When President Festus Mogae took office in April on Sir Quett Ketumile Masire's resignation, he proclaimed his government's commitment to human rights. Yet this seems to bypass the...

Even as it suffers military setbacks in Congo- Kinshasa and Congo-Brazzaville and back home in the central highlands, the Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola is pressing ahead...

Created in 1980 from two of Africa’s most effective guerrilla forces, Zimbabwe’s national army is struggling in Congo-Kinshasa. Zimbabwean troops have tried five times to retake the strategic south-eastern...

Factionalism is alive and well in ZANU-PF ahead of its national conference in Gweru on 9-12 December. The internecine disputes played out in the provincial party elections...

The world's largest diamond producer by value stands ready to see off rivals as world recession slashes gemstone demand, especially from east Asia. The Debswana Mining Company, which...

Chivukuvuku’s first steps as an independent politician have faltered. He tried to recruit Savimbi’s former economics spokesperson, Fatima Roque, who is white and married to Portuguese tycoon Horacio...

Officials at Congo-Kinshasa’s state mining company Gécamines confirm that control of the Central Group of copper and cobalt mines around Likasi, (with associated facilities, including the super-profitable Shituru...

In one month, the government has transformed the Angolan political situation. Its intrigues became visible on 31 August, when it suspended ministers and parliamentarians belonging to the...

Jonas Savimbi’s União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola is sometimes reported to have recently recaptured most of the diamond-mining areas from which it had been ousted...

The military intervention in Lesotho was meant to be a show-case for the new South African National Defence Force (SANDF). It turned into a political-military fiasco. Lesotho’s opposition...

Pretoria’s African National Congress government finally lost its diplomatic virginity with the deployment of 600 South African soldiers in the early hours of 22 September to put down...

This time - at dawn on 22 September - mutinous soldiers of the Lesotho Defence Force faced well equipped South African troops, rather than just their own loyalist...

Donors were pleased, Zimbabwe’s voters may not be. Yet President Robert Mugabe is unlikely to be asking for their votes again. His government abandoned its hard line on...

For the first time since Independence in 1990, a dissenter has publicly appeared in the senior ranks of the ruling South West African People’s Organisation. Ben Ulenga, High...

The economy and its capacity to create jobs are the critical issues for the African National Congress in next year’s elections. Flanked by cabinet heavyweights Finance Minister Trevor...

Jonas Savimbi is on the presidential campaign trail again. He has ordered his troops into a series of carefully orchestrated hit-and-run attacks against government positions in twelve of...

Zambia has decades of experience of the Angolan war (AC Vol 39 No 10). It hosts the oldest continuous refugee camp in Africa, Muykwayukwa, opened in 1966 for...

Zimbabwe has two vice-presidents, Joshua Nkomo and Simon Muzenda, but people may have forgotten that Nkomo still exists. He does not appear in public; President Robert Mugabe continues...

Crime and a lack of confidence in the South African Police Service are, after unemployment, the government's biggest political problems. It was never going to be easy for...

The government puts a brave face on it but the economy is still in a mess and May's Consultative Group meeting in France (AC Vol 39 No 10)...

Business people cannot understand what the International Monetary Fund is up to. It keeps on lending to the Zimbabwe government which, on the published figures, is heading for...

A new deal with Swiss oil trader Glencore has mortgaged virtually the last barrel of the government’s own oil allocation in exchange for up-front payments of some US$900...

Namibian mining companies owned by Branch Energy, of which Sandline International Chairman Anthony Buckingham is Chief Executive, are seeking to evict small-scale miners from the Neu Schwaben tourmaline...

Would-be leaders are preparing the ground: they include Chief of Staff João de Matos, Premier Fernando França van Dúnem and Washington Ambassador António Santos França 'Ndalu'. All want...

The land conference on 24-25 June could turn into a fiasco, some insiders predict. White commercial farmers, the biggest losers if the government confiscates their land without compensation,...

A year before 1999's general elections, the spectre of some senior African National Congress officials being publicly named as having spied for the National Party regime haunts the...

The Secretary General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Morgan Tsvangirai, has been a pain in the government's neck for the past six months.Two fresh victories should...

When January's riots followed December's peaceful demonstrations, Zimbabweans started to say that President Robert Mugabe was finished. He came through, not because anything had changed but because no...

Angola is Africa's hottest oil territory. International oil companies line up for exploration and exploitation rights; within a decade, production may match Nigeria's staggering two million barrels a...

At first glance, Angola looks on the brink of peace again. Jonas Savimbi'sUnião para a Independência Total de Angola has formally disarmed; it has handed back to state...

Zambia's Consultative Group meeting ended on a note of compromise in Paris on 13 May. There were aid pledges for 1998 of US$530 million but with increased demands...

Already the parties are taking off their gloves ahead of the general elections scheduled for mid-1999. It's likely to be a bruising contest. Racial abuse is back in...

Next year's elections must be held within 90 days of 27 April, the date of the 1994 elections. Time is running against Justice Johan Kriegler, Chairman of the...

The likeliest beneficiary of Zambia's copper privatisation fiasco is the company the Zambians were anxious to keep out - Anglo American, the South African mining giant. After years...

That some Namibian government loyalists are still bristling in the wake of President Bill Clinton's visit to Botswana shows the depth of animosity between these two Southern African...

Zimbabwe and the International Monetary Fund want to kiss and make up. In 1995, the Fund cut Zimbabwe out of its books, for failing to keep the promises...

Africa’s only constitutional ‘Christian Nation’ was shaken by the events of 25 December, when ex-President Kenneth Kaunda, once called the nation’s saviour, was arrested and detained. The shock...

The lifts at Chester House on Speke Avenue in Harare no longer run up to the tenth floor, where the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has its head...

For presentation, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel’s 11 March budget announcement got full marks. Focusing on the country’s critical demand for education and jobs, Manuel won praise from unlikely...

The prospect of gas, and of customers for it, has sparked a wave of exploration in Mozambique and helped boost two planned industrial corridors - from Beira along...

Overwhelmingly successful at the polls and certain to win next year’s national elections, and most of the provincial ones too, the African National Congress, however, has major problems....

The ANC’s top policy-making body, the National Working Committee (NWC), was elected by secret ballot at the NEC’s three- day session in late February. The voting figures on...

Jonas Savimbi is circling the wagons around the planalto heartland of his rebel União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola. In the last few weeks of February...

President Robert Mugabe’s government has moved the goalposts again in the latest episode in the cellular telephone saga. For four and a half years Strive Masiyiwa has been...

South Africa faces tough times. The African National Congress government hopes that foreign banks will help it through them, while the bankers are looking to make money from...

Facing his 74th birthday on 21 February, President Robert Mugabe must be thinking hard about his future and his legacy. The food riots of 19-21 January were the...

The electoral register is complete, the campaign has opened and the municipal elections due on 29 May should signal another step in the transition to normality. Once dismissed...