Obama’s big joke!

uly 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This event was perhaps the most significant achievement and benchmark of the civil rights movement that had been so ably led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others from 1955-1966. July 2014 also marked the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s attendance at the 2nd annual summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). It was at this summit in Cairo, Egypt, the Malcolm submitted his famous memorandum to the African heads-of-states that declared ‘African problem are our problems and our problems are African problems’.

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XCLUSIVE: German Companies Are Selling Unlicensed Surveillance Technologies to Human Rights Violators – and Making Millions

This exclusive report was compiled by Ben Wagner and Claudio Guarnieri, leading researchers on surveillance and digital security technology. The Berlin-based scholars work at the Centre for Internet & Human Rights, European University Viadrina.

From Mexico to Mozambique to Pakistan and beyond, there is now ample evidence that governments across the globe are using mass surveillance technologies such as FinFisher to spy on their citizens. This has driven researchers and advocates like ourselves to consider the source: Who makes these technologies? And who benefits from their sales?

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Inviting a continent to dinner insults African reformers

Most visibly, when Vice President Joe Biden uttered his gaffe about the “nation of Africa,” it demonstrated the compulsion to treat the continent as one undifferentiated mass. Miriem Bensalah Chaqroun, executive director of the Oulmes Water Co. and president of the Moroccan Confederation of Businesses, told me, “Perception is important. These are 54 countries and each one has specific [characteristics]. You can’t address an entire continent.” But that is precisely what Biden and President Obama did, speaking as if the same prescriptions apply everywhere.


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7 Astounding Facts About the Insane Cost of War

Usually August is back-to-school month, when kids pick up their shiny new books and head to class. But this time it looks a bit more like back-to-war. The war profiteers will be hatching new schemes to cash in on misery and you and I will be picking up the tab.

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The new scramble for Africa (part 2)

The original Scramble for Africa: extraction routes In Europe, the process of colonialism was cleverly presented as benevolent. Charitable-sounding groups like the International Africa Association were created to provide a front for the plundering of African resources. And developments like the railway and steamship, brought to African shores using capital from Europe’s emerging financial centres, were portrayed as generous sharing of new technology whilst facilitating access to cheap raw materials to feed the industrial revolution.

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The Illusion of Foreign Investment Growth? Africa Must Break With the World Capitalist System

How long and deep can the current character of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) penetrate the social legacy of colonialism and neo-colonialism in Africa? Proclamations of economic growth throughout the continent are being received with much skepticism and consequently prompting the desire among many to address the persistent poverty, inefficiency and growing class divisions. .

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Leadership, Genocide and War Crimes. An African Perspective

On June 30th the African Union summit meeting at Equatorial Guinea voted the “Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights.” It maintains that while in power, African leaders and “senior officials” are not subject to prosecution for genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity. In principle the Protocol mirrors the judicial realities of Canada and the U.S., which assures our heads of state immunity, but less overtly..

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