Debt rip-off While Western governments are trying to recoup money from foreign tax havens, African countries are being forced to pay loans that have already made their way into illicit external accounts. Desmond Davies reviews a book that throws light on a disturbing situation When President Olusegun Obasanjo came to…

A year ago, the coup in Niger once again raised the spectre of unconstitutional changes of governments in Africa. The continent, first through the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and now the African Union (AU), frowns upon these illegal actions. In the case of Niger, the matter was more complicated….

Reviewed by Desmond Davies, Africa Editor, North-South magazine, London. Fitting tribute to Mwalimu The late Tanzanian President, Julius Nyerere, was greatly misunderstood when he was in power. It was only when he stepped down that his critics realised that he meant well for his country and Africa. And that his…

Reviewed by Desmond Davies, Africa Editor, North-South magazine, London One of the overarching aims of the African Union, which was established in 2002, is to ensure that human security takes precedence over state security. This has been a thorny issue for some of the continent’s leaders who feel that the…

The series provides a very comprehensive coverage of all important areas of HIV/AIDS and strikes a very good balance between scientific details and more broad issues of a wider interest to both scientists and also people without a science background. The books are written in very simple English making them easy to read…

New York; May 5, 2010 ‘ Accenture (NYSE: ACN); BSI, Ltd. and NetHope have been engaged by the Tanzanian Ministry of Education and Vocational Training (MoEVT) to create an eLearning initiative to improve the country’s secondary education system using state-of-the-art information and communications technology. The initiative, ‘Tanzania Beyond Tomorrow,’ will…

Reviewed by Desmond Davies, Africa Editor, North-South magazine http://www.northsouthmag.com/ The issue of the Western Sahara has now dragged on for 35 years with no apparent end in sight. This rather convoluted dispute entered into the consciousness of the world in 1975 when the Spanish colonialists left the Western Sahara and…

Reviewed by Desmond Davies, Africa Editor, North-South magazine, http://www.northsouthmag.com/ The African continent continues to baffle the rest of the world. It is generally portrayed as the poorest, the most disorganised and the most conflict-ridden. But the rest of the world does not want to leave Africa alone to mend its…

http://www.northsouthmag.com/ Since the beginning of the 21st Century, Morocco has gone through various phases to emerge as a regional economic power conscious of the privileged strategic position it occupies at the tip of Africa controlling one side of the narrow Strait of Gibraltar that links the Mediterranean with the Atlantic…

Between 1970 and 2002, African countries received close to $300 billion in development aid, but the continent continues to lag behind the rest of the world in terms of economic growth. This situation has continually stumped development economists who believe that by international financial institutions and Western countries throwing money…