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Africa

Many articles have been written reflecting on five decades of historical experience — referred to as the 50th anniversary of the “Year of Africa” — since 17 African nations gained political independence. Yet few pay adequate attention to the indispensable role of women in the campaigns for national liberation and their continuing efforts in the present century....
Following a protracted political struggle waged by Zimbabwe and its allies against U.S., British and European Union imperialist efforts to ban its sale of diamonds, Zimbabwe sold the first group of diamonds from the Chiadzwa mines — 900,000 carats — on Aug. 11. The sales earned $72 million in one day.

Government estimates are that at least $1 billion can be earned every year through the sale of diamonds just from the Chiadzwa mines. That would increase state revenues by 50 percent and could fund many social service programs....

Bomb blasts in and around the Ugandan capital of Kampala on July 11 killed at least 74 people who were gathered at a rugby club and an Ethiopian restaurant watching the finals of the 2010 World Cup....
Western imperialist states are continuing their efforts to undermine Zimbabwe’s sovereignty. The most egregious campaign recently has been the attempt to block the southern African nation from selling its diamonds on the international market....
Israel and its apologists bristle when Israel is called an apartheid state. Most loudly shouting, “Israeli apartheid,” however, are those who know the best — the workers of South Africa, who suffered the most under South African apartheid. South African trade unions have denounced the siege of Gaza and the apartheid wall on the West Bank, and have urged forward the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign (BDS)....
The year 2010 is the 50th anniversary of the Year of Africa, when 17 former colonial territories gained their national independence during 1960.

The liberation movements in Africa had gained momentum after World War II, when the European colonial powers were weakened by their mutual destruction from 1939 to 1945.

Colonialism was a vicious system of national oppression and exploitation with origins in the Atlantic Slave Trade starting in the 15th century. After four centuries of enslaving Africans in Western Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America, North America and on the African continent itself, the imperialists solidified their colonial system with the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference....

Acting Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan met with President Barack Obama on April 11 at the White House as a prelude to the Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington, D.C....
African countries at the COP-15 climate change summit in Copenhagen led a walkout for several hours on Dec. 14 to protest the efforts of the United States, Britain and other imperialist countries and their allies to sidestep responsibility for the worsening impact of carbon dioxide emissions. The increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has caused climate change that threatens the total collapse of agricultural production on the African continent....
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....
Against all odds the southern African nation of Zimbabwe is celebrating its 30th year of independence from British settler-colonialism....
African countries at the COP-15 climate change summit in Copenhagen led a walkout for several hours on Dec. 14 to protest the efforts of the United States, Britain and other imperialist countries and their allies to sidestep responsibility for the worsening impact of carbon dioxide emissions. The increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has caused climate change that threatens the total collapse of agricultural production on the African continent....
A new chapter in relations between the People’s Republic of China and the African continent began during the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum (FOCAC), which was held Nov. 6-9 in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced eight new measures to enhance partnerships with 53 African states in the areas of agriculture, debt relief, market access expansion, climate change, medical affairs, education, environmental protection and promotion of investment....
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A summit of African and South American leaders convened on the Venezuelan-Caribbean island of Margarita Sept. 26-27. The gathering was a follow-up to the first Africa-South America Summit held in Abuja, Nigeria, in November 2006....
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....
There was much anticipation on the African continent about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 11-day recent visit to seven countries. However, the tour’s outcome largely reaffirmed the continuance of past U.S. policy toward Africa....
The failure of capitalist methods of production and distribution is clearly illustrated by the way the collapse of the financial and industrial centers in Western Europe and the United States has devastated former colonial countries. Since late 2007 tens of millions of workers and farmers in several regions of the African continent have been severely affected by unemployment, rising commodities prices, food deficits and the decline in material aid from the industrialized states....
For the better part of the last 75 years, revolutionary peoples’ artist Irving Fierstein used his immense talent to depict the many struggles of working and oppressed people for social and economic justice and against imperialism. In the early 1980s Fierstein created a unique genre of art—striking full-color revolutionary banners thoughtfully composed and painstakingly painted by hand....
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....
A newly reconfigured Transitional Federal Government established during early 2009 in Somalia has lost control of large areas of the country to the al-Shabab and Hisbul Islam resistance organizations. On May 17 and 18, the towns of Jowhar and Mahaday north of Mogadishu, the capital, fell to al-Shabab....
A flare-up in tensions between Chad and Sudan during the week of May 4 has exposed the continuing efforts of French and U.S. imperialism to dominate the political and economic future of North and Central Africa. An effort by Chad rebels to attack the capital N’Djamena and overturn the Idriss Deby Itno regime was reportedly defeated May 7 after air power halted the rebel advance....
Over the last several months, a series of dramatic cases involving police killings of civilians has brought to light the essential role of law enforcement within capitalist societies. Numerous cities throughout the United States have seen a dramatic increase in the murder of African Americans by cops as well as the escalation of raids and deportations against immigrants both documented and undocumented....
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....
This Sudanese province is the theater of a conflict on which the international opinion is rallying. As for any struggle on the African ground, we receive the same images of misery: men are tearing, children are crying and blood is flowing....
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Review of progress and assessment of implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action by all stakeholders at the national, regional and international levels, including the assessment of contemporary manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance...
We, the representatives of local, national and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other civil society groups from around the world gathered in Durban/South Africa during the week of 28 August – 3 September 2001 for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR), guided by our commitment in the struggle against racism and racial discrimination and inspired by the recommendations of the NGO Forums held in Strasbourg/France, Santiago de Chile/Chile, Dakar/Senegal and Tehran/Iran and the related sub-regional NGO meetings held in Warsaw/Poland, Kathmandu/Nepal, Cairo/Egypt and Quito/Ecuador, in preparation for the World Conference, hereby make the following Declaration:...
We express our full support for a strong Durban Review Conference, the NGO/Civil Society Forum, the Conference on Palestine, and other similar activities being held before and during the Review Conference that support the Conference and the goals for which it stands....
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. Captain Richard Phillips was released while the U.S. military and the corporate media hailed the killings of the Somalis, saying the actions were justified....
Between 20-24 April 2009 the world will take either an important step forward towards prohibiting discrimination, especially racial discrimination, or an unfortunate step backwards, if governments are unwilling to confront or even to discuss the core issues. Which way the international community will go will depend largely on the activities of states, and to a lesser extent civil society, participating in the Durban Review Conference to be held at the UN European headquarters in Geneva....
The decision by the Obama administration to boycott the Durban Review Conference Against Racism has raised a torrent of petitions, protests and criticism. An actual boycott of the upcoming April 20-24 meeting would be the first time that the United States has refused to participate in a United Nations conference. This has come as a shock to many who expected a fundamentally different attitude toward an international conference on racism from the Obama administration....
Please sign a petition to President Obama urging the United States to participate in the Durban Review Conference and its remaining preparatory meetings. The United States is currently refusing to participate in the Durban Review Conference, a United Nations Conference to discuss the elimination of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances....
The following statement was issued by members of the December 12th Movement, who held a press conference on March 21 in Harlem on the U.S. government's refusal to attend the United Nations World Conference against Racism-Durban Review in April....
Sudan President Omar Hassan al-Bashir visited the North Darfur state capital of El-Fasher on March 8 in defiance of an International Criminal Court warrant issued for his arrest just a few days before. It was the first ICC warrant issued against a sitting head of state. As he addressed a rally of tens of thousands of supporters, the president defied the ICC and its imperialist backers....
Manik Mukherjee, General Secretary of the International Anti-imperialist and People's Solidarity Coordinating Committee (IAPSCC), has issued the following statement condemning the indictment of President Omar Hasan Ahmad Al Bashir of the Republic of Sudan by the International Criminal Court....
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The same day that a unity government took office in Zimbabwe, Feb. 13, opponents of Western colonialism protested before the British and U.S. missions to the United Nations in New York City demanding an end to the economic sanctions imposed on this southern African country and the right to self-determination. ...
The following excerpts are from talks presented at a Feb. 8 "Zimbabwe: Pan Africanism or Imperialism" forum in Harlem, N.Y. The forum was organized by the December 12th Movement and Friends of Zimbabwe....
First, let us begin by saying thank you. Thank you for demonstrating to and for African people and the world the courage and conviction that must be had to be self-determining in the face of insurmountable odds. Odds that would have crushed others with any less will to be free....
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The Ethiopian government on Nov. 25 announced it was withdrawing its military forces from neighboring Somalia. This represents a defeat for the foreign policy aims of Washington, which encouraged the government of Meles Zenawi to invade Somalia in December 2006....
In a recent statement from the United Nations Mission in Congo (MONUC), the possibility was raised of a greater military presence there under U.N. auspices. This announcement comes at a time when there has been an escalation of fighting between rebel groups and the Congolese National Army in North and South Kivu provinces, located in mineral-rich eastern Congo....
During the last week of September, unprecedented fighting took place in several areas of the east African nation of Somalia. This rising tide of armed conflict is directly related to the resistance efforts of the Somali people against the occupation of their country by the military forces of neighboring Ethiopia. The Ethiopian invasion in December 2006 was fully supported, financially and militarily, by the U.S....
After months of painstaking negotiations between the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the two main opposition parties, the Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T) and the small breakaway faction known as the MDC-M, the leadership of these organizations reached an agreement to share power in a Government of National Unity (GNU)....
Manik Mukherjee, General Secretary of International Anti-imperialist and People's Solidarity Coordinating Committee (IAPSCC)attended the programme on National Workers Day Celebration on invitation from the Sudan Workers Trade Union Front (SWTUF). The Conference started on August 3, 2008 with nearly 2000 delegates from 20 countries at the Friendship Hall, Khartoum. The Text of Manik Mukherjee's Speech at the Conference is given below. ...
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was inaugurated for a sixth term on June 29 after winning a landslide victory on behalf of the ruling Zimbabwe African Nation Union-Patriotic Front against the opposition Western-backed Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangira....
A political and military accord signed between the Sudanese government of Omar al-Beshir and Chadian President Idriss Deby in January was dissolved in the aftermath of an attack by a Darfur rebel group on May 10. The so-called Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) carried out an assault in Omdurman resulting in the deaths of approximately 200 people....
The Brooklyn-based December 12 Movement issued the following statement titled "West launches preemptive propaganda strike to depose presidency of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe" on March 30 from Harare, Zimbabwe....
Chad, in central Africa, was brutally conquered by France over a century ago and made part of its colonial empire. Today, while nominally independent, it is the fifth poorest country in the world, according to the U.N. However, it has become a significant, though not major, exporter of oil in the past three years....
The U.S. and European imperialist powers are responsible for the genocidal slave trade that decimated Africa, the genocide of the Indigenous population of the Americas, the colonial wars and occupations that looted three-quarters of the globe. It was German imperialism that was responsible for the genocide of Jewish people. To call for military intervention by these same powers as the answer to conflicts among the people of Darfur is to ignore 500 years of history....
For those people who know Mali's capital Bamako has only a handful of large buildings -- some government offices, the luxury hotel at 15 stories, the international bank and the great mosque -- it may have been a surprise that this city was picked for the African session of 2006's Polycentric World Social Forum (WSF)....
For the first time in the five years of the WSF's existence, the issues of Africa were at its center. According to Malian organizer Mamadou Goita, "We had over 300 people from the rural areas of Mali alone, while another 8,000 came from neighboring countries. All of them participated in the forum and enriched the discussions. This has never happened before."...
Two demonstrations were held in Detroit today against the rising tide of United States militarism in Iraq and Somalia....
Audio streaming of panel discussion...
U.S. agents abducted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti over a week ago and flew him to this intensely poor former French colony in the heart of Africa in an attempt to isolate him and keep him from telling the truth about what has happened in his Caribbean country....

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