To all those clamoring for a new way to effect change in Africa (and elsewhere in the developing world), meet Mo Ibrahim. The Sudanese-born cell phone entrepreneur started a foundation to put his fortune, estimated at a billion dollars, to good use. On Monday the foundation awarded the

One of the first stories I covered in Africa as a journalist was the presidential election in Sierra Leone in May 2002. I'd moved to Ivory Coast -- a couple countries east along the Gulf of Guinea -- a month earlier with hopes of making ends meet as a freelancer,...

One of the lesser-known facets of the Bush administration's War on Terror is the work that the American military is doing in Africa to help local armies combat pockets of radical groups that have set up shop in their midst. Perhaps nowhere on the continent is extremism more evident than...