SOUTH AFRICA Zuma's surprise package 17th April 2009 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site The coming presidency will face the hard times with some unexpectedly right-wing measures and boosted security services Jacob Zuma's inevitable ascent to the presidency has been achieved at considerable cost. The governing African National Congress has been absorbed for the last year in faction-fighting, dealing with defections, quashing Zuma's corruption charges and bullying the National Prosecution Authority to drop the case. The result was a legal mess: the NPA cited its receipt of illegal intercepts (see Pointer) as its reason for dropping the case but failed to explain why its top investigators had been working on the Zuma case for the past four years - unless they too were part of a political plot. For Zuma, it is mission accomplished. The main project now is to run the government.
SOUTH AFRICA It's the political economy, stupid! 17th April 2009 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site The economy contracted in the first quarter of 2009 and South Africa is entering its first recession in 17 years. The South African Reserve Bank has cut its repo rate (the rate at ...
GHANA The Mills grind slowly 17th April 2009 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site Under attack from his own party as well as the opposition, the President strives to shape his government To mark his hundredth day in office on 17 April President John Evans Atta Mills gave his government eight out of ten for trying to fight corruption, protect citizens from armed rob...
The pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden are maintaining a tradition of marine gangsterism that dates back to the 14th century, according to the journals of Moroccan traveller and scholar Ibn Battuta. Then as now international power relations were in flux. In 1991, the outgoing Republican administration under United States President George Bush bequeathed to Democratic President Bill Clinton a commitment to deploy troops to distribute aid and stabilise Somalia. In January 2009, another ou... The pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden are maintaining a tradition of marine gangsterism that dates back to the 14th century, according to the journals of Moroccan traveller and scholar Ibn Battuta. Then as now international power relations were in flux. In 1991, the outgoing Republican administration under United States President George Bush bequeathed to Democratic President Bill Clinton a commitment to deploy troops to distribute aid and stabilise Somalia. In January 2009, another outgoing Republican administration under another President Bush bequeathed to another Democratic President, Barack Obama, a commitment to attack the USA’s enemies on land in Somalia and offshore. The US backed a Security Council resolution to prepare a mandate for the return of United Nations peacekeepers to Somalia by 15 April and a decision on deployment by 1 June. Wary of another repeat – the US lost 18 soldiers in Somalia in 1993 – US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice is unenthusiastic about the UN plan. This week’s spectacle of the USS Bainbridge, a destroyer with Tomahawk missiles, confronting a Somali dhow sums up the new asymmetric warfare. This issue will be to the fore at a 22-23 April conference on Somalia in Brussels to be attended by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his Special Representative, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah. Top of the agenda is security and the need to tackle the scourge of piracy; the risk is that the land-bound causes of piracy will be again ignored. Read more
GHANA Sums that don't add up 17th April 2009 Perhaps the toughest job in President John Atta Mills's government is the Finance and Economic Planning portfolio, held by Kwabena Duffuor. Having, by reducing duties and levies, b...
ZIMBABWE Tendai Biti has a plan 17th April 2009 Finance Minister Tendai Biti has emerged as the key figure in Zimbabwe's economic recovery, walking the uneasy path between securing external finance from sceptical outsiders and d...
ECONOMYAFRICA The bust and after 17th April 2009 Finance ministers and central bank governors are holding an African summit in Washington next week to map a way out of the crisis As the international financial crisis intensified last year, some African governments thought they could avoid the worst by strengthening their trade and investment ties with Asia....
ALGERIA Victory in a vacuum 17th April 2009 This time, rigging the election turnout was more important than rigging the vote Since there was no heavyweight candidate to stand against him, it was little surprise that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was re-elected with 90.24% of the vote in the 9 April elec...
ZIMBABWE From retreat to turnaround 17th April 2009 Foreign investors but not their governments are beginning to take Harare's new order more seriously Warm words emerged from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's ministerial retreat in Victoria Falls on 3-6 April and are encouraging foreign business to look at profitable turnarounds...
UGANDAANALYSIS Museveni - from grand reformer to simply surviving 17th April 2009 With his eyes on another five-year presidential term in 2011, President Yoweri Museveni has shaken up his cabinet, touted Uganda's future as an oil exporter and pressed for a military resolution to the conflict with the LRA. The only thing that could stop him from extending his 23 years of rule is infighting between the factions of the ruling National Resistance Movement. Museveni's long-term allies benefit from his grip on power, but a new generation in the ruling party wants changes to policies and leadership. President Yoweri Museveni has two main power centres. Firstly, the National Resistance Movement which still enjoys popular support across Uganda, especially in the vote-rich rural ...
ECONOMYAFRICA And the good news 17th April 2009 Amid the gloom lie some positives. African economies now have on average 5.7 months of reserves to cover imports, policy frameworks are sounder, government ministries are better st...
ALGERIA The contenders 17th April 2009 According to the official result, confirmed by the Constitutional Council on 14 April, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was re-elected with 90.24% of the vote, from a 74.6% turnout. ...
ZIMBABWE Good-bye to Zimbabwe's dollar 17th April 2009 'There will be no immediate plans to [re]introduce the money because there is nothing to support and hold its value,' said Economic Planning and Development Minister Elton Mangoma....
UGANDAOIL AND GAS Oil without borders 17th April 2009 The drama surrounding oil reserves on the Ugandan and Congolese sides of Lake Albert came to an end in April with London's Heritage Oil and Gas and Ireland's Tullow Oil still the m...
SENEGAL Une affaire de famille 17th April 2009 Voters in the local elections have turned down President Wade’s political plans for himself and his son Karim Disaster has struck President Abdoulaye Wade’s coalition, led by his Parti Démocratique Sénégalais, at the polls on 22 March. The rural, municipal and regional elections marked his...
NIGERIAUNITED STATES The Halliburton trials 17th April 2009 Weeks after Information Minister Dora Akunyili announced a campaign to rehabilitate Nigeria’s international image, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s government faces the strongest te...
SOUTH AFRICAWORLD BANK Integrity in question 17th April 2009 Claims that the World Bank’s Vice-President for Integrity and former head of South Africa’s Scorpions anti-corruption unit, Leonard McCarthy, used his position to pursue political ...
EGYPT Hamas and Hezbollah 17th April 2009 Last week, President Hosni Mubarak’s government arrested 49 Egyptians, Sudanese and others whom it accuses of forming Hezbollah cells in Egypt, planning attacks on Israeli tourists...
TOGO His father's son 17th April 2009 The arrest of former Defence Minister Kpatcha Gnassingbé while pleading in vain for asylum outside the gates of the United States Embassy in Lomé on 15 April appears to have ended ...