Africa
Land grabbing: A new colonialism
A nascent oil palm plantation in southeastern Sierra Leone owed by Socfin Agriculture Company, which in March 2011 signed a 50-year lease with the government of Serra Leone. Photo by Felicity Thompson/IRIN.
By Alan Broughton
November 6, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Since the global financial crisis of 2008 and its associated food crisis that sent another 200 million people into malnutrition, there has been a massive grab for land by large corporations around the world. Worst hit has been Africa, where food security is already non-existent for many people. Governments, including the Australian government, welcome this “investment” in agriculture, some bizarrely claiming that food security will be increased.
South Africa: What has Hurricane Sandy taught the ruling elite?
Storm surge from the cyclone in Durban, March 2007.
By Patrick Bond
South Africa: Latest ANC/police attack on militant miners condemned
SACP's Blade Nzimande leads COSATU members prior to clashes with striking Anglo Platinum miners.
South Africa's political economy after the Marikana massacre
Marikana miners protest against the August 16, 2012, massacre by police.
Washington in Africa, 2012: Who will Obama ‘whack’ next?
Graphic from the Economist.
By Patrick Bond
[Address to the Muslim Youth Movement 40th Anniversary Conference, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, September 30, 2012. Posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission.]
At a time when popular revolutions are sweeping the globe, the United States should be strengthening, not weakening, basic rules of law and principles of justice enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends. – Former US president Jimmy Carter, 25 June 2012, New York Times
M.N. Roy.
[For more articles by John Riddell, click HERE; for more on the Communist International, click HERE.]
By John Riddell
September 25, 2012 -- Johnriddell.wordpress, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- The newly published proceedings of the Communist International’s Fourth Congress, Toward the United Front, makes it possible for any socialist activist or independent researcher to make the acquaintance of a wide spectrum of revolutionaries of the 1920s, both prominent and obscure.[1] No guide or interpreter is needed.
South Africa: 'The SACP has become a vanguard of ANC power factionalism'
South Africa's ANC president Jacob Zuma (right) dances with SACP general secretary Blade
South Africa: Dying for growth -- World Bank's role in Marikana massacre mine, carbon pollution
More than 3000 mineworkers take part in a march at Lonmin's Marikana mine in South Africa on September 5, 2012. Photograph by Mike Hutchings/REUTERS.
For more on the Marikana mine massacre, click HERE.
By Patrick Bond
September 5, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- “One of the things you learn as an anthropologist, you don’t come in and change the culture”, Dartmouth College president Jim Yong Kim told wealthy alumni when contemplating the institution’s notorious hazing practices, prior to US President Barack Obama’s request last February that he move to the World Bank.
Kim’s Harvard doctorate and medical degree, his founding of the heroic NGO Partners in Health and his directorship of the World Health Organization’s AIDS division make him the best-educated, most humane World Bank president yet. A decade ago, he co-edited the book, Dying for Growth, pointing out that "Washington Consensus" policies and projects had a sharply adverse impact on health.
South Africa: Marikana massacre – a turning point?
Marikana mineworkers on strike for higher pay.
For more coverage of South Africa, click HERE.
By Martin Legassick
August 27, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The massacre of 34, and almost certainly more, striking mineworkers at Marikana (together with more than 80 injured) on August 16 has sent waves of shock and anger across South Africa, rippling around the world. It could prove a decisive turning point in our country’s post-apartheid history.
Marikana is a town situated in barren veld, dry brown grass in the winter, with occasional rocky outcrops (kopjes, hillocks). The Lonmin-owned mines – there are three, Karee, West and East Platinum – are situated on the outskirts of the town. Alongside two of them is a settlement of zinc-walled shacks festooned with lines of washing called Enkanini, where most of the mineworkers live.