Street Report from the G20

Common Dreams
Short video from Democracy Now
by Bill Quigley
The G20 in Pittsburgh showed us how pitifully fearful our leaders have become.
What no terrorist could do to us, our own leaders did.
Out of fear of the possibility of a terrorist attack, authorities militarize our towns, scare our people away, stop daily life and quash our constitutional rights.
For [...]

How Mugabe gets his bullets

Mail and Guardian
Large quantities of weapons continue to be shipped to Zimbabwe via the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), according to a new report by the United Nations.

Can Africa Trade Its Way to Peace?

New York Times
By HERMAN J. COHEN
THE conflict in eastern Congo over the past 12 years has been as much a surrogate war between Congo and neighboring Rwanda as an internal ethnic insurgency, as a United Nations report underscored last week. The only way to end a war that has caused five million deaths and forced [...]

Cheney Was Key in Clearing CIA Interrogation Tactics

The vice president says that the use of waterboarding was appropriate and that the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should stay open until ‘the end of the war on terror.’
Los Angeles Times
by Greg Miller

WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that he was directly involved in approving severe interrogation methods used by the CIA, [...]

Soldiers rampage at Harare bank

BBC
Dozens of troops have run amok in the Zimbabwean capital Harare after losing their temper while queuing up to withdraw cash at a bank.
Riot police used tear gas to disperse about 40 soldiers and a number of civilians who joined the protest.

Report: U.S. Africa Aid Is Increasingly Military

Advocacy Group Cites Development Needs
By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
NAIROBI, July 17 — U.S. aid to Africa is becoming increasingly militarized, resulting in skewed priorities and less attention to longer-term development projects that could lead to greater stability across the continent, according to a report released Thursday by the advocacy group Refugees International.
The report warns [...]

The Invisible War

Truth Dig
It’s the deadliest conflict since World War II. More than 5 million people have died in the past decade, yet it goes virtually unnoticed and under-reported. The conflict is in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Central Africa. At its heart are the natural resources found in Congo and multinational corporations that extract them. [...]

U.S. Congress Challenges AFRICOM

AFJN
By Beth Tuckey
This article was published by Foreign Policy in Focus on July 23, 2008.
Congress is finally taking up its constitutionally mandated duties of oversight and responsible budgeting – at least on U.S.-Africa policy. From humanitarian relief for northern Uganda to the Jubilee Act on debt relief, Congress is making some very important steps [...]