Patrick Smith
SUDAN: Western deal over President Omer el Beshir's genocide charges A deal that would grant Sudan's president an annually renewable deferral of the genocide and war crimes charges against him was mooted at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa last wee...
Patrick Smith
AFRICAN UNION: The big tests for diplomacy and democracyIntensive rounds of negotiations and trade-offs start this week in Addis Ababa leading to the grand summit of the African Union on 30-31 January. The assorted ambassadors, foreign ministers and heads...
Patrick Smith
Two-way trade between Africa and China from January to November this year was worth US$114.8 billion, that is a 43.5% increase over the same period last year according to Beijing. These figures reinforce China's position as the single biggest trading part...
Patrick Smith
NIGERIA: PRIMARY PASSIONS For an accidental President, Goodluck Jonathan is taking to the national political contest with alacrity. After a mini-national tour, Jonathan's campaign team have announced that 20 out of the 26 state governors loyal to the Peo...
Patrick Smith
KENYA: Naming names or no namesKenyans eagerly await the announcement due at 17.00 Nairobi time on 15 December from the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, about its efforts to investigate and prosecute the perpetrato...
Patrick Smith
CÔTE D’IVOIRE: Laurent Gbagbo against the world
This week diplomats and their organisations are ratcheting up the pressure on Laurent Gbagbo to accept that he lost the second round of the presidential election on 28 November and hand power to his rival A...
Patrick Smith
AFRICA/EUROPE: BAD MARRIAGE, LOW ATTENDANCE Suppose I gave a summit and nobody came. That may be the question that Libya's mercurial leader Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi is asking himself this week. His grand Afro-Euro convocation in Tripoli is in danger of ...
Charles Moré
Before leaving Seoul last week, I stopped by the TBS eFM studio, overlooking the city from the slope of Namsan mountain, to discuss the G-20 outcomes with Hans Schattle and his gracious team at the ‘This Morning’ programme.Schattle played a small role in ...
Patrick Smith
Nigeria: Ex-Vice-President Abubakar is northern contender for ruling party presidential nominationIt will be a straight north versus south contest for the ruling party's presidential nomination in next year's elections in Nigeria. This follows the emergen...
Patrick Smith
AFRICA: Concerns on trade after the spats in SeoulWorries about trade restrictions and protectionism peppers assessments from African diplomats of the G-20 summit in Seoul. Although Africa was sitting on the sidelines for most of the debate over currency ...