The Cartography of Bullshit
The specialty of foreign-affairs blogging is explaining the outside world to uninformed publics The result, however, is mostly pseudo-analysis.
Politics
How to Please Your Man “Zambia Style”
A Dutch filmmaker travels to Zambia to find out what "liberated, spoiled, but also insecure" Western women can learn from their African counterparts.
Football Referee of the Year
My knowledge of European club football doesn’t stretch much further beyond what gets posted here on
The Minister of Earth and Sky
Does the arrest of Karim Wade, the former president's son, mean “the time when one could pillage public goods is over” in Senegal?
Aristide Zolberg and African Studies
A political scientist, Zolberg wrote two ground breaking books on West Africa politics in the 1960s and was key to formation of African Studies.
Did Britain’s MI6 put a hit on Lumumba?
When a member of the UK's House of Lords (a few months before she died) told another Lord, over tea, that she'd organized Lumumba's abduction and murder.
People in glass houses
South Africa's news media's much vaunted editorial independence.
The case of Ethiopian journalist Reeyot Alemu
Last Friday, May 3, was World Press Freedom Day. Perhaps you may have missed it? On
Is Italy Ready for an African-born Government Minister?
A large part of the challenge for Italians to get used to a black Cabinet Minister is the role Italian media plays. They're particularly bad when it comes to race.
In Search of the “African Middle Class”
Who would guess that a little over a decade ago Africa was mostly described as "the hopeless continent"?
Why France doesn’t want to let Aminata Traoré in and Germany allowed her only inside Berlin’s city limits
Malian writer, activist, former member of government Aminata Traoré is unwelcome in France, and, thanks to
Freedom Day
The ways in which Nelson Mandela’s image as a referent of South Africa's recent past has been appropriated, signified and transformed into material form as commemoration.
Joyce Banda has bigger problems than Madonna
After years of being frozen out by Bingu wa Mutharika’s administration, President Joyce Banda has restored the IMF to the top table of Malawian policy-making and pushed through a sweeping reforms at their behest.
Big Brother Goodluck Jonathan
Nigeria's ruling class, when faced with criticism, always go for censorship, to silence their critics.
Yes, some Africans admire Margaret Thatcher
We were wrong. Some Africans do like Margaret Thatcher. Here's a gallery of 10 of them.
Hair politics and other Weekend Specials
With this, I am bringing back Weekend Special for all those things we don't have the time to blog about or say more than the required 140 characters on Twitter.
No, Africans don’t remember Margaret Thatcher fondly
Thatcher’s energetic opposition to sanctions and support for right wing forces prolonged the state of violence across the breadth of Southern Africa.
Al Jazeera Goes French
Al Jazeera is planning a French language version of its news network. That means, government funded France 24 will be in direct competition with it for viewership in Africa and amongst the continent's French speaking diaspora.
The story of a lost white boy
The story of Happy Sindane, the lost white boy, who put a lie to South Africa's rainbow shibboleths.
Can African Heads of State speak
Why when African leaders meet Barack Obama, they are received in groups (unlike all other heads of state) and rarely get to speak?