Mideast in best, worst of times: The region has seen some promising developments, and some causes for fear
It had been a pretty good month for peacemakers in the Middle East – that is until the car-bomb assassination of Lebanon’s five-times prime minister Rafik Hariri on 14 February, a modern Valentine’s Day massacre.
Rival insurgencies shatter myth of monolithic terrorist network
United States President George Bush seized on the arrest this week of a suspected colleague of Osama bin Laden by Pakistani officials, declaring Abu Faraj al-Libbi’s capture ‘a critical victory in the war on terror’.
Chasm Between How Westerners and Muslims View the Conflict that Binds Them
In the immediate wake of the rush-hour bomb blasts in London’s transportation network on Thursday morning.
Global Terror: Africa Not Immune to Terror
THE three suicide bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali last weekend, coming so soon after similar attacks in Britain and Egypt, underscore two critical and correlative points.
Looking for Clues in al-Zarqawi’s Wake
ONE of the most vexing riddles of the global war on terror is what effect capturing or killing Osama bin Laden might have on the nature and trajectory of transnational violent jihadism.
‘Our Way for Them to Cheat’
Last week, the government unveiled some of its plans for its self-assessment required by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
Nepad Policy Focus: Back to the Blackboard: Looking Beyond Universal Primary Education in Africa
This report highlights the challenges in African education and encourages governments to start planning and expanding their secondary education sector. The report was edited and produced by SAIIA’s Nepad and Governance project which is funded by Royal Netherlands Embassy.
African Tradition Upholds Free Speech, Democracy
To suggest that Africans cannot understand or do not care about free speech, electoral fairness or misappropriation of public funds is to misread African traditional culture, write Kwaku Asante-Darko and Ross Herbert, in a guest column for allAfrica marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Lesotho Country Report
This report presents the results of research conducted by the author in Maseru in 2004, the instruments and methods of which appear in the first section.
Mauritius Country Report
This report begins with a short historic background on Mauritius highlighting the development of democracy and parliament as an institution.