The ICC Cricket World Cup is now underway on the Indian sub-continent. Cricket’s quadrennial showcase will almost certainly reveal the standard haves-versus-have nots division in world cricket, which, while arguably the world’s second most popular sport, does not go especially deep in terms of world-class teams. There are likely nine sides that see themselves as […]
We’ve been continuing to struggle with shenanigans here at the FPA Blogs but hopefully all has been set right. Recently Britain’s National Archives has put on its web page “Africa Through a Lens,” “a set of thousands of images taken from a broader photographic collection of Foreign and Commonwealth Office images.” The collection provides a […]
Stable Dictatorship! What is it? The fear that the chaos engulfing Egypt may provide opportunity to anti-American radical Islamic militants to seize power is prompting some Western pundits, journalists, and the Mubarak regime to frame the solution to Egypt’s current crisis as a choice between “chaotic democracy” or “stable dictatorship.” This discourse is also prevalent […]
In this Sunday’s New York Times Book Review J. M. Ledgard, the Africa correspondent for The Economist, assesses three new books on Nelson Mandela.
Well, it looks like we may be doing our jobs a bit too well here at the Foreign Policy Association Blogs network. All indications are that our recent disappearance from the web was the result of focused malfeasance that is largely the result of the coverage we have been giving to a host of events […]
The Egypt story is vitally important and has deserved its place at the top of the headlines over the last couple of weeks and Africans are following the events as closely as anyone. But it also runs the risk of sucking all of the oxygen out of the room, especially when there are lots of […]
I guess nothing here should come as a shock, but the AU’s credibility and relevancy took another nose dive when the organization elected President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea as the new chairman at the January 30 annual summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Nguema Mbasogo was nominated by the Central African region, and […]
Have the protesters overplayed their hand in Egypt? I cannot help wonder about this — and my question is not based on any sort of value judgment whatsoever. But consider the basic chain of events: Protests grow. The military does not really respond in crushing the opposition, which continues to grow. Hosni Mubarek announces he […]
According to The Washington Post: Central African Republic’s electoral commission says the nation’s strongman easily won last month’s vote. The commission said Tuesday that President Francois Bozize took 66 percent of the vote. But opposition candidates said the Jan. 23 poll was riddled with irregularities and intimidation and that they will appeal to overturn the […]
It’s the pundit’s dilemma: make bold predictions and you could end up looking like a fool, don’t make bold predictions and you run the risk of appearing tepid. Events in Egypt have brought forth a lot of predictions, many of them wrong, but keep in mind that most predictions end up being wrong, especially if […]
Probably to my discredit I have not had much to say about events in Tunisia and Egypt. Part of the reason for this is that my own work, with scant exceptions, involves sub-Saharan Africa and in part because with things happening so quickly I wanted to have something worth saying. With regard to Tunisia I […]
My South African sources tell me that former South African President Nelson Mandela, the anti-apartheid icon, was discharged from the hospital Friday morning after “undergoing what is being described as a “routine checkup” which stretched into a second day. Mandela’s hospitalization prompted fear at home and abroad that the his health may be failing. Good […]
I find it peculiar that George Clooney is getting credit for “his satellite project” revealing that there are troops lined up in the Abyei border area. Now, I normally think Andrew Meldrum does good work. But this paragraph in his Global Post piece is, to me, telling: An estimated 55,000 Sudan army troops have been […]
David Kato, one of the gay men whose picture appeared on the front cover of the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone, an anti-gay newspaper, was brutally beaten to death with a harmer in his home in Kampala late Wednesday, 26 January 2011. The Associate Press is reporting that a suspect is in custody, and that the […]
Nelson Mandela has spent the last couple of days in Johannesburg’s Milpark hospital recovering from a collapsed lung. South Africans and many of the rest of us anxiously await confirmation of reports that Madiba will be fine could be released as early as tomorrow.