Economic Terrorism: World Bank facilitating African land grabs
(FinalCall.com) - Critics say the World Bank is helping multi-national corporations and global investors access cheap land in Africa and other developing countries at the expense of local economies. A case in point, in the British daily The Guardian, shows foreign investors purchasing nearly one-fifth of the West African country of Sierra Leone's arable land. The spokesperson for the Malen...
Calls for nationalizing industries increasing in South Africa?
(FinalCall.com) - “Mining, banks, telecommunications, transport, food and so on, especially industries and sectors that are very monopolized, must be nationalized, as a precondition for resolving the property question in South Africa,” the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (NUMSA) said in its latest policy statement. This comes behind African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) chairperson and premier Cassel...
U.S. military contracting out operations in Africa
(FinalCall.com) - The number of recruits graduating from boot camps built with U.S. taxpayer dollars and staffed by State Department contractors in Africa is on the increase. According to World Political Review (WPR), “U.S. contractors will train three quarters of the 18,000 African Union troops deployed to Somalia, and the U.S. government has spent $550 million over the past...
Losing AU chair possible blow to S. Africa’s prestige
(FinalCall.com) - Influential African states appear to fear a South African being seated as the chair of the African Union Commission. South Africa Home Affairs Minister and a former wife of the country's president, Nkosazana Dlamina-Zuma, would be the first female to hold the top job at the AU. Dlamina-Zuma's credentials are undisputed. She not only is credited with...
World’s food supply in jeopardy
(FinalCall.com) - The diversity of the world's food supply is being jeopardized by genetically engineered crops, according to some advocates and experts. The consequences of GE crops is that they eliminate diversity, say critics. “Once the product interacts with the environment and crossbreeds with similar or related species, all acquire the introduced dominant traits and the wide varieties previously...
NATO intervention in Libya rooted in access to oil?
(FinalCall.com) - For decades European oil companies had enjoyed contracts that allowed them access to half of the high-grade crude produced in Libyan fields, reported the May 4, 2012 Wall St. Journal. “Some major oil companies hoped the country would open further to investment after sanctions from Washington were lifted in 2004 and U.S. giants re-entered the North...
Why so much bad reporting on Africa?
(FinalCall.com) - According to the April 25, 2012 edition of Foreign Policy, if journalism standards were used to judge Western reporting of Africa, not only would journalists receive substandard grades, in addition, there would probably be lawsuits. The lack of journalistic ethics when reporting in Africa is appalling. “Standards for the depiction and identification of victims of conflict, rape,...
Intra-African trade vital for continent-wide development
“Accelerating Growth through Improved Intra-African Trade” is the name of a recent study produced by the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institute. Africa is the second largest continent in the world and three times the size of the United States. But if you compare economies, Africa is quite small. “In 2010, its gross domestic product was approximately $1.6...
War with Iran and unseating President Obama
-Contributing Writer- (FinalCall.com) - Iran and Israel, allegedly over Iran achieving nuclear weapons capability, is fast becoming the 800-pound gorilla in the room that is the U.S. presidential race. U.S. officials like Maryland Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the house intelligence committee, was told while in Israel recently that the Obama administration won’t get a heads...
‘Greed, for a lack of better word, is good’
-Contributing Writer- Yes, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, everyone for his gain, from his quarter. –Isaiah 56:11 (FinalCall.com) - The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) president Sidumo Dlamini while addressing the 47th National African Federated Chamber of Commerce Conference...