Central Africa Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. As this week’s United Nations Climate Action Summit focused more global attention on the effects of climate change, several African leaders used the event to signal a stronger, continent-wide commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Africa is easily the lowest emitter of greenhouse gases of any continent, and as a whole it produces fewer emissions than the United States. South Africa is the only African country to rank among the top 20 global emitters. Because it is particularly vulnerable to the effects […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Tunisia’s presidential race is headed to a runoff next month between two surprising candidates: a law school professor who barely bothered to campaign and a media mogul who spent Election Day in jail. Analysts are reading the results as a sharp rebuke of the new political establishment that has emerged since the overthrow of autocratic leader Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011. Neither Kais Saied, the professor, nor business tycoon Nabil Karoui has ever held elected office. They drew 18.4 percent and […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. President Paul Biya delivered a rare speech this week announcing the launch of a national dialogue process to resolve Cameroon’s separatist crisis. Biya named Prime Minister Joseph Ngute to lead the talks, which are set to begin before the end of the month. But is Biya actually committed to peace? His government has exacerbated the separatist crisis in the past, and during his address this week, Biya appeared to undercut his message of peace when he called on separatists to surrender or […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. A week of riots in South Africa targeting foreign-owned businesses has left at least 10 people dead and dozens of shops destroyed across Johannesburg and the capital, Pretoria. The attacks shut down entire neighborhoods, as South Africans, enraged by the perception that foreigners are taking their jobs, looted shops and set them ablaze. This latest eruption of xenophobia comes amid deepening inequality in Africa’s second-largest economy, where more than a quarter of people are unemployed. South Africa has wrestled with xenophobia since […]