Nigeria's politicians, soldiers, bankers, farmers, taxi drivers and creditors all know that the economy is weaker than at any time since Independence in 1960. Indeed, the figures agreed...

Ivorians are warming up for two battles this year. The first is between reformers, backed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, who want to decommission...

The frequent visits of convicted fraudster Nico Shefer and Fred Rundle, former Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging spokesman, to President Charles Taylor in Monrovia have attracted the attention of officials monitoring...

As regional diplomats struggled to negotiate a truce on 3 February, the French-backed peacekeeping initiative, Renforcement des Capacités Africaines en Maintien de la Paix (RECAMP), was at...

Prospects for a political solution to Sierra Leone’s rebel war seem to have perished along with the more than 2,000 civilians officially reckoned to have been...

Among others, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Britain and the United States believe Liberian President Charles Taylor has trained and armed the brutally effective rebels of Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary...

Backstabbing is getting more vicious among barons of the ruling Alliance pour la Démocratie au Mali (Adema). Few doubt that Adema will win the presidential election in...

The 144 employees of Timbuktu airport wrote to complain that their pay arrived late. They couldn’t afford to travel across the desert and mountains to the capital, Bamako,...

Algerian troops raided into north-west Niger in late November, with approval and support from the government in Niamey, Africa Confidential has learned.

Any diplomatic damage caused by the postponement of President Henri Konan Bédié’s official visit to Britain (AC Vol 39 No 24) seems to have been repaired fast. Whitehall’s...