Market-based conservation has gained a lot of traction over the years, and almost all forms of nature have been commodified. Packaged into sleek financialised terminology such as carbon credits, ecosystem services or species banking, the market has become a supposed panacea for conservation. Yet there is ample evidence that challenges this dominant logic.

Swaziland has been an absolute monarchy for decades, but absolute monarch King Mswati III is being pressed by both the country’s democratic movement, the Commonwealth and the EU to discuss democratic reforms.

Pambazuka News Team is pleased to announce to its readers and supporters the launch of a new video blog called #PunchBack.

#PunchBack provides comment and analysis of current affairs from a pan-Africanist perspective.

We invite our readers to watch #PunchBack, share the vlog, engage with the issues raised and share your views with us.

A new post of #PunchBack will appear every two weeks in the Comments & Analysis section of your newsletter.

Welcome!

Click on this link to the first post of

South African politicians have promised better housing and the sinister-sounding “slum eradication” for years. Undocumented, unreliable and famously corrupt, these promises have failed to pull slum populations into legal, decent government-provided housing. The landless have no option but to occupy public land.

Any Left-wing party that comes to power in Namibia, Zimbabwe or any peripheral country today would be in the exact same position as Syriza: It would lack the political and economic power to bring about radical changes. The reality of a global system policed by imperialism makes it impossible for poor countries to break with capitalism and to begin to build socialism.

Political succession remains a thorny issue especially in Africa, where presidents are reluctant to step down, and more so prevent the grooming of qualified successors. To understand why peaceful and democratic transition is often elusive in many countries, it is useful to explore the reasons underlying the reluctance of leaders to hand over power.

Uganda is heading to presidential elections in March. The country seems to have hardly matured as its politicians are pre-occupied with their own interest and not that of the country and its people. Whether President Museveni retains power next year or the opposition unseats him, there is no hope that this state of affairs will change for the better.

A binding international treaty that imposes human rights obligations on businesses would be a monumental step towards protecting peaceful assembly and association rights.

Is humanity predisposed to violence? We’ve allowed ourselves to be deceived by not only the military industrial complex, which profits from war, but also by all the major pillars of society: government, schools, media, and even churches, which tell us that violence is human nature.

Large billboards at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport welcomed delegates with the beaming face of President Uhuru Kenyatta, the newly-elected Chairperson of the African Peer Review Mechanism Forum. Other costly marketing and logistical activities had already taken place. And then the Kenyan government announced it had cancelled the event.

Jecinta Isei, aged 20, talks about the difficulties of refusing circumcision in her Maasai community, the implications of this harmful practice deeply rooted in various communities in Kenya and her fight to end it.

The power of ongoing peaceful student protests at Rhodes University is a reminder of the importance of rebuilding the African university by dismantling colonial legacies through acts of protest that provide an education counter to oppressive traditions.

The announcement by the government of Ontario, Canada, that it would introduce regulations to stop the much-maligned stop and search practices by the police is deceptive. No regulations will protect the rights and dignity of Black people and other people of colour who are often targeted. The practice should be stopped.

The final irony is that the regime’s oppression in Rwanda has proven so successful that the victims of the prevailing tyranny are the ones who call for its perpetuation.

Drug trafficking is a global issue, and those responsible for it should be punished, but should those who use drugs for recreational purposes be punished? Does sending hundreds of small-time users to prison really help deal with the wider problem?

The renewed anti-corruption war in Nigeria will receive a big boost if the Buhari Administration considers examination malpractice as another battle to be won.

The images of hundreds of thousands dislocated African Americans in public areas, buses and on warships awaiting removal illustrated the national oppressive and class contradictions within the world’s leading capitalist and imperialist state.

Carl Dix will be leading the #RiseUpOctober - STOP Police Terror & Murder, a mass mobilization in New York City, October 24, 2015. He has played a major role in exposing state-sponsored murder and mass incarceration of Black folks. Carl does not approach these issues from a theoretical perspective. He has experienced, first hand, the violence of occupation and the American empire.

The British Home Secretary seems to be working hard to end police brutality against Black people and other people of colour. But in reality, this is a political ploy that barely conceals her own deep hatred for Black people.

Unlike the US or France, Canada is not a leading military force in Africa. But Ottawa exerts influence through a variety of means including training initiatives.