Euronews asks Jeremy Scahill about his new film, “Dirty Wars,” which has been nominated for an Academy Award. Scahill was also recently interviewed at Democracy Now! “AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, this report that just came out from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism that more people have been killed in drone strikes in the six months after […]
Today’s South Africa by the Numbers (with Photos)
Population of South Africa: 51 million (slightly larger than South Korea) Annual Gross Domestic Product (nominal): $384 billion (in neighborhood of Taiwan, Austria, UAE) Rank among world economies: 29 Rank among African economies: 1 Amount GDP has grown since end of white rule in 1994: 3 times Number of people added to middle class in […]
Photo of the Day: Apartheid South Africa Sign
This sign is left over from Apartheid days and is preserved under an awning in downtown Johannesburg, South Africa as a reminder of what was. I photographed it in August, 2012. —— Related video: For more context, the BBC has a minute-and-a-half review of the horrible institution of Apartheid in South Africa:
Photo of the Day: Mandela Training in Algeria
h/t Sami Ben Gharbia @ifikra Nelson Mandela training with the Algerian Liberation Front in 1962. The Algerians fought an 8-year war, 1954-1962, to become independent from French imperialism, in the course of which between half a million and a million Algerians died (the population of the country was then 11 million). In 1962, South Africa […]
Mandela: We want equal Political Rights; When Protest was Outlawed, we chose Sabotage
Mandela’s declaration to the court as his trial began in Pretoria at the Supreme Court of South Africa on April 20, 1964 I am the first accused. I hold a bachelor’s degree in arts and practised as an attorney in Johannesburg for a number of years in partnership with Oliver Tambo. I am a convicted […]
NAS: From Ice Sheet Collapse to Mass Extinctions, You’re not Ready for Climate Change
By John Queally Hang on. Get Ready. Those are at least two of the takeaways from a new report released by scientists in the National Academy of Sciences on Tuesday which says the sudden impacts of climate change this century and beyond are inevitable but warn that far too little has been done to prepare […]
United States, Israel opposed Mandela, supported Apartheid
The attempt to make Nelson Mandela respectable is an ongoing effort of Western government spokesmen and the Western media. He wasn’t respectable in the business circles of twentieth-century New York or Atlanta, or inside the Beltway of Washington, D.C. He wasn’t respectable for many of the allies of the United States in the Cold War, […]
Tunisian Rapper Jailed for 4 Months for Insulting the Police
Tunisia Live reports that: “Rapper Ala Yaacoubi, known by his stage name Weld el 15, turned himself in to a court in Hammamet today, where his 21-month prison sentence was reduced to four months.” He was sentenced for public indecency (because of his rap lyrics) and for insulting officers of the state (his most famous […]
Muslim-American Tolkiens? Throne of Crescent Moon Author on Ethnic High Fantasy
Saladin Ahmad, a Muslim-American fantasy author from Dearborn, Michigan, is the author of the novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon. He spoke in Grand Rapids on the meaning of his background for his writing and imagination: He made the interesting point that much high fantasy is already ethnic, it is just from the unmarked ethnicity […]