The Comment Factory

In the past fifteen years, Rwanda and Uganda have the chief supporter of armed groups in Eastern Congo. They have twice invaded the Congo, taking control of rich mining areas and helping themselves with tons of coltan and gold (to name a few) instead of going after negative forces they claimed to have been pursuing. In 2002 and 2003, folowing intense international pressure, both Rwanda and Uganda, respectively, claimed to have withdrew their troops from Congo’s soil =- but reports persist about the continued involvement of Rwandan forces in Eastern Congo

Last year in Parliament I asked about our failure to Joseph Kony to justice. He’s the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has carried out atrocities in Uganda, Southern Sudan, the Central African Republic and the Congo. They LRA recently carried out an attack in Darfur. Kony has been indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. Yet he remains at large

Cheng Yonghua kicked-off a new diplomatic mission to Tokyo this morning. The new Ambassador arrived on Sunday and will be busy from the beginning. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is planning on making an official state visit to Japan in the spring. The announcement of Cheng as Beijing’s representative to Japan is expected, in some ways to bridge the divide between the two major economies of Asia.

Turkey has been rattled by the news this week that about 50 military commanders were detained for allegedly planning a coup to overthrow the democratically elected Islamic-leaning government.
The commanders are accused of “attempting to remove the government through force and violence” in a supposed plot codenamed “Sledgehammer.” Alleged tactics include planting bombs at mosques and [...]

Since 2002, Joost Hiltermann has managed a team of analysts based in the Middle and North Africa to conduct research and write policy-focused reports on factors that increase the risk of and drive armed conflict

Following the recent developments in Turkey, the opposition parties have begun to put pressure on the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to have an early election. The opposition parties realized that the failure of the Kurdish opening, TEKEL workers’ resistance, and the ongoing economic crisis has damaged the AKP and they are trying to benefit from the situation

TY: Rachel and I went to Cuba and we sat in the famous Hemingway Bar – and it was extraordinary, because when we went there we had this friend who lives in Cuba, and he said, “Look I can’t go in with you,” and we said, “Yeah you can, we’ll sort it out”, and it [...]

The current Tekel and union movement is also up against a notoriously barbaric police force, which has unleashed violence and mayhem at regular intervals on peaceful demonstrations in Istanbul and around the country, most infamously at the annual May Day celebrations

It appears that some of our leaders are seeking to destroy the established working order of humanity to create a “New World Order” which is really nothing new in human history. The problem is that they seek to replace our cherished democratic, law-abiding traditions with slavery, heavy drug use and other disengagement of the human intellect

Serious question. Will Hutton likes Cameron’s ideas. The current editor of the New Statesman says he takes Cameron’s claim to progressivism seriously. The centre-left Prospect magazine has been carrying puff-pieces for Philip Blond’s ‘Red Toryism’, the bland mood music for Cameron’s leadership. Some liberals really want to believe the best about Cameron’s conservatives.
Yet we have [...]

The international community has joined with the anti-mining movement in El Salvador in calling for a thorough and transparent investigation into all of the assassinations, the attempted kidnappings and the death threats to find out who is really behind this violence

Bolivia has bucked conventional developmental economics–which outsources development and production to foreign companies expert in the field and with reserves of capital–and has endeavored to develop its deposits with state-owned companies, rebuffing the overtures of countless Western companies. Evo Morales needs to raise $800 million to construct the mines and processing plants needed for this approach