Ever since the abduction of two Chinese oil workers by antigovernment rebels in Sudan three years ago, policy-makers in Beijing have wrestled with how best to manage strategic...

China is trying to strengthen its diplomatic and commercial relations with Sudan despite the international opprobrium that those relations have attracted. Meanwhile, Khartoum’s ruling National Congress (NC, aka National Islamic Front) is...

With general elections coming up on 27 December, the opinion polls give a slim lead to Raila Amolo Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). The incumbent President,...

Raila Odinga's political organisation is much better coordinated and more focused than Mwai Kibaki's divided house. This is surprising given the disparate origins of Odinga's support base and...

In President Mwai Kibaki's campaign, the following groups compete for influence:

After its terrible years of turmoil, Rwanda was reasserting its place in the world well before last week's Commonwealth summit considered its possible membership. In June, it...

Rwanda became a virtual member of the Commonwealth at its 23-25 November summit in Kampala, partly due to President Yoweri Museveni's energetic support for visiting President Paul Kagame...

Much depends on the new Prime Minister. Nur Hassan Hussein 'Adde' was sworn in on 24 November, after Parliament had endorsed him with only one abstention. With good...

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government has three options for its Somalia policy, all of them formidably difficult.

Kenya and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) are suppressing debate about increasing tension between Khartoum and the Government of Southern Sudan, and the resilience of the 2005...

The Commonwealth summit last week provided an unrivalled opportunity for local monarchists to promote their own political agenda through unabashed adoration of Britain's octogenarian sovereign, portrayed in local...

One billboard proclaimed: '1.6 billion eyes on Uganda'. As the country rushes around making last-minute preparations for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) on 23-25 November, officials...

Uganda is ready for CHOGM!', shout the billboards. Traffic lights are being erected, crater-like potholes filled in, police trained - all for this month's Commonwealth Heads of Government...

As Kenya's presidential race speeds up, the contenders have their eyes on the legal system. For incumbent President Mwai Kibaki, this may be an additional insurance policy in...

This week, parties contesting the 27 December election are holding primary elections to choose their candidates. Next week, campaigning officially starts. President Mwai Kibaki is touring the country...

With the Sudan People's Liberation Movement still suspending its participation in the Government of National Unity in Khartoum, the semi-autonomous Government of Southern Sudan is increasingly acting like...

Commercial rivalries and contractual disputes over oil reserves in Lake Albert, which runs along the Congo-Kinshasa/ Uganda border, are heating up. Tensions between their two armies have ebbed...

As Khartoum’s delegation sat in Libya slamming ‘holdout rebels’ who had boycotted the Darfur talks, its armed forces were capturing displaced people in a camp near Nyala. It...

The trial of nine French and seven Spanish citizens accused of abducting 103 children from the Chad/Sudan border region on 25 October will damage France’s relationship with Chad...

For the first time since the United States forced it to the negotiating table in early 2003, the ruling National Congress (aka National Islamic Front) is under serious...

The government desperately wants to sell a 25% stake of Safaricom, its joint venture with Britain's Vodafone on the Nairobi Stock Exchange, before this year's elections. President Mwai...

Ethiopian and Ugandan troops in Somalia are due to welcome a new contingent of peacekeepers this month. Two battalions of soldiers from Burundi, with 1,750 men, should arrive...

The rift between President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi is in full swing. The latest twist came when Attorney General Abdullahi Dahir ordered the...

Tension between Somaliland (created in 1991) and the much less firmly established Puntland (created 1998) has been running high. On 1 July, yet another state, Maakhir, was inaugurated...

The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement withdrawal from the Government of National Unity (GNU) on 11 October followed months of warnings by the SPLM that the National Congress was...

A sense of urgency if not panic has gripped President Mwai Kibaki's camp ahead of the elections due in December. For the first time, opposition leader Raila Odinga...

The office of First Lady Janet Museveni is at the centre of a row over the misuse of healthcare funds according to investigators into two financial scandals at...

The quarrel between Addis Ababa and Asmara over their common border and the political chaos in Somalia is intensifying. The heat turned up after the Ethiopia Eritrea...

Diplomatic relations between France and Rwanda may be on the mend. Rwanda broke them off in November 2006, after a French judge, Jean-Louis Bruguière, issued arrest warrants against...

Karim Wade, the son of President Abdoulaye Wade, is the subject of complaints about the award of Senegal's third mobile phone licence to Sudatel, whose closest competitor, Celtel...

Thirty years ago, the United States National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, declared that ‘SALT lies buried in the sands of the Ogaden’: he meant the Strategic Arms Limitation...

The Ogaden National Liberation Front joined the political system in Ethiopia’s Somali Regional in 1991 and it had a majority in the administration. In 1994, it split over...

Negotiations between Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army in 2003-05 diverted attention from Khartoum’s mass murder and ethnic cleansing in Darfur; now the Islamist regime is exploiting...

It was no coincidence that the sudden decision by MPs last week to support a long-prepared amendment barring Kenya’s Anti-Corruption Commission from investigating cases prior to May 2003...

The United Nations has missed its first deadline for deploying peacekeepers in Darfur - not because of African Union recalcitrance but because non-African governments failed to offer specialised...

The leaking of a report detailing how former President Daniel arap Moi's family and associates have stolen more than US$2 billion of state revenues was timed to cause...

It was a bad month for Kenya's opposition, after personal rivalries came to a head and leading politicians split off to run their own campaigns. They will probably...

Above all, he is unpredictable and indefatigable: that is how an old associate sums up Raila Amolo Odinga. He has plenty of charisma for his rousing speeches in...

African Union Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konaré's statement in Khartoum on 12 August that the planned 26,000-strong peacekeeping force for Darfur would be entirely African and his criticisms...

The United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) is half of the process; the other half involves negotiations between rebels and regime. This requires a common platform for...

The Sudan Liberation Movement faction of Abdel Wahed Mohamed Ahmed el Nur boycotted this month's Arusha talks. This matters because it is the second largest military group and...

Under growing international pressure, Khartoum's National Congress (aka National Islamic Front) is uncovering 'internal plots'. On 14 July, it arrested Umma Party renegade and former minister Mubarek Abdullahi...

To satisfy both domestic expediency and international pressure, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has commuted the life sentences passed on 35 of his opponents. That was expected and it...

The rebel Forces Nationales de Libération (FNL) were supposed to negotiate a cease-fire with the government. On 21 July their chief, Jean-Berchmans Ndayishimiye, walked out, followed by his...

Eritrea and Ethiopia, whose leaders detest each other, are clashing on three regional issues. Moreover, hawks in Addis believe – rightly or wrongly – that Ethiopia's support for...

Southern President Salva Kiir Mayardit wants to get a stronger grip on his government as dissatisfaction grows and tensions mount with the Khartoum government. Salva has effectively...

Now that Britain's White Nile Limited has been forced out of Sudan, the biggest question for its founders, former England cricketer Phillipe Edmonds and his partner Andrew Groves,...

Police raids on the house of ex-President Jacques Chirac's Africa advisor Michel de Bonnecourse on 9 and 10 July raise the stakes in the investigation into claims by...

The Kigali government's plan to provide air traffic control systems across the whole of central Africa, where airspace is mostly unmonitored, could earn Rwanda as much as US$156...

The 'government will continue fighting against carelessness and make sure public servants deliver to the expectations of the wananchi [citizens] and the government'. While President Jakaya Kikwete was...

Millions of dollars in revenue from natural resources slip past the government's coffers due to smuggling, a lack of administrative capacity and collusion with politicians. No less than...

A mixture of scepticism and hope greets Khartoum's claims that it has unconditionally accepted that around 20,000 peacekeepers will be deployed in Darfur by 2008. Interested governments and...

Claims that Sudan gives the United States intelligence on Al Qaida in Somalia and Iraq - and Khartoum's rapid denial - have revived important questions. Does this 'intelligence...

The United Nations' Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Darfur of 8 June sets targets and deadlines with which it says the Sudanese regime should comply....

Despite widespread scepticism, a Somali National Reconciliation Congress is now due in Mogadishu on 16 July. It offers to reconcile the clans without which no national political reconciliation...

With Somalia looking more settled, Ethiopia has been looking towards Eritrea, which it sees as the regional spoiler. On 8 June, Addis Ababa wrote to the United Nations...

The electors may be excused for being confused. As the race to the December elections picks up, they face a choice between two coalitions that bicker constantly within...

A concerted attack on the violent Mungiki sect began in earnest on 4 June after two police officers were shot dead in the Mathare slums, a stronghold of...

If they do little else, United States' sanctions on Sudan, strengthened on 29 May, draw attention to the scope for economic pressure on the Islamist regime.

The untimely death from acute pancreatitis of Brigadier Noble Mayombo was widely lamented. He was a top intelligence officer, Private Secretary to Defence Minister Crispus Kiyonga and tipped...

With the President's ear, Brigadier Noble Mayombo was one of the most influential officers in the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF). President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is Commander-in-Chief and...

Praising the government's private sector growth initiatives earlier this year at the prestigious United States' Yale University, East Africa tycoon Reginald Mengi stressed the need to be 'careful'...

A weak hybrid force of African Union and United Nations troops with little or no reconnaissance or intelligence capacity looks the most probable outcome of the negotiations on...

Pressure for a no-fly zone in Darfur and tougher United Nations' sanctions on Khartoum will increase after Amnesty International's report on 7 May detailing the regime's flouting of...

Mourners thronged Saint John's cathedral in Fort Portal, western Uganda, on 4 May for the funeral of former military intelligence chief and presidential aide, Brigadier Noble Mayombo.

The struggle to shed light on the 1995 death of French Judge Bernard Borrel in Djibouti continues.

A few weeks ago, it looked as if relative calm was returning to Mogadishu, but violence has soared again. Ethiopia says it wants its forces to leave but...

Eritrea now condemns foreign involvement in Somalia. Last year, it sent large quantities of arms and fighters, and a training mission, to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), then...

President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed claimed last week, in Addis Ababa, that the situation in Mogadishu was improving. Very few would agree now, after heavy fighting and mass casualties....

On 19 April, the trial opened of the man accused of causing the death of ten United Nations' peacekeepers on 7 April 1994. The indictment says Major...

President Yoweri Museveni's plan to sell a piece of the Mabira Forest to the Mehta Group for sugar production has triggered violence by demonstrators and security services.

The United States' War on Terror is catching many innocent people in its crossfire and hundreds of these are held incommunicado by the Ethiopian and Kenyan authorities on...

Kenya, with neither a governing coalition nor an effective opposition, has become a democratic no-party state. The opposition alliance of convenience, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), is fighting...

Much of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) strife is caused by money wars. The Secretariat was run on voluntary contributions from ODM members of parliament, whose remittances dried...

The high drama of the military raid on the High Court in Kampala and the subsequent judges' strike is beginning to die down. On 16 March, President Yoweri...

Roads and street lights are being repaired and buildings painted in Kampala for November's Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Bigger potholes might be left by jostling for...

As British Premier Tony Blair calls for a 'no fly zone' against the Sudanese regime, his government is flying victims of that regime's murderous policy in Darfur back...

The Ugandan troops who have arrived in Mogadishu did little to stop the shooting. There were 1,300 of them, the first contingent of the African Union Mission to...

The two most powerful clans in southern Somalia are the Habr Gidir/Hawiye and the Darod (each with its own sub-clans). Habr Gidir elders and sheikhs led the Islamic...

The kidnap of hostages, Ethiopian and British, on 1 March was apparently the first operation of the Afar National Democratic Front (ANDF). It was a mistake. The original...

Over 25,000 displaced people from Darfur have signed a petition calling for United Nations' peackeepers to come and protect them. They call for an end to violence, the...

The International Criminal Court has laid the main responsibility for war crimes in Darfur on the Khartoum regime. The ICC Prosecutor's Application says 'The majority of civilian deaths...

On 15 February, heavily armed People's Defence Forces massed in the Nuba capital, Kadugli, shouting slogans against the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. SPLM Governor Ismail Khamis Jalab accused...

Until this month, Raila Amolo Odinga's presidential plans were progressing well. As a workaholic activist, Odinga believed he had the public profile and national base to emerge as...

More than most countries, Kenya's politics is about winning over ethnic constituencies and building powerful coalitions. Recently, Kenyans have heard warnings about the dangers of ethnic violence ahead...

The Darfur rebel commanders' conference may have taken weeks to become reality but it is increasingly seen as a necessary stage if peace is to return to the...

Adam Bakhit: a Zaghawa of the Wogi clan, he stood against Minni Arkou Minnawi for the Sudan Liberation Movement leadership during the 2005 Haskanita conference. He returned to...

At the end of the AU summit in Addis Ababa on 30 January, its new Chairman, Ghana's President John Kufuor, announced that four countries had pledged troops: Uganda...

A British project, reportedly costing £100,000 (US$195,000) to help turn Minni Arkou Minnawi's rebels into a political party has been postponed after his men again went on the...

African Union leaders will meet in Addis Ababa on 22-24 January to discuss sending 8,000 peacekeepers to Somalia. Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said that an AU...

Ethiopia was always confident of an easy victory over the Supreme Islamic Courts Council, despite the SICC's support from international Islamist volunteers and Eritrea. Addis Ababa had planned...

The United Nations-African Union 'hybrid force' consists of two 'packages' - one 'light', one 'heavy' - and is in three phases. Through the UN Mission in Sudan, which...

Khartoum puts much energy into fragmenting the opposition groups and rebel forces, using military pressure and cash to worsen political and ethnic schisms. Significantly, African Union officials are...

Egypt's arrest of a Sudanese attempting to cross into Israel on 17 January points to a new problem for Darfur refugees. Nearly 300 Sudanese have crossed the border...