How different is the West's economic model of liberalisation and privatisation from Apartheid's economic system, asks Osarhieme George.

Moroccan anti-riot police have broken up a series of protests recently, drawing international criticism. The European Commission on Monday 30 May expressed concern at 'the violence used during the demonstrations'. 'We call for restraint in the use of force and respect of fundamental freedoms. Freedom of assembly is a democratic right,' spokesperson Natasha Butler said. The demonstrations, organised by the youth-led February 20 Movement, took place in 40 cities and left dozens wounded in Casablanca and Tangier.

Egyptian officials are warning that the country, just emerging from a popular uprising that ousted the regime of former President Hosni Mubarak, could be facing a major economic crisis with lagging international aid and foreign investment. General Mahmoud Nassr, a member of the Supreme Military Council, which is running the country’s interim government, told an economic conference in Cairo last week that foreign direct investment (FDI) has come to a standstill while Western rating agencies race to downgrade the country’s sovereign credit rating. The poverty rate has also worsened to 70 per cent, Nassr added.

Despite the apparent ‘success’ of the privatisation of the Zambian copper industry, the true picture is one of systemic multinational exploitation, national assets sold ‘for a song’ and persistent tax dodging, writes Khadija Sharife.

The demise of the IMF's former managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn is an opportunity to dismantle the fund and replace the current financial architecture with one that ‘invests in the repair and reconstruction of livelihoods and the planet’ instead of ‘destruction, dehumanisation, exploitation, and rape,’ writes Horace Campbell.

'Wamama wa Dhobi' are a group of domestic workers in Mathare, a slum in the city of Nairobi, Kenya. Documentary '' is about the struggles of women workers in informal employment; it follows their cries for for fairness and respect in the eyes of the Kenyan public as well as the law. ('Dhobi work' is domestic work for pay in an informal settlement).

Although Ghana’s alliance with Congo was ultimately unable to save Patrice Lumumba’s life or avert Mobutu’s 40-year dictatorship, the ‘African Union (AU) would do well to rediscover the spirit of those days, when Africans knew what was good for their continent, and what was not so good,’ says Cameron Duodu.

Uganda’s Walk2Work campaign, growing public consciousness in Kenya, Swaziland’s pro-democracy demonstrations, public sector protests in Botswana and the still invisible LGBTIQ movement feature in this week’s reflection on struggles for social justice across the continent, by Sokari Ekine.

A statement from the coordinators of the World March of Women in Quebec sets out four reasons why Canada shouldn’t host the 2013 World Social Forum, from the difficulty of obtaining entry visas for activists from the South, to the need to focus on national grassroots alliance-building, following the election of a majority Conservative government.

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As Barack Obama and William Hague offer very different kinds of support and different visions for Tunisia's future, trade unionists and human rights activists in the region have called for international solidarity, writes Amanda Sebestyen.

Following the African National Congress' victory in South Africa's latest local government elections, Hein Marais, author of the new book 'South Africa pushed to the Limit', examines the paradox of a political party that presides over one of the most unequal societies in the world, where close to half the population lives in poverty, and more than a third of workers are jobless – yet triumphs in election after election.

Yash Tandon critiques the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) resolutions within the UN system to show how the forces of Empire have used 'humanitarian intervention' to advance their own interests. He also explains how the militaristic solutions advanced under R2P are part of a neurotic response to the various crises faced by the Empire.

The Group for Research and Initiative for the Liberation of Africa (GRILA), an organisation consisting of researchers and activists, issued a statement on the situation in Africa on African Liberation Day, 25 May 2011. The statement calls on the peoples of Africa and its diaspora to ramp up resistance, both locally and globally, and to unite on the basis of internationalism and Pan-Africanism.

Afrika sasa tumefahamu
Ni mwamko wetu na akili timamu
Kusaidiana ndo ujamaa uwe mtamu
Waache wanaopiga kelele
Kwetu Afrika ni ngoma na si lele
Kumbuka sera ya Mwalimu nyerere
Waambie wale wasiofahamu
Kujifahamisha watie hamu
Huu wito usambae hadi Lamu
Nairobi hata Mombasa Watamu
Arusha na kule Dar es Salaam
Kusoma na kuandika ndo chemichemi

For Al-flea-ks

am using my ammu-diction
to kill your lexicography…

Billions of dollars are set to flow into Egypt from a host of International Financial Institutions (IFIs), writes Adam Hanieh on the website Jadaliyya. But far from supporting the aspirations of the Egyptian people, their real aim is to hijack the transition and ensure that the neoliberal project in Egypt is hastened.

A renewed wave of development babble began flowing soon after the February launch of the World Bank’s 10-year strategy document, ‘Africa‘s future and the world bank’s support to it’, says Patrick Bond. Within three months, a mini-tsunami of Afro-optimism swept in: The International Monetary Fund’s ‘Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa’, the Economic Commission on Africa’s upbeat study, the African World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Report and the African Development Bank’s discovery of a vast new ‘middle class’ (creatively defined to include the 20 per cent of Africans whose expenditures are $2–4 a day).

Two-and-a-half years into the financial crisis that began in the fall of 2008, workers have begun to fight back on a mass scale, says this World Socialist Web Site article. 'The ruling class and its political representatives are engaged in a worldwide drive to turn back the conditions of workers gained through struggle over generations. The war in Libya and the efforts of the US to bolster the military regime in Egypt are part of a global process that includes historic cuts in social programs in Europe and the United States. The February events in Egypt and the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa were the beginning of a working-class counteroffensive.'

Malawi will, for the first time since the re-introduction of multiparty politics in 1994, hold tripartite elections in 2014. This follows the cancellation of local government elections that were scheduled to be held this year. 'This means voters will be voting for the president, members of parliament and councillors at the same time,' Local Government and Rural Development Minister Anna Kachikho said. Kachikho said a bill had been prepared to amend the Constitution to allow for the holding of the tripartite polls.