When I read that Robert Mugabe had begun to appoint provincial governors and other political appointees I chalked it up as business as usual for Mugabe. With negotiations still ongoing, and at something of an impasse, he simply decided to establish facts on the ground and thus to act as if those facts reflect ongoing […]
The rather tepid performances of South Africa's Olympians appears to have sent the country's sporting fandom and chattering classes into another of its periodic crises of confidence (with finger pointing!). South Africa's fans and media are the stage parents of the sporting world. They build excessively high expectations for their teams, and then they […]
Amos Wako, Kenya's Attorney-General, has told the country's Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence that politicians who fomented violence should not be let off the hook. He believes that politicians who encouraged violence should not be allowed to serve in office, nor should they be granted amnesty for their deeds. Wako's words are encouraging inasmuch […]
The world is getting better, in some ways slowly, in other ways fast. What I mean by ‘better’ is a more safe and prosperous life for the average world citizen. But the world is also a very challenging place, and ripe with conflict, even in our ‘postmodern’ liberal-democracy-led 21st century. Two cases stemming from Afghanistan, […]
South African History Online has a feature on the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the United Democratic Front (UDF). With the African National Congress, Pan-Africanist Congress, and other organizations banned the UDF filled an essential void and fueled the anti-Apartheid opposition in the tumultuous 1980s. Largely locally focused, the UDF confronted apartheid as much […]
The latest edition of Private Eye, the finest satirical/investigative journal in the English language, is all about Russia & Georgia, with an Olympic flavour: Let's have a look, shall we? And the party-political angle:
WASHINGTON ‚ Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to the United Nations, is facing angry questions from other senior Bush administration officials over what they describe as unauthorized contacts with Asif Ali Zardari, a contender to succeed Pervez Musharraf as president of Pakistan. Mr. Khalilzad had spoken by telephone with Mr. Zardari, the leader of the […]
All countries that have had high rates of fertility and, therefore, high rates of population growth now have very young populations. Pakistan along with almost all countries of the Muslim world falls into this category. For several decades the rates of fertility ‚ the number of children born per woman in the reproductive age ‚ […]
Bill Keller recently reviewed John Carlin's Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation in The New York Times. Keller's review is glowing. I worry a bit that the book will be somewhat deterministic. The 1995 World Cup marked a nice moment for South Africa, and a profoundly powerful symbolic one […]
This past weekend's New York Times travel section had a cover feature on Namibia that provides pretty sound evidence for why that country is one of my very favorites.
It was obvious from the start that PML (N) and PPP are not going to get along forever, but the alliance didn't even last for 8 months and today Nawaz Sharif announced that his party is leaving the ruling coalition. In reality, both parties have very different views on almost every issue, but the breaking point […]
Pakistan People Party has nominated Asif Ali Zardari to be the next President of Pakistan. As of today, it seems likely that Asif Zardari is going to be the next President of Pakistan. It is also obvious that the Pakistan People Party and its allies (excluding Pakistan Muslim League (N)) have the necessary majority to […]
The Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) is not only largely irrelevant in South African political life, it is an anachronism. Borne of the apartheid era, Mangosuthu Buthelezi's movement (which always was, as much as anything, a tribute to the glories of Mangosuthu Buthelezi) represented an ethnically driven party committed to Zulu nationalism that did not come […]
Now that the bloodshed has stopped in the Caucasus, constructing a new policy approach for the West is imperative. Western, Georgian and Russian sources all agree on the following: Russian forces have largely, but not completely, left Georgia proper. They remain in Georgia in what has been called a "new administrative border" buffering South Ossetia […]
The Mexican State has failed, again, in providing security for its citizens. The years of tranquility experienced during the economic recovery of the late 1990s, suggest that, indeed, better economic conditions, and not the government's anti-crime initiatives, reduced crime in the country. Now that economic conditions are not as promising, Mexican society is living in […]