Tradition

Royal Wedding article from Al Jazeera’s wedding correspondent

Royal Wedding article from Al Jazeera’s wedding correspondent

In his Confessions St Augustine describes how, when studying in Rome, he was persuaded by friends to go to the Colloseum to watch the...
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Aiding Children Accused of Witchcraft

Over a year ago, *Selene’s nine-year-old daughter *Emma began waking up every morning and saying that witches were taking her to the woods at...
Cremation of dead espoused in Southern Africa

Cremation of dead espoused in Southern Africa

In most Africa cultures cremation is largely considered a taboo but due to increasing shortage of land it is now being touted as...
Ugandan children fall prey to human sacrifice

Ugandan children fall prey to human sacrifice

In the last 4 days, two babies have been sacrificed in Uganda. Their bodies were found along roadsides by people going to work early...
Sierra Leone youth call for an end to Female Genital Mutilation

Sierra Leone youth call for an end to Female Genital Mutilation

The perspective often missing in the debate regarding female genital mutilation (FGM), a harmful traditional practice involving the partial or total removal of the...
Senegalese traditional dance, sex or pornography?

Senegalese traditional dance, sex or pornography?

A new dance, known as the "Leumbeul", is attracting a growing number of Senegalese women who do not mind showing off their otherwise private...
Shock over Zimbabwe’s hard gang-raping women

Shock over Zimbabwe’s hard gang-raping women

An unprecedented high rate of women gang-raping men in Zimbabwe has baffled the country and has forced police boss to institute full scale investigations into the...
Kenya’s Akuku Danger goes to the Polygamy Hall Of Fame

Kenya’s Akuku Danger goes to the Polygamy Hall Of Fame

Famed internationally for his practice of extreme polygamy, 94 year old Acentus Akuku, aka "Danger", kicked the bucket on October 3 in Kenya after...
Morocco’s Ramadan culinary and lifestyle experience

Morocco’s Ramadan culinary and lifestyle experience

The holy month of Ramadan, one of the five pillars of Islam, begun on August 11 in the ninth month of the Muslim calendar...
Funeral

Death Becomes Him

I have created vivid scenes of my funeral in my mind many, many times. No, I am not imagining or conjuring up scenarios of...
Africa has more Serial-Killers than U.S. and Europe

Africa has more Serial-Killers than U.S. and Europe

Given to ritual murders and a sedentary lifestyle, African serial killers are quite peculiar. And with most countries lacking the resources to keep DNA...
Albinos seek electoral representation in Uganda

Albinos seek electoral representation in Uganda

Albinos in Uganda want a representation in parliament to safeguard against witch-doctors who more often than not kill them to perform ritual sacrifices. They have...
Fixing the mutilated vagina

Fixing the mutilated vagina

A cut clitoris can be repaired. For about 3 decades now, Pierre Foldès, a French urologist, has been restoring clitorises that have fallen prey...
Zimbabwe: A new wife for Tsvangirai?

Zimbabwe: A new wife for Tsvangirai?

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai seems to have found new love in the person of his late wife’s sister- Leah Mhundwa. In line with his...
What’s In A Name?

What’s In A Name?

“Good friend please help me. I need to know why you call yourself 'Different Devill?'” is how someone who read the first installment of...
President Zuma weds fifth wife, another to follow soon

President Zuma weds fifth wife, another to follow soon

South Africa’s polygamous president Jacob Zuma has done it again - he wed his fifth wife on Monday. Thobeka Madiba, aged 37, is an addition to...
What is in a South African name?

What is in a South African name?

A few weeks ago, South African Arts and Culture Minister Lulu Xingwana informed her nation that she had approved the changing of twenty-eight names...
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Tabaski Redux

The saying, “it’s the thought that counts,” sounds generous and openhearted in the United States. It sounds laughable in Africa, at least at Tabaski....
Meism: A definitive exposition of a Liberian socio-political phenomenon

Meism: A definitive exposition of a Liberian socio-political phenomenon

Capitalism Socialism Communism: These are all socio-political systems of varied origins that espouse different methodologies practiced in nations the world over. In Liberia we...
Uganda police save underage Sudanese from forced marriage, mother on the run

Uganda police save underage Sudanese from forced marriage, mother on the run

Police in Uganda have stopped a forced marriage between a 17 year old girl and a 56 year old southern Sudanese soldier from taking...
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Structuralism ‘au village’: An Obituary for Claude Lévi-Strauss

French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, one of the twentieth century’s most revered intellectuals, died October 29 at the age of 100. He is best known...
Coffee: The Ethiopian gift to the world

Coffee: The Ethiopian gift to the world

Kawa, espresso, Turkish coffee, milk shakes, what else? A lot more! The terms used to describe this dark brown concoction are many. The most...
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Guinea: Sacrifice, University Style

On Wednesday, May 28, 2008, a woman from Kankan, Guinea came to the University of Kankan to tell administrators about a dream she had....
Tanzania’s taste for cold-blooded Albino killings

Tanzania’s taste for cold-blooded Albino killings

Only last week, Jonas Maduka, an albino, was killed in the village of Sogoso situated in the north-eastern parts of Tanzania. Jonas had...
Linguistic Atlas to provide Africa with a geo-linguistic map

Linguistic Atlas to provide Africa with a geo-linguistic map

The preparation of a 'linguistic Atlas' for Africa has begun, according to the African Academy of Languages (ACALAN). ACALAN announced at the celebration of its...
Initiations, Circumcisions and Deaths : A South African headache

Initiations, Circumcisions and Deaths : A South African headache

When Steve Matlhabela, 16, left his home on a chilly June morning to visit some relatives in a village not far from his in...
Forced circumcisions, abuse and death of boys at initiation camp send shock waves

Forced circumcisions, abuse and death of boys at initiation camp send shock waves

Nearly 100 boys at an initiation school in South Africa have been taken to the hospital after three teenagers, allegedly kidnapped a month...
Albinos victims of human sacrifices

Albinos victims of human sacrifices

Water-Genies, fortune tellers, half-men half-gods, those are some of the attributes associated with albinos in some countries in Africa. Sought after for their good...