Commentary by Molly Mayfield Barbee
There we were, 50 or more of us—mostly men on their way to Abuja, Accra, Cairo, Johannesburg, or Nairobi, and me—crowded around the 8-inch television screen over a bar at the Addis Ababa airport. On any other day it would have been a football game (or “soccer,” as our US readers call it) that gathered such a crowd. But yesterday was no ordinary day. It is, in fact, A New Day.
Inauguration Day 2009 found me wrapping up from meetings in the UAE and making the journey …

Commentary by Molly Mayfield Barbee
It’s finally here—the day after the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, 2008. The world has been watching the buildup to this election day, and now we can finally say that Barack Obama will be the 44th President of the United States.
This longest, and most expensive, presidential campaign ever had stakeholders all over the globe. Newsweek and the BBC called it the World’s Election. Al Jazeera developed one of their signature photo montages with a dramatic soundtrack to provide its viewers with regular updates. …