Strategic Thinking on East Africa

From African Arguments Posted on October 21, 2015 by Fadil Elobeid Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has started his second term and the country is embarking on the next phase of its grand development plan. Has anything changed? At the start of this month, Hailemariam Desalegn was re-elected as Ethiopia’s Prime Minister. Earlier in May, the […]

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  BY JASON PATINKIN Associated Press Eight years ago Turuk Gatluak settled on Kok Island, a remote marshland in the vast swamps of South Sudan’s Unity state. He planted palm trees to hold the soil together and grew enough maize, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes to feed his wife and three children. Now South Sudan’s civil […]

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By AFP Rwanda has dismissed accusations it was meddling in neighbouring Burundi’s political crisis, with Kigali’s foreign minister saying Rwanda only wanted peace. “Burundi’s problem is not Rwanda’s, Burundi’s problem is Burundi’s,” Louise Mushikiwabo told reporters in Kigali late Thursday. “We believe, as leadership, that when leaders take decisions they should be able to live […]

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By Fred Mukinda Kenyan police have arrested two suspected terrorists from Tanzania in the ongoing operation in the coastal Boni Forest in Lamu County. The suspects were arrested at roadblocks erected by security personnel in Operation Linda Boni. The operation is being carried out in Boni Forest, where Al-Shabaab terrorists are said to have set […]

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From The Wilson Center By Getachew Zeru Gebrekidan, Southern Voices Network Scholar September 2015 South Sudan’s civil war, paused by a tenuous peace agreement, remains a major threat to the region, with the potential to severely reescalate if the peace agreement fails. The young state’s conflict, started in 2013 amid a power struggle between President […]

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From The Wall Street Journal Thousands flee isolated Eritrea to escape life of conscription and poverty BY MATINA STEVIS AND JOE PARKINSON NICHOLE SOBECKI FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ASMARA, Eritrea—On a cool March evening soon after his 16th birthday, Binyam Abraham waited until his mother and young siblings were sleeping and slipped away to begin the long […]

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From The Sudan Tribune October 20, 2015 (BOR) – South Sudanese military leadership has announced that all foreign troops of the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) will complete their withdrawal from Bor, Jonglei state’s capital, by Friday. An unidentified man sits in the gun turret while leading a convoy of armoured vehicles from both the […]

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From Kenya It’s Time for Honesty. STATEMENT BY RT. HON RAILA ODINGA; Ladies and gentlemen; I am happy to be back home ahead of the El Nino. I called to speak to you on the sorry state of affairs in our country, particularly our economy. Since Jubilee came to power, it has insisted that the […]

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From The Sudan Tribune October 20, 2015 (JUBA) – South Sudan’s vice president, James Wani Igga, said recent dissolution of structures of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) was incorrectly relayed to the media, appealing to the public to take his version as the correct one. South Sudan’s vice-president, James Wani Igga (Photo: Larco […]

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by Gregory Alonso Pirio and Robert Pittelli Africa is increasingly becoming a target of Russia’s renewed international assertiveness; its economic and military forays into Africa are often overshadowed, however, by Russian aggression in the Ukraine including the annexation of Crimea and its military backing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The quieter but dramatic Russian engagement […]

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