These days, well-behaved African heads of state are rewarded by Barack Obama with the chance to meet with him in groups of four and have their picture taken with him. It’s like meeting Beyonce, but you get to call it a state visit. That’s what happened on Friday when Malawi’s Joyce Banda, Senegal’s Macky Sall, […]
The mainstream media has been in overdrive working lockstep to uphold their ridiculous caricature of Hugo Chávez. The campaign has led to some pretty desperate and shallow displays of journalism. There’s the AP reporter who reported that Hugo Chávez wasted his country’s money on healthcare when he could have built gigantic skyscrapers. Then there’s the rest.
Remember Susan Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State who wasn’t? It might seem old news now, as Senator John Kerry sits in front of his colleagues seeking their constitutionally-mandated “consent” to his appointment to become the next U.S. Secretary of State, replacing Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the wake of President Barack Obama’s re-election in November, […]
The rapper Awadi was a founder of a Senegalese’s brand of political hip hop. As ‘kola wrote on this blog, Awadi was at the forefront of a 1990s social movement that helped to galvanize a youthful constituency to help elect Abdoulaye Wade as the new president in 2000. “Of course, after [Wade] got the presidency, […]
Post by Travis Ferland Malawi’s new president, Joyce Banda, has said that she will push for the repeal of her country’s anti-homosexuality laws. Of course this depends on her ability to secure popular support in parliament. Even if these laws are repealed, will public animosity towards gays and lesbians change? Will protective laws be created […]
Republican party propaganda wants to paint President Barack Obama’s Kenyan family as alien to America. In this propaganda, Barack Hussein Obama Snr and the old man’s supposed “anti-colonial” and left-wing biases. In this propaganda Kenyans are reduced to anti-American zealots. Yet the strongest impression one gets from the Obama family in Branwen Okpako’s beautiful, and substantive documentary of Obama’s half sister, Auma Obama, is how familiar and American (i.e. the values Republicans proffer of hard work and guile) the Obamas are.
Yesterday the African Union added their backing to Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s run at becoming World Bank President. She announced her candidacy on Friday, just hours before Obama told everyone he’d picked South Korean-born rapper Jim Kim (now backed by Paul Kagame). But how do Nigerians look at this? Some are puzzled by the government’s silence, and local media reports that Ali Mazrui wrote to President Jonathan urging him to offer louder and stronger support to Okonjo-Iweala’s campaign.
US Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently praised the South African Constitution making process–over that of the United States–as an example that could be instructive for a post-revolution Egypt. Ginsburg’s comments, in a wide-ranging interview with Egypt’s Al-Hayat TV, in which she repeatedly praised her country’s Constitution, have sparked outrage among tea-partying right-wing pundits in the US.
In his recent State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama highlighted the need to reduce inequality, widen access to healthcare and education and create jobs in the US. It is unfortunate that his administration’s foreign and trade policies threaten to undermine those very things for billions of people in the developing world. This is particularly so when it comes to trade.
The Oakland Institute has put together a petition to U.S. president Barack Obama and the USAID administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, asking them to stop their support to the Ethiopian government while the latter engages in exploitative land deals with foreign corporations and governments.
