As a British journalist based in London, Lara Pawson says she feels increasingly uneasy about media representations of the politics and people of southern Africa. She even wonders whether international journalism serves any purpose any more.

In their highly misguided and at times absurd responses to the UK’s recent rioting, we may well ask if Britain’s elites ‘are living in a time warp’, writes Lara Pawson.

In his new book, Duncan Clarke describes oil as Africa's way out of poverty and assails those who see the resource as a corrupting influence on the continent's politics. Lara Pawson finds his thesis crude.