NEWS ANALYSIS

A look at MTN, Airtel, Africell ahead of August SIM registration deadline Kampala, Uganda |ISAAC KHISA and JULIUS BUSINGE| MTN Uganda has recorded a surge in revenues for the six months ending June 30, signaling a possible rebound in the country’s telecom industry. According to the latest half year performance …

Freetown, Sierra Leone | AFP | Gathered in a Freetown church, worshippers struggled Sunday to come to terms with the devastation wrought by the flooding and mudslide that struck the Sierra Leone capital six days ago, as the arduous search for bodies continued. “I just close my eyes and imagine, I …

Alcanar, Spain | AFP | Martine Groby rues the day when she ignored her father who told her: “They are terrorists, take down their number plates.” “I should have listened to him,” said Groby, who saw all the windows of her home in Spain shatter when a massive explosion detonated in …

Why are big guns supporting Muntu against Besigye’s Amuriat? Kampala, Uganda | AGATHER ATUHAIRE | In the race to lead Uganda’s biggest opposition party, FDC, members are seeing a side of the incumbent, Gen. Mugisha Muntu, which they have not known before.  At his nomination on Aug.14 at the party …

‘Raila fatigue’ favours status quo in Kenya election Kenya |  YVONNE ROWA WOODS  | Kenya’s 2017 polls will be remembered as the election of minor gains and confounding contradictions. In the run up to polling, public discontent appeared to have been largely driven by the unprecedented sophistication in graft and …

Dandong, CHINA | AFP | Traders from North Korea visit Yuan Huan’s shop in the Chinese border city of Dandong several times a month to place orders, bringing their own translators and wads of cash. Yuan, manager of Sangle Solar Power, said sales to North Koreans have soared in the past …

Washington, United States | AFP | Traffic through the White House exit door has been astonishingly high since Donald Trump became president on January 20. On Friday chief strategist Steve Bannon became the latest casualty of seven months of bedlam in the executive offices of the world’s most powerful country. Here …

Istanbul, Turkey | AFP | Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Friday urged ethnic Turks in Germany to reject its main parties in upcoming elections, prompting a sharp warning from Berlin to stop the “unprecedented” meddling. Erdogan called on ethnic Turks to ignore Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and their …

Nairobi, Kenya | ISS AFRICA | Two cheers for democracy. That would probably be a fair verdict on last week’s general elections in Kenya. It was free-ish and fair-ish. Over 15 million Kenyans stood in lines, often long, to elect a president, senate, national assembly, governors and members of assemblies for 47 counties, and women’s representatives. President Uhuru …

Bujumbura, Burundi | AFRICAN ARGUMENTS |  Two years since Burundi was plunged into violent political crisis, there are two diametrically opposing narratives being told about the current situation. If you listen to the government, the country has recovered from the clashes and mass displacements that engulfed it from 2015. Things are now secure …