Vol 45 No 25 | SIERRA LEONE Diamond diagnosis 17th December 2004 Official diamond export earnings are set to reach as much as US$120 million for 2004 compared to just over $70 mn. in 2003. This is partly an effect...
Vol 45 No 24 | GHANA Talk of the towns 3rd December 2004 The ruling NPP is in the lead but tight budgets hurt it in the towns President John Agyekum Kufuor's ruling New Patriotic Party can take nothing for granted ahead of the 7 December elections, although his party is favoured to win the presidency...
Vol 45 No 24 | CÔTE D'IVOIRE Another man with a plan 3rd December 2004 Outside the country Gbagbo has few friends - but inside, he is a force to be reckoned with The big guns of the African Union have lost patience with President Laurent Gbagbo. South African President Thabo Mbeki was heading to Abidjan on 2 December to try...
Vol 45 No 23 | CÔTE D'IVOIRE At war with the peacekeepers 19th November 2004 The sacking of the armed forces Chief of Staff may herald a disastrous split in the army Côte d'Ivoire is already split in two, but with refugees heading out of the former African success story to seek refuge in the ruins of Liberia, the question...
Vol 45 No 23 | CÔTE D'IVOIRE No more 'comrade' Gbagbo 19th November 2004 By bombing the French military base at Bouaké, chasing French citizens out of Abidjan, and burning down their schools in the capital, President Laurent Gbagbo has wrecked one...
Vol 45 No 23 | GUINEASOUTH AFRICA Honoured dictator 19th November 2004 There has been neither visible mention of nor comment on President Thabo Mbeki's recent posthumous decoration of the late President Ahmed Sekou Touré of Guinea.
Vol 45 No 21 | GHANA Smelling an elephant 22nd October 2004 The election was bad tempered even before it began and a car crash made it worse A road crash recalled the bad old days, dramatically opening the race for presidential and parliamentary elections due on 7 December. The victim was Alhaji Mohamed Mumuni, set...
Vol 45 No 21 | LIBERIA New model army 22nd October 2004 Africa Confidential has learned that California-based private military contractor DynCorp is about to be awarded a contract to restructure the Liberian national army. Industry sources say the company...
Vol 45 No 20 | NIGERIA Day of the locusts 8th October 2004 Asari and his foes have pulled back from the brink in the Niger Delta but the threat remains Mujahid Dokubo Asari's 'Operation Locust Feast' was supposed to begin on Independence Day, 1 October, and was effectively a declaration of war on President Olusegun Obasanjo's government and...
Vol 45 No 20 | SÃO TOMÉ & PRÍNCIPE Democracy in action 8th October 2004 The appointment of Damião Vaz d'Almeida as Premier on 18 September marks the impoverished archipelago's sixth change of government in three years. It also calls a halt, at...