The breakaway faction of the African National Congress will not succumb to name calling or fear as it prepares for the final steps that will lead to the establishment of a new party in South African politics. The leaders of the dissidents along with their supporters will meet this weekend in what will likely result […]
The nearly ubiquitous thrum of chaos continues apace in the eastern parts of the Congo where virtual chaos lends a de facto stateless air to daily life. United Nations peacekeepers have been unable to halt the advance of rebels in that part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Conflicts between the rebels and government forces […]
A summit of sub-Saharan African leaders who met in Harare on Monday could not break the impasse in that country's political negotiations. If not exactly an example of quiet diplomacy, the summit did not either take the form of carrying a big stick with which to prod President Robert Mugabe to concede on some of […]
It appears that South Africa's parliament is set to dissolve the Scorpions, the high-profile independent police organization that has been the source of so much controversy since its inception. The Scorpions have been behind many of the investigations into Jacob Zuma's various alleged indiscretions, so the timing of the decision should come as a surprise […]
The release of the Waki Report in Kenya, which laid responsibility for post-election violence at the end of last year on a host of individuals and institutions, including the police, is fueling serious recriminations and resistance from some of the country's police agencies. Time and again in Africa it has been shown that police and […]
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that economic growth will slow and will be outpaced by inflation over the next year. There have been some tentative signs of political stabilization across the continent. Let's hope that economic instability does not fuel its political counterpart.
This is a telling quotation from (this string of citations is long) an op-ed from the Egyptian paper Al-Ahram via a translation in the United Arab Emirates paper The National via the blog Negev Rock City via Andrew Sullivan: "Marrying a pirate is every Somali girl's dream. He has power, money, immunity, the weapons to defend the tribe […]
At The Mail & Guardian Ferial Haffajee pulls no punches in condemning “the infantilization of politics” in South Africa. A taste: If there's one thing driving me into the arms of the ANC –Mark2, it's Youth League president Julius Malema and his ilk. And I’m not alone. As he announced UDI last week, former ANC […]
Is it me, or are Jacob Zuma's warnings to ANC dissidents planning their own party both vaguely ominous and toothless? They strike me as ominous because of their threatening nature that will almost certainly stifle not only true threats to the party from within, but also legitimate dissent on important issues. Party discipline is one […]
In what should surprise no one, the global credit crisis is trickling down to Africa. The theory of supply-side economics, popularized though not invented during the American presidency of Ronald Reagan, holds that prosperity at the top ends of the economy has a trickle-down effect that benefits everyone. In effect, supply side economics formalizes the […]
From The Times of London: Negotiations to save Zimbabwe's power-sharing deal descended into farce yesterday when the party of the Prime Minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai boycotted a regional summit aimed at saving last month's "historic" deal after its leader was denied a passport. “Farce” is just about the perfect word. It boggles the imagination.
Even those of us who follow Zimbabwe cannot really fathom the nature of the country's hyperinflation, which makes money worthless even as the government simply prints more money with higher denomination notes. This report from IRIN tries to make sense of a day in the life of Zimbabweans dealing with the country's worthless currency.
The sun will rise. The sun will set. South African rugby will be fraught with controversy. Some assertions are truisms. The latest kerfuffle over the transformation of South African rugby is a revival of the question of whether to remove the Springbok as the national program's emblem. For its critics, the Springbok is a symbol […]
It would have seemed absurd to have suggested as much nine months ago, but could Kenya end up providing something of a model for post-conflict resolution? The country provides an outlier of a test case, to be sure. The country had achieved hard-won stability that already had people pointing to it as a seemingly shining example […]
On any given day it is difficult to discern the status of negotiations in Zimbabwe. They might be resuming, if they ever ended, if they haven't been done for a while. Robert Mugabe is grabbing as much power in the form of ministries as he possibly can (causing Morgan Tsvangirai to considering pulling out of […]