Simon Allison has a great piece up on Good Governance Africa about reporting about Africa. He speaks as a journalist in Africa and identifies some of the reasons why Africa isn't telling its own story. Also some refreshingly practical options to fix the problem, like an Africa desk in national media outlets that can, even if there isn't money to have someone on the ground, edit, localise and

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Just how many Eritreans have been kidnapped isn't known, in part because the global nature of the extortion has limited the ability of any law enforcement authority to track it. But according to a joint study by the Physicians for Human Rights and the Hotline for Migrant Workers, two Israeli nonprofits that run clinics treating victims, an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 Eritrean refugees who arrived in that country in the past three years had been tortured. Another 4,000 Eritreans have disappeared and many are presumed dead, according to testimony for the European Union. ...

But according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, some 250,000 Eriteans have fled the country, about half in the past 10 years, which places the country ninth in the top 10 source countries of ...

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At a massive youth soccer tournament last weekend in Nairobi, the competition was peaceful, and the hope in Kenya is that the election season also will be peaceful.

Kenyans want to avoid the kind of violence that occurred after the 2007 elections. In Nairobi's Mathare slum, one of Africa's poorest and largest and a hotspot of violence in 2007, more than 20 people have died as a result of inter-ethnic fighting in recent months. Bob Munro, who created the Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) in 1987, thought that a big tournament might be a good way to ease tensions.

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Comedian Aisha Tyler, who currently appears as a regular on CBS' afternoon show The Talk, aside from her guest starring work on other shows such as Glee and Archer, has been tapped to be the host of a new version of comedy show Whose Line is it Anyway? for the CW Network which will run as summer series. Many of you will remember the original incarnation of the show, which made regular Wayne Brady a star, when it ran on ABC from 1998-2004 hosted by Drew Carey. The premise will still be the same in which a team of comedians go through a series of improv games using ideas from the audience and host creating different characters and scenes. At the end of each show a winner will be...

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I am switching away from Google's Feedburner service. This is the service that, for the past five years, has channeled my blog's RSS feed out to those who read without coming to the site. It has also served those who ... Continue reading →

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The African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA), an organization I only recently became very aware of, but which seems to be doing a lot to raise its profile lately, recently hosted its Special Achievement Honors in Marina Del Ray. On the heels of the organization's 2013 AAFCA Awards a few weeks ago, this event honored Cicely Tyson, Screen Gems, the Pan African Film Festival, and Rainforest Films for their overall achievements in film. Find details in the press release below, along with a few photos from the event. The African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA) honored the special achievements of iconic actress Cicely Tyson, vanguard film studio Screen Gems...

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So like remember how adding Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj as judges was going to give Fox TV's American Idol a badly need boost in the ratings? Well if it wasn't working when the season began it sure ain't working now. This Weds the show pulled in 13.1 million viewers. That may sound like a lot, but it isn't when you consider that that is the lowest number of viewers ever in the show's history since it first came on the air in June 2002. That year the program's first show premiered to just under 10 million viewers but steadily increased throughout the season with the final show pulling in over 23 million watchers. After that the sky was the limit with the show averaging some 30...

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En compétition pour l'étalon d'or de Yennenga, Yema réalisé par l'Algérienne Djamila Sahraoui, a ouvert officiellement le Fespaco le 24 février dernier au cinéma Burkina à Ouagadougou. Le film s'ouvre sur la vieille Ouardia traînant le corps de son fils Tarek décédé dans des conditions pas tout à fait claires. Yema se termine également par [...]

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L'une des particularités de la vingt-troisième édition du Fespaco est la place de choix accordée aux femmes à la tête des jurys. C'est ainsi que le jury long-métrage est présidé par la Martiniquaise Euzhan Palcy, diplômée de l'Ecole de Cinéma Louis Lumière. Lors de l'ouverture professionnelle du Fespaco le 24 février dernier, au cinéma Burkina, [...]

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Le jeune Thami passe sa vie à braver les interdits dans une société marocaine attachée à certaines valeurs comme le respect de la personne âgée et de la femme mariée. Après avoir refusé de faire des études pour devenir soit avocat soit juge, comme le souhaite son père, un conservateur Adel issu de la confrérie [...]

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Simon Allison has a great piece up on Good Governance Africa about reporting about Africa. He speaks as a journalist in Africa and identifies some of the reasons why Africa isn't telling its own story. Also some refreshingly practical options to fix the problem, like an Africa desk in national media outlets that can, even if there isn't money to have someone on the ground, edit, localise and

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Here at Enough, we often swap emails with interesting articles and feature stories that we come across in our favorite publications and on our favorite websites. We wanted to share some of these stories with you as part of our effort to keep you up to date on what you need to know in the world of anti-genocide and crimes against humanity work.

To counter impressions that the International Criminal Court is targeting certain ethnic groups or communities, a local theater group in Kenya is putting on dramas to inform the public about the work of the court--especially important advocacy in the weeks leading up to the slated trial date of several influential Kenyans, reports Robert Wanjala for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Betty Murungi, vice-chair of the board of the Kenya Human ...

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From the world of music:

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The "Harlem Shake" internet craze has swept the Arab web, turning the peculiar electro break-dance into a protest dance against ruling Islamists in Tunis and Cairo.

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Search for Common Ground, a distinguished Washington-based NGO devoted to international conflict resolution and peace building that has long focused...

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As the 16-year-old Congolese actress Rachel Mwanza made her way down the red carpet at last Sunday's Academy Awards, millions of people were exposed to the tragic and resilient stories of Mwanza and her award winning character in "War Witch" ("Rebelle"), Komona.

The Oscar-nominated film "War Witch" is an understated and moving story about a resourceful heroine who is forced to become a child soldier in a war against the government of an unidentified African nation. While Mwanza's brave portrayal of Komona earned her the Best Actress Award at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, her life story is also one of heroism. After her parents abandoned her when she was young Mwanza became homeless and, with nowhere else to turn, ended up living in the streets of ...

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Since Valentine's Day everyone has been talking about the murder of Reeva Steenkamp, although rarely in those terms. We know that her boyfriend, Oscar Pistorius, shot her four times and killed her while she was behind a locked door in their bathroom in a gated estate. We know that he has a history of domestic [...]

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Within hours of Adam Lanza shooting dead 20 Sandy Hook Elementary first-graders and seven adults, including his own mother, and taking his own life, media channels everywhere were festooned with analysis and opinion on what drove the 20-year-old to do it. Some blamed America's gun culture and the free-availability of these weapons of mass massacre, [...]

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The Usalama Project, a research programme on armed groups in the eastern Congo, released two new reports on armed groups in Ituri this week.

UPC in Ituri: The External Militarization of Local Politics in North-eastern Congo describes the origins and activities of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in Ituri district. It was written by Henning Tamm, University of Oxford. In tracing the rise and fall of the UPC, the report tries to understand why violence has ebbed so dramatically in Ituri since 2007, and whether lessons from the district can apply to the Kivus. The case of the UPC suggests that a neighbor's interest in weakening rather than bolstering an armed group, coupled with robust international intervention and forceful government action, can tilt the balance in favor of peace. At ...

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