tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50888252009-02-21T02:53:50.977-05:00AfricaPunditAfrican news blogNoahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comBlogger499125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1109806533720892472005-03-02T18:27:00.000-05:002005-03-02T18:35:33.723-05:00Here's a commentary in the NYT on the African response to the recent coup in Togo and some of the African diplomatic efforts that led to Gnassingbe's quick resignation:Olusegun Obasanjo, the president of Nigeria and the region's most powerful leader, was perhaps the most vociferous critic of the change of power in Togo, and he scolded Mr. Gnassingbé when the latter went to Abuja, the Nigerian Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1109805386370550112005-03-02T18:03:00.000-05:002005-03-02T18:16:26.373-05:00Things are looking slightly up in Togo. The president-by-coup has resigned and the government is pledging to hold elections. How free and fair those elections will be is still uncertain, but the Togolese ruling party is feeling the pressure -- both internal and external:The presidents of Niger and Mali and top officials from the Economic Community of West African States said they backed the need Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1109804465910633252005-03-02T17:54:00.000-05:002005-03-02T18:01:05.913-05:00I promise this is my last post about Hotel Rwanda. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of people talking about this movie that don't usually discuss films...Here are Daniel Henninger's pre-Oscars comments for the WSJ.And according to Jay Nordlinger (third item), President Bush has seen the movie as well.As I've noted already, it's quite a good film... go see it.Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1107834028475656242005-02-07T22:09:00.000-05:002005-02-07T22:40:28.476-05:00Some good news? In Liberia, the first elections since Charles Taylor's ouster have been announced for October 11. With the country still reeling from more than a decade of war, the new government will have its work cut out for it.
Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1107830892044885912005-02-07T21:39:00.000-05:002005-02-07T21:48:12.043-05:00Mandela has this exactly backwards:
Mandela, former South African president and former prisoner of that country's apartheid government, called for trade justice, an end to rising debts for the poorest countries, and more and higher-quality aid.
"Where poverty exists, there is not true freedom," said Mandela, who wore a white strip of cloth around his wrist. "The world is hungry for action, not Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1107829831066400172005-02-07T21:20:00.000-05:002005-02-07T21:30:31.066-05:00Plus ca change...
Gnassingbe Eyadema, dictator of Togo and Africa's longest-ruling head of state, has apparently died of a heart attack. After some constitutional fiddling, Eyadema's son has been installed in his place.
Despite the hand-wringing from the usual suspects (France, the UN and the US State Department), it is most unlikely that anyone will do anything to stop this. Togo was and Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1107483382366259752005-02-03T21:08:00.000-05:002005-02-03T21:17:29.560-05:00Zimbabwe is preparing for "elections" in March, and Roger Bate suggests that the opposition MDC should boycott this time rather than participating in an obviously rigged process:
As army officers, team captains, and political-party leaders know, nothing prevents infighting as well as a common enemy. So it would be of no surprise if Mugabe sincerely hopes that the MDC contests the election. Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1107482785305673622005-02-03T20:29:00.000-05:002005-02-03T21:06:25.306-05:00I went to see Hotel Rwanda at the movie theater last weekend. It's a very good movie and one that I'd recommend to anyone -- but particularly to anyone who has any interest in Africa. The film was shot on location in Rwanda and South Africa and I think it definitely showed. All of the exterior shots definitely had an authentic African look -- the heat, the lushness of the vegetation, the style ofNoahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1107480534500242332005-02-03T20:24:00.000-05:002005-02-03T20:28:54.500-05:00Well, despite my best intentions to post more regularly, that doesn't seem to have really happened. Things in Delaware have been busy... And who has time for blogging when there's a great big world out there just waiting to be explored?
If fact, most of my blogging time has been taken up by my spending a bit more time at school and more time reading -- therefore less time to sit in front of theNoahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1102459460880309942004-12-07T17:38:00.000-05:002004-12-07T17:44:20.880-05:00There's a presidential election in Ghana today:
Millions of Ghanaians headed to the polls on Tuesday, with analysts predicting that voters would give President John Kufuor another four years at the helm of the West African country which has built a reputation as a haven of democracy and stability.
Three other candidates are vying with the incumbent for the ballots of some 10 million registered Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1102459053184743632004-12-07T17:32:00.000-05:002004-12-07T17:37:33.183-05:00William F. Buckley writes about the UN, John Danforth and other things.Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1102287963139266792004-12-05T17:59:00.000-05:002004-12-05T18:06:03.140-05:00Here's a useful metric of Robert Mugabe's misrule in Zimbabwe: 2-3 million Zimbabweans appear to have emigrated.
Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1102287329886457622004-12-05T17:21:00.000-05:002004-12-05T17:59:13.366-05:00Belmont Club has a long post about the status of the UN peacekeeping mission in Congo. Calling this mission ineffective is certainly an understatement. In fact, the UN's behavior in the Congo seems indicative of a larger problem:
The key problem facing the United Nations is lack of accountability not to its constituent institutions, though it lacks that, but to the individual inhabitants of the Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1101879960400646042004-12-01T00:45:00.000-05:002004-12-01T00:46:00.400-05:00Well, in case you hadn't noticed, it's been rather a long time since I've been blogging.... My absence was due to a variety of things: being very busy (and under stress) at school, having a few personal distractions, and being very slightly burned out with daily blogging.
When I started this blog (not all that long ago) there didn't seem to be too many US blogs focusing on African issues. Over Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1085534032001371712004-05-25T20:46:00.000-04:002004-05-25T21:13:52.000-04:00Ever wondered what it would be like to try to sell baby strollers in Africa? The Washington Post has a full report:
Irene Wambui can't imagine why anyone would buy a baby stroller. She says she sees it as a cold cage filled with useless rattles, cup holders and mirrored headlights. Imagine children being stuffed into such a contraption and pushed around town like some kind of pet.
Yet here Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1085532299465831132004-05-25T20:43:00.000-04:002004-05-25T20:44:59.466-04:00Finally -- The UN appears to be taking the situation in Sudan seriously.Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1084233314148640912004-05-10T19:49:00.000-04:002004-05-10T19:55:14.146-04:00I've tried to post fairly regularly on the situation in the Sudan. People always ask if the Rwanda genocide could happen again. Of course it can. In fact, in the Sudan, genocide isn't an event, it's a pattern of behavior for the government.
Well, Ethiopia is one country that I haven't kept up with, but there are increasing indications of genocide in that country as well. Luckily, there's a blog Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1084232628143612932004-05-10T19:22:00.000-04:002004-05-10T19:43:48.143-04:00Sudan
Here's a great example of African solidarity in action:
African nations have ensured that Sudan will keep its seat on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, a decision that angered the United States and human rights advocates who cited reports of widespread rights abuses by the Khartoum government.
A coalition of 10 organizations concerned with human rights issues went further Monday, Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1084231219158622652004-05-10T19:12:00.000-04:002004-05-10T19:21:48.666-04:00Libyan Outrageousness
Is Qaddafi once again thumbing his nose at the West? Looks like it to me:
A Libyan court has sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death for infecting hundreds of children with the AIDS virus in an attempt to find a cure for the disease.
Bulgaria condemned the "unfair and absurd" verdicts delivered on Thursday and called for a strong reaction from Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1084230687593593812004-05-10T18:51:00.000-04:002004-05-10T19:11:57.840-04:00Nigerian Sharia
If there's anything to this story it's a confirmation of a lot of people's worst fears over the meaning of sharia in northern Nigeria:
Governor Ahmed Sani of Zamfara State, has ordered the demolition of all churches in the state, as he launched the second phase of his Sharia project yesterday.
Speaking at the launch in Gusau, the state capital, Governor Sani disclosed that timeNoahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1084229495501510632004-05-10T18:50:00.000-04:002004-05-10T18:51:35.500-04:00New Blogger...
is nice, I think. This will take some getting used to, though.Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1083290798892084982004-04-29T22:06:00.000-04:002004-04-29T22:10:54.340-04:00Another link from a Reader--it's an email concerning recent "elections" in Equatorial Guinea.Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1083290127397721482004-04-29T21:55:00.000-04:002004-04-29T21:59:37.793-04:00A Reader noted this item about new Sharia laws in Nigeria's Zamfara state:
The northern Nigerian state of Zamfara has introduced a new package of Islamic, or Sharia, laws. All businesses in the state will have to shut down during the five daily Muslim prayers.
The state government also says that all "unauthorised" places of worship will be shut down under "Sharia phase two".
I don't know that aNoahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1083287305400278552004-04-29T21:08:00.000-04:002004-04-29T21:12:36.403-04:00The WSJ covers Thomas Mapfumo:
Mr. Mapfumo's concerts drew thousands of Zimbabweans who opposed the government's mounting repression, and he has met with opposition leaders and even mused about a role in a post-Mugabe government. The title of his new album, "Toi Toi," refers to a protest dance. "I am like a messenger of the people whenever I sing a song against my government," he rumbles in a Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5088825.post-1083286405632390712004-04-29T20:53:00.000-04:002004-04-29T20:57:36.000-04:00Sorry for the non-blogging lately. My advisor is going to speak at this conference in Berlin next week, so I've had plenty of things to keep me busy.
Next week should be back to normal.Noahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00057802958709291293noreply@blogger.com