Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and Head of UN Assistance Mission in Somalia has emerged as the ‘supreme ruler’ who remains above the provisional constitution. He acts in conformity with foreign rules and agenda outside the Somalia, rendering local participation in politics futile

He was a scholar in the finest traditions of great scholars: devoted completely to his vocation; searching analysis of broad relationships between religions, ideologies, and state systems.

Mazrui’s humanism was based on the dignity of all human beings regardless of race, religion, region or gender. It was a humanism linked to the quest for reparative justice, peace, self-determination, the rights of women, secularism and prosperity for all.

Ali Mazrui had many followers around the globe but he also had many detractors. His BBC series “The Africans”, watched by millions around the world, won him many admirers in Nigeria, but they also won him enemies who accused him of being nothing more than a propagandist for a religious cause.

What was unique about Ali was that he was always bubbling with new ideas, which he tested on the students, his colleagues and the public in general whether in the lecture halls, academic journals or the columns of newspapers

Parasitic banks, unscrupulous credit providers and their leech-like attorneys, spawned by an obscenely bloated capitalist system, suck the life-blood from increasingly impoverished lower classes in South Africa with utter impunity. Some 11 million over-indebted people are victims of this economic violence

Imperialist responses to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa have featured high rhetoric and fear-mongering. It is these same forces that are responsible for the plunder of Africa that exposes the continent to epidemics. In contrast, Cuba has shown outstanding internationalist solidarity.

The South Sudan peace talks which are currently taking place in Addis Ababa under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are inadequate and badly suited to the task at hand. Citizens are completely absent from the process, warring groups feel no pressure to halt the violence and huge sums of money are being wasted. The peace process should be taken back home.

A new BBC documentary has sparked international debate about the facts of the Rwandan genocide. This week legislators in Kigali voted to ban the BBC in Rwanda, outraged by the documentary, which deconstructs the official narrative. But the documentary actually tells the truth the Kagame regime suppresses.

The New Alliance sidelines the diverse and sustainable food systems of small-scale farmers which offer the real potential for food security and nutrition in Africa. Instead, it promotes environmentally damaging approaches to agriculture that entrench corporate power.

ISIS beheadings have provoked instinctive revulsion, justly so. Too bad the same reaction doesn’t follow America’s equally barbaric continuation of the death penalty, a habit other civilized nations have abandoned.

Facing the most serious civilizational threat ever, what is the South African government doing? The new Infrastructure Development Act pushed into law by Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel will fast-track carbon-intensive mega-projects on behalf of mainly foreign corporate beneficiaries.

Thomas Deve died on September 7, 2014. He was a visionary, Pan-Africanist and thinker in human rights and arts circles. Here is to him at a commemoration held in Nairobi.

NGOs give the impression that they are filling the vacuum created by a retreating state. And they are, but their real contribution is that they defuse political anger and dole out as aid or benevolence what people ought to have by right. They alter the public psyche.

Obama’s Law is a forthcoming, feature-length documentary that travels between the Congo and America to reveal the danger of the single African story – the African victim in need of a white saviour - that continues to be sold in the West. Ben Radley for Pambazuka News caught up with the film’s director, Seth Chase, to find out more.

President Obama has responded to the Ebola crisis in Africa by sending 3,000 military personnel to the affected region. The real beneficiary of this militarised messianism is, in fact, the military-industrial complex back in the US

What is your body? What is it to you, to others and to the whole world? Who makes decisions about your body and why? Here’s one woman’s deep thoughts on these fundamental questions

Comrade Kimani remained steadfast in his commitment to the liberation of Kenya ever since he joined the reform movement in the early 1990s. Though uncelebrated nationally, the social justice movement in Kenya is the poorer with his untimely death.

General elections will be held in Mozambique on 15 October. Incumbent president Armando Guebuza is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term. RENAMO is key player in these polls and the politics of Mozambique generally, although its nfluence has waned in recent years and its real agenda remains confusing

For most of us today, our lives are bound by the laws of the state, or internationally-enforced laws that define terms of trade, sovereign independence, and political involvement.

The new policy ignores serious systemic challenges within Malawi’s education system. It discourages the use of local languages in favour of English, a fact that has important cultural ramifications. In sum, the policy makers have misdiagnosed the problem and prescribed the wrong medicine

Seventeen new targets have been agreed upon as the post-2015 development goals, including migraation. Engagement by the emerging powers on the issue of migration could yield positive results.

Universities in South Africa and the rest of the continent have tended to either remain aloof from society or follow government prescriptions dociley. Neither of these positions allows for these institutions to contribute to the democratic formation and critical capacity of the societies in which they exist. Universities need to assume a position of ‘embedded autonomy’ while enacting, within their own structures, the democratic values and practices which they teach

As world leaders gather at the UN next week, the window to halt runaway climate change is closing fast this decade, with world-wide emissions cuts of 50 percent needed by 2020, and 90 percent by 2050. Not much can be expected to come out of the UN talk-shop. Emerging powers, on the other hand, are not pursuing any new strategies either

Economics was originally called political economy, concerned with scarce resources and how to ensure general welfare for everyone given that fact. But US President Nixon and UK Prime Minister Thatcher are responsible for launching the Age of Economist as God

President Uhuru Kenyatta recently caused a national stir by appearing in public donning military uniform, something not done by any of his three predecessors. This comes at a time when there is evidence of growing militarization of the state in Kenya.

On October 15, the UN occupation force in Haiti will be up for renewal by the Security Council. Urgent and swift efforts are now needed to demand an immediate withdrawal of the decade-old army of occupation that has turned Haiti into a UN colony

Oxfam, Fahamu and the State of the Union Coalition (SOTU) have pleasure in inviting you to a breakfast celebrating the of the forst country report under the project analysing the implementation in Kenya of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa.
Please save the date in your diary. Further information will follow shortly. Please contact Moreen Majiwa: e-mail: [email][email protected] tel: 0700932170 with any queries in the meantime.

WHEN
30 September 2014

WHERE
Villa Rosa Kempinski, Chiromo Rd. Nairobi, Kenya

TIME
8.00AM -11.30AM

Download the Maputo Protocol Compliance Report Here.

Scramble for fighter jets, panic among law enforcement agencies and the rush to introduce new legislation have been the order of the day for Western authorities in reaction to militant Islam since September 11, 2001. But these strategies are counter-productive as they are not based on a keen understanding of the spreading radicalism in the Muslim world

Ghana's failed economic trajectory of market liberalisation has trapped the country in a cycle of export dependency based on primary commodities while destroying the domestic industry. A crash in living standards fuelled by high inflation has hit the poorest hardest. Now a new spirit of activism has emerged as a result of this crisis

The journalist and human rights activist suffers from constant migraines and severe back pain as a result of a beating to his head, back and legs. Despite this, he has been denied medical access. His lawyer's letters to the prison administration to take Hassan Ishaq's medical condition seriously and grant him access to medical care have been ignored

Kenya's top singers no longer attract the crowds they once did in central Europe, where in the first place, the population is scant and spread out, forcing event organisers to think twice before inviting any.

Swaziland’s Suppression of Terrorism Act is a “flawed” and “inherently repressive” piece of legislation, according to Amnesty International. Mlungisi Makhanya, who has been charged under the act for wearing a t-shirt, is challenging it in court.

Burundi and Rwanda have close historical ties, including a history of political violence. This author analyses the violent interactions between the two countries with reference to pan-ethnic 'imagined communities' and memories of violence as catalysts

Many observers have been quick to argue that the recent US-Africa summit was meant to deepen America’s involvement in Africa at a time when China is fast expanding its presence on the continent. That may well be so, but it is also not unlikely that the US could work with China and other nations for mutual exploitation of Africa

Western re-colonisation of Africa is decidedly underway: that was the point of the US-Africa Leaders Summit. The American pledges for new investment in Africa pale into insignificance compared with the wealth the US loots from Africa and the accompanying destabilization through increased military intervention.