NIGERIA The waiting game 14th November 2008 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site Presidential contenders, ministerial hopefuls and errant state governors are all caught up in the capital's political paralysis Three groups of ambitious politicians stalk Abuja's corridors of power, hoping for events to unfold in their favour. There are the men who would be king: former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, former military head of state General Ibrahim Babangida, former Chief of Military Intelligence, Aliyu Mohammed Gusau and former Secretary to the Federation Babagana Kingibe. All stand ready to make their bid should President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua relinquish power before 2011, as many of the capital's pundits confidently predict.
NIGERIA Among the survivors 14th November 2008 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site After months of speculation, President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua has sacked half his cabinet but retained several of his old associates and surprisingly kept on a few of the worst-perfor...
AFRICAUNITED NATIONS Changes ahead for UN forces 14th November 2008 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site Africa's crises may prompt radical reform of the mandates and structures of peacekeeping operations United Nations' peacekeeping faces its biggest crisis since it started some 60 years ago in Palestine. This month, over a million lives are at risk in Congo-Kinshasa as rival facti...
Nelson Mandela has been pulled out of retirement twice since his 90th birthday, both within the last week. First, to congratulate United States President-elect Barack Obama on his election victory: 'Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place,' wrote Mandela. It does not get much better for a serious politician than to be called an inspiration by Nelson Mandela. The more reserved expre... Nelson Mandela has been pulled out of retirement twice since his 90th birthday, both within the last week. First, to congratulate United States President-elect Barack Obama on his election victory: 'Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place,' wrote Mandela. It does not get much better for a serious politician than to be called an inspiration by Nelson Mandela. The more reserved expressions of support for Obama by other senior members of the ruling ANC were consistent with the poor state of US-South African relations. Improving them will be a priority for Obama's Africa policy. Mandela's other mission this week was the sad one of paying tribute to Mama Afrika. Zenzile Miriam Makeba died of a heart attack, aged 76, on 10 November. 'Her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us,' Mandela said. After a 1954 tour with the Manhattan Brothers helped her leave South Africa, Makeba became a cultural force against apartheid and a star, singing with Harry Belafonte and then at President John F. Kennedy's birthday party in 1962 alongside Marilyn Monroe. Some Americans were less happy with her marriage to black power leader Stokely Carmichael and her sojourn in Guinea under Sékou Touré. But Makeba campaigned to the end: hours before she died she was singing at a concert near Naples, organised to fight racism and the mafia. Read more
ZAMBIA Banda, the successor 14th November 2008 The new President Banda will have to tackle rising inflation and falling export revenue Zambia's new President, Rupiah Bwezani Banda, 71, will rule for only three years. The next election is already scheduled for 2011. In that brief period, he must convince Zambians t...
CONGO-KINSHASAANALYSIS The man who says no 14th November 2008 Rebel leader Laurent Nkunda likes to compare his relentless campaign against the Kinshasa government with the military resistance of General Charles de Gaulle, 'the man who said no'. Taking the parallels further, Nkunda has announced the formation of a provisional government in eastern Congo and threatens to march on the Kabila government. Without substantial back-up for the UN peacekeepers and a turnaround by the government forces, Nkunda's wild ambitions will face few obstacles. The strategic blunders of both the Kinshasa government and the Kivu rebels leave Congo's government facing military defeat, the rebels facing political isolation and the people of ...
MALAWI The aid debate: good, bad or misplaced 14th November 2008 Some say that all aid is good aid. British Premier Gordon Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2005 said: 'Let us double aid to halve poverty.' Irish campaigner Bob Geldof in 2...
CAMEROONEQUATORIAL GUINEA A kidnapped colonel 14th November 2008 Who kidnapped a presidential nephew in Yaounde; and why the neighbours disagree so often A row has broken out between Cameroon and its neighbour Equatorial Guinea after the abduction on 7 October in Yaounde of Cipriano Nguema Mba, apparently by Cameroonian police offic...
ZAMBIA Banda boxes clever 14th November 2008 Once the promoter of Lottie Mwale, Zambia's Commonwealth boxing champion (1974-83), President Rupiah Bwezani Banda rolls with the punches in Southern Africa's difficult politics. I...
CONGO-KINSHASA How smuggling pays for killing 14th November 2008 Most of the Kivu belligerents profit, one way or another, from the two provinces' precious reserves of gold, cassiterite and colombo-tantalite (coltan). Gold and coffee smuggling h...
ZIMBABWE The Gono hot air balloon 14th November 2008 The Reserve Bank Governor has declared war on the currency with disastrous results Wresting the Finance Ministry from Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) may prove a Pyrrhic victory for Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for ...
NAMIBIA Nujoma's grasp 14th November 2008 The ex-President's loyalists obstruct and may destroy his successor's gentler government The intolerance is wider, as indicated by calls to oust suspected RDP members from their jobs, in or outside the public sector. During the recent election campaign for the new Omut...
MALAWI Bringing in the harvest 14th November 2008 An African food-production triumph raises questions about the purpose and value of Western aid The big idea of a development push in Africa, to be part-financed by Western aid, has been propagated by rock stars and given intellectual credibility by United States' economist J...
ZIMBABWE A mysterious US$100 million 14th November 2008 Vital questions emerge from the US dollarisation of Zimbabwe: where have all the US bills come from? How long can the supply continue? How will they be replaced once they become ta...
ANGOLANORWAY Anonymous commerce 14th November 2008 Suspicion hangs over Norway's oil major Statoil Hydro after an internal audit published last month flagged as suspicious a joint venture with a mystery Angolan company, signed in S...
FRANCEAFRICA Espion embarrassant 14th November 2008 The leaked diaries of former French intelligence chief Yves Bertrand have enraged and amused the political establishment in Paris, which is already intrigued by the accusations of ...
ZIMBABWE Mutual aid 14th November 2008 President Robert Mugabe initially responded to the world's financial crisis with more than a touch of Schadenfreude. This has given way to panic as the implications become clear. F...
GUINEAMALI Towards Mali 14th November 2008 Last week's discovery of a consignment of weapons in a car en route to Mali raises yet more questions about corruption and divisions within Guinea's security forces. A team of gend...