Africa

Sudan created a paramilitary Force to destroy Government Threats – but it became a major Threat itself

By Tsega Etefa, Colgate University | – Sudan is in crisis. Fighting continues between Sudan’s military leader, Abdelfattah Al-Burhan, and his deputy on Sudan’s ruling council, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagolo, who commands the paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Moina Spooner, from The Conversation Africa, asked Sudan historian and conflict expert Tsega Etefa to […]

Far Right

Sudan crisis Explained: What’s behind the latest Fighting and its Roots in the Past

The Conversation

By Christopher Tounsel, University of Washington | – Days of violence in Sudan have resulted in the deaths of at least 180 people, with many more left wounded. The fighting represents the latest crisis in the North African nation, which has contended with numerous coups and periods of civil strife since becoming independent in 1956. […]

Africa

DNA Study Sheds Light on Arab Expansion in Africa, Axum and other Empires

The Conversation

By Nancy Bird, UCL | – Pre-colonial African history is alive with tales of civilisations rising and falling and of different cultures intermingling across the continent. We have now shed more light on some of these societies using the science of genetics. In a study published in Science Advances, my co-authors and I used DNA […]

Archaeology

DNA Study: Medieval Iranian Merchants account for Half of the Ancestry of Swahili People of East African Coast

The Conversation

By Chapurukha Kusimba, University of South Florida and David Reich, Harvard University | – The legacy of the medieval Swahili civilization is a source of extraordinary pride in East Africa, as reflected in its language being the official tongue of Kenya, Tanzania and even inland countries like Uganda and Rwanda, far from the Indian Ocean […]

Africa

Tunisia: Racist Violence Targets Black Migrants, Refugees

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Tunis) – President Kais Saied’s recent attempt to mitigate the serious harm that a speech he made on February 21, 2023, caused Black African migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in Tunisia does not go far enough, Human Rights Watch said today. Measures announced on March 5 fall far short of the […]

Africa

Tunisia’s wave of racist attacks: ‘I’m afraid. I can just disappear’

Middle East Monitor

Amelia Smith amyinthedesert ( Middle East Monitor ) – One student in Tunis fears most for his female colleagues; a story is circulating that Tunisian men pretending to be police are approaching sub-Saharan African women, luring them away and then raping them. Another student, Modeste from Benin, says he and his friends recently […]

Featured

South Africa downgrades Israeli Embassy over Ongoing Apartheid (and they should know)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Middle East Eye reports that the South African parliament has voted to downgrade the Israeli embassy in Pretoria to liaison status. The resolution was introduced by the tiny center-left National Freedom Party, which has only two seats in parliament. Its passage was assured, however, when the African National Congress […]

Democratic Party

Jimmy Carter’s Man in Sudan

John Goodman

Strasbourg, France (Special to Informed Comment) – I am not quite able to remember the first time I met President Carter, but I do remember when I first went to see him at his home in Plains. It was the fall of 2016 and I was thirty-six. I had been a mid-level staffer at The […]

Africa

Israeli Delegate Expelled from African Union Summit, in what may be First Global South Reaction to new Extremist Netanyahu Government

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Saturday at the opening of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the Israeli delegate was asked to leave. Sharon Bar-Li, the deputy director of the African desk at the Israeli foreign ministry, was escorted out of the opening session by security guards, according to the Al Jazeera […]