Relations among the BRICS member states could destabilise to breaking point this year. While the Brasilia, Moscow and New Delhi regimes are shifting towards Washington, Pretoria and Beijing continue spouting well-worn anti-imperialist rhetoric, just as Donald Trump and his unhappy mix of populists, paleo-conservatives, neo-conservatives and neo-liberals take power on January 20.

While inequality has become a topic of increased popularity and politicization in recent years, most of the attention has focused on how 1% own an increasingly large share of the world’s wealth, rather than on inequalities between nations. In a global context in which national borders and citizenship pose few barriers to the mobility of capital, the reality is also a story of the world’s richest nations continuing to reap a disproportionate amount of the globe’s profits.

The book’s central theme focuses on the serious impact of modernism, colonialism, and post-colonialism on Africa. It is an interesting work, which contributes to knowledge of democracy, economy, social conditions and globalism in the African context.

Facts are overrated – who has them anyway? World Bank reports, IMF figures, Human Rights Watch narratives, national GDP figures, CIA fact files, entries in the Lancet, government stats, etcetera are not facts in any benevolent sense. As means of control and manipulation, they are instead the most supported (and perhaps most persuasive) opinion of the day.

The political crisis in The Gambia remains unresolved as January 19, the date for President Yahya Jammeh to leave office, nears. Jammeh must be told in unequivocal terms that he has to respect the will of Gambians who voted him out of power. But he should also be provided with a “safe-landing” to avoid possible bloodshed.