By HARRISON SAMPHIR - Counterpunch

The Harper government has vehemently attacked the UN over alleged ineptitude, most prominently in its scolding of the Security Council for inaction during the Syrian civil war. But this outright abandonment of a significant scientific initiative aimed at quelling the root causes of desertification harms both the African people and the previously ‘humanitarian’ image of Canada.

By Chris Marsden - WSWS

Nineteen years after the fall of apartheid, workers are still targeted for police killings — but now by black police officers under a majority-black government. Moreover, the brutality meted out is hardly a unique event: last year, 720 people died in police custody or because of police action...Most important of all has been the turn to brutal police repression against strikes and social protests.

By Sabine Cessou - March 08, 2013

Twenty years after the end of apartheid, South Africa’s whites still earn more than its blacks...There is no national minimum wage...Social welfare — child allowance and old age benefits — is the only source of income for 54.7% of poor households...[O]ne South African in four does not have enough to eat. Several ANC ministers have opposed the introduction of a Basic Income Grant (BIG), a minimum income for physically able adults...which they see as a subsidy for “alcoholism and lottery tickets”.

By Bill Van Auken - 5 March 2013

While justifying its intervention as a response to the growing presence of Al Qaeda-linked forces — which overran northern Mali only after they were utilized by Washington as ground troops in the US-NATO war to topple the regime of Col. Muammar Gaddafi in neighboring Libya — the real aims being pursued by US imperialism are asserting US hegemony over the region’s extensive oil, uranium and other mineral wealth and countering the rising economic influence of China.

By Laura Gottesdiener - February 28, 2013

Police violence in South Africa has been increasing rapidly. In 2008-2009, the police killed more than 500 people in the country, double the number from only a few years earlier...Police violence culminated last summer, when the police began shooting workers engaging in a strike — killing 34 unarmed plantation miners.

By Roger Annis - rabble.ca

France perpetrated two large deceptions in conducting its military intervention into Mali six weeks ago...The first is that the unilateral decision to invade Mali on January 11, 2013 was hastily made, prompted by imminent military threats by Islamic fundamentalist forces against the south of the country where the large majority of Malians live...The second is that France intends to quickly exit Mali.

By Abayomi Azikiwe - February 23, 2013

Although several thousand troops from various African states...have entered the battle alongside the French, the former colonial power also made an appeal for the United Nations to take over the operations which are really designed to secure the resources of Mali for the benefit of western industrialized states.

By Dave Zirin - February 20, 2013

It’s a global problem that will get solved only with a global response if we want to even dream of a world where violence against women is a relic of history...This very solidarity was displayed by Reeva Steenkamp herself just before her death...Steenkamp sent out an instragam message. It read, “I woke up in a happy safe home this morning. Not everyone did. Speak out against the rape of individuals in SA...” Short of a billion of us rising, happy and safe homes will not be a reality for the women of the world. It should be.

Feb 10, 2013 - CBC News

An evangelical organization that describes homosexuality as a "perversion" and a "sin" is receiving funding from the Government of Canada for its work in Uganda, where gays and lesbians face severe threats...[T]he federal government is providing $544,813 in funding for Crossroads Christian Communications — an Ontario-based evangelical group that produces television programming — to help dig wells, build latrines and promote hygiene awareness in Uganda through 2014.

By John Pilger - January 30, 2013

A full-scale invasion of Africa is under way. The United States is deploying troops in 35 African countries...The invasion has almost nothing to do with “Islamism”, and almost everything to do with the acquisition of resources, notably minerals, and an accelerating rivalry with China...As in the cold war, a division of labour requires that western journalism and popular culture provide the cover of a holy war against a “menacing arc” of Islamic extremism, no different from the bogus “red menace” of a worldwide communist conspiracy.

Regional uprisings achieved nothing. Daily life reflects poverty, unemployment, and despotism. Tens of oppressed millions suffer.

By Alex Lantier - 29 January 2013

The imperialist powers are escalating the war in Mali. Britain has pledged to deploy troops, and the US is planning a base for drone aircraft in the region, as French troops marched into the rebellious north of its former colony...The escalation of drone and commando warfare across West Africa highlights the sordid corporate and strategic interests driving the war in Mali, and the responsibility of the imperialist powers in creating the conditions that provoked the war in the first place.

By Alex Lantier - 21 January 2013

On Saturday evening, Algerian military forces stormed the Tinguentourine natural gas facility in Amenas, where over 30 Al Qaeda-linked fighters were holding hostages...[R]eports indicated that the operation claimed the lives of 48 hostages and up to 32 of the fighters of the Al Qaeda-linked Signed-in-Blood Battalion. They were demanding a prisoner exchange and the end of the ongoing French war in Mali. American, British, French, Japanese, Norwegian, and Romanian workers were among those dead or missing.

At issue is scrambling for Africa's resources. They're vast. They're some of the world's largest and richest.

By Ernst Wolff - 17 January 2013

French warplanes and ground units continued their offensive yesterday against Islamist-led rebels in the impoverished African country of Mali...French ground troops began an attack on the rebels in the small border town of Diabaly, 220 miles north of the Malian capital of Bamako. It has reportedly been surrounded and blocked off by French and Malian soldiers and is witnessing hand-to-hand fighting.