It is stunning how social movements were able to mobilize the masses to protest against democratic backslidings, often combined with demands for better governance.
If the under or mis-reported uprisings, protests, revolts and changes of regime in many parts of Africa over the past few years have told us anything, it is that politics on the continent does not always, or mostly, take place at the point of a gun.
Women farmers in Burkina Faso are organising to denounce the misguided agricultural policies adopted by the state. Responding overwhelmingly to international demands, such policies have failed to take into account the need, knowledge and aspirations of those who feed the population, and hunger is
Yvan Guichaoua reports back on the rise of a new force in the Sahara, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, news of which has reached the Western press through its kidnapping of European aid workers.
