Preparations are under way around the world for protests against the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, this July. Protesters will be resisting attempts to restrict civil liberties, criminalise protest and/or justify repression.The protests will include a congress, blockades, actions of mass civil disobedience and a big demonstration.

Negotiations with descendants of the Herero and Nama people massacred by Germany in Namibia have been difficult. The government of Chancellor Merkel does not want to pay compensation for the genocide. But at the same time Germany is attempting to reassert its political and economic influence in Africa.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta’s frequent foreign travels are unprecedented in his country. His visit to Germany last month, touted at home as part of the president’s strategic engagement with the developed world, was a dismal flop. It is unlikely that anything meaningful for the people of Kenya came out of the trip.

After having overcome various obstacles on their dangerous routes, migrants and refugees are confronted with bad living conditions in isolated housing facilities in Europe. Refugee women are especially affected by this, as they are double victims to both systematic racism and sexism.

The current racist agitations against refugees and their homes cannot be separated from the laws which for decades have put migrants into camps and collective housing. The historical perspective on German immigration politics shows how discourses of distinctive national identities and legislative change mutually reinforce one another.