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The Africa Confidential Blog
- TUESDAY 27th October 2009
Annkio on Amnesty: a Niger Delta activist speaks out.
By Dipo
On 16 October, the day a group loyal to Henry Okah broke from an amnesty and vowed to keep fighting in the creeks, another key figure in the armed struggle held forth in more rarefied settings. At Chatham House, the London-based think tank, in the ...
- MONDAY 27th July 2009
Nigeria in crisis… and the band played on
By Patrick Smith
One of Nigeria’s biggest banks announced this morning that it wants to raise US$3 billion on the local stock market, my old friend Nduka Obaigbena has hosted the glitterati of Lagos in a characteristically grand birthday party and the Lagos ...
- SUNDAY 12th July 2009
Barack Obama beats the drum for democracy and dignity
By Patrick Smith
Accra12 July 2009Barack Obama's homecoming lived up to the billing. Ghanaians accorded President Obama the warmest Akwaaba! He returned the compliment, meeting with Ghanaian health workers, activists, politicia...
- TUESDAY 7th April 2009
Genocide: My Stolen Rwanda, a book by Reverien Rurangwa
By Lion
On 7 April 2009, the anniversary of Rwanda's 100-day genocide, Reportage Press is publishing Genocide:My Stolen Rwanda by Reverien Rurangwa. This is a personal account of the massacres by Reverien Rurangwa, who witnessed the murders o...
- THURSDAY 12th February 2009
Letter from a reader: Shame on the African Union Leaders
By Dipo
The African Union leaders made history by electing one of their longest surviving dinosaur dictators, Colonel Qaddafi, to be the African Union president for the 2009 term. They made history not because they elected Qaddafi; but rather because this ...
- THURSDAY 12th February 2009
Nigerian jobs for Nigerian workers?
By Dipo
Protests in Lincolnshire recently by British workers irate over jobs there going to Italian and Portuguese ones raise some interesting issues.Total, the French oil company had caused to be brought in about 300 const...
- MONDAY 8th December 2008
Don't forget about Africa's big vote
By Patrick Smith
After Somali pirates, Congolese warlords and Zimbabwe in the time of cholera, Ghana’s elections just don’t cut it. Or that’s the verdict of the international news organisations, which have studiously ignored election campaigning in a country that has some...
- WEDNESDAY 12th November 2008
On the ropes
By Meerkat
In September's Africa-Asia Confidential, we reported on Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou's proposed diplomatic truce with China (AAC Vol 1 No 11, 'Dollar diplomacy fails'). No word on the truce yet; b...
- WEDNESDAY 22nd October 2008
Lunch at the Dorchester
By Dipo
Lunch, last Tuesday at the Dorchester, was an immoveable feast. The tables were laden with food in a sumptuous spread worthy of a royal dinner. The invited guests, try as they did, could not make a dent in the sheer amount of the food made available for t...
- FRIDAY 10th October 2008
IMF | Africa: Damned statistics
By Lion
The IMF's upbeat projection of 6% GDP growth for Africa in 2009 and the effect it hopes this would have on the world economy is optimistic. The Fund claims that the risk of global depression is small because it forecasts C...

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