Sympathy for a state’s past should not color current policy.
U.S. Guilt Over Rwanda Will Only Lead to More Guilt
read more
Africa
People, Machines, and Challenging the Election Results in Ghana
In Ghana, the opposition candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo is challenging the Electoral Commission’s declaration that John Mahama, the incumbent, has won the presidential election.
Foiled Coup Against Sudan’s President Bashir Exposes Growing Islamist Dissent
Khartoum’s control is precarious.
Free Elections Encourage in Sierra Leone, But Most Left Behind by Western Development
Voting is generally done by blocs, not by individuals, who benefit from a patronage system that resembles the special interest groups of First World lobbies.
Affirmative Action for Somalia
Fauzia Haji Adan was sworn in on Monday November 19, 2012, as the Somali Federal Republic’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, making history as Somalia’s first woman to hold those posts. Another Somali woman, Maryan Qassim, was also sworn in as the minister for social services. But only a policy of sustained affirmative action can address ingrained structural imbalances against Somali women; one or two cabinet appointments won’t cut it.
The U.S. and Africa: The Next Four Years
Just two countries — South Africa and Nigeria — currently account for over 33 percent of the continent’s economic output.
Lessons of Sandy
After Hurricane Sandy deprived the Northeast of gas, power, food, and clean water, drivers in New York and New Jersey were forced to line up for rationed gas. Sandy demonstrated that a natural disaster could quickly, if temporarily, downgrade a rich country to third-world status.
Equatorial Guinea Briefly Disappears Dissident
Per capita the nation is one of the world’s wealthiest, but its citizens live in grinding poverty.
Drones: Whatever Became of U.S. Respect for International Norms Prohibiting Assassinations?
The ease with which we’ve accepted drone attacks bodes ill for the future.
Citizen Participation in Presidential Debates Kicked to the Curb This Election
The larger question facing our nation about the U.S. role in the world and how the candidates themselves would define what is in the national security interest of the United States was almost completely ignored.