The last-minute postponement on April 2 of Nigeria’s parliamentary elections raises the stakes in an already tense election cycle that will also decide whether President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta region, will stay in power for the next four years. The decision by Nigeria’s election commission to push voting back by a week because key election materials had not been properly distributed was met by support, from both Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party and the leading opposition party, the Action Congress of Nigeria, according to this Bloomberg News report. However, questions remain about the extent to [...]
Africa’s longstanding position as the forgotten continent is rapidly being transformed. At the heart of this dramatic change is the rise of economic giants in the developing world — China, India and Brazil, in particular — whose state-owned enterprises and private companies, acting in combination with assertive diplomacy, have forged a growing partnership with Africa. Under the rubric of “South-South cooperation,” these emerging powers have made significant inroads into Western economic and political dominance on the continent. While the media has tended to focus on the dislocating effect that competitive emerging powers have had on key sectors of African economies [...]
The ebb and flow of the Libyan civil war has led most American and European commentators to draw two conclusions. First, the conflict will end with a negotiated settlement. Second, international peacekeepers may be required to make any deal work. The case for a negotiated settlement is based on the simple fact that a military solution to the crisis is unlikely: The rebels probably cannot win on the battlefield, and Col. Moammar Gadhafi cannot be allowed to do so. A stalemate is also unappealing, not least because it would require the U.S. and Europeans to continue policing Libya’s airspace, at [...]
