After much stalling, the first privatisation deal with the Zimbabwe government has finally been sealed. An estimated 53% of the country’s largest public company, the Zimbabwe Iron and...

The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front has assembled in Mutare in full battle array for its annual party congress on 15-18 December. General mobilisations, once started, take on...

The 2011 elections are billed as the fourth and final Chimurenga (revolutionary struggle) to consolidate the gains of the revolutionary process. Nowhere have the gains been more substantial...

Angola is considering retaliating against United States' companies and the US Embassy in Luanda over the Bank of America's closure of its Washington Embassy accounts, we hear. It is insisting...

The curious rebellion on 17 November by a score of soldiers was defused when the rebels, who had been surrounded, surrendered peacefully. No military units had joined them;...

When President Jacob Zuma reshuffled his cabinet last month, he fired the powerful Communications Minister, General Siphiwe Nyanda. We can reveal that Nyanda fell out of favour for refusing to support...

A key player in the Marange diamond fields dispute, businessman Andrew Cranswick, has been declared bankrupt in Australia after failing to pay a tax demand of Aus$1.1 million (US$1.07 mn.). Cranswick...

The growing political crisis over the management of the rich Marange diamond fields shows how important this huge new revenue source is for President Robert Mugabe, politically and...

Grace Mugabe, widely known as the country’s First Shopper, has, like Marie-Antoinette, a penchant for diamonds and playing at milkmaids. Her model farm, Gushongo Dairy, is so named...

Opposition politicians and trades unionists have gone on the offensive since Chinese managers at the Collum coal mine shot protesting Zambian workers on 21 October. The charge is...

President Rupiah Banda and his Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) are struggling to control the mass media before next year’s general elections. The private media, especially the popular...

African producers could be penalised in talks this week on the Framework Convention of Tobacco Control (FCTC) in Punta del Este, Uruguay, on proposals to ban additives in...

Oil-trader Glencore International fears Namibia may wish to review its lengthy 2007 contract to provide half of refined petroleum imports until 2014. Namibia’s dollar is tied to the...

President Andry Rajoelina – nicknamed ‘TGV’ after France’s high-speed train – wants to leave a train service as his legacy when he steps down from power in 2011....

George Charamba is President Robert Mugabe’s official spokesman and information supremo. The job description is not well defined and Charamba feels free to ennunciate what he thinks policy...

China’s flagship African railroad project continues to lose money, and Chinese management may be brought in to avoid throwing more good money after bad. Built in the 1970s,...

For the first time in his 31 years in power, Angola’s President, José Eduardo dos Santos, gave a State of the Nation address to the National Assembly in...

Behind the obligatory shows of unity between the governments of Angola and Congo-Kinshasa lurk serious disagreements over the frontiers dividing the oil fields straddling the two countries, diamond...

A second term in office is President Jacob Zuma’s main aim. To see that he gets it, his cabinet reshuffle on 31 October seemed designed to win allies...

The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front approaches its annual congress in better shape than a year ago and owing much to Jonathan Moyo’s tactical thinking. He will probably...

As Harare steps up pressure for the European Union to abandon its sanctions on Zimbabwe, it has emerged that a British-based bank has found a legal way to...

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is staying away from cabinet meetings in protest at President Robert Mugabe’s move to extend the tenure of the ten provincial governors without consulting...

Jacob Zuma notched up a success when the Hawks, the special crime investigation unit, abandoned its inquiries into the arms deal in which it had been alleged that...

Mayhem broke out on 15 October at the Collum Coal Mine in southern Zambia after Chinese owners shot workers protesting over dangerous and difficult working conditions. The workers...

Mozambique has a new Trade and Industry Minister following the sacking on 12 October of Antonio Fernando. President Antonio Guebuza has selected a young economist, Armando Inroga, as...

When Prime Minister Aires Aly and Planning and Development Minister Aiuba Cuereneia met the delegation from China Tong Jian Investment Corporation in late August, they signed a...

The Chiadzwa/Marange alluvial diamond fields remain off limits to Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy. Amid growing reports of Chinese involvement, Mines Minister Obert Mpofu remains...

The opposition was cheered by a legal victory last month, when the Supreme Court overturned the Windhoek High Court's dismissal of an application by nine opposition parties to...

South Africa is the European Union's leading trade partner in Africa and the 27 EU countries form its most important trading bloc. Both parties are well aware of...

To judge by his speech, delivered in stentorian tones to the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September, President Bingu wa Mutharika is presiding over a new economic...

The Common Market for East and Southern Africa (Comesa) summit in Swaziland at the end of August, which President Bingu wa Mutharika attended, pledged to support tobacco growers...

Arms smuggling, drug trafficking and questionable clergymen all provide clues as to why President Robert Mugabe was planning a foray to Ecuador after his annual trip to the...

The controversial statue honouring Joshua Nkomo on Main Street in Bulawayo could not wait to be officially unveiled by President Robert Mugabe (AC Vol 51 No 16). One...

It was a rare victory for President Jacob Zuma. By persuading the governing party’s National General Council (NGC) in Durban on 20-24 September to delay all substantive decisions...

Amid the doctrinal squabbles in Durban, speculation intensfied about how President Jacob Zuma might reshuffle his cabinet. Hard-line presidential allies such as the Communications Minister, General Siphiwe Nyanda,...

A chipper-looking President Robert Mugabe arrived in New York for the United Nations summit this week despite the strike by Air Zimbabwe’s pilots. Defying reports of his imminent...

From energy and construction to transport and agriculture, President Jacob Zuma's 23-26 August trip to China has garnered billions of dollars in potential investments across the economic spectrum....

President Jacob Zuma's August trip to China completed the final stage of his tour this year of the BRIC - Brazil, Russia, India and China - economies. The...

The National Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Board, whose mandate is to ensure that 51% of the economy is indigenised by 2015, is swinging into action. David Chapfika, the...

For companies eager to secure a share of the wealth in Zambia's mines, a call on Felix Mutati is obligatory. Mutati oversees much of the investment that drives Zambia's mineral-dependent economy....

President Jacob Zuma is hitting the media hard with a charm offensive before the governing party’s critical National General Council meeting on 19 September. His plan is to...

Not only have trades unionists pushed the government to accept most of their demands for higher wages and housing allowances but some of their leaders now believe they...

A week of street demonstrations has checked the confidence of the ruling Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Frelimo). After describing a 30% rise in bread prices as ‘irreversible’,...

Mozambique receives more aid per head than neighbouring – and similar – countries like Malawi and Tanzania. This is partly because of its long-past ‘post-conflict status’ but also...

A black shroud materialised on Bulawayo’s Main Street a month ago in the dead of night and has since been guarded around the clock by uniformed and plainclothes...

Robert Mugabe’s bid for Kwame Nkrumah’s pan-African kente cloth won mixed reviews at the African National Congress’s Youth Conference near Johannesburg. Tongai Kasukuwere, Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front...

The National Indigenisation and Empowerment Board is supposed to ensure that 51% of the economy is indigenised by 2015. However, its original target of a blanket 51% indigenous...

Fuelled by rising world demand for copper and cobalt and by a bumper maize harvest, the economy is growing at a roaring 7.5%. Yet President Rupiah Banda, who...

According to the latest figures from the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA), foreign direct investment totalled a record US$2.4 billion in the first half of 2010, up from $959...

Support is building for the national strike of nurses, teachers and clerks since it was launched on 18 August, presenting two serious threats to President Jacob Zuma’s government....

The business empire of Khulubuse Zuma, a favourite nephew of President Jacob Zuma, is growing at breakneck speed and strengthened by a raft of opaque deals with Chinese and South Korean...

A record US$100 million signature bonus for Andry Rajoelina's regime from Chinese investors will not be enough to compensate for the loss of aid funds as Western governments try to...

Economic relations between Luanda and Beijing are getting even closer as Angola struggles with mounting debts while China becomes more dependent on Angolan oil. In mid-August, Finance Minister Carlos Alberto Lopes...

Seeking hard cash and a platform for his disavowals of the West, President Robert Mugabe flew to Shanghai's spectacular trade expo, where on 11 August he thanked Beijing for being...

Of Taiwan's four African allies, the staunchest has been Swaziland. At independence from Britain in 1968, King Sobhuza II declared allegiance to Taipei. Despite China's rise in the intervening decades, the...

The policies and programmes of the governing African National Congress will be reviewed at the party's National General Council in Durban on 20-24 September. Few of the policies...

The main opposing statements for the National General Council to be held by the governing African National Congress come, firstly, in the official policy document and, secondly, in...

The Politburo of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front has always regarded the award of hero status as within its sole gift, something hotly contested by the Movement...

When five dogs belonging to a white Zimbabwean couple, Dean and Helen van Schalhwal, savaged their 72-year-old watchman, Samson Chimdima, in Lilongwe last month, the incident escalated into...

Someone in President Jacob Zuma’s office has read a management textbook and reproduced chunks of it as government policy. Ahead of his post-World Cup cabinet ‘lekgotla’ (big meeting)...

Robert Mugabe has earned a reputation as one of the globe's leading gatecrashers but his poise, self-confidence and chutzpah have not rubbed off on his travelling entourage. Officially...

Sibangilizwe Nkomo, the sole surviving son of Joshua Nkomo (1917-99), is campaigning to exhume his father's remains from the 'foreign' soil of Heroes' Acre in Harare and transfer...

Malawi has profitably switched its allegiance to China from Taiwan with a price tag of over US$350 million. In the past two years, China has taken over road and building...

The shadowy joint venture between Angola's state-owned oil company and the nebulous China International Fund has reached a new stumbling block in its three-year-old pursuit of a major stake in Tanzania's...

The emergence of Khulubuse Zuma, the nephew of South African President Jacob Zuma, as a leading player in Congo-Kinshasa’s oil industry has provoked curiosity and anger in almost...

South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma is beginning to tire of the political impasse in Harare. We hear that Zuma’s office has just sent a stern note to the...

The new Media Commission is finally operational and is issuing licences to publish newspapers. After a year’s foot-dragging, during which the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) tried...

The governing Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) faces a serious threat after its Barata-Phati (‘those who love the party’) faction walked out and launched the Botswana Movement for Democracy...

The would-be killers who bungled an attack on dissident Rwandan General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa seem to have thought that the World Cup would divert police attention from their...

India’s Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is sending a team of senior officials to resume the difficult negotiations with Mauritius to resolve the lingering stand-off over the 1983 Double Tax Avoidance Agreement....

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s 24-26 May visit to South Korea was intended to drum up much-needed business for Zimbabwe. An investment promotion and protection deal was agreed with...

As South Africa opens the World Cup tournament on 11 June, the most important national event since the 1994 elections, most of the visiting football fans will be...

The recommendation by Abbey Chikane, a monitor for the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme for diamonds, that Zimbabwe be allowed to resume exports from the much contested Marange fields...

The acquittal of Roy Bennett, Deputy Minister-designate of Agriculture and Treasurer of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), on 10 May gave President Robert Mugabe the chance to...

The Harare legal profession is enjoying itself at the expense of fellow practitioner Jonathan Samkange, a favourite in the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front who shuns the human...

Andry Rajoelina, President of the incumbent Haute Autorité de la Transition (HAT), has said that he will not stand in presidential elections later this year but he is...

India is changing its tax laws in a bid to introduce greater transparency into its financial transactions with Mauritius. The aim is to stem ‘round-tripping’ of funds by politicians, businessmen and...

Minister of State for External Affairs for Africa Shashi Tharoor considered himself a modern diplomat for his embracing of the internet messaging website Twitter. Yet his tweets from...

Oppositionist Michael Sata’s rhetoric against China is not slowing down Chinese investment plans ahead of Zambia’s national elections, which are due in 2011. Chinese companies operating Zambian mines will now have...

Faced with popular outcry about profiteering from electricity shortages and opaque ties between political parties and businesses, South Africa’s governing African National Congress is being forced to abandon its stake in...

Isaak Stanislaus Gorerazvo Mudenge’s role as Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front’s Secretary for External Affairs keeps him in the foreign policy loop and he took part in Zimbabwe’s...

Market reports that negotiations have stalled between the government and Goldman Sachs over a complex, US$250 million, dual currency (United States dollar and Angolan kwanza) loan facility point...

Prior to the global financial crisis in 2008, many were questioning the International Monetary Fund’s relevance, especially in African countries which were increasingly turning to the international financial...

More than a quarter of all South Africans seeking work in the formal economy cannot find it. The urgency to get the new National Planning Commission up and...

The battle for control of economic development planning continues and the National Planning Commission’s mandate has not yet been agreed. President Jacob Zuma blundered when, in his address...

There are not many ways to get rich in Zimbabwe just now and the best is diamond mining. The business is dominated by the ruling clique in the...

Rupiah Bwezani Banda came to office by accident in November 2008, on the death of President Levy Mwanawasa. He hopes to win another election next year and has...

The big mining houses are predictably grumbling about the Zambian government’s plans for a 25% windfall tax on copper and cobalt production. President Rupiah Banda is standing firm,...

A mining company in which the British government is the biggest shareholder is using Mauritius-registered front companies to avoid paying millions of dollars in taxes on its mineral...

Why won’t anyone help Yang Fan pay his US$135,000 bail bond – especially when he has $2.3 million stashed in a local bank account and a swish golf...

This week, President Jacob Zuma has hard choices to make about Julius Malema, the vociferous leader of the African National Congress Youth League. Malema has several times publicly...

The timing could hardly have been worse. Only two months before South Africa hosts the football World Cup, incidents involving politicians at opposite ends of the political spectrum...

The death of Aleke Banda was announced on 9 April 2010. Although he was born in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), was educated in Zimbabwe (Southern Rhodesia) and died...

Backed by Police Commissioner General and junta member Augustine Chihuri, the Governor of Manicaland Chris Mushohwe has barred the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy from visiting...

The royal reception accorded to South Africa’s firebrand youth leader Julius Malema in Zimbabwe over the Easter weekend has proved counterproductive (AC Vol 51 No 7). As President...

Hot Springs, some 100 kilometres south of Mutare, once aspired to be a spa resort but the gouty planters in its colonial-style hotel have been replaced by Lebanese...

After South African President Jacob Zuma's 16-18 March trip to Harare, the abrasive Chairman of the African National Congress Youth League, Julius Malema, is due to arrive in...

The prospect of a Nujoma dynasty looms with the promotion of Utoni Nujoma, the eldest son of founding President Sam Nujoma, to the senior cabinet position of Minister...

President Jacob Zuma’s suggestion that fresh elections might offer a way out of the current impasse has sparked off a complex game of ‘call my bluff’ amongst the...

The crisis at Telecel Zimbabwe points to the political and economic problems with the new indigenisation laws, which many see as yet another form of patronage for the...

Diplomats and foreign aid organisations are due to meet in Maputo on 19 March to decide whether to call off what amounts to an aid strike against President...

Sonangol, Angola’s state-owned oil company, could take a controlling stake in Portugal’s Galp oil company as part of its ambitious overseas acquisition strategy. In late February, Sonangol Chairman...

The news that José dos Santos da Silva Ferreira is to head a new super ministry which will oversee Chinese contracts and projects is a strong vote of...

Zambia does not always get what it wants or what it wants at the right time. President Rupiah Banda went on a 10-day official visit to China in...

South Africa is now the biggest welfare state in the developing world and the implications for public finances are frightening. As the recession tapers off, the rising public...

In October, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan hinted at big economic changes. The South African Reserve Bank’s inflation strategy would be amended, the 3-6% target range for official inflation...

The race to develop new uranium mines in the central Namib Desert is led by France’s nuclear giant Areva, pursued by smaller Australian and Canadian exploration companies. Areva...

Reports of President Jacob Zuma’s political demise are exaggerated. Yet what should have been a moment of triumph for him during the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release...

As the African National Congress leadership tries to dampen factional rivalries, some are asking whether Julius Malema, the firebrand President of the ANC Youth League, has moved from...

The formulation of foreign policy in Zimbabwe is the jealously guarded function of the President’s Office and, through it, the Central Intelligence Organisation. The Foreign Ministry is more...

The old ruling party’s new Politburo, announced on 11 February, is anything but new. The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front’s 49-member policy-making committee, announced by Robert Gabriel Mugabe,...

Intending to run for another term in office in 2012, President José Eduardo dos Santos has moved close allies into key ministries. He faces a vote not by...

President José Eduardo dos Santos says he laments the rise of grand corruption in Angola as it undermines the social fabric. If so, some members of his government...

President Hifikepunye Pohamba will be sworn in for his second five-year term at the end of March after the ever-governing South West Africa People’s Organisation was awarded an...

The US$450 million in fines that BAE Systems agreed to pay on 5 February to halt investigations into corrupt payments on arms deals adds to its financial woes....

There is a long way to go before the 2011 national polls, but the current political jockeying in Zambia would give any visitor the impression that the election is to...

Hefty political obstacles block further economic progress in Zimbabwe after last year’s impressive turnaround. Mining operations, such as those involving gold and platinum, will grow faster, boosted by...

The first anniversary of the power-sharing agreement was inauspicious, as all three parties in government argue over the pace of political reform and blame each other for holding...

President Armando Emílio Guebuza never fails to seize an opportunity. After his controversial landslide election victory in October, he plans to reinforce his dominance of the governing...

Over a hundred of us gathered at the Friends Meeting House in Washington DC on 29 January to pay tribute to David Coetzee, a pioneering spirit in African...

When Mines Minister Susan Shabangu assured South African mining companies that nationalisation would not happen in her lifetime, the reaction at this year’s mining indaba in Cape Town...

President José Eduardo dos Santos's government is arresting human rights activists and claimed sympathisers of the Frente para a Libertação do Enclave de Cabinda-Forças Armadas de Cabinda (FLEC-FAC)....

In his New Year address, President Jacob Zuma likened 2010 to 1994, when South Africa became a democracy. To the outside world, the only big event happening in...

The African National Congress’s loud debate over economic policy will continue in 2010. The Left demands a more interventionist stance than that of the then Finance Minister, Trevor...

The uneasy coalition government will rumble on into 2010, making painful but discernible progress on economic reform. It is in none of the three main parties’ interest to...

The key issue for the power-sharing regime is reviving the economy. According to the 2010 budget, the government is aiming for 7% gross domestic product growth, underpinned by...

At the congress of the governing Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA) in December, President José Eduardo dos Santos once more postponed the general elections until 2012...