I was traveling all weekend without internet access and I will be gone for much of this week and am not certain if I’ll have internet while I am away. As a result, a relatively commentary-free links dump:
Texas in Africa is tired of folks in the media asserting that the crises in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been ignored or overlooked.
Somalia’s radical Islamist al-Shabaab has formally aligned with al Qaeda, much to the consternation of African leaders.
At Pambazuka News Michael Schmidt accuses Africom of representing the new wave of “American Imperialism in Africa.” This strikes me as a remarkably unsubtle, reductionist, and frankly simplistic assessment. Moral righteousness as a default setting gets to be pretty tedious for those who recognize the world as a complicated place.
My colleague James Ketterer at the FPA’s Global Engagement Blog takes a look at Kenya’s constitutional reform. And while I’m allowing my colleagues to do my work for me, at the FPA Global Film Review Sean Patrick Murphy takes a look at Without the King, a documentary on what Swaziland’s King Mswati III hath wrought.
I have not said enough here about how loathsome Uganada’s proposed laws criminalizing and mandating ruthless punishment for homosexuality are. Thankfully President Obama has spoken up to denounce them.
Finally, the International Criminal Court has assured that genocide charges are still on the table for Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
