A few stories of interest:
- Rwanda suspends two newspapers critical of the government for six months, meaning they won’t be able to cover the election campaigns – Texas in Africa isn’t happy.
- An excellent interview of Congolese academic Jean Omasombo in La Libre Belgique on the future of democracy in the Congo and decentralization.
- Profiles of three newly promoted army commanders in Rwanda’s The New Times. (When’s the last time your national newspaper ran a profile of the new commander of the reserve force?) They share in common: raised in Uganda, highly educated – all of them underwent training in the US, and a love of sports and chess.
- A blog posting from Alex Engwete, showing that the Spaniard kidnapped by the Enyele militia and allegedly shaven to use his hair as a fetish – had quite a bit of hair.
- MONUC is fighting back! Ok, not on the battle field so much, but in the press. Their spokesperson contested the Congolese government’s version of the attack in Mbandaka (MONUC had been accused of standing by while an innocent civilians was killed), and the head of the mission said that MONUC needs to stay longer in the country.