Blue Lines
Although the first two days of the general strike in Sudan designed to pressure the ruling generals to hand power to civilians have had mixed results, there is no prospect of the protesters giving up. The mass sit-in around the Defence Headquarters in Kha...
Patrick Smith
This week the focus is on Pretoria on the next moves for the
newly-inaugurated President Cyril Ramaphosa and then
to Malawi where the courts have given President Mutharika
election victory. Moscow has been hosting Denis Sassou-Nguesso,
the veteran leader ...
Patrick Smith
We start in Pretoria where newly-elected President Cyril Ramaphosa is due to announce his cabinet but to the north, the forex crisis in Zimbabwe
is getting worse. Incumbent President Peter Mutharika is facing the fight of his life in Malawi's elections
an...
Blue Lines
On what criteria is Godwin Emefiele, the mild-mannered governor of Nigeria's central bank, about to be given a second term in the job? Although Emefiele is in President Muhammadu Buhari's government, which is meant to be fighting corruption, he has little...
Patrick Smith
We start with the aftermath of last week's elections in South
Africa and then to neighbouring Angola where
the relatively new head of the state oil company has been sacked. In Nigeria there are ambiguous signs about the government's willingness to crack
d...
Patrick Smith
This week, South Africa prepares for
landmark elections on 8 May and Sudan edges towards a
power-sharing transitional government. There is another alert in Tanzania after a critic of the President goes missing and another delay in the
plans for a national...
Blue Lines
Protestors on the streets of Khartoum have taken up a new slogan: 'Victory or Egypt'. For them it's personal. Sudanese activists resented the collaboration between the two countries' elites. Both the current head of the junta, Lieutenant General Abdel Fat...
Patrick Smith
This week the negotiations between the ruling generals and their opponents in the Forces for the Declaration of Freedom and Change continue in Khartoum while in South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa steps up campaigning a week before the national electio...
Patrick Smith
This week, we start in Sudan where the opposition is escalating its protests and then to Uganda where the age limit for presidents has been removed to allow President Museveni to fight yet another election. In West Africa, President Keïta is under growing...
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 ...
