Browsing: Africa

World Ismail Omar Guelleh
Djibouti: President Guelleh is risking his country’s future

Ever since Djibouti’s official independence from France in 1977, the country has never experienced a civil war, a military coup or one of the many other political calamities that have become commonplace in much of East Africa. The two largest ethnic groups, the Somali and the Afar, co-exist peacefully and the economy has grown consistently over the last decade.

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Music National Wake
Punk in Africa: The sound of resistance

Punk music has never really had an easy time, but never has that statement been truer than in South Africa during apartheid. Not only were records by alternative artists not played, they were destroyed and legislated.

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World Migrants queue before being smuggled from Obock, Djibouti to Yemen
Horn migrants risk new dangerous routes to reach Europe

The shipwreck that claimed the lives of more than 350 mainly Eritrean asylum seekers off the Italian island of Lampedusa last month has focused Europe’s obsession with irregular migration on the area of the Mediterranean separating southern Italy and Malta from North Africa. But this treacherous stretch of sea represents only the final leg of a lengthy journey filled with hazards.

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World Chinese lanterns
Africa: Is China Wearing Out Its Welcome?

China’s relationship with Africa is often criticized by outsiders as neo-colonialist and exploitative, overlooking human rights abuses to preserve their access to resources and markets. But many Africans prefer spared the political strings attached to so much Western investment.

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