Africa Follow

Amid the suffering in southern Africa, one event last week was a powerful sign of resistance and hope.

One of the best aspects of the Southern Africa Social Forum was the way it attracted groups like market traders and cross-border traders — very significant groups in southern Africa — and welded them into unity with workers. 

Tell It Like It Is has come out of the crisis facing school students, particularly black children, in our education system. African-Caribbean boys are four times more likely to be excluded from school than their peers. A recent Joseph Rowntree report suggests that that in some areas they are 15 times more likely to be excluded.

Protesters gathered last week outside the De Beers diamond shop in London in solidarity with the Kalahari Bushmen in Botswana, southern Africa.

Nearly a century and a half after the American Civil War ended slavery in 1865, and more than a generation after the "triumph" of the civil rights movement, African Americans remain locked at the bottom of society.

The background to this whole debate is the history of colonial and apartheid era land dispossession. In 1996 white people still owned and controlled over 80 percent of farm land, despite being only 11 percent of the population.

The Mama Africa season celebrates the work of African female film makers and actors past and present, challenging and exploring the stereotypes of African women in film.

More than 70 trade union, campaigning, socialist, religious and civic groups came together recently to form a coalition to challenge the ANC government’s economic policies.

The deputy president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, was sacked in June after his financial adviser Schabir Shaik was found guilty of corruption. The case has become a huge issue, with many in the trade union movement demanding that the charges be dropped.

What makes 500 Years Later different to other films about slavery?

In the spring of 1993 South African photojournalist Kevin Carter was covering the famine in Sudan. While visiting a feeding station, a starving child crawling through the dust caught his eye. Behind the child stalked a large vulture.

It is with great sadness but with gratitude for a long life well spent in the struggle for human emancipation and liberation in Africa, that we have learned of the death of Nigeria’s greatest labour leader. Pa Michael Imoudu died at his home in Edo State on 22 July, aged 102.