By STEPHANIE NOLEN, Toronto Globe and Mail
Angry at France and hungry for business, Rwanda turns to English
KIGALI, Rwanda -- In Bourbon Coffee, Kigali's hippest gathering spot, well-dressed young Rwandans lounge on the comfy couches, eat burgers and chat. They speak in Kinyarwanda, they speak in French, but more and more these days, when they call out to friends, when they order lunch, when they flirt -- they speak in English.
South Africa's Mbeki falls by the politics he pioneered
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The vultures have come home to roost with Thabo Mbeki. For a legendarily proud man and cunning strategist, his resignation this week is a shocking downfall.
Angola chooses homegrown economic remedy
LUANDA, Angola -- Not long after Angola's brutal 27-year-civil war dragged to an end in 2002, the country's government began a series of meetings with the big players in international aid: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the main United Nations development agencies and the wealthy Western bilateral donors.
Fueled by oil, Angola boom may lift squatters from poverty
LUANDA, Angola -- For sale in a mediocre neighborhood of Luanda: pokey two-bedroom apartment in a Soviet-style 1960s apartment block. Fourteenth floor, elevator last operated in 1990. Erratic plumbing, no maintenance in the past 22 years.
Angola's long march to peaceful elections
SOMBE, Angola -- The last time Arminda Evaristo cast a ballot, the war came back. Sixteen years ago, when she was 20, she voted in the national election that was supposed to transition the country out of nearly two decades of civil war -- a war in which Evaristo saw her grandmother decapitated by vengeful rebels.
Illegal immigrants face violence in S. Africa
RAMAPHOSA, South Africa -- Alberto Chivethle built a small empire in his yard. He erected a tiny convenience store, barber salon and telephone booth, and two single-room apartments to rent out. Chivethle had a day job at a gold refinery at the edge of Johannesburg that didn't pay much, just $370 a month.
Xenophobic rage explodes in South Africa
RAMAPHOSA INFORMAL SETTLEMENT, South Africa -- In his haste to leave, Paolo Cosa left behind the things that once had pride of place: the framed family photographs nailed on the walls of his tin-scrap shack, including the one that showed his beaming, dimpled daughter in blue cap and gown, graduating from primary school.
South Africa's leaders 'corrupt, 'arrogrant,' Tutu says
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- One of the most venerated people in South Africa launched a blistering attack on the country's current leaders this week, calling them corrupt, arrogant and deeply estranged from those they govern.
