Two pressing challenges – the failing economy and a more effective opposition – will confront the National Congress Party regime this year. There is no prospect of an economic upt...

Only one other head of state stood on the podium beside President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir on 1 January. That was President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia. It was meant to ha...

South Sudanese will have to wait longer for their peace dividend. The main prospects for 2013 are more fraught negotiations with Khartoum on security and oil and most people will f...

Juba’s failure to react to its shrinking reservoir of international goodwill was illustrated firstly, by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army shooting down a helicopter of the United...

Optimism was high last September when President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office and appointed a cabinet led by Abdi Farah Shirdon ‘Said’ (AC Vol 53 No 22). The early promise has ...

Somaliland’s success story will come under growing regional pressure in 2013, partly because of developments in neighbouring Somalia. The key issue for Somaliland remains diplomati...

With barely three months to go before the general elections, the 4 December deadline on pre-poll deals forced Kenya’s promiscuous political class into a flurry of shotgun weddings....

The Prime Minister that the National Islamic Front (NIF) overthrew in 1989, El Sadig el Sideeg el Mahdi, sees a chance to win back power as conflict deepens at the core of the Khar...

Reginald Mengi, a Tanzanian media tycoon who is a friend and backer of President Jakaya Kikwete, has been ordered to pay £1.2 million (US$1.94 mn.) towards the legal costs of Briti...

Awad Ahmed el Jaz is a stalwart of the National Congress Party (formerly National Islamic Front, NIF), Sudan’s ruling party since 1989. He has played a critical role in both the de...