Africa: In the line of U.S. fire?
ASKIAMand Saeed Shabazz Is Africa next war on terror target?Bush dismisses Black America as he targets West African OilU.S. covets Africa's black goldSouth Africa wants proof of Africa-Iraq nuclear connection Attacks on Kenya could herald new terror power plays in AfricaWASHINGTON (FinalCall.com)–As Kenya’s President Daniel Arap Moi and Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi rushed here for security talks with President George...
Western powers shun follow-up racism meeting
GENEVA (IPS)–The United Nations Working Group on People of African Descent began late November sessions without the participation of the big powers, which oppose the panel tasked to study racial discrimination. The Western Europe bloc, which under the UN human rights framework encompasses all industrialized countries, has so far failed to designate an expert to represent it in...
Heroin, ecstasy, tobacco use growing among Caribbean youth, expert warns
MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (IPS)–Drugs like heroin and ecstasy have begun to show up throughout the Caribbean, said narcotics project director Ken-Garfield Douglas. "Heroin has started emerging in Bermuda, some parts of the Bahamas, and is very much on the increase in Suriname. We’re also seeing the introduction of ecstasy within the region in Dominica, the Bahamas, the Cayman...
Western nations block access to medicine
GENEVA (IPS)–Negotiators at the World Trade Organization (WTO) failed Nov. 29 to reach an agreement to ensure poor countries access to essential medicines. Health activists blame the fiasco on opposition from the United States and a handful of other industrialized countries. The WTO council on the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS), entrusted with the matter of pharmaceutical...
Ecuador’s new leader vows to ‘govern for the poor’
QUITO (IPS)–The triumph of leftist former Colonel Lucio GutiŽrrez in a Nov. 24 runoff election in Ecuador has brought this Andean country’s indigenous movement, the best organized in the Americas, to power. Mr. GutiŽrrez, who garnered 54.4 percent of the vote, against the 45.6 percent of his rival, banana tycoon Alvaro Noboa, said he would create a government...
No revolution in Iran, analysts say
DUBAI (IPS)–Iran is in the midst of its worst political crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but forecasts of another revolution stemming from current student unrest and calls for greater openness are unfounded, regional analysts say. Instead, they say that the protests by students, angered by a Nov. 6 court decision against a moderate professor and Islamic thinker,...
South African singer gets honorary Ph.D.
Miriam Makeba (All Music Guide) Even though Miriam "Mama Africa" Makeba admits, "I never saw the door of a university," she now holds three university degrees. Makeba received her third honorary degree, a doctorate in literature and philosophy from University of South Africa, on her 70th birthday. The doctorate honors her achievement as a world-renowned singer and an anti-apartheid...
With crime wave comes call for racial partition of Guyana
GEORGETOWN (IPS)–A violent crime spree that has eluded government control for months has revived calls to partition this tiny multiracial country, reserving half for Afro-Guyanese, the other half for the Indian community. In quieter times, no one pays heed to such delicate issues, but the crime spate, with a record of nearly 140 murders so far this...
Twisting the truth
We are being set up for a war against Saddam (UK Independent) TORONTO (IPS)–An award-winning British journalist is criticizing his colleagues in the Middle East for using government-inspired language that he says distorts the reality on the ground. "The language of Middle East journalism has become so cowardly, so slippery, so deferential about phrases used by the State Department,...
Zimbabwe opposition expels MP over policy differences
HARARE, Zimbabwe (PANA)–Zimbabwe’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party Nov. 23 expelled a rebel MP, accusing him of deviating from the party’s principles. Party spokesman Paul Nyathi said Munyaradzi Gwisai, MDC legislator for Highfield constituency in Harare, had been expelled with immediate effect. The move follows a series of incidents in which Mr. Gwisai, who is...