Controversial Zimbabwean mining entrepreneurs Andrew Groves and Phil Edmonds have embarked on a new project in Ethiopia to construct a bottling plant 45 kilometres north of Addis Ababa....
Human rights groups have accused the security forces of killing more than 40 people in Oromia state after renewed student protests broke out over the planned expansion of...
As political negotiations stutter in Addis Ababa, the UN and the European Union turn a blind eye to Khartoum's heinous rights abuses
Chances of serious talks next week between government and opposition look slim. Although African Union mediators announced that the 'preparatory' political meeting would open in Ethiopia on 7...
The President has taken some notable scalps over corruption but if his campaign persists, he will face organised high-level resistance
Four weeks into President John Pombe Magufuli's new government, many are still scratching their heads. Some see him as a compromise candidate who is dependent on and subservient...
Curiosity is growing as to why business people close to the Conservative Party are so interested in such an unstable part of the world
Somalia has long been seen as too risky for even the hardiest foreign investors but now a new band of British money-men, adventurers and politicians is setting up...
As China deepens its commitment to a base in Djibouti, a London court has heard how illicit Chinese funds may have indirectly helped President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh win...
The President is helping the Saudi and Emirates' military campaign in Yemen in return for desperately needed money for the flagging economy
Long isolated in the Horn of Africa, Eritrean President Issayas Afewerki is expanding his alliances and horizons. He has forged a new strategic military relationship with Saudi Arabia...
The opposition makes political capital from the gap between foreign plaudits for the economy and daily realities of corruption and job losses
Not all Kenyans seem to know it but it has been a tremendous few years for the economy, at least according to the World Bank and International Monetary...
In the fortnight since his swearing in, President John Pombe Magufuli has made his presence widely felt, dropping in unexpectedly at the Ministry of Finance and asking pointed...
Confusion still reigns over the route of Uganda's oil pipeline, which is essential to begin production and export. Having signed a deal in August with President Uhuru Kenyatta...
Politicians gathered to agree how to choose the next president, while ISIS failed in a bid to take over Al Shabaab
Somalia's political elite has been trying to come up with a credible formula for choosing a new President next year. On 20 October, they gathered to thrash out...
Although the CCM won two-thirds of votes on the mainland it risks unrest by annulling the election results on the islands
The status of Chama cha Mapinduzi as one of the continent's grand old parties was cemented this week. Victory in the presidential and parliamentary polls on 25 October...
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The quest for oil is hotting up and fuelling tension between Mogadishu and Puntland. A proposed moratorium may not cool tempers
Neither the whiff of scandal nor the investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in Britain into the activities of the UK company Soma Oil and Gas have...
Vol 56 No 22 |
- DJIBOUTI
- BRITAIN
It started as a legal dispute with a business partner but now the President’s credibility is on trial and his wealth is on open display
It points to the fragility of President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh's position that a mismanaged legal battle with one of his political rivals in London's High Court could undermine...
Vol 56 No 22 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The government's claims that it was defending itself against a coup attempt when war broke out in December 2013 have been dismissed in two reports released by the...
Paris last month refused a visa to the Islamist regime's founder, Hassan el Turabi, Africa Confidential hears. Turabi used to regularly visit the city where he got his...
The President has been trying to balance the country's domestic economic woes with some intense diplomatic glad-handing
When Pope Francis lands in Nairobi on his first visit to Africa on 25-30 November, it will doubtless be heralded as yet another foreign policy triumph for President...
Demands for change resonate widely ahead of the elections but history and organisation favour the incumbents
In the presidential, parliamentary and local elections on 25 October, the governing Chama cha Mapinduzi party faces its toughest political challenge since Independence in 1961. This has been...
Vol 56 No 21 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
With little progress on the transitional government, redrawing state boundaries looks like a luxury
The government’s decision to convert South Sudan’s ten states into 28 may entrench ethnic divisions and is extravagant for a bankrupt country. Although many South Sudanese welcome decentralisation,...
The government was again talking to itself at its National Dialogue and even Thabo Mbeki boycotted the proceedings
Only one opposition delegation – two Darfur former rebels whose security was guaranteed by Chadian President Idriss Déby Itno – were at the opening of the government's vaunted...
Parliament's attempts to crack down on journalists are on hold since 14 October, when President Uhuru Kenyatta intervened behind the scenes to excise two of the most heinous...
Once a shining example of what regional cooperation can achieve, Amisom has now fallen victim to the region’s shifting geopolitics
The African Union Mission in Somalia is suffering a crisis of confidence and a loss of purpose. After only a year in charge, the head of Amisom and...
Now that Japan has relaxed its prohibition against overseas military operations, its move to revamp its base in Djibouti may offer new opportunities for confrontation with China. Japan's...
A back-room deal to fend off greater scrutiny of abuses in Darfur raises more questions about the point of the UN Human Rights Council
The Khartoum government is likely to escape further censure and scrutiny at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva this week after its officials met secretly with...
Museveni’s fractious political opponents are striving to get behind a single candidate to fight him for the presidency
After three days of drawn-out deliberation, the opposition coalition formed in June, the Democratic Alliance, had still not been able to decide on a joint candidate for the...
Vol 56 No 19 |
- ERITREA
- ETHIOPIA
After years of cutting services, the BBC World Service made a dramatic U-turn this month when the Director of the BBC World Service Group appointed last year, Francesca...
The European Union is limiting the number of Eritreans whom member countries grant asylum to. Brussels is finalising a 200 million euro development aid package for Asmara which,...
Rwanda's Supreme Court was due to begin hearings on 23 September on whether the constitution could be changed to allow President Paul Kagame to stand for a third...
Vol 56 No 19 |
- DJIBOUTI
- BRITAIN
A High Court judge in London has ordered Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh to give evidence in person next month in the increasingly fraught case between the Djibouti...
Vol 56 No 18 |
- KENYA
- UGANDA
Common interests are prompting more bilateral cooperation but the latest agreement over a pipeline will sorely test regional solidarity
In two weeks' time, when most of Africa's 54 leaders travel to New York for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, there will be much talk...
Bankers and company executives who are puzzled by the government's decision to open the bidding on six new oil blocks for exploration as world prices plummet may find...
Ethiopian forces and Somali National Army units have retreated to more easily defended positions after the devastating attack on an African Union Mission in Somalia base, sources in...
Although the government’s record on security and economic management looks shakier by the day, its opponents are divided and floundering
When the opposition alliance, the Coalition for Reform and Democracy, holds its political retreat to map out strategy at the beginning of September, its leaders will struggle to...
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The government wants to restrict the powers of the Auditor General after he revealed gross financial mismanagement
The political fight over public finance is heating up. Members of parliament grilled Treasury officials for over four hours on 15 August after the Auditor General found that...
Vol 56 No 17 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Under the threat of an arms embargo and more sanctions, the government signs a peace agreement
Delight and relief that the Juba government has finally signed a peace deal with the rebel movement is mixed with widespread fear that the deal will not hold....
Vol 56 No 17 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Kampala's hands-on support for South Sudanese President Salva Kiir Mayardit is causing a rift in the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development which has been mediating in the negotiations. This...
Vol 56 No 17 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The peace agreement signed by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO) and the Former Detainees on 17 August and which President Salva Kiir Mayardit signed on 26 August...
The President thinks a coalition will strengthen him but his suspicion of Rwanda grows as fears of civil war increase
Instability is accelerating in the wake of Pierre Nkurunziza's election to a third term as President and his swearing in on 20 August. Two senior officers have been...
The sheer size of opposition political rallies in recent weeks shows that the defection of former Prime Minister Edward Lowassa to the opposition Chama cha Maendeleo na Demokrasia...
The International Criminal Court Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, succeeded on 19 August in her appeal against the court's judges' decision not to hear evidence on whether or not the...
Vol 56 No 17 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Last-minute manoeuvres by both sides are sabotaging the chances of ending the war as international pressure mounts
The Juba government has used a split in the rebel movement to announce that it is pulling out of the peace talks in Addis Ababa, which were officially...
The country was conspicuous by its absence from Obama’s East African
trip, although it is key to US, Chinese and French strategy
Vol 56 No 16 |
- SOMALIA
- BRITAIN
Corruption investigators are looking in the British oil company’s payments to individuals within the oil ministry
A secret financial report, seen by Africa Confidential, claims that the British company Soma Oil and Gas Holdings Limited has made substantial payments over the last 18 months...
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President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud averted an attempt to impeach him on 19
July, but a faction of secular MPs is still determined to get rid of him.
The governing party has found a presidential candidate with managerial
skills and a reputation for getting things done
In a move reminiscent of the ‘rise without trace’ in 2010 of Nigeria’s ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010, Tanzania’s governing party, Chama cha Mapinduzi, has nominated a virtual...
President Jakaya Kikwete’s second term in office has been marred by his perceived inability either to clean up many of the problems he inherited or to provide a...
Kenya and Ethiopia want to present the US President with a victory against the Islamists in Somalia as Amisom’s funding is threatened
The Ethiopian and Kenyan military hope to welcome President Barack Obama to Kenya by capturing the town of Bardhere from the Somali Islamist militia Al Haraka al Shabaab...
As the government and its allies step up attacks on civilians in Darfur, the UN and AU insist their protection force will extend its mandate
Khartoum has fought a long battle to cripple and expel the international peacekeeping force in Darfur, so it reacted angrily last month when the mission's mandate was extended...
The new regional governments are generating conflicts among rivals and with Al Shabaab. That looks bad for next year's elections
The ferocity of Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen's Ramadan offensive has obscured growing divisions among clans – and between them and the government – over the increasing...
Al Haraka al Shabaab al Mujahideen's devastating attack on the African Union Mission in Somalia base at Leego on 26 June may mark the high point of the...
Vol 56 No 14 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Independence anniversary celebrations on 9 July were a far cry from the mass joy when the country separated from Sudan in 2011. The civil war, in which over...
The United Nations' election observer mission has condemned the 29 June local and legislative elections in Burundi, saying 'the environment was not conducive for free, credible and inclusive...
Eritrean refugees are at the heart of Europe’s migration crisis but a divided European Union is at odds about how to deal with them
Once, European countries were happy to gently chide the Asmara government for the oppression of its impoverished people, but the flotillas of its people sailing across the Mediterranean...
After a failed coup in January 2013, President Issayas Aferworki moved to secure his regime by cracking down on dissent and radically restructuring the military. He deployed trusted...
The President's insistence on persisting with the elections annoys the AU. The EU is considering sanctions
Local and parliamentary elections are still set to take place on 29 June but the presidential poll will only be held on 15 July after President Pierre Nkurunziza...
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the Burundian crisis as viewed from the Rwandan capital, Kigali, is the unwelcome spotlight on third – and unconstitutional – terms of...
Vol 56 No 13 |
- RWANDA
- BRITAIN
Britain's arrest of Rwandan spy chief General Emmanuel Karenzi Karake on charges of crimes against humanity was either an unavoidable European treaty obligation, a massive bureaucratic foul-up or...
The main casualty of the Sudanese President's trip to the African Union summit was the rule of law
President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir has again escaped the clutches of the International Criminal Court (ICC) but his disruptive appearance at the African Union summit and his...
Museveni is making sure of electoral victory in 2016, but more and more rivals and defectors are chipping away at his support
Speaking on YouTube on 15 June, John Patrick Amama Mbabazi declared his intention to secure the governing National Resistance Movement's presidential nomination, in place of President Yoweri Museveni....
The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front is set to become what its critics have long accused it of being: a government without an opposition. That is what the...
A delay to the elections is damaging Somaliland’s democratic credibility as Mogadishu’s electoral timetable takes a knock
Somaliland's reputation for dependability and as the most democratic entity in the Horn of Africa has been on the slide since Parliament decided this month not to go...
The murder of an opposition leader will keep tension high right up to polling day. Nkurunziza is sticking to his course
The assassination on 23 May of Zedi Feruzi, leader of a small opposition party, the Union pour la paix et le développement, signalled a major deterioration in the...
Some 17 years after the bombing of US Embassies in East Africa, relatives of those killed and local staff injured still await compensation
On his first trip to Kenya as United States President in July, Barack Obama will walk into a bitter controversy over successive United States governments' failure to compensate...
Vol 56 No 11 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
p>President Salva Kiir Mayardit has finally found a sympathetic regional forum to offset his growing isolation as international unease mounts over South Sudan's continuing bloodletting. Fighting in Burundi...
Vol 56 No 10 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
Threats of sanctions and prosecution have done nothing to stop the rival combatants from a new round of attacks before the rainy season
A government offensive to dislodge the rebels from their Unity State stronghold before rains make roads impassable for its mechanised forces has triggered a mass exodus of civilians...
The history of the Standard Gauge Railway reveals rivalry between Chinese state companies as well as blatant corruption in Kampala
Ballooning costs and a flurry of accusations among the highest officials in the Ugandan government are taking a severe toll of the Ugandan part of East Africa's biggest...
Vol 56 No 10 |
- ERITREA
- CHINA
The secretive Chinese business executive Sam Pa (aka Xu Jinghua and other aliases) shares an intriguing past with Eritrea's equally publicity-shy leaders. This emerged from a new report...
The latest attempt to defy a national constitution has hit the buffers as army officers claim to have thrown the President out of office
The announcement by ex-Chief of the Army Staff Major General Godefroid Niyombare on 13 May that he and a group of senior officers had overthrown President Pierre Nkurunziza...
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On 6 May US Secretary of State John Kerry was the latest in a long line of foreigners worried about the region to drop in on President Omar Guelleh in Djibouti
Squeezed between isolationist Eritrea and the ferment of Somalia, Djibouti is a prime target for destabilisation. Across the Red Sea, Djibouti's traditional ally, Saudi Arabia, is leading a...
President Kenyatta is gutting the anti-corruption bodies after purging mostly his deputy’s allies from public life
Since early March, the Jubilee government has been riven by charge and counter-charge over corruption. President Uhuru Kenyatta appeared to silence his critics by publishing a 'list of...
The opposition call to stay away worked. The government cannot pretend it won a credible mandate
Long queues of enthusiastic citizens stood patiently in the scorching sun waiting to vote in Sudan's first democratic elections for 18 years. The year was 1986. Fast-forward to...
With an official turnout of less than half of the registered voters in the 13-16 April elections, President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir consoled himself with a dictator-level...
Now that the ruling party has backed the President’s bid for a third term, hopes for a peaceful election are fading fast
The latest attempt by a two-term president to flout the constitution and stay in power got formally under way on 25 April. The congress of the ruling party,...
The immediate future of the liquefied natural gas project may rest with one of Africa's richest people, Tanzanian businessman Mohammed Gulam Dewji, whose fortune is estimated at over...
Vol 56 No 10 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
As government funds dry up and talks with the World Bank break down, Juba is seeking increasingly risky loans
The government in Juba is trying to make do with virtually no income. The fall in the world price of oil, the government's main source of income, has...
The government failed to heed warnings of imminent attacks and reacted with ill-thought out measures
In what is becoming a familiar pattern after terrorist attacks, the government’s response to the massacre at Garissa University College (GUC) on 2 April was unfocused and haphazard,...
The Prime Minister is set to come out of Meles’s shadow after the elections with greater emphasis on the free market. Not all are on board
Come October, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn will almost certainly be re-elected as Chairman of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front with only token, if any, opposition. Then...
Police investigating the murder of the Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Joan Namazzi Kagezi, on 31 March by two men on a motorbike have rounded up dozens of...
The pitiful turnout in the 13-16 April elections defeats the government's aim in organising them. The only queues which journalists and activists found to photograph were of police...
A surge in voter-friendly spending accompanies the NRM’s election campaign and there is little the opposition can do to stop it
Both public spending and borrowing have shot up over the past year as the governing National Resistance Movement gears up for next year's elections. Although the NRM faces...
The EPRDF wants a less crushing win in the elections in May. Meanwhile, it delicately manages the ethnic balance within the party
Nobody, least of all members of the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front doubts that anything less than overwhelming victory awaits it at the end of the national...
The government shuns its own National Dialogue policy, raising more questions about this month’s elections
The ruling National Congress Party (NCP)'s refusal to attend a preparatory meeting with the opposition Sudan Call Forces in Addis Ababa on 29-30 March suggests it has dumped...
Labelled 'Top Secret', a National Congress Party document, '2015 Elections: An organisational perspective', leaked out late last year. The 28-page NCP strategy was dated January 2014 but appeared...
Vol 56 No 7 |
- EGYPT
- ETHIOPIA
The new tripartite accord over the US$4.8 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam may not provide the resolution to arguments over the use of the Nile waters that the...
The government tries to distance itself from the radicalisation of seven British-Sudanese students at a private medical school in Khartoum
The Islamist organisation in Khartoum which helped to radicalise seven British-Sudanese medical students who went to join the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria was disbanded days after...
The ruling party is priming the public for a change in the law to allow
President Paul Kagame a third term
The campaign is now in full swing to amend the constitution to allow President Paul Kagame to stand for a third term. Pro-government media are running opinion pieces...
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Vol 56 No 6 |
- BURUNDI
- RWANDA
Little progress has been made in the investigation into dozens of bodies found in Lake Rweru
Reports in August that dozens of bodies had been found floating in Lake Rweru on the Rwandan-Burundian border made international headlines and drew condemnation from foreign donors. Villagers...
Freed of the burden of trial at the ICC, Kenyatta can get on with the business of government. Yet few can discern any strategy
Kenyans who have been wondering what President Uhuru Kenyatta's priorities for the country will be, now that he is no longer handicapped by charges at the International Criminal...
Vol 56 No 6 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
The African Union faces growing demands to release its no-holds-barred report detailing the role of top officials in ethnic killing
As regional authorities struggle to break South Sudan's political impasse with yet another round of peace talks planned for Addis Ababa next month, the African Union faces an...
Vol 56 No 6 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
A programme backed by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to demobilise child soldiers could be doing the opposite: prompting more abductions of children. It started so well....
Vol 56 No 5 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
After 14 months of civil war, the two sides are in last-chance talks with the threat of international sanctions hanging over them
Talks between the Juba government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, plus the group of former detainees, continued as Africa Confidential went to press. The two sides looked...
As the regime starts election campaigning, opposition parties boycott en masse and plan for political change
As President Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir launched his re-election campaign at Merrikh football stadium in Omdurman on 24 February, police were breaking up protests across the Nile...
Doubts surround both the Russian contract and the supposed benefit and even viability of the oil discoveries
A Russian state company under European Union sanctions has won the contract to build an oil refinery on the shore of Lake Albert. The contract is symptomatic of...
Major deposits of commercially viable oil were first discovered in Uganda’s Albertine Graben in 2006 and estimates of total reserves now stand at 6.5 billion barrels. It was...
The three major countries affected by US$4.8 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) are about to appoint a consultant to report on its environmental and social impact. The...
As June's presidential election approaches, the political atmosphere is deteriorating and political violence is on the increase
President Pierre Nkurunziza has yet to declare whether he will stand for another term in the 26 June presidential election. Increasing signs that he will stand include the...
The horse-trading which led to a new government leaves many hostages to fortune. We detail the bargaining that led to the latest cabinet
On 9 February, after weeks of bickering among politicians, Somalis were given a new government. In some respects, it's not very different from the old one; some ministers...
The opposition Semayawi ('Blue') Party has fiercely attacked the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia for disallowing 24 of its South Omo candidates from standing in the 24 May...
Foreign Minister Ali Ahmed Kurti must have prayed that his presence at the United States 'National Prayer Breakfast' on 5 February and talks with US officials would yield...
Vol 56 No 3 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
There’s a build-up of arms and fighters in the Upper Nile oil fields amid doubts about the latest ceasefire deal
An innovative alliance between United States' security expertise and Chinese capital – in the form of a Hong Kong-registered company called Frontier Services Group (FSG) – is giving...
The ICC has now published its brief for the abandoned case against Kenyatta. It reveals a brutal and cynical conspiracy
The International Criminal Court has released a summary of the crimes it believes President Uhuru Kenyatta has committed. The document from the ICC's Office of the Prosecutor contains...
Much confusion surrounds the abduction and apparent murder of a witness in the ICC trial of William Ruto and Joshua Sang
The hurried burial at sunset on 22 January of a corpse said to be that of Yusuf Hussein, a 25-year-old matatu (minibus) conductor, has deepened the mystery surrounding...
The President’s new cabinet will face the same intractable issues as the last. Lack of international patience is another problem
Last month, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud survived a political crisis and finally sacked Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed, enabling him to appoint a new cabinet (a report...
As the regime clamps down further, a united opposition looks to the future
This year the National Congress Party (NCP) government faces a more united and effective opposition and a free-falling oil price which will more than halve export earnings. On...
The former security boss made a deal to come home but things haven’t gone smoothly
The maverick former intelligence chief, General David Sejusa (aka Tinyefuza), found himself at the centre of a siege by armed police this month, despite having returned from exile...
Vol 56 No 2 |
- SOUTH SUDAN
A step has been taken to end the fighting and towards a lasting political agreement. Weak oil prices put more pressure on the government
A tentative step forward has been made with a political reunification deal signed in Arusha on 21 January between President Salva Kiir Mayardit and his sacked Deputy Riek...
With strains appearing in the Jubilee Coalition, the opposition will exploit the government’s political and security problems
The grisly image of the decomposing and mutilated body of Meshack Yebei, a witness in Deputy President William Ruto's case at the International Criminal Court will keep this...
The EPRDF won’t allow the recovering opposition to test its electoral support and will tightly manage the coming elections
The most certain outcome in 2015 will be a sweeping electoral victory for the governing Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and another five years in office for...
Elections dominate the calendar, as will the groundwork for the LNG project, whose economics are now less certain
The party in power since the advent of multi-party democracy in 1995, Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM), is virtually certain to win the presidential election in October or November....