At a press briefing in Pretoria on 21 January, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma broke his silence on the current situation in Côte d’Ivoire. At the briefing that concluded a two-day state visit by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, president Zuma indicated that ‘there were some discrepancies in the manner in which the [Ivorian] election had come to the final pronouncement of the vote.’

The event served to inform the guests on the AFRICOM mission and further develop local German-American relations. Held in the command's new state-of-the-art multi-purpose center, the day began with a German media roundtable covering a variety of topics and answering questions such as why the command is located in Stuttgart.

In recent years, filmmakers and business executives from the United States, South Asia, and Europe have shown a growing interest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, not only as a potential market but also as a wellspring of talent and inspiration.

It will probably take many years and even decades before the real lessons contained in these informative cables may be drawn. However, African governments and citizens should at least begin to reflect and learn preliminary but valuable lessons from the contents and the style of these informative cables.

The top U.S. diplomat for the Arab world gave Washington's firm endorsement of the uprising that ousted Tunisia's longtime ruler, even as a crisis over the North African country's transitional government continued to simmer.

Airports are great, but on a continent where people fly, as some of my seat-mates on this itinerary have, from Washington to Addis Ababa in order to get to Lagos, what is needed most are flights -- many more flights -- both between the U.S. and Africa (there are currently precious few), and between African countries themselves.

I went to Angola as a delegate with the American Documentary Showcase, a State Department-funded program that sends American documentaries around the world, accompanied by filmmakers who teach filmmaking workshops.

For the younger, more urbanized generation in Africa, film may be the dominant artistic medium, but for the continent's older generations, music remains central to identity.