In November last year, Ngor Garang was illegally detained and repeatedly tortured for 18 days in South Sudan’s national security headquarters, located in the country’s interim capital, Juba. His crime: he was the chief editor for a newspaper that...
In his 32 years in power, Angola’s President José Edouardo Dos Santos has adopted the maxim, "if you can't beat them, buy them". The silence of rappers, journalists and the occasional university professor has been secured for a few petro dollars, a...
Suddenly, bad African leaders are under the torch of public scrutiny: George Clooney is arrested while trying to draw attention to Sudan’s president Bashir. Former Kenyan ministers Uhuru Kenyatta and Willam Ruto are on trial at the International...
As Elmi Mohammed Waare ambled through an outdoor market in the central Somali town of Beledweyne in December 2007, two casually-dressed, non-descript members of the Al-Shabaab militia group abruptly blocked his path. He had been threatened twice...
Inspired by Tupac, Public Enemy and others in the USA around 2004, a new tsunami of music crashed over hit Tanzania. Bongo Flavah: raw, real, Swahili. It spoke to people, particularly the disenfranchised 3 million who live in slums and suburbs...
“Slum is a tricky word. It conjures up images out of control. The threatening. The miserable. The lawless,” thus wrote Richard Swift in his article "Welcome to Squatter Town" for The New Internationalist. This publicity raised awareness of the...
Over 70 per cent of East Africa's population lives in rural communities: despite the proliferation of radio stations, weekly and daily newspapers, and television stations, in Tanzania alone there are 17 radio stations, 61 national papers and 11...
In places like Zimbabwe the need for "outsider" critique is essential: solipsistic regimes create complex narratives about betrayal and patriotism; no more so than in Zimbabwe. Whether material originates from "inside" or "outside" the regime can...
“It all comes down to reading! If you read properly, you evaluate, you notice, you critique properly. It’s depressing, flying across Africa there’s all these Wazungu (white people) on the plane reading, but our people are reading self-help books or...
On 9 January, in a bizarre move, at least 10 radio stations, including BBC Radio, Radio France International (local relay channels), and the Italian Embassy’s security radio channel were taken off the air by the police in an on-going crackdown over...