Pambazuka News 505: Exploiting Haiti's disaster / Attacks on press freedom

tonrulkens

A damning report confirms critics’ accusation that industrial biofuels are responsible for the world's food and hunger crisis, writes Mae-Wan Ho.

Why don't royal divorces attract the same media fanfare as weddings, wonders Gado.

IFRC

‘For the last twenty years, the most powerful political and economic interests in and around Haiti have waged a systematic campaign designed to stifle the popular movement and deprive it of its principal weapons, resources and leaders,' writes Peter Hallward. January’s earthquake ‘triggered reactions that carried and that are still carrying such measures to entirely new levels’.

Conditions were ripe for cholera because international policy towards Haiti hasn't changed in decades, says this opinion piece in the London Guardian. 'Economic exploitation, political intervention, NGO gifts with chains attached, media misrepresentation, the same mistakes have been made over and over again. Sadly, even an earthquake doesn't seem to have changed that. It's little wonder Haitians are manifesting their anger in increasingly heated protests.'

Discussing the works of Maaza Mengiste, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Solomon Gebre-Selassie explores the characters and plots of three African novels by female writers.

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