Patrick Smith
Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire and Tanzania: Africa's 'Super Sunday' of electionsThe announcement late on 26 October that the second round of Guinea's presidential elections will be held on 31 October means that three national elections will be held in Africa on t...
Patrick Smith
Africa Confidential looks at the week aheadAfrica gets dragged into the global money battlesStrong multilateral action on the worsening international currency crisis will top the list of demands from the African caucus at next month's meeting of the Grou...
Patrick Smith
New York, 21 September Dear Confidentialers,The decision of Ghana's President John Evans Atta Mills to tour China and Japan instead of attending this week's development summit at the United Nations headquarters in New York points to some of the economic r...
Patrick Smith
AbujaDear Confidentialers,After months of musings and murmurings, Nigeria's elections and the politics around them are taking shape. Giant posters extolling the virtues of candidates – declared and undeclared – are cropping up across the country. Nigeria'...
Patrick Smith
Friday, 21 May
Dear Confidentialers,
Nigeria has a new president, a new vice president and a new managing director of the state oil company – all in just two weeks after a year of political stasis. Goodluck Jonathan has moved smartly through the incarna...
Patrick Smith
May Day
On 1 May, the celebrants of international workers day converged on the Place de la République in the centre of Paris waving their banners, handing out pamphlets and proselytising on the pavements. Although a few African and Asian workers groups p...
Patrick Smith
Robert Mugabe's 86th birthday week started off with a party thrown by the Chinese Embassy and ended with an all night bash in Bulawayo of music and song aimed at the younger generation. In between there was a seemingly endless round of cake-cutting exerci...
Oscar Rickett
They may not be going to the World Cup, but Egypt have now won the African Cup of Nations three times in a row, cementing their position as the most successful team this tournament has ever seen as well as inspiring some observers to call them the best si...
Oscar Rickett
EGYPT 4-0 ALGERIA
It wouldn’t be hard to understand why a peace-loving character would have given the west-Angolan city of Benguela a wide berth on Thursday. The boys were back in town. A rivalry unmatched in world football was being re-ignited and the ...
Oscar Rickett
The stereotype of an African goalkeeper can be summed up in one word: bad. African goalkeepers are thought of as being unreliable, mentally unstable and prone to absurd mistakes. Unfortunately, this year’s CAF tournament has shown that there is currently ...
