Amidst Thabo Mbeki's very bad few weeks let us not forget that Jacob Zuma has troubles of his own. The latest? Zuma's presumed choice for the country's chief justice slot, Cape Judge President John Hlophe, faces accusations that he lobbied at least two Constitutional Court judges for a pro-Zuma ruling. Hlophe now faces possible impeachment. He also […]
The United States has announced a fairly serious scaling-back of its plans for AFRICOM, the American African Command. Is the US finally responding to the will of Africans on the ground? Or is it merely taking the most expedient path? The answer is probably a combination of factors, but it is clear that the ambitious […]
In a short “Editorial Notebook” piece in The Boston Globe Donald MacGillis explores the problem of brain drain in Uganda, which is a nearly universal problem across the continent, and what the west might be able yo do to stanch the flow of talented doctors (and others) without limiting personal freedoms of those who so […]
More than a week ago I wrote the following: Yet another indicator of how bad things are in Zimbabwe? Even with the recent explosions of xenophobic violence aimed at foreigners and especially Zimbabweans in South Africa, huge numbers of immigrants continue to cross the border and head directly for the maelstrom in Johannesburg and its […]
The United States Congress is finally undertaking to remove the African National Congress from various terrorism watch lists in the United States — a status the ANC, or even Mkhonto we Sizwe, never should have suffered in the first place.
At The Mail & Guardian Fikile-Ntsikelelo Moya undertakes a pretty sound (and enjoyable to behold) thrashing of Connie Mulder's Freedom Front Plus party's claims for special recognition for Afrikaners from the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO). Here is a taste: What freedom is Mulder and his chommies asking for? From whom? Freedom is the […]
The MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai has taken off the gloves against Robert Mugabe. In what he called a “State of the Nation” address, Tsvangirai pulled no punches in discussing Zimbabwe's “State of disrepair.” Perhaps more perilously, he also declared that there will be no amnesty for those who have engaged in political violence. Such a declaration […]
The United States’ Government Accountability Office has issued a report indicating that food aid to sub-Saharan Africa is woefully insufficient. This comes as no surprise. The optimist in me sees the timing of the report — which comes on the eve of a United Nations summit in Rome to address the global food crisis — […]
David Ignatius has a column in The Washington Post revealing the ways in which Rwanda has, against all odds, managed in many ways to come to grips with the horrible events of 1994. The Rwanda story is unspeakably incomprehensible for most of us, and yet the last fourteen years have shown the ways in which […]
This analysis in The Mail & Guardian seems to capture pretty well the ways in which recent events — most obviously, but not solely, the explosion of violence against foreign Africans — seem to have shaken the ruling party from its complacency. The responses from Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma have been especially telling. Even […]
Simba Makoni drew a great deal of attention when he stepped out and announced his challenge to Robert Mugabe. He finished third in the recent, and still contested, elections but more importantly he may well have broken the dam of silence and fear. His candidacy simply could not draw from a firm enough base of support […]
As a new international rugby season gets underway, the Springboks stand tall as the defending world champions . And yet the country's fans still have a fixation on New Zealand's mighty All Blacks. Mark Keohane wants to shake South Africans from their rugby inferiority complex and make them realize that they support the greatest team […]
Michael Gerson has a blistering column in today's Washington Post about the crisis in Zimbabwe and what he sees as South Africa's enabling of Robert Mugabe's despotism. There is little new in Gerson's column for those who have been following the crisis for a while, but perhaps voices like his will lead to more pressure […]
Kenya's Standard reports on how environmental issues, high-level politics and ethnic concerns are merging to create another potential flashpoint in that country's tenuous recovery process. The Mau Forest involves a complex interplay of tensions related to conservation and the country's (indeed the region's) environmental health, the prospects for putatively ethnic clashes over land, and tensions […]
