Editorial Excerpts, June 2026
Published: June 8, 2026
You might think that Africa would be in the midst of a crisis. The four largest donors all cut their aid spending in Africa last year, according to initial data. America slapped some of its highest tariffs on African countries. China, the continent’s largest bilateral source of loans for most of the 21st century, today receives more from Africa in debt repayments than it extends in new credit. On top of all that, the war in Iran will increase the cost of fuel and fertilizer.
Yet African countries look resilient. The IMF reckons that in 2026 economic growth will be higher in Africa than in Asia, hitherto a rare occurrence. Of the 15 fastest-growing countries anywhere, 11 are expected to be on the continent.
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Africa still faces huge challenges. The flipside of its demographic boom is that 15 million young people will soon be entering the labor market every year, most of them without hope of a formal job. Electricity remains patchy and costly. Agricultural productivity, while improving, lags behind global averages. The share of children in primary school has stalled since 2010. […]
Even so, it is time for the world to update how it thinks about Africa. The Middle East is at war again, Europe is sluggish, and America is run by its own would-be autocrat. As a result, the continent is starting to seem less and less risky. Relatively speaking, Africa looks a safer bet than ever.
– The Economist, March 19, 2026
When the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, declaring there is no constitutional right to abortion, many supporters of that decision insisted that its purpose wasn’t to ultimately banish reproductive rights throughout America, but merely to leave the question to the individual states.
Since then, we have seen effort after effort to quash abortion access even in states where it remains legal — and even in states where, as in Missouri, the voters have assertively demanded that it remain legal.
Sen. Josh Hawley now has escalated the conflict to restrict the rights of women across the nation, in all 50 states, no matter what their individual state laws [say] regarding reproductive rights. That would be the unavoidable outcome of his new effort to federally outlaw the safest and most commonly used method of medication abortion.
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If Hawley is motivated by a genuine belief that mifepristone is inherently dangerous to women (despite the virtually unanimous conclusion of mainstream medical experts to the contrary), restoring abortion rights nationally would be one way to give them other options. Otherwise, he should at least be honest about what this is: an attempt to shut down women’s control over their own bodies even in states that still protect reproductive rights.
– St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 13, 2026