Latest news with #European-led
Sinar Daily
a day ago
- Science
- Sinar Daily
Earliest proof of humans using whale bone tools discovered
The bones, found on the northern Spanish coast in the Bay of Biscay, show that we have been underestimating our prehistoric ancestors, the European-led team of scientists said. 07 Jun 2025 04:01pm There was a boom in whale bones between 17,500 and 16,000 BC, when tools have been found as far away as Germany. - Photo illustrated by Sinar Daily PARIS - Scientists announced they have discovered the earliest evidence of humans using whale bones, finding weapons made from the remains of the massive mammals dating back more than 20,000 years. The bones, found on the northern Spanish coast in the Bay of Biscay, show that we have been underestimating our prehistoric ancestors, the European-led team of scientists said. Some of the bones were collected more than a century ago but were misidentified. The researchers used carbon-dating, as well as spectrometry analysis to determine what species the bones were from. - Photo illustrated by Sinar Daily Southwest Europe was much colder during the Upper Palaeolithic period, and the Atlantic Ocean was 120 metres (400 feet) lower than its current level. As the seas rose over the millennia, it destroyed or buried much of the proof that these hunter-gatherers interacted with the marine world, French prehistoric archaeologist Jean-Marc Petillon told AFP. This led to a "biased" vision that they only hunted inland beasts such as reindeer, bison and horses, the lead author of a new study in Nature Communications said. "Fortunately for us, people at the time transported a number of marine products inland," he added. Perched on a cliff, these humans would likely have been able to see blue, sperm, bowhead and other whales relatively near the shore, looking for food. Among their discoveries, the researchers found more than 60 fragments of whale ribs or vertebrae. These huge bones were carried up to five kilometres (three miles) to the top of a steep cliff, possibly to extract their oil. "These bones are very rich in fat," Petillon explained. Most of the bone tools were parts of weapons, such as the tips of spears. But it is "extremely unlikely" these ancient humans were able to hunt whales, the study said, adding that it was more likely that the huge animals had simply washed up on the beach. Some of the bones were collected more than a century ago but were misidentified. The researchers used carbon-dating, as well as spectrometry analysis to determine what species the bones were from. There was a boom in whale bones between 17,500 and 16,000 BC, when tools have been found as far away as Germany. "Then it stopped quite abruptly" for reasons that are not clear, Petillon said. The people of the time did not run out of bones, nor did they lose the bone-working techniques. "It could be a choice... like a fashion that lasts a millennium or two and then, at some point, stops," Petillon said. - AFP More Like This
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Earliest proof of humans using whale bone tools discovered
Scientists announced Tuesday they have discovered the earliest evidence of humans using whale bones, finding weapons made from the remains of the massive mammals dating back more than 20,000 years. The bones, found on the northern Spanish coast in the Bay of Biscay, show that we have been underestimating our prehistoric ancestors, the European-led team of scientists said. Southwest Europe was much colder during the Upper Palaeolithic period, and the Atlantic Ocean was 120 metres (400 feet) lower than its current level. As the seas rose over the millennia, it destroyed or buried much of the proof that these hunter-gatherers interacted with the marine world, French prehistoric archaeologist Jean-Marc Petillon told AFP. This led to a "biased" vision that they only hunted inland beasts such as reindeer, bison and horses, the lead author of a new study in Nature Communications said. "Fortunately for us, people at the time transported a number of marine products inland," he added. Perched on a cliff, these humans would likely have been able to see blue, sperm, bowhead and other whales relatively near the shore, looking for food. Among their discoveries, the researchers found more than 60 fragments of whale ribs or vertebrae. These huge bones were carried up to five kilometres (three miles) to the top of a steep cliff, possibly to extract their oil. "These bones are very rich in fat," Petillon explained. Most of the bone tools were parts of weapons, such as the tips of spears. But it is "extremely unlikely" these ancient humans were able to hunt whales, the study said, adding that it was more likely that the huge animals had simply washed up on the beach. Some of the bones were collected more than a century ago but were misidentified. The researchers used carbon-dating, as well as spectrometry analysis to determine what species the bones were from. There was a boom in whale bones between 17,500 and 16,000 BC, when tools have been found as far away as Germany. "Then it stopped quite abruptly" for reasons that are not clear, Petillon said. The people of the time did not run out of bones, nor did they lose the bone-working techniques. "It could be a choice... like a fashion that lasts a millennium or two and then, at some point, stops," Petillon said. ber-dl/giv
TimesLIVE
06-05-2025
- General
- TimesLIVE
'The Black Atlantic's Triple Burden' edited by Adekeye Adebajo
ABOUT THE BLACK ATLANTIC'S TRIPLE BURDEN: This book demonstrates the continuities of five centuries of European-led slavery and colonialism in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas, examining calls for reparations in all three regions for what many now regard to have constituted crimes against humanity. The Atlantic world economy emerged from the interactions of this triangular slave trade involving human chattel, textiles, arms, wine, sugar, coffee, tobacco, cotton and other goods. This is thus the story of the birth of the modern capitalist system and a Black Atlantic that has shaped global trade, finance, consumer tastes, lifestyles and fashion for over five centuries. The volume is authored by a multidisciplinary, pan-continental group encompassing diverse subjects. This collection is concise and comprehensive, enabling cross-regional comparisons to be drawn, and ensuring that some of the most important global events of the past five centuries are read from diverse perspectives. EXTRACT: Five centuries of European slavery and colonialism brought huge political, economic, social and cultural destruction to indigenous peoples across the Black Atlantic in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. This was the route of the European-led transatlantic slave trade from the 15th to the 19th century, in which 12-15 million Africans were enslaved and transported as human chattel. Commercial companies such as the British South Africa Company, the Royal African Company, the Dutch West India Company, and the Dutch East India Company were all used to enslave and exploit black and brown peoples and their territories, greatly benefiting European imperial powers and enabling the West's industrialisation. European planters often dominated parliaments across the Caribbean and the Americas, even after slavery formally ended in the 19th century. It was these slave owners rather than the enslaved who were compensated for these heinous crimes. The rape and abuse of indigenous women by European colonisers was very much a ubiquitous feature of this brutal four-and-a-half century subjugation. These events have eventually triggered a global struggle for reparations across Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas and Europe, with deep roots in the church-based civil society activism in the United States (US) and the Caribbean. European imperialists exported their systems of government to Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas, but failed spectacularly to build viable institutions and extensive infrastructure, as well as provide social services and promote socioeconomic development in their colonies. The silver lining in this grim history of European imperial slavery is that enslaved and colonised black and brown people in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas survived against all odds. Indigenous populations in the Americas and Australia were not always as fortunate, with their populations decimated to a far greater extent by genocidal European holocausts and diseases. About 40-million Africans currently live outside the continent. An estimated 10.6-million reside in Europe, while sizeable Afro-Caribbean minority populations continue to live in Britain and France (about two million each), and similar Antillean populations reside in the Netherlands. Africans are still estimated to constitute only about 1% of the total European continental population, yet many vulnerable Africans in Europe continue to suffer from racist stereotyping. A key source of tensions between Africa and the 27-member European Union (EU) has involved the migration and deaths of tens of thousands of African youths across the Mediterranean. Several European governments and populations continue to view Africa's 'boat people' as a security threat, often scapegoating and criminalising these migrants. 'Fortress Europe' has thus resulted in EU governments strengthening border security and sometimes violating refugee rights. Across the Atlantic, the African-born population in the US doubled every decade between 1970 and 2020 to reach 2.4 million: the majority are from Nigeria, Ethiopia and Ghana. The most effective recent African-American civil rights organisation, Black Lives Matter, seeks to 'connect Black people from all over the world who have a shared desire for justice to act together in their communities'. The group effectively led global antiracism protests in 2020, and has great potential to forge links with similar movements across Africa and its diaspora. In the Caribbean, identification with Africa has grown tremendously as a result of Nigeria-produced Nollywood movies, and consequently West Indian populations experience cultures and people with whom they can readily identify. Netflix had 112 Nollywood films and television shows by 2023. But the level of social interaction and trade between both Africa and the Caribbean remains abysmally low, despite periodic high-level inter-governmental summits between leaders of the African Union (AU) and the Caribbean Community (Caricom). The geographical pull of the US — where many Caribbean students study, and even more (until recently) desired to go — and the overwhelming American cultural pull still remain strong influences, especially among the region's youth. Having united to attain the political kingdom from the 1960s, Africa and its neglected diaspora in the Caribbean and the Americas must, however, now collaborate to pursue contemporary struggles for reparations by rebuilding diasporic bridges to achieve a new people-driven Pan-Africanism. As the AU commemorates 2025 with the theme of 'Justice for Africans and People of African Descent through Reparations', it is worth reflecting on the Black Atlantic's continuing triple tragedies of the lingering impacts of slavery and colonialism and the unfulfilled quest for reparatory justice. It is important to pose the fundamental question: how can European nations that enslaved and colonised black and brown populations for five centuries repair this pernicious damage that has left Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas with the triple burdens of a lack of development and crippling debt, diseases and deadly conflicts? As has often been noted, the movements to abolish slavery and colonialism took generations to succeed, and so also will the contemporary movement for reparations for slavery and colonialism. As African-American civil rights activist Frederick Douglass famously observed in 1857: 'Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.' We hope that this book can make a modest contribution to this noble struggle.
Newsweek
03-05-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
F-35 Crisis Puts Pressure on Europe To Develop Sixth-Gen Fighter Jets
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Doubts around advanced American F-35 fighter jets, spurred by President Donald Trump's biting criticism of NATO, is generating more interest in nascent, European-led sixth-generation fighter jet programs as part of a bid to distance the continent from the whims of Washington. Many European members of NATO, and the U.S.' northern neighbor, Canada, have watched on with some horror at the foreign policy stance adopted by senior Trump officials, warming up relations with the Kremlin. The U.S. administration has accused the rest of NATO for decades of slacking on defense spending, which has sucked Europe into a deep reliance on Washington for many key military capabilities and the all-important nuclear deterrent. America's NATO allies have broadly pledged to rapidly increase defense spending, although there is no coherent road map marking out how Europe, the U.K. and Canada will fill in yawning capability gaps or replace assets currently supplied by the U.S., which is now swivelling to the Indo-Pacific. A British F-35 takes off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, on June 24, 2019. A British F-35 takes off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, on June 24, 2019. Jacob King/ PA Wire via AP Images Adjusting to hostile messaging from the White House, Canada put its planned procurement of 88 fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets under review. Portugal's outgoing government said in March that Lisbon needed to consider the new "geopolitical environment" when weighing up a recommendation to purchase F-35s, which cost roughly $100 million apiece. Reports of a "kill switch" inbuilt into F-35s ran rampant earlier this year, suggesting Washington could effectively control the aircraft bought and operated by recipient countries as it pleased. Experts and officials have downplayed these concerns, but concede that the U.S. could have a noticeable impact on how well these aircraft operate, should it choose to influence software upgrades or halt access to intelligence and mission data. NATO observed the U.S. cut off its vital military aid deliveries to Ukraine, and choke Kyiv's access to American-derived intelligence in a bid to bend Ukraine to its will, namely to sit down at the negotiating table for ceasefire talks. Ukraine, the U.S.' allies could see, was backed into a corner by its dependence on the U.S. The Lockheed Martin-made F-35 is the only fifth-generation fighter aircraft available to Western militaries, and many of the 20 nations operating or buying F-35s are NATO members. "If an F-35 user wanted to use the jets in a way that the United States was not happy with, then that would be a limited capability, because Lockheed Martin would be very soon able to turn off the support tap to the particular nation in question," said Andrew Curtis, a retired Air Commodore in Britain's Royal Air Force. "So even though there might not necessarily be an actual 'kill switch,' the United States definitely has the capability to make things very difficult for F-35 users," Curtis told Newsweek. But there are plans to build several different sixth-generation fighters, which could slowly come into service from the mid-2030s. There is a "bigger incentive" now for European members of NATO to be involved in sixth-generation programs led by European countries, according to a central European official involved in defense planning. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they expected more countries to want to have a look-in at the development of next-generation aircraft, and particularly to have their domestic industry contribute to sixth-generation programs. There will certainly be more interest in sixth-generation development on the continent now than before Trump was re-elected, said Gabrielius Landsbergis, who served as Lithuania's foreign minister until November 2024. "There will be an increased pressure on pan-European projects, that is for sure," Landsbergis told Newsweek. A joint British, Italian and Japanese sixth-generation program, known as the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), currently in the works has always been designed to make sure the operating country can make its own military decisions without interference, Newsweek understands. It is seen as increasingly important, politically speaking, for a country's military to be able to act as it sees fit and modify an aircraft. The central European official said the countries operating F-35s in Europe had reassured one another their commitment to the fifth-generation stealth fighters was "ironclad." Dutch defense minister Ruben Brekelmans said in March it was in the "interest of all" for the F-35 to succeed, while British Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard insisted the U.K. "maintains the freedom of action to operate the F-35 Lightning at a time and place of our choosing." "I don't see any signs of the United States backtracking," Brekelmans added. The Pentagon had not signaled any intention that the U.S. would restrict the use of partner nations' F-35s, the central European official said. To do so would undermine the U.S.' defense exports across the world, they said, but added Europe's efforts to increase spending and production will gradually sideline all U.S. military imports. What Are Sixth-Generation Jets? London, Rome and Tokyo have banded together to create a sixth-generation fighter program, now referred to as GCAP, an industrial partnership underwritten by government treaties. In the U.K., the manned sixth-generation fighter jet expected to come into service in 2035 is called Tempest. France, Germany and Spain are working on their FCAS project, although this is currently expected to produce a sixth-generation jet up to 10 years after GCAP. Much of the U.S.' efforts to create a piloted, sixth-generation fighter have been part of its Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, program. Trump unveiled the F-47, the manned aircraft part of the program, during an Oval Office briefing in March, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and U.S. Air Force General David Allvin. The F-47 will be "the crown jewel in the Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems," Allvin said. "We're confident that it massively overpowers the capabilities of any other nation," Trump insisted. The U.S. Navy has its own sixth-generation program, currently known as the F/A-XX. China is also developing a sixth-generation fighter jet, and an experimental version is thought to have been spotted flying over China from late last year. Sixth-generation projects will develop manned fighter aircraft that are even harder to detect, more automated, and kitted out with more advanced avionics and weapons. Trump has said he would sell the F-47 to America's allies. But the "most advanced, most capable, most lethal aircraft ever built" comes with an important caveat: it would be "toned down" by 10 percent, the president said. U.S. partners weren't shocked by the sentiment—it is widely accepted that the U.S. has blunted its cutting-edge technology before it is shipped off abroad, experts and officials say. It was the overt acknowledgment of something that had for decades been expressed in private that threw American allies and prospective buyers, said the central European official. "This is not a great selling point for the F-47," said retired Lieutenant General Yvan Blondin, who served as the commander of Canada's air force from 2012 until 2015. "The risk that I see with the F-35, I see a lot more clearly with the F-47," Blondin told Newsweek. This makes a stronger case for NATO countries like Canada to look toward one or two European-led next-generation programs, he said, rather than go down the route of an incredibly expensive, U.S.-controlled sixth-generation platform. A Lockheed Martin spokesperson said the F-35 "is the cornerstone of the battlespace for 20 allied nations, enabling peace through strength in the 21st century." "It is combat proven, offers the most advanced capability and technology, and is the most affordable option to ensure the U.S. and allies remain ahead of emerging threats," the spokesperson added. Jumping on the Bandwagon Sixth-generation development is still in its very early stages, although the U.S. Air Force has confirmed experimental aircraft have been flying for roughly five years. It's not clear what the potential would be for other countries beyond the six currently in the midst of GCAP and the European FCAS initiative to jump on the bandwagon. The GCAP program has had significant interest from across the world and would not necessarily exclude late entrants to the project, but there is an acknowledgment that the more parties involved, the slower the progress will be, Newsweek understands. It's understood the workload has already been divvied up, meaning while it's not impossible for new countries to join GCAP, it is more likely nations coming in later would be involved in other parts of sixth-generation technology, not the jet itself. A spokesperson for the British Ministry of Defense said GCAP nations "have always highlighted an openness to partnering with other nations through this program, while helping us deliver a next-generation fighter jet." More than 3,500 people are already involved in GCAP in the U.K., the spokesperson said. European Distancing from the U.S. Qualms over the F-35's reliance on the U.S. feed into deeper discussions of how reliant the rest of NATO became on U.S. defense exports in the wake of the Cold War. Trump officials have demanded European nations dedicate 5 percent of GDP to defense—a target the U.S. itself doesn't hit. While there is little appetite to hit an arbitrary number, European nations agree defense spending has been too low, with NATO tasked with working out which capabilities need to be urgently filled. The U.S. has shouldered expensive military burdens in Europe for years, including providing logistics, strategic lift, communication, intelligence and reconnaissance capabilities, as well as airborne electronic warfare and stockpiles of munitions. Observers say the U.S. deliberately signaled in previous decades that Europe should swerve investing in often expensive capabilities America could provide, focusing instead on how to support U.S. efforts abroad, such as in the Middle East. Air defense, space-based assets, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities are high up on this list, a serving U.S. military official said. Air defense is Europe's "priority number one" for the next two decades, the central European official said. A European military source said there was a desire to wean Europe off a reliance on the U.S. where possible, but not to broadly cut off access to American imports. Decisions should be made on a "case-by-case" basis, they said. Europe is looking closely at alternatives for the vaunted Patriot air defense system, such as the IRIS-T, they added. "The future of air defense will come out of Europe," the military source said. "It would be irresponsible not to look closely at areas of military dependence on the United States, given the very, very sharp departure from a host of previously assumed ironclad U.S. positions," including on Russia and America's European presence, said Justin Bronk, a research fellow for airpower and military technology at the U.K.-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank. But while the U.S. has several options to choose from to hinder the effectiveness of F-35s, American allies are so dependent on Washington in so many areas that most military capabilities would be severely hit if the U.S. wanted to prevent operations, Bronk said.
Mail & Guardian
01-05-2025
- Politics
- Mail & Guardian
A panoramic view of a continent
Adekeye Adebajo's book is an analysis of Africa, from the perspective of 30 years of study, which offers an overview of the decades since the fall of apartheid in 1994 The 145 essays in my new book The Splendid Tapestry of African Life: Essays on A Resilient Continent, its Diaspora, and the World represent the ripest fruits of three decades of reflecting and writing on the history, regional integration, politics, foreign policy, international relations, culture, film, sports and travel of Africa and its diaspora in the Americas, Europe and the Caribbean, as well as on the world beyond Global Africa. This volume seeks to capture the zeitgeist of the post-apartheid era after the continent's five-century quest for liberation from the twin scourges of European-led transatlantic slavery and colonialism finally ended with South Africa's democratic transition in 1994. Africa's independence battles from the late Fifties had been mirrored by similar battles in the Caribbean as well as America's civil rights struggle. Both involved citizens of the Black Atlantic: the heirs of slavery and colonialism. I entered the field of international relations in 1990 as Nelson Mandela emerged from 27 years of captivity to negotiate South Africa's democratic future at a time when the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union was ending. The contemporary age threatens a looming battle between an America (under the erratic, nativist regime of Donald Trump), which is in relative decline and still has a large military presence in Africa, and a rising China, which remains Africa's largest trading partner at $295 billion and accounts for nearly half the continent's construction market. Africa will have to contend with these powers, as well as others such as Russia, France, the EU and Gulf countries, which are all involved in security, trade and investment activities on the continent. Over half of the UN's 58 peacekeeping missions in the post-Cold War era have taken place in Africa, while the world body currently has 80% of its peacekeepers deployed across the continent. The UN thus remains Africa's most important security partner, with conflicts continuing to rage from the Great Lakes, to Central Africa, to the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and northern Mozambique. Intra-African trade remains a paltry 15%, while Africa's external debt stands at $1.2 trillion, with governments typically spending more than 45% of their revenues on servicing these unsustainable debts rather than on vital social sectors. Africa's continuing struggle to achieve effective regional integration and industrialisation thus constitutes a major focus of this book. Similarly, the Caribbean's 20 micro-states have struggled to promote effective regional integration through the Caribbean Community, often prioritising parochial identities over regional ones. These essays are divided into 10 main sections. The first part examines the legacies of pan-Africanist struggles against slavery and imperialism and Global Africa's efforts to achieve reparations for slavery and colonialism — the African Union's (AU) theme for 2025 — and to promote cultural self-realisation. The themes covered include: the obligations of the pan-African public intellectual, Western racism towards Africa, the German genocide in Namibia, religion, the legacy on Africa of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, cultural stereotyping of Africa, the diversity of Afro-Caribbean life, white-supremacist historical monuments, transforming humanities curricula in African and African-American studies, the global apartheid of Covid-19, and the international neglect of the damage which was caused by the 2016 Haitian hurricane. Critiques are also undertaken of past British Afro-pessimistic writers such as Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene; present-day British Afrophobes such as Nigel Biggar, Richard Dowden, Stephen Ellis and Mark Huband, as well as the Afro-pessimistic Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo. The second part assesses the challenges of regionalism in Africa through the efforts of the Organisation of African Unity, the AU, the Southern African Development Community and the Economic Community of West African States, while examining regional integration initiatives involving Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, as well as Afro-Asian cooperation. Part three focuses on the broad topic of African politics, diagnosing the continent's successes and failures — through its 'madmen' politicians and 'specialist' soldiers — as well as covering subjects such as conflict resolution, popular revolutions and the role of youth activists and regional hegemons. Also discussed are the negative impacts of European colonial engineering on African state-building and the 'Afro-Arab Spring' of 2011 which toppled autocracies in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. With the advantage of having lived in South Africa as a Nigerian citizen for 21 years, I analyse, in the fourth section, the prospects of Africa's two regional hegemons — Nigeria and South Africa — providing leadership to the continent, by examining their domestic and foreign policies, as well as their collaborative peacemaking efforts and complex relationship of cooperation and competition. I also offer a critique of the writing of South African analysts Mills Soko and Peter Fabricius. The fifth part assesses Africa's international relations, examining the prospects for Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui's 1967 concept of Pax Africana — a peace created, cultivated, and consolidated by Africans themselves. Fourteen Nobel Peace laureates of African descent are examined, with the Tunisian Nobelist quartet counted as a single laureate. Issues of conflict resolution — from Liberia and Bosnia to Libya and Western Sahara — are also discussed, together with the efforts of African regional bodies and the UN to silence the guns across Africa. I assess the complicated relationship between Africa and the EU and the roles of bilateral external actors — France, the US, China and Russia — in Africa. The Afro-pessimistic and neo-colonial musings of the American journalist Robert Kaplan, as well as British economist Paul Collier, are critiqued, while the perspectives of African-American analyst Francis Kornegay and South Africa's Greg Mills, on Libya, are scrutinised. The sixth part looks at the rich diversity of the Black Atlantic's culture and films, including the Nigeria-hosted second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in 1977; the phenomenon of Nigeria's film industry, Nollywood; Nigerian Nobel Literature laureate Wole Soyinka's play and film Death and the King's Horseman and South African director Mandla Dube's movie Kalushi: The Story of Solomon Mahlangu. I analyse too Global Africa's fatal attraction with, and triumphs in, Hollywood; examine the life and times of Caribbean-American artist Harry Belafonte and review six important African American films: Selma, Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk, Harriet, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom — based on a play by African-American playwright, August Wilson — and The Woman King. The seventh part examines the history of African football, the successes and failures of modern-day Nigerian football, and the excellence of global African sportsmen at the football World Cup. Also assessed are topics such as the genius of Brazilian football and New Zealand rugby; pan-African athletes excelling at the 2015 World Athletics championships; the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 and 2021 and last year's Paris Olympics. In addition, the golden age of West Indian cricket between 1980 and 1995 is analysed. The eighth section presents travelogues across some of Africa's great cities: Lagos, Abuja, Accra, Abidjan, Johannesburg and Laayoune. Part nine examines the world beyond Africa through multilateral lenses, analysing the legacies of impactful conferences in Berlin (1884 and 1885) and Bandung (1955), as well as the evolving geo-political struggle between Pax Americana and Pax Sinica. I suggest how Africa can position itself in this rapidly changing global strategic environment, before examining the efforts of the global South to revive the Cold War-era concept of non-alignment in the wake of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. After highlighting the EU's region-building initiatives, this section engages with the UN's legacy at 75 and its institutional reform efforts; the global body's humanitarian mission in Iraq during the late 1990s; the futile attempts of the Group of Eight (G8) and G20 to alleviate global poverty and promote international development and the pretentious grandstanding of the World Economic Forum. The 10th and final section of the book addresses the Anglo-Saxon world of America and Britain, countries in which I have spent a total of 21 years. Issues of unilateral imperialism, hubristic hypocrisy, delusions of grandeur and dyed-in-the-wool racism are analysed in the politics of both countries, highlighting the role of figures such as Trump, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Boris Johnson, and Rhodes (in a response to South African academic Max Price). This book thus provides — in a comprehensive but concise and highly readable volume — a panoramic view of the Black Atlantic in Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe. Professor Adekeye Adebajo is a senior research fellow at the University of Pretoria's Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship.
