Africa

Why is Africa poor?

25 November 2014
Ken Olende argues that Africa doesn’t need Bob Geldof’s charity, or anyone else’s - but solidarity in the struggle against the system of poverty that keeps them down

The rich could stop Ebola in a day

04 November 2014
The Ebola crisis which has already killed 5,000 people in west Africa could be halted with £600 million - and the world's top 85 billionaires are getting £50,000 a second

Ebola deaths grow as US and Britain send in troops

21 October 2014
Some 500 people died of Ebola during the last week, taking the total of this outbreak past 4,500.

West Africa's Ebola crisis is a symptom of capitalism

14 October 2014
The Ebola outbreak in west Africa has cost thousands of lives. Ken Olende looks at how inequality and the legacy of colonialism lie behind the crisis. Marcia, an aid worker in Sierra Leone, writes exclusively from the front line

The soldiers that Empire forgot

30 September 2014
Troops from Europe’s empires who fought in the First World War were quickly erased from official histories. They are remembered by John Siblon

US begins sending 3,000 troops to Liberia

23 September 2014
The US is sending 3,000 troops to Liberia, west Africa, in the next month. It claims it is to deal with the Ebola crisis, and so far insists that it is just a matter of logistics and engineering.

An empire bathed in blood: when Britannia ruled the waves

23 September 2014
In a desperate bid to head off a Scottish Yes vote, David Cameron evoked a mythical British Empire that had given democracy to the poor and freedom to the slaves. Here Ken Olende looks back at what life was really like when Britannia ruled the waves

State clamps down on the poor as Ebola crisis spreads to Liberia

26 August 2014
Thousands blockaded in slums as west African government can’t cope with epidemic, writes Dave Sewell

International round-up

17 June 2014
French railways at a standstill | Santos re-elected in Colombia | South African miners to settle?

Leading miner arrested in South Africa as bosses face strike wave

11 March 2014
Makhanya Siphamandla, an important leader in South Africa’s national strike of platinum miners, has been arrested and charged with attempted murder.

Diverse sexuality isn't alien to Africa - homophobia is

11 February 2014
Contrary to current stereotypes, Africa has a rich history of same sex relations that was buried by colonialism, writes Ken Olende

New platinum miners' strike panics government in South Africa

28 January 2014
Tens of thousands of platinum miners began an all-out strike in South Africa on Thursday of last week.

Britain's brutal legacy in Kenya

17 December 2013
Fifty years after Kenyan independence Ken Olende looks at the crimes of British colonialism, the Mau Mau rebels who fought back, and their betrayal by Kenya’s new rulers

Nelson Mandela 1918-2013

05 December 2013
Nelson Mandela's fight against apartheid inspired millions of people across the world. Charlie Kimber looks back on his life and the struggle he helped lead

Angolan rulers 'ban' Islam

03 December 2013
The Angolan government is accused of “banning” Islam as a clampdown on the Muslim minority intensifies.

West plans intervention in Central African Republic

26 November 2013
The British press is demanding Western intervention in the Central African Republic (CAR) after stories of atrocities and the threat of genocide.

How West wrecked a continent

26 November 2013
Suggestions on the BBC in a report from Sierra Leone that Africans would prefer a return to colonialism are used to justify Western military intervention. But such intervention has long created the problems it claims to solve

Captain Phillips - a Somali piracy yarn that tries to salve the US’s conscience

22 October 2013
Captain Phillips, a tale of kidnapping on the high seas, promotes its empathy for desperate Somalis—but Dave Sewell says it turns the real villains into heroes

Nigerian military kills hundreds in 'war on terror'

22 October 2013
The Nigerian military has killed over 950 people in custody this year as part of its “war on terror” against Islamist group Boko Haram.