world

(The Root) — World AIDS Day is approaching, and it’s time, once again, for an accounting. In the roughly 30 years since the disease was recognized, more than 25 million (pdf) have died from it. An estimated 34 million (pdf) are living with it; 2.5 million new infections are recorded each year. There has been…

The Role of the Writer in Africa What then were we to do as writers? What was our role in our new country? How were we to think about the use of our talents? I can say that when a number of us decided that we would be writers, we had not thought through these…

(The Root) — Growing up in Johannesburg’s impoverished Alexandra township, Florence Ngobeni-Allen, who is now an HIV/AIDS educator and counselor, has long understood the concept of philanthropy. For her it was summed up by “ubuntu,” an elegant Xhosa word that translates roughly to “I am because you are.” That ideal is personified in the Nomthunzi…

(The Root) — In the last few weeks before the U.S. presidential election, it seemed as if every time I opened my mouth, a South African stranger initiated a version of the same conversation: “Do you really think,” a woman said to me as I browsed through vintage couture at her Johannesburg shop, “that that…

(The Root) — South African President Jacob Zuma began his remarks to the press corps this week with an ode to two men. The first, predictably, was former President Nelson Mandela, a 94-year-old anti-apartheid icon and Nobel Peace laureate who is seen as the father of modern South Africa. The second man he named, however,…

(The Root) — The woman in the bright-pink traditional African dress spoke firmly: “It is unacceptable that a mother should die while giving birth because the nearest health center is far away.” President Joyce Banda of Malawi was speaking at the 67th Session of the United Nations General Assembly last month, before the same audience…

(The Root) — South African President Jacob Zuma made a rousing speech last week at the United Nations, invoking Nelson Mandela and praising the virtues of inclusion, democracy and equal representation. He argued for Africa to be admitted to the United Nations’ most powerful body, the U.N. Security Council. In an argument that not so…

Introduction by Charlayne Hunter-Gault (The Root) — President Barack Obama’s strong defense of freedom of speech at the United Nations last month was clearly directed at the sputtering young Arab and North African democracies, where violent anti-American protests were ostensibly sparked by a video (Why don’t people stop calling it a film?) that insulted the…

The following is the text of an address titled “Religion Against Humanity,” given by Nobel Prize-winning writer Wole Soyinka, a member of UNESCO’s International High Panel, at the 2012 Conference on the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Sept. 21, 2012. (Special to The Root) — To…