West Africa Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. South Sudan finally has a transitional government, though the country’s citizens and neighboring leaders are watching anxiously to see if this coalition will hold together longer than a previous attempt, which collapsed after only three months. President Salva Kiir swore in opposition leader Riek Machar as his first deputy last weekend, just ahead of a twice-delayed deadline to form a unity government. Kiir also installed three additional vice presidents—two from the government and one from the opposition; a fifth, drawn from another […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Swarms of desert locusts that have already razed pastures and croplands across Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya continue to spread throughout East Africa, jeopardizing the food security of up to 20 million people. Just a small swarm of the insects can eat as much food as 35,000 people daily. The swarms, which can contain as many as 80 million adult locusts and travel up to 80 miles each day, have now moved south and west into Tanzania, Uganda and war-torn South Sudan, while […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Sudan’s transitional government appears prepared to hand former President Omar al-Bashir over to the International Criminal Court to be tried for war crimes and genocide allegedly committed during his regime’s long, scorched-earth campaign in the country’s Darfur region. The decision is reportedly part of a potential peace agreement with rebel groups still operating in Darfur. It could be an unexpected boon for the beleaguered ICC, but only if the military members of the transitional government in Khartoum don’t renege on the deal. […]

The Trump administration provoked another international outcry when it announced late last month that it was adding six new countries to its list of nations that face broad travel restrictions to the United States: Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan and Tanzania. The expansion of the travel ban, which President Donald Trump first issued as an executive order just days after his inauguration in January 2017, will take effect on Feb. 22. The inclusion of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and its largest economy, generated immediate outrage among many observers. But the reaction from the Nigerian government was more muted than […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, Andrew Green curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Malawi’s Constitutional Court, citing irregularities that included visibly altered return sheets, took the unprecedented step this week of unanimously annulling the results of last May’s disputed presidential election and calling for a rerun within 150 days. President Peter Mutharika, who was narrowly declared the winner of that election, has vowed to appeal the court’s decision. Mutharika, who first took office in 2014, received 38.6 percent of the vote last year, followed by opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera at 35.4 percent. Saulos Chilima, who […]