Recent spending patterns in Egypt pose a dilemma. While experiencing the worst economic crisis in decades, which involves a dwindling of resources, a sharp currency devaluation and an acute shortage of foreign exchange, levels of military spending in Egypt have dramatically increased. How can the two trends be reconciled? Why would a cash-strapped government spend massively on guns when its population of 90 million needs more bread and jobs and services?

The incumbent in an election has many opportunities to use state resources unlike the opposition. That is why the Constitution and election laws insist on creating a level playing field. But some of the campaign activities of Uhuru Kenyatta have beached the law. A president re-elected on the basis of the special position, immunities, impunities and privileges cannot really command the respect of all citizens and others.

The historic ruling raises a number of fundamental questions on the capacity of electoral management bodies in Africa to conduct free, fair, transparent, credible and peaceful elections; the deployment of new technology in the electoral process; functions of poll observers, and the role of the judiciary in the continents’s democratic consolidation.

With respect to Cuba, the American conception of “nothing” is not understood in conventional economic terms, but through a liberal rendition of freedom. With this version of freedom comes a set of values that if not perpetuated, suggest an un-freedom worse than access to a livable life. In this country, we value freedom to fail and struggle more than the right to a standard in our quality of life.

China is totally committed to environmental protection through its policy of ecological civilization. But how come Chinese authorities seem not to care about their own citizens involved in illegal artisanal mining that is causing environmental devastation in Ghana?