Top stories: news and views from around the world

Commonwealth Watch: Move to close vital studies unit infuriates academics around the world
Professor Philip Murphy, respected academic and Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (Picture: Trevor Grundy) COMMONWEALTH WATCH By Trevor Grundy Academics from around the world are… Read more >

Malcolm X had dealings with the Ku Klux Klan but Julius Nyerere said “no” to a black state in USA
Malcolm X started life as a small-time crook who hated whites but a visit to Mecca changed his views about race By Trevor Grundy The Black Lives Matter… Read more >

JIM SINCLAIR 1938-2020: Courageous farmer who lived through good and bad times in Zimbabwe
Prime Minister Robert Mugabe presenting Jim Sinclair, President of the CFU, with the coveted 1981 Communicator of the Year Award (Picture by Alexander Joe) By Mike Rook and… Read more >

Covid-19 inspires Zimbabwean photographer to think-up a new way of staging exhibitions
Zimbabwe’s Alexander Joe by Trevor Grundy When Alexander Joe retired after working in Africa for over thirty years, he went to Madagascar with his wife and told friends that… Read more >

Patsy Robertson (1933-2020) Tributes paid to one of the Commonwealth’s greatest communicators
Patsy Robertson at a Commonweakth meeting in London in 2007 (Picture: Trevor Grundy) By Trevor Grundy Patsy Robertson, the former Jamaican journalist who went on to become the official… Read more >

Britain should apologise to Zimbabwe’s ‘little people’ for sucking-up to a mass slaughterer in 1986
“But he was not there. He does not know what happened. He (Benito Mussolini after his invasion of Greece) does not know that the ultimate truth is that history ought… Read more >

Fascism: Where it came from and the tacit support it received from prominent figures
Failed Fuhrers – A History of Britain’s Extreme Right by Graham Macklin (Routledge and New York -www.routledge.com) US$ 26.00. pp. 580. “Some day, in the not too distant… Read more >

Mr Clean’s decade as Tanzania’s head of state was marred by mismanagement and corruption
Ben Mkapa (pictured) dismantled Nyerere’s Ujamaa and replaced it with a free market set-up riddled with home-grown nepotism and corruption By Trevor Grundy Benjamin Mkapa, the journalist who… Read more >

Ndabaningi Sithole’s place in African history is assured whether Zanu(PF) likes it or not
Ndabaningo Sithole with Herbert Chitepo who was assassinated in Lusaka in March 1975. (Picture: Trevor Grundy Archives) By Trevor Grundy July 21 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth… Read more >

Covid-19: Leading British philosopher wonders if mankind is descending into a state of collective derangement
TREVOR GRUNDY says that a review by the British philosopher John Gray of a two-year old book by an American historian is worth reading because of the fresh… Read more >