The reach of citizenship: Locating the politics of industrial air pollution in Durban and beyond

This paper develops a relational understanding of the geographies of citizenship action, using the example of environmental activism in Durban as an empirical reference point. We argue that citizenship involves an interactive dynamic shaped by different actors' capacities to project authority and influence over distance by enacting different modalities of spatial reach. Post-apartheid environmental politics illustrates how the relationship between the subjects of environmental rights and agents of obligation is both de-territorialised and re-territorialised by the activities of environmental activists. We examine the politics of attributing responsibility for urban industrial pollution in Durban, and identify two modalities of spatial reach through which environmental rights have been given weight. We conclude by emphasising that forms of transnational activism, while indicative in some respects of emergent styles of cosmopolitan citizenship, remain oriented by the goals of realizing national citizenship rights

Saviours and survivors: Darfur, politics, and the war on terror

From the author of the acclaimed Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, this is the first analysis of the crisis in Darfur to consider the events of the last few years within the context of Sudan's history, and to critically examine the efficacy of the world's response to the crisis. Illuminating the deeply rooted causes of the current conflict, Mahmood Mamdani explains how British colonialism tribalised Darfur, dividing its population into so-called 'native' and 'settler' tribes, and creating homelands for the former at the expense of the latter. A severe drought triggered a civil war between these groupings in 1987-89, and the conflict reignited in the 1990s when the government tried unsuccessfully to tackle the issue of land allocation. The effects of the Cold War in exacerbating the 40-year civil war in Chad, and how this impacted on Darfur, are analysed. In 2003, the rise of two rebel movements led to a brutal insurgency and counter-insurgency campaign. By then, the conflict involved national, regional and global forces, including a powerful western lobby dressed up as 'humanitarian intervention' and calling for military involvement in Darfur. Incisive and authoritative, Saviours and Survivors radically alters our understanding of the crisis in Darfur and inspires readers to look beneath the media hype that often accompanies reporting on Africa. Mamdani cautions against drawing simple caricatures of conflict in Africa and encourages us to look more deeply into the causes of conflict in order to be able to address it effectively.

The limits of media democratization in South Africa: politics, privatization, and regulation

This paper critically examines the processes that have limited the development of a democratic media system in post-apartheid South Africa. After a brief overview of the formation of the Independent Broadcasting Authority, the evolution of the ANC’s economic policies and approach to privatization is discussed. This provides the context in which the transformation of the broadcasting system since 1994 Africa can be understood. The privatization of radio stations in 1996 indicates the political tensions that shape media reform. It is argued that the progress of democratic broadcasting reform is increasingly being dictated by the state’s programme for restructuring the telecommunications sector. In conclusion, it is suggested that the post-1994 period has witnessed a diminution in the influence of independent civil society organizations over media policies, consequent upon an increasingly centralized and bureaucratic emphasis in policy formulation and implementation

The Domestic Robot -- A Friendly Cognitive System Takes Care Of Your Home

The system we describe in this paper is an indoor intelligent system, that is still under development. Our goal is to evolve the system with abilities suitable for a domestic robot, that has to cope with a continuously evolving ambient, the house. The interest of the system relies in its architecture that has been studied and designed for the purpose of integrating some specific cognitive behavior like perception, symbolic map construction and making decisions in a whole hierarchy of intercommunicating levels