Africa
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How the regulation of multinational companies in the USA has yet to yield positive consequences in the Congo.
In some respects, the current Somali refugee crisis began when the sitting president and despot, Siad Barre, was toppled from power by a combined force of opposition rebel groups in 1991.
Since its independence in 1963, Kenya has been hailed as an island of peace and stability within Africa. It therefore came as a surprise to the international community when violence rocked the country starting December 28, 2007, barely twenty-four hours after the conclusion of a highly contested presidential election. What could have caused the 2007 post-election violence?
Once praised as West Africa’s “beacon of stability,” Côte d’Ivoire shocked the world when its bloody civil war erupted in 2002. The unrest ultimately killed over 1,000 people, according to Freedom House. What sparked this conflict and propagated the violence?
Nigeria’s army has been long recognized as one of Africa’s most well equipped and organized, but events over the past years including its failure to quell Boko Haram have called this into question. The case of Nigeria echoes that of the Pakistan and the Islamists in the Waziristan tribal regions, with both states having effectively lost control over large portions of their territory to Islamic extremist groups.
Much of the media frenzy surrounding the Ebola epidemic in West Africa has been a product of intense focus on the grotesque symptoms of the disease. The media has also fixated on the chaos that ensued in the most deeply affected countries. Reports have described hospitals overrun with Ebola patients, with other important aspects of medical caregiving such as maternal healthcare and AIDS treatment left unattended, and dead bodies abandoned out of fear of contamination in the streets of Freetown, Liberia. This coverage has unfortunately failed to call attention to the many factors that contributed to Ebola’s rapid spread, including the weak initial response to the disease.
A conversation with the noted activist and former President of Malawi.
Brina Seidel covers the first World Leaders Forum event with Tunisian President Mohamed Moncef Marzouki
Cosmas Sibindi examines the recent U.S.-Africa leaders summit and American policy on the continent.
The revenues from Debswana provide 50 percent of all government revenues in Botswana. The case study of the relationship between De Beers and Botswana represents the intermingling of a firm and the state, the combination of economic and political interests, and serves as a modern study of political economy. It also provides an intriguing glimpse into modern imperialism.
The national government is not the only body at fault in this situation, however: American anti-gay groups and gay advocacy groups in Uganda have encouraged continued debate on homosexuality, carrying their proxy battle into the legislature and affecting the life of Uganda’s gay population.
We have already seen Al-Shabaab pull itself from the ashes once before, and it will continue to launch mass casualty events like the Westgate operation, especially after its recent ideological “return”, so to speak, to internationalist jihad...And without AMISOM, the current Somali government will very likely collapse, paving the way for Al-Shabaab’s resurgence.
By 2013, more than 1.5 million Ethiopians will be displaced from their homes by the orders of their own government. Some will have to relocate to areas that lack stable access to food and water, and still more may find they can no longer support themselves financially.
Kony 2012 gave massive attention Invisible Children. It also distracted from the manifold issues at hand – tribal conflicts, warlordism, the victimization of indigenous civilians, government corruption, and control of mining and drilling rights – and attributed all of Uganda’s problems to one man.
While these divisions, as evidenced by the racial and xenophobic violence in Libya, are real and destructive, they are not eternal. Rather, they are the result of a particular historical narrative that has constructed Arabs and Africans as intrinsically different and eternally divided.