world

JOHANNESBURG—For many black Americans, Professor Ken Simmons was the father of the African-American community in South Africa — not just because of his 77 years or because he had been coming here longer than just about every other member of that group. His leadership was by example. By the time Simmons died in July after…

This report was provided to The Root by the Black AIDS Institute‘s media delegation to the AIDS 2010 conference in Vienna, Austria. The writer, Linda Villarosa, is a member of that delegation and a regular contributor to The Root. In a groundbreaking study, a gel made using an antiretroviral drug was found to be effective…

The Obama administration has to get serious about dealing with Somalia and the Somali Islamist jihadist group Harakat Al-Shabaab. The July 11 bombings in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, which killed 76 people, should have sent the administration a clear warning signal. The messages are both blunt and subtle, and the administration needs to get…

Watching the World Cup finale in New York City on Sunday, conversation inevitably turned to South Africa’s performance as host. While the media had forecast terror attacks, crime waves and infrastructure disasters, football fans at the bar all agreed that South Africa deserved praise for doing Africa proud on the world stage. Sadly, the much-predicted…

By George B.N. Ayittey A continent away from Kyrgyzstan, Africans like myself cheered this spring as a coalition of opposition groups ousted the country’s dictator, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. “One coconut down, 39 more to harvest!” we shouted. There are at least 40 dictators around the world today, and approximately 1.9 billion people live under the…

By Alex Strick Van Linschoten, Felix Kuehn “We can’t let you leave.” The African Union soldiers with whom we’d thrown in our lot a few hours earlier were shocked to learn we actually planned to head back into the city of Mogadishu, abandoning the relative safety of their base on the outskirts of the Somali…

Kingston is quiet again and Jamaicans collectively are exhaling now that Christopher “Dudus” Coke left for the United States to face charges on drug and gun-trafficking charges. In handcuffs and in prison blues, he pleaded not guilty on Friday in front of a U.S. judge in Manhattan Federal Court. A day earlier before a resident…

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that in the news media one missing white girl equals half a dozen dead black girls or 100 dead Muslims or 1,000 Africans with AIDS. The missing white girl will always get front-page coverage while death and disease striking men and women of color will be relegated to the inside…

by Nicholas Griffin Imagine an alternate reality of the United States in the 1960s, where the collective experience of the political elite had been formed in all-black baseball leagues. The country is led by President Jackie Robinson, Vice President Satchel Paige, and Secretary of State Willie Mays. Sounds crazy? Replace baseball with soccer, and you’ve…