The aftermath of the suicide attacks on a French company and a military barracks on 23 May will test Niger’s security forces. With almost half of its military...

While Mali’s government is preoccupied with retaking the northern region occupied by Islamists and Tuareg rebels, Indian firm Sahara Mining is facing challenges of its own in Tienfala,...

China’s Kingho Energy has big ideas for Sierra Leone, but such plans could go the way of many other ambitious investments. The US$6 billion agreement the company signed...

Efforts towards comprehensive reform of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry are in tatters some five years after the first version of the Petroleum Industry Bill was presented to...

At face value, the declaration by President Goodluck Jonathan’s government, dominated by appointees from the oil-rich Niger Delta, of a state of emergency in north-east Nigeria and plans...

The conference hosted in Brussels by the European Union on 15 May was seen as a political and financial success. One hundred countries sent delegations and those from...

A Lagos court has sentenced Azim Aghajani, the Iranian convicted on 13 May of importing 13 containers of infantry weapons, to only five years, along with his Nigerian...

Partisan politics is back as the Bamako establishment focuses on the presidential election promised for 7 July. The transitional government of President Dioncounda Traoré, encouraged by the United...

A meeting with financial institutions, regional neighbours and external partners in Brussels, Belgium, on 15 May is the next main focus for the accelerating international drive to help...

Africa Confidential has discovered the whereabouts of one of the key financiers and middlemen who worked for the Liberian ex-President and convicted war criminal, Charles Taylor, during the...