Africa

On 30 December Sudan will see the eleventh round of protests since the military coup on 25 October. 19 and 25 December saw huge turnouts, and in between the official dates for demonstrations protests of various sorts seem to be continuing pretty much non-stop. In the last week many hundreds have been arrested, and hundreds injured including in some cases through direct hits with tear gas canisters and stun grenades. On 25 December a 12 year old boy was flogged. On 19 December at least 13 women and girls were raped, sparking protests specifically against sexual violence. Since 25 October the...

As the Tory government flounders on Omicron, Keir Starmer could tell us on 13 December only that out of “patriotism” he would back its Plan B measures against the let-the-virus-rip Tory right, the people who call themselves “libertarians” though they back the Police Bill, the Borders Bill, anti-union laws, and voter ID. Labour left MP Richard Burgon has rightly pushed the need also for full sick or isolation pay for all, and reinstatement of furlough pay. Emergency measures are needed to boost the NHS and social care, which were already overstretched before Omicron and before winter proper set...

A ceasefire is looking unlikely in Ethiopia, as tensions remain high in the conflict between the central government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. On 2 November, the federal government declared a state of emergency, and granted authorities the power to conscript “any military-age citizen who has weapons”. Five days later, a pro-military demonstration was held in the capital, with tens of thousands of attendees, denouncing efforts to stop the conflict through negotiations. Recently, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed even called on all Ethiopians “to organise and march... using every weapon...

We wrote recently about the first effective vaccine against malaria, which should be widely available in a few years. However, malaria continues to take a terrible toll, 409,000 deaths in 2019, 94% (384,000) in sub-Saharan Africa (1 in 600 infections).

Tigrayan forces retook Mekelle, the region’s capital, on 28 June, seven months after Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, occupied the city with federal troops. Initially, the government claimed it had complete control over Tigray province, and that it was just mopping up sporadic resistance. Evidently not, but contradictory accounts make it difficult to ascertain what exactly is happening. This reversal of Tigray’s fortunes came after initial losses following a brutal invasion by both Ethiopian federal forces and the Eritrean army. The invaders committed severe and numerous human right...

More photos below article My trip to Cornwall to demonstrate around the G7 summit (11-13 June) felt a bit like a set of concentric circles: I was part of and helping to cohere a delegation of Workers’ Liberty supporters and friends; we were seeking to imbue socialist politics, internationalism, and a working-class orientation into the wider anti-G7 movement; and that movement was challenging the G7 and the politics they represent. It was only en route towards the most southwesterly tip of this island, cutting through the darkening fog in a car-share with newly-acquainted comrades — and...

The Tories’ plans to cut foreign aid, from £14bn to £10bn a year, include an 83% cut to the UN agency that fights AIDS and HIV. UK funding to UNAIDS will fall from £15m to £2.5m. UNAIDS’s total core budget this year was £132m. UN agencies are generally restrained when they criticise governments, but UNAIDS pointed out: “It affects the provision of live-saving HIV prevention and treatment services around the world. “It affects the empowerment of young women and adolescent girls and their access to sexual and reproductive health and rights across the world, and Africa in particular. It impacts...

Ousmane Sembene of Senegal, a former French colony, was one of Africa’s pioneer filmmakers. His 1975 film Xala is set at the time of the colonial power’s withdrawal. The main character, businessman Aboucader Beye (known as “El Hadji”), becomes one of the new elite. He is utterly corrupt and accepts backhanders from French financiers. He already has two wives and marries a third, much younger than himself, a move which angers and upsets the older pair and Rama, his politically active daughter. She is opposed to the corruption of the new bourgeoisie which, of course, includes her father. She...

Since early November of 2020, Ethiopia’s Tigray region has been ravaged by war between the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, and the Tigray’s People’s Liberation Front (TPFL). Numerous eyewitnesses also credibly allege the involvement of the Eritrean Defense Forces, who are backing the Ethiopian federal government. The TPFL was a major force in Ethiopian politics, until they refused to join prime minister Abiy Ahmed’s new Prosperity Party. Abiy rescheduled the general elections set for 29 August, citing the Covid pandemic, but the TPLF held regional elections in Tigray, defying the government...

Of people who test positive for the virus and should self-isolate, only 20% or fewer are doing so fully. That’s an official estimate . No one knows what percentage of people who are identified as contacts of the infected — and may be infectious themselves, without having symptoms — are self-isolating. Most people asked to self-isolate get no or minimal isolation pay, so isolated properly is economically difficult or impossible. Of those who do self-isolate, many can do so only in overcrowded housing. However careful they are, they’re likely to infect others there. In New Zealand, the...