Z Nightly Commentaries
There are no commentaries for today.
Recent Z Nightly Commentaries
Majavu: Bemba Arrest Pt. 2
Jul 01, 2008
In 1997, Mobutu Sese Seko, who had been the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for 32 years, was toppled by Laurent Kabila, the leader of the Allied Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo (AFDL). The AFDL was supported by the Ugandan army and the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) in their struggle against Mobutu.
Majavu: Bemba Arrest Pt. 1
Jun 27, 2008
On May, 25, 2008, the New York Times reported that Jean-Pierre Bemba, the rebel leader of the Movement for Liberation of Congo (MLC) and the former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), was arrested near Brussels at the request of the International Criminal Court. The paper explains that in 2002, the MLC was 'asked' by Ange-Felix Patasse, former President of the Central African Republic (CAR), to come into his country and put down a coup attempt. While there, the group was accused of widespread human rights violations.
Majavu: African Cadres
Jun 16, 2008
Times have changed. The colonial project in Africa is no longer carried out with a gun and a boot and a baton. Structural adjustment programmes inform the neo-colonial agenda; and that agenda requires that a new coordinator class among the natives be trained in a slightly different way to the coordinator class of the old days.
Monbiot: Justice Undone
Jun 06, 2008
I didn't get my man, but I helped to remind people what he's done.
Monbiot: We Have Gone Mad
May 31, 2008
In common with the leaders of most western nations, our prime minister is urging you to increase your production of oil. I am writing to ask you to ignore him. Like the other leaders he is delusional, and is no longer competent to make his own decisions.
Monbiot: Nothing Left to Fight For
May 23, 2008
The most rightwing government Britain has had since the Second World War does not deserve to be re-elected.
Monbiot: A Human Bomb
May 17, 2008
When we learnt last week that Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi had blown himself up in Mosul in northern Iraq, the US government presented this as a vindication of its policies. Al-Ajmi was a former inmate of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon says that his attack on Iraqi soldiers shows both that it was right to have detained him and that it is dangerous ever to release the camp's prisoners(1). On the contrary, it shows how dangerous it was to put them there in the first place.
Monbiot: Anticipatory Compliance
May 12, 2008
If you want to know how powerful Rupert Murdoch is, read the reviews of Bruce Dover's book, Rupert's Adventures in China. Well, go on, read them. You can't find any? I rest my case.
Monbiot: The Great Consolidation
Apr 30, 2008
Everything is getting bigger and further away. Hospitals, post offices, schools and prisons are being "rationalised" and "consolidated". The government says that this process improves efficiency. Instead, it outsources inefficiency: we must travel further to use public services. This is bad for the environment, bad for community life, bad for universal provision. But we haven't seen anything yet. We are about to be confronted with the biggest shutdown of all: the government has started the process of closing England's network of doctors' surgeries.
Monbiot: Pleasures of Flesh
Apr 23, 2008
You have probably seen the figures by now: the price of rice has risen by three-quarters in the past year, that of wheat by 130%(1). There are food crises in 37 countries. One hundred million people, according to the World Bank, could be pushed into deeper poverty by the high prices(2). But I bet you have missed the most telling statistic. At 2.1bn tonnes, last year's global grain harvest broke all records(3). It beat the previous year's by almost 5%. The crisis, in other words, has begun before world food supplies are hit by climate change. If hunger can strike now, what will happen if harvests decline?
Monbiot: A Cunning Plot
Apr 19, 2008
Why do people become obsessed with growing vegetables? It's not exactly high-octane. It won't make you rich or boost your social status. But millions who can afford to buy their food devote every free moment to the kind of labour our ancestors were glad to abandon.
Majavu: Coordinator Colony
Apr 16, 2008
The Coordinator Class in the Colony
Monbiot: Snow Jobs
Apr 14, 2008
The employment figures attached to large projects tend to be codswallop.
Majavu: Class Mis-Education
Mar 14, 2008
Chomsky (2004) points out that Harvard trains the people that rule the world, while MIT trains those who make it work. I cannot think of a more succinct way of describing the goals of an educational process that creates and maintains the coordinator class.
Monbiot: A Likely Story
Mar 08, 2008
As the evidence accumulates, the Evening Standard's allegations of terrorist planning have fallen apart.
Monbiot: Pro-Death
Feb 28, 2008
Who carries the greatest responsibility for the deaths of unborn children in this country? I accuse the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, His Eminence Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor. I charge that he is partly to blame for our abnormally high abortion rate.
Monbiot: An Exchange of Souls
Feb 20, 2008
As government documents show, Sir Nicholas Stern accidentally launched a trade in human lives.
Mondragon: Uribe's Pyramids
Feb 15, 2008
Uribe's government has ridden the global economic tidal wave generated by the war in Iraq that started in 2003. First, the government used as a base public, internal debt by selling bonds (called TES) at high interest rates (like all pyramids) above those offered on the international market. The rates attracted high-risk capital: but private retirement pension funds and the public health solidarity funds also bought in.
Marcos: The Fire and the Word
Feb 12, 2008
The following text is a transcript of an audio message by Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos for a book launch event in Mexico City celebrating the publication of the original Mexican edition, EZLN: 20 y 10, el fuego y la palabra which is being published in English for the first time by City Lights Books. The excerpt below is followed by information about Gloria Munoz's current speaking tour of the U.S.A.
Jul 04, 2008
A radical new idea could save the world's ecosystems. But what will it do to the economy?