In this book, Luke Daniels explores the topical subject of domestic violence from the perspective of his own experience as a perpetrator. He links the vice to oppressive societal values and offers useful suggestions on how to build loving relationships within the home.

Western reaction to 9/11 over the past decade has made the world more insecure, especially the global South, which has suffered from increased militarism and exploitation, writes Ama Biney. Only a commitment to genuine justice, freedom and equality will bring peace.

To understand the present capitalist economic crisis, Ama Biney contends that there is an urgent need to revisit the works of Egyptian political economist Samir Amin. His bold proposals on ending global inequalities and injustices are timely.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/500/10_500.gifAs Pambazuka celebrates its 10th year and 500th issue, Ama Biney discusses challenging ‘the negative images and stereotypes of Africa in our globalised world’.

Following Basil Davidson’s passing, Ama Biney salutes the historian’s work as a European scholar who was not blighted by ‘a Eurocentric, prejudiced paradigm’ in analysing Africa’s past.

Can or will Barack Obama deliver a more peaceful, humane world, asks Ama Biney, a year after his inauguration as 44th President of the United States. Offering a tentative evaluation of the path followed by the Obama administration so far, Biney suggests that genuine change lies not with the president, but in the remobilisation of a grassroots movement among the ordinary Americans who had the optimism and motivation to campaign for him.

Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s dastardly attempt to detonate a bomb on flight 253 has profound ramifications for all Africans and the African continent, writes Ama Biney, from tougher security checks for passengers flying from Muslim countries, to providing justification for a greater role for AFRICOM in tackling the ‘alleged global war on terrorism’. But, asks Biney, is increased military intervention an effective strategy for treating the root causes of terrorist attacks and building a safe and secure world for all?

A capitalist economic system dependent on fossil fuels and the exploitation of natural resources to generate profit has left people and ecosystems across large parts of the planet – including swathes of Africa – vulnerable to climate change, Ama Biney writes in this week’s Pambazuka News. The ‘derisory’ funding developed nations have offered to ‘assist developing countries to adapt to climate change’ is not enough to solve the problem, Biney argues. The real focus, says Biney, should be on ‘transforming the exploitative, unsustainable, profit-driven ethos that underpins the current system of wealth accumulation that simultaneously damages the environment’.

Ama Biney reviews two recent books, united in their call for Africa’s disengagement from aid dependency, but with sharply contrasting ideological visions for how to do this and to what end: Dambisa Moyo’s Dead Aid Why Aid is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa and Yash Tandon’s Ending Aid Dependence.

The news that Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize last week has created much discussion around the world as he has only been in office for nine months. In this week’s Pambazuka News, Ama Biney finds Obama unworthy of the prize as he still presides over one of the biggest nuclear arsenals in the world, as well as just having pushed one of the largest military budgets through Congress. The main question for Biney is, has a man whose country is at war received the prize for peace or has he received the prize simply for prizing peace?

Commemorating the centenary of Pan-African ‘political prophet’ Kwame Nkrumah on 21 September, Ama Biney pays tribute to ‘a titan of the anti-colonial struggle and African history that all people of African descent – both young and old – should be proud of.’ But what would Nkrumah make of ‘retrogressive developments that have taken place during the last 50 years of Africa’s history’ if he were alive today?

Ama Biney writes for Pambazuka News on the rush to acquire land in Africa by foreign governments and private investors, fuelled by fears for global food security in the face of climate change and volatile food prices on the international market. Warning that the ‘political and economic risks of these land purchases are colossal and outweigh any gains,’ Biney argues that ‘African governments must make food security and sufficiency for their own people paramount.’

Ama Biney reviews , edited by Anne V. Adams and Esi Sutherland-Addy. Finding the book to be a stimulating work on Sutherland's life and influence, Biney argues that Sutherland's ideas around the role of theatre in community development should be integrated into national curricula across Africa.

The preserved head of King Badu Bonsu II has been returned to the Ghana by the Netherlands, 170 years after the Ahanta chief was hanged for ordering the murder of two Dutch emissaries, Ama Biney tells Pambazuka News. The return of the head is not just of cultural importance for the Ahanta people, says Biney, it’s also a significant step in ‘setting right colonial wrongs’.

Reflecting on the US president's Accra speech in this week's Pambazuka News, Ama Biney finds Obama's dismissal of neocolonial explanations for Africa's difficulties worrying. Though apologetic towards his Arab audience for past US meddling while in Cairo earlier this year, Obama showed no inclination to acknowledge his country's support of African dictators such as the former Zaire's Mobutu Sese Seko and Kenya's Daniel arap Moi. If Obama is not simply to be the new George W. Bush, albeit under a more humanitarian guise, he will need to advance a foreign policy genuinely grounded in economic and political equality, Biney writes. Echoing the words of the late Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Biney stresses however that Africans should in reality prioritise pan-African solutions to their continent's challenges, rather than merely competing to be the US's 'brown-eyed ally'.

Madonna's ability to adopt a Malawian child in spite of an original court verdict against her is deeply worrying, writes Ama Biney. Madonna's action belongs in an established neocolonial tradition, Biney argues, one in which Malawi's Supreme Court judges have played a role not dissimilar to that of slavery-era African chiefs as the facilitators of human transfer. Recalling the forewarnings of Kwame Nkrumah around the shadow of neocolonialism, Biney contends that retaining Africans' self-respect will depend on challenging dehumanisation and putting such subjugation to an end.