The civil war in Burundi now lies several years behind us. Since November 2003, when the CNDD-FDD integrated the transitional institutions, the rebels and the regular armed forces integrated their troops into a new national army. The country has had

Read the rest of Burundi: Aho nataye uruzogi:“Where my umbilical cord dropped off” – Land issues keep possibility of conflict alive – By Kris Berwouts »

Everyone is strapped in and the Kenyan election roller coaster has begun. A cacophony of electioneering propaganda is being blasted out through every medium. The political godfathers are flying around the country firing up their supporters, screwing down the vote,

Read the rest of Kenya’s election: brave new world or highway to hell? – By Richard Dowden »

Recent events in Mali, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan seem to confirm one of the most durable stereotypes of Africa, namely that the continent is unstable and uniquely prone to nasty political violence.

Read the rest of Wars do End: why conflict in Africa is falling – By Scott Straus »

Crisis in the Horn of Africa: politics, piracy and the threat of terror, Peter Woodward Peter Woodward will be known to many as a long-time historian of the Horn of Africa and particularly Sudan, where his Sudan, 1898-1989: the unstable

Read the rest of Crisis and Development in the Horn of Africa: two new books on a volatile region – By Magnus Taylor »

Talk to officials from the Angolan foreign investment promotion agency, ANIP, and they will express bafflement that (non-oil-sector) US and UK companies are reluctant to enter the market. After all, Brazilians, Chinese, Portuguese, South Africans, and, most recently, Russians are

Read the rest of Angola: ample reward for investors who do their homework – By Stewart Kelly »

Sudan’s President, General Ahmed Al-Bashir and South Sudan’s President Silva Kiir met in Addis Ababa on 4th January for talks aimed at resolving their on-going conflict. But this has all happened before, and is likely to happen again, until they

Read the rest of The Future of Sudan: One State or Several? – By Seifulaziz Milas »

Another day, another ‘Africa rising’ type e-zine pings its way into my inbox. Just as my mouse picks it up and places it in its proper place in junk, my phone lights up with yet another Facebook picture post of

Read the rest of I am a self-hating member of the Afro-Diaspora. And Proud. »

Is Al-Qaeda about to bring terrorism to Europe’s backyard in North Africa? The intervention of French military forces in Mali and the apparent reprisals in the form of the hostage crisis at the In Amenas gas processing plant in Algeria

Read the rest of Mali/Algeria: threat of AQIM to Europe has been overstated – By Christina Hellmich »

Barack Obama’s second term may witness an American pivot to Africa—and not for the reasons you might have expected. As the president of the United States publicly takes the oath of office for the second time, it is understandable why,

Read the rest of U.S. Africa Policy: A Second Term Pivot? – By J. Peter Pham »

Ethnicity and religion are not predetermined; we are not born, do not possess an innate sense of ethnic or religious affiliation, we become Yoruba, Christian, Hausa or Kataf largely as a factor of geographical, ancestral, and societal influences. Against this

Read the rest of Northern Nigeria: The Conflict Within – By Zainab Sandah »