Articles by James North

Source: The Nation

Killing reporters here is only one element in a campaign of state terror.

Xalapa, Mexico—This pleasant colonial city in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental mountains, the capital of Veracruz state, is deceptively calm. Despite the surface normality, Veracruz may be the most dangerous place in the world to be a journalist. In the past seven years, a total of 25 reporters have been murdered, and another four have disappeared, according to the journalists I’ve talked to here. (One more reporter has just been murdered in Veracruz state, on March 21. Leobardo Vázquez, who ran a news website, had apparently gotten threats from local officials.) By contrast, in the entire United States, over the past 16 years only one journalist has been murdered for doing his job. read more

Source: The Nation

Britain left behind two evil legacies when Zimbabwe gained independence: the harsh lesson that violence works, and a grotesquely unequal distribution of farmland.

The life of Robert Mugabe is a human tragedy, but his awful failure is not all of his own doing. Mugabe could have been another Nelson Mandela—the renowned father of his nation, and a moral exemplar. Instead, he is finally being pushed from power in disgrace, years after a clear majority of Zimbabweans turned decisively against his violent tyranny. read more

Source: The Nation

Fungurume—The 73 million human beings who live here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to struggle through one of the greatest humanitarian disasters on the planet since the end of the Second World War. By one estimate, more than 5 million people have died since the Second Congo War broke out in 1998. Fighting has just started up again in eastern Congo; hundreds are already dead, and there may already be more than 200,000 refugees, adding to the 2 million Congolese already displaced by war. Doctors Without Borders has just warned that the renewed violence is blocking efforts to control an outbreak of cholera. read more