It seems piracy is not just a Somali phenomena.
This live piracy map shows details of piracy attacks across the world. There are three main cluster regions - the Horn of Africa, West Africa and the seas between north west India and Indonesia.
An amazingly detailed map of piracy off the coast of Somalia
Tags:
Somalia
Piracy + Maps
Google Maps
***Disturbing but not so surprising news from South Africa’s “Social Attitudes Survey” shows that 80% of the population are against same-sex marriage. The very real possibility of ANC President, Jacob Zuma, who embodies some of the worst manifestations of macho nationalism and a man whose disdain for women was evident in the 2006 rape trial for which he was acquitted, becoming the next President of South Africa, will mean women and LGBTI become much more of a social force and develop strategies to counter act his influence in South African politics.
***Burundi moves closer towards criminalising homosexuality.
The Association for the Respect of Homosexuals’ Rights (ARDHO) protested against the new penal law adopted overnight, which abolishes the death penalty but makes homosexuality a criminal offence.
“We at ARDHO are outraged by this decision to criminalise homosexuality. We don’t understand how educated people can adopt such a law because homosexuality is neither a disease nor a deviance,” an ARDHO official told AFP.
***Pray the Devil Back to Hell” documents the story of the courageous Liberian women who organised and came together to bring peace to their country. The reviews are excellent and with Angelique Kidjo on the soundtrack I will be watching out for this. Meanwhile watch some clips and listen to some music.
***Silent Screams from Zimbabwe - Kubtana reports on the elderly woman “bumped by a blue Merc” who sits in shock on the roadside as no one bothers to do anything and someone asks
Why did the foolish woman not cross the road at the traffic lights? She ought to thank her lucky stars a Merc hit her. There was an unspoken consensus that the woman was to blame. Accusatory eyes pierced at her all round.
Natasha likens the silence at the woman’s fate to that of the silence from Africans around the fate of Zimbabwe. An excellent analogy.
***The two Nigerian bloggers, Emeka Asiwe and Jonathan Elendu, have now both been released but are still being prevented from returning to their homes in the US
Tags:
South Africa + Homophobia
Nigeria + Press Freedom
Liberia + Women
Play the Devil Back to Hell
Zimbabwe + Women
Burundi + Homosexuality
No one is illegal - Abahlali baseMjondolo comment on the Xenophobic Attacks in Johannesburg
We condemn the attacks, the beatings, rape and murder, in Johannesburg on people born in other countries. We will fight left and right to ensure that this does not happen here in KwaZulu-Natal.
We have been warning for years that the anger of the poor can go in many directions. That warning, like our warnings about the rats and the fires and the lack of toilets, the human dumping grounds called relocation sites, the new concentration camps called transit camps and corrupt, cruel, violent and racist police, has gone unheeded.
Let us be clear. Neither poverty nor oppression justify one poor person turning on another. A poor man who turns on his wife or a poor family that turn on their neighbours must be opposed, stopped and brought to justice. But the reason why this happens in Alex and not Sandton is because people in Alex are suffering and scared for the future of their lives. They are living under the kind of stress that can damage a person. The perpetrators of these attacks must be held responsible but the people who have crowded the poor onto tiny bits of land, threatened their hold on that land with evictions and forced removals, treated them all like criminals, exploited them, repressed their struggles, pushed up the price of food and built too few houses, that are too small and too far away and then corruptly sold them must also be held responsible……………..Continued.
Links: South Africa is in all of us
Tags:
South Africa
Xenophobia
Immigration
Social Movements Indaba action against hate
The Social Movements Indaba (SMI) - a co-ordinating national body of social movements, civil society and activist organizations - is organizing with its affiliated organizations and immigrant communities to roll back the groundswell of xenophobia. In the years since its formation in 2002, the SMI has linked organizations of the poor in struggle for basic services, international solidarity and against police repression. At its last national meeting in December in Cape Town, the SMI identified xenophobia as a pervasive problem in communities and undertook to campaign against hatred of foreigners. Now that the crisis of hate crime is no longer foreboding and is terrifyingly HERE, there is no time to stall and wish we were better prepared. We are without hesitation committed to the struggles for social justice, internationalism and solidarity with all repressed people.
While the police have been deployed to try keep a lid on the pressure that has boiled over, this is no solution to the safety and security of all. As a xenophobic force in Johannesburg pre-existing the outbreak of violence, the police cannot be trusted to be more than the brute barrier between perpetrators and their targeted victims. The South African Police Services and Johannesburg Metro Police harass immigrants to solicit bribes as a matter of practice. Calling on the police to ‘do their work’ as president Thabo Mbeki and his government have done does not, therefore, address the issues of safety and security amongst immigrant communities. The refugee communities do not trust the police as impartial arbiters of the conflict.
The police conducted a brutal raid on the Central Methodist Church on the 31 st of January 2008 under the pretext of crime prevention. Criminalisation of immigrants is a smokescreen for deportation and bribery that the police has not cleared.
Long-lasting safety and security for all does not include deportation of foreign nationals, whether voluntary or not. Xenophobia’s origins lie within the conditions of poverty in which the majority of south Africans live.
[Read more…]
The “food riots” in Haiti are easy fodder for the media especially when no explanation is seen to be necessary. Try and find a single report with any historical background to the food crisis other than relating it to the overall food crisis across the global south and the rise in the West’s demand for bio-fuel. Once again the majority world feeds the minority world’s over consumption. A case of feeding the cars whilst starving the people.
Some facts about Haitian government’s spending (the Haitian government is not really a government - it’s a kind of proxy group of puppets working under the direction of the US).
Haiti’s government sends almost $1 million per week in loan payments to the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), much of which is payments on loans given to past dictators. That money could be better spent feeding Haitian citizens and stimulating Haiti’s economy.
But money (that Haiti doesn’t have) is not just being used for loan repayments . Not only has Britain been uncritical of MINUSTAH***’s many atrocities in Haiti they have been selling arms to Haiti. The most recent UK foreign office report dated 12th December, 2007 is revealing. Not just arms to Haiti but to their neighbour The Dominican Republic and to Columbia and Ecuador plus a host of other countries. So why does Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, need the following weapons including air-to-air missiles and components for submarines?
Sphere: Related Contentaircraft radars, air-to-air missiles launching equipment, air-to-surface missiles launching equipment, air-to-surface rockets launching equipment, bomb handling equipment, components for airborne electronic warfare equipment, components for aircraft carriers, components for aircraft radars, components for air-to-air missiles launching equipment, components for air-to-surface missiles, components for anti-ship missile launching equipment, components for anti-ship missiles, components for anti-ship missiles, components for antisubmarine rockets launching equipment, components for combat aircraft, components for combat helicopters, components for command communications control and intelligence equipment, components for corvettes, components for depth charges, components for electronic warfare equipment, components for fire control equipment, components for frigates
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