How the president has lost connection with young people in Uganda and why nothing can be done about it THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | Cederic Babu Ndilima is a son of Francis Babu. Both are NRM and President Yoweri Museveni diehards. Babu Sr was an NRM MP and also a …
Read More »When victims become killers
The Hitlerization of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Nazification of his Likud-led coalition government THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | After years of frustration, I am finally proud of South Africa. It has restored my faith in the goodness of “man.” It has acquired a soft spot in my heart by doing …
Read More »Reflecting on road safety stats for December and healthcare accessibility in Uganda
COMMENT | JAPHET ARITHO | As we step into the new year, it’s imperative to reflect on the lessons learned from the past month, a period marked by joyous celebrations but also overshadowed by the grim reality of road accidents in Uganda. The festive season of December 2023, much like …
Read More »The Culture War at Harvard and Beyond
COMMENT | IAN BURUMA | Claudine Gay, Harvard University’s first Black female president, was forced to resign after weeks of pressure to step down. But everyone involved in the controversy that pushed her out looks bad. The ostensible reason for her ouster was sloppy academic writing – mostly the …
Read More »What kind of authoritarian would Trump be?
COMMENT | JEREMY ADELMAN | Following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election in 2016, many pundits predicted a worldwide breakdown of democracy, and some warned of civil war. But, aside from Africa’s Sahel region, military coups remain rare, and civil wars rarer still. Instead, democracies have tended to break …
Read More »The futility of waste management
COMMENT | SARAH NEWMAN | When the world leaders gathered in Dubai for the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), the United Arab Emirates unveiled the world’s highest-capacity waste-to-energy (WTE) facility. The plant is designed to process two million metric tons of municipal waste annually, producing enough electricity to power 120,000 …
Read More »When election losers pretend to be winners
COMMENT | Jan-Werner Mueller | More than two months after the decisive victory of pro-democracy parties in Poland’s general election, opposition leader Donald Tusk has finally been sworn in as prime minister. Initially, Mateusz Morawiecki, his predecessor from the right-wing populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, had been reappointed by President Andrzej Duda, beholden to PiS, under the …
Read More »Uganda’s anti-gay crusade
COMMENT | PEPE JULIAN ONZIEMA | In the 1990s, as a 15-year-old high-school student in Uganda, I was a member of a “writers’ club” that would summarize for our fellow students key articles from the lone copy of the local newspaper our school received each day. One day, I was …
Read More »The rule of law under fire across the world
COMMENT | ANA PALACIO | It has been an eventful year, to put it mildly. In fact, the world has endured so much war, disruption, tension, and uncertainty that we are left to wonder whether the rules-based global order, which has guided international relations since World War II, will survive …
Read More »Authoritarianism, debt are biggest threats to global economic stability
COMMENT | KAUSHIK BASU | The International Economic Association (IEA) recently concluded its 20th World Congress in Medellín, Colombia. This triennial event brings together scholars from all over the world to share and discuss the latest developments in economic thinking. This year’s edition underscored the urgency of re-evaluating some of the …
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