The shale gas debate rages on across Europe, Asia, and North America, but one ponders how the already resource rich Southern Africa fits into this equation. What is there, what is the potential and what could it mean from an economic and geopolitical standpoint? One country already known to possess great potential that can be […]
Last year I blogged about some phenomenal young people from the African continent doing extraordinary things. This years search was somewhat different. Young People in International Affairs (YPIA) based in South Africa put out a worldwide call for nominations earlier in 2013 to find the top 35 foreigners under 35-years-old making an impact on […]
[Jalopnik/Gawker] So this is kind of cool. Apparently Formula One legend James Hunt, who is the central character in the new Ron Howard movie Rush, was also an ardent and vocal opponent of the Apartheid regime. Of course this seems to go unmentioned in the movie (Yes, I know — expecting substantial political subtext in […]
Today’s evidence that people are the absolute worst: Poachers in Zimbabwe have killed more than eighty elephants by putting cyanide in one of their watering holes. UPDATED: Authorities have caught and convicted the perpetrators, who have received fifteen-year prison sentences.
[Hashim Amla. From Africa is a Country.] A few months ago Niren Tolsi had a fantastic piece in The Con that he later allowed to be republished in Africa is a Country (which added useful links within the piece) about South African cricketer Hashim Amla. Tolsi explores race and identity through the intriguing figure of […]
[Robert Mugabe in his Default Setting. ©The Guardian] And in the least surprising news ever, Robert Mugabe proves not to be gracious in victory. He has announced his new government, and the opposition MDC, which has been part of an uncomfortable coalition for the last five years, finds itself on the outside looking in. Mugabe completely […]
The people of the Central African Republic (CAR) may be left to fend for themselves. Despite the increasingly dire humanitarian crisis emerging in the country, conflict in other countries may overshadow the situation so much that the country will be left to its fate. Scores of people were killed on September 9 amidst new clashes […]
Ethiopia’s signing last month of a $800 million broadband network with Chinese telecoms giant ZTE has some pundits again focusing on Chinese economic espionage in Africa. The agreement calls for the establishment of a 4G broadband network in the capital Addis Ababa and a 3G network throughout the rest of the country. The project should […]
Seven spots are up for grabs this weekend in the penultimate phase of African qualifying for next year’s World Cup in Brazil. Ten teams will fight for five remaining spots in knockout playoffs next month. Jonathan Wilson of the Guardian provides a good overview of the state of play, which includes a number of squads […]
If you are reading this in the United States, Happy Labor Day! For the rest of the world, Happy Monday! (And n.b. Labor Day is a holiday in which we celebrate those who toil by not toiling.) In recent weeks I took a bit of a late-summer hiatus from blogging, but I plan to be […]
A new website, Africa Check, has emerged to provide the valuable service of fact checking (and oftentimes debunking) claims from public figures and journalists. From the website: For democracy to function, public figures need to be held to account for what they say. The claims they make need to be checked, openly and impartially. Africa […]
This past weekend South Africa’s Sunday Independent published a lengthy (by op-ed standards) piece of mine on the Zim elections, which are taking place today. It continues one of my prevailing themes in the last few weeks, and indeed represents an attempt to synthesize my last month’s writing on Zim here at the FPA and […]
Zimbabweans will go to the polls on Wednesday to participate in an election that will be closely monitored by hundreds of foreign observers, mostly from around Africa. One country that will be watching despite Western observer missions not being invited is the United States of America. Relations between Washington and Harare are definitely nowhere near the […]
Editor’s Note: Ralph Black is a Zimbabwean political refugee and the U.S. Representative for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC-T. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is the largest political party in the House of Assembly of Zimbabwe. _______________________________________________________________ by Ralph Black Zimbabwe is important to U.S. strategic interests from political, security and economic […]
In ten days Zimbabweans will go to the polls. This much we know. And it is just about all we know. There are glimmers of hope for the opposition. Some are reading murky tea leaves, coming to the conclusion that Morgan Tsvangirai and his wing of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC, or, as some […]