Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a new biweekly column by World Politics Review Contributing Editor David Axe. Axe is an independent correspondent who has covered conflicts from Somalia to Afghanistan to East Timor. The column shares its name with David’s blog, which is at WarIsBoring.com. On a morning late last November in Mogadishu, Somalia, a tall, toothy 65-year-old man climbed into his beat-up sedan parked in the makeshift squatter’s camp he called home. Ali Mohamed Siyad, chairman of the central Bakara Market — once the economic engine of Mogadishu, but now a mostly ruined battleground — motored [...]
KAMPALA, Uganda — As a young bride from a village in Uganda, Annet Nyakisiki never imagined she might one day be the sole breadwinner for an HIV-positive family. But while she was a virgin at the time of her marriage, her husband, 10 years her senior, was not. There is no way to know exactly when he contracted the AIDS virus, but he did. He subsequently spread it to her, and all four of their children would eventually be born with the disease. “When I found out that we were all positive, I thought, We have no future,” admits Nyakisiki, [...]
South Africa faces an uncertain future in the aftermath of a tumultuous week that culminated in President Thabo Mbeki agreeing to step down sooner than his already announced departure date in 2009. Mbeki’s decision came at the recommendation of the governing body of the African National Congress, the country’s dominant political party, following a scandal surrounding his government’s interference in the attempted prosecution of ANC President (and Mbeki rival) Jacob Zuma on charges of corruption. A South African judge dismissed the case against Zuma last week, prompting Mbeki’s rivals within the ANC to push for his early ouster. While Mbeki [...]
