By Yves Engler - September 01, 2008

The mainstream media's hypocrisy during the Olympics would have been funny if it weren't so ignorance-producing...So many words written or spoken about human rights violations, lip-synching, suppression of Tibet, taped fireworks, Communist dictatorship, evil Chinese nationalism...Has any media discussed Canada's decades-long support of British imperialism in China?...From historical amnesia concerning Canada-China relations through Tibet and Sudan the media's double standard is glaring...[H]ow about comparing Canada's role in the Congo to China's role in Sudan?

"a war that was complicated by considerable international intervention has become over simplified into a morality tale of good versus evil...such a simplification further obscures the truth about what happened in Rwanda in 1994 and whitewashes the role of Western intervention more broadly.."

NAIROBI - More than 14 million people in the east Africa region require urgent food aid due to drought and spiralling cereal and fuel prices, aid agencies say.

By Stephen Zunes - July, 08 2008

...[N]either the Republican administration nor the Democratic-controlled Congress is sincerely concerned about human rights and democratic elections...Despite claims of support for the advancement of democracy, the United States continues to support...African dictatorships that are as bad as or even worse than...Zimbabwe...[T]he United States currently provides economic aid and security assistance to such repressive African regimes as Swaziland, Congo, Cameroun, Togo, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Rwanda, Gabon, Egypt, and Tunisia. None of these countries holds free elections, and all have severely suppressed their political opposition...Among the worst of these African tyrannies has been the regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil leapt $5 to a new record high near $147 a barrel on Friday, spurred by growing worries of threats to supplies from Iran and Nigeria and the possibility of a strike by Brazilian oil workers next week.

By MIKE WHITNEY - July 8, 2008

While George Bush was breezing through photo-ops at the G-8 summit in Japan; his Ethiopian proxy-army in Somalia was grinding out more carnage on the streets of Mogadishu. More than 40 civilians have been killed in the last 48 hours...US foreign policy in Somalia has resulted in disaster. Millions of Somalis have been forced to flee their homes and relocate to tent cities in the south to escape the fighting.

By Mahir Ali - July, 01 2008

Western sanctions and the legacy of British colonialism are Zanu-PF's (Prime Minister Mugabe's ruling party) stock excuses for the Mugabe regime's monumental economic failures. The majority of Zimbabweans no longer accept this explanation. To most of them, the liberation struggle to which Mugabe significantly contributed is ancient history. They need food and jobs...Not surprisingly, there have been calls in some quarters for international intervention, including of the military variety. Such a course would be utterly disastrous. Zimbabwe today...is not beyond redemption...nor do its multiple afflictions warrant a bitter dose of neocolonialism.

The US and Britain can't allow a country in its crosshairs to function on its own. Both Imperialist nations are calling for more sanctions on Zimbabwe. To many Westerners, sanctions are a slap on the wrist but the truth is different. As we saw with Iraq, sanctions are no less than muder without firing bullets...

By Priyamvada Gopal - June, 29 2008

As Zimbabwe spirals into further political chaos, [Robert] Mugabe and his party's addiction to power will further indulge an equally self-serving Western appetite for spectacles of Third World despotism. If Mugabe finds it convenient to invoke the demon of colonial oppression...he also enables British politicians to spout pieties condemning violence while their own nation is currently implicated in two dubious and bloody wars...The British government turns accusatory fingers in Zimbabwe's direction while Mugabe shouts back anti-colonial slogans...The only innocents, however, are ordinary Zimbabweans.

Whenever a bona fide neoliberal Bush puppet like Stephen Harper sounds off against someone like 'the dictator' Mugabe, something is up. What is up is another destabilization and regime change attempt in progress on behalf of Western capital and Imperialism.

CBC Newsunday - June 22, 2008

Zimbabwe's opposition leader has pulled out of Friday's runoff election against President Robert Mugabe because of mounting violence and intimidation against opposition candidates...He also asked the United Nations "to intervene to restore the rule of law, peace, and the conditions of a free and fair election."

An essay on the May 2008 pogroms in South Africa

The state is, again, sending in bulldozers and men with guns to move the poor from central shack settlements to peripheral townships.

ICTR Defence Lawyers straight up on US/UK involvement in the Rwanda Genocide, and the latest shocking developments at the ICTR.

The Guardian/UK

DARFUR - Thousands of child refugees from Darfur, some as young as nine, are being abducted and sold to warring militias as child soldiers, a British human rights group reports today.

The US Supreme Court affirmed a ruling on Monday that three class action lawsuits filed on behalf of South African apartheid victims can be tried in the American legal system.

Combined, the lawsuits are seeking more than $400 billion from nearly 50 multinational companies for 'allegedly' aiding and abetting the South African military and security forces.