Quick links, with commentary as apropos, on stories that have caught my eye today: Even as tensions in the Niger Delta have abated (for the time being) things have exploded in the northeast as police have clashed with members of an Islamist fundamentalist sect, leaving scores dead and more injured. Now the Nigerian military has […]
There are very, very few realms of this world in which South Africa can pull a power play on England. But global rugby might be one of those realms. The International Rugby Board is set to award the 2015 Rugby World Cup to England, but South Africa (and Italy, which has considerably less pull) are […]
Mac Maharaj had a nice tribute to the work of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, Mandela Day, and of course the great man himself that he published in South Africa’s Times newspaper and that the Nelson Mandela Foundation republished.
The Springboks have gotten off on the right foot for taking the Tri Nations competition, defeating their historic foes the All Blacks in New Zealand, 28-19 yesterday. [If anyone knows the best way to watch the matches in the US, where television coverage is a non-possibility from what I can glean, please do let me […]
Five African nations can look forward to faster, more reliable internet service as the result of the work of a private consortium, Seacom, which installed the first undersea fiberoptic cable. The switch went on yesterday in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Uganda and South Africa. Rwanda should join that group in the next couple of weeks.
Beyond the grave human tragedies, one of the most vexing aspects of the AIDS denialism that was too prominent at high levels in South Africa in the decade after 1994 is that South Africa ought to have been the continent’s, indeed one of the globe’s, leaders in anti-AIDS science and technology. The country had the […]
I just received the following press release. Rather than try to distill it, I will just share the whole text: NAIROBI – President Kibaki of the Republic of Kenya has announced the appointment of Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat as Chairman of Kenya’s newly-created Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC). The Commission was set up by legislation […]
One of the myriad disputes in Sudan involves the contested Abyei region, which is rich in both oil and farmland and which straddled the North and South that has so long been the epicenter of vicious conflicts. Today the Hague made its binding pronouncement on Abyei, with Khartoum emerging with nearly all of the oil […]
In a bad omen that speaks to the instability that chaotic Somalia is capable of wreaking in East Africa, Kenya’s borders are increasingly vulnerable to incursions from the radical Islamist militia group al-Shabab, which dominates a vast swath of southern Somalia. Kenya has vowed to step up border security, but it is not unreasonable to […]
Do you want some evidence that things in Liberia have improved substantially this decade? The Washington Post travel section featured a quite good William Powers-penned feature about the country this weekend, complete with full travel details.
The Mail & Guardian has a fascinating piece on “The Rise and Rise of the Nelson Mandela Industry.” It is a quite remarkable phenomenon. But also an understandable one, as it blends commerce with the undeniable love of Mandela among South Africans, and as important, among tourists and other visitors to the country. Mandela is […]
Reader pandorasgift directed me to this Christian Science Monitor article about the reception of Michela Wrong’s new book on corruption in Kenya. Booksellers refuse to touch it for fear of reprisals, but it is doing a brisk business among curbside vendors.
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