Blue Lines
Despite pressure from the doom-sayers amid the commodity price crash, some big battalions in Africa are fighting back with ambitious new projects that could create growth and jobs – if they go ahead. Most significant is the US$5.42 billion deal between Ke...
Blue Lines
It was Kenya's graft-buster-in-chief in 2002, John Githongo, who observed that anti-corruption was good politics. And so it proved until he stumbled on the wrong political skeletons in the closet. President Mwai Kibaki did nothing to defend Githongo, who ...
Patrick Smith
We have commercial and political diplomacy in Nigeria and South Africa, a crowded field of presidential hopefuls in Benin, and a last and very ambitious bid at conflict resolution by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.SOUTH AFRICA: Finance Minister Gordhan ...
Blue Lines
Zimbabwe's political scene has opened up this week as former Vice-President Joice Mujurulaunched her new party, Zimbabwe People First. ZANU-PF is riven by factionalism as the race to succeed President Mugabe intensifies. Mujuru's new party is the most imp...
Blue Lines
As the campaign for the next Secretary General of the United Nations heats up, the career of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who died on 16 February, should prove instructive. The Egyptianwho held the UN’s top job in 1992-96 was one of the most experienced diploma...
Blue Lines
A strong group within the African Union, including AU Commission Chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, backed the sending of an armed force to Burundi to confront President Pierre Nkurunziza's government. This followed a succession of alarming reports from A...
Patrick Smith
This week diplomats and soldiers mull the decisions and lack of decisions at the African Union summit as political tensions rise in Uganda ahead of this month’s presidential elections. Mozambicanswant to know what is behind the shooting of a top Renamo of...
Blue Lines
Even in the annals of Nigeriancorruption scandals, the latest revelations about the diversion of state funds under the presidencies of Goodluck Jonathan and Umaru Musa Yar'Adua are breaking records. On 18 January, Information Minister Lai Mohammed announc...
Blue Lines
We start 2016 with our annual forecast of political, economic and security developments over the coming year, to complement our usual look in the rear view mirror. We concur with the view of the American baseball star Yogi Berra, who died in September, th...
Patrick Smith
In a final splurge of news before the new year, Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari presents a mega-budget and Burkina Faso's new government issues an arrest warrant for ousted President Blaise Compaoré. And there is electoral competition in Uganda and D...
