Blue Lines
Boris Johnson took over as Britain's Prime Minister on 24 July after easily beating former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt for the leadership of the ruling Conservative party. A Johnson premiership raises the prospects of Britain leaving the European Union ...
Patrick Smith
We start with the dramatic charging of top finance ministry officials in Nairobi, and then head towards South Africa's politicised legal dramas pitting two presidents and their proxies against each other. A new mining deal in Tanzania could boost resource...
Patrick Smith
This week we start with an inquisition in Johannesburg and then fly up to Nairobi where Deputy President William Ruto's political plans are under fire. In Nigeria, the government might change or even drop its fuel subsidy which is coming under growing att...
Blue Lines
Disbelief was ostentatiously suspended when heads of state gathered at the African Union summit in Niamey to proclaim a new era of cooperation with the full launching of the African continental free trade area (ACFTA) on 8 July. After winning over Nigeria...
Patrick Smith
This week we start in Niamey with economic history in the making and then to Khartoum where activists are demanding a political breakthrough. Although the new government is yet to be announced in Nigeria, state regulators are taking a tougher line and in ...
Patrick Smith
We start in Khartoum where hundreds of thousands of demonstrators braved tear gas and live rounds to press the military to resume talks on the handover to civil rule. In Nigeria, there are concerns about a widening gap in the budget and the need to collec...
Blue Lines
The best construction that can be put on the return of the Zimbabwe dollar and the ban on foreign currencies is that its authors wanted to rein in inflation and crack down on the currency trading rackets that gave politically connected businesses access t...
Patrick Smith
We start in Addis Ababa in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt over the weekend, and then to Zimbabwe where the national dollar makes a comeback. In Nairobi, growing tensions between the President and his Deputy worry the business class. The murk sur...
Patrick Smith
This week we start in Abuja with President Muhammadu Buhari's goals for his second term which look much like the ones for his first term. And then to East Africa where a temporary reopening of a key crossing point between Rwanda and Uganda has done little...
Blue Lines
Whether the aims behind President Paul Kagame's closure of Gatuna (Ugandans call it Katuna), Rwanda's busiest border crossing with Uganda in February, were diplomatic, commercial or security, it seems to have failed on all counts. Although Kagame complain...
