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President Donald Trump should have been been found guilty at his impeachment trial. The U.S. House of Representatives should have expanded its indictment charge well beyond Ukrainian corruption, high crimes and misdemeanours to include asking President Xi Jinping of China to help him get reelected (and approving of Mr. Xi’s Uyghur concentration camps in Xinjiang … Continue reading
Leaders ultimately rise or fall on swords of honesty and integrity. When campaigning for high office, populist leaders promise perfection, prosperity, right dealings and the cleansing of immoral temples. But in office, populists often revert to their real character as greedy and self-serving authoritarians. So it is today in Brazil, Latin America’s most populous, most … Continue reading
Climate change, corrupt mismanagement and financial skullduggery kill. That triple cocktail of contemporary poison has sent Zimbabwe, among Africa’s most beleaguered political entities and the continent’s one-time breadbasket, to the brink of wholesale starvation. Hilal Elver, the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, declared late last month: “The people of Zimbabwe are … Continue reading
Robert Gabriel Mugabe’s death Friday at the age of 95 removed a brutal leader who helped to liberate Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) from local white settler rule in 1980, presided for a few years over an educational and economic renaissance, and then succumbed to corruption and megalomania from about 1992 to 2017, when he was finally … Continue reading
Sudan’s trial this week of former president Omar al-Bashir for corruption is a striking blow against political impunity in Africa. Its impact on Sudan may be less potent, however, than its sharp message for the remainder of the continent. The trial also emphasizes the power of Africa’s new middle class. Mr. al-Bashir ruled Sudan despotically … Continue reading
Thanks to drought, cyclones, gross mismanagement, inflation, currency manipulation and continued corruption, as many as half of more than 13 million Zimbabweans will experience hunger this year. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s postcoup administration promised better, but has delivered only economic hardship, fiscal chaos, massive electricity shortages and political desperation to his once rich country. Zimbabweans eat … Continue reading
Because President Cyril Ramaphosa’s new leadership of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) was only narrowly validated when citizens voted in last week’s parliamentary election, he will have to work even harder than ever to bolster legitimacy. He won last week’s national parliamentary election with a reduced majority and a far-less ringing endorsement of … Continue reading
When economically challenged rulers try to run nations, especially fragile ones, they easily make mistakes. Demonstrators have taken to the streets of Khartoum and Omdurman for weeks to protest Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir’s removal of subsidies that have long kept bread and fuel affordable. They seek his ouster. Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan insists on … Continue reading
If Donald Trump’s promised concrete barrier to defend the U.S. border from immigrants from Central America has any hope of actually deterring anyone, such a wall would actually need to be erected almost 3,000 kilometres south, along the frontier between Mexico and Guatemala. That’s where migrants cross on their northern journeys to the United States … Continue reading
Africa in 2019 will continue to cope with a number of difficult and debilitating challenges: Terror, civil conflict, climate warming and drought, corruption, poor governance, weak rules of law and inconsistent and lacklustre leadership . For all of those reasons, sub- Saharan African migrants will still at- tempt, in great numbers, to enter Europe by … Continue reading
Africa and Asia: The Key Issues 