groups that the Pentagon is now fighting in "the war against terrorism". Pentagon operations in Bosnia have delivered their own "blowback". Full Article : guardian.co.uk
UK on 07.28.04 @ 07:07 AM CST [ link]
Lynching exhibit guides people to the truth
"Without Sanctuary" exhibit. It's embroidered with the names of 2,217 lynching victims. The museum has needed an exhibit such as the lynching photos to capture the public's attention. The show drew 70,000 in New York, 176,000 in Atlanta and 31,400 in Pittsburgh. Since "Without Sanctuary" opened in Detroit, daily attendance at the museum has more than doubled from 250, says Wright president Christy Coleman. Exact figures are not available yet. The exhibit covers one of the most shameful chapters in American history from the 1860s to well into the 20th century when thousands of African Americans were tortured and lynched simply because they were black. What's more, these horrifying rituals were photographed and the images made into souvenir postcards. Full Article : detnews.com
USA on 07.28.04 @ 03:42 AM CST [ link]
Nigeria to make cheap Aids drugs
Nigeria is to get its first plant for manufacturing anti-retroviral drugs for people living with HIV and Aids. The plant is expected to bring cheaper medication for the millions of Nigerians afflicted by the disease. It is wholly owned by a group of Nigerians living in the US who answered an appeal by President Olusegun Obasanjo for investment from expats. Full Article : bbc.co.uk
UK on 07.28.04 @ 02:45 AM CST [ link]
Tuesday, July 27th
Castro Blasts Bush On Sex Charges
Breaking with tradition, Cuba's maximum leader Fidel Castro turned his traditional July 26 State of the Nation speech into a war of words with President Bush. Castro devoted the bulk of his 90-minute speech to countering charges levied by Mr. Bush that his government fosters tourism prostitution and child pornography. He strongly implied that President Bush cannot distinguish between his imagination and reality. Full Article : cbsnews.com
USA on 07.27.04 @ 03:59 PM CST [ link]
Annan discusses with African leaders over Darfur
A spokeswoman for the government of Nigeria said that the UN secretary general Kofi Annan will hold talks next Thursday with the President of Nigeria and other African leaders over the situation in Darfur to the west of Sudan. Full Article : arabicnews.com
Africa on 07.27.04 @ 03:53 PM CST [ link]
Locust plague threatens parts of Africa
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has issued an urgent international appeal in Algiers for 83 million dollars to curb a deadly locust plague ravaging north and west African crops. Full Article : aljazeera.net
Africa on 07.27.04 @ 03:51 PM CST [ link]
Africa Needs a Positive Identity, Says Graca
Africa must move fast to acquire a more positive identity, an official of New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) said yesterday. Dr Graca Machel, the chairperson of African Peer Review Mechanism, a Nepad organisation, said in Nairobi that the current identity of Africa as a continent of disease, poverty, corruption and illiteracy must end. Full Article : allafrica.com
Africa on 07.27.04 @ 03:48 PM CST [ link]
French Activists Attack Genetically Modified Crops
TOULOUSE, France - Hundreds of activists opposed to genetically modified crops tore out rows of maize in south-western France Sunday and threatened similar future actions of "civil disobedience" to stop the cultivation of bio-engineered food. Full Article : commondreams.org
UK on 07.27.04 @ 11:09 AM CST [ link]
By the banks of Lake Tunk
As the US conventions begin, big business has its eye on both parties; but the poor have the ear of neither In his stump speech, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, John Edwards, says there are two Americas: "One America - middle-class America - whose needs Washington has long forgotten; another America - narrow-interest America - whose every wish is Washington's command." Lubec's locals do not fit into either. Living in Washington County, one of the poorest in the US, they are certainly doing the work, but they are not middle class. Take Daniel Fitzsimmons. He used to employ around 50 people in a business making Christmas wreaths. When the North American Free Trade Agreement came in he went out of business, undercut by cheaper wreaths from Canada. "It's free trade to some people, but it ain't free to us because we're losing everything we had," he says. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
USA on 07.27.04 @ 10:35 AM CST [ link]
President Kagame says it all about the French
The French perhaps are about the only one's who have not really come clean on the issue of their involvement in the genocide, they have always denied any responsibility yet the facts are very clear. They were here backing Habyarimana's regime, training the army, the militia's , they were here directing the war at the time we were fighting, just before the genocide. They were known to be directly sympathetic with what Habyarimana regime was doing and for a fact in 1992, i have said this before, when i was in Paris at the invitation of the French during the time we were fighting, i was told by a french official, i have always remembered his name , he is called Paul Disiue, he was in charge of African Affairs. He told me face to face, there were other people around, in the meeting that if we did not stop fighting,and he believed fighting was not in our interest, that if we don't stop fighting by the time we realise or if at all we were to manage to reach Kigali, that we will find all our relatives and families killed. Full Article : monitor.co.ug
USA on 07.27.04 @ 07:46 AM CST [ link]
Andrew Young traces his genetic ties back to West Africa
Using DNA, the 72-year-old civil rights leader was able to trace his maternal lineage to present-day Sierra Leone and the Mende ethnic group. The tests were conducted by Washington, D.C.-based African Ancestry Inc., which has one of the most extensive indigenous African lineage databases in the world. "I have been going to Africa now for 30 years and almost every year, several times a year," Young said. "I guess I never really wanted to know where in Africa I was from because I would decide I was from anywhere I happened to be." Young traced his ancestry through his mother, Daisy Fuller Young, a former teacher. After uncovering his ties to Sierra Leone, Young said he perused the Internet to find more information about the west African nation. Full Article : roanoke.com
USA on 07.27.04 @ 07:36 AM CST [ link]
She traces genetic 'Roots' to Africa
DNA helps author forge links to cousins from GhanaAfter years of genealogical research, interviews and DNA testing, Pearl Duncan, right, identified Vida Opare as one of her "ancestral cousins" from Ghana. The two have developed a close friendship since they found out that their fathers' DNA matched. "She looks just like my sister," Duncan says. Full Article : msnbc.msn.com
USA on 07.27.04 @ 07:32 AM CST [ link]
African Plants Grow as Dutch Environment Warms
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Changes in the Dutch climate in recent years because of global warming have meant dozens of plant types normally found in warmer areas are now growing wild in the country, according on one study. Full Article : news.yahoo.com
UK on 07.27.04 @ 07:29 AM CST [ link]
Zimbabwe to Appeal Rejection of AIDS Funds
Zimbabwe's government says it is going to appeal the decision by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria to deny Harare financial aid in the fight against the HIV-AIDS pandemic. The Global Fund has rejected Zimbabwe's application for $516 million to support the country's fledgling anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) program on political grounds. An official of a U.N. agency that is part of the Global Fund told VOA on condition of anonymity the government has the right to appeal the decision. An appeal is being launched, the official said, but declined to comment on the reason Zimbabwe's application was rejected. Full Article : voanews.com
USA on 07.27.04 @ 05:39 AM CST [ link]
Monday, July 26th
US raising stakes over Darfur crisis
The US is poised to ratchet up efforts to halt the ethnic cleansing in Sudan's western Darfur region. This week Washington is expected to introduce a UN Security Council resolution that threatens sanctions against Sudan if it doesn't disarm Arab militias who have been attacking, raping, and killing black villagers in Darfur. This comes after Congress took the extraordinary step Thursday of declaring Darfur's crisis a "genocide" - and pushing the White House to follow suit. Some observers see the declaration of genocide as the first step toward putting US or UN "boots on the ground." An American legal team is here now doing tent-to-tent surveys of Sudanese refugees to determine if genocide occurred. Full Article : gogreenbay.com
USA on 07.26.04 @ 12:08 PM CST [ link]
Germany Divided Over Asylum Centers in Africa
As illegal immigration hits the news over the events surrounding the odyssey of the German relief ship Cap Anamur and the plight of dozens of Africans plucked from the Mediterranean, German politicians have begun taking sides on a British plan to build EU asylum centers in North Africa. Interior Minister Otto Schily supports the proposal, which London had put forth in previous EU meetings as a solution for dealing with the growing number of illegal immigrants who leave North Africa on rickety boats bound for European shores. The idea is to stop the would-be refugees before they leave home and to involve the countries of departure in the process of countering illegal immigration. Full Article : dw-world.de
UK on 07.26.04 @ 12:05 PM CST [ link]
N. Korea rejects U.S 'sham offer'
SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- North Korea has dismissed as "nothing but a sham offer" U.S. proposals that the communist state follow the example of Libya and scrap its nuclear weapons in exchange for aid and diplomatic recognition. The United States laid out a plan for North Korea last month that would extend multilateral energy aid after the North first commits to dismantle all of its nuclear programs and begins a verifiable disarmament process. Full Article : cnn.com
USA on 07.26.04 @ 12:01 PM CST [ link]
Blair: my way or it’s the highway
Five more years of even newer New Labour. That was the dream, and for some the nightmare, described yesterday by Tony Blair as he sounded the final death knell for old Labour. The Prime Minister, emboldened by his latest escape from the conclusion of the Butler Report, used the national policy forum in Coventry to effectively demand from his party the ultimate in loyalty. His message was stark and stern. They had to "give up the luxury of criticism" and do it his way, the New Labour way. The alternative? He said there was none. Full Article : sundayherald.com
UK on 07.26.04 @ 11:56 AM CST [ link]
Sudan group: Prepare to fight west
KHARTOUM, Sudan -- A group calling itself Mohammed's army has called on Muslims to prepare to fight Western forces sent on any mission to western Sudan. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has not ruled out military intervention in Darfur, where the U.S. Congress has labeled as genocide a campaign by Arab militias against black Africans. Full Article : cnn.com
Asia on 07.26.04 @ 05:11 AM CST [ link]
The world should get involved and stop the wars in Africa
The Pope appealed to the international community, national governments, and international organisations to get involved and stop the war in Uganda and Sudan. In such countries children are too often forced to "become soldiers." "During these days of leisure and rest," John Paul II said, "my thoughts are with those regions of the world where life is endured under appalling conditions. Today I wish to draw your attention to the tragic events that for a long time have affected some countries in our beloved Africa." Full Article : asianews.it
Asia on 07.26.04 @ 05:08 AM CST [ link]
35 000 children behind bars in South Africa
A staggering 13 593 juveniles of the 34 905 in SA prisons, according to the Department of Correctional Services' last count this year, were either awaiting trial in connection with murder or already serving murder sentences. KwaZulu-Natal was the worst province with 3 365 youngsters in for murder. The 15 255 youngsters (below the age of 21) awaiting trial should have been referred to places of safety but because of the large numbers most such centres are unable to accommodate them. In some cases parents have also rejected their children, choosing instead to let them stay on in jail. The problem has placed a huge burden on social workers and departmental officials who are battling to cope with the swelling, overcrowded cells. Statistics from the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons as at April this year reveal that 40% of children between seven and 17 were sentenced for aggressive crimes and 43% for economic or petty crimes. Full Article : pretorianews.co.za
Africa on 07.26.04 @ 05:02 AM CST [ link]
SA delegation leaves for Equatorial Guinea
A high-level delegation of South African officials left for Equatorial Guinea on Sunday morning to assist in ensuring a fair and proper trial for the eight South African men held there on allegations of a coup plot. Full Article : iol.co.za
Africa on 07.26.04 @ 04:57 AM CST [ link]
Sunday, July 25th
Aid workers return to Chad camps
Aid workers who were forced to leave two refugee camps in Chad because of violence have resumed their operations. The camps in eastern Chad house tens of thousands of Sudanese who have fled from the conflict in the Darfur region. A BBC correspondent in Chad says there has been no sign of unrest spreading to the other camps. Full Article : bbc.co.uk
Africa on 07.25.04 @ 06:32 AM CST [ link]
New form of malaria mosquito found
A new form of mosquito carrying the parasite responsible for the most deadly form of malaria has been discovered in a village in southern Cameroon, researchers say. Discovery of the hitherto-unknown variety, provisionally dubbed "Oveng Form" after the village where it was found, is likely to make the fight against the malaria in Cameroon even more difficult, researchers say, although more research is needed. It joins four other species already known in the central African country, all of them resistant to common anti-malaria drugs. Full Article : aljazeera.net
Africa on 07.25.04 @ 06:27 AM CST [ link]
Burundi agreement in the balance
Burundi's President Domitien Ndayizeye has announced details of a draft power-sharing agreement after years of civil war. The proposal suggests the national assembly and government be composed of 60% ethnic Hutu and 40% Tutsi. The deal is due to be signed next week and will form the new constitution ahead of elections due in October. Full Article : bbc.co.uk
Africa on 07.25.04 @ 06:25 AM CST [ link]
Bushmen of Botswana to Publicize Human Rights Violations
(PRWEB) July 24, 2004 -- The San, or Bushmen, of Southern Africa's Kalahari are the oldest culture on the planet – dating back at least 70,000 years. Hunter-gatherers with a culture based around healing, they do not make war, and promote gender equality as part of their way of life. Yet in recent years these gentle people have been hounded almost out of existence by cattle ranching, diamond mining and cultural genocide. Today, the Bushmen stand on the edge of extinction: less than 10,000 traditional San Bushmen remain across the six countries of the Kalahari (Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe , Zambia and Angola). Everywhere else they exist as serfs on other peoples' farms, often treated appallingly, or as dispossessed slum-dwellers on the edges of the Kalahari's few towns. Full Article : emediawire.com
Africa on 07.25.04 @ 06:19 AM CST [ link]
Nine gunmen killed in Algeria
Algerian security sources said Saturday nine gunmen were killed and three others were captured, while a security officer was injured by a land mine. The unidentified sources said the army killed the gunmen, whom they said were affiliated with the Islamic Salafi groups, during a Friday military operation in the hills of Boumerdas, 40 miles (60 kilometers) east of Algiers. Full Article : bignewsnetwork.com
Africa on 07.25.04 @ 06:15 AM CST [ link]
Black delegate gives history on minority population
FARGO, N.D. - While most of the North Dakota delegates to the Democratic National Convention prepare for questions about cold weather, Audrey Henderson-Nocho is ready to give history lessons on the state's minority population. "Yes, there are blacks in North Dakota," Henderson-Nocho said Friday before leaving for Boston. "I'm always asked that question." Henderson-Nocho, of Fargo, who is attending her third national convention, is trying to find out if she's the first black delegate from the state. She plans to ask that question of national party officials there. Full Article : mercurynews.com
USA on 07.25.04 @ 05:31 AM CST [ link]
Saturday, July 24th
Challenges to Garifuna & Afro-Brazilian Communities
Shackled together and piled on top of each other, men, women and children crossed the Atlantic crammed in the dark leaky hulls of creaking slave ships. Upon arrival in the New World, they suffered a daily existence of backbreaking labor, endless abuse and the subjugation of their religions and cultures. Although African slaves endured relentless brutality in the Americas, many did not acquiesce to their captivity; they were not docile subjects. Resistance characterized their new lives: from covert sabotage of plantation equipment and working at a turtle’s pace when possible, to outright violent rebellion and escape. Many opted for the latter. As slavery spread across the Americas, so did autonomous communities of runaway slaves. Living off the plantation allowed these groups to preserve and reproduce their original African cultures. The modern descendants of these courageous renegades amazingly have kept much of their culture, religion and language intact. Full Article : americas.org
USA on 07.24.04 @ 07:03 AM CST [ link]
Afro-Latinos and African Americans
Making the ConnectionsConnection: What do you see as the significance of race in U.S. policy toward Haiti? Professor Nimtz: The race question has always been a part of Wahington’s view toward Haiti, from the very founding of the country. The slaveowners in the United States were very fearful of the Haitian revolution in 1804. Not until 1863, when slavery was being contested and overthrown here, did Washington finally recognize the Haitian government. Then, with the overthrow of reconstruction in this country and the institution of Jim Crow, Washington’s attitudes toward Haiti hardened once again. What happens in this country around issues of race impacts what Washington is doing not only in Haiti but in Africa and elsewhere. U.S. interventions in Haiti, Nicaragua and elsewhere have to be seen in the context of the basic denial of rights to black people in this country. Only with the civil rights movement and the overthrow of Jim Crow, did Washington even begin to pretend to treat Haiti as a sovereign state. Full Article : americas.org
USA on 07.24.04 @ 07:00 AM CST [ link]
From Iraq to Latin America
Several months ago, I used this forum to call all of us to stand for peace and against the then-impending war in Iraq. At that time, I stated that "the war against Iraq is a war that will not further human rights, will result in the death of innocent civilians and will impede peace, justice and democracy throughout the world." Today, more than 800 U.S. military personnel are dead, and more than 4,000 are wounded. And those are just U.S. casualties. What about the Iraqis? Are the tens of thousands of Iraqi dead and wounded not also casualties of this shameful war? Where will all this shattering of lives end? Full Article : americas.org
USA on 07.24.04 @ 06:52 AM CST [ link]
Ruling throws doubt on Bali convictions
The convictions of the 32 men linked to the Bali bombing were thrown into significant doubt yesterday after an Indonesian court ruled that the anti-terrorism law used to prosecute them was applied unconstitutionally. The constitutional court's decision that the legislation passed after the terrorist strike on the resort island cannot be applied retroactively will also complicate attempts to prosecute the alleged Islamist militant leader Abu Bakar Ba'aysir, who is awaiting charge. Verdicts from other tribunals which are using retroactive legislation, such as the one prosecuting those allegedly involved in the carnage in East Timor in 1999, may also be called into question. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
UK on 07.24.04 @ 06:49 AM CST [ link]
Friday, July 23rd
The Mass Graves in America
And the United States is not the only country, though it is certainly the major terrorist culprit, in the long, sad history of the oppression of original peoples. In Guatemala, U.S.- and Israeli-backed military and militarized civilian regimes killed 250,000 persons in 20 years or less, the vast majority of them Mayan Indians, and the vast majority of them slaughtered via the same means as those utilized by euro-descendant settlers and federal troops in the U.S. generations before. In Peru, a U.S.-backed government, and to apparently a nearly-equivalent extent, "Maiost" guerrillas of the communist Shining Path insurgency headed by a now-incarcerated Peruvian philosophy professor who preached austerity while caught on video drunkenly dancing "Zorba the Greek" at a party, 50,000 Peruvians, mostly Quechua and Aymara-speaking Indians, were brutally slaughtered, or disappeared, like the thousands also disappeared and presumably killed in Guatemala. The five thousand estimated disappeared in Peru are still waiting to be unearthed and identified, along with the vast majority of the 50,000 Guatemalan disappeared, potential "communists" who 'deserved' to be eliminated for the sake of freedom and democracy. Native peoples were not the only victims in the anti-insurgent, Cold War, campaigns of the 1960's. '70's and '80's, spearheaded by the United States and its puppet governments in the Americas. However, due to white liberal political solidarity identification processes, and European donor preferences, the original peoples victims were certainly the most ignored in "human rights" discourse throughout the West. Full Article : altpr.org
USA on 07.23.04 @ 09:45 PM CST [ link]
Intervention: U.S. Foreign Policy Toward Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba
As economies stagnate and governments fail to deliver, confidence in democratic politics is increasingly fragile. While last October's annual "Latinobarómetro" poll found 64 percent of Latin Americans agreeing that "democracy is the better government system," 52 percent also responded affirmatively to the statement, "I would not mind a non-democratic government." As several Latin American nations have elected populist presidents who don't march in lockstep with Washington, U.S. support for democracy also looks shakier than it has in years. Bush administration officials are proposing increased military assistance to counterbalance what they call "radical populism." Military aid levels are increasing region-wide, while economic aid--especially programs to shore up democratic institutions--is set to decline by 10 percent between 2003 and 2005. Full Article : americas.org
UK on 07.23.04 @ 05:44 AM CST [ link]
Sudan warns Blair against sending troops
Sudan yesterday warned Britain that it risked becoming bogged down in an Iraq-style quagmire if it sent troops to Darfur, where more than a million refugees face the threat of famine, disease and attacks by pro-government militia. The country's foreign minister, Mustafa Osman Ismail, said British soldiers would be seen as an occupying force and face a backlash from the people of Darfur. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
UK on 07.23.04 @ 05:34 AM CST [ link]
SOUTH AFRICA: Troop deployment to DRC and Eritrea extended
JOHANNESBURG, 22 Jul 2004 (IRIN) - South African peacekeeping troops are to stay on in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Eritrea for another year, a government official told IRIN. "The extension to the troop deployment - over 1,200 in the DRC and four military observers in Eritrea - is effective from 1 April 2004 to 1 March 2005," defence ministry spokesperson Sam Makhwanazi said. Full article : irinnews.org
USA on 07.23.04 @ 05:03 AM CST [ link]
U.S. pressures Sudan
UNITED NATIONS -- The United States threatened sanctions against Sudan if it doesn't make significant progress in arresting marauding Arab militias within 30 days, in a revised U.N. resolution circulated Thursday. Secretary of State Colin Powell met U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for the second time in three weeks to step up pressure on Sudan to end the 15-month conflict and escalating humanitarian crisis in the western Darfur region. The conflict in the vast region has killed up to 30,000 people, forced more than 1 million to flee their homes, and left 2.2 million in desperate need of food and medicine. Full article : indystar.com
USA on 07.23.04 @ 04:56 AM CST [ link]
Thursday, July 22nd
Sierra Leoneans testify on rebel abuse
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- Witness TF-1196 told her story: Rebels used machetes to hack all movement and life out of her husband. Then a rebel young enough to be her child raped her. She raised the rounded tips of her arms to show why she had not signed her statement, delivered before a U.N.-backed war crimes court for the diamond-rich west African nation of Sierra Leone. "After they had killed my husband, a rebel ... chopped off my right and left hands with a cutlass, into four bits," TF-1196 - a downcast, middle-aged woman - told the court. Full Article : seattlepi.nwsource.com
Africa on 07.22.04 @ 12:30 PM CST [ link]
Kenya citizens 'must leave Iraq'
The Kenyan government has urged all its citizens to leave Iraq immediately. The announcement by government spokesman Alfred Mutua came a day after three Kenyan lorry drivers were taken hostage by an Iraqi militant group. The group, calling itself The Holders of the Black Banners, also seized three Indians and an Egyptian. The group said it would behead one of its hostages every 72 hours if the Kuwaiti company employing the men did not leave Iraq. Full Article : news.bbc.co.uk
Africa on 07.22.04 @ 10:57 AM CST [ link]
Portuguese bank to open 20 branches in Angola
Portugal's third-biggest private bank, BPI, said on Wednesday it plans to open 20 new branches in war-ravaged Angola by April 2005 because of the oil-rich African country's good growth prospects. Full Article : mg.co.za
Africa on 07.22.04 @ 10:46 AM CST [ link]
Rwanda fires 500 judges over genocide
KIGALI, Rwanda -- Rwanda fired more than 500 judges and appointed 223 new ones, a reform intended to improve the performance of a judiciary crippled by thousands of cases from the 1994 genocide, officials said Wednesday. Full Article : seattlepi.nwsource.com
Africa on 07.22.04 @ 10:43 AM CST [ link]
Afro Venezuelan Network Letter to African American Organizations
In the name of the Afro Venezuelan Network, a group of thirty community-based organizations from eight Venezuelan states, we call on you, our sister organizations of African Americans, to ask that you stand in solidarity with us so that we can end the climate of violence perpetuated against the Venezuelan democratic process. This violence is being provoked by anti-democratic sectors in our country that actively participated in the coup d'etat of April 11, 2002. A number of these coup leaders, supporters and endorsers have been financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which receives your tax dollars from the United States Congress. Full Article : americas.org
Venezuela on 07.22.04 @ 07:20 AM CST [ link]
Haiti's loan-aid deal a debt trap - Oxfam
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Too much of the US$1 billion in aid pledged to rebuild Haiti is in loans that could force the country deeper into debt and poverty, a British-based charity said yesterday. Full Article : jamaicaobserver.com
Caribbean on 07.22.04 @ 07:14 AM CST [ link]
Jamaica assures Chile of Caricom help for Haiti
Jamaica has told Chile that the Caribbean Community (Caricom) remains committed to the people of Haiti and would work to promote law and order and the restitution of constitutional democracy in that country. Full Article : jamaicaobserver.com
Caribbean on 07.22.04 @ 07:10 AM CST [ link]
Venezuela Officials Question Bush's Remarks on Referendum
Cite Lack of MoralsVenezuelan government officials questioned recent remarks by U.S. President George W. Bush with regard to the upcoming recall referendum on the mandate of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Full Article: venezuelanalysis.com
Venezuela on 07.22.04 @ 06:58 AM CST [ link]
Some of my best friends
A poll showing that almost 90% of white people had no black acquaintances neither accuses nor assuages Full Article : guardian.co.uk
UK on 07.22.04 @ 06:49 AM CST [ link]
Israel warns Britain over UN barrier resolution
A senior British diplomat was among three EU ambassadors summoned by Israel yesterday to be warned that the EU had put in jeopardy its role in the Middle East peace process by backing UN condemnation of the 450m separation barrier. Israel's angry reaction to the EU's failure to back US opposition to the general assembly resolution came as it once again vowed to continue building the barrier in the wake of the International Court of Justice's ruling that its route through the occupied West Bank was illegal. Full Article : independent.co.uk
UK on 07.22.04 @ 06:35 AM CST [ link]
Blair draws up plans to send troops to Sudan
Tony Blair has asked Downing Street and Foreign Office officials to draw up plans for possible military intervention in Sudan, where more than a million refugees are at risk from famine and disease. Despite a heavy commitment of British armed forces in Iraq and other troublespots, the prime minister has had discussions with advisers for on-the-ground involvement of troops. The prime minister is still hoping that diplomatic and political pressure on the Khartoum government will resolve the crisis without the need for military involvement. Full Article : guardian.co.ukSudan's Darfur crisis and US/European concern
UK on 07.22.04 @ 06:33 AM CST [ link]
EU freezes £83m aid to 'corrupt' Kenya
The European Union yesterday said it had frozen millions of pounds worth of aid to Kenya because of concerns about corruption, as fears grew that sleaze was engulfing the east African country. The withholding of an £83m grant, meant to boost the Kenyan economy, follows the robust attack on corruption by the British high commissioner, Edward Clay, who accused the government of President Mwai Kibaki of "arrogance, greed and perhaps a desperate sense of panic, to lead them to eat like gluttons". Full Article : guardian.co.ukThese hypocritical ‘bastions of morality’ now pontificates to Africans about corruption and greed.
UK on 07.22.04 @ 06:14 AM CST [ link]
US soldiers sodomised Iraqi boys
A US writer, who first revealed the abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison, says there are videos of American occupation soldiers sodomising Iraqi boys there. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said the Bush administration was holding the tapes of these acts. "The boys were sodomised with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war," he told the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) earlier this month. There was "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher," he added. Full Article : kavkazcenter.com
USA on 07.22.04 @ 12:52 AM CST [ link]
Wednesday, July 21st
Diamond find brings joy, worry
CONAKRY, Guinea -- There's lucky: finding a diamond when you're a young miner sweating it out in the West African forests of Guinea. And there's too lucky: finding a 182-carat stone, that everyone -- starting with the government of Guinea -- wants a piece of. Result: The stone -- four times the size of the famous Hope diamond -- was tucked away Monday deep in the vaults of Guinea's Central Bank, no pictures, please. And the 25-year-old miner who found it, if not exactly in hiding, was making himself scarce. No interviews, please. Full Article : indystar.com
Africa on 07.21.04 @ 07:38 PM CST [ link]
SA hands over Rwanda genocide suspect
South Africa has handed over to the International Criminal Tribunal in Tanzania a suspect in Rwanda's 1994 ethnic genocide, arrested in Cape Town at the weekend, police said on Tuesday. Rwandan national Gaspard Kanyarukiga left for Arusha on Monday and was in the custody of the tribunal, police Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said in Pretoria. Kanyarukiga was arrested on an international warrant issued by the tribunal. Full Article : iafrica.com
Africa on 07.21.04 @ 07:31 PM CST [ link]
U.S., S. Africa End Arms Trade Dispute
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - A long-standing dispute over arms trading between South Africa and the United States has ended and defense trade relations have been normalized, U.S. officials said Wednesday. The U.S. State Department decided to normalize arms trade after reviewing a 1996 settlement between the countries over alleged violations of U.S. export laws by three South African defense firms, U.S. Ambassador Cameron Hume said in a statement. Full Article : mercurynews.com
USA on 07.21.04 @ 07:15 PM CST [ link]
Bush Took Quote Out of Context, Researcher Says
Student whose paper on Castro was used in a speech is 'annoyed.' He says the president misconstrued the Cuban leader's stance.According to Trumbull, who conducted field research in Cuba, prostitution boomed in the Caribbean nation after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, providing an important source of currency for the Cuban economy. Castro, who outlawed prostitution when he took power in 1959, initially had few resources to combat it. But beginning around 1996, Cuban authorities began to crack down on the practice. Although prostitution still exists, Trumbull said, it is far less visible, and it would be inaccurate to say the government promotes it. Even when Castro made the remarks, Trumbull said, he was not boasting about Cuba's prostitutes as sex workers. "Castro was merely trying to emphasize some of the successes of the revolution by saying 'even our prostitutes our educated,' " Trumbull said. "Castro was trying to defend his revolution against negative publicity. He was in no way bragging about the opportunities for sex tourism on the island." Full Article : commondreams.org
USA on 07.21.04 @ 11:26 AM CST [ link]
Weed triggers change in US drug policy
Ganja is no soft drug! ALARMED BY reports that marijuana is becoming more potent than ever and that children are trying it at younger and younger ages, U.S. officials are changing their drug policies. Pot is no longer the gentle weed of the 1960s and may pose a greater threat than cocaine or even heroin because so many more people use it. So officials at the National Institute of Health and at the White House are hoping to shift some of the focus in research and enforcement from "hard" drugs such as cocaine and heroin to marijuana. Full Article : jamaica-gleaner.com
Caribbean on 07.21.04 @ 11:14 AM CST [ link]
E Guinea warning after bank probe
Local observers say that Friday's report by the US Senate has sparked amazement in the streets of the capital Malabo: offices, bars and shops are full of talk about the millions of dollars uncovered by the US Senate from accounts held at Riggs bank by Equatorial Guinea's government and ruling family. According to the Senate investigation, from 1995 to 2004, Riggs bank administered more than 60 accounts for the government of Equatorial Guinea, government officials or their family members. The Senate found, for example, that Riggs opened multiple personal accounts for President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, his wife and other relatives. The bank, the Senate found, also helped establish offshore corporations for the head of state and his sons. By 2003, the Equatorial Guinean accounts had aggregate deposits ranging from $400m to $700m at a time. Full Article : news.bbc.co.ukThis is no justification for the English coup attempt.Even if this is true we can expect at this time to read more about Equatorial Guinea government's corruption. However, UK companies and US had no problem 'paying bribes' and holding funds in US and UK Bank accounts. Let the 70 in Zimbabwe go on trial without trying to inspire another coup or to attempt to make their murderous actions seem like a humanitarian gesture.
UK on 07.21.04 @ 06:46 AM CST [ link]
70 go on trial in Zimbabwe over alleged coup plot
Seventy men led by a former SAS officer go on trial in Zimbabwe today charged with offences related to an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea. The suspected mercenaries could be jailed for life in Zimbabwe, but are said to be more concerned at the possibility of extradition to Equatorial Guinea and execution. Simon Mann, 51, the former British soldier who allegedly masterminded the plot, and his 69 co-accused are due to be tried at the maximum security Chikurubi prison near Harare. Full Article : guardian.co.uk Also Read: A very British coup?
UK on 07.21.04 @ 06:32 AM CST [ link]
Nigerian lands Shell post in west Africa
Royal Dutch/Shell has appointed the first Nigerian to head its operations in the west African country. Basil Omiyi will become managing director of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Shell's biggest country operation, in September. He will take over from Chris Finlayson, who is to become head of exploration and production for Africa and retain the role of Nigeria country chairman. Full Article : news.ft.com
USA on 07.21.04 @ 06:25 AM CST [ link]
The genocide we're missing
Part of the failure to comprehend the crisis in the Sudan has been the tendency to present the political situation in its full complexity, which is beyond the grasp of all but experts. But the lineaments of it are simple enough. For more than 30 years a civil war has been fought in the vast north-east African country. State power is in the hands of the Muslim Arab population. Discrimination and repression has been visited upon groups in southern and western Sudan who are African rather than Arab, Christian-animist rather than Muslim. In 2003 a ceasefire in this long war was obtained, and peace talks are now under way at Naivisha in Kenya. The Sudanese Government has used this lull as an opportunity to enforce "ethnic cleansing" of "disloyal" African-Muslim population groups in the western region of Darfur. They have done this by supporting and failing to restrain groups of Arab militias, who have killed more than 30,000 people, and displaced close to a million more. Full Article : theage.com.au
UK on 07.21.04 @ 05:42 AM CST [ link]
Overcoming divisions in central Sudan
Sudan is such a huge nation, the size of western Europe, that it is possible, confusingly, for there to be a devastating war taking place in Darfur and, at the same time, a peace process moving forward in other parts of the country. A ceasefire was signed for the Nuba Mountains two years ago between the Khartoum government and the main rebel movement in southern Sudan, the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army (SPLA). A few months ago, the next step in the southern peace process came; an agreement on power sharing in the Nuba Mountains. The Nuba area is important because it is Sudan in microcosm. The people are mainly ethnic Africans, like most of the wider south, but also mainly Muslim, like most of the wider north. Full Article : bbc.co.uk
UK on 07.21.04 @ 05:29 AM CST [ link]
African Americans suffer Abu Ghraib treatment in America
In terms of African American history in this country it's a "been there, done that," sort of approach to these controversial topics dominating much of the media coverage. African American men disproportionately fill prison facilities in the United States, not abroad in a foreign setting obscure to most Americans, but in our own prisons. For many years men like journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal have written prison memoirs in which they describe the ways that men are physically, mentally, and morally broken down by the prison system, and their lives can be endangered more by the prison atmosphere than by life on the roughest city streets. Little in the way of national outrage has been mustered over these accounts. Full Article : rawstory.com
USA on 07.21.04 @ 05:24 AM CST [ link]
Bush-Hitler: Hypnotizing The Masses
Said by some to be more dangerous than Osama bin-Laden, he has been condemned as a "war maniac," called a "moron" by the Canadian prime minister’s chief spokeswoman, ridiculed as "The English Patient" for his struggles with language, and likened to Adolf Hitler. Of all the labels hung on George W. Bush, the hardest to shake may be the comparison with Hitler. Perhaps the clearest likeness between the two men lies in their use of emotionally induced hypnosis to plant in the mass consciousness an image of themselves as protectors of their subjects from threats to national survival both inside and outside the fatherland. Full Article : informationclearinghouse.info
USA on 07.21.04 @ 05:20 AM CST [ link]
Tuesday, July 20th
Black Americans Discovered By Democratic Party
Like Christopher Columbus blinking in shock at first seeing an American Indian, John Kerry has just discovered African-American voters. On Thursday afternoon, Kerry landed at the NAACP convention, stepped off his slow-moving campaign boat and announced that he was exploring for one million missing Black voters. Let me explain -- because the New York Times won't. In the 2000 elections, 1.9 million ballots were cast which were never counted --"spoiled" is the technical term. Ballots don't spoil because they are left out of the fridge. There's always a technical reason: a stray mark, or my favorite, from Gadsden County, Florida, writing in Al Gore's name instead of checking a box. Full Article : gregpalast.com
USA on 07.20.04 @ 07:57 PM CST [ link]
Court-Approved Payments to Black Farmers
Report Reveals Bush Administration Has Blocked Court-Approved Payments to Black Farmers Aggressive legal tactics by the Bush administration have deliberately undermined a landmark 1997 civil rights settlement with African-American farmers, turning the claims process into another chapter in a long history of discriminatory treatment by the US Department of Agriculture. A report released today by Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the National Black Farmers Association (NBFA) finds that almost nine out of 10 black farmers have been denied compensation for discrimination over USDA crop loans, even though U.S. District Court for the District Columbia -- in approving the settlement -- had described compensation payment as "automatic." Instead the USDA, under the leadership of President Bush's Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman, has withheld three-quarters of the $2.3 billion agreed to in the settlement. "The USDA aggressively fought black farmers," said EWG's Ariane Callendar, a lead author of the report. The investigation found that USDA paid $12 million dollars to US Department of Justice lawyers for 56,000 hours spent contesting the claims of 129 black farmers. Full Article : bushgreenwatch.org
USA on 07.20.04 @ 07:11 PM CST [ link]
Bureau calls for precious metal deregulation in South Africa
South Africa's Minerals Bureau has called for the government to alter the present system governing gold and platinum possession and trading. According to the Bureau, South Africa needs to deregulate the dealing in and possession of serially numbered, trademarked and hallmarked bullion bars. Mr Damarupurshad explained to Mining Weekly: "South Africa, the world's largest gold and platinum producer, remains the only major producing or trading country prohibiting ownership of gold and platinum in bullion form." Full Article : platinum.matthey.com
Africa on 07.20.04 @ 10:37 AM CST [ link]
UN: Poverty has hit Sub-Saharan Africa worst
Vienna - Sub-Saharan Africa is the only part of the world where extreme poverty has been spreading steadily for 20 years, according to a United Nations report released on Tuesday. The average per capita income in the 34 countries south of the Sahara needs to grow by four to five percent a year for governments to reduce the dire poverty of their people by half by 2015, said the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (Unido). Full Article : iol.co.za
Africa on 07.20.04 @ 10:32 AM CST [ link]
Why tyrants rule Arabs
For 60 years, the West has propped up Arab despots, creating poverty and illiteracy where education once thrivedGWYNNE DYER It was just a random statistic, but a telling one: Only 300 books were translated into Arabic last year. That is about one foreign title per million Arabs. For comparison's sake, Greece translated 1,500 foreign-language books, or about 150 titles per million Greeks. Why is the Arab world so far behind, not only in this but in practically all the arts and sciences? The first-order answer is poverty and lack of education: Almost half of Arabic-speaking women are illiterate. But the Arab world used to be the most literate part of the planet; what went wrong? Tyranny and economic failure, obviously. But why is tyranny such a problem in the Arab world? That brings us to the nub of the matter. Full Article : thestar.com
USA on 07.20.04 @ 10:28 AM CST [ link]
Farm subsidies and Africa: Cotton's not king
It is increasingly asserted that American and European agricultural subsidies inhibit prosperity in the developing world, particularly in Africa. Critics argue that rich nations have aggressively dismantled trade barriers on industrial goods, yet shamelessly refused to do so for agriculture, where many African nations would have a comparative advantage. Full Article : iht.com
USA on 07.20.04 @ 06:42 AM CST [ link]
Visiting the sins of the individual on a single race
When USA Today correspondent Jack Kelley-a pleasant colleague when I worked at USAT in the '80s-was recently unmasked as a serial fabricator, I awaited pronouncements similar to those issued by pundits outraged by Jayson Blair's printed lies at the New York Times. I'm still waiting. Kelley's fabrications have rightly caused those who care about newspapers to painfully question whether reporters and editors face enough checks and balances in daily journalism. But where are the hordes of columnists decrying the horrific effects of overambitious white reporters who are too trusted by their editors and shoved into jobs beyond their gifts? In fact, some Kelley co-workers saw him as such a phenom, one whose difficulties handling such pressures took years to expose. Full Article : trinidadexpress.com
Caribbean on 07.20.04 @ 06:32 AM CST [ link]
The rule of law and the rule of exceptions
In an attempt to put an end to the Arab and international demand to force Israel to reveal its nuclear program, Dr. Mohammad El-Baradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency went to Israel on a visit that was doomed to failure even before he set out: The Israeli government had announced before the visit that they would not allow anyone to visit their nuclear establishments. Full Article : jang.com.pk
USA on 07.20.04 @ 06:24 AM CST [ link]
How has the US been spending other people's billions?
Right now, Mr Waxman has a question on Iraq. In fact, he has several - and in typically robust fashion, he is demanding answers. What he wants to know is whether the Bush administration has been fiddling with Iraq's oil revenues. He wrote to the Republican chairman of the reform committee on July 9, suggesting there was a serious case to answer. Subpoenas should be issued, he said, "to investigate potential mismanagement of the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI) by the United States". Full Article : guardian.co.uk
USA on 07.20.04 @ 06:17 AM CST [ link]
A Nation Whose Govt Rules Only Its Capital
NAJAF, 20 July 2004 — It was Afghanistan Mk2. For mile after mile south of Baghdad yesterday, the story was the same: Empty police posts, abandoned Iraqi Army and police checkpoints and a litter of burned-out American fuel tankers and rocket-smashed police vehicles down the main highway to Hilla and Najaf. Full Article : arabnews.com
USA on 07.20.04 @ 06:12 AM CST [ link]
Arab women singers complicit in rape
While African women in Darfur were being raped by the Janjaweed militiamen, Arab women stood nearby and sang for joy, according to an Amnesty International report published yesterday. The songs of the Hakama, or the "Janjaweed women" as the refugees call them, encouraged the atrocities committed by the militiamen. The women singers stirred up racial hatred against black civilians during attacks on villages in Darfur and celebrated the humiliation of their enemies, the human rights group said. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
Africa on 07.20.04 @ 02:28 AM CST [ link]
Khartoum 'backs Darfur militias'
A human rights group says it has proof that Sudan's government has been supporting Arab militias accused of killing thousands in Darfur. New York-based Human Rights Watch says it has government documents showing that officials directed recruitment, arming and support of the Janjaweed. The government in Khartoum has denied any involvement with the militia. Full Article : bbc.co.uk
Africa on 07.20.04 @ 02:25 AM CST [ link]
Miner digs up 182-carat gem - and trouble
CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) -- There's lucky: Finding a diamond when you're a young miner sweating it out in the west African forests of Guinea. And there's too lucky: finding a 182-carat stone, that everyone -- starting with the government of Guinea -- wants a piece of. Result: the stone -- four times the size of the famous Hope diamond -- was tucked away Monday deep in the vaults of Guinea's Central Bank, no pictures, please. Full Article : nctimes.com
Africa on 07.20.04 @ 02:03 AM CST [ link]
Monday, July 19th
Zimbabwe: NGOs have to be registered
Zimbabwe charities face being outlawedHarare - Zimbabwe's human rights groups and aid organisations are in increasing danger after the government threatened yesterday to use banning orders and arrests to force them to register with the state. The threat appeared in the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper, a week before laws controlling non-governmental organisations are due to be presented by President Robert Mugabe to the last session of parliament before a general election next March. All NGOs have had to be registered since 2002. Full Article : zwnews.com
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 07:08 PM CST [ link]
MAURITANIA: Oil, copper and gold exports to start in 2005
NOUAKCHOTT, 19 Jul 2004 (IRIN) - President Maaouiya Ould Taya has announced that Mauritania will start to diversify its mineral exports next year, when its first offshore oilfield comes on stream and exports of copper and gold from a new mine in the western desert are stepped up. Since independence from France in 1960, this desert state of 2.5 million people has relied mainly on exports of iron ore mined in the northwest of the country and fish caught in its rich Atlantic waters. However, the Australian company Woodside Petroleum announced in January that it would go ahead with the commercial development of its Chinguetti offshore oilfield at an estimated cost of US$600 million. Ould Taya said the Chinguetti field, which is expected to produce 75,000 barrels per day, would ship its first export consignment of crude oil at the end of 2005. Full Article : irinnews.org
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 04:48 PM CST [ link]
Locusts invade Mauritania
Nouakchott - The west African state of Mauritania appealed for urgent international aid on Sunday as the first swarms of locusts invaded its territory, the official state news agency AMI reported. The call came from Rural Development Minister Ahmedou Ould Ahmedou and Economic Development Minister Abdellahi Ould Cheikh Sidya who summoned ambassadors from donor countries, the European Union, and the representative of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 04:42 PM CST [ link]
Blacks are Invisible at AIDS Conference
Jul 17, 2004 BANGKOK, Thailand (NNPA) – Although African-Americans represent more than half of all new AIDS cases diagnosed in the United States each year, they were virtually invisible among the hundreds of presenters at the 15th International AIDS Conference. Full Article : ncmonline.com
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 07:37 AM CST [ link]
A brief history of imperialist intervention in East Africa
By G. DunkelChad and the Sudan are two extremely poor countries in East Africa that were linked in the 19th century by the scramble of French imperialism, in competition with British imperialism, to divide Africa. To understand the current political situation in the Sudan, and how the United States is intervening there, some background information is useful.
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 06:55 AM CST [ more..]
Is A New Era Ahead of De Beers in Africa?
Only a week after Israeli diamantaire Lev Leviev grabbed headlines when he said he is giving African countries what they want – namely a bigger share of the diamond pipeline – Botswana is now singing the same tune as it carries out crucial negotiations with De Beers. In a potshot at De Beers last week, during a seminar on rough diamonds in Israel, Leviev told a packed hall that he did not understand why producing countries were told they couldn’t sort or polish diamonds. Their own diamonds. According to Leviev, one of the secrets of his success is that he stuck by his suppliers through hard times and helped them achieve their goals, as they expressed them to him. The Angolan Minister of Resources agreed with him during the seminar, as did the Namibian Prime Minister during the opening of Leviev’s polishing plant in the country earlier this month. Full Article : idexonline.com
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 06:52 AM CST [ link]
A very British coup?
Top Tories dragged into brewing heir's African adventure A former captain in the SAS, with connections to the British establishment, will face court in Zimbabwe this week, accused of planning a coup in an oil-rich African country. In a gripping tale of crime and politics, the trial of Simon Mann will hear allegations about a murder plot against a dictator accused of cannibalism. Mr Mann, whose father was an England cricket captain, is the scion of the Watney brewing empire. With 69 other men, he has been charged with trying to overthrow Teodoro Obiang, the President of Equatorial Guinea. Full Article : independent.co.ukDictator sues British 'coup plotters'A former SAS officer and three other men alleged to have been behind a plot by mercenaries to stage a coup in Equatorial Guinea are being sued in the High Court in London by the government of the West African state. British lawyers acting for Equatorial Guinea and its president, Teodoro Obiang, say that they are seeking millions of pounds in compensation on the rarely-cited legal grounds of civil conspiracy. Court documents seen by The Sunday Telegraph name Simon Mann, an Old Etonian scion of the Watney brewing family and a former Scots Guards officer, who is being held in jail with 70 other alleged mercenaries in Zimbabwe. They were allegedly en route to overthrow the regime in Equatorial Guinea, but they insist that they had been recruited as security officers at a Congo diamond mine. Also named in the documents are Eli Calil, a Chelsea-based oil tycoon; Greg Wales, a London businessman; Severo Moto, the exiled opposition leader; and two of Mr Mann's companies. Full Article : zwnews.comThe tale of an ex-SAS hero and his chums Smelly and Scratcher
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 06:47 AM CST [ link]
Sudan: 'Rape as weapon of war'
London - The Sudanese government is directly responsible for crimes against humanity in its strife-torn western region of Darfur, including the widespread rape of women, rights group Amnesty International charged on Monday. Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 06:36 AM CST [ link]
Peace talks waver as Darfur starves
ADDIS ABABA - Rebels from Darfur left Addis Ababa yesterday, dealing a blow to international efforts to launch peace talks with Khartoum as aid groups warned of a worsening crisis in the region of western Sudan, where at least a million people have fled their villages. Full Article : namibian.com.na
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 06:34 AM CST [ link]
Slavery well established in Africa before arrival of Portuguese
Sir, Mr Caesar Darias's statement (Letters, July 15) that "Portugal's main contribution to humanity over the past 800 years was to practically invent kidnapping and slavery" is ludicrous and offensive. Full Article : news.ft.com
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 06:32 AM CST [ link]
Kuwait Of Africa?
A 60 Minutes Special ReportWith gas prices hitting record levels this summer, and violence in the Middle East unabated, America has been scouring the globe searching for new sources of oil. And one could be Equatorial Guinea, a tiny nation that's been dubbed the Kuwait of Africa because it has so few people and so much oil. Full Article : wcco.com
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 06:28 AM CST [ link]
Africa develops appetite for patents
JOHANNESBURG: Southern African countries are seeking to restrict trade in a rare plant hungrily sought by drug companies for its appetite-suppressing properties, a government official recently said. The Hoodia cactus has been used for thousands of years by southern Africa's San Bushmen to dampen their appetites during long treks through the harsh Kalahari desert and holds the key to potentially lucrative anti-obesity drugs. Full Article : indiatimes.com
Africa on 07.19.04 @ 06:25 AM CST [ link]
Blair: the attacks mount up
Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector, stirred the row by describing Mr Blair's haste to war as an "error of judgement" while a former intelligence chief in Britain suggested that the evidence given to the Hutton inquiry by John Scarlett, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, had been "economical with the truth". Full Article : independent.co.uk
UK on 07.19.04 @ 06:17 AM CST [ link]
Sunday, July 18th
Downing Street admits Iraqi mass graves claim untrue
Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered. The claims by Blair in November and December of last year, were given widespread credence, quoted by MPs and widely published, including in the introduction to a US government pamphlet on Iraq's mass graves. In that publication - Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves produced by USAID, the US government aid distribution agency, Blair is quoted from 20 November last year: 'We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.' On 14 December Blair repeated the claim in a statement issued by Downing Street in response to the arrest of Saddam Hussein and posted on the Labour party website that: 'The remains of 400,000 human beings [have] already [been] found in mass graves.' Full Article : guardian.co.uk
UK on 07.18.04 @ 10:06 PM CST [ link]
Foreigners face slavery-like life in Saudi
"Migrant workers in the purportedly modern society that the kingdom has become continue to suffer extreme forms of labour exploitation that sometimes rise to slavery-like conditions," it said on Thursday. "This report is an indictment of unscrupulous private employers and sponsors as well as Saudi authorities, including Interior Ministry interrogators and sharia court judges, who operate without respect for the rule of law and the inherent dignity of all men and women," it added. Around six million foreigners, mostly from the Indian subcontinent, sweep the streets, build homes or run offices in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter. Full Article : swissinfo.org
Africa on 07.18.04 @ 02:18 PM CST [ link]
Rebels abandon Sudan peace talks
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia: African Union-sponsored talks to end the slaughter of tens of thousands of people in Sudan's western Darfur region collapsed on the weekend, with two rebel groups saying the Government still is not implementing existing peace agreements. "These talks are now finished," said Ahmed Hussain Adam, speaking for both his Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudanese Liberation Army. "We are leaving Addis Ababa." Full Article : theaustralian.news.com.au
Africa on 07.18.04 @ 01:25 PM CST [ link]
Mbeki opens talks with Burundi delegation
President Thabo Mbeki today opened two days of talks with Domitien Ndayizeye, the president of the Burundi transitional government, and representatives of the three Burundian major political parties. The parties are UPRONA, FRODEBU and CNDD-FDD. The talks, held in Pretoria, will focus on the issue of power sharing arrangements beyond the country's elections this year. Ndayizeye was the last to arrive at the Presidential Guest House in Pretoria this morning. Full Article : sabcnews.com
Africa on 07.18.04 @ 01:24 PM CST [ link]
UN calls for forgiveness of Africa's foreign debt
The head of the United Nations agency for Aids called on Friday for the foreign debt of African countries to be forgiven and the money put into programmes to tackle the Aids epidemic. Full Article : news.ft.com
Africa on 07.18.04 @ 01:24 PM CST [ link]
Saturday, July 17th
US writes off over $495m Pak debt
ISLAMABAD: The United States wrote off $495.3 million bilateral debt that Islamabad owed to Washington in an agreement here on Friday. "This final instalment of debt cancellation marks an evolutionary transition from stabilisation assistance to participation in Pakistan’s economic take-off and sustained development," US Ambassador to Pakistan Nancy Powell said after signing the agreement with Dr Waqar Masood Khan, Secretary Economic Affairs Division (EAD). She ruled out more debt relief. In the post-September 11 period, the United States has helped Pakistan by agreeing to the Paris Club terms under the stock of the debt operation, which paved the way for writing off the $1 billion debt in April 2003, and finally another half a billion dollar to reduce the bilateral US debt from $3 billion to about $1.6 billion, according to the EAD. However, the US administration has only waived off concessional loans borrowed under the Official Development Assistance (ODA). These loans, with a weighted average cost of just 2.54 per cent, were repayable in 38 years, leaving their Net Present Value (NPV) at just $200 million. The US administration approved these funds in its 2004 budget, as part of an overall package of $395 million. Full Article : jang.com.pk
USA on 07.17.04 @ 11:00 PM CST [ link]
Oil is the reason for the present African Focus
Militants target oil-rich NigeriaWestern intelligence services believe that Islamic extremists are making a determined effort to penetrate West Africa, an emerging world-class oil giant, amid signs that Osama bin Laden has singled out Nigeria for jihad......Having been ignored by the USA for decades, Africa has assumed a new importance for Washington as it moves to control oil supplies in the region, centred on the Gulf of Guinea, west of Nigeria. The US military is already seeking bases in the region. www.janes.com/security/international
_security/news/jiaa/jiaa040629_1_n.shtmlRising US stakes in AfricaCentral/West Africa is in the early phases of an extended oil boom that will signifi-cantly enhance the global position of Nigeria and Angola and bring greater attention to emergent, unstable producers—Equatorial Guinea, Chad, and São Tomé and Príncipe, most importantly. With proven reserves of more than 60 billion barrels, the region today provides one in four new barrels of oil coming onto world markets from outside the Persian Gulf. In 10 years, if it remains attractive for invest-ment, Central/West Africa could supply up to 20 percent of U.S. imported oil, bolstering vital U.S. energy security and commercial interests. www.csis.org/africa/0405_RisingStakes.pdfPatrick Bond, " 'The George Bush of Africa': Pretoria Chooses Subimperialism," (Silver City, NM & Washington, DC: Foreign Policy In Focus, July 13, 2004). www.fpif.org/papers/0407bushafrica.html
Africa on 07.17.04 @ 07:35 PM CST [ more..]
IMF is breathing fire on our heads, says Samukonga
By Larry Moonze, www.zamnet.zmTHE International Monetary Fund (IMF) is breathing hot fire on our heads, commerce deputy minister Geoffrey Samukonga told Parliament yesterday. Responding to Bahati MMD member of parliament Emmanuel Chungu's question on what was government's position or plan for the private sector in the country, Samukonga said there was a lot his ministry wanted to do but the IMF and World Bank set certain terms. "To be poor is a grave problem," he said.
Africa on 07.17.04 @ 06:21 PM CST [ more..]
Re: UK envoy attacks graft 'gluttons'(Kenya)
by ptaured7
Posted on The Reasoning ForumThe corruption issue in Kenya arises out of "petty" corruption typical in developing countries, where various officers demand gratuities in lieu of the robust salaries in developing countries pulled from the productive labor of its citizens through taxation. The countries of USA, UK and Japan, pointing the finger at "corruption" are hypocritical and disingenuous pontification. The mega corruption scandals of all three countries, particularly in the areas of weapons manufacture, war making and predatory financial and energy market debacles, like ENRON, make Kenyan petty graft and corruption look like child's play.
Africa on 07.17.04 @ 04:08 PM CST [ more..]
Colorism in Sudan
by AyindeThe Guardian UK published an article (linked below) about Colorism in Sudan, and they slipped in this piece of crap: "Islam urges its followers to treat all Muslims as equals and in Khartoum's mosques, black believers and Arabs pray together in fraternity. But in wider society, a colour bar is evident."
Africa on 07.17.04 @ 06:10 AM CST [ more..]
'Acrimonious' talks continue
16/07/2004 Addis Ababa - Talks between the Sudan government and representatives of two main rebel groups aimed at a lasting peace deal for the troubled Darfur region continued in the Ethiopian capital on Friday following an opening session on Thursday evening described as "acrimonious". Conference sources said the three-hour opening session, which was attended by members of the public and press, was marked by different factions trading accusations of ceasefire violations. At the top of the agenda is the full implementation of the ceasefire deal signed in Chad in April between Khartoum and the two main rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM). Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.17.04 @ 03:02 AM CST [ link]
Friday, July 16th
Africa seeks Darfur breakthrough
African mediators are trying to break the deadlock between the Sudan government and two rebels groups and end the conflict in the Darfur region. One of the rebel groups is insisting that there can be no serious talks until their six conditions are met. These include the withdrawal of government forces from Darfur and an international enquiry into charges of genocide against non-Arabs. Full Article : news.bbc.co.ukDarfur peace talks start in Addis AbabaThe Sudanese government and two of the rebel groups that are active in the Darfur region have started peace talks to end their long-standing conflict in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. The Chadian government and the African Union are the mediators in talks between the Sudanese government and the rebel Sudan Liberation and Justice and Equality groups. Observers from the United States, European Union, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands are also participating. Full Article : aljazeera.com
Africa on 07.16.04 @ 03:52 PM CST [ link]
Darfur Rebels Set Six Conditions for Sudan Talks
Darfur rebel groups set six conditions for peace talks with the Sudanese government due to start in earnest Friday, including disarming of Arab militias and access for an international inquiry into genocide charges. Full Article : reuters.com
Africa on 07.16.04 @ 06:27 AM CST [ link]
Libya to help speed up aid delivery to Sudan
Tripoli - Libya and the United Nations's World Food Programme (WFP) said Thursday they had agreed on opening aid corridors through Libya to Sudan and Chad to speed the delivery of relief supplies to victims of the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region. Full Article : iol.co.za
Africa on 07.16.04 @ 06:26 AM CST [ link]
Intra-Africa trade is too low
Trade among African countries accounts for only about 10% of their total exports and imports, according to a report. The study by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) blames the continuing low level of trade on poor transport links among African countries. Instead it suggests that colonial-era patterns remain, with most trade still to and from the former colonial powers. Full Article : news.bbc.co.uk
Africa on 07.16.04 @ 06:04 AM CST [ link]
Africa Lags In U.N. Wealth Ranking
The U.N.'s annual ranking of the global rich and poor showed stark differences Thursday as AIDS pushes African nations further into misery while the most of the rest of the world creeps toward higher development. "The picture that emerges is increasingly one of two very different groups of countries: those that have benefited from development and those that have been left behind," the report said. Full Article : cbsnews.com
Africa on 07.16.04 @ 01:14 AM CST [ link]
Thursday, July 15th
U.S. military talks to Nigeria over Gulf of Guinea
ABUJA, Nigeria — A top U.S. general has held talks with Nigerian military chiefs on security in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, set to become one of the world's top oil supply hubs within a decade, officials said Tuesday. The world's largest energy consumer is keen to protect a series of huge oil discoveries in the gulf, controlled by several politically unstable states including Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome, and Angola. Full Article : enn.com
Africa on 07.15.04 @ 11:20 PM CST [ link]
Life expectancy plummets in Africa
Life expectancy in some parts of Africa has dropped to below 33 yearsLife expectancy in some parts of Africa has dropped to below 33 years as the AIDS epidemic takes its toll in the region, says the Human Development Report, 2004 (United Nations). The report looks at 177 countries and ranks them according to quality of life. Such factors as health, health care services, education, life expectancy and standard of living are taken into account. Full Article : medicalnewstoday.comLife expectancy plummets in AfricaThe Aids crisis has slashed the life expectancy in some parts of Africa to less than 33 years, according to the UN's Human Development Report 2004. "Twenty countries have suffered severe reversals in human development in the last 10 years because of HIV/Aids," lead author Sakiko Fukada-Parr said. Full Article : news.bbc.co.uk
Africa on 07.15.04 @ 01:48 PM CST [ link]
African integration is still a dream
New York - Africa has not shaken its colonial-era economic patterns, with intra-African trade accounting for only about 10 percent of total exports and imports, according to a 275-page study released on Wednesday. As a result the full potential of a vast market has not been realised despite countless efforts toward regional integration, the study by the Economic Commission for Africa said. Full Article : iol.co.za
Africa on 07.15.04 @ 05:45 AM CST [ link]
Bill Cosby blames parents for US society's ills
A major controversy has arisen over public comments made by the well-known African-American comedian Bill Cosby, whose remarks over the past several weeks have elicited commentaries in virtually every major newspaper in the US. Cosby has declared that the principal responsibility for the high incarceration rate of black youth, as well as the problems of illiteracy and the 50 percent dropout rate of black high school students, lies primarily with the parents. Full Article : wsws.org
Africa on 07.15.04 @ 12:20 AM CST [ link]
SA observers for 'coup plotters' trial in Equatorial Guinea
Pretoria: The government is to send a delegation to Equatorial Guinea to ensure the trial of eight of the men accused of being mercenaries plotting to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema M'basogo is conducted in a fair manner. Full Article : capetimes.co.za
Africa on 07.15.04 @ 12:11 AM CST [ link]
Sudan resolution vote won't come this week
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- Sudan has opened its doors to aid groups seeking to help more than a million uprooted people in Darfur, but militia are still terrorizing villagers, a U.N. relief official said Wednesday. Full Article : edition.cnn.com
USA on 07.15.04 @ 12:06 AM CST [ link]
Wednesday, July 14th
Politics of deceit on Haiti
In the continuing governance crisis in poverty stricken Haiti one constant has been political chicanery. Indeed, political trickery or deceit has been present from the start of implementation of a USA/French plan to get rid of President Jean Bertrand Aristide to the present maneouvrings and pressures to extend legitimacy to an interim regime in Port-au-Prince of which the irrational Gerard Latortue is Prime Minister. Full Article : trinidadexpress.com
Caribbean on 07.14.04 @ 06:05 PM CST [ link]
Caribbean Leaders See Hope for Haiti Ties
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Five Caribbean foreign ministers said Wednesday they were satisfied with Haiti's pledges to hold elections and uphold justice, indicating the way had been cleared for resuming diplomatic ties. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
Caribbean on 07.14.04 @ 06:00 PM CST [ link]
Root of Sudan's Darfur crisis and US concern
by AyindeWhy is the West suddenly concerned about the racist Arab drive to kill off dark-skinned Africans in Sudan? This should be the question at the forefront of the minds of thinking people. The UN and the U.S. (both partners in crime) are aware that the entire White World policies today were built on the foundation of racism. It is the same racism that allows the U.S. to lie to the world and invade Iraq without the fear that they will be charged as war criminals. Who will charge the U.S. criminals? Certainly not their European counterparts.
Africa on 07.14.04 @ 06:35 AM CST [ more..]
The Iraqi Body Counts
Memo To: Sen. Pat Roberts [R KS]
From: Jude Wanniski
Re: More Bad Intelligence As chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Roberts, you have done the country a great service by issuing the committee's report on the errors made by the Intelligence Community [IC] that led to the President's decision to war against Iraq. You have also been good enough to acknowledge that if what is now known to be true – that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction and no connection with 9-11 – there would not have been the votes in the Senate in November 2002 to authorize the use of force against Iraq should diplomacy fail. What seems to be the consensus view of the Intelligence Committee, especially its vice chairman Jay Rockefeller [D-WV], is that the IC came to believe the administration was bent on regime change in Iraq and the "group think" produced the erroneous intelligence. That is, the "process" was flawed, directing information up the ladder to the Oval Office in ways that would support a war decision and suppress counter arguments that would prevent that flawed information flow. I was a bit puzzled, Senator, because I have been following the "genocide" issue in Iraq for several years and wondered how you could get these numbers. If you were not chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I wouldn't bother you today, because most members of Congress have bought the genocide story that has become embedded in the national consciousness because it has been repeated too many times. As a result, I contacted your staff (your eyes and ears, so to speak), and asked: "Can you help me better understand where Senator Roberts gets the numbers of Iraqis killed by Saddam Hussein... particularly the number 500,000. He used it several times in the weekend talk shows. There have been reports of as many as 200,000 killed in the Anfal campaign of 1987–88, but so far no mass graves have been found in Kurdistan, none at all. The Senator also says he watched 18,000 bodies being unearthed at a gravesite at Hillah. The most recent number I've seen relating to that area is 2,200. The Senator's inference is that these dead were victims of genocide, when all the accounts say the victims were Shiite rebels who were attempting to overthrow the government – and were of the belief the USA would come to protect them because they were incited to rebel by CIA agents." Full Article : lewrockwell.com
USA on 07.14.04 @ 03:32 AM CST [ link]
Poor funding stalls Africa's initiatives
By Sifelani Tsiko, www.herald.co.zw AFRICAN countries must strive to mobilise their own resources to augment their home-grown strategies to bring peace and stability to the continent's many troubled spots, political analysts say. "Funding is still a major problem for the African Union's peacekeeping force," says Prof Heneri Dzinotyiwei, a University of Zimbabwe political analyst.
Africa on 07.14.04 @ 02:11 AM CST [ more..]
Kenyan Youth Culture Takes Off as Censorship Weakens
NAIROBI, Kenya - From her studio on the 20th floor of an office building in downtown Nairobi, 25-year-old radio disc jockey Eve D'Souza has a good perspective on the tastes of young Kenyans. As she spins CDs for the evening show "Hits Not Homework" on Nairobi's Capital FM, D'Souza juggles the phones and keeps an eye on the dozens of instant messages on her computer screen from her young listeners. From the requests, it is clear that young Kenyans have wholeheartedly embraced American pop culture. Among the hundreds of messages D’Souza receives nightly is a call from Larry in Baru, who requests a track from Naz. Joey in Nairobi writes, "I'd luv any tight trick by Dead Prez going out to my cuz Willy wherever he at." Full Article : berkeleydaily.org
Africa on 07.14.04 @ 01:23 AM CST [ link]
Correia Makes History at Swimming Trials
LONG BEACH, Calif. - Maritza Correia didn't have to win to make history. With a fourth-place finish in the 100-meter freestyle, she became the first black woman to qualify for the U.S. Olympic swim team. "I'm amazed, I'm shocked, I'm happy," said Correia, who now has a chance to be part of the 400 free relay in Athens. "It's a great honor. I hope I'm one of many." Full Article : mercurynews.com
USA on 07.14.04 @ 01:18 AM CST [ link]
Tuesday, July 13th
Emergency UN Session On Israeli Wall Friday
The United Nations General Assembly will reconvene on Friday its long-running emergency special session on the question of Palestine to examine the advisory opinion issued last week by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the legal consequences of Israel's construction of a separation barrier. Full Article : scoop.co.nz
USA on 07.13.04 @ 10:33 PM CST [ link]
A letter to Bill Cosby, Mr. Joseph and Mr. Mootoo of Canada
by Linda EdwardsThree men, middle class, educated, fairly wealthy recently garnered some fame, one already had it, for themselves, by pontificating on African American poverty, an easy subject of the popular press. So, this is a response.
Admin on 07.13.04 @ 03:10 PM CST [ more..]
South Africa may test first 'pharming' crop
London - Genetically modified plants are to be used to grow vaccines against rabies and Aids, scientists have announced. Europe's first field trial, announced on Monday, is likely to be carried out in South Africa because of fears over crop vandalism in Britain. Full Article : iol.co.za
Africa on 07.13.04 @ 02:48 AM CST [ link]
S. African ghettos woo tourists
SOWETO - South Africa is actively pitching its black ghettos to travellers as an experience in living history, filled with politics, culture, craft and music. A decade after the end of apartheid, hordes of tourists are descending on townships located on the fringes of cities where blacks often lived in appalling conditions, and the government is promoting them as virtual museums. Full Article : straitstimes.asia1.com.sg
Africa on 07.13.04 @ 02:45 AM CST [ link]
Archaeologists unearth first town incorporated by African-American
PIKE COUNTY, Ill. - (KRT) - The tale of a small Illinois town, extinct for nearly 100 years, is being rebuilt and retold piece by piece. Last month, an archaeological team of 15 people from around the country finished the first of a three-phase excavation of a rolling farm field about 35 miles southeast of Quincy, Ill. The team spent five weeks digging thousands of artifacts from the 42-acre prairie grass pasture once known as New Philadelphia - the first town in the United States incorporated by an African-American. Full Article : kansascity.com
USA on 07.13.04 @ 02:43 AM CST [ link]
Monday, July 12th
Venezuela and Saudi Arabia: A Tale of Two Countries
by Medea Benjamin, CommonDreams.org This is a tale of two countries. The first is Saudi Arabia, a fundamentalist theocracy that, according to the U.S. State Department, whips and beheads political dissidents; doesn't allow women to vote; squashes political protest; amputates the hands of thieves; regularly censors the press; and has been linked by numerous reports to the Al Qaeda terrorist network that was behind the 9/11 attacks. The second is Venezuela, a republican democracy where elections are hotly contested and closely scrutinized by international observers; political rallies regularly draw hundreds of thousands of partisans into the street; an independent press routinely criticizes top government officials; and a presidential recall referendum will take place on August 15. Both are major oil exporters to the United States. One is being singled out for criticism and the other is being shielded from it by the Bush administration. Can you guess which is which?
USA on 07.12.04 @ 06:48 PM CST [ more..]
Botswana bushmen seek redress
A group of bushmen from Botswana who claim the government illegally evicted them from their ancestral lands take their case to court on Monday. Full Article : news.bbc.co.ukThis Day In African History: July 121787 - The Constitutional Convention adopts a compromise on how to count slaves in determining local population for representation in Congress. Each slave will be counted as 3/5 of a person. Full Article : africana.com
Africa on 07.12.04 @ 01:23 AM CST [ link]
Italy Allows African Refugees To Dock
The drama surrounding 37 African refugees, mostly Sudanese, aboard a German relief ship off the coast of Italy ended on Sunday. After a nearly three-week standoff with Malta over the fate of the rescue ship "Cap Anamur," the Italian government permitted the ship to enter the Sicilian port of Porto Empedocle, the Italian news agency ANSA reported Sunday. Full Article : dw-world.de
Africa on 07.12.04 @ 01:17 AM CST [ link]
A fisher king's fast fall
Until he got snared for building a vast fish smuggling enterprise, Arnold Bengis nearly had the world fooledIt might have seemed an unlikely place to nab one of the nation's largest smugglers of illegally caught seafood: Arnold Bengis' Bridgehampton home, a villa of creamy stucco and Spanish tile, is nestled in one of Long Island's most serene settings -- on Dune Road, between the Atlantic Ocean and Mecox Bay. But Chris Musto and other federal fisheries-enforcement agents already had tracked Bengis' criminal enterprise to hillside neighborhoods in Cape Town, South Africa, bustling docks in Singapore and cavernous warehouses in Newark. It was 6 a.m. on Aug. 6 when Musto and three other agents, along with Suffolk police, knocked on the door on Dune Road. Full Article : newsday.com
Africa on 07.12.04 @ 12:58 AM CST [ link]
Bryant and O'Neal Don't Know Own Strength
The more I hear about Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, the more I think of John Carlos and Tommie Smith.  In 1968, Smith and Carlos were two of the world's best sprinters. At the Mexico City Olympics, Smith set a world record in the 200 meters, Peter Norman of New Zealand won the silver medal and Carlos won the bronze. But the upset took place on the victory stand when Carlos put a black glove on his left fist and Smith put one on his right. They pulled off their shoes and stood on the stand in black socks. As the national anthem was played and the American flag was raised, the two thrust their fists skyward and bowed their heads. The black socks symbolized the economic and social disenfranchisement of so many blacks in the United States, Smith once said. And the gloves symbolized the unity, mounting anger, frustration and fury of so many African-Americans, impoverished, brutalized and marginalized in the world's greatest democracy. Thirty-six years later, two highly acclaimed teammates - Shaq and Kobe - have been pushed apart by ego-tripping, bruised feelings and manipulation by a Los Angeles Lakers organization that, for some reason, feels that it will benefit by pushing these two giants apart. Full Article : nytimes.com
USA on 07.12.04 @ 12:43 AM CST [ link]
Space for the embattled
Minority communities need a respite from attack to be able to challenge their own dupes and demagogues by Gary Younge
Monday July 12, 2004
The GuardianThe American Directory of Certified Uncle Toms, published by the self-appointed Council on Black Internal Affairs after the Million Man March, describes itself as "a review of the history, antics and attitudes of handkerchief heads, Aunt Jemimas, head negroes in charge and house negroes against the freedom of the black race". It takes its mission seriously, ranking 50 black leaders according to a five-star Uncle Tom rating. Colin Powell (five stars) is described as "an official, government-issue Uncle Tom"; Maya Angelou (two stars) is "the much glorified but innocuous negro emissary of ebony culture"; and Oprah Winfrey (four stars) is considered "the best unambiguously black ambassador of plantation placidity since Hattie McDaniel gushed over Scarlett in Gone With the Wind".
USA on 07.12.04 @ 12:27 AM CST [ more..]
Singers of Sudan Study War No More
Before they head out to battle, the militiamen who have been rampaging through the Darfur region in Sudan sit down together on straw mats and listen to songs of war. But there has been plenty of fighting lately in this harsh area near the border with Chad, and Ms. Sanusi, like so many other hakamah, has been belting out war song after war song. Initially, organizers of the workshop said, the hakamah denied that they were to blame for the violence. But as the discussions progressed, one of the hakamah eventually broke down in tears and acknowledged her role in the fighting. Full Article : nytimes.com
Admin on 07.12.04 @ 12:20 AM CST [ link]
Sunday, July 11th
How Israel tries to replace ILLEGAL wall with NECESSARY wall
 First, the ICJ decision; (1) Court rules Israel's West Bank barrier is illegalthen the well timed attack; (2) Roadside bomb kills one, wounds 21 in Tel Aviv link the attack to the court ruling; (3) Sharon slams ICJ for attacknow show that the illegal wall is necessary. (4) Sharon: Barrier Construction to ContinueOh well, can't fool all the people all the time. (5) Arafat hints Israel planted Tel Aviv bomb
Caribbean on 07.11.04 @ 03:58 PM CST [ link]
Haiti is a prison ruled by psychopaths
Haiti In ChainsHaiti is a prison ruled by psychopaths, an angry wound in the body of the African Diaspora inflicted by pirates at war with civilization, itself. It is the festering evidence of the Bush men’s true intentions for the region and hemisphere, a nightmare and a warning from the North to the South: don’t even pretend that you are free. Since February 29, when the United States and France forced President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his wife into an odyssey of exile, Haiti has endured the dictatorship of an elite so tiny and morally depraved that its survival is dependent on indigenous criminals and foreign soldiers. The U.S.-installed government of Gerard Latortue – a rabble fronting for butchers and thieves – now seeks legitimacy in the ranks of the Caribbean Community, Caricom, the 15-nation regional body from which Latortue recklessly withdrew in the aftermath of the coup. Full Article: blackcommentator.com
Caribbean on 07.11.04 @ 03:58 PM CST [ link]
Caricom/Haiti relations again on tenterhooks
New tensions emerged yesterday between the Caribbean Community and Haiti's interim government in the face of Gerard Latortue's seeming rejection of a set of the conditions Caricom leaders say his administration must fulfil if it wants to take Haiti's seat in the Community. Full Article: jamaicaobserver.com
Caribbean on 07.11.04 @ 03:58 PM CST [ link]
Arafat hints Israel planted Tel Aviv bomb
Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat has condemned Sunday's deadly bomb attack in Tel Aviv but suggested that it was an act of provocation carried out by the Israelis. "We condemn this act as we always condemn these acts," Arafat said, before hinting that it could have been carried out by the Israelis. "You know who is behind these acts," he told reporters on Sunday at his West Bank offices. "Europe knows it, the Americans know it, the Israelis know it." Arafat has previously accused members of the Israeli secret services of having perpetrated attacks against Israel. Full Article : english.aljazeera.net
USA on 07.11.04 @ 03:44 PM CST [ link]
The US is still trying to unseat Chavez
Venezuelan President Chavez again accuses US of backing campaign to unseat himVenezuelan President Hugo Chavez restated his long-time contention that Washington is behind a campaign for a "yes" vote in an August 15 recall referendum aimed at removing him from power, in order to control Venezuela's oil. Chavez said he would present proof on Sunday that the US was financing the Venezuelan opposition's referendum campaign in order to open his country's huge petroleum industry to foreign investment. Full Article : news.yahoo.com
Venezuela on 07.11.04 @ 03:28 PM CST [ link]
Florida scraps felon vote list
Nine days after making the names of more than 47,000 potential felon voters public, state officials have scrapped the entire list, saying it was too flawed to be trusted. The state had tried to keep the list a secret. It fought a lawsuit aimed at opening the records to the public. A series of errors emerged once a Tallahassee judge rejected the state's arguments and released the records on July 1. The error that proved final - and garnered national attention - was that Hispanics were largely overlooked because of glitches in how the state records information about race and ethnicity. Many Hispanic voters vote Republican. That they were largely omitted from a list disproportionately weighted with Democratic-leaning blacks has fueled theories that voter rolls were being manipulated for political motives. State officials said it was data errors, not politics, that excluded Hispanics from the list. Full Article : sptimes.com
Africa on 07.11.04 @ 06:21 AM CST [ more..]
DAFUR: the open sore of a continent
Another human tragedy is playing out in western Sudan. It is the tragedy of Dafur. The conflict in the Sudan has been described as genocide. But we shall return to this. However, let me point out that what we see in Dafur is another example of how Africans are made victims of an expansionist, and brutal external marauders who have historically taken advantage of the inherent pacifism, and some might even say indolence, of the Negroid people. Many Africans have focused singularly on the effects of the European conquest and colonisation of Africa. And Africans have often forgotten that the history of Africa is the history of double penetration: one from the East, and the other from the West. Although each form of these violent penetrations of Africa remains the central basis of its historical instability, but a close study shows, that the Eastern –– that is Arab - penetration of Africa in the last one thousand years remains the most violent. Full Article : vanguardngr.com
Africa on 07.11.04 @ 06:10 AM CST [ link]
How Kenya's best kept secret became a hotbed of insurgents
Dateline: Saturday, December 12, 1964. At around 3 pm, just as Kenya turned into a republic, the newly sworn-in President Jomo Kenyatta’s convoy drove from State House, Nairobi to the flag-decked Thika Road to officially open what he described as "Kenya's best kept secret" and Jamhuri Day's "big surprise" - the so-called Lumumba Institute. He didn't know it was a communist school of politics designed to topple him. Full Article : eastandard.net
Africa on 07.11.04 @ 06:07 AM CST [ link]
Culture weaves past into present, future
The baskets, made of sweetgrass and bull rushes, are no longer used for hauling crops and storing goods. Once, before synthetics and assembly lines, they filled a basic need. Men gathered the thick, tough grasses that grow in the marshes, while women sewed them into the needed shapes and sizes. Now vendors sell the baskets at stands up and down the South Carolina coastline -- as art. The baskets commemorate a distinct culture, called Gullah, which would emerge over the last 300-plus years on barrier islands from Cape Fear, N.C., to northern Florida as a melding of West African and American customs, forged in isolation and tempered by the legacy of slavery. Full Article : islandpacket.com
Africa on 07.11.04 @ 05:56 AM CST [ link]
Rebels kill 100 in Sudan
The Lord's Resistance Army rebels attacked six villages around the town of Madgwi, about 50km north of the Ugandan border, on June 25-27, said Rev Paul Yugusuk, the head of the Anglican Church. He said about 100 villagers were killed, but a Sudanese rebel group said 122 people died in the attacks. Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.11.04 @ 05:48 AM CST [ link]
Mugabe rules out new talks
Harare, Zimbabwe - President Robert Mugabe ruled out any new talks with Zimbabwe's opposition on the country's economic and political crisis, citing its alleged ties with Britain, the former colonial power, the state Sunday Mail reported. He said Blair had acknowledged in the British Parliament last week that Britain was trying to help bring about "regime change" in Zimbabwe, the newspaper reported. Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.11.04 @ 05:45 AM CST [ link]
Zim 70 wait on SA court
Harare - The trial of 70 suspected mercenaries detained in Zimbabwe for allegedly plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea, has been postponed to allow for a South African court to hear an appeal for their expatriation to Pretoria, a lawyer said on Saturday. The trial had been due to open at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison on July 19, but will now start on July 21, Alwyn Griebenow said. "The date has been shifted... so we will go on trial on 21 July," Griebenow said. Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.11.04 @ 05:42 AM CST [ link]
Saturday, July 10th
History Of Colonialist Intrigue In Sudan Remains Unabated
Last week US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, announced a visit to Sudan and the Darfur region in particular. This was following on from the NATO summit in Turkey. Several western bodies have dubbed Darfur a flashpoint. However the saddening Sudanese situation should be understood in light of the US backing of the SPLA (Sudan People’s Liberation Army), coupled with the pressure placed on the Khartoum government. What also needs to be considered is the threat of US intervention and the plan to divide the country of Sudan on 'ethnic' lines. This spells a dire future for Sudan and the region as a whole. Full Article: jihadunspun.com
Africa on 07.10.04 @ 12:58 PM CST [ link]
Exhibit on lynching aims to educate, heal
"Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America" is an unflinching look at the horrific face of inhumanity bred from racism: corpses dangling from trees, mutilated bodies and indifferent, unrepentant spectators. The exhibit, opening Thursday at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, will force visitors to confront their prejudices and preconceptions about race, discrimination and violence. Hosting it would be a daunting task for even the most prestigious and well-attended history museum. For Detroit's African-American museum -- struggling to improve its reputation, build membership and become financially self-sufficient -- it's a profound challenge. Full Article : freep.com
Africa on 07.10.04 @ 12:50 PM CST [ link]
Displaced San people of Botswana
Landmark legal case may be last hope for displaced San people of Botswana It was a little court in a big desert, and the lawyers grew uneasy as the shadows lengthened: lions are nocturnal hunters. Gordon Bennett, a British barrister, suggested the court adjourn. "Dusk is almost upon us and we are camping tonight." To everyone's relief, the three judges wedged in the Land Cruiser agreed, and the convoy dispersed to collect firewood before another night under the stars. It was a surreal safari, where baseball caps and sunglasses replaced wigs and robes, but there was no doubting the seriousness of this week's effort to bring justice to the Kalahari. The San people, also known as bushmen, have challenged the government of Botswana over their expulsion from ancestral lands in what could be a landmark case for indigenous rights in Africa. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
Africa on 07.10.04 @ 12:38 PM CST [ link]
Ethiopia wants Eritrea talks, war would be "stupid"
Ethiopia wants to solve its border dispute with Eritrea through dialogue because the only other option is a return to war, which would be "stupid", Ethiopia's prime minister said on Thursday. Full Article : alertnet.org
Africa on 07.10.04 @ 12:24 PM CST [ link]
Africa readies Darfur troops
The African Union has scrambled to rush troops to Sudan's Darfur region, shrugging off concern that confusion about their exact role could put the peace mission, and possibly lives, at risk. AU officials were phoning around the continent on Friday to summon observers and troops to help stop Arab militias from attacking black Africans in Darfur, where the United Nations says the world's worst humanitarian crisis is unfolding. Full Article : swissinfo.org
Africa on 07.10.04 @ 12:02 PM CST [ link]
Friday, July 9th
ICJ: Israel must stop building wall now
The World Court has ruled that Israel must immediately stop its construction of the West Bank barrier, saying it is tantamount to annexation and in violation of international humanitarian law. The Hague-based court ruled on Friday that parts encroaching on Palestinian territory should be dismantled and Israel must pay compensation for damage caused by the West Bank wall. "The wall … cannot be justified by military exigencies or by the requirements of national security or public order," said Judge Shi Jiuyong of China "The construction of such a wall accordingly constitutes breaches by Israel of its obligations under the applicable international humanitarian law." Full Article : english.aljazeera.net
USA on 07.09.04 @ 10:04 PM CST [ link]
Kerry and Edwards: White America's Dream Team
In a move that didn't surprise many, John Kerry selected Senator John Edwards to be his running mate. Kerry announced his choice after returning from a bus tour of the Midwest which he labeled the "Spirit of America" tour. And just what kind of people embody the "Spirit of America," according to Kerry? Well, white people, of course! The photos of the trip indicate as much. Analysts are predicting the addition of Edwards will increase the ticket's appeal to rural, middle class, Midwestern, and Southern voters (white voters, in other words). The recruitment of Edwards is simply the next major step in the Democratic Party's epic struggle for the hearts and minds of white America. At first, Kerry seemed to be interested in the plight of African Americans. He even said he wanted to be America's second "black President." A former (black) Clinton official responded by saying, "That ain't gonna happen. He's not going to out-Clinton Clinton, and if he tried, he would look phony." Kerry seems to agree, and has all but abandoned his black constituency. In a speech to the National Conference of Black Mayors in April, Kerry spent his time talking about how to secure U.S. chemical plants rather than the concerns of the audience. He has virtually excluded black people from prominent positions in his campaign, angering many black activists. Full Article : zmag.org
USA on 07.09.04 @ 11:23 AM CST [ link]
African Union vows to tackle Darfur
African leaders ended a summit meeting, taking a tough and determined stance on the crisis in the western Sudanese region of Darfur and other hotspots as they vowed to promote peace and stability to fuel African development. They resolved to back up their words with action, authorizing the deployment of an armed "protection force" to Darfur, the theatre of what the United Nations has called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Full Article : channelnewsasia.comAfrican Troops In Darfur By End Of July: AUAfrican leaders have authorized the deployment of an armed force that will have the mandate to protect civilians in the western Sudanese region of Darfur by the end of July. Meanwhile, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Ismail warned Washington not to spark an Iraq-style crisis over the civil war in Darfur , insisting in comments published Friday, July 9, that US sanctions threats only aggravated the situation. The African Union (AU) leaders ended a summit meeting in Addis Ababa Thursday, July 8, taking a tough and determined stance on the crisis in the Sudan and other hotspots as they vowed to promote peace and stability to boost African development. Full Article : islam-online.net
Africa on 07.09.04 @ 10:15 AM CST [ link]
Africa's daughters: Genital mutilation
Tina Rosenberg Mariam Bagayoko was a powerful and respected person in Bamako, the capital of Mali. Now she is shunned and criticized by many of her neighbors. Bagayoko used to perform what the West has come to know as female genital mutilation, a practice inflicted on more than 90 percent of girls in Mali. Full Article : iht.com
USA on 07.09.04 @ 01:17 AM CST [ link]
Shining a light on South Africa's dark past
Americans who feel blasé or cynical about this fall's U.S. presidential elections should consider visiting a few of the landmarks along what tourism officials here call the "Struggle Route." Full Article : usatoday.com
USA on 07.09.04 @ 01:12 AM CST [ link]
Blix made last-minute plea to Blair on Iraq
Former U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix pleaded with Prime Minister Tony Blair for more time to find weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Financial Times reports. "I told Mr Blair that while I could not completely exclude the possibility of the existence of WMD, I was not impressed by the evidence so far," Blix told Friday's paper in an interview. "Blair told me that all the intelligence agencies around the world agreed with the British and the U.S. that there were. He was genuinely convinced." Full Article : mirror.co.uk
USA on 07.09.04 @ 01:07 AM CST [ link]
The New Cosby Kids
It was such a dog-bites-man story that I almost skipped right by: Billionaire Bashes Poor Blacks. The only thing that gave this particular story a little piquancy is that the billionaire doing the bashing is black himself. Bill Cosby has been attacking the poor of his race, and especially the youthful poor, for a range of sins, including using bad words, "stealing poundcake," "giggling" and failing to give their children normal names like "Bill." "The lower-economic people," Cosby announced, "are not holding up their end in this deal." Full Article : commondreams.org
USA on 07.09.04 @ 01:02 AM CST [ link]
Thursday, July 8th
AP: Iraq Insurgency Larger Than Thought
The Iraq insurgency is far larger than the 5,000 guerrillas previously thought to be at its core, U.S. military officials say, and it's being led by well-armed Iraqi Sunnis angry at being pushed from power alongside Saddam Hussein. Full Article : apnews.myway.com
USA on 07.08.04 @ 11:44 PM CST [ link]
Court: Fence violates int'l law, must be dismantled
The International Court of Justice will rule on Friday that the separation fence contravenes international law, that it must be dismantled, and that compensation must be paid to the Palestinian owners of property confiscated for its construction, according to documents obtained by Haaretz. Full Article : haaretz.com
USA on 07.08.04 @ 11:43 PM CST [ link]
Bush Wins; House Leaves Patriot Act As Is
The Republican-led House bowed to a White House veto threat Thursday and stood by the USA Patriot Act, defeating an effort to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that helps the government investigate people's reading habits. Full Article : apnews.myway.com
USA on 07.08.04 @ 11:42 PM CST [ link]
A dark, ugly history we must all face
Inescapable is the word "powerful." "These are rough," said one black man after he saw them. Brutally shocking as the photos are, they represent dark chapters of our shared history, a history we must all face up to. I don't know how many Mississippi white adults saw the exhibit during the five months it was on display before moving on to Detroit. But not enough, I'm sure. Probably not as many young African-Americans as should have, either. Full Article : sunherald.com
Africa on 07.08.04 @ 09:24 PM CST [ link]
Security Council urges steps to pave way for CAR elections
Members of the United Nations Security Council today called for steps to consolidate stability in the Central African Republic (CAR) and pave the way for free elections scheduled to take place there next year. Following closed-door consultations, the Council President, Ambassador Mihnea Ioan Motoc of Romania, read a statement on behalf of the members hailing "the positive evolution of the political situation in the Central African Republic and the progress made in the economic and financial fields." They also welcomed "the various steps taken in the political field, in particular the establishment of the mixed and independent electoral commission that represents an important step towards the restoration of constitutional legality," he said. Full Article : un.org
Africa on 07.08.04 @ 09:21 PM CST [ link]
White House Moves to Protect Right to Spy on Readers
WASHINGTON - The White House has gone to preventive war -- to protect the US government's newly-acquired right to spy on readers as part of counterterrorism investigations, promising to veto a multibillion-dollar spending bill if these powers are curtailed. The shot across the bow was fired Wednesday, ahead of a widely anticipated amendment by Representative Bernie Sanders that would prevent Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government agents from using a secret federal intelligence court to gain access to the reading records of library or bookstore patrons as part of counterterrorism probes. "We plan to introduce it on the House floor Thursday," Joel Barkin, spokesman for the independent lawmaker, told AFP. If passed, the measure would be attached to a nearly 40-billion-dollar appropriations bill funding the Departments of Commerce, Justice and State in fiscal 2005. But the White House will have none of it. Moving to nip the idea in the bud, the presidential Office of Management and Budget made clear it would rather see the whole appropriations bill die than allow changes to the USA Patriot Act. Full Article : commondreams.org
USA on 07.08.04 @ 11:41 AM CST [ link]
African leaders endorse integration plan
ADDIS ABABA : Leaders from across Africa approved an ambitious but costly plan for continental integration and prosperity under the stewardship of the two-year-old African Union (AU) but failed to endorse its 1.7-billion-dollar price tag or agree how to fund the project. AU spokesman Desmond Orjiako told reporters attending the organisation's third summit in Addis Ababa that leaders had endorsed texts on the "Vision and Mission" of the AU, as well as a strategic plan for 2004-7. But Orjiako said a decision on the plan's budget and how the money should be raised had not been made. Full Article : channelnewsasia.com
Africa on 07.08.04 @ 07:56 AM CST [ link]
SA to host Africa's parliament
South Africa will host the new pan-African parliament, leaders at the African Union summit have decided. The decision was made after Egypt, the only other contender, withdrew. "We are very happy to serve the continent in that way," South Africa's Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said from Addis Ababa. Questions are already being raised in South Africa about the costs involved. Almost 200 MPs have already been sworn in from the 38 signatory countries. Full Article : bbc.co.uk
Africa on 07.08.04 @ 07:52 AM CST [ link]
Wednesday, July 7th
Africa shouldn't pay its debt, says Annan's adviser
ADDIS ABABA - A SPECIAL adviser to the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said African countries should refuse to repay their foreign debts. Mr Annan's economic adviser Jeffrey Sachs first called on developed countries to cancel Africa’s debts. But failing that, he said Africa should ignore its $201 billion (£109 billion) debt burden. Full Article : vanguardngr.com
Africa on 07.07.04 @ 09:37 AM CST [ link]
AIDS means shorter lives in southern Africa
JOHANNESBURG - Around 4,8 million people, the most ever recorded in a single year, became infected with HIV in 2003, a UN agency said yesterday, warning that after Africa, the plum targets for AIDS were now eastern Europe and Asia. Full Article : namibian.com.na
Africa on 07.07.04 @ 09:29 AM CST [ link]
Extermination of the pygmies
Deep in the Congolese jungle, rebel groups are united only in their desire to wipe out the Bambuti. Their weapons include murder, mass rape and cannibalism, reports Anne PenkethThe attackers come after darkness falls, making their way through thick jungle in search of the pygmy settlements. Then the horror begins. "They started killing people and eating them ... I saw them cutting up human flesh, then they were putting it on a fire to grill it. I got scared and ran away, not knowing what else happened behind me." Those are the words of Amuzati N., a Bambuti pygmy who escaped a massacre by a rebel group in Democratic Republic of Congo, the scene of the conflict known as Africa's "first world war" because of the number of parties involved in the struggle for the mineral-rich country. Full Article : independent.co.uk
Africa on 07.07.04 @ 09:23 AM CST [ link]
Tuesday, July 6th
Foreign Detainees are Few in Iraq
Data Suggest Administration has Overstated Role of Jihadists in the Insurgency by Peter Eisler and Tom Squitieri Suspected foreign fighters account for less than 2% of the 5,700 captives being held as security threats in Iraq, a strong indication that Iraqis are largely responsible for the stubborn insurgency. Since last August, coalition forces have detained 17,700 people in Iraq who were considered to be enemy fighters or security risks, and about 400 were foreign nationals, according to figures supplied last week by the U.S. military command handling detention operations in Iraq. Most of those detainees were freed after a review board found they didn't pose significant threats. About 5,700 remain in custody, 90 of them non-Iraqis. Full Article : commondreams.org
USA on 07.06.04 @ 05:12 PM CST [ link]
A bloody June in Jamaica - 150 murdered in 30 days
July 5, 2004 - AS A Cabinet sub-committee gets ready to meet this morning to deal with issues relating to crime and public order, the police are reporting that last month was the bloodiest in the last 30 years of Jamaica's history. The slaughter continued into July, as on the weekend the country's murder tally increased with the killing of prominent Highgate couple Winston Chin and his wife, Ilene, who were gunned down at their gate in the Claremont district, St. Mary, Saturday night. Full Article : jamaica-gleaner.com
Caribbean on 07.06.04 @ 02:58 PM CST [ link]
OAS not involved in Aristide ouster investigation
AFTER MONTHS of uncertainty Cesar Gaviria, secretary-general of the Organisation of American States (OAS), says his organisation is not involved in any investigation of the recent ouster of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Despite declarations by Foreign Affairs Minister K.D. Knight in parliament several weeks ago that the OAS, in keeping with Article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, had passed a resolution calling for a probe into Aristide's departure from office, Mr. Gaviria said no investigations involving the OAS are on the horizon. It would be better, he said, if the region tried to move beyond the issue as quickly as possible. Full Article : jamaica-gleaner.com
Caribbean on 07.06.04 @ 01:43 PM CST [ link]
No playing field in Haiti says Gonsalves
www.guardian.co.ttAs they headed into caucus yesterday, Caricom leaders appeared split over whether or not to recognise Haiti's interim Latortue administration. However, T&T's Prime Minister Patrick Manning said he believed the time had come for the region to put aside its differences regarding Haiti, and recognise the interim administration in "We believe that the time has come for Haiti to be fully integrated into the Caricom movement. What has happened in the past, we consider very unfortunate. "We don't like it at all. However, we think the time has come to move on," Manning told reporters. St Vincent and the Grenadines prime minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves maintained, though, he was still not in favour of such a move.
Caribbean on 07.06.04 @ 01:17 PM CST [ more..]
'Fahrenheit' Temperature: Hot
Michael Moore's controversial "Fahrenheit 9/11" is now up to $60 million total at the box office. It handily finished second for the holiday weekend, eclipsed only by "Spider-Man 2." On any given day, "F9/11" did $4 million or more, better than Disney's "Around the World in 80 Days," which now has a total of $21 million in the till. On Monday, "80 Days" collected $400,000; "F9/11" had $4.6 million. Disney stockholders and board members must at this point be scratching their heads. A movie rejected by the studio is now a massive hit, putting money by the bucket load into the account of distributor Lions Gate Films. That studio gets 15 percent of the gross just for putting Moore's filmatorial in theaters. Full Article : foxnews.com
USA on 07.06.04 @ 01:06 PM CST [ link]
The Witch Hunt Intensifies in Haiti
by Justin Felux,
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 3, 2004The witch hunt against pro-democracy activists in Haiti intensified this week with the arrest of Yvon Neptune. Neptune served as Prime Minister under the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. After a violent military coup drove Aristide from power, Neptune became a prime target for anti-government militants. His home was looted and burned. Rebel leader Guy Philippe led a mob in a march on his office. After the installation of Gerard Latortue's puppet regime, Neptune, along with other former officials, was barred from leaving the country. Fearing for his life, he went in to hiding. News that his arrest warrant had been issued came shortly after he publicly denounced the new government's policies. The authorities allege that Neptune was the mastermind of a "massacre" in the town of St. Marc during February. The sole basis for this allegation seems to be a report issued by the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR), a "human rights" organization with close ties to Lavalas opponents and Washington. The NCHR is notorious for its overt political bias and its troubling tendency to tell outright lies. NCHR director Pierre Espérance alleged that fifty people were killed in the "massacre." Subsequent investigations only turned up five bodies, and the circumstances of their deaths were unclear. When asked by AHP about the absence of bodies, Espérance claimed they had been devoured by hungry dogs. "As for the bones, they suffered the same fate", he said. Full Article : dissidentvoice.org
Caribbean on 07.06.04 @ 10:59 AM CST [ link]
Winnie Mandela escapes prison term
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the former wife of South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, escaped jail yesterday when a four-year sentence for theft was overturned on appeal. Rather than celebrate, the woman once dubbed the mother of the nation was defiant and promised to appeal against the ruling that upheld other convictions for fraud. Mrs Madikizela-Mandela, 67, allegedly abused her position as head of the African National Congress Women's League to defraud a bank by obtaining loans worth $120,000 in the name of non-existent employees. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
Africa on 07.06.04 @ 08:18 AM CST [ link]
Fragments help fill out human origins
SCIENTISTS working in Kenya have found skull fragments from what they say was an early, tool-making human that lived more than 900,000 years ago, perhaps filling an important gap in the fossil record. Scientists from the United States, Britain and Kenya found part of a skull of a small adult with some characteristics of Homo erectus, in Olorgesalie, 60km south-east of the capital, Nairobi, said Richard Potts, the lead researcher. Full Article : theaustralian.news.com.au
Africa on 07.06.04 @ 08:11 AM CST [ link]
African Union set to send troops to Sudan
The African Union is preparing to send hundreds of armed troops to Sudan's strife-torn Darfur region where more than a million people have been uprooted by conflict, a senior AU official said yesterday. "The protection force will be deployed as soon as possible ... Forces from Rwanda and Nigeria are on standby. They are ready to go," the AU's director of peace and security, Sam Ibok, told a news conference. The Darfur mission, announced on the eve of the annual summit of African leaders in Addis Ababa, will mark the organisation's only joint military deployment since it sent peacekeepers to Burundi in 2003. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
Africa on 07.06.04 @ 08:06 AM CST [ link]
Africa must not pay its debt
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - A top economic adviser to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan told African countries on Monday to refuse to pay their huge debts if rich countries did not cancel them. American economist Jeffrey Sachs made the comment to a conference on hunger on the eve of a summit of the heads of state of the African Union (AU), which estimates sub-Saharan Africa has foreign debts of $201bn. "The time has come to end this charade. The debts are unaffordable," said Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and special adviser to Annan on global anti-poverty targets. "If they won't cancel the debts I would suggest obstruction. You do it yourselves." Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.06.04 @ 07:59 AM CST [ link]
AU backs off on Zimbabwe issue
by Jimmy Seepe Maputo - African heads of state, who are due to meet in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this week look set to welcome Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and ignore any debate regarding the political situation in Zimbabwe. This is the view of the outgoing chairperson of the African Union (AU), President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, who said in an interview with City Press that Zimbabwe was not at war and was therefore not an issue that should concern the AU. Chissano criticised the European governments that have taken a tough stance on Zimbabwe by imposing sanctions against President Robert Mugabe. He said their action did not help the situation but contributed to the misery of ordinary Zimbabweans. Full Article : news24.com
Africa on 07.06.04 @ 07:55 AM CST [ link]
Members of a Terror Cell Arrested
Group planning attacks on Western interests in Africa arrested: Report PARIS (AP) - Libyan security forces arrested members of a terror cell that planned attacks on Western interests in Africa while hiding out in the Sahara Desert, a French news report said Sunday. Several members of Algeria's Salafist Group for Call and Combat were caught in late June at Libya's border with Chad, the report in Le Journal du Dimanche said, citing an unnamed source close to a European counterespionage service. The Salafist group is believed responsible for the kidnappings of 32 European tourists in the Sahara last year. Full Article : brunei-online.com
Africa on 07.06.04 @ 07:46 AM CST [ link]
Monday, July 5th
Legality of Iraq occupation 'flawed'
By Marie Woolf, Chief Political CorrespondentThe senior Foreign Office lawyer who resigned after ministers ignored her advice that the war in Iraq was illegal has issued a damning legal critique of the occupation, claiming that the alleged abuse of prisoners "could amount to war crimes". In her first newspaper interview since her resignation, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, said that the basis for going to war should always be based on "facts" rather than an "assertion" about an "imminent threat". Ms Wilmshurst said "it could be alleged that the use of force in Iraq was aggression" while "the kinds of abusive treatment of Iraqi prisoners that have been alleged could amount to war crimes". Full Article : independent.co.uk
USA on 07.05.04 @ 09:19 PM CST [ link]
U.N. seeks aid to combat locust swarms
The United Nations said on Monday international aid was urgently needed to contain swarms of locusts that threatened to spread as far as the conflict-ridden region of Darfur, Sudan, a U.N. agency said Monday. The swarms have moved from spring breeding areas in northwestern Africa to countries including Mauritania, Senegal and Mali, and are likely to multiply in coming weeks, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said. With locusts expected to spread east to Niger and Chad, egg-laying is likely across the region and could reach Darfur in western Sudan, the agency said. Darfur is currently struggling to cope with a conflict that has displaced more than 1 million people. Full Article : seattlepi.nwsource.com
Africa on 07.05.04 @ 02:49 PM CST [ link]
An African army for Africans?
As the third annual summit of the African Union draws closer, the spotlight is falling on the organisation’s newest branch: the Peace and Security Council, and its proposed standby force. Inaugurated in May at the AU headquarters in Ethiopia, the 15-member council will be advised by a panel comprising five Africans of repute. Analysts hope the council –- which still has to be ratified by a majority of AU members –- will prove a more powerful and efficient agency than other bodies set up to resolve the continent’s woes. The council aims to provide a "timely and efficient response to conflict and crisis situations" on the continent, such as unconstitutional changes of government, humanitarian and natural disasters. Inevitably, questions have been raised about funding for the standby force that will give council the muscle it needs to contain such situations. According to Kondwane Chirambo of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa), trans-continental peace-keeping operations have shown themselves to be financially demanding and politically delicate. And, some have fallen short of the demands placed on them. (Idasa is a think tank based in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria.) Full Article : mg.co.za
Africa on 07.05.04 @ 02:37 PM CST [ link]
Apartheid victims turn to US court
A lawyer acting for self-proclaimed victims of apartheid abuses will file papers with a United States court on Tuesday to dismiss a motion before it to throw out their case against a list of multinational companies. US attorney Michael Hausfeld is representing about 32 000 South Africans affiliated to Jubilee 2000's apartheid debt and reparations campaign and the Khulumani Support Group. Hausfeld told reporters in Johannesburg on Monday that his clients' case has been considerably strengthened by a judgement last week in the US Supreme Court. "The ruling has opened the door for victims of human rights violations around the world seeking redress under the Alien Tort Claims Act. It has provided a climate of hope for the survivors of gross human rights violations during the apartheid era," Hausfeld said. Hausfeld is suing 22 international banks and corporations that supported the pre-1994 political order in violation of international conventions for reparations. Full Article : mg.co.za
Africa on 07.05.04 @ 02:34 PM CST [ link]
Sudan says Darfur disarmament under way
ADDIS ABABA, July 4 (Reuters) - Sudan has started disarming Arab militias accused of sowing death and terror in its western region of Darfur and is confident the process will proceed smoothly, Foreign Minster Mustafa Osman Ismail said on Sunday. Full Article : alertnet.org
Africa on 07.05.04 @ 09:28 AM CST [ link]
South African lawyers sue Disney
South African lawyers sue Disney for 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' copyrightJOHANNESBURG - South African lawyers are suing U.S. entertainment giant Walt Disney Co for infringement of copyright on The Lion Sleeps Tonight, the most popular song to emerge from Africa, the lawyers said on Friday. If Disney loses, South African proceeds from its trademarks -- including Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck -- could be seized by the courts, lawyers representing relatives of the song's composer said. The lilting song, initially called Mbube, earned an estimated $15 million in royalties since it was written by Zulu migrant worker Solomon Linda in 1939, and featured in Walt Disney's "Lion King" movies. However, Linda's impoverished family have only received about $15,000, the lawyers said. Disney executives in South Africa were not immediately available for comment. Full Article : abs-cbnnews.com
Africa on 07.05.04 @ 09:25 AM CST [ link]
Did one woman's obsession take America to war?
Americans supported the war in Iraq not because Saddam Hussein was an evil dictator - they knew that - but because President Bush made the case that Saddam might hand weapons of mass destruction to his terrorist allies to wreak havoc on the United States. In the absence of any evidence for that theory, it's fair to ask: where did the administration's conviction come from? It was at the American Enterprise Institute - a conservative Washington DC thinktank - that the idea took shape that overthrowing Saddam should be a goal. Among those associated with AEI is Richard Perle, a key architect of the president's get-tough-on-Iraq policy, and Paul Wolfowitz, now the number-two official at the Pentagon. But none of the thinkers at AEI was in any real way an expert on Iraq. For that they relied on someone you probably have never heard of: a woman named Laurie Mylroie. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
USA on 07.05.04 @ 01:30 AM CST [ link]
Sunday, July 4th
Caribbean countries to restore ties with Haiti
HAVANA, July 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Caribbean countries are expected to restore ties with Haiti's interim government at the 25th the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) meeting in Grenadaon July 4-7, according to reports from Port-au-Prince, capital of Haiti. Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue announced Saturday that his country will attend the annual summit, saying Haitian people wants to normalize the relations with the Caribbean countries. Haiti's interim government temporarily suspended the country's membership in Caricom on March 15 in protest of the 15-member bloc's hesitance to recognize the new leadership after ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left the country on February 29. Full Article : xinhuanet.com
Caribbean on 07.04.04 @ 07:47 PM CST [ link]
Army Stage-Managed Fall of Hussein Statue
The Army's internal study of the war in Iraq criticizes some efforts by its own psychological operations units, but one spur-of-the-moment effort last year produced the most memorable image of the invasion. As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel - not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images - who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking. Full Article : news.yahoo.comFlashback Staged Cheering "throngs" in BaghdadFlashback Doctored Photo from the London Evening StandardFlashback Pentagon staged statue's fall
USA on 07.04.04 @ 07:34 PM CST [ link]
Saturday, July 3rd
Haiti on agenda for leaders at Caribbean summit
ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada - (KRT) - A highly anticipated summit of heads of government from the 15-member Caribbean Community opens here Sunday with Haiti as the main item on its agenda. During the four-day gathering, CARICOM leaders will vote on whether to recognize the U.S.-backed interim government of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, installed after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left Haiti Feb. 29 amid a bloody revolt. On its Web site, CARICOM lists no one as head of state of Haiti, and Haiti was not invited to the summit, although the nation remains a member of the regional group. CARICOM has demanded an independent investigation of Aristide's charges that he was all but forced to resign by Washington and Paris amid what he had called ``a virtual coup.'' U.S. and French officials have denied the charge. Full Article : kansascity.com
Caribbean on 07.03.04 @ 01:22 PM CST [ link]
AME bishop faces huge challenge in Africa
She stood in the back of the jam-packed convention center, straining to see if she would be the first woman to be elected a bishop in the 200-plus-year history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. As the results were displayed on a video screen, a crescendo of cheers swept through the crowd before the Rev. Vashti Murphy McKenzie could view the vote totals. Yet well-wishers immediately rushed toward her, confirming her place in the history of the church, which was founded in 1787. Full Article : indystar.com
Africa on 07.03.04 @ 01:06 PM CST [ link]
What's Africa to do about the MIddle East?
You've heard it all before. You've seen all the macabre murders, extrajudicial killings, land seizures, and the terrifying suicide bombs. You know by now about the wall Israel is building to "beef up" security at its borders, and how the wall has divided Palestinian communities, denying some access to water, schools and other basic amenities and creating an increasing number of Palestinian refugees as houses are destroyed by caterpillars and bulldozers. You also know how Israelis dread using public transport or stay away from crowded places, including restaurants, for fear of suicide bombers. It was against this background that the SA Human Rights Commission chairperson Jody Kollapen had to ask: "Why aren't we horrified as we should all be? Why aren't we shocked? Has it (the loss of life) just become ordinary statistics?" Full Article : iol.co.za
Africa on 07.03.04 @ 01:04 PM CST [ link]
UN Observers for US Election?
US Lawmakers Request UN Observers for November 2 Presidential Election WASHINGTON - Several members of the House of Representatives have requested the United Nations to send observers to monitor the November 2 US presidential election to avoid a contentious vote like in 2000, when the outcome was decided by Florida. Recalling the long, drawn out process in the southern state, nine lawmakers, including four blacks and one Hispanic, sent a letter Thursday to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asking that the international body "ensure free and fair elections in America," according to a statement issued by Florida representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, who spearheaded the effort. Full Article : commondreams.org
USA on 07.03.04 @ 12:36 AM CST [ link]
Friday, July 2nd
Bill Cosby has more words for black community
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Bill Cosby went off on another tirade against the black community Thursday, telling a room full of activists that black children are running around not knowing how to read or write and "going nowhere." He also had harsh words for struggling black men, telling them: "Stop beating up your women because you can't find a job." Full Article : cnn.com
USA on 07.02.04 @ 12:58 PM CST [ link]
Enormous obstacles challenge Africa's march to integration
ADDIS ABABA, July 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Africa has set the goal of achieving full integration by 2030, as a major effort for Africans to realize their long-cherished dream of "African Renaissance," but enormous obstacles still lie ahead, posing severe challenges to the ambition. Analysts say if these hurdles, popping up almost everywhere, are not properly tackled, they might derail any development plan on the world's poorest and most-troubled continent, however ambitious it is. The obstacles to Africa's continental integration are many and diverse, and the African Union (AU) has just defined as priorities14 of them to address in the years to come in a strategic plan endorsed by African foreign ministers attending the four-day Fifth Ordinary Session of the AU Executive Council in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, with insufficiency of the political will and peace related problems at the top of the list. Full Article : xinhuanet.com
Africa on 07.02.04 @ 12:54 PM CST [ link]
Cuba-Africa: Decades of Assistance And Cooperation
Dozens of countries in Africa benefit from medical or other assistance programmes from Cuba, and in four decades this socialist island nation has helped train around 30,000 young people from that continent in a number of specialties. Medical assistance, which began in 1963 when Cuba sent health brigades to Algeria, has been extended to more than 20 nations, 16 of which are included in the Integral Health Programme, which also encompasses seven countries in Latin America and two in Asia. Full Article : allafrica.com
Africa on 07.02.04 @ 12:53 PM CST [ link]
GM testing gets green light in East Africa
by Kimani Chege and Deodatus Balile Kenya has stepped to the forefront of African agricultural biotechnology with the inauguration of a "level II biosafety greenhouse" in Nairobi that will allow containment of genetically modified crops at the experimental stage. Neighbouring Uganda also has a biotechnology laboratory, which is now carrying out tissue culture of bananas, coffee and other crops. Ugandan scientists are preparing to carry out research experiments involving genetic modification at the Kampala laboratory. But Kenya and South Africa are the sub-Saharan countries to possess the high-security level II biosafety greenhouses. The Nairobi greenhouse will allow Kenyan scientists to conduct genetic modification experiments that conform to international biosafety standards. Scientists from elsewhere in the region will also be able to develop research projects within the greenhouse. Full Article : mg.co.za
Africa on 07.02.04 @ 03:05 AM CST [ link]
Thursday, July 1st
US will override Baghdad in war on terrorism
Military strikes may continue, warns general American commanders will risk launching high-profile military actions at targets in Iraq even if they go directly against the wishes of the new Iraqi government, a senior US general said yesterday. Lieutenant General Thomas Metz, the second most senior American officer in Iraq and the force's tactical operations commander, said the US military was prepared to risk provoking "friction" with the new government in strikes against "professional terrorists". His frank admission, just two days after sovereignty was handed back to the Iraqis, cuts to the heart of a likely source of significant political disagreement between the fledgling government and the US military in the near future. Full Article : guardian.co.uk
USA on 07.01.04 @ 12:42 PM CST [ link]
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