If he is not careful President Joseph Kabila could see fights breaking out in his anteroom. He has struck forestry deals with a Lebanese businessman whose company is under United States sanctions for allegedly financing the Lebanese militia Hizbollah. K
30th Mar 2012

Treading with care Lack of trust in the TFG forces who have to take over the Ugandan and Burundian positions when Amisom moves out of Mogadishu is making Amisom tread cautiously. The TFG forces are all young and some are teenagers. Some fighters those o
30th Mar 2012

Correspondence on the recall of the United Nations chief Michael von der Schulenburg indicates an almost irrational hatred of him by President Ernest Bai Koroma (AC Vol 53 No 4 Early exit for UN envoy). Letters seen by Africa Confidential show that Kor
16th Mar 2012

A new African empire stretching from the Sahara to South Africa is in the making as Glencore and Xstrata two giant mining and trading companies finalise their plans to merge into one US$90 billion resource company. Not since the days of Harry Oppenheime
2nd Mar 2012

Controversial British-based mining entrepreneur Frank Timis’s African Petroleum Corporation announced a ‘significant’ oil find off the Liberian coast on 21 February. The find was in its Narina 1 well in the LB-09 Block and APC said it would carry out fu
2nd Mar 2012

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon closed the door on a bitter dispute with the government of President Ernest Bai Koroma by recalling his Executive Representative for the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone Michael von der Schul
17th Feb 2012

The quarrel between Presidents Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso and Thomas Yayi Boni of Benin over the Economic Community of West African States is symptomatic of an organisation in need of reform. Both want the next president of the Ecowas Commission the
3rd Feb 2012

The Indian government starts 2012 aiming to almost double bilateral trade with Africa from US$46 billion to $70 bn. by 2015. Such plans disguise the fact that so far India’s engagement with Africa has largely been a business-to-business affair. India’s
18th Jan 2012

The presidential and legislative elections due in November 2012 will be close-run pitting President Ernest Bai Koroma and the All Peoples’ Congress (APC) against Julius Maada Bio and the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). Koroma stakes his political rep
6th Jan 2012

For many African countries the West’s economic travails will translate into spiralling food and fuel prices higher unemployment and less state spending on education and health. The rumbling Eurozone crisis and the United States’ debt-burdened economy wi
2nd Dec 2011