Governance

Has the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) just taught the Southern African Development Community (SADC) a lesson?

Stories of incredible hardship, suffering and lack of democratic rights often overflow our social media feeds and are ever-present in our newspapers and on radio and TV.

 ‘The people have spoken. Donald Trump will be the next president,’ President Obama told the American people on November 14. The people indeed spoke. The majority elected Hillary Clinton, who leads Trump by over two million votes.

October 14th marked the sixth anniversary of Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire’s arrest, and October 24th will mark the 20th anniversary of Rwanda’s and Uganda’s invasion and occupation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The choice of former Portuguese Prime Minister António Guterres as the next United Nations Secretary-General is profoundly historic, though it has not come as a surprise.

August 5, 2016

Ms. Christine Lagarde,

Managing Director,

The International Monetary Fund,

700 19th St NW, Washington, DC 20431, United States

The end of juridical apartheid in 1994 brought hope to many, especially those who had suffered centuries of racial subjugation and exploitation. The much vaunted rainbow nation and the narrative of a non-racial society spelled a new beginning.

Last July, Barack Obama visited Ethiopia and declared the ruling Thugtatoship of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (T-TPLF) regime a “democratic government.”

The T-TPLF claimed with a straight face that it had won the 2015 “election” by 100 percent or all 547 seats in “parliament”.

During the week of April 11 it was revealed that the Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is proposing to turn over the strategic islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia.

Buried beneath the sensational revelations making headlines in the wake of the Panama Papers is a simple truth about the importance of fair and effective tax systems: revenues from taxation – whether from company profits, capital gains or wages – are crucial for maintaining nationwide mechanisms