Tag Archives: South Sudan

While TPLF may have been pushed TPLF out of Mekelle, it does not mean an end to the bloody conflict. Rather it may be the start of an insurgency and civil war.

Although the armed forces still back the president, the protests could yet bring about change.

Famines result from cumulative processes we can observe and predict. That means we can prevent them through timely public action.

As temperatures continue to rise in Juba, so do tensions. Many Western donors feel the government is holding them and the peace deal hostage in the hope of getting cash for implementation.

Despite all the progress – and there is a lot of that – there are still plenty of bad African news stories. Simon Allison looks at what has gone wrong in 2015.

For some parts of Africa 2014 has been a bad year. Wars in South Sudan and the Central African Republic continued, and Libya all but imploded. But the year was also good for ruling parties and former liberation movements in Southern Africa. From Namibia to Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique, those in power stayed in power.

The poaching and trafficking of wildlife has reached pandemic levels throughout Africa, threatening a growing number of species with outright extinction in our lifetime.

The prosperity of Sudan’s boom years ended when South Sudan seceded in 2011 and delivered a serious blow to its economy. The end of the oil years has reversed the great expansion of the middle class. Presidential and legislative elections are scheduled for 2015. Whether the hitherto quiescent Khartoum bourgeoisie will make apparent its dissatisfaction at its bowed circumstances is one of Sudan’s pressing political questions.

Is the conflict in South Sudan the opening salvo in the battle for a continent? There are plenty of opportunities for both the United States and China in Africa and in South Sudan. But a rivalry between the two powers can only bring trouble.