The new team of Eurocrats has little experience of Africa and may be surprised by what it finds
A new European Commission was named on 17 November and most of its members who will deal with African affairs are from countries with no ties to the continent. The Commission Presi...
After Mohammed ibn Chambas takes over as Secretary General of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group in Brussels on 1 March 2010, he will have to fight hard to reassert the coher...
Vol 50 No 23 |
- AFRICA
- ARMS
The more embargoes and sanctions, the higher the rate of return for international arms dealers
Arms traders are getting around Europe's sanctions on Guinea and playing games with the embargo on Côte d'Ivoire, and Belgium sells weapons to Libya, hub of the arms business in Af...
Vol 50 No 22 |
- ECONOMY
- AFRICA
The IMF and the AfDB differ sharply on the severity of the global recession's effects on Africa and the measures needed to ameliorate them
The world's financial experts and institutions disagree on how seriously the global financial crash has affected developing economies or how quickly they may recover. In Africa, th...
Vol 50 No 22 |
- FRANCE
- AFRICA
The lucrative commercial and political networks between France and Africa have survived a remarkable month in the French courts but more embarrassing cases are coming soon. On 27 O...
Facing stubbornly high food prices, rising joblessness and investment cutbacks, Africa is lagging behind the economic recovery in Asia
A faint self-congratulatory whiff of a 'great depression averted' wafted through the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Istanbul, Turkey, on 4-5 O...
The population of sub-Saharan Africa will exceed one billion this year so the African nations entering the 2010 World Cup can hope for a large fan base. For optimists, billionaire status offers the opportunity for the continent to follow in the footsteps of China and India (which, however, have one government each) and reap a demographic dividend. Others argue that it will intensify the pressure on land, food, water and job opportunities, as many governments increasingly fail to meet demand for basic social services such as education and health care.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which made the one-billion prediction, says sub-Saharan Africa faces serious political, economic and social challenges. Twenty years of ...
A key donor of funds for reproductive health is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Its work was hampered by the global gag rule until, as one of his fi...
Vol 50 No 19 |
- ISRAEL
- AFRICA
As Iran spreads its influence in Africa, Israel tries to return to a continent where it once had many friends
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s five-country trip to Africa on 2-9 September showed the extent of diplomatic ground which Israel has lost over the past three decades, since th...
Vol 50 No 19 |
- KENYA
- AFRICA
The reappointment of the anti-corruption chief opens a rift between Parliament and President Mwai Kibaki as top politicians come under fire
For the first time in Kenya's history, Parliament has voted to reject a presidential order, duly noted in the official Gazette. At stake is the survival both of the Kenya Anti-Corr...
