By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
January 20, 2009
Updated: January 21, 2009
For the past five hundred years, the world has been under the sway of what Dr. Ivan Van Sertima has called the “five hundred year curtain.”
This European foreign policy curtain has manifested itself in the 1655 Britain’s global master-plan/code-word under the rubric of the “Great Western Design” as enunciated by Oliver Cromwell.
Continue reading Geo-political aspects of Obama’s presidency
By Raffique Shah
Sunday, January 11, 2009
IF ever the world needed an economic recession, this is the time. Maybe there is some superior entity that is both omniscient and omnipotent, that saw the excesses man was capable of, left to his devices. And just maybe, that entity decided to call halt to the madness that gripped mankind, from Iceland to Antarctica. Almost the entire world, except for the one billion living in poverty that we can pretend do not exist, engaged in wanton, wasteful consumerism. It was as if we were re-enacting the lavishness of the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, or the Court of the Roman Empire in its halcyon days.
Continue reading Recession opens new opportunities
Dr. Kwame Nantambu
January 08, 2009
On 1st January 1959, a successful armed revolution took place in the Caribbean. This revolution destroyed Euro-Spanish-American colonial oppression in Cuba. It was led by Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara. The Euro-Spanish-American dictatorship regime was led by Fulgencio Batista.
Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and “Che” Guevara held their ground in the Sierra Maestra mountains accompanied by a mere hundred fellow revolutionaries. What is vital, however, is that the “26th of July movement” had the ultimate support of the oppressed Cuban peasants.
Continue reading Revisiting Cuba at 50
Ian Scoones, Challenges the myths about Zimbabwean agriculture and land reform
15 September 2008
lalr.org.za/
(Livelihoods after land reform)
The long-awaited political agreement in Zimbabwe is to be welcomed. After years of political impasse and economic instability, there is a potential for a new start. But an informed debate on the future is needed and a focus on land and the agricultural sector must be central to these discussions. The new government will be offered advice from all quarters – consultants from around the world will arrive by the plane load, and the donor community and foreign think-tanks of all persuasions will forward their preferred plans and programmes.
Continue reading A new start for Zimbabwe?
By Raffique Shah
January 04, 2009
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
SOME 40 years or so ago, in the heady days of Black Power and the global fight for basic human and civil rights by non-Whites, I saw all White people as oppressors. I was a young firebrand, who, in the universal spirit of my revolutionary hero Cuban Che Guevara, was ready to fight against injustices wherever they existed. I actually lived out part of my utopian dream by taking up arms against “the establishment”, a feat many of my contemporaries also dreamed of, but never experienced.
Continue reading Israel courting doomsday
By Stephen Gowans
January 2, 2009
In the last seven days, Israeli airstrikes have killed 414 Gazans and wounded 1,850. [1] Israel says it’s defending itself against Palestinian rocket attacks. If that’s so, the response is grossly disproportionate. In the last seven days, only five Israelis have died as a result of these attacks. [2] Average the number of Israeli deaths over the last seven years from rockets launched from Gaza and the figure comes out to less than two per year. In response, Israel has killed 59 Palestinians and wounded 264 per day over the last seven days.
Continue reading Condoleezza Rice, Gaza and Zimbabwe
Dr. Kwame Nantambu
January 02, 2009
The recent call by leaders of both the Congress of the People (COP) and UNC-A for a co-operative accommodation/dialogue with the ruling PNM government to tackle the thorny, intractable crime problem in TnT will always remain a classic exercise in futility.
The fact of the matter is that since the 15th century, the European colonizer has successfully pursued and implemented a Divide & Rule policy towards the colonized. Today, as a result of the inherited/imposed Euro-centric education system, the colonized has now perfected this policy among itself in the era of putative political independence.
Continue reading Politics of the colonized versus colonizer
By Raffique Shah
December 28, 2008
PREDICTABLY, Time magazine named US President-elect Barack Obama as its “Individual of the Year, 2008”. Obama would undoubtedly emerge as “the Man” for publications and institutions that usually bestow such annual honours. In fact, for most people across the world, Obama is the Man of the Century, matters not that we are a mere eight tumultuous years into an era that is as unpredictable as Obama’s stature is predictable.
Continue reading Madoff-Man of the Year
By Raffique Shah
December 14, 2008
EVER since Barack Obama shot into the limelight and coined the campaign slogan “Yes, We Can!” politicians of all hues and persuasions across the world have adopted it to suit their own agendas. Upon becoming President-elect then putting together a same faces, different administrations White House team, Obama ignited a passion for what many see as “national consensus” politics. That, too, has caught on, especially among politicians in opposition, those whose only hope for sharing in the spoils of office lie in accommodation by the lucky ones who have power.
Continue reading No, we can’t
By Stephen Gowans
December 08, 2008
gowans.wordpress.com
The crisis in Zimbabwe has intensified. Inflation is incalculably high. The central bank limits – to an inadequate level – the amount of money Zimbabweans can withdraw from their bank accounts daily. Unarmed soldiers riot, their guns kept under lock and key, to prevent an armed uprising. Hospital staff fail to show up for work. The water authority is short of chemicals to purify drinking water. Cholera, easily prevented and cured under normal circumstances, has broken out, leading the government to declare a humanitarian emergency.
Continue reading Cholera Outbreak Outcome of West’s War on Zimbabwe