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There isn't a Biggest Story for Today, yet.
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By Yuri Prasad
June 30, 2009 - socialistworker.co.uk
Despite his huge popularity, Michael Jackson embodied the contradictions of racism in the music industry
The words to Nina Simone’s song Young, Gifted and Black could have been written especially for the Jackson Five. When the group’s first single, I Want You Back, smashed its way to the top of the pop charts in 1969 the brothers seemed to some to epitomise the desire for black pride that emerged out of the movement for civil rights.
The Jacksons combined street credibility – a kind of ghetto chic derived from their working class upbringing in Indiana – with wholesome respectability. They dressed sharp, but not so sharp they couldn’t be copied, and the group wore their hair in the “natural” Afro style.
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African Diaspora: Review - From Colonization to Globalization: Difference or Repetition?
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By Rosemary Ekosso
May 01, 2009 - ekosso.com
Paper by Martial Frindethie
Note: the full text of the paper is available at the link provided at the end of this posting, which is only a review of the paper.
This paper is quite possibly one of the most startling I have read in a while. That so much information is available, and that people may not be privy to it, is one of the tragedies of humanity. We have the wherewithal to save ourselves and yet we do not.
Frindethie's paper is largely about his reading of the recent history of Côte d'Ivoire. The tone is one of someone in a towering rage at the French government and French interest groups. For this reason, it will be of particular interest to Francophone Africa. And although Frindethie comes across as a very, very angry man, his tone shifting from sardonic to downright bitter, this is a well-researched philippic.
In my view, almost none of the people mentioned in the paper come out smelling of roses, to say the least. Certainly not the French government or French business interests in Africa. Not Kofi Anan. And most certainly not Alassane Ouattara, nor his wife the Frenchwoman Dominique Nouvian Folleroux, described as a "femme fatale" by Frindethie. On the strength of the evidence, one is inclined to agree.
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Caribbean: Nothing Can Be Improvised in Haiti, Fidel Castro
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By Fidel Castro Ruz
May 24, 2009
Reflections of Fidel
Five days ago I read a press report stating that Ban Ki-moon would appoint Bill Clinton as his special envoy for Haiti.
According to the report, Clinton accompanied the Secretary General on a two-day official visit to Haiti on March last in order to support the development program that had been designed by the government of Port of Prince, aimed at awakening the lethargic Haitian economy.
The report stated that the ex president had maintained a remarkable philanthropic commitment with the Caribbean nation through the Clinton Global Initiative.
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By Dambudzo Muparanga
May 23, 2009, The Herald
ONE can make out a pattern when it comes to the popularity of the Zimbabwe Government in the West before the Land Reform Programme and after its inception.
The reason for this is not because the Government did something out of this world, the Government – all things considered – did a good thing for its people.
The only unfortunate thing is that in today’s world those with the money control the flow of information and if anyone crosses their path the wolves are released within seconds.
Such is the case with Zimbabwe.
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By Henry Harry Makowa
May 23, 2009, The Herald
WITH the current swine flu plague hitting Mexico and now almost all parts of the world, one cannot help but wonder what international outcry would have been constructed had the deadly flu originated in Zimbabwe.
It is more important to understand this fact in light of and in so far as Zimbabweans are still very much aware of the condemnation and criminal discrimination against its citizens over the cholera outbreak that rocked the country towards the end of December 2008.
What is interesting about the swine flu in Mexico is that it has produced two outcomes totally opposite to how Zimbabwe was treated over the cholera.
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By William Blum
May 05, 2009
www.killinghope.org
Okay, at least some things are settled. When George W. Bush said "The United States does not torture", everyone now knows it was crapaganda. And when Barack Obama, a month into his presidency, said "The United States does not torture",(1) it likewise had all the credibility of a 19th century treaty between the US government and the American Indians.
When Obama and his followers say, as they do repeatedly, that he has "banned torture", this is a statement they have no right to make. The executive orders concerning torture leave loopholes, such as being applicable only "in any armed conflict".(2) What about in a "counter-terrorism" environment? And the new administration has not categorically banned the outsourcing of torture, such as renditions, the sole purpose of which is to kidnap people and send them to a country to be tortured. Moreover, what do we know of all the CIA secret prisons, the gulag extending from Poland to the island of Diego Garcia?
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The "Ottawa Initiative on Haiti": Humanist Peacekeeping or...?
By Jean Saint-Vil
April 20, 2009
globalresearch.ca
On Sussex Drive in Ottawa, just a few steps away from the enormous US embassy, stands the Peacekeeping Monument. The structure titled "Reconciliation" was erected to honour the more than 125,000 Canadians who have served in United Nations peacekeeping forces since 1947. The current article documents one particular instance –the February 2004 intervention in Haiti - where the historical record conflicts with the "good peacekeeper" narrative communicated by the Canadian government, reiterated by the corporate media, and represented by "Reconciliation."
Seeing themselves as a generous people, most Canadians also consider that their noble ideals are reflected in the foreign policy of their government. The importance of nurturing this positive image both at home and abroad is well ingrained in the national psyche and, every now and again, surveys are conducted to confirm its resilience.[1]
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Caribbean: Honouring a Legacy of Imperialism, Racism and Oppression
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By Nkrumah Lucien
April 24, 2009
The task of building a national consciousness out of two groups - on the one hand, descendants and beneficiaries of an exploitative class or group and on the other hand, the largely disenfranchised majority descending from the exploited group - is no easy task. This, perhaps, explains but does not excuse the failure since St. Lucia’s independence to seriously undertake this task. It may be that those who hold and juggle political power have neither the desire nor the required consciousness to embark upon such a project but there have been many occasions when the call for such to be done has been ignored. Instead, a superficial unity is established and called a national consciousness, to which all are expected to subscribe and to which only those who are ignorant of the continuation of many of colonialism's contradictions truly subscribe. The continued failure to do the necessary re-education, reparations and reconciliation to make this possible keeps us vulnerable to the agendas and indiscretions of those who still maintain a hold culturally and otherwise on our societies.
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Analysis: Somalia Piracy Began in Response to Illegal Fishing and Toxic Dumping by Western Ships off Somali Coast
April 14, 2009
democracynow.org
Rush Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama vowed an international crackdown to halt piracy off the coast of Somalia Monday soon after the freeing of US cargo ship captain Richard Phillips, who had been held hostage by Somali pirates since last Wednesday. Three Somali pirates were killed in the US operation.
While some military analysts are considering attacks on pirate bases inside Somalia in addition to expanding US Navy gunships along the Somali coastline, others are strongly opposed to a land invasion. US Congress member Donald Payne of New Jersey made a brief visit to the Somali capital of Mogadishu Monday and said piracy was, quote, a "symptom of the decades of instability." His plane was targeted by mortar fire as he was leaving Somalia, soon after a pirate vowed revenge against the United States for killing his men.
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Canada's "Democracy Promotion" in Venezuela
By Anthony Fenton
April 7th 2009
The Dominion
Canada's foreign policy, as that country which is closer geographically, economically, and militarily with the US than any other, has long been circumscribed by the whims of the world's lone Superpower.
Part of the 'hidden wiring' of the US-Canada relationship is premised on the belief that there is a role for Canada in places where the US carries a lot of counter-productive baggage. New records obtained by The Dominion show just how actively intertwined Canada's foreign policy is with the US-led 'democracy' promotion project in Venezuela.
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Women: Jesus and Spiritual Bondage
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By EmpresKeneilwe
Posted: April 03, 2009
Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum
I recently came across an article that has made reference to "Jesus's" race. It was actually the second time I read it. But with time, my consciousness has expanded more than the first time I read it, therefore, I had a more in-depth overstanding of what the author was trying to portray. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it; the symbolism of Christ and the cross. Eventually, I ended up "Googling black Jesus". That also brought up a lot researchers' claims on the race of Jesus and the origins of religion, Christianity in particular.
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By Professor Jonathan Moyo, MP
Saturday, March 14, 2009
The Herald
THE truism that people learn geology the day after an earthquake best explains why there is a growing list of troubling questions about probable criminal involvement of the American and British governments or their agents in the car accident that tragically claimed the life of the wife of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai last week.
Among the questions that cannot be fully or satisfactorily answered without an independent and competent international probe are the following:
l) Who really owns the Nissan diesel truck, with registration number 81TCE128, which caused the tragic accident on March 6, 2009?
2) If the registered owner of the truck is not the American Embassy in Harare or the United States Agency for International Development why does the truck have a registration number whose diplomatic configuration is reserved for the United States Embassy?
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Caribbean: US Discriminatory Immigration Policies Toward Haitians
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By Stephen Lendman
February 27th, 2009
It's a familiar story for Haitians - last in, first out for the hemisphere's poorest, least wanted, and most abused people here and at home. Most recently it was highlighted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials announcing the resumption of over 30,000 deportations to a nation reeling from poverty, repression, despair, the devastation from last summer's storms, and occupation by UN paramilitary Blue Helmets - since 2004, illegally there for the first time ever to support and enforce a coup d'etat against a democratically elected president, at the behest of Washington.
On December 9, ICE resumed deportations after halting them in September following summer storms that battered the country leaving 800,000 people without food, clean water, other essentials, and for around 70,000 their homes.
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By Chris Floyd
February 25, 2009
chris-floyd.com
It would be superfluous in us to point out that a plan to "end" a war which includes the continued garrisoning of up to 50,000 troops in a hostile land is, in reality, a continuation of that war, not its cessation. To produce such a plan and claim that it "ends" a war is the precise equivalent of, say, relieving one's bladder on the back of one's neighbor and telling him that the liquid is actually life-giving rain.
But this is exactly what we are going to get from the Obama Administration in Iraq. Word has now come from on high – that is, from "senior administration officials" using "respectable newspapers" as a wholly uncritical conduit for government spin – that President Obama has reached a grand compromise with his generals (or rather, the generals and Pentagon poobahs he has inherited -- and eagerly retained -- from George W. Bush) on a plan to withdraw some American troops from the country that the United States destroyed in an unprovoked war of aggression. Obama had wanted a 16-month timetable for the partial withdrawal; his potential campaign rival in 2012, General David Petraeus, wanted 23 months; so, with Solomonic wisdom, they have now split the difference, and will withdraw a portion of the American troops in 19 months instead.
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African Diaspora: Washington suppressed Kenyan exit poll to keep Kibaki in power
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By Stephen Gowans
February 04, 2009
gowans.wordpress.com
Q: When does the US government hide an exit poll that calls a foreign election into question?
A: When it doesn’t want the candidate who got the most votes to win.
That’s what happened when a US government-financed exit poll cast doubt on the victory of Kenya’s president Mwai Kibaki in a December 2007 election.
In a January 31, 2009 New York Times article, “A chaotic Kenya vote and a secret US exit poll,” reporters Mike McIntyre and Jeffrey Gettleman revealed that the “results of an exit poll, paid for by the United States government, that supported the initial returns” favoring the challenger, Raila Odinga, were kept secret.
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