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South Africa has safeguards against ruling party decay, Ethiopia can’t be saved from its ruling party COMMENT | BINIAM BEDASSO | The leaders of two key African countries resigned their posts within 24 hours of each other in mid-February. South Africa’s Jacob Zuma finally buckled under pressure from his own party …

These companies influence how people think and behave without them even being aware of it COMMENT | GEORGE SOROS | The current moment in world history is a painful one. Open societies are in crisis, and various forms of dictatorships and mafia states, exemplified by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, are on the …

UMEME: Why the president is misinformed about electricity distribution market and tariffs THE LAST WORD | Andrew M. Mwenda | President Yoweri Museveni’s letter to the minister of Energy has provided considerable grist to the anti-Umeme mill. There is no company providing a public service in Uganda that has been …

How messages on burning ivory from poached elephants might be missed among those for whom it is intended COMMENT | MATTHEW H. HOLDEN & OTHERS |  The tusks of more than ten thousand elephants went up in flames in Kenya on April 30, 2016 – the world’s largest ever ivory …

Africa is the world’s last frontier market, and Western businesses need to take advantage of its potential COMMENT | LANDRY SIGNE | Since 2000, at least half of the world’s fastest-growing economies have been in Africa. And by 2030, Africa will be home to 1.7 billion people, whose combined consumer and business …

Whereas Amazing Grace FM has a right to protest against closure, it should apologise to those it offended COMMENT | HERBERT LUGABA | I have been following developments surrounding the closure of Amazing Grace Radio for airing a sermon by a one Nicholas Niyibikora, which many considered insulting and derogatory to …

To increase emerging markets’ share of infrastructure investment, the world needs more `patient capital’ COMMENT | JUSTIN YIFU, HAVARD HALLAND & YAN WANG | Lawmakers in the United States have introduced legislation that, if enacted, would create a new development finance institution (DFI) to replace the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. Unlike …

National Drug Authority should handle the issue of counterfeit drugs through monitoring systems and the law COMMENT | MICHAEL WOIRA | The Uganda National Drug Authority and the Ministry of Health need to urgently reexamine the systems and processes they use to examine all drugs that are being sold by public …

Museveni’s Rip Van Winkle MPs who sleeping and wake up to vote undermine democracy COMMENT | MWAMBUTSYA NDEBESA | I am sure most readers are familiar with a popular short story about escapist fantasy of a one Rip Van Winkle who instead of facing challenges of his home and solve them, …

What to expect when, someday, thinking machines become so sophisticated that they will invent other machines COMMENT | KENNETH ROGOFF | Most economic forecasters have largely shrugged off recent advances in artificial intelligence (for example, the quantum leap demonstrated by DeepMind’s self-learning chess program last December), seeing little impact on longer-term …