The principles behind affirmative action are pretty basic: Certain people have been kept from enjoying the bounties of society and as a result we need to have policies to provide redress for those inequities. But of course in order to provide that redress certain people are going to feel as if they are going to […]
Football is the world’s favorite sport. Nowhere is it held in higher esteem than Africa. The Mail & Guardian has a fantastic photo slideshow inspired at least in part by South Africa hosting the World Cup. Photographers traveled across to capture the continent’s love of the game. Here is the Mail & Guardian’s introduction to […]
To borrow from William Butler Yeats’s poem, things fall apart; the centre cannot hold, this time in the Ivory Coast despite the recent election designed to reunify the country. A standoff between the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and the opposition leader Alassane Quattara is sliding the country back into another civil war. Stubbornly both men […]
Things are not good as the Ivory Coast post-election standoff continues. Both incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and opposition leader Alassane Ouattara have claimed victory after the 28 November poll but virtually every legitimate outside observer recognizes Ouattara as the legitimate winner. Hundreds have fled as food security and shortages of basic goods are becoming a legitimate […]
It might be one of the most dramatic changes in Africa in the last decade or so, and it’s crept in so quickly that it is hard to identify when it all happened. Go to Gabarone or Lusaka or Windhoek and you see a new construction project. Look closely. The odds are pretty good that […]
At the international stage, the Southern African country of Namibia is known as the rare success story of the UN. Lost in this UN Namibian success narrative is the story of people detained by the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), the current ruling party and one-time national liberation movement in Namibia, during the war […]
Well, this does not qualify as good news: Kenya is likely to witness worsening food security, significant disease outbreaks, and further pockets of conflict in 2011, as well as a continuing flow of refugees from Somalia, say aid officials. Of course 2011 will help provide the context for Kenya’s scheduled 2012 elections, which will be […]
Zimbabwe features among the confidential documents released online by WikiLeaks, a whistle blower website, on Sunday. In a 2007 confidential diplomatic cable on Zimbabwe, the then-outgoing American ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, penned about the US policy on Zimbabwe as follows: “Having said my piece repeatedly over the last three years, I won’t offer a […]
My apologies for the unexpected little break. Between the end of the turn and the American Thanksgiving holiday and family being in town things got a little hectic. Expect things to pick up here soon. Texas in Africa has a great post about the solipsism of some self-professed advocates as World AIDS Day approaches. When […]
The Global Fund’s Office of the Inspector General has found that Cameroon, Mauritania, Mali, and Zambia misappropriated about US$25 million in grants meant for fighting AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on the continent. No surprise there! In response Sweden is reported to withholding its pledge to the Global Fund. While Sweden (which has contributed US$85 million […]
Before you go off to your weekend shenanigans here is a blast of news stories from Africa that has been accumulating on my desktop, as always, with commentary as apt: After the see-saw of the last few days Guinea is once again calm. For now. Please don’t buy into the simplistic narrative that this is […]
The incident came as Germany was already on high security alert in response to intelligence tips that the country may be the target for terror attacks in the near future. Thanks to the Namibia police, it seems that the Namibian airport security system is working because they detected the bag before the departure of the […]
Namibians and the world today woke up to media reports and news that suspicious baggage, with a detonator and a ticking clock destined to be loaded on a German-bound plane was intercepted Wednesday at the Hosea Kutako International airport in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital city. This is still a developing story, but I can’t fathom the thought […]
After a brief calm in which it looked as if modest post-election violence might abate Guinea has experienced the storm. Opposition leader Alpha Conde has been declared the winner. Resultant violence has led to the imposition of a state of emergency. Now the key is stanching the violence. What is done is done. And a […]
Zambian police arrested and charged Emmanuel Mwamba, former Zambian president Fredrick Chiluba’s Public Relations aide, for allegedly authoring and publishing contemptuous articles on the online publication Zambia Watchdog. More: http://www.africanews.com/site/Expresident_Chilubas_aide_arrested/list_messages/36106Ex-president. Also see: http://www.zambianwatchdog.com/2010/11/17/police-to-arrest-emmanuel-mwamba-today/ Charles Andrianasoavina, a colonel with the Madagascan military, announced on Wednesday that he and a group of dissident top-ranking officers have taken […]