Blue Lines
It was the final act in the tortuous decline of Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir's regime: his transfer from a secure suite in the presidential palace to solitary confinement in Kobar prison. The message from his military successors is clear. They cannot hold ...
Patrick Smith
This week we're in Khartoum reporting on the aftermath of the overthrow of Omer el Beshir, tracking Deputy President William Ruto's campaigning in Nairobi, Zimbabwe's finance negotiations in Washington and the head of the army's latest manoeuvres in Algie...
Patrick Smith
This week we start in Khartoum where protests against Omer el Beshir's presidency are reaching critical mass, then to Nairobi for President Kenyatta's State of the Nation speech. Also on the agenda is the ratification of the African Continental Free Trade...
Patrick Smith
A wise head in Algiers advised a young activist to curb his enthusiasm for the forced resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika: 'Don't call this a revolution. At best it's a revolt… we don't even know if the flight of Ben Ali from Tunisia was a revol...
Patrick Smith
This week our correspondents file from the slow-motion exit of President Bouteflika in Algiers, the chances of a long-awaited cabinet reshuffle in Nairobi, news about more ambitious borrowing and spending plans from the re-elected President Buhari in Abuj...
Patrick Smith
This week we look at a surprising legal deal in Luanda, the power crisis that could shape South Africa's elections, how politics and climate change worsened the Mozambique disaster, a personal post-election battle in Nigeria and the unravelling of Kenya's...
Blue Lines
In Mozambique, Cyclone Idai has torn through the homes of over 1.7 million people in what is turning into a regional catastrophe. Eye-witnesses speak of an 'inland ocean' forming west of Beira, which has been almost completely cut off from the rest of th...
Patrick Smith
Today we start a new series of news despatches from our correspondents across Africa and beyond. Our aim is to give you a sense of the news agenda for the week ahead as well as spelling out the implications of events that are still playing out.Our news to...
Blue Lines
The campaign to stop President Abdelaziz Bouteflika from running for a fifth term in Algeria's elections has provoked both shock and surrealism. Shock because the millions of young Algerians marching in Constantine, Oran as well as the capital Algiers is ...
Blue Lines
The gargantuan numbers aside – state power company Eskom has unserviceable debts of 420 billion rand (US$30bn) – the most pressing equation in South Africa's budget is a political one. Ahead of national elections on 8 May, President Cyril Ramaphosa has to...
