Globe & Mail January 12, 2008

Off the map in Africa For Addax Petroleum and founder Jean Claude Gandur, following the ‘road less travelled’ into politically volatile locations in Western Africa and Iraq has paid off handsomely. (Keep reading…)

Le Monde Diplomatique January 2008

The unimaginable has happened, to the displeasure of arrogant Europe. Africa, thought to be so poor that it would agree to anything, has said no in rebellious pride. No to the straitjacket of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), no to the complete liberalisation of trade, no to the latest manifestations of the colonial pact. (Keep reading…)

Special to Canadian Dimension December 13, 2007

A somewhat lengthy petition calling for peace in the Republic of Niger http://politicsnpoetry.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/petition_peace_in_nigerengl-1.pdf landed in my inbox the other day and I had neither the time nor the energy to look at it. That changed yesterday, when I learned that a Canadian uranium mining company, NWT Uranium http://www.nwturanium.com/s/Home.asp , has a letter of agreement to join forces http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/TO39113122007-1.htm with a New Mexico uranium mining company, Nu-Mex http://www.nu-mexuranium.com/ . (Keep reading…)

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php? Tuesday, 27 November 2007

The star-studded hue and cry to “Save Darfur” and “stop the genocide” has gained enormous traction in U.S. media along with bipartisan support in Congress and the White House. But the Congo, with ten to twenty times as many African dead over the same period is not called a “genocide” and passes almost unnoticed. Sudan sits atop lakes of oil. It has large supplies of uranium, and other minerals, significant water resources, and a strategic location near still more African oil and resources. The unasked question is whether the nation’s Republican and Democratic foreign policy elite are using claims of genocide, and appeals for “humanitarian intervention” to grease the way for the next oil and resource wars on the African continent. (Keep reading…)

Marxmail December 6, 2006

Philippe Diaz’s documentary “The Empire in Africa” opens in NYC, Los Angeles and Madison, Wisconsin theaters this Friday. It is not to be missed. Focused on the bloody civil war in Sierra Leone, it is the perfect rejoinder to those who believe that the West has some kind of obligation to provide law and order through a “humanitarian” military intervention of the sort that NY Timesman Nicholas Kristof contributor calls for in Darfur or that Harvard professor Samantha Powers called for in Rwanda. Using interviews with the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a rebel group widely portrayed as the Sierra Leone equivalent of the Janjaweed in Darfur, as well as supporters of military intervention against it, Diaz uncovers a rescue mission much more about rescuing diamond mining profits than lives. (Keep reading…)

THE NATION (March 19, 2007 issue)

When history repeats itself for a third time, it is beyond tragedy. Since its independence fifty-one years ago, Sudan has suffered two civil wars between North and South, each of them as bloody as–and much longer than–today’s crisis in the western region of Darfur. Quietly, Sudanese military planners are preparing for a third round of that war. Just two weeks before violent clashes erupted in the Southern city of Malakal at the end of November, Salva Kiir, the president of Southern Sudan–who is also first vice president in Sudan’s Government of National Unity–issued a stark warning: “The war will return to the South if peace is not achieved in Darfur, and that is really our fear.” He repeated the warnings in a speech January 9, the second anniversary of the agreement that brought peace to Southern Sudan. Kiir’s alarm is good reason to intensify international efforts over Darfur–but he is also putting us on notice to pay attention to a looming nationwide crisis. (Keep reading…)

Special to Canadian Dimension January 25, 2007

On Christmas morning, the headlines of every major newspaper carried the same story. The major breaking news of the morning was the (non-civil) war in Somalia (proper). Forget Afghanistan, never mind Iraq, Sudan is a mute point, and Kosovo is a thing of the past. On this particular morning, history, it seems, was being made (or shall we say, repeated) in Xamar. (Keep reading…)

Counterpunch January 9, 2007

It did not take long after 9/11/2001 for certain American institutions with small minds containing bitter memories to see the chance to use the post 9/11 atmosphere to even some outstanding scores. The usual prime-time experts on places to which they had never been, with names they could not pronounce, insisted that Usama received much of his terror treasure from sympathetic Somalis, well known for their hoards of clandestine wealth, that his operatives (including those responsible for the 1998 embassy bombings) had taken advantage of Somalia’s lawless society, long shoreline, and porous borders to smuggle guns and operatives, and that bin Laden himself was intent on making the place his next hideout. He could also use Somalia to run lucrative rackets, particularly in drugs and counterfeit money, to bolster his finances. (Keep reading…)

Antiwar.com December 29, 2006

In our Orwellian age, no one is surprised when American foreign policy takes a U-turn, and, suddenly, we are at war with Eastasia - because, you see, we have always been at war with Eastasia. Yet even the most jaded observers are bound to raise an eyebrow over our embrace of the Somalian warlords, whose disarmament and capture was our announced goal the last time we intervened. That failed effort, you‚ll recall, was dubbed “Operation Restore Hope.” (Keep reading…)

International Herald Tribune Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Nairobi - Undeterred by the horrors and setbacks in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon, the Bush administration has opened another battlefront in the Muslim world. With full U.S. backing and military training, at least 15,000 Ethiopian troops have entered Somalia in an illegal war of aggression against the Union of Islamic Courts, which controls almost the entire south of the country. (Keep reading…)