Defence Minister Joe Modise wants to buy new equipment for the South African National Defence Force, which he says is in decline. Finance Minister Trevor Manuel counters that...

Nothing can stop the carefully orchestrated ascendancy of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki, first to the African National Congress leadership and then to the South African presidency. The shadow...

'We are close to the end of our tether with UNITA', says a senior official with the United Nations Observer Mission to Angola (MONUA). The United Nations Security...

President Nelson Mandela's extraordinary peacemaking bid in Sudan, which appears to have pleased only the National Islamic Front, came without South African Foreign Ministry support, Africa Confidential understands....

Zimbabweans have plenty to be discontented about. Strikes have brought workers onto the streets from banks, hotels, municipalities and the transport, clothing, textile, cement, railway and construction industries...

Deputy President Thabo Mbeki speaks animatedly of an 'African Renaissance' – an updated version of Kwame Nkrumah's Pan-Africanism but with South Africa rather than Ghana steering the way....

The country remains a favoured African democracy – but only after international protests and a dignified climb-down by government. With elections due in 1999, the government proposed a...

Namibia's constitution, widely regarded as a model for countries emerging from despotism, limits a president to two terms. President Sam Shafiishuna Nujoma has served two five-year terms –...

In the heaviest fighting since November 1994's ceasefire, the Forças Armadas de Angola have pounded positions of Jonas Savimbi's União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola in...

Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi may plan to fly to South Africa in breach of United Nations Security Council (Lockerbie) sanctions on Libya flights. Britain and the United States...