Great thoughts from George Ayittey on what’s wrong with Africa and how Obama can avoid repeating the mistakes that have fueled corruption and abuse by African leaders for decades. A few highlights…
1. Africa doesn’t need aid. Its begging bowl leaks. According to the African Union (AU) corruption alone costs Africa more than $148 billion [...]

A British surgeon performed an amputation procedure he’d never attempted before with instructions he received via SMS

A British surgeon amputated the arm of a wounded teenager in Africa with help from instructions sent to him by text message. Faced with carrying out an unfamiliar operation, David Nott called his surgical colleague Meirion Thomas. [...]

Tim Butcher, author of the book Blood River, is dedicated to his craft. So dedicated that he took nothing but a motorbike through vast stretches of the Congo country side…
Anyhow, learning more about Tim, I came across this video, part of the material for his (apparently excellent) book Blood River. It’s a fascinating insight [...]

How demand for a relatively obscure mineral is fueling the unrest in Congo…
One hundred feet beneath the green slope of a steep hill in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a man lying flat on his front in a narrow tunnel chips at a rock face with a hammer and chisel. After two hours, drenched [...]

If you haven’t been following gorilla.cd over the past few days, it’s an incredible account of what’s occurring in the DRC right now as told by park Rangers at Virunga National Park. As fighting between rebel groups and the military increased there were stories of rangers who were unaccounted for after an evacuation, near-tragic [...]

Jennifer Brea of Global Voices posted an interesting article today taking a look at what the Congolese blogoshpere has to say about the upcoming United States elections…
Congolese bloggers Musengeshi Katata and Shaka Bantou have been closely following the American Democratic and Republican conventions at Forum Realisance. Both are staunch supporters of Obama and sharp critics [...]