29/10/2012
Maybe we should all go and live on Robben Island for 15 years. The experience produces remarkable human beings. Ahmed “Kathy” Kathrada, the man who shared a cell with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, came to the South Africa High Commission in London last week for the launch of Conversations with Myself, the new …
The last time I was in Hargeisa, in 2001, the Maansour Hotel was surrounded by open space on a hillside overlooking the town. When I went back a couple of weeks ago it was completely surrounded by new buildings. Hargeisa is a boom town, fuelled by remit...
29/10/2012
Here we go again. After Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 2008 and Mwai Kibaki in Kenya in the same year, now Laurent Gbagbo inCote d’Ivoire is trying to defy an election result. It’s becoming a pattern: sitting president reluctantly holds an election. D...
29/10/2012
What an extraordinary series of events in Kenya this month. First on December 10th the American Ambassador’s brutally frank analysis of Kenyan was revealed by Wikileaks: every single member of the 41-strong cabinet is corrupt, said Michael Ranneberger...
29/10/2012
After 26 years of the most horrific war, Liberia seems to have settled down despite noisy disenchantment with the rule of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, now in her second term. I recently attended a conference on Liberia for some 300 investors and potential inv...
18/10/2012
As the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals approaches what is happening to the UK Government’s aid ministry and its impact on Africa? An overseas aid ministry is an anomaly. How does a government account for taxpayers’ money spent on non v...
12/10/2012