· July, 2006

Stories about Sub-Saharan Africa from July, 2006

Zimbabwe: End in sight?

  25 July 2006

Are we there yet? asks Eddie Cross, guest-blogging for Zimpundit, and wondering if Zimbabwe really is about to see the end of the Mugabe regime.

African women: Call for poetry

  25 July 2006

African Women Blogs posts a call for poetry from Agenda magazine, 21 years after the Nairobi (Women's) Conference. “Contributions should reflect the contradictions, complexities, challenges and successes for African women two decades after the Nairobi conference,” the announcement says.

Sierra Leone: Economist's tale

  25 July 2006

R.E. Ekosso reviews, and even approves of, The Economist's Tale, written by World Bank consultant Peter Griffiths after a recent research trip to Sierra Leone. “This book”, says Griffiths in his introduction, “shows that it is individuals who cause poverty, underdevelopment and famine, by their actions, by their failure to...

Gripes with Footballer Lilian Thuram

  24 July 2006

Of Lilian Thuram, a French football player of Guadeloupean origin, France-based Senegalese blogger says (Fr): “Wanting desperately to become a Martin Luther King-style defender of the Black cause, Thuram seems to have no friends around him to tell him to calm down and to stay away from politics, an artform...

Zimbabwe: Big Brother plan

  24 July 2006

The Bearded Man commens on an article in the Washington Post about plans being mooted by the Zimbabwean government to monitor e-mail and other electronic communication. He writes: “It would take a sizeable army to sift through emails, SMS and telephone calls – yes, I know that much of it...

South Africa: Eastern Cape Paper

  24 July 2006

Farrel Lifson of politics.za comments on a forthcoming position paper from the Eastern Cape provincial division of the African National Congress (ANC), which will say that the South African government is being taken over by right-wing forces resistant to transformation.

African countries need technocrats

  24 July 2006

Africa Unchained points to a passage in George Ayittey's book by the same name, which runs: “We need TECHNOCRATS to fix our broken, dysfunctional institutions. REPAIRMEN or plumbers who will unclog the gutters or the system. CUTLASSES to chop down all the dead wood.”

Kenya: Job loss

  24 July 2006

“It's odd to quit a job,” writes Kenyan Musings, who just quit hers. “People think you are nuts…but it gets to the point where if you allow yourself to be depleted to the point where your professional tank is empty and you are running on fumes of habit, everybody loses....

Kenya: Meeting with Bill Gates

  24 July 2006

4Sheezy wonders what might have happened if she had managed to get a meeting with Bill Gates while he was in Kenya, to talk about his HIV/AIDS work.

African women’s voices this week

  23 July 2006

Concoction on Humanities for African Leaders the modern way of doing politics especially in Africa is so far away from doing “dialogue publicly” that we have had an ‘interesting’ version of democracy…….Politics, which the ancient Greeks defined as public dialogue, is unfortunatelly measured by some sort of wierd election that...

Ethiopia, Somalia: Potential bloodshed

  21 July 2006

On the appearance of Ethiopian troops in Somalia, Yebo Gogo writes: “I hope all parties will find a way to walk away before more blood is shed, but this has the potential to be a long, deadly conflict.”

African Migrants in Australia

  21 July 2006

African Migrants takes note of a report that says African migrants who held a job before leaving their homeland in search of work are more likely to find employment on arrival in Australia.

African Women: Call for Nominations

  21 July 2006

African Women posts a call for nominations for the African Women of Distinction book and video exhibition scheduled for December 2006. The aim, the announcement says, is to profile the stories and work of 20 women in Africa who embody the essence of leadership, determination, and innovation in addressing social,...

Islam: Caged Virgin Reviewed

  21 July 2006

Palava Soup posts a review of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book about Muslim women, The Caged Virgin, by British Muslim Fareena Alam, who is impressed neither by its central thesis nor its author's level of scholarship.

Reunion: Moslem Community Rallying Cry

Zarabes writes (Fr): “We members of the moslem community of la Reunion, are watching powerless the current events in Palestine and Lebanon. Tired of the ambiant silence, we ask the various heads of the island's masjids to hold a common discourse next Friday (July 28, 2006) for the salat of...

Ethiopia: Funeral blues

  21 July 2006

Lela Tensae gives a witty and detailed portrait of funeral rites among Ethiopians in the United States. “The worst type of funeral for me is when the deceased is in the age bracket of 65 to 80. The deceased probably was hiding during the Italian invasion or was titled by...

Reunion: Volcano Eruption

  21 July 2006

From Reunion, Jean-Paul at Dijoux.re writes (Fr):”It is the first eruption of the year. Of the two lava flows registered at the beginning of the eruption, one stopped and the other has diminished. The awful weather (i.e. the cold, the rain and the fog) is not making for a scenic...

About our Sub-Saharan Africa coverage

Zita Zage
Zita Zage is the Anglophone Africa Editor. Email her story ideas or volunteer to write.

Jean Sovon
Jean Sovon is the Francophone Africa. Editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.

Dércio Tsandzana
Dércio Tsandzana is the Lusophone (Portuguese) editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.