As Egyptian, Ethiopian and Sudanese ministers sat down to discuss the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on 9 December, one item was notably absent from the agenda. The role...

Salini has merged with a Milan-based multinational construction competitor. A Salini statement said that a September Extraordinary Shareholders’ Meeting of Impregilo SpA, a 1.9 billion euro (US$2.6 bn.)...

After a period of defiant independence, Addis Ababa has now, belatedly perhaps, built strong diplomatic support behind the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Before the joint meeting of the...

Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir ‘decided to meet his fate with those he trusts most’, said a senior opposition source of the 8 December reshuffle. Some key leaders...

Agrogate, an Egyptian private equity group, hopes to start work this month on a hard-top road in Sudan, the 362 kilometre Dongola-Toshke (Argeen) Highway, which will link the...

Complaints that Kenyan anti-terrorist units are engaged in torture, rendition abroad of suspects, 'disappearances' and assassination could threaten United States and British cooperation and financial support. Critics blame...

A new report claims that Ethiopia’s Gibe III dam on the Omo river could lower water levels in Lake Turkana, in Kenya’s remote and arid northwest, by as...

Tanzania was among the first six countries to sign up to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, along with Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana and...

Eight-and-a-half months after Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission declared Uhuru Kenyatta winner of the March 2013 presidential poll, a key electoral observer, the Carter Centre, has released...

A thorn in President Yoweri Museveni’s side was removed when Kampala City Council voted to depose the Lord Mayor, Ssalongo Erias Lukwago, of the opposition Democratic Party on...

His excitement was not misplaced: ‘We are now full throttle ahead to the gas economy,’ said Energy and Minerals Minister Sospeter Muhongo. He was speaking at the launch...

After the mass media claimed that security forces were responsible for looting and burning sections of the Westgate Shopping Mall during the recent terrorist attack, President Uhuru Kenyatta...

Ethiopia has launched an investigation into the illegal import of US$13 million in telecommunications equipment in the name of Ethio Telecom by Huawei Technolgies. The inquiry will determine...

Key regional meetings are about to take place on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, probably Africa's biggest-ever development project to be undertaken without grants or concessional finance. After...

More than 440,000 people are currently displaced due to attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army across Central and East Africa. This is despite increased United States and African...

The chances of President Uhuru Kenyatta appearing in the Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court are decreasing by the day. Astute...

The governing Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front played it safe by electing Mulatu Teshome Wirtu to the largely ceremonial office of President on 7 October. Mulatu, who once...

In the wake of the murderous attack at Westgate Shopping Mall, President Uhuru Kenyatta faces tough questions about the probity and efficacy of his government. Kenyatta received a...

The growing politicisation and corruption within the state security system help explain the government’s poor coordination and its failure to act on warnings it received before the attack...

The sight of one of the regime’s stalwarts, Nafi’e Ali Nafi’e, being driven out of the wake for a protestor killed by security officers on 27 September summed...

’The phase of Salvation is over,’ the Director of Khartoum’s Centre for Strategic Studies, Sayed el Hassan el Khatib, told Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham...

Kenya says that the huge Lamu corridor project is progressing but in late August China put its support firmly behind a rival transport project. President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government...

On 8 September, Abubaker Mohamed Hadi, the President of the Djibouti Port and Free Zone Authority, presided over the ceremony to mark the start of construction at Damerjog...

Agriculture accounted for 23.4% of Uganda’s gross domestic product in 2011 and now the government has given Chinese companies the green light to set up operations in the...

Diplomats from Beijing continue their courtship of the South Sudan government, with substantive talks about new billion-dollar loans and promises of Chinese diplomatic support. All this is intended...

International conferences extolling political progress in Somalia and raising aid funds for post-war reconstruction have triggered several bids for oil acreage in the region despite continuing concerns about...

The Sudan People's Liberation Army stands accused again of widespread violations against civilians in its attempts to suppress a rebellion in Jonglei State. On 12 September, Human Rights...

The Governor of the Bank of Somalia, Abdusalam Omer, has lost his job in a row between the United Nations and the government over corruption at the BOS...

Up to US$100 million was diverted from government funds in the year ending 30 June 2012, according to the Auditor General. John FS Muwanga announced the loss in...

Uganda’s next election may only be in 2016 but President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, who is almost certain to run again, has set out an early agenda. He is...

When the government of Somalia and the Jubaland administration of Ahmed Mohamed Islaan ‘Madobe’ signed an interim agreement on 27 August, the sighs of relief were audible. Both...

Tension between Rwanda and Congo-Kinshasa has escalated almost to open war after two weeks of renewed fighting in eastern Congo. The national army, the Forces armées de la...

The opposition Semayawi Party has said it will hold a demonstration on 7 September, having failed to stage a promised public show of opposition to the government in...

On 18 August, the acting Chief Executive Officer of state-owned telecoms operator Ethio Telecom, Andualem Admassie, signed the second of two US$800 million deals that will drastically improve...

Ethiopia is rethinking its land policies after the failure by India’s large agribusiness ventures, which have also drawn much criticism from non-governmental organisations, to deliver results.

The donor-funded subsidy programme for smallholder agriculture is coming under increasing criticism for being poorly targeted, discriminating against the private sector and being used to encourage voting for...

When Parliament turned down President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s choice of Justice Minister on 13 August, it was greeted as a victory for democracy in the face of an...

The coming government reshuffle could bring back two pariahs: Hassan Abdullah el Turabi’s faction and former security chief Salah Mohamed Abdullah ‘Gosh’, who was arrested last November but...

Cracks in the revolutionary façade of the ever-secretive People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) may be appearing, after January’s failed coup and concerted challenges to the tax...

A July report by the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea claimed that the ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice has resumed support to the...

When President Salva Kiir Mayardit sacked his Vice-President, all his ministers, the governing party’s Secretary General and several senior police officers on 23 July, the world greeted it...

In perhaps the strongest signal that President Uhuru Kenyatta’s defence team is now preparing for a full-blown trial at The Hague in November, his lead International Criminal Court...

An anonymous blogger from the high-tech communications sector in Kenya has stepped in with highly credible-looking information on the latest court action in the International Criminal Court case...

Two weeks of sometimes brutal fighting between the Mouvement du 23 mars and the national army have ramped up the pressure on Kinshasa and Kigali to negotiate a...

Washington and Seoul are discreetly putting pressure on Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete to end military cooperation with Pyongyang. Around 18 North Korean military technicians and army officers are...

The worsening political crises in Juba and Khartoum are fuelling hostilities between the two capitals. When South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit sacked his cabinet on 23 July,...

The International Criminal Court judges on 15 July rejected an application by Kenyan Vice-President William Ruto to relocate his trial for crimes against humanity to East Africa. It...

Whether Sheikh Hassan Dahir ‘Aweys’ last week defected or escaped from Al Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen was still unclear as Africa Confidential went to press but more...

After only a few weeks in office the Jubilee government led by President Uhuru Kenyatta finds itself putting out a succession of domestic political fires, some of which...

Malawi will not give up an inch of its lake, sources close to President Joyce Banda say. At issue in the row with Tanzania is where the frontier...

Major Chinese investments, such as the new US$10 billion port to be built north of Dar es Salaam in Bagamoyo, are raising concerns amongst both the opposition and...

After another week of fighting for control of Kismayo port, Ahmed Mohamed Islaan 'Madobe' and his Ras Kamboni militia have strengthened their grip over the region and its...

Sheikh Hassan Dahir 'Aweys', the 78-year-old eminence grise of Somali Islamism, has broken with Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen (Al Shabaab) this week. Although Sheikh Aweys, who sported...

Although Kenya’s Supreme Court and international observers formally accept the legitimacy of the presidential election, government officials and activists are raising fresh doubts about the number of valid...

President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s sacking of Cabinet Affairs Minister Deng Alor Kuol and Finance Minister Kosti Manibe Ngai on 18 June has prompted puzzlement and some hostility in...

Tullow Oil has won its bid to recover US$313 million from Heritage Oil and Gas, following their dispute over a $434 mn. Ugandan tax bill. Tullow shared ownership...

Egyptian Foreign Minister, Mohamed Kamel Amr, was trying to calm tension over the control of the River Nile, after a meeting his Ethiopian counterpart, Tewodros Adhanom, in Addis...

Some 85% of the Nile waters originate in the Ethiopian Highlands, flowing down the Blue Nile and two smaller tributaries. The remaining 15% comes down the White Nile...

Now styling himself an 'independent financial analyst', Dominique Strauss-Kahn arrived in Juba on 14 May to help highlight the launch of the National Credit Bank. Before falling from...

Just as oil had just started to flow again from South Sudan to Sudan, after months of negotiations and external pressure, Sudan's President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir...

The meeting between Khartoum's hawkish Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Kurti and China's Africa envoy Zhong Jianhua on 16 June over Sudan's plans to cut South Sudan's export pipeline...

Two days of clashes in Mtwara following the general strike on 22 May have turned into one of the most serious political crises since Independence in 1961. At...

Tanzania has announced that the continually postponed Fourth Offshore Licensing Round will finally start on 25 October. It will also include one onshore block, North Lake Tanganyika. The...

Once shunned for their association with notorious corruption episodes, two of Chama Cha Mapinduzi’s wealthiest grandees are making their way back into the political spotlight. One is former...

Such is the level of distrust around President Mohamed Mursi’s beleaguered government that some insiders are convinced his officials deliberately misled opposition politicians about the ‘secrecy’ of...

May’s African Union summit in Addis Ababa saw Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete ask if the Kigali-supported Mouvement du 23 mars (M23) rebels should negotiate with Kinshasa, why shouldn’t...

The announcement by the International Criminal Court on 3 June that it could try William Ruto, Kenya’s Deputy President, in East Africa rather than at the Hague appears...

The raid by armed police on the Daily Monitor offices in Kampala on 20 May has deepened the political crisis. The newspaper had published a private letter from...

It is no coincidence that the armed forces announced their most sweeping round of promotions in over a generation just as the political furore around General David Sejusa...

On 15 May and by a resounding margin, elders meeting at the Jubaland conference in the southern port of Kismayo elected Ahmed Mohamed Islaam ‘Madobe’ as President of...

Amid an anti-corruption drive, on 10 May police arrested the Director General of the Ethiopian Revenues and Customs Authority, Melaku Fenta, his deputy, Gebrewahid Woldegiorgis, and 30 others,...

The conflict in Jonglei looks set to intensify despite the Juba government offering rebels an amnesty. The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) reports heavy fighting in...

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s three-day visit to London and meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron this week mark a considerable diplomatic victory for his new government. Previously, Whitehall...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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,...

Faustin Twagiramungu was Prime Minister in 1994-96, returned from exile to lose the presidential election in 2003 and now wants another start (AC Vol 52 No 3, The...

On 15 March, President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir sent a message of congratulations to China’s new President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Li Keqiang, who officially assumed...

Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has been unanimously confirmed as Chairman of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front for another two years. Nothing less was expected from a celebratory...

Multilateral donors may be ready to resume aid payments by the end of the year, say sources in Kampala familiar with the internal debate among Western officials involved....

The Juba government ‘has given the order to resume oil production and companies are now making preparations to do so,’ a source close to the negotiations with Sudan...

Oil production from Unity State is expected to begin in ‘about three weeks’, said a source close to the deal on 12 March. Fields in Upper Nile, meanwhile,...

The head of the Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency, General Ahmed Moallim Fiqi, quit on 25 March amid growing fears about security in Mogadishu. The...

Uhuru Kenyatta’s presidential victory leaves Kenya still a divided nation. He achieved it by engineering a partnership between his fellow Kikuyu and the Kalenjin of his running mate,...

A detailed report claiming widespread incompetence and corruption at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission may prove another blow to its standing as it seeks to defend its...

It was a warning shot from the usually emollient Charity Kaluki Ngilu when she read a statement in Nairobi on 6 March claiming that Britain’s envoy Christian Turner...

Khartoum has reacted angrily to criticism of the cross-amputation of Adam el Muthna, 30, who had his right hand and left foot cut off last month after being...

There is widespread optimism that oil will soon again flow from South Sudan to Sudan after a 14-month break since Juba turned off the tap. The two...

A tense campaign, full of skulduggery and intimidation, is gripping the country and challenging the electoral system. Politicians trade accusations of electoral malpractice, raising tension while damaging the...

The Kenyan elections and the International Criminal Court case against presidential candidate Uhuru Kenyatta and his running mate William Ruto pose serious challenges to foreign business. Britain and...

Neither the Jubilee Coalition’s Uhuru Kenyatta nor Prime Minister Raila Odinga of the Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD) has been able to make inroads into the other’s...

Democracy supporters demonstrated in Djibouti City after the first contested elections since 2003. President Ismail Omar Guelleh and his Union pour la majorité présidentielle had an easy...

The Nairobi gubernatorial race – part of the 4 March general elections – is turning into one of the most fascinating political battles of recent times. The...

Kenya’s first presidential debate, broadcast live on eight television and 34 radio stations on 11 February, was unlikely to sway an electorate deeply polarised by ethnic and regional...

The Khartoum regime’s ties with Islamists in the region are under scrutiny again following the arrival in Darfur of jihadists retreating from the French military campaign in northern...

The latest round of British military cooperation with Sudan under the aegis of its Defence Minister, General Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein, who is wanted by the International Criminal...

News of mutiny filtered out of Eritrea in late January as it might out of a hermit kingdom. On 21 January, some 200 soldiers with at least two...

At least one of President Issayas Aferworki’s few allies shows concern about his survival. On 2 February, Sudan’s President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir and his leading defence...

A tough police and military crackdown is stifling attempts to reproduce the success of the Walk to Work street protests led by Kizza Besigye, the then leader...

Tanzanian journalist Erick Kabendera is complaining about what he calls ‘harassment’ of his elderly parents by the country’s immigration and security officials. In November, he gave testimony...

In December 2012, the World Bank published an in-depth study of Chinese investors in Ethiopia. Based on interviews with the executives of 69 companies operating there, the study...

Finance Minister Ali Mahmoud Abdul Rasul announced on 17 January that his National Congress Party government had secured a US$1.5 billion loan from the state-run China Development Bank....

On 4 March, Kenyans will vote for six different offices: president, senators, county governors, members of parliament, civic councillors and women’s county representatives. Under the new constitution, the...

Existing tensions and struggles over resources are likely to lead to localised conflict in several areas. In Tana River, the fusion of political competition and land disputes has...

When attempts to reform the way political parties nominate their candidates failed, the Independent Election and Boundaries Commission refused to intervene. The IEBC seemed afraid to damage its...

The growing seriousness of the disputes between the Khartoum and Juba governments was clear at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa when Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan convened...

In a sudden and sweeping military reshuffle, President Salva Kiir Mayardit retired six deputy chiefs of general staff and 29 major generals by decree on 21 January....

If President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni had wanted to push the dissident young members of parliament in his party back into line with talk of a military coup, he...

For weeks, diplomats in Kenya have fretted about the brewing discord between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia and Mwai Kibaki of Kenya. They finally met in Nairobi...

The raid by French Special Forces on 11 January on the place where Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen was believed to be holding a French intelligence officer...

Tanzania’s next elections may be nearly three years away but they are already affecting national politics. Within the governing Chama Cha Mapinduzi, tension will increase as the race...

Kenya’s 50th Independence celebrations at the end of the year will be shaped by the general elections in March, the first since the violently disputed 2007 polls. This...

Two pressing challenges – the failing economy and a more effective opposition – will confront the National Congress Party regime this year. There is no prospect of...

Only one other head of state stood on the podium beside President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir on 1 January. That was President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud of Somalia....

South Sudanese will have to wait longer for their peace dividend. The main prospects for 2013 are more fraught negotiations with Khartoum on security and oil and most...

Juba’s failure to react to its shrinking reservoir of international goodwill was illustrated firstly, by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army shooting down a helicopter of the United Nations...

Optimism was high last September when President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office and appointed a cabinet led by Abdi Farah Shirdon ‘Said’ (AC Vol 53 No 22). The...

Somaliland’s success story will come under growing regional pressure in 2013, partly because of developments in neighbouring Somalia. The key issue for Somaliland remains diplomatic recognition as a...