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 the prospect of a 0-0 game […]
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 South Kordofan.” China traditionally sees national […]
Last week as I was scanning the paper, I came across the tragic news coming out of Ethiopia, a country I deeply indebted to. In the Afar region, gunmen have killed five foreign tourists for unknown reasons. The Ethiopian government’s quick and inaccurate placement of blame is cause for concern. It is, of course, bad […]
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 Communications and Tweetminster which examined more than 11.5 million geo-located tweets […]
The Economist had a piece on South Africa in the latest issue that unintentionally contradicted itself. I usually try not to let others do my work for me, but these two paragraphs warrant regurgitating in full: The ANC has marked up some notable achievements. It enshrined civil and social rights in the constitution. It abolished […]
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 the question: “Is African Football Progressing?” His […]
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, the queen of talk shows Oprah […]
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 Murles. Unconfirmed reports suggest that over a thousand men, women and children were […]
The scenes coming out of Jonglei state of South Sudan are troubling. According to United Nations sources, more than 3,000 people have died and more than 60,000 have fled their home in the two week long ethnic clashes between Murle and Nuer tribes. The scope and the magnitude of such clashes make them unique in […]
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. In North Africa protesters overthrew […]
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 years the […]
Ethiopia and Eritrea raely have things in common but this week they now rank 1 and 2 as Africa’s worst jailers of journalists. In a move that many observers have called politically motivated an Ethiopian Court has handed down an 11-year sentence to two free-lance Swedish journalists, Johann Personn (left, below) and Martin Schibbye, who […]
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 now referred to as the Arab Spring made 2011 a […]
And you thought your biggest social media worry was being defriended. Last week, the New York Times published an interesting piece on the use of social media by terrorist groups. They focused on a recent Twitter battle instigated by the Somalia-based, loosely al-Qaeda linked, al-Shabab. Their target…African Union peacekeeping forces and the Kenyan army. The […]
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 Report series, uses the Arab Spring as a lens through which […]