Pambazuka News 428: South Africa’s 2009 National election: Waiting to exhale

On April 6, “Win Far 161,” which is a deep sea fishing vessel home-ported in Kaohsiung, was hijacked by Somali pirates at gunpoint near an island in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. Maj. Gen. Lee Yueh-chang, who is deputy assistant chief of staff for operations at the Ministry of National Defense, responded by saying that the ROC’s navy was “carefully considering” whether to escort and protect the island’s fishing vessels in the Indian Ocean.

The Democratic Republic of Congo was born into crisis and, for its nearly 50 years of existence, it has more or less stayed there. From a civil war that nearly destroyed the newborn nation in the wake of independence, it descended into decades of parasitic rule at the hands of a strongman, Mobutu Sese Seko. As he raided the coffers of state mining companies, the desperate and starving masses occasionally looted what was left of the country’s rotting infrastructure. In 1994 inflation hit nearl...read more

The title of this article is borrowed from what President Isaias Afwerki said in an interview with China Business Weekly Magazine in 2007, talking about Chinese and Eritrean relations and with particular reference to what Chinese investors see when they look at Eritrea. Indeed, Sino-Eritrean relationship goes far beyond what appears on the surface. Eritrea and China's friendly relationship dates back to 1993. China was in fact the first country to establish diplomatic relations with sovereign...read more

The G20 world economic group has being treating Africa with a leper-like caution, reason Africa is yet to qualify to be invited to her fold. In her November 2008 leaders meeting in Washington DC, no African country was invited, even African Union (AU) an organization body of Africa, was not invited, in exception of South Africa who on its own is a full member in the G20 economic group.

At the G20 meetings in London, finance ministers agreed on an unprecedented package of financial support for emerging countries: US$250 billion in new direct G20 financing commitments to the IMF, with a commitment to come up with another US$250 billion; around US$100 billion in new Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) for emerging market (EM) countries as a part of a US$250 billion global allocation (at the risk of oversimplifying, the IMF is essentially “printing money” and handing it out in propor...read more

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