Dorothy-Grace Guerrero and Firoze Manji (ed) (2008) China’s New Role in Africa and the South: A search for a new perspective. 
Features
The destruction of African agriculture
Walden Bello (2008-08-05)
Biofuel production is certainly one of the culprits in the current global food crisis. But while the diversion of corn from food to biofuel feedstock has been a factor in food prices shooting up, the more primordial problem has been the conversion of economies that are largely food-self-sufficient into chronic food importers. Here the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) figure as much more important villains....
An African perspective: Is cyber democracy possible?
Clayton Peel (2008-07-30)
Wole Soyinka was addressing a conference on the issue of the ‘brain drain’ from African countries. He remarked on how many of the speakers before him had lamented the flight of millions of Africans to the West and how apparently desperate were these ...
What Palestine is to me
Mukoma Wa Ngugi (2008-07-23)
Fatima Hassan, is a prominent South African human rights lawyer who was part of a South African Human Rights Delegation that in early July visited the Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. ...
Mandela on my poster
Bill Fletcher (2008-07-16)
It is humbling and unsettling attempting to appraise the significance of an icon, especially at the time of that icon's 90th birthday. Nevertheless, we must honor Nelson Mandela while at the same time situating him in a broader and complicated context....
Mandela: A diaspora view
Walter Turner (2008-07-16)
"I understand that there are South Africans here tonight - some of whom have been involved in the long struggle for freedom there. In our struggle for freedom and justice in the United States, which has also been so long and arduous, we feel a powerf...
Comment & analysis
Food shortages: stories of strife across the globe
Azad Essa (2008-08-05)
The current food crisis has been heralded as the worst since the 1970s. Ordinary people, from South Africa to Egypt, India to Turkey, have been forced to make severe adjustments to their lives to deal with food hikes that continue to rise exponential...
Food crisis: Where is the African strategy?
Mammo Muchie (2008-08-05)
“The elevation of an agricultural people to the condition of countries at once agricultural, manufacturing and commercial, can only be accompanied under the law of free trade, when the various nations engaged at the time of manufacturing industry shall be in the same degree of progress and civilization; when they shall place no obstacle in the way of the economical development of each other, and not impede their respective progress by war or adverse commercial legislation.” - Friedrich List, in the National System of Political Economy...
Violence against women in Africa: from discrimination to impunity
A call for ratification and implementation of the Maputo Protocol (2008-08-07)
African Women’s Day gives us the opportunity to remember that gender-based violence is one of the most serious and widespread violations of the basic rights of women, particularly on the African continent. Gender discrimination is both one of the causes and an aggravating factor of the consequences of violence against women, thus contributing to the perpetuation of impunity of such cases....
Enforcement of the Sexual Offences Act in Kenya
Ann Nyambura Kithaka (2008-08-05)
INTRODUCTION Is the criminal justice system in Kenya well equipped to protect women from gender-based violence? This a critical question because in July this year, the Sexual Offences Act (SOA) is celebra...
Ending Impunity for Sexual and Gender Based Violence conference Communiqué
SGBV Conference (2008-07-31)
Sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) is a scourge on Africa; a pandemic that has undermined women and girls’ rights to autonomy, bodily integrity, human dignity, sexuality, security and tranquillity. SGBV has, and continues to be a major hindrance to rights and justice. It is prevalent in all our societies across the continent, including non-conflict situations. It is repeatedly used as a weapon against girls and women in conflict/crisis situations. SGBV, including intimate partner violence, is a leading factor in the increasing "feminisation" of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. ...
Politics at stake: a note on stakeholder analysis
Mark Butler and David Ntseng (2008-07-31)
People in government, business, and political and civil society organisations routinely talk about 'stakeholders'. They do exercises in stakeholder analysis to inform their 'strategic planning'. Invariably they use the stakeholder language to adverti...
Mediterranean Union or neutered talking shop?
Stephen Marks (2008-08-06)
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has repeated his rejection of the ‘Union for the Mediterranean’, launched last month in Paris on the initiative of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Speaking on a visit to Tunis, Gaddafi, - the only leader to stay away of the 44 invited - claimed the project would seperate North Saharan countries from the rest of Africa. "I do not agree to cutting up Africa for hypothetical prospects with Europe" he added, and went on to characterise the Union as a violation of AU resolutions, a threat to Arab unity, and a return to colonialism....
Somalia: Time to pay attention
Frankie Martin (2008-08-05)
While the world looks elsewhere, Somalia is in flames. The nation just topped a list of the world’s most unstable countries by Foreign Policy magazine, and the United Nations has declared the humanitarian situation there “worse than Darfur.”...