After Decades of Authoritarian Rule is Ethiopia Really on the Path Toward Democratic Renewal? Carol Jean Gallo November 21, 2018Ethiopia has been getting quite a bit of attention in the news lately for taking seemingly significant shifts towards becoming an open democracy.Earlier this year, intensifying protests led to the sudden re...
This is What the #SOSNicaragua Hashtag Is All About Carol Jean Gallo April 30, 2018Around April 19, the hashtag #SOSNicaragua emerged on Twitter. It tells a troubling story of growing demonstrations in the capital Managua and several other cities around the country, sparked by government chan...
A Coup in Zimbabwe? Robert Mugabe is Seemingly Deposed Carol Jean Gallo November 15, 2017The Zimbabwean military has apparently taken control in the capital city of Harare and detained longtime president Robert Mugabe. Army spokesperson spokesman Maj Gen SB Moyo (below) addressed the nation after t...
Sudan is still listed as a state sponsor of terrorism – so why did the US just lift sanctions? Carol Jean Gallo October 25, 2017Earlier this month, the US government decided to lift economic sanctions on Sudan. These sanctions have been in place since 1997, and were put there for some pretty serious offenses, such as harboring Osama bin...
Trump wants to dismantle Wall Street Reform. Here’s what that could mean for…Congo Carol Jean Gallo July 26, 2017The Trump administration’s hostility toward the 2010 Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (aka the Dodd-Frank Act) should come as no surprise, given Trump’s campaign promise to dismantle the entire la...
After an Internet blackout, Congolese are taking to the streets of Brazzaville: Here’s why Carol Jean Gallo July 11, 2017Last month, people in the Republic of Congo lost their Internet -- and they remained offline for a week. People immediately suspected the government was behind the shutoff. This would come as no surprise as the...
The Kasai Region of the Congo Could Become Africa’s Next Hotspot Carol Jean Gallo May 30, 2017Earlier this year, on March 12, two United Nations investigators – American Michael Sharp and Swedish-Chilean Zaida Catalan – went missing in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Just ove...
A Famine is Never Just a Famine — It’s Political Violence By Starvation. Carol Jean Gallo March 22, 2017We are entering an age of famine. But the extreme food crises facing South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, and Northern Nigeria are not solely a consequence of natural disaster or climate change. Rather, people are star...
The New UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres Just Made Some Progress on a Long Stalled Dispute in North Africa Carol Jean Gallo March 1, 2017Around the world there are a number of conflicts and disputes that have essentially been frozen in place for many years -- and in some cases many decades. These include territorial disputes in places like Cypr...
