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2 weeks ago | 
africasacountry.com | Lee Nxumalo |William Shoki |Sean Jacobs
Just weeks ago, the curtain fell on the club football season for much of the world. Instead of the usual two-month summer break, however, some of the best clubs in the world are preparing to compete in FIFA’s new Club World Cup, staged to mark one year until the 2026 North American FIFA World Cup. Organizing a rehearsal tournament is not new. Starting in 1992, this took the form of the FIFA Confederations Cup, which brought together the champions of each continent.
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3 weeks ago | 
africasacountry.com | Benjamin Lebrave |Sean Jacobs |Timothy Edaki
I remember being 10, sitting in the backseat of my uncle’s light green Benz, the fabric seats already sticky from the day’s heat. The cassette deck crackled with some high-pitched, nasal melody—Benin music. My uncle sang along in a blend of pidgin and something older, deeper: words I didn’t understand as I don’t speak Benin, but the Ika language.
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4 weeks ago | 
africasacountry.com | Jaume Portell Caño |Magdi El Gizouli |Sean Jacobs
In one of the final scenes of the film No Simple Way Home, Akuol de Mabior sits inside a vehicle, describing the people along the roadside as the car drives by. There, individuals selling tea strive to make a living. These are the ones who, as she puts it, hold everything together and prevent it all from collapsing.
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1 month ago | 
africasacountry.com | Tyler McBrien |Aaron Kohn |Tom Devriendt |Sean Jacobs
In Brazzaville, they appear like apparitions. A plume of dust lifts as they walk—one in a double-breasted canary-yellow suit, another in crimson patent-leather shoes so bright they catch the sun like mirrors. Neckerchiefs whisper softly at their throats. They do not rush. They glide—deliberately, impossibly, like men with nowhere else to be and everything to prove. Children trail behind. Vendors pause mid-transaction. A boulevard transforms into a proscenium. This is not performance. This is La Sape.
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1 month ago | 
africasacountry.com | William Shoki |Sean Jacobs
In today’s multipolar world, economic sanctions have become a primary tool of American foreign policy. While they are typically framed as nonviolent targeted mechanisms for influencing “rogue” regimes, a deeper inspection suggests that sanctions operate as instruments of civilizational warfare—seeking not only to alter policy but to dismantle the cultural coherence and sovereign legitimacy of states in the Global South.
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2 months ago | 
africasacountry.com | Christopher J. Lee |Nathan Yardy |Vanessa Burger |Sean Jacobs
South Africa’s swerve from liberation to bungling kleptocracy is not unique—the United States is in the throes of an analogous meltdown—but the speed and extent of that unraveling continue to both perplex and prefigure thinking about the prospects for recovery. The latest book by Vishwas Satgar, one of South Africa’s leading figures on the left, is a trove for anyone seeking a clearer understanding of the country’s hobbled efforts to step free of its past and a beacon for seeing past the gloom.
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2 months ago | 
africasacountry.com | Luis Castellví Laukamp |Michael Ugarte |Joseph Mangarella |Sean Jacobs
Prácticamente analfabeto y afectado por la lepra, Eyí Moan Ndong (1928-2000) aprendió a tocar el nvet, un instrumento ancestral de tubo de caña de un metro o poco más de largo, que solía llevar hasta tres calabazas como cajas de resonancia. Ingresado doce años en la leprosería de Micomeseng, sus sesiones de nvet para enfermos y cuidadores fueron célebres. Las autoridades coloniales españolas nunca lo vieron con malos ojos, pero tampoco lo tomaron en serio, pues les parecía un payaso folclórico.
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2 months ago | 
africasacountry.com | Karen Chalamilla |Sean Jacobs |Jesse Weaver Shipley |Tom Devriendt
When I was little, I had a very clear image of what it meant to be a grown woman. I imagined owning my own apartment, driving my own car, the ability to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and an unlimited supply of midriff blouses. This was the epitome of what being a grown, free woman meant to me. So, when I saw Lady Jaydee on the CD cover of her sophomore album, Binti, clad in a black two-piece that showed off her belly button, it immediately resonated with me.
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2 months ago | 
africasacountry.com | Riason Naidoo |Sean Jacobs |Emily Bridger
Born on January 30, 1935, in Johannesburg to Solomon Sachs and Rachel Ginsberg, Albert “Albie” Sachs turned 90 in January. Albie moved to Cape Town with his mother and his younger brother when he was three years old. Advanced for his age at school, he skipped two grades and as a result enrolled for his first year of university when he was only 15.
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2 months ago | 
africasacountry.com | Steven Friedman |Sean Jacobs
In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s recent decision to dismantle USAID, liberal internationalists have rallied, galvanized by the attack to defend the value of their institutions. Established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, USAID formalized US humanitarian relief efforts and diplomatic interventions in the Global South, especially—as I have written elsewhere—during the Congo Crisis, at a height in the transformative era of decolonization and the Cold War.
