This past week Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe celebrated his 92nd birthday. In the midst of a severe drought and mass starvation, Mugabe spent a little over $800,000 with students singing, and with multiple politicians attending the event. Writing for Quartz Africa, Tanashe Mushakavanhu states that “To outside observers, it can be hard to reconcile how Mugabe…
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…
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…
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…
As we track the 2016 U.S. presidential primary debates, I am keeping an eye on any utterings by the candidates and their campaigns about the African continent. Also, as we witness the events, there are those who are scratching their heads in awe at the nasty dramatization of American democracy. The people who know this…
When you listen to Steve Hogan, mayor of Aurora, Colorado’s second-largest city, it’s difficult not to conjecture what’s on his mind, as he attends plenty of functions involving the African immigrants that are a part of the city he leads. These functions occur all over Aurora, each day of the week. Hogan, who is running for…
A look at which countries across Africa penalize homosexuality and whether their laws will change following the United States passing of the same sex marriage act.
Every time U.S. President, Barack Obama makes a trip to the African continent something interesting happens. The media crowd, those who can’t stop saying negative things about the continent come out and begin their Africa mantra. They did this during Obama’s first stop in the continent as president in 2009. They did it when…
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…
With the resignation of Sepp Blatter coming just four days after his fifth re-election to the head of FIFA, many are wondering what is in store for Issa Hayatou, the head of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Some are saying he should be next in line for the head of FIFA, which will most…