Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent.It was a busy week for diplomacy related to a long-running dispute over the Nile River, culminating Thursday in Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn’s first visit to Egypt. “We must make sure that this great river never becomes an object of competition, mistrust or conflict,” Hailemariam said in Cairo. But recent events, including statements from earlier in the week, highlight the extent to which it already has. Ethiopia is nearing completion of its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, an enormous project [...]
In late 2016, when lawyers and teachers began organizing demonstrations against the perceived marginalization of Cameroon’s English-speaking population, one of the most significant questions was whether their discontent would translate into a broader anti-government movement that could mobilize French-speakers as well. More than a year later, the answer appears to be no, or at least not yet. While the crisis has intensified, it remains concentrated in the two western Anglophone regions, which are home to a fifth of the Central African nation’s 22 million people. It has failed to spread east to threaten the capital, Yaounde, and the regime of [...]
Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Associate Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. Nearly seven years to the day after Tunisia’s so-called Jasmine Revolution forced the departure of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country was once again rocked by widespread protests this week—this time sparked by austerity measures including price and tax increases. According to the BBC, protests had occurred in at least 10 locations, including Tunis, the capital, as of Thursday. Hundreds of people were arrested; 50 police officers were injured; the army was deployed in some places; [...]
