'As we look forward to celebrating the 54th anniversary of Africa Liberation Day, we look back to its founding principles to assess and plan the onward progress of the African revolution.'

On April 26, 2012 in Ouagadougou, a hearing on the presumed confinement of Thomas Sankara was put off until May 24, 2012 by the judge because the general rapporteur would be absent on a mission.

The complaint was first filed in 2002 by Me Dieudonnée Nkounkou and has been pending in the courts of Burkina. It has since been pursued by CIJS lawyers Sankara and Farama. The room was filled with Sankarists and curious onlookers who sang the national anthem and then booed the bench when the judge delayed the case.

On April 25, 2012, after five years on trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Charles Taylor—suspected of being involved in the disappearance of Thomas Sankara—was found criminally responsible for having abetted and ordered crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone. This makes Charles Taylor the first former head of State to be convicted by an international court.

Meanwhile, the International Justice for Sankara Campaign is still waiting from the State party Burkina Faso to follow up on a request for a DNA forensic report as a follow up stipulated in the UN decision.

The CIJS wishes to thank all those who have shown their support in this 15-year struggle against impunity and calls for ongoing general mobilization.

A message of solidarity to the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania ‘Indaba’ by Motsoko Pheko, former PAC president at Orlando, Johannesburg, 6 April 2012.

The Editors of African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal are pleased to announce a special issue on 'There are no Blacks in Argentina.': Policing the Racial Border to explore the hidden and invisible history of Blacks and the ways in which racial ideology and practice have erased the presence and memory of the African descendant populations while valorizing whiteness in Argentina. While a number of critical works have began to uncover the presence of African descendant populations in Argentina, this topic remains under theorized.

Television journalist Gil Noble, who died recently, hosted the New York City public affairs television program 'Like It Is'. One of his legendary interviews was with Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee who coined the term 'black power'. Carmichael changed his name to Kwame Ture after moving to Guinea in 1969. Noble interviewed him in June 1996 about two year’s before his death.

A diary belonging to Ghana’s first President, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, which dates from the mid-1960s, and has been at the centre of a long legal battle between an American businessman and an African scholar from Kenya, will soon be returning home. The Kenyan, who describes himself as Africa’s 'Indiana Jones' has convinced the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania in the US that the diary rightly belongs to Ghana and to the Nkrumah family and should be returned to Africa.

The MNLA is not Jihadist. It is the main group representing the Azawad independence movement and has aims similar to those of other ethnic nationalist groups.

In the critical reading of their exhibition ‘Faces of the African Renaisance’, Adetoun Küppers-Adebisi and Michael Küppers-Adebisi deconstruct German colonial genocide in Africa and contemporary, neo-colonial racism against people of African descent in Germany. The acknowledgement of contemporary visual knowledge management strategies from a Black German and African Diaspora perspective shows how black and white disparities can be overcome by art techniques of discursive intervention that re-empower African communities and the images that exist about them.

The Horn of Africa is one of the least connected regions in the world. Nevertheless, digital media play an important social and political role in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia (including South-Central Somalia and the northern self-declared independent Republic of Somaliland). This paper from the Open society Foundation shows how the development of the internet, mobile phones, and other new communication technologies have been shaped by conflict and power struggles in these countries.

For his latest exploration into America’s socio-political landscape, Stephen Vittoria joins forces with Prison Radio producer Noelle Hanrahan to bring Long Distance Revolutionary, the story of Mumia Abu-Jamal, to the screen. Abu-Jamal’s case remains one of the most controversial and heatedly debated in American legal history, with participants on both sides either protesting his innocence in the murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner or his absolute guilt with equal passion and more often, great vehemence.

Western companies should guard against high risks involved in doing business as usual with African countries that have recently discovered offshore oil. A new report asks them to be prepared to manage the perils stemming from 'resource nationalism' in institutionally fragile and politically volatile nations. The warning by UK-based Maplecroft risk analysts refers particularly to countries 'where we see a disenchanted poorly educated youth, many of whom following war torn years out of school, are finding reintegration back into society particularly challenging.' New oil frontiers which the risk analysts have in mind include Equatorial Guinea, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Gabon, and the Congo, all of which are classified in the index as 'high risk' countries.

Pan Africanists must take the lead to ensure that those who commit genocidal violence and crimes against humanity are tried in the court of public opinion and isolated in every way.

Sweden, whose citizen has been jailed by Eritrea for more than ten years without charge, has moved to block the flow of diaspora money to the isolated Red Sea nation. Its parliament, Riksdag, is preparing legislation to block a two per cent mandatory tax collected by Eritrea from its citizens living in Sweden. Sweden has been demanding that Asmara releases Eritrean-born Swedish journalist Dawit Isaak who has been in jail since 2001 for being critical of President Isaias Afewerki's government.

In this article, Leonidas Oikonomakis draws parallels between Greece's economic crisis and the statements of the late Thomas Sankara, who was president of Burkina Faso. Sankara knew all too well that he could not stand alone in his resistance to paying foreign debt and so he pleaded with the other African heads of state to follow his example. In protests against austerity measures in Greece, there are echoes of Sankara's statements.

The Horn of Africa is one of the least connected regions in the world. Nevertheless, digital media play an important social and political role in Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia (including South-Central Somalia and the northern self-declared independent Republic of Somaliland). This paper published by the Open Society Foundation shows how the development of the internet, mobile phones, and other new communication technologies have been shaped by conflict and power struggles in these countries.

Are you a civil society actor? Staff of an African NGO or coalition? Do you work on the African Union? Do you want to advocate at the Conti-nental level? If you answered yes to any of these, then this Secondment opportunity from Oxfam is for you.

President Wade wants a third term in office over the dead bodies of Senegalese people. Yet this is the same man who has tried to identify with Pan-Africanism. After Sunday’s elections, popular struggles for a better Senegal will continue.

The meeting, dubbed ‘Encounter of Intellectuals for Peace and Environmental Conservation’, was attended by more than a hundred laureates in literature, history and social and natural sciences and eminent thinkers from 21 countries.

Nigeria has set aside $5 million for diaspora activities and prescribed a stipend of $2,500 to be paid to any member of its experts based abroad who decides to return home in a bid to turn 'brain drain into brain gain’. All over Africa, reports Africa Review, there are already similar attempts. In Kenya, a Draft Sessional Paper on the Diaspora was already being circulated and a web site was in place to identify the skills and expertise of citizens operating abroad.

The International Criminal Court with its selective justice has become a vehicle for enforcing neocolonial interests in Africa. ICC has proven that it is beholden to countries that are not even signatories to the Rome statute that set it up.