Truth? WTF Is That?
Reading Time: 4 minutes A quaint tale of manipulators being manipulated.
Did Inflated Stories on Aid Theft Lead to Black Hawk Down?
Reading Time: 4 minutes On the 25th anniversary of the US mission to Somalia that led to the Battle of Mogadishu, a veteran reporter tells how the whole episode was predicated on a lie.
Hearts of Darkness, Part 1: Betrayal of an African Scholar
Reading Time: 8 minutes Part 1 of this three-part series focuses on how the Columbia Journalism Review tried to prevent African scholar Milton Allimadi from exposing the racism of The New York Times.
The Hidden Good News Out of Africa
Reading Time: 2 minutes During his current visit, Pope Francis not only called Africa “the continent of hope” but also railed against corruption, which continues to hold back development in many countries. However, defying popular opinion, parts of Africa are at the cutting edge of technology and economic growth— and the rise of the African consumer economy is one of the biggest, and most undercovered, stories. A podcast.
When Golf Clubs Kill — Federal Rule Ineffective in Curbing Conflict Minerals
Reading Time: 2 minutes Minerals found in thousands of products Americans use every day are paying for weapons in one of the bloodiest conflicts in Africa. Federal rules intended to get companies to stop buying them have proven ineffective.
AFRICOM’s War on Libya
Reading Time: < 1 minute This excerpt from Bob Coen and Eric Nadler’s film Shadow War of the Sahara, originally broadcast on the Franco-German channel ARTE, charts the rise of the US military’s AFRICA COMAND (AFRICOM). The video reveals why AFRICOM’s chief critic, Libya’s Mohammar Gaddafi, had to be removed from power for the project to succeed.
Tusks for Terrorists: Ivory, Elephant Poaching and the War on Terror
Reading Time: 6 minutes African terrorist groups are funding themselves through the sale of ivory from illegally slaughtered elephants. That connection is giving the fight against poaching a martial makeover, styled after the wars on drugs and terrorism.
Roads Not Taken: John F. Kennedy, Patrice Lumumba and George H. W. Bush
Reading Time: 3 minutes Bravo to the The New York Times for publishing Adam Hochschild’s January 17 op-ed, An Assassination’s Long Shadow. The piece marked the 50th anniversary of an event long forgotten in the United States: the U.S.-sponsored removal and murder of a democratically elected leader in Africa. Three days after the murder, our own democratically elected leader—one Read More