Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. In the three years since John Magufuli became Tanzania’s president, he has shown little interest in responding to criticism, no matter its source. This is perhaps unsurprising for a man known as “The Bulldozer,” a nickname that dates back to his tenure as a hard-charging minister of public works. Magufuli’s administration has become notorious for restricting press freedom, creating an unsafe climate for opposition politicians and promoting regressive policies on women’s rights. He has also pursued populist economic policies [...]
Since last June, Algeria’s 81-year-old president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, has been dismissing high-profile security officials at an unprecedented rate. A who’s-who of top brass from the police, the gendarmerie and most importantly the army, which has long been the backbone of the Algerian regime, have all been replaced—and all without any public explanation from Bouteflika or his inner circle. The shake-ups, which seemed to have concluded in late September, ousted around a dozen senior generals and regional army commanders, including the director of defense personnel, the chief of the army’s powerful Central Security Directorate, the commander of the ground forces and [...]
In early October, a court in Mozambique began trying 189 people accused of carrying out a spate of grisly attacks, some involving beheadings, in Cabo Delgado province, in the north of the country. The trial, the first of its kind, represents a rare opportunity to gather information on a security threat that continues to confound experts and government officials alike. Though the violence in Cabo Delgado, which has killed more than 100 people, first began getting serious attention more than a year ago, details about what’s driving it remain elusive. It has been attributed to a group commonly referred to [...]
