Patrick Bond

  • SOUTH AFRICA: Social movements march on Earth Summit

    JOHANNESBURG &#151 For 90 years, we've waited to see the combined geographical and political implications of locating an urban bantustan in a small block of land in northeast Johannesburg called Alexandra. August 31 was breakout

  • AFRICA: 'Nepad? No thanks', say African activists

    JOHANNESBURG — South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki made the cover of the June 10 international edition of Time magazine, with the misleading headline: "He has finally faced up to the AIDS crisis and is now leading the charge for

  • ZIMBABWE: Democracy movement debates sanctions

    HARARE — Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who led the national liberation fighters to win independence from the white Rhodesian colonists in 1980, is facing a presidential vote in March. His main opponent is the Movement for

  • SOUTH AFRICA: Mbeki's neoliberal blueprint for Africa

    JOHANNESBURG — Everyone seems worried about Africa's health and welfare these days. If you have an open mind and regularly read the London Financial Times — or its South African subsidiary Business Day — you would have seen

  • CANADA: Blue Planet targets commodification of world's water

    BY PATRICK BOND& KAREN BAKKER VANCOUVER — The July 5-8 Blue Planet conference opened with a call by Maude Barlow to promote "a global water revolution". Barlow, chairperson of the Council of Canadians — a 100,000-member citizens' group, added:

  • SOUTH AFRICA: A 'warm' welcome for Powell

    BY SALIM VALLY& PATRICK BOND JOHANNESBURG — United States secretary of state Colin Powell was forced to spend an extra hour hemmed in the University of Witwatersrand campus by demonstrators on June 1, learning why the US is now widely regarded as

  • GHANA: Sharpening hydro-class struggles

    ACCRA — There are signs of genuine hope in Ghana. In May, I was privileged to witness a careful regrouping of the country's former revolutionary student/community movement, which is strengthening its political base by addressing

  • All eyes on Zimbabwe's new 'workers' party'

    All eyes on Zimbabwe's new 'workers' party'JOHANNESBURG — The Shona-language slogan of the popular new political party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has spread far and wide throughout the countryside: Chinja!

  • African National Congress landslide

    JOHANNESBURG — South Africa's June 2 national and provincial elections confirmed expectations that the ruling African National Congress (ANC) would gain two-thirds of the vote, up from 63% in 1994, while a dozen tiny opposition

  • ANC social policy follows World Bank advice

    ANC social policy follows World Bank adviceJOHANNESBURG — Leaders of the African National Congress defend the South African government's lamentable economic record since 1994, which has included the loss of half a million

  • South African economic policies disappoint progressives

    The African National Congress has a long history of accommodating competing political interests within its tent. Unlike Brazil's Workers Party, the ANC does not countenance active internal "tendencies". However, its formal Alliance

  • South African left hunkers down for election

    JOHANNESBURG — The lack of a serious left alternative to the centre-right African National Congress ruling party — whose macro-economic strategy (aside from new labour regulations) is more austere and business-friendly than