Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi stashed billions in US banks, and now Libya’s power brokers are vying for control of this hidden fortune. The scramble for wealth has ignited a fierce political battle in Tripoli – one so ruthless that the official leading the recovery has been forced into hiding, fearing for his life. An Africa Confidential Special Report by John Hamilton our North Africa correspondent and managing director of Cross-Border Information.
One of Europe’s most wanted criminals is the partner of one of the President’s daughters and has transferred his operations to Freetown. An Africa Confidential Special Report By Josef Skrdlik and Andrew Weir
A US-sanctioned Russian illegally imported US$29 million worth of diesel to The Gambia, sold it there, and sent the money to the UAE, but the authorities seem uninterested. An Africa Confidential Special Report By Mustapha K Darboe and Andrew Weir
Sierra Leone University lost US$4.5m of public money to a Nigerian company after red flags were ignored and safeguards overridden. Then, they kept it secret. An Africa Confidential Special Report By Josef Skrdlik and Andrew Weir
How to navigate the facts, the figures and the declarations | By Tim Concannon and Jerry Sam in Accra and Caroline Chebet in Nairobi
The final communiqué at the end of the UN COP28 summit in Dubai on 13 December produced what its authors hailed as a breakthrough – it approved a roadmap for 'transitioning away from fossil fuels' | By Tim Concannon
Leaders of the IMF and World Bank back carbon taxes and a plan to end fossil fuel subsidies | By Tim Concannon
Corporate rivalries and geopolitical tensions disrupt markets for electric vehicles | By Tim Concannon
Key questions are whether the World Bank or the UN will control the new fund – and the cost of its loans | Special Report by Tim Concannon
Uganda Airlines has lost US$137 million since it launched in August 2019, according to this parliamentary public accounts committee report
Africa Confidential presents a Special Report on the Breton tycoon’s growing influence in Africa. Far from quitting the continent, Vincent Bolloré’s business and political interests in Africa are deepening – even as he faces trial in Paris for grand corruption in league with two West African leaders. By Andrew Weir and Nicolas Vescovacci
French billionaire Vincent Bolloré added Tema to the 15 West African ports he already controlled by ripping off the country, a secret report says. By Andrew Weir
'A review of concession agreements between the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority and Meridian Port Services Limited' February 2018
'To verify an determine the actual subsidy requirements and monitor the implementation of the subsidy regime in Nigeria'
Africa Confidential interviews Ethiopia's Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Hailemariam Desalegn
Father Matthew Hassan Kukah is a remarkable Nigerian. A Catholic priest
born in Kaduna State in northern Nigeria and fluent in several Nigerian
languages, he has worked hard to promote understanding across ethnic
and religious fault lines. An idealist in the sense that he wants
Nigeria to be a far better country than it is and that he believes its
peoples have the capacity to take it there, he is also a brutal realist
in his assessments of the country's current political and developmental
state.
Exclusive interview with Mallam Lamido Aminu Sanusi, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria
Diplomatic double-standards and an international resource grab are stoking one of the worst wars in the world
Interview with Elvis Sukali of Oxfam, Malawi, 23 October 2009
The Africa Confidential Interview
The Africa Confidential Interview
Abraham Conneh of Oxfam, Liberia, talks to Africa Confidential about education in post-conflict Liberia
An eyewitness account of the announcement of the results at the Kenya Conference Centre
This preliminary report by the then African Union Mission in Sudan on the attack on AMIS peacekeepers of 29-30 September 2007 has never been published. A fuller, December 2007 AMIS report on the attack appears not even to have leaked. The attack by rebels at Haskanita, Darfur, is not to be confused with the ambush of the Unitd Nations-AU Mission in Sudan on 8 July 2008 near El Geneina, when seven UNAMID troops died, apparently at the hands of government-backed militia.
The Africa Confidential Interview
Special reports from the conference
The Africa Confidential Interview
Africa Confidential post-G8 summit report
The Africa Confidential Interview
The Africa Confidential Interview
What happened in Matebeleland?
Is Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) training Sudanese
spies?
The South African mercenaries detained in Bioko and Zimbabwe
were en route to Malabo to oust President Obiang - but at whose
instigation?
Africa Confidential's Special Report on Africa/Iraq and the United Nations Security Council
Patrick Smith, Editor of Africa Confidential, and William Wallis, for the Financial Times, spoke to the Rwandan President, General Paul Kagame, at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane, London, UK, on 18 October 2002, about the Report of the United Nations Expert Panel on the Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the Democratic Republic of Congo
How diamonds fuelled the conflict
Eritrea declared independence from Ethiopia 19 years ago. After overseeing a bloody border war with Ethiopia in which an estimated 120,000 Eritreans and Ethiopians died, Issayas Afeworki's government remains isolated in both the Horn and the international community.
The ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice is yet to sign a constitution into law, hold a general election or allow the formation of political opposition. Most Eritreans are either locked into lifetime military service or imprisoned in shipping containers. A blind spot on the world's radar, Eritrea is said to be the world's most restricted media environment.
Our report from 30 April 1993 highlights lingering uncertainties over the EPLF's democratic credentials and tensions with Ethiopia as Eritrea prepared to become Africa's newest state.
The final format of the transitional government will take several weeks to emerge. The announcement today of a 15-man all-military council can be construed partly as a tough response to yesterday's statement by the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) commander, Col. John Garang, that the guerrilla war in the south would continue if power was not handed over to civilians within seven days. The exclusion of civilians from the council appears to be a tactical error. Garang's ultimatum was also unrealistic. But with Jaffar Nimeiri's ousting, the pandora's box is opened: politically nothing can be excluded in the immediate future.
Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings staged his first military coup as a young revolutionary in May 1979. When it failed, he was imprisoned and sentenced to death. Following another coup mounted by junior army officers in June 1979, Rawlings was set free, and became Head of State under the banner of the the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. In September 1979, the AFRC handed over power to Hilla Limann of the People's National Party, after he won the presidential elections.
In 1981, Rawlings toppled Limann in yet another coup. He remained a military dictator for 12 years until he was elected President in 1993, a position he held until 2001, when John Kufuor's New Patriotic Party
(NPP) government came to power.
Although praised by many in the West as a democratic figure, especially in comparison to his counterparts in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Rawlings
has not been able to shake off the stigma of military dictator.
An incompetent plot by right-wing officers to oust King Hassan II resulted in his 42nd birthday party being disrupted by a spectacular shoot out in the palace grounds. In the aftermath Hassan responded with a characteristic mix of political manoeuvring and a relentless security crackdown. Africa Confidential's correspondent in Rabat had evidently been attending the birthday, or was close to someone who was, and provides an account of the failed coup in considerable and interesting detail.