Cameroon must investigate jailed editor’s death – Committee to Protect Journalists.

Our own Dr. George Ayittey was recently recognized by the prestigious Foreign Policy Magazine to be one of the world’s Top 100 Global Thinkers.

Here is the full text from the magazine’s write-up:

George Ayittey: ECONOMIST | AMERICAN UNIVERSITY | WASHINGTON

Ayittey, a Ghanaian economist and head of the Free Africa Foundation, has spent his career trying to convince the world that Africans, not aid workers, will set Africa right. Enough already with the victim complex, he argues: Let’s get to work. That philosophy has never been more relevant than in 2009, when the debate over international assistance kicked into high gear.  If it were up to Ayittey, the world would go beyond reforming the distribution of aid and gradually do away with handouts altogether. Aside from charity’s ineffectiveness, he notes, “[T]he presumption that Africans don’t know what is good for them and that Americans or other foreigners know what is best for Africans is extremely offensive.” [Full article on Foreign Policy.com]

Women are well represented in newsrooms but struggle to find a place in senior management or on boards, according to a study by Gender Links.

Women also still earn less than their male counterparts in the media, according to the survey conducted in South Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

[Reposted from Kari Barber of the Christian Science Monitor]

President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo – who made world headlines today with his decision to pardon British mercenary Simon Mann on humanitarian grounds – is expected on Nov. 29 to win another election and a fresh mandate to lead sub-Saharan Africa’s third-largest oil producer, which he has ruled since a 1979 coup. But Equatorial Guinea is consistently ranked near the top of the list of the most corrupt countries on the world’s most corrupt continent. And rights advocates continue to heap fierce criticism on President Obiang for his government’s alleged human rights abuses and draconian limits on free speech.

Now eyes across Africa are turning to President Obama, who has pledged to do more to hold the continent’s leaders to account. US policy toward the often-overlooked nation could be a test case. But so far, there has been little indication as to how the new administration will shape its foreign policy toward Africa and the State Department refused to comment for this report. Experts say that’s because there won’t likely be much in the way of tangible change, at least not in places where significant US business or energy interests are at stake.

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