A hideous story from the troubled border of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. I’ll quote a few passages. Saudi policemen burned 18 Yemenis while they were trying to cross into Khamis Bani Mushait, a Saudi village bordering Yemen. Alsahwa opposition newspaper reported on Saturday that the police poured diesel onto the men, who were hiding in […]
In this Sunday's travel section The Washington Post published an “African Safari Special” (follow the links for safaris in individual countries). It is easy to reduce Africa, as so many tourists do, simply to the chance to see animals at game reserves. nonetheless, safaris also represent a significant tourist lure to the continent.
Is there reason for optimism that Robert Mugabe is on his way out in Zimbabwe? J. Stephen Morrison and Mark Bellamy, writing at CSIS Africa Policy Forum, seem to think so. Their argument is apparently predicated on the recent escalations of military violence against civilians representing the last throes of a desperate regime rather than […]
Freedom House has released its annual survey (and accompanying “critical tools”) on press freedom around the globe. For the sixth straight year press freedom has deteriorated worldwide with Africa among the worst regions. In Sub-Saharan Africa the Freedom House tallies indicate that 23 countries rate as “not free, ” with Eritrea as the worst (and […]
We have discussed Turkmenistan's ‘opening up’ diplomatically from their isolationist and totalitarian Niyazov era on a few occasions. The nation's participation in the latest NATO Summit, EU Troika, and their warming of relations with Turkey, for instance. I am pleased to report that this ‘opening up’ seems to have some legs: 1. Current President Berdymuhamedov […]
Zimbabwe's state-run (Mugabe Tested, Mugabe Approved!) newspaper The Herald reports that the recount in 23 contested constituencies is nearly complete and that the four leading candidates (or their seconds) will be invited to witness the announcement and see the data. Let us assume that The Herald is playing it straight, which is not something we can […]
[Beijing's Bird's Nest, under construction in preparation for the 08 Olympic Games] . . . while we undergo some (re)construction. Please stay tuned!
Since the new year, there has been a serious rise in attacks against non-slavic immigrants in Russia, mainly in the city of Moscow. Human rights groups accuse nationalist extremists, with neo-Nazi sympathies, of murdering between 41-53 immigrants, most of which are from Central Asia or the Caucacus. These types of attacks have occurred in recent […]
Zimbabwe is not the only African country in which journalists are under siege. Any place where the politics are constriced by authoritarianism or merely by the encroachments of paranoid leadership the members of the media run the risk of being jailed. Just the latest example comes from Uganda, where three journalists (including the editor) from the magazine […]
Michael Isikoff, who is really one of the best reporters out there, has a brief article on what is happening in Yemen now. The meat of it is Robert Mueller's recent visit, about which Isikoff says “did not go well, according to two sources who were briefed on the session but asked not to be […]
Mauritania is a poor country that produces only 30% of its own food. Meanwhile the global cost of food is skyrocketing. Naturally the result is food scarcity and the impoverished, as they always do, suffer disproportionately. And Mauritania is not alone. Much of Africa is feeling the squeeze of this global crisis of food underproduction coupled with […]
At The Mail & Guardian last week longtime observer of South African politics Mark Gevisser, author of Thabo Mbeki: The Dream Deferred, compares Thabo Mbeki to Barack Obama and wishes that the former would learn from the latter. My only caveat: Beware analogies drawn too closely, as context matters.
At The Mail & Guardian Adriann Basson uses the racist response ( “Daai boy is so goed, hulle kan hom nou maar wit verklaar” [“That black boy is so good, they can certify him white now]”) of a fellow Afrikaner to a Bryan Habana try to explore race, and racism, in South Africa. I’m always […]
A number of civil society groups concerned with Zimbabwe's welfare and operating under the banner of the Institute for a Democratic Alternative in Zimbabwe have slammed the Southern African Development Community and Thabo Mbeki for their lack of resolve on the Zimbabwe question. In a damning quotation Wellington Chibebe of the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade […]