In the light of the recent attack at Bamako’s Radisson Blu Hotel, Cameron Duodu looks at the context of Malian political instability, and how French involvement needs to be re-strategized if it is to have a positive impact.

Despite a long list of abuses by Canadian mining companies in Africa - and elsewhere - it’s very difficult to hold them accountable at home. Will the new government of Justin Trudeau defy the powerful mining industry and adopt legislation to constrain their abuses abroad?

The horrendous terrorist attacks in the French capital last week brought the whole world to a stand-still. Yet similar violence elsewhere has not attracted comparable outrage and sympathy. What’s more, the daily deaths of impoverished people condemned to a sub-human existence by White supremacist ideologies hardly make the news.

Universal Children’s Day was marked on Friday, 20 November. In September this year, the UN included a target to end violence against children in the Sustainable Development Goals, explicitly linking, for the first time, a violence-free society for children to economic growth.

If France is “at war”, as President Hollande announced after the horrific attacks in Paris last week, then it is an unjust war between reactionary forces equally disdainful of human life, neither of them less deliberately and consciously cruel in the pursuit of reactionary political objectives. Supporting either France or the Islamists will only worsen the dynamic between two unacceptable alternatives.

The victims of the violence in Paris may have been innocent, but France was not. French crimes against Arabs, Muslims and Africans are ever-present in the historical memory. Those memories became the toxic mix that resulted in the blowback on November 13.

Yes, the attacks in Paris were brutal. But what of the terror that has been instigated in the name of empire? Is it less of terror to bomb cities, villages and country-sides? Is the control and manipulation of the financial world a morally justifiable act? Are ‘free trade’ agreements free when they subjugate poor nations to terms that essentially destroy them? Is the blatant theft of the resources of the Global South moral?

It is now 20 years since the dictatorship of Sani Abacha murdered renowned environmentalist, writer and defender of the rights of the indigenous Ogoni people of southern Nigeria, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and his eight comrades. What does his life and struggles mean for African people today?

The West bombs other nations knowing what damage their powerful bombs can inflict on civilian populations, yet they complain when their civilian populations are targeted in revenge. The hypocrisy is beyond belief: As if the non-Europeans who are killed are not human beings.

As the lynching of Zerhom reminds us, any Black person living within Israel can easily become a victim of ethno-supremacist Zionism. Attacks by individuals and mobs are bolstered by the equally disturbing racist language of some Israeli politicians as well as the punitive anti-Black actions by the Israeli state.

Rather than address the actual causes of dislocation, migration and the refugee problem, the imperialist states in Europe and their allies are seeking to contain the crisis within the oppressed nations which they have destroyed through centuries of enslavement, colonization, neo-colonization, super-exploitation and militarism.

Any project bears possibilities of unforeseen difficulties and surprises, but adequate preparation, good governance and transparency are key to managing these. Looking at a number of common mistakes from previous development programmes can prevent repeating them and remind of important lessons often taken for granted.

As another two men fight for their lives in hospital after being shot in the head shortly after midday today, some residents are calling for the army to stabilize the situation as violence spirals out of control at Glebelands Hostel.

The translated manuscripts present a revisionist view of early Atlantic slave trading, by showing that the human trafficking was a Portuguese creation. This challenges the accepted HIS-STORY that since the European slavers only moved the slaves from the African coast to their destination in the Americas, the supply side of the trade was entirely in African hands.

Scores of Ghanaians from all walks of life have paid glowing tributes to three heroes for their exceptional contributions towards the development of the broad progressive movement in Ghana.

Hate speech is on the rise in Kenya, reflecting deepening animosity based on ethnic identities. A number of politicians and other public figures have either been charged with or are being investigated for propagating hate. Social media is awash with virulent commentary. Clearly, the country has not learnt any lessons from the post-election violence of 2007/8.

Several international organisations have written to the World Bank president expressing their concern at the Bank’s silence regarding the arrest and detention of an Ethiopian who worked as translator for the institution last year. The organisations want the World Bank to intervene in case of Pastor Omot and his companions who face long prison terms on false terrorism charges.

Pope Francis arrives in Uganda at the end of the month on his first African trip. The church is taking advantage of the visit to make money from the poor faithful. And Ugandan authorities are doing everything to present a false image of the country during the visit. It is all hypocrisy.

Although the armed forces and police are firmly in Museveni`s control and have always served him loyally, he seems unsatisfied. The police have been massively recruiting and training unemployed youth called ‘crime preventers.’ But opposition parties have repeatedly complained that this militia is meant to harass them and bolster the ruling party ahead of the February 2016 elections.

People have lost so much; they have chosen to defend themselves from further losses. This is legitimate. However, there is a sense in which government has to take primary responsibility for the security of life and property of all Nigerians.