Just before the BRICS state bureaucrats and corporate interests met in Durban this week to plan how to continue to extract profits, the tragedy of thirteen SA National Defense Force troops in the Central African Republic lost their lives in a vain attempt to safeguard potential mining deals. A different way is needed in which people-led activism challenges and transforms vulture capitalism

IMF held up Tunisia under Ben Ali as a model, yet ordinary people fed up with his excesses overthrew the regime. Now IMF appears to be courting the new leadership.

Procrastination, paralysis, pollution and profit. These are the keywords for the UN climate conference slated for Durban, South Africa, in December. But, write Patrick Bond and Khadija Sharife??, the spirit of those who face down the powerful minerals-energy complex will shine through.