The April 30 march in Washington, organized by the Save Darfur Coalition, brought out some heroes of the left, like George Clooney, but also some that the hard left loves to hate, like Elie Wiesel and Samantha Power. While policy-makers… Read moreDarfur: glimmer of hope?
With Darfur in the headlines, if not the minds of our policymakers, it is generally forgotten that armed attacks, forced deportations and even slavery continue against Black African peoples throughout the Sahel. On Tuesday, May 9, at 7:30 PM, the… Read moreMauritanian anti-slavery activist to speak in NYC
We wonder how he feels to be briefly on the Reuters wire April 30? Eritrea’s last native Jew tends graves, remembers 58-year-old Sami Cohen has fond memories of friends, parents and families in the Horn of Africa. Now there’s little… Read moreEritrea’s Jews: down to one
From Newsday, April 23: LAGOS – A militant group that has been attacking Nigeria’s oil pipelines and helping to drive up world oil prices added a new tactic last week by detonating a car bomb in a major oil city… Read moreNiger Delta insurgents escalate tactics
Still hailing the cartoon protests as heroic anti-imperialism? From AP, Feb. 21: Christian and Muslim mobs rampaged through two Nigerian cities Tuesday, killing at least 24 people in violence that followed deadly protests against caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed during… Read moreNigeria: more religious violence
The Niger Delta, in Nigeria’s south, has long been beset by ethnic struggles over distribution of the region’s oil wealth. Now the north, where Muslim-Christian tensions have long simmered, is boiling over—ostensibly over the cartoon controversy, but one wonders what… Read moreNorthern Nigeria explodes
A new adittion to the alphabet soup of armed rebel groups in Africa’s most oil-rich region: the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND). From the BBC, Feb. 17: A Nigerian militant commander in the oil-rich southern Niger… Read moreNiger Delta militia warns of “total war”
From Africa News Dimension, Feb. 15: Around 10,000 Eritrean-Americans marched from the White House to the Department of State in Washington , DC to urge the U.S. government to ensure the enforcement of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission’s (EEBC) “final and… Read moreEritreans march in DC for border demarcation
From Reuters, Feb. 14: Militias in Somalia are looting shipments of aid for drought victims and forcing aid drivers to pay bribes, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Attacks by Somali pirates in recent months have caused aid agencies to… Read moreProtein wars in Somalia
At least 16 people were injured Jan. 20 as Ethiopian police cracked down on opposition protests in the capital, Addis Ababa, on the second and final day of celebrations marking Timkat, the Epiphany festival of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Demonstrators… Read moreEthiopia: police attack Epiphany processions
The international community has been attempting to restore peace to West Africa, long torn by multiple inter-related ethnic and civil conflicts. Now, just as Liberia is hailed as a success story—with the country’s first post-war president, and Africa’s first woman… Read moreIvory Coast violence: new “great game” for West Africa?
Royal Dutch Shell has shut down a tenth of Nigeria’s oil production, after armed militants kidnapped four foreign oil workers and blew up a major pipeline Jan. 11. The incidents followed attacks on pipelines owned by the Nigerian state-owned oil… Read moreNigeria: headed for civil war?
