Welcome! This is an unapologetic, agenda-free zone. Just commentaries on current events that’ll move you to think, laugh, rage, and even cry.
Terrorists in Nigeria have kidnapped more schoolgirls… iPINIONS chastises celebrities, who once posed with hashtags demanding their return, for being silent now. Read my full take on Substack: Read more.
Namibia has done what so many nations only talk about — put women firmly in charge. iPINIONS asserts that its female-majority government offers a glimpse of what leadership looks like when empathy, collaboration, and competence replace ego, partisanship, and bluster. Read my full take on Substack:https://ipinionsdaily.substack.com/p/namibia-the-blueprint-for-womens Read more.
Sudan’s lost promise: from potential powerhouse to civil war hellscape In 2011, Sudan seemed on the brink of becoming a regional powerhouse, poised to rival Egypt as a stable and relatively prosperous autocracy. Decades of civil war between the Arab-dominated north and the predominantly Black African south led to the creation of South Sudan. That… Read more.
Alas, earthquakes, coups, floods, famine, tribal warfare, corruption, etc. all just seem part of the African game of dysfunction… Read more.
Another week, another coup Military coups in Africa are far more regular than presidential elections in America. Africa has had 486 attempted coups since 1950 (214 successful), whereas America has had only 59 elections (and 1 attempted coup). So, waking up this morning to breaking news of a coup in Gabon was hardly surprising. Military officers in Gabon said they… Read more.
Russia is using food as a weapon of war again. Earlier this month, it torpedoed the Black Sea grain deal millions of Africans depend on to survive. That was the elephant in the room at this week’s Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg. African leaders as pawns and props Frankly, the solidarity African leaders showed at the Russia-Africa summit in Petersburg this week… Read more.
Of course Donald Trump is a racist. But let’s call this spade a spade. President Biden will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other African countries to try to contain a troubling new variant of the coronavirus, senior administration officials said on Friday, though they said it would be impossible to prevent it from… Read more.
Missed opportunities, misappropriations, and miscreants feature prominently in the story of post-colonial Africa. And this journal is replete with commentaries bemoaning it all. But the following quote pretty well sums up my abiding dismay: I just hope the damning irony is not lost on any proud African that, 50 years after decolonization, hundreds of Africans (men, women,… Read more.
Severe flooding in Venice that has left much of the Italian city under water is a direct result of climate change, the mayor says. The highest water levels in the region in more than 50 years would leave ‘a permanent mark’, Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro tweeted. ‘Now the government must listen,’ he added. ‘These are… Read more.
There’s nothing more self-absorbed than an American president like Trump playing the victim. But a British duchess doing so comes close. No doubt HRH The Duchess of Sussex (née Meghan Markle) would cringe at any comparison to Donald J. Trump. Yet she invited it with the cringeworthy interview she gave for Harry & Meghan: An… Read more.
