‘[I]t is transparently clear now that NATO has exceeded its mandate, lied about its intentions, is guilty of extra-judicial killings--all in the name of “humanitarian intervention”’, writes Cynthia McKinney from Tripoli.

US preacher Harold Camping conned people into paying him $80 million in donations, by persuading them that the world was ending on 21 May. In the US, Camping is ‘exercising his constitutional right to practise “freedom of religion”,' says Cameron Duodu, but in Nigeria that’s what people call a ‘419’.

While 50 years have passed since Algeria achieved independence from France, Algerians still lack a cohesive historical narrative of their past, writes Smaïl Goumeziane. Though fraught with difficulty, working towards such a history would go some way towards challenging ‘wars of memory’ and ‘selective amnesia’, Goumeziane stresses.

Béatrice Hibou speaks to France-based Tunisian dissident and intellectual Sadri Khiari about the roots of the Tunisian revolution and why no-one saw it coming.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/531/we'llgowhenfinished_tmb.jp… impact of climate change on women in Ethiopia, questionable carbon credit and biofuels schemes, a Liberian activist’s work with child soldiers, and France’s commercial ties to its former colonies are among the topics covered in this week’s round-up of the African blogosphere, compiled by Sokari Ekine.

The revolutionary uprisings underway across the Maghreb region offer five initial lessons, says Gustave Massiah.

Sharon and Conway Payn from the Symphony Way pavement dwellers discuss the unkept promises the South African government made about housing and their experiences on Symphony Way.

Gustave Massiah

Mireille Fanon Mendès France

NATO’s (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) sustained assault on Libya ought to lead to calls for its leaders’ prosecution at the International Criminal Court (ICC), writes Yash Tandon, though ‘we know this will not happen’. A new regime run by ‘the people’, Tandon stresses, will merely see itself at the service of empire, helping to ensure access to oil, shore up Europe against refugees and bolster the region against forces deemed threatening such as Hamas and Iran; the challenge remains for Libyans themselves to sort out their differences and unite.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/531/egyptian_socialists_logo_t… newly formed Egyptian Socialist Party brings together supporters of the country’s transition into a socialist society to work together to develop a coherent strategy to ‘guide the people in the right direction’. In the following paper, the party sets out its perspectives and goals. The Egyptian Socialist Party will be launched in Cairo on 18 June.

South Africans are told that voting is all about making their ‘own choice’, but in most cases, it’s ‘a very limited choice between two competing factions of the elite that are equally invested in scaling back people’s legitimate aspirations for a just society into an insanely unequal society contained with state violence, new forms of spatial segregation and “service delivery”’, observes Richard Pithouse.

Reflecting on the need to challenge power and its abuses, Alemayehu G. Mariam encourages young people in Africa to organise, become politically engaged and work together in defence of human rights.

‘[P]olitical reconciliation between Washington and fast-rising Arab democrats is impossible,’ writes Patrick Bond, as civil society reformers in Palestine express their disgust with Barack Obama’s 19 May policy speech on the Middle East and North Africa.

Following a series of mass actions in November, March and April, Swazi workers are putting their movement to end ‘exclusive control’ of Swaziland’s economy by royal elites onto the global agenda, with a solidarity conference that will take place during the International Labour Conference in Geneva in June.

South Africa's local government elections were officially declared over on Saturday night by the Independent Electoral Commission in Pretoria. At a closing ceremony attended by political leaders from across the spectrum, the governing African National Congress remained firmly in charge of the nation's municipalities, taking just under 62 per cent of the vote nationally. The opposition Democratic Alliance took just under a quarter of all votes - 23.94 per cent.

More than $25 billion is needed to implement roads infrastructure projects in East Africa in the next 10 years. The amount covers the cost of massive upgrading, modernisation and construction of roads to improve intra-regional connectivity and also link up EA with countries outside the bloc. 'The estimated cost of these roads infrastructure development in the next 10 years is in excess of $25 billion,' disclosed Ms Hafsa Mosi, the Chairperson of the East African Community Council of Ministers, when unveiling the Community's 2011/12 budget.

ZANU PF has demanded that recent strong resolutions on Zimbabwe, adopted by the regional security organ the Troika, be overturned, calling on the Summit of Southern African Development Community (SADC) leaders to reverse the position. Dewa Mavhinga from the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, which is attending the summit, told SW Radio Africa that SADC leaders were set to discuss recent resolutions adopted by the SADC Troika in March. That summit in Livingstone, Zambia, had condemned the lack of progress in the unity government, in the first meaningful criticism of ZANU PF the region has ever issued. The Troika called for an end to violence and intimidation, and called for the drafting of an election roadmap towards a credible and violence free poll in Zimbabwe.

Police in Morocco have violently dispersed protesters who defied a ban on demonstrations, beating them up with batons and taking several into custody. Sunday’s police action in the capital, Rabat, and Casablanca seemed to suggest a tougher government response to the increasingly defiant protests that first erupted in February.

Inaction marked the Extraordinary Summit of Southern African Development Community heads of state in Windhoek, despite an agenda covering Zimbabwe elections, political deadlock in Madagascar, the suspension of the regional court and allegations of corruption within SADC itself. In the days leading up to the summit, there was the chance that it might not take place at all, with the South African president, Jacob Zuma, pulling out at the last moment, preferring to concentrate on local elections in his own country. In the end, eleven heads of state and their representatives met in Windhoek, but deliberations lasted only a few hours before the summit was ended.

As health experts gathered in Geneva to attend the 64th World Health Assembly (WHA), global civil society organisations called on World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Dr. Margaret Chan to address widespread concerns about corporate conflicts of interest regarding global water governance, health and nutrition policy.