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 …
Five weeks of pretty much nonstop travel has taken its toll on, among other things, my posting and editing here at the Africa blogs. Redemption starts now! I was interviewed the other day by a reporter for The Christian Post on recent events in Egypt and …
The Mo Ibrahim Foundation has just released its 2011 Index of African Governance. I’d encourage you to follow the link and download to your heart’s content. For most of you the Summary will be more than sufficient. On the whole Ibrahim himself argues, “The …
At The New York Times Magazine, Nate Silver decided to try to apply his analytical chops to the question of “where to get the world’s best service.” He basically links standard tipping rates with survey responses about the customer service people received in 24 …
Lots of stories have been cavorting around my head, with commentary as I see fit:
The disaster in the Horn of Africa represents what the Mail & Guardian calls “a crisis in slow motion.” The perfect storm of famine and the …
The Obama Administration’s refusal to condition Egypt’s military aid on political and human rights reform is congruent with Bush Administration’s policy. It is a good move, aimed at maintaining the strategic relationship.
In interviews in Egypt, Hillary Clinton and Robert Gates have both gone on record as …
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in Egypt today in the first stop on a week-long tour of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I suspect that Gates will make some unannounced stops in the region (to Iraq, perhaps), but I can’t verify that.
Gates set out three goals for …
It’s no surprise that the residents of Egypt’s Manshiyat Nasser (also known as “Garbage City), the vast majority of whom are poor Copts who make a living in part by raising swine (as well as sorting and selling garbage), did not take well to the Egyptian government’s …
Here is a translation I did of a March 2009 article by Salaama Ahmed Salaama (of Al-Ahram fame, now at Al-Shorouk) about recent US policy in the Middle East and America’s relationship with the Israel lobby. It’s no surprise here that despite Salaama’s comfortable relationship with the Egyptian government, he …
Check out Matthew, Nathan’s, and my interview on Egypt with the FPA here. You can also check out the FPA Great Decisions video, “From Pharaos to Facebook: Egypt Today” here.
“Opportunity in crisis” isn’t so much rhetoric in the first days of the Obama Administration. The financial meltdown that began in Wall Street and spread to America’s working class has knocked top-ranked financiers out of a comfortable context where risk was appropriately and indefinitely hedged. Most of middle class America …
The Associated Press has all but declared today’s much anticipated April 6 Youth Movement general strike a failure.
The movement had been hoping to stage numerous protests and demonstrations in the wake of last year’s April 6 strike, which led to the death of three Egyptians, the wounding …
A recent story in the independent newspaper Al-Masri Al-Youm has the American University in Cairo up in arms after it insinuated that AUC was providing the US Department of Defense with “information about Egypt,” i.e. “spying,” through the US Naval Medical Research Unit (NAMRU – 3) program.
From …
The independent Egyptian newspaper Al-Dustor is reporting that Egyptian supermarket Al-Kubri has been selling, accidentally of course, boxes of sweets with Stars of David and Menorahs printed on them for Al-Mawlid Al-Nabawi (The Birth of the Prophet), which is today. The supermarket claims it has no idea …
Egypt has unsurprisingly rejected a recent Department of State report criticizing the country’s deteriorating human rights record. The report can be found on the DOS website here. An article on the report in the popular independent paper Al-Masri Al-Youm relates that:
…in …
