Tag Archives: Africa

One of three Al Jazeera journalists has been released from Egypt, and about time too. No such luck for the other two, however, who remain behind bars. Their continuing plight illustrates just how dangerous journalism can be in unstable countries, and how much more dangerous it can be when the line between politics and publication is blurred.

Top US policymakers increasingly speak of Egypt as a problem to be managed, their attention focused on avoiding the worst-case outcomes of state collapse. The past four years have taken a serious toll on U.S.-Egypt ties. But 2015 offers potential opportunities, requiring the two countries to learn some lessons from the past and to look to the future.

For some parts of Africa 2014 has been a bad year. Wars in South Sudan and the Central African Republic continued, and Libya all but imploded. But the year was also good for ruling parties and former liberation movements in Southern Africa. From Namibia to Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique, those in power stayed in power.

The poaching and trafficking of wildlife has reached pandemic levels throughout Africa, threatening a growing number of species with outright extinction in our lifetime.

Bad and incomplete data bedevils African statistics. Seventeen African countries have not conducted a census in the past decade and five have not done so in 20 years.

Ebola has reached Lagos, the most populous city in the most populous country in Africa. Nigeria had ample time to prepare for Ebola but it did little about this right up until the moment Patrick Sawyer, the first ever recorded case in the country, came to Nigeria and collapsed in a Lagos hospital.

Is the conflict in South Sudan the opening salvo in the battle for a continent? There are plenty of opportunities for both the United States and China in Africa and in South Sudan. But a rivalry between the two powers can only bring trouble.

World military expenditure totaled $1.75 trillion in 2013, a fall of 1.9 per cent in real terms since 2012, according to figures released by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).   The fall in the global total comes from decreases in Western countries, led by the United States, and despite increases in all other regions. In fact, military spending in …

The Hollywood blockbuster movie, Blood Diamond, tells a gripping story of how diamonds fueled Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war, which erupted in 1991. It depicts kidnappings, use of child soldiers, amputations, rape, killings and destruction of bridges and hospitals, among other atrocities.   The movie, starring American actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou, brought world attention to the campaign …

Water wars, many warn, could be around the corner. After the removal of former President Mohamed Morsi, Egypt has inherited a huge problem: Addis Ababa decided to divert the course of the Blue Nile late May, as part of its project to generate electricity through the construction of the Renaissance Dam. Ethiopia took the decision — which will have a …