Your own words can came back to haunt you. So learned South Africa’s Julius Malema, the controversial African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leader expelled from the ANC for sowing disunity and bringing the ANC into disrepute last Wednesday. In what sounds like a sign …
So, you’re Abdoulaye Wade, the President of Senegal, a country that many can point to and say “there is a reasonably stable African state.” But like so many of the continent’s leaders you decide that you and the country’s success are inextricably bound. Your second (and constitutionally-mandated last) term is …
[Map of Somalia -- EthanZuckermann.com]
Leaders from across the globe are gathering today with various leaders in Somalian civic society at the London Conference on Somalia. The goal of the conference is to develop a new international approach to Somalia that nonetheless keeps Somalians in the center …
The simmering ethnic tensions between those who prefer a non-Oshiwambo speaking person to become the next president of Namibia after president Pohamba’s term expires in 2013, and those who view such a call as tribalism and against the country’s slogan of “One Namibia-one nation,” has reached another boiling point. The …
In the debate over whether or not the World Cup was, on the whole, good for South Africa, it appears that those arguing in the affirmative have a little more evidence for their case. because when it comes to infrastructural development it appears that the government …
It’s been nearly a week and I still have not quite absorbed Zambia’s epic shootout victory over Côte d’Ivoire in the African Cup of Nations final in Libreville last Sunday.
First there is the way that Zambia won, which is to say, the game itself. Perhaps for many people …
Here are a few stories that have caught my eye of late, with brief commentary as apt:
In an interesting (but probably passing) change of direction, China is putting pressure on Sudan “to seek urgently the release of 29 Chinese workers held by rebels in the border state of …
As policymakers, international affairs experts and enthusiasts, we talk a lot here about Africa. But now, those on the African continent are increasingly using tools to make themselves part of the #conversation.
This week, a first-of-its-kind study, “How Africa Tweets” was published by Portland …
Jonathan Wilson might be the greatest football writer working today. If nothing else, he’s in the conversation. So it was with great interest that I read his recent lengthy post for the Guardian Sports Blog on the state of football in Africa. The title of the post poses …
Call it the O-effect. Passing with flying colors, seventy-two South African girls from disadvantaged backgrounds graduated from the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls (the academy’s first graduates) in South Africa this past Saturday. True to the old adage that to educate a woman is to educate a nation, …
If reports coming out of South Sudan are true the United Nations may be facing its biggest embarrassment since its missteps in the Democratic of Congo. The New York Times reports that UN Peacekeepers stood by idly while Nuer tribesman massacred fleeing …
When I look back to the ended year, I think of so many unexpected turn of events, civilizations ruined, great people we lost as well as so many remarkable achievements in global peace, freedom, and justice movements. Some of these developments are easy to forget and some are cherished already. …
Happy New Year, everyone. Before you look forward to 2012 it’s time to look back at South Africa’s 2011.
1. Summary of 2011
There were three issues that defined 2011 in South Africa.
1) By far the most significant of these was the controversy over the Protection of State Information Bill. For many …
The year 2011 for Southern Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa in general, will probably be remembered for what did not happen in the light of the people-powered uprising and protests that swept across the globe.
In the Arab world, in particular North Africa, what is being …
Here are a few stories that I’ve been thinking about in recent days:
A new report from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), Africa and the Arab Spring: A New Era of Democratic Expectations, the first volume of the Africa Center’s new Special …
