Word: continente
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There is real reason for excitement. Much to the surprise of technology analysts, Africa is the fastest-growing mobile phone market on the planet and Safaricom has profited handsomely by catering to customers who don't have a lot to spend. In 2007, the company's pre-tax profit was...
Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, has always been crucial to the politics of southern Africa. Ruthlessly grabbed by Cecil Rhodes and a ragtag army of white adventurers in the 19th century, it became virtually a European country, the original inhabitants driven from their land and reduced to workers and servants. Although Rhodesia...
Yet African governments have taken freedom of speech and fair elections more seriously recently. Most notably, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria was forced out last year when his term was up. At the same time, continent-wide reforms have improved governance. At the end of the last century, African rulers...
Mbeki was desperate to demonstrate that this was an African initiative. Any hint that he was doing the West's bidding would create an anticolonial backlash. The anticolonial struggle, though won over half a century ago in most of Africa, remains one of the few unifying causes for the continent...
Zimbabwe, of course, did not sign up to be reviewed, and no mechanism exists to hold it to account. The unfolding battle for its political soul, however, is a test for the whole continent. Will its rulers stand by the principles they have signed up to, or will Mugabe's...