Why it could usher in economic catastrophe by reducing demand for US exports while increasing the cost of living domestically COMMENT | CHRIS LEHMANN | So far Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day”—his midweek announcement of a battery of reciprocal tariffs intended to punish longtime US trading partners—has been greeted with a ringing …
Read More »Can we exit from a world of debt?
The conversation should not be how to sustain an economy in a permanent debt spiral but how to break that cycle COMMENT | VIJAY PRASHAD | In the past two decades, the external debt of developing countries has quadrupled to $11.4 trillion (2023). It is important to understand that this money owed …
Read More »Rich Ugandans don’t pay tax
Ensuring increased tax contribution of wealthy citizens Africa-wide relies on these three smarter collection strategies COMMENT | GIOVANNI OCCHIALI | Faced with some of the worse debt levels in over a decade, African countries are struggling to find ways to balance their books. Increasing revenue sources from their citizens is an …
Read More »COMMENT: Kenya makes math optional in high school
This is a bad idea. Instead, the system needs to focus on the root causes of low performance and how to fix them COMMENT | MOSES NGWARE | Kenya’s education ministry announced in March 2025 that mathematics would be an optional subject in senior secondary school, which begins in grade 10. …
Read More »The hazy dream of Wandi Sub-County
Where the `Leave No One Behind’ commitment is an unfulfilled promise rather than a transformative reality COMMENT | WALTER AKENA | The principle of “Leave No One Behind” is a global commitment to eradicate poverty, eliminate exclusion, and address inequalities hindering human potential. To achieve this, world leaders birthed the 17 …
Read More »Is Trump engineering the decline and fall of the dollar?
His approach to weakening it could spell the end of the US dollar’s reign as the dominant international currency COMMENT | JEFFREY FRANKEL | In 1985, U.S. officials met with their counterparts from the other G5 countries at New York City’s Plaza Hotel to negotiate a coordinated intervention to bring down …
Read More »Putin, Trump and Russian art of ‘no’ deal
Trump palpably lost in their first direct diplomatic face-off as Putin showed he can effortlessly outmaneuver him COMMENT | NICK PATON WALSH | A “no” is not a “yes” when it is a “maybe,” a “probably not,” or an “only if.” This is the painfully predictable lesson the Trump administration’s first …
Read More »Will the United Nations survive Trump 2.0?
Paradoxically, the breakdown of the multilateral order the US helped establish could catalyse greater international cooperation COMMENT | JAYATI GHOSH | Of all the geopolitical stunts Donald Trump has pulled since returning to the White House, the United States’ votes at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on March 4 stand …
Read More »Uganda’s Role in South Sudan
It will be tragic for the legacy of President Museveni that the South Sudan he helped liberate he also helped destroy COMMENT | REMEMBER MIAMINGI | The confirmation and denial of Ugandan troop deployment to South Sudan has exposed serious governance and transparency issues, eroded trust, and possibly escalated conflict and …
Read More »Tough tasks for African Union’s new chair
What it will take to get the long list done to make the AU Commission more efficient and relevant for the African people COMMENT | ULF ENGEL | Following seven rounds of balloting, 60-year-old diplomat Mahmoud Ali Youssouf was elected the sixth chair of the African Union Commission in February 2025. …
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