world

ABIDJAN, CÔTE D’IVOIRE — The city has returned to an almost tense normal again, less than two weeks after elections that resulted in two presidents being sworn into office by separate entities here in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). Alassane Ouattara, the internationally backed president, is holed up in the safety of the U.N.-protected Golf Hotel…

MONROVIA, Liberia — We’re in the upper edges of Liberia, neighboring the border of Guinea, enjoying an alfresco dinner with the crew from the local radio station, swatting at mosquitoes, swigging down Liberian beer to mute the heat of that divinely delicious red-pepper sauce. We’re talking about land disputes, the havoc wreaked by two civil…

PORT-AU-PRINCE — Using celebrities, text messages and billboards, Haitian health officials and international aid agencies have unleashed a massive public-education campaign to stem the rapid expansion of the cholera epidemic that threatens to destabilize this fragile Caribbean nation. Meanwhile, a French scientist has pinpointed the source of the disease, which had not been seen in…

By Mary Robinson and Desmond Tutu Dhaki is from the southern region of Ethiopia. At age 13, instead of going to school, Dhaki was marrried and tended cattle for her family. Her husband, 11 years older than she, regularly forced himself on her. Her nightly cries were ignored by her neighbors, and she was shunned…

MONROVIA — I’m zipping around Liberia in a turbo-charged tour of the West African country, ricocheting from public hospital to presidential digs to rubber plantation to rape clinic, taking it all in: the shell of a skyscraper where snipers once picked off their prey; the sewage-clogged beach; the exuberant billboards of “Mama Ellen” — that…

When Delta became the first American airline in many years to fly into Liberia last month, billionaire Robert “Bob” Johnson had a prime seat on that plane. That’s because the inaugural flight was part of Johnson’s ongoing effort to spur investment in the formerly war-torn West African nation. Since hearing Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf…

The word nègre is being bandied about in the French media in an unusually intense way these days, thanks to the blatherings of the cosmetics tycoon Jean-Paul Guerlain, who said on French television recently that he had “worked like a nègre” to develop the perfume Samsara. When the newscaster Audrey Pulvar, born in Martinique, called…

From the first aerial views of Port-au-Prince and then past the chaotic welcome of Haiti’s only international airport, there are the blue-and-gray tent cities. More often, rather than camp tents, the structures are flimsy wood frames standing 6 feet or so, wrapped with vinyl tarps, everywhere you go. These carry the stamps of USAID or…

By Michelle Singletary Whenever I’m traveling and I see uniformed military personnel, I can’t help but become a little teary-eyed. I worry that the service members may be shipping out to Afghanistan or Iraq. I appreciate the sacrifice those in the military make, especially the many who are in combat zones. So it’s with no…

By Njaramba Gikunju When the global financial system went into a convulsion that eventually became what economic experts now refer to as the Great Recession, most pundits said that Africa, with its unsophisticated financial systems, would sail through the crisis unscathed. Proponents of this theory argued that Africa was “de-coupled” from the global economy, and…