Museveni is looking for ways of financing his 2016 election campaign and officials are reluctant to print money
A rift between President Yoweri Museveni and the Governor of the Bank of Uganda, Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, is rapidly widening. The Governor recently revealed that during the 2011 presidential...
Vol 55 No 25 |
- KENYA
- BRITAIN
The London trial of three senior staff and an agent of British printers Smith & Ouzman (S&O) is causing concern in Kenya. The defendants deny paying £400,000 (US$630,000)...
A diplomatic row has erupted over the failure of the United Nations and African Union to investigate reports that Sudanese troops and allied militia raped some 200 women...
A united front of activists, politicians and fighters against Khartoum changes the political balance
The armed and civilian oppositionists signing the unity accord known as 'Sudan Call' in Addis Ababa on 3 December quickly triggered serious reactions. Three days later, the Khartoum...
The government’s obstruction of the ICC and intimidation of witnesses fatally undermined the Kenyatta prosecution
Ultimately, it was a combination of failings by the International Criminal Court prosecutors and the government's non-cooperation that resulted in the dropping of the case against President Uhuru...
President Uhuru Kenyatta's sacking of two top officials in response to devastating attacks by Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen seems unlikely to appease an outraged public. Security...
The President returns to find Parliament and people alike outraged by the latest corruption scandal. The CCM is looking for a way out
Having spent much of November convalescing in the United States after prostate surgery, President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete came home to find a country in turmoil over the escrow...
Vol 55 No 23 |
- UGANDA
- CHINA
Multibillion dollar Chinese loans less than two years before the elections raise commercial and political questions
China has for some time been a leading lender to Uganda but loans have accelerated this year since the government promised to pay for Chinese-built infrastructure from future...
Vol 55 No 23 |
- KENYA
- BRITAIN
Three staff and one agent of a British company which printed ballot papers for several African elections are on trial in London accused of corruptly obtaining contracts in...
As more security documents are smuggled out, oppositionists see sharpening rivalries within the ruling party
Jubilant opposition groups say the emergence of more leaked security documents points to the deepening factionalism at the heart of the National Congress Party regime. Documents laying out...
Alarm grows over the government’s failure to deliver and to get organised amidst ever more visible signs of cronyism
While confusion reigns in Kenya’s public service, the patterns of governance under President Uhuru Kenyatta are becoming clearer. Squabbling between cabinet secretaries and the heads of ministries has...
Governance issues would be complicated enough if it weren’t also for the arrival of new guests at the feast
Like its neighbours Tanzania and Uganda, Kenya has found that hydrocarbon discoveries require complicated legal and institutional reforms to manage the resource and deal with investors. The incentives...
The President’s manoeuvres to oust his erstwhile friend as Secretary General of the NRM are accelerating
President Yoweri Museveni aims to limit possible leadership challenges from within the governing National Resistance Movement through wide-ranging changes to the party’s constitution. Currently, the main objective is...
Vol 55 No 21 |
- SUDAN
- AFRICA
Senior officials from the African Union, European Union and United Nations were at the Police Club House in Khartoum on 13-16 October for the AU's Regional Conference on...
The smuggling out of what appear to be top secret state documents points to a major security breach in the government
The Khartoum government is yet to react to the circulation of what purport to be detailed minutes of a meeting on 31 August of top security and military...
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Most of the Sudanese activists and officials (serving or former) that we have contacted believe the leaked reports of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) meeting on...
Some 140 members of parliament turned President Uhuru Kenyatta's first appearance at the International Criminal Court on 8 October into something of a circus. Nairobi Senator Mike Mbuvi...
A year after the Westgate Mall siege, President Kenyatta is reorganising the security services as Somali and local jihadists continue their attacks
The wide-ranging calls for a full inquiry into the handling of the attack by Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen on the Westgate Shopping Mall a year ago...
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Militia leaders make overtures to their enemies while the government is mired in financial scandal
In an attempt to terminally weaken Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen, the Somali and United States governments are both trying to exploit the killing of its leader,...
How the government handles the latest power sector scam could have a major impact on President Kikwete’s political legacy
Heads may be about to roll after revelations about the contested transfer of 200 billion Tanzania shillings (US$124 million) from an escrow account in the central bank, the...
Museveni uses Obama's security assistance for the fight against Al Shabaab to crack down on the opposition as well
United States' military aid and training in surveillance techniques is helping President Yoweri Museveni's government to crack down on the opposition, say political sources in Kampala. It even...
Vol 55 No 18 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Regional officials are finally running out of patience with obfuscation from both warring parties and could impose sanctions next month
This time the deadline for a peace and power-sharing agreement is serious, runs the message from regional and international officials. On 25 August, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development...
After pushing back Khartoum’s offensive this year, fighters in the Nuba Mountains are talking about self-determination
The failure of its last dry season offensive in the Nuba Mountains has left the Sudanese regime with little room to manoeuvre against more effective and united opposition...
The photographs show a beaming Malik Agar Eyre, head of the Sudan Revolutionary Front, and a grim-faced Ghazi Salah el Din el Atabani, veteran Islamist former minister, sitting...
Feverish plotting is already in progress over the 2016 election now that Museveni’s decision to stand is final
President Yoweri Museveni has sparked a bitter war in the ruling National Resistance Movement over his decision to stand in the 2016 election. He appears to have abandoned...
Tanzania's constitutional review process has finally ground to a halt. What was to have been President Jakaya Kikwete's shining legacy will now become a throbbing headache for his...
As pressure mounts from Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Khartoum announced on 2 September that it was closing all Iranian culture centres. How the regime manages its close ties...
Godane has fallen to a US air strike, contrary to our earlier information. Choosing a new chief may be problematic but no strategic change is likely
The killing of Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen leader Ahmed Abdi Godane by the United States on 1 September is unlikely to leave a vacancy for long. The...
The agreement with the main oil companies gives investors 60% and paves the way for the export of crude oil
After nearly three years of back-and-forth negotiation with oil companies, President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has finally caved in. He has agreed to a much smaller oil refinery than...
The arrest of senior government and army members considered pillars of the regime has caused surprise
The former head of the Republican Guard, Colonel Tom Byabagamba, was arrested on suspicion of 'crimes against state security' on 23 August on his return from the United...
A US judge finds Sudan and Iran guilty of the 1998 US embassy bombings, revealing new details of their involvement
Sixteen years after the bombings of the United States' embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured more than 1,000, a New York court has...
Two men played key roles in the double attack: one using Sudan as his springboard, the other under the noses of the US army, CIA and FBI
Fazul Abdullah Mohamed Ali, a Comoran, and Ali Mohamed, an Egyptian, both played key roles in the 1998 Embassy bombings in East Africa, according to court documents: the...
Vast sums of money and political loyalties are at stake as the land clashes spread
President Uhuru Kenyatta has belatedly moved to stem the violence over land ownership in Coast Province but the delay has allowed conflict to become entrenched. His 31 July...
The latest round of murderous attacks contradicts President Hassan’s claims to have stabilised the country
The murder of the popular singer and member of Parliament Saado Ali Warsame on 23 July and of MP and former minister Aden Madeer on 1 August was...
Despite a security crisis and economic woes, Raila Odinga is failing to capitalise on the government’s troubles
Attempts by opposition leader Raila Amolo Odinga to put himself back on the political map are failing to spark the public imagination. The former Prime Minister's re-launch following...
Vol 55 No 15 |
- SUDAN
- ISRAEL
The explosions that destroyed an arms depot at El Geili north of Khartoum on 18 July prompted a welter of speculation on news sites and social media. Many...
A climate of rising fear and uncertainty – never far from the surface in Burundi – is causing concern at home and abroad
The government is clamping down on elements within its former coalition partner, the mainly Tutsi Union pour le progrès national (Uprona) because of their opposition to President Pierre...
The opposition is back in business but it is caught between the national security crisis and the government’s heavy-handed response
The opposition parties may have failed to pack out Nairobi's Uhuru Park at the long-awaited rally on 7 July but they set out the first credible political challenge...
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Regions are being created as part of a federal state but their prospects are poor because they don’t enjoy legitimacy
Distracted by political turmoil and terrorism in Kenya, most regional observers missed the announcement by Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed that the government was backing a...
The notorious militia is disarming but some say that’s a blind. A complex mix of motives, alliances and regional interests is at work
Central and Southern African leaders have demanded the disarmament of the Rwandan Hutu militia, the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda. At a summit in Luanda on 2...
Vol 55 No 14 |
- ETHIOPIA
- NORWAY
Norway has taken the highly unusual step of cancelling a hydropower research project in Ethiopia that would have been drowned by the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD, AC...
Vol 55 No 14 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The conflict has caused a food emergency and sanctions against the rival leaders for blocking progress are now on the table
One million South Sudanese are threatened by starvation, with at least another three million at serious risk, United Nations and United States' officials say. The US Agency for...
A quarter of a century after seizing power, the Islamist regime in Khartoum has nothing to celebrate, not even the success of its own 'Salvation Revolution'. It is besieged on all fronts
While leaders fight for power, the economy is in a dire state, nearly half the population is officially below the poverty line, the opposition is steadily gaining political...
Sudan's history of multiparty democracy has been interrupted by three periods of dictatorship but that of the National Islamic Front-National Congress Party is by far the longest. The...
Islamism is a 20th century ideology but one idealising the borderless caliphates of the seventh century. The movement began in 1928 when Hassan el Banna (22) founded the...
Vol 55 No 13 |
- TANZANIA
- ENERGY
The government refused to give in to parliamentary demands for an answer about strange goings on at the power suppliers
Investigations into the controversial release of US$122 million from an escrow account to the new owners of Independent Power Tanzania Limited (IPTL) are running into heavy weather. All...
Vol 55 No 13 |
- EGYPT
- ETHIOPIA
Egypt's President Abdel Fatah el Sisi was due to meet Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, on 26 June to try to resolve their differences...
Both Kinshasa and Kigali have their own domestic or geopolitical reasons to keep the pot boiling over their common border
Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda traded heavy arms fire in the second week of June in a reminder, after months of calm, of the countries' mutual suspicion and the volatility...
President Kenyatta claimed 'local political networks' were to blame for the atrocities on the Coast. It’s not the only bizarre circumstance of the shootings
The spectre of a breakdown in Kenya's national security faces President Uhuru Kenyatta in the wake of terrorist attacks on the north-eastern coast that claimed more than 50...
Vol 55 No 12 |
- EGYPT
- LIBYA
- SUDAN
Tension is still rising between Khartoum and Cairo as Egypt's new leader President Abdel Fatah Khalil el Sisi sets out his strategic priorities. Top of the list is...
Fearing reprisals from Saudi Arabia and Israel, Khartoum turns down Tehran's offer to build missile launch pads near Port Sudan
Just how close are relations between the Islamist regimes in Khartoum and Tehran? The headline from Iran's Fars News Agency on 4 June – 'Iran, Sudan Discuss Expansion...
Past-masters at confusing both adversaries and outsiders, the Khartoum regime is tripping over its own feet
Khartoum's political leaders are fuelling a crisis they were trying to forestall. The regime this month deployed three brigades of paramilitary Rapid Support Forces to protect the capital....
Vol 55 No 10 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
President Salva Kiir and his former Deputy, Riek Machar, have agreed to an interim government but its shape is far from clear
Mediators in Addis Ababa studiously played down the fact that the cessation of hostilities agreement signed on 9 May was not the result of face-to-face talks between South...
Vol 55 No 10 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Foreign military assistance is piecemeal and has yet to be sorted out. Britain’s contribution, for instance, includes training an officer in England, along with one from Sudan. The...
Tanzania has sent home the North Koreans who were supposed to be restoring some of the Tanzanian People’s Defence Force’s Soviet-era military equipment following secret protests by the...
A letter from almost half of all MPs calls on Hassan Sheikh to step down or be forced out
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is fighting for his political life after more than 100 members of parliament petitioned him to resign over his failure to tackle security. If...
A scheme to expand the administrative area of the capital has sparked Oromo nationalist anger
Peaceful protests at Ambo University and on campuses across Oromia turned into deadly clashes with security forces for days after federal police shot dead a 14-year-old student, Endale...
Vol 55 No 9 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
As the rival leaders appear indifferent to the slaughter and threats to stability, support is growing for a serious intervention force and targeted sanctions
The pressures of war are mounting but President Salva Kiir Mayardit still sports a black ten-gallon hat and a hefty walking stick. Looking tired and stooped, Salva hectored...
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Vol 55 No 9 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
At talks in Addis Ababa about forming an interim government in South Sudan, some are pinning their hopes on a group of eleven politicians, most of whom were...
The government is screening ethnic Somalis and confining refugees to camps. Some question the effectiveness – and motives – of the policy
The security agencies' investigation of the Somali community for links to terrorism is meeting growing criticism. It forms part of the Jubilee Alliance government's response to the attack...
Some of the government's electricity supply deals – what Energy Minister Sospeter Muhongo called 'shoddy contracts that are a burden to Tanzanians' – are back in the news...
Hassan Sheikh’s government can’t plug the leaks in public finances while Al Shabaab attacks increase in the capital. It’s a dangerous combination
Somalia is beleaguered on all fronts: terrorist attacks are on the rise, the government cannot tackle the chronic theft of public money and the international community is losing...
The National Congress Party’s support for Egypt’s Muslim Brothers is exacting a heavy political and economic cost
Financial sanctions on Sudan by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are a political warning shot. The immediate targets are Khartoum's backing for Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood...
The 20th commemoration of the genocide of 1994 found the President uncompromising towards France and others he sees as enemies
President Paul Kagame's keynote speech at the Amahoro Stadium on 7 April urged everyone to face up to their responsibilities, since 'the people who planned and carried out...
Formally entitled 'Kwibuka 20' (we remember), with the motto 'Remember, Unite, Renew', the concerns of the present were never far away from the commemoration of the past. That...
The President's bid to change the constitution to allow him to stand for a third term has failed
The Kinshasa press loudly celebrated the failure of President Pierre Nkurunziza to amend the Burundian constitution at the end of March, a move intended to permit him a...
Tax reforms – which almost doubled state revenues over the last three years – are at risk from Bujumbura's elite and disorganised aid groups
What is going wrong with Burundi's impressive tax reforms? Insiders say that corrupt politicians and business people have been fighting back, trying to get exemptions and write-offs. Until...
Vol 55 No 7 |
- EGYPT
- ETHIOPIA
Ethiopia risks isolation in the row with Egypt over the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) now that the previously secret Independent Panel of Experts' report...
The ICC’s case against President Kenyatta is in disarray but so are his own political forces and the managers of his grandiose public spending plans
At the presidential inauguration of Uhuru Kenyatta last April, few would have predicted the chaotic current state of the Jubilee Alliance government. Then, almost his sole preoccupation was...
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Progress, albeit hesitant, is being made on the vaunted gas economy and on the assembly that will oversee the new constitution
With two months remaining of the current offshore licensing round, Tanzania is making slow progress in defining the shape of its new 'gas economy'. The challenge is to...
Vol 55 No 6 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
President Salva Kiir is hardening Juba’s line as Western governments threaten sanctions against those blocking peace talks
Any parties in South Sudan – government or otherwise – trying to undermine the peace talks would face some form of sanction, the special envoys from the United...
Any escalation of the tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats after the 4 March attack on the Pretoria home of the exiled Rwandan General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa now looks improbable....
Vol 55 No 5 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Regional governments plan to send in troops as pressure grows for a political settlement
As the African Union discusses sending a stabilisation force to South Sudan, there is a glimmer of hope in Addis Ababa, where a new committee from all sides...
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USAID is accused of funding anti-government protests. Attacks on Britain and the ICC are routine but this shot across US bows was different
When a few thousand demonstrators marched in Nairobi in mid-February to protest about bad government, corruption and insecurity, nobody was surprised. These complaints are, say many, a growing...
Some in Nairobi speculate that when Francis Kimemia accused the United States Agency for International Development of attempting to destabilise the government, he was speaking out of turn.
A major Amisom offensive is due soon, which may help where politics cannot, yet there is concern about Ethiopia’s role
Diplomats in transit at Mogadishu airport – nowadays the only place they want to be in the beleaguered city – are desperate for good news for their return...
Britain and the US are accused of complicity in human rights abuses, highlighting difficult choices about democracy and development
Two of Ethiopia's leading foreign donors are again accused of complicity in human rights abuses. It highlights the debate on whether development should come before democracy. The most...
The President comes in for a storm of criticism over elephant and rhino poaching but the true picture is more complicated
Embattled President Jakaya Kikwete has tried to fight back after coming under intense fire from the British Mail on Sunday newspaper and politicians at home and abroad over...
Vol 55 No 4 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Foreign Minister Barnaba talks reconciliation as government and rebels fight for control of oil-rich Upper Nile
In the most serious breach of the 23 January cessation of hostilities agreement, fierce fighting is raging as government and rebel forces clash in Malakal, capital of Upper...
Calls from the United States and Ethiopia, its regional ally, for Uganda to withdraw its forces from South Sudan are falling on deaf ears in Kampala. President Yoweri...
President Kenyatta is backing a US$4 billion no-bid contract with a state-owned Chinese company to rebuild the Nairobi-Mombasa railway
Kenya's flagship transport plan, the Standard Gauge Railway Project (SGRP), is attracting growing controversy over its enormous cost and the uncontested contract award for the first phase. The...
The appointment of a new Vice-President failed to relieve the political crisis and the President is now trying to manipulate opposition leaders
Burundi is facing its worst political crisis since the end of the civil war in 2000. When President Pierre Nkurunziza dismissed the First Vice-President, Bernard Busokoza, on 1...
Vol 55 No 4 |
- EGYPT
- ETHIOPIA
Egypt is protesting to the United Nations Security Council and the International Criminal Court about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. It will also boycott a meeting in Khartoum...
Security is worsening, and governance too. The President is increasingly isolated and even his staunchest international friends are losing patience with him
The African Union Mission in Somalia has announced plans for a new offensive against Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen, and troops are being positioned. Yet most Somalis...
Vol 55 No 3 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The four oppositionists still detained in Juba – Pa’gan Amum, Oyai Deng, Majak d’Agot, Ezekiel Lol – are unlikely to join the talks due in Addis Ababa on...
There’s a new Premier but many feel that one greedy faction has simply replaced another. Momentum towards a functional state is slowing again
The election of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as President in September 2012 was meant to free politics of issues that had held it hostage for years: arguments between President...
Vol 55 No 3 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The combatants have signed up to a ceasefire more because they ran out of options than because they wanted peace
The threat of targeted sanctions against the combatants and the concern of East Africa's leaders that they would lose face at next week's African Union summit were the...
With national elections due in 2015, the decks are being cleared for action amidst fierce rivalries for the CCM nomination
This is President Jakaya Kikwete’s last year in the presidency. It seems a very long time since he came to office in 2005 amid ringing pledges to fight...
Mogadishu will gain little more control and the enclaves will jealously hang on to what they have. Al Shabaab will endure
The New Year began with a new Prime Minister, Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed, and a newish cabinet – but no new brooms. Reshuffling the players in cabinet will...
The killing of a political opponent to President Kagame in a Sandton hotel has riled Pretoria and could have wider consequences
The arrest in Mozambique of three Rwandans this week in connection with the murder in South Africa of Colonel Patrick Karegeya, Rwanda's opposition leader and former spy chief,...
The thread that bound President Kenyatta together with his deputy Ruto is fraying. There are growing worries about terrorism
Three questions loom over the country in 2014. Will President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice-President William Ruto win their confrontation with the International Criminal Court? Will the government reform...
This year will be about political survival for the regime and Omer el Beshir; and physical survival for many Sudanese trapped in war and poverty
2014 is constitutionally designated as President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir’s last full year in power. The year will be devoted to trying to ensure that Field Marshal...
Vol 55 No 1 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Big political changes will be needed to relaunch Africa’s newest country and bring it back from the abyss
A long road lies ahead before the mediators can secure a ceasefire between South Sudan’s warring factions, let alone embark on serious negotiations to consolidate a new political...
Vol 55 No 1 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The political issues in dispute are substantial, as can be seen from the leading dissidents who organised a press conference on 6 December in Juba. The conference, which...
Vol 55 No 1 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The clashes between rival factions in the SPLA that started in the capital on 15 December are spreading alarmingly fast
The capture of Bor, about 100 kilometres north of Juba, on 18 December by troops loyal to General Peter Gatdet Yaka showed the political and military fragility of...