Spotlight! – This Week – 1/1/19 – 1/26/19

Under­re­port­ed and crit­i­cal news from and about Africa. Israel Threat­ens African Migrants with Impris­on­ment, Depor­ta­tion The gov­ern­ment of Israel recent­ly issued an order, ask­ing African migrants, refugees, to leave the coun­try with­in a few months or face depor­ta­tion. That’s accord­ing to many news orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the U.K. Inde­pen­dent which writes that the Israeli gov­ern­ment has…

Africa Bright Spots Remain Despite Negative Headlines

If you are like me I am sure you’ve been won­der­ing what is going on with recent news from the African con­ti­nent.  For exam­ple — I met a gen­tle­man who I’ll refer to sim­ply as a friend — at a restau­rant in Auro­ra, Col­orado on Jan­u­ary 16.  After a brief con­ver­sa­tion, he quick­ly asked me…

Trump Administration Kicks Off A New “Scramble for Africa”

The scram­ble for Africa, involv­ing the divi­sion and col­o­niza­tion of the African con­ti­nent by Euro­pean pow­ers began in 1881. Many of the ills, includ­ing civ­il wars, as well as the pil­lag­ing of the con­ti­nen­t’s resources, have been blamed on colo­nial and neo-colo­­nial ten­den­cies per­pe­trat­ed by West­ern and East­ern coun­tries. But a new fight for political…

U.S. News & World Report Recognized by Africa Agenda

Africa Agenda’s inau­gur­al “Best in Africa Report­ing” awards were announced dur­ing the organization’s 2018 Africa Sum­mit on Novem­ber 2, 2018. The awards were giv­en, albeit sym­bol­i­cal­ly, to two news orga­ni­za­tions judged to have done an excel­lent job in their reportage of African news in a fair and unbi­ased way. Read more here. The sec­ond-place win­ner will be…

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Writing During Trump Era — 6 Things African Journalists Must Know

Writ­ing dur­ing the Don­ald Trump Era: It was crit­i­cal for those who advo­cat­ed on behalf of the African con­ti­nent, African blog­gers and jour­nal­ists espe­cial­ly, to take a stand and fight for the con­ti­nent we believe in. African blog­gers need to have a voice on the inter­net, just as the mil­i­tary has a voice on the…

Peaceful Transfer of Power in Africa Not in the Headlines

Recent hap­pen­ings on the African con­ti­nent, specif­i­cal­ly in coun­tries like Zim­bab­we and Liberia prove that pow­er can change hands peace­ful­ly, even demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly, in Africa. Robert Mugabe of Zim­bab­we, one of Africa’s longest-serv­ing pres­i­dents came under the spot­light in Decem­ber 2017 when army chief of staff at the time, Con­stan­ti­no Chi­wen­ga, flexed his mus­cle, rude­ly indicating…

Bad Africa Report from NYT Concerns CU Professor

I did not know many of the reports Peter S. Good­man allud­ed to in his Jan­u­ary 27 arti­cle in The New York Times had come out until Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado (CU) pro­fes­sor of Anthro­pol­o­gy Lau­ra Delu­ca drew my atten­tion to them. Delu­ca spends much of her time learn­ing about the African con­ti­nent and inter­act­ing with its…