Mamdani: The Unique Voice of NYC’s First African-Born Mayor

The job is local. The platform is global. This is the fundamental paradox facing every mayor of New York City, a metropolis of 8.5 million souls that also serves as the de facto capital of the world, and the home of the United Nations with its 193 member states. Most nations have U.N. offices in New York as well as missions. It’s arguably the most diverse city on earth, with 180 languages spoken in its public schools.

While the quotidian duties of New York City’s mayor require an obsessive focus on sanitation and safety, subways and schools, the city’s role as U.N. host and its continued role as the world’s financial center thrust its leader onto a geopolitical stage. New York’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, its first foreign-born mayor to be elected in over 50 years, understands this duality better than most. The question is how he will wield it. READ MORE

There’s a renaissance on the African continent that the U.S. can’t afford to dismiss

Ethiopia is the latest nation where an international aviation accident is in sharp focus, but the country itself is treated merely as the hazy backdrop and tragic context for a larger geopolitical story. This one involves Boeing, China trade wars and the credibility of American regulatory institutions.

All important stories, for sure, but Ethiopia is more than the tragically fatal scene of a plane crash. With more than 100 million people, Ethiopia is the second most populous African nation after Nigeria. Landlocked Ethiopia is also the continent’s fastest growing economy with arguably its most dynamic young leader.

While other African countries, such as Algeria, struggle to put to pasture their near-comatose leader-for-life Abdulaziz Buteflika, Ethiopia broke the old clichéd mold of African strongman leaders who were generals or geriatrics and instead, almost a year ago, appointed a fresh and energetic reformer, the 42-year old prime minister, Abiy Ahmed. READ MORE