Comment & analysis

On Ginbot 20, 1983 (Ethiopian calendar 5/28/1991), Meles Zenawi and thousands of his guerilla fighters marched into Addis Ababa toting AK-47s, rocket propelled grenades and hand grenades.

Of all the delusions we entertain in our lives, both individually and collectively, that we are the “masters of our own destiny” has got to be one of the grandest.

For a leader best known for taking controversial decisions, Nigerians are right in commending their president, Goodluck Jonathan, for rising to the occasion to declare states of emergency in parts of the country.

On 14 May 2013, ‘Occupy Parliament: an uprising against collective greed of Kenyan members of parliament’ took place.

In their current shuttle diplomacy in the Great Lakes region, Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank, and Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, have spoken on the need for Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to commit to peace in exchange for $ 1 billion in aid.

Some terms in our vocabulary are all powerful. When used they have a numbing effect and can overpower any argument. ‘Win-Win’ is one of them. Make any scenario a win-win and what is there not to like about it?

‘I can hear the roar of women’s silence’ – Thomas Sankara

After more than ten years working in the Horn of Africa region with women, from Darfur in Sudan to the coast of Somalia, the braveness of Muhildeen Shikh Mohamed an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) Somali man living in Mogadishu took me by surprise.

Article 33(1) of the Constitution of Kenya provides, among others, for freedom of expression through ‘…artistic creativity…’

Sometime ago the cultural department of Germany, Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes), unveiled its cultural exchange program for African countries with a budget of 2.091 million Euros. The budget will run from 2012 to 2015.