Home >> Africa

East Africa

Burma: Hijacker's Flight For Freedom
Richard S. Ehrlich - 10/2/2007
BANGKOK, Thailand -- A Burmese man who hijacked a Thai International Airways passenger plane, to publicize his country's struggle against its military regime, says other protestors in Burma should not seize aircraft but find "dramatic" and "creative ways" to gain world support. "I do not regret the 'hijacking'. I am proud of what I did -- this peaceful 'hijacking drama' in 1990 -- given the kind of situation at that time," Soe Myint said in an interview. "There was very little international attention on how the peoples of Burma were struggling under the military regime," he said, reflecting...

East African Psyche
Ronald Elly Wanda - 5/17/2007
A soggy Saturday, my kitchen windows all fogged up with vapour, the Congolese genius Franco Luambo-Makiadi singing “Azda, azda, azda… Elly Wanda ni wetu…apewe, apewe, apewe…” while I chop and stir some roasted nyama (goat’s meat) that I’d bought earlier from expensive but expedient Kampala Foods ltd at West Green Road, in North London. Could an African cook’s life get any better? Well yes, the gory British weather could change from raining to a tropical sunshine and give me a deceptive conception (albeit temporal) of being in clement kakamega- west of Kenya or at congenial Mbale- east of Ugand...