Analysis

Analysis

Meles Zenawi: Liberator with a tyrannical tendency

The Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi (57) died on Monday the 20th of August 2012. A peasant leader who lived by the books and who could explain everything away.

South Sudan OIL: LESS IS BEST

The predictions were dire soon after South Sudan had closed the pipeline to the North and thus its oil production.

South Sudan’s Independence: “We are just muddling through”

One year after independence morale is still high in South Sudan. But the initial hope for a rapid start towards development, establishment of human rights and economic prosperity has faded. “It is as if the war never stopped.”

How Meles rules Ethiopia

Meles Zenawi is the cleverest and most engaging Prime Minister in Africa – at least when he talks to visiting outsiders. When he speaks to his fellow Ethiopians, he is severe and dogmatic. But he entertains western visitors with humour and irony, deploying a diffident, self-deprecating style which cleverly conceals an absolute determination to control his country and its destiny, free of outside interference.

Mali: If the music dies…

Mali finds itself in a political paralysis. A rebellion, an islamist uprising, a coup-d'etat: within mere months a seemingly stable country collapses under unresolved issues. A way out can't yet be seen. But Mali can't survive for long without peace. Singer Oumou Sangare: "We need peace to sing and dance."

Recruting for Al Shabaab in Nairobi

“I have been telling all of you in my team not to listen to these recruiters for al-Shabaab here in Majengo. They are cheating you, they are brainstorming you, and they don’t take care of you”.

The graves of Garba Tulla

Garba Tulla lies on the vast and mainly dry savanna’s of Northern Kenya. The wounds of a vicious war nearly fifty years ago are still open. “Thousands of civilians were killed, we were imprisoned in this area and our cattle was driven away to the highlands”, laments Halake. “That is the way the authorities deal with us nomads in the North”.

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