As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s army reduced one Ukrainian city after another to rubble, crushing civilians caught in apartment blocks and shopping malls under a rain of artillery and missile fire, many observers in the rich world bemoaned the dysfunction of the United Nations for not being able to overcome an obstacle written into its…
Many developing countries don’t keep official death records. A novel effort uses “electronic autopsies” to count deaths, and record their cause. FUNKOYA, Sierra Leone — Augustine Alpha begins gently. “Who lives in this home?” he asks the young man, who has come in from the fields to answer his questions. Your name? Age? Religion? Marital status?…
Africa is rich with a variety of traditional religions and spiritual belief systems. However during the colonial period missionaries spread Christianity throughout the continent, and suppressed many of these pre-existing belief systems. Africans continued to follow their traditional belief, in smaller numbers than before, and these faiths still exist today. Younger African people, particularly women, have…
Washington — The White House has announced the United States will co-host the second global COVID-19 summit virtually on May 12 to discuss increasing efforts to end the pandemic internationally and prepare for future variants of the coronavirus. “The emergence and spread of new variants, like omicron, have reinforced the need for a strategy aimed…
America has long thought itself exceptional, a blessed place destined to bring freedom to the world. China has an even longer history of self-proclaimed exceptionalism and, spurred by its many modern achievements, is more assertively promoting its brand of governance as a model for the world. The widening confrontation between the United States and China…
A man sits near a portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin during a demonstration in Bamako, Mali, on Feb. 19, celebrating France’s announcement that it will withdraw its troops from the country. FLORENT VERGNES/AFP via Getty Images On March 30, as Russian forces continued their struggle to conquer Ukrainian cities, Russian arms suppliers delivered a…
The UN has allocated $100 million to fight hunger in Africa and the Middle East as the spillover effects of the war in Ukraine threaten to push millions even closer to famine.
Decline is a tricky concept. The term makes us think of a country that is falling like a rock—one whose power and capabilities are dropping across the board. But a country can be in relative decline vis-à-vis a fast-growing adversary even if its own power is still increasing. It can be surging forward in some…
COVID-19 cases in Africa have fallen for the past 16 weeks, and deaths have dropped during the last eight, marking the longest-running decline in infections on the continent since the start of the pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief. The highlights this week: The United States calls for an investigation into atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, Gambia’s opposition party loses its majority in elections, and the trial of South Africa’s Jacob Zuma is delayed again. If you would like to receive Africa Brief in your inbox every Wednesday,…