Beijing may try to stay out of African politics but the rivalries among Angola’s elite leave its diplomats little choice. The latest row over China’s US$6 billion credit line to the...

The China International Fund (CIF) appears to be the construction arm of Beiya International Development Ltd, the parent company of China Angola Oil Stock Holding Ltd, which trades Angolan oil. ...

The boom in Indian-South African relations is bringing together politicians, companies, and even Bollywood film stars and African actors. Both have their iconic statesmen – Nelson Mandela and Mohandas Gandhi, who briefly...

Jacob Zuma's campaign for the presidency of the African National Congress is called the 'unstoppable tsunami'. A poll of party branches gives him the support of 61% of...

The world price of copper has taken a tumble. Despite the talk of a never-ending Chinese-driven boom, the price of the metal on the London Metal Exchange has...

Alongside the main business of endorsing President Robert Mugabe as its flagbearer in next year's elections, the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front Congress is this weekend expected...

It could be a new dawn in Namibia. In November, four years of factional fighting within the governing South West African People's Organisation culminated in a breakaway by...

Jacob Zuma has built up such a lead in the race for the African National Congress presidency that his opponents are stepping up efforts to find a new...

African National Congress officials hope to find a third way, with President Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma stepping out of the leadership race to make room for a...

South African President Thabo Mbeki stopped over in Harare on 22 November and persuaded Zimbabwe's main opposition party to carry on talking to the ruling Zimbabwe African...

Malawi's politics are dominated by three men. President Bingu wa Mutharika holds several ministerial portfolios and leads the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). John Tembo leads the opposition and...

Ex-presidents and other ex-leaders came together as the Africa Forum in Livingstone, Zambia, on 21-23 November. The theme of their gathering was 'Ending AIDS - Africa Takes Charge'....

Octogenarian President Abdoulaye Wade and his 65-year-old South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki seem to disagree about many things, especially the African Union and the New Partnership for African...

At a sombre gathering before his party's Central Committee meeting on 26 October, President Robert Mugabe solemnly assured some long-time comrades that he would retire from politics within...

President Thabo Mbeki and his sacked deputy Jacob Zuma dominate the contest to elect the President of the African National Congress at next month's party congress. Neither has...

Western sanctions on Zimbabwe appear to be unravelling ahead of the European Union/African Union summit in Lisbon on 8-9 December. The Harare delegation is to push for the...

After the toughest weeks of his presidency, Thabo Mbeki basked in the national euphoria generated by the Springboks’ Rugby World Cup victory over England in Paris. He used...

Since he became President in 2004, Bingu wa Mutharika has confounded expectations that he would go on governing as his predecessor, Bakili Muluzi, did. His management of the...

Nkhotakota is a small town on the western shore of Lake Malawi, whose opposite coastline, in Mozambique, is occasionally visible. The corrugated-iron roofed Cathedral of All ...

President Sam Nujoma, at 78, is at last moving into a back seat. He told a specially-convened meeting of the politburo of the ruling South West African People’s...

Against the advice of their own senior staff, the Boards of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are blocking the restoration of voting rights to Zimbabwe,...

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s refusal to attend the European Union summit in Lisbon, Portugal, on 8-9 December alongside Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe plays well with Britain’s conservative...

Relations between Britain and South Africa, not helped by the Springboks’ 15-6 defeat of England in the Rugby World Cup in Paris on 20 October, have become poisonous...

The Inkatha Freedom Party, so long dominant in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), is losing its grip and risks disintegration. Its leader, Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, told its national conference (13-14 October)...

The King of the Zulus, Goodwill Zwelithini, has been allocated 30 million rand (US$4.4 mn.) by the state for the 2006/2007 financial year. There are fears that he...

President Thabo Mbeki's attempts to reform the system of traditional leaders to bring it into line with democracy are not universally popular. Traditional leaders are resisting, especially in...

The suspension by President Thabo Mbeki of the National Director of Public Prosecutions, Vusi Pikoli, may foreshadow a constitutional crisis. At the very least, it embitters the contest...

Insiders say that President Thabo Mbeki is frustrated by the National Prosecuting Authority's inability to make headway in its case against Jacob Zuma. Last September, Judge Herbert Msimang...

South Africa's intelligence services, police and army appear rudderless, with increasingly limited civilian or democratic oversight. Vusi Pikoli is the fifth chief of a security department to leave...

The start-up of British Petroleum's 200,000 barrels per day Plutônio deep-water field this week marks the latest of the multi-billion dollar projects that will increase Angola's output from...

This week’s deal in parliament between the government and the opposition parties over constitutional changes shows the desperation on all sides after five months of stagnation in the...

Just when President Robert Mugabe thought it was safe to go back to the altar, another troublesome priest has lambasted him for running an oppressive and corrupt regime....

Formally, the race to lead the African National Congress starts in October and its presidential candidate will be elected by a national conference in December. Yet the leading...

Influence over the intelligence services has become a crucial front in the African National Congress’s succession battle. The biggest casualty so far has been the former Director of...

Zimbabwe defies political gravity. Almost nobody in Harare or Tshwane takes seriously the South African-mediated negotiations between government and opposition. Next year's elections will be held using a...

Soldiers and politicians may grumble but President Robert Mugabe and his apparatchiks maintain a wrestler's grip on the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front's organisation in all ten provinces....

After many years of debate among politicians, business and unions, the draft of a grand industrial strategy for South Africa has emerged in time for the party conference...

Plans for Germany to extend an oil-backed US$1 billion credit facility to President José Eduardo dos Santos' government have hit problems.

Last week Adriaan Vlok, a former Police Minister, was given a ten-year suspended sentence for conspiracy to kill; that was one piece of unfinished business from the apartheid...

Zimbabwe's highly effective Central Intelligence Organisation worked to ensure the Lusaka discussions on Zimbabwe went its way. Four days before the 16-17 August Southern African Development Community summit,...

The government is battling to contain the fallout from the 8 August sacking of popular Deputy Health Minister Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge.

The row over the future of Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's future is now a battle between African National Congress factions ahead of December's leadership elections.

More than 15 senior officers have been purged from the Zimbabwe Defence Force following investigations into plots to oust President Robert Mugabe, a group of military officers told...

Africa Confidential reported early this year on highly lucrative British banking operations in Harare and the Botswana-based Imara Capital's recovery fund (AC Vol 48 Nos 2 & 6)....

The shrill voices of government officials dominate the airwaves, as political paralysis gives way to feuding. 'You think I don't bite? I have teeth which bite and I...

Namibia’s founding President, Sam Nujoma, will almost certainly be elected to the new post of national chairman (probably for life) of the governing South West African People's Organisation...

It was a great revivalist meeting for South Africa's resurgent left-wing activists. Some 1,300 SACP delegates gathered in Port Elizabeth on 11-14 July to hear speaker after speaker...

Which national officials were elected or re-elected at the South African Communist Party's National Conference on 11-14 July?

The detention of sacked intelligence chief General Fernando Garcia Miala on 13 July points to deepening rivalries within Angola's security services. Miala was sacked in February 2006 but...

The bids are out for Thabo Mbeki's services when his term as national president expires in mid-2009, regardless of who runs the governing African National Congress.

It's been a good week for President Robert Mugabe in Ghana at the African Union summit. Away from the economic and political meltdown back home, he played elder...

Tokyo Sexwale and Cyril Ramaphosa have joined the presidential succession race but they face suspicion from several senior African National Congress officials who want the party to keep...

Cyril Ramaphosa's personal fortune is listed as 500 million rand (US$72 mn), but informal estimates put it at around R2 billion.

Tokyo Sexwale is Chairman of Mvelaphanda Holdings, a diversified investment company, formed in 1998. With the backing of Nelson Mandela, Sexwale had persuaded the Ruperts, an Afrikaner business...

He came to power in 2005 with a reputation as a nationalist bruiser with hardline views and a dubious past of Marxist policies and human rights abuses. Since...

The death of First Lady Ethel Mutharika on 28 May and the immediate proroguing of parliament led to an eerie calm: political foes briefly spoke to each other...

The governing party is split and its veteran leader wants to take control again. After months of tension, the Politbureau of the South West African People's Organisation decided...

Palermo-born Vito Roberto Palazzolo, who is wanted by the Italian police on charges of membership of the mafia, drug-trafficking and money-laundering, is extending his business interests from South...

Sensational accusations are flying between Pretoria and Luanda as South Africa's presidential race heats up, with frontrunners Jacob Zuma and Tokyo Sexwale both accused of interfering in Angolan...

Cape Town's Mayor, Helen Zille, took more than 70% of delegates' votes in the election for leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) on 6 May and will prove...

British High Court Justice Peter Smith has found that ex-President Frederick Chiluba stole US$46 million of state funds from Zambia between 1991 and 2002 (AC Vol 46 No...

On 24 April, the London High Court ordered the Zambian government to pay US$15.5 million to a 'vulture fund'. Debt relief campaigners say the payment will undermine efforts...

Presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma keeps up his political ambitions. At a well-attended May Day rally in North West Province, he called on workers to challenge African National Congress...

A quarrel over business spoils seems to lie behind the hasty departure of Russo-Israeli businessman Arkady Gaydamak from Luanda late last month.

Mayor Helen Zille's most visible achievement involves the construction of a 68,000-seat football stadium for the 2010 World Cup. She fought hard to cap the city's financial contribution...

Russia hopes to buy uranium from Africa and sell it generators, as nuclear power comes back into fashion. It has made offers to Angola (AC Vol 48 No...

African National Congress power-broker Tokyo Sexwale plans to combine the annual Bastille Festival on 14 July with a celebration of Nelson Mandela's release from the Victor Verster Prison...

A curious article published by the state-owned daily Jornal de Angola in February seems to have escaped attention: a declaration by Science and Technology Minister João Baptista Ngandagina...

Rich South Africans enjoy polo on the grounds at Plettenberg Bay. It now emerges that all the 13 fields are illegal and that two of their main sponsors...

The timing could hardly be better or the message clearer. Just as President Robert Mugabe touched down at Dar es Salaam airport for the Extraordinary Summit of...

Police say they know who killed Brett Kebble, but not why. The answer may be found among his political and business friends. Kebble, a fraudster, mining magnate and...

The main claimant against Brett Kebble's assets is Randgold & Exploration Company, which is claiming R5.8 billion (US$801 million) from Johannesburg Consolidated Investments (JCI), a company into which...

Lusaka has been off the diplomatic radar for years. That is about to change. In August, President Levy Mwanawasa is due to take over the Chairmanship of the...

Change is in the air and people are starting to think hard about how Zimbabwe can recover its wasted political and economic impetus. If the transition after President...

A high-powered Angolan delegation visited Kinshasa on 14 March. It included Foreign Minister João Bernado de Miranda, Interior Minister Leal Monteiro 'Ngongo', Chief-of-Staff General Francisco Furtado, National Police...

Angola's oil-backed rulers are standing proud on the international scene. In the last three months, Angola has joined the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC); pulled out of...

By overreacting to an opposition demonstration and savagely beating its leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the police in Harare served their master badly. President Robert Mugabe was already under stiff...

The lack of serious diplomatic pressure for change in Zimbabwe goes together with an almost total lack of planning for the aftermath of President Robert Mugabe's exit from...

Ex-President Bakili Muluzi finally announced, to a large rally of his United Democratic Front on 11 March, that he will be its candidate for the 2009 presidential election....

The facade sometimes cracks. Angola's state media habitually promote the governing Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) but, for two hours on 12 March, Rádio Nacional de...

Angolans are waiting for a peace dividend five years after the Forças Armadas Angolanas (FAA) tracked down and killed Jonas Savimbi, leader of the rebel União Nacional para...

The arrest and imprisonment on national security grounds of Sarah Wykes of Global Witness in Angola's Cabinda Province draws attention to the government's clampdown. Global Witness irritates the...

As the price of copper edges downwards, Zambia's trades unionists and opposition politicians are pressing to secure higher mining royalties and better working conditions. Many targeted companies are...

The budget was full of handouts. On 21 February Finance Minister Trevor Manuel dished out tax cuts, paid off apartheid-era debt, and boosted public spending on almost everything...

The global stock market jitters on 27 February - prompted by 9% falls on the Shanghai and Hong Kong markets - hold two lessons for South Africa. Firstly,...

India's Vedanta Resources has pumped nearly US$1 billion into Konkola Copper Mines. KCM incorporates four mining companies: Nchanga Mine in Chingola, Konkola Mine in Chilabombwe, Nampundwe Mine in...

In 1964 when the British colonialists left, Malawians ate mostly home-grown maize and earned foreign exchange from tobacco. Despite huge efforts and the doubling of the population, little...

Calling snap parliamentary elections on 17 February has worked well for Lesotho's pragmatic Prime Minister, Pakalitha Mosisili in his battle with former Communications Minister Motsoahae Thomas Thabane, founder...

Cape Town was gripped by a heat wave with temperatures soaring into the high 30s, in the days leading up to the opening of parliament on 9 February...

Malawian attitudes to former President Bakili Muluzi are still mixed but President Bingu wa Mutharika insists that he is still a 'good friend'. His Deputy Information Minister, John...

The National Assembly has 131 female members out of 400, up from just 12 before the 1994 elections. This places South Africa twelfth in the global league of...

A 'fusion of new and old blood' to reinvigorate the economy was President Robert Mugabe's hopeful description of his cabinet reshuffle on 6 February. His real economy chief,...

Union leader turned tycoon Cyril Ramaphosa has discreetly informed senior members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions that he is prepared to be a candidate for...

Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the Copperbelt was cancelled at the last minute amid reports that several hundred miners working for the Chinese-owned Non Ferrous Corporation had...

Senior officials in the governing South West African People's Organisation accuse supporters of leader and founding President Sam Nujoma of rigging party elections and harassing opponents. Nujoma has...

As the World Bank proclaims its 'leadership role in the fight against fraud and corruption', it has emerged that it has breached its own good governance rules by...

British and South African banks have provided a more than US$400 million financial lifeline to President Robert Mugabe's government over the last two years, much of it targeted...

South Africa, host to the New Partnership for African Development (NePAD) Secretariat and driving force behind the African Peer Review Mechanism, should have run a model assessment, bringing...

The latest bizarre political twist is the arrest of three senior executives of the former governing party, the United Democratic Front, whose chairman is ex-President Bakili Muluzi. Three...

National elections are set for more delays as President José Eduardo dos Santos' government pushes through a new constitution in the interregnum between legislative and presidential polls.