With the spreading financial crisis likely to take center stage at the upcoming annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF in Washington on 11-13 October, the global trade union movement is urging the international financial institutions (IFIs) not to overlook the millions of low-income workers whose buying power has declined drastically because of food and fuel price hikes.

Some members of the rebel faction that recently fought government troops in North Darfur have signed a peace agreement with the state, but the accord is insignificant because none of the signatories has any clout.

South African President Thabo Mbeki announced his resignation on Sunday. The resignation will be effective from a date to be decided by South Africa's parliament, Mbeki said in a television speech.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008 – On September 9, 2004, the Bush administration recognized that the violence in the Darfur region of Sudan constitutes genocide. Remembering these words, Africa Action today urged President Bush to make security and accountability in Darfur priorities for the remainder of his presidency.

South African President Thabo Mbeki said here on Sunday that the talks between the Zimbabwe ruling and the opposition will continue.

In just under 350 pages and beginning with her birth in 1979, Halima Bashir describes her journey from a remote tribal village in Sudan, through adolescence to university and to qualification as a doctor of medicine specializing in gynecology and obstetrics.

Tens of thousands of people are facing food scarcity in the areas of Baringo and East Pokot in Kenya's north Rift, a humanitarian official said.

An aid worker in Mogadishu has received death threats a day after the head of an orphanage was killed by unidentified gunmen. At the same time, the UN expressed concern over continuing attacks on humanitarian workers in the war-torn country.

The crimes committed against innocent people in Darfur represent a shameful episode in the history of Sudan and its neighbors, including Chad, which has played a dubious role in sustaining the seething conflict. Equally disgraceful is the politicizing of the bloody conflict in ways that will ensure its continuation.

Yesterday, International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked ICC judges to charge Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with 10 counts of crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide for the violence against civilians he has helped orchestrate in Darfur.

On July 8, 2008, at approximately 2:45pm local time, heavily armed Janjaweed militia attacked a joint police and military patrol of the UN/African Union Mission in Sudan (UNAMID) in an area approximately 100 kilometers southeast of el-Fasher, near the village of Umm Hakibah (North Darfur).

Vietnam, which holds the presidency of the 15-member UN Security Council in July, voted against a draft resolution proposing sanctions on Zimbabwe.

U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan Richard Williamson and activists testifying before the Security Council decried the international community’s failure to stop Darfur’s “genocide in slow motion” and protect the people of Sudan.

Despite five years of genocidal counter-insurgency warfare in Darfur, millions among its ravaged civilian population will soon enter a third month receiving only half the necessary food rations from the UN’s World Food Program (WFP).

Thus begins a disturbing and racist article entitled “Don’t Expect Jacob Zuma to Fix South Africa” by Joel Hilliker, found in the March 2008 issue of the reactionary protestant periodical, The Philadelphia Trumpet.

Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo at the 4th International Conference on African Development held in Yokohama City (May 28-30) promised to double Japan’s Official Development Assistance volume for Africa to 200 billion yen within the next five years.

The strange logic of western political discourse consists of paradigms such as the following: the "Third World" is named as such by the "First World" because it somehow inherently inferior and developmentally backwards compared to the "First World," even though its shortcomings are largely due to exploitative, extractive "First World" economic policies.

Robert Mugabe government continues to delay democratic victory of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and increases oppression.

No region of the world was so devastated by both commercial and industrial capitalism and the imperialisms they fostered than Africa. From the 16th to the 19th century, Africa was robbed of tens of millions of its people for the slave trade.

Since yesterday Burkina-Faso, the smallest county in West Africa, has been on strike. The cause is the high cost of living. Trade unions, first among them the General Labour Confederacy of Burkina-Faso (GTTB), demand pay rises and above all significant cuts in basic foods prices.