Equal measures of optimism and scepticism greeted China’s announcement of an agreement to build three oil refineries worth US$23 billion. The terms of the memorandum of understanding are clear; the...

The Ghanaian government is proposing to put up US$1.5 billion of its future oil revenues to finance the first phase of a controversial housing project with the South Korean construction...

Five years after Senegal’s break in diplomatic relations with Taiwan, the island state which only has 23 diplomatic allies continues to haunt political life. At the heart of the affair...

Burnishing a stellar international reputation, Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is steeling herself for a tough campaign for a second presidential term in elections next year. Since winning...

The colourful Israeli billionaire Beny Steinmetz has finalised two remarkable deals this year: he has sold 51% of his iron ore mining operations in Guinea to Brazil’s Vale...

The Niamey junta is tinkering with its transition programme but it is better at handling a food emergency than the previous regime Aid workers have been warning for...

The resignation on 7 May of Abdul Tejan-Cole as Commissioner and Chief Prosecutor of Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) signals a growing malaise in the government of President...

Nine months after he ordered the sacking of six bank chief executives and took their institutions into state management, the Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Sanusi Lamido...

The latest military coup to rock the tiny state of Guinea Bissau began on 1 April, when a pickup truck full of armed and drunken soldiers arrived at...

Fifty years of independence, with no break in democratic rule, might seem a sufficient cause for celebration in Senegal. Yet President Abdoulaye Wade chose instead to celebrate his...