archive

Africa's emergency-ward

From Dissent, Zimbabwe's slow suicide: A review of When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa by Peter Godwin; Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa by Peter Godwin; Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller; African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe by Doris Lessing; The Stone Virgins by Yvonne Vera. A review of Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa by Martin Meredith. The rise of the buppies: An article on the economic and political consequences of the black middle class in South Africa. Oasis of defiance: Nomads in Niger defy a government ban. A Tuareg revolt, coveted uranium resources, geopolitical rivalries, endemic poverty: Is Niger becoming the latest patient in Africa's emergency-ward? An article on consolidating democracy in Sierra Leone. From TomDispatch, young refugees return home, traveling through the southern part of a Sudan poised at the edge of the abyss (and part 2). Breaking into even smaller bits? Even the parts of Somalia that were steady are looking shaky again. The fight to save Congo's forests: A history of colonial neglect and endemic corruption has unleashed a lawless logging binge in the heart of Congo's massive woodlands.