At a virtual summit held Tuesday, the leaders of the East African Community’s member states approved the Democratic Republic of Congo’s admission into the bloc. Congo joins Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda as the trade bloc’s seventh member, giving a significant boost to the country’s trade and security prospects, as well as to regional and continental integration efforts. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who serves as the EAC’s rotating chairperson, described the occasion as “historic” for the bloc and the continent at large, pointing to its potential to increase trade and investment opportunities for the EAC’s citizens, while providing its [...]
“You’re on Earth. There’s no cure for that.” It’s a testament to Samuel Beckett’s genius for making existential angst utterly comedic that, when that line is first spoken in his play, “Endgame,” audiences invariably laugh. As an observation, it takes on added resonance today, after a two-year period in which we have all been sick, not just collectively, but also often simultaneously. The climate crisis, too, contributes an additional level of meaning, in that not only is there no cure for us for being on Earth, there is also no cure for Earth for having us on it. Beckett’s portrayal [...]
Many observers in Brussels will be keeping a close eye on this Sunday’s general election in Hungary for an early indication of how much European far right leaders’ ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin could affect their domestic political fortunes. But they are under no illusion about the seemingly united opposition’s slim odds of wresting power from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has manipulated the political landscape and electoral process to his benefit. After 12 years of playing themselves off against each other, Hungary’s six opposition parties have united behind a single candidate in this election for the first [...]
