The African Export-Import Bank (Afrexim) has granted Zimbabwe an additional $250 million line of credit to help the country with its on going economic restructuring and reconstruction. This would seem to be a sign that in some circles, at least, there is a modicum of faith that Zimbabwe has stepped back from the brink even […]
When dealing with a terrible post-conflict environment there are often few good choices as to how to deal with those who have committed human rights atrocities. In negotiation processes people are unlikely to put down arms without some hope for amnesty. Think of the negotiations that led to the end of Apartheid in South Africa. […]
At The Guardian Richard M. Kavuma has an article showing how Ugandan football is suffering even as the country’s fans continue to show their love for the game through their support not of the local clubs, but of the English Premiere League. Part of the explanation for the flagging fortunes at the local professional and […]
At the History News Network blog Cliopatria Aaron Bady has a useful post summarizing an ongoing debate at Making Sense of Darfur, the blog edited by respected Sudan expert Alex de Waal. The debate centers around Mahmoud Mamdani’s book Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror. I should be honest in saying […]
Greetings from the University of Keele in the North Midlands of England. I will be spending the next month here as a visiting fellow at the David Bruce Cetre for American Studies. I am still very much settling in. It is, however, always nice to be back in the UK. I find that the UK […]
The Foreign Policy Association has published Part II of my analysis of the South African elections. (For Part I, go here.) For an interesting (though I would argue imperfect and perhaps even reductionist) take on why the Congress of the People fell short, see this piece in The New Republic. NB: I will spent the next […]
Has the Speaker of Kenya’s Parliament come up with a temporary palliative to the proximate cause of tension between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga? Speaker Kenneth Marende has stepped in as temporary chair of the House Business Committee in Parliament, a disputed post that has been the source of tensions between Kibaki and […]
Is it racist to oppose the African National Congress? Of course not. And the very question can reveal a deep-seeded, self-serving cynicism on the part of those who would levy such an accusation. At the same time, there is one reality that makes that cynicism practicable: While it is not racist to oppose the ANC it […]
Zimbabwe’s coalition government has approved an ambitious profram of privatization. One of the first tests of that policy will be the sale of NetOne, Zimbabwe’s state-owned cell phone service provider. If private investment provides any gauge whatsoever about the belief that Zimbabwe is on the right course, the fact that private companies are clamoring to […]
Anyone who was hoping for the wounds in Kenya’s coalition government to heal over time might be in for a rude awakening. While there have been moments when it looked as if an uneasy peace might hold, rhetoric in the last few days indicates that tensions might be re-mounting in Nairobi. Prime Minister Raila Odinga, of […]
The International Monetary Fund is predicting what most of us have suspected: That the Global economic crisis is going to have a negative impact on African growth, which, the constant flow of horrible news from the continent notwithstanding, has actually been reasonably impressive. The news is not apocolyptic, however. While growth in 2008 was more […]
The results are in. I will be following up my preview of the South African elections with an analysis of the outcomes later this week, but here is the shorthand view each party should take away from an election that saw massive voter turnout: The African National Congress: (Almost 11.7 million votes, 65.9%) Still the […]
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