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A year has passed since the much talked about issue of Vanity Fair on Africa, with its spectacular twenty different covers. It has also been a year since I wrote my first take on it, expressed my reticences about the Sachs v. Easterly debate and promised to come back to Sachs’ ‘Big Dream’ for Africa… I finally decided to come back to it, but I’m afraid only to reiterate my ....

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For the last ten days the word has been violence spurred by xenophobia. Nothing can justify the levels it has reached, but it certainly begs explanation, understanding and real solutions. A common definition of ‘xenophobia’ will hold it as “a strong feeling of dislike or fear of people from other countries.” Is this really what explains the appalling scenes from Johannesburg’s shacklands being shown in the media all over the world? ....

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The current U.S. Presidential contest was marked, during the first few months, by its African-American protagonist’s repeated (re)assurances to the American electorate that his run was all but about race. And, it has to be recognised, for the most part the said protagonist, Barack Obama, has been hugely successful at it. However, developments in the last few weeks, culminating with his memorable speech “A More Perfect Union”, put the race ....

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The current U.S. Presidential contest was marked, during the first few months, by its African-American protagonist’s repeated (re)assurances to the American electorate that his run was all but about race. And, it has to be recognised, for the most part the said protagonist, Barack Obama, has been hugely successful at it. However, developments in the last few weeks, culminating with his memorable speech “A More Perfect Union”, put the race ....

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Of course there is no one standard to judge a woman’s beauty but, unless we want to neglect reality, we are often forced to settle for some norms given by modern society and usually find ourselves assessing beauty using those most acknowledged standards. Many people prefer the fair-skinned with smooth hair women while some add supermodel qualities and others have recently preferred the curvy and fuller women. ....

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Of course there is no one standard to judge a woman’s beauty but, unless we want to neglect reality, we are often forced to settle for some norms given by modern society and usually find ourselves assessing beauty using those most acknowledged standards. Many people prefer the fair-skinned with smooth hair women while some add supermodel qualities and others have recently preferred the curvy and fuller women. ....

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The first winner of the Mo Ibrahim’s Prize for Good Governance has just recently been announced as Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique. The announcement was received by Issa Shivji, a Tanzanian academic, with a no holds barred critique ( “The Mo Ibrahim Prize: Robbing Peter to pay Paul”) which led me to this comment that can be taken as a ‘deconstruction exercise’ attempting to establish a middle ground between ....

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