NEWS ANALYSIS

Power generator cleared to hire new dam supervisor Kampala, Uganda | JULIUS BUSINGE | Power generator—Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited (UEGCL)—is set to hire a new supervisor technically known as Owner’s Engineer (OE) for the 183MW Isimba hydro-power dam. This comes two months after the contract of Energy Infratech expired in …

John Hursh | AFRICAN ARGUMENTS |  On 6 October, the US government announced that it would revoke the majority of economic sanctions imposed on Sudan. Many of them had been in place for two decades. Numerous governments, organisations, and commentators welcomed the decision. Sudan expert Alex de Waalcalled the move “long overdue”, while UN Special Rapporteur Idriss …

Roger Southall | AFRICAN ARGUMENTS | Rumours that President Jacob Zuma has instructed the South African National Defence Force to draw up plans for implementing a state of emergency may or may not be true. Nonetheless they are evidence of South Africa’s current febrile political atmosphere. Any assumption that yesterday’s election of Cyril Ramaphosa as the new leader …

Moscow, Russia | AFP | Russia’s top court on Saturday rejected an appeal by opposition leader Alexei Navalny against a decision to bar him from running in the country’s 2018 presidential election. The Supreme Court agreed with Russia’s Central Election Commission that Navalny cannot register as a candidate due to …

Paris, France | AFP |  From the inauguration of US President Donald Trump to the exodus of Rohingyas from Myanmar, here are 12 events that marked 2017. – A year of Trump – On January 20 Republican billionaire Donald Trump, 70, is inaugurated as US president, vowing: “America first.” Suspicions …

ANALYSIS: Troubled South African leader Zuma heads towards exit Johannesburg, South Africa | AFP | South Africa’s jovial leader Jacob Zuma is a former herdboy who fought in the anti-apartheid struggle and has held onto the presidency despite a plethora of scandals. Now aged 75, he has survived by building …

Low private sector lending, decline in interest rates to take toll on the bank’s profitability for the year ending Dec 2017 Kampala, Uganda | ISAAC KHISA | Uganda’s commercial banks seem to be laying down new strategies as the industry anticipates to record subdued earnings in 2016 owed to low private …

Monrovia, Liberia | AFP | Liberians were awaiting Wednesday the result of a presidential election they say represents far more than the choice of a successor to Africa’s first elected female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Sirleaf’s predecessor Charles Taylor fled the country in 2003 with hopes of avoiding …

Kampala, Uganda | RONALD MUSOKE | Kilak North MP, Anthony Akol, is baffled by rulings the Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga has been making recently. Akol who was one of the six MPs suspended by Kadaga told The Independent on Dec. 19 that, in his view, there is a problem in …

Moscow, Russia | AFP | Thousands of Russians on Sunday endorsed the candidacy of Alexei Navalny, seen as the only Russian opposition leader who stands a fighting chance of challenging strongman Vladimir Putin in a March vote. Thousands of people who back the charismatic 41-year-old lawyer were meeting in 20 …