Obama’s Final State of the Union — What It Means for Africa

Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma deliv­ered his final State of the Union address on Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 12. In his speech, Oba­ma focused on a num­ber of ideas, includ­ing the fact that Amer­i­ca has nev­er stopped being great, that diplo­ma­cy is a bet­ter way to deal with con­flict, and that all Amer­i­cans — regard­less of dif­fer­ences in…

Energy Africa Conference Brings Together a Powerhouse of Speakers

Per­haps it shouldn’t come as a sur­prise that Gold­en, Col­orado sees its fair share of annu­al inter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences. Craft and cor­po­rate brew­eries make the land­scape near­ly as famous as the Rocky Moun­tains. Gold­en also hosts its fair share of meet­ings focused on inno­va­tions in ener­gy. The Nation­al Renew­able Ener­gy Lab­o­ra­to­ry (NREL) is head­quar­tered here. NREL…

Emmanuel Weyi Aims to Change the Democratic Republic of Congo

It’s dif­fi­cult to write about the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Repub­lic of Con­go (DRC) with­out refer­ring to its unsta­ble and author­i­tar­i­an past. It’s a past that brings reminders about Patrice Lumum­ba, Mubu­tu Sesse Seko, Lau­rent-Desire Kabi­la, Bel­gian col­o­niza­tion, and Zaire. The tumul­tuous past remains a back­drop even as the coun­try charges for­ward in a new era of elec­tions and…

War Criminals in Africa

Al-Bashir has escaped the clutch­es of the Inter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC) … again. Leav­ing South Africa on his pri­vate jet after attend­ing the African Union Sum­mit last week, the Pres­i­dent of Sudan, accused of war crimes over his con­duct in the Dar­fur region, some­how felt safe enough to attend an event host­ed by a sig­na­to­ry to…