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Shell tries to dodge responsibility for Nigeria oil spills...again
The oil company is back in the UK courts trying to shift the blame for the environmental destruction wrought in the Niger Delta. At a hearing in the UK courts this week, oil company Shell asked the judge to throw out two legal actions concerning oil spills from the company’s pipelines in ...
Islamic State deepens foothold in Somalia's Puntland state
A year after a faction of al-Shabaab defected to IS, the group has exploited state disorder to seize a stretch of Somalia's coast. On 26 October, more than 50 heavily-armed Somali Islamic State (IS) fighters seized the town of Qandala in Puntland federal state. It was a small, but highly symbolic, ...
Central African Republic: It's not all about the money
Amidst deepening insecurity, the government is focused on the upcoming Donors Conference. But will more international funding help solve the crisis? Post-election benefits haven’t lasted long in the Central African Republic (CAR). Since President Faustin-Archange Touadéra took office at the end of March, there is again widespread instability throughout the country. In ...
Africa's least loved leader marches on
DR Congo's Joseph Kabila has gained some international and domestic support for his plan to stay in power until at least 2018. But some inconvenient truths expose his lack of popular legitimacy. Since he came to power in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2001, Joseph Kabila has ruled from the ...
How to put the ‘African’ back into African Studies
From 1993 to 2013, the proportion of articles written by Africa-based scholars plummeted in two leading journals. Why? Earlier this year, a new piece of research looking at the make-up of contributors to two leading Africa-focused journals found that the proportion of articles written by authors based in Africa had plummeted. Ryan ...