Syrian Government Tries to Recoup Legitimacy Amid Military Onslaught
AS the situation in Homs begins to resemble Misurata, the Syrian government is making last ditch efforts to recoup the little of what legitimacy it has left, and while the violence has spiraled beyond what many had anticipated, a foreign intervention, whether sanctioned by the United Nations or not, is unlikely to make things any [...]
A Tale of Two Democracies: New Hampshire to Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe has been in power since 1980. During the same period, Story Country, Iowa, has held nine caucuses and the U.S. has had five presidents. Writing for Channel 4 News, journalist Tawanda Kanhema tracks the US presidential caucuses alongside Zimbabwe’s treacherous path to democracy. Read the full story on Channel 4 News.
U.S. in Africa: Kony Has 100 Special Forces on His Trail
U.S. President Barack Obama has sent 100 U.S. Army Special Forces to Uganda, ostensibly to hunt down rebel leader Joseph Kony, head of Uganda’s notorious Lord’s Resistance Army.
Guide to U.S. Campaign Finance: ProPublica
Super-PACs and Dark Money: ProPublica’s Guide to the New World of Campaign Finance by Kim Barker and Marian Wang ProPublica, July 11, 2011, 1:38 p.m. The nation is gearing up for yet another “most expensive election in history,” the quadrennial exercise in which mind-numbing amounts of money pour into the political system. But this year [...]
Financial Giants Put New York City Cops On Their Payroll
The NYPD’s Paid Detail Unit allows the New York Stock Exchange and Wall Street corporations, including those repeatedly charged with crimes, to order up a flank of New York’s finest cops with the ease of dialing the deli for a pastrami on rye.
Putin Promises “Evolutionary” Political Reforms: Can The Kremlin Weather a “Russian Spring”?
This picture of mass movements of energetic and frustrated young people staging protests for several weeks and crippling economies in countries that have some of the most seasoned militaries and advanced crowd control systems seems to have shaken the echelons of power in Russia. A sustained “Russian Spring” would place the Winter Palace under unseasonable pressure to implement more rapid political reforms.
Occupy Wall Street vs. Kingian Methods
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations now spreading across the country are encouraging to be sure. It is stated that the Tahrir Square and other demonstrations in the Middle East and North Africa are the model. But it is also a model of the tragic 1989 Tiananmen Square hunger strike by young Chinese activists/students in Beijing. Essentially it is one of being a “leaderless” movement with no concrete demands.
Youth Led Uprisings: Symbol of Africa’s Transformation?
African youths are transforming themselves from passive ‘tweeters’ to active contributors to the rebuilding of African economies ruined by decades of mismanagement and corruption. Across the continent, there seems to be a growing awareness that the overhaul of reactionary political systems that have excluded entire generations of young people from leadership roles and suppressed women will take more than just keyboard activism. Investigative Africa spoke to development activist and eminent keynote speaker, Scholastica Kimayro, who believes that Africa has the potential of becoming the breadbasket of the world, but stresses that first, the continent needs to overturn decades of conflict and bad press and re-brand itself to the world.
Jacob Zuma’s Malema Problem – What it Means for the 2012 Elective Conference at Mangaung
AS firebrand ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema awaits his fate, we look at whether his rise through the ranks – thanks to chaotic populism – and the seeming popularity of his inflammatory rhetoric among South Africa’s unemployed is an indication of bigger things to come.
The Gaddafi I Know: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni
By the time Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi came to power in 1969, I was a third-year university student at Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. We welcomed his rise because he was a leader in the tradition of Col. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt who had a nationalist and pan-Arabist position. Soon, however, problems cropped up with Qaddafi as [...]
Is Africa ready for nuclear energy?
Southern Africa is facing energy shortages as climatic changes intermittently turn off the switch on hydroelectric power generation and oil prices remain exorbitantly high.
Why US COIN Will Not Work
Sun Tzu, Boyd, Svechin, Creveld, Clausewitz, Luttwak, Dayan, and Alexander are just a few of the heavyweights cited by US military/political strategists these days as they attempt to redesign national security strategy, operations and tactics to secure US interests around the globe.