Tanzania released the Burundian opposition leader Alexis Sinduhije on 24 January in what is widely seen as a serious diplomatic and political setback for the government of President...

Relations between Rwanda and France have received another boost. On 11 January, French judges Nathalie Poux and Marc Trévidic cleared the ruling Front patriotique rwandais (FPR) of shooting...

A letter to the National Congress Party has emerged this week from some 1,000 Islamist activists, including Salafists, secretly egged on by Hassan el Turabi, we hear. It...

In Africa Confidential Vol 52 No 25, we said Wubishet Taye of the Awramba Times had fled Ethiopia (‘Critics still not welcome’). In fact, it was Awramba Times...

In Africa Confidential Vol 53 No 1, we wrote that Al Qaida commander Fazul Abdullah Mohamed had been killed by a United States drone in June 2011 (‘The...

Pa’gan Amum Okiech is South Sudan’s top negotiator in its row with Khartoum over oil after Southern Independence in July 2011. China, the main producer and buyer of...

In December, East African Community Secretary General Richard Sezibera rejected Sudan’s bid to join the regional bloc. The application failed on geographic grounds – on South Sudan’s secession...

The grand coalition staggers on, costly and unwieldy. All the top politicians and most of the contenders for the presidential election due in December 2012 are part of...

For a decade, President Mwai Kibaki’s government has focused on growth and efficiency, and it has largely achieved its goals. Yet as Kibaki faces his final year in...

Military successes by African forces against the Islamist militia Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen have changed the dynamics of the conflict. However, they are far from tackling...