Africa Horn Now

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The Future of U.S.-Saudi Relations

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F. Gregory Gause III | July / August Issue | FOREIGN POLICY The Kingdom and the Power The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has come under unprecedented strains in recent years. U.S. President Barack Obama has openly questioned Riyadh’s value as an ally, accusing it of provoking sectarian conflict in the region. According to The Atlantic’s … [Read more...] about The Future of U.S.-Saudi Relations

Can a Consummate Insider Bring the Change the U.N. Desperately Needs?

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Colum Lynch | July 5, 2016 Foreign Policy   Susana Malcorra wants to run the U.N. But can she shake up an institution that she's been so instrumental in shaping? Susana Malcorra, Argentina’s foreign minister and a leading candidate to become the U.N.’s ninth secretary-general, understands the inner workings of Turtle Bay better than any of her 10 rivals, a … [Read more...] about Can a Consummate Insider Bring the Change the U.N. Desperately Needs?

Ramadan in Djibouti

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James Jeffrey | July 4, 2016  | Foreign Affairs Life in the Port City It seems obvious that fasting between sunrise and sunset for the month of Ramadan would hurt productivity. But in the port city of Djibouti, East Africa’s premier trade hub, there can’t be any letup, even during Islam’s most holy month. The pressure is especially high this year, as landlocked … [Read more...] about Ramadan in Djibouti

Aid in whose interest?

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Diane Abbott | 1 July 2016 | New Statesman The government appears to be raiding the aid budget to subsidise big business and the security state. In March 1988, Scottish aristocrat and Defence Minister to Margaret Thatcher, George Younger visited was part of a controversial offer of £200m of the UK aid budget in exchange for Malaysia signing a £1bn arms … [Read more...] about Aid in whose interest?

North Korea’s Caste System

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Phil Robertson | June 30, 2016 | Foreign Affairs The Trouble With Songbun When Choi Seung Chol was born in North Korea in 1990, his parents believed that they already knew how his life would unfold. The government would feed him and provide him with free housing, education, and health care. In exchange, the authorities would tell him what to think and what to say; … [Read more...] about North Korea’s Caste System

The Prosecutor and the President

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JAMES VERINI | JUNE 22, 2016 | The NEW YORK TIMES The International Criminal Court embodied the hope of bringing warlords and demagogues to justice. Then Luis Moreno-Ocampotook on the heir to Kenya’s most powerful political dynasty. Nakuru is a lakeside city in Kenya’s Rift Valley, a destination for safari tourists and part of the Great Rift, the tectonic seam that … [Read more...] about The Prosecutor and the President

The great escape

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Robert Winder | 19 June 2016 | New Statesman Almost a thousand people drowned in the waters between Libya and Italy in May. Yet still more migrants come. Can anything be done, or are we experiencing a crisis without end?  On 14 June 1985, representatives of five out of the ten members of the then European Economic Community (EEC) – Belgium, France, West … [Read more...] about The great escape

Writing Human Rights and Getting It Wrong

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Alex de Waal | June 06, 2016 | Boston Review The power to accuse someone of a grave crime on the basis of hearsay is a heady one. I have done it, and I faced the consequences of being wrong. Twenty years ago in the Nuba Mountains of central Sudan, I met a man, Chief Hussein Karbus, whose murder I had reported three years earlier. He was introduced to me by the man I … [Read more...] about Writing Human Rights and Getting It Wrong

The Many Africas

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Ian H. Solomon | July/August 2016 Issue | Foreign Affairs Beyond Continental Caricatures In his memoir, The Lion Awakes, Ashish Thakkar describes how, as a young entrepreneur selling computer parts across Africa in the 1990s, he noticed that flights within the conti­nent seemed to take longer than the distances on a map would suggest. “Were the planes slower?” he … [Read more...] about The Many Africas