New consensus emerges on Iraq’ we were wrong
JIM.LOBE US military newspapers demand Rumsfeld's resignation (Middle East Online, 11-04-2006)Minister Louis Farrakhan's letter to President George W. Bush Re: Iraq (NOI.org, 12-01-2001) WASHINGTON (IPS/GIN) - While Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's continued tenure in office has recently been the subject of a surge of speculation, it may be George W. Bush's continued reign–at least over Iraq policy–that appears most endangered...
France convicts 2,000 people in connection with June protests
France has convicted nearly 2,000 people for having participated in protests against police brutality and racial profiling in late June. The country witnessed weeks of nationwide protests and social unrest after a police officer shot dead a 17-year-old boy of Algerian origin during a traffic stop on June 27. Police contained the disturbances through the deployment of virtually 45,000 security forces and...
Israeli genocide causing ‘complete psychological destruction’ of Gaza children
by Brett Wilkins In addition to killing, maiming, and forcibly displacing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza has wrought tremendous psychological damage upon kids in the embattled strip, as detailed by a Save the Children report published March 12. The charity’s report—entitled Trapped and Scarred: The Compounding Mental Harm Inflicted on Palestinian Children in Gaza—examines how “five months of...
African, Caribbean nations agree to push for slavery reparations
African and Caribbean nations have agreed to seek reparations for slavery, urging their former colonialists to pay for their “historical mass crimes.” The global movement was forged recently in a summit in Ghana, with the 55-member African Union partnering with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) of 20 countries. They announced that the African Union would explore “litigation options” and work with the...
African Union to hold summit in support of war-torm Cote d’Ivoire
PARIS (PANA)–South African President Thabo Mbeki said in Paris recently that an extraordinary summit of the African Union (AU) would be held "in a week’s time" to consider the continental body’s support for Cote d’Ivoire. Addressing a news conference at the end of an African summit on the Ivorian crisis in the French capital, the current AU chairman stressed...
Yemen: Crisis reaches new low, top UN officials tell Security Council
UNNEWS The humanitarian crisis in Yemen has never been worse, with conflict escalating, famine on the horizon, the economy in tatters and Covid-19 out of control, senior UN officials told the Security Council on July 28 as they issued a fresh call for an immediate ceasefire. Four months on, negotiations between the Government and Houthi rebels on a ceasefire and the resumption of...
African Union warns militias in Darfur
Qadhafi: Oil behind Darfur crisis (FCN, 12-08-2006)On the politics of Darfur negotiations (Sudan Tribune, 11-30-2006)Darfur, Sudan: Seeking the Truth (WEBCAST: Minister Louis Farrakhan, 05-07-2006)Sudan needs help, not sanctions - A report from Darfur (FCN, 09-23-2004) ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (PANA) - The African Union (AU) Commission, Chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare, recently warned of serious consequences if the militias should attack...
The myth of Western economic development
Brazilian economist Celso Furtado’s classic 1974 book, “The Myth of Economic Development,” he argues the very idea of Latin America and Africa someday enjoying a similar livelihood as Western Europe and North America is “unrealizable in practice.” He writes that any attempt to generalize, or use as a model, the lifestyles of the world’s well-to-do would lead to a collapse...
Kenyan author accepts writing prize in his Gikuyu language
(GIN)—Ngaahika Ndeenda, a theatrical piece about a wealthy farmer, a peasant and his marriageable young daughter, was a commercial success when it appeared in 1977 in Kenya. But because it appeared in Gikuyu, the author’s mother tongue, it angered the government which slapped the authors—Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o and Ngũgĩ wa Mirii— in jail. Set in post-independence Kenya, the play looks...
Ambitions, plans of African Union Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat raising questions
The pretty bizarre exhortations by current Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Moussa Faki Mahamat and published in the daily Sudan Tribune, speaks to the ambitions of the former Chadian prime minister. The AU chairperson is a “ceremonial head” position, but Chairman Mahamat sometimes acts more like a chief potentate than a spokesperson representing 55 heads of African states. Born...