There is almost an air of desperation in the recent unanimous adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2259 that seeks to bring together a critical mass of Libyan factions and actors to support a new unity government of national accord that will oversee a peace process. Libya’s new Presidency Council will form a government within 30 days […]
Posts under ‘Africa’
When real wars shade into the simulated environments of the war game….
Dec 2nd, 2015 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.The sometimes mischievous French philosopher, Jean Baudrillard earned himself a bit of notoriety in the wake of Operation Desert Storm by declaring that the the Gulf War did not take place. Of course, he wasn’t suggesting it didn’t take place in the sense that conspiracy theorists maintain NASA didn’t land men on the Moon. Baudrillard’s […]
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Eleven things you should know about Ebola
Nov 12th, 2014 by Mike Phipps.Mike Phipps offers some elementary facts about the epidemic and what it tells us about western priorities. 1. Ebola is fuelled by poverty. It broke out in west African countries that had been devastated by long civil wars. Given the resultant collapse of the public health system, if it hadn’t been Ebola, it would have […]
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EU set to ignore migrants plight
Nov 5th, 2014 by Jeremy Corbyn.Sometimes humanity is in short supply. News has eventually filtered out that in the past 10 months 3,300 people have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean to Malta or Italy. The news only emerged when the Italian government said it was downgrading Operation Mare Nostrum, its very effective sea rescue operation which has helped to […]
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Ebola a much-needed wake up call for the West
Oct 10th, 2014 by Michael Meacher.The President of the World Bank, Jim Kim, got it right when he said last night of the international community: It’s late, really late… We were tested by Ebola and we failed. We failed miserably in our response… Every developed country should be prepared to send trained medical staff to West Africa… We don’t need […]
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Ebola, Complacency and Crisis
Oct 10th, 2014 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Health emergency in West Africa? Who cares. Until the last month or so, that pretty much summed up the attitude in Western newsrooms and policy-making circles. After all, when is there not some kind of health crisis blighting the people of Sub-Saharan, central and southern Africa? HIV/AIDS is an ugly shadow cast over the fate […]
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Why Western Sahara matters
Feb 19th, 2014 by Jeremy Corbyn.Last week I was part of a delegation from the all-parliamentary Western Sahara group to visit the Moroccan-occupied territory, with John Hillary of War on Want and John Gurr of the Western Sahara resources group. We held over 20 meetings with a wide range of groups of former prisoners, human rights campaigners, women’s organisations, disability […]
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“Rising every time we fall” – Nelson Mandela
Dec 13th, 2013 by Mark Perryman.Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football explains the initiative they have launched in memory of Mandela to raise funds for social justice in South Africa today. Nelson Mandela’s unique achievement lies in dreaming of a free society, fighting for that dream in the face of the most vicious oppression, never surrendering that dream during the long […]
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Mandela’s Contested Legacy
Dec 10th, 2013 by Mike Phipps.Mike Phipps collates some of the less mainstream assessments of the leader of South Africas liberation struggle. Just as when Nelson Mandela walked free from jail nearly twenty years ago, or when he was elected President of South Africa in that countrys first ever free elections, now too in his passing, the world is witnessing […]
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Watch: Tracy Chapman at the 1988 Mandela concert
Dec 8th, 2013 by Conrad Landin.Listen, watch, and just feel the atmosphere. Think about what David Cameron was up to – the following year, no less, after these crowds filled Wembley. And even just appreciate the greatest political songwriter of recent times. Over at Consequence of Sound, they contend that it was Chapman’s second appearance, in which she performed Fast Car, […]
