Vol 54 No 10 | KENYABRITAIN Essential contact, the Cameron way 10th May 2013 President Uhuru Kenyatta met British Prime Minister David Cameron briefly the morning before the London Conference on Somalia opened on 7 May. To Kenyatta’s Press Office, the encounter...
Vol 54 No 10 | SOMALIABRITAIN Hassan Sheikh at the wheel 10th May 2013 This year’s conference was more about pledging funds for reconstruction than summoning the world to applaud a stunning success London’s Somalia Conference arrived with a little less fanfare this year. The press conference was held in a smaller room, the United States Secretary of State and most...
Vol 6 (AAC) No 7 | SOUTH SUDANCHINA Financing deals finally take off 2nd May 2013 More eye-catching Chinese loans to South Sudan hit the headlines in April, as did more uncertainty about what exactly has been agreed. A year to the day since...
Vol 6 (AAC) No 7 | UGANDACHINA One-horse race 2nd May 2013 The government cancelled the bidding for Uganda’s biggest hydropower project, the Karuma Falls Dam, pending a procurement review, after the selected bidder lied to the Ministry of Energy.
Vol 54 No 9 | KENYA Rise of the professionals 26th April 2013 The appointment of non-politicians to cabinet posts, a provision of the new constitution, concentrates power in Kenyatta’s hands After a circus of postponements, excuses and secrecy, the protracted announcement of President Uhuru Kenyatta’s cabinet ministers over the week-ending 27 April was received with some indifference. Yet...
Vol 54 No 9 | SUDAN Tactics but no strategy 26th April 2013 Under pressure from internal divisions and fighting wars on three fronts, the ruling party is struggling to reinvent itself Everyone welcomed the opening of the regime’s talks with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North in Ethiopia on 23 April. The ruling National Congress Party presents the talks as...
Vol 54 No 9 | SUDAN Rifts in the regime 26th April 2013 The coalition of army and security bodies controls the levers of power, with President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir at the top beside the Defence Minister, General Abdel...
Vol 54 No 9 | SOMALIABRITAIN Progress but... 26th April 2013 The follow-up to the 2012 London Conference on Somalia should be ‘a substantial conference with substantial outcomes’, said a senior British diplomat of the second London...
Vol 54 No 8 | ETHIOPIA Toeing the party online 12th April 2013 The government tries to increase access to the internet and mobile telephony while restricting free speech and the media The government has grown more sensitive to dissenters using the internet. Now it is blocking opposition websites and some social media, and using special programmes to spy on...
Vol 54 No 8 | SOMALIAPUNTLAND Deferring democracy 12th April 2013 Local elections were meant to be a first democratic step but the territory’s leaders fear they could threaten stability Whether or not Puntland is ‘ready for democracy’, the government has postponed the local elections due on 15 May. There is no clear notion of when, if ever,...