Blue Lines
Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta has waded into the African Union's dispute over the status of Western Sahara, incurring Moroccan displeasure by putting the conflict on the agenda of the Peace and Security Council (PSC), which Kenya chairs, on 16 February...
Blue Lines
In the early afternoon of 1 February in Bissau, President Umaro Sissoco Embaló and his cabinet came under armed attack at a government compound. After four hours of shooting, forces loyal to Embaló regained control. Who and what was behind the attack is y...
Blue Lines
Close to 300 million people are reliant on humanitarian aid as a consequence of the 55 civil conflicts raging across the world, a handful of them in Africa. The UN and other international agencies complain about donors' being reluctant to fund the necessa...
Blue Lines
In this special edition of Africa Confidential our correspondents take an in-depth look at the year ahead, surveying elections, conflicts, economic trends, and the next twists in the Covid-19 pandemic.
The continent's two biggest economies, Nigeria and So...
Blue Lines
On 15 December, European Union foreign ministers slapped sanctions on the Russian private military group Wagner opening the way for more sanctions against foreign mercenary groups operating in Africa. It fits into the pattern of stand-offs between Brussel...
Blue Lines
'We want deals' was the mantra of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa when he touched down in Abuja on 30 November for a seven-day West African tour with a delegation of ministers and business leaders. His visit comes a year after the launch and limit...
Blue Lines
The deadly blasts in central Kampala on 17 November have been claimed, via an identified Telegram account, as the work of Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP), previously known as the Allied Democratic Forces. It points to the growing capacity of...
Blue Lines
Rhetoric is the warmest commodity at the UN's COP26 climate summit in an icy Glasgow. The distant pledges for achieving 'net zero' economies – in 2050, in 2060 or 2070 – concern African countries less than the current realities of extreme weather, the dro...
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The World Meteorological Association's latest report evokes a troubling future. It forecasts that living conditions could become unsustainable in the next decade for over 100 million people in Africa, hit by drought, floods and extreme heat. Africa would ...
Blue Lines
The cost for Africa to counter the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, to engineer an economic bounce back and mitigate climate threats is rising, justifying the International Monetary Fund's warning of a two-speed global recovery.
The World Bank, ...
