Portside

Reader Comments - Boko Haram; Portside articles on the Ukraine; Brown v. Board-what still needs to be done; Redistributing Income; NRA, Second Amendment; John Oliver; Jon Favreau - a correction; Whiteness of Liberal Media; Was the American Revolution Really Just A Counter-Revolution; THE REAL WORLD - a graduation address never given; Announcements - DIE LINKE, SYRIZA, Future of the European Left - New York - May 28; New Book -- Torture is still an urgent moral issue

Islamist militancy in Nigeria is being strengthened by western and regional fossil fuel interests. The roots of the country's security and instability go back to its formation by the British during colonial times: the Muslims in the North, the Christians and animists in the South. The country's Civil War/Biafran War, from 1967 to 1970, was the first rupture because of ethnicity.

Reader Comments - Cecily McMillan Update - Occupy Activist Faces Seven Years in Jail - Trial Postponed to March 3rd; Africa; Latin America; Learning from History; Slavery; UAW Campaign at Volkswagen; Amiri Baraka; Pete Seeger memories; Announcements - CISPES Delegation to El Salvador; Workers Get a Cut on Powell Books purchases; New Video - The USA's new underclass; Labor Notes conference - April 4 - 6 - Early bird discount

Did you know many African countries continue to pay colonial tax to France since their independence till today! 14 African countries forced by France to pay colonial tax for the "benefits of slavery and colonization."

Malta's prime minister, Joseph Muscat, exclaimed to journalist Gwynne Dyer that "we are building a cemetery within our Mediterranean Sea.” An NGO, Fortress Europe, says 6,450 died in the channel between Sicily and North Africa between 1994 and 2012. This figure is similar to the 5,570 people found dead in the desert between Mexico and the United States from 1998 to 2012, and has earned the Mediterranean the nickname “sea of death.”

Reader Comments - Black Friday protests; Walmart and retail workers; Congress filibuster; Warren, Sanders - the 2016 elections; healthcare; Detroit; Climate Change; "Hunger Games;" Africa; Iran; Announcements - NC Music Love Army benefit album; New Books - What We Can Learn from the New Deal and JFK - The Cuba Files the untold story of the plot;; Performance-talk and jam - Nueva Canción - New York - Dec 6; PM Press - Holiday Sale and Upcoming Releases!

Two U.S. initiatives to provide Africans with electricity seem likely to lead to large, climate-polluting projects rather than the locally sourced renewable energy rural Africa needs.

South Africa is not a perfect society. Full equality - social and economic - does not exist, control of the country's wealth remains in the hands of a few, so new challenges and frustrations arise. I believe we should be doing far better. Our liberation struggle reached a high point, not its zenith when we overcame apartheid rule.

A broad coalition of South African organizations, including COSATU, has called for mass demonstrations against President Obama's visit to Johannesburg. Coalition is in opposition to the University of Johannesburg plan to award Obama with an honorary doctorate for his contributions to the international community. Among the coalition demands are freedom for Bradley Manning, support for the Cuban Five, and the closing of Guantanamo.