Throughout the continent, ‘oil has correlated with imperial subjugation, local authoritarianism and flagrant human rights abuses’. Citing examples of the devastating consequences a growing global hunger for energy has had for communities and ecosytems in oil-bearing regions, Oilwatch Africa calls for the world to start weaning itself from its ‘addiction to oil’ by ‘investing more in renewable energy, energy efficiency, better public transportation and small decentralised energy projects.’
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Although Israel successfully controlled news of its deadly commando raid on the Free Gaza flotilla during the first crucial 48 hours of media coverage, emerging evidence from witnesses and survivors is challenging the Israeli government's version of events including claims of medical treatment being withheld; beatings and abuse of passengers who never resisted; the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) doctoring audio and selectively editing videos.
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If justice becomes the beacon that guides the UN toward peace, it would have to begin at Resolution 181 (November 1947), the partition of Palestine. Assumptions were made at that point, assumptions that had both positive and negative effects. A moral determination was made that the Jews deserved a homeland as a consequence of the horrific slaughter that had decimated their people. The world accepted a moral responsibility to right that atrocity; in so doing, they assumed, perhaps unwittingly, that they could grant to the Jews a portion of another people's land.
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The global financial crisis has not deterred some of the world's developed and developing nations from bolstering their military arsenals with expensive new weapons systems, including sophisticated fighter planes, combat helicopters, submarines, armoured vehicles and air defence systems.
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