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Africa
According to journalist Rick Rozoff, “The U.S. military has already been
involved in counterinsurgency operations in Mali and Niger against ethnic
Tuareg rebels, who have no conceivable ties to al-Qaeda, not that one would
know that from Levin’s comments.” Former U.S. diplomat Daniel
Simpson was quoted recently in regard to the Pentagon’s involvement in
Somalia as saying that the operation was designed to “test out AFRICOM
ground and air forces in Djibouti for direct military action on the
continent.”...
Posted Mar 17, 2010
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A recent statement issued by the Obama administration indicates that it is
planning to carry out aerial bombardments in the Horn of Africa nation of
Somalia. The announcement comes amid intense fighting in the capital of
Mogadishu between the two Islamic resistance movements, Al Shabaab and Hizbul
Islam, and the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government that is ruling the
country....
Posted Mar 14, 2010
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Against all odds the southern African nation of Zimbabwe is celebrating its
30th year of independence from British settler-colonialism....
Posted Mar 11, 2010
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It appears from statements by Obama administration officials and U.S.
intelligence sources that further military attacks are being planned against
Yemen. This impoverished country on the Arabian Peninsula has been bombed
several times in recent weeks. Reports indicate that the U.S. is behind these
actions, in which dozens of people are reported to have been killed....
Posted Jan 6, 2010
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A bomb blast at the Shamo Hotel in Mogadishu on Dec. 3 has further destabilized
the unpopular and fragile Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. It clings
to power due to the deployment of 4,500 troops under the auspices of the
African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), a move engineered by the U.S.
government through the U.N. Security Council....
Posted Dec 10, 2009
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Two recent conferences held on the African continent reaffirmed the
determination of women to achieve genuine equality and political empowerment....
Posted Dec 6, 2009
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Excerpts from a talk by Abayomi Azikiwe from Detroit at the
WWP National Conference, Nov. 14....
Posted Nov 24, 2009
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The U.S. military maneuvers and exploitation of resources in Africa have not
provided any relief to the hundreds of millions of people suffering from
unemployment, poverty and food deficits on the continent. In conjunction with
the workers, farmers and their organizations in Africa, the progressive forces
in the United States must oppose all efforts aimed at the further exploitation
of the continent’s resources as well as the occupation of its lands by
the international capitalists and their military forces....
Posted Nov 15, 2009
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A decade ago on Oct. 14, 1999, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere passed away in
his East African nation of Tanzania. Nyerere was one of the leading political
figures to emerge during the post-World War II era of anti-colonial and
anti-imperialist struggles that swept through Africa, Asia and Latin
America....
Posted Oct 29, 2009
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Zimbabwe’s inclusive government was thrown into crisis in the
aftermath of the arrest of the Western-backed Movement for Democratic
Change-Tsvangirai Treasurer Roy Bennett on Oct. 14. Bennett, who has been
charged with possessing arms for the purpose of criminal activity, terrorism
and inciting acts of insurgency, had been out on bail since March....
Posted Oct 21, 2009
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After a major address before the Columbus Council on World Affairs, the
U.S.-backed president of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, Sheik
Sherif Sheikh Ahmed, told journalists that his fragile regime could not prevent
the seizure of power by the two main resistance groups in the Horn of Africa
nation....
Posted Oct 18, 2009
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Internal struggles in Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples Party broke into the
open, once even resulting in an August 1962 attempt to assassinate the
president with a bomb attack....
Posted Oct 7, 2009
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According to the history books, 100 years ago on Sept. 21, 1909, Kwame Nkrumah,
the founder and leader of the African independence movement and the foremost
advocate of Pan-Africanism during his time, was born in the western Nzima
region of the Gold Coast, later known as the independent state of Ghana....
Posted Oct 4, 2009
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Mokgadi Caster Semenya is a South African runner who won the
women’s 800-meter gold medal at the 2009 World Championships. She was
subsequently challenged by competitors to prove her gender and subjected to sex
tests by the International Association of Athletics Federations. South African gender and political analyst Nomboniso Gasa responds....
Posted Sep 9, 2009
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Abdel Basset al-Megrahi returned home to Libya Aug. 21 to a hero’s
welcome. He had been held in a Scottish prison for eight years in connection
with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21,
1988. This political prisoner’s release created the conditions for a renewal of
attacks on the North African state of Libya....
Posted Aug 26, 2009
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Developments indicate clearly that the interest in African affairs by the
current U.S. administration means a continuation of promoting and advancing the
economic and political priorities of the U.S. ruling class....
Posted Aug 20, 2009
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This year’s Group of 8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy, once again
demonstrated the failure of capitalist economic policies to bring genuine
development to the African continent. The summit’s final day discussed
the G-8 providing aid to Africa for agricultural programs. The fact that
previous pledges of $50 billion made at the 2005 meeting in Gleneagles,
Scotland, have not been met, however, made African leaders even more skeptical
about the role of Europe and the United States in the future of the
continent....
Posted Jul 20, 2009
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South Africa is in a frenzy of construction in order to host the 2010 World Cup
soccer competition. Complaining of low wages, the 70,000 construction workers
hired for the project walked off the job July 8....
Posted Jul 20, 2009
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Sirte, Libya, was host to the 13th African Union Summit held July 1-3. The AU,
an organization representing all 53 independent states in Africa, held
extensive discussions on how to build unity and cooperation on the
continent....
Posted Jul 8, 2009
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Over the last two years Africa has been severely affected by the downturn in
the world economy, resulting in 53 million more people being thrust into
poverty. As a result of the legacy of colonialism and neocolonialism, the
prices of exports from the continent have gone down while the cost of food,
fuel and other commodities imported into Africa has increased drastically....
Posted Jul 5, 2009
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In just eight months, over 20,000 South African autoworkers have been
“retrenched.” In response to these and other layoffs in
manufacturing, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa has launched
a “fight for jobs” campaign. NUMSA won a major victory on June 17
in the Johannesburg Labor Court against General Motors South Africa....
Posted Jul 3, 2009
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On June 4 President Barack Obama addressed the Muslim world while visiting
Cairo, Egypt. His speech covered seven major sources of tension between the
U.S. and Muslims worldwide. He stated that “we should not ignore sources
of tension,” but “we must face these tensions squarely.”
Overall, however, Obama’s speech contained a good deal of rhetoric,
contradiction and hypocrisy....
Posted Jun 29, 2009
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The worsening security situation in Somalia has prompted the U.S.-backed
Transitional Federal Government to declare a state of emergency and issue a
call for outside military intervention to prop it up against the popular resistance....
Posted Jun 24, 2009
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In Britain and Ireland it’s called a redundancy and in South Africa
it’s called a retrenchment, but a layoff by any other name is still a
layoff. On June 11 the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa issued a
statement announcing a court action and possible strike over what they call a
“jobs bloodbath.”
“General Motors South Africa (GMSA) destroyed over 1,300 jobs since
2007,” the union charged,...
Posted Jun 19, 2009
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What distinguishes the contemporary economic crisis within global capitalism
from other downturns over the last three decades is that the rapid
deterioration of the social conditions of working people and the oppressed is
taking place simultaneously all over the planet. Considering that development within the imperialist countries is based largely
upon the super-exploitation of the labor and natural resources of people in the
colonial and neocolonial countries, it is not surprising that the economic
crisis is having a far more dramatic impact on the masses of workers and
farmers in Africa....
Posted Jun 18, 2009
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Sudan is one of Africa’s major oil-producing countries, and has therefore
been targeted for destabilization and domination by the Western imperialist
states led by the U.S. The country has maintained an independent domestic and
foreign policy over the last two decades and has refused to cooperate with the
U.S. on a number of its initiatives related to the Iraq war and relations with
Iran and Palestine....
Posted Jun 14, 2009
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An ongoing struggle between Nigeria’s federal government and the people
of the Niger Delta has reached a new level in the aftermath of the May 13
military operation in the West African oil-producing region.
The root of the current repression in Nigeria is the role of U.S. and
European-based multinational oil firms that have looted the resources of the
people of the oil-producing areas inside the country for decades....
Posted Jun 7, 2009
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This May 25 is the 46th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of
African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Over 30 member-states formed the
continental body in 1963 amid a groundswell of independence struggles. Every
year this date is celebrated on the continent and in the world as “Africa
Day” or “Africa Liberation Day.”...
Posted May 31, 2009
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Utilizing the pretext
of fighting “terrorism” on land and “piracy” at sea,
the U.S. administration under Obama is maintaining the same foreign policy as
the previous government headed by George Bush, which targeted Somalia and the
region of east Africa for regime change and the establishment of a permanent
military presence in this area of the African continent....
Posted May 22, 2009
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The April 22 national elections in South Africa showed widespread continued
political support for the ruling African National Congress. The ANC won close
to a two-thirds majority in the elections, securing victories in all the
provinces with the exception of the Cape, where the opposition Democratic
Alliance won out over the ruling party...
Posted May 13, 2009
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In the aftermath of the April 12 sniper killings of three Somali teenagers by
the U.S. Navy, several U.S. agencies met on April 17 to conduct a review of
military and foreign policy toward this Horn of Africa nation. The State
Department, Pentagon and Justice Department have outlined a series of options
to ostensibly fight “piracy” in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian
Ocean....
Posted Apr 23, 2009
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After the execution of three Somalis and the wounding and capturing of another
in the Indian Ocean on April 12, a leader of the so-called pirates vowed to
avenge the deaths of these youth who held the U.S. captain of a cargo vessel
known as the Maersk Alabama for five days. The Pentagon’s version of events has been disputed by the Somalis who support
the vessel seizures. They contend that the three young men were killed after
they agreed to end the standoff and release Phillips....
Posted Apr 13, 2009
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In the aftermath of the issuance of warrants for the arrest and prosecution of
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, the imperialists and their allies are
escalating political, diplomatic and military attacks on that African country....
Posted Apr 9, 2009
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With the situation reaching critical proportions in the U.S. and other
industrialized states, the impact of the economic crisis is becoming more
apparent in the so-called developing countries, particularly the African
continent. Even though some Western analysts consider the African continent to
be a marginal region, this area has been thoroughly integrated into the world
capitalist system since the 19th century....
Posted Mar 27, 2009
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‘We, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, believe the action by South
African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) members in Durban [by
refusing to unload an Israeli ship--WW] indicates a new phase in Palestinian
solidarity in South Africa.’...
Posted Feb 23, 2009
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The Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi had sent its army into Somalia,
largely at the behest of the Bush administration. Fierce
resistance to Ethiopia’s occupation over the last two years resulted in
the formal withdrawal of Ethiopian forces in early January....
Posted Feb 11, 2009
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Recent political developments surrounding the formation of a national unity
government in the southern African nation of Zimbabwe provide greater impetus
for the peoples of the continent and world to demand the immediate lifting of
economic sanctions against the country....
Posted Feb 4, 2009
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The name “Mama Africa” was bestowed upon
Makeba because she was the first person to make African music heard and known
internationally....
Posted Dec 7, 2008
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Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of Pan-African News Wire, contributing WW editor and a leader of the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures and Evictions in Michigan.
...
Posted Dec 2, 2008
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The attitude in the imperialist establishments of Europe and the U.S. toward
Black Africa is so dripping with racism that almost every mention in the mass
media of this rich and vibrant continent takes it for granted that the people
will be perpetually poor and their societies woefully underdeveloped. We always
hear of “aid” for Africa—which amounts to little more than a
pittance—but never of the great wealth produced by African workers that
continues to be taken out by imperialist corporations, which feast off its
minerals, its rubber, its lumber, its diamonds, and more and more, its
oil....
Posted May 4, 2006
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Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World.
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