Greetings from the University of Keele in the North Midlands of England. I will be spending the next month here as a visiting fellow at the David Bruce Cetre for American Studies. I am still very much settling in. It is, however, always nice to be back in the UK. I find that the UK is a good deal more atuned to African affairs than the United States is. This largely has to do with Britain’s involvement in the colonial era, to be sure, but as a general rule, British media, for example has far better coverage of African affairs than does its American counterpart.
Two quick links with only brief commentary:
South Africa’s Jacob Zuma seems set to take a harder stand on Zimbabwe and especially Robert Mugabe than did Thabo Mbeki. What this means is uncertain, of course, especially given the unity government in Zimbabwe and prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s quite clear exhortations to the rest of the world to slacken its tough stances on Zimbabwe.
Meanwhile, observers worry that Sudan’s elections, scheduled for next year, are unlikely to be free, fair, or peaceful. This should come as a shock to absolutely no one, including even Khartoum’s apologists.