Exactly a year since Typhoon Haiyan swept through central Philippines, a group of civil society organizations remembers the victims and survivors of one of the strongest and most fatal tropical cyclones ever recorded and declares Nov. 8 as International Day for Climate-Affected Communities.

There has been much speculation on the death of the former military leader of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara.

Now that his successor, Blaise Compare, has been removed from power, it is high time that the international community should seriously consider starting the investigations to know who really killed Sankara.

How did Oscar Pistorius get away with a slap on the wrist for killing another human being? The answer lies in the fact that Pistorius killed a white woman and subsequently, in his defence, appealed to white angst about crime, using mental images of the proverbial "native bogeyman".

A recent festival of arts, culture and conversations sought to move debates about East Africa’s integration away from elite spaces to the grassroots. It was an insightful experience whose basic message was that without active involvement of the region’s peoples the East African Community remains an elite dream.