Blue Lines
This month, two Western powers, the United States and France,
are trying to remind Africa that it hasn’t been totally left out of their
calculations. On 20 July, US President Barack Obama is to
welcome Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari to Washington DC...
Blue Lines
A turbulent few weeks for international justice. First, Sudan’s
President Omer el Beshir arrived in South Africa on 13
June for the African Union summit despite his indictment by the
International Criminal Court for genocide. He left barely two days
later...
Blue Lines
With just six months before the climate change treaty talks in
Paris, Africa is battling to coordinate an effective negotiating
strategy. Governments should muster the political will, says the Africa
Progress Panel (APP), to push harder to defend the inte...
Blue Lines
The new President of the African Development Bank, who was being
elected as we went to press, will face harsh financial and political
conditions after a decade of economic growth on the continent averaging
5-7% a year. Outgoing AfDB President Donald Kaber...
Blue Lines
The drowning of thousands of people in the Mediterranean shames both
the countries they left and those they were heading for. Whether these
individuals were fleeing political oppression or poverty, the
governments and international organisations were nowh...
Blue Lines
The 91-year-old President Robert Mugabe's State visit to his
stripling
of a 73-year-old counterpart, President Jacob Zuma, left
observers
wondering which of them was in better shape. Zuma is beset on all
sides: his popularity is plummeting. Unemployment, ...
Blue Lines
The government-elect taking shape in Nigeria under General Muhammadu
Buhari will have to contend with meeting not just the
expectations of
its own citizens but the high hopes of the wider continent. For almost
a decade, there is a feeling of an ideas vacu...
Blue Lines
Three issues – corruption, jobs and security – have dominated
campaigning in what promises to be Nigeria’s
closest ever presidential
election, on 28 March. All three put President Goodluck Jonathan’s
government on the back foot as it faced a resurgent nat...
Blue Lines
The chaotic conference on the Ebola crisis at the European Union’s Palais d’Egmont in Brussels on 3 March reflected the confused, ad hoc response to the emergency from national governments and international organisations. It wasn’t a fund-raising meeting...
Blue Lines
The crisis that has Libya
at its centre has been brewing since
oppositionists – backed by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation airpower
– overthrew Moammar el Gadaffi’s
regime in 2011. Despite hopes for a
transition to a stable and prosperous democracy unde...