Archive | June, 2007

The ANC Policy Conference in Midrand wraps up today after three days of political dialogue that the Mail & Guardian has described as “robust.” Despite Thabo Mbeki's protests that things have not been too robust, certain issues that we have discussed here before —

Two U.S. soldiers were charged with premeditated murder in two separate incidents.  On Saturday, the U.S. military cited Staff Sergeant  Michael Hensley and Specialist Jorge Sandoval  were charged with murder and wrongfully placing weapons with the remains of the deceased.  Hensley is charged with three counts of murder, while Sandoval …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court said on Friday it would hear appeals by Guantanamo prisoners on their right to challenge their confinement before federal judges, a test of President George W. Bush's powers in the war on terrorism.
The court in April had denied the same appeals by …

“The true measure of a nation's standing is how well it attends to its children , their health and safety, their material security, their education and socialization, and their sense of being loved, valued, and included in the families and societies into which they are born.” -UNICEF
What is really a …

Your faithful scribe is almost but not quite back home and thus to something resembling normalcy. Full-scale blogging should resume next week. In the meantime, here are some Africa-related links:
In Zimbabwe the Interception of Communications Bill only awaits Robert Mugabe's signature. My guess is he's thrilled to do …

German news magazine, Der Spiegel, features the story of a 15-year unplanned migration of a different type. Navigating the treacherous waters of the Pacific in 1992, a container ship from Hong Kong bound for Tacoma, WA. lost some of its precious cargo: 29,000 rubber ducks, frogs …

We looked at the Senate energy legislation from June 15 to 22. (See various posts below.) Now the ball is very much in the court of the House. Yesterday, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, led a press conference of leading Democratic committee chairs to “Announce …

An independent commission has reached an official death toll from the Bosnian war in the 1990's.  The study from the Norwegian Research and Documentation Center in Sarajevo – called the “The Bosnian Book of the Dead”  – has reached a figure of 97, 207, far less than United Nations estimates.  …

Children so often suffer unjustly, just because they are children, for the world too often sees them as less worthy to have a voice. However all children have the right to be heard, and they have so much to say and contribute to the world. With age and …

The tribunal established to investigate allegations of war crimes for members of Saddam Hussein's former regime has stated it will begin prosecuting individuals accused of launching a campaign against a Shi’ite uprising following the liberation of Kuwait in 1991.  Following the defeat of Iraq in the first Gulf War, Shi’ites …

Peak of a ten-to-twelve year cycle: Moroccan locusts.
Earlier this month, IWPR reported that Tajikistan's efforts against the current anti-locust plague was proving to be only partly successful.  55,000 hectares of grainland has been treated with pesticide, but lacks of equipment have made the effort less than what is …

The United Nations Population Fund speculates that the urban population of Africa will more than double in the next quarter century. Obviously the ripple effects of this would be serious. It's probably worth pointing out that dire population predictions have something of a mixed history, but the …

With the fate of many African migrants often being one of death from the failure of rickety boats used to move them towards the European coast, nervous smugglers ejecting their "clients" during the journey, or just a lack of action from receiving countries to save stranded migrants from drowning, there …

On Tuesday, another attempt to bring the Senate Immigration Reform Bill into the crosshairs of American policymakers and bring the reform bill back to the Senate floor was created by President Bush and supporters of immigration reform in the United States. The general impression is that the bill …