US Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently praised the South African Constitution making process–over that of the United States–as an example that could be instructive for a post-revolution Egypt. Ginsburg’s comments, in a wide-ranging interview with Egypt’s Al-Hayat TV, in which she repeatedly praised her country’s Constitution, have sparked outrage among tea-partying right-wing pundits in the US. [Read more...]
Intellectual Property Propaganda
February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
In his recent State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama highlighted the need to reduce inequality, widen access to healthcare and education and create jobs in the US. It is unfortunate that his administration’s foreign and trade policies threaten to undermine those very things for billions of people in the developing world. This is particularly so when it comes to trade. For example, in several fora and in a range of ways, the US is pushing agreements and encouraging countries to adopt laws that are much more restrictive than World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, and threaten to dramatically limit the ability of millions of people around the world to access affordable medicines.
Stop Land Grabs Petition
January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Several international organizations have been investigating and reporting on the corporate and foreign government’s land grabs happening across Africa. We’ve covered it and the Ethiopian government’s policy of forced villagization here, here and here. Now the Oakland Institute has put together a petition to U.S. president Barack Obama and the USAID administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, asking them to stop their support to the Ethiopian government while they engage in such deals. You can do something. [Read more...]
January in Cairo III
January 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Countless languid women – abstract and figurative, sensual and monumental, modern and mythological – hang under the high-ceilings of a dustry building which resembles a recently deceased bank. This is Ibrahim Abd El-Rahman’s extensive collection of Egyptian paintings (I mentioned his gallery in my previous post on art in Cairo). Of these, perhaps the most striking are Ibrahim El Dessouki’s elegant portraits (often of his wife, also a painter), which tempt comparison with Modigliani and Klimt. This collection of female forms – abstract and figurative, sensual and monumental – suggest certain trends in Egyptian painting and the nature of its buyers.
The health news that made the headlines
December 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In November came the news that the Global Fund to fight Aids, TB and Malaria was in a financial crisis, because of declining donor commitments and failure by donors to honor existing commitments. The Fund’s board cancelled Round 11 of its funding applications, which was supposed to provide money for 2011 to 2013.
Africa is a Country
June 28, 2011 By 2 Comments
Must be our blog title.
Someone named STONE decides to vent on The Hill’s Congress Blog about US foreign aid in a piece about policing the already shrinking foreign aid budget that’s currently only 1.5% of all federal spending:
It does not matter how little the amount sent to foreign countries, it is the principal of the thing…why send aid to china, a country that continues to grow our debt and buy it up and yet we send them aid? why send aid to africa, we owe that country nothing, just as we owe nothing to every other country..we Americans fought our way out of our own tyranny and yet we did it…they should do the same without our help…we even had less and do less than those countries do now and yet we help them…why?
Geronimo
May 4, 2011 By 2 Comments
I wondered why initially few, if any mainstream news outlets, pretended to not care why the code word for terrorist leader, Osama bin Laden, among his Navy Seals executioners was that of native American leader, Geronimo. A 19th century Apache leader, born Goyahkla, Geronimo led defensive wars against illegal encroachment on native land by separate white US and Mexican armies. He was later captured by the IS government and died in 1909 after 23 years in captivity.
As many news outlets reported Navy SEALs confirmed the death of Bin Laden with the line: “Geronimo E-KIA.” E-KIA is short for Enemy Killed In Action.
According to ABC’s The Note Blog (which finally caught onto the odd association between Osama bin Laden and Geronimo) and linked to a report at Indian Country Network–native Americans are angry about the association:
