NIGERIA Goodluck with the numbers 6th August 2010 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site President Jonathan is slowly winning over the governors and party barons - but time is short The arithmetic is not right yet but Goodluck Jonathan is making steady progress in his bid for the candidacy of his party in next year's presidential elections. Last week the leaders of the six states in the 'South-South' - Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Rivers - vowed support for his campaign for the presidency. It was not a forgone conclusion given the prickly relations between Jonathan and the six governors from his region.
NIGERIA Political spills 6th August 2010 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site A new burst of militancy is haunting the Niger Delta less than a year after the amnesty deal delivered an uneasy peace Delays over cash payments, the coming national elections and rising concern over oil pollution are behind the latest wave of protests and attacks in the Delta. Scores are being set...
NIGERIA Father Kukah, Professor Jega and the vote 6th August 2010 Image courtesy of Panos Pictures View site In the Nigerian tradition of irrepressible optimism periodically suffused with brutal realism, Father Matthew Hassan Kukah argues that the last decade's attempts at democracy in Ni...
Limelight was the only light shining in The Hague this week. After three years of ignoring the trial of a man charged with 11 counts of war crimes, international news networks fought for the best angle on supermodel Naomi Campbell’s gripping display of disinterest in the court and its work. Charles Taylor’s trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone started in June 2007. On 5 August, prosecutors reopened their case, having subpoenaed Campbell. They had wanted to show the she had been courte... Limelight was the only light shining in The Hague this week. After three years of ignoring the trial of a man charged with 11 counts of war crimes, international news networks fought for the best angle on supermodel Naomi Campbell’s gripping display of disinterest in the court and its work. Charles Taylor’s trial at the Special Court for Sierra Leone started in June 2007. On 5 August, prosecutors reopened their case, having subpoenaed Campbell. They had wanted to show the she had been courted with the blood diamonds by Liberia’s warlord-turned-president following a party hosted by Nelson Mandela. She testified that after an event for Mandela’s Children’s Fund in 1997, she had been given a parcel of ‘two or three’ – or six, by her former agent’s testimony – ‘small, dirty-looking stones’ by two men who tapped on her hotel room door in the small hours. These, she supposed, were from Taylor, whom she had talked to at dinner. Unimpressed, the brusque British beauty claims she gave the stones to Jeremy Ratcliffe, then head of Mandela’s charity. The fund denies receiving them. Ratcliffe, for now, is silent. This brief international interest in the trial failed to show how the revelations advance the war crimes case against Taylor. Or even why he would send henchmen to deliver uncut diamonds to Campbell. Possession of rough diamonds in South Africa is a crime but the prosecution failed to link Taylor conclusively to them and his operations as an arms trader. Read more
NIGERIA Abuja takes Halliburton to court 6th August 2010 President Goodluck Jonathan's government is taking on the United States' oil services giant Halliburton and its Nigerian associates for organising bribes to secure contracts for th...
CONGO-KINSHASAANALYSIS New pressure on the war-minerals link 6th August 2010 Congo's 'clean' minerals are more politically toxic than buyers would like Rebels are taking over more mines throughout the east, while control of minerals by corrupt government forces continues, making even Congo's 'clean' state-sourced minerals more pol...
SOUTH AFRICA An uneasy ruling alliance 6th August 2010 The ANC needs stronger leadership to referee the intensifying internal debates ahead of the policy-making conference in September The policies and programmes of the governing African National Congress will be reviewed at the party's National General Council in Durban on 20-24 September. Few of the policies ar...
ECONOMYAFRICA The numbers are looking up 6th August 2010 After peaking at US$72 billion in 2008, foreign investment in Africa fell to $59 bn. in 2009 but is now growing again and could exceed the $80 bn. mark within a couple of years. Ex...
KENYA This time a peaceful vote 6th August 2010 After a decisive referendum, Kenyans have a constitution that will shake up both the political system and the party fiefdoms Kenyans voted overwhelmingly for the new constitution at the 4 August referendum. The process was orderly and voters turned out in impressive numbers to voice strong support for th...
CONGO-KINSHASA Contract clashes 6th August 2010 President Joseph Kabila's government is set for another round of legal clashes with foreign companies. First is Canada's First Quantum, locked in battle with Kinshasa at the Intern...
SOUTH AFRICA Taking sides in the big debate 6th August 2010 The main opposing statements for the National General Council to be held by the governing African National Congress come, firstly, in the official policy document and, secondly, in...
SOMALIA The Afghan effect 6th August 2010 African leaders ask why the West prefers to help the Kabul regime but not the even shakier one in Mogadishu Behind the general condemnation of the 11 July bombings in Kampala, for which Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen (Mujahideen Youth Movement) claimed responsibility, Western governmen...
KENYA Rumbles in the Rift 6th August 2010 Such was the tension in the Rift Valley as the referendum neared that a drunken brawl in a shebeen in Nandi District between a Nandi man and his Kisii friend swiftly formed the cor...
CONGO-KINSHASA 8 ways to clean up minerals 6th August 2010 Several schemes and approaches aim to limit the flow of Congo-Kinshasa's conflict minerals, not all of them as well coordinated as they should be. Here is our rundown.
ECONOMYAFRICA Roaring to go 6th August 2010 As demand soars for Africa's oil, gas and minerals, its governments must find ways to strengthen their bargaining power Optimism about Africa's economies is in fashion, as commodity prices stay high thanks to demand from Asia and Western investors seek outlets for capital that they find no profitabl...
SOMALIA Mogadishu's ministry of truth 6th August 2010 Somalia's new Information Minister, Abdirahman Omar Osman, wants African Union troops to defend more aggressively the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its 'moderate' Islam...
ZIMBABWE Bullfighting 6th August 2010 The Politburo of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front has always regarded the award of hero status as within its sole gift, something hotly contested by the Movement...
ETHIOPIA Opposition nuptials 6th August 2010 Activists in the opposition coalition Medrek met on 31 July to form a single party after their disastrous performance in the May elections (AC Vol 51 No 11). Although the oppositio...
MALAWI Dog days in Lilongwe 6th August 2010 When five dogs belonging to a white Zimbabwean couple, Dean and Helen van Schalhwal, savaged their 72-year-old watchman, Samson Chimdima, in Lilongwe last month, the incident escal...
SUDAN Under no circumstances 6th August 2010 When Awad Ahmed el Jaz told a National Congress Party youth meeting on 1 August that the separation of the South 'cannot be allowed under any circumstances', it was no slip of the ...
