The Pretoria High Court ruled on 14 December that the government must supply nevirapine, an anti-retroviral drug, to mothers infected with the human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV). The judgment...

Wouter Basson, known as Dr. Death, was the former apartheid regime's leading chemical weapons specialist. He headed Project Coast, developing and testing chemical weapons, and is now charged...

The race for the presidency is on. President Joaquim Chissano, 62, has decided it's time to retire. He has been President since 1986 and almost lost in 1999...

It looks like Zambia's closest election ever, as eleven runners sprint, hobble and lurch towards the finish of the first-past-the-post contest on 27 December. The real prize is...

Maize meal helped drive Kenneth Kaunda from power and could do the same to the Movement for Multi-party Democracy which defeated him in the 1991 elections. When Kaunda...

The blip of optimism has gone, the agony will continue. Forget serious efforts to end the guerrilla war and hold elections, at least until late 2003 or 2004....

Angolan troops have made raids into Zambia and nobody agrees about what is going on. After a bad patch, relations between the neighbours had seemed warmer lately and...

All South Africa's main newspapers lose money. Journalists fear that that their publishers, by sharp cutbacks in editorial staff, will make the papers even blander and limit investigation...

Madagascans expect a close race in the 16 December presidential election when the main challenger to long entrenched President Didier Ratsiraka is the rank outsider, media magnate and...

A cartoon in the state-owned daily Herald on 19 November showed the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, glad-handing his backers - the independent press, the European Union, Britain and...

A born-again Executive Outcomes operation is at the centre of allegations of a military contract between ex-South African Defence Force soldiers and the Sudanese army. A former director...

The New National Party, heir to the old Afrikaner-apartheid tradition, hitched up in June 2000 to the Democratic Party, whose members claim to inherit South Africa's liberal tradition....

The African National Congress often deals with its opponents by co-opting them, offering jobs and a hearing in exchange for an end to opposition. Co-option began with the...

The 'cult of Sam' is reaching new heights: you've seen the President, now watch the film. Local businesses have pledged 90,000 Namibian dollars(US$11,000) towards the N$20 million budget...

The arrest of three men last week on charges of stealing President Frederick Chiluba's salary over the past 16 months is instructive. Apparently Chiluba hadn't noticed that 82...

Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD): formed 1990, governing since 1991. Support: Copperbelt and Bemba people, trades unions; endorsed by Dean Mung'omba's Zambia Alliance for...

International eyes are off Zimbabwe and President Robert Mugabe is having a good anti-terror war. The Commonwealth summit scheduled to have opened in Australia on 6 October would...

The United States, calling for 'no talks with terrorists', still wants to prod President José Eduardo dos Santos towards talks with Jonas Savimbi's União Nacional para a Independência...

The feeble opposition should be strengthened by the imminent retirement of Kenneth Koma, veteran leader of the Botswana National Front. His BNF critics walked out in 1998 to...

Levy Mwanawasa's emergence last month as the ruling Movement for Multi-party Democracy's candidate for president is the least bad option for incumbent Frederick Chiluba, who has no intention...

Those who want to be President are emerging from the shadows. He who leads the South West African People's Organisation leads the nation and the party's leadership contest...

President José Eduardo dos Santos announced on 23 August that he would not be the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola's candidate at the next election. Few...

The strategy to win President Robert Mugabe six more years in power claimed victory at Bindura, a mining town 60 kilometres north of the capital, in a by-election...

The first few days of August dealt a double blow to South Africa's privatisation programme, a central part of the government's economic strategy. The plan to sell the...

For three years, trades union leader Zwelinzima Vavi has marched his troops to the top of the hill, then marched them down again. This month Vavi, the General...

President Frederick Chiluba must be disappointed that the relatively successful Organisation of African Unity summit in Lusaka has not immediately helped his subterranean campaign to win an unconstitutional...

Zambian activists accuse the mining giant Anglo American of breaching the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's code of conduct when the copper mines were privatised. In a...

The global diamond market is under pressure - from recession in North America, from 'blood diamonds' fuelling wars in Africa and from synthetic imitations. For Botswana, the threat...

Botswana's low volume politics will be turned up a few notches in July when the two main parties hold their congresses and rival factions stake their political claims....

Having failed to secure an unconstitutional third term (AC Vol 42 No 10), President Frederick Chiluba lacks a successor since he sacked the former front-runners from his ruling...

To lose one lieutenant may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness, to lose three could spark a political crisis. Whether or not President...

Zimbabwe's soldiers will not soon pull out of Congo-Kinshasa. Their commanders are committed to President Robert Mugabe's government through a web of business ventures there. The links run...

Rebel leader Jonas Savimbi has a cruel sense of timing. For 18 months, he has been calling on the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola to start...

De Beers announced on 24 May that it was suspending its investment and prospection in Angola's diamond business. That is a triumph for Lev Leviev, whose diamond interests...

Anxious to show he cares about his people's welfare, President Didier Ratsiraka is worrying about the solar eclipse due in southern Africa on 21 June. He recently inaugurated...

It is three years until Namibians must elect their next president, but already there is confusion about President Sam Nujoma's retirement. He pioneered Africa's 'third-term movement' (applicants: Presidents...

President Frederick Chiluba has sworn that he will not after all seek the unconstitutional third term that he worked so hard to win. On 8 May he reaffirmed:...

The Minister of Safety and Security, Steve Tshwete, is not known for political finesse. Nevertheless, he had to be taken seriously when he announced that the police would...

The government may be getting ready to talk to its arch-enemy, Jonas Savimbi of the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola. The new parliamentary commission of...

The President's indecision is final. President Robert Mugabe's announcement on 17 April that he will contest the next presidential election as his party's flagbearer has resolved nothing (AC...

Could President Thabo Mbeki risk being ousted by his own party? Will he be challenged for the leadership of the African National Congress at the end of 2002...

Afonso Dhlakama, President of the opposition Renamo party, walked out after five hours of talks with President Joaquim Alberto Chissano on 29 March, handing over a letter prepared...

Born-again Christian President Frederick Chiluba arrived back in Lusaka for Easter to denounce the 'ministerial treachery' against him in biblical terms. He compared those ministers who had been...

Fifteen senior members of the governing MMD's National Executive Committee publicly oppose Chiluba's bid for a third term...

South African lawyers fear that the government's draft Legal Practice Bill could bring the legal profession, including the Bar, under state control. The Bar is up in arms....

There's nothing like a coup plot to distract attention from political troubles. It is widely believed in Blantyre that last week's alleged putsch was not a coup plot...

President Frederick Chiluba's bid for a third term is in trouble, with three quarrelling factions in the ruling Movement for Multi-party Democracy (AC Vol 41 No 24). The...

A discreet row has blown up about a newly launched intelligence agency - Ukukhula Security Services - which draws much of its expertise from a group of apartheid-era...

Market economics is failing in South Africa. It's not producing jobs, investment or the high growth needed to finance more spending on education and health. Moreover, South Africa...

The National Intelligence Agency (NIA, for domestic intelligence) is training a special investigations unit which, its critics say, could become the political police of the African National Congress....

Luanda and Paris have fallen out over Angolagate (AC Vol 42 No 3). President José Eduardo dos Santos has lamented that the French justice system targeted arms dealer...

In what is becoming a test-case for President Thabo Mbeki's government's ability to investigate corruption allegations, a major international oil trading company faces claims that it connived with...

South Africa's hopes of reviving the sale of nearly 10 billion Rand (US$1.4 bn.) of G6 artillery pieces to Saudi Arabia seem to have been scuppered by the...

The row over alleged corruption in the government's 43 billion rand (US$5.4 bn.) arms deal is damaging the governing African National Congress and raising questions about the constitution's...

Cashew nuts are the biggest export after prawns and sugar is another rare money-spinner. The government wants to protect these industries; the World Bank and International Monetary Fund...

Speculation about the departure of General João de Matos, Chief of General Staff of the Forças Armadas Angolanas, suggests he may be Luanda's first casualty from the 'Angolagate'...

Malawi's constitution limits a president to two five-year terms. President Bakili Muluzi wants a third (AC Vol 41 No 22). His main opponent, Brown Mpinganjira, ex-Minister of Education...