Brazilians have much to learn from South Africans who hosted the 2010 World Cup in which thousands of South Africans rioted in the streets prior to the games and FIFA took billions in revenues. Will Brazil’s main trade union remain stymied by their alliance to the ruling party like South Africa’s?

Beneath Obama’s beguiling smile and rhetoric the exploitation of the African continent by the US continues. With both Obama and Zuma on the back foot in terms of their justification for looting Africa, this is an ideal moment for a new solidarity movement to make its case

South Africa is this week hosting yet another major conference, the World Economic Forum for Africa, amidst increasing evidence that the nation is fast growing as a sub-imperialist power

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) that was launched in 2001 is revealing for showing the four other BRIC countries how South Africa seeks to serve as ‘a gateway for investment on the continent.’ From Nepad to Brics, South Africa’s toll at the ‘gateway to Africa’ is high, and there is very little to show for it.

The BRICS are surpassing the US and the EU in terms of emissions of greenhouse gases. The Durban summit was an opportune moment to ask and answer many questions regarding the BRICS’ economic strategies and to radically reduce their levels of emissions.

The ANC embraced neo-liberal capitalism unreservedly in 1994. Similar to the 1884 Berlin conference, the forthcoming BRICS summit in Durban will seek to divide the continent with one common objective: efficient resource extraction through export-oriented infrastructure for continued capitalist exploitation that will enrich a minority and not the masses.

There seem to be three narratives about BRICS. The first is promotional and mainly comes from government and allied intellectuals; the second perspective is uncertainty, typical of fence-sitting scholars and NGOs; and the third is highly critical, from forces sometimes termed the ‘independent left.’

BRICS offer some of the most extreme sites of new sub-imperialism in the world today. They lubricate world neoliberalism, hasten world eco-destruction and serve as coordinators of hinterland looting. The BRICS hegemonic project should be resisted.

As the official South African judicial investigating commission into the Marikana Massacre draws to a close in 2012, with many weeks of testimony in 2013 still ahead, what did the SA Police Service (SAPS) learn from their behaviour?

In some quarters it is believed Africa is ‘rising’ due to a commitment to export-oriented, petro-minerals-centric, finance-driven ideologies. Patrick Bond questions such a paradigm and argues that hope lies in the popcorn protests in Africa

Neoliberal sanitation experts attending the Toilet Summit may well argue that the world cannot afford flush toilets for everyone. But the alternatives they propose are failing.

Like Berlin in 1884-85, the BRICS Durban summit is expected to carve up Africa more efficiently, unburdened – now as then – by what will be derided as 'Western' concerns about democracy and human rights.

There are important lessons for South Africa from the hurricane that hit America last week. But nobody in officialdom is ready to admit the dangers posed especially to the Port of Durban.

How long can the amazing upsurge of class struggle in South Africa go on? Living here 22 years, I’ve never witnessed such a period of vibrant, explosive, but uncoordinated worker militancy.

Forget all the rhetoric. Increased access to oil, imposition of pro-corporate economic policy, hostility to China and attempts to gain cooperation in the ‘War on Terror’ are the most important factors in US foreign policy on Africa. The November elections won’t change that.

Huge shopping malls are spreading social alienation, intensifying economic distortions and amplifying ecological decay.

South Africa suffers from far too many activists who promote a localist ideology that begins and ends with the municipal councillor, city manager or mayor. There are too many turf-conscious leaders who look inward, failing to think globally while acting locally.

The secretive Bilderbergers aren’t normally a protest magnet. But last weekend, protesters hurled creative abuse at the black limousines rolling past towards the Chantilly Marriott Hotel.

Would the Bank dare practice what it preaches about ending ‘inefficient’ subsidization, given how it amplifies irrational power relations when maintaining the world’s largest fossil-fuel financing portfolio?

The sickening signs of Kim’s retreat in the face of power were unmistakeable beginning in early April, just after his nomination was announced by Obama.