Zimbabwe and the new Cowardly Colonialism
The media reports about Zimbabwe’s elections present them as a clash between the ‘evil’ Mugabe and the ‘heroic’ Tsvangirai, an electoral battle for Zimbabwe’s soul. Mugabe is depicted as having brought Zimbabwe to its knees, causing widespread poverty and enforcing terror and repression, and Tsvangirai is discussed as the harbinger of a dignified ‘revolution’ against Mugabeism (2). This is a fantasy. It ignores the key role played by Western governments and financial institutions in using sanctions, tough diplomacy and the proxy interventionists of the South Africa government and the African Union to isolate and harry Zimbabwe over the past decade. Such self-serving external meddling has contributed to Zimbabwe’s economic crisis - and it has dangerously distorted the political dynamics inside Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the south of Africa.

Resource-hungry India seeks to increase its economic ties with Africa
From scouting for diamonds in the deserts of Botswana to signing oil deals with Sudan and sending peacekeepers to volatile Congo, India is busy trying to match China’s ever-growing clout in mineral-rich Africa and secure energy resources for its booming economy.

Senegal plans “African Renaissance” monument
Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade launched construction of an “African Renaissance” monument on the continent’s westernmost tip late on Thursday, which he said would stand taller than the Statue of Liberty in the United States.

A Brief History of Human Sex
Birds do it, bees do it, humans since the dawn of time have done it. But just how much has the act really changed through the millennia and even in past decades? Are humans doing it more? Are we doing it better? Sort of, say scientists. But it’s how people fess up to the truth about their sex lives that has changed the most over the years.

The Last Rebels of the Caribbean: Garifuna Fighting for Their Lives in Honduras
Enclosing the commons – the historical process of fencing off land which had previously been in the public domain, for private use – is perhaps one of the most blatant expressions of the fundamental criminal nature of the capitalist state. Today it’s the voracious neo-liberal model which stalks the last pockets of community-held global territory for privatization - from Chiapas, Mexico, to the deep Amazon, to the Garifuna coast of Honduras, leaving no stone unturned.

Congo: How Rich Whites Caused Five Million Blacks to Die
Five million Congolese have died in the last decade or so in order to make billionaires even richer. If there were such a thing as international law, this holocaust in the Democratic Republic of Congo should have already resulted in the public hanging of hundreds of the world’s richest men - and rightfully so. If the Nuremberg laws that sent ten Nazis to the gallows for crimes against humanity and peace were applied to the Congo, we could quite easily find the names of the defendants in the columns of the world’s financial press - the richest men on the face of the earth. These men conspired to murder millions so that there would be constant war in Central Africa - but no law to inhibit theft on the grandest industrial scale imaginable.

China still a small player in Africa
iroze Manji argues that in comparison to Europe and the US, China in Africa is still a small player. While keeping an eye out on China, Africans should not be distracted from paying attention to the West’s continued exploitation of the continent including the use of military might to protect its economic interests.

Iran to OPEC: Stop Oil Sales in Dollars