Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Flash floods and landslides are devastating East Africa, just a month after severe rains flooded countries in the center of the continent. To the south, Zimbabwe and Zambia are in the midst of droughts that have slowed Victoria Falls to a trickle, even as heavy rains batter South Africa and submerge entire neighborhoods. With global leaders gathered in Madrid this week for COP25, this year’s annual U.N. climate summit, the severe weather events across Africa underscore the impact that climate change is [...]
For 10 months, weekly mass protests have rocked Algeria, as demonstrators have taken to the streets with sweeping demands that the country’s entire entrenched regime step aside. This standoff between protesters and Algeria’s generals is about to enter a new phase with Thursday’s presidential election. Rather than a genuine chance to elect a new government, the vote, forced through by the generals over popular objections, is an attempt to rebuild the political structure that Algerians have been trying to bring down since their protest movement erupted in February: a military dictatorship with a civilian façade. The results of the election [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Something unexpected finally happened in an election in Namibia: The South West Africa People’s Organisation party, or SWAPO, which has dominated Namibian politics since the country’s independence in 1990, stumbled. Incumbent President Hage Geingob still secured a second term in last week’s vote, but the party lost its parliamentary supermajority, perhaps heralding a new and more competitive political landscape. Geingob’s administration was hobbled by a number of problems, including an economy that hasn’t been growing since 2016 and wealth inequality that is [...]
