Africa Rising

Hope is Africa's rarest commodity. Yet buried though it is amid the despair that haunts the continent, there is more optimism today than in decades. Francisco Mucavele found hope last September when an armored steel Casspir rolled over the hill and began to blow up the land mines contaminating Mozambique's rich soil. Olga Haptemariam acquired it in Eritrea's war-scarred port city of Massawa when she laid down 2,000 birr for a license to open a building-supply store. The villagers of N'Tjinina are finding it as they prepare for the solemn experience of voting in Mali's first local elections. Sarah Galloway Hage-Ali...