Nerves are jangling in Asmara after the resignation of the Ambassador to Sweden, Norway and Finland. Hebret Berhe boldly criticised the resistance to reform and democracy of the ru...

The ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice is now deeply split. At the end of May, 15 leading members of the PFDJ's 75-member Central Council published an unprecedented op...

The government's announcement of its new coalition took even some of its members by surprise. On 11 June, the radio announced that Raila Amolo Odinga and his colleagues in the Nati...

It's not just on the political front that the ruling elite of the Kenya African National Union and its cronies are facing financial problems:

President Paul Kagame made his name as a military strategist, the successful head of Uganda's military intelligence until 1990, then leader of the forces that conquered his own cou...

Efforts to reunite the two main Southern factions - John Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Army and Riek Machar's Sudan People's Democratic Front - have suffered a setback. Riek r...

The United States fears East Africa may follow West Africa into chronic instability. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, visiting Kenya last week, had two symptoms of regional sick...

Ethiopia's security chief, Kinfe Gebre Medhin, was shot four times in the back outside the Armed Forces Officers Club in Addis Ababa on 12 May. The murder hits Prime Minister Meles...

Battling a powerful lobby for postponement, President of Somaliland Mohamed Ibrahim Egal is determined to hold a long-delayed constitutional referendum on 31 May. He wants voters t...

Ethiopia is in political crisis. In most countries, this would be natural after such riots as those of 17 and 18 April. Perhaps 41 people were killed (according to hospital figures...