Shortly after Kieran Dwyer, the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, gave a presentation about U.N. peacekeeping missions (watch video below), he said that the mission also receives “bad press” for some of its work in Africa. The phrase jumped out at me. Bad press is what happens when a Hollywood movie flops. In Africa,... Read more »
When the French first intervened in Mali, Ambassador Vicki Huddleston penned an Op-Ed in the New York Times outlining reasons why the U.S. should assist France in fighting the terror group Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Huddleston was the United States ambassador to Mali from 2002 to 2005 and urged the U.S. not to intervene... Read more »
The French took the plunge and began attacking Islamist militant groups in Mali this week after regional leaders from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) hesitated for months. The instability in northern Mali dates back nearly a year and yet, until now, no agreement on a foreign intervention strategy could be reached. That stands... Read more »
In the last blog entry, I wrote that Ambassador Michael E. Ranneberger was visiting the University of South Florida as part of an event sponsored by the Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies. Amb. Ranneberger gave a lecture titled “U.S. Foreign Policy in Africa: Lessons, Challenges, and Opportunities” through the center’s “Lecture Series on National Security.”... Read more »
In the past two months, West Africa has witnessed an unprecedented security threat as several governments were caught in the grips of coups or attempted coups. As Guinea-Bissau soldiers arrest the nation’s Prime minister over a suspected coup, Mali’s new interim civilian president got sworn into office last Thursday, after a 27 days long coup that has puzzled... Read more »
Senegal’s New President Despite a notion that Africa continues to be the continent where autocratic regimes forcefully replace each other through bloody warfare, in the past two decades, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, there is a significant increase in the number of democratic countries in the continent. Sure, there are setbacks in... Read more »