“The countries that cooperate with us get at least a free pass,” acknowledged a senior U.S. official who specializes in Africa but spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution. “Whereas other countries that don’t cooperate, we ream them as best we...
The French left as well as the the right have dreams of imperial expansion. A number of NATO participants share a vision of the Mediterranean as a NATO lake, an internal sea, surrounded by Europe. The dream is to extend Europe around the entire coast of the Mediterranean and...
The US has concluded a SOFA, status of forces agreement, with Niger, and is setting up a drone base there. Craig Whitlock writes: "The base in Niger marks the opening of another far-flung U.S. military front against al-Qaeda and its affiliates, adding to drone combat missions...
Overview of Ghana's 2012 Presidential Election On Friday December 7 Ghana will hold its Presidential Election. Ghana presidential elections are on the same 4 year cycle as the United States, though the Ghana election is in December rather than November. Presidents...
When water disappears, there is no alternative. A serious crisis occurs when there is less than 500 cubic meter per person per year. The World Bank and the WTO are energetic and anti-democratic instruments, eagerly facilitating corporate control and commoditization of...
East Africa's Great Rift includes four rift systems that promise to hold significant deposits of oil. Africa Oil Corporation has been exploring and drilling here, and prepared a report that includes a number of excellent maps and graphics of seismic data. I've selected a few...
The coup in Mali appears to be over, and President Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso is leading talks on how to organize and move forward. "Former parliament speaker Dioncounda Traoré was sworn in on Thursday as interim president after Amadou Toumani Touré resigned under the 6...
AFRICOM was created for two main reasons, oil and China. I have documented where US officials have stated this at numerous places in this blog. For a more detailed discussion see Understanding AFRICOM: A Contextual Reading of Empire’s New Combatant Command Part I, Part II and...
Alassane Ouattara is the current President of Ivory Coast, selected by France and the United States on behalf of the international community, and with the assistance of U.N. mission chief to Ivory Coast Y.J. Choi, they declared Ouattara the winner of the November 2010 Ivoirian...
Chatham House hosted a discussion in January, Nigeria in 2012: Crises and Reforms. In it Garba Sani gave a brief history of Boko Harum that is one of the best I have seen. [caption id="attachment_1568" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="View of Zuma rock from Madalla...
