world

(The Root) — In Washington, D.C., whose residents include the leader of the free world, there’s an interesting juxtaposition. The ornate and imposing buildings that house our federal government stand tall over streets battered by a crushing epidemic. And, in a city all too familiar with power and authority, the rampant HIV/AIDS problem in the…

(The Root) — It could be said that the Ethiopian journalist Eskinder Nega dodged a bullet when he was sentenced to only 18 years in prison. After all, the charge of terrorism against him could have brought a death sentence or life in prison, as was the case with 23 other defendants — journalists, as…

(The Root) — The image of the Rev. Michel Louis, a Boston clergyman who asked the abductor in Egypt’s Sinai to take him captive instead of a female fellow traveler, has been shown around the world since the international incident began unfolding over the weekend. But long before the graying, 61-year-old pastor made a valiant…

(Special to The Root) — In this excerpt from Vice-President John Dramani Mahama’s book, My First Coup d’Etat: And Other True Stories from the Lost Decades of Africa, he tells the story of a boarding-school bully, Ezra, who bore striking resemblance to the dictators popping up across Africa in the 1960s. One day Ezra issued…

(The Root) — The man who ruled Egypt with an iron fist for decades clearly still exerts some sway over events in the country. This week, as Egyptian officials struggled to determine who won the first free election in decades, Hosni Mubarak, 84, created a diversion in a truly unique way: by going into a…

(Special to The Root) — After a reunion a few weeks ago in New York with Serkalem Fasil, an Ethiopian journalist and former publisher whose husband Eskinder Nega, also a journalist, is in prison on terrorism charges, I vowed to go to Ethiopia and plead with the government for his release, along with that of…

(The Root) — President Jacob Zuma of South Africa is again in the news for reasons that have to do with his marital history and sexual conduct. But this time the issue is with artist Brett Murray’s depiction of Zuma in a satirical portrayal that has him assuming a pose associated with Lenin — with…

(The Root) — Imagine being subject to a separate law because of your ethnic group. Imagine having no choice over who your leaders are. Imagine not being allowed to have a lawyer at a legal hearing. Imagine being told that your case can’t be heard because you’re a woman and your victory would “make women…

(The Root) — When new French President François Hollande’s cabinet was unveiled on May 16, the headline in all the French media was gender parity: 17 of the 34 posts went to women, a first for a French government. What the commentators or the news stories didn’t mention was the ethnic composition of the cabinet…

(The Root) — A significant discovery of gold and other precious metals in Haiti’s Northeastern mountain range has given residents hope that once mining gets under way in about five years, the revenues will offer the resources needed to transform a country beset by poverty and ravaged by earthquakes and disease into an emerging island…