Eritrea’s people are sharing in the food hardships of the wider region. But their government’s authoritarian rule is intent on keeping their fate from wider view, says Selam Kidane.
A study of the healthcare environment of expectant mothers in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa reveal severe problems that both the national government and overseas donors should address, says David Mepham.
The documentary evidence of Nelson Mandela’s membership of the South African Communist Party can contribute to a more truthful assessment of the country’s modern history, says the scholar who uncovered it, Stephen Ellis.
A great economic transformation across the world presents Africa with new opportunities in which its diaspora should play a key role, says Chukwu-Emeka Chikezie.
Africa’s economic dynamism is echoed in a radical shift of perception about the continent’s prospects. But these realities in turn are creating tough new tests for all involved, says Stephen Ellis.
Daniel Goldhagen’s book “Worse Than War” includes British colonial rule in Kenya in the 1950s among its case-studies of “elimination”. A close reading of the demographic evidence reveals the falsity of the argument, says David Elstein.(This article was first published on 4 March 2010)
As the newest country in the world, South Sudan faces huge challenges. But the perseverance of the people and their determination to construct a functioning state raise hopes for the country's future.
South Africa’s liberation from apartheid promised, as one of democracy’s essential supports, a climate of media freedom to ensure the accountability of those in power. But the country’s ruling ANC now proposes legislation that would endanger this freedom. The echoes of Zimbabwe are too close to ig
The forthcoming referendum on independence in south Sudan could lead to the break-up of Africa’s biggest country. But if Sudan has failed as a unitary state its end carries dangers, says Richard Cockett.
The opposition of Kenya's Christian churches to constitutional reforms is in part rooted in a new and disturbing hostility to Islam. This attitude marks a significant retreat from the churches’ past role in Kenya’s democratisation, says Daniel Branch.
The achievement of Isaias Afewerki’s regime in Asmara is to have used confrontation with its neighbours to entrench its survival. It is a political lesson that the international community still needs to learn, says Selam Kidane.
The South African president’s achievement on his anniversary in power is to leave his country rudderless and his party at war, says Roger Southall.
