Audio By Vocalize African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. [File, Standard] Why have autocracy, electoral malpractice, economic decline, military rule and constitutional abuse reached a crescendo when Africa has shields like AU, SADC, ECOWAS, EAC, COMESA and IGAD? Created to address these problems, they now thrive on rhetoric or retreat into silence. They equivocate before repression, hesitate during war and normalise decline. Trust at home has eroded, Africa’s voice abroad thinned. Africa continues to be bedevilled by conflicts. When war erupted in Tigray six years ago, AU baulked at confronting Ethiopia despite atrocities and displacement. A body representing over…
Author: By Joseph Lister Nyaringo
Audio By Vocalize President William Ruto addresses residents after the launch of the Sogoo-Melelo-Ololung’a Road in his tour of Narok County, May 7, 2025. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard] Ruto’s political future hangs in the balance and this is why The 2027 general election has taken centre stage in shaping the national conversation. The challenges bedevilling Kenya, such as the high cost of living, rising prices of essentials like unga, punitive taxes, ballooning public debt and unemployment, define the mood among ordinary folks, particularly those aligned with the Opposition. Within government circles, confidence that President William Ruto will secure a second term…
Audio By Vocalize President William Ruto addresses residents after the launch of the Sogoo-Melelo-Ololung’a Road in his tour of Narok County, May 7, 2025. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard] Ruto’s political future hangs in the balance and this is why The 2027 general election has taken centre stage in shaping the national conversation. The challenges bedevilling Kenya, such as the high cost of living, rising prices of essentials like unga, punitive taxes, ballooning public debt and unemployment, define the mood among ordinary folks, particularly those aligned with the Opposition. Within government circles, confidence that President William Ruto will secure a second term…
Audio By Vocalize The recent clash between US President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV has attracted widespread attention. [AFP] The recent clash between Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV has attracted widespread attention, not simply as a dispute between two prominent Americans, but as a revealing moment that lays bare a deeper fault line between politics and faith. It sharpens a question about the uneasy relationship between political power and religious conviction. Politics and religion have long kept uneasy company: one grounded in persuasion through negotiation, compromise, and sometimes coercion; the other in the absolutes of conscience, doctrine and…
Audio By Vocalize Some journeys are not measured in years but in endurance, silence, rejection, and the quiet decision to keep going when nothing seems to move. Writing my inaugural column in The Standard marks one such journey, pausing long enough to acknowledge it It has taken more than fifteen years of writing, often unpaid and unrecognised, but never without purpose. This is not a sudden arrival but persistence, and a reminder that Rome was never built in a day. The pen is mightier than the sword, not because it destroys, but because it builds. Words travel further than weapons,…
Tanzania President Samia Suluhu makes his speech during the Africa climate summit 2023 Day Two at KICC on September 05, 2023. [Stafford Ondego, Standard] President Samia Suluhu appears to be poorly schooled in the history of the United Republic of Tanzania under the founding president, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, whose Ujamaa philosophy entailed cooperation and collaboration with liberation movements in Africa during the fight against colonialism. It lacks logic for Mama Suluhu to curtail activists from neighbouring countries from showing solidarity with opposition figures in Tanzania whose rights are allegedly being violated by her regime. .fade-out-overlay{position:absolute;top:-80px;left:0;width:100%;height:60px;z-index:1;background:linear-gradient(to bottom,rgba(255,255,255,0),rgba(255,255,255,1))}.paywall-container{position:relative;max-width:100%;margin:0 auto;padding:25px;border:1px solid #e0e0e0;border-radius:8px;box-shadow:0 2px 10px rgba(0,0,0,.1);background-color:#fff}.paywall-container…