“Africa Rising” stories have become old news in English-speaking media, so much so that Africa is a Country called them a meme not long ago. But only a few have run in French news outlets, and one such op-ed [fr] recently made it to the pages of the well-respected daily newspaper Le Monde. The piece […]
Born in Huambo but raised in Luanda, Rui Sérgio Afonso is one of my favorite Angolan photographers. The man is prolific on Instagram. After working for Angola’s biggest communications and marketing group, Grupo Executive de Angola (Executive Center), Sérgio is now a freelance photographer. He’s done extensive work with Angolan arts collective Geração 80. Here […]
Angola is a country that has been ruled by the same party, the MPLA, since independence in 1975. The party has effectively transformed itself from a socialist bloc into a purely capitalistic organization with a diverse array of business interests and impressive market-savvy, all thanks to the barrels upon barrels of oil the country has […]
Indira Mateta is a young Angolan photographer who is taking her first steps in professional photography, transforming her hobby into a promising career. In 2008 she won the BESA Award for Photography in Luanda and has since had her work appear at the Teatro Elinga, the Catholic University of Angola, Oscar Ribas University, Instituto Camões […]
A few months late to this story, the Wall Street Journal published a piece last Wednesday entitled “Angola Wealth Fund is Family Affair.” This was widely reported in the international press back in the fall when the Fundo Soberano de Angola was officially announced. The Fund, started with $5 billion, now puts Angola in line […]
Angola has an underappreciated independent music scene. It’s no worth denying that kuduro is our biggest export, and when you mention Angola to most savvy music fans they will instantly identify it with Cabo Snoop and perhaps Buraka Som Sistema, although the latter is more easily recognized as a Portuguese act. For all of kuduro’s […]
Last week the Portuguese Attorney General’s office dismissed a case of libel and defamation against Rafael Marques and the Portuguese publisher Tinta da China. The criminal case against Marques and Tinta da China was filed by nine Angolan generals, all of whom own are part owners in Sociedade Mineira do Cuango, a mining company, and […]
For the past two weeks, most Angolans that frequent Facebook and other social media sites viewed and shared two particularly gruesome videos. One showed prison officials severely beating incarcerated men in the Comarca de Viana (Viana Jail), while the other, even more heinous, showed several men brutally beating and abusing two women who had allegedly […]
Earlier this week, the award-winning production studio/marketing group MediaStorm launched their short film Surviving the Peace, to promote Mines Advisory Group’s de-mining operations in Angola. Mines Advisory Group (MAG) launched with a premier in DC and a fundraiser in Angola (go figure, but hey, attendees in Luanda got free copies of the film).
Ronald Reagan will be celebrated again today (his birthday is February 6, 1911) as a world statesman and champion of democracy (mostly by Republicans and Conservatives in the United States), but this not how people in the Third World experienced his tenure. Take Southern Africa (I grew up in South Africa) for instance. As I […]
