his week racist commentary by a white South African estate agent, Penny Sparrow, went viral. Within a few days, Sparrow – who referred to Durban’s black beach-goers as monkeys on Facebook – had been publicly shamed. To date, a charge of crimen injuria has been laid against her and a complaint about her statements lodged with the Human Rights Commission. …
When foreign ministers from 10 countries — Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the UAE and United States — met in Paris in December to discuss possible solutions to the crisis in Syria, the absence of women was noticeable and inexcusable, despite the fact that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 explicitly says …
In West Africa, Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita presides over a state under siege by terrorists. But he also faces a threat to his people that makes fewer international headlines: climate change. It’s a parallel he drew when he addressed global heads of state gathered at the recently-concluded Paris Climate Conference. Keita spoke of the deaths …
Corruption continues to make headlines with stories ranging from ever-expanding FIFA indictments, to British American Tobacco’s bribery of African officials, to the Petrobras saga that has led to the impeachment proceedings of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. And sadly, this list of seemingly isolated incidents could go on. The World Economic Forum estimates corruption accounts for 5 percent …
In October, a scandal broke at one of South Africa’s most prestigious private boarding schools. A group of boys from Hilton College in the KwaZulu-Natal province — the white and black sons of South Africa’s elite — had taken a picture of themselves participating in a mock gang rape and it ended up on Instagram. Their “victim” …